Your Teen is Your Coach

My 12-year old remarked yesterday that its not the kids who go wonky when they turn 13 but parents who turn wonky when their kids become 13.

I reflected on her observation and found so much truth in that. At work, when you move from being an individual performer to taking the new role of a manager or from a CXO to a CEO; if you haven't increased your leadership depth, you won't last too long in your new position. Whatever helped you to get to this position will now block you from moving forward. The advantage that we have at work is that; in a mature organization, till an individual does not display leadership depth of one level above, (s)he is not really promoted.

Unfortunately, Nature doesn't have such a process where we are not allowed to become parents till the time we display the leadership depth to play that role and neither is there a performance appraisal at the time our kids turn teenagers. Though Nature does have a powerful mechanism to show us whether we have evolved to play the role we took on, by us beginning to experience trouble with our kids. 

If you have tantrum kids, teens who shut their world on you, young adults who rather avoid you; know you haven't grown your leadership depth to lead them to live in the expression of their innate genius. Even if you have one complaint about your kids - he should do this, she doesn't do that etc,; know it's not them who need mentoring, counselling, coaching; it is you. 

One of my clients had a big problem with his 8 year old son. His son was perpetually lost in his own world, was irresponsible in his father's world because he would leave his tiffin box or notebooks behind at school, wouldn't communicate with other kids. The teacher had complaints about the son in every parent teacher meeting because he was not moving forward (academically, socially, emotionally) at the pace the rest of the class was. He signed up with me as his coach because his business had plateaued and he could not find the access to grow it. We worked together for a year, he discovered how his business was mirroring him, also how his son was mirroring him. He had various powerful insights on how he was stuck emotionally in his relationship with his wife and his staff at work, how his way of being was giving him no inner peace. He is a brave man. Unlike many others, he understood in the first month itself that his outer was a reflection of his inner; that no amount of banging his head against his business, his relationships, all of his outer world (like he had been doing for many years now and was coming to a dead-end everywhere) was going to make a difference; till he looked in the mirror and transformed himself (emotionally, spiritually, mentally and physically). He took responsibility of his life, professionally and personally, like he had never thought possible before; found courage to take powerful actions which were unimaginable before because of underlying hidden fears. His performance, productivity exploded; business grew at a pace not known before; relationship with his wife transformed - from him being a martyr to them becoming friends. Towards the end of the first year of coaching, he came back to share that his son's teacher had declared his son as one of the most responsible kids in the class and reported that he was at the top 10% of his class. 

If your business / career is not growing at the velocity that you would like, your staff is not performing, kids are becoming unmanageable, you don't experience your spouse' love, stress level at work is high, your health is not at its best, you don't have time to do what you love; then it is time to look in the mirror, you will find the person responsible for your state of affairs looking right back at you. The default response of rebuking, criticizing that person will pull you further down into a negative spiral. It may sound counter-intuitive, but the first step is to accept and love that person unconditionally. That itself will need a massive shift in consciousness. I call that the first gear of Leadership. If you are thirsty, you cannot give water to others. If you deprive yourself of your own love and reverence; you cannot give to or receive from others (that includes your kids, your spouse, your parents, your staff) love and reverence. That is the foundation on which your performance & productivity, your ability to increase your impact in the world (in a sustainable way) and everything else about your life rests.

Wishing you the Leadership Depth to have it all - deeply fulfilling, hugely successful career; loving harmonious relationships; happy, responsible kids with their genius joyfully expressed; lots of nourishing nurturing me-time; making a difference, leaving footprints in the sand of time. 

​Love, Jyoti.