Archive for the 'Personal Growth' Category

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Leaders with a Messiah complex get beaten by those that know what’s going on

Published on 12 January, 2009 in Personal Growth. Closed Tags: , , .

“Great leaders” are often held up as great heroes, whose skill, luck and insight can overcome anything in their way. But the world just isn’t like that. Inspirationally larger-than-life leaders are fantastic – I have a few of my favourites – though leaders who are too sure of themselves are liable to miss the subtle and not-so-subtle changes that are happening all around them and get left behind…

Beaten by those that might have had less talent, less charisma and even less resources…

But who understood that we all make mistakes and that the world is complex, so we need to be somewhat restrained and insure against those freakish events that can wipe you out. Not to be overly focused on the negative, though being mindful of the risks. And, of course, you have to make decisions and follow through once you decide, and you need to have accurate inputs, vision and effective decision-making strategies for implementation and execution too.

I like to see the parallels between business and personal life. Perhaps not as pervasive as Dan Schawbel, though I still think that personal branding is vital for us all, but in this context, we – as individuals, communities and nations – need to remember the same points that great leaders need. Anyway, that’s what I’m working on in GeniusTraining.

Daniel Smith

Self-actualisation

Published on 9 January, 2009 in Personal Growth. Closed Tags: , .

Self-actualisation was the phrase used by Maslow to denote the fulfillment of our highest human needs – an experience that we can all work towards yet very few attain. Self-actualised people are detached from the good opinions of others and have no desire for power over others; they follow their bliss and are true to themselves. Perhaps it is this pursuit that led my grandfather to spend so long nurturing his precious lawn! Here are some of the key characteristics for you to consider.

  • Realistic
  • Self-accepting
  • Spontaneous, simple and natural
  • Purpose-driven
  • Detached and objective
  • Live in the present moment with curiosity and freshness
  • Peak experience-driven
  • Shares compassion and profound love
  • Honours people for their humanity, accepting themselves and those around them
  • Focused in the moment, means and ends are inseparable
  • Enjoys humor but not at the expense of others
  • Creative and not attached to culturation
  • Resolves apparent dichotomies through appreciating the unity that lies beyond appearances

You cannot achieve enough to be happy. But you can happily achieve.

Daniel Smith

Self-actualising is really simple!

Published on 7 January, 2009 in Personal Growth. Closed Tags: , .

In Brisbane a few years ago, I met a well known psychologist who studied with Maslow. He was telling me how there are three attributes that self-actualisers share in particular:

  1. Independent of the good opinion of others
    Do you like others to like, approve and validate you, or do you need it so much that you change your behaviour on the basis of what others will think of you?
  2. Non-attachment to outcome
    It’s great to have things turn out the way that we intend them, though self-actualisers do their part regardless of their outcome. They write because they are a writer – not because others read what they write
  3. No investment in power over others
    Having people love you and support you can make life easier and more pleasurable, however self-actualisers regard influence for its own sake as pointless. Though they may enjoy sharing the journey, though would prefer ‘fellow travellers’ rather than ‘disciples’.

This sort of self-actualisation thinking sounds remarkably similar to concepts of Flow and even Now thinking.

Yesterday I was listening to a TED talk on the “Slowing down in a world built for speed”, ironically while the bus that I was travelling in was crawling along South Pudong Road, and again this seemed to fit very nicely. Let’s take the time to appreciate our world without regressing to the need to dominate others.

Daniel Smith

Talking to yourself doesn’t always make you crazy

Published on 5 January, 2009 in High Performance and Personal Growth. Closed Tags: , , , .

Intrapersonal communication skills create our quality of life. So what are your skills like?

Based on my presentation in People’s Square, Shanghai, 21 August 2007.

What you focus upon you will tend to bring into your life, whether it’s what you want or what you don’t want. It’s sometimes called The Law of Attraction, The Secret and a bunch of other names, but ultimately it’s pretty simple: Focus on what you want.

The questions that you ask yourself shift your focus and are one of the main ways that we think deliberately about anything. If you ask yourself “why does this always happen to me?” you’ll get a very different answer to “how can I make this better?” So ask yourself the questions that you really want answered.

Let go of your handbrake and go for it. None of us get an ‘certificate of attendance’ for life, so embrace the moment and accept the gift of the precious present.

Really, there are only two types of problem: Either you know what you want and don’t know how to get it, or you don’t know what you want. And a lot of the time, the first problem type is actually the second type in disguise! So what do you really want?

And remember a few attributes of geniuses…

  • It takes a decade to really get somewhere
  • You have to go beyond knowledge towards making a unique contribution
  • Postpone the need for closure and withstand conformance pressures
  • Cultivate skills, processes and the motivation
  • Focus your energy and effort
  • Be motivated by Mastery, Entertainment, Exploration and Happiness, before than external rewards

You are talented and it’s just a little jump to lift yourself up to being a ‘genius’ – and that’s somewhere that I can help…

Daniel Smith

Limitation disengage

Published on 4 January, 2009 in Change, High Performance, Personal Growth and Purpose. Closed Tags: , , , .

A few minutes ago, I received the following message:

Fear and resistance arise when you don’t trust that where you are going is better than where you’ve been. What would you create right now if you knew you wouldn’t fail?

While there are a few of us who live a life of purpose and passion, most of us are not. And one of the few people that I know who says that he is, actually just lies to himself and everybody around him!

As I consider this sort of question, I feel it challenges you to look beyond the big idols of the modern world…

  • What would you do if nobody was watching?
  • What would you do if you couldn’t get the credit?
  • What would you do if you didn’t need the money?
  • How would you impact the world if you might die tomorrow?

Some suggest that we can only begin to live once we have faced death. This was part of the code of honour by which the samurai lived; part of many Mystery traditions in the East and in the West; and it remains, I believe, part of the cure to modern society’s materialism and affluenza.

For many, this relies upon listening to the voice within – as per the Daoist “not do” attitude, to surrender.

We each have our unique song to sing, and it’s not about having a bigger car or a bigger ring or more holidays, but rather it’s about living, loving, laughing and leaving a legacy.

For me, it’s making genius a choice rather than leaving it to chance… but what is it for you?

Daniel Smith

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