Since I can remember Thomas Edison was the inventor of the light bulb.

Until I read Richard Friday’s insightful book The Great Reset and found out Edison in fact did not invent the lightbulb.

In the early 1800’s Sir Humphrey Davy began inventing a variety of safety lamps for coal miners and presented them to the Royal Society in return for accolades.  

On into the mid-1800’s lamp technology began to be encased in a glass bulb through other adventurous English inventors.  

It wasn’t until the latter half of the 1800’s that Edison would form the Edison Light Company and begin commercially perfecting and lighting up entire cities.  

Although Edison did not invent the light bulb, he and his Menlo Park team certainly perfected the light bulb and even more importantly created a system for mass delivery which would go on to revolutionize an entire planet and it’s ensuing economic revolutions.  

Last night, a massive storm rolled through our town and the dog woke us up freaked out.  The power went out while we were awake, and it reminded me how grateful I am for the systematic delivery of power and light. 

Building one lightbulb is transforming.  Building a system to light a thousand lightbulbs is exponential.

When you build a product you impact one person.  That very well may be good enough.

When you build a system you impact tens, hundreds, or thousands, or millions.

When you build a product you feel satisfied.

When you build a system for that product you satisfy tens, hundreds, thousands, or millions.

Sometimes building a system is unnecessary.  

Systematizing conversations with my wife in the privacy of our walks down the street would be invasive and harmful.

Systematizing building a puzzle around our dinner table during a pandemic quarantine would position us to miss the point of that private moment.

Sometimes building a system is entirely necessary.

Sometimes building a system is entirely compassionate and thoughtful.  I’m glad our healthcare workers operate within the system to help impact human life.  

We are in the midst of the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic and a significant economic decline.  Business owners are going to need a system for building a business that will be able to withstand this type of storm in the future.

Just in the United States there are reported to be over 30 million small businesses, and even more business owners (think partnerships).  You cannot impact hundreds or thousands of business owners with one person delivering one product door to door.  There is not enough time to combat the speed of chaos.

We have the necessary product in the Business On Purpose Roadmap, now we rely on a growing and compassionate system to light up entire towns and cities to liberate business owners from the chaos of working in the dark.  

What is your product?  Regardless of your inventive authorship of that product, the more important product is the system to deliver your product...but only if it aligns with your mission.

Scott Beebe is the founder of Business On Purpose, author of Let Your Business Burn: Stop Putting Out Fires, Discover Purpose, And Build A Business That Matters.  Scott also hosts The Business On Purpose Podcast and can be found at mybusinessonpurpose.com.

I’ve been working through the true account of Earnest Shackleton’s 1914 voyage from England to Antarctica where Shackleton, and an entire British nation were hoping he would be the first man to cross the Antarctic continent on foot.

I’m a little more than three fourths of the way through Alfred Lansing’s powerfully descriptive book “Endurance: Shackleton’s Incredible Voyage” and already the principles of leadership in light of our current global pandemic are glaring.

Leadership is no longer a nice-to-have conference topic with palatable nuggets to fill mandatory business training time.  Leadership, as it stands today, is literally life and death as unemployment towers over what during the Great Recession now seems mild, and healthcare workers in certain locales throughout the world are teetering on acute burnout.  

The idea behind endurance is the motion to push through hard things.  The assumption in the definition is that things are hard. Today, things are hard.

This was such a challenging expedition, Shackleton reportedly posted this advertisement in the London Times newspaper:

“Men wanted for a hazardous journey. Small wages, bitter cold, long months of complete darkness, constant danger, safe return doubtful. Honour and recognition in case of success.”

The increased spike of pandemic infection and death, along with the unemployment chart in contrast to the bottoming out of the stock market chart are visual indicators that things are in the beginning stages of hard, and will likely get harder as the long hard winter of the health and economic challenge sets in.  

In temperatures and conditions far worse than where many of us are situated right now, Shackleton led through unimaginable burden and courage.  Here are five takeaways that we can practically install right now so that in a decade or century, future generations may look back at our actions today and name it with the banner of endurance.

First, leadership requires an internal resolve and conviction based on truth and experience.  Shackleton had spent a lifetime studying, thinking, and exploring putting him in a position to have a steely, but mindful resolve.

Second, Shackleton would often go out alone late into the night and early morning to stand and  walk alone.  

It is not lost on me that all of this is happening in and around holy week.  Likely the most infamous lonely, dark-knight-of-the-soul experience is accounted in the gospels of the Christian Bible, where Jesus is shown to have walked into a Middle Eastern garden and began sweating blood due to the immense pressure he was experiencing in anticipation for what was about to come.

Both leaders needed to retreat to have eyes to see and ears to hear.  

Third, Shackleton surrounded himself with legitimate others-centered experts and allowed them to BE the expert.  

On the Endurance voyage were dog handlers, navigators, boat pilots, rowers, engine mechanics, etc.  The entire expedition was fueled by experts in each area. This was not the Shackleton-show...he was the producer and everyone else was an actor on the main stage.  Shackleton called the plays and the team executed in Arctic temperatures and with self-less-ness.

Fourth, Shackleton had to be decisive because the Antarctic ice waits for no man.  Throughout being stranded on various ice drifts, Shackleton would call the men at a moments notice to completely pack camp, load up the life-boats and switch to an adjacent drift on an experiential hunch that it would help navigate them to their rescue destination.

The Antarctic sea was unpredictable, fluid (no pun intended), and unforgiving.  Activing decisively was fraught with risk, but indecisiveness was certain death.

Fifth, Shackleton ran his days within the gift of a schedule.  When there were things to do a schedule made plenty of sense due to the entire crew of 28 men needing rest and rhythm.  Even the menu each day was a careful selection of nutrition, preservation, and rationing. More interesting to me was Shackleton’s adherence to a strict schedule when there was absolutely nothing today while the team was stranded for days and weeks.  

In the Antarctic it could be dark day and night, or it could be light day and night depending on the season.  Shackleton always laid down a schedule for his team to follow.

For some of you the days are filled with darkness, for others the days are filled with light.  Regardless, let’s be practitioners of good leadership. Let’s build and demonstrate resolve and courage, spend time alone to see and hear in the quiet, surround ourselves with experts and empower them to share their expertise, be decisive, and operate via a helpful and mindful schedule.

We may never have another opportunity to lead like we have right now.  Let’s lead with endurance.

Scott Beebe is the founder of Business On Purpose, author of Let Your Business Burn: Stop Putting Out Fires, Discover Purpose, And Build A Business That Matters.  Scott also hosts The Business On Purpose Podcast and can be found at mybusinessonpurpose.com.