Terminal breach

# Chapter 111

The three pillars of credibility according to Kouzes and Posner are trustworthiness, expertise, and dynamism. You have to build credibility, it cannot be purchased. A lack of it is the terminal breach of believablity.

Expertise is about deep knowledge of whatever subject. Deep knowledge is like what a PhD student has as they prepare to write their dissertation. Dr. Klipowicz told me that “when you finally read a book about your subject, and you have already read every single person this particular author quotes, then you are likely ready to start writing.” That proved to be accurate. Yet nobody knows everything, so this also includes being honest about what you don’t know. How solid is your knowledge about your subject?

Dynamism is the visible or experiential energy one has to compliment trustworthiness and expertise. It is the energy that comes from a true believer in the expertise and trustworthiness of the subject. Dynamism alone is just awful. Be enthusiastic not overpowering. My dad and I stopped by a dealership to look at a Jeep not long ago. The salesman, was so upbeat and positive about the Jeep that he talked us right out of it.

Nobody cares how much you know until they know how much you care. Not sure any longer who originally said that, several people are taking credit, but it remains true. Trustworthiness is rooted in honesty and dependability to keep secrets, but if you are not a person who cares, then it won’t matter. No one will confide in you.

These three make up the largest portion of credibility. Where are you on these three markers?

Drive-by murder machine

# Chapter 110

If you don’t understand and believe that what you are doing is important, no one else will either. And its not. No matter what the type of function you accomplish in the world, you gotta be fully cognizant of how important and significant it is to the world.

In the idea world where I live, sometimes referred to as leadership, when it comes to followers, clients or partners, listening (and listening until you sweat) is far more important than anything you have to say or offer. You can’t do this by being shark. A shark is basically a drive-by murder machine. You have to build a relationship and move the context of the dialogue from transactional to transformative.

You can’t ignore how precious people’s time and interests are, and so you first give value by listening until you sweat. Show up on time! Be brief! Look for solutions! You won’t get a second chance with most folks. Under-promise, over-deliver every time!

I once worked with the most charming person you will ever meet. In the end though, he proved to be a thief of my energy, generosity, experience and connections, and he started that by rarely showing up on time. Don’t be this way.

Do more than you say you will, and promise far less than you expect to deliver. And spend time with others who are equally generous in giving far more than expected. Its is a lovely way to live, surround by people who are constantly challenging you to become the caliber of person they believe you to be. What you are doing is important. Believe it!

The best and most difficult

# Chapter 109

These five practices are real and difficult work. They will mark you as exceptional in leadership practices. These behaviors produce the best followers and clients and partners. These five practices will foster the finest and most solid gains for those you lead.

Model the way

Inspire a shared vision

Challenge the process

Enable others to act

Encourage the heart

-Kouzes and Posner

These are not just polite ideas. They are gobsmacked thermonuclear concepts that require a great deal of discipline to practice. You think them easy when you are the one wanting them to be applied to you and your situation. You will find them almost impossible to do when you are the leader and must take all initiative and responsibility for seeing them done well. What that really means is that they are easy to receive, and incredibly difficult to deliver. They are welcome to the recipient and costly for the one leading.

There is one posture that assists greatly in reducing all these strains though. It is the posture of servant. Not like in a British novel, but more like in quartermaster in the military sense. The quartermaster is expected to make certain that each person has the right equipment, gear, and tools to effectively do his or her function. Humility will go a long long way in greasing these rails of serving, but while very helpful, it is not required. Some of the best leaders and quartermasters of my leadership training had all of the grace of bull and the humility of a crocodile, but I was certain that they wanted me to succeed even more than I wanted me to succeed.

What power there is, in a leader determined to make me succeed! There was practically nothing that I would not attempt in order to gain their approval, and to further what they could see (even while I could not see what they saw) in me.

Cheer louder!

# Chapter 108

Encourage the heart - from The Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership

When people give their efforts toward making themselves succeed, cheer louder than anyone else in their life! They are taking all the risks, spending their money on you, and investing their time talent and energy. Cheer louder than anyone else! Celebrate their victories and failures alike!

I have limited talent, intellect and resources. But I am a great cheerleader! And there is still room for plenty of improvement! This is what I want to be known for when I am dead and gone, someone who was a great cheerleader.

Most high potential leaders feel guilty when they focus energy and resources on themselves. There are simply so many other needs in the world. There is so much competition for time and energy and resources. I get that, but if a leader can see the importance of improving themselves, that it is far more leverage to do far more good in the world, this you want to cheerlead loudly! This kind of leader is the smartest of the smart.

When a person takes risks that leverage themselves and the world for the greater good, these kinds of actions need the fuel of your encouragement. They put themselves in uncertainty and the danger of failing in order to achieve something greater, than if they just played it quiet and safe. Stand up and cheer!

When they invest their own resources in developing themselves, you need to applaud! You need to throw gasoline on this fire and help it blaze brightly! These people are using their time and talents and energy to pursuit a better situation and world for everyone or at least someone. You want to be the person they can most depend on in such times.

Give them power, possibilities, permission and perspective

# Chapter 107

Enable others to act - from The Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership

This is the participatory aspect of leading others toward the future they want. An enduring relationship is the foundation. Ray has my back. I have Ray’s back. We share a history of more than 12 years of doing this for one another. This practice is the linchpin one. If you can’t make people feel and be more powerful in determining their own futures, then you and I have failed once again at leadership.

Enable others to take action. Give them power. Give them possibilities. Give them permission. Give them tools. Give them a new perspective. Change the view for them, help them see new horizons. Give them what they need to find the future they want.

I will never forget how Ray made his entire software development company my playground while I tried to build a new business in an industry where I had zero experience. I shudder to think what helping me cost him, and to add insult to injury, I never made a cent on that business venture! But I learned a great deal about generosity and leadership. That unhesitating willingness to enable me to act on Ray’s part, changed the course of my life.

I have repeated this unhesitating act of generosity over and over in the lives of my clients around the world. But I had to see it and experience it first, before I could do it well myself. Now I can do it over and over and see others begin to do it as well. This is how to best serve those you lead, your clients, your followers.

Break something!

# Chapter 106

Challenge the Process - from The Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership

This is where we create powerful and special value for the person. It is giving them a different view, another perspective through which to see their situation and their possible unique future. This requires the innovation which you have, as a result of your experience and different perspective. Create value!

This one is in my wheelhouse and I could spend the whole book right here. I am a natural process-challenger. It drove my parents crazy. In the Deep South where I grew up, there is almost always every single time, only one “right” way to do any given task. You could feel the negative energy building when I constantly asked “why” must it be this way, to the one “right” method to accomplish whatever. This is on par with “him who must not be named” in Harry Potter. A spooky superstitious vibe that creates social pressure to not challenge or talk about it, giving it even more power in the process.

This is what you are up against. Its great fun! If you can learn to live with the uncomfortableness that it creates, the social strands that hold relationships together, will experience this pain most intensely. Navigate carefully. Hold people gently. Break their wrong processes, which are holding them back, keeping them from succeeding and a result of their fears - but softly do it. Few people can bear the clarity and tsunami resulting from your challenging the process.

But done well, this is a primary value producer in leadership. It helps people get to the best version of themselves. It helps them face what is holding them back. Go. Break something. Challenge. Be careful.

Raising the bar from “control” to “inspire”

# Chapter 105

Inspire a shared vision - from The Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership

This is about designing a customized solution that the follower needs. What is the possible unique future of the follower or of those you are leading? If we can’t inspire this possible unique future, you and I have already failed at leading. You can’t command this, you have to inspire and persuade others.

Coercive leadership isn’t really leadership. Its a weaponized solution for bringing about the desired results of someone, utilized by the person who isn’t actually doing any of the work. It is not leadership, its a boss telling an employee what to do. Its a dictator making a decision for everyone else. Its about power and control and not about leading. We don’t need any more of this in the world.

Instead, inspire a shared vision. “Inspire” and “shared” are the two words that make this the polar opposite of coercive leadership/dictatorship. Now can you see how custom designing a solution that benefits you and the follower or client or employee is so radically different than telling them what to do and when to do it and with whom to do it? Here everyone wins and benefits.

