Each Spring, ACbert and I usually join two soccer leagues and one softball league. All the teams are fun groups, so not only do we enjoy playing, we also enjoy hanging out with the different groups.

I usually only join a team after I’ve looked ahead on my calendar to know for sure that I will be able to make most of the games, which is what I did this season. Even though I expected to only miss a couple games this season, I’ve found myself more often than not responding to the weekly RSVP emails saying, “I’m out.”

It’s annoying and frustrating as I truly enjoy playing and hanging with the various teams, and making a commitment I don’t keep. But the reality of making AlumniChoose successful is that all hands need to be on deck at all times, but when excatly that is, isn’t something I can plan ahead for. Startups tend to flow on a month-to-month basis, if not weekly. Long term planning and startups aren’t the best of friends.

Blogger James Altucher challenged his readers to create a list of the ten things that make you happy. Here’s my list…

1. Spending time with my wife
2. Spending time with my family
3. Building things people value
4. Building financial wealth
5. Spending time with friends
6. Reading (learning)
7. Traveling for pleasure
8. Being active (soccer, hiking, etc)
9. Daydreaming
10. Connecting with student leaders

Bonus list…

1. Writing my blog
2. Meditating
3. Networking

What would you put on your list?

In person time with my family is the best, but not always possible.

Three quick stories, one important point.

Story #1:
Last week, before my soccer match, I watched a little league softball game on the field next to us. Surrounding the field was a collection of parents multitasking between the game, their blackberries, and babysitting their, even younger, offspring. One parent in particular was having a hard time keeping her little one under control. Her kid kept racing up and down the sidelines while mimicking a train. He put his hand in the air, pumped his fist, and as he passed us let out a loud, “Choo Choo!” Then 30 seconds later he’d come steamrolling back. The kid clearly had extra energy and needed to let it out. The parent, and most parents would agree, didn’t try and stop him from running, instead she calming kept looking a few yards ahead to clear away any dangers that might be in his way. The little kid was motivated to run, so instead of trying to stop him, the parent took on the role of laying tracks for him to keep running.

Story #2:
My brother and I were playing Frisbee Golf and he lodged his frisbee square in the middle of a mud pit. I quickly looked around for a large stick and without much thinking took two steps into the mud pit, reached out my arm, and started to retrieve his frisbee for him. With my foot half covered in mud, my brother said, “never get in the way of a motivated individual.”

Story #3:
At this year’s ACPA conference in Philadelphia, the conference organizers hosted a special social media strategy session with several individuals to talk about how they could better leverage social media for the ACPA community. Throughout the session it was clear that someone needed to step up and lead the charge. Looking around the room, there were many capable individuals, but the question was who was the most motivated and ready? Kathy Petras raised her hand and agreed to lead the group. Since then,  she has been a wonderful leader, and had we had enough data to work with, probably could have predicted so because Kathy was already a trending leader in the community. She was a newer associate that recently took on a leadership position in another committee as well as led an ed session for the first time this year. If we were to tally up her actions, we would’ve seen she was a trending leader and was hunting for her next level of growth. In this case, leading the social media adoption committee was a perfect fit for her.

Point:
Every community can be broken up into varying levels of engagement. Based on a specific member’s engagement level, they want to be treated in different ways. A fully involved leader wants to be treated in a totally different way than someone lurking on the edge of the wall. An individual’s engagement level is constantly shifting though, with a hope of always trending towards more involvement. It’s up to the leaders of the community to thus recognize the individual engagement level of each member, and also to recognize how an individual is trending. Find out who the Kathy is of your community that is trending towards being a leader, then lay down tracks for her to continue to be great, because the worst thing a leader can do is get in the way of a motivated train.

K´naan – Wavin’ Flag

Below is an inverview with MBA student, Lucas Salazar, for his Leadership and Management class at Lawrence Technological University.

LS: How would you define effective leadership?

TK: Effective leadership is the ability to create a clear vision, explain it to others, and build a team to make the vision happen.

LS: Do you think leadership develops with experience? Explain.

TK: Yes, leadership does develop with experience. It’s through experiences that we get better. The first time I rode a bike I was pretty bad. The second time I was a little better, but the third time I was pretty darn good. Same is true for most leadership skills.

LS: Are there one or two experiences you look back on as having been especially valuable in helping develop your own leadership? Please briefly describe them.

TK: I can’t pinpoint one specific experience that helped develop my leadership abilities, but I know that anytime I push myself into a situation where I’m stretching either mentally or phsycially, I grow as a leader.

LS: Have your own views of leadership changed over time? Explain how.

TK: Yes, I do believe my leadership views have changed over time. I used to think you either have it or you don’t. Now, having been put into many situations where I failed my first time but was great my second time, I believe it can be learned.

LS: Do you think leadership in your arena (e.g., sports, business) is much different from, or involves different pressures, than leadership in other arenas? Explain.

TK: Actually no I don’t think so. The more diversity of experiences I have in life, the more I see some of the same core ideas of leadership transcend across seemingly unrelated areas.

