Leadership and Such

I work for my cousin, Christy, online. I don't know if I've mentioned that before. She runs a database/web design business out of her home, and when I graduated from college about a year ago, she offered me a job as her first part-time employee.

She didn't know what exactly she'd have me do, but she believed I could learn anything. As a result, I started to believe that I was capable of learning anything.

At first, I did some data entry for her. She lives in Houston, so we would have phone meetings or webcam meetings once a week or so, and she would teach me to do whatever it is she was currently working on.

Then, she taught me how to use QuickBooks, and I entered the hours into the program and learned some basic accounting.

During this first year of grad school, I barely worked for her a couple hours a month due to the insane amount of studying and teaching and grading and learning I was doing.

Having said that, however, on days when I felt like I couldn't possibly learn what I was being taught in Intermediate Analysis II, I would sit down at my laptop and do some work for Christy. It didn't matter that I'd never taken an accounting class. It didn't matter that I'd never been to a team meeting with a bunch of engineers discussing million dollar projects. It didn't matter that I live so far away from Christy that it's a good nine hour drive to get there.

Christy trained me and taught me how to do a specific task.

And I could do it.

Better yet, I got paid to do it!

Also, I understood what I was doing! …Something that very rarely happens when I’m trying to solve problems for my math grad classes.

Working with Christy has taught me a valuable lesson.

When Christy has an idea, she acts on it. She pursues it. She makes it happen. She takes initiative.

As a result, I have to try to follow her lead.

This summer, she said: “Ashley, I think I want you to work on my web page.”

“Oh Christy, I don’t really know anything about web design.”

“Well, I’ll just send you the program and the book. You can do the tutorials and teach yourself. I know a little; you can ask me for help if you need it. We can figure it out.”

“Okay. It might take me a while.”

“That’s fine. You’ll get the hang of it.”

This is what I’m talking about. Oftentimes, I don’t try to learn new things or jump into things I have no experience in whatsoever. I’m too afraid of failing.

Christy isn’t like that.

For Christmas my senior year of college, my Christmas present from she and her husband were two books.

Not fiction books.

Not fun books.

They gave me: 48 Days to the Work You Love and Dave Ramsey: Financial Peace Revisited.

Since then, every time Christy gives me a book to read for a bonus for work or to read with her business in mind, I’ve noticed a common theme.

I’ve read The Question Behind the Question, which was about avoiding procrastination and taking lead in the workplace.

I’ve read Who Moved My Cheese? This book was a parable teaching that we must adapt to change, not be paralyzed by it.

Last week, she told me to read Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us.

So I did. Next, I’m supposed to read Guerilla Marketing.

At some point, I’m supposed to read The Go-Getter.

I read a lot.

Anyway, while Tribes may have been my least favorite of my assigned reading, I stumbled across several poignant quotes.

I thought I’d share.

“Isaac Newton was totally, fantastically wrong about alchemy, the branch of science he spent most of his career on. He was as wrong as a scientist could be. And yet, he’s widely regarded as the most successful scientist and mathematician ever.

Steve Jobs was wrong about the Apple III, wrong about the Mac FX, wrong about the NeXT computer. Insanely wrong. You know the rest.

The secret of being wrong isn’t to avoid being wrong!
The secret is being willing to be wrong.
The secret is realizing that wrong isn’t fatal.
The only thing that makes people and organizations great is their willingness to be not great along the way. The desire to fail on the way to reaching a bigger goal is the untold secret of success.

. . .

The secret of leadership is simple: Do what you believe in. Paint a picture of the future. Go there.

People will follow.”

All of the books Christy has given me to read share this vision. The fear of failure is the only thing that stands in the way of following your dreams.

We may fail repeatedly. But if we never try to take a risk, if we never seek to better ourselves, we become . . . mediocre.

None of us want to be mediocre.

There was one other quote from Tribes that I wanted to share.

This section was titled “The Obligation.”

“Not too far from us, a few blocks away, there are kids without enough to eat and without parents who care. A little farther away, hours by plane, are people unable to reach their goals because they live in a community that just doesn’t have the infrastructure to support them. A bit farther away are people being brutally persecuted by their governments. And the world is filled with people who can’t go to high school, never mind college, and who certainly can’t spend their time focused on whether or not they get a good parking space at work.

And so, the obligation: don’t settle.

To have all these advantages, all this momentum, all these opportunities and then settle for mediocre and then defend the status quo and then worry about corporate politics—what a waste.
Flynn Berry wrote that you should never use the word “opportunity.” It’s not an opportunity, it’s an obligation.

I don’t think we have any choice. I think we have an obligation to change the rules, to raise the bar, to play a different game, and to play it better than anyone has any right to believe is possible.”

I agree with him. He’s completely right. Grad school is miserable; we all know how much I hate it. The reason I stay, though, is because I know I can finish. I know I can’t let the fear of failure defeat my dream of teaching college level math one day. Not only am I blessed enough to have the opportunity to attend grad school, I’ve been given the ability to go, and so for me, it has in a sense, become an obligation.

I have an obligation to be the best that I can be. I have an obligation to never settle for mediocre.

Why? Because there’s nothing standing in my way.

Nothing except excuses.

In working for my cousin, I have watched as she makes the best of every situation. If things in her business don’t go as planned, she adapts. She doesn’t whine. She doesn’t stop. She just adjusts her plans.

If she can dream it, she can do it.

She’s trying to teach me to do the same.

I’m not saying she has no fear; I’m saying she doesn’t let fear stop her.

And that line a few lines above this one? I didn’t make that up. I stole it from someone else.
Actually, two of my favorite quotes come from this same person.

1. “If you can dream it, you can do it.”
2. "It's kind of fun to do the impossible."

Do you know who said it?

Walt Disney.