What are the three best values for success and happiness? It’s simple. Just live three values: Seek Wisdom, Practice Love and Get Results until they become habits, part of your very being, so you naturally develop the high trust, high performance relationships that bring success and happiness. That’s it. Covenant Leadership. It will give you the best chance for success and happiness in all areas of your life. How does it work? Success At work, the more your clients-customers trust you, the more ...
Feb 03, 2022
https://youtu.be/hZaWFsV32HI A lot of people get anxious because they don't know how to start a conversation with someone new. With Covenant Leadership, if you can remember just 3 things, you can master a simple approach to starting great conversations and relationships with anyone you meet. Whether it is at work, in the community, or even with a romantic interest. Whether you are comfortable starting conversations with strangers or someone who gets anxious talking to someone new, this simple co...
Jun 28, 2021•5 min
There's something you can start doing right now that will profoundly change your life and the lives of those you love. It will give you the best chance for happiness and success in life, and it will change the world while you're doing it. It doesn't cost a nickel. It doesn't require any special gear or a membership. What can you do that will profoundly change your life? Seek Every Opportunity to Practice Love It is simple. Starting right now, go through your day looking for every opportunity to ...
Jun 11, 2021•5 min
How can you achieve happiness and success in life? Some people say happiness is all about how much money you have. Other people say happiness is about your social status or education level. The best science tells us something very different. In an earlier blog, we talked about the meaning of life and your purpose in life, which is happiness, fulfillment. In this blog, we’re going to talk about how you can achieve happiness and success in life, and change the world while doing it. We will keep it...
Jun 03, 2021•8 min
What is the Meaning of Life? What's the meaning of life? What's your purpose in life? Some people say there is no meaning to life. Other people say that the meaning of life is whatever you want it to be. But I think there's a much better answer. Welcome to Real Talk About Life where we use Covenant Leadership to develop the relationships that bring happiness and success in life, and change the world. What is Happiness? What's the meaning of life? What's your purpose in life? The answer is simple...
May 18, 2021•3 min
From our earlier episodes, we know that happiness in life comes from good, high-trust, covenant relationships. To develop good relationships, practice the three Covenant Virtues: Seek wisdom, practice love, and get results. The more people trust your wisdom, that you love them and that you can get results, the better your relationships and the stronger your leadership. The more you practice these virtues, the more they will become habits and part of your character. You won’t just develop relatio...
Oct 31, 2020•7 min
We’ve all read dozens of articles giving us eight things we can do to be a better leader or parent or person. Most of them seem like good tips. By the time I read three or four articles, I have a list of 25-30 things I am supposed to do to be a better leader. And that’s after just a few days of reading. Maybe you are one of those people who can remember and do 25 things at the same time. If so, more power to you. I am not one of those people. I’ve learned The Power of Three. It’s simple. Most pe...
Oct 23, 2020•5 min
Welcome to the sixth episode in our series on how you can achieve happiness and success in life. From our earlier episodes, we know that Happiness and success in life come from high-trust, covenant relationships. In our last episode, we said that the best way of developing good relationships is to live the three virtues: Seek Wisdom Practice Love Get Results The more people trust your wisdom, that you love them, and that you get things done, the stronger your relationships. In our last episode w...
Oct 16, 2020•8 min
It’s simple. Happiness and success come from high-trust, covenant relationships. We know that from our previous blogs-podcasts. So, what is the best way to develop good relationships? Just do three things: Seek Wisdom Practice Love Get Results The more people trust your wisdom, that you love them, and that you get things done, the stronger your relationships. In this episode, we’re going to focus on wisdom and why its critical to your success. SEEK WISDOM Wisdom is the knowledge you need to be g...
Oct 08, 2020•8 min
I am one of those people who sometimes learns things the hard way—by making mistakes. Many of the best leadership lessons I have learned came while I served as an AV-8B Harrier pilot in the Marine Corps. Sometimes the leadership lessons came in installments. In this case, the first installment came from The Cow and the second from Buckwheat. The Cow I was a young Marine officer and new AV-8B Harrier pilot who had just reported to my first squadron in Yuma, Arizona, a few months prior. In the Mar...
Sep 22, 2020•6 min
In our last blog, we talked about how happiness and fulfillment come from good, high-quality relationships. In this piece, we'll talk about the three basic ways to understand relationships, and find that covenant relationships give us the best chance for happiness and success. Three Types of Relationships Football, basketball and golf are all different paradigms for playing a sport. They all use the word “team”, but they mean different things by that word. In football, there are offensive, defen...
