My love for commencement speeches brought me to this insightful speech by a highly decorated Navy Admiral. I jotted down the nuggets that spoke to me and I hope they will have the same effect to you as well.
1. Make your bed in the morning when you wake up to perfection.
You will accomplish the first task of the day
It will give you a small sense of pride
It will encourage you to do another task and another and another
By the end of the day that one task completed will turn to many tasks completed
Making your bed will also reinforce the fact that little things in life matter.
If you can’t do the little things right, you will never be able to do the big things right
And if by chance you have a miserable day you will come home to a bed that is made – and a made bed gives you encouragement that tomorrow will be better
So if you want to change the world, start of by making your bed.
2. You can’t change the world alone, you will need some help. And to truly gain from your starting point to your destination takes friends, colleagues, the goodwill of strangers and a strong leader for guidance.
Nothing matters but your will to succeed. If you want to change the world, measure a person by the size of their heart, not by their race, religion, size, education or social status.
3. Sometimes no matter how well you prepare or how well you perform you still end up not succeeding.
Life for you will never be perfect, buy you have to get over it and move forward.
Trouble builds inners strength and physical resilience, life is filled with troubles, you will fail, you will likely fail often, it will be painful, it will be discouraging at times.
It will test you to your very core, but if you want to change the world, don’t be afraid of the troubles.
4. If you change the world, sometimes you have to slide down the obstacles head first.
If obstacles come your way, stand your ground, do not walk away, do not act afraid, summon up all your strength and overcome the obstacles and they will vanish.
There are a lot of obstacles in the world, if you hope to succeed, you will have to face them, so if you want to change the world, don’t back down or give in.
5. To be successful in your objectives, it’s important to know that at the darkest moment in life, it is the time you need to be calm & composed.
This is when all your tactical skills, physical power and your inner strength must be brought to bare.
If you want to change the world, you must be your very best in the darkest moments.
If I have learnt anything during my time traveling the world it is the power of hope, the power of one person, Mandela, MLK , Malala, Wangari Maathai……………………
One person can change the world by giving people hope, so if you want to change the world, start singing when you are deep in trouble.
I wish nothing you nothing less of a dramatically positive life changing 2019!
One young academically excellent person went to apply for a managerial position in a big company. He passed the first interview; the director did the last interview, made the last decision. The director discovered from the CV, that the youth’s academic result was excellent. The director asked, “Did you obtain any scholarship in school?” and the youth answered “no”. The director asked, ” Is it your father who paid for your school fees?” the youth answered, “My father passed away when I was one year old, it is my mother who paid for my school fees.” The director asked, “Where did your mother work?” the youth answered, “My mother worked as a cleaner.” The director requested the youth to show him his hands. The youth showed a pair of hand that were smooth and perfect.
The director asked, “Did you ever help your mother wash the clothes?” The youth answered, “Never, my mother always wanted me to study and read more books, furthermore, my mother can wash clothes faster than me.” The director said, “I have a request, when you go home today, look at your mother’s hand, and then come and see me tomorrow morning.” The youth felt that as the chance of landing the job is high, when he went back, he happily wanted to see his mother’s hand. His mother felt strange, happy but mixed with fear, she showed her hands to the kid. The youth looked at his mother’s hand slowly, his tears rolled down he cheeks. He never noticed that his mother’s hands were so wrinkled, and that there are so many bruises in her hand.
This is the first time the youth realized and experienced that it was this pair of hand that washed clothes everyday to earn him the school fees, the bruises in the mother’s hand is the price that the mother paid for his graduation and academic excellence and probably his future. After looking at him Mum’s hands, the youth quietly cleaned all remaining clothes for his mother. That night, mother and son talked for a very long time.
Next morning, the youth went to the director’s office. The director noticed the tear in the youth’s eye, asked: “Can you tell what have you done and learned yesterday?” The youth answered, ” I looked at my mother’s hand, and also finished cleaning all the remaining clothes.”‘ The director asked, “Please tell me your feelings.”
The youth replied:
Number 1 – I now appreciate the fact that without my mother, I would not be successful today.
Number 2 -, I now know how to work together with my mother; I realize how difficult and tough it is to get something done.
Number 3 – I know the importance and value of family relationships.
The director said, “This is what I am asking, I want to recruit a person that can appreciate the help of others, a person that understands the challenges of others to get thing done, and a person that would not put money as his only goal in life to be a Manager. You are hired.”
Later on, this young person worked very hard, and received the respect of his subordinates, every employees worked diligently and in a team, the company’s result improved tremendously.
A child, who has been protected and habitually given whatever he wanted, develops an “entitlement mentality” and always put himself first. He is ignorant of others effort. When he starts work, he assumes every person must listen to him, and when he becomes a Manager, he never understands the challenges facing his employee and always blames others.
You can let your kid live in a big house, eat a good meal, learn piano, watch a big screen TV. But when you are cutting grass, please let them experience it. After a meal, let them wash the dishes together with their brothers and sisters. It is not because you do not have money to hire a maid, but it is because you want to love them in a right way and give them an appreciation that everything in life does not come easy.
The most important thing we all need to learn is how to appreciate the effort and experience the difficulty, and learn the ability to work with others to get things done.
Whether you’re a fan or not, there is no doubt that Oprah Winfrey changes lives, starting with her own. As a real life rags-to-riches story and a self-made success, she knows the power of choice, living with courage, and following your dreams. She makes things happen.
Success leaves clues. Using Oprah’s words of wisdom and endless resources for information, we can add many patterns and practices for success to our personal knowledge base.
25 Lessons Learned from Oprah Winfrey
While I can’t possibly do justice to Oprah’s lifetime of contribution and service, what I can do is look for themes and patterns. I think the most important theme I noticed is that Oprah is a self-starter and she’s a visionary. Her determination and drive carry her forward, while her reflection and continuous growth help her redefine who she is and carry the best forward. It’s like a fine wine getting better with age. Here are 25 lessons from Oprah we can learn and model from:
1. Keep your dreams right in front of you.
Keep your eye on the prize and follow your dreams. Oprah is a fan of using your dreams as inspiration and guide for your choices in life. She’s recommended creating a vision board to map out what you really want. 2. Anyone can go from rags to riches.
No excuses. It’s not what you were born into; it’s what you do with what you’ve got. Oprah made herself who she is. No matter how bad your past was, it doesn’t need to limit your destiny unless you live in the past. 3. Surround yourself with an A-team.
Learn from the best. Find the mentors and coaches that can help you bring out your best. Oprah has a team of experts on her side. For health, Oprah has Dr. Mehmet Oz, Bob Greene, and Dr. Katz. For spirit, she has Deepak Chopra, Marianne Williamson, Elizabeth Lesser, and Martha Beck. For style, she has Val Monroe and Adam Glassman. For relationships, she has Lisa Kogan and Dr. Laura Bergman. For home, she has Nate Berkus, Peter Walsh, and Simran Sethi. For money, she has Suze Orman and Jean Chatzky. She’s worked with best-selling author, Eckhart Tolle and “relationship and life strategy expert,” Dr. Phil. Who’s in your corner? It doesn’t need to be somebody famous. You can learn from people in the past or in the present, from books, or in real life. “Stand on the shoulders of giants” instead of start from scratch. 4. Declutter your life.
Clean up your messes. This could be your house (and Oprah has plenty of resources for organizing and simplifying.) This could be your emotions. This could be your everyday schedule. Declutter to create space for opportunity, creativity, and a sense of well-being. Decluttering can help you get rid of the energy drains and chaos. 5. Live in a more conscious way.
Increase your awareness. Be mindful. Be in the moment. Make thoughtful choices. For example, don’t make emotional food choices. Improve your self-awareness. 6. Practice an attitude of gratitude.
Don’t have a sense of entitlement. Appreciate what you’ve got, what you get, and don’t take things for granted. 7. Make the most of what you’ve got.
Make the most of … your mind … your body … your emotions (including self-esteem and confidence) … your relationships … your home. 8. Embrace the body you’ve got.
Nourish your body. Look your best. Feel your best. Like it or not, your body is yours. Take care of it, so it can take care of you. After all, it needs to last you a life time. 9. Learn for life.
Nourish your mind. Reading is fundamental. Oprah is a firm believer in education and the power of know-how. In the words of Oprah, “Books were my pass to personal freedom. I learned to read at age three, and soon discovered there was a whole world to conquer that went beyond our farm in Mississippi.” 10. Live your best life.
Take responsibility. Be accountable to yourself and to your dreams. Don’t settle. Oprah has extensive resources to help you live your best life. Check out Live Your Best Life and Oprah’s Best Life Video Webcast Archive. 11. Live your own dreams.
Be true to you. Live your truths. At the end of the day, you’re the one that knows your hopes and dreams and can make them happen. Make sure they’re you’re dreams and not somebody else’s. 12. Enjoy your space.
Take care of your surroundings. According to Oprah, one of the best things you can ever give yourself is to have beautiful surroundings. 13. Don’t let fear hold you back.
Take bold action. Don’t let fear make your decisions for you. 14. Think you can.
If you believe, you can achieve. Build your confidence and your self-esteem, one small moment, one choice, or one private victory at a time. 15. Give back.
Oprah consistently demonstrates philanthropy and contribution. She’s effectively dedicated her life to helping other’s live their best life. 16. Keep it real.
She lives larger than life, but she’s human. She’s vulnerable. She has her flaws. She strives for a better life. She lives a life of continuous improvement. 17. Own it.
It’s your life. Don’t point fingers. Don’t play the blame game. Make your dreams happen. 18. Find your inner peace.
Drop the baggage. Forgive and forget. Another key here is self-knowledge and integrity. Be the person you say you are, forgive yourself when you aren’t, and lead the life you want to live. 19. Don’t give up.
Don’t give up on your dreams. Don’t give up on you. Persistence pays off. 20. Be present.
Live in the now, with an eye to the future. Know the results you’re getting. If you don’t like what you’re getting, change your approach. The most important thing you can change first is your attitude. 21. Journal it.
Writing your thoughts can help you reflect and get a more objective look at things. There’s a lot to be said for thinking on paper, even if it’s simple as just organizing your thoughts. Your journal can help improve your self-talk and it can help remind you what you think is important. It can also help you declutter your emotions and your mind. 22. Life’s short.
It really is. As 25 years of the Oprah Winfrey Show ends, and a new chapter for Oprah begins, it’s another reminder that time is limited, life it short, and the best you can do is make the most of what you’ve got. 23. Live without ego.
Eckhart Tolle teaches us that our egos get in the way of living our best life, and Oprah reinforces this message. Through self-acceptance, living in the moment, finding our truths, and giving ourselves to a higher purpose, we unleash our best. 24. Savor the moments.
Savor your relationships. Savor your choices. Savor your food. Savor your joys. Take in your moments. Your moments make up your life. 25. Add fresh starts to your life.
Whether it’s a new day, a new week, a new month, a new year … or simply a new attitude, make it a fresh start. Find the ways to renew yourself, whether it’s a make-over for you or your house, and find the inspiration for a new lease on life.
Top 10 Oprah Winfrey Quotes
Oprah is a wealth of great quotes and she has many words of wisdom. You can learn a lot about her and her insights through her quotes. Here are my top 10 favorite Oprah quotes:
Breathe. Let go. And remind yourself that this very moment is the only one you know you have for sure.
Every time you suppress some part of yourself or allow others to play you small, you are in essence ignoring the owner’s manual your creator gave you and destroying your design.
I knew there was a way out. I knew there was another kind of life because I had read about it. I knew there were other places, and there was another way of being.
The greatest discovery of all time is that a person can change his future by merely changing his attitude.
The key to realizing a dream is to focus not on success but significance – and then even the small steps and little victories along your path will take on greater meaning.
Turn your wounds into wisdom.
We are each responsible for our own life – no other person is or even can be.
What I know is, is that if you do work that you love, and the work fulfills you, the rest will come.
What I know for sure is that if you want success, you can’t make success your goal. The key is not to worry about being successful, but to instead work toward being significant, and the success will naturally follow.
You know you are on the road to success if you would do your job, and not be paid for it.
Oprah Winfrey Quotes
I’ve included some of my favorite Oprah Winfrey quotes below. I’ve organized them using the following categories: General, Choice, Dreams / Destiny / Purpose, Giving / Gratitude, Growth, Fear / Failure, Identity / Individuality, Opportunity / Possibility, Passion / Energy, Relationships, and Success.
Oprah on General Philosophy
Excellence is the best deterrent to racism or sexism.
