SOMO Leadership Labs

Why SOMO exists

Hopi Elders’ Prophecy

You have been telling people that this is the Eleventh Hour, now you
must go back and tell the people that this is the Hour. And there are
things to be considered. . . .

Where are you living?
What are you doing?
What are your relationships?
Are you in right relation?
Where is your water?

Know your garden.
It is time to speak your truth.
Create your community.
Be good to each other.
And do not look outside yourself for your leader.

Then he clasped his hands together, smiled, and said, “This could be a
good time! There is a river flowing now very fast. It is so great and
swift that there are those who will be afraid. They will try to hold on
to the shore. They will feel they are being torn apart and will suffer
greatly. Know the river has its destination. The elders say we must let
go of the shore, push off into the middle of the river, keep our eyes
open, and our heads above the water.

And I say, see who is in there with you and celebrate. At this time in
history, we are to take nothing personally, least of all ourselves. For
the moment that we do, our spiritual growth and journey come to a halt.

The time of the one wolf is over. Gather yourselves!
Banish the word ‘struggle’ from your attitude and your vocabulary. All
that we do now must be done in a sacred manner and in celebration.

We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.

Oraibi, Arizona, June 8, 2000

SOMO so simple: Start with WHY

TO the peeps who came to lab last night:

PoPP (Power of Positive Psychology) – sometimes the insights come days later, like the last few kernels in the popper!

Glad you came to last night’s learning lab to get a slice of SOMO. Once you let it marinate, you’re sure to have an insight around its practical application in your life. This is the hangover effect I was mentioning: and when you’re up against a moment of choice, I’m hoping you’ll be more mindful of the road of opportunity, which you know starts with your perception. This type of positivity brings us more success (broadly defined) and is the precondition of its abundance.

Come back for some more learning — remember it’s kaledoscopic and layered. In particular, what’s available most immediately is the SOMO Macro Lab – 6 individual learning labs (starting April 29 from 6-8 pm) for a pod that’s forming now PLUS as much 1:1 follow up and follow through in between as your heart desires. This is all about choosing to make this commitment to SOMO if you have energy around it in your body when you think about the possibility. (This is intrinsic motivation which we discuss in one of the labs.) For more information on the macro lab, look here.

I’m attaching the handout from last night. Apparently I had brought them, but left them in the back for the room and forgot, so I thought maybe they were home on my printer. What I’m learning is to go easy on myself and remember: it’s all good. Thanks for agreeing that now perhaps is a better time for you to get value out of these handouts. I’m happy to discuss with you, anytime.

Louis
Telephone 917-331-0785
Email louis@louisalloro.com
Twitter/Facebook/Skype @LouisAlloro
AIM @LouLouSon

{In other words, let’s stay connected!}

Invitation to SOMO 3000

On March 2, 2013 this letter went to 50 SOMO leaders that came to mind — people that have had energy around SOMO since our start. We are an open bunch. If you have energy around being part of this, please contact Louis (louis@louisalloro.com)

***************

March 2, 2013

Hello, dear friend, fellow change-agent and SOcial-eMOtional leader,

I am writing with an invitation and a possibility.

First the possibility: The opportunity we have to go beyond today’s business-as-usual (and often solo or siloed) approaches to training, coaching, consulting and development and form a super-organism around “the work” where together we’re more powerful than any one of us alone. And as impressive as many of our individual accomplishments may be, how can we use our combined intelligence to move this vision of a flourishing world vastly forward – here at home in Cleveland, first?

The vision is a paradigm shift so big – and one that really harnesses all of our passions, purposes, strengths, skills, and assets – in (r)evolutionarily collective and powerful ways. How powerful? Northeast Ohio is known around the world as the Silicon Valley of Consciousness. I can feel it.

If you can too, please be a part of SOMO 3000: a vehicle to allow for the vision, prototype and design of this new way of being. You are invited to experiment: we will have the opportunity to come together, build psychological capacity, shift neural networks, and learn to innovate and collaborate in new and unprecedented ways. Everyone brings a piece to this process. Together, we will gain clarity around what we see individually and collectively, feel inspired by that vision, and then design a prototype of a super-organism that can be leveraged for our work.

As Margaret Drabble once said, “When nothing is sure, everything is possible.”

As a next step, you’re invited to an appreciative dinner and vision collision party on Tuesday, March 19 from 6:30-9:00 pm. Here, we will bring together like-minded and hearted folks who are clear on their individual visions and missions and are ready to take a step forward toward the transcendent purpose we are working towards: well-being, abundance, and flourishing.

