Letter 42 - Be a leader and stay in tune with your emotion
Published by Aditya Jhunjhunwala,
If you’re building something - a family, a career, a blog, an organisation of your own or contributing to the growth of an organisation - there are going to be times when you feel
"what the hell is going on!"
"are we even on the right track!"
"this doesn’t make sense!"
These thoughts come in waves - and they shake up something with us.
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Leaders often face this tension, things might be going wrong but you need to collect and keep things together. My friend Akash likes to call this ‘creative tension’.
And, when I say ‘leader’ I genuinely believe every individual is a leader. Some lead a team, some lead a home, some lead a factory unit, but all of us lead our thoughts.
A good leader should be able to manage thoughts and take decisions.
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Recently I read a quote "if you don’t feel, you can’t make decisions"
So often you will face situations where you have to take decisions. In the process your will feel fear, doubt and resistance. Don’t hate them. Don’t push them back. You don’t have to pretend to be strong.
Just keep them coming and yet carefully keep collecting your thoughts and keeping making decisions.
Give this short story a read to understand better :)
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Once there was a group of tradesmen. They traveled from place to place to sell their goods.
One day while they were traveling, they came across a hot desert. The leader of the tradesman checked nearby people.
He came to know that, during the day, the hot sun heats the fine sand so much that no one walks on it, not even the camels. Also, it takes close to 3 nights to cross the desert.
Hearing this, the leader decided to travel during the night when the sand cools down and camp in the day.
Considering the night travel, he hired a local guide to help them cross the desert.
With the help of the guide, they started their journey in the desert. The guide went in front, and all tradesmen followed him. All were traveling with their respective caravans pulled by camels.
A couple of nights later, they crossed 3/4th of the desert. On the third night, they started their journey again.
After some time, the guide considering that it would be the last night of the travel, started relaxing and fell asleep. Then his camel started walking to the side, and other camels behind followed.
All the camels went in a big circle until they ended up in the same place where they had started last night. When the sun came up, the tradesman realized they were back at the same spot where they camped last night. They worried that they had only very little water, not enough to cross the desert.
They started blaming the leader and guide, "Without water, how to survive in this hot desert?".
The leader talked to himself, "We are in a difficult situation, and If I lose courage now, lives will be lost."
So, he started exploring the area and found a bunch of grass. He was sure that without underneath water, it is difficult for the grass to survive.
He then them that we dig this grass area, as there is a possibility of water here.
Everyone agreed and started digging, soon they found a large rock, which was a challenge to break.
Seeing the rock, everyone lost hope and started to blame the leader, "We wasted our time and energy."
The leader said, "No, my friends. It is not a waste. If we give up now, all our effort will go in vain. So, we should continue our work." He then put his ear on the large rock and heard the sound of flowing water.
Hearing the sound, he called the strongest among them and said, "If you give up, we all will perish. So, give all your strength in breaking this rock".
The strong man lifted the hammer and hit the rock hard. Soon, the rock split open, and water gushed out from it.
Then all tradesmen were overjoyed and filled up all their water pouches. The leader and the guide were relieved and continued to lead the journey.
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Everything we do reaches a point where inspite of the good work we do, we feel that we haven’t got proportionate results or that there is much more that can be done.
How can we align our energy?
How can we increase our results?
How to we move towards our dreams?
What resources and abilities will we need in our journey forward?
What is the rock within which we fill discover our collective stream of water?
These are important questions we must ask ourselves, not just alone but with people who are leading with us.
Stay on it my friend. You have worked hard. The stream will surely gush. Stay on it.
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Leadership is something we all already do everyday in our lives, whether we realise it or not. Might as well have fun with this, and make our best effort.
While you are at it, I'm sharing this song to thunder away your fears and doubts.
https://youtu.be/fKopy74weus