Here is a great lesson I got from a friend of mine about thinking like a leader.

One day after Church, an older friend and I were walking from the after-church gathering to our cars.  During the gathering, he and I had been talking with a couple that we had met only once before.  My friend asked me, “What did you think of that couple?”  I told him what I thought in my natural unoffending diplomatic way.  He then responded to me rather directly saying, “I think they have a money problem.  They have, and it seems, they’ve always had too much money.”   He had a few other direct comments to make about them as well.

This was surprising to me for two reasons.  First, my friend is a fairly wealthy man himself.  Second, I look to him in some regards as a spiritual mentor.  Although his tone was not condescending, it shocked me to hear what he was saying.

That same night, he called me.  He told me that he could tell that I was turned off by his comments and saw that I was looking at him as a judgmental jerk.  He then explained to me that he often has these types of conversations with his wife and a few other very close friends.  He said that, in their relationship, there is an understanding that they always talk straight about what they observe in others that might be stumbling blocks in their spiritual journey.  AND THEN, they know what they are going to pray about for those people.

That is leadership.

That kind of thinking from that angle is what I believe Jim Collins and John Maxwell mean when they say “Level-5 Leadership.”  At that moment, I knew that I wasn’t there yet.

Do you look for faults in your employees’ work-performance and lives? Then, do you take your private time to meditate on how you might make a difference in their individual lives?  How about co-workers, spouses, family members or complete strangers?  Although these faults are great fuel for gossip, there might actually be a far more constructive thing you can do with that information.

It’s a little idealistic to think you can do this for everyone you meet, but if you start with the person next to you right now, who knows what could happen!

The ideas that Einstein published about time being relative were really revolutionary.  It is just hard for our minds to fathom such an idea that a second isn’t the same no matter what.  I mean, if time is not a constant, then what is?

If you think about how hard it was for Einstein to come up with this idea, and a mathematical formula to prove it, you can imagine how hard it will be for you to figure out the formula for the theory of relativity in your life.

Here it is in action.

If someone says, “I’m no good at darts.”  The only way he could really say this is if he has played before.  If this is true, then it means that he remembers playing it at least once, in the past, and maybe he just didn’t do as well as the people that he was playing with.  The funny thing is that he’s pulling this memory from his future.  He has no idea that he’s no good at darts right now.  He’s not playing.  He could get really intentional about it and surprise himself.

Yes, this is an oversimplified example, but how often do we remember things in the future when it comes to a particular topic with our spouse, boss or employee?  When you remember things in the future, there is no POSSIBILITY for anything different to happen.

Where is the theory of relativity distorting your life?

A friend shared a video on You Tube the other day. It is a man named Dennis Prager with one of the best explanations of America’s core values I’d ever seen. Take a look:  [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nn4IH3yng4k]
One of the biggest mistakes our country is making right now is in the area of liberty. The more equality we try to give to people, the more we lose values and liberty for others.

This is true Economically as well as Socially. Let me explain Economically first. If you make $100 and you go to a store that sells things for up to $99 you can buy anything you like. If someone takes money away from you, now you cannot. There are only two people who can take money from you without your permission. They are a thief or the Government. The government uses that money to make 3rd party purchases. In other words, the people who are actually spending the money will likely never use the product they are spending it on.

Socially: well this is a much more sensitive and complex topic, and my statements will be very generalized. I’ll start with a great quote from President Ronald Reagan, “There is nothing quite more permanent than a temporary government program.” There are two Social Liberties that are being taken away here.

• First, when things are given with no expectation an entitlements mentality is developed and there is no incentive to stop receiving. This encourages stagnation, the opposite of growth.
• Second, when there are no government programs, there are Charities, non-profits, and Churches that help in many areas. Of course these things are not perfect, but neither are the government programs. When the Government stands in to take over these tasks, the concerned citizens who volunteer at the charities, non-profits and Churches stop volunteering. The bottom line is, people in need get more compassion from volunteers than they do from a government employee at a window.

Equality of outcome is not a right for anyone. Equality in creation is self evident. There are too many examples today of people from different races, countries, ages, sexes that have succeeded in this country to use any of those as excuses. Yes, it may be harder for you because you’re…whatever; but being harder is no excuse for lack of results. It’s hard for everyone to have a fulfilling life, if you think it’s not, you’re naive!

Strive for excellence and embrace the three core values of our country and participate in the Greatest Experiment in world history!

