Everyone wants long term success. But it is elusive for most.

Long term success is dependent on knowing where you are now and where you are headed. Then closing the gap. Frequently. Continuously.  Whether it’s your business, your career or your life at home., it’s easy to get off track, lose touch or get buried under. Without a true sense of where you are in the moment, it is impossible to realize your dreams or be a leader in your field.

Re-calibrate your profound knowledge

The only way we can take 100% responsibility for sustaining our success is to keep re-calibrating-in every aspect of our lives and organizations.

Key to successful recalibration is to acquire what my dear departed mentor, Dr. W. Edwards Deming, coined as Profound Knowledge. This umbrella phrase emphasizes understanding change and how to measure it, being aware of emerging trends and shifts, and learning how to apply this knowledge to leading and sustaining long term success.

Bottom line: If we don’t acquire Profound Knowledge we cannot know how to prepare for and leverage coming change, thus how to sustain our success long term.

Understanding change means understanding shifts in our personal world as well as tracking trends that capsize us, overtake us, or cause us to flounder.

Learning the Hard Way

Unfortunately one of my Gen X male clients learned this the hard way. A rising star in his field and recently married, he was planning far a great future for his kids, tons of time for fun and all the trappings of success. As if out of the blue, the rug got pulled out from under him. His “Happy Homemaker” wife fled, saying I’m out of here!

Somewhere along the way there was a breakdown or perhaps many small fissures below the surface. Had they been recalibrating an checking in with each other, communicating the truth of what was so for each of them…perhaps they could have saved their marriage…or at least ended it with love, grace, and forgiveness.

Even in the most secure relationships, unexpected change happens to ruffle our plans. A recently returned to work mother of teenage kids reported that her new career is now going gangbusters and she no longer worries about the empty-nest . But, the new ripple in her life is that her once very successful husband, in his late 40’s, now faces an unknown future. Surprised by the shifts in his industry, “suddenly” he and his business partner are facing the probability of closing their doors. What once appeared to be the sure path to their dreams, is no crumbling beneath them.

Change is inevitable. If you can learn what Profound Knowledge is and apply it you can avoid these same pitfalls and NOT LEARN THE HARD WAY!

What steps are you going to take to future cast your long term success?

Always Add Value is one of my 52 Quintessential Principles of Greatness codified to keep us moving from great to greatness.

I forget to apply this principle myself every once in a while. In fact, just last week I was asked to by a really sharp associate leader, “what value will you bring to my membership?” What caught me most off guard was that the Value Added editorial thrust of this issue was already in the works.  Here I was being confronted with having lost sight of this very principle.  Will the learning ever stop?  Nope.  I sure hope not.

These on-target questions inspired me to re-think how I add value by what I do.  I responded that her high achieving and accomplishing members match the profile of my clients.  They are successful in their chosen field; they want to expand their referral network and are seeking to improve the results.  Coaching entrepreneurs, family firms, executives and professionals, I appreciate their business challenges and professional concerns.

All of these movers n’ shakers want to improve the performance of their firms, attracted new and maintain current revenues and customers. But that’s not all.  What I’ve learned is that these truly accomplished folks relish the opportunity to fine-tune and to stretch. Even more so, they know that becoming a better communicator and a leader ensures that they will thrive in these challenging times.

I also added that we all aim to keep our personal and professional lives in balance.  It’s just such a struggle when buffeted constantly with destabilizing sound bites and constant emails announcing disruptive shifts in our world and demands on the personal front. Add that to having to deal with the pressure of invigorating a work life, keeping the home fires burning and just having fun. Whew! That’s why powerful people look for coaches who add value by moving them to greatness and to building legacies that are unforgettable.

I could have kept riding my dead horse, not “hearing” what I was being asked. Instead, I took in the question and changed my language so that I could add greater value, On the other hand , if my response fell on deaf ears, then I would need to change horses by seeking out another grouping of people who would be more in sync.

In the process of re-stating my value added, I was reminded that more and more of us are wanting to realize our vision for a better and sustainable futures for ourselves, our loved ones, our workplace, community and our planet.

