The Responsibility Meter

Imagine a dash board with a meter on it. At one end is the word FREEDOM. At the other end; the word RESPONSIBILITY. To me, being a leader and living a remarkable life means striking the delicate balance between the two. In other words, the needle on your Responsibility Meter should stay in the middle. Ideally.

Life’s all about balance. And one of the most vital of all balance points is the one involving freedom and responsibility. Yes, be free. Enjoy the moment. Be wildly passionate. Have a fabulous time. Live in the now. And yet, be responsible. Set your goals. Keep your promises. Get important things done. Fulfill your duties.

Where does your life – this very minute – register on the Responsibility Meter? Too much time enjoying your freedom and not enough time doing what’s required to build a world class career and world class days? Or the other way around? Being at either extreme means being out of balance. So here’s an idea: Think about what being at the middle of the meter would look like. Because better awareness drives better choices. And better choices create better results.

“Life’s all about balance. And one of the most vital of all balance points is the one involving freedom and responsibility”

(these are not my thoughts J and are copied from Robin’s book)

Be a Beautiful Thinker

I am reading Jumpha Lahiri’s The Namesake. Beautifully written. It prompted an idea: Become a Beautiful Thinker. Commit to making each of your thoughts a thing of beauty. Devote yourself to coming up with stunning insights and ideas and reflections that are outright masterpieces. You’ve heard it a hundred times in as many different ways: You become what you think about. And the thoughts you use become self-fulfilling prophecies. Expect extraordinary things to unfold for you, they will. The motivators say it. The teachers say it. The sages say it. Ever wonder why?

I think I finally understand why the idea is accurate. It’s not some esoteric philosophy. It’s simple logic. Here we go: The actions you take each day create the results of your life. And since every action you take has been preceded by a thought (thinking truly is the ancestor of performance), what you focus on does drive your reality. British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli said it so well when he wrote, “You will never go any higher than your thinking”. As a human being you will never act in a way bigger than your thoughts. Dream big and your behavior will follow. Think small and you’ll play small.

This concept cascades through every dimension of our lives. Think people are good and you walk through your days with an open heart. And that very behavior actually creates your reality, because people do good things for good people. Think you deserve the best and your actions will reflect that confidence. Better actions will then drive better results. Expect to be world class in your career or within your community and that brilliant thinking will shape the way you work as well as the way you live. And that exceptional conduct will drive exceptional outcomes.

I hope I have been able to express this point clearly because I believe it’s a big one that is too easy to neglect. Your thoughts do shape your reality. Your thinking does form your world. What you focus on truly will expand. And what you dwell upon will most definitely determine your destiny.

(these are not my thoughts J and are copied from Robin’s book)

The Paradox of Praise

I was driving Colby to school and got an idea I want to share with you. We were talking about Everybody Loves Raymond, the television show my kinds adore. In particular, we discussed the tension between Raymond’s (cranky) mother, Marie and Ray’s (loving) wife, Deborah. Colby said they don’t like each other because Marie doesn’t like Deborah’s cooking. I asked him to go deeper and to figure out the real issue. After we discussed it for a while, we both heard the coin drop: We got that the reason for Marie doesn’t like Deborah is that she feels threatened by the love between Deborah and her son Raymond. She’s insecure. Things she might lose him. So she’s hard on Deborah and has no praise for her. Ever.

Made me think about praise within the workplace (and within the home). A rare commodity. Praise, to me, is like the sun: “The more you give away, the more everything around you grows toward you. However, most people don’t give praise freely (even though it’s free), According to Gallup organization survey, the number one reason employees leave an organization is that they don’t feel appreciated by their supervisor. Yet, most managers give away neither praise nor appreciation. Because they think it makes them look inferior.

Here is the truth as far as I can tell. Giving praise to all those around you, when they most deserve it, makes you look like more. It elevates you. It makes you look like a hero. It makes you look like a giant within the work place. To everyone around you. So don’t withhold what your team mates most crave. We all want to feel special. I do. You do. And so does Deborah.

