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WHY ANTARCTICA
In 2006 I took two trips to Antarctica to run multiple marathons…
In 2006 I took two trips to Antarctica to run multiple marathons…
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Antarctic Mike (Mike Pierce) shared thisSo true Jim BramlettAntarctic Mike (Mike Pierce) shared thisPurpose. Do we need purpose in our lives? I don't know if we need purpose, but many of us, including me, want purpose. I like to have a "why" in my life. Things I do make more sense when I can attribute them to a purpose. Otherwise, I feel like I am just spending time. Leaders need to understand, communicate, and share the purpose of their organization. If you haven't seen the Simon Sinek video on "Your Why", it's one of the most viewed on YouTube and, defnitely a favorite of mine. Now here's the big deal. Leaders will get much higher employee engagement when they can correlate the organization's purpose to each individual's job. The number one desire of engaged employees is to have and understand their purpose within the organization. When a leader can communicate and support the individual's purpose to that of the organization, there will be higher engagement. We don't need purpose, but when we have it, we aren't just spending time at work punching the clock, but engaging to help everyone realize goals. By the way, I am starting my next Aligned Leadership cohort at the end of April and I have a few seats left. Want to learn more, message me.
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Antarctic Mike (Mike Pierce) shared thisSo true! Thanks for the reminder Rolfe ArnhymAntarctic Mike (Mike Pierce) shared thisI want to leave you with this as we close out the month. Leadership is not a gene. It's not a gift bestowed on a lucky few. It's a skill set — built through failure, through mentorship, through the discipline of showing up and making hard decisions when you'd rather hide. I was a West Point graduate, a combat veteran, a four-time Chamber CEO, and a Vistage Chair — and I'll be the first to tell you I wasn't born a leader. I was built into one, decision by decision, obstacle by obstacle. So can you. That's the whole point. If you're struggling as a leader, their a group for you and its Vistage! Let's grab coffee and chat. #LeadersAreMade #Vistage #NoObstacleTooGreat #RolfeArnhym #CEOMentorship #LeadershipJourney #StartEverythingFinishNothing
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Antarctic Mike (Mike Pierce) shared thisGreat insight Jim SchultzAntarctic Mike (Mike Pierce) shared thisHe had the answer before I finished the question. Smart, experienced. Had been winning in his role for a long time. And completely certain he already knew. It's not arrogance. It's what success does over time. I've watched this pattern play out for over a decade. Business owners who stop getting better. Not because they ran out of talent. Not because the market turned. Because they found what worked and then stopped asking if there was a better way. I watched it happen to myself at AES. For years I was a steward of what was working. Safe. Predictable. Then I started asking a harder question. Not about goals or KPIs. About whether we could become the most trusted voice in our market by doing something completely different than our competitors. That question changed everything. The more you know, the less you tend to question. Success quietly closes the gap between what you know today and what you're willing to find out. That's where curiosity lives. And most successful people close it without ever noticing. When did you last question how you work, not just whether you're working hard enough?
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Antarctic Mike (Mike Pierce) shared thisThis is FANTASTICAntarctic Mike (Mike Pierce) shared thisI have been calling Big Ten wrestling matches for five years. Something I never planned. Took the opportunity because it felt like something I had to try. Here is what I keep seeing from the mat. The third period comeback. The wrestler who is down four points with a minute left. Turns it around. Wins in overtime. The crowd goes wild. The commentators talk about the heart, the grit, the refusal to quit. All real. All true. None of it tells the whole story. The comeback was not built in that minute. It was built in the six months of conditioning before the season started. The hours of stance work. The repetition of the same move until it was automatic. The film study of the opponent who they would eventually face. The visible comeback came from invisible preparation. I see this with clients who build real wealth. The person who retires with enough money did not get there from one great decision. They got there from a decade of boring consistency. The automatic transfers. The max contributions. The rebalancing when markets went crazy. The saying no to the thing that looked exciting but did not fit the plan. The visible result came from invisible repetition. Who is someone in your life that does the boring work without needing credit for it?
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Antarctic Mike (Mike Pierce) shared thisThank you for the reminder Gary Ostermueller . Failure, mistakes and difficulties are the best teachers in the worldAntarctic Mike (Mike Pierce) shared thisLearning from your failures is a sign of true character!
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Antarctic Mike (Mike Pierce) shared thisThis is a very common real world struggle. We don’t want to “give in.” What exactly is “giving in?” What we often mean is we don’t want to concede. Our society is hooked on never giving up or giving in. We quote Churchill who said “never never never give in.” This is actually a misquote because we have conveniently left out the second half of his quote. The second half says “except to convictions of honor and good sense.” In other words, there is a time to give in that makes sense. Didn’t Kenny Rogers remind us of this when he told us “know when to hold em and when to fold em?” This is why I just wrote the book LET GO, Moving forward when Difficulty Strikes.Antarctic Mike (Mike Pierce) shared thisI hate 'giving in.' Those were the words I heard yesterday during a coaching call. And, they sounded so familiar. I have said them myself, too myself. I had a rush of both familiar frustration and I wanted to say, "No! Don't give in...you're the boss! Do what YOU want...." And, I felt (and remembered viseraly) the empathy for the struggle as leaders when we must hold up two (or more) values that are important to us. An opportunity forge a course of action that may not be exactly what we wanted when we wanted it... but/and preserves something of equal value with the team... It can be so easy to say, THIS way is right, the OTHER way is wrong... and dig in and justify. Who doesn't love being right!!!!!!! Rally those who agree with us around... And yet, the Sages will tell us (thank you Yonason Goldson - The Ethics Ninja) "consensus is not confidence." So, when everyone is pouring on agreement. That's when my radar goes up! ✋ Is there another way to look at this? ✋ What's the 'third' option? ✋ What is really in conflict here? ✋ What's most important? Who is most important? ✋ What is getting in the way? One of my favorite sayings that has me slow down is this: "Out beyond right and wrong, there is a field. I will meet you there" 💗 💗💗💗💗💗💗💗💗💗💗💗💗💗💗💗💗💗
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Antarctic Mike (Mike Pierce) shared thisThis is OUTSTANDING. Thank you Mark TaylorAI Can Write Your Emails. It Can't Have the Conversation You're Avoiding.AI Can Write Your Emails. It Can't Have the Conversation You're Avoiding.
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Antarctic Mike (Mike Pierce) shared thisThis is a good example of how hard it is to LET GO of various chapters in the book of our livesAntarctic Mike (Mike Pierce) shared thisA healthcare executive's spouse emailed me on a Saturday. Not about the portfolio. Not about the tax plan. She wanted to talk about where they're going to live in retirement. Her husband wants one thing. She wants another. And it was eating at both of them. This is the conversation nobody warns you about. You spend 25 years running hospitals. You negotiate the exit. You plan the succession. You structure the deferred comp payout. And then you realize you and your spouse haven't agreed on what comes next. Not the financial "what comes next." The actual life "what comes next." Where do we live? What does Tuesday look like when I'm not getting pinged by my team? Who am I if I'm not the person running this place? She didn't need a spreadsheet. She needed someone to say: "There's no deadline on this. I'll work with you wherever you land." That's the part most advisors skip. The modeling is easy. The conversation is the hard part.
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