The Penalty of Leadership

A while back a former co-worker forwarded me an email entitled The Penalty of Leadership. The message (author unknown, otherwise I'd give him/her their due) talks about how all great things are emulated and envied. I posted it at the end of this post for you to check out.

The greatest thing that I take out of the piece is that you know you are on to something when people start gunning for you. They either criticize or they try to copy. Either way, when that happens, keep doing what you are doing because you are on the right track.

What makes me bring this up now? Well I had two of those moments in the past couple of weeks. First, a few weeks back I got a phone call from one of the largest businesses in the sports collectibles industry. They asked me what type of marketing I was doing and if I would have any interest doing some advertising with them. Now, I was recently kicked off of their forums for being a "competitor" so I found this kind of odd. Then the lightbulb went off - they were digging for information. So I told them nothing. But after I hung up the phone I was ecstatic...I am officially on their radar. They know who I am, at least enough to call me and pry for information, and that makes me feel like I am heading in the right direction.

The second occurrence happened this morning. In an article on SportsLizard.com recently, I was VERY critical of a few major players in the sports collectibles industry. I believe that those individuals are intentionally manipulating consumers for their own benefit. I had received a few atta-boy emails from people for saying what they were thinking, but nothing more. Then this morning I got an email from one of the men I was critical of. He had actually taken the time to read my entire article and put together a rebuttal (a mediocre one by the way). Why would someone who is at the top of their industry take the time to do that? He must value what I say enough to take the time to refute it. I take great pride in that. I figured the article would never cross his desk, and if it did he would glance at it and throw it in the trash.

Both of these moments are as important to me as the Microsoft Award and mention in Tuff Stuff Magazine because they show that my business is, in a small way, starting to pay the penalty of leadership. I suppose it means that SportsLizard.com is beginning to matter in the collectibles industry and that excites me.

Anyway, here it is:

The Penalty of Leadership

In every field of human endeavor, he that is first must perpetually live in the white light of publicity. Whether the leadership be vested in a man or in a manufactured product, emulation and envy are ever at work. In art, in literature, in music, in industry, the reward and the punishment are always the same. The reward is widespread recognition, the punishment, fierce denial and detraction. When a man's work becomes a standard for the whole world, it also becomes a target for the shafts of the envious few. If his work be merely mediocre, he will be left severely alone - if he achieve a masterpiece, it will set a million tongues a-wagging. Jealousy does not protrude its forked tongue at the artist who produces a commonplace painting. Whatsoever you write, or paint, or play, or sing, or build, no one will strive to surpass or to slander you, unless your work be stamped with the seal of genius. Long, long after a great work or a good work has been done, those who are disappointed or envious continue to cry out that it cannot be done. Spiteful little voices in the domain of art were raised against our own Whistler as a mountebank, long after the big world had acclaimed him its greatest artistic genius. Multitudes flocked to Bayreuth to worship at the musical shrine of Wagner, while the little group of those whom he had dethroned and displaced argued angrily that he was no musician at all. The little world continued to protest that Fulton could never build a steamboat, while the big world flocked to the river banks to see his boat steam by. The leader is assailed because he is a leader, and the effort to equal him is merely added proof of that leadership. Failing to equal or to excel, the follower seeks to depreciate and to destroy - but only confirms once more that superiority of that which he strives to supplant. There is nothing new in this. It is as old as the world and as old as the human passions - envy, fear, greed, ambition, and the desire to surpass. And it all avails nothing. If the leader truly leads, he remains - the leader. Master-poet, master-painter, master-workman, each in his turn is assailed, and each holds his laurels through the ages. That which is good or great makes itself known, no matter how loud the clamor of denial. That which deserves to live - lives.