Alone
“I will never walk alone another day in my life.”
My life was based on a great lie. It was fashioned in my childhood, confirmed through my own selection bias, and whispered by an enemy set against my soul. It is part of the cultural religion in the state I call home and is a pretty big part of our national consciousness. It has been incredibly costly for anyone who has perpetrated that lie in their own life.
I spent a lot of energy trying to convince others that it is true and it became so familiar that it almost felt more real than anything else. The lie was that I don’t need anyone or anything from anybody. I didn’t need help, support, or even encouragement. I’ve got everything under control and I can handle it all on my own.
So costly in my leadership journey.
So debilitating in my marriage.
So toxic in my friendships.
But I am making progress. I am getting better. I have more than a decade in the field alongside intimate allies. They have fought for me well and earned my trust. They have made it very easy for me to come out of hiding. They have forced me to be honest. Their reliability has made me get comfortable being vulnerable.
I have a work tribe with over a decade together fighting in the same direction.
I have a life tribe with over a decade of almost weekly gathering and lots of missions under our belt.
And I have a long suffering wife and collection of kids, three decades in, that have allowed me the space to get better.
I am so much more powerful a leader and bring so much more to every table because I am not doing anything alone. I feel the strength, encouragement, and collective wisdom of many in everything I do. I have had to work hard to cultivate all that, but it has been a humbling and transformative journey. It has been worth every step.
The last two new leaders I met with were asked the same question:
“How can I help you?”
And both ultimately summarized their need the same way:
I don’t need more information, but a clear path to take my business down to find greater success.
I need a way to comfortably integrate my faith and deepest beliefs into the fabric of my company.
I need a tribe. I am completely alone in my leadership.
Of course you do. We all are just working in our businesses and not on them, without deep purpose and meaning integrated into our daily work, and doing it all on our own. And once we get a taste of living with all three of those propositions solved, we’ll never go back.
I spend every day of every week helping others meet those three great needs. And I could have never built a business doing that if I hadn’t first found it for myself. And it has completely changed the way I work and live.
In Colorado at a life-changing retreat in October of 2002, I swore I would never walk alone another day in my life. I didn’t know how I was going to make that happen, but the journey I have taken to change that in my own life has helped many others find the same.
Consider
Are you walking alone in life or leadership?
Do you feel like every responsibility and every burden is carried by you alone?
Are you ready to do something about it? (I can help.)