5 Habits to Lead from Your Heart. Johnny Covey

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      SECTION 1

       Lead from the Heart

       Learn to Shift from Head to Heart

       “Wherever you go, go with all your heart.”

      ~Confucius

      We are born to play the game of life leading from our heart.

      From the movie Jerry McGuire:

      JERRY: All right, I’ll tell you why you don’t have your ten million dollars. Right now, you are a paycheck player. You play with your head, not your heart. In your personal life, heart. But when you get on the field, it’s all about what you didn’t get. Who’s to blame. Who underthrew the pass. Who’s got the contract you don’t. Who’s not giving you your love. You know what, that is not what inspires people! Shut up! Play the game, play it from your heart.

      ROD: No heart?! I’m all heart!

      Like Rod, you may think that you are “all heart” and are worth millions more than you are being paid; however, you may be stuck in certain habits of the head that hold you back.

      Once, you and I were all heart. As children, we played at life in the present with a sense of our potential. As we aged, however, we tended to shift out of our heart and into our heads—and then tried to drive forward by looking in the rear-view mirror, back toward the past.

The Root Problem

       Being in our Heads

       “For every thousand hacking at the leaves, there is one striking at the root.”

      ~Thoreau

      The root problem is that we play from the past, from our previous experience and from our head, not leading from our heart. In this book, I try to strike at the root problems you face in life—the things that keep you up at night, the things that have haunted you for years.

      Our root problems are not due to lack of information—they are based on what we choose to experience. We tend to think that information alone will solve our problems—that if we only knew what to do, we would do it. However, even when we know what to do, when we have all the information we need, we still have the same problems. In fact, they may get worse! We can solve many external problems with information, but resolving internal problems requires us to experience something new.

      We also accept the idea that when we solve external problems, our internal problems will solve themselves. For example, when I have enough money, I’ll have the security I need to feel at peace. When I lose weight, I’ll love my body and find the perfect partner for me. When so-and-so stops doing such-andsuch, then I can be happy.

      We all know that solving external problems will not automatically create what we want internally. And yet, we still want external things to create what we want internally. We wish that measurable things—like money, weight and time—could start and sustain intangibles like happiness, peace, love and joy. We know we should work on internal issues; however, since working on them is so immeasurable, it’s hard to pinpoint where to start, what to work on or how to get the results we want. So, we look outside ourselves for answers.

      If you are like me, you have been looking for answers outside of yourself for years. Some of these external things have helped me to a small degree, but have never given me the complete results I really wanted or needed. Often I received the results that were promised, but they did not translate into what I needed.

      Why is this?

The Gap in the Game

      We may know the truth of who we are and what we want to do, but often we can’t do what we want to do because we’re not currently experiencing the truth of who we are. There is a gaping hole, a Grand Canyon gap, between where we are and where we know we should be.

      Like all games, the game of life has winning and losing strategies. Your ability to win has everything to do with you and your choices. Yes, there is an element of chance or luck in this game, but you still get to choose what you do and who you become as you play.

      I use the word play because I think that it best describes what you are doing. You are trying something out, seeing if it works. If it does work, you progress; if it does not, you may regress. You have to keep trying until you figure it out.

      We all start life at basically the same place when we are born and then we move to where our family, or team, is. If our parents, or team captains, have been implementing losing strategies, we face a daunting challenge—but it’s one that we can overcome when we know what game we are playing: the game of our one and only mortal life.

      The game of being popular, rich and famous is a difficult game to win. There are few winners; and even when some people win, they feel the excitement of victory for only a moment. Competition demands constant volleying for position and the prize of first place. There is almost always someone who is ahead of you, and you only feel glimpses of satisfaction because of the temporary nature of first place as everyone is trying their best to beat you.

       Where are you playing this game?

       Christine: I play this game with other moms. I want to be better, to mother better, to measure up and make it on the pedestal if there are medals being handed out.

      This competitive game can never truly be won because the end goal is not to be your best, but to be the best—to be better than others. Out of necessity, we all play this game to a degree; however, we can play it in unhealthy or healthy ways. Few people disagree that competition and comparison do not bring what we really want in the end, but most of us still play this game.

      This game says when I do____________ I will feel___________. Christine mothers to the best of her ability so that she feels good about her efforts. Yet what about when her ability changes? Or her responsibilities increase to the point that she cannot maintain her normal standards? Rigid expectations usually result in disappointment. Feelings should not have a foundation of actions because individuals produce so uniquely. Because feelings based on what we do are not sustainable, we stop trying. The reason it does not work is because you are going СКАЧАТЬ