Today’s T4D comes from Don Spradling, who was once my commander in the 19th Special Forces Group. He’s an amazing human being and has always been someone I admired and looked to as a mentor. After retiring from the Army he became a consultant for the Franklin Covey Group as well as starting his own executive coaching program called “Pathfinder”.

One of the many great things I learned from Don was how to use stories to teach principles of leadership. In seeing his masterful use of stories I observed that nearly 100% of the time the stories that were of himself were not stories of how he had failed at something or had not succeeded at the level and standard he had expected of himself.

Teaching with Failure - here is a man who had lead teams of elite soldiers on high-speed (way cool) missions around the world, who had completed several 100 mile endurance runs, obtained state sporting records, hosted famous Hollywood stars and so much more. I knew of those things because I knew the man. But I never heard him tell or teach with those stories. Instead he taught with the missions that went arie, the runs he didn’t complete, and the relationships that didn’t go well. He taught… what he learned from those situations and how they had changed him. Or rather how he had allowed himself to be changed by them. He wanted to do better, he wanted to be his best and so a careful review of why that didn’t happen was the best way to make the necessary changes so that on the next attempt improvements would be evident. 

The picture posted at the top of the blog is of a fun staff energizer program we put together in 2002 called “MIB” or Motivators in Black… the idea was to inspire leaders to move from Managing in Bureaucracy to Motivating In Black (or inspiring towards profitable results).   We still get to teach together a couple times a year and stay in touch.  He recently sent me the following really fun exercise to keep in shape.  I am certain you will enjoy it!  Have a FUN and Fantastic Friday!

Exercise for people over 50

Begin by standing on a comfortable surface where you have plenty of room at each side. With a 5-lb. potato sack in each hand, extend your arms straight out from your sides, and hold them there as long as you can. Try to reach a full minute, and then relax. Each day you’ll find that you can hold this position for just a bit longer. After a couple weeks, move up to 10-lb. potato sacks. Then try 50-lb. potato sacks. Then eventually try to get to where you can lift a 100-lb. potato sack in each hand, and hold your arms straight for more than a full minute. (I’m at this level.)

Once you feel confident at that level, put a potato in each sack.