Welcome to the New Year, 2023. Do you feel restored and ready? I’m not quite there yet. I sense a mixture of resistance and risk-taking and wonder what will generate harmony. Both qualities are valuable for me as an entrepreneur, a leader of teams, an educator, and a coach. So many conversations I had during our holiday break generated a common theme. The sensation of tension, and that named what I was noticing. By the time I noticed I had it, tension had rippled out through my physical well-being (oh, my muscles feel tight), my emotions (oops, I didn’t mean to be cranky), and then my thoughts (I’m an optimist, where did that negative energy come from?). The true source of tension often can’t quite be identified. We definitely want to release it. That, my friends, is the true dilemma because stress is always present whether we consciously perceive it. I am not a person who shies away from what disturbs me; together we plan to face our tensions of presence with a spirit of wonder during 2023.

Our Vanguard Conversation Series expands this year to seven sessions. Each session invites one of our visionary global leaders to join me and my co-host Garry Schleifer from Choice Magazine. We plan to explore the true dilemma, the daily tensions of presence every leader faces.

While being generative assists us in transforming our mindset, we need awareness of the true tension first. Throughout the year we’ll explore the seven most common tensions that leaders we’ve coached in organizations of all sizes around the globe shared as something that occurs all the time. Tensions of presence don’t go away. Rather, we learn to exercise choice to surf the tension with harmony to both sides. Stay tuned for a separate communication about the new series, always ad-free and complimentary to you as a member of our community.

Pulling a thread forward from my experience in December, I want you to meet one of my esteemed colleagues and friends, Vered Kogan. She is the Founder and CEO of the Momentum Institute™, a training and coaching organization specializing in helping leaders and teams successfully adapt to change. Vered also hosts a podcast called The MINDset Game and I was honored to spend some time with her exploring how to “Ignite Your Inner Hero”. This topic feels quite fitting as we turn attention to 2023 and who we want to be in this next year. That’s right, I said, “BE” on purpose. She asked a fantastic question during our conversation that I share here to provide everyone with a prompt for self-reflection this month.

What are some things that we can ask ourselves or maybe ask others to connect with our inner wisdom?

There are two lists of questions below. I invite you to experiment with holding the tension you sense, feel, or think occurs, longer than you believe you can. Feel the tension in your heart. Trust what your gut tells you. Everything you perceive during reflection offers a new answer to shape your world in ways that have you fall in love with your livelihood all over again.

All these questions assist with noticing and claiming an inner hero. People who identify as Generation Z debuted a new phrase in 2021, “main character energy.” I love this as it inspires all of us to create our reality. We do get to choose how we relate to our lives. It may not change the circumstances immediately, and those won’t change without our awareness and presence with what is.

Cheers & Happy Exploring,

Janet