Mental Strength Habits Of A Purpose Focused Man – Part 11

Mens Stuff, Personal Develpoment No Responses »

Sep 092011

Welcome back the continuation of this series entitled “Mental Strength Habits Of A Purpose Focused Man”

We’ve been breaking down 21 habits of a purposed focused man one. A man with a purpose driven life exhibits specific qualities in 5 segments of his life, these segments are:

Mental
Physical
Emotional
Financial
Spiritual

If this is your first time here the link back to “Mental Strength Habits Of A Purpose Focused Man – Part I.

There is no “mid-life crisis” for men…generally speaking.

This “mid-life crisis” for men is, is just a lack of focus and purpose. When men lose their purpose, they also lose our focus. When they lose their focus they feel lost. And many men attempt to find themselves in unproductive behaviors.

My main point of these posts and my private intensive, The 2^nd Passage, is to help men realize that they do have a mission and purpose in life. And once they find it they can live a life of power, purpose, passion and perseverance!

My hope is that through these series of posts and The 2^nd Passage Intensive, I will help men who, admittedly or not, are experiencing a mid-life emptiness and guide them back to manhood and step into their masculinity…without becoming a jerk.

So far we’ve already covered the mental qualities of a purpose focused man and today we finish up with the emotional quality of a man with a purpose driven life.

Power:

Purpose Focused Man:

Is a leader because it is freely given to them, a tribute to their personally self-mastery

The posses the qualities other want and they show and lead the way

They make other people feel important

They understand about the hard work that is required for success and can relate to others striving for the same

Calm, assured and assertive

This quality could also be looked at as leadership, not because a purpose focused man demands it, but because he is so much in integrity within himself that leadership, i.e. power, is given to him.

Cesar Millan describes this habit as being calm assertive.

A purpose focused man understands that it takes discipline and “hard work” to realize their personal goals and achieve their personal success and they can relate how have accomplished their desire in the same fashion.

Because a man with a purpose driven life has this power habit and quality he understands that he can use this by making other people feel important.

He has this power because he focuses on “improving” himself so that he can achieve his personal goals and personal success…he walks his talk. And because of this others give him the leadership power – which he appreciates and uses for good no evil

No Purpose, Unfocused Man

Strive to make others see more about them

Harbor resentment at others achievements

Over emphasis minor achievements

See achievement as being lucky

Nervous, timid and fragile

A man without a purpose driven life spends much time on creating the appearance of personal success instead of actually accomplishing anything. All this is driven by the need to be recognized for someone he is not and as such, he never is given the leadership power.

A unfocused man….a man without a purpose driven life plays small and makes a big ado about nothing and is constantly nervous about being discover and called out.

He discounts the success of others as being lucky and actually resents the accomplishments of others. He makes comments like, “they were born into money,” “If I had their brains I’d be successful too” or they probably did something illegal to get their success.”

A man without and purpose in life is acting like the mouse that roared.

Self Assessment

OK…looking at the above mental strength emotional characteristic for a man with a purpose driven life, take the below survey and see how well you’re doing… and please have the courage to be honest with yourself.

Power: The habit of making others think more of themselves. A constant feeling of self-assuredness that accompanies a continual effort toward self-mastery. The ability to magnetically draw people toward you because of the way you bring out the bet in them.

1 2 3 4 5

Never Seldom Sometimes Often Always

I know guys by now you’re beginning to get a sense of how you stack up with the qualities of a purpose focused man right? Please remember there is not right or wrong place; it’s just where you are. The question is, what are you going to do about it!

Are you courageous enough to take action and change?

If this post has raised some questions, consider investing in yourself, your vision and your life. Take a look at The 2^nd Passage for a way to put your power, passion and purpose into action and life a purposed driven life.

I’ll leave you this quote’:

“To lead people, walk beside them … As for the best leaders, the people do not notice their existence. The next best, the people honor and praise. The next, the people fear; and the next, the people hate … When the best leader’s work is done the people say, ‘We did it ourselves!’” — Lao-tsu

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The Year’s Top Ten Posts on Mental Strength and Leadership

Uncategorized 2 Responses »

Dec 092010

Mental strength and leadership go hand in hand and both are essential for personal success and peak personal performance.

SmartBrief polled their readers as to the best posts/articles on leadership in 2010. Below are the Top 10 results with links to the post.

As you read the articles see how mental strength plays a critical role in each of topics.

