When did I know? and what did I do?

“Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose‘ - Tony Hsieh
         Chapter 1: In search of profits.

Tony helped me see highlights of his life and mine through that first chapter. Since a young age he cared a lot about building a business and selling products. I always cared more about helping people and, specifically,  helping them achieve their goals.   For as long as I remember I’ve been passionate about helping others and leading group(s) to achieve a goal.

While reading that chapter I went as far back as middle school when I led a group of students, organized a meeting with the principles and changed part of the curriculum.  Somehow I completed this on pure instinct and with the luck of everything falling in place properly.  I didn’t have any of my current leadership tools.

While reading that chapter I also remembered my shortfalls and many mistakes that I’ve done, some I’ve learned from on the spot and for others it is taking me years to fix -  these are more of behavior than mistakes. Years ago, my friend Ryan Triggs told me “Issam, I don’t respond well to this bully style”  and these words stuck with me since.  I let my passion for helping and achievement get to my head. I made the goal more important than the people and my principles.  This was one of my biggest mistakes and it was time to learn to get back in control. I am constantly looking for triggers to make sure I don’t fall in that trap again, see my previous post and how these triggers help us get better.

In the past few years I’ve read books, lots of books, listened to podcasts, attended leadership training, seeked feedback and most of all I put myself under a surveillance to pinpoint areas of improvements.  This was a great way for me to collect a set of tools to use day in and day out. These tools also greatly helped me as a coach when I was mentoring others.  The lessons learned here came from my friend and mentor Krutarth Shah when he told me to focus more on my strengths and not my weaknesses. It took a while to understand that but I still live by it.

I had many mentors and people I looked up to throughout the years, both professionally and personally.  I learned so much from the books and podcasts.  I know what I like to do.   BUT I was still missing the major peice of it all - my principles, my identity, my me and needless to say bullying isn’t one of them.  To share couple of them - transparency at work and presence at home.  Yes I made the mistake of mixing life and work, using leadership lessons at home and that didn’t go well.

If you are trying to find who you are, don’t look at others.  Find your true mission in life, your passion, and your joy.  Sometimes we get over inspired by others and follow them on paths not meant for us.  I see that with millennials who just want to be “leaders” or “entrepreneurs”.  We are all leaders, we are all entrepreneurs, but the questions are what or who are you leading and to where?   What are you creating?  With my co-founder we created a great small family that we are very proud of, we invest in it everyday, it is growing and always facing new challenges!!!

It has been a fun few years of discovery and it doesn’t look like it is ending anytime soon!

I would also recommend Adam Grant latest podcast "The Perils of Following Your Career Passion" as he gives a different point of view on this topic.

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