The Garden of my Soul: A Journey to Inner Growth

The garden of the soul is a place of self-awareness, acceptance, and inner growth. In this article, you are invited to reflect on how emotions, wounds, beauty, and inner truth shape the soul—and why learning to tend this inner garden may be one of the deepest forms of healing.

The human soul has many expressions.

It carries countless emotions, countless inner images, and quiet movements that slowly become feelings. Some begin in the heart like a whisper. Then they descend deeper, into the soul, where they are transformed into something more enduring.

The heart understands.
The soul feels.

And what the soul feels is never small.

It feels pain.
It feels joy.
It feels longing, tenderness, fear, gratitude, love, grief, and wonder.
It holds the entire invisible climate of our existence.

When I think of the garden of the soul, I imagine a vast inner landscape. A place where emotions grow like living things. Some bloom. Some wither. Some remain hidden beneath the soil for years, waiting for the right season to return.

And perhaps one of the most difficult truths in life is this: the mind may be ready to let go long before the soul is.

The Wounds We Carry in the Garden of the Soul

The soul can be wounded.

Sometimes so deeply that we begin to wonder whether such wounds can ever truly heal. And yet, with time, I am no longer certain that healing is always the highest goal.

Sometimes the deeper invitation is acceptance.

Acceptance that a wound exists.
Acceptance that it has shaped us.
Acceptance that some forms of pain do not leave entirely, but instead become part of our inner texture.

Some wounds are born from loss. Others from absence. Others from words that entered us quietly and remained for far too long.

There are hurts we can explain. And there are hurts we cannot.

We often believe that understanding is the path to freedom. And often, it is. With the help of reflection, therapy, coaching, or a trusted guide, we may discover where the pain began. That discovery can be liberating. It helps us name what once felt shapeless. It helps us reclaim a forgotten part of ourselves.

But there are also wounds that remain, even after they are understood.

And when that happens, perhaps their presence is not meaningless. Perhaps they remain not to diminish us, but to deepen us.

Acceptance as a Form of Inner Wisdom

I try, whenever I can, to understand the wounds of my life.

But when understanding does not arrive, I no longer insist. I choose something gentler. I leave the wound where it is, and I continue walking.

People hurt us. Sometimes knowingly. Sometimes without ever realizing it.

Yet what belongs to us is not their intention. What belongs to us is our response. Our thoughts. Our awareness. Our decision about what we will continue carrying.

There is a quiet dignity in no longer forcing resolution.

Not every pain needs to be transformed into forgiveness.
Not every story needs a perfect ending.
Not everything broken must be repaired in order for us to become whole.

Sometimes acceptance is enough.

Acceptance that human beings are fragile.
Acceptance that life is unfinished.
Acceptance that some memories will always remain tender to the touch.

This, too, is wisdom.
This, too, is inner growth.

How Beauty Cultivates the Garden of the Soul

The garden of the soul does not heal through pressure. It heals through cultivation.

And cultivation requires beauty.

It requires encounters that awaken us.
Experiences that soften us.
Moments that remind us that life is larger than fear, pain, or control.

The soul grows through art.
Through music.
Through theatre.
Through poetry.
Through books.
Through silence.
Through meaningful conversations.
Through new experiences, we once believed were not for us.

Each experience is a seed.

A sensation becomes a feeling.
A feeling becomes a memory.
A memory becomes a flower opening quietly in the inner garden.

This is how the soul expands.

Not always through achievement.
But through receptivity.
Not always through certainty.
But through presence.
Not always through strength.
But through the courage to feel.

Self-Awareness and the Unknown Inner Landscape

The garden of the soul will always contain unknown places.

And perhaps that is its greatest beauty.

There are corners within us we have not yet explored. Desires we have not yet named. Griefs we have not yet honored. Joys we have not yet allowed ourselves to feel fully.

The deeper we enter this inner landscape, the closer we come to our true nature.

We begin to understand what nourishes us.
What exhausts us.
What wounds us.
What restores us.
What our soul can hold.
And what it can no longer bear.

In the end, perhaps the most important question is not:

What can I accomplish?

But rather:

What am I capable of feeling?
What can my soul truly enjoy?
What can my soul no longer endure?

