“First you have to understand yourself, because the hardest person you will ever have to lead is you. Second, you must take responsibility for your own development.”
Bill George (HBS/ Leadership) from True North: Discover Your Authentic Leadership https://quickread.com/book-summary/true-north-337
At WATERS OVER STONE, we know that living an intentional live is act of Personal Leadership, Authentic Leadership where you stride into your vision of the world you want to create and model the way – your way – for yourself and others. This in the ground you have chosen to walk, your path, your values, your intention, your commitment, your results.
Are you ready? Is something getting in the way?
It’s not easy breaking old habits and establishing a new more authentic way of being. Really, though, do we have any other choice if we are aware that something more real, more of who we know ourselves to be, is ready to emerge and find expression in our life – the one life we get? We need to find the courage to lead ourselves up this new path, away from limiting behaviors and toward choice which bring us peace and a sense of fulfillment. It’s different for each of us of course, because we are each unique, and motivated by different things.
We each have a sense of who we are and what drives us. I have friends who are motivated by power, whose sense of self is guided by a quest for control. I don’t know how happy or fulfilled they are….
Others I know are moved to achieve, and often feel a discomfort that may come from a sense that they are not living up to their desires or potential to get things done. Something is getting in their way. Life is out of balance.
People who are motivated in their lives by a desire to affiliate, to be with and to help others are yet another group who have a distinct calling, the expression of which is perhaps blocked by something they are unable to identify and change. This is an interesting bunch – I put myself in with them, as ‘being’ must always be a part of what we are doing. We “affiliators” get a sense of fulfillment in working with others. We seek it out. Whatever we achieve, it must involve others in some meaningful way.
Where we are today is the product of all the choice we have made and actions we have taken up to now. We have been driven by something. The choice to lead ourselves by our deeply held values, to pursue a vision of the life we want to live, to move forward with a sense that “this is who I am”…this is a choice open to each of us. And it holds a new world of promise.
This is where it starts. You make a choice and take a stand.
NEED SOME HELP – LET ME KNOW. bradshaw@watersoverstone.com
