Mine
“Mine, mine, mine, mine, mine, mine, mine…”
~ a flock of seagulls in Finding Nemo
We are finding that the older we get, the more experience we carry, and maybe the perceived value of our contribution increases, we’re getting a lot more invitations to coach, help, contribute, or participate in things. Of course, that is an honor and all of us want to be wanted, but when the opportunities exceed your reasonable capacity, making choices becomes very challenging.
For me, my Enneagram 8, high D DISC, and the identified Strategic and Activator from my Strengthfinders, makes me want to go full steam ahead with no boundaries on my capacity. My age, slowing capacity, expanding family commitments, and hopefully a stronger discernment, tells me I must get really clear on my assignments.
My worldview holds that I can access the Divine whenever I want and even for the most simple things. The only real barriers to that flow seem to be my stubbornness, my sense of independence, and my well honed sense of needing to do life on my own. As our opportunities as a coaching practice started to increase with seemingly endless possibilities, we started regularly asking the question, “What is ours?”
Do we meet the need of the growing one-on-one opportunities?
Do we do more of the team work we are doing inside of companies that has been so effective?
Do we focus more on the increasing queue of people wanting to become Summit coaches here and abroad?
Do we increase the flow of our Life Plan and Better Story Workshops?
Do we grow our very successful work with companies and leadership teams?
Do we focus more on the online journey opportunities from the canon of our business and leadership content?
Etc.
What is “ours”, with answers being mostly discerned from our Creator, has been such a rescue for our team. The collective wisdom of a mature global team helps us make really good choices that feel very dialed in with the desires of our God. That is going great.
But for me, I am increasingly asking a similar, but very personal question: Is this mine? Everyone has a mission, a passion, or something they feel is most important for us to give our life or time to. (Let me correct that statement, everyone should. We were all created to make some unique contribution.) Their passion around their unique “calling” requires looking for people they deem capable to get involved with their thing. All of us have a lot of people “should’ing” on us.
In the smallest things and the very largest opportunities, I am learning to ask a far more personal question: “Is this mine?” Is this mine to take on, contribute to, lend some of my slowly eroding capacity to? Is this mine to worry about, obsess over, carry the burden of? The answer to the first question is very little. The answer to the second is almost nothing.
Consider
Are the people you lead/influence and your enterprise, clear on what is theirs?
Are you clear on what is yours?
What is it costing you to not be clear on the answers to those questions?
