“The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.” In this episode, I share how each of my three places molds my leadership style. Each place is important for different reasons, but combining them creates a powerful foundation that I can always rely on.
My place of family - As the old saying goes, “Home is where the heart is.” I am grateful to wake up and go to sleep surrounded by my loved ones. With our daughter away at college, I do feel the void but know that our job is to arm our children with the best knowledge and family values for them to be successful in life when they leave the next. We are far from perfect parents, but we will always be there for each other. My wife remains the sounding board for my trials and tribulations in life, and without her, I wouldn’t be as successful as I am today. Her no-nonsense perspective on situations helps me figure out the right path to move forward on. I can always count on my son to share a laugh with me on some random topic because no one can take that away from us. Within these four walls, our family says “Have a good day” to each other as the sun rises and check in with each other over dinner as the sun sets. We lean on each other to share in laughs and tears because that’s what we do. No one has to say a word, we just gravitate with aloha to each other when needed. Distance doesn’t matter either. Even with our daughter across the country, we check in to make sure she is good to go so we can focus on our day accordingly. My family is essentially my recharge station.
My place of function - The second place I want to talk about is my place of function, or where I go to work. I spend the majority of the day within my assigned role as a division chief and continue to serve in the Air Force. I still love this job, even though I do wish the job was somewhere west of and including Texas. But other than that I really, really enjoy finally getting comfortable in my skin and the responsibilities that we have here. It's not easy by any means. It's very, very difficult trying to make, create, change, and spark positive change together as a team. Sometimes we talk past each other, but oftentimes, I can kind of send some processes that need to be improved. M place to function is very important because I want to be there for my team. I try to manage my time wisely for whatever we talked about during the team building event, and I continue to realize the importance of the physical presence of being together as a team. Sometimes we get caught up in the whirlwind of electronically talking to each other, which I believe is merely a shadow of what that kind of communication really should be. So when you find out we go just go talk to somebody go walk up and down the stairs or visit him or her in the office that actually saves a lot of time because we're now synchronized as a team. A high-performing team must consistently work at breaking down barriers that create efficiencies and make sure that we're being inclusive of everybody's ideas, find the best one, and move forward.
My place of fitness - As you know, I currently serve as a coach at CrossFit Hampton Roads. I’m grateful for the opportunity to have an impact within my local community, where I get to interface with all of our athletes and help them achieve their goals. Coaching is an important passion for me. I take my job there seriously as I want to be seen as a professional coach working for a professional company. If I’m representing CFHR, it will be in a first-class manner. That being said, I am very particular about how I run my classes. I want our athletes to work hard and have fun in a well-organized hour. If I nail those elements in each class, I consider them a success. Again, the ability to impact lives within our community no matter where they're at in their fitness journey is super important to me, and we have a really good community at CFHR. I enjoy the challenge of creating my lessons plans, lesson plans, organizing class, making sure people have a good time checking on people and pushing them pushing themselves when they really don't want to be pushed, and or reading them back in when they're going a little bit too aggressive. All those parts and just kind of dealing with a human element. That's why I really, really love coaching. I consider coaching part of my routine. If I’m not coaching I do feel a bit off because it has been ingrained in me for quite some time. I also interchangeably use all kinds of tips and techniques from each role in the other roles that I serve. Sometimes I'm a dad in the gym and sometimes I'm a coach at work. I love bringing my authentic self to my three places because that’s just who I am.
In summary, I urge all of you to take advantage of all the things that we have available to us and then find your leadership style and really hone it and borrow from other roles and responsibilities that you serve. The more reps you get at each place, the more practice you have with being you, and that's what we need out there: you to rise to your potential.
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