When Aspiration Meets Inspiration

Gary Burnison is CEO of Korn Ferry and the author of Love, Hope & Leadership: A Special Edition.

“If I were to die tomorrow, what would be the one thing I would regret not doing?”

It was an existential question that our colleague Scott Atkinson asked himself during the heart of the pandemic. Secluded and searching, as so many of us were during that time, he found his answer literally on the horizon.

Scott lives near Half Moon Bay, California—home of the world-famous waves known as Mavericks, which can reach more than 60 feet. As he looked out over the ocean, the crash of that surf break—one of the biggest and most difficult in the world—he thought, “I want to ride those waves.”

And so began his quest to become a big-wave surfer.

As hard as he pursued his aspiration—including grueling training and learning to hold his breath for an unbelievable four minutes—all that paled in comparison to the source of his inspiration: his wife and two young children. “It was never about the adrenaline rush. The journey was about understanding the ocean—and ultimately, about making it home safely.”

One year later, buoyed by this perspective and propelled by this purpose, Scott rode his first Mavericks.

Indeed, that’s what happens when our aspirations meet our inspirations.

As leaders, it’s true for all of us—aspiration comes from within, and usually it’s focused on ourselves. Inspiration is the other side of it—and it’s all about others.

Inextricably linked, aspiration and inspiration are, quite literally, breathing in and breathing out. And just like breathing, we as leaders cannot give out what we have not first taken in.

The moment we were born, we all took our first breath. It was aspiration in its truest form—as any parent who has waited to hear their baby’s first cry will attest. After that, breathing for most of us becomes completely automatic and unconscious.

But each breath we take is truly a moment for inspiration. In fact, the word inspiration comes from the Latin inspirare, which stems from spirare, meaning “to breathe.”

Nobody thinks more about breathing perhaps than someone who is suddenly plunged underwater.

I’ll never forget the first time I got caught in an ocean riptide. Being young and inexperienced, I had let my aspiration to swim in open water get the better of me. When the current took me farther and farther out, I tried to swim directly back to shore—but I never got anywhere. Instead, I sank lower and lower.

Then seemingly out of nowhere, an older teenager popped up beside me. “You need to swim the other way!” he yelled. “Come on, follow me!”

Swimming side by side, we crossed the current and finally got to shore. I fell to my knees on the beach, completely spent and deeply grateful.

It wasn’t just what the other swimmer said, it was what he did—after all, words motivate, but actions truly inspire.

And that’s a reminder to all of us of the emotional, even spiritual, part of leadership. It’s true—none of us can simply proclaim ourselves to be inspiring, any more than we can simply decide to hold our breath for four minutes.

Leadership is never an unconscious endeavor. To be a leader is to continually remember that our aspiration is always to be an inspiration for others.

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