Take Ownership of the Important Decisions

Every once in a while we have to make important decisions. Avoiding making these decisions typically means that someone else will have to make them for us.

The biggest advantage of taking ownership of these important decisions is that we get to plan out how to go about it. If we no longer can afford our house, for example, deciding to sell it in favor of a smaller one is better than having the bank kick us out. In both situations, we loose the house but one way is carried out how we want to proceed while the other one isn't.

Small decisions also follow this principle however the impact of them are also small.

To take ownership of the important decisions is to have better control over the outcomes of those decisions.

Leaders Take Blame

(Image created by A.I. DALL-E/Bing)

"Leaders take blame" is something I first heard roughly 15 years ago when I attended my first MLM Leadership seminar. While I've applied the principle for myself, it's not until recently that I've had to extend its reach to someone else's mistake and understood the reasoning behind it.

"In youth we learn; in age we understand."

-Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach

I'm at a point in my career where I have more work than I can reasonably do on any given day. Lately, this has become a problem due to competing priorities; when I work on one thing, the other thing doesn't get done until I have time to do it. 

To remedy this situation, I've started delegating some of these important task unto other people and this is how I learned the importance of taking the blame from someone else's mistakes. If I discourage people when they make mistakes, then I'm going to be stuck doing these tasks on my own - forever. If I want other people to step up and take up things off of my plate then I must create an environment to allow them to grow.

By taking the blame, I've allowed people to be more courageous than they normally would of been which translate to them taking ownership of the tasks.

If you're fighting for a goal bigger than you then you need a team to support you. Leaders take the blame indeed...

Manager Vs Leader

Lately I've been finding that I'm an excellent manager but a very poor leader. As a manager, I'm good at coming up with processes and assigning tasks to others but I doubt that other people see me as being inspiring (a quality of a good leader).

Being in a management-ish role, I have more people than ever before looking up to me for answers to their day to day struggles. Sometimes, I share these answers but it doesn't seem to stick and I'm required to repeat myself frequently as a result. My current belief is that, given more leadership capabilities, this wouldn't be as much of a problem

According to the book Launching a Leadership Revolution, by Chris Brady and Orrin Woodward, Leadership effectiveness is determined by three things:

• Character - Doing what you say you're going to do even when nobody is looking (or being trustworthy). 
• Tasks - Ability to accomplish the tasks at hand.
• Relationships - Being able to connect with other people.

Relationship is, perhaps by far, the area I struggle with the most. Making friends has never been one of my strong points. It's not that I'm a bad person it's that I find the entire process of building relationships kind of exhausting. 

It is said that Extroverts are those that gain energy from being around people and that Introverts are those that gain energy being alone... I'm definitely in the later group.

What now?

Relationship is one of the most important qualities to have as a human being. If you don't have relationship skills then your human experience is going to be a lonely one. This flaw of mine is something I absolutely need to solve. How? Re-reading the Launching a Leadership Revolution book might be a great place for me to start.

Wish me luck!

Are You a Passive or Active Employee?

I've been working for the better part of 15 years now and I've come to understand the difference between an active and a passive employee.

• A passive employee is someone that can do the work but usually won't start until he's told, exactly, what to do.
• An active employee is someone that can do the work but generally doesn't need to be told what to do.

Generally speaking, both type of employees are able to do the work but active employees are easier to work with. Since you don't have to tell an active employee what to do, it's possible that he'll be working on things that are not necessarily the top priority for the project; this is why it's important to share clear objective with them.

I originally was a passive employee as I had no clue how to add value on a project when I first started but, as I became more comfortable in my role, I slowly evolve into an active role. Part of this is due to the fact that I hate being told what to do and by finding out, myself, what to do it removes the need for someone else to tell me.

Some people remain passive employees for their entire careers. I wish I could tell you that this is fine but this isn't how I feel about it. When the work demands someone that is able to think on their feet, and the passive worker's contribution never goes beyond what you tell them to do, then their contribution to the project is limited to their manager's ability to tell them what to do. Those types of people are better suited in position that are clear and consistent and require little to no supervision.

