Happy Thanksgiving

From Our Clan to Yours,

Happy Thanksgiving

Before you get the Christmas decorations down from the attic and start some serious decorating and holiday gift buying, don't overlook Thanksgiving Day. Despite all the problems we face in America, we still, for the most part, experience tremendous blessings compared to so many areas of the world.

Take time to express thanks to your creator for life. Where there is life, there is hope. Where there is life, there is potential. Where there is life, there is the opportunity for growth. Where there is life, there is the opportunity to express and receive love. So this Thanksgiving Day, take time to give thanks for life and all that being alive means for you, your family, and your work. 

Thoughts from Seeing a Pair of Shoes

The call came in the early afternoon. As a pastor of a church, I received many such calls, "Pastor, John has had a heart attack at work. They're taking him to the emergency room, can you meet us there?" That day the outcome was not good. John died after some rather heroic efforts to revive him. I was with the family when the doctor entered and somberly shared the negative news.

We prayed together, and I escorted the grieving wife and family down the hall and to their cars. Going down the long hall we passed the open door to the treatment room where John's body still lay on the gurney. I couldn't help but take a quick glance at him, and I noticed his shoes still on his feet. For some reason I have never been able to shake off the picture of John's shoes protruding out from under the sheet that covered his body.

When I remember that picture, a few questions come to my mind that I believe we can ask ourselves as we seek to live our lives at a level of significance:

1. Where had John walked in those shoes? I know he walked quite a bit in them because the heels were in need of replacing and there was a hole worn in the sole of one of them. Where had he been in those shoes? I have read that our lives are the sum of the people we have met, the places we have been, and the books we have read. What significant professional and personal relationships have you established and cultivated this past year? What significant places have you visited and experienced? What books have impacted your thinking and living? As you walk through your life, walk with a high degree of intentionality.
2. Where had those shoes been that morning? Was John busy pursuing his significant goals and life objectives, or was he just trying to get through another work day? I want to believe that he had made some significant progress that morning toward a meaningful goal, that his final day was another step toward fulfilling his life's purposes. Today is important. What are you doing today to move closer to achieving your life objectives? Yet, remember that your success is not determined just by what you do today. Your success is determined by what you do everyday.
3. Where was John planning to go in those shoes in the days ahead? If you live through this day and see another day, week, month, year, or even decades, what will energize you to live each of those days with a sense of purpose and accomplishment?

As a coach, I desire to help my clients discover an overwhelming "why" for their work. I then help them develop a strategy that enables them to pursue that overwhelming "why". My prayer and hope for you is that your "why" is so significant and compelling that if you knew you only had one more day of life left, you would commit those precious hours to fulfilling your "why". 

Personal Considerations During Times of Significant Transition

Any business, career, or personal transition takes a lot out of an individual, team, and organization. A change of career focus, major change of direction within a company, change of leadership for an organization, all are transitions that tax the inner resources of a leader.

 As you provide leadership during significant transition, focus on these things:

 1.        Faith: Of course, this can apply to one’s faith in God as a source of strength, peace, and guidance during a challenging time, but I also believe it extends to issues of faith in ourselves, in those around us, and the systems we have in place to take us through periods of transition. We need to have faith that we have within us and around us the resources required for success.

2.       Feelings:  This goes beyond feeling positive about ourselves and the situations we face. It concerns feeling positive about our significant relationships. It extends to having positive perspectives on our abilities and purposes. It includes possessing a sense of peace, of contentment with our current place in life and our dreams for the future. It’s about waking up in the morning with goals to pursue, tasks to accomplish, and people in whom to pour significant value.

3.       Food: I am amazed how intensely what I eat affects how I feel, my energy level, and my stamina. Is the food you are ingesting energizing you for the transitional battles, or is it fighting against you? I confess my own challenges in this area, but I do know the benefits of consistently eating well. I can usually attribute a lethargic afternoon to what I consumed for lunch that day. I like the diet advice that says, “A king's breakfast, a commoner's lunch, a pauper's supper.” Those who attempt to offset their unhealthy eating with a plan of strenuous exercise need to understand that you can’t outrun an unhealthy diet.

To lead others through the demanding challenges of significant transition, you need to be at your best because anything less than your best will fail to get the job done. Take care of yourself as you lead yourself, your team, and your organization through a successful transition.