LS: Do you ever reflect, after the fact, about how effective your behavior was in a particular situation? Is this ever a source of new or different insights? Please share your insights.

TK: I’m a constant reflector. All of my writing both online and offline is one big reflection of my experiences. Reflection is a critical piece to my learning, growing, and retention of knowledge. I wasn’t always so reflective on my experiences though. I used to just do and forget. Now I do, process, remember, and get better.

LS: What do you feel is the single most important attribute for a leader to possess?

TK: At first I was going to say charisma, but I think more important than charisma is the ability to communicate your vision to others in a way that turns into action.

LS: Is there any advice you would give people early in their careers about leadership?

TK: If someone in school came to me and said I want to be you, I’d say…

1) LOVE to learn.
2) Experience A LOT of things to build your skill base.
3) Meet A LOT of people to build your network.

LS: What did you envision yourself doing for a career, or what did you want to do for a career while growing up?

TK: I always knew I wanted to do something entrepreneurial, but it wasn’t until the later part of my college life that I started taking action on it. I did know early on that I wanted to do something where my hour in wasn’t equal to the same output every time. I also knew I wanted to do something that would leave the world a better place than where I found it (Boy Scout Camp Ground Code).

LS: What was your major when you first started college? Did you switch majors? If so why?

TK: I stayed pretty consistant with my major of Business Management all throughout college. But let me be clear, I don’t use 99.9% of what I learned in my class textbooks for my work now. Almost all of my learning and growth in college happened outside the classroom.

LS: Is soccer your favorite sport? Why?

TK: Yes! I love that soccer is..

- Non-stop
- Team focused
- Internationally played
- Simple to play, hard to master
- Thinking sport
- Limited rules
- Competitive and physical

"When you learn to be a referee, they tell you to keep your whistle at your waist. So when you see a foul, you have at least one second to contemplate whether you are actually going to call it or not while you bring your whistle from your waist to your mouth. And for a new ref, that one second can be terrifying. Anybody can memorize the rules of the game. What a referee does is decide based on the context of the game whether something should really be called. It is in that one second where you prove whether or not you are a referee." – Andrew Schwartz

"As a consumer, my loyalty is pretty low, for a company (especially a leader like Groupon) that's a problem because other [deal sites] just need to syphon your customers with a better deal. Customers that Groupon worked hard to get in the first place. So now Groupon has to not only find new customers, but they also have to raise the barriers of entry so they don't loose current customers. This is where community comes in. Community becomes the competitive advantage that, I think, will keep a customer with Groupon vs going to another site. I'm willing to stick with Groupon because they don't just deliver a product, I also plug into a community.

To use a dance floor theory analogy, Groupon is selling a great dance floor with great music, lighting, drinks, etc. Those can all be easily repeatable by other sites (which is what they are doing now, literally down to the layout of the website). But what's going to keep me dancing on Groupon's DF vs hopping over to the one right next to it with the same great music, lighting etc, is the people on the DF, the relationships I have with them, the collection of shared experiences we've built up over time."

It's fun to have a network I can engage in these type of conversations. And I feel like I'm just starting to build out my network. 

Today I found out I was officially accepted into the Entrepreneurs Organization of NYC. It's based on revenue and company size. We just missed the mark to be in the $1M plus network so I have to start in the Accelerator Program which is $250K-$1M in revenue. I'm excited to network with other entrepreneurs in NYC who are already successful, and I get mentored by someone who has been there done that. I crave good coaching right now, so this is a big win for me!

Side Note – I played soccer tonight for the first time in a few weeks because of my rib injury. I probably shouldn't have played, but it was such a great game and I just couldn't sit out. I know tomorrow I'm going to pay for it when my ribs are hurting, but it was still worth it.

Annie and I lived on the Brooklyn Bridge at the top of one of the towers. Though a Facebook Event, we were invited to play in a two person soccer tournament. Annie and I signed up and made it to the final four. Our semi final game was against a very skilled, but annoyingly egotistical duo of two guys. The field was very long, but only as narrow as a two lane road. After half, the scored was still 0-0. The egotistical dudes finally scored their first goal in the second half off a hand ball by me in the box. With ten minutes left I had a break away and dribbled the apple and orange, which is what we used instead of a soccer ball, toward their goal. With one kick I put both 'balls' in their goal which put us in the lead 2-1! While running back to our side I blinked and found myself back on the top of the Brooklyn Bridge looking at my computer screen. The only way to get back to the game was through the Facebook Event page. Frantically, I navigated toward the Event page only to blink again and wake up…The end.

Annie and I played two soccer games today wrapped around a five mile walk. We're now playing on two different teams two times a week. A few years ago in Chicago, two or three games a week was nothing and my body would bounce back quickly. Now my muscles ache more and last longer. Age is an ever present silent traveling partner.

Five years ago, over lunch, my cousin Mike from Germany told me that once I hit thirty the belly pops out and athleticism goes down. Six months away from 30 and I'm using his words as motivation to make sure both don't happen. There are plenty of great examples of 50+ people in great health who play sports. But I'm guessing from this point on, it doesn't get any easier. Age will keep marching on whether I like it or not.

(Annie in action)