I define joy as a sustained sense of well-being and internal peace – a connection to what matters.
I think that when you invite people to your home, you invite them to yourself.
I still have my feet on the ground, I just wear better shoes.
In every aspect of our lives, we are always asking ourselves, How am I of value? What is my worth? Yet I believe that worthiness is our birthright.
It’s much easier for me to make major life, multi-million dollar decisions, than it is to decide on a carpet for my front porch. That’s the truth.
Real integrity is doing the right thing, knowing that nobody’s going to know whether you did it or not.
There’s no easy way out. If there were, I would have bought it. And believe me, it would be one of my favorite things! Oprah on Choice
Be more splendid, more extraordinary. Use every moment to fill yourself up.
Follow your instincts. That’s where true wisdom manifests itself.
I believe that every single event in life happens in an opportunity to choose love over fear.
I believe that uncertainty is really my spirit’s way of whispering, “I’m in flux. I can’t decide for you. Something is off-balance here.
I believe the choice to be excellent begins with aligning your thoughts and words with the intention to require more from yourself.
My philosophy is that not only are you responsible for your life, but doing the best at this moment puts you in the best place for the next moment.
Understand that the right to choose your own path is a sacred privilege. Use it. Dwell in possibility.
With every experience, you alone are painting your own canvas, thought by thought, choice by choice. Oprah on Dreams / Destiny / Purpose
Before you agree to do anything that might add even the smallest amount of stress to your life, ask yourself: What is my truest intention? Give yourself time to let a yes resound within you. When it’s right, I guarantee that your entire body will feel it.
I believe that everyone is the keeper of a dream – and by tuning into one another’s secret hopes, we can become better friends, better partners, better parents, and better lovers.
I knew there was a way out. I knew there was another kind of life because I had read about it. I knew there were other places, and there was another way of being.
I know for sure that what we dwell on is who we become.
I trust that everything happens for a reason, even when we’re not wise enough to see it.
I’ve come to believe that each of us has a personal calling that’s as unique as a fingerprint – and that the best way to succeed is to discover what you love and then find a way to offer it to others in the form of service, working hard, and also allowing the energy of the universe to lead you.
It isn’t until you come to a spiritual understanding of who you are – not necessarily a religious feeling, but deep down, the spirit within – that you can begin to take control.
Often we don’t even realize who we’re meant to be because we’re so busy trying to live out someone else’s ideas. But other people and their opinions hold no power in defining our destiny.
The biggest adventure you can take is to live the life of your dreams.
The key to realizing a dream is to focus not on success but significance – and then even the small steps and little victories along your path will take on greater meaning.
Use what you have to run toward your best – that’s how I now live my life.
You can have it all. You just can’t have it all at once. Oprah on Giving / Gratitude
Be thankful for what you have; you’ll end up having more. If you concentrate on what you don’t have, you will never, ever have enough.
I don’t think you ever stop giving. I really don’t. I think it’s an on-going process. And it’s not just about being able to write a check. It’s being able to touch somebody’s life.
I finally realized that being grateful to my body was key to giving more love to myself.
Living in the moment brings you a sense of reverence for all of life’s blessings.
The more you praise and celebrate your life, the more there is in life to celebrate.
What I know for sure is that what you give comes back to you. Oprah on Growth
Challenges are gifts that force us to search for a new center of gravity. Don’t fight them. Just find a different way to stand.
I am a woman in process. I’m just trying like everybody else. I try to take every conflict, every experience, and learn from it. Life is never dull.
Getting my lifelong weight struggle under control has come from a process of treating myself as well as I treat others in every way.
The whole point of being alive is to evolve into the complete person you were intended to be.
You are built not to shrink down to less but to blossom into more. Oprah on Fear / Failure
Do the one thing you think you cannot do. Fail at it. Try again. Do better the second time. The only people who never tumble are those who never mount the high wire. This is your moment. Own it.
Every one of us gets through the tough times because somebody is there, standing in the gap to close it for us.
I believe that one of life’s greatest risks is never daring to risk.
I don’t believe in failure. It is not failure if you enjoyed the process.
I have a lot of things to prove to myself. One is that I can live my life fearlessly.
It is confidence in our bodies, minds and spirits that allows us to keep looking for new adventures, new directions to grow in, and new lessons to learn – which is what life is all about.
So go ahead. Fall down. The world looks different from the ground.
The thing you fear most has no power. Your fear of it is what has the power. Facing the truth really will set you free.
Think like a queen. A queen is not afraid to fail. Failure is another steppingstone to greatness.
You can take from every experience what it has to offer you. And you cannot be defeated if you just keep taking one breath followed by another. Oprah on Identity / Individuality
All these years I’ve been feeling like I was growing into myself. Finally, I feel grown.
As you become more clear about who you really are, you’ll be better able to decide what is best for you … the first time around.
Biology is the least of what makes someone a mother.
I always knew I was destined for greatness.
I don’t think of myself as a poor deprived ghetto girl who made good. I think of myself as somebody who from an early age knew I was responsible for myself, and I had to make good.
I’m black, I don’t feel burdened by it and I don’t think it’s a huge responsibility. It’s part of who I am. It does not define me.
If you come to fame not understanding who you are, it will define who you are.
Let your light shine. Shine within you so that it can shine on someone else. Let your light shine.
Partake of some of life’s sweet pleasures. And yes, get comfortable with yourself.
Though I am grateful for the blessings of wealth, it hasn’t changed who I am. My feet are still on the ground. I’m just wearing better shoes.
What we’re all striving for is authenticity, a spirit-to-spirit connection. Oprah on Opportunity / Possibility
Cheers to a new year and another chance for us to get it right.
Doing the best at this moment puts you in the best place for the next moment.
Every day brings a chance for you to draw in a breath, kick off your shoes, and dance.
Every time you state what you want or believe, you’re the first to hear it. It’s a message to both you and others about what you think is possible. Don’t put a ceiling on yourself.
If you want your life to be more rewarding, you have to change the way you think.
When I look into the future, it’s so bright it burns my eyes. Oprah on Passion / Energy
Energy is the essence of life. Every day you decide how you’re going to use it by knowing what you want and what it takes to reach that goal, and by maintaining focus.
If you neglect to recharge a battery, it dies. And if you run full speed ahead without stopping for water, you lose momentum to finish the race.
Passion is energy. Feel the power that comes from focusing on what excites you. Oprah on Relationships
Lots of people want to ride with you in the limo, but what you want is someone who will take the bus with you when the limo breaks down.
My idea of heaven is a great big baked potato and someone to share it with.
Surround yourself with only people who are going to lift you higher.
When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time. Oprah on Success
For every one of us that succeeds, it’s because there’s somebody there to show you the way out.
I feel that luck is preparation meeting opportunity.
If you want to accomplish the goals of your life, you have to begin with the spirit.
I’ve learned that you can’t have everything and do everything at the same time.
The big secret in life is that there is no big secret. Whatever your goal, you can get there if you’re willing to work.
Unless you choose to do great things with it, it makes no difference how much you are rewarded, or how much power you have.
What material success does is provide you with the ability to concentrate on other things that really matter. And that is being able to make a difference, not only in your own life, but in other people’s lives.
Good looks are nice and all, but they can’t hold a candle to a great personality. Your personality facilitates all the important moments in your life, and is what you are really remembered for. Remember how much it matters if you ever get too concerned about personal appearance. Here are six things in particular that make personality important.
1)Because personality is what makes you interesting
Your looks can’t make you interesting, at least not for long or not in a good way. Being interesting is how you grab people’s attention, making personality important virtually whenever you’re in a social setting. Think about the most interesting person you know, and the prettiest/most handsome person you know. Who would you rather be stuck in a room with? Being interesting is also not something that you can fake; just ask all the people who try and fail to do exactly that. Being interesting depends almost entirely on your personality, so if your personality is great then you’re all set.
2)Because personality can change
Even if you don’t have a great personality right now, you can acquire a better one by considering what you can do to become more likeble while, of course, always staying true to yourself. To contrast, you can’t acquire good looks, at least not naturally. That makes personality important in ways appearance can never be. Friends and family and partners want to see you grow as a person as you get older far more that they look forward to seeing you age. If you have a lot of anger buried inside you, for example, people close to you will be very pleased to see you change into a calmer person. No one’s going to be proud of you for getting wrinkles and grey hair.
3)Because personality is how we distinguish ourselves
There are probably hundreds of people across the world who look nearly identical to you. What makes personality important is that it’s what makes us one of a kind. Be the one of a kind you want to be by focusing on your inner qualities. There are a lot of people who haven’t done anything to develop their personalities, so they’re similar to hundreds of people in both looks and personality. A surfer dude with great abs can’t compare to someone with real stories to tell, for example.
4)Because personality can get you further romantically
When you’re trying to woo someone, a great personality is a key ingredient in getting their attention. Good looks may help you get into a conversation with a guy or girl you like, but if you have a boring personality the conversation is as far as it will go. Personality is important to continue that relationship beyond that first meet.
5)Because personality can get you further professionally.
A great personality can help you progress in your career as well as your social and love life. Employers will want to hire you if you have a good rapport with them. Once you have the job, the personality is important to getting in your boss good graces. Again, if you have a good personality the’ll want to spend time with you, which gets you through more doors than you could if you personality wasn’t up to par.
6)Because personality doesn’t fade away
Good looks don’t last. Eventually you grow old and gray; nothing can stop that. What makes personality important is the fact that it will stick with you, even when you’re an old, old man or woman. It will even stay with you after you die. No one remembers someone who passed away by thinking about how handsome they were. They reminisce on the good times they had with them, made possible because of their compatible personalities.
The law of life is the law of belief, and belief could be summed up briefly as the thought in your mind. As a man thinks, feels and believes so is the condition of his mind, body and circumstances. A technique, a methodology based on an understanding of what you are doing and why you are doing it will help you bring about a subconscious embodiment of all the good things in life.
The treasure house is within you, look within for the answer to your hearts desires.
The great secret possessed by the great men of all ages was their ability to contract and release the powers of their subconscious mind. you can do the same.
Your subconscious has the power to all the problems. If you suggest to your subconscious prior to sleep ” I want to get up at 6 a.m, ” It will awaken you at that exact time.
Your subconscious mind is the builder of your body and can heal you. Lull yourself to sleep every night with the idea of perfect health and your subconscious, being your servant will obey you.
Every thought is a cause, and every condition is an effect.
If you want to write a book, write a wonderful play, give a better talk to your audience, convey the idea lovingly and feelingly to your subconscious mind, and it will respond accordingly.
You are like a captain navigating a ship. he must give the right orders and likewise you must give the right orders (thoughts and images) to your subconscious mind which controls and governs all your experiences.
Never use the term ” I can’t afford it” and ” I can’t do this”. Your subconscious mind takes you at your word and sees to it that you do not have the money or ability to do what you want to do. Affirm – “I can do all things through the power of my subconscious mind”
Do not believe in things to harm or hurt you. Believe in your subconscious to heal, inspire, strengthen and prosper you. According to your belief is it done unto you.
I’ve gathered up my top 10 lessons you should take to heart now, before it’s too late!
Life is short. Here’s the thing: Life is too short to put up with a job you hate, a boss who demeans you, or a company with no soul. Many people convince themselves that they can put up with a job or career situation that makes them unhappy because they need the income, because they don’t know if they can find another job, or for some other reason. But the truth is none of us knows how long we have on this earth, and spending too much of it in a bad situation will only make you miserable and regretful. If you’re in this situation, take a step today — no matter how small — toward a better situation.
Social networks matter. You might think that networking events are dull, that it’s boring to chat with coworkers around the watercooler, or that you’re simply a born introvert, but study after study confirms that social networks are vital to our success. In fact, the most successful people tend to have the broadest and most diverse social networks. The more time and effort you put into nurturing your social networks, the more successful you are likely to be.
Sacrificing your health for success or wealth isn’t worth it. Many driven, successful people have a hard time creating work/life balance and can end up burning out or developing serious health problems from stress and overwork. The truth is, it’s much easier to stay healthy than to heal from a problem or disease — and no amount of success or money can replace your health. Don’t take your health for granted and take steps to mitigate stress that could cause problems later.
None of the best moments of your life will take place looking at a screen. In our connected world, it’s tempting to let all the little screens we have access to dictate our lives. But you’ll never reach the end of your life wishing you’d spent more time checking email on your phone. Disconnect regularly and experience real life.