“Shared” is the tough one for most leaders I work with around the world. This requires a release of control that makes most of them very uncomfortable. Heck it makes ME uncomfortable! There is no other way for them to ever be yours, unless you are willing to negotiate the direction in which you are to travel as a group. This is not unreasonable, but it does raise the leadership bar from “control” to “share”.

Inspire is the easier of the two for most of the folks I know and work with, because once they get going about what they are working on, they can talk for hours! They are naturally inspiring. Even I want to go to work for them after such sessions.

Understanding you

# Chapter 104

Model the way - from The Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership

“When you understand who you are and what your values are, you can give voice to those values in all that you say and do.” SSSL p. 19

It is more difficult to know who you are, or perhaps more difficult to accept who you are, than most people realize. Besides those factors, you are also an ever-changing being, so we are not talking about knowing or accepting a stationary target here. But if you want to influence others, lead, have authority and power to shape a better world, then you really need to work at this one. Strive to understand yourself, and address the parts of yourself that need addressing. Easy words - lifelong work.

As you do this and as you live it out with those in your circles, you will model the way. Yet you need to decide precisely what you want to model. You can model frustration with who you are, as easily as you can model the value that everyone should have a voice, or some other value. Choose your value, and give voice to it.

When all this is aligned you will have power. Power to help people move forward. Power to help others change. Power to shape the world. Power to be who you are and be comfortable with that version of you. When you are comfortable with who you are people can trust that.

Without trust there is no way to move forward. This the foundation of credibility and reliability (under-promise over-deliver) and a great future with people.

Chose yourself

# Chapter 103

“Leadership is an observable and learnable set of skills and abilities that is accessible to everyone.” Sssl p. 2

The most hated time on the softball field as a kid, for many people, is when the teams are chosen. The “captain” or designated leader would chose the players in rank of their perceived abilities. But that is not a leader. That is a captain. The person in charge of making a certain set of decisions. What we would call a manager in the modern world. Perhaps an actual leader, but not necessarily so. Don’t think of leadership in the context of playground rules and experiences.

I work with highly competent people and I want to see them flourish and grow and develop. They often do. Sometimes they don’t. Because Leadership is mostly an attitude and a skill set and a polishable set of abilities, a person can make a decision to be better, expand, improve and develop their leadership. Or they can decide to watch Family Feud or YouTube, and not develop anything. Most people fall into the middle somewhere.

Having a coach or a mentor or both is very helpful, but honestly, those who are going to move the fastest and most are those who are reading and watching and studying and learning with or without a helper. There are far more people who need leadership skills than there are coaches and mentors. But remember this is observable, learnable, polishable and completely within your reach.

The only person this depends upon in the end, is you.

Chose yourself. Don’t wait to be measure and chosen by someone else.

Leverage

# Chapter 102

“Your choices create leverage. Your habits unleash leverage.“ James Clear

You chose well, and that great choice creates potential leverage. You chose poorly and gain no leverage. The meaning I am using for leverage here is power authority influence and advantage. Leverage powers my entire work life.

In the most basic sense, I am leveraging the technology of the internet and the tablet that I am writing this on, to communicate with countless people throughout the world irregardless of how far from me at this moment they may find themselves. The limitations of distance, who can hear my voice when I speak, who can look over my shoulder as I write, all those limitations are destroyed by the leverage of this technology.

In a higher sense, I leverage my uniqueness. I am a rich person living in a poor country. There is leverage with that (and care must be taken in how that is utilized). I am a foreigner in a strange land, that too can be leveraged, both to my advantage and to my disadvantage (as anyone who has lived as an ex pat can tell you). But I am also a multi-cultural multi-lingual highly educated and widely experienced person and that is a great leverage.

In the best sense, I leverage the people and networks of people that I have gotten to know around the world. To make the story of a lifetime a bit shorter, this means that I get to work in all kinds of change-the-world venues. In areas that my normal age, experience, education, skin color, gender, etc would not allow me to work in. That is what leverage is. Now make it a habit!

Pay up

# Chapter 101

“If you want to be successful, find out what the price is and then pay it.” - Scott Adams (read in a James Clear blog)

In other words, it costs what it costs.

