Mark S. Brown

Les Brown has said, “If you don’t stand up for something, you may fall for anything.” How should you decide when to stand up? It is impossible to stand up for every challenge that faces you. Some must be more important.

When is the last time you stood up to a challenge? What was it for? What made you decide to take a stand?

Challenges come in all sizes and shapes. Deciding to take action in a moment when you lack the energy, the time, or the help needed. Once you get started, you may be able to bring others along to help. Making the action visible usually helps in these cases.

When is the last time you failed to take a stand? What is a time when you went with the status quo even though you thought a better way might exist? These are incidents it may help to reflect on. Determining if you are actively making these decisions based on the values and purpose you want to live.

This week’s exercise is to simply list examples of times that you took a stand and changed the course of your life, or of a group. What values were you standing up for? Did you decide based on your purpose, your family, your faith?

How can you better manage these decisions in the future?

John Kennedy said, “Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other.” Learning is a process. It is important to not get it confused with mastery. If mastery was your ultimate goal, then your breadth of knowledge would probably be limited so that you could master a particular skill.

There are many people that stop learning for various reasons. They may feel they lack the time, lack interest, or they miss the immediate gratification of other pursuits. Then there are some people that feel learning is not a noble pursuit if you are not already good. Have you ever heard someone say, “Why are you doing that? You will never be good at it.”

Learning and success go hand in hand. They are not separable. Everyone learns differently and at a different pace. No one can judge what the learning process looks like for you, except you. But it is important to continue learning. It is important to get out of your comfort zone and place yourself into a new learning environment from time to time.

The question I will leave you with today is, “Have you created a vision of what life long learning looks like to you?” If not, it would be a great exercise for this week.

 

I saw this headline in Tech Industry this week, “Apple CEO Cook: ‘We’re unrivaled’ in innovation”. It made me think of being too self confident. Just like the Swiss watch makers, and many other industries. The thing about innovation is that you will never see it coming. That is why it is called innovation.

Self confidence is a good trait. Don’t get me wrong. But so is being humble. If Tim Cook really believes that no one else is as innovative as Apple, it is time to sell your stock. Innovation is particularly strong when it crosses industries. If Tim Cook is only looking at computer technology companies, maybe Apple is the most innovative. But his real threat is someone or some industry that is unknown in the tech world.

Here are three questions you should ask yourself this week.

1. Is my self confidence creating blind spots for me? Self confidence is very powerful, but self confidence overused is a weakness. If you suspect that you are too confident, get out of your comfort zone.

2. Am I continuing to stretch myself? Are you in the mode of maintaining your routine, and have stopped learning new skills? Find something new, something relevant but different, and spend some time growing.

3. Where do people challenge me? If you are in an environment that people are afraid to challenge you, you will never be working at your potential. I don’t mean you should put yourself in a hostile work environment. You should find an environment where it is acceptable to challenge others, to be challenged, and where it is fine to fail, and learn.

I hope Tim Cook is not in a corner, and blind to Apple’s challenges. Because they are out there.

We all need hobbies to provide an outlet for stress, and for a sense of enjoyment. Just over a year ago I decided to try oil painting. It was actually my wife that started with some lessons, and then she taught me. Since then I expanded my knowledge by studying techniques from videos, and from just plain practice.

Oil painting has taught me many lessons.

1. Slow down. Patience is a virtue. Trying to create a painting fast is not possible, and not fun. You will not like the outcome, so slow down and enjoy the process. Just like most of life, rushing does not help.

2. An error is rarely a problem. Painting will never turn out how you want or you plan when you start. You will always make mistakes, and you will learn to overcome them. You will learn how to change, how to paint over, and how to recover from an incorrect splat of paint. We should do the same in life, learn to see mistakes in the positive light of learning.

3. Learning is a journey. I have partially completed several paintings. None are done. There is always way to improve a painting, and ways to improve your skills. The pictures of the paintings I have included in this article are not considered done by me. Well maybe the wine bottle is as done as it will ever be. The picture of the gnomes, I started over 2 years ago, and it is not done. I know what I want to change, and how it should look. I am not in a hurry. Maybe I will finish it this year. The other part of this journey is that I continue to learn and grow, painting by painting. Every learning adventure we encounter we should look at as a growing ongoing process.

4. Your journey is really your own. No matter what a company or organization will tell you, your journey and your progress is dependent on you. Painting is therapeutic. I can relax and create. Once you get past the “judgement” phase, when you think everyone can judge your paintings. You can discover the fact that the paintings are really for yourself. It frees you to improve for yourself. No one person or organization should define the perfect development path for you. Make it your own.

There are many lessons in painting, and there are probably many lessons in your hobby also. Take a look. Dive deeper into why you enjoy your hobby.

The paintings I have posted: A dragon face (98% complete), some gnomes (85%), A wine bottle with grapes (99% complete), and finally some goblins (5% complete). Most artist don’t show unfinished paintings. I guess it just means I am not yet an artist, only a student.

This weeks question, “Where else besides a hobby can you find a multitude of leadership lessons?”.