Are you a passive or an active worker?

I'm Not A Good Leader

When I first started my career, at around the age of 20, I believed I could lead the company I worked for within 2-3 weeks. That was fifteen years ago and now that I am in a leadership role I feel like I'm not doing a good job at it... where did all of that youthful optimism go?

Delegating the tasks is one of my biggest problem as I strongly believe that nobody else can do things better than I can. The problem is amplified when the task is given to someone else and he tells me that he doesn't know how to do it; of course he doesn't because I've been doing it all this time not letting him learn from it. 
I'm at the point now where it's no longer possible to do everything and I have to train other people to do some of what I do. What is sometime odd to me is that I get a feeling of frustration when they don't "get it" as I, somehow, believe that they should of picked up a few things over their time spent on the project.

As crazy as it may sound, there's a feeling of accomplishment I get from completing all of these tasks and knowing that I'm better at them than most - this is the core of the issue. To be an effective leader, you need to be good at delegating the less important things so that your focus is on the important things. Perhaps the best thing about this new position is that I get the opportunity to try/fail and, most importantly, understand the things I've been reading in all those leadership books.

Find a Need and Fill It

I've been working for a contracting company for most of my I.T. career and I've always approached a project from the point of view of "how can I add value ?". Often, adding value means that I need to do things that are outside of my core qualifications in order to fill the needs of the project.

What often happens, when I first join a project, is that my initial qualifications is what got me the contract but then the role evolves to something that's a little bit outside of my core qualifications but a better fit for the project. I believe this is what Bruce Lee meant when he said that you need to be like water - adapt to the environment you're in.

Find a need and fill it.

If you join a project, with a very specific set of skills, and you're not opened to expand or change, as the project demands, then you're not adding as much value as you could.

Be like water; fill in the cracks. You will learn things and become more valuable in the process.

We Could All Use Diplomacy

Diplomacy is the art of dealing with people in a sensitive and effective way. It's a skill that many, including myself, lack. It's most often associate with politics but it really is a skill everyone should understand and get better at - it's the core of dealing with people.

I've spent a great deal of my 20s focused on self-improvement and, obviously, diplomacy was a subject that came up from time to time. I arrogantly believed that I was a fairly diplomatic person but that was before I started really analyzing my interactions with others. My observations have shown that I apply none of the lessons that I've learned - now that's a shame! 

When I want something from someone I blurred it out, sometime angrily, in order to make my thoughts come across. Sometime, I do get what I want but at what cost? Feelings are hurt, relationships are stained … it's not a pretty sight.

This problem is also something that I've observed in other people. I have nobody in my entourage that I can use as a role model for this skill but I do know where to go to find some - someone in sales! Anyone in sales have to learn how to deal with people if they wish to have any sort of success in selling. Therefor it makes sense that if I want to learn more about diplomacy then I need to get acquainted with a salesman or go back to my self-improvement material that relates to sales. 

"In youth we learn; in age we understand."

-Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach

As I'm nearing my mid thirties, I feel I'm long overdue on improving my diplomatic skills. It's also something that I pay more attention to in others. It's time for all of us to be more diplomatic.

What Can You Do For Your Country

 

"Ask Not What Your Country Can Do For You..." -John F. Kennedy

Events that transpired in the United States is proof that their Government has become too big and too little is done by the citizen to insure that they're functioning within acceptable limits. It is my personal belief that too much power was given to an individual that shouldn't have it to begin with and when he abused this power not enough was done to stop him.

This problem doesn't fall on the Government as they are only the representation of the people. It falls on the people to insure that their Government is as just as it can be.

If it falls on the people then what can the people do?

• The People needs to educate themselves and I'm not talking about Degrees or Certifications here. It's all about having an understanding of the economy, laws, politics, philosophy, psychology... it's about understanding that self-improvement goes beyond the realm of a career.
• Getting involved in politics. This doesn't necessarily mean that you need to represent a party but it does mean that you need to pay attention to what they're doing and to voice your concerns when appropriate.
• Take responsibility. Instead of saying "The Government should do this, or that...." take responsibility over these things and make the change yourself. Sure, Governments can take care of everything but it'll always cost more, not be as effective, as someone from the private sector doing it.

