At any moment, identify if you are “above the line” (open, curious, trusting) or “below the line” (contracted, defensive, attached to being right) to initiate powerful self-awareness.
Shift from believing life is happening to you (victim consciousness) to choosing to be responsible for your experience (creator consciousness) to empower yourself and replenish energy.
After recognizing a reactive or contracted state, consciously accept yourself for being there, taking a breath to prevent further contraction and allow a shift to presence.
Consciously reduce motivation from fear, guilt, shame, anger, rage, or purely extrinsic rewards, and instead cultivate motivation from intrinsic reward, play, and love for sustainable fulfillment.
Grow your self-awareness by practicing self-reflection, utilizing assessment instruments, and actively fostering a feedback-rich environment around you.
Cultivate a mindfulness practice to pause, quiet your mind, and create mental space, allowing you to break automatic pilot and turn attention inward.
Once you’ve accepted a reactive state, return to presence before taking action, ensuring your response comes from your highest self rather than fear or contraction.
Make all agreements, personal or professional, impeccably clear by specifying who will do what by when, and track them to minimize drama and wasted time.
Before making an agreement, check your head, heart, and gut for a “whole body yes”; if not, renegotiate to ensure full commitment and prevent half-hearted execution.
Strive to keep all agreements, and when one is broken, immediately take responsibility to the affected person without excuses, offering to clean it up to maintain trust.
Practice revealing and not concealing your thoughts, feelings, judgments, and relevant information, as candor is a key indicator of being “above the line” and fosters authentic relationships.
Practice pausing to identify and name your current emotions (anger, fear, sadness, joy, creative energy) to build foundational emotional intelligence.
Permit feelings to move through your body as sensations without feeding them with thoughts, allowing them to dissipate naturally within 90 seconds to prevent them from getting stuck and becoming moods.
After an emotion has passed, pause and ask what it was there to teach you or invite you to face, leveraging the inherent intelligence of your feelings.
Welcome all five core emotions (anger, fear, sadness, joy, creative energy) into your decision-making process to gather their wisdom and make more informed choices.
Take responsibility for creating a feedback-rich environment by directly asking for feedback from others, especially after specific interactions or presentations.
When receiving feedback, instead of asking “Is it true?”, inquire “How is it true about me?” to foster deeper learning and self-reflection.
Practice “eating your projections” by examining how the qualities or behaviors you complain about in others might also be true about yourself, significantly increasing learning agility.
In both personal and professional relationships, ensure clear alignment on fundamental commitments to prevent recurring drama and foster shared direction.
Post-decision, reflect on the consciousness from which the decision was made (above/below the line, victim/villain/hero), the emotional intelligence involved, and whether all relevant information was revealed.
In decision-making discussions, create a safe space for everyone to “blurt” out all their thoughts, judgments, opinions, and data to ensure all relevant information is on the table.
Actively address any integrity breaches or broken agreements that are affecting current decisions or relationships, as unaddressed issues create “sludge” and undermine trust.
To change an undesirable situation, create a “recipe” detailing how you would intentionally create that exact outcome, which reveals the steps needed to do the opposite.
Cultivate comfort with feeling your own emotions first, as your capacity for empathy and compassion with others is directly tied to your self-empathy.
Become aware of your unconscious “feedback filters” (conditions for valuing feedback) and thoughtfully decide which ones you want to keep to open yourself to more diverse input.
After an event like a presentation, ask for a numerical rating and one specific thing you could do to improve, even encouraging people to “make something up” to get the feedback flowing.
When interacting with your children, especially during challenging moments, consciously check if you are “above the line” (open, curious) or “below the line” (reactive, contracted) to foster more meaningful interactions.
Adopt the premise that your children are here to teach you as much as you are to teach them, shifting your perspective to one of continuous learning from their presence.
Resist the urge to treat your children as disempowered victims by always rescuing them or blaming external factors for their struggles, which teaches them victim consciousness.
Practice candor and authenticity with your children by revealing your true thoughts and feelings, fostering genuine connection and teaching them the value of transparency.
Live in a state of appreciation with your children, aiming to provide five times more appreciation than constructive criticism to build their self-esteem and strengthen your bond.
Engage your children in making clear agreements about rules and expectations, rather than issuing edicts, to foster cooperation and reduce rebellion.
In a blended family, consciously prioritize the relationship between the partners over individual relationships with biological children to create a stable foundation.
In blended families, the biological parent should retain primary decision-making rights for their children, with the step-parent acting as a supportive consultant and ally.
Recognize that blending families will involve a tumultuous adjustment period and commit to a long time horizon for resolution, understanding it’s part of the process.
Relate to former spouses and co-parents from “above the line” to minimize drama and conflict, critically enhancing the well-being of children in blended families.