Ignite Y.O.U.

We live in a free society. Americans enjoy more freedoms today than anytime in our history. Why, then, don’t we appear to be a happier bunch…

Whenever I’m stuck in traffic on 315 South heading in to visit one of my clients I can’t help but gaze at the eyes of those stuck alongside me. The vast, vast majority do not appear to be headed in to invest their day in their opus – their labor of love. They do look busy. They seem to be talking to someone though there is nobody in the car. They are dressed well but oftentimes are still putting on some kinda makeup. When our eyes meet they don’t have the least bit of curiosity even as to why – they just can’t wait to look away…

You are free, here, to believe. This does not mean that anything you believe is necessarily true. Maybe we would be a happier people if we questioned ourselves a bit more.

In 1993, twenty years ago, I was sitting in a CompuServe Executive Committee meeting. I did not want to be there. I was busy working on some sales plan that meant more to me at the time when Maury Cox announced to the ten Executives in the room that it was time for us to build people, not just profits. Oh bother, I thought. He insisted that I be the one to go and check out the first leadership development program called the “Center of Creative Leadership.” My response was reflexive.

Nope, can’t do it. I’m too busy.

Quickly, I volunteered my collegue running HR to go. Send the squishy one not me. Maury demanded that I go. He pulled a power play. My freedom was restricted and for a week it was actually taken from me. I was forced to go to FLA and study myself and other leaders, all while being videotaped and judged to death by a team of brain scientists. I hated it at first.

Day three arrived and we received our feedback report, our personality profile, creativity report, and a couple others that slip my mind. My mind was flooded with information about me and about how others viewed me. It was as if somebody flipped a switch inside me and suddenly I was lit. I began to kinda take over the classroom of 25 with question after question. First curious and then kinda challenging. I had to know if there was reason to believe any of their data. The more questions I asked the more clarity came. It didn’t take long to realize these brain scientists knew their shit and I was hooked. Have been ever since.

I came back, twenty years ago from a “lost week” where my freedom had been taken, a changed man. I told Maury to send everybody. I told him the place was amazing and I had never learned so much. And, I told him that I wanted to start our own leadership institute and I’d run it too. I told him that I wanted to quit my job running sales and run the leadership piece fulltime. He told me NFW.

I took that as a partial yes and convinced him to let me do it on the side. I told him not to worry that I would never leave and go to a competitor. When I left, I told him, it would be to start my own company that builds leaders.

I got busy and began to study for myself. Pete Kunk turned me on to the first books about leadership and I devoured them whole. Ed Eppley gave me a few more and I did the same. Pete and Ed were hired by me to be the outsiders to help build our leaders and I would study them and their stuff like a man possessed. I had a lot to learn.

Nine years later, in 2002, I would finally feel confident that I knew enough, had saved enough, and was ready to jump out the window and see if I could fly. BUILT TO LEAD started in June 2002 and I’ve been learning to fly ever since…

Maybe, just maybe, our challenge is not to pursue freedom but instead to find what liberates us. Maybe our happiness doesn’t depend as much on money as it does on meaning. Maybe, just maybe, God designed us each with specific talents and gifts but left it up to us to choose to ignore or ignite ’em.

Sorry for the long rant. Maybe, just maybe, it was meant to ignite Y.O.U….