Jack LaLanne: Leadership by Living

        Jack LaLanne came into my consciousness at a very young age.  I saw him for the first time on TV when I was six or seven years old, growing up in Summit, New Jersey.  It was the early Fifties.  I remember him being in a jump suit and using a chair as a prop to do exercises.   By the time I grew up and entered adulthood, he was a fixture of our society.  It was as if there was never a time before Jack. 

       Imagine my delight, then, when I was the General Sales Manager of the Mazda dealership in San Luis Obispo and Jack walked onto the lot.  I knew he had come to the county a few years earlier but never thought I’d meet him.  But Jack loved cars and he loved to talk and there is no better place to indulge both propensities than on a car lot.  I got out of my chair and walked outside to meet him.  He looked me straight in the eye, gave me a big smile and gripped my hand with his own, which was small, bony and powerful.  He wanted to look at an RX-7.  He wasn’t really in the market but he just liked cars and happened to be driving by.  I was immediately struck by how easy he was to talk to.  He had enormous energy and charisma but not the kind that made you reluctant to approach.  I’ve always been into health and fitness so I asked him a number of questions about food.  He said, “Eggs are getting a bad rap.  Egg whites are the finest protein known to man!  If you don’t like the yolk, at least don’t stop eating the whites!”  So I was off and running with my egg-white only homemade omelets long before they became popular in restaurants…because of Jack.  We had a great conversation and he invited me out to his house.  “It wouldn’t hurt if you bring one of these,” he said, pointing at the sports coupe.  “Just for fun, you know!” 

      I really don’t know why he took a shine to me at that moment, other than my curiosity about health, but I certainly wasn’t going to turn down his invitation.  I drove up to his house on the slope in Morro Bay a few days later.  His wife, Elaine, was there and was very gracious.  Besides Jack’s energy and friendliness, the thing that impressed me the most was his living room.  It was packed with work-out machines.  There was barely a stick of furniture.  He undoubtedly had another room, a den, for the normal living room functions…but this room spoke with a megaphone about how committed he was to his own health.   There was a terrific view of the Pacific ocean and also a telescope set up so he could watch the whales when they were migrating, which they were at the time.  He gazed through and exclaimed, “There they are!”  He insisted I look, too, and there certainly were California gray whales headed south in their annual ritual.   But the whales were just a bonus.  I was blown away by Jack’s level of commitment to practicing every day what he preached with such gusto to the nation and the world.  He talked proudly about how he had invented these workout machines.  Before him, there was nothing but dead weight.  

       I didn’t sell Jack a car and didn’t care.  It was a kick just to be around him and feed off his energy.

       Years went by and I would see him every rare once in a while having dinner with Elaine at Dorn’s Restaurant in Morro Bay.   We’d wave and shake hands and that would be it, not wanting to disturb each other’s meal.  Then, sometime in 2000, I walked into Dorn’s one Tuesday mid-day with a client.  The client was in town for a 3-day personal retreat, which is the crown jewel of my leadership consulting practice (called The Ultimate One on One, see my website www.bobkamm.com).  We had spent most of our morning among the secluded sand dunes of Montana de Oro, an 8000 acre state park, and then taken the short drive over to Morro Bay for lunch.  Jack was seated alone near the entrance eating a waffle, a bowl of fruit and a couple of eggs.  He was actually such a small man, that you could have walked right by him if you didn't recognize that impish face of his. I stopped and threw my hand out to him.  He looked at me with his hallmark mischievous smile and grabbed my hand.  He said, “How ya doin’?  Haven’t seen you in a long time!”  He didn’t remember my name but who cared?  I was wearing a t-shirt and as he shook my hand, he reached forward with the other one and tapped my bicep and said, “I like that.  You’ve stayed with it.  That’s great.”  I introduced my client, who was truly star struck.  I said, “Jack, are you still working out?  You look great.”  He answered, “Two hours every day, including my swim.  It’s a pain in the ass but you gotta do it.”  He paused and then said, “I work at living every day.  Most people work at dying.  Any stupid ass can die!”  We all laughed and I thought he’d probably used that line a thousand times but what a gift he had of making us feel as if it was the first time he’d ever said it.  I have quoted him a number of times in seminars and speeches.  He made a world of sense in very few words.  He was the ultimate salesman.  Slogans just leaped from his lips and they worked because he was living his pitch.  People talk about Leadership by Example.  Jack was so into his own realm, that term can't touch the truth.  His was Leadership by Living.  It was as big as leadership gets.

