Daily Inspiration: Leadership – “Have you ever noticed people are always happy to tell you what you should have done yesterday!”

“Have you ever noticed people are always happy to tell you what you should have done yesterday!” – Futurist Jim Carroll

You’ve got to have skin in the game.

Why? Some people commit to the future and make the effort to get there.

Others just watch them – and then offer up their commentary on what could or should have been done after the fact. Their insight is usually pretty useless at this point since they don’t have any skin in the game.

You do – and your efforts matter because you are learning much more about innovation, creativity, disruptive thinking, and transformation. It’s by doing that you learn what it takes to succeed, that you develop the knowledge on how to get there, and the initiative that you require to get to your goal.

All of those things give you unparalleled expertise that they will never develop.

That’s why I often talk about the idea of ‘forward-oriented leadership.’ That’s the mindset of ensuring that we are on the cutting edge in terms of what might be impacting us tomorrow, rather than analyzing what we did yesterday. It’s by acting as a leader to develop corporate agility that can take us forward rather than concentrating on past nostalgia and old glories. It’s by viewing the future as an opportunity to be pursued, not as a threat that needs to be vanquished. It’s by getting beyond aggressive indecision and taking the steps to get there, as opposed to waiting on clarity that might never happen.

It’s by having skin in the game that is called tomorrow.