What Do You Stand For?

Deep within our heart and soul, many of us have something that we believe in or dream about when it comes to our potential and Life purpose.  We tell compelling, riveting stories to our friends over a coffee about how “someday I’m going to ……..”.

I’ll bet you have one of these compelling stories.

Are you living your story?

Does your story stand up to public scrutiny?

Do you even have the courage to expose it to scrutiny and to live it with all your might?

The challenge is that the longer someone waits to live their story, the lesser the chance that their story will ever see the light of day.

…. the lesser the chance that they will be able to live their Life in congruence with their perceived purpose or to even know what their purpose is.

…. the lesser the chance that their story will have an opportunity to impact the world or to inspire others.

It’s not easy, is it?

Oftentimes, being authentic is difficult or seemingly impossible to achieve consistently.

Many times we can justify why it is safer or easier to not be authentic.

The Danger of Inauthenticity

The problem is that every time we are not authentic with ourselves or others, we weaken our belief in our dreams and therefore weaken our potential.  Eventually we may believe we have no potential or purpose at all.

Try this: Ask someone WHY they think they exist on this planet or what their purpose is.  Most people cannot answer this question at all.  Can you? 

At some point, we invent another persona that has unlimited potential.  After all, we reason, “who I am is of no interest or value to others, so let me see what the populace-at-large likes and I will promote and become that person”.

And when this happens, OUR story dies within us as does our sense of purpose.

New Year’s Resolutions

This is the season for New Year’s Resolutions.

This is the time of year when most people resolve to accomplish the same list of things they resolved to accomplish last year, the year before, etc.

The primary reason most of these resolutions fall flat is that they are not hooked into what inspires the person making them and for this reason, they lose their sizzle and the person eventually falls back into the same old routine.

Perhaps if we realized that our story, as big or small as we think it is, could serve as an inspiration to others, we might be more inclined to resolve to do whatever it takes to make our story a reality.

Perhaps if we decided to embrace ourselves and our story instead of being someone else with a story designed to make other people happy or to impress them, then we would have some real things to work towards.

Maybe then we would discover our true purpose – the answer to the questions “Why am I here?” and “Why do I matter?”.

Maybe then we would have real, inspiring things to work towards that matter to ourselves at the deepest level of who we are.  Maybe then we could make tangible resolutions that would help us move towards our true self; a self that inspires others and that leaves a positive impact on others.

Now there’s a resolution worth keeping.

I know you would keep such resolutions.

So what are you waiting for?

Resolve to be true to yourself – it is the greatest gift to yourself and to others.

In service and servanthood,

Harry

For my detailed blog “What Do You Stand For?”, please click here.

The Most Important Question of All

In all of my years of consulting, there is one question that I ask my clients. 

About 20% attempt to answer it.  Of that 20%, 20% of that group does a good job of answering it well.  The rest do their best and I commend them for trying.

The other 80% either say “because” (which is a non-answer), get frustrated by the question or simply don’t try to answer it at all.

It is a complex question after all, although deceptively simple in appearance.

If you can’t answer this question in regards to your personal and professional life, then little alarm bells should be going off in your mind.

If your organization cannot answer the question, then the organization is in trouble.  You may not see it yet but it is coming.

The question is:

Why?

Seems like a simple question and yet when I put my strategy hat on and guide clients, it seems that this question gives them the most difficulty.

Consider these sample questions:

Why do you or your organization do what you do?

Why do you believe you are the best at it?

Why do you or your organization find areas of challenge and yet human or corporate ego doesn’t allow a simple request for help to be made?

Why don’t you REALLY do what needs to be done to achieve personal, professional or organizational success?

Can you answer the question of “Why”?

When you find that  your personal or professional life or perhaps the life of your organization seems to be stuck in a quagmire, can you honestly answer the question?

Do your answers stand up to close scrutiny?

If they do, good for you – you are on your way to eventually wrestling your challenges to the ground.  It may not be easy, but your eye is “on the prize” and this will keep you focused and moving forward.

If your answers do not stand up to scrutiny, take some time to explore this space.  Preferably allow someone to objectively guide you through this exploration.  This keeps your exploration honest and authentic and has the best hope of producing a better result.

If you can’t answer this question, you are only pretending to be moving closer to your personal, professional or organizational goals.

You will indeed get somewhere – it just may not be what you hoped for.

Why would you want this to happen?

Why would you allow this to happen?

Why indeed?

In service and servanthood.

Harry

For my detailed blog about “The Most Important Question of All”, please click here.