When Opportunity Knocks

I’ve been reading a fascinating book Total Leadership by Stewart Friedman.  He writes about how leaders who have the ability to integrate four key aspects of their life, rather than balance them, are often better leaders who lead a richer life.  The four aspects Stew describes are:

• work
• home
• community
• self

Having wrestled for many years to balance these four parts of my own life and seeing them as separate, I recognise this has caused me much conflict… so the idea of integration really appeals.

Last night I saw an awesome example of integration taking place, where passion, vision and focus delivered massive opportunity for others.

Want to know more?

Chris has had a passion for singing for many years and in her spare time invested in vocal training.  She sings all the time at home, watches all the talent shows on TV and occasionally performs at weddings and functions.  Singing is a core part of who Chris is and her passion was being fulfilled in her home life.

Chris came for professional coaching about 4 years ago to help her determine her “work self”.  She left her career with a large IT company following the arrival of her second child 8 years ago.  Since then she has been an at home mum, supporting the  successful growth of her partners plumbing business.  During the coaching programme Chris dreamed of turning her passion for singing into her work.  Her vision “To offer children the opportunity to sing for fun and grow in confidence.”

With her vision came clarity of purpose and Chris became focused on creating opportunities to realise her dream.  She started a lunchtime club at her son’s school and once established moved on to set up a second club at another local primary school.  She is now looking to start her third!  Chris has so much energy and enthusiasm for what she does, for all those that know her we see how driven she is to succeed in giving as many children as possible opportunity to sing and grow.

Last night I attended a Talent Show for 7 to 13 years olds… the show was the culmination of a dream for Christine Davis, who proudly introduced 30 of her young students to perform in front of a packed village hall full of parents and friends.  Integrating her work within the community in this way, brought a lot of joy to local people and provided her students the opportunity to show off all they have learnt.  It was wonderful to watch the children growing in confidence as the night unfolded and fantastic that Chris was able to offer them an experience that will remain with them for the rest of their lives.

Christine’s pop vocal coaching business is Sing Pop and you can follow her on Twitter @singpopuk.

As leaders there is a lot we can learn from the congruence Chris exhibits in all four aspects of her life. Here are a few questions to help you to reflect on how integrated your life is:

1. What is your vision?
2. What is your passion?
3. What’s important to you?
4. What needs to change to bring you greater harmony?
5. What will you focus on first to integrate the four aspects of your life?

Do let us know what you discover.