The Two Journeys We All Go On

All of us go on two journeys in life.

The first journey is easier to see and describe.  This journey consists of things such as:

Places we have lived. For example, people who know my story know that I fled Ethiopia, lived in a refugee camp in Sudan, and came to the United States when I was almost seven.
Our professional life: Someone might say, I went to college at the University of Minnesota, studied electrical engineering, and now work for General Electric.
Key relationships: Someone might say, I had four brothers and one sister; when I was twenty-five, I got married and now have two wonderful children.

When most of us think of our life journeys, we generally think along the lines described above – what might be called the external journey. But each of us also goes on an internal journey that consists of things such as:

Our levels of confidence: Maybe you had low confidence in middle school, it rose in high school, plummeted again in college, and now is at an all-time high.
Moments of courage: Times when we should have given up, or when we should have been too scared to try something, but we went ahead and discovered that we had far more in us than we ever thought. There are also times when we should have given up, but we didn’t.
Love: We can look back and see when we received and gave tremendous love; when we extended forgiveness, and perhaps when we let hate get the best of us.

Leadership is the intersection between these two journeys, where we dynamically and proactively guide both the external and internal. Because the external journey is much sexier and easier to see than the internal, only those willing to spend time reflecting can truly lead.