What I’ve found is that today’s vanguard leaders are seeking to make meaning as well as money, and build legacies as well as bank accounts.

What’s become paramount is that if we are to reach our greatness, we are must take a good look at our lives, our leadership and our relationship asking the probing questions:

Am I in the right tribe?  Am I adding value in all do?

I have to admit it. I am one who likes the familiarity of my comfort zone. After all, its called a “comfort zone” for a reason – it’s comfortable there. However, it can also be a deceptive trap that turns “living” into mere “existence.”

Comfort zones are full of routine; you know – the same-old, same-old. Comfort zones develop slowly – almost imperceptibly. Soon, the air in the comfort zone gets stale, the “flow” of life begins to stagnate, and personal growth comes to a gradual halt. In some cases, personal growth can even shift into reverse.

So, if you’re stuck in a comfort zone, ignore that inner voice that vibrates within every fiber of your being saying, “Stop! Danger beyond this point!” Try these eight “steps” to start really living and moving forward again:

1.  Step inward. Reconnect with your spiritual side of life in whatever way you find fulfilling. Go back to your place of worship if you’ve been away for a while. Learn how to meditate and practice it every day whether that be before you start your day or at its end. Your spiritual life is there waiting to be developed into a spiritual muscle that will serve you and others in times of need and, of course, in times of thanksgiving.

2. Step forward. Volunteer to help your favorite charity or cause. There are many nonprofit organizations that rely heavily on volunteer support to provide badly needed services. Find that new job you dream of and quit the one you hate. Move from survival to significance.

3. Step more. Get physical and feel stronger. Make it a point to get that 30 minutes of exercise a day, five days a week – even if it’s in 10-minute increments. Move! Feel your body come alive in its movement. Dance! Feel the grace and exquisite motion that your body is capable of. Stretch like a cat and wake your body up from head to toe.

4. Step outward. “The best way to make a friend is to be a friend.” – anonymous. Be a friend! Do things together and for each other. Go places and share memories. Learn about the variety of personalities and the ones you “click” with and those you don’t. As for the ones you don’t, Abraham Lincoln said, “Do I not destroy my enemies when I make them my friends?”

5. Step outside. That’s right. Open your door and go outside. Smell the fragrances in the air. Close your eyes and listen to the sounds of nature. Fill your lungs with fresh air and use your outside voice. See the colors of nature from brilliant sunrises and sunsets to the deep purples and greens of the forest. Wonder at the nighttime sky. Awaken your senses in the world outside. It awaits just outside your door.

6. Step deeper. Listen to your feelings. Share them with a trusted friend or relative. Life has its ups and downs and having someone to share them with helps us work through the emotions that are involved. Talk to a professional if you’ve been feeling down. Emotions cannot be ignored any more than pain in your chest.

7. Step upward. Stretch that intellectual muscle by learning something new. Take a class at your local college or through community education, usually connected with the school system. Read! Find a mentor who can teach you something new.

8. Step gracefully. Let your innate creativity flow out of your calling. Paint beautiful paintings, write inspirational words, dance the dance of your life. Enjoy the talents of others. Remember healthy family traditions and values and teach them to your children. Venture into the cultures of others different from you. Enjoy their food, learn about their values and traditions. Appreciate the diversity in life and celebrate it in all its glory.

If you try any of these eight steps to break out of your comfort zone, you are awakening the seven dimensions of wellness in your life and becoming refined by age. Go on. Get out of that puddle of a comfort zone and into the fast flowing river of life and wellness.

Reprinted with permission from refinedbyage.com

A Guest Post by Kathy Sporre

I have worked in the aging field for over 28 years, serving on initiatives at the national and international level. I want to help people become Refined by Age by encouraging them to age intentionally through developing the Seven Dimensions of Wellness in their lives: spiritual, emotional, physical, intellectual, social/cultural, environmental, vocational. I also want to help people become aware of age discrimination – a form of discrimination that is entrenched in society.

I have discussed the importance of strengthening and creating intergenerational relationships, but usually, I’m talking about the relationships between boomers and the younger generations, the X’s and the millennials. One important connection, however, for boomer women in particular, is with the generation of matures, those women who are in their 70s and 80s right now, many of the first feminists who are also among the first to transition from work to “retirement” and to benefit from our increasing longevity.

