U – It’s Up to yoU

In Ryan Micheler’s The Masculinity Manifesto, Micheler writes about a friend that introduced an idea for bucketing people into three groups. There are squatters, renters, and owners. Squatters are those that are looking for a free ride. They’re seeking to extract as much as they can while being prepared to give nothing. Renters are looking for a quid pro quo. They’re transactional and willing to pay something to get something of equal value. Owners are those that are willing to do more. They are beyond a transaction and are operating from personal pride. They aren’t watching the clock. They are contributing more than just their job description. They are offering input and trying to make the places they work better.

Micheler introduces these types of people in the context of employment. However, this classification also works with respect to relationships. Let’s consider what Gay Hendricks calls the 200% relationship which she writes about in her book, The Big Leap. The 200% relationship is about owning complete responsibility for a relationship. When we encounter difficulties in a relationship, all too often we rush into the blame game and complain about the other person. They’re the problem. They need to change. We pass power to something outside of our control. We can’t force change on others. The only thing we can change is ourselves. Hendricks suggests the 200% relationship is one where we accept 100% responsibility for what a relationship is presently as well as 100% responsibility for improving it. Only by accepting complete ownership for our outcomes, both present and future, will we take steps to make things better. Without ownership, we’re left with negative emotions and excuses to not act. With complete ownership, the way forward depends solely on us. No question this is easier said than done. It is the few amongst us that would lead with this approach. Most of us would spend at least some time complaining about our rocky relationship instead of embracing ownership for where we are and where we’re headed. Nonetheless, the idea of a 200% relationship provides the most constructive course of action. It forces your focus on to what you can do instead of our default to bellyaching about others.

These three roles can also be applied to countries with respect to its citizenry. Squatters as citizens care little about the country or its future. Their focus is on saddling up to the government trough and taking as much as they can right now. Renters grudgingly do their part working and paying taxes while enjoying the government services offered. Finally, owners seek to make their country better as citizens. They work to stay abreast of civic affairs. They seek to contribute not just to the conversation but to preserving and improving the democratic process from which we have all benefitted. Owners in a country context are patriotic.

At the root of this metaphor is the role of responsibility. Squatters are low on the personal responsibility continuum whereas owners are at the extreme other end regarding responsibility. The Sultan of Self-Help, Anthony Robbins, has been at his craft for almost 35 years. He wrote Awaken the Giant Within in 1991 and Personal Power in 1992. Both books were bestsellers and serve as anthems to agency. The titles tell us the message is all about taking responsibility for your own life and acting with intention to improve. The base of the self-help movement is about recognizing the role of responsibility in your own life. After all, you’re being encouraged to help yourself.

The responsibility for cultivating the posture of an owner lies both with the individual as well as those in charge. Business owners don’t help themselves by bellyaching about wishing employees came with more initiative and participate with the perspective of a proprietor. They need to not just encourage but empower those they hire to showcase these skills.

Whether we’re a squatter, renter, or owner is evidenced in both good and bad times. In bad times, the squatters step further back. If there’s no handout or something for them to take, they aren’t helping. They’re negative nellies criticizing and complaining about the problems but doing nothing to contribute. Renters will follow incentives. If there is an incentive to bring them to participate in reducing a problem, they’ll be there. Owners lean-in when times are tough. They’re stepping up and doubling down when things are difficult. When things are good, the squatters may have a friendlier disposition but its only because they seek to be at the front of the gravy train with ladle in hand. Renters continue to follow incentives. They may be a bit more involved as the rewards are likely to be better when things are frothy.

In the first business I ran after University, we sold product to directional drilling companies. The world’s foremost trade show for this industry was annually in the Spring in Houston, TX. My business partner and I enjoyed attending the show and enjoying a few days attending a PGA golf event that would occur at the same time. One year, the two of us were joined on a trip to Houston with a gentleman that had just retired from playing CFL football.

He had been one of the best paid players in the league and had won the CFL’s Most Outstanding Canadian award several times and won the Most Valuable Canadian in the Grey Cup three times. He had the good sense to know that even though he earned a respectable salary playing in the CFL, it wasn’t enough to be set for life. He would need to find future work. He found his place in the oil patch and had some resources with which to invest in our small company as well. His connections helped open doors for our business in other sectors of the oil patch.