    From that encounter forward, I saw him a fair amount.  He said, “Tuesday is Elaine’s golf day.  She plays golf.  I eat at Dorns.  I don’t care much for golf.”  We had a number of discussions that lasted on average perhaps five minutes because of the courtesy we wanted to show each other around meal time.  But those five minute segments were so packed with wisdom, they were like a post –doctoral course in life. 

     He told me how he had been a sugar addict as a kid and was crazy and violent.  He told me how he heard Paul Bragg speak.  Bragg was the father of fasting and arguably the father of nutritional awareness in the US and it was Bragg who gave him the information he needed to change his life.  But the way he did it, committing himself to a wholly different way of living from what he had known—that was all pure Jack. He taught me how to work out different sets of muscles on different days.  He taught me to drop the weight on the machines as I aged and increase the reps.  He taught me that I could absolutely be vital into my nineties and perhaps even beyond. 

     One day he had just returned from a trip to France with Elaine.  He told me that her parents and his had grown up in two little villages in the South of France a stone’s throw from each other but didn’t meet until they were in the States.  The trip had been a birthday celebration…I think it was his 90^th. I know for sure his birthday was September 26^th because he told me.  I learned all these things from Jack and more and I didn’t even know him well enough to say he was my friend.  But I will proudly claim him as one of my greatest mentors…and no doubt the most efficient in how he got the lessons across.  He was a gum-ball dispenser of wisdom.  You didn't have to give much to get something sweet and worth chewing on.

     The last time I saw Jack, I was seated in one of the booths at Dorn’s having lunch with another client.  He had just finished his own meal and came walking by.  “Hey, good to see you!” he said.  He stood at the end of the table and chatted with us for a moment.  As he was leaving, I thanked him for stopping and slapped him on his left lat, just behind the arm.  It was like a slab of beef.  I remember thinking, “Wow, there’s the payoff to a lifetime of working out.  The guy is past ninety.  He’s walking without a cane.  He’s got enough muscle there to do almost anything around the house.  What vitality!”

       Over the last year and a-half, I hadn’t seen him at all.  I’d heard that he had an operation on his heart.  Of course that worried me.  He was amazing but he wasn’t invulnerable.  From time to time I’d ask one of the owners of Dorn’s if they’d seen him lately.  The visits were becoming fewer and further between and I feared he wouldn't make the milestone of a 100 he hoped would be another part of his legacy. 

       It pains me to think he died from complications associated with pneumonia.  This was a man who knew the blessing of breath, being the avid swimmer he was.  It doesn't seem fair.  He should've gone during a nap after a workout as another local icon, Dr. Paul Spangler, did when he was ninety-five.  But Jack was very clear with me more than once that we get to choose how we live and may be able to shape the odds about how we die, but in the end, it's the guy upstairs who makes that call.

      So I won’t be seeing Jack any more at Dorn’s.  I won’t get any more of those high-protein 5-minute lessons.  It’s sad to lose a mentor.  Jack was a force of nature.  He was like these mountains in San Luis Obispo.  They’re so formidable, you just assume they’ll always be here.  But above all, Jack was a great leader.  He led our country into a higher consciousness about how to stay fit and live a long, vital life.  He practiced what he preached.  He was consistent.  He never tired of teaching, which is one of the reasons he continued to perform outrageous feats every time he added another decade to his time on earth.  He purveyed his message with humor and gusto. He was caring and compassionate and just so darn encouraging.  He stretched our sense of what was possible.  He had great entrepreneurial spirit and success, from gyms to juicers.  Leadership by Living.  He certainly mastered it and gave us all something to think about.

