Chapter 6: Inspiring Others to Find Their Voice: The Leadership Challenge

Beginning with The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, leadership development is at the essential core of all of Dr. Stephen R. Covey's books.  He takes us step by step through self-mastery, then interpersonal effectiveness and self-renewal, and every last word of it is about leadership.  In Chapter 6 of The 8th Habit he provides a definition: 

"Leadership is communicating to people their worth and potential so clearly that they come to see it in themselves."  

In my leadership studies, that is new and different - and it merits some parsing.

We all operate every day in an organizational context, sharing goals with others at work or at home. Our whole lives are therefore facilitated (or not) by leadership. Because all organizations are comprised of human beings, understand the nature of humans is critical to effective work within them. Efficiency is out. The whole person (body, mind, heart and spirit) paradigm is in.  To influence others effectively we need more character than technique. It's not about psyche-up slogans and rah-rah. It's about principles: integrity, respect, fairness, etc. It takes effort and will to embody those things - but we must if we are to develop ourselves as leaders and unleash the potential of our organizations.

Dr. Covey relates common chronic problems experienced in organizations to the four human endowments: 

1. Spirit - Low trust.
2. Mind - No shared vision or common value system
3. Body - No alignment
4. Heart- Disempowered people 

Any of these underlying conditions can become acute problems that threaten entire enterprises and make the people in it unhappy and unable to accomplish group goals. Short-term fixes might temporarily resolve the crisis du jour but effective long-term solutions must address the spirits, heads, hearts and bodies of the people involved.
Those looking for a leadership solution in organizations must decide to embrace the 8th habit and inspire others to find their voice. They must adopt the "four roles of leadership":

1. Model trustworthiness,
2. Find a path to a shared vision
3. Ensure alignment around goals, and 
4. Empower individuals. 

 Here is a little table I created to help myself get this picture together.

 

Human Endowment	Chronic Organizational Issue	Acute Symptoms	Leadership Role
Spirit	Low Trust	Back-biting, In-fighting, Victimism, Defensiveness, Not Sharing Information	Modeling (Trustworthiness)
Mind	No Shared Vision or Values	Ambiguity, Hidden Agendas, Political Games, Chaos	Pathfinding
Body	Misalignment	Interdepartmental Rivalry, Co-Dependency, Clear Hypocrisies, Resolvable Misalignments	Aligning
Heart	Disempowerment	Apathy, Moonlighting, Daydreaming, Boredom, Escapism, Anger, Fear	Empowering

Of course, none of us can develop our leadership potential until we develop ourselves individually. One can't model trustworthiness, for example, with a poorly-formed conscience. Knowledge of how to do this, together with the correct attitude and ongoing skill building is the essence of what it means to adopt a habit. And a habit, to Covey, is something one earns first through study and then through application of principles. There are no quick fixes.  That's why I am spending a year working my way through this book and associated others.  I'm learning something new everyday.

Chapter 5: Express Your Voice - Vision, Discipline, Passion and Conscience

So these are the four words that will comprise my mantra this next month, representing the "highest manifestations of the four intelligences," the four sides of our human nature.

•  Mental/IQ (Mind) = Vision
• Physical/PQ (Body) = Discipline
• Emotional/EQ (Heart) = Passion
• Spiritual/SQ (Spirit) = Conscience

Happiness comes to those who develop all four of these aspects co-equally. And, as Covey notes, influence comes as well. Don't we always describe leaders with words like vision, discipline, passion and conscience? The people we willingly follow have those things.

Chapter 5 goes to the root of The 8th Habit, Find Your Voice and Inspire Others to Find Theirs. Voice is defined as "unique personal significance" and it lies at the intersection of our talents, passions, conscience, and need.  There's the four aspects again. Get it?

I loved the diagram on page 85 so much I took a picture of it.

