Grady Sibert

Today I was looking through some old pictures and came across one of my sister and me on the ferry back from San Francisco. At the moment that picture was taken, there wasn’t anything happening that swung my emotion drastically enough in any direction to make a mark on the album of my life. 15 minutes later though was a different story and seeing this picture took me right back to that moment, the feelings I was having and what it meant… to me.
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Fear is a vital response to physical and emotional danger—if we didn’t feel it, we couldn’t protect ourselves from legitimate threats. But more often than not, fear arises from situations that are far from life-or-death. We fear looking bad, failing, being rejected, or we perceive ourselves as inadequate and thus hang back for no good reason.

It’s safe to say that we are our own worst critics. We all have that little voice in our head that wants to tell us we might fail, let others down and look foolish, always wanting to inject a bit of fear so we stay safe and within our comfort zone.

Here’s the thing: nothing extraordinary ever happens in our safe comfort zone. Tweet That
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The other day a friend sent me an infographic depicting the creative process. The graphic showed that the time spent on the creative process could be sliced five ways: 5% inspiration, 5% work, 30% binge eating, 30% discouraged napping and 30% random internet surfing. Although this graphic was created in jest, it doesn’t stray far from reality if my attention is left unmanaged.

I remember attending a conference during which one of the speakers said, “The difference between people that achieve their goals and the ones that don’t is the way they think and the way they spend their spare time.” There is certainly truth in that statement and it obviously resonated with me because I still remember it. Now, however, I would amend that statement to say “where they focus their attention” rather than “the way they spend their spare time.”
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Though ego is a strong temptress, people with humility are the ones we want to follow.

Unfortunately, American culture and academia do little to prepare us for a humble approach to leadership. On the contrary, people are encouraged to be aggressive, distinguish themselves and stand apart—things that read more like a list of antonyms for “humble.”

I’ve been in leadership roles since I was a teenager. I’ve studied and pontificated leadership in countless retreats and classes, and read more books on the subject than I can count. Yet only after enduring some rather horrific failures did I learn true humility… and leadership requires more humility than I ever imagined.
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I’m pretty sure I don’t hold the record for bad decision making but I’ve made enough, and caused enough damage with them that I had to take notice and try to understand what leads to up that moment… the bad decision.
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