How are they making this transition? What can we learn from those who are happy and healthy in their 70s and beyond?

I recently heard about the website 70candles.com, run by Ellen Cole (75) and Jane Giddan (76), as a place for women around 70 (approaching it or past it) to share their experiences, their hopes and fears and insights—their stories. What have they found to be the common factors in the lives of those most happy with who they are at 70 and beyond?

• Acceptance: Women who accept who they are, age and all, are far more likely to feel happy and fulfilled. This is a challenge for boomer women, who are from a generation obsessed with youth. But to accept who you are instead of longing for the past is an essential step—at every age, really—toward finding happiness in the moment. This doesn’t mean resigned to who you are. It means celebrating the wisdom, experience, and freedom of being an older woman—even reveling in being an old lady, or being one of my favorite terms, a Crone. Taking back the original meaning of the term, which was not a witch or a hag but a wise and powerful woman living above age, and helping others at the various crossroads of life.
• Connection: Without exception, the happiest women are those with a strong social network. As we age, we lose people—friends, spouses, colleagues. This makes it even more crucial for us to create and strengthen our connections with other people, of all generations, as much as possible. Also key is to connect with other women in your generation so that you can share experiences, hopes and fears, with people you know will get you completely, and so you can see all that is possible by mentoring and supporting each other into the Third and Fourth Ages of life.
• Action: As I’ve discussed on this blog and in my talks many times, the idea of “retiring” is an antiquated concept. And this is not just the view of boomers heading into the traditional retirement age in an economy that won’t allow many to retire. The generation ahead has already discovered this secret, that regardless of the economy, true fulfillment in your 60s, 70s, and beyond comes from continuing to live, to be active. This doesn’t necessarily mean working a full-time job. It can mean part-time work, consulting, community activism and volunteering, or starting a business on your own terms. It can and should be adapted to who you are specifically, not who you are supposed to be. But whatever “it” is for you, keep doing it!

What are your secrets to happiness and fulfillment as you age? How about the women you admire who are blazing this trail ahead of you? If you imagine yourself at age 70 and 80 and 90, what does that look like? Who are you and what are you doing?

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Many of us are waiting. We’re playing it safe, not taking any risks, putting off our next big steps, the transformations we long to make in our lives and work, until the winds of global economic change die down. We’ve locked the doors, boarded up the windows, and headed down into the basement.

But the problem is that boarded-up windows not only keep the winds from coming in, they keep us from seeing out—we close off our perspective, our ability to see the big picture. The problem is that sometimes playing it safe and sticking with the status quo is the most unsafe choice we can make.

When we finally venture out from our basements and tentatively open our doors, we are likely to see a different world out there, one created and reshaped by the people who didn’t hide away, who instead realized that the only way to survive was to start planning the rebuilding process before the structure collapsed, not after.

We are likely to find that the place we held in the old world, that we so desperately tried to protect, no longer exists. And because we weren’t part of creating the new world, we also weren’t part of creating and ensuring our place in it.

Now I’m not suggesting that you just abandon everything and throw yourself out into the storm. If you are an executive or business owner, you need to start preparing to lead change by figuring out exactly what that means and how you can stay ahead of the curve of change without abandoning what already works in your organization.

If you are not financially ready to start that new business you’ve been longing to start, quitting your job today isn’t the answer. But as I’ve said before, the choice isn’t either/or. It isn’t either you stay at an unfulfilling job or you risk everything and start your business. The choice is both/and.

Stay at the job while you take concrete steps toward starting your business, going beyond just dreaming about it. Commit to taking action every day to build it, and taking into account the bigger world picture as you do: The world is undergoing an epochal shift. Build your business based on what the world needs and will need, based on likely trends as well as the changes you want to see in the world. If you build your future assuming it will look like the past, your business will be obsolete before you even open its doors. In fact, the business of the future might not even have doors, not the way we’ve always thought of them anyway.

Waiting on the world to change is the riskiest move we could ever make—not because it won’t, but because it will.

