No Excuses Leadership

Be Ready to Say "Yes"

Many years ago, I attended a fundraising event for charity.  The event took place at a small winery in Southern California run by an elderly woman and her husband.  While she had nothing to do with the charity, as the owner of the property she found it important to personally welcome all of the guests to her property.  After some time, she made her way to me.  Because she caught me while I was alone, we were able to engage in a wonderful conversation that I will never forget.  So gracious in her hospitality, she asked me “What’s your story?”  I shared about my experiences in being a part of the No Excuses University movement and of the successes we were seeing as a network.  Genuinely impressed, she shared how proud I should be of my work, for which I responded, “Yes, I’ve been very blessed.”  After sharing, what I thought was a humble response, she looked at me and said, “Isn’t it amazing that the people who have been “blessed” the most always seem to be the ones who worked the hardest and said “yes” when asked to take a chance?

TAKE ACTION

While not discounting the fortune of the opportunities I had been given, what this kind old woman was really saying was that our successes as an organization were more about hard work then about happenstance.  They were more about being courageous to try something new, than about luck.  I think this holds true for the most successful leaders I find as well.  BOLD leadership is rarely found when leaders sit back and wait to be put on the spot.  Instead it’s found when we actively find the opportunities to solve the unsolved problems, take the chances untaken, and are eager and ready to say yes to new opportunities.

BE BOLD

"How will you know if it's the right decision if you never make it?"

-anonymous-