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“The only way to be happy, is to give happy.”

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  • The Biggest Lesson I Learned in 2009 is . . .

    Personal growth is a must for any would-be leader. Taking stock of progress made in that regard is both encouraging and instructive. It can remind us of the territory covered and inspire us to grow further toward our ideal. In that spirit, I would like to hear from all three of my readers. If possible, complete the following phrase in one sentence. In this way, we can learn from and become encouraged by each other. Also, we can use our progress in 2009 to launch into 2010 with a full head of steam.

    The biggest lesson I learned in 2009 is ______________________________________.

    Thanks for sharing!

  • Lighten Up and Toughen Up

    There are two attitudes toward life that I think are paramount for leaders, especially in our modern, pampered times. They are:

    1. lighten up

    2. toughen up.

    There is nothing more off-putting than a person who takes him or her self too seriously. One of my favorite phrases is, "Take everything seriously except yourself." People can easily get a little too"heavy" with the bearing of their burdens. Remember: everyone has problems. Nobody's health is perfect. Nobody's relationships are all perfect. Nobody has it made. You shouldn't be surprised when you don't, either. So lighten up a little bit, and work on your attitude. Become more fun to be around. Look at the bright side of things. Find the silver lining in every storm cloud. Trust me: you will be remembered for how well or poorly you do this. People flock to those who are positive, full of enthusiasm, and large on life. They run from the dour, sour, complaining, serious, "realistic" types. So make your choice to lighten up.

    Also, there are few sights more pathetic than a person having a pity party. For the most part, the people walking the earth today have more blessings, better health care, better nutrtition, better shelter, longer life expectancy, more opportunities, easier travel, more time-saving devices, etc., etc. than anybody has ever had before, including kings of the highest power. (This is not to downplay the condition of those who are truly suffering from the absence of even the basic necessities of life. But most people reading this blog are not of that category, but rather, are blessed beyond description). We should realize how relatively easy our lives are, and rejoice in the blessings God has provided. This ought to toughen us through our challenges, give us the proper perspective, and make us stronger. Nobody likes a whimp.

    There you have it; two of my favorite admonishments. I will discuss these concepts further in future posts.  As you make your way through your day today, ask yourself, "How can I both lighten up and toughen up?"

  • Caption Contest 2010.1

    Happy New Year to all three of my readers! Let's kick off the next decade (I know, it's not technically correct that today is the start of a new decade, we're a year early, but everyone blew it at the millennium mark, so we're stuck with it. But, I digress), with a caption contest. Give it your best shot. And remember, the winner will receive an autographed copy of Orrin Woodward and my best-seller, Launching a Leadership Revolution. Good luck!ATT00213

  • New Year’s Revolution

    Everybody wants to change the world, but most think they themselves are just fine the way they are. Suddenly, though, once a year, an arbitrary date on a calendar actually succeeds in causing them to look inward. Incredibly, people who spend the rest of the year looking outward search themselves for areas of improvement. This is a good thing. To truly change the outside world, we must first work on changing the inner person.

    The problem, however, as we all know, is that these New Year's Resolutions are fleeting. Workout facilities are jammed in January, empty by February. Smokers who quit on New Year's Day are back at it by the Super Bowl.

    Instead of resolutions, I think people should be considering revolutions. A revolution is a grass-roots effort springing forth from leaders committed to changing the status quo. It grows into a movement as individuals gain influence with others through the strength and consistency of their own actions over time. Importantly, it's the consistency part over time that matters most. Being able to stay at it for the long haul is what gives influence a chance to work and momentum a chance to build. Flash-in-the-pan self-improvement is as ineffective as it is comical. To truly make a difference, one must become different. For that to occur, one must have strength of character. Paradoxically, the best way to accomplish this isn't to focus upon one's self, stumbling through life in a pathetic stupor of self-awareness, but to focus upon one's purpose and calling. Such a focus is what gives the power to improve one's self over the long range. With eyes fixed on that horizon, self-improvement and lasting change will be automatic. 

    So don't make a resolution this year. That is what the herd is doing. And you know what happens to herds? They get slaughtered. Rather, start a revolution in your life by summoning the strength of character to always be listening, learning, and living the life you've been called to. Work on yourself consistently by focusing on your contribution and calling, and you just might find that the world will follow.

    Happy New Year. Lead on!   

  • When the Sun Comes Up . . .

    On the wall of my garage I have posted a photo of a lion. It contains the message of how a lion awakes in the morning and begins hunting for a gazelle. It also shows a distant gazelle and states how it must be ready to run to escape the lion. The message is that when the sun comes up, lion or gazelle, each must awake ready to run.

    I believe it is that way with winners. Driven by the purpose for which they were born, winners awake running their race. It only requires a moment of observation to realize that most people do not live this way. Instead, they awake to drudgery, plow through a day uninspired, and chalk it up to "earning a living."

    Sad.

    Perhaps money is the culprit. Everything is fine until money gets involved. Then all sorts of weirdness breaks out. People surrender their freedoms, their dignity, and sometimes both, just to obtain the illusion of security that income brings. There are very few things more unsightly than someone bent on economic gain at the price of their honor. 

    True champions, however, deal in the currency of purpose. They trade their time and effort for greater contribution. Their blood, sweat, and toil is invested in the pursuit of a God-given calling. And for those true to their inner voice, they never actually "work" at all, because everything they do is in line with their highest picture of themselves. 

    Separate yourself from the herd. Step out from the crowded chamber of complacency. Dare to live the life you've always known you could, and should. If you don't try, you'll never know. If you don't risk, you'll always wonder. Live your purpose and pursue your calling. Be about your business. And when the sun comes up, we'll look for you among the champions. I'm sure we'll find you, like the lion and the gazelle, running. 

