There is no denying that this has been a particularly huge last week for Australia and the foundations on which this country stands. I think, If the recent explorations of things like the extinction rate and the impact we as people are having upon our environment has done anything, it has actually been to unify us as a planet and a people in a whole new way. All of a sudden we’re all (beyond just the "normal, usual" panic attacks people tend to have as parent's thinking about such things) thinking about our children’s children in the West, a little bit more like Indigenous Elders have been thinking of it forever. That’s been unconsciously connecting us more than we realise.

But then, we just witnessed an election, in which:

-As Kevin Rudd put it in his tweet about the elephant in the room no one was talking about, we saw "the Murdoch Empire run possibly the most biased campaign in history", and the secret power plays and agendas that swung this, were seemingly made more transparently obvious to the average person than ever before

-According to the numerous sustainability experts i talked to this last week in the course of my work, it would appear, so they all tell me based on their research, that the likes of Alan Jone's take on our 1.3% impact on climate change being only equivalent globally to a grain of rice in a whole bag, used repeatedly to dismiss our nation's climate impact to the masses as negligible and a hoax (so why bother to change a thing), is a bit of a misrepresentation. When you look at it from another angle, the data says that, if everyone adopted what Australia does, it would apparently raise the temperature of the planet 3 degrees. So Australia, make no mistake, climate and environmental IMPACT (whatever your opinion of global warming) is still very much a thing. Plus

-Unfortunately, it would seem, this election saw the rights of children, youth, women, the elderly, Indigenous rights, anyone with an illness, a mental illness, a disability, recovering from trauma, homelessness or in poverty, animal rights, along with all other life on the planet, put a distant second to big wins for business, for the longevity of the existing leaders term of service and saving an economy that is undeniably broken for a reason...that we wont fix trying to do the same old broken, corporate greed driven stuff that broke it in the first place. 

And scary, isn't it, to think that it's progressively resembling more and more the same set of conditions that we as humans have come to exist in, just before the majority of falls of human civilisation in times past.....is it any wonder people are angry, disheartened, disappointed and scared, when they were crying out in the lead up to this election for more heart centred, soulful, truly connected leaders (and more female ones at that), when they had such high hopes that things might genuinely be about to change and this is how it went. I just feel like that all needs to be acknowledged before we move on. If i was with you in person right now, i'd be pausing here for a breath, before moving on to the next bit.


All is not lost though. Meanwhile, in New Zealand, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern's is still leading the way. Her government is requiring new spending fit one of five categories promoting “well-being: improving mental health, reducing child poverty, addressing the inequalities faced by indigenous Maori and Pacific islands people, thriving in a digital age, and transitioning to a low-emission, sustainable economy.” [1} Why would she too want focus on these things, instead of just fixing the economy?

And while, after our initial reactions, the majority of people i know, including me, then called out last week and said "time then to step up and BE the change for ourselves" because we know massive change needs to happen faster, why you might ask, is widespread change not happening faster? 

It's easy to point the finger at corporate corruption, greed and consumerism, but there's also a bit going on, that is a lot closer to home. If we want to truly understand why many people are finding it hard to pull their focus to climate change, we can take a look back over 3 things:

​
1- Maslow's Hierarchy of needs [2]
(the version he published at the END of his life, not the one you still see en masse from the 1940's that omits his highest stage) 
In this, Maslow talked about all of the basic human survival, safety and security needs that need to be met, before a person can ever get to being able to consistently focus their energy outside of themselves, on the bigger picture. And, from a higher level of consciousness (as in the step he later added of "Transcendence", focus on their higher purpose in what they're here to give back to the world in soulful service. 

You could see the impact of the lower pink and purple layers of this model playing out as clear as day in the political polls from earlier in the year, and from my perspective, when i was at the polling booths, listening to the content of the average conversation. People voted their highest priorities as financial income/security, housing and health. Environment factored in about 5th then. All of those things sit in Maslow's lower levels....showing what? The reality is, far too much of the country, are still in a constant state of survive. (And not just those without money. In fact, you can have a wellness supplement company in start-up 2 years in, 40 billion in debt, just turning around into profit and STILL, be paying yourself a salary from the company to yourself that barely puts you above the person at an office job earning 55K per year). When you're in a state of survive, the reality of the way the brain and our genetics programming is wired to work, is that it's hard NOT to have to focus on getting yourself out of survive first, before you have stable enough foundations, available internal resources and just enough inner peace (homeostatic balance) going on again to be able to start consistently focusing attention outwards on what the rest of the world needs. 

