Why?
Why do bars and pubs stop serving customers when they are drunk, but Quick Service Restaurants continue to serve obese people?
Leadership excellence starts with the person dressing you each day.
Why are our Nation’s children obese?
Plain and simple. Ineffective leadership.
How do we expect kids to be healthy if we aren’t.
Failure Is Not An Option
Tony Morgan. Never heard of him until a few months ago. A LinkedIn network update led me to a top ten article.
To read the top ten reasons why you and I will most likely fail at anything, click here.
Tony Morgan’s list isn’t anything new. Heck, there’s hardly anything that’s ever really new. However, one of the great, underrated keys to success is repetition.
Let me say that again, repetition. Ya with me?
Kinda Freaky
Okay, the human mind is remarkably strange. This Rick James song from long ago is in my head. Why? Because I’ve just reflected on the past two jungle jeff blog posts.
Wake up calls. Corporate down-sizing. Christmas Day attempted terrorist attack. It’s all kinda freaky, super freaky.
The Last Lecture, by Randy Pausch. Pancreatic cancer. Wife. Three young kids. Best-selling author. Hero. Role model. Computer Science Professor. Oprah Winfrey Guest. Deceased.
These are unprecedented times. Turbulent times. Stressful times. Uncertain times.
But time marches on. Question is, “Will we?”
The Last Lecture
I get it. There is only so much a person can read. We can’t do it all. Right there with you. And, many of us received new books as gifts recently.
What books changed your life last year?
There were a few for me. Two had significant impact.
Up first, The Last Lecture, by Randy Pausch. Randy was a Carnegie Mellon computer science professor, in his mid-40’s. He had a wife and three children under the age of six.
Then he got pancreatic cancer.
To paraphrase what I heard Randy say:
This isn’t a book about dying. It’s a book about living.
It isn’t a book for you and me. It is a book for Randy Pausch’s children.
How did this book change my life?
It is in living in the moment that makes us great leaders. Doing things – things that matter – with a heightened sense of urgency has changed my life. I’ll tell you why tomorrow.
Here’s some jungle jeff mental floss to clear you mind.
A friend sent this You Tube Video:
I know, you’re too busy to click on the play button:
What are you sinking about? Carpe diem. :)
We Can Do Great Things
It is helpful to remember the big picture, isn’t it?
Do you have creative and effective ways to remember the big picture? I mean everyday. Do you?
Currently, writing five daily blogs has helped me make a dramatic leap in the way I perceive excellence and act on excellence.
The dramatic leap didn’t happen a year ago when I was writing single digit monthly blog posts – November 2008.
It didn’t happen when I wrote nearly 20 monthly blog posts – December 2008.
And it didn’t happen in the first two months of this year, when I wrote even fewer.
But something magical happened in March, ten months ago.
I’ll tell you all about it tomorrow. Wishing you the best day of your life -today! Carpe diem.
Icons Help Shape A Brand
Who needs me to draw a map?
No seriously, I hope you’re getting this. Hey, everyone is busy. You don’t think I know that? Come on, I get it.
But do others get it? There is never going to be a time when you will have time. It hurts to hear this, doesn’t it?
So now is the time. And this is the place for simple, daily reflections on excellence. It has to be a daily habit, or it will never be excellent.
You can be very good, without a daily habit, but not excellent.
My whole point last week, spontaneously inspired by a ten-minute walk outside that Dallas hotel, was what Tom Peters calls: “A Brand Called You”. Others call it , “Me Inc”.
Don’t believe me? Then click here to read an August 2007 Fast Company article from Tom Peters entitled, A Brand Called You.
If you’re not the lead reindeer, the view never changes. Being emplyed is like that too. And it reminds me that as a leader, it’s incumbent on me to see the future and describe to others what it looks like.
Someone has to set the vision. If it ain’t the leader, what have you got? Seriously. If the leader doesn’t do it, you’re in serious trouble.
Imagine these guys without a lead reindeer:
PS. Okay, so they’re not exactly reindeer, but you get the point. Make your day great. You know where you’re headed, right?
“Fear not those who argue but those who dodge.” – Marie von Ebner Eschenbach
Early in my Fortune 100 career, there was a new assignment which required that I move and inherit an existing, high-performing team.
And even though they knew much more about how things ran, they still wanted me to help them improve. They brought dozens of creative ideas.
I was on a huge learning curve and loving every minute of it. However, you know what happened?
Nothing.
Being insanely busy, and blindly disorganized, none of their ideas moved forward. I was overwhelmed and didn’t even know it.
Crazy thing though, I thought things were actually getting better, because their ideas started to dwindle, but not because things got better.
Even crazier, they thought, “Don’t go to Jeff, he won’t do anything.”
Wished they would have argued with me, “Why aren’t you helping us?” Instead, they dodged.
And who could blame them?
Leadership priorities. Probably the single most important “to do” on a great leader’s list. Right?
At the top for me is a compelling vision. Then acting with integrity. And thirdly, building trust.
But these aren’t the priorities I’m talking about.
I’m referring to personal, moral priorities.
A few months ago, I had the privilege to hear a Fortune 100 President give a speech. To my surprise he listed his as:
Didn’t see that one coming. Career was third. As a Fortune 100 President. Wow.
Live authentically, serve humbly, live to make other’s dreams come true.