We all need a tribe to be part of and have a tribe to lead. It’s not either or.

Great leaders are great followers. If we don’t have the humility to follow we won’t have the capacity to be a great leader.

Great followers become great leaders. In following faithfully we develop the skills and character to lead as a servant and not as a tyrant.

Everyone has some capacity for leadership. It may not be to lead a tribe of thousands, but we all have the capacity to lead others in some form or another.

In fact, the world is waiting for you to take the lead. Some things will never get done in this world if you don’t take the lead.

That dream you have. The thing you’re passionate about. That idea you keep wishing someone else would implement so you could be part of it. Maybe, just maybe, that dream or idea needs you to take the lead and make it happen.

Instead of musing about the way things are, why don’t we step up and start to do something towards creating a world that could be?

Find a tribe that you have at least some common ground with and join in. Give your all. And, within that, why not look for ways for which you can take the lead?

Be a great follower and a great leader. Who knows, you might just change the world.

I’ve been thinking about this for several months now. Am I one person living one life or someone with many personas living multiple lives?

I am increasingly convinced that wholeness stems from living one, integrated life.

Do I have a compartmentalised life where different compartments come out based on who I’m with? Or am I the same, whole, person no matter who I am with?

Is there a work me, a friends me, a family me, and a private me? Or is there just one me who permeates my whole life no matter who I’m with or what I’m doing?

Don’t get me wrong, different environments will demand different things of us and bring out aspects of our personality and talents that don’t come out in other environments. That’s normal. But the question is whether we are someone totally different. Someone we might be ashamed of if people in other groups saw us like that.

Are we spending half our lives creating a persona, keeping up appearances? Are we pretending to be something or someone we’re not? In other words, are we actors or, more accurately, hypocrites?

The problem with living life this way is that it is draining. Spending our whole life acting is hard work!

Freedom comes from being so comfortable with who we are that we no longer feel the need to pretend or impress. We can be ourselves. We are whole. We have an integrated life which oozes integrity and breeds trust.

To be honest, I’m wary of people I’m not convinced I’m seeing the real them. Religious people are the worst for this. If Hollywood ever runs out of actors, they could just start going to churches and quickly identify some of the best actors the world has ever seen! It’s like the pressure of religion compels them to pretend. They cannot be themselves. They create a church persona and say all the right things. It stinks. Seems like Jesus thought so too.

“Partisans. It’s a criticism when you throw that word at a politician, but all tribes are made up of partisans, the more partisan the better. If you’re a middle-of-the-roader, you don’t bother joining a tribe.

Partisans want to make a difference. Partisans want something to happen (and something else not to happen). Leaders lead when they take positions, when they connect with their tribes, and when they help the tribe connect to itself.”

It really connected with something I’ve been thinking a lot about lately. I come across so many people who are what I call ’sideline people’. People who never properly get involved with anything and instead spend endless amounts of time criticising those who do. (Or, at the very least, creating limitless reasons for not committing.)

To be honest, I don’t have much patience for these people. It is so easy to watch others actually trying to do something (and, sure, often failing) and say where they went wrong, what they should have done. And yet, for all their saying what others should have done, they themselves never do anything. They play it safe. They sit on the sidelines feeling superior.

And the truth is, it’s their loss. They’re missing out on actually living a life of significance. They do nothing. Nothing. Oh, other than criticise and develop their ‘gift’ of cynicism. What a waste of life.

I’d rather be a partisan at least trying to work with others to make the world a better place than a sideline critic who thinks they know everything.

Of course, the reason these people don’t ‘join a tribe’ and commit to anything is because it’s not perfect. It’s not quite how they’d like things. But there will NEVER be a perfect tribe. There are no perfect businesses, charities, churches, organisations, or clubs. So do we want to waste a lifetime waiting for something to emerge that in fact never will? Or will we accept that, despite it’s imperfections, there is a tribe we should just get on board with and do something?

People who actually change the world are people who are partisan. People who, despite all it’s imperfections, are willing to say, ‘this is MY tribe’.

Until around 16 months ago, we had two PC laptops running Windows. As of October, we now have two Macs and the last of the PC laptops is ready for the scrap heap.

Rachel uses a Macbook and I have a Macbook Pro that I use for both work and personal (and which runs Windows XP via Parallels).

On top of this, we both now have iPhone’s. We’ve been well and truly Appleified!

One of the things I’ve observed about my transition to Apple is just how I don’t feel like its been a novelty which has worn off. So often with prior technology purchases, I’ve spent a load of money and then, after not too long, stopped using it, or got bored. With neither the iPhone or the Mac has it been like this.

I have also been thoroughly impressed with how straight forward everything is. As the ad says (by and large) it does all just work. I like that.

I love the attention to detail. I love the fact that they value aesthetics and yet don’t use that as a cover up for poor quality. 

I will say that Apple products are expensive. You can buy cheaper phones and cheaper laptops. In fact, you can buy a LOT cheaper phones and laptops. But I don’t resent the prices I’ve paid at all. I feel I have products that have surpassed my expectations and stand out in a league all by themselves when compared to other products.