Never stop learning. With the rate at which technologies are changing today, if you decide that you are “done” learning, you will be left behind within a matter of years, if not sooner. The idea that you can’t teach an old dog new tricks is blatantly false, and you will never wake up and regret having invested in your mind by learning something new.
Diversify. Hand in hand with learning, if you stick to only doing what you know, or what you are good at, you may quickly find that you’re only good at one thing. We need to be agile, nimble, and interested in many different things. Otherwise, you could get stuck in a job or career you don’t love, or that goes with the times. Think of the taxi driver threatened by Uber or the customer service person replaced by a chatbot.
You can go fast alone, but you can go farther together. In other words, teamwork makes the dream work. Many people claim they don’t like to work in teams, but the ability to work well in teams is vital if you want to succeed. The idea of the solo auteur is a myth; every big idea needs a team to make it happen.
Worrying doesn’t achieve anything. The antidote to fear and anxiety is action and hustle. If you’re wasting time because you’re afraid to pursue an idea, speak up, or are worried what others will think of you, you won’t achieve your goals. If you push through the worry and the fear, however, and take action, you’ll almost always find that you were worried about nothing.
Failure is not an end. If you give up when you fail, you’ll never learn anything. Instead, look at failure as an opportunity, as the beginning of a new journey. If you do, you’re much more likely to try again and succeed at something else.
Happiness is a journey, not a destination. So many people put off their happiness; they think, “I’ll be happy when I get that job, when I lose that weight, when I’m in a relationship, when I’m out of a relationship…” and so on. But we can choose to be happy. Happiness is a habit and a choice. No matter what your situation, if you can approach it with an attitude of happiness, you will be more successful.
Level 1 living is really just taking what comes your way. The good, the bad, and the ugly. If you are lucky, then you get more good than bad, but mostly it’s about going with the flow.
Level 1 living is really about finding happiness in the moment. If you can learn to enjoy the journey and if you are flexible and adaptable, you can gradually learn to enjoy more of your moments. If life throws you lemons, turn them into lemonade.
The more you master your ability to respond to challenges, and raise your frustration tolerance, the more you can thrive in Level 1 Living.
With Level 1 Living, you learn to thrive in the moment.
2. Level 2 Living (Living Your Values)
This is where you take control of your life and you create your own happiness and fulfillment.
This is where you choose to spend more time in your values. You can think of this as “the Good life.”
To spend more time in your values, you first need to identify your top values. Once you prioritize your top few values, you can then use your values to design your lifestyle and guide your life.
You can use your values to prioritize your time and to simplify decisions. You can choose to do things that will help you spend more time in your values.
For example, if you like to learn, then find ways to make the small things you do each day, all about learning. If you value excellence, then with each task you take on, you can focus on mastering your craft. If you value adventure, then turn your projects into epic adventures.
With Level 2 Living, you thrive on your values.
3. Level 3 Living (Living Your Contribution)
This is a deeper level of living. Level 3 Living is where you give your best where you have your best to give, in the service of others.
When you focus on the greater good, and when you focus on your unique strengths and talents, you create a deep sense of fulfillment.
Whether you think of it as moving up Maslow’s stack, or you think of Stephen Covey’s 8th Habit to find your voice, and help others find theirs, or if you think of Tony Robbins and his focus on servant leadership, the beauty is that Level 3 Living is accessible to all of us.
The key is to find your strengths. The next key is to figure out a purpose that makes you come alive.
With Level 3 Living, you thrive on contribution.
One of the most useful questions I’ve found to guide me on all paths is:
“Who do you want to be and what experiences do you want to create?”
It’s a simple, but profound question that helps me shape my work in progress.
In all cases, the key thing to keep in mind is that when it comes down to it, many people find that what really counts is the people whose lives they touch.
“Mastering others is strength. Mastering yourself is true power.” — Lao Tzuhs
Finding your strengths is one of the best ways to improve your energy and effectiveness.
If you know your unique combination of strengths, and you play to your strengths instead of focus on your weaknesses, you can dramatically amplify your impact.
Don’t Spend Too Much Time in Your Weaknesses
One of the key things that can hold you back is spending too much time on your weaknesses and not enough time on your strengths. The better you know your strengths and talents, the better you can pick the right situations or job to leverage your innate abilities.
Here are my key take aways:
Identify your signature strengths. Don’t just know what you’re good at. Identify what you are great at. This difference makes all the difference in the world.
Be your best. The key here is to be your personal best. This is why modeling somebody else’s success may not come easy for you. You may not have the same strengths.
Cultivate your strengths. The key is to focus on your strengths and not your weaknesses. Reducing your weaknesses is not the path to greatness. Improving your key strengths is your personal path to excellence.
Use the sum of your talents. It’s not about having a single strength, it’s about using the synergy of your strengths.
Find a fit for your strengths. Leveraging your strengths turns your work into passion. What’s work for somebody else is your play if you find the right way to leverage your unique talents.
Amplify your results with your network. Once you know your key strengths, you can find the people that complement you in strengths that you lack.
34 Strengths Explained
Familiarize yourself with the 34 key themes of strength. If you can identify your top five themes, you can use the information to start cultivating your strengths for personal excellence and stop focusing on weaknesses. Here are the 34 signature themes of strength according to Buckingham and Clifton:
Strength
Description
Achiever
A relentless need for achievement.
Activator
“When can we start?” is a recurring question in your life.
Adaptability
You live in the moment.
Analytical
“Prove it. Show me why what you are claiming is true.”
Arranger
You are a conductor.
Belief
You have certain core values that are enduring.
Command
You take charge.
Communication
You like to explain, to describe, to host, to speak in public, and to write.
Competition
You have a need to outperform your peers.
Connectedness
You know that we are all connected.
Context
You look back to understand the present.
Deliberative
You identify, assess, and reduce risk.
Developer
You see the potential in others.
Discipline
Your world needs to be ordered and planned.
Empathy
You can sense the emotions of those around you.
Fairness
Balance is important to you.
Focus
Your goals are your compass.
Futuristic
“Wouldn’t it be great if …” The future fascinates you.
Harmony
You look for areas of agreement.
Ideation
You are fascinated by ideas.
Inclusiveness
“Stretch the circle wider.” You can to include people and make them feel like part of the group.
Individualization
You’re intrigued by the unique qualities of each person.
Input
You collection information – words, facts, books and quotations.
Intellection
You like to think. You like mental activity.
Leaner
You love to learn.
Maximizer
Excellence, not average, is your measure.
Positivity
You are generous with praise, quick with smile, and always on the look out for the positive in the situation.
Relater
You derive a great deal of pleasure and strength from being around your close friends.
Responsibility
You take psychological ownership for anything you commit to, and you feel emotionally bound to follow it through to completion.
Restorative
You love to solve problems.
Self-assurance
You have faith in your strengths.
Significance
You want to be very significant in the eyes of other people.
“On your last day on earth, the person you became will meet the person you could have become.” — Anonymous.
Sometimes, to become successful and get closer to the person we can become, we don’t need to add more things — we need to give up on some of them. There are certain things that are universal, which will make you successful if you give up on them, even though each one of us could have a different definition of success. You can give up on some of them today, while it might take a bit longer to give up on others.
Give Up On The Unhealthy Lifestyle.
“Take care of your body. It’s the only place you have to live.” — Jim Rohn
If you want to achieve anything in life, everything starts here. First you have to take care of your health, and there are only two things you need to keep in mind:
Healthy Diet.
Physical Activity.
…Small steps, but you will thank yourself one day.
Give Up The Short-term Mindset.
“You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough.” — Mae West
Successful people set long-term goals, and they know these aims are merely the result of short-term habits that they need to do every day. These healthy habits shouldn’t be something you do; they should be something you embody. There is a difference between: “Working out to get a summer body” and “Working out because that’s who you are.”
Give Up On Playing Small.
“Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people will not feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. It is not just in some of us; it is in everyone, and as we let our light shine, we unconsciously give others permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our fear, our presence automatically liberates others.” – Marianne Williamson
If you never try and take great opportunities, or allow your dreams to become realities, you will never unleash your true potential. And the world will never benefit from what you could have achieved. So voice your ideas, don’t be afraid to fail, and certainly don’t be afraid to succeed.
Give Up Your Excuses.
“It’s not about the cards you’re dealt, but how you play the hand.”― Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture
Successful people know that they are responsible for their life, no matter their starting point, weaknesses, and past failures.
Realising that you are responsible for what happens next in your life is both frightening and exciting. And when you do, that becomes the only way you can become successful, because excuses limit and prevent us from growing personally and professionally.
Own your life; no one else will.
Give Up The Fixed Mindset.
“The future belongs to those who learn more skills and combine them in creative ways.” ― Robert Greene, Mastery
People with a fixed mindset think their intelligence or talents are simply fixed traits, and that talent alone creates success — without effort. They’re wrong.
Successful people know this. They invest an immense amount of time on a daily basis to develop a growth mindset, acquire new knowledge, learn new skills and change their perception so that it can benefit their lives.
Remember, who you are today, it’s not who you have to be tomorrow.
Give Up Believing In The “Magic Bullet.”
“Every day, in every way, I’m getting better and better” — Émile Coué
Overnight success is a myth.
Successful people know that making small continual improvement every day will be compounded over time, and give them desirable results. That is why you should plan for the future, but focus on the day that’s ahead of you, and improve just 1% every day.
Give Up Your Perfectionism.
“Shipping beats perfection.” — Kahn Academy’s Development Mantra
Nothing will ever be perfect, no matter how much we try.
Fear of failure (or even fear of success) often prevents us from taking an action and putting our creation out there in the world. But a lot of opportunities will be lost if we wait for the things to be right.
So “ship,” and then improve (that 1%).
Give Up Multi-tasking.
“You will never reach your destination if you stop and throw stones at every dog that barks.” ― Winston S. Churchill
Successful people know this. That’s why they choose one thing and then beat it into submission. No matter what it is — a business idea, a conversation, or a workout.
Being fully present and committed to one task, is indispensable.
Give Up Your Need to Control Everything.
“Some things are up to us, and some things are not up to us.” — Epictetus, Stoic philosopher
Differentiating these two is important.
Detach from the things you cannot control, and focus on the ones you can, and know that sometimes, the only thing you will be able to control is your attitude towards something.
Remember, “Nobody can be frustrated while saying “Bubbles” in an angry voice”.
Give Up On Saying YES To Things That Don’t Support Your Goals.
“He who would accomplish little must sacrifice little; he who would achieve much must sacrifice much; he who would attain highly must sacrifice greatly.” — James Allen
Successful people know that in order to accomplish their goals, they will have to say NO to certain tasks, activities, and demands from their friends, family, and colleagues. In the short-term, you might sacrifice a bit of instant gratification, but when your goals come to fruition, it will all be worth it.
Give Up The Toxic People.
“You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.”― Jim Rohn
People we spend the most time with, add up to who we become.
There are people who are less accomplished in their personal and professional life, and there are people who are more accomplished than us. If you spend time with those who are behind you, your average will go down, and with it, your success. But if you spend time with people who are more accomplished than you, no matter how challenging that might be, you will become more successful.
Take a look at around you, and see if you need to make any changes.
Give Up Your Need To Be Liked.
“The only way to avoid pissing people off is to do nothing important.” — Oliver Emberton
Think of yourself as a market niche.
There will be a lot of people who like that niche, and there will be individuals who don’t. And no matter what you do, you won’t be able to make the entire market like you.
This is entirely natural, and there’s no need to justify yourself. The only thing you can do is to remain authentic, improve and provide value every day, and know that the growing number of “haters” means that you are doing important things.
Give Up Your Dependency on Social Media & Television.
“The trouble is, you think you have time” — Jack Kornfield
Impulsive web browsing and television watching are diseases of today’s society. These two should never be an escape from your life or your goals. Unless your goals depend on either, you should minimize (or even eliminate) your dependency on them, and direct that time towards things that can enrich your life.
When you plan and prepare carefully, you can legitimately expect to
have success in your efforts. When you recognize and develop the
winning qualities that you were born with, the winner you were born to
be emerges. When you plan and prepare to make a sale, for example, you
can legitimately expect to make a sale. Although not all your
expectations are going to come to pass, you give yourself an
infinitely better chance of succeeding by taking the proper steps.
Regardless of your goal–losing weight, making more sales, furthering
your education, earning a promotion, saving money for a new home or an
exotic vacation–you can expect to achieve your goal if you plan and
prepare for it.
