Happy Father’s Day! Celebrating all of the dad-figures, both biological and metaphorically out there! Leadership is one thing that reminds me of “dad”!  Now, let’s get to the Sunday Intentions: 

As always, we start off with a quote that helps support today’s lesson. Today is slighted toward my “weakness” but I hope it can help you today as well.

You are who you are. And there are some really powerful things you just shouldn't need to feel like you have to stick your nose in. Don't feel bad- get intentional instead!

“If you try to please all, you please none.”

— Aesop

Intentionality is crucial for us to become more thoughtful, compassionate, and caring leaders of businesses and in touch with our ethics - we are taking action on what our heart is guiding us to do. We truly help people and lead them into something BETTER that they can experience in their lives!

For you newcomers, welcome! Here’s where these Sunday intentions come from:

Each Saturday, although my alarm is turned off, black-out curtains are sealing every crack of light in our quaint 800 sq. foot Chicago apartment, something really powerful wakes me up.

But something rips me out of bed every morning that isn’t a chime, chirp, or blinding light. It’s my brain. It wakes up at the same time every morning and just rushes my frontal cortex with ideas. 

After a week-long of creating content, meeting with my clients, problem-solving social media strategies, and networking with new leaders - I still want to live out my mission further with ways to make the world a better place. Starting with the intentions we set for ourselves. 

I feel like being intentional & aware of who we are, what we are capable of becoming, and how we can really turn dreams into reality gives us a sense of control. As an enneagram 8w7, control is not a bad thing, it’s the way I see the world.

I tighten things up out of all of my reflective thoughts to polish up a key takeaway for you to receive at the same time, same day, or every week. Sunday Intentions. 

Why do we create intentions?

Take a few minutes to read this & instill “intentionality” into your life.

Running a business and leading an idea-generating role, you may always be looking to do MORE MORE MORE, which can take us on the fastest route to get confused, overwhelmed, & can lose sight of the purpose we are on this planet.

Before kicking off the Monday rush of all of the distractions and figure out why you are starting the week- practice answering these questions:

• What is my real purpose in being a CEO?

• Who am I truly serving?

• What can I teach, lead, or inspire?

• What does all of this work, time, and effort really stand for at the end of this journey?

This is important for me to share with you because life gets confusing when we surround ourselves with the external world around us. 

This week’s intention: Everything we do can be Intentional or it flops. 

I’m going to be vulnerable- as I often do in these weekly excerpts- about where I messed up big time. 

On Friday of this past week, I hosted my very first meetup for the Your Ethical Business Group. I was pressured by someone that I SHOULD make this a political conversation around current events. I’m not a leader in political discussion, mind you. Not at the very least! Also, I have tendencies to be a people pleaser (my enneagram type 7 trait) which wanted to make everyone have a good time & make it look like their time was well spent.

As an honest reflection to you- the meeting had WAY too much going on and this meeting was not at all what I had intended originally. Getting to know one another for the very first time in-person (on Zoom), introducing our businesses, and then answering 3 discussion questions around racism and Juneteenth. 

That person didn’t even show up, which I thought, why did I change the direction of the meeting to make it something I wasn’t trying to do?

I was trying to please someone thinking that’s what they wanted?!  I was NOT being intentional. 

Something I’m working on today with this week’s intentional reminder with you. We all mess up sometimes- but we learn and spending time to get intentional helps us resurface those amazing life lessons we sometimes forget. 

Here’s where Intentionality gives me that level of control to make things better

For the next meet up, I am intentional space for ethical leaders to create a new level of pressure-less discussion around how they navigate the challenging conversations they have with their clients, their community and their peers about doing the most challenging thing- the ethical & unpopular thing at times. It’s a really big weight to carry on our shoulders. Interested in joining? Your Ethical Business awaits you!

I know that I was doing my best to show up as a light on the Juneteenth topic, but I could have been intentional about incorporating a speaker, while I was the host of the meeting. 

I just wanted to demonstrate a real-life example of how important setting intentions are! 

For this week, I hope that you find something HUGE you are launching, teaching, speaking about, or a meeting with a client you may have to get even more intentional. Find out what you really want out of the experience and design it accordingly! 

This week’s Intention: 

There is a reason I am in the driver's seat of my business & the voice of my movement. I sometimes have a tendency to give in and not always live out my leadership as fully as I'd like to. This week, I intend to be mindful of what my default weaknesses are, but not let them overpower me!

Thank you again for yet another week of letting me uplift the way you start your week by reminding you to be a little more intentional today than you were yesterday. 

Have a fantastic summer solstice week,

Dana

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SUNDAY INTENTIONS
Each Sunday, I kick-off an intention-setting email to get centered on how to show up for the week as the world as a leader of your movement!

I wanted to start off with a quote by one of my favorite European street artists and political activists of our modern time.

“Your mind is working at its best when you’re being paranoid. You explore every avenue and possibility of your situation at high speed with total clarity.”

— Banksy, Banging Your Head Against a Brick Wall

Come on- we are the leaders, the business owners, the creators, and the people to make things better. Let's figure this out...


