Margie Warrell

I’m currently back in Australia which is in the midst of a federal election campaign. Last week Australia’s Prime Minister Julia Gillard, who deposed her former boss Kevin Rudd in June and has had anything but a smooth campaign to date, announced that from here on in the Australian people would see the “real Julia.” Frankly, I was quite surprised by her comment which left me, and I assume many Australians, wondering who we had seen up until now if it was not the “real Julia.”

Of course there are many traits we want from our leaders — political, corporate and otherwise. Intelligence, hard work, common sense, integrity, empathy, humility, decisiveness, and the list goes on. But what we all crave is for them to be authentic, genuine… real. And when it is absent (or perceived as lacking), it can profoundly damage trust and diminish their ability to exert the influence, and create the positive change, needed of them as leaders.

Reflecting on the backlash Julia Gillard received this last week for her comments, it made me think about the bigger lesson here for all of us, regardless of our politics or leadership aspirations. Obviously there is nothing inherently wrong with wanting to fit in, to be liked, approved of, or “look good” in the eyes of others. You and I are, after all, only human. However, if your desire to achieve this comes at the expense of expressing who you really are — no smoke and mirrors or custom-designed masks – or requires selling out on a core value in some way, then it comes at a steep personal price. Think about it: how can you be the real you when you are preoccupied with impressing people or having them like you? You can’t! That’s not to say you aren’t mindful of how you might be perceived nor that you act in ways that are disrespectful to those around you, but rather that you don’t allow others’ opinions (or perceived opinions) define who we will be or keep you from being real. [...]

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As you know, I’m all about thinking bigger – about ourselves, about our problems and about what we are capable of in life.

Yesterday morning an old friend told me that Oprah is running a competition to see who she will sponsor to host a talk show on her new Oprah Winfrey Network when she steps down next year.  With thousands of people already with their hat in the ring, some with over a million votes (yes, this is a popularity contest like American Idol!) I immediately came up with a dozen reasons why I shouldn’t bother. Every one was driven by fear – fear of looking foolish, fear of failing, fear of you thinking I’m kidding myself for even trying, fear of wasting my precious time. But I’m pleased to say I caught myself midstream.  How wimpy of me to let my fears keep me from daring to try.  So while the odds are stacked high against me, I’ve decided to throw my hat into the ring anyway.

What I need now is for you to send a vote my way and share this link with your network to stand a chance. But, as a believer in the power of possibility, I am going to put myself out there. As much as I would love the opportunity to share my message with a few gazillion more people than I do right now, what is more important to me than the outcome is the knowledge that I at least gave it a go. Whatever happens, I will always be able to look back and know that I gave it my best.  To me that is what success is ultimately all about, doing the best you can with what you have been given. Whether we achieve our goals and dreams isn’t as important as the fact that we had the courage to pursue them.

PLEASE VOTE FOR ME NOW:
http://bit.ly/DreamBIGOprah

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Terrorism, recession, identity theft, melting ice caps, corporate downsizing, child predators, online predators, super bug predators . . . every day the headlines scream at us to batten down the hatches, sanitize our hands, our minds, our voices and avoid any possibility of rocking our boat or the boats of others. We live in a culture of fear that urges us to avoid change, trust sparingly, stick with the status quo (however miserable) and minimize all risk of failure or social embarrassment.

It’s for this same reason that you need to be increasingly vigilant of the fears that arise in you, discerning about which fears you pay heed to and mindful of the oppressive impact giving them power can have.

And if you don’t? Well. . . I hate to be the bearer of bad news but. . .

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On the eve of Christmas I just wanted to remind you to take a moment to reflect on what the Christmas holiday represents. It is a time to deepen the connection you share with family (near and far); to experience gratitude for your many blessings; to remember the precious lessons you’ve learned in the year just past (however disguised they were at the time); to laugh at yourself as you wonder why it took you so long to learn some of them; and most of all, to think about how you can use your hard-earned wisdom to create a more meaningful and rewarding future… in 2010 and beyond.