Also understand that the path from where you are to where you want to
be is not always smooth and straight. The reason for the twists and
bumps is simple, and it has nothing to do with you. It has more to do
with the fact that not everyone is as interested in your success as
you are. Some people may accidentally hinder your efforts; others who
are in competition with you and have little or no integrity may try to
sabotage your efforts.
Keep in mind, though, that when you hit those roadblocks your
character, commitment, and attitude are the determining factors in
your success… Carefully review your plan of action, seek wise
counsel, and be particularly careful to feed your mind good
information. An optimistic, positive mind is far more likely to come
up with creative solutions than a mind that dwells on setbacks and
difficulties.
Bottom line: expect success and you can achieve it! You were born to
win, but to be a winner you must plan to win, prepare to win, and
expect to win.”
Do you remember how to spread the wings of your imagination wide and let your mind soar?
Don’t let the wear and tear of the day (or the years) clip your wings or bog you down.
Let’s dream big — Big dreams light your inner fire and provide the ongoing fuel for your burning desire.
You already know how to dream big … but maybe you forgot.
Just in case, I put together a deep collection of quotes to help you dream big, again.
Here are wise words from Ayn Rand, Edgar Allen Poe, Edison, Emerson, Jiminy Cricket, Mark Twain, Thoreau and more to help you remember how to dream big again and revive the art of the possible … YOUR possible.
Top 10 Dream Big Quotes
“Dreams come in a size too big so that we may grow into them.” — Josie Bisse
“Dream no small dreams for they have no power to move the hearts of men.” — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
“For once you have tasted flight you will walk the earth with your eyes turned skywards, for there you have been and there you will long to return.” — Leonard da Vinci
“It’s better to have an impossible dream than no dream at all.” – Anonymous
“Life is short, live bold! Be heard, be you, dream big, take risks, don’t wait.” – Misty Gibbs
“Never give up on what you really want to do. The person with big dreams is more powerful than one with all the facts.” – Life’s Little Instructions
“No dreamer is ever too small; no dream is ever too big.” – Anonymous
“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” – Mark Twain
“What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.” — Henry Stanley Haskins
“Whatever you do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius and power and magic in it.” — Goethe
The Dream Big Quotes Collection
“A #2 pencil and a dream can take you anywhere.” — Joyce A. Myers
“A bird sitting on a tree is never afraid of the branch beaking, because her trust is not on the branch but on its own wings. Always believe in yourself.” – Anonymous
“A dream is your creative vision for your life in the future. A goal is what specifically you intend to make happen. Dreams and goals should be just out of your present reach but not out of sight. Dreams and goals are coming attractions in your life.” — Joseph Campbell
“A great leader’s courage to fulfill his vision comes from passion, not position.” — John Maxwell
“A man’s dreams are an index to his greatness.” — Zadoc Rabinowitz
“Alice laughed. ‘There’s no use trying,’ she said. ‘One can’t believe impossible things.’ ‘I daresay you haven’t had much practice,’ said the Queen. ‘When I was your age, I always did it half an hour a day. Why, sometimes, I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.’” — Lewis Carroll
“All big things in this world are done by people who are naïve and have an idea that is obviously impossible.” — Frank Richards
“All of us failed to match our dreams of perfection. So I rate us on the basis of our splendid failure to do the impossible.” — William Faulkner
“All our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them.” — Walt Disney
“All parents believe their children can do the impossible. They thought it the minute we were born, and no matter how hard we’ve tried to prove them wrong, they all think it about us now. And the really annoying thing is, they’re probably right.” — Cathy Guisewite
“All successful people men and women are big dreamers. They imagine what their future could be, ideal in every respect, and then they work every day toward their distant vision, that goal or purpose.” – Brian Tracy
“All things are created twice. There is a mental (first) creation, and a physical (second) creation. The physical creation follows the mental, just as a building follows a blueprint. If you don’t make a conscious effort to visualize who you are and what you want in life, then you empower other people and circumstances to shape you and your life by default.” — Stephen Covey
“Always be a first-rate version of yourself, instead of a second-rate version of somebody else.” — Judy Garland
“Always dream and shoot higher than you know you can do. Don’t bother just to be better than your contemporaries or predecessors. Try to be better than yourself.” — William Faulkner
“Ask yourself, ‘How long am I going to work to make my dreams come true?’ I suggest you answer, ‘As long as it takes’.” — Jim Rohn
“At a time when opportunism is everything, when hope seems lost, when everything boils down to a cynical business deal, we must find the courage to dream. To reclaim romance. The romance of believing in justice, in freedom, and in dignity. For everybody.” — Arundhati Roy
“At first, dreams seem impossible, then improbable, and eventually inevitable.” – Christopher Reeve
“Be willing to be uncomfortable. Be comfortable being uncomfortable. It may get tough, but it’s a small price to pay for living a dream.” – Peter McWilliams
“Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind.” — Dr. Seuss
“Begin to free yourself at once by doing all that is possible with the means you have, and as you proceed in this spirit the way will open for you to do more.” — Robert Collier
“Believe this, ‘the higher you go, the further you see’ and also ‘the further you see the clearer you hear; the clearer you hear, the wiser you become’!” -? Israelmore Ayivor, Dream Big!
“Believing in fate produces fate. Believing in freedom will create infinite possibilities.” — Ayn Rand
“Between the great things we cannot do and the small things we will not do, the danger is that we shall do nothing.” – Adolph Monod
“Books, to the reading child, are so much more than books–they are dreams and knowledge, they are a future, and a past.” — Esther Meynell
“Bravery and adventure! That’s the ticket! Don’t sit and gather moss. Get up, get out, do what you dream of doing, and if it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work, and you don’t need to made that particular mistake again, but at least you won’t get old wondering what if you had.” — Garrison Keillo
“Capture your dreams and your life becomes full. You can, because you think you can.” – Nikita Koloff
“Cherish your visions and your dreams, as they are the children of your soul; the blueprints of your ultimate achievements.” – Napoleon Hill
“Climb high; Climb far. Your goal the sky; Your aim the star.” — Inscription at Williams College
“Commit yourself to a dream . . . Nobody who tries to do something great but fails is a total failure. Why? Because he can always rest assured that he succeeded in life’s most important battle–he defeated the fear of trying.” — Robert H. Schuller
“Commitment unlocks the doors of imagination, allows vision, and gives us the “right stuff” to turn our dreams into reality.” — James Womack
“Do not follow where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson
“Don’t be afraid of the space between your dreams and reality. If you can dream it, you can make it so.” — Belva Davis
“Don’t be pushed by your problems. Be led by your dreams.” – Anonymous
“Don’t let anyone steal your dream. It’s your dream, not theirs.” — Dan Zadra
“Don’t live down to expectations. Go out there and do something remarkable.” – Wendy Wasserstein
“Dream and give yourself permission to envision a You that you choose to be.” — Joy Page
“Dream as if you’ll live forever… live as if you’ll die today.” — James Dean
“Dream big and see further! Sharpen your eyes; you have the eagle’s sight. Quicken your steps; you have the horse’s limbs. All that is a burden for others would be beaten several times by you!” ? Israelmore Ayivor, Dream Big!
“Dream big dreams! Imagine that you have no limitations and then decide what’s right before you decide what’s possible.” — Brian Tracey
“Dream lofty dreams, and as you dream, so shall you become. Your vision is the promise of what you shall one day be; your ideal is the prophecy of what you shall at last unveil.” – James Allen
“Dream your dreams with open eyes and make them come true.” — T. E. Lawrence
“Dreams are free, so free your dreams.” — Terri Guillemets
“Dreams are the touchstones of our character.” — Henry David Thoreau
“Dreams are renewable. No matter what our age or condition, there are still untapped possibilities within us and new beauty waiting to be born.” – Dr. Dale E. Turner
“Dreams come true; without that possibility, nature would not incite us to have them.” – John Updike
“Dreams, ideas, and plans not only are an escape, they give me purpose, a reason to hang on.” — Steven Callahan
“Each one of us should lead a life stirring enough to start a movement.” — Max Lucado
“Either you let your life slip away by not doing the things you want to do, or you get up and do them.” — Roger Von Oech
“Even if you can’t just snap your fingers and make a dream come true, you can travel in the direction of your dream, every single day and you can shorten the distance between the two of you.” — Douglas Pagels
“Every dreamer works in violent disagreement with their times.” — Conway Stone
“Every great dream begins with a dreamer. Always remember, you have within you the strength, the patience, and the passion to reach for the stars to change the world. ” – Harriet Tubman
“Every great work, every big accomplishment, has been brought into manifestation through holding to the vision, and often just before the big achievement, comes apparent failure and discouragement.” — Florence Scovel Shinn
“Every life comes with a story … and a possibility for a great adventure.” — Kobi Yamada
“Far away there in the sunshine are my highest aspirations. I may not reach them, but I can look up and see their beauty, believe in them, and try to follow where they lead.” — Louisa May Alcott
“For those who dare to dream, there is a whole world to win.” – Dhirubhai Ambani
“Great things are only possible with outrageous requests.” — Thea Alexander
“He who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead; his eyes are closed.” —Albert Einstein
“He who cherishes a beautiful vision, a lofty ideal in his heart, will one day realize it. Dream lofty dreams and as you dream so shall you become…” — James Allen
“Higher and higher who knows what we’ll find; And in the end on dreams we will depend; Cause that’s what love is made of.” — Van Halen
“Hold on to your dreams for they are, in a sense, the stuff of which reality is made. It is through our dreams that we maintain the possibility of a better, more meaningful life.” — Leo Buscaglia
“Hope and possibility best describe the art of teaching.” — Camille Banks Lee
“Hope is not a dream but a way of making dreams become reality.” — L.J. Suenens
“I am always doing that which I cannot do, in order that I may learn how to do it.” — Pablo Picasso
“I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul.” — William Ernest Henley
“I dream, therefore I become.” — Cheryl Grossman
“I have had dreams, and I’ve had nightmares. I overcame the nightmares because of my dreams.” – Jonas Salk
“I learned that there were two ways I could live my life: following my dreams or doing something else. Dreams aren’t a matter of chance, but a matter of choice. When I dream, I believe I am rehearsing my future.” — David Copperfield
“I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past.” — Thomas Jefferson
“I see myself living a life where I am not bound by the opinions others have of me, one where I no longer concern myself with the judgments of others, one in which I believe in myself and my talents, skills and capabilities. I imagine, and therefore bring about, a life where I do not need to justify my existence, where I am free to be who I really am.” — Michael Rawls
“I want to be all used up when I die.” — George Bernard Shaw
“If a little dreaming is dangerous, the cure for it is not to dream less but to dream more, to dream all the time.” – Marcel Proust
“If everyone woke up tomorrow morning and said, “It’s possible; whatever it is, it’s possible,” and spent a whole day having an “it’s possible” day, then we would be going down the kind of road I’m interested in–because I do believe it is possible.” — John Bird
“If I can dream, I can act. And if I can act, I can become.” – Poh Yu Khing
“If I were to wish for anything, I should not wish for wealth and power, but for the passionate sense of the potential, for the eye which, ever young and ardent, sees the possible. Pleasure disappoints, possibility never. And what wine is so sparkling, what so fragrant, what so intoxicating, as possibility!” — Soren Kierkegaard
“If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.” – Henry David Thoreau
“If one feels the need of something grand, something infinite, something that makes one feel aware of God, one need not go far to find it. I think that I see something deeper, more infinite, more eternal than the ocean in the expression of the eyes of a little baby when it wakes in the morning and coos or laughs because it sees the sun shining on its cradle.” — Vincent van Gogh
“If people never did silly things nothing intelligent would ever get done.” — Ludwig Wittgenstein
“If reality can destroy dreams, then dreams can destroy reality.” — Conway Stone
“If we all did the things we are capable of doing, we would literally astound ourselves.” — Thomas Alva Edison
“If you can dream it, you can do it.” – Walt Disney
“If you can imagine it, You can achieve it. If you can dream it, you can become it.” – William Arthur Ward
“If you don’t build your dream, someone will hire you to help build theirs.” — Tony Gaskins
“If you don’t have a dream, how can you have a dream come true?” – Jiminy Cricket
“If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.” — Henry David Thoreau
“If you take responsibility for yourself you will develop a hunger to accomplish your dreams.” – Les Brown
“If you try to guard yourself against every unlikely danger, you’ll never stretch beyond your comfort zone. Don’t let the ‘what-ifs’ run your life. Follow your dreams and have at it.” — Diane Conway
“If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up people to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.” — Antoine de Saint-Exupery
“If you’re going to love someone or something then don’t be a slow leaking faucet—-be a hurricane.” ? Shannon L. Alder
“In our dreams lies our unfinished work for the world.” — Joan Chittister
“In response to those who say to stop dreaming and face reality, I say keep dreaming and make reality.” — Kristian Kan, Rich By 25
“In the long run, men hit only what they aim at. Therefore, they had better aim at something high.” — Henry David Thoreau
“Inside each of us are thoughts and beliefs that hinder our dreams from coming true.” — Conway Stone
“It doesn’t matter if we think we’re fearless or if we do things while quaking. The important thing is to be true to our own dreams and live authentic lives.” — Diane Conway
“It is in the quiet crucible of your personal, private sufferings that your noblest dreams are born and God’s greatest gifts are given.” — Wintley Phipps
“It is not the mountain we conquer but ourselves.” — Edmund Hillary
“It may be that those who do most, dream most.” – Stephen Butler Leacock
“It must be born in mind that the tragedy of life doesn’t lie in not reaching your goal. The tragedy lies in having no goal to reach. It isn’t a calamity to die with dreams unfulfilled, but it is a calamity to not dream. It is not a disgrace not to reach the stars, but it is a disgrace to have no stars to reach for. Not failure but low aim is sin!” — Helmut Schmidt
“It sometimes seems that intense desire creates not only its own opportunities, but its own talents.” — Eric Hoffer
“It’s kind of fun to do the impossible!” — Walt Disney
“It’s not who you are that holds you back, it’s who you think you’re not.” — Hanoch McCarty
“I’ve dreamt in my life dreams that have stayed with me ever after, and changed my ideas: they’ve gone through and through me, like wine through water, and altered the color of my mind.” — Emily Bronte
“Keep your heart open to dreams. For as long as there’s a dream, there is hope, and as long as there is hope, there is joy in living.” – Anonymous
“Let your imagination release your imprisoned possibilities.” — Robert H. Schuller
“Let your smile change the world, but don’t let the world change your smile.” – Anonymous
“Let’s go invent tomorrow instead of worrying about what happened yesterday.” – Steve Jobs
“Life is not about discovering our talents; it is about pushing our talents to the limit and discovering our genius.” — Robert Brault
“Live by what you believe so fully that your life blossoms, or else purge the fear-and-guilt producing beliefs from your life. When people believe one thing and do something else, they are inviting misery. If you give yourself the name, play the game. When you believe something you don’t follow with your heart, intellect, and body, it hurts. Don’t do that to yourself. Live your belief, or let that belief go. If you are not actively living a belief, it’s not really your belief, anyway.” — John-Roger
“Look, there are no shortcuts in golf, and there are no shortcuts in life. You have to work for it. Dream big and keep your dreams for yourself. Because the dreams that you have are those things that separate you from others. If you give up your dream, you give up hope. And without hope, you are nothing.” — Tiger Woods
“Man walks the moon but his soul remains riveted to earth. Once upon a time it was the opposite.” — Elie Wiesel
“May your dreams defy the laws of gravity.” — H. Jackson Brown, Jr.
