Ally’s life should have ended on Labor Day, 2013.
By all reasonable measurements she was dead already, a bag of bones and infected skin that had been found lying and dying a few hours earlier in a supermarket parking lot in Yonkers, New York.
But fate or luck or whatever energy force you personally believe in stepped forward and she was picked up by a passing truck driver who gave her to a rescue group who raced her to an emergency vet. His diagnosis was simple. “This is going be a long road. We should put her to sleep.”
The end of Summer came on Monday. November 11th. I felt the warmth slip away as I held her head in my lap, her body suddenly lighter as the sprit that powered this irresistible life force flowed out of our lives. She was ready to go. And we encouraged her to go. And I am broken without her. My blonde bombshell.
Unlocking creativity is about celebrating uncertainty and embracing risk.
The reality is that most businesses aren't designed that way. Nor are most human beings.
Which is where encouraging courage comes in.
One of the things that has struck me over 71 episodes of Fearless is the openness with which so many of the guests have answered my questions.
I think this says a lot about how they lead and why they are so successful. Because, this kind of openness is rare.
It’s rare because leadership is an enigma. Counter-intuitive and contradictory.
This week on the Fearless Creative Leadership podcast, I talked to Paul Venables, the founder of Venables Bell + Partners. During our conversation, the topic of leadership values came up. Here’s some more thinking on that all-important aspect of modern, creative and fearless leadership.
The differences between average, great and once in a decade companies are many.
But they are summed up by a Benjamin Franklin quote that is often abbreviated and adapted to include only the first two thoughts.
It is the third that changes the nature of the business you are building. And the life you are leading.
"Tell me and I forget.
Teach me and I remember.
Involve me and I learn."
Benjamin Franklin
If we agree that we get paid because of what we do.
And if we believe that we can do more when we know more.
Shouldn't we work where the emphasis is to teach.
And then use that to increase what they can afford to pay.
This is Gertie.
She spent the first 14 years of her life in a crate in a puppy mill, giving birth to hundreds.
She spent the last 15 months at home with her family, Valerie and Valerie Rae.
Gertie died on Wednesday night.
Loved at last.
Which make her one of the lucky ones.
A definition of luck we need to change.
Godspeed Gertie.
We miss you so, so much.
In an imperfect world, anytime we can disrupt the status quo, isn't that a good thing?
If being respected is a big deal to you, the chances are you're not.
I received an email early this morning.
You know the kind. A hyperbolic headline. Followed by a first line of text that says something like, “Can you believe this?” And then endless scrolling down through forwarded addresses of others who have received, commented and passed the message on.
Eventually you get to the subject. Usually a block of text describing the imminent danger we are all facing, or a conspiracy of some sort. They exhort you to be afraid. And to act. And to pass this on to as many people as you know.
What the web giveth the web taketh away. And the advent of Snopes had made it a simple matter to validate or deny the content in a couple of moments.
Over the last four years, none that I received were ever found to be true. Not one.
Which hasn’t stopped people disseminating and propagating. A waste of time and emotional energy of staggering proportions.
And the creation of negative energy on a massive scale.
An action that has consequences. If you believe in Noetic Science. Which can be over-simplified as the power of positive thinking. As support for which some people offer The Global Consciousness Project.
The GCP uses random number generators around the world to track whether collective human emotion makes these random patterns more cohesive. Whether thoughts can affect the physical world.
On two occasions, the Project believes they did.
Lady Diana’s funeral.
And 9/11.
There are many scientists and theologians who dispute the science. I’m neither.
What I know is that those two days represent the days in my life in which I have felt most connected to humanity. A fact. Not a claim.
One which supports a belief that we are more connected than we want to know.
And that what we feel has the power to cause change in the physical world.
Which brings me back to this morning’s email.
It contained a picture. Of Barack Obama. 
In 2005. Taken with eight other people. Including the White House gatecrashers. Tareq and Michaele Salah.
Supporting the picture is a lengthy dissertation that connects Obama to Hamas and accuses the White House of co-ordinating cover-up efforts with a pro Palestinian organization.
As proof of these claims, the email provides a large, bold link to Snopes. Which in turn confirms the authenticity of the photograph.
What the email doesn’t show is a picture of John McCain with the Salahs. Apparently from the same event. 
Truthfully, it didn't take a lot of research to find this second picture.
It was in the same Snopes link the email author offered as proof. The same Snopes link.
Politics creates emotion. As do differences of all kinds. A fact Dr King so powerfully made in 1963.
The election of 2008 was a remarkable event. The power of positive thinking at work.
But as Doctor King's dream comes true, so must new dreams be forged.
My dream is for a world which looks at the whole story.
My dream is for a world in which we use only the power of positive thought.
My dream is for a world in which the future is better than the past.
For everyone.
