Hold steady as you lead.

Leadership requires the capacity to hold steady. That's different than holding back. Holding steady means that we're able to manage yourself, listen, stay quiet, and deliberate, and wait for when's the right opening? What's the right response? Sometimes you have to wait for 10 minutes, sometimes you have to wait for 10 months, or maybe even 10 years. But that capacity to hold steady, that kind of self-discipline to keep your eye on what really matters is absolutely essential.

It would be useful for us to imagine our self at the end of our life, and to imagine that we're looking back over our life, and then to make a column of all of the ambitions that we are happy that we achieved, all the things that we are glad we gathered to our self. And ambition, in a sense, is about getting things for our self. Fame, power, recognition, love, all the things we want for our self, wealth. And at the end of our life looking back over it, what are all those things that we will really be happy?

Let's imagine we've really fulfilled our self, all the things that you would want to have gathered, a list of your ambitions. And then a second column next to it of your aspirations. So what are all those things that you will have wanted to breathe life into, to give? So one column is all the things you want to get, and the other column is all the things that you'd like to have given at the end of your life that will make you feel that your life has been a really great life, like a meaningful life.

I think that's a useful exercise because it begins to give you a sense of in the long arc of your life, I think, it's one of the anchors in disciplining your own immediate urgency to claim credit, be the person, gain authority, get recognized in a way that sometimes will wreck your leadership efforts because you won't have the patience to hold steady. You won't be able to hold the silence. You won't let somebody else get the credit, which sometimes you want to make happen, even though it may not be fair to you. It's more important to you that something's working. And I think one exercise then is that aspirations and ambitions, reflection, to anchor you.

I also think you need a sanctuary, a place where you can hear yourself think and detach from the pressures of the role that you're playing in other people's lives. I'm not recommending any particular sanctuary. It could be a friend's kitchen table where you routinely have tea. That could be your sanctuary. Or it could be a park where you like to walk, or it could be the gym where you exercise, or it could be a place where you pray with people or on your own. Or it could be a room in your house where you meditate. I'm not promoting any particular sanctuary. 

Another thing that will help you maintain a discipline are confidants-- partners who you can talk to, where there are no competing stakes-- different than allies. Allies will frequently be within the organization or political system. You need them, because you know together you're much stronger than separate. And they can also help you develop your point-of-view to be enriched by their point-of-view. Leadership becomes more dangerous if you're isolated, because the easiest way for people to neutralize your point-of-view is to neutralize you, particularly if you're representing a challenging set of questions.

We also need confidants-- people who are outside the system. And our hope is that you will discover people with whom, you can spill out the story without having to be a clean machine not worried that anybody could misuse the information, because they don't care about the issue. They're out here. So they can just listen to you and help you sort out what really matters to you, what risks are you ready to take, does it matter that much to you, what losses are you willing to sustain, to reorient you when you're hurt and you want to go in there and act outraged but that's the wrong move. You need confidants to help you manage what you call your ego. You can't do it by yourself. You can't lead alone.

I think we stay in the game maintaining the patience, tolerating the moments of despair by staying in touch with the good that you're doing, the meaning of the good that you're doing that's beyond any measure. And by giving yourself permission to take pleasure and heart and joy in the fruits of your own labor. And all of us have already done a lot of good in the world. We've touched lives. We've turned on the lights someplace with somebody, or many people. And I think in staying alive, our spirit, we have to let our self reconnect with all of that good that we have done already. I think it's really important to rejoice in the fruits of our labor. And one of the ways we can help each other over time ahead is to remind each other because we forget quickly. May we help each other take pleasure, gain joy from the fruits of your labor. Take care of each other.