The Governments have been given a free pass long enough. We need to educate yourself and take an active part in politics to insure we're doing things as best as we possibly can.

The Dwayne Johnson Football Dream

If you know anything about today's movies then you've likely heard about Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson. Before Dwayne Johnson was an actor and wrestler he was someone that wanted to play in the NFL but ultimately failed to do so. Fast forward to 2020 and Dwayne Johnson now owns the XFL - a Football league that, while small, has plenty of potential to grow.

What this tells me is that Dwayne never let go of his original dream of being involved in Football. Sure, he never played professionally but he did some acting related to it and now owns a league. I doubt owning the XFL was part of Dwayne's plan in his youth since the league wasn't around then but when you stick to your goals the world seems to create opportunities for you.

“If you want something you've never had

You must be willing to do something you've never done.”

-Thomas Jefferson

Not many of us have dreams that we work towards and, from those that do, even less continue on after hitting failures. It may have taken Dwayne a few decades to achieve his dream but the important thing is that he did. How many of us can go through decades before eventually getting our dreams? Most of us can't even wait until our food is done in the microwave - let alone wait decades for anything.

Never loose sight of your dreams.

If I Could Go Back In Time...

If I had a time machine I would go back to the time of Alexander the Great. More specifically, when Alexander's army faced off Darius' massive army which some historians say was 1 million men strong and contained war animals, such as elephants, among it's ranks.

"An army of sheep, led by a LION is better than an army of LIONS, led by a SHEEP" 

- Alexander The Great

What I find fascinating about this particular battle is we see first hand what a strong leader, with a small army, can do against a weak leader with a large army. Alexander was a young commander that was taught the art of war by his father, King Philip, at a very young age. His army consisted primarily of veteran, career, soldiers.
Darius, on the other hand, was a King that grew up in luxury not knowing much about war. His army consisted of career soldiers as well as blacksmith, shopkeepers, potters ... or any other man that could hold a sword and a shield. His primary strategy was to intimidate the Macedonians by the sheer number of men. This proved futile, however, as the Macedonians knew too well that most men in-front of them were not as battle tested as they were.

What Darius failed to understand is that you're only as strong as your weakest link and the weakest link, in his case, was the men that had no battle experience. Once the battle started, these inexperienced soldiers started to flee which created hysteria among the masses. Many of Darius' men died on the battlefield and many more fled the scene including Darius' himself. The Persian casualties is said to have been in the few hundred of thousands while the Macedonians had only lost a few hundred men. An impressive feat considering the size differences of each armies.

It was a well known fact that Alexander would spare cities that surrendered to him. Needless to say that Alexander's conquest became much easier once the word got out that he had brought down one of the vastest army of the time. After all, if Alexander could defeat an army said to be 1 million men strong how could a city state of a few thousand people expect to stop his advances?

I thoroughly enjoyed reading about the rise and fall of Alexander's in the book "Alexander the Great" by author Jacob Abbott. The book is considered public domain and is therefor free - you should pick it up!

When/Where would you go if you could go back in time?

My Parents Changed the Neighborhood

"You can only lead by example."

-Frank Langella

My parents have owned the same house for roughly 35 years. It's on the country side and, for a time, it housed a family of 4 alongside a bunch of pets.
For most of those 35 years my parents have mowed the lawn on the side of the road for roughly half a kilometre each side of their property (pictured). For years, my parents were the only ones to do this but recently the neighbors have jumped on the idea.

The benefits are evident:

• The road looks cleaner.
• It stops the trees/grass from growing too close to the road.
• It increases visibility of cars getting in/out of yards.
• It increases visibility of pets/human/animals that want to cross the road.

When we think about leadership we usually think about business or some big endeavor but it really can be as small as mowing the lawn. My parents didn't ask people to do anything - they lead by example and, eventually, it caught on. As far as I know, this is the only street where people do this and I like that it all started with my parents.

Have you done anything to make your neighborhood better?

