Leadership

Get Your Mind Right, Soldier

Our minds are incredible.

When I was a young child, I recall space being touted as the “final frontier” – the place that would take humans generations to conquer. As a young adult, the “final frontier” label changed from space to the deepest parts of Earth’s oceans. I respectfully disagree. While both space and our oceans are uncharted, vast, and inspiring places for discovery, the human mind is the true “final frontier.” 

Our minds are limitless. Our minds process our thoughts, our emotions, our awareness, and our intelligence. But our minds do more than just process information. Our minds actually create our thoughts, our emotions, our awareness, and our intelligence. The mind is reflective allowing for human introspection and conscious will. The human mind is the most impressive supercomputer known to man, processing information about the environments in which we move, live, and have been, but also processing information about ourselves, our being, our bodies, personalities, character traits, values, and emotions. Our minds help us anticipate, react or maintain, improve or, sadly, regress.

I went to basic training at Fort Knox in Kentucky – home of the tankers. Basic training is tough no matter what, but basic training in a combat arms unit in the winter in Kentucky is really tough. At basic, a trainee is physically, mentally, and emotionally taxed and stressed until depleted. We woke up at 5 am every morning for PT, trained all day, and went to bed around 10 pm every night, seven days a week, for the entire length of the class. When you were awake, you were training. If we were not in class, we were marching to the next one or getting smoked. More on routine smoking later. Basic training, by design, breaks you down mentally, emotionally, and physically, to strip off your civilian ways, and rehabilitate you into a government-sanctioned killing machine. During those days, my tired was tired, and exhaustion leads to mental, physical, and emotional breakdown. You don’t know misery, agony or heartbreak until you know Misery, Agony and Heartbreak! (IFKYK).

At basic, we had a drill sergeant who was especially gifted at calling cadence. We marched everywhere – and I mean everywhere. There was no such thing as “hey guys, let’s jump in the humvee and run to the chowhall.” Instead, everywhere we went, we were propelled by LPCs (leather personnel carriers) – an acronym describing our boots. We marched to chow (mealtime). We marched from chow. We marched to class. We marched from class. We marched to the gas chambers, the firing ranges, the obstacle courses, and even to the post exchange when we needed to purchase hygiene items. Sometimes, we marched just to march. We marched EVERYWHERE!

As we would march along, our drill sergeant, with his smooth baritone voice and gift for calling cadence, would sing a phrase, and as a unit, we would sing the phrase in response, all in union and all in step. Occasionally, he would fall into a rhythm and start to repeat the phrase: “Get your mind right soldier, get your mind right. Get your mind right soldier, get your mind right.” It was a phrase he used repeatedly during trainings too. When a soldier was struggling to pay attention in class, he would stop class, order everyone outside onto the nearest lawn, and start smoking the whole unit. “Smoking” was a term we used when a soldier or an entire unit was put through a physical training regimen, such as push-ups, sit-ups, mountain climbers, overhead arm claps, or all of the above, repeatedly until, physically, the soldier or the unit could not continue. The “smoking” would stop only after the soldier had reached muscle failure, usually finding himself lying on his belly with his face in the dirt, gasping for air, trying desperately to push his body off the ground while a drill sergeant was screaming “get your mind right, soldier” in his ear! We all knew what he meant. “Get your mind right” was this drill sergeant’s version of “pull your head out of your ass” which was my parents’ version. But oh how easy it was for people to forget – even after they just went through physical hell for forgetting!

His lesson was not lost on me. I am still thankful for that drill sergeant’s phrase and repeat it to myself, my children, and my leaders often. “Get your mind right” means taking control of your thoughts. While our minds are incredible and complex, they are also very simple. Turns out, humans are terrible at multi-tasking because our minds can focus on only one thing at a time. I know. I know. You think you’re a great multi-tasker. I do too! I’m still confident I can multi-task with the best of them, but the reality is, I’m not, and, sorry, but neither are you. Our minds were not made to handle multiple tasks at one time. Ever strike up a conversation with a friend or significant other, while they are trying to watch something on TV or read something on their phone? Have you ever found yourself watching a show only to realize someone was talking to you? Yep. One-track mind. Our minds struggle to focus on the conversation while attempting to process the information we are receiving from the show, game, video, etc., and it happens every time. You either pay attention to the conversation or you pay attention to what you are watching. There is no in-between.

