Half-Fullism

Barry Moltz has failed. More than once.

And he’s not afraid to tell you.

Of course, he’s had his share of success as well, but what makes his new book “Bounce” such an interesting and thought provoking read is his refreshing honesty.

What else would you expect from someone who’s already written a book called “You Need to be a Little Crazy”?

This honesty proves to be an effective way to present his keys to confidence building, as we “bounce” our way from one outcome, situation or event to another.

What are these keys? Barry organizes his book into 10 of them (called “building bands”), but there were 4 in particular that interested me the most:

• Developing Humility
• Channeling fear and making choices
• Less focus on events and more on process
• Using passion to keep up the good fight

As someone who is a great proponent of the role of humility in “Level 5” leadership as defined in the book “Good to Great”, Barry’s view was spot on. He writes:

“Humility reminds us to respect the power of our competitors, our customers, and how vastly complicated the business world can be. It’s like sailing on the ocean, riding the waves high, but respecting the power of nature, knowing that a storm can brew up at any moment with the power to set you off course or, worse, sink your boat”

Humility is about taking responsibility for our actions, but also realizing that our actions are taken within the context of forces that very often can be beyond our control. (the recent subprime mortgage mess is a very good example). Knowing this helps us bounce ahead when things don’t go our way as well as when they do.

As for fear, Barry believes (as I do) that it can actually be a good thing, because it’s an energy that can be channeled. The great term he uses is “teaching the butterflies to fly in formation”. Since fear can never be eliminated, why not use it? More than anything, we cannot let fear lead to paralysis. Most of the time, a deep breath and a step back will reveal that we always have choices, the “antidote to fear”, and those choices allow us to bounce once again.

Focusing on the processes that lead us to good or bad outcomes is another way to build resiliency and confidence, says Moltz. He believes we spend much too much time categorizing these events, and not enough time analyzing about how we got to those points. When I read this all I could keep thinking about was “It’s the journey, not the destination”. Because one man’s failure is another man’s success, understanding and learning from all of our past experiences is yet another way to bounce forward.

Lastly, there’s passion – the rocket fuel for fighting failure, and building lasting confidence. Barry calls it “the only thing that will bounce the businessperson off the bottom”. But we must understand where our passions come from, and if what we’re doing every day is in line with that passion. Granted this is something we’ve heard many times before, but in my view I can never hear it (or read it) enough, especially in this context.

In the end, to Barry it’s all about making better decisions – and the way to do that is to keep “bouncing”. We have to get into and stay in the game – we need to make choices, over and over again, with humility and passion, understanding and channeling our fears, and focusing on the journey instead of the destination.

I’ve always called this “a bias toward action”.

There’s certainly much more to this book than what I’ve presented here. Barry draws frequently from his own life experiences and learning, and those are the most effective passages. It is certainly not a “know it all” book, written more out of hubris than a desire to share hard earned knowledge. It’s not a bunch of happy faces wrapped around an “easy 5 step plan”.

Nope, it’s a very “grounded” approach – here’s someone who’s not afraid to admit he’s failed (and tell you why), or tell you what you might not want to hear in a self-help book. Or tell you that once you read the book, you should throw it away (yes, he really says this, but you’ll need to read the book to find out why).

In other words, it’s a book with a foundation in honest reality but yet ultimately optimistic about the human condition, and our ability to bounce.

Sounds a little like Half-Fullism Barry – welcome to the club!

Buy “Bounce” in my Amazon Store.

My usual routine on Saturday morning is to brew up a hot pot of coffee and sit down with the New York Times, and last Saturday was no exception.

I expected to find many articles dealing with the latest financial crisis, government bailout, and last Thursday’s vice-presidential debate, and I was not disappointed.

But I also found something that managed to put all of that news on my mental and emotional back burner, and refocused my attention in a more philosophical and spiritual way – back to the “secrets of life”.

I had written about what I thought was the core secret a few weeks ago – the concept of never growing up, and thus keeping our child-like wonder and amazement at the world around us.

While on one level I was satisfied that I had “nailed it”, something had been nagging at me of late – there was something missing in my formula to happiness and fulfillment, and what’s more, it was most “unchild-like”.

That something appeared on the pages of the New York Times. After reading this article, I am now prepared to amend my previous declaration.

The Real Secret of Life for me now reads:

“Never Grow Up, and Never Give Up”

Who was the inspiration for this amendment? A woman named Heba Said Ahmed.

Ms. Ahmed was the subject of the paper’s weekly feature called “The Saturday Profile”.

She recently won a Gold Medal for Egypt in power lifting during the recent Paralympic Games in Beijing, after being stricken with Polio as a child that left her without the use of her legs.

