Forget 'managing yourself', instead unleash yourself!

As I was flying to PR yesterday, I grabbed a couple of books for the plane, eager for the downtime to chill and read. So after watching "Moxie" with Sofia M (aka my warrior in the making), I turned to my book with almost an 'ahhh' at the anticipation of a great read. Instead I read the title and had the most visceral reaction. A part of the title read ‘...managing Yourself’. There in that moment, I shook my head on how limiting, how controlled and most importantly how small it sounded. Who wants to be small? Then a thought came into my head, like a bolt of lightning- it screamed- forget managing yourself; instead, how about unleash yourself!!!

So then I asked myself the question, why are we not talking to the youth, the young leaders of tomorrow about unleashing themselves? Perhaps the formula is not clear? Maybe there are not enough role models who have successfully done this? I find that hard to believe, but if that's the case- let's change that right now, let's start the dialogue. So here is my attempt at synthesizing what I have seen over the years. Maybe its right, maybe its wrong. Maybe you have other ideas too...let me know. Together we can help unleash our youth!

Step 1: Know what you are here for- and live it every day. This is a big topic and I don't claim to have it all figured out, but here are some truths about having a mission. It tends to be personal, it could be something like 'Bring joy to every moment', it could be 'Unlock peoples talents'. It also tends to be something that you are probably uniquely great at versus your peers and have a track record of doing it since you were young. You may have forgotten about it or you simply became busy at 'work'. When people talk about it, they say that when you are in that space, 'you are in the zone.' You feel energized, focused and full of possibilities. Now when you are out of sync with it, you sometimes have a sense of being lost, everything feels like a chore. You just don't know what you are working towards. Listen we have all been there or we are there right now. It is a journey. Trust me though, everyone needs a North star. So invest time and an energy in figuring out your North Star and staying true to it. I personally loved Alex Inchbald's approach on this, it helped me and my teams multiple times.

Step 2: Win the morning, win the day. I always loved waking up early om the morning. I remember telling one of my oldest friend that waking up early gave me the edge over others. But as years past I now realize the edge was never really over others but rather over my lazy self. I now wake up at 5am. I meditate, reflect, read and exercise. I essentially prime myself for the day ahead. I am energized, centered and ready to go! The alternative is to wake up at same time as my kids, rush to get ready, bark orders and then wonder why am I already stressed when it is only 9am in the morning. Its as simple as this- wake up early and give yourself the gift of YOU time before your day starts.

Step 3: Be unstoppable- build grit! We all know that life hits harder than anything else…so why be shocked when things go wrong? It happens. Why be so down when we make mistakes or fail, sure isn’t failure just another path to progress and success. It’s the road we take to learn and get better?? I love how Sara Blakely, the found of SPANX talks of her father asking her every day 'What did you fail at school today?'. You see true resilient folk, expect adversity, they reframe adversity as a gift for learning and keep going for more.

Step 4: Work hard at being the best you can be. When I worked at P&G I had an a-ha moment during the annual rating process in my late 30's. You see every year we were ranked by our level from top to bottom on who performed the best versus their expectations and peers. As competitive folk, we all wanted to be the top and we are did what we had to do to be on top. One year, I looked at my competition and I realized I was competing against friends, folk who I had been at their weddings, held their first babies. The fact that we were spending our energy on competing with each other was crazy. That was the day I reframed my competition to be with ME and NOT my peers. This was a game changer. Then my energy was refocused on building my own skills and I started my journey of Life long learning. Hence the 5am morning wakeup call and dedicated time to reading.

Step 5: Get a tribe! I have been so fortunate in life to have been surrounded by great women. It started when I was young and my girlfriends took me in and looked after me after my mum died when I was 16. It didn't stop there. Their mothers took me in. Would give me late night chats on how I was stronger than what life was throwing at me and feed me lots of tea. Then as I grew up I gained more teams, more tribes that would help shape my resilience- ladies you know who you are. In the words of Jim Rohn: “You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with. So pick your tribe wisely. Thank you Clare, Camille, Catriona & Kathryn for being my first tribe!

So maybe I was never meant to read that book about ‘managing yourself ' yesterday. Perhaps all along I was meant to write this piece for all of those who feel like society tells you to 'manage yourself', that you should be one way, one color, one gender, love a certain person. I don't claim to have all the answers but I know deep in my heart that managing yourself is thinking small. Instead, unleash yourself, for the world needs you to be best you that you can be!

Here is to the future, here is to you being unleashed!

Author: Michelle is the SVP and leader of corporate strategy & transformation, product innovation and incubator teams for Samsung Electronics America. Her focus is on transforming the US growth through strategy hacking, business model and product innovation and rapid change management. Before that Michelle spent 16 years at Procter & Gamble, most of her time in Prestige Beauty, then moved to become the CMO at Vertu, British luxury handmade mobile handsets. For upcoming posts, follow Michelle on LinkedIn and twitter. All statements made, opinions expressed in this article only reflect her personal opinion.

Other articles written by Michelle: 

1. Rise up my warrior, a letter to my daughter
2. The 5 steps P&G taught me on how to build a Leadership Culture. 
3. Improve your Leadership overnight with these 3 simple steps.
4. True Grit- the success gene
5. The 5 tips to my younger self
6. Why some emotional advertising misses the mark