The central idea in the story of Monty Roberts, the ‘Horse Whisperer’, is that although horses will run away from strange humans at the slightest provocation, they will follow and ‘join up’ with interesting humans who appear to pose no threat to them.

We shy away from forceful demands for loyalty and commitment, but we flock to and swarm round focal points where ‘cool stuff’ seems either to be happening or about to happen.

Good leaders work with our hunger to involve ourselves, with others, in interesting work and exciting projects. They influence and seduce, rather than command, and try to become ‘attractors’, as complexity scientists put it – the embodiments of attractive energy, the centre of the swarm.

But leaders can only be attractive, in this sense, when they themselves are truly aligned. Alignment starts from the inside, out: being sure of who you are and what your ‘calling’ is, understanding and projecting your values and abilities, and ensuring that these inner qualities and resources are fully aligned.

In short, there is no substitute for being an authentic and coherent person.

Like not letting anyone or anything affect you emotionally unless you let it, like saying no to what everyone else is saying yes to, like choosing long-term gratification over the instant hit right in front of you.

It is knowing that no one other than you is responsible for what is happening in your life right now and for what will happen, and that can be a damn lonely road to travel. Lonely, not lonesome, and still necessary.

But how do you still lead yourself at the end of the day, when you’re beat from a long day at work, feeling sore and bruised at the end of a hard day? How do you make yourself get up early in the morning, raring to go at another day?

I’ve discovered that there is no chance in hell you can lead yourself and others if you can not come from a place in yourself of inner strength. Like any muscle, inner strength comes from you working it day in and day out, and here’s a way for you to do just that.

Creating A Place of Power

Here’s the key: you must build feelings of inner power, strength and vitality inside of yourself daily, even when the world doesn’t give you a reason to. There is simply no other way; if you cannot create it before other people or circumstances do, in other words if you cannot lead with your own heart, mind and soul, then it just won’t happen.

So how do you do it? Here’s a modified visualization method my friend Eleutherios taught me, but which I’ve seen in varying formats elsewhere. I’ve found this supremely useful and it always works to get me smiling again at the end of a tough day.

1) Block out time. 5 to 10 minutes when you won’t be disturbed, switch off the phone and lock the door if you need to. Be certain that this is a special time you have set out for you and you only; think of it like setting an appointment with a very very important person.

2) Get comfortable, relax. Sit down comfortably and straight. Or lie down, symmetrically. Relax, but stay in good posture.

3) Close your eyes, and imagine yourself in a completely safe haven. Pick a place in your mind that resonates with you, real or imagined. This is your realm, your territory, you are completely safe here where you are the king. Get comfortable here, spend some time and make that space more and more real. Build detail and clarity, see, hear, feel, smell and even taste it.

Building Inner Strength & Power

4) Imagine a ball of pure, positive energy spinning above you. See it right above the top of your head, its immense vibrant energy compressing it on itself, getting denser and denser and stronger and stronger. This is a ball of pure positive power. Listen to it, what sound does it make? What color is it? Can you feel it swirling above you?

5) Absorb the ball into you through the top of your head, and feel powerful, vibrant positive energy soak into every cell of your being. Feel it as it moves through and fill your body from top to bottom, from your head, down to your chest, arms, stomach, your legs and your toes. Feel what it feels like to have your entire body, every single millimeter and tiny little cell be transformed to pure, positive energy. Soak in it, absorb it, and enjoy it.

6) Come back into the world, and bring the energy back with you. Feels good, doesn’t it? Open your eyes, and notice how you still feel as good. This is the sense of inner strength and power you can bring with you to the world, after whenever you choose to do this little meditation.

Create Places of Power

I know that some people have created places of power and sanctuary out here in the real world, in their homes, rooms where they have an altar, a meditation corner, or things that are important to them.

My next goal is to make my (too) long neglected room a place of power and sanctuary, with things that are dear to me and remind me of how far I have come.

If you’d like to do that but don’t have the means, I understand. So what little thing can you do to create more places of power for yourself?

In Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP), we learn about the Law of Prerequisite Variety: the element in any system that has the most flexibility will end up leading the system.

Think of little children, they have incredible flexibility. To get you to do something, they’ll tease, cajole, beg, lie, cry, laugh, use logic, use emotion, jump up and down, be adorable, be funny, and they’ll keep doing it until they get what they want.

Adults seem to have 2 or 3 patterns they keep coming back to

But while that belief has been useful to me, I’ve come to feel that it’s incomplete. Instead of:

The person with the most flexibility will lead the group.

