Greetings, subscribers. This month's SeaZine offers food for thought and inspiration to help you summon forth your own unique inner genius as you celebrate your "small steps forward" for the first half of the year (or the past six months), and lift off to a dynamic start for the next six months.

Here's the brain-and-soul-food that you'll find in this issue of Ivy SeaZine:

* Inspired Leadership, Skillful Communication: Challenging assumptions
* Personal Mastery: Cultivating the "middle way"
* Conscious Enterprise: Be mindful of what you focus on
* Big-Vision Entrepreneuring: Faith and the entrepreneur
* This Month's Gem: The power of commitment
* New at Ivy Sea Online: our July edition is live
* Great Quotations: Wise words for the journey
* About Ivy Sea, Inc. and the SeaZine

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Inspired Leadership and Skillful Communication:
How often, and how effectively, do you challenge assumptions?

Most of us make assumptions throughout the day without really being conscious that we’re doing so. In some instances, our assumption-making doesn't create negative side-effects. Yet too often, there is a cost to making assumptions, and not skillfully inquiring into the assumptions made by others with whom we might be in conversation.

Why do we make assumptions? Because we think, speak, react and respond from a foundation of beliefs and experiences that have shaped us. As we become more skillful, we are more aware of the beliefs and assumptions that shaped us and how they affect our interactions and effectiveness throughout the day.

By making assumptions and being unconscious of it, we might unintentionally offend others, nix momentum, reduce creativity, shut down dialogue and the ideas that stem from it, contribute to misunderstandings, and more.

If we wish to be effective and skillful leaders, we are responsible not only for "knowing ourselves" – including where our assumptions limit our leadership and communication potential – but also for skillfully unveiling and inquiring into the assumptions of others that, left unchecked, would leave a similar wake of destruction behind them.

For example, we might make an assumption that we understand what someone else means or they understand what we mean, because we’ve used similar language or "seem" to understand. We might make an assumption that another person has the knowledge and information they need to take action, or they might assume that we do. We might assume superiority or inferiority to someone else, or they might assume it of us. We might assume that we’re being more effective or ineffective than we are in fact being. We might assume that there is only one "right way" to do something or approach a problem or situation, when, by checking that assumption, we become aware of quite a few approaches or pathways to solution. And we no doubt assume much more, and more frequently, than we assume we do!

Making assumptions, and leaving assumptions unchecked, rarely leads to the powerful, creative, idea- and energy-rich momentum and power that is possible in any situation, whether we’re working to unleash a group's potential or our own.

Make it a practice to notice where you're making assumptions, and where others might be making assumptions when in conversation with you. Make a commitment to identifying at least two new practices or tips that you can use to unveil your own assumptions, and skillfully guide yourself and others out of assumptions and into the richness that lays beyond.

Personal Mastery:
Cultivating the "Middle Way"

While there are many definitions for the middle way, a good one comes from Siddhartha, who became known as Gautama Buddha.

Siddartha was engaged in ascetic meditation along a river when he overheard a teacher instructing a student on a passing barge. Siddartha heard the teacher say that the strings on his instrument must not be too tight, lest they snap, or too loose, lest the instrument wouldn't play. Siddartha had an "A-ha" moment upon hearing that, and renounced his asceticism — an extreme — for what he then called The Middle Way.

The middle way also applies to other topics related to leadership, communication and mastery, whether connecting two groups of people in a common understanding, or middle ground; or being open to hearing or reading extreme opinions, yet cultivating a path more toward middle than extreme.

An ancient saying suggests that, "In cultivation, don't be afraid to go slowly. Just be afraid of standing still." Again, a middle ground between going too quickly and not going at all.

The often-used garden metaphor is another example of the middle way. If you don't cultivate the soil or plant the seeds or water, nothing grows. And yet you can't hurry the garden along by planting your bulbs in the fall and digging them up in December or January to check the progress; doing so would ruin the bulbs, which need the "middle way" between Fall and Spring to accomplish the growth that isn't evident to us until the blooms and blossoms of Spring can be seen.

I was asked for advice recently by someone who doesn't relate to traditional small-business marketing techniques, such as the public speaking and nonstop networking which are the assumed "right way" of doing things if you believe the popular press and traditional marketing gurus. The person expressed a concern that one couldn't be successful if one didn't adopt the Extroverted "OUT THERE" persona that many associate with the path to success. Similarly, others have communicated their disinterest in using techniques that don't seem authentic to them, yet they worried that there was no alternative. The extremes — OUT THERE or no where — didn't suit them.

"What is The middle way for you? What is The middle way for you in this instance?" The middle way is just another way to say "finding the right balance" for one's self or any one situation, or finding a balanced response to any provocation or problem.

Conscious Enterprise:
Be mindful about what you focus upon

Given the state of the economy these past few years, many small-business owners have sought counsel and moral-support. Quite a few of these courageous entrepreneurs, who were navigating very challenging times, found themselves very focused on what was wrong, what was not going well, what they were lacking, etc. As a result, they felt devoid of ideas and energy, and abandoned by inspiration.

