I talked last week about the distinction between behaving like a victim and having like an owner.

I think it was Steve Chandler who showed me this distinction, and it changed a lot for me.

I saw how often my instinct was to blame others, to not take responsibility.

But when I saw that I could take ownership, I noticed some resistance to it after awhile.

Why?

While I understood that being an Owner is much more powerful than being a Victim, I kept thinking that there might be something more.

Something beyond my own personal interests.

I kept wondering about what it would be like to have life happening “Through Me,” to use Michael Beckwith’s framework.

The Nobility of a Just Cause

If you are familiar with Simon Sinek‘s work, you know “Start With Why.”

You know that purpose is a more powerful driver than what you actually do.

And in his later book, “The Infinite Game,” Sinek expands on this idea with what he calls a Just Cause. Something long term, beyond ourselves, that we would be willing to give our entire lives to pursuing.

When I worked for Fidelity Investments, I was in the part of the business that was about tax incentives for employee savings, both through 401(k) plans and health savings accounts.

Our focus was on getting as many working class people to save for their retirements as possible. True, that benefited our business, but that wasn’t what was important to me. It was that in some way, what I did every day made it possible for millions of people to save for and have retirements for themselves and resources to provide for their families.

And I had done the same thing with health care benefits, helping employers provide affordable benefits for millions of employees.

The thing was, no one at any of my employers told me this “why.” It was something that emerged in me.

I was a Steward.

Beyond Owner and Victim

Last week I talked about owner and victim, and the power of taking control of our lives, even as we recognize that we are not ever fully in control of anything.

But that shift is just one of the possible shifts.

As Michael Beckwith wrote, we each operate as if life is happening To Me, By Me, Through Me, or As Me.

Steve Chandler taught me about Victim, and Owner, which I equate to the “To Me” and “By Me” perspectives that Beckwith talks about.

I’ve never seen anyone equate a noun to the “Through Me” perspective, but I’m going to propose Steward.

The Power of Being a Steward

A Steward lives for and from a bigger purpose. A Just Cause, in Simon Sinek’s words.

It can be something that the person creates, or that the person chooses. But the most important thing is that it is beyond an individual. It’s something bigger. And often, it is something that you could work your entire life to achieve.

Martin Luther King was as Steward of a cause much greater than himself. He gave his life for that cause.

Your Just Cause may not feel quite as big, but I assure you it’s just as important.

When you are a Steward, in service of whatever your Just Cause is, you are much more likely to feel fulfillment, purpose, meaning.

And, in my experience, you are much more likely to feel a high level of satisfaction from what you do in the world, even when it is hard.

Part of my Just Cause is helping others identify theirs. Because the world is better off when we are all part of something bigger than ourselves.

What Just Cause have you created, or declared?

And how many people are you leading toward creating it?

Most people recoil at the thought that they might be a victim.

And then go back to fighting for their victimhood.

What Do I Mean by Victim?

If I ask you about something bad that happened—maybe you lost a big game, or you didn’t get the promotion you were expecting—what do you say?

If you instinctively look to your circumstances, or to other people, you are a victim.

If you blame, you are a victim.

You have given up any control that you have over your life.

You are at the mercy of things outside of you.

You have no power.

Does this trigger you?

Most of us, most of the time, take on the role of victim because it is easier than admitting to ourselves that maybe we could have done something differently. That we maybe we could have changed the result. Or that we can change the result in the future.

Two Ways to Live Your Life

The spiritual teacher Michael Beckwith asks, “Is life happening TO you, or BY you?”

In other words, are you a victim? Or do you own your life?

What is the assumption that you start from? The place you come from?

None of us controls everything. Most of us control way less than we think.

Still, it is useful to act as if we do.

To start from the proposition that we are in control.

We see this in champion athletes and coaches. They don’t start with “if the shortstop hadn’t struck out with the bases loaded, we would have won.” Even if that’s true.

Instead, they say something like, “I let the team down today and I have to be better.”

What Does it Mean to Be an Owner?

Ask any founder and you will hear frustration about people not taking ownership.

Of course, when you own the company you own everything that happens within that company.

But a lot of your employees might not. And it can be a lot easier to identify people who are not behaving as owners than people who do.

If you hear ever hear “That’s not my job,” you are not talking to an owner.

Even if it’s not actually that person’s job.

If you hear someone talking about how they could have done more, or how they will do it differently, you might be talking to an owner.

If you hear someone talking about how they will do it differently next time, you might be talking to an owner.

You Can “Take Ownership,” but You Can Also Give It

We’ll talk about a different version of this in a couple weeks, but imagine this—

I can take ownership of what I am responsible for, fully owning the results and my contributions (or lack of them) toward those results.

But as a leader, I can also GIVE ownership.

Not telling someone what to do, but offering them the opportunity to own it for the sake of their own development.