Health care controversy has become the norm over the last few years. I think this is all very interesting for a few reasons… How should we pay for such an animal? Why we spend so much time debating a symptom (<–health care) as opposed to the real problem?

I will not solve the issue in this post; I only want to get the thinking muscle going a little bit about where the focus should be.

Let’s first look at how to pay for such an animal as public health care. Well, the baby-boomers do pose quite a problem here. First of all, there are a lot of them, and not as many of everyone else. When we look at the ratios that the government used when creating Social Security, one of the things they noted was that each generation was a certain size larger than the last. However, since the baby boom, that has not been the case, the ratio has not been big enough to cover the cost. That’s one side of the ticket- how we are going to pay for the baby boomers. On the other side of that ticket we observe the younger generations. Has anyone noticed that there are more kids today on prescription medicine than any other time in history? How about the Autism epidemic? Has anyone noticed that the mean age of cancer has gone down? The list goes on… The point is, your younger generations are far less healthy and needing more and more medical attention. So, HOW ARE WE SUPPOSED TO PAY FOR THAT!? WHO IS GOING TO PAY FOR THAT!? Do you realize how much the government would have to collect in taxes to make that happen? Taxes would go through the roof! You’ll find many conservative Canadians (yes they exist) who are starting to warn Canada and the U.S. of this very pending problem in their country.

The real problems. Why is health care so stinkin’ expensive in the first place? And, Why are we as a nation so much less healthy than the rest of the civilized world. (Hint: The answer is not, because it’s too expensive to see a doctor)

So, why is health care so expensive…I believe there are 2 causes to that…  Malpractice insurance is well over 250k a year for many Doctors (frivolous lawsuits, and activist judges). The insurance company claims practices. To fully explore these items would take as much space as the U.S. Tax Code book. (It would take the average American over 4 years to read the entire code without taking a break).  Finally, why our country is so unhealthy compared to so many other countries out there. Again, there is a lot of things I could say here about our education system, our mass media that understands how we’re educated and totally plays to our weaknesses, I could talk about government subsidized farming, or even the fact that some grocery stores force employees to wear gloves while handling produce (because the employee can get sick from handling so much produce with all the chemicals on it). We can even get into genetically engineered seeds; there is no one culprit for this particular issue, but the bottom line is this…

Personal Responsibility.

I really don’t think that anyone in this country believes that a Twinkie is good for you. Even a naked hermit in the woods could tell you that. I think everyone on the country can tell you that preservatives are not good for you either. Most everyone knows what is good and what is not. There are some things that seem good that aren’t (I.E. Product that you must wear gloves to handle safely). Everyone knows that they would eat less junk food, and do more exercise, everyone KNOWS these things!!! And if you don’t, there are plenty of consultants out there that would be more than willing to help with that. People like Karen Langston (www.iamworthit2.com) for example, will help you get the right food in your body to maximize your energy, your mental focus, etc. Paying for her, is far less than paying for medical expenses, (One of the leading causes for bankruptcy).

So, if we know all of this, why don’t we do it?  Is discipline so hard? It all comes down to personal responsibility! So again, I’m not here to solve the problem, but I do know, just by dealing with my own kids, that you cannot make someone take personal responsibility for cleaning his room by going in and cleaning the room for him.

So, my answer to Health Care is to focus on the real problem, health care is just a symptom.

A good friend of mine, Tammy Stanley, told me a great personal story that I thought was a perfect Warrior-Leadership lesson.

It started when she was dropping her son and his family off at the airport to visit his in-laws.  She had set the stage for him and his family to return to a family night out at a nice restaurant.  Less than a week before her son was due to come home, Tammy was offered a great opportunity that required travel.  The conflict was that she would have to leave early morning the day after her son would come back home.  Busy as she was, she also knew she wouldn’t have time to pack until the night before.

Tammy decided to text her son, as phone conversations during this part of his travel wasn’t possible.  Her text said something to the effect of, “Hey, I’ve got crab in the fridge that I want to use before going out of town in the morning; I’ll just bring you and the family to my house and we’ll eat there… what do you think?”  The next day, he sent a text in reply, “No, that’s all right, Mom, I’m really looking forward to going to that restaurant with you and the family.”

With no time left for more replies, Tammy was stuck and a bit irritated.  She picked everyone up at the airport and went to the restaurant.  As predicted, the kids were restless after getting off the plane, everyone seemed to be preoccupied and the evening just didn’t turn out to the reunion that it was supposed to be.