“Most people never run far enough on their first wind, to find out if they’ve got a second. Give your dreams all you’ve got, and you’ll be amazed at the energy that comes out of you.” — William James
“My theory has always been, that if we are to dream, the flatteries of hope are as cheap, and pleasanter, than the gloom of despair.” — Thomas Jefferson
“Never give up on a dream just because of the time it will take to accomplish it. The time will pass anyway.” — Earl Nightingale
“No one has ever achieved anything from the smallest to the greatest unless the dream was dreamed first.” —Laura Ingalls Wilder
“Nobody succeeds beyond his or her wildest expectations unless he or she begins with some wild expectations.” — Ralph Charell
“Not fulfilling your dreams will be a loss to the world, because the world needs everyone’s gift — yours and mine.” – Barbara Sher
“Nothing is as real as a dream. The world can change around you, but your dream will not. Responsibilities need not erase it. Duties need not obscure it. Because the dream is within you, no one can take it away.” — Tom Clancy
“Nurture your minds with great thoughts. To believe in the heroic makes heroes.” — Benjamin Disraeli
“Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goal.” — Henry Ford
“Often, what seems an impossible climb is just a staircase without the steps drawn in.” — Robert Brault
“Only he who can see the invisible can do the impossible.” — Frank Gaines
“Only in our dreams are we free. The rest of the time we need wages.” — Terry Pratchett
“Organize your life around your dreams – and watch them come true.” – Anonymous
“Our greatest glory is not in never failing, but in rising up every time we fail.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson
“People are like stained-glass windows. They sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in their true beauty is revealed only if there is light from within.” — Elisabeth Kübler-Ross
“People think dreams aren’t real just because they aren’t made of matter, of particles. Dreams are real. But they are made of viewpoints, of images, of memories and puns and lost hopes.” — Neil Gaiman
“People too weak to follow their own dreams will always find a way to discourage yours.” — Bob Mayer
“People who cannot invent and reinvent themselves must be content with borrowed postures, secondhand ideas, fitting in instead of standing out.” —Warren Bennis
“People’s dreams are made out of what they do all day. The same way a dog that runs after rabbits will dream of rabbits. It’s what you do that makes your soul, not the other way around.” — Barbara Kingsolver
“Promise yourself to live your life as a revolution and not just a process of evolution.” — Anthony J. D’Angelo
“See the bigger picture of yours and refuse the passport size creature that people think you are! Your nature is large; go for it. Feel free to wake up and print your bigger picture!” -? Israelmore Ayivor, Dream Big!
“Self-esteem must be earned! When you dare to dream, dare to follow that dream, dare to suffer through the pain, sacrifice, self-doubts, and friction from the world, you will genuinely impress yourself.” — Dr. Laura Schlessinger
“Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you’ll land among the stars.” — Les Brown
“Some men see things as they are and say ‘why’? Others dream things that never were and say ‘why not’?” — George Bernard Shaw
“Success isn’t a result of spontaneous combustion. You must set yourself on fire.” — Arnold H. Glasow
“That which is dreamed can never be lost, can never be undreamed.” — Neil Gaiman
“The best way to gain self-confidence is to do what you are afraid to do.” — Author Unknown
“The biggest adventure you can take is to live the life of your dreams.” — Oprah Winfrey
“The bravest are surely those who have the clearest vision of what is before them, glory and danger alike, and yet notwithstanding, go out to meet it.” – Thucydides
“The difficult we do immediately; the impossible takes a little longer.” — Air Force motto
“The dream begins, most of the time, with a teacher who believes in you, who tugs and pushes and leads you to the next plateau, sometimes with a sharp stick called truth.” — Dan Rathe
“The dream is not the destination but the journey.” — Diane Sawyer
“The dream is real, my friends. The failure to realize it is the only unreality.” — Toni Cade Bambara
“The entrepreneur is essentially a visualizer and an actualizer… He can visualize something, and when he visualizes it he sees exactly how to make it happen.” — Robert L. Schwartz
“The excitement, the true excitement, was always in starting again. Nothing’s worse than an accomplished task, a realized dream.” — Marilyn Harris
“The frontiers of our dreams always converge with reality.” — Gerd De Ley
“The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.” – Eleanor Roosevelt
“The future you see is the future you get.” – Robert G Allen
“The idea is to seek a vision that gives you purpose in life and then to implement that vision. The vision by itself is one half, one part, of a process. It implies the necessity of living that vision, otherwise the vision will sink back into itself.” — Lewis P. Johnson
“The ideal life is in our blood and never will be still. Sad will be the day for any man when he becomes contented with the thoughts he is thinking and the deeds he is doing–where there is not forever beating at the doors of his soul some great desire to do something larger, which he knows that he was meant and made to do.” — Phillips Brooks
“The impossible is often the untried.” — Jim Goodwin
“The more you can dream, the more you can do.” — Michael Korda
“The most pitiful among men is he who turns his dreams into silver and gold.” — Kahlil Gibran
“The only limits are, as always, those of vision.” — James Broughton
“The permanent temptation of life is to confuse dreams with reality. The permanent defeat of life comes when dreams are surrendered to reality.” — James Michener
“The problem isn’t that I think so highly of myself. It is just that you think so little of yourself. Live life BIG, BOLD and OUT LOUD!” ? Shannon L. Alder
“The shell must break before the bird can fly.” — Alfred Tennyson
“The visible is only the shoreline of the magnificent ocean of the invisible.” — John O’Donohue
“The vision that you glorify in your mind, the ideal that you enthrone in your heart–this you will build your life by, and this you will become.” — James Lane Allen
“The world is the sum-total of our vital possibilities.” — Ortega y Gasset
“The world needs people like you to dream of something great and then pursue it with all your heart.” — Chris Widener
“The young do not know enough to be prudent, and therefore they attempt the impossible–and achieve it.” — Pearl S. Buck
“These dreams go on when I close my eyes, Every second of the night I live another life.” — Heart
“There are people who put their dreams in a little box and say, ‘Yes, I’ve got dreams, of course I’ve got dreams.’ Then they put the box away and bring it out once in awhile to look in it, and yep, they’re still there. These are great dreams, but they never even get out of the box. It takes an uncommon amount of guts to put your dreams on the line, to hold them up and say, ‘How good or how bad am I?’ That’s where courage comes in.” — Erma Bombeck
“There are many ways of breaking a heart. Stories were full of hearts being broken by love, but what really broke a heart was taking away its dream–whatever that dream might be.” — Pearl S. Buck
“There are so many fragile things, after all. People break so easily, and so do dreams and hearts.” — Neil Gaiman
“There are some people who live in a dream world, and there are some who face reality; and then there are those who turn one into the other.” — Douglas Everett
“There is no need to reach high for the stars. They are already within you — just reach deep into yourself!” — Terri Guillemets
“There is no straight line to a dream.” — Jack Welch
“There is nothing like dream to create the future. Utopia today, flesh and blood tomorrow.” — Victor Hugo
“They may kill the dreamers, like they did Kennedy, King, Ghandi and Lincoln. But I am convinced that as long as you and I follow our God-given dreams, they will never kill the dream.” — Conway Stone
“Those who dream by day are cognizant of many things that escape those who dream only at night.” — Edgar Allan Poe
“Though no one can go back and make a brand new start, anyone can start from now and make a brand new ending.” — Carl Bard
“To come to be you must have a vision of Being, a Dream, a Purpose, a Principle. You will become what your vision is.” — Peter Nivio Zarlenga
“Today is your day. You’re off to Great Places! You’re off and away!” — Oh, the Places You’ll Go, Dr. Seuss
“Trust your hunches…. Hunches are usually based on facts filed away just below the conscious level.” — Joyce Brothers
“Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not.” — The Lorax, Dr. Seuss
“Vision is the art of seeing what is invisible to others.” — Jonathan Swift
“Vision without action is a daydream. Action without vision is a nightmare.” — Japanese proverb
“Visionary people are visionary partly because of the very great many things they don’t see.” — Berkeley Rice
“We all have our time machines. Some take us back, they’re called memories. Some take us forward, they’re called dreams.” — Jeremy Irons
“We don’t have an eternity to realize our dreams, only the time we are here.” — Susan Taylor
“We grow great by dreams. All big men are dreamers. They see things in the soft haze of a spring day or in the red fire of a long winter’s evening. Some of us let these great dreams die, but others nourish and protect them; nurse them through bad days till they bring them to the sunshine and light which comes always to those who sincerely hope that their dreams will come true.” — Woodrow Wilson
“Welcome to reality! Our time is limited. We might as well get on with it; so why not choose now to live the life of our dreams?” — Seth David Chernoff
“What do you always think about? What do you think you can do easily? What do you find peace in your heart to do? Watch those things carefully because among them is something on which you can turn the entire environment surrounding you for your success.” ?- Israelmore Ayivor, Dream Big!
“What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun?.” — Langston Hughes
“Whatever you begin will see the light of day provided you can dream big and be a ruler over your dreams with persistent actions.” ? Israelmore Ayivor, Dream Big!
