In a recent blog post, I wrote about living with abundance, achieving success, choosing significance, and leaving a legacy. However, I want to revisit this in a different but similar context and also add the foundational element that was understood, but not discussed, listed here as Decision #1.
Note: What I’m discussing here has nothing to do with having a position. However, it has everything to do with having a purpose.
5 Decisions that will Change Your Game
Decision #1: Accept Responsibility
If you truly want to be a Game Changer, there’s something you must accept from the start: accept responsibility.
If you don’t make this choice, you will never be a Game Changer. You will simply dream about changing the game while standing on the sidelines watching, helping, and supporting others that are actually changing the game. Don’t get me wrong. If you can’t change the game yourself, to continue to be relevant and effective, you must support and follow those that are changing the game. Game Changers depend on and value an army of trusted and creative followers. They know they can’t do it alone. And, they know they can’t do it without accepting responsibility for doing it with and through others.
Game Changers don’t dream about changing the game. They change the game!
Decision #2: Live with Abundance
When Game Changers accept responsibility, they will quickly discover the need to live with abundance.
Game Changers know that an abundance mindset is not about them having an abundance of everything. They are not selfish because they are not competitively seeking it all. They understand there is plenty of everything to go around and want to work with and through others that believe the same thing. The Law of Magnetism states that who we are is who we attract. Game Changers realize early on, that in order to attract unselfish people to their cause, they must also be unselfish. Game Changers also know this truth: an abundance mindset is the key to building strong, sustainable, and mutually beneficial relationships.
Abundance is not something we acquire. It is something we tune into. ~ Dr. Wayne Dyer
Decision #3: Achieve Success
The key strategy of a Game Changer is to live with an abundance mindset. Living with abundance will not only allow them to achieve success, but it will allow them to do so in a positive value-driven way.
Game Changers are focused. They are not wandering aimlessly and endlessly. They know where they are going and when they are going. To achieve success, they must follow their passion until they discover their purpose. As they move closer to discovering their purpose, they will simultaneously be developing their competency in their area of passion. Game Changers realize it takes a high degree of character to live with abundance, but it also takes a high degree of competency to achieve success. They are intentional about their own personal growth and development.
Success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and only does so as the unintended side-effect of one’s personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself. ~ Viktor Frankl
Decision #4: Choose Significance
Only the most highly successful Game Changers move beyond success and choose significance. For these select few, reaching the summit of the mountain isn’t enough. They want to go back down and help others climb their way to the top.
Not only do these Game Changers want to change the game. They have developed a passion to help others become Game Changers. Most people that achieve success will not choose significance. Why? Because it’s much easier to pay the price for your own success. Choosing significance requires us to first pay a high price for our own success. Then, we must pay an even higher price to help others achieve success. Only when we are willing to sacrifice our own time and resources to help and benefit others have we chosen significance. When we value other’s success more than we value our own, we are in a position to become significant.
John C. Maxwell’s “Rule of 5” for creating a life of significance:
1. Everyday I value people. Manipulating devalues. Motivating values.
2. Everyday I think of ways to add value to people.
3. Everyday I Look for ways to add value unexpectedly.
4. Everyday I do things that add value to you.
5. Everyday I encourage others to add value to people.
Decision #5: Leave a Legacy
Dr. Stephen R. Covey is a great example of a Game Changer. The ultimate Game Changer will make a lifetime of choices that results in them leaving behind a legacy.
Leaving behind a legacy requires a Game Changer to not only repeatedly make a significant difference in the lives of others, but also to do it consistently over a long period of time. Leaving a legacy is not about what we do. It’s about what others do after we’re gone because of who we were while we were here. I’ve been hearing consistently over the last few years of many school systems that have recently embraced teaching the principles that Dr. Covey wrote and taught about in his amazing book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. Part of his legacy lives in me. Had he not chosen significance, I would not have had the opportunity to read his book. I can say without a shadow of a doubt that he changed my life, and through me, Dr. Covey will change many lives because I too have experienced a transformation in my life and chosen significance.
Everyone chooses one of two roads in life- the old and the young, the rich and the poor, men and women alike. One is the broad, well-traveled road to mediocrity, the other the road to greatness and meaning. ~ Dr. Stephen R. Covey
Note: I encourage you to share my blog posts with others if you find value in them. I believe in abundance and write my blogs to help others become more effective and successful. Click here to receive a free download of “Get Out of the Way and Lead” and to subscribe to my email list to receive periodic leadership lessons.
My passion is helping people understand what’s common sense isn’t always common practice. I help leaders at all levels develop 360° of influence. The result: they take more responsibility and lead with speed.
