BY EPOCH TIMES STAFF

“If the ruler loves his retainers and the people as his children, they, in turn, will think of the ruler as their parent. The principle underlying governance of a peaceful realm is compassion.”
 — Yamamoto Tsunetomo, “Hagakure”

“If your benevolence extends to the people, then wise men will take to you; if your benevolence reaches all creatures, then sages will take to you. If wise men take to you, your country will be strong; if sages take to you, the whole world will be united.”
 — Huang Shigong, “Three Strategies”

“Integrity and firmness is all I can promise — these, be the voyage long or short; never shall forsake me although I may be deserted by all men. For of the consolations which are to be derived from these (under any circumstances) the world cannot deprive me.”
 — George Washington, writing to his friend Henry Knox, as he traveled to his first inauguration as president of the United States

“Do I not destroy my enemies when I make them my friends?”
 — Abraham Lincoln

“When there is so much to be done for yourself, your family, and your country, be up by peep of day! Let not the sun look down and say, ‘Inglorious here he lies!’”
 — Benjamin Franklin

“Happiness is not fame, or riches, or heroic virtues, but a state that will inspire posterity to think, in reflecting upon our life, that it was the life that they would wish to live.”
 — Herodotus

“I count him braver who overcomes his desires than him who conquers his enemies; for the hardest victory is over self.”
 — Aristotle

“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.”
 — Aristotle

“Our greatest glory is not in never failing, but in rising every time we fall.”
 — Confucius

“When people are entering a war, they do things the wrong way around. First, they take action, and it is only when they have suffered that they begin to think.”
 — Thucydides

To put the world in order, we must first put the nation in order; to put the nation in order, we must first put the family in order; to put the family in order; we must first cultivate our personal life; we must first set our hearts right.”
 — Confucius

“That … is the road to the obedience of compulsion. But there is a shorter way to a nobler goal, the obedience of the will. When the interests of mankind are at stake, they will obey with joy the man whom they believe to be wiser than themselves. You may prove this on all sides: you may see how the sick man will beg the doctor to tell him what he ought to do, how a whole ship’s company will listen to the pilot.”
 — Xenophon, Cyropaedia, book 1, chapter 6

“If the campaign is in summer the general must show himself greedy for his share of the sun and the heat, and in winter for the cold and the frost, and in all labours for toil and fatigue. This will help to make him beloved of his followers.”
 — Xenophon, Cyropaedia, book 1, chapter 6

“What you leave behind is not what is engraved in stone monuments, but what is woven into the lives of others.”
 — Pericles

“Day by day, what you choose, what you think, and what you do is who you become.”
 — Heraclitus

“Few men have virtue to withstand the highest bidder.”
 — George Washington

“Discipline is the soul of an army. It makes small numbers formidable; procures success to the weak, and esteem to all.”
 — George Washington

“Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.”
 — Abraham Lincoln

“He who exercises government by means of his virtue may be compared to the north polar star, which keeps its place and all the stars turn towards it.”
 — Confucius

“Most powerful is he who has himself in his own power.”
 — Seneca

“Difficulties strengthen the mind as labor does the body.”
 — Seneca

“Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be. Be one.”
 — Marcus Aurelius

Chris Erickson

This is the second article in a five-part series on the “Special Operations Forces Truths.” The SOF Truths are five rules that are utilized as a guide for Special Operations units for strategic planning and vision. However, successful Special Operations soldiers also leverage these rules at an individual level in their own day-to-day activities.

Now, as more highly experienced and combat-tested SOF veterans are entering the business world than ever before, these five simple rules are being leveraged as force multipliers by leaders of cutting-edge industries to grow their people in a deliberate manner, on both a professional and a personal level.

If you or your organization is interested in becoming more agile, responsive, proactive, and effective than ever before, these are the Truths for you.

The first thing we need to commit to before discussing the second SOF Truth is the existence of objective truths themselves. While society likes to pretend that equality of outcome is the same thing as equality of opportunity, the simple fact is that these are two very different concepts. Just because you want to do something, doesn’t mean you will be able to achieve it.

You are going to have people in your organization who may be committed to the mission, but they may not be up to the task. No matter how massive your team or organization is, sheer numbers alone are not enough to guarantee a lasting success. However, a small group of highly motivated and proficient people can accomplish amazing things in the face of overwhelming odds.

So what is the second SOF Truth? In just five words, it explains why most people wash out in Hell Week and never become Navy SEALs: “Quality is better than quantity.”

That’s what makes Special Forces special: Not everybody has what it takes to earn their Green Beret, but the ones who earn it are the top one-tenth of the top 1 percent.

This second SOF Truth is the thing to keep in mind when your organization decides that it is time to scale. Abandoning this universal truth at the time when its guidance is most important occurs when someone lets a sense of urgency override their rational mind.

Without the direct intercession of Lady Luck, sacrificing quality for quantity will inevitably lead to systemic failure. Panic is a poison; fear will cut deeper than any external force. You need to start off by choosing the right people and empowering them to achieve the pinnacle of their individual performance capabilities to ensure that they are ready when it is “go time.”

Twelve people who can’t get the job done correctly will just eat up your resources; a lean team of two high-performance team members will get the job done right on the assigned timeline, for the right price. The question is, are you willing to pay for quality? If not, just prepare to accept bargain bin results. You need to be realistic about your performance costs.

