Know Yourself as You Pursue the Purpose Driven Life By Seodi White 18.01.2021

In my online video conversations last week 11th to 15th January 2021 which I normally post on my LinkedIn Page (https://www.dhirubhai.net/in/seodiwhite/), Facebook profile (https://web.facebook.com/SeodiWhite/) and my Instagram page (https://www.instagram.com/seodiw/), I talked about the importance of Knowing Yourself. That in the pursuit of a purpose driven life; it is important that one knows who they are. Who are you? Knowing yourself brings about clarity so that you are clear about  who you are and what you want out of life and that you pursue that with determination.

Here are some of the nuggets I believe are useful on why it is important to know yourself.

• Know yourself so that you don’t dance in other people’s dysfunctionality. Dysfunctional people like narcissists thrive in their space when they recruit others to dance together in their disconnect. They will tell you a story about how bad somebody has been to them. They will invite you to dance in their space of pain even when it has nothing to do with you. They will start off by being nice in order to draw you in. And the next thing you know you are literally dancing in their convoluted agenda of who is wrong, who is right, a judgmental space of name calling and judgement issuing. This is why you need to know who you are so that you can smell narcissism when it is 2 kilometers away or even further! And you can change direction so that you focus on your goals and not other people’s manipulative agenda.
• Know yourself so that when they come for you and try to destroy you or fight you; you don’t participate in the fight. You duck the fight. It’s a fight you did not start. Do not get sucked into it. Many times, I have seen people start a fight of which I know nothing about and mention my name. These are people whom I hardly know. Whom I have probably just said hello to on one occasion or the other. But they boldly call out my name in a fighting mode so that I respond. Never catch that bait. It is meant to bring you down to their level. Ignore it and move on. Therefore, it is important to know yourself well and your agenda. That way you will recognize the bait faster than lightning and avoid walking into the trap.
• Know yourself so that your sensors or sixth sense warns you when you are in danger and you believe it. I don’t mean the danger from Lions as you walk in the National park. I mean that unseen danger that lurks in whispers and spaces behind your back or in a boardroom. As a go getter you are bound to step into some uncharted territory, you are bound to ruffle some feathers, know when you have stepped on a landmine, so you know how to lift your foot or better still know when you are in the landmine space. Read the atmosphere. The innuendos. The unspoken gestures or things that are spoken in jest. I have experienced someone who spoke jest without thinking when I addresses them about the success of a project I had just undertaken. I was so excited! And they said in jest “well you won’t be happy for so long!”. Immediately I knew he was jealous and unhappy about my success. I backed off and traded carefully. When he sent his lieutenants to come after me and the success of my project, I was ready! I knew where the bullets were coming from and which shield to take to fight to bounce them back!
• When you enter the boardroom quickly assess is this a safe space or a war zone? Its so easy to tell. The seating plan, the pre-meeting small group whisper discussions, the averted eye contact. So, adjust yourself quickly and map out the alliances and foes and be strategic when engaging.
• Know yourself to redirect yourself when you have made a mistake. In the business of life. We will all make mistakes. From the big to the small. Its all part of learning the game of life. Mistakes are bound to happen through choosing a wrong life partners, the wrong job or career, pouring money into the wrong investment, trusting the wrong people, having an affair, sending our children to the wrong school, moving to a country which turns to be a terrible place and so on and so forth.
• The most important thing is to make the quickest turn around when the mistake is realized, and if it is not practically possible to make the turnaround immediately then you can design a strategy to get over this hurdle. Within that framework it is also important to forgive yourself. Many people beat themselves up over a wrong decision and action and spend years mulling over it and fail to move on. In the business of leadership. It is critical to get over it, forgive yourself, learn lessons and move on.
• Know yourself so that you trust yourself and believe in yourself so deeply that you engage from that place of self-belief and self-trust. Actually, I should have put this as a first nugget. It is when you trust yourself so implicitly that you can forgive yourself. That you can sense danger and trust that feeling that you can refuse to be drawn into some narcissistic behavior, that you can refuse to be baited into a fight that you know nothing about and finally that you can go high when they choose to go low in your name.
• Finally, know yourself so that you know who your friends are. A couple of years ago I threw an open party in celebration of President Barack Obama’s election to the Presidency. I invited several friends. More than 20. It was a great party. Recently I went back to my pictures of 2008 and went through the phots from that day and it dawned on me that most of the people I had invited were not necessarily my friends but were my cousin’s friends. Since then, obviously I have regrouped and have o people whom I hang around with in my circle whom I call friends. It is important not to confuse who your friends are. This is because in the business of purposeful living, you need to have an agreed or shared value-system with the people you spend most of your time with. A word of caution here: Of course, in the association of those with shared value systems be careful that some of them may well be your secret competitors. I have a problem with competitive “friends”. The world is a generally competitive place and I believe one needs friends whom whilst you share a value-system, it is important that the space is safe. It is free of competition, jealous and envy but rather full of encouragement, some nudging and some pushing for your success and when the success comes, it should be a space for cheering.

So. Know Yourself.

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