What was your annunciation moment?

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According to author David Brooks, an annunciation moment is when something sparks your interest, or casts a spell, or arouses a desire that somehow prefigures much of what follows in one’s life.

For many who have found their vocation, there is a defining “annunciation” moment that sets an early direction for their life’s work. In the midst of a vast and noisy world, something inside is quieted and they hear a voice that sparks a desire to explore something and live within it.

The poet, John O’Donohue, expressed these moments as “beautiful places where we felt immediately at home.”

It is embodied in the times when you felt most fulfilled, when you were doing something that felt instinctively effortless, when you felt “immediately at home.”

Two experiences come to my mind. One was listening to Earl Nightingale on the radio while driving to church with my father in our 1964 red Plymouth Valiant station wagon. I was thirteen years old but it became clear to me then that I would be one day be teaching and writing and communicating my ideas to the world.

Around this same time we lived across the road from a family with a volatile, angry, alcoholic father. We could hear the late-night yelling and banging and breaking. Their son would come over and spend time with me the next day. Nothing was said about it. We’d ride horses, explore the caves and the forest together. Although we didn’t talk about it, something inside me knew, before I could even articulate it, that I would one day support people who are dealing with trauma, tragedy, and misfortune in their lives.

What were your annunciation moments?

How to Create a Growth Plan for 2023: EQ, Authenticity, and the Power of Self-Awareness

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A great deal of research suggests that emotional intelligence (EQ) – the ability to identify and regulate one’s emotions and empathize with the emotions of others – is vital to success at work and in life. A high EQ helps you build healthy teams, reduce stress, increase engagement and motivation, achieve higher productivity, foster psychological safety, defuse conflict, and improve job satisfaction.
One of the four pillars of emotional intelligence is self-awareness – having a comprehensive grasp of who you are as a person and a leader, and how you show up in the world. The more you understand yourself, the better you can connect with others. Self-aware leaders know their strengths, weaknesses, and blind spots, and how to work with them. They are comfortable with themselves and genuine. They have a better understanding of emotions and how they affect behaviour and can recognise those emotions in others.
So… where does self-awareness come from? How do you develop it? Can you create a plan to become more self-aware?
The following suggestions will assist you in designing your own authentic leadership development plan for the new year by incorporating the five components of self-awareness.
  1. Purpose and Vision. Leadership is a consuming activity. A sense of purpose, along with a clearly articulated vision of what you want your life and your leadership to be like in the next five years, will enable to you to stay passionate so you can inspire those under your care.
  2. Insights. Learning is key to self-awareness and growth. What insights do you need this year to build your personal capacity toward your purpose and vision? What books will you read? What courses will you take? What teachers will you seek out?
  3. Self-Reflection. Connecting to others begins with listening to oneself. And listening to yourself requires a place where you can hear yourself think. When you spend so much of your life attending to the demands of others, you can lose yourself by failing to distinguish between your authentic voice and other voices that clamor for your attention.
  4. Feedback. While a habit of personal reflection can bring an element of growth and self-understanding, it will only take you so far. You ultimately can’t solve problems with the same thinking that created the problems. We all have blind spots. We need feedback from others to see what we can’t see.
  5. Employing a guide. Authenticity is a lonely journey, but it can’t be done alone. The lone-warrior model of leadership is, in the words of Ron Heifetz, “heroic suicide.” Guides – those who can take us into the unfamiliar territory of our own development, can come in the form of therapists, coaches, confidants, recovery programs, and peer-mentoring groups.
As you continue your authentic leadership journey into 2023, incorporating some strategies to increase your EQ will undoubtedly heighten the success of your growth plan. What strategies will you try?

What is your development plan for 2023?

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As you map out your personal and leadership development plan for the coming year, it’s important to understand the difference between horizontal growth and vertical growth, between learning about leadership and true leadership development.

We live in a world of horizontal growth, a world filled with sixty second sound bites, 300-word posts (case in point), five-minute YouTube videos, twenty-minute TED talks, and audio books we listen to on the way to the office. These can be inspiring and insightful as we move “horizontally” from one insight to the next.

However, vertical growth – true leadership development – is different. Vertical growth comes from digging deeply into the layers of our character and getting to the core of who we are as a person. Vertical growth is ongoing, deep, and results in sustained self-awareness. Our culture isn’t used to digging deeply. When things get uncomfortable, we move to the next headline, the next fad, the next shiny object, or the next perspective to reinforce our viewpoint. Don’t mistake listening to an inspiring podcast with doing the deep work. Both have value and both are necessary on your authentic journey. But they are different.

You might have a plan for books to read, podcasts to listen to, or YouTube channels to subscribe to, but what will be your plan for vertical growth this year?

If you are committed to deeper vertical growth this year, check out our SAGE Forums: https://davidirvine.com/sage-forums/

What one question will make all the difference in 2023?

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When Ben Hunt-Davis’s underachieving Men’s Eight British rowing team came seventh in the world championship in 1998, they set themselves a crazy goal of winning an Olympic Gold Medal in just two years.

