Lead the Field
Do you want to lead the field? Earl Nightingale is our guide in this old-school guide to rockin' it. Big Ideas include seeing the acres of diamonds in our own backyards, being able to immediately articulate our goal in a single sentence, seeing that if we want more we need to serve more and knowing that TODAY is the day to show up and shine!
Big Ideas
- Acres of DiamondsYou sitting on a diamond?
- What’s Your Goal?In a single sentence?
- Want More?Serve more.
- We Need Each OtherSee the silent gifts.
- What Are Your Powers?Some questions to lend insight.
- Today Is the DayTODAY. Not tomorrow.
“This is Earl Nightingale with the new edition of Lead the Field. This program is about 12 ideas that will bring order and success into our lives. These ideas will work wonders regardless of what we choose as the main thrust of our lives, for these are the great ideas that have evolved over the centuries, and together they form a constellation by which you and I can safely and successfully navigate…
Success or failure as a human being is not a matter of luck, or circumstance, or fate, or of breaks, or ‘who-you-know,’ or any of the other tiresome, old myths and cliches by which the ignorant tend to excuse themselves. It’s a matter of following a common sense paradigm of rules; guidelines anyone can follow.”
~ Earl Nightingale from Lead the Field
As we discussed in our Note on The Strangest Secret in the World, Nightingale was one of the 20th century’s leading figures in the self-development field. After serving in World War II, he had an uber-successful radio show in Chicago. He went on to create Nightingale-Conant which ushered in a new era of audio learning.
This book is a transcription of an audio series featuring 12 ideas on how we can “Lead the Field.”
It’s classic, no-nonsense Nightingale. Packed with Big Ideas and commonsense, inspiring, practical wisdom.
I’m excited to share a handful of my favorite Big Ideas so let’s jump straight in!
Download MP3
Download PDFEverything worthwhile achieved by men and women, is a dream come true, a goal reached. It’s been said that what the mind can conceive and believe, it can achieve.
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Listen to the PodcastAcres of Diamonds
“Needless to say, the farm the first farmer had sold so that he might find a diamond mine, turned out to be the most productive diamond mine on the entire African continent. The first farmer had owned, free and clear, acres of diamonds; but had sold them for practically nothing in order to look for them elsewhere.
Well, the moral is clear: If the first farmer had only taken the time to study and prepare himself to learn what diamonds looked like in their rough state, and since he had already owned a piece of the African continent, to thoroughly explore the property he had before looking elsewhere, all of his wildest dreams would have come true.
Now the thing about this story that so profoundly affected Dr. Conwell and subsequently millions of others, was the idea that each of us of us is at this moment, standing in the middle of his or her own acres of diamonds. If we’ll only have the wisdom and patience to intelligently and effectively explore the work in which we’re now engaged, to explore ourselves, we’ll usually find the richest receipt, whether they be financial or intangible, or both! Before we go running off to what we think are greener pastures, let’s make sure that our own is not just as green or perhaps even greener.”
Acres of Diamonds.
Have you heard the story?
Super short version: Diamonds are being discovered in Africa. A farmer decides he’s going to head out in pursuit of his fortune so he sells his farm, leaves his family and searches the continent for years. He finds nothing and, apparently, throws himself into a river and dies.
Lo and behold, the man who purchased his farm discovers a funny looking rock on his new land. That rock turns out to be one of the biggest diamonds ever discovered. The farm is covered with funny looking rocks like that. His farm becomes one of the most profitable diamond mines in the world.
Moral of the story: Before you head out in search of diamonds, check out your current situation. You might just be sitting on acres of diamonds.
We’re so quick to rush out into the new again and again and again—whether in our relationships or creative/professional pursuits or health and fitness routines.
What if we slowed down and mined our current life a little more?
What funny looking rocks do YOU have in your very own backyard that might just be priceless?
What’s Your Goal In a Single Sentence?
“If you should visit a ship in port and ask the captain for his next port-of-call, he’ll tell you in a single sentence. Even though the captain cannot see his port, his destination, for full 99% of the voyage, he knows it’s there, and barring an unforeseen and highly unlikely catastrophe, he’ll reach it. All he has to do is keep doing certain things every day.
If someone asked you for your next port-of-call, your goal, could you tell him? Is your goal clear and concise in your mind? Do you have it written down? It’s a good idea. We need reminding, reinforcement. If you can get a picture of your goal and stick it to your bathroom mirror, it’s an excellent idea to do so. Thousands of successful people carry their goals written on a card in their wallets or purses.”