  • Friendship

    There are thousands of books on money, business, marriage, child rearing, diet, exercise, cooking, and gardening. Strangely, however, is the relative scarcity of those on the subject of friendship. 

    A little over a year ago, my bride underwent brain surgery to remove a large tumor. It was physically traumatic, life-threatening, and very scary. Terri emerged from the experience healthy and armed with yet another obvious blessing straight from God. Ordeals such as that demonstrate a lot of things. First, they have a staggering power to realign one's priorities. And secondly, they reveal the real friends in one's life.

    There were callers and well-wishers, people sending meals, others sending cards. Several showed up in the waiting room and rode shotgun through the entire day of surgery, some returning the next morning, others staying the night. Terri had a nurse friend assist in the recovery room the first night, and another awaiting her arrival at our house upon her hospital discharge. From the moment she arrived home until several weeks after, Terri received around-the-clock care from an army of girlfriends who had mobilized, scheduled themselves, and swooped onto the scene to nurture, support, administer medication, provide child care, and just "be there." 

    It was awesome. 

    It was love in motion. 

    It was true friendship.

    Friendship is hard to define. It has no official commitments like marriage. It has no familial ties like parenthood or relationships with siblings. It carries no consistent definitions. But like great art, while defying description, it is readily identifiable when it is experienced.

    Terri's surgery was a reminder to us both of the value of true friendships in our life. We treasure the incredible people God has placed around us, and we pray that we are as good a friend to them as they have been to us. 

    Friendships should never be taken for granted, as they provide grounding, comfort, companionship, depth, meaning, and enjoyment. During this holiday season give some consideration to the friendships in your life. Nurture them. Invest. Contribute. Serve. Laugh, live, and forge tighter the relationships that truly are one of life's greatest treasures.

  • Things That REALLY Improve Our Lives

    Update: I hope everyone is having a truly Merry Christmas season. Please take a moment and read the many great comments that are attached to this post. It is heartwarming and uplifting to share with so many awesome people. God bless you all!

    I have a love-hate relationship with technology. It's not that I'm a neophyte; having spent most of my youth in engineering and working on my own motorized equipment. It's just that most of this fancy, electronic gadgetry doesn't work the way it's supposed to.

    For some reason the Instant Messenger on my computer went on the fritz. The central CD player stopped working and won't even open to release the 5 CDs held hostage inside. The IPOD nest on the receiver won't play. The printer isn't working correctly. The Internet phone has bandwidth issues. The smart phone "hangs" when running certain applications.

    Sound familiar?

    Imagine if the tools of yester-year functioned as unreliably as those of today. Take the shovel, for instance. Imagine if twenty percent of the time, when you picked up a shovel, it wouldn't dig correctly. It needed someone steeped in the art of shovel-tweaking to mess with it for ten minutes to "kind of" get it working. And then, it would only work if you yanked out the batteries first. And when you needed it, I mean REALLY needed it (like having to bury a muskrat that had mysteriously died of lead poisoning), it wouldn't work at all. A call to India to tech-support would only suck an hour out of your schedule and leave you feeling anxious and irritated.

    But these aren't actually real problems of which I speak, are they?

    And that's the point. Nobody is going to cry too hard for us experiencing electronic inconveniences in our overly abundant material world. We get annoyed, frustrated, agitated, and sometimes downright ticked off when our ridiculous surplus of gadgetry behaves as unreliably as it is unnecessary.

    Which brings me to this: is all this nonsensical complication really supposed to improve our lives? Or is it really just the offspring of a population out of control with its own entertainment and convenience fixations? 

    I'll tell you this: while my GPS may make things a little easier sometimes, and while everybody from the teenager to the grandmother is addicted to cell phones and texting, the sum total of all this "convenience" and "communication" and "information" is zero in terms of life-improvement. They are clutter in a noisy world.

    Life improvement comes from real things, the kind of things that never break down, that work every time, and don't require a Bill Gates-type personality to make them function. The list of these things, though increasingly crowded to the background in our video-game, high-def, mega-pixel world, is endless, and waiting quietly for our rediscovery of them. Here is just a sample:

    1. the hug of a child

    2. the kiss of a spouse

    3. a fire in the fireplace

    4. a stroll through the woods

    5. a heart-felt "I love you"

    6. home-baked cookies

    7. a spontaneous conversation with neighbors

    8. a silent prayer

    9. a sunset

    10. the sound of a gentle spring rain

    11. laughter

    12. a pat on the back

    13. playing catch

    14. lying in the sun

    15. listening to ocean waves roll 

    16. watching fish around dock pilings

    17. throwing stones into a calm pond

    18. pondering timeless questions

    19. wrestling with children

    20. laughing at ourselves

    Just a teaser list, really. The idea, though, is obvious. The more we crowd our lives with unimportant contraptions, entertainments, distractions, and noise, the less room there is mentally and physically for things like those on this list. 

    What things truly improve your life? What types of moments would you put on a similar list of your own? For this holiday season, maybe we can do a little "gift exchange" right here on this blog. All three of you readers out there can contribute. I, for one, look forward to reading what you have to share. After all, I've got nothing else to do. All my electronic stuff is broken! 

  • Sleep On It!

    Nuff said.

  • The Music of Opportunity and the Sound of Potential

    Thanks to reader Joe St. John for turning me onto this incredible young man and his story. May Patrick Henry Hughes inspire us all to our highest callings. God bless you Patrick! Keep leading with your Abilities!

  • How Inflation Hurts

    Why are we even talking about Inflation? Why does it matter? How does it affect us? Who is responsible for it and why do they do it?

    Oh, my three dear readers, I am glad you asked!