Dr. Karen, the President and CEO of TRANSLEADERSHIP, INC. celebrates the 29th birthday of her company with a new painting by Cheltenham, UK-based artist, Louis Parsons. They take you behind the scenes to experience the collaborative process to co-create a commissioned art piece through Parsons’ unique SoulScaping approach.
Through his talks, workshops, and art, Parsons unlocks the emerging art movement he terms “The Soul Renaissance and our ability to see the unique symphony of light that resides inside all of us. He brings simplicity and clarity to empower his audience to find greater energy in their lives.
Louis’ art commissions reside all over the world including with celebrities, world-class surfing athletes, and leading-edge philosophers such as Karren Brady, Tom Curren, and Ken Wilber, and now also with TRANSLEADERSHIP, INC. For the last nine years, he has been the Guest Artist for The Four Seasons, Kuda Huraa, Maldives, and Four Seasons Serengeti. One of his favorite achievements is having one of his artwork pieces auctioned for charity, raising £120,000.
Louis seeks inspiration from all the color and vibrancy in the waves when he surfs and scuba dives. Join Louis and Dr. Karen as they talk about how a corporate painting can clarify and reinforce corporate values and culture.
Reach Louis at Louis@LouisParsons.com or at https://louisparsonsart.com/
Write to Dr.Karen@transleadership.com to Name the painting and choose your favorite orientation: Vertical or Horizontal.
—
Listen to the podcast here
Corporate Painting Reveal With Louis Parsons On TRANSLEADERSHIP’s 29th Birthday (Episode # 470)
This is Dr. Karen Wilson-Starks, President and CEO of TRANSLEADERSHIP, Inc., and your host for the show and for Dr. Karen Speaks Leadership. My company Transleadership, Inc., turned 29 years old on the first of April. As part of the birthday celebration, I’m unveiling a new artwork specifically and especially designed commissioned and painted for Transleadership, Inc. by UK-based artists and prior Voice of Leadership guest, Louis Parsons. I am delighted to have Louis here to celebrate the Transleadership birthday with me.
Louis Parsons uses the power of art to inspire people and organizations to co-create a world of deeper harmony and success. He passionately believes there is an emerging movement which he terms, the Soul Renaissance. Through his talks, workshops, and art, Parsons unlocks our ability to see the unique symphony of light that resides inside all of us. He brings simplicity and clarity to empower his audience to find greater energy in their lives.
Louis’s art commissions can be found all over the world, including with celebrities, world-class surfing athletes, and leading-edge philosophers, such as Karen Brady, Tom Curran, and Ken Wilber and now also with Transleadership, Inc. For the last nine years or so, he has been the guest artists for Four Seasons, Kuda Haraa, Maldives, and Four Seasons Serengeti, where he’s still active at.
One of his favorite achievements is having one of his artwork pieces auctioned for charity raising £120,000. When he isn’t painting, Louis loves to surf and scuba dive seeking inspiration from all the color and vibrancy of the ways. He lives in Cheltenham, UK, at the foot of the Cotswolds Hills with his beautiful wife and family. Louis, welcome back to the show. Thank you so much for celebrating the 29th birthday of Transleadership with me.
Thanks, Karen. It’s great to be here and it’s great to see you color coding yourself with the soul scape that we created.
Undergoing Soul Scaping When Creating Art
It is Amazing. I love that. We are coordinated and aligned. Maybe we’ll put it that way. Louis, what I’m hoping we do is we’re going to take our guests backstage so that they get to hear how we created this art piece together and also get to learn a little bit about the meaning of it, what it means and they can also add their two cents worth and we’ll go over that in a little bit. First, I know that when you’re creating art, you go through the soul scaping process with your guests and you went through that with me. Let’s remind people about the definition of soul scaping and then, let’s talk about what you did with me in terms of soul scaping.
Thank you. The first step, only ever know the first question I’m going to ask, which is, imagine you have the perfect work of art and it lights you up. What would you want to experience in that painting? That can either be with reference to an individual, a couple, a family, or some moment in nature or life. It can be the soul of an organization or an company. I start with that question and then I never know what the next question is until that person’s responded.
