Leadership Lessons From A Sea Turtle And A Shark

Recently, someone brought to my attention that the video I based a previous article on was based not based on an actual event, rather 2 videos were spliced together and a story was told that wasn't factually accurate.

Apparently, the shark in the video was not actually saving the sea turtle!

It seems that there is one video of a shark failing to consume the sea turtle and a second video of a separate sea turtle that is being saved by marine biologists.

There are two immediate Leadership Lessons that we can take away from this.

The First Lesson

The first - own up to your mistakes!

I'm a human being, just like everyone else here on this planet we call home.

Just like every human being, I make mistakes.

If anything, I'll admit that I probably make more mistakes than most people.

I know for a fact that just from writing, I make over 100 mistakes per day, without accounting for everything I do outside of writing!

In this case, I thought this video was based on facts, but it wasn't.

I'll be the first to admit when I've discovered I made a mistake.

It is inevitable, and attempting to hide your mistakes never works.

When you own up to your mistakes, you can gain much more ground as a Leader.

However, I think there is a much more valuable and important lesson to be gained from this situation.

The Second Lesson

The person who pointed out my mistake also made this claim:

"A pointless article cause you forgot to fact check".

Now, when you take this statement alone, it sounds very harsh.

My article was called pointless.

(PS, this person and I have talked further, they are a fine person that seems to be doing some interesting work in the world, don't give them a hard time)

For some that could cause anger or fear.

But for me it caused curiosity.

Interesting - even if the story isn't "factual", does that make the story itself not "true"?

If an analysis or lesson is based on something that didn't actually happen, does that make it automatically "pointless"?

I don't believe this is the case.

There are many people who read fictional books, and often those characters and the events in them can teach us many important life lessons.

Many people talk about how one fictional book, movie, or tv show completely changed their life!

The characters, the events, the challenges, how resolutions were obtained - sometimes there are deeper lessons in fiction than we often see in reality.

There are also many people that deeply empathize with fictional characters and events.

Isn't there "truth" that is revealed in the real emotions people have?

Aren't those feelings, questions, and discoveries "real"?

Sure, we all know that a fictional story isn't based on facts, but that doesn't mean that the content within it isn't "true".

It doesn't necessarily mean it is "pointless".

Going Back To The Original Article

Let's look back at my article and what I wrote about Leadership in relation to this fictional story.

➼ There's More To Being An Apex Predator Than Consuming

➼ Your Environment Matters

➼ Sometimes The Wisest Move Looks Strange

➼ Seek Help When You Don't Have The Resources

➼ There Is Power In Empathy

When we think about these from a Leadership perspective - are these "pointless" lessons?

I would say absolutely not!

Actually, history and science (all based on facts) say that the lessons from this story (based on fiction) are actually extremely true!

When it comes to business, usually the top companies aren't "consumers", rather they are "providers" and through this, they become the "Apex" company.

It is often when the company switches solely to consuming that they begin to fail.

Many companies have been made or broken based on the environments that they have created.

Often in business, companies have been made and destroyed by things that seemed "odd", when it ended up being the saving grace or the single thing that decimated a company.

Just ask Blockbuster who failed to see the "odd" value of Streaming Services, or Kodak who failed to see the "odd" value of Digital Photography.

Or look at how Apple changed their focus from computers to the iPod, seemingly going with a completely different, "odd" and at the time "failing" industry for their primary focus.

Often, when a business doesn't have the resources they need, the only solution is to seek help.

If they don't, they fail.

There is also a deep scientific body of work that has proven why empathy is so important - in fact that is basically the whole study of Emotional Intelligence!

All of these are very "true" and "important" lessons, all of which can be learned from a story that isn't "true".

What's Next

Now, these are just 2 quick and immediate Lessons that have come to my mind around this.

However, as I thought about this story more, I discovered that there are other ways we could interpret the story.

Other "true" lessons that we could obtain from what I now consider a fantastic piece of fictional work!

I plan on writing more about what other lessons we can learn from this story!

I won't promise that all of the Lessons will come back to back.

I may get pulled into something else I want to write about or something that feels more important to write about at the given time.

However, you will see some Lessons coming down the line which I am excited to share!