How Positive Leadership can help us to be our most authentic self

Welcome to the second edition of my Positive Leadership & You newsletter! 

Firstly, thank you to everyone who subscribed and left feedback on the previous edition. It’s great to see Positive Leadership resonating with so many people, and I’m glad that I can help you to apply its principles to your daily lives. I truly believe that by starting with a Positive Mindset and being mindful about our relationships and the energy we project, we can change the world!

I have some great tips to share with you this month. Please be sure to let me know which ones work for you. 

Me: Focusing on our personal growth, wellbeing and being positive with ourselves.

As always, we start with ourselves. Last month, I had the privilege of speaking to two super inspiring leaders: Bill George, former business exec, HBS professor and best-selling author, and Bozoma Saint John, former Netflix CMO, marketing guru, entrepreneur and author. 

As you can imagine, both of them had incredible stories and insights to share from their careers. But what struck me most was when they both discussed the lessons they learned through their “crucible moments” – difficult life moments when everything is stripped away and you come face-to-face with yourself. 

For Bill, it was when he lost his fiancée and his mother within the space of 15 months. For Boz (as she likes to be known), it was when her husband passed away in 2013.

I’d like to share with you their direct quotes. I’m sure you will be as moved and yet also inspired, as I was. 

Bill George: “I felt very much alone in the world. But it made me think about what's important in life and being genuine, being real, being there to help people every day… And I think it's helped me ever since to realize it's all about humanity, it's all about people.” 

Bozoma Saint John: “That crucible moment absolutely changed my life. It changed everything about the way that I am, the way that I think, the way that I live… I'm going to live a more urgent life because of it…” 

The impact of these crucible moments on their lives is clear: they began to live more authentically, according to their true values and purpose. Or as Bozoma says: 

“I have a very hard time now with situations, people, relationships, experiences that are not satisfying to me. Maybe some people would consider it a selfish way to live. I don't think so. It’s self-awareness, in that way where you are focused on what is making you happy.” 

Listen to the episodes below to hear all the amazing stories and advice from Bill and Boz. 

There’s also a great book I’ve been reading recently called ‘Be’ by Jessica Zweig. It’s a clear, simple and inspiring guide to finding your voice and sharing your authentic self with others, to create richer connections and drive change. Here are some takeaways:

• Be real, always. It’s tempting to present ‘the best,’ filtered version of ourselves but by being vulnerable is the only way to connect with others.
• Believe that what you are here to do is worth doing. Know that what you have to say is worth saying and what you have to give is worth giving. It’s too easy to be hard on yourself that you are not good enough, smart enough, important enough….or feel you don’t have the right to share your voice.
• We all have the power to change people’s lives. We can achieve this by being generous and giving away our expertise to others.

Me & Others: Connecting with and empowering others to achieve more.

Being more authentic also helps us to better connect with others and be more effective as leaders. I loved these actionable tips that Bill and Boz shared with me, focusing on how we can show up as our truest selves every single day for the people around us. 

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From Bill: 

1. Leadership can be very lonely. Create a team around you, starting with one person with whom you can be completely open about everything, whether it’s a spouse, best friend, mentor, therapist.
2. Think about what it is that you want people to say about you in your eulogy, then devote your time to it now. You can't be a good leader if you're one dimensional – you need to nurture all the different aspects of your life.

From Boz: 

1. Try to recognize authentic emotions in others: look for clues in their body language and facial expressions. Then be consciously empathetic, by focusing on how you can create a more positive environment for others.
2. To spread positive energy, be authentic with your emotions around others. Show your excitement, your joy, your smile – people around you will feel it too and respond.

 Me & the World: Having a positive impact on the world.

Something else I learned from Bozoma is that when we live with urgency, we don’t wait to make an impact or to realize our full attention. It’s something that we work towards every day.

I see so many great examples of this in the social entrepreneurs in my Live for Good foundation, who have already committed to making a difference at a young age.

Last week, I had the huge privilege of awarding our Prix Gabriel to 8 young leaders who are helping to solve current and future social challenges through their innovative positive impact projects. 

This annual prize, which will provide our winners with a financial grant and a support program to help get their projects off the ground, is named after my late son Gabriel, who said to me when he was 18: “I have this vital desire to positively change other people’s lives”. 

In his honor, and to inspire you further, here’s what our 8 winners are doing to change people’s lives. 

1. Valentin Duthion - Le Regard Français: We use clothing as a way to highlight the know-how of people with disabilities, by including them at each stage of production for our handi-responsible fashion brand.
2. Elodie Özen - Umains: We help companies to save their food products from destruction, by using our super ecosystem of circular economy partners to give the products a second life locally.
3. Emeric Bossis - Re-Bon: We save unsold bread from artisanal bakeries and give them a second life so that they can be used to be feed our communities.
4. Wassila Djellal - Les Infatigables: We fight against the social isolation of seniors by providing them with access to a community and leisure activities based on their interests. 
5. Benjamin Bienert - BIBO: We help consumers to lower their environmental impact, by creating drinks that meet consumer expectations and the needs of our planet. 
6. Gabrielle Légeret - De l'Or dans les Mains: We help an entire new generation to find meaningful work, by raising awareness among young people about manual trades and giving a voice to talented craftspeople. 
7. Tanguy Colou-Mohbat - Offways: We help citizens, companies and governments to travel in a way that reduces their carbon footprint without increasing the cost.
8. Gautier Burot de Carcouët - From Sand to Green: We cultivate and turn deserts into orchards, so that we can better feed the world’s citizens by preserving nature.

As you can see, these 8 incredible young leaders gave themselves permission to care about a problem that they saw, and then they dreamed of a way to solve it. 

According to Bill Drayton, the founder of Ashoka and widely considered the godfather of social entrepreneurship, this is the key to becoming a changemaker. 

You can learn more about it in the conversation I had with Bill back in Season 3 of the podcast.

I hope you enjoyed this glimpse into my life, and most importantly, the important lessons that I’ve had the privilege to learn! I truly hope that they will help you as they are already helping me.

I can’t wait to hear your thoughts and don’t forget to subscribe if you haven’t already. 

See you soon. 

- jp