A friend is someone
who leaves you with all your freedom intact,
but who, by what he thinks of you,
obliges you to be fully what you are.
~ J. L’Heureux
I’m a vision man. How we define our world creates our world. A vision, whether for an individual or an institution, is the story we tell that, no matter the circumstance, helps us answer life’s two most important questions: What’s going on, and what’s the healthiest action I can take in this moment?
I help leaders develop such a vision––for themselves and their organizations. I also help them bring it to life.
Some perspective:
Each of us is the leader of our own life, responsible for our every thought, feeling and action. Leadership is not about power or profit or saving the world. Leadership is about being awake, about being a master of ourselves regardless of external circumstances. Leadership is the extent to which we contribute kindness, compassion and understanding to the moment we’re in––because that contribution is what creates health not only in our own life, and our work in the world, but also throughout the entire human family.
Health, whether of a person, friendship, family, community, company or nation, is defined primarily by a single word: resilience. Resilience is the most powerful force on earth, for it is the ability to respond in a positive way to any eventuality.
The extent we are growing resilience is the extent to which we become increasingly awake to the choices we make, why we make them, and the impact of those choices on ourselves and the world around us.
This is the basis for the best possible decisions. Even when riding the high wire of uncertainty, a healthy person feels the quiet confidence that comes with breadth of perspective, self-understanding and a more playful heart.
Any useful vision includes four practices that create resilience in anyone or any team:
- Managing fear, perhaps life’s greatest teacher.
- Learning from our experience: embracing “what is” and allowing it to teach us.
- Gaining ever-deeper understanding of what is essential––what we cannot live without––in our lives, and in the moment.
- Aligning commitments with action...and action with commitments.
No matter who we are, or what worldly role we play, our ability to be healthy, and create a healthy enterprise, is shaped by the extent to which these practices are an active part of our life.
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