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Intentional Leadership — M12 — Belief — Wrap-up

Live your beliefs and you can turn the world around.  ~Henry David Thoreau*

This is so true; don’t you think? Consider this…how would your life be different today if you hadn’t believed in yourself?

How would your world be different today if other leaders hadn’t believed in their potential, their vision, their mission?

What if:

  • Abraham Lincoln hadn’t believed slaves should be freed?
  • John F. Kennedy, Jr., hadn’t believed a man could walk on the moon?
  • Martin Luther King hadn’t believed in the dream of equality for all?
  • Susan B. Anthony hadn’t believed women should vote?
  • Jonas Salk hadn’t believed polio could be cured?

These are just a few examples; given time, and putting our heads together, we could probably come up with a list that would span countless pages of how others’ (and our own) beliefs have changed our lives, our communities, and our world.

Regardless of what stage of life — and leadership — you may be in, know that the first step you must take to move forward is the believe in yourself, in your dream, and your ability to accomplish it.

Believe and act as if it were impossible to fail.  ~Charles F. Kettering

Do so, and success will surely follow.

Do so, and you will change the lives of more people than you can imagine, at levels you may not even be aware of.

Do so…we need you!

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Note: This concludes this 12-month, focused Intentional Leadership journey. Thank you for accompanying me. Remember, it is a journey; even though our study together is ended, it doesn’t mean you must or should stop working through this process. This work, this guide, is archived for you on this site, and you are welcome to revisit it — even go through the whole process, or pieces of it, as the need arises — at any time in the future.

*From the Intentional Leadership booklet, by Giant Impact.

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Intentional Leadership — D1, W4, M9 — Attitude

This last week of month 9, we are going to focus on the power of your attitude. As Thomas Jefferson once observed,

Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal; nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude.

Are you familiar with the story of Christopher Gardner? If you’ve seen the movie, The Pursuit of Happyness, you will recognize it. Gardner lost it all — his wife, his home, and family savings in a bad business investment. He was living on the streets with his son when he entered a competitive stock broker internship program, which, by the way, offered no pay for six months. Determined to prove himself and provide his son a good quality of life, we went on to become  a top performer for Bear Stearns, and eventually opened his own firm with offices in New York, Chicago, and San Francisco. He also has become a motivational speaker and philanthropist who has received numerous humanitarian awards.

Imagine what would have happened to him and his son if he had given up when he found himself on the street. We read the stories every day, and there are numerous possible outcomes to this kind of story, and few of them are good. Had he adopted a negative attitude, not only would his and his son’s lives be very different, but so would the lives of the many people he’s helped since he dusted himself off and got to work.*

I know we don’t like to spend a lot of time in consideration of the times when we’ve failed, but they are gems in terms of lessons learned. Spend some time today considering a failure you’ve experienced in your personal life and in your professional life. Describe them.

What attitude did you take in response to these failures?

What happened as a result?

Looking back on it now, how would you say your attitude served you?

 

*From Intentional Leadership by Giant Impact. 

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Intentional Leadership — D2, W3, M9 — Attitude

What’s going on in your life and/or work right now that you know you need to deal with, but your actions might be interpreted as preferring to ignore reality?

Get your journal out and briefly describe the situation and the challenge you face.

Dig deep and come to terms with why you don’t want to address the issue…Write it out.

Describe what could happen if you address the issue.

What impact might it have on your life? The lives of those around you? Your team? Your Organization?

Describe what can happen if you choose to not address the issue.

What are the risks, implications, consequences of not acting?

What action steps can you take in order to bring resolution to this challenge?

What would happen in your life if you consistently made choices to address issues like this?

How would that affect your attitude when you face similar situations/challenges in the future?

For me, there’s a level of satisfaction in addressing the things I don’t want to address but know that I need to. I don’t mean to confuse this with pleasure — as it isn’t necessarily fun, but there is satisfaction in tackling the hard and sometimes unpleasant stuff.

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