So what’s stopping us? Surprisingly, it’s not the outer patriarchy that does the most damage. It’s the patriarch we all have inside that limits us.

That voice that bellows, “You won’t be taken seriously. You can’t do this. Don’t make waves!” For women at midlife and beyond, the voice gets particularly nasty: “It’s too late for you. You’re not credible unless you are young and beguiling! Haven’t you got that yet?”

Shaming and guilting us, the voice hits every nerve we have, plunging us into self-doubt. We can’t be successful without abandoning our families. We aren’t strong enough, smart enough, savvy enough for that promotion. Or we’re just not ready.

Virginia M. Rometty,  chief executive at IBM, remembers how, early in her career, she was offered a position she didn’t feel she was ready for, so she told the recruiter she needed to think about it.

That night, her husband asked her, “Do you think a man would have ever answered that question that way?”

“What it taught me was you have to be very confident, even though you’re so self-critical inside about what it is you may or may not know,” she said at Fortune’s Most Powerful Women Summit this month. “And that, to me, leads to taking risks.” (“For Incoming I.B.M. Chief, Self-Confidence is Rewarded.”)

Stop waiting until you are perfect before you seize an opportunity—or better yet, create one. Start from where you are and take the leap, learning as you go.

Stop listening to the voice that tells you you’re selfish if you care about money, or that there’s just not enough to go around. That you can’t be successful without being a bitch or a whore. Or, most insidious because its so ingrained, that you are just not good enough and never will be.

This voice seeps into the words we use in our thoughts, speech, and writing, and those words become a self-fulfilling prophecy: Women are never successful in this field. It’s just too hard to balance everything in my life. I can’t make a living and do something meaningful. It’s just not realistic. My business idea can’t succeed in this economy.

Michael Port has an excellent blog post on this idea. One of his examples is spot on when it comes to success: “If you generalize that, ‘All rich people are snobs,’ how are you going to see yourself as a wealthy person so that you can improve your professional and financial status?”

Right now, especially, with the top 1% being considered synonymous with unethical, greedy, and criminal, it’s difficult for us to strive toward the wealth we need to make our visions a reality. Of course, some, and maybe even many, of the 1% are unethical and even criminal, but certainly not all. The more successful you are, the more resources and power you have to make a difference. It’s how you choose to use your money, and how you choose to earn it, that is important. Having money itself is not evil.

We need to start being more careful about the words we choose, particularly when speaking to ourselves. We need to consciously replace that inner patriarch with the voice of our inner visionary. The visionary tells us, “Take your attention off other people. Keep focused on your goal. Everyone’s vision is worth the same! You know what you are doing. Go for it!”

Replace Women are never successful in this field with We need more women in this field to reinvent it and improve it. The field needs ME.

It’s just too hard to balance everything in my life with I can choose what matters most to me and not waste time and energy on other things, especially living up to other people’s expectations.

I can’t make a living and do something meaningful with The world craves people and businesses who live and work their values, who can make a real difference, and people will pay for it, now more than ever.

My business idea can’t succeed in this economy with How can I make my business idea succeed in this economy?

Perhaps most important, replace It’s too late for you. You’re not credible unless you are young and beguiling! with My experience, my talents and intelligence, and my unique perspective make the timing perfect for me to act now. I know how to focus on what really matters. All great visionaries have wrinkles.

Start paying attention to your words today and make a conscious effort to change them, for only by doing so can you transform yourself and the world.

What negative messages does your inner patriarch say to you? What could your inner visionary retort?

Download a FREE mini-book, “The Origins of the New HERstory of Our AGE“ based on The Ageless Way

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Clearly Global Warming is not a hoax. Even current POTUS finally admits, sort of, suggesting on 60 Minutes that we may actually have a BIG problem on our hands all around the globe!

Clearly his is not a dress rehearsal.

A Science (STEM) educator in my youth, I railed about “Greenhouse Gases”.  Now we find ourselves here. We are almost out of time to reverse. 10 yrs is a best case scenario before its catastrophically too late to reverse significantly?

