The Client Letter
September 11, 2013
The Desert of Arizona
Cloudy 60 Degrees
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The news headlines don’t lie. At the current moment, the world is in need of some real leaders.
Where they’re all hiding, I do not know. But they sure as hell better make themselves known before everything goes down the drain.
What’s a leader exactly?
Well it’s not a TV star. It’s not a political hack. Real leaders are pretty much the opposite of most of the things you see on the news. Real leaders are in short supply.
Although you’re probably not going to end up on the evening news or interviewed by 60 Minutes, you have a choice about whether or not you’re a leader when you’re out there working with clients.
Clients want leaders.
It reminds me of a scene from the movie, The American President, starring Michael Douglas. Here’s the quote:
“People want leadership, Mr. President, and in the absence of genuine leadership, they’ll listen to anyone who steps up to the microphone. They want leadership. They’re so thirsty for it they’ll crawl through the desert toward a mirage, and when they discover there’s no water, they’ll drink the sand.”
Lewis Rothschild (Played by Michael J. Fox)
If you want to be a leader, then you have to act like one. And you have to talk like one. That means you have to talk 🙂
NO ONE is going to make you the leader. You have to just walk out in front and keep on walking and talking.
The fact is, if you don’t start talking about what you’ve got, no one will ever know.
We’re raised to feel like shining the light on ourselves is wrong. That it is in some way arrogant and self-centered.
Whatever. If you choose to believe that, you’ve lost the game before you even got started.
I think there’s a major shift that can happen when you stop trying to “get clients” and start working towards being a leader in your field.
Those are two totally different goals, that require very different activities.
Today is the day to step up to the microphone and let the world know you have unique value to offer. (If you aren’t clear about what that value is, then you need this.) You can be the leader but you can’t wait for someone to tap you on the shoulder to begin.
You inform the world you are a leader. It is nothing more than a choice and action congruent with that choice.