Wisdom, Leadership & Success

Merry Christmas!

Just a week ago, we passed the Winter Solstice. Darkness dominates our days and sometimes our moods.

Just days after the light begins its return, we celebrate Christmas—the birth of Jesus, Divine Love, into our world.

Our Divided Nation

Light and Love could not come at a better time. Despite all our technology, wealth, knowledge and progress, we are in a bitter time. Our nation is deeply divided economically, socially and politically.

We are spending enormous amounts of time, energy and emotion yelling at each other and demonizing each other. We’ve lost the ability to have a calm, rational discussion about things.

We aren’t listening to each other in good faith, trying to understand what others truly mean. Instead, we interpret what the Others say in the most negative way we can. Then we attack them based not on what they meant, but on our negative interpretation.

It is a setup. The purpose is not to get to the Truth. The purpose is to create an image of others that we can attack. To scorch them. To destroy them, if we can.

It can feel so good to be self-righteous, and to demonize and attack others.

This demonization and division going on in our nation is very dangerous, however. It puts our national security at risk, damages our ability to achieve success, and makes each of us mean-spirited, awful people.

This behavior weakens our nation socially, politically, psychologically and spiritually. Worst of all, our nastiness threatens our own national security. This brutal infighting sends a message to our international foes that we are divided and weak.

Danger to Our National Security

We have lived comfortably in a Pax Americana since World War II. We have little understanding of the real horrors of war. Our battles have been fought on other continents. The vast majority of us have never really sacrificed for our national security.

But we face some rising foes who want to destroy our nation and they are developing the capability to do it. If these interpret our division as weakness, it can embolden them to attack us.

Overstated? Not at all. There are plenty of examples of American intentions being misinterpreted with nasty, unintended results.

North Korea attacked South Korea in 1950 because they misinterpreted American statements at the time as indicating that the US wouldn’t defend South Korea.

In 1990, Iraq invaded Kuwait because Saddam Hussein misinterpreted American statements as indicating that the US wouldn’t defend Kuwait.

Russia invaded Crimea 2014 and Georgia in 2008 because Russian leadership figured the US and NATO wouldn’t oppose those invasions.

We’re currently head-to-head with Russia in Europe, China in the South China Sea and Iran in the Persian Gulf. Our internal social and political division sends them the dangerous message that we are weak. It can be tempting to take advantage of an opponent while they are weak.

We need get our act together for our own national security.

Danger to Our American Understanding of Life

One of the greatest things about America is that, from the beginning, we have been a nation united not by ethnicity, but by a shared understanding of life, freedom and happiness. We thrive when we embrace that shared understanding of life, making good-faith compromises with each other to move forward as a team.

Right now, TEAM USA is a mess.

As I discuss in my book, On Leadership: What’s Broken in Our Society and How We Fix It, that fundamental American understanding of life is under deep attack in our nation. If we fail to reaffirm, pursue and unite around that American understanding, we will cease to be America. We’re going to find ourselves unhappy and in deep trouble socially, economically and politically. We better get our act together to survive as a nation.

Personal Danger

Finally, few things are as tempting or make you feel as good as denouncing bad people in the name of moral righteousness. It feels especially good when you are part of a mob denouncing them.

We have spent a lot of time de-humanizing those with whom we disagree. They are not like us. They are terrible people. Maybe not even people. They are the Other. Demons. They deserve whatever bad things happen to them.

The problem is that as we de-humanize the Other we de-humanize ourselves.

As human beings, Love is at our very core. As I discuss in earlier blogs/podcasts about Happiness and Love, we are hard-wired for love. It’s in our DNA physically, psychologically, socially and spiritually. The research is conclusive: happiness comes from high-quality relationships with others.

When you demonize others, it damages the love at your core. When you demonize others repeatedly, it becomes a habit and eventually part of your character—a fundamental part of who you are. It diminishes you. It will eventually define you as an unloving person at your core.

Demonizing others damages your ability to have relationships—the very thing on which your happiness depends.

Demonizing others defines you as the worst kind of bully.

The ongoing division and dehumanization in America is very dangerous. It is dangerous and damaging to our national security, to our national success, and to you personally.

Healing Love of Christmas

So, it is a good time for Christmas. It is a good time for light and Love to enter our world. We need love in our own lives and as a nation. We need love to be successful and to be happy.

This Christmas is a great opportunity to reflect on how we are treating each other. Especially those with whom we deeply disagree.

Are we using disagreement as an opportunity to practice love by actively listening and responding to the other’s pain?

Are we responding to them with love simply because they are human, like us?

Practicing love—especially loving those with whom we disagree—will make us a better, more just America.

Practicing love will bring us the unity we need to solve the problems we face and stand against those who wish us harm.

Practicing love will make you a better person, a better parent, a better leader at work and a better citizen-leader in our community. It gives you the best chance for Happiness in life.

Here’s a challenge. Go encounter someone very different from yourself. Make a conscious effort to find as many things as possible that you have in common with them. Things that you can appreciate and love them for. Actively listen to what makes them different and to any pain that drives them.

Do your best to understand them, to understand their story, to understand why they think the way they do. Actively empathize with them.

Don’t judge. Just love. For its own sake. For your sake. Practicing loving them will change you for the better, build unity and maybe, just maybe, make a friend.

This Christmas let’s celebrate Love by giving each other the gift of Love. Practicing love brings light into our world. Love unites us as community and as a nation. Practicing love changes the one you love and changes you as well, bringing fulfillment and Happiness into each other’s lives.

Merry Christmas!

It is so easy to get caught up in the busy-ness of life and find the weeks, months and even years flying buy.

We are chasing so many immediate things in life—getting the best job, getting our kids into the right schools and on the right sports teams, living in the right neighborhoods and driving the right cars—that it is easy to lose sight of what life is about.

And that’s dangerous. There are two things in life that are certain: death and taxes.

If you don’t pay attention to your taxes, the IRS will actively seek you out. The IRS will make you pay attention.

Life, on the other hand, will simply keep going on whether you are paying attention or not. A lot of people simply go through life, never really conscious of their own life, never living with intention or purpose. They get old or die and wonder where it all went. I can’t imagine a bigger regret than going through life unconscious, simply letting life happen to you.

That gets us to a very important question: Why? Why do you do what you do? What is your life leading to? What is your life destination?

Knowing the Why will make you more successful in all aspects of your life—at work, at home with your family, and in your own Happiness.

"Why" and Success in Your Life

So why do you do what you do? Where is your life going?

The answer to that should be Happiness. Fulfillment.

As I discussed in an earlier blog/podcast, The Meaning of Life: Happiness, history, tradition and, most of all, research tell us pretty clearly what makes us happy and fulfilled in life: high-quality relationships with others.

Let’s step that up: Happiness is all about having high-quality, high-trust relationships based in love.

Everything you do in life should point you towards Happiness. Anything that isn’t pointing you towards Happiness is quite literally a waste of your time.

Everything you do in life should be building high-quality, high-trust relationships based in love.

So, if you want Happiness and fulfillment in life, you should be constantly asking yourself why you do what you do. And the answer to that why should be that your action helps you build high-quality, high-trust loving relationships in your life.

Why practice being honest, just, wise, loving and courageous? Because when these become habits, when they become part of your character, you become the best person you can be –and that contributes directly to your high-quality, high-trust, loving relationships.

Why practice loving your family? Because it makes you a better person and because it teaches your children how to develop their own high-quality, high-trust, loving relationships. It is the most important thing you can teach them so they can achieve success in life—in their own families, in their work, as leaders in their own communities, and in their own lives.

Why care about the schools your children go to or activities they participate in? Because their experience in school builds knowledge and their team-based activities build character, leadership and teamwork. The knowledge they learn and the character they build develops wisdom. Having wisdom puts them in the best position possible to… Wait for it… Develop the high-quality, high-trust, loving relationships they will need to be successful in life. As leaders in their work, In their families and in their communities.