​

​2- The unresolved impact of trauma (and trauma bonding)

Anyone finding themselves either leaving an abusive relationship, or in the early stages of first acknowledging and working to heal past trauma of any kind, can finds themselves in a state of revisiting the challenges of every level of the pyramid already travelled, and in a similar state of survive; having to work through their personal safety and security needs, before being capable of focusing their attention out again.  To a person enduring either one, someone, or group of people, who can help them cope and survive the intensity, while they're in such a heightened fight-flight state of stress and high emotion, is often considered, by far, more important in the moment, than someone who can help them lastingly heal and move beyond the wound [4], to the later stages of taking responsibility for creating a life they love again and a path of soulful purpose they love. 



3-   The role of love (and spirituality) in overcoming Climate Change

As Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh puts it from another perspective, it's a little hard to get the world to focus on climate change, when so many people are drowning in their own suffering and using any external means of escaping it [5] (from things like Netflix, to sugar, junk food, alcohol, drugs, to sex...name your means of escapism.) And little can change until each individual makes the choice to go within and deal with their stuff. In other words, global change must start as one of my virtual Mentors would put it, as an inside job. He also suggests that part of this challenge is acknowledging, as Maslow eventually did, the nature of our existence beyond being merely physical beings. There is much healing and liberation to be found in the realisation of the interconnectness of all things and the remembering of both our connection to Mother Earth and to our true nature as love. Ask any Indigenous or Spiritual Elder the world over, they'll all tell us part of the answer to our current global state of affairs, is re-awakening to our true (universal) nature.  As i was saying on Facebook this week, awakened beings don't cause harm...they can't, because it's against their true nature.


​On the way to our continued collective re-awakening though, as our mental health system, allied health and holistic health systems all well know, we're drastically under-resourced trying to assist a whole country to deal with the surface symptoms of the before mentioned deeper issues and developmental challenges though. The surface symptoms often being stress, anxiety, depression and a host of lifestyle related illnesses we're seeing en masse like never before. And, while globally speaking, we're running out of time to have the luxury to do it at the more leisurely speed we could afford in recent decades gone by, now as a country, we need to be simultaneously, as the NZ Prime Minister suggested, continuing to work on both environment, economy, sustainable technology, holistic health and our host of sociological and socio-economic challenges concurrently, if we've got a hope of making both a local and a global difference. Plus a hope of freeing a whole population to be able to truly see the forest for the trees and step into the purpose they may well have come here for at this time, to do something about it.


​
What can we keep doing individually?:

-Prioritise self care and learn, adopt or keep doing the daily wellbeing practices that reconnect us to the truest version of ourselves and keep you connected with your higher purpose

-Re-prioritise and engage in human connection like never before. We wont get on top of any of this, internally or externally alone. And on a planet of almost 7.7 billion, we nor do we need to.

-Keep speaking our truth with love and ask for a harder stand to be taken where change is needed

-Keep working on our own stuff, so that we're ourselves breaking through anything in Maslow's hierarchy that's holding us back from stepping into being our highest potential and living from a higher purpose. When we dare to go there and heal it, we also ensure our past stuff is a legacy we're NOT passing on to the next generations to have to heal FOR us. That too is more important now than ever.

-Then keep looking outside of ourselves for ways we can solve problems, help people become self-empowered and thus help raise the consciousness of the people. so that they're able to ultimately reconnect with the bigger picture and step into being the important piece in the puzzle of global change each of us came here to be at this time.

Easier said than done for sure. But, when all the emotional fall-out and processing of last week is said and done, it's time to double down on our efforts all the same. All of you, all of us, the heart-centred, soulful leaders of the world, are needed now more than ever. Time to keep on BEING the change.

Big love to you <3 Until next time...
​

​Have you recently had one of those days, where you have enough down time to be able to consciously watch what comes into your email inbox, your LinkedIn inbox, your Facebook messenger or IG inbox, and maybe found yourself getting that little rush of excitement when you see a message from someone, or several people, you’re genuinely super excited to be engaging with. But then have you had that moment, where you scroll through those several to several dozen others and find yourself either titling your head and pulling a confused face, as you:


a) try to work out the secret cryptic hidden meaning behind what on earth someone really wants who just asked you to meet u for a coffee


b) found yourself puling the same face, maybe now with a mild note of annoyance too, at the one in which someone has just sent you a single link to something, with barely an explanation as to why they’ve sent it to you, or in what context they envision you being a part of it (IF they’ve even thought about it that much) or


c) getting a little bit excited seeing who another message just came from, but then, as you read it, feeling that sinking feeling in your gut, as you realise deep down, that person could’ve used that opportunity to send you something that so much better honoured the true nature of the growing connection you have between each other. But instead, they sent you, well, THAT….whatever THAT was, and now you feel a little sad for the loss of the awesome moment that could’ve been?


