Leadership Lessons From Meru

A Reel Leadership Article

Meru documents the first successful ascent of Meru Peak’s Shark Fin route. This ascent was accomplished by three climbers. These climbers are Conrad Anker, Jimmy Chin, and Renan Ozturk.

This documentary felt a lot like the recent documentary Free Solo which chronicled Alex Hannold’s attempt to be the first person to free solo El Capitan. Both movies showed men doing feats that were thought to be impossible.

Man climbing Meru

Meru is a big-wall climb. Many elite climbers have tried and failed to ascend to the summit over the last 30 years. This movie documents the first ever successful climb.

Today, we’re going to look at Meru the movie and see what we can learn about leadership. As I sat and watched the movie, I was awed by the leadership lessons in Meru. I think you will be as well.

Quotes And Leadership Lessons From The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part

A Reel Leadership Article

The original The Lego Movie spawned multiple other Lego movies recently released a sequel. The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part continues the story of Finn (Jadon Sand) and his Lego land of wonder.

In the sequel, Finn’s Legos are attacked by strange, alien creatures who want to destroy the wonderous Lego land in his basement. The aliens attack and eat a heart one of the Lego characters had created. Thus, begins their descent into the desolate Wasteland.

Lucy and Emmet in The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part

Scene from The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part

The once cheerful characters have had to become hardened. They fear what is to come and how to save themselves.

Gone are the cheerful colors. Instead, they are replaced with browns and blacks. Colors that will keep away the invading aliens.

Is It Time To Change The Soundtrack Of Your Life?

Research tells us that by this point in the year over 80% of people have given up on their New Year’s resolution. The resolutions, the goals people have set have been given up.

Stop the negative soundtrack playing in your life

Maybe you’re in the same boat. You resolved to lose 30 pounds by June. You weighed yourself and you’re up 3 pounds. So you give up. Or maybe you decided to learn how to play guitar. It’s now February 21 and you haven’t touched the guitar. You’ve given up. Or maybe you wanted to read 36 books in 2018. You’ve only read one and you feel it’s too late to catch up. So you’ve stopped reading.

For each of these failures, you’ve begun to play a soundtrack in your mind. A soundtrack of negativity.

Get To Doing

So many people talk. And talk. And talk…

We talk so much we forget there’s action to take.

Why We Talk

We talk because talking feels good. We get to express our desires and what we PLAN to do.

Just the action of speaking out our intentions gives us a sense of premature completion. Talking about what we’re going to do actually gives us the feeling we’ve done it!

Isn’t that crazy?

With that, you can see why we continue to talk about how we’re going to change the world. Or how we’re going to search for a new job. Or lead the organization in a new direction.

Get To Doing

While we should be talking about our goals, we can’t let our action stop at the talking. We’ve got to get to doing.

Don’t Beat Yourself Up Over Close

There’s an old saying you’ve probably heard. This idiom has to do with horseshoes and hand grenades:

Close only counts in horseshoes (and hand grenades)

You’ve heard of that expression, right?

Well, I believe we can include leadership, or at least portions of it, in this famous phrase.

Close Is Often Good Enough

Hearing that close enough is good enough from another leader may shock you. Yet, I know it’s true.

As leaders, we want to push for excellence. We want to see people doing the best job they can.

Or do we?

What if the best job someone can do is close enough? Would that be acceptable?

Depending on the project or task, close is good enough.

How can this be? Think about the following situations:

You have a fundraising goal of $2,500. You reach $2,400.