One Simple Sentence
My pal No Sweat Kosinski sent a brief email to me last week. Here’s what he said:
Mikey,
I was digging around your website and read a blog you posted last year titled “The Sentence.” That’s good stuff. Did you get any feedback on it? I thought it was great advice; you ought to repost it.
Regards,
No Sweat
A 2009 column by Peggy Noonan in The Wall Street Journal inspired the blog No Sweat is talking about. Normally, I’m not a fan of Ms. Noonan’s columns, but she struck a chord with this one. In it, she told the story of a conversation Clare Boothe Luce had with John F. Kennedy in 1962. She told him, “A great man is one sentence.” What she meant was that the impact of some leaders can be summed up in just one simple sentence.
Here are three examples.
So momentous were the accomplishments of these three men, you’ll know to whom I’m referring in each sentence even though I don’t mention their names:
- “He preserved the Union.”
- “He lifted us out of a great depression.”
- “He won the Cold War.”
Noonan wrote this column to rhetorically ask what President Obama’s sentence would be.
That simple question, “What’s your sentence?” was one that I pondered for weeks before coming up with an answer.
I may not play on a world stage, but l can, as my favorite leadership guru Lee Thayer says, “Cause something that didn’t exist in the past and doesn’t exist in the present.” It’s a motivating, intoxicating thought.
So, thanks to No Sweat for nudging me to revisit that old blog and thanks to Ms. Noonan for sharing this insight in that WSJ article from five years ago. Here are a few questions for you to ponder courtesy of Ms. Noonan, Ms. Boothe Luce and Dr. Thayer:
- What is the one sentence you want to define you?
- Why does it motivate you?
- How will your world be different if you succeed?
My sentence, the one I’d like to hear over and over from my group members and coaching clients is “He made me a better leader.”
As you consider these questions, I hope you find them as motivating and thought provoking as I did.