Manila, 6 April 2022 — What will war trigger you to do?

Story

It happened this week. A friend wrote me and asked “what are your thoughts on the Ukraine war?” A big question, so I asked him to elaborate. He then explained that he felt strongly about the war, and that it had made him stop doing his daily routine activities to investigate what is going on in closer detail. “The war makes us all stop in our tracks and wonder what went wrong,” he wrote. 

Yes, for many of us, including me, this war breaking out stopped us in our tracks. I remember sharing in The Leaders Journey how we can be triggered by a wake-up call. And this war certainly has been a wake-up call for me, as it has been for people in many countries around the world. The question is, a wake-up call to what? Perhaps that is what my friend’s question was about.  And that’s why I took time to reflect before I replied. 

What I did to reflect, being true to the habit I have built, was to look at his question by scanning with the lens of the Three Worlds Model, seeking to expand my awareness by doing that. I reflected on the flood of information that comes in every day from the news channels, in my Observed World.  And what the information has triggered in me to think and feel in my Personal World where my values, experiences, and aspirations live. And, finally, how it has affected me in my Social World of communicating and collaborating with other people. 

Challenge

One of my core values in life is to practice being integrally informed in my awareness at any time. With integral, I mean comprehensive, whole, and balanced. That’s where the Three Worlds Model helps me as a tool for awareness. Scanning what goes on — what arises — inside me, in my relating with people around me, and in the wider world, has become close to second nature after years of practice. In my experience, acting from an expanded self-awareness is a critical leadership behavior that we should practice every day. Including when we are triggered by significant events.

With reflection, we can learn to see that everything in life, in our reality, will arise simultaneously in our three worlds: personal, social, and observed. You can scan what arises in all three, in any order. That means your view and understanding can be more comprehensive and whole, not missing out on any critical perspectives. By doing this with an alert and discerning mind, you can also take care to balance how you inhabit each of your three worlds. This is not easy. If, for example, you allow yourself to spend most of your time (and emotions) in your Observed World to digest the incessant flow of hard-hitting news about the war in Ukraine, you can easily become overwhelmed and out of balance.

What inspires me is to see and hear how many people have taken the war as a wake-up call to spend some precious time in the sanctuary of their Personal World to review their values in life and rethink what is most important to them. And it’s utterly heartwarming to see so many people in countries around the world making the war a wake-up call for coming together to express their views collectively in the Social World and reach out to help the many people who are now in need. When we practice our integral awareness, we can balance better how to spend our time, attention, and effort in each of our three worlds. 

Question

In conclusion, I am grateful to my friend for asking me about my thoughts on the Ukraine war. From our exchange, I could sense that this unexpected crisis has triggered both of us to spend time in our Personal World to review our values, and to reach out in our Social World to others to explore this collectively.  

As for my answer to him, I focused on what I can do where I am, together with like-minded people, to accelerate positive change in the world. I shared with my friend that the war has triggered in me a commitment to double down on growing leaders who can influence the positive changes that we need for our world to become a place of more understanding, collaboration, and sustainability. War and peace are both decided by people, and we need more leaders at all levels who can build peace and shared prosperity.

My question for you this week is what you are committed to doing on The Leaders Journey? If you, like me, feel triggered by the war in Ukraine, the climate crisis, and other major challenges we are facing, then how does that get reflected in what you commit to as a leader? To answer, I invite you to do an integral scan of your Three Worlds so that you can answer and act from an expanded self-awareness. Let me know if you have any questions about this.