I’ve come to believe that:

The person with the most flexibility and inner congruence will lead the group.

We know that the map is not the territory. When you’re alone, you’re living in your own reality. But when you’re out there with people, there are many different realities interacting all at once.

So the obvious question is; whose reality do you want to be in; theirs or yours? Because I’ve come to realize the person who has the most congruent map of the world will lead perceived reality, and the group.

Let’s say you have a shaky belief that you’re attractive to the opposite sex. You’d like to believe, and you do believe it – half of the time. The other half you’re not so sure.

You go out with a group of friends and meet some new people of the opposite sex. As the day goes on you notice that they seem to be ignoring you; alarm bells go off and the pessimist inside your head goes; ‘oh no, I guess I’m not that attractive after all!’

But what if you have a strong, inner conviction that the opposite sex finds you irresistibly delicious? So even if they do seem to be ignoring you, the voice inside your head will go in another way; ‘they haven’t had the chance to know how sexy I can be yet’.

In the first example, your shaky map of the world will be led by their maps of the world which has made them do what they do – but maybe they were just shy? In the second, your congruent map of the world will lead you to take proactive actions to steer the direction of the group in the way you want.

Together with the law of prerequisite variety, if you have the flexibility to keep changing your approaches, you’ll have even more power to lead anyone’s reality instead of being drawn into theirs.

What do I mean?

Imagine a bunch of chefs making a cake. As long as you keep doing it the same way, the cake will end up the same each and everytime. Even if you change the steps, like mixing it a bit more, baking it for a little less time, a dash less of this, a dash more of that, the cake will turn out roughly the same. A chocolate cake doesn’t turn into a strawberry cake just because you mixed it counterclockwise instead of clockwise.

But there’s the clue. The secret to making a cake different is to bring a new ingredient to the mix. Something the other chefs wouldn’t have thought to (the ones who thought mixing it counterclockwise would have done the trick) but you do.

What new ingredient to the mix could you bring to the table? In your worklife, your social life, your relationships, your diet, or maybe just in the next cake you bake?

I’m curious to see what you think. If you get a new idea leave a comment.

I was reading his article about dealing with problems when it made me remember one of our coaching sessions (if you coached then, you’ll know when I’m talking about). To protect the innocent and not so innocent all names and scene details will be glossed over.

A particular problem was caused by a particular person and we coaches retreated to our little corner during the break and started bitching about it (yes, coaches bitch too!). Boy, I’ll have to admit, it was guilty fun. We were complaining and poking fun of the whole situation and I was totally wallowing in it.

Until one of the coaches piped in, “So what do we do about it?”

And it jolted me right out of the victim role I was playing. More than jolted, I was virtually kicked on my ass, and immediately impressed and grateful with the coach who had said that. Which brings me to the points in Bob’s article which I want to highlight:

I realized that it was important to keep my mind in the present moment.
I decided not to worry one bit about the consequences of the outage, but instead to stay in the moment. I resisted the temptation to visit the past and waste time with non-productive things like blaming anyone for the problem. I also resisted thinking about the future and worrying about the consequences of the crash. Neither of these things would get the problem handled. Instead, I resolved to think and do only those things that would get us back online.

What my people really needed was a leader.
It occurred to me that dealing with something as serious as this system outage appeared to be — and would be — a heck of a leadership test. So I made it my goal to be positive, upbeat and a man of action – and do whatever it took to get the servers back on line quickly. My people all felt terrible over the failure. What the company needed now was a leader. I resolved to step up and do everything possible to fulfill that role.

Anthony Robbins is fond of saying that a leader first sees things exactly as they are, not better nor worst, then they envision things becoming better than they are and bring themselves and everyone else there.

I had been so content on complaining about the whole situation that I hadn’t bothered to see how things could be better than they were. By not owning the problem and taking responsibility, I had become part of the problem and none of the solution.

So, special thanks to that coach who reminded me of a very valuable lesson that day.

And now, I want to pay it forward and be that coach for you. Let me ask you:

1) Is there any area in your life right now that you’re facing problems in which you’ve felt you weren’t in control of or have not been doing anything about?

2) What is something you could do immediately to help solve the problem or make the situation better?

3) Can it be done immediately under 2 minutes? If yes, do it now!

4) If it needs more time, schedule a time in to do it.

5) Have fun knowing you’re making yourself part of the solution, instead of the problem.