I will never ask someone to do something that I’m unwilling to also do.
That’s a phrase I’ve lived by for as long as I’ve spoken and coached people professionally.
It sounds great in theory but in application it’s rare…and hard.
Because it means you must have the same, or higher, standards for yourself than for anyone else.
It is easy to talk about productivity. It’s another thing to live your life productively.
It’s easy to talk about gratitude and bringing the joy. It’s another thing to be grateful and joyful.
It’s easy to talk about good leadership. It’s another thing to be a good leader.
It’s the living, breathing, EMBODIMENT of that which we preach.
Showing. Not just telling.
We can all do better. We MUST do better.
For the record, I’m not perfect at this. Far from it. I readily admit that a lot of what I say on stage is 1) a reminder of what I know I need to hear, and 2) an accountability measure that if I’m going to encourage you to do it, I better be striving to do it myself.
Far too many people in our society don’t do this. They say one thing but in private, behind closed doors, they do another.
For the person living this way, your brain has to find a way to explain it. At best, you have cognitive dissonance…or inner turmoil. At worst, you become a raging psychopath 🙂
Parenting a 12 year-old has taught me this better than anything. Kids follow what you do and what they see, not what you say.
Cole has a bad habit of taking things — a phone charger, blanket, protein powder, you name it — and not returning it to where he got it.
Drives me nuts! And I can tell him a thousand times, “put that back where it came from!” but if he sees me taking things and not returning them, how much impact do you think that’s going to have?
Next to none.
Live it, breathe it, do it, then say it.
Or as my old Spanish professor used to say:
Be careful tending to everyone else’s garden when your garden has weeds.
Hmmmmmmm…muy bien!
Keep Outperforming,
