The Leader Who Had No Title: A Modern Fable on Real Success in Business and in (5 page)

“Stop at Rosemead Cemetery,” Tommy’s written directions had instructed. “You’ll see my car parked off to the side. I’ll leave my blinkers flashing to help you spot our meeting place more easily.”

At about ten minutes to five, I veered off the main road and onto the gravel-covered laneway that the map said would take me to where I needed to be. Tall pines reached for the skies. A light fog rose from the ground. To my left was the open clearing promised in the directions. I wasn’t quite sure why we were meeting at a cemetery, but I guessed there was someplace nearby that Tommy wanted to show me. The graveyard was probably a convenient—and unforgettable—place to connect as we started our day together.

As I drove a little closer to where I was to park, I saw a sight that was incredible. There, off to the side of the makeshift road was Tommy’s car. Blinkers were on, like he said they would be.
No one was inside. But the make and model of his vehicle is what had filled me with shock and awe. It was a shiny new black Porsche 911S! And the personalized license plate stated simply LDRSRUS. I shook my head. I smiled. This guy really was something else. This strange bookseller who rejected the notion of fat expense accounts and grand corner offices in favor of a revolutionary new model of leadership for these revolutionary new times just happened to own my dream car.

I pulled up behind the Porsche and turned my engine off. It was eerily silent as I sat quietly on the near-dark road. On a hill within the clearing, I spotted a lone figure. I guessed it was Tommy. He stood motionless in the graveyard.

It took all my energy to walk along the laneway, up onto the grassy knoll, past the crosses that filled the cemetery, and over to Tommy. I noticed that I began to feel afraid. After all, it was still dark, I was in a cemetery, and the fact of the matter was that I didn’t know Tommy all that well. I did, however, check him out with some of the other booksellers at my store. And, sure enough, everything he told me was absolutely true. Every detail. Tommy was the real deal.

It was true that though he was indeed seventy-seven years old, Tommy was widely regarded as the single best employee at our book company. He did win all those luxurious Caribbean vacations along with all those dazzling awards. He was making an excellent salary and had been offered many top posts. And all of the executives of our organization did treat him with the utmost of respect and the greatest of admiration. But still, I couldn’t help but feeling this early morning meeting in the middle of a graveyard was not the safest and most thoughtful move I’d ever made. But a whisper within me encouraged me to continue. And so I did.

As I neared the place where Tommy was standing, I could see the first rays of the sun dancing over the horizon. I could also see
a harvest moon ready to gently fade gracefully into the night. It was a beautiful scene.

I continued walking until I approached the figure. I could tell it was indeed Tommy, even though he had his back to me. He wore the same clothes he did when we first met. And in front of him sat two freshly dug graves. I was stunned.

My first thought was to flee. Maybe he was some secret madman, luring me to this isolated place so I could become yet another of his victims. I grew nervous. I couldn’t think. I froze in my steps.

Tommy slowly began to turn around. His hair was still a mess. He had a smile on his face. I soon relaxed. The rising of the sun quickened. This was going to be an interesting day.

“Good morning, Blake,” Tommy stated in his usual tone of confidence. “Right on time. I am impressed. Very impressed indeed. I know it’s early, but one of the things I’ve learned about leadership is that
leaders are those individuals who do the things that failures aren’t willing to do—even though they might not like doing them either
. They have the discipline to do what they know to be important—and right—versus what’s easy and fun. Now, that’s not to say that the best leaders don’t have a great time. They definitely do. Actually, because of their superior ability to create success and lasting positive results, they end up having far more joy and delight in their lives than most of us will ever know. Few things generate as much happiness as knowing that you are fully realizing your genius, doing brilliant work, and spending your life beautifully,” Tommy said, pulling off the silver necklace with LWT engraved on it.

