Kevin W. McCarthy

The Professor of On-Purpose

Leadership

Have You Bought A Lie?

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Have You Bought a Lie? If so, it’s time to put it in the trash.

In the video portion of this On-Purpose Minute, I describe the “IABC” four types of lies we hold on to for all the wrong reasons.

  • Image
  • Attitude
  • Belief
  • Concept

Words are creative. Words come to life.

Many of us have had lying or hurtful words spoken into our lives in our innocence and/or in our adulthood. What we do next is up to us. Here are some tips to being whole.

Welcome truth, thirst for it, accept its pain, and embrace its liberation. In helping people to be on-purpose, I frequently come against seemingly irrational and obtuse behaviors from otherwise very accomplished and respected persons even in the face of contrary evidence. It’s their “old stuff” and patterns haunting their present and diminishing their future.

Why?

Words, more precisely lying or hurtful words, spoken into ourtruth lives by those closest to us or in whose care we depend strike hard on the soul. Lies falsely tarnish our self-image, attitude, behavior, or concept.

We pay dearly … for life unless we intervene. Holding on to the wounding is like tearing off a scab day after day and wondering why it doesn’t heal. The first offense is not of our making. The second offense, however, is all on us.

Forgiveness is the key.

Judith and I have an expression about forgiveness. “Forgive now and pray for sincerity to come later.” Forgiving someone who has hurt or offended you can be extraordinarily difficult, even painful, but it is the ONLY pathway I’ve found to MY recovery. It may or may not lead to reconciliation and recovery, but at least the injury stops hurting so much and with time, 99% recovery is possible.

Weighty Matters

Perhaps you think these self-deceptions or denial of damage are harmless? Hardly! They can literally have life and death consequences.

For example, within the health coaching team of On-Purpose Partners, we find the following kinds of Images, Attitudes, Beliefs, and Concepts can prevent clients from being qualified candidates for success in our program.

  • Image: I can’t imagine myself at a healthy weight anymore.
  • Attitude: I know what to do; I just don’t do it.
  • Beliefs: My family has always been big.
  • Concepts: I just don’t get enough exercise.

These mythologies of weight loss are factually inaccurate and crippling to us being in a healthier place. Even clients with the deepest desire to get healthy will scuttle their success unless and until they are aware of their personal mythology and clinging to old wounds that affect their well-being today. Coaching clients to health is more about their life experiences and views than it is our program. The program works, but will the client work the program?

You’ve seen the price of pain! Most of us are emotional abusers of some “drug of choice,” such as food, alcohol, smoking, drugs, shopping, or a host of other addictions. Think there isn’t pain? Ashley Madison had 36 million paid members who knowingly were seeking discreet affairs outside of marriage. Consider the trauma of a divorce, pain to the children, and the lawyers’ bills.

Lies are the words that keep on taking.

Lies we buy make it that much harder to sell our ideas, opportunities, and opinions. Lies steal from our livelihood and sap our worth. Lies corrode our productivity and undermine our careers.

Are you ready to uproot lies with greater truths? It begins by being open to living in truth. With truth comes greater freedom and abundance.

Do you have a coach or a health coach? Then share this On-Purpose Minute with them. Consider giving them permission to help you identify any lies or festering wounds. Ask them to help you work through forgiveness of the offending party, even if it is you.

Counselors and clergy are great sources of recovery. Clergy are especially versed in the area of forgiveness.

Do you need a coach? Certainly we offer life coaching to unburden your image001spirit and health coaching to relieve your joints and back from the physical burdens weighing on you. Contact Judith McCarthy for a free health coaching consultation so you, too, can get to your healthier place.

What Would You Do With $100,000 In Your Pocket?

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Lessons learned in business can often help us in life.

Here’s a true story of one of the several times I’ve been taken advantage of in business and lived to tell about it. Someday, perhaps, I’ll tell you more war stories.

For now, this On-Purpose Business Minute speaks for itself. It is longer than normal at 6 minutes, but it is a story that needs to be understood because it is rich in many lessons.

After watching this, here are some questions to ponder by yourself, with your family, or among your team:

  • Are money and confidence related? If so, how and why?
  • What are the limits to your service and compromise to keep it from becoming abuse and disrespect?
  • What can you do to avoid putting yourself at risk of being dangled by dollars?
  • If you had $100,000 extra in your pocket, what would you be doing differently from what you’re doing today?

