Principle 2. Look for the positive or the blessing in everything. This is the second principle of the program that I run for undergraduates. I have found this to be a great support for self inquiry. It is not to be a pollyanna, but to see the complexity in your experience and your ability to reframe how you see and do things.

Many of the students I work with have had very hard lives. They cannot be the leader they have inside them if they feel like they or their life is a deficit.

Principle 2 suggests, when you are thinking about your life and something makes you feel terrible, that you stop, and think more broadly about that time and place and experience. It is not easy. Ultimately, this is a great leadership principle — because people want to follow someone who is positive and realistically optimistic.

In my town, Native Americans often experience overt racism. With principle 2, we can see two immediate positives. First, they are not the person who was a jerk and, second, they are not married to them. The students often laugh and I explain that this gives them a millisecond to remember that they can choose how to respond, that people generally cannot make you do anything.

The more you work on this, the more you can welcome those experiences that bring tears, because they are great teachers and the source of positives and strength. Those experiences, when they become great teachers, no longer hold you down.