Author Chris Brady's Leadership Blog

Find Your Authentic Swing

One of my favorite movies of all time is The Legend of Bagger Vance.  Not that I'm such a great golfer (in fact, I'm not a golfer at all, although my boys are recruiting me), but the lessons, principles, and cinematography (good job, Robert Redford) are excellent.

The precept is that a young man, who was a gifted golfer as a youth, went to World War I and came back messed up.  He couldn't golf anymore, feeling responsible for the death of his comrades, and unable to clear his head.  Ten years later a mysterious caddy named Bagger Vance shows up to work him through his challenges.  The young man, called Captain Juna, said he had lost his swing.  Bagger Vance shows him what an "authentic swing" is by referring him to his competitors.  Although his competitors had radically different styles, they were both effective at the game because they played it their way, their authentic way, doing what they were born to do. 

Captain Juna goes through many ups and downs during the big three day tournament.  Sometimes he catches a break and does well for a while, but then his reaction to it is arrogance and cockiness.  Then he messes up horribly and gets dejected and loses confidence, whining that he shouldn't be playing at all.  Finally, when it is almost too late for Captain Juna to have a chance in the competition, Bagger Vance pulls him aside and says, "It's time."  Juna resists at first, but Bagger Vance presses the point, telling Juna that it is time to move on with his life, time to drop the baggage of the past, time to find his authentic swing and do what he was born to do.

I love this movie because I see its application so much in the development of leaders and in helpling people achieve success.  Rarely do I meet people who lack the ability to become great leaders and achieve great things.  Rather, I meet people who have been through some wars in their life and it has left their heads messed up.  They feel responsible (as they may be) for damages in their life, and they deem themselves not worthy of accomplishing anything.  It's as if they have already died and are waiting to make it official.  Add to this the negative messages the world sends them about "not trying too hard," not wasting time trying to achieve greatness, not risking anything, not getting their "hopes up," and you can see that their self-talk, mixed with the world's "mediocrity talk," is a breeding ground for insignificance and unhappiness.  But just like Bagger Vance, I get to tell people that "it's time," it's time to find their authentic swing, that thing that they were born with the skills to do, that thing that makes them come alive, that thing that they know, deep down inside, that they are supposed to achieve.  This usually involves reminding them that they were born with the seeds of greatness inside.  That God makes people and he doesn't make mistakes.  That they were born for something meaningful, even if the world doesn't agree with it. 

Bagger Vance has a term in the movie he calls being "in the field."  It's when a person is fully authentic, doing what they are supposed to do, using their God-given gifts the way they were intended.  It's as if everything comes together at moments like that, and it doesn't matter what the critics say, what the world says, or even what your relatives say, when you discover your authentic calling and are living right smack dab in the middle of it, you are "in the field," and there is no better feeling in the world!

Sadly, almost nobody that we run into in our daily lives is living with anywhere near this kind of purpose or authenticity.  How tragic.  A person is born with all the hopes and possibilties that life has before them, then somehow just wastes it in days of insignificance and misalignment.

Don't let that happen to you.  I don't care how old you are, what "wars" you've been through to this point, or what Forbes Magazine might say about you, it is only up to you how you live your life.  It has to look right to you, and you only.  You were born and built for a purpose, and it's not too late. 

In fact, IT'S TIME.      

A Good Year

I felt like doing a little something off the beaten path on this blog. I want to give some thoughts and comments on movies from time to time.  I have always loved cinema, and think it is the representative art form of our generation.  Like it or not, the cinema provides much of the cultural guidance to our society and even teaches its version of history to an otherwise uninformed population.

Someday, and mark my words on this, I am going to make movies.  One in particular that should be fascinating will depict in accurate and dramatic fashion the whistleblower adventures of Orrin Woodward, myself, and several members of the IBOAI board against a corporate Goliath.  That should be a hoot!

Anyway, and lest I get ahead of myself and spill all my dreams in public to be trampled upon, allow me to get on with the intent of this posting.  One of my favorite, all-time movies is "A Good Year" starring Russell Crowe.  I am a fan of Crowe anyway, but liked this particular movie for reasons not even mentioned by the critics.  It is the story of a man in his prime who has lost his way.  He has given in to the trappings and corruptions of success, and cares for little else.  As a result he is alone and villified, and has somehow convinced himself that that is exactly how he wants it.  Then he gets word that a long-forgotten uncle has bequethed him his vineyard in the Provence area of southern France (where I am about to visit)!  A trip there stirs the memories of that uncle and, to quote Crowe's main character, the "grand" memories of the summers spent there as a boy.  Flashbacks throughout the movie enlighten the viewer to the inputs of wisdom and love the uncle instilled into the boy, making a man out of a boy like he made wine out of his grapes.  As the movie progresses, and with the help of five fascinating female leads, the main character remembers who he really was meant to be.  The seeds planted by the uncle several decades prior have finally germinated into healthy fruit. 

In addition to the often light-heartedness of the movie, and the romantic interest that must be requisite to such a film, the movie resonated with me because of the efforts of an uncle to love a child and the latent effect of that love.  It is a beautiful reminder to all of us to make little deposits of love into the lives of others every chance we get, knowing that those deposits may or may not bear fruit, and if the fruit should grow, it could well occur long after we are gone.  It is also a great picture of the prodigal son coming to his senses and rediscovering what is good and beautiful within, and all through the love of others and the resultant softening of his heart.

An interesting side note that also serves to instruct: Russel Crowe was heavily criticized by the "experts" for this film!  Apparently they'd seen it all before or didn't think he should do a movie that wasn't all swords and sandals.  Further, attached to the DVD are a couple of music videos featuring Crowe as lead singer, which I also enjoyed, but (of course) for which he has also received criticism. It just goes to show you that no matter what you strive to create, how hard you work to accomplish something, how much talent you bring to the table, or how beautiful the masterpiece, there will always be someone lining up to throw stones.  Learn that lesson well.  Who cares what the critics think?  Do what you do.  Create what God put inside of you to create.  Let your music ring out.  Critics are always trampled beneath the weight of genius anyway.