#104: Hey Shadow, Good Talking To You!

As weird as it might sound, it is a real privilege when your shadow starts talking to you.

This is what happened to me today.

A University student spent the morning observing my conversations with employees and clients comparing and contrasting them to what I expressed as my personal and work-related values.

Respect

Impact

Love

Those were my core values that came to mind.

Respect is pretty universal, not much different from love. And yet, even if you don’t want to share your love with anyone or anything, he/she/it would still deserve your respect. I also believe that we haven’t been put on this planet to only leave a carbon footprint behind. There is so much opportunity to make a difference on offer. Grasp it and become a force for good.

When asked about my «motto in life», I immediately thought of the vision, mission, purpose and why statements I had crafted over the years. I have since moved away from them. Instead, I do the 7 levels deep exercise whenever it feels right.

What was most important to me when I last did it was «development». That covers self-development, helping others in their development or developing teams and organisations. That doesn’t happen in isolation nor is it just in your head. Development according to my definition involves others, an actual experience and the making of (instead of thinking or talking about) something.

The shadowing ended up being a positive experience as I didn’t identify much discrepancy between my expressed values and my activities and behaviors in my (professional) life. This is far from scientific, which is why I don’t just sit back and consider myself «done» when it comes to living my life in a way that gives me joy, lets me sleep calmly and invites me to look into the mirror every day saying «keep it up, Roman».

Good enough for now.

We shall see how things develop over time.

Life is by design «work in progress», isn’t it?