Horizon Point Consulting

Author: Mary Ila Ward

“There’s no bathroom for me here…” Finding Your Voice
I sat down to watch a movie a week or so ago with my husband. I average getting through about one full movie a year (apart from the Disney movies that are constantly playing at my house…. “Let it go, Let it go…. Oh, I digress….) so I’m ahead of schedule this year.

It was a movie I asked my husband to get, Hidden Figures, and after three months of it sitting in its Netflix case he told me it was time to watch it or he was simply going to send it back.

So we watched it. I thought I’d fall asleep in the middle of it, but talk about a powerful film. If you haven’t seen it, see it.

It’s the story of three brilliant black women working for NASA as the USA sought to get a person into space.

Katherine Johnson, played by Taraji P. Henson, is assigned to an important job and of course is the only African American female in the department. Her boss, played by Ken Costner realizes how smart she is and begins to rely heavily on her skills.

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To be authentic, we have to find our voice. We can’t shy away from it. But, as we see from this scene, there are some important things to consider in finding and expressing our voice.
1. For our voice to have power, we can’t force in on people. Katherine didn’t come right out and complain immediately about the bathroom situation. She worked to handle it the best she could.
2. Sometimes our voice has to be solicited to be heard. And our voice is solicited when we demonstrate our competency and commitment. Katherine expressed her voice when her boss solicited it. Not before. Because she was solicited it was heard. I’m not saying this is at all right or fair. Everyone should have a voice, especially when injustices exist, but to be heard we need to consider these first two points.
3. Expressing our voice often allows us to address the big picture issues not just the current situation. This scene shows that Katherine not only addresses the specific issue of the bathroom, but she also addresses pay inequities and overall injustices and prejudices.
4. Expressing our voice in an authentic way causes other people to act. You don’t see it in this clip, but if you’ve seen the movie you know the boss played by Kevin Costner addresses the inequities Katherine exposes through her voice. He tears down the bathroom sign that doesn’t allow “coloreds” to use it. He doesn’t let it go, and he doesn’t address it through his voice. He addresses it through action.
5. Which shows us, often our voice is loudest through our actions not our words. As the saying goes, “actions speak louder than words.” Especially when you’re a leader like the boss in this film. He was setting an example and precedent to show others what acceptable (and unacceptable) behavior in the organization looks like.
When has the power of your voice led others to act?
February 6, 2018
Want Real Teamwork? Start With Vulnerability!
I was sitting in a multi-day training with a group of executive leaders. I had yet to put my finger on what was missing with this team, when a question was asked that made me realize, these people don’t know each other. Through this question, it became apparent that they aren’t “allowed” to put their guard down and be real. They don’t feel like they have permission to be vulnerable.

Some of these people had been working together for ten plus years and were hard pressed to name any of their colleagues hobbies much less their co-workers spouse and/or kids’ names.

And they were passing this mindset down the chain and throughout the company. The uber-professional guard they had up was creating issues with trust, teamwork, and ultimately business results.

To be an authentic leader requires a certain level of vulnerability. As Criss Jami said, “To share your weakness is to make yourself vulnerable; to make yourself vulnerable is to show your strength.”

It’s hard, though, to just come flat out and ask, “tell me how you are weak” especially with people in leadership roles. If you have a team lacking in vulnerability with each other, here are three suggestions (starting from easiest to most difficult to facilitate) to get people talking in a way that exposes vulnerability and allows strength to rise out of weakness:
1. Ask the group to answer a pre-prepared list of questions about themselves. Then have the group simply share their responses. These questions can be anything from, “Do you have pets? What kind and what are their names?” to “Where did you grow up?” to more probing and thought provoking questions like “What is the best advice you have ever received?” to “What do you want your legacy to be?”
2. Simply ask the group to share their response to what has been their greatest success in life so far and what has been their greatest failure. I would also suggest you ask for the greatest professional and personal success and failure so that people don’t limit their responses to only work related answers that the team may already know.
3. Ask the group to share their story. To do this, ask them to share the 5-7 defining moments of their life that have shaped who they are.
As Brene Brown said, “Owning our story can be hard but not nearly as difficult as spending our lives running from it. Embracing our vulnerabilities is risky but not nearly as dangerous as giving up on love and belonging and joy—the experiences that make us the most vulnerable. Only when we are brave enough to explore the darkness will we discover the infinite power of our light.”

How do you help people step into the light by way of darkness?

Shine today.

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2018 Is the Year of Authenticity

The Essence of Authenticity
January 30, 2018
4 Ways to Listen To Yourself
“Your life is always speaking to you. The fundamental question is: Will you listen?” Oprah

Last week, I declared 2018 the year of authenticity, outlining five things that need to be present for someone cultivate authenticity: listening, gratitude, acting out of joy instead of obligation, being vulnerable and avoiding comparison to others.

Authentic means being real and true to your design. But how do we actually practice the things?

I’m coming to believe you can’t practice any of them without first listening to yourself.

And in order to listen to yourself or anyone else, you have to find quiet. The noise has to be turned off.

