Most people dread accepting responsibility. That’s just a fact of life, and we can see it in operation every day. Yes, we can see avoidance of responsibility all the time in both our personal and professional lives. And here’s something else we can see just as often: we can see that most people aren’t as successful as they wish they were. Do you see there is a connection between these two very common phenomena?

It’s in your best interest to take responsibility for everything you do. But that’s only the beginning. Many times it’s even best to take responsibility for the mistakes of others, especially when you’re in a managerial or leadership role.

During the years when professional basketball was just beginning to become really popular, Bill Russell, who played center for the Boston Celtics, was one of the greatest players in the pro league. He was especially known for his rebounding and his defensive skills.  

But like a lot of very tall centers, Russell was never much of a free throw shooter. His free throw percentage was quite a bit below average in fact. But this low percentage didn’t really give a clear picture of Russell’s ability as an athlete. And in one game he gave a very convincing demonstration of this.

It was the final game of a championship series between Boston and the Los Angeles Lakers. With about twelve seconds left to play, the Lakers were behind by one point and Boston had the ball. It was obvious that the Lakers would have to foul one of Boston’s players in order to get the ball back, and they chose to foul Bill Russell.

This was a perfectly logical choice since statistically Russell was the worst free throw shooter on the court at that moment. If he missed the shot, the Lakers would probably get the ball back and they’d still have enough time to try to win the game. But if Russell made his first free throw, the Lakers’ chances would be seriously diminished. And if he made both shots, the game would essentially be over.

Bill Russell had a very peculiar style of shooting free throws. Today, no self-respecting basketball player anywhere in America would attempt it. Aside from the question of whether it’s an effective way to shoot a basket, it just looked too ridiculous. Whenever he had to shoot a free throw, the six-foot-eleven Russell would start off holding the ball in both hands about waist high, then he’d squat down and as he straightened up he’d let go of the ball. It looked like he was trying to throw a bucket of dirt over a wall.

But regardless of how he looked, as soon as Bill Russell was fouled, he knew the Celtics were going to win the game. He was absolutely certain of it because, in a situation like this, statistics and percentages mean nothing. There was a much more important factor at work, something that no one has found a way to express in numbers and decimal points.

Simply put, Bill Russell was a player who wanted to take responsibility for the success or failure of his team. He wanted the weight on his shoulders in a situation like this. No possibility for excuses. No possibility of blaming anyone else if the game was lost. No second guessing. Bill Russell wanted the ball in his own hands and nobody else’s.  And, like magic, even if he’d missed every free throw he’d ever shot in his life before this, he knew he was going to make this one. And that is exactly what happened.

That is what virtually always happens when a man or woman accepts responsibility eagerly and with confidence. I’ve always felt that accepting responsibility is one of the highest forms of human maturity. A willingness to be accountable, to put yourself on the line, is really the defining characteristic of adulthood.

While most people spend most of their lives struggling to earn a living, a much smaller number seem to have everything going their way. Instead of just earning a living, the smaller group is busily working at building and enjoying a fortune. Everything just seems to work out for them. And here sits the much larger group, wondering how life can be so unfair, so complicated and unjust. What’s the major difference between the little group with so much and the larger group with so little?

Despite all of the factors that affect our lives - like the kind of parents we have, the schools we attended, the part of the country we grew up in - none has as much potential power for affecting our futures as our ability to dream.

Dreams are a projection of the kind of life you want to lead. Dreams can drive you. Dreams can make you skip over obstacles. When you allow your dreams to pull you, they unleash a creative force that can overpower any obstacle in your path. To unleash this power, though, your dreams must be well defined. A fuzzy future has little pulling power. Well-defined dreams are not fuzzy. Wishes are fuzzy. To really achieve your dreams, to really have your future plans pull you forward, your dreams must be vivid.

If you’ve ever hiked a fourteen thousand-foot peak in the Rocky Mountains, one thought has surely come to mind “How did the settlers of this country do it?” How did they get from the East Coast to the West Coast? Carrying one day’s supply of food and water is hard enough. Can you imagine hauling all of your worldly goods with you… mile after mile, day after day, month after month? These people had big dreams. They had ambition. They didn’t focus on the hardship of getting up the mountain.