The last thing I want to do is cause paralysis by analysis. I am not trying to de-legitimize another important, if unofficial, commandment in the military: “Speed is security.” Being fast and agile is indeed an asset, especially if your company is in start-up mode.

Facebook famously weaponized the mantra “Move fast and break things” when it was going through its first initial expansions. At that time, it was trying to both penetrate and dominate an emerging space, where the rules were being written on the fly. Waiting to make sure everything was absolutely perfect would have allowed a competitor to come in and steal their momentum, potentially seating someone other than Mark Zuckerberg on the throne of “Emperor of Screens.”

Sometimes, being the first to market is the greatest piece of leverage to have. However, you need to have an honest conversation about whether your vertical allows for beta testing, or will the rollout of a partially developed concept put your idea in the ground?

If you are in start-up or expansion mode, focus on the quality of your team. A small team of motivated and talented people will allow you to get ideas off the ground rapidly and into the marketplace. A large team of marginally talented and motivated people might be able to get the gears moving, but are they going to be able to course-correct on the fly, or are they just apathetic line items on your payroll?

It doesn’t matter what your industry is, or even what your position is. The best thing to build your foundation on, as both an individual and an organization, is an unwavering commitment to ensuring that your standards and your expectations are unquestionable. To be blunt, a compromise here is an infallible indicator that you do not deserve the success you likely feel entitled to.

Focus on being better every day and never be afraid to expect the same from those around you. Negative thinking and apathy spread in the same way that any other virus does. Keep your organization healthy by refusing to compromise on “The Standard.”

A final key consideration: High-quality people, those desirable top performers, are an extremely limited resource. When your organization is committed to creating a culture of excellence, it doesn’t have to be a non-renewable resource. However, quality people cannot be mass produced; we’ll discuss this next with SOF Truth №3: “Special Operations Forces cannot be mass produced.

Chris Erickson

• Your company is downsizing.
• Your marriage is disintegrating.
• Your startup is failing.
• Your doctor’s office is calling.

What if I told you that this was actually the time to be afraid?

What if I told you that fear was a choice that you could either make for yourself or have made for you?

The truth is, it’s not about learning how to live a life without fear or even necessarily about figuring out how to “master your fear.” Those are both fine sentiments if you’re writing an origin story for a comic book hero, but that isn’t how real life works.

Fear exists, but it’s only when you give it control over you that it becomes destructive.

When Pope St. John Paul II famously said, “Be not afraid,” during his inaugural homily, after having become the head of the Catholic Church, he wasn’t telling us to somehow eradicate fear from our lives. He was calling us to a higher level of awareness, one in which we don’t submit to fear as the ruler of our lives.

You can’t eliminate fear from your life out of sheer force of will; however, we are called to resist it. That is what courage is: feeling fear and choosing to act boldly despite its presence.

As the author and motivational speaker Jack Canfield said: “Everything you want is on the other side of fear.”

Preparing for Panic

The entire premise of the old U.S. Army Survival Field Manual was built around an acronym of the keyword SURVIVAL.

For the first “V,” the survival action was “Vanquish Fear and Panic.”

According to the manual: “The greatest enemies in a combat survival-and-evasion situation are fear and panic. If uncontrolled, they can destroy your ability to make an intelligent decision. They may cause you to react to your feelings and imagination rather than to your situation. These emotions can drain your energy and thereby cause other negative emotions. Previous survival and evasion training and self-confidence will enable you to vanquish fear and panic.”

If fear is the brute that knocks you to the ground and stuns you, it’s panic that will sit gently on your chest and finish you off with a smile.

People often talk of the fight-or-flight response, but often forget the other reaction: freeze. In the military, you saw this occur quite often in people who had not been exposed to frequent and realistic training to prepare them for the overwhelming experience that is the chaos of combat.

When someone is suddenly put face-to-face with dangerous and complex situations, it’s a natural reaction to freeze up. Panic doesn’t always lead to frenzied actions; it quite often leads to the full arrest of any and all action. And this is the worst position to find yourself in, immobile and completely vulnerable. If one is unable to snap out of it and take immediate action, hesitation turns into time dilation, during which inaction causes the previously intangible fear to manifest itself, making your panic real.

Stress isn’t something to be eliminated completely from our lives; stress-free lives create people who can’t function and make intelligent decisions when real-life comes knocking. Obviously, it’s destructive when there are excessive levels of stress in our life. However, when there is no stress in our lives, we never learn to test our limits and improve ourselves. We build up our mental resiliency the same way we build up our muscles; where there is no stress, there is no growth, and we soon lose our ability to flex under pressure.

We must take calculated risks that put us in uncomfortable situations and expose us to stressful situations. This allows us to cultivate experiences in which we learn to operate outside of the vacuums of false peace and security.

In the Army Special Forces regiment, the requirements for training were that it be realistic, demanding, and challenging. By forcing the nation’s most elite warriors to master the basics while their heart rates are elevated and their bloodstreams are full of cortisol and adrenaline, they are truly forged into the masters of chaos.

While your business can’t replicate the life-and-death realities of the battlefield, the same principles can apply to learning how to act decisively and effectively in the face of the unknown.

