What if you could hand select a personal board of directors*? Comprised of people who have only your best interest at heart? People you know or don’t know? Real or fictional? Alive or even dead?
The goal of your board would be to provide new perspectives on your “stuff.” They would replace the old voices that tell you what you cannot do or why you cannot change. They would NOT be another set of external experts for whom you feel obligated to perform. They would simply provide new voices to your internal dialogue; giving voice to what you probably already know about yourself but haven‘t acknowledged yet; encouraging you to act in your own best interest; empowering you to say “no” when you really want to.
Doing this is actually a lot of fun. This time ’round I selected Hillary because she reminds me to be tough and resilient. I chose Miriam, the Afghani protagonist in “A Thousand Splendid Suns” because she would tell me to stop complaining about my life and capitalize on the amazing choices I have as an American woman. I would include Eric Clapton to stoke my creativity. My two sons would inspire courage and advise me “to go for it,” having each risked big time disappointment this fall in pursuit of personal dreams.
Whom you choose to be on your board, will give you important clues about what you need right now to mitigate the old voices of resistance and affect change in your life. You choose your board to give voice to something you really want to do for yourself. They can spur you to action in some aspect of your life where you‘ve been feeling stuck.
Who would be on your board? Let‘s inspire each other and have some fun with this! (I have a dear friend who would have Johnny Depp on her board simply for the enhanced board room esthetics!)Who would be on your board? Fill in the comment box below.
* Karen Van Allen and Ruth Neubauer are psychotherapists who run groups called “Retirement or What Next.†This is an exercise they do with their groups. I read about this in Suzanne Braun Levine’s “Inventing the Rest of our Lives“.
