Hello beautiful people!
Let’s give back.
Coming from a place of service makes us attractive to higher-tier mentors who ALSO come from a place of service. They’re always looking to help good people get ahead too! So this investment not only creates a whole lot of love in the world (nothin’ wrong with THAT) but also connects us more deeply to those in our worlds (or even at the periphery at first) who are attracted to exactly this sort of leadership.
Case in point: When I was a kid actor in Atlanta, one of the many places I got my craft on was with the Atlanta Workshop Players. After having spent several years training there, I went back over the years as a young adult actor in Atlanta to work as a camp counselor in their summer workshops, a guest of their ongoing classes, and a judge of their fun “mock audition” challenges. The artistic director of this studio is Lynn Ellis-Stallings. Since I’ve left my acting life behind, Lynn has continued to invite me back to AWP — and she’s had me in as a guest when she has brought some of her students to LA — as a guest speaker, instructor, and mentor to the kids coming up in her program.
In 2016, she invited me to come back to the studio’s 35th anniversary and give a speech about my leadership in the industry and of course my beginnings with AWP. I found myself — mid-speech — changing course on what I had intended to say to focus instead on how I was (just at the second I was saying it) realizing that my time spent at AWP working on my craft, my relationships in the industry, and my work ethic for the long haul was less about all of that and more about me learning how to become a version of Lynn.
See, Lynn’s mission is about finding the joy in everything, every day. Sure, she wants to help others live their dreams. Sure, she wants to help creatives succeed at every goal they set out for themselves. But she wants happy humans out in the world, bottom line. And I do too. And as I talked about the impact Lynn’s work had (and continues to have) on my work, I realized that her leadership helped inform my leadership… and it wasn’t because she set out to turn me (or anyone else) into a leader.
Her tweet letting me know that I have become a lighthouse TO HER blew me away. But that’s when I realized fully that lighthouses love lighthouses. Leaders love leaders. It’s only those people who play small, who hoard resources, who prey upon competition and fear rather than those who thrive on collaboration and in celebration for one another that don’t.
So when you feel yourself getting pushback for how brightly you let your light shine, ask yourself if you’re receiving that pushback from someone who is also a lighthouse, from someone who is finding much-needed guidance from your light, or from someone who wants to chop your lighthouse down because of their own insecurities about the source, the strength, or even the existence of their own light. From that analysis, you know what to do next, right?
Today’s work: Revisit your leadership list from Day 2. See if you can identify more parallels than you maybe did at first when it comes to evidence of your leadership and the leadership of those you’ve found inspiring along the way. Add more to your “how I’ve led” list based on how you’ve been living in recent weeks. Take a look at where you’ve already been a lighthouse, even if you’ve been inconsistent in what you’ve put out into the world and commit to getting more consistent with what you’re sharing and how you’re living “on purpose.” Be the lighthouse as much as possible so you’re inspiring others in ways you may never have dreamed. Live your life as the shining example of amazingness you know exists at the next tier. Donate books to your alma mater, answer the questions of newbie actors who are struggling to figure out where to begin, volunteer to teach playwriting to kids in an after-school program, mentor someone, give back! Because no matter where you are in this business or in this life, someone wishes they were where you are and that means you’ve got a lot more hope to give than you may have ever thought possible. Further, someone ahead of you is watching how you lead and making notes about whether you’re someone they’d like to have on their team someday.
Stay inspired so you can stay inspiring! (Tweet it.)
’til tomorrow… stay ninja!
