Leadership
The Science of Transformational Leadership, Part 3:
Call to Imagine

Some leaders make change look easy. While most people strive to drive change through persuasion, they stoke our imaginations and inspire us to embrace daring new visions of what could be. How do they do it?

Believe it or not, a breakthrough from the behavioral sciences called the Voice Code has finally answered this question, offering us profound new insights into the invisible levers of influence. These insights have now been made actionable through the LUCK cycle, the following four-step engagement sequence:

• Step 1. Listen for inspiration
• Step 2. Understand the resistance
• Step 3. Call to imagine
• Step 4. Keep listening

This is the 3rd weekly installment of a 4-part storytelling series to help you master this inside-out engagement sequence in the pursuit of your purpose. If you missed either of the previous installments, click the links above for Step 1. “Listen for inspiration” and/or Step 2. “Understand the resistance” to get quickly up to speed. Here you'll unravel the first two unlucky beliefs that keep most leaders blind to their power and meet "Bob" — a struggling change advocate who is discovering the LUCK process on his own.

Unlucky Belief #3: Life is random

John Marshall Roberts
will discuss
personal evolution
as an enabler
of the good life
at
SB'17 DetroitAfter his breakthrough, Bob was in a peaceful mood. His mind was calm and clear like a vast open field shimmering after an afternoon thunderstorm. That night, as he drifted off to sleep, the phrase “I do not perceive my best interests” echoed through him like a soft lullaby. The next morning, the world seemed different — lighter and more playful. The sun shined brighter. The trees were more lively. The people he worked with seemed more relaxed and receptive. He didn’t understand it, but so what? He decided to just enjoy it. Each time he picked up the phone for fundraising outreach, he felt strangely exposed like a turtle without its shell. He wasn’t smooth at all! He stumbled over his words and got sidetracked cracking jokes and asking unrelated questions. This was totally out of character for Bob, but the people he spoke with didn’t seem to mind one bit. In fact, they must’ve liked it, because without even thinking about the numbers, he’d somehow doubled his best fundraising day on record.

Bob had one of those days where he was in the flow and everything happens without effort. You’ve probably had days like this before, yes? Those days where life seems like a symphony created just for you. Things just seem to fall magically into place.

What if every day could be like this? Your best day in the past would become your new baseline experience! What great thing might happen next? Does happiness have a limit or could it be infinite? Questions like these often float through our minds when the sun shines upon us so brightly. But then time moves on, new challenges come around, and that enchanting inner melody becomes a fading memory.

From a conventional mindset, the ebb and flow of life seems random. But what if our belief in randomness is why it seems this way? Might this belief keep us from spotting otherwise clear patterns of cause and effect between our choices and the world outside? Randomness isn’t natural. This concept is a human invention that became chic with the birth of science and the industrial revolution. It has served us well in many ways, breaking the chokehold of the theistic dogmas that once stifled free thinking. But for so many today, this belief has become a burden — a steely barrier that keeps us deaf, dumb and blind to nature's brilliant mind.

What would happen if we just surrendered to the flow of inspiration? I’d always tried to live this way, but couldn’t seem to release my delusions of control. Then I cracked the Voice Code and saw how nature’s dynamic evolutionary blueprint had orchestrated its own discovery. This map explained both the evolution of human thinking and my own personal journey — both of which contained countless seemingly random events that ended up being essential. It even explained why so many intelligent people cling to belief in a random universe despite endless scientific evidence to the contrary.

When we drop this dogma, we discover beautiful patterns behind the flow of events that blow our hearts and minds open. We begin to experience ourselves as one with life, seeing all people and circumstances as helpful. In time, we discover our life’s purpose — the unique gift that only we can offer. This inner clarion call soon crystalizes into a practical vision that inspires us beyond belief. We then summon our courage to ground this vision in action, facing and dissolving even our darkest fears so that we can share our gifts with others in a spirit of gratitude.

Through this dynamic learning process, nature inspires human evolution as she trains us to behold every moment through eyes of joyful innocence. But our belief in randomness blocks this process. It keeps us mistrustful, afraid of risk and forever on the lookout for threats. If life were random, then we would be separate, change would be hard, and manipulation would be necessary for survival. Thinking this way, we find happiness fleeting and forever receding into a future beyond our grasp.

With Step 3 — “Call to Imagine” — we escape this trap by helping others do the same. But to be successful, we must build trust using the first two steps. When we Listen and Understand, following this inside-out sequence, we dissolve the invisible cocoon of cynicism that envelops our audiences. From this clear state of unguarded receptivity, the Call extends through us unimpeded. An invitation to co-create flowers within and we share it with a conviction that inspires them to believe in our vision.

Step three breaks the frame of separation wide open. Consider the power of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s call to imagine racial equality, or Barack Obama’s call for us to imagine “Hope and Change” … These epic moments stirred souls and changed the course of history for a reason. No invitation made in this spirit can ever be forgotten because, consider this: the place of inspired generosity within us from where the call grows IS ALSO the yearning within those who receive it ... In other words, it’s the same exact place. We are one, after all.

Please ponder this radical idea. Don’t feel compelled to believe it. Just try it on. What if our inner realities are literally connected? What if your secret inspiration is my secret yearning and vice versa? When you feel inspired, might this feeling state be caused by the yearning of others? Could this sort of quantum social entanglement be part of our natural design? If so, then we’ve got the world’s best leadership GPS built into us. To use it, we need only listen to inspiration and follow its guidance.

But if minds are truly joined, why do we still appear separate to the senses? The Voice Code has resolved this paradox by exposing the 3-tiered architecture of the human mind. According to this mind map, our conscious mind is sandwiched between two unconscious planes. The “optical delusion” of separation, is generated from undigested pain stored in the primal unconscious, the lowest mental plane. Inspiration speaks from the highest plane — a shared aspect of mind called the creative unconscious.

Here’s the big take-home to consider: You are a force of nature in a musically orchestrated universe where minds are joined and nothing is random. When you learn how to make inspired invitations from the depth of your being, you will be unstoppable because others will feel your call as if it came from inside of them. The section below previews Step 3, which helps us do this in our everyday lives.

Practice LUCK: Call to Imagine

Where in your life are you most likely to let risk keep you from taking action? How might this change if you knew with certainty that nothing was random — that life was orchestrating everything to serve your highest purpose? Would you be willing to experiment with trusting inspiration when calling others to action? If so, see the Step 3 process previewed below. In the week ahead, please pay special attention to your inspiration and your gut instincts. Practice operating from a place of pure trust and allow your instincts (vs. intellect) to direct you when making invitations. Notice how people respond. As you master Step 3 you will become an indomitable force of nature in the pursuit of your goals.