The hands-on blog for successful (and aspiring) top leaders

Today I had a session with a client I've seen for the second time.

We delved into her challenge of how she could get where she absolutely wants to be (which is a particular position in academia)  - an idea she had for years!

Now - we could have started working on some strategies or tactics of how to get there.

But that's not what I do.

Deep work does not have to be a huge effort

Working on the surface would totally ignore what's at the core of the challenge and simply mean that a similar situation - based upon the pattern at the basis - will pop up again eventually.

I experienced that SOOO often in my own life until I realized I had to tackle what WAS at the bottom.

So - we went deep.

Arghh…that sounds uncomfortable and like a lot of effort and time.

WRONG.

It just required a couple of the right questions, and  - totally not modest here - I'm really good at asking those due to my very well-developed intuition and wham - it always leads to the core quickly.

Within...

Hey, it's Monday again and time for some thoughts for the week. 

This morning I had a chat with my grown-up daughter and we came across the topic of how we often hold ourselves back and are blocked by....stuff we create ourselves. 

Creating an internal resistance, which prevents us from achieving our goals. Or from simply having good experiences or feeling good (isn't that what we all want? The feeling good part?). 

BS - that is what blocks us (and it's not what you think!!)

So, here is

- why our BS (not what you think, I swear!) is the culprit
- a little story that shows what can happen and how reality can change (to the better!) when we shift it

Enjoy!

Quite honestly: 5 years ago I did not have a clue what Personal Leadership was. As I simply did not give it a thought. The definition that is.

Instinctively though I realized that there is something wrong with the way of how we learn to lead.

When I had just passed my mid-twenties and I worked for a start-up in the IT business (not that we called it like that 25 years ago) it was the first time that I managed a team. I had 3 people in a sales team to lead. And I failed miserably.

None of my team was in the slightest inspired by me and I had simply no idea what I was doing. Even when I read up about what I could do how and tested things out, it did only marginally get better. The second time around leading a team in a different organisation went better, still not great though.

Well, I could have assumed that I was simply a lousy leader. I realized later though, that I had started at the wrong end.

Start leadership at the right end 

What is the right end then?

Quite simple on one...

I bet that triggered your interest…what’s she talking about – would have done the trick for me :-).

So, I start with a spoiler and disclose the answer right away: A COACH.

In fact, at least one.

Of COURSE I would be saying that  - I'm a coach myself and just want to sell my stuff, right?

Before you let judgement settle in right away, bear with me for a second (well, probably a few minutes, unless you’re one of this super readers).

I have two

Coaches that is. Not seconds.

Not because I am particularly rich or…ehmm… incapable ;-).

I will explain why in a moment – let me tell you a little story first:

My idea of building up a different and new business came up about a year ago. Even a tad before that, come to think of it.

So, I made a plan (hey, after all I AM a business woman with decades of experience), decided what I had to learn (how to build lists, how to create a course, how to shoot an effing video….and how...

...so the title of a podcast I was listening to recently from a 20-something young chap from New Zealand who put this claim out very self-confidently and noisily.

For some reason, the headline really rubbed me the wrong way, so I was getting curious to hear what he had to say. Particularly as so many people nowadays (and probably even before that) have been asking themselves EXACTLY that question:

Who am I, really?

So I listened in to understand what this young, very successful gentleman really meant.

He was talking about how we can be we’d like to be and that – just because we grew up with believing that we are shy, introvert or boisterous or crazy or whatever label we (or someone else) put on us does not mean that this is we HAVE to be.

Contrary to some people who argue that “I’ve always been like that” or “That’s just how I am”.

This is when I got it.

He was clearly talking about our PERCEPTION of ourselves. Which can be something...

Have you ever wondered why some people just crush it and walk from one success to another, perform like crazy and seem to be even happier than the rest of us?

These people must have super powers, right? They were just lucky to be born like that.

Admittedly - we are all different - which is wonderful as it is. Have you ever felt a bit neglected or disadvantaged when it comes to the distribution of the good stuff? Or felt like this world is really unfair?

Let’s face it though, nobody is born with a bad or a good attitude or great skills or lousy ones. Or with being just positive or being negative.
Even if we are happy to state exactly that “Well, I’ve always been the half-glass-empty-person, can’t help it”. “I’m just not like that”, “I don’t have these powers other people have”. In fact you can, and you have - I’ll come back to that in a moment.

Some of us might even have gone through Myers Briggs...