I’m a bit embarrassed to share this with you — during my junior year in high school, I received a D in English class. Recently I logged into Facebook to post about “Leadership Dubai Style” becoming an Amazon best-seller and I saw a post by my high school English teacher.
I laughed hysterically at the irony of seeing Ms Witmer — whom it’s safe to say wasn’t my favourite teacher—pop up at the moment when I was posting about my writing success. I guess my English ability is a little better these days.
“I wonder she’ll think about this” I queried in my mind. Then I questioned “What would’ve happened if I allowed my past to shape my future?”.
I certainly wouldn’t have become an author. I’m not sure if I deserved the D because of my limited ability or lack of interest, but either way, it was my weakest class in school. It wasn’t until years later and lots of hard work that I began to grasp the subject.
When it comes to your identity — how you see yourself, you have a choice. You can allow your past and others to shape it or you can create it. I’m glad that I didn’t let my future be defined by my past.
To understand leadership identity, draw a simple two-by-two grid while labelling the left side of the x-axis as others and the right side as self. Then label the bottom of the y-axis as past and the top as future.
The lower right hand square is your remembered identity where you and your past collide. Because you remember events in your life they help form your sense of self, for better or worse. For sure, past events leave an impact, but you need to erase those moments if they are limiting you from achieving in the future.
Had I dwelled on my D in English class, my whole life I would’ve assumed that I couldn’t write.
In the lower-left-hand corner is your reflected identity, which is where other people remind you of specific events in your past. Remember when you got that D in English class? When people remind you of your past, it reinforces that picture in your mind, again for better or worse.
If you allow your past to define you, it can easily become a destabiliser to what you achieve in the future.
Marshall Goldsmith wrote in Mojo, “Successful people, with robust senses of self-worth, tend to mine their past for the shiny diamonds, not the lumps of coal. They do this, in part, out of self-protection. After all, who in their right mind would gorge on painful or embarrassing episodes from his or her past, let alone allow these episodes to define his or her identity?
“The trouble is, the further you go back into your past, the greater the chances that your past identity doesn’t match up with who you are today.”
Your programmed identity is the result of other people sending messages about who you are or will become in the future. Intending well, they have ideas based upon what they observe in you and say, “You should do…”. You’ve done this to others and you’ve received this feedback as well. The danger is your putting your identity in the control of others’ opinions.
While coaching, I emphasise the need to spend time where you and the future meet, in the upper-right hand quadrant, which is created identity. This is the identity that you decide to create for yourself. It’s not controlled by the past or defined by what others think. It’s your identity.
I moved from a remembered identity — getting a D in English class — to become a recognised author — a created identity — through focused, hard work. Actually, it was really tough. The first book I wrote was a flop, not because of the idea behind the content, but my writing wasn’t at the level it needed to be. This failure reinforced the remembered identity from my sub-par performance in English class.
But, I wasn’t about to let my future be defined by my past, so I kept working at it until I created the identity I wanted. And you can also.
The most successful leaders that I work with have created their own identities to become the leaders that they chose to be — without being slaves to the past or limited by what other people think.
Don’t let your past define your future. Create it!
The writer is a CEO coach and author of “Leadership Dubai Style”. Contact him at tsw@tommyweir.com
