Leading Beyond Recognition

          
Our work has value beyond our desire for recognition. Its worth is innate when we take time to do our best amid the rush of life. This alone gives it merit though we've yet to merit others regard. Conceiving our work so deceives many of us because the desire for recognition bewitches. It also robs us of the joy of creation.

 Beyond Recognition

           Thus, we are routinely moody about things that are ultimately beyond our control. Paradoxically, a desire for praise empowers and impoverishes together because we can't garner it, enough at least to ease our angst. If we aren’t careful, we will devalue our work when we are ignored. Acknowledged, however, we are ignited. Conquering this conundrum requires us to affirm our work (and worth) without recognition. Only in doing so can we overcome custom.

 Beyond Custom

           We are conditioned by custom to view recognition as proof of merit. Discouraged by clicks, how often do we exist in professional purgatory because others ignore our work and its worth? How often do we consider quitting because we aren't getting the hits we imagine, which we use to establish a pattern of success?

 Passion Beyond Patterns

           These patterns matter but they shouldn't maim when they are missing from our lives. During these times, we must affirm emphatically the worth of our work. We must also reject the portrait of persecuted genius --the kind common to artists. Rather than being insulted by others indifference, we should work without regard for the regard we’ve yet to gain, convinced that our work has merit though we aren't raved and recognized.

Awaiting Dawn

     Most of us work for days waiting for dawn to wave its wand over our lives.

When it does, however, its seldom what we envision the way we envision it.

On the contrary, dawn often sends darkness to help us develop our greatness.

Yet, in expecting light we routinely sleight ourselves, others also.

In fact so much of what we envision opposes the mission for which we were born. Hence our tendency to feel cheated and shorn of opportunities that come freely to others.

Even so, dawn has a reason and we have a mission. In discovering this, we turn darkness into greatness instead!

Your Guess List

 

 

How long is your guess list? Everyone has one, whether they admit it or even know it or not. This list outlines all those things that failed to thrive in our lives, including ourselves routinely, because it’s natural to wonder why things turn out meanly as they do.

Yet rightly used, guess lists are designed to deepen our trust and our ability to understand what truly matters to us. As this becomes clearer, our lists become shorter and our steps surer. Certain things will remain, even as others are added. T

he difference, however, is in our savvy, because so much of what we question and complain about is insignificant once we figure out what truly matters.

 

 

EASY

 

It’s easy to be easy on ourselves. But with each stroke we forfeit our hopes and break our hearts, diminishing also our flame and spark. Those who excel give themselves hell, metaphorically speaking, lest they be content with average. Their idea of easy makes it hard for them to stroke themselves. They aren’t reckless but they are relentless.

 

OUR CONTRIBUTIONS

 

OUR CONTRIBUTIONS

Our contributions are often invisible but this doesn’t mean that they aren’t valuable. Unfortunately, however, ours is an age wherein value is valid only when it is known, professionally especially.

So, we obsess over who gets the credit rather than on making the contribution that we should, sharing ourselves freely to help others with achieving their goals.

Doing so makes sense; it also makes society insatiable and insensitive to those whose efforts aren't announced on the news or in the next company bulletin.

Unless these souls are strong they will get the sense that they don’t belong or that their contributions don’t matter.

To prevent this, we should be diligent in discovering those hidden heroes whose actions enhance organizational life. They remain unsung only because they are unsought.

As leaders, managers and persons, our job is to promote others and to provoke greatness in all of its degrees. In doing so, we strengthen relationships, energize organizations and encourage these hidden heroes to contribute without feeling unappreciated.

Make it your task to find one today!

WORK, WHY? DIARY OF A DREAMER

 

WORK, WHY? DIARY OF A DREAMER

 

I'm sitting at work watching people doing nothing. What a waste! Some are checking emails and others are being blackmailed. Time is the ransom they pay for neglecting their talent. Instead they play and complain about circumstances. Who cares? It's up to the person, not the employer to improve himself because jobs aren't designed to satisfy our quest for growth or yearning for greatness. Most only require a partial commitment. Growth begins, however, when we commit. Until then we play, pretend and squander our potential in narrow places. (9/6/2000)

PAUSE, CAN YOU?

 

 

Sometimes we must pause, retracting the claws we use to climb towards success, embracing the moment without design or distress. Otherwise we will continue to be anxious and thankless, annoyed daily and hard unnecessarily on ourselves. Unfortunately, however, most of us confuse pausing with passivity.