What struck me about her was her drive and determination to succeed, despite the many obstacles she faces in her home country. As the article explained:

“It is hard to overstate how different Ms. Ahmed is from many of those around her. It is all about attitude. Egypt is filled with people who face adversity, most often a function of poverty and systemic indifference. It is a class-based society with an unwritten contract that many people believe condemns them to live as they were born, poor and marginalized. There is a pervasive feeling of impotence, a collective belief that fighting back is futile.

But Ms. Ahmed never refers to fate; she talks about choices. She doesn’t talk about obstacles; she talks about challenges”

Living is challenging enough for those of us enough fortunate enough to live in societies that tend to be more open and optimistic about our individual chances for success, but for Ms. Ahmed, the bar is much, much higher.

But she’s clearing it, with room to spare. Because she refuses to give up, and give into all the preconceptions. “There’s no such thing as a handicap”, she says. “A handicap is in your thinking, or in your heart”.

In Egypt, “people tend to look away from disabled people, as if they are invisible. There is no such thing as access for them. The curbs are a foot high”. For Ms. Ahmed, these barriers are simply looked at as ways to strengthen her character for future challenges– because there is no way to go but forward.

Now that she’s won accolades abroad for her athletic feats, she’s thinking even bigger – marriage and family.

“I want to raise children and raise them well. I want them to be champions, too.”

After reading this inspiring (and life theory amending) article, I would not bet against her.

Thanks Ms. Ahmed, for reminding me that a child-like mindset must be matched with a grown-up will and inner strength.

“Never grow up, and Never give up”.

While on a brief vacation last week I saw this quote (on the back of an iced tea bottle cap) by Thomas Edison:

“Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed up in overalls and looks like work”

This immediately made me think of a corollary line that I read read in a book over 20 years ago:

“Life is hard”

That book was “The Road Less Traveled” by M. Scott Peck. It was the first “self-help” book I ever read.

I was in my mid-20s, and wondering why things weren’t coming easier for me in my first years out of college. I was adjusting to the realities of the business world, which were oh so different than the relative utopia of college.

When I mentioned this struggle to one of my friends he suggested the Peck book, I bought it, and then started reading it that same evening.

Grasping what was behind the “life is hard” premise took me a few pages, but it didn’t take me long to realize that life happiness and fulfillment must we worked at. Very diligently. Because there are so many forces out there that pull you the other way (probably generated by people who aren’t working on it very hard).

That message has stayed with me for these many years later, so when I saw the Edison quote I could immediately make a connection - we must always be willing to put on those overalls, roll up the sleeves, and work at our success.

For as I also have learned, the act of staying off that path of least resistance makes the net result that much sweeter, because of the challenge and reward of the journey.

Look at Mr. Edison -he didn’t turn out half bad, did he? Despite a multitude of failures. He loved the road not traveled, even if it hit a dead end.

He achieved the ultimate magic of that approach - the “hard work” melted away, and it simply became a satisfying way of life.

As he ended up saying, “I never did a day’s work in my life. It was all fun”.

Bingo. I need to buy myself a pair of overalls.

Every now and then I have a “gut check” with myself, making sure I still have the right tools in life’s toolbox.

This week was one of those times, helped by being held captive on transcon planes from NYC to LA and from LA to NYC, both within 24 hours of each other (don’t you love business trips like that?).

With an opportunity for some quiet reflection, I wanted to make sure the factors that had propelled me to this point in my life were still there in the forefront. Was I still being true to myself, in all my actions, deeds, and words? Was my foundation still intact?

My internal checklist has 10 items on it - I had refined them via a couple of blog posts in 2006 (and some great feedback from my readers). Here’s what I wrote about them back then:

Common Sense – The definition says it all: “Sound judgment not based on specialized knowledge”. It’s an innate logic barometer that guides me from situation to situation and counsels me from decision to decision.

Intellectual Curiosity – I’ve always had a huge appetite for learning, since I started reading encyclopedias when I was 3 (at least that’s what my mom tells me!). This curiosity has pushed me forward in opening up my world to new ideas and experiences. It also keeps me humble in a sense that there’s so much I DON’T know.

Passion - The best way to figure out the importance of this one is to recall a time in one’s life or career where it didn’t exist – that happened to me, and it’s like draining all the oil out of an engine and still trying to go 100 miles an hour. It’s not pretty, all the grinding and gnashing. Passion is the “oil” that keeps me going at peak performance.

Relentless Optimism - Yes, my glass is half full – I’ve also defined half-fullism as “dealing with the literal world in a favorable way”, and that really speaks to my viewpoint – I’m always trying to make lemonade out of lemons (without rose colored glasses).

Influential Mentor and/or Parent - The influence of my parents and a couple of key mentors have been invaluable to my personal and career development – my parents taught me the value of trust, and my two mentors taught me about business, leadership and optimism in two totally different ways, but both utterly valuable.

