Without fail, you are busy doing something right now to deal with your future. Now that may seem pretty obvious to you, but just take a moment and get the extent to which your life and your leadership is consumed by your concerns for what hasn’t happened yet.
Right now you are concerned about a deadline (in the future), what you have to remember (for the future), what they will think of you (in the future), what will happen to you (in the future).
If you really get this, you might then ask yourself, “What kind of future do I have in front of me?”
For most people the kind of future that is in front of them is one of survival.
In this kind of future, your objective is simply to “make it”. Get through and survive the day, the week, the project, the person you work with, your salary, other people’s communication, email, etc… In this kind of future, your leadership is a burden and people show up as inconveniences. If you are like most people, this future is likely the one you are living in. This future is ordinary and this future is killing you.
How you show up in life, is like the walking dead.
It’s like a duck on a pond, all cute and put together on the surface. Below the water, your little feet are paddling furiously. Paddling furiously to make it and to survive.
Canadians are particularly notorious for this kind of “put together”, “pretend and get along” niceness.
Why is this?
Here is one explanation...
When you were 5 you wanted to be an astronaut. Your future was wide open and unlimited. After a well lived life, littered with dozens of disappointing moments, you no longer hold a big future. You now have a future that you have “settled for”. This future allows you to play small in life. You have learned to say the right things so you “belong”. You have learned to shut your mouth so you don’t stick out. In general, you have learned to play it safe and not rock the boat. Or if you are rocking the boat, you are rocking the boat against something... You aren’t rocking the boat for something.
For example, many union leaders in my experience, rock the boat. But they rock the boat against management, not for employee wellbeing. In either case, they will know that they have a future of survival. None of their actions yield them any lasting satisfaction and fulfillment.
All ordinary future’s do not require you to risk yourself. You don’t have to risk sticking out and you don’t have to risk being vulnerable. You don’t have to risk being wrong or risk being fired. The payoff for this life of survival is you “make it”. The cost is your satisfaction, fulfillment, and sense of purpose.
If you are in this boat... Abandon ship!
Reach for the thing you sold out on. Risk yourself and be bigger than you have even been.
In the process of reaching for a great future, you’ll become who you always wanted to be (when you grew up).
