I Feel Like an ASU Graduate: Barack Obama was Talking to Me

I'm not a member of the ASU graduating class of 2009, but tonight President Barack Obama made me feel like I was. Not that I've been resting on my laurels, as he warned about repeatedly throughout the commencement address. On the contrary, since I graduated from ASU in 1994 (Arkansas State, that is), I've been busting my you-know-what building that body of work Obama cautions that none of us can afford to ignore.

Granted, I'm not making my living doing what I love, but I'm loving striving for the dream that will make my living in the future. So many people I know give up on that that -- their dreams I mean; that passion that Obama mentioned numerous times tonight. So many people lose that dream and, in the process, they lose themselves. Beyond that though, they lose an opportunity to contribute to the world in the way the universe intended.

Our interests, our talents are not "asides" in our lives meant to be treated as hobbies or delusions of grandeur. On the contrary, what means the most to us when we're young -- when we're most often asked "what do you want to be when you grow up?" -- the answer that comes from the deepest, most honest place inside ourselves is the reason we are are here on this earth (at least this time around).

Once you're doing what you're meant to be doing, that's when money and "success" will come.

That's not my revelation but something I read in one of Deepak Chopra's books I believe. Though tonight Barack Obama delivered a similar message that in all my 36 years I have never considered before:

"Find someone to be successful for."

Whatever your dream, whatever your talent and however long it's been since you took these gifts seriously, find someone in the world for whom your body of work can inspire theirs.

Click this link to watch and read Obama's ASU commencement address to the graduating class of 2009.

Photo Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/89934978@N00/2578340406

Leading with Effortless Ease: What Kind of "Cheer" Leader are You?

"Success is the ability to fulfill your desires with effortless ease. And yet success, including the creation of wealth, has always been considered to be at the expense of others. We need a more spiritual approach to success and to affluence, which is the abundant flow of all good things to you." ~The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success, Deepak Chopra

In my experience, the hearder you try to lead others, the less likely they're going to follow.

One of my first leadership roles was as head cheerleader my senior year of high school. I had just moved there a few months earlier. It was a small school that hadn't had a cheerleading program the year before. Though a few of them had cheering experience, most had no experience and it showed. It frustrated me -- a "veteran" cheerleader from a big school where cheerleading was a way of life and you had to be exceptional to make it on the squad. So that's the same expectation I brought to my new squad, and it failed miserably.

Instead of leading, I dictated -- micro-managing our practices and performances. Trying to fulfill my own desires for the perfect cheerleading squad was anything but effortless, as Deepak Chopra suggests success should be. What's worse about the way I behaved was that it was at the expense of others. I was disprespecting them and they, in turn, disrespected me. It all came to a head one night before a big game.

We were in the locker room going over our halftime show one last time except nobody but me seemed to be taking it seriously. I lost my cool, which I already had in short supply, and found myself screaming at the top of my lungs for them to listen. I don't remember my exact words, but I have a feeling I said something about how much we sucked, just as any good tyrannical head cheerleader would do.

There I was a "cheer" leader whose job it was to inspire the best in our team and I did nothing but bring my fellow cheerleaders down. In hindsight I should have fun with it, inspiring them to be their best, not mine.

Bottom line, it's the job of any good leader to keep the team focused on the end goal while allowing each team member the freedom to get there via their own unique process and pace.

Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/daveynin/3238081780/