“Remember your dreams and fight for them. You must know what you want from life. There is just one thing that makes your dream become impossible: the fear of failure.” ~ Paulo Coelho
Exceptional leaders do their best to enable professionals, communities and people in their lives to succeed. What happens when you’ve done your best, enabled them to the best of your ability, to be successful; yet, they make self-sabotaging decisions or okay decisions, that keep them from reaching their potential? The latter option is often viewed as a positive decision by many, since the decision is “good enough”.
For those rare leaders that “get it”, achieving good enough is even more painful than failing while pursuing higher successes commensurate with their Talent Portfolios and potential.
We’ve all watched companies leave money on the table by underperforming while not being open to implementing positive financial changes, communities and non-profits not fundraising effectively to bring greater positive changes in the world and people in our inner circles not reaching their full potential. For me, this was (and still is, but to a lesser degree) absolutely painful to watch.
Once you’ve done all you can do, and they aren’t interested in exploring critical decisions with you any further, do you love them enough to let them fail, while hoping it will help them grow? They’ve entered the proverbial “fork in the road”: They’re going to do whatever they’re going to do. If their “lid” is insufficiently high, for example they’re a 7.5 on a scale of 0 to 10 (with 10 being theoretically “Perfect”) and the opportunity / challenge is a 9.0, they’re likely to fail.
The difficulty in watching this unfold, almost in slow motion, is eased when you thoroughly understand, embrace and live the Laws of Attraction. In these uncomfortable situations, the Laws are merely playing out. Learning to be at peace with yourself, knowing you’ve done your best, all while disappointingly observing colleagues, peers, superiors, organizations, non-profits, significant others, children, etc. fail (while not accepting your help), is still, often a lonely, painful and disappointing journey.
The positive growth you’ll go through as a leader during this time, will enable you to professionally and peacefully jettison these organizations and people out of your life (unless they are family) that aren’t able to continue with you in your unique and special journey, to becoming your optimal future self / leader.
“Be willing to go alone sometimes. You don’t need permission to grow. Not everyone who started with you, will finish with you.” ~ Dr. George C. Fraser
If you doubt the power of acutely seeing your future-self, please read Victor Frankl’s book, “Man’s Search For Meaning”. It was the prisoners of Auschwitz who had the strongest vision of their future-self, who were more likely to survive.
“The prisoner who lost faith in the future – his future – was doomed. With his loss of belief in the future, he also lost his spiritual hold; he let himself decline and became subject to mental and physical decay.” ~ Victor Frankl
Who changes the world? I believe it’s almost exclusively the Top-7%. They are the only ones with the Talent Portfolios and social consciences needed to actually implement significant positive social impact. If you believe you’re one of these executives, we’d love to explore possible opportunities.
Get Making A Difference! ~ JR