These are questions of self-awareness.
Questions of emotional truth.
Questions that bring us back to ourselves.

Give More Space to the Garden of Your Soul

The garden of my soul is a sacred place.

A place that deserves at least as much devotion as the mind—perhaps more.

So my invitation is simple: explore the garden of your soul.

Let new seeds enter.
Let beauty touch you.
Let art, music, poetry, dance, nature, and human connection nourish your inner soil.

Stay present.
Observe without rushing.
Listen without defending.
And ask yourself, gently:

What do I see?
What do I feel?

Give your soul more space.

Let it reveal what kind of flowers are still waiting to grow there.

Because when you do, something subtle and beautiful begins to happen.

You become deeper.
Softer.
Truer.
More alive to your own existence.

And one day, perhaps, you will breathe in the fragrance of life and understand that this, too, is enough.

If you feel called to explore the garden of your soul more deeply through coaching, self-awareness, and inner reflection, discover Barbara Asimakopoulou’s approach to personal growth, coaching, and leadership on the website.

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What Didn’t Go as Planned… Might Lead You Where You’re Meant to Be

A philosophical and coaching perspective on leadership, resilience, and growth
by Barbara Asimakopoulou

Failure is not the opposite of success — it is the road that leads to it.
Through my own experience and my talk at the EASE Leadership Summit – “The Failure Paradox,” I shared how the principles of classical philosophy and the practices of coaching can help leaders transform failure into a mirror of self-awareness and development.
As Aristotle said, virtue is action — and every setback is a step closer to wisdom (phronesis), justice, courage, and self-mastery.

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💫 Failure as the Mirror of Leadership

Failure is an inseparable part of every leadership journey.
It is not the shadow of success but the light that reveals it.
It is the point where the leader meets their truth, learns, transforms, and begins again.

As Aristotle taught, “Virtue is not theory but practice.”
Each failure is an act of awareness that brings the leader closer to wisdom, justice, temperance, and courage.
Life — and leadership — is not given. It is earned.

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🔹 Failure as Information

Failure is not a stigma; it is information.
It is the voice of reality calling us to redefine who we are and where we are going.
As Epictetus said, “It is not things themselves that disturb us, but our opinions about them.”
It is not failure that hurts us — it is our interpretation of it.

In coaching, failure becomes feedback — a mirror showing what needs to change.
Through reframing and reflection, the leader learns to step back and see the bigger picture:
to shift the question from “Why did I fail?” to “What can I learn from this?”
That is the first act of leadership toward oneself.

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🔹 The Inner Dialogue and the Power of Vision

The critical moment of failure is the moment of silence.
When the leader’s inner dialogue becomes loud, they must pause — and listen again to the voice of their purpose.

“When we lose a battle, we haven’t lost the war — as long as our purpose keeps us alive.”

The power of vision is what gives meaning to every setback.
A leader who remembers the why can always redefine the how.
Inner leadership is not about skill — it is about alignment with purpose.
It is not the obstacle that stops the leader — it is the fear of what others might say.

The magnanimous leader knows how to ask for help, to regroup, to reconnect with their motivation, and to lead with calmness and faith.
The example they set is not an obligation of their role — it is the pathway of leadership itself.

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🔹 Failure Matures Success

Failure does not cancel success — it matures it.
Like success, it is never “final” or “permanent.”
Every failure brings us back to what truly matters.

Seneca reminds us:

“It is not that we have too little time, but that we waste much of it.”

Failure is an invitation to return to ourselves and ask:
What truly holds meaning? What value am I serving?

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🔹 Forgiveness, Understanding, and Self-Awareness

Failure also teaches us forgiveness — first toward ourselves, then toward others.
Forgiveness is not weakness; it is liberation.
Understanding opens the way to act without fear.
Only when I understand can I learn. Only when I forgive can I move forward.

Leadership born of forgiveness is leadership with humanity and awareness.
Everyone makes mistakes, but the leader who can face them, accept them, and turn them into lessons is the one who leads with composure and truth.

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A Higher Benevolent Power Exists Wherever There Is Good – May this Force be with you.

