1001 Leadership Challenges

“Life is either a dar­ing adven­ture, or noth­ing at all.” — Helen Keller

I recent­ly had a con­ver­sa­tion with some­one about how the world is chang­ing so much; and how, in the place I live – Van­cou­ver, BC – the real estate prices are such that a fam­i­ly with dou­ble the aver­age house­hold income can no longer afford a sin­gle, fam­i­ly home – even in the suburbs.

My friend’s com­ment was that if they knew then, what they knew now, they may not have cho­sen to have kids because they’re con­cerned about how much those kids will struggle.

Oppo­site Thinking

As I heard the com­ment, I was think­ing almost the oppo­site: that this is a great time to be alive, and there are many great oppor­tu­ni­ties – if you are up for the chal­lenge, will­ing to do the work, and to stretch your capa­bil­i­ties. Although things may be more expen­sive and more chal­leng­ing – as in many cities around the world — the point is that you are either in one camp, or the oth­er. I’m in the ​‘it forces you to get stronger’ camp, and he’s in the ​‘it slow­ly destroys you’ camp.

A lot of this links back to Keep Going for It (Chap­ter 16) in my book Your Oxy­gen Mask First. If you keep learn­ing, grow­ing and stretch­ing, the next lead­er­ship chal­lenges that comes along are no big deal.

By default, I’m wired to think that almost any­thing is total­ly doable – and that chal­lenges are kind of fun. You can come across an obsta­cle and learn through it.

I’ve been explor­ing get­ting my pilot’s and heli­copter pilot’s license – both incred­i­bly hard to do. While I’m not sure I can find the time, I’m intrigued with the chal­lenge – and I know I can do either, if I set my mind to it.

“The hard truth about lead­er­ship? It either forces you to get stronger, or slow­ly destroys you.”

On reflec­tion, that quote is a great sum­ma­ry of every­thing I’ve learned about lead­er­ship over the past twen­ty plus years. Lead­er­ship — whether in busi­ness or the attempt to be great at any­thing — is an incred­i­ble cat­a­lyst for your own growth and devel­op­ment as a per­son. I’ve seen that, no mat­ter what the chal­lenge, if you com­mit to learn and grow through it, you can do any­thing. I prob­a­bly have thou­sands of exam­ples of peo­ple who have done so.

Because the truth is, if you want to be one of the snake charm­ers in India who catch­es and works with cobras, you need to be darn good – or you’re dead. The same thing holds true of a leader in a grow­ing organization.

(BTW, I was thrilled to hear that well-known supermodel/​author/​entrepreneur Kathy Ire­land shared that quote from my book on Twit­ter, a few weeks ago.)

Old Habits Die Hard

If you’re still going with old skill sets, chances are you also have out­dat­ed ways of think­ing. It just isn’t the same as when our par­ents grew up, when they were buy­ing a house. But if you con­tin­ue to come from that place, to use that as a com­par­i­son for suc­cess, you’ll con­tin­ue to be limited.

For those who embrace lead­er­ship chal­lenges, who con­tin­u­al­ly learn and improve skills sets and oper­at­ing sys­tems, it is a won­der­ful reward­ing jour­ney that forces you to learn and grow – and to thrive.

The biggest gift of all is that you get increas­ing­ly con­fi­dent and capable.

Once you have con­quered 1000 notable, dif­fer­ent chal­lenges, 1001 is nothing.

Speak Vol­umes

Straight-talk­ing, pas­sion­ate and ener­getic, Kevin is known for his invig­o­rat­ing pre­sen­ta­tions, packed with prac­ti­cal knowl­edge for lead­er­ship and life – and a lot of laughs.

Click here to find out more about invit­ing Kevin to speak at your next event. Your audi­ence will love him!