Leadership Lessons Learned

To be truthful, much of what I’ve written about in Leadership Lessons Learned has resulted from the contrasting phrase of “Seeing is believing“. However, when living many of those moments, believing often led to seeing perhaps what was possible, sometimes what was practical, but more often what was the playbook to be utilized. For me, believing is seeing, allowed the bet to be taken. It also transforms retrospection from incorrectly stating “never have I ever”, which simply isn’t true, into more of a set of guardrails that I tried to follow based on beliefs. May some, any, or even one of what I accepted as my beliefs possibly help you at some point or time in your professional or personally lives. Here’s 15:

1. I believe you never bet on process. You bet on people. You bolster people with processes.
2. I believe I have never started or created anything. I have operationalized beliefs.
3. I believe you never plan on winning. You prepare to compete.
4. I believe you should accept success (today). Debrief tomorrow, devise next tomorrow.
5. I believe you should never confuse being brave with needing bravado.
6. I believe you should never misinterpret having experience with having wisdom.
7. I believe you should never substitute optimism for realism.
8. I believe you should strive to be better more than striving to be the best.
9. I believe you should always offer challenge by choice versus commanding.
10. I believe there is always “A” way, but never only “The” way to do something.
11. I believe you should never do harm to anyone or anything on purpose.
12. I believe you should appreciate being in the room but never feel deserving of it.
13. I believe you should always have a multitude of contingency plans.
14. I believe you should never stop learning, trying, or doing.
15. I believe it’s never over until it’s over.

The list of 15 could easily be 100 and emphasis on any subset of the 15 or the 100 might be more prominent or useful based on stage, phase, or age you are at in your career, in your relationships, or your life. I ended at 15 and with #15 because you do need to stop somewhere, but without confusing optimism for realism, you also never know what may come next. As an example, when winding down the ski season, who would have ever thought the picture used in this post could result? The picture is from April 9th of this year at Sugarbush with my incredible nephews Eric and Gavin Thomas as we had one of the greatest powder days you are lucky to experience every now and then in the East. Despite planning, having a process, and keeping it real in all you encounter, every now and then when you simply bet on people and spending time with them, may you find your very own blissful day of pow! #itmatters #mentorship #believe #skitheeast