Undertow

In life, undertows take many forms. They are situations, relationships, environments, habits, and internal narratives that consume your energy without reciprocity. They absorb your attention, your time, your emotional bandwidth, and sometimes your sense of self. Left unchecked, they hinder your evolution. -Angela M. George

While I was growing up, my mother advised me about the undertow of life. Very similar to the ocean kind, my mother would say. It is the invisible current beneath the surface that looks calm, even familiar, but quietly pulls you under. She taught me early that some forces don’t announce themselves as danger. They simply drain you, inch by inch, until you’re exhausted, disoriented, and no longer moving forward.

This wisdom has been my guiding post, and I hope it serves you as well.

In life, undertows take many forms. They are situations, relationships, environments, habits, and internal narratives that consume your energy without reciprocity. They absorb your attention, your time, your emotional bandwidth, and sometimes your sense of self. Left unchecked, they hinder your evolution.

The most dangerous undertows are the ones we normalize.

• They sound like obligation dressed up as loyalty.

• They look like responsibility without reciprocity.

• They feel like “just getting through it” on repeat.

Over time, you stop asking whether something is healthy or aligned. You start asking how long you can endure it. At this point, the undertow has you.

Recognizing an undertow requires being painfully honest with yourself. It shows up as chronic fatigue that rest doesn’t fix. As mental loops you can’t seem to shut off. As a sense that your creativity and optimism is slowly leaking out. You may still be functioning, even achieving, yet something essential is being siphoned away.

Undertows are not always a negative force. Sometimes, they mean something is complete. A role, a pattern, or a relationship may have outlived its usefulness. Growth often creates tension with what once fit.

The key is discernment.

Ask yourself:

1. Is this expanding me or containing me?

2. Is this aligned with who I am becoming, or who I used to be?

3. Does this require honest effort or constant self-betrayal?

Overcoming an undertow is about direction. In the ocean, the way out of an undertow is to conserve energy and move laterally, to regain your footing before you swim forward again. Life works the same way.

Once the undertow is recognized, you need clarity, boundaries, and the courage to redirect your energy toward what restores you, rather than drains you. Evolution requires oxygen.

• Your thoughts need space.

• Your body needs respect.

• Your time needs intention.

• Your resources need stewardship.

Anything that consistently compromises your creativity is an undertow. Growth, leadership and healing from past traumas can be demanding. There is a distinct difference between resistance that builds strength and resistance that slowly drowns you. The self-care and work is learning the difference.

My mother’s wisdom was about awareness. Understanding that calm surfaces can hide powerful currents, and that survival, fulfillment, and excellence depend on knowing when to step back, reassess, and choose a different direction. We are not here to tread water indefinitely. We are here to evolve, clear-minded, energized, and aligned with the life we are meant to build. Undertows only win when we ignore them. Awareness is how you stay above water.

Inspiration

As Carolyn Myss teaches, “Energy follows intention.” That truth alone explains why undertows are so powerful. What we give our attention to, consciously or unconsciously, begins to direct our energy. Over time, our energy shapes our experience. This is how people, problems, and patterns gain influence without ever asking for permission. Not because they are stronger than us, but because our intention has been tethered to them. Undertows thrive where intention is unexamined.

When thoughts are consumed, nervous system is perpetually braced, time and emotional resources are consistently diverted away from what nourishes you, your energy is no longer moving with purpose. It’s being pulled. This is an awareness gap.

Brianna Wiest offers, “Your new life is going to cost you your old one.” Often, what keeps an undertow alive is not fear of the water, it’s attachment to what once felt familiar, even if it’s no longer aligned. Growth demands discernment. Evolution requires release. Not every current is meant to be fought. Some are meant to be exited.

When intention is reclaimed and awareness is restored, energy begins to reorganize. You stop swimming against invisible forces. You stop negotiating with what drains you. You move laterally, regain your footing, and choose where your life force actually belongs.

Invitation

It’s time to reclaim your energy, clarify your direction, and move with intention.

Connect with CG Excellence Training and learn how to recognize, navigate, and overcome the undertows in your career and life. Step into clarity, resilience, and authentic leadership, your evolution starts here.

Explore the CG Excellence Training Library; Weekly Blogs, Training Reflection Videos and Podcasts that spotlight servant leaders, like you. My resources are available 24/7, CG Excellence Training.

Engage with tools that sharpen your voice, deepen your capability, and restore your grounded leadership.

Let CG Excellence support your next evolution, set up a discovery call to explore the portal of all possibilities.

Thank you for your kind attention, today!

It is my hope that this message added value to your life.

This is your invitation to subscribe for weekly inspiration.

Yours in service,

Christine

Choice

Choice Engineering, the conscious shaping of your future through identity, awareness, and emotional sovereignty.

-CG Excellence

Engineering Your Life

Personal transformation begins with a choice, a quiet, decisive moment when you select the version of yourself you’re willing to embrace.

Choice is the architect of every timeline you step into.. it is the doorway to endless possibilities.

Choosing the shift within yourself, becomes Choice Engineering, the conscious shaping of your future through identity, awareness, and emotional sovereignty.

The Multi-Universe Self

Physicists imagine the multiverse as a vast expanse of countless universes, each with its own unfolding outcome. In personal growth, this concept becomes a powerful map, one that charts the infinite versions of you that exist as pure potential.

Every moment, you navigate your own internal multiverse. Consider a few of the countless versions, each waiting for your conscious choice:

• The Clear-Minded Self: Focused, present, and able to cut through the noise with clarity and purpose.

• The Over-Extender: Generous to a fault, often saying yes out of habit and stretching beyond your healthy limits.

• The Energy Protector: Mindful of boundaries, choosing where to invest time and attention, and safeguarding your emotional reserves.

• The Conflict Avoider: Quieting your voice or shrinking back to keep the peace, even when your needs go unmet.

• The Wise Self: Drawing from experience and intuition, leading from a place of calm insight and grounded confidence.

All versions exist simultaneously as options.

Choice is how you decide which universe of selfhood you occupy.

Quantum theorist David Deutsch describes the multiverse as overlapping realities where every possibility exists. For you, every possibility of self exists. Only one becomes your lived experience, based on the choices you make.

Choice Engineering as Identity-Based Leadership

Behavioral thinkers like James Clear remind us: identity shapes every action. You don’t act your way into an identity; you choose an identity and act from it. Every decision is a vote for the person you are becoming.

You engineer your life through…

• Responses to heightened emotions 

• Speech in moments of tension

• Boundaries set or not set

• Energy sovereignty 

Empowerment Through Conscious Choice

Personal power comes from allowing a deeper wisdom to guide your choices. In many traditions, the fifth chakra (your throat center) is seen as the seat of choice, the central cord of your personal power.

Your throat center is where you decide:

• To speak your truth or stay silent

• To nurture creativity or repeat old stories

• To empower your soul with clarity, compassion, and courage—or to feed negativity and illusion

Every choice you make shapes your sense of self.

Make a gentle commitment to yourself:

• To choose what empowers and uplifts you

• To bring clarity to your mind and heart, revealing who you truly are and what your life is about on a deeper level

• To embrace the courage to make choices that reflect the learning of your spirit, not the illusions of fear or limitation

Pause and ask yourself…

• How do I want to direct my will today?

• What would it look like to surrender my personal agenda and trust a higher wisdom?

• Which choices bring me closer to the truth of who I am?

The act of surrender is the ultimate strength. When you align your will with the clarity of your soul, every choice becomes a step toward greater freedom, healing, and authenticity.

Allow your will to become a vessel for clarity, compassion, and genuine self-expression.

Embracing the Threshold

As we stand at the threshold between 2025 and 2026, the world invites us, collectively and individually, to pause, reflect, and choose. The turning of the year is more than a date on the calendar; it’s a symbolic doorway, a rare moment when the past and future meet in the present, and you are called to become the architect of your next timeline.

This is your invitation to practice Choice Engineering on the grandest scale:

• What version of yourself do you want to carry forward into 2026?

• Which patterns, voices, or beliefs are you ready to leave behind in the closing year?

• What single conscious choice can you make tonight (no matter how small) that aligns you with the clarity, courage, and authenticity you want to embody in the year ahead?

Let the transition into 2026 be a conscious act of self-authorship.

Release what no longer serves.

Choose with intention.

Step boldly into the new universe that awaits, knowing that every moment, every breath, is a fresh opportunity to engineer your life from the inside out.

Here’s to a new year and a lifetime of empowered choices, radiant clarity, and soulful transformation.

Invitation

For deeper conversations on conscious choice, and identity-based leadership, explore more reflections through CG Excellence Training.

Explore the CG Excellence Training Library; Weekly Blogs, Training Reflection Videos and Podcasts that spotlight servant leaders, like you. My resources are available 24/7, CG Excellence Training.

Engage with tools that sharpen your voice, deepen your capability, and restore your grounded leadership.

Let CG Excellence support your next evolution, set up a discovery call to explore the portal of all possibilities.

Thank you for your kind attention, today!

It is my hope that this message added value to your life.

This is your invitation to subscribe for weekly inspiration.

Yours in service,

Christine

Death by Pizza

True alignment requires being in tune with your breath. Pausing before you reach for the thing that promises comfort. - CG Excellence

Dedication

To my friend and colleague, Terry Thompson, Founder of Blue Jeans and Berries. An experienced nutritionist and wellness coach for over 15-years who has helped countless people transform toxic habits into healthy, life-giving rituals. Terry’s philosophy is simple yet profound: real change begins with awareness, and real nourishment begins with self-respect. Through her gentle wisdom and practical guidance, she reminds us that health is not punishment, it’s peace.

We all have our version of “pizza.” That one thing we reach for when life feels too heavy, too empty, or too uncertain to sit with. It could be the late-night scrolling, the glass of wine, the endless Netflix queue, or the literal pizza, comfort in a box. Warm. Predictable. Rewarding.

In that fleeting moment, it works. The ache softens. The noise fades. The brain gets its hit of dopamine, and we call it relaxing.

Sometimes, comfort is the very thing keeping us stuck, soothing us on the surface, while quietly suffocating our alignment.

Self abandonment happens in slices. Small, seemingly harmless choices.

• One extra slice of pizza.

• One extra glass of wine.

• One extra hour talking about things that drain you.

• One more day ignoring the inner voice asking for rest and clarity.

The Spell

Overeating, over-drinking, over-sharing, or over-extending ourselves are behaviors of anesthetize awareness.

They create a hypnotic dulling of consciousness, a gentle, socially accepted trance that keeps us from what’s real.

The human ego is clever. Its job is to keep us feeling safe, even when the safety is borrowed, fake, or temporary.

What we believe in the moment:

• Everything is fine.

• You deserve this.

• It’s not a big deal.

• You can deal with it later.

Repetition of these behaviors induce a subtle hypnotic state.

A soft sedation.

A muted consciousness.

A gentle fog that keeps you from noticing what’s really going on.

Your mind becomes dulled just enough to avoid discomfort but alert enough to function.

It feels harmless and normal.

Until it doesn’t.

Wake-Up Call

Hypnosis always breaks and consciousness returns.

Once it does, you meet the evidence of every numbing choice:

• The weight gain.

• The exhaustion.

• The hangover.

• The emotional regret from oversharing.

• The self-betrayal from saying yes when you meant no.

• The physical or emotional clutter that accumulated while you weren’t fully present.

The body and your life always tell the truth later, even if the ego felt “safe” in the moment.

You may ask yourself, “how did I get here?”

This is merely a reflection of self-neglect, somewhere along the way, the need for comfort or distraction, overpowered self-care.

Quiet Demise

Death by Pizza is the death of presence and the death of the self you abandon while trying to cope.

The tragedy is not the pizza.

It is the loss of relationship with yourself.

Once you see the pattern, you can’t unsee it and you regain the ability to choose differently.

This is about returning to consciousness, one choice at a time.

Conscious choice breaks the spell.

You are not defined by the slices that brought you here.

You are defined by the moment you decide to come back.

And that moment is always available.