Why should you be physically, spiritually and psychologically fit? Because it puts you in the highest-quality, loving relationship with yourself. That, in turns, puts you in the best position to have great relationships with others.

Each week, we should review our activities—past and future—and ask why we are doing them. If our activities are not contributing to high-quality relationships with others (or ourselves), then we should replace them with activities that do.

In the big picture, developing high-quality relationships gives us, our children and those around us the best chance for Happiness in life. High-quality, high-trust relationships grounded in love are also the key to leadership success in our work and our communities.

"Why" and Being a Better Parent

The Why is also very important within your family—especially for your kids.

It is very important for you, as parents, to be clear with each other about why you do what you do individually, and as a family.

The more your spouse understands why you do what you do, the more your spouse will trust you. The more that both of you understand why you raise your kids the way you do, the more effective and aligned you will be as parents. Your children will hear a consistent message, reinforced by each parent. They will be less successful playing your spouse against you, you know, mommy and dadding you.

Why can also play a powerful role in helping your own children achieve success in their lives. My wife, Angie, made a point of this in our family.

Most of us love our parents dearly but have some things that our parents did when we were growing up that we promised ourselves we wouldn’t do with our own children.

In my wife’s case, as a kid, she would often ask her parents for permission to do something and get the “no” response.

That didn’t bother her too much. It’s a parent’s prerogative to tell a child “no.”

What bothered her was when she asked “Why?” All too often, she would get the dreaded response, “Because I said so”.

She swore she would never tell her own children “Because I said so.”

Fast-forward a few decades and we’re listening to a psychologist do a talk about children for a gathering of parents.

“Sometimes,” he says, “You get to the point where you just have to tell your kids ‘Because I said so.’” My wife and I cringed.

To kids, “Because I said so,” sounds arbitrary and uncaring. You know that because your parents probably used it at least once with you.

Worse, “Because I said so” is a giant, missed opportunity.

What if you replaced “Because I said so” with “Because all the things we ask you to do or not do are to help you become the best, most successful, happiest person you can be”?

It shows that you care because you gave them a reason. It focuses the answer and reason you gave on your love for them instead of you.

And perhaps most important, it teaches your kids to frame their lives in terms of pursuing their purpose in life: Happiness, fulfillment and success.

From their earliest days, we told our kids that they had a purpose in life: Goodness that leads to Happiness. We told them everything that we asked them to do or not do was focused on their Happiness and success—at work, in their future families, as leaders in their community and in their lives.

They understood this at a very young age. If they did something wrong, we could ask them, “Did that grow flowers or weeds in your heart?” They knew the answer. Intellectually and emotionally.

When you consistently frame everything in terms of Why and their purpose in life, you give your kids consistency and stability. That increases their sense of security. You give them the chance to actively pursue their destination in life, minimizing the waste of their time or energy. Most important, you provide your children with a powerful foundation for their own Happiness and success in life.

That’s what parents want for their children, isn’t it?

"Why" Gets the Most Performance at Work

Why do we work? The easy answer is “Because we need to make money.”

That answer treats work like it’s a job that is little more than a source of labor for the company and a source of income for the employee.

If that is your approach to work as a leader, you’re almost certainly underperforming.

One of the companies I’ve worked with is a big drywall contractor. Doing drywall in buildings doesn’t sound very exciting. It sounds very, well, dry.

I was at a day-long meeting of more than 150 of their employees and they didn’t seem very dry. Instead, they were clearly happy and excited to be working there.

Part of that is because the drywall company doesn’t do simple drywall in large high-rise or residential projects. They do themed interior and exterior projects for places like Disneyland, Universal Studios, and cool hotels and casinos.

As they reviewed slides of their projects at the meeting, people pointed at each project and said, “I helped build that!” When they travel to resorts, they are excited to point to their company projects and tell their family and friends, “We built that!”

They showed a picture of Hogwarts Castle at Universal Studios. The CEO asked, “How many millions of kids have had magic moments and smiled because we built that?”

It didn’t matter whether their contribution to the project was as a drywaller or project admin or human resources or IT, they all took pride saying, “We built that.”

It reminds me of a story. Imagine that you are a construction company owner and you are walking through one of your big projects. You come across a person working and you ask him, “What are you doing?”

The worker is a mason and answers, “Laying bricks.” Nothing more.

You walk further along and come across a second person on the same project doing the same activity.

“What are you doing?” you ask.

“Building a wall,” answers the second.

You walk still further and encounter a third person on the same project doing the same activity. Laying bricks.

“What are you doing?”

He says with some pride and excitement, “I’m helping build a cathedral to honor God and all that is beautiful in life!”

Which of your workers is going to be more engaged? Which worker is going to give you more commitment? Which worker is most likely to give you the best quality work? Which worker is the one you want talking to others about the project?

People perform better when they understand the meaning—the Why—of their work. The more meaningful their work, the deeper their commitment and engagement, and the better their performance.

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Over the last week, our nation has taken time to honor the life of George H.W. Bush, our 41st president. Thousands viewed him in the Capitol in Washington DC and in Houston. We televised two of this three funeral services. Thousands more stood along the tracks while his presidential train took him to his final resting place in College Station, Texas.

Honor is the respect we owe someone because of the kind of person he or she is. For the character that they demonstrate. We have spent the last week honoring President Bush because, no matter where we stand politically, we respect the man he was, what he did with his life and the example he set. All for us.

If we’re smart, we will take powerful lessons from his life to make our own individual lives and our nation better. It is the best way to become good people ourselves and to honor a man who gave so much to all of us.

The life of President George H. W. Bush has many lessons for us, big and small, personal and national. Let’s talk about four of them:

Strength and Resiliency

America

Unity

Love and Fruitfulness

STRENGTH AND RESILIENCY

In our world today, some young people seem to have the idea that they are entitled to a good life, relatively free from pain, in which the world revolves around them.

to be taught to see themselves as victims of one kind or another. Then they are taught that they can use that victim-hood as leverage to demand something they are told they are entitled to.

Being a victim is seen as a way that young people can empower themselves. To be fair, I am not blaming the young people who have this attitude for having it. It is what they have been taught.

Today’s “snowplow parents” clear all obstacles out of the way to protect their children from anxiety. Parents complete their kids’ college applications. They show up at their kids’ work to talk to the boss. Many parents do everything they can to cover for their child’s failures.

I don’t think this approach is a formula for success in life. Even though our society has more money, education and technology than any time in history, our young people are more anxious and depressed than ever. Many young people seem hopeless and adrift. They don’t seem resilient. Suicide has become the second leading cause of death for them.

Let’s contrast that with the life of George H.W. Bush.

George Bush was part of the Greatest Generation—that group of people who grew up in America during the Depression and led us through World War II and the Cold War. The Greatest Generation had a character and toughness formed from the hunger and poverty of the Dust Bowl and Depression. A strength that we seem to lack today.

George Bush was undoubtedly blessed to be born into a family with money. His father was an investment banker who later became a US senator. He went to one of the best prep schools in the nation and, after World War II, graduated Yale.

On the other hand, Bush faced tragedy and hardship in his life.

 

At just 20 years old, President Bush was a Navy pilot in World War II who was shot down on a mission over some tiny islands in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

Bush’s two crewmen on that mission died. Nine men from other aircraft escaped their planes. Bush was the only one rescued by Americans. The other eight were captured by the Japanese, tortured and executed.

Put yourself or a 20-year-old you know in an airplane in the middle of the Pacific… getting shot down… then losing your own crew-mates and more than 10 others on your team.

