During the 1980s, I was an avid admirer of Ayn Rand‘s philosophy of Objectivism. The greatest expression of this devotion was the following short story. The germ of the idea came from this news event. I was very proud of my story at the time. I offered it to only three magazines. I was shocked by their responses.
My rejection letters from The New Yorker and Esquire are below. The Atlantic Monthly did not bother to respond.
Reading the story now, it seems much more righteous and judgmental than I admit to being today. I still love the rhythm of certain sentences, the cinematic clarity of the settings and some of the word play, for example, the double meaning of the title and the triple meaning of DRILLER. Comments are welcome, of course, but please remember that I am no longer the author. He has grown away.
He pressed his fingers to the throb in his temple. Not to ease the pain, but to focus on the rhythmic pressure and blot out his sister’s insistence. Her unpersuasive words sought to compensate with repetition and emotion what they lacked in evidence and reason.
“Please Randall, if ever family mattered it is really important now.” Yes, Rachel, he thought as she talked. I know family matters, that is exactly why I am sitting at your kitchen table on a weekday morning. Being part of this family is why his day had detonated from the usual historical exposition to this hysterical exposition. If he were not born a Fleischer, Randall would still be at his desk, working on his next book.
Randall had just finished his daily preparing-to-get-ready-to-start-to-write rituals and was about to fill the computer screen with historical in-sight when the telephone rang. The first surprise was that the caller was his literary agent. Franklin called for only two reasons, either to report that Randall’s latest book had been sold to a publisher or to report that the publisher was impatient to receive the final draft of Randall’s latest book. Since Errors of Democracy had been purchased only three months ago, he could not imagine a reason for this interruption.
“Rand, what is your father’s first name?”
“Otto. And my mother’s maiden name was Calabrisi.” Randall was playful. “Is this some kind of identity check, Franklin? Are you going to pass along a secret message to me?”
“I’m afraid its no secret, friend. Something terrible has happened. The news is filled with reports that your father was… Rand, do you know what your father did during the war?”
One pattern I noticed while reading about the physicists and mathematicians who invented quantum mechanics and built the atomic bomb was the number of key insights that came to them while hiking and walking. At first, I thought this might have been a mere cultural coincidence. Many of these scientists were turn-of-the-century central Europeans; perhaps walking was just a common hobby amongst this group?
A key benefit of discussing important decisions with your executive coach is the exploration of alternative explanations for observed events. Managers, particularly business owners, have a very distinct point-of-view, a set of filters that leads them to interpret the data differently than their coach, employees, and customers might. A good executive coach will help the manager consider other possible meanings thereby making better decisions and communicating more effectively.
Here is fun example of how the position from which you view events can lead you to the wrong conclusion.
The most valuable time management skill is recognizing the important tasks and ignoring the rest. I first observed it early in my consulting career, at Arthur Andersen & Co in New York, after a meeting with my manager and our client, the Vice President of a large energy company. After the client left, my manager and I reviewed the meeting and planned our tasks. I mentioned one of the client’s requests from my notes and asked, “How are we going to do this?” I was shocked by his reply, “Don’t worry about that.”
“What do you mean?” I replied, “He specifically asked us to do that.”
“I know, but trust me, It’ll go away.” He was right. That task was never mentioned again and the client was entirely pleased with our work.
Not taking on everything you could do or want to do is the only way to reserve resources for the key activities.
It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living.
I want to know what you ache for,
and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart’s longing.
It doesn’t interest me how old you are.
I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love,
for your dreams, for the adventure of being alive.
It doesn’t interest me what planets are squaring your moon.
I want to know if you have touched the center of your own sorrow,
if you have been opened by life’s betrayals or
have become shriveled and closed from fear of further pain!
I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own,
without moving to hide it or fade it or fix it.
A small group of leaders in the DC Metro area is interviewing potential new members for their coaching group. Details below or you can download a brochure here: http://tiny.cc/gsvsop
Your organization and your responsibilities can grow only as fast as you do. Participate in Genuine Success: Vitality, Service, and Outstanding Performance (GS:VSOP) to develop your expertise in the only career strategy that is endlessly scalable. Leadership: the ability to get things done with and through other people.