As James Clear, author of Atomic Habits, reminds us,“You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems.” The journey back to presence isn’t about one heroic leap, but about shifting the small, daily choices that shape our lives

Illusion of Comfort

We live in a culture that confuses ease with peace. We’ve been sold the idea that self-care is consumption, that relaxation is distraction, and that numbing is the same as nourishing.

Pizza isn’t the problem. The problem is when the pizza becomes a pattern, a repeated escape hatch from our own truth. 

Each slice, scroll, sip, or “just one more episode” becomes a micro-decision away from the discomfort that could actually deliver us to growth.

We are dying from disconnection, not the pizza.

Toxic Comforts

There’s a full spectrum of these “comfort toxins.”

Physical forms include sugar, alcohol, and processed foods.

Emotionally, they show up as people-pleasing, procrastination, or perfectionism.

Spiritually, they appear as overworking, over-giving, or staying busy to avoid being still.

They all share one thing in common: they sedate our self-awareness. They trick the nervous system into safety while the soul starves for meaning. It’s death by a thousand micro-comforts, quiet, polite, and socially acceptable.

Shift

True alignment requires being in tune with your breath. Pausing before you reach for the thing that promises comfort.

Rest over escape? Movement over sugar? Truth over distraction? Connection over comfort?

When you are present, you choose what actually nourishes you. When you are absent, you consume what numbs you.

Waking up from the spell of unconscious choices can sting. 

For me, it was the awkward walk of shame, carrying my empty pizza box to the community trash, wishing I could toss the regret along with it.

The antidote to self-betrayal is actually these pivoting moments of remorse.

It’s the courage to look at your “pizza moments” as signals, reminders that something inside you is asking for attention, comfort, or care.

When you begin to pause and question your behavior in the moment, you reclaim the rich, raw, beautiful fullness of living.

As one of my favorite writers, Geneen Roth, states “We decide, albeit unconsciously, that the pain of unconsciousness is better than the effort to increase awareness.”

Her words ring true for anyone who’s ever reached for comfort instead of presence. The journey isn’t about fixing yourself through force or willpower. As Geneen also writes: “Freedom from obsession is not about something you do; it’s about knowing who you are and recognizing what sustains you and what exhausts you.”

CG Excellence Reflection

• What is your version of “pizza”?

• When do you tend to reach for it, and what are you really seeking in that moment?

• What would alignment feel and taste like instead?

New Year Contemplation

As we approach a new year, it’s natural to think about resolutions, fresh starts, and the habits we want to leave behind.

Let’s not punish ourselves for old patterns. We are now waking up to endless possibilities, one conscious choice at a time.

Remember this, not only are we what we eat, our behaviors dictate our cravings. Each time we reach for comfort on autopilot, we reinforce the cycle, making it easier to crave the familiar and harder to choose what truly serves us.

Here is a fresh approach to setting an intention for the new year:

• Make presence your only resolution.

• Choose alignment over autopilot, one “pizza moment” at a time.

• Let your cravings become invitations to real nourishment, growth, and self-respect.

Let this be the year you choose to live, fully, intentionally, and awake for yourself.

Living with this mindset, you become a magnet for all that serves the best of you.

The Brilliance Within

If you’re ready to transform comfort habits into life-giving rituals, connect with Terry Thompson for personalized wellness coaching and practical guidance founded on compassion and self-respect.

Explore the CG Excellence Training Library; Weekly Blogs, Training Reflection Videos and Podcasts that spotlight servant leaders, like you. My resources are available 24/7, CG Excellence Training.

Engage with tools that sharpen your voice, deepen your capability, and restore your grounded leadership.

Let CG Excellence support your next evolution, set up a discovery call to explore the portal of all possibilities for you, your team and your organization.

Thank you for your kind attention, today!

It is my hope that this message added value to your life.

This is your invitation to subscribe for weekly inspiration.

Yours in service,

Christine

The Human Void

Filling the void is about finally walking through the doorway of the self you were always meant to inhabit.

- CG Excellence

Dedication

This piece is dedicated to RadioBob, whose commitment to visibility, upliftment, and community connection has quietly supported thousands of individuals navigating their own moments of emptiness, transition, and longing.

Your work is a living reminder that loneliness is eased not by noise, but by presence. Through commercial-free music, thoughtful interviews, philosophy, and life tips woven between the notes, you offer tools that reach people where they need it most, gently, without instruction, planting seeds that grow in their own timing.

Your mission to leave people, places, and things a little better than you found them reflects the very heart of this blog. The Human Void honors the spaces we all carry inside, and your platform stands as one of the quiet lights helping others find their way back to themselves.

Self-Attunement

Loneliness is part of the human condition. It shows up in the quiet moments between our roles, in the pauses of our relationships, and in the spaces where we outgrow the old version of ourselves and have not yet fully stepped into the new one. Most people experience loneliness as a signal that something is missing out there; companionship, validation, connection or recognition.

Loneliness is rarely a shortage of people.

Real loneliness forms when the distance between who you are and how you are living becomes too wide to ignore. The void is created by the absence of your own presence, voice, energy, and truth. This is the space only you can fill.

Thich Nhat Hanh often taught that "the longest journey we will ever take is the one from the mind back to the body." That return, back to breath, back to truth, back to presence, is where loneliness begins to dissolve, because you are finally meeting yourself again.

Misalignment Creates the Void

When you're misaligned, you move through life performing versions of yourself, versions shaped by expectations, survival strategies, or outdated identities. Performance is isolating. You can be surrounded by people and still feel invisible because the version of you they respond to isn't the one who lives inside you.

This is why so many people ask: "Why do I feel lonely even around people?"

The answer lies in emotional misalignment. You are not lonely because you lack connection. You are lonely because you've disconnected from yourself.

Loneliness softens when your choices begin to match your internal compass. You stop abandoning your voice. You stop negotiating your needs. You stop outsourcing your direction. Presence returns, and with it comes a grounded sense of belonging that doesn't depend on someone else to activate it.

Brianna Wiest writes that "your true self is not waiting to be found—it's waiting to be remembered." Alignment is remembering. Misalignment is forgetting. The void is the space in between.

Emotional Alignment

The path out of loneliness is emotional alignment.

Through these small and consistent acts, the reconnection with yourself is seamless:

• Listening without judgment

• Making a decision that honors your actual needs

• Speaking a truth you've been suppressing

• Creating something without worrying how it will be received

You will begin moving toward relationships, environments, and commitments that meet you where you already are.

When you fill your own void, you become self-anchored. You become easier to know because you're no longer fragmented internally. People connect with you more deeply because they're finally connecting with the real you.

The void is filled when you return to your center.

From that place, connection becomes richer, calmer, and more purposeful, because it reflects your alignment.

Closing the distance between your internal world and the life you're actually living is attunement.

CG Excellence Reflection 

The void is only an illusion.

You were born with everything you will ever need and want. The emptiness you feel is evidence of forgetting that you are already enough. When you decide to reconnect with your true self, the void becomes a doorway, a doorway that has been open to you all along.

What once felt hollow becomes the threshold of your becoming. The loneliness you experienced was a signal that you were standing at the entrance of your next chapter, waiting to step through.

Filling the void is about finally walking through the doorway of the self you were always meant to inhabit.

Invitation

If this message resonates, share it with someone who may be navigating their own quiet void.

For deeper conversations on emotional alignment, self-awareness, and identity-based leadership, explore more reflections through CG Excellence Training and the uplifting, heart-centered work of RadioBob, whose mission continues to help others return to their own inner light.

Your inner world is worthy of your return.

Explore the CG Excellence Training Library; Weekly Blogs, Training Reflection Videos and Podcasts that spotlight servant leaders, like you. My resources are available 24/7, CG Excellence Training.

Engage with tools that sharpen your voice, deepen your capability, and restore your grounded leadership.

Let CG Excellence support your next evolution, set up a discovery call to explore the portal of all possibilities.

Thank you for your kind attention, today!

It is my hope that this message added value to your life.

This is your invitation to subscribe for weekly inspiration.

Yours in service,

Christine

Return to Alignment

Reclaiming Your Inner World

Anthony G Ahlegian (39) Defensive Back - John Carrol University

Dedication

This blog is dedicated to my steadfast son, Anthony, who stands as a living example of what alignment looks like when it is practiced. His conviction for purpose shows up in his daily acknowledgments, in his ability to create intentional space for clarity, and in the respect he gives to the inner work that alignment requires.

Anthony's commitment to his yoga practice and breath-work is the foundation from which he builds his highest potential. This wellspring fuels his creativity, deepens his wisdom, and strengthens his presence. As a natural teacher, Anthony guides others to nurture their own clarity, helping them bring their best selves to the daily game.

He embodies servant leadership with boundaries, an essential balance that ensures service never becomes self-sacrifice. By tending to his inner world with discipline and respect, he carries the strength to ignite the light in others.

Anthony's example reminds us that your external reality is the echo of your internal truth.

As, Anthony’s mother, I’ve had the privilege of witnessing his evolution with profound gratitude. The way that Anthony lives his truth, steadily, intentionally and with unwavering integrity, has become a quiet lighthouse for many. My love for him is woven into that gratitude, and into the deep honor of being his mom.

The legacy that Anthony continues to build, is a reminder that alignment is a choice, a practice, and a powerful expression of leadership.

“How you do one thing, is how you do everything.” - Anthony G. Ahelgian

Desire

Desire has a quiet way of pulling you away from yourself. Not the healthy desire that expands your life, but the conditioned craving for what is tangible, admired, or externally validated. This kind of desire feels normal, socially reinforced, even responsible, yet it steadily erodes potential.

When you fixate on the tangible, you drift from the quieter intelligence of your soul. The intangible, the inner voice that shapes meaning, identity, and direction, gets muted. Desire becomes noise. You begin responding to impulses that don't belong to you.

Most cravings are inherited. They come from cultural expectation, comparison, old identities, or environments you have outgrown. They feel urgent until you recognize they are not true needs. They are shadows from an earlier version of yourself.

As awareness blossoms, clarity reappears.

Responsibility as Alignment

Jordan Peterson often teaches that a meaningful life begins with taking responsibility for your inner state. Not the outer performance of responsibility, but the disciplined tending of your internal world, your thoughts, emotions, habits, and the architecture of your inner truth.

He warns that when desire becomes your compass, life drifts into unnecessary chaos. You chase what glitters and neglect what grows. You trade potential for momentary comfort. But when you choose alignment over impulse, order returns. Your internal coherence becomes the structure your outer world organizes around.

This is the pivot point where personal power comes back online.

Patterns of Sabotage

As you notice how desire distracts, you begin to see the subtler patterns that keep you looping in old cycles. These patterns show up as hesitation, procrastination and overstimulation.

This is the terrain I explore in my CG Training Reflection video, "The Inner Voice of Self-Sabotage".

This video unpacks the protective but outdated habits that dim your potential. When you understand these patterns, you reclaim the space inside yourself that desire once occupied, the space where identity-based leadership begins.

CG Excellence Reflection

How to Recognize When You've Drifted Out of Alignment

Alignment rarely disappears in one moment. It unravels gradually. When you're out of alignment, your outer world always reflects it. These signs help you recognize the drift:

You begin chasing instead of choosing. You seek validation, reassurance, or reaction instead of moving from inner conviction.

Your inner world feels loud or cluttered. Mental noise replaces guidance. Stillness feels uncomfortable.

Your living space mirrors your inner state. Clutter builds, order slips, and your environment feels heavy. Your home stops restoring you and starts reflecting overwhelm.

You slip into excess—spending, eating, talking, giving. When you are disconnected from your source, the nervous system seeks stimulation to replace clarity. You overspend to feel momentarily full, overeat to self-soothe, overshare to feel seen, or overtalk to fill the silence alignment normally occupies. Excess becomes a stand-in for connection but leaves you emptier every time.

Your emotions intensify. Irritation, anxiety, comparison, or avoidance rise quickly because your grounding has loosened.

You outsource your direction. You look to others for next steps instead of listening inward.

