Monthly Archives: April 2018

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Leadership Word of the Week: Drive

Everyone is motivated by something. The problem is that many people don’t have a clue what motivates them. They live life just reacting to the stimuli that they are confronted with. This kind of person lives a very shallow and dull life. They are moved or carried by the currents of life.

What so many people are lacking today is simply: drive.

Drive is the invisible, internal force in a person that is where motivation meets activation.  Drive takes your desires and makes them become directions Drive is what keeps you moving when everyone else has quit, gone home or accepted defeat. A car in park does not serve it’s purpose. Cars are designed for transport. Just like cars, there are too many people in the world today who have placed their lives in park or neutral. Park means you are going nowhere. Neutral means you will be pulled or pushed into the direction of another.

Drive is more than desire. To express a desire to do something, to expound your thoughts about doing something, these are not drive. These are merely desire. Desire is either fuel or fumes. Fumes happen when the only energy your desire meets is in your mind. The fumes of your desire escape and you move nothing, do nothing and gain nothing. Desire is fuel when you possess drive. But, having desire alone is an empty gas tank. A car in drive with no desire moves nowhere.

When you have drive, you enjoy the ride. You enjoy the journey. Too many people today are so obsessed with the next step, they don’t enjoy the one they are standing on. Escape is not drive. Don’t mistake escape for drive. Escape is a feeling of just wanting to get out. Drive is understanding why you are here and what you can do about it–what you can learn while you are hear. Drive is not as much about the destination as about the journey. The journey is where the joy happens. For example, you enter your vehicle in a road race. Which joy is more lasting, the trophy or the time spent on the track. The most powerful memories come from running the race, not receiving the rewards. Trophies are meant for shelves and collect dust. Great lives are not determined by the number of trophies, but the number of miles on the track. And no race is won with a car stuck in park or neutral.

Drive is a differentiator. If you want to differentiate yourself from your peers and excel to a level beyond them, then drive on in learning, in understanding and in output. Your input often determines your output. The reason you don’t get as much out of something, a job, a position or a work is that you simply have put enough into it. And it goes beyond just putting in, you need to pour in. Pour your emotional energy, your mental energy and your physical energy in to what you already have. Too many today in our workplaces simply take more out than they put in. Those who have drive, pour more in than they take out. Those that are driven have an internal energy that burns when the external encouragement dries up. Those who live for feedback lack drive. Driven people don’t need lots of encouragement. Conversely, they are little affected by discouragement. A person with drive moves on despite the applause, despite silence and despite boos.

Drive reveals your mental and emotional strength. There are too many weak-minded people and emotional cupcakes in the world today. Drive reveals itself in a solid, steady and strong mind-set. Drive keeps you going when everything and everyone quit. Drive brings you in early and keeps you late. Drive goes the extra mile and does the extra work. Drive is not accepting poor performance or inferior results as final. Drive keeps working, keeps seeking, and keeps knocking.

Drive is also like hunger–a hunger to do more, see more and be more. Drive is a hunger to learn, to grow and to develop. Drive is an appetite and those that have it stay lean and hungry. They don’t arrive. They don’t push back from the table. They keep themselves lean and hungry, not lean and cranky. They have an insatiable appetite to experience for themselves what others merely look over, pass by or completely ignore. Drive is a kind of curiosity that keeps you turning over stones, looking behind bushes and digger deeper.

People who have drive are able to press on when they get push back.

In a world of passengers, be a driver. In a world of floaters, be a driver. In a world or spectators, be a driver. Those who drive experience fuller, more productive lives.

 

(c) Alex Vann, 2018

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Leadership Word of the Week: Grit

In a furious world full of snowflakes, we need strong men and women who don’t melt at the first thought of heat. We need to teach our children, our teams and our people to rise to the occasion and stop dropping our heads and evaporating when life doesn’t go their way.

We need to teach our kids, our teams, our people and ourselves one word above all others today: Grit.

Grit is being tough when you feel weak. 