Learn to Confront Fear

“Stop and take a deep breath” is solid advice when you find yourself in a situation where fear is setting in. If you can control your breathing, you can control your fear and hold off panic until you are able to make an intelligent decision about what course of action to take.

If you want to learn how to confront fear and keep it from derailing you, you need to train yourself to do so. If you stay in your comfort zone, you’re going to freeze up when you get dumped out of it.

Learn the basics of the jobs of those who work for you and adjacent to you, so if they’re suddenly out of the picture, you can at least perform some triage until a solution can be found. Learn how those above you look at things and do their jobs, so your entire organization doesn’t have a single point of failure. Push yourself to develop professionally and personally, so you’re always growing.

As McDonald’s founder Ray Kroc once said, “As long as you’re green, you’re growing. As soon as you’re ripe, you start to rot.”

You should always be trying to improve your performance, both intellectually and physically. Being in shape will help your physical reactions to stressors; being mentally sharp will help your psychological reactions to fear.

BY SCOTT MANN, ROOFTOP LEADERSHIP TRAINING

I have a friend, Greg, who is the CEO of a wealth management company in New York City. He’s also a former Marine infantryman. About a year ago, Greg decided he wanted to foster a high-performance culture within his company.

He could see the changes happening in our economy and he knew his company would have to play at their highest game if they were going to lead the industry through these turbulent times and thrive on the other side of it.

To do this, Greg had to create changes in his company culture. The New York City market environment can be pretty cutthroat and individualism often trumps the day. What Greg wanted to build was the same high-performance culture that he had learned in the Marine Corps that was all about the team before self, protecting people’s dreams, and fighting for others. He knew he had to inculcate that culture in his people.

Greg needed a strong leadership philosophy to pull this off. So I told him a story about one of my favorite group commanders in Special Forces in the 7th Special Forces Group (Airborne) back in the mid-’90s named Colonel Ed Phillips. Big Ed, as we called him, was a tall, lanky, six foot four Green Beret. He was very congenial, easy to talk to, but trust me, you never wanted to mistake his kindness for weakness. This guy was all business.

Big Ed’s leadership philosophy was that he believed his Green Beret A-Teams down in Central and South America should absolutely go local in the sense that they should immerse and build relationships and connect with the locals in that area. He was adamant about getting as indigenous as we possibly could, to speak the language, to know the culture at a micro level.

He also expected us to know the people, their family members’ names, the names and birthdays of their kids, and when one’s wife was pregnant. He called our Special Forces Group the ‘Family Business’, and he expected us to run it that way.

He also expected us to fail at times. He wanted us to dare greatly. He wanted us to push the envelope because that’s what Green Berets do.

I knew all of that because Big Ed put it in the leadership philosophy he shared with us as soon as we arrived in the unit. The first thing we did as new arrivals were read Big Ed’s leadership philosophy. It was required.

As I continued my career, I saw leaders — good and bad — who had a leadership philosophy. It was something I started to do myself. I saw the value in it because it shares who you are, why you’re there, and where you’re going, giving everyone a united sense of clarity.

Greg developed a leadership philosophy for his company and now whenever new people get hired, they have to read it. Whenever he does an all-hands, he references that leadership philosophy. Whenever he does a training program, he trues back to it. When he sits down and does end-of-year bonuses and talks to his people about where they’re going and how they’re doing on an individual level, he references the leadership philosophy.

It becomes a leadership anchor point for where you’re driving your organization to go, whether it’s a nonprofit, or a mid-level management position in corporate America, or it’s your own business. Sharing your leadership philosophy is such a powerful thing and your people deserve it.

When you write your leadership philosophy, tell your people who you are. What makes you tick? What do you stand for? What don’t you stand for? Who do you work with? Who do you not work with? What are the things that matter to you the most regarding the path of your organization? What’s your ethos?

Now, why do you do what you do? Why did you found this company? Why do you show up to work every day? Where do those leader attributes come from in your life? Why is it important to you to lead? It’s so critical that we know why. Simon Sinek is right, “People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it.” Humans are meaning-seeking creatures, so tell us why you do what you do, and we’ll be more likely to follow you.

If your organization is a vessel, where are you going? Remember, as the leader you need to have a crystal-clear vision of a better world that doesn’t yet exist. You’ve got to take that blank canvas of organizational vision and, through the power of narrative, human connection, and storytelling, paint a picture of what that future looks like. As you do it, you have to help me as the associate see how I can be the hero of that journey. Then, and only then, will I emotionally connect to it.

When you manage to do this, I’ll fight for your vision. I’ll fight for your story. I’ll tell your story better than you do when you’re not around. I believe those are some of the strongest metrics for letting leaders know that they have built a high-performing culture.

Get started on change now. Go somewhere quiet and do the work. Reflect. Write your leadership philosophy down on paper. Share it with the relevant people in your organization. Weave it into the culture. The things we learned about leadership philosophies in the military are just, if not more, relevant in what you do in your world.

Chris Erickson

In 1757, in the middle of the French and Indian War, Major Robert Rogers composed a list of 28 rules intended to serve as operational guidelines for his legendary and groundbreaking light infantry force, the original special operations unit known as “Rogers’ Rangers.”

These “Rules of Ranging” were a hybrid combination of Native American combat techniques and his own blend of guerrilla warfare, revolutionary in their own time and still a foundational element in special operations units such as the U.S. Army’s 75th Ranger Regiment.