“Here, this is for you, Blake. Just for having the courage to show up. That’s always half the battle. And for having the open-mindedness to learn the philosophy I promised to reveal to you back at the store the other day. LWT stands for
Lead Without a Title
. And that’s what the whole method you’ll learn today is all about. You never need a title to be a leader, my friend. And please
know that you’ll be hearing that line over and over today. That’s part of the coaching process you’re embarking on. Learning is the daughter of repetition,” Tommy said.

“Meaning?”

“Meaning that repetition is a powerful teaching tactic. Through repetition, a new idea can quickly become integrated as a new belief. And since it’s so important that you install the core belief that you don’t have to have a title to show leadership in all you do, you’ll be hearing that idea over and over again. ‘We need to be reminded more than we need to be instructed,’ said the thinker G. K. Chesterton.”

“Got it,” I replied agreeably as I checked out the shine on Tommy’s sparkling penny loafers.

“Lovely. So as we discussed at the bookstore, leadership is not some complex art reserved for the chosen few with Harvard degrees and impeccable social backgrounds. Each of us, by the very fact of our shared humanity, can show leadership.
And with all the cataclysmic change in our society right now, leadership has become the single most important master skill for success in business.
And I forgot to clearly mention the other day that
leadership isn’t only something to do at work. We need to practice leadership within every arena we play.
To arrive at our greatest lives, it’s ever so important to model leadership in our health, demonstrate leadership with our loved ones, reflect leadership around our finances, and live leadership within our communities. And most essentially, the foundation of it all is self-leadership. If you can’t lead yourself, you’ll never be able to lead anyone around you. Primary insight for you right there. ‘Finding the center of strength within ourselves is in the long run the best contribution we can make to our fellow men,’ said the psychologist Rollo May,” Tommy recited as he drew in a long breath of fresh air. “It’s a great day to be alive, Blake. Just consider the alternative if you don’t believe me,” he added, giving me a playful nudge.

“Thanks for the gift, Tommy,” I said as I placed the necklace over my head.
Finally
Tommy had revealed what LWT stood for: Lead Without a Title. I liked the sound of that.

“Again, thanks for making it out here at this time,” said my mentor. “Getting up early is one of the intelligent daily practices that Leaders Without a Title perform with acute consistency. Reminds me of the words of Ben Franklin who once observed: ‘There will be plenty of time to sleep once you are dead.’ ” He looked down at the graves.

“Blunt guy,” was my response.

“He was spot on, though. It’s so easy to sleep too much. Too many of us wish we had more time, yet we waste the time we have. Getting up an hour earlier every day gives you seven extra hours in a week. That’s thirty fresh hours in a month. Almost an extra workweek every thirty days! That’s time you can exploit to build your plans, refine your vision, and develop your best projects. That’s time you can leverage to reflect on your values, remove your inner barriers, and rethink your thinking. That’s time you can use to learn and grow and get to peak in all you do. One of the main aims of the journey you are on, Blake, is to improve.
It’s fine to be content, but never be satisfied
. So improve everything. Improve it all, daily, relentlessly, and passionately.”

“Inspiring. But I still need another cup of coffee,” I admitted.

Tommy remained utterly focused. He clearly heard me. He then looked down at the two graves again.

“Yeah, I was wondering about those. You spooked me, man. I thought that maybe you might be going to get a little psycho on me when I saw them. But I trusted you, Tommy. At some level, I just trust you. Maybe it’s because you knew my dad. God, I miss him a lot.”

“Me too. He was man of such generosity and decency. Even as a kid he’d always take the high road even when it was the hardest path to take. Well, I’d bet he’d be thrilled to know you
were out here with me today. And to hear that you’re set to make some big changes in the way you work and the life you live.”

“Yeah, he’d be happy,” I said quietly.