Vision is being able to see something before it exists in reality, and believing in it so strongly that you can bring it about. Covey calls envisioning "the first creation" and points out that all things are created twice. First we see it, then we can develop it. Six or seven years ago I created a clear vision of myself in a house on Lake Erie. Four years ago I moved in. Lately I have been seeing myself on the beach in Florida. Plans for making that happen are coming together. I am not quite sure yet how I will pull off some of the details, but I have a very clear picture in my head and that is the first creation.  (I am quite slender in those pictures, by the way.)

In my work I have helped many groups and organizations to develop their vision statements, their shared picture of the future they are working together to create. I've found over the years that in every group there are some individuals who resist spending any amount of time in a group visioning process, but to me (and to others) this "first creation" is vital. No matter what a group exists to do (mission) it will achieve it much more quickly if the people involved all have a clear vision of the end result. Vision keeps people engaged, fires up their energy, and keeps them on the same path forward. It is an indispensable part of any collaborative effort.

Discipline means many things. Representing the physical side of our nature, it has to do with the ability to resist that which is bad for us and to focus on that which supports our goals. It's willpower and execution and sacrificing good things in order to have better. As part of my year-long journey through The 8th Habit I will be finishing a book I bought a while ago called The Marshmallow Test: Mastering Self-Control by Walter Mischel, the scientist who first taught us that 4 year olds who can delay gratification (one marshmallow now or two later) grow up to be adults with successful careers and solid 401(k)s. Fortunately for us grown ups, he also knows how we can build up the muscles of self-discipline. Watch for a future blog.

Passion is the overarching attribute of an enthusiast, someone who believes in creating the future with vision and discipline, rather than wallowing in hopelessness and helplessness. A passionate person is one whose talents have been unlocked and who is engaged in an effort that brings her or him great joy, whether it be a personal relationship or a social cause. Without passion, we can go through the motions, even bring some skills to our work, but we will never achieve at the highest levels unless we are all in. Lack of passion is a sign that we are on the wrong track, that we have not yet found our own voice. If we aren't bringing our whole heart to our endeavors, something is amiss.

Conscience is the crux of it all, the aspect that powers all the rest of it. Covey teaches that the fastest route to growing in our personal and interpersonal effectiveness is through addressing spiritual values like fairness, integrity, and service. Conscience (the highest manifestation of spirit) fuels our efforts to grow in the other three aspects. To those with a highly developed conscience, the ends never justify the means. Covey believes in certain universal principles - kindness, respect, responsibility, honesty, contribution - and says that living in alignment with these is the path to happiness. They are as immutable as gravity and the Law of the Harvest: we reap what we sow. We will not find ourselves surrounded by loving kindness if we contribute only irritation and hostility. Living according to conscience is living according to what we know is true.

Here is where he reproduces The Paradoxical Commandments, which I repeat here, just because they are always worth noting.

1.  People are illogical, unreasonable and self-centered. Love them anyway.
2. If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish ulterior motives. Do good anyway.
3. If you are successful, you will win false friends and true enemies. Succeed anyway.
4.  The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow. Do good anyway.
5. Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable. Be honest and frank anyway.
6. The biggest men and women with the biggest ideas can be shot down by the smallest men and women with the smallest minds. Think big anyway.
7. People favor underdogs but follow only top dogs. Fight for a few underdogs anyway.
8. What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight. Build anyway.
9. People really need help but may attack you if you do help them. Help people anyway.
10. Give the world the best you have and you'll get kicked in the teeth. Give the world the best you have anyway.

Step one is to do the internal work, to ensure that we are aligned within ourselves before we can do the interpersonal work of effectively engaging with others. Life is too painful when we don't do that. We miss our calling, sit helplessly on the sidelines while problems go unresolved and the world turns without our contribution. We can help only after we have developed the moral authority that comes from being a person others know as visionary, disciplined, passionate and conscientious.  
 
The journey continues.

