The ugly duckling

At my worst moments during childhood, this story warmed my heart: the ugly duckling that was in fact a beautiful swan.

I have seen that in my life and many others’: from being bad or not so intelligent, people have turned wonderful people. My question is: How?

A few years in Colombia, I’ve met my publisher who convinced me to write a book. I decided to write on self-leadership and it turned to be a way for me to understand my own process from being an ugly duckling to a swan.

The story is really about overcoming limitations and becoming what your dreams are showing. It was for me an inspiration and I am sure it can be for you too.

I suggest you to consider yourself an ugly duckling and think about those limitations or weaknesses that are preventing you to become that wonderful swan. Don’t think too much of them…

Now, see yourself as that wonderful swan: you have overcome all those things and you are now whole… Think of that the time you want.

Many virtues and many defects

Maybe we don’t realize, but we have so many virtues – qualities that ease relationships and make life in a collective a wonderful experience.

Perhaps what we don’t realize is the quantity of defects we have – qualities that make life with others and the environment much hard.

We have both and it is good to know that, and to embrace both sides of the self. In a recent song nominated for the Oscar, the singer talks about how she saw clouds in a romantic way, until she understood clouds may mean harm and damage too. Life has both sides and to deny either of them is not healthy.

So if you are one of the many people in the world who don’t think very high of yourself, it is time to change that mentality: count your victories despite their small size, understand your main positive qualities and develop them, and above all, love yourself.

And if you are one of many who denies having any defects, just accept them: remember your defeats as a way to get a bigger success, work on those defects you have and, along with all that, unconditionally love yourself.

When you keep working on both sides, your life will be richer and you will inspire many others too.

Understanding the self, others and life – a key for success

The first stage for success is to reach a point when the person really knows himself, in all its levels and dimensions: what he likes and what he does not, strengths and weaknesses, potentials, virtues, inner powers, capacity, etc.

However, it is not enough. Know thyself is essential, but it is equally important to know others and life in general.

Well, if you still feel don’t know yourself, then take your time to do it by exploring and talking with yourself, without any judgment or preconception.

Then, do the same for others: explore, talk and don’t judge. By knowing others you will be able to create lasting bonds and make the best of your lives on this planet, because you’ve probably have noticed our species, communities and societies are based on relationship more than anything.

Then, do the same for the rest of this blue jewel in the black ocean of space: explore reality going beyond any assumption; relate to nature in all ways possible, and don’t judge. This will guarantee your path in this world will be firm, but without hurting anything on the way.

And then success comes, as natural as a river flowing downstream... It comes from your dedication to understand reality and improve yourself, as improvement comes with real honest observation.

Success comes because it has been always around, you only needed to realize it.

True leaders plant the seeds of new leaders - Reason 37

I will tell you one thing: a good leader is one who is capable of bringing up other leaders.   If a leader wants to lead alone, he is a tyrant.   True leadership is fruitful.   Each one of you has the seed of leadership.   The leaders of today will not be here tomorrow.   If they do not plant the seed of leadership in others, they are worthless.   They are dictators.[1]    Pope Francis

Literature often paints our society as a dance between leaders and followers.  As time passed by it turned to be a dance between followers only.  After all, leaders who are not true, they are indeed following someone else.

Whenever there is a leader who is dedicated to a true leadership, it comes from within.  It is based neither on a position in the organisation, nor even on the capacity to influence.  It comes from a conviction that will inspire and create future leaders, not just more followers.

Pope Francis highlights something very important in this quote:  the‘fake’ leaders who are in a certain position in the organisation or have a huge influence on others, are those who tend to create followers who do not question, and who will remain as followers unless they make a conscious decision to free themselves.

In contrast, true leaders will be surrounded by people who empower themselves and choose a clear destiny.