Grit is both your ability to step into adversity and stand up under it. Grit is where your energy meets adversity. Call it perseverance. Call it endurance. Grit is where courage rejects fear. Grit is the place your heart grows stronger than your sight, your strength and your mind. Toughness and single-mindedness define the one who is filled with grit. In a world where weakness is being modeled and praised, we need a movement to bring grit back!

Grit leaves a legacy. But you will never leave a legacy until you first leave a mark. Most people today, because they don’t have grit, just simply leave altogether.

Sandpaper has grit. Sandpaper leaves it’s mark. Construction paper is colorful and makes all kind of cute dioramas, but leaves no lasting mark on its environment. The first storm and construction paper turns into destruction paper—a wet, weak mess. People without grit are like construction paper – colorful, but impotent. Sandpaper on the other hand is strong and makes an impression when rubbed.

Have you ever rubbed construction paper?

Construction paper can’t stand up to the pressure. Because, construction paper has a weak constitution. You, literally, can rub a hole right through it. But, sandpaper is made of a different constitution. Part paper, part glue and all grit (sand grains) makes sandpaper a formidable force for any surface.

Grit makes you formidable. We live in a pressure packed world. But, those with grit can handle the pressure. Grit allows gives you the determination to be undeterred. The world wants to crush you. Seriously, nothing in the world improves itself. It all decays. All the forces of this world will pull you down. We used to have men and women who fought for things and built things. Now, we just have people who want to be given things.

No one can give you grit. You get grit by setting your face like flint to hard things, clenching your teeth and taking one step at a time. Grit takes no shortcuts and keeps you in it for the long haul.

Grit makes sparks in your soul. The reason there are so many passionless people is they are looking for a passion instead of looking for grit. Grit says, “Give me the hard way.” But, no one wants hard things anymore. Our world’s mantra is “make it easy and make it sweet.” You will never learn grit that way. The grit gets sucked out of you and you become the wrapping paper instead of the construction paper.

Grit goes to work. Listen, life is not fair. Stop wishing it was your version of fair and just get to work. And once you get to work, keep working. I see so many young people without grit, without stick-to-it-ness. When they don’t get what they want. They quit.

Grit don’t quit.

Life is not going to go your way all of the time, in fact, most of the time. And life, certainly, isn’t easy. So, when life doesn’t go your way, you suck it up and go to work. This is grit. And grit is only learned as you work hard. Because, grit can only be learned as you work hard. You can’t learn grit playing video games or watching videos on the internet. You can’t learn grit by letting someone else fight your battles. You can’t learn grit by reading social media posts or listening to popular pundits. You can’t learn grit from having a mentor or getting feedback. You can’t learn grit from running from your problems. You can’t learn grit by hiding from adversity.

You learn grit when you don’t quit. We have a world full of quitters today. They call it “advancement” or “leaving for the next opportunity.” But, too many people leave too early, simply because they don’t have the mental, emotional or even physical fortitude to suffer through one fruitless season into a more fruitful one.

“Over time grit is what separates fruitful lives from aimless ones.”
~John Ortberg

Grit is a divider. It divides the morally strong from the morally bankrupt. It separates the winners from the losers. It separates the men from the boys, the women from the girls. Grit puts it’s big boy and big girl pants on and gets to work. Grit is the line between those who stay and those who just want out. Grit is the line between those who absorb the pressure and  those whine to get their own way and escape the pressure. Information will never make you stronger, but straining under hard things will always make you stronger.

Get some grit and get to work. Those with grit will outlast and out-perform those without it.

Grit means “getting results in-spite of trials.”

(C) Alex Vann, 2018

 

 

*Special thanks to my iron, my friend and eldest sibling, Aaron, for a discussion about grit that gave me this week’s word.

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Leadership Word of the Week: Presentation

As our society and culture becomes more casual, this word becomes more important for those who look to differentiate themselves from their peers.

This week’s leadership word: Presentation

Presentation is where presence meets projection.

