Our Greatest Privilege

Even though it's political season, I still don't think voting is our greatest privilege. The opportunity to vote for the president in a democratic nation is an unbelievable privilege. It means regardless of the individual's race, gender, income, title, authority, assets, religious beliefs, size of home, number of children, geographic area, personality, or opinion of Donald Trump, every citizen gets the same weighted vote as any other citizen.

However, everyone, including people in communist nations, has an even greater privilege every day. That's the privilege to lead. Leadership simply means the ability to influence how other people think in ways that generate better sustainable results both for the organization and the people in it. The capacity to lead, like voting in a democracy, is available to every person regardless of their race, gender, title, income, authority, assets, home, number of children, geographic area, personality, or opinion of Donald Trump.

To me, that is awesome. Think about it. You have the same opportunity to influence the way other people think as anyone else. The greatest challenge to being an effective leader is throwing away all of those goofy tapes that say, "When you get to be head of the organization, then you can lead the way," "When you're older, then you can lead," "If you just become more charismatic, then you can really be the leader for this group." ENOUGH NONSENSE!

I love the topic of leadership. I love the concept of leadership. Effective leaders, which are people who really influence others in ways that generate better sustainable results, are THE necessary prerequisite for organizational success. No strategy, no brand, no financial position can withstand the lack of leadership and still generate sustainable and positive results.

Having said all of this, I hope you understand how powerful the privilege of leadership is for you. You get to vote for the president once every four years, but you can influence how other people think five times a day. Leadership is the open tap of society. Everyone can provide influence on an on-going basis.

This article is more about the privilege than the tactics, but since I'm a "how-to writer" I'll mention briefly how to be a leader. Here we go:

1. Make a list of the people who have influenced you to think in a way that generated better sustainable results.
2. For each name, write down how they effectively influenced you.
3. Look at the list and determine how you could use these proven leadership techniques to influence the people in your life.
4. Constantly work to improve your delivery of that technique.
5. Repeat the process.

Here's an example. I'm a freshmen in high school and my freshman advisor tells me, "Dan, high school is a marathon, not a sprint. You have to pace yourself." This advice generated sustainable results for me because even though many times my career has not unfolded exactly the way I wanted to I always kept in mind that it's a marathon. If I just keep going, eventually breakthroughs happen.

He used an analogy of a race to influence my thoughts. Bingo. There's a leadership technique that I can use. For example, I can use the analogy between voting and leading.

Have a great month and be an influencer!

Take care and have a great month!

Dan Coughlin

Accelerate Update This section is always current to the current month

I suppose every book changes an author's life to a certain degree. My first book, which was self-published in 1995, was called Inside Out: A Catalyst for Conscious Living. It's out of print now for a number of good reasons. The layout, which yours truly did, looks like something a first grader could do today. And the ideas are very theoretical, which doesn't fit my approach anymore. However, I read the book a few months ago, and I was pleased by how clearly I had explained my early thoughts on improving performance.

My second book, Corporate Catalysts: How to Make Your Company More Successful, Whatever Your Title, Income, or Authority was published in 2005 by Career Press. That book was a step forward in clarifying my ideas on improving performance and understanding how to write a whole book. It's one thing to dream about getting a book contract and another thing to write a 70,000 word manuscript.

My third book, ACCELERATE: 20 Practical Lessons to Boost Momentum, which was published in May 2007 by Kaplan Publishing, has changed my business dramatically. Up until that book was published, I mostly did projects for four companies: McDonald's, Marriott, GSD&M, and Toyota. In the past 12 months, I've worked with business owners, executives, and managers within dozens of small, medium, and massive organizations in more than 20 industries ranging from boats to banks to software to financial services to trucking to lighting to home healthcare to hospitals to optometrists. It's been an exciting adventure.

If you want to see my speaking calendar for 2008, which we'll try to update every two weeks, please click here.

Currently, I have 66 speeches scheduled for 2008. If you would like for me to speak at one of your events in 2008 or 2009, feel free to contact me at dan@thecoughlincompany.com and I will be glad to see if we can make it work.

If you want to see my speaking topics and a video of footage from some of my keynote speeches, please click here.

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