You may have noticed that I’ve been away from my blog for a whole ten days – this is a significant departure from my aim to write two or three blog postings a week.  The truth is, I’ve fallen in to an old pattern – of booking an awful lot into my diary and trusting what looks feasible without trying it on for size.  When I feel my way into the commitments I’m making I have a very different experience of what’s possible.

One of these commitments was a three day “virtual retreat” with Mark Silver and his team at the Heart of Business.  I’ve been working with the Heart of Business for the best part of a year now to explore how best to market my business so that those people who are looking for my help can actually find me.  I’ve been holding the aspiration to create an approach to sales and marketing that feels as fully authentic and nourishing for me and my clients as the work I do – helping leaders in the private sector who want to take the hard work out of achieving results.

I was interested to read a posting by Mark which referenced the virtual retreat, entitled Finding the Challenge in What’s Hard.  Two things in particular struck me.  The first is this:  that early in his posting, Mark related how many people cried on the retreat, saying:

The three days were filled with many insights.  A lot of people cried, including me.  And yes, I’ll go on record as saying that I don’t think it’s a successful event without at least half the participants crying at least once.

As I sit here and think of the people I work with, I notice how many of my clients have been known to shed a tear in our sessions together – male, female, senior and even more senior, tough on the outside… you get the picture.  These are people who live and work in a world peopled by judgements – by an etiquette that discourages emotion (yes, emotion, let alone displays of emotion) – and who have learned to live by the rules of that world.  And still, given permission to be present to their most heartfelt thoughts and feelings – yes, they cry.  I wonder what the world of corporate Britain would be like if there was permission for people to touch base with their deepest emotions.

And there was something else that struck me in Mark’s posting.  He wrote:

I don’t know if it will make you cry, but here’s one deceptively simple and profound insight that will turn your relationship with business around if you take it on.


Ready?  In every place of “hard” in your business, there’s a challenge waiting for you.  If you take it on it will make everything in your business easier and more effective.

• A challenge to trust, learn and grow.
• A challenge to let go of beliefs and opinions based on illusion.
• A challenge to take time to care for yourself with health food, exercise, and spiritual practice.
• A challenge to choose love over anything that isn’t.

Mark’s clients are different to my own and still, my clients also face challenges.  For instance?

It’s hard to receive the feedback that you’re not ready for a longed for promotion and to receive the feedback as a gift – and harder still to get the promotion and to realise that all the things you used to do are not what you need to do in your new job.

It’s hard to manage the day to day minutiae and still find time to step back and look at the bigger picture.

It’s hard to find space to create your own agenda when so many people are knocking on your door asking you to respond to theirs.

It’s hard to give up doing things yourself and learn to do things with and through others.

It’s specially hard to notice how polished everyone else seems to be when, inside, you’re wondering am I good enough?

Healing the hard and finding the challenge

Here again I borrow from Mark (with delight in his permission to do so – thank you, Mark*):

Take a moment right now and identify a hard place in your business.  Take a gentle breath.  Another.  Now take third one – I promise it won’t kill you.


Now, ask your heart, ask yourself to be shown, with a willingness to be surprised, what challenge is waiting for you within that heard place that will bring ease, joy and effectiveness?


Can you find the “Yes” in your heart to let go of the hard and take on this challenge?


Now, don’t keep it a secret.  Share with us what you got.  What challenge did you find?  Did you find a yes?  What are your first one to three steps for taking it on?  Tell me about it in the comments.


PS  Needing some help?


Perhaps you’ve found a way forward by connecting with the challenge in the thing you’re finding hard.  Or maybe going through this exercise has highlighted to you just how much you’re longing for some tailored support – a place away from work to talk things through, a focus on you and your agenda as well as what’s right for the business, a balance of challenge and support, somewhere you can talk freely and in confidence.

I’ve worked for years with leaders in business.  I’m steeped in leadership theory – I know what it takes to succeed.  More than that, I’ve been a support to my clients as they work out how to succeed in leadership roles – and in ways which work for them as well as the business.

If you’d like to learn more, take a look at my profile on LinkedIn or contact me (details on LinkedIn) to arrange a meeting.

* And just to do the formal bit – extracts in italics are from an article by Mark Silver ©2012, all rights reserved. Reprinted with permission. In case you’re interested, you’ll find this article and hundreds of others, along with other free resources are available at http://www.heartofbusiness.com