The things you can learn to accept.
It’s unbelievable.
You are resilient and you can live every day learning to accept feelings, thoughts, situations that on paper you would never want in your life.
It helps to frame them in a narrative that serves your higher purpose. And it helps to remind yourself of that narrative at challenging times and at good times.
Once you have that, you are simply unstoppable.
What good is it to blame it on others? People who might or might not be still around. People who’ve passed by, who stopped for a while, who’ve been a constant, whom we’ll never talk ever again.
And what good is it to blame it on the circumstances? What has happened, what might have been, what will be tomorrow. The weather, the economics, the politics, and the structural difficulties.
At the end of the day, we are the greatest enemy to our own achievements.
We are in control, just not of the things we tend to blame.
We can decide to wake up and do the work.
We can extend an hand and help a friend.
We can be kind, inspiring, and motivating.
We can say thank you and I am sorry.
We can still talk when nobody listens.
Or we can shut up when we decide it’s enough.
One way or the other, we can.
And we should.
To be a good leader, you need to master emotions. Yours and others.
Yours, because you need to be in touch with them, be aware of them, be labelling them. And yet, you need not to be too attached to them. For example, when making decisions. In a way, you need to manage your emotions with some sort of detachment.
Others, because you need to be able to appreciate them and embrace them. You need to allocate time for others to express them, you need to be able to take them into consideration, and you need to be able to give the chance to release them.
Most leaders ignore emotions completely.
Some master theirs or others.
Few master both.
The longer you can be without defining a situation, a person, a thought, an outcome, the more you can enjoy the moment.
When you define you draw boundaries. You set differences between what is good and what is bad. You start aiming for something different while at the same time clinging to the desire that the definition will always be valid. You build, for yourself and others, a world that is much smaller than its potential.
Defining is natural, it’s an attempt to take control of the unknown.
And the longer you can be without it, the more chances you will have.
Sometimes you listen because you want to know. Sometimes you listen because you care.
It might seem like a minor distinction, but the questions, the attitude, the subjects are very different whether it’s one form of listening or the other.
When you listen because you want to know, your questions are direct and closed. You look for easy answers, answers you can process and understand instantly. It’s usually about trivial topics, and the act of listening is in fact a way to reassure yourself that everything is as it should be.
When you listen because you care, your questions are wide and open. You are not even looking for answers. If they come, they will probably impact the person giving them much more than they impact you. It’s usually about deep change, and the act of listening is a way to unlock new potential.
You've got this 