My father-in-law’s favorite joke about doctors and lawyers was this one: An old man was dying and he called his doctor and his lawyer to his bedside, and had them stand on either side of his bed. He grasped their hands and laid there in silence. Finally the lawyer asked, “what are we doing here?” The old man replied, “I am a Christian and I want to die just like Jesus did, between two thieves.”

Whatever you think about lawyers and doctors this one thing you must admire about them, their work ethic. You become neither of these without a huge work ethic. They found out what the price was, and they paid it.

Or said another way, you will get what you are paying for. This applies pretty evenly across the board I think. Your productivity gives back what you invested as a general rule. The same is true for your fitness routine, your financial savings and investment plan, your scholarly pursuits, your relationships, your home, your waistline, your marriage, your self-development, your present, and your future.

If you have sought the price of success, and have decided to pay it, then you know that what I have written is true and accurate. If you have not agreed to pay the price of success, then why not? For with most things in life, you are already required to be there in class, at work, at home, why not shift your mindset to success, and stop just being a rockturd and couch potato?

Which problems?

# Chapter 100

“For leaders, it’s not IF problems, but WHICH problems.” Karin Hurt and David Dye

Which problem are you going to solve, face, defeat, win over? No one has a problem free life. But if you make a conscious decision about WHICH problems you are intentional about solving, facing, defeating and overcoming, you can have a largely stress free life. Not problem free, but yes, stress free. If you have a problem free life, then you aren’t leading anything, including yourself.

And powerful. Choosing your set of problems, choosing which challenges you are gonna work on every day, is powerful. It is powerful because you get to choose. Which problem, which angle, which result, which outcome, where your blood, sweat and tears will be spent. Its not a problem or challenge or difficulty that someone else gave you and demands that you solve, its the one (or ones) that you are most interested in, that you most wish to resolve.

And freeing. Choosing which problems you are to tangle with every day, sets you free. Free to soar, free to dream, free to think outside the box, free to invent, free to rise to the top of the field, free to master this problem in the world and all its parameters.

And undistracted. Focus is now possible. Intensity is now yours. Intentionality is built in. Leverage is for the taking. You can unleash all your possibilities on this challenge. You can take this problem by storm. You can affect its outcome. You can laser in on all the fine details of this one problem.

Change.

The.

World.

“For leaders, it’s not IF problems, but WHICH problems.” Karin Hurt and David Dye

No skips!

# Chapter 99

Stop skipping steps - James Clear

Skipping steps, cutting corners, taking short cuts, not following the full procedure, but we aren’t talking about cheating here, although there could be an element of that nuance found, but we are talking about ducking, missing, sidestepping, avoiding and bypassing all the steps required for optimal success in a process or event, in search of getting there more quickly and with less effort expended. See it isn’t cheating per se, its more not being willing to follow through and take the time to do it correctly, or it is just plain and simple trying to achieve the same or better results with less effort.

This is an argument that following clear simple steps consistently and without skipping any, can produce amazing results. You can think of it as a checklist, or a todo list, or a system of not-yet, do-this-before, that-follows-this kinds of structure to your day or week or life. I strictly follow this kind of system or routine which enables me to accomplish all the important pieces of my life and work first or early in my day.

This can be called mastering the fundamentals. And since I am not a person who needs or wishes for much variety, few things give me more of a sense of accomplishment, than following ALL the steps of my morning system. Whether it is my extensive system of building core strength, or writing followed by RSS feeds followed by email later in the day, these systems and routines make so much possible.

This is how the chicken farmer’s son moved from MooCow GA, to Russia, now to Macedonia, overseas for 25 years, finished my doctorate before I was 45 while planting a new church in a new country in a new language, etc etc. The consistent daily pursuit of the right things, over and over. Awesome.

Internal inputs

# Chapter 98

Inputs are not only external they can also be internal. What is going on in our racing hearts and heads is also an input. A noise. A challenge. An unignoreable cacophony. This is why I am up at 3:34 am writing this darn 275! Yes I am having some jet lag too, but its always the brain, always the brain. Once that kicks in, never gonna get back to sleep and I spent two hours trying.