“Took me hours to dig these,” Tommy said, pointing to the deep holes in the ground. “Quite a workout for a seventy-seven-year-young man,” Tommy said with a smirk. “Graves fascinate me. They serve to dramatically remind me of how short life is—when you really think about it. You know, we all end up in the same place in the end. Just a pile of dust, Blake. And all those things we believed were so important, things like titles, net worth, and social position turn out to be so very unimportant. The CEO gets buried next to the street cleaner.
And on your last day, all that truly matters is whether you got to know your inner leader, and if you did, whether you had the bravery to allow it to offer its gifts to the world around you.
That’s pretty much the central purpose of life once you strip away all the trivialities.” Tommy paused and inhaled another long breath of the clean morning air. “The interesting thing about reflecting on your death is that it reawakens you to what’s truest about life. Here, look inside.”

At the bottom of the first grave sat a slate tablet. I’d never seen anything like it before. I could see that words had been scrawled onto the stone in clear block letters.

“Go on,” instructed Tommy, reminding me of one of my drill sergeants at basic training. “Don’t be afraid to get a little dirty. Get down in there and pull the tablet out.”

My heart started to quicken again. Doubt filled my mind. But before my fears could get the better of me, I leapt off the grass and into the grave, quickly picking up the tablet and wiping the dirt off of it. The sun was rising higher into the sky. Remaining deep within the grave and without glancing up at Tommy, I read the words I’d been encouraged to read.

“The 10 Human Regrets” was the title. “What does this mean?” I asked.

“Just keep reading.”

“The 10 Human Regrets,” I spoke aloud.

1.
You reach your last day with the brilliant song that your life was meant to sing still silent within you.

2.
You reach your last day without ever having experienced the natural power that inhabits you to do great work and achieve great things.

3.
You reach your last day realizing that you never inspired anyone else by the example that you set.

4.
You reach your last day full of pain at the realization that you never took any bold risks and so you never received any bright rewards.

5.
You reach your last day understanding that you missed the opportunity to catch a glimpse of mastery because you bought into the lie that you had to be resigned to mediocrity.

6.
You reach your last day and feel heartbroken that you never learned the skill of transforming adversity into victory and lead into gold.

7.
You reach your last day regretting that you forgot that work is about being radically helpful to others rather than being helpful only to yourself.

8.
You reach your last day with the awareness that you ended up living the life that society trained you to want versus leading the life you truly wanted to have.

9.
You reach your last day and awaken to the fact that you never realized your absolute best nor touched the special genius that you were built to become.

10.
You reach your last day and discover you could have been a leader and left this world so much better than you found it. But you refused to accept that mission because you were just too scared. And so you failed. And wasted a life.

I didn’t know what to say. I felt moved for some inexplicable reason. Maybe I’d just read what would happen to me if I didn’t make some immediate shifts and start Leading Without a Title. Maybe I’d just been confronted by my own mortality. And how rapidly my life was passing me by. Maybe I’d just been nailed by Tommy and forced to acknowledge the fact that I had been playing victim for most of the past years, blaming everything outside of me for the mess I was in rather than assuming responsibility for the place I now found myself. I realized that, ultimately,
each of us alone creates the lives we get to live.
And through my decisions and my actions, I’d ended up with mine.

One thing’s for sure: the list I’d just read was profound. I wished more people knew of “The 10 Human Regrets.” Just imagine the lost potential that would be avoided if businesspeople learned them and then broke out of any failure patterns they’d been working under. Just think of the good that would happen if kids in schools were educated on them. Just think of the human lives that would be saved right across our planet if “The 10 Human Regrets” were more widely known, so that they could be prevented at all costs.

It was in that moment that something deep within me changed completely. It was my proverbial lightbulb moment. The coin dropped. And everything clicked. I promised myself I’d dramatically turn around the way that I worked. I vowed that I’d instantly transform the way I lived. No more blaming the war for not being able to get back into the game. No more blaming my manager for not being able to do great work. No more blaming my past for my inability to win in the present. In that moment—tired and dirty, standing in some grave that my eccentric mentor dug well before the dawn of this breathtakingly beautiful day with its promise of a new beginning—I stopped making excuses. I assumed total responsibility for the consequences of my actions. And stepped into my best.