A Covey Appendix: Developing the 4 Human Intelligences

In Chapter 4 of The 8th Habit, Dr. Covey provides a very simple prescription for taking care of the whole self:

1. For the body - assume you've had a heart attack; now live accordingly.
2. For the mind - assume the half-life of your profession is two years; now prepare accordingly.
3. For the heart - assume everything you say about another, they can overhear; now speak accordingly.
4. For the spirit - assume you have a one-on-one visit with your Creator every quarter; now live accordingly.

Well, that about covers it. For those who want a little more guidance, however, he provides a 20 page appendix called "Developing the 4 Intelligences/Capacities - A Practical Guide to Action" containing information and strategies for developing our full human abilities in all four areas.  

Physical (PQ)
There is nothing unique or surprising about the suggestions on the physical side. Eat right, exercise, get plenty of rest, drink water. Covey's special contribution here is the concept of mastery: "When you subordinate your body to your mind and your spirit, the peace and confidence that flow from that kind of discipline and self-mastery is enormous." It's the beginning of the private victory before public victory process he described in The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. If you can't keep a promise to yourself to reduce calories or walk every day or whatever, what is the value of your promises to others? Strengthening PQ is the first step.

Mental (IQ)
Mental Intelligence is about systematic study and continuous education. Contrary to what was once believed, the amount of smarts we have when we are born can be grown throughout our entire lifetime. Self-awareness, having clarity around the assumptions we bring to problems, is a component of IQ. Covey recommends journaling and other forms of writing to strengthening mental intelligence, along with teaching others what we've learned. (Blogging accomplishes both, hopefully.)

Emotional (EQ)
Much has been written in the last 20 years about emotional intelligence, all very enlightening and transformative. Covey rightly points out, however, that little has been provided in the way of how to strengthen EQ. Until now. My biggest aha! so far in my study of The 8th Habit has been the link Covey draws in this appendix between the elements of EQ and the 7 Habits. Here's what it looks like in a chart:

Developing the Five Main Components of Emotional Intelligence (EQ) through the 7 Habits
Self-Awareness	1. Be Proactive
Personal Motivation	2. Begin with the End in Mind
Self-Regulation	3. Put First Things First 7. Sharpen the Saw
Empathy	5. Seek First to Understand, Then to be Understood
Social Skills	4. Think Win/Win 5. Seek First to Understand, Then to be Understood 6. Synergize

That's it - the whole ball game. Life in a nutshell. Make a practice of adopting the 7 Habits (and the 8th) and grow your EQ and therefore your personal and interpersonal effectiveness. Whoot.

Spiritual (SQ)
Spiritual intelligence pretty much comes down to 1) integrity, 2) meaning, and 3) voice (our unique gifts.) I love the Robert Frost poem Covey reprints here:

My object in living is to unite
My avocation and my vocation
As my two eyes make one in sight.
Only where love and need are one
And the work is play for mortal stakes,
Is the deed ever really done
For Heaven and the future's sakes.

In other words - assume you have a quarterly visit with your Creator. Now act accordingly.

Emotional Intelligence 2.0

One point. Six years after first taking an Emotional Intelligence assessment, I have raised my overall score a whopping one point.

This is what Dr. Covey is talking about when he says "To know and not to do is really not to know."  Six years ago I developed a plan for raising my EQ. I didn't do it. Not one action step.

My commitment to spending 2016 working through the principles of The 8th Habit includes reading and thinking about the books that are mentioned in it, or are at least closely related.  Emotional Intelligence (EQ) is at the heart of Chapter 4: Discover Your Voice. So I am dedicating February to learning more about it.  Um, I am dedicating February to implementing strategies for increasing my own EQ.

Here are the basic EQ skills, according to Travis Bradberry and Jean Greaves, the authors of Emotional Intelligence 2.0 (TalentSmart, 2009).

