LEADERSHIP QUOTE:

"I believe any success in life is made by going into an area with a blind, furious optimism." Sylvester Stallone

A LITTLE BIT DEEPER:

I'm going to continue some quotes from Sylvester Stallone this month simply as a way to prompt some deeper thinking.

I finished his book The Steps this past week. It's his early story of growing up, and it ends with him winning the Oscar for Best Picture in 1977 for Rocky. The journey to get there was long, somewhat dark, but a true story of perseverance!

In this quote, he focuses on three words, and I think there's something there for us. "Blind - Furious - Optimism". This is what this says to me:

BLIND:

Stallone says over and over, "don't let the odds stop you", even when things look bleak, don't focus on your chance of failure, don't be "blind" to the opportunities around you, don't be careless. Stallone worked for years and years writing, re-writing, learning and failing before he wrote the screenplay for Rocky in just 3 days. He worked hard to get to this point, especially as everyone around him told him he'd never succeed.

FURIOUS:

This idea from Stallone is about intensity. He would say you have to bring an aggressive effort to everything you do, willing to work hard, willing to fight for what you believe in. This isn't a passive hope that things will work out, but a relentless pursuit of something you believe in.

OPTIMISM:

Stallone defines this as "believing in the outcome before there's evidence for it." Belief comes first, the results follow.

I don't know about you, but these three words are really challenging to me today. I'm doing a little self-audit to see how these words are currently playing out in my life and I'm challenged, but I'm also inspired.

Stallone's personal story and journey describe what these words meant to him, and I guess I need to determine what they mean to me.

It seems at times that I am OK simply rolling through life, through work, through relationships, through challenges with a lack of intensity, a lack of focus and I can easily get lulled to just "cruise" by the steady state of the calendar that just keeps moving forward, one project, one event at a time.

That's not what I want or how I want to live.

What would my life reflect if I was a little more BLIND to the obstacles facing me, and I saw a vision of what could be?

What would my next project look like if I applied some FURIOUS energy to it, putting all my effort into it instead of just a little bit?

How would I lead if instead of a general toxic sense of OPTIMISM, I truly believed in the vision and purpose before it actually became a reaility?

Cue the Rocky theme HERE.

Do you find yourself drifting to sleep at a time when you should be fully engaged, completely focused and excited about what you're doing and who your called to be?

LEADERSHIP QUOTE:

"It ain't about how hard you hit, it's about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward." Sylvester Stallone

A LITTLE BIT DEEPER:

We just finished a month long look at The Five Dysfunctions of a Team that you can read on the blog. I hope that during these weeks, it's triggered some things in you and your leadership. Again, one of my all-time favorite books.

I'm going to make a slight turn here, well, maybe a radical turn.

In 1976 a movie came out that my dad took me to. It was Rocky.

I had never seen a movie like that before but I remember it like it was yesterday. The movie was dark, it was about boxing (which I know nothing about), but it was inspiring! So inspiring that the morning after seeing that film as a 12 year-old, I ate my 5 raw eggs and committed to doing one-handed pushups every day. Of course that lasted about 2 days, but the impact was real.

Before I go on, some of you might be wondering why my dad would take a 12-year old to see that movie? Well, my dad and I are both easily inspired by sports dramas, we love the fight for survival, and we love a story that seems impossible but always turns out in the end. We suckers for that emotional ride, and I was hooked.

Rocky was a story of determination and someone overcoming impossible obstacles.

The reason this has come to mind is because Sylvester Stallone just published an autobiography called The Steps. It's basically his story of growing up and it leads up to his writing and pitching his film, Rocky. I started reading the book last week, then I switched to the AUDIBLE version because I wanted to hear his voice tell his story.

It's a rough story, but I'm learning that what was shared on the screen in his film Rocky was based on the challenges and hardships he faced growing up and trying to make it in the film business.

I'm not eating raw eggs again, but I'd love to spend some time talking about how determination is so important to our leadership. Yes, there are some prompts from the Rocky story, but what engaging with this story does for me is simply to remind me of why determination is so important to my leadership, to anyones leadership!

Back in 2001, my dad and I wrote a little book called The ABC's of Global Leadership. It's a simple curriculum going through 26 Qualities of a Leader using the ABC's. We've shared it in the Leader Mundial Communities and it's been translated into 9 different languages.

When we wrote this, we chose DETERMINED as a quality that every leader needs to have and continue to develop. We wrote these words...

"When we're not determined, we wonder.

When we're not determined, we get distracted.

When we're not determined, we don't finish well.

When we're not determined, we tire easily.

When we're not determined, we can't see clearly.

When we're not determined, we forget."

I believe these words are still true for us all.

Can you remember a time that sheer determination helped you get through a difficult time or season? What was that like to go through?

LEADERSHIP QUOTE:

"The ultimate dysfunction is inattention to results. Great teams put the success of the whole above individual recognition." Patrick Lencioni

A LITTLE BIT DEEPER:

We're looking at the each of the dysfunctions that Lencioni describes in his book, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team.

We looked at TRUST the first week, then we looked at the FEAR OF CONFLICT then COMMITMENT. Last week we looked at ACCOUNTABILITY and today we'll finish be talking about RESULTS.

We've done a quick walk through The Five Dysfunctions of a Team from Patrick Lencioni and I hope this has pushed you to dig deeper into the book.

His approach to results really made sense to me but I wish I had learned that years earlier!

My first job as a Youth Pastor back in the 80's was at a large church in Los Angeles. I was 21 years old, I hadn't been trained in youth ministry, but somehow I landed this job and was in way over my head.

I was invited to attend the Deacon & Elder Meeting and was encouraged to simply observe and learn how church leadership functioned.

I remember at that first meeting, no one mentioned the youth ministry of the church. They talked about everything else, but nothing was said about the Youth Group. I then set out to make myself known to the leadership of the church.

I became louder, I wanted to share my opinions about everything, I felt that I needed to defend everything that I was doing, and I got more and more frustrated because no one seemed to care.

Finally one of the Deacons pulled me aside and asked me why I was so frustrated, and I shared that it felt that no one cared about the youth group. No one was asking me questions, no one seemed interested, and no one seemed to value what I was spending my time and energy doing.

He looked at me and said this: "Russ, we're not talking about it because it seems to be going really well. The Deacons and Elders are working on things that affect the whole church and they're not concerned about the Youth Ministry because they believe in you and trust you."

Again, had I understood Lencioni's definition of results at the time it would have helped me understand this.

I was focused on MY AREA, MY ISSUES, MY JOB. I didn't understand that I also had a role with the whole church. My role was to see the church impact peoples lives, and the Youth Ministry was just one small part of that.

I began to understand this, but I'm sure I kept rolling my eyes at the meetings, I kept trying to be seen and I was always promoting what I was doing, but over time I learned to let the results speak for themselves and it wasn't my job to prove my worth to everyone.

Later in life I became much less selfish and looked at the big picture, not just my part of that.

This is what Lencioni is talking about with RESULTS.

The reasons people don't embrace the shared goals and results they're all working for is because as leaders, we're trying to:

• Protect our Status. We want to look good and we want to be recognized for what we do.

• Promote our Area. We want to operate in our own silo, ensuring that our area is getting attention first, then we'll look at the bigger goals.

We spend so much time taking care of ourselves that we forget that we're a part of something much bigger.

Oh to go back in time, but I'm so thankful to that leader for speaking truth to me. What I wish he would of said is "Russ, it's not about you!" It took some more years for me to finally learn that.

Think of a time that you were focused on protecting yourself so much that you forgot about the larger vision, the bigger picture. How do you feel about that today?