You don’t to get permission to be a leader.  You just need to make the decision to lead.  Leadership is not about a big song and dance and running around all ego driven.  True leadership is about the shared vision of a dream and the strength of character of someone to take that dream to the next level.

Is being a leader scary? Absolutely.  Is being out front likely to subject you to criticism? You bet.  Is it going to be worth it in the long run? For sure.  If you are passionate enough to have a dream and want to take your dream to the next level, then leadership is something you have to embrace.

Now you may be thinking, i work for myself and how can i lead?  Well that’s easy.  You can certainly lead yourself.  Who better to lead than you?  You can also lead clients and customers.  Have faith in your abilities.  No one is going to hand you a golden goblet and say we drink to your brilliance.  (well that may be a little dramatic) Make the decision to lead, and others will follow you.

Most people need someone to take them to the next level.  Why not you? Why not now?

Do you ever have days where everyone around you seems to have an opinion about what would be better for you?  Well meaning people who believe that you need constant guidance and assistance to move through you days, but only end up confusing you?

Today was one of those days for me.  I was having the most fabulous morning and after spending some time with my niece, I really was feeling inspired so i went in and pulled out some notes in my book to send to get written up.

Then a relative decided that it was important to discuss where i am at this point in time and talked about what i needed to focus on because i didn’t have a goal.  I thought that was really interesting because i have had the same goal for about 10 years.  However, if you don’t ask me what my goal is, you probably wouldnt know what it is.

I had to stop myself from second guessing myself and my choices.  It really took me looking at the situation from their angle to see why they may think that.  I didn’t take it personally, I know that not everyone ‘gets’ what i do.  My mother will never understand why i spend so much time on that stupid computer.  That’s just her though.

So i thought about it and i realised that we all get tested from time to time.  How do you know if your on the right track if someone doesn’t question you or give you the opportunity to reaffirm your path.  This doesn’t have to be a reaffirming by doing a big song and dance.  That’s not everyone’s style.  It maybe the quiet reassurance you need to give yourself that you are doing what you love and that you are where you are meant to be.

Do not take to heart every question you get, or every off handed comment, trust me, there will be many of those along your journey.  If your going to give up on your dream every time someone makes a comment, its not a very strong dream at all.

So trust yourself.  You know what is right for you. You don’t have to have the approval of the masses, you just need to have given yourself approval to believe, dream and achieve.

To your success.
K

Do you know the legend of the Cherokee Indian youth’s rite of Passage?

His father takes him into the forest, blindfolds him an leaves him alone.  He is required to sit on a stump the whole night and not remove the blindfold until the rays of the morning sun shine through it.  He cannot cry out for help to anyone.

Once he survives the night, he is a MAN.

He cannot tell the other boys of this experience, because each lad must come into manhood on his own.

The boy is naturally terrified. He can hear all kinds of noises. Wild beasts must surely be all around him . Maybe even some human might do him  harm.

The wind blew the grass and earth, and shook his stump, but he sat stoically, never removing the blindfold. It would be the only way he could become a man!

Finally, after a horrific night the sun appeared and he removed his blindfold.

It was then that he discovered his father sitting on the stump next to him.

He had been at watch the entire night, protecting his son from harm.

We, too, are never alone.

Even when we don’t know it, God is watching over us, Sitting on the stump beside us.

When trouble comes, all we have to do is reach out to God.

I love that parable.  It’s nice to know we are never alone and that we only have to believe for it to be so.

God can be called many names, Source, Universe, Spirit, Divine.  What you call it does not matter.  The point is that when you ask you shall receive.  And for those that do not want to ask the source for help, well that is when you get sent friends!!!!!!

Being a strong woman, I have not always found it easy to ask for help or to trust people enough to allow them to help me.  I know it was my issues that were standing in my way of receiving more than i was.  I knew that what i expected to see in people or receive from them is what i would get in return.

So i decided to look for the good in people and trust that they would be there to help me if and when i needed it.  And the nice thing was that they were.

I love how the army has night vision goggles that they use sometimes.  It is really quite fascinating that you can see at night with a pair of funny looking glasses on your head.  But sometimes a pair of night vision goggles are what we need to see through all the “stuff” that is going on in our lives.

I’m no expert on the goggles but from what i have seen in the movies, they really do make it easy to move around in total darkness with them on.

Sometimes it needs to get really dark before we are ready to start to see what is going on. I know for myself that was exactly what i had to do.  I would let everything build up and become so much of a mess that it pretty much had to become a blackout for me to address it.  So out came my night vision goggles and i started to be able to see through the darkness.

Now obviously this is just a metaphor for life in general.  I mean you can run around with night vision goggles on if you like, but you do that at your own risk of looking silly.

I spent a lot of time in the dark.  I didn’t want to admit what was going on.  I didn’t want to see how bad my life was turning out and i pretended that everything was ok, when in actual fact it was falling apart by the second.  But i was able to pull out my trusty night goggles and i saw things for how they really were.  So when the daylight came, i could make some better or different choices.

So if you need a pair of night vision goggles, you can borrow mine