by Tony Mayo | For Business Owners, Quotes and Aphorisms
We are at that very point in time when a 400-year-old age is dying and another is struggling to be born–a shifting of culture, science, society, and institutions enormously greater than the world has ever experienced. Ahead, the possibility of the regeneration of individuality, liberty, community, and ethics such as the world has never known, and a harmony with nature, with one another, and with the divine intelligence such as the world has never dreamed.
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Through the years, I have greatly feared and sought to keep at bay the four beasts that (more…)
by Tony Mayo | For Executive Coaches, Quotes and Aphorisms
Dreams from My Father by Barack Obama
I certainly would not have begun, much less finished, this book if the author and subject had not become so important. It is disjointed and rambling, parts memoir and parts abstract essay, and needed a firm edit to clarify its message. Separate from all that, however, is Barack Obama’s keen insight into race, belonging, and living a meaningful life. Listening to such a brilliant and compassionate person is time well spent. Also evident is his intuitive recognition of the power of conversation to create a world and a future, a foundation distinction for executive coaching. My favorite examples:
p. 287 That’s what the leadership was teaching me, day by day: that the self-interest I was supposed to be looking for extended well beyond the immediacy of issues, that beneath the small talk and sketchy biographies and received opinions people carried within them some central explanation of themselves. Stories full of (more…)
by Tony Mayo | For Business Owners, Leadership Development, Quotes and Aphorisms
An organization is a community of discourse.
Leadership is about influencing the nature of the discourse.
—Robert Kegan
Harvard University
See also, on this blog, step-by-step conversation instructions with video here:
The Conversation Contract.
by Tony Mayo | For Executive Coaches
Chris Peterson, Ph.D. reports that the character strength that distinguishes the best leaders at West Point is the capacity to love and be loved.
* * *
Jane Dutton’s work shows that “high quality connections,” which she acknowledges can be understood as love, are the difference between low performing and high performing workplaces.
—Dave Shearon
Soon after I began my work doing one-to-one executive coaching with CEOs I noticed a particular sensation that was present after most of my meetings with clients. I experienced a distinct flavor of (more…)
by Tony Mayo | For Business Owners, For Executive Coaches, Recommended Books, Stress Management
One of my favorite radio programs and podcasts is the non-denominational, non-doctrinaire Speaking of Faith with Krista Tippett. Krista interviews deep thinkers with important ideas about the essential human experiences of awe, eternity, and community. Every show leads me to reflect deeply and, very often, to live a happier, more involved life. I consider it one of the most nurturing practices of my continual development as an executive coach.
A recent guest was Esther Sternberg, Ph.D., an expert on immunology and stress. She relates the remarkable history of stress’s role in health and healing. It seems that every culture has always known that emotional and physical stressors contribute to (more…)
by Tony Mayo | Quotes and Aphorisms, Recommended Books
The Essential Gandhi:
An Anthology of his Writings on
his Life, Work, and Ideas
by Mahatma Gandhi
or Mohandas K. Gandhi
Louis Fisher, Editor
[Items in square brackets are by Tony Mayo.]
{Items in fancy brackets are by the editor, Louis Fisher.}
p. 15 [As a boy, Gandhi confessed a petty theft to his father and was forgiven.] This was for me an object lesson in Ahimsa [Love and Non-Violence]. Then I could read in it nothing more than a father’s love but today I know that it was pure Ahimsa. When such Ahimsa becomes all-embracing it transforms everything it touches. There is no limit to its power.
This sort of sublime forgiveness was not natural to my father. I had thought he would be angry, say hard things and strike his forehead. But he was so wonderfully peaceful and I believe this was due to (more…)
by Tony Mayo | For Executive Coaches, Recommended Books
The 
renowned author of The Tao of Physics weaves a yet broader tapestry of reality in The Web of Life. Capra’s readable survey goes beyond quantum physics and eastern mystics to encompass biology, consciousness, and the ecology of the entire earth. From chaos and complexity science, through Heidegger and the Systems Thinkers, right up to the Gaia Theory, Capra explains in fascinating detail the key ideas of twentieth-century philosophers and scientists whose insights may be propelling all of us into the post-modern era.
The Web of Life:
A New Scientific Understanding of Living Systems
by Fritoj Capra
Selected excerpts from the book. [My comments in brackets.]
p. 6 A social paradigm, which I define as “a constellation of concepts, values, perceptions, and practices shared by a community, which forms a particular vision of reality that is the basis of the way the community organizes itself.”
The paradigm that is now receding has (more…)
by Tony Mayo | For Executive Coaches, How to Set Goals, Recommended Books
The Last Word on Power:
Re-Invention for Leaders and Anyone
Who Must Make the Impossible Happen
by Tracy Goss (Betty Sue Flowers, Editor)
Capsule Review
Tracy Goss has long been closely associated with Werner Erhard, the originator of EST and Landmark Education Corporation’s Forum. I expect happy graduates of those programs to be very happy with this book (I am and I am). The book presents the central concepts of those programs very clearly and in a format designed to help business people put the “distinctions” to work immediately. I doubt, however, that a person not trained in ontological coaching could get much sense from these pages. It can seem to be merely jargon and wild promises unless you have actually put the techniques to work for yourself with the assistance of a coach (as I have and I do).
For people experienced with the methods, this book is an effective refresher and spur to action. A friend and I (more…)
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