You are a leader. Stake your claim to what is yours.
It’s very empowering to acknowledge, celebrate, and truly own all of the aspects of our existence. And each of us is a leader on some level: at home, at work, in the community… through formal or informal roles. Whether a CEO or a stay-at-home parent, we all have the ability to inspire others and create action through our ideas, words, and examples.
Of course we can’t all be leaders in all areas – but we can claim the leadership responsibilities that have already been bestowed upon us: if you’re a parent, then you’re a leader. If others often come to you for feedback or advice, you’re a leader. You’re a leader if you can think beyond the minutiae and the mundane, and if you’re able to assess challenges as opportunities.
We can claim our leadership in any area in which we feel a sense of passion and investment: wherever we care deeply enough to develop our knowledge, self-evaluate and grow, and challenge ourselves and others to strive for something better.
Try expanding your own concept of leadership, and seize the opportunity to stake your claim. You may already be the top dog at work – but how can you bring a more positive influence to your children? Or you may possess no formal title at all – but where can you share your unique knowledge, experience, talent, and wisdom? Where can you influence a change in your world (no matter how small), and inspire those around you to do the same?
You are a leader. Wear it proudly. Positive change is desperately needed on all levels, grand and small – from the political arena, to the boardroom, to the living room. And each of us can embrace the privilege, right, and responsibility to make it happen!
Oct 24, 2009
Oct 16, 2009
Creating a Space
There is much written about motivation and how to achieve and keep it. Unfortunately, motivation is one of those things that easily elude us. Where does motivation come from? How do we get it and make it stick? Can we really do or say anything to motivate another person if it has to come from within?
These are hard questions with no easy answers. The truth is that we need to find what works for us personally, and what style of motivating matches the others person’s values and desires. Google ‘Motivation’, pick a couple of tools, and try them out. And it’s important to remember that once you’ve got it yourself, that doesn’t mean its here to stay: we need to keep working on our motivation whenever the need comes up. We have to renew it constantly and work hard at it (the irony is that we have to be motivated to stay motivated!)
So it’s not an easy thing, but as I mentioned, there are some tools to help draw out that elusive drive from within. One of the things that works for me is to ensure that my environment is set up in a way that helps my motivation rather than hinder it.
For example, like many of us, exercise is the tough one for me. I’m not much of a ‘get up and go to the gym’ type of person, and so I’d rather keep in shape at home. I have the bench and weights, elliptical trainer, and yoga mat – but unfortunately they’ve experienced a lot of darkness and dust over the years.
Fairly recently, however, I’ve created a space that actually makes me want to be there; and that’s made all the difference in the world. I painted the walls in the ‘exercise room’ and put a little stereo in there, as well as a couch and TV: all the comforts of home, so to speak (of course you can go too far: if I also decided to go with the beer fridge, for example, the exercise plan might have gone down the drain!)
So now I’m back on track and it feels good – and it really didn’t cost much.
Where can you ‘create a space’? Think about your home or work environment, for instance: is it cluttered and dull, or is it a clean, organized, exhilarating and inspiring place to be? ‘Exhilarating’ may sound like an exaggeration when you’re thinking of a workspace, but it’s really not: read about colour and aroma therapies, for example – there’s some good research to back these up (or even feng shui if that’s your thing; although the evidence on that one is rather lacking).
And remember, a cluttered environment makes for a cluttered mind. There are some good professional organizers out here who can help, if this isn’t your strength – don’t be afraid to use the resources available.
And don’t forget to change it up periodically: we habituate to our surroundings after awhile, and so we need to keep it fresh to keep those neurons stimulated!
These are hard questions with no easy answers. The truth is that we need to find what works for us personally, and what style of motivating matches the others person’s values and desires. Google ‘Motivation’, pick a couple of tools, and try them out. And it’s important to remember that once you’ve got it yourself, that doesn’t mean its here to stay: we need to keep working on our motivation whenever the need comes up. We have to renew it constantly and work hard at it (the irony is that we have to be motivated to stay motivated!)
So it’s not an easy thing, but as I mentioned, there are some tools to help draw out that elusive drive from within. One of the things that works for me is to ensure that my environment is set up in a way that helps my motivation rather than hinder it.
