Listen to Your Heart

My life as a consultant, executive coach and trainer all started, on one level, with a dream, a most terrifying dream, and a loving, supportive and kind woman, my wife Jane.

When I finished five years of teaching high school history, I was exhausted and burned out. It was not just a physical or emotional thing. It was a whole life thing, and I just needed to move on. 

So, I searched for a new job and finally found one in the trades. Every day, I went to work. I tried to be happy in the new job but, upon reflection, I was just going through the motions.

Then, one August night, I woke up covered in a cold sweat, hyperventilating, and terrified. I was shaking so badly that I woke up my wife Jane.

“Are you alright?”, she asked.

“No,” I responded.”

“What happened?”

“I just dreamed that my boss was about to cut out my heart.”

“Wow. What is the message of this dream?”

“I need to listen to my heart.”

“What is it saying?”

“I need to quit this job.”

“Okay.” And with that she rolled over and went back to sleep.

Once I had recovered my breath, I lay in bed and realized I had just made a huge decision. I was married and we had a child under the age of one. And I had no idea where I was going in life or what I was supposed to be doing. I just knew that I was way off my path. I was not where I needed to be. So, in the morning, I gave notice. And shortly thereafter, I came home. 

I framed up the first week of not working as a vacation. This was much needed as I had finished teaching one day and the next day started in the trades. But after a week of vacation, I needed to figure out what to do with my life. 

So, every morning after breakfast, five days a week, I would walk up the steps to the landing on the second floor of our home, sit down at a small table with my college, electric typewriter, and write a letter.

The first line of the letter was always the same: “Dear God. This is Geery…”. And I would write and write until I had nothing left to say on that day. Then, I would put the letter in a folder, and go downstairs to engage with the day. I did this week after week, and slowly the path before me became clear.

James Kouzes and Barry Posner in their book, A Leader’s Legacy (Jossey-Bass, 2006), wrote “There’s solid evidence that the best leaders are highly attuned to what’s going on inside themselves as they are leading and to what’s going on with others. They’re very self-aware and they’re very socially aware... leadership development is first and foremost self-development.” 

I believe that the best people are also highly attuned to what’s going on inside themselves and to what’s going on with others. As Kevin Cashman wrote so many years ago, “If you want to become a better leader, you must become a better person.” Truer words have not been shared. And in life’s journey, becoming a better person is paramount.

I have learned that in order to become a better person listening to the heart is critical. It helps us to know the difference between what is and what is not essential. That is the essence of life’s journey, namely figuring out what is essential. I have learned from this life journey that what is most essential is all of the small stuff: listening, kindness, compassion, respect, and love. It is all about family and friends, children and grand children. 

Some would say that these are the “soft skills” of life. I, on the other hand, have come to conclusion that these are the hardest of hard skills. It involves seeking wholeness rather than fragmentation as the foundation of one’s life. It involves learning, unlearning and relearning. It requires resilience more than effectiveness. Listening to one’s heart requires us to be present to our life journey, and to move forward with faith.

© Geery Howe 2026

Geery Howe, M.A. Executive Coach in Leadership, Strategic Planning, and Organizational Change

The Road Is Not The Journey

As many of my current and former clients and students know, I like to tell stories. I also like to listen to stories. I find them fascinating and intriguing, influential and powerful. I grew up in a family of story tellers and I suspect I have passed this on to both of our sons. 

Now, Some of my stories are quite long. Others are dramatic. And some are just crazy, comical and delightfully insightful.

After decades of consulting, teaching and many years of living and learning, I have come to the conclusion that we are wired as human beings to connect, understand, and remember stories, not just statistics or data. John Kotter, author of The Heart of Change: Real-Life Stories of How People Change Their Organizations (Harvard Business School Press, 2002), wrote: “The single most important message in this book is very simple. People change what they do less because they are given analysis that shifts their thinking than because they are shown a truth that influences their feelings. The flow of see-feel-change is more powerful than that of analysis-think-change.” From my experience, I believe the flow of story telling, namely hear-feel-change, is just as powerful and transformative as the see-feel-change process.

For many years when I was traveling and teaching, people would come up to me once I had told a story and say, “Geery - you got to write those stories down.” So, in late 2017 and early 2018, I sat down and started writing. The result was the booklet in the From Vision to Action Series called “The Map Is Not The Road”. It was a legacy project for me and important step in my journey personally and professionally.

Then, on June 1, 2018, after the booklet was published, I sat down for coffee with one of my Kitchen Table Cabinet people and gave him a copy. He looked at the cover, paused and said to me, “The road is not the journey, Geery.” And thus, I started a multi-year journey of reflection, many conversations, a vast amount of reading, and many cups of coffee and sharing, all of which has led me to new insights and greater perspective.

According to the dictionary, a road is defined as “a means to an end; a static creation; a way to overcome obstacles; the creation of an engineer.” On the other hand, a journey is defined as “a process over time” and it involves intent and choices. It also involves movement, but not always moving.

Our life is a journey, be that physical, mental, emotional, social, and ultimately spiritual. Our life is the sum of all the experiences we have had to date. It is a journey of highly interconnected relationships, experiences, and choices.

During the coming days and weeks of this new year, we need to remember that we are all a part of one, great big, never ending story. I am one small part of something really quite big. We are all a small part of something really quite big. 

I think acknowledging this gives us the foundation to do two of the hardest things in the world, be that in the world of leadership or in our personal lives. First, we must start from the place of respecting all people, no matter the situation. My late brother-in-law Warren role modeled this so well. He never met a stranger in his life journey. And, second, we must remember that we are all connected, no matter our class, our privilege or our experiences. You and I are on the same journey. We are part of a larger whole.

During the following days and weeks, I will be sharing with you in this blog some important lessons I have learned in my life journey. The first lesson will begin on Tuesday. Until then, contemplate what lessons you have learned recently that you want to remember as we begin another collective journey around the sun. 

© Geery Howe 2026

Geery Howe, M.A. Executive Coach in Leadership, Strategic Planning, and Organizational Change