This list of combat-proven knowledge isn’t just applicable to the battlefield. In this series, we will explore how you can adapt these strategies into your daily business life.

In this article, we are going to discuss:

1. Never compromise integrity
2. Keep diversifying
3. Tighten operational security

Rule 1: ‘All Rangers are subject to the rules of war’

Or ‘Never compromise your integrity.’

No matter what the latest repackaged “Art of War” is screaming at you from the business category on Amazon, your office job is not the same as warfighting. So I’m not going to insult you by implying that the “Rules of War” are directly translatable to what it is you do from 9 to 5. However, there are rules that apply to you in your industry, whether they are regulatory or ethical.

The legal rules tend to be pretty black and white; it’s your company’s code of conduct and your own internal moral compass that are often more complicated to apply evenly across the spectrum of what you’re doing on any given day.

It’s important to say that the rules of war aren’t disposed of when you find yourself going to war with an enemy that doesn’t follow them; what sets you apart from those types of opponents is an unwillingness to compromise your values in order to sink to their level. You must make this your everyday practice when it comes to both laws and regulations, as well as your own moral code.

Leaders need to be able to lead with authority, and nothing inspires more loyalty than being a leader who has a highly visible adherence to a moral code. You can’t expect more of your team than you demand of yourself. You may think they’re not paying attention to the small things when you find a quick and “harmless” shortcut, but rest assured that over a long enough timeline, they will. When that happens, ambiguity will spread like a cancer and rot your organization from the inside.

Rule 2: ‘In a small group, march in single file with enough space between so that one shot can’t pass through one man and kill a second.’

Or ‘Diversify or die.

Success breeds fragility, as defined by professor Nassim Nicholas Taleb in his book “Antifragile.” It’s easy to see a positive trend and fall in right behind it, following what appears to be a positive path that can only stretch forward to further success. Soon, we may align all of our assets into this column and become complacent with what is happening outside of our field of vision.

Never assume that the harvest of last year is due to you this year, and never get so comfortable that you become complacent. There’s a reason why advice like never putting all your eggs in one basket is timeless: When you allow success to make you susceptible to catastrophe, you have written the story of your own defeat in the blood of those who look to you for leadership.

If your entire business balances on one client, you’re completely and utterly susceptible to the whims and budgets of that client. If you grow comfortable with your cash flow and neglect the new business pipeline, you’re foolishly vulnerable to outside forces. This principle extends to your team members and the technology you use. You’re grouping your entire organization around a single element and, therefore, building a single point of failure into the framework and foundation of the organization. You’re hardcoding failure and fragility into everything you do.

Stop. Think. Spread out your personnel and forces. Don’t allow a single bullet to take out your entire team.

Rule 3: ‘Marching over soft ground should be done abreast, making tracking difficult. At night, keep half your force awake while half sleeps.’

Or ‘Operational security, at all times.’

One of the most shocking things for me entering the corporate world after serving on several Special Forces teams was how lax many organizations in highly competitive industries were with information about their operations.

It doesn’t take industrial espionage to sabotage a company, just poor operation security. In World War II, the posters warned us that “Loose Lips Sink Ships” and that’s just as true today as it was then.

Operational Security, or OPSEC as we called it in the military, should be a part of your organizational culture, from the bottom to the top. Simple things such as reminding people not to discuss projects or clients in the elevator or at lunch reduce the amount of exposure and risk of compromise for both yourself and your stakeholders. It’s far less likely that nefarious agents or bad actors are going to give up sensitive information than the possibility you’ll be compromised by the careless and/or reckless behavior of your employees.

Chris Erickson

On May 20, 1521, a young Spanish man named Íñigo López de Loyola was struck in both legs by a ricocheting enemy cannonball, with one leg horrifically shattered, during the Battle of Pampeluna.

In an age before anesthetics, he underwent multiple surgeries in an attempt to save his life and avoid amputation.

After a miraculous recovery, during which his doctors had told him to prepare for death, he began his lengthy and painful rehabilitation. Essentially bedridden, the young man spent his time reading; the books he had to choose from were mostly religious in nature. Undergoing a radical conversion, this young man went on to dedicate his life to God, eventually becoming the priest who founded the religious order commonly known as the Jesuits.

Now venerated by Catholics all over the world as Saint Ignatius of Loyola, his intellectual legacy is one that still offers richness and depth today, even in an increasingly secular world.

One of the foundational elements of Ignatian spirituality is what is commonly known as “the Daily Examen,” a way for practitioners to review their day in an enlightening way and to resolve to make their next one better. The good news is that this Christian spiritual practice is immensely valuable for everyone, regardless of their faith background.

The original form of the Daily Examen consists of five parts:

1. Become aware of God’s presence.
2. Review the day with gratitude.
3. Pay attention to your emotions.
4. Choose one feature of the day and pray from it.
5. Look toward tomorrow.

With just a slight adaptation, you can bring this medieval practice into your modern professional life and reap the rewards in your personal life as well.

After Action Review

The first step is to dedicate daily calendar space to conducting an “After Action Review.” When your day is ended, you have to commit to setting aside time to reflect on the events of your day; it’s impossible to improve if you don’t even know how far you’ve come or what direction you’re heading. In the military, we called it making an azimuth check: You have to periodically stop and check that you’re still on the right course.

