Leader by Accident
What does it mean to be a leader by accident? Are leaders born or created? In this episode of Incorporating Superpowers, host Justin Recla and guest Jim Rafferty sit together and talk about a tragic accident that changes Jim’s life. Jim is the author of Leader by Accident and a marketing consultant who helps leaders focus on building their leadership skills. After a tragic accident, Jim was thrust into a leadership position and underwent a baptism by fire. After this, he embarks on a mission to help leaders reconnect with their employees through empathy. Tune in to know the story of a leader by accident.
Justin Recla:
Welcome back to Incorporating Superpowers. Today we’re going to be looking at just how the universe works sometimes, how we find ourselves in positions of leadership and doing things that we don’t necessarily think or thought we would be doing in our lives, and how we can learn from that, and what that means for us in business and entrepreneurship to be a leader, no matter what the circumstances, no matter what the calling, to be able to step up into new spaces, face challenges, and lead, excuse me, and lead others because my guest today has got an absolutely remarkable story.
One would say he’s gone through a baptism by fire, of sorts, in his entrepreneurial journey, and he’s written a book about it, and he’s out there helping business owners and entrepreneurs step up their leadership game. My guest today is Jim Rafferty. He’s the author of Leader by Accident, and he has an absolutely amazing story to share. Jim, welcome to the show today.
Jim Rafferty:
Thanks so much, Justin. Great to be here. I really appreciate it. Thank you.
Justin Recla:
First and foremost, thank you because we were talking before the show and you were sharing a little bit about how the book came about, and you have an absolutely amazing experience that you share in the book. Talk to me a little bit about, well, just how did the book come about, Leader by Accident, what does that mean? Where did it come from?
Jim Rafferty:
The story begins actually on Super Bowl weekend of 2008, which for me is Baltimore, a local attorney, and his wife and their two younger sons here were all shot to death by their oldest son who was then 15 years old, which is every bit as horrifying as it sounds and maybe worse. Where I enter that story is that John Browning, the attorney, was also the Scoutmaster of our son’s Boy Scout troop, and about 48 hours later, I was the new Scoutmaster of the troop, which probably doesn’t sound like a big deal. I like to say the Scoutmaster doesn’t carry the nuclear football or anything, but that’s a pretty demanding volunteer gig in the best of circumstances, and this very clearly was not the best of circumstances.
We didn’t know if the troop would survive if the other parents would just not want their young men around those memories, who could blame them, and so at this moment, they turned to me, which was unusual because I had been a Boy Scout for all of a couple of weeks as a kid. I really didn’t like it. I had no scouting experience as an adult. We’d only been involved with the troop for maybe a little over a year at that point, and really I wasn’t any kind of outdoorsman in terms of camping or hiking or anything like that. That was just not in my wheelhouse, so it was a very unusual circumstance to be thrown into that fire, with really no qualifying experience.
The way that worked out, that’s sort of, I guess, half the story of Leader by Accident, but those experiences, which I detail in the book, really fueled what happened a few years later when, again, unexpectedly I lost a job I’d held for a long, long time and wound up being an entrepreneur, which I would never have considered before that. The story really is one of stepping out of your comfort zone and how that changed my life in a couple of ways.
Justin Recla:
I love how you got prepped through becoming a Boy Scout leader to become an entrepreneur, because you almost had two trials by fire, right? The first one where you took over the leadership of the Boy Scout troop to where, the second one, you lost your job and you find yourself in the position of, well now what, right? You seem to have done well for yourself since that time. Where are you now, and how are you helping people nowadays?
Jim Rafferty:
I’m a marketing consultant, that’s the entrepreneurial role I chose because my background was in marketing, I work with businesses of all sizes, really, on creating websites, caring, feeding existing websites, all the email newsletters, and traditional radio/TV print marketing that goes into that, which I love because every client’s different, every set of needs is different, every day is different for me, and now I get the chance to talk leadership some around the book and speak to groups and do the keynote thing and all of that, and that’s been immensely gratifying. There are a lot of different facets to what I do, and I just love that.
Justin Recla:
This is fantastic because when we get back from break, I want to dive into some of the concepts of the things that you teach, not only in your book, but in your practice as well, and what business owners and entrepreneurs can learn by reading your book. But before we go on break, where can people go find more information about you?
Jim Rafferty:
They can find information about it at leaderbyaccident.com. There are links there to everywhere you can buy it, which would be Amazon, Barnes & Noble, all the usual places, but everything you’d want to know, yeah, leaderbyaccident.com.
Justin Recla:
Fantastic. Folks, go take a look at Jim’s book. This is an absolutely amazing story. He’s got some phenomenal feedback on the website from some very, very prestigious individuals that have given him some great feedback on his book. Go take a look at what he’s doing and stay with us because when we get back, we’re going to dive down this rabbit hole a little bit deeper, so you can pull from Jim’s experience and instill some of these principles of what he’s learned along the way in your business. Stay tuned. We’ll be right back.
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