Leaders Effect An Eternity

"We do not believe in ourselves until someone reveals that something deep inside us is valuable and worth listening to, worth of trust, sacred to our touch.  Once we believe in ourselves, we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight or any experience that reveals the human spirit”

e.e.cummings

Never underestimate your role as a leader, good or bad.  It is an ongoing continuous effort…. to find that which is of value, deserves our nurturing, is worthy of our trust, and sacred to how we lead and inspire people to phenomenal achievement.  I am not sure if my influence was ever great, somewhere in the middle, or of a nature where people who observed me learned ‘what not to do’……I do not know for sure – I know what I believe, but at the end of the day, it is their reality that is most important. I know this, in my brief time with this this group of young students, or with any of my Sailors throughout my Navy career, I realized I had but just a short time to underscore a culture where we everyone has value….everyone matters…..everyone can contribute if they put their mind to it.  In retrospect, I don’t have a clue how I measure compared to others who may have had an impact on these young kids, or others who are in a position to follow.  It is not important.  My goal was always to incite over-achievement and self-pride.  In this particular picture, I know of one Doctor and two Attorneys.  How awesome is this?!

Indeed, leaders do ‘effect an eternity’ that ensures a continuous evolution of achievement and leadership.  What I believe: You have to lift and inspire people to excel by your own actions and the manner in which you deploy your emotional intelligence.  You need to show the passion – don’t be afraid to do it…. good people thrive on it, and the others, who may choose to call it temperament, are in a minority. You need to provide constant perspective relative to the task at-hand through persistent, personal communications.  You have to encourage the ideas and thoughts of people to help shape the means to perform to maximum potential.  You need to celebrate achievements, and hold everyone accountable for their mistakes, all the while not giving up on them and encouraging them to learn.

If I were talking to this any in this picture, or any of my Sailors, or my own children right now, I would tell him what Mark Twain once said: “Twenty years from now, you will be more disappointed by the things that you did not do than by the ones you did do, so throw off the bowlines, sail away from safe harbor, catch the trade winds in your sails.  Explore. Dream. Discover.”