How I Created a Leadership Development System for the Real World – Part 1
“Sometimes adversity is what you need to face in order to [grow and] become successful. For that reason it makes sense to be grateful for adversities that help you grow, even if it is only in understanding and compassion for other’s suffering.”
-Zig Ziglar
Many today are facing adversity on a magnitude they have not experienced at any other point in their life. Over more than a decade I have had the honor and opportunity to assist many individuals, teams and organizations in identifying the behaviors and strategies needed to navigate whatever challenge is placed in their way while continually being for others.
By leveraging my past challenges and mistakes, I have provided a leadership blueprint to help anyone that applies it the ability to rise above their best. While it can be uncomfortable and embarrassing to speak about the challenges I have faced in my own life, It is necessary that I tell the story so others gain an understanding of how and why I have been called to do the work that I do.
As I mentioned, growing up the youngest of ten children in a lower middle-class family from Portland Maine provided me with a great number of experiences that prepared me for the leadership work I believe I was destined to be doing today.
In particular, I experienced several events in the first three decades of my life that guided my journey, developed my abilities and forged my commitment to help others identify and develop the behaviors that inspire empower and compel others to follow their lead and rise above their best
The first decade of my life was one filled with self-doubt, shame and embarrassment. The self- doubt was the result of being born with malformed teeth. On many occasions I can remember being called “ugly” or “yuck mouth”. While these labels eroded away at my physical self-confidence, my emotional wellbeing was attacked by the shame and embarrassment I felt as the result of a condition that caused me to wet the bed until I was in the 4th grade.
To compensate for these challenges, I began behaving in many self-destructive ways which involved smoking cigarettes in 4th grade and drinking before I was in the 8th grade. While the smoking was brief, the drinking and unhappiness with my appearance continued into my freshman year of high school.
Because I believed I had so little control over the two things causing me so much sadness in my life, it seemed that life had already dealt me the losing hand. As far as I was concerned, I was only able to be a passenger in the automobile that was driving me along through life.
Although I seemed to accept this on one level, there was something deep inside that was not satisfied with this belief. I wanted out.
An example of this was in 8th grade while I was driving in the car with my father. I was in the passenger seat, and while stopped at a red light I was watching a homeless person sitting on the sidewalk. In that moment, I found my thoughts battling between wishing I was that homeless person yet realizing that would not solve my problems.
In that moment I began to realize that only I could overcome my challenges and I would.
Transitioning to high school started a period of positive growth for me. On many levels I was beginning to experience some level of control in being able to drive my own destiny.
I was fortunate to attend a private high school which I paid for myself through the schools’ work-study program and a job at a monastery where I ran errands and was a groundskeeper.
During this time, I got braces to improve my smile and became active in sports and working out. While these helped improve my self-esteem, they would not protect me from the struggle I would face when my mother was diagnosed with breast cancer during my sophomore year. I once again felt the driver’s wheel yanked away from me. Over the next year, I would struggle helplessly watching as my mother’s health deteriorated.
She eventually passed away on March 17th, which is the feast day of St. Patrick. Over the following year I focused intensely on working out to deal with my grief and used alcohol to escape the sadness I was feeling from this loss.
Most did not realize the pain I was experiencing on the inside because I hid it behind a loud voice and a muscular shell.
While this was a dark time, my life would soon be altered by one individual and one book in such a profound and permanent way. A year and one month after the loss of my mother, I was invited to go on Spring break by a close friend whose parents had a vacation home in Hilton Head, South Carolina. His parents had offered to bring four of us for the week. In hindsight, I wonder how many times during that trip his parents had regretted the offer to take four, teenaged 18-year-old boys who were only interested in searching for parties on the beaches of South Carolina
One night, while out, we stopped at a gas station to get gas and buy beer with our fake ID’s. I volunteered to pump the gas while my friends went in to purchase the beer we would bring to a party on the beach.
It was a particularly humid night and the air was a combination of gas fumes and the smell of saltwater from the ocean a block away. As my thoughts were imagining how the night was going to unfold, an older, well-dressed gentleman pulled up in high end car at the pump next to me. I was admiring his car and could sense that he was looking in my direction.
He broke the silence by mentioning that it looked like we were off to someplace fun. I mentioned we were on Spring break and then commented on his car. He paused for a moment and told me quite casually that I could have one too if I wanted. He could tell by my expression that I did not really believe what he told me.
He went on to ask me if I was familiar with a gentleman named Zig Ziglar or a book called, See You at the Top. I answered no to both of his questions as I was not a fan of reading outside of what was required for school.
He went on to tell me that the secret to getting a high-end car or anything else I wanted was spelled out in that one book.
As he drove away, I promised myself that I would read the book when I returned. Upon returning home two days later, I immediately went to the Portland Public Library, signed up for a library card and checked out the book, See You at the Top. I tore into this book like a large wrapped present on Christmas morning and the gift I received was far greater than any material gift.
The contents of this book were planting seeds in the fertile soil of my heart and mind. I wanted so badly to change my conditions, and this seemed, for the first time ever, to be my way out.
Those seeds, the gift from this stranger at a gas station, were taking hold and shaping the way I saw myself.
The gift of perspective I was given after reading this book would be with me for the rest of my life if that is what I decided. Over the next week I read stories from this book that made me realize that I was not a helpless passenger in my life.
My destiny was in my control regardless of the external forces that acted against where I wanted to go. This provided incredible motivation and forged a strong belief that wherever I ended up would be my choice.
Zig’s message was continually saying to me, “you can be more than you are” and I was starting to believe it. In that week I gained greater awareness of the importance of integrity, generosity, faith, honesty, attitude, hard work and continual learning on becoming the best version of me I could become.
What I realized throughout this process was that I would not change if I only understood Zig’s message intellectually, I would need to behave in ways that aligned with the message. Just as I did not get stronger by just reading about exercising, I would not grow stronger in character by reading about it.
Those realizations have played a significant role in my ability to help individuals and organizations by challenging them to apply what has been learned into their everyday lives.
I have reflected back on my interaction with the well-dressed man that night in South Carolina many times over the years. I had never before and have never since had anyone strike up a conversation with me at a gas pump to suggest a book that they thought I would benefit from reading yet that is exactly what happened.
If I draw on my faith to help explain this interaction, I believe my mother and God had a hand in that moment. I believe my mother saw my life going in the wrong direction and knew that the additional tragedy soon heading my way would permanently derail me if there was not some type of intervention to help strengthen my internal compass. The South Carolina man suggesting I could get the car he had by simply reading a book by Zig Ziglar was that intervention that opened me up to a world that would provide far more than a nice car.
I had been given the gift of realizing that I had control over my destiny.
From that point I read continually from other authors such as Napoleon Hill, Dale Carnegie, Earle Nightingale, Tony Robbins, Les Brown and Wayne Dyer to name just a few.
Little did I realize how the experience of meeting this unknown man in South Carolina would provide the strength I would need to overcome my next series of challenges as well as lead me down the path of creating an extremely powerful leadership program.
I will reveal the conclusion in my next article.
Emery Leadership Lessons 