That wasn’t the only hardship Bush faced. He married Barbara while in the Navy and they had six children. Barbara and George were only 28-29 years old when they lost their 3-year-old daughter, Robin, to leukemia. How painful was the loss? George wrote his daughter Robin a letter:

There is about our house a need. We need some soft blonde hair to offset those crew cuts. We need a doll house to stand firm against our forts and racquets and thousand baseball cards. We need someone who’s afraid of frogs. We need a little one who can kiss without leaving egg or jam or gum. We need a girl. We had one once — she’d fight and cry and play and make her way, just like the rest. But there was about her a certain softness. She was patient. Her hugs were a just little less wiggly ... But she is still with us. We need her and yet we have her. We can’t touch her and yet we can feel her. We hope she’ll stay in our house for a long, long time. Love, Pop

When Bush’s grand-daughter Jenna talked with him about death, he told her that, in some ways, he was looking forward to dying to “being reunited with these people that I’ve lost.” He said he hoped to see Robin, but wasn’t sure if it would be “Robin as the three-year-old that she was, this kind of chubby, vivacious child or if she’ll come as a middle-aged woman…”

Jenna continues, “Robin was the daughter this giant of a man lost years before to leukemia. The little girl he held tightly who spoke the phrase I have heard Gampy repeat for my entire life, forever knitting Robin’s voice into the tightly woven fabric of our family: “I love you more than tongue can tell.”

George Bush was blessed being born into a family of means. And in World War II and in his family, he encountered deep tragedy that the rest of us pray we never experience. For the rest of his life, Bush thought about how fortunate he was to survive being shot down. For the rest of his life, he thought about his beloved Robin.

Despite these tragedies, Bush never saw himself as a victim. These tragedies became opportunities for Bush to become stronger and more resilient. He transformed his love for Robin into a love he gave to those he led. His survival in World War II made him see himself as someone with an even deeper duty to serve others. To give himself to America. To give himself to us.

AMERICA

Today, many in our society seem to be ashamed or even hate our nation, America. They tell us everything about the United States is terrible. All negative. They talk only about our sins in history and say almost nothing positive about our nation and people.

In contrast, George Bush was a strong believer in the fundamental goodness of America. He served our nation throughout his life as a pilot in the United States Navy, as a businessman, and as congressman, ambassador and president. He gave his full commitment to all of us because he believed that America, while undoubtedly imperfect, was united not by ethnicity or tribe, but by the idea that together, with equal dignity and value, we can strive for goodness. As a nation and as individuals. America is a shining city on the hill, a beacon, a light, an example for other nations.

George Bush spent his entire life fighting for an America that stood for individual freedom and goodness in stark contrast with the freedom-crushing authoritarianism of World War II Japan and Germany, and the Cold War Soviet Union. Indeed, it was under George Bush’s presidency that communism fell in Europe and tens of millions of people were freed.

George Bush’s life is a testament to the idea that America, while imperfect, is nevertheless an idea, a nation and a people worth fighting for because goodness is worth fighting for. He gave most of his life to that fight for goodness.

UNITY

And that brings us to unity.

Today we live in a society that is divided by sharply different views about the fundamental nature of life and community and Truth. Our political debates have become very nasty, negative and visceral. The media seem deeply biased one way or another.

People are afraid to talk because they don’t want to be publicly bullied and terrorized by those with opposing ideas.

In contrast, President Bush lived a life that united us through a shared goal—our pursuit of goodness and Happiness as individuals and as a nation. Over the last week, story after story was told about how Bush brought people together.

One story was conveyed by Dana Perino from a senior CIA official who, early in his young career, was assigned to a post away from CIA Headquarters. He took pride in being in not being one of the headquarters people.

His boss finally forced him to go to a class at headquarters. He loathed the assignment. He intentionally sat away from others in class. He segregated himself from them at lunch by sitting alone in the corner with his newspaper.

That was until a voice on the other side of his newspaper asked if he could sit with the young CIA officer. And that voice was CIA Director George Bush. From the story:

“We talked about duty and service. I told him about my job and how I was there for a class... I left out the part about me being a jerk and not mixing in.

He opined that those classes were a good way to bond with people from different parts of the organization. I believe he sensed I wasn’t doing that because I was eating alone. I was embarrassed…

[After lunch] I went back to the class. Late. I told them why and was bombarded with questions about him. I had an epiphany and became a full participant.

He left me with a message I hadn’t understood – not only was I learning from my classmates, but they were also learning from me.

A few weeks later a handwritten note found its way to me at my office. He thanked me for our conversation at lunch; it said he had learned a lot!”

That is a great story about how President Bush brought unity by taking the time to care, personally, for others. It was a small but important act by Director Bush that transformed that person’s life.

Another story of Bush bringing unity happened this week. In the midst of all the bickering and divisiveness in our nation, we came together, in unity, for a week to honor George Bush. The divisiveness died down. President Trump’s twitter feed seemed to quiet.

President Bush made a point of asking President Trump to be at the funeral in the National Cathedral....

It’s time again for Thanksgiving!

A History of Giving Thanks

For most of our history, Americans have generally thought that life was hard deal. Life was tough. Difficult. Not supposed to be fair. If you worked hard and had some good luck, you might scratch out a decent life for yourself and your family. Maybe even a life a little better than your parents had.

Hard work and suffering developed toughness, resilience, character and leadership.

So, when something good happened—perhaps a good harvest in the fall or the peace after the horrors of the Civil War—Americans took the time to celebrate that goodness and give thanks for what they had. Safety from harm. Good fortune. The end of difficult times. The freedom to establish a government of the people, by the people and for the people.

In the midst of their hardships in life, Americans took time to give thanks to each other and the Creator for whatever blessings they had received.

Today, Thanksgiving is time to celebrate with family. Time to relax and prepare for the upcoming holidays. Time to get together and tell stories. Maybe even some time to get a nap in before standing in the long Black Friday lines.

Many of us, around the Thanksgiving dinner table, will stop and take some time to share what we are thankful for.

Like America, Thanksgiving stretches across boundaries, generations and ethnicities. One of my daughters’ co-workers, an immigrant from Afghanistan, told my daughter a story about how her children, at Thanksgiving, “hyper-demand” turkey and mashed potatoes. It’s a powerful way they, as Americans, share a common tradition with all other Americans.

All these are good things.

Life is Hard

That said, in today’s world giving thanks can seem counter cultural. How can we give thanks when we’re all battling challenges of one kind or another? Family problems. Problems at work. Financial problems.

The pressure can seem tremendous. Most families in America feel the financial pressure of trying to live paycheck to paycheck. They feel the social pressure of having to live in the right house in the right neighborhood while driving the right car. Our kids must be star athletes and go to the best colleges, or the family prestige is threatened.

With email and texting, we can never fully escape the pressures of work.

24/7 news cycles bombard us with continuous bad news about the nasty, never-ending and all-consuming political fights in Washington DC.

Social media connects us so well that we are no longer developing the tight, personal relationships that used to allow us to share our burdens with others. When we need support from others the most, we seem to have it the least. We have never been so well-connected and simultaneously so alone.

It’s no surprise that we’re more and more anxious and depressed as our own lives never match the perfection others project on Facebook or Instagram.

Un-Thanksgiving: Victims and Entitlements

That’s the backdrop to some growing and dangerous trends in our culture. Some un-Thanksgiving trends. Thanks for blessings are replaced with demands for entitlements.

The un-Thanksgiving trends push the idea that you don’t earn a good life, but that you’re entitled to a good life. That any pain and suffering in life aren’t opportunities for growth, but an unfair betrayal of that entitlement.

These postmodern trends push us to see ourselves as the victims of others who owe us something.

I am entitled to what I want in life and you owe it to me. And if I don’t get what I want from you, I am entitled to demonize you and bully you and be a jerk to you.

These are un-Thanksgiving trends. When you don’t get what you want you are supposed to be angry. When you do get what you want you aren’t supposed to give thanks because you were entitled to it from the beginning.

