“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate… Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.”
Nelson Mandela
How is it that we often forget our true glorious nature and cling to the weakest view of our self instead? It is as if we have these trauma-moments rolling around inside of us, that take hold of our minds from time to time, and we then believe the lowest possible view of our self.
You may be wondering, “What does this have to do with my business?” It only has everything to do with your business because everything in your business is a result of your self-perception, which informs your authority and the use of your personal power. Your self-assessment and its regulation, determines all of your results and those results begin at the top and roll down: the good, the bad, and the ugly. And not only results based on the top of an organizational structure, starting with the CEO, but also within teams in that organization, and within people who are part of those teams.
I work with clients asking them to go through an exercise to define what they commit to cause from their ultimate best, and that exercise pretty well flips quite a few of them out. I remember a business owner who realized his calling/mission/purpose, was to cause greatness. He looked truly frightened and replied in disbelief, “That sounds like something the Dalai Lama would do!” My reply to him was, “Who says you’re not like the Dalai Lama?”
Who Ever Told You, You’re Not Like The Dalai Lama?
Regardless of who’s ever told you in word or deed that you are less than MAGNIFICENT, THEY WERE WRONG! When we get trigged into a place within us that makes us believe limiting thoughts, and constrict in fear, we go on an auto-pilot of the worst kind. We betray people (including ourselves), we do things we would not otherwise do, we say what we not normally say, we have misplaced our natural wisdom, and worst of all, we give up, sell out, cover up, or water down our authority as MAGNIFICENT, powerful beings! And this is a very big deal! It’s the biggest deal of all for your business andfor your life.
And not only is it a big deal when it’s happening in you, it’s a big deal when it’s happening in anyone around you. Learn to stop it when it is happening and to set up new ground rules and habits that protect everyone’s worth and value. As a leader (or member) of your organization, your greatest responsibility is totransmute self-perceptions of inferiorityinto those of MAGNIFICENCE through new concepts and tools. Otherwise you witness people who remain powerful, but inadvertently use that power to prove they are not so great. Yikes!
As businesses, this is a time of tremendous growth and opportunity in which we need to evolve our technologies, create crucial innovations, find radical solutions, and make smart, brilliant decisions. In order to do this and do it well, we need to value our personal-power and person-hood, in an unapologetic, responsible, courageous and reverential way. It’s time to play our best game in life and in our work and it requires standing in the MAGNIFICENCE we are and helping those around us stand in theirs too. Only in this way will incredible outcomes occur.
This article was published in the column The Extraordinary Workplace in St. Louis Small Business Monthly, September 2018