Please share your thoughts, experiences, and insights in the Comments section below.

Am I A Natural Born Leader?

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Click on the book cover
to buy FIT 4 Leading
from amazon.com

Decide to discover your inherent leadership capacity and your obstacles.

You’ll transform your life plus the lives of those around you presently and those to come. Shuck the shackles of being a victim and grasp the freedom of being yourself, prospering, and making a difference … on-purpose. Yes, it can be risky, but it is better than living life in a fragile glass jar.

Discover the joy from taking a hard look at yourself.

In my book, FIT 4 LEADING, this haunting question of natural born leadership is addressed. Below is an excerpt from the book from Chapter 9.

“Many of us think that leadership is like athleticism—either you were born with coordination or not. This thinking emerges because of this ridiculous debate around the question: Are leaders born or are they made?

“Here’s the final word on the question: Yes! It is both.

“Leaders are born and leaders are made. You were born to lead.

“What you’ve made of or how others have helped fashion or develop your leadership may be a missing refinement, but the raw material of your existence is designed for leading.

“What? I was born to lead? But I never thought I was …

“Yes! You were born to lead, period—end of story. Take this as fact.

“How can I unequivocally state to you that you were born to lead? It is because I know you are especially fit for leading. You have a unique design and purpose in your life that is unlike any other person.

“Isn’t the real question: How can you not be fit for leading? The evidence is overwhelmingly clear if you’ll look at it. You have this good fortune of a Body, Mind, and Spirit that has an absolutely incredible capacity for expression and becoming. In fact, it craves to productively come alive in ways you aren’t even imagining, especially if you’ve relegated yourself to follower status.

“A subtle distinction is needed here. Being a leader versus being a leader in a given situation is different. The President of the United States of America is the leader of the free world. That’s a large domain. But if the President is hosting a reception for a visiting President of an allied country, and his guest falls to the ground with a heart attack, the President is no longer the leader in that situation. The doctor from the crowd who emerges immediately becomes the leader of that situation. The U.S. President is relegated to the role of bystander.

“Leaders understand that they step forward in some situations and take a backseat in most. Those who think otherwise are just arrogant people who are egomaniacal control freaks. Only needy minions and groupies will follow them. Strong leaders have strong followers.

“If you believe anything other than the fact that you were born to lead, then you’ve bought a lie spoken upon your life. However it got there doesn’t matter anymore. Stop living into that lie now! Choose to be the leader of your life. Otherwise, you’re the one who is paying the price. Someone other than you is benefiting from it at the expense of your Body, Mind, and Spirit.”

Visit the FIT 4 Leading website. There you can read the first chapter of the book, watch a free 30-minute webcast, and much more. Softcover and Kindle versions are available on Amazon. Use Prime for free shipping.

 

Are You Owning Your Mistakes?

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Mistakes are inevitable, yet the fixation on perfection in our society is debilitating.

Whether it be lawmakers, bakers, payroll makers, or homemakers, the fear of making a mistake can flatten one’s life into a “safe zone” of mediocrity. Risks and loss are inevitable when one ventures into life or work with a sense of wonder and discovery. You are better off to have a mistake than to miss-a-take at what could be.

It is a mistake to view mistakes as merely mistakes.

Instead, mistakes can lead to retakes and become invaluable guideposts to life and growth of one’s personal growth and leadership. Mistakes open doors to learning or blaze new pathways that might otherwise go undiscovered.

  • “Mistakes” enabled Thomas Edison to discover 9,999 ways a light bulb couldn’t work. And in the process, he developed a reliable means of tracking research and increasing his knowledge of elements.
  • “Mistakes” created the Post-It® Note. “Mistakes” often open doors to new frontiers of thought, use, and development.

Just Say It!

“Yes, that’s my mistake.” These are the four magic words that when said sincerely are your path to a healthier and happier life without the stress and strain imposed by the pride of perfection and the need to be right. It will take practice and some hard swallowing, but you’ll be amazed at how much simpler life becomes.

Problem ownership is your best chance to open the door to mercy, grace, and forgiveness. The risk of owning up has a downside of consequences, but it also has the upside of building trust and rapport. In practical terms, when the mistake is out in the open versus covered-up, a solution or fix will happen sooner and with less cost.

Take Your Mistakes Like A Leader

When we make a mistake, our natural reaction is to be defensive. We retreat and distance ourselves from the mistake and then look to whom we can pass off the blame. Shedding responsibility for a mistake may momentarily soothe the psyche, but each pass of the buck creates a self-inflicted bite upon one’s soul.

