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PUBLISHER’S PERSPECTIVE HEADER
PUBLISHER’S PERSPECTIVE HEADER
PUBLISHER’S PERSPECTIVE HEADER

The Boulder Problem

Leadership and rock climbing have striking similarities. I recently watched Free Solo, the 2019 Oscar-winning documentary about Alex Honnold’s ascent of Yosemite’s El Capitan. The climb is 3,200 feet straight-up, and free soloing is ascending without a rope. The feat had never been attempted, and for good reason: One mistake can mean paying the ultimate price.

As I watched Alex climb, I could not help but think of his efforts as a metaphor for today’s leadership experience. This may seem like an odd analogy. After all, most of us don’t face life-threatening consequences every time we change position. But two factors make the comparison relevant. First, we all fear different things. A climber may stare down a mountain but be terrified of financial risk, while an entrepreneur may be petrified of heights and yet accepting of walking a financial tightrope. Second, we all experience fear differently. For some the thought of financial loss or public failure might be as foreboding as clinging to the side of a mountain.

Publisher
Rick Thomas

Editor
Nance Larsen

Cover & Cover Story Photos
Glenn Aronwits

Visualizer
Jeanette Hamje

Administration
Karin Norgard

Sales
Stephanie Haydn
sales@thestriveproject.com
907.278.7483

info@thestriveproject.com

Published By
The STRIVE Group, LLC

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Copyright © 2019
The Strive Group, LLC
All rights reserved.

Contents

Apr-jun 2019
Reach for Diversity, Unleash Potential
by Colonel Patricia A. Csànk,
USAF Commander,
Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson
673d Air Base Wing
The Power of Change
by Dave Neiswander
Finding purpose, innovating and making a difference.
Show Me Your Calendar, I’ll Tell You What’s Important
by Moira Lethbridge
Why CEO’s need their own strategic plan.
The Power of Seeing Ourselves from the Outside
by Jonathan London
Transcending limitations to become something more.
A Meaningful Life
by Eric Drew
The path of despair, determination and hope.
Soundless: Breaking Down Barriers
by Katherine Irwin
Embracing a destiny to make life fully accessible.
Inclusion in Action
by Joe Gerstandt
What matters most is what you choose to do.
The Rotten Truth
by Heather Kinzie
The honest truth about great leadership.
Pray, Bail and Shout
by Patrick Shier
The fundamentals of applied leadership and followership.
Awakening the Conscious Leader Within
by Alexsys Thompson
A catalyst for adopting a grateful practice.
The Power of Change
by Dave Neiswander
I

n 2006, after 15 years as an investment banker, I needed a change. I was in search of the ever-elusive life with “meaning and purpose.”

A year later, I found myself in Lusaka, Zambia, the first employee on the ground for the young nonprofit World Bicycle Relief. I would help distribute bicycles to healthcare workers who had no form of transportation other than walking.

I had no bicycle experience and no nonprofit experience. I had never lived outside the United States, let alone in Africa. How did I get here?

The Path to Africa
Without a clear path forward toward a new, purposeful career, I stepped into the unfamiliar: the grasslands of Kenya.
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Empower your team with dynamic collaboration tools to boost productivity and inspire breakthroughs. With one-touch meeting launch, a connected whiteboard, wireless screen sharing and PDF summaries, SMART TeamWorks™ is your end-to-end collaboration solution.
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Leverage SMART Board® Pro displays with iQ powered by the Intel® Compute Card for the ultimate collaboration experience.
More information available at:
877-822-5300
info@chariotgroup.com
smarttech.com/teamworks
©2019 SMART Technologies. All rights reserved.
Show Me Your Calendar, I’ll Tell You What’s Important
Why CEO’s need their own strategic plan.
by Moira Lethbridge
“To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson
S

even years ago, I was uncomfortably stuck making fear‐based decisions, not sleeping, feeling anxious, stressed and unhappy. I was the president and CEO of a professional services firm that was growing and bringing in big revenue numbers. Everything should have been great, but personally, I was struggling.

I was miserable, but I couldn’t imagine living another way. I thought I had no choice but to stay where I was, doing what I had always done. Everyone else was telling me that this was major success, but I kept thinking, is there something more?

I was overwhelmed with too many responsibilities and not enough time for myself and doing the things I loved — vision, strategy, execution, culture and connecting with employees and customers. I felt perpetually behind, wondering how others managed life’s demands. I craved inner peace. I wanted to take the time to balance health, well-being and achievement, but I didn’t know where to start.

