Andreas Gruber - The Power of Being

I was never really a conformist, somebody who lives the norm. That's what I thought. However, I needed pain and trouble, together with big changes in my life to take the bigger step towards embracing what I am or what I have within. Basically by realizing that A) I need to take a deeper look at my life and doings. B) To take responsibility for it, C) and to take action. D) Last but not least I need to stand up for my truth, with all that I have learned, experienced, and achieved.

If you don't believe in yourself, maybe your mother and father do. However, they can’t stand up for you. Standing up is far more than believing in yourself. Believing is a rather silent and internal act. Standing up is bold. It's externalized belief, as an egotistical effort for what matters to you, for your soul.

Why would a leader have to stand up? Aren't leaders the ones who are standing already? If this book was about the material, the external plane of our existence, then yes, leaders are standing. But this book isn't about that. It's about the subtle aspects of life. Leaders often feel this was what they had to sacrifice, to reach the point they are at today. It may be time for you to review that, if you feel that you are going in the wrong direction. It's not about changing jobs or lifestyle, it's about knowing what matters in this period of your life, and to make the best out of that, for you and others.

It is always inspiring to read about people like Mahatma Gandhiand Nelson Mandela. Their life stories move us and inspire us. We can even guess what they might have thought about what matters in life, although they may not have explicitly said or written it down. We can grasp what they thought about leadership or motivation or what they stood up for. However, we will never know for sure because they didn't tell us the details, did they? They didn’t give us insight into their inner world, the deeper aspects of their motivation and inspiration. Gandhi for example, was once asked by a journalist, "What is your message?" He replied, "My life is my message."

I am not Mandela, but I have the Mandela potential within, as you do. And there are things I stand up for in my life. They are based on three major themes. Things that moved me and kept me busy for decades. Issues that I had to work out for myself, to digest, and integrate. These are 1) motivation, 2) leadership, and 3) pain.

Why would my pain be of any interest for you? We may not want to admit it, but we all have some of it. If boredom is the father, and laziness the mother of invention, then pain must be the father of change and transformation. Pain can be a powerful and relentless driver if we choose to use it for that. I would not have had such an intense life if there hadn't been plenty of pain. I would certainly not have reached the depth, nor the width.

Motivation, leadership, and pain were the three questions or issues that endured through the decades for me. I did not let them go. I felt I had to reach a deep experiential level of understanding to be able to penetrate them. This became a way of living for me, and as I intuitively started acting out of that experience, the results moved me deeply. The reason I was moved, was that it touched other people in unexpected ways. People started asking me how I do that. These questions became more frequent, more intense, and more genuine. From people I care about, that I love. So I started contemplating about this, to be able to fit this into a larger frame, which others might be able to utilize.

We may all come to a point where we need to choose, and should choose actively and consciously, about whether we will remain in the shadow, contemplating about what things could be like, or to stand up for what matters. To remain silent or to stand up and reach out. In the middle of writing this book, I realized that this is the book I would have wished for, that I needed so desperately as I entered the management world. It is a book written to the younger me, relating to all the wonderful, challenging and inspiring experiences with leaders, managers, co-workers, friends as well as family. I hope it will serve and inspire you too, as well as those who kept on asking for it to be born.

To stand up for yourself is the issue in this chapter, and I will not give you a theoretical explanation of what that means. I can only motivate or inspire you to stand up, by giving you unusual views and insights into what made me stand up for myself. A few of them, you will not have found in any other book of this kind.

So here is the short introduction or overview to my personal three core issues, and they will keep coming back throughout the book.

Motivation

Leadership

Pain

Motivation

The majority of your employees is not very motivated to work. That makes motivation one of your most important issues. However, it's a riddle, where the answer seems distant. We have been told that we can’t motivate people, except by monetary means, and that doesn't last very long. It's time to change that view. That is one of the things I am standing up for. Not everybody will accept my ideas and theories because they are not scientifically proven. The only thing I can assure you is that the content of this book is based on well reflected, first-hand experience.

However, my "problem" seems to be the opposite many times. I rarely have an issue with low motivation, but people in my teams seem to be overly motivated to give their very best. This happened so many times, with so many teams, countries and nationalities that I dare to stand up for what I'm doing and for what I believe in. I could tell you long stories, interesting and impressive experiences, but that would not serve you, because as long as you do not know what's in this experience, what's the driving force, you would never understand. And honestly, I never thought about writing a book about this, if it wouldn't be for the many requests. The reason is that I didn't consider that this was so special, and it took me quite a while to understand the dynamic behind it. Would I have based my actions on a method or philosophy that I had learned, then the results would probably have been very precious to me, but since it "only" came from within it didn't seem to be worth mentioning.

We strive to be something special, totally forgetting what's already there; not seeing who we are, not daring to be genuinely ourselves.

Leadership

You probably never learned to be a leader. Not really. No, probably you did as we all do, we copy. When you were younger you had good and bad bosses; you met inspiring as well as poor leaders. You decided consciously or unconsciously, to follow the examples you liked and did the opposite of the ones you didn't like. So as an act of reverence you lead like they did or didn't. The executive courses and training you did over the years may not have changed too much of that copy and paste model of leadership. That could be because these classes didn't touch you very deeply. They gave you theories, studies, extrapolated methods from distant findings. But that's not you, is it?

You are the only one who can make that switch, but the jolt will probably come from within. Jolt, because you may not be prepared as it hits you. That's the day when you have waited too long. It may be your physical or mental condition that troubles you, or death, pain and sorrow that hit you. You've probably seen it happen, when the strongest leaders and managers fall off the perch, as these things occur.

We know all that will happen to us one day, and yet we are mostly utterly naked and unprepared as it finally does. Find out what sustains you from within, when everything else falls away in your life, because it may well do. The only things you can rely on, in troubled times are your internal abilities. The human qualities that you cultivated over the years. It's time to sum up, and see what you have so you can stand the next storm. To find out what sustains you from within is related to standing up for yourself, for your needs, your talents, and your uniqueness. But also things like core values and closing in on your purpose. People who don't know who they are, behave in strange ways, blown around like flags in the wind. Those who do know, and do stand up for themselves, are like rocks to hold on to and get inspired by.