As I go back over 2015 and look at my life, I realize that
life is a ride.
Have you ever been on a roller coaster? Some find joy in the climb up the steep hill,
living for the anticipation of or preparing for the challenge, others find
plummeting from the top to the bottom exciting—they live in the moment…they are
excited to be in the challenge. Which type of leader are you?
I started off 2015 bound through April to a bed with two broken
legs, NO weight bearing allowed. I was challenged by total dependency and no
bathroom, yes no shower or flushing toilet, for nearly four months. I was
blessed in today’s world of telecommuting to be able to work from my bed.
However, during that time I became a grandma to my little Macy May; I missed
her birth as she was born in Colorado and I was in a bed in Los Angeles. I realized
I missed the experiences in life. “Things” were unimportant and it became
apparent that the more things I had the more complicated it made my life. After
a slow introduction to using my legs again, I was ready to experience a world
beyond the four walls of my Los Angeles living room. I went from a crawl to rushing into hiking
Machu Picchu in May. The breathtaking
beauty and total astonishment of the craftsmanship of an ancient tribe made me
realize that there is so much to life besides things! I believed I was again living
life and the all the experiences it has to offer. I was living life in the moment; work was
good, family was good and even my personal relationship jumped to a whole new
level--I was elated. However, as quickly as I was elated, I was deflated by
another horrific life changing experience. The lesson I surprisingly failed to
remember was that life can change minute to minute….I was living the excitement
of the ride down and was totally unprepared for the climb back to the top. Life’s experiences are made up of both the
peaks and the valleys. Just so I don’t leave you all hanging….I couldn’t change
the horrific thing that happened, but I did decide to get my butt back on the ride and
experience more of life’s challenges. And, I climbed even higher from another
valley of opportunity to learn. I ended the year on a peak by visiting Macy
May and my little guy Neil in Colorado for Thanksgiving and my Jake and Luke in
California for Christmas. There is
something joyous about experiencing holidays with little ones….ahhh such
precious experiences and memory keepers!
As leaders we tend to ride through the good times, the peaks.
We may even crash at the bottom, the
valleys, because for many of us that is when things seem exponentially tougher.
The key is to keep momentum…not get stuck in the valley and don’t expect to
always be on top. Staying stuck in one
position—no change—becomes dull and unexciting over time. There is nothing to
be learned after a while. Life is meant to be lived through a continuum of change and experiences with lessons
to be learned. The learning from every experience will be
different from person to person, so it is not worth comparing yourself to
someone else. However, we can compare
ourselves to our best self from a similar past experience. Did you improve over that best self? If not, is it possible you didn’t really “get”
all that there was to learn? Often, we jump to comparing ourselves to
someone else…are you trying to be a better you or a better them? Life is going
to throw us experiences that we don’t want. How you handle them is what makes
those painful experiences manageable.
As leaders, we are going to be expected to not only deal
with the peaks and valleys of our own life, but knowing that many of those
peaks and valleys are influenced by other people’s actions. However, it is a trade-off, because you get
to have an impact on the peaks and valleys of others too. What is not impacted
by others is how we individually deal with our experiences—no matter what or how
it happened and who did what. Regardless of what stage you are in the ride, the
thing that matters most is your response to the situation; knowing when to
prepare and knowing when to be present. It
is my view that this is the toughest part of leadership. It’s complete accountability. How scary is
that— regardless of whether an experience is in your comfort zone or not, you are
completely accountable for your actions to those experiences. We need to learn to deal with the climb up
and the ride down on that roller coaster ride of life.
Here is an excerpt from a parable written by Spencer Johnson M.D., Peaks and Valleys: Making Good and Bad Times
Work For You—At Work and in Life. It is about the peaks and valleys of situational
leadership.
“…He would imagine himself standing on the nearby peak. For
a while, he felt better. But the more he
compared the peak to his valley, the worse he felt. He spoke to his parents and friends about
going to the peak. But they talked only about how difficult it was to reach the
peak, and how comfortable it was to stay in the valley. ...Sometimes he felt there might be a
different way of life outside the valley, and he wanted to discover it for
himself. Maybe on the peak he could gain a better view of the world. But then doubt and fear crept in again, and
he thought he would stay where he was.”
If you stay where you are, you can never experience the joy
and excitement of life. If you play it
safe and avoid the ride, how can you lead if you are not on the ride with the
others? What new lessons do you learn if you don’t take a chance on new
experiences? When life derails you, and it will, how do you react? Change management and situational leadership
keep you moving forward, offer you many opportunities to learn and most
importantly, offer you new experiences—some lessons are meant to be learned others
create memories to cherish. Take accountability
of your life. Remember, a fulfilled life is not about things; it’s about the experiences.
Not to make a decision is a decision and not taking risk
is risky. “Choice, not chance, determines one's destiny” --Unknown