Un-Thanksgiving is dangerous because it is profoundly self-centered. You can’t understand me because we have nothing in common. I am victim. I am perpetually offended. You owe me.

One of the things that made America great was our history of helping each other. In the old days when the vast majority of Americans lived on farms, having a barn was critical for the success of your farm and family.

You had to have a barn.

But raising a barn is a big endeavor. And so, in the old days, when it was time to raise a barn, the community stopped what they were doing and all pitched in to raise that barn. Together.

Americans helping Americans raise each other’s barns so individual families and farms could be successful, and the community of families and farms could be successful together.

And after that barn was raised, they would often sit down together at a meal, and celebrate and give thanks for that new barn. That new blessing. Together.

In contrast, un-Thanksgiving has each of us waiting for everyone else to come raise my barn for me because I am entitled to that barn. You owe it to me.

Un-Thanksgiving, this postmodern understanding of life, attacks the concept of community. It sabotages the idea that we come together in community to achieve great things and make better lives for each other. Again, metaphorically, with no barns being raised, we die alone and hungry. Physically. Spiritually. Psychologically.

Good Relationships: The Key to Happiness

As I pointed out in some earlier blog/podcasts, research shows that the key to happiness and fulfillment in life is high-quality, high-trust relationships based in love. The key to your success at work and in your family is high-quality, high-trust relationships based in love. With high-quality, high-trust relationships based in love you live longer, healthier, happier, and with more success and less pain.

The un-Thanksgiving trends tear apart the very things—trust, relationship, community and love—that make us happy, successful people and a good nation.

We can do better. We must do better. We owe it to ourselves and our children.

The Blessing of Living in America

Let’s start by more deeply appreciating what we have and how fortunate, how blessed, we are to have it.

We’re living in America. Whether you were born here or immigrated here, you are blessed to live in a nation which, despite all our problems, millions of people around the world risk their lives to live in.

We didn’t earn living in America. We got lucky. We were either blessed to be born here or blessed to have the opportunity to come here while billions can’t.

No matter what problems we face in life, the blessing to live in America is probably the most unfair thing that will ever happen to us in our lives.

We are blessed with relatively stable, high-trust systems in justice, economics, health, education, agricultural/food, finance, military, government etc. These systems are imperfect, but they are the best achieved at this scale in human history.

We didn’t individually earn these. We are not entitled to these. We are blessed with these through the hard-work of tens of millions of people in our communities and nation.

And because we have been given these blessings, we have a responsibility to take these blessings and increase them for each other.

One of the things that defines us as Americans is our government “of the people, by the people and for the people.”

Be A Leader

You are not the subject of the government. As a voter, you are a leader in our government. You are not entitled to be a passive victim. You have an obligation to lead.

Its time to stop acting like entitled victims who bully those with whom we disagree.

It’s time to be active leaders who build high-quality, high-trust relationships based in love with everyone we can.

Not just the people with whom we agree politically. Not just the people who look like us or identify like us or come from the same ethnic group. Not just the people who practice our religion or share our socio-economic class.

We need to stop using the excuse that we are waiting for the “other side” to stop being bullies and be nice first. That’s being a victim, not a leader.

You are being called today, right now, to be real leader. You are being called to find some common ground, whatever it may be, to build the best, highest-trust, most-loving relationships you can with those most-unlike you.

Practicing love and developing those relationships will make you a better, happier, healthier and more successful person in all aspects of your life. Practicing love and developing those relationships will make our communities and nation the best they can be. It will inspire your kids and co-workers to do it themselves.

It gets us out of our unhappy, Un-Thanksgiving postmodern funk and back into our Thanksgiving gratitude for the blessings we share with each other.

As you share Thanksgiving, find something in common with that person at the table who is so different from you. Who has been pissing you off.

As you travel home or stand in the Black Friday lines, take the opportunity to meet new people and listen to them. Be that person who calms tense situations instead of fueling them.

As you head back to work on Monday, build high-trust, loving relationships with everyone you can. You’ll be happier and more successful in every dimension of your life.

Practicing love and developing relationships takes the blessings you have been given and multiplies them a thousand-fold. It makes you the best kind of blessing for all those around you.

Don’t just give thanks for your many blessings. Starting today, live that Thanks by being a blessing for others.

Happy Thanksgiving!

The Marine Corps Birthday

Last night, I took a friend of mine, Tony, out for an important evening. He’s 96 years old, a retired school superintendent, teacher and deacon. I think he is the father of seven. We went to an event that had about 200 people of all ethnic groups, ages 20 to 96. It included a billionaire, federal judges, musicians, attorneys, business people, and moms and dads. Blue collar and white collar. A diverse group bound by one thing: the birthday we share as US Marines.

It’s a thing. Every November 10th, Marines all around the world celebrate the birthday of their Corps.

In 1775, 243 years ago, the Marine Corps was born in a tavern in Philadelphia. Today, Marines will celebrate their birthday in formal balls, by sharing a birthday meal in a trench in Afghanistan, or even just by saying “Happy Birthday, Marine” to each other.

So, what can a fighting organization founded almost 250 years ago in a bar teach us about life today? A lot, I think. Let’s talk about three life lessons—story, diversity and relationships.

Story

The Marine Corps spent much of its history as a military afterthought. It's obvious that every nation needs an army to defend its land and a navy to defend its seas. But do we need a Marine Corps?

Marines started as soldiers at sea who guarded the captain from potentially mutinous sailors and boarded enemy ships in combat. But mutiny hasn’t been a serious issue for almost 200 years and no one today is firing muskets at an enemy crew.

Sure enough, our Marine Corps has been threatened with extinction several times in American history. Even after the Marine Corps performed spectacularly in World War II, many in government (and the Army) tried to abolish the Marine Corps. Your Marine Corps.

If you talk to the Army or Air Force, the Marine Corps survives because the Corps has great public relations. But that misses a deeper lesson. The Marine Corps survives—even thrives—because the Marine Corps understands the importance of telling a compelling story.

All the military services have honor and courage and commitment. But the Marine Corps brings those virtues alive in a super-powerful way by transforming them from theoretical ideas into real-world stories.

In 1847, during the Mexican-American War, the Marines played a role in the capture of Chapultepec Castle on the approaches to Mexico City. The Marines quickly published the story of their role in the battle as an example of Marine heroism. From the Halls of Montezuma….

In 1805, during the war against the Barbary states, seven Marines led several hundred mercenaries across the Libyan desert to fight the Battle of Derna. The battle itself didn’t mean much. It was fought after the Barbary war had ended. But the Marines turned this relatively inconsequential battle into an epic story. To the Shores of Tripoli….

The Marines turned their role in these relatively minor battles into their Story. They told that Story in song:

From the Halls of Montezuma,

To the Shores of Tripoli...

The first two lines of the Marine Corps Hymn, a song that a surprising number of Americans know.

The Marines didn’t just turn these battles into epic stories and song, they made them concrete in their uniforms and tradition. The red stripe on the legs of the Marine Dress Blue uniform remembers the Battle of Chapultepec. All Marine officers have a Mameluke sword, given to the Corps in remembrance of the Battle of Derna.

Going into the Spanish-American War, there was a move to abolish the Corps. The Marines happened to be the first forces to land in Cuba and won a relatively small, but tough battle at Cuzco Wells. The American newspapers—desperate for news about the war—made the Marines heroes.

In World War I, the US Army fought hard, but didn’t allow newspaper reporters to accompany them. The Marines took the reporters with them into battle. In the US, the heroic exploits of the Marines at Belleau Wood and Chateau Thierry filled the newspapers. The French even renamed Belleau Wood after the Marine Brigade that fought there.

