The Ships of a Person's Life

The two ships that everyone claims to be on are ownership and leadership. But few never want to take the wheel and drive.

Ownership means "owning" what you want to do. You don't push it off on other people, delay your decisions, or hope that someone will make the choice for you. People who do that are frustrating and it doesn't matter how much talent they have in a certain subject, if they don't take ownership, the result they want just won't happen. Those are the people who end up saying "there's no money it" or "it's a dying industry" but they weren't willing to sacrifice, weren't prepared for the work involved, or willing to sacrifice everything in order to make their goal happen.

Leadership has some of the same components of ownership. People who wish to tell people what to do are always claiming to be leaders. But that isn't leadership. That's a manager. Leadership is more diverse than that. It deals with the thought process that you need to push yourself further, in order to motivate the group. That is real leadership. Something that hasn't really been perfected since the days of Patton and Alexander. If you ever wonder why people point to those two generals as "true leaders" it's because they weren't willing to ask their troops for anything that they themselves weren't willing to do. That's leadership and the difference.

Why does this come up?

Why do you think?

We live in a world of constant complainers. People who want stuff NOW. YESTERDAY.

But they don't want to risk in order to do it.

Look at any business: restaurant, bar, shoe store, movie place, bookstore.

Everything is built on sacrifice. For every store you see, recognize that ten other people had to fail at it. Because that's the way things work. You have to hustle, work harder, do more than you can possibly hope to get out of it... then have a little luck.

I have friends who like to whine about things. I enjoy whining as well. Why? Because it wastes time and makes it someone else's fault if something doesn't happen.

So, if you have that book, that short story, or anything else that you could possibly be working on, but aren't? Just remember, it's YOUR DAMN FAULT.

No one else's. Because you chose not to accept the roles of an owner and a leader. You may want to be on those "ships" but lets face it, a lot of people stand on the dock, watching the boat go to sea and claim they've been on a cruise when they've never been anywhere at all.