So None of Us Arrived With an Owners Manual! A Fresh Perspective on the Drive to Lead (part 1)

So, none of us arrived with an Owner's Manual, neatly referenced to enable us to look up our ails, appreciate where we are, and, understand what is next. We expected its indelible validation to enable us to navigate some of the more fearful and exhilarating moments in our lives.

Most of us have a deeply felt need for one to give us the courage to look into a few dark corners and understand what is really going on. A validated abbreviated version would do, anything that says, " I was intended to be made this way', and "This is what to do to get the best from me."

Most of us realize many years later that we have been searching to create and validate our Owner's Manual for Life. We want independently created and validated information on our 'model' and 'type' to confirm our life long struggle to prove who we are. It will enable us to finally acquire the peace of knowing we are meant to be this way. Who cares now how different, strange, wonderful or wacky that is! Now it is OK as someone else says so.

So we assumed we were meant to be made this way but couldn't convince anyone else it was OK.

So here we are this tiny little baby, brand new in a strange and wonderful place. There are big people who are our parents, maybe there are small people who are our siblings, maybe there are other people who are our care givers, adoptive parents, extended family and more.

Once we become aware of where we are we begin to explore. We want to learn how to make this place work for us, how to command it, how to master elements of it. We want to be great at something. Maybe it is something that will make us a household name or maybe it is something that will make a smaller but no less significant contribution. Our deepest desire is to be the best us we can be.

When we look around we find so much variation in all those other people here. They are of such various types that we have our first trepidation, how are we going to work it out. There isn't another us here so there must be an Owner's Manual, a dedicated book with detailed information on what to do when, where and how to achieve the opportunity we know is out there for us.

Imagine arriving with Ian Thorpe sized feet, a love of water and a powerful need to extend ourselves as far as is possible. No one else is in that league, there is no one to follow, a new path needs to be created. So it is with all of us for our own expression of greatness.

Every tangible item on this planet that is created in material form by man has an owner's manual. Look at your average stove, computer, CD diskman, mobile etc. Sometimes the language is convoluted being translated by dictionary into English, however the general meaning is usually clear and we can construct the item from its flat pack or learn how to program our 54 functions on the VCR. All unique features are explained.

Then, if this is obscure, there is the telephone help line with dedicated staff to answer the 20 most commonly asked questions about this model. Maybe there are 20 of us on the planet but just at different and remote locations. Hence we conclude there must be an Owner's Manual for our model and it should have arrived with us.

So here we are a creation of God, or at least that sparkle in our parent's eyes. Who was supposed to write the Owner's Manual? My sense is we actually want the one from God, initially one from the god-like people who are our parents might do, but often we recognize pretty early on we are different in some critical way. It would have more sustainable impact to have the highest source available.

Now where is it? Maybe we expect a book, a pamphlet or even video. Something to wave around to the outer world to prove who we really are and that we are designed this way to be a great 'something or other. Maybe it is a dedicated memory file. A file in our memory full of the richness of who we are and what we need to do to do our best this time around.

For those of us who are auditory it would have a wonderful sound track, full of all the intonation we expect to hear to understand. For those of us who are visual we would expect powerful symbolic videos of information showing us how it is and what to do. For those of us who are sensate we would expect a track to stimulate our feelings and enable us to associate what we are doing with the validation of knowing the truth. All in all it would be the most masterful, rich and wonderful file of information.

It would validate our souls, that deep something within us that craves to be told we are just fine and always have been and our job here is to learn and master some or many aspects of reality. It would be able to be shown to others so that they could appreciate that we are a refined, validated, fabulous model of our time and that they are meant to appreciate this rather than belittle or confuse us by asking why we aren't like them.

Surely a wonderful thing to have!

Unfortunately we can't find it. Not anywhere. No matter where we search, what we assume it should be, how it should appear, somehow it isn't here. Once we reach this conclusion our primary search is finished whether it was conducted internally, externally or both.

Now we need to decide why as the tension of not knowing is too much to handle.

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Rosemary Johnston is a professional corporate and personal coach. Working with executives from some of Australia's largest and most successful companies for over 15 years.

Rosemary's new book, "How To Develop Your Leadership Style and Skills To Take Charge of Your Career and Life" is now available to download at her web site. Read about some of the success Rosemary has had coaching leaders in Australian blue chip companies. http://www.leadershipfirst.com.au