In World War II, the Army captured islands in the Pacific, but it was the iconic photo of the Marines raising the flag on Iwo Jima that became the most published picture of the war. Secretary of the Navy, James Forrestal, said “This means a Marine Corps for another 500 years.”

The Marine Corps tells great stories about Marines showing leadership, commitment, camaraderie, integrity and honor in the most difficult situations imaginable. By constantly telling stories about Marine super heroes like Dan Daly, John Glenn, Ted Williams and Chesty Puller, the Marine Corps convinces current Marines—those average, everyday Americans who are you brother or aunt or next-door neighbor—that they can be super heroes too.

The Marine Corps tells the Marine Corps Story verbally, but also in the uniforms, the customs, the traditions and the way of life.

Like my friend, Tony, receiving the first piece of Marine Corps birthday cake because he was the oldest Marine at the event. 96 years old. That's the Marine Corps birthday tradition.

The Marine Corps is a way of life that stays with you. Making sure you hang your shirts exactly the right way in the closet. Standing at attention anytime the national anthem is played. Celebrating your birthday on November 10. Even if you left the Corps 50 years ago. Once a Marine, always a Marine.

A Marine today in Afghanistan will give everything he or she has trying to live up to the stories of Belleau Wood and Iwo Jima. Trying to live up to the Marine Corps Story.

That’s why the Marine Corps makes a big deal of celebrating its birthday every November 10. It is another opportunity to tell the Marine Corps Story. To live the Marine Corps Story. To be part of the Marine Corps Story.

How powerful is Story? It has captured you.

Hollywood. Movie writers know that when they tell you that a movie character is a Marine, you will know exactly what that means. Honorable. Courageous. Tough. Integrity. Loyal. Good. In the movie The Equalizer 2, in the background of a shot you see a Marine Dress Blue uniform hanging in the cabinet. That tells you everything you need to know about the history of Robert McCall, the character played by Denzel Washington.

There is nothing new in this story-telling. People have been telling compelling stories for tens of thousands of years. Egyptian hieroglyphs. The Illiad. The Odyssey. The Aeneid. The epic stories of the Irish and American Indians and every other civilization in history. Stories are the primary way that all people throughout history have handed important lessons down from generation to generation.

As a parent, if you want your children to become the best, most successful people possible, tell them compelling stories that inspire them. Make your own life a compelling story that inspires them to goodness. Make your relationship with your spouse a compelling love story that teaches and inspires them. Story is the most powerful way to inspire and raise your children.

No matter what your position, be a leader at work. Lead by telling compelling stories that inspire your co-workers to excellence. Tell that story through your actions. Tell that story through words.

Everyone’s life is a story. People join the Marine Corps because they want their life story to be part of the Marine Corps story.

If you want the highest performing teams at work, make the work a compelling story that people can’t wait to join. People don’t want a job. People want a vocation. They want their work and their lives to be fulfilling, to be part of a larger story.

If you can’t tell people how their work with you is part of a larger, compelling story, then you are under-performing as a leader.

As citizens, we need to constantly tell and re-tell our American story. We must tell it in our schools. We must tell it in our families. We must tell it by the very way we live our lives. If we fail to consciously tell our American story in a compelling way, we will forget what it means to be America. And we will lose America.

Diversity

The Marine Corps can teach us a lot about diversity.

The recruits that show up at boot camp are a diverse bunch and they are pretty useless. Diversity, by itself, is a hindrance. The group of new recruits is useless because they come from so many different socio, economic and ethnic backgrounds that they can’t do much together. Their diversity, by itself, works against them.

The Marine Corps unites that diverse group with a common goal: graduating boot camp and earning the title “Marine”. Focused intensely by that common goal, what was once a hindrance—diversity—becomes an incredible asset. They become a group of people focused on a common goal with diverse ways to think about and accomplish that goal.

Think of it in musical terms. Imagine that every person is a musical instrument. If you are a violin and you play a song by yourself, that’s nice. Now imagine that you bring in clarinets and oboes and horns and flutes and cellos. Diversity. If everyone practices and plays the same song together, you have an orchestra playing a symphony. The more you practice together, the better the music and the more different ways you can play that music.

That’s diversity united by common purpose. It’s powerful and beautiful.

Now imagine those diverse instruments just playing whatever they want. No unity. You don’t get music. You don’t even get noise. You get a screech. Diversity without unity becomes a screech.

Whether you are leading your family, at work or in the community, unity of purpose is critical. With unity of purpose, you can bring diversity into play in the most powerful way possible.

Relationship

Perhaps the biggest lesson we can learn from the Marine Corps is the importance of relationship.

As we discussed in an earlier blog/podcast, the key to Happiness in life is high-quality relationships....

Love and Happiness

Today, we’re going to begin an ongoing conversation about the importance and power of love.

Love is obviously a subject very present in our lives. When we are in love we’re happy. When we’re out of love we’re heartbroken and unhappy. We love our parents and our kids. Love is the subject of more than half the hit songs on the radio.

As present as love is in our lives, I don’t think we have a good understanding of love. Maybe we’re too familiar with it. Maybe we take it for granted.

All too often we think of love as little more than falling in romantic love with someone. No doubt, romantic love—eros—is awesome. It feels great. It’s exciting. Maybe even intoxicating.

But love is much bigger than that. It includes love for your parents and your children. Love for your friends. The self-giving love that leads some people to sacrifice their lives for others.

Love isn’t just something we feel. Love is also action.

In my blog, The Meaning of Life: Happiness, we talk about the importance of relationship for Happiness in life. A study that Harvard has been doing for more than 70 years shows that the most important thing for happiness in life is having high-quality relationships.

Happiness does not come from money. Or fame. Or social status.

Happiness is deeply tied to having great relationships. And the best relationships are love-based relationships. Loving relationships with your friends. With your spouse. With your children. With your co-workers.

Being loved by others changes us. When we practice loving others, it changes us too.

Not just changed emotionally, but physically changed. We’re biologically wired for love. It’s embedded deeply in our DNA.

That Harvard study didn’t just show that high-quality relationships make you happier in life. People with good relationships are healthier and actually live longer. Let’s flip it the other way. Loneliness, the lack of love, is as deadly as smoking or alcoholism.

There’s more. Babies. It turns out that if you give infants all the food and water they need—if you give them all the nutrition they need—but you don’t give them love and physical affection, almost 40% of them will die. A 40% death rate for babies who don’t receive love. More than half of the infant survivors will have significant psychological challenges.

The simple and yet profound answer for the meaning of life--for Happiness--is having good, loving relationships.

Love is the foundation for a healthy and happy life.

When you understand and practice love, you'll receive enormous benefits in life.

You’ll have better relationships with your spouse and children and family.

You’ll be a much more successful leader at work.

You’ll have the best chance for fulfillment and happiness in your own life.

Love is at the very core of life. The more you understand love, the better you’ll be at every aspect of your life.

One experience taught me a very important lesson about love and life. It’s make-or-break.

What you believe about love--what you know about love--dramatically impacts your understanding of life.

A Story About Death and Love

True story. I had a friend at the gym who was an accomplished doctor with an Ivy League education. Very smart. Very intellectual.

He claimed to be an atheist, and we had interesting and thoughtful conversations about life. He had a nice wife who I saw frequently at church. It seemed clear, by the way he talked about and treated her, that he was very much in love with her.

So we had our conversations—mostly fun intellectual sparring about life—while riding stationary bikes in the gym.

One day our talk was interrupted by a loud crash behind us. A person working out on one of the elliptical machines had collapsed. The doctor jumped off his stationary bike and helped save that person’s life.

I didn’t see the doctor again for some time. Our workout schedules didn’t coincide. Then we ran into each other again at the gym, and he related something that had been troubling him. You see, the person who collapsed had been trying to kill himself by exercising himself into a heart-attack. And then the doctor saved him, frustrating that attempt.