Imagine visiting a ship in port and walking up to the captain, asking him for his next port-of-call.He’d answer you immediately in a single sentence.
It’s impossible to imagine that captain mumbling, “Well, I’m not so sure. I think we’re just going to head out to the open sea and then figure it out.” (Right?)
Nightingale tells us we need to be the captains of our souls. We need a *really* clear sense of where we’re headed.
Scientists agree.
Heidi Grant Halvorson’s Harvard Business Review article on Nine Things Successful People Do Differently is the most popular blog post in HBR’s history. (Check it out here.)
The #1 thing successful people do differently?
They set clear, SPECIFIC goals. In other words, like the captain of that ship, they know where they’re headed.
So, where are you headed? What’s your next port-of-call?
Can you state it in a single sentence?
Let’s!
Here’s my current #1 goal: ____________________________________________.
Are You Out Of Service?
“I like to think of this law in the form of a giant apothecary scale, the kind with a cross on it from which hang two bowls on chains. Now one of the bowls is marked ‘rewards’: the other is marked, ‘service.’ Whatever we put into the bowl marked ‘service,’ the world will match in the bowl marked ‘rewards.’ How we think, work, talk and conduct ourselves is what we have to put in the bowl marked ‘service.’ And the extent and nature of our service will determine our rewards. If any person alive is discontented with his rewards, he needs to examine his service. Action-reaction; as you sow, so shall you reap; what you put out will determine what you must get back in return. So simple, so basic, so true — and so misunderstood!”
Imagine a big ol’ apothecary scale.
Two bowls hanging on chains. One marked “rewards” and the other “service.”
If you want big rewards, you need to start with service.
Too often, we focus too much on the rewards. Staring at our vision boards all day long, imagining all the goodness that will flow into our lives.
Sure.
AFTER we hustle and serve as profoundly as we can. We need to throw as much weight as we can into the service bowl, knowing that the rewards will come in direct proportion to our service.
As Earl advises, “If any person alive is discontented with his rewards, he needs to examine his service.”
Steve Chandler puts it this way in Wealth Warrior (see Notes): “To understand why you are not making the money you want to make, I first want to see where you are not serving. That will give us our turnaround strategy. Businesses fail because they don’t serve. Individuals too.”
Plus, Steve tells us: “SORRY: TEMPORARILY OUT OF SERVICE. I won’t produce wealth when I’m out of service. Get it? Out of service. Will not work. Because when I am out of service I am out of service. This I mean to whisper to my mind. Every day.”
So…
How can you tip the scales by serving more?
Quit focusing on the rewards side of the equation. Focus on tipping the scales of service. Obsess about THAT!
How about a quick inventory?
Here are 5 things I can and will do to increase my level of service in the world:
- __________________________________________________
- __________________________________________________
- __________________________________________________
- __________________________________________________
- __________________________________________________
P.S. Nightingale loves to use another little metaphor to drill in the fact that it all starts with service: “How many times have you been in the position of the man who sat in front of the empty fireplace and said, “Give me heat, and then I’ll give you some wood’?”
P.P.S. Let’s start by putting in the wood before we expect the fire to give us heat. :)
We Need Each Other
“Never before in the history of the world have human beings been so interdependent. It’s as impossible to live without serving others, as it would be to live if others were not constantly serving us. And this is good; the more closely-knit this interdependence becomes, the greater will be human achievement. We need each other, and we literally cannot live without one another! Every time we strike a match, drink a glass of water, turn on the lights, pick up the phone, drive our car, put on our clothes, take a bath, mow the lawn, go fishing — we’re being served by a great industry and by efforts of thousands of human beings.”
Beautiful.
Reminds me of Patricia Ryan Madson’s “silent gifts” from Improv Wisdom (see Notes).
Here’s how she puts it: “Are you sitting right now as you read? If so, then a chair, sofa, or bed is supporting you. You probably have not paid much attention to this fact until I mentioned it. Nor have you been thinking that someone designed the chair (sofa, bed, etc.); someone manufactured it; someone brought it to where you are sitting; someone paid for it—perhaps it was you. It is likely that many people (mostly unknown to you) had a hand in the chair’s creation and journey to where it is now. It is fair to say that you are receiving a service from the chair and from all of those people whose efforts were part of the story. Whether you notice it or not, whether you thank it or not, the chair offers you support, comfort. The chair is a silent gift.”
Silent gifts.
They’re all around us.
The healthiest and happiest among us don’t take them for granted.
Every single moment (!) gives us an opportunity to appreciate theses gifts and the REMARKABLE interconnectedness of our lives.
