Leading Thought: From start to finish, your team’s or company’s success is in your hands and it starts with taking ownership of yourself. To win in business, life, or really anything - starts from within.
own verb
owned; owning; owns
transitive verb
1 a : to have or hold as property : POSSESS
b : to have power or mastery over
//wanted to own his own life
2 : to acknowledge to be true, valid, or as claimed : ADMIT
//own a debt
If you look up the word “own” in Merriam-Webster’s dictionary, this is the entry you will find (emphasis mine). 1(b) really stuck out to me which is why I emphasized it. Take a second and think about the words they have used here. Power or mastery. How many things in your life can you honestly say that you are able to exert power or mastery over? There is a big difference between the things you want to exert power or mastery over and the things you are actually able to have that level of influence over. If you’re like most people, the list for the former is much, much longer than the later - whether you realize it or not.
One book we are constantly recommending is Jocko Willink and Leif Babin’s Extreme Ownership. For those who have read it, excellent, you should already be familiar with the concepts of extreme ownership and owning the mission. Plus Jocko and Leif have a much larger pool of extraordinary stories than I do. For those who have not yet read it, essentially two very accomplished former Navy SEALs turned management consultants/authors breakdown the philosophy they developed during their time in the SEAL teams and demonstrate how the key tenants are applicable to the business world. As the title of the book would suggest, the pair puts a strong emphasis on taking ownership of one’s thoughts, actions, environment, etc. and believes that is at the core of any successful operation either on the battlefield or in the boardroom.
This takes me back to my first point about power and mastery. You are truly able to own very few things in the sense that you have power and mastery over them. However, the one thing you have absolute ownership over is your own mind which in turn controls your thoughts and actions. One of my favorite quotes on this topic is from Sun Tzu’s The Art of War: “If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.” As the quote alludes to, simply knowing yourself is not always sufficient for the outcome you want, but it is necessary if you want to get yourself where you no longer need to fear failure. So, the next time you are trying to make a change in your business, organization, life, or a relationship stop and start from within to evaluate what is truly within your control and what you can exercise power and mastery over to accomplish what you are setting out to do.
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