Often there’s like a couple of intuitions that come out. At first, you might feel like we don’t know the answer to that question, but it’s amazing to me how much there is inside this and just how much a single question can unlock that power or potential in us. From that place, I will then create a small oil pastel and acrylic piece which reflects back what the essence of that person has shared. That’s the first hit. It’s like a soul impression, if you like.
It’s the impression that I got while someone was sharing. I’m intuitive and I’m tuned in and what I want to do is pay attention to you, to the space between us, and what’s coming up in me. I see that in terms of color and light as someone who’s speaking. It’s not necessarily about the words that someone says. It’s something about their presence or the presence of what they’re sharing and the colors and patterns that come through that.
I honestly don’t know how or what happens. Sometimes, I think I know and then something happens. I have no idea what’s happened. I just enjoyed that it does. I’m very happy for that gift and then the stage beyond that, assuming you completely love the first soul impression, which you did. I, then end up creating it as an oil on canvas piece. Any size. It can be on the smaller end of the spectrum or far larger, depending on what’s required, what’s required of you, at the space, and where you want to travel to. Sometimes, a larger piece can help you travel in different ways and sometimes a more intimate piece can be quite nice and very personal. That’s all the process in a nutshell.
Basking In God’s Heavenly Presence
Thank you, Louis. Let me share something. As you’ve been talking about that question about imagining that the artwork has already existed and what would my experience be. I’d like to share the words I said to you. I said words like inspiration, attraction, transformation, hope, power, energy, calling, enthusiasm, and possibility. Those were my words and what I was thinking about, Louis, and for those who are reading, I was thinking about the fact that in the work that I do, which is based on transformation. The company’s name stands for leadership transformation and it’s based on the Bible verse 12:2 which talks about, “Be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds.”
I wanted to have a painting that captured this process of God coming in with a heavenly light. That’s important because I’m working out of a Christian mindset and frame of reference. We know that when God created the world, it was in total darkness and then he’s the one that brought the light in. The light to me just reminds me of a heavenly presence. That’s what I was thinking about and I wanted to have the world lit up by God’s heavenly presence.
It’s amazing hearing you say again the words and what those words mean to you then to look across to the painting behind you. It’s interesting. At this stage, it almost feels as though someone else’s created it. I often feel like these artworks are created through me I suppose. As I look at that, I can see some of the words. For example, the light and the inspiration. I’m almost reminded of that quality of the light coming down through water and the water can often represent the mind.
It can represent that realm of fluid being that we relate to that thought. Some parts of that mind can be darkened. It can be in dark places. Sometimes, the deeper we go, there can be darkened areas and places that we weren’t aware that need to be brought to the light. To see that life, you’re like piercing that water or not even piercing but sometimes just gently emanating into that water and revealing those depths.
That in itself is something of a transformative experience. Who hasn’t been transformed in some small way when you dive into emotional or a river? Let alone when someone’s presence or someone’s words or maybe even just a coaching phrase or something unlocked. Something within you. Many of us can relate to that experience.
In my case, I was thinking more of a celestial thing, the heavens and most of like a water scene. I know we talked about that in this sense because often, you will represent the depths of the water with much darker colors. I wanted to have more of a heavenly scape where the colors were a little lighter and a little bit brighter. We know that even a small amount of light chases away the darkness when we’re thinking about from a heavenly perspective or a heaven viewpoint. That was one of the things I was thinking about.
We also talked about what metaphor would this be in the sense. You sometimes paint figures or people or images of people in the painting and I want one that would be more of a metaphor. You could assume some things about the transformation of people without having people in the picture. That was also a part of how we talked about it, what it might look like and what the message that would be conveyed.
In my case, one of the smaller paintings, because of space above me is smaller and I also have what I’ll call a carrying size version of it, so that if I go somewhere and I’m meeting with a client or whatever and if I want to show them this. I can take a small picture with me and we can talk about that as well. I was thinking about a small scape as opposed to, let’s say, if you were in a big huge gigantic office building or museum or someplace like that. That was part of it as well.
The heavens are often associated with the sky, air, heavenly clouds, and light pouring through clouds. There’s a paler almost ozone color associated with that, which we carried across to your piece, which is nice. It brings those realms together to have that very celestial presence. The notion of inspiration as well. That light is like a carrier or it’s a transmission of something imbued with inspiration and light. That’s what words at their best can be. They’re like a frequency that can just transmit something golden from one place to another.
