Follow thoughtfully and lead responsibly

Photo by Jim Chaput
Written by Jim Chaput
After a 19-year career in financial services, Jim left a leadership position to focus on health and fitness. Jim is a Master Practitioner of Applied Movement Neurology and holds Certificates in Applied Functional Science and 3DMAPS from the Gray Institute. His passion is empowering people to help resolve the pain, tension and insomnia that prevents them from living well.

When I was a kid, I did a lot of dumb things going along with friends or imitating someone I admired. If I had stopped to really think about it, I probably could have made a better decision…but I just went along with whoever was the influence of the moment. Thankfully, I got over this foolishness when I got older. Otherwise, who knows what kind of trouble I might have go into.

The lesson is two-fold:

  1. If you are going to follow someone else’s lead, be thoughtful about who you choose to follow and be willing to question their direction.
  2. You never know who might look up to you and emulate you, so behave responsibly and be worth following.

What do you do to make yourself worth following?

4 Comments

  1. Duncs

    I tend to follow the lead of my daughter … I think she moves so well and is adventurous, curious and always exploring.

    In return I’m sharing some of the better practices I’ve picked up over the last 40years.

    She now does a little yoga and crawling around that she didn’t really do before walking.

    • Jim Chaput

      Good for you. Parenting is the biggest challenge of all. They do not hear what you say because your actions are too loud.

  2. Pat

    Great self-improvement suggestions!
    My attitude needs some attention.
    I’m not “setting a good example”.
    I will work on it.
    My husband’s been more patient & tolerant, probably to compensate for me.
    *Be more positive. (inner thoughts)
    *Stop being RIGHT, be Kind. (to myself)
    *Be patient….. (with myself.)
    Ok…. 👍😊

    • Jim Chaput

      Thank you for another thoughtful comment. We all have some negative thoughts, but we can offset this with positive thoughts. One idea I read recently is to name the negative voice and then you can talk back to him or her.

      “Oh, Negative Nelly, there you go again. If I listened to you, I would never try anything. My life is pretty good so I think I will do what I want. Everything will work out just fine.”