But it can also be worry, your to-do lists, your forgot-to-do lists, your kids, your grandkids, you job, your finances, your work, your failing car, your aging parents, your ever more forgetful spouse, your health, your bucket list, your lack of sleep when you have a full day today like I do! That’s your brain on acid or something, not really sure because I have never done acid, but your brain is going a million miles a second and those are inputs. They keep you reeved up so high, you can’t get the focus and quality that you need.

And it can also be your heart, as in the loss of your brother, your mom dying, your dad lonely and sick, your marriage not going the way you had hoped, arguments, disagreements, the taxi cab driver rips you off, the customs agent yells at you, the passport officer grills you, your boss fires you, the other driver cuts you off, someone dents your car while you are buying groceries, whatever it is that gets your heart racing is an input. It too is something that has to be processed.

Limit your inputs.

Change the world.

No cap

# Chapter 97

“There is no cap to your potential. Your identity is fluid. You get to choose.”

These are all magnificent things that we dream of all our lives, and then for some reason decide that they are not possible. When in reality they are completely possible and we just have to take them.

I read it somewhere that you go through different versions of yourself. I say to my wife that I am on my third version of her, and she is on her fifth version of me! This is true and perfectly normal. We change. We grow. We develop. Just too slowly and with far too many boundaries.

The idea that there is no cap . . . befuddles our daily experiences. We live in an apparently bounded world with hard limits. To conceive of a world where there is no cap, just can’t be easily grasped. Can’t be easily conjured. Difficult to reach for and seize. If there is no cap, why did you choose what you have chosen? Why have you become what you have become? With no cap, there is more.

And with no cap, your identity can be fluid. It already is anyways, but this makes it easier to get your mind around. The reason I say it already is, is because I have played with this one for many years. And it is largely cultural and language specific. Different cultures and languages explain your identity in different ways. Westerners explain identity in terms of function, and since my function is very abstract and mystifying to most folks, I may use an Eastern Identity phrase and just say I am the father of Heidi, Jake and Helen, rather than my function in the world.

But you can be anyone you want to be. You get to choose.

Chose.

Be.

Stretch!

# Chapter 96

“As you adapt to your difficult environments, you'll evolve into a new person with expanded consciousness — stretching your views of yourself and your possibilities.”

So you have leapt? We are still in the same groove here baby, so if you haven’t jumped in yet, then you need to back up a few chapters. This chapter is for those who are placing themselves in difficult, stretching epic-fail-potential types of situations. If you are running on the typical rails of no fail allowed nor sought after, then you are once again in the wrong chapter, and maybe in the wrong book.

As your learning curve of the astonishing grows, you will adapt to these self-imposed challenges, these difficult expectations you have set for yourself. Remember the diving board from when you were a kid. The low dive seemed SO high above the water until you conquered it, or were pushed in by some friend from that height. Then you moved up to the middle board, because honestly the low dive seems too easy. But whoa! The middle board seems so high!! But you conquer it too, and then move the high platform, and so on a so forth.

The difference here is that that we are moving directly to the high platform, and bypassing the lower two incrementally higher boards. That is why we are staying with the metaphor LEAPS of faith. Because the reality is that everyone who can do the low dive, can also do the high dive. We are just going to throw caution to the wind and leap from the high dive first!

After you do it, you will wonder why were you ever afraid to begin with. You world has now officially expanded. Repeat. Then repeat.

Leap!

# Chapter 95

“You take leaps of faith by putting yourself in demanding situations that require you to be substantially more than you currently are. In those situations, you'll need to decide who you will need to be and then act as if you are already that person.” Ben Hardy

The previous chapter outlined what you need to do to become exponentially more. Know what you want. Take giant leaps of faith toward that wanted version of you. So how do you do that?

Most of us are firmly committed into the average day to day track. We want stability and predictability more than almost anything else it seems by the choices we make. That has to change.

Now you will be willingly and purposefully placing yourself in demanding situations that will require much more of you, or you are gonna spectacularly face-plant in front of everyone. If the thought of that causes you to hyper-ventilate then good. If that thought doesn’t abuse you to even break a sweat, then you aren’t reaching far enough. “Substantially” is the key word here. Prepare for some failures. Maybe even some epic ones!

