This is for you if …

• you want to generate impact that fulfils you! Simple as that.
• your job isn’t bad enough to change but not good enough to call it great. Especially if you are secretly fearing that life is passing by without you participating in it fully.

Read the instructions. Get pen and paper. Get a timer.

Important disclaimer:

You might find some of the coming questions horrifyingly challenging. That is because most people never ask themselves these questions.

Do not despair over being clueless or embarrassingly vague. Be as concise as you can in the time limit. Then let life unfold. Come back later. Do it again. You will see how this exercise will help you build you impact navigation stamina safely.

What if you started thinking of your “job”-time not primarily as the time you “have to use to make a living” but this incredible space between 09:00 and 18:00 where you can …

…give the biggest gift you have to give.

If that’s what you do, you massively increase the likelihood that you will end up

• as a above-average inspiring leadership figure in your organisation (or maybe run your own organisations)
• earning the money you deserve
• accidentally being happy, because you are FULFILLED (rather than just happy because you like your tasks)

So the unsurprising first question is:

Whatever you perceive as your biggest gift will likely be the overlap of:

Your values, your skills/talents and what is needed in your circle of influence (see next question)

Next question:

I like to call circle of influence the “scope of your thinking”. That means “the circles around you that you are operating in and can have significant impact on”. For instance if you are a management consultant, it might be the organisations you are consulting. If you are a doctor it might be a certain number of patients but also your team (or if you are the boss of a hospital it might be the entire hospital). If you are a politician or a social entrepreneur, maybe it’s a region. Or a country. Or Europe.

Please be honest with yourself. Don’t just say “I want to solve the CO2 problem for the whole world”, just because it SOUNDS cool. This will lead you to vague and frustrating answers in the following steps.

Some supporting questions: 

• What feels like the circle of influence that I belong to when I am at the peak of my career?
• Where do I ACTUALLY belong?
• Who could I impact this week? As in: Who is LITERALLY in my address book?
• Who will I probably impact if I spent 100% of my time working on my mission for a whole year?

Now when considering your circle of influence:

These are the people you impact. Please note that they CAN be your customers, but they could also be your team members or the members of a community you create. Be aware of the fact that

Some supporting questions:

• Who would you LOVE to serve?
• What are their backgrounds?
• What are their life situations (e.g. demographics, job…)
• What characteristics do they have?
• What problems do they have?
• What dreams and goals do they have?
• What do you love about them?
• Maybe you can already answer this: How are these people related to your impact? Are they your customers? Your team members? The people who commission you with certain work? People in your fellowship? Your voters? What comes to your mind?

I ask this because over the years I am learning that in order to generate impact or scale ideas we usually need people. Leadership in some sort or another is usually a people business (Or at least I find it really hard to think of examples).

And I am also observing (mainly for myself, but maybe others can copy-paste from that) that the most inspiring way to provide leadership is:

To change the fate of your circle of influence by transforming the people in it in a way that they will work towards a more compelling vision than what they saw before.

This is about helping people realise where the stories they have been telling themselves about (literally…) any given topic are limited. And about holding space for a new and more compelling vision to emerge.

Sounds abstract? It definitely is. Just let it sink in and sit with it for a while. It will (hopefully) make sense eventually.

Here comes the big leap:

Yes, you heard correctly. And if you are saying “I have never transformed people”, it’s about time to think about how you actually do. We all do. Because each of us has a certain presence, certain things that we stand for, that we value that we make the guidelines for our behaviour. And people copy-paste from you (some call it: Learning, others following… whatever your preferred terminology).

Long story short: Force yourself to think about the answer to this question. It will powerfully help you to understand the nature of the most exciting impact you can create.

Supporting questions to understand what kind of transformations you are holding space for already:

• How have you supported people in the past?
• How have you challenged people in the past?
• In which “bad place” were they before? And in which “fantastic place” are they now?

Summarise!

• A feeling of “WHOA! – That is some serious sh**!”
• A lot of homework!
• A glimpse of: “Holy moly! If only I got started….” (You always can! We are The Arc after all)

• Love yourself
• Get a coach! DO IT! (and let us know if you did!)
• Join one of our events on The Arc and get more amazing stuff like this