And when you master this, your leadership, and your leaders, will change.

I’ve been writing about how solid the world looks to each of us.

It looks like the world is solid, and “out there.”

But it’s really just projected on the “screen” inside our brains.

“What is real? How do you define real? If real is what you can feel, what you can smell, what you can taste and see, then real is simply electrical signals interpreted by your brain.” — Morpheus to Neo, The Matrix

Each of us gets inputs through our senses and create a model of the world from it. And then, based on our culture and history we make up stories about that world and live within those stories. What should be and what shouldn’t. What’s good and what’s bad. What we can change and what we can’t.

We are often blind to those stories, because they seem so obvious to us. But those stories are different for everyone.

Different Worlds

“How can you possibly believe that?”

Have you ever asked that question? Perhaps at Thanksgiving dinner after one too many glasses of wine?

The person you asked it to is just as convinced that they are right as you are. That their world is the “real” one.

What if neither of you has any idea about the “real” world?

The Elephant and the Wise Men

Remember the story of the blindfolded wise men and the elephant, each touching a different part?

What if that’s your leadership team?

What if you started getting curious rather than trying to convince everyone that your version of the world is the right one?

What if you saw that no one is ever “wrong,” they just have a different perspective?

What Kind of Team are You Creating?

If you had the exact same lived experience as your coworker, you would see the world in exactly the same way, and tell the exact same stories about that world.

In fact, as leaders we often instinctively seek out people who agree with us. Whose stories are as similarly to ours as possible.

But what if you actively sought out people with both different expertise (finance, sales, product) AND different perspectives?

How much more valuable would your team be then? Because you would now have more data rather than only perspectives that confirm yours.

When Your Team Sees This, Everything Will Change

Imagine how your team meetings might change if everyone on your team understood this.

If everyone was unattached to their own view.

If everyone understood that everyone ELSE had value to add.

If everyone was curious about finding that value, and determined to hear even from the quiet folks.

What could that mean for your performance? For your results?

Want to Look at This More Deeply?

I’ve seen this dramatically impact both a team’s relationships and its effectiveness.

Send me a DM if you want to learn more.

 

Last week I wrote about the irrefutable truth that each of us can ONLY live an internal experience.

That there is no way for a human being to directly experience anything outside of ourselves. Only the model of the world that our brain creates.

That is the fundamental truth on which all my work rests.

But there are observations and implications that come from this truth.

And one of them is this—

When Your Mind Quiets, Different Thoughts Appear

If your mind is at all like mine, it can be a very busy place.

Lots of judgmental thoughts, thoughts that I am very familiar with about myself, about the world, about political leaders, about money, about my partner—you name it.

Over and over and over again.

When you begin to see this chatter for what it is, just thoughts that come and go, you get a little less attached to whether or not it is “true.” And you might also find, as I have, that the chatter slows down quite a bit when you know it’s just noise.

At that point, something deeper can emerge. Quiet, patient, simple.

It’s there waiting for you.

It’s been there all along.

It goes by many names. Wisdom, intuition, guidance. Even God. What word you use isn’t particularly important. What is important is that the experience of it will feel very different from your more “normal” way of operating.

Instinct? Or Intuition?

I was talking with a former client the other day, Michael Showalter, and he said one of the most valuable things that came from work together was something he didn’t even realize at the time.

“Before we started working together, I was operating from instinct,” he said.

I asked him what he meant. He said it was about reacting quickly, and without thought. Just doing the first thing that came to mind—what I have found a lot of people call operating “from the gut.”

When I talk about intuition, that is where most people think I am pointing.

But, at least for him, a lot of that instinct driven by his own programming—pleasing others, proving himself, looking good, avoiding conflict, etc.

Michael said when he was able to see that, he was able to get quiet and get access to a deeper kind of wisdom, which he called “intuition.”

“I just knew. No trumpets, no fanfare, no butterflies. When I got quiet, when I had access to it, what to do next was obvious. And typically simple, too, even if it often was the exact opposite of what “instinct” would tell me.

What Does Your Wisdom Feel Like?

It can be really easy to miss this in the moment. I know there have been many times where I said, “I knew I shouldn’t have done (or said) that,” after the fact.

Trusting this quiet wisdom before the fact, though, is a game-changer. As is understanding what it is and what it isn’t.

In my experience, it is a quiet guide to the next step. And relatively rare.

It ISN’T a way to play the stock market or a guide to sports betting.

But if you are willing to follow where it leads, and put what it suggests into action, it can change everything.

Two Days To Get Deeper Access

If this sounds like something you’d like to explore more deeply, I have two ways to dive in—one-on-one in a personal retreat, or in a group setting in Denver on October 20-21.

If you are interested in exploring either, like this post (so more people will see it) and send me a DM.