Being the Captain of Your Inner Team

Integrity is the most important quality a person can have. It underlines all the values, that a person holds, and allows them to be evident and congruent in their everyday activities.
To be successful in life, we require the trust and respect of other people, and no more so than in a leadership role. Being a captain, not only means leading others, it also means being in control of your own behaviour, success and life.
Perhaps you may think that you are either born a leader or not, but I happen to think that leadership skills can be taught and then honed with experience, dedication and by practising self discipline, until it becomes a habit.
Role models inspire, motivate, lead and deliver on their promises. They use their values to make decisions and search constantly on how they can help others to succeed. They listen to others fully, without judgment whilst probing and clarifying.
Language is so important and great leaders know that one simple word can be the difference between good conversations and damaging ones.
Take the word BUT for instance. Listening to someone and then saying ‘But’ negates everything they have just said, whereas using the word ‘and’ instead still provides us with a chance to express our own thoughts whilst acknowledging the other person.

'But I don’t want to be the Captain!' You might be thinking. That may be so, but surely you would like to be the Captain of your Inner Team (all the different parts that make the unique You!).
Here are mine:

The Dreamer – To aspire and think big
The Logical Genius – to establish the problem and find solutions
The Voice of Reason – to remain calm and dignified
The Warrior – to be bold, confident and to fight my teams corner
The Intuition Expert – to listen to gut and then shore up the message

Think about the people you admire most. Who are your role models, those that you look up to? What are the qualities and strengths that they exhibit, that makes you admire them.
Find your inner team by aligning those values with your own, give them a name or description as I have with mine, and call upon them whenever they are needed

My book The Beautiful Inner Game is being written at the moment. It will help people to make the changes they want and need to, in their lives, whether it be work, home or both.

Values are King

This piece is a thank you to one of my own coaches Kevin Hall of APCTC.
He doesn't know this yet but our last chat gave me an incredible insight into one of my values when he said to me "so saving time means a lot to you". I immediately agreed as I have always known this but then when I reflected on this more, as only verbalising something can make you do, I realised that it has more of an influence on my daily life than I had firSt thought.
As the week went by I suddenly took notice of all the behaviours I had surrounding this great value of "not wasting time".
I have to admit that the dark side of this is impatience and it manifested itself in several ways.
The first instance was when I realised that saving time was more important than money and that I will use my car, not out of laziness, but so that I can fit in more social media or housework or anything that needs doing.
I noticed that my thought processes are always trying to come up with compromises, on behalf of everyone, without taking the time to share my thoughts with all involved so that the decision making is shared. The result may be the same but at least then I am not seen to be in my "impatient" mode.

The story does not end there - It came up again when I was in Norwich on Friday to be with the fabulous Topher Morrison, to hone and tone my speaking skills.
The first thing that struck me was how I do not tell a story in ENOUGH detail! Where others give you every small part of the picture to try and show you the story into your minds, I was giving little more than the headlines.
This is because I didn't want to waste THEIR time! I had a belief that the audience would rather I just got to the point. Topher showed me how I could make my story so much more compelling and it was a real aha moment.
Though so simple this has changed my whole way of thinking and it was the 2 sessions together that made me see the light.
I pride myself in my good time management but sometimes the value of taking your time to express yourself, or to go for a walk to the shops instead of taking the car, or to communicate what you need out loud, can be much more beneficial than "saving time".
However much we understand ourselves, there is always more to know.
So thanks Kevin and thanks Topher!