In episode 65 of the Potential Leader Lab Podcast, we unpack the Oubaitori Mindset. This Japanese concept, emphasizes personal growth and rejects the notion of measuring oneself against others. Drawing inspiration from Teddy Roosevelt's quote, "Comparison is the thief of joy," I argue that leadership should never be about competition with others but about authentic individual development.

🤔 Our Discussion 🤔

In this episode, I challenge the conventional approach of developing leaders through a one-size-fits-all framework. We'll work through the Oubaitori analogy of different fruit trees—cherry, plum, peach, and apricot—and discuss how that applies to leaders and organizations. And, as always, I'll leave you with practical steps you can apply immediately to foster a leadership culture informed by the obituary mindset.

★ Key Topics ★

03:54 "Embrace Diverse Leadership Evolution"

09:22 "Inward Focus for Personal Growth"

11:01 Rethinking Leadership and Authenticity

14:41 Authentic Leadership through Exploration

18:20 Encourage Experimentation Over Perfection

20:20 "Embrace Your Unique Path"

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👋 Find Perry Maughmer 👋

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/perrymaughmer

Subscribe: perrymaughmer.com/podcast

Contact: perrymaughmer.com/contact

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Perry Maughmer believes the world deserves better leadership; that in every human interaction there is the opportunity to either build others up or tear them down; and that leadership is the choice we make in those moments.

These beliefs led Perry to create the Potential Leader Lab. He wanted to offer those who share his beliefs the space and safety to explore transformative ideas, experiment with new behaviors, and evolve into the leaders they were meant to be and that the world needs.

This is a framework he has used again and again with his Vistage peer advisory groups and companies like Turn-Key Tunneling, Convergint, Haughn &  Associates, I Am Boundless, Ketchum & Walton, LSP Technologies, and Ahlum & Arbor.

Perry lives and works on the shores of Buckeye Lake in Ohio, in the mountains of northwest Georgia, and on the beach in Anna Maria, Florida with his amazingly creative wife Lisa. They have 2 rescue dogs and are intermittently visited by their 3 wonderful children throughout the year. Perry & Lisa are living life in crescendo and focused on exploring, experimenting, and evolving their vision of a life they have no desire to retire from.

Copyright 2025 Perry Maughmer

Welcome to the Potential Leader Lab. I'm your host, Perry Maughmer. And today on episode 65, we're gonna talk about the obituary mindset, leadership without comparison. Now “oubaitori,” and I hope I'm pronouncing it correctly, is a Japanese concept that rejects comparison and embraces individual growth. Now, why would we be talking about that and what does it mean for you, for an organization? What it means is that leadership isn't a race and progress isn't linear. And I think it's time to dismantle the obsession with measuring yourself against other people's scoreboards. And I think if you've listened to me in the past, you're gonna know that, you know, I I don't believe in the comparison thing because I'm gonna repeat, which I believe is beneficial, Teddy Roosevelt's quote, comparison is the thief of joy. And I truly believe that.

And so in this episode, we're gonna dive deeper into the obituary mindset and why it builds stronger individuals, teams, and organizations, and why trying to, more or less clone leadership will always fail. So let's be really blunt. Comparison is the killer of authenticity, and too many organizations try to develop leaders by kind of slapping a one time one size all fits framework to a bunch of people, expecting them to fit into a predetermined mold. And the the problem, no no leader, no great leader, no great human has ever been a carbon copy of someone else. I mean, let's think about that. Any leader you know, you might be included in this. We take on components. We learn from other people, certainly, but we're not a carbon copy.

We're not a replica. And so, therefore, it becomes kind of interesting to think that we can have a a program of any sort with steps one, two, three, four, five that will work for all the people that we wanna develop in an organization. And this comparison culture breeds, you know, insecurity and stagnation and and worst of all, inauthenticity. It doesn't allow people to be authentic, and leadership is one of those things that must always be authentic. Because if it's not, it's not believable. And so it's really important that we can have frameworks. We can have outlines. We can have guidelines.

We we you know, whatever you wanna call it, we can have. What we can't have is step one through 10 of how to make a great leader. And that if you wanna be a great leader, you do you get up at 05:00 every morning, and you do this, and you do that. And if you do all these things, you'll be a great leader. Because it often and I and for me, it connects and I don't know if it will for you, but, my pastor was always fond of saying this phrase. You know, going to church and calling yourself a Christian is like standing in your garage calling yourself a car. You know, they're just doing things, going through motions and saying you can check things off a list. Because, essentially, what we're doing, to be quite honest, what we're doing in that situation is we're we're reducing leadership into a checklist.

