The Inner Edge

You may know from reading The Inner Edge that it is possible to have, do, and be more than you thought was possible, all at once. How do you maintain that kind of life forever? How do you keep that kind of balance as a leader? This section helps you think about your “all” again, only this time with an eye toward understanding when your “all” is enough.

When is Enough Enough?

A common characteristic of successful leaders is drive. But even though drive can keep you moving forward, it can also backfire – particularly when you’re not clear on where you’re going or when you don’t know when to stop. Without a clear sense of destination, you may keep driving forever. Many people do. They stay in constant motion but never seem to find a sense of arrival.

Of course if you’re a leader dedicated to success and achievement, you will always be inspired by what else is ahead. That’s fine. Like the horizon, your ideal is constantly changing. It is always moving. It is always out of reach. By definition, you cannot be at the horizon. you can only see it and head for it. That’s what makes it so inspiring.

It’s also what makes it so hard to stop striving. In the wise words of famed psychiatrist Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi, “There is no limit to desire.” And sometimes, you need to stop. You’ve earned a rest. You get to celebrate. You’re allowed to let life be complete for awhile, so that you can enjoy it and be at peace.

In my work with executive leaders, I often see leaders who have forgotten to decide how much is enough. Without thinking, they blindly race after the next promotion, the next client, the next acquisition. And while those decisions certainly advance their careers or their business, they can also derail whatever plans the leader had for taking a more conscientious approach to their life and leadership.

The same is true in personal life. People strive for the bigger house, the better car, the better image until they’re so far overextended they can’t enjoy what they have. They forgot to stop and ask themselves, How much will be enough? Suddenly they have too much, and instead of adding to their lives it’s taking the joy away.

I’m not advocating slowing down on your goals. I’m certainly not saying you should hold yourself back. What I’m saying is that you need a sense of perspective. Remember your vision. You don’t want to fly so fast toward some future achievement that you blow right past the present you wanted to create.

The trick is to know when enough is enough. In money, in your career, in your family life, with your time, you need to determine what you want and then recognize when you have it. Mark the milestones. Feel the sense of satisfaction and completion. Then decide if and when you want to go on.

Exercise

Complete the questions on the worksheet, “Your “Enough” in The Extension.  Then ask yourself, How close am I to having enough? You may find you’re already there.

The ideas in this article are drawn from The Inner Edge: The 10 Practices of Personal Leadership and the accompanying eBook called The Extension. The eBook is designed to give you simple, engaging personal leadership exercises and activities to help you be a better leader, and lead a better life. Get your copy today! Click here for a Preview and to Order.

Are you a fractal?

A fractal is a design in which every tiny piece has the design of the whole – the same swirls or angles or zigzags repeated again and again at every level. Zoom in on a tiny chunk of the design, and you see the exact same pattern as if you zoom out. Everything is everything.

When you are living in integrity, you approach your life as a fractal. The “you” in your personal life is the “you” in your professional life. The ideas that apply over here also work over there. You are who you are wherever you are; you are true to yourself.

In our culture, we don’t do that very well. We separate our work and our life into boxes. We compartmentalize. And while compartmentalizing may work pretty well in a storage room where you can have matching plastic bins with labels and lids, it’s no way to live a life.

You are not a storage shed, some kind of staging area where your work goals can go on one shelf and your personal goals can go on another. Your head does not go in this bin and your heart in that bin over there. You are whole. How you feel affects how you act; how you act affects how you work; how you work affects your results; your results affect the way you live. It’s all connected. You are connected; you are one.

The good news about that is that, when you live a life of integrity, you really can have it all. You can be a groundbreaking businessperson, an encouraging leader, and a balanced person, partner, family member, friend or community member all at the same time. You can get your work done, be there for everyone else, and still make time for yourself. You can accomplish your short term tasks and move toward your long term vision at the same time. You can make a good living while you also do something meaningful with your life. You can simultaneously serve the business, the organization, the client, your colleagues, your boss, your team, your family, your own needs, and your corner of the world.