In their minds, they were already on the other side – their bodies just hadn’t gotten them there yet! Despite all of their pains and struggles, all of the births and deaths along the way, those who made it to the other side had a single vision: to reach the land of continuous sunshine and extraordinary wealth. To start over where anything and everything was possible. Their dreams were stronger than the obstacles in their way.

You’ve got to be a dreamer. You’ve got to envision the future. You’ve got to see California while you’re climbing fourteen thousand-foot peaks. You’ve got to see the finish line while you’re running the race. You’ve got to hear the cheers when you’re in the middle of a monster project. And you’ve got to be willing to put yourself through the paces of doing the uncomfortable until it becomes comfortable and until you realize your dreams.

PLANNING

I find it fascinating that most people plan their vacations with better care than they plan their lives. Perhaps that is because escape is easier than change.

If you don’t design your own life plan, chances are you’ll fall into someone else’s plan. And guess what they may have planned for you? Not much.

The reason why most people face the future with apprehension instead of anticipation is because they don’t have it well designed.

The guy says, “When you work where I work, by the time you get home, it’s late. You’ve got to have a bite to eat, watch a little TV, relax and get to bed. You can’t sit up half the night planning, planning, planning.” And he’s the same guy who is behind on his car payment!

A good way to think of leadership is the process of freeing your team members to do the best work they possibly can. I have followed NBA basketball coach Phil Jackson’s career.

Like Phil Jackson who moved from the record setting Chicago Bulls to the Los Angeles Lakers. Jackson says his principal task is creating an environment in which his players can flourish. In communicating with his championship teams, Jackson convinced them that they had the talent to win championships, and that the main goal of the coach was going to be freeing them to use that talent.

Today’s business team members, say they want, more than anything else, the autonomy to do their jobs without the boss’s interference. In the new century, it’s already clear that the CEOs of our best-run companies believe that the more power leaders have, the less they should use.

The job of the team leader is to set a mission, decide upon a strategic direction, achieve the necessary cooperation, delegate authority — and then let people innovate. To do that we all could take a hint from the late football coach, Paul “Bear” Bryant. Before his retirement as one of the leading coaches in college football history at Alabama, Bryant observed:

The key to authentic leadership is to listen to your followers, and then open the door for them to lead themselves. The secret is empowerment. The main incentive is genuine caring and recognition.

The five most important words a leader can speak are: “I am proud of you.”
The four most important are: “What is your opinion?”
The three most important are: “If you please.”
The two most important are: “Thank You.”
And the most important single word of all is: “You!”

Our well-being and happiness are tied to the notion that our lives can improve. We hope for a better future for our company, our kids, and ourselves. We dream of a tomorrow that’s better and brighter than today.

Here are a few improvements many of us desire to see:

• We hope to lose weight and improve our fitness
• We hope to earn more money and improve our financial standing
• We hope to argue less with our spouse and improve our marriage

Over the next year, if we knew our health would deteriorate, our economic situation would worsen, and our closest relationships would unravel, then we’d be depressed. In fact, even if we knew our lives would stay the same, most of us would feel unsatisfied. We’re always looking to improve the quality of our lives - it’s human nature.

Unfortunately, many of us never go beyond hoping for improvements to actually making them. In this lesson, I’d like to share some insights to help you improvise your approach to improvement.

Develop Habits

The secret of your success is determined by your daily agenda. Leaders who make successful improvements share a common denominator: they form habits of daily action that those who fail to improve never develop. As my friend Andy Stanley says, “Your direction determines your destination.” The steps you make each day, for good or ill, eventually chart the path of your life.

Consider the analogy of saving for retirement. Financial advisers counsel us to invest for retirement early in our careers and consistently throughout life. If we do, we can quit working at 65 with a sizeable nest egg. However, if we neglect funding our 401(k) each month, then we end up with nothing. We may still “hope” to win the lottery and secure our financial future, but we’ve lost the ability to control our fate.

