I want to throw out a challenge. Actually, no, let’s call it an invitation. And some of you may have already received this invitation. In that case, I re-invite you.
I’d like you to experience a poem that has changed lives everywhere.
This poem was first published back in 1994, and its unique message has touched hearts around the world with its call to live life more passionately and honestly.
It was written by a Canadian late one night after she had returned home from a party. She was unsettled and disappointed with an evening that had been full of the usual social conversation. Restless, she sat down at her desk in the darkness, picked up her pen and wrote what she really wanted to say to the people she had met that evening.
The poem is called The Invitation. Written by Oriah Mountain Dreamer.
Her writing, teaching and personal journey all explore how we can each become the person we are at the deepest level of being and how we can co-create meaning together in the world. To me, this has a lot to do with leadership.
Here is The Invitation…
It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart’s longing.
It doesn’t interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dream, for the adventure of being alive.
It doesn’t interest me what planets are squaring your moon. I want to know if you have touched the centre of your own sorrow, if you have been opened by life’s betrayals or have become shrivelled and closed from fear of further pain.
I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own, without moving to hide it, or fade it, or fix it.
I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own; if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful, be realistic, remember the limitations of being human.
It doesn’t interest me if the story you are telling me is true. I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself. If you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul. If you can be faithless and therefore trustworthy.
I want to know if you can see beauty even when it is not pretty every day. And if you can source your own life from its presence.
I want to know if you can live with failure, yours and mine, and still stand at the edge of the lake and shout to the silver of the full moon, ‘Yes.’
It doesn’t interest me to know where you live or how much money you have. I want to know if you can get up after the night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone and do what needs to be done to feed the children.
It doesn’t interest me who you know or how you came to be here. I want to know if you will stand in the centre of the fire with me and not shrink back.
It doesn’t interest me where or what or with whom you have studied. I want to know what sustains you from the inside when all else falls away.
I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.
The Invitation is a declaration of intent, a map into the longing of the soul, the desire to live passionately, face-to-face with ourselves, and with the world around us, to settle for nothing less than what is real.
We are all primarily here to improve our communication and leadership skills. And we have a real opportunity to learn and practice how to stand on authentic ground in order to create strong connections.
I know I’m looking forward to finding ways to explore the creative use of my own self as a presenter to various audiences.
We all have something important to communicate, be it your brilliant idea, your new product, your passion, your company’s vision, or simply change you want to create in the world.
Think of The Invitation as an opportunity to bring yourself into your message in such a way that is more alive and in the moment.
I will leave you with this: The world needs leaders, and through our community of learners here, I look forward to seeing where your path to leadership takes you.
SOURCE: The Invitation by Oriah Mountain Dreamer.
© Brooke Somers (2022)
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