Category Archive: Core Values

The Importance of Knowing Life Purpose

Posted by on May 29, 2009

In a day when our calendars are beyond full and yet our lives seem to be empty something has gone wrong.  We in many cases have assumed because we are busy the things we are doing must be important.

We clearly have shifted the focus from being as a person to doing and what we are able to accomplish.  Technology has helped us in many cases simply to do the wrong things faster.

The great paradoxes of our time have been summed up well by the Dalai Lama:

“We have more conveniences, but less time.

We have more degrees, but less sense…more knowledge but less judgment.

More experts, but more problems.

More medicines, but less healthiness.

We have been all the way to the moon and back but have trouble crossing the street to meet the new neighbor.

We build more computers to hold more information that produce more copies than ever before, but have less communication.

We have become long on quantity, but short on quality.

These are the times of fast foods but weak digestion.

It is a time when there is much in the window but nothing in the room.”

For many of us we have been living the script for our lives that were given to us by someone else; parents, peers, friends or the culture we live in.  The time has come for us to have the courage to say no and the passion to write our own.

 

Promises We Make

Posted by on May 15, 2009

This is the third in a series of ten posts on promises we should be willing to make to the people that matter the most in our lives.  A promise goes beyond a mere commitment to do something it carries the clear expectation that we are going to pay the price to do what we said we would do.

The first promise was I will sincerely listen to what you have to say.  Really listening to someone without a personal agenda communicates to them that they have value in your life and that you sincerely care.

The second promise was I will always tell you the truth.  Without this there can be no basis of trust, just ask Elizabeth Edwards how painful that can be.

The third promise is I will apologize when I am wrong.  When people hurt us there is genuine pain involved and when they refuse to acknowledge they were wrong then the pain grows deeper and last longer.

When someone sincerely and genuinely apologizes we know two things.  They are willing to humble themselves and they want to restore their relationship with us because we still matter to them.

On the other hand when someone says I am sorry and you know in your heart they don’t really mean it the situation only gets worse.  They are simply trying to end the conversation and not take personal responsibility for what they did.

Sometimes in relationships the other person may own eighty percent of the blame.  Our responsibility is to take ownership of our twenty percent and do the right thing and apologize regardless of how they respond.

How Much Is Enough?

Posted by on May 14, 2009

The one incredibly good thing about a down cycle is that it always forces us to separate what is important in life from what is not. 

This is a very opportune time for you to be incredibly honest with yourself and ask the hard question How Much Is Enough?   What do I really need to be fulfilled and content in my life?  Take some time on this and make sure you cover every area of your life, personal, family, career, friends, faith and community.

For most of us as Americans we have never had to answer this question before.  We have been told the sky is the limit and if you work hard enough you can accomplish anything you want.

I am in no way condoning anything less than your personal best in every area of your life.  However, I am bringing into question a consumer driven philosophy of life that is more concerned with quantity of things than quality of relationships.

For too many of us we have been living out the script that someone else has written for us.  It could be a parent, peers, corporate culture or society in general.  Now is the time to write our own script that includes our own definition of success in life.

Contentment and gratitude are two incredibly important core values in life.  If you do not know the answer to How Much Is Enough, then I am afraid you will never truly experience them.

 

 

Promises We Make

Posted by on May 6, 2009

This is the second in a series of posts that I want to make about what I think is a very important subject, our most important relationships.  For the people we care about the most we should be willing to make a few critical promises to demonstrate our level of commitment to them.

The first promise in the series was I will carefully listen to what you have to say.  When we sincerely want to understand what the other person is feeling and thinking we acknowledge their value as a person.

The second promise is that I will always tell you the truth.  The foundation of any relationship is the trust that is shared when I know what you are telling me is the truth.

Obviously, I am not talking about saying that Susan Boyle should become a model. If you meet her tell her she looks good and really mean it.  However, she does have a beautiful voice and she reminded us all not to judge the character of a person by their outward appearance.

When we lie to someone it says more about us than it does about them.  Not telling the truth is our way of deflecting blame and not assuming personal responsibility.

If someone tells me something that really hurts but I know in my heart it is the truth then I can still respect and trust them.  When they make it up and tell me what is convenient for the moment I am the one who is ultimately hurt and they just burned a bridge that sometimes cannot be rebuilt.

Leadership Demands Authenticity

Posted by on May 1, 2009

There are many generational issues that have to be resolved between the Baby Boomer generation of existing leaders and the Next Generation workforce that is coming onto the scene.  The old positional power model of simply telling everyone what to do and they automatically follow with no desire for involvement in the process is gone.

Potentially the single greatest leadership quality new leaders are looking for from those in positions of responsibility is authenticity.  They place a high value on working with people that are real and genuine compared to others who like to play mind games.

A leader must know who they are personally and what they believe are the core values for themselves and the organizations they lead.  Then when the hard decisions must be made and there are many of them today, everyone on the team will trust their motives instead of questioning them.

Jack Welch placed a very high value on authenticity for his top leadership team.  In his book Winning he wrote, “Leaders can’t have an iota of fakeness.  They have to know themselves-so that they can be straight with the world, energize followers, and lead with the authority born of authenticity.”

There is nothing better at the end of a long day than to look back and know that all your actions were consistent with your character.  No more playing games just keeping it real.

