Thomas Narofsky's Blog, page 5

Guest Host on #TCHAT

Good Day! I’ll be the guest host on TalentCulture #TChat – show which includes #TChat Radio and #TChat Twitter Chat – Wednesdays from 6:30-8:00 pm EST. The radio show is from 6:30-7:00 pm EST and the Twitter chat is from 7pm-8pm EST. Before I host I would like to share some information with you about myself.

First, I am passionate about developing emerging, enduring, and experienced leaders and teaching them how to develop themselves using a disciplined and deliberate approach. All leadership begins from inside a person and must be developed and grown as they grow into emerging and enduring leaders. I believe that leadership principles are timeless and apply across all spectrums of life. I believe leadership begins inside of you. Leadership starts with a condition of the heart – the desire and passion to make a difference before it moves to the brain to implement a plan to make a difference. It is an inside-out process and is shaped by your values, character, choices, opportunities, experiences, and your worldview. Leadership is about you, the people you influence, and a belief that you can make a difference and have an impact.

Second, my next passion is for developing the next generation of leaders who will be the leaders in the military, in government, in business and globally. These leaders will lead in a volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous or VUCA world and must be prepared for leading in chaos. What do I mean by a VUCA?

Volatile means that the speed, size, scale of change in the world today has a great impact on events around the globe almost instantaneously. An example is the rate and pace of stock market changes and the effect it has on personal and corporate wealth.
Uncertainty means that world events are unpredictable and this unpredictability makes it impossible to prepare for unknown world events. An example is the effects of Arab Spring and governmental changes in the last four years.
Complexity means that the chaotic nature of the world combined with the volatility and uncertainty of global events creates an environment of confusion and difficulty for today’s leaders.
Ambiguity means that there is a lack of clarity or transparency surrounding world events. It is hard to predict what threats are in the world if you do not know the who, what, or why things are happening.

We will need leaders who can meet and adapt to new challenges, build strategic partnerships, build and sustain human capital organizations, and have the courage to act and react to the challenges. In addition to these requirements, we need to continue to develop leaders who are flexible, adaptive and are globally and culturally aware. This next generation of leaders must understand how to build and maintain trust, keep their integrity, and continue to build their credibility by developing their character.

An authentic character is the outward expression of our purpose, values, and beliefs. Your character comprises your beliefs, motives, values, desires, behaviors, and principles that drive and shape your actions as a leader. Character authenticity is living on purpose, keeping true to your values and beliefs, and not compromising them at the altar of Society. Your character is tested in the crucible of life and is forged through adversity.

Lastly, I believe authentic leaders inspire people to greatness. Inspiration is the ability to breathe life into someone or an organization. Inspiration is a positive influence – a positive reinforcement – we give our people. It ignites desire, ignites creativity, and ignites innovation in inspired people. Leadership is not what I do it is who I am. There is no escaping who I am. My leadership is the embodiment of my heart, mind, body, and soul. It is an amalgamation of my life’s purpose, my values, my ethics, my core beliefs, my life philosophy, and my worldview.

One of the topics we are going to discuss on the #TCHAT show is the Inspire or Retire Theorem.

Inspire or Retire Theorem

The Inspire or Retire Theorem wraps up my F(X) Leadership framework and my theory of you are the key to your leadership. The function of (x) is you.

What if the leaders in your organization

• Knew the organizational vision, goals, values and the impact their leadership had on the success of the organization

• Knew success as a leader included knowing themselves, their team and the organization

• Knew a leader must have high moral and ethical values and that character counts

• Knew leaders are responsible for their actions and their words

• Knew they needed to continuously develop, grow and reinvent themselves to meet the challenges of the future

• Understood their role in developing other leaders

• Understood character, courage, commitment and communication are key components of leadership

• Understood they are responsible for their leadership development

• Understood they are the key to their leadership

The Inspire or Retire Theorem answers all the above questions in a mathematical mnemonic that encapsulates my leadership responsibility to the people I lead and the organization I serve. It was designed as a visual representation for me to remember to always Inspire or Retire.

I look forward to sharing time with and discussing your views on leadership, leadership development, and developing the next generation of leaders.

Thom

 

 

10 quick thoughts for becoming a lifelong learner

• Endeavor to become a lifelong learner in all aspects of your life

• Apply self-leadership practices to create the outcomes you desire

• Understand who you are and what you can accomplish

• Learn from everyone you meet

• Create time to read and grow

• Invest in your growth and development first

• Use your experiences as life and leadership lessons

• Keep your mind open to new ways of thinking

• Apply your growth, development and experiences to your leadership

• Use self-assessments and leadership assessments to find your blind spots and areas needing improvement

Life is a Journey

When I imagine life as a journey, I think of the expedition of Lewis and Clark to the Pacific Ocean, Earnest Shackleton and the Endurance expedition to Antarctica, and the 20-year odyssey of Odysseus in Homer’s “The Odyssey”. All three of these expeditions are indicative of the journey we go through in life.

Life is an expedition of trials, challenges, experiences, setbacks, and successes. It is a time of choices, responses, outcomes, and decisions. It is a time of soul-searching, self-discovery, and developing a new understanding of who you are and what you are capable of doing in life. It is a time opportunities, possibilities, learning, and development. It is a time of adventure, misfortune, victory and defeat.

