Kitabı oku: «The Female Leader», sayfa 6

Your mission is to live up to your values

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f you have your main focus on your mission you won’t have much time for doubts and conflicts, fortunately. You are bright, awake and always in top form. These attributes, namely your character, makes you a better person. Your commitment inspires other people. You become so alive when you suddenly live up to your values and take your purpose seriously that you even give wings to other people’s careers. Because you are suddenly alive yourself, and become adorable and intoxicating in a refreshing way! This way, your charisma, your personal magnetism increases in proportion to the scope that you give your mission.

A mission that sparks produces action and attraction. Your intentions determine your lifestyle both qualitatively and quantitatively. You define a game that more and more people join and which encourages them to tell others about your business. But this depends solely on you communicating your ideas with complete conviction without leaving any question marks. The further the scope of your mission is stretched the more fame you will reap. “Fame” means immortality. Your aims could well be designed to outlast your death, and you will enrich your life and make yourself alive even more. In a certain sense a family is such a mission: you pass on offspring to the future with commitment, responsibility and love. In your lifetime this love will already be returned ten times over in a wonderful way.

Visionaries see far and clearly. People who follow their path can be recognized by their external appearance. They move as if they were approaching something. They walk upright and look clearly ahead as if they had a map to show them the way. Other people for example always look at the ground or slouch. They meander through life like that. And then of course there are people who can laugh and those who pull a face. If you are seized by a great idea and are prepared to pursue it, you will have glowing cheeks.

On the springboard to the goal in a few leaps

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ou begin your business journey best by envisioning your own intentions or invoking the picture you have of yourself and which others should have of you. How should others see me and my business? What should someone else say about me? You have to answer these questions to give your business a structure. Try to put your mission into a couple of concise sentences such as a private business plan. Your mission, mind you, is not the artificial credo of collective companies. These sentences should arouse all your passion every time you read them. Just thinking about what you see before you makes your heart beat faster and turns your day into pure pleasure. If you formulate this mission it has nothing to do with your “funeral eulogy” any more, but with something that you can freely and frankly share with others. It is so to speak the “Holy Ghost” of your business religion: “Go and tell it on the mountains”. You should inspire others when you express what is important to you in your career. Write down your goal in a couple of short, clear, terse and purely positive sentences. What should your business project do for other people? How do you want to achieve your aim? Why should others be inspired to work with you?

Nevertheless it is advisable to involve only trustworthy people in your mission statement at first, people who also have your respect. These people are there for the test. If your mission has a meaning it will spark off others. This mission concerns what is most important to you, what you do, love and enjoy most in life. You can therefore grasp and feel it. The more defined your mission is, the happier your life will be.

A successful mission is based on ambition. It requires a strong ego. You want to be a business leader, and such people are driven by three factors: affluence, fame and profit. Imagine that you had not exhausted your life, that there is more – that is the profit, the surplus value that your life has through the fulfillment of a mission. Imagine that your values outlast your life - that is fame. Imagine being unconstrained and untroubled by money matters and therefore being free to deal with things beyond your business – that is affluence, and it doesn’t sound bad. Entrepreneurs are not better human beings because of it. But they go their own way, like happy children who demand a lot in their innocent way.

Which of these three factors fires you the most – affluence, fame or winning? Which thought drives you the most? Do you dream of fame? Does financial independence appear the most important to you? Do you simply want to emerge as a winner? It is generally considered taboo to answer these questions in the affirmative. Do it. Look yourself in the face to find your values. See yourself in your dreams to have a clear mission in front of your eyes. There are no taboos. Logic doesn’t come into it. Look for something that really turns you on. It will cause you a bit of fear, as it is so far from reality. Don’t be fooled. If you look these positive fears directly in the face, energy is the result. After that comes the work, ten per cent inspiration, ninety per cent perspiration. But you’re happy to sweat for the right goal.

Your style is your image

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s soon as you walk out onto the business playing field, you lose your diffidence. As soon as you stand up for your mission, other people will regard you in a new light.

