Bullshitters, Liars, Humility and Leadership
Adam and I were on the phone for an hour and a half the other day trading stories about our time working for small businesses.
For those of you who don’t know, Adam is my best bud going on 15 years. At first glance you’d be hard pressed to see how our friendship formed as we’re seemingly cut from a different cloth. He’s an artistic character, introverted and relatively quiet with tattoos all over and a mind for detail. And I am none of those things! But once you reel him into a conversation he can hang with the best of them and being a seasoned conversationalist myself, I think our friendship has stood the test of time because at the heart of it all we both shoot it straight and neither one of us has any patience for bullshitters and liars.
Which brings us back to our chat the other day. You see, throughout our respective careers he and I have almost exclusively worked for small businesses, he in restaurants and I in gyms. Over the years we’ve seen and experienced it all from the most incompetent owners and staff to the kind of big headed mentality that comes so easily to the power hungry after experiencing minimal success. Weirdly, even though we work in very different industries, the two of us have been drawing these parallel lines between our work for years. It’s fascinating to me how ubiquitous the qualities of small business owners are regardless of what they’re trying to hawk. And I know why.
Far too often, whether it started as a passion project or someone just saw an opportunity, people open small businesses in an effort to make more money and have a little more security doing what they know and, a lot of the time what they love. At face value this seems like an obvious transition as the knowhow and care that only they can provide feels like a home run combination. Yet what these people don’t typically understand but are quickly confronted with is that running a business can be far removed from the thing you initially fell in love with, even if it’s adjacent to it. And when abruptly smacked in the face by the pressures of responsibility, everyone’s true nature comes out for all to see. It’s just like being in the middle of a gnarly Crossfit WOD, very few face the pressure with grace and humility, most people crumble.
This my friend is how you lose. In sport, in business and in life, once you lose the capacity to put your head down and work hard because your attention is being held by the things you can’t control, you’re fucked! The distraction doesn’t just take away from your own productivity, it brings down the whole team. Don’t ever forget that when you open a small business it’s an extension of you and when you start complaining, slacking and making excuses, everyone sees you do it. You my friend are on full display for your tiny little world to see and when you don’t take your responsibilities seriously, what makes you think your employees will? When you start lying to your crew because your ego is so fragile that you can’t expose your vulnerabilities. When your anxieties are on full display because your mind is stuck in the future and your missing the opportunity to just do what you can now, remember this; leaders lead by example, trust is tenuous, and humility is king.
The outcome is always outside of your control, but you have the ability to create strong and lasting bonds that will not only enhance your experience but improve the quality of whatever you’re doing if you come from a place of gratitude and humility everyday. Gratitude for the things you have and humility for the things you have to do. Just because you have to work hard doesn’t mean that it’s hard to do. Squash the voice in your head that serves your ego and do your work with pride. Establish your core values from the beginning and never waver, fostering relationships that bring light to your life instead of those that detract. Then and only then will you find meaning and fulfillment in your work.
Until next time,
-Coach Kev