Finding Water
Hard-earned answers are water for others.
Someone is thirsty for what you’ve learned about delegating responsibilities. Another person would love to hear how you handle tough conversations.
Your most powerful contributions spring from answers you found for yourself.
Water for Others
Finding water turns pain into purpose.
Don’t minimize the value of the water you found long ago. Someone needs a drink. It might be old to you, but it’s fresh to another.
You need new water, but yesterday’s water is life-giving to someone. Don’t hesitate to pour out old lessons again.
10 Questions
Finding water changes you before it refreshes others.
Dig through your story.
- What fears have you learned to overcome?
- What lessons have you learned the hard way?
- What do you wish you had known ten years ago?
- When have you felt stuck? What did you do?
- What belief has changed your outlook?
- What have you stopped doing that made you a better leader?
- Where have you experienced the most growth? Why?
- What painful experience enables you to help others?
- How are you finding energy?
- What disappointment redirected your leadership?
Deep usefulness often comes in casual ways as you share your story.
Finding Water for Yourself
- Develop a personal development plan.
- Hang around people with deep wells.
- Read and reflect.
- Take on new challenges.
- Teach someone what has become second nature to you.
The answers that changed you become water for thirsty people.
Keep digging. Keep drinking. Keep pouring out for others.
How might leaders find water for themselves?
How might leaders share insights without being know-it-alls?
The Surprising Guide to Lasting Impact – Leadership Freak
Making the Most of a Failure | Psychology Today
Experience is valuable, but experience is not automatically transferable.
A leader needs to determine whether an old lesson fits the current environment, task, and people.
The other thing that comes to unconscious competence. Once a skill is done without thinking it becomes more difficult to explain what we are doing.
Thanks for the thoughts today Dan. As I near retirement, these are the things that go through my mind on passing down to the next generation of leaders as they prepare to take over in my absence. No need to re-invent the wheel, but to make it better and roll easier.
Dave, Congratulations on getting close the next season of life. I hope you find new ways to make a difference. Thanks for your insight and example.