Love - When I think of love I can’t help but also think of those lines by Ewan McGregor in “Moulin Rouge” (one of my favorite musical movies)-“Love is a many splendored thing, Love lifts us up where we belong, All you need is Love!” In some respects it is indeed the only thing - while passion is the oil, love is the gas.

Good Moral Grounding - For me, the ability to make personal distinctions between right and wrong couldn’t happen without being properly grounded in moral principles - I was fortunate to get that from my family, and from the parochial education I received all the way through college.

Luck - I know one can “create” luck, or put oneself in a position to take advantage of luck, but it’s still luck. I had several instances where luck, fate, karma, or some similar phenomenon intervened and changed my life, mostly for the better (but sometimes not).

Integrity - The net result of the moral grounding, I always try to keep my my promises and fulfill my commitments- being trusted by others is one of the gifts I treasure the most.

Belief in Yourself - This is the foundation of all successes - a deep seeded confidence that someway, somehow you can get to where you want to go. For me, I always wanted to be a leader, and I kept at it knowing that if I was given that responsibility, I could do it and do it well. Fortunately I have been given that opportunity, and it’s been a great ride.

Am I still applying these “secrets” today? Generally, yes. Room for improvement? Always. Do I probably need to revisit this list more often? Absolutely, yes.

Not a bad way to spend downtime on an airplane!

How about you? What are your 10 secrets to success? Have you ever written them down? Believe me, it’s a great exercise.

Have a great weekend!

Yesterday I was thinking about what one of my old bosses called “the Six Most Important Words” - “I admit I made a mistake”. I mused about how hard it really is to utter them, or even think them. But it’s important that we do, because there is much to be gained from that first step. It led me to a post I made to Joyful Jubilant Learning back in 2007 about my personal approach to handling mistakes in a half full way. I repeat it here in the hope that it can help you too (in case you missed it the first time).

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As someone who is always trying to “deal with the literal world in a positive way“, I have come to really appreciate the mistakes I’ve made (and there have been plenty).

Now I’m sure your reaction to that is - “appreciate mistakes??” Sounds like an oxymoron, doesn’t it?

In my half-full world, the ability to take positive things out of the errors I make is critical to making my life’s journey a fulfilling one (and, in a more “ground level” way, my business career a successful one). I’ve found that there are four important steps I need to make to leverage those mistakes properly:

1. Acknowledgment
2. Correction
3. Learning
4. Rear View Mirror

Let’s take a closer look at these steps - first, there’s acknowledgment. The simple admission, to others and most importantly to yourself, that you made a mistake.

I remember back in 1999 and 2000 when I thought I was the best stock day trader in the world. I had an E-trade account and was wheeling and dealing like a Wall Street pro - or so I thought. When the tech bubble burst around that time I refused to believe I had erred by taking so many positions in risky dot-com companies. I didn’t bail out in time because I didn’t acknowledge my mistake. I was too proud to admit that day trading was something I shouldn’t be doing. I learned a valuable lesson from this - you have to have the self-awareness to know when you’ve made an error.

Next comes correction. After you’ve admitted a mistake it needs to be fixed. This one is most important in my business world. We provide a service, and sometimes we don’t get it right the first time. We have to quickly respond and get the customer happy. There’s a great silver lining to this, one that really contributes to the ultimate benefit of errors - it’s a documented fact that a customer who had a bad experience but it was fixed to their satisfaction is much more likely to be a loyal customer than someone who never had a problem.

Talk about making lemonade out of lemons! So once you know you’ve gone wrong, correct it as soon as you can.

Then there’s the learning that comes from mistakes. This always reminds me of that great saying “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it” by George Santayana. The lessons I’ve taken from my errors have been without a doubt the most valuable learnings of my life.

The biggest mistake I’ve made in my career, for example, was to decide to make a cross-country move to work for someone I was just not compatible with from a leader/manager standpoint. I’ve written in my blog about how I had to pull myself out of that situation to get my “mojo” back, but the other thing I took away from it were two great lessons - I was never going to put myself in that kind of work situation again, and better still, because of the mistake I now knew exactly the kind of leader I wanted to be and the kind of business environment I wanted to be in.

Yes, we have to learn from those mistakes we make, or we will indeed repeat them.

Lastly, while we need to take the time to reflect on the lessons from our mistakes, once that is done and we’ve absorbed the learning, we must let the mistake itself go, or what I call “put it in the rear view mirror“. Why? because if we don’t we can become paralyzed because of the fear of making another mistake. This isn’t the easiest thing to do sometimes - there have been occasions for me where I would be poised to do something and all of a sudden the memory of a past error (and its consequences) would flash in my head, and I would hesitate. Most of the time I can stifle it, but there are still occasions when I can’t.

But I try to learn from that too - it’s a constant and consistent desire that keeps driving me forward. I need to learn. I HAVE to learn.

I hope that this 4-step approach that’s come from my life experiences can help you with your learning too, and as you use them, be joyful, jubilant and brave!