Extraordinary versus the Ordinary: 21st Century Challenges and Winning Approaches
Michael J. Piellusch MA, MS, DBA
Technical Writer/Editor @ U.S. Department of Homeland Security | Contract Technical Writer/Editor
In my “everlasting” search for good books, I recently stumbled across an interesting book written by Jessica Dillulo Herrin with the intriguing title of Find You Extraordinary: Dream Bigger, Live Happier, and Achieve Success on Your Own Terms.? Even though I have a “hard copy” of the book, I visited Google Books and I was somewhat surprised to find multiple screens of books with the word “Extraordinary” in the title.? We have all heard the sayings related to “nobody wants to be average” (or ordinary). ?One of my favorite quotes on the subject is Stephen King’s comment in a recent 2024 NPR interview that most books are about extraordinary people doing mostly ordinary things while King points out that he has written most of his books about ordinary people doing extraordinary things or being caught in extraordinary circumstances.? In the autumn of 2024, many people have experienced, heard about, or actually responded to Hurricane Helene and Hurricane Milton with incredible back-to-back succession.? As King points out, many of us are invariably or unexplainably caught up in extraordinary circumstances.? In this mini-essay, I will focus mainly on Herrin’s (2016) subtitle about dreaming bigger, living happier, and achieving success.? Herrin (2016) divides her book into three compelling parts:? Success (part I), the Six Ps of the Entrepreneurial Spirit (part II), and Being the Best Version of Yourself (part III).
Defining or Redefining Success
Herrin (2016) describes the essence of success as not the 20th century ideal of working for the same company from “college” until retirement and getting the proverbial “gold watch” at the end of the journey but more of a 21st century ideal of taking risks and plotting a unique course with an entrepreneurial spirit.? The traits needed “are the habits of mind that allow you to think for yourself and believe in yourself beyond reason; to work hard and find the love in that; to take risks and not be afraid to fail; and to surround yourself with positive people who lift you up” (p. 5). ?The rest of Herrin’s part I focuses on how to develop and personalize the entrepreneurial spirit. ??She presents the following questions for each of us to address (paraphrased):
** Who are the people you love and what makes them happy?
** How would you describe your ideal impact (small, medium, large, Enormous)?
** What are your primary goals:? Family, Career, Community, Planetary?
** Here and now are you connected with your soul, and does it yield happiness?
The answers to the above questions can be found in Herrin’s six Ps of the entrepreneurial spirit.
Finding or Creating the Entrepreneurial Spirit with the Six Ps
Imagining the proverbial drum roll for suspense and emphasis, the six Ps are: Passion, Path, Power of the Positive, People, Perseverance, and Productivity.? All six of these points seem self-explanatory and maybe “too” obvious but let us explore the positive aspects that might yield more than what first meets the eye.? The first point to consider is that unlike many list of traits (for example, Benton’s 22 traits of the excellent CEO). Herrin emphasizes the importance of all six of these traits working together in a unique blend of power.? Benton (1996) emphasizes that not every CEO or leader at any level will exude all 22 traits, but the more the better (Piellusch, 2011).? Also, Herrin does not imply that her six Ps are all we need.? She lists a dozen traits that are needed to supplement our six Ps: Curious, Freethinking, Imaginative, Confident, Adaptable, Hardworking, Optimistic, Disciplined, Driven, Resourceful, Resilient, and Efficient.? One other preliminary point before we take a shallow dive into the six Ps:? Herrin is not inviting us to an “ordinary” discussion of the entrepreneurial spirit, she is coaching us toward an extraordinary jumpstart of our career battery that seems to need a recharge every now and then. Also, Herrin provides a key question for each of her six points, so I will lead off each of my mini summaries with her questions.
