The Young Professionals of Odessa held their Permian Basin Leadership Symposium with about 70 people in attendance to hear from community leaders and businesspeople with stories and lessons to share.
The day-long event was held at the Odessa Marriott Hotel & Conference Center Thursday.
Morgan Chelette, YPO chairwoman, said she hopes people learn a new leadership skill or how one small act can change their course.
Noah Dean, chief strategy officer at American Safety Services Inc., was one of the breakout session speakers. He has written two books, “The Variable of Violence: Understanding the Ferocity of God, Work, Tribe and the Human Heart,” and “It’s a Process.” His presentation was titled ”The Courage of Ownership.”
“With great sacrifice comes great victory … and if you’re going to embrace this, if you’re going to take me up on my promise, you’re going to have to do some self-reflection. Some of you may feel attacked; some of you may feel convicted, but trust me, it’ll be better. You’ll be better for it,” Dean said.
He said he first learned about ownership in his early 40s from two Navy Seals, Jocko Willink and Leif Babin. The two wrote a book called “Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy Seals Lead and Win.” Dean said there are two sentences in the book that he wanted attendees to grasp on to: “A leader must own everything in his or her world. There is no one else to blame,” Dean said.
He added that if you interact with anyone in any form or capacity you are a leader because you have influence.
“Every person is a leader and every leadership position carries with it a responsibility, a very profound responsibility,” Dean said.
He added that he realizes some people don’t think they’re leaders because they’re not in charge of a big company and don’t have people “underneath them.”
“It doesn’t matter. You have a responsibility as a leader because you’re influencing the people around you,” Dean said.
He told a story about former University of Florida quarterback Tim Tebow’s press conference, who after they lost a game against Ole Miss said he was sorry.
“He went on to make a three-part promise. … I promise that no one there, he’s talking to the audience, that no one there had ever seen someone work as hard as he would work the rest of the season. He promised that no one there had ever seen a person push their team as hard as he would push his team the rest of the season, and he promised that no one there had ever seen a team work as hard as they would work the rest of the season. What’s interesting is those exact words, even today, have been memorialized in steel and bolted to The Swamp wall. They were so powerful because it became a prophecy. The Florida Gators ended up winning every single game remaining that season — 10 games, including a national championship over Oklahoma.
“The average margin of victory, not the average number of points, scored, the average margin of victory was 33.8 points. It’s fair to say that no college football team was going to beat the Florida Gators,” Dean said.
“The interesting things about the first two words of his answer were I’m sorry. He didn’t point fingers at anyone else.
“That is just tapping into the power of ownership … just tapping into that superpower that each of you have within you. You see, when someone really takes ownership, it can take a person who feels like they’re not in control and put them in a position of control.
“It can take a person who feels like … the world is out to get me, I’m a victim, to be in a position where I’m going to be the victor,” Dean said. “It takes a person who feels like they’re being orchestrated by their circumstances and saying I’m going to be the conductor.”
Dean offered some statistics — one in six Americans take antidepressants; 50 million Americans battle drug and/or alcohol addiction. That does not count other debilitating addictions.
Also 34 percent of Americans feel overwhelming stress day by day and every 10 minutes in America someone takes their own life. That means that since he had started speaking, at least one person killed themselves.
“We need people, ladies and gentlemen, who take control. We need people who take ownership,” Dean said.
Ego, he said, is Kryptonite whether we know it or not.
“It is draining us of our power. It’s making us feel like we’re the victim in this circumstance. This person did us wrong. I can’t get rid of it. I’m being controlled. I’m overwhelmed. We need to get rid of that Kryptonite,” Dean said.
He said the book “Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy Seals Lead and Win” talks about how ego clouds the mind.
He had four tips:
- Every day, every moment, practice checking your ego. Take an assessment every day of what is driving you to do whatever behavior you’re doing and think to yourself what is causing you to do this or say this, Dean said. “If it’s ego, practice suppressing it.”
For example, if you’re standing in line at the grocery store and there’s someone ahead of you with a cart full, settle back.
- If someone sends you an email to get at you and copies everyone else, don’t take the bait.
- He also suggests listening, or assimilating, and taking the information in. “Practice suppressing your ego so that you’re willing to learn,” Dean said.
- Lead up and down the chain of command. For example if your boss makes a decision you don’t agree with, ask them to explain it and then you can ask if they have thought about something else.
“Something beautiful happens. They’re learning from me and I’m leading up the chain of command …,” Dean said. “Two, we move forward together as a team.”
He said you have to perfect the first two things before you can lead up the chain of command.
Dean said this can be applied elsewhere as well including relationships.
Hannah Gore, Southwest Bank marketing coordinator, said she is a former athlete and there were a lot of times when she worked with teammates that didn’t take ownership and she has had employees where she has to take ownership of what they’ve done.
“I can grow from what he said because there are things where … maybe I could have done better in that situation, taking ownership for that,” Gore said.
Dean said he doesn’t do public speaking very often. He said the Extreme Ownership book changed his life and he wanted to share the message. He said he tries to follow the philosophy, but “I fail a lot.
“It’s very tough to suppress the ego,” Dean said.
He wrote his books because he felt like he wanted to share his story.
Dean earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in kinesiology at Angelo State University and a doctorate in kinesiology from Texas A&M University.
