Alton Maiden played Defensive Tackle for The University of Notre Dame under legendary Coach Lou Holtz. In late October 1996, the Fighting Irish arrived in Dublin, Ireland to prepare for the first-ever Shamrock Classic \u2013 a November 2 football game between Notre Dame and the United States Naval Academy.<\/p>\n
During their time in Ireland, the team was able to do some sightseeing. One of their stops was a 12th<\/sup>\u00a0century cemetery. Coach Holtz said,\u00a0\u201cAll we saw were dilapidated walls and huge tombstones.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Holtz would soon learn that Maiden saw something very different. Maiden was so moved by the cemetery experience that he sat down in the midst of those dilapidated walls and huge tombstones and wrote a poem called\u00a0\u201cThe Dash.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n I\u2019ve seen death staring me with my own eyes in a way many cannot know.<\/em> So, when you begin to charter your life, make sure you\u2019re on a positive path.<\/em> After learning of the poem, Holtz not only read it to the entire football team, he published it in his book, \u201cWinning Every Day\u201d and went on to recite it from memory during his many speaking engagements around the world.<\/p>\n What are you doing with the rest of your Dash?\u00a0<\/strong>There is an opportunity to connect purpose and meaning to each daily activity, and a choice to connect it. We have the freedom to choose our actions, our profession, our financial needs, and the path of our life. Each day is not about what we\u00a0have<\/em>\u00a0to do. It\u2019s about what we\u00a0get<\/em>\u00a0to do. Because, people may forget your birth and death, but they will never forget your Dash.<\/p>\n Clayton Christensen offers us some solid advice on our Dash. Christensen was an American academic and business consultant who developed the theory of \u201cdisruptive innovation.\u201d He was a Harvard Professor and author of several books, including the groundbreaking\u00a0The Innovator\u2019s Dilemma<\/em>.<\/p>\n Christensen wrote a 2010 article for The Harvard Business Review called \u201cHow Will You Measure Your Life?\u201d that has become a HBR Classic. The article shares how he challenges his students each semester to take the management theories they learn in his class and apply them in answering three questions about themselves:<\/p>\n Christensen stresses that doing deals doesn\u2019t yield the same rewards as building up people. He teaches that management is the most noble of professions if it\u2019s practiced well, as no other profession offers as many ways to help others learn and grow, take responsibility, and be recognized for achievement.<\/p>\n Here the Professor encourages his students to create a strategy for their lives, drawing an analogy with how company strategy is defined and implemented. A company\u2019s strategy is defined by the types of initiatives it invests in. If those resource allocations and investments are not managed properly, the outcomes will be very different than those intended. No one leaves college planning to eventually get divorced or have strained\/estranged family relationships, yet it is commonplace among Harvard alumni. He stresses to students the importance of keeping the purpose of their lives at the forefront as they decide how to spend their time, talents, and energy. It is those decisions that ultimately shape your life\u2019s strategy.<\/p>\n Christensen asks this provocative question for a reason. Harvard has had it\u2019s share of alumni make poor decisions that led to jail \u2013 Enron\u2019s Jeff Skilling was Christensen\u2019s classmate. Perhaps a more tactful question would be,\u00a0\u201cHow do I live a life of integrity?\u201d<\/em>\u00a0Finance and economics courses teach that in evaluating alternative investments, we should ignore sunk and fixed costs and instead base these decisions on marginal costs and marginal revenues. This biases companies to leverage the past versus create the future, but the danger here is that the future is rarely the same as\u00a0the past.<\/p>\n We unconsciously employ marginal cost thinking in our personal lives when we choose between right and wrong. A voice in our head says,\u00a0\u201cLook, I know, generally, most people shouldn\u2019t do this, but in this circumstance, just this once, it\u2019s OK.\u201d<\/em>\u00a0The perceived low marginal cost of doing something wrong \u201cjust this once\u201d suckers you in, and you don\u2019t look at where that path is headed or at the ultimate cost of that choice. Justification for infidelity and dishonesty, in virtually all cases, lies in the marginal cost economics of \u201cjust this once.\u201d<\/p>\n Your Dash matters. Alton Maiden is a teacher in his hometown of Dallas, TX, focused on students with some of the greatest challenges facing adolescents today. Lou Holtz continues to inspire people all over the world, even though he is 85 years old. Christensen taught thousands of Harvard kids the importance of using the right yardstick to measure their lives.<\/p>\n How about you? How will you live the rest of your Dash?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Alton Maiden played Defensive Tackle for The University of Notre Dame under legendary Coach Lou Holtz. In late October 1996, the Fighting Irish arrived in Dublin, Ireland to prepare for the first-ever Shamrock Classic \u2013 a November 2 football game between Notre Dame and the United States Naval Academy. During their time in Ireland, the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":115,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1223","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n
\nI\u2019ve seen death take others, but still leave me here below.<\/em>
\nI\u2019ve heard many mothers\u2019 cries, but death has refused to hear.<\/em>
\nIn my life I have seen many faces filled with many, many tears.<\/em>
\n\u00a0<\/em>
\nAfter death has come and gone, a tombstone sits for many to see.<\/em>
\nBut it serves no more than as a symbol of a person\u2019s memory.<\/em>
\nUnder the person\u2019s name it reads the date of birth and the date the person passed.<\/em>
\nBut the more I think about the tombstone, the Important thing is the dash.<\/em>
\n\u00a0<\/em>
\nYes I see the name of the person, but that I might forget.<\/em>
\nI read the date of birth and death, but even that may not stick.<\/em>
\nBut thinking about the person, I can\u2019t help but remember the dash.<\/em>
\nBecause it represents a person\u2019s life, and that will always last.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n
\nBecause people may forget your birth and death, but they will never forget your dash.<\/em><\/p>\n\n
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