Let Your Life Speak

I'm so moved by Parker Palmer's book, "Let Your Life Speak" - I want to share the message I found so compelling and compassionate.

We start at a very young age with the question, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" Answers range from various occupations and titles with external attributes and characteristics we admire or want to have. Vocation, then, does seem to be more of an act of will, a determination to make your life go one way or another, rather than growing from within.

Palmer says vocation does not come from willfulness, but rather, from listening. The word vocation is actually rooted in Latin for "voice."  Vocation isn't something I pursue, but a calling that I hear. How many of us have actually stopped to truly listen to the message speaking from within? What am I not only wired to do, but compelled to do? When do I feel led from a deep sense of truth, that if stifled, suffocates the soul?

He says, "I must listen for the truths and values at the heart of my own identity, not the standards by which I must live - but the standards by which I cannot help but live if I am living my own life."

Your power, a leader's real power, comes from first listening to the call within you. Without it, there is no clarity, no truth,  no substance. If we believe each of us leads by words and actions, then listening to what's already there grants us authenticity and a voice which is heard and seen by others.