Reflection is what links our performance to our potential.
I recently had a discussion on self mastery with a leadership coach and professor. To make me understand the relativity of reflection to leadership, she told me about a story of a ball. She said that during a ball, at a castle, a King was looking to appoint an advisor.
There were several men in the kingdom which were there and they all were highly recommended. So the King held a ball so he could see these men in a social setting in order to get a sense of who they were and what they were really like.
During the course if the evening, the King went to the dance floor and joined his guests. He spent quite a lot of time there, entertaining and taking part in the various dances. In all this time he realised that he was tired and had spent so much time being the star of the dance floor that he had not given thought to the real reason he held the ball.
Upon this realisation, he immediately went to the balcony. He found that at the balcony he had time to himself, where he could think through what it was that he really wanted in a trusted advisor as well as which of the men on the dance floor below exhibited such characteristics. Suddenly, his understanding of what was happening below changed. He got to see so much more than what he did at the dance floor.
The professor then said that as a leader in any organisation, one needs to ensure they spend more time on the balcony than on the dance floor. This, she said is what reflection allows one to do. It is the process of properly unpacking ourselves as leaders for the good of others.
It is also an extremely necessary activity for an entrepreneur, one would recommend that thinking time of at least half a day in each week, perhaps at the end of the week will do wonders. It allows you to learn lessons and record them soon after they happen this process allows one to internalise these lessons and in so doing, the thinking around certain things changes.
As mentioned before, your business is as big as your vision of it. The more time you spend here, the better for the long term growth of your business.
Go on, reflect!
