PTA - Protect The Asset

# Chapter 274

It all starts with self-leadership first – self-awareness – self-discovery. - Masterminds

It is amazingly difficult to help new clients understand that their first priority has to be themselves. As Greg Mckeown says, “protect the asset - you are the asset.” The whole servant-leadership movement has unintentionally sabotaged the necessary self-care of leaders who give and give and give, they need to find a way to protect the asset. But many of these types of leaders seem to value burning themselves out completely, rather than any type of longevity or sustainability for the potential good they are doing. They feel guilty for taking appropriate time off, they feel guilty for getting enough high quality sleep, they feel guilty for taking the time to exercise, they only work work work. This is a certain recipe for a short leadership lifespan.

So the first component of self-leadership is always always PTA - protect the asset. You have to take care of yourself, before you can take care of others. To discover what really energizes you and what your best rhythms are, what your best contributions are, and when and how your best rest happens - you have to spend some time in self-awareness and self-discovery. This is more involved than you think, or at the very least I find people are surprised at how many adjustments they need to make in order to find self-awareness and self-discovery freed up to actually function in their lives. The most difficult piece of that process seems to be thinking. Thinking is the least used, least wanted, least leveraged piece of self-care. It is such hard work and few do it, and even fewer do it well. But if awareness and discovery are your goals, then you have to make space for thinking and contemplating and considering and for percolating. Otherwise it will take you much longer to gain any traction in the world of self-care and PTA.