Three Minute Leadership: The Joy of Helping Someone by Being Yourself

To:  The Great Leaders Who Have a Passion for Continuous Learning

Author William J. Toms once wrote:  “Be careful how you live; you may be the only Bible some people ever read.” The influence we have on one another through our example is almost unimaginable.  In a gesture, a word or an action, we tell the world who we are, what we are about, what we value, how we see life and feel about the people.   Albert Schweitzer wrote: “Example is not the main thing in influencing others. It is the only thing.”  A friend recently shared with me a quote from Derek Jeter, famed New York Yankees baseball player, which speaks about his own experience:

“I’ve always liked being a leader who leads by example.  Don’t talk about doing something to help people.  Just do it.  We all have the ability to do things for others.  Sometimes, you might not even realize you’re helping another person.  Someone might idolize you because of the way you act, and that person might learn from you without your even knowing it.  Since I play with the Yankees and millions of people watch our games, I’ve had that happen to me.  I have to tell you that it’s incredibly satisfying to know that you’ve helped someone by being yourself, by simply enjoying life and being a decent person.”

What a magnificent gift we possess – the ability to profoundly influence others through simply living our life!   In our own beautiful and unique way, we are an incredible source of growth and inspiration to others.  And what an awesome responsibility this is also - to live a life that reflects great  values, that our words, actions and behaviors inspire and motivate others to achieve their greatest potential.  B. C. Forbes, financial journalist and author, tells us: "Judgment can be acquired only by acute observation, by actual experience in the school of life, by ceaseless alertness to learn from others, by study of the activities of men who have made notable marks, by striving to analyze the everyday play of causes and effects, by constant study of human nature." 

This week, may you be the Bible that others live by.

Have a beautiful day and a magnificent week!!!

Mike

Three Minute Leadership - It Is All So Beautiful

To: The Great Leaders Who Have a Passion for Continuous Learning

Wofford College President, Ben Dunlap, tells the story of Sandor Teszler, Hungarian Holocaust survivor, who taught him the joys of living passionately. One evening at Teszler’s home, Dunlap was invited to select a piece of music for listening. This was an important choice as Tezler had a deep love of music. The music he selected was Bela Bartok’s Third Piano Concerto. He had not yet heard it. Teszler was excited at Dunlap’s selection and proceeded to tell him about Bartok and the concerto’s composition. He told him that Bartok knew that he was going to die from Leukemia. He wanted to leave something to his wife who also a concern pianist. He dedicated his Third Piano Concerto to her. Dunlap relates:

“He (Bartok) incorporated the sounds of birds’ songs that he heard outside of his window, and what he knew would be his last spring. He was imagining a future for her in which he would play no part. And clearly this composition is his final statement to her, it was first performed after her death, and through her to the world. And just as clearly it is saying, “It’s okay, it was all so beautiful. Whenever you hear this, I will be there.”

Each day great leaders compose their own concertos. Their music expresses their vision of the future, aspirations and passion for life. Their music is powerful and moving. Though the sounds be loud or soft each note, in its own purpose, enlivens and touches the spirit. Plato, Greek philosopher, wrote: “Music and rhythm find their way into the secret places of the soul.” What will be your concerto, your legacy this week? May it be one that is grandiose,inspiring and filled with excitement that that those whom you serve will also say: “It was all so beautiful.”

Have a beautiful day and an incredible week!!!

Mike

Three Minute Leadership - Cheating the Clock

To: The Great Leaders Who Have a Passion for Continuous Learning

Many times I have been coached that I work too much, that I need to find some “Mike time” and relax. I am certain that many of the readers of these weekly notes have been told the same. The responses to this coaching, I am confident, are pretty much consistent: “You do what you have to do.” When you are doing something that you love, when there are commitments and deadlines for the work, when there are people who need to be served, you just do it. Unfortunately, however, our behaviors over time may lead to some bad habits in time management and in time-giving.

Seth Godin in a recent blog, Cheating the Clock, speaks about using the clock (i.e. putting in the time) to leverage success. He concludes that it is not a good lever (as 20 hours a day at work is not twice as good as 18, and you certain can’t go much beyond 24.”). He does, however, pose a thought-provoking question for us: “What would happen if you were prohibited from working more than five hours a day. What would you do? How would you use those five hours to become indispensible in a different way?” The challenge in his question is to re-think how we are using our precious resource of time. The question invites us to think out-of-the-box and possibly give us a kick-start on a new way of investing ourselves in our work, the people around us and our community.