Please let me know if you a favorite of your own in the comments below.

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Creating Awareness Through Mental Strength – Part II

Personal Empowerment No Responses »

Sep 292010

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This is a continuation of Creating Awareness Through Mental Strength – Part I

Imagine a story about Sarah…Sarah has decided she wants to learn more about herself and is determined to understand how she desires to move forward in life. She begins to read books on leadership and found that she had some of the qualities leaders spoke about. The next step she took was to understand what her qualities and strengths were. To do this she employed a coach (good job!), completed several assessments to understand herself more and she began writing down all of her strengths.

She also began to work out what her vision was for herself. All of these actions made her feel more focused and stronger in herself. She believed that leadership was her strength and so she began to look at her self and to recognize that being a great leader meant knowing more about herself. Her confidence increased and her supports helped her stay focused. She continued to look more and more at who she was and to committing to knowing more and more about herself.

She went to work and explained her own pathway to her team. She asked them to support her as their leader by helping her know more about their strengths so she could manage everyone more effectively.

This outcome is directly related to Sarah being ‘aware’. Sarah’s pathway to knowing more about herself meant she also opened up the pathway for others around her to know more about themselves. What an amazing shift in focus. Great leaders know more about themselves than anyone else. Their focus is on their self not others.

Application

Having greater self awareness is part of becoming a leader. A leader is a person who is leading their own life from strength to strength. Great leaders we see around us are great because they follow their own pathway, they know who they are, they have planned out their pathway for learning and personal empowerment and they are on the journey of greater self awareness.

They recognize that self awareness and personal development is something you must value and is then part of you for ever. Being a great leader is not following someone else, it is simply knowing yourself.

We sometimes think that being a great leader is about standing up in front of many and running a company and creating huge financial and personal success. Yet many great leaders have never been great for these reasons. Stop for a moment and think about who your role models of great leaders are.

List what you think their strengths were. No doubt you have listed all the strengths you either have or wished you had. You are likely to list all the strengths that you value. They are great leaders to you because you identify with some of their strengths. When you gain greater self awareness you are also becoming a great leader, leading your life on a pathway or journey that you are passionate about, gaining ongoing awareness of yourself.

Those around you will see your confidence, will see your focus and will see you growing. To them you are a great leader, leading the pathway for others to follow, showing the importance of following your dreams and passions, showing the importance of knowing who you are, showing the importance of focusing on looking inward rather than outward.

At the end of 2008, the world went into an economic downturn. Banks crashed, governments crashed, institutions that were once strong and financially secure suddenly crashed. The impact was devastating. People lost jobs and houses. Families became unbelievably stressed, people panicked as there was no clear path forward. Change had been forced upon everyone. The story of the economic downturn was told far and wide as the media covered stories of hardship and struggle.

Everyday bad news was told, everyday people lost their jobs and security. The greatest pain was the pain people felt at being lost, unsure of what to do next, waiting for companies to climb out of the crisis. Many people waited (and are still waiting) daily to hear the news, hoping for a better future. The saddest thing to watch was people frozen in fear, afraid of the future, afraid of what was going to happen. Everyone was feeling the fear.

In times like this people have change forced upon them. A shift this great often opens up opportunities for greater awareness. We are forced to look at who we are and to rely on our strengths. Communities congregate and we turn to each other. Reaching out to others can be the first step to awareness. How much more empowering would it be to determine our own pathway rather than having it forced upon us or not knowing ourselves enough to be able to see a future.

There are many ways to support you in developing your self awareness. Next week I’ll share a list that will outline just a few ways. Ultimately, The best approach is to determine what works best for you.

I’d like to thank again my coaching school, ICA, for their inspiration and assistance with this topic.

Now…let me know your thoughts so far in the comments below.

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How to Become Leader

Mental Strength 4 Responses »

Jul 082010

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Do you ever get frustrated because things don’t seem to be happening the way they’re supposed to be?

You see other people hanging around or talking about doing something, but really nothing gets accomplished.

In your daily hustle and bustle of doing this and doing that, do you feel that your goals are just that…goals, with little chance of getting them accomplished?

Then it’s time to stand up and do something about it. In the words of Howard Beale from the movie “Network”

“I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore.”

Most people are content to just stand around waiting for and listening to orders. It’s easy to adopt a follow-the-leader mentality; after all, it takes no mental strength at all.

And I’m wondering if somewhere inside of you, you feel that desire to make things happen – to be the head, not the tail. Then leadership would suit you just fine wouldn’t it?