Artwork and music can be like that too when coming from the right intention. It maybe a prayerful intentional. Some other intention but the quality of that, I remember in a delicate trying to translate into the camera, especially in the staining process. You build it up on patterns and layers. Some of the beautiful thing about that is layering the happy accidents that happened that you are not in control of or something beyond you start to take over it. Things happen that are a surprise. A beautiful spontaneous surprise, but that’s also part of inspiration. That’s also part of letting light come in through you, your words and an artwork and crystallize and take the form of something that, hopefully, you would want to share with your client, your organizational or someone else.
It’s interesting you say about the figures because the moment you put a figure in a piece, then it changes the whole dynamic, which can be right and powerful and beautiful to do so. It changes the whole thing into some landscape or seascape or soul scape. The nice thing as well about just having something purely abstract is it opens. Especially if you’re going to use it in the way you’re going to use it, which is asking people how they will personally respond to this.
They can put their own feelings and their own thoughts into that and it’s amazing, the power of an image to unlock what’s inside someone. I’m intrigued as well. Now, it’s been in your space for a while and you’ve had the image with you. I’m just intrigued to know what’s changed or evolved or lit up in you? What’s changed now that those words have become? As many people, we can have a written mission statement and something written down but it’s very different than to have that translated into something like an artwork. I’m intrigued to know what’s changed with you as a result of that.
You may know that every year, I have what I call the word of the year. I think that the painting influenced the word of the year this year because the word I selected was light. I talked about the trifecta of light, how light leads to God’s love and love leads to life and life even in an eternal sense. You’ve got the three Ls, light, love, and life.
The painting is the picture of that. It’s a reminder of what I am doing with clients, which is to accelerate, elevate and impact for them and their work and how their going about things. Many times, my clients are in a situation where things look dark and they don’t see the way through and the way out of it. I want them to be inspired that the light of God is shining on it all the time. We can connect with that and we can go from where we are to a different place. It connects with that picture of light that’s important to me.
That’s amazing you say. I’ve been thinking a lot about light. It’s beyond thinking. You start to experience the notion that everything from the very subtle, from the heart of God and through to all form is made out of light. Various layers of light and various layers of density. To consider that, I like that trifecta. That’s gorgeous. There’s light, love and life all interacting. It’s like they’re all woven together into that light. The love and the life is woven into it. There’s a powerful intelligence in all of that light that has made everything around us and put satellite of inspiration in us. That’s a beautiful thought.
The Power Of Transforming And Transcending
They’re a couple of other words that about that are also important in terms of the work that I’m doing and one of the words is transform. Transform is you’re changing. Something is shifting and then transcend because you’re rising above even some of the Earthly planes of what’s going on. You’re transcending, I would say, getting past the Earth’s atmosphere. The pull and the drag that pulls us back down sometimes.
You transcend through that and once you go through that barrier, then you ascend. When you ascend, the kinds of thoughts that can come to you are the possibilities that we wouldn’t necessarily think of on our own without God showing us a greater possibility than what we can see which is totally in an Earthly space. When you engage in some heavenly light, then you’re going to see and experience greater options because With God, all things are possible and nothing is impossible. As he says, his thoughts and his ways are high above ours. When we’re connected with God, we see what we don’t see if we’re not connected. I see that part transform, transcend, and ascend as well.
That’s beautiful. It’s funny because again, sometimes this happens in our conversations. They sometimes run in parallel to the things that we’ve been previously considering. One of the things that’s been important with my art and for some of my healing processes is the realization that like descends as well. It actively reaches in to touch and surround. In fact, there’s a beautiful and incredible metaphor that was shared with me about how we perceive light. The center of the eye is completely dark.
It’s a theater of darkness, if you like. The only way we’re able to perceive any light is because of that darkness. Even taking that thought a little further, darkness in a sense is very dense light. It’s another quality of light. It’s not even dense. It offer ability to measure. When we look up at the night sky and we see this darkness and we think there’s a vacuum but there’s no vacuum at all. It’s packed or full of intelligence, information, waveforms, and particles. Things that are beyond our way of perceiving and way of seeing.
Something beautiful happens in that process of transformation. When light and darkness connect and they touch one another. It’s like the light gets Earth and becomes even more real. If it was all light all the time, I wonder what would happen to life, where this beautiful synthesis of combination of all of those in a wavelengths of life if you’re together? That just makes me marvel at the design, the creation, the intricacy, the joy, and the astonishing building of any form of light.
