Your Authenticity is the Greatest Gift to Humanity

The key insights on how to unlock your authentic self are:

• Define your purpose
• Stay true to your purpose
• Be open to exploring interests 
• Bring passion to the table every day 
• Keep in mind that luck = hard work + opportunity

A friend of mine said you should also try not to harm people (healthcare reference), but I told him that goes without saying.

The title of this blog is Your Authenticity is the Greatest Gift to Humanity. There are gifts given to us every day; the sun sparkling through the branches of a tree, children laughing, celebrating the success of a peer. Gifts are everywhere, it just takes our awareness to appreciate them. The greatest gift of all though, is you and you alone.

When we speak of gifts, the greatest gift I can give you, is the latitude to be you. Truly take the time to define your value, because ultimately it’s your opinion of yourself that dictates your actions and defines your success. You cannot rely on others to define your value; you will be left wanting time and time again. You need to understand and hold true to what you bring to the table each and every day. Grant yourself the gift of acceptance.

I was recently interviewed for newspaper, blog & television on the topics of leadership and nursing. The first question asked is, ‘What is your “Why”?’

My why is to help people achieve their ultimate desired outcome. It’s my passion. Treating people with dignity and respect by seeking from them what they want to achieve and then assisting them in achieving that goal is how I fulfill my why. That why hasn’t changed since I entered the profession of nursing, it has grown in its scope, it has become more refined as I have matured and assumed more responsibility, but it has always remained the same at its core.

My purpose applies to caring for patients at the bedside, leading an organization, volunteering for non-profit boards, leveraging opportunities to bring clarity to diversity, inclusion and gender equality or responding to bullying tactics and attempts at marginalizing personal power. It’s accomplished by empowering individuals to state their desired outcome, take the necessary steps to achieve that outcome and then assisting them by continuing to remove barriers whenever humanly possible (even if they themselves are the barrier). The ultimate key for a leader is to know when to get out of the way and let the experts take the reins. The ultimate key for individuals is to understand when it’s time to claim their power and find their true fit.