What happens past this dinner, the we will decide. I imagine it will continue to evolve as experiential learning and design sessions. Ultimately, our collective intelligence is the seed- bed of beauty for the super-organism as it continues its holistic and heliotropic emergence here on Lake Erie, where I’ve heard the alkaline structure is awakening similarly to Sedona, Arizona’s magic in the mid-90s. Except the time is now. The place is here. The work is ours.

Please let me know if you’re available for dinner on the 19th . Once the pod forms, there will be details as to where.

Louis Alloro

SOMO + MAPP + Tales of Triumph

This semester, we have had the great fortune of working with a rockstar bunch of current MAPP students as part of their service learning requirement to earn their Master of Applied Positive Psychology degree from the University of Pennsylvania. They are Emilia Lahti, Elena Thompson, and Marita James.

The cool part is that THEY picked US, with connected energy around our mission and vision. When we came together, I asked them what they’re interested in studying and encouraged them to follow that energy, trusting that it would all be relevant and because of their intrinsic motivation, highly charged with pieces that we could apply.

They are responsible for research that relates to our work and the addition to this intervention to our calendar. Join us for Tales of Triumph on April 19 at 12 noon EST via phone.

Stay tuned for other pieces of their lit review and application plan.

Thank you, scholars with heart, for all you’re contributing to our SOMO call-to-action.

Louis

Want to host a learning lab?

Introduce your network at home or work to the science of success and well-being and give them a gift to be become stronger, more resilient and happier.

We go to board rooms, auditoriums, living rooms, restaurants, and more. Essentially, where you are, we come and facilitate a slice of something nice.

Contact Louis@LouisAlloro.com for more information.

#SOMO

Illustrated by a participant in a learning lab, Toronto, Canada, July 2012

As we look out for the well-being of others, we realize this must start with ourselves first. As professor Bob Quinn says on leading change, “Integrity is the fundamental state of leadership.” Let’s turn our fingers inward and become more mindful of our own hypocricies, visions, missions, and strengths. Let’s agree to be less judgmental and more appreciative, to love, to trust – of ourselves first and then the others in our lives. Let us help each other help each other [SIC] on PURPOSE find their purposes, their callings, they WHYs.

Trinity Macro Pod POPS!

Pops of Insights Abound in the Macro Pods! #Amazing

We are one-third of the way through our first ever open-enrollment macro pod. What a great group of people (18 of us!) that have come together to stretch and grow. We’re using scientifically-informed tools and strategies which have been shown to get people SO’MO of what they want in life. So far,we’ve looked at resilience from several lenses:

• Opportunity vs. Threat – In every moment of every day . . . how do you perceive what’s about to happen?
• ABC Model – Activating Events –> Beliefs –> Consequences
• Explanatory Style – How do you explain the good stuff that happens in your life? The bad stuff? (Measure yours here. Look for “Optimism Test”.)

We’ve covered the fact that we have several biases working against us in our thinking:

• Negativity Bias – Bad is stronger than good and more prominent in our perceptions
• Confirmation Bias – We find the evidence to confirm our limiting beliefs real easily
• Hindsight Bias – What we are sure we knew all along

And we’ve tapped into how change works, why positive emotion is soooooooo good for our mental and physical well-being, and how to begin shifting our focus from what is not work to what is working: and then to savor that, so as to get more of those feel-good neurotransmitters running through our bodies. When we feel good, we get more of what we want in life. So’mo of what we want.

Podistas: comment here. What am I missing? What have been your POPS of insight?

SOMO TOTD: 21 Day Meditation Challenge

SOMO TOTD (Task of the Day): Join other SOMO Leaders for a 21-day mediation challenge.

Sign up here and then report in on our Facebook page that you’re joining us. We can hold each other accountable.

If you’re thinking, “I don’t know how to meditate” — stop that! Of course you know how. It’s breathing. Plus, Deepak Chopra guides us each day with links that are provided. You won’t be alone.

For the many researched benefits of meditation, look here.

You in? (What you waiting for?)

(Thank you Beth Winkler for encouraging us to participate!)

SOMO TOTD: Bring us into your workplace!

Thanks to SOMO Leader Nicole Mendelsohn, this opportunity to learn a bit about the science of success, well-being and happiness will take place at her organization, Pyramyd Air, next week.

Perhaps you’ll organize the same for your colleagues?

This is Nicole Mendelsohn. When she’s not being a super paradigm shifting business leader, she’s the mom to a beautiful little girl, Lila. (Hence, the sippy cup!)