Maybe not everyday. Maybe on a moment to moment basis, you will have to sometimes compartmentalize some emotion to get a job done, or maybe you will have to shut off your work mind to enjoy your personal life. But on the whole, across your life, more is possible. You can be a successful, achieving, contributing, peaceful, joyful person all at once.

I call it “All…All at Once,” and it’s one of the concepts I share with leaders in the book, The Inner Edge: The 10 Practices of Personal Leadership. To learn more, go to www.TheInnerEdge.com. You’ll find an overview of the book, endorsements by such thought leaders asMarshall Goldsmith and Stephen Covey, and more.

Is it possible to have it all?

A lot of people ask this question. Some people say yes, some people say no. To me, it’s the wrong question altogether. To me, the answer to the question, “Is it possible to have it all?” is not yes or no. It’s another question: “Do you know what your ‘all’ is?”

When people talk about “having it all,” they seem to mean “getting stuff” – a fine job, a great office, stock options, an enviable marriage, cute kids, and so on. That may or may not be possible. It may not even be what you want. What is possible is to have the kind of life you want to live. One in which nothing is missing, where you get what you need – emotionally, spiritually, financially, materially – by being clear on who you are and what you want, by being creative and strategic in having it happen, and by leading yourself wisely to the outcomes.

What does “having it all” mean to you? Does “having it all” mean some societal definition of flashy cars, tropical vacations and a knock-out spouse? Or does it mean a sense of fulfillment and satisfaction with a meaningful job and some time left over for you? Does it mean a warm and pleasant home filled with joy? A billion dollars? Your health? Making a difference in the world? Any of these definitions can work – as long it comes from you.

If you can clearly define your “all” in a way that is grounded, realistic, and optimistic, most likely you can have it. If you define your “all” as some unattainable ideal that amounts to the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, then you might not.

What does “having it all” mean to you? What would you have to

• Have:                                                                                                                          
• Do:                                                                                                                             
• Be:                                                                                                                              

in order to feel you “had it all?”

When you know what your all is, then you can ask the questions. Is that possible? If this is what I want, can I have it all? Can I have it all…all at once? You choose. Do you want to? What would it look like if you did?

If it would be helpful to you to spend more time on this, I suggest getting your FREE copy of the Worksheet I’ve posted on my website for you. It’s called Your All. To find it, go to www.TheInnerEdge.com and click on Worksheets and Audios (on the left). You’ll find Your All toward the bottom of the page.

What are you curious about?

If you met that question with speechless silence, you’re not alone. Somehow as busy, focused adults, we forget to wonder.

Remember wondering? When you were little and the world was so big and mysterious? And your mom was so smart, and your dad was so strong, and every plain brown package that arrived at the door was a world of possibility?

I have two sons, Jackson (who’s six) and Morgan Adam (he’s four). Talk about curious! We have a little game we play at night. I let them ask me two questions – anything they want. And are they ever curious!

Jackson, especially, can hit that two-question limit in no time. Left unchecked the kid would talk all night! Why do people work? Why are my eyes brown and Morgan’s are blue? What happens when you’re late to school? How come Jeremy is so much taller than me? What do I have to do to be better at tetherball? Am I going to have homework tomorrow? How does Santa know you said I can’t get a skateboard?

And as he goes on and on, I have to wonder – is he ever going to stop asking these questions? I sure hope not.

And if you want to be an exceptional leader, you won’t either. Patrick Byrne is the CEO of Overstock.com, and it’s his advice to you.

You have to stay curious. If you’re not curious your organization is going to wither beneath you.

So will your team. Your results. Your ability to create.

If you’re out of practice, try this exercise. I call it People Wondering. It’s People Watching, with a twist. The next time you’re in a busy place, waiting (think traffic, the airport, the supermarket line at 5:15), look around you and start to wonder. It sounds like this.

I wonder if this sale lasts all week? I wonder what’s making that man laugh so hard? I wonder if I’ll eat all of these bananas before they go bad? I wonder if the sushi rolls here are as good as the sushi bar’s? I wonder how fast I could check a basket full of groceries?