After saving the person’s life, the doctor visited him in the hospital. Much to the doctor’s surprise, the patient was angry at the doctor for saving his life.

A few weeks later, that person succeeded in ending his own life.

It was obvious that this really bothered the doctor. He had spent his professional life helping people stay healthy. Now he was confronted with a situation and person that contradicted all of that.

Our conversation was no longer fun, intellectual sparring. Now it was real. Hard. Deadly serious. Real life and death intruded on our comfortable, hypothetical conversations and lives.

“Did I do the right thing,” the doctor asked, “Saving his life when he wanted to die?”

He was asking me because he knew I was “an ethics guy” and maybe I had the right answer.

I started by offering that it depends on how you understand life.

If you believe in the Wisdom Paradigm approach to life, then you will eventually conclude that you did the right thing saving his life. In the Wisdom understanding of life—the one underlying all the world’s great religions and philosophies—our purpose in life is to become good people, and find fulfillment and Happiness.

In the Wisdom Paradigm, we become good by doing what is loving and best for others. Committing suicide is never what is best. Suicide is final. There is no coming back to reconsider things. It devastates those who love you. Suicide ends possibility and hope.

On the other hand, if you believe in the alternative—a Postmodern understanding of life—if you really believe this universe and our lives “just happened”, if you really believe that life has no inherent deeper purpose or meaning, that there is no Truth, then you can think whatever you want about saving the guy’s life.

If there is no meaning or purpose, then against what Truth are you going to compare your action to see if it was right or wrong? The meaning of your action to save his life is whatever you want to make of it.

It was an intellectual response to a deeply emotional question. And it clearly fell short.

So, I felt myself asking a different question from a different place. “Do you love your wife?”

“Yes,” he answered.

“That love you have for her, is it real? Is that love something deep and transcendent? Or is that love just a chemical reaction in your brain?”

That was the end of our conversation many years ago.

Now I’m asking that question of you. Is love something deep and Transcendent, or just a chemical reaction in your brain?

Your answer literally makes all the difference in the world.

Is Love Real and Transcendent?

If you are an honest and consistent person, your answer to that question will determine your direction in life.

Stop for a minute and think specifically about those you most deeply love and who mostly deeply love you.

Perhaps your mother or father.

Your spouse.

Your children.

Your closest friend.

Would you be willing to die for them?

Are those feelings that you have for them--those relationships you have with them—are they real and meaningful and deep and transcendent? Or are those relationships nothing more than chemical reactions in your brain?

If love captures some aspect of the Transcendent, then you will be a position to understand and embrace the Power of Love to make you successful in your work, your family and your life.

Is Love Nothing More Than A Chemical Reaction?

On the other hand, if love does not capture some aspect of the Transcendent—if love is nothing more than a chemical  reaction in your brain—then you are an addict and a fool.

You’re an addict because when you encounter that person you “love”, your brain releases chemicals and your neurons fire and it makes you feel AMAZING.

Those feelings of “love”—those chemical reactions—create compulsive behavior in you despite harmful consequences.

If you have ever been “in love”, you know exactly what I mean. Those chemical reactions make you go out of your way and do crazy things for the one you love. That’s the joke about love. Love makes you do stupid things.

There is impaired control because love makes you crave the love despite attempts to cut down or control it.

Love creates social problems because love makes you focus on the one you love no matter the social or work consequences.

Love includes risky use—you’ll do whatever you need to spend time with your love.

And anyone who has ever broken up with one that they loved knows that the symptoms of withdrawal from love are terrible.

These are all key indicators of addictive behavior.

If you think that love is nothing more than a chemical reaction in your brain, then you’re a fool because you know that love is false and addictive—and you still do it anyway.

Finally, if you really believe that love is nothing more than a chemical reaction and that there is nothing Transcendent in reality—and you pursue what that means—then you must soon come to the realization that there is no deeper meaning or purpose in life. You are nothing. Meaningless. Hopeless. That powerful chemical reaction called love is just a false and cruel addiction that enslaves you.

That would be a pretty bleak, hopeless and depressing realization. I hope, for your sake, that you are not there.

The Meaning and Power of Love

Fortunately, I think you know deep down that love is real and deep and Transcendent.

As human beings, we are biologically wired for love to mirror, to reflect, the Transcendent.

And when you understand that deep reality, you can see why our fulfillment and Happiness are so deeply intertwined with love. With loving relationships, we find health, long-life, fulfillment and Happiness.

...

In this blog, we’ll talk about the Meaning of Life, Happiness, what that means and what you can start doing right now to achieve it.

You can find a podcast version of this blog article on our website or iTunes.

If you want to dive in to the issue of leadership, you can get my book, “On Leadership, What’s Broken in Our Society and How We Fix It” on Amazon.com.

What is Happiness?

If you ask people what they want in life, they’ll almost always tell you that they want Happiness. Isn’t that what we all want? Isn’t the meaning of life Happiness? But that always gives rise to the next questions: What is happiness and how do we get it?

And that’s usually as far as we go in the discussion. Talking about what Happiness is and how we might achieve it gets too complicated too quickly. Is it about having money? How much money? Being healthy? Living a long time? Being with the person you love? Owning a Ferrari? The Dodgers finally winning a World Series? Are those the things that Happiness is about?

If you’ve had a few philosophy classes, the question of Happiness can get buried in all sorts of technical distinctions between happiness and joy and thriving and flourishing and whatever. A great topic for a few beers at the pub or a late-night dorm discussion gets quickly lost in philosophical technicalities.

Besides, who has time to think about happiness when we are struggling to make it to our next pay check, get the mortgage paid and get the kids from school to their sports practices. Most of us are too worried about keeping our jobs and getting our kids into college. Who has time to think about Happiness in life when we’re just trying to survive in life?

Life is complicated and high-speed and overwhelming. But we can fix that. What if we had a simple way of understanding the meaning of life—Happiness—and some straightforward strategies to get there? What if we could do things today that helped us be happy through the rest of our lives?

Let me tell you the story of a guy who grew up in southern California. A few people had put together a concept to make and sell high-quality baseball cards, but they needed some help. So, one of them brought in his high school buddy, Richard, as an investor and accountant.

Over the next 10 years, Richard built the company into a giant. He became a billionaire who also owned a charter jet company. Richard was a guy who had it all: business success. Fame. Boatloads of money. Airplanes and billionaire status.

But he died at the age of 59. Alcohol poisoning. He was suffering from addiction and alcohol dementia. In his climb to becoming a billionaire he had cheated partners and lost many of his old and close friends. He had destroyed most of the important relationships in his life. His billionaire status and business success did not prevent him from drinking himself to death, apparently deeply unhappy.

Let’s contrast that with the story of a woman from a small town in Alabama. She grew up in a simple house with perhaps three rooms. She left home at the age of 18 the day after her high school graduation. She moved to the state capital and found a job. Eventually she met the man who became her husband. He was moving from job to job, not making much money. They got married and he became a union tradesman Between the two of them, they made a modest living.

She had challenges in life. She lost her only son shortly after he was born. She raised her two daughters while her husband was away for long periods on construction jobs. For the last five years of her life she battled health problems that had her in and out of the hospital. The last 18 months of her life were quite hard and painful before she passed away in the spring of 2017.

Those close to Anne will tell you that she died happy. Despite the life challenges and suffering, she was happy because she had close, loving relationships in her life. With her husband of 57 years. With her daughter and grandchildren. With her dear friends from church with whom she spent so much time.

Secret to Happiness: Good Relationships

That’s the secret to Happiness in life. Good, high-quality relationships. You need enough money to have a reasonable living, but Happiness doesn’t come from money. Or fame. Or business success. Happiness is all about relationships. High-quality, loving relationships.

