The Greatness Guide, Book 2: 101 More Insights to Get You to World Class (21 page)

When I was in Dubai delivering a leadership presentation for the Young Presidents’ Organization a while ago, a woman approached me and said, “Robin, I loved reading
The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari,
but you make it all sound so easy. Making improvements in my life is hard.” Hmm. Made me think. A lot. Here’s where I’m at with that one.

We live in a world seduced by the easy. We want to look great and be spectacularly fit but we don’t want to have to exercise to get there. We want to be successful in our careers but we wonder if there’s a way to reach world class without having to work hard and be disciplined (every great executive is strikingly disciplined, as is every great company). We dream of living fearless, joy-filled lives, but we all too often avoid the very best practices (like getting up early, taking risks, setting goals and reading) that are certain to deliver us to our ideals. Nothing comes for free. There truly are no free lunches. The best things in life require sacrifice and devotion. Each of us, to get to our own unique forms of personal and professional greatness, must pay the price. And the more we pay, the more we’ll receive.

Wanting to live your best life, at work and at home, without having to work at it and stay disciplined around our important To
Do’s, is like wanting an amazing garden without having to plant anything. Or like hoping to be in superb physical condition without having to give up the daily chocolate bar. Or like praying to have a great business by swallowing some magic pill. Whatever happened to commitment? And dedication?

Great lives don’t just occur out of the blue. They are crafted and built, like the Taj Mahal and the Great Wall of China, block by block, day by day. And superb businesses don’t just appear. They are forged through continuous and never-ending improvement and effort. Let’s not fall into believing that the best things in life come without effort. Give your best, and the best will come to you. Guaranteed.

The most important of all of our human traits is the power we have to choose. To choose how we live. To choose what we will do. To choose how we will view and consider a circumstance.

I’m up here in the mountains on a quick ski trip with my kids. Yesterday it rained. We could have grumbled. We could have complained. We could have got frustrated. Instead, we stepped back, decided to make a better choice and then viewed the whole thing as a giant adventure. We got excited versus upset. We donned the plastic covers that the resort provided. Suited up. And skied like there was no tomorrow. Guess what? The skiing was actually amazing. Soft snow. No crowds. Clean runs. It’s going to take me a week to wipe the smile off my face. Each day we have the opportunity to make choices. And the way we choose shapes our destiny. So don’t get upset. Get excited. As author Paul Theroux once observed, “Only a fool blames his bad vacation on the rain.”

Had a conversation with a VIP today (Very Interesting Person). Thirty-two years old. Grew up in the Caribbean. Builds fences for a living. A philosopher at heart.

Told me how everyone is into building fences these days. To block out their neighbors. To insulate themselves. To maintain privacy. And to foster separateness. “I grew up in St. Vincent,” he shared. “On our little island, we were like one big family. It really took a village to raise each child. Everyone talked to each other. People cared about one another. We were part of each other’s lives—a real community.”

Community.
Beautiful word. Every single one of us has a deep psychological need for it. We all crave to belong. To know we are part of a larger whole. It gives us a sense of security. Safety. And happiness. The best organizations foster community and build workplaces where people feel safe to be themselves again. The best families do the same thing—honoring each other and creating rich shared moments. So maybe we should stop worrying so much about building fences. And start creating true security—by building bridges.

Full disclosure: I’m not the first to use the term “fail faster.” But I do love it. The CEO of Coca-Cola at the annual meeting informed shareholders that the company was now going on an innovation tear and that his organization’s reinvention plan was contained in a document entitled “The Manifesto for Growth.” He noted that spending on marketing and innovation would increase by US$400 million and then—and here’s the big line—observed, “You will see some failures. As we take more risks, this is something we must accept as part of the regeneration process.” Which brings me to the imperative of Failing Fast.

At a leadership presentation I gave a while ago to the sales team of a large pharmaceutical company, someone came up to me afterwards and said, “Robin, I loved your speech. Especially the idea about failure being the price of greatness.” That reminded me that too many of us are so afraid of failure that we don’t even try (Seneca once said, “It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare. It is because we do not dare that things are difficult”). Many of us are frightened of looking silly or being embarrassed by failure and as a result, we don’t take the
risk and seize an opportunity. We think failure is bad. It isn’t. It’s good. No, it’s great.

There can be no success without failure. It’s just part of the process. The companies and people who have reached the heights of success are the same ones that have failed the most often. You need to fail to win. And the faster you fail, the more quickly you’ll learn precisely what you need to do to win. So Fail Fast. Out-fail the competition. Out-fail the person you once were. I’ll leave you with a quote from Robert F. Kennedy: “Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly.”