• Self-Awareness. The ability to recognize your own emotions in real time, and understanding your own tendencies. My 2016 score: 69 (of 100)
• Self-Management. Using your self-awareness to employ the space between stimulus and response to choose an appropriate expression of emotion.  My score: 57
• Social Awareness: The ability to correctly detect the emotions others are feeling and to interpret the emotional cues they are giving. My score: 58
• Relationship Management: Using self-awareness, self-management, and social awareness to conduct successful interactions with other people. My score: 51

The scores come from the online test available (twice) to those who buy the book.  The website then provides a report recommending which three of the 66 strategies they describe in the book to yield the highest results, given the test-taker's unique patterns and deficiencies. For this go-round TalentSmart recommends that I focus on the skill of self-management and that I do the following: 

• Breathe Right. Get my brain the oxygen it needs for proper functioning by consciously engaging in deep breathing, both throughout the day as I think of it and in moments of high stress.
• Count to Ten. Yep, just like the pre-school teacher said. Doing this in conjunction with deep breathing during times when irritation is high should bring about an improvement in my ability to jettison that snarky comment and choose something more productive.  Like a smile.
• Set Aside Time in Your Day for Problem Solving.  Predicated on the idea that it's hard to make good decisions when I am bouncing around from emotion to emotion, this strategy seeks to make use of quiet time to pre-decide important matters. Interesting, and definitely worth a try.

I like it that there is a physiological strategy as well as behavioral ones. Makes me feel a little less at fault for my situation. (Oh, but wait, taking personal responsibility is the power move. I can make the changes and I can produce the results I seek. No victims here.) I also like it that these strategies are aimed straight at increasing the space between stimulus and response.

In my own defense, my biggest area of weakness in 2010 was self-awareness, and I have raised that score 15 points since then. It's just that I lost ground in the social awareness area, which I attribute to being so far removed from my training as a facilitator.  In recent years I have tended to take contracts where I was doing more consulting in an area of expertise than facilitating as a neutral outsider.  My radar for others' emotions has gotten weak. The truth is I do know how to do that well, I just don't. I bet deep breathing will help this, as will taking care to get enough sleep. That will be an excellent thing to fix as I transition my life to Florida.

At a conference last weekend I had an opportunity to attend a three-hour workshop on emotional intelligence. It was a nice refresher on the basics and provided me with an opportunity to reflect on a recent situation with a volunteer gig I have where a relationship went south in a hurry, never to recover. I do see my own role in that more clearly, both in terms of failing to show more empathy and in terms of exacerbating it with endless rumination. Could someone with a higher EQ have saved the situation? I don't know... but next time the person with the higher EQ will be me.

Learn more about Emotional Intelligence 2.0 and the self-assessment by visiting their website at www.TalentSmart.com.

Chapter 4: Discover Your Voice (Part 1)

There's a quote Covey uses to start the chapter... the same quote I have on a poster on my wall.  It's from Marianne Williamson (not Nelson Mandela) and it goes like this:

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.  Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn't serve the world.  There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us, it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we're liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."

The title of the fourth chapter in Stephen R. Covey's The 8th Habit is "Discover Your Voice." Discover, as in find, unbury, locate.  These are the verbs one uses to describe the way to something that already exists.  All of us have a unique voice, an inner light, a special contribution we make. Mine has been layered over with 52 years of muck, but it is there.  Dr. Phil used to say things like "the only thing worse than staying in a bad relationship for ten years is staying in it for ten years and one day." Looks like the same can be said for continually choosing to keep our voice silent, or doing anything that goes against our best interests. Letting one more day go by without making the choice to accept our natural birth gifts is a tragedy. It's like saying "No thanks, God. I'd rather not be fully human."

Covey describes the epiphany he had when he learned about the space between stimulus and response, and this became the predicate for all of his writings. It works like this: something happens - and before we respond there is a moment when we decide what to say or do. Someone says "that dress looks pretty on you" and then there is a moment when we choose whether to say "thank you" or roll our eyes and say "this old thing?"  Covey says our freedom to create our lives lives in that space, which is larger for some than for others. The whole ball game is in how we respond...

