Obama & Christie: Out of tragedy, new possibility emerges ... Part 1

Picture the image of Republican New Jersey Governor Chris Christie standing side by side with Democratic President Barack Obama.  One man man white, one man multiracial.  One man large with a loud and passionate, direct and exuberant presence.  The other slender and known for his cool demeanor, depth of thought and observational qualities. One man (Christie) had previously criticized the other (Obama) in public ("groping for the light switch of leadership in a darkened room).Yet a woman named Sandy, in the form of a hurricane, brought them together and brought out the best in both of them.  AND simultaneously  helped us glimpse a new way forward as a people.  In this post I am going to focus on the inner development of both leaders from my perspective and apply that to each of us and human development.  Let's start with my assumptions/beliefs:

1. People come into your life at a point in time to give you a glimpse (a positive example) of the next level of development available to you, as a person and a leader.  I refer to this as emergence as in, what is emerging/growing in you now?
2. This person/example will stimulate your imagination of what is possible for you next, even if only unconsciously.
3. If  you recognize this opportunity and move with it, you experience the wind at your back.
4. If you resist it, you experience  struggle and suffering.

Back to Christie and Obama.  Obama's humble and thoughtful, counselor approach is a model of servant leadership (which is why his staff will walk on hot coals for him).  But it would look like a failure of leadership to Christie.  Christie's approach is almost always big, powerful and charismatic.  We only see Obama do that through oratory.  Christie's ego/strategic mind would tell him no one will follow him if he risks growing the opposite characteristics in his leadership (the Obama style) thus keeping him from going to his next level of greatness.   Can you imagine how extraordinary Christie can be as a leader--maybe our President one day--with the ability to tap both capacities?  To be at choice for when to directly and powerfully call for what is needed for the people---and when to recede, observe and serve?

Part 2 highlights Obama's frontier and then connects this to all of us...

Purposeful, Wholehearted Living

To be purposeful is not to be goal oriented, but to seek to reconnect to the source of one's life.  Michael MeadeThese past few months I have seen so many example of this with my clients.  When we make something a goal, we make it a thing or an object and typically we make it a reflection on us.  We achieved the goal or we didn't.  More specifically we make it about our ego/identity.  If we achieve the goal "we" are successful and talented people,  if we do not achieve our goals we are somehow less.  Less smart or talented or whatever.  In a sense the goal lives in the control of our strategic minds/our egos.But Meade says living on purpose, being purposeful is NOT goal directed but instead it is the desire to reconnect to the source of one's life.  For Meade that would be what he would call our soul.  Some of you might call it the true self, or wise self, or essential self.  That which is second nature or true to the pattern that is authentically you.  It is a relationship you enter, when you choose to live purposefully, a conversation between you and the source of your life.  This has little to do with achievement or success (although those may well happen) but they are not what your actions are about, the conversation is not controlled by the vocabulary measurement and numbers.One of the tools I use with clients who want to live wholehearted lives is a declaration, a declaration has two parts: It declares a future, who we are becoming and the second part is why it matters.  That is called the For The Sake Of or FSO for short.  A declaration is not a goal.  It is a conversation, a relationship between you and your becoming.  This is important because if I treat it as a goal, a thing, I hand it over to my strategic mind/ego which somehow always manages to suck all the joy and energy out of the process of becoming.I think Meade's statement might make a good description of being wholehearted.  Wholehearted living appears to me to be connected to be in some kind of internal conversation with the source of being or life that resides at the core of each of us.  So, ask yourself right now:"How connected am I to the source of my life?  And if the answer is 'not very', then ask yourself what are three small steps I could take today that would reconnect me?"  And go do them.  Do this everyday for 3 weeks and watch your life transform itself.  You will be running your life rather than it running you.