No safety netting, no back doors, no saving face. You will now make choices that are far above your current pay grade or your current role. Remember these are leaps of faith . . . in yourself. You got this. You can do this. You can exponentially change your current course in life and your current leverage to change the world, and yourself in the process. Its called ‘faith” for a reason. Inherent risk. But other words for faith are trust and confidence. Leap!

What you want?

# Chapter 94

“Quantum leaps and instantaneous change are completely available. The growth you seek in your life doesn't need to be incremental, it can be exponential. You can experience radical  even quantum   improvement. The process is simple, but not easy. You'll need to know what you want and take enormous leaps of faith to get there.” - Ben Hardy

This is very exciting and invigorating that quantum leaps and instantaneous change are possible. To put it in more every-day-human terms, you can move forward, you can change the path you are on, you can choose to be different, you can choose a different life, you can change the world, you can be anything you want to be!! All you need to know is what you want.

That is far far more difficult a task than one would think. This is the first and most difficult question that I ask each and every client I work with around the world. Few can answer it. Most can only tell you what they don’t want. Don’t get frustrated with this one, but don’t get in a hurry either. It is a very difficult question to answer. It might even be a moving answer!

Once that is accomplished, you only need “enormous leaps of faith” to get it done, hahahaha! Actually in my world, if you can answer the “what do you want” question, then enormous leaps of faith would be pretty mundane. Seriously the enormous leaps of faith won’t seems so enormous once you have intense clarity about what you want.

You want big change? You want exponential growth in your life? Resolve what you want, and leap.

The lifeline

# Chapter 93

“According to Keith Ferrazzi, the real path to success in work and life is through creating an inner circle of "lifeline relationships." These are deep, close relationships with a few trusted individuals who will offer the encouragement, feedback, and generous mutual support you need to reach your full potential.”

Earl says, “You have really good friends.”

This was not always the case, but it is definitely the case now and my life is ever richer because of it. Ferrazzi had it just right. I would do just about anything for these fellows and they for me. I vacation with them, I travel around the world with them, I drive across entire states to just have a single meal with them. They are worth that and so much more. The gifts of their friendships are incalculable.

When Earl says, “You have really good friends.” It is a statement of highest admiration. It is the crown of a life that is being lived well. You will never be worthy of these kinds of people in your life, and if you feel like you are, then you need to reassess the caliber of your friends, and your judgement.

The support I get from these men and women is so humbling. This is why you and I will never be worthy of these kinds of people. I still don’t know the boundaries of how far they are willing to go for me. They just give and give and give. And it makes me want to give back and invest and try to out-give them as if that were possible.

They all insist that I was this for them first. And that this was how it all started. I began the cycle. But from where I am sitting, they definitely began the cycle. Confused? Don’t be. Just be the kind of person you want others to be.

Be!

# Chapter 92

*Presence is far more intricate and rewarding an art than productivity.*/Ours is a culture that measures our worth as human beings by our efficiency, our earnings, our ability to perform this or that. The cult of productivity has its place, but worshipping at its altar daily robs us of the very capacity for joy and wonder that makes life worth living — for, as , “how we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.”/ [Annie Dillard memorably put it](https://www.brainpickings.org/2013/06/07/annie-dillard-the-writing-life-1/) Maria Popova

People ask me “how to be the person that I want others to be” to quote from the previous chapter. BE that person, is the answer. If you want someone to reach out, then you reach out. If you want someone to be in your corner, then you be in their corner. If you want someone to listen to you, then you be the one who listens. And the gems will respond in kind. Capish? Probably not.

Then pay attention to what Popova said above as she quoted Anne Dillard, if you want great friends then you have to BE a great friend. Unfortunately most of us are all consumed with doing more, not being more. Stop burning all your bandwidth on efficiency, earnings and performing or producing. You have to be more than a machine. I just took four glorious days off fishing with one of my buddies. Four days off!! Work to live don’t live to work! Be altogether here now in this very moment. Its more difficult than it sounds. Its more rewarding than you believe. Its actually the purpose of living. So get living!