Today, first of all, I want to say to myself:
Barbara, you are doing your best. You are always present. You are on the right path. You are already doing good for people, and this is known. You don’t need to keep proving yourself – you have already succeeded.

You have created a wide embrace of people who support you, admire you, and know how to follow your example. Because you have given them so many tools, they can now stand on their own. And that is rare. Most people act out of fear and egoism. You are not afraid, because you know your strength, you know your worth.

Trials and Choices

You know your worth because you have been tested many times.
Sometimes you achieve what you wanted. Sometimes you came close. Sometimes you changed it. Sometimes you leave it behind.
And all of these were right.

You made your choices, took your decisions with courage, and assumed responsibility. That is why you kept moving forward, never stopping. Because your inner drive – to be well so that others can also be well – gave you the strength.

Inner Power and Higher Belief

What matters most is that deep inside you know this power comes from a higher belief, beyond what each of us can perceive.
There is a small “conspiracy of kindness.” A higher, benevolent force, beyond human understanding, that desires the same as humanity: to continue existing, to create culture, and to evolve.

A power – call it soul, call it alignment – that resonates with people’s desires for personal and collective wellbeing. That resonates with goodness, kindness, and thoughtful actions.

And there is only one criterion:
Whatever we do for our own good must also be for the good of others.

This is our mission. This is our legacy: for us to be well, and for others to be well too.

People Who Fought for the Common Good

I think of history, of exceptional people with exceptional minds, who, regardless of circumstances, desired the same thing. They struggled – under easy or complex conditions, which to us today often seem unimaginable – for the common good.

They fought to prove that humanity has much to offer. The human mind can create something good and also enjoy that creation. In art, in science, in society, in politics, in the environment.

The magical hand, divine Grace, this higher power, gives us the precious gift: it loves us, forgives us, accepts us, and supports us. It stands by our choices, whatever they may be. It helps us always keep hope, to rise again, and to continue because it loves us unconditionally.

What is the missing piece in modern HR?

Is it coaching? Let’s explore this question with open eyes and facts every HR leader recognizes.

• Too much pressure affects people — and it impacts HR people first.
• Strategic changes shake teams — and HR holds them together.
• Political and social shifts create new fears — HR absorbs them.
• New hires disrupt routines — HR integrates them.
• New leaders bring culture shifts — HR balances them.
• Technology transforms roles — HR leads people through it.

The silent truth every HR professional knows

From my earliest steps in this unique profession, I knew HR was never just about policies or checklists. I still remember my HR Director’s words on my first day:
“Welcome to hell.”

I thought he was teasing me, testing my resilience. Now, decades later, I know it was simply the truth no one says aloud.

Behind every HR door, a hidden story

Behind every HR desk, there is a human story, too often unheard. I have sat with people who whispered, “Please, don’t tell anyone…” I have stayed late, reading urgent emails when everyone else had gone home — because someone had to care enough to listen.

HR people stand quietly between the demands of employers and the needs of employees. Despite this, whenever I asked an HR colleague how they felt about their work, they always said:
“I love my job.”

They love to help. They love to give strength. They love to watch people grow beyond fear and become their best selves. However, is this deep passion enough to keep HR professionals healthy, strong, and inspired in the long term?

The perception gap: more than a gatekeeper

Modern research confirms what many HR leaders believe: HR is often still viewed as a gatekeeper of processes, rather than a true facilitator of growth or an equal business partner. Too frequently, HR is expected to solve problems they did not create, manage changes they did not choose, and maintain a calm workplace, while rarely receiving the same level of care in return.

Sadly, in many organizations, common sense, fairness and empathy — the core values HR stands for — are still more the exception than the rule. This makes the human mission of HR harder than it should be.

My mission: space for the ones who hold space

Throughout my career — as an HR Manager, an entrepreneur and now as an ICF-accredited coach and coach educator — my deepest vision has stayed the same:
To build a safe, constructive space where employees, leaders and HR professionals can truly meet, understand and trust each other.

I realized, however, that those who create a safe space for everyone else need someone to create a safe space for them, too.

The Benefits of Coaching in Business: A Strategic Advantage for Today’s Leaders

In the world of business, where challenges multiply and the need for transformation grows, coaching is not just a method; it’s a mindset that fosters growth, innovation, and resilience. During our recent webinar, “Coaching Education in Organizations for the New Era,” we explored how coaching serves as a catalyst for business success through real-world discussions, practical insights, and personal experiences.

