Who We Choose to Follow and WHY?

The 1932 Model A Ford chugged along on a winding road in the foothills of the Catskill Mountains. A long and growing line of cars followed impatiently behind. Uncle Bill had no intentions of speeding up. Neither did Henry – that was the car’s nickname. Both car and driver were thoroughly enjoying this casual Sunday drive. Only it wasn’t Sunday. And the dozens of cars stuck behind him had no interest in a casual scenic escapade. Uncle Bill’s wife elbowed him. Come on, Bill! They want you out of their way! Bill gave his best George Costanza smile: They’ll follow us. They don’t have much choice. Henry’s the lead car today!

You’ve been there. Stuck behind a leader. Wanting that leader out of the way. Not engaged in the journey. You’ve attended meetings where you wish someone else were in charge. You’ve had a boss who was a serious lid on potential – yours and the potential of the whole team. You’ve been there more times than you want to recollect… been part of a project, sat on a board, waited on a supplier, hired contractors, dropped off your car with a mechanic, waited at an airport terminal, dealt with poor customer service, perhaps planned a family event… and you felt stuck following someone else’s lead. You were definitively not following by choice.

We give certain people permission to deeply and profoundly influence our lives. Who are these people? And why do we give them such permission? This book is the result of a quest that has been inspired and nudged along by many events. One of the earliest nudges: When are you going to step up and lead this team? I froze and turned to look at coach. We locked eyes for longer than I was comfortable and coach’s intensity seared that message into my mind. Message delivered. He walked away. I was an 18-years-old college freshman. Our team was ranked #3 in the country for junior colleges. We had the talent to beat some Division I teams. Most of our players were there with one purpose: perform, get the attention of some D-1 coaches and transfer. Most of my teammates had D-1 talent but not the grades. I had the grades, but no D-1 scholarship offers. We were in the middle of the season. Tough travel schedule. We had lost more than a few key players to academics and some criminal activities. None of this was new to our coach. He had an incredible record in his coaching career and knew all too well that  shaping character was one of the biggest challenges for a leader.

When are you going to step up and lead this team? I remember exactly where I was on the court when coach’s stare delivered that message. I went back to the drill with even more intensity. I heard his words. I gave that subtle but serious and firm nod. I committed to stepping up. To leading. But what did he mean? Score more? Pass more? Play more minutes? Did he want me to be a captain? Take more clutch shots when we needed a momentum shift? Lead the team. Wasn’t that his job? And wasn’t I already leading – by example? Not the leading scorer. Not the point guard. Not an official captain. But I was quite sure that I was leading by example. I wasn’t selfish. Showed up early for every single practice. Hit the weight room regularly and seriously. Knew the plays. Ran the plays. Worked out over Thanksgiving break when Coach told us to come back in better shape than when we left. I took it seriously. Didn’t stuff myself with stuffing. Ran every day over break. Lifted. Got plenty of rest. Came back ready and when we ran our tails off in that first practice back, I was so ready.

When are you going to step up and lead this team? What did he mean? I didn’t ask coach, but I definitely wrestled with that question. And tried to lead while I was trying to figure out what he meant by lead. That was one of the nudges for this quest. The quest: we give certain people permission to radically impact our lives. They affect us. They engage us. Their influence transforms us. Who are these people and why do we give that permission? How can you gain that type of influence? Coach didn’t need me to score more points. Or show up earlier. Or hit the weightroom even more. He was asking me to influence my teammates. And I had not idea how to do that. I played to win, not to have a season high in points for a D-1 scout. I found the open shooter instead of forcing a highlight reel shot. I guarded whoever the team needed me to guard, not the player who would make me look good or give me a rest. Coach wasn’t asking me to change those things. He was asking me to influence my teammates. To gain permission from my teammates to have influence in their lives. It didn’t work out that season, but isn’t that how quests often begin?

The quest isn’t over, but here we are at a midway point. For years now, I’ve sought these people out. Met them. Observed them. Read about them. Asked their friends, family, co-workers about them. I’ve also interviewed hundreds of people who do what we described here. They get permission to dramatically influence others. They are CEO’s, parents, business owners, coaches, teachers, grandparents, community leaders. What do they have in common? I discovered four choices. The choices slowly cement into habits, character and culture. Culture is a fancy way of saying character at scale. But these 4 choices – they begin as choices and ultimately, they are always choices. Even the most incredible leaders we’ve interviewed still admit that they don’t always make these four choices. The four choices can be learned and practiced. Most of us make a few of these four choices, at least under certain circumstances and with certain people. And we don’t make one of the choices, or at least don’t exercise that choice so well in certain circumstances and with certain people. How do they make these choices? Why? Who and what influenced them? What were some of the game-changers in their lives? How do they build those choices into habit, character and culture? How do they lead? How do they parent? What can we learn from these ordinary heroes?

