Inspirational Presence. Jeff Evans
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mission because it seems too big or scary, then we are just giving up on ourselves.
To find true passion, we simply have to look inside at what really matters. Just tapping into our awareness can usually create enough guidance to tell us what is important and what is not. As we will discuss later, we must evaluate and question our mission through reflection on the actions we take. We will know if a mission feels right only when we try to live it.
MANAGING YOURSELF
In order to lead others, you must first lead yourself. More than anything else, this should become a practice throughout your life. A nice way to look at this is through the idea that you already have a leadership practice. We all do. The question is whether or not you know it and whether you put conscious energy toward how you engage that practice.
I use the word practice here to connote something that you regularly do and how you approach the world. Every thought and every action constitutes the whole of how you are defined as a leader. Deeply imbedded in this practice are the words you use, your self-talk, and your habitual responses to the world. The basic difference between a habit and a practice is mindfulness. Once you become mindful of how you talk to yourself, you can understand that those words and emotions are a rehearsal for how you will talk to others. Once you become mindful of the habitual stories you tell yourself about the world (your personal mythology), you become mindful of how those stories become a guide for your interactions and the explanations you place on the world.
You can lead by claiming the inherent power of these natural dynamics and using them for positive purpose. It simply requires noticing what is going through your mind and deciding whether that is the most appropriate view of the world at the time. You decide whether your behaviors match the current situation. You determine the energy that you want to put into the world. In every given moment, you have the option of seeing the world through a loving and trusting lens or through one of fear and doubt. In every action you take, you have the choice of creating positive and creative situations or negative and destructive ones.
In order to frame this, there are certain areas where you can focus your attention to begin this practice. Each has a particular purpose in creating a solid and dynamic leader, and each affords a particular area of personal power. We will take these separately.
THE POWER OF INTENTION
Intention is defined as “an anticipated outcome that guides your planned actions.” This breaks down into two distinct parts. First, understanding your “anticipated outcome” and second, “guiding your planned actions.” Many people don’t realize how much this plays out on a daily basis. For instance, how often have you seen a person (maybe yourself) walk into a situation expecting a negative outcome? For instance, let’s consider Sara, who holds a belief that meetings are a waste of time and nothing good ever happens there. She enters a staff meeting just knowing that it will be terrible (anticipated outcome) and, consequently, she sits idly and waits for it to go south (guides planned action). However, if you were to say to Sara that her intention was to have a bad meeting, she would probably disagree with you.
This is referred to as the Law of Attraction, which states that whatever we think about, believe, and focus our energy on is what we create for our lives—and it is important in our daily practice of life to know how to use this law. What Sara would probably say is that she just knew it would happen that way. She might even say that she really wanted to have a good meeting but felt it was beyond her control, and she might cite that as evidence that meetings are indeed a waste of time. At this level, what she is expressing is more like a wish. We get to be a leader when we add the power of our own dynamic presence, when we see the highest possible anticipated outcome and use ourselves in the moment to create that outcome. This is when we transform a passive wish into a clear intention.
It is really a question of consciousness and choice. As a leader, it is a requirement that we get very clear about the anticipated outcomes that we are carrying around. Intention ties in quite closely with our conscious and subconscious belief systems. As such, we can be carrying a negative limiting belief at a subconscious level that operates as a default guide—not a good thing for being a dynamic and powerful leader. For the purpose of leadership practice, we need to get clear on what we see as anticipated outcomes and use them to guide our actions in a way that helps us accomplish positive things.
Let’s use one example of conversations: At a very discreet level, we can think of each conversation we have as an opportunity to connect with our deepest beliefs and frame them into an intention. When you sit down to talk to someone, think about what it is that you want to accomplish through this time. Think about what is important to you and to the other person. After that, be clear about why you are having this conversation. Express what you say as an intention, as in “It is my intention to connect at an emotional level” or “It is my intention to get clear on our weekly priorities.” You can do this silently or, more powerfully, to the participants. From there, let that intention guide your actions.
Now, be careful—there is a potential downside to this. If you only focus on what you want to accomplish, you probably won’t get it. Communicating is building a system of rapport between people, and that requires healthy amounts of paying attention to the other person’s wants and needs. If we turn our intention into an agenda, we run the risk of shutting out other people.
Make it a practice to consistently be as clear as possible about your intentions for all of the things you do on a daily basis. Think about your intention in writing an email. Think about your intention in reading an email. Think about your intention when you greet a receptionist or the server in a restaurant. Think about your intention when you say hello to significant people in your life. Whatever it is, the greater degree to which we can bring up our “anticipated outcomes” and make them consciously our own, the more effective, dynamic, and powerful we will be in the world.
THE POWER OF COMMITMENT
Ultimately, the power you will have as a leader of yourself and your own personal journey comes down to how much and what kind of energy you direct toward your passion and mission in life. Recognizing and honoring commitment allows you to choose your actions. Here’s an interesting way to look at this: You will hear about people being committed or not committed when you look at what they are doing or not doing. These words are typically uttered to describe a person who is not doing something that someone feels that person should be doing.
But what if you saw everyone as completely committed to the choices they made? A person can be committed to indifference or committed to ambiguity. A person who is having trouble deciding what he wants to do can be committed to indecision or committed to struggling. What if every action people took was because they were committed to that path? Consider how that would change your view of them.
At that level, it brings a completely new wrinkle to how you work with yourself and with others. It means that you do not have to make yourself commit; just recognize where you are already committed and decide whether that is what you truly want. At the deepest level, your power comes when you recognize that everyone is profoundly committed to creating the life he or she is leading, exactly the way it is. If you are not getting what you think you want, you must find the areas of commitment that you want to shift. Until you become aware of them, they remain invisible forces that can keep you from moving in desired areas.
You commence the alignment of your intentions with your being through commitment. It shows up in every area of your life and can be used both to change your behaviors and to clarify your intention. Let’s go back to our example of Sara and her attitude toward meetings. We can say that Sara is committed to having bad meetings and committed to her opinion of the value of meetings through her recurring actions. If she examines her intentions and claims that she truly wants good meetings, then it is up to her to commit to her intention through personal leadership. First, she has to commit to mental images of what happens in good meetings. She has to commit to using language, both with others and in her self-talk, that is consistent with