Three Minute Leadership: On Letting Go

by Michael M. Reuter on 5/13/2012

To:  The Great Leaders Who Have a Passion for Continuous Learning
 
“Just let go!” - words of wisdom to great leaders who have a passion to “just do it!”  A myriad of priorities compete daily for the attention of great leaders. There is always an instinct to do everything, to serve everyone, to be all things to all people, and they wear themselves out in the attempt.  They give up time with their family and friends.  They cut back on their daily workout.  They crowd out their treasured down-times in which they pause to collect their thoughts.  They spend long days, nights and weekends involved in their responsibilities.  Always a phone call to answer, a Blackberry message to which to respond.  In the end they lose some of their balance –mentally, physically, emotionally and spiritually.  There is an answer that a friend and coach shared with me: “Let go!”  Enjoy the wonderful learning.
 

LETTING GO

To “let go” does not mean to stop caring, it means I can’t do it for someone else.

To “let go” is not to cut myself off, it’s the realization that I can’t control another.

To “let go” is not to enable, but to allow learning from natural consequences.

To “let go” is to admit powerlessness, which means the outcome is not in my hands.

To “let go” is not to try to change or blame another, it’s to make the most of myself.

To “let go” is not to care for, but to care about.

To “let go” is not to fix, but to be supportive.

To “let go” is not to judge, but to allow another to be a human being.

To “let go” is not to be in the middle arranging all the outcomes, but to allow others to affect their own destinies.

To “let go” is not to be protective, it’s to permit another to face reality.

To “let go” is not to deny, but to accept.

To “let go” is not to nag, scold, or argue, but instead, to search out my own shortcomings and correct them.

To “let go” is not to adjust everything to my desires, but to take each day as it comes and cherish myself in it.

To “let go” is not to regret the past, but to grow and live for the future.

To “let go” is to fear less and love more.

Author Unknown

 
Reflect on these words that their wisdom may guide your journey, that you may refresh yourself and bring greater balance to your life.  You are so very special… you are the best… find time for you.  ! 
 
Have a beautiful day and a magnificent week!!!
 
Mike
 
Contact Information:
Michael M. Reuter
Director, Center for Leadership Development
Stillman School of Business
Seton Hall University
Tel: (Office) 973.275.2528; (Mobile) 908.419.6060
Email: Michael.Reuter@shu.edu

Three Minute Leadership - Not Fearing Failure - Making the Impossible Possible

by Michael M. Reuter on 5/6/2012

To:  The Great Leaders Who Have a Passion for Continuous Learning
 
Georges Clemenceau, 20th century French statesman and journalist, wrote: "Life gets interesting when we fail, because it's a sign that we've surpassed ourselves."  Regina Dugan, director of DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, in her March 2012 presentation at TED, From Mach-20 Glider to Humming Bird Drone, speaks about the impact of fear of failure has on our world view.  She believes that “when you remove the fear of failure, impossible things suddenly become possible.”  She states:
 

“If you want to know how, ask yourself this question: What would you attempt to do if you knew you could not fail? If you really ask yourself this question, you can't help but feel uncomfortable.… Because when you ask it, you begin to understand how the fear of failure constrains you, how it keeps us from attempting great things, and life gets dull, amazing things stop happening. Sure, good things happen, but amazing things stop happening.”

 
With examples of the Wright brothers' flight and proving the impossible was possible, Chuck Yeager flying faster than the speed of sound and today’s ventures of flying at Mach 20, Dugan says:  “….We’ve had to believe in impossible things. And we had to refuse fear of failure.”  She is not refuting the importance and value that failure brings to learning - “Failure is part of creating new and amazing things.  We cannot both fear failure and make amazing new things.” - rather, she argues against fear's limiting ability.
 
There was a time, she says, when you were young when you didn’t fear failure, when “you believed in impossible things and you were fearless.  You were totally in touch with your inner superhero.”  It is the joy for great leaders to dream impossible dreams and to take up a new challenge each day of their life, to be that superhero. Each morning as you awake, ask yourself: What would I attempt to do today if I knew that I could not fail? Embrace the advice given by Eleanor Roosevelt:  “Do one thing every day that scares you.”  Enjoy your fantastic journey and find your incredible richness. And have fun doing it. 