Befriend Discipline

We live in the ultimate quick-fix culture. Everyone wants to be thin, but few people eat healthy and exercise. Everyone wants financial stability, but many refuse to be bothered by a budget. Rather than trouble ourselves with discipline, we opt for diet fads or speculate in the stock market. When we don’t see long-term improvements, we discard one fad in favor of another.

In life, there are two kinds of pain: the pain of self-discipline and the pain of regret. The pain of self-discipline involves sacrifice, sweat, and delayed gratification. Thankfully, the reward of improvement softens the pain of self-discipline and makes it worthwhile. The pain of regret begins as a missed opportunity and ends up as squandered talent and an unfulfilled life. Once the pain of regret sets in, there’s nothing you can do other than wonder, “What if?”

Admit Mistakes

When trying to improve, we not only risk failure, we guarantee it. The good news is that mistakes generally teach us far more than success. There’s no sense pretending we’re perfect. Even the best of the best have moments of weakness. That’s why it’s important to be honest when we fall short, learn from the mistake, and move forward with the knowledge gained.

Measure Progress

You cannot manage what you cannot measure. Identify the areas in which improvement is essential to your success and find a way to track your progress. Keeping score holds you accountable and gives you a clear indicator of whether or not you’re actually improving.

Change Continually

Continual change is essential for improvement. One of the great paradoxes of success is that the skills and qualities that get you to the top are seldom the ones that keep you there. The quest to improve forces us to abandon assumptions, embrace innovation, and seek new relationships. If we’re complacent for too long, we’ll fall behind the learning curve. Once this happens, it’s a steep, uphill climb to get back to the top.

The desire for improvement has a degree of discontent in it. Personal growth requires apparently contradictory mindsets: humility to realize you have room to grow but also confidence that improvement is possible.

His name was Jason Dunham and he was a corporal in the US Marines. The story picks up with Jason as he was talking with the men in his unit. They wondered whether a person could jump on a grenade and survive by putting it under their helmet. Deep down they all most likely knew that it wouldn’t work – yet on the streets of Baghdad soon all topics of conversation can become quickly exhausted, and hypothetical solutions to real life problems can pass the time.

Unfortunately for Jason Dunham, the circumstance that he had hypothesized about arrived just a few weeks later. However, fortunately for his unit Corporal Jason Dunham was there. In this life and death scenario there is no time to think. There is only time for fight or flight. Jason chose fight and performed above and beyond the call of duty. He threw his helmet and body over the grenade and gave his life for his friends. Jason was nominated for The Congressional Medal of Honor. He was twenty years old.

Your stance on political matters or world issues is irrelevant in this scenario. Jason did not do this for you, he did not do it for the people of Baghdad, he didn’t do it for the US Government or a politician. He did it for the men beside him – period.

To give your life for your friends the greatest thing one person can do for another. It is also one of the rarest acts of civilization.

In 1981, shots rang out as bullets screamed through the air to pierce the flesh of the fortieth President of The United States. No sooner had the gun powder been ignited than Secret Service agent Tim McCarthy stood up as straight as a board and extended his arms to make himself a large barrier between John Hinckley and President Reagan. While others ran for cover agent McCarthy stood looking directly as his potential death with firm resolve. Tim was shot square in the chest and believe it or not that was exactly his goal. As he positioned himself spread eagle to take a bullet for a man, an office and a nation others cowered in trembling fear. Because of amazing grace agent McCarthy survived.

What causes men and women to lay down their lives for another? It takes a lot. First and foremost it takes a realization that life isn’t about you. It is about making a difference, making an impact and it is about giving.

Jason Dunham and Tim McCarthy were able to respond the way they did because:

• They decided how they were going to respond long before the event occurred.
• They were not selfish people – the farthest you could be from selfish as a matter of fact.
• They realized that life was not about them it was about making a difference – it was about others.

I hope with all my heart you are never placed in a situation where you have to choose between your life and those around you. Yet, everyday you are in situations where you have to make choices. You must decide right now how you will respond.

