Someonme Else's Shadow

11:10 am 17/02/2009

For many years and for many of us we tend to look at someone outside of ourselves may be to follow or to try and please.

For me, over the years, too many times I have looked for someone else to walk in their shadow, to experience some of their success. I’ve always seen myself - and it has often been to my demise - as a supporter and never considered being my own leader.

In my experience, in life we always look for someone to be our lighting guide. We look for someone to motivate us. We look for someone who would or by whom we would define our purpose in life, our existence. We look for people and events that might trigger something in our lives to make our lives more meaningful and more compelling and hope to be more rewarding. As young kids we look at our parents, as adults we look for political leaders for the salvation of our nation, we look at our religious or spiritual leaders for personal salvation. We look outside of ourselves, we look through our window of life for our heroes but all we find is their shadow, a silhouette of who they really are….

Once we found a shadow, we walk besides it hoping for the shadow to lift us up and deliver our destiny and our dreams for us. We wait in the background with hope and admiration wishing that someday, one of these days, the shadow will pay much needed attention, to lift us to their higher level, to a higher order in life. We see them and look at them as giants and heroes with super human powers, yet when we get closer we see their reality being as big and magnificent as we are ourselves. We look hard into their eyes to see at what level they really are... to our surprise notice them to be at the same level as where we are. We ascend to their level? They descend to ours? it doesn't really matter. We’ve always been at their level but were walking in their shadow.

In business, we often look for those people, we try to find those that we can walk in their shadow. We look for their leadership skills aiming at walking in their shadow. We seek their approval, we develop the skills they need us to develop in order to serve their need and make their shadow overshadowing on us. We look smaller in their shadow and we dwindle away with time. We are supportive of their leadership! "After all aren’t we?" We reason that by growing their shadow we are bound to be noticed by them, not realizing that as their shadow grows, we are shrinking in size from their perspective, as they overshadow us.

So, next time my friends and before you decide to walk in someone else's shadow, why not stop for a moment and look around, you might surprise yourself with what you might see. You might see someone else trying to walk in your shadow. He could be your son, or she could be your daughter, they could be your friend or even your boss, and perhaps your neighbor. Just open your eyes and look around, you might see that your shadow has dwarfed many other shadows even those that you thought you have been walking in their shadow. You might also notice, if you opened your eyes real wide and looked with your mind, that those that you have been walking in their shadow have also been walking in your shadow.

Ask yourself this question, “why not create my own shadow?” so that those that need shelter can find a comforting shadow to walk under.

You are capable of casting a shadow as vast as the universe and you can enrich the lives of people all around you, and beyond. Walk in your own shadow and let your shadow cast a light of hope for all those souls that need to be enlightened.

Joseph Warda
Active Business Coach
Coach, Train, Facilitate, and Grow!
joseph.warda@activebusinesscoach.com
Active Business Coach
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