The Best Thing About Me

Even though I work full time, I often go through interview exercises in my head. I do so to prepare for future job search.

One of the questions I ask myself, during these imaginary interviews, is "What is your best quality?" and there's one answer that comes up more so than others which is: I understand the importance of staying humble. 

A person stops learning as soon as he considers himself an expert. Daniel R. Castro, in his book "Hidden Solutions All Around You", said "Don't be blinded by your own expertise." Richard Feynman refers to it as the "ignorance of experts".

I believe strongly in this philosophy because I have seen it first hand. I saw people come to my project being so confident in their abilities that they didn't bother learning the new things to accomplish the task at hand and that ultimately lead to their downfall.

If an expert is not humble then he not only set himself up for failure but he may also come across as arrogant, rather than confident, to his peers.

I believe so strongly in this philosophy that it's been the motto of this site (listen to those with the fruit from the tree) from the very beginning. Be humble my friends and learn until the day you die.

Do You Make Your Bed In the Morning?

There's a video of a military general stressing the importance of making your bed in the morning. This is a discussion I also had with one of my mentors who, coincidentally, had been in the military for 20 years at an earlier time in his life.

One day, I shared with my mentor my dreams of a better future and my mentor said "Those are big plans but are you making your bed in the morning?" to which I replied "That's stupid! What does that have to do with anything?" What he said next was along the lines of what was in the video.

He said that if I ever wished to take care of big things in life then I needed to first take care of the little things and he said that while he doesn't know everything happening in my life he does know that I sleep in a bed and that I should start by accomplishing the little thing, of making my bed, before doing anything else.

I hadn't asked whether or not he was making his bed everyday because I knew he did just by how much attention he paid to the little things in his life - a likely result of his military training.

That discussion happened roughly 6 years ago and I wish I could tell you that I've been doing my bed ever since but on most days I haven't. Recently, the video with the general talking about the important of making your bed has resurfaced in my life and I was reminded of that discussion with my mentor. 

This post is to let you know that I have now committed of making my bed made every morning. Are you with me?

Decisions & Success

If you read any self-help book then you've likely heard that you need to have "goals" or be "passionate" in order to be successful. What all this boils down to is that you need to be making decisions and it's the type of decisions that you make that will ultimately determine how successful you'll be.

To have goals means that you've added a direction to your decisions. If you don't have goals then your decisions aren't focused and therefore not as effective.

We are paid based on the value we bring to society and we bring value based on our actions which are initiated by our decision making abilities. The difference between the CEO of a company and the bottom of the barrel employee is in the decision each one is making. One affects the direction of the company, and therefor is of greater value, while the other is to help pave the way to get to that destination.
If you want to be the CEO of a company then you have to set yourself this goal and to focus you decisions towards it.

I have a friend who always wanted to own a restaurant. He started off as a cashier for a fast food chain and worked his way up. He was assistant manager, night manager, day manager and he now oversees the performance of the franchise all over the province.
He was able to make a career out of the fast food industry simply by having a goal. Most people don't have goals which is why most people will remain "cashiers".

Making decisions can be difficult but it's a necessary step to get what you want in this life. Decide on where you want to go and get to it.

Learning Outside of Careers

The average life expectancy is 75 years old and I don't know about you but life seems to go by faster the older you get. There's more to life than just to live. Knowing this, I would consider it a great shame to die with the only knowledge being that of my chosen career path. There's simply more to life than whatever we are learning in our careers.

It's been said that it takes 10 000 hours to master anything. Whether or not this is true is irrelevant for this discussion. What we need to keep in mine is that we only have a set amount of hours that we can dedicate to our activities as well as our learning endeavors. This means that we won't be able to master everything.
If you're like me, and wish to learn all that you can before dying, then where do you even start? Which book? Which audio? Which video? The answer is quite simple: Get the information directly from the experts.

"Listen to those with the fruit on the tree". -Ripencil.com

You may not be a philosopher but there are many that are/were.
You may not be a economist but there are many that are/were.
You may not be a carpenter but there are many that are/were.
You may not be a mechanic.... (you got the point?)

