October fest. Episode 22. Inclusive is the Big Picture of You.

There are two words that are unwelcome in the world of leadership and therefore in the world of self leadership. Can you take a guess at what those two words might be before you read on all listen further?

The two words are superiority and inferiority.

Ironically, a person with a superiority complex tries to put other people down by finding their fault. On the other hand a person with an inferiority complex tries to find fault in themselves to put themselves down. Each human being on this planet is born with the capacity to do both very well. And so it is this tendency alone that we must work very hard to eliminate from our thought process.

Defensive people have the superiority complex. It is not that they are superior it is just that they want to be. The appetite to be superior to others is the same appetite that makes people want to be always right. A person with a superiority complex draws a very small Boundry around their identity and becomes defensive if anybody suggests their personality or life quality expands outside of their narrow definition of themselves.

On the other hand and inferiority complex, witnessed most often by the appetite to please people and to modify conversation between private talk and public talk, gossip etc, the individual has not formed any sense of identity of themselves.

By now listening to this you will no doubt think that I’m talking about two different people. But let me take you back to the universal laws that say there is balance in everything. And therefore, the person who is most ambitious to be superior is also the same person who struggles with inferiority. It may be the case that they bring their superiority complex to work and take their inferiority complex home, or it may be in their mind they are feeling superior and want to be holier than now but in the reality of the outer world, they exhibit inferiority complexes.

Neither of these two states of mine are welcome in the world of leadership. Ultimately both of them lead to a small picture of the self and therefore a reactive nature. You cannot lead anything you react to. And therefore it is important to train yourself to be inclusive.

So in this context what does inclusivity mean?

Firstly, every human on earth has every human quality and if you think you don’t you are already in the realm of superiority or inferiority complex and this will affect your relationships at home and at work. To the degree that you think you are kind you are the opposite. Can you embrace this concept? If not then your leadership will be shallow.

Secondly, there are codes of behaviour that are outlawed by the police which in reality when broken down I reflected in you. So you are the criminal as well as the Prince or the Princess. Very often in leadership development there are cultural values that are advertised as being good for leaders to express. And therefore you might get the idea that you are to eliminate those criminal traits from you and become squeakyclean. But every human being has every human trait and what you repress others express.

So you get put into this unenviable position of owning the dark side of yourself. Let’s use a great example. During the course of your leadership you will meet a huge diversity of people some of whom are naturally nasty. They want to tell you how good they are and if you suggest they are not what they project they will feel insulted. It is easy to label them as unfit for work or unfit for your team because that nasty streak is their defence mechanism. But instead of this, understanding that what you repressed others express, it is wiser to find your own nasty streak and take it out to lunch.

The corporate world is heading in a very complicated direction following many of the United States of America legal proceedings around workplace behaviour. Being politically correct has become part of the qualification of a good leader and if one word is out of place in a presentation then the world can come unstuck. Recently, the CEO of a large media firm said that one of the athletes who was in his business and was now very successful used to be very chubby. This fact was true but the fact that he identified this person buy their body weight was considered to be a sexist comment. The comment went ballistic on social media.

There are a few things we can take away from this firstly that, by mentioning the word chubby in public he did not recognise that it would be in any way offensive and therefore, you could probably suggest that he considers Chubby to be an inclusive word. But he also revealed that a persons body shape was still part of his definition of who people are. Therefore, you could probably guess that this leader has some significant body awareness topics going on in their own life. And so, around body awareness he may have an inferiority complex.

In your 30 day challenge you have experienced the emotional shower and the discard form and the purpose of this in the 30 day challenge is to get you past reacting. Whatever you react to is running you. Actually, in the old teachings of yoga and Tibetan medicine, when we ask the question who are you, they say you are your aversions and your attractions. And I think, given the importance of the discard process in the world, we have a solution to moving past blockages in our aversions and our attractions and therefore expanding our identity beyond inferiority and superiority complexes.

Make a list of everything you would take offence to being called and find out where you are that thing. As an example somebody might call you an alcoholic. You might take great offence at this because your father or mother or somebody close to you isn’t alcoholic and you don’t necessarily like the behaviour that they exhibit. But if you follow the universal laws you will see that nothing is ever missing it just changes in form. So the process would go something like this;

The first thing with alcoholic would be to unpack the word. Alcoholic is a single brown paper bag with many qualities packed into it. For example my stepmother was an alcoholic, which to me means occasionally violent, crazy, emotionally out of control, mean, unpredictable, embarrassing, smelly, undignified, out of control physically, frightening and cruel. So now I have started to unpack the word alcoholic into what it means for me.

Then I would take the discard FORM and list down all those negative qualities that I am packed and then even unpack those words even further, for example crazy, might mean unpredictable and screaming and boundary less and disrespectful. Then in the first column of the discount form it will say where are you all these qualities, list the initials of people who think you are all these qualities and this one step the superiority complex of me thinking I’m more important or more pristine for not an alcoholic, would be eliminated and I would see that I have all qualities of an alcoholic but not necessarily the brown paper bag of having them all at once.

It is interesting for you to note here as we close this. The reason you would not do a discard form at least once or twice a week is because your ego likes to be superior. You have to be fully aware of this that it takes beginners mind and humility to breakthrough your judgements of people you think are wrong and find out that they are not wrong they are just exhibiting qualities you don’t like in yourself.

In closing today it is important to say that there is just one single objective in the emotional shower and the discard form and that is not to prove you are right in reacting to a judgement or a criticism. It is to think the person who criticised or judged you. Is to embrace more qualities in the world that you are currently judging. Remember, what you judge in the world you breed, attract, or become. Be aware. As a leader you cannot afford to sit righteously on judgements on anything and so getting used to this discard form humility and breaking through your ego boundaries needs to become a very important part of your leadership. If it doesn’t, just like the CEO I mentioned above you will learn where your boundaries are in public. That’s probably not the wisest thing to do.

That’s the end of today’s episode. Live with spirit, Chris Walker.