As a leader the thing that I am finally starting to get is simply this… exceptional performance isn’t a repeatable recipe! Exceptional performance happens only when uniqueness is expressed with abandon! It happens only when individuals have the freedoms to explore who they are and what greatness looks like for them. Not what exceptional performance looks like for Spotify or Joe Blogs, but for them!

Exceptional performance is about exploiting the differences that we use to separate ourselves and use these to bring it all together into a single, evolving master piece…. like an orchestra.

Which is pretty much the exact opposite of what the big corporate machine requires. We are roles that fit together like a machine. Variation is managed out because consistency is the key! Or so we have been told.

Why do I have a Guiness World Record ? One of the reasons is that I stopped trying to follow and copy the men who had been before me and instead finally accepted my differences and my uniqueness and used that! 15 years later and what if the whole point of being you is that you see things differently ? What if your perspective is required in order for the picture to be complete ?  part of the complete picture ? What if without it you and the way you experience the world there can be no complete picture. Your uniqueness adds something that could not be there without you seeing it and interpreting it and living it.

When you aren’t doing in acceptance of your uniqueness, when you aren’t being that or aren’t even able to see your uniqueness or have never experienced a space that embraces that – then you engage with the world waiting to be judged and told you are wrong. You don’t engage with the world from a place of power – you engage expecting to be judged as wrong. Which just sets up everyone to disagree and reject you. It sets us all up to be defensive and to not trust who we are.

I am choosing to no longer relate to anyone from that place. Instead I am choosing a bold stance. I have no idea how well I can live up to it, we will see.  Here goes….

You never needed my permission to think the way you do or see the world the way you do!

You never needed my approval either. Nor do I need to change how I see the world because it doesn’t make sense to you. These are all myths that stop us from being the greatness we are.

What you choose and how you interpret the world may not be ‘right’ for me and vica versa! It may however be the best way forward and most right for you! Right depends on your starting point. We don’t have the same starting points! We don’t have the same options because we aren’t the same! We are unique !

I am no longer living with the unconscious expectation that we all somehow need to agree. You don’t need to somehow come to where I am and see things the way I do or make the choices I make AND I don’t have to validate your reality! They are both valid and we are both totally able to live our realities with grace and style and success.

Yes it may feel uncomfortable! Then again, your life isn’t mine! You don’t have the same tool set and understandings I have, so why would what I think or choose be useful for you ? I mean it may! But more often than not, it won’t! It won’t make any sense! It will sound and feel wrong and it won’t work for you because we are different! And that is OK! It’s how it is meant to be! Your journey is yours. You will learn what you need to learn in your way and it probably won’t be very similar to my journey.

Your job is to understand what greatness looks like and feels like for you! Your job isn’t to mimic someone else’s greatness! Greatness is something you create, not something your construct from a recipe.  Your job is to be a fantabulous learner and explorer! Your job is to embrace being a beginner in every moment of every day.

Your job is to explore your own empowerment and understand and experience the power of the choices you and only you can make!

My job is to create a space where that is easier to live and do! My job right now is to understand how to do that with better effect and ease, to really get what this all means!