Tell then why all this push to invest in fossil fuels (coal, fracking, drilling in National Lands, etc.) Only answer that makes any sense in light of science and

Human observation, is unadulterated greed and corruption.

It would cost us a lot less to retrain all our fossil fuel related workers to Green Energy related opportunities instead. Clearly a win-win-win for us all…around the world.

How about we plan for everyone’s greater future by investing in retraining our workers in tech and other higher skilled work, as well as repurpose those who

Are needed but need basic retraining from shop floor to a new use of their talents

And the best of the best we can tap and provide leadership development programs, plus ongoing professional development. Doing this will make us great again as a Nation (and the world) even in our tumultuous times.

I’ve always been an optimist. But when it comes to Global Warming, I am an educated pessimist.

A systemic breakdown does not automatically become a breakthrough. Only you and I must choose to ensure that out of these chaotic fast-paced times that we will not dissipate into the ethers. Rather that our whole system will evolve to a higher level of development into in to a coherent whole. What I coned as CoHERency.

Here in America our Mid-term elections have started, which will determine the fate of our democracy for a long time…for generations to come.

The new reports coming out recently and topped by this one today, tell of the drastic current and future impact of Climate Change – reads like straight out of a Cinemax horror documentary.

So for anyone to blow off, try to skirt around and outright cover their prior words about Climate Change being made up is denial and avoidance for green, power or both.  So the totally slim possibility that the severe weather striking worldwide isn’t caused by humans, per Marco Rubio, is absolute insanity mixed in with saying anything to hold onto his seat.

Trusting politicians is deadly. Trusting science in this case is our only real savior!

Whatever party affiliations you have, on this one issue of planetary survival, we must all agree to VOTE to turn out those uneducated Climate Deniers and/or those Deniers who know better.

Our current raft of Carpetbagger deniers in the GOP and with DJL leading the White House, EPA and Dept. of Interior clearly must want to party it out before its their end time. I guess they don’t worry about their legacy to ensure their kids, and grandkids have a planet to call home.  Why else then are they pursuing in earnest to accelerate the destruction of our planet?

VOTE like your life matters, cause it does! Vote like our Mother Earth matters, cause it does!

Our current leadership prefers seeking out other planets or other solar systems and galaxies to live on. All the super powers are now in a race to conquer yet again.  I ask, but for whom? Most of these old white conservative guys are too old to benefit from further space exploration!  Yet off theses carpetbaggers go, like some evil enterprise threatening the StarShip in a Star Wars megawar of the world!

Let’s replace these old white conservative guys who clearly have an axe to grind and are are hell bent on the destruction of what was great about America.  Distrubtion is great for technolocy and innovation, but it appears to suck royally when applied to governance. What we need now is new leaders who know that we are at a planetary turning point on every plane of our very existence.

So let’s put all we’ve got into retrieving our own planet first!

If beer is going to guide you when you VOTE , then so be it! 

Let’s raise our beer bottles to toast on this!

~The Clash
“Should I Stay Or Should I Go?”

As the future gets closer, I’m accepting the fact that my old future doesn’t work anymore. So to hell with that future. What about now? The work of midlife and beyond begins with this question.

But it doesn’t stop here. Each of us will confront this question several times in the years ahead.

Which is why Power is in the Now! We can harvest opportunity from crisis, but first we have to take a step back and do some ruthless soul-searching: How did this happen? How did I get here? Where am I headed and is it still where I want to end up? Doing so will engage us from the depths, as it takes courage and demands transparency. It’s the only way to regain our own audacity of hope.

Many of us are caught in shock—with despairing paralysis threatening from the sidelines. Some of us are hiding out in isolation, either licking our wounds or processing, not sure what to do next. Others are gestating and concocting.

As with any maturation curve, as one phase winds out, another is already in progress. Knowing when to leap from one to the other will determine your trajectory.

Midlife crisis can come at any time, even more than once—from age 35 to 70, give or take a year or two! For many of us, our midlife malaise is colliding with our new reality. In the midst of an identity crisis, we are being forced to ask some hard, fundamental questions and to re-examine who we are and where we best fit. Don’t be lulled into “mission drift,” because mid-career turns into late career really fast.

