During my conference last week, I listened to one of the most powerful presentations that I have ever heard. The kind of presentation that you take home and apply to not only your professional life but also your personal life and it influences the rest of your life.
The speaker talked about being a leader and that we should all work every day to be a better leader. Fair enough.
Well, he was not talking about people who are already in positions of leadership, at work or in their communities. He was talking about personal leadership. He said:
"You don't have to have people reporting to you to be a leader.
You can and should be a leader of yourself".
That really struck me and it made me think of how I may be missing the mark in leading myself. I think many of us think and say that we are in charge of our own lives. But are we really in charge?
Ask yourself, "who is really leading me? How much are you influenced by your friends, your family? Are you slavishly following the latest pop cultural phenomena and allowing that to influence and lead you? In the celebrity obsessed culture that seems to have taken over the world, it is easy to find ourselves caught up in that lifestyle. Are you letting life happen to you instead of you planning and directing your life?
To lead yourself, you first have to decide what kind of person you want to be. And then you consciously work on being that person, learning and embracing the values you have chosen.
People look up to their leaders to deliver them to the "promised land". Are you delivering yourself to "your promised land"? No one can take you there but yourself.
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