You may know of John Boyd for something we know in coaching that we stole from him. The OODA loop.
Less likely, you may know a few of his quotes:
"Do you want to be someone or do something?"
“You gotta challenge all assumptions. If you don’t, what is doctrine on day one becomes dogma forever after.”
Even less likely… Did you know he wasn’t a ‘model’ soldier?
"Boyd, however, didn’t quite fit at the institution. He wasn’t the classic soldier who would follow orders to a tee simply because they were orders. A military officer is expected to be well-disciplined, deferential to superiors, and a defender of the status quo. Boyd was none of these things. Aerial tactics hadn’t changed much since WWI, but not everyone was happy to see them challenged – they liked doing things they way they had always been done. But Boyd would not back down when he knew he was right.”
Source: John Boyd’s Roll Call: Do You Want to Be Someone or Do Something?
A lot of coach’s actions suggest they are trying to be somebody. Even if they say they want to ‘do something’. This is a lack of integrity.
Here’s the difference pointed out in the same article:
“And you’re going to have to make a decision about which direction you want to go.” He raised his hand and pointed. “If you go that way you can be somebody. You will have to make compromises and you will have to turn your back on your friends. But you will be a member of the club and you will get promoted and you will get good assignments.”
Then Boyd raised his other hand and pointed another direction.
“Or you can go that way and you can do something — something for your country and for your Air Force and for yourself. If you decide you want to do something, you may not get promoted and you may not get the good assignments and you certainly will not be a favorite of your superiors. But you won’t have to compromise yourself. You will be true to your friends and to yourself. And your work might make a difference. To be somebody or to do something. In life there is often a roll call. That’s when you will have to make a decision. To be or to do? Which way will you go?”
Boyd simply didn’t go along with the status quo in his field and at first he ‘stood out’ for the wrong reasons, but then you end up innovating and standing out for the right reasons… So long as they don’t fire you first. Transcend the fear and you just might end up transcending the industry. Stand alone in the beginning and you’ll stand alone at the end…
But in the end, they’ll be cheering.
The anti-goal you should have in 2024 but are afraid of stepping into is D.B.V.
Don’t Be Vanilla.
If you want to ‘do’ something, you can’t be vanilla.
If you want to ‘be’ someone, you have to be.
"If you want to be rewarded, you have to be irreplaceable.
If you want to be irreplaceable, you have to be unique
If you want to be unique, you have to be authentic
If you want to be authentic, stop listening to everyone and everything else
It’s drowning “you” out."
-Naval Ravikant
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