Many leaders rely on a board of advisors to assist in their personal and professional development journey. Some are formal boards with quarterly meetings, agendas, assignments and action plans. Others are more informal, with the leader reaching out to individual board members based on the challenge or opportunity at present. Many consider a group of mentors as their advisory board...and that makes sense too.
But have you considered your own internal advisory board?
I recently read in Adrienne Enns’ book Intentional Days “A client once described her thoughts as her internal board of directors.” This makes sense, since our thoughts, attitudes, sense of right and wrong, guide us in our decisions.
And I love how Enns’ story continues: “She (her client) also shared that based on their previous conversations, she didn’t like the attitudes, tones or messages coming from this advisory team. Since she was in charge, she chose to fire them! She was going to assemble a board that she admired and that would support her in creating her most meaningful life.”
How many of your thoughts and attitudes do you need to fire?
Which ones do you need and want to keep?
What thoughts and attitudes do you need to seek out and develop?
Once we define and find our internal board of advisors, then we can seek out external advisors to complement those, as well as advisors who can help us internalize the attitudes and approaches we seek to build.
Photo by Noah Buscher on Unsplash