I am sitting on the porch in the sun. It is not really warm (about 12 degrees) but it is spring so who who cares how warm it is. It is just so nice to be able to sit outside. The birds are chirping (or actually it is the neighbours antenna array twisting slowly in the wind).
I have for many many years put up a brick wall between myself and the rest of the world. Not allowing anybody to join me on the inside before I am convinced that they don’t want to hurt me. This obviously makes it very hard to get good contact with anybody as few persons can see over the wall to find the real person behind it. Contact…. real contact is what leadership is all about. How to get good and deep contact with your colleagues and actually letting them find out for themselves what they want to do. The latter is actually the concept of coaching. “Do not present the solution but help the person in focus find it herself.”
Back to the wall, a friend told me that the first impression I made was Hugh Grant. Totally glossy and shallow. Yes, I know that you asked me not to dwell on the Hugh Grant statement but I actually think it is very true. I have to work on lowering the wall and one obvious way of doing that is to trust people more. Instead of thinking that people are out there to hurt you, instead think of the great reward one can get from getting to really know people and from getting a really deep contact.
Being here and now… is also very important. Don’t plan everything or think 20 steps ahead. Just be here and be here now. I really have to work on that. I know it comes from being forced by your own internal top-dog to achieve and constantly building and creating new things. This creates a rather good feeling initially but after a while it just becomes a bad loop spinning downwards where you just HAVE to create more, work more, and loosing the here and now part. This also moves you towards another wall, the fixed wall more and more people walk into and get really ill. Been there, done that.
Daring to take contact… when you have a knot in your stomach or chest it usually means that you have some unresolved business with somebody. When you get that feeling you have two choices, push down the feeling deep down inside or go talk to the person in question. Which do you think is the best? The second in my opinion is the best. So why do I and most other individuals on this planet the first thing?
Where does everything one pushes down inside go? Well, I have learned that it doesn’t just disappear. It ends up far far far down in a well inside you with a big and heavy lid. The more you put into the well the heavier it becomes to carry it with you and the only way to make it lighter is to open the lid and resolve each single issue. Resolve here can mean many different things, but in essence it boils down to daring to think about it and the most important, daring to talk about it. I know it is scary to lift the lid but it can be very rewarding. Just make sure you have somebody to talk about the items inside first, or it can easily lead to that you yourself fall into the well instead, drowning you.
Ahh, the sun. So warm and nice!