Competition: Life Long Learning Experience…

When you were growing up in your town across the USA, they probably had all kinds of ways for you as a kid to learn about competition.

Was it the Spelling Bee?  The Debate team. The High School ball sports games, running track or swimming meets. Cheer competitions. Car racing. The neighborhood park “Art” & “Pottery” contest. The city Golf championship.

Before you headed out of your own household to universities or colleges in other states or joined up with our Armed Forces and were stationed overseas, you really thought you understood what competition was all about didn't you.

Or did you?

competition

com· pe· ti· tion ˌkäm-pə-ˈti-shən

Synonyms of competition

1: the act or process of competing

compete

com· pete kəm-ˈpēt

1: to strive consciously or unconsciously for an objective (such as position, profit, or a prize) : be in a state of rivalry

The fact that you were in competition with others for the best example of your intellect, or your strength or your speed or your accuracy or creativity would soon become more of a life question.

"Who shall I serve in my years ahead and trust to help me navigate the joys and sorrows of my life long journey?"

How will they provide me with the wisdom and the guidance to know what is the right decision to make at the right time?

Competition in life is unavoidable and you might wonder why some people “Win” on one day and not on another.  Was it luck?

Just ask anyone who has made it to a C-Suite at Headquarters, or “Hall of Fame” or other Museum of History and the people who excelled at their particular Profession, Sport or Craft or Exploration milestone.

Have you ever heard someone say in your long competitive life:  “It’s not about Winning and Losing it is about how you play the game”.

What does that really mean?  Is it about following the rules and playing with good manners or sportsmanship?

Competition is truly a life learning experience whether it played on the field, in the pool, on the mountain, on the ice rink, on the track, in the auditorium, on the stage, in the conference room or the ready room, face-to face or online, it does not really matter.

Some may say it was lots of Time and Practice.  Some may say it was a Miracle.

What shall you learn about Competition in your own life?

Some may say it was "My Destiny"...

Godspeed!

Reliable: A Leadership Life Pursuit...

If you were asked about some of the greatest “Leaders” you have ever experienced in your lifetime so far, what is the most important “adjective” you shall use to describe them?

At an early age, perhaps they were teachers or coaches in your schools or sports teams  growing up.  They were always on-time and reinforcing several key attributes in life such as hard work, telling the truth or following the rules.

As you were just gaining experience in the work force in your mid-twenties, maybe you found bosses who focused on other key adjectives.

What about you?  Have you been described as reliable:

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/reliable

re· li· able ri-ˈlī-ə-bəl

Synonyms of reliable

1: suitable or fit to be relied on : DEPENDABLE.

2: giving the same result on successive trials

Moving through your mid-life as you gained more experience at work or in the armed forces, or/and maybe you got married and had kids…were you someone that close people could rely on?

Being reliable in our personal life and our career is vital, if you are ever going to become a sought after leader and a true professional.

• Do you ever find yourself running late for scheduled appointments or missing meetings or events all together?
• Do you make excuses for your own mistakes or losing important items?
• Do you have trouble getting along with other people and losing their trust?

Learning to become “Reliable” is perhaps one of the greatest leadership traits you can achieve in your life.

Think about it.

Do you make it onto the front page of “Sports Illustrated” for being unreliable?

Do you have trusted relationships with others on your team who you put your life in their hands from time to time?

Becoming a real leader in your life is not without making mistakes and disappointing others due to extra ordinary circumstances along the way.

"It has all to do with your consistency, your loyalty, your trustworthiness, your faith, your honesty, your devotion and your continuous solid character."

Maybe most of all, becoming reliable is being so capable of being trusted…

Be Brave: Courage to Experience Fear...

“We’re all afraid of something.  Some have more fears than others for reasons too various to quantify and examine.  The one we must all guard against is the fear of ourselves.  Don’t let the sensation of fear convince you that you’re too weak to have courage.  Fear is the opportunity for courage, not proof of cowardice.  No one is born a coward.  We were meant to love.  And we were meant to have the courage for it.  So be brave.  The rest is easy.”  —p. 206. Why Courage Matters by John McCain

What are you waiting for in your life?

Making decisions to do or act on a daily or weekly basis takes courage.  When was the last time you did something that was foreign or even fearful to you?

Before you had courage, did you ever think about how it would hurt if you fell off your bike.  And when you did, yes it did hurt.  Did you get back on and ride home with tears in your eyes?

Before you had courage, did you ever think about asking for permission to leave home for a night out with a friend without your parent beside you?  Did you ever have a curfew of 10:00PM and arrive back home at 9:55PM with your mother sitting in the kitchen with the light on?

