Leaders must be tough enough to fight, tender enough to cry, human enough to make mistakes, humble enough to admit them, strong enough to absorb the pain, and resilient enough to bounce back and keep on moving. – Jesse Jackson
Are you a leader?
Archives for October 2012
Breaking up is part of leading
October 25, 2012 by · 1 Comment
Image courtesy of digitalart / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
The hard truth is that stepping into leadership is also about breaking up many times over and over. Its about breaking up with your old patterns of behavior, shedding relationships that don’t serve your new self, and making anew with the values and goals that you have.
So here’s my two cents on breaking up:
1) Trust your gut: Your reactions and how you feel will play a major role in when you know you need to break up. Don’t hide it, make it noticeable to yourself.
2) See it as a learning experience: Remember, everything is about learning and what you take from it. Don’t harp on the past, focused on what your key lessons are for the future.
3) Stand up for yourself: Don’t let anyone take advantage of you. Be confident about what you feel and use this as a powerful agent to grow.
4) Let yourself move through the feelings: There will be negative feelings in any breakup and there is will be freeing feelings, but the truth is you’ll move much faster through the challenges and pain when you address rather than ignore them.
5) Move through fear: Remember you can move through fear of the new, but don’t let fear shape you or change you.
Do you have a breaking up story that led you to step into your leadership? Share more with us and let us know what it led to.
Monday Inspiration: Steve Jobs
October 22, 2012 by · Leave a Comment
Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.
-Steve Jobs
Who’s life are you living? How will your trust your heart today?
The beauty of reverse motivation
October 11, 2012 by · Leave a Comment
“At first they ignore you”
Then they laugh at you
Then they fight with you
Then you win” -Gandhi
I love reverse motivation.. My parents are physicians, they only know that becoming a doctor is the way to go for a good Indian girl in America to succeed. That’s their reality. Its not mine. So time and time again, I hear their doubts of my business success: are you sure? Be financially focused. Or the friend from Harvard say: are you scared?
You know the situation where your friend, or your parents, or a teacher doubts something that you believe you can do. They doubt you can start a company after school or travel to india alone or become an author or go to a top school. They don’t believe it is true. The real truth is that its bogus. What they say is a reflection of what story they believe, NOT your reality.
But instead of reacting to the nay-sayers with revenge, blame, or negative energy, I call it reverse motivation.
I don’t believe in proving ourselves to the nay-sayers, I think that is all driven from the ego. But I do believe in serving ourselves, I think that is driven from the heart. And our hearts defines where we need to be. Reverse motivation can be an energizing force when held carefully. Its not something to tread quickly on, but if you stop and reassess: why are they saying what they are saying? What in THEIR worldview is making them say this, you usually understand.
I use to respond and say: “they just don’t get it”, yet I realized the truth is really: they’re in the learning process and they are at this stage. And what I can do is to meet people where they are, not try to change them—and stay reverse motivated as I grow.
The new online CV: Your website
October 4, 2012 by · Leave a Comment
Recently, one of my blog readers Daniel Afiakurue asked me: “I don't have a problem getting noticed wherever I go, but i want to know how to get hired via applications where the HR manager or employer is not in contact with me. I really dont know if its the cover letters or the CVs. “
First, I hear you Daniel. Recently I was asked to submit a CV for a fellowship I was already accepted to. I haven’t updated my CV since my business school summer internship. I was like..really? I’m in and you still need my CV? I realized how resistant I was to sending it.
Why send them a boring one piece of paper when I can send them my website?—where I carefully show my complete offerings, my creds, my writing? Why make myself look like ‘everyone else’ in that plain one sheet of paper?
Large companies like McKinsey and Goldman have already set up structures for CVs and cover letters to be sent..and then ignored. They use a machine to sift through thousands of CVs and cover letters only to pick candidates out that have ‘skill’ matches with what the company needs.
The truth is –there is a lot more that could be done to show who you are and what you truly care about in order to not get confined by the walls of what others perceive.
When you want to get hired, don’t waste all your time on a CV—that makes you look like everyone else. Find a way to stand out, send them an article you wrote, a website or blog you have, setup a call with someone on their team, just call them directly, go to their networking reception, or find another way for them to get to know a little more about who you REALLY are, rather than what they interpret on a page about you.