I’m sitting in my home office, watching the very beginnings of the sun rising. Everyone else is asleep in my house. It is quiet, still, peaceful. I’ve found that rising early is about the only time I can find literal quiet. But in finding the literal quiet, I have been able to find inner quiet more throughout the day since beginning some practices that cultivate the ability to listen to myself.

Some ideas to help you listen to yourself include:
- Practicing meditation. Here is a great beginner’s guide to meditation.
- Practicing yoga. Yoga is similar to meditation in that it guides you to focus on your breath, but different in that it is an active practice that can be viewed as a physical workout as well as a mental and spiritual one. I like Yoga Zone videos if you’re a beginner. If you also run, I like Runner’s Love Yoga although her flow and tone is less peaceful than the Yoga Zone instructors.
- Exercising. Speaking of running, you can combine it with meditation. If this is of interest to you, you might find Another Mother Runner podcast: Mindful Running with Author Mackenzie Havey valuable.
- Journaling. I’ve found that combining a gratitude list and a prayer list in my everyday journaling exercise to be what speaks to me the most to tune into myself each day.
I don’t know about you, but with so much going on during the day, if these things don’t start off the day, they don’t happen. Seeking to rise early allows these things and therefore the quiet that I need to be able to listen to myself so I can better hear throughout the day.

If you are seeking rise early as a practice, here are a couple of good resources to consider:

7 Morning Habits that Make People Happier

The Early to Rise Experience

Oprah’s quote tells us that we always have an inner voice that needs to be heard. If we listen, it guides us to better living. Authentic living.

Another quote from her helps us know when we’ve found it:

“You’ll know you’ve found it when every cell in your body vibrates with your own truth. When you’re filled up by what you’re doing instead of being drained by it.”

Be filled today.
January 16, 2018
The Essence of Authenticity

We’re talking about #authenticity here at The Point Blog. This poem captures the essence of advice for authentic living.

when it came to listening

my mother taught me silence

if you are drowning their voice with yours

how will you hear them she asked

when it came to speaking

she said do it with commitment

every word you say

is your own responsibility

when it came to being

she said be tender and touch at once

your need to be vulnerable to live fully

but rough enough to survive it all

when it came to choosing

she asked me to be thankful

for the choices i had that

she never had the privilege of making

Lessons from mumma

from

The sun and her flowers

Rupi kaur

January 11, 2018
The Year of Authenticity
2016 was the “Year of Stories.” 2017 was the “Year of Innovation.” And whereas these themes for 2016 and 2017 at Horizon Point were determined at the conclusion of both years, on January 7, 2018, I already determined that “2018 Is the Year of Authenticity.”

Why?

Well, because I didn’t spend much time in 2017 living authentically. I was too distracted. Too busy. And throughout the year of doing lots of leadership training, teambuilding, coaching, and just having lots of conversations with people, it seems as though I’m not the only one that struggles with living authentically.

2017, in large part, was the year I spent becoming something I swore I would never be. Our doctor friend talks about it often, when women in their mid-thirties (I turned 34 in December) come in to his office wanting a diagnosis of some kind for how they are feeling. They seem to have it all, but because of a conglomeration of things, they are wallowing in misery and want to find a place to place the blame. Where a pill can be prescribed to fix it all.

Although I never saw a doctor in 2017, looking for a diagnosis related to how I felt, and maybe I should have, (I did see several for a lump that turned out to just be “density”). I do believe for myself and for many women my age, the cause of this is a lack of authenticity.

The problem comes from a lack of being true to oneself amid trying to be everything to everyone else, accompanied by the feeling that none of the doing is noticed and/or appreciated.

2017 was a year of tension. One in which business was growing, my children blossoming, but stress was all around in balancing these two important parts of my life, which led to neglecting some others. I fought with the two people closest to me more than I ever have, began to wake up in the middle of the night not being able to turn my brain off (I’ve never had a problem sleeping) and I felt like everything I was doing was out of a sense of obligation, not enjoyment.

I knew something was wrong mid-year when all I wanted to do was escape (to where, I don’t know) and my husband told me, “One of the things I love most about you is your confidence. Where has it gone?” In seeking to help everyone else live with confidence, I had somehow lost my own.

So, I’m committed in 2018 to being authentic, and helping others lead with authenticity. To that end, here is what I believe leads to an authentic life:
1. The Practice of Listening. First, listen to yourself so you can then listen better to others around you. And listening requires quiet and stillness.
2. Living in Gratitude. For out of a place of gratitude comes the ability to see all things for what they are.
3. The Ability to Not Do Things Out of Obligation But Instead Out of Joy. This means saying no so you can say yes to what matters and what uniquely makes you you.
4. The Ability to Be Vulnerable. You and I don’t have it all together, no one does. And out of the realization of this comes the ability to connect to others.
5. The Ability to Not Compare Yourself to Others.
I’m focusing on these points this year. I’ll talk next week about how I think they can best be cultivated and practiced and I hope you’ll join me in living some of these practices as we embark on authentic living in 2018.

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January 9, 2018