My Inspirational 30-day challenge
Last November, I was fortunate enough to sit in a room with some Legends of the hospitality industry. I watched, listened, and chatted to them about the subject of leadership. It was a day high on energy and re-invigorated me into believing that our industry is in very good hands but that maybe that particular message is not getting out amongst all the negative noise.
But I’ll talk about that another day.
The topic of Leadership is widely debated. What makes a good leader? Credibility? Knowledge? Respect? Positivity? It turns out that all of these things and much more. Who knew? (well everyone actually).
But there’s one trait that has always stood out for me more than any other. The ability to inspire people to be better than they believe they are.
I’ve always felt that this is what separates the very best leaders from the rest. A quick google search on what it means to inspire will give you lots of information if you let it (Some not that inspirational as it happens) but in short it can be described as “fill someone with the urge or ability to do or feel something, especially to do something creative”. It’s not the definitive definition but it’ll do for me and for the purposes of this piece.
Inspiration, on this day, was available in buckets and I walked away fully inspired. But often, inspiration is something that gets lit within you at a given moment in time and then the flame dies out as day to day life takes over.
But they had this covered off too, I mean, how inspirational does a day need to be?
TED.com (Not to be confused with TED the movie about a foul-mouthed teddy bear)
To conclude the day, we were invited to watch a 3 minute 27 second TED Talk (If you haven’t discovered TED yet, get on it, it’s a daily source of inspiration if you want it). The title of our talk was “Try something new for 30 days” by Matt Cutts. You’ve most likely never heard of him, but that’s irrelevant. He’s come up with such a simple concept of making incremental change that absolutely no one should feel like they can’t implement something that makes them better.
What could you change for 30 days?
Anything you want, you could exercise for 30 days, cut out sugar, or coffee, or alcohol (I’m already into day 77 of that one, also inspiring me), or instead of saying no, maybe you start saying yes? Whatever, try it, for 30 days. As it turns out, 30 days is about the right amount of time for something to turn into a habit, good or bad.
So here I am, on day 1 of my 30-day crusade to try something new. And what am I trying? Well, you’re reading it. 30 days, 30 different blog posts (don’t worry, I’ll only be issuing one every week), that’s 600 words a day, 18000 words in a month (Probably a whole lot more after I’ve written and edited 2 or 3 times). We’ll call it a dissertation of my mind.
Lose your excuses
I’ve always wanted to start writing but always found an excuse or something else to take priority, the “I’ll get around to that when I’m less busy” approach. But it seems I have space to do this, simply by cutting out other habits (Candy Crush, damn you!!!). So, I’m trying that for 30 days too. It’s a simple equation, no candy crush = writing time. I’ve also always believed that writing your thoughts is a great way to unwind so it’s a straight swap whilst still challenging my brain.
Now I don’t know whether what I have to say will interest anyone, and to be honest (and selfish) that’s not my objective. I’m embarking on a 30 day change of approach. If I can bring a few people along with me then that’s great.
So, what will you try for 30 days, hopefully I’ve inspired you to give it a go? I’d love to know so comment below, we’ll go on the journey together.
Does all of this make me a better leader? Well, we’ll see, but I’ve got an awful lot to share, hopefully there’s 30 meaningful subject matters in there somewhere that at least inspires some thought and action, if nothing else.
Half way to making inspirational change in yourself is to take the first step and just do it. Lose the excuse and learn as you go.
I commit my first step to you.
Thank you for reading.