For example, like many of us, exercise is the tough one for me. I’m not much of a ‘get up and go to the gym’ type of person, and so I’d rather keep in shape at home. I have the bench and weights, elliptical trainer, and yoga mat – but unfortunately they’ve experienced a lot of darkness and dust over the years.
Fairly recently, however, I’ve created a space that actually makes me want to be there; and that’s made all the difference in the world. I painted the walls in the ‘exercise room’ and put a little stereo in there, as well as a couch and TV: all the comforts of home, so to speak (of course you can go too far: if I also decided to go with the beer fridge, for example, the exercise plan might have gone down the drain!)
So now I’m back on track and it feels good – and it really didn’t cost much.
Where can you ‘create a space’? Think about your home or work environment, for instance: is it cluttered and dull, or is it a clean, organized, exhilarating and inspiring place to be? ‘Exhilarating’ may sound like an exaggeration when you’re thinking of a workspace, but it’s really not: read about colour and aroma therapies, for example – there’s some good research to back these up (or even feng shui if that’s your thing; although the evidence on that one is rather lacking).
And remember, a cluttered environment makes for a cluttered mind. There are some good professional organizers out here who can help, if this isn’t your strength – don’t be afraid to use the resources available.
And don’t forget to change it up periodically: we habituate to our surroundings after awhile, and so we need to keep it fresh to keep those neurons stimulated!
Oct 9, 2009
Surround Yourself With The Right People
I ran into some old friends last weekend, and immediately I felt a new sense of energy – catching my ‘second wind’ after a rather tiring morning. I think this happened for two reasons: one, simply because I was happy to see them, and two, because they’re very successful.
I won’t get into the types of successes they’ve achieved, because that’s irrelevant: we all carry different definitions of success in different areas (finance, health, leadership, relationships, all of the above…). The point is that these people make me want to be my best.
I’ve taken many positive steps on many levels, simply because of my social affiliations: whether it’s because of the bits of wisdom I picked up through their conversations, or because I observed their actions and successes – which made me want to do the same, or simply because I felt good in their presence (positive psychology research tells us, not surprisingly, that we’re just plain more effective in every aspect when we’re feeling good).
So who do you surround yourself with? Who contributes to your happiness and success by just ‘being there’?
And on the other side of the coin, I’m sure we can all relate to the opposite. Who brings you down through their negativity? Who doesn’t set the bar high enough for themselves or for you? Who around you settles for mediocrity, and how does this affect your sense of drive and hope?
We can’t always choose all of the people in our lives, of course, but we can exercise discretion with the choices we are able to make. Who are you now, and where are you going? What kinds of people do you need in your life to help pave the way?
And, of course, all this isn’t to say that we shouldn’t be caring, helping, and supportive people – but it’s really about how we manage the flow of energy. Are you often left feeling depleted because you give out more than you receive – or do you have a strong reciprocal flow and reserve of positive energy in your life?
I won’t get into the types of successes they’ve achieved, because that’s irrelevant: we all carry different definitions of success in different areas (finance, health, leadership, relationships, all of the above…). The point is that these people make me want to be my best.
I’ve taken many positive steps on many levels, simply because of my social affiliations: whether it’s because of the bits of wisdom I picked up through their conversations, or because I observed their actions and successes – which made me want to do the same, or simply because I felt good in their presence (positive psychology research tells us, not surprisingly, that we’re just plain more effective in every aspect when we’re feeling good).
So who do you surround yourself with? Who contributes to your happiness and success by just ‘being there’?
And on the other side of the coin, I’m sure we can all relate to the opposite. Who brings you down through their negativity? Who doesn’t set the bar high enough for themselves or for you? Who around you settles for mediocrity, and how does this affect your sense of drive and hope?
We can’t always choose all of the people in our lives, of course, but we can exercise discretion with the choices we are able to make. Who are you now, and where are you going? What kinds of people do you need in your life to help pave the way?
And, of course, all this isn’t to say that we shouldn’t be caring, helping, and supportive people – but it’s really about how we manage the flow of energy. Are you often left feeling depleted because you give out more than you receive – or do you have a strong reciprocal flow and reserve of positive energy in your life?
Oct 2, 2009
Who Are You?
