Leadership Manifesto- Lesson 2… Balance
I have yet to just talk in my blog…. rarely have I taken the time to just open up my thoughts and let the world know what I am doing or thinking. I have used my blog as a base of operations. I venture into subjects and connect with people from a familiar spot- just close enough to who I am to be safe and far enough out to learn…. a leadership guerrilla- if you will. There has actually been something bubbling……
I quit my job . A job I had for almost 6 years. Not the same job I had when I started, but MY job none the less.
Made a Fortune Off Being Happy
We all consider what will happen when we finally make a life changing decision. Most of us think the change will be GREAT and that we will be free and happy. Others may feel changes are like train wrecks… difficult and mangled with fault in all manner of people and circumstance.
The truth is that change can be more like a grey cloud. A strange place where you are not sure what is coming, just that something is different. Maybe I am different….maybe I worry too much….
The truth is- I do worry. I worry that the challenges I leave behind are my doing. I worry that the people I am moving away from may need me. I have concern that what I helped build may only be sustainable with my help. These are all DARK ideas and suspicions. These suspicions are probably not entirely wrong but more than likely they are not entirely right. They are the wrong focus. They are not what I should be coming to terms with. The reasons I am making a change….
What I am coming to terms with is that I am making a change for my family and me. The ideas of being a corporate baron have been replaced with a desire to smile and listen to my wife and not be secretly considering the changes I need to make with a business process. I would rather get home to play light-sabers than stay late for an accounting meeting. I want to go to soccer games and not be on my cell phone. I am finding that life is forcing a balance in me.
I am coming to terms with the idea that a leader should be the same person at home as he is at work. The foundation stems from a leader identifying himself through his values before placing his worth in his career or his ambition. Something I have recently discovered…
This is what my decision to change jobs has boiled down to for me personally: I had to build a new career level where I could start over and be me (balanced me). 2 weeks in Mexico would not have allowed me the rebirth I needed to change my path and stay at the same company. I had gotten obsessed with making things work… This job, this firm and this position were all too personal and it was time to make a break.
So- I want to thank those who have followed and argued and considered. I want to thank the people that have told me their story and asked for my help. I am grateful to those who believed in what we were doing and truly thought they could be better people. Everything that we ever did was because you all DID IT. All I ever did was ask you all to live up to your potential…. and you have…..
To those I am about to meet… I am creative. I freak out if I cannot do something creative and artistic. Building a company, a department or a process gives me an outlet for creativity. Be prepared to be asked ‘why’ 5 different times and 4 different ways. Are you accountable? Are you ready to push others to be their best for no other reason than you know it is how you get results? Are you ready to give without expecting to get something back? Do you understand balance?
As for my parting thoughts…. Jimmy Buffett said it best,
“Oh, yesterdays are over my shoulder, So I can’t look back for too long. There’s just too much to see waiting in front of me, and I know that I just can’t go wrong.
If it suddenly ended tomorrow, I could somehow adjust to the fall. Good times and riches and son of a bitches, I’ve seen more than I can recall.”
