Negative Examples

I’ve heard it many times in conversations, during seminars I’ve facilitated, or from people I’ve coached: “I learned what NOT to do…”

I’ve had a major realization in the last week or two: negative examples give us something to run away from, but they do not provide a direction, which is perhaps the most important aspect of leadership, whether you are leading yourself or others.

My stark realization of the last two weeks is that I have spent my whole life running from a negative example.

I have blogged about my past in this space before.  I have certainly been intentional, but it has been reactive.  I have responded to the circumstance.  And now, I realize more fully that it is direction, not just intentionality, that I require.

The question I asked myself yesterday was, “How far must you run away from something in order to escape it?”  I outran my past long ago, but I kept running.  I had intent, but no direction, a vision for others, but not for myself.  I have allowed the difference in my circumstances, and the difference I would make for others, to define me (a reactive approach), instead of allowing those things to be by-products of the who and what I am becoming (a directional approach).

It is the same as the difference between, “I will NEVER be…,” and “I am/will be…”

One is reactive, the other directional; one yields distance, the other possibilities.

To possibilities, then.

~ by stoshdwalsh on May 20, 2009.