We're saying if you do these things, you're a leader. And I think we can all agree that just isn't a great way to measure or imagine how we would measure development of a leader. So with that said, so I'm gonna tell you a little bit about obituary. So obituary comes from this idea that there are there are four types of trees and they all bloom at their own time. So cherry, plum, peach, and apricot trees. And all of them bloom at their own time and in their own way. Now what that means is there's no one of those trees is not better than any of the others. They all bloom.

They all produce a fruit, but none of them are better just because they might bloom sooner or later. They're just different. And so organizations that that fail to embrace this end up with leadership teams that are well, essentially, they're starving for originality. They're they're all vanilla. They're all the same. And I don't think that's what anybody wants because the the literal even even more so now than ever before with the pace of change that we experience in the world, it is asinine to believe that we can just replicate someone that's gonna lead the organization in ten years or be part of a leadership team in ten years, that would be the same person that's doing it today. And I see that all the time with, with people that are that are developing others to take over organizations is we're trying to figure out who's the best person to lead that organization in the future, not right now. And the person that's in the spot right now might be the best person now, but they probably wouldn't be the best person five years from now.

So we're trying to do a little bit of prognostication to figure out what are we gonna need then, not what do we need now. So we probably don't need the same person, and that's what we're kind of getting at. Now on top of all that, to be honest with you and excuse my sniffling because I have a cold as you can probably tell. But the show goes on regardless. As long as I'm upright and able to get in here, we're gonna do it. So here's the thing. Comparison is the thief of joy. So that's on one side, that's just, okay, so I don't have joy.

But here's what happens when you live a life of comparison. You have and and this is you can go look it up for yourself. It increases anxiety, depression, chronic stress. You have heightened cycles of negative thoughts and self criticism. You have greater feelings of inadequacy and doubt. Any of those things is is anybody striving for any of those things? I don't think we are. But when we constantly and chronically compare ourselves to other people, that's what we get. So here's the thing, you it's it isn't just about obituary isn't just about rejecting comparison.

It's about embracing your own strengths at your own pace in your own version of growth. You don't have to be the loudest. You don't have to be the most extroverted. You don't have to be the most aggressive, those impactful. You have to be you fully and unapologetically. That's what you have to be. Because guess what? That's who you can be without any thought. That's like if you it the best thing to do is tell the truth all the time because then you never have to remember if you lied or not.

Right? So if I'm always me, if I'm always authentically and unapologetically me, and if that guides my development as a leader and it guides how I impact and how I how I interact with other people, I don't have to think about it as much. Now I wanna be clear about something. I'm not saying you just show up all the time being you. I'm not saying there's there's a really fine line here. There's some nuance to this. Because our natural traits are really great. They developed since we were kids and and our heads are filled with this is who we are. Our personality is not hardwired.

We have to balance this with how we show up for other people because that's what leaders do. Leaders show up and they help have a positive impact on other people's emotional states. So if that's the case, we do wanna be authentic, but I can be authentic and still evolve. I think those two things can marry themselves. So I'm not just gonna show up all the time and take comfort in, well, that's just who I am. That's who they got. That's not what we're talking about here. Authenticity is about being transparent, about being open, about being honest, and about being vulnerable.

So it's we do wanna focus on our strengths, but we also wanna be open and honest about our weaknesses and the areas that we lack. Both of those things have to play into this. So if we organizations understand this, they create space for individuality within leadership pipelines. They're not trying to create the next x, the next person, the next Steve Jobs, the next whoever. Instead, the question should be, and everybody should ask, who are who are you becoming? Right? Who who are each of you becoming? Because we need all of that variation because homogeneous groups are weak. Heterogeneous groups are strong. So we need the individuality. We need the variance because that's what makes a great team.

Because if we're all thinking alike, we're not thinking. And if we're all behaving the same way, it's gonna be very hard. Now do does that mean we we do wanna share the same values? This is where values become really important. Because we can we can all share the same values, but we're not gonna exhibit them all in the same way. And if organizations are able to adopt this kind of mindset, it really it fosters a culture where strengths are amplified instead of being forced into unnatural roles. Creativity thrives because people feel safe to operate outside of traditional expectations, and teams function better because people aren't looked in a aren't locked in a toxic battle of outshining each other. Right? We're all trying to be who we are. We're all trying to bring our authentic strengths to the table because they're valued.

