Good morning, Team!  It’s Friday!

I was chatting with my good friend Jim this week.  We were talking about some of life’s lessons that we stumbled across or maybe that we were steamrolled by and it’s less humiliating to say we stumbled across them…

I made some cocky remark about what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, thinking I had gained a fair amount of “strength” when he said emphatically, No! It’s when you realize the big red “S” on your chest stands for Stupid, not Superman.  (If you can’t count on your friends to keep you in-line, who can you trust?)

So here is what that comment conjured up for me.

As an engineer and a fix-it person, I enjoy repairing broken stuff AND making it better.  Example-we’re selling our house right now and anything from replacing a light bulb in a hard to reach spot I didn’t want to pay someone else to do, replacing a 3-way switch, putting in longer screws on a kitchen cabinet hinge or darkening a ding on a wooden cabinet (that turned into a 4 hour job)… if it looks better, works better, IS better, it makes me proud to be associated with it.

When you start to think you may be “Super”, instead of simply part of the selected vessel to repair, replace, or rejuvenate something, you may lack humility or the basic understanding that much of the things in this broken world require attention, but it’s never an individual sport.

No one is leaping tall buildings with a single bound or stopping freight trains without an exceptional Team to make shhhtuff happen.  That big Red S you painted (virtually) on your chest isn’t for Super.

I had another close friend, no longer with us, explain the phenomena where you sacrifice so much you start to believe you are entitled to more…appreciation, recognition, compensation, adoration or [fill in your own descriptor].

Truth is we all make choices:

•How much time you spend at work.

•How much time you spend at home.

•How well you listen.

•How vulnerable you’re willing to make yourself.

•How you choose to see your accomplishments as compared to giving credit to whom it actually belongs.

Level Five leaders know that your Team and the extraordinary people who comprise your collective brand wear the virtual “S”.

Don’t be stupid.  Take a minute today to thank the people around you who make you feel good enough to think you are, or ever were, Super.

Have a blessed weekend!