Success is a Family Value

Success is a family Value...
In my line of work it is almost impossible not to be cliché. There is a tag line, a marketing projection, a campaign anchor for everything, but equally impossible is to not absorb some of those clichés and really see the value in them. I come from a family of overachievers, we are not the (Rahm) Emmanuel family but we work hard. Though none of us has made it to the White House or have had an HBO hit show produced about us, we have always believed and have centered our family on a single concept. Success is a family value and one that must be taught in order to be accomplished. Before this turns into a referendum on finances that wasn’t necessarily what the focus of the title statement. Although yes being financially solvent was definitely part of being successful, it was just that, part, it served as a measure, not a goal. Success was about integrity, reputation, education, things that were byproducts of character. Considering that our society has a deficit of those goals it is no wonder to me that now more than ever do we need to return to values and specifically the ones we pass along to others.
I recognize that that sounds incredibly close to Republicanism and the Family Values Ticket that conservatives have been championing for the last 20 years. But that isn’t what I’m speaking about. When we think of values we have to be willing to see them more as our ability to influence versus this thing that makes you conservative or liberal. The fact is that I take me everywhere I go (yes that is another one of the great cliches I’ve come to love). And since that statement is true, the awesome responsibility that I have can sometimes be daunting. As a mother, a wife and a friend, I have the opportunity to shape my children’s world, my husband’s experience of marriage and my friend’s awareness of their importance to me. I get to determine how I use my power to give into someone’s life, not just to take from it. The problem with success as a family value is what we’ve been defining success to be. I am of the X generation and depending on which grid you check I may even be millennial. We are a generation of the microwave, the Internet and twitter. We experience life through YouTube colored glasses and instant gratification is the only gratification. But can we be surprised that we are also the least connected generation, that we are the least active and until Obama the least responsible for the world we live in?
However, something is on the horizon that looks remarkably like change. After the experience of electing a president on the back of Facebook, we caught a rare glimpse of what really can happen if we start to think of success as our impact on the world and our contribution to the community that we are a part of and what happens when we stop seeing it as the size of the basketball contract, the Benz in the driveway or the bling on your wrist. If we go back to a place where success is a family value again, what would this world look like? What if we moved from how much we have as a measurement of how successful we are and we start to measure it by how much we give? Would I even have to lock my door at night anymore? The idea isn’t communism or socialism and it is anything but anti-patriotic. It is a simple and honest question that each of us must ask ourselves, and know that the real answer is who we show up to in the world as.
What is that I really value?

Great?

The idea that to be great is designed to be self serving is in and of itself antithetical to greatness. As many times as we have all heard that “there is no I in team” you’d think that it would make more sense by now. Unfortunately, what is never said and what should have been included in that saying should have been that what team must include is leadership and that word most certainly contains an “I”.
When we discuss being great, or perhaps who may be the greatest at something, Michael Jordan for instance, we immediately begin to look at how he played, how many points he scored, the beauty and grace that he displayed when he’d take off from the foul line and sail effortlessly through the air and dunk on everyone and anyone in his path. We think of the Sean Taylor’s that you’d literally feel the impact of each and every hit that would play on the highlight reel (yes I am now and forever will be a Redskins fan, no matter how much the play calling sucks, yes I do believe we should fire Jim Zorn or maybe Greg Blache). Or maybe perhaps we should look to Tony Dungee, who is not only significant because of what he accomplished as a coach, but perhaps much more significantly what he was able to get out of those he coached. There is a difference between great and greatness.
When we pursue being great, we’re usually after something statistical. Something that can be measured, money, sales, stats etc. When we pursue greatness, we’re after our impact on the world we live in, the lives we come in contact with. We’re after that remarkable thing that happens when we are willing to go first in order to have made the path just a little clearer for those who come after us. The reality is that some of the best coaches were players first. And in doing so they exercised leadership, they encouraged their team, they left it all out on the field or the court and they did it to make sure there were no excuses when it was all said and done. In short when we’re after being great we just want to be a player. When we’re after greatness we’re after being a coach. To be a coach, we must be willing to have done the work ourselves…
Greatness requires action. Long action…. liveGRA.com…join the movement!