You lose connection to your own voice. Boundaries soften, truth dims, and communication loses resonance.

Your body sends early signals. Fatigue, tension, shallow breathing, or scattered energy appear long before full misalignment does.

You become overly busy. Busyness replaces purpose. Movement becomes a shield against stillness.

You abandon the practices that keep you whole. Breathwork, reflection, yoga, journaling, pilates, your anchors, are the first things you stop.

Return to Alignment Roadmap

“Alignment is returning to who you’ve always been.” - CG Excellence Training

The CG Excellence Route - Home to Yourself

For those who feel far from their source, alignment can feel distant.

Here is a clear, repeatable path back to yourself:

Step 1: Acknowledge Where You Are

Say: "I am out of alignment."Honesty is the first act of self-leadership.

Step 2: Come Back Into Your Body

Return to breath.Feet grounded.Ten slow, intentional inhales and exhales.

Step 3: Clear One Small Space

One counter.One corner.One surface.Order externally signals capability internally.

Step 4: Name What Is True

Write three things:

• What I truly need right now

• What I'm pretending to need

• One value I want to lead from today

Step 5: Rebuild One Daily Anchor

Choose one: breath-work, journaling, yoga, silence, or walking.Make it your daily root.

Step 6: Take One Aligned Action

Ask: "What is one clean action that aligns with who I really am today?"

Step 7: Seek Likeminded Individuals.

Choose people that reinforce your clarity, not your avoidance.

Step 8: Forgive Yourself and put the repeating self destructive voice to rest.

You will return to alignment breath by breath, choice by choice, day by day.

Alignment

Your soul's light is constant, it simply becomes harder to notice when the noise of craving, comparison, or acquisition takes over. When desire quiets, several shifts occur:

• True needs separate from conditioned wants

• You stop outsourcing identity to external forces

• You choose relationships and environments that reinforce integrity

• Your outer world begins mirroring internal coherence

When you achieve alignment, abundance follows as a natural consequence of living from your true center.

CG Excellence Training

If this reflection resonates with where you are, consider taking the next step with CG Excellence.

My work strengthens the inner architecture of leadership, clarity, presence, emotional fitness, and identity-driven direction, so that your external results match the strength of your internal world.

Explore the CG Excellence Training Library; Weekly Blogs, Training Reflection Videos and Podcasts that spotlight servant leaders, like you. My resources are available 24/7, CG Excellence Training.

Engage with tools that sharpen your voice, deepen your capability, and restore your grounded leadership.

Let CG Excellence support your next evolution, set up a discovery call to explore the portal of all possibilities.

Thank you for your kind attention, today!

It is my hope that this message added value to your life.

This is your invitation to subscribe for weekly inspiration.

Yours in service,

Christine

Certainty in Purpose

Photo captured by Ann Marie Ahlegian

Ann Marie's artistry reflects the same principles explored in this reflection. Intention, beauty, transformation, and the courage to create from authentic vision.

Dedication

To my brilliant daughter, Ann Marie, whose steady commitment to her authentic power is a living study in purpose. You expand your life with intention and ease, taking on the world fearlessly while carrying a constant thread of humility. You honor your God-given gifts and creative flow, always seeking to understand and to solve at every turn. When I think of the Beatitudes, your life and spirit are in complete alignment. You live with the audacity to course-correct, and the compassion to support others who have lost their way. Each day you blossom further into who you are meant to become. You move with conscientious eloquence, ingenuity and the true essence of love. May your path continue to unfold with purpose, clarity, grace, and certainty. I Love You.

A CG Reflection on Conscious Leadership

Purpose is often imagined as a lightning strike, one defining moment, one revelation, one instant knowing. Purpose rarely arrives through shock or spectacle. It reveals itself gradually, like remembering something you always knew but forgot how to name.

Certainty works the same way. It becomes the inner field where your decisions land clearly and your voice becomes anchored in its own rhythm.

When purpose and certainty converge, you stop living reactively and begin living from alignment.

Purpose Without Certainty Feels Like Wandering

Many people sense they have a purpose, yet, feel disconnected from it. The pull is there, however, the path feels foggy. They mistake uncertainty for lack of purpose when, in truth, it is the nervous system that's unsettled, not the purpose itself.

Without certainty, even the right direction feels unstable. Without alignment, even the clearest calling feels out of reach.

You find yourself waiting until you feel ready, more confident, more credentialed, more something. Certainty is cultivated from within.

Certainty Without Purpose Feels Like Pushing

Certainty alone can become force. You can be disciplined, productive, driven, yet misaligned. Many achievers carry an air of certainty but feel hollow inside because their direction is inherited, expected, or externally defined.

Certainty without purpose becomes effort without meaning. Purpose without certainty becomes vision without movement.

When these two meet, leadership becomes coherent.

The Consciousness of Certainty

True certainty is a state of consciousness, a somatic clarity that rises when you stop outsourcing your knowing to the outside world.

Michael A. Singer speaks to this beautifully in his work on the seat of awareness. He teaches that clarity emerges when you are no longer entangled in every passing thought. When the noise quiets, you step into the observing consciousness that has always been there, quiet, steady, and unbothered by fear. In that state, certainty is revealed.

Caroline Myss calls this your inner authority, the point where you no longer dilute your intuition to gain approval. She teaches that power is lost whenever we hand our clarity to someone else's comfort. When you stand in your inner authority, purpose stops feeling mysterious. It becomes familiar.

Singer grounds you in the consciousness from which clarity rises. Myss grounds you in the authority that protects that clarity. Together, they anchor the foundation of identity-based leadership.

Carl Jung's Path to Wholeness: Integrating the Self

Carl Jung takes this understanding deeper, into the architecture of the psyche itself. He taught that true certainty cannot exist when you are fragmented. When parts of yourself remain hidden, denied, or rejected, your inner world becomes a battleground. A divided self cannot lead with clarity.

Jung called this journey individuation, the process of becoming whole by integrating all aspects of the self, including the shadow.

The shadow is simply the parts of you that you've disowned. The qualities, desires, and truths you've pushed away because they didn't fit the image you were taught to present. What you reject operates beneath the surface, influencing your decisions, draining your energy, and distorting your sense of self.

Purpose cannot fully emerge when you are at war with yourself.

Jung understood that certainty is born from integration. When you stop rejecting parts of yourself, and bring the unconscious into consciousness, you reclaim your power. You stop performing a version of yourself and start living from your whole self.

Wholeness is integration. Integration creates the inner stability from which true certainty flows.

When you embrace your shadow, you stop second-guessing. When you integrate your fragmented parts, your presence becomes coherent. This is the psychological foundation of identity-based leadership, leading from a unified self.

Neville Goddard’s Teaching on Embodied Purpose

Spiritual teacher Neville Goddard brings this understanding into the body itself. He teaches that when you declare an affirmation, when you speak your purpose with certainty, you are directing all of your cells toward that mission.

Your nervous system listens. Your cells respond. Your energy organizes itself around the declaration you make. When you speak from certainty, your entire being moves in that direction, as you aligned it.

Affirmation without certainty is noise. Certainty without declaration remains dormant. When you speak your purpose from the seat of inner knowing, your biology follows.

Identity-based leadership feels different. Your cells know the mission. Your presence carries it before you ever speak a word. We are reminded that certainty is not just a mental state. It is a somatic one. 

When your consciousness and your cells align, leadership becomes inevitable.

The Convergence

When purpose and certainty weave together, you no longer chase your path. You stop waiting for permission. You stop second-guessing your intuition. You stop abandoning yourself to maintain comfort for others.

This is the moment your leadership becomes your expression.

Purpose + certainty = inner coherence. Inner coherence = natural influence.

CG Excellence Reflections

1. Where in my leadership do I still negotiate my truth to protect someone else's comfort, and what would shift if I chose my inner authority instead?

2. If I step back into the seat of awareness, what becomes clear when the noise of my thoughts settles. What direction has been waiting for me to hear it?

3. What part of myself have I been rejecting or hiding? How might my leadership transform if I integrated that shadow instead of fighting it?

4. What affirmation would I declare if I knew every cell in my body would align with it. What am I waiting for to speak it out loud.
   

Ready to Lead From Alignment?

If this resonated with you, you are ready for the next step to self-mastery.

CG Excellence offers grounded, practical leadership teachings designed to help you:

• Cultivate certainty from within, not from external validation

• Discover and align with your authentic purpose

• Lead from inner coherence rather than reactive patterns

• Build identity-based leadership that feels natural, not forced

• Stay self-regulated and connected to your truth

Connect here to begin your journey toward purpose-driven, certainty-grounded leadership.

Your leadership style is your signature.

Explore more CG Excellence reflections, resources, and leadership support available 24/7, CG Excellence Training.

Continue your growth with grounded, practical leadership teachings that help you stay aligned, self-regulated, and connected to your purpose.

Thank you for your kind attention, today!

It is my hope that this message added value to your life.

This is your invitation to subscribe for weekly inspiration.

Yours in service,

Christine

Ignite Your Brilliance

A celebrated, New York Times best-selling author of “Hidden Potential” and “Think Again” Adam Grant,  once shared a profound encounter that challenged his assumptions about giftedness.
He met the father of two children enrolled in a prestigious New York school for “gifted” students. Curious, he asked the kids directly,
“Can you juggle? Play the piano? Win a spelling bee? What makes you gifted?”

They simply laughed. They couldn’t name it.

Months later, Adam discovered that their gifts were quiet, profound emotional intelligence and mathematical intuition. Their brilliance was steady, luminous, and natural.

This story illuminates a fundamental truth for servant leaders: our greatest responsibility is to help others discover, articulate, and activate their inherent gifts. When we create environments where people understand what they're naturally excellent at and deeply passionate about, we unlock authentic purpose, sustainable performance, and profound fulfillment.

The Threshold of Awareness

There comes a moment when external achievement no longer fills the internal space.
You sense that what once validated you now merely occupies you.
This is the pivotal point of awakening.

The space between what you do and who you are begins to narrow, and that’s where your light leaks in.
This is your personal gateway, the passage between performance and presence.

When you step through it, you stop chasing success and begin embodying coherence.
You realize that brilliance isn’t something you prove; it’s something you permit.

Brilliance Defined

At CG Excellence, we define brilliance as the full, unhindered expression of your authentic energy. The way your presence transforms a space without effort.

Brilliance can look like precision, empathy, creativity, courage, or stillness.

Forms of brilliance:

• Natural Strengths: Abilities that feel effortless and energizing

• Developed Talents: Skills honed through practice that bring satisfaction

• Authentic Passions: Activities that generate intrinsic motivation and joy

• Unique Perspectives: Ways of seeing and solving that only you bring

Examples:

• Creative Expression: Visual arts, storytelling, musical ability, innovative problem-solving

• Relational Intelligence: Active listening, empathetic presence, conflict transformation, community-building

• Communication Mastery: Public speaking, written clarity, teaching, persuasive advocacy

• Analytical Capacity: Strategic thinking, research excellence, pattern recognition, data synthesis

• Technical Expertise: Engineering, design, coding, systems optimization

Some of the most transformative gifts, like the emotional intelligence of Adam’s "gifted" children who operate quietly, shape culture and connection in ways that metrics often miss.

Igniting Your Brilliance Matters

Excellence is your light remembered and expressed.

- CG Excellence

1. Fulfillment Over Validation
   When you live from your brilliance, external approval loses its grip. You begin to move from meaning, not metrics.

2. Energy and Well-Being
   Working from your natural flow conserves energy. You stop pushing against yourself and begin amplifying what already works.

3. Authentic Leadership
   Teams mirror the energy of their leader. When you model alignment and calm confidence, you create cultures that thrive on trust rather than tension.

4. Sustainable Excellence
   Brilliance is renewable. When you serve from authenticity, your contribution expands rather than depletes.

5. Joy and Flow
Joy is the echo of alignment. Working in your zone of brilliance, you create impact and peace simultaneously.

