The Fire Within

Back when I was in school, we often did this exercise where we would have to review a fellow classmate's work. We were taught how to point out things they do well and to share our thoughts on something that could be better. Constructive criticism is what we were taught that was. How to tell someone that something needed to be better without making them feel bad. I think we've lost site of that as a society. It seems like if you on one side you are not allowed to criticize anything. If you are not touting it as the greatest thing ever, perfect in every way, then you aren't a true fan. On the other side, if you are against something you have to shout from the roof tops that it is the most wicked creation that has ever existed on this planet. Of course I'm thinking some about politics, but maybe politics is just reflecting the state of our society that we react this way over everything. Employees aren't allowed to criticize anything about their work. Teammates can'...

Anyone who is a parent has probably had a time where they had to tell their kids they did something wrong. You reset expectations, say you are disappointed, and explain the behavior you expect. At no time do you ever stop loving your child. It is interesting how often today, if you are in a position of not agreeing with a decision or action you are automatically viewed as the enemy. If you are a fan of a sports team and don't like the decisions the coach is making there is a potential for people to attack you because you aren't a true fan.  In politics, no matter if you are conservative, liberal or moderate, if you criticize you are unpatriotic. If you don't agree with something your employer is doing, people want to know why you still work there.  Just because something isn't perfect, or not living up to the expectations we have, doesn't mean we love it any less.  We can demand better from our government leaders and still love our country. We can criticize decision...

We all know, if you live in a glass house you shouldn't throw stones. This is not a good analogy for how the world actually works. Yes, we all live in brittle glass houses, as the imperfect beings we are. But it isn't as simple as not throwing stones like we are a starting pitcher for the Yankees. We are going to get stones thrown our way, some intentionally, but like a rock hitting your windshield sometimes the circumstances are just right. If you've ever been cut from a team, lost a job, or been given some critiques on things you can do better, it isn't hard to feel like big stones aimed right at you. The fact is sometimes we need to be told things aren't good or need to be improved. It is easy to avoid having hard conversations because you don't want to throw stones. But it doesn't help the other person improve. I always tell people if they see something that I can do better, I want to know. It sucks to hear but I can't improve things unless I know...

We hate to fail, don't we? Things go poorly and we beat ourselves up and assume everyone around us is laughing at our stumbles. Failure isn't the problem, the problem is when we assume our setbacks are who we are and we want to give up. We quit. Here are the facts: Everyone makes mistakes. We learn more from our failures than from our successes. The judgement you feel for your mistakes is more about you and hardly anything to do with others. Judgment of our failures speaks more about someone's insecurities than it does about our actual failures. When a child is first learning to walk, they fall down more times than the number of steps they take. If they stop trying after the first fall they would never be able to walk or run. Next time you fail, think of it as a learning opportunity that just gets you closer to figuring it out.

Some people believe that at the basic level all types of leadership can be summarized by two concepts, the carrot and the stick. Do you operate under the notion that people respond best to being rewarded when they do things right or that they need to be punished when they do things wrong? You see this manifested so often in the world, those leaders that think nothing motivates more than a good old fashioned butt chewing. I think that it is rarely effective, certainly in the long run. At the same time you can't be happy about everything, accepting when mistakes are made. Jon Gordon tweeted recently and he worded beautifully how to find the right balance, "Positive leaders are demanding without being demeaning." You can be demanding, expecting better things and higher levels of performance without yelling at someone where they feel humiliated, embarrassed or ashamed. Life is hard enough to be doing that to each other. Most people already know they made a mistake and hav...

I am convinced that the amount of success in the world is lower than we could have and the main thing that holds people back from achieving a higher level of success is that too many of us listen to the critics. If you start achieving good things, you will start to see some criticism directed at you, the more success the more the critics. Look at the recent NBA Finals, LeBron James and Stephen Curry battled for the championship and the majority of the conversation was from critics explaining why one or both wasn't as great as some say. Most seem to ignore the fact that both of them are in the top 20 basketball players of all time (I'm not going to argue where they are at, I think everyone can agree they are somewhere in the top 20). If you have people that criticize you be happy, you are probably more successful than you think. The great tragedy is when people start believing their critics. They lower their goals, they put off their dreams, they quit before the breakthrough b...