Someone asked me the other day if I thought that we really ‘know ourselves’. The surface answer to this question, I thought, is yes. Do you know what your favourite colour is? What you like and dislike? What you value and what you avoid? What you want out of life, for you and your family? If you’ve ever given any thought to these things, then yes, you can safely say you know yourself.
However, there is a deeper level to this: a level where the answer to this question is quite possibly no.
I was reminded of the book “Mistakes Were Made (But Not by me)”, by Tavris and Aronson, which was an insightful reminder about how we come to shape our own perceptions about who we are. If you’ve read any of the theory and research in the fields of cognitive dissonance and human memory (the main topics in “Mistakes Were Made…”), or narrative therapy and Gestalt psychology, you’ll know that this process is done largely through fallible processes.
If you’re not familiar with these areas, the crux is this: memory is highly prone to error, we as humans always want to put vague, disjointed pieces together to form a logical whole (i.e., we “fill in the blanks”), we justify our actions by reconfiguring our perception of an actual event or its outcomes, and we ultimately believe the stories we create for our own lives – accurate or not.
For years when I was a kid I believed that my older sister had a pet gorilla (where this belief came from, I have no idea). I was able to eventually discount this belief, of course, because of its absurdity. But my memories of this gorilla to this day still seem so real. So what about our memories and life stories that are more feasible than that: the ones that don’t include a 400-pound pet? They may be wrong too – we just don’t question them.
So what does this mean? Well, frankly, it means that we may not actually have had many of the experiences we remember; that our personal history and relationships didn’t likely go down exactly the way we think they did; and that on some level we may not even really be who we think we are! Kind of scary, isn’t it?
The point of this article is to remind and encourage us to look at those things that shaped our lives, relationships, and leadership styles – those specific events, the decisions we made, the conversations we had – and challenge them. Does it all really fit into that neat little package we envision, or were things really perhaps a little more unpredictable, messy, or chaotic than we care to remember?
Thinking about this, even if it stays rhetorical, can help to remind us that we’re all human: we’re all prone to mistakes and misperceptions, and we’re all really quite vulnerable in the big bad scheme of things. We try to do the best we can with what we’ve got – even if it means unintentionally skewing reality to protect our sense of control in this unknowable universe.
We need to remind ourselves to think critically, admit our fallibility and develop our empathy – and to be gentle with ourselves and others along the way.
However, there is a deeper level to this: a level where the answer to this question is quite possibly no.
I was reminded of the book “Mistakes Were Made (But Not by me)”, by Tavris and Aronson, which was an insightful reminder about how we come to shape our own perceptions about who we are. If you’ve read any of the theory and research in the fields of cognitive dissonance and human memory (the main topics in “Mistakes Were Made…”), or narrative therapy and Gestalt psychology, you’ll know that this process is done largely through fallible processes.
If you’re not familiar with these areas, the crux is this: memory is highly prone to error, we as humans always want to put vague, disjointed pieces together to form a logical whole (i.e., we “fill in the blanks”), we justify our actions by reconfiguring our perception of an actual event or its outcomes, and we ultimately believe the stories we create for our own lives – accurate or not.
For years when I was a kid I believed that my older sister had a pet gorilla (where this belief came from, I have no idea). I was able to eventually discount this belief, of course, because of its absurdity. But my memories of this gorilla to this day still seem so real. So what about our memories and life stories that are more feasible than that: the ones that don’t include a 400-pound pet? They may be wrong too – we just don’t question them.
So what does this mean? Well, frankly, it means that we may not actually have had many of the experiences we remember; that our personal history and relationships didn’t likely go down exactly the way we think they did; and that on some level we may not even really be who we think we are! Kind of scary, isn’t it?
The point of this article is to remind and encourage us to look at those things that shaped our lives, relationships, and leadership styles – those specific events, the decisions we made, the conversations we had – and challenge them. Does it all really fit into that neat little package we envision, or were things really perhaps a little more unpredictable, messy, or chaotic than we care to remember?
Thinking about this, even if it stays rhetorical, can help to remind us that we’re all human: we’re all prone to mistakes and misperceptions, and we’re all really quite vulnerable in the big bad scheme of things. We try to do the best we can with what we’ve got – even if it means unintentionally skewing reality to protect our sense of control in this unknowable universe.
We need to remind ourselves to think critically, admit our fallibility and develop our empathy – and to be gentle with ourselves and others along the way.
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