Our random list of 31 favorite things that do and do not have to do with leadership, presented in no particular order (except #1, which is #1 for a reason). Why 31? We don’t know, but that’s how many numbered bricks are included with our cool little Lego® calendar we get to rebuild every month.
Here then is the list:
- USAF speech by General Mark Welsh*** (even with the cheesy music and his 'Yo' introduction, absolutely 1053% does)
- The Transformative Power of Classical Music by Benjamin Zander (does not at first, then definitely does, makes us cry, and is hands-down the most incredibly powerful TED Talk we have ever seen)
- The Netflix documentary 14 Peaks (maybe surprisingly, it most definitely does)
- The movie 'Tree of Life' (does not, but the soundtrack is mind-blowing)
- Suede's album 'Dog Man Star' (does not)
- The blog Wait But Why (does and does not, but all of it is brilliant and often hilarious)
- A River Runs Through It (the movie, does not)
- A River Runs Through It (the book, still does not, but is filled with melodic writing)
- Mount Assiniboine in autumn (does not, but just look at it!)
- The book 'Daring Greatly' by Brené Brown (definitely does)
- Steve Jobs’ response to an insult (does, and exemplifies a rare humility and vulnerability)
- Lego® (we wished it did, but we don’t think it really does)
- The last 3 minutes and 19 seconds of the movie '32 Short Films About Glenn Gould' (does not, but it’s absolutely beautiful)
- The movie 'Shine' (does because it embodies passion, the kind of deep-down passion it takes to play Rachmaninoff)
- Leading from Behind (does)
- Kim Scott's candidness (does)
- The original Canon 5D (does not, and yes we mean the one from way back in 2005)
- The HBR article 'What Great Managers Do Daily' (does)
- 'The Importance of Being A Lifelong Beginner' by Brendan Leonard, aka Semi-Rad (or the other way around, and our vote on this one is that it does)
- The blog Semi-Rad, aka Brendan Leonard (or the other way around, does and does not, see #19 above)
- Pretty much anything ever conceived by Ludwig van Beethoven, but particularly the allegretto from his seventh symphony (doesn't really, however)
- Adobe Photoshop (does not, but it’s crazy what you can do with it)
- Tom Killion’s art (does not, but it’s amazing)
- Montbell UL Down Jacket (accept no substitute, but unfortunately does not)
- Don Miller’s podcast (does)
- The book 'Quiet' by Susan Cain (yes, for all you introverts out there, and extroverts, too)
- The book 'Outliers' by Malcom Gladwell (parts of it do, especially where he talks about mitigated speech)
- Harvard Business Review (a lot of it does, which is why it’s our #1 go-to resource for leading, managing, and everything in between)
- Seinfeld (does not, but regardless… be prepared for a lot of Seinfeld references during our workshops and retreats)
- Publik coffee (does not, but they roasted a batch of beans just for us once a long time ago which felt pretty special)
- Airplane! (does, with a lot of imagination, and it happens to be one of our most-quoted movies of all time… ‘Surely, you can’t be serious?’)
Thank you. We hope you’ve found some joy and wisdom and happiness in this little random list.
*** Due to the fact this is the most powerful speech we have ever come across on leadership, we included the entire thing. That said, we get you may be busy and not have fifty-plus minutes to sit down with a cup of coffee and behold all of the wisdom he shares. For that reason, someone was kind enough to make a 10-minute edit called ‘Lead your people.’ Prepare to cry. The General does, halfway through. Just saying.