In our dialogue, as I noticed this pattern, I guided them to their originating vision, to what was going well, to the things that they had accomplished in their business, to the strengths of and potential for the enterprise, to the places where their more recent experience and wisdom might be folded back into their lives and businesses, and to the resources and practices that might be bolstering to them.

The result was almost instantly transformative, in that their overall attitude shifted and they immediately started talking about the things they wanted to create and various solutions to ensuring that their challenging period was short-term. In turn, debilitating and defeatist attitudes shifted to a more resourceful, determined, and energetic state of mind that is crucial to surmounting challenges.

It was a good reminder to all of us in these rich dialogues that, if we saturate ourselves solely and mercilessly with thoughts of what's going wrong or what isn't optimal, of what isn't available and of how we feel victimized, we do at least two harmful things:

(1) We usually spin the negative out of proportion, making things seem much worse than they actually are; andm

(2) While we're so busy ruminating on the problems, the lack, the short-coming and the less-than-ideal, we're NOT able to be thinking about or noticing what's going well, what's possible, where opportunities hover, what solutions sit right before us just awaiting the return of our perspective.

Visit the Ivy Sea Online Wisdom and Mastery portal for resources and food-for-thought to bolster and uplift you, and fuel your inspiration.

Big-Vision Entrepreneuring:
Faith and the entrepreneur

What do wisdom, faith and mastery have to do with solopreneuring, entrepreneuring, or small business? If you've taking the leap into high-integrity self-employment and business ownership, you'll know at least one thing: Taking the qualitative-growth, big-vision, small-business path can be very challenging, and thus requires inspiration, faith, mastery and wisdom — sometimes in very large doses.

While life as an employee includes the more trying moments that can broaden perspective, wisdom and skillfulness, someone else ultimately holds the responsibility for ensuring that a business remains viable (and for seeing that the garbage cans get emptied).

A small-business owner, on the other hand, has many of the same personal and professional responsibilities as his employees, yet also walks the bottom line as the primary investor, decision-maker, risk-taker and accountability holder of the enterprise. Add the higher standards and ideals of creating and sustaining a business aligned with big-vision priorities and practices, along with a prolonged period of economic malaise and cultural volatility, and the crowd begins to thin.

This is why a big-vision small enterprise can be a powerful vehicle for personal, professional and spiritual development. Most wisdom and faith traditions include right relationship, right view or vision, compassionate communication, courage, service to others, and other big-vision principles among their primary tenets. To emphasize them as points of excellence and distinction in your business is to make them high priorities for refinement and development.

Leaders from the far reaches of history to the present day have drawn much-needed inspiration from a variety of wisdom and mastery practices. What is the role, then, of such practices in the health of a visionary small-business leader and, in turn, the healthy evolution and contribution of her business?

Regardless of the words used — faith, spirituality, religion, philosophy, mindset management, psychology, personal development — some sort of practice, often philosophical or spiritual in nature, forms the basis for a business owner's ability to skillfully envision and implement her business — and then navigate the myriad challenges of business ownership.

In turn, the journey of business ownership has the potential to become a vehicle or form of ministry through which one practices and builds competence, knowledge, wisdom and faith. Knowing and practicing this — regardless of what circumstances come your way — helps make the business owner’s journey more meaningful, and truly rich.

* Adapted from Big Vision, Small Business: 4 Keys to Success Without Growing Big (Berrett-Koehler Publishers), by Jamie S. Walters. For more articles about big-vision and conscious enterprise, start with our Biz Owners portal at Ivy Sea Online.

This Month's Gem:
The power of commitment

"Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation) there is one elementary truth, the ignorance that kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamed would have come his way. I have learned a deep respect for one of Goethe's couplets: 'Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it.'" – M.H. Lawrence, The Scottish Himalayan Expedition

Wise Words for the Journey

** "Those who are lifting the world upward and onward are those who encourage more than criticize." ~ Elizabeth Harrison

** "I believe that any man's life will be filled with constant and unexpected encouragement, if he makes up his mind to do his level best each day, and as nearly as possible reaching the high water mark of pure and useful living." ~ Booker T. Washington

** "Helping others, that's the main thing. The only way for us to help ourselves is to help others and to listen to each other's stories." ~ Eli Wiesel

** "We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken away from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms — to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way." ~ Victor Frankl

** "To dare is to lose one's footing momentarily. To not dare is to lose oneself." ~ Søren Kierkegaard

** "If you have made mistakes… there is always another chance for you… you may have a fresh start any moment you choose, for this thing we call 'Failure' is not the falling down but the staying down." ~ Mary Pickford

Until next month...

Thank you for reading with us. Wishing you blessings and joy in the month ahead.

Sincerely,

Jamie S. Walters
Founder, Ivy Sea, Inc.,
Publisher & Editor-in-Chief, Ivy Sea Online &
Author, Big Vision, Small Business

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