Passion: What is your Passion?? This question is quite straightforward, and passion is singular.? I will provide my answer, which is a compound answer.? I have a passion for learning and love to learn so that I can write and teach.? When I was working on my doctoral dissertation, after a detour down the road of intellectual property rights I ended up writing a dissertation on a leadership topic (Piellusch, 2011).? In the halls of academia, as my students know, we always talk about selecting a topic that we are passionate about.? In another personal example, I found a passion as a graduate student for the problem of scarcity of fresh water on our planet (Piellusch, 1997, 2024).? Herrin (2016) opens her section on passion with a meaningful quote from Maya Angelou: “You can only become truly accomplished at something you love.? Don’t make money your goal. Instead, pursue the things you love doing, and then do them so well that people can’t take their eyes off you ” (p. 47).? Very few of us have Planetary goals, but Caitlin Clark comes to mind as a passionate basketball player who has captivated a global audience with YouTube clips of amazing shooting, passing, and passion for fair and just calls from her referees. Herrin also quotes Mark Twain’s take on passion: “There are two very important days in your life: The day you were born and they day you figured out why” (p. 49).
Path: What is your Path?? With only four letters, the word Path is the shortest of the six Ps.? The concept, however, is probably the most diverse.? The paths available to each of us, based on our unique skills and “singular” passion, are innumerable. Herrin (2016) loves inspiring quotes as they have helped her make tough decisions with her choices at critical personal crossroads.? According to Cecil Beaton , “Be daring, be different, be impractical, be anything that will assert integrity of purpose and imaginative vision against the play-it-safers, the creatures of the commonplace, the slaves of the ordinary” (p. 77).? This quote reminds me of the 2005 commencement address Steve Jobs delivered at Stanford.? In Steve’s amazing address he makes three key points:? Connect the Dots (Path), Love What You Do (Passion), “Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish” (Perseverance):
In Herrin’s words, each Path is unique and challenging with inevitable turning points.? She describes her amazing coworkers as follows: “They all want to create an extraordinary life for themselves and for those they love. They value being part of a tribe committed to living a bold and joyful life and lifting each other up” (p. 81).
Power of the Positive: How do you develop a positive mindset? Herrin (2016) opens her section about being Positive with a quote from one of the most successful people of the 20th century, Winston Churchill: “Success is walking from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm” (p. 109).? Churchill was a prolific writer, gifted speaker, and talented painter (as a hobby) and became the Prime Minister of Great Britain twice.? He experienced many failures but he maintained his positive enthusiasm. Another opening point is a reference to Shirzad Charmine and his 2012 book entitled Positive Intelligence. Herrin lists the following benefits of a positive mind: curiosity, appreciation, trust, willingness, and hope; these positive traits replace anger, frustration, distrust, resistance, and doom.? In summary, reprogram your brain to replace negative vibes with positive throbs, perform positive mental exercises such as meditation or mindfulness, ignore the naysayers and haters, embrace the positive to help yourself help others, uncover the silver linings, and if necessary question you limits but not your abilities.
People: Who matters most to you?? Herrin (2016) doesn’t talk about the 8 billion people populating our planet or the 330 million living in the United States.? She focuses on the incredible role model who most shaped her life – her dad.? Putting special people in perspective, she opens her People section with the words, “One universe, 9 planets, 204 countries, 809 islands, 7 seas, and I had the pleasure of meeting you” (p. 135). With the theme of extraordinary firmly established, she ends her role model discussion section with a tribute to her dad and the lessons she learned from him: take care of your family first, keep learning and growing even if you have to cut corners for your education, crack the book if you need to learn something (the internet and libraries are free), work hard and take pride in doing good work, and be generous and kind to everyone.? She ends her section with great advice for communications: be present in the moment and listen well, clear the air with concerns rather than keeping them festering inside, avoid gossiping, judge intentions as well as actions, recognize others publicly and criticize privately, and be yourself (speaking your mind even if you fail to please everyone; not everyone deserves to be pleased and the important people respect your honesty).
