"Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing
and rightdoing there is a field.
I'll meet you there."  Rumi

  

 After the blog, below, scroll down for a schedule of America's Soul Cafes starting Monday.

My blog today is entitled "Passion as Fuel for Your Life and Work:   The First Step of Mission-Focused Leadership"

"Don't ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. What the world needs is people who have come alive." - Howard Thurman, advisor to Martin Luther King, Jr.

Once you have become re-acquainted with what makes you come alive, you have taken the first step toward becoming a mission-focused leader-bringing meaning, purpose and direction to your life. Mission-focused leaders are focused, practical idealists who empower others to act from their potential.  What makes you come alive is fuel to give you energy for your life and work, an essential ingredient in these tough times.

It is at this point that you can write a personal mission statement. Richard Bolles writes, "Mission is not a problem to be solved in a day or a night.

It is a learning process, which has steps. Each step has to be mastered in turn before the next can be approached." An important step, he writes, is to "exercise the talent which you particularly have, your greatest gift, in which you most delight, in the place that appeals to you the most and/or those purposes which most need to be done in the world."

Webster's Abridged Dictionary states: "a mission is a continuing task or responsibility that one is destined or fitted to do or specially called upon to undertake." The major synonyms listed in Webster are 'calling' and 'vocation'.

In my consulting experience, people are hungry for authentic leadership, to have meaning and purpose in their lives. Besides having the confidence and trust in oneself and one's abilities, a mission statement process gives a seasoned or emerging leader a foundation upon which to be successful in work and life, to find one's passion and power. Power is no longer defined as "control" or "power over anyone." Power is being re-defined as integrity, clarity, intention and confidence.

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Free Online America's Soul Cafes
With: Hosts Robert Kauffman, Mary Waggoner-Moritz and Virginia Swain
When: Saturday, May 6, June 10, 2017 11:00am -1:00pm ET; 
For your time go to http://www.worldtimezone.com  . 
Where:  https://zoom.us/j/3353366035 (PC, Mac, Linux, iOS or Android) 
RSVP: virginiawoodswain@gmail.com
 
Please join us on our free monthly online America's Soul Cafes. America's Soul Cafe and online monthly world cafe is a natural and effective way to host a meaningful conversation that awakens collective wisdom and engages collaborative action.  America's Soul Cafes are effective antidotes to the fast-paced fragmentation and lack of connection in today's world. The cafe is  based on the understanding that conversation is the core process that drives personal, business, and organizational life.   e, 

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Deepening the Conversation Interactive Dialogues 
Our community is strengthened by its participants' passions--
Will you offer a deepening conversation?  
Please come 15 minutes early if you have not ever been before!

Post Climate March Dialogue; Leadership for the Hopi Prophecy
Please listen to the Hopi Prophecy first https://vimeo.com/20313287 
With: Virginia Swain
When: Thursday May 4 2017, 5:00-6:00 pm ET
Where:  https://zoom.us/j/3353366035 (PC, Mac, Linux, iOS or Android) 
RSVP: virginiawoodswain@gmail.com

Thomas Banyaca, the Hopi Elder who delivered the Hopi Prophecy in the UN General Assembly in 1992 said, "We are the ones we've been waiting for. You have been telling people that this is the eleventh hour. Now you must go back and tell the people that this is the hour.  Don't go outside yourself for the leader."   Virginia will describe the leadership model shed designed to implement the Hopi Prophecy, Reconciliation Leadership, practiced for 25 years in the United Nations community now re-purposed for America. http://conta.cc/2oGp96Z

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What am I going to be when I grow up? 
Finding the sweet spot between practical and spiritual.
With: Robert Kauffman
When:  Thursday, May 25, 6-7 pm ET
Where:  https://zoom.us/j/3353366035 (PC, Mac, Linux, iOS or Android) 
RSVP: virginiawoodswain@gmail.com

Around the time my grandfather turned 90 years old, he used to receive his grandchildren -- 1 or 2 at a time (and often with college friends) -- for an afternoon conversation at his New York appartment. We loved it, coming back time after time. Why? He listened, of course, as we regaled him with stories of our lives. But I think we loved best the twinkle in his eye as he told stories of his own. About growing up, about becoming something in the world, and ultimately about being someone. He always emphasized the difference between these two.

I am inviting you to join in a vitrtual 'afternoon conversation' that enables us to explore the juncture between becoming and being -- the practical and the spiritual. I have many thoughts on how to do this, but will primarily encourage us to tell our own Story. I capitalize the word because I'm speaking of life-changing moments -- the defining moments of character and purpose. And I emphasize stories because I find that describing, analysing, comparing data points are simply the metrics of becoming in this world. A good story, told with nuance and feeling, does reveal how we've made our way in life, but also the person you are (or were) along the way. Such conversation helps me grasp the person who I am, and gives insight into what I might become.

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Be on the look out for more details about these upcoming events.

An Intergenerational America's Soul Cafe
Children (8 and over) and their parents are invited
With: Virginia Swain
When: Wednesday, June 7, 4-5 pm
Where:  https://zoom.us/j/3353366035 (PC, Mac, Linux, iOS or Android) 
RSVP: virginiawoodswain@gmail.com

What am I going to be when I grow up? 
Finding the sweet spot between practical and spiritual.
With: Robert Kauffman
When:  Thursday, May

America's Greatness: A Virtual Celebration
With: Rev. Dr. Joni Carley, Virginia Swain, Rev. Dr. Jean Wright 
When: TBA


A Message from Virginia Swain:  

"Drawing on our longtime commitment to Culture of Peace and Global Movement for a Culture of Peace at the United Nations, we commit to building an American Culture of Peace through the America's Soul Cafe and the Spiritual Renaissance.  

My Soul's Journey to Redefine Leadership: A New Phoenix Rises from the Ashes of 9/11 is a Spiritual Memoir, including journal pages for readers to answer end-chapter questions as a beginning to their own spiritual memoir. 

My previous memoir,  A Mantle of Roses: A Woman's Journey Home to Peace is also available through Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble.