Finding Peace & Authenticity; Learning Leadership With a Stoic Mindset.
This article, inspired by a phone call with Dave Dequeljoe, shares multiple life lessons on growth, leadership, mastery, and purpose that are short and easy to follow. Take what you want, leave what you don't.
I had recently shared a vulnerable part of my life, a story on mental health. An experience I had never shared before with anyone, and when I did, I received private messages from people in many forms, including those that related to how I felt, had been there, had a loved one who had been there, or simply to say thank you for putting the words out there that they never could.
While I felt open to sharing my story, I realized that everyone has a story, and I am no different. The only difference was that I put pen to paper to share the most vulnerable time in my life and I pressed publish. For seven years it made me too uncomfortable to share with even my closest friends.
I had the incredible opportunity to talk with my new friend Dave Dequeljoe on the phone, author of “Dogfighting Depression”, and our conversation stuck with me (much of our conversation and his wisdom will be shared through this article). The first thing Dave helped me realize was that as humans we all have a lot of the same desires in life; love, sense of belonging, and acceptance. Our own individuality, culture, and ethnic background make us all unique in our own way, but we really desire a lot of the same things.
For those of you that want to share your story but don’t know how or don’t feel that you can, know that you can write your story a hundred times on a piece of paper, crumble it up, and throw it away, just like I did. The willingness to write it out will help. Find comfort in sharing hardships to your closest friends as it may also help. Often, people are only willing to go to the same depth that you are. Don’t be afraid to add that depth to your life!
What if your pain isn’t as significant as someone else’s? A question I had thought about and asked Dave. Pain is pain, he said. You can’t compare or justify suffering to someone else’s suffering, situation, or life. It cannot be compared to others. If someone puts themselves down stop it.
Reminder: “No tree becomes rooted and sturdy unless many a wind assails it. For by its very tossing, it tightens its grip and plants its roots more securely; the fragile trees are those that have grown in a sunny valley.”
While reading through experiences of others sharing their darkest moments, one message stuck out to me, “Does it really get better?” To which I thought to myself, it does. The more I thought about it, the more I reflected on knowing how it’s okay not to be okay. It gets better, but we have to want it to get better right? My experience through therapy and my prognosis google searching “what’s wrong with me?” I recognized that I was trying to discover a quick fix solution to a deep-rooted internal struggle.
A great lesson Dave shared with me, which his mother shared with him was “when you’re not feeling great about yourself, help others”. To start, write down the things you love, the people you love, and why. Start there.
Your life is going to change based on the experiences that you encounter. For instance, the death of a loved one, you realize how fragile life is and you begin to appreciate those around you more, and the hardest part is, is that the change in our lives most often occurs through trauma. Recognize to appreciate things in the moment.
“Often times we suffer more in imagination than we do in reality.” – Seneca The Great.
As we climb the ladder, both in our personal and professional life, it can be hard to escape trauma that you hold on to. Or maybe you feel that you are lacking purpose or meaning in your life. If you want to add purpose to your life, learn how to be a real and authentic person. Surround yourself with good people and help others. When Dave and I were talking on the phone, he told me a great story.
If you don’t feel comfortable approaching your boss with a problem or having conversations with your boss about their decision making… you need to get a new job.
(Is it common to have a boss that you feel intimated by? Or one that you can’t reciprocate feedback to? Maybe, maybe not. If you can get a new job, you should... but sometimes you can't)
What if you can’t get a new job?
Be a gangster, said Dave.
He told me this story through an analogy. The greatest players can play well at home and on the road. The mediocre players only play well at home. Sometimes you can’t change your situation or where you are at in life, but you can change how you roll with it, and you can certainly be a gangster!
Learn how to bring your own energy. You are going to have to be a gangster when your energy is shut down by other people and especially when you feel yourself getting burned out. However, when you show up and you know your stuff, people won’t bother you.
Learn to reflect on your leadership experiences, from both sides of the experience, and recall the situations when you felt you couldn’t approach someone. Why was that? Are you the same way as a leader? Do you actively seek or look for feedback and advice?
To be a real authentic person, it takes courage, and courage cannot be taught in a textbook. Focus on creating more authentic leaders. Dave told me that his mission in life and that all leaders true mission in life should be to create more leaders.
As a leader, you have to learn how to be honest with yourself. Everyone thinks or feels that they are the best at what they do, it is a self-serving bias. 1) Be self-aware and conscious of blind spots. 2) Surround yourself with people that out of love, will share openly your blind spots.
We are fast to speak but listen. “The person who learns the most in each room is the teacher, and therefore the LEADER!!!”. Let me say that again, Dave said “The person who learns the most in each room is the teacher, and therefore the LEADER!!!”
Before our call ended, and after a lot of real wisdom, I wanted to know Dave’s purpose or his why. I had asked him if you ran into yourself at 22 years old with the knowledge you have now, what you say to yourself, or what would you say is important?
After thinking about it, he said, “the ability to form deep relationships with anyone I meet”.
A Harvard study of lifetime study of graduates found that the #1 determinant of a mid-life crisis is relationships:
? the number of relationships a person has
? the depth of their relationships
? the ability to create new when old one’s fade.
Dave’s Chalkboard: Here are some awesome quotes + principles from Dave.
“I discipline myself to remember gratitude for fear, every single day whenever & wherever it rises in its evil resplendence the grander & more impossible the better; so gloriously transcendent is the enlightening victory for without fear there’s no opportunity to surf the boundary!”
#Empathy = #WordOfTheYear!
"The lone wolf serves only himself selfishly, & is doomed to a life of emptiness"
"The Wolfpack serves each other generously, & survives, thrives; dances in chaos"
The 5 Steps To Achieve Mastery:
- memorization
2. conscious application in the moment
3. ability to teach it five-different ways (otherwise you have not mastered it)
4. the removal of fear from actions
5. ability to focus on person in-front of you
Courage + Authenticity:
- the ability to take risks approaching leaders
- the courage to be disliked giving feedback (give it with love - gets point across with minimal amount of pain)
- to give feedback in an effective way to grow as a leader.
- to be authentic in giving feedback with purpose.
Thanks you for reading this far! To check out Dave or his profile, click the link below!
Turning Chaos into Clarity | 2x Successful Business Exits | Strategic Advisor, Mentor & Growth Architect
3 年Respect Dylan Roberts
Veteran Advocate
3 年Duuuuuuude!!! Super blushy face!!! This is incredible that you learned and absorbed so much from our short call!! Leaders, this is what being a great student looks like! “A leader’s true mission is to create more leaders” Jeffrey Knight Heath Owens Guinevere Mesh (she/her) John Worrell Adam M., CISSP Cody Guymon Vicki Tisdale Stephanie LaBudde Elaine Lu Richa Agarwal Joni Barlow Jacob Foyston Jacob Barzee Abraham Darais
Director
3 年A very insightful and inspiring read to start my day....thanks Dylan!
ALL you're sure you know about "transition" is WRONG! A maverick for the Mission, I'm an Outlier Helping Military Families Avoid Unknown Transition Dangers Using My Liberty Accelerator Framework.????
3 年Thanks for posting