Sep 17, 2020•10 min
Recent events have put Critical Race Theory (CRT) in the headlines. Companies, government and organizations are engaging CRT without any idea of where it comes from, what it believes or why it is profoundly dangerous. CRT is one of many theories—including Critical Legal Theory, Intersectionality, de-constructionism, Gender Theory, etc.—that have their roots deep in postmodern thinking that started in the mid 1900's. Postmodern thinking has become increasingly dominant in academia—especially the ...
Sep 09, 2020•8 min
HAPPINESS AND RELATIONSHIP We’ve got an 80-year Harvard study that says happiness comes from good relationships. There’s a good reason for that. As human beings, we are biologically wired for relationship. Relationship is a fundamental part of our human nature and DNA. Having good relationships fulfills our human nature. That’s why good relationships bring happiness. That’s why we thrive when we are in good relationships. As the Harvard study shows, we are healthier, feel better, live longer and...
Sep 08, 2020•8 min
HAPPINESS COMES FROM GOOD RELATIONSHIPS Harvard University has been conducting the Study on Adult Development for more than 80 years. It includes Harvard undergrads from the 1930’s and disadvantaged Boston youths from the early 1940’s—and their children. The purpose was to find out what makes happy and health lives. The ongoing study has tracked the lives of thousands of people in over a hundred dimensions including their lifestyle, health, careers, psychology, relationships, and financial succe...
Sep 02, 2020•6 min
Life can be intense, fast-paced, and complicated. Everywhere you turn, there’s pressure to be successful. At work, we’re supposed to have cool jobs that pay well, and are socially relevant and fulfilling. We’re supposed to be ambitious, enthusiastic leaders moving quickly up the career ladder. As parents, we are supposed to get our kids into the best schools, and ranked programs for sports or dance or music—or all three simultaneously. We’re supposed to be a good room-parent and coach while purs...
Aug 25, 2020•5 min
By Pete Bowen and Bailey Bowen SON OF A SHARECROPPER In mid-February—just two months and a lifetime ago—my wife and I were in her hometown of Dothan, Alabama, for her high school reunion and to spend time with her father. My father-in-law is the son of a sharecropper without much formal education. He grew up in one of the very poorest areas of the US, his bedroom the covered porch of a country house. He became a union pipe-fitter working at paper mills and nuclear power plants. His wife had a go...
Apr 28, 2020•14 min
By Pete Bowen and Bailey Bowen I learned a few important lessons last week that some might find helpful. On March 17, government-ordered Covid-19 shutdowns reduced my consulting business income to $0 overnight. The same week, two of my three daughters were laid off from their jobs. At the time, we were told that the shutdown would be a couple weeks. It would be tough and painful, but we would get through it. Though I had no income, we had enough savings to go 6 months on a bare-bones budget. Bes...
Apr 20, 2020•13 min
Welcome back to our series, Wisdom and Love vs. Postmodern Power. We’ve been talking about why we have so much conflict in our society and unhappiness in our lives. In this session, we’ll discuss postmodern ideas about relationships, power, rules, freedom and how we develop the young. Remember the three keys to understanding the Postmodern Paradigm: There is no Truth or Morality or facts. Everything in life is In-the-Eye-of-the-Beholder. There is no purpose or meaning in Life. All that matters i...
Apr 07, 2020•12 min
Welcome back to our blog series Wisdom and Love vs. Postmodern Power. We’ve been talking about why we have so much conflict in our society and unhappiness in our lives. The primary reason is that we have three conflicting understandings of life at work in society. It’s like trying to play a game of basketball-football-golf. I call it basket-foot-golf. The conflicting rules make it impossible to combine them into a single game. It will inevitably lead to conflict and deep frustration. Are you sup...
Apr 02, 2020•15 min
We’re in tough times right now. Two of my three daughters were laid off last Friday. After a well-worded inquiry, my oldest daughter avoided a lay off and transitioned to a new role in her company. Manager of the 3rd shift disinfecting team. My mother is in the late stages of Alzheimer’s, and inaccessible in her board and care. The good news is that she doesn’t know what’s going on. The bad news is that I may have held her hand for the last time. My 84-year-old father is in isolation in his apar...
