Welcome to Leading the Life You Want. Thank you for joining me, I'm really glad you're here. I'm excited about starting this course with you. And expect that it's going to be useful for you in ways that perhaps you don't think of right now. But will become clear as we go forward. Today in our very first session I want to introduce you to the ideas and why we're doing what we're doing and how it can be useful for you. If you are like most of the business professionals, people in all walks of life that I run into in my work. You're probably feeling somewhat overwhelmed, perhaps distracted when you're with people. Thinking about other things that are intruding on your mind because of the access that everybody has to you through digital devices. A sense of stress and most importantly, the complaint that I hear most from people interested in this work. And the research practice teaching that I've been doing that I'm going to be sharing with you in this class. Is wanting a greater sense of meaning or purpose in their work to pervade all parts of their lives. A greater sense of meaning and connection to others and to something bigger than themselves. To feel proud of what it is that you do and of the legacy that you're creating through your work. And through your relationships with important people in the different parts of your life. And I'm not just talking about business managers. I'm talking about students, doctors, teachers, engineers, florists, actors, veterans, really anyone who is interested in finding a proven method for how to improve your skill in taking initiative to know what matters most to you. Know who matters most to you. Know how to connect with those people and bring them along with you as you move down the path that you've chosen to have the kind of impact that you want to have in the world. That's what we're going to be focusing on here. It's hard to do. It's hard to do. But there are ways of improving your skill, your capacity, that I'm going to teach you here. And I think that you're going to find it a good use of your time. That is my goal that I've dedicated my 30 plus year career to developing tools that you can use that are based on research and many, many years of practice with people in all walks of life, all over the world. We are in the digital era and we're just figuring out what it means to create the kind of attention and focus that the people and projects that matter most to you require of you. How do we manage our attention, our focus, the choices of what we invest our attention in. That's a big part of what we're going to be addressing here. The world is very different now, certainly than the world that I entered when I started teaching at the Wharton school in 1984. Yes, I'm that old. Things have changed a lot. Not only the advent of the digital era, which has changed everything about how we communicate, but also about societal expectations for men and women. We did a study here comparing the class of 1992 when they graduated with the class of 2012, when they graduated. To look at changes in values and aspirations and hopes and fears of our students over the course of this 20 year period. And one of the things that we found quite strikingly was how people feel about having kids. So we asked do you plan to have or adopt children? Yes, probably, not sure, probably not, and no were the response alternatives. And in 1992 79% said yes, in 2012 42% said yes. I was shocked by this, then did some further research, became kind of an armature population demographer and studied this question and realized it's not just Wharton kids, it's a general trend. And that's just one small indication on how things have changed in terms of the roles of men and women in our society that are in some ways advancing, in a very positive way towards a more equal world. But is also creating all kinds of confusion as well as opportunity. The story, of course, is different for men and for women and that's part of the context in which we are operating here and in which you've got to operate as a leader in the different parts of your life. It's a different landscape that we are all navigating. And the question that we're addressing in this class, that I'm expecting you're going to have a more solid answer to by the time we are done, is this one, are you leading the life you want? So this course is about leadership and it's about integrating the different parts of your life. It's both. Because that's what I found out through my research and practice over these many decades, that the principles and the skills required to advance your leadership capacity and integrate the different parts of your life, they're one and the same. And that's what we're going to be learning about in this class. Just a little bit of background about how I got into this almost 30 years ago, my first son was born and I had a new found sense of purpose when I held him for the first time and thought, wow, I've got to take care of him now. And that was something that I hadn't quite thought about in the same way before I met him, as when I met him it was really a transformational moment. And I couldn't get out of my head this idea that I now had to do everything I could in my work and in all parts of my life to create a world in which he would be nourished. And I brought that question to my students, at the Wharton school, here at Wharton, which is where I am filming from. And asked them, what is your sense of, your responsibility as a future business leader, as a person, for creating the kind of work environment, social environments, that are going to be helpful in nourishing of the next generation, not just of talent in your business but the next generation. And I found that people were quite interested. Some were quite resentful like, why are you bringing this up, professor? Nobody cares about your kids and how is that relevant for business life? And others were, hey, I want to know more about that. Can you tell us more about what we can do to grow as leaders not just at work, but in all the different parts of our lives and to create harmony among them? And I realized that that was the path I needed to pursue and that's what I've been doing these last 30 years is focusing on how to grow leadership capacity and how to integrate the different parts of life. So that I can offer people like you ideas and tools that you can use to create more freedom, more harmony among the different parts of life, as a leader, in all of them. It's not easy and it's certainly not ever perfect, but my experience and research tells me that you can have a greater sense of control and impact and influence and success on your own terms than you currently feel you do if you make the investment in developing yourself as a leader in the different parts of your life. And that's the journey that we're on together.