The Servant Leader’s Role

Servant leaders are light-sharers.
Help others see, name, and own their brilliance, especially when they can’t yet see it themselves:

1. Cultivate Self-Reflection Create rhythms and rituals that invite introspection. Ask: What activities make you lose track of time? When do you feel most alive? What do others consistently ask for your help with?

2. Offer Generous Feedback As a servant leader, your observations carry weight. Regularly name the strengths you see in others, specifically and sincerely. Sometimes people need permission to claim their personal gifts.

3. Encourage Experimentation Build cultures where trying new things is celebrated, not penalized. Brilliance is often revealed through exploration, iteration, and even "failure." Provide stretch assignments, cross-functional projects, and learning opportunities.

4. Honor Diverse Expressions Resist narrow definitions of excellence. The quiet organizer, the empathetic listener, the person who brings levity, these are forms of brilliance as well. Broaden your aperture for what "gifted" looks like.

To lead this way is to replace judgment with curiosity and pressure with permission.

CG Excellence Reflection

Your personal signature shines when who you are and what you do become one fluent expression.

Ask yourself:

• Where am I dimming to make others comfortable?

• What have I mistaken for humility that’s really self-denial?

• What would change if I stopped managing perception and started radiating truth?

Aristotle said, “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is but a habit.”
At CG Excellence, we take that one step further:

Excellence is your light remembered and expressed.

Igniting your brilliance makes you available, to your purpose, your team, and yourself.

When you embody your light, the world simply adjusts to the glow.

If this reflection resonated with you, explore how our CG Excellence Training customized training videos help organizations cultivate brilliance from the inside out. Where personal awareness fuels professional excellence.

Start here, type in “BLOG” as your referral source for a complimentary consultation.

Thank you for your kind attention, today!

It is my hope that this message added value to your life.

This is your invitation to subscribe for weekly inspiration.

Yours in service,

Christine

Becoming or Numbing

When you zoom out through the lens of the soul, you begin to see everything with clarity.

-CG Excellence

Conscious Living Versus Reactive Existence

There are two filters through which we experience life….

One is the conditioned world filter, the perspective of the collective illusion that keeps you spinning, consuming, reacting, and surviving.

The other is the soul filter, the lens of higher consciousness that invites you to remember why you’re here and how your energy is meant to serve.

The Conditioned Filter

In the conditioned world, life becomes a loop of reactions. You’re guided by conditioning, the endless chase for comfort, validation, or control. Here, you are numbing, not becoming.
Each impulse, the quick bite, the needless purchase, the distracted scroll, disconnects you from your own divine intelligence. You trade stillness for stimulation, purpose for productivity, and consciousness for convenience.

This is the food system that dulls your body’s natural wisdom and numbs your mind. The money system that rewards exhaustion and fear. The impulse loop of buying, eating, scrolling, and seeking validation, all designed to keep you externally focused and internally empty.

Through this filter, life feels urgent, and unfulfilling. You’re either trying to save others or maintain your own balance while your energy is slowly siphoned away. You might even find yourself enabling others’ destructive habits in the name of love or loyalty, completely unaware that you’re losing alignment with your own divine assignment.

It’s not that the conditioned world is negative. It is simply a teacher, one that reveals what you’ve outgrown. It reminds you how easy it is to confuse activity for purpose.

The Soul Filter

The soul filter transforms how you move through every dimension of life. 🌙✨

Monday (Moon): Honor emotion as guidance

Tuesday (Mars): Protect your energy with boundaries

Wednesday (Mercury): Choose conscious thought

Thursday (Jupiter): Serve from your spiritual gifts

Friday (Venus): Express your heart authentically

Saturday (Saturn): Build intentional structure

Sunday (Life Cycle): Rest, reflect, renew

At the center is EL, your divine essence, your highest self, the consciousness that knows the way back.

When you align with this sacred geometry, every choice becomes intentional. Every moment becomes an opportunity to become, not numb.

When you zoom out through the lens of the soul, you begin to see everything with clarity. You recognize that your body, mind, and spirit are sacred instruments of service and that the fuel you give them determines your clarity and power.

From this higher perspective, you no longer engage in the endless cycle of fixing, rescuing, or over-giving. Instead you reflect light back to others so they can remember their own.

You start asking:

• What energy am I consuming?

• What energy am I offering?

• Is this action aligned with my soul’s mission or the world’s conditioning?

Through this filter, life slows down.

Your actions become intentional. Your energy becomes magnetic. You begin nourishing consciousness.

Shifting the Lens

Perspective is all there is. The conditioned world thrives on your distraction; the soul thrives on your awareness.

Every moment invites a choice..
Will you feed the conditioning or fuel your soul system?
Will you stay trapped in reaction or rise into reflection?

When you remember who you are beyond the noise, a conscious being here in service to growth, wisdom, and love, the perspective lens is crystal clear. You no longer spin the wheel, you steer the course.

The Power of Remembering

When you rise above the conditioned world and live from your soul perspective, life stops being a series of tasks and becomes a sacred opportunity for growth. You begin to see instead of react, serve instead of save, and inspire instead of enable.

Every act, whether it’s a conversation, a meal, a purchase, or a pause, becomes an energetic choice. You are either draining your frequency or amplifying it; either aligning with fear or embodying service.

The beautiful truth is that your soul always knows the way back.
All it asks is that you listen, realign, and act with intention.

CG Excellence Reflection

Remember your purpose. Align your energy. Serve from your pure essence.

At CG Excellence Training, we help individuals and organizations shift from reactive service to aligned service. Where leadership, customer care, and everyday interactions become reflections of personal brilliance.

When you lead from alignment, your service transforms everything it touches. Your culture becomes magnetic. Your impact becomes measurable. Your people remember why they are here and your customers feel the difference, immediately.

The question isn't whether your organization can afford to shift. It's whether you can afford not to.

Let's discover how CG Excellence Training can elevate your team. Start here, type in “BLOG” as your referral source for a complimentary consultation.

Thank you for your kind attention, today!

It is my hope that this message added value to your life.

This is your invitation to subscribe for weekly inspiration.

Yours in service,

Christine

Impulse and Action

“Integrity is the alignment between who you say you are and how you actually show up.

Impulse with awareness becomes liberation and excellence.”

-CG Excellence

Impulse Is the Spark. Action Is the Fire.

Together they ignite the patterns that mold your personal and professional health, client relationships, and career ascension.

IF we don't understand where our impulses originate, from fear, ego, habit, or higher intuition, we risk navigating our careers in circles. Impulse without awareness creates limitation. Impulse with awareness becomes liberation and excellence.

The Awareness Threshold

Impulse in service feels automatic. A client complains, you react defensively, and suddenly you're locked in another limiting pattern. Awareness is the hinge point between impulse and action.

In customer service excellence, this sequence transforms everything:

Awareness → Intention → Action

When Impulse Spirals Out of Control: Fracturing Integrity and the Domino Effect

There's a dangerous progression that happens when impulses drive your actions without awareness—your life begins to spiral. What starts as one reactive choice cascades into dysfunction, disorganization, profound inconsistency, and the fracturing of your professional integrity. When your integrity fractures and your life spirals, everyone in your orbit feels the impact.

Caroline Myss reminds us: "You cannot change anything in your life with intention alone. Intention without action is useless."

The Fracture Begins

The Spiral Accelerates Dysfunction and Disorganization

Integrity is the alignment between who you say you are and how you actually show up. It's the authenticity clients feel. It's the trust teams build. It's the foundation of authentic leadership.

One impulsive reaction to a difficult client. One defensive response born from ego. One moment where you let frustration dictate your action instead of awareness. In that moment, your integrity fractures.

You present yourself as patient and empathetic, but when a difficult client triggers frustration, your reactive impulse takes over and you respond with defensiveness. The client feels the inconsistency. Your team witnesses the contradiction. Your professional authenticity splinters.

Impulse without awareness doesn't stay contained. It spirals.

The Spiral Accelerates Dysfunction and Disorganization

Each unexamined impulse creates another fracture. One reactive choice tips the next, which tips the next, which tips the next.

The spiral manifests as:

• Disorganization: You can't maintain systems because you're constantly reacting instead of planning

• Inconsistency: Clients never know which version of you they'll encounter

• Dysfunction: Your work environment becomes unpredictable and exhausting

• Loss of control: You feel perpetually behind, overwhelmed, unable to get ahead

Your professional alignment—the very thing that makes you trustworthy—is now fragmented. Clients sense the inconsistency. Teams lose confidence. Your entire professional presence becomes unreliable.

The Domino Effect - When Your Spiral Effects Others

Here is where the real cost emerges, your spiral doesn't stay yours.

Your clients feel it. They lose trust because they can't predict whether you'll show up with presence or reactivity. Your fractured authenticity becomes their uncertainty.

Your team feels it. They absorb your stress and compensate for your disorganization. Your fractured reliability becomes their burden.

Your family feels it. The dysfunction you've normalized at work becomes the energy you carry home. Your fractured presence becomes their reality.

Your career feels it. Opportunities pass you by because leadership requires consistency. Your fractured identity becomes your ceiling.

This is the domino effect of impulse without awareness. Before you realize it, entire systems, professional and personal, are collapsing under the weight of unconscious patterns.

Breaking the Spiral

“One conscious choice stops the acceleration. It creates a moment of stability and begins to restore your coherence.”

-CG Excellence

Restoring Your Authenticity Through Awareness

Please know this..spirals can be stopped. Fractured integrity can be restored. The moment you introduce awareness, the moment you pause before the impulse becomes action, the spiral begins to slow.

When you choose aligned action over reactive impulse:

• Authenticity returns while your actions align with your stated values

• Organization emerges when you are planning instead of reacting

• Consistency solidifies because people experience your reliability

• Control restores as you are choosing your responses

• Trust rebuilds since your professional integrity is no longer fractured

  Dedication

  With heartfelt gratitude for Financial Advisor, Timothy Murray whose disciplined awareness exemplifies the profound difference between reactive impulse and aligned action. Timothy’s mastery in guiding clients through impulse spending and architecting their most abundant retirement years inspires this exploration of how awareness transforms every professional interaction into excellence. Timothy’s platform of service is National Financial Network.

  Timothy understands that true wealth, whether measured in dollars or in the quality of one's retirement years, is built through aligned action rooted in deep awareness. Every conscious choice made today becomes the architecture of tomorrow's freedom. Thank you for your commitment to conscious choice-making that begins with awareness.

The CG Excellence Commitment

CG Excellence Training cultivates the awareness, intentionality, and aligned action that make exceptional service inevitable.

What you can expect…

1. Impulse awareness practices for customer-facing professionals

2. Pattern recognition skills that reveal limiting behaviors

3. Aligned action frameworks for transforming reactive responses

4. Emotional regulation techniques for maintaining excellence

5. Leadership development that models intentional service

6. Integrity training that ensures actions align with values

When service professionals learn to redirect impulses while restoring their authenticity, everything transforms. Client satisfaction increases. Team morale improves. Difficult situations become opportunities for alignment.

Patterns are created by past impulses and actions. New patterns can be created through awareness and aligned action starting right now.

Reflection

Pause today and examine your impulses:

• What patterns do you notice in your customer interactions?

• Where do your reactive impulses originate?

• What would aligned action look like in your most challenging scenarios?

• Where have you noticed fractures in your professional integrity?

Every moment offers the choice. Reactive pattern or aligned action. Contraction or expansion. Fractured authenticity or restored excellence.

Ready to Transform Your Service Patterns?

Discover CG Excellence Training:

✅ Customized Training Videos

✅ The Fine Art Customer Service

✅ Frontline Staff Empowerment

✅ Premium Individual Self-Mastery

✅ Mission Driven Team Alignment

The impulse toward excellence is already within you. Align your actions with that truth.

Contact CG Excellence Training to explore our programs and discover how identity and awareness-based service can transform your team and Elevate Your Impact.

Type in “BLOG” as your Referral for your Complimentary Consultation.

Thank you for your kind attention, today!

It is my hope that this message added value to your life.

This is your invitation to subscribe for weekly inspiration.

