Who Are You?

“You have control over your mind, not outside events. Realize this, and you will find your strength.”

Marcus Aurelius – Roman Emperor in his writings – Meditations

The foundational piece of becoming a great leader is knowing who you are and what you want to accomplish. Know Thyself was one of the three maxims written on the temple of Apollo in ancient Delphi in Greece. This is not a new idea. The Greeks said the proverb was applied, “To those whose boasts exceed what they are.” and “A warning to pay no attention to the opinion of the multitude.”

If you’re to be a leader and especially a great leader in any environment, work, home, community, your personal life etc. you need to know who you are and what you want to accomplish. People want to follow someone with a purpose. Can you think of a great leader that didn’t have a cause others wanted to follow?

Lee Thayer’s seminal book is titled, “Thinking, Being, Doing.” How we think is who we will be which leads to what we do. In this post we’ll focus on who we’re being.

A good first step is to gain clarity about what you want in life and what you want to accomplish. There are as many answers to this as there are people. Here are some examples:

1. You’re someone that your job is important to you but it’s not your primary focus. You want to make enough money to provide for your family. You do good work but would rather have more free time to be a great parent.

2. You’re someone that wants to continue to move up in your company. You continue to take additional educational classes. You ask for the toughest assignments. You’re more than willing to put in the additional hours it takes. You like the challenge and the perks. A better salary, notoriety, greater responsibility.

3. You’re someone that believes service is the highest calling. Helping others to make the world a better place within your reach. If you make enough to provide for your simple needs, you’re fine. Monetary wealth and titles aren’t important to you.

4. You’re an entrepreneur. You’re willing to take the risk of investing in your own business. You know it’s going to mean 80 to 100-hour weeks to get this thing going. The potential to grow a business of significant value excites you. The idea of creating something from scratch energizes you.

5. You are absolutely DRIVEN! You want to, “Put a dent in the universe.” as Steve Jobs described it. If it works, you’ll be very wealthy but that’s not the reason you’re doing it. You want nothing less than to change the world. To head it off on a trajectory no one even imagined before.

Before moving on give some thought to which one of these is right.

SELF-DISCOVERY

So, which one is right? They all are. The point is when you gain clarity on who you are and what YOU want to accomplish, you’ll then have a good understanding of who you need to BE without the worry and judgement of how others are doing.

Have you ever been in the situation where you or someone you know has been envious of someone else? They’re making more money; they have a nicer house a nicer car and so on. If so, have you given thought to why that is? Did they put more time in getting educated for their job? Are they working many more hours than you’re willing to? Are their values different than your own?

When we look at these situations, we find what we want in life doesn’t line up with what others want. Let’s say you’re in sales. You put in a solid 40 hours a week, make a nice living and still have time to be home every evening for dinner with your family. You coach your kids in rec league sports and never miss a school function. These are the things you value. Then a new hot-shot joins your company and within a year is making twice what you make and already got a promotion you thought you deserved. It’s not fair, is it? Or is it? The hot shot may or may not be married and have a family too. But that isn’t his or her highest priority. They’re putting in 60, 70, 80-hour weeks. They’re not home most evenings and miss many of their children’s functions. Are you willing to do that? If you know who you are and what you want to accomplish you don’t care what this other person is doing. As a matter of fact, you can be happy for them instead of judging them. And just so you don’t look at this new person and scoff, maybe he or she has the full support and buy in from their family. They understand what’s important to this person, how it helps their family and can learn from it. There’s also the chance they’re driven by the wrong values and have a terrible home life. Even then, you still don’t care because you’re not about to copy that just to make more money and get a fancy title.

Some of the most miserable people I’ve ever met where those that envied others but weren’t willing to put the effort in to accomplish what they were accomplishing. Can you begin to see why being clear on who you are and what you want is so important? Clarity minimizes a lot of self-judgement. It empowers you to make better decisions based on who you are and not based on what anyone else is doing.

In his best selling book, "Your Next Five Moves", Patrick Bet-David gives us this to consider:

· Your vision must align with who you want to be.

· Your choices must align with your vision.

· Your effort must align with the size of your vision.

· Your behavior must align with your values and principles.

The benefits of this self-discovery are many:

· You gain awareness that shows you are the center of all your problems,,, and solutions.

· You realize your problems can be fixed.

· You break through limiting beliefs about yourself.

· By spotting your patterns of thinking you can break through and end detrimental habits.

