14 Words That Change Lives
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“We must retain faith that you will prevail in the end, regardless of the difficulties. AND at the same time…We must confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.”
“We can’t be afraid to give up the good to go for the great”
It seems almost cliché that those 14 words could change the trajectory of one’s thinking.
Yes, no other set of words have had a more profound impact on my life than these, and continue to direct my philosophy on work, leadership and being a human being.
I first heard them, of all places, at summer camp. We were listening as first-year staff and our camp director — tall, bearded and ginger — shared these words with us as a philosophy and value set for us to do our work by. He referenced their origin but, being 15 at the time, I paid them no heed.
It wasn’t until I turned 23 that I finally purchased the book ‘Good to Great’ by Jim Collins. When leafing through these pages, I felt that my years since leaving summer camp were less full for not having benefited from the teachings in this book.
The book traces the historical trajectory of 11 companies, and 11 comparison companies who went from a position of economic obscurity to eventually outperform the stock market in ways that other companies could only dream.
I’ve personally applied the lessons in this book to:
- Raise $130,000 for my first sales job
- Raise over 1 million dollars for charities and nonprofits
- Speak on the TEDx stage
- Start my own top-rated, non-profit podcast
- Be recognized by the Governor General for my volunteer service to Canada
And much more…but this isn’t about me, it’s about YOUR rise to greatness and your rejecting of mediocrity.
Some of the important lessons that I took from this book included:
The enemy of great is not the bad, but rather it is the good;
Get the right people on the bus;
We must build cultures of discipline to achieve our goals;
We must climb the pyramid of leadership, and become level 5 leaders: being a paradoxical blend of humble, but ruthless in our work ethics;
We must turn the flywheel, and not get sucked into the doom loop;
And most importantly, in my opinion…
We must retain faith that you will prevail in the end, regardless of the difficulties. AND at the same time…We must confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be..
So if you’ve been settling for mediocrity in business, in your career or in your life, then embracing the principles of Good to Great is your way out.
This Executive Summary was contributed by Christian Robillard.
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