Yours in service,

Christine

A Moment In Time

In the practice of customer service excellence, presence empowers you to join that dynamic dance with every client, without hesitation, without defensiveness, with complete commitment to co-creating exceptional experiences.

-CG Excellence

How Presence, Clarity, and Intentional Choice Transform Every Client Interaction

Every iteration of your professional identity, the practitioner you have been, the leader you are becoming, and the visionary you have yet to embody, is forged through deliberate choice. Not by happenstance, not by external circumstance, but by the conscious decisions you make when your internal wisdom speaks and you honor its guidance.

Within the realm of customer service excellence, this principle intensifies. Every interaction becomes a crucible of choice. Every client dialogue presents an opportunity for profound alignment. Every challenge extends an invitation to embody your most elevated professional self.

The Clarity That Catalyzes Transformation

There exists a threshold moment, sometimes whisper-quiet, sometimes luminously charged, when clarity penetrates the complexity of a challenging customer interaction. It may arrive during a high-stakes conversation, amid intricate problem resolution, or in the pregnant pause before you respond to expressed frustration. In that singular instant, extraneous noise recedes and you experience it: seamless alignment between your authentic self and your service delivery.

Within that convergence of authenticity and purpose, the entire interaction undergoes metamorphosis. Resistance dissipates where tension once dominated. Elegant solutions materialize where obstacles appeared insurmountable. Trust deepens organically, communication achieves fluidity, and your energy transmutes from effortful striving to effortless connection.

This constitutes the foundational philosophy of CG Excellence Training: equipping service professionals to recognize and inhabit these moments of alignment, where exceptional service transcends aspiration and becomes inevitable reality.

Clarity as Gateway to Excellence

Clarity in service delivery functions not as imperative, but as invitation. It poses essential questions:

Will you continue operating from conditioned reactivity, or will you consciously select a superior standard of service?

Will you maintain allegiance to "established protocol," or commit to your untapped potential for excellence?

As philosopher Alan Watts articulated with characteristic insight:

"You are a function of what the whole universe is doing in the same way that a wave is a function of what the whole ocean is doing."

When you integrate this understanding into customer service practice, you cease imposing solutions and instead harmonize with the organic rhythm of human connection. You become integral to resolution rather than adversarial to challenge.

The Transformative Power of Present-Moment Service

Alignment does not materialize in theoretical future training sessions, it manifests in the immediate present of every customer engagement. This is where your choices animate service excellence. As spiritual teacher Eckhart Tolle illuminates in The Power of Now:

"Realize deeply that the present moment is all you ever have. Make the Now the primary focus of your life."

In customer service contexts, this translates to transformative presence:

• Deep listening that enables clients to feel genuinely witnessed

• Empathetic response that honors the human being behind the inquiry

• Conscious problem-solving that addresses foundational needs, not merely surface symptoms

• Authentic engagement that elevates transactions into meaningful relationships

When you select presence in service, you create space for clarity. When you embrace clarity, you enable alignment. While in alignment, clients perceive the qualitative difference immediately, responding with trust, sustained loyalty, and enthusiastic advocacy.

Choice as Catalyst for Service Momentum

Each time you choose alignment over automaticity in customer service, your professional neural architecture reconfigures. You transition from serving by default to serving by intentional design. Every choice becomes a deliberate brushstroke in the masterwork of your professional legacy, purposeful, consequential, and transformative.

Alan Watts offered this wisdom:

"The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance."

In the practice of customer service excellence, presence empowers you to join that dynamic dance with every client, without hesitation, without defensiveness, with complete commitment to co-creating exceptional experiences.

CG Excellence Reflection Prompt

Pause in this moment and contemplate:

What is one choice I can make right now, in this precise instant, that aligns with my most elevated vision of service excellence?

Consider these dimensions:

• How might I bring heightened presence to my next client interaction?

• Which reactive pattern am I prepared to release in favor of intentional response?

• How can I transform a challenging circumstance into an opportunity for authentic connection?

• What does my highest professional self embody in service delivery?

Document your insight. Implement it immediately. Allow this moment in time to become your canvas, and observe how clients respond to your aligned presence.

The CG Excellence Commitment: Transforming Service Through Alignment

At CG Excellence Training, we maintain that exceptional customer service originates in internal alignment. We do not merely transmit techniques, we cultivate the presence, clarity, and intentional choice that animate those techniques with vitality and authenticity.

Our comprehensive training methodology integrates:

• Mindful presence practices tailored for customer-facing professionals

• Emotional intelligence development for navigating complex interactions

• Alignment exercises that bridge personal values with professional service delivery

• Real-world application of presence-based service principles

• Sustained support for maintaining excellence within challenging environments

When service professionals learn to inhabit moments of alignment, systemic transformation occurs. Client satisfaction metrics elevate. Team morale strengthens. Difficult interactions become portals for connection. And service evolves from occupational function into vocational calling.

Dedication

The High Priestess reveals how intuitive presence transforms understanding. Each moment contains infinite layers of meaning, waiting to be witnessed, honored, understood.

With deep appreciation for the way you honor every moment in time, Lynn Sabulski, a masterful intuitive reader whose extraordinary gift lies not merely in perceiving moments, but in illuminating the profound connections that weave them into meaning. Through your practice, you exemplify the art of presence, connecting the dots between past, present, and future with such clarity that your clients discover answers to nagging questions, and a deeper understanding of their own unfolding journey.

You demonstrate daily what it means to inhabit alignment: listening beyond words, sensing beyond surface, and serving from a place of authentic wisdom. Your work reminds us that true service, whether intuitive guidance or customer excellence, begins with the courage to be fully present and the commitment to honor what each moment reveals.

This exploration of presence, clarity, and intentional choice in service is inspired by practitioners like you, who transform every client interaction into a moment of genuine connection and transformative insight.

Ready to Elevate Your Service Excellence?

Visit CG Excellence Training to explore our programs and discover how presence-based service can transform your professional impact.

Schedule a complimentary consultation today and take the first step toward service to ensure client satisfaction, create advocates, build loyalty, and reflect the best version of your professional self.

Further Inspiration & Resources

Alan Watts – Alan Watts Organization
Audio lectures, essays, and archives on presence and flow

Eckhart Tolle – The Power of Now
Book excerpt and teachings on presence in daily life

CG Excellence Blog – Introspection: Mirror of Service
A reflection on presence, leadership, and the way we show up in each moment of service

Thank you for your kind attention, today!

It is my hope that this message added value to your life.

This is your invitation to subscribe for weekly inspiration.

Yours in service,

Christine

Vibration Dictates Destiny

The infinite reflections remind us that we are radiant frequencies in motion - each one a new expression of light. Your vibration dictates your destiny.

-CG Excellence

There is a frequency in every customer interaction — a pulse beneath your words, a quiet hum beneath your response. The mirror of customer experience reveals what is vibrational.

What you emit in service is what you expand. What you become aware of in each interaction is what you begin to transform.

The Mirror Effect of Service Energy

Every customer interaction is a vibration in motion. When your tone carries genuine care, it returns amplified through client loyalty. When your words carry gratitude and respect, your service environment shifts to meet that frequency.

The truth is profound: clients are not reacting to what you say — they're responding to what you are.

Your service vibration is your professional invitation. It's the invisible current shaping your outcomes, your client relationships, and your level of fulfillment.

The people and circumstances that enter your service field are reflections of your inner professional tone. When you shift that tone — even slightly — your client experience recalibrates in real time.

As Dr. David R. Hawkins explains in The Map of Consciousness, each emotional state corresponds to a measurable frequency — from fear and apathy at the lowest levels to love and joy at the highest. In customer service excellence, the journey involves learning to transmute them into alignment with your higher frequency of authenticity.

Attunement to Your Higher Service Self

Raising your service vibration is about attunement — aligning your thoughts, words, and energy with what your desired outcome.

As Eckhart Tolle teaches in The Power of Now, the shift from mental noise to conscious presence instantly raises your frequency. When you become aware of your inner stillness before responding to a frustrated client, you enter the space of clarity, intuition, and genuine care.

Learn more about Eckhart Tolle's teachings

Each breath before you respond, each thought you choose in challenging moments, each service choice becomes an instrument of professional alignment. You can feel it when you're in attunement: your body relaxes, your intuition strengthens, and your service environment mirrors your calm.

This is the essence of CG Excellence Training: teaching service professionals to recognize and cultivate the vibrational frequency that transforms ordinary service into extraordinary human connection.

Raising Your Service Resonance

Practical ways to raise your service resonance:

• Conscious breathing — Pause before responding to center your frequency

• Gratitude practice — Begin each service day acknowledging what you appreciate

• Intentional language — Choose words that carry the vibration you want to create

• Empathetic presence — Listen not just to words, but to the emotional frequency beneath them

The Vibrational Leadership of Service

In customer service, your vibration sets the tone for every interaction, influences team energy, and creates the emotional environment in which clients either feel genuinely cared for or merely processed.

Service leaders who understand vibrational awareness recognize:

• Tone carries more weight than words

• Energy is contagious throughout your team

• Presence transforms outcomes

• Authenticity resonates with clients

Scripts fail when the vibrational frequency doesn't match. True service excellence emerges when your professional vibration aligns with your highest intention to genuinely serve.

The Mirror of Client Experience

Every client interaction holds up a mirror to your service vibration. When a client responds with gratitude and loyalty, they're reflecting the care you genuinely offered. When a client becomes defensive or difficult, the interaction reveals an opportunity to choose alignment.

The question is never "What's wrong with this client?"
Ask - "What is this interaction revealing, and how can I choose alignment?"

You always have the power to choose your vibrational response — and that choice shapes the entire trajectory of the interaction.

Dedication

To my dear friend — who honors her keen awareness of vibration in all circumstances, and whose attunement to energy reminds us that resonance is chosen, cultivated, and lived. Sarah embodies the art of grace through frequency and the wisdom of alignment through presence.

Ready to Elevate Your Service Frequency?

Discover CG Excellence customized training videos designed specifically for your team:

✅ Vibrational awareness frameworks that transform service from reactive to intentional
✅ Energy alignment practices for maintaining excellence under pressure
✅ Conscious presence training that creates genuine client connection
✅ Leadership development modules that elevate entire teams through vibrational excellence

Don't allow unconscious patterns dictate your service impact.

Schedule a complimentary consultation and discover how our personalized video training can transform your team's service frequency and create lasting client loyalty.

Your service vibration is your signature.

Thank you for your kind attention, today!

It is my hope that this message added value to your life.

This is your invitation to subscribe for weekly inspiration.

Yours in service,

Christine

Turning the Page

“Every day offers us the chance to turn the page, to choose excellence over mediocrity, connection over convenience, growth over comfort. Age becomes irrelevant when we're committed to continuous becoming.” - CG Excellence

A Reflection on Growth, Legacy, and Infinite Possibility

This weekend, I celebrated sixty-five years of experiences, efforts, energies, support, family, and joy. Each chapter has held its own lessons and its own mirrors, some I've needed to process and polish, others shining with pride for the devotion I've poured into people, projects, and passion.

As I turn the page, I stand in my power and recognize that this life is a mere hologram of what is transpiring in my soul. The mirror I face is not always easy to look into, but it is always honest. It reveals both the growth still unfolding and the beauty already built.

When Passion Meets Purpose: The Alchemy of Excellence

When I reflect on my mission in CG Excellence Training™ and SHRINKELZ® Skincare, I am reminded that when effort aligns with passion and purpose, the road is limitless. The pages are limitless. The book itself is infinite. These ventures are extensions of my commitment to excellence, authenticity, and transformation. 

CG Excellence Training™ emerged from decades of understanding that true customer service is about human connection, emotional intelligence, and the courage to show up fully for others.

SHRINKELZ® represents something equally profound: the belief that confidence begins from within, that science and luxury can coexist, and that every person deserves to feel comfortable in their own skin. Both projects reflect the same core truth, excellence is a daily practice of becoming.

The Legacy We Build Through Service

I am beyond proud of my two children, Anthony and Ann Marie, whose lives are my greatest joy and legacy!

