This week's Pep Talk Blog: "If Only for Curiosity"

I recently joined almost 19,000 other people for a “Get Motivated” seminar at the Pepsi Center in Denver. It was a day chock full of inspiration and information about, as I like to say, turning life’s lemons – the heck with lemonade – into sweet and savory margaritas.

One of the featured speakers was Colin Powell. When he talks about leadership, it would be wise for us to listen considering his resume: four-star general, former national security advisor and secretary of state to name just three important roles he has successfully fulfilled in service to our country.

It wasn’t always so rosy for the New York native. He was struggling academically at City College of New York, barely making passing grades, except for his work in ROTC. Advisors at school kept urging the Harlem native, “go into the army.” He finally followed their advice, and the rest is history. His message to the sellout crowd: “It’s not where you start, but where you finish.”

In each and every Run to Daylight presentation, as the Comeback Coach, I encourage others to “put fear and self doubt aside and allow wonderment to win.” That’s exactly what Powell did in foregoing his academic studies and heading for a military career where his natural leadership skills were fine-tuned and perfected.

At one point in his presentation, the nation’s first African-American Secretary of State talked about his early military years at Fort Benning, Georgia. A superior was talking to Powell about leadership and offered: “True leaders are the types that others will follow, if only out of curiosity.”

I sat there in the darkened arena furiously trying to write that down before the powerful statement escaped my consciousness and was lost to the galaxy. Man, that takes tremendous faith to follow someone “if only for curiosity.”

To possess that type of leadership skill one must possess many values: trustworthiness, dependability, intelligence and vision, to name just four. And you know what, those types of leadership traits transfer from the battlefields of war and diplomacy: they are true on the front lines of our lives at home, work and community.

This week, through demonstrating proven leadership skills of trust, dependability, smarts and creativity create an environment – in all areas you roam – where others would be willing to follow you, “if only for curiosity.”

It obviously has worked for Colin Powell. It can work for each of us too. Leadership is leadership, the venues may change, but the strategies – and values – are the same.