Failure. You’ve heard these before: It is always before hard work in the dictionary. It is before success in the dictionary. It is also before Leadership – something near and dear to me as I age.
Last week was my brother-in-law, Peter’s, birthday. He still calls me brother. I still call him brother - even though this is from the marriage to his sister that ended in 1984 – 35 years ago!
Time didn’t change Peter and my relationship. We keep up on Facebook. I’ve seen him a couple times in the past 35 years – every time is like time stood still - there we were still playing softball together or going on vacation together.
After the divorce he still asked me to be a groomsman in his wedding. It wasn’t his first marriage – but it was his last. And, yes, they are still married.
The following appeared on Facebook last week as he celebrated his 62nd or 63rd birthday:
I've failed at times as a father, brother, friend, husband and son...and even, as a man... I don't always say the right things. I don't have an amazing physique, but what I do have, works for me. I may not be the most handsome man in the world, but I am ENOUGH! And I am me.
I have scars because I have a history. Some people love me, some like me, some don't. I have done good. I have done bad. I'm often silly but loving. I don't pretend to be someone I'm not, and I give it to you straight up without any chaser. I am who I am, you can love me or not. And if I love you, I do it with all my heart!!! I make no apologies for WHO I am.
I find this very deep! I also find it extremely truthful. He has always been who he is, going back to the first time I met him as a grade schooler!
The line that struck me from a Leadership standpoint is “I have scars because I have a history”.
Why do Leaders become Leaders? They aren’t born Leaders. Something happens along the way that brings out the best in them. I find that what turns them into Leaders also gives them scars the prevent them from “going back to the old life”. Or as he would put it, times they’ve failed.
We’ve heard the story about Michael Jordan about how he got cut from the basketball team. He really wasn’t cut; he was just demoted back to the sophomore team. Here is how Yahoo Sports writer Kelly Dwyer chronicled it in a 2012 article:
Over the next three decades Jordan would become a world-class collector of emotional wounds, a champion grudge-holder, a magician at converting real and imagined insults into the rocket fuel that made him fly. If he had truly been cut that year, as he would claim again and again, he wouldn't have had such an immediate chance for revenge. But in fact, his name was on the second list, the jayvee roster, with the names of many of his fellow sophomores. Jordan quickly became a jayvee superstar
This is what I read in what Peter, so aptly, wrote. Cuts. Emotional wounds. Grudge holder. Something that motivates one into the person they can be. For many it is to be in a Leadership position.
Finally, I love his vision of himself. How many of us can say, “I am enough . . . and I am me . . . I make no apologies for who I am.”
This comes with maturity. This comes with Father time. We look back on the “should ofs” and “what ifs” and, finally, look at the scars that molded us into who we are today.
As Leaders we need to remember this. As Leaders we keep improving who we are. Not for others. For ourselves. We know the best is yet to come.
But we also know we must be comfortable in our own skins. In the person we’ve become. And in the person we are about to be.
Happy Birthday, brother. I love you. Thanks for the lesson.
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