"Lord grant me the serenity to accept what I cannot change,

courage to change what I can, and wisdom to understand the difference."

Serenity Prayer

Change is a constant and in the virtual, cyber world that we are already in, external changes happen at a geometric speed. This accelerated change is complex, confusing and challenges us to adapt. Great leaders know how to anticipate people's needs in the face of change and then lead productively, riding and surfing the crest of the wave.

First, the leader must embrace change over time. Acceptance of disruptive, dramatic change is a solution today to all problems that you do not control or influence and find unacceptable, and you cannot find any serenity until you accept that change, recognizing the reality, which is exactly as it should be at that moment. The basic point here is that people should concentrate not so much on what needs to be changed in the world, but on what needs to be changed about themselves and their attitudes. All change requires facing emotions and character defects.

Then the leader must let go of the past. Abandon resentments that eat away at people. Abandon old methods, beliefs, bursting the chains and pressures of people around him and of the same society tied to dysfunctional and obsolete concepts. Assuming that the present trends will continue and that the methods of the past will solve the problems of the present is a mistake.

We are beings addicted to substances (alcohol and/or drugs, food), people (dependencies on others, marriages, children), and behaviors, habits, routines, work, sex, gambling, aversion to face conflicts and others). All are routine mental programs that numb the emotions and turn off our full consciousness to find comfort. However, changes take us out of our comfort zone and force us to revise ourselves to adapt to new routines, habits, mental programs and this can be very difficult.

When Bill W. and Dr. Bob founded Alcoholics Anonymous they had no idea that their method would change the world. Both alcoholics were desperate for change to sustain their sobriety. They had tried every known way and nothing. Until they met and helped each other. Their success is due to their credo: Love and Service. AA members say they are "in recovery" and never recovered or healed.

Addictions of any kind: substance use, food, gambling, dysfunctional angry temperament, have no cure, at any time you can relapse, the remedy for happiness is to get up and live in sobriety, one day at a time, only with your faith and your personal power, which involves placing your will with loyalty to a higher power that guides you.

Living in a world of rapid and complex change can be traumatic. As a leader the responsibility is to protect the people from those traumas by anticipating those changes, to face yourself to determine what you must change or do better within yourself, to accept new realities and to assist and alleviate the fears of the people by helping them to understand with love and spirit of service the benefits of change in achieving the vision and shared cause, inviting your group, or the entire population to deposit their will in a higher cause.

People ask themselves: How will it affect me? What will I become? Will it be better for me? And the leader understands, knows how to listen and attend with love and service to the fear or fear in the face of the challenge that change represents, because of the impact on identity that it represents.

Let us remember that a good leader is patient and has a plan. He knows that perfection does not exist. In the face of complex and chaotic situations, he is like a flexible tree with deep roots that a hurricane cannot uproot when other trees break.

Carpe diem

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