Be Brilliant

How to Lead a Life of Influence

Janine Garner

• Publisher: Wiley
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN:
  9780730383765
• eBook ISBN:
  9780730383789
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Personal Development
• Subtopic: Personal Success

Slow down, own who you really are and unleash your inner brilliance.

You already have everything you need to become truly brilliant — to lead a successful, fulfilling life — even though it doesn't always feel like it. When everything external to us is moving so quickly, we feel out of control and exhausted; we worry about what we don't have or what we need more of; we seek solutions to band-aid our perceived imperfections and doubts. Crowded calendars and unending demands at home and work give us little time to look internally — though it is within each of us where the answers can be found.

At a time when we suffer from unprecedented stress, comparison-it is and self-doubt, author Janine Garner asks us to slow down and turn our focus inward. She challenges you to take ownership of who you are and who you want to become, to rise above limitations, and unleash your brilliance within.

Learn the 4 Laws of Brilliance and explore how to:

• discover and own your spotlight
• harness your natural energy
• connect and collaborate with intent
• enhance and magnify your influence

Be Brilliant helps you get out of your own way and unlock your true potential.

Law 1: Be You
Own your spotlight

Own all the facets that make you, you. Become positioned and known for all you are and all you do. Your consistency, passion and conviction in yourself become infectious. And as others see the real you, the multiplier effect of your impact kicks in.

When my children Flynn, Taya and Carter were seven, five and three respectively, both my husband and I were working full-time. The morning pre-work juggle was insane as we rushed around trying to drop the children at before-school care and day care, leaving just enough time to get to work. If any of the kids were sick then all hell would break loose as we negotiated with each other who had the most to lose that day, who could stay home and care for said child … and God help us if the sickness passed from one to the other …

I remember one particular evening sitting down to have dinner as a family and during the ‘How was your day?' conversation Taya asked me, ‘Mummy, why are you always so busy?'

‘Well,' I said. ‘I've worked hard to get through school and university, I have a degree, I've built my career so that we have money to buy what we want — your toys and clothes — so that we can enjoy holidays'.

She continued, ‘But Mummy, why are you so unhappy?'

Boom! It was a stake to my heart. That moment I realised my five year old was right.

I was existing, operating and doing a lot of stuff — but I wasn't living and leading in the way I wanted to live and lead, and I certainly wasn't demonstrating to my children how to live and lead a brilliant life.

What message was I was sending to my daughter? Mummy works so hard she is exhausted at the weekend, she's too tired to play, she's always on her phone, she gets grumpy really quickly, she can't sit still with me and watch Toy Story without multitasking. She really doesn't look like she's looking after herself. Why on earth would my daughter be inspired to want a career if that's what it's about?

Equally, what message was I sending to my two boys? What about how I was living my life would be inspiring to them and what were they absorbing in terms of life lessons?

This was a watershed moment for me to take back control and self-ownership. I needed to reconnect and reclaim who I was and who I wanted to be so that I could ultimately influence and lead in a different way.

In a Thrive Global blog, ‘The joy of sleep', Arianna Huffington discusses the concept of discovering our true value and the need to know ourselves first and foremost. She says, ‘to know yourself, you have to make time to disconnect from the world, so you connect with yourself. That will make it much easier to know what you truly value and then make decisions about what to undertake'.

Owning our individual spotlight is key to success today and tomorrow.

I appreciate this is easier said than done. That the sheer concept of being 100 per cent who you are is tricky. I mean, let's be honest. We all start out with the best intentions, don't we? Remember the dreams you had for yourself as you were growing up, or when you finally graduated and stepped out in the world? Remember when you decided what type of leader or business owner you would be? Remember the things you used to do that would make you laugh so much your face would start hurting? Remember that feeling of dancing like nobody is watching?

Being ourselves is beaten out of us: in the playground by the schoolyard bully, in the workplace by the queen bees and the wannabees, on the back of 360 performance reviews that focus on our weaknesses or what we haven't done. Or maybe you can still remember how you felt after receiving the negative feedback someone once gave you.