We're decades into the information age now. This means that the information is out there for who ever wants it. We can pretty much learn everything that we want from the devices we carry in our pockets. There's no excuse so get to it!

My Next Books

If you're a reader than chances are you wonder which book to buy next even though you may have a hundred books that you still haven't read in your library. During such episode I asked myself which subject I should invest in and "Astrophysics" came to mind (for some reason).

My philosophy, when choosing books of a subject that is unknown to me, is to look for those that are at the top of the field and see what they have either wrote or what they've read.
If you do a search on astrophysics online chances are that the name of "Stephen Hawking" is going to come up since he's a renown astrophysicist, thinker, and author. He passed away in 2018 but luckily is books have lived on and are still widely available.

Needless to say that my choice of books was made clear to me - I ordered 2 of Stephen Hawking' earliest works (A Brief History of Time & The Universe in a Nutshell) on amazon and I can't wait to get them!

Our Selves

In the age of social media, where everyone can choose to share anything about their lives online, it's important for us to reflect on the type of image of ourselves that we wish to project to the world. We typically have 3 "selves".

• Personal - Your personal life is what happens within yourself - it whom you really are inside and when nobody else is around.
• Private - This is the person you choose to be around your friends and family.
• Public - This is who you are in public. You may refrain from talking about specific subjects or be on your best behavior while in public as you know that your reputation is at stakes.

Think of an onion where Personal is at the center and the subsequent layers are Private and Public.
The difference between our personal self and our private self is sometime minimal but may be vastly different than the person we choose to be in public. Who we are in Personal and our Private life isn't necessarily what we want people in our public life to know. Knowing who we are in our personal and private life can help determine what we want, or don't want, to go into our public life.

I'm one to believe that if you have evils in your personal or private life that it will eventually be found in your public life. If we think of Tiger Woods, or Bill Clinton for example we can clearly see that the mistakes they've made in their private lives has had a negative impact on their public life and ended up costing them much.
The opposite can also be true where someone has a bad public life but is actually good in his private and personal life but we don't typically learn about those situation as much because private/personal matters are typically not talked about.

If you decide to share bits and pieces or your life just think about the consequences that may come as a result and keep in mind that what you post online can be viewed by anyone - forever.

Suggested Books from Leadership & Liberty

The Leadership & Liberty books contains blog posts from Chris Brady and Orrin Woodward. It's an okay book but what I like the most about the authors is that they are providing a list of suggested readings. The book they suggests are among the bests I have ever read and thought I would share it with you guys.

Attitude and Success

• See You at the Top, Zig Zigglar
• The Greatest Salesman in the World, Og Mandino
• Wooden: A Lifetime of Observations On and Off the Cour, John Wooden
• The Psychology of Winning, Dennis Waitley
• Life is Temendous, Charlie "Tremendous" Jones

People Skills and Principles

• How to Have Power and Confidence in Dealing With People, Les Giblin
• How to Win Friends and Influence People, Dale Carnegie
• Personality Plus, Florence Littaeur
• Bringing Out the Best in People, Alan Lloyd McGinnis
• The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen Covery

Leadership

• It's Your Ship, Captain D. Michael Abrashoff
• The Cycle of Leadership, Noel Tichy
• The World's Most Powerful Leadership Principle, James C. Hunter
• The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership, John C. Maxwell
• Launching a Leadership Revolution, Chris Brady and Orrin Woodward

Historical Leadership Illustrations

• The Founding Fathers on Leadership, Don T. Phillips
• Scuttle your Ships Before Advancing, Richard Luecke
• Churchill on Leadership, Steven Hayward
• Character Counts, Os Guiness
• The American Leadership Tradition, Marvin Olasky

The History of Liberty

• The Future of Freedom, Fareed Zakaria
• The 5000 Year Leap: The Miracle That Changed the World, W. Cleon Skousen
• How the West was Lost, Alexander Boot
• The Conservative Mind, Russell Kirk
• The Passion of the Western Mind, Richard Tarnas

