The Unlikely CEO: Just Show Up!
It happened quickly and without a lot of notice. One day I was working through my 10–12 “teams” calls, answering 100 emails, managing travel schedules, etc……and the next I was FREE! Put out to pasture, so to speak. Retired at 59! Wow.
Everyone will ask you when you retire, “what are you going to do now”? It’s like the only thing I was doing yesterday was “work”. I did have other interests, so now I can explore them. I can work on my “square”….more on that later. For now, I’m exploring my options while sunning myself and improving my golf game in Punta Mita Mexico.
When people ask me to define my “style of leadership”, it’s easy….I’m a “coach”. I heard years ago that the best leaders are not afraid to “give it all away”. This seemed strange to me at the time. Why would you work so hard to gain an advantage and learn via experience only to share all of this with your subordinates? Easy, because it feels great! To give someone learned information that they can apply to be a better employee or better leader is a terrific feeling, and the right thing to do….oh, and that’s why they pay you so well too! Teach for god’s sake — and that means coach your team, help them be better without having to go through every experience that you had to.
So, in addition to lowering my handicap and trying to keep up with my wife on the running trails, I’m going to try to “coach” a bit by giving it all away. The best way to do this now seems to be writing it down. Key caveat….I am NOT a professional writer so what you’re reading is what I would say to you if we were having this discussion over coffee. I’ll try to get better…this is my first article….so I’ll let you judge….or maybe someone can “coach” me on the fundamentals. Either way, here we go.
I’ve been working since I was 12 years old, I like to work and I’m good at it. My “work ethic” is solid and I’ve learned over the years that 90% of success in life is just “showing up”. I worked my way through college at CU Boulder in the 80’s while all of my friends were busy “going to college” the traditional way. They were partying all the time, missing a lot of classes, calling their parents for extra funding for the next trip to Vail….but me, I didn’t have that luxury. When you don’t have a safety net, things get real in a hurry. Don’t get me wrong, I attended most of the parties with my crew, but between working and trying to get good grades, I learned a very important lesson that gave me an advantage over my peers. I showed up to class! Everyday, every class. I didn’t have much time to study, but I had the notes from the classes and that was huge. Also, I showed up to work, everyday, every time and on time. I didn’t have a choice because I needed that job, I needed the money, I had to get through college so I could take the next step up! These experiences and forced “work ethic” helped me to define one of my first key tenets for success….”just show up”! This simple and easy action will give you an advantage over 9/10 people….because most don’t! Not to say that most are completely irresponsible or delinquent, it’s just that in life you want to find ways to give yourself an advantage over the field, and one of the easiest ways is to “outwork” them. And this means doing the basics, like never missing a class and never being late to work. How easy is that? At every level, you need to be in the top 10%. In college I was surely in the top 10% of students attending classes regularly and consistently.
So, lesson #1 is easy, actually the easiest. In life it’s critically important to “Just Show Up”!