Do you quote yourself?

When I am putting together presentations I always try and find quotes from a mix of men and women. There are two problems with this. First, there are not nearly as many quotes from women as men. This is not because women have not said brilliant, funny, pithy, insightful things. It’s simply because historically women have not been in the kind of positions that have meant others have recorded their ideas. What’s more, I’m disinclined to quote any men or women just for the sake of appearing balanced. Second, sometimes when I’m looking for a quote, I often can’t find one that actually says what I’m trying to say in the way I want to say it.

So, I’ve come up with an obvious (and if I do say so myself) genius solution: I quote myself. I know this is what everyone is doing on social media but most of us leave it to the thought-leaders and influencers. What we forget is that as leaders we are all thought-leaders and influencers. We know this because occasionally we hear things that come out of our mouths which are – well – pure genius ;-). Either we notice this (can’t believe it and fail to capture it!) or someone else does and comments on our brilliance (in which case we tend to make light of and again we fail to capture it).

So, write your brilliance down, repeat it for the benefit of the rest of us, make your ideas your own and use them to carve out and reinforce your particular contribution to the workplace and the planet. The only thing to be mindful of is that you can’t just say stuff – if you’re a leader you need to try to live by it, and that ain’t always easy. So, to recap:

• Capture your genius

• Share it with others so they can benefit

• Do your best to walk your talk

 Said something brilliant recently? – love to hear about it!