I've come to understand that legacy extends beyond family, it lives in every interaction, every moment of service, every time we choose to elevate someone else's experience.

In customer service, we create moments of human connection that ripple outward. Every client who feels truly heard, every customer who experiences genuine care, every interaction where we choose empathy over efficiency, these become part of our living legacy.

The mirror of service reflects back our own capacity for growth. When we serve others with excellence, we discover reserves of patience, creativity, and compassion we didn't know we possessed. We become better versions of ourselves through the act of lifting others.

The Inner Work of Excellence

This reflection echoes the very heartbeat of CG Excellence. In my CG Training Reflection video "Activate Your Zenith In Life and Leadership”, I share how our potential is never fixed, and how every page we turn reveals a higher version of ourselves. That truth feels especially alive today, reminding me that growth is not bound by age or circumstance, it is infinite.

In customer service, this translates to a fundamental belief: every interaction is an opportunity for excellence. We are always better than we think we are, and our clients deserve to experience that elevated version of us, the one that listens deeply, responds thoughtfully, and serves with genuine care.

The CG Training Reflection Video “The Inner Work of Leadership: How to Save Yourself from Yourself", explores the courage it takes to look into the mirror, acknowledge what no longer serves, and rewrite the patterns that hold us back. 

Turning the page at 65 is my commitment to that inner work, releasing what diminishes my light so I can step fully into joy and brilliance.

This inner work is essential for anyone in service. We cannot give what we do not have. We cannot offer authentic care if we haven't learned to care for ourselves. We cannot create transformative experiences for others if we're not committed to our own transformation.

The Science of Human Connection

Just as SHRINKELZ® combines scientific precision with sensorial luxury, exceptional customer service blends emotional intelligence with systematic excellence. There's a science to creating meaningful connections:

Active listening is creating space for someone to feel fully seen and understood. Empathetic response goes beyond problem-solving to acknowledge the human experience behind every inquiry. Proactive service anticipates needs before they're expressed, creating moments of delightful surprise.

The formula for excellence only requires intention:

• Presence over productivity

• Connection over completion

• Understanding over urgency

• Solutions that serve the whole person, not just the immediate problem.

Redefining Success at Every Stage

“At 65, I'm redefining what success means. It's not about accumulating achievements, it's about the depth of impact, the authenticity of relationships, and the legacy of excellence we leave in every interaction.”

Success in customer service follows the same principle. It's measured in the moments when someone feels truly cared for, when a difficult situation becomes an opportunity for connection, when we transform a transaction into a relationship.

Every day offers us the chance to turn the page, to choose excellence over mediocrity, connection over convenience, growth over comfort. Age becomes irrelevant when we're committed to continuous becoming.

The Infinite Possibility of Service

CG Excellence Training™ exists because I believe that exceptional customer service is both an art and a learnable skill. It's about recognizing that behind every inquiry is a human being with hopes, frustrations, dreams, and needs that extend far beyond the immediate transaction. When we approach service with this understanding, every interaction becomes sacred. Every problem becomes an opportunity to demonstrate care. Every difficult customer becomes a teacher, showing us new depths of patience and creativity.

The mirror of service reflects our highest potential. It shows us who we can become when we choose to serve with excellence, authenticity, and love.

A New Chapter of Excellence

Today, with gratitude for my circle of influence, all that has been and excitement for what is to come, I choose to live my very best life. 

This commitment extends to every aspect of CG Excellence, to the training we provide, the relationships we build, the gold standard of servant leadership that we model.

The Ripple Effect of Excellence

When we serve with genuine excellence, we create ripples that extend far beyond the immediate interaction. A customer who feels truly cared for carries that experience into their next interaction. A client who receives exceptional service becomes an ambassador for that standard of care.

We don't just support individuals, we elevate the entire ecosystem of human interaction. Every moment of authentic service raises the bar for what's possible in human connection.

This is the deeper purpose of CG Excellence Training™, not only to improve customer service metrics, but to contribute to a world where being truly seen, heard, and cared for becomes the standard rather than the exception.

Looking Forward: The Infinite Book

Today begins a new chapter—one filled with infinite possibility.

The book of excellence is never finished. There are always new chapters to write, new ways to serve, new depths of connection to explore. At 65, I'm not winding down, I'm opening up to the infinite possibilities that come when we align our work with our deepest values.

For everyone in service, this is the invitation: to see your work not as a job, but as a calling. To recognize that every interaction is an opportunity for excellence. To understand that through serving others with authenticity and care, we discover and develop the best versions of ourselves.

The mirror of service reflects infinite potential. The question is, are you willing to commit to the daily practice of raising the bar for yourself?

At 65, turning this page, I choose excellence. I choose growth. I choose to serve with everything I have, knowing that in lifting others, we lift ourselves.

The pages are limitless. The book itself is infinite.

Ready to discover your own infinite potential in service excellence?

Explore CG Excellence Training and join a community committed to transforming service into an art form of human connection.

Thank you for your kind attention, today!

It is my hope that this message added value to your life.

This is your invitation to subscribe for weekly inspiration.

Yours in service,

Christine

Proximity Amplification Power

Choose the circles you step into, and be intentional with the energy you bring—because what you touch, you amplify.

-CG Excellence

Like golden circles meeting at a single spark, our proximity to others amplifies what already lives within us—joy becomes brighter, courage bolder, and purpose clearer.

Choose energies wisely. Surround yourself with people who don't just fill space but amplify your excellence and brilliance. The circles you step into should light up your best qualities, expand your courage, and reflect the purpose you carry. When you curate your proximity with intention, you not only protect your energy—you elevate it, and in doing so, you elevate everyone around you.

The Amplifying Effect

How Others' Energy Shapes Your Own

In every interaction, there's an unseen exchange taking place—energy. Whether in a boardroom, a coffee shop, or your own living room, the people around you hold the power to amplify different parts of you. Tony Robbins famously teaches, proximity is power the standards of those closest to you quietly recalibrate your own. Your environment becomes the silent architect of your potential.

When Energy Magnifies Your Shadows

We’ve all felt it: the colleague whose chronic frustration seems to ignite our own irritability. The friend whose pessimism pulls us toward doubt. This isn’t about blame—it’s a mirror. The energy you feel amplified is a clue. It reveals a part of you that’s responsive, perhaps even tender, beneath the surface. Anger only sticks if there’s something in you ready to spark. Carolyn Myss warns of energetic vampires, patterns and people that siphon vitality. Awareness of these dynamics is sacred self-care.

When Energy Elevates Your Light

Conversely, step into a room with a joyful, visionary leader or a friend who lives with gratitude, and your own positivity expands. Their light doesn't create joy within you—it awakens the joy that was already there. Dr. Joe Dispenza’s. work on heart-brain coherence shows that environments can literally reorder our biology—our internal energy centers attune to what surrounds us. Great leaders understand this: they curate environments where positivity, curiosity, and courage are contagious.

Practical Reflection for Servant Leaders

Notice Your Triggers– When someone amplifies anger or doubt in you, pause. What value or wound is being touched?

Curate Your Circle – Surround yourself with people who inspire your best qualities. Ken Coleman’s Proximity Principle reminds us, positioning yourself near the right people and in the right places creates opportunities that skill alone can't unlock.

Be the Amplifier – Your energy is also contagious. Ask yourself: What am I amplifying in others today?

CG Excellence Insight

Energy awareness is emotional intelligence. By recognizing how others amplify your behavior, you step into choice rather than reaction. You stop outsourcing your emotional state to the room and start leading it.

Take a moment today to reflect: How are the closest five people in your life amplifying your energy?

Share your thoughts in the comments or journal your insights as a personal commitment to choose your circles with purpose.

Want to master the art of amplifying excellence?

Explore more leadership and customer engagement resources at CG Excellence Training and elevate your team’s culture today. Learn more

Hint of Self-Care

As you nurture your emotional environment, remember your physical one. A small daily ritual—like applying SHRINKELZ® Signature Serum during your morning or evening routine—can serve as a tangible reminder: the energy you keep close should hydrate, nourish, and refresh you inside and out.

Dedication to the Master of Amplification…

In the symphony of creation, brilliance rarely echoes alone. Every spark needs a resonator, someone who quietly steadies the frame so vision can expand and light can travel farther. For me, that resonator is Zohair “Z” Yasin - Z World Webs the master of amplification - who brilliantly takes raw inspiration and weaves it into reality. Z’s unseen excellence magnifies my creative energy, turning fleeting ideas lasting impact.

This blog is a celebration of the unseen hands that amplify your inspired actions.

Thank you for your kind attention, today!

It is my hope that this message added value to your life.

This is your invitation to subscribe for weekly inspiration.

Yours in service,

Christine

Introspection - Mirror of Service

Your eyes are a reflection of the service you deliver to the world. They reveal the truth of who you are and the invitation to strive for your highest potential.

-CG Excellence

Why Introspection Matters in Service

In the realm of servant leadership, introspection is essential. Every customer interaction is a mirror reflecting our presence, energy, and intention. What we see in the mirror of service is not only the behavior of others, it is also the truth of who we are as leaders.

At CG Excellence Training, we teach that you are always better than you think you are. That discovery comes through introspection — pausing to ask: What am I truly bringing into this moment of service?

The Mirror of Service: Seeing Ourselves Through Others

Customer service is about transformation.

The mirror of service shows us:

• When a customer responds with gratitude, our ability to create trust shines back at us.

• When a customer reacts with frustration, it invites us to reflect inward — not with blame, but with curiosity.

As shared in the CG Excellence Training customizable The Fine Art of Customer Service video, every customer interaction is an opportunity to represent not just the task, but the mission. The mirror reminds us that excellence is not external; it begins with identity and self-awareness.

In the sacred moments of morning and evening, the mirror of service is a daily practice — a way of aligning how we show up for others with how we show up for ourselves.

Introspection in Customer Service Leadership

Introspection in leadership is the practice of looking within to lead better without. Without introspection, leadership becomes performance. With it, leadership becomes transformation.

From my Emotional Fitness training: “The story behind the trigger is more important than the trigger itself.” The mirror of service helps leaders uncover those stories and regulate emotions so they can serve with clarity and patience.

From The Power of Discernment: Introspection creates the pause between reaction and response, helping leaders choose inspired action over impulse.

SHRINKELZ® was born from that same principle: reflection, refinement, and renewal. What starts as a skincare ritual becomes a reminder to face the day unapologetically — confident in your service, clear in your presence, radiant in your leadership.

Practical Ways to Use Introspection Daily

Servant leaders don’t need long retreats to practice reflection — the workplace itself is the perfect training ground. Use these micro-moments of introspection in service:

• Before answering a call: Ask, Am I leading with warmth or obligation?

• During conflict: Pause. What story am I telling about this person, and what story are they telling about me?

• In routine tasks: Notice your energy. Am I present or mechanical?

Pause in service to align your leadership presence with your mission.

This act of self-respect ripples outward.

Introspection: The Key to Servant Leadership Excellence

The mirror of service never lies. It reflects your presence, your values, and your growth edges. For the true servant leader, this is not criticism — it is the gift of clarity.

As the You Are Always Better Than You Think You Are training reminds us: The brilliance you seek is already within you — service simply reflects it back.

I invite you to explore more with CG Excellence Training. Together we build leaders who serve from identity. Step into aligned service for you and your team, here: Contact

Thank you for your kind attention, today!

This is your invitation to subscribe for weekly inspiration.

Yours in service,

Christine

The Power of Discernment

“When servant leaders practice inspired action with discernment, they model something extraordinary: the balance of courage and wisdom.”

-CG Excellence

There are moments in life when a quiet inner whisper arrives. It may be a thought, an image, or simply a nudge that says: “move now”.

Other times, the whisper says: wait, not yet. The tension between these two calls—action and stillness—reveals one of the greatest powers a person can cultivate: discernment.

Discernment is knowing which sparks hold the fire of transformation and which are merely distractions dressed in urgency.

