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Additionally, we are so concerned about “our self” that often our own focus is based solely on just surviving (personally, or taking care of just those we love). True inspiration is far bigger and more inclusive than matters concerning just our self.
Fear drives us to attempt to control life scenarios and outcomes. Each generation has taught us to reduce negative impacts and maximize positive impacts, for our own sake. However, our perception of the risks and benefit of our [in]action is often misleading. If we are too aggressive in mitigating the “risk”, then the group outcomes are sub optimized and our fears are affirmed, oddly enough through our very own [in]action – the same energy used to mitigate the risk.
Peaceful protests and compassionate movements meant to heal and reunite, are overrun and ruined by over zealous individuals who take the cause too personally [intellectually] and act in a manner highly disconnected from the intended benefit of the cause. Insert any # tag movement you follow <here>.
Fear has a crucial purpose though. Fear creates intentional, temporary separation between people, which inherently reunites people with artificial differences.
We can only feel life through the contrast that we personally experience. To know loss, we must have known [something] first. To lose a fear, we must first know and admit that we have it.
I suggest to you, that the ultimate goal of Life is to experience Love. During a lifetime, most of us will have love and lose it, OR start off without love and realize its bliss before we die. The loss of love hurts at a level that is truly felt but difficult to describe, and has a wonderful [too often hidden] purpose. That’s a deeper topic, perhaps in a future blog or ideally in a live conversation.
To know which side of the Life equation you’re on, Having and Losing – OR – Missing and eventually Acquiring, you need to remain constantly aware of your Perceptions about Life. Too often we perceive the opposite of [shared] reality – that we have something we actually lack, or that we are missing something we’ve had for a long time.
How we invest our energy is paramount to living an inspirational life – a life that compels others to ask:
“What’s their secret!? Like them, I want to be feel connected with others, feel at peace and be incredibly happy.”
[Un]fortunately, the more intense our pursuit of happiness [for our own sake], the more it evades us. Is this a cruel joke of creation, -OR- a blissful, SELF-sustaining design?
Arrange a call with me if I’ve peaked your interest with these bold statements.
Perception vs Shared Reality
The only thing we can truly own in life is our perception.
Only our own source of inspiration can be truly known. It is a deep feeling often beyond verbal expression. Many people struggle to vocalize their source of inspiration. That’s ok.
We experience the world internally, through our five senses. Indirect experiences through other peoples’ description shapes our imagination, but has limits because no direct experience was felt and learned from.
We are inspired to act upon what we truly Feel and Know to be true. Direct experience is our personal truth. What Feels true to us, get’s stored in our Body for [trustworthy?] recall later, creating an Efficient interaction with life, but we should constantly question how Effective?
The old expressions are wise:
Follow your Heart. What does your gut tell you to do in this situation?
A knee jerk ‘response‘ might save your life. An on-going ‘reaction‘ will eventually disable that same life. Our responsibility to others, is to respond to our full ability.
Only our direct experience should shape who we become. What we perceive however, direct or indirect, becomes our personal reality – our “Personality“. How we perceive experiences in the world is therefore crucial.
We should not allow external factors and experiences which are not our own interpretation, to shape our inner essence. (Look at what prejudice does to society)
When we outwardly perceive [detect] someone else’s inspiration, we must be careful. Unfortunately our perception fails us often, when it is externally focused and biased for the majority of our life. We sometimes honor those who do not deserve it or we overlook those who could have positively affected our life.
Leadership is ignited by feeling compelled to serve with others. This is an genuine internal condition, not an externally-driven motivation. People inherently wish to serve in the broadest capacity possible. Once inspired, we strive to serve Life best as possible.
We do not serve an appointed Boss. We serve society. Leadership has NO title, only inspiring action.
Supporting ‘leads to’ Followers
We voluntarily follow only those who inspire us. The title of Leader cannot be appointed over us.
- If you were hired to formally Lead, how have you consciously earned that right since being assigned formal responsibility to support people?
- If you have chosen a Leader to follow, what was the basis of that choice? Was it a careful, conscious choice?
People choose to follow someone (their mission really) because that person/mission inspires and supports them in a sincere manner. Inspiration and support are truly realized by the personally shared experiences, well before or after any presentation or town hall speech. Too often, the opportunity to support (lead) is missed by managers who fail to engage people.