He urges: “Go ahead, try it. Just for a week. See what happens. Even if you go back to ten, you’ll discover you’ve changed the way you compete.” We have nothing to lose… and everything to gain – new possibilities, new realities. Peter Drucker, American educator and writer, writes: “Everything requires time. It is the only truly universal condition. All work take place in time and uses up time. Yet most people take for granted this unique, irreplaceable, and necessary resource. Nothing else. Perhaps, distinguishes effective executives as much as their tender loving care of time.” This week take the challenge and find how to “become indispensible in a different way.” And have fun doing it.

Have a beautiful day and a magnificent week!!!

Mike

Three Minute Leadership: the Power of Imagination

To: The Great Leaders Who Have a Passion of Continuous Learning

In her 2008 commencement address at Harvard University, J. K Rowling, renowned Harry Potter author, spoke of the critical importance of imagination. She said: “Unlike any other creature on this planet, humans can learn and understand without having experience.” What a beautiful and unique gift we have! We can see outside current realities and envision new options. We can turn the impossible into the possible – fly to the ends of the universe and back in a split-second. We can picture new, exciting paths of our life’s journey, and see new possibilities.

Rowling says that unfortunately many choose not to use this gift: “They choose to remain comfortable within the bounds of their own experience, never troubling to wonder how it would feel to have been other than they are…. They can refuse to know.” They choose to be safe in what they know, not daring to take those wondrous steps of exploring life's and their own possibilities. They choose to live a life of consistency, one which Oscar Wilde, Irish poet and novelist, calls “the last refuge of the unimaginative.”

Rowling concluded her remarks stating : “We do not need magic to change the world; we carry all the power we need inside ourselves already; we have the power to imagine better.” What beautiful simplicity! Let your life be filled with wondrous imagination that you may change the world, your life and those you touch. As Stephen Covey advises us: “Live out of your imagination, not your history.” And have fun doing it.

Have a beautiful day and a fantastic week!!!

Mike

Three Minute Leadership: What Ballast Will You Throw Overboard?

To:  The Great Leaders Who Have a Passion for Continuous Learning

Bertrand Piccard, Swiss psychiatrist, balloonist and adventurer, in his recent TED presentation speaks of his plans to fly around the world in a solar powered airplane.  In his personal crusade to rid our dependence on fossil energy, he wants to break the paradigm that “the certainties that we have can be thrown overboard.”  In a motivating and captivating talk using his balloon flying experience as a background, he provides great leadership learning on exploring the possibilities in our life. 

He explains that  to steer a balloon we must understand that the atmosphere has many different layers of wind which all have different directions.  To change direction in the balloon, or in life, he says, we need to change our altitude.  Changing altitude in life means ”raising (ourselves) to another psychological, philosophical, spiritual level.”  To change altitude in a balloon, he says, there is ballast.  When you drop it, you ascend.  Similarly in life, if we are to go to a higher level in our lives, we need to throw off our own ballast.  This ballast he describes as  the “habits, certainties, convictions, exclamation marks, paradigms, dogmas” that hold us back.

If we look at life through this metaphor, Piccard suggests that: “Life in not anymore just one line going in one direction in one dimension. No, life is going to be made out of all the possible lines that go in all the possible directions in three dimensions.  And pioneering spirit will be each time we allow ourselves to explore this vertical axis,… that means explore all the different ways to do, all the different ways to behave, all the different ways to think, before we find the one that goes in the direction we wish.”  We can experience and explore life’s incredible dimensions and possibilities in all its facets.  We can truly fly to new heights!

With these possibilities revealed he concludes with a challenging question for each of us in our life's journey: “Which is the ballast you would like to thrown overboard which will be the altitude at which you would like to fly in your life to get to the success you would like to have, to get to the point that really belongs to you, with the potential you have and the one that you can really fulfill, because the most renewable energy we have is our own potential and our own passion."  Fill your life with passion. Cast off those things in life that hold you back from achieving your fullest potential. Change your altitude to experience life's richness.  And have fun doing it!  

Have a beautiful day and a magnificent week!!!

Mike