We’re celebrating Independence Day here in the States on Monday. We learned something interesting from author and historian Jane Hampton Cook.

BIGG success is life on your own terms. When the Declaration of Independence was written, the terms were incredibly important.

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The power of terms

For example, Thomas Jefferson originally wrote “subjects” before crossing it off heavily. He replaced “subjects” with “citizens.”

Do you see the power in that simple change?

The terms you use to define yourself can limit you or empower you. The same is true for entrepreneurial leaders – how do you see your people?

The lens through which you view them determines, in large part, whether you will have a team that just does what they have to do or a team that goes beyond the call of duty.

The power in interdependence

Another interesting tidbit we picked up from Jane Hampton Cook is that the word “colonies” was replaced by the term “states.”

Once again, we see the power of terms. Colonies are subject to the rule of a mother country. States are independent.

Even beyond independent, the States were equal to the government they replaced; they were equal to the country ruled by the King.

But they weren’t establishing a bunch of independent states. They formed the United States – a group of interconnected main governing bodies.

They moved beyond independence. They were interdependent. And one of the many lessons our Founding Fathers taught us is this:

Independence may lead to success.

But interdependence leads to BIGG success!

It’s the BIGG idea behind BIGG success.

You can find synergy by understanding interdependence: interdependence between the five elements of BIGG success – money, time, growth, work and play – and interdependence with other people.

How to get started

Think about the people in your network. Reach out to see if they might be interested in working together.

Initiate a conversation. If it goes well, schedule another one.

Each time you meet, the level of conversation will get more specific and deeper. Here’s a progression of questions you might discuss:

• How could we work together?
  
• How should we work together?
  
• How will we work together?
  
• How did we do?
  
• How could we do better?
  
• What’s next?
  

Depending on your answers, these questions may get asked over a period of weeks, months or even years.

These six questions help you find synergy in your relationships – you and one or more people working together to achieve more than you possibly could independently.

So make a declaration of interdependence. It leads to BIGG success!

How could we work together?

Image in this post from Henkster

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Today we’ll start a five-part series on freedom. In the first three posts, we’ll explore three levels of freedom. They are: freedom of, freedom from, and freedom to.

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Freedom of

With this level, we think freedom of expression, freedom of speech, freedom of religion and those sorts of things. If you’re like us, you probably think of these things as rights.

That is if you’re lucky enough to live in a society that guarantees those rights. If you’re reading this post, the odd are that you do live in such a society. We take away two points from this:

If you live in such a country, stop and be grateful.
You may see flaws in the system. You may see the misdoings of public officials. You may adamantly disagree with their decisions.

But, now and then, stop and be thankful that you live in a place where you can express your disagreement, if you choose to do so, without fear for your life. What a wonderful gift it is!

For the most part, societies that guarantee these freedoms do better than societies that don’t.
Isolation doesn’t work. It slows progress. In fact, isolation can actually cause societies to go backwards. We wonder, though, which comes first:

Does this infrastructure need to be in place so these countries develop, or …

Does this infrastructure result from the development?

We suspect the former – development is more likely to occur when this infrastructure is in place. When people feel that basic freedoms exist, they are free to develop things that aren’t likely to be developed in a closed society.

There is a lesson for leaders in this. Don’t just allow your people to express themselves; encourage it. That’s where creativity comes through.

Bigg success often starts with a bad idea. Ideas may seem bad at first hearing, but can evolve into something revolutionary. Such was the case about 233 years ago when a group of people declared their independence. We know the rest of that story!

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Thank you so much for reading our post today. Please join us next time when we’ll discuss the second level of freedom – freedom from. Until then, here’s to your bigg success!

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Related Posts

Three Levels of Freedom – Part 2

Three Levels of Freedom – Part 3

(Image in today's post by svilen001)