The Mechanic's Guide

Direct your steps to a better path, reassessing the way you clarify your leadership principles.

In the exciting detective novel “Ten Little Indians” of the famous writer Agatha Christie, the killer, after managing to implement his meticulous diabolical plan, to kill all his guests on the Indian’s Island, revealed by an anonymous letter how things happened: how he managed to kill every one of them, with how much skill, trickery and artfulness he acted throughout those few days, the way he concealed, with great care and attention, his true identity – the way he played his role, with how much skill and artistry he fooled everyone, absolutely each and every one of them.

His confession, which was to be closed in a sealed bottle and tossed in the waves of the sea, before he took his own life in a particularly original way, ends like this:

„It was my ambition to invent a murder mystery that no one could solve. But no artist, I now realize, can be satisfied with art alone. There is a natural craving for recognition which cannot be gainsaid. I have, let me confess it in all humility, a pitiful human wish that someone should know just how cleaver I have been...”

Are you able to find your true inner authority in a permanent outer determination that can help identify the cause of a vision capable of becoming a vocation?

This story, splendid by the plot it develops, by the exceptional game played by the killer, whose identity is revealed at the very end, reminds us a simple thing. That the most influential people can obtain in the daily reality an extraordinary performance, and that's just to show how skilled they are at using their minds. In fact, this challenge to use your mind in the most skillful way possible is the strength of an inner authority that constantly tells you to be as functional, as authentic, as influential as possible in relation to other people.

But every influential man plays his role in accordance with his nature, shaping his character in a manner ideal to his vision. This murderer, by the professionalism with which he has designed and carried out his plan, this “leader” by his power to make rules, by his strong (but destructive) character, by his power to induce a certain state to others, had, with no doubt, that confidence in his personal power, which he knew to handle with clockwork precision.

He is a good example, firstly of the power of thought – because thought masters your facts, then of the power of imagination – because imagination creates your vision. But can the mechanic within such a man discover the place where lies hidden the wheel that, once set in motion, brings about total, lasting success? No. He can’t. Or he can, but only to a certain point.

But be careful ! The outward determination that can help identify the cause of a vision capable of becoming a vocation is the challenge of proving to other people that you are far above them, which can lead to overcoming the limits of any normal imagination. In fact, the cause of a vision capable of becoming a vocation can be an opportunity to test your intelligence in an original way, but it can also be an opportunity to expand your thinking by re-evaluating your self-beliefs.

Can you be the arbiter of your own character by identifying the cause of a self-image that automatically corrects your thinking mistakes by focusing on the feelings that fuel your vanity?

Someone said: “The true magnitude and nobleness of a man is measured by his power to subject his feelings, and not by the power of his feelings to subject him.”

Just as an arbiter is forced – by his behavior – to continuously remind the players the limits permitted by regulation and sport ethics, so you, in order to raise your nobleness level – which makes you a truly valuable man, must remind yourself the limits imposed by human ethics, and never breach the rules absolutely necessary for a proper functioning – in accordance with the leadership model imposed by others. To ask more from others, firstly, you must ask more from yourself – by your strength to submit your feelings. As arbiter of your own destiny, you must be able to stop the game between good and evil when your negative side is overwhelming in the detriment of others.

Are you an example for others? As a leader, are you firstly an advocate of great principles governing and controlling conduct in human relationships? Do you cultivate your potential in the light of other people’s feelings? Which one do you consider to be the negative aspect of your potential?

The self-image that automatically corrects your thinking errors has as a substrate your reflection in a consciousness that has discovered the sadness that is (often) given by the momentum of the desire to validate and affirm intelligence.

Remember that the feelings that fuel your vanity, such as enmity, arrogance or grandiosity, are in fact needs stemming from frustration, and they do nothing but cling to you and bring you down in a state of tension and stress. Self-guilt will eventually destroy you, grind you down until nothing is left of you.

The Mechanic’s Guide is, actually, the way to yourself, which helps you rebuild and fortify the foundation of your leadership. But, for this, you must identify exactly that “problem wheel”, which shows a wrong level of your character, and fix it before the whole mechanism breaks down.

Conclusion: As a leader, you just make the difference between good and bad, so you must build your principles on ethics and a deontology established by the “normal” of human society. Your ideas and vision, as well as your behavior, must be oriented towards the upper limit of the “normal” established by the human society through different legal provisions, but also by that common sense learnt from our predecessors, which should be true guidelines directing our steps on the appropriate path, towards achieving a purpose beneficial to us all.

Direct your steps to a better path, reassessing the way you clarify your leadership principles.