So we work without rest thinking that doing so will help us to accomplish our goals faster. Yet this logic is toxic, personally, emotionally and relationally, leaving our spouses to wonder and our children to watch as we work ourselves out of meaningful relationships with them because of an undisciplined desire to provide for them.

Moreover, in refusing to pause we forfeit the power of renewal, which would help us achieve our goals by giving us greater clarity and more energy for our tasks. Yet we choose to labor beleaguered by fatigue because of some misguided notion of self-determination. It’s okay to be determined, driven, even, but neither annuls the need to be renewed, to pause and reflect rather than to push and act indefinitely (often detrimentally).

In this regard, pausing isn’t passivity, complacency or indifference. It simply means that we recognize the need to suspend our efforts without accusing ourselves of abandoning them. Besides, we won’t arrive any faster than we do no matter how we construe our efforts. So, relax, reflect and let time do what only it can. Your loved ones will be glad you did!

 

CLOSE...

 

Things get easier as we keep aiming towards our goals. It may not seem like it because we aren't always as clear as we imagine on what these are. We generally have more ideas than we do exacts. Ideas get us started but exacts keep us going (and committed). They also enable us to accelerate our pace, and to recognize our place when we reach it.

Consider, for example, driving to a destination, maybe even somewhere you've been before but you aren't exactly sure of where it is. You have a general idea instead, enough to convince you to get in your car and drive. After a while you find yourself in the vicinity but not at your destiny (destination).

Thus, you may feel anxious or excited or even annoyed because you know you are close. You even have a strong idea of where you are but you aren’t where you want to be. Hence the importance of clarity, whether in driving cars or pursuing goals. Here we see clearly the difference between exacts and ideas. Our success is routinely determined by our degree of clarity regarding our goals and dreams. Without clarity we occupy the vicinity but don't reach the destiny we desire.

Today, so many people are vexed by vagueness and victims of the indefinite. They lack the ability to say clearly what they want. Of course this doesn’t mean that they can’t succeed because they can. In fact, sometimes in being too precise we miss opportunities when they emerge because we lack the urge to pursue them, especially if they contradict our conceptions.

Generally, however, clarity is a prerequisite for success. We must be able to express clearly what we desire deeply. In this regard, failure to achieve is often a failure of clarity. Clarity is the ability to express clearly our goals without being clouded or constrained by contingencies. If we can’t express this to ourselves, we will have trouble expressing it to others also, which will hinder their ability to help us.

That’s why it’s important to take time to ask ourselves, “What am I really after; what are my true goals.” Answering this anchors us in our pursuits. It also increases our confidence and changes how others experience us. Clarity enables us to be decisive and assertive rather than tentative and timid. Consider again how we drive when we aren’t sure of where we are or where we are going. In these instances, having an idea isn’t the same as having an exact, practically or emotionally.

Clarity, however, isn’t something we get once and for all. On the contrary, it accrues over time as we take time to assess where we are and what we want. Otherwise we will get in the vicinity without reaching our destiny as we desire.

 

 

 

GETTING TO YES!

A book entitled, Getting to Yes, appeared several years ago. It focused on the art and science of negotiation, and how to make beneficial compromises as we each pursue our peculiar aims. As used in this article, however, getting to yes implies mastering the steps needed to experience the greatness deeded in your soul. Once you do this, you experience the bliss of an unmuffled yes! As simple as it sounds, to get to yes you must first say YES to yourself and your dreams.

So many people are wedged between no and maybe instead. They lack the certainty that characterizes destiny. Destiny is the belief that your yes is your right to succeed and not just a wish to do so. If, however, you haven’t said yes to yourself and your dreams, uncertainty will stifle and you will stumble in getting started and in staying committed till the end. The way you get to yes is to not second-guess yourself or your right to success. This is much different from second-guessing your methods, your means and your maneuvers.

Unless you are omniscient you must change these routinely, sometimes remarkably, for various reasons. Second-guessing as it relates to tactics and strategy are part of the anatomy of greatness. It becomes detrimental, however, when you second-guess yourself. Hence the need to examine your assessments and assumptions, making sure you get to yes and stay there as it relates to your belief in your right to success and greatness. The key is in being decisive and convinced without bowing to contingents.

Things will happen, plans will fail and people will change their minds about you. You, however, shouldn’t change your mind about yourself. Once you get to yes by agreeing with yourself, stay there! Whenever you find yourself feeling anxious and uncertain, don’t let these feelings push you into no and maybe regarding your dreams. Second-guess your tactics and strategy when necessary but not your right to and belief in your ability to achieve your dreams. In doing so, you make better and more beneficial compromises with other and yourself.

