Tag: mind

Leadership from the neck up

I do not know about you, but the culture I grew up in put the head over the heart. It was more important to use your brain to address issues and people, rather than give in to emotions.  The hierarchy between head and heart went even further in pointing to the fact that women tended to often react too emotionally, when it was perceived as more appropriate to meet new ideas from a level-headed perspective. Many around me seemed to disconnect from their emotions as a result, and to listen and respond, to give and take, from the neck up.

We are today suffering as a society from a mind-driven approach to most issues coming our way, from climate change to bedtime stories, devising strategies, making plans and taking steps to get anywhere according to a well-structured mind, which means ordering things through categories and boxing people in order to process information. This is essentially how we have survived as a species on earth. The mind is clearly a huge asset. However, we may have come to a point in our evolution where we need to rebalance and give our heart a greater say.

Have you noticed how barriers, divisions, and boxes crumble, melt, and disappear when you listen to your heart? The brain gridlock softens, and some new pathways open up. In our super connected world, new interconnectedness starts appearing. Try feeling your way around things, problems, and people. You may sense space between you and what you are confronting. This is the space you need to create something new. This is the path to a more compassionate world, which will tap more into the heart and balance out your brainpower.

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.