Manila, 8 June 2022 — What leaders do is to keep walking.

Story

It happened last weekend. Ian Shimizu, an environmentalist and educator in Japan, shared his personal story with the participants at the start of the One Million Leaders Asia (OMLAS) summit convened by Nelis, the Next Leaders’ Initiative for Sustainability. Ian is part of my daughter’s generation of sustainability leaders, and the inspiration I felt from his story matches how I feel about my daughter’s examples of leading the way. With his story, Ian set the tone for two days of intensive discussions about creating a next-generation vision for leadership in Asia together with a fellowship program where emerging leaders can show how to do it. It felt good to see so many emerging leaders invest six hours of their precious weekend into the experience.

Born in 1992, Ian has been active in the environmental field since his time at university. He helped found the Japan division of 350.org and in 2020 founded weMORI.org, a nonprofit that works to protect and restore forests around the world. Mori means forest in Japanese, and the weMORI app he created helps corporations, organizations, and individuals around the world in joining hands to support innovative forest projects. Ian also founded the Spiral Club, where people think about the environment together in a community. A recent discussion, for example, started off with the question "Are we being good ancestors?" Has anyone asked you that question before?

In his personal story at the summit, Ian drew his audience of emerging leaders into focusing on things that really matter. While acknowledging that they might at times feel scattered, overwhelmed, and confused by a multitude of issues, challenges, and doubts in their life, he cut right through that with his message. First among my three takeaways from Ian’s story was his existential question “What do I want to live for?” With that, he prompted each of us to consider what positive impact we want to generate in our life. In his case, he explained, it’s about protecting and restoring forests. Once we had answered that deep question, what came next were some challenges on the journey.

Challenge

Before diving into Ian’s challenges for the journey, let’s zoom out for a moment. We have regularly explored the leader’s journey in this space. Respecting that we all have our own reason for embarking on the journey, we have described it as a Pilgrimage, covering how to prepare (10%), practice (70%), and learn from and collab-orate with fellow travelers (20%). We discovered that you don’t know how it will work out until you find out by doing, by entering into the daily practice, using the metaphor of walking.

We also tapped the wisdom of Rumi, the Persian poet and mystic, to see the journey as an Invisible Game of growing up. Walking the leader’s journey means expanding your self-awareness, little by little. To accelerate your growth, we explored the three challenges to Climb Up, to Clear Up, and to Clean Up. Leaders in transition will work on these challenges with their coach, in a way that is tailored to their unique situation and need.

So what about Ian’s challenges on the journey? He mentioned three. First, just like we highlighted above, he said that there is no way of knowing everything in advance, so learn by doing and you won’t regret it. You will only get results, he said, if you Leap In. I liked that powerful phrase. Second, focus on your purpose. In my work with leaders, focusing is one of the 12 leadership behaviors we practice in the Grow3Leaders Challenge. So I also agreed with Ian on focus. Third, he said, is grit. For Ian, it’s the number one skill to develop. “Always iterate, never stop,” is his advice. That reminded me of Prof Rosabeth Moss Kanter’s fifth key to leading positive change: Never Give Up. It resonated with me. As problems happen and your goal seems far away, just keep walking on your journey: every day, every week. You will get closer to your goal. 

Question

For our question this week, why not use the one that Ian Shimizu asked himself? Ask yourself “What do I want to live for?” and answer that question. You might feel that you’re still finding out, that you are confused, that there are many things you would like to achieve, and that making a single statement is unreasonable. Yes, I agree, it requires courage to answer it.  

So let me ask you again “What do you want to live for?” And as you decide to answer it, listen to your inner guide, who knows the answer. Then write it down. And say it out loud. You might be surprised. As Ian would suggest, keep it simple and direct, a purpose you want to live for. Thanks, Ian, for inspiring us this week!

Now that you have answered the question, you can start walking or keep walking on The Leader’s Journey. With a purpose. It will be your journey from now on like it is for Ian Shimizu and the many others who self-identify as leaders, yours truly included. Care to share your purpose? I would love to hear, so reach out and let me know. Book a free strategy session to discuss the challenges you want to overcome on your journey. Become a Leader in Transition who starts walking and gets to the next milestone on your journey.

P.S. If your age is below 40, check out OMLAS and its Fellowship program.