First, begin by finding what is good, true, and beautiful in your day:

Where did you find happiness and contentment? Try to look at it from 30,000 feet; your goal should be to look at the day from beyond just your perspective. Think about the big picture and what really mattered. What are the things that impact more than just the immediate moment? Try to think about how the events of your day will matter 50 years after you die. Be honest. Will they?

Next, focus on the reality that, good or bad, every day that we wake up and get another shot at life is a gift.

Whether you found success or struggle in your day, you have been given opportunities to learn and grow. Learning to accept and be grateful for the challenges you have been given will allow you to develop into something better than you were the day before, if you are open and willing to these opportunities.

Third, review your day and all the actions that you took, no matter how minor.

For each occasion and instance, ask yourself which actions you would do over and exactly what changes you would make. You’re not trying to dwell in the past and dwell upon things that you can’t change; the goal is to learn and “war game” things in your head to train yourself to apply these lessons learned in the future.

Next is the most difficult step: facing your shortcomings.

One important quality for any leader is to be radically courageous when it comes to one’s morality. You have to extend this fierce honesty to looking in the mirror if you want to identify what habits and tendencies are working against you.

• At what points during the day did you feel most aligned with the best parts of yourself?
• At which points did you feel that you were lacking?

Then, while considering both sides of this coin, examine how the entire process of your shortcomings play out. Rerun the situation in your head and notice all of your decision points and what drove you to make them. Identify them and get comfortable spending some time in them; you’re just seeking to understand, not to come up with a comprehensive action plan.

Finally, look toward tomorrow.

• How can you make the changes you want to see in your life?
• How can you sustain and increase the positive parts of your day?

To utilize a cliched bit of advice, remember self-improvement isn’t a sprint; it’s a marathon. Know your big picture goals, but focus on the essential steps and elements that it will take to reach them; you have to begin by focusing on those. Be brutally honest with yourself and assess how committed you are to achieving those goals and what you have actively done to make them a reality.

This is your moment in time to set the course for the rest of your life. The more frequently you do this, the easier and more natural it will become; that is the moment when you will almost effortlessly come to the realization that you are making true progress.

Chris Erickson

Commentary

Despite what you may think, the opposite of love is not simply hate; the true polar opposite of loving something is to be completely indifferent to it — to simply not care at all.

With hate, at least there’s an intensity and passion behind the feeling. Even if hate is the opposite emotion of love, you still have an action that requires you to exist in specific relation to something else. Indifference means that your passions and intellect reside on a completely different plane of existence. Things truly die when all memory of them is lost.

Hatred keeps things alive; indifference is annihilation.

In the “Summa Theologica,” St. Thomas Aquinas points out that love and hatred are both concupiscible passions, as they are both a yearning of the soul for good. In fact, as all emotions are caused by love, it’s indeed true that even hatred is caused by love. In fact, if we love something that is purely and truly good, we must hate what is evil and would seek to destroy it. However, simply loving good or hating evil isn’t always an act of pure goodness in and of itself; yet, passion is required for either.

Nothing great in all of history has ever been accomplished by men responding to life’s challenges in the same way that couples discuss where they want to go out to eat on a Tuesday evening: “Oh, I don’t care either way. It doesn’t matter to me.”

You have to make a choice. Then, you must be committed and passionately in love with your course of action.

In the first part of his epic novel “The Lord of the Rings,” J.R.R. Tolkien wrote that “All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.” We must make a choice; we can’t remain detached and have any hope of affecting change.

In an era where hours of mindless distractions are available at a touch of the supercomputer screens in our pockets, it’s more important than ever to cultivate our passions.

What’s Your Passion?

There’s a quote often misattributed to writer Chuck Bukowski that says, “Find what you love and let it kill you.” Regardless of the origin of this delightful turn of phrase, it does indeed carry within it a beautiful simplicity about what it means to be driven and passionate in the post-modern age.

We live in a time where people identify themselves by the goods they possess, rather than what they create or contribute. However, it’s impossible for any created good to be the source of our happiness. So then, to what should we turn?

The intellect of man has always been ordered to seek out what is universally true, and our wills have always sought out what is universally good. Therefore, the answer is to find what is true, good, and beautiful. To quote Aquinas again, “Man is not perfectly happy, so long as something remains for him to desire and seek.”

It’s been my experience that it’s not at all uncommon for someone to sleepwalk through life without true contemplation of what it is they’re seeking. They only know that they feel a general malaise about life. In short, they don’t have a passion; they don’t know what they’re living for. They’re drifting aimlessly on a becalmed sea.

Serving in the U.S. Army Special Forces Regiment during a time of war was in some ways a blessing for me as a young man, as it quickly helped me distill what really mattered, with a sense of urgency that one can only find in those moments of life and death. It was never enough to ask what you were living for, but instead, you had to look inside and ask yourself what exactly it was you were willing to die for. Combat was the furnace in which my passions were forged; however, gunfire and bombs aren’t required for you to find yours.

It’s amazing how quickly life comes into focus when you’re able to detach yourself from the rapid chaos of today’s modern life and evaluate what actually matters. Prioritization becomes easy when you’re willing to look at things from a perspective of eternity and the length of your earthly life.

• What stimulates you intellectually?
• What leaves you satisfied after a long day at work?