I will never forget the overwhelming sense of relief I felt when I first learned through the work of Dr. Edward Hallowell (see blog post dated 2/22/15) that having an ADD brain meant that I did not have much of a space between stimulus and response. My fly-off-the-handle, bite-your-head-off ways were not as much a moral failing as they were bio-based. Because there is so much to embrace about ADD, so much good to roll with when you give up trying (and failing) to be more like others, it's been fairly productive to stop beating myself up about that. Plus, it feels better.

So now comes Covey to say that even a small space can be grown. That would be good. In fact, I have read that elsewhere as well. That feels like a pretty productive place to begin this month's journey to Discover My Voice. 

More about the chapter: The freedom to choose is one of three natural "birth gifts" Covey describes.  The second is natural laws or principles, something he talks about throughout all of his works. I have decided to keep a master list of these as I go.  So far, I have fairness, kindness, respect, honesty, integrity, service, contribution, responsibility, purpose. He also says the seven habits are natural laws.  More on that later.  

Principles are universal, inarguable, like gravity. Values, on the other hand, are personal and subjective. People who align their personal values with universal principles are said to have a strong moral compass. This shows up in their behavior and they develop moral authority. 

The third birth gift is being endowed with the four dimensions of being human... Mind, Body, Heart, Spirit. Covey guarantees that if we focus on developing ourselves in all four arenas "you will find great peace, and power will come in to your life." I'll have more on all of this in coming weeks, but for now, here is the basic breakdown: 

• Mental Intelligence (IQ): Our ability to think, analyze, comprehend. Long since debunked as the most important predictor of likely success.
• Physical Intelligence (PQ):  Being of sound body, maximum health and fitness.
• Emotional Intelligence (EQ): Having a strong sense of self-knowledge, self-awareness, empathy with others, social sensitivity and ability to successfully communicate with others. 
• Spiritual Intelligence (SQ): Our conscience and our drive to have meaning in our lives, being connected to That Which is Bigger than Ourselves. Covey says this one drives and guides the others.

The book has a 20 page appendix called "Developing the Four Intelligences/Capacities - A Practical Guide to Action." I will be working my way through that over the next few weeks, as well as through some of the books Covey refers to in this chapter, mostly having to do with EQ.  This is all part of my commitment to spend a year with The 8th Habit.  Do let me know if you are following along.

Chapter 3: The Solution

One of my all-time favorite bumper stickers read: "Subvert the Dominant Paradigm." My radicalized, college-age, capitalism-hating self really thought that was cool. Our society had it all wrong. The world was full of injustice and all the greedy people who created the system and all the blind minions who propped it up were the root cause of all I disliked.

I've mellowed some with time, of course, but I've always worried that my conforming ways have me off the path to greatness I once thought I was bound for. Daily life is easier when I don't feel myself to be at loggerheads with the world all around, but so many peaceful days in a row have begun to feel like I've settled for mediocrity. That's why I value Dr. Covey's work so much. I believe in the promise he's made to deliver the road map back to greatness. Some huge shakeups lie ahead for me and it's not likely to be easy, but I have to do it.

The problem, you see, is me. The self that I am today IS mediocre and the fix is therefore internal. By seeking to get along with others, I have suppressed my own views, feelings, and needs. I have squelched my own creativity, stifled my own voice. In so doing, I have not only harmed myself but I have also diminished my influence and limited my contribution to the world. You could call that irony.

The good news, according to Covey, is "No matter how long we've walked life's pathway to mediocrity, we can always choose to switch paths. Always. It's never too late. We can find our own voice."  We just have to switch paradigms.

The 8th habit is "Find Your Voice and Inspire Others to Find Theirs." Both parts are critical and both require immense internal work. To be influential, to really make a difference and leave a last legacy, one must be completely authentic. Without that, there is no trust (including trust of self) and without trust there is no influence. As authenticity falls off, so does our ability to achieve great things.