“What’s the purpose of living if you don’t go after your dreams?” – Samson Reiny
“When a dream takes hold of you, what can you do? You can run with it, let it run your life, or let it go and think for the rest of your life about what might have been.” — Patch Adams
“When I care to be powerful–to use my strength in the service of my vision–then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid.” — Audre Lorde
“When I think of vision, I have in mind the ability to see above and beyond the majority.” — Charles Swindoll
“When it is darkest, men see the stars.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson
“When we are motivated by goals that have deep meaning, by dreams that need completion, by pure love that needs expressing, then we truly live life.” – Greg Anderson
“When you cease to dream, you cease to live.” — Malcolm Forbes
“When you have a dream you’ve got to grab it and never let go.” – Carol Burnett
“When you say ‘Yes’ to others, make sure you are not saying ‘No’ to yourself.” — Paulo Coehlo
“When you wish upon a star, Makes no difference who you are, Anything your heart desires’ Will come to you.” — Jiminy Cricket
“Whenever you find yourself doubting how far you can go, just remember how far you have come. Remember everything you have faced, all the battles you have won, and all the fears you have overcome.” – Anonymous
“Whether you think you can or think you can’t — you are right.” — Henry Ford
“Wherever you go, no matter what the weather, always bring your own sunshine.” — Anthony J. D’Angelo, The College Blue Book
“Wheresoever you go, go with all your heart.” – Kongzi
“Within your heart, keep one still, secret spot where dreams may go.” — Louise Driscol
“Without leaps of imagination, or dreaming, we lose the excitement of possibilities. Dreaming, after all, is a form of planning.” — Gloria Steinem
“Yes, you can be a dreamer and a doer too, if you will remove one word from your vocabulary: impossible.” — H. Robert Schuller
“You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream.” — Les Brown
“You are not an accident. You are one of a kind. Your big dream is from God, and its irreplaceable. And you were born to seize it and celebrate it every day of your life!” — Bruce Wilkinson
“You can live your dreams if you can embrace change. It’s by taking chances that you’ll learn how to be brave.” – Nikita Koloff
“You can often measure a person by the size of his dream.” — Robert H. Schuller
“You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose. You’re on your own. And you know what you know. And YOU are the guy who’ll decide where to go.” — Oh, the Places You’ll Go, Dr. Seuss
“You fly free. I’m a bird in a cage.”. — Matt Lauer
“You have to dream before your dreams can come true.” — A. P. J. Abdul Kalam
“You once thought of me, As a white knight on a steed. Now you know how happy I can be.” – Monkees
“You may not know where you’re going, but so long as you spread your wings the winds will carry you.” — C. JoyBell C.
“Your aspirations are your possibilities.” — Samuel Johnson
“Your work is to discover your world and then with all your heart give yourself to it.” – Buddha
“Your world is as big as you make it.” — Georgia Douglas Johnson
“The belief that becomes truth for me …, is that which allows me the best use of my strengths, the best means of putting my virtues into action.” – André Gide
Great leaders go beyond what other people think is possible or realistic.
What’s realistic for one person, is unrealistic for another.
And vice versa.
Realistic or impossible, is largely shaped by your frame of reference, your mental models, your imagination, your faith, your certainty, and your commitment to what you see in your mind.
Great Leaders Don’t Live by Other People’s Standards
Your frame of reference determines what you think is possible, probable, or realistic.
Great leaders are rarely ‘realistic.’ They are intelligent and they are accurate, but they are not realistic by other people’s standards. What is realistic for one person, though, is totally different from what is realistic for another person based up on their reference.
Great Leaders Have Great Expectations
Great leaders set a higher bar. The funny thing is, once you raise the bar, people find a way to jump it.
Gandhi believed he could gain autonomy for India without violently opposing Great Britain — something that had never been done before. He wasn’t being realistic but he certainly proved to be accurate. By the same token, it certainly wasn’t realistic for a man to believe he could give the world happiness by building a theme park in the middle of an orange grove and charging people not only for the rides, but even to get in! At the time, there was no such park in the world. Yet Walt Disney had a sense of certainty like few people how have ever lived, and his optimism transformed his circumstances.
“Let’s Be Realistic” is Living in Fear
Reality can be your cage if your references and imagination never free you up to see what’s truly possible.
People so often develop limiting beliefs about who they are and what they’re capable of. Because they haven’t succeeded in the past, they believe they won’t be able to succeed in the future. As a result, out of their fear of pain, they begin to constantly focus on being ‘realistic.’ Most people who constantly say, ‘Let’s be realistic,’ are really just living in fear, deathly afraid of being disappointed again. Out of that fear, they develop beliefs that cause them to hesitate, to not give their all — consequently they get limited results.
The Past Does Not Equal the Future
Just because that’s the way it’s always been done, doesn’t mean that’s the way it should be. Or what it could be.
All great leaders, all people who have achieved success in any area of life, know the power of continuously pursuing their vision, even if all the details of how to achieve it aren’t yet available. If you develop the absolute sense of certainty that powerful beliefs provide, then you can get yourself to accomplish virtually anything, including those things that other people are certain are impossible.
If you need more possibility in your life, then build more frames of reference, and imagine more possibilities.
Keep in mind that while what you know can help you, what you don’t know can help you, too.
Many people have broken records simply because they didn’t know what was possible or *impossible.*
Here is an idea from Joseph Conrad to help inspire you to think in new heights:
Only in men’s imagination does every truth find an effective and undeniable existence. Imagination, not invention is the supreme master of art, as of life.
Jim kouzes is a foremost researcher, award-winning writer, and highly sought after teacher in the field of leadership.
Jim is co-author of the award-winning and best selling book, The Leadership Challenge. The Leadership Challenge was the winner of the James A. Hamilton Hospital Administrators’ Book Award and the Critics’ Choice Award, was a BusinessWeek best-seller, and has sold over 1.4 million copies in more than twelve other languages. The Wall Street Journal has cited Jim as one of the twelve best executive educators in the United States.
Here’s Jim …
Leadership Insights from 950,000 Responses
Since 1982 Barry Posner and I have been exploring together what leaders do to mobilize others to want to struggle for shared aspirations. We’ve coauthored over 30 books, workbooks, and assessment instruments based on our research, including our bestseller, The Leadership Challenge. Last year we completed one of our most ambitious projects, analyzing 950,000 responses to our Leadership Practices Inventory —80,000 self-assessments from leaders and 870,000 assessments from observers who know those leaders. Over the recent holidays I took a step back from all this data, and asked myself, “If I had to list the Top Ten Leadership Lessons I’ve learned over all these years, what would those Top Ten be?” Here is what I came up with. (Caveat: We’ve learned a lot more than ten things about leadership, so this is not an exhaustive list. And, I might change this list next week after I reflect some more!)
Top 10 Leadership Lessons
Lesson 1. Leadership is everyone’s business.
Lesson 2. Credibility is the foundation.
Lesson 3: Personal values drive commitment.
Lesson 4. You either lead by example, or you don’t lead at all.
Lesson 5. Looking forward is a leadership prerequisite.
Lesson 6. It’s not just the leaders vision.
Lesson 7. Challenge provides the opportunity for greatness.
Lesson 8. Leaders are team players.
Lesson 9. Leadership is a relationship.
Lesson 10. Caring is at the heart of leadership.
Lesson 1. Leadership is everyone’s business.
We keep finding leaders everywhere we look. They come from every type of organization, public and private, government and NGO, high-tech and low-tech, small and large, schools and professional services. They are young and old, male and female, gay and straight, and are present in every ethnic group. They come from every imaginable vocation and avocation. Leadership, in other words, is not the private reserve of a few charismatic men and women who are genetically endowed with some special power. Similarly, leadership is not about organizational power or authority. It’s also not about celebrity or wealth, the family you are born into, being a CEO, president, general, or prime minister. And it’s definitely not about being a hero. Leadership is a set of skills and abilities that are accessible and learnable by anyone who has the motivation and desire to learn it.
Lesson 2. Credibility is the foundation.
Over these last 26 years we’ve asked people around the world to answer the question, “What do you look for and admire in a leader, someone whose direction you would willingly follow?” (The key word in this question is willingly!) What we’ve found in our investigation of admired leader qualities is that, more than anything, people want leaders who are credible. Quite simply, people need to believe in their leaders. Because our findings have been so pervasive and consistent, we’ve come to identify it as “The First Law of Leadership”: If you don’t believe in the messenger, you won’t believe the message.
And, what is credibility behaviorally? How do you know it when you see it? When we ask these questions, the responses we get are essentially the same, regardless of how they are phrased. Credible leaders walk the talk, practice what they preach, are consistent in word and deed, put their money where their mouth is, and follow through on promises. This has led us to the Second Law of Leadership: To become a credible leader you must Do What You Say You Will Do, or DWYSYWD for short.
Lesson 3: Personal values drive commitment.
DWYSYWD has to fundamental parts to it—the say part and the do part. People expect their leaders to stand up for their beliefs. But to stand up for your beliefs, you have to know what you stand for. To walk the talk, you have to have a talk to walk. To do what you say, you have to know what you want to say. To earn and sustain personal credibility, you must first be able to clearly articulate deeply held beliefs. And we know from our research that those leaders who are the clearest about their own values, and who see the fit between their own values and the values of the organizations they serve, are the most committed leaders. Personal values clarity is essential to commitment…and to integrity and authenticity.
Lesson 4. You either lead by example, or you don’t lead at all.
The second part of earning credibility—or, DWYSYWD—is the “do” part. The only way people know we value something is when they see it in action. When leaders practice what they preach they become role models for their constituents, and leaders who are seen as exemplary role models have higher performing units. In fact, in our most recent analysis of over 950,000 responses to our Leadership Practices Inventory, we found that Model the Way is the leadership practice that has more impact on constituents’ performance than any of the other Five Practices in our model. If you could only do one thing as a leader to energize the performance of others, it would be, based on our data, to be set an example based on a set of shared values.
Lesson 5. Looking forward is a leadership prerequisite.
In our most recent surveys, 72 percent of respondents selected the “forward-looking” as one of their most sought-after leadership characteristics. Among the most senior executives, the percentage expecting this quality is 88 percent. People expect leaders to have a sense of direction and a concern for the future of the organization. Exemplary leaders are able to envision the future, to gaze across the horizon of time and imagine the greater opportunities to come. They are able to develop a unique image of the future. This ability, more than any of the other leadership skills, differentiates leaders from individual contributors.
Lesson 6. It’s not just the leaders vision.
At some point during all this talk over the years about the importance of being future-oriented, leaders got the sense that they were the ones who had to be the visionaries. Wrong! This is not what constituents expect. Yes, leaders are expected to be forward-looking, but they aren’t expected to be prophets. Exemplary leadership is not about uttering divinely inspired revelations. What people really want to hear is not just the leader’s vision. They want to hear about their own aspirations. They want to hear how their dreams will come true and their hopes will be fulfilled. The very best leaders understand that they are supposed to Inspire a Shared Vision, not sell their idiosyncratic view of the world.
Lesson 7. Challenge provides the opportunity for greatness.
When we ask people to tell us about their personal best leadership experiences, they talk about times of crisis, adversity, change, and great difficulty. We don’t do our best as leaders when we are maintaining the status quo or when we feel comfortable. The situations that bring out our best are those that challenge us. The study of leadership, then, is the study of how men and women guide people through adversity, uncertainty, hardship, disruption, transformation, transition, recovery, new beginnings, and other significant challenges. It’s also the study of how men and women, in times of constancy and complacency, actively seek to disturb the status quo and awaken new possibilities. Leadership and challenge are simply inseparable.
Lesson 8. Leaders are team players.
Leaders can’t do it alone. No leader in history ever got anything extraordinary done by himself or herself. When it comes to superior performance collaboration out produces both competition and individualistic efforts. And, at the heart of collaboration is trust. Without trust you cannot lead. As one leader put it to us: “I have a strong willingness to be a part of what is going on, rather than apart from. I don’t think people enjoy working for long stretches for someone who won’t be part of what’s happening.”
Lesson 9. Leadership is a relationship.
Leadership is a relationship between those who choose to lead and those who choose to follow. Any discussion of leadership must attend to the dynamics of this relationship. Exemplary leaders are devoted to building relationships based on mutual respect and caring, because they know that the quality of the relationship will determine the quality of the results. The emotional intelligence of a leader has more to do with their effectiveness than their experience and their expertise. One leader told us, “I may not be the most knowledgeable person…but I know how to get other people to think well about themselves.” What an awesome ability to have. The very best leaders know that their job is to make others feel powerful and capable, not to acquire power for themselves.
Lesson 10. Caring is at the heart of leadership.
