Tracing forward from these remembrances of things past gives us the chance to re-experience and reframe these beliefs. Doing so liberates us from the confounding forces we label as fate, destiny, or—even more frequently—the other person’s “fault.” We will never sort through them all, of course, but what we don’t sort through impedes our happiness. It tricks us into using the rest of our lives—and the people we love, the professions we choose, the organizations we lead—to try to close the gaping wounds from childhood.

What would it feel like, in that body of yours,’ I continued, ‘if incremental progress that was directionally correct were enough? What would it feel like to tack across the surface of that lake instead of heading out for the other side, fully intending to make it in the shortest time possible?

And, more telling, when does our typical pattern of equanimity get so quickly and readily disturbed?

But what do we do to our organizations when we define ourselves by the existence of the Other? When we presume that the competitor in the lane next to ours is wrong, bad, or a threat, we are allowing our deepest fears about our own inadequacy to stand in as our ‘vision statement’ and ‘strategic plan.’ An unintended, whispered consequence is that our colleagues—our friends down the hall with whom we built this thing, this product, this service, this company—may fear that they, too, are ‘them.

Here are your spades, questions to ask yourself so that you might reboot your leadership and move forward on your journey of growing up.

• How would I act were I to remember who I am? 

• What choices would I make, what actions would I take, if I regularly said the things that needed to be said? 

• Who would I become were I to be fully, completely, and wholly heard? 

• What is it that I wish the people in my life understood about me? 

• Who would I be without the myths I’ve told about myself; the stories that took hold when I was yearning to feel love, safety, and belonging?