The Destination, the Car and the Pit Stops

​Consider the car as the human being with its destination as living the purpose of one's life. The four wheels of the car are the four bodies of the human being - 

a. Energy Body - How much joyous energy do you have to do all that you want to do?

b. Emotional Body - How happy are you?

c. Mental Body - How well do you respond with equanimity to difficult people and situations? 

d. Spiritual Body - What is your purpose? Why are you doing what you are doing? Is your source Fear or Love?

The body of the car is our Physical Body - How healthy are you?

It is obvious there has to be adequate pressure in all the four wheels and the body of the car has to be functional for the car to move towards its destination. Even if one wheel is punctured or has less pressure or the body of the car is damaged, the car will come to a grinding halt or slow down. 

The car needs the gear system to accelerate forward with velocity towards its destination (purpose of life). Lets call it Leadership Depth. By default, leadership depth is in Gear 0 where we are victims of our circumstances, the world defines who we are rather than us defining what the world is. We are born in Gear 0, we can stay here forever till death finally embraces us and we are as far away from having fulfilled our purpose of having been born as we were on the day we were born; with our dreams wrapped up in shroud in our heart, our inner Light (our greatness) having found no way out as we are being burnt on the funeral pyre or getting buried under the ground. 

Our evolution so far has been a fear-sourced process, that is why it is called Survival of the Fittest. In order to evolve forward, we first need to be aware of what our fears are. Fundamentally, all humans have 3 core fears. Each one of us will have one primary fear which gives us our deepest experience of pain and unconsciously drives our life. These fears are:

1. I am all alone. No one loves me.

2. I am not good enough.

3. I am not important.

We become High Performers in response to the core fears that drive us unconsciously. Low Performers give in to these fears, while High Performers rise up against these fears to prove to themselves and the world that these fears don't exist in them. This is the level of a good life. Unfortunately, good is the enemy of great. And, so a large majority of us choose the mediocrity of a good life and deny ourselves the deep joy, freedom and fulfilment of a great life. We stop growing beyond High Performance, without realising Super Performance is a milestone lying not too far ahead which is where we can Have it All - deeply fulfilling successful profitable business, loving harmonious positive uplifting relationships, happy healthy responsible confident kids with their genius joyfully expressed, nurturing ourselves to the highest level of health, fitness and joyous well-being, and making a massive difference in the world living our  purpose of life through our work.

We cannot have it all when we have a good life, when we are a High Performer. It is a gift available to those who journey forward in the evolutionary path and transmute their core fears to compassionate love for themselves and for all beings with childlike trust and faith in the Universe. On this journey, they open up to allow their individual consciousness to be connected to the Universal Consciousness to experience harmony, connection and joy inside and outside. As an outcome of being on this path, they get access to the creative energy to realize their greatest dreams in deepest communion with their highest self. That is mastery of life itself.

We are like an onion. When we are in Gear 0,

1. The core of the onion is the fear that defines us. It will be one of the 3 core fears
i. I am all alone. No one loves me.
ii. I am not good enough.
iii. I am not important.

This is the Hole in our Soul that we keep running away from, and seeking other people to fill which they can't because only we can. Seeking our spouses, children, parents, friends to fill this hole in the soul to make us feel whole, complete and perfect makes us feel needy and miserable; and comes in the way of creating deeply fulfilling loving harmonious relationships.

This hole in the soul is the rotten core of our Inner Onion, which creates the other layers. Our purpose of Life is to fill this hole using our work as the playground.

2. The next layer in our Inner Onion is our limiting thought patterns in the form of
i. our limiting experience of our own self
ii. our limiting experience of people
iii. our limiting experience of life itself

These limiting thought patterns could be in the form of 
i. I am ...
ii. People are ... , My spouse is ... , She is ... , He is ..., 
iii. Life is ...

We call this pattern, specific to each one of us, our small mind.

3. The next layer in our default Inner Onion is our limiting emotional experience, which is a derivative of our limiting thought patterns.

4. Limiting emotional experience results in draining our energy in the Energy Body.

5. Low energy emotions sustained over a period of time creates discomfort and dis-ease in the Physical Body.

6. The next outer layer is our default coping strategy based on default limiting emotional experience of our own self, of others and of life itself.

This gives us our default personality which is not as yet in balance because the core of our Inner Onion is Fear. This layer includes our habit patterns at work and other areas of our life, our behaviour patterns, how we communicate (the words we choose, the tone of our voice, our body language) and the unconscious impact of all of this.

7. Leading to the final layer of our default limiting circumstances (our career, relationships, kids, our health and happiness levels, the difference we make) which is the outcome of all the layers within it. 

Leadership is an inner journey to transform the rotten core (Fear) of our Inner Onion, shifting from Gear 0 to Gear 5, transforming each layer along the way. Only such an inside-out approach can bring about authentic, irreversible, holistic leadership development. Too often, we try to bring about transformation from outside-in and waste a lot of time trying to shift circumstances or personality. They are an outcome of what's within. At Gear 0, our core is Fear. At Gear 5, we have been able to transmute Fear to Love. Just as darkness is an absence of light, fear is an absence of love. At Gear 5, we let go of the absence and open ourselves to a Presence and what was unimaginable, impossible becomes possible. 

Going back to our car analogy, we need three levers to move the 'Human Being' car from where it is to its destination of the Purpose of our Life - 

1. Leadership Depth - From Gear 0 to Gear 5 by shifting limiting (physical, energy, emotional, mental, spiritual) habits into growth habits; giving acceleration power to the car.

2. Business Excellence - This is the Navigation Tool, the Google Maps as it were, which guides us to our destination. There are five mountains (business stages) that we need to journey across to reach our destination. There are five sub-components of this Navigator - Nurturing Relationships (Employee, Customer, Other Stakeholders), Operational Excellence, Extraordinary Service, Leveraging Technology, Sustainable Sustainability.
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3. Craft Mastery - is the skill (domain expertise) of the driver that navigates the car across the five mountains of Business Excellence, leveraging the acceleration power of the 5 Gears of Leadership Depth to support the car to reach its destination - the purpose of life.

While the car is racing forward on its journey to its destination, Pit Stops are critical to ensure the health and well-being of the car, the four wheels, the body of the car, the gears, the navigator and the driver. Without  these pit stops (Reflection and Creation - daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, year-end), we will lose steam along the way and are likely to lose direction and end up somewhere else.

Wishing you energy, enthusiasm and commitment to journey to your destination this lifetime.

Love,
​Jyoti.