People are always wanting to know (a) can I trust you and (b) are you prepared? A strong, positive presentation is a personal statement of both trustworthiness and readiness. This is true of a customer who walks up to consider your wares. This is true of a leader who is wondering if you have earned a promotion. This is true of a potential mate, employer or relationship.

Your personal presentation is a statement to others on how to interact and respond to you.  Poor personal presentation kills your influence and creates a negative impression. A positive personal presentation creates greater influence and calls for others to respond to you with seriousness, attention and respect.

 

 

Presentation is a statement about what you are offering. This is important, because you must learn to see the people around you as your potential investors. You must present yourself and your responsibilities well so that others are willing to invest. A strong, positive personal presentation creates a greater inclination towards trust and opens the door for opportunity.

Your dress, your attitude, your tone, your language, the number of words you use, your energy, your passion, your appearance, your grooming, your smell, your breath, your hair style and, yes, your social media presence all add up to equal your personal presentation. It’s not just one, it’s all of these and more combined at all times.

You must be sharp. This means you present a message by who you are of order, of dependability and preparation. If you are not presenting a message of sharpness, you are presenting a message of being dull. The sharp knife always replaces the dull one. This means sharp dressed, sharp groomed and sharp eyed.

Presentation means you have put the work in before you show up. Presentation means you don’t ever just show up. Your energy and your enthusiasm are contagious. People are drawn to energy. People are drawn to simple, sincere energy. Without it you are merely presenting ideas they are convinced you believe in or have changed you.

“Your enthusiasm becomes their enthusiasm; your lukewarm presentation becomes their lukewarm interest in what you are offering.”
-Bill Walsh

Your preparation determines your presentation. Your personal presentation is where you transmit your presence. Presentation, thus, is a powerful statement of who you are and what you are about. You want to strengthen your personal presentation. A great meal is enhanced by the atmosphere that is created. Your abilities are enhanced by your presentation, because you are not a hermit. You live among people. The Bible tells the truth, “People look at the outward appearances, but the Lord looks at the heart” (1 Samuel 16:7). Don’t deceive yourself, people do look at outward appearances (God looks at your heart). People are always looking. So, as you are dealing with people, you need  to prepare and to present well.

Wrapping paper paves the way for a gift, just as personal presentation paves the way for influence.

Let’s go to work!

(C) Alex Vann, 2018

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Leadership Word of the Week: Hustle

As you develop people, in order to reach them you need to teach them new concepts and use vocabulary that represents these concepts. Using a word or a short group of words often facilitates quicker understanding and quicker application.

This week’s word: Hustle

“Things may come to those who wait, but only the things left by those who hustle.”

-Abraham Lincoln

Hustle means to use more energy get things done faster. Hustle means to use energy that maybe you didn’t want to because the situation calls for more. To hustle means you have to move quickly. Hustle doesn’t mean you move without thinking, it means that you are able to reach another, higher gear while doing the same task.

Hustle kills sloth. Sloth is a malaise that is always present in the individual lives of your team and also thus, is always growing or dying in the collective life of your team, department or organization.

Hustle creates high productivity. Hustle is where initiative means energy. Successful teams are characterized by members who actually take the initiative, not merely talk about initiative. Initiative is always seized. It has to be taken. And taking initiative always requires more energy than before. This what happens, people like the idea of getting things done earlier and faster, but the reality is they do not want to expend any more energy than they feel like they have to.

Hustle is energy at work. Energy is either gained or drained. Energy at rest never creates a greater capacity for force. Energy like muscle drains if you don’t use it. Using energy gives you a residual, incremental increase in more energy over time. It has to be paired with rest.

This week work hustle into your work.

Hustle comes from the heart. Those who love what they do and who they are doing it for or with, find it reasonable and expected that they will give more energy and more initiative before they are called upon, but especially if they are called upon.

Those who hustle knock on opportunity’s door most often.

 

(c) Alex Vann, 2018