Going Full Circle

Great teams, great companies and great families have great leaders. Real leadership is the process of empowering others by abdicating one’s power over them. It means to set others free to become all they can be in an atmosphere of inspiration, innovation and mutual respect.

The real challenge is to maintain balance and harmony, while excelling in one professional endeavor. After the season is over, the champion must change into street clothes and become a parent, companion, spouse, citizen and neighbor. The greatest mark of the authentic champion is the way he or she relates to society beyond the arena or stadium, and translates superb performance in a specialized field into a global perspective to benefit this and future generations.

My new mission, based upon the sobering aftermath of September 11th, is to be a role model for these words I have altered slightly from My Creed by Dean Alfange:

“I do not choose to be a common man or woman. It is my right to be uncommon, if I can. I seek opportunity, not security. I do not wish to be a kept citizen, humbled and dulled by having the state look after me. I want to take the calculated risk, to dream and to build, to fail and succeed. I will not trade freedom for beneficence, nor my dignity for a handout. I will never cower before any master, nor bend to any bully or terrorist threat. It is my heritage to stand erect, proud and unafraid, to think and act for myself, enjoy the benefits of my creations and to face the world boldly, and say, “This I have done.”

And, whatever I do, I do in the spirit of win-win. If I help others win, then I win too. I will win with others, not win at the expense of others.

Denis Waitley is one of America's most respected and beloved authors, keynote lecturers and productivity consultants on high performance human achievement. He has inspired, informed, challenged and entertained audiences for over 25 years from the boardrooms of multi-national corporations to the control rooms of NASA's space program. Denis has been voted business speaker of the year by the Sales and Marketing Executives' Association

and by Toastmasters' International and inducted into the International Speakers' Hall of Fame.

With over 10 million audio programs sold in 14 languages, Denis Waitley's CD album, The Psychology of Winning, is still the all-time best selling program on self-mastery. To order this Best-Seller or his newest release, The Platinum Collection and to subscribe to the free Denis Waitley Weekly E-zine visit his website here: DenisWaitley.com