Permission to Glow

Sharing my learnings from the book, Permission to Glow by Kristoffer Carter

Permission to Glow by Kristoffer Carter

In this transformational guide to conscious leadership, Fortune 100 executive coach, meditation expert, and host of This Epic Life podcast Kristoffer Carter shows you how to transcend the overwhelm and disruption of daily life and step into your power. With a unique blend of irreverent humor, pop culture references, and spiritual insight, he reveals the 4 Permissions that offer you the fuel to glow, and The 7 Compassionate Laws of Personal Change for activating and living these permissions. 

• when demands on a business increase, you expand it to meet those demands. But what do you do when there’s a rising demand for leaders, too? What you can do is expand your inner resources – the valuable qualities that allow you to foster the development of others.
• Every individual stands on a metaphorical cliff that represents what is. On the other side of a chasm is another cliff that symbolizes what could be.
  • leader’s role is to support each team member in finding her unique way across, to the place where she can flourish.
• If you want to become the best possible leader – one whose team thrives as much as you do – you need a set of tools to hone your awareness, so you can act with intention. What the author calls the four permissions are these tools and so much more.
• There’s a distinct difference between someone with a career and someone with a vocation.
  • If you ask the first what she does, she’ll offer you her job title and explain a few projects she’s working on. She might be content and even successful – but a certain spark will be missing.
  • By contrast, someone with a vocation won’t just be sparking – she’ll be shooting out fireworks as she chats about her role and why it’s important. And even more than that, she’ll humbly express gratitude for what she does. It’ll be crystal clear that she’s doing exactly what she should be with her life.
• When you’re doing the right thing at the right time, you feel peace. This happens when your job is your vocation.
  • Having a vocation quietens that little voice in your head, the one that constantly asks, Is there a better job out there for me? You’re at peace with your work life, even if it’s challenging or demanding, because you know in your very core that it’s the right place for you.
• Pausing is a powerful tool. It lets you step away from distractions, reflect, fact-check, and then resume in a more grounded mindset. When you choose to pause, it creates a space between a stimulus – like a piece of information or someone else’s behavior – and your response to it. By pressing pause, the first of the permissions, you give yourself the chance to choose how you’ll respond.
• Imagine what would happen if you gave yourself permission to slow down. By slowing down, you create space to consider what the right response to each situation is, overriding the need to stay on autopilot. When you slow down, you end up with better outcomes because you’ve reflected on them, instead of making them reactively. This ends up saving you time and energy in the long run, because you don’t take as many detours.
• The simplest way to give yourself permission to pause is by practicing meditation. Meditation increases your brain’s ability to adapt to changes. It’s a powerful way to cut through the busyness of modern life, so you can pay attention to the stimuli around you and how you respond to them.
• Social conditioning has trained us to think that mastering our feelings means not feeling at all. But this is impossible. As humans, we experience emotions, every minute of the day. So, to comply with society, we keep our feelings locked away and pretend they don’t exist. But when we do this, we miss out on all the valuable information our emotions are trying to tell us. That’s why the second permission is to welcome and experience every one of your feelings.
• If you want to benefit from the insights your emotions hold, you must give yourself permission to feel them, and accept that they’ll always be present. The first step to doing this is to call on the first permission and press pause. Then, explore your feelings without judgment. Tease out any important information they’re trying to convey, so you can identify what you need.
• What’s most likely stopping you is fear: fear that you’ll overshadow others, or fear that you’ll be reprimanded for standing out. But just because someone has embraced their true path doesn’t mean they’re no longer afraid. They just know that fear is part of the journey – a travel companion they’re willing to accept. And so, they embrace the third permission.
• We all have egos and those egos have a specific role – it’s their job to keep us safe. To explore our capabilities and unleash our full potential, we must venture into unfamiliar territory, where possibility awaits.
• To deactivate your ego so that you can give yourself permission to shine, you need to befriend your fear. Start by reminding yourself that fear is, has always been, and will continue to be with you on your journey. But having fear by your side doesn’t mean you can’t get on with living your dream. You don’t need to stop, just because it’s with you.
• Once you’ve accepted that fear will always be along for the ride, you can start transforming it into powerful fuel – excitement. When you breathe deeply, even in the face of fear, your body interprets the stimulus you’ve encountered as something to get excited about. By breathing – something you’ve done from the moment you were born – you can convert that fear into positive energy that can fuel your journey and feed your inner light.
• when you combine your light with others, you become an unstoppable force. That combined force can achieve far more than a single light. That’s why you’ll never embody your full potential if you try to do it alone.
• Every human craves connection. And it’s not just to make us feel warm and fuzzy. Connection benefits everyone, including ourselves. As a leader, it’s your job to help others shine. When every bulb in your team can contribute their unique gifts and perform well, you’ll all flourish.
• To achieve this, create space for team members to determine how they execute each project. Before you start a project, share with your team why it’s important and then, as a group, articulate what success will look like. Then, support your team in finding its own way to realizing that vision.
• Shift your focus from what team members did for a project to the gifts they brought to it. Thank them publicly for their contributions and share what you’ve learned from them. That way, you can empower them to keep growing, and fuel their ever-growing lights. And when you do this, you’ll discover a deep sense of fulfillment that comes with helping others.
• Putting the four permissions into practice is a journey from panic to transcendence.
  • Permission to pause leads you out of anxiety and into a space where peace exists.
  • Permission to feel reconnects you to your humanity, so you can gain useful insights.
  • Permission to shine unleashes your potential.
  • And permission to help others shine lets you transcend the self to support others.
• Practicing the four permissions is a journey you must travel with self-compassion.
  • set yourself a specific goal for the next 30 days. Make it something you know you’ll achieve, so your win is guaranteed.
  • focus on consistency, not duration. Honor your commitment every day, even if it’s just for five minutes.
  • commit to the long game. Living with peace, awareness, and power isn’t a checkbox on a task list. It’s a lifelong commitment.