Carpe WOO!

Breakthrough leadership is about seizing the WOO – Window of Opportunity. Leaders can only seize the WOO to build their team by being fully present.

Today’s guest post is by Brian Biro, author of Lessons from the Legends: New Applications from the Timeless Wisdom of John Wooden and Pat Summitt.

Is it possible that your life, relationships, health, and business can flourish as never before, despite even the most difficult circumstances? Is it possible for you to build supportive, high-performance teams, even with those people you’re pretty certain God put on the planet to “bug” you? Is it actually possible for you to have more fun, greater sense of purpose, and genuine peace of mind in a world accelerating so quickly that there is more computer technology in your children’s Christmas toys than in the Apollo that went to the moon in 1969? And is it even remotely possible that your family can actually flourish and connect, despite the seemingly endless distractions and disconnections of reality TV, social media, Madison Avenue, cell phones, and AI?

The answer to these critical questions is WOO YES!!! Stop reading right now and yell out the word WOO. Isn’t that a FUN word? Now, if anyone asks you what you’ve been reading and thinking about, put a big grin on your face, look them right in the eye, and say… The WOO!

WOO stands for WINDOW OF OPPORTUNITY, and I want you to know that we all share the most important, magical, and magnificent of all WOOs right now. Do you know what it is? It is EVERY PRECIOUS MOMENT! Every precious moment is a WOO. What do I mean?

You never know if the next person you meet today may become your lifetime friend, just as you didn’t know it when you met your lifetime friends. You never know if the next time you talk with your child, spouse, friend, or teammate, if something you say in that conversation may be the one crucial thing they could not see without your eyes, and a life that was on its way down rises again. You never know if the next idea that pops into your head may have the same impact on your own life.

I had a high school counselor named Mr. Anderson who pulled me into his office in the ninth grade, sat me down, and with an intensity that surprised me because he was usually so light-hearted said, “Brian, a student like you only comes along about once every ten or fifteen years.”

Now, at that time, it was pretty likely he meant it BAD more than he meant it good! You see, at that time all I really wanted was for everyone to like me. And so, I was playing the clown, not applying myself anywhere near my potential. But Mr. Anderson saw through all of that. What he was really saying to me in that WOO was, “Brian, don’t waste the gifts you’ve been given. Live FULLY. Put your heart into all that you do. When each day is done, know you’ve given all you had. That’s what really matters.”

And, you know, I GOT it. I would not be writing this article right now had Mr. Anderson not seized that WOO so long ago. I never would have elevated my academics and earned my way into Stanford University, never would have had my life move in the wonderful directions it’s flowed, and, most of all, never would have stepped onto the path that brought me to my wife and children. The question is not, “Is there a WOO?”

THERE IS!

The real questions we should be asking are, “How many of those WOOs have we MISSED?” And, why do we miss them?

There is only one way you can seize the WOO, and that is to be fully present.

When you get right down to it, our job as leaders is to seize those WOOs to help others know they are important. When people feel important and significant, they rise. When people feel taken for granted and unimportant, they fall. But, how do communicate to others unfakably and unshakably that they matter, that they ARE important. It all comes down to being fully present.

When you are fully present for others, 100% of your mind, body, and spirit are with the people you are with, where they are NOW. The result of this simple action has more impact than you can even imagine.

Many years ago, when I needed it most, my two daughters, Kelsey and Jenna, taught me a crucial lesson about the unmatched importance of being present.

At the time, I was so caught up in my work that I found myself incessantly on the phone or computer trying to iron out an endless barrage of challenges. One evening, when I could have been seizing one of life’s most precious and important WOOs by putting my precious daughters to bed and sending them off to their dreams with love and attention, I was instead once again sitting in my office and just about to get on that darn phone. But at that very moment I felt my daughters behind me. I didn’t see them or hear them. I simply felt their energy, and when I turned to look, there they were.

They gazed up at me and said, “Daddy, before we go to sleep, we wanted to ask you something.”

“Sure girls! You can ask anything.”

And in one question, one WOO, they changed my life.

“Daddy, we just wanted to know, do you love your phone more than you love us?”

These words shot through me, shaking me to my very soul. By seizing that WOO, my girls helped me see that only in our moments of being fully present can we live our priorities and help others build confidence, faith, and self-esteem. It is the only way we communicate to them that they are important.

I tucked my girls in that night and never missed another night except when I was on the road. They taught me that you can never seize the WOO unless you are fully present.

Live and lead with joy. Carpe WOO!

Brian Biro is known as America’s Breakthrough Speaker. The author of 16 books including his new Lessons from the Legends, Brian has delivered nearly 1,900 presentations on leadership and team-building around the world.

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