Change Your Thoughts-Change Your Life Part 17 of 20: Living by Remaining Low
April 21, 2009 by dr. lam · 4 Comments
The 61st Verse:
A great country is like the lowland,
toward which all streams flow.
It is the reservoir of all under heaven,
the feminine of the world.
The female overcomes the male with stillness,
by lowering herself through her quietness.
So if a great country lowers itself before a small one,
it wins friendship and trust.
And if a small country can lower itself before a great one,
it will win over that “great” country.
The one wins by stooping;
the other, by remaining low.
Two of the omnipresent symbols that Lao-Tzu uses are the feminine and water, which he enlists with great effect in this verse. The oceans rest lower than the streams so all the waters lead into the mighty ocean. Accordingly, when we quietly exert our presence, people and things are drawn to us. Similarly, the feminine or yin energy is a quiet and friendly one compared with the male-dominating yang. Oftentimes we are led to believe that to succeed we must leverage our yang energy but that oftentimes pushes people away from us. In history, when a leader would subjugate another people by force, it would lead to brutality, which would invariably lead to a returned brutality and self annihilation. Instead the feminine or yin energy leads by quiet example rather than forceful intervention. This type of leadership creates a more lasting and peaceful condition that continues to grow and mature rather than be fought and destroyed over time.
It is interesting because I radiate a very quiet yin energy, and I think that is why more women are drawn to me than men. I lead through a quiet presence rather than a forceful one. My staff and I are like a unified family rather than a totalitarian regime in which I rule by force of will. That kind of yang energy will be short lived and lead to mutual dissolution.
In some of the verses of the Tao Te Ching that I did not cover in this blog series, Lao-Tzu discusses how the yin energy is more in harmony with nature, which is a central tenet of his philosophical thesis. He looks at this “Divine Mother” as a life-giving source of all things. Being harmonious with nature means being in harmony with your yin energy. As you have progressed over this month (and many previous months), I have focused on many precepts that are of essence yin in nature. Today, quietly lead others by your yin energy and draw them to you like streams to an ocean rather than through force of will.
The Mastery of Love Part 7 of 10: Self Love Vs. Selfishness
March 24, 2009 by dr. lam · 8 Comments
This is a big topic. At first glance, these two things seem to be precisely the same, when in fact they are polar opposites. When we love ourselves we will not act selfishly. When we hate ourselves, we will act out of fear and loathing and will respond to the world in a selfish way. Remember in last week’s blog, we talked about two courses that we can pursue in a relationship: the track of love and the track of fear.
When we love ourselves and are happy/content in our lives, we can radiate love to all those around us. Our magical kitchen we talked about yesterday is full, and we can make any dish that we want. However, when we live in a fearful state that we don’t have love, then we follow the track of fear. By doing so, we only see scarcity and we act out of fear that we will lose that precious relationship because we are needy. Alternatively, we may be just filled with emotional poison that we transmit to all of those around us like the emotional ping pong that we addressed last week. When we are filled with self poison, self loathing, and self hatred, we look at the person next to us with that same dread and we push their emotional buttons to release our own poison. We then have that other person release that poison back onto us, and matters escalate.
When you are accepting of yourself and when you reach a happy state even without reference to another person, you invite love in. As I talked in my leadership series, you must first work on yourself. You must lead yourself. You must love yourself, then others can love you. Or if you are a leader, then others will follow you. All of you who read my daily blog are on the same journey with me toward life fulfillment, enrichment, happiness, and peace. I am honored that you can work with me on our personal journey toward self love and away from selfishness.
Leadership Gold Part 10 of 10: Making Critical Decisions
February 27, 2009 by dr. lam · 4 Comments
There is no time that a leader shines (or sinks) than during a crisis situation. As Maxwell says, 95% of the time, you don’t need a strong leader but that 5% is when the team rallies around the leader or dismisses him. Churchill is perhaps one of the shining exemplars of stepping up to a leadership role when the crisis in Europe was at England’s doorstep. Churchill’s entire leadership was defined by his wartime role in getting Britain to victory.
Decision making during crisis times can be very difficult. When Steve Jobs stepped in to Apple in 1997, he was confronted with a profound crisis that was about to unravel the company he founded. His leadership during this time of peril pulled Apple from the brink of disaster and infused the company with a newfound creative direction in computer design and entering the world of music that was unchartered but necessary.
Fortunately (or unfortunately), I have not had major crises, but I have had too numerous to count smaller crises in my organizations. I think one of the defining things that a leader can do is cut a valuable player when that individual bucks against the culture and causes a cancer to envelope the organization. If the leader can align the individual into the fold, then the day is saved. But if the leader cannot, the individual can destroy the morale of the company and undermine the credibility of the leader. No one person is too valuable to the organization to let go. This is a difficult thing to understand for any leader but one that I have learned and relearned the hard way for all of my organizations. The culture is king.
