What does your story have to do with being the best? What does your story have to do with your leadership qualities? That’s what we are going to talk about today.
Earlier this year, I was over in London, and they brought me to London, they brought 2 people to London. One was me, the second guy was a guy who ran a company called Oxford Analytica and Oxford Analytica has 200 think tanks throughout the world.
What they do is they come up with statistics; they come up with analytics so that people know where threats are coming from. In fact our President and every major leader in the world get’s Oxford Analytica briefings on their desks every morning. So our President gets those briefings.
So it was me and this guy who runs this company called Oxford Analytica. We were brought to London to train the top 100 financial advisors in all of Europe. So I think there was 97 fellas and 3 gals. They brought us to train them, they brought them all to London. So I spoke to them and trained them about the importance of their personal story to their business.
I was going on and on and I was ranting, and I was raving about the importance of their personal story being the golden goose to the success of their company.
So after I get done, this guy from Oxford Analytica comes up and he is completely different presenter than me, very smart, very academic, has a PowerPoint. He is giving statistics and analytics of studies and threats to the markets and threats to the world, and it was just amazing stuff he was training them on.
After he got finished, he approached me and he said, “Bo, can I have a word with you?” I said, “Yeah.” He goes, “Do you know all that stuff you were talking about, people’s personal story being the golden goose, being the key to the kingdom for their success?” I said, “Yeah.” He said, “Do you know that you are right?” I said, “Cool, good, because I was kind of hoping I was right, because I have dedicated my whole life to this.” So I was thinking that’s awesome that I am right.
He goes, “Not only are you right, I am going to send you the analytics, the study that we did, to back you up.” I said, “Cool, I could use that.” Because for me, it has all been instinctual, the ability to share my story so that I can live my dreams and everyone would facilitate and help those dreams, and follow. That was instinctual for me, but for Oxford Analytica it’s has been a study that dated all the way back to Julius Caesar.
So in the middle of the Roman Empire, they began the study, Julius Caesar. The study ended in the 2012 presidential election, so our last presidential elections here in America. They came up with 3 things in these analytics that every leader from Julius Caesar, to the 2012 presidential elections, every leader had to have.
These leaders weren’t just politicians and they weren’t just political leaders, they were Lady Gaga was the one person they studied. Osama Bin Laden of all people was somebody that they studied. Because they wanted to know why people follow certain people, and the analytics prove out that these leaders all the way since Julius Caesar have had 3 things that they’ve had to master, that they’ve had to have to have people follow them in the fashion that they have.
Guess what number 1 was? Guess what the No.1 quality that all these leaders since Julius Caesar to Lady Gaga to Osama Bin Laden, to the last presidential election every one of those leaders, guess what the No.1 ability they had to have? They had to have the ability to share their own story.
They had to have to the ability to share their own story, because the story, their personal story, was the connective tissue that they needed to create the trust and the intimacy for people to latch onto them, and follow them. If that’s the No.1 quality of leadership, since the Roman Empire, then I am digging in on that. If I want to lead, you wouldn’t be on here; you wouldn’t be talking to me right now.
I wouldn’t be speaking to you right now if you didn’t have a piece of molecule in your body that wanted to be the best, that wanted to lead, that wanted to make your dreams and all those around you, dreams come true. You wouldn’t be listening, you wouldn’t be here, in fact if you didn’t have those thoughts I would turn it off now, but you’re here.
So you have this leadership quality that we are going to take full advantage of. Because, I guarantee you right now people communities are sitting around you, right now, your audience, you may not know it. Your family, your audience, your constituencies, your employees they are sitting around you right now and they are waiting. They are waiting for you to lay down connective tissue, so that they know how to follow you.
I guarantee you, they see as a leader, they just don’t know how to follow, they don’t know how to pay you, they don’t know how to go with you, wherever you are going to take them, because you haven’t laid it out for them, where you must master your personal story. This is why being the best, being the best leader is directly in line with telling your personal story, that’s why I don’t take this lightly.
Leadership is our most precious commodity that we have, and you tell me right now, you look around right now, are you happy with the leadership in the world, or in our country? Are you happy? Are you satisfied with it? Are you inspired by our leadership? Well, I am not, and you are probably not either.
So YOU have to take responsibility, that’s a lost art in leadership, isn’t it? Responsibility, personal responsibility for your personal story, and the expression of it. Because your vision, your personal vision, how you see the world, how you are going to take us some place, we will follow, but we need connective tissue to know how to pay and how to follow.
This is what we are learning, that’s why your personal story is so crucial. It wouldn’t be right, if it wasn’t, if it was no big deal, then we just get away with it. I will give you a perfect example.
I want my kids, and you probably want your kids to have discipline, I mean I do, I want them to have it. But how do I teach them, how do I teach my children and how do you teach your children, how to have discipline? Are we going to preach to them and go; now kids we got to have discipline. I can tell you right now, now listen if you are going to work with me, you have got to have discipline. Well discipline means nothing. The word discipline is so overused, I use it a lot, that it has no meaning.
You must share a story with your kids, with your employees, with your constituency, so that they learn discipline. But discipline, the art of discipline is hidden inside of a story. So if I want my kids to have discipline, I tell them a story like this, “Oh hey kids time for bed, let’s go to bed. I want to tell you a story about when I was your age, and my dad Charles, Grandpa Charlie would come in every morning at 5:00 am, because I had a dream about being the best safety in the world. Every morning at 5:00 am my dad, your grandpa would rub my back and he would whisper in my ear, you’re the best in there gosh darn it, you are the best.”
“I would wake up and I would go out on the wet grass by myself and I would train. I would run backwards, so I could be the best safety in the world. That would happen over and over and over again, that happened for 20 years.
One year when I turned 21 that dream came true. All of those miles, all of those mornings that my dad rubbed my back and whispered in my ear and woke me up and I walked out on the wet grass, and I ran backwards, 20 years later I got to the be the best safety in the whole world.”
Okay so that’s a little story that I tell my kids.
Instead of saying, “Hey kids let’s have discipline.” I tell them that story. Now that story has discipline embedded in it, doesn’t it? It has everything you want to teach. Everything you want your audience, and your kids, and your employees to know, is embedded in a story, that’s how we relate. That’s how we are wired, that’s how we follow, that’s how we create intimacy.
Everything you want to teach, everything you want this world to be inspired by, you must embed a story around it. So that your training is kind of hidden, it is kind of hidden. You can’t tell people to be disciplined they are not going to be disciplined. But if you embed it in a story, and you know what happened with my kids, you know what the kids started saying? “Hey will you wake me up at 5:00 in the morning? I want to start training.”
They start doing it, and they start getting woken up. I didn’t have to preach to them. They wouldn’t have listened to me. They would have never asked me, “Hey dad I want to be disciplined, can you teach me how?” They would have never asked that, but they wanted to be woken up. Because of the story of my dad, they wanted their dad, me, to wake them up.
Think about it; think about what you have to give this world. Is it discipline? Is it inspiration? Whatever it is, you have to find out what it is and embed it in a story, okay.
Your personal story is your leadership muscle. It is where all your quality and income comes from. I want you to start thinking about it, stay tuned because this is what we are talking about, from here on, out. So we will see you next time.
