Rick Barrera - We Before Me: How to Eliminate Selfishness in the Workplace and Lead Your Team to Achieve

To Maureen Brooks, whose vision inspired this book and the Heart of Leaders Training Program. To her husband Peter, daughter Annie, and Mary Keating and Katie Keating, who adopted me as family. I am forever grateful.

Special Thanks to Christina Simmons, who tirelessly edited and revised this book and pushed it across the finish line.

To our dedicated faculty who have given so generously to this project and to the movement. Without them, this would simply not have been possible.

In alphabetical order, they are:

O ver the past several years, I have been on a transformational journey that completely changed my thinking about leadership and how teams of people come together to get things done. There are, of course, still gaps in my thinking, but so many of the gaps in understanding that I had before have been filled with truly extraordinary ideas and methodologies that I felt compelled to write this book to share them with the world.

The need for exceptional leaders has never been greater. The need may be most glaringly evident in the lack of global political leaders who will be forthright and honest in dealing with the biggest issues facing the planet and their citizens. However, there is an even greater need in the corporate and nonprofit spaces for leaders who will take business and our teams to the exceptional levels that are now possible in Our Exponential World.

At the Center for Heart Led Leadership , based in Denver, Colorado, we believe that focusing on taking care of your team members is the transformational strategy that will enable any organization to accomplish its mission faster and more profitably while lowering everyones stress level and delivering extraordinary experiences to happier customers. In this book, well prove that it is possible with studies from Harvard, Gallup, Fortunes List of the 100 Best Companies to Work For, and others.

A description of our diverse faculty almost sounds like the beginning of a joke. An astronaut, a mountain climber, a CEO, an actor and a Navy SEAL walk into a bar but this book is no joke. Each of these faculty members has led a high-performance team to do the extraordinary in the face of the most difficult challenges Wall Street and corporate America have to offer, even gunfire and potential death. Yet, they all have a remarkably similar point of view on leadership. We call it We Before Me Leadership , and the program we run for high potential leaders each year is called The Heart of Leaders .

We call our attendees Explorers because we all believe that We Before Me Leadership is a journey. You never really arrive. We never say that we are We Before Me leaders, because we are always aspiring to become We Before Me leaders.

As the Head of Faculty, Ive had the chance to work with Chris Warner, a world-class mountain climber who is just one of twelve Americans to ever summit both Mount Everest and K2. He also founded, built, and sold Earth Treks climbing gyms, the fastest growing chain of climbing gyms in the world, serving over one million customers.

Oh, and he used to teach at Wharton.

Walt Rakowich was responsible for one of the biggest turnarounds in corporate history. Eric was a SEAL team leader. Colonel Rick Searfoss was commander for one of the most successful NASA shuttle missions ever. Jim Hodge has raised billions for charity. Rick Tetzeli was the editor of Fortune , US Weekly , and Fast Company . Kate Duffy guides businesspeople by day and writes Hollywood screenplays by night.

These leaders know how to get things done in every environment imaginable. Yet, they are the most humble, likeable, focused, charitable and kindest group of people I have ever met. These people are changing the world with We Before Me Leadership.

In this book, Ill give you a step-by-step roadmap to your Daring Destination in leadership so you can achieve your mission in record time. Im excited that you have chosen to join me for this adventure of exploration into We Before Me Leadership.

We believe that this is more than a book or a training program. We believe that it is a movement, started by the boomers, accelerated by the Gen Xers and demanded by Millennials. If youd like to learn more, you can find us online at barrera.com where we regularly blog, post articles and book reviews, and dialog about We Before Me Leadership. We invite you to join the conversation.

If you are truly committed, youll want to take our online courses, We Before Me Leadership and Meet the Leaders, at www.WeBeforeMeTeam.com.

Table of Contents

: There is Always Room for Grace, Forgiveness,
and Support