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to go to the bathroom so I wouldn’t have to answer the question.
    Thankfully, I eventually realized that hiding wasn’t going to get me what I wanted. Maybe I didn’t have an MBA, but I was pretty good at seeking out the knowledge I needed to move ahead. When I was head of marketing at Pepsi-Cola Company, I went to the CEO, Craig Weatherup, and asked him to make me chief operating officer even though, up until that point in my career, I’d had absolutely no operating experience of any kind. I knew, however, that I didn’t want to be a marketing guy my whole career and that if I wanted broader responsibilities, I needed broader experience. Craig and I got along pretty well, but I clearly wasn’t the obvious choice, so I made him a deal: Test me out in the position, and if I failed, hecould bump me back down to marketing, even fire me, whatever he thought was best. So he gave me a shot and neither one of us was ever sorry.
I had a lot of challenges getting comfortable in my own skin. When we went public, I was a terrible public speaker … so I certainly had to learn about that. When we started the business, I had never led anybody, but I had been on a lot of sports teams … I just sort of felt like, Well geez, if I can just make everybody feel like we’re on the same team, we’ll do well.
    — BOB WALTER, CEO, CARDINAL HEALTH
    Self-awareness is a concept that will come up again and again throughout this book because you’ll never get better at what you do without it. It’s crucial for every great leader to know who they are and where they’ve been. The following exercise is an invitation to take a hard look at your past and think about the events that have most deeply shaped you, your values, and your goals. I’ve included my own lifeline as an example, and the events I mentioned above are included on it. I still look at and add to it from time to time to remind me of where I’ve been, what I’ve learned, and what lessons have not come easily to me. Knowledge doesn’t spring out of nowhere, and this exercise will give you a better picture of who and what have helped you learn.
My Lifeline

LIFELINE EXERCISE: GET TO KNOW YOURSELF
    To be a better you, you need to understand who you are and how you got where you are today. Use this exercise as a chance to think about these things and get to know yourself a little better. Take some time with this, and consider including on your lifeline both personal and career events that have affected you in some way.
    Directions
When plotting your lifeline, consider key events in your life, such as graduations, marriage, deaths, job chances, etc., as well as other experiences: victories you’ve achieved, crises you’ve endured, fears you’ve overcome, stands you’ve taken, and lessons you’ve learned.
Place points above and below the horizontal line to correspond with the intensity of emotions that accompanied each event or experience.
Once you feel satisfied that you’ve captured the events and experiences that have shaped you, draw a line connecting the dots. Feel free to add notes, draw pictures, or otherwise embellish your lifeline … anything that makes it feel more personal.
Your Lifeline

GROW YOURSELF
    I started out in the advertising business, and I did pretty well. In fact, at the tender age of twenty-seven, I was put in charge of one of the agency’s biggest accounts, Frito-Lay.
    Now, my boss at the time thought I was a little rough around the edges. Plus, I was a good ten years younger than the clients I was dealing with. He thought I needed a little polish, so he sent me to an image consultant in Dallas by the name of Jack Byrum. Jack was a legend who had worked with numerous executives and celebrities, including
Tonight Show
host Johnny Carson.
    Jack taught me a lot of great things about self-awareness and authenticity. But more important, he taught me to always be thinking about how I could improve on these fronts. Once you’ve gotten to know