For me, I take pride in my work. I like being the best at what I do, and I enjoy being the person whom people can count on to complete a challenging task or solve an asymmetrical problem. I no longer perform my job with my body as my primary tool; I exercise my mind at work and make time every day to exercise my body in the gym or on the run.

The material commodity I prize most highly in my daily life is my calendar. My time is sacred; I don’t react kindly when it’s monopolized with agendaless meetings and committees that serve no greater purpose beyond simply having a meeting. I care about what I accomplish at the end of my day and don’t gracefully suffer those who monopolize my time for no other reason than to mark the passing of theirs.

I can’t imagine a reality where people could honestly measure their success by the volume of meetings they held and attended, yet all too often this seems to be the going performance indicator in the business world.

My secret to cultivating my passions is getting up early and hitting the gym. I pray the Rosary on my commute to get myself focused, and when I get to work, I get to work. I hit it hard and I do my best to do my best. And when I’m done at the office, I am done with the work I am on the payroll for. I don’t bring it home.

Not all of my passions pay a salary, and they’re just as important to me as my career.

By Chris Erickson

Be. Know. Do. These are three common words, but not just simple verbs in the proper context. Within them, you can discover and unwrap the entire leadership paradigm of the greatest fighting force on the planet, the U.S. Army.

Leaders can’t just hope to passively be an example of what they expect from their subordinates; they have to internalize what they demand from members of their team and live this out fully, completely, and publicly.

This is all about becoming the embodiment of both the core values expected from your team members and the values of your organization. This cannot be a mask you put on or a suit you wear. To employ another old adage, you have to be this person at all times, “even when no one is watching.” This is absolutely fundamental for a high-quality leader: the moral courage to do what is right, regardless of who’s watching or what’s happening.

There can be no room for moral cowardice or intellectual dishonesty at the top.

Be

What does the word “be” have to do with the paradigm of leadership? Is there anything deeper than a superficial and ultimately vapid definition such as “Be the change you want to see in the world”? I dare say that when it comes to leadership, you have to be willing to go beyond a motivational saying overlain on a stock photo hanging on your office wall.

Not only do you have to believe in yourself, your team, your organization, and your mission, somehow you also have to find a way to make others believe in you. How do you do this? Well, that’s the million dollar question, isn’t it?

Be a coach. Be a mentor. Be a cheerleader. Be a leader.

You have to be the expert; you have to be the standard bearer. When you’re not the expert or you make a mistake, what then? Be honest and own up to it. Be a person of integrity; that means you have to stick your word.

Be what you claim to be and do what you say you would. When you fall short, you need to have the courage to be open to criticism — even if it isn’t always constructive. Don’t view challenges as problems to be eliminated, but rather as opportunities to grow and overcome. Do what it takes to get the job done on time, without compromising your morals, ethics, or the law.

Above all, don’t be afraid to make a decision. Own your position and own your choices. Don’t retreat from the chaos, run into it. Leaders lead; sometimes that means “embracing the suck.”

Another life hack — or leader hack, if you will — is to pick a role model, a leader you aspire to be like. Strive toward the example he or she sets. To be honest, their public personas will likely be an idealistic version of reality, but all the better for you. Never set your goals so they are easily attainable. Otherwise, you’re not striving for greatness, you’re just treading water.

Know

Knowledge must be an absolute non-negotiable for yourself and for anyone you’re considering elevating to a leadership position inside your organization. Without this essential element, all leaders will lose any legitimacy they had in the eyes of those who should look to them for guidance. This is a universal truth; regardless of the time, place, or industry in question.

It’s easy to start off with authority that is granted by position alone, but that free ride will be short in duration if you don’t have the knowledge to inspire others to have faith in you as a leader.

Leaders are forged in the same flames in which they build their reputations — and reputations are always earned, never given away freely or bought for a high price. You must strive to earn a reputation as an expert in the space in which you are a leader.

You need to know the most minute nuances of your job, as well as having a working understanding of each of your subordinates assigned duties. This is the only way to instill the type of confidence that will empower you to motivate your team members when things are at their toughest. Anyone can give the illusion of being the captain of a ship in fair weather; it is what you do in the midst of a storm that will define who you are as a leader in the hearts and minds of those you are in charge of.

Don’t shy away from demonstrating your expertise when it is relevant and beneficial to your organization and industry. There is much to be said about being a “quiet professional,” but part of being in charge is being an articulate thought leader.

Refine your speaking and writing skills, then leverage them to benefit the organization and your team. This doesn’t mean changing your LinkedIn profile description to “thought leader and keynote speaker.” That is just shallow self-promotion; and trust me, your peers are laughing at you. Do the right thing by your team and your organization and you will reap the benefits; put yourself first and you will fall on your face over the long term.

Do

Do should be a “no-brainer,” but so many leaders fall short when it comes to what should be by now second-nature for any leader. First of all, learn to listen. Always. Be open 24/7, understand your team’s problems, and ask questions that will help them solve them. That’s how you empower future leaders.

Above all, always do what you say you are going to do. If you can’t do this, you have no business being a leader.

And lastly, always be early and never shy away from carrying more than your share of the workload. You have to be ready to take on the hard jobs and then do them well; you can’t do that if you can’t be on time, and no one will take you seriously if they notice you are carrying a lighter load. And, trust me, they will notice both of these things and it will cost you your legitimacy and authority faster than almost anything else.

