By Peter Jeff
The Leadership Mints Guy

Here’s an idea to help you bounce back from a devastating defeat.

Okay you screwed up. The team you led finished way out of the money. Your leadership is being questioned -mostly by you. You feel lousy. Your get up and go got up and went. The only thing you can lead now is a scream. And it seems you”ll never stop wiping the eggs of embarrassment off your face.

Cheer up. Start fresh. That’s what I do when I find myself at the short end of the stick. I know. Easier said that done. Well, read on.

When I am feeling burned out, I get some relief when I think of the Greater American Prairie where the destruction of so many wildfires would inevitably lead to the creation of so many vibrant wildflowers.

The wildflowers-out-of- wildfires concept gave even more credence Pablo Picasso’s observation that : “Every act of creation is first of all an act of destruction.”

Indeed Picasso could have been referring to the Great American Prairie. The Great American Prairie is indeed an example of creation out of devastation.

Creation Out of Devastation

More than 300 years ago, long before the onslaught of highways and high-rises, cattle and corn, the Great Prairie rose across America like so many phoenixes rising up from the ashes. Healthier and heartier BECAUSE OF the charred devastation of the prairie that impregnated the vast land with a life-stimulating surge of acidity in the soil. Small wonder those blazing wildfires that charred the prairie into a black blanket draping the land in somber crepe as if it were a huge coffin. Wildfires often ignited by lightning –burned weeds, spurned clutter and churned a revitalized growth.

Wildfires flamed the prairie into a 250 million-acre cauldron bubbling with colorful wildflowers that spilled over on the land, turning the black blanket into a rainbow like patchwork quilt.

Chances Are You Too Have Wildflowers Lying Dormant in the the Soil of Your Soul

Now I think of the prairie as a symbol for my own creative leadership capabilities. When I screw up – and my expected harvest goes up in flames -I like to think of myself as versatile and vibrant as the prairie, where the wildflowers (new ideas) in me, can explode in neon like colors.

Burn away the weeds to unleash the seeds. Chances are you too have wildflowers lying dormant in your soil banks, deep in your soul, struggling for recognition, starving for the light of day, suffocating beneath the clutter in your lives.

Burn away your past. Give birth to the future. Clear away the clutter. And spawn the natural growth within you.

Think of yourself as vibrant, vast and varied as a prairie- where your scope is not limited, where your goals are not confined, where your dreams have room to roam, room to grow, room to experiment. And even room to crash and burn sometimes so that you can become even more vibrant, more vast, more varied. More of a leader.

Today’s ImproveMINT
Clear away the clutter to discover new opportunities to keep your leadership thinking in mint condition.

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