The Leader Who Had No Title: A Modern Fable on Real Success in Business and in (22 page)

“I Need No Title to Be a Leader,”
I recited quickly.

“Excellent. You’ve also met our friendly ski legend, the charismatic former pro athlete Ty Boyd, and discovered the second principle. Remember it, Blake?” wondered Jet aloud.

“Of course.
Tough Times Make Great Leaders
,” I responded confidently.

“Superb.” Jet clapped his hands. “This guy’s a good scholar,
Tommy. The kid’s learned the lessons well,” he noted with a gentle smile.

“I know,” replied Tommy as he studied the art that covered the walls. “I’m really proud of him.”

“The third principle in the Lead Without a Title philosophy is
The Deeper Your Relationships, the Stronger Your Leadership
. My buddy Jackson the visionary gardener taught you that one powerfully, I’m sure.”

“And I have the seeds to prove it,” I said as I reached into my pocket and pulled one out.

Jet smiled again. “Yeah, he’s a pretty cool guy. And so that brings you to me. I’m all about the fourth and final principle, Blake. And it just might be the most important one. I say that with total humility. But I believe that it’s true. This principle is the foundation that holds it all together. You can’t Lead Without a Title until you get this lesson right.”

“And the principle is?” I requested impatiently.

“Before I share it with you, may I ask you a question?” Jet asked politely.

“Of course.”

“What would you think of a professional athlete who said to a reporter in the locker room that he had made a decision not to train anymore, to stop all practice, and to cut out any advance preparation—but he still was sure he’d perform like a superstar on the playing field?”

“I’d think he was a little crazy,” I replied candidly.

“Right,” said Jet nodding his head. “Makes no sense, does it? Yet, Blake, before we go to work with the hope of delivering our best games, how many of us on the playing field of business make the time to train, practice, and prepare?”

“Not many businesspeople do that,” I admitted honestly.

“Exactly. And yet they expect to get winning results. That’s no different from the insanity of that pro athlete wanting to have
the championship without having to condition for it. So this final principle of Lead Without a Title is all about the importance of training and strengthening your inner leader so that you perform at extraordinary levels when you go out to work. And building up such extreme amounts of internal power that you’re pretty much
invincible
in the face of deep change and relentless pressure.”

“Really fascinating, Jet. I used to play football in school and I love sports, so your athlete metaphor really hits home. And it’s very true, now that I think about it. I don’t train hard to be at my best before I go into the bookstore, and yet I wonder why my results are less than spectacular. I guess I’m not taking personal responsibility for my actions. I can see even more evidence of me playing victim.”

“
To Be a Great Leader, First Become a Great Person
. It’s really as straightforward as that. An excellent organization is really just a cluster of people showing personal excellence in all they do. So as you and each of your teammates awaken your inner leaders and play at your absolute best, your company will automatically rise to its absolute best. Makes sense?” Jet questioned enthusiastically.

“Perfect sense,” I replied.

“Greatness on the outside begins within,” Jet added. “You can’t unleash peak performance at work until you feel like performing at your peak. You can’t show world-class toughness against competition if you don’t have mental toughness within yourself. And it’s just not possible to unlock the best in your teammates without first being connected with the best in you. This final lesson is all about personal leadership.
Lead yourself first. Only then will you get to a place as a person where you can lead other people
. Devote yourself to becoming so incredibly strong on the inside that you appear to be failure-proof from the outside. Work really hard on yourself so that all the buried treasure slumbering deep within you begins to reveal itself to every element of the world around you. Start to clean up your negative
beliefs and your false assumptions about the kind of leader you can become as well as about the profound achievements you can create. Develop the self-awareness to arrive at a deep relationship with your once dormant potential, your largest ambitions, and your highest aims. Do the inner work required to make your character richer, your intentions purer, and your acts bigger. Train hard to get your health into high gear so that each day you are full of energy and radiant in vitality. Success belongs to the energetic, you know.”

“I definitely understand that now,” I replied.

“Part of becoming a truly great person and leading yourself also involves clearing up the emotional dimension of your inner life, releasing any resentments you may be carrying, and letting go of all baggage from the past. All that junk is just slowing you down and blocking your greatness from fully expressing itself. And real self-leadership additionally requires work on your spiritual life, Blake, polishing that connection to the highest part of you so that you donate your best years at work to doing deeds that will last beyond your death.”

“My death?”

“Yes, Blake. Life’s a blink. It all rushes by in a fast little flash, when you really get down to it. The time to think about your legacy and how you want to be remembered is not on your last day, but now. That way you can live your life backward and make certain that you have a good ending.”

“Never thought of that,” I muttered, locked into the power of Jet’s suggestion that each of us should strive to have “a good ending.” The idea sent a shiver up my spine.

“Unfortunately, most of us don’t figure out what work—and life—are all about until we’re too old to do anything about it,” Jet continued. “
Most people don’t discover how to live until just before they die
. During their best years, too many are in a walking coma. They are not really conscious to what’s truly important in life:
showing leadership, actualizing your potential, and doing your part to change the world through the work you are doing and the person you’re becoming. Then, confronted with the wakeup call of their imminent end, these sleepwalkers start to dig beyond the superficial and go deep. They begin to realize that at birth they’d received stunning talents and precious gifts, along with the corresponding responsibility to polish that genius so they could express itself over the course of their lives. And elevate the lives of everyone around them in the process. But by the time they figure all this out, it’s too late to do anything about it. So they die unfulfilled.”

I hung on to every one of Jet’s words. He seemed to be a man of great wisdom.

