Intrepid Exploration

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[Please excuse any typing errors as this is a direct transcription for your benefit.]

Hi, this is Ruth Sanderson from Blue Pea POD and in this podcast, I want to pose the question: Are you an intrepid explorer?

I like to think we all have a bit of explorer in us, now. Maybe it’s generational, and over the last few hundred years, our ancestors have sought out and explored new frontiers, new continents and countries. Columbus, Captain James Cook, Sir Francis Drake, and when they’ve explored planet Earth, then it was a case of, “Let’s go into space and look at Mars or the moon!” Now, in our own way, we do a bit of exploring on bits of Earth that are new for us personally, when we travel to a new city or country.

Holidays are our unadulterated explorer time. We post our experiences and findings on Facebook and Instagram. It’s fun, but is it intrepid exploration? “Space, the final frontier,” according Captain Kirk, or was it Spock? I forget. One of those. Anyways, it is, but it’s the space between our ears, the space behind our eyes that’s the final frontier. Exploring this space is intrepid stuff.

Self-awareness; which is what happens as you explore this space, isn’t for the faint-hearted. Years of training, coaching and consulting have shown me that not everybody wants to do it, and some will go to extraordinary efforts to remain unaware. Actually, years of increasing my own self-awareness and exploring my own space behind my eyes have been peppered with moments of joy and revelation; moments of tension when I wondered what was going to snap, and moments of quiet acknowledgement and ownership.

Increasing your self-awareness requires the intrepid explorer in you, and you don’t have to go in unprepared. Again, we can learn from previous explorers. Scott trotted off to the Antarctic and failed to properly prepare, made poor decision after poor decision, and him and his team paid with their lives. Poor decisions come from a lack of awareness and your self might be an element of that.

It was probably Scott’s mentality more than anything else that doomed his expedition. So the results you’re currently experiencing in your life, your business, relationships, are directly proportional to your current level of awareness. We can look at external out there, and be aware of market data, consumer habits, share price, et cetera, et cetera. We may even be aware of the shift in somebody’s face as we say something, or even notice their energy change. And without a corresponding level of self-awareness, would we know what to do with the information?

Many of the questions we seek to answer help us be more authentic. These questions are ones like: Who am I? What’s my purpose? How best do I align my purpose with the purpose of my organization? In uncertainty, how do I navigate and make decisions that keep us on track, healthy, and confident? What’s important to me about my career? And just how do I express this? As a leader, I’m a role model for future leaders, but what am I inspiring?

See, we can so easily get caught up in the business of business; that we don’t make the space to explore what’s going in our mind, our self, our inner-terrain. Typically, over the course of a six month, one year working relationship that I can have with a client, we work on both actual business results and their inner space, their inner-terrain; increasing their self-awareness and inner strength.

Now, when this started out, many just wanted the business results. Anything else would be the cherry on the cake. But at the end, the biggest, most rewarding element, they said, was their inner strength had increased so much that they got the business results, but they also had the confidence and clarity to go forward for so much more. It was their intrepid explorer, it was now alive and kicking from tears of what was possible. What was possible to achieve in business has expanded because they had expanded.

So if you want to achieve more, contribute more. Be more. Let the intrepid explorer within you out more. It is through journeying within that you create more on the outside. Until next time. Enjoy exploring.

Thanks,

Ruth

About blue pea POD

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