Leadership Gold Part 1 of 10: Relational not Positional Leadership
February 16, 2009 by dr. lam · 10 Comments
I simply love John Maxwell. I have read many of his books but his book, The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership, has been a cornerstone to the way that I think and practice my leadership. He wrote Leadership Gold at the age of 60, which he turned 2 years ago, summarizing many of his leadership principles. I would highly encourage anyone out there interested in leadership to read both books or many of his books on the subject. There is so much “gold” in this book that I have decided to mine the gold over the next 2 weeks so that I can treat this important subject with more depth that it rightfully deserves.
Now many of you out there may be thinking, “I’m not a leader.” I have no interest in reading these blogs, but YOU ARE! Everyone has the potential of being a leader. If you are a parent, you are a leader. If you have friends, you can lead them by being who you are. I like what Maxwell’s objective of what a leader is for, to help others (more about that on another day). I want to encourage, exhort, and inspire all of you to be daily leaders to all of those within your proximity and perhaps even for those who are only within a more remote reach. More importantly, you need to lead yourself first. Well, I’m getting ahead of myself. That is tomorrow’s blog.
His opening thoughts were that leaders should not be lonely at the top. They are if they do not have any relationship with those who work on their team. When leaders separate themselves from their team, they no longer have a team at all. That is why I encourage the idea of “Team LFP” rather than subordinates. I know every spouse, child, and animal name for everyone in my organization. I take personal interest in their personal lives. Not prying but asking and being open to receive anything that I can help them with in their personal lives if they need it. I encourage them to call me at home and on weekends if they need me for any reason. It is the same offer that I extend to my patients on whom I have worked. (I in return do not call them during their personal hours and spend very little time on the phone if I must absolutely call them at home.) My team works with me and not for me. They are my lifeblood and they are as vital a part of Team LFP as I am. I like what Maxwell said, “A team does not care about how much a leader knows, until it knows how much he cares.”
I like what John Maxwell said about a “self-made man” who came to him and said, “I did everything myself, and I made it myself.” Maxwell wanted to respond, “I’m sorry. You must have not accomplished much then.” There is no such thing as a self-made individual. Anything worth achieving is achieved as a team not in isolation. Don’t kid yourself please in thinking that you made it on your own. If you think that, please don’t bother talking to me. I don’t think you have the clarity of vision of what a leader really is or does.
I am still learning myself in becoming a leader. Last year, my staff despite being very happy with LFP was not happy enough. I did not project the right leadership mindset and was not as approachable. I am working on that, and I am now fortunately more approachable. It was not that I was aloof. My staff simply did not perceive me as being as part of the team as much as I should have been. In 2009, I have made the promise to my staff and to myself to be a more vigilant and present CEO of this company and of all the businesses that I own. I am working on that mission every day, and I have encouraged my staff to tell me when I fail in that mission. I would encourage whatever position you have in life (personal or professional) to look and see whether you inspire followership. I let go a staff member last year that had many good leadership skills but also very poor ones. Simply put, that individual had no followers. If you have no followers, you are not leading. To lead, you need 2 things: direction and followers. I hope we all can assume a level of personal leadership for those around us. This world is truly crying out for good leadership. I hope you can be the one to provide it.
The Voice of Knowledge Part 1 of 4: Original Sin
January 19, 2009 by dr. lam · 13 Comments
I would like to thank Emina, emotional coach and hair transplant coordinator extraordinaire, for getting me to read The Voice of Knowledge, Ruiz’s “sequel” if you will to The Four Agreements. The information presented in this week’s blogs is not as structured as last week’s but should be thought of as important refinements in the thinking presented from understanding and implementing the four agreements into our life.
The title, The Voice of Knowledge, comes from the biblical tale of Adam and Eve, which opens the book. Without a detailed retelling of a well-known story, we can recount it in brief as an anchor for this blog. Adam and Eve were told by God not to eat from the tree of knowledge which contained the knowledge of good and evil. The fallen angel, Satan, in the guise of a serpent tempted humankind to partake of the forbidden fruit, which opened their eyes to their own faults and thereby unleashed a pandora’s box for the remainder of humanity.
Original sin, as Ruiz conceives of it, is not sex but our own self-directed lies about ourselves. We tell ourselves, “I am not worthy.”; “I am stupid.”; and “I will fail.” In short, we believe our own lies. The voice of knowledge is the voice of our own lies. Take it this way: when we were children and did not have the knowledge imparted to us of our own limitations, we did not know any better. We did not have knowledge of such things. We were invincible. Slowly, with the lies that we tell ourselves and the lies that others tell of us, we begin to gain knowledge that is in essence a lie. We begin to focus on our imperfections and we begin to subscribe to those limitations.
