I don’t care if you haven’t been out of the house in a year. I don’t care if you’re addicted to alcohol, co-dependence, cheese, or heroin. I don’t care if you’re the poster child for pitifulness. All of that is about the lessons you already know you need to learn. It’s old news.
What I care about are the lessons you’re not teaching.
You can’t lead from the bottom of the pile.
What crusade is on hold because you haven’t gotten yourself together yet? You’re sitting there waiting to have the right wisdom, opportunity, information, connections, peace, program, mentor, direction, teacher, resources (I’m yawning now). Those excuses make you deaf.
That pitiful whimper masks your voice of inspired leadership.
We’re waiting for you. We need you. I don’t care if you put the cheese down before you focus on the thing you know you’re burning to teach. I don’t care if you fumble as you attempt to lead a cause or create a group that helps people. I don’t care if you stumble through a trial and error process, or have to experiment with email, or art, or business. That doesn’t matter. All that matters is that you shift your focus from your problems to our solutions. Everything else will follow.
To get in step, go to the front of the parade.
{ PEP TALKS deliver a bracing blast of Grace }
Flickr photo: Wartime Fancy Dress Parade 1941, by Terry Wha.
Related reading: Sensitivity, Curiosity, and Leadership
3 Comments
Marvelous! Just what so many of us need to hear — get off your ass and do something but said in a loving, kind, motivating way — lovely, just lovely!
Wow, talk about stepping on toes! I don’t have any addiction problems (well, except maybe coffee); however, you stomped me on the “what crusade is on hold” paragraph. I was wondering exactly some of these things last night (not pitifully, more stoically, nodding that I suppose it’s only proper to “get it mainly in order” first): How long may it take for me to have just the right wisdom and opportunities … because it’s scary to step out NOW — what if I fumble, stumble, mumble through something and botch the whole thing (as if I’m jumping out an airplane and only have one chance). My heart wants to leap but my brain, protective and conservative, tricks me into waiting, holding back, figuring out an acceptable time table. “Not yet. Need be perfect. You’re not there yet.” And another day or week goes by …
Thank you yet again for another reminder that IT IS OKAY to step forward and begin right where we are with whatever bits and pieces of knowledge and passion we have. We don’t have to have it 100% edited, airbrushed, and perfectly printed. We can keep adding as we go. Life doesn’t wait.
Yes, I realize that many readers may not have addictions or be in a self-recriminating place, but I have received emails from readers who seem to be and wanted them to know they’re included, too.
Also, there are levels and gradations of limitations we set for ourselves which we forget are optional or self-imposed — and at some point it’s good to be called on that, no matter what degree of hesitation we’re currently embracing.
What I’m getting at is that I did come down strongly with this Pep Talk, but I wanted to make a point that I believe NO ONE is excluded from having the ability to step forward and lead.