I got together for dinner with a very good buddy of mine recently. I have known this man for over 30 years, and we have experienced a lot of life together. As we ate dinner on the outdoor patio of an ocean side restaurant the sun began setting and cast a beautifully brilliant orange glow across the sky.

“Oh man, I wish I had my camera.”

And with the zeal of a high priced professional photographer my friend waxed eloquently about how he would shoot this scene. Background shadows, foreground elements, light tones, camera angles, you name it and I could tell these things were running through his mind at a million miles an hour.

However, my friend is not a high priced professional photographer. Nope, he has a very significant, high profile position completely unrelated to anything photographic.

You see, he had recently taken up a very cool hobby, a certain style of photography called HDR photography. He has bought all of the camera and computer equipment necessary to excel at this hobby. He has spent hours studying this technique on the internet and has invested probably hundreds of hours practicing by taking thousands of photos – many of them from a helicopter.   He has even studied other photo artists as a means of inspiring himself onto to greater accomplishments.

As my friend passionately talked about his new found hobby I realized that what I was seeing in him is a character trait that I have witnessed in him for 3 decades: he is a diver, not a dabbler. When he gets into something he wholeheartedly dives in. He researches, studies, talks to people, investigates, practices, accumulates, purchases, networks – whatever it takes to become a great proficient, he does. I have always admired this about him. When he leaps into something he leaps in wholeheartedly.

He definitely does not dabble. You know, try it out just a little. Not too much commitment. Stick your toe in the water per se and see if the waters are pleasant or not. Nope, not Tim. He dives right in. If something is worth doing, then it’s worth doing to the best of your ability.

Are you like that? Do you know people like that – divers not dabblers? I think of the lyrics of a song called “Dive”:

“I’m divin’ in, I’m goin’ deep. In over my head I want to be. Caught in the rush, lost in the flow. In over my head I want to go. The river’s deep, the river’s wide, the river’s water is alive. So sink or swim I’m divin’ in.”

So, when it comes to leading are you a diver or a dabbler?

Do you lead just enough to make sure your organization doesn’t go off the rails, but not so much that you really have to stretch yourself? Do you lead just enough so you don’t necessarily look bad, but you aren’t leading to your potential? Have you taken an honest look at who you are and who you aren’t, and are you growing your strengths and compensating your weaknesses?

Sure, if you are an entrepreneur you may have dived in financially, but have dived in personally at a heart level into those issues in your life that limit you and cause you to often react in the same negative way you have done for years? Do you find yourself doing the very things that you don’t really want to do and not doing the things that you really want to do?

Sometimes it’s a whole lot easier to dive into business by taking huge financial risks and take on jobs that we really don’t know how to do, but are confident we can figure it out, than to dive into those areas of our personal leadership that always seem to trip us up.

To be a wholehearted leader and leave a lasting legacy – a legacy that is more than money and the stuff money buys – we need to courageously dive into those areas at a heart level that make up who we really are and wrestle with the things that hold us back from being a powerful and profound leader.

Be willing to dive into areas of personal leadership that intimidate you. Wholeheartedly dive, don’t dabble, and you will see some great personal gains that will ultimately significantly impact your organization.

Be a diver, not a dabbler.