Contrary to a lot of public myth about how managers have to be cold and rational — “it’s not personal, it’s just business” — research indicates just the opposite. The highest performing managers and leaders are the most open and caring. The best demonstrate more affection toward others and want others to be more open with them. Exemplary leaders excel at improving performance through more attention to the human heart. The climb to the top of the summit is arduous and steep. The challenges are immense and often frightening. Against these odds leaders must sustain hope and offer encouragement. And the research is very clear. High hope leads to high performance.
I hope you’ll add your most important leadership lessons to this list. The best leaders are the best learners, and I know we have so much more to learn from you.
I just don wanna fuss
just 4 today
4 no reason but just becoz
lift my hands in D’ air
smell the wind blowing thru
careless, carefree
stupid, aimless, foolish
call it what U may
I just don wanna fuss
impulsive, spontaneous
liberty, freedom,
no limit, no restrictions
crazy, breaking D’ norm
living the dream, raising D’ bar
I just don wanna fuss
arising 2 D’ occasion
feeling myself, loving thyself
impersonating thee, celebrating thy own
indulging thy pleasures
enjoying the present, ignoring the worries
no more wishing, wondering, waiting
its now or never
I just don wanna fuss
grateful for this beautiful life
it’s all how U see it i guess
choose hope, choose to dare
live simply, indulge more
a toast 4 U achieving beyond UR wildest dreams!
“The most important thing to me is, how, in the process of learning how to use my body, can I come to understand myself?”—Bruce Lee
I’m always looking for better ways to get rapid results and realize my physical potential.
Bruce Lee developed a great way to relieve stress from your body, while cultivating exceptional health and fitness benefits for your body, mind, and spirit.
It only takes 3-minutes and you can do it in bed.
Imagine a simple routine that you could do anytime, anywhere, from your bedroom, hotel room, or living room.
Overview of Bruce Lee’s 3-Minute Workout
It’s fast. It’s simple. It’s effective. It won’t make you as lean, muscular, and powerful as Bruce Lee. Lee had specific exercises for that.
Instead, it will help you kickstart your day, move your body, relieve stress, stretch your muscles, and practice your mindfulness while developing your mind-body connection.
The first four exercises are static contraction, where you hold the movement under tension by contracting your muscles. The last two exercises you perform in the standard, non-static contraction way.
1. Full Body Stretch
Extend your arms and legs as far as you can and hold for 3 seconds, relax for 2. Repeat that 5 times.
Perform 5 full body stretches. Extend your legs as far as you can in one direction and reach your arms as far as possible in the opposite direction. Maintain each stretch for 3 seconds and then relax for 2 seconds.
Total time: 25 seconds
2. Back arches
Arch your back pushing your hips towards the ceiling as high as you can. Hold for 3 seconds, relax for 2. Repeat 5 times.
Perform 5 back arches: Bend your legs until the backs of your thighs are just touching the backs of your upper calves, and then slowly push your hips upward toward the ceiling while simultaneously flexing your buttocks muscles and pushing gently with your legs. Maintain each arch for 3 seconds and then relax for 2 seconds.
Total time: 25 seconds
3. Leg tensing
Extend your legs as far as you can and tense them for 3 seconds, relax for 2. Repeat 12 times.
Perform 12 leg tenses: Slowly extend your legs as far as you can, and then tighten the muscles of your thighs. Maintain this fully contracted position for 3 seconds.
Total time: 60 seconds
4. Abdominal tensing
Suck in your gut, crunch your abs as tightly as you can. Hold for 3 seconds, relax for 2. Repeat 10 times.
Perform 10 abdominal tenses: Deliberately and fully contract your abdominal muscles in a manner similar to what you would do if (please forgive the imagery) you were having a bowel movement. Maintain this maximal contraction for 3 seconds and then relax for 2 seconds.
Total time: 50 seconds
5. Sit-up touching toes
Lie flat on your back, extend your legs all the way, sit up and touch your toes. Do this 5 times.
Perform 5 sit-ups touching toes: Simply place your back flat upon your mattress with your legs fully extended in front of you and your arms extended behind your head. Now, slowly raise your torso, reaching forward with your hands until they come into contact with your toes. Hold this position briefly, and then return to the starting position.
Total time: 10 seconds
6. Bent leg raises
Lie flat on your back, raise your legs up toward your chest. Do this 5 times.
Perform 5 bent leg raises. Place your back flat upon your mattress with your arms outstretched behind your head. Slowly bend your legs and draw them up toward your chest, pausing briefly once they have been drawn as far back as possible. Return your legs to the starting position.
Total time: 10 seconds
Your Strength Comes from Your Core
The abs have it. By working on your core, you build your strength from the inside out, and if you’re really good, you work on your Chi (life force), too.
Bruce Lee placed considerable emphasis on the abdominal region, considering it to be the most important area to keep fit and healthy. In a newspaper interview in the early 1960’s, Lee commented:
‘My strength comes from my abdomen. It’s the center of gravity and the source of real power.’”
The Power of Static Contractions
The power of static contractions is that you can do them anywhere, anytime, at your own pace with no dependency on any equipment, gym fees, or special physical abilities.
The barrier to entry is low and the rewards are high, and you get out of it, what you put into it.
Static contractions are simply contracting your muscles and holding the tension.
They are convenient and you can do them anywhere. For example, nobody stops you from working out your abs, the next time you are in a long, boring meeting. Simply contract your abs and practice increasing your ability to tense them. A lot of Pilates practitioners are masters of this move.
Bruce Lee place a high premium on the value of static contraction exercises not only recommending it specifically for his students but also incorporating it into his own training. It is certainly one of the easiest answers for anybody who is looking for a more convenient way to be physically fit.
Anyone from child to senior citizen, can benefit from Lee’s program of static contraction exercises, and in terms of convenience, it’s truly a method of exercise that has no peer–all it takes is a total of three minutes a day!
Another convenience factor is that these simple exercises can be performed anywhere and at any time (you can do them in your bedroom, hotel room, or living room)–and under almost any conditions.”
No Excuses
There are always reasons to argue why you don’t have time, or it’s too complicated, or you can’t afford it.
But a 3-minute workout that helps you move better, breathe better, be better, is tough to dismiss.
Lee’s personal program of static contraction requires no real skill to speak of. It doesn’t take much practice, and, in fact, it’s one of those rare activities that you actually cando well the very first time.
It is also a private activity, and like running (of which Lee was also ardent devotee), the competition, so to speak, is against only yourself. The sessions are short, and the results are quick to reveal themselves.
There exists no need to change into expensive workout clothing, and there are no fancy exercise machines you need to purchase, not any hefty membership fees to lay out to join the local health club.
As for the time investment, nothing has yet to compare with the simple and yet highly effective form of exercise, as, again, only three minutes of exercise performed every morning will increase your overall health to a remarkable degree.”
If you can’t invest 3-minutes in yourself before you start your day, something is wrong. You can’t take care of other people, or function effectively, if you can’t even take care of yourself.
The better you take care of yourself, the better you can serve others, and realize your potential.
How I Made My Millions I was working all day and took a break for my supper. I was flipping through the channels and just happened to come across a local TV program, How I Made My Millions. I snickered when I saw the title of the program thinking, oh this must be one of those info commercials that promises to make you millions and most of the time you end up spending lots of money and making nothing.
The program came on and I was truly motivated by watching and listening. These were ordinary people, like you and me, with good ideas. They not only talked about their idea, they took action and persevered even though many people laughed at their idea. The last laugh is, of course, on those who originally laughed. The people featured on this show are now millionaires, and they persevered and took the steps necessary to achieve their success. Yes, they had setbacks, and rejection, but that did not deter them from continuing. And, it truly paid off for them.
So often we have a good idea but we don’t take action. Or, we are discouraged at the challenges that face us. We give up far too easily, we don’t persevere.
I can’t tell you how many times I read the saying on my desk – “persistence prevails when all else fails:. I am now generating a good income – I am not a millionaire – yet – but I continually learn and push the envelope.
The purpose in sharing this story with you is to encourage you to take action on your ideas, and to persist! Learn from your failures, overcome the challenges; and, as Walt Disney once said, “If you can dream it, you can do it.”
“Leadership is the capacity to translate vision into reality.” — Warren Bennis
Visionary leaders energize followers with purpose and meaning.
What a great way to BE.
Whether you think of John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr., Gahndi, Richard Branson, Seth Godin, Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, or Satya Nadella, visionary leaders share two things in common:
Visionary leaders see things early
Visionary leaders connect the dots.
The great news is that visionary leadership is a skill and YOU can build your own visionary capacity.
Visionary Leadership is a Skill
“We can all work consciously and continuously to grow our ability to anticipate, improve our game of looking ahead, have more remarkable insights, and become more inspirational in how we speak about the future. We all can benefit from the effects of a compelling vision in the part of the world we influence. Being able to think, behave, act, and communicate in a more future-oriented fashion provides direction for the road ahead and guidance for decisions that will need to be made. It also inspires and fuels innovation and breakthrough thinking. And it energizes your followers with purpose and meaning.”
Visionary Leaders See Things Early
To practice visionary leadership, you need to see what’s coming. You need to be able to filter through all the noise and zoom in on what’s pertinent and probable.
“Your ability to see things early. The first signs of change often manifest as random noise or faint warning signals, often at the periphery of our attention and far less explicit in their game-changing nature than they are later. Growing your ability to notice these signals early, and recognize their potential impact, is an essential part of raising your visionary capacity.”
Visionary Leaders Connect the Dots
To practice visionary leadership, not only do you need to see things early, you need to make it meaningful, and put things into context. You need to be able to shape and sell a relatable story.
“Your ability to connect the dots, to create coherence in the future you face and turn it into a ‘bigger picture’ story. This implies constructively and intelligently working through the complexity of the multi-faceted and multi-dimensional future.”
Visionary Development Framework
Rob-Jan De Jong shares a simple way to visualize the two dimensions of Visionary Leadership and to compare and contrast with what he calls Historians, Followers, and Trend Hoppers.
Followers (are not Visionary Leaders)
It’s tough to lead from behindFollowers don’t see things early enough, and they don’t connect the dots in a meaningful or relatable way.
“In the lower left quadrant, we find the Follower: someone neither very good at early noticing nor skilled in creating and communicating a coherent story from the various insights he or she has about what the future might bring.
This is not to say that Followers don’t have any idea of what the future might bring for their part of the organization or industry. They just don’t have a compelling story or image ready to share when provided an opportunity to ignite others. It’s either absent, poorly developed and unformulated, or all over the place and lacking coherence. The Follower may well be a wonderful person and an excellent manager, but don’t expect this person to be a rich source of inspiration, to drive innovation, fuel fresh breakthrough ideas, or help others overcome mental barriers in order to go beyond today’s reality.”
Trend Hoppers (are not Visionary Leaders)
Trend Hoppers hop from trend to trend. Trend Hoppers are fun for Fridays, but we pay attention to the Visionary Leaders on Mondays.
“Those in this category (lower right quadrant) are less likely to develop true leadership profiles or to acquire a critical mass of dedicated followers. After chasing several flavor-of-the-month ideas, many people mentally tune out with the Trend Hopper and become reluctant to chase yet another ‘groundbreaking’ idea or development. Trend Hoppers, or Fad Surfers, are therefore ineffective in the long run in engaging the organization, mostly because they do not successfully integrate their early insights into a larger context that provides coherence. They are the kind of people we like to listen to on Friday afternoon, but not on Monday morning.”
Historians or Cynics (are not Visionary Leaders)
While a visionary has 20/20 foresight, historians have 20/20 hindsight. They are good at telling stories about what has already happened.
“Which brings us to the upper left quadrant, the leaders adept at connecting the dots and spinning the story that makes sense. They like to cite patterns, facts, and figures–ideally in PowerPoint–and marvel at making the road traveled so far look very coherent and intentional. When you listen to them, it all makes sense. But they have their eye trained on the factually true past, not on the imaginative uncertain future. They’re not very good at spotting where the early signals are coming from and how these could become potential game changers. I call them the Historians. They have a strong thinking preference for consistency and logic, and are therefore less interested in what breaks with coherence (unlike Trend Hoppers). Their focus is on making everyone understand why we are where we are today by integrating past events into a logically consistent perspective.”
The Visionary
The Visionary Leader can connect the future and what’s coming to the present, and tell a bigger story of how the puzzle pieces fit together. They inspire others toward a more meaningful outcome.
“A quote attributed to Albert Schweitzer says that ‘an optimist is a person who sees a green light everywhere, while a pessimist sees only the red stop-light… The truly wise person is color-blind.’ I’d like to extend the metaphor and let our visionary be color-blind. The visionary would not overoptimistically jump on every fad that passes by, as our Trend Hopper risks. Nor would he become a naysayer and launch into the Historian mode. The visionary takes a mindful, future-oriented perspective, balancing the need for a compelling future with the awareness of the inherent dangers of becoming dogmatic and overoptimistic.”