Knowing and expressing one's true self in all areas - vision, discipline, passion, and conscience - is not optional any more than breathing air is optional.

Because no one is an island, and most work is done in conjunction with others, we need the people around us to find their own voices and to bring their best selves to our organizations. That's why "inspire others to find theirs" is such an important part of the 8th habit. The bulk of the book is devoted to teaching us how to do just that. Can't wait.

So, as I indicated in my December 27 blog, I am devoting this year to the study of the principles and other lessons detailed in The 8th Habit. I have accepted Dr. Covey's challenge to go through each of the remaining chapters slowly and deliberately, working to apply the insights of each for one month at a time. I will do my best to keep the blog posts coming and to share my learnings. Next week I will provide an orientation to the 8th Habit website. In subsequent weeks I will post summaries of some of the related books I'll explore as I go throughout the year. Ya'll are welcome to come along for the ride.

Chapter 2: The Problem

I have never been a big fan of addressing symptoms of something without getting to the root cause. I used to delight in annoying doctors, resisting the rheumatologist for prescribing medicine to treat the arthritis symptoms caused by rogue antibodies attacking my joints and resisting the neurologist prescribing medicine to treat the weakness caused by rogue antibodies attacking my nerve cells.  Where's the doctor who deals with rogue antibodies? Where at this massive university are the people studying why antibodies go rogue? Even at 22 I would look these highly educated professors in the face and say "I reject the basic premise of your treatment plan." I just knew the lens they were looking at me through was whopper-jawed.

The word I didn't know then was paradigm. When our basic assumptions and analytical framework are faulty, then no strategy, no technique, no effort will yield what we seek.  They couldn't cure George Washington with a bloodletting and they couldn't cure me with steroids.

The premise of The 8th Habit is that the pain and emptiness of an unfulfilled life in the modern world is a symptom of an outdated paradigm, an artifact of the Industrial Age we have all but left behind. He calls where we are today the Age of the Information/Knowledge Worker, which is characterized by a high degree of individual choice. Just as agriculture displaced hunters and gatherers, and factories later displaced farmers, knowledge workers are now displacing manufacturers. Few of us are still doing physical labor. Our society has shifted and most of us have shifted with it.

But the way we organize ourselves and relate to each other is still stuck in the past. Covey says, "[The Industrial Age] gave us our view of accounting, which makes people an expense and machines assets. Think about it. People are put on the P&L statement as an expense; equipment is put on the balance sheet as an investment." And that is just one example of how we have people in the "thing" category - expendable, replaceable, and controllable. If someone gives you trouble, get rid of them and bring in someone more malleable.

Covey says that as he traveled the world working with organizations large and small, he came to see that even the best were "absolutely filled with problems" related to this "people as things" paradigm.  Improvements can be made by tightening practices, introducing techniques, and addressing attitudes and behaviors, but the way to significant change is to work on the paradigm - the entire set of underlying assumptions that constitute the framework through which we view everything around us. If we see our coworkers as interchangeable, we'll never be able to do more than address the symptoms of organizational dysfunction.

Of course, people aren't things. We are mind, body, heart and soul, and all four parts of our nature must be engaged in order to feel fully alive. When our place of work (or school or family or church) suppresses one or more of these essential aspects of humanness, we experience pain. In the Industrial Age we did what we had to do anyway so that we could feed ourselves and our families. If we could move on, we did, but few of us had any real choice. According to Covey, this is the big change of the Knowledge Worker Age. So many more of us have real options with our lives - and when we are treated as expendable things we can respond. In essence, we are all volunteers now at work and at home. If something isn't right we change jobs, or we quit in place, bringing only part of ourselves to our work. When mind, body, heart, and soul are engaged, the creative energy of the whole self is unleashed, we do our best work, get on the path to greatness, and live happily.

