Day 404 - Leadership 199 / Trait 8 of 14: Integrity

Lived the words I've been sharing yesterday. Took initiative to make yesterday a great day and accomplished that. Early in the day I informed my son to be dressed to go to the YMCA after school, I picked him up and there we went. We decided to kick up the intensity a notch, something I could tell he wasn't sure of. Heck I was apprehensive too, but I knew I could leverage the power of my courage to get it done. In the end we endured a 60 minute session in the free weight room and then polished off the workout with 2 miles of walk/jog combo on the treadmill. Yesterday was an Oh Yeah day!

Onward we carry ourselves into a new day. With us we carry the lessons we've learned which we can revisit at will via these links...
Leadership 199 / Trait 7 of 14: Initiative
Leadership 199 / Trait 6 of 14: Enthusiasm
Leadership 199 / Trait 5 of 14: Endurance
Leadership 199 / Trait 4 of 14: Decisiveness
Leadership 199 / Trait 3 of 14: Courage
Leadership 199 / Trait 2 of 14: Bearing
Leadership 199 / Trait 1 of 14: Dependability

We're halfway through this series, which means we have lots of learning to do yet. Therefore, let us plunge into the power of our eighth trait…

Leadership 199 / Trait 8 of 14: Integrity

Defined: Uprightness of character and soundness of moral principles; includes the qualities of truthfulness and honesty.

Discovered: Let us start in on understanding this trait by visiting this definition backwards. Honesty, is something I will go out on a limb and proclaim that everyone acknowledges that honesty is a trait any leader must possess. No? I agree with my proclamation, I have to else I've been dishonest here; yet while I agree I will tell you now that honesty is not one of the 14 leadership traits.

What? How can that be you say? Look back up at the list above of the traits we've discussed thus far. Take a moment, I'll be right here when you scroll back down... I know, if only scrolling burned measurable calories. OK, having revisited those traits let us ask ourselves this question; Can any of those traits be successfully put into practice if we are not first honest with ourselves in choosing to lead with them?

Leadership is not something we can take on half-hearted. "Do or do not... there is no try", as Master Yoda would say. In short, if we are not honest in our endeavors, either with ourselves or with others, we will not succeed at them in the end.

Living with integrity is certainly dependent upon be honest. But integrity is not just about being honest.

Character, you don't have to know a person for very long to know whether there character is righteous or otherwise. Righteous meaning to be committed to doing what they believe to be right, right by themselves and others.  It is one thing to want what is right, another to do what is right. If our character is to do what is right, we are leading with integrity.

Morals, ah discussion/debate on morality sure can be a sticky-wicket. So lets limit our thought here to what it is about our morals that is essential to leading ourselves to success. To decide what we want to succeed at we first have to know what we want or who we want to be. Or more specifically, how do we want to live? If we can answer that question and come away with an answer gives us a clear picture of how we want to look and why, how we want to conduct yourself and why; we then know where our morals should be set to lead with integrity and succeed.

Da-Point: If we are honest, if we believe our mission to be right and are willing stand up for it's purpose; then we are leading with integrity.

When did you last take time to truly know your character, your moral code?

 
Responsibility 199 - Gotta Do It!!

Day 388 - Leadership 199 / Trait 1 of 14: Dependability

Who is it that is in charge of leading you to accomplish your mission to get healthy?

If you answered that question with a name other than your own, PLEASE do comment below. I really want to discuss how it is that someone other than yourself is on the hook for accomplishing your mission.

I am my own leader. While my actions and outcomes may affect others, and while I may depend on others for input and assistance in my tasks; at the end of each decision it is "I" who must lead myself to success, or failure, whichever I choose to deliver.

Are we clear?

I am MY own leader!

You are YOUR own leader!!

Now for the real question: Am I (are you) ready to lead?

Leadership is an innate ability which can be honed into higher degrees of effectiveness with education and experience. Note I said 'and', not 'or'. You want to lead yourself to victory, then you have to 'do' it, not just think about it. For the outcome of what you do to be successful you need to first know the success factors of leadership.

These success factors, or leadership traits as I prefer to refer to them, were taught to me nearly 30 years ago. Learning them, and living them are two different choices. To get myself from here, to my goal of 199, I am going to have to live these traits each day along the way. On any given day where I can reflect and see that I have come up short, you can bet that I can identify one of more of these traits which I did not hold true to.

Let us get busy learning these leadership traits, there are fourteen of them. Yes 14; no moaning or sighs of hot air allowed! Anything worth learning is worth learning in detail. Therefore we are going to learn all 14 of them. To increase the potential of learning and retaining them so that we can put them to practice, we are going to learn them one at a time; one per day over the next fourteen days.

Without further introduction as to my intent here, away we go…

Leadership 199 / Trait 1 of 14: Dependability

Defined: The certainty of proper performance of duty.

Discovered: Duty, a very powerful word as I see it. When we have something to do, the degree of importance which we associate it with goes up if we accept it as our duty. If we associate it as something less, then I would suggest it is a 'want' and not a 'need'. Would you agree that getting healthy and living healthy is something you need to do? Myself, I do. The it is our duty to do just that, get healthy and stay healthy.

Certainty, a word that infers an absolute. This word, I like! Absolutes are empowering, motivating, as they demand accomplishment. "For my duty this day I will certainly exercise by running 2 miles and executing my push up & sit up routine"; if you see this as your duty you would proclaimed it just as I wrote it there. However if you do not see this as your duty, you probably have proclaimed it as follows; "I need to exercise today and will do so as soon as I can."