The lesson to extract from the lives of Corporal Dunham and Agent McCarthy is that of an overall attitude on life. That attitude simply put is that it is better to give than receive. It is honorable to view the lives and well being of others above yourself. If we can take any pearl of wisdom from the extraordinary lives and attitudes of these two men it is that making an impact on the world is not always about recognition, power, money or personal gain. Sometimes the greatest success is one who gives himself up so others can succeed. That is the mark of the ultimate high achiever.

Decide today how you will respond in your moments of crisis - whether it is financial, personal or life and death. As you make your plan your actions, remember the selfless lessons of Corporal Dunham and Agent McCarthy.

One of the questions I am asked most often is how to attain success. That’s a tough question to answer because success is different for each individual.

I still remember one of my college professors who was asked how he judged whether his students were successful. He always said, “If they are happy, they are successful.”

Years ago, I wrote about a formula for success: Determination + goal setting + concentration = success. I received a letter from a Harvard graduate saying that I was missing a fourth quality—courage. His point was that determination could be undermined by the fear that comes with a new venture.

Let me take that one step further. In my opinion, many people fail to achieve their goals not because they are afraid of the job at hand, but because they have grown so familiar in the comfort zone of their job, they are afraid to meet the challenge of a new job. I once heard someone joke that the road to success is marked with many tempting parking places.

Great acts of courage tend to be committed by entrepreneurs. I have seldom met anyone who left his or her job, whether fired or voluntarily, who started their own business and regretted it. What these people always regret is not having done it sooner. Even people who started a business and failed are satisfied because they tried.

I watched a fascinating television program on the education channel about “Why do men die for their country?” They examined the U.S. Marines, the French Foreign Legion and the British Commandos. They discussed the importance of discipline and tradition.

However, the most important reason why men died for their country was their love for their fellow man. They interviewed a soldier who related a most revealing story. He was wounded in combat and was convalescing in a hospital when he discovered that his fellow soldiers were going on a dangerous mission. He escaped from the hospital and went with them. Then, while participating in this mission, he was wounded once again.

When they interviewed him, he said, “You work with people and you live with them, and you soon realize that your survival depends on one another.”

Whether it is a military battle, a basketball game or work, we can only enjoy success when we realize that we must be able to count on one another.

Napoleon Hill, one of my favorite authors, started out in the early 1900s as a young newsman and interviewed steel magnate Andrew Carnegie, then one of the wealthiest men alive. Carnegie convinced Hill to devote 20 years of his life to a study of what made men successful, according to William A. Cohen in “The Art of the Leader.”

Carnegie helped Hill by giving him introductions to the mightiest, wealthiest and best-known men of his day. These included Henry Ford, Theodore Roosevelt, Charles Schwab, George Eastman, John D. Rockefeller, Thomas Edison, Clarence Darrow and many others.

Not a single person interviewed by Hill said they would have become successful without the people around them—bosses, colleagues and subordinates. Carnegie himself must have recognized this, because on his tombstone is engraved a single sentence: “Here lies one who knew how to get around him men who were cleverer than himself.”

Not only do you need to surround yourself with a winning team to be successful, but you need to develop your own network that can help you deal with some of life’s minor annoyances, as well as your most challenging problems. Your network can act as role models, advise you and comfort you. They can also provide you with financial assistance, intellectual and social resources, entertainment and a ride to work in the morning.

Without a network you’ll have a hard time finding a client, making a sale, getting a job or hiring the right employee.

But even with all the help in the world, the quest for success ultimately boils down to your desire. As boxer/entrepreneur George Foreman would tell you, “Don’t have that conversation with yourself where you say, ‘He’s got more talent that I do,’ or ‘She’s faster than I am.’ Success depends on what’s in your mind. Success is about your spirit.”

Mackay’s Moral: Some people succeed because they are destined to, but most people succeed because they are determined to.

The Hebrew term for gratitude is hikarat hatov, which means, literally, “recognizing the good.” Practicing gratitude means recognizing the good that is already yours.

If you’ve lost your job, but you still have your family and health, you have something to be grateful for.