The thing is, humans, we have this beautiful way of participating. If you’re like this God-given ability to create this way to bring almost more light into the process. That word transformation can be many things to many people, but the sense of the light touching in and then folding around and changing the darkness. I love that picture very much. The color is the filling in one wavelength between those who opposite. Its surroundings the whole time. We would have no debt perception unless there was shadow a long side the light.
How God’s Light Transforms Our Lives
That’s certainly true in an Earthly sense. What I like about what you said and I’m going to build on it when you were talking about the light of God coming down. That’s very relevant because in a Christian perspective, we don’t have the ability to go from where we are up to God in and of ourselves. In fact, when the people were building the Tower of Babel in the Bible and trying to reach God, he stopped them. It’s like, you can’t reach me and he already knew he was going to reach us by sending Jesus, the Messiah to come down as that ultimate light.
God comes to us so that we can then assess him and then join him. It’s if to say, God becomes our vehicle to go to the heavens where he is and we can’t get there apart from him, so to speak. Some other words that I reflected on later like I mentioned the inspiration attraction, transformation and hope and so on. Later on, I was thinking about this notion of God coming to Earth. I was thinking about heavenly light, celestial light, light piercing the darkness and this notion that the Bible describes where God himself dwells in unapproachable light.
The light in heaven is so bright that there’s no need for a son there because God is the light of heaven. God himself is the on. Now, we have the seasons and the cycles of light and darkness. Our bodies probably need that because we have to rest here in various other things. When we get into the heavenly space and we have our supernatural heavenly bodies, we will be able to handle light all the time. Whereas here, maybe we could do that.
The light of God is going to brighten up the heavens in a way that we haven’t seen before here on Earth just like when Jesus was transfigured on the mountain with his three closest associates with him. The light of his clothing was so bright. There was no color white or light like that even of available on the earth. Even if you had bleached something. As white as it could be or light as it could be. It would pale in comparison to the light that was shining on him and this transfiguration experience. We are the royal priesthood of God and the Darkness has transformed us into not just a royal light, but I even think of royal blue of sorts because we are part of that Kingdom of priests.
I love blue. I tend to create something to say for me. There’s a natural gravitation to the realm of blue. I love all the colors. Don’t get me wrong, but there’s something about the blues of the oceans. It’s just that beautiful viscosity of waters and heavens. It’s interesting because I wonder as well, whether that moment of transfiguration is also, again about the possibility of us having that light inside us whilst being here. In fact, it seems to me and especially using that picture from the book of revelation that heaven seems to descend to earth.
Depending on how you feel about the gospel’s, there’s an amazing phrase that Jesus uses, which is the Kingdom of Heaven or if you like the Kingdom of God stretches out over this Earth, but men can’t see it. There’s something about when you see how he walks and how he operates in these moments, where there’s these incredible wonderful things that he’s so filled with that light that it almost reveals this world of light and it’s possibility of participate with a world of light that’s already here but that we can’t currently see. That excites me.
That excites me as an artist, as a creator, and as someone with imagination. One of the, if you like, the scourges of our time is anxiety, levels of anxiety and worrying depression. That’s partly because we don’t unfold the wings of our imagination into the full possibility of what they’re here for, which is this, if you like, God give him the ability to be able to see, feel, and experience these incredible beautiful realms of light that are in beautiful synchronicity with the world that’s here.
We’re not just waiting on a rock to just pass on to another place. There’s always that promise but part of our participation as artists, speakers, coaches, or whatever it would be, is to bring more and more of that light into this realm and to do anything we can. It’s a lot of flame towards it. Whether it is painting or speaking or loving or looking an eye or touching someone’s hand in a certain way. Those are the sole qualities. Those heavenly qualities that get transmitted from one another when we do that.
The fact that we’ve lost touch, generally speaking. There’s more and more people that are more in touch with this than ever before in certain ways but I’d like to see that network of light and to know that we can be held and supported by it. That light is love. That light is life. It’s an extraordinary revelation and it changes the way you look, feel, and experience everything around us.