Do you feel me? For me, with over 20 years of front facing, Client Relationship building experience, I have come to have a very deep respect for inboxes, in the same way that I do for temples, in that I consider both equally sacred space. If I’m hoping to get into one, I better have a clear “yes” on the matter first, and show up with heart and authenticity, plus you bet I’ve thought long and hard about the appropriateness of what I’m intending to bring into one. Hands up if you’ve found yourself wishing at least once lately that people would treat YOUR inbox with a similar level of respect?


Wether it's someone you might one day have a business relationship with, or someone you already do, that moment of time we ask for when we engage someone's inbox is a gift. So what does it actually look like when we show up to that moment with an email or message that’s worthy of the kind of connection that might turn out to last a lifetime, as opposed to a message that reminds them that they're just another number on your list of 200 to contact today? 


In the spirt of bringing a little sacredness back to the inbox space, what I wanted to do this week was share a reminder of a few things I've consistently found myself doing/saying in my online communications over the years, that help create a genuine foundation for future engagement, starting from a place of respect and reverence for the actual person on the receiving end of that inbox and the soul-contract or contracts before me that i’d really like to honor and nurture in the process (if you believe in that kind of thing.) Please note, this is not to be used as a script, so much as 3 points to use as inspiration.




1. Show some sign that you have a genuine interest in the other person. Make the time to care.


Any and every written communication you ever write, wether it’s a job cover letter, for a potential client or joint venture partner, or a DM introducing yourself and your Practice or Business on LinkedIn for the first time, should always, always include a brief explanation of why you’e chosen this person or organisation of all people.


On FB or any social platform with a chat messenger (designed for brief quick sentence interaction, not slabs of text) that might start with a question that references it; if they found your event or your group, that’s:


"Hey, I saw that you’re interested in an event that I’m running” and asking if they need a hand to register or have any questions, BEFORE you delve deeper with an acknowledgement of what interests you and open questions delving further.


But for all, sometimes it might start or continue with a reference to something you just found in their profile or website that is the reason you’re writing….

• you work in the same industry
• you love what their FB page or community is all about,
• you resonate with what their brand or company stands for and or their mission 

Before you ever get onto you and your offer or an invitation. It’s about finding and connecting based on all you have in common.


Or, one of my absolute favourite "verbal love language" ways of showing that I genuinely care about people I already know, that I’m touching base with is to ask them a question that refers to a detail from when I last saw or interacted with the person in question.

• how did they go with that process?
• how did that thing turn out they were telling me about?
• how is your child or parter going with that thing?
• how are you travelling since x?
• If it was a funny but not too embarrassing moment or there was some in-joke involved, I might reference that too.

However you do it, it can’t be contrived or copied from a script, you have to reach within to find it, and it has to be authentic. It's about creating continuity and continuing to connect on your common ground. 


As it relates to work, if you speak to so many people that you struggle to remember the little details like this, this is where i draw upon my Counselling/Community Services/NGO background, in which we had to case note every tiny detail of interactions in our organisational case notes with a religious level of diligence, and: 



Set up your Client Relationship Management systems so that every person who ever has a touchpoint with clients is recording this kind of info back into Salesforce, or Hubspot, or Cliniko or at minimum, a shared Excel or Numbers spreadsheet, so that, at any time, any single one of you, can go into a client's file and pick up exactly where the last person left off. When it comes to business, THAT to me, is A Level, gold star Customer Service.



2. Be clear in sharing your intention in why you want to connect and be direct in your offer or invitation of further engagement


Especially if this is someone new you want engage with for a specific purpose

• wether you’ve identified a problem they might be having, that you think you can help with and you want to start a discussion about the benefits that could come to them through this invitation, or
• wether they’re someone you think you’d like to work in partnership with and how you foresee that your skills and experience might be of benefit to them, or
• it’s someone you’d like to work for, or
• someone you’d like to be mentored by

Be brave and be honest about exactly why you want to connect.


Remember you may well have been reading their posts for a while, or have been ongoingly seeing their content in your feed, or seen them around in groups, so you might already have a clear idea in your head of how you could help or how you could work together.