“In this materialistic world, we chase titles, fast cars, and big bank accounts in a search for greatness when, in truth,
all that we really want we already have
. The excellence and the happiness we crave is inside of us. We’re looking for it all in the wrong places: in position, in social status, and in things like net worth. But before you know it, Blake, each of us will be dust. And the street sweeper gets buried next to the CEO. And titles, prestige, and university degrees don’t matter much at the end. All that truly counts is whether you grew into all you could have been and whether you showed leadership by using your potential to positively contribute to the lives of other human beings. And it
all
begins within. So your absolute best can shine.”

“What exactly do you mean by ‘all we want we already have,’ Jet? I definitely am all about Leading Without a Title now and being exceptional at my work. But I have to admit that I want a nice apartment, better things, and a new car. I don’t have them right now. I get that showing real leadership will bring all those things to me, but I
don’t
have them right now.”

“I say this with great respect, Blake: I really don’t think you actually want each of those things you mentioned.”

“But I do,” I insisted.

“No, you don’t,” Jet offered in a friendly way. “I think what you really want are the
feelings
that having those things will generate within you. Feelings like contentment, gratitude, and inner peace. And all I’m saying is that through some dedicated work on your
interior
life, you can drive some extraordinary breakthroughs within your exterior life. Lead yourself first,” he repeated.

“Very interesting,” I observed. Jet was right, as I quickly thought through his point. In our world we define our success by the things we have rather than by the people we’ve become. Rather than measuring our progress by how many lives we’re influencing, we gauge it by how much money we’re making and how many promotions we are receiving. It seemed to me that as a society, we’re focusing on all the wrong things, sadly, and that we’ve lost sight as to what real success is all about. No wonder most of us are miserable. No wonder so many in our world are medicating themselves with too much food, too much TV, and too much sleep. We are pursuing goals that will never make us happy.

“There’s nothing wrong with having nice things,” Jet clarified, as he handed Tommy and me bottles of water. “I’m an aesthete. You know what that means, Blake?”

“No I don’t, Jet.”

“It means someone who loves beauty. I so adore being surrounded by beautiful things. The furniture in this spa is first-rate. The food I eat is of the best quality. And the clothes I wear come from the most stylish stores in New York. A long time ago, I made a commitment to go through life first-class. And because I feel rich, I’ve become rich.”

“You’re wealthy?” I asked, surprised that a massage therapist would have so much money.

“I am, Blake. I have a pretty large team of assistants who help me here. We have five satellite offices to serve other communities.
And we train a ton of people who want to get into this wellness profession. This spa and my business have given me financial freedom. And so beauty travels with me everywhere I go,” Jet continued in his focused way. “I love the best things in life. I adore wonderful music. I travel to fun places on my vacation. And I drink great wine. Life’s just too short to drink bad wine,” he added with a wink. “But here’s the key: those things are not who I am. I’m not attached to any of them.
I own them versus them owning me
. Hey, I’m human, so nice things make me feel great. And I want to be super-clear that there’s nothing wrong at all with having a beautiful outer life—that makes the journey better. But I don’t use my possessions to define me. People really run into trouble when what they have forms the basis of who they are and their identity in the world.”

“Why?”

“Because if they lose their things, they lose themselves. So I love good things and the material pleasures that this world has to offer. But I’m no slave to them. I make the most of every day and I cherish life itself.
Who I’m becoming is far more important than what I own
. And the impact I’m having on my teammates, clients, and loved ones by the positive example I model is far more important to me than the amount of cash I’m making. And by the way, Blake,
if your focus is on making money, it’s off doing great work
—the very thing that will make you more money.”

“Interesting. Really interesting,” I replied.

“All I’m suggesting to you is that becoming an extraordinary Leader Without a Title starts with a real commitment to becoming an extraordinary person.
The great news is that it’s just not possible to grow your interior world and not see corresponding growth in your exterior world
. So working on yourself really is Job Number One.”

I was a little surprised to hear such emphasis being placed on the building of an excellent inner life as a prerequisite to
world-class leadership. Most business books seem to mention the importance of personal mastery only in passing, so I’d never thought it was relevant to success at work.

“As you access and allow the natural leadership power that slumbers within you to awaken,
everything
you touch will be transformed. As you grow in your awareness of your true nature and become a more confident, creative, and superb person, your interactions with others cannot help but get to a whole new level of greatness.”

“That does make sense,” I acknowledged. “As I have more faith in my abilities, more courage to persist in the achievement of my goals, and a brighter fire in my belly, it only seems logical I’ll do fantastic work and see superior results. The better I become as a person, the better everything I do will be.”

“Yes. But in so many ways, the goal is not so much about becoming a better person, Blake. You’re actually perfect just the way you are. The real mission is about remembering rather than improving.”

“Not sure I follow you.”

“You’re perfect the way you are,” Jet repeated. “Self-leadership isn’t about improving, because there’s nothing really wrong with you. It’s more about remembering. Remembering your inner leader and then making your relationship with it stronger each day. Self-leadership has so much to do with simply reconnecting to the person you once were—to your true nature.”

“What is my true nature, Jet?”

“You knew it when you were a little kid. When you were really young, society hadn’t taught you to deny your dreams, stifle your genius, and smother your passion. Back then, you weren’t afraid to take some risks, learn new things, and be completely comfortable being exactly who you are. As a little kid, you were still deeply aware of your natural leadership powers. You were still awake to the call on your life to make your mark, to realize
big things, and to live life as a glorious adventure. But as you got older, something terrible happened: the world around you started to do its job on you. The programming of your parents, your peers, and society began to shut you down to your absolute best. The messages of the mob taught you not to be an original. To dim down your vision. To play small with your days.”