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I’ve been thinking about changing the world — not that I don’t do that already. Everything we do changes the world in some way. We breathe; we release carbon dioxide for the plants. We smile. We frown. People notice, even if we don’t. We walk the given path or find our own direction. Every step changes what was there before we passed.

But from now on, I want to change the world on purpose, for real, and for the better.

The hard part is making changes for the better. It takes energy to be audacious about pursuing the right goals and values and proving that they make a positive difference. Energy is easy when the world is going smoothly, but not so, when things are extreme and uptight. If I want to always have a positive impact, I need to have energy all times. I need to be an Extreme Leader.

Extreme Leaders know that love generates boundless energy — love of all kinds.

“Love of what future principle we’re trying to live out, love of what people I have around me, and love of what they want for their lives. Love of what customers I have, and love of what customers I might have in the future if I am smarter, faster, and more creative in serving their needs. Love of what impact we can have on the lives of our customers and — if we’re audacious enough — on the world as a whole. Love of what our business really is, and love for what — when we cut away the chaff — we really do at work every day. . . .

If I love who we are, and if I love what we can be, then I’ll love the process of how we get there. And in order to make it all happen, I will act boldly and courageously and I will, at times, fail magnificently. But my love demands that I try. Demands it.” — Steve Farber, as Pops in Radical Leap

Extreme Leaders don’t use their heads solely to run their autonomic functions. They don’t use their hearts only to pump blood.

“Now is the time for all of us to take our power back and become, each of us, Extreme Leaders in our own right. We have to set a new example of what’s right in business and everywhere else. We have to be audacious enough to follow the examples we respect and challenge the ones we don’t.” — Steve Farber, as Edj in Radical Leap

Head and heart together, full-out open, audacious and engaged.

It takes that to be fully human. It takes that to be an Extreme Leader.

When head and heart work together, the world responds positively.

Imagine the little and big changes many Extreme Leaders can make.

How will we change the world this year?

Liz

I’d known him for 7 years when, in 1995, I hired him as my “partner-in crime,” and my intellectual sounding board. Officially he was a consultant on an internaltional venture.

That week he’d introduced me to my counterparts in the UK — 23 meetings in 10 days. After the last meeting, he suggested a leisurely lunch on the next day, before I left for Heathrow. . . .

We’re close friends, but I didn’t know about lunch.

Finally, I said, “Only if you show up. I don’t want to see the guy who’s been with me all week — I want the person I know.”

Lunch was at a small bistro. The fruit crème brûlée was spectacular. The wine was wonderful. The conversation was even more than I’d hoped for.

My friend had one way to be in business and another in real life. I suppose that’s not so uncommon. . . .

But that doesn’t mean it’s the best way. Does it?

Steve Farber, was working for Tom Peters way back then. Now he’s a leadership coach and author of Radical Leap and Radical Edge, a two-book narrative on extreme leadership and personal growth. He’s got words for what I was thinking and where I want to go.

In Radical Edge, the characters — Steve, himself, is one — call what I’m thinking of finding your frequency. They say these things about it in a scene over dinner.

“The first thing we have to do is find our frequency, find our station, the one thing that clearly expresses who we are at our core.”

“You have no business, no money no life without yourself right at the center.”

“I don’t know how much of that I could have accomplished if I hadn’t found my frequency.

Steve wrote the book, and he questioned the idea, “Human beings are more complicated than than that.”

He got this answer.

“Yes they are, But it’s not about finding your frequency by ruling out everything else; on the contrary, it’s about finding the frequency that includes all those other important values and ideals. The very act of trying to wrap it all up is what’s really important, because in order to do so, you have . . . define them, think them through, understand them to their core, and evaluate your life against each one.”

I can’t quit thinking about how much sense that makes. It’s the extreme added-value of relationships to really “show up” at the table. It’s the “authentic voice” of leadership, of being who I am I could argue that it’s what my gene pool was designed for.

Talk about finding a way to make a life, change the world, and have no regrets that you’ve used what you’ve got.

If you know what you value, you value what you have to offer.

I’m tuning out the static, to home in on my signal.

Can you hear me now?

Is this better?

Imagine what we can do when we can actually hear each other.

Liz's Signature

Head and Heart Together: Extreme Leaders Change the World

Finding Your Frequency in Business and in Life