As the three of us took in the Saturday of the Shell Houston Open PGA Tournament, a distinction between competitors and spectators became clear to me. My business partner and I were star struck by the proximity with which we could get to PGA players we had only seen on TV. It was great fun watching and moving around the golf course. Our new partner, the former professional athlete, was much less enthused. He had no interest in watching. If he wasn’t the one performing, he didn’t want to be in the stands. As our enthusiasm bubbled over, the athlete became increasingly sullen. He didn’t want to be watching. He wanted to be in the arena.

In the movie, The Replacements, released in 2000, a core phrase the Quarterback offered was “winners want the ball”. Well, that pretty much captures what we’re discussing with respect to owners. The strivers want to do the work. They want to take on more. They aren’t avoiding accountability. They relish responsibility. They want to improve. Because of their desire and drive, they are best suited to improve. In baseball, every pitcher wants to be known as a BGP. A Big Game Pitcher. They want to be the one the team can count on when the stakes are high. They want to be the starter or the closer in a game seven of a League Championship Series or the World Series. When it matters, they want to be their best. Winners want the ball. The ambitious appreciate accountability. The aspiring want ownership. They appreciate and accept their role in their development.

I have had the good fortune to spend time learning from coaches that have worked with Olympians and World Cup champions in the sport of ski racing. I have heard several of them say things like “the cream rises to the top” when discussing athlete development. I used to think they were discounting their role as coaches and giving in to the idea that some athletes are just born better than others. I heard “the cream rises to the top” as coaches being cynical and disparaging their role. Shouldn’t coaches, teachers, leaders be the stirring sticks that churn that concoction influencing the cream that rises? However, it’s not that the cream is born differently, it’s that the cream works differently. The coaches were acknowledging what they had observed over years. The cream isn’t waiting to be stirred by a stick. They didn’t need to be whipped into shape. They aren’t dependent on the stars aligning. They aren’t waiting around for instruction. They are pushing, pulling, dragging themselves forwards. They are deeply determined and hunting for help. They aren’t worried about what they lack and are more focused on how to attack. They aren’t looking for an easy button or short cut. They know their answer to how bad do you want it. They are burning for something and churning themselves into the cream of the crop as a result.

Those that are the best are so more because of what they’ve done. How far they’ve come is the sum of what they’ve done. They’re looking for more to do. That’s where they need you. This is what the world of high-performance sport is all about. It’s not about trying to bring up the bottom to better the average. High-performance sports support those that excel. The elite that outshine others are afforded additional training opportunities and are sent to development camps where they are corralled with their peers who are also high performers. Through joining the best with the best, they leapfrog their way forward separating themselves from those participating for fun. Excellence is met with disproportionate allocation of resources to help the committed develop. In What Owen Didn’t Know, Laurence Endersen writes, “weakness can be coached to average, but strength can be leveraged to the moon.”

Marshall Goldsmith, multiple bestselling author and leadership guru offered a quote that made an impactful difference to his thinking on coaching offered by a mentor of his, Dr. Paul Hersey. Hersey wrote, “The biggest room for growth is with the people who are already great. They are the ones with incredible potential to do even more.” Those that appear in a class of their own still have more gears to work through. They can do more, achieve more, and are motivated. The message Dr. Hersey offered suggests that true leaps forward aren’t achieved by incremental gains spread across a large group, but exponential gains earned by the exceptional few. Goldsmith supports Hersey’s sentiment by encouraging us to “only work with people who care.” If we consider this in the context of you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink, we should be less worried about corralling all the horses and pulling them to the water trough. Instead, we should look to find the thirstiest stallions and serve them the water they desire. Progress follows not an equal distribution to everyone, but to allocating resources to those that are the thirstiest to use them wisely.

In Everything is Figureoutable, Marie Forleo offers an ode to ownership writing, “an essential universal principle: You are 100 percent responsible for your life. Always and in all ways.” This is what you want to embed as a personal value. Shift away from squatters, recognize your relationships with renters, and seek 100% ownership of your life. Become like our winners that want the ball. Lean in to learning. Seek to expand your capabilities and test your limits. Choose yourself and strive for your self-determined standards. Remain intent on improvement and be motivated by mastery and merit.