Have a beautiful day and a magnificent week!!!

Mike

Contact Information:
Michael M. Reuter
Director, Center for Leadership Development
Stillman School of Business
Seton Hall University
Tel: (Office) 973.275.2528; (Mobile) 908.419.6060
Email: Michael.Reuter@shu.edu <mailto:Michael.Reuter@shu.edu>

Three Minute Leadership: On the Magnificence of Simplicity

by Michael M. Reuter on 4/29/2012

To:  The Great leaders Who Have a Passion for Continuous Learning
 
Walt Whitman, 19th century American poet, wrote:  “Simplicity is the glory of expression.”  In their book, Made to Stick, Chip Heath and Dan Heath write about simplicity, one of the six characteristics that they suggest are critical to highly effective, memorable and “sticky” communications.  They cite the Army’s Commander’s Intent (CI) as a powerful example of simplicity.

Colonel Tom Kolditz, former Head of the United States Military Academy’s Behavior Sciences Division at West Point, is quoted: “No plan survives contact with the enemy…. You may start off trying to fight your plan, but the enemy gets a vote.”  So it is with any planning – professional or personal – someone or something else will always have a vote.  Looking for something better, in the early 1980s the Army introduced the concept of Commander’s Intent.

“Commander’s Intent,” write the authors, “manages to align the behaviors of soldiers at all levels without requiring play-by-play instructions from their leaders.”  The power of Commander’s Intent is captured in Kolditz’s words:  “You can lose the ability to execute the original plan, but you never lose the responsibility of executing the intent.”  What magnificent simplicity! Up and down the line, everyone gets the message – the “what”.  When everyone gets the “what,” the “how’s” (i.e. the way the ‘what’ gets done) will be better aligned.
 
“Simplicity, clarity, singleness: These are the attributes that give our lives power and vividness and joy as they are also the marks of great art” writes John Holloway, Scottish writer.  Fill your life with these attributes that your life’s purpose is clearly visible in all that you do, in all that you are. You will be certain that what you do, say and who you are will be memorable, will be 'sticky.' Enjoy the magnificence and beauty of the journey… and have fun doing it.
 
Have a beautiful day and an incredible week!!!
 
Mike


Contact Information:
Michael M. Reuter
Director, Center for Leadership Development
Stillman School of Business
Seton Hall University
Tel: (Office) 973.275.2528; (Mobile) 908.419.6060
Email: Michael.Reuter@shu.edu

Three Minute Leadership - On Standing Out and Being Remarkable

by Michael M. Reuter on 4/22/2012

To:  The Great Leaders Who Have a Passion for Continuous Learning
 
In a 2003 article Seth Godin discussed what it takes for great leaders to truly stand out from the crowd.  By way of introduction he speaks about the origin of sliced bread.  The fact, he notes, is “that for the first 15 years after sliced bread was available no one bought it; no one knew about it;  it was a complete and total failure.“  It was Wonder Bread who broke the code about spreading the idea and appeal of sliced bread.  Godin’s message about standing out is poignant:  “The way you’re going to get what you want, or cause the change that you want to change, to happen, is that you’ve got to figure out a way to get your ideas to spread.”
 
Great leaders learn well the lessons of sliced bread, applying it not only to ideas, but to their business, professional and personal life and their own self-branding.  Just spreading an idea is not enough.  Great leaders offer what is different, what is remarkable, what is magical.  These are the characteristics that people look for, what people want.  Great leaders unfold the possibilities of what can be.  They build or find their own ‘tribe’ of passionate and committed followers who embrace their idea, spread it and create appeal for it. 