Getting your mind right is a clever way of reminding us that when our minds wander, our efforts wane, our productivity falls, and our error rates increase. Many leaders struggle to keep their teams focus. With every good idea, comes a distraction from the other ideas you have put into place. This is not to say stop innovating or coming up with good ideas. Instead, the idea is to focus your minds on what is truly important.

Orient your mind to start each day. When you orient your mind, you stay mentally connected to your focus and purpose. You avoid distractions, and therefore, your team avoids distractions. Remember, what your team is focusing on is where their efforts are being spent. Multi-tasking for individuals is precarious, for organizations, it’s fatal. When the leader is focused, the followers are likewise focused. Breaking up your teams into smaller groups with a hyper-focus will be far more effective than allowing a team to multi-task, but it starts with you. Orient your mind each day with a to-do or to-don’t list, and stay focused on your purpose. Your teams will thank you and your organization will thrive.

Failure. The Power of Failure

Experiences help us define the meaning of words and phrases. We use our experiences to add context to our understanding of the words we live by. For example, many of us understand the concept of love because of how we have been loved or because of how we have loved others. As people, we communicate using a common language, but the meanings of words originate from experiences and each person’s experiences uniquely define their understanding of words.

The definition of “failure” is “lack of success” or “the omission of expected or required action.” The word “failure” has a common definition, but fully understanding the concept of failure is unique to each of us. As young humans, we experience failure everywhere, in competition, education, or at home. We fail, we watch our parents and even our friends fail, and we hopefully learn from all of it. We lose games, fail tests, fail to meet expectations or fail to achieve something we set out to accomplish.

Our understanding of failure comes from these losses which we accept, process, learn from and overcome. To some, the experience of failure is light because the context of the failure came from a circumstance that had less impact – think missing the last-second shot in a youth basketball game versus missing a deadline that cost the company a lucrative business deal. The missed shot may mean as much to the person that took it, as the missed deadline means to the person that missed it, but the impact of the failures are vastly different – and thus have vastly different meanings to the different participants. The important point to understand before we discuss the power of failure is that failure is unique to each of us. The experiences we gather on our journey through this life help us put context and meaning to the concept of failure, but for each of us, learning from and overcoming failure is personal and powerful. For leaders, it’s understanding failure from our team’s or employee’s perspective – and not that of our own perspective.

As leaders of other humans, our jobs are to lead, empower and develop other leaders. To do that, we must meet our leaders where they are – not where we are. However, much like we are instructed to first put a face mask on ourselves before helping others in the event the airplane cabin loses pressure, understanding how you treat failure personally will help you teach and lead your team to define and understand and process it. So one of your leaders missed a critical deadline, which jeopardizes an important project for the organization. Does your leader who made the mistake feel safe and comfortable enough to bring it to you honestly, or does the culture of how the organization deals with failure incite undermining, hiding, and fear? The failure of missing the deadline has occurred. Attempting to save the deal is one thing, but dealing with your leader’s shortcoming is another. How you handle your response to the failure defines the culture you create as the leader.

All great leaders accept the failures of their followers, especially when the failure exposes the organization to loss. If leaders struggle with accepting failure, the organization likewise struggles with accepting failure, learning from it, and overcoming it to survive and thrive. For me, the realization of what failure means to me and realizing the power behind it was not only incredibly painful but absolutely necessary to overcome a downward spiral within my organization that not only affected me but also my family and my team members and their families. The fear of failing drove me, catalyzed me, and ultimately became a ghost I ran from for too long.

I was recently asked what my biggest fear was. In my time on this planet, I have been asked these same question hundreds of times, and the answer is always the same. For as long as I can remember, I have been driven by an insatiable need to succeed and achieve. If I fell short of my expected result, I was and still am harder on myself than I am on others. Because of my fear, I have developed and hold myself to incredibly high standards and values. Success is the natural opposite of failure, so it has always made sense to me that my biggest fear is and has always been not succeeding or achieving a result I set out to accomplish. I was taught that failure only comes when you give up. You may fall short along the way, but failure only conquers you when you concede. Conceding or giving up is simply not in my vocabulary, so under my definition, I could never “fail.” But I quickly learned that failures happen all the time. Dwelling on the failure, or more importantly, spending all of your time and effort trying to prevent failure, zaps the power the failure holds. The true power of failure comes from your response to it and what you learn – not from the failure itself, which teaches us what we did not know or understand.