The Significance of a Day

                                                                                         Photo: Patricia Betts

As a pastor, I have served many church parishioners in times of the sudden loss of a loved one or close friend. Each experience has given me a strong appreciation for the fragile nature of life and the necessity of making the most of every day God gives us. Each day of life is a precious gift from our creator and carries with it a great responsibility to use it wisely, productively, and significantly.

I offer three ideas on how to get the most of your day:

• Love those closest to you. The day will come when the what the people closest to you believe about you are the only opinions that will matter. Everyday, make an effort to love your family and develop meaningful friendships.
• Learn something new, fresh, and significant everyday. Learning is a cumulative activity. As you apply yourself to learning something each day, you steadily develop a body of knowledge and level of expertise in your chosen field. Life long learning helps you to stay engaged in your work and your relationships.
• Live each day to its fullest potential. John Maxwell writes, "The most successful people in life are the ones who settle their critical issues early and manage them daily." Each day's activity is a stepping stone on the path toward your personal and professional significance. Lean into your potential every day.

You write your future by remaining fully engaged in your present. When you make today count, your life starts adding up to success and significance.

Become the Best at What You Do Best

                              

As you focus on increasing your value to potential clients or employers, you have two options available. You can work on improving in your areas of weakness, or you can pay greater attention to developing your strengths.

If you work diligently to improve in an area in which you are just okay, you might be able to become average at doing it. In other words, you will be equipped to do an acceptable job. On the other hand, if you devote yourself to developing a skill in which you are already good, you have the potential of being great at doing it.

In either of the above scenarios, you will improve your abilities. In the first scenario, you can achieve average performance in an area that you were once only doing acceptable work. In the other, you are now performing at a great level. You are beginning to be the best at what you do.

What's the motivation for becoming great at a skill over becoming average in a skill? People pay the minimum for average, but they pay the maximum for great. Discover what you do best, then commit yourself to becoming the best at doing it.

Integrity

“The dictionary defines integrity as the ‘state of being complete, unified.’ When people have integrity, their words and deeds match up. They are who they are, no matter where they are or who they’re with.” –John Maxwell

Your personal character will eventually determine the direction of your decisions, your level of consistent productivity, the quality of your professional and personal relationships, and the significance of your influence in the lives of those closest to you.

Let me offer a few suggestions on developing your character and personal integrity:

--Live out what you expect to see in others.

--Do what you say you will do.

--Always be honest with clients, friends, and family.

--Put what is best for others (the team) ahead of what is best for you.

--Be you…the best you.

The best time to make good ethical, integrity building decisions is before you are faced with situations requiring good ethical decisions. Patricia Cornwell observes, “We can all do bad things if we don’t pay attention.” Developing integrity is quite often a matter of just paying attention.

When You Need Help

John Maxwell writes, “One is too small a number for significance.” If you can accomplish your goals by yourself, your goals may be insignificant. Significant goals require the significant involvement of people who have the skills, resources, and inclination to help you achieve your major objectives. Here are a few things to consider as you set out to secure the help and cooperation your significant goals require for their attainment:

--Don’t focus only on what you want to achieve, but envision the impact that your achievements  will have on your life, your family, your organization, your team, and the world around you. The more people you want to influence with your work, the bigger you must dream, and the more help you will need in pursuing it.

--Goals require an effective strategy for their fulfillment. People buy into you at two levels. First, they are attracted by the significance of your dream. Help them to see what it can mean to them and to others. Second, they want to see a viable plan for achieving your vision. A sound strategy gives them a road map to your destination. If they are going to travel this road with you, they want an idea of how they will get to the desired destination.

--Know who you want to take this journey with you, then approach them with the information they need to evaluate the dream and the strategy. Spell it out so they can check it out.

--Get excited about what you want to do. Enthusiasm is contagious.

--Keep your promises. Do what you say you will do. Sometimes your best effort will fail, but never be guilty of failing to give your best effort.

Remember that if you are above asking others for help in achieving your major objectives in work and life, then you will succeed only to the limits of your personal skills and resources. With the assistance of others, you can far exceed those limits and achieve a higher level significance.

Buy a Ticket

                                               

You may be familiar with the story of the man who prayed every evening that God would help him win the lottery. Night after night, he repeated the same prayer, “God, please help me win the lottery.” Finally, after one of his lottery prayers, God responded, “Before I answer your prayer, I need you to do one thing for me…BUY A TICKET!”

