Breathe consiously. There are so many benefits.Take a few deep breaths, simply breathe in and breathe out. Stop for a moment to collect and gather yourself as separate from the many moments and experiences of your day. You have already moved a step closer to self awareness. Beginning is that simple.

Do you feel a little calmer, more centered and have a better sense of well being? Just breathe in and breathe out. Being aware, through creating a brief interlude of consciousness, or a pause to gather yourself, is a respite in what for many people has become highly active and extremely interactive lives. The know yourself component of self awareness is more readily available to you when take time to pause your thinking and become your authentic self. This is a very different you than the stretched and multidirectional person who may be continually pulled and overextended.

Daniel Goleman, renowned for his groundbreaking research on emotional intelligence, and its application in the workplace, concluded that people with high self awareness understand their emotions, strengths, weaknesses, needs and drives. Additionally, people with strong self awareness are neither overly critical nor unrealistically hopeful, but are honest with themselves and others. Goleman also indicated that those who are self aware know their values and goals, and know where they are headed and why. They can be recognized by their confidence, and have a firm grasp of their capabilities. They are also less likely to set themselves up to fail and they play to their strengths.

Self awareness and breathing go hand in hand. Breathe consciously.

And Celebrations! Celebrate successes as you achieve them. Celebrate summer on its way after a long, cold winter. Get outside and breathe deeply into the new day.
Albert Einstein said that there are two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle, and the other is as though everything is a miracle. This is the ‘half-full or half-empty’ approach to looking at a glass of water, and at the world. This may remind you of the power of your choices, and your imperative to manage your thoughts, not having thoughts manage you. Einstein understood the influence of gratitude. He had a full appreciation of the scholars that had previously laid the groundwork and set the stage for his own discoveries and breakthroughs, when he noted:
A hundred times every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life are based on the labors of other men, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the same measure as I have received and am still receiving.
Gratitude can help you to have appreciation for all that you are, do, have, and perceive. Like Einstein, it may spur you to a response of action, but it can also make obstacles in your path much less difficult. By having a sense of appreciating what is working, you are less likely to be pulled down by that which isn’t. By focusing on gratefulness for how far you have come, and what you have accomplished, it becomes easier to take steps and embark on the remaining portions of your journey and tasks. This allows you to take necessary initiatives for achieving your goals. Being grateful also serves to immediately make you feel a charge of goodwill and confidence.
Another birthday, another year, and another reason celebrate life.

Meaningful conversations change lives, and even a single dialogue can sometimes lead to a lifelong quest. So it was for my student, years ago in the African savannah, but also for me, as we shifted back and forth from learner to teacher, and back yet again, as both of us searched to understand what lay at the heart of leadership, if in fact leadership was the key to making a difference in the world.
Leadership, it turns out, can be best defined as influencing change through a vision. It is ensuring the realization of an envisioned future. Much has been written about leadership in the annals of academia, by great historians, politicians, entrepreneurs, and by those whose leadership practices we truly aspire to. I have been working on summarizing the essentials for transformational leadership, a daunting task. It is coming together as a convergence of cognition and competencies, thinking and acting, and is ultimately about doing. After my personal quest into leadership began so many years ago, it continually begged expression. Time and again in my life, I felt the challenge arise to paint a current picture of effective leadership through the lens of thoughts, why thoughts matter, and how they impact our lives. It has taken me decades of searching to understand leadership with some depth, and find the courage to write it down. A single, meaningful conversation changed my life because it set me on the path of deciphering leadership, and simultaneously finding my passion.

Why write a book? Everyone has a book in them because everyone lives a life full of rich experiences, lessons, learning and stories that need to be told. I am writing ‘How to Think Like a Leader’ because it feels like a calling; it is a book that wants to express itself and a labor of love for those who have asked me write down what leadership is all about. I am writing not just from personal life experiences but rather from the perspective of accumulated and compiled lessons learned over the years.
‘How to think Like a Leader’ will support and guide you as you seek to increase and reinforce your capacity as a leader. You have the skills and abilities to be an even stronger leader, and there is also always a next level, and a next step waiting for you. This is whether you are a CEO, or seek to become one, an aspiring manager, a professional, an activist or currently a student. The book will help you to move from where you are today, into the realm of expanded leadership thinking.
You have the foundation for great leadership, and in some areas you may have highly developed strengths, while in others there is a greater potential you can reach. So this book will be for wherever you are you are on your leadership quest. To document optimal leadership thinking is deeply challenging and rewarding, a formidable task, my current focus and what I work on during both waking and sleeping hours.

Leadership is personal. It includes beginning with who you are. Once you have a solid, sustainable and enduring personal approach in place, leadership outcomes for you also depend on planning, and the outlining of a strategy to carry you forward. This will serve as a roadmap for you, and is outlined in the second section of ‘How to think Like a Leader’.
All leadership also involves others, not much as followers, but as collaborators. The third major component of leadership to delve into is people and relationships. This includes bringing out the best in yourself, and in others. Finally, as leadership by definition includes catalyzing change, think about the major components of change and how to influence it.
The personal, planning, people and change categories of leadership are the same four categories that over a hundred of the major leadership models in the literature can be grouped into. This is also why these are the areas for you to focus on. They are the four major areas to be thinking about as you gain further clarity on where you are in your personal leadership expedition.
But start with what is personal, and who you are, to set you on your way.

Leaders, whether you or others, permeate your personal and professional life, and as has been so frequently noted, leadership truly does belong to everyone. You are already a leader, but leadership is a continuum, where you develop new targets that will take you into new phases of your learning. To grow is human and to seek development is our special differentiator. Positive leadership exemplifies humanity at its very best, with the enduring capabilities that make life a rich combination of change and discovery.
You have a potential that seeks expression, a set of inner possibilities ripe for realization, and a world of opportunity that beckons your participation. Now is the time to respond to the leadership challenge with breakthrough exploration and elevation, into the realm of a transformed future.
Now is the time.