It's wise though not to assume that the person you’re contacting automatically gets it or sees it in the same way as you do though, or knows how you feel. No matter how intuitive or good at reading people we might or might not be, they never know for sure that there really IS something to some resonance they feel, until they hear it confirmed from you, in words.


And likewise, where some degree of an invitation may be involved to something you offer, don’t leave it to them to do the detective work, or telepathically figure it out, by just sending a link or an invite to something without any form of additional explanation, or even just with a “love to connect” or love to have coffee.


As point no 2, make sure you also include a sentence or two that is brief, but direct in providing an invitation to engage further.

• “I’d love to have you attend this, if it resonates for you”
• “I’d love to have a chat with you about how I [reference your expertise] can help your organisation [insert the outcome or benefit the job you would do for them will help them achieve”] "(Provided that this is mutually of interest) When might be a good time for us to have a chat?"

By the time someone is done reading your communication, you want them to be really clear, why this would be mutually aligned and beneficial, why it might be mutually desirable and you want them to know exactly how the next step looks and what they have to do if they want to engage with you further.



And for bonus points, remember too, for busy people, it’s good to succinctly make it clear why you’re connecting too, so that, in the precious amount of time both parties have in life, they can make a decision up-front as wether they want to be involved with that, or they don’t.

A bit like in dating, business and work dating is no different. Better to put it all out there now, than hang around wishing and hoping and getting emotionally entangled for 6 months and THEN put it all on the line and get rejected because things with the two of you never were quite aligned.


Be brave and be up front now, so that you both get the chance to align with people that are genuinely the best fit and genuinely care and can thus both have the opportunity to invest your energy (and your giant hearts) in the most soulfully aligned places, at the right time.



3. Always Include a gratitude


If it didn’t already tumble out in the above 2 points somewhere, or especially if it’s somebody you’re already connected with, don’t forget to acknowledge OFTEN the very reasons you’re there in the first place and if you can, sign off with a gratitude.

• What are you grateful for about this person?
• What have they given you that you’re grateful for?
• What do you really appreciate about what makes them THEM?
• Are they super busy and just made some time for you?

Try to always make sure you put some gratitude in there any time you want to nurture the relationship and show that you are authentically interested and genuinely care. Along with any invitation for engagement or expression in the desire to connect further.


Especially too, for, say, potential clients, when they commit in some way or do respond (even if they're not quite ready yet to go the whole way) be present, or make sure you have a staff member at least on your behalf, be fully present, in a timely manner, with gratitude and a little genuine enthusiasm and happiness that they're engaging. 

And especially if you feel like things have been getting distant with someone you've partnered with in the past or want to partner with again in the future, and that distance might be for the wrong reasons (like i got way to busy, or i dropped the ball on something at one point and probably would to do well to show up and give a little extra TLC)… sharing something like:

• “Thanks again for that thing you did for me, I really appreciate it”
• “ I was just thinking of you today and [the last thing we we both at together] thanks again for…”
• or sharing those moments where you’re still getting value out of something they taught you/gave you/did for you

with the person every once in a while, with no other agenda than the authentic gratitude you genuinely just felt in that moment and the heart centred intention to brighten someones day a little, goes a long way on your part, to give the kind of connection you want to last a lifetime the attention it deserves.

​
Wether its personal or professional, if you want people to like and grow to trust you just a little bit more, it’s good to include some genuine touch points every now and then that have no agenda and give more than you expect to get too.


"Just wrote this thing/just created this meme/just found this article, thought you might like it/or it might be relevant to that project we talked about” as some examples.



By the end of this whole engagement, provided that this genuinely IS someone you authentically want more to do with (Maybe it's just my one part my Counselling ethics training and another part my values talking, but i'm not sure why you would keep emailing them if they’re genuinely not?) you want the person to walk away feeling well aware why you chose them of all people and feeling deeply honoured in that, rather than them feeling like just another number you throw a fishing line at with a sinker and a baitless hook at, e.g. the minimal possible investment of effort on your part and praying that it hooks, which is honestly, the way people feel when people send them some generically written obvious script, or just some link with barely an explanation as to why them. People aren’t silly, they know.


So if you genuinely, really do want to work or engage further with them, make sure you and your staff treat their inbox as sacred space, respect the opportunity to say anything within it as sacred, and treat them with the love and respect they deserve and you would want to receive into yours in return.


If you have any questions or would like some suggestions on how to do that, and you feel like I could help you figure them out, authentic engagement is one of my loves. You can email connect with me, or find a time for us to chat here.


For now, thanks for reading, it’s much appreciated, hope you got loads of value out of it and I look forward to chatting again soon.