If you are praying for or wishing for personal and professional success, I encourage you to “buy a ticket” by significantly investing in your success. You can buy your ticket to success by first investing in yourself. I read this statement recently, “Discover what you do best, then make a commitment to becoming the best at doing it.” Continual personal and professional growth is the ticket to enjoying significant success in your life.

Second, invest significantly in your work, business, or profession. Commit yourself to an effective strategy for accomplishing your important objectives. Many people create a dream board on which they place pictures and objects to represent what they truly want in their lives. The problem is that while many people have a “dream board”, they do not have a corresponding “do board” outlining what they will need to become and do to fulfill their dreams. Investing time, energy, talents, and resources into your work or career is your ticket to eventual success.

Finally, invest in the lives of others. Zig Ziglar often observed that if you help others get what they want, they will help you get what you want. As you invest in the success of others, they will in turn invest in your success.

Not every investment results in a return, but every significant return does require a significant investment. In other words, “BUY A TICKET!”

Three Planning Questions for Church Leaders

When church leaders consider goals and plans for the ministry of their churches, a lot of factors have to be considered. These factors are both spiritual and practical. Yes, a pastor and his leadership team do serve in churches that depend on spiritual direction for the development of strategies to reach God-given objectives. On the other hand, practical issues have to be considered.

This presentation addresses what I consider to be the key questions that church leaders should ask themselves and their ministry teams as they plan for significant ministry in their churches and communities.

Text? Email? Phone?

While I am an endorser of a handwritten note of approval, I’m acutely aware that people communicate in a variety of ways. People communicate primarily through text message, email, or phone calls. The challenge for a business person is to discover how clients and potential clients prefer to communicate; and most people do seem to have a preferred mode of communication.

                                                         

Two ways exist to find out a client’s preferred mode of communication. The quickest way is to simply ask. The other way is to try each mode and see which one the client responds to most quickly. Even after you zero in on what appears to be the preferred method of connecting, you may have to communicate with the client a few times to get a feel for which form of contact to which he responds.

Finally, understand that the nature of the contact determines how you most effectively communicate. Some situations require that you go beyond a text or email contact and make a verbal connection. It may even require a face to face appointment.

Also, consider what the client or potential client is communicating by not responding to your efforts to connect. In those instances, remember that most people will not work with you, but some will work with no one but you. So, keep communicating and connecting to find the people in that latter group.

The Challenge of Change

Change is challenging. Let me rephrase that, “Positive change is challenging.” The world, your world, is going to change often and quickly. You will continually face the challenge of effectively adapting to meet the challenges of changes taking place that affect your business.

As a pastor of churches seeking to take significant steps in effectively navigating the challenges of positive change, I found myself facing two challenges. First, I had to make positive and productive changes in my own thinking and actions. To lead others in making positive changes, I needed to be convinced that the changes were necessary. This required a commitment to personal and professional development for myself. Then, I faced the challenge of convincing others of the needed change and leading them to make the positive changes efficiently and productively. At best, I found change, even positive change, a potentially overwhelming undertaking.

As you navigate the challenges of making positive changes in your business and life, keep these four elements in mind:

 

1.      Keep your vision or dream in focus. A clearly stated vision enables you to navigate the challenges of change effectively and productively. It also keeps your team on the same page.

2.      Consistently evaluate your current reality. Don’t be oblivious to what is happening in the world and your industry that has the potential to significantly impact your business.

3.      Set challenging, yet attainable goals. You and your team need to know where they are headed if they are going to make daily progress.

4.      Develop strategies for moving forward with your professional and personal growth. If you are not consistently becoming better, you may find yourself unable to respond to the challenges of the changes taking place in your industry.

If you do not know where you want to go and lack a strategy to get you there, you will end up going wherever the current of change takes you. Remember, even positive change is challenging.

Big Dream...Big Team

Don't be hesitant to dream big, but if you do, don't be shy about recruiting a big team. By that I mean bring on board people who enthusiastically buy into the vision and have the ability and character to make the vision a reality.
As you consider the kind of team you require to realize your dream, understand that potential members of your team are asking this question, "Will helping you realize your dream enable me to realize mine?" Never forget that significance is not measured by what you do for yourself, it is measured by what you do for others.

Is Your Glass 1/2 Empty or 1/2 Full?

