Follow the Leader
Have you seen the movie "Runaway Jury"? In that 2003 flick grossing over 3/4 of a billion dollars, John Cusack and Rachel Weisz infiltrate a jury on a multi-million dollar lawsuit in order to intentionally sway the jury one way or the other. How about a movie where young impressionalble teenagers that get into trouble with the law because they start to follow the wrong crowd? When do we follow? Why do we decide to follow? Or do we just end up following by instinct? Let's start with having your eyes follow the bounding (or revolving?) balls. That little exercise just shows us that there is alot going on around us and we absorb and assimilate information and try to find away to fit in to what we observe and make meaning of. The decision to follow can be subconsious to some degree. But the decision to lead usually is a conscious decision! Well, at least one leading down the right road. Five years ago, Panther XC produced it's first great boy runner, Dylan Croeni. His goal was to put Washougal on the XC Map. He was like the first guy in the line in the video. He had to decide to do something around here that noone else was doing. The next year there were two, the exciting duo of Sean Eustis and Issac Stinchfield. The next year after that, Thomas Normandeau joined in to make it a trio. Just as it took more than one in the line in the mall to get unstopable momentum going, this type of momentum is now exploding from Panther XC. Last week's lessons was summarized with decisions on what you put in your mind, which voices to listen to, and what position to put your body in to affect your emotions. The objective was to directly effect your own performance. Deciding to be a leader has a higher calling, as the ultimate objective is to affect the behavior and performance of other. Deciding to be the leader down a proper of success path is a noble cause.