Before you had courage, did you ever worry that someone would reject you if you called them on the phone to ask them for a business appointment to introduce your company or product?

Before you had courage, did you ever fear investing in your future by saving 10% of every paycheck to put in a savings/investment account?

Before you had courage, did you ever fear learning how to debate on stage or give a presentation to an audience about a topic that you had become an expert in?

After you realized that after every attempt to engage with your fears, you learned and adapted for the next attempt and gained a little more courage each time.

Of course you did.

So what are you waiting for and why are you hesitant to get out there.  To try it.  To make your call or send your message.  Or save for your future.

After you learn to be more brave and love to practice to alleviate your fears your life will change for the better.

Your courage to live and to love experiencing fear will make all the difference in your life.  Get out there!

The Third Alternative: A Precarious Future...

 If we really believe what we say we believe- if we really think that home is elsewhere and that this life is a "wandering to find home", why should we not look forward to the arrival. There are, aren't there, only three things we can do about death: to desire it, to fear it, or to ignore it. The third alternative, which is the one the modern world calls "healthy" is surely the most uneasy and precarious of all." — C.S. Lewis (Letters to an American Lady)

How will your life change, now that she is gone and she is truly home?

Have faith in the journey ahead with the confidence she is safe, sound and secure forever.

Your mission forward shall be to explore your own course of activities and actions to continue to give back. To invest in those new people who need you most now.

You see, your mission ahead is to find ways to help others you care about who can thrive from your advice. Your love. Your experience.

Relationships. >>>>> Results. >>>>> Rewards.

Find the time to build on your relationships with others and to increase the true value of the relationship mutually.

The increased value of the relationship will take time to discover and yet the trust and sharing will produce the most favored results.

Count the results and realize what and how the results will continue forward in time. Analyze the results and determine the changes that might be necessary.

Feel and process the rewards. Cherish the time and feelings you now have earned.

Look up...

Recognize that your time and your efforts are valuable and that it all begins with the “relate.”

You know, the way you behave initially with that person each time, to further build the relationship.

Your words and your actions collaborating with others shall provide you with the ongoing satisfaction and desirable outcomes you shall always seek.

Continue to cherish those Relationships, Results and Rewards that will make her so proud of you, before you see her again…

Godspeed!

Veterans Day 2024: Our Father U.S. Marine...

 Growing up as the first son of a U.S. Marine officer, you learn much of what it means to be a Veteran.

Loyalty. Dedication. Perseverance. Discipline. Trust. Integrity. Valor.

On this November 11, 2024 it is Veterans Day in the United States of America. A day in America to pause and to acknowledge those who made the decision to serve, in a branch of our Armed Forces.

As a young man approaching graduation of high school the Vietnam War was in full swing and conscription was a weekly discussion around the dinner table. Will your number be called?

The defense of an entire country requires a tremendous number of people to operate at home and across the entire globe.

Some veterans had the opportunity to travel across continents and were stationed in foreign countries. Our men and women were sailing across oceans on the surface and others deep undersea. They were flying whenever and wherever needed to go head-to-head with the evil people and forces in our world.

Veterans from around the USA put their lives in the hands of our country to protect our loved ones and our way of life here.

Veterans who have served our nation honorably have a real understanding of what it means to sacrifice, to work beyond exhaustion, to feel proud of becoming an expert in skills, knowledge and special activities experience.

In years past, as our colleagues waited for the hospital van to arrive on the shore of the Potomac River inside Ft. Belvoir, we prepared for the weekend warriors who wanted to go fishing.

The 501c3 we volunteered to assist would come each weekend over the summer to teach Ft. Belvoir veterans to fly fish or just try and catch a fish on that day. In the sunshine, outdoors and outside the hospital.

Years later, on one weekend when Dad was in his mid 80’s, we drove down I-95 to Quantico VA to visit the National Museum of the Marine Corps.

He could not believe all of the memories coming back to him. 90 Minutes later, as we pulled out of the parking lot to Fuller Road, we looked to the right and saw the entrance to the base where he had attended Officer Candidate School (OCS).

“Let’s go in there he commanded”. So as we approached the gate and pulled up to the Guard, then we said: “This U.S. Marine would like to enter and to drive through the base where he learned to become a First Lieutenant.

The guard asked, “Let me see your Drivers Licenses”. “OK, go ahead he said as we then drove through the gate.”

This is when it really started to sink in. Where and why our Dad learned all about being a leader of U.S. Marines and soon thereafter a devoted Father.

"On this Veterans Day in America, we say thank you."

