The Enigma of a Leadership Mentality

Leaders are not born but are forged out from experience, determination, and focus. Those of us who are in positions of leadership, which is all of us in some form or another, should strive to reach our highest leadership potential. If you’re struggling to become the leader that you aspire to be, the solution may be found in a lack of congruence between your conscious and subconscious minds.

In order to be a great leader, you must have a leadership mentality. A leadership mentality exists in two parts: external (conscious) leadership and internal (subconscious) leadership. If you wish to reach your full potential, you’ll need to master both. But how?

Having a leadership mentality isn’t something that you do only when you feel like it. It is something that must be formed into a consistent habit and therein lies the problem. Habits are hard to break and equally hard to create. The reason habits, or non-habits, are so rooted in us is because our subconscious minds simply don’t like change. You can consciously tell yourself that you are a great leader, but if your subconscious mind doesn’t share the belief, it will lead to confusion, doubt, and failure.

Most people give up when trying to change a habit for this very reason. How many people do you know who consciously said that they were going to quit smoking, start exercising, or begin reading more, only to find themselves going back to their old ways after a day or two? Their attempt foundered because they failed to get their subconscious minds onboard with the decision. Your subconscious mind doesn’t care whether a habit is good or bad for you. It simply wants to go on doing whatever it’s used to doing.

The good news is that there are several ways to get your conscious and subconscious minds to play nicely together. They are autosuggestion, affirmations, and hypnosis. Before I explain each one and how to use them, let’s talk about how and why they work.

Your subconscious mind is the one that’s always running in the background. It’s working whether you’re awake or asleep. It fuels your dreams, drives your creativity, and ignites your imagination. It’s also the final authority of your conscious mind. Whatever takes hold in the subconscious mind is instinctually acted upon by the conscious mind. It is not fickle and has established its preferred ways throughout your entire lifetime. Your conscious mind is your awakened mind that you use for thinking, communication, and physical activities.

In order to get an idea, thought, or belief from your conscious mind into your subconscious mind, you have to get past the critical factor. Think of the critical factor as a barrier, or gatekeeper, that keeps the subconscious mind from being altered. There are times when the critical factor’s guard is down and the subconscious mind becomes open to suggestions. This can happen quickly, like during a traumatic experience, or slowly if the mind is repeatedly exposed to information over a period of time. Fortunately, there are quicker ways that we can consciously mold our subconscious beliefs to our benefit.

Before applying any of the three methods we’re about to cover, you must have a vision of what being a great leader means to you. The attributes of having a leadership mentality might include:

• Great listening skills
• The ability to inspire others
• A willingness to trust your intuition
• The ability to communicate effectively
• A willingness to expand your comfort zone
• The ability to rule your emotions
• Persistence, Etc.

Once you’ve defined what being a great leader means to you, you can begin to upload them into your subconscious mind through autosuggestion, affirmations, and hypnosis.

Autosuggestion & Affirmations

Autosuggestion is placing ideas in your subconscious mind through repetition. The more frequently a concept is focussed upon consciously, the faster it will be accepted subconsciously. Napoleon Hill described it like this, “Any idea, plan, or purpose may be laced in the mind through repetition of thought.” He added, “Your ability to use the principle of autosuggestion will depend, very largely, upon your capacity to concentrate upon a given desire until that desire becomes a burning obsession.” We become what we think about most, so think mostly about what you WANT to become.In order to guide your thoughts toward becoming the leader that you desire to become, surround yourself with a sensory overload of those thoughts through affirmations. The more exposure you have, the easier it will be for them to be adopted by your subconscious mind. There are endless ways to do this, and you’ll want to incorporate ways that touch as many of your five senses as possible. Examples of this include:

1. Write your affirmations on note cards and read them out loud, or even quietly if in public, to yourself several times a day. The most important times to read them are first thing in the morning, and just before sleep. What you focus on as your drift off to dream will have an easier path into your subconscious mind.
2. Write your most important leadership affirmations on sticky notes, or on anything else, and distribute them in places that you’re certain to see them throughout the day. Your bathroom mirror, your computer desktop image, and on your treadmill in line with your eyes, are a few examples to get you started.
3. You can also create audio recordings, with your favorite workout music, to listen to while you exercise or while driving to and from work. Before you know it, you’ll actually feel your mindset begin to change and these words will become a part of who you are.

While repetition is great, the effect is greatly amplified if you’re able to attach emotion to the stimuli. Don’t just read the words. Listen to the recordings, and look at the pictures. Oh yeah, it’s also nice to find photos that remind of your ideal self. Whenever possible, try to imagine yourself having already achieved your leadership goals and use your imagination to feel the emotions that come along with those achievements. Einstein said, “Imagination rules the world,” and he was right.

Hypnosis:

If you serious about getting your subconscious and conscious minds to be congruent, hypnosis is the fastest approach. Hypnosis, especially when combined with autosuggestion through affirmations, is exceptionally powerful at creating laser-like focus in both your conscious and subconscious minds.

If you’ve tried hypnosis before, then you can already attest to its effectiveness. Others may be skeptical of hypnosis so far as to claim that it’s not even real, but recent studies at The Stanford University of Medicine prove otherwise. In the study, Dr. David Spiegel, who is one of America’s leading psychiatrists, used brain scanning technology to show that different areas of the brain “light up” when a person is under hypnosis. The areas which “light up” in a hypnotized individual are different from a person who is simply using their imagination. When under hypnosis, the subconscious mind accepts the hypnotist’s suggestions as reality, bypassing the critical factor altogether.

If you would like to try self-hypnosis, I have a free ebook available HERE. The book will teach you, step by step, how to create your own self-hypnosis sessions with your personal goals in mind. I also offer customized audio hypnosis sessions. These sessions will be completely customized to fit your exact leadership mentality goals or any goals that you desire.

Audio sessions can help you to quit smoking, boost your self-confidence, rid fears, and phobias, lose weight and banish insomnia. All you have to do is listen to your personal recording daily. Over time, the suggestions will become your reality. This, combined with autosuggestion through affirmations, may be your most powerful weapon towards a complete leadership mentality.

About The Author

Chad Chesmark is a leadership speaker and hypnotist working alongside Hypnotist Richard Barker. His leadership presentations are not the usual, “Sit and watch” type. Instead, he engages the entire audience in an interactive presentation that combines speaking with mentalism and demonstrations of suggestion. His free ebook entitled, “The Secrets of Hypnosis: A Powerful Tool For Transforming Your Life,” is available for free at www.LeadershipMindPower.com/products.