After dropping them off at 9 pm, Tammy was thinking about packing and getting ready for her 4 am start the next morning.  Needless to say, she was feeling overwhelmed and even a bit unappreciated.

Have you ever caught yourself in this type of thought-pattern?  It happens to us ALL THE TIME.  In the way I told the story, it’s easy to see that Tammy is at fault for the emotion she’s having. In fact, almost every time you catch yourself feeling “Overwhelmed, Unappreciated, etc…” somehow, you’re probably at fault. Just as it wasn’t easy for Tammy to see it, it’s not easy for you to see it in yourself.

As it turned out, Tammy totally caught herself in this thinking pattern and stopped it.  She saw that most of this feeling had nothing to do with the story of un-appreciation she was making up, but rather that her son knew how to get what he wanted and she didn’t.  She saw that she could have avoided this who mess and overwhelming situation if she had simply practiced open and real communication with her son.  There were a million ways she could have successfully stated her case to change the dinner plans, but she chose to be ‘diplomatic’ in a way that obviously didn’t work out.

The tragedy is that it’s rare that people are able to trace the negative emotions they feel in any given circumstance back to their own decisions like she did.

These types of emotions, “overwhelm, feeling unappreciated, etc,” that don’t have a clear origin (one of your decisions) are an example of what I call “mental clutter.”  Surely, this isn’t an ineffective way to go through life.

Is it time to Clean House?

Nate is a pretty impressive guy. He started an on-line company that did really well, well  enough that he took a year off and toured Europe.  While there, he met a nice European girl whom he subsequently married.  Back in the U.S. and in his business, things were going well, until he found out that his wife was cheating on him and then left him.  Devastated by the loss, his business fell apart.  After a few years of emotional recovery, he started up another business and he’s now doing just fine.  I met Nate about a month before his 25^th Birthday.   More than what you might expect from a kid his age, huh?

I am going to use the rest of his story to illustrate how deeply rooted our self-sabotaging behaviors are.  The workshop in which I met Nate was designed to help us peer into our blind spots and get a glimpse at what caused our particular self-sabotaging behaviors.  Nate’s was a feeling of “not being wanted and not being good enough.”  This may not be the same as yours, but, if you’re human and you look hard enough, you’ll find your own.

When Nate recalled the first time he felt that way, it was an incident that involved his father.  Today, he understands that it wasn’t actually what his father did that made him feel that way, but, rather, it was how he interpreted it. Unfortunately, understanding what caused the feeling doesn’t take away our emotions or give us the ability to stop the self-sabotage.

I happened to be with Nate on the day of his 25^th Birthday.  He was very excited and had planned a big party… at his father’s house… the one person whom his self-sabotaging nature looks to for the fastest, easiest way to gather evidence of being “not being wanted and not being good enough.”  There are a million places in the city he could have planned his party (which, by the way, HE asked to plan the party at his father’s house. It wasn’t an invitation from his father to have it there).  True to form, just a few hours before the party, his father sends him a text and tells him that he can’t have the party at his house because he was too tired.  Our hero falls into his self-made trap and experiences great emotions of “not being wanted and not being good enough.”

So, taking a look at my friend Nate, I said, “let me take a guess… Your dad is a straight-laced, upper-management or executive-level manager in corporate America.  He makes lots of money, has a big house and nice car.”  And Nate, bewildered looked at me and said, “Yeah… How did you know?”

Here is how I knew.  Nate’s self-sabotaging nature has set his whole life up to make him feel “not wanted and not good enough” by his father, and others like him.  Nate is an entrepreneur, which is the most risky thing a successful upper management employee could think to do.  Of course, his father didn’t agree with Nate’s choices.  (in my view, it probably wasn’t that his dad “didn’t want him” but, rather, he was trying to protect him and guide him to do what he knew how to do).

Second, Nate has hair like Malcolm Gladwell and you will often find him in a t-shirt with pictures like  “the kool-aid man” on them.  Basically, he is exactly the opposite of what you might find in the executive ranks of corporate America.

Coincidence?  I think not.
Nor do I think it’s intentional rebellion either.

In this story of Nate, it is easy for us to see his self-sabotaging behavior at work.  It is also easy for us to say, “grow up, kid, get over it!”  But to him, it’s not so obvious, he can point to a million other things and circumstances that would suggest that the simplicity that we see isn’t so simple… but it is.

Here’s the deal: this is really a Story about YOU!

