A hearty hello from a rainy morning in Vancouver. The first days of school are filled with excitement and a nervous anticipation. The start of the school year is also a "change"; with all of both the good and the bad that comes from our responses to change. One of the most important elements of our leadership journey is coming to terms with changing ourselves. There was a wonderful Canadian comedy show called the Red Green show that ended each episode with the Man's Prayer. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1I3pSZGCuHA" I’m a man, I can change, if I have to, I guess." 

Now, while appreciating the joke jab at my gender, I always thought that  this  actually had more to do with humans generally, than just about men. In fact, we are pretty set in our ways, more often than not. 

We can change although it is often only when we are presented with catastrophe, the so called 'burning platform' , that we are moved to change. Frankly for all of my work in Change Management and Leadership Development, the one thing I was always aware of was that "change" was mostly seen as something we did to other people as leaders. In fact, any successful change initiative always  requires the leaders to change themselves as well. And sadly, we rarely do, because we rarely see the need to make the change.  As leaders we might recognize within our own lives that 'I can change, if I have to, I guess.' Consider that we can fool ourselves into thinking all sorts of things; I can handle my drinking, my partner knows I love them they don't need to hear it, the impact will be only on the staff serving customers,  if I work harder, my boss will notice me and give me credit. We know, though at a cellular level, that we can change, we can re-author our lives, towards a healthier, saner and more careful life for ourselves and our communities. And we know that it is only after we have lost almost everything, that we begin the all important re-authoring, the remaking of ourselves.

If that is where you are finding yourself,  know that you are not alone.  You have the strength to grow, to change, to enable and to re-author our life, to be the person, you can be. You can change, if you have to, no doubt about it!