What was the last thing you did to create a better experience for your customers that wasn’t caused by one of these three things?
1. Your competition.
2. A belief it would increase revenue.
3. A response to a customer’s complaint.
Sometimes, making it better for the sake of making it better is the right answer all by itself.
Ever tried.
Ever failed.
No matter.
Try again.
Fail again.
Fail better.
Samuel Beckett
Friends are people whose nature you understand, morals you share and dependability in times of crisis you can count on.
As a friend, you would not ask someone to do something that is in your best interests but not in theirs.
Nor, should you do so if you employ them, govern them, or cheat on your wife with them.
If you do, their reaction will usually disappoint you.
I had pause to reflect last night on some personally significant events this week.
The least of which was to notice that I passed 60,000 words on this blog since I began. Which is the size of a decent size book. And a process that has taught me more specifically what I think.
Along the way a lot of people have said they’re glad I write every day. And no false modesty here, I value the fact that more and more people are spending a minute or so a day reading these thoughts.
Both because it’s gratifying as a human being to know what you're doing is worthwhile. And because I am certain it is possible to be more present in how you build a business. And certain that when you are, it creates a better life. For the business owner and for everyone around them.
This is an altruistic view as well as an economic one. A trait I have discovered becoming more important to me. A benefit of getting older.
I have come to recognize the trust and faith that clients place in us when they hire us. Clients who in many cases have been doing the same things the same way for a long time, and have come to two conclusions.
There is no silver bullet.
There is a better way. And we have discovered what that is.
I share many of those discoveries in this blog. And that and my work with PAWS Chicago are reasons I feel excited about what is ahead.
If there are topics you'd like answered, add a comment and I'll cover them in future posts. And anything else you want to debate. I'm going to do what I can to turn this into a two way street.
And the other events of the week that prompted this pause to reflect?
I saw my step mother for the first time in ten years. My father launch a new book. And someone very close to me undergo a routine medical event that involved general anesthetic.
Which I have discovered makes the word ‘routine’ a medical marketing tactic.
Thank you, as always, for your time.
Most business owners value loyalty.
In themselves and their staff.
Which makes it hard for them to fire anyone.
And rarely before things become untenable.
Which is loyal to the employee in question.
But disloyal to everyone else.
We live, according to Plato, in a shadow of the real world.
Here, each thing is an imperfect representation of its perfect form. The perfect chair. The perfect smile. The perfect company.
The shadows are beginning to lift. Albeit slowly.
All the more reason to remind ourselves of how we see perfection.
And to raise our sights a little higher in its pursuit.
It takes time to earn trust.
Consistency and transparency accelerate the process. But as employees or customers, we withhold wholehearted emotional investment until a company proves it deserves that from us.
I heard this week of a company which is dominant in its industry that has cut its staff salaries by ten percent this year. Across the board. Including its receptionist.
When asked why he had taken this step, the owner is reported to have said, “because I can.”
How you define success is entirely personal.
Which doesn’t mean it affects only you.
Doubt is powerful.
Destructive.
Or motivational.
You choose.
As part of a weekly feature, we're going to start dedicating Friday's posts to a philosophical thought. A reflective end to the week.
Here's the first. Let us know what you think.
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The announcement that 79 metro areas in North America have come out of recession is good news and bad.
The good news is that a strengthening economy carries everyone along for the ride.
The bad news is that good news makes people go back to bad patterns.
Most of which involve looking intently at the present.
Focus on today as a path towards personal tranquility.
But look first at tomorrow if you want to build a better business.
After all, one year from today is still today.
No matter how hard you stare at it.
The great thing about writing on the internet is that your internal editor can demand a re-think. I woke up thinking today's blog was half a thought. This I think is a whole one.
Apologies to those who already took the time. Hopefully you'll think this one worth another moment.
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Building a better business is hard work. No news there.
And the fuel that drives us comes from many sources.
Pride. Ambition. Competition. Vision.
And Fear. Of failure. Or insignificance.
Regardless of how deep the reserve, humans need to refuel.
Building a better business happens when we balance needs. Of the business. And ourselves.
Sometimes that means putting other things first.
I talked to a friend this afternoon who after many years of driving a business forward decided to take a serious break this summer.
The energy and sense of possibility were palpable the moment they walked in the door.
By the time we’d finished talking I had established a new principle I’m going to recommend to our clients. That any one who has worked at the same company for ten years should be required to take a serious, paid break. Required. Serious. Paid.
No less than a month. Ideally two.
What you get back will pay for itself a hundred times over.
Because even when your business is your life, sometimes you need to reverse the order.
For tomorrow is only a promise.
And as today reminds us, sometimes those get broken.
Having a guiding philosophy by which to run your business every day is a powerful homing device in a forest full of distractions.
For Chris and I, it has long been the Terence Conran quote, "Stay Humble and Nervous."
