Leadership: The Art Of Manifesting Your Genius

By Christopher Moon
In Vision Mountain

Here's a quick quiz:

1. Is your day filled with activities that consist of doing what you love to do?

2. Does what you do enrich the life of at least one other person?

3. Are you well supported financially to do what you love?

If you answered these questions with a resounding yes, you are one of the few people in the world that is fully manifesting your genius. As such you are a true leader and we are blessed to have your brilliant example in this world. As sincere and well-meaning as many of us are, human beings are often so hampered by lives filled with compromise, misplaced loyalties, insecurity, and false beliefs, that the idea of fully expressing our genius is little more than a wistful fantasy.

Why is it so scary for us to simply do what our hearts want us to do? Why do we feel that we will not be supported emotionally and financially if we were to express what is really great about us? What blocks us from considering that the sole purpose for our existence on this planet is to manifest the power, beauty, and magnificence of who we are in essence? Could it be that we are simply afraid? If that is the case, then all of our explanations, rationalisations, and justifications for not doing what we love would be mere excuses created from that fear. Working through all those excuses would likely take more time than a human being has in his or her life span - even if s/he eliminated sleep!

But what if we were to deal directly with the fear itself? Then we would be called to confront the two basic fears in every human being: fear of failure, and fear of success. In this article I would like to focus on our fear of failure. When we are afraid to fail, we are also afraid to make mistakes. When we are afraid to make mistakes, we cannot learn. If we can't learn, we remain ignorant, and thus in the firm grip of fear for the rest of our lives. I discovered that to break through this conspiracy of fear, three commitments are required: the commitments to honesty, accountability, and humility.

The reason these commitments are so important is because of the five traps that you might fall into if you fear failure - they are the traps of:

> Lying (I didn't do anything. Don't tell anybody - they'll just get upset).
> Denying (That's not a mistake; No problem, I just need more money to recoup my losses; I don't know why that happened -it has nothing to do with me).
> Justifying (I've just been so busy, I didn't have time to meet those deadlines; I didn't know what I was getting into when I made those promises to you, otherwise I would never have made them).
> Blaming (It's because of the bloody tax laws! They're not fair; You never pay attention to me, so I had to find someone else who really cared!).
> Quitting (What's the use - I'll never make it).

Typically, you would fall into one or more of these traps due to a belief that you will be punished for making a mistake or failing. The practice of honesty, accountability, and humility is an incredible risk in almost any culture in the world, most of which practice dishonesty, crying "victim", and holding on to righteousness. We assume our country's leaders will lie in their campaign speeches and press releases. We pity the victim in ourselves and others, keeping it weak, bitter, and unaccountable. And we tend to believe that our point of view, our religious philosophy, and our way of life is the right way, thereby making all others wrong, or inferior, and filling ourselves with an inauthentic power of the judge and jury. Without those three commitments our genius remains trapped in the isolation our fear has created.

Let's imagine that you stated the intention to manifest your leadership in this world, and honour the three commitments in the process. This means that you would choose to express the very best qualities in yourself, thereby enriching this world, and that you would also choose to receive material support in order to fulfil this purpose. If, in the process of fulfilling this intention, you experienced serious failures and made costly mistakes, you would face them honestly. You would not lie to or deceive others, but acknowledge your fallibility defencelessly, even if others became angry or critical. You would endure the guilt and bring as much compassion and acceptance to your humanness as you could.

Let's imagine that you stated the intention to manifest your leadership in this world, and honour the three commitments in the process. This means that you would choose to express the very best qualities in yourself, thereby enriching this world, and that you would also choose to receive material support in order to fulfil this purpose. If, in the process of fulfilling this intention, you experienced serious failures and made costly mistakes, you would face them honestly. You would not lie to or deceive others, but acknowledge your fallibility defencelessly, even if others became angry or critical. You would endure the guilt and bring as much compassion and acceptance to your humanness as you could.

Through those three commitments I have experienced actual miracles of transformation in my relationship, parenting efforts, work, financial status, and creative projects. Of course, I have much more to learn and am still experiencing more failures than successes, but I have reached a point where I am seeing the seed of success in every failure, and learning to trust the process of "failing forward." Gradually my genius is emerging. I do not know how many people will benefit from it, but I have seen the positive effects on my children, and on a few of the people close to me. On top of that, I can perceive and appreciate the genius in others more and more, and this fills me with hope.

I believe that first and foremost, a leader must be a living example of what is truly possible for every human being, while also expressing the foibles and frailties of what it is to be human. When you express the very best aspects of yourself - your gifts, talents and treasures - and are truly doing what you love with all your heart, you are shining the light of possibility for all people to see. And when you fall on your face, pick yourself up with humility and good humour, and courageously take the next step forward, you are also shining that light. You remind us all that there is no mistake so great that it cannot be forgiven and thereby become a part of what is truly great about you.

What we have called leadership up until now is largely a fear-based notion of a position of power over us. We see the leader standing at the top, or in the forefront, assuring us that he or she knows what we do not know, and can lead us to a better place. This leader is expected to have attributes of moral purity, superior abilities, wisdom, maturity, and infallibility. This kind of leader cannot help but disappoint us sooner or later. But a person who is dedicated to bringing out his or her highest qualities, and encouraging others to do the same without presuming to tell anybody how that process of emergence is supposed to look, is a true leader in this world.

Christopher Moon is an international speaker, life coach and trainer with more than twenty years experience in personal coaching and group facilitation. His work has gained recognition in Japan, Malaysia, Taiwan, Singapore, China, Hong Kong, the U.S. and Canada. The thousands of people who have experienced his workshops and trainings appreciate his compassionate and humorous approach.