Recently I returned from a trip to INSEAD in Fontainebleau, where I joined electives with an existing EMBA cohort. It was the first time since graduating from the same program 11 years ago that I had stepped back into a classroom for more formal education.
The classes were on Storytelling and Psychological Issues in Leadership, both deeply meaningful and directly applicable to my work and my function. But what was perhaps most meaningful were the people I met in that one week.
Leaders from all around the world gathered in one place, hungry for learning, growth, connection, and a better understanding of themselves through the material and the people they interacted with.
Possibilities conjured through capabilities we choose to perceive.
Sitting in the amphitheater, I would marvel at the beauty of such brains and heartbeats in one place, directing their focus in multiple directions. Some with intrigue and awe. Others with caution, skepticism, and quiet observation.
Like many, my thoughts travelled to different moments in my life where decisions I made, including those in haste, became consequential in how my life unfolded over the years.
Through this awareness came acceptance. Through acceptance came a feeling of surrender to all that I never really could control in the first place.
Lessons, 11 years later
Much of how we navigate life is outside of our control. Yet much of how we function is to unconsciously pursue the validity of the stories we have told ourselves about what is right and wrong, what is virtuous and what is vice.
These strongly held belief systems, often anchored in socialized and self-imposed suffering, when withered away, give ground to a fertility of renaissance and resurrection of new promise and fortune.
Think of it as armed, action-oriented awareness.
Being back on campus and in that classroom, I could not help but feel that it is never too late to turn things around for oneself. The world we see has always been the world we seek out. Think about that. Come to terms with that power.
The optics through which we see the world surely shape what the world gives back to us.
And yet many of us still go on with an assault on the future, believing that the more we blitz, the more we bend the world to our wishes. Or so we think.
That week in the classroom made me realize that it is our conviction that creates our reality.
And it is through this conviction that new realities can be created from what was deemed fiction.
If you will it, it will.
Mortality, meaning, and being understood
Mine starts and ends with our mortality, the human experience. In all its glory and turmoil, we are united by deep desires for meaning, contribution, connection, and a feeling of being understood.
For how else does one change course?
When the focus is on understanding, as opposed to judgement, miracles can happen to the human psyche. When you feel seen and understood, you are more likely to consider alternatives in life: the perspectives and your estimation of events that you alone can control.
A new deal becomes possible. A new lease and lens on life.
Today, as I sit here and write this, I cannot help but once again marvel at what each of us truly represents: emotions in human form; ideas; thoughts; truths. Beautiful ones at that.
Rather than chase outward, consider retracing inward. In doing so, much of what you will choose to pursue will become so much more joyful (and achievable) because of its authenticity to you.
And so I ask you to embrace all that is you. In the seas of distractions and famines of attention in your day to day, make space to find a way back to yourself.
What a noble and worthy pursuit.
May you find it and should you see it befitting, begin living in accordance with your nature.
#INSEAD #PersonalGrowth #Leadership #ExecutiveCoaching #Stoicism