✅The Power of Coaching: Key Statistics

The latest International Coaching Federation (ICF) research in collaboration with PwC highlights the impact of coaching:

📊 54% increase in the number of active coaches globally since 2019.
📈 Annual revenue of $4.5 billion, marking a 60% growth in the past four years.
✅ Organizations that adopt coaching report significant improvements in team engagement, agility, and innovation.

Are you curious how these trends can transform your organization?

✅Transformative Strategies: Lessons from the Webinar

During the webinar, we identified specific strategies to enhance organizational culture and effectiveness through coaching:

1. Leadership Development through Coaching

Coaching enables leaders to see their team members as individuals with potential, building trust and fostering growth.

• “Executive coaching helped me view my team not just as roles but as individuals with great potential.” – CEO participant.

2. Strengthening Team Collaboration

Team coaching creates an open communication environment that drives productivity.

• Webinar insight:
  “True collaboration happens when people feel their voices are heard and valued.”

3. The Power of Empowerment

Coaching gives employees the space to find their own solutions.

Young People and Challenges in the Modern Era: How Coaching Can Be the Key to Success

In today’s world, young people face more challenges than ever before. From insecurity about their future and uncertainty in their career paths to the fear of failure and the pressure to meet societal and personal expectations, the challenges are numerous and intense. The modern world demands quick decision-making, flexibility, and resilience—qualities that young people often struggle to develop without proper guidance.

This is where coaching comes in. Coaching is not just a method of self-improvement. It is a structured, supportive system that helps individuals uncover their strengths, overcome obstacles, and strategically plan their lives. For young people in particular, coaching can serve as a guide through the chaos of demands and challenges.

✅The Example of Your Time of Power 2024

To decipher the modern challenges faced by young people and simultaneously support them as professional coaches, we dedicated our annual volunteer initiative Your Time of Power 2024 to young individuals.

During this project, young participants had the opportunity to experience firsthand the benefits of coaching. The program included a survey with open-ended questions, two free coaching sessions for each participant, and a two-hour webinar focused on how coaching can help young people tackle the challenges identified during the survey and sessions.

In total, 57 young people participated in the project at its inception, with 36 expressing interest in further coaching education. Of these, 32 received coaching sessions, 98% reported feeling very or highly empowered afterward, 31 registered for the seminar, and 26 attended it.

The volunteer VIP coaches were 12 in total, consisting of alumni, graduates, and faculty members of our school.

The overall results of the project revealed that participants developed greater self-awareness, enhanced self-confidence, and a clearer vision of their goals. Coaching helped them overcome limiting beliefs, manage stress, and discover new perspectives.

✅Insights from the Project: Challenges Faced by Young People Today

The younger generation is grappling with a range of challenges across various aspects of their lives:

1. Uncertainty about the Future: With rapid technological changes and constant shifts in job markets, many young people feel insecure about their career paths.
2. Fear of Failure: The pressure to succeed is immense. Many young people fear making the wrong initial career choices, which can lead to failure, keeping them stuck in a state of procrastination.
3. Social and Personal Expectations: Young individuals must meet societal expectations for career success, family, and personal growth while managing their own internal pressures.
4. Seeking Meaning and Self-Awareness: Self-awareness and a sense of purpose are critical, but young people often struggle to find these in a world filled with distractions and external demands.

✅How Coaching Can Help

Coaching provides practical tools to address these challenges. By focusing on personal strengths, values, and dreams, coaching empowers young people to set clear goals and develop strategic steps to achieve them.

✅The benefits of coaching include:

• Self-Awareness: Coaching helps young people understand who they truly are, what their goals are, and what they genuinely want to achieve.
• Managing Uncertainty: With the support of a coach, young individuals learn to handle uncertainty and the stress it causes, building resilience.
• Boosting Self-Confidence: Coaching equips young people with tools to strengthen their self-confidence and face their fears.
• Clear Direction: Through coaching sessions, young individuals develop actionable plans, gaining clear direction for their personal and professional lives.