So, as a leader, think about the last time you or your team failed to meet an expectation? What happened when you anticipated the foreseeable failures, learn all you can to avoid them, and lead a team to avoid pitfalls and missteps? Naturally, we all hate to lose, so what likely happens is that you create a killer plan with contingencies built in to anticipate the foreseeable challenges and risks. You rehearse your plan and the timing of its execution. You and your team executed the plan, and you succeeded, right? Wrong! All of those things may be true, but you likely experienced pain points during the execution phase of your plan. You adjusted, changed, and adapted to ensure the overall objective was met. You learned to fail along the way. This is the healthy way to handle a fear of failure. Try and fail, and try again with the gained knowledge.

But what happens when you fail at allowing your teams to fail? What happens when the plan you design and the strategy to be implemented removed all of the risks and was a “safe” plan to execute? Have you found yourself in this position – playing it safe? I did, and being in that position was comfortable and safe until it wasn’t.

As a leader and a critical thinker, I believe I am pretty good at strategy. I also believe that with my experiences in life, failing along the way is the norm. What I realized when failure hit, was that playing it safe became a way of leadership to avoid failure, which, in turn, is NOT leadership. Like most people, the concept of failure was elusive. I understood one could “fail” at menial tasks, but not at life. Failures are common. They occur every second of every day, and yet many of us do not consider ourselves failures. For leaders, failures are a normal part of life. I failed to follow up, I failed to use my turn signal when I changed lanes, I failed to promote the right person, failed to make the right decision, even when the correct decision is staring me down. I failed to take action or failed when I took action too soon. It’s a constant balancing act of failures. Yet, in my safe leadership journey, I found myself spiraling into an abyss of failure after failure after failure. Despite the safety net, I built into every plan, every deal, every risk, everything I touched seemed to fail. Nothing was working – nothing.

Some of you may have seen or heard the acronym used to describe the word “fail.” First Attempt In Learning. I love the acronym because, at surface level, it is true. With every shortcoming, there is a learning curve – an opportunity to grow. Again, shortcomings and daily failures were not “failure” to me. So I continued to try and learn from each and every misstep – to plan for it and avoid it - only to find myself or my team failing again and again. It seemed never-ending. I prayed. Begged. Pleaded. Cussed. Nothing seemed to change the tide.

Through painful introspective analysis, I realized the fear of failure had a grip on me that affected every decision. Every choice I made was filtered through my fear of losing again. Hence the downward spiral. As a stubborn human, it took everything around me failing for me to take hold of the power of failure and turn my leadership, my team, and my organization around, and it started with overcoming the fear of failing and instead embracing failure like an old friend.

So how did I learn to overcome the grip my fear of failure had on me? Well, it’s a journey of introspection on traumatic events in my life that defined failure to me. On April 22, 2004, I felt failure for the second time in my life. I was sitting in a tactical operations center just outside of Kabul, Afghanistan. As a task force battle captain, I was in charge of monitoring and coordinating our unit’s area of operations in support of Operation Enduring Freedom in our fight against terrorism. On this particular day, the area of operations was quiet. Intel led us to believe that no enemy was operating in the area. With an anticipated slow night ahead, my troops and I had a chance to connect. We were sitting around, telling stories of home, family, and friends, enjoying each other’s company and the dreams of returning home, when our world was shaken. Reports began flying across communications channels of a TIC (troops in contact) in our area of operations. Like a well-oiled machine that was just started, my team leaped into action, gathering necessary intelligence and requesting situation reports from all units. Our units continued to report “all clear” and “no issues.” Bewildered, we notified command and the higher-ups, while monitoring the situation unfolding over the communication channels. About 30 minutes after the initial reports, we received terrible news – FKIA – friendly killed in action. The sense of urgency was catalyzed, and my team began working harder to learn more about the situation. Was it one of ours? Was it an ally? What the hell was going on?