A Harvard study conducted over 70 years confirms it. They followed two groups of young people. One group was filled with Harvard students. The other group filled with kids from the poor neighborhoods of Boston. For over 70 years, they tracked the people in both groups in multiple dimensions to understand what leads to Happiness.

The Harvard researchers looked at a lot of factors including money, social class and status. They concluded that the biggest key to Happiness wasn’t wealth or status or fame. The happiest people were those who had high-quality relationships. In fact, the people who had high-quality relationships lived both happier lives and healthier lives than people with poor quality relationships. Good relationships don’t just affect your mental and emotional health. Good relationships actually help you physically live longer and healthier.

With that in mind, here are 3 things you can do right now to pursue fulfillment and Happiness in your life.

#1 Focus everything on Happiness.

Your purpose in life is Happiness. That’s the purpose of your spouse and children and co-workers and neighbors too. We’re all in this together. Everything you do at work, in your family life and in your community should be focused on Happiness. Life is not about money or fame or social status. Your life is your story of achieving fulfillment and Happiness.

#2 Develop high quality relationships.

Happiness is all about developing and nurturing high quality, loving relationships. We’ve been conditioned to think that we’re supposed to seek Happiness in our private lives, but not at work. That’s totally false. You should be pursuing Happiness—high quality, loving relationships—at work, at home and in your community.

#3 Practice love.

The best, highest-quality, most fulfilling and most powerful relationships are those grounded in love. When you practice love you become a better person and you change the people around you for the better. You should practice love everywhere—at home, at work and in your community. Every encounter you have with another person is an opportunity for you to practice love. To take another step towards Happiness.

Relationships Are the Key to Performance in Life

And here’s another advantage. Relationships aren’t just the foundation for Happiness. Relationships are the key to high performance and success in all areas of your life.

Want to make more money at work? Develop great relationships with co-workers and clients.

Want a great family with great kids? Develop great relationships with your kids. Teach them the meaning of life.

Want a great community and nation? Develop high-quality, loving relationships that bring your community together. Good people make good communities. Happy people make happy communities.

It is easy to get caught up in the fast pace of life. Chasing the next paycheck. Getting the kids to practice. Living in the right house and driving the right car. But don’t let those things distract you from what you should focus your whole life on: Happiness.

Once again, here are the three things you can start doing right now to pursue Happiness and have a good life.

Focus everything in your life on Happiness. In the end, nothing else matters.

Develop great relationships at home, at work and in your community. That’s the key to financial, family and community success. Become a good person so you are worthy of great relationships.

Practice Love. Love is the foundation of great relationships. Practicing love changes you and others for the better.

So, what do you think?

What parts of your life are focused on Happiness?

What things in your life distract you from pursuing Happiness?

Who are the most important relationships in your life and why?

What are you doing today to build better relationships at work with co-workers and clients?

What are you doing today to practice love with your spouse and kids?

What have you done today to build good relationships with people in your community?

Please share your comments, questions and insights. And don’t forget to share us on social media with your friends!

In this blog, we’ll talk about the Meaning of Life, Happiness, what that means and what you can start doing right now to achieve it.

You can find a podcast version of this blog article on our website or iTunes.

If you want to dive in to the issue of leadership, you can get my book, “On Leadership, What’s Broken in Our Society and How We Fix It” on Amazon.com.

What is Happiness?

If you ask people what they want in life, they’ll almost always tell you that they want Happiness. Isn’t that what we all want? Isn’t the meaning of life Happiness? But that always gives rise to the next questions: What is happiness and how do we get it?

And that’s usually as far as we go in the discussion. Talking about what Happiness is and how we might achieve it gets too complicated too quickly. Is it about having money? How much money? Being healthy? Living a long time? Being with the person you love? Owning a Ferrari? The Dodgers finally winning a World Series? Are those the things that Happiness is about?

If you’ve had a few philosophy classes, the question of Happiness can get buried in all sorts of technical distinctions between happiness and joy and thriving and flourishing and whatever. A great topic for a few beers at the pub or a late-night dorm discussion gets quickly lost in philosophical technicalities.

Besides, who has time to think about happiness when we are struggling to make it to our next pay check, get the mortgage paid and get the kids from school to their sports practices. Most of us are too worried about keeping our jobs and getting our kids into college. Who has time to think about Happiness in life when we’re just trying to survive in life?

Life is complicated and high-speed and overwhelming. But we can fix that. What if we had a simple way of understanding the meaning of life—Happiness—and some straightforward strategies to get there? What if we could do things today that helped us be happy through the rest of our lives?

Let me tell you the story of a guy who grew up in southern California. A few people had put together a concept to make and sell high-quality baseball cards, but they needed some help. So, one of them brought in his high school buddy, Richard, as an investor and accountant.

Over the next 10 years, Richard built the company into a giant. He became a billionaire who also owned a charter jet company. Richard was a guy who had it all: business success. Fame. Boatloads of money. Airplanes and billionaire status.

But he died at the age of 59. Alcohol poisoning. He was suffering from addiction and alcohol dementia. In his climb to becoming a billionaire he had cheated partners and lost many of his old and close friends. He had destroyed most of the important relationships in his life. His billionaire status and business success did not prevent him from drinking himself to death, apparently deeply unhappy.

Let’s contrast that with the story of a woman from a small town in Alabama. She grew up in a simple house with perhaps three rooms. She left home at the age of 18 the day after her high school graduation. She moved to the state capital and found a job. Eventually she met the man who became her husband. He was moving from job to job, not making much money. They got married and he became a union tradesman Between the two of them, they made a modest living.

She had challenges in life. She lost her only son shortly after he was born. She raised her two daughters while her husband was away for long periods on construc...

In this blog, we are starting an ongoing discussion about leadership. First, we’ll talk about how fundamental leadership is in our lives. Then we’ll talk about definitions of leadership resulting in what I believe is the best definition of leadership. Finally, I am going to ask you to share your thoughts, experiences and questions about leadership. I want to hear what you think and why. This is a discussion, after all! Real talk about life.

You can find a podcast version of this blog article on our website or iTunes.

If you want to dive in to the issue of leadership, you can get my book, “On Leadership, What’s Broken in Our Society and How We Fix It” on Amazon.com.

Why Leadership is Important: Leadership and Life Are the Same

Leadership is very important for at least three reasons.

First, leadership is personal to all of us. You are a leader at work. You are a leader in your own family. And hopefully, you are leading your own life towards fulfillment and Happiness. If you are going to be successful in life, you must be a good leader in all these areas. Leadership isn’t something that someone else does. Leadership is something you do and experience every day.

Second, you are a citizen-leader. As Americans, we all have the responsibility for being leaders of our nation, states and local communities. Our Constitution begins with “We the people of the United States,” and Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address noted that we have a “government of the people, by the people and for the people.” You are a citizen-leader with the responsibility to choose the day-to-day leaders in our government. To choose good leaders, you must understand leadership.

Finally, leadership is at the very core of our society. It permeates every aspect of our lives. Every day, depending on the situation, we constantly trust the leadership of others and others trust our leadership.

At work, we trust that senior leaders keep things headed in the right direction while we lead our people and teams in our projects.

In our families, parents lead kids through the first 20 years of their kids’ lives and then the kids often lead their parents through the last 10 years of their parents lives.

Church ministers lead us through spiritual and life challenges.

Doctors, attorneys and bankers lead us through our health, legal and financial issues.

Teachers lead our communities and children in education

General contractors lead us through home renovation

The employees at Trader Joe’s help us find new trending foods and the Geek Squad leads us through the installation of our home theater systems.

Youth athletic coaches lead our kids in the development of teamwork, leadership and character. Or at least we hope they do.

When you think about it, leadership goes on all around us all the time. It is the most basic of human relationships. Leadership has been around since the first time one human guided or taught another.