There is a game that I have played on EO retreats called the “green tail” or also start, stop, and continue. It is a hard one to play but should be played when there is already a deeper level of intimacy in a group and when one can “not take something personally” as one of the 4 agreements we talked about. The idea behind this is that if one person thinks you are doing something wrong, then perhaps that person is wrong and not you. If two people think you are doing something wrong, then it just might be true. If three people think you are doing something wrong, then it probably is true. The idea of the green tail is the same. If one person thinks you have a green tail, you may or may not. If two people think you have a green tail, then maybe you do. If three people think you have a green tail, then you better turn around and check. In the exercise, everyone in the group writes anonymously on a card what they want you to “start doing, stop doing, and continue doing” then they pass all the cards to the person about whom the card is written. It is not an easy exercise. I continually ask my staff if I have a green tail because I want to make sure earlier before it is too late when I need to cut off the green tail.
Maxwell calls this the “Bob phenomenon”. He had an employee whom everyone thought was just dreadful. Of course, his name was Bob. Bob obviously did not think he himself was terrible. However, who was wrong? Of course, Bob. One of the critical roles of a leader is not to let a Bob survive in the organization if he is behaving like Bob.
Leadership Gold Part 6 of 10: Helping Others
February 23, 2009 by dr. lam · 3 Comments
Many times, leaders assume their leadership position merely for the material gain or posturing that such a title affords, e.g., the corner office or a respected status. However, all great leaders in the history of mankind have one thing in common: they have made a difference. Leadership provides an individual the capacity to help others in ways that he or she could not do as well outside of a leadership position. I like how John Maxwell summarized the main objective of leadership: helping others. That is beautifully put.
I feel that in my position of leadership that I have your attention so that with hundreds of people reading my blog every day I get an audience that I can directly impact. I can’t tell you how great that feels. Your blog responses mean the world to me. It means that I am getting through. It means I am connecting, and we are connecting with one another. When I work with my staff, I am so proud that I know that I am giving them a great place to work so that they in turn can help others. I feel that we all in turn share that leadership position so that we can then lead others. I like the saying, “Leaders lead leaders.” By leading my staff to impart the ethical, passionate, and creative approach to patient care, they then carry out that mission.
I hope that all of you assume the mantle of leadership in small and great ways. Remember that to be a leader you just need two things: direction and followers. That does not necessarily make you a good leader but just a leader. If you want to be a leader, ask yourself what direction are you taking your followers? Do you have any followers to begin with? Are you taking them on a selfish direction for personal gain? Or are you sticking with Maxwell’s basic tenet of leadership, that all great leadership is focused on helping others?
Leadership Gold Part 2 of 10: Leading Yourself
February 17, 2009 by dr. lam · 8 Comments
Most oftentimes a leader is focused on leading other people without truly realizing that the most important person to lead and also the most difficult is himself or herself. The reason that I write these blogs is as an exercise to get myself better as a leader. They are life lessons for me first. If I cannot lead myself, I will have no followers following me.
Most oftentimes, we do not work at self-improvement but look at everyone around us as needing work. Maxwell says that when we criticize someone else, that is called constructive criticism. However, when someone criticizes us we call that destructive criticism. I am certainly not perfect at taking criticism, but I am a lot better today than I was even last year and last year I was better than the year prior. Remember from the 4 agreements, “never to take anything personally”. That is very important in this case. Too often when we judge others, we judge them by THEIR actions, whereas when we judge ourselves we judge ourselves by our intentions. This two-tier system of criticism leads us to failure because we never meant anything by what we did or so we rationalize, but that person certainly should have known better. We must strive to create a harmonious congruity by how we perceive ourselves and others.
Maxwell, a former preacher, still says that he ultimately does not trust himself to lead himself. That is why he has established external accountability for his actions. That is why I wrote about accountability a couple of weeks ago and why I emphasized how I am accountable to other business leaders/owners in my EO forum group. How have you made yourself accountable? To whom? What interval?
We as leaders (and that means all of you too!) must hold ourselves to a higher level of accountability. Linda, who is my spa director, asked me last year why I have apologized to my staff for seemingly small infractions, and I explained that as a leader I hold myself to a higher level of accountability of who I am and who I should aim to be. There is no other person that can truly hold you to that level of accountability than yourself.
When we first lead ourselves, we can then have a chance at leading others around us. I have learned a lot about real-life leadership this past year and have worked even more diligently at becoming a more centered leader. By virtue of that, my patients and my staff and everyone around me has benefited. I must start with myself. You must start with yourself. We must start with ourselves. I look at my readership as part of my extended team at LFP because I would love for all of us to grow as humans in our common fraternity.