As we continued to work early into the morning hours, the gathering of information slowed, and we all began to feel helpless. The situation was out of our control, and all we could do was monitor from afar and try to assist as directed. A familiar feeling began welling up inside of me, as though everything we were trying to do to help was failing. The feeling was gut-wrenching, like losing when the ability to win is completely out of your control. It’s awful. As we continued to work, we received the news. The KIA was friendly, was American, and was a hero to all who served – Pat Tillman, a former NFL star, giant of a human, and an inspiration to all soldiers during my wartime service, died that night of friendly fire. It was a gut punch. Everyone looked up to Pat – the soldier who gave up fame, fortune, and the American dream to serve our country. there was nothing any of us could do to help. In fact, we didn’t even know Tillman’s Ranger battalion was operating in the Area. The devastation in my tactical operations center that night was palpable. We sat together, in silence, just being. We knew our jobs came with the threat of death every day. We knew the risks. We knew the consequences. We planned and coordinated with other units operating in the area to mitigate those risks and avoid those consequences. We knew we couldn’t control the outcome of every mission – much less our own missions. Nevertheless, we all felt the same thing – failure. Pat Tillman’s death was preventable, avoidable, and tragic as a result of many failures that led up to his passing. Although my unit and I had no control over the decisions made leading up to his death, we all felt the impact and failure were written all over it.

As I searched for why failure had such a grip on my psyche, my memories of Pat Tillman’s death, served as a reminder of how quickly small failures can lead to big consequences. His death helped shape how I navigated my own life, work, and purpose. This failure, in my opinion, led me to believe that if I knew all of the angles, searched for and understood all of the information, communicated incessantly about risks and possible pitfalls, made plans to avoid or mitigate those risks, that the permanence of failure could be avoided. I knew in my heart that I could mitigate the risk of failure or remove the risk altogether if I objectively evaluated facts and made focused strategic decisions to avoid or mitigate the risks. (Laugh now if you see the fallacy of my belief, as I am laughing at myself writing this.) The truth is, failure is inevitable and oftentimes completely out of your control. The truth is planning for failure is prudent, but preventing failure is impossible.

That was 2004. Fast forward to 2020, as the pandemic gripped the United States, I made the life-altering decision to leave my thriving litigation practice for the world of business. I accepted a position as the CEO of an enterprise in the emerging industry of medical cannabis, leading two companies dedicated to helping people overcome that which holds them back by using an all-natural alternative to modern medicines. The companies I now lead make cannabis medicines for patients looking for an alternative to opiates, narcotics, and other harmful pharmaceuticals. I lead a team of passionate people dedicated to improving the human condition. It, in many respects, was a dream job of leadership. Not only could I positively influence my team, but I could help people on a larger scale than I believed I could one client at a time.

Shortly after I assumed control, everything around me started failing. I’ve referred to it as being “snake bit.” Every plan failed. It failed, oftentimes, despite our best efforts. Failures came from all angles, most of which were outside of my control. Vendors made mistakes they never made before. Employees did the same, all of which cost the company’s bottom line and jeopardized the viability of the organization. I began to focus on the failures, and do whatever was necessary to fix them and avoid another failure. I fixated on revenue shortfalls, production mishaps, supply chain disruptions. I began problem-solving and working with my teams to avoid small failures to ensure success, which led to more failures.

As a believer of The Way, I begged, pleaded, and admittedly berated God for what was happening around me. I could not understand how God called me into leadership to watch it fail. Why is this happening? Why now? What can I do? Nothing seemed to work. My world was crashing down upon me and there was nothing I felt I could do about it. The harder I worked, the more failures we experienced. It seemed never-ending.

After approximately 18 months of frustration and mishaps, I was asked again “what is your biggest fear?” Answer – Failure. But this time, the requestor went further. Instead of saying what most do, “well tell me about that,” he took the opposite approach. “What is failure,” he asked. The image that immediately popped into my head, and the familiar feeling associated with it – the same feeling I had when Pat Tillman died and the same feeling I have experienced time and time again following failures, led to the answer which turned everything around for me and my organization.