The Power of Seeing Ourselves from the Outside
by Jonathan London
D

o you really know how you come across to others? If you’re anything like me, you have some image in your mind of how people see you. Sometimes, the image is slightly better than the reality. Earlier today, for example, I glanced at a mirror while making a purchase at an electronics store and noticed that I put my hands on the counter in an awkward way. My first thought was, “Do I really do that?” I tend to think of myself as a cool, confident guy!

In other domains, that self-image could be grimmer than reality. For instance, in a recent meeting with my boss, I voiced an opinion and then apologized for coming across as overly critical. She immediately responded, “I didn’t perceive you that way at all!” I suddenly wished I hadn’t put that thought into her head.

We are constantly evaluating how we come across to others, and we are often wrong. Wouldn’t it be powerful to see ourselves as others see us, even just for a few moments? What would we discover about ourselves?

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A Meaningful Life
by Eric Drew
I

magine your doctor informs you that you are very sick and could die in the next few days. How would you feel if, after consulting dozens of top doctors, every major medical center in the United States confirms that you are 100 percent terminal and that nothing can be done?

Allow yourself to consider this situation. Looking at your life, would you have any regrets? Have you lived a meaningful life that will leave a legacy for a better world? Have you improved the human condition, decreased suffering, or simply spread more love and positive energy than negativity, fear and pain? Have you given more than you have taken?

These are profound questions, ones which would facilitate a much better existence for all of us if we were to ask them of ourselves from time to time, before we are inevitably faced with our own mortality.

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The Chariot Group
907.222.5300 or info@chariotgroup.com
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Department of Defense, its components, or any agency of the U.S. government.
Photo by Glenn Aronwits
Reach for Diversity, Unleash Potential
by Colonel Patricia A. Csànk, USAF
T

he Value of Outsiders

I am a career outsider. I have never held any particular leadership position longer than two years, but that’s not uncommon in my profession. Like many of my colleagues, I am a generalist, and resist “expertise” as I see it as a potentially inhibiting label. I value the first few months of any new assignment because it’s when I do my most critical thinking and purposeful questioning. I suspect many people see an outsider as either a drag on the team or a potential threat, particularly if she is the leader, so I try to respectfully assure people of my intent to learn while I settle in and hopefully build trust. Still, outsiders upset the natural order of things, and for well-established teams the idea of any change, even if temporary, may wreak havoc on the team and the leader.

I knew going in as the head of a United States Air Force (USAF) supply chain organization that I needed to calibrate my leadership style to the team, simultaneously giving them an opportunity to do the same. It took a conscious effort to ease into familiarity as I worked to understand the organization, its people and culture. It wasn’t long before I heard that many saw me as too young, too energetic and unqualified to lead the team because I lacked supply experience. While true by varying degrees, there was also a complex and powerful dynamic between the team’s informal leaders based on diverse age, experience and qualifications, which couldn’t be ignored or overlooked. To be fair, they were regarded by the greater USAF logistics community as experts and collectively represented more than 140 years of military supply chain experience.

There’s more to every kid’s story. Help give Anchorage students the support they need to graduate.
Soundless: Breaking Down Barriers Photos by James Evans, University of Alaska Anchorage
Photos by James Evans, University of Alaska Anchorage
Soundless:
Breaking Down Barriers
by Katherine Irwin
I

magine yourself sitting in the audience at the University of Alaska Anchorage (UAA) Fall Commencement ceremony of 2018. Five hundred students have finished their hard work and are getting their degrees, ready to start a new chapter of their lives. Every one of them has their own unique story to tell.

On the stage sits a student who has been selected to give an inspiring speech to the audience about their future. She looks like every other student, excited, robed in black with a cap on her head, the tassel waiting to move over to the other side. Like so many others, she started this journey unsure what she wanted to do, unsure what her destiny would be after college. She had considered many choices and had made many decisions during her four years of college, learning new things, earning excellent grades and finding her role on campus.

When it is her turn to give her speech of inspiration, she steps up to the podium.

Inclusion in Action
by Joe Gerstandt
A

n interesting thing happens when I ask leaders if they are inclusive. With rare exception, there is an automatic response in the affirmative. Some even take offense that I would question such a thing. Yet when I follow up with another question, asking them what they do to be intentionally and deliberately inclusive, well, things kind of fall apart. The most common response that I receive is some version of “I don’t discriminate or judge others,” a fantastic aspiration that falls far short of inclusion.