 

3 STEPS TO LIVING A LIFE OF GREATNESS

     All of us are fascinated by greatness whatever its form, sports, entertainment and even gardening! We love to see people doing ordinary things in extraordinary ways. We feel likewise when seeing extraordinary things being done in extraordinary ways. Something about the sight stirs our senses and provokes remembrances of when we entertained visions of our own greatness.  The good news is that you still have time to design a life of greatness if you are willing. You might not be able to achieve that NBA dream but you can do something that will pique your passion so that you can stop rehashing what might have been.

     The first step to living a life of greatness is to simply DECIDE that this is what you are going to do. Simple as it sounds, many people haven’t decided to live a life of greatness. They talk about it and are enamored by it but they never decide to commit to its pursuit. Characteristically, they are great fans but poorly focused when it comes to their dreams. The problem, however, isn’t a lack of focus but rather indecision. Once you decide, focus comes; plans form and magic follows provided you stay committed. Do it now and you will see how things change.

     The second step to living a life of greatness is DESIGN. You have to design what greatness looks like for you, not what someone else designs for you. Design is the art of greatness which, by the way, is just as important as the science. The great thing about design is that it’s so liberating. In fact design allows you to reflect (and promote) your quirks and your competencies –your unique lifestyle-- which becomes a life-statement of who you are. So, it’s okay to collect ideas, just as you would when furnishing a house or accessorizing your home.  But ultimately you must decide what your design will include, no matter how eccentric. Ignore naysayers because everything is impossible until it's done!

The final step to living a life of greatness is to DARE. You must dare to believe that your dreams of greatness are not only possible but that you are responsible for their fulfillment. This doesn’t mean that you have to stress but you should strive daily for success. Daring, moreover, shouldn’t be draining but charming instead because you never know what will happen as you go forward. That’s what makes life exciting! That’s what makes greatness fascinating. That’s why each of us pauses whenever greatness appears from some unlikely place. These achievers, DECIDED, DESIGNED and DARED to live a life of greatness. You can too; decide today to commit your way to living a life of greatness.

 

BE PASSIONATELY PATIENT AS YOU ARE MAKING IT HAPPENI

DISCOVER IT!

 

 

 

It's hard to lift the burden when you're it.

     Making a difference begins with discovering our destiny. Until then we make a mess trying to make amends, collecting enemies and disgusting friends.

ENGAGING GREATNESS

 

If greatness is so engaging why are so many people faking pursuit?

 

          If you aren't willing to go it alone it's best to go on away from greatness toward what is the basis of convention. Consider, however, before you do what compromising will do to you. If after this you can reject the risk of greatness then you make compromise the basis of your life. Nothing is inherently wrong with compromise. After all somewhere daily a dreamer dies to her dream and the thing she once deeply desired. Yet so many people today seem to be faking, acting as if they are taking steps toward greatness. Even so, I understand because its demand often overwhelms. But those who are committed refuse to compromise still.

WHO

                       

                          Vanity promises to do for others what it can't possibly do for its self.

          Where are you going? More important, who's leading you? Each of us is following something or someone, which will ultimately determine our end. That's why it's important to ask, "Where are we going and who's leading us." If we don't know the guide or the guidelines, how can we trust the guidance?   (10/26/98, Work, Why? Diary of a Dreamer)

SILENCE PLEASE!

     Who do you call when desire gnaws and time stalls, indifferent to your desire despite the fire that inflames? What do you do when you’ve said your prayers (and a few swears) yet things remain and desire pains beyond expression? Have you ever experienced this depression, the kind that cuts, carves and consumes leaving nothing but more room for itself? Do you know what it’s like to spend your life waiting for the knife to be pulled from your back or trying to find a way to extract the desire that drives you on? If not, you can’t understand when greatness groans. On the contrary, you are apt to confuse its angst with an unwillingness to give thanks for all things. Perhaps this is true of some people. But there are those that, after they’ve exhausted gratitude, they still remain undone and prone to brood. What do you tell these? Do you have the words to ease what aches? If not, be thou silent in the presence of the great though they have yet to make their appearance or gain clearance to ascend as they intend.

A NORMAL LIFE

          A normal life isn’t the type that leads to greatness. Normal in fact is its nemesis, especially during the genesis when Destiny decides who will ride success’ heights. Then while others sleep, we work through the night, often against our wills because of what Destiny wants to reveal to others to help them discover their own potential.

