Nordhausen, self-leadership and true success is what it’s all about this month.
‘Travelling – it leaves you speechless, then turns you into a storyteller.’ Ibn Battuta
Rest of Blog Grateful to have once again got the chance to travel to Nordhausen University in Germany to teach a course on self-leadership and success. No doubt there will be the telling of many stories and the exchanging of many different points of view as there are so many of us here from all over the world.
I’ll start by asking them, “When they hear the word ‘leadership’, what’s the first thing that comes into their mind? For most people think of management, power, position or something that you are born to do. When asked to name leaders they admire, most people think of, Nelson Mandela, Mahatma Gandhi and Barack Obama. While they may be leaders, this is neither the type of leader nor the type of leadership that we will be discussing at my workshop. The leadership we will be talking about will be one starting with a small ‘l’ not a big ‘L’, in the sense of what the traditional definition of a leader is.
For self-leadership begins with you as an individual and your willingness to improve your life. There’s no need for big or grandiose achievements. While these may happen, they don’t have to for you to live a life of self-leadership. Becoming a self-leader doesn’t mean you have to set out to save the world or anything like that. What is meant is that you identify what you love and want to do in life. Having done this, you then give it your all to make these things happen, to take ownership and the responsibility to see that they become an integral part of everything you do as you move forward with your life.
Yes, luck favours the brave and, if you want to live the life of a self-leader, you will need some element of luck, but you will also need to be brave and determined. The fact is, luck often only comes to those who do the legwork, the ones who are prepared to put the time, effort and energy into looking at where they want to be in their life and how best to make this a reality. They are the ones who have the determination to go on and take action to make sure they have a chance of achieving the life they want to live. They understand that they must take on the traits of the self-leader within their own life and work if they are to succeed and be successful.
I will then have them tell their story of how it is they want to live a life of self-leadership!