The Leader Who Had No Title: A Modern Fable on Real Success in Business and in (23 page)

“I’d have to agree with what you’re saying, Jet,” I offered excitedly. “I want my natural power back: my power to lead, to influence, and to leave everything I touch better than I found it,” I added, using some of the words I’d learned from Anna.

“Personal leadership—leading from the inside out, so that your bigness can be seen—is the DNA of all enduring excellence, Blake. Unfortunately, as I’ve been saying, this really is a lost value in today’s world. We’ve forgotten to place a premium on self-mastery as a means to arrive at leadership mastery. We’ve forgotten that if all the people within an organization rise to world class in the way they think, feel, and behave, the enterprise will
automatically
rise to world class. All we care about these days seems to be
external
gratification. More titles. More money. More things. All designed to receive the approval of the society around us instead of the approval of our best selves. Such a waste of our time and talent.”

“But you’re not saying there’s anything wrong with titles or making money or getting nice things, right?” I asked, just to be certain.

“Like I said, nothing wrong with them at all, Blake. Look, the Lead Without a Title philosophy doesn’t mean that organizations dispense with titles. That would lead to complete chaos. And I’ll be the first to say that one of the most important aims of a business must be to make fantastic profits. But there are a bunch of other priorities as well,” Jet mentioned in a relaxed tone. He then picked up an apple from a fruit bowl on the counter and took a bite. “Please help yourself, guys,” he insisted graciously. “In the
end, ego pursuits just don’t bring greatness to an organization or happiness for you as a person. They really don’t. I’ve met a few billionaires down here in this spa. They come in here wearing their Zegna suits and their Patek Philippe watches. We talk. And after a while they open up to me. Most of the rich people I’ve met aren’t very happy. Lots of money is the only thing a lot of wealthy people have. They are actually quite poor, as I think about it. Poverty isn’t just a lack of money—it’s a scarcity of anything. And so many high-net-worth individuals lack self-respect, a sense of well-being, physical health, and internal fulfillment.”

“Such helpful insights, Jet,” I said as I reached for an apple myself.

“So that’s why my suggestion to you is
To Be a Great Leader, First Become a Great Person
. Lead yourself, Blake. Only then will you be able to lead others and influence those around you by the powerful example you set. Begin within, in a culture that only celebrates externals.
And remember that greatness is an inner event with outer consequences. Once you awaken your inner leader, worldly success is the guaranteed result
.”

Jet paused for a moment, apparently deep in thought.

“I saw a kid walk into the restaurant upstairs with his parents yesterday. Guess what it said on his T-shirt?”

“Tell me,” I asked.

“It said, ‘I was born awesome.’ Isn’t that wonderful, Blake? ‘I was born
awesome
.’ Most of the average work that people do and most of the unsuccessful lives that too many people lead comes from the unfortunate fact that most people have disconnected with their ‘awesomeness,’ ” Jet noted with a laugh, as he took another bite of his apple.

“So true,” Tommy observed, smiling.

“Every single one of us alive today has greatness within. We have talents and potential that, if mined, would allow us to shine at extraordinary. There are no extra people on the planet.
You, me, Tommy, and all the people we surround ourselves with have been built to lead and made for stunning success. But because we’ve been brainwashed into doubting our magnificence and taught to stay small versus dream big, we’ve lost a sense of who we truly are. We really have disconnected with our essential nature. We’ve buried our best underneath layers of insecurity, doubt, and fear. You were born awesome, Blake. Own that truth!” exclaimed Jet as he raised a hand into the air and high-fived me.

All three of us chuckled. I loved being with these two people. They were so positive, faith filled, and real. I guess that’s a large part of what leadership is all about: making people feel better about themselves. And reminding people that—like that kid’s shirt said—they really are
awesome
.

