Good morning, Leaders! It’s Friday!

Does anyone remember the line in City Slickers when Curly (Jack Palance) counsels Mitch (Billy Crystal)? Noooooo, not the “I crap bigger than you” line. The other line- here’s the set up…”you all come up here about the same time. You spend 50 weeks a year getting knots in your rope and you think you can spend a couple of weeks up here and untie ’em. … What’s your one thing?”

•You gotta figure out what your one thing is.

I have searched all over trying to figure this conundrum out. It’s personal. It’s a quest. Mine has reached a Milestone. My one thing is – Improving.

When it comes to ones self,
•Doctors claim to have originated the concept of continuous learning.

When it comes to business,
•LEAN processes, famous at Toyota, are founded on continuous improvement.

When it comes to helping others,
•Mentoring is often the term used. Maslow referred to this in his later work as helping others achieve self-actualization.

After we stumble our way through life and finally figure out who we are, what we’re good at and what we’re not good at, we make a conscious decision if that’s going to be good enough or not. Do we want to be content with the point we’ve reached in life when we lifted our head long enough to observe our surroundings? Or do we want to be … better?

Do you want to be better in terms of health?
Do we want to be a better human, spouse, parent, sibling, coworker, patient, leader, player, or performer?

I saw a video some time ago where a hulking high school football player was challenged to crawl down field with his coach on his back. The coach blindfolded him to remove the barriers the player would have put on himself. While riding on his back, the coach encouraged him to push beyond what his body was telling his brain. As you might guess, the player went considerably further than anyone anticipated he could. The coach replaced the messages telling the player what he couldn’t do and replaced them with what he could.

Imagine how much easier it is to crawl “down field” without having to carry a sweaty old man on your back. Imagine having that voice in your head pushing you to get better. Imagine changing out the tired looped recording playing in your head telling you all the stuff you can’t do with one that says “Yes, you can!”
You can do more.
You can make a difference.
You can lose that 20 pounds.
You can solve that critical problem, raise a family on a single income, get that promotion, pull the company out of bankruptcy, …prove every last one of those negative voices wrong.

You can be better and no one but you is stopping you.

Once you get there, start showing others how to get there, too.

Have a blessed weekend.