Economics

• The Economy in Mind, Warren T. Brookes
• Economics in one Lesson, Henry Hazlitt
• The Making of Modern Economics, Mark Skousen
• Human Action, Ludwig von Mises
• Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand

Politics and Governance

• Politics: Easy as P.I.E., Bob McEwen
• The Revolt of the Masses, Jose Ortega y Gasset
• The Road to Serfdom, F.A. Hayek
• The Creature from Jekyll Island, G. Edward Griffin
• Slouching Towards Gomorrah, Robert H. Bork

I have only read but a few of the books mentioned above. This list is for my own safekeeping as I'll be sure to pick those up and read them. How many of those books have you read?

How I Built my Book Collection

My experience is pretty niche when it comes to building a book collection. After graduation, I moved to a new city where I was approached by a man that had a business proposition for me. I listened attentively to what he had to say and decided to join his business venture. The business venture in question offered a leadership system that included books, cds, seminars and a mentorship program. In the span of a few days, I was literally drowning in good books - everything that anyone suggested in the organization are still part of the best books I ever read.

What do you need to start building your own book collection?

• Which genre you want? - The most important thing you need is to know which genre you want. Since I wanted to learn new skills, the business opportunity I mentioned above was the perfect opportunity for me to build my "self-help" library (an opportunity I fully took advantage of).
• Association - Once you know the genre, associate yourself with people that love the same genre as you. Through discussion with them you'll learn what they liked and disliked and through this process you'll find books to start with.
• Look for References - Some books include references of other books or work that help in the creation of the book you're currently reading. Going through this list may help you find your next purchase.
• Ask the Seller - Some people working at bookstores may be able to find your next favorite.

Once you built yourself a small library, of about 100 books, it'll be easier to add to your collection. If you're looking to build a digital library, there are free (legal) books available online on the Gutenberg.org website.

Happy Collecting and Reading!

Why I'm Proactive

"People place confidence in the fellow who acts. They naturally assume he knows what he is doing." -David J. Schwartz

Being proactive, for those of you who doesn't know what it means, is basically being able to add value to the company/project without being told to do so - it's about you figuring out the next steps instead of your superiors having to do it for you.
For as long as I can remember, I've always been proactive to some extend but I wasn't always adding as much value as I could due to lack of experience. Most performance reviews I've had at work as referred "proactivity" as being my biggest strength but what most people don't know is that I'm only proactive because I hate being told what to do.

You read that right - I'm proactive because I don't like being told what to do. To me, having a superior sit down with me and go over my next task is a bigger pain than just having me do that sort of work. First of all, in most cases, I have a clearer picture of what needs to be done than my superiors do and I consider it a waste of time to try to explain to them that how they want me to work doesn't really make sense in the context that we're in... So I just do it.

Here's another "secret" of mine: While I have an idea of what the big picture is I don't necessarily know all the steps/task to get there before I start. This is the crazy part to me because when I look at a proactive person, from the outside, I feel like they have a clear picture of every steps in order to get the task done but it's rarely the case (at least to me). Most things are figured out on my way to task completion.

How to be proactive?
On my proactive journey, I've identified 4 things that help me be proactive. Those are:

1. Don't be afraid to make mistakes - One of the reasons why most people aren't proactive is because they're afraid of making mistakes. By having a superior figure out the task, it becomes easier to put the blame on them when the results aren't as expected. Proactive people tend to have to take the responsibility of failures because they're the ones that came up with the steps.
2. Understand the bigger picture - In order to developed effective steps towards a task completion, you need to understand the bigger picture. What needs to be done and what is your role in it? This obviously becomes clearer the longer you are on a project.
3. Hate being told what to do - I mentioned this before but when someone tells me what to do, they are also indirectly telling me "I don't trust you with this so do it my way". Since I don't want to be told what to do my mind automatically focuses on the next steps.
4. Have a creative mind - Having a creative mind does help with being proactive since you need to be creative to come up with tasks that may not of been done before. Reading, writing, drawing and other creative endeavors can be help develop a creative mind and ultimately help with proactivity.

Are you proactive? What makes you proactive? Share in the comments!