Ruiz’s grandfather, a Toltec shaman, instilled in Ruiz that he was perfect, as God created him to be. That the imperfections he saw in himself were a manifestation of lies that he told himself and that others told of him. Our gradual acceptance of these limitations begins to force us to view ourselves in this said manner and it clouds our ability to see clearly. The mitote, or fog, we talked about last week comes from a thousand voices telling us how we should behave or what they think of us. When all that really matters is getting to our true voice of how we should see ourselves. This week’s blogs will focus on getting us to see our real selves without the layers that we add through years of listening to the voice of knowledge. Tomorrow’s blog is on viewing ourselves as artists and how to tell our story.
The Four Agreements Part 2 of 5: Be Impeccable With Your Word
January 13, 2009 by dr. lam · 11 Comments
The first agreement is the most important agreement that you must have with yourself; it is at once the most powerful but also the most difficult to keep. We must struggle with it on a daily basis but we must not let a failure from yesterday influence our decision to continue with our fulfillment of this agreement. Many times we live either in the past or in the future, but we must live in the present moment so that we maintain each agreement as a daily renewable contract with ourselves.
Words are magical. The words that we use reflect more of ourselves than of those we speak. In the Gospel of John, it says, “In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word is God.” The words we choose to use can either be pure magic filled with love, compassion, and generosity or be black magic that casts a spell on all those who hear it. One man in Germany stirred up an intelligent nation to commit the most grievous atrocities and acts of violence 70 years ago simply through the use of his word.
To be impeccable with your word means to be without sin in your use of words. Impeccable comes from the Latin “im-” meaning without and “peccatus” meaning sin. We sin against ourselves first and foremost but we sin against others when we use words in a harmful way. When a child singing beautifully hears her mother say, “Stop singing! You have an ugly voice.” That child carries that agreement, or belief system, for the rest of her life. Even though the mother may have been irritated by any voice in her proximity no matter how angelic, the child will bear the burden of not wanting to sing forever until someone might break her spell with a new agreement, “Wow, you have the most amazing voice! Why don’t you sing for me?”
When we call someone “stupid”, we are not being impeccable with our word. If someone called you stupid in the past, and you are living with that legacy, you must make a new agreement with yourself to free yourself from the chains of another’s black magic. That person calling you stupid, uneducated, foolish, or whatever is pointing his or own finger at himself not at you.
The most emotionally poisonous black magic that we can throw is gossip. When we speak ill of someone else around us, we cast a terrible spell. If you are impeccable with your word, the spell cannot be cast on you no matter how black the magic the person uses. Being impeccable with your word creates an aura of love and acceptance that does not accept the black magic of the other person’s word. But you cannot be impeccable with your word if you cast that black magic. Using words to demean others reflects more on the person that speaks it than it does on the person against whom the words are used.
This first agreement must be made with yourself. It is an agreement to leave your own self-imposed hell. It allows you to only use words in an impeccable way. If you fail, do not abandon your quest. But begin anew. Be impeccable with your word.
The Four Agreements Part 1 of 5: The Fog & The Dream
January 12, 2009 by dr. lam · 2 Comments
Well, this week we move from the wisdom of the Far East to return to our hemisphere to learn from the ancient tribe of southern Mexico, the Toltecs, who practiced a not explicitly religious but nevertheless spiritual path to guide one’s life in a profound yet practical way. The wisdom from these blogs comes from Don Miguel Ruiz’s book, The Four Agreements. Today we will introduce the idea of what state we are in in our lives so that you can understand the necessity and the method of applying the Four Agreements over the next week.
The Toltecs looked at the way that we perceive ourselves as dirtied by a thick fog, which they called mitote (pronounced mih-toe’-tay). The belief systems that we have are instilled in us as a child, which we then carry forward for the remainder of our lives most oftentimes unwittingly. The Toltecs framed life as a 24/7 dream with an external dream and an internal dream. The external dream is what others have created in us as Ruiz argues through a process of “domestication” starting with our parents. If our parents say, “Son, you are no good.” We carry those limitations with us and we believe in those words even though it hurts us to do so.
