Sonja Becker - The Female Leader

You have one major talent in your own right: you can see the truth. In the end you are a professional in your chosen field. Like a premiere league football coach you know every move, every trick inside out from your own experience. No one can fool you. And so you can look on with partial amusement when others in your own field make the most stupid mistakes. You are professional and realistic, and see things as they are, so you also know your limitations. There is little point in projecting yourself as Marlene Dietrich when you aren’t. What one person can do others can do better.

Find out exactly what specific field you can be the best at, even if it’s a self-organized world championship in female can opening in which possibly thousands world wide would take part.

If you regard yourself as a small player in a big game, you will not only disappoint yourself, but won’t be able to entice anyone out from behind the oven because you don’t appear credible or fascinating enough. So, Ms. Cobbler – stick to your last, and go for quantity. Aim for high goals. Really make something of your mission. How? By visualizing it. That’s enough of theory.

Anybody who has a vision can see something: the goal. It becomes visualized. You see a million human beings all over the world sitting in front of the TV or the internet to watch the world championship in tin can opening which you as former champion organized! You see how you are acclaimed, carried on people’s hands, honored, valued…and loved by millions.

This is what a vision looks like. Three dimensional. It can be grasped in the hand. Not something far away. If that is the case, Helmut Schmidt is right. Anybody who has visions should go to the doctor. And so don’t ever give in to small, realistic, attainable short-term goals. There aren’t any. Instead live your life as a series of astonishing incidents and take care of the surprises yourself: throw parties, go on exciting journeys. Take the bull by the horns:

meet the people you have always wanted to meet, for example.

A journalist we knew always had a list of prominent people whom he would most like to meet – particularly architects, musicians, philosophers, futurologists and visionaries. But how? Simple: he founded a magazine dealing with the subject. Not financed by himself. Instead he convinced the boss of a PR agency of the idea of starting a customer magazine through which the company could make a name of itself as cutting edge. It worked. He was even astounded how easy it was to get an agreement from these people as soon as he became a representative of the press. For the next few years he traveled all round the world, met everyone he wanted to meet and a few more, and was paid a princely sum for his interest.

It is very simple: become a person whom others admire and the person you have always dreamed of being…Close your eyes and envision yourself in your wildest dream. That is your mission.

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f course the road to success, your “Road to Mandalay”, isn’t always visible as far as the horizon. There are often obstacles in the way. There are well-meaning friends, who comment on your project to death, who want to demonstrate that they are leading the right life and you the wrong. And they are not in the least malicious: but being frustrated themselves, they don’t see that others might fare differently. Because they have accepted their lot.

This is the negative side of the mission: melancholia. When you look back on your life high spots appear which are irretrievable. They move further and further away from you. As long as you fail to embark on your mission, these images will remain present. There are people who live entirely in the past. You can recognize them by the fact that they are always telling anecdotes and “stories from my life” that begin with, “Do you remember…?” They are satisfied getting old with a partner and a pension. Hello? “I want to live while I’m alive” is a wonderful and simple lyric and very close to reality. How many people can honestly say that they are in fact alive during their lives? Instead they have given up at some time in their lives. They lay most of the blame on others without realizing it. They can least stand it when others dash ahead. They prefer to be mired in mutual misery.

Germany is a very melancholy country. It can be seen from the peculiar unanimity in grumbling. It is simply alien to most Germans to be greeted in a friendly way by someone in the street. On the other hand it is completely acceptable to get volubly excited over some nuisance, and a whole chorus of dissatisfied people can be found to agree with it, whether it is delays on the railroad or some failure on the part of the government. They lay the blame on higher powers instead of taking responsibility for themselves.

Simply don’t be taken in by such things. It is better to keep your mission to yourself or to choose the people you tell it to carefully. Comments that call your pictures, visions, intentions into question are killers, as for example, “Yes, but that has certainly already been done”, or, “Great, and where will you get the money for it from?” These are valid questions, but one the whole they are not meant constructively. Don’t let yourself be deflected from your path by obstinate needling. For as soon as you do it will be painful, and you will feel it physically. On the other hand it is a sign that you are on the right path. Imagine you had an excellent plan for becoming self-employed, and then found yourself back in a stifling insurance agency office. This is the kind of pain we mean.

As long as you stay on your path you will have many good experiences, even if it is often stony. The more you can convince, the more pleasant impulses come from without that justify your activities. And that’s a damn good feeling. What is convincing is your sense of curiosity and your self-confidence in everything you do.

What you can do like no other inspires you and you can talk about it frankly, freely and with absolute enthusiasm. You become your own PR machine. This charisma attracts more and more people.

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f you have your main focus on your mission you won’t have much time for doubts and conflicts, fortunately. You are bright, awake and always in top form. These attributes, namely your character, makes you a better person. Your commitment inspires other people. You become so alive when you suddenly live up to your values and take your purpose seriously that you even give wings to other people’s careers. Because you are suddenly alive yourself, and become adorable and intoxicating in a refreshing way! This way, your charisma, your personal magnetism increases in proportion to the scope that you give your mission.

A mission that sparks produces action and attraction. Your intentions determine your lifestyle both qualitatively and quantitatively. You define a game that more and more people join and which encourages them to tell others about your business. But this depends solely on you communicating your ideas with complete conviction without leaving any question marks. The further the scope of your mission is stretched the more fame you will reap. “Fame” means immortality. Your aims could well be designed to outlast your death, and you will enrich your life and make yourself alive even more. In a certain sense a family is such a mission: you pass on offspring to the future with commitment, responsibility and love. In your lifetime this love will already be returned ten times over in a wonderful way.

Visionaries see far and clearly. People who follow their path can be recognized by their external appearance. They move as if they were approaching something. They walk upright and look clearly ahead as if they had a map to show them the way. Other people for example always look at the ground or slouch. They meander through life like that. And then of course there are people who can laugh and those who pull a face. If you are seized by a great idea and are prepared to pursue it, you will have glowing cheeks.