Embrace Visionary Leadership: Austin Vickers Guides Businesspeople to Success on March 18

Posted on | March 16, 2010 |

by Austin Vickers, founder of The International Coaching & Training Institute, a Fortune 500 Leadership Training Institute, and The Stepping Up Foundation

Mr. Vickers presents a “Stepping Up to Visionary Leadership” seminar at our Hot Topics and Lunch event on Thurs., March 18.

Imagine you are traveling on a plane and carrying a luggage bag that you place below your seat.  In one of the cases you have a bag of your favorite candy, a bag of M&M’s, which you like to carry on long trips. After lunch, and before you take a nap, you like to indulge in your candy.

The plane is full and you find yourself sitting next to another passenger.  You do not really have much discussion with him, other than the usual pleasantries.  After lunch, however, the strangest thing happens.  The man reaches under your seat and removes your bag of M&M’s.  He slowly opens the bag, pours himself a handful, and then places the bag back under your seat.

How would you feel at this point?  Would you be angry, upset, or bothered?  Like most people, you would probably be quite amazed at his brashness.  

Your amazement soon turns to shock, however, as he reaches down again and takes more of your M&M’s.  So you reach down, retrieve the bag of M&M’s, and pour yourself a handful.  The man smiles at you.  Before long, the two of you are munching away, each taking turns eating from the bag of M&M’s.  Neither you, nor he speaks to each other, but each is conscious of the others’ actions.  Finally, he reaches down and grabs the remainder of the bag of M&M’s.  He pours himself the last handful and eats them.

Now how would you feel?  Undoubtedly, you are somewhat surprised by the audacity of this passenger and, perhaps, you are a little or a lot upset that he has helped himself to so much of your candy, even eating the last of it.  

The flight ends and both of you go your separate ways.  You are left pondering how rude some people are capable of being as you walk off the plane. When you get to the baggage handling area you reach into your case to get the tickets that correspond to your luggage.  To your surprise you find inside your case an unopened bag of M&M’s, the one that you originally brought onto the plane.  

In an instant you begin to blush as you realize the mistake you have made.  It was not your bag of M&M’s that you were both eating, but rather a bag belonging to the fellow passenger.

Now how would you feel?  Embarrassed for sure.  But how would you feel towards the passenger who sat next to you?  He quietly shared his bag of M&M’s with you and said nothing as you aggressively tried to eat as much as he was eating, under the assumption that he was eating your candy. If you are like most people, the feelings of dismay, frustration, and disbelief that you would have had before would be quickly replaced with feelings of humility, embarrassment, and probably some regard towards this stranger who had been so kind to share with you.

This is a paradigm shift, a fundamental change of perception based on the discovery of new facts.  It has the potential to greatly alter your perspective, in a matter of seconds, once new facts are introduced into the picture.

From a big picture perspective, it is important to understand that your view of life is simply one grand paradigm.  It is a perception, just one view of events, circumstances and people.  You do not have the absolute truth about anything because, like the story above, you do not have all of the facts.  You only have your own perception of the events that transpire within this paradigm.  

The intent of my book, Stepping Up to a Life of Vision, Passion & Authentic Power, and my presentations is to create a paradigm shift in you that will open your eyes to a more spectacular view of the world and your life.  They will do so, by hopefully providing you with some tools to discover other “facts,” which are likely to change the paradigm through which you have seen the world thus far.

Click here to learn more or register for Mr. Vickers March 18 seminar with the Tempe Chamber of Commerce. Tickets are $25 for members and $30 for the general public.

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