Da-Point: Your success is dependent upon your ability to perform your duty as required.

Can you depend upon yourself to do your duty?

 
Responsibility 199 - Gotta Do It!!

Day 227 - F-18 Flyover Accomplished

Monday was owned. Food near perfect, Exercise nailed!

Queue the anthem and the F-18 flyover... Ok, maybe the fly-over would be a bit much. But that feeling of accomplishment where your are brimming with pride for a job well done, that is how my Monday came off for me. Of course you really can't get the full effect of that feeling until you wake up the next day when there is no longer any opportunity to ruin yesterday.

One key to yesterday's feel-good, how I balanced the days food. The picture there is of my lunch for Monday. Where Monday was spot-on for me is that the calories on my lunch plate exceeded those of my dinner plate. Why is that a big deal?

For so very very long (yes 2 very's) that has not been the case. Even while on this mission which has been largely successful I have struggled to avoid eating 40-50% of my days calories at dinner.

What you see there is garden salad with egg splashed with a bit of sesame oil & ranch accompanied with a bowl of veggie chili; this meal rang in at about 625 calories. My dinner (not pictured) of turkey breast (yes leftovers from Thursday) & fruit salad rang in at about 350 calories.

Over the past several months I have come to know my body fairly well. And I know it feels better, performs better, and maybe even looks better (underscore maybe) when I eat in better balance and when my mid-day meal is larger of the three meals. This I need to remember and strive for daily for what I hope are obvious reasons.

Now I am writing this post read as if such feelings of accomplishment are rare for me. Not the case, they are far more a regular part of my days these past 7+ months than ever. Such feelings of accomplishment can motivate greatly and ought to be recognized and sought after; my opinion.

Hit me with what gave you your last F-18 flyover feeling of accomplishment.

Oh, and for those who may not know what I mean by F-18 flyover, then for crying out loud get yourself to a big time football game, or better yet to a Nascar race; stand, salute, cheer & hang on... Until then just watch THIS.

Responsibility 199 - Gotta Do It!!

Day 189 - Got New Clothes

Enough is enough, a phrase that applies in oh so many ways to life. Certainly being obese itself has that day dawn where we stand up, or stay seated, and say enough is enough! And those of us who are parents can agree we regularly take a child aside and demand, enough is enough!

Well yesterday was an enough is enough moment for me, enacted by my wife (pictured to left) and fueled by my own lack of action to get new clothes that fit my lessor sized me better. Yep, she took me clothes shopping after work.

Now I've never cashed in my reward for achieving 40% of my weight loss goal. A combination of never finding the hitch-haul I wanted on sale and a realization I may not actually need one. So this enough is enough event was also made possible by allowing myself to accept it by making it my long-ago earned 40% reward. Oh who am I kidding, she would have taken me shopping irregardless of my delay to reward myself.

My work wardrobe used to consist of trousers with tightly fitting 46" waistlines and 3XL shirts which fit as needed in the gut but tended to be baggyish in the chest. Being apple shaped its always been hard to find shirts which were cut well for me in both gut & chest. Well no, finding such a shirt was a dream and rare find to be honest.

Now that wardrobe has been replaced with comfortably fitting trousers that are 42" in the waist and 2XL shirts that fit well and have me less conscious about that gut to chest differential. There you see me checking out one such shirt. Like?

Have you rewarded yourself lately for your accomplishments?


Have a wondrously awesome weekend!



Responsibility 199 - Gotta Do It!!

Day 106 - 38% Progress

Sunday Sunday. A double up Sunday of sorts for me as I was not able to weigh in last Sunday while out on vacation. Weigh in day, the day each week we step on that scale and see if we have made any progress, or not.

This weigh in day I was apprehensive over. Vacation was a great time, but I did take a few indulgences which had my confidence in check as I approached the scale. True, yes I did get in some exercise while on vacation. No doubt that had to help. But did it help enough to undue the effects of the pork tenderloin sandwich at Cozy Dog? Or the bbq burnt ends at Arthur Bryant's? Or the pizza at Garcia's? Or anything else I ate that I wouldn't have enjoyed in excess had I not been on vacationing and relaxing my choices regarding moderation, balance and portion control?

No, no way - was my mood as I approached the scale. Excuses entered my mind, things I could blame my weight gain on for this post. The food, lessor effort in exercise, stress, you name it, my mind was looking for the out to take.

A couple of steps to go before hopping on the scale and I start to negotiate with myself. What would a good weigh in be this day? I weighed in at 278.5 two weeks ago, before vacation; so considering the indulgences then if I am just below 280 that would be OK, right?

Or maybe, just maybe I will weigh in back at 278.5, if I just didn't gain anything that would be Good, right?

Or, what if I lost just 1.5 pounds instead of the 3 I expect myself to lose over any two week period; just half of what I was supposed to lose would be Great, right?

Or, well that is as far as I got before I was on the scale, show time. If I had just a second or two more, I might have dared to wonder if I had actually lost the 3 pounds I wanted, but I didn't.

And neither did I dare to wonder if I could have done even better than that. Too bad, because I should have.

The scale reports that I have now melted away 38% of the weight I want to lose. In all, 45.5 pounds have melted away in the past FIFTEEN weeks; 4 of them the past two weeks. Today I weighed in at 274.5 pounds. Oh Yeah!

Surprised myself indeed in my accomplishment of the past two weeks. Quite pleased to say the least.

How about you; what have you accomplished that caught you by surprised?

Responsibility 199 - Gotta Do It!!