July 24, 2003. I was 25 years old. It was a typical hot summer day. The sky was blue, the sun bright, and the day was made for summer fun. My brother and I had the day off and decided to play a 9-hole round of golf in the afternoon. We finished up around 4:00 pm and headed to our parent’s house to catch up, grab some food, and hang out for a little while before calling it a day. We arrived at the house, cutting up and ribbing each other on a terrible round of golf. Within minutes of being home, my step-father seized in his chair and grabbed his chest. My brother and I instantly knew he was having a heart attack. Both of us, having been trained and certified in CPR, without thinking or hesitating, went to work. While my brother attempted to breathe life into his dad, I performed chest compressions. For what seemed like an eternity we worked in tandem to revive a person we loved and respected, and with every breath and every compression, while hoping for the best, knew the worst was happening. When the paramedics arrived, our efforts were taken over by the professionals, and my step-dad was loaded into an ambulance and taken to the emergency room. He was gone before his body left the house.

As a young man, my step-father was the first to ask me about my biggest fear. He was the first to make me think about failure and what it meant. He was a wise man and was the first person to help me think about the difference between losing a game and real failure. To me, his death was a real failure – the result you cannot change – and I owned it. For more than a decade, I believed I failed. Although I realized and have told myself since that day that there was nothing more I could have done, to me his death was on me, my fault, my responsibility. I let down my mom, my brothers, my family. I had the ability and skill set to right the wrong, and couldn’t make it happen. I failed and failed miserably. I have never let go of it, and it has been a toxic force in my life, subtly controlling my decisions and directing and redirecting my subconscious to avoid a similar result.

The problem with this mentality is that avoiding failure altogether also avoids the power failure provides. Leadership, in many respects, is premised upon failure. The power of failure is learning, teaching, and coaching, which are also key components of great leaders. As leaders, we are entrusted to teach and coach our teams and empower our teams to accomplish things greater than themselves. Failure teaches us to overcome. Failure teaches us to persevere. Failure teaches us resilience. Failure is a great teacher. So what happens when you spend all of your time trying to avoid failure. From experience, I can tell you it looks a lot like failure. When you fail to fail, you are actually hurting yourself and your teams. When your teams fail, they learn. When you prevent them from failing they do not learn. Avoiding risks and avoiding pitfalls leads to avoiding learning opportunities and growth.

The power of failure comes from our response to it. If you find yourself in a situation where you are doing everything to prevent failure, you should ask yourself why. Good can come from failure, even though no one likes to lose. If you want to find true power, let your people fail small. Use the moment to teach and coach, so learning and growth can occur. Empower your teams to learn how to overcome the failure, so they learn how to overcome the next one. To do otherwise is just another failure. Fall in love with failing small, and watch your teams grow tremendously. It’s okay to fail. It’s not okay to fail and failing.

Leadership: It’s About Influence – Not Authority

We live in a world full of influence. Influencing is now an official job, as thousands of people make a living promoting products or services in their networks by simply referring to or promoting a particular product, business or person. Influencing is knitted so integrally into the human psyche, we almost act subconsciously or unconsciously when influencers around us make recommendations.

My wife is a beautiful soul. She loves people and she loves life. She lives it to the fullest every day. Her heart is big and she is a positive influence on the lives around her. Despite being a superhero, especially to me and our children, she has a weakness. Her kryptonite? bougie stuff recommended by friends in her network (and murder porn, as I refer to it – podcasts on criminal cases, oftentimes involving questionable convictions of murderers). I’ll save the murder porn for another talk.

Within my wife’s network, her friends and those who influence her make recommendations on product boxes that arrive every quarter from lesser-known brands with high-quality products. She purchases these boxes or products on nothing but the word of those who recommended the products. It’s that simple. No research. No question of whether the purchase is necessary. No justification, really, other than “so and so recommended it, so I decided to try it.” For an analytical thinker, this is preposterous and outrageous. For a feeling empath, it makes the most sense ever!

Why do we do things based on the recommendations of others? Why can we not “think for ourselves?” The answers are deep and unique to each individual, but the bottom line is we are social creatures who thrive in community. We learn from each other and when we trust another, we are more inclined to follow their lead. Influencers are nothing more than leaders with a specific platform. So how can influencing, as opposed to control or power, change your leadership game? Here are three tips to use influence and level up your leadership game.

