So, LAST week, we talked about How to Stay Strong During Challenging Times. And in that, I introduced a concept called Inner Leadership which is central to what I teach in my business. So THIS week, I want to take the concept a little deeper and discuss How to Be a Great Leader to YOURSELF.

There’s no denying that leadership is a popular topic today. We hear about it in business, politics, sports, religion. In fact, according to Forbes Magazine, it’s a $400 Billion a year industry. And growing.

That’s great because the whole concept of leadership is important. But the thing is, most of what we read about or discuss when it comes to leadership, is one dimensional, usually focused on things like:

How to influence others

How to motivate others

How to manage others

How to inspire others

How to get others to trust you or follow you or whatever.

And notice what these have in common. 

First, they’re about the affect you want to have on OTHERS.

Influencing others, motivating others, inspiring others, etc.

And SECOND, they’re about how-to strategies. 

Which means, the focus is almost exclusively EXTERNAL. The impact you have on others or what actions you should take to respond to something going on. 

But what’s missing is the most IMPORTANT part of leadership. It’s what comes BEFORE all of that, which is how effective we are at leading OURSELVES. 

Because whether you’re trying to manage something going on around you or whether you’re trying to manage where your career is going, if you want to get the best results, it all starts inside, right?

BEFORE we can develop the best response to something or lead others through it, we must have a clear perspective on what’s going on.

That we’re not just responding automatically based on whatever unconscious thought loop might be going on in your head. But that we’re doing it from a place that’s free from unconscious judgments, self-limiting beliefs, biases. Whatever.  And for the most part, we’re not taught this right? 

That’s why we developed the concept of Inner Leadership. So we can develop what I like to call “SELF-COMMAND.” That’s when we learn how to stop responding to the things and happen and instead, learn how to be the master of our inner world – specifically, our thoughts and emotions. Because it’s from those things that our actions and ultimately our results, come from.

So long before we come up with the answer to what we SHOULD DO about the things that happen to us, we must FIRST work on LEADING OUR MIND as it relates to that thing that happened. This means first becoming aware of how we feel about the thing that happened and then exploring the thoughts that caused you to feel that emotion. 

Once you do that, you know you’ve landed on your truth. And then you can decide whether that thought will inspire the kinds of emotions and actions that will lead to the results you want. And if the answer is NO, then you can shift into a new thought that WILL. Many times we aren’t even aware of the thoughts swirling in our head when big things are going on. And if you’re like me, you definitely don’t know that our thoughts are a choice. We don’t have to just live with whatever random thought our brain serves up based on programmed patterns of thought that got ingrained somewhere along the way. Those thoughts aren’t just TRUE. We can choose a new thought that WILL lead to the direction you want to go.    

Like I said earlie

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