But we have to set it up that way because if we're setting up a fight, then we're gonna we're not gonna be focused on contributing in our own unique way. So when we talk about this in context of the e three model about exploring experiment and evolving, we ex we have to explore because we instead of asking ourselves, how do I measure up to other people, it's we ask ourselves, what do I naturally excel at? What's feels most fulfilling for me? So what that means is we have to do some exploration because there is no one path to do this. And that means we have to take a step back from external validation and shift our focus inward. It means embracing our natural abilities instead of forcing ourselves in the roles that don't align with ourselves. And if we prioritize this stage, we give ourselves permission to observe, reflect, and acknowledge the areas where we thrive. I've seen far too many times where we have this one path forward for organizations. And, unfortunately, what that path is is the path to management, which some people would call leadership. Right? So what we end up doing is we go to somebody who's a great a great person.

They're they're great in the organization. They're doing their job. They're excelling at their job. And we go to them and we say, hey. We'd like to offer you more money and a bigger title and more status to do this other job managing people, leading people, managing processes, leading a group. And 99.9% of the time, what does that person say? That person's gonna say, yeah. Awesome. I'd love to do that.

I'd love more money, more responsibility, more opportunity to make an impact. I'd love another title. I'd love status. I'd love all those things because it's good for our it's good for our lives personally. And and so we move everybody into this space where we think we're gonna clone people without regard to their natural talents and desires and their own authenticity because oftentimes, we don't even know who we are. We allow the outside forces to dictate that to us. So that's what we have to stop and think about as leaders and organizations. How are we doing this? Are we going in about it in a way that gets us a result we actually want? And if we go on to experimentation that next phase, so we figure out, you know, what areas we wanna experiment with, we're gonna take those intentional actions and test new ways of applying our strengths.

See, See, this is where we're not gonna do the same thing over and over again. We're finding new avenues because the obituary mindset thrives here because it acknowledges growth is not linear. We're not going in a straight line. We have to try things to see if they work. We it is gonna be a couple steps forward and one step back, and it's okay. Sometimes it might be one step forward and three steps back. That's okay too as long as it's not a habit. Right? But there's no other way to do it because we have to get into that growth mindset.

We have to adopt that growth mindset. Now I wanna tell you there's a couple things. There's there's some components of a growth mindset because, as we know, a lot of people might profess to have one, but they may not truly have it. Now what that means is there are some things we gotta believe. One is we believe intelligence can be developed or expanded. We embrace challenges as growth. We persist in the fear in the in the face of setbacks. We see effort as the path to mastery, and we learn from criticism.

And five the step five and a half is finding inspiration in the in success of others. But I wanna really focus in on two of those, which are we see effort as the path to mastery. We don't see mastery as the path to mastery. So effort is different than success. So we see effort putting forth effort as a as the path to mastery. And then the other one is we we learn from criticism. I was just with a group the other day and I all we all know this. Right? Criticism in the moment does not feel good.

Nobody loves to receive criticism in the moment. And that's okay. We don't we're we can work at that. We can work at becoming better, but we're still gonna kinda flinch every time we get that. But if we know that we need it, because almost all of us know that after the fact when we reflect back on the criticism, it's beneficial. And that's really what we're talking about with a growth mindset. And then so you gotta figure here some practical examples, right, of of how this experimentation works with Obitori, which is you take on projects that align with your strengths rather than traditional leadership expectations. Don't go the traditional route.

Don't try to prove that you're a leader. Figure out what you're really good at, what what's your sweet spot, and lean into that. Test new ways to influence whether it's, you know, whether through quiet strategy, direct action, creative problem solving. There is no one path. Right? So test different ways to influence that that align with who you are, that feel natural and authentic to you. And then, finally, engage in some new learning experiences that redefine leadership style that's unique, not borrowed. Again, I want you to go out. I want you to listen to podcasts.