Key Point: It can be difficult to notice sincerely inspired people, if we are not somewhat inspired within ourself first. If YOU do not choose first to find and own your own source of inspiration, within yourself, then you will not be able to inspire someone else. You will be more inclined to follow the wrong people also. People who are actively seeking an inspirational cause, will mindfully see through the lies of the insecure person who is trying to create [force] a following.
If you look around you and notice people excited to follow you in shared service to others, THEY may call you their Leader.
The Inspiration Spark
So if we may have lost our inspiration, how do we rekindle our inspiration?
Some of us are able to spark the inspiration internally, independently. This is often triggered by major life events, “good and bad”. A lucky few of us are born inspired. Too many of us may live an entire lifetime feeling less fulfilled and disconnected with Life.
I would suggest that we all benefit from meeting someone who intrigues us enough to dig deeper.
- We must find someone who is undeniably inspired (our initial, personal view of them anyway).
- We must see it in their daily interaction with others.
- We must feel it in our own interaction with them.
- We are compelled enough to ask what drives them to support others and How they found their own inspiration.
- Consistency is the key as we strive to overcome any of our own dispassion or pessimism.
- Is the person we observe for our inspiration “consistent enough”? (no one is perfect)
- Are we consistent enough within our own mind as we interpret what we see and feel?
- Is it possible that the “filters of our own past” are diluting or distorting what should have been a wonderful transformation within our self?
The Mind is too often stuck in the Past or Future, which is pure imagination. Reality exists only in the Present moment Shared with others. Fear is nothing more than imagination outside of the Present moment.
To determine whether you are genuinely inspired, ask if you are someone who intrigues others?
- Do you rekindle your own inspiration daily?
- Do you truly inspire others frequently?
- How would you know that you have inspired someone?
Have you ever heard someone say to you “Wow, thank you! You’ve given me much to think about.” Or “Wow, I cannot wait to contribute or pay that forward” or literally “you inspire me to offer more to Life”?
Are you living an inspiring Life? Perhaps you are, but you may benefit from a brief assist from someone else?
I would be honored to help you find or re spark your own inspiration, and call upon the inherent ability and abundant energy reserve to consistently inspire others.
Key Point
To become inspired, it definitely helps people to see [fully sense] another person who is truly inspired – to serve/help life, one who goes beyond self concern consistently. Our imagination is sparked by seeing someone who continuously seeks an ever more genuine connection with life. There is no “good enough” for a person living in this state of inspiration. Seeing is believing [again], when we’ve known but lost our inspiration at some point.
Inspiration must be contagious. It must “infect” people, like an unwelcome virus, to gain mass and momentum. What we must counter – the cancerous behaviors of self-protection through command-control information hiding and unchecked authority – requires matched energy and polarity, if the corrective is to be effective.
To remain inspired, people need courageous moments to prove their resolve. In organizations, this involves courageous decision-making AND timely effective shared execution of those decisions, BY the group. Fear-based individuals acting unilaterally out of self protection is the common place behavior circa 1980s to 2018. This cancerous behavior will be forcibly retired [obsoleted] by those who are Connected to Life and Inspired to spark a Compassionate Reunion of businesses serving society.
Inclusion drives Inspiration
Often, the toughest decisions involve admission of failure, reversal of past decisions and change of current direction. People must be allowed to Directly witness the Leader succeed AND fail. A Leader IS vulnerable enough to admit failure and request help from others to aid in the group’s recovery. The Leader must be selfless when the group succeeds, being quick to give credit to individuals and the group overall, with a bias towards redirecting any personal accolades back to the group. The Leader must step forward to support during times of struggle, being the first [personally] to take accountability on the need for change.
To inspire people to become and remain involved requires Honesty and Vulnerability.
- Past outcomes must be reviewed, publicly.
- Sub optimal outcomes must be acknowledged and owned.
- Each new day must be coordinated and owned by those opting in for such Inclusion (the Team).
Inclusion is a two-way street. We must be genuinely Invited into group decision making AND sincerely Accept our Responsibility for group outcomes.
An organization is nothing more than a voluntary group of teams opting in each day for inclusion in that group’s goals and outcomes. They genuinely invite each other and sincerely accept their accountability, daily. Together they shape the reason for the organization’s existence. They share in the steering of decisions to fulfill the goals of that organization. Those goals and the group’s effort should clearly align with their desired impact (vs realized outcomes) on society.
Question
Shouldn’t we validate our impact by continuously asking those we serve, how we could serve in more effective ways?
What approach could we use to validate objectively?
(Please answer in the your own personal or work context)