Here's the thing though: your business, your team and your family need you to be the best version of yourself so they can be the best versions of themselves too.

Speaker and author, Steve Maraboli says in his book Unapologetically You,

We all make mistakes, have struggles, and even regret things in our past. But you are not your mistakes, you are not your struggles, and you are here NOW with the power to shape your day and your future.

This is the focus of Law 1, Be You: Own your spotlight. It's only by practising this that we can become confident about what we're bringing, have the conviction and passion about what we're doing and ultimately be remembered for the impact we're individually making.

Your leadership starts with you reconnecting and reclaiming who you are in your entirety and owning who you ultimately want to be. Hoping to get better is not a strategy!

You have to own the facets that make you, you. You have to start from the inside out.

So where are you at now in your professional life?

Let's start with a little self-reflection to see how you currently rate yourself in terms of whether you're owning your spotlight.

Take a look at this diagram. Where do you feel you are right now in your professional life?

• Invisible or visible? Thinking about the work you're doing right now, where would you place yourself along the axis of invisible to visible?
  • Do you feel invisible right now, not being noticed for what you're doing or the value you're adding? Maybe you're even questioning whether you're doing the right thing, in the right job, or you may be questioning if you're even on the right path.
  • Or are you feeling excited, lit up and getting noticed the majority of the time for what it is that you do? Are you visible?
• Self-doubt or self-belief? Now, where would you place yourself on the axis of self-doubt to self-belief?
  • Are you struggling with self-doubt or feelings of ‘not good enough'? Maybe you're starting to feel like an imposter in your role and worrying that you don't have what it takes to do the job.
  • Or are you feeling confident in yourself, your skills and capabilities? You know what you're good at and you're actually feeling good about yourself.

Now grab a pen and draw an ‘X' on the spot that you feel best represents where you're at.

Done it?

(Seriously, do it now before we move ahead!)

What do you notice?

You may be feeling really visible right now with your work, the company, even the people you're working with, but the self-doubt and feelings of not being good enough are starting to creep in. You may be questioning your decisions or doubting your capability and so find yourself placing an ‘X' in the top left-hand quadrant.

Alternatively, you may be feeling invisible and frustrated at your lack of progress and not getting noticed at work or in the marketplace. You know there's more — you're just maybe not sure what the ‘more' is. Your self-belief and conviction are strong but there's just something — you don't know what — that's missing. If this is the case, you may find you place an ‘X' in the bottom right-hand quadrant.

Our ultimate aim is to place ourselves in the top right-hand quadrant. A place where we're being noticed for the work we're doing, fired up to do more, where our self-belief is strong, and we know we're doing work we love in the best way we can.

This is a place of owning it: a place of self-ownership.

You'll be unable to consistently inspire others or create the impact you desire until you can take ownership of who you are and the work you're doing.

Once you can identify where you're at, you can identify what you need to focus on to improve and move forward.

The 3 facets of Law 1

In one of my favourite movies, The Matrix, the main character (Neo) meets The Oracle and walks under a sign that reads Temet Nosce, Latin for ‘Know Thyself'. This is the essence of Law 1: that only by getting clear on who you are and owning it — constantly exploring, reflecting and knowing that your inner belief and knowledge is what others will see —will you keep growing.

This is reinforced in multiple articles and studies including the 2009 study, ‘The longitudinal impact of self-efficacy and career goals on objective and subjective career success' (Journal of Vocational Behavior). The key finding was that self-efficacy (or the belief in oneself) is positively correlated to later career satisfaction and career success.

Let's now look in detail at the three facets that Law 1 addresses:

• Character
• Focus
• Expertise.

Facet 1
Character

One of my al...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Epigraph
• Titlepage
• Copyright
• About Janine
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• The quest to be brilliant
• Law 1: Be You Own your spotlight
• Law 2: Be Ready Harness your energy
• Law 3: Be Together Connect with intent
• Law 4: Be Heard Magnify your inf luence
• Time to shine
• Connect with me
• References
• Index
• Advert
• End User License Agreement