In the choking economic climate we are living in today, an excess of either can be disastrous.
Humility is a valuable attribute in times of excess. But when the world is inwardly focused, it takes much more effort to attract someone's attention.
And at a time when everyone is hesitant, waiting for something to happen will ensure that at best you're part of the crowd.
Neither is a platform for creating the future you want.
In our case, we have long since accepted that we are skilled in what we do. But inept in communicating that fact. We would much rather talk about someone else's potential.
We have also come to realize that until we face the problem, we are the biggest obstacle we face.
Cometh the need, cometh the Mother of Invention.
In this case, Justin Spooner and Simon Hopkins of Double Shot Consulting. (Even doctors need doctors.) As I've mentioned before, no one understands the possibilities of digital strategies like they do.
In this case, they turned the problem simply and elegantly on its head. If you don't talk effectively about your work, they said. Ask the people that do. Your clients.
So we did. And they have. The first pieces are on our website. Or on Youtube. In the process we put ourselves on camera and found a part of ourselves we didn't know existed.
As a lesson in looking at a problem from a different perspective it's powerful.
As a reminder that we're fortunate to work with amazing clients, it's unbeatable.
To many people owning your own business is a microcosm of life.
I think that’s true.
If you get it wrong.
Most people do.
In the early stages the analogy is exact. Romantic. Beguiling. You start with nothing. You create life. You nurture, teach, feed and protect. It grows. It becomes unruly. You rein it in. Teach it good from bad. Right from wrong. It continues to grow. It becomes self-sustaining.
You keep your hand in by making sure the critical decisions go through you. After all, it was built from your DNA. Who else really understands it the way you do. But instinctively you start to sit back a little.
And ignore the ticking clock.
Businesses are like dogs. They get old in a hurry. One day they’re ten, bounding upstairs like a puppy. The next, they have a hard time getting down off the couch. When that happens you know the time they have left is less than the time they have had. And though you can ease the discomfort and slow the aging process, the end is inevitable. And coming like a freight train.
But businesses don’t have to get old. They should outlive us. After all, why build a business that can not, when it takes the same effort to build one that can?
What it requires is less. Less ego for one. Less hubris for two.
Most business owners define themselves by their companies. They describe themselves as its heart and soul. It radiates from them and through them. Which is fine for a while.
Business owners talk about heart and soul a lot. As though they were inextricably linked. Which, of course, they are not.
The soul is one of the great mysteries of existence. It is purported by some to weigh 21 grams. Maybe. But unquestionably, it is the essence that makes us who we are.
The heart is perhaps the most studied organ in medicine. No surprise given that it is the epicenter of our life force. The fulcrum around which every action is taken. But over time, we have learned that it is replaceable. That we can use someone else’s without losing the uniqueness of who we are.
Our heart is transplantable. Our soul is not.
If you want to create a business that lasts, it will require your heart and your soul.
But only to begin with.
Eventually, as your enthusiasm wanes (and it will), your business will need to get its energy from somewhere else. It will need a new life force. It will need a heart transplant.
If you see this as the natural progression of things, you will prepare for it and embrace it. It hurts. But only a little. And the rewards are extraordinary.
And if you get it right, your business retains your soul. Indelibly imprinted long after you have left the building.
As Chris and I walked out the door of the Whitehouse for the last time on that Friday night in 2005, two things were certain.
Part of who we are was forever infused into the soul of that company.
Someone else would turn on the lights on Monday morning.
I’ve never been killed.
I’ve never been shot at.
I’ve never had a gun pointed at me.
I’ve never demonstrated publicly in the face of armed militia.
As an agent of change, I am nothing.
When the greatest obstacle we ever have to overcome is ourselves, we should be capable of more than words don’t you think?
While reading the CNN.com account of the loss of an Air France jet over the Atlantic yesterday, I was struck by the following paragraph:
"The airline company identified the nationalities of the victims as two Americans, an Argentinean, an Austrian, a Belgian, 58 Brazilians, five British, a Canadian, nine Chinese, a Croatian, a Dane, a Dutch, an Estonian, a Filipino, 61 French, a Gambian, 26 Germans, four Hungarians, three Irish, one Icelandic, nine Italians, five Lebanese, two Moroccans, three Norwegians, two Polish, one Romanian, one Russian, three Slovakian, two Spanish, one Swedish, six Swiss and one Turk."
The lives of 228 people from 32 countries converged yesterday when they all boarded the same plane for a routine overnight flight.
When that plane disappeared, families in 32 countries around the world -- countries we traditionally separate with the usual classifications of ethnicity, geography, language, culture -- all shared the same unfathomable loss.
It was a truly international incident. And it was a singularly human one. One that powerfully affirmed once again that in the ways that matter to the human spirit, we are all the same.