✅Why Train in Coaching?

Training in coaching is not just a professional choice. It is a transformative process that enhances how you approach life and its challenges. As a trainee coach, you will learn how to help others strengthen their abilities and achieve their goals while gaining valuable skills to apply in your own life.

Whether you want to pursue a career in coaching or use these skills in your current professional environment, coaching education provides tools that are essential in all areas of life.

Creativity involves taking risks. Time to Colour Outside the Lines.

During the final reflection of the training day with my group of VIP Coaches & Leaders Series 8 of the Philosophical Coaching Diploma accredited by ICF, a wonderful, empathetic student picked up a phrase I said during the course and brought it as an epilogue.

Creativity is risk-taking.

I decided to write an article about interpreting this saying and share it with you so that, if possible, it will be helpful for you.

In addition, I get the opportunity to clarify my message and purpose. My purpose with all my services is inner and outer leadership. That is inner awareness and taking actions that change yourself and positively influence others to do the same.

I want to inspire you to develop personally not as an end in itself, just for your satisfaction and happiness, but as a necessary condition for group improvement—the improvement of others who will voluntarily follow your example with your help.

My new book, Philosophical Leadership, covers inner and outer leadership at length.

See below my reasoning regarding the title of the article.

I believe that victimization, whining, and constant complaining come from the existence of emptiness—some emotional, mental, or practical deficiencies.

Filling the void is the beginning of a creative act and the starting point for something new to be born.

The decision to recognize and fill the void is problematic because it requires stepping out of autopilot and comfort zone and then being exposed to something new, something unknown.

In this case, the human instinct triggers an SOS because the mind perceives change as a threat. One has programmed you to protect yourself from change or not.

The mind does not immediately distinguish between good and bad in every news story. It needs a pause to evaluate it correctly, to protect or motivate the person, and to make the appropriate decision. I’ll move on or not. It benefits me or not. What are the conditions?

The data collection begins, the processing starts, and finally, the decision-making and the appropriate action. This is the logical process.

Creativity involves taking risks as it requires starting something from scratch.

You often create without knowing its impact on others: their feelings and interpretations.

You often do not know yourself who creates neither the continuation nor the end, and then you do not see the response it will have on others. The feelings and interpretations that will be born.

When you don’t know, you fear. You think the danger is everywhere.

Moreover, the danger of abandoning what you started is even more visible, especially if you don’t have a safety net or framework.

In the case of painting, it is the canvas.

Can you replace the canvas?

Yes. Putting in another framework, another safety net.

In the case of painting, another context besides the canvas is space, a specific space. From a one-dimensional framework, we go to three-dimensional.

Context is an essential aspect of any artwork. To subvert is to challenge and replace the existing framework with a new one, which is the essence of creativity.

Creators may hesitate to leave old frames, risking missing the next one.

-What will help you?

Embrace the risk of your creativity and allow yourself to be in its enthusiasm. Revel in the joy of creation and enjoy the path you have yet to travel. Embrace the uncertainty, disappointment, surprise, and positive and negative emotions that may arise.

-What will help you? Endure the pain and continue the labor?

Faith

• to yourself
• in your resources
• to the opportunities of the environment

What inspires you, like me and my team, to express yourself and unleash your creativity?

• The plan
• The main message
• The contents
• The organization

Risk and danger go with creativity; they accompany every thought and action. Without risk and uncertainty, there is no creativity.

Without something new, you cannot predict its influence, evolution, or how it will be perceived.

Let’s become a chain of emotionally content & fulfilled people.

Based on the 2021-22 research conducted by the Greek Organization for Collective Management of Speech Projects (OSDEL) and the opinions of reputable Greek publishers, it appears that there has been a rise in the number of Greeks who write and aspire to publish their works. In fact, according to Methenitis’ article in Athenorama on December 29, 2022, it seems that Greeks write more than they read.

As I was impressed, I asked the following questions.
-What does this mean exactly?
-Does it mean writing less and reading more?

I’ll tell you what I do!

I do whatever I want!

When I want to read, I read everything: newspapers, articles, poetry, literature, psychology, detective stories, dictionaries, travel books, history, biographies, etc.