Listen to how others regard you, what they say about you. That is your personal image. Make it into a distinct brand before others label you with it. What character do you want to play? What costume goes with it? And what part do you want to play on the business stage? You still have freedom of choice. Your image is the one thing by which other people can read your intention. One can tell from your clothes whether you are going to get milk or going to a business meeting – at least, hopefully. Your style, and we are not just talking about your clothes, has to correspond to your advised target group, to your customers and business partners. This style (not style in the sense of fashion, thank you) is your manner, your native wit, your sense of humor, your character – whatever makes you unique. You discover your own nature when you let yourself be who you are. Only when all affectation is put aside and you are completely relaxed (without prosecco) can you look at yourself calmly in the mirror. There you are. With a bit of luck you are the person that you know rather than the stranger who greets you with, “Hello, do we know each other?”

You radiate the image that you have. It is the direct projection of your intentions or un-intentions. If you want to be successful, this image will galvanize others to work with you.

That doesn’t mean that your present image is already the appropriate one. Find it by trial and error, and don’t play the prima donna, an unrecognized goddess on earth, at whose feet everything should lie. The more natural and relaxed you become the more honest and stable your business will be. You notice this from the magnetism you have. You radiate energy from which others can create. And that will pay off when you are dealing with selling. So cultivate an image that you want to live and that is you. If you are not yourself, you attract the wrong people. If you have customers whom you can’t stand, who are not “your type” at all, you can feel how much effort and nerves it costs.

Pretending is the wrong way. And everything that you do will not only grow stunted, but also go in the wrong direction.

Career barriers: Bustle, panic and tactics

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mission is a good reason why you do something and which direction you work towards.

You unleash an unbelievable amount of energy and drive. You suddenly feel power. And that’s good: you will need all your convictions to overcome obstacles that inevitably lie in the way. Among them for example might be your own shortcomings. One of the main reasons for passive melancholia lies in the belief that you won’t do anything wrong if you don’t do anything – a wildly inaccurate assumption, but that need not interest us here. It is a matter of course that you make mistakes as soon as you start on something. Good trainers allow mistakes in order to study them. For then they can be dealt with as soon as they arise – otherwise not. The second reason is that your image is almost never congruent to your character. You can change, while others still have the same picture of you. You will often experience this when you deal with people whom you haven’t seen for a long time. On these occasions you are still in the old condition, which you have long left behind. For one is always in a position to correct oneself on the road to success.

Every contact, every conversation brings an experience with it which you build into your business strategy for the next time. Therefore your performance becomes more and more perfect. If there were no tactics, there is the third reason. Your desire to get on with everyone and simply to do nothing wrong can lead to you losing sight of your mission: you are everything under the sun, but no longer yourself.

It is better to lose a client than to lose your character. For if no one can classify you correctly – if, for example, you present yourself as the well-known “jack of all trades” – they will not take you seriously any more. The market shows that you are more successful if you specialize in something. For you have exactly the right, loyal customers for your service. Still of course it doesn’t do any harm to update yourself regularly to show who you are.

Every human being is in a state of permanent growth, and it’s fun to demonstrate this growth. Nothing is sadder than the inclination to press people into clichés. On the other hand it is a means of giving a basis to a relationship with someone, just like remembering somebody’s name. But everyone likes to be surprised, above all when it is something to do with “the latest state of affairs” with regard to you. Produce regular updates about yourself, as in the form of circulars, newsletters, updates, Christmas letters and New Year greetings. If someone still sees you as a grown-up little girl, that’s your fault. You see reality more clearly if you are in tune with your image. But be prepared for the fact that not everything you see is wonderful. For one thing, some of your abilities will not survive the ordeal. For another the decision to follow a course will perhaps force you into realizing that it is the wrong one – but that is much better than not even starting. Perhaps you have too little patience. Or you give in too easily. Perhaps you are even at the point where you begrudge other people what they have. Without realizing it, you are always finding the fly in the ointment; you question everything, and only look at the negative sides. If you diagnose these symptoms, you are still in the dark salon of melancholia: unconsciously you have the feeling that others must be responsible for your fate. However, you are not responsible, not responsible at all. Don’t look for reasons any further but go into action. As soon as you start up your business you will be faced with the problem of having to suppress your appearing mistakes and characteristics in flux, so to speak. In every business meeting other people will pose questions by which you can measure and recognize yourself. That is wonderful. If everything were so simple and static the whole business wouldn’t be any fun. Everything is in flux, and you permanently work on a traveling ship. Every step takes you further. Instead of sitting around and holding conversations about yourself and your self-awareness, throw off this melancholia and learn about yourself through action.

