I am a big fan of the Solitaire game that is on my phone. I can complete a round in just a few minutes, and it has provided numerous moments of mindless fun while waiting in line or for appointments. Somehow, I get lost in it and the time seems to go by much faster.
I have noticed that often there are times when I feel completely stuck, then I discover one more move, and it triggers a whole series of additional moves. Frequently, it makes the difference between winning a round and losing it.
I wonder if there are moments like that at work when I am ready to give up, but if I looked a little harder, I could find that next step that leads to a solution.
As Kenny Rogers said: “You’ve got to know when to hold ’em, know when to fold ’em.” You also have to know when to avoid the temptation to fold ’em too fast and re-deal. Take a second look at your problem and see if you can’t find the one more move you can make.
Originally published in modified form on June 26, 2013
For the second time in as many years, Major League Baseball played a game on the Field of Dreams in Dyersville, Iowa (population 4,561). While working as temporary staff at the game, I continually marveled at the logistical feats required to make this event — in a literal cornfield — happen (see dot #3351). But mostly, I thought about Denise Stillman.
Denise visited the Field of Dreams while on vacation in 2010 — then not much more than the preserved baseball field and original house from the movie. But like Kevin Costner’s character in the film, she saw a vision for what baseball meant and what the field could be. A big vision.
I heard her describe that vision and she was a commanding presence. After she spoke, I could see her dream of a youth sports complex that hosted traveling teams from throughout the Midwest. I believed her when she said the site could become a “mecca for traveling baseball” and that it could rival Cooperstown as a host site for Little League tournaments. Her energy and passion were contagious — except to the land’s neighbors.
The surrounding land owners partnered to form a collaborative to oppose Stillman and her plans — wanting to keep all that traffic and outsiders away from ruining the small-town Iowa feel. They sued her for improper zoning — repeatedly. She sued them for interference and defamation. Finally, the Iowa Supreme Court ruled and allowed her to play ball, five years after she acquired the site.
But during that time, Denise was diagnosed with cancer. Instead of seeing her dream come to fruition, she spent her final working years with lawyers — but still acting as if she would prevail. It was her vision and persuasive lobbying efforts during this time that convinced Major League Baseball to do the unthinkable — build a temporary stadium in a cornfield and play a game there. They signed the contract four months after her passing.
After the success of the first MLB game, everyone sees the vision that Denise was the only one to see for years. Today, investors have an $80 million plan to develop the site with fields, a hotel, a team dormitory, and an outdoor amphitheater — and multiple entities are jumping on board with million-dollar grants for infrastructure and even a permanent stadium.
Denise Stillman is a role model to all of us — reminding us to dream big, and to keep dreaming, even when there are two outs in the ninth and the wind is blowing in. Persistence does pay off. People did come, Denise. People most definitely did come.
If I say “Dole,” it’s likely the first word that comes to mind is “pineapple” and that word likely conjures images of Hawaii. Thanks to entrepreneur James Dole, the brand Dole, pineapple, and Hawaii have been synonymous since the turn of the twentieth century.
Pineapple had been growing in the islands long before Dole arrived, but it was he who recognized that to create a sustainable market, distribution to the mainland was key. As a result, Dole opened massive canneries to package the fruit and conducted recipe contests to help New Englanders see possibilities for how to use this exotic new treat. (The pineapple upside-down cake was a winner!) His savvy paid off, and Dole became one of the largest distributors of pineapple for a century.
It wasn’t enough for Dole to grow the fruit or even package it. He had to champion it from plant to table, overcoming barriers at each step along the way.
Think about your idea and evaluate whether you have continued to nurture it far enough into the process. A great idea at one stage will flounder if you don’t provide the support to see it through to the ultimate user.
Jim Henson, the genius behind the Muppets, wanted to work in television from the moment he saw his first image on the small screen. It was a new medium then and not many opportunities existed in the field. When the call went out for teenagers who could “manipulate marionettes” for Roy Meachum’s Junior Morning Show, Jim knew that this was the opening he had been waiting for.