Leadership is pervasive to our human experience. It permeates every aspect of life. Our personal and professional lives are full of relationships where we trust the leadership of others and they trust our leadership.

Our society depends on billions of these leadership-trust relationships every day. Without them, our society would collapse quickly. Think about some of the areas where we take leadership for granted:

Law

Banking and Finance

Agriculture and Food

Construction and Engineering

Health care

Government

Military

Education

Logistics

Infrastructure (water, roads, electrical)

Computing Systems and Information Technology

Social and Cultural Affairs

In so many ways, leadership and life are the same thing.

Another way to consider the impact of leadership in our lives is when we encounter poor leadership. What happens and how do you feel when a mechanic or home contractor rips you off? You are supposed to be able to trust their leadership in auto repair or home renovation, but when they show poor leadership, it costs you time, money, trust and anxiety.

Finally, it is important to remember that each one of us is a leader every day. We lead good families. We are leaders in our professions. We are citizen leaders. We strive to lead good lives to achieve fulfillment and Happiness. And hopefully, we lead others to goodness by our example.

Leadership Definitions--Influence

I’ve been teaching leadership for more than 25 years. Over that time, I have had many conversations about the definition of leadership. A conversation I once had with a sharp guy named Chris captures the essence of many of those discussions. It went something like this:

Chris started off by defining leadership as “an influence relationship between people with shared goals.”

I asked Chris, “Can an influence relationship include negative influences—like force or coercion? For example, imagine that a bank robber puts a gun to the head of the bank manager and tells the bank manager to lead him to the vault. Is that leadership?”

“No,” Chris responded, “That isn’t leadership because it involves coercion or force or threat. The robber is threatening the manager.”

“So,” I said, “Is the simple phrasing that I used—the bank teller led the robber to the vault—is that wrong? That’s how we use the word “led” or “lead” in real life. Shouldn’t our definition of leadership be consistent with common use of the term?”

“No,” Chris said, thinking. “Real leadership is a different thing.”

“How about at a higher level?” I asked. “Historians talk about Hitler as the leader of Germany in World War II and Saddam Hussein as the leader of Iraq in the 1990’s. But they used force and coercion and threats. Were they not leaders even though they were called leaders?”

“Not really,” Chris said. “Real leadership only occurs when its positive influence.”

“How about Julius Caesar as he led the Romans in conquering Gaul? Or Lord Nelson as he led the British fleet in his huge victory in the naval battle at Trafalgar? Many of their soldiers and sailors were led using coercion and threat. If a person disobeyed, they might be flogged or killed. Are we really claiming that Caesar and Lord Nelson were not leaders?”

Some Institutional Definitions of Leadership

Let’s consider a couple of institutional definitions of leadership.

One institution defines leadership as “The art, science, or gift by which a person is enabled and privileged to direct the thoughts, plans, and actions of others in such a manner as to obtain and command their obedience, their confidence, their respect, and their loyal cooperation.”

After you’ve read that, can you repeat the key points? Probably not. It’s a pretty complicated definition.

Another institution defines leadership as “The art of influencing and directing people to accomplish the mission.”

There are several challenges with these and other definitions of leadership.

First, the lack of a commonly-held definition of leadership is a big indicator that leadership studies are a mess in our nation. Think about it. We can’t even agree about what we are talking about. Huge problem. That is the subject of a future podcast.

Second, these definitions are too complicated. Leadership is something that happens all the time in life. If the definition of leadership is too complicated, we’ll never remember it or use it.

Third, I think all this talk about “influence relationships” takes us the wrong direction. “Influence” means that you have an effect on someone or something. I can think of many influences in my life that have nothing to do with leadership. For example, the presence of certain people has negative effects on my mood. Their presence influences my mood. But I would never think of that as leadership.

Finally, “influence” is associated with the idea that a leader can only use positive motivation to get another person to follow. It’s the idea that if there is some negative motivation—like force or coercion—then whatever is going on is not leadership.

As mentioned above, that goes against the common-sense and everyday use of the words “leadership” or “led” or “lead”—like “the bank teller led the bank robber to the vault”. And that definition would have us rejecting people, as leaders, who are commonly called leaders—whether they are Saddam Hussein or Julius Caesar. I think that is a major weakness.

The Best Definition of Leadership: One Providing Guidance to Another

And that brings us to the last point. Our definition of leadership is going to be most effective if it aligns with the common, everyday use of the word “lead”. The best definition of leadership is straightforward and simple. Something that ties to and can be used in everyday life.

The best definition of leadership is “One providing guidance to another.”

A definition so simple that you can teach it to your kids. It is fully consistent with how we use leadership words in our everyday language. And the definition, “one providing guidance to another”, also captures all the different leadership relationships that permeate every aspect of our lives.

Finally, and this is very important, let’s remember that when we define leadership as “one providing guidance to another”, that other is often us. We are supposed to control ourselves—to lead ourselves. Perhaps the most important leadership relationship in our lives is the one that goes on inside each of us.

Last night I woke up hungry at 3am, opened the refrigerator and found a dessert. One part of me really wanted to eat that dessert. Another part of me pointed out that late night snacks are unhealthy. Which guidance do I follow?

Wrap-Up

The purpose of our blog discussions is to help you become more successful as a leader at work, a leader at home, a leader in our community, and to lead a fulfilled and happy life.

We are all involved in leadership relationships in every aspect of our lives. Our society depends on good leadership relations

In this blog, we are starting an ongoing discussion about leadership. First, we’ll talk about how fundamental leadership is in our lives. Then we’ll talk about definitions of leadership resulting in what I believe is the best definition of leadership. Finally, I am going to ask you to share your thoughts, experiences and questions about leadership. I want to hear what you think and why. This is a discussion, after all! Real talk about life.

You can find a podcast version of this blog article on our website or iTunes.

If you want to dive in to the issue of leadership, you can get my book, “On Leadership, What’s Broken in Our Society and How We Fix It” on Amazon.com.

Why Leadership is Important: Leadership and Life Are the Same

Leadership is very important for at least three reasons.

First, leadership is personal to all of us. You are a leader at work. You are a leader in your own family. And hopefully, you are leading your own life towards fulfillment and Happiness. If you are going to be successful in life, you must be a good leader in all these areas. Leadership isn’t something that someone else does. Leadership is something you do and experience every day.

Second, you are a citizen-leader. As Americans, we all have the responsibility for being leaders of our nation, states and local communities. Our Constitution begins with “We the people of the United States,” and Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address noted that we have a “government of the people, by the people and for the people.” You are a citizen-leader with the responsibility to choose the day-to-day leaders in our government. To choose good leaders, you must understand leadership.

Finally, leadership is at the very core of our society. It permeates every aspect of our lives. Every day, depending on the situation, we constantly trust the leadership of others and others trust our leadership.

At work, we trust that senior leaders keep things headed in the right direction while we lead our people and teams in our projects.

In our families, parents lead kids through the first 20 years of their kids’ lives and then the kids often lead their parents through the last 10 years of their parents lives.

Church ministers lead us through spiritual and life challenges.

Doctors, attorneys and bankers lead us through our health, legal and financial issues.

Teachers lead our communities and children in education

General contractors lead us through home renovation

The employees at Trader Joe’s help us find new trending foods and the Geek Squad leads us through the installation of our home theater systems.

Youth athletic coaches lead our kids in the development of teamwork, leadership and character. Or at least we hope they do.

When you think about it, leadership goes on all around us all the time. It is the most basic of human relationships. Leadership has been around since the first time one human guided or taught another.

Leadership is pervasive to our human experience. It permeates every aspect of life. Our personal and professional lives are full of relationships where we trust the leadership of others and they trust our leadership.

Our society depends on billions of these leadership-trust relationships every day. Without them, our society would collapse quickly. Think about some of the areas where we take leadership for granted:

* Law

* Banking and Finance