The Leader Who Had No Title: A Modern Fable on Real Success in Business and in Read Online Free Page B

which you work and play. You’ll know of no other way to be.”
    “I really like everything that I’m hearing. I actually feel extremely optimistic as I listen to you Tommy,” I said genuinely. “I want all this success you’re telling me about. And I want it fast.”
    “And that’s exactly what happened to me after that day I met with the four special teachers I’ve mentioned. They revealed the LWT philosophy, and I just never was the same. I connected with a deep understanding of what real leadership is truly about. A title no longer mattered to me. Getting a big corner office no longer mattered to me. Having a huge salary no longer mattered to me. It became all about being the best I could be every day at work. And making an excellent contribution at every touch point of my life. And ironically, as word spread of what I was doing, the senior executives started blazing a path to me. They offered me the titles. They pleaded with me to take a corner office. They wanted to pay me more money than any other bookseller within the organization.”
    “Ironic. The less you cared about receiving the stuff most of us care about at work, the more you received it,” I reflected back to this man with the Mickey Mouse hankie in his vest and the twinkle in his eyes.
    “It was a pretty incredible thing,” he continued passionately. “And you’re absolutely right: it was definitely counterintuitive tothe way most of us work. The more I let go of needing all the things most people worry so much about and focused on doing brilliant work and reflecting some real leadership in my behavior, the more all those things just seemed to appear in my life almost by accident. Really incredible how true that is, now that I consider it all,” Tommy noted, now scratching his chin, deep in thought.
    “So you refused all the money they threw at you?” I just couldn’t resist asking.
    “Nope—took the money.” He laughed.
    I laughed, too. I was starting to like this guy. He reminded me more and more of my father. I could see why they were good friends.
    “But what I’m trying to suggest to you, Blake, is that I never had a title in this organization. Started on the ground floor. So many people go to work with the mind-set that when they get a bigger title and when they are granted more responsibility, then they will perform at mastery and go the extra mile in everything they do. But a restaurant is the only place I know of where you get the good stuff first and then you pay the price. In work—and in life in general—you need to pay the price of success before you get all the rewards due to you. And by the way, just because you haven’t yet received the benefits of positive deeds you may have done, that doesn’t mean they’re not coming. You’ll always reap what you sow. The chickens will always come home to roost. You’ll always get what you deserve. Even the smallest good act has set in motion a good consequence. And by the way, if you study any great person in business—and I mean the best of the best—or any great explorer or artist or scientist, not one of them achieved what they did for the money.”
    “Really?”
    “Of course. Just think of Roosevelt or Mandela, Edison or Einstein. They were not driven by money. They were driven bythe challenge. By the chance to push the envelope. By the desire to do something uncommonly great. And that’s the drive that made them legends.”
    “Interesting,” I remarked.
    “Look, I’ll be the first to say that money’s important to living your best life. It brings freedom. It decreases stress. It allows you to take nice care of those you love.”
    “And to help others,” I added. “I’ve heard that the best way to help poor people is to make sure you don’t become one of them.”
    “True, Blake. Nice insight. But money is really only the byproduct of standing for the finest within you and doing some SEW.”
    “What’s SEW?”
    “Seriously Exceptional Work, my friend.