· Your anger at others dies out once you see that no one but you controls your fate.

Why take the time? A richer life emotionally, intellectually and usually financially is possible only when you take responsibility for your own success.

BEING

Is the way you're acting (being) now consistent with who you want to be? Are you the best friend, spouse, parent, sibling, co-worker, student, leader you can be? If so congratulations! If not, who do you need to be to be the best? In order for things to change, our thinking has to change. How we think about things is who we’ll be which leads to what we do.

And please don’t let yourself get caught up in the “personality” trap. You know how it goes. “I’m shy.” “I’m lazy.” “I’m disorganized.” “I’m a procrastinator.” “I am who I am.” and so on.

The insidious thing about personality is it traps us in a safe and secure pattern of being. All based on a history of habits. We get so entrenched on who “we think we are” we never give ourselves a chance to see who we “could be.” You rule out being great! Misplaced belief that we have a personality causes us tremendous confusion and often misery throughout our lives.

“The chains of habits are too weak to be felt until they are too strong to be broken.” - Samuel Johnson

Psychologist Maxie Maultsby’s research showed there are four fatal fears that hold us back from facing the variety of challenges we encounter in our lives. The four are:

1. The Fear of Failure

2. The Fear of Being Wrong

3. The Fear of Rejection

4. The Fear of Being Emotionally Uncomfortable

We’re human. Everyone of us has a combination of these fears going on inside our head driving our habits. Usually, a combination of two or more of them. The interesting thing is, we’ve made them all up! How we were raised, the experience we’ve had good and bad, the people we’ve surrounded ourselves with all have made us believe “I am who I am.” In reality, the only two fears we’re born with is the fear of falling and the fear of loud noises. Doesn’t look like either of those could lead to the four listed above does it. The next time you’re in a challenging or uncomfortable situation take some time and see which fear is leading the charge trying to convince you that you can’t do it. It doesn’t take long to get good at seeing them. Then be courageous enough to tell yourself it’s all just a thought. And thoughts are just that, thoughts. They only have power over us if we let them. Tell a thought based on a fear that, “I see you, but I’m not going to give you any power.” Then let them pass by like a cloud on a windy day.

Challenging ourselves to break out of our comfort zones, challenging ourselves to grow is the most fulfilling thing you’ll do in your life. I know that sounds like a bold statement. But think about this, notice when people are all energized telling you about some period in their life. They’re overflowing with pride and happiness. Is what they’re describing a time in their life where they were comfortable? NO! It’s always about them overcoming some challenge, some adversity. Their first marathon, someone’s big win in sports against a supposedly superior rival, the first time they soloed flying, working their way back from a tough medical problem. It’s always something that took effort and courage!

The poet William Butler Yeats said the biggest intellectual breakthrough in his life was when he realized that happiness and growth were the same thing. “Happiness is growth. We are happy when we are growing.” We’re happiest when we’re growing. And no growth is ever effortless.

REINVENTING YOURSELF

If you pay attention I think you’ll find that you’re intrinsically drawn to people who know who they are and what their purpose is. They have an animated spirit. Steve Chandler, in his book "Reinventing Yourself" asks us to notice how when you watch a movie, take Rocky, for example. You’ll see the connection between effort and joy. Pay attention to the scenes in movies that give you goose bumps or even tears. Are they when the character is in a comfortable setting? Of course not. You get emotional in response to their courage and effort. Overcoming some obstacle that’s been put in their way. Pay attention to why you chocked up. It’s something deep inside you telling you let go of the idea of “I am who I am.” Who do you need to be to be the person you want to be in any situation. It’s pretty cool once you realize you can be whoever you want to be.

FOCUS

When we find clarity of who we are and what we’re about, filtering what’s important to spend our time on and what’s not becomes obvious. It becomes easy to say no to all the things that pop up and consume so much of our time. When we don’t know what we want to accomplish it’s easy to get sucked into all kinds of task-based activities. Those are the days you go home from work tired and frazzled. You can’t remember what it was you did, but you sure were busy. When we learn to say no to things that don’t line up with our purpose and values, you focus on what’s most important to you!

PURPOSE

It all comes down to your purpose. If you believe in it strong enough you can make yourself into the person you need to be to achieve it. How do you want to be remembered? How do you want to make an impact in the lives of the people you come in contact with? Pushing to become the greatest version of yourself is worth the effort! A nice by product is people around you will notice. You’ll be a leader others want to follow.