That is completely true. In fact, in the language that I would speak, I would describe it as the more we’re in tune with, in touch with and filled with the spirit of God, the Holy Spirit, the more ability we have to connect with the light that you’re talking about and to experience the divine and the supernatural here on Earth.
I do think that’s a reality. Some people are more connected than others. Some people get to see more that others. As you say, it’s here. We just may not always have as Jesus was saying, sometimes in the Old Testament was saying, “Eyes to see and ears to hear.” All that is around us and that’s giving in the spiritual sense. Those abilities and our ability later. Jesus demonstrated this when he was resurrected from the grave that he was able to do amazing things. He could walk through walls. He could transport himself suddenly for one place to the next.
There is a realm that we are not as in touch with, most of us, every day. Some of it is possible now, and they’ll be even greater possibilities later because we don’t even have the bodies that can handle all that God can do and manifest until later. We’re going deep with all this stuff. I’m going to share something. It’s in the form of a course to a song because I remember in childhood, we used to sing the song in church.
I’m just going to sing a little bit of it just to get into the vibe of it. It went something like, “Heavenly sunlight, heavenly sunlight, flooding my soul with glory divine. Hallelujah. Singing His praises. Jesus is mine.” That song was written in 1899. It’s an old one, but we used to sing that. When I think about the painting, I was thinking to day. When I woke up, I was thinking about heavenly sunlight and that song came to mind. That’s just the chorus of it but it has a number of different verses and so on, just to remember that we have access to God’s heavenly sunlight. It’s just beautiful thought to me.
That’s beautiful. You’ve got a beautiful voice.
Diving Deep Into Louis’ Painting
Thank you. Anyway, as we’re thinking about this and one thing I haven’t done, Louis. I have not named the painting. I haven’t named it yet or given it a name. We know that it’s about transformation being transformed. It’s about the light and reflecting the light in God’s light. I want people who are reading to write in and write to me and let me know, what do they think the name of this painting should be in light of everything that we’ve been talking about? It can have a number of different names.
I also want people to think about the orientation of the painting. We’ve got a picture of the painting and it’s a little bit easier to see because we’ve got it on the screen. When you look at the painting this way, you can see that the light is pouring in, if you will from heaven. You see the deep strands of gold that are coming down. One of the pictures in my mind that I see, I don’t know if you remember these or if you’ve ever even been to them. They are these old homes owned by ancient millionaires from the United States.
They have these houses off in New England up in Rhode Island, and other places. Europe has a lot of buildings like this too where the ceiling inside the building is painted in this heavenly color. You’ll see little angels and cherubs and all that built in. You’ll see the different shades of the yellow, the gold, clouds, and sky. Often, you’ll see that in like a dome to build building right above and the ceiling is made that way.
When I think about these colors and the way it’s shining, that’s one of the images that comes to mind when I look at the painting. This is the primary orientation of it. This is the way in which you painted it, Louis. Maybe you might just share a little bit about what you were thinking about when you painted at this way. I know it’s based on everything we were talking about in the soul scape experience. Maybe share your insights.
Again, it’s just that little of the descending light. I wanted to have a certain orientation almost look like you were following the light in a dance. You’ll looking in and downward as you following it from the top right down to the left but it’s almost folding in a little bit to the center.
You and I discovered together that the painting also could have a horizontal orientation where the light is coming in from the left side. In a minute or so, we’re going to change the views so people can see the painting in the horizontal format. Louis and I are talking about this painting in vertical and horizontal. Some of you normally read this show, this might be a day, you might want to watch the show on YouTube or possibly on Raven International Television, so that you can see what we’re seeing.
If you are connected to us by email or on social media, we will include the visual as well so that you can follow along with what we’re saying. Now, we can see from a horizontal view. The light is coming from the top left and coming down into the earth realm. This is a powerful view of the painting as well. I thank you, Louis, because you gave me options. I could hang it in both directions if I want because we were looking at it in both directions and we liked it in both directions. What else emerge for you when you saw the horizontal version?
I feel as though, you can see the curvature of the earth and you’re zooming and finding into it like from the light to some delicate horizon at an angle. I could because I’ve been watching a lot of Sci-Fi. I love the qualities of light that comes through in this. There’s something about reaching in towards a horizon of possibility but it is making me want to tilt my head.
Does that suggest that you personally prefer to the vertical way in which it was created?
