Three Minute Leadership: Great Leaders Fall Forward
To: The Great Leaders Who Have a Passion for Continuous Learning
In his 2011 Commencement Address at Penn State University Denzel Washington, internationally renowned actor and director, gave an impassioned address in which he encouraged the graduating class to take risks to achieve their fullest potential: “I found that nothing in life is worthwhile unless you take risks. Nothing.”
Quoting Nelson Mandela, he says: “There is no passion to be found playing small, and settling for a life that’s less than the one you are capable of living.” You need to stretch and challenge yourself to grow – take risks, never fear failure, never quit. Every event in our life is an incredible opportunity… to learn, to fall forward and be someone great than we were before. Life is to be lived in those exciting and beautiful moments exercising all those beautiful and incredible talents and gift we have. They are ours to find and use. It is through risk-taking, challenging and stretching ourselves that we will realize them. Borrowing from motivational speaker, Les Brown, Washington asks us to envision the consequences of a life not pushed to its limits:
“Imagine you’re on your death bed, and standing around your death bed are the ghosts representing your unfulfilled potential, the ghosts of the ideas and dreams you never acted on, the ghosts of the talents and gifts you didn’t use. They are standing around your bed angry, disappointed, and upset. They say, ‘We came to YOU because YOU could have brought us to life and now we have to go to the grave together.’
He asks us: “How many ghosts are going to be around our bed when your time comes?” Great leaders, those who life their life with passion and purpose, will answer this question in the words of Hunter S. Thompson, 20th century American journalist and author: “Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming “Wow! What a Ride!”
There will be no ghosts at the great leader’s bedside. There will be the fulfilled realities of their ideas and dreams, their talents and gifts – in the organizations and businesses in which they worked, the communities they served and in the lives of the countless people they touched in every step of their magnificent journey. Enjoy the ride! As Denzel Washington tells us “Never be discouraged, never hold back and give everything you got, and when you fall throughout life, remember this, fall forward.”
Have a beautiful day and a magnificent week!!!
Mike
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