Page 193 - Roy W. Rice - CEO Material How to Be a Leader in Any Organization-McGraw-Hill (2009)

174 • CEO Material: How to Be a Leader in Any Organization

Most people are raised not to make mistakes. We have a culture of
avoiding them. The question is, How do you learn from them if you avoid
them? What’s even worse is an environment where you spend more effort
covering up mistakes than admitting them, learning from them, and
moving on.
The biggest mistake is not to persevere. A line in the movie Rocky V
(which I’m sure you all have seen) says it well: “Life will beat you down
and pound you. The beating is not about how hard you can hit but can
be hit.” You must maintain your ambition even after setbacks.
It’s okay to err, and err, and err (appropriate to your level) as long as
it’s in different areas and you do it less, and less, and less and you walk
away with new knowledge. The career killers are not learning from
mistakes and being one to deny, shirk, or point fingers.

The biggest killer of talent is getting kicked in the teeth a couple of
times and you decide, “I’m done.”

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If you want something you’ve never had, you have to do something
you’ve never done.
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Unless you take a chance, you may never know what you’re missing
out on. And neither will the rest of the world.

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Take risks, but not stupid ones.
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It’s impossible to live without failure unless you live so cautiously that
you fail by default.

When the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association (PRCA) was
founded, it was originally named the Cowboy Turtle Association (CTA)
because the cowboy members had to stick their neck out to make
progress. We could start something today called the Leader Turtle Asso-
ciation (LTA) because you have to do the same thing. If you don’t “stick