The businesses they build, the teams they coach, the families they raise... You walk in the door and can tell almost immediately. The culture, the level of service, the customer experience. The love. They are CEO’s, teachers, coaches, non-profit leaders, front-line supervisors. We’ve been interviewing some of the most captivating leaders you can imagine, including Patch Adams and a great-grandson of the Mayo Clinic founder. A snapshot of who you will meet in this book:

Jim quit his job and today, he spends a lot of time in and out of prison... visiting prisoners. When he quit his job, he spent a summer with Mother Teresa and then returned home to become CEO of several companies. He has since started orphanages in Guatemala. He was not a servant leader by birth. He allowed some experiences and Mother Teresa’s “performance review” to change him.

Mimi helped 25,000 people recover from drug addiction and a life in and out of prison. She leads one of the world's most successful non-profits and leaves a ripple effect on every person who crosses her path.

Lynn is a mom who lost a teenage son. She channeled the massive and heart-wrenching pain from that loss into a way to serve other parents who lost a child and young kids who lost a sibling. Parents and kids told me that she saved their lives, their marriages, their families. Gave them hope. Gave them a reason to get up in the morning. Gave them something they didn't think they could ever have again.

Sally donated her kidney to woman she didn't know. Sally's grandfather played on the original Miracle on Ice Olympic hockey team in 1960. Herb Brooks was his teammate. Sally didn’t blink when she found out a mom from her son’s hockey team needed a kidney transplant. “Let’s see if our blood types match!”

How do these "Servant Leaders" do it? And why?

Let me go back to Henry and Uncle Bill for a moment. We know that we’ve been stuck behind a proverbial classic Model A Ford many times. We may be less aware of the times when we are Henry and Uncle Bill. Frustrated people are just hoping we’ll pull over and let them pass. Robert Frost gave me some great advice on this topic. He said, “Jonathan, how many things have to happen to you before something occurs to you?” Not the most comfortable question. He also didn’t use my name or say it directly to me. Frost was dead before I was born. But he did write that question. Let me ask you: How many things have to happen to you before something occurs to you?

This will not be your first introduction to these four choices. Perhaps you are pretty good at them. Most likely, you’re good at some of them some of the time. One of the most amazing lessons from all these interviews: good is the enemy of great. These leaders don’t arrive. They stay hungry and humble. Those two traits fit within the four choices. Cultures that nurture these 4 choices change lives and create a ripple effect emanating from those lives out into the families and communities. Are you ready to dive in? Are you sure?

~ Jonathan Fanning

[an excerpt from Jonathan Fanning's forthcoming book]

Mother Teresa’s Performance Review

“Find your own Calcutta!”

It was my last day after a summer in Calcutta and Mother Teresa was about to give me my performance review. The toughest feedback I would ever receive. Months later, I told Jack Welch that he could be pretty tough, but not compared to Mother Teresa. I had lost 40 pounds in my time with her. But don’t worry, I’m living proof that you can get it all back!

“Jim,” Mother Teresa said – with eyes that seemed to both embrace you and pierce straight to the depths of your soul, “you must feel pretty good about yourself. You came to Calcutta and you fed the hungry, clothed the naked, cared for the sick, you left everything behind to be a servant… and now you’re ready to go home.”

“Jim, you need to grow where you are planted. The poverty in the West is so much greater than what you experienced here. In New York City, a young person can take the D train down to Manhattan from the Bronx and see luxury he has no way to access.  Here is Calcutta, you did not experience any of the psychological poverty so prevalent in the West. Loneliness is the poverty – the leprosy – of the modern world. Get back home. Find your own Calcutta.”

This loneliness she described is a spiritual poverty. And it pervades our culture. Our families, neighborhoods, workplaces, even churches. She definitely hit the nail on the head. She challenged me and all others who came to work there: Be open to what God sends you. Don’t confuse some other saint’s mission with what God’s really calling you to do. What is that?

She would say it over and over again: “Do small things with great love.” But more than saying it, she demonstrated it. The world seems to scream at us: Don’t tell me, show me. Don’t tell me to be patient, loving, forgiving, generous. Show me patience, love, forgiveness, generosity. That’s what Mother Teresa did. She daily demonstrated small actions with great love. She would hold a child in her arms. To Mother, that small child was the only person in the world at that moment. She was more present than anyone I’ve ever witnessed.

