Happy new year to all my esteemed readers and followers of the Leadership Shepherd with Babs. Undoubtedly, the train of 2022 is moving, and I know there is something to live for once there is life. My famous book, Transform yourself (the secrets for unleashing and maximising your potential), is a compendium of inspirational tools to living a fulfilled life. It is premised on living a responsibility-based, change-driven and possibility-centred life. As good as the principle in the book is, it is not visible except the reader unleashes and maximise every year.
2021 is gone. It left some of its impacts with us. The scar of Coronavirus is still an experience. However, the difference between your person in 2021 and the years before that is what you became in 2021. Consequently, the difference in your person by December 2022 is who you have become from the first day of the year.
How can an individual or organisation become better than that the previous year?
A story was once told of a man at the airport to board a flight. He was a well-dressed man. He was almost at the edge of missing his flight. At the checking counter, the man jumped into the queue. He was met by a flight assistant who insisted on respecting those in the queue before him. In a blink, the man living in his ego shouted at the top of his voice. Do you know who I am? He intended to intimidate the airline staff into thinking he was a top government or a prominent corporation official. Unfortunately for the man, the flight assistant proved to be different. Rather than arguing with the man, the flight assistant picked his microphone and openly announced. She said, ‘ladies and gentlemen, there is a man at the counter who does not know whom he is and needs help in identifying himself. The egocentric traveller could not believe his ears. He, without being told, joined the queue and was seen quiet during the flight.
Have you identified yourself? Life could be embarrassing if we fail to get the basics right. The starting point for every change is the capacity to identify what we are dissatisfied with. The capacity to identify who you are and what you are created to do and flourish at will determine the velocity at which you explore and maximise your time on earth.
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A man without self-identity is a man on a mission to dissatisfaction. It is a disaster to drive on a hundred and twenty miles per hour on the road leading to the wrong destination. The price is more than a waste of time or resource; it is tantamount to a waste of destiny. Imagine Gareth Bale had not discovered and pursued his penchant for leaving the defence to join the offensive players in football. He would have remained and possibly ended his career at Tottenham FC. His penchant to move to the front line where it is more intense made Harry Redknapp convert him to a striker. The outcome was a reward for the player, the team and the world.
The world needs you to identify with yourself and drive yourself to a better version of your person in 2022. The difference between who you are in the previous years and who you will be at the end of this year is an issue of the mind. It would be best if you conceived it before you pursued it. Pursuing 2022 is, therefore, to explore it and maximise the opportunity therein. The opportunities in 2022 are clothes in a parachute called work.
In my Infinite Stake theory, I highlighted the value organisations place on their employees and its impact on business outcomes. The same principle of identifying oneself is also applicable to organisations, nations and other entities. This is more of the reason that is separating enduring institutions from an assembly of people pursuing unspecified outcomes. I will share an outcome on the use of the infinite stake mindset from a client with your next week.
What of If I have a clear identity? How would I explore 2022 and make it a better year than 2021?
The answer is simple. Forget New Year resolutions. Go for the Goal Achievement Strategy. You must move from wishful thinking by itemising the work and effort required to achieve your planned outcome. Assume you can put in efforts to make yourself better in terms of your contributions at work, your relationship and your mindset. In that case, you will experience how easy it is for a man to navigate towards a determined destination. You will develop the tenacity to endure setbacks as long as you have the destination in your mind.
Organisations pursuing profits ahead of employee engagement end up being in a rat race of chasing after competitors. Those who focus on their culture and people and create a thriving environment for employee engagement end up getting the profits, market share, and brand image quickly than expected. It is like planting a seed on fertile soil or planting the same seed on a rock. That former is what the first t$3trillion company in the United States of America did. Apple focused on employee engagement that birthed customer satisfaction and industry leadership.
Finally, one likely stumbling block for people on the right lane of life is ego. The assumptions that you know it or you have arrived. The ‘I’ or ‘Self’ of a person can be his or her limiting factor. Ego can stop you from achieving your objectives in 2022. It can prevent you from building the needed relationships to thrive in business and in your personal life. Ego can make you feel too big to apologise to the client where that is all that is needed to build an enduring relationship.
To explore and maximise 2022, strive to be a better version of yourself by investing and working more on yourself than anything else. It is what you have become that matters above who you are.
Once again, I wish you a fruitful 2022 as you journey through it.
