Overcoming a Leadership Identity Crisis

Life is a rollercoaster.  The way to enjoy the ride is to keep dreaming with your eyes focused on the path ahead: each dip, climb, twist, and turn.

Combine Demolition Derby is a popular event in many midwestern and western states.

The Combines, the name for the large harvesting machinery, are modified to include just the main body of the machine. Drivers then race around a figure 8 track, trying to both hit and miss other racers.  The winner is the Combine, who is still driving at the end.

To me, this is like the rollercoaster of life.

We seemingly race around a figure 8 track of life, coming to these ‘Identity Crisis Intersections.’

These places that Graham Cochrane identified as the places where we can choose to conform or dream again.

We can follow the path determined by others, act like the leaders who have come before us, or be the leader only we can be.

As Graham, who spoke at the Impact Driven Leader Summit this past summer, shared in our conversation, we all have these identify crisis intersections.  The moments when our current identity comes to a crossroads.  A place where life and circumstance demand that we go forward.

The risk in the Figure 8 track is the traffic coming from the left or right and behind you.

The Real Danger

The real danger is choosing not to get on the ride or enter the race. We can tell ourselves that the sidelines or the waiting area are the safest and easiest places to be, but unfortunately, that isn’t an option.

We live an amusement park life where we choose which adventure to partake in by surveying the line, the screams from riders, or the looks of those who just got off the ride.  Are they drenched like those from Splash Mountain or clamoring with their friends and families to go on the ride again?

Our amusement park is our dreams—the place where our greatest aspirations are contrived and created.

But just like our days at Disney World or Six Flags, the weather can turn, and what was once a bright sunny summer day turns into a deluge of rain, wind, and lightning.

Our Dream Has Died

In his book Rebel and his coinciding keynote at IDL Summit 2024, Graham shared the Fulfillment Formula.  Success - Satisfaction - Service, which together yields Joy - Impact - Mastery.  Our Uniqueness fuels the formula: the specific and genuine to us skills, dreams, and attributes we have that led us to do what we do.

But what happens when you get laid off?  The industry changes?  The skills you had are no longer usable or applicable in the marketplace.  Our Dream Dies.

It's like the first big drop on a roller coaster ride: the climb up, the moment of hesitation at the top, the fall…

I've been there, Graham offered he's there again.  He found international success through a brand called the Recording Revolution.  Offering advice and guidance for people looking to create and record audio via a YouTube channel.

But then he came to an intersection.  That place where the large machine of his current career met the crossroads of a passion to help others in a new and different way.

The Fulfillment Cycle

I reflected and connected my Fulfillment Cycle to complement Graham's Fulfillment Formula.  It's an idea I came up with 7 or 8 years ago.  To capture my own experiences in life and business.  Fulfillment →Frustration/Confusion → Fulfillment

Frustration and confusion happen when our dream dies.  We leave the happy world of fulfillment, and through the off-ramp of distraction or the accident of unmet expectations, we hit frustration and confusion.

It’s happened to me—several times.  So much so that I realize it's the ride.  The rollercoaster of life is a corkscrew.

We ultimately go round and round.  Sometimes, we go higher; sometimes, we fall and go lower, but we will come back again.  Often facing similar challenges.

We must stay on the roller coaster when we face confusion and frustration.  The only way to proceed in life is to stay on the ride.  To suit up and drive.

Don’t Drive Alone

Graham in Rebel offers the roadmap or R - Resolve to Dream Again, E - Establish the outcomes you want in life, B - Break negative thoughts, habits, and patterns, E - Engage in rebellious new thoughts, L - Let go of outcomes and others opinions.

This pathway is the track that the roller coaster we create rides.  We choose the speed at which we go through each turn.  We determine how fast we drive our Combine into the intersections.

We may not know exactly how and when the corkscrew will turn, but we determine how we respond to the off-ramps of distraction and the pile-ups of unmet expectations.

When we come to the Identity Crisis Intersections of life, the moments when our fulfillment cycle hits frustration or confusion, we must decide to conform or dream again.

But we don't have to do it alone.  We can't proceed if we do it all alone.  There are times and places when we need to work on our own, but trying to do it alone is a recipe for disaster.

I believe in it so much that I created a community of people, the Roundtable, to provide this level of support for others.

The Roundtable

I want to offer you the same opportunity. The Roundtable is the signature offering of the Impact Driven Leader Community.

This group meets weekly from February through November via Zoom. In the first year, we focus on the Awaken the Leader Within course, where we identify how to Awaken, Grow, and Lead.

Applications to join for 2025 are now open.

Lastly, Roundtable members get a free VIP ticket to the Impact Summit.

Did you catch this podcast? If not, listen to it here.