Rascal-Leader

=**A Rascal Leader**= Based on the book //Rascal: Making a Difference By Becoming An Original Character// by leadership guru Chris Brady.

When we hear the word rascal we usually think of a mischievous person. Chris Brady wanted to describe an entrepreneur of high character who worked hard and strived for success, which is outside the norm. In history, there were people who stood out, who didn't fill the mold, who didn't run with the sheep so to speak. Chris Brady used the term rascal to describe this type of person. A good example was one who was an adolescent in the 1850s or so and saw a murder basically as troops came into a camp. The natives in the camp at Fort Laramie were hungry when a cow wondered in. They butchered the cow to eat since food hadn't come from the fort as promised. A peace maker named Conquering Bear saw the soldiers were upset and he looked to make amends, so he went up the soldiers to try to keep peace, but the soldiers killed him (shot him in the back as he was walking away). The native warriors retaliated by killing the soldiers. This young boy was watching this from a distance. There was a massive retaliation against the natives due to this. This boy was out hunting and found the remains of this massacre. He found a woman half alive and took her to another camp and her life is saved. He was messed up by this event and had a dream or vision (natives did not take dreams or visions lightly) of a calm, cool pond of water with dark clouds and thunder and lightning in the background and out of the pool springs a war horse with a warrior on with blue hail stones painted on his chest and yellow lightning bolts on his face and a brown stone tied behind his ear - he's invincible - others in the village rally around him. He told his father who was a medicine man and it was determined that he was dreaming of the thunder beams and this meant he was the type of person who was different - expected to walk his own way - not part of the proud - someone who was crazy in a certain type of way. This is Brady's type of rascal. This native was Crazy Horse. He understood that his job was to defend his people.

A rascal is one who has the character to be a character. Someone who isn't trying to be part of the crowd - someone who is leading the crowd. Samuel Adams fits Chris Brady's definition of a rascal. In colonial Massachusetts, he saw his father treated unfairly by the British army and he was upset by this. He was one who lead early colonial movements. He and John Hancock were leaders in the Boston Tea Party and were rascal leaders in the Revolution. Being a rascal is focusing in one making a significant mark. Mastery and hard work define resistance.

Resistance is what usually meets a rascal. When you aim to stand against the crowd for good, you'll be resisted. The character "Obstacles" (Brady pronounces this word as if it's a Greek character Ob-stock-a-lees like how you would pronounce Socrates). Obstacles loves to attack a rascal. One weapon he uses is fear. Many of us have dreams and goals, but fear holds us back. "What happens if..." is often asked to ourselves. Another weapon is doubt. "I don't know if I can..." is common with doubt. Would've, should've, could've type of people are plentiful. A subtle weapon Obstacles uses is distraction. This takes place when we're going and working and advancing when something takes us off course and momentum is lost. A fourth weapon is complacency or settling for good enough. The worst one that hurts a rascal is failure in character. This burns trust and is hard to bounce back because once trust is lost, people deal with you with a cushion. Good character is necessary for ultimate success. Peer pressure and discouragement are two more weapons Obstacles uses to try to stop a rascal.

Most people don't pursue happiness. Most people don't intentionally build character. Most people are selfish and want for themselves regardless of others. Many times our behavior exemplifies this. We all have to choose whether or not we're going to be a force for good or not. A rascal is a force for good. A rascal tries to accomplish good things for the right reasons while Obstacles tries to stop this.

The productive loop is what Chris Brady calls the process of getting information and getting curious about our area of genius and we ask what if in terms of what we can accomplish. We then start learning and get excited and the rascal is coming alive. Overcoming fears takes place and action is taken and progress is made and the loop starts again. In sports, this is called being "In the zone." We need to be "in the zone" in our area of genius. Rascals crave the zone when they're doing what they were born to do. The problem is we're human...it's easier to not do what it takes to succeed. Obstacles is good at what he does and gets so many to get out of the zone. Then it seems harder to get back in the zone and we get frustrated and don't want to try anymore to get back in the zone. Any person who has found success has had to go through the point of frustration and have met resistance. If you can survive a few moments of frustration, you can make it. A lot of people back off when meeting resistance or get frustrated. Some even say to themselves that their dream wasn't really that important and justify not pursuing the dream. Justification has a partner named blame that often go together. Chris Brady has a term in his book for a rascal that got frustrated and then began blaming others and also tried to bring others down - a jackal. It's unfortunately easy to become a jackal. It's easy to start out strong because we all want success. However, it's easier to quit...to give up...to get frustrated...and it becomes easier to talk others out of their dream rather than work through the frustrations to achieve our own dream. When you work through the storms and hard times and succeed, you have a top notch story to tell.

Why do rascals matter? Life has a purpose and we all have a purpose. When you succeed freedom succeeds. When you succeed others get inspired whether you know it or not. This is especially true if you have children. If our nation was all rascals, freedom would be here to stay. If our nation was all sheep or jackals, freedom would be lost in one generation. That's why we need rascals in the zone. So, decide to be a rascal.

This lesson started with Crazy Horse and so will end the same way. Sitting Bull was the chief and there was an ultimatum sent down by the government that all natives had to be on reservations. Out in the Black Hills, this Lakota tribe wasn't aware of this. There were many who didn't want to adhere to this ultimatum and various natives were rounding up in a camp. These different native groups were uniting around freedom. Sitting Bull tried to hold them together. He wasn't a warrior though - he was old. One day, the scouts came in to tell them enemies were coming to attack. Would this group of natives stay and fight or would they go back to the government agency? This was when Crazy Horse put on his war paint and got his horse just like in his vision. He wasn't one in authority. He was a rascal and was known as a brave, honest warrior. He invoked something that hadn't been done in decades called "Gathering the Warriors." He rode in a circle around the camp. Others in the camp noticed this. The elders knew what he was doing. One after another, the young got their horses and joined in. As he made his last lap, the line of warriors behind him was so long that it circled the whole camp (miles). They rode the seven hours to fight and were outnumbered and outgunned and fought to a stand still. Eight days later the camp was attacked by Custer and the natives wiped out Custer's detachment. Crazy Horse stood out in both battles. Not all of those in the camp joined Crazy Horse, but the rascals did. Today, America needs a rascal to circle the camp and round up the other rascals.

[|The rascalinity test]

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