    I love the folks at Dorn’s, but it’s going to be hard not to feel sad walking in there.  I guess the one consolation is, from the busboys to the owners, I'm sure they all feel the same way. 

C 2011 Bob Kamm

               

Anger Addiction in the Town Square

   With all the commentary we've heard over the last few days since the shootings in Tucson, I have yet to hear anyone address the fact that a large portion of our populace seems addicted to anger. This is not to deflect blame for the murders.  One man committed them.  But that one man has not been living in a vacuum.  He's been living in the United States of America in its current form.
   As part of the larger picture, we must consdier the talk show and political personalities who play on fear and anger. They are not acting as leaders in any positive sense of the word. They are not even conducting themselves as real grownups. They are playing the role of drug dealer and the principle drug they are dealing is anger.  Yes, anger can be addictive...and when that addiction is widespread, it creates an atmosphere in which violence seems more acceptable, rather than less so, especially to people who have a weak inner core such Jared Loughner.
   In its healthy form, anger is designed to help us protect ourselves.  It is the "fight" end of the fight or flight spectrum.  But in normal social interaction, it's intended to serve us by being used in an appropriately proportional manner.  In other words, if someone mindlessly tosses some litter onto our front yard, it makes sense to channel a dollop of anger into basic assertiveness so we walk out the front door and say, "Excuse me! I'm sure your mind was elsewhere when you dropped that in my yard, but would you please pick it up?" If a child's behavior is disrupting a restaurant, it makes sense for someone, hopefully the owner, to ask the parents to quiet the child down gently or take him outside till he is calmer.  We could come up with a thousand examples like this where anger, channeled appropriately in moderation, helps to keep some reasonable order in our relationships and society.  And we could certainly also come up with examples where a more full-throated response would also make sense--such as if someone tried to invade your home or snatch your kid...or shoot your local member of the House of Representatives.  And, certainly, anger may be an appropriate response to a policy that strikes you as immoral or unethical...but in the political and social spheres, that anger motivates mature people to action, such as the peaceful marches in the 60's for Civil rights and against the war in Viet Nam, or the organizing on the block by block level that takes place during an election cycle.
   But what is going on in our society right now is something quite different and insidious.  That insidiousness is the result of the amplification that results from so many voices shouting so loudly from so many streetcorners of the traditional and electronic media. This is indeed a very different situation from the early days of our republic when news often took weeks to travel and the sources were relatively few.  Today, people are being triggered into anger over and over again because there are dealers willing to give them a fix 24/7  on radio. TV and the Internet. 
    Why are people vulnerable to this blogosblather?  Apparently, they lack the kind of broader emotional and intellectual resources that can help them constructively make a difference in their own lives and the lives of their communities and nation.  Extreme messages strike such people right in the brainstem and limbic system where the primal fight or flight responses are set ever on the alert. 
    Underneath this kind of anger is, in fact, helplessness.  Helplessness is not a common emotion for a mature individual...but for one whose development has been under-nurtured.  Babies wail when their hunger is not addressed in a timely manner because they can't get up and go to the fridge and make themselves a sandwich.  In fact, if their needs go unmet long enough, their wails turn into a kind of full blown rage.  When adults wail and rage, whether on the highway or watching the news at night, they are acting out of some buried, unconscious helplessness, to painful to feel in its pure state.  Rage gives them the illusion of having control, control being the opposite of helplessness.  But it is only an illusion.  They are not in control of the thing that drives them to be in control.  In fact, they experience themselves essentially as victims...and that is what drives them to desperation.  Sadly, during some critical stages of their early development, they have been deprived of the kind of consistent, strong love that they deserved.
     Mature adults living in a civil society are not easily triggered into fear or rage.  They have all kinds of actions available to them to work towards the remedies they envision, as cited above. 
     Unfortunately, those with fewer emotional and behavioral resources at their disposal (this goes to the question of parenting, economic, social and educational inequities in our culture) are more likely to be living in a state of chronic anger, to stand around the water-cooler talking down those with whom they disagree, offering simplistic solutions, going for the easy reaction to the latest public development...and basically taking no constructive action. 
   We are suffering from an overabundance of opinions that are simply the vehicles for our anger...and an insufficiency of reality-based solution thinking. 
   Regularly listening to or watching your "favorite" talk show person or politician or reading your favorite biased paper or magazine tends to keep this anger simmering.  Perpetual anger like this only feeds on itself, reinforcing the neural pathways in our brain like any addiction so that we get stuck in a perpetual "fight or flight" mode.  When our anger fix drops below a certain level, we go after more...more Rush, more Keith, more Glenn, more Randi, more Sarah...
     We should not be the least surprised then, that some individuals will take this over the top and injure or kill someone they see as "a traitor," or "evi" or just "not one of us"...whether they're in a rival gang or a rival political party.
    In therapeutic settings, I have seen people get below rage into the terrible helplessness that drives it...and emerge from such sessions much healthier human beings and much less interested in listening to others pontificate or rag on their favorite frustration. 
   Short of therapy, the simplest thing most of us can do is stop giving our attention, our energy and certainly our money and votes to anyone who is dealing the drugs of anger and fear.  We can check in with ourselves and feel what is moving in us--fear, anger, compassion, curiosity? We can still disagree. We can still call it like we see it.  But democracy, like every great love relationship, is built on compromise, which requires an ability to walk in the shoes of another, to be empathetic to their experience even when we see things differently...and to be committed to finding common ground, knowing that anyone rarely gets everything he or she wants.  Whatever compromise is called for to get to win-win, it is highly preferable to the consequences of win-lose. 
    This is a good time in the history of a nation that regularly places itself in the Judeo-Christian tradition to remember a few sayings from someone we admire who walked the earth more than 2000 years ago.  "Turn the other cheek,"he said.  "He who lives by the sword shall die by the sword," he said.  "Love thine enemies," he said.  "Unless you become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven," he said, enshrining innocence, curiosity and playfulness as some of the highest values.
    We've managed to compromise successfully for most of the last 235 years.  We can find our way back to that spirit, with commitment, humility, a willingness to allow for other points of view, a sense of innocence and lightness of being...and an abiding sense that what is at stake is too big to be subjugated to the will of any one person...or party.