Ruiz, a Toltec himself, posits that humans are the only beings that hurt themselves a thousand times for the same mistake. We also tend to hurt others for that one mistake that was made, whereas animals make a mistake and move forward. We allow others to abuse us, to judge us, and to permit ourselves to be victims because that is the domestication that was handed down to us. In fact, we can maintain relationships that are painful so long as that pain of abuse does not exceed our level of self abuse and self hatred. If you hate yourself to a certain degree, and someone else treats you worse than you treat yourself, you will divorce yourself from that person’s presence. However, if you are filled with self loathing, then even if the person treats you badly if it is less than your own self perception of abuse, you will tolerate that abuse and allow it to be perpetuated indefinitely.
In The Four Agreements, Ruiz uses ancient Toltec wisdom to help an individual break free from these draining belief systems, or old agreements, to create new agreements that emanate from one’s own personal dream to influence and shape the external dream. Why subscribe to the four internal agreements? Simply put, so that you can free yourself from your own personal hell and create your own dream of heaven. So that you can reduce your own internal pain and free yourself since no one else can do that for you. As you break these old agreements, you will see that you won’t be drained but you will be filled with a newfound sense of energy that will then feed itself to provide you even more energy, as you pursue your dream of happiness. What are these four agreements? Well, we will cover one each day over this next week. I hope you find this ancient wisdom as enlightening as I have in my personal quest for self improvement and self actualization.
The Art of Happiness Part 5 of 5: Confronting Suffering
January 9, 2009 by dr. lam · 2 Comments
There is the famous tale told in The Art of Happiness of Kisa Gotami, a woman who lost her child and who went to the Great Buddha to help her return her child back from the dead. The Buddha said, “No worries, I have a solution.” The woman replied, “Ah, I knew you would have an answer for me” with great hope in her heart. Buddha said, “Please go to a household and ask to have some of their mustard seed. However, just make sure that household has not suffered the loss of a family member or friend.” With elation, the woman went out to a household and was able to easily procure the mustard seed, a common item. But when she inquired, “Did any of your family or friends suffer death?” The answer would return, “Please leave this house. Of course, we have experienced death in this household.” With great frustration, Kisa Gotami buried her son in the forest. She returned to the Buddha now with the understanding that all men suffer and that her selfishness and longing for what was not possible only compounded her suffering.
Suffering is part of life. Death is part of life. We all grieve at certain losses of loved ones, friends, possessions, social rank, etc. However, suffering is inescapable. It is part of our very existence. When we accept suffering as a fact, we can unburden ourselves that our suffering is somehow unique. We can share that suffering with others in compassion (see yesterday’s blog) and we should try to carry the burden of another’s suffering as our own through our compassion. When we recognize the impermanence of life and things we can confront our suffering as we should, which is that it is a fact that will occur. Through acceptance, we can lighten our burden and not make it weigh us down to the point of not seeing forward or upward or around it.
Buddhist thought espouses that there are 4 Noble Truths: 1. Life means suffering.; 2. The origin of suffering is attachment.; 3. The cessation of suffering is attainable.; and 4. There is a path to the cessation of suffering. Without engaging in a thorough exegesis of Buddhism (which I couldn’t do anyway since my knowledge is at best cursory from just reading this short book), suffice it to understand that our path to eliminate suffering involves eliminating 3 behaviors: ignorance, craving, and hatred. Ignorance does not involve stupidity but ignorance of the fact that life will have suffering and that is part of our samsara, or existence. Second, the origin of suffering is our attachment or craving and constantly wanting (please read Tuesday’s blog on contentment.) Third, we must let go of hatred.
When someone attacks you, it is your response to the hatred that will either create your own destiny of self destruction or provide a channel of freedom based on your response to it. If you do not allow the hatred to consume you but to pass you by, that will free you. I have a gentleman who wanted to blaspheme my reputation and engage in slander. Of course, my initial reaction was vehement hatred, but I am truly truly free of that. I look at all humanity with equanimity and compassion and feel compassion for such an individual and for all humanity equally. I feel an intimate connection to all pain out there and feel pain deeply when someone is suffering. I have an innate sense of that because I have worked to cultivate that compassion. I am certainly far from being there and am a work in progress, but these blogs serve as a cathartic vehicle for me to express my inner soul to you and hopefully help someone out there who should decide to read these words.
This week we have investigated how we see positive things in our life (contentment and intimacy) and negative things in life (compassion and suffering) with the same vigor, tranquility, and open-mindedness to make our lives fulfilled and happy. Clearly, these short blogs do not do justice to the complexity of the book, The Art of Happiness, or all of the extensive writings of the Dalai Lama. These abbreviated thoughts are meant to frame further thinking, research, and emotional awakening in your quest for happiness.