Young Millionaire Group

Leaders are people who know who they are and have taken the time to become self defined.  They have developed and chosen to adhere to a definition of themselves that is realistic and doable. 

A leader must make the choice to develop the necessary skills and traits that will eventually lead to the success he or he chooses.  So, how do you develop those traits?  What steps can you take that will help you become a more well defined individual?  There are some questions below that will help you become better defined.  They are not the entire answer to your self definition, but they give you an honest start to becoming what you truly want.

 Who do you want to be?

What do you want to do with your entire life?  If you had $1,000,000,000, what would you do with your life?  Is there a direction you would like to pursue, but never have?  Go for it!!  Don’t let your past dictate your future.  Be who YOU want to be.  Do what you want to accomplish.  You will be much more effective if you are doing what you love.

 Does who you want to be align with your values?

I am always amazed when people come to me that are disappointed in their job, business or career that completely is in contrast with whom they say they WANT to be.  Of course you are not happy!  You are being incongruent with yourself.  The only person you are fooling is yourself.  Get in tune with yourself.  Define yourself according to your values, NOT according to what career currently pays the bills.  Look to the future you are creating and moving towards and you will be happier in the path that you are currently taking.  You know where you are going.  Now is just a stepping stone or a tool to get you where you want.
 
 What can you truly accomplish?

Are you being realistic with yourself?  Can you truly accomplish what you want to be?  If you cannot sing, should you try to be a great singer like Luciano Pavarotti or Michael Jackson?  If you are not of an athletic inclination, should you try to be Michael Jordan or Lebron James?  If you are not creative should you try becoming a great fiction writer like J. K Rollins or Terry Brooks?  The point is that each of us has some natural talents.  We should learn to develop those talents and find the career or business that can best make use of those strengths

 What are your concrete plans to accomplish this?

I cannot stress how important it is to create concrete plan or goals to accomplish your dreams, goals and desires.  But if you want to be a leader, it is absolutely CRITICAL for you to set those to the written page and to daily reference those plans.  There is very few builders that would build a building of any consequence without referring to written plans.  There are few musicians who will improvise without at least knowing what key and chord progressions are coming.  There are few boat captains that will leave port without at least a general direction of where they are going.  Why should our LIFE DIRECTION which is much more important warrant any less critical attention.  Well, it shouldn’t

 When will you begin?

This is where most fail.  Nike got it right when they trademarked Just Do It.  You have to start the process.  You will find errors along the way.  Make adjustments and keep going.  A rocket is off course 90+% of the time as it heads to the moon, but it gets where it’s going through constant adjustment.  You, your career or your business will be no different.  Move, adjust and analyze.

The real key to a leader being defined is the desire to improve.  If you are constantly looking for ways to improve you will find the keys to success in your search.  Some will take longer than others, but work first on yourself and then on your tasks.  Define yourself to take advantage of knowing your strengths and challenges to better equip you and those whom you choose to work with to accomplish the things that are needed in your life.

I look forward to hearing many stories from each of you on your definition and your dreams.

Many of you may know that I majored in Music.  It is one of my “critical” loves.  There are many things that exude excellence.  But, music is universal and spans cultures and many other barriers.

Here is an example of some killer music.

It is Vocals ONLY.

Tell me if you think this is excellence?

In an earlier post I talk about Chaos and what creates Dissonance in your life.  I will let that post stand on its own.  For this discussion I need your full attention as we are going to approach congruence from a positive standpoint.  The human brain likes the negative tilt.  But, today we are talking about leadership and leadership must be approached from a positive aspect.

Congruence is the making sure that what you say matches what you do and what your goals and values are.

Therefore, it is harder to achieve.  Many people are incongruent at a single time or with a single issue, but they are congruent overall.

A leader should be able to maintain congruence no matter the battle and he or she should be able to transfer that congruence throughout the organization.  Now, we all know that not EVERYONE will get on board, but the majority will if the cause is just and the leader is congruent.

So, we must talk about just how to get to congruence.

First, the leader must be congruent with their personal self, values and goals. There are three aids that I think will help tremendously; Value Sheet, Personal Affirmation and List of Values. With these three and the explanation below, you should be able to define your core value set and align it to a personal affirmation.

With these tools you can begin to truly align your value sets with your goals and remove the chaos that this misalignment may have caused in your life.

WARNING: This drill may produce significantly different results than you were expecting. It did for me.

So, here’s how we do it!

Take the master list of values and circle every value that you really think aligns to you. Be generous and circle who you really are.
Go back and place a rectangle around the twenty or less that describe who you most want to be.
From that twenty, take a highlighter and highlight the 12 that are critical to you.
Number them from one to twelve.
Write the top ten on your Value Sheet.

Second, the leader must develop a core group of similarly congruent leaders.  These leaders must be on board with the leader’s direction and be willing to infuse them selves into the business with the same commitment (or more) to the process that the leader has.  This creates a culture of success and the necessary emotion necessary to surmount the challenges that will inhibit success.

Third, there must be a clear plan of action and measurable results.  Those results will be the only way of defining success within a congruent company and the buy-in mentioned in the second point is the key to gaining momentum.

As a final thought, congruence as a leader is created through self discipline, team discipline and a maniacal focus on the goals that you set as a team.  However, the key is self commitment to your own congruence and teaching congruence throughout your organization.  There MUST be consequences for those individuals that feign congruence but don’t live it and there MUST be a commitment to follow-through.

Wikipedia describes vision as a long term goal.  Webster’s defines vision as the act or power of anticipating that which will or may come to be: prophetic vision; the vision of an entrepreneur.  OK, that’s a little closer.  But, vision is so much more than that.

Vision is the ability to see the goal, see the clear path to it and the necessary tools to get there.

Vision is a "gift" developed by leaders by failing their way to success.  The ability to see-the-big-picture or look at problems or issues as they affect the entire organization is special, but it is a developed skill.  True, some people are better at it than others, but the critical fact is that you can learn vision.

Many people say that it is something that it is something that is inborn or "given".  They are wrong.  Vision is the clear and defineable process of successes and failures that allow one to become refined in "seeing" what is able to be accomplished and the resources necessary along the way.

Vision is a learned talent. 

Many people learn it from corporate America.  A few learn by taking their lumps along the way in building their own business.  Even fewer learn by apprenticing under a great leader with vision.

I challenge you to refine your "VISION" according to your dreams and go out there and SEE just what you can accomplish.

If you leave a comment here, share YOUR vision with us!