Why is it that we mourn when people we’ve never met die? People like David Bowie, Michael Jackson, Nelson Mandela.
The reason, as a fan tweeted recently, is because they help us come to know ourselves:
“Great artists reach into their own hearts, brains, and guts to wrench out what’s most vital and hold it out for you to grasp. Then you can decide what — if anything — it means for you.
“After Bowie’s death, as I scrolled through my Facebook and Twitter feeds … I saw hundreds of posts dedicated to the Starman, to Ziggy Stardust, to the Thin White Duke. No two tributes were the same.”
When we look at other people and see something that inspires us we are not seeing them, we are seeing a reflection of something inside ourselves that is wanting to be born.
Inner Leadership uses and applies this knowledge in three ways:
— Taking the time simply to notice what we notice about others is one of the methods identified in Chapter 1 for getting to know ourselves better
— In Chapter 4, a structured approach for identifying what we admire in others is one of the ways suggested for finding out what matters most to us, and what it will take for us to have lived a worthwhile life
— Chapter 5 contains a tool for using what we admire in others to clarify what our Values are