For all that you have done to protect the American people and our United States to keep us safe…and to learn to serve with pride...

Acknowledgment: Forever Grateful...

When was the last time your true business accomplishments were being acknowledged and your personal character celebrated?

As we all watched the 20+ people assemble in the banquet suite facing the Pacific Ocean last evening, you could tell they were all so excited to see the surprise on her face, as she walked into the room at 6:00PM.

The point in your work timeline when you are transitioning from one key role to another and have proven your results is a good place to reminisce and to listen to those who admire and trust you.

Hearing others who are your peers and fellow colleagues stand up over dinner and explain why you are someone they have learned from and that they have valued your leadership, will always be a remembered milestone in your life.

Two out of Ten people in a room, are exactly who the “80/20 Rule” science and “Pareto Principle” are all about.

If you want to find and recruit 4 people to your team, then do the math on how many will not make the final cut.

It is just so refreshing to see a group of professionals all celebrating one of their own:

“The Pareto principle (also known as the 80/20 rule, the law of the vital few and the principle of factor sparsity) states that for many outcomes, roughly 80% of consequences come from 20% of causes (the "vital few”).”

The statistics and the “Moneyball” math is what truly sets you apart as a multi-million dollar producer from those with just the fundamental skills.

As your recognition stories continued from your colleagues into the evening there were plenty of laughs and also a few tears that filled the room. Then she just smiled at us.

How might you ever become close to the 2 people out of 10?

Some might say you are just born into it, it’s all in the DNA. Others would say you have to train, repeat and train harder in order to excel at your particular chosen profession.

Coaches and researchers and professional trainers would all have various opinions on what the ratios should be, to find that next Gold Medal Winner or Scientific Scholar or Sales Leader or even a BUD/s school graduate.

Yet that alone does not make the person that others truly admire, beyond their God given skills or training outcomes.

It is something else. “Extreme Ownership” of the organizations problem-sets and the dedication to finding relevant and timely solutions.

When you finally find the right formula and you find yourself in the spotlight someday being acknowledged and celebrated by your peers and close colleagues, say it to yourself in all CAPS:

“IT WASN’T EASY AND “I REALLY EARNED IT”…It has been a good run...

Onward and Godspeed!

Shared Mission: Look to Your Left, Look to Your Right...

Into the future, how will you decide to operate your business, manage your important projects or run your life?

Will it be well thought out or chaotic? Will it be on time and within budget or delayed and asking for more funds?

How often do you find yourself disappointed? Frustrated. Even questioning why you are spending time on this project?

Working with and managing people begins with setting expectations, mutual goals and shared responsibilities. Is your project or life at stake?

Look around your work environment. What do you see?

Is it all in order and does it look tidy and clean? Or, are you wondering who will be doing what next as you operate with clutter across your workspace and wonder where your iPhone is?

So what!

“At every turn, you can sense that, somehow, the critical fabrics of trust that have been woven together for thousands of years and that allow us to live in social systems are unsteady, trembling, and fragile. It is as true in our national governments, corporate boardrooms, and compliance programs as it is in our interactions with sales clerks and neighbors.

Decisions you take as a leader are questioned more intensely. As a team member, business analyst, armchair investor, or family financial officer, you have become more reluctant to accept the decisions of others. Blind faith is no longer an acceptable justification to lead others in a charge over the hill, or a basis on which you choose to follow others. Why is trust under attack at so many levels, across so many economies, and in so many routine, ordinary decisions through which we live our lives?”  —Achieving Digital Trust: The New Rules for Business at the Speed of Light. ©2015 by Jeffrey Ritter

Before you decided to change your future ways, this was your life.

Over the course of your particular future time line, how will you improve? Are you meeting your deadlines and the expectations of those you choose to operate with?

Do others trust you?

This is your opportunity to now answer yourself, “Yes” or “No”.

Again, look around you and what do you see?

The future of your life will continuously depend on “Who is to your left and “Who” is to your right.

Do you trust your fellow team mate with your particular mission today? Will you give them the trust to accomplish their work and their tasks towards achieving success?

Now, you have the true opportunity ahead of you. Continuously “Build Trust” with those you love and those who are on your shared mission…

Trust Decisions: EO of ORM...

In our most uncertain times over the past few years, it is again time to revisit several key factors of Operational Risk Management (ORM) within our Global Critical Infrastructure organizations.

Think of examples like Maersk or Boeing and UnitedHealth Group or Silicon Valley Bank.

Into the future, our Risk, Security and Controls personnel shall have equal power with the executives who are responsible for bringing in the revenue.

