Who is Dick Burton?

You probably don’t know Dick Burton. The highest level of competition he ever faced as a football player was NCAA D-II at William Jewell College in Liberty, MO. To my knowledge, he’s never been featured on any televised games either as a player or coach. Instead of sticking with one school for life, he’s coached several different programs over his 40 year football career. In fact, Coach has never been on a full-time coaching staff. He’s worked as a full-time businessman to support his family of a wife and ten children (including eight football playing sons) and squeezed in his head coaching duties on the side.

What Can We Learn From Dick Burton

It’s been well over a decade since I played my last football game. But the lessons I learned from Coach continue to this day. Here is a small sample that I’d like to share with you.

There is a Right Way to Do Business. One of the first things all my teammates learned from Coach is there is a right way to do things and a wrong way. There was a right way to play the game, face an opponent, run on and off the football field, and even put your uniform on. I still remember the day Coach sent a car full of our best players home from practice because they didn’t show up on Lombardi time (15 minutes early) as a way to instill discipline for the rest of us. Ultimately, our actions either honor or dishonor ourselves, teammates, families, God, profession, sport, and even the field itself.

Life is a Collision Sport. Finally getting to play tackle football for the first time in high school was a pretty jarring experience to say the least. But Coach reminded us early on that our greatest competition wasn’t the fellow on the other side of the ball. It was our own mothers, who didn’t want their sons engaged in such a rough activity. “Dancing is a contact sport,” Coach used to say. “Football is a collision sport.” Because of that, Coach knew making things easy on the practice field would leave us unprepared, both for Friday nights and for real life.

Fear is Your Greatest Enemy. If there was one thing my teammates and I heard more than anything else, it was that “God has not given you a spirit of fear, but of power, love, and self-discipline.” For Coach, football was the perfect venue to learn to overcome fear. On the occasional Friday nights we let intimidation get the better of us (even when playing an over-matched opponent), Coach wouldn’t be able to sleep over the weekend. At Monday’s practice, he’d voice his disappointment not at our lack of victory but for not giving it our best like we’d been taught. Coach knew that fear wouldn’t disappear after high school so the training we received on the field was crucial to leading successful adult lives where many of my teammates now work as military officers, businessmen, musicians, teachers, and coaches themselves.

The Little Things Matter. I’ll never forget one practice my senior year. I was absentmindedly running through a routine drill, somehow oblivious to the fact that Coach had been harping on discipline all practice. Apparently my lack of effort was the straw that broke Coach’s back and he let me know it immediately. The public dressing down was even worse considering my status as a senior team captain. For Coach, it didn’t matter who you were or what your record said, you never became too big for the little things.

Coaching Never Ends. I don’t keep in touch with all of my coaches from my younger years. But I do keep in touch with a few. Just recently Coach Burton let me know he was coming to town so we got together for dinner. We talked about business, family, plans, etc. Not only had coach been further down the road in football when I was a player, he was still further along in life and provided some timely pointers and encouragement. I realized then that even though players eventually graduate from the team, true coaching never ends.

I know not everyone had the benefits of a great coach like I did. But most people can point to a single coach, teacher, or mentor who made a significant difference in their life.

Who inspired you?

Nathan Magnuson is a leadership consultant, coach, trainer and thought leader.  Receive his new ebook Trusted Leadership Advisor by subscribing to his website  or follow him on Twitter.

What we learned on our trip still influences how I think about leadership. But for now, I’d like to share a few notes about the man who invented the original chicken sandwich.

Who Was Truett Cathy?

Cathy was born in Eatonton, Georgia in 1921, which meant he grew up during the Great Depression. One of seven children, Cathy began selling Coca-Colas at age seven to the local community to contribute to the family’s unstable income. Soon he was also selling magazines and had a newspaper route. After serving with the U.S. Army in World War II, Cathy opened the Dwarf House restaurant with his brother Ben in 1946. After Ben was killed in an airplane accident, Cathy continued to operate the restaurant by himself. After many business challenges and experiments with the boneless chicken breast, Cathy developed the perfect recipe for what became the Chick-fil-A sandwich in the early 1960s. Chick-fil-A now operates restaurants in 39 states (and Washington, D.C.) and earned $4.6 billion in sales in 2012. The company is still family owned.

