XLR8 The Passionate Leader: (G + L + F = JOY!!!)

Weekly Inspiration: You Can Do It! (Click) Affirmation by Louise Hay from her 2010 calendar:

• “I feel as young or old as I choose to feel”. For me, an important part of this is how I look and feel physically. Starting October 2008, I began losing the 25 lbs. I have gained (and more), for the “umpteenth” time. While losing the weight is the easier part (I didn’t say easy), maintaining my desired weight, and more importantly, my physical conditioning is the harder part. Is that true for any of you?
• So what do I have to do differently this time?
• First, it is an important marker for my #1 Passion - Bring peace and happiness to myself and those I love.
• Second, I have a picture of Dr. Life, a man in his 70’s with a chiseled physique, on my Facebook and home vision board.
• Third, I have incorporated it into my “Happiness List”: “I weigh myself, eat a healthy breakfast and exercise at home daily and it motivates me.” This came directly from the book: Influencer: The Power to Change Anything (click) by Kerry Patterson (Crucial Conversations & Crucial Confrontations co-author).
• Lastly, I joined a gym over the holiday. My son is a gym rat, so he was my coach over the Christmas break. Now I’m set up with 5 routines for a total body workout.
• So I pulled out all the stops. What are you willing to pull out all the stops for?!!

2010 Passion Review/Marker Update

An essential part of being all you can be is developing a discipline of periodically reviewing and revising your passions and markers. Below is my #3 “Passion” and my 2010 “Markers”. (Make a comment on the blog and share yours, then others can steal shamelessly - just give credit where credit is due.)

• My #3 Passion: Living Life with Abundance
• This was my Angel Card for 2010 – which is the universe telling me that “abundance” is particularly significant this year. If you didn’t while reading last week’s blog, here’s another chance. Go to www.innerlinks.com (click) and pick your own. I put it and the accompanying quote on business-size cardstock and display them where I’m sure to see it several times a day.
• Offer scholarships to the XLR8 YOU!!! Leadership Excellence process
• Continue to write my weekly blog
• Create “huddle groups” with XLR8 YOU!!! participants as a catalyst for them to share their leadership development progress and “steal shamelessly”.

XLR8 The Passion Leader: The New Formula for Business – G + L + F = JOY!!! (This is the last excerpt from the introduction.)

Anyone in a leadership capacity who is searching for deeper meaning and fulfillment in their life should read this. Said another way - turning success into significance for themselves and their organizations. In my experience, many of the leaders we have coached at The XLR8 Team, Inc. have figured out the “external” factors of success. They know their business and have sufficient people skills to advance their careers. Occasionally, the latter may need some attention but rarely is it a career stopper.

What we do see, and actually have a self assessment that validates this, is their “internal” factors are under developed. They consist of self-esteem, role awareness and self direction. While there are a variety of reasons for this, both situational and causal, by and large these hard driving people have spent a disproportionate amount of time “making a living”, not “making a life”. It is manifested in a misguided sense of self importance that often has them working too many hours at the expense of their families or keeps them managing instead of leading.

These are not always recognized when we get started. While most say with some conviction that they are willing to change, I believe the most effective way is to begin to focus on the inside (character) as well as getting a snapshot of how they are doing on the outside (competence). XLR8 The Passionate Leader combines a pragmatic as well as a “spiritual” approach to leadership development.

Few people in their lifetimes fully discover their “inner guidance system” - passions, unique abilities, personal mission and values, the “G” of the formula. With the power of clarity and focus, you are more fully awakened to “L”oving yourself for who you are and choosing to make a living and build an organization by “L”oving what you do in service of people who “L”ove what you do. Not only will life be more “F”un, you’ll find out if those you are leading are having “F”un in your presence. Put it all together and you get G + L + F = JOY!!! I hope this book XLR8’s your leadership journey.

Be part of the book. Each chapter will feature a real life story or two pertaining to the content of the chapter. While I have some folks in mind, I’d love to hear from you! I wouldn’t be writing this book in the first place if you had not come into my life. Don’t be shy – yours may be THE story that inspires someone.