In my estimation, those attendees over the years manifest the cream of the crop in the professional coaching field. The energy is always amazing!

The coaches in attendance had many disciplines: executive, personal, corporate, financial and spiritual. But one theme ran throughout the conference: Bringing more of soul and less of ego into our daily experiences.

This means bringing who we are, not what we demand, to every aspect in life, work, play, family, private. The topic remains pertinent. While the distinction of soul and ego is not new, it is an important concept to be pondered, especially in our work environments where we spend so much of our lives.

On the other hand, we can view our ego as the demands we make with what is enough rarely being enough.' Our ego strives to keep us in a constant state of discomfort and confusion, yearning for more money, success, power, sex, food, drugs, popularity, approval, and the list goes on.

Our soul, however, is the manifestor of 'who we truly are' and expresses outward our gifts to the world: the brilliance we are both with, our wisdom unfolded through experience, our insights gained, how we love, how generous we are, our clarity, our appreciation, our kindness, optimism and how we show compassion to others.

The challenge for many of us is that we take our soul for granted, discounting its importance in the real world, while choosing to focus on what is familiar to us - our insatiable ego.

We can find a better way to do this, guys!!

If we express our lives mainly from a place of ego, can we truly discover the deeper, unseen levels of who we are? Can we learn why we are here - and I mean you as an individual, you running a small business or a large corporation. If you choose, you can make your focus this week to study how you are operating and figure out whether your ego is running the show, or if your soul is.

What minor shifts in perspective will result in more desirable results in your level of productivity, peace and fulfillment?

I had a client once who inadvertently kept himself from moving into higher levels at work because his ego was in charge making him think that he wasn't getting the recognition and appreciation he so wanted to receive.) Things shifted for him dramatically once he chose to look inward at who he was (soul) and began to appreciate himself. He began to give to himself as a switch in focus and quit demanding from others. The shift was in perspective alone, from ego to soul, and brought results better than his ego had even envisioned!

Enjoy a soulful week, OK? Keep the ego. These parts are good; just don't let them rule you!!