After a career across the US and Asia at Pepsico and Nike, Lance Tanaka has built a leadership consulting company on the back of Polonius’ sage advice to Laertes in Hamlet: “This above all: to thine ownself be true.”

Being true to yourself is not only the key to your success, he says, but to your happiness.

“My definition of authenticity is to be the leader you were designed to be, not the one you want to be. Your principles, your values, are hardwired into your brain.”

When you are not true to your own strengths, passions, and values, you are, he says, doomed to be average – when what we all want to be is significant. “Trying to turn your weaknesses into your towering strengths won't get you to extraordinary.”

Tanaka has developed a 90-day “DNA” reboot tool – “Dreams and Aspirations” – for executives who have sacrificed balance, freedom, dreams, family, and health in pursuit of money, title, finances and security.

Watch Lance Tanaka at METAL

His DNA tool helps execs succeed in all nine of these categories.

Step #1: Identify what your actual personal values are in each of these categories.

Step #2: Drill down and detail the elements of each: the “who, what, where, when” of each, replacing vague desires with clarity.

Step #3: Push out the things you’re not passionate about and pull in those that you are. Compound that process for 90 days, and you will gain clarity of purpose.

A McKinsey study said that mission fulfillment is five times more powerful than any other leadership dimension, yet 85% of frontline managers feel they are not living their purpose. The restlessness flows downward, and the newer generations demand more from their employers.

“In my generation, if you wanted to be successful, you had to work 70+ hours a week. The younger generations value balance. Even in Asia, they no longer want that top-down culture anymore where the boss sets down the rules and you just do it. Companies need to ask who these individuals are and what they genuinely want, if they want to both keep employees and keep up.”

TAKEAWAYS:

• Rather than over-focus on correcting your weaknesses, know your unique strengths and develop those.
• Prioritize passion and purpose.
• Clarify and detail the “who, what, where, when” of your values in 9 key areas of life, and eliminate activities that don’t serve those.

Written by Adam Gilad

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