If you can’t move around except in a wheelchair but your mind is as sharp as ever, you have something to be grateful for.

If you’ve broken a string on your violin, and you still have three more, you have something to be grateful for.

When you open up to the trait of gratitude, you see clearly and accurately how much good there is in your life.

When you open up to the trait of gratitude, you see clearly and accurately how much good there is in your life. Gratitude affirms. Those things you are lacking are still there, and in reaching for gratitude no one is saying you ought to put on rose-colored glasses to obscure those shortcomings. But most of us tend to focus so heavily on the deficiencies in our lives that we barely perceive the good that counterbalances them.

There is no limit to what we don’t have and if that is where we put our focus, then our lives will inevitably be filled with endless dissatisfaction. This is the ethos that lies behind the great biblical proverb, “Who is rich? Those who rejoice in their own lot” (Pirkei Avot 4:1).

When you live charged with gratitude, you will give thanks for anything or anyone who has benefited you, whether they meant to or not. Imagine a prayer of thanks springing to your lips when the driver in the car next to you lets you merge without protest, or when the water flows from the tap, or the food is adequate?

When gratitude is this well established, it is a sign of a heart that has been made right and whole. Gratitude can’t coexist with arrogance, resentment, and selfishness. The Hasidic teacher Rebbe Nachman of Breslov writes, “Gratitude rejoices with her sister joy and is always ready to light a candle and have a party. Gratitude doesn’t much like the old cronies of boredom, despair and taking life for granted.”

To what and whom should we feel thankful? In the Torah, when Moses brought the plagues onto Egypt, he wasn’t the one who initiated turning the Nile River into blood and bringing frogs from the river. His brother Aaron invoked those plagues. The medieval commentator Rashi explains that since the river had protected Moses when he was an infant, he could not start a plague against it. God was teaching Moses a powerful lesson in gratitude: we can open in gratitude even to inanimate objects.

Whenever Rabbi Menachem Mendel, the Kotzker Rebbe, replaced a pair of worn out shoes, he would neatly wrap up the old ones in newspaper before placing them in the trash, and he would declare, “How can I simply toss away such a fine pair of shoes that have served me so well these past years!?” I felt the same way when I gave away my 1984 Honda that had ferried me so reliably for 18 years.

The Mussar teacher Rabbi Eliyahu Lopian (1872 - 1970) was once talking to a student after prayers, and at the same time was folding up his tallis [prayer shawl]. The tallis was large and he had to rest it on a bench to fold it. After he had finished the folding, Reb Elyah noticed that the bench was dusty, and so he headed out to fetch a towel to wipe it off. The student to whom he was speaking realized what Reb Elyah was doing and ran to get the towel for him. Reb Elyah held up his hand. “No! No! I must clean it myself, for I must show my gratitude to the bench upon which I folded my tallis¹.”

If we can be grateful to rivers, shoes, cars, and benches, which help us involuntarily, how much more so to human beings who have free will and who help us consciously out of the goodness of their hearts? Or to the mysterious source out of which our lives have come? When Leah, wife of the patriarch Jacob, had her fourth child, she named him “Yehudah,” which means, “I am grateful,” to reflect her gratitude to God for the gift of another son. The name Yehudah is the source of the Hebrew name of the Jewish people (Yehudim), revealing the very direct tie between Judaism and gratitude.

Gratitude opens the heart and that’s why it provides a fine orientation equally to the inanimate, human and divine dimensions of the world.

A simple and effective way to practice gratitude is by making giving thanks part of your everyday life. For example, it is an established Jewish practice to recite 100 such blessings a day. The term for “blessing” in Hebrew is bracha, which comes from the same root as the Hebrew word for “knee.” When you say a blessing, it is as if you have bent your knee in an act of gratitude. The habit of saying blessings can remind you to be thankful when you hit a green light, or the salad is fresh, or the garden is getting the rain it needs, or your child came home from school as usual.

Can you see how such a practice might slowly but insistently change your orientation to the world and your life?

By Dr. Alan Morinis