Tip #1: Know the difference between positional influence and personal influence.

Power comes from the ability to influence others. Influence comes from two sources. One is position and the second is personal. Positional influence is exactly what you would think – a position or title holds weight, authority, and power. When the person holding that position uses their position’s power of influence, the results can be extraordinary – they can also be catastrophic. Personal influence is more relational. Personal influence comes from the individual’s expertise, knowledge, and referent.

For positional influence, one’s influential power over others comes from legitimacy of holding the position, the rewards of the position, and the coercive power of the position. Every single one of us has been influenced by or influenced others through positional influence. Every boss you have ever had served as a positional influencer. Judges, politicians, and leaders of institutions lead their organizations from a position of influence.

Legitimate influencing is also referred to as “formal authority.” It is derived from an organization that has given power to a position within the organization, in which a person is given authority in the position. Those with legitimate power have the understood right to ask or even demand others to do things that are considered within the scope of their authority. Take any CEO within any company on planet Earth. ALL of them exercise “legitimate” influencing as a method to run their companies and carry out their vision.

Reward influencing originates from a person’s ability to influence other people’s behaviors by providing them with things they want to receive. Most of the time, these rewards are financial in nature, but could also include non-financial benefits, such as a company car, more time off work, a flexible work schedule, or favorable work assignments. Reward influencing is simple. The leader rewards their people with things to garner more productive work. Reward influencing can lead to better performance, as long as the employee understands a clear message between performance and reward. Parents are experts at reward influencing. When little Johnny is good at the grocery store, we reward him with a snack, a treat, or the park. Hello, reward influencing! Be good and be rewarded.

Coercive influence is the ability to influence other people’s behaviors by pressure. Fear is typically the motivating factor behind the coercive influence. Employees may do the job you asked simply because they are afraid to lose their job or be punished in other ways for not doing their job. Coercive influencing is effective but can result in compliant, hesitant, or disengaged followers.

For personal influence, on the other hand, comes from one’s recognized skills, knowledge, or ability. Personal influence also comes from being admired, liked, or respected. Think of a time in which you were asked to do something you did not want to do, but relented and accepted the task simply because of the relationship you had with the person asking. Hello, referent power of personal influence.

Now for the bombshell. Great leaders use all of these tactics and techniques to lead! Effective leaders employ these tactics well. A true leader is able to influence others and modify their behaviors via legitimate, reward, coercive, expert, referent, or a combination thereof. The best leaders, however, have learned that the true power of influence is to give your influence away! Wait…what? Yes. Give it away!

What happens when a person with power gives away the power they hold? It’s called empowerment. When a leader empowers an employee to take ownership of a particular task, they give the employee the ability to use their own personal influencing power to accomplish the task. Empowering others is a very powerful method to get more than you receive. Empowerment operates much like the concept of love. The more you give, the more you receive!

So how do we empower others? Simple. Follow these steps:

1. You must clearly describe to people what their responsibilities are. Providing boundaries within which to operate will give the employee confidence to know their job and the guardrails within which to accomplish it.

2. You must give them the necessary authority which is equal to the task or responsibility you have assigned to them. Giving them a task without complete power to accomplish the task is setting your employee up for failure. You must give all power necessary, or failure will occur.

3. You must set standards. Your standards set the expectation for the employee. Unspoken expectations are the foundation for failure.

4. You must show them what right looks like. To avoid setting your employee up for failure, you must teach and train them to the standard you set. No, I don’t mean showing them how you would accomplish the task. I mean showing them what it looks like to accomplish the task within the standards you set.

5. You must trust them, and let them fail. Failure is a great teaching tool.

6. You must coach them – not control them. Coaching is a great technique to teach knowledge, skills, and ability without micromanaging and dictating a result.

7. You must recognize their work, provide feedback on their performance, coach through the losses, and celebrate the wins.

8. Finally, you must, throughout the empowerment process, treat them with dignity, honor, and respect.

Empowering your employees is not about giving away your authority and making yourself irrelevant. Instead, it’s exactly the opposite. Empowering is delegating influencing authority to the arms and legs of your organization, which allows you (the brain) to conduct the orchestra and allows your people to play the music.