Wayne Dyer connected discernment with inspiration itself. “When you’re inspired, dormant forces, faculties, and talents come alive, and you discover yourself to be a greater person than you ever dreamed.” Inspiration and discernment dance together - one offers the nudge, the other offers the clarity to follow.

Eckhart Tolle reminds us that “stillness is where creativity and inspired action are found.” Discernment, then, is presence in motion.

Impulse, on the other hand, often comes wrapped in anxiety. It carries the frantic energy of “I have to do this now or lose everything.” Persons who mistake impulse for inspiration find themselves scattered, exhausted, and further from their true path.

Caroline Myss writes, “Discernment is the power to know when to stay in stillness and when to step into action.”

Sandbox Lessons

As children, many of us built sandcastles. Some days we placed each grain with vision, shaping towers and moats with patience and joy. Other days, we flung sand wildly, with no thought beyond the moment.

Inspired action is like shaping the sandcastle with purpose—it may take longer, but the outcome is meaningful.

Impulse is the scattering of sand to the wind.

Discernment is the wisdom to know the difference: when to build, pause, or admire what you’ve already created.

When we honor discernment we step into what Jean Houston calls the possible human - the self that lives from brilliance rather than busyness.

The Cost of Misaligned Action

The true cost of acting without discernment is often underestimated. A rushed decision can unravel trust, scatter teams, or drain energy that could have been invested in a mission-aligned choice. Over time, these missteps create cultures of reaction rather than intention.

When servant leaders practice inspired action with discernment, they model something extraordinary: the balance of courage and wisdom. They show that leadership is the ability to chose meaningful movement.

A Subtle Reminder of Alignment

True servant leadership inspires naturally, and so does alignment in everyday choices—how we speak, how we show up, and even how we care for ourselves.

Alignment is about weaving presence into what you already do. The way you open a meeting, the way you pause before replying, the way you choose what nourishes you each morning and evening. Small acts that carry great energy. Similar to tending to your skin with quiet ritual—hydrating, restoring, reminding yourself that radiance begins from within. If you know, you know, SHRINKELZ® was launched from that same principle.

Living the Magnetism of Discernment

When servant leaders live by inspired action filtered through discernment, they embody magnetism. They become steady, radiant forces that attract trust, opportunity, and collaboration.

Magnetism embodies presence. Inspired action ignites the spark. Discernment ensures the spark lights the right flame.

The next time inspiration whispers, pause. Ask yourself: Is this an impulse or an invitation?

In leadership—and in life—the power is in knowing which actions to honor.

Let’s take the first mindful step to empower your team with a complimentary Discovery Call! You can reach me here: Contact.

Thank you for you kind attention today!

This is your invitation to subscribe for weekly inspiration.

Yours in service,

Christine

Magnetism of Self-Leadership

“Self-Leadership is about stewardship.

Recognize that your vision, your presence, and your action creates ripples for others that have been long awaiting.’’

-CG Excellence Training

There comes a time when you must choose to lead yourself with intention. Life will pull, distract, and demand. Self-leadership is trusting your compass, and walking in alignment with your North Star.

The magnetism of self-leadership is about presence. It is the quiet power of honoring your voice, making choices from clarity instead of chaos, and moving forward even when the path is not lit all the way.

Like a compass in your hand, your inner guidance always points true.

The question is: “Will you pause long enough to notice it?”

Every choice, every hour, every room you step into—it all counts.

Each moment you are in the wrong room is an hour you are not steering your own ship. Your role as the Director of Your Life is to actively shape the vision, set the direction, create momentum, close the deals, remove the roadblocks, and make the calls.

Why this matters…

Time is not neutral. If you let the hours slip into the hands of distractions, procrastination, or other people’s agendas, you squander the energy that was meant for your destiny.
Your work—the work only you can do—doesn’t just serve you…there are other’s suffering due to your procrastination.

The sacred hours that shape life experience…

The first hour of your morning is sacred. It’s your chance to command the day before it commands you.
Establish internal order. Breathe. Anchor yourself. Claim your direction. When you do, the day bends to your leadership instead of bending you to its noise.

The last hour before you go to bed is just as powerful. It’s the moment to unwind the clutter, reflect, and reset. When you approach that hour with mindfulness—whether through meditation, journaling, or quiet gratitude—you prepare your subconscious to work in your best interest.

When you honor both the morning and evening hours, you magnetize the right people, opportunities, and energy into your life. The clarity and consistency of those sacred hours create alignment, and alignment draws in the support and synchronicities that match your vision and accelerate your goals.

Those two sacred hours, if honored, can completely alter the trajectory of your life.

Your mornings and evenings are sacred hours—spaces where you set intention, restore balance, and claim your energy.

A fabulous way to embrace deep hydration and a little luxury is to visit SHRINKELZ® SKINCARE…take a peek!

Self-Leadership begins with how you feel and treat yourself during those sacred hours.

Wisdom echoes from the masters…

Thought leaders have long understood the compounding power of intentional daily practices:

• Darren Hardy, in The Compound Effect, reminds us that “Small, smart choices, consistently applied over time, equal a radical difference.” Your sacred morning and evening hours are exactly that—bookends of compounding success.

• Robin Sharma, in The 5 AM Club, calls the first hour of the day the foundation of greatness: “Own your morning, elevate your life.”

• Deepak Chopra teaches that mindfulness rituals don’t just order our inner world—they shift our frequency and magnetize the energy and people who match our vision.

• And Jean Houston, a guide in human potential, echoes that rituals and daily practices are doorways into our higher possibilities.

When we honor time as sacred, we step into the lineage of wisdom that says: your daily rhythms are the architecture of your destiny.

How to lead your week ..

• Set three non-negotiable outcomes. These are must-haves.

• Time-block them on your calendar. Your future is scheduled inside those blocks.

• Protect them with your life. No distractions, no excuses. Guard them as if your purpose depends on it—because it does.

“Self-Leadership is about stewardship. Recognize that your vision, your presence, and your action creates ripples for others that have been long awaiting.’’

Your life is the company you are leading. Lead it like it matters. Because it does.

Becoming the Director of Your Destiny is a practice…

Upon awakening and before you sleep at night say to yourself, “I am who I am and that is enough.” Say this with the willingness to let go of all limitations that don’t align with the vibration of your true etherial core. Reality will unfold towards your highest good. Limitations only exist in your mind.

Change your beliefs, up-level your reality. Know that you are in control of your life experience.

The sacred hours, the non-negotiable, the momentum you create—they all ripple outward.

It is time for you and your team to align soul purpose with servant leadership!

👉 Book a Discovery Call here: Contact

💡 What is one non-negotiable outcome you’ll protect this week as the Director of Your Life Experience?

Thank you for your kind attention today!

This is your invitation to subscribe for weekly inspiration.

Yours in service,

Christine

The Signature of Gratitude Mindful Penmanship

When a leader, a client, a family member, or a friend receives words penned by hand, they feel it differently. The ink carries more than information—it carries presence. Every curve of a letter, every pause of the pen, every unique flourish tells the reader: “I am with you in this moment.”

In this age of time, almost everything is typed. We send emails, drop quick texts, and sign documents with a digital click. It’s fast, efficient, and convenient—but something gets lost in the process. The handwritten note, once a simple everyday act, has become a rare treasure.

When a leader, a client, a family member, or a friend receives words penned by hand, they feel it differently. The ink carries more than information—it carries presence. Every curve of a letter, every pause of the pen, every unique flourish tells the reader: “I am with you in this moment.”

Handwriting is an extension of self. In leadership, it can be a metaphor for how we connect, empower, and leave our mark.

Why Handwriting Still Matters

Typed messages are quick. Handwritten words are felt.

Think of the last time you received a handwritten card or note. Chances are you lingered with it longer than any email. You may have kept it on your desk, tucked it into a book, or even saved it for years. That’s because handwriting conveys something deeper than words—it conveys energy and intention.

For leaders, this becomes a powerful tool. A handwritten thank-you to a client becomes more than gratitude; it becomes a relationship-builder. A short note to a team member becomes more than recognition; it becomes empowerment. Even a handwritten journal entry can ground a leader in presence and clarity.

Handwriting as a Mirror of Leadership

The way we write often mirrors the way we lead.

• Flowing script reflects openness and adaptability.

• Bold strokes reflect confidence and presence.

• Spacious words reflect trust and respect for boundaries.

• A unique signature reflects authenticity—the courage to be seen as oneself.

Leadership is, in many ways, like penmanship. It’s not about perfection—it’s about presence. It’s not about how it looks—it’s about how it feels to those on the receiving end.

The Practice of Mindful Penmanship

Mindful penmanship invites leaders to slow down and embody presence.

Try setting aside just five minutes each day to put pen to paper:

• Write one note of appreciation each week to someone on your team.

• Journal reflections on challenges or wins, noticing how clarity comes differently when written by hand.

• Begin a meeting by sharing a handwritten affirmation, quote, or value.

It doesn’t matter if your writing is neat or messy—what matters is the intention behind it. The act itself slows the nervous system, calms the mind, and centers the heart.

Spiritual teacher Jean Houston often spoke about the “personal gesture”—the intentional, human acts that ripple far beyond themselves. A handwritten note is exactly that: a small gesture that becomes a powerful connection.

Irish poet John O’Donohue captured it beautifully:
“The human hand is the visible agent of the invisible spirit. When the hand writes, it is spirit tracing itself on the page.”

When we write, we bring spirit into form. When we write as leaders, we bring presence into relationship.

The Signature We Leave

Every leader leaves a signature. The question is—what kind?

In a digital world, the return to mindful penmanship is more than nostalgia—it is leadership in its most human form. It reminds us that words are not just information; they are invitations into connection.

So the next time you reach for your keyboard, pause. Ask yourself: Would this message mean more if written by hand?

Because sometimes the truest mark of leadership is handwritten, carrying the weight of authenticity, presence, care and connection.

At CG Excellence, we believe leadership is always written in presence.

Thank you for your kind attention!

Ready to explore how mindful practices can transform your team?

Let’s connect for a complimentary CG Excellence Training Discovery Call here: Contact

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BIG GUS - Door To My Purpose

A Tribute to My Father, Gus George, Founder of BIG GUS ONION RINGS, INC.

Customer service, for me, became a mirror of humanity. It showed me how people long to be acknowledged. How kindness disarms defensiveness and presence turns ordinary moments into memorable ones.

The first door I ever learned to open was the glass door of my father’s diner, BIG GUS Drive-In.

The handle was heavy for my small hands, but I loved the weight of it. The bell above the door jingled each time a customer came in, and I came to know that sound as the beginning of something important. It wasn’t just the signal of business—it was the call to service.

Inside, the air was thick with the aroma of hamburgers, sizzling onions and fryer oil. My father, Big Gus, stood behind the counter like a captain at the helm. His apron was always dusted with flour, his hands quick but steady as he worked the grill. Customers didn’t just come for the food—they came for Big Gus. My dad had a way of making every person feel like they belonged, whether they were a factory worker grabbing a quick lunch or a family treating themselves to a Big Gus “Double Decker” and his signature Onion Rings after church.

And then there was me. I was five years old when I got my first job in that diner. It wasn’t frying or serving, of course. My job was simpler, but in many ways more important: to make sure customers were smiling.

I would weave through the booths and counter stools, checking faces, peeking up at adults who seemed far too tall. If someone looked serious, I’d wave. If someone seemed tired, I’d flash the biggest grin I could manage. And when they smiled back, I felt like I had succeeded.

At five years old, I didn’t have language for what I was learning. I only knew that when people felt seen, when they felt warmth in their day, something shifted. The food was good—people came back for that, too—but it was the feeling that kept them loyal.

That diner became my first classroom in human connection. The lessons weren’t written on chalkboards—they were written in the way people’s eyes lit up when kindness reached them.

Looking back, I see now that the diner door was more than an entryway into a restaurant. It was the door that opened me to my life’s calling: to serve, to connect, to lead with presence. It was where I first learned that business isn’t just about products or transactions. It’s about people.

This door led to planting seeds of CG Excellence®.

Lessons from Big Gus

If the diner door was my first classroom, then my father was the teacher. Everyone called him Big Gus.