Next Thursday, October 11th, employees are invited to participate in a leadership development lab.  The lab is a one-hour session which will run twice that day, one starting at 11 a.m. and again at 1:30 p.m.  A signup sheet will be available at the front desk (by Richelle) starting Monday.  Participation is voluntary, and will be paid time.  However, we ask that you arrange your schedule with your manager before signing up so that business demands are appropriately covered.

Our facilitator is Louis Alloro.  Louis is a change-agent whose background and training places him at the intersection of education and Positive Psychology (the science of optimal functioning, success, and happiness).  He is one of the first hundred people in the world to earn a degree in Applied Positive Psychology at the University of Pennsylvania.  The framework for his development lab is called Social-Emotional Leadership (SOMO), and is designed to help systemic positive change within organizations or communities. The theory is that Social-Emotional Leaders already exist within our networks. Once they’re found and leveraged, they can be called to act in helping design the prototype which will enable and sustain the positive social and cultural change we’re after.   Put another way, SOMO is about changing people’s reaction to how they think, a way of “framing” the past and thinking about how to move forward.

Participants report feeling energized upon completion of Louis’ lab; they are more focused on their strengths and more confident in making positive change.  Have we peaked your interest?  Sign up today to attend the lab.

More About SOMO

SOMO is an intentional effort to bring the science of success, well-being, & happiness to professional & social networks around Cleveland, Ohio + beyond for building an individual’s psychological, SOcial, & eMOtional muscle leading to organizational, familial, community, and ultimately city-wide optimal functioning & flourishing. It’s leadership development and wellness at all levels.

Social-Emotional Leadership (SOMO) was designed as a framework for how communities flourish by Louis Alloro, M.Ed., MAPP as part of his graduate work in Applied Positive Psychology from the University of Pennsylvania. Louis is one of the first 100 people in the world to have this degree.

Not long thereafter, SOMO was birthed in Cleveland, Ohio when Louis came to visit his best friend’s family and had a visceral sense that positive psychology would work really well here. Then, in August of 2009, he met his first partner and co-creator in SOMO CLE, Adele DiMarco-Kious, They met at the first Sustainable Cleveland 2019 summit (David Cooperrider, the facilitator, was one of his profs at Penn and invited him to participate). Adele and Louis met literally at the eleventh hour as they were sweeping the floors at the convention center, and the two knew that they were onto something BIG for Cleveland and beyond.

What’s that something? To find and leverage the Social-Emotional (SOMO) Leaders around town, those who share a vision for a more positive future. SOMO Leaders already exists as change-agents within their networks. Our task is to find them and invite them into our Learning Labs, aka the mind gym, for a workout, where we’re all learning to build a new muscle to think differently. 

Essentially, SOMO Leaders are willing and interested in leading change in their lives and communities, starting with themselves first. Those who accept the invitation will be supported to discover and develop their strengths and given tools to think differently and to grow new connections which lead to increased individual and community-wide success, happiness, and well-being.

To date, we have reached over 1,000 Clevelanders in our Labs. We’ve had coverage in the Plain Dealer. We’ve partnered with some key people and organizations, including George Mason University’s Center for Consciousness & Transformation who is interested in measuring the effect of change through peoples’ social networks, something that’s never been done before.

We’re building the bridge as we walk on it — co-creating as we go — walking the talk — believing that positive and sustainable change is possible.

So, imagine a Cleveland that is vibrant and bustling with life, with grass roots efforts activating city-wide change-agents who share knowledge and help build strong relationships within our community. People who are happy and healthy manifest positive self-growth and help others to be successful in this 21st century global economy. We envision a city that is recruiting, supporting, and retaining participatory citizens and industries.

We have 5 representative from Pyramid Air joining a SOMO Macro Pod starting next week as well. Go Pyramid! And thank you, Nicole, for leading.

Have you received value from SOMO?

We operate off a grant from the Center for Consciousness & Transformation at George Mason University. They are our angel investors and the reason we can provide learning labs without cost.

We, SOMO Leadership Labs, intends on making a donation to the Center for Consciousness & Transformation in 2 weeks. It’s all about reciprocating energy. If you have received value from SOMO in the past 3 years of our existence, we invite you to contribute to this effort of good faith.

Some of you have donated, others have expressed interest in doing so and haven’t yet. Please, please, please exchange energy. Good things will follow. Use this link here to donate online, or you can send a check to Louis Alloro (2800 Circle Ct., Cleveland OH 44113). Any amount is appreciated.

Thank you.