Introduction |I Will Not Be Broken: The Call To Build A Better Future A 3Q Leadership™ Guidebook by Irene Becker

Success at the speed of change is the mantra of courageous pioneers, avid learners and doers, pragmatic optimists and change-makers, transformational catalysts…
leaders and builders of a better way forward

This book is about power that speaks to our individual and collective strength and potential.   Power that speaks to human being better, not simply working harder than ever before.  Power that speaks to our ability to choose a better future no matter what.   Power that speaks to our ability to use even the darkest moments to see a greater light.  Power that speaks to leadership in its truest form.  Power that says, I may be beaten, but I will not be broken; hope, faith, courage, humanity and integrity will lead me forward.  This book is not about tragedy and loss, rather it is about our ability to champion the hope, faith, humanity and integrity that are our only timeless riches.  No one can take them; no one can steal them because they are the heartbeat of our greatest power, potential and purpose.  They are timeless anchor of true leadership, of finding a better way forward in the face of change, challenges and the darkest of events.

This book is about the courage to see a better future, to embrace a greater vision that can help rebuild a life, a company, an organization. It is about the universal values that drive sustainability and our ability to apply them while developing new ways, better ways to adapt, grow and actualize our intellectual, emotional and leadership capacity.   It is a book that speaks to ten years of passionate study, ten years of application with clients and a life event that changed my present and future dramatically, and made my commitment to take 3Q Leadership™ my life’s work.  It is also a tribute to thought leaders whose work must be actualized and made real in our lives and organizations.

This book is about building your 3Q Leadership Edge™; actualizing your potential to learn/relearn, communicate, lead and succeed forward in disruptive times.  It is about using the challenges you face to empower and realize the best of human courage, character, integrity and ingenuity.  It is a compendium of great thought, great theory and simple, practical 3Q Leadership™ condensed into reader/user friendly chapters and steps I hope will empower, inspire and challenge you to optimize your greatest potential.

This book starts with personal event of epic proportions;  an event that changed the course of my life and career and made my commitment to 3Q Leadership™ the purpose that drives my life and work. While I had faced many challenges in life and career, this was a challenge, a tragedy that came as most do, when we least expect it.  May 18, 2010 I lost my children, my home.   I lost everything that was important to me.  Five minutes obliterated my world as I knew it. What is it like to lose everything that matters to you? How does one go forward when there is no light, there is no hope, only the pain that everything you loved and cherished was taken from you in a 3 minute act that destroyed your family and your life as you knew it? 

The greatest test of leadership occurs when the challenges when our chips are down and we must carve out a better future. May 18, 2010 my chips were not down, they appeared to be lost. What remained were five values that had been my lifelong anchor; faith, hope, courage, humanity and integrity. My values, my anchors were eclipsed by the worst pain and loss I had ever felt. A stranger aided me and called for help. My ability to walk was limited to a few steps, but the physical pain was nothing in comparison with my heartbreak. I could not turn around and look back; I could not look back because everything I cherished was gone. Courage pushed me not to give up.  Humanity touched me in the kindness of friends who tried to help.  Integrity gave me a purpose greater than myself; a purpose to use my greatest challenge to find my greatest strength led me forward.  A little voice whispered to me, “I will not be broken.”  It was the same voice that whispered to me in different moments in my life and career when I faced and ultimately surmounted extraordinary challenges.  It is the voice that speaks to me every day; it is the call of our highest power, our greatest purpose, and our ability to use even the tracks of our tears to create a better tomorrow.

May this book, the three strengths and the five steps outlined within, inspire you, empower you and challenge you to build your 3Q Leadership Edge™,  because the call to lead greatly speaks to us all on an individual, collective and organizational level.