Then start wondering about your goals and aspirations. Get curious about what’s possible.

I wonder what would happen if we flattened our organization and went to a matrix structure?

I wonder what our company would actually look like if we doubled in size?

I wonder what we would have to do to raise profits twelve times over?

Free yourself not to have all the answers. Get curious. Ask some questions. Just wonder.

Did you enjoy this profile? You may be interested in the eCourse, Getting an Edge: 21 Ways World Class Leaders Share Their Secrets for Leading and Living Well. Each of 21 profiles just like this one comes in a separate email – once a day for 21 days. Click here for more information.

Have you ever had that thing happen where you make a decision and it suddenly gets reinforced by some completely unrelated signal? Just as you decide to cancel your beach day it starts to rain. (“Hey! It’s a sign!”) Right after you choose to go for that next promotion someone quits and leaves open a great position. (“Look! It’s a sign!”)

Well, those “signs” can actually be a powerful way to access your intuition and make quicker decisions, if you can just learn to give them a little thought. Your job is not to make these signs appear, but just to recognize them when they do. Just as you tune your radio through the static until you arrive at a clear signal, you are tuning your mind to the messages you’re receiving until you arrive at the answers you seek.

There are a few different ways of tuning into the message.

Drawing out the Meaning

One way of tuning into the message is to look for “signs” and draw out the meaning. “Drawing out the meaning” is a technique sometimes used by coaches to help people access their intuition. It means using the environment around you as if it were filled with secret messages to tell you what to do. For example:

You’re on Section Nine of the research report you’re writing. You listen to Track Nine of a CD to clear your head. Track Nine turns out to be very short. Does Section Nine also need to be short?

You’re going through an extremely difficult time. You’re anxious and stressed. You walk outside and a gust of wind blows over you. Could it be that this situation will blow over as well?

You’re finally ready to print the final draft of your letter when the printer jams and you can’t get it out. Could it be that for some reason this letter isn’t ready to go out either?

You may be thinking, come on. These are just little mind games. Tricks. Playing with words. And you’re right. That’s just what they are. But they are tricks and games that help you open your mind to new possibilities, new ways of seeing and understanding.

Notice everything around you. Observe the details, the sounds, even the smells. What’s happening? What do you notice? Then wonder, if this tiny slice of life had something to tell you, what would it be?

Seek Serendipity and Synchronicity

Another way to tune into the message is to seek Serendipity and Synchronicity, those twin tendencies for life to deliver enchanting coincidences just when we need them.

            Serendipity is unexpected good fortune, or discovery by accident.

            Synchronicity is a timely, meaningful coincidence.

Put them together and you have those mysterious moments in which you accidentally discover exactly the right thing at just the right time.

• Brant was puzzling over where to take his defunct laptop for a checkup when after taking a wrong turn he ran smack into a storefront computer doctor.

• Caroline discovered that her 10:00 meeting was cancelled just as she was thinking to herself, “If only I had an extra hour.”

• Ginny was still fretting over fresh news that her accountant was about to quit when a long lost friend – a CPA – called to ask if she knew of any job openings.

“It’s a sign!” you think. A wink from the universe. A little gift. If you pay attention to these moments when everything “clicks,” you might just uncover new possibilities.

To take advantage of these moments when the lights all seem to turn green, you need to pay attention. Whenever you’re tempted to say “it’s a sign!” follow it with the words, “Maybe that means I should…” and see what answer comes next. Then go do it. You might just find that the doors at that moment are open and you can slip right through.

Learn to Trust Your Instincts

Yet another way you can tune into the message is to learn to trust your instincts. Earlier we talked about the importance of making room for your intuition; you also need to be able to recognize the messages, listen, and act in keeping with whatever’s true for you.

What does your intuition feel like? Some say it feels like a zing, a snap, or a click. You might feel it in your stomach, your chest, or your heart. For one person it’s a calm, perfectly still knowing. For another it’s a heavily weighted thunk. Another describes a sudden peace; another a taptap of the mind.

