The Mark of a Leader

Sticking up for what you Believe In

Good on the Dixie Chicks! While any of us inclined to music may question whether they deserved to win so convincingly at last night's Grammy Awards, I was happy because it was their redemption night.

The Chicks had the courage to speak out against the Iraq war which they fervently oppose. They had the guts to tell the world they were embarassed by their President and his decision, and ashamed to share their Texas origins with him.

In exchange for doing so, in a country that supposedly embraces freedom of speech, the Chicks were blackballed from most of the country radio stations that they rely on to get their music to their listeners.

They refused to apologise, despite incredible financial, social and political pressure to do so, including death threats. They reinvented how they got to their fans - and in doing so created new fans.

They did it by doing what leaders should do and all-too-often do not have the courage to -  sticking to their (non) guns.

Good on em! Five Grammys go to Freedom of Speech and, in my book, the courage of 3 Texas LeaderChicks.

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Rocky Rocks at 60!

OK so I have to start by admitting that I lost track of the Rocky saga back at about Rocky 2. While I loved the story of the underdog boxer who won on guts and who lived the song "I get knocked down but I get up again", Rocky ran out of legs for me back in the 80s.

So it was with great curiosity that I forked out the requisite $10 or so to see Rocky Balboa over the holidays. There was nothing new or unpredictable about the movie. Once again, Rocky showed his character. And the message of the movie - that ultimately you must believe in yourself if you are going to succeed in life - is one that I heartily endorse.

But the real kicker for me was the commitment of Sylvester Stallone to just do the movie at age 60. He says he worked out for 2 years to get in shape, and I believe it. In the movie, since he can't beat his younger opponent on speed, he relies on strength, and seeing Stallone lifting hundreds of pounds in training and eliminating all the flab off his body is inspiring to anyone over 30. He is a wall of physical strength and stamina, and living proof that aging is to some degree what we make it.

Right now the press is debunking  the original Rocky myth about how Stallone refused to sell his original script unless he was the star - how he was down to his last $200 and refused bushels of money until he was finally allowed  to be Rocky. It is a great story that I wish was true. Who knows? However he got there, though, he turned a script inspired by an Ali fight into a multi-billion dollar franchise.

Myth or not, Stallone was just another mostly-unknown actor in 1977, with a half paralyzed face and credits that included The Lords of Flatbush and a few porn flicks. He turned that into Academy Awards, a great career, and one of America's greatest underdog icons. He did it with incredibly hard work and unflappable belief in himself.

He is one of the few big Hollywood stars who is not a pretty face, and that itself is an incredible feat.

And not only is Stallone himself an inspiration, but the character he has shaped over the last three decades has inspired millions.  One eloquent example from mschindler.com

It may sound corny, but the capture and realization of seemingly unattainable goals is exactly what the character of Rocky Balboa has always embodied for me–a potential to accomplish one’s dreams through nothing other than pure self-determination and hard work. That’s the formula that made Rocky successful the first time around. And that’s the formula that makes it successful for this, the sixth and final time.

I think Sylvester Stallone's belief in himself despite the odds and his amazing commitment to Rocky are a good role model for all of us. Go get em Rock!

Update: After reading this post over at Converstations, I wish Balboa *did* have a blog!

On writing a book

As this blog goes live I am also publishing the first of what I hope will be many books.

Writing a book is an incredible task. It is not like writing a blog, because blogs are somehow ephemeral. Writing a book is very permanent. Trees are felled. Money exchanges hands. People invest their time to read. They invest their opinions, good and bad. And at somepoint the book takes on a life of its own.

I play music, and love to play live but hate to record, because you second guess yourself and do it again every time you hear the recording afterwards. You wonder why you played certain things and every mistake hits you like a sledgehammer. It is hard for me to just "surrender" when recording music.

One of my musical heroes, Joni Mitchell, who is both a brilliant painter and musician, talked about the issue on her great old album Miles of Aisles talking about the difference between performing arts and painting, which in this case is akin to writing a book. In a break between songs you could hear the audience calling for her hits -"Play Carrie" "Both Sides Now" "Blue". She laughed and said "That's always been a major difference between the performing arts and being a painter. A painter does a painting and he does a painting that's it. He's had the joy of creating it and he hangs it on some wall and somebody buys it and then somebody buys it again, or maybe nobody buys it and it sits up in a loft somewhere until he dies. But nobody ever says to him - nobody ever said to Van Gogh "Paint A Starry Night again man"."

At some point, whether you are writing, painting, playing music or leading people to do something they have never done before, you have to let go and just trust whatever it is you trust - your gut, a higher power, experience, wisdom. Or maybe just that you're not as stupid as the voice inside your head might want you to believe.

We all have something to say. We all have something to contribute. To me, great leaders understand that, and know how to get their people to contribute, no matter how modest they themselves may believe the contribution is.

Photo: Ralph Nardell