Let go your attachment to having everything be ‘just perfect’ this Christmas. Rather, go with the flow and savor the unique experience of this festive season — for all that it is and for all that it isn’t. Life, with all its ups and downs, its joy and its sorrow is a precious gift.

Time to celebrate!

Photo courtesy of kugelfish

By the way, as you read this if you’re struggling with how to ease the stress, then watch this interview from yesterday on how to experience more joy this Christmas season.

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As I try to move down my big, long to-do list this week in preparation for all the merrymaking I will be doing in the weeks ahead, I’ve found myself feeling a bit overwhelmed. Okay, more than a bit. So I have stopped. Stopped to take a big deep breath, to look out the window at the sun streaming in and to ask myself “Why the hurry?”

As I’m sure you’ve experienced yourself, it’s very easy to get caught up on the “do it all” and “be it all” merry-go-round this time of year. They call it the silly season for a reason.  Which is why I’ve stopped mid-flight and am writing to you right now. Because most of the time I find that if there’s something I’m struggling with, someone else is too.

So, what to do? First up, is to breathe. It may sound foolish or overly simplistic but pausing and just focusing on the very simple act of breathing can be quite transforming. So how about you do it. Yes…right now. Just follow your breath…in…and out…and as you exhale, imagine all the stressful thoughts leaving your body, your psyche, your spirit and in their place leaving a peaceful quiet and a deep knowing that all is well.

It will only take you one minute right now to breathe in 10 big deep breaths but it will make a difference for many hours to come. I know you have lots on your plate but I also know that you, like me, can spare one minute.

Next up is to ask yourself what really matters to you this Christmas season? Is it to have the best wrapped presents, the most decorated home, the hippest holiday party or is it to truly connect with the people you love most in the world, to deepen the bonds you share and celebrate all the wonderful things that life has brought you? [...]

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“Live your life with arms wide open, Today is where your book begins… Your life is still unwritten…”

These are the lyrics from a song I recently discovered on my 11 year old sons iPod.  Titled ‘Unwritten’, Natasha Bedingfield sings beautifully about what I believe about so passionately. That is, that we are the authors of our lives and that every day we get the opportunity to turn the page and write a new story about who we are and the circumstances we find ourselves in that determines our moment by moment experience of life.   [...]

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Greetings from the wireless zone in Albuquerque airport where I’m planted for a couple of hours waiting for my flight home. I flew over to New Mexico last night to speak at a school principals conference today at the fabulous Hyatt Tamaya Resort. I love doing work that takes me to such interesting places. I also love getting the opportunity to speak about things that I’m so passionate about.

This morning I spoke on “Courageous Leadership.” One of the things I shared was how the way you see yourself determines how others see you. If other people aren’t giving you [...]

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Last Friday I flew in on a red eye flight from L.A. to D.C.  I had a meeting that morning and when I mentioned I’d just come in from California (which was on a Swine Flu Emergency Health Alert at the time) the person I was speaking to said, sort of jokingly but not really, “I hope you didn’t bring the swine flu with you.”  The next day, at one of my sons soccer games, I was introduced to someone and when I extended my hand to shake theirs, they said anxiously, “I don’t think we are supposed to be doing that anymore.”

“Struth!”, I thought to myself, “Talk about paranoid.”

Which got me thinking, how come everyone is so fast to panic about all the bad things that might happen to them? What’s with the hyper sensitivity to catching a virus that quite frankly, isn’t that likely to be caught! Why is everyone so preoccupied with all the bad things that might befall them?

Now I’m sure that you aren’t one of those people whose been walking around with a gas mask, sterilizing your hands at every stop light and refusing to shake hands, but perhaps you have found yourself  feeling [...]

