Book 285 - A Year of Magical Learning

Reflection Title: A Desk is a Dangerous Place from Which to View the World!

Book – The 10 Stories Great Leaders Tell by Paul Smith

Book Description:

Every great leader is a great storyteller.

As a manager, CEO, or team leader, how can you innovatively engage your employees so that they understand where your organization came from, where it's going, and how you're going to get there? How can you connect with your customers in a way that makes them believe in your company as passionately as you do?

Paul Smith is one of the world's leading experts in business storytelling. He teaches people how to be more effective leaders by communicating their company's important mission, inspiring creativity, and earning the trust of valued stakeholders. The 10 Stories Great Leaders Tell explores the journey behind success and breaks down not just the importance of your company's story, but how to craft compelling ones of your own.

Reflection:

I couldn’t sleep last night.

I was tossing and turning all night long as thoughts and visions of the upcoming day ahead danced in my mind. As is my habit these days, if I can’t sleep than I might as well get up and write out these thoughts because I know they aren’t going away.

So, what’s on my mind that is keeping me up? Well, thanks for asking!

The upcoming day ahead is a big one for Emilia and me. In just a few short hours I’m scheduled to meet with my new team for the first time in which I’ve been tasked to lead in the new job I recently took.

Sure, meeting a group of 8 new people that were also just recently hired would make anyone a little nervous and on edge, but that isn’t why my thoughts are keeping me up at night. What is keeping me up at night is excitement and anticipation about what is to come on our journey together.

You see, I didn’t take this job for no reason at all, quite the opposite. For the first time in my life, I choose to take on an opportunity as a company not as an employee, but as a calling. The journey that I’ve been on the past 2 ½ years since Emilia passed away have led me to this point in my journey. I’m not here to make money, I’m not here to move up the corporate ranks, and I’m not even here to progress my career in any meaningful way…I’m here to live my purpose.

All the values Emilia and I have found along the way and brought to life with our actions led us here. All the books we’ve read, all the lessons learned, all the monthly challenges, all the people Trieu and I have mentored, all the meetup groups we’ve hosted, all the writing, the podcasts, and more have led me to this conversation with the new team later today. I only choose this opportunity as it gave me the chance to help live my mission of doing meaningful work with meaningful relationships and helping others to do the same. That is my only objective.

While this job opportunity isn’t ClubAny in its purest form; I like to think of it as ClubAny lite.

I want to help people to do what Emilia taught me and live a life of values and bring their art into the world. The excitement of thinking about setting the stage to help this team to bring their values to life is beyond description.

I want to see if this way of living is possible in the real world or not. I want to see if I can share the elixir and make a difference or not.

I know this has worked for Trieu and I, but it remains to be seen how the rest of the world will perceive it as it is counter culture to the philosophies of the world I’m about to enter. I’m not worried though because as we learned in this book, “a desk is a dangerous place from which to view the world!”

I was tired of waiting for the grand vision of ClubAny to come to fruition and decided it was time to act on what I can now and whatever ways I can in the present. We’ll get to where we want to go someday, but for the time being, I can’t wait to see where this next portion of the journey takes us.

Onward Emilia!!!

Question: Are you brave enough to put your ideas out into the real world or not?

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Links:

What is The Year of Magical Learning? An Introduction

YOML Podcast Discussion - Coming Soon

YOML Bookstore - 10 Stories Great Leaders Tell by Paul Smith