A further important step in getting to know your strengths and weaknesses of your activities is the help of people whom you like and value. Ask them to be honest with you. Politeness is out of place here. The nice friends with the prosecco are drinking only to your misery which drags you down further. We mean the people with good intentions whose views don’t correspond to yours, and on account of which you always try to pretend something else which they see through: your mother, your ex-friend, your brother. Simple feedback – instead of criticism, pieces of advice or formulas – will already help you to jump onto the path that is the only right one – your own. Ask them if there are things that don’t agree with your real intentions: if you are pretending to be somebody other than you are. Perhaps it is only about the correct presentation of patterns of behavior, ways of presenting yourself which don’t suit you according to their opinion. For example: “As soon as you are in company of people who can be useful to you, you play up like a superstar who expects to be paid for their appearance. The first goes down well, the second doesn’t.” Draw up appropriate rules in order to play a part that pays off: your own. Everything else is a waste of energy. Quite a few things that you read here give you a light sting. Just take time to go through them one after the other and to observe your perceptions after a few days. How did I get here? What is right about it and what not? Where am I? Where do I want to go?

The human brain is happy to remain on the subjective side, and so it is incredibly difficult to look at yourself from an objective perspective without other people’s help. Other people always have a certain impression of you. Those who know you well give you exactly the feedback on what suits you and what doesn’t. Try it. Let people who have no vested interest tell you who you are and how you present yourself, and how, where and why these two things differ from each other. That is not necessarily to say that you are intrinsically a self-obsessed, arrogant person. Perhaps you even underestimate yourself, hide your light under a bushel too much, and in fact have more greatness and beauty in you than you admit to. Whatever: if you go along with your personality you will be unbeatable.

At this point in your career you simply have to think about yourself as objectively as you can. You are at the point when your calling card coincides with your personality. If so far you have only been doing things for fun you have not been taking yourself seriously. Then why should others take you seriously?

When you have jumped this hurdle other perspectives open up. Suddenly you can tell what is and what isn’t okay. You stop being ironic. You mean what you say. You are listened to. You are accepted and respected. Such a realistic perception will arise at every threshold of a new level of business. In the course of time the fog of routine will always lie over your doings, and when you wake, it will only happen through your fundamental awareness of yourself and your situation.

With a clear, realistic and completely critical view of yourself, you can learn a lot from other people. For example, people who think completely differently from yourself. It is unbelievable what dimensions other points of view have, and not only through encounters with other cultures. Even an insight into the world of your neighbor can have many new things in store for you. Furthermore you now have the ability to think about scenarios in which you yourself take part in. You will inevitably feel whether you are comfortable in the role in which you find yourself. Your reason will in turn tell you what lies in your path and what doesn’t. As soon as you tread a path there will be bandits. If you have a realistic view of yourself and your aims your reason will tell you what and who is good for you and what not. Your logical understanding quickly grasps the problems. It is the bulwark against the mental inclination to jump between options, to acknowledge your point of view as the only valid one and not allow other interpretations.

Stand by yourself. Feedback from others is control enough. Stop making excuses and justifying yourself. Don’t be continually asking why you did this or that. You can quietly throw the things you have concocted out of doubt into a pot. The main point is that you accept these things. The results speak for themselves, even if you are trailing 2:3 at halftime. Congratulate yourself on your realistic view of things. Only then can you think about what to do in the second half.

Bonding is everything in our increasingly productless service economy. In order to fulfill your mission you work daily in close contact with your fellow human beings: partners, friends, colleagues, employees, bosses, service providers etc.

And your cash flow. The quality of both constitutes the barometer of your vitality. If you work without these fundamental qualities, you are possibly frozen solid in your interpretation of life.

You will gain clarity when you see what results from your activities. Every experience will either enrich or diminish you. The rest is explanation and vindication. If you really learn something from it your vitality will increase. Your mind will sometimes be confused. That means that you are entering new mental territory. Your mission can be realized when you step out from under the shadow of melancholia and exchange it for the great game of life. Then get to it.

