I was recently listening to an interview with Brian Johnson and Jim Kouzes one of the co authors of a best-selling leadership book called ‘The leadership challenge’ it’s in its fifth edition and celebrating its 25th Annivasray year. In this interview Jim Kouzes talks about his many key learnings from over three decades of leadership research with co-founder Barry Posner and educating leaders through the science of leadership. At around the 27:00 minute mark Jim reflects on a time he had the opportunity to interview Major General John Stanford and asked him about what his number one leadership secret was?
“My secret to success in life is to ‘Stay In Love’! staying in love gives you the fire to ignite other people, to see inside other people, have a greater desire to get things done in other people, a person who is not in love doesn’t feel the kind of excitement that’s needed to get ahead, or to lead others to achieve, I don’t know any other fire or thing in life that is more positive or exhilarating than the feeling of Love.”
Surprising words from a Major General, hey?
You can listen to the interview here https://itunes.apple.com/au/podcast/interview-leadership-challenge/id1033620094?i=1000380374692&mt=2
It’s a great interview with many key take outs, not just for business leaders but for any one willing to take control of their own life.
Jim goes on to talk about how the top leaders are fuelled by passion, Loving your customers, your employees and your projects for whom they’re working with. By having that passion they are able to get extraordinary things done on a daily basis.
Since hearing this interview, it really got me thinking. The Major Generals secret has resonated with me on many levels. Be it in my own relationships, my own projects, my own dreams and my future aspirations too.
Sometimes we fall out of love, we fall out of love with not just each other but we get tired of chasing our dreams, be it working two jobs to pay for your car or pay your mortgage
we lose that spark that ignites us and we can feel really let down,
sometimes we can’t find anything that ignites our fire, and we give up looking for that little something that lights our fire
and so we fall out of love with each other and sometimes with life.
Love is a Verb as the ever romantic poetic John Mayer sings 
When you show me love
I don’t need your words
Yeah love ain’t a thing
Love is a verb – You gotta show me
My observation from all this is – How often do we fall out of love with ourselves? How often do we allow our own negative self talk to fill our minds and create a learned helplessness where by we chose to suppress our own thinking and lose sight of self LOVE. We must consciously give it to ourselves first, be mindful of that destructive self talk it can snuff out that positive spark. Then we get the Blues, become down hearted then lose ourselves with Depression and its such a sad lonely place, become mindful and chose not to take out long time lease on it and move in permanently. Those negative thoughts can suck you in like quick sand if your not aware of it.
When was the last time you said or did something loving to or for yourself?
I had someone once say to me out of their own frustration at me being busy and preoccupied with my following several of my passions at the same time that I was ‘all over the shop”, like it was a bad thing!! I’m pretty sure what they meant to say was I’ve always got some project I’m working on or that I’ve found a new passion for. Be it my own personal fitness goals, or studying subjects or courses Im passionate about or spending time with the people I love or taking care of my favourite animals, or like now expressing my self creatively.
Do what you love, Love what you do!
Staying in love keeps us alive! And In love with life. Thats what we humans are designed to do ‘Explore, Create and Grow’ whether you believe it it or not we have choices. We can not thrive in narrow minded cages we need to be free to explore and flourish and follow our desires with enthusiastic curiosity. Love keeps us fueled with the passion for life. the world and our universe is full of amazingness and there is something special for everyone here to love.
Love really is everywhere
What are five things that you love to do?
How do they make you feel?
When was the last time you did that?
An Idle mind is a devils playground
Having experienced depression on a few occasions in my life brought on by various life events and grief. I know that depression is the feeling opposite to love. You feel drained of all positive energy and drive, you can feel useless and helpless, that theres no way out and the things you use to enjoy doing you can’t be bothered doing any more. So in a sense with depression we’ve fallen out of love with life in general. Not just with one person but usually everything and the only thing that keeps us going is the belief that it’s only a phase and pretty soon you’ll start to feel more positive again. You may not even know you have the blues or the start of depression, your appear moody, grumpy, disconnected and mostly negative to everyone else. You may be numb to it, in denial or just totally unaware that you are even in a depressed state. And in some cases you have given up the fight and surrendered to it or you somehow just don’t care if you are or not.
According to a new study completed by researchers at Australia’s University of Queensland Depression is the second leading cause of disability with over 4% of the world population diagnosed with clinical depression.
Click here for a Stunning Map of Depression Rates Around the Globe
Here in Australia we have close to 4% of our population has been diagnosed with clinical depression. Why is that?
Click here for Signs and symptoms of depression
Depression is at an all time high, it’s not just a disease. It’s a whole lot of people that arent feeling love and or any of it’s positive effects. It is a dis-ease with in our society, communities, families and with the people we love. And thats a whole lot of people that aren’t living life to their fullest potential for various reasons.
We all deserve love and the opportunity to live to our fullest potential. To live anyway else is to succumb to our own or others manipulation.
Click here to find out How Happy You are?
Find something you love, nurture it, treasure it, respect it, work hard to stay in love and stay ‘doing’ that, day in day out. And then repeat day after day. I’m not meaning with a partner or sexually unless that’s what you love ( then that’s a whole other conversation) but with it anything, Painting, Gardening, Reading a new book, Exercising, studying or even your job!
Have I mentioned that Love is a verb? Its something you do!
How do you show love?
Sometimes we are always searching for that initial in love feeling, that warm addictive feeling, to keep us energised and uplifted.
How often do we switch off to being in love because it can be exhausting work having to do something for what we love, always being kind, thoughtful, respectful, considerate, energetic in the act of love.
Being a mum we do a lot out of love, and we fight that exhaustion all the time – we do/show love each day over and over again and often for nothing in return. We can put in all that effort and gain nothing in return. We literally put our lives on the line or shelf to help those we love do what they love but then we miss out on keeping our love sparks firing and sometimes we can lose ourselves. Sure doing something out of unconditional love is very noble n all but the truth is we all want to love and to be loved in return not exhausted, taken advantage off and disrespected for our kind loving ways.
When have you noticed someone’s love?
How do you show love in return?
Then there’s showing physical love – from helping a loved one – cooking them a special dinner, going out for lunch, paying someone a genuine compliment, buying someone flowers or maybe simply folding up their washing and putting it away with the intent of love not just quickly doing another bloody chore.
Okay, now let’s talk about when was the last time you physically made love to someone you love? You know, really connecting and igniting the passion in each other by looking into each other eyes and smothering each other with genuine loving kind words, affectionate caresses and watching those sparks fly. You know ‘making lurve!’ Not just doing another chore!
Love makes the world go round!
So is it fair to say that we are all searching for love?
If you feel empty and feel no love then get busy ‘doing’ something that you like just a Little then you may find you enjoy it and then that feeling will grow and pretty soon love will follow maybe even a healthy addiction.
Little by little, a little becomes a lot!
Keep looking for your sparks, stay close to those that ignite your fire for life and stay away from those that want to snuff yours out.
If you liked this blog post please feel free to leave a comment like and share thank you
To learn more about Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner “The leadership Challenge” Program visit http://www.leadershipchallenge.com/home.aspx
http://www.dictionary.com/browse/verb
Love's state of mind 