Nonprofit Performance 360 Issue 12

and are available to talk about questions and concerns. If you’re not seeing what’s expected, what do we need to do? We are sometimes afraid to tweak the work, but it’s important because there is no perfect solution out of the gate. We are working toward something. We are home-growing this. We can go back, reevaluate, and reset. Lynchburg’s Poverty to Progress merged with a group doing similar work from the regulation/policy side with a regional focus. We have now created a collaborative leadership team that is getting ready to meet.The team leader has become a citizen volunteer. If other council members or I leave, that doesn’t mean the work will stop. This work will be the focus, whoever is in the seat, because it is part of our economic development. We must have successful families and individuals. We can’t leave a block or two out. If you have a multi- million dollar development downtown, and the average income is less than $20,000 several blocks away, it’s just not good for the city. Previous councils and administrations created a city master plan with different phases in about 2001. Downtown development came with that adoption. Downtown was a ghost town. A few developers were early pioneers and bought buildings here and there. Administrative teams made right decisions along the way, whether it was code enforcement or infrastructure decisions on staffing, and worked with new developers coming into town. Unused downtown buildings are now loft apartments, with approximately 800 new residents: millennials, businesspeople, ordinary citizens, and retired people. When we put people into an area, wherever it is, it brings commercial development and businesses. Folks who live there have needs and want different opportunities. We have a lot of restaurants in walking distance. We’re improving our city streets. Our Downtown Lynchburg Association is energetic and creating vibes with new pocket parks. You may be able to eat lunch downtown at a little park with benches. People are really excited about turning public spaces into parks. Developers did a wonderful job renovating older hotels, and that creates new business

strange irony of the champion is that the champion must be able to live with failure as well as enjoy success. The very act of courage, of leadership, that sees you step out into the unknowable, carries with it the possibility of defeat. You must be willing to be humbled as well as exalted. The seventh quality is one some will disagree with, but which I think is the most essential of all. I believe that if you are to be a true champion, you must be motivated by more than yourself. If the striving is purely selfish, if the love of personal achievement is purely in the personal glory, something is missing - some aspect of championship that is elusive in definition but critical in action. Some people may see this in spiritual terms; that is one way of looking at it. Another way is simply a belief that to achieve to the highest level and beyond, to extend the frontiers of human knowledge or activity, is in and of itself something good or worthy, even noble, that fulfills a purpose beyond your own recognition of your self-worth. There is a reason so many people who are champions look to use their success in helping others. Such a sentiment is located somewhere in the champion’s character. But we know in this same world, there is poverty, ignorance, and disease, all of it preventable if humanity had the will. We know there is conflict and discord where fellow human beings suffer and die. We know there are challenges, like the changing of our climate, which call us to take responsibility and to lead. The true champion is not just a winner. He or she is a person of compassion and humanity, motivated by a sense of obligation to others that is as strong as the will to succeed for themselves. Tony Blair, former Mideast Envoy and former Prime Minister of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, has been one of the most dynamic leaders of modern times. His memoir, Tony Blair: The Journey , published 2010, in the UK by Hutchinson, and simultaneously in the United States by Knopf and Canada by Knopf Canada. When you respect people for their background and experience, they are invested, and they know they are part of a group doing great work. You must have the flexibility within yourself to let go a little bit. You watch and come back, Tweedy , continued from page 37

44 I Professional Performance Magazine.com What this means is that you must also be prepared to fail. This is the sixth and possibly the toughest quality of all. The rethink, and possibly radically so. The characteristic of a champion is that they are prepared to do so. All of this takes application and hard work. The fourth quality is, therefore, self- discipline.That is more than just the hours you put in. It is the discipline to lay aside other pleasures and concentrate hard on your own development. It is about focus and single-mindedness. The fifth quality is courage. No champion is without courage. It may be physical, or it may be intellectual. Courage is invariably found in a champion. Inevitably a champion is out in front. Championship is like leadership.When results hang in the balance, when you cannot be sure, when others are uncertain or hesitate, when the very point is that the outcome is in doubt, that is when a leader steps forward. Such people are the people who are prepared to just go for it, to back their instinct when instinct is all the certainty they are going to get. Taking the uncalculated risk is just foolhardy. But a calculated risk is still a risk. Calculate too much and you may miscalculate. You’ll wait for the perfect moment when such moments rarely, if ever, exist. At a certain point you have to step forward with an insecure terrain beneath your feet. Pickens , continued from page 14 A fool with a plan is better than a genius with no plan, and we look like fools without a plan. I am creating a new plan that will include turning my full attention to recovering my health and continuing to invest in personal passions like promoting unbridled entrepreneurship and philanthropic and political endeavors. As this chapter closes, I couldn’t be more excited at what lies ahead. T. Boone Pickens’ career has included building one of the largest independent oil companies in the United States and flourishing as an entrepreneur after leaving it. Financial World named him CEO of the Decade in 1989, and the Oil and Gas Investor listed him as one of the 100 Most Influential People of the Petroleum Century. To date, Boone has gifted more than a billion dollars to charities and causes he has founded. Blair , continued from page 15