The Leader Who Had No Title: A Modern Fable on Real Success in Business and in (17 page)

“When one door closes, another opens?” I wondered aloud.

“Sort of. It’s not just that when you get knocked down, another door opens up to you, dude. It’s really that the new door that opens actually represents a chance to take you to an even more remarkable place than the one you were at before you got knocked down.
Crises contain exceptional opportunity
. Remember that the strongest and most powerful of leaders were all built by struggle and setback. Adversity unleashes noble boldness in each of us—if we allow it to. Getting bloodied, discouraged, and knocked down are just parts of the process of doing business during these times of dramatic change. The key isn’t whether you’ll face challenges. You will. The real key is what you’ll do with difficulties. And how quickly you’ll get back up. And also please understand that without having walked through the valley of darkness, you just might find that reaching the mountaintop is a hollow victory.”

“You know, you’re right, Ty. I’ve felt best about the things I had to sacrifice the most for. I think the most valuable victories in life were the hardest ones to reach.”

“And adversity can actually be a tool to help you soar to even greater achievement—and happiness. ‘We could never learn to be brave and patient if there were only joy in the world,’ wrote Helen Keller. Leadership is about leveraging hard times and
using them to your ad
vantage. Actually seeing obstacles as blessings in disguise. It takes practice to think like that. But I know you’ll get there, Blake. I’m confident of that.”

“Thanks for saying that, Ty. I sure don’t want to play victim anymore. And after today, I’m sure I won’t. Today’s probably the most inspired I’ve been in ages. I feel hopeful again, I feel strong
again, I feel powerful again. I sense that my life has meaning and purpose now. I now know that I can lead and make a profound difference through my work, even though I don’t have a title. But I want to be honest with you both. Everything I’ve learned today makes so much sense. And it all sounds so doable. But what if when I get up tomorrow and I’m all alone in my apartment and that voice of fear you said screamed through your head at the top of the mountain comes creeping back into my mind? What if I start Leading Without a Title and people laugh at me, as they usually do? Or what if I do what’s being suggested but I just can’t let go of the memories that’ve been haunting me from the war or my past?”

“Hey, thanks for being so real with us, dude. That’s a pretty brave way to be. You just might have a lot more strength than you’re giving yourself credit for. It takes a ton of security to speak about your insecurities. And the moment you become aware of your fears by putting words to them is the moment they lose a lot of the power they hold over you. To answer your questions, first,
I’d suggest you not allow the opinions of others get the best of you
. Second, KMF,” Ty instructed mysteriously.

“KMF?”

“Keep moving forward. KMF. I repeat that to myself all the time when I feel stuck. The secret to moving through hard times is to just
keep moving forward
. The singer Joan Baez put it perfectly: ‘Action is the antidote to despair.’
In challenging conditions, just stay in movement
. Just keep making the smartest choices you can and taking as much action as humanly possible. Just keep making progress—no matter how hard it seems—and stay out of stuck. Act your way out of the adverse conditions. Remember, every single positive action has to yield a positive consequence, even if you don’t see the good result immediately. That’s a natural law, dude. Excellent actions in negative conditions
must
eventually yield excellent effects.”

“Very helpful. Very, very helpful. Just stay in movement when I start to doubt and sabotage myself,” I muttered.

“Sometimes success isn’t about making the right decision—it’s more about making
some
decision—and then moving it forward with speed and elegance,” Ty indicated as he stretched his arms out and drew in a deep breath of air. I guessed it was some technique he’d learned as an elite athlete to stay energized. “The fact is, avoiding deciding
is
a decision. Standing frozen and blind-sided amid change
is
a decision. Doing nothing
is
a decision. Always be in movement. Never stand stuck. The Japanese say it well: ‘Get knocked down seven times, get up eight.’ When you find that you feel discouraged and like you just want to give up, keep moving forward. KMF. Step ahead—even if you’re not quite sure where you are going. Forward movement has power.
Doing zero in the face of turbulent times is the worst thing you can do
. Stagnation is the beginning of death’s icy grip, man. Trust me on that one as well.”

“Part of what you’re telling me is to just persist when times get hard and I face adversity, isn’t it, Ty?”

“Yup. Persistence and patience. Two extraordinary leadership virtues to get you through challenging and change-rich times. Like I told you earlier when we were talking about me teaching skiers how to get better, you need to exercise these two qualities to manage the change and move through the transition from where you once played the game to where you’ve always wanted to be. It’s amazing how far you can get when you decide that you simply will not give up—
that failure isn’t an option
. That you are a person who simply refuses to lose. Winston Churchill said it so well: ‘Never give in—never, never, never, never, in nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to convictions of honor and good sense.’ And by the way,
it’s better to go down in fiery failure because you chased your loftiest ambitions than to spend your best hours watching television in some subdivision.”

“Now I need to write that one down, Ty,” I said with an appreciative smile. I reached for a slip of paper on the counter and jotted down Ty’s quote.

He continued. “In my business, I have that attitude that if I get knocked down seven times, I’ll simply get up eight times. That’s kind of the ratio I use to counter hardship. Eight rises for every seven knockdowns. And if a wall shows up—and it’s a wall that blocks me from a goal that’s important to me—I do absolutely whatever it takes to climb over that wall. Or I’ll go around it. Or under it. Or right through it. I just don’t give up, man. I get knocked down. I get bloodied and just wipe off the blood and keep trying to get to the other side of the wall that’s standing between me and the goal I want to get to. You really need to be that strong and that committed to success if you want to win in business these days.”