My goal for this week is to pay attention to ways that the old paradigm manifests itself. I already see enormous implications for my work. (Governance is really just about techniques, after all, and the nonprofit organizations I work with are truly volunteer-based.) One caution Covey gives in this chapter is to resist using his work to diagnose others. "Perhaps you, too, are thinking that the people who really need a book like this aren't reading it. That very thought reveals co-dependency. If you look at the material through the weakness of another, you empower their weakness to continue to suck initiative, energy, and excitement from your life." I don't yet know how I'll be able to make the paradigm shift internally (seems like a lot of moving parts to me) but there are 300 pages to go and I have faith in Stephen Covey.

Chapter 1: Pain

Few authors speak to me like Stephen R. Covey does. His books are the guidestar to my best life, filling me up on each read and reread. So why I have allowed myself to stray from the basic principles he articulated so well, I don't know. Fortunately, some higher power keeps intervening, pointing me back over and over. That's why I noticed a complete set of audio CDs for The 8th Habit on a colleague's shelf just before a long car trip I took in November. She graciously allowed me to borrow them and I popped the first one in as I got the highway.  Dr. Covey opens this one with a chapter called "Pain" that so well describes what I've been feeling lately that it truly gave me a sense that I had come home. The solutions for me would be there if I just put my focus on the things Covey talks about. Take some time with it: no speed reading.

"Listen to these voices," he says: 

• "I'm frustrated and discouraged."
• "Maybe I just don't have what it takes."
• "I'm stressed out; everything's urgent."

Sound familiar? It did to me. And while I know that everyone from the makers of antidepressants to the owners of beach resorts promise a quick fix for deeply embedded pain like this, I know in my heart that I feel better when I apply Dr. Covey's principles to my every day life.  As a result of this road trip, I made some big decisions about my future and also dedicated 2016 not just to transition, but also to transformation.

It seems to me the problem so many people are experiencing - not being fully engaged at work and at home - is getting worse, even since The 8th Habit was first published in 2004. Brain scientists I have seen on TV talk about the bad-for-us neurological rewiring taking place because of our increasing use of cell phones, tablets, and computers. Add in a zero nutrition diet, and we are doing things to our bodies they were not designed for. Yet, even as we are decreasing our human capacities, we are raising expectation levels. Says Covey: "Being effective as individuals and organizations is no longer optional in today's world - it's the price of entry to the playing field." There are no more "also rans," no ribbons just for participating. Those trying to live by the rules crafted by others end up in tremendous pain.

One would think that as a self-employed person, I had avoided this whole rat race problem, and maybe I have to a larger degree than others. Still, I think Covey nails it on the head when he says we all need to adopt his 8th habit: "Find your voice and inspire others to find theirs." Voice is defined as "unique personal significance," so it's clear to me that I don't have that. I'm still not sure where I fit. Thus, the deep, lonely, unrelenting emptiness some have called "existential angst." Since reading Covey, I don't think it's existential.  It is not an inevitable price of life. The pain flows from living outside of natural laws, outside of our own conscience, outside our passions. "When you engage in work that taps your talent and fuels your passion - that rises out of a great need in the world that you feel drawn by conscience to meet - therein lies your voice, your calling, your soul's code." Void filled.

I may be closer to this than most, but I'm not there yet and the gap is draining me. My nieces and nephews call this a "first world problem" and so it is. But it is my problem to solve and so I will.

It is comforting to me that Dr. Covey reports that his personal interactions with some of the world's greatest leaders has taught him that most aren't born with great vision, but rather develop it slowly over the course of life. It's when they seek to make their work sustainable (to leave a lasting legacy) that they find a way to institutionalize their individual accomplishments. That means sharing their personal insights with others in a way that makes their unique personal significance stick - the "inspire others to find theirs" part of the 8th habit. 

I feel calmer just being able to see this destination ahead. Dr. Covey says this book provides a roadnmap from where I am now to that place in my future where I can honestly say I found my voice and inspired others to find theirs.

Let the journey begin.