“So start getting to know the leader within you. That’s truly the secret to high performance at work and within your personal life. It’s incredible to me how so many businesspeople attempt to lead other people without first having started with leading themselves. And so they inevitably end up
sabotaging
their efforts because they are still clinging to their own limiting beliefs, negative behaviors, and personal barriers. Wherever you go, you take you with you. And if your self-respect is low, your character is weak, and you’re full of fear, no matter what you try to do in your work, nothing great will happen. But if you begin to clean out the less than ideal part of you, explosive results will occur. Please start working on yourself today, Blake. Because life waits for no one. It speeds along on its own merry way with your cooperation or without it. Don’t put off until tomorrow what you know must be done today. Tomorrow just might never come. That’s reality. Which brings me to my acronym and the five rules for this fourth and final leadership conversation.”

“Been looking forward to your acronym, Jet,” I said happily.

“SHINE,” was Jet’s simple reply. “Personal leadership and self-mastery is all about doing five basic things.”

“Cool.”

“Work at these five ideas to awaken your inner leader and grow your internal life every day, Blake. Just as a pro athlete practices daily to become the best, you should practice daily to become your best you. The first forty days of living by these rules will be the hardest.”

“Why?”

“Because during that initial transition period, you will be in the process of installing new habits. You’ll be releasing the old, comfortable ways of doing things and shedding the previous behaviors that no longer serve your ascent into personal mastery. During those first forty days, you’ll be setting up new patterns and literally rewiring your brain while you recalibrate your inner controls. It’s a stressful process, filled with discomfort. It’ll feel hard and confusing. So it’s natural to think that something’s wrong. But that’s not at all the case. You’re just changing and growing. Everything’s perfect, actually.
Your former habits of thinking and being must disintegrate before better ways of behaving can begin to integrate
.”

“Ty took me through some of this, Jet. I learned that change creates disruption but that disruption needs to happen if I want to grow. And really lead.”

“Exactly right. As you expand personally, you’ll experience destruction of your old self. But destruction is actually a pretty special thing.”

“Really?” I asked.

“Sure. Past ways of being need to be destroyed and released before new and better ways of thinking and behaving can appear. You need to clean out what no longer serves you before space is available for something even better to enter.”

“Ty taught me that, too. He told me that breakthroughs into all the good things waiting for us can’t happen without breakdowns of all the old structures that are limiting us.”

“Well, our snow pro is a bright man. And before new and improved beliefs and behaviors can be integrated, the weak ones do need to be disintegrated. So give these five rules at least forty days for them to feel natural to you. Challenge yourself passionately for those first forty days. Don’t give up!”

“I like that. The Forty-Day Challenge.”

“It’s one of the keys to making real and sustained change—along with the importance of making small and steady improvements every single day, rather than massive ones that’ll only set you up to fail.”

“Small daily improvements over time lead to stunning results,” I recited proudly.

Jet smiled. “Yup. You’re on to it. Small victories stack up into big results over the passage of time.”

“So what does SHINE stand for?”

“The
S
will remind you to See Clearly. Leadership has so much to do with perceiving your conditions and circumstances clearly. Every one of us has flaws in our perception. Every one of us has a natural tendency to see through our blind spots and limiting beliefs. Often we see situations through eyes of fear versus through the lenses of opportunity. And so these flaws in our perception keep us stuck at average. I guess what I’m suggesting to you, Blake, is that we each have areas where what we think we see is not actually what we are seeing. But it’s a rare individual who has done the inner work required to develop the self-awareness to recognize their misperceptions of reality. We are blind to our blind spots. We see the world not as it is but as
we
are. And we don’t know what we don’t know.”

“Are you serious? Most of us don’t see reality clearly?” I asked, surprised by what I was learning.

“Definitely. If you are filled with fear and doubt, then when you go to work every day, you will project your internal state on your external conditions. You will miss opportunities to grow
and succeed at the bookstore. You will question your ability to positively influence others and make a difference. You will work to survive rather than work to thrive. This will all happen—not because of the way things truly are at work but because of the nature of your inner life and the way you are processing reality through your personal context. One way to really understand what I’m sharing is to think of a stained-glass window. Each one of us has a stained-glass window through which we perceive everything. This is nothing more than a filter through which we run all outer experiences.”

