Choose who you are
Marcus Aurelius. Viktor Frankl. Nelson Mandela. For these greats (and I’m sure many more people), a key theme runs through much of their work and ideas — being is better than telling.
It’s tough sometimes when resilience is low, like at the end of a long day when you’re hungry, or in a meeting that isn’t going how you hoped it would. However, I’ve come to understand that this is when it matters. As a leader (which is what we signed up for as a manager or as a parent), making conscious choices to display self-awareness and self-mastery to get the outcome we’re looking for is what it’s all about.
I fail at this a lot — especially when the kids just won’t go to bed, or when I see people refusing to open up their thinking to others’ different views. I react. However, this doesn’t stop me from trying (and once in a while succeeding) to catch myself next time.
Recognising those little moments just as they’re arriving, and then doing the simple, right thing in as many of them as you can over an extended period of time, is — I believe — the simplest and most powerful tool for enacting change.
