Living The Way

Embarrassment can occur anytime. It happened to me recently.

Once I invited some of my students to my house. It was part of a course that I personally conducted in my company.

The objective was to show them how I lived, worked, played and learned in my house.

Prayerfully, it would help them avoid my mistakes and improve on my strengths.

It was one of the scariest things to do in my life.

Sometimes, I feared they would use my openness and private information against me at a later stage.

So, why did I do it?

I did it as a way of showing my gratitude to the people who have so generously shared their personal life with me.

Their act of friendship and authenticity have enriched my life and helped me to be a better person.

They have paid it forward and I was hoping to do the same.

I hoped that others could learn from my successes as well as from my failures.

There was another reason for me to open up my home.

I read somewhere that pride can come about when people are uncomfortable under their skin.

Their unhealthy self esteem can drive them to seek unnecessary attention and acceptance.

It can also drive them to believe their views are always right and they are better than the people around them.

When I invited my students to my home, I hoped that by being transparent, I would strengthen self acceptance and be at peace with myself.

In recognising my weaknesses, I would learn to be humble and be more motivated to improve myself.

You can imagine I received my students that day with a degree of trepidation.

At one point in the training, I wanted to show them my kitchen, refrigerator and cupboards.

I took pride in my endeavor to live healthily and wanted to inspire them to do the same.
Usually, I would not prepare for this part of the lesson. I aimed to be real and transparent about my lifestyle.

To my surprise, I found many chocolates, candies, cookies, and ice cream in my kitchen.
I had forgotten that in recent times I had received many of them as presents.

My students might not have realized the feelings that was going through me.

Fortunately, I had a divine inspiration to turn it into a learning lesson for myself as well as for them.

I told them, “Do I eat them? Of course.

“Am I constantly tempted by them? Most definitely.”

“How did I overcome these issues?

I went on to share how I’ve set up systems to ring fence myself. How I would ensure that I would stay on the straight and narrow in living a healthy life.

While reflecting on that training, I relearned a powerful lesson for effective leadership.

You will influence your people more effectively through your life than through what comes out of your mouth.

Whether you like it or not, you will lead by example.

Your people will follow what you do more than what you tell them to do.

How you live your life will eventually become the main curriculum and method for training and influencing your people.

By your deeds, you will mould and shape your people and the direction of your team.

They are more impactful than all the beautiful messages that you can craft and communicate to them.

If you cannot lead yourself, you cannot lead others.

The quality of your personal results will determine the quality of your team’s results.

Live the way.

Be the kind of a leader that both your people and yourself will want to look up to, emulate and follow.

To rephrase the words of Mahatma Gandhi, “Be the leader that you ought to be in both the internal and external worlds.”
People will never follow a leader if they don’t like, trust and respect him.

In short, aim to be the living lesson for your team. Do what you tell them to do and aim to do it in a better way.

Your life should be the real-life example of your messages.

How then should you set good examples?

Go4It!

I hope this message will find a place in your heart.

By the way, I have also recorded other reflections.

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Please read my reflections and continue to teach me.

Life is FUNtastic!