Who Wrote the Script You’re Living?

Autonomy, Guiding Genius, and the freedom you started your business to find

Long before he was the Fonz, Henry Winkler was a kid his parents called dummer Hund.

It's German for "dumb dog."

His parents had escaped Nazi Germany in 1939 and built a new life in New York. They had a plan for their son: do well in school and take over the family business. But Henry couldn't keep up. He'd sit at his desk for hours and the words still wouldn't cooperate. Nobody knew he had dyslexia. He wouldn't find out until he was 31.

What everyone saw was a kid who didn't measure up. He failed Geometry 4 times and finally passed it with a D-.  A kid after my own heart. ;) What almost nobody saw was the one place he came alive: performing. Making people laugh. Becoming someone else on a stage.

His parents never really acknowledged that gift. He pursued it anyway.

Years later, on the set of the Happy Days pilot, the script called for his tough-guy character to comb his hair in the mirror, the way every tough guy before him had. Henry didn't want to be a copy. So he pulled out the comb, looked at his reflection, and decided he didn't need it. The hair was already perfect. The comb went back in his pocket.

That one small refusal helped turn Arthur Fonzarelli into one of the most recognizable characters in television history. According to Henry, that decision defined the Fonz’s character for the next 10-years.

Last week, the one and only Mr. Henry Winkler addressed 800+ home care owners at the Home Care Association of America, telling his fascinating story from the main stage in Orlando. During his keynote, he said something I haven't been able to shake: "There is no one way to do anything. There is your way." What did he mean by this? I took it as that relying on your own compassion and imagination matters more than following a rigid path set out by others.

A Week of Conversations

After 25 years in this industry, you get to know a lot of people. While at the conference, I reconnected with old friends, met new ones, and I don't think I walked ten feet without landing in another conversation.

The night before I flew home, I opened my journal and tried to capture what I'd heard. One theme kept surfacing, conversation after conversation:

Freedom. Or the lack of it.

Founders who started their companies to gain control of their lives, now feeling controlled by them. Leaders who are brilliant at what they do, spending most of their days on work that drains them. Good people doing good work, quietly admitting they feel stuck.

I think people bring these conversations to me because of EntreThrive and my background in positive psychology. Helping leaders build more freedom into their businesses and their lives is the work I care about most.

And sitting there with my journal, I kept coming back to Henry.

The "A" in ARCC

The first pillar in the ARCC of Retention is Autonomy. We usually talk about it in terms of our teams. But it applies just as much to the person at the top.

In Self-Determination Theory, autonomy doesn't mean working alone or having no boss. It means volition: acting from your own values and strengths rather than from pressure or other people's expectations.

That's exactly what Henry was denied as a kid, and exactly what he claimed for himself.

Here's what I've seen over 25 years. Most entrepreneurs start a business to get autonomy. Then, slowly, they give it away. They take on roles because "someone has to." They shape their days around what the industry, their competitors, or their own old habits say a leader should do. They get very good at work they were never meant to do.

They comb their hair in the mirror, because that's what the script says.

Autonomy Makes Room for Your Guiding Genius

Your Guiding Genius identifies your best character in action. It is the distinctive way you lead when your Guiding Truths (personal purpose), natural gifts, and signature character strengths (see VIACharacterstrengths.org) are working together. It’s a lens for who you are becoming when you are giving your Guiding Genius energy.

Here's the connection I want you to see: autonomy creates the space for your Guiding Genius to flourish.

Without autonomy, your genius gets crowded out by everyone else's expectations. With it, you can design your role, and eventually your company, around what you do best.

Henry's dyslexia never went away. He learned to work with it and built a life around his strengths instead of his struggles. You don't have to be great at everything either. You need a team whose genius covers your gaps, and the courage to actually let them.

Try these three questions this week:

• What percentage of my week is spent in my Guiding Genius?

• Which responsibilities am I carrying only because someone told me I should?

• If I designed my role from scratch today, what would I keep?
  

Be honest with your answers. That's where freedom starts.

Life Is Too Short

Henry has admitted that for years the confidence people saw on screen wasn't real. In his words, "As the Fonz, I acted cool, but in my life I was inauthentic."

Many of us know that feeling. Successful on paper. Respected by peers. And quietly living someone else's script.

Life is too short to spend it doing work other people tell you that you should do. Not your parents. Not your industry. Not even the version of you who built the business ten years ago.

Your Guiding Genius isn't something to squeeze in after the "real work" is done. It is the real work.

There is no one way to do this. There is your way.

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P.S. If you were one of the many people I talked with in Orlando, thank you. Those conversations are the reason this letter exists.