As I prepare to travel to Columbus for ALIA (Authentic Leadership in Action), I find myself playing with the word “leader”.
Who are the leaders of the world? What do they look like? What makes them unique? What makes us want to follow them?
For a lot of us (especially for women), the word “leader” is a huge block. It feels like too much. Too bold. Too cocky. Too self-assured. Too “I don’t have my OWN shit together – how can I possibly lead other people?”
I’ve heard every excuse in the book. Heck – I’ve USED every excuse in the book. “I’m not smart enough. I don’t have enough knowledge in this subject area. I don’t know how to motivate people. I don’t have all the answers. I’m not confident enough. I don’t like having people depend on me. I don’t know how to fix my own problems – how can I possibly fix other people’s problems? I don’t want people to think I’m too big for my boots. I’m in too much pain.”
We let those limitations block us, because we’ve accepted the wrong paradigms for leadership. Ask any circle of people to name leaders in history or in their own lives, and they’ll talk about people like Nelson Mandela, Obama, Mother Teresa, or the executive director of the organization they work for.
Well no WONDER we get intimidated by the word leader if that’s our paradigm! Very few of us will ever be THAT kind of leader. The world only needs a few of those.
Until they’re coaxed, NOBODY in the room will mention the first grade teacher who opened the world of language for them, the guy who swept the floors in the gymnasium with a smile on his face and a kind word for everyone, the little girl in the playground who made sure everyone got a turn on the slide, the drummer in the high school band who wordlessly kept everyone on beat, or the waitress at the local coffee shop who listened to their stories and made them feel heard.
I’m on a personal mission to bust us all out of those old paradigms of leadership. I’m on a personal mission to make you see the leader in the janitor, the drummer, the waitress, and yourself.
Let’s ask ourselves some new questions.
What if the leader is the person who:
– asks the right questions, instead of knowing all the answers?
– remembers that play is the best way to learn?
– makes a lot of effort to make other people feel seen and heard?
– believes in the power of crayons and dance shoes?
– invites people to wander through possibilities instead of looking for the most direct path?
– creates a container where our feelings and ideas are safe?
– delights in the opportunities that arise out of mistakes?
– invites our bodies and souls to every gathering along with our brains?
– celebrates curiosity?
– believes that the collective wisdom in the room is greater than her own?
– intuitively understands when to say “stop” and “rest” and “walk away“.
– trusts that the most beautiful things often grow out of failure?
Sit with these questions, and then ask yourself “if I can hold this new paradigm, can I then call myself a leader?”
At ALIA, leaders of all shapes and sizes learn about leadership from jugglers, painters, aikido masters, dancers, jazz drummers, meditation teachers, dramatists, doodlers, floral arrangers, etc., etc. The incredible tribe of people who gather at ALIA believe that leadership lessons come from everywhere, and every person in the room holds some of the wisdom. It’s an awe-inspiring experience to sit in a large circle of paradigm-shifting leaders and know that your wisdom is welcome there.
Which piece of the wisdom do you bring to the circle? And what is stopping you from bringing it?
Note: If this new paradigm for leadership excites you, challenges you, or affirms you, then I’m sure you’ll enjoy How to Lead with your Paint Clothes on. The first learning circle has drawn together a fascinating group of people and I look forward to gathering the next one soon. (Dates to be announced.)
This week, my guest is one of my dearest friends, Christine Claire Reed. I met Christine online a couple of years ago, and since then she has become my cheerleader, confidante, supporter, and friend. I have been known, on occasion, to send Christine frantic emails when I most need a shoulder to cry on, and she has always responded with just the right kind of wisdom to help me find the hope again. What I love most about her is that her wisdom comes from a deep and authentic place in her heart, a heart that has known great suffering, pain, and mental illness, but has found a way to continue praying, hoping, dancing, and seeking joy, even when there is no ground beneath her.
In this interview, Christine shares an experience in which she learned to “give up fear in order to surrender to joy.” (The rest of this interview will be shared when I release the e-course.)
I still have a number of juicy interviews to share with you for my Let go of the Ground series. This week I had intended to share more, but at the beginning of the week I was in a place where my own “letting go of the ground” was where I needed to place my focus, and so I spent a couple of days mostly in silence, avoiding social media and this blog.
But now I’m back and ready to share. This week I’m excited to introduce you to the “Wild Heart Queen” (her Twitter handle), Chris Zydel. What a delight it has been getting to know Chris over the last year or two! She is such an inspiration to me in both her work (teaching and writing about intuitive painting) and her generous spirit.
Chris knows a lot about the importance of surrender. When she teaches people to dive into the process of intuitive painting, she’s really teaching them to surrender to the creative goddess. In this interview, she shared her own process of surrender when she realized intuitive painting had become her primary path and it was time to step away from her career as a psychotherapist.
I get discouraged by how much our culture values “easy”. We want easy money, fast food, drive-thru spirituality, and ten easy steps to fix any problem.
We’re living in a culture where MacDonald’s and Wal-Mart thrive because they not only promise to make life easy, they make it cheap. Next to easy, cheap is our second highest good. If you can combine easy AND cheap, you can make a million dollars of that easy money.
I’ve got news for you, though… there is no easy path.
I’ll say that again, just to let it sink in… there is no easy path.
Keep choosing easy and cheap (whether it’s over-processed white bread or overly-simplified spirituality), and you’ll pay for it in the long run. It may not be right away, and the marketers may convince you that easy-street is working for you right now, but you’ll always have to pay. Eventually.