Relevance vs. Implication
While visionary leaders need to both see things early and connect the dots, they need to keep things in balance. This is how they gain the advantage of both knowing what’s relevant and knowing the implications.
“Because we’re operating on constant information overload, it’s vital that we filter out what’s important and what’s not. The ability to see early depends on judging weak signals according to the relevancy they represent. Without specific effort, you will only be able to identify manifestations of change in retrospect. But that’s usually when it’s too late.
The ability to connect the dots, though, is focused on implications of changing realities. It takes the ideas generated from the early noticing ability and integrates them with other important factors, putting the early signals of a changing reality into perspective and making them logically consistent. The resulting story is then complete to potentially serve as a powerful vision.”
Data Point vs. Model
Visionary Leaders are able to make sense of a bigger model that explains how things fit together, as well as understand the data points that support the model, and even the outliers that may seem to contradict the model.
“Sometimes one data point can defy all the logic in the model. Even though it represents a different and often unwanted reality, it’s the outlier that must be considered in serious planning. The ability to connect the dots isn’t enough. A model, like a vision, requires an understanding of the relevance of single data points in addition to the model, even if these points are outliers. Especially if they happened just twelve months earlier.”
Focus on Detail vs. Focus on Helicopter View
Visionary Leaders are able to zoom in and zoom out to keep everything in perspective, to drill in to the meaningful details, and pan out so they can see how things relate, as well as what’s important vs. what’s just noise.
“The third core difference between seeing things early and connecting the dots is a behavioral one. The ability to see things early requires astute attention to detail. You need to filter the signal from the noise, focusing on one or possibly a few weak signals that are undetected by most. The ability to create a coherent story, however, takes a helicopter view. A generalist who isn’t hampered by too much attention to detail can understand the implications of various developments and connect them in a logical, compelling story.
Developing both abilities requires the skills and focus of the specialist and the generalist. You must consider the relevance and potential consequences of rather vague, weak signals and then step into the helicopter and combine the signals with larger, possibly macroeconomic, trends and developments at play in the world and your industry.”
Risk Seeking vs. Risk Aversion
Visionary Leaders are able to balance risk-seeking with risk-aversion so that they know the better bets and how to invest, while taking calculated risks, and mitigating damages. In other words, they balance the risk of doing something with the risk of doing nothing, based on what the future likely holds.
“Your ability to identify change is about looking beyond the conventional and questioning the way things are as they are today. Hence, a challenging, risk-seeking stance. Your ability to connect the dots is more conservative and risk-averse, however, since it looks for a coherent bigger picture. In other words, it forces you to be mindful about the stance you take and not bet the house over attractive yet highly speculative views brought to you by your improved ability to identify early changes.”
You don’t have to wait for other people to be visionary for you.
You can take Visionary Leadership into your own hands.
Practice the skills of Visionary Leadership and write your story forward.
“If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.” — John Quincy Adams
I’ve created a leadership checklist that should act like a hub and spoke of effective leadership practices. The challenge is distilling effective leadership practices into one-liner reminders that are easy to evaluate the behavior, where possible.
I used a specific “user story” format (“As a leader, I …”) to both make each line item a standalone story, but also to test these as personal “unit tests” for leadership. By making each one more precise, insightful, and actionable, while pinning to effective practices, this should serve as a simple and scannable cheat sheet of proven practices for leadership. If done well, it should reflect years of insight and lessons at a glance.
It’s a work in progress. Here is is so far:
Top 10 Leadership Checks
As a leader, I seek first to understand, and I listen to people until they feel heard (empathic listening.)
As a leader, I set the example others wish to emulate.
As a leader, I vary my leadership style to motivate when needed or direct based on the needs and abilities of the team.
As a leader, I vary my leadership style between people-focused and task-focused based on the situation I’m in.
As a leader, I continuously find ways to simplify.
As a leader, I focus on service to others.
As a leader, I allocate time for what’s important.
As a leader, I do what I say I will do.
As a leader, I create a compelling vision that inspires people to rally around.
As a leader, I take feedback and adapt in response.
Core Checks
As a leader, I am a self-starter and I take the initiative.
As a leader, I am approachable and encourage people to talk to me.
As a leader, I ask questions that help move the ball forward.
As a leader, I build the confidence of others.
As a leader, I know whether my strengths are thought-leadership, people leadership, or both.
As a leader, I focus on self-leadership before leading others (self-leadership, team leadership, organizational leadership, etc.)
As a leader, I influence others through skills and connection, not power and position.
As a leader, I focus on “we” not “me.”
As a leader, I over-communicate both upwards and downwards.
As a leader, I realize my success comes through others.
As a leader, I remind myself that leadership is a privilege in that people choose to follow.
As a leader, I scale my impact by thinking in terms of systems and ecosystems.
As a leader, I think beyond the moment.
As a leader, I treat people the way I want to be treated.
Action
As a leader, I ask, “What do we want to accomplish?”
As a leader, I avoid inaction.
As a leader, I avoid unnecessary distractions.
As a leader, I balance the results with the journey.
As a leader, I create SMART goals (Specific, Measurable, Actionable, Relevant, and Timely)
As a leader, I demonstrate a bias for action.
As a leader, I ensure people have intrinsically motivating goals.
As a leader, I help identify next steps.
As a leader, I help people identify the tests for success.
As a leader, I help people identify what good would look like.
As a leader, I help people feel a sense of progress.
As a leader, I hold people accountable to what they agreed they would do.
As a leader, I inspire others to action.
As a leader, I maintain quality and deadlines while dealing with multiple priorities.
As a leader, I mobilize my team to achieve.
As a leader, I structure a path for success.
As a leader, I surround myself with people that balance my weaknesses and amplify my strengths.
As a leader, I take bold action.
As a leader, I take decisive action.
As a leader, I turn ideas into actions.
Change
As a leader, I anticipate and prepare for changes.
As a leader, I build a sense of urgency for the most important things.
As a leader, I communicate the “what,” “why”, “who”, “how” and “when” of a change initiative.
As a leader, I embrace change.
As a leader, I put together the right coalition of people to help drive change.
As a leader, I see change as an opportunity.
As a leader, I socialize change in effective ways.
As a leader, I stay flexible in my approach.
As a leader, I understand and can articulate the risks of change and the risks of avoiding change.
Communication
As a leader, I challenge ideas while respecting other opinions.
As a leader, I communicate clearly.
As a leader, I ask solution-focused questions, such as “How might we solve that?”
As a leader, I communicate in an open and respectful way.
As a leader, I encourage people to bring me problems.
As a leader, I encourage people to put their ideas out on the table.
As a leader, I encourage an open door policy.
As a leader, I know how to manage up, down, and sideways effectively.
As a leader, I lead with my “why.”
As a leader, I let people know they’ve been heard by replaying back what I’ve heard.
As a leader, I listen with the intent to learn.
Decisions and Choice
As a leader, I always factor the “right” thing to do and ethics when faced with choices and decisions.
As a leader, I am not afraid to admit when I am wrong or someone has a better idea.
As a leader, I am prepared to make tough decisions.
As a leader, I build consensus for ideas.
As a leader, I focus on doing business the right, ethical way.
As a leader, I help people understand that until a decision is made its ok to argue like hell but once it is made everyone needs to get in the boat and row!
As a leader, I involve the right people for key decisions.
As a leader, I know when to defer to other people for their expertise.
As a leader, I recognize that not all people will agree with my decisions.
Energy, Motivation, and Inspiration
As a leader, I build a team of energizers and weed out the energy sappers.
As a leader, I demonstrate passion and enthusiasm.
As a leader, I give others meaningful work and show them why it’s meaningful.
As a leader, I identify opportunities.
As a leader, I invest in people’s strengths to help them blossom.
As a leader, I look to the future with possibility.
As a leader, I make people feel valued for their contributions.
As a leader, I make the workplace an enjoyable place to be.
As a leader, I reward effort and results.
As a leader, I reward people when they excel.
As a leader, I spend more time in my strengths and less time in my weaknesses.
As a leader, I take time to renew and recharge.
Influence and Connection
As a leader, I balance connection and conviction.
As a leader, I build trust through reliable actions.
As a leader, I connect with people’s values.
As a leader, I demonstrate compassion for people and their situations.
As a leader, I demonstrate empathy for the people.
As a leader, I demonstrate empathy for the situation.
As a leader, I establish rapport before trying to influence.
As a leader, I read a situation to know who the owners, influencers, and decision makers are.
As a leader, I recognize that I cannot please all the people all the time.
Learning, Growth, and Self-Awareness
As a leader, I am a lifelong learner.
As a leader, I am open to feedback and constructive criticism.
As a leader, I encourage healthy competition.
As a leader, I encourage people to test themselves and stretch themselves.
As a leader, I encourage testing results.
As a leader, I find the lessons and carry the good ideas forward.
As a leader, I find ways for people, processes, and products to grow and evolve.
As a leader, I focus on strengths and limit liabilities.
As a leader, I follow the growth.
As a leader, I get feedback on my actions and the impact on people.
As a leader, I give honest and constructive feedback—the kind I would like to receive.
As a leader, I help people spend more time in their strengths.
As a leader, I know and act according to my principles.
As a leader, I know how to provide specific, accurate, timely, and relevant constructive feedback.
As a leader, I know my weaknesses.
As a leader, I model the best.
As a leader, I own my mistakes.
As a leader, I provide opportunities for my people to excel
As a leader, I seek input from multiple perspectives on how to improve.
As a leader, I improve my weaknesses that are liabilities.
As a leader, I use mistakes as learning opportunities.
As a leader, I use tough situations as leadership opportunities.
As a leader, when I make a mistake, I do what I can to make it right.
Problem Solving
As a leader, I ask clarifying questions about the problem.
As a leader, I break down problems into smaller, easier, more manageable chunks.
As a leader, I challenge myself to take on big hairy challenges.
As a leader, I focus on the task and keep my ego out of it.
As a leader, I frame the problem in a way that’s actionable.
As a leader, I help people focus on what they control.
As a leader, I prioritize solving the right problems first (solving the problems that have the most impact).
As a leader, I solve problems.
Teamwork
As a leader, I ask people what they need to be successful.
As a leader, I break the work down in a way that can be managed effectively.
As a leader, I clear roadblocks for people.
As a leader, I create a sense of ownership.
As a leader, I create ways for people to collaborate on problems.
As a leader, I delegate tasks effectively.
As a leader, I empower people to get their jobs done.
As a leader, I encourage others to spend more time in their strengths and less time in their weaknesses.
As a leader, I encourage others to take bold action.
As a leader, I encourage people to share what they know and grow others.
As a leader, I encourage people to team up.
As a leader, I find a way for the team to win.
As a leader, I foster team spirit.
As a leader, I give others the leeway to do the work.
As a leader, I help clarify expectations and roles.
As a leader, I help find ways to make my team more productive.
As a leader, I help manage and balance personalities on the team.
As a leader, I help my people balance their work and life.
As a leader, I help people find roles that unleash and bring out their best.
As a leader, I help people internalize what success looks like.
As a leader, I help people work together by focusing on the greater good.
As a leader, I know how to get out of the way and let people do their jobs.
As a leader, I know the strengths individuals bring to the table.
As a leader, I know when to play quarterback and when to play coach.
As a leader, I share what I learn to help make others great.
As a leader, I set clear boundaries and allow people to act within those boundaries.
As a leader, I value and encourage diversity on the team.
As a leader, I value the unique contribution that each individual brings.
Vision, Mission, Values
As a leader, I can communicate the mission in one line.
As a leader, I can prioritize effectively across competing concerns.
As a leader, I can relate the vision and mission to what people are doing.
As a leader, I co-create a compelling mission that is simple, sticky, and powerful.
As a leader, I co-create a vision that people sign up for.
As a leader, I create a larger playground for more people to play.
As a leader, I demonstrate that I respect other people’s values.
As a leader, I have a vision for the organization that inspires.
As a leader, I help people see the forest from the trees by communicating priorities and setting focus.
As a leader, I know what my values are and I communicate them to others.
As a leader, I live my values.
As a leader, I respect other peoples’ opinions even if I disagree with them.
Followers don’t see things early enough, and they don’t connect the dots in a meaningful or relatable way.