It was the summer of 1978, the year before Mother Teresa won the Nobel Prize and she was very accessible at that time. I quit my job working for General Electric on Jack Welch’s team and traveled to Calcutta because a friend of mine had spent a year in Calcutta and she came back so dramatically changed that I thought - I’d really like to understand what happened – what made that change in her outlook on the world.

When I applied to visit Mother Teresa in Calcutta, the response said, “You can come, but you have to live just like the missionaries do.” So I lived with the Brothers of the Missionaries of Charity, a few blocks from the Missionaries of Charity mother house. We started each day in the chapel at 5 o’clock in the morning. The rules were that you had to eat no better than the poorest person you served that day. Then you’d serve in the July Calcutta heat. Feed the hungry, comfort the dying, clothe the naked. Care for the orphans. By midday, you’d be sweating profusely as you crawled back into the chapel for prayer.

One thing you learn when you spend some time with Mother Teresa is that it’s all very simple. She did not have long epistles or put a lot of flowers into her speech or writing. Her very simple prayer is the Saint Francis prayer. She’d say “Make me a channel of your peace.”

Mother Teresa, in my experience, had absolutely no ego. It was like watching somebody just make themselves open to what came to them and then delivering. She would say things like: “If God wants it to get done, it’ll get done. If He doesn’t want it done, don’t take it personally. Just move on.” Pretty simple theology to follow!

They live their mission. And the conversation I had with Jack Welch when I got back to GE: “I just met a woman who operates in 116 countries with 6 administrative staff - and their effectiveness at serving their mission of serving the poorest of the poor actually exceeds what we’re able to do at General Electric. So maybe it’s the numerous levels of management!”

After that time in Calcutta, I was blessed to be among an exceptional group of peers working with Jack Welch, CEO of GE. Jack’s guidance and direction was exemplary. We learned a great deal from him in terms of how to run a for-profit enterprise. At the same time, Mother Teresa’s simplicity of direction and commitment to the mission exceeded even his.

I think Mother spent so much time in prayer and encouraged others to spend so much time in prayer because of her belief: Let God flow through you. Don’t confuse what you think your mission is with being able to uncover the will of God. One day, I was working at the orphanage across from the Calcutta airport. When I got there, I overheard a conversation with Mother Teresa and Sister Angela, who was in charge of the orphanage. The sister explained that a group of children were picking on other children with severe mental disabilities. Mother Teresa, in her way, asked, “What should we do about it?” The sister recommended acquiring another property so those with greater needs could have their own place. She described a place up the road that was abandoned and for sale, but listed for $250,000. Mother Teresa’s instant answer: “Let’s go in the chapel and pray about what we should do. Jim – you take care of the kids.” In the first hour, I saw the exact behavior they were describing!

In the middle of this, a young man dressed in a suit comes to the chicken wire fence serving as the orphanage gate and asks to see Mother Teresa. I told him he might have to come back another day because Mother was not available. The young man said, “I’m here from the Kennedy Foundation and I’m here to present Mother Teresa with a prize.” I took a chance and sent one of the kids to get Mother from the chapel. She came out. It’s 100 degrees. Humidity is close to 100%. The young man, sweating profusely, turns to her and explains, “Mother Teresa, I’m here from the Kennedy Foundation and you won an award for $250,000. I have a check for you.” Miracle of the day, that day. Mother calmly reaches through the fence, takes the gentleman’s check, thanks him, brings it to Sister Angela and says, “Sister, go purchase the property.”

I saw a miracle every single day while I was in Calcutta. That was a more visible one. Mother tried to just suggest: Be open to what the Lord wants done. Her vision was just towards God and God’s will. Whatever you want done, God, I’m in. Make me a channel of your peace.

At one point, Jesus said, “The poor you will always have with you.” I don’t think I understood that until the end of that summer. Whether you solve the poverty issue or not is not the point. It’s not about the person being served. It’s about the servant. How are you responding? Whether or not you save a person in the Home for the Dying or you extend a tuition opportunity for somebody to study… whether that person completes the studies or not is not as important as “What did you do when called upon?”

Mother Teresa’s performance review was almost 50 years ago. I can still see those eyes and feel that indescribable love to this day.

Loneliness is the poverty of the West. Go find your own Calcutta!

~ Jim O’Keefe

That performance review was only the beginning. Jim travelled with Mother Teresa when she visited the US, helped bring Covenant House to Guatemala, built and supports several orphanages, visits prisons regularly, was a CEO of several for-profit businesses, and has been instrumental in helping us design and pilot a parenting series based on this research. Whatever you want done, God, I’m in!