Often when your plans threaten to break down or when your life takes a turn to the negative side, you will be able to recognize whether you have measured up to these challenges and can pull yourself out of this mire with the help of your own personality by looking in the mirror. Once your mission is clear, nothing can drag you down.

YOUR GOALS

“The North Sea will sooner look for water than a woman be lost for words.“

(Jutland saying)

Values give a vision a basis. And missions give values a system of coordinates. Goals are the definition of your intentions in concrete, measurable results. The verb “to define” comes from the Latin “finis” (“end” or “goal”). A de-finition is a predestination of an ultimate plan.

As your mission develops, your business game will become immensely exciting and attractive for others as well as for yourself. Your company is an exclusive party, and “parties are meant to last”, as Prince already pointed out in his song “1999”. Even this once utopian year is some time ago, and we must honestly and sincerely realize that there is nothing more dreadful than a never ending party. Not only because we are getting older, not on account of the effort connected with it, but because we get lost in it and don’t get any further. It has no prospect and “lasts” without changing itself or anything else. Fortunately every party eventually reaches a certain stage of exhaustion. The same goes for your business party, as it lacks something crucial: energy reserves.

If your mission progressively comes true your business game will take on bigger and bigger dimensions along with it. It depends above all on the zeal with which you pursue it. Your enthusiasm is the magnet of your business. Your new-found charisma and your interest will connect the interest of other people to your activities. If you stand behind what you do your efforts will automatically be linked to the right people.

You set goals as soon as you resolve to do your own thing. But sometimes you are not at all conscious of them. The problem is the party. It goes on, but it has no goal, no end, and no definition. If no idea dominates what should come of your intentions, there is gaping emptiness. Is your business also woven like that?

Business and relationships

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e can now quite simply ask, what is your goal? This is one of the elementary questions in coaching, and of course it can be answered in different ways. But first let’s bear in mind what it means to have no goal.

The average German “relationship”, an invention of the problem orientated and freedom seeking eighties when marriage was out of favor, is generally distinguished by its lack of commitment and aimlessness. Language and phrases reveal this wonderfully: “Since I’ve been in a new relationship, we solve mutual problems that I never had before.” Standard expressions are, “Give me time”, or, “We have to talk”. Talk? Try loving!

A prescribed terminology that can nip any kind of passion in the bud. One imagines a young, yearning love other than unhappy evenings drowned in red wine that you don’t want to end in which misunderstandings are cleared up, things that were said are analyzed and commented on, where once again something is said that wasn’t meant like that, what has to be explained once more, and so on. To quote Prince again: “revolving every word that is being spoken”.

Or the actor Vincent Gallo, who once defined a relationship in three phases: “hysteria, self-abandonment, exhaustion.”

Or let’s take the satirist Wiglaf Droste, whose characterization of a relationship is reflected in the functional word “Versöhnungsvögeln”or “VV” (“the forgive-me-fuck”), which often follows a bitter argument. We don’t really want to go through all the psycho-games and bizarre ,patterns of behavior in a difficult relationship again. A passionate and sincere “pardon, honey” looks somewhat different anyway. How quickly can it be discussed to death. Such a constellation, sinking in mediocrity and artificiality, has come to such a desperate state because it has no purpose, no aim.

Immanuel Kant defined the human being as “its own purpose”, which underlies what distinguishes each individual, who has hidden within himself his own unique, large, distinctive goal, the pursuit of which lasts his lifetime.

Nobody else has this one goal, for everyone has a different one. According to Kant, to discover it and cultivate it defines individual life. When a relationship has a goal - and many people resist this idea, because it supposedly doesn’t involve emotions any more – or when both partners complement each other in their aims, then you have a “power couple”, an unbeatable team, that nourishes itself on the greatest source of human energy that there is: love, which is different from a mediocre “relationship” that is always dependent on moods.

Whatever you undertake, i.e. really go for, you do it because you want to reach a goal. Sometimes it isn’t so completely clear. The party mood you are in betrays plenty of emotionality. Christopher Columbus didn’t just set to sea to have a look around a bit. He wanted to find the sea route to India. This idea gave him strength.