Fear, Profit and the 14 C Leadership

                The father of the Quality Movement, Dr. W. Edwards Deming wrote, “The economic losses resulting from fear are appalling.”  What did he mean by this?  A number of things, but most centrally that when anyone at any level of an organization is afraid to speak up for whatever reason, the organization suffers.  Two obvious examples.  First, a worker on the front line of a service-based business sees a way in which policy is inadvertently damaging customer loyalty.  If the worker’s boss is one of those leaders who tends to be a rigid, ego-centric individual who acts as if he is the fount of all good ideas and consequently shoots down others, the worker is unlikely to speak up.  As a result, a good idea stays buried.  Customers are underserved.  Revenues are negatively impacted and, often, the boss ends up blaming the workforce for all of it.  (More on blame in a future blog). Second, a mid-level manager is experiencing her supervisor as being inappropriate in both language and behavior towards her.  Even though she is aware of the law about sexual harassment and workplace discrimination, she is afraid that objecting will land her in hot water and damage her chances for promotion.  She goes into an avoidance mode which stresses her days and tends to constrain her input in management meetings because she doesn’t want her boss paying any more attention to her than he already does.  Again, the result is a lack of fluid creativity and innovation that could serve the greater good of the company.  In this case, it’s likely the individual will seek employment elsewhere, making the loss of creativity even greater.  Take this even further and imagine you have a management team that is afraid to hear what customers have to say…and customers who are, after years of feeling dissed, afraid or indifferent to saying anything!

