What is the main message of Permission to Glow?

The main message of Permission to Glow is to prioritize self-care and personal growth to live a fulfilling life.

How long does it take to read Permission to Glow?

The reading time for Permission to Glow varies. However, the Blinkist summary can be read in just 15 minutes.

Who is the author of Permission to Glow?

Kristoffer Carter is the author of Permission to Glow.

Mindfulness & Happiness

Permission to Glow Book Summary - Permission to Glow Book explained in key points

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Permission to Glow summary

Name: Permission to Glow
Rating: 4.3 (261 reviews)
Author: Kristoffer Carter

Kristoffer Carter

A Spiritual Guide to Epic Leadership

4.3 (261 ratings)

21 mins

Brief summary

Permission to Glow by Kristoffer Carter is a guidebook for people who want to live more authentically. It offers practical advice on how to find your voice and live your truth, while encouraging you to let go of limitations and embrace your inner glow.

Topics

Talent Development Coaching Leadership Spirituality Mindful Work

Table of Contents

Permission to Glow
Summary of 7 key ideas

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Key idea 1 of 7

What’s in it for me? Learn how to unleash your full power, so you can help others do the same.

As a leader today, you face a unique landscape. Never before has there been so much pressure, competition, challenge, or stimulation. This could lead you to operate on autopilot – you simply don’t have the time, energy, or focus to live each moment with intention.

You’re stopped from accessing full potential – both your own and the potential of others. And if you’re a leader, that means you’re cheating yourself of crucial resources.

You need those resources to achieve more, to connect more deeply with others, and to live in peace. But by adopting the Four Permissions, you can disrupt this cycle of waste. In these blinks, you’ll discover how the four permissions will set you on a journey to fully activate your inner power while helping others shine too.

In these blinks, you’ll learn

the most important button on a VCR’s remote control;
why you need to become an emotion detective; and
what a 1980s cartoon about fighting aliens teaches us about leadership.

To grow as a leader, focus on your inner expansion.

Imagine you lead a team that delivers a wildly popular service. You know that as demand for your service increases, you’ll need to grow your team. So, you hire more team members and expand your office space, to support your business development.

This seems obvious: 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? After all, you can’t clone yourself. What you can do is expand your inner resources – the valuable qualities that allow you to foster the development of others.

The key message here is: To grow as a leader, focus on your inner expansion.

True leaders know it’s their job to help others reach their full potential. 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. It’s not a leader’s place to tell his team members how to navigate that chasm to reach the other side. His role is to support each team member in finding her unique way across, to the place where she can flourish.

But to perform this crucial role, you need to know how to negotiate your own chasm, so you can tap into your potential and fully embrace your power. And this is no easy task. Every day, you’re negotiating the competing demands of your role: moving projects forward, hitting targets, tending to your team. It’s easy to lose sight of what’s important with so much going on.

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. You’ll learn about each of these permissions in the blinks ahead, so you can integrate them into your life and enjoy their ongoing benefits.

You don’t need to be managing a team to take advantage of the permissions. In fact, you don’t even need to be a leader in the business world. Anyone who nurtures another person is a leader – whether that person is your child, colleague, lover, or neighbor. Learning to use these four permissions will help anyone who wants to live their best life.

Living your vocation brings peace.

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.

To behave with intention, give yourself permission to pause.

If you grew up in the ’80s, you might have had a VCR – a videocassette recorder that let you tape shows off the TV so you could watch them whenever you wanted. The VCR’s remote had a pause button. This wonderful little button meant you could pause at any time to grab a drink, visit the restroom, or even make a phone call, then pick up exactly where you left off.

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.

To benefit from their insights, give yourself permission to embrace your emotions.

You can deny your feelings all you like, but the truth is, they’re always present. They’re in the tone of that email you sent, or what you said when your star employee resigned, or in your body language when your lover told you he’s going on holiday without you.

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.

Befriend your fear so you can give yourself permission to shine.

A person who’s fully expressing themselves is like a flash of lightning – powerful and dazzling to everyone who beholds them. If you see someone in this state, you might wonder why you struggle to also unapologetically offer your unique gifts to the world, as you follow your true path.

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.

To increase your own power, give yourself permission to help others shine.

In the ’80s, there was a popular cartoon called Voltron. Voltron was a huge robot which defended a distant planet from alien invasion. But Voltron wasn’t a single unit. It was made up of five individual robotic lions – each with its own special talents. In every episode, when the aliens inevitably got the upper hand, the lions combined into Voltron, to obliterate them.

This cartoon carries an important lesson; 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.

Practicing the four permissions is a journey you must travel with self-compassion.

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.

But this transformation doesn’t happen overnight. Commit yourself to practicing the permissions every day, with awareness and intention. It’s inevitable that you’ll veer off the path now and then. But by summoning self-compassion, you can begin again from your new starting point.

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What is Permission to Glow about?

Permission to Glow (2021) provides managers with a roadmap to lead with intention and purpose so that everyone can reach their full potential. By embracing its four permissions, it shows how leaders can maximize outcomes and personal successes by first tapping into their own power and then guiding others to do the same.

Permission to Glow Review

Permission to Glow (2022) by Kristoffer Carter is a thought-provoking book that encourages readers to embrace their true selves and live life to the fullest. Here's why this book is definitely worth reading:

It offers eye-opening insights into the importance of self-acceptance and self-expression, empowering individuals to shine their brightest.
Through compelling anecdotes and practical exercises, the book provides actionable steps for unleashing one's inner light and finding fulfillment in life.
The author's authentic and relatable approach creates a sense of connection and resonance, making the book both engaging and inspiring.

Who should read Permission to Glow?

Leaders looking for meaning and fulfillment
Managers wanting to champion the potential of others
Seekers of inner peace

About the Author

Kristoffer Carter is an executive coach and meditation leader who works at the intersection of business and consciousness. His podcast, This Epic Life, has thousands of listeners who use it to practice meditation each day. A renowned international speaker, Carter has appeared onstage at Wisdom 2.0 and TEDx as well as on the morning news programs of CBS, NBC, FOX, and ABC.

Categories with Permission to Glow

Mindfulness & Happiness Management & Leadership Religion & Spirituality

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