This means that the future power-base of the Sales and Marketing teams would need to also be on par with the Internal Audit, Security and Risk Management executives.

This internal culture shift is harder to achieve than one would think.

The ego's aside, the people who make it their job to worry about potential losses, look over the horizon and to mitigate risks day in and day out, are just not used to warning everyone each day to every alert, each instance or possible threats.

It is because everybody loves to hear that the business has been won, the competition defeated and the company just closed the biggest "Deal" in it's history. Let the spin doctors in Marcom get the Press Releases flying!

Not the doom and gloom.

It has been said before, the tone starts at the top.

The CEO and Board of Directors who are cognizant of the necessity for effective risk management objectives must also create a balanced power-base at the top to balance the "Revenue Generators" with the “Risk & Loss mitigators.”

So who are some of these people who deserve a greater exposure to this new born culture shift:

• _Director of Information Security promoted to CISO. (Chief Information Security Officer)

• _Director of Corporate Facilities to CSO. (Chief Security Officer)

• _Director of Regulatory Affairs to CCO. (Chief Compliance Officer)

• _Director of Privacy to CPO. (Chief Privacy Officer)

• _Director of Human Resources to CHO. (Chief Humanity Officer)

If the CEO thinks that this is too many chiefs in the "C" Suite, then what about the idea of creating the:

Executive Office of Operational Risk Management (ORM)

This would be on par with the Chief Financial Officer and might even include the Chief Information Officer.

The new EO of ORM would now be on the same level of power with the EVP of Sales or Marketing and beyond the Chief Operations Officer (COO).

They would be laser focused on mitigating a spectrum of corporate threats, implementing relevant employee education and determining the true effectiveness of any organizational risk controls.

Just not so much on the effectiveness of sales incentives and corporate promotions or the uptime of corporate marketing processes.

So what does someone such as Sherron Watkins, the former VP of Corporate Development at Enron Corporation think the moral is?

You've been asked this one numerous times Sherron, I'm sure, but what's the moral of the story?

“Being an ethical person is more than knowing right from wrong. It is having the fortitude to do right even when there is much at stake.”

Navigating Wisdom: Partners in True Innovation...

Before you were wise, you were prone to be testing, wondering what would happen next.

The more you found yourself exploring, testing and better understanding the results, the more wisdom you created.

Creating the opportunities for gaining new knowledge and learning, requires first an attitude of curiosity.

What is on the other side of that hill? Who lives around the corner? How does a bird fly? Why does the sun shine during the day and the moon at night?

Are you creating curiosity with the purpose of learning more and asking new questions?

After the process has been repeated enough times with the same results, you begin to craft your own hypothesis.

True Innovation begins here.

Beyond your curiosity stage and past your due diligence, now you have arrived at your new hypothesis:

1 a: an assumption or concession made for the sake of argument

b : an interpretation of a practical situation or condition taken as the ground for action

2 : a tentative assumption made in order to draw out and test its logical or empirical consequences

3 : the antecedent clause of a conditional statement

Now your testing begins and you experience the outcomes and results. The evidence of your work will provide you the path for your future navigation.

Too fast, too slow. Too hot, too cold. Too high, too low. Keep testing.

So what kind of “Innovation Navigator” will you become?

Time will tell and much of what happens in your life is going to be a factor of the people you meet.

Who else has the same curiosity as you do? What questions do they ask that you never thought about?

You see, you need a Team Mate. A Wing Man. A Buddy. Together you will discover far more about your growing curiosity and your new tested hypotheses.

You will leverage each others strengths together and you will cover each others vulnerabilities.

How wise will you both become as “Innovation Navigators”…

Vantage Point: Never Stop Wondering...

If you grow up in America in a small town, it gives you a "Vantage Point". Especially, when that one day early in your life when you finally drive out of there.

So you are on to a new U.S. state, a new global time zone or traveling to a new place you have never been before.

In America, we like to drive a vehicle a thousand miles somewhere, across our country to observe. To learn. And to just explore.

Traveling from that small town in Michigan to a small college town at the foot of the Rocky Mountains in Colorado, provided all kinds of new learning.

vantage point

noun

Synonyms of vantage point

: a position or standpoint from which something is viewed or considered

especially : POINT OF VIEW

The minute upon arrival, you could not take your eyes off of the mountains and the glorious sun sets above them.

It wasn’t much longer until it was time to explore, to walk up with a pack on your back. 

To visit that small “Blue Lake” in September, was definitely a vantage point at 9,300+ feet looking up at Mt. Audubon and Paiute Peak in the Rocky Mountains.

