How To Lead In a Change-rich and Transformation-poor World

After ten curl-on-the-floor burnouts over twenty years, I've found a way to thrive.

Forty at the time, I was at one of those cocktail parties at a large oyster bar in downtown Manhattan. Everyone there was professional and professionally successful, except for me. I was clutching my wine glass, chatting here, chatting there, muttering to myself, “You’re 40, and your life has been one dream after another of helping people be whole, daring, and equipped to change the world. And what do I you to show for it?" 

In the past, I would pull myself together at cocktail parties and share my card, collect some, and hope for the best. But this time, I sensed fear rising in me, stark and dizzying. I heard a voice as if speaking from nowhere, "You are an impostor here." My temples were going to bust out. I went out onto the sidewalk, breathing in the stinky city air. 

I staggered to Grand Central and into the shadows, where I bumped into a group of smokers. I remember, like it was yesterday, what it was like to smoke two packs a day. O, the warmth between the fingers, the pause with smoke in my lungs injecting relief into my bloodstream and then exhaling all the worry. So, I blurted out to the group, 

"Can I bum a cigarette?"

"Here you go!" said a restaurant worker in an apron, out for a break, extending his hand to offer me one. Before I could reach it, he pulled it back gently and asked, "How long has it been since your last one?" 

"Twenty years," I said.  

Everyone looked at me with a knowing glance towards each other. (To chain smokers, my ask feels like the equivalent of a former alcoholic asking for a shot of whiskey.) The gentleman pulled his hand back.

"It's OK. All will be OK," he said while tucking the box away. 

After a conversation, I walked back home, far there in Harlem, arriving home before dawn, turning the key softly to not wake my wife, taking my shoes off, untying my tie and hanging it on a tie pin, and brushing my teeth. I then sat on a kitchen chair with the lights off, looking through a large window at the city lights. 

Life was a little better. I realized I had forgotten something somewhere along the way: Every transformation needs a witness. The smokers were my threshold guardians. Some thresholds must be crossed, some turned away, and some sat on for a time. None of it, however, can be done on our own.

Twenty years later, through our professional life, civic engagement, and friendships, I help others, and others help me be whole, daring, and equipped to love life and change the world. And we do it without burnout and with far more success.

We do it through TURN Lab and are now at Cohort #5!  

Whether you are a curious beginner or an experienced guide in leading yourself and others to make good things happen, the terrain can be as difficult as a war or as lonely as a bar. It is also successfully navigated by people like you and me! 

But here's the sneaky, tricky thing: You cannot do it alone. 

And that's why, if you are about transformation (which includes your own joy, success, and freedom), you are invited to participate in this do-it-yourself-together experience!

Over several weeks, we get what matters to us done, come to understand ourselves better, make meaningful connections with each other, and have lots of fun. 

Plus surprises!

And we welcome you.

Samir Selmanovic

P.S. Change is inevitable. Transformation is optional.