                Anyone who has been in an organization for more than a month or two is likely to have experienced directly or witnessed variations on these themes, the central truth being exactly what Deming said—a loss of creativity, quality, productivity and competitive advantage because people are afraid to speak up.  Now a lot of folks will tell you that you can’t change a leader with these traits.  Yet, I have found it far more possible than most believe to spur positive growth in such a leader.

                How is this done?  I generally prefer to encourage a robust regimen of leadership development experiences for the leader who tends to be tight.  My own preference is to create a positive relationship with the individual at his work site over a period of a few months, do some gentle coaching while we’re getting to know each other and he’s beginning to trust me, and then invite him out to my neck of the woods for a 3-day intensive one-on-one.   I call this The Ultimate One-on-One.  It was born out of my listening to my own clients.  For six years, I gave a four and a-half day group leadership retreat.  We averaged a dozen and a half people from all over North America.  It was a highly participatory experience and people got a lot of growth from it.  A number of them began to ask me if they couldn’t return and work with me one-on-one.   Whenever a client or customer asks me for something, I try to say, “Yes.”  That’s my default orientation.  So I responded that this sounded like a good idea… how much time together would be optimal?  They all answered, “Two or three days.”  I began with two but quickly discovered along with the client that three worked far better.   We spend at least eight hours a day for the three days together.  We’re outdoors most of the time, in a huge state park full of 200 foot high sand dunes and magnificent rustic beaches where there is plenty of opportunity for privacy.  By getting into a “Vulcan mind-meld” with people for the three days, we have consistently been able to catalyze significant growth away from the rigid, ego-centric, authoritarian leadership style.  As an aside, I have also been able to catalyze growth in those leaders who err too far on the other side, being permissive and being willing to try anything and everything their workers suggest, without first vetting the ideas.

                As to what actually transpires during these three days, the short answer is a very deep dive and a lot of education.  These people have plenty of IQ.  Where they need help is EQ—emotional intelligence…understanding their own inner dynamics and how to shift some of the negative energy they carry semi-consciously or unconsciously into a conscious effort to stay positive and appropriately inclusive and warm towards others.  So the deep dive is into their Emotional Heritage and how it shows up in their day-to-day life.   The education gives them a better conceptual grasp of their own dynamics, now that they have experienced them more deeply on a feeling level.  Then we can move on to look at specific techniques that will actively implement this new orientation.  But a word of caution, working on techniques alone is largely a waste of time.  The individual has to be able to sense and feel on a gut and heart level what the benefits of a different leadership approach can be.  Otherwise, no matter how wonderful a new technique might be, it is likely to land with a thud.  A simple example.  A leader who decides he’s supposed to be more inclusive might begin to ask for more opinions in his management meetings.  However, if he is still operating from an ego-centric energy, he will revert in a fairly brief time to doing most of the talking and letting people know why his ideas are the best and theirs, not so much.

        This is not intended to be an ad for my services.  There are others who offer their own version of the same exploratory process.  Leaders who come through such deep dynamic transformation actually begin to listen from a place of genuine calm, curiosity and gratitude that they have people around them who are so dedicated, bright and wishing to contribute.  They are now working in the one C of the 14 I introduced in an earlier blog that integrates all of them on the highest possible plane—Consciousness.  They are conscious they are not the fount of all wisdom.  They are conscious they need a rich variety of perspectives to sustain success.  They are conscious that people will give their broadest and deepest input when they feel safe and heard.

    It is more possible than many might think to help a leader grow towards being a 14C Leader.  But it is serious work to shift from leadership of fear to a leadership of Consciousness.

C Bob Kamm 2011