Most of what we know is someone’s opinion. In fact, most of what we know is someone else’s opinion. I’m reading a fascinating biography on Mary Queen of Scots and although the author is a well known English historian and has researched her subject thoroughly, most of what she writes is her interpretation of what few unarguable facts remain of her subject’s life. It turns out most of modern life works the same way. Unless we are subject matter experts in a pure science such as mathematics or biology, most of what we know is our own or someone else’s opinion. We give lip service to innovation, but we have no idea how to begin with something as simple as innovating how we know what we know.
This applies most basically and most powerfully to the questions of who we are and why we do what we do. Most of us define who we are in terms of our current and past roles. “I am business owner or executive, life partner, parent, child, friend.” These are indeed facts, but what they actually say about us are opinions. What does it say about us that we are an executive at Company X? That we are in a relationship with Person Y? That we are the child of These Parents? We aren’t always sure what it says, and often the meaning doesn’t carry any true connection to who we are inside. That’s because what it says is someone else’s words imbued with someone else’s meaning.
Defining “Who am I?” can be one of the most liberating and empowering exercises we ever engage with. Claiming our attributes and characteristics, our preferences and strengths, reframing what we once saw as negative into positive — all of these activities clarify areas of our lives and our work where once there was vague cloudiness. We gain focus and motivation, definition, power, and new frames from which to lead and empower others.
Who are you really? If you stop listening to the opinions of others, and even your own old mantras about roles and positions, who are you? What are the implications for fully claiming that identity? What one action can you take this week to wean yourself off the opinions of others and begin to claim the leader you really are?
When we shift to choice we shift to a perspective based on opportunity. I choose because I see the advantages for myself, for others, for my team, my organization, my relationship, the world. I choose because I want something to happen — something great. This perspective is future oriented, action oriented, possibility oriented. There are no judgments implied, simply possibilities extended.