Inspired

I love to be inspired. There are few people in this world who inspire me. Those that do will know I hold them in high regard. These are the people I admire as leaders and from who I honestly accept their advice. These people carry similar traits, successful coaches and leaders all carry similar traits. For me these traits are;

Honesty - It's inspiring to hear people who are in leadership positions being honest. Honesty is hard to come by these days.

Open minded - Without an open mind a person is going no where. When you hear someone in a leadership position with vast experience in their field take on board a point you've made and then say I'm going to incorporate that straight away, that is inspiring. Not the fact that they simply agree, but the fact that they hold an open mind to others is the inspiring part.

Integrity - The bed rock for successful leaders.

These are just some of the things we covered today, day 3 of a special course I'm on. The course which is run by the Irish Times and delivered by two professors from the University of Ulster and Trinity college is in itself, inspiring.

The list we made of examples of leaders that inspired us was a bit longer than that, none the less all the points raised on it were very relevant. It allowed me as a person to establish with scientific fact that people whom I may have thought were good leaders were in fact very poor leaders and the people whom I thought were weak were in fact very strong. Good leaders are recognisable by their achievements, but most importantly a good leader will have a high level of emotional intelligence or in other words good people skills.

I'm happy to realise now that I have these people around me. I'm a person that needs inspiration from time to time, other wise I can fall into a rut.

I've learned a lot about my own personality this last week also. Apparently I'm an introvert! Well I knew that. I like my own company. Nothing like silence and a good book, I don't like parties and I think socialising for the sake of it is a waste of time unless it's with one person with whom I share the same interests or similar open minded people, at least this form of socialising allows you to come away with a new point of view or knowledge gained. You don't need something to be 'alive inside' to enjoy this.

I'm also someone that acts on intuition, that gut feeling that has guided me up to now, I trust my instincts, I've learned some valuable lessons in the past about ignoring my gut, I'll try not to let that happen again. I don't like to humour people either, your mood won't effect how I react to you.
I also like to be thanked, so thanks to me!

It's amazing what you can find out about yourself when you have the right circumstances and guidance. Day 4 tomorrow and then two more days in March. I'm thankful for the opportunity to be inspired this week.