So, this enterprising high school student checked out two books from the library, taught himself puppetry, and landed the job — for three weeks before the show was canceled for violating child labor laws!
This is just one fascinating anecdote from Jim Henson — The Biography that has entertained me this summer. Henson was a master businessman as well as a creative genius but my takeaway from his story is to just start. The original Kermit wasn’t a frog, but rather a generic hand puppet made from his mother’s blue wool coat. Obviously, Henson continued to modify it and give it personality, but only after using the rough version in several shows.
He started doing appearances on others’ shows, before creating his own commercials, then worked on Sesame Street, then his own television show, and eventually branched out into movies. The evolution of his empire was incremental, gradual, and the result of much trial and error. He continually fought the “puppets are only for children” stigma, struggled to get funding, and had many setbacks during his career. But Henson always found a workaround or waited until the timing was right to try again and achieved great success as a result.
Henson made pieces of cloth and feathers come to life — as vividly as he did with his dream to work in television. Take a lesson from him and keep creating ways to get one step closer to your goal — even if the path isn’t at anything like what you imagined it would be.
Source: Jim Henson: The Biography by Brian Jay Jones, 2013
In Christine Hawkinson’s book 50 Years in the Bleachers, she shares her dad’s coaching philosophy: D.D.S. Richard Maher, an Illinois Basketball Coaches Hall of Fame inductee, believed that players must have Desire, Discipline, and Structure for a program to be successful.
D.D.S. is a good formula for many other pursuits, including blog writing.
Today is the 10-year anniversary of leadership dots! I went on hiatus for two weeks when my Mom unexpectedly went into the hospital and then hospice, but otherwise, I have published every single day for the past decade. Ten years. Three thousand, six hundred and thirty-nine dots. Over 870,000 words.
There were many (many!) times when Desire was missing but Discipline and Structure prevailed. I think of those days – or more accurately, those late nights – when I would have chosen a root canal over writing. But I promised myself I would write daily for 10 years, and I would feel worse about breaking my commitment than I did about writing yet another post.
So, as I enter Decade #2, the dots will continue but with some breaks built in. I’ll republish some of my favorites while I’m on vacation and during the holidays — we’ll see whether that modification to the Structure is enough to sustain my Desire for another million words or so.
I hope the dots have been a thought-provoking nugget for you each morning, and that you’ll encourage others to follow along on the journey.
Even if you didn’t watch the Kentucky Derby over the weekend, you need to see the replay to watch Rich Strike, the colt with 80-1 odds, come from the back of the field to capture the roses. To make it even more like Hollywood, the horse wasn’t even entered in the race until another horse scratched on Friday, the day before the Derby. Rich Strike was purchased in the fall for $30,000 and this win — only its third ever! — earned the owner $1.86 million. Not a bad return on investment.
If you listen to the announcers, they don’t even mention Rich Strike until the final seconds when they are literally at the wire. Before that, all the focus was on the two favorites as they battled it out. It’s a scenario that plays out too often in real life, where all the attention is on the presumed leader, leaving an opening for an underdog (or underling) to successfully slide in.
Many were surprised that Rich Strike was even in the race, and even more shocked that such a long shot won it. But I’m pinning a picture of this beautiful colt in my office to remind me to persevere despite what others’ expectations may be. Even if your odds are 80-1, keep running.
Biographies and autobiographies hit a sweet spot for me — they’re much lighter than many thought-provoking or educational non-fiction books yet much more substantive than “beach reads” or pure fiction. As a result, I can indulge in leisurely reading without any guilt and always take away at least one life lesson when reading another’s story.
My latest devouring was Viola Davis’ Finding Me. The award-winning actress chronicles her upbringing and vividly describes the H.A.R.D. life she led: scores of rats in their home, no running water, often no electricity or heat, bullying, constant hunger, and the ever-present smell of urine. It was rough.