Lying out there under the thousands of stars in the new L.L. Bean Goose Down sleeping bag for the first time was so epic.

"Thinking about the journey so far, it was almost certain the infinite game had started."

This was going to be a life full of adventures, with so many stories to tell from small towns to a college campus to some of the largest cities in the world.

Once you begin, it’s difficult to stop exploring. It just seems like you can’t get deep enough or high enough on this planet.

Whether you are almost a hundred feet deep in the South Pacific holding hands with your new spouse, or thousands of feet high in the Monashees snow skiing in light powder does not matter. You are at another Vantage Point.

While you are learning throughout your life, what else do you wonder about?

Whether you are falling asleep under the stars or to the sounds of sirens in a metropolitan city near the quiet ocean, say a prayer.

Give thanks for all you have been given and witnessed so far in your life. Guess what, there are so many more "Vantage Points" to come.

Wonder…

Objective: Utilizing Empirical Learning…

 Objective  adjective

1 a : expressing or dealing with facts or conditions as perceived without distortion by personal feelings, prejudices, or interpretations.

When you were growing up in your family, perhaps sitting down for a dinner each evening at 6:30PM, what was your classic ritual?

Did your Father sit at the head of the table and your Mother on the opposite end? Was it a time of jovial catching-up on each others respective days and sharing information on topics of family interest?

Was the dialogue open minded and full of questions about the topics? Maybe it was the opposite.

Or was your Father or Mother listening and observing while adding experiential lessons to the dialogue.

Each persons age and level of experience in life has much to do with the value of a true dialogue.

Each persons ability and willingness to be truly “Objective,” enhances the value of the dialogue because it is actually more empirical.

Is the person talking, teaching or facilitating the group focused upon actual observation or actual experience?

Is the information being shared capable of verification or testing by experiment?

Is the person at the end of the table or in front of the room or the principal investigator utilizing experiential knowledge and lessons, based upon true witnessed outcomes?

How many high school and college class rooms today, do you find someone who is a true empiric?

One who relies on practical experience. An “Instructional Facilitator” who is in the back of the room, carefully listening.

With decades of experience to provide additonal context.

Learning and discovering what the day, week or hours have produced from those people who have been recently operating on the front line. Operators in the action and who have been part of the actual witnessed experiences.

How well do those who are listening and observing, utilize both “open-ended” questions to explore and expand while also utilizing “close-ended questions” to verify understanding?

Empirical  adjective

1 : originating in or based on observation or experience.

2 : relying on experience or observation alone often without due regard for system and theory.

As you learn more about our own human behavior and the way our brain stores information, the questions that you will have, shall begin to change…

July 4th: Protecting and Sharing Information...

Information and the transparency of information will continue to be at the center of investigations on Wall Street, the Defense Industrial Base (DIB) or any other highly regulated Critical Infrastructure industry.

"Who knew what when" is the mantra being repeated in various command posts and within task forces who are responsible now for insuring the safety and security of future employees of these firms but also the national security of the U.S..

"Insider Risk" of leaked information is at an all time high, whether you are in the "C" suite in Manhattan or the "Situation Room" on Pennsylvania Avenue. 

Information is the lifeblood of any highly functioning organization whether in the private sector or government agencies. Protecting that information of leaks to third parties who do not have a need to know, is the crux of the "Insider Trading" cases on Wall Street or even the comments made within the confines of the situation room during Bin Laden's operation.

So why do people want to tell another person something that they know is forbidden? Why do they risk sharing information with the media or others who may not have a legitimate reason to know the information?

And what about the opposite? Withholding information from the public or others who have a need to know the information, especially if it will save lives or keep the country out of harms way.

The decisions to tell or withhold information has serious consequences in either case and requires a mechanism for making sure that humans know when it is right and wrong.

Unfortunately, we live today in a world of information warfare and information operations that spans the globe from Hollywood to Kabul or London to Hong Kong.

So what?

The "Human Factors" motivation for withholding or sharing information has been studied for decades if not hundreds of years. The gratification one receives from telling another a secret only known to one person or a few provides the stimulus.

Whether that human gratification is the result of seeing someone else in pain or suffering, surprise or elation doesn't really matter. Recognizing that humans thirst for information is relentless when it comes to being first, or to gain power can provide you with the understanding to better prepare your organization for "Information Operations" (IO).

Effective Operational Risk Management (ORM) begins with understanding information and ends with protecting or sharing information.

It's your challenge to determine what is real truth and what is just another narrative to influence your perception as a human being.

As we approach our 247 years of “The United States of America”, read our Declaration of Independence…

Happy 4th of July!