PERSISTENCE

Dec

2021

PS5 and Leadership Success

Last year about this time I walked in the house from my early morning workout and there was my thirteen-year-old son smiling ear to ear. He also had an important question for me: “can you pick up the PS5 I just bought?”

If you don’t have kids at this stage of life or like me have definitely outgrown the video game stage of life let me explain. These could not be found last year! Unknown to my wife and I my son had created a Twitter account for the sole purpose of watching when PS5 orders had been dropped. He was on the lookout daily and that was where he learned one was available.

After picking up his PS5 at Target I reflected on a few leadership lessons any leader or entrepreneur could gain from his approach.

Discipline

For about three weeks my son was obsessed with getting a PS5. He had saved up the hundreds of dollars he needed to purchase it. Each day he demonstrated the discipline to check his social sources, online, and even call some stores.

In the classic book Think and Grow Rich Napoleon Hill had studied the lives of many successful people of his time. He tells the story of a man who desired to work with Thomas Edison. Hill concludes:

“He stood by his desire until it became the dominating obsession of his life and finally a fact.”

My son was obsessed with getting this PS5 to the point it became a dominating obsession. (As Dad I must confess I was getting a little concerned.) As leaders we must have the type of desire that gives us the discipline to accomplish the vision.

Faith

I am going to suggest for this conversation faith is the ability to see something we do not have and know we will have it. This could be an object, vision, relationship, or something else. If you have ever pursued something you wanted and refused to quit then you know it required faith.

At times my son got really frustrated, but he continued his discipline, maintained his desire, and believed he would get it. This was even amidst reports only a few were available at a time. As leaders we must cling to faith that the vision we have will come to pass.

Self-Control and Persistence

Allow me to remind you this was my thirteen-year-old son. You can look up the cost of a PS5 and you will see it required self-control for him to save all that money. Like most of us there are plenty of other things he likes to spend his money on, but he desired this so much that he controlled himself to save. Of all that my son did the greatest leadership less is what he combined this self-control with: persistence.

Napoleon Hill states in Think and Grow Rich:

“Lack of persistence is one of the major causes of failure.”

Like I mentioned earlier, my son checked daily. He checked often and was persistent about asking my wife and I to take him to various stores to see if they had one. He had the discipline, faith, self-control, and persistence to get up first thing in the morning and see the tweet three minutes after it was made so he could purchase it immediately.

What about you? With the burning vision you have for what you are leading do you have the discipline, self-control, faith and persistence my son demonstrated? If not, which of these areas do you need to grow in? Maybe your desire is waning. What will reignite you? Go out in the next week and reignite your desire. Maybe you simply need to keep persisting with faith that you will get the breakthrough.

Do not give up on your vision my friend. Keep climbing the hill knowing your vision is worthwhile. Need someone to think into your vision with? Contact me for a thirty-minute thinking partner session at no cost to you. Lead Well.

Oct

2018

Lead Yourself Like Rocky

I was sitting on the couch watching Rocky for the first time in a long time. This was the introduction of this iconic movie series to my children.

I don’t know if you remember or have even watched the movie, but there is a scene the night before the fight where Rocky walks around the ring. You can tell he is battling the voices of self-doubt. After returning from his walk he sits next to his girlfriend, future wife, Adrian.

In that moment he makes a decision as he contemplates the reality he was about to face the world champion. He tells Adrian he is going to do something no one else has ever done with the champ, Apollo Creed, he is going to go the distance. Rocky set in his mind that he was going to fight him to the final bell.

What does this have to do with leadership?

Everything!

I have heard people pose the question to me: do you buy you? As I think of Rocky in this movie three key principles of self-leadership come to mind.

Clear Vision. One of my mentors uses the phrase “hold your image” and this is a challenge to hold the image in your mind of where you see yourself. As a leader what is the vision you have of where you are going? Do you have a clear picture in your mind of what it looks like? I know a leader who over twenty-five years had a picture of what he wanted the organization he leads to look like and now twenty-five years later he gets the chance to see that image becoming a reality.
Persistence. We have a clear picture of where we want to be, but as another mentor of mine says: everything is uphill. Rocky had a once in a lifetime chance to contend for the heavyweight championship of the world and in the beginning he barely could complete his run, but he continued to train to the best of his ability and pressed on toward the goal. Why is the leader I know seeing his vision becoming reality, because he kept climbing even during the uphill battles when he was the only one who could see where they were headed.
Inspiration. Rocky had a team who inspired him. One of his biggest inspirations was the woman he loved. She believed in him and was by his side no matter what. He had a manager who stood beside him during practice and fortified his belief in himself through words he said to help Rocky see where he could be.

Where is it you want to go that you may not believe you can go? Who is in your corner to encourage and inspire you? Maybe there are people you know or people’s examples who inspire you like I am inspired by the fictional character Rocky or the words and stories of authors I do not know personally. Anything worth having is worth working for, so are you willing to persist toward your goal and pursue what might seem impossible right now? Rocky’s first step . . . he got up at 4 AM, drank a glass full of raw eggs and went for a long run. What is your first step in leading yourself today? Lead well friend.