“Really?” I asked.

“Definitely, Blake. I totally believe that
looking silly feels uncomfortable for a minute, but letting your doubts and fears own you feels uncomfortable for a lifetime
. God, it breaks my heart to see how tiny people play with their careers and within their lives. The words of the famous psychologist Abraham Maslow come to mind: ‘We are generally afraid to become that which we can glimpse in our most perfect moments.’ Please hear me on this one: just because you can’t see the inner leader begging to wake up within you and the boundless opportunity that exists outside of you doesn’t mean it’s not all there.
And I really believe that obstacles just show up to measure how badly you want something
. Setbacks are nothing more than tests to see if you are
ready for
the rewards that are available to you. Most people give up as soon as they see a wall. I don’t.

“Okay, guys,” Ty said as he started waxing a pair of racing skis, “I know you have two more teachers to meet before your day is done, and I have to get back to work now. So I’ll finish up
on the SPARK acronym. The
R
will remind you to Respond versus react when turbulent times hit. The trap a lot of businesspeople fall into when challenges show up is to get so panicked that they spend their work hours fighting five-alarm fires. They get up in the morning, go off to work, and waste all their time being
reactive
. Rather than rising above all the confusion, they get sucked into being a part of it.
They become part of the problem rather than showing leadership by becoming the source of the solution
. Don’t make a habit of reacting to challenges at work, dude. Become a master at
responding
to them. Be grace under pressure. Stop worrying about all the things you can’t control and dedicate yourself to improving the areas you can control. Take
initiative
. And showing initiative just means that you are the person on your team who starts things. Be a go-getter. Make results happen while others are waiting to be led. Remember that the finest hour of every great leader occurred when everything looked like it was falling apart. Rather than just stand there paralyzed by fear, they stayed calm, showed excellence, and turned it all around. What I’m talking about here is having some serious game. What I’m really speaking about is having raw
drive
and the superior ability to block out the noise in this age of overwhelming distraction.
Always remember that initiative and hard work is the warm-up act for a headliner called success
.”

“I learned the importance of drive and the value of hard work in the military. The more effort I put in and the longer I practiced the skills we were taught in basic training, the better I became. I guess it’s easy to forget that to get great at anything, we need to put in the time. And the
K
in SPARK?” I asked.”

“It will remind you to offer Kudos. Being a Leader Without a Title involves being inspirational and uplifting in a world that all too often celebrates the worst of things. It’ll remind you to shine a light on people. It’ll help you remember that people need to be appreciated—for even the smallest things that they do in the face
of adverse and stressful times. Go through every day of the rest of your life being one of those rare individuals who encourages the efforts of others, who looks for what’s good in people, and who applauds even the smallest positive act that they do. Most people think that leadership is about correcting and criticizing others when they are doing things wrong. But that’s not true. Real leadership has so much to do with applauding others when they are doing things right. Now as you give greater kudos to your teammates, remember that few of us know what to do with sincere praise. But just because your praise might not be fully received doesn’t mean your praise shouldn’t be well delivered.”

“Excellent point, Ty. I’ve sometimes fallen into that trap—becoming afraid of really appreciating someone for fear of rejection. I need to overcome that,” I admitted.

“That’s good, Blake. Anyway, just commit yourself to becoming a passionate celebrator of the great work that those around you are doing. Recognize excellence. Praise good work. Honor mastery. Don’t wait for your manager to do all that.
You
do it. Lead Without a Title. Lead Without a Title, dude!”

The most important single ingredient in the formula of success is knowing how to get along with people
.

—
THEODORE ROOSEVELT

You get the best out of others when you give the best of yourself
.

—
HARRY FIRESTONE

A
S TOMMY AND I DROVE UP
to the New York Public Library, I expressed my thanks to him for bringing me to meet Ty. In our short time together, this former ski champion had an exceptionally strong influence on me. Both Ty and Anna had done something that, without a doubt, was causing transformation. After meeting those two special leaders, it became strikingly clear to me that a key focus of Leaders Without a Title was just that:
to cause transformation
and make things better.

As we made our way to our destination, Tommy and I went even deeper into the meaning of leadership and the methods by which it can be shown. We discussed how there is now a call on the lives of every single one of us alive today to Lead Without a
Title and shift from all traces of victimhood into a daily commitment toward leadership. We reflected on the
You Need No Title to Be a Leader
principle of the philosophy that Anna had so generously shared along with reviewing the five rules of the IMAGE acronym that I could now use to ensure that all I’d learned would be translated into fantastic results. Tommy and I then vigorously dissected the
Turbulent Times Build Great Leaders
principle that the unforgettable snow god Ty Boyd had just revealed to me along with affirming the power of SPARK and how anyone could use the acronym’s five practices to shine brightly in a world with too much darkness. And I continued to candidly express my concern that though I felt I’d already experienced profound changes through the conversations with the teachers, I worried about slipping back into old ways. And losing the incredible gifts that I’d received over the past hours of this most unusual day.