Eat The Frog

Recently I was able to attend a weekend-long milestone birthday celebration for Levi, the husband of one of my best friends. I have only known Levi for a few years, but he is someone that I have grown to like in a short amount of time. There is an authenticity and sincerity to him which is all too rare in our culture.

Levi happens to be pretty high up in his company, and he leads a large sales team. He is in a high-pressure industry and the challenges of COVID only increased his workload. He, like most of us, had a stressful year.

For his birthday he invited about 15 people who are on his work team (and each team member with a guest of their choice) to spend the weekend with him. The decision to intentionally celebrate with those who report to him says a lot about his leadership. He had something positive in his life, a reason to party, and the people he wanted to share that with are those who he has the ability to fire.

If you had stumbled upon the weekend party, you would not have known it was his birthday. As someone outside the company, it felt much more like he, the leader, had thrown a party for his people. It takes a special leader, filled with a balance of humility and confidence, to turn your own birthday weekend into a celebration of others.

Over the course of the weekend, I learned more about Levi as a leader. While at meals, sitting around the pool, or floating on a boat, his co-workers often shared with me how much they love him as a leader. I also noticed that there were several themes or stories that I kept hearing from his team members. It became clear that Levi has a clear set of “isms” that he frequently shares with those who he is mentoring and helping to develop.

One example that I heard many times was the phrase “eat the frog,” which is often credited to Mark Twain, but in this case, Levi was the messenger. In the middle of a random conversation an employee would say to me, “Levi always says, ‘sometimes you just have to eat the frog.’” While each person who shared that phrase with me had their own interpretation of the meaning, the core message was the same: sometimes there are things we don’t want to do, but we do it anyway.

I am currently in a season with my business where I have been eating a lot of frogs! Every year, the summer creates time and space for me to clean up my paperwork, get a better handle on my numbers, realign my strategies, and take a high volume of new client calls. These are not my favorite things to do but, bite by bite, I “eat the frog.”

Some of my frogs this year have included creating a yearlong masterplan of content and blog posts, changing my scheduling management system, and committing to connect with my list twice a month. Each of these changes required a lot of work on the front end, but I am now enjoying the benefits of the decisions. I am aware that in being more structured I have actually created more freedom.

There are three important takeaways here:

1.     As leaders we have a tremendous opportunity to impart life lessons on those who are following us. The words we use send a message to those who follow us. If I were to gather your people together what “isms” would they want to share with me that they have learned from you?

2.     We also have the privilege of putting our words into action, and that may mean that it is time to eat the frog. Leaders are not exempt from this process but instead, we need to lead the way. Our people should see us doing the things we don’t want to do. By doing so we help to create a culture of high performers who are rooted in excellence. In what ways each day do you eat the frog?

3.     And lastly, when you have a reason to celebrate, whether this is a professional accomplishment or a personal milestone, I want to encourage you to invite those who choose to follow you to participate in the festivities. Great leaders know that people will be more likely to do the things they don’t want to do when they have a leader who chooses to make their professional and personal accomplishments about others. In what ways can you choose to celebrate your people?

Leaders have a responsibility to share wisdom with their people, to be the first to eat the frog, and to celebrate their people. I know I would follow this kind of leader any day.

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