James Matthew Barrie, Scottish dramatist and novelist best known as the creator of Peter Pan, wrote:  “As soon as you can say what you think, and not what some other person has thought for you, you are on your way to being a remarkable man.” Stand out!  Be remarkable in all that you do.  Set fire to the imaginations of the people around you.  Open their minds to the infinite possibilities around them and within them.  Help them to be remarkable… to be more than they ever dreamed that they could be.
 
Have a beautiful day and a magnificent week!!!
 
Mike 
 
Contact Information:
Michael M. Reuter
Director, Center for Leadership Development
Stillman School of Business
Seton Hall University
Tel: (Office) 973.275.2528; (Mobile) 908.419.6060
Email: Michael.Reuter@shu.edu

Three Minute Leadership: Live It Large and Dream!

by Michael M. Reuter on 4/15/2012

To:  The Great Leaders Who Have a Passion for Continuous Learning
 
The lives of great people are the learning experiences from which great leaders grow.  Diana Nyad, the world’s greatest long-distance swimmer from 1969 – 1979.  One of her greatest accomplishments was her 102.5 mile swim from the island of Bimini in the Bahamas to Florida.  On TED.com in October 2011, she shared her story about her thoughts as she approached her sixtieth birthday and what she did about them.  She relooked at her life and how she had spent it.  She said to herself:  "I've only got 22 years left?  What am I going to do with this short amount of time that's just fleeting?”  She wanted to get out of a “malaise” that was draining her life.  Her response was to chase “an elevated dream, an extreme dream, something that would require utter conviction and unwavering passion, something that would make me be my best self in every aspect of my life, every minute of every day, because the dream was so big that I couldn't get there without that kind of behavior and that kind of conviction.” 
 
Looking inside herself she found an old dream, something she had tried when she was in her twenties, but not achieved – a swim from Cuba to Florida. The swim would take about 60 – 70 hours… without a shark cage.  She had not swum in 31 years.  The challenge of her training was difficult, but she prepared herself.  On September 23, 2011, she was ready.  She jumped into the water yelling in her mother’s French: “Courage!”
 
Two hours into her swim, she was hit by a box jellyfish: “And I was on fire -- excruciating, excruciating pain.”  She swam through the night, and the next day she was again hit by the box jellyfish – “And at 41 hours, this body couldn't make it. The devastation of those stings had taken the respiratory system down so that I couldn't make the progress I wanted. And the dream was crushed.”  She left the water.
 
As she stood on the stage that evening in October she said of her experience:
 

“So now what do I do? I wouldn't mind if every one of you came up on this stage tonight and told us how you've gotten over the big disappointments of your lives. Because we've all had them, haven't we? We've all had a heartache. And so my journey now is to find some sort of grace in the face of this defeat. And I can look at the journey, not just the destination. I can feel proud. I can stand here in front of you tonight and say I was courageous. Yeah.

"And with all sincerity, I can say, I am glad I lived those two years of my life that way, because my goal to not suffer regrets anymore, I got there with that goal. When you live that way, when you live with that kind of passion, there's no time, there's no time for regrets, you're just moving forward. And I want to live every day of the rest of my life that way, swim or no swim. But the difference in accepting this particular defeat is that sometimes, if cancer has won, if there's death and we have no choice, then grace and acceptance are necessary.

"But that ocean's still there. This hope is still alive. And I don't want to be the crazy woman who does it for years and years and years, and tries and fails and tries and fails and tries and fails, but I can swim from Cuba to Florida, and I will swim from Cuba to Florida."

 
Diana Nyad had chased her dream, given it her all and not succeeded.  The passion and commitment to her dream, however, never died. She concluded her talk with a question paraphrasing the poet Mary Oliver.  It is for all great leaders, one which they will answer with fire and passion in their souls:  "So what is it, what is it you're doing, with this one wild and precious life of yours?"  They will find their… and be more than they ever dreamed they could be.
 
Have a beautiful day and a magnificent week!!!
 
Mike
 
Contact Information:
Michael M. Reuter
Director, Center for Leadership Development
Stillman School of Business
Seton Hall University
Tel: (Office) 973.275.2528; (Mobile) 908.419.6060
Email: Michael.Reuter@shu.edu
 

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