This intense exploration isn’t only career related. Every facet of our life comes under scrutiny: from the bedroom to the boardroom. What we thought we wanted or needed is changing, either because we are up against a wall or because we are choosing to get ahead of the curve of change. And just when we think we have “it,” it will morph yet again.

The unfortunate truth is that most of us choose unhappiness over uncertainty. But nothing is certain except death, so embrace uncertainty and make it work for you.

We have no choice but to redesign our “now” and renegotiate everything.

Most of all we need to take a breath and get here now! Soon enough our “now” will be past tense.

This is a time for great reflection and truth telling. Some of us, like my husband and me, are getting real. No longer just talking about it, or getting stuck in fantasies of our youth, we are making hard choices and sacrifices so we can keep on keepin’ on. We are not alone in our search for meaningful futures that work.

Jackie is a perfect example. She’s not only a young boomer, age 45, but also smack in mid-career. Not quite a senior partner, but well past being junior. When we met, she was at a real low point. She had just divorced and was thankful no kids were involved. Work was just that—work. Being a traveling executive, she’d find ways to slip below the radar, just getting by. But it wasn’t good enough anymore. Totally bored and burnt out, she was getting nowhere fast. Only happy on the tennis court or partying into oblivion on the weekends, it was time for a major revamping. She wanted a life and a career that mattered.

We concocted a plan that honored her desire to move on while doing a thorough inventory assessment of which skills she still needed to hone before taking off. Our goal was to leverage this time with her current firm, so she could leave with accolades and a resume that would jump off the page. We never lost sight of where Jackie is headed. Once she realized that she didn’t have to stay forever, her productivity went off the charts. Now even in this severe downturn, she is THE woman, keeping business on the books and opening up new doors she never thought possible.

Now is the time. . . . Which is it for you? Unhappiness or uncertainty?

Working the Power in the Now might mean staying on or it might mean taking the grand leap into the unknown. Gauge your tolerance level for the uncertain. Risk taking in these times is not for the faint hearted. But for those at the helm or for those who have an in-demand specialty, and even for those still singing the blues ’cause they can’t get any satisfaction, this may be your time to rock on out.

Since it’s no longer a sure thing that tomorrow will be better than today, isn’t it time to harness your promise and redirect your energies so you can honestly answer: Should I Stay or Should I Go?

In another post, I talked about three common obstacles that visionaries and the people they lead often face, commonly as a result of perfectionism. Today I want to focus on a fourth obstacle that is the most pervasive and the most challenging for those who face it, in themselves as well as in their team members and those they mentor: low self-esteem.

The irony of accomplishment is that often those who are the most successful are those who do not fully recognize their worth. They are constantly proving themselves to the trio of voices inside—the inner perfectionist, the inner critic, and the inner pusher—that criticize and tell them they aren’t good enough . . . that they simply aren’t enough, period. The successes they achieve never satisfy these voices, and the fear of failure (which this trio contends is an ever-present risk) keeps them from taking chances that could lead them beyond mere success toward a greater vision for their future.

We must also contend with the inner patriarch, embedded deep within through societal and cultural programming and messaging. This voice, like a stealth bomber, flies under the radar. We often don’t recognize it’s even there, constraining men and women, but especially ruthless and unrelenting in women and girls, telling us we are less than, we are limited—always falling short in some way as a professional, a mother, a wife, a daughter. Those who on the surface appear to be successful often live in constant fear of being “found out” for who they really are (what I call the Sham Syndrome), so they don’t sell themselves professionally, even turning down promotions because they feel they aren’t ready; or they don’t assertively and confidently seek funding and customers for their business—if they even take the chance on starting that business in the first place.

This complex dance of high expectations for what we should achieve and low expectations for what we are actually capable of leaves women trapped in a rut, a never-ending vicious cycle of striving for success that leaves them unfulfilled and dissatisfied. As long as these inner voices, the patriarch, the critic, the perfectionist, the pusher, drown out the visionary voice inside, this cycle is bound to continue.