Viola found her escape through an Upward Bound program that became a portal to theatre, competitions, scholarships, and a way out. She was warned that a life in show business was hard but she had already conquered hard. She turned that perseverance into a work ethic and determination that propelled her acting career.
When we face situations that are difficult or even brutal we have a choice to define them as either motivators or barriers. Hard experiences can prepare you to face other challenges as a survivor, knowing that you are able to persist despite the circumstances. Like Viola, allow hard to harden your resolve, not your soul.
I’ve never heard any of Will Smith’s rap albums, watched an episode of Fresh Prince, seen the majority of his movies, or considered myself a fan — until I finished reading Will, his authentic and inspiring autobiography. My takeaway from his book is the power of a strong work ethic — his is amazing. Will Smith makes me feel like a slug.
Two examples: 1) Smith wanted to be the Biggest Movie Star in the World so he studied the habits of those who were successful and learned that promoting a movie overseas helped with box office gross which in turn led to bigger movie roles. Smith writes: “So I would shoot The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air during the week, leave the set, go straight to the airport, fly to Europe overnight, land Saturday morning, do interviews all day, do a premiere, sign autographs all night, head straight back to the airport, hop back on the jet, memorize my lines for the next Fresh Prince episode, and land in LA just in time to go to sleep Sunday night.” He even learned a few phrases in the local language to increase the chance he would be featured on their news.
2) He committed to attending all of his son’s high school football games and kept that promise even when the games occurred during his filming in Beijing. Smith recalls: “And then the grace of God revealed itself in the form of the international dateline. Beijing to Los Angeles is a twelve-hour flight. A 10:00 pm flight out of Beijing on Friday crossed the date line, landing in Los Angeles at ten Friday morning, just in time to get to the house, get some rest and make it to Trey’s game at six Friday night. A 4:00 pm flight on Saturday going the other way arrives at 4:00 am Monday morning, just in time to get back to work. Jaden and I commuted ten straight weeks, Beijing to Los Angeles and back, never missing a single one of Trey’s games.”
It would have been easy to skip the promotional tours during the filming of a weekly television show or to prioritize making a movie in China over a high school football contest but Smith “committed to a work ethic of uncompromising intensity” that allowed him to achieve unprecedented success. The next time you find yourself making excuses or rationalizing why you can’t do something, think about Will Smith. Where there’s a will, there probably is a way.
Source: Will by Will Smith with Mark Mansion, 2021
A friend who is working on his dissertation lamented that the work reminded him of what happens after a big snow. “I shoveled for a half hour and cleared the end of the driveway,” he said. “And then the plow kept coming by. It’s progress, then setback.”
It’s clearly an apt analogy as anyone who has ever written a dissertation will attest, but the “one step forward, one back” aspect applies to most projects. You try something and fail. You hire someone, then have a learning curve while training them. You submit a project idea and it’s rejected. You lose weight then gain a few pounds back after a binge.
The trick is to adjust your mindset to know that the snow and the plow are both coming again — to see that as a natural phase of the process rather than a barrier or reason to quit. Shovel the driveway again and keep at the work. Eventually, you will achieve your goal.
The Great Gatsby was considered a failure until 150,000 copies of it were printed by the Council on Books in Wartime to distribute free copies to soldiers in World War II. Author F. Scott Fitzgerald never realized commercial success from the work before he died.
The iPod was invented by Tony Fadell, the VP of strategy and new ventures at Phillips, but they did not pursue production of the MP3 player. Microsoft, Motorola, Palm, Nokia, and Blackberry — all leaders in the electronics industry — also passed on the opportunity to promote the device which eventually sold 400 million units and 35 billion song downloads.
“Take Five” is the best-selling jazz single of all time, made popular by the Dave Brubeck Quartet. But when Paul Desmond wrote it, he joked that he’d use his share of royalties to buy an electric shaver!
Don’t self-edit your own idea or let the initial reactions of others prohibit you from putting it out in the world. Changes that push boundaries may take time to be accepted but are often worth the wait. Keep creating and keep sharing what you believe in!
