One Leadership Tip: Day 62: Unleash Your Inner Watashi

I’m a big Steven Pressfield fan, and part of today’s message is directly from an email he sent this morning:

“Watashi Don’t Care How You Feel: It’s about a Sergeant I had who referred to himself in the third person as “Watashi“.

Now I can’t swear what it means, but he’d done two tours in Vietnam and some time in Okinawa and he told us it meant big honcho or big boss and none of us were going to argue with him. He referred to himself as Watashi and we had to refer to him as Watashi, too.

Watashi had no time for “feelings“. When anyone said “I feel” something almost every time his immediate response was “Did the Marine Corps issue you feelings?!?!” followed by a thwack with a pool cue.

Now, this may sound brutal to people who haven’t been in the military. The thing is, there was real affection between him and us. He wanted to make us better, wanted us to learn how to move forward despite how we might feel.

You see he wanted us to learn that regardless of how we “felt” our duty was to get our job done.

Since that time I carry a little internal “Watashi” around with me. When I don’t feel like getting up and going to the gym in the morning I hear Watashi saying “Watashi don’t care how you feel! Get up! Do your job!”

Which brings me to the ONE LEADERSHIP TIP for today:

I love the lessons from Watashi on leadership.

First, in our pc cushion on the corners be careful what you say because you don’t want to offend anyone world that we live in, we need more Watashi’s.

Second, there is absolutely a time and place for the Watashi mentality of doing what I say, no one cares about your feelings, your feelings are not going to accomplish the mission mentality. And sometimes not and probably more soft in the message.

Leadership is all about the ability to discern based on the situation.

And as Steven said above, when the enemy and resistance inside your heads is the strongest, unleash your inner Watashi.

That’s all I’ve got for today Big Shoots!

Coach Nate