Following the “Be, Know, Do” model will give you the courage to be the type of leader that always does what is right, regardless of consequence or circumstance. This paradigm will allow you to create a leadership profile that merges who you are and what you believe in, so that you can provide motivation, purpose, and the proper guidance for your team to achieve mission success.

BY SCOTT MANN, ROOFTOP LEADERSHIP TRAINING

Pins and needles. That’s exactly what I was feeling earlier this year when I launched Rooftop Leadership Mastery, my first online membership program. I speak and train on human connection in person all over the world, and I’ve seen people’s lives change dramatically for the better. But I had this reluctance to do something in the virtual world that I’ve been doing effectively in person for years.

So why in the world would I feel so nervous? What was going on?

Well, in one word, it’s called resistance.

As leaders, we face a multitude of enemies — the erosion of trust, distraction, disengagement from purpose, and anything that will put itself between you and the tracks you want to leave and the impact you want to make. But I believe resistance is the greatest enemy you will ever face in your quest to achieve something bigger than yourself.

Self-Sabotage

Resistance in its simplest form is self-sabotage. Steven Pressfield, my favorite author, wrote a book called “The War of Art.” In his book, he talks about the difficulties he experienced and the negative energy that came between him and his writing. This negative energy exists for all of us who are trying to make a difference.

It shows up in our lives when we’re close to a goal or beginning the journey to our goal. As you read this, many of you will instinctively know what I’m talking about. But now you have an edge. One of the most important things that you can do when you’re dealing with an enemy is to name it. If you don’t name your enemy, then you don’t know your enemy, and you can’t overcome your enemy. Go ahead and name the enemy most likely to trip you up in the new year.

One of the most profound things I have read by Pressfield was this: “Most of us have two lives. The life we live and the un-lived life within us. Between the two stands resistance.”

Have you ever brought home a treadmill and let it gather dust in the attic? Ever quit a diet? A course of yoga? A meditation practice? Have you ever wanted to be a parent, a doctor, an advocate for the weak and helpless? To run for office? Crusade for the planet?

Late at night, have you experienced a vision of the person you want to become? The work you could accomplish? The fully realized being you were meant to be? Are you a writer who doesn’t write? A painter who doesn’t paint? An entrepreneur who never starts a venture? Then you know what resistance is. It is self-generated and self-perpetuated.

So we’ve named our enemy, and we’ve defined it. You know it’s going to show up. You’re expecting it, waiting for it. Now what?

Goals

To begin to overcome resistance this coming year, reacquaint yourself with your goals. Reflect on the tracks that you want to leave behind and be remembered for. Do this frequently. This is your lifeline, your anchor, your checkpoint. As Zig Ziglar says: “Motivation doesn’t last for a long period of time. That’s why it’s like bathing: We recommend it daily.” So go back and reconnect to what you’re trying to achieve.

Now ask yourself how resistance has shown up in your life before. Maybe it’s overthinking a challenge or self-medicating when you feel stress. Maybe it’s “poor pitiful me” trips you go on when things go wrong, or putting blame on others. Maybe it’s just apathy and playing too many video games. Maybe it’s spending too much time lost on Instagram. How does resistance show up and take your knees out to prevent you from achieving your goals? And more importantly, how do you build a personal training regimen to overcome it?

Communicate the resistance you experience with your team, whether that is one person or 10. Let your teammates help you spot it and work through it. Good communication is being willing to be transparent, authentic, and vulnerable with your teammates. Rally together and push through resistance. Give everyone permission to call out when you appear to be “pulling back” from a goal. Come up with a strategy of overcoming resistance by working together by being honest with each other and then filling in each other’s gaps and playing to each other’s strengths and weaknesses. Hold each other accountable.

And when, as a team, you have won the battle against resistance … you’ll fight it again the next day. Don’t forget that. Pressfield reminds us that “the battle against resistance must be engaged anew every single day.” The battle must be re-engaged each morning by defining your relationship to practice. If you’re trying to lose weight, what is the relationship to practice and what work will you do? If you’re trying to launch a new product, what is the regimen that you will have to keep yourself on task? How will your team help you with that?

This is what professionals do. Amateurs will succumb to resistance over and over again, day in and day out. Pros recognize that they are going to face resistance every day and that they need countermoves to overcome it.

In 2019, let’s pursue, together, a movement to lead at a stronger level. Overcoming resistance is key to that.

BY JOSHUA PHILIPP

When I was a teenager, my grandfather, a captain in the Marines, told me a story about a general he met during the Vietnam War. When my grandfather went to meet this general, he found him making calls to save a group of Marines, after a rescue mission had turned into a full-scale battle.

The Marines have a creed to never abandon a fellow Marine, dead or alive. A group of Marines had been ambushed while trying to recover the bodies of another unit, and the next group that was sent in as reinforcements was also ambushed.

The general was desperately trying to save these young men. He turned to my grandfather with tears running down his cheeks and said, “My boys are dying out there.”

When my grandfather spoke of good leaders, this was often the anecdote he used.

A core trait of a good leader is to love the people you’re in charge of. The Han Dynasty text “Guiguzi” states, “One with talent but no kindness cannot command an army.”

