Leadership Capital

Make The Choice

Being a runner in New England is kind of like being a skier in California: doable, but not easy. Spring and summer are nice, and fall is as near to perfect as weather can get, but winter weather makes running outside almost impossible.

Wintertime means that roads and sidewalks will become unpassable mountains of icy snow, outdoor tracks will turn into skating rinks, and the sun will disappear behind a curtain of gray clouds for days or weeks. There is always plenty of nice fluffy snow, but there’s also sleet, freezing rain, full-on blizzards, and my personal favorite (yes, it’s a real thing), thundersnow. Despite all this, the die-hard runners (or at least the crazy ones, like I used to be) will still find a way to make it happen.

When I was in high school, I ran laps with my track team around the inside of the school. We would race down one hallway, slam on the brakes, sprint down the next hallway, and so on until we’d complete one full ankle-demolishing, shin splint-inducing lap. Desperate times, indeed, but we were happy enough.

Back then, I enjoyed running so much that I would never let anything keep me from doing it. I’d bundle up and embrace sub zero temperatures. I would go for long runs in heavy, sloshy winter boots. I’d run through hallways, up and down stairs, or even (only in dire circumstances, of course) on the treadmill. The point is, nothing stopped me, and I loved every minute of it.

Fast forward a couple years (or 15, but who’s counting?) and here I am living in sunny California, where there is never a good reason not to run. The coldest, darkest winter morning here is like a day at the beach compared to winter in Massachusetts.

Yet even in this relative paradise, I still thought about skipping today’s run because it was “kind of chilly” outside. It was in the 40s.

Eventually, I was able to talk myself into going and when I got back home I sent a message to my Dad. I sent him a photo of a red track and my running-shoe clad feet sticking straight up, victorious. I was so proud of myself for overcoming such adversity! Forty degrees!

As it happens, my Dad also ran today. Back home in Massachusetts, it was a balmy 30 degrees. Compared to how cold it has been there lately (single digits or below-zero on most days), the weather actually felt warm to him, and he ended his run soaked with sweat and smiling like a madman.

What is the point of this story??

We have a choice.

(This is not my idea; read Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning for starters), but I think that our happiness depends on how we choose to respond to life and the things that happen in it.

Today, my Dad chose to be happy running in 30-degree weather, while I chose to be grouchy in 40. Happiness is a choice.

Thanks for the reminder, Dad.

Strengths Based Leadership: My 6 Takeaways

Today I finished the book Strengths Based Leadership, by Tom Rath. The book is based on the concept of “strengths psychology,” and the work of its founder, Don Clifton. The basic idea behind strengths psychology is that most people are born with a propensity to be stronger in some areas than in others (communication skills, analytical skills, physical skills, and so on). While it is still important to work on reducing serious deficiencies, people are much more likely to be successful if they spend the bulk of their efforts on exploiting what they are already naturally good at. Rath’s book helps you figure out what your own strengths are, then offers up solid advice for how to put those strengths to work.

Here are some of my key takeaways from the book:

“If you spend your life trying to be good at everything, you will never be great at anything.” p.7
Anything worth having requires hard work, but focusing on your own unique strengths is much easier and more effective than spending all of your energy trying to overcome weaknesses.
Optimal performance is the product of Talent x Effort (investment). Therefore talent is a force-multiplier.
Many leaders are promoted based on their technical skills or performance in their current jobs, which are actually poor predictors of how well they will do in a leadership position.
Maximizing your team means surrounding yourself with different types of people, particularly those with complementary strengths.
Above all else, people want leaders they can trust. Integrity trumps literally every other leadership attribute.

I also took the actual Strengthsfinder 2.0 test to discover my own top 5 leadership strengths. While I wasn’t really surprised by the results themselves, I gained a lot of great insight into how to best apply these strengths in a leadership capacity. Here is a quick snapshot of my top 5:

My results put me mostly in the leadership category called “Strategic Thinking.” This means that the best way for me to lead is by constantly learning, asking the tough questions, studying the past and predicting possible future outcomes.

I definitely recommend these books to anyone, anywhere in their leadership journey!

“What do you think about?

“…but what do you think about while you’re running for so long?”

I am currently gearing up to run a marathon this spring, which means that my weekly long runs are stretching into the double-digits and going for a run means that I’ll be gone for hours at a time.

It was my Mother in law who, genuinely curious, asked me what exactly it is that “I think about” during these long moments.

The question, and my awkward answer to it (something about music?), made me think about the reasons why I run in the first place. I am not naturally talented, I’ll probably never win another race, my life is full of other commitments, and if it were simply for the exercise, I could spend my time at the gym. So why do I run?

When I run, I think about the people in my life who matter to me. Sometimes I need the time to sort out my emotions. Other times I’ll make mental to-do lists. I sort out problems, come up with ideas, and plan for the future. I think about my pace. My breathing. My legs. the weather. Food. I think about everything. It feels great to mentally de-clutter. It’s a cathartic, sometimes exhilarating experience– but not really why I run, either.

I run for the rare moments of clarity that seem to settle in when my mind finally runs out of things to think about. Sometimes this doesn’t happen at all, and other times only for a moment. When my mind finally switches off, I feel in tune with my body, in line with my purpose, and completely free. When I run, and the chatter quiets, and the world slows down, I am reminded that the only thing I truly own is my life itself.

I run because it reminds me that my life is mine.

Without this constant reminder, life has a way of just happening. It can keep you in a state of constantly reacting to what other people want, what you think you’re “supposed” to do, or what society says we ought to be doing. Years slip by, goals go unmet, and potential is squandered because the path to mediocrity is so easy to take: just follow the rules, fill your expected role, and don’t make too much noise. Be happy to “just get by.”

I run because F@#% that.

When I run, I think about everything. When I run, I think about nothing.

It’s the nothing that keeps me coming back.

Take Action

A man’s usefulness depends upon his living up to his ideals insofar as he can.

It is hard to fail but it is worse never to have tried to succeed.

All daring and courage- all iron endurance of misfortune make for a finer nobler type of manhood.

Only those are fit to live who do not fear to die and none are fit to die who have shrunk from the joy of life and the duty of life.

-Theodore Roosevelt

It is in this sprit that I have decided to finally start this blogging project! Better to have tried and failed than to have never tried.

Stick around for some fun travel pictures, book reviews, running stories, and interesting nuggets of wisdom that I pick up along the way.

To life!