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Perseverance: Are you willing to develop Perseverance? As noted earlier the six Ps are interrelated and Perseverance is tightly coupled with Path.? Once we have determined our extraordinary Path, we need Perseverance to overcome hurdles and setbacks.? Herrin (2016) points out that Perseverance often involves tradeoffs.? I can relate to Jessica’s experience with giving up guitar lessons.? I took piano lessons for two years and eventually gave up.? I didn’t feel like I had a musical ear, and I rarely practiced.? I was much more interested in practicing basketball and tennis where I felt I had some talent. Herrin provides good advice about quitting and not quitting: “… you have to decide what is on your ‘do not quit’ list. For me, quality time with my family and the success of my business are on the top of my ‘do not quit’ list…I had to quit lots of other, less important things” (p. 167).
Productivity: To be more Productive, are you willing to say no? Herrin (2016) connects Productivity to time management and describes the difference between juggling glass balls and rubber balls.? Clearly none of us can work all of the time even though many of us have tried somewhere along the line.? Distinguishing between and choosing between high value activities and low value activities is an important key to effective time management.? Herring distills seven key points about time management: 1) Manage yourself, not your time; 2) Value your time in order to create value; 3) Block your time (high value activities usually require a big chunk of time with no hard stop short of completion [at least completion of an important phase, stage, or step]); 4) Schedule time for “white space” as we call it in?the military (hobby time, personal hygiene, rest); 5) Track and evaluate your use of time (certain chores can be done in parallel with low value activities; longer chores require predictable chunks of time); 6) Be realistic with expectations (planning too much can lead to frustration (shopping chores always seem to take more time than we expect); 7) Own your time and don’t let others hijack your choices.? Herrin recommends leaving some time for reading and online courses and recommends the following website:
Developing the Best Version of You
Part III of Herrin’s (2016) book shifts from an outward focus on defining success as happiness and analyzing the key components of the entrepreneurial spirit to more of an autobiographical essay on life as an entrepreneur and as a working mom.? A recurring theme through all three parts has been that a working woman does not have to “have it all and do it all" in order to have an extraordinary life.? One key component in Jessica Herrin’s story is how she renegotiated her high-value and low-value tasks and helped her husband go from “zero to hero” at home with her and their two daughters (p. 237).? Herrin also discusses the survey finding that working women in general are not as happy as working men.? She implies that work-life balance is a problem and that most women suffer from a twofold guilt complex of not feeling as productive at work as they would like to and not feeling as happy at home as they would like to be.? She cites the “freedom gap, the wage gap, the … STEM gap, the C suite, investor gap, and the board seat gap” as possible contributing factors (p. 239).?
Concluding Thoughts
From Debra Benton’s (1996) book about the 22 traits CEOs need to Herrin’s {2016) book from an e-commerce CEO’s perspective 20 years later to 2024 where Kamala Harris may break the glass ceiling for women in the United States and become the first woman president in the country. The gender gaps and opponents to closing those gaps make challenges more and more daunting yet appealing to the extraordinary and those endeavoring to become extraordinary.? From Steve Jobs’ inspiring words at the 2005 Stanford Commencement to Herrin’s impressive pedigree as a Stanford grad, we have plenty of food for thought. ?As Steve Jobs advises, look back to connect the dots, love what you do, and stay hungry as you look forward.
References
Benton, D. A. (1996). How to think like a CEO: The 22 traits you need to be the person on the top. Warner Books
Herrin, J. D. (2016). Find your extraordinary: Dream bigger, live happier, and achieve success on your own terms. Crown Business Books
King, S. (2024). NPR interview: Stephen King’s new story took him 45 years to write. https://www.npr.org/2024/05/22/1252772130/stephen-king-new-book-short-stories-you-like-it-darker
Piellusch, M. J. (1997, 2024). Water, water, everywhere: Not a drop to drink. ?https://www.academia.edu/37383715/Water_Water_Everywhere_Not_a_drop_to_drink_
Piellusch, M. J. (2011). Dissertation: A comparison of leadership styles for mid-level uniformed and civilian leaders in selected offices of the U.S. Army. https://www.academia.edu/35371909/A_COMPARISON_OF_LEADERSHIP_STYLES_FOR_MID_LEVEL_UNIFORMED_AND_CIVILIAN_LEADERS_IN_SELECTED_OFFICES_OF_THE_U_S_ARMY
Link to another discussion of time management (the essence of Productivity):
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