I think I do because that was the way I was creating it but it’s not the first time that I’ve created a painting and then changed the orientation and thought, “I like it this way, too.” Some I’ve even turned upside down. Although, there were figures in the center and reflections of the figures, so it worked quite well. I like it this way, I’ve got to say. I’m surprisingly so. It’s probably a certain amount of bias because I was so focused on creating it the other way, but I could easily get used to seeing this way. It’s got a lot in it this way for sure.
It’s quite dynamic in this direction as well. Those of you who are watching and reading, I’m going to invite you to also weigh in on that. You get two things you can weigh in on. What do you think the painting should be called? We haven’t it named it yet. Do you prefer the vertical or the horizontal orientation?
You can let me know and reach out. You can reach out to me on Dr.Karen@Transleadership.com. You can also reach out on social media. Those of you who get my social media messages and postings, you know where to reach me on all of those channels as well. Tell us what you think, vertical, horizontal, what name comes to mind and we’ll have a naming ceremony at some point and talk about it.
I think the painting can be vertical or horizontal. Somedays people may come and speak with me and see it horizontal and on other days, they might see it vertical. It’s because I’m able to relate to both. I wanted to just mention something but this is the Transleadership card. You’ll see the royal blue on the far left and then there’s gold. That’s gold foil in the middle.
What’s interesting is that it’s a movement from darkness into light. That goes with the theme of the company moving from darkness to light. I just wanted to also mention that. It goes with who we are and who we’ve been over the last years. Louis, let me ask you this. You do souls scape all the time. What was it like for you to participate in and do the soul scape with me about this particular painting in work of art?
That was a real ease in connecting with you on this. Sometimes, it can take a little while to answer themes that want to be brought into a piece but there was a real clarity there, so that was a lot of fun. For me, if there’s any sense of spirituality in depth and what’s being shared, then that greatly aids my inspiration, too. It was a effortless creation and this happens sometimes.
Sometimes they can be quite challenging, which I quite like to be challenged and pushed by. It’s like, you’re in conversation with the painting. It can push you in different directions, but this was quite different. It just blows quite effortlessly. Even the way the painting dried certain times, it was almost just a bit of a gift how it landed itself. That stands out in my mind.
What was fun for me, Louis, is I’ve never had a commission to painting before. It was fun to be able to share ideas and to know that somehow, it would be represented in the painting even though I’m not a painter. I don’t paint but we were co-creating it together, the words that we shared, the thoughts and the experience. You are representing everything that we talked about in the actual painting itself. That’s fun and I know that you do this type of work for many people. Let people know how they can reach you and if they want to get their own commissioned painting, what they need to do and what’s the process.
I did between 5 and 10 commissions in a year, typically. The best way to get in touch is by my email address. That’s Louis@LouisParsons.com. You can contact me on the website as well, LouisParsons.com. as paths and calm. The first part of it is to have an initial conversation and see what feels right for you. If you’re drawn to the artwork, it’s on the website. I see those as flowers. They will attract the kind of people that drawn to this work or not. Following that first conversation, if it feels right, we can go into the process together. It’s got to feel right for you and for me as well. I wanted to make sure that my energy and your energy is connected in wanting to create something beautiful. That would be amazing.
How A Painting Can Change A Business
What I hope I’m able to do, I haven’t figure out how to do this yet. I’d love to create some note cards that have this image on them and then I can write to people from my own Transleadership painting. In wrapping things up, Louis in what we’re talking about. What else would you like to share with people about anything that we’ve been talking about? As you’re thinking about the members of the audience who are corporate executives and what a painting might even mean to their business. What might you share?
Especially for those who are in the corporate world, you might not initially think paintings going to change things. It’s way more than a painting. It’s more the exploration with that which is truly valuable and truly important to you and your organization. If you’re like those soul qualities that are often permeate the culture and to have something that captures the heart and soul of those, which is good upon. Maybe not just with you but a number of people that are, if you like the key perspective holidays, then have something creative that then enables you and those around you to get behind, to see your place in the bigger picture.
You can have quite powerful effects. Certainly, it seems to have had something of an effect with Microsoft to certain extent with some of the leadership workshop work I did with Google. I’m not the first to shout from the rooftops about it. I prefer to let other people share their experiences of it. All I can say is that this realm of light is very real. The more you’re in contact with it, the more it can only bring huge amounts of benefit, inspiration, and abundance to those who want to connect with it. It’s just a real joy and honoring to engage with people who are willing to participate in that process.