When possibilities fall right into your lap, you may feel like some invisible force has granted your silent request. It’s often accompanied by a feeling of speechlessness, almost disbelief.

When you feel that, the search for solutions is over.

Recently, I met a leader who had an unusual set of skills.

Antonio was a linguist with an MBA.

“What does a linguist with an MBA do, exactly?” I asked him.

“Mostly backpack around Europe,” he smiled. But that was then. One day in his meager years as an unemployed post-doc wandering around Sweden, he came across a copy of the Harvard Business Review. In the back, he found an ad for a “naming company” that was looking for (can you guess?) a linguist with an MBA. A consulting company wanted someone clever with words to help assign memorable brand names to their clients’ products.

Thunk.

He scoured the fine print for an address. Manhattan. Antonio lived on Long Island, just across the bridge.

Thunk.

Antonio finished his European tour that month and headed back to the States. He had saved the ad and wondered if the job had been filled.

He called. Job still open.

Thunk.

He got dressed and headed for the address. Without so much as an appointment, Antonio walked in and asked to see a manager. A manager appeared. Antonio showed him the ad and introduced himself as a linguist with an MBA. As Antonio describes it, you could see the manager’s own instinct thumping him in the head.

Antonio was hired and has been there ever since.

The knowledge that something – an idea, a step to take, the way ahead – is right is very hard to put into words. You have to learn to feel it. Raise your awareness of what it feels like for you to hear opportunity knocking. The next time it does, you will be more likely to answer the door.

The strategies for “Tuning into the Message” –

• Drawing out the Meaning
• Seeking Serendipity and Synchronicity
• Learning to Trust Your Intuition –

– these are all ways of accessing information that seems to be around us all the time, but that somehow we manage to miss. To expand your awareness of what’s possible, sometimes you just have to notice.

Exercise

• Look for “signs,” then ask yourself what they mean.
• Watch for Serendipity and Synchronicity, and follow where they lead.
• Stay alert to your intuition. Learn what it feels like, then practice following it.

The ideas in this article are drawn from The Inner Edge: The 10 Practices of Personal Leadership and the accompanying eBook called The Extension. The eBook is designed to give you simple, engaging personal leadership exercises and activities to help you be a better leader, and lead a better life. Get your copy today! Click for a Preview and to Order.

Paris was gray, cold and damp. So was I. It had taken a full day, two buses, a ferry and eight hours to get there from London. When I learned I would have to negotiate the metro system and then walk three blocks just to get something to eat, I could have cried. Tired and miserable, my traveling companions and I wedged ourselves in silence between the commuters on the train. When we emerged from the tunnel, it was raining. Perfect.

We rushed under a rooftop and looked around. Every café was either wet or closed. We spied a lone crepe stand open for business. Dinner. We raced through the rain and hunched under the umbrella. With much apprehension, I asked in my very best French, “May I please have one crepe?” The vendor raised his eyebrows in confusion. He hadn’t understood a word I’d said. This was going to be a very long trip.

Since the man only sold one thing – crepes – we managed to get our point across and sat down to eat on the driest chairs we could find. I just wanted to get into bed. Begrudgingly, my friends pulled out the map and we tried to orient ourselves back toward the subway. Heads down, we shuffled our way out of the alley.

As we rounded the corner, I heard my friend gasp. She pointed and grabbed my arm.

“Joelle! Look!”

There before us in all its glory rose Notre Dame Cathedral, pink in the light of the setting sun and framed by the sparkling Seine. Out here in the open sprawled a panorama of Paris at dusk. Pink and orange clouds were clearing to reveal a crystal blue sky. We gazed up at the majestic stone masterpiece, as glorious as it was promised to be.

Seeing Notre Dame that evening made an unforgettable impression on me. It wasn’t just because of the extraordinary architecture, the breathtaking view or the shock of standing before one of the most famous buildings in the world. It was because that moment revealed possibility. Without our knowing it, this surprise hid around the corner, just waiting to be found. That moment taught me about the wonder and magnificence that’s available to all of us, if only we’re willing to see.