Promises We Make

Posted by on April 30, 2009

We all struggle with the commitments we make either to ourselves about eating a healthier diet or to someone else about something we said we would do and simply forgot. When we want to take our commitment to the next level we start making promises.

A promise is defined as a declaration that something will or will not be done and there is assurance given and an expectation created.  Promises should be reserved for the top priorities and the people we care about the most.

One promise we should all be willing to make to the people that matter is that I will carefully listen to what you have to say.  As Stephen Covey said in Seven Habits of Highly Effective People we should first seek to understand the other person before we ask to be understood.

Our motives are no longer to show how smart we are, win the argument or avoid pain.  We sincerely want to understand what the other person is thinking and feeling to the point we acknowledge their value as a person.

Listening involves time and a willingness to be patient until we have embraced all that the other person wanted to share.  Think of at least one person in your life today that you really care about and make a promise that I will lay down my agenda for the benefit of someone else.

Are you listening?

The Window and The Mirror

Posted by on April 28, 2009

I have always been an Alabama football fan since the days of Coach Bryant.  One of the things I always appreciated about him was when we lost a game he always took the responsibility in the press conference and never cast blame toward the players or officials.

According to Jim Collins in his best seller Good to Great all great leaders do the very same thing.  His team noticed this pattern in all of the very successful leaders and they called it the window and the mirror effect.

All great leaders would look out the window and give credit to other people and not themselves when things were going well.  At the same time, they would look in the mirror to assume responsibility for failure and never blame bad luck or someone else when things went poorly.

The comparison companies did just the opposite.  These leaders would look out the window to blame someone or something when they experienced negative results.  When they did get it right they would look admiringly in the mirror and take all the credit with great fanfare.

We all need to apply this lesson on a personal level.  It is always easy to justify our bad behavior when we can use what someone else said or did to hurt us as an excuse.  Assuming personal responsibility for our attitudes, words and actions is the first major step in becoming a leader who is driven by character and not by the fading recognition of the crowd.

 

Leadership Demands Courage

Posted by on April 27, 2009

A legend from India tells about a mouse who was terrified of cats until a magician agreed to transform him into a cat.   That resolved his fear until he met a dog, so the magician changed him into a dog.  The mouse-turned-cat-turned-dog was content until he met a tiger—so , once again, the magician changed him into what he feared.

But when the tiger came complaining that he had met a hunter, the magician refused to help.  “I will make you into a mouse again, for though you have the body of a tiger, you still have the heart of a mouse.”

Courage is defined as the quality of mind or spirit that enables a person to face difficulty, danger and pain without fear.  In the economic environment we find ourselves in today there are many things that we could choose to fear.

What we desperately need today are leaders who possess the character to make the hard calls that will help us move through this crisis and into a brighter future.  In this day when the pace of change seems to be moving at the speed of light there will seem to be a new danger around every corner.

When Jim Collins describes the type of leaders that led their organization to greatness they possessed two key qualities.  They are individuals with extreme personal humility and an unwavering resolve to do whatever must be done to produce the best long term results, no matter how difficult.

Great leaders are certainly human but on the inside they possess the heart of a lion and not of a mouse.

 

 

 

 

 

Walk The Talk

Posted by on April 23, 2009

Ultimately everything we do outwardly is driven by all of our inner attitudes about what is important and what is not.  If our actions are not what they should be we must first change what we believe to be true before we can see bad habits broken and new good ones take their place. 

I think the most important attitude you must draw from everyday is gratitude.  The media is almost totally focused on all that we are losing in this down cycle.  The pain is real and there are significant problems that must be solved.  However, almost all of us still have plenty to eat, a nice place to sleep and friends and family that care about us.  Think about what is really important today and be grateful.

The second important thing to me is hope.  As we deal with the reality of lost jobs and endless bad news we must have a picture of a better day ahead.  Hope fuels a positive attitude about life when the majority of people are negative.  We may not be able to change the global economy or Wall Street but we can change ourselves. 

Finally we must be people who are committed.  Your passion about life is what will move you beyond the pain of the present.  The promises we make and keep to ourselves and the people we care about the most is the sum total of who you really are as a person.  If what say you believe is not moving you to act everyday then you really did not believe it after all. 

Remember the old saying, what you do speaks so loudly I cannot hear what you say.

 

 

Attitude of Gratitude

Posted by on April 1, 2009

 

I was reading again Don’t Sweat The Small Stuff by Richard Carlson and he talked about his tendency to start thinking negative thoughts with all the bad news that is out there today.  I fight this as well especially when you are going through a hard time personally or when there is this slight issue of a global recession.

It is important to build into your life the daily discipline of thinking about all the good things that you have in your life.  We all should be grateful just to be alive and the basics of life including food, clean water and shelter.  There are multiplied millions of people who struggle  just to make it through one more day.

Beyond that we have families and friends and hopefully we are fulfilled by doing something with our life that we know will make a difference.  Through our faith we can have forgiveness for our failures and hope for the future.

The power of gratitude though is released when we go beyond thinking about it and personally telling someone else how thankful we are for what they mean to us.  This sets off a chain reaction of them passing on their gratitude to someone else in their life and the cycle continues.

So as we all are waiting today for the new evil conflicker virus to start spreading through our computers lets start spreading something positive in our lives by telling just one person thanks.