Tacos, and the True Meaning of Leadership

On the way home today, I passed a digital sign in front of the Del Taco fast food joint down the street that read: "Are you a leader?"   I immediately thought to myself,  Everyone's always talking about leadership, about being a leader, but what about the content behind leadership?  Who do they think we should be leading, and what exactly does Del Taco want people to lead others in?  Besides, if everyone is leading and there's no one around to follow, "leadership" would lose its meaning, right?

For some reason the question stuck with me throughout the day.  Am I a leader?  
When we think of "leaders", often the first people who come to mind are global changemakers, leaders of huge movements, and we think of them as having a lot of power and perhaps controlling a lot of assets such as money, things, events, people's mindsets, etc.

I can recall this view of mega-scale leadership being reinforced during college. There were nationally renowned speakers, authors, and leaders constantly coming in to speak on our campus.  A lot of them were musicians-turned-philanthropists or turned-activists who decided they were going to change the world.   Don't get me wrong, they're fabulous people doing great things and are all very inspiring in their own right, but the flood of huge names and huge campaigns seemed to have a narrowing effect on my perception of leadership.

It wasn't until today, thanks to this Del Taco sign, that I straightened out my thinking about leadership. I'm going to share my not-very-official definition of leadership, the way I think of it in my head:   To me, leadership is saying "Hey guys, here's what I'm doing, here's where I'm going;  I think it's a worthy pursuit, wanna join?"

To Each Her Own Sanctuary

The landscapes are intriguing, beautiful, even breathtaking, but what really keeps me traveling is the people.  Like snowflakes covering northern lands, no two people are exactly the same; each twirls and soars and falls and lands differently.  Each has a different journey.  Through conversations and shared experiences, I love to discover all sorts of people.  But there is one kind of person that particularly inspires me.

This kind of person is found among both young and old, educated and uneducated, travelers and homebodies.  I've found them in every country I've ever been to.  It's the person who finds a passion, a purpose, and joyfully throws him- or herself into it wholeheartedly.  It's the person who finds what that special thing is that gives back even more in personal satisfaction than the work and time and money and energy they may have put into it.  As the author of this next excerpt so elegantly puts it, it's one's own "sanctuary".

Tie the Shoelace You're Tripping On

It hit me during a meeting with the CFO of one of Finland's most respected financial institutions.  The clock struck one and we'd already been deep in conversation for two hours.  A young lady about my age came in to take sandwich orders, which she promptly went to pick up from a nearby cafe.  As she served me delicious smoked salmon on rye, I realized how easily I could have been in her shoes - serving sandwiches in important meetings, instead of in mine - eating a sandwich in an important meeting (but more importantly, adding value to this important meeting). 

I have, in the not so distant past, been doing exactly that young woman's job - catering sandwiches to business people. It can be great fun.  There's nothing wrong with a service position; what was wrong with my situation is the reason I was doing it.  I'm not passionate about serving sandwiches.  Though I can appreciate a good meal, I'm not really even passionate about culinary art.  The reason I was catering is because I hadn't been charging enough for the work I am passionate about, and the bills needed to get paid somehow. 

Your mere ability to do a job well does not imply that it's the job you should be doing.

Turn "Are we there yet?" into "Look where we are!!"

Have you ever been on a road trip with children who just couldn't wait to get there? Did the continuous pressure to silence the nagging keep you from pulling over at a vista point, or even suck all the joy out of time that could be spent enjoying the view from the window?

It's 2:30 am and I'm coming to terms with the irony.  The irony that, as a person who keeps a blog titled "No Journey Wasted," I've spent far too much of the past 6 years looking toward the next destination and - during those destination-obsessed phases - not allowing myself to relax enough to enjoy the moment.  

And I'm not talking about the easy moments. Anyone can enjoy a splendid cappucino on a Spanish balcony under the Barcelona sun.  I'm talking about the hard stuff, the nitty gritty challenges you're not sure you'll even survive. There is something to appreciate in those moments. Even if your day's song is only "I'm alive! I'm doing it! Who knows what the end result will be, but I'm going to enjoy the challenge in front of me today!"

Our ability to see that and say that has a lot to do with whether we're operating in a fixed mindset or a growth mindset.  A fixed mindset tells you that "your qualities are carved in stone" and "creates an urgency to prove yourself over and over."  On the other hand, a growth mindset "is based on the belief that your basic qualities are things you can cultivate through your efforts" -- it advocates the principle that "everyone can change and grow through application and experience."  (I recommend you read this article illustrating the power of mindset, and watch Carol Dweck's TedTalk.)

StartUp Weekend Helsinki:  A good place to practice using the growth mindset.  It's all about iteration!