Admittedly, most of us prefer to cover our mistakes under a blanket of embarrassment, shame, or self-pity. Stopping dead in our tracks at our mistakes to point fingers at people, circumstances, and systems invites a bitter and negative stronghold to enter our emotional and spiritual system. We’re stuck in a self-imposed unhealthy manner of living that taints every aspect of our lives. Now that’s a tragic and true mistake!

Compounding our initial mistake with another more sinister mistake knits a habit of ill-fitted denial into the fabric of our lives.

Do this too often and we live in a straitjacket of fear of failure and bitter close-minded defensiveness. In time, the fear of exposure arrests our maturity and so we become the very thing we fear most—a dull and ordinary blank slate of a person with no distinguishing quality. We live small (which is different from living humbly). Repeating these actions and circumstances reinforces a debilitating pattern and fuels a vicious cycle of defeat.

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A Penny For Your Thoughts

Life need not be this way. Instead, what if mistakes are friends in the form of hard lessons? They’re not roadblocks, per se, but guideposts revealing a better way to navigate life. Mistakes can help us know who we are and what we’re called to be about with our special gift of time on the planet.

Mistakes are an odd currency of redemption. Their true value comes with a cost in the form of a workout where we have to face ourselves. Throwing “good money after bad” is viscerally upsetting. We’ve been given an intellectual and spiritual capacity to rise higher and dig even deeper to strengthen our condition regardless of the proposed outcome. It only requires us to admit our mistake and gain the clarity and opportunity to set things right—stronger and better than before in some cases.

Wisdom is often the byproduct of mistakes, provided we invest in processing the lessons to be learned. Here’s where a mentor or coach can help us reflect and grow. If you’re seeking that mentor or coach, perhaps we can help you?

Is Your Work Working?

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How does one meaningfully align and engage one’s heart in his or her work?

Is work truly just a job or is it an expression of something deeper?

The On-Purpose® Principle (Pp<=>Po) is about “The purpose of the person (Pp) aligned with the purpose of the organization (Po).” Today, let’s further dissect The On-Purpose Principle up close and personal.

By the way, the Purpose of the Organization doesn’t just refer to a business. A marriage, family, hospital, agency, team, department, church, or club are just a few examples of the many organizations where this is applicable.

TOPBPerson cover
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So how do you make your work work?

The clean and clear articulation of your purpose is the starting point. After that, decide to infuse your purpose into your decisions and actions. Your thoughts, spiritual posture, and language will begin the shifting or (to borrow a sailing term) “coming about” to catch the full strength and flow for the design of your life.

The difference is like bumping along in your car on a washboard dirt road versus getting on the interstate. The car and driver are the same but your life is on a smooth track.

All organizational development is within The On-Purpose Principle.

If you stay on the surface of it, the simplicity of this “equation” can deceive you. Ponder it for a bit, and you’ll discover that almost all of leadership and management theory is fundamentally attempting to create high alignment and integration of the purpose of the person with the purpose of the organization.

So if you truly seek to be a leader of your life and a person others would follow, invest some time to understand The On-Purpose Principle. You can read more about it in The On-Purpose Business Person.

Are You In The Midst Of A Tough Shift?

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A Tough Shift™ occurs when we’re caught in the middle of change and struggling to make a smooth transition.

We each react differently. On pages 93–96 in The On-Purpose Person you may recall Bob Scott telling the man about “floaters, fighters, fleers, flitters, and navigators.”

Kevin W. McCarthy, political leader, speaking at a public event.

A Tough Shift™ reveals your natural response to challenging situations.

As Dr. Phil would ask, “So how’s that working for you?” On-purpose persons strategically think through how to navigate the circumstances, people, and flow of a Tough Shift. In time and with training, you’ll learn to navigate your way more smoothly and rapidly through Tough Shifts.

Becoming the navigator of your life is a personal leadership learned skill and trait that anyone can master over time with experience and practice. If once a year, you’ll grab and work through The On-Purpose Person and On-Purpose Peace, you’ll be amazed at your improvement with navigating Tough Shifts.On-Purpose Peace FE cover(3)

You need not go it alone either. You can start or join a facilitated small group and begin mastering what it means to be On-Purpose®.

Do you find yourself fretting, fearful, or discouraged? As you come to appreciate that Tough Shifts are inevitable, then you’re in a better position to productively and positively navigate the change upon you.