“Giving praise to all those around you, when they most deserve it, makes you look like more. It elevates you. It makes you look like a hero”

(these are not my thoughts J and are copied from Robin’s book)

Dream Like David

There’s a man I wish you could meet. I was introduced to him while I was in Mexico city to deliver a speech to business and social leaders. He moved me with his story. And he humbled me by his courage.

David Mejia was born without ears. Doctors predicted he would suffer from poor hearing throughout his childhood and that he would be unlikely to live a full adult life. His youth was riddled with operation after operation, a great deal of pain, and the hurtful taunts of classmates who made fun of his appearance. But David preserved. Greatness, in so many ways is determined by whether you persist through failure or let it consume you. David dreamed. He worked hard. And he believed. Because he know he was meant to do extraordinary things.

David has been blessed. With a powerful mind. With a big heart. With a strong spirit. And with wonderful parents, who told him on a near-daily basis that if he looked for the best from the life, he would find it. They encouraged him never to play victim. Told him to find the opportunity amid his challenges. And so he has. Masterfully.

The man I met in Mexico City is a leader. A hero. And inspiration. Why? Because he has taken what life sent him and turned what most of us would spend our days crying about into gold. He now has prosthetic ears. He’s healthy and remarkably vital. He has achieved superb success in his career. He has found great love and joy. He has more friends than most people I know (far more than me). And he is stunningly positive in a world where people who have nothing to complain about spend most of their time complaining about trivialities.

You can curse the darkness, or you can light a candle and show up as a leader. Life is all about how you can exercise the choices available to you. And your daily choices stack up to craft your destiny. Day by day. Week by week. Month by month. Year by year. David knows how to make the choices that will raise him to his own personal mountaintop. So do you.

“You can curse the darkness, or you can light a candle and show up as a leader”

(these are not my thoughts J and are copied from Robin’s book)

Be the Best You

Warren Buffet once observed, “There will never be a better you than you.” Brilliant insight. From a brilliant guy. There will never be a better me than me. And there will never be a better you than you. Some might try to copy the way you think, speak and act. But no matter how hard they try, they will only be a second best you. Because you are unique. Only one of you alive today. Among the billions of us. Makes you stop and think, doesn’t it? Makes you realize you are pretty special. No, very special. And that there really isn’t any competition.

And so today, what will you do with you as you march out into a world that needs people playing at extraordinary with their lives more than ever before? Will you exert more of you hidden potential? Will you liberate more of your natural creativity? Will you uncover more of your authenticity? And will you be more of the you that you are meant to be? Just wondering. Because there will never be a better time to be the best you than today. And if not now, then when? Makes me think of what the philosopher Herodotus once said: “It is better by noble boldness to run the risk of being subject to half of the evils we anticipate than to remain in cowardly listlessness for fear of what may happen.” So beautifully said.

“There will never be a better time to be the best you than today”

(these are not my thoughts J and are copied from Robin’s book)

Give to Get

Walking down the street today I heard a man repeating this mantra to all those who passed by him: “Have you helped someone today besides yourself?”. He was trying to raise money. For his cause. But it got me thinking about giving. You need to give to get. Giving does begin the receiving process.

Give support to get it. Give praise to receive it. Give your best to attract it. Give more respect to experience it. And give more love to become beloved. (Powerful thought: If you make five people feel better about themselves each day, by the end of one year you will single handedly have elevated the lives of nearly 2,000 people. Continue this practice and – after a decade – you’ll have positively impacted 20,000 people. Factor in the number of people that those you touch, in turn, influence and you’ll quickly realize that your “little daily gestures of inspiration” can end up helping hundreds of thousands of human beings over the course of your life time).

Give to get. Nice refrain. And so staggeringly simple (as the truest ideas are). All about servant leadership. Help others reach world class. And they’ll joyfully help you get to your cherished ideals.

“You need to give to get. Giving does begin the receiving process”

(these are not my thoughts J and are copied from Robin’s book)