From behind the counter, my dad ran the kitchen like an orchestra. The hiss of the fryer, the clang of the spatula, the bell of the order window—he heard it all and kept the rhythm steady. But what impressed me most wasn’t his efficiency. It was his connection.

Every customer mattered to him. Big Gus knew names, families, even stories. A man might come in after a long shift at the plant, and dad would slide him a plate with a joke to lighten the mood. A mother might come in tired with kids in tow, and he’d lean down, eye-level, to make the children laugh before she even opened her menu.

My dad taught me, without ever sitting me down to explain it, that service isn’t about what you serve—it’s about how you serve it. A plate of signature onion rings was just food until it was delivered with kindness, recognition, and care. Then it became something people remembered.

I also saw his sacrifices. Running a diner wasn’t easy. The hours were long, the work relentless. Some nights I’d peek out from my room to see him counting bills at the kitchen table, exhaustion hanging heavy on his face. Service had a cost. And yet, he never let customers see that side. For them, my dad always brought his best.

Those moments shaped me as much as the laughter and the smiles. They planted the awareness that service is beautiful—but it also requires strength. It’s not just a job. It’s a way of being.

Big Gus never gave me speeches about leadership. He lived it. He showed me that leadership isn’t about titles or power—it’s about the responsibility to create an atmosphere where others feel valued. Dad taught me that presence isn’t optional. If you want to lead, you show up.

Even now, when I walk into a training room, or record a podcast, or speak with a client, I embody these early lessons. They live in the way I lean in to listen, the way I pay attention to what people need beyond the surface, the way I choose to serve with strength and presence—even on the days it costs me.

My father’s diner may have closed long ago, however, his lessons never did. They became part of me, a legacy carried forward in every corner of my work.

The Call to Servant Leadership

Some people stumble into customer service because it’s the job available. For me, it was different. It felt like a call—a thread that had been pulling at me since those early days in the diner.

I didn’t think of it as “customer service” at first. I thought of it as caring. Seeing people. Making their day a little better than when they arrived. That five-year-old girl who made sure customers were smiling had grown up, but the instinct hadn’t left her.

In every role I stepped into, I found myself drawn to the frontlines—the places where people met people. Whether I was helping a customer find what they needed, smoothing over a complaint, or simply greeting someone with warmth, it always felt like I was doing something more than a transaction. I was creating connection.

I learned quickly that not everyone felt the same way. For some, customer service was about speed, efficiency, or simply getting through the shift. For me, it was about impact. I couldn’t bear to treat a customer like a number or a task. I knew—deep down—that every interaction was an opportunity to care and connect.

The more I leaned into that truth, the more I noticed what others often missed. The customer who hesitated before speaking, unsure if their concern mattered. The way tone softened when someone felt truly heard. The loyalty that grew when people felt they weren’t just served—they were respected.

Customer service, for me, became a mirror of humanity. It showed me how people long to be acknowledged. How kindness disarms defensiveness and presence turns ordinary moments into memorable ones.

Looking back, I can see that this was the beginning of my philosophy of service: to serve is to acknowledge.

It didn’t matter whether I was in a retail store, an office, or later creating my own ventures. The call was always the same: to bring people back to themselves by offering them the dignity of being seen. That is what customer service was teaching me all along—that presence is power, and kindness is leadership.

The Creation of CG Excellence Training

For years, I had carried stories, lessons, and reflections—about service, leadership, presence, and the quiet power of kindness. They lived in my journals, in conversations with colleagues, in speeches at Toastmasters. I knew these ideas mattered, but I also knew they needed a venue, a structure that could carry them into the world with impact.

It started simply, with the belief that leadership begins on the frontlines. That the staff answering phones, standing at counters, driving deliveries, and caring for customers aren’t “entry-level”—they are culture-bearers, brand ambassadors, the heartbeat of any organization.

I had seen too many companies tell their staff to “leave baggage at the door,” as if humans could split themselves neatly between personal pain and professional presence. I knew better. I had lived better. Real excellence doesn’t come from pretending. It comes from authenticity. From integrating who we are into how we serve.

I began building training, creating videos, writing blogs, and launching a podcast. Each piece was designed not just to inform, but to elevate—to help people see that they are always better than they thought they are.

CG Excellence is about presence. Teaching others what I had learned: leadership is not about authority. It’s about how you show up, one moment at a time.

CG Excellence became my signature solution. A living, breathing space where service meets spirit, where customer care meets human potential, and where everyday leaders could rise into their presence.

The Big Gus legacy opened the door to my purpose. My father’s example of kindness and connection is the heartbeat of everything I do today. And now, I’ll ask you: what’s the “diner door” that shaped your purpose? I’d love to hear your story.

CG Excellence Training, where leadership and customer service meet presence, purpose, and excellence.

Let’s connect for a complimentary Discovery Call here: Contact

Thank you for your kind attention!

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Energy Sovereignty

The Inner Power Every Servant Leader Protects

In servant leadership, we are taught to manage time, people, and performance.

Very few are taught to manage what truly drives all of it—our energy.

Your energy field—also known as your biofield—is the invisible force that shapes how you show up, how others respond to you, and how you experience your mission. When you don’t protect it, you serve from survival, not sovereignty.

So today, I invite you to explore a powerful leadership concept we call Energy Sovereignty—the art of protecting your energy field so you can lead from overflow, not depletion.

What Is Energy Sovereignty?

Energy Sovereignty is the practice of honoring your energetic boundaries and recognizing that your presence has power.

Your biofield is the electromagnetic field that surrounds and interpenetrates your body. It’s not woo—it’s measurable science. Your heart, brain, and nervous system emit signals that affect not only your own health, but the energy of every room you walk into.

When you feel "off," drained, or scattered—it’s often your energy that’s been compromised, not just your schedule.

Carolyn Myss and Energetic Integrity

One of my favorite thought leaders, medical intuitive and energy pioneer Carolyn Myss teaches that each of us has an energetic anatomy—a system of chakras, beliefs, and intentions that affect every cell of our body. Carolyn names this energetic integrity: the ability to stay grounded in your own power, regardless of chaos around you.

Energetic integrity means:

• Speaking your truth even when it’s uncomfortable

• Saying no without guilt

• Choosing alignment over approval

• Honoring your inner knowing before external expectations

When we scatter our energy to people-pleasing, fear, or over-giving, we weaken our leadership presence. But when we protect our field, we tune into something greater—our intuitive intelligence, our heart coherence, our true voice.

Common Ways Leaders Leak Energy

You may be leaking energy if you find yourself:

• Taking on emotions that aren’t yours

• Always being accessible and “on”

• Avoiding conflict by suppressing your truth

• Over-giving without space to receive

• Reacting out of fear, not purpose

These small, subtle behaviors are cumulative. And over time, they lead to fatigue, burnout, and disconnection from your mission and your authentic presence.

Protecting Your Energy as a Daily Leadership Practice

At CG Excellence, we teach energy protection as a leadership skill—because no one can lead clearly from a depleted field.

Here are a few daily practices that strengthen your energy sovereignty:

Coherence Breathing – Breathe in for 4, out for 6, to synchronize your heart and brain.
Golden Light Shield – Each morning, visualize a protective golden field around your body.
Pause Before Responding – Choose regulation over reactivity.
Sacred NOs – Decline what depletes. Say yes only from alignment.
Nature Resets – Ground yourself with earth, light, and movement.
Energy Hygiene – At the end of your day, release what is not yours to carry.

No need to control others—command your own field.

The Reframe: Servant Leadership Is Not Self-Sacrifice

True servant leadership is about leading from fullness.

When your field is strong and aligned:

• You create a calming presence for others

• You hold space without absorbing chaos

• You lead with intention and clarity

• You model what healthy leadership looks—and feels—like

Your presence becomes the permission slip for others to do the same.

Ready to Practice Energy Sovereignty?

Start your CG Excellence Integration Practice today:

1. Practice 3 minutes of coherence breathing first thing in the morning.

2. Visualize your golden energetic shield before every meeting or interaction.

3. Identify one area where you leak energy—and choose to reclaim it today.

Affirmation:
“I am the steward of my energy. I lead from overflow, not depletion.”

Let’s Connect

Have you noticed your energy field being tested lately?

How do you restore your sovereignty when the world feels heavy?

Contact us for a complimentary CG Excellence Discovery Call.

Let’s explore how CG Excellence Training can guide you and your team to lead from energetic clarity and identity-based strength.

Your complimentary Discovery Call starts here: Contact

When you lead yourself well—you lead with confidence and others feel safe following.

Thank you for your kind attention today!

Grace Is Wisdom

At CG Excellence, we believe that excellence in leadership begins with the quiet, often unseen decisions we make within ourselves.

One of our most powerful reflections this week came from a circumstance that may have been trivial however, impactful..

There was a Cycling Class scheduling mishap. Although a bike was reserved, all bikes were occupied.

In that moment, one of our leaders had a choice: stew in frustration or rise into grace…she chose grace.

Rather than letting the disruption pull her out of alignment, she simply waved to the instructor, turned around, and quietly walked out.

No drama. No commentary. No attachment.

Instead of ruminating in disappointment, she took herself on a power walk.

The sun warmed her face, and with each step, her energy returned to equilibrium.

The vibration that could have dipped into resentment was lifted

through movement, breath, conscious redirection and heart aligning.

This is emotional leadership in action.

Alignment is a Choice

So often, we think self-mastery is about never getting upset. Never being triggered.

That is just not reality.

The spirit of authenticity allows us to feel the disruption without becoming the disruption.

You can let the wave rise and still choose not to drown in it.

Grace is the active decision to protect your vibration, even when life invites you to react.

This week’s reflection reminds me of one of my favorite authors, Carolyn Myss. 

I’ve summed up Carolyn’s Key Concepts on the Power of Choice and Self-Esteem.

These concepts emphasize the importance of making intentional choices that reflect one's true self and

contribute to personal growth and well-being.

Power of Choice: The power of choice is described as humanity's greatest tool for navigation and co-creation in life.

It is an interior mechanism that allows individuals to initiate changes and reflects their self-esteem.

Self-Esteem and Choices: Developing self-esteem is crucial for well-being, mental health, and physical health.

The more one cultivates a sense of self, the more empowered they become to make choices that align with

their true self rather than survival instincts driven by fear.

Survival vs. Empowered Choices: Choices made from a place of survival often lead to temporary safety but lack true joy and contentment.

In contrast, empowered choices stem from an inner place of strength and consistency,

allowing individuals to become a constant in their lives.

Choices:

Integrity: The decision to lead an integrous life involves aligning actions with words and maintaining honesty.

A commitment that fosters self-awareness and personal power.

Wisdom vs. Suffering: Individuals can choose to pass on wisdom from their experiences rather than suffering.

This reframing allows for personal growth and the sharing of valuable lessons.

Non-Betrayal: Choosing not to betray oneself or others is essential for building trust and integrity in relationships.

This choice requires a commitment to honesty and self-respect

The choices made by individuals are observed not only in their immediate effects but also in the broader context of their lives.

The intention behind choices is crucial, as it reflects personal motivations and accountability.

Gratitude and Presence: A practice of gratitude for life itself, regardless of external circumstances, can enhance appreciation for each moment. Recognizing the uniqueness of each day fosters a deeper connection to life and its experiences.

Energetic Shift: Making conscious inner decisions can significantly alter the energetic atmosphere of one's life,

leading to empowerment and a more fulfilling existence.

Reflection for Servant Leaders

When life surprises you—whether in traffic, in meetings, or in your sacred morning routine—pause and ask:

“Do I need to react… or can I choose grace?”

“What’s available to me now that this didn’t go as planned?”

“Is this moment asking for control—or for alignment?”

Alchemize emotion into self-respect, and from that place, your influence grows—

in your work and in the way you present yourself to the world.

Remember this: Grace is the wisdom that lives within you.

Thank you for your kind attention today!

Let’s discover how we can align your team with your company mission!

You complimentary Discovery Call starts here: Contact