Some people believe that great leaders are made, not born. Sure, it may be true that some people are born with natural talents. However, with practice, drive, enthusiasm, and experience a true leader can be developed.

This process of transforming into a leader can be done by “modeling.” The definition of modeling is “Modeling is the process of creating useful descriptions of the structure of human abilities.” Basically this means find some how has or is doing what you want and duplicate them.

I’ll go deeper into modeling in future posts, but for now keep you eyes open for a leader that you really resonate with and gather all the information you can about them.

Remember that good leaders are continually working and studying to improve their natural skills. This takes a commitment to constantly improve in whatever endeavor you choose.

Before we move on, let’s define leadership. A simple definition of leadership is that leadership is the art of motivating a group of people to act towards achieving a common goal.

Contrary to what most people believe, leadership is not about power. It is not about yelling at people or driving them using fear. It is about encouraging others towards the goal of the ‘organization’ or tribe. It is putting everyone on the same page and helping them see the big picture of the group.

Leaders are not bosses, but bosses can be a leaders.

To be a leader you’ve got to have people following you right?

Well how do you do this?

People follow others when they see a clear sense of purpose. People will only follow you if they see that you know where you are going. Remember that bumper sticker? The one that says, “Don’t follow me, I’m lost too?” The same holds true for leadership. If you yourself do not know where you’re headed to, chances are people will not follow.

You yourself must know your personal vision and that of the tribe.

In his book “Tribes” Seth Godin gives this info on leadership:

People want to belong; they want to be missed when they don’t show up.
Charisma doesn’t make you a leader, leading gives you charisma.
Most of all, people care about themselves.
Faith is belief in the future and it is critical. Religion is a set of rules designed to amplify faith at the same time it guarantees the status quo. As you can guess, heretics have a lot of faith, but not so much patience with religion. And heretics are the ones who make change.
When in doubt, work with small groups. If you can’t find 5 followers, how will you find 1000?
Talk to people with respect, don’t advertise at them.
Transparency is your only option, because the tribe will smell artifice.

In other words:

In order to be a leader you must have followers.
In order to get followers it’s crucial to be interested in others.
In order to be interested in others you have to believe and treat other people like they are important – everyone has something to offer.

Being a leader is not about what you make others do. It’s about who you are, what you know, and what you do. You are a reflection of what you’re subordinates must be.

When recently asked “Is it really possible for anyone to be a leader? Robin Sharma responded.

“Absolutely. The core message of “The Leader Who Had No Title” is that every single one of us has the opportunity to show leadership in our work and within our lives–every single day. This isn’t some motivational platitude. It’s a reality that I’ve helped everyday people in organizations like Microsoft, GE, FedEx, Yale University and IBM achieve. Because leadership isn’t really about the title on our business cards. Leadership is about the strength of our influence, our willingness to innovate, the quality of our attitude and our commitment to excellence. This doesn’t mean that organizations should get rid of titles and structure. It simply means that leadership is a behavior–and anyone of us can show it.”

Studies have shown that one other bases of good leadership are the trust and confidence in others. If people trust you they will go through hell and high water for you and a worthy cause.

Trust and confidence is built on good relationships, trustworthiness, and high ethics.

The way you deal with people, and the relationships you build will lay the foundation for the strength of the group. The stronger your relationship, the stronger their trust and confidence is in your capabilities.

Once you have their trust and confidence, you’ll be able to communicate the goals and objectives you are to undertake and have them well received.

Communication is also a very important key to good leadership. Without this you can’t be a good leader. The knowledge and technical expertise you have must be clearly imparted to other people.

A good leader also has good judgment. You must be able to assess situations, weigh the pros and cons of any decision, and actively seek out a solution.

It is this judgment that your subordinates will come to rely upon. Therefore, good decision-making is vital to the success for yourself and others.

Leaders are not do-it-all heroes. They know who are the experts on certain subjects and ask for their advice. A good leader doesn’t claim to know everything and doesn’t solely rely upon his/her skills alone.

Remember being a leader takes a good deal of work and time. It is not learned overnight.

Being a leader is not about just you…it is about you and the people around you.

In the words of John Quincy Adams “If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.”

So, do you have the drive and the desire to serve required of leaders?

Do you have the desire to work cooperatively with other people?

Then start now.

Take your stand and be leader today.

I’d like to hear from you in the comments below.