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It’s About Who You Are, Not Where You’re Located (More Tips On Leading Positive from Erica Ariel Fox)

Erica Ariel Fox learned the hard way that her life’s work (using ancient wisdom traditions to help business executives be better leaders) and her platform (as Director of Harvard’s Negotiation Insight Initiative (HNII) were two separate things. When HNII came to an end, she had to rebuild her sense of self and mission. And so she did.

Today I published Part 2 of my Lead Positive Profile with Erica Ariel Fox on my Psychology Today blog. In the profile, she talks about how devastating it was at first to lose the center and then about how freeing it ended up being. The soul-searching process she went through led to the founding of Mobius Executive Leadership and her bestselling book, Winning from Within.

Here are some of the most inspirational quotes from her interview. For the full read, please go here. For part 1 of the interview, click here.

On the difference between what you do and where you work:

Going through that healing process of separating your life’s work from your current platform, making that distinction and pledging myself to a vision and not to a place was really freeing.

On the benefits of detaching:

I carry things more lightly. I’m not so attached to any particular part of what I’m doing. The center was my life and it went away and I’m still living my same life, you know, in a different expression.

On the beauty of perspective:

…With perseverance and taking the long view, you can still achieve some dreams that you think were just long lost. You think: Well, it just didn’t happen. Well, it didn’t happen then. It didn’t happen yet.

To read the full interview with Erica Ariel Fox, please visit my blog on Psychology Today. You can also follow her on Twitter @ericaarielfox.

Where are you on your Heroic Leadership Journey? Download my e-book to find out now!

Dr. Kathy Cramer

Kathryn D. Cramer, PH.D.
Founder and Managing Partner, The Cramer Institute