It doesn’t take a rocket-scientist to realize how our earth and our cultural diversity are paying for all of the easy choices we’re making. Climate change, plastic islands floating in our oceans, species going extinct – those are pretty hefty payments for our easy lifestyles. And we all know at least one story of a business that had to close (and a little piece of our diversity, creativity, and culture died with it) when Wal-Mart moved into town. When I was in Kenya, I searched everywhere for funky African fabric but found very little – “well-meaning” North Americans had dumped all their cheap cast-off clothing on the market and killed their fabric industry. Cheap and easy always ends up being destructive.
Similar things are going on in the online world. The proliferation of e-books, e-courses, and e-workshops is both overwhelming and a little discouraging. Once again, it’s easy that sells. Give someone “ten easy steps to zen” or “spirituality simplified” or “your best life NOW (without any effort)” and you’ve got a sure winner on your hands. And THEN, throw ten of those e-courses into one bundle, offer it at drastic discounts, and you’ve got pure gold. Just sit back and watch the money flow.
I can’t help but think, when I see those bundles of e-courses, “how can someone actually process all of that information and make it a meaningful experience?” But perhaps, unlike me, people are more interested in deep discounts than meaningful experiences.
Sadly, people selling creative courses on the internet will soon find no market for them, just like the fabric manufacturers in Kenya.
I can’t help but go back to what I said earlier.
There is no easy path.
You can read all of the e-books or blogs you want, memorize hundreds of “10 easy steps” and you are STILL going to have to do the hard work if you really want to grow. Only YOU can do that work.
You can go to all the right retreats, sign up for all the e-courses you can find, and you STILL have to go through the depths of pain when someone you love dies or betrays you. Not even a guru can make that easy for you.
You can try for cheap and easy all you want, put a bandaid on the pain, avoid the conflicts in your relationships, and all you are doing is delaying the agony. Trust me, you’ll have to pay – eventually.
But let’s be honest, hard doesn’t sell.
Even as I prepare to release my e-course on “Letting go of the ground” about surrender, transformation, and growth, I know that it does not have the makings of a best seller. It’s about “hard”, not about “easy”. It’s about working your way through the pain, hanging onto trust when you’re in the middle of the goo, and surrendering to the Divine. None of that is easy. Or cheap.
And yet I know that I have to release it, because it is my truth. And my gift. And I know that it is desperately needed in this easy-seeking culture.
I know pain, I know surrender, and I know transformation. I never thought that those things would serve as my gift to the world (and I’ve resisted that realization, quite frankly), but life is full of surprises.
I have been to hell and back – more than once. I have suffered the loss of a son. I have been raped. Twice I’ve had to live through the attempted suicide of my beloved. In a three month period, my dad died tragically of a horrible farm accident, my uncle died suddenly of a heart attack, and my grandmother died of natural causes. I have been to more funerals than I can count. (I am not saying those things to suggest my pain has been greater than yours. There is no measure of pain – it just is.)
And yet, despite all of that pain… you want to know something? I am completely in love with life.
Oh sure, when I’m in the mood for a pity party, I can let myself wallow in bitterness with the rest of them, but most of the time, I soak every bit of goodness I can out of life because I know that life is good. And God is good. And people are good. And there is hope.
Yes, my path has led me through a lot of pain, but I can’t imagine living such a rich, full life any other way. Pain has been my greatest teacher. And that’s what I’ve realized as I’ve done all of the interviews in support of “Let go of the Ground“. The people I’ve interviewed are wise people largely for one reason – they have let pain and loss and the gooey-ness of surrender be their teachers. None of them believe in cheap and easy either. They have walked through the surrender and the pain and they have emerged into wisdom and rich beauty. Just like the butterfly.
Here’s one thing I have learned to trust in all of those painful experiences… even in the deepest, darkest pain, God is there.
The God of my understanding doesn’t like cheap and easy. I don’t think we get to have it both ways. Either you take easy street and reject God, or you dive into the messiness and pain of life, and delight in the presence of God in both the pain and the beauty.
Here’s another thing I know… beauty is magnified by darkness. Think of a rose without the shadows between the petals. There would be no depth and beauty if there weren’t dark shadows. Life loses its richness without a mix of both light and dark.
So I’ll stick with this path, release the e-course I feel called to release, and trust that those who have grown as weary as I have with cheap and easy and need something deeper will find their way to it.
Most of us arrive at a sense of self and vocation only after a long journey through alien lands. But this journey bears no resemblance to the trouble-free “travel packages” sold by the tourism industry. It is more akin to the ancient tradition of pilgrimage – “a transformative journey to a sacred centre” full of hardships, darkness, and peril.
I can’t remember exactly when I discovered Cath Duncan online, but I do remember that I felt almost immediately drawn in by her warmth and willingness to put herself out there in a genuine way. Cath is a qualified and experienced Social Worker, Neuro-linguistic Psychology Master Practitioner and Martha Beck Life Coach who helps entrepreneurs and professionals to get more of the 4 M’s in their work and beyond; Motivation, Mastery, Meaning and Money.
This past year, I’ve felt even more drawn to Cath as she shared parts of her journey through pregnancy and then the loss of her baby girl. I had a wonderful conversation with Cath for this interview as she talks about that journey and how she’s still learning lessons about letting go of the ground. She shares deeply about both brokenness and hope. And if you occasionally see a look of pain cross my face, it’s because the conversation brought back strong memories of my own loss.
