I thought today I would share a personal story I wrote about in my new book, THE HOPE GIVING LEADER (which Amazon Prime has on sale for $8.95 right now) Enjoy and check out the bonus picture at the end! 

I am so grateful that I grew up with parents who instilled hope in me at an early age. This faith gave me the ability to dream big. As a young teenager, their influence gave me a drive and an entrepreneurial spirit. This drive led to the start of a rock band I played in throughout high school. It had a small following of friends and classmates from our hometown. 

I can always remember trying to figure out new ways for the band to make money and increase our hunger for fame. I came up with the idea of making t-shirts with our logo to sell at shows. I went to the store and purchased the cheapest iron-on transfers they carried and plain white undershirts. I started making as many as I could. It took me a while to get it right though, as the first batch ended up with logos that were all backward, but that didn’t stop me. As time went on, the band was finally able to afford real shirts made by professionals. We also recorded songs in our basement on our tape recorder and packaged them up with handwritten covers and labels. We even made simple black and white sticker logos to hand out at shows. The whole time, my parents were continually supportive of my dreams and aspirations. If I had an idea, my parents were quick to stand behind me and offer encouragement. Of course, some of my ideas needed to be redirected…like when I held band practices in our basement at 10pm with the volume around 145 decibels. A picture actually fell off the wall once and the glass in the frame shattered on impact because we were playing so loud. Our band took it as a glorious sign that we were right on track with being real rockers; but, my parents had a different point of view. 

Through my good ideas and many more bad ones, my parents always instilled a strong sense of hope for the future. I remember them always telling me, “You can do anything you want if you put your mind to it.” And I actually came to believe it. They encouraged me to do great things with my life and always to dream big. I am where I am today because of these strong beliefs that helped shape me. Sadly, the band is no more, but that’s probably a good thing–especially because my kids laughed at me when they saw our old band pictures and heard the cassette tape we made. 

The same hope my parents gave me can be transferred to anyone who takes the time to connect with others…especially leaders. As a leadership coach, I often meet with individuals and teams who desired to achieve great success but lack the hope to attempt it. By underestimating the power they truly possess, too many people are selling themselves short when it comes to their potential. They may have started out with high hopes and dreams, but, over time, feel beaten down. Their optimism tank is leaking from bad experiences, unmet expectations, and continual resistance. You must be aware of these trappings so you can actually help others navigate through them and return to maximum progress. 

Taken from my book THE HOPE GIVING LEADER available here.

Here is a very old picture of our band, The Skippies, in the local newspaper in high school (yes, that is me on the far left jumping with the guitar and bleached white hair in my parent’s basement).