It’s time for entry in the Letters to Leadership series where I pick three words that are relevant to leadership for each letter of the alphabet. I invite you to subscribe as we go from A to Z!
Ownership
Up until recently, I rented where I lived.
I was just fine letting the landlords handle the lawn, fix the plumbing, and come to the rescue when the water heater leaked causing the ceiling in the diving room to cave in and crash down to the floor in the middle of the night. (Yes, that really happened!)
Now that we are homeowners, I'm 100% responsible for all the bad and good within our plot. Every squeaking door, blade of grass, and project in progress is on Chelsey and me.
The argument could be made that the same was true at the properties I rented. We were responsible for fixing what we broke but beyond that, it's hard to justify making significant investments in a place you won't be staying in for long.
This brings me to the first O in today's Letters to Leadership, Ownership. (OOO!)
When I was a renter, I could blame the homeowner for all the improvements that could be made. The way the bushes looked. The lack of paint or modern appliance.
I also knew we wouldn't be there for too long so there wasn't an incentive to make the place we were the absolute best. We didn't live in squalor or tear up the place, but we didn't put a lot of energy into improvements either.
A leader that isn't 'all-in' is like a renter. They might be friendly, responsible, and even take care of small things. But when the roof caves in they will gladly pass the buck.
A Leader is one who takes full ownership and accepts responsibility for everything. The 'all-in' attitude shapes the approach and drives the action every day.
Approaching our lives with a high sense of Ownership means a daily investment in the long-term value of an organization and its impact on its people, customers, and vendors.
We recently had Chad Patterson at the office, and he brought a hula hoop (another O!) to make a point about taking ownership.
He set the hula hoop on the floor as an illustration of the locus of control and highlighted the fact we all have the ability to stand within it or outside it.
That begs the question, where do you stand?
What does Ownership look like in your life?
Dive Deeper on Ownership with these Free Resources:
Extreme Ownership by Jocko Willink and Leif Babin - Philosopher’s Note
Courage is Calling by Ryan Holiday - Philosopher’s Note
“Courage is the management of triump over fear. It’s the decision - in a moment of peril, or day in and day out - to take ownership, to assert agency, over a situation, over yourself, over the fate that everyone else has resigned themselves to.” - Ryan Holiday
Optimize
When you make the best or most effective use of something, like…
Your time
Your potential
Your experiences
Your body
Your skills
Your relationships
Or life itself,
You're optimizing.
I'm always looking for ways to improve myself in the areas of life that matter most. It's not about being perfect, but an honest pursuit of what is working and what isn’t and taking the steps to move in the direction that serves me and others most.
You may know that running is my go-to exercise. Recently I've been experimenting with running in the early mornings. Because I start work at 7:30am, this requires me to wake up between 5:00-5:30am so I can get a few miles in, shower, and get there with ample time.
This AM change shifts the way I approach my PM routine.
In the 300-day Heroic Performance Coach program I completed recently, I learned a ton about the science of habit installation and deletion, and how to take Ownership of the morning and evening in ways that empower me to be at my best.
If you're like me, there are many things that I do each day, a few of which that when completed, are higher leverage wins than others.
Here are the categories for fundamentals I focus on optimizing:
Eating
Moving
Sleeping
Breathing
Celebrating
Focusing
Prospering.
Each one has a few actions I integrate into my AM or PM hours that, when completed, make it hard to have a bad day.
One awesome thing I've realized after being intentional in my approach to these fundamentals is how they not only benefit me but how I'm able to show up for others as a result.
The best part is that the monumental growth I've been able to make in these areas was not a result of teeth-gritting willpower but small incremental changes compounded over time.
What area of your life are you focused on optimizing? If you’d like additional support in that area, let’s chat!
Dive Deeper on Habits with these Free Resources:
Mini Habits by Stephen Guise - Philospher’s Note
Atomic Habits by James Clear - Philosopher’s Note
Tiny Habits by B.J. Fogg - Philosopher’s Note
“Develop the habit of attending to your errors right away. Don’t wince, don’t close your eyes; look straight at them and see what really happened, and ask yourself what you can do next to improve. take mistakes seriously, but never personally.” - Daniel Coyle
Open-minded
"Ideas can change your life. And sometimes all you need is just one more good idea in a series of good ideas. It's like dialing the numbers of a combination lock. After you've dialed five or six numbers, the lock may not come open. But you probably don't need five or six more numbers. Maybe you need just one more number, one more idea. Maybe a seminar or a sermon can provide it. The lyrics from a song could do it. The dialogue from a movie could do it. Conversation with a friend might do it. If you keep your eyes and ears open, you'll find that one last idea you need.
Once you find that idea, the lock comes open, and there's the door for you to walk through. Just one more idea, no matter where you get it, may be all you need to open that door of opportunity."
Jim Rohn
How open are you to what your life is telling you?
That voice may come with literal words or result/consequence of them.
Open-mindedness makes room for ideas to come in. It's up to us to let them pass, filter them, wrestle with them, incorporate them, adopt them.
How new ideas influence us is ultimately our decision.
The more we expand our awareness of how the language we use and subject ourselves to, the people who use that language, and the environments we are in, the better we can be at making the decisions that fulfill us.
Life isn't soft.
Much is out of our control.
The important thing is we focus on what we can control. The serenity prayer comes to mind:
God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
Courage to change the things I can,
and Wisdom to know the difference.
It is wise then, to approach life's challenges and opportunities with equal acceptance (Ownership!) and courage, knowing the difference is ultimately up to an Optimized and Open-Minded self.
Dive Deeper on Open-Mindedness with this Free Resource:
The Power of Mindful Learning by Ellen Langer - Philosopher’s Note
More in the Letters to Leadership Series:
Network Nurture Navigate
Letters to Leadership is a series of acronyms that together form a framework designed to encourage, enrich, and empower other leaders. Join me as I write one for every letter of the alphabet! Network 🤝 I recently had the opportunity to meet Chuck King at one of the company lunch and learns we host for the team at PDQ America.