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Shed Your Leadership Identity

Written by: Jamie Broughton

Article Overview: Our identity is usually formed and adopted when we’re younger in response to an event or experience that didn’t turn out the way it “should” have. The identity gets reinforced over and over again because it produces results for us. This article gets you thinking about your identity and decisions you have made or could have made.

Shed Your Leadership Identity

“What if everything is an illusion and nothing exists?
In that case, I definitely overpaid for my carpet.”
~Woody Allen (1935– ) US comedian, actor.

I was 13 years old when Brian Epp, the school bully, stole MY bicycle.

The bike was a beautiful thing, my pride and joy. It looked like a motorbike. It had shocks at the front AND back, one gear, tires with huge knobbies and the best part was the great long seat I could “double” my friends on.

At 13, I was a scrawny “late bloomer” puberty-wise and Brian was huge. He had already been shaving for a couple of years and took much delight in taunting me on a regular basis.

“Which bike should I steal today?” he bellowed one day walking up and down the rows of locked bikes. I just knew which one he was going to pick.

“Hmmmm maybe THIS one,” he said as he looked at me.

Smiling his evil smile, he kneeled down next to my pride and joy and began cracking the combination lock.

I stood there feeling completely powerless. There was NOTHING I could do. I just PRAYED and PRAYED and PRAYED he wouldn’t figure out the combination.

He did.

The last tumbler “clicked” into place. He grinned at me, popped the lock and in a flash was pedaling around the school yard.

“Please, please, please give me my bike back Brian!” I pleaded gasping for air as I chased him around the yard. Finally, laughing at me, he threw my bike down and strutted away.

At THAT moment I unconsciously decided:

“If I’m ‘nice,’ I’ll get the results I want in life.”

I spent the rest of my life being “nice” and living my life consistent with that. I avoided conflict like the plague. I wouldn’t really speak my mind in awkward situations I certainly wouldn’t want to offend anyone (gag). Asking for real help was difficult for me because “nice people” aren’t a burden (gag again).

The decision of a 13-year old formed the foundation of my identity for life.


Fieldwork:

Our identity is usually formed and adopted when we’re younger in response to an event or experience that didn’t turn out the way it “should” have. The identity gets reinforced over and over again because it produces results for us.

Being “nice” got me my bike back. It got me jobs when I interviewed. It allowed me to become very skilled at building relationships.

So what’s wrong with identities if they’re producing good results?


The problem with our identity is three-fold:

1. Our identity isn’t “who we are.” It’s merely who we have grown to IDENTIFY OURSELVES WITH based on PAST experience(s) - how we viewed the experiences and our relationship to them.

2. The identity severely limits what IS possible in who you can be and do. If you’re really “up to something” big in your life, it’s only a matter of time before your identity gets in the way.

3. The identity is slimy. It has IT’s interests in mind, not YOURS. It wants to protect its own existence. It’s your identity that chatters away in your head saying things like “you can’t do X” or “it’ll never work out” or “I’m too Y to have it work…”

If you continually listen to your identity, you’ll always sell your potential short.

Mini Exercise:

1. Take a look at your life, particularly the memorable and unfavorable experiences earlier in life.
2. What memories stand out in your mind as significant (the younger you are the better)?
3. Consider you made a decision about yourself about what’s possible as a result of that experience.
4. What decisions do you see you could have made?
5. How have those decisions shown up in your life since?

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Article Tags: 13 year old, 13 years, awkward situations, beautiful thing, brian epp, combination lock, comedian, evil smile, fieldwork, gag, knobbies, living my life, motorbike, plague, pride and joy, puberty, rest of my life, school bully, tumbler, woody allen



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