Even after almost 5 years, I still believe there are only 2 sources of leadership? What is the source of your influence?
Continue Reading...When I graduated from college, a long time ago, I was pretty sure I knew just about everything. I figured everything I didn’t know didn’t matter. But I’ve managed to learn more, and the more I learn…
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When you graduated from high school, is this what you thought you’d be doing with your life?
We’ve gotten rid of our land line. So I don’t get to use that question often any more. Continue Reading…
It’s been too long. Many of you even reached out to me to ask for an update before now.
Please don’t let the delay in my response communicate a lack of gratitude. We are grateful for your friendship and your prayers. We know they matter.
God provides strength for Vicky every day. Some days she needs less strength and some she needs more. She’s been seeing a doctor who’s not covered by our insurance simply because we’re willing to try different things. We’ve also spent some time trying to eat more naturally. And she has noticed that some of the foods we routinely eat do cause her some grief. That’s all been good.
So we continue and God continues and we are grateful for you if you continued. Please also feel free to let me know how we can pray for you. A cord of 3 strands is not easily broken. Thank you for your connection, friendship and prayers.
Would you do me a favor? I’m married to a great lady. To this day, I still wonder why she ever married me. Continue Reading…
Oswald Chambers in My Utmost for His Highest on November 16 says, “The tendency is to look for the marvelous in our experience; we mistake the sense of the heroic for being heroes.” Continue Reading…
In an election in the US, you always know who won. You know even before it happens.
Really. Continue Reading…
I’m looking forward to the US election. Well, actually, I’m looking forward to its passing. Don’t get me wrong, I am grateful for my right to vote; thankful for the chance to live in a free nation and participate in the greatest experiment of self-government in the history of the world.
But recently Vicky and I cancelled our land telephone line. We don’t want the automated recordings and the unsolicited spam. Fortunately, we’re intelligent enough to make up our mind without the surreal, unbelievable amount of money and energy spent by both parties to try to convince us to vote for them.
In fact, the more each candidate does to try to sell me on voting for them, the less inclined I am to do just that. The reason has little to do with what either stands for. In fact, they spend so little time talking about their own ideas, if we were to choose based simply on what we could find in mainstream media, we should end up depressed, if not suicidal. According to each, the other is the single worst person to vote for, ever. If the other is elected, the world may come to an end, or at least America will cease to exist as a free nation.
I’m reminded of a quote by a politician from 100 years ago.
“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, and comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.” Theodore Roosevelt, April 23, 1910
Personally (and officially on the Lead Change Group blog, too!) I’m not going to join the criticism party. Leadership requires that we not simply point out the problem. No one wins when every comparison is designed to negate the other. Leadership demands that we bring ideas and solutions instead of criticism and discord. We must argue for our ideas, rather than against the others. Nothing is gained by criticizing the other people or ideas, but by visualizing, collaborating and moving toward the future.
I’ll vote in this election, but my energy and my support will have to be reserved for a future election; one where each candidate talks only about themselves and their ideas. My ideal candidate is the one with the courage to lobby for their future without criticizing their competition, be it a candidate, an idea or a vision.
Leadership is about the future. Use the past to create the future, not to criticize your competition. Remember, it’s not the critic who counts.
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“Action springs not from thought, but from a readiness for responsibility.” Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Have you ever considered the areas where you are most prone to act? How about when you see someone asking for change by the side of the road? How about when you see someone with a flat tire? For a time when I worked downtown, I caught myself avoiding the pan-handlers. After a while, though, I felt like a coward. I wasn’t making a difference; I was simply reacting. Once I committed to act every time I had the opportunity, the fear went away and I began to notice people and find ways to make a difference. And that difference expanded beyond the people who were asking for handouts, to my coworkers and my family too.
When you feel responsible for something, you are more likely to act on that responsibility. But don’t be fooled, being responsible is a commitment. Thinking about a problem, working on a problem, “taking a stab at” a problem or “giving a try” are all significantly different than accepting responsibility for a problem. Look at your life carefully. Are there areas where you consistently fail to act? Judge yourself honestly today.
In the book The Noticer, by Andy Andrews, the main character, Jones said, “Have you ever considered how often we judge ourselves by our intentions while we judge others by their actions? I intention without action is an insult to those who expect the best from you. ‘I intended to bring you flowers, but I didn’t.'” Intent without action is an insult. Our best always lies on the other side of action. Thoughts and intentions won’t get it.
So back to the question; where do you consistently give yourself a pass? Can you think of one? What will you do with that information?
Leaders act. Leaders see a problem and take responsibility. On whose behalf are you ready to act? Is it your family, or your neighbors, or your team? What about the poor or the neglected people around us? What about taking responsibility for some part of improving the quality of life in your community? Do you believe you can make a difference at that level? Or, what about the future… the next generation of leaders? Are you taking action about the problems you see in our world or are you just complaining about them? Where do you draw the line when it comes to taking action?
If you began or renewed a commitment to be more responsible and act, take the first step now and make a note in the comments. It won’t kill you. And who knows, you’ll probably make a difference to someone else.
Photo CC by Puzzler4879 on Flickr
On July 4, 1776, a revolution formally began that had been brewing for years. Prior to that time, leadership was a class. You were born into it or you weren’t. You either ruled or you didn’t. On that day, We, the People chose to stop being victims of a government outside of our control and start being responsible to create a govenrment of, by and for the very people being governed.
We the people still have ultimate responsibility, but we appear to be delegating more and more responsibility to the entity we created, almost as if it is something other than ourselves. We don’t seem to want responsibility when it becomes routine or difficult, so we offload it. “Let the government do it.” For 236 years, we in the U.S. have given more and more of our responsibility to a group of people called the government. In fact, sometimes it’s difficult to know if we’re giving the responsibility or if those in the group we created are taking that responsibility from us.
We the people have stopped being the solution to our own problems. We find too many solutions in laws and programs managed by the government, an organization that over time seems to become something other than what it was created to be.
Have We, the People created the very class of leaders that we declared our independence from those 236 years ago?
We the People need to return to being the solution. The health care crisis is borne out of fear of sickness and death. We’re the wealthiest nation in the history of the world, living longer and enjoying more leisure than ever before and we’re willing to create a bureaucracy that will eventually decide who lives and who dies, which sick people are worth treating and which are not.
And it’s not just health care. In the U.S. we’ve been making government bigger since it was created. Most recently the economic crisis, which arose out of our own greed, or unemployment, or homelessness or CEO compensation; each becomes another problem to give to the government. There seems to be no problem too big for the U.S. Government. But each problem we look to “the government” to solve is another lost opportunity to be “We the People.”
Do I love my TV and my air conditioning and my lifestyle too much to take responsibility for things like the health care of my neighbors? In my community, a church has started a free medical clinic. I wonder what challenges it will face as they attempt to provide free health care to people in our community. We the people must take responsibility for those who can’t afford medical care or housing or those who don’t have jobs. If we continue to relinquish our ability to self govern, we’ll lose our ability to self govern.
Photo © Dana S. Rothstein
Mike Henry Sr. 