Write Your Own Script

Write your own script

My career has been filled with a cascading series of rejections of the old script. In fact, it started at an early age when I was in high school.

I was being groomed by my uncle to eventually run the family business. But when my uncle put my crazy aunt in charge of my daily activities, I knew right away that this was never going to work.

I quit and ran away as far as I could at the time. I joined the US Navy nuclear submarine service and never looked back.

I could now recite a litany of dozens of rejections of the old script that occurred over the next four decades of my career.

But eventually, I figured it out.

As I wrote in my recent article in the Cutter Amplify journal, "we have been unknowingly conditioned by our parents, schools, society, and the media on how to think, live, and work in a world that no longer exists."

In her new book, Flux: 8 Superpowers for Thriving in Constant Change, author April Rinne brilliantly helps us see the challenge more clearly.

"For many people, your script tells you to work hard and stay the course—whatever that “course” may be. It probably tells you to get good grades, go to a prestigious university, and get hired by a prestigious company."

Does this script sound familiar?

"This script probably also teaches you that more is better, vulnerability is a sign of weakness, and the fastest person wins—so you should run fast. It may teach you to go where everyone else is—you need to fit in!—and that no one (other than perhaps blood family) can really be trusted."

And perhaps most importantly:

"Perhaps you’ve tried to consult your inner voice about this, but your script drowned that out. In fact, for this script to work, your inner voice must be silent."

There's a lot more in the book, and I highly recommend it. I had a riveting conversation with April, and I'm looking forward to sharing more in the future.

Are you listening?

You might say that my work at Space Beyond Boundaries has been all about recognizing and strengthening the ability to listen to our inner voice.

18 months ago when I looked across all the writing, ideas, and practices that now dominated my life and work, six key areas of opening up and strengthening our ability to listen within emerged:

FORWARD THINKING

Forward-thinking involves thinking, planning, and actions that consider the future as well as the present. In today’s fast-changing world, the future is already here. We need to look beyond traditional ways of living and working based on Industrial Age thinking and practices.

CONSCIOUS/SELF-LEADERSHIP

Traditional forms of leadership are grounded in command and control and in doing the things that good leaders do. Insight for leadership resides not only in the “other” but is accessible to everyone through newly honed sensibilities of looking and listening within.

INNER AWARENESS & INTUITION

By enhancing our ability to look and listen within, we access greater awareness and creative power to shape our world and be a force for good. If you don’t know what awareness is and how to use it, then awareness is random. When directed, the ordinary becomes extraordinary.

THE INNER LEADER JOURNEY

The inner-leader journey is a personal journey where there is no path. It’s impossible to write about the inner leader’s journey without mentioning your own story. By sharing my journey, I hope to inspire more people to travel the path I believe we all must travel in the 21st century.

QUESTIONS, LISTENING & DIALOGUE

We can learn how to ask new questions that harness our more powerful intuition, helping us discover surprising new answers. In dialogue, we move beyond discussion and championing our point of view to listening more deeply for breakthrough vision and action.

UNDERSTAND HOW THE MIND WORKS

A new understanding of how the mind works from the inside out is based on the principles of mind, consciousness, and thought. With this new understanding, we realize our experiences and feelings are created by our own thoughts, not our circumstances.

Writing a new script

I believe:

If you are a human, you are a leader.

And a leader you must be if you want to write a new script and thrive in the world we live in today.

You can fit in and continue to thrive quite nicely following the old script, but eventually, it will catch up with you.

The shiny new job title that impresses your family, friends, and colleagues usually falls short of your early expectations. The competition to get to the next higher level can leave you and your colleagues questioning your humanity.

It's time to write your own script.

— Bill