We are all carbon copies of Nate, all of our self-sabotaging behaviors are a symptom of something that would be just as obvious to others if I had written your story.

What is your self-sabotaging behavior?

What is stopping you from being the absolute best you were created to be?

Once Nate ‘saw it’, he was able to have an authentic conversation with his dad that same night, which resulted in an un-canceled party, and their relationship has grown to a whole new level now.

What could that kind of awareness do for you?

In 1924, a series of studies were started in a factory just outside of Chicago.  Most of the studies were in an attempt to discover how the brightness of the lights in the factory affected the productivity of the workers.  The workers knew a study was being conducted.

A strange thing happened.  When they turned the lights down, productivity went up.  When they turned the lights up, productivity went up again. Once the study was over, productivity went down.

Thus was born the Hawthorne Effect, the idea that when people know they are being observed, they will modify their behavior outside of any scientific controls. This is true for children and many animals as well.  Scientists say that even electrons tend to react differently when they are being observed.

This study is the idea birthplace of many modern management gurus.  Take for example Peter Drucker, who is known for saying, “If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.”  In corporate America,  it is normal for people to have performance objectives that are set up as measurable goals.  Since the employee knows that he/she is being observed specifically for this measurement, they will modify their behavior to meet the objective.  Simple, right?

Well, maybe not.  In most cases, these metrics are tied directly to an employee’s paycheck.  This creates some interesting dynamics.

If the employees has direct influence over the metric, this is ideal. You charge the employee to make 100 widgets a day.  It is easy to see if the employee has done the job or not, and your measurement of what was done is accurate.

If the employee’s influence over the metric is indirect, tying his/her paycheck to the metric will give you inaccurate data. For example, if you want to know how satisfied your clients are, you may give them a customer-satisfaction survey.  If you directly tie your employee’s paycheck to the results of that survey, then you will not be measuring how satisfied your customers are, but how well your employee gives directions on how to fill out a survey!

Companies have found many creative ways to measure things like customer satisfaction, and reward their employees for good metrics in this area.  E.g., random surveys or hired “mystery shoppers” can be a good way to collect the data and keep your employees from being able to influence it too much.  Creating a quarterly, semi-annual or even random bonus structure can be a good way to make sure the reward is not expected or depended upon by your employees, yet rewards them for their performance.

Determine what you really want and need to measure.  Find a good way to measure it.  Don’t let the Hawthorne Effect influence your data.  If your employees have direct influence on the outcome, feel free to tie it to their pay.  If it is an indirect influence, like the results of a survey, get creative.  Most of the time, those indirect-influence areas hold the most important metrics to your company’s success.

This past week at InfusionCon, I heard a great keynote speech by Gary Vaynerchuck.  One very interesting thing he said was that, according to Google corporate, the amount of content produced online every 48 hours is equal to all the content produced from the beginning of recorded history till 2003.  THAT’S A LOT OF CONTENT!

(That’s also a lot of noise.)

At this point, content has been reduced to a commodity, huge supply with demand in the form of expectancy.  So, what do you do?  If you don’t have any content, no one will hear you or pay attention to you.  If you have good content, so does everyone else, so no one will hear you or pay attention to you either.  Are you still trying to create that one ‘viral video’ that’s going to give your business the attention it’s been yearning for?  I don’t think so.  Although content as a means to make you stand out is dead, your customers still demand it.

In today’s digital economy, everyone is scrambling to figure out how to make a nameless online business.  They devote a great deal of time to developing content that will serve as a replacement for themselves.  Most entrepreneurs’ dream is to have a business that runs itself and doesn’t require them to be there at all.  This is possible, and there are many people doing it.  However, I think this space is getting very crowded and competitive.  The younger generations have also started to pay less attention to these types of companies and instead are turning to companies that they feel have a name behind the brand.  Viral videos are a flash in the pan. Making content, videos or otherwise that connect with your market is what sticks.  I would spend less time on generating the world’s best content and start focusing on “humanizing your business and your brand”, as Gary calls it.

The two biggest concerns that people have about “humanizing” their business and brand are: 1. They won’t be able to scale, 2. The business won’t be able to succeed without their physical presence.  Well, Jermaine Griggs of HearAndPlay.com is a great example of someone who has humanized his business, scaled to impressive revenues, and lives the 8-hour-work week.

Content is required, but the Human context is what will make you stand out amongst the noise.