          The task is compounded because we lack credentials other than uncommon courage and desire indomitable, the combination of which makes us formidable. Characteristically formidable is fundamental to success. Without this we will wish rather than work as we should, especially when circumstances stifle. But that’s when we should reload our rifles, metaphorically speaking, and become even more determined to obtain what we are seeking.

          So many people, though, let circumstances make them fold. Yet these same souls will watch the Olympics and ignore the template for success that they illustrate because every contestant endured something adverse solely for the opportunity to become great. In failing, however, the passive enthrone normal and berate the banal; indifferent to how their indifference controls both the channel and the flow of their lives.

         Others assert that it’s too late because they don’t know how to become vicariously great by supporting others in their dreams. Even so, life has innumerable schemes and designs that can help us achieve what we have in mind. Yet the character of a normal life we must first be willing to decline. If we do this and diligently persist, our gifts will grow and our talents will eventually show themselves, taking us we know not wheres!

If we don't fulfill our promise we owe others an apology.

        If we thought the impossible were so, life would cease. Yet none of us believes in the impossible.  We acknowledge it but we don’t believe in it. To believe in the impossible is to reject our passion. Yet our passion stirs us nightly and sustains us daily. The moment we believe in the impossible life passes. Only by rejecting its myth do we master.

DENSITY AND DESTINY

You must be porous to hear the chorus that calls some to greatness. Those who can't ignore its chant, being deaf to music.

         

          You have to be dense to do what makes no sense, especially when you do it at your own expense because inwardly you are convinced that you are being spent in Destiny’s service. Thus nights find you working and days find you nervous because your only resource is a fund of courage that renews itself without your help (or permission), compelling you thus to pursue the vision. Meanwhile others behave as if you don’t exist. Those that are aware often stare stymied because you keep aligning yourself with the unseen with no guarantee that you will succeed.

          In your defense you erect a fence between their doubts and your own even as you are driven to labor to manifest a greatness that only you believe in enough to invest despite the stress and ridicule. The only consolation is that you have now become indifferent when, in referring to you, others whisper, “fool.” Instead you flash a half-smile because you too have turned this stile in an effort to turn away from what consumes your days and command your nights. Not even God is the consolation that religion excites. Yet HHe is the Source of Destiny’s summons.

          He’s also the reason your friends start running when they see you coming. It isn’t because you solicit money or anything else. You just sometimes need help believing in yourself. But it seldom happens, so you keep hoping and working that Destiny is certain, and that you aren’t deceived. Yet in reviewing the lives of the great similar parallels you perceive. That’s what makes it hard just to discard the time you’ve invested and to discount the ways you’ve been tested. So, you just vow to die until you are ushered into eternity away from time. At least it can’t be said that you denied your allegiance to the thing that kneaded itself in your soul.

LIMBO

Today there is much that remains in limbo, namely, where do we go from here. These concerns cause downturns in times of uncertainty and anxiety in times of incredulity, when we can’t believe the enormity of the challenges we face. Yet it is then that we must be brave and embrace with confidence what causes dissonance in our lives. Else we will seek to connive what should be confronted forthrightly however frightened we may be. Yet so many people consider themselves unequal to the threats they face and thus turn their face the other way. Characteristically, they lack the courage to be and the self-esteem indicative of maturity and the willingness to assume responsibility. They surrender to inevitability instead, as if what is is irreversible. In doing so, they exalt fate and double the weight they unwisely carry because they are wary of themselves.

A GOALIE OR A ROADIE

Are you a goalie or a roadie? Are you guarding your dream or running from things that would help you to accomplish these? How do you stand the tease, the tears, the irrational fears that keep your feet moving and desire brooding for fulfillment? That's what I wonder when I sit in the window looking at others peeking around corners trying to escape opportunities that are unique and designed especially for them. Yet they refuse to embrace, let alone guard them. They prefer instead to travel along paths that are dim. Metaphorically, they are roadies who lack the boldness to pursue their dreams.

HOW LONG

Time spans but God's plans always prevail.

How long have you been waiting? Have you forgotten or are you still dating? The dreams that you envisioned, do they still have the precision to keep you on course despite the divorce between where you are now and where you desire to be? Or did you expect to succeed more easily, like some of the people you've heard about? How do you feel; are you in doubt? If so, that's okay because doubt is inevitable, especially when we desire to achieve the remarkable. So, instead of giving up and cursing yourself out, continue to be committed to what called you out from the crowd, and which gave you the courage to live out loud. Though, for the momemt you are overwhelmed. Even in these moments God is still at the helm, guiding your ship and ensuring that your trip will succeed. Of course, in moments of despair this is hard to believe.