Lead Yourself And You Lead Everyone
Self-leadership is about putting your commitment, clarity, and deep purpose before your emotional comfort
Use Your Karma To Help All Beings
If you have been following me any length of time at all, you know that I am an author, a dad, an authorized Zen teacher and a personal and executive coach.
In all of these endeavors, you could say, that my real work is about promoting self-leadership. You might ask, self-leadership towards what?
Well, answering that question—What am I truly committed to moving towards?—is, in fact, one of the essences of self-leadership. One answer is that my clients, students (and me) are leading ourselves to the place where are highest selves are called.
But where is that?
The Christian writer Frederick Buechner wrote that we are called to “the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.” Another way to say it, in Buddhist terms, is to use your karma to help all beings.
I like these frames. They are not over-earnest or pious in my view. We are called to serve the world’s hunger, yes. We are called to help all beings. But we are called to do so in a way that serves our karma or our deep gladness.
In point of fact, this intersection of purpose and pleasure seems to me to be the sweet spot of life. It is the place where self and other disappear. It is the place where we are atoned. At-oned.
What’s Your Life Direction?
When I start working with one of the spectacular leaders who are my coaching clients, we spend a significant amount of time discerning and deciding upon what this intersection of purpose and pleasure is for them. We call it their “life direction” or their “stand.”
⏸️ Take a Moment To Reflect Here: What would it feel like to have your own “stand”? One that could orient your whole life?
It would feel… Finish the sentence in comments.
My Stand
In case you’re interested, here is the life direction I have discerned and decided upon for myself:
“I create a future filled with leaders, creators and guides who live life spectacularly, and become explosively inspiring examples of the joy, happiness, abundance and thriving that is available to the heart-centered do-gooder.
“I and my tribe are free to create the feelings, experiences, organizations and world we choose and to demonstrate that because life is so ecstatically worth living, the world is worth saving and the goodness worth sharing. The work is done when all of humanity can rest in the truth that there is nothing left to do but play.”
Or the short version:
“I enjoy the fuck out of my life and create so much love of existence that I can’t stop myself from wanting to create a world of leaders who also love the fuck out of their lives and work and so want to help everyone else do the same and where we all finally create a world where there is nothing left to do but play.”
I do all this by using my personhood, coaching, Zen teaching and writing to create awe and joy in myself and everyone I encounter which in turn creates a creativity and generosity that wants to create awe and joy in still more people and on and on.
Letting My Stand Direct My Days
The thing about having a life direction or stand like this is that you have a compass point against which to measure all your behavior and to run your life.
If I wake up depressed, instead of asking how to get undepressed—which I can almost never figure out—I ask how to move towards my stand or life direction.
It can be as simple as calling up a friend and making their day better. Or writing a post like this to help people find their own life path. Or just being really present in a coaching call with my client. Or throwing myself into building or vitalizing my business.
Beyond Comfort
The point here is, I don’t know how to always feel good. And honestly, I am not interested in navigating my life purely towards comfort.
I am interested in improving people’s lives, making the world a better place and having a shit load of fun doing it.
⏸️ Take a Moment To Reflect Here: Have you ever been more fulfilled chasing something meaningful than something comfortable? Tell me how it felt.
What I Teach My Clients
So then, what is the self-leadership I teach my clients?
First, I help them discern and decide upon a life direction that is so big and exciting to them that they don’t care if they are uncomfortable as they move towards it.
Then, as they manage their reports, choose their tasks, I help them make choices that are not about moving themselves towards the most comfortable place but that advances them most in their life direction or stand.
They then go on to enroll their reports and founders and stakeholders in their stand and everyone becomes oriented around an inspired sense of purpose—a compass point.
What does this do?
It reduces petty squabbles and increases coherence in teams, offers criteria against which to make decisions and gives a sense of alignment both in my leaders’ lives and in their organizations.
It also gets huge things done.
Two Stories of Alignment
First story: I have a client who has decided that his stand is to recreate his industry as regenerative—rather than an extractive—by using his organization as a prototype and model for other organizations to follow.
Two of his leadership team got in interpersonal struggle. Instead of wading into their tiff, he was able to simply remind them of what they were all trying to accomplish together and they sorted themselves out.
Second story: Another client had performance concerns about a leadership team member. Before she had a chance to say anything, the team member came to her and said “I love our mission and I am failing it. I think I need a new role.”
In other words, the team member was willing to self sacrifice for the mission.
Here is the thing:
Self-leadership means identifying your stand or life direction, committing to it, prioritizing it above your comfort and enrolling other people.
When you get that down, you can lead yourself. Then, you can lead anyone.
Want to Learn All This?
This summer, I am going to teach people about self-leadership in three workshops.
Full Contact: Saturday, June 28, 2025, East Hampton, NY.
About learning to be with your emotions in such a way that they do not run your life and derail you from accomplishing what is most important to you.
The Alchemy of Personal Reinvention: Saturday, July 26, 2025, East Hampton, NY.
About identifying the life direction you are truly committed to and becoming the person you need to be to never accept a no when it comes to accomplishing that life direction.
The Calmness of Horses and Whales: Saturday, August 30, 2025, East Hampton, NY.
About regulating, regenerating and rejuvenating yourself enough to be able to stay centered in your life direction, no matter what is happening (and, yes, it includes spending time with whales and horses).
You can do all three or any one of the workshops.
These gatherings are intended for anyone, but especially for leaders, creatives and coaches and therapists. The communities attending each of them are curated and you will love the people you interact with.
I’d love to hear from you if you’re curious to learn more.
Next week, I will be sending out more details and the application form. But if you are interested, hit reply and tell me so by email. Which you should do now. Because, as I said, spots are limited.
Before we part for the weekend, I would love for you to think about:
What comes to mind when you think about your own life direction?
What are you so committed to that you're willing to be uncomfortable for it?
I’d love to hear—leave a comment below. Let’s keep the conversation going.
Love,
Colin
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Thank you for this! A big, exciting life direction is something that my brain can easily get confused about, and then I find myself chasing comfort instead. But your approach is clear and inspiring.