The principles of greatness from The Greatness Principle, can be applied at any stage of life to create an outcome that’s above good and more in the realm of awesome/great.
Anyone can do it from a kid gaining victory over a bully at school, to an employee getting a promotion, to a criminal getting away with a crime, to a business owner growing an international business, to a prime minister being elected into power or for a minority terrorist group to cause great fear and terror around the world.
Greatness doesn’t discriminate, it works in all areas of human existence for all people, regardless of age, gender, wealth, status, intelligence, faith, race or anything else you can think of.
It also doesn’t discriminate on what can be great, be it good or bad, loving or evil, involving or isolating, creating or destructive, peaceful or violent, small or big.
All of these are, of course subjective to the perceiver and can and will be interpreted in so many different ways. It is not important going into that here.
What is important is to understand how Greatness is created. It’s a bit like a kid pulling apart a toy to see how it works.
Once they know how it works they can then put it back together and play confidently with the toy as they will know what to do if something happens and the toy breaks. So, greatness can be built or destroyed over time if you know how it works.
SO how is GREATNESS created???
There Are 4 Elements A Person, Leader, Business Or Country Needs To Create GREATNESS When You Follow The Principles Of The Greatness Principle
VISION
Is critical to creating greatness. We’ve all heard it before, yet how many of us really truly BELIEVE in creating the vision we really truly want?
Yes, we all want things, stuff, results, yet how many of us want something we’d die for or at least invest everything we had into, denied ourselves sleep or rest to have the VISION become real?
Anyone that has ever achieved GREATNESS had a vision in their mind as to what they wanted, focused on it completely and dismissed anything and everyone that wasn’t aligned with the vision and kept moving.
Now on the not so nice side of greatness, if people didn’t agree with your vision, they’d be kill, imprison or exiled. On the nicer side, those same people would be ignored, demoted, transferred, divorced, or not ‘been friends’ with anymore.
Visions that are compelling pull us forward, they anchor and cause our choices and decisions to be made. Visions inspire us and others around us to create the vision even more.
Personal Awareness
When you know yourself, you react less. When you react less you have less drama. When you have less drama, you have the ability to do and create more, you don’t have as much distraction and, most importantly, you are less emotional and more balanced.
Great Leaders know who they are, who they are not, as well as where they are strong, average and weak. They know how to manage their weaknesses and maximise their strengths.
If you are going to create GREATNESS you’ve got to get real with yourself as to who you are and what you offer.
You can definitely create greatness if you are not very smart, have a disability, are too emotional or anxious, are short, young, old, female, male… you get the picture. You’ve got to be real about who you are and what you are capable of.
My advice is, take the time to notice and learn. Read extensively on any topic that excites you and become an expert in your areas of interest and also become an expert of yourself.
When you are certain about who you are and your abilities and limitations, you can claim a lot of power and influence over others because most have never taken the time to work this out for themselves.
Consistent Character
Character is the sum of the little things you do on a consistent basis that define and shape you. I believe your character is a reflection of your discipline in any given area of your life.
So, if you want to create Greatness, you must be being consistent in your choices, actions, behaviour, reactions and overall way of being in the world.
If you are not consistent in your character, you won’t be able to attract and most importantly keep a support team around you because you will be inconsistent, confusing, and even perceived as irrational by your followers and supporters.
Your moral code (way of living on the earth and relating to others) must be clear and consistently practiced by you every day in every way.
So as an example of a child triumphing over a bully at school, the strategy the child takes to deflect the oncoming verbal assaults by saying “So what?” in an indifferent voice to the bully is critical.
To achieve freedom from the bully, the child must continue to say “So what?” in the same way, without showing any reaction until the bully gets bored. The child cannot crumble and cry after the second mean thing the bully says or the quest for the great triumph is lost.
It may take the child 30 minutes, 3 hours or 3 days of consistent behaviour to realise the result. Similarly, an employee receiving a great promotion may have achieved the great result by putting in 2 years of consistently seizing opportunities.
To go outside the box of their job description and demonstrate capability. When you are consistent in your behaviour, actions, words and deeds, all sorts of people notice and their behaviour changes.
Consistency comes from an extended period of time not just in the moment decisions. When you are consistent you command authority.
4. Support Team
No-one ever becomes great and stays great all by themselves!” I say that all the time in my keynotes speeches and working one-on-one with clients all over the world because it’s true. Your vision is needed to engage your team of supporters and followers.
Your personal awareness and vibrancy attracts them to you. Your character holds your support team like glue to you and your vision and it also has your supporters and followers adopt some or all of your beliefs, philosophies, actions and behaviours depending on how focussed and committed you are to your vision.
The key to your support team though is that it’s not just a group of enthusiasts thinking you’re great and your vision is very exciting. In all the work I have done with over 1100 leaders is that real, sustainable greatness comes from the leader being vulnerable and humble enough to choose 8 different people with different supporting styles to assist the leader in his/her decision making.
This Great8® team have all bought into the vision and therefore provides the leader with robust and relevant feedback to the leader in the form of: insight, enthusiasm, perspective, scepticism, wisdom, encouragement, ideas and incentive.
This in turn enhances the leader’s decision making capacity by a factor of 8 and it also enables the leader to keep consistent character, learn and grow personally as they navigate changes and challenges as well as gain momentum to realise the vision.
This Great8® support team is more than just the 5 closest people you have around you or your board of advisors. It’s a living breathing life force (interactive structure) that everyone can create for themselves and any vision or project wanting to be undertaken.
The more the momentum, the deeper the Great8® commit to seeing it happen, the more the vision becomes real, which in turn creates the initiator of the vision to commit, take action and get the results to fulfil the vision.
So if you want to create something great, the 4 key points listed in this article will see that you get there. My advice to you though… choose your vision wisely and learn how to navigate life’s natural way of taking people out of your Great8® support structure.
That is what I teach & support leaders with in my workshops and coaching. Also, if you see a great vision being implemented that is not so great for your family, your school, your business, your community or humanity, then you now have insight on how to change it, and have an impact on it.
Many times we all feel helpless, too small, with not enough power to make a difference to the things we see in our personal lives or world we do not want or like. You have the power to create greatness way and above the negative forces you may be experiencing, you really do. If you’re not sure, ask me how.
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Jen Harwood – Community Builder