Look around right now. What do you see?
Take just one thing and imagine all the people involved in its creation—all the anonymous people who dedicated countless hours to designing, manufacturing, and delivering the things we take for granted.
I’m sitting on my chair, looking at my desk, typing on my Mac. A book, a journal, a water bottle, a rock with “Patience” on it, a picture in a frame…
How did all that get there? I could spend a lifetime and never adequately account for every single person who, in some way, contributed to the arrival of a few items on my desk.
As Einstein tells us: “Many times a day I realize how much my own outer and inner life is built upon the labors of my fellow men, both living and dead, and how earnestly I must exert myself in order to give in return as much as I have received.”
We are so incredibly blessed. Here’s to appreciating all the people who have made our lives possible and giving back in return as much as we’ve received!
What Are Your Powers?
“What are your powers? There’s something, probably several things, that you can do especially well, that you most enjoy doing, and which will automatically provide the greatest service to others. Are you ready to discover through experimentation and reflection what course of life will fulfill those powers most completely? Now, that’s being true to yourself; that’s integrity; that’s reasonableness.”
What are your powers?!
Do you know? Do you use them often throughout the day?
If you’re looking for more purpose and meaning and mojo in your life, these three questions are a great place to start:
- What do you most enjoy doing?
- What can you do especially well?
- How can you serve?
Jim Collins tells us great businesses and great individuals focus on the nexus of those three things: 1. What we most love to do. 2. What we are best at. 3 What the world most needs. He calls it “The Hedgehog Concept.” (Check out a bunch of awesome videos on how to discover your personal hedgehog here.)
If you’re feelin’ it, bust out your journal and reflect on these questions:
- What do you love to do so much you’d pay to do it?
- What are you really good at? What could you be GREAT at? (Potentially even among the best in the world if you felt so inspired?)
- What does the world need and what would they be willing to pay for?
Here’s to reflecting and testing and evolving our concept of how to most fully integrate our gifts in greatest service to the world!
P.S. Sir Ken Robinson echoes this in The Element (see Notes) where he tells us: “I use the term the Element to describe the place where the things we love to do and the things we are good at come together. I believe it is essential that each of us find his or her Element, not simply because it will make us more fulfilled but because, as the world evolves, the very future of our communities and institutions will depend on it.”
P.P.S. Reminds me of the first quote I wrote down and memorized: “This above all: to thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night of the day, thou canst not then be false to any man.”
Today Is The Day
“A goal sometimes seems so far off, and our progress often appears to be so painfully slow that we have a tendency to lose heart. It sometimes seems we’ll never make the grade, and we come close to falling back into old habits, which—while they may be comfortable now—lead to nowhere. Well, there’s a way to beat this. It’s been used successfully by many of the world’s most successful people, and it’s been advocated by many of our greatest thinkers. It’s to live successfully, one day at a time.
A lifetime is comprised of days strung together into weeks, months and years. Let’s reduce it to the lowest common denominator: a single day, and then still further into each task of that day. A successful life is nothing more than a lot of successful days put together. It’s going to take so many days to reach your goal; if this goal is to be reached in a minimum of time, every day must count.
Now think of a single day as a building block with which you’re building the tower of your life. Just as a stonemason can put only one stone in place at a time, you can live only one day at a time. And it’s the way in which these stones are placed which will determine the beauty, the strength of your tower. If each stone is successfully placed, the tower will be a success. If, on the other hand, you put down in a hit-or-miss fashion, the whole tower is in danger. Now this may seem a rather elementary way of looking at it, but I want to make it clear, and it’s a good and logical way of looking at a human life.”
You want to succeed?
Make TODAY a masterpiece.
Not tomorrow. Or someday when you have it all figured out.
TODAY.
String enough of those days together and you’ll be happier and more on fire than ever before.
All that, of course, begs the question: What’s a masterpiece day look like for you?
What time do you get up? (Note: That’s most influenced by what time you go to bed which is most influenced by when you turn off all electronics.) What do you do first thing in the morning? What do you do before getting online? When do you exercise? (Good luck consistently doing it if it’s not a daily, scheduled habit!) What do you eat? Do you meditate? How much do you read? How much time do you spend with your family?
And, perhaps most importantly: What do you NOT do?
Take some time to map all that out. Then experiment and experiment and experiment. (And experiment and experiment and experiment some more!)
You won’t ever be perfect so don’t beat yourself up. But do have fun challenging yourself to see if you can get just a little bit better day in and day out.
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