I guess, to summarise, I am definitely now in the ranks of raving Apple fans!

Chatting with friends yesterday I was quick to point out that Obama winning the election was the easy part. He now inherits one of the toughest situations both globally and locally that any President-elect can ever have faced.

And he won’t be able to sprinkle magic dust and everything suddenly be ok. In fact, he’ll have to make a lot of tough decisions that will rapidly reduce his favourability ratings both home and abroad.

Personally, I think Obama will be a breath of fresh air on many levels. But he can’t solve all America’s and the worlds problems. He’s not a magician. He’s not a messiah. It’s going to be some of the toughest few years in recent memory.

It’s worth remembering that whilst politicians have a role to play in this world, we are not to place our ultimate trust in them. There is another One who truly, as the children’s song says, has the whole world in his hands.

For those of you in or around Sheffield, make sure you come along. (Check out the Facebook event here.) It’ll be a great night. And, for those of you from further afield, we’ll be posting video online shortly after the event.

Here are the details:

Here’s some video from the last event:

You can’t always get what you want
But if you try sometimes you just might find
You just might find
You get what you need

This song has been running through my head this morning. I often find myself humming a tune in the shower…my thinking space. Sometimes the songs stay in there, but other times they stick with me as I’m getting around, making lunch, feeding Max. And then I stop to wonder, “Why in the world am I singing this song?”.

If it’s an annoying song stuck in my head, I’ll either play music to push it out, or the sure fire way to rid one song stuck in my head. I’ll sing another, equally catching song, like the song from the Irn Bru Snowman advert: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfiqrkV_ZqI. It works EVERY TIME!

But today, as I was belting out that old Stone’s song, I stopped to wonder, why this song? I don’t listen to the Stone’s, in fact I had to google the lyrics to see who actually sang that song. But still, it keeps ringing over and over. You can’t always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you might just find, you get what you need.

I think my train of thought started with the realization that nearly a year ago our lives went on a journey. We started on an adventure…off towards what we wanted. We sold our house, which we wanted to do. And then we moved all our belongings to England…which we REALLY wanted. But then, what we wanted started to get in the way of what we needed. We had to make difficult decisions. In fact, they were quite straight forward decisions. But difficult to admit.

We didn’t want to move back to the States. We didn’t want to live here. Once we got back, we tried to work our desires back into the equation and moved to California. Which worked out horribly for our son, who needed much more care than the medical teams could offer him in California. So, nearly a year later, we sit where we started. We came back in July, and bought the same model car we sold while moving to England. We searched until we found just the right house, less than a mile from our old house. My son got back in with all of the medical professionals he was working with before we left.

This year we have definitely not gotten what we wanted…but as it turns out…we did get exactly what we needed. We have been provided for in amazing ways. Ways that I can’t even wrap my head around sometimes. And while I don’t always understand the logic we’ve followed this past year, I know every decision has been the best decision for us. For now, I’m trying to not focus on what I want. It seems that’s not been the best thing for me this year. Instead, I’m trying to focus on what we need. And then, seeing over and over, that’s exactly what has been making me happy. All my needs have been met. I am healthy, my family is healthy. We are happy, and cared for.

I think it’s important to dream of wants, and desires. But it’s equally important, if not more so, to focus on the needs, rather than taking for granted that all our needs will be met if we just work at the wants in our lives.

What do you think?

[Visit Deana's personal blog here.]

It is probably impossible to ever fully know, but I am convinced that on some levels President Palmer has helped ease open the door for President Obama.

How ironic that Fox is behind ‘24′!

We used to shut our computers down when we’d finished. Now we leave them in standby mode. We used to switch our phones off. Instead we, at best, only turn them to silent or vibrate.

This isn’t all bad of course. It’s the reality of the world we live in. But if we are going to be people who maximise our potential, we will need to be people who know the importance of taking time out. You know, that thing called rest.

Here’s some ideas:

- Maybe we could have one day a week where we actually log off. No email, no work, no computer. Just chill. Enjoy life. Spend quality time with friends and family.

- How about ignoring the phone when we’re eating. Savour that time and that food. Enjoy the company of the people you’re eating with by being fully there.

- What if we intentionally created some space within every day to slow down. Take a break. Enjoy that lunch hour. Step out of what you’re in the middle of with a change of scenery. Perhaps a book. Or the park. Anything really, just change the scene.

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This post is a duplication from my blog at The Human Potential Company. Not all posts are duplicated here so to make sure you don’t miss any, subscribe here.

Nobody fulfils their potential by accident.

We make the most of our potential when we take our innate talents and then, on top of that, work hard to develop the necessary skills and add the relevant knowledge so that we can do something meaningful with our talent.

David Beckham may well have been born with the unique ability to curve a football like few other people, but that talent would never have reached it’s potential if he had not spent hours on the training field practicing and practicing and practicing.

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This post is a duplication from my blog at The Human Potential Company. Not all posts will be duplicated here so to make sure you don’t miss any, subscribe here.