Staying open to possibility is as important in day-to-day life as a vacation in Paris. In rare but pivotal moments, we realize life is so much bigger than us. Beyond our efforts lie answers, ideas and solutions we could never come up with on our own. They present themselves to us, if we let them. But most of the time we don’t. Like tired tourists, we soldier on to finish the tasks before us. Eat; subway; bed. Finish the meeting; get through the email; make it through the day. This chapter is meant to show you how to see possibility – to find new ways of looking at things, to look up and around at what’s bigger and better than what you normally see. You will discover ways to break free from narrow limitations and discover the extraordinary.

Seeing Possibility is one of the ideas I share with leaders in the book, The Inner Edge: The 10 Practices of Personal Leadership. To learn more, go to www.TheInnerEdge.com. You’ll find an overview of the book, endorsements by such thought leaders as Marshall Goldsmith and Stephen Covey, and more!

Most of the time in our lives as leaders, we are the ones asking for what we want. Now it’s time to listen. In the words of Parker Palmer, author of Let Your Life Speak, “Before you tell your life what you intend to do with it, listen for what it intends to do with you.”

“Wishing…and hoping…and thinking…and praying…” won’t get you what you want. Or so they say. Do you really believe that? Not me.

You might argue that here in the real world, our work is driven by measurables, deliverables, and results. We just need to get things done, and the only way to do that is by hard work. Fine.

Just know that more is possible for you than you can achieve by just knocking out task after task. You have more wisdom, more potential, and more possibility than you may be giving yourself credit for. You have even more possibility than you’ve ever seen in yourself.

The only way to know that is to trust in more intuitive ways of knowing, being and becoming who you want to be – not just by working your life away, but by learning to wish, hope, think, pray, and be in a different kind of way.

Being able to trust in possibility takes a measure of faith – an almost spiritual dimension that’s sometimes lacking in our efforts to achieve. By “spiritual” I do not mean religious; I simply mean that grounded and trusting sense that sometimes guides us without our understanding how or why.

Author William Bloom, a meditation master and expert in the field of holistic development, offers a helpful definition of spirituality as “that whole reality and dimension which is bigger, more creative, more loving, more powerful, more visionary, more wise, more mysterious – than materialistic daily human existence.”

How can you open up to the spirit of possibility? There are a number of very practical, concrete strategies you can use if you’re interested. I call them “Invitations,” because they “invite” success to come to you (instead of you having to chase after it all the time). I’ll share with you the list of these activities, and you can choose the ones that suit you best.

The list is called Your Invitation, and it’s at www.TheInnerEdge.com. Click on Worksheets and Audios (on the left). You’ll find a FREE guide called Your Invitation when you scroll down the page.

As a leader, you want people to follow you. But are you worth it?

Do your employees and coworkers love you?

Are you the kind of leader that can inspire people (as one of my clients likes to put it) will walk through walls for you?

To succeed as a leader, you don’t just need respect. You need an emotional investment from the people around you. You need other people to contribute their

• Time
• Energy
• Effort
• Enthusiasm, and
• Talent

…to you. Why would they do that? How have you earned it?

You can inspire and motivate people in a such way that they truly want to do their best. Wendy Newcastle, executive vice president at Bank of America, calls this being an emotional leader.

Being an emotional leader is just as important as being an operational leader. By emotional I mean, why should people storm the Bastille for you, when in light of everything else, they might just as well stay put? In other words, all things being equal, why should they follow you?

If you’re a good leader, working for you is exhilarating. It’s probably challenging. It sometimes requires full speed, long hours, and hard work. It means setting unbelievably high goals and exceeding them every time. It can be frustrating, it can be exhausting, it can be stimulating…

…and if you’re an emotional leader, it’s so, so worth it.

Tips for Emotional Leaders

1. Care about people. Ask about their kids, their colds, their hobbies.
2. Get results. People want to be with the winner.
3. Share the wins. Celebrate your team, all at once and one by one.
4. Develop talent. Don’t just use other’s skills and talents like paper towels at your disposal. Cultivate them like a bountiful garden.
5. Give back. What can you do to help people reach their personal goals?