We are all familiar with the illustration of a glass of water being either half-full or half-empty. The pessimist sees it as half-empty and thinks he is missing out. The optimist sees it as half-full and is encouraged to build on the success he has already experienced.

Well, I’ve got great news for both the pessimist and the optimist. Half-empty or half-full, there’s room for growth, improvement, and advancement.

 If You Have a 1/2 Empty View:

• Change your perspective. Think positively instead of negatively. Communicate a positive message to your team. Is this just playing mind games? Maybe, but then again, the mind is where the game is being played.
• Set fresh goals. Make sure they are challenging, achievable, measurable, and time bound.
• Set out on a plan for personal growth and development. To do more you will have to be more.
• Start doing on a daily basis what you need to do to fill up your glass from this point forward.

 If You Have a 1/2 Full Perspective:

• Stay the course while you evaluate your next big step toward the top of the glass.
• Keep growing personally and professionally. Leaders are learners. If you stop learning, you will stop leading. Read good books and publications, listen to effective leaders, and attend dynamic conferences.

Half empty or half full, where you go from here is up to you. If by chance your glass is already full, try moving to a larger glass.

Vision Casting

What good is it to develop a bold vision if you don't boldly cast it to your team? I've seen many leaders fail to achieve their most significant objectives simply because they failed to boldly, passionately, and convincingly share the vision with their leadership team. Sharing vision is the riskiest thing a leader does. You are literally laying your dream on the table for people to accept or reject...to buy into or dismiss; but until you effectively cast your vision to the people whom you expect to help you achieve it and get their buy in, your significant dream remains a fantasy.

The Power of Convenience

I was listening to a health and fitness coach who asked, “Why do people, despite knowing the benefits of healthy eating and exercise, fail to eat healthy and exercise?” Several responses were given, then someone mentioned the availability of fast food. She then made an attention-getting statement, “It is much more convenient to be unhealthy than to be healthy.”

Wow! We can rephrase that to say that it is more convenient to be unsuccessful than it is to be successful. Attaining success in our chosen field of endeavor is inconvenient, isn’t it? Success requires an extreme focus on personal and professional growth. Achievement is experienced at the end of a process that entails hard work and personal sacrifice. Success comes at a price and a lot of inconvenience.

When you go through the inconvenience of a healthy lifestyle, you’ll feel better, and you will feel better about yourself. When you go through the inconvenient journey toward achieving success, you will feel better about your work and your life.

How Important Is Your Dream?

I can discern how important your dream is to you by what you are willing to do on a daily basis to achieve it. Are you communicating the significance of your dream through your daily agenda? Everyone seems to have a dream, vision, or significant objective for their careers and lives, but not everyone incorporates the pursuit of their dreams into their daily schedule.

As you consider the books that you will read during 2017, let me encourage you to consider The Wright Brothers by David McCullough. I knew the Wright brothers flew their plane at Kitty Hawk in 1903, but I did not realize the amount of labor, skill, knowledge, and determination that went into not just making that first flight, but also in developing their plane and their skills to produce a successful commercial endeavor. The Wright brothers had a dream of flying a heavier than air machine, and they committed a part of everyday working toward the realization of that dream. We would all do well to make that kind of determination a part of pursuing our significant goals and objectives.

The Climb to Success and Significance

                     

The journey to success and significance is rarely a straight path toward a single destination. It’s more like climbing a tall mountain. You don’t reach the summit by climbing a straight line. You go to one level, regroup, plan the ascent to the next level, and repeat the process until you reach the peak. The mountain climber actually achieves several objectives before he reaches his major objective of the top of the mountain.               

That's the way it is when pursuing success and significance. We reach a number of lesser goals and objectives that serve as the platform for pursuing our most significant objectives. Some of you reading this blog today have some goals for 2017 that you would have never considered at the beginning of your career or business. You now have the experience, skills, and network to do greater work and achieve greater results. You grow yourself and your business step by step, level by level, destination by destination.

Here are a few considerations as you climb toward significance and success:

• Build on your successes, and learn from your failures. Failure is never final, but failing to  learn from failure is unforgiveable.
• You can’t go up unless you grow up. A plan for continual professional and personal growth is indispensable for continued success.
• We achieve success by reaching our desired destination, but we achieve significance by bringing others with us. Significance is not found in what we do for ourselves, but in what we do for others.

We've already come through the first week of 2017. I encourage you to make continual daily progress toward the next level of your climb toward success and significance.