[an excerpt from Jonathan Fanning's forthcoming book]

Save My Baby

Wade turned in his resignation that day. Couldn’t do it anymore. Some experiences change the way we see the world. And our role in it. Wade said, “I was NOT a born leader. Never felt like I had to be the one in charge! But I was an encourager. Always.”

He grew up in a small rural town in North Dakota. His mom was a big servant leader. She was a stay at home mom. Her title and resume might not get everyone’s attention, but what she did, how she showed up, her example – they certainly changed the way Wade saw the world and his role in it. When one of their neighbors died because of a medical emergency, mom decided that something needed to be done and that she would do it. That neighbor needed oxygen urgently and there was no structure to get it there in time. So mom started a 1^st responder group, essentially a volunteer ambulance service.

Fast forward a few years and Wade became a paramedic. That’s when he quit his job. They were too late. “Save my baby!” The mother was weeping, shaking and crying out, “Save my baby! Save my baby!”

There was nothing Wade or his paramedic team could do to bring this child back to life and they knew it. As a paramedic, this was not his first brush with death. Somewhere along the line, Wade began wrestling with this topic. Not a one and done wrestling match. This was hard. This was real. What is compassion? What does it mean to have compassion? Wade slowly and painfully arrived at a revelation: Empathy is the ability to feel, compassion is the ability to suffer with. Not just the ability, but the choice. The practice of. You can never really serve people unless you choose to suffer with them. Wade stood there that day, suffering with this mother, suffering with a parent bearing the unimaginable.

And that’s the day Wade handed in his resignation. Couldn’t do it anymore.

One of his hardest visits as a paramedic was responding to a suicide. On one of these calls, a teenager had taken his life and the family found him. In this horrific situation, the paramedic’s job is declare death and go home. Wade was about to do just that but he knew there was more. Suffer with. To suffer with demands more. Wade and his partner on the paramedic team decided to stay and help family. They cleaned up the unspeakable mess. Made some of the calls that had to be made. They decided to be there in a family’s deepest and darkest times. 25 years later, Wade still get calls from that family expressing how much their help meant in those darkest hours.

A question that permeates Wade’s life: How good are you at loving the people? How willing are you to suffer with others when they need you most? When it’s not convenient. Or easy. When the need is greatest. But it’s really more than suffering with. It’s walking with. Celebrating with. Remembering with. Dreaming with. Hoping with. We all need good people to do life with. The ups and the downs. The highlights and the lowlights. The beginnings and the ends. The starts, stops and even – or especially – the u-turns. We all need good people to do life with.

Today, Wade is a CEO of a multi-thousand person healthcare organization. I think he’d be the first to admit that walking with people is more of a practice than a lesson. It’s not something you learn once or do once. Building it into your life doesn’t happen accidentally. Eventually, it’s who you become. Is this love thing easy? No. Is suffering with people something any one of us can choose to do? Yes! Wade asks his whole team to make a commitment. He asks them to sign an agreement. That agreement reminds me of something Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. called the “Ten Commandments of the March” – a written agreement that protesters would sign, committing to 10 behaviors.

Let’s compare Wade’s commitments:

• You’re going to love your team, patients and co-workers.

… to a few of Dr. Martin Luther King’s:

• Walk and talk in the manner of love, for God is love.
• Pray daily to be used by God in order that all men might be free.
• Seek to perform regular service for others and for the world.
• Refrain from the violence of fist, tongue, or heart.

As Wade says, “If you don’t love the people, you can do the actions, but there’s something missing. People will know it. You will know it.” Not everyone gets on board. He described several people who just don’t buy his philosophy. They would never use the term love, at least not in a work context. How does that work out? He said that he works very hard to serve them. To know them. To not only choose to care about them, but to make sure they can tell how much he  values them.

All this love stuff, isn’t it just touchy feely? Isn’t it just an idealistic fairytale? Results: Burnout is a very real thing. Compassion leads to less burnout. Lowers blood pressure. Improves endocrine function. Shifts engagement. Ownership. Trust. Difficult conversations. Innovation.

But it’s not easy. You need to really stick to your leadership agreements… and ask the right questions. Wade ends meetings asking, “How can we serve you?” He finds himself oft repeating, “I don’t have all the answers. Everybody knows that by now!”

Sharing genuine gratitude with people might be the most powerful, practical and challenging piece of Wade’s approach. One part of his Friday routine: every Friday, Wade writes 7 thank you notes to people he’s grateful for. He also started a tradition that he considers the most powerful thing he’s ever done for the work culture: Gratitude +1. Invite a person you are grateful for to a breakfast meeting. That person gets to +1, or extend the invitation to someone they are grateful for. During that breakfast meeting, the inviters stand and share why they are grateful for the person they invited. Share gratitude with people.

