Meditations On Leadership
These are my thoughts on leadership related topics and ideas. It is meant to be a sort of journal for me and if you find it useful than I am happy to have helped.
"Something for nothing or something for less is a fallacy." -Andrew Carnegie In the book The Millionaire Next Door the author Thomas J. Stanley talks about a millionaire that wouldn't accept luxury gifts because he understood the real costs associated with them. What costs? You should read the book to find out. But the point he is making is that nothing is free. Nothing. Andrew Carnegie makes the same point in the book How to Own Your Own Mind. You should read that book too.
But what if your friend gives you a lottery ticket and it turns out that it is the winning ticket and suddenly you come into millions of dollars completely by accident? Isn't that free? Nope. Now the laws of nature (every action has an equal and opposite reaction) will require you to be responsible for that money. Now you have lost the old life that you had before. Now your relationships with your family and friends will change. Now you will have a whole new set of problems related to money that you never had to deal with before. Now people are constantly going to bombard you to buy things, donate to causes, help them. Now your life is constantly under a microscope and people will critique you publicly for every thing you do. Sure, you didn't work to get the money but the cost that it will take in your life will be exactly in proportion to the amount given. If you win $1,000 you will probably hardly feel a change. If you win $1 billion, your life as you know it, all the comforts, every relationship, every single aspect of your life will change whether you like it or not. Nothing is free. The same is true for "something for less" or in other words cheating. You really can't cheat. You always lose more than you gain when you cheat because of the same principle. Even if you never get caught you lose. At the very least you lose the comfort that non-cheaters have of never worrying about getting caught. But you will probably also miss out on learning something, on building trust, on actually living, and on so many things. To me one of the biggest things that you lose is the satisfaction that comes with actually doing something. It feels good to accomplish something because you put in the effort to do it but if you cheat you never get that. Here is the leadership lesson: Don't cheat. Even if you never get caught it will cost you more than you get. Don't expect to get anything for free. If you require your employees to stay late and they are salaried employees don't expect that work to be for free. It will cost you one way or other so make sure you give back in equal proportion that you ask (not everything is about money). Nothing. Absolutely nothing is free. So before you accept something, or ask for something, or require something that seems like it is free. Stop. Take the time to consider what costs might actually be associated with that "free" thing and decide if it is really worth it.
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AuthorJ. LaVarr Roberts Archives
April 2021
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