How you travel along your life’s journey is up to you. However, on each expedition there is the opportunity to grow, develop, and reinvent yourself. You need to convert all your expedition experiences into life lessons and leverage those lessons into how you live each day. The key is to live each day in the same manner you want to finish life. You can live an unstoppable life and finish well by preparing now!

The best way to live an Unstoppable Life is to prepare and plan your life NOW!

The best way to live out your Unstoppable Life is through your passion for life and day-to-day performance!

The best way to maintain your Unstoppable Life is through dogged persistence and perseverance!

You must CHANGE YOUR MINDSET to be Unstoppable!

Being unstoppable is a mindset. It is an unwavering belief in yourself, your abilities, and your capabilities. It is a belief in your unshakeable purpose and values. You have to believe in yourself with conviction and commitment.

It is awareness in your strengths and your challenges. It is about self-efficacy and self-awareness. Once you have recognized your purpose and values, ingrained them, you begin to shape your unstoppable life. Unless you have an unwavering belief that you have something of value to offer this world you’ll never be unstoppable.

The unstoppable mindset means that no matter what life tosses in your way, you can overcome it. It is about being fearless. Fear is a creation of your mind. It is a response to an uncertainty or an unknown. You need to be fearless in your life to be unstoppable.

Being fearless is overcoming your feelings of fear and pushing through the uncertainty. The only way to combat fear is to face your fear and take the necessary action to alleviate the fear. To get over fear, you have to take action.

Being unstoppable is about making life choices. Life is a series of choices, and every choice you make defines you. The most important choice you can make is who you will become. If you want to live an unstoppable life, you need to change your mindset and win the war in your thinking first.

You have tremendous inner strength as an individual and by applying this inner strength you can achieve what you want to lead the life you want. Being unstoppable means you have the choice to change your outcomes by changing the way you think and what effects you can put into your life.

Freedom and Liberty

During my trips to the Pentagon, I would take the time to run along the National Mall in Washington D.C. and soak in American History. My running route usually started in the Constitution Gardens at the 56 Signers of the Declaration of Independence Memorial. It was a great place to start my run through history. It reminded me of the beginning journey to Freedom and Liberty and the sacrifice each of these signers ended up making for the Founding of America.

From the Constitution Gardens I would run to the WWII memorial then to D.C. War Memorial, to the Korean War Memorial, and over to the Vietnam Veterans memorial. Each of the Memorials along the run reminds me of the Service and the Sacrifice of the men and women, the Sons and Daughters of America, made to found and keep Country free.

I would finish my run at the Lincoln Memorial and usually spend time reading the Gettysburg Address and Lincoln’s 2nd Inaugural Address.

President Lincoln, in my opinion, showed enormous grace under pressure as a President to preserve Freedom and Liberty. He was also a great example of how to use courage, persistence, perseverance, resilience, and forgiveness as a leader and in your personal life.

First, he had courage to stand up for what he believed was right concerning the Union of the States and the U.S. Constitution. He was faced with an incredible challenge of preserving the United States when elected President. In his first inaugural address, President Lincoln argued that the Constitution was binding to all States and could only be dissolved unanimously by all the States. He also stated that based on the Oath of the President he was solemnly bound to preserve, protect, and defend the Union of the United States.

I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.

Second, President Lincoln, as he eloquently stated in his Gettysburg Address, had the persistence and perseverance to keep fighting for what he believed was right. He made sure that those who fought, bled, and died were not forgotten and the fight would continue until the Union was united once again.

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

Finally, President Lincoln displayed resilience and forgiveness after the issue was resolved. The Nation needed to move forward as one people and not enemies.

With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.

President Lincoln displayed indispensable moral courage when he stood for Freedom and Liberty. Each of us could learn a valuable lesson when it comes to courage and forgiveness.

The You Are Unstoppable Personal Development System

Get out of your C.O.M.F.O.R.T Zones

Why do people have a hard time achieving an unstoppable life? They are afraid to get out of their comfort zone. What is a comfort zone? Your comfort zone can be your prison. I define a comfort zone as a zone of containment or as:

Captivity

          Over

                   Me

                             From

                                      Obtaining

                                                Real

                                                          Triumphs

                                                                           ZONE

The number one thing I unfortunately see stopping people from continuously growing, developing, and reinventing themselves is their reluctance to step out of there comfort zone and take a risk.

They miss opportunity and success because they are afraid to take the risk. In order to grow and develop and to acquire additional knowledge, skill, experience, you need to get out of your comfort zone.

Take the risk when an opportunity arises and step up to the challenge of expanding your horizons. Great opportunities in life are out there if you take the risk and seek them out. When you take the risk to step out and grow, it will stretch and grow you all eight dimensions of personal development. Significant opportunities of personal growth and success will arise throughout your lifetime.

If you are ready to make positive changes and new breakthroughs in your life, you will need to embrace these opportunity and release yourself from your captivity.

One way to step out of your comfort zone is to face your fears and overcome them. How do you do that? You take small steps constantly out of your comfort zone and into the uncharted territory of your fears. The largest fear you will need to tackle first is the fear of change.

The fear of change is also the fear of growing, developing, and reinventing yourself. The fear of growing, developing and reinventing yourself is the fear that you will succeed and have to deal with all the changes of success. You do not need to fear the changes of success you need to fear the regret of a life unchallenged and unfulfilled.

GET OUT OF YOUR C.O.M.F.O.R.T Zones and Start living UNSTOPPABLE!