Tag: freedom

Relying on your own knowing as a leader

In the midst of a crisis like the coronavirus pandemic, I have realized how I seem to rely on other people’s accounts to inform ourselves on the nature of a new reality. We cannot all be molecular physicians or scientists. I certainly depend on the knowledge of experts and benefit from their findings. At the same time, I am keenly aware of being the only one in charge of my own path. My sense of reality around me certainly takes account of expertise gathered, but it is only an important piece of the inner process that will guide my path.

We know how scientific, political, and other authoritative knowledge evolves over time and history reminds us that what was true centuries ago is no longer ruling the day. This is at the heart of evolution and it is the beauty of experiencing and learning as time goes on. Meanwhile, we are compelled to take decisions, make up our own minds about what to do facing our reality, and we are the authority when it comes to taking action. It is vital to check within ourselves with a critical mind whether what is handed to us as truth should guide our actions. This does not mean that we discount the information received from external authorities.

Ultimately you will have to decide whether you need to face adversity in order to save other people’s lives. You will decide whether to reach out to the elderly, transgressing external advice or listening to the voice within. You will discover that sitting with the situation presenting itself and the information gathered, measuring them alongside your inner sense of reality and your own experience and knowledge, you are exercising freedom and practicing an important integration process that helps you grow as a human being and a leader in your own life.

Fear of failure

The fear of failure is a common experience that can be changed. Everyone has fears and they exist for a reason. Fear is an important mechanism to protect us and help us deal with a potential danger. The challenge is that fear may keep us from participating fully in life and venture outside of our zone of comfort. We have to realize that fear shows up by anticipation, based on previous experiences, not only as a response to real and present danger. Fear is based on thoughts that are stored and used as data in our mind to elicit certain responses. Once we realize the mechanism, we can choose to hack our own computer of a brain, and trigger a different response. We can always generate new reactions, new brain connections by choosing new thoughts. 

What if failure was a good thing?What if failure was a way to learn and innovate, a technic to master (fail, fail and fail better), a path towards mastery. I remember thinking that failure should be taught in school. There are so many things to learn from failures. It leads to a gradual process of reconquering lost ground to be repeated over and over again towards success, like a child learning to walk – falling time and again – until he or she finds balance.

You may feel that you stand out when you fail, that all eyes are on you, and nobody could be as bad as you. These feelings are common, but you can overcome them, especially if you disconnect the fear triggered by the thought of failing. When you learn to observe your thoughts and their connections to the way you feel, you can find a way to change the feeling around the thought of failing. Think and feel the positive charge around failing. You will gain freedom, no longer ruled by the fear to fail.

Taking off

Human beings have always been fascinated by the idea of flying, inventing creatures with wings that can get closer to the sun, eventually developing machines that fly. I actually started to learn how to fly a plane before I had my driver’s license. There is such a sense of freedom being in the air and looking down at our earthly home. The change of perspective is breathtaking. It opens up new ways of looking at things and expands our mind.

Taking off is also a way of escaping our reality. Emotionally, we tend to jump off the cliff of our blockages when the weight of our burden is too heavy. Taking flight is always about freeing ourselves from the pull of gravity on our human condition. As we remember our true nature, though, we realize that this freedom is temporary.

Yet, taking flight can also be a state of mind. Creativity allows us to free ourselves from the burden of reality and the world of forms. Creativity takes you to boundlessness and allows you to experience beyond the constraints of time and space. This is a state of grace in today’s world, to be able to resort to your own creativity to stretch reality beyond the complexity and volatility of this world, in search of what is yet to emerge. Listening in and leading the way with creativity is the path to a new dream beyond the blockage of thoughts and emotions plaguing our human condition. I encourage you to lead with creativity to bring about a new type of leadership, reflecting a greater coherence in our own evolution.

Should you wish to develop your creative leadership skills, I invite you to connect on //www.leadership-alive.com

Celebrate our quirkyness

I have long felt self-conscious about my differences, not quite fitting in my surroundings, coming from another country with a different background, speaking with an accent most of my life. I noticed over time how some of us have an easier time sharing their differences and preferences, while most of us tend to downplay our eccentricities–whatever we deem quirky. Society from education onwards tend to favor uniformity, and we have codes about what is socially acceptable. As a result, we may not realize how much we have attuned to our surroundings and done away with our special personality traits, intentionally or not. I certainly learned to conform from an early age and was mostly unaware of it until I started paying attention to leadership.

Leaders have usually learned to live without suppressing their eccentricities or rediscovered and embraced these buried traits. They understand that their idiosyncrasies are an important part of who they are. Should you are wondering about these special characteristics of yours, let’s try to think about what it is that you would love to do or be if you knew that you would not be judged for it. What would you take up for a hobby or what would you look like, given a bit more freedom and imagination?

You may be surprised at what comes up and what you discover about your suppressed peculiarities. Ask yourself what is stopping you from expressing this part of you and bring it out in the open. Try to incorporate this side of you into your daily existence. You may be even more surprised to realize that some people will appreciate you more for it than you might have expected. Remember that being your true self frees others up. Give yourself permission!