(Excerpt from the book 82 Reasons to be a Leader)

---

[1] Pope Francis.  He mentioned this during a teleconference with students from Havana and New York.  You can see the article at http://www.edition.cnn.com/2015/09/17/world/pope-francis-new-york-cuba-youth/

Taking care of our health…

It is an important element of these days and everybody seems to be thinking about their health. But one day this shall pass and then we shall go back to our old ways… I hope not.

Health is wealth as it enables you to do as many things as possible and obtain resources. If you have health, but no wealth, you can at least generate the minimum resources for your life, but if you have wealth without health is like having feet but not shoes…

And health is a very complex topic as our bodies are complex. But we need to not only take care of it during the crisis, but learn to take care of it at all times.

Let’s not forget our mental health as we fight against being in enclosed spaces or living with other people in ways we were not ready for that.

I am not from healthcare, but I would like to suggest you to take care of your health in three different ways, based on my many experiences of dealing with my own body:

Let’s keep on checking with doctors. Although this present crisis has shown us that we must learn how to research on health topics and we shouldn’t be depending only on doctors, it is important to insert them to our life, and according to our lifestyle, since there are many avenues of medicine.

We take care of our lifestyle. A good diet, a powerful routine of exercises and many habits will help us to improve our capacity and immune system. It is time to invest time and energy developing all of those.

Spirituality also helps. It is a very wrongful myth that spiritual people don’t take care of their health, but even many spiritual people also believed it. In fact, by developing spirituality we will naturally take care of our body, as we will understand the importance of health in our lives. Practices as meditation or prayers have a wonderful effect in health too.

This is the first of a series of articles on self-care.

When coaching can’t work a miracle

I’ve started to study about coaching many years ago, but my first real experience to coaching was as an unwillingly coachee and the coach in this case just attacked me, by firing a series of questions. Of course, one of a coach’s skills is to confront the coachee, but I am sure that was coming from a very dark place as she just wanted me to change and I am sorry if I could not change in less than half an hour.

Maybe that is why I’ve taken time to embrace my role as a coach, because I do believe in it and my coachees have had very good experiences, but I don’t believe in miracles as my first unintended coach wanted. Unfortunately, many people advertise coaching as a way of doing miracles.

Coaching technique is fascinating and it really works, but we have to bear in mind any change is limited by three main actors: the coach, the coachee and life.

The coach must provide the best of themselves, making the effort to help the coachee to find new ways to attain whatever is not possible at present. Skills are important, but more than that is the will from the coach to benefit the other person and the energy she or he contributes to the process.

A coachee is not a passive actor and they require committing themselves with the task at hand: a personal change. Even though the coachee allows the coach to direct the process, they should be aware all the time and not fall into the trap of what the coach wants for me.

But life will play a valuable part here, by providing or not resources for the impossible to become possible. And there are times when even though both worked hardly and efficiently, things won’t work well… If that happens, both actors should remind themselves to find success in the failure in the form of a lesson or something intangible attained during that process, such as patience, and move on.

So, no miracles, but coaching is a very clever way to get changes taking place.

Satisfaction is so natural – Reason 38

When you eat something nutritious and tasty, you feel that wonderful sensation, as if the world is the most wonderful place…  But, after a few hours, that type of satisfaction will end, and the same could be said to toys, cars, holidays and people’s company.

Most of the world is looking for a different type of satisfaction, but only find the one that is as ephemeral as it was sung in the 1960’s by The Rolling Stones[1].  Ultimately does not give long-lasting gratification.

One of the reasons is that most of time we take satisfaction from actions and external situations.  However, leaders find satisfaction inside themselves, using the external not as a source, but as a means to make other people realise what the leader is inside.

For instance, maybe a person will look for a friend with whom to talk and go out, and his satisfaction will rely on that interaction.  On the contrary, a leader will have something to talk about and when a friend comes their conversation will happen.

It is good to be a leader as she or he IS a satisfied person, and has no need to create external means in order get to that point.

---

[1] (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction is a song composed by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, the leaders of The Rolling Stones, launched on June 6^th 1965.

(Excerpt from the book 82 Reasons to be a Leader)