I love what you said because you can go beyond just the words on the page from your vision statement, your purpose or your mission statement or whatever it is that you’re conveying in the organization. If it has a visual like a picture to go with it, when we think about vision, it’s something that you can see. This adds to the depth of that message.
Different people will, I’d say connect with them message to a different portal. Whether it be through words or images. You’re involving both the left and the right side of the brain if you will for a more total experience when you have both the words and the images together. That’s a powerful way to think about what the possibilities are for corporations.
Thank you. I love that you used the word portal. In their pure respond, that’s exactly what soul scapes are there. They’re portables of light. They engage us and our imaginations. They can take us to places but we can also bring ourselves to those artworks and let that light get built enough. Thank you for that.
I would even encourage people who might want to think about how could they make a painting or do a soul scape experience that’s even for their family? Who is our family? Who are we? What do we stand for? What are our values? There are endless possibilities about what people can create and have something that’s meaningful and that in a case of a family that’s passed down and last many generations.
When the children are thinking about, who are we? What’s our family about? They can reference painting and have that conversation with someone as their sharing. I see multiple applications. Louis, I hope that people will contact you and have a wonderful experience and explore what their soul scape is and what the message is that God is transmitting to them. I want to thank you for my experience and the creation of the painting. I will keep you posted on what people end up saying in terms of their reflection and what they ultimately shared with me.
Thank you. It’s been a real joy to going through this process with you.
Thank you so much, Louis. This birthday would not be special or the same without you being here sharing it with me for 29 years of Transleadership. I just thank you for sharing this space and for creating something wonderful and beautiful that we can celebrate going forward. Thank you so much. I would like to close with a Bible verse that I think is very fitting for everything that we’ve been talking about with the painting.
This comes from Psalm 19:1 and it says, “The heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament shows his handiwork.” Every day as you look up in the sky and see what God is painting for us, I hope that you will enjoy his handy work and His glory. We’re just capturing a little sliver of it in this painting, but he is the painter who paints every day. We get to experience God every day if we would take the time, have the eyes to see and the ears to hear. Have a blessed day full of the light of God. May he continue to lead and guide you in the way that he would have you to go. See you next time.
—
Dr. Karen’s Special Promotion
This is Dr. Karen Wilson-Starks, President and CEO of TRANSLEADERSHIP, Inc. I want to let that I am running a special promotion. If you are a CEO or executive leader and a medium to large sized company and you care about how your people are treated. Especially if you share Biblical values and you may be facing difficult decisions where you want some additional perspective.
You may be planning for succession in your company and developing people and preparing the organization for that succession or perhaps, you are going through change. Your leading change. Maybe there’s a merger. There’s an acquisition. Whatever you’re facing in terms of leadership, including developing your executive team. Contact me. Give me a call, so we can do a discovery meeting to see what’s going on. Here’s the special promotion.
The promotion is, in addition to your discovery time, I will interview up to three additional people from your executive team so you have even greater contacts and feedback about where to go next. Reach out to me at Dr.Karen@Transleadership.com or phone me at (719) 534-0949 extension 1. I look forward to hearing from you and to coming alongside you to complete and continue your leadership journey with a positivity and profitability in your organization.
Did that you can mind the lessons from your own life and work experiences to inspire your teams and your people. In my book, Lead Yourself First: The Senior Leader’s Guide to Engaging Your People for Greater Performance and Impact. I only share snippets of my life experiences from childhood all the way up to adulthood. I also share what I learned from these experiences, how that learning informs how I lead today and some examples of how I facilitate my clients success with these same principles.
I invite you also to apply the same methodology to your life with reflection questions at the end of each chapter. When you lead yourself first, you then have a foundation for leading others. In Chapter 2, which is called Run Your Own Race, I share some stories from my days as an active-duty army officer when my approach to running the two miles for the physical training test and also my approach for the 12 miles forced road march had to be different from what other people did. What I would say is dare to be different. Find your own success formula. Sometimes, what works for you is different from what works for others. Remember, to run your own race and remember to get your own copy of Lead Yourself First and you’ll find resources on how to run your own race.
Important Links
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: Google Podcasts |
