Rick Stevenson

Rick believes that 4 out of 5 of us don’t need to be a drain on vital mental health services because most of us have within ourselves everything we need to achieve wellness the natural way. He calls it our Emotional Immune System and it appears to work just like our biological one—when you get a cut, all of the forces in your body go to heal it. The difference is that this Emotional Immune System is activated by one thing and one thing alone: It is activated by emotional intelligence. It is the key to innovative thinking, authentic leadership, meeting complex challenges, increasing productivity, sparking a transformation, and creating general wellness.

When Rick was a child, he mysteriously lost his hearing for a year. During that year of silence, it was this illustrated book that gave him hope. In the book, Harold, confined to his room, decides to draw his adventure using his purple crayon. He wants to go for a walk in the moonlight, but there is no moon, so he draws one. He has nowhere to walk, so he draws a path… and so on. Harold discovers that he can be the author of his own life, the central character in his own story. In a world often filled with “victims,” how do we find our crayons?

We all have within our grasp direct access to a superpower—one that dwarfs all other superpowers. After all, what good is it to have the power of flight if we don’t know where to go? What good is it shape-shift if we don’t know who we are in the first place? If the greatest mystery we will ever face is, “Who in the world am I?”, finding the answer to that question can give us power over unlocking almost every other door. This superpower is already inside you. Find out how to unlock it.

It’s as old as time itself. Telling stories around the campfire. It’s in our very DNA. It’s how we connect and communicate. What do the best educators, leaders, salesmen, artists, lawyers, health providers, scientists, and the like all have in common? They know how to tell a story. Learn the secrets and you’ll see just how much more interesting your own story becomes.

According to Rick: “It has come to my attention over 5500 interviews that we are all someone’s or something’s puppet. “For instance, I have struggled with impatience my whole life. I have been impatience’s puppet. In the last decade, however, I have addressed this problem through the 5000 Days Project. What better way to deal with impatience than to start a project that never ends? Yes, I will never reach the end of this project while I’m alive. There: I found a way to make impatience my puppet.” Whose puppet are you?

While brain science claims we can take in as much as 11 million bits of information per second, we can only really hold 40 thoughts in our heads at one time. Which 40 thoughts we choose to focus on determines our outlook and where we reside on the continuum between our longings and our fears. It determines our mental health. The great news is that with some practice, we can choose which 40 thoughts fill our mental hard drive. What 40 thoughts fill yours?

What is the key to producing authentic and innovative leaders, fearless creative game changers who know how to shift and transform based on the changing set of complex challenges before them? Growing Emotional Intelligence within your team enables them to leave their baggage at home and bring their “A game to work creating a force greater than the sum of its parts.