Picture leaving a few cloves of garlic in a small container, adding some cooking oil, and then heating it. The aroma of the garlic, so strong, spreads across the kitchen. Now, you use the garlic in your dish and leave the container aside. You don’t wash it. After a point of time, the container gives out the smell of garlic and stays that way until you wash it.

Such is the smell of regret. It stays long after the situation is resolved or after one has transitioned from one level to the next.

This is also how a low-SiQ leader feels when he or she transitions out of an organization. They feel like they are leaving behind the glory days and the success that defined them. The time and effort they put into the company, all those years of hard work and silent sacrifices gone by. Now, it’s time to ‘give away that position’ to a younger, and more dynamic leader.

“The smell of regret stays unless we choose to wash ourselves of it.”

~Krescon Coaches

Let’s back up a bit and reflect on the words I just used – ‘give away that position’.

If a leader with a low Spiritual Quotient (SiQ) is transitioning out of an organization, he or she feels regret. Oh, I have to renounce my position in this company. I guess that’s fine, it was too stressful anyway… I will just have to accept it. But I can’t believe that they want me to leave. Am I not of any use anymore?

When this is the case, one is not ‘giving away’ their position, but rather giving up. Accepting a decision helplessly and giving up is not the same as Giving Away. Giving up means renouncing something regretfully while still holding on to its impact.

On the other hand, Giving Away means the following:

·       Renouncing something while rejoicing about it

·       Letting go of it, but not as a meaningless experience

·       Embracing, with gratitude, the value it brought into your life

So, a leader with an enhanced SiQ will not give up but give away cheerfully the position they once held in a company. Furthermore, they can move on from one point to another in their life. For such a leader, the paradigm of defining oneself by what has been, including their past successes has no impact or effect of longing. A high-SiQ leader thinks differently from a low-SiQ leader. The approach toward whatever happens is completely different.

For the low-SiQ leader, a change can mean something more negative and tumultuous. While a high-SiQ leader can look at it as an opportunity to transcend willingly.

Shifting from one point to another

Leaders are often triggered by various situations, making them volatile as individuals. One word, one nudge, or one out-of-control situation, and all hell can break loose. But if the leader knows how to stay calm in such situations, they know how to resolve them and move on.

Leaders with a low SiQ will resolve situations with a lot of stress on their minds. Let’s say that one even decides to stay calm, the mind is filled with storms unknown and unseen to anyone. The day has ended and the leader goes home carrying this storm with him or her. That is the remnant one chooses to carry, and it stays until it is washed off.

On the other hand, leaders with a high SiQ will know when to pick and drop the energy of any situation. Whether it is during work or while transitioning out of a company, their thought process is completely different from that of a low-SiQ leader. The spiritually high leader will not be impacted by the rejoiceful transcendence from one level to another.

Birth of the Red Sea: The formation of greatness requires transitioning out at some point

“We often transcend regrettably without realizing that nature intended it that way.”

~Krescon Coaches

Have you ever heard of the Red Sea? It is a narrow inland area located between the Arabian Peninsula and Africa. Ever wonder why it was called the Red Sea or how it was formed? This geologically young waterbody was created 25 million years ago when the African and Asian continental plates separated. The crack that resulted from the separation of these plates was filled with water. Surrounded by ferrous oxide rocks that were red in color, this waterbody was named the Red Sea.

Like the Red Sea, many plate shifts have given birth to amazing geological features in the world. From the Rocky Mountains to the Himalayas formed by the collision of continents to the rising of the Pacific Plate’s Ring of Fire, a region with many active volcanoes. If you see, these earth-moving transitions take place naturally over a period. Yet, what they produce is absolutely marvelous and unimaginably beautiful.

Similarly, we go through these transitions from time to time if we choose to surrender. Surrender is not a bad thing, and in fact, is an actionable step to look forward to. Surrendering does not mean giving up. It means to willingly let go of the past you achieved and to joyfully embrace that which comes next.

Therefore, giving away means to allow your transition toward something far better, but with a low SiQ, this perspective is not comprehensible. So, it is up to us. Do we wish to give up and regret it or transcend and rejoice? With a high SiQ, transcendence is an inevitable joy to the soul.

When you transcend from one level to the next higher one, you are allowing yourself to grow. It is like the poem written by William Butler Yeats, called Another Song of a Fool where he symbolizes the butterfly as freedom and beauty while representing the limitations of human knowledge and that of society. By the end of the poem, he portrays how the former schoolmaster transformed into a butterfly while rejecting societal norms and embracing a natural and instinctual existence.

Another Song of a Fool

This great purple butterfly,

In the prison of my hands,

Has a learning in his eye

Not a poor fool understands.

Once he lived a schoolmaster

With a stark, denying look;

A string of scholars went in fear

Of his great birch and his great book.

Like the clangour of a bell,

Sweet and harsh, harsh and sweet.

That is how he learnt so well

To take the roses for his meat.