What It Means to Be Prepared as a Leader
I get what it’s like to feel held back. I spent years watching others grow their businesses faster than I was growing mine. It was confusing.
I knew in my bones I was destined for big things. And even more importantly, those I *was* getting to serve were getting results that blew them, and me, away.. My work was already more powerful than I’d ever dreamt of. So why wasn’t it getting out there?
Was it too powerful?, I’d wonder.
This is a quintessential fear of everyone who was born holding an inner knowing of what genuine power is (and that they are meant to use it).
As the years went on, my work became more and more powerful. But instead of wondering whether it was too much for the world to handle, the message became clear.
You have to learn to wield the power you can hold before the world can meet you in it. Power is meant to be honored with humility.
And learning to wield power is a process when we’re coming from an era of false power that only ever put itself on a false, protection-laden pedestal.
False power had to protect itself. It knew it was built upon fear and scarcity. It knew deep in its bones that fear and scarcity would breed more fear and scarcity. False power was built on a pedestal as solid as a house of cards. It had no foundation. It never has.
Whereas genuine power is much different. Genuine power doesn’t come from you or me. It comes from something greater than each of us alone. And it flows through each of us for a purpose.
It knows who is meant to do what with this power. It knows service, and moves through us as such.
In order to hold and wield a power so different than what we’ve been taught, we must build a foundation first. Your foundation must become so solid, so trusting, so loving and so humble that all you're meant to hold, be and do will only be used it in service.
The humility involved in growing such a foundation is tremendous. You'll be asked to be honest with yourself about subtle things you never thought were an issue... so that the issues you're helping to resolve are met with the power of something much bigger than you.
And so my path was to grow more humble with each expansion. I yearned to be “out there” in the world serving the masses. When, instead, my path was to serve deeply while bowing in complete surrender to not being seen.
Some days this looked like serving groups of people in countries that wanted to keep the work on the down low. Some days this looked like humbly showing up to serve the students in my online school – even if there were only five or ten at a time. Some days this looked like serving the CEOs of the multi-billion dollar companies that didn’t want the public to know they were doing this work. And many days this looked like surrendering to the inner work that wanted to happen quietly, patiently in my own space.
I’d have to learn to flow the energy of the collective if I wanted to serve the collective. I’d have to learn to hold all of the pain and sorrow if I wanted to support that many people into their something greater.
I'd have to learn to not know on such a level that the guidance, support, and expansion they were getting from my work came always from something much greater than myself.
What I’ve learned is that the extent to which you know you’re destined to make an impact, is the same amount to which you’ll have to clean out your closets of anything that’s not truly supportive of you doing so.
The extent to which you’re destined to use that great big heart of yours (and oooh, do I know that heart of yours is so big and loving), is the same amount to which you’ll be guided to stretch it.
You’ll be given experiences and opportunities to grow how much you can hold in your great big heart. Each one will teach you how to love yourself as much as you love others, without losing sight of what love truly is.
Leadership is so much more than dictating decisions, or having a mission, or allocating expenses and manpower.
Leadership is being willing to become as humble in your own skin as you are expansive.
Leadership is being willing to allow your heart to stretch so that it can hold more, no matter what it takes.
Leadership is being willing to be unseen, so that your impact can be greater (until, and if, you're meant to be seen enough to grow the impact).
Leadership is recognizing that power doesn't belong to you. It only moves through you in service.
Leadership is humbling yourself to that power, so that you can express yourself as that, without attaching yourself to being that.
Leadership requires preparation within. Because in today’s leadership – with what the world truly requires now – you’ll be required to stand on a foundation of trust so solid that when power comes through you in service, you’ll be ready.
I want to hear from you! How have you had to humble yourself over the years? What does leadership mean to you? What's the difference, for you, between false power and genuine power?
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If you'd like to explore this topic, I have ONE private slot available for a leader like yourself. PM me or email me at team@moderndaysorcerer.com
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For more where this came from, visit my website.