I love reading. Consuming a book, blogs, magazines....it’s one of my favorite ways to pass the fleeting moments of free time. Humblebrag alert - I read on average of 2 books a week. Sometimes they are dense non-fiction accounts of businesses or new ideas in psychology. Sometimes I focus on self-development or biographies. And of course, give me a Jack Reacher or Brad Thor novel any day- I’m a sucker for political shoot-um-ups.

Yet for all I read, all the underlines in books or my Kindle, it’s rare that I’ve found passages that stick with me for long. I soak up ideas, implement good ones and store a lot of information for useless trivia or when specific situations arise.

There are two related concepts that hit home and have traveled with me along the winding road of life.

I want to gift these to you in hopes they find a place in your work and life. I hope you can find the same wisdom and energy that I have continued to get from them.

Winding the clock way back, I remember High School - a land of unlimited opportunity. I went to a middle-class public high school that was incredibly diverse in every way. This allow us to develop a sense of the real world. I loved jumping into every leadership position possible in clubs, music, theatre, courses, sports....

One day out of the blue I got a phone call from Rotary International. I has been nominated by the staff and administration to attend Rotary's World Youth Leadership Conference. This annual event brings together around 100 high school students from around the world for a week of learning how to better oneself, communities and the world.

They sent out a list of suggested pre-readings (reading in the summer? for fun? sign me up!!!) that would correspond to some of the speakers and sessions. I quickly made my way through the list.

And then something hit me. It was a funny looking word and without the internet I had no idea how to pronounce it- but I knew I would never forget it.

Kaizen.

While making my way through One Small Step Can Change Your Life, I was awestruck by such a simple idea.

What is Kaizen? Simply put, it’s of art of making great and lasting change through small, steady incremental changes. It’s the tortoise vs the hare. It’s a journey of a thousand miles starting with a single step. It’s simple and elegant in concept, but a challenge to move towards mastery. I read and reread the book a few times before attending the conference.

To make it clear that the universe was smacking me into paying attention, I looked to see who would be leading the Kaizen session. Of course, it was a member of the senior leadership team for Habitat for Humanity. I have logged hundreds (thousands?) of hours supporting, building and fundraising for Habitat across the country, so it was almost too good to be true.

How does Kaizen work? If you wanted to train to run a marathon but have no experience running, start by standing on the treadmill the first day- for a minute. Tomorrow try standing there for two minutes. Then a few days more of that and then start walking. Slowly build up your walking stamina. Then go back to just running for one minute - but making sure your posture, form and comfort are aligned. Then keep building up very small increments over a long period of time. Before you know it, you will be able to run long distances , avoid injuries and the burnout associated with setting goals too large to attain.

In recent years, the business world has taken a slightly standoffish acceptance of Kaizen. In the modern day of instant results and data, it’s become increasingly difficult to convince leaders that building a foundation slowly, paying incredible attention to every detail and setting attainable milestones is much better for the business and its employees.

After coming down from my awestruck introduction to Kaizen (and after considering getting a tattoo to commemorate my newfound ninja skills), I started to make sure I was following this philosophy. Without a doubt the first year of practicing Kaizen was painfully difficult. I’m an impatient, action driven guy. The natural tension that Kaizen brings to my world has allowed me to be smarter and more methodical in getting work done. I’m nowhere close to perfect, that’s why it’s called a practice.

More recently, a mentor of mine who is a history buff with a background in creating strong leaders in public education brought up his favorite quote of all time. He mentioned the quote as I was describing my many frustrations with trying to change the world of urban education. I didn’t really understand the gist of what he was trying to get across at first. Luckily I had a long flight home and I discovered the wisdom I was just handed.

In 1910, Theodore Roosevelt had been out of the Oval office for a year. As TR was an original American badass, he spent that year on hunting trips in Central Africa, and then toured throughout Europe. Imagine the immense exhaustion of traveling back then, add into it a little hunting and meeting huge crowds everywhere. Doesn’t sound like retirement to me!

While passing through Paris, he delivered one of his most famous speeches “Citizen in a Republic”. There’s one snippet that has gone on to elocutionary fame.

This is the passage that changed my life.

Before you go on to this nugget of greatness, please do TR some respect and really read it. And then reread it.

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

**"WHY DIDN'T I PAY ATTENTION DURING ALL MY MBA CLASSES???"**

As a leader, husband and human being, there’s nothing more powerful and uplifting than that gem. The visuals. The wisdom. The struggle and payoff.

There’s no way for me to improve on that or give it just commentary. Know that if you are in the arena, you are going to be beat up. If you are doing it right, you are going to get some battle scars from life. Everyone will fail, but be sure to fail while daring greatly (still gives me the goosebumps).

There are so many more lessons I’ve learned through my adventures in reading, but I hope these two passages find a place into your soul and give you the ammunition and gumption to make your everyday meaningful.

This was written while listening to the vinyl album: