Learning

The Greatest Teacher, Failure is!

/ James / Leave a comment

What a great line from Yoda in The Last Jedi. I hope it is not too much of a spoiler for you, that Yoda made an appearance in the latest Star Wars movie. I immediately wanted to use it right after it ended, but my kids said I needed to wait till after the weekend. And I am glad I did because I kept hearing this message about failure over and over. It is like I was supposed to get this engrained in my head.

One of these instances was Charlie Day from It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. One of my older sons love that show. He was watching a commencement speech given by Charlie and told me I needed to watch it. I sat down with him mainly cause I was curious. How could a guy who played one of the dumbest guys on TV, be asked to give a commencement speech? But it was a really great speech (and funny) that encouraged the graduates not to do the safe thing, but take risks. He said “Be willing to fail, let yourself fail, fail in the way and the place you would want to fail. Fail, pick yourself up, and fail again. Because without your struggle, what is your success anyways.” That is a great point, what is success without struggle. If it always came easy, it would get boring. 

I don’t know about you, but I love hearing about successful failures. People who overcame their past failures, learned from them, and became successful. JK Rowling, Steve Jobs, Abraham Lincoln, Bill Gates, Albert Einstein, Walt Disney and Michael Jordan are just some of the most famous ones. They all overcame failures, obstacles, and setbacks to become some of the greatest at their profession. But a key part of their failure is, they learned something along the way. When you fail, make sure you learn from it! Failing isn’t fun. I would much rather succeed. But no one makes every shot, nobody bats a thousand. But it is hard to win if you aren’t swinging or shooting. So, don’t be afraid to fail! Its the greatest teacher. A Jedi Master said so!

Read to Lead – Books I read in 2017

/ James / Leave a comment

20171214_0043071498501569.jpg

I went most of my life trying to read as little as possible. It was not till recently, that I discovered the greatness of reading. These books are all that I have read this past year. A few of them are books that I have read before, but I felt I needed to read them again. One of the books I reread was The Energy Bus by Jon Gordon. This book actually started the journey I’m on that turned my life around. The main character, George, could have been written about me. Everything in his life was falling apart: his career, marriage, family, health. He lived a fearful life, always expecting something bad to happen to him. And when you live and think like that, you will make it a self fulfilling prophecy. I actually try to read the Energy Bus at least once a year. It reminds me where I was, and I do not want to go back.

Most of the books that I read, are on the Leadership Reading Challenge from Train to be Clutch. Their work has really been instrumental in me finding my focus. Joshua Medcalf, the founder of T2BC wrote a book earlier this year titled: Pound the Stone. I was lucky enough to be on the book launch team, so I got to read a couple of the advance versions. I loved the final version and would have to say that it was the best book I read all year.

Next, would be the Power of Positive Leadership by Jon Gordon. I was on that book launch team as well. This book really challenged me as I got ready to coach football this past season. I wanted to be the most positive coach I could be after reading it. It taught me I need to be committed to my players and that I should find and live my purpose.

The last book that I would like to briefly recommend is – In a pit with a lion on a snowy day. This is another book that I reread. Whenever I feel fearful of something coming up, I read this book. It reminds me to trust God completely. He is bigger than any lions in your life.

So, here is the list of books I had the privilege of reading this year:

Pound the Stone – Joshua Medcalf

Power of Positive Leadership – Jon Gordon

In a Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day – Mark Batterson

The Energy Bus – Jon Gordon

The Carpenter – Jon Gordon

The Barbarian Way – Erwin McManus

The 21 Most Powerful Minutes in a Leader’s Day – John C. Maxwell

The Principle Circle – Jamie Gilbert

The War of Art – Steven Pressfield

The One Thing – Gary Keller

The 5 Second Rule – Mel Robbins

Become a Life Coach – Mitch Matthews

Christian Coaching – Gary Collins

It’s only thirteen books. I really want to read twice that many in 2018!

 

Get Busy Growing

/ James / Leave a comment

shawshank

Shawshank Redemption is one of my favorite movies. It is always a stop-down for me. I always end up watching it if I see it while flipping channels. One of my favorite quotes from the movie is Andy saying “I guess it comes down to a simple choice, really. Get busy living or get busy dying.” I love the phrase at the beginning: “It comes down to a simple choice”. Really, our life comes down to the choices we make. One of the most important choices we can make in life, is to chose to grow.

Choosing to grow is the first step in adopting a growth mindset. I first learned about the growth mindset from Train to be Clutch’s Leadership Reading Program. The first book on the list is Mindset: The New Psychology of success by Carol Dweck. It taught me that there are two mindsets that we choose to live life with, either a growth or a fixed. The growth mindset is a starting point for change, the fixed mindset stands in the way of development and change. If I was going to get anything from the other books, I had to be open to choosing growth.

Much of my life, I lived in the fixed mindset on many things. I believed “You are who you are” and said that to my wife many times.  A fixed mindset assumes that our character, intelligence, and creative ability are givens which we can’t really change. It wants success by avoiding failure at all costs. That means participating in events or classes, where you know you will be successful. I loved math and history because it was easy for me. I hated English, Literature, and writing because I wasn’t good at them. I didn’t give full effort in those classes, because I told myself: “What’s the point? I suck at them anyways.”

A growth mindset, on the other hand, thrives on challenges. It sees failure as not being stupid or unsuccessful, but as a way to learn and grow our existing abilities. If I would have had a growth mindset back in my writing class, I would have used those classes as a chance to improve, which would come in handy today. We all have things in our life that we struggle with doing. It could be math, grammar, spelling, cooking, taking tests, etc.. the list could go on and on. The growth mindset’s goal is to learn and improve in ALL areas of your life.

Even if society considers you the best at something, always look to get better. Grant Teaff, the former coach of the Baylor Bears, tells a story of coach Gordon Wood. Coach Wood was the nation’s winningest high school football coach at the time and had already won nine state football titles. Teaff went to watch film at his office the day after a Baylor game. Coach Wood was waiting for him on the couch in the team’s lounge. Wood saw Baylor do some things in the game the day before, he wanted to learn about them so he could help his team achieve even more success. He was at the end of his career, had nothing to prove to anyone, he just wanted to keep improving and gain even more knowledge.

There are many aspects to the growth mindset. The best way to learn about them all is by reading Carol Dweck’s book, Mindset. She also has a website at mindsetworks.com that I highly recommend you check out. No matter where you are in life, or what situation you are in, how old or how young, you have a choice everyday. A choice to use every failure, every setback as a chance to learn. A choice to improve yourself or just stay the same. A choice to get busy growing, or get busy dying.

twomindsets