What Can We Learn from Truett Cathy?

It’s Easier to Succeed Than to Fail. The title of Cathy’s first book in 1989, this lesson seems counter-intuitive until you hear it from Cathy’s prospective. Cathy lists several reasons: money spent to fail must be spent again to succeed, doing a job over a second time is an expensive use of time and a person’s credibility and morale decrease with failure but increase with success.

Be Dedicated. Cathy once worked 36 hours straight in his first restaurant – not because he was a workaholic but because the work needed to be done or else the customers wouldn’t be served. There is some value in hard work for it’s own sake, but the difference for Cathy was dedication to his commitments: the cause and the customers.

Each Customer is Precious. If there’s one thing Cathy hated more than anything else, it was losing a customer. He would bend over backwards to accommodate and build good relationships them. He constantly asked for feedback. The problem with poor service, he said, isn’t that the customer will complain. It’s that they won’t complain – and then won’t come back.

You’ve Got to Give Something to Get Something. Cathy subscribed to the old proverb, “he who refreshes others will himself be refreshed,” or as the late Zig Ziglar put it, “You can have anything in life you want if you will just help enough other people get what they want.” For Cathy, this meant generous promotions that involved free food and free coupons. Early critics reasoned that Cathy would never make it in business because he gave so much away for free. Instead, customers loved Cathy’s food and service so much they were willing to pay for it – and invite their friends.

Wealth is Only Worth It If You Give It Away. When faced with a life-threatening surgical procedure midway through his career, Cathy acknowledged that his brush with death taught him the insignificance of material things. Even though it may seem ironic for a man worth billions of dollars, Cathy related in his latest book Wealth, Is It Worth It? that you can’t take anything with you after you die. Therefore the only way wealth has any lasting value is if you use it to benefit others.

A Good Name is Worth More Than Anything Else. If you take away wealth, awards, and all the outward signs of success, all you’re left with are your choices, reputation and the quality of your character. A good name is worth more than everything else combined. Furthermore, if you associate yourself with other people of high character, you’ll be able to truly build a winning team.

Not only does Truett Cathy use his restaurant to feed hungry people, but also to sponsor high profile community events, like the Chick-fil-A Leadercast seminar on May 10. To find out how to attend with me, click here.

Nathan Magnuson is a leadership consultant, coach, trainer and thought leader.  Receive his ebook Trusted Leadership Advisor by subscribing to his website or   follow him on Twitter.

There isn’t room to adequately capture Covey’s contributions in a single post, so I’d like to briefly share a bit from Covey’s first habit: Be Proactive. This is where effectiveness begins.

Heavily influenced by the writings of Viktor Frankl, Covey built his first habit on the fundamental principle of human nature that “between stimulus and response, man has the freedom to choose.” In layman’s terms, this simply means there’s always something you can do about you. The determining factor in your effectiveness isn’t what happens to “out there.” It’s what happens on the inside, where we choose how we will respond to what happens to us.

I can’t think of a more poignant time for this habit than in today’s age. People increasingly assume their success is dependent on outside forces: the government, education opportunities, job opportunities, family background, faith background, etc. These can all play an enormous role to be sure, but they are never the ultimate determinants of success and effectiveness.

The opposite of being proactive is being reactive. Reactive people assume there is nothing or very little they can do about their circumstances or concerns. Proactive folks realize that even if they can’t change some circumstances, they still have the ability to influence many outcomes – and here is the key – they are committed to changing what they can change. As a result, their circle of influence is always growing and their circle of concern naturally decreases the more proactive they become.

This is the reason I get so tickled when someone asks me if they can, in fact, be a leader. Leadership never begins with a followership (i.e. on the outside), it begins with being proactive (i.e. on the inside). When you come to the point where you realize that in every circumstance you have the ability to choose your response – to influence your own attitude, your own life, then the lives of those around you, and the environment you find yourself in for the better – you are already headed down the path of effectiveness.

What is one circumstance that required you to take a proactive approach and exercise your freedom to choose a positive response?

Nathan Magnuson is a leadership consultant, coach, trainer and thought leader.  Receive his ebook Trusted Leadership Advisor by subscribing to his website or   follow him on Twitter.