Lessons for a father - Be The Change

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Great words of a great man. He did not say "wait for the change". He did not say "allow someone else to make the change for you". He said "be the change you want to see in the world". Unfortunately  he did not tell us how to do that! All he did was practice a certain kind of life and allowed anyone to follow his example if they wanted.

The Mahatma (great soul) left us with some pretty incredible examples of leadership.  Leading a country, that was full of anger, into independence, by following a path of non-violence was anything but easy. But, leadership is anything but easy.

That was then. This is now. Times have changed. Non-violence seems to keep getting pushed deeper into history lessons. Leadership, however, continues to be the need of the hour and whether it was his time or ours, anyone can follow in his footsteps and become a leader. 

How do we, then, translate that great lesson in leadership into our daily lives?

One thing we can do is to make a commitment and stay true to bringing a change within ourselves.

• For those of us that want to become better leaders - let us start by asking at least one person this week a very simple question - "what can I do better?". It will show vulnerability, intention to improve, will require active listening and trust. All traits of a leader.
• For those of us that want to spend more time with the family and friends - let us try and switch off our "connection" to the rest of the world when we are with our loved ones. Instead of concentrating on quantity of time spent, let us also focus on the quality of that engagement.
• For those of us that want to be healthier - let us start with forgoing junk food for 1 day a week, taking the stairs one day a week, going to the gym once a week and drinking more water. Let us then follow that with doing all that for any 2 days of the week. Let us start small, be successful and then challenge ourselves to get better with time.
• For those of us who want to read more - let us start with reading 10 pages of a good book every day. Once we get into that habit, it will be hard to stop at 10 pages.

Gandhi's dreams of the world and the behavior that I talk about might be misaligned. There is something in common though. A change cannot start and be successful if we are not willing to change.

So, yes, let us be the change,  let us start with ourselves and whatever we do, let us not fail the faith that the great man had in humanity - in us and our goodness.

What are you doing to change into a better version of yourself?