This week we held our first Little Black Dress Group business seminar in Sydney, with a focus on cultivating a leadership mindset for success.
Four equally successful women in their own rights shared their knowledge and insight into leadership and their own businesses. They inspired and motivated. They openly shared the successes, failures, personal learnings and changes they saw as a requirement for the future.
The key message that resonated throughout was the need for each of us to take individual responsibility for ourselves. The necessity to cultivate the skill set that is unique to each of us, to have self-belief and inner confidence and to take responsibility for ourselves. To believe that anything and everything is possible.
Without doubt, there are certain qualities and attributes that some have more than others. But the real key is that we each have a CHOICE. It is the choice each of us makes in terms of deciding the version of ourselves we want to be that makes each of us the unique leaders we are.
At the end of the day, the only judgment that matters is the one we have of ourselves.
If we don’t start leading from within, taking control to acknowledge our own values and belief systems and acknowledging the person that we are on the inside, we will never be capable of being the better person on the outside. How can we give to others what we don’t have ourselves? How can we teach, guide, mentor and lead others if we haven’t set ourselves up for success?
Take the time to become a better version of yourself. Be solid and anchored in your unique leadership style because you are strong on the inside.
Make a difference in your life today to affect and influence the lives of others around you. As John C Maxwell shared “If you are bigger on the inside than you are on the outside, then over time you will become bigger on the outside”.
I believe leadership and the ability to influence and make a difference in your own world, your own backyard, is in each and every one of us. If we start with ourselves, managing our own lives and self-belief, then we can each create a difference at the grass roots – this is where we can all make a difference.
Until next time, I leave you with the following words shared in a recent audio recording by John C Maxwell; words found written in the tomb of an Anglican Bishop in Westminster Abbey:
“When I was young and free and my imagination had no limits I dreamed of changing the world. As I grew older and wiser I discovered the world would not change so I shortened my sights and decided to change only my country. But it too seemed immovable. As I grew in to my twilight years and, in one last desperate attempt, I settled for changing my family – those closest to me – but alas they would have none of it., And now as I lie on my death bed I suddenly realize if I had only changed myself first then by example I would have changed my family. From their inspiration and encouragement, I would have been able to better my country and who knows I may have even changed the world.”