Posts

Excellent!

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As the fires of excellence shine at your door, generosity itself smiles

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This is one of my favourite sayings, from the Arabic, carved above the door of the Myrtles Palace in the Alhambra in Spain. I’m pretty sure that what it’s saying is something like: “Be great and good stuff will happen!”

I’m a big fan of striving in this way and I wish that everybody felt they had one thing that they wanted to be excellent in doing. The actor and comedian Steve Martin said something I really love:

Be so good that they can’t ignore you!

This is also a very important area for businesses to address.

One of my favourite business books, ‘From Good to Great’ by Jim Collins has as part of its core approach something called the ‘Hedgehog Concept’. Collins describes this as being the intersection between these three factors:

  1. that which drives your business’ economic engine
  2. that which your business can be deeply passionate about
  3. that which your business can be the best in the world at.

Collins holds that this intersection is the turning point between the build-up to greatness and the actual breakthrough towards it. Without it, your business can be good, even very good. But not great.

What about you and your own business?

If it was possible to set aside any doubts or limiting beliefs about what might be achievable, what’s the one thing you’d like your business to be excellent at doing?

Feel free to leave a comment in the box below whilst its open or, after it closes, tweet me @nickrobcoach

Beyond Impostor Syndrome

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On the other side of impostor syndrome lies great possibility. Don’t just settle for the comfort of overcoming it, go beyond.

Almost everybody trying to do something challenging or worthwhile will at some point have felt that sense of Impostor Syndrome.

This is where people are looking to you to achieve something, but inside you don’t feel all that confident. You might worry that people will find out you’re just making it up as you go along, or you might somehow regard yourself as a fake because you don’t know all the answers. Or you might just tend to put down your successes to a one-off piece of luck.

Working on overcoming impostor syndrome is a great thing to do with your coach. But, my experience with clients has taught me that there’s a place even beyond that.

When I’m working with aspirational leaders who really want to make a difference and to have a positive impact, I invite them to not just settle for overcoming impostor syndrome, but to go way beyond.

On the other side is a way of leading that allows people to be really true to themselves, to not have to ‘fake’ anything and, at the same time, to be able to meet the leadership needs of the people around them. This is a gorgeous bit of work to be able to do. It’s about finding what your true strengths are, what your character is really about, and then seeing how it feels to apply that in ways that suit your circumstances.

The impact you can have when people get that you’re leading in a way that matches what they need and is totally genuine and true to who you are, is astonishing.

Like anything that’s really empowering, going beyond impostor syndrome to that place of fully-integrated leadership can be a scary transition. But, if you want it, it’s definitely worth the journey. Don’t just settle for the comfortable feeling of overcoming impostor syndrome, dare to go beyond.

When I let go of what I am,

I become what I might be.

Lao Tzu