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Earlier this week I was speaking to a woman who had just gone through an acrimonious divorce. She shared how she felt completely bruised and battered by the process of ending her 8 year marriage and that while she knew that the future was her own making, she felt really unclear about what she was going to make of it. Her self-esteem had taken a beating. Needless to say, she wasn’t feeling very powerful. I suggested that she think about the character traits that would describe the kind of woman she would like to be – her “ideal self” – in the face of the challenges she was dealing with. I also suggested that she write down how that ‘ideal self’ would see the world and in particular, how that ‘ideal self’ would step forward to rise to her current challenges.

The next day, she emailed me to tell me what a powerful and empowering exercise it was. She shared that she’d written down how she’d like to be more courageous, more confident, more assertive, passionate and self-assured. If she was being all those things she knew that she’d focus in on what she cared about the most, she’d stop getting upset by the things her now ex-husband had said, she’d get herself a bright new handbag that she’d carry to bright new places, that she would call up some old friends and do some of the things she’d been wanting to do for years but never gotten around to. She’d also quit worrying about what everyone thought of her.

Which begs the question — if you were being the courageous version of yourself, the “you” that didn’t give in to self-doubt and cynicism, resignation or procrastination and that held fast to the belief that you could change those aspects of your life that you didn’t like, what would you do?

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Perhaps your idea of power relates to people in positions of high office and formal authority — politicians, company presidents, policemen and the like. But I define power not as formal authority, but as one’s ability to affect change. In other words, being powerful is far more than a job title; it’s an attitude. To me, truly powerful people are those who live life on their terms, who are comfortable in their own skin, clear about what they want, courageous in how they go about achieving it and very conscious of the power they have to choose their response to their circumstances.

I guess it goes without saying that there are many people in the world who don’t live their lives powerfully. People who:

• continually find themselves a victim to their circumstances (and so are forever in “complaint”)
• are always trying to please or impress people around them
• say yes when they want to say no and so constantly find themselves over-committed (and failing to honor commitments)
• don’t challenge the values and beliefs of those around them nor take time to clarify their own
• allow other people’s moods and emotions to determine their own
• who settle for way less than what they want both from others and from themselves
• go through life rudderless and following the path of least resistance
• avoid speaking up if it might ruffle feathers, or worse, risk a confrontation
• don’t believe in their ability to change the things they don’t like nor to pursue the things they do

Of course at times we can all find ourselves failing to act in powerful ways (and yes, I’m speaking from experience ). But what matters most isn’t that we sometimes fail to express ourselves authentically, stand for what we want and refuse to settle for what we don’t. After all, we are all human. Rather what matters most is that we notice when we are doing so and then consciously choose to reset our sails, reclaim our voice and step forward doing and being all that we want for ourselves in life.

It is my deepest belief that we are all — and yes, that includes you — powerful beyond measure. That within you lies the resources to create and accomplish extra-ordinary things and to affect change in the world in extraordinary ways. Truly. The thing that keeps most people from doing that is not all the barriers the world has erected to keep them stuck. It is simply their lack of belief in themselves; in their own personal power.

In case you haven’t already picked it up, I’m pretty passionate about empowering people to reconnect with their personal power. Which is why I’m hoping this will cause you to stop all that busy doing and reflect, even if just for one minute, on the life you are living and the limits you have imposed on yourself. As I wrote about in my book Find Your Courage, the biggest barrier you face to having the life you want to live is the stories you’ve bought into about what is possible for you. So take a step back and ask yourself, “Where could I be more powerful?” Where could you be affecting positive change more profoundly and more boldly in the life you are living, in the lives of those around you, in your team, organization or community. . .  in the world at large. (For an example of personal power in action, please read about the One Day Without Shoes campaign!)

Believe me, you have more power in you to affect change, to produce results, to change your life and by default, the lives of others than you can possibly imagine!

And if you don’t know where to start, begin by answering this one simple question, “If I knew that I could change anything, what one thing would I choose to change in my life today?”

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