GS:VSOP is a continuing program to provide business people with structure, tools, and support to produce nonlinear, unpredicted, massive results at work while enjoying a high level of personal satisfaction, fulfillment, and vitality.
GS:VSOP’s unique mix of traditional business principles, cutting-edge brain science, powerful one-to-one coaching, and ancient disciplines assures you a productive and profitable experience.
Each month, you will grow as a leader through a full day of group learning with other successful leaders; participate in one-to-one coaching sessions with your group leader; be held accountable for implementing your vision with follow-up sessions and field practice.
Program topics include influence and persuasion, organization and planning, finance, self-management and growth, focus and concentration, integrity, communication, health, and fitness. See brochure for more details.
This program is for leaders who:
Aim to achieve transformational growth & breakthrough results.
Want to improve ROI & speed growth.
Are frustrated with “business as usual” & just know “there’s got to be a better way.”
Are ready to get more done with less stress.
Apply their knowledge to innovate & make things happen.
Strive for a greater clarity & confidence.
Are ready to take bolder action, to employ their talents & resources thoroughly.
You’ll learn why you behave the way you do and how to alter your conversations for greater performance and how to consistently achieve significant measurable organization-wide improvements.
Schedule a conversation with Tony Mayo to find out if this program is right for you by clicking here.
To me, leadership is a journey toward wholeness.
A leader’s journey starts by looking inward to understand, “Why am I here?” and “What is it that I’m here to do?”
–- Joe Jaworski, MIT
Society for Organizational Learning
Participating effectively in trade shows and conferences requires significant investment of time and treasure. I always encourage my clients to do only as many as they can afford to do thoroughly. What does “thoroughly” mean?
Essentially, have a plan and a purpose. Start early, months before the conference. Have the right people at the conference with the time, attention, and resources necessary to work the plan. Be ready to follow up after the conference. Everyone returns from these with lots of ideas and good intentions that whither the first day back at the office. It’s up to you to pick up the thread and maintain the momentum.
Have a clear goal or purpose that is consistent with your marketing message and sales targets. One way to formulate the goal is to answer the question, “If I (more…)
I use Twitter to share brief messages, not more than two per day. You can have them delivered to your cell phone by text message (SMS) or view them when you visit your free Twitter web page. Create a Twitter account and “follow” TonyMayo.
Here are my recent tweets (messages):
What am I attached to? I can free myself from identifying with this outcome and turn my attention toward my true values. –Top Executive Coach Tony Mayo
If you can’t fly then run, if you can’t run then walk, if you can’t walk then crawl, but whatever you do you have to keep moving forward. — Martin Luther King Jr.
The first rule of long-term planning is, “Survive the short term.”
Listen before speaking, empathize before judging, join before leading. –CEO Executive Coach Tony Mayo
Why am I soft in the middle now? The rest of my life is so hard. —Paul Simon
I frequently encourage my top executive coaching clients to set specific measurable goals and to chart their progress visually. For example, my free trailing twelve month Excel template is very popular. Download it by clicking here.
Here is an even simpler and more visually striking graphic you can use. Enter your own title, goal amount and current status and get a one-page, printable thermometer to display your progress for yourself or the entire team. This is similar to my earlier goal thermometer with the added feature of showing the time elapsed since the project was started.
The number one problem with business books, self-improvement programs, and even executive coaching is the excess of insights and ideas that could help, that would help, but do not help because the ideas do not produce action.
Here are the two most important methods that I, as a top executive coach, use with clients to help them get results with new ideas.
First, we have a detailed, concrete conversation about their daily habits and history of abandoned “good ideas.” We explore together and define simple, specific changes to their routine that will help integrate the new practice into their lives. For example, a client with a well-established habit of using his home gym immediately after arising in the morning hung a sign on the TV over his treadmill to remind him to meditate first.
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