Did you enjoy this profile? You may be interested in the eCourse, Getting an Edge: 21 Ways World Class Leaders Share Their Secrets for Leading and Living Well. Each of 21 profiles just like this one comes in a separate email – once a day for 21 days. Click here for more information.

How’s it going?

Have you asked yourself that lately?

I don’t mean asked it in the “Hey, how ya doin’” kind of way, but in the “I have a vision. How am I doing?” kind of way. It’s no trivial question. It’s reflection. Empowered reflection – the kind that can sharpen your thinking and improve your results.

Empowered reflection is an ongoing, even routine process of paying attention to your progress. Basically, it means taking a time out to think about your vision and ask yourself, “How’s it going?” You step out of the busy-ness of life to ask yourself a series of reflective questions about your life and leadership. If you do this regularly, say once a month or even a few times a year, you will keep your finger on the pulse of your development as a leader and your progress toward your goals.

To practice empowered reflection you make it a habit to assess your progress. Below follow some questions useful for this kind of reflection.

1. What’s working?
2. What’s not working?
3. What would you like to change?
4. What accomplishments have you achieved?
5. What lessons have you learned?
6. Are the goals still the right goals?
7. What do you still need to know or learn?
8. How might you be sabotaging your own success?
9. What do you need to start doing, keep doing, and stop doing?
10. What’s next?

Every time you go through this process, you are putting a stake in the ground for what you want. You are declaring, “My vision is important to me, and I’m willing to continue thinking about it and reaching for it until I achieve it.” Practicing this form of reflection on a regular basis is a technique for accountability and focus.

Empowered reflection isn’t hard. It doesn’t take long, and it doesn’t cost a dime. You can practice empowered reflection while driving, jogging, walking through the park, meditating, lying down, or even sitting in the bath. You can almost think of this practice as “visiting your vision” to see how you’re doing. That way it never gets forgotten.

Exercise

Whenever you’re feeling detached from your long term vision, whenever you could use a boost to get back into action, or whenever you want to step back to get an overall perspective on your progress, take a few minutes to run through the ten questions on the Your Reflection worksheet in The Extension. Doing so will resurface the motivation you need to make your vision a reality.

The ideas in this article are drawn from The Inner Edge: The 10 Practices of Personal Leadership and the accompanying eBook called The Extension. The eBook is designed to give you simple, engaging personal leadership exercises and activities to help you be a better leader, and lead a better life. Get your copy today! Click here for a Preview and to Order.

In school, an independent study is a way for students to learn what they want to learn even if it isn’t in the course catalog. Done well, it can be the launching pad to a student’s true calling, because for once the student gets to choose the content and explore what’s available an area that piques his or her interest. And even though independent study students are pursuing their own interests, they get credit for the effort. What a deal.

Have you thought about taking an independent study lately? It can be a fast and easy way to teach yourself the skills you most need to learn to be successful, in any area of your life and leadership.

You do your independent study in three steps, each of which starts with the letter A – the grade you’re going to earn in this class of your own.

1. Assess Your Options. What do you need to learn now?
2. Adopt a Topic. Of the options, which one will get you the most powerful results?
3. Activate the Learning. How could you learn about this topic independently, in your own way and on your own time, so that it is most effective and valuable to you?

In your independent study, you get to be a student again in the best sense of the word. No course requirements, no class schedules, and no final exams – just the chance to be new and green, seeing what there is to learn about something you want to know.

To really be strategic, make sure whatever you choose to focus on in your independent study is the area in which one big hit that will create the breakthrough.

Keep Learning is one of the ten practices I recommend for highly talented leaders in the book, The Inner Edge: The 10 Practices of Personal Leadership. To learn more, go to www.TheInnerEdge.com. You’ll find an overview of the book, endorsements by such thought leaders as Marshall Goldsmith and Stephen Covey, and more.

How will you keep learning what you most need to be your best as a leader, and in your life?