let’s consider Sara, who holds a belief that meetings are a waste of time and nothing good ever happens there. She enters a staff meeting just knowing that it will be terrible (anticipated outcome) and, consequently, she sits idly and waits for it to go south (guides planned action). However, if you were to say to Sara that her intention was to have a bad meeting, she would probably disagree with you.
This is referred to as the Law of Attraction, which states that whatever we think about, believe, and focus our energy on is what we create for our lives—and it is important in our daily practice of life to know how to use this law. What Sara would probably say is that she just knew it would happen that way. She might even say that she really wanted to have a good meeting but felt it was beyond her control, and she might cite that as evidence that meetings are indeed a waste of time. At this level, what she is expressing is more like a wish. We get to be a leader when we add the power of our own dynamic presence, when we see the highest possible anticipated outcome and use ourselves in the moment to create that outcome. This is when we transform a passive wish into a clear intention.
It is really a question of consciousness and choice. As a leader, it is a requirement that we get very clear about the anticipated outcomes that we are carrying around. Intention ties in quite closely with our conscious and subconscious belief systems. As such, we can be carrying a negative limiting belief at a subconscious level that operates as a default guide—not a good thing for being a dynamic and powerful leader. For the purpose of leadership practice, we need to get clear on what we see as anticipated outcomes and use them to guide our actions in a way that helps us accomplish positive things.
Let’s use one example of conversations: At a very discreet level, we can think of each conversation we have as an opportunity to connect with our deepest beliefs and frame them into an intention. When you sit down to talk to someone, think about what it is that you want to accomplish through this time. Think about what is important to you and to the other person. After that, be clear about why you are having this conversation. Express what you say as an intention, as in “It is my intention to connect at an emotional level” or “It is my intention to get clear on our weekly priorities.” You can do this silently or, more powerfully, to the participants. From there, let that intention guide your actions.
Now, be careful—there is a potential downside to this. If you only focus on what you want to accomplish, you probably won’t get it. Communicating is building a system of rapport between people, and that requires healthy amounts of paying attention to the other person’s wants and needs. If we turn our intention into an agenda, we run the risk of shutting out other people.
Make it a practice to consistently be as clear as possible about your intentions for all of the things you do on a daily basis. Think about your intention in writing an email. Think about your intention in reading an email. Think about your intention when you greet a receptionist or the server in a restaurant. Think about your intention when you say hello to significant people in your life. Whatever it is, the greater degree to which we can bring up our “anticipated outcomes” and make them consciously our own, the more effective, dynamic, and powerful we will be in the world.
THE POWER OF COMMITMENT
Ultimately, the power you will have as a leader of yourself and your own personal journey comes down to how much and what kind of energy you direct toward your passion and mission in life. Recognizing and honoring commitment allows you to choose your actions. Here’s an interesting way to look at this: You will hear about people being committed or not committed when you look at what they are doing or not doing. These words are typically uttered to describe a person who is not doing something that someone feels that person should be doing.
But what if you saw everyone as completely committed to the choices they made? A person can be committed to indifference or committed to ambiguity. A person who is having trouble deciding what he wants to do can be committed to indecision or committed to struggling. What if every action people took was because they were committed to that path? Consider how that would change your view of them.
At that level, it brings a completely new wrinkle to how you work with yourself and with others. It means that you do not have to make yourself commit; just recognize where you are already committed and decide whether that is what you truly want. At the deepest level, your power comes when you recognize that everyone is profoundly committed to creating the life he or she is leading, exactly the way it is. If you are not getting what you think you want, you must find the areas of commitment that you want to shift. Until you become aware of them, they remain invisible forces that can keep you from moving in desired areas.
You commence the alignment of your intentions with your being through commitment. It shows up in every area of your life and can be used both to change your behaviors and to clarify your intention. Let’s go back to our example of Sara and her attitude toward meetings. We can say that Sara is committed to having bad meetings and committed to her opinion of the value of meetings through her recurring actions. If she examines her intentions and claims that she truly wants good meetings, then it is up to her to commit to her intention through personal leadership. First, she has to commit to mental images of what happens in good meetings. She has to commit to using language, both with others and in her self-talk, that is consistent with that intention. Finally, when she is in the meetings, she has to commit her energy, thoughts, and efforts to the meeting process. It is only through actively recognizing her previous commitment to bad meetings that she can shift her own power to an aligned commitment and begin releasing her personal power.
At the most basic level, you can begin by acknowledging that you are absolutely committed to everything in your life, exactly as it is right now. The question is, do you want to be? If you are not getting what you want in life and are, instead, getting things you don’t want, you must look at how your are committing yourself—through your energy, thoughts, words, and actions—to creating your life precisely as it is. Some people find this daunting or even overwhelming, but the great positive is that if you believe this, it absolutely follows that you can create something else, simply by committing to that new set of ideals and releasing the conflicting commitments.
THE POWER OF SAYING YES
We need to send very clear messages to ourselves and to the universe surrounding us as to what we really want and deserve. It is a clear and simple act to say yes to these things in life. This means getting very clear about what yes truly means. While we may have the moment in life where we received the outcome we most desired and we say a resounding yes, there is also the moment in life when we get something that we truly do not want. We simply accept it as part of the world. That, too, is saying yes to a condition. Remember, our subconscious really cannot tell the difference. Whatever we say yes to in life, we get more of it. Living in an abusive relationship is saying yes to that pattern in your life. Living with a job that you do not like enough is saying yes to those conditions and emotions.
Part of the art of leadership is beginning to understand the things to which you are saying yes and how you are saying it. Obviously, we first need to clarify those things that we most want and desire; we need to begin to find examples of where they exist in our world and clearly and firmly affirm them in powerful yes messages.
THE POWER OF SAYING NO
Often, when people begin describing their intentions, they talk a lot about what they don’t want and how they are going to get rid of it. That is very important and is, in fact, a prerequisite to be able to attain anything. As we know from studying the systems theory of the interaction of any organism in its environment, there are always things that the organism wants (goals) and things that the organism wants to avoid (noxiants). People are the same way.
