Multifamily leadership
Lottery Tickets & Inside Jobs
Lottery Tickets & Inside Jobs
In her famous song “Ironic” Alanis Morissette opines “an old man turned 98 – he won the lottery and died the next day”. We don’t learn anything else about the life story of his old man. Perhaps he led a full and happy life, and the lottery winnings preceded a lovely final day. It’s also possible that he lived in poverty and spent money he couldn’t spare to buy lottery tickets in hopes of a better future only to find he had no future left.
Lottery Winners & Losers
While we don’t know the rest of this fictitious man’s story, there are plenty of real-life cautionary tales related to lottery winners whose lives weren’t quite the fairy tales they imagined instant wealth would bring. There is a temptation to look at their stories with a feeling of superiority, believing their foolishness is unique to them and that in the same position, you would make much better decisions. Maybe. Maybe not.
If you have ever struggled with too little, it’s easy to believe that more is the solution and much more is everything. Buying the lottery ticket alone can lead to daydreaming about the many things you’d do and the places you’d go and stuff you’d buy. Before you know it, dissatisfaction with your current life can creep in. That is a high price for an extremely low probability. Nevertheless, this post isn’t about the lottery per se, and it isn’t intended as a moral judgment on those who play it.
Living for Big Dreams
The same story holds true for any number of big grandiose desires or goals. People dream of acquiring luxurious things, believing they will then be respected, accepted, and feel better about themselves. People who manage to reach some of those aspirations often find that the feeling they expected was fleeting at best. How heartbreaking.
When considering your personal ambitions and desires, it is helpful to consider: If you achieve them, how will it change your insides? How will you then view yourself deep in your heart? Will you be a better person?
Inside Out
It seems to me that nothing external can fix the internal. It can wreck it, as we see in the lottery example, but it can’t improve it. Only you can do the work from the inside out. Therapy, journaling, meditation, and other deep inside work tools are essential to rooting out, identifying, and sorting through your motivations. Happiness is an inside job – something I wrote about more than a decade ago.
It is a long process – even a lifelong one – but it’s worth the effort. When your dreams come true (and I hope they do) you will then be able to distinguish the things that really matter to you and discard the rest.
I encourage you to work from the inside out.
How are you making your inside work a priority? Share your stories with us!
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Eric Brown | Collective Conversations
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Changing Perspective
In March 2011, I wrote about changing up the way you think about prospects and residents. “Prospects and residents are human beings and or people first. Think of it this way, treat them as prospects or consumers and you are treating them according to your needs. Turn that around and treat them as people or humans and you are treating them according to their needs.”
Earlier this year the post Business is Personal, discussed being in service of the whole humans who work for and serve the business. On the surface, these two admonitions may appear to be in conflict, but I believe they are two sides of the same coin.
Hot Under The Collar
Many times, when a resident calls the home office, the caller is hot under the collar, feeling that their needs haven’t been met or that they have fundamentally been disrespected. The follow-up conversation with the site team often runs along the same lines – they feel that the resident violated policy, was rude, and want to know that the company ‘has their back’ in the conflict – often quoting some form of evidence that they were right, and the resident is wrong.
In this right vs. wrong mindset, there are no winners. Either/or is almost always a sucker’s choice and leaves at least one party feeling maligned and misunderstood.
Pressing Buttons
I know from personal experience that some residents seem to press all the buttons and when that happens, it is easy to get caught up in an emotional hailstorm. But when my buttons are pressed, it is MY responsibility. How I manage those feelings and how I respond are completely within my control. It isn’t the resident’s fault if I ‘lose it’. To paraphrase Viktor Frankl, there is power in the space between stimulus and response. We have the power to choose and, in our response lies the opportunity for growth.
When a business accepts the responsibility to act in service of its team members with a culture that actively removes barriers to healthy communication, it promotes a standard of psychological safety. In that climate, it becomes easier to engage in difficult conversations and team members learn how to resolve conflicts without defaulting to triggered emotional responses.
You Win – I Win – We Win
When the overall stated goal is to generate better outcomes for everyone instead of winning at all costs, it increases the likelihood that residents will feel heard, and their issues will be resolved in a way that benefits them.
Ultimately, the business wins when the team members do, and we all benefit when our customer wins.
What are you doing to create winning situations for your team members and customers? Share your stories with us!
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Donald Davidoff | Collective Conversations
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Intuitive Leadership
I am not a teacher.
I have great admiration for teachers. They have the ability to take complex concepts and break them down into small components. Using those skills, they bring learners with varying levels of native proficiency to a place of understanding and application.
I have made a valiant effort, studying, preparing, and over-preparing for those times when it fell to me to teach, but it is not my natural skill. And that’s okay. Albert Einstein is quoted as saying, “Everyone is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.” Some of us are birds and others are fish.
I love the book The Lion Tracker’s Guide to Life by Boyd Varty. In it there is a quote by fellow tracker Renias Mhlongo; “I don’t know where I’m going but I know exactly how to get there.” That statement comes much closer to describing my leadership style.
I fall into the category of the intuitive leader in that I may not be able to explain every step along the way but I am confident in how to get there. My belief does not lie in my own personal ability to execute every component of a goal because any business’s success is tied to the work of the many. My trust is in how I understand my personal true north and in the intentional practices and the pole-watchers that I keep in place.
Intuitive leadership starts with personal development. For me, that involves a host of personal practices, morning, and evening routines that center my thoughts, examine my emotions, and set my intentions. My personal faith grounds me. These practices help soften my heart, sharpen my sword and prepare me for the day ahead. The people closest to me hold me accountable.
Intuition without deep personal work can be catastrophic. Without constraints, intuition can easily devolve into ego. It can blur the lines and divert your focus. It is easy to get lost in understanding your authentic values – making money without making a difference, confusing pleasure with joy, and creating goals that aren’t tied to purpose.
Intuitive leadership is most effective when tied with personal values. People trust a leader who leads from the heart and the gut. One without the other misses the mark. Everyone finds their own path to connect their personal values to their leadership style but if you want to lead with intuition, start with deep, committed, personal work.
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