“What’s the stained-glass window made up of, Jet?” I asked, deeply fascinated by what I was hearing.

“It’s made up of all the beliefs, rules, and ways of being taught to you by your parents, teachers, peers, and every other influence that has shaped you from the moment you were born. And it’s forged from every conversation you’ve ever had with every person you’ve ever met and by every experience. All of that has created a story that you’ve sold to yourself on how the world works and how you get to show up in it. Remember, we see the world not as it is but as we are. So if your stained-glass window is a mess, your life will become a mess. If your stained-glass window has a belief that says, ‘You can’t lead without a title,’ then your actions will of course be consistent with that belief, and so you won’t lead if you lack a title. If your stained-glass window contains a rule that insists ‘Most people aren’t trustworthy’ or ‘Most work is pretty meaningless,’ then your behavior is bound to match these self-created interpretations of the world outside of you. But here’s the big idea to really sink your teeth into, Blake: what if that story you’re telling yourself is completely untrue?” Jet asked as he sat down on a plush chair.

“C’mon. That’s hard to believe,” I argued.

Jet remained relaxed. “Please just stay open to the notion that leadership is about developing high levels of self-awareness
and thinking regularly about the accuracy of your thinking. And simply consider that your daily thoughts are nothing more than mere reflections of the belief system programmed into you by your parents, peers, and teachers as well as all the other influences that have shaped your perceptions.”

“Pretty revolutionary stuff. I guess I’ve been socialized into thinking in a certain way. We are conditioned to accept a certain set of beliefs, and we think them so often we come to feel that they are true,” I observed.

Jet quickly stood up and walked over to Tommy. He started massaging his shoulders. “Thanks, my brother,” said Tommy. “I needed this.”

Jet kept on speaking while offering his former student this little gift. “Most people’s thinking really isn’t thinking. It’s actually nothing more than the unconscious repetition of the thoughts they’ve been regurgitating since they were little kids. Most of us—and this is a sad fact—truly don’t see reality,” Jet restated. “And that sad fact keeps us locked into mediocrity at work and in our personal lives. You were made to think brilliantly and see through the eyes of possibility rather than think badly and see through the eyes of fear.”

“I’ve never realized that my thinking and perception of outer conditions could be so faulty,” I replied, genuinely shocked at the notion that the way I viewed my circumstances could be a reflection of some internal mental filter and some personal story I was telling myself instead of the way things really were.

“That’s the case for most of us, Blake. You need to know how very important your thinking is. Your thinking creates your reality. You’re bound to get more of what you focus on. And your thoughts drive your actions. What holds us back in leadership and in life are not the external realities but our internal patterns of thought and the way we then behave in the face of those conditions. You need to shed your failure programs.
Real leadership
involves breaking through the limits of your mind so you can step into the highest strengths of your spirit
.”

“So exactly how do I begin to break through my mental barriers?”

“First, back to the athletic metaphor, you must begin to think like a champion. You have to take full responsibility for the thoughts you run through your brain. And that means understanding that your mind is no place for even a single negative one. Businesspeople sometimes scoff at the idea of thinking positively. They minimize it and will tell you the concept has no place in business. But of course it does! Every business result is the direct result of the collective behavior of each of its people. And every action you take is the child of a thought. What I mean by that is that your thinking drives your behavior and your behavior gives you your outcomes. So world-class work is obviously the result of world-class thinking.”

“Seems so simple, Jet,” I acknowledged, starting to embrace the ideas I was hearing.

“Even one bad thought is like a germ in your mind that attracts more germs to it. Before a person knows it, their mind’s become infected. They can’t see clearly. And they can’t think straight. They start seeing all that’s wrong versus all that’s right. The infection causes them to look for problems rather than to offer solutions. That sickness forces them to stop innovating, refrain from excellence, and deny their greatness. The disease makes them behave like victims instead of perform as leaders. You honestly can’t afford the luxury of even one bad thought if you are committed to Leading Without a Title.”