It all seemed to flash before our eyes in just 6 months, our lives as we knew it could be taken away from us in an instant.

In no particular order of importance:

• A global pandemic that can take health & loved ones away.

• Exposure of the systematic failures in our country that can take innocent lives & rights away.

• An economic downturn that can take money, business, legacy & fortune away.

• And even more evidence of the crippling actions to destroy our planet & environment that can take our future away. 

Alright, now what?

We know our power here. We've been hurt and felt so robbed of life itself. But what has this done to us to make us better?

What are we doing with this newfound understanding of what can be taken away tomorrow from us and how can we protect what we value most?

How much clearer do we now see in the purpose of living a fulfilling life and building a business to make the world a better place for those around us - it's right here, today, right here, right now!

It seems like moving forward is the biggest challenge of all

It’s been depressing, frustrating, and filled with pain over the last 6 months. DRAINING is one way to put it.

It's in our personal lives, our relationships, and in our business. It’s noisy. It's loud. It’s distracting. 

Before you know it, you are filling up your entire week with things you don’t want to do, hear, see, or experience because we have lost clarity on what our intentions are on making proactive choices on how to lead and guide us as problem solvers.

It's okay, this hasn't been your fault at all. But we do now know what we need to do- 

It’s time to get intentional. 

I hope you find this email series coming to you each Sunday to not be depressing and shining more light on the problems of the world. I really don’t want you to feel that at all!

Instead, to be refreshing, uplifting & a reminder to just stay connected to your true purpose. 

You see, when we are intentional about the way we start to approach the world, create a vision, and to get the path of action steps laid out, great things start happening, especially in our businesses. 

Our businesses DO make an incredible impact on the world. Don't forget that!

Taking these intentional thoughts to start with our understanding of what we want, how we are going to get there, and visit our plan frequently - it actually makes a difference, makes an impact, and we can work toward the change we want to see to make things BETTER!

This week's Intention:
We are doing a little Mad Libs style of an intention this week so you can start to build a vision for the second half of this year. 

I am clear about making the most out of 2020 by (verb) _____________ more on (noun) ________________ . 

By December 31st, 2020, I will have seen myself improve _____________ and get to experience _____________. 

At the end of the year, I will have saved (noun) _______________, inspired (noun) ________________, and made it my mission to work on (challenge)________________ that we/I face today. 

Plan for JUNE with this recap of CEO Days!

Missed our MAY session because of Memorial Day? This guided recording will take you through CEO Days that you can utilize on your own time!

To access the document, please sign up for CEO Days below:

Intention to be liked or to be true to yourself.

Do you have to choose or can you have both?

I pre-write some of these prompts when I’m planning out my content- but when I came across today’s Sunday Intention from a few weeks ago- I nearly cried. 

Well, last night- I did cry. A lot because well, my friend, we are human beings.

This week, it seemed like being a business owner vocally sharing who I am, what I do, and inviting people to work with me puts me in a difficult place feeling not-so liked from past personal relationships, but feel highly “liked” on social media as a business owner from other entrepreneurs.

My mission is to make the world a better place by stepping into leadership of our own movement & to empower people to be more than they were yesterday and appreciate every step of the journey they are on!

The best part about this intention is that I realize that my mission can sometimes be SO large, so heavy, and so grandiose for the everyday person to be able to come along with.

A weird feeling of "loss" temporarily followed by feeling rather good that I'm being more intentional about who I am. 

When you begin marketing your business, you can go into hiding afraid to cross your personal + business contacts - so you take a break. But you do know that taking no action costs you. Sometimes, it's worth it- other times, you can ask yourself, “what is the point of this?!” How can you move forward with this?

Here's what I do know for sure
Mission-driven marketing & leading with your beliefs is not going to gain you extreme popularity, but tons of respect from the people who value your genuine self. Also, mission-driven marketers being responsible for taking priority to care for not only yourself but for everything around you- it's pretty cool. 

Have you noticed so many people sharing incredible amounts of content on social media lately that have put them on “sides” and further separating our society to “us” & “them” collectivity? 

In today’s world, telling it “like it is” has probably gotten you some heat. Speaking from the heart could have even severed relationships for you. We have seen this day in & day out during this pandemic: who spoke passionately about what they think they believed was the "right" thing to do and who was so "wrong". 

Stay true to yourself, please.
This is all entirely expected because people either like us, or they don’t. They either respect us, or they don’t. And they either agree with us, or they don’t.

It’s not our responsibility to change others. Just show up as yourself. 

  The truth is, it’s not just you- it’s this very sensitive landscape of rightfully so, terrifying circumstances of mistrust & uncertainty. That's okay- but keep on your path, my friend!

Hopeful in saying this, there will be a lot of people who can respect you for being yourself with the world view you are limited to, but don’t necessarily side with you on it- a depiction of my ideal world right here.

Working to expand our world-view daily and accept people for where they are on their journey is pretty productive & can be your intention this week. This can help us all so we can make this world a much more collective place to live.