Social media, whether it be facebook, linkedin, twitter or others serves a great purpose in connecting us and potentially furthering our consciousness and creativity. For over a year, I resisted getting on facebook but after another invite, I finally succumbed this week. It’s been an interesting study for me. The challenge is to have it be a tool that serves me and others vs. getting sucked into the black hole of the addictive frenzy that sucks the time and productivity out of me. As my friend put it, the “blessing and curse of fb.”

I advocate for you to be intentional about HOW you use these tools as TOOLS. I am seeing a trend of a frenetic outward search. Search for what? For business I say some of it is fear induced – trying to grab for perceived smaller pieces of the pies. For personal, I say some of it is to be known, liked, to matter. What is the definition of “friend” and how many true ones can you have?

Whether it is your life or your business, I advocate to know what gives you meaning. It all starts and comes back to the Big WHYs and WHATs. Why does it matter? What do you want? You must keep some private life intact otherwise you run the risk of alienating yourself and having outward success and a life you don’t want. This = unhappiness.

This is what I mean by your personal strategic visioning process: How do you discern what you want in life? What is the life you want to create? How will you do it? How do you want the life you have? This gives you essential clarity, grounding and the ability to respond to these changing times. It allows you to make decisions about your work that align with your best self. It makes the difference between fighting upstream and going with the flow gracefully. Otherwise, the inputs can be overwhelming and you are vulnerable to reacting to the latest fb wall or “tweet”. Tag, you’re it.

Copyright 2009 Sage Leadership Strategies, LLC www.sagelead.com