Have you heard the story of the four-minute mile? Prior to 1954, experts thought that the human body was incapable of running a mile in under 4 minutes. The record stood at 4:01 for nine years, until 1954 when Roger Bannister broke the record and ran it at 3:59. Now this is the performance standard for mile runners. Even top-performing high school runners can hit this mark. Roger Bannister became the example for other runners and therefore, they now believe that this level of success is possible for them as well.
Are you like me? The first thing I do when I start a new project is to look to people who have accomplished similar things as I want to accomplish. Like the four-minute mile story, their success gives me the confidence and examples of what I can accomplish.
Do you have your example to grow a successful mission-driven organization? In this month’s Ask the Author Webinar, I invited Debbie Wilde, former CEO of YouthZone and author of The Sustainable Nonprofit to share her insight and wisdom. Debbie is a great example of a nonprofit leader who had amazing success by learning how to “sell her impact.” She achieved what I call in Impact & Excellence, a high-performance measurement culture. The Sustainable Nonprofit is written in the voice of someone who has “been there” and overcame all of the perceived barriers to success. My hope is that she will be an example of what is possible for you and your organization.
You might also be interested in a related blog about strategies for achieving any goal. You can read that post here.