Tough shifts are events such as

  • changing careers
  • starting a business
  • having a baby
  • retiring
  • getting married or divorced
  • the dying of a loved one
  • moving
  • switching jobs

They’re all around us. Some are smoothly managed; others are not. That’s when we need help.

Tough shifts happen in business, too. They come in the form of

  • changing markets
  • competition
  • job changes
  • personnel transfers
  • mergers
  • acquisitions
  • new bosses and co-workers

In a global economy, changes in one part of the world can affect you in your part of the world.

What to do? Take heart!

Purpose is symbolized by the heart. Knowing your 2-word purpose statement provides a “north star” and a home base even in the midst of the swirl and turbulence about you. Once you have your north star, you’re in the best position ever to navigate the challenges you face with a healthier, less stressful response that is more likely to produce a better outcome.

As a kid, I remember learning to drive a stick shift in a grey-blue 1962 MG Midget thatJimW_01s our family owned. This car made today’s Mini Cooper look big. It was basically a tin coffin with an engine and wheels and a removable lid. It had paper-thin doors, slide on windows, a pull starter, and it was absolutely the most fun car in the world to tool around town in. (I can’t believe I found a photo online of one that looks just like ours! Same color and style even to the dark blue convertible top.)

My digression into my ’62 MG Midget personal history is about learning to shift gears. I remember the first sounds and feel of that gearshift in my hand as I attempted to sync the clutch, the gearshift, and still steer the car. Today, I still find myself driving two-footed every now and then with one foot on the gas and the other on the brake. Growing up in the “South Hills” of Pittsburgh meant I needed to master it all fast, lest I drift into the car behind me at all stops! Today, driving a stick is still second nature thanks to what I mastered at age 16 to 18.

Tough shifts in life are similar to my experience of learning to drive a stick shift. They can be difficult, noisy, rough, clashing, and damaging with the threat of even worse things happening. On the other hand, once mastered, the ability to make what used to be a tough shift becomes an opportunity to efficiently go places. The skills are transferable to other “vehicles.” The lessons learned stay with us.

So when you’re in the middle of a tough shift, remember your purpose, press onward, and know that every shift can lead to the next gear.

Every tough shift gets you closer to your destination.

Discover your 2-word Personal Purpose Statement at ONPURPOSE.me. This online app will guide you through a process of selecting a purpose statement, plus you’ll receive a 10-email course that’s practical to being on-purpose. The limited-time reduced launch price is currently available.

Is Your Leadership Being Choked?

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As leaders, we’re prone to move from one task to the next with mental speed and insightful clarity.

Distractions, busyness, and just plain old bad habits have a way of gradually yet persistently working their way into our lives. Pretty soon we’re enslaved in activities and relationships that take us off-purpose.

In today’s On-Purpose Business Minute, I share a metaphor and lessons learned from a day of hard, back-breaking yard work and getting my hands dirty. As you can see, my mind was also hard at work.

As leaders, it is important that we get to the root of matters.

Paying attention to the details while still seeing the big picture isn’t always easy. Even if you’re not very good at both, at least be aware of the importance of both to avoid getting blind-sided. Surround yourself with complementary talent and trusted advisors so you grasp a greater perspective and insight into an important matter. This will free you to do more of what you do best more profitably.

No sense getting lost in the bushes and choked out of the beauty of how your business can bloom and grow.

Need some help with getting to the roots of your leadership? At On-Purpose Partners, we offer 1:1 executive and personal leadership coaching. Learn more here.

Are You Like A Fly On A Window?

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We construct our lives as best we can, yet it is hard to see the boundaries and borders we’ve created around us. Certainly, some enclosures provide protection and support. Yet, some barriers are self-inflicting and limit our life with an unhealthy—even an unnatural—manner and lessening result that leaves us being off-purpose.

It sucks to be stuck in life.

Heart WorkOn July 12, 1987, President Ronald Reagan challenged then-Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev with the words, “Tear down this wall,” and the world soon changed. Look at your own life and ask, If President Reagan were to speak to me, what walls would he challenge me to tear down in my life?

Are you ready to stop banging your head against the window pane of life? Do you see the life you imagine, but an invisible barrier prevents you from getting to the other side? Now is the time to do the hard work of your heart work.

Are you ready to do your heart work but you don’t know how?

Here are some ideas:

Visit our online bookstore for more ideas.