Wade’s approach overflows into every aspect of his life. As a father, he takes a few minutes every single Friday to reflect on the week. How’d it go? What went well? What didn’t go  so well? What does each of the family need from you this coming week?

Is it easy? Once you’ve made that decision to walk with, suffer with, celebrate with, share gratitude with people… does it get easier? Wade’s smile and inspiring attitude might suggest that it is easy. But to love, to truly love, means “walking with” even in the unspeakable difficulties. Wade’s youngest daughter, nine-year-old Rylee, recently had a spine surgery and suffered a spinal cord  stroke during the surgery. She lost all neural signals to her extremities. Neural signals came back except below her waist. Rylee is now in a rehab hospital and she is learning how to walk. She currently has motor function in her legs but no feeling below her waist. Wade: “As a dad, it’s been so hard.  So difficult to see her in the struggle. But, Rylee is strong and in good spirits. Doctors are predicting it will take one to two years to get feeling back. Needless to say, servant leadership has taken a deeper perspective for me.”

Wade reminds me of MLK’s promise from the Ten Commandments of the March: “Walk and talk in the manner of love, for God is love.” C.S. Lewis once wrote a description of people we encounter, although all too rarely: “They love you more than other men do…” Love can be messy. More often than not. Not easy. Not convenient. Not comfortable. But, you were built for it.

You and I were built to love people. Will loving people flood your life with energy? Certainly. Will it, at times, overwhelm you with sadness. Yes. Will you overflow with an abundant joy? Yes, at least Wade seems to! Will you be tired at times? Yes, but good tired.

“It’s one thing to be tired. Totally different to be tired doing what you were built for!”

~ Wade Mitzel, CEO, UofL Physicians

[an excerpt from Jonathan Fanning's forthcoming book]

Patch Adams Predicted Your Future

I had a mentor who loved to say, “People haven’t heard you until they quote you.” I heard Patch Adams loud and clear. He didn’t really give me an option.

Patch Adams’ words were clear and relevant advice. Brilliant and brutal. Tell me who your role models are and I’ll tell you what kind of person you’re becoming. That’s it. Patch repeated versions of this phrase several times under the hot Costa Rican sun. Patch was there to serve. He was hitch-hiking from village to village, serving people with his infectious sense of humor. But this phrase wasn’t meant to be funny. He talked about famous athletes, musicians and influencers. He said, “You’re a role model whether you like it or not, whether you take it seriously or not, whether you choose to be one or not. And role models transform our world. Tell me who your role models and I’ll tell you what kind of person you’re becoming.” Who are the role models for your sports team? I’ll tell you where you’re headed. Who are the role models for your family? For your kids? For your company? For you as a leader, citizen, parent, friend? Tell me who the role models are for your culture and I’ll tell you where you’re headed!

Patch talked about so many versions of role models. Who does our education system hold up as role models? What about parents? And you? What happens when a culture has no role model or a bad or mediocre role model? I think we know. Why are role models so powerful? Unconscious. We spend most of our lives living up to – or down to – unconscious standards. Want to change your culture? Want to change your life? Change your role models. Is that a conscious process? Could be. Legendary UCLA Coach John Wooden had a list of “Invisible Mentors” – mentors he knew he’d never meet, but he gave them permission to profoundly influence his life. Wooden had about 50 books about Mother Teresa and another 50 about Lincoln. Two of his invisible mentors.

Another of John Wooden’s mentors was his father. When young Johnny graduated from the 8th grade, his father handed him a notecard and a two dollar bill. Johnny would read and re-read that notecard regularly throughout the rest of his life. The ideas written there profoundly affected his life. Assistant coaches and players would often see Coach Wooden take that worn out notecard out of his wallet and run his fingers across it’s words. Eventually, the words were no longer legible, but the message, the mentor’s imprint, was in Wooden’s incredible character. Imagine being a father and knowing that your words will profoundly affect almost a century of your son’s life. More than that, the ripple effect will touch millions of lives! When he handed that card to his son, Johnny’s father said, “Try to live up to these.” One of the 7 principles on that notecard pointed Johnny toward another invisible mentor – “Drink deeply from good books, especially the Good Book.” Wooden formed a daily routine of drinking deeply from good books, especially the Good Book.

Are you up for a game-changer? Get another role model over the next month. Let their life affect yours.

Tell me who your role models are and I'll tell you what kind of person you are becoming!

~ Patch Adams

[an excerpt from Jonathan Fanning's forthcoming book]