founder of naked leader
Leadership from a different perspective – Bruce Hazelton
Naked Leader Week – 221 (w/c Monday 20 August 2007)
Leadership from a different perspective – Bruce Hazelton
Learning to Walk…
Thank you for all of your e-mails after last week’s newsletter (link), including this one from Bruce:
Hi David
Following on from your Naked Leader this week, I have been thinking a great deal recently about this particular subject.
I saw Brad Sugars at Wembley recently and he reminded me of an interesting truth. When we are babies our parents encourage us to stand; they shout and scream and clap and laugh with glee the first time we draw ourselves up on something and achieve our first few wobbly seconds on two legs. No sooner have we achieved this than the bar is raised immediately to walking. They hold our hands and encourage us to take the first step which is rewarded with more praise and smiles and kisses and cuddles. And then they let go. And no matter how many times we fall and crash to the ground, knock valuables over and hurt ourselves, no parent ever bends down and says to their child ‘Never mind, looks like you’re just going to be a crawler!’
So finally we walk. And from that moment on, the other parental instinct kicks in – ‘Be careful! Don’t fall over! You’ll hurt yourself! Slow down!’ So the next thing we inadvertently learn after walking is restriction, caution and stunting other people’s dreams.
I have two young children as you know, and I am trying not to be that dream-crusher, but it’s really hard! How far would we, as a species, have got if we listened to others’ fears? Would we have learned to walk upright? Would we have formed the society we know today? Would man ever have conquered flight? The list is endless. It is not only essential that as individuals we learn to live without fear but for the good of mankind. In a society that is forever trying to reduce risk in the interests of Health & Safety coupled with the dream-crushing mentality we are brought up with it’s ever more important that we all learn to fall over again, pick ourselves up and try again. Because next time we may actually walk.
Regards
Bruce
www.marvellousmedia.com (link)
Thank you Bruce – this fits in so well with saying “yes” to our children as often as possible, so that they learn what they can do, rather than what they cannot.
Please forward this story to someone whose life you touch, right now.
With love and my best wishes to you all
David X