“Go West, Young Man!”, said Horace Greeley as early as 1833, as a plea for young Americans to contribute to the westward expansion.   In 1802, just 31 years before, West Point, the United States Military Academy, was officially established by the legislation signed by President Jefferson.

It took a special kind of person to take the advice to go west.  It also took a special kind of person to go to West Point.

Although these two kinds of people may have played together in the woods as children, dreaming about the wild west, their lives sent them on very different paths to get there.

The young men who went west eventually met with cowboys who knew how to fend for themselves and how to protect each other.  They didn’t have any fancy equipment, but they knew how to get things done.  Some of those young men became cowboys themselves.  They would have rather died than gone back to city life, the life everyone else was too comfortable to leave.

The young men who went to West Point immediately met with professional military officers, daily rigorous physical and academic challenges and military tactical training.  They were continuously drilled and pressured in an environment of getting-things-done in the most efficient way possible with the most modern equipment of the time.

In 1846, as the Mexican War started heating up, both the cowboys and the West Point officers fought together, in the Wild West.

They were on the same side, but had very different motivations and approaches to the battle.  The cowboys were defending their homeland, their families and their honor with pure ingenuity and innovation.  They didn’t have government-funded support or equipment.  The West Point officers and soldiers of the Army had funding, supplies and equipment.   They were there for American Expansion, to create and preserve a country, to make a name for themselves in their profession and just for the Honor of being an American Soldier.  Though being two very different cultures, they fought together and respected each other.

As a business owner, you are a Wild-West cowboy at heart. You make your own rules, you believe in a cause bigger than yourself, you have a vision and pursue it with determination and freedom. However, as your business expands, you’ll tend to transform your freedom-culture into a more structured, West-Point type organization. Good side: it means your company is expanding.  Bad side: it’s easy to kill the spirit that brought you there.

At this point in your adventure as a cowboy, you may or may not have had a West Point Officer fight along with you.  In order to get where you want to go, you’re going to need some.  However, when that time comes, don’t forget the call that beacons to your cowboy-spirited employees and innovator clients, the call to “Go West!”

A mentor once told me, “Do what you have always done, and you’ll get what you’ve always gotten.”  If I just kept doing what I was doing at my job and being like everyone else, I shouldn’t expect to see any significant change in my lifestyle.

I pose, however, that this statement is no longer true.  If you keep doing what you’ve always done, you will NOT get what you’ve always gotten, you’ll start getting less and less. Whether you’re an employee or an employer, you must keep moving forward just to get what you’ve always gotten.  For my generation, social security is a joke, and betting on the stock market for my 401k to pull through is like playing Russian Roulette!

From a different angle, you could say the future is wide open for those who are willing to NOT do things the way they’ve always done them. I have noticed that the younger generation, generation “Why”, is really picking up this principle well.  In most cases, you cannot get this younger generation to do any type of work simply for work’s sake or even for a decent paycheck.  The older generations usually sneer at this as laziness, insubordination and disrespect.  The fact is, that you can’t get many Generation Why-ers to do much of anything unless there is some purpose behind the work that offers some greater meaning for life.

The lesson we can learn from them is the future is in our hands, not in the hands of some big company or the government.  The innovators are the entrepreneurs, intra-preneurs and small business owners.

Said in another way, the future “…Sir, is not for the strong alone, it’s for the active, the vigilant, the brave!”  It seems that this quote, taken from Patrick Henry’s “Give me liberty or give me death” speech, wasn’t just for inciting spirit in the hearts of the original patriots.

Be active!
Whatever it is that you do, do it a lot, and keep getting better.

Be Vigilant!
As my high-school football coach used to tell the running backs, “Keep your head on a swivel.”  Constantly be on the lookout for opportunities!  Look in other industries to find techniques you can use in your niche.  Look at things that already exist and try to put them together in ways that no one else has done yet.   Find underserved markets that are starving for attention.  If you’re an employee, look at the wake that your employer is making, find tangent opportunities in the wake.  If you’re an executive, find opportunities in your industry environment that can make a strong ecosystem for your business model.

Be Brave!
Commit to the purpose or possibility you create.  Leave your ego on the couch.  You are not your results or lack thereof!  Be committed to outcomes, not methods or agendas.  Stay ethical at all costs.  Lead with your purpose, your “why”, the thing that will be the most rewarding…serving others.

“I know not what path other men might take, but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!”  ~ Patrick Henry… a man committed to providing liberty for others at any cost.

What are you committed to?