I grew up in a family where books, a love for knowledge, and aesthetics were highly valued and considered a source of unique identity.

I’m not criticizing myself for anything!

I grew up in a family where the book, the love of knowledge, and the aesthetics were personal strengths and a source of unique identity.

So the more I read, the stronger I felt, and the more robust and more special I felt, the more I read. Sometimes, owning a book gave me a sense of power from the accumulated knowledge, even if I hadn’t read it yet.

I have confessed previously that during my teenage years, I enjoyed visiting different beautiful places and reading. I enjoyed going to gardens, museums, and unique cafes with an aesthetic appeal. Nowadays, I still visit beautiful places, but instead of reading, I go to write.

At one point, I felt my head overflowed with others’ ideas, opinions, and stories.

So, I started writing more than reading. Everything: poems, stories, plays, novels, quotes, articles, etc. I have filled drawers with pads, notebooks, A4 pages, scraps of paper, even napkins and post-it, with words and whatever came out of my head.

Sometimes, I wake up in the middle of the night, and my mind starts to come up with ideas that turn into complete stories. To ensure that I don’t forget these ideas, I keep a pad on my bedside table to quickly write them down as soon as I wake up. Unfortunately, there have been instances where I failed to wake up and lost these ideas forever.

It seems that Morpheus, the god of sleep, is more powerful than Calliope, the muse of writing.

After years of writing in a stormy rage, I felt the need to transform it into something useful.

My first book was purely professional. I wanted to help executives with the fundamentals of managing their team combined with a basic legal framework. So, my creative side was unleashed with a human resources guide. “The Manager’s Alphabet.” I worked in the HR field for TITAN Cement company at that time.

Some years later, “The Manager’s Alphabet” was published by Kritiki Publications under “The Art of Peace in the Workplace.”

When coaching entered my life, my writing obsession gained real meaning and an attractive, significant purpose.

To become an internationally impactful author who can help many more people.

I believe that a significant and authentic purpose can fill the gap that some struggle with for a lifetime and help them achieve emotional strength and balance.

I write to communicate, express, share, create, foster meaningful relationships, and be understood. Through this creative sharing, I nourished my soul.

By Barbara Asimakopoulou,

The explosive appearance, the impressive and stormy development of Artificial Intelligence, and its sweeping appearance in people’s daily lives have created a great noise.

It has become an attractive pole of discussion with positive and negative signs, as usually happens with something new that appears, and we do not understand it much, from questioning to hyperthematization, as well as healthy further investigation.

Artificial Intelligence can provide information and implement something better than the average human. It can deliver a form of understanding recorded in the algorithm and even psychological support.

Empathy, compassion, gratitude, and understanding – emotional contact, are feelings and essential elements of a human relationship. There may be logical parameters that lead to these feelings, and AI can interpret them using a specialized algorithm. This same algorithm, I imagine, can train people who find it difficult to feel them or, even more so, to express specific emotions.

But there is more than a logical analysis and conclusion in any human relationship.

Something more than cause and effect as it is the process of the algorithm. So the above feelings, in my opinion, cannot be expressed the same by a human and the same by an algorithm and feel the unparalleled interconnection and emotional contact.

Human interconnectedness primarily comes from our inevitable shared human fate, from the fate we all face in life and death in the face of tragedy and comedy.

This human fate unites us because we all undeniably go through it.

Human interaction, contact, communication, and understanding strengthen us and help us listen, express ourselves, find solutions, go through this uniquely human process, connect with others, and receive and give energy. We will only feel this with people.

Artificial Intelligence influences and shapes the interpersonal relationships and interactions I present below, but it poses many ethical dilemmas.

Let’s look at them one by one.

Facilitates and enhances communication.

For example, you quickly find information, save time by organizing your team meeting, and find help on a specific subject. If you ask the right question, you will get the correct answer about something you want to do.

Artificial Intelligence can provide emotional support and advice.

There are quiz apps that help. One of them I have worked on with my student coaches is Rocky Robot, which offers individual specialized questions and sources of information.

Artificial Intelligence helps to create personalized content.

For example, an article, an advertisement, social media content, and so on, and even a whole book.