Setting such a goal required an entirely new way of thinking about their training. For the next two years they began challenging everything single thing they did. With the unifying goal of winning a gold medal, they developed a framework, a funneling question, and measured all their decisions and actions against it: “Will it make the boat go faster?

  • “Will staying up late the night before the regatta tomorrow make the boat go faster?”
  • “Will my choice of what I’m going to eat at this meal make the boat go faster?”
  • “Will my workout I’m doing today make the boat go faster?”
  • “Will the choices I make in the relationship I’m in help me make the boat go faster?”

The question impacted all their decisions and actions.

By focusing on this single question, they discovered it wasn’t such a crazy goal after all. On September 25th, 2000, Ben and his crew won Gold at the Sydney Olympics.

What one question will guide your vision this year?

What one question will make all the difference?

What one question will form a framework for and filter all your decisions and actions in the next twelve months?

Make sure you think carefully about what truly matters and the direction the question will take.

12 Habits of Genuine People

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Travis Bradberry recently published a Forbes article titled, 12 Habits of Genuine People. He builds a good case for the value of being genuine, then outlines the hallmarks of genuine people: “they don’t pass judgement … they’re generous … they treat everyone with respect … they aren’t motivated by material things … that aren’t driven by ego … they aren’t hypocrites.”

While these compelling virtues undoubtedly point towards authenticity, the article inspired me to think more deeply about my research and understanding of what it means to be authentic. If one holds these qualities of authenticity as the gold standard of a genuine life, we may unintentionally fall into a trap of attempting to live up to an ideal that’s humanly impossible, then become, paradoxically, inauthentic. Is anyone truly virtuous enough to be immune to hypocrisy, judgement, disrespect, the desire for material things, or ego?

If we are honest, can anyone possibly adhere to these qualities every day? And is falling short of sainthood the same as being inauthentic? And are we perpetuating a culture of complaint when our leaders fall short of these expectations?

What if, instead of being ingenuous, falling short of this near perfect standard of genuine meant being human. Being human doesn’t mean lowering our standards or becoming complacent. We can always improve. Authenticity is a commitment to staying real in our progress.

When it comes to authenticity, the notion of sincerity comes to light. The word sincere is derived from the Latin sine meaning without, and cera, meaning wax. Dishonest sculptors in ancient Rome and Greece would cover flaws in their work with wax to deceive the viewer; therefore, a sculpture “without wax” would mean honesty in its imperfection.
Authenticity, like sincerity, is honesty in its imperfection. We don’t have to hide from or be ashamed of our cracks. In the words of Leonard Cohen, “that’s how the light gets in.”

Rather than creating an illusion of perfection, being authentic means embracing our humanity. It means a commitment to bring our hypocrisy, insecurities, judgements, materialism, and ego into the light of awareness, and notice their impact so we can create safe, honest, accountable, more fully human workplaces.

CARING IS EVERYTHING – Getting To The Heart Of Humanity, Leadership, and Life

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We are all inspired by random acts of kindness, particularly this time of year.

But does our caring have to be random? What if we decide to be more intentional in our actions?

Caring has a pervasive, enduring influence on the well-being of those around us. Caring impacts who we are as people and the places we work and live. So, considering caring intentions for this holiday season, I propose, that along with your to-do list, we make a TO-BE list.

Here’s mine:

  1. Be Kind. In Charlie Mackesy’s book, The Boy, the Mole, the Fox, and the Horse, the mole and the boy have a conversation: “I’m so small,” said the mole. “Yes,” replied the boy, “but you can make a huge difference.” Then the mole asked what the boy wanted to be when he grew up. “Kind,” said the boy. Now that’s a worthy goal for any of us.
  2. Be Generous. I know of a family who decided, this year, that instead of buying presents for each other they adopted a Ukrainian refugee family to ensure they all have warm clothes and love this holiday season.
  3. Be Curious. A caring way to de-rail an activated stress response is to get curious. While being angry may be an understandable response, it only worsens it. Curiosity transforms anger into understanding, opens the door to empathy and compassion, helps solve the problem more effectively, and lowers your blood pressure.
  4. Be Present. When on vacation it seems the places I visit are more beautiful than where I live. But, is the place really more beautiful or am I noticing something I take for granted in my day-to-day life? When my wife was hanging her Christmas bells this week, I stopped to be present to her joy, which in turn brought joy to me. What makes a task valuable and life meaningful is the quality of the attention we give to it in the present moment.
  5. Be Patient. Practicing patience is having the maturity and composure to be kind – even when we don’t feel like it. When stressed, overwhelmed, and surrounded by impatience, it is even more important to find compassion for people around us.
  6. Be Thoughtful. Being thoughtful of others starts with being thoughtful within ourselves. Over the coming holiday season, take time to reflect on what truly matters. Step away from the clamor of the demands of others and the noise of social media and think about what’s in your heart. Take time to meditate, to be grateful, and enjoy a sunset. Hug the people you love. Make time to listen with empathy to someone who thinks differently about the world than you do. Take your dog for a longer walk. Embrace each moment, for you’ll never know if the next one will come along.