Once you understand that joy is more than a moment, it becomes easy to see that what is most important in life is the journey of your soul, not your brain.

Life is not to be led step-by-step. So, there are no rungs on any ladder that you were authentically designed to climb. Ladders didn’t even exist when the notion of humans and humanity were created. That is not to say that they don’t serve any purpose, but it is to claim that their creation cannot then become some foundational principle of how you are to authentically lead. Certainly, you can see that ladders are no model for how your heart is to grow.

Life is to be led breath-by-breath. If you have ever taken a yoga class, you have likely been taught the full mechanics of how best one should breathe. You then understand that to breathe properly and correctly, you pursue a model of continuous flow. That is actually the model of how we are to live and lead; with continuous flow. Honoring this smooths out the ups and downs of life. In other words, the highs are not as high as Hollywood makes them seem, and the lows are not as low as the nightly news reports them to be. We are all still very much growing, and sometimes it can be wonderful to see where our hearts’ evolution takes us. It can feel like we are on top of the world. It can also be hard to see where some souls need to go in order to learn the life lessons that will call them back toward the direction in which their own inner light shines. It can feel like the world is falling apart. The thing is that we have to stop overly glorifying the highs and weaponizing the lows when it is all simply growth and evolution. Just as you breathe, the full extension of your exhalation and the expansion of your inhalation are not to be experienced as two separate events. They are experienced as different extensions of the same continuous journey. Further, when you focus on your breath you also then begin to feel the importance of everything that happens in between those two extensions. Breathing, as we know, is more than just two separate actions, an inhale and an exhale. We experience each breath with a sense of dynamic flow, connection, fullness, wholeness, inward and outward movement, release, and space. This is a much better metaphor for life than any brain could provide.

It may seem scary to shift from brain-oriented to heart-centered leadership. If you follow the invitation of your breath to be in more of a continuous flow, like an infinity loop, it will be easier. Imagine an infinity symbol (∞) between your inhalation and your exhalation. Expand that until the top of the loop can cradle your brain and the bottom of your loop encompasses your heart. In the middle, the two cross at your throat, from whence we communicate. Feel that your inner voice, your soul, has all the space that it needs to freely speak in this world from the intersection of where your heart combines your inner light and intuition with the outside data processed through your brain. Giving voice to the journey of your soul is far more important than how much data you can hold in your brain. The system of success, leadership, and education do not yet recognize this; the heart still knows it to be true. This is why even people with all the degrees and all of the seemingly desirable outcomes of success still want to be seen and heard for who they truly are on the inside.

So, instead of forcing people to climb up ladders going nowhere, we can simply create, cultivate, and nourish spaces for people to simply breathe, to be who they are, where they can grow, all by learning to listen to the wisdom of their own soul.