Enrolling Others in Your Vision…They May be Waiting for You
“The greatest need of human beings is for a sense of meaning and purpose in life.” - Victor FrankelOne of the most valuable lessons I am learning in life is that I don’t need to do it alone. ‘It’ can be defined as almost anything I do, including developing a new program for one of my clients, running my business, needing help in repairing something and even walking my dog. What’s freeing about this is it saves me time and energy, I get a better end result because of the shared ideas and, most important to me and the way I strive to live my life, is that I get time to have more fun.
One of my mentors, Laura Whitworth, co-founder of The Bigger Game™, always says (paraphrasing), “people are hungry to make a difference in the world, they just don’t know how. We can show them how.”
I am finding this to be true. No matter where my clients are in their personal or professional lives, they come to me to reconnect with their vision. We loose sight of our vision when the daily activities, routines, responsibilities and obligations begin to take over. We can no longer see what drives us. We begin to feel we have no choice and are being driven instead of driving.
“A life lived by choice is a life of conscious action.The one important thing about having a vision is to get into action and take the steps to make your vision become a reality. The first major step in doing this is to begin talking about your vision and enroll and engage others in it. By doing this, you become more committed to your vision. There is power in speaking about it.
A life lived by chance is a life of unconscious reaction.” - Neale Donald Walsch
How scary is that?
And how exhilarating?
As leaders, it is our responsibility to show others the ‘how’. In speaking about your vision, you will find others who will think you’re nuts and others who will think you’re not. So what? Those that think you may be nuts will help you become more convicted in your vision and those that think you’re not will become great allies for you.
I am participating in a leadership book club and our current book is the classic, “The Art of Possibility” by Benjamin Zander and Rosamund Stone Zander. Our current focus is “Being a Contribution.” The basis for this is practicing a game they call “I am a contribution.” The practice is inventing and defining oneself and others as a “contribution.” How? Replace the fearful question “Am I loved for who I am, or for what I have accomplished?” with the joyful question, “How will I be a contribution today?”
Two simple steps to make this happen:
- Declare yourself to be a contribution.
- Throw yourself into life as someone who makes a difference, accepting that you may not understand how or why.
Remember… you may have the ‘how’ answer to someone who has the vision and just doesn’t know how to make it real. Don’t be the one to cheat others out of the opportunity to make their visions become realities.
Step into leading and enroll others in your vision… don’t wait… model leadership… the world needs us to do this.
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