Mar 23, 2020•7 min
Welcome back to our second session talking about the Modern Paradigm. Let’s start with a review of what we learned in our first session on the Modern Paradigm. For thousands of years, the Wisdom Paradigm was the dominant way of understanding life across all the world’s great societies, cultures and religions. That was until about 450 years ago when Europe was torn apart by more than 100 years of religious wars that killed millions of people and devastated nations. With Europe broken politically,...
Oct 11, 2019•20 min
Welcome back to our ongoing series about the history of the ongoing conflict in America—and how we fix it. In our last three blogs, we discussed the basics of the Wisdom Paradigm—the dominant way of understanding life for thousands of years—for almost all cultures, religions and philosophies. The Wisdom Paradigm teaches us that human nature has been the same through history, and that we all have the same destination in life, the same purpose, which is Happiness, fulfillment. Happiness comes from...
Sep 28, 2019•20 min
Wisdom Paradigm Part 3 Welcome back to our third and last session talking about the Wisdom Paradigm. The better you know the Wisdom Paradigm, the more successful you can be in all aspects of your life—at work, at home and with your family. For thousands of years, the Wisdom Paradigm had us on the right track developing towards goodness and Happiness—until we took a wrong turn a few centuries ago into the Modern Paradigm. We’ll talk about that wrong turn, what happened and the Modern Paradigm in ...
Sep 21, 2019•16 min
Wisdom and Relationships In our last blog, we talked about the basics of the Wisdom Paradigm. The better you understand the Wisdom Paradigm, the happier and more successful you’re going to be in life. Let’s review some of the anchor points from our last session. In the Wisdom Paradigm, culture and times may change, but human nature has remained the same throughout history. Life is about pursuing Happiness—the fulfillment of our human nature. What brings us Happiness in life? The answer: Good rel...
Sep 11, 2019•19 min
With all the wealth and education and technology that we have today, why does life feel disorienting and confusing? Why are supposedly smart people saying and doing things that are absurd and contradictory? Why do we feel like basic morality has collapsed and we’re headed the wrong direction? Welcome back for the third blog in a series that tells the story of how we got into this mess and how we can get out of it. As we discussed in earlier blogs, the confusion and disorientation we are feeling ...
Sep 04, 2019•17 min
Basket-Foot-Golf: How Paradigms Work In our last session, I teased you with some imagery. Imagine walking on an athletic field and seeing a group of people trying to dribble footballs through a sand trap. Take second to really visualize that. To our left, there is a coach talking about the proper golf club selections for the free throw line and goal line. To our right, we see a person wearing shoulder pads put a big orange ball on top of a small white tee, and try to hit it with a 5 iron. Behind...
Aug 06, 2019•19 min
Lost on a Low Level Flight Back in the last century, when I was in flight school in the Marine Corps, I was stationed for a time in the vacation destination of Kingsville, Texas. At one point, Mother Nature decided to send a massive hurricane our way. With the hurricane inbound, a young instructor and I—he was 25 years old and I was 23—were told to take one of the jets and go away and get some training done. The instructor decided we were going to practice low-level flights to Houston and Meridi...
Jul 30, 2019•14 min
Airplane Crashes and Reference Points Almost exactly 20 years ago, on July 16, 1999, John F. Kennedy Jr. and his wife Carolyn died in an airplane crash off the coast of Massachusetts. The famous son of President John F Kennedy was headed to Martha’s Vineyard for a wedding. A safety investigation determined that Kennedy flew into hazy weather at night and experienced spatial disorientation, causing him to lose control of the airplane and crash into the ocean. More simply stated, Kennedy flew into...
Jul 11, 2019•12 min
In our last blog, we talked about three simple things you can do to build a great organizational culture. The three steps were to: Identify your core values Develop an ethos to practice your core values to create your culture Continually improve your core values, ethos and culture The point is that if you take each of your core values and transform them into 2-3 specific behaviors that practice that core value, you can intentionally create your organizational culture. You can align and synergize...
Jun 27, 2019•11 min
It doesn’t matter what kind of team you are leading, your organizational or team culture is really important for success. If you have a strong team culture, you will get more employee engagement and productivity, and higher performance. Studies show that companies with strong cultures have improved performance including: 65% increase in share price 4x increase in revenue growth 15% increase in productivity 30% greater client satisfaction 100% increase in unsolicited employee applications Only 14...
Jun 18, 2019•13 min