How a leader regarded those in his charge was among the key traits that separated sage kings from tyrants. It was the virtue that determined whether a military leader cared about how his choices affected the well-being of his men, and whether a ruler cared about how a policy affected the everyday lives of his people.

In this same light, a boss can run an efficient and well-ordered company and still be hated by his employees. A man can have a well-ordered home and still be despised by his wife.

The reason is that being able to lead does not necessarily make someone a good leader. Efficiency, order, and even tangible results are not always the mark of a good leader. History is filled with great leaders who weren’t necessarily good men, and while their accomplishments might have been far-reaching, they left tainted legacies.

A Leader’s Compassion

In the early 1700s, Yamamoto Tsunetomo wrote in the “Hagakure,” a manual for the samurai, that “the reason why people still revere the sages of the three ancient kingdoms is because of the vastness and extent of their compassion.”

Tsunetomo said that he was aware of what constituted valor and wisdom, but he had only recently come to grasp what compassion was. He cited Tokugawa Ieyasu, the founder of the first Tokugawa shogunate of Japan, who stated: “If the ruler loves his retainers and the people as his children, they, in turn, will think of the ruler as their parent. The principle underlying governance of a peaceful realm is compassion.”

The ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle had similar views on leadership. In his “Nicomachean Ethics” from the mid-300s B.C., he referred to politics as the “supreme and most authoritative art” in the aspiration toward goodness.

Cultivation of Virtue

His views were based on the idea that moral goodness and the cultivation of virtue were the true sources of joy; and that in the context of politics, a true leader would embody traits of goodness and virtue, and would, in turn, nurture these values in his people. Politics was something done for the benefit of others, through the pursuit of virtue.

“The deviation from monarchy is tyranny, for both are forms of one-man rule, but there is the greatest difference between them: The tyrant looks to his own advantage; the king, to that of his subjects,” Aristotle wrote.

“For a man is not a king unless he is sufficient to himself and excels his subjects in all good things, and such a man needs nothing further. Therefore, he will not look to his own interests but to those of his subjects, for a king who is not like that would be a mere titular king.”

Aristotle added that tyranny was the opposite of this principle, since “the tyrant pursues his own good.”

As an example, we can look to the Chinese military classic “Tai Gong Six Secret Teachings” by Jiang Ziya. In it, King Wen, who founded the Zhou Dynasty, asks him how to administer a state where the ruler is honored and the people are content.

Jiang Ziya replied, “Just love the people.”

King Wen responded by asking what this meant in practice, and was given an explanation of principles that included protecting jobs, keeping taxes low, and, as a leader, avoiding acting out of self-interest and corruption.

“Thus, one who excels at administering a state governs the people as parents govern their beloved children or as an older brother acts towards his beloved younger brother,” Jiang Ziya said. “When they see their hunger and cold, they are troubled for them. When they see their labors and suffering, they grieve for them.”

Emperor T’ang of ancient China was said to embody these virtues. The ancient text “Huainanzi” described him thusly: “His virtue and kindness flowed everywhere, so that the oppressed and poor were relieved. He comforted those who mourned for the dead; he inquired after the sick and fed the orphan and the widow. The people clung to him with affection; his commands were readily obeyed in the country.”

Broadness of Mind

Benevolent leaders also possess a broadness of mind — the ability to see the bigger picture and to guide people along a road that leads them to the best outcome. This requires the consideration of multiple viewpoints, not taking the easy and comfortable path, while being thoughtful of the needs and wants of others.

Benevolence was seen as going hand in hand with governance, and this was a common theme across many cultures. Guidance on how to achieve this was outlined in many classic texts for leaders. “The Warrior’s Rule” by Tsugaru Kodo-shi states this plainly: “Civil administration consists of two things only: benevolence and governance. Benefits are bestowed by virtue of benevolence; regulations are established by governance. Then government is right.”

On Micromanaging

The ancients also warned against micromanagement and tyrannical control of individuals down to individual actions. In ancient China, the powers of the state didn’t stretch below the county level, and good leaders looked to the wisdom and insights of those around them to develop a broadness of mind.

The Confucian text “Kung Tzu Chia Yu” (“The School Sayings of Confucius”) states that “fish avoid streams with clear water; a man too judicious amasses no followers.” In this same light, those who micromanage and who are overly judgmental of minor flaws often find themselves without the loyalty and respect of those they’re in charge of.

American President and former Union Gen. Ulysses S. Grant showed his ability to leverage the individual insights of his men and their ability to improvise in strategy as the situation demanded. He stated, “I do not propose to lay down for you a plan of campaign, but simply to lay down the work it is desirable to have done and leave you free to exercise it in your own way.”

Wise Advice

It was also understood that to attract wise counsel, leaders needed to exercise good values and a love for their own people. The “Three Strategies” by Huang Shigong states: “If your benevolence extends to the people, then wise men will take to you; if your benevolence reaches all creatures, then sages will take to you. If wise men take to you, your country will be strong; if sages take to you, the whole world will be united.”

The purpose of wise counsel wasn’t for selfish aims, however. The “Three Strategies” notes that the goal is the goodness of the society itself.

It states: “Those who can help the world when in danger can thus establish peace in the world. Those who can eliminate the world’s anxieties can thus experience the world’s pleasures. Those who can save the world from calamity can thus obtain the blessings of the world.”