I want you to read books. I want you to talk to people. I want you to do all those things, but only in the context of exploring those things and then experimenting with ones that you can that connect with you authentically. I'm not saying that only reinforce who you are, but that connect with you and feel authentic. Because the one thing leadership must always be is authentic because it's gonna be difficult and challenging. And if it's authentic, you can lean into those difficult and challenging things. Much easier than if you're trying to pair it back something that you heard somebody else say would work. It's really important because it's gonna feel different for you and it's gonna feel different for the other person on the other side of it.

And then evolving, that's the the the end the end game here. And what we're really about evolution isn't about arriving at some, you know, predetermined ideal leader status. It's about continual refinement and learning further and leaning further in the personal authenticity. That's how we evolve. We become more of who we are. We take on our full responsibility because here's here's what authenticity means from an existential standpoint, is creating yourself. See, we get this weird thing and we think authenticity is about being ourself. That's not what existentialists tell us.

See, we think authenticity is I'm just gonna be more of who I am. Whoever I am right now is who is being authentic is just being me. That's not true. What's true is I'm taking full responsibility for my life and creating myself as I go. That's authenticity. Authenticity is about taking responsibility for your life and creating yourself as you go, not about just being yourself in the moment. Because being yourself looks backward, creating yourself looks forward. There's much more power in creating yourself because evolution is a part of that, because we're constantly recreating ourselves.

And that's what's really important. Excuse me. So here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna we're gonna talk about how to build an obituary informed leadership culture of development. So maybe some steps here. Number one, destroy the ideal leader archetype. I was just talking to somebody this morning, a leader in an organization, and we don't wanna have this. This is what a leader looks like in the organization.

This is all this is the only kind of leader we want. We don't wanna basis on leadership stereotypes. Otherwise, we'll just have these, you know, rough and tumble, decisive, you know, all those things that we say leaders are. The great, excuse me, but the great man theory out of the forties or fifties. Right? And strength doesn't always look like domination. Influence doesn't always come from charisma. It it it presents itself differently, so we have to destroy that ideal leader archetype. Then we have to redefine leadership development.

Traditional programs, they just assume the growth should look the same for everyone, and we need to create paths that allow for individualized growth based on strengths, not comparison. There's no there's no one way to do this. There's no one speed at which people grow. Peach trees, apricot trees, cherry trees, they all they all bloom in a different rate. We could take a lot of we could take a lot we could learn a lot from the natural world. Every every crop that we grow grows at its own time, grows at its own pace. We can't over fertilize. We can't make it grow faster because it kills it.

And then finally, you can encourage experimentation, not perfection. I actually had this debate with, with a group the other day because we got to talking about perfection and striving for excellence, and I don't believe I don't believe perfection's ever the goal. We always wanna try to do things correctly, but if all we're striving for is perfect, we're always gonna fall short, and we're always gonna have a negative emotional state around that. We're just not capable of perfection. Very rarely are we capable of doing exactly right. And if that's what our focus is and that's how we determine if we're doing well or not, then we're always gonna be disappointed. Because the only way to evolve is through experimentation, which connotes failure. We need to recognize and reward diverse contributions.

Stop celebrating only the loudest voices in the room. Recognize the thinkers, the strategist, the quiet operators who make things happen behind the scenes. They're all leaders. We need everybody. We need all of those people. We can't just pay attention to the to the people who take up all the space in the room. That that's not building a sustainable and scalable leadership development culture. And then finally, build a feedback culture that fuels self awareness, not self doubt.

Instead of pointing out how someone isn't like another high performer, guide them toward deeper self discovery of themselves. That's that's what we want. We want steep we want deeper self self reflection, deeper self discovery of ourselves, not being compared to someone who is a high performer in their area, who, by the way, is nothing wrong with them. It's not their fault. But everybody doesn't grow at the same rate. We don't bloom at the same time. So in closing, if you wanna develop true leaders, not clones, not facades, not robots, you have to abandon the comparison trap. And and the obituary mindset isn't about being the best in some false fabricated competition.

It's about being the best version of yourself on your own timeline in your own way. And the strongest organizations don't force people into a mold. They create an environment where everybody has the chance to do the thing we just talked about. We have the space to bloom. We make we make room for all of those trees. So stop chasing someone else's path. Stop trying to mimic success that isn't yours and ask yourself, what's my way? Nietzsche told us, you have your way, I have my way. As for the right way, the correct way, and the only way, it does not exist.

Just remember this, and I'll leave you with this thought and then we'll sign off. Your path is the only path worth taking. So I'm glad you could join me today. I look forward to talking to you again soon.