Ethical dilemmas

The algorithm can change, cook, or falsify the content, whether video or audio, raising issues with the trust and authenticity of interactions. The other person you are talking to or working with can easily ask if what you say is yours, if it represents you, if you can apply it if you can live with it, or if you are telling someone else’s words.

So, on the one hand, it is a matter of authenticity and, on the other, of reliability.

Ethical concerns include privacy.

The algorithm collects information from everywhere indiscriminately, or we don’t know exactly yet, so it can take your content and change it, or someone else can use it. We also have issues with online security.

You can easily say that you wrote this text when you have not written it, and it is connected to pieces of other people’s texts.

-How do you feel when you use this? Here is the moral dilemma!

-Do you have or do you not have guilt?

-What does your conscience tell you?

-What would Socrates say to this moral dilemma?

After all, they are human concerns that determine human relationships that, to exist, need to be based on trust.

What is Philosophical Leadership;

Philosophical Leadership is more than just another leadership method in the sea of world literature. It is a new mindset, a new culture, and finally, a new way of life.
A way of life that works in all aspects of your life.
At work, in your social role, in your everyday life.

A meaningful leadership lifestyle inspired by ancient Greek philosophy.

According to Cicero, Socrates is the first philosopher who brought philosophy down from heaven to earth, i.,e. the philosophers’ engagement with man gave the first “method,” the good life, the virtuous life.

Then Socrates’ student Plato and Plato’s student Aristotle added the political dimension.

That is, the good life, the happy life, and the pursuit of Aristotelian happiness – eudemonia, include the common good.

And they are right!

One can only live well by paying attention to the influence one has on one’s environment.

If we think of Leadership as an influence, an undoubted impact, then we are all potential leaders.

First, as leaders, we have control and influence over ourselves and our actions.

So, as leaders, as humans who influence and create history, I suggest using “Philosophy” first to recognize our power and then exploit it for ourselves and others as best we can.

My motto is: You can do better!

So, the model of Leadership that I propose is The Philosophical Model or The Philosophership™ Model, as it is named in the book because it includes what philosophers do combined with Leadership. From the past to the present, philosophers have explored why we live and the appropriate way to live.

For today’s leaders, I suggest doing the same:

– To see their life in two dimensions, precisely the following:

– To learn why they do something and then what they do to achieve it.

Why:

What motivates them as leaders to exercise Leadership, to inspire and excite others so they do their work correctly, provide the solutions themselves, and become better professionals and people?

The why has to do with the internal motivation of each of us, i.e., the sum of values, desires, needs, and beliefs

The stronger the motivation, the more likely the Leader will overcome any obstacle that is or will always be present.

Moreover, Leaders prepare new leaders, not loyal followers but unique and powerful leaders.

I don’t use the word “guidance on purpose. Guidance for others, is intertwined with Leadership.

The Coach Leader inspires not “guides”.

“Philosophical Leadership” is a model that combines philosophy and Coaching. The biggest and most challenging coaching skill is the self-responsibility and accountability of the coachee, the partner, or your team member.

The Leader conquers the other person’s accountability with their spontaneous and voluntary participation, which a coach can achieve.

A coach leader who embraces Coaching is not just someone with some coaching skills, e.g., active listening or appropriate questions; they are trained and practice the entire coaching methodology. This magical process of Coaching starts with creating trust, continues with the activation, and achieves the intended change to benefit the partner or the coachee.

Everyone’s eyes are on the Leader; that’s why the Leader has fanatical followers and fanatical enemies or rivals.

Are you too sensitive to handle this enormous challenge?

I am very sensitive, and I have been working on this with the help of Coaching.

– Finally, I can be a bold and dreamer leader without giving up.

It has to do with your internal forces and your external help.

-Inner strengths are the virtues you need to practice

-External help is about understanding the community you build with your friends, students, your partners, and the future leaders you create.

In addition, with this book, I want to show you how you can be an effective and happy leader.

Self-awareness = Prerequisite- background.

Self-awareness is fundamental and a prerequisite for the above two dimensions – the why and the how.

Self-awareness, like wisdom, comes slowly through the knowledge and experiences we acquire gradually.

Self-awareness has three dimensions:

– What can I

– What do I want?

– The external conditions that exist each time.