Who are you? Do you see yourself as perfect-always right and never wrong? Are you unknowingly trapped in a world of self-deception and denial? Do you sense that you can do much more with your life?
As one scenario, perhaps you may be often carried away by the intensity of the day-to-day activities in which you are involved, and in the process you lose sight of your true self. You may be so consumed with a feeling of self-importance that you see yourself as better than others and perhaps even perfect, or close to perfect. If so, your ego may have quietly taken over and you become unconsciously consumed by selfishness, greed, arrogance, power and deceit.
In the process you may have lost the ability to consciously look at your self and become blind to the fact that the stupidity of your behaviour is quite evident to all those around you. And, of course, you become very good at denying who you really are-you become a habitual liar. You find it difficult to project the truth about yourself. You find it easy to tell others what is right but find it difficult if not impossible to demonstrate truth through your own actions. You look for euphemisms to express yourself rather than confront the real truth. With that state of mind you think that you have arrived and that there is little or no room for your further improvement. Hence, you believe that you do not need the advice of anyone and hence you are closed to new knowledge. Your state of ignorance only deepens. You are particularly prone to this type of thinking when you judge yourself by what you see, or do not see, in others around you, rather than by what you know you can do or who you can be.
The reality is that you, like the rest of us, are not perfect. We can all become better human beings. Once you make the acknowledgement that you are not perfect, you open the door to your personal growth and development. But before you can arrive at this acknowledgement, you must first be humble enough to take a deep and honest look at yourself. When you do so you have the opportunity to recognise the areas in which you fall short of who you want to be and what you desire of yourself. As another scenario, you may be the kind of person who is lacking in self-confidence and thinking little of yourself. You are forever in the shadow of things and consumed with the fear of failure. Occasionally you may brave coming forward, but only to retreat into the shadows in response to perceived challenges and criticisms. You silently long to have the conviction and the courage to lead, but the fear of failure keeps you forever trapped in the background unfulfilled and unhappy. You find it very easy to blame others or to blame circumstances for your perceived failures, problems and difficulties.
In the process you become angry, bitter, jealous and revengeful towards others. You may even hate your environment and the world that you are part of. You lose your perspective on life and on the beautiful world to which you belong. You grumble and you complain about things outside of your control. You are often stressed and you may even become depressed. You live a life of misery and unhappiness. You attract others like yourself and together drown yourselves in your perceived common miseries. Your loud moaning and complaining change nothing. You may quietly seek to connive and manipulate, only to find that the situation remains the same, or gets worse. You can spend your whole life in this state of frustration. But, you don't have to. You can choose to truly lead yourself by becoming a stronger person.
It is by becoming better that you will be able to inspire others to see you as a role model and a leader. As a human being you have the potential to overcome the human frailties identified in the two scenarios above and to become a great and wonderful human being with the ability to inspire and lead others around you.
You are born with creativity, human goodness and the ability to live a fulfilled life. Are you aware? If not, I hope that you will take the time to discover yourself and to understand the potential greatness that resides within you. You are blessed with the gift of conscience, which is nature's way of reminding you of the rights and wrongs in your life. Your conscience links you to the rest of humanity and it speaks the same language as for all other human beings. It is the common language of humanity. It is your conscience that establishes your moral or ethical line. It constantly reminds you that there is goodness within you. Too often you may be of the belief that you have no other choice but to continue to be the person you don't really want to be. You need to make time to better understand yourself-to unravel yourself.
You need to redirect the energy that you wastefully expend blaming others to strengthening yourself to be better able to cope with the challenges with which you have to deal. All human beings encounter challenges in their lives. It is how they respond that matter. You are no different. The question that you must put to yourself is this: "How can I develop myself to be better able to cope with the challenges of life and to thrive, despite the circumstances?" With this question, you open the door to your own self-development in support of your quest for a more fulfilled life. The philosophy of Leading From Above The Line is about helping you to become the better person that you often dream that you can be. Leadership becomes a consequence. The process begins with self-discovery which itself is the outcome of self-introspection.