I attended "Breakthrough Leadership Training" this past Tuesday. Marriott has asked a few Franklin Covey advisers to facilitate this training, based on the "4 disciplines of Execution". It was a great seminar, with a lot of good information. It was also interesting that one of the videos had "Waterfall" by John Schmidt as part of the soundtrack...fantastic.
Naturally, when you have any type of leadership training, there are going to be a lot inspirational quotes, or witty sayings and turn-of-phrase. Well this particular training did not disappoint. There were several that I enjoyed and would like to pass along.
"Amateurs practice until they get it right. Pro's practice until they can't get it wrong"
and
"If you're not keeping score, you're just practicing"
Then, today, I was doing some preliminary work on a friend's engagement video and I walked past one of my sister's picture frames, that has a quote from a french poet. I've walked past this quote a thousand times, not really paying that much attention (mainly because it's in a foreign language), but this time, probably because I was thinking of different "love" quotes I could stick in this video, it stuck out to me.
In English, it roughly translates
"To Love, is not to look at one another, it is to look together, in the same direction"
I know that's what it means, not because my french has improved in the previous 10 years, but because I looked it up on wikiquotes.
It was written by Antoine de Saint Exupery in his work entitled Terre des Hommes in 1939. As I read more of his quotes, there was one that brought me back to the Leadership Training earlier this week.
Also from Terre des Hommes, he says
"It seems perfection is attained, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to remove"
I think that goes hand in hand with the Pro's vs. Amateurs quotation. I think it has marvelous applications, not only to leading a team or organization, but also to an eternal pursuit of perfection. Oftentimes I think of what traits I can add to my personality to be more interesting or a better friend, leader, and person overall (i.e. selflessness, good listener, musical ability, athleticism, to name a few). But perhaps even more important, and even less looked at are the traits or habits that I can remove-that would also have the same affect. If I want to add more selflessness, perhaps I should try to remove selfishness. If I want to add "good listener" to the traits people list when they think of me, perhaps I can remove "incessant talker" from my current repertoire.... Now lets not get crazy with the last one, I mean you got to eat the elephant one bite at a time. but you get my point.
Basically it boils down to the fact that for me, I want to be a professional, not an Amateur. Not a professional Athlete or Musician, but rather a "Professional Liver of Life"
and to raise myself from the "Amateur Liver of Life" ranks, I'm going to have to practice until I can't get it wrong. And, instead of focusing entirely on what I need to add to my life in order to "not get it wrong", I've got to focus also on what I can remove that's causing me to get it wrong. And then at that point, I can start keeping score.
See what I did there? I combined all three of the quotations I learned this week... pretty clever how that came full circle huh? I thought so!
Ciao,
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