I’m going to invite you on a journey.  There are times it will not be easy.  There are times that you may want to give up.  But the one thing I can assure you is that that journey will be worth it.

This is not a path to enlightenment.  Not even sure what that is and the people who claim to be enlightened aren’t very much fun to be around. 

This is also not a path to God.  That is on you. 

This is a journey to a better, happier, healthier, more effective you.

Of my three books on leadership, none has been a more passionate pursuit than this one.  Passionate because of knowing the power of unlocking the heart and what it means for success and passionate because of the personal journey that it took to get to this point.

For the last 25 years, I have had the sincere honor and privilege of watching tens of thousands of people grow and build the skills needed for leadership success.  It has been a constant career love affair with these people and their growth and development.  The Ten Competencies of Outstanding Leadership model has proven to deliver remarkable results in people and companies across the globe.

To a point.

It wasn’t until about three years ago that I discovered the value of healthy emotional composition and the power of the heart.  Up until then, I always believed that the mastery of skills and competencies would drive success in leadership but sadly, alone, they will not.  A leader must have a heart.  A healthy heart.  A heart that drives attitudes and beliefs which in turn create sustained behaviors.

When healthy and positive emotional composition and heart are combined with the proven competencies, a leader, or any person, becomes unstoppable in their ability to succeed and an unyielding source of good in every situation.

Another strong motivator in producing this book and the associated work was my initial frustration with finding usable information about becoming heart strong and attitude positive.  What I did find was a bunch of “you must dig deep into yourself”, “you have to become mindful”, “you need to heal your heart” and “you have to really understand you and be authentic”. 

Awesome!  But how?

The resources for how were few and far between.  Even getting to the root of phrases and definitions were tough.  A lot of people used the words and tossed them as if pennies to a fountain, but few were willing to explain the meaning and application of the words.  Even thought my heart is in a great spot, I may harm the next human that says, “you need to get in touch with yourself”.

The final piece of motivation for A Heart for Leadership was to connect the learning, steps and other pieces of emotional intelligence to a business and working setting.  There will be no turbans, yoga mats or funky rituals here (and for the record, I have nothing against those and several friends that get that deep into spiritualism).  You will not need to renounce your religion or go to a mountain top.  What I targeted was producing a practice for you to unleash the power of your heart into the world.