This helps to explain the painfully persistent and jarring drop-off between what we say about inclusion and the realities of where we work, live and play.

There are a great many misperceptions about inclusion, but one of the most troublesome is the idea that you are inclusive simply because you are a certain kind of person with certain kinds of intentions.

Join a revolution already in progress. Take the inclusion
pledge at JoinTheRevolution.org.
Join a revolution already in progress. Take the inclusion pledge at JoinTheRevolution.org.
The Rotten Truth
by Heather Kinzie
T

he fish rots from the head, or so the saying goes.

Every person working in an organization looks to their leader for the standard, and if the leader works at a fairly low bar, the organization will surely suffer.

The opposite, of course, holds true, and I’ve had the privilege of observing many organizations flourish because of the high standard modeled by their leaders.

I’m often asked about leadership, and specifically about the competencies and behaviors of great leaders. Many people wonder if there is one key characteristic that is representative of a great leader.

Pray, Bail and Shout
by Patrick Shier
L

eadership is a lot like fossil fuel — formed from the accumulation of some pretty rotten stuff over time with a great deal of pressure. But my best and abiding leadership lessons are those that involved the kind of immense pressure that results in diamonds.

It is likely that most of the people reading this will never face almost certain drowning in an ice-cold, remote Alaskan lake located in the Lake Clark National Park and Preserve, hundreds of roadless miles from a cell phone signal. But I assure you, the lessons taken from the ordeal were a personal breakthrough in the concepts of leading and following that I regularly apply to the most disruptive environments I encounter.

Like many trekking into the great outdoors, the lure of home is hard to resist at the close of an adventure. On shore, not far from our final destination, my father-in-law Dick and I assessed braving the weather versus bivouacking for the evening. We made the decision to push forward to a snug, warm cabin across the familiar lake. Ten minutes after leaving the safety of shore, the weather took a furious turn and in the blink of an eye waves were cresting well above the side of the boat. Dick masterfully held course, neither straight into nor straight away from the quickly rising gale. To turn directly into the wind would have flipped the craft upside down as the front cleared the wave, or buried the bow in the next swell. To turn away would have filled the boat with the first wave crashing over the stern.

TAKE YOUR EGO OUT OF THE EQUATION, AND WATCH YOUR COMPANY THRIVE!

‘’Brandon Black and Shayne Hughes have landed on a key insight: When leaders let go of ego, they unlock their potential. The story of how they improved culture and performance at Encore Capital is packed with useful lessons for coaches and leaders alike.’’

‘— Marshall Goldsmith,
Executive Coach, and
New York Times Best-selling Author

Available in print, audio and digital formats. Visit learnaslead.com/ego-free-leadership.

Learning as Leadership

Learning as Leadership is a culture change and leadership development firm helping organizations such as Shell Oil, Fairchild Semiconductor, NASA, Sandia National Laboratories, and Capital One create cultures of open communication and collaboration.

For more information visit learnaslead.com.

Awakening the Conscious Leader Within
by Alexsys Thompson
Awakening the Conscious Leader Within
by Alexsys Thompson
Awakening the Conscious Leader Within
by Alexsys Thompson
H

ave you ever gotten to the top of the ladder or the end of the finish line and felt confused and lost rather than full and accomplished? Over and over for me, every time I reached a goal, I was left with the feeling, “Is this it?” With each accomplishment, the yearning for something more only became more pronounced. This awareness created a desire to make a shift. I dove into reading biographies, self-help and spiritual books with a tenacity that surprised even me. During my research, I read some cutting-edge science on gratitude and its spiritual component. This theme was present in many of these books and was the catalyst for me in starting my own gratitude practice.

Clarity: Knowing Your Mission

Fast forward 15 years and I have a deep and faithful gratitude practice that has enabled me to find happiness in all the moments in between along the journey. Inside this practice I have explored new and exciting lands within myself. The wonder and curiosity cultivated from my practice have led me to understand my purpose in this life: to create safe spaces for souls to show up. Once I had this awareness, I started to align all that I do with this purpose. As a result, I have been able to live my life with much more commitment, clarity, grace and love, which translates into how I lead and guide executives in my work. We start each partnership with the establishment of a gratitude practice, and I have published the Trybal Gratitude Journal to support participants in their journey.

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