The solutions are as complex as the problem, of course. Many of us realize that when dealing with low self-esteem in ourselves or in others, praise alone just doesn’t cut it. A person being led by low self-esteem “knows better” about herself and doesn’t believe the praise, or doesn’t feel that what she’s being praised for is good enough or makes up for her other many faults. Making a point to recognize a person’s good qualities and choices, in specifics (vague “good jobs” do more harm than good), is absolutely worth doing, don’t get me wrong. But it’s not enough.

In fact, I can’t offer a quick fix here. This is a deep-seated issue that requires multiple approaches and often ongoing expert guidance, particularly to uncover and discover the inner patriarch and perform a “destructive restore” so that the inner visionary can harness and transform this powerful force. But I can offer two ideas to guide you and the people you lead toward recognizing this challenge and committing to facing it.

The first is to understand fully that beating yourself up for not being good enough does not work. Many of us continue doing this to ourselves based on the mistaken notion that “tough love” of this sort will actually produce results, but obviously if you still feel you are never good enough, the approach simply isn’t working. In other words, you will never satisfy your inner critic, perfectionist, pusher, or patriarch by actually listening to those voices.

Second, instead of focusing on what to do about those voices, focus on helping your visionary voice speak out. The louder that voice is, the more likely it is to drown out all others. The more we listen to that visionary, the more inspired we will be to rise above mere success and strive to create a future that matters to us and that makes a difference in our lives, our work, our world. The more we follow where our visionary voice leads, the more we will experience what it feels like to be happy, fulfilled, and living our purpose—the more we will understand that we all have the potential for greatness. From this state of being, of strength, questions of whether we are good enough are no longer even worth our time to contemplate.

What can you do today to start consciously raising the volume on your visionary voice and that voice in those you lead?

In a blog post once by Seth Godwin, he makes an excellent point about why we sometimes don’t get very far in our endeavors, even when we are taking action every day. Often out of fear, our actions are either too small, too easy, to get us anywhere, or, out of our impatience, they are too big and doomed to fail. The secret, he contends, is to set difficult, but achievable goals.

This is an excellent point that we should all take to heart, but I’d like to take it a step further. Even difficult achievable goals won’t take us where we want to go, if we don’t have a clear idea of where we’re going in the first place. Without a big picture view, a vision, that ties together every action we take, we could end up at the wrong destination, the place where achievement and success ring hollow because we still feel unfulfilled. Worse, perhaps, is that our steps could lead us in many different directions, without reaching any destination, feeling scattered and overwhelmed, thinking, I’m working so hard. Why

aren’t I getting anywhere?

One of the first steps you need to take is to redefine what success means to you. (I talk about this in more depth in my post “Sustainable Success.”) Without a clear idea of how you personally define success—not how you used to define it, and certainly not how others define it—you won’t be able to map out the steps to get there, and you won’t be able to measure your progress along the way.

But even more important is a step many people leave out, even those with a big picture view, a vision, and difficult but achievable goals to get them there. It’s incredibly critical to periodically stop and reassess. Ask yourself these reflective questions with ruthless honestly. Are the actions you’re taking still moving you toward your vision, or have you veered off course? What have you learned along the way? Do you need to fine-tune your plan or even your vision? What creative insights can you gain from your mistakes or from results that didn’t turn out the way you thought they would, or even expected results that didn’t feel the way you thought they would?

This is a crucial step, but it’s also a fine line to walk. It’s easy to turn reassessment into second guessing, not based on continuous improvement, but based on insecurity and fear. You need to be brutally honest with yourself about your reasons for wanting to make changes to your game plan, as well as your reasons for not wanting to change. It helps to feed your intuition with facts, so that they work in partnership. Continuous improvement requires continuous lifelong learning, about who you are, what gifts you bring to the table, what knowledge and skills you need to acquire, and what the world around you needs and how your actions and vision intersect with those needs.

Staying in tune with the flow of everything around you, and adapting constantly to that flow, is the difference between having a vision and being a visionary.

What big picture view ties together all your actions? Do you have periodic reassessment built into your game plan?

Amazon #1 Best Seller Author of 11 books including The Ageless Way, Gray is the New Green, Visionaries Have Wrinkles, The Greatness Challenge and more.