How to Find Your True North: Prepare

Self-knowledge is critical for developing a strong grounding and accurately evaluating your strengths and weaknesses. In this lesson, Tony Coles, Former CEO of Onyx Pharmaceuticals, shares strategies for uncovering what truly matters to you and using that knowledge to make better decisions and stand up for what you believe in.

In this step, you learn how to tune into your moral compass, celebrate your failures, and test the limits of your courage.

Tune in to your moral compass

• Find a way to center yourself that works for you.
• Allow time for careful reflection. Ask: What’s motivating me? Are my intentions the right ones? Am I remaining relevant? Am I getting stale by repeating the same actions over and over again? Am I challenging the way I think? the way I motivate others? the way I approach a problem?

Celebrate your failures

• Look for emerging patterns among your mistakes.
• Learn to connect the dots.
• Carry that knowledge over into your next judgment or decision.

Test the limits of your courage

• Conviction occurs at the interface of your preparation with information and your gut feeling, or instinct, about the right thing to do.
• In the face of adversity, be willing to stand up for your beliefs.

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Over To You

Now that you have a sense for what you’d like to learn in your study of EQ, let’s turn our attention to the first domain, Self-Awareness. In the next video Tony Coles describes self-knowledge as critical for evaluating strengths and weaknesses and finding your “true north.”

Consider a complex situation or problem you’re trying to solve right now and keep it in mind as you watch the video in the next step.