Great Leadership Begins with Three Commitments | Pete Rogers | TEDxSoongChingLingSchool

In the 1860s and 1870s, one of the most popular people in the United States wasn't even American, he was a Frenchman whose name was Jean Francois, but he was better known by his stage name, Great blondin, so he made blondin He was a big blondin. acrobat and a tightrope walker and he did something that no one had done before he went to Niagara Falls, a beautiful and dangerous place, and he threw a two-inch wide tightrope across the falls and walked across it safely with 25,000 people present during the As the years went by, London would return to Niagara Falls and he would do something more daring each time, the next time he would be blindfolded, the next time he would literally sit in the middle of his Crossing and made himself an omelette on another occasion. a camera and took a photograph of the bags on the other side of the falls each time something bolder something more unique something creative and surprising and his Fame grew and grew and grew and then after one particular Crossing with a crowd gathered there shouting their chanting his name calmed the crowd and said, "I'm going to do something more daring than what I've done before.

Do you think I could do it?" and they shouted "We believe, we believe" and then he said, "I'm going to do it." carry someone on my back and I will cross the falls safely do you think I can do it? and they all shouted We Believe We Believe and when they said we believe Gravely looked at them the big blonde looked at them and smiled and said which of you will be that person which of you will be that person and there was silence until finally one person came forward, actually He was his manager and that touched London very deeply, but Blondin took him on his back. and crossed the falls safely.

I've been fascinated by this story since the day I first read it, fascinated because I don't understand why more people didn't line up to go with London over the falls and the obvious answer It would probably be a good thing if they didn't trust him, but that can't be true. They had seen him again and again and again and again do something outstanding, do something creative, do something bold and every time he succeeded, it couldn't be that they didn't do it. They didn't trust him, so the reason they didn't go was probably because they didn't trust themselves and they probably didn't trust themselves because they had ignored a fundamental lesson about

leadership

and life and that is that you can't lead other people.

Unless you can learn to lead yourself first until you can lead yourself, leading others is almost impossible and until you can lead yourself, listening and accepting invitations is also very difficult. I have been studying

leadership

for years. I have been mentored by incredible leaders. I have worked with many incredible leaders and I believe there are

three

commitments

that all exceptional leaders make that allow them to self-lead and thus enable bold change in the world and the first of these

commitments

is to value consistency over intensity. Read stories every day in the news about the epidemic of anxiety and sadness that is impacting the world today, especially among young people, parents too.

This is clear and the reasons for this are many and I am going to enter all those social networks. obviously plays an important role, but I think an overlooked factor is simply the fact that many young people today are tired of throwing themselves into every class, every activity, every relationship as if it were the last one they will have and I think the reason for this is because most people and especially young people overestimate what they can do in a short period of time maybe it's a month two months

three

months and they underestimate what they can achieve and what they can achieve in a year or two years or three years and when you just believe that you can overestimate your contribution in the moment, that only leads to burnout because by definition you need to do two months of work in one month or a year of work in eight months and that leads to sadness, exhaustion, frustration and exceptional leaders.

Know that leadership is a long game and that your contributions, your consistent contributions every day, a little bit each day, will give you the ability to far exceed the contributions of your intensity, so let's remember: Value consistency over intensity, There is room for intensity. but if you are intense all the time, going 100 all the time and resting little all the time, I would invite you to consider a bold change in your life and maybe the bold change is to step back, slow down a little and take a long time. Seeing it could make a big difference in your life The second commitment that exceptional leaders make is that they are motivated by higher standards and not shame Motivation is just another word for energy We need motivation We need energy to make bold things happen in the world world to make good things happen in the world, but what are your motivations?

Are you motivated to have higher standards and grow toward higher standards? To reach things that are out of your reach. To do things that are beyond your ability to become the person you want. it could be tomorrow or you are motivated by the need to please other people all the time or you need to perform for people all the time or you need to prove yourself over and over again by achieving everything in some made up fantasy that you would do I like to be perfect and let's be clear , two leaders who have those motivations look the same on the outside, they look the same on the outside and they both achieve incredible things on the outside, but on the inside those different motivations will lead them to two. very different paths two very different destinies and this was never clearer to me than when I was 16 years old and we discovered as a family that my father had terminal brain cancer and would die within a year and during that year I learned many things but nothing more powerful than the lesson which I learned on a cold winter night when I broke a promise to my mother and drove home and got out of the car only hoping my mother was asleep so I wouldn't have to do it.

I talked to her that night and when I slipped through the side door of the kitchen I took off my shoes, closed the door and walked softly through the kitchen towards the dining room trying to be as quiet as possible, my heart sank when I heard the door of the Main bedroom. It opened and I heard my mother coming down the hall and then I saw her coming down the stairs to meet me in the dining room with a lone light to light the way and my mother was so exhausted, so tired, but she wasn't angry, she stood up. . in front of me in silence for a moment I stood there in silence for a moment the only thing I could hear was my father snoring and her tears began to flow and she gestured over her shoulder towards the bedroom and said Son, your father is dying upstairs.

Is this the best you can do? Is this the best you can do? And she turned around, she just walked back up the stairs and as I stood there, in that lonely light, crying alone, I have to admit that I felt ashamed, I felt disconnected, I felt unworthy in that moment, but then in the In the days, weeks and months that followed, I recognized that the question my mother asked me was not intended to shame me, but rather to invite me to self-leadership, to invite me to a higher standard and that lesson she taught me. She gave me all those years and she stayed with me until this moment in this scenario where she shares it with you.

Foreigner believed he could do better tomorrow than today. My mother believed that he could make me a more compassionate person tomorrow. than I was today my mother believed that tomorrow I could be smarter than I was today she gave me a higher standard she did not shame me for perfect standards or the expectation to perform all the time and during that very difficult year this point In my life I say I feel nothing but gratitude, which brings me to my third point. The third commitment that exceptional leaders make is that they practice gratitude every day and notice that I'm using the word practice and I'm using that word intentionally, I'm not. enough to feel gratitude we have to practice gratitude every day what we improve at we practice we need to practice but most people only practice gratitude when they feel good things in life when they get an A on an exam when a relationship is going well when they get a promotion at work and that's fine, but life is not just about the good things and when can we learn to be grateful and practice gratitude even for frustrations, setbacks, failures, we are not grateful for failure, But can we be grateful people in the midst of failure?

Can we be grateful people in the midst of a setback? and when you are grateful for all your life, all the things that are going well and the things that are challenges. Two things are going to happen to you, I guarantee it: the first is that when you practice, you will discover that there are patterns in your gratitude, you will discover patterns, you will see gratitude in your life. again and again and you can feel drawn to those gratitudes like a searchlight illuminating a path and suddenly what you consider to be perhaps moving forward towards a job now becomes a mission in your life because of gratitude, the other thing that It will happen when you are grateful for everything, everything is that you will become generous people.

You cannot be grateful for all the good things in your world and for all the negative things in your world without being a generous person. And in 2023 we will have global problems. that require your generosity your generosity your generosity of your mind the generosity of your heart the generation of your contribution we cannot afford for anyone to be small you need to be the best and most complete beautiful version of yourself, not in a perfectionist way but in a higher way so let's commit to consistency over intensity so we don't burn out let's commit to being motivated by higher standards that we can grow in rather than being motivated by a deficit or shame mentality or this doesn't need to be a desire , a need to please. act to prove that we are perfect and do all of that swimming in a sea of ​​gratitude and if we can commit to those three things, I hope that if you are ever asked the question, this is the best thing you can do, you will be able to look at that person in the eyes. eyes with compassion and love and say yes, thank you at the top of your lungs and affirmatively.