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Category Archive: Personal Leadership

Feelings Of Worthlessness

Posted by on December 2, 2013

At some point in time we all feel like failures and seem to loose the will to carry on with life. The challenges of work and the strain of our family life can overwhelm us to the point we even doubt ourselves and our value in living. When you get to these trying times Mark Merrill reminds us of some important truths:

“The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. So many people are desperate in their marriages and in other relationships. They are suffering in silence with feelings of inadequacy and failure and don’t know what to do about it.

So how do you battle these lies of worthlessness and begin to understand the truth that you are valuable?”

Create Better New Year

Posted by on November 29, 2013

It is that time of the year when we evaluate the current year and start planning for the next. What got us to this point in our leadership journey will not likely get us to where we need to be next year. We must constantly be making changes and continuing to learn. Mark Miller has some great insights on how to create better plan:

“Have you begun you planning for 2014? If you lead an organization, I’m guessing you started months ago. How about your personal plan for a better 2014 – have you begun creating that yet? If you haven’t, now is a great time to start! I’ve been a fan of individual development plans for many years. I feel the process has helped me grow in all areas of my life.”

An Unguarded Strength Is A Double Weakness

Posted by on November 27, 2013

We are often emotionally moved when we hear a great speech or read a great book but we are rarely permanently changed. Where is the breakdown between what we feel in the moment and what never seems to become a part of our daily lives? The Legacy Dad blog takes on this important subject in all of our lives:

“There are things that I really like about men’s conferences, leadership conferences, and so on. And if we are all honest, for those of us that go to these conferences, we find ourselves for the first week (few weeks, months or slightly thereafter) doing these things that we say we are going to do and THEN life steps back in and we lose our focus and our way.”

When Rest Is Forced Upon You

Posted by on November 11, 2013

We all promise ourselves and our families that we will make sure we don’t push too hard and lose our margin. Then we start to get that sinking feeling I am doing too much and boom we hit the wall. Joseph Lalonde gives us some excellent insight how not to cross over that line and the value of rest in our lives:

“One of the things I really enjoy is an early morning run. I’m able to get up and out of the house before anyone is awake and hit the road running.

My mind becomes focused on completing the run within half an hour. Running is a blast.

And yet I’ve suddenly been sidelined. I’ve been forced to rest.

Ever been there?”

Maybe its time for you to build rest into your priority list. Read More …

Categories: Margin Personal Leadership Work Life Integration | Comments Off on When Rest Is Forced Upon You

How To Overcome A Bad Day

Posted by on November 4, 2013

Regardless of how great a leader you become you will still experience bad days. They are a reality of life and we need to know how to work our way out of these days or we can lose our perspective and then our momentum. Carey Nieuwhof has very practical suggestions on how to move forward:

I had a bad day recently.

Chances are you have too.

Mine blindsided me, and it threw me off so much I got almost nothing accomplished that I wanted to accomplish.

I don’t like days like that. (Does anybody?)

But they’re inevitable in leadership.

Someone sends you an email that sets you off.

A crisis hijacks the day you were going to spend getting a project done.

Unexpected bad news pours in.

You experience conflict with a teammate.

You simply woke up on the wrong side of the bed.

It happens.

Vision Casting To Yourself

Posted by on October 23, 2013

We as leaders know the value of casting vision to inspire our followers to accomplish great things together. The missing piece many times is we don’t know how to keep the passion alive in our own hearts that inspires us to really make a difference. Jenni Catron gives some practical insight in her latest post.

If you’re a leader, you understand the importance of vision casting. You frequently have to remind those you lead why they do what they do. You remind them of how every task, no matter how seemingly insignificant, ties back to the vision of your church or organization. It’s leadership 101.

You’ve likely worked hard to develop the skill of vision casting. Great leaders are masters of this art.

But how good are you at vision casting to yourself?

How To Overcome Discouragement

Posted by on October 14, 2013

We all get discouraged at times and lose our momentum. Carey Nieuwhof offers several practical things that we can do to break the cycle and get back on track again.

Ever get discouraged as a leader? It’s kind of like asking if you have a pulse.

If you’ve led anything for more than a few months, you’ve been discouraged.

Progress isn’t happening as fast as you like

Or may it is happening quickly but you still feel like it’s not fast enough

You’re coming off a great season but you wonder if a slump is right around the corner

The voices of the critics are getting to you

In fact, some of you are discouraged enough right now that you’re thinking of packing it in.

Break Yourself To Improve Yourself

Posted by on October 3, 2013

The post by Joseph Lalonde deals with the need for brokenness and humility in our lives if we are ever going to reach our potential. It is painful at times but very necessary.

“There’s an age old saying that goes: If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. For the most part, I agree with this saying. There’s nothing wrong with letting things stay at the status quo, as long as you’re good not seeing change.

However, for those that want to improve themselves, they know things need to change. And sometimes you need to break yourself to improve yourself.”

Weisure Lifestyle Always Connected

Posted by on September 25, 2013

Welcome to the latest new term to describe the tension that exist between life and work balance. According to Dalton Conley a New York University sociologist, “increasingly it’s not clear what constitutes work and what constitutes fun time.” You can read the entire article on CNN.com/living.

More and more people are using their smart phones and other technology to keep up with their 24-7 lifestyle that keeps them in almost constant contact with others. At one minute we may be quote at work and receive a text message about last night’s game and then later while at quote home get an important email on major project.

It’s one thing to watch a fellow employee scroll through email during a meeting you are attending but now to see the same thing happening during the evening meal is a little harder to swallow.

Apple is probably not going to come up with an app that will schedule time everyday to unplug from all the information that is available to spend time with people who really matter in your life. We are going to have to discipline ourselves to set some boundaries so that we can have the time we need to wind down and even quietly think without interruption.

Technology can be an incredibly good thing if we use it as a tool to improve our lives. If we let it though it can easily change from a means to the end into the end itself and when it does that we all lose.

How do you deal with the tension of being connected all the time?

Categories: Personal Leadership Work Life Integration | Comments Off on Weisure Lifestyle Always Connected

3 Ways To Create A Legacy

Posted by on September 13, 2013

I have attended a lot of funerals over the years and the one common denominator is in every service someone is trying to communicate the legacy of the person who has died. There are some patterns I have noticed when people have lived their lives in such a way that truly leaves a mark on the world.

Begin With End In Mind-All of the people that really made a difference took the long look about life and determined what they wanted the top priorities to be in their lives when it was over. When a person values friendships then you can see a pattern from there earliest years all throughout their lives where other people came first. If you want to be known for something later then you need to live it now.

Leave Something Better Than Found It- This is the type of person that is always trying to help others be successful and is not consumed about themselves. If they are a leader in the corporate world they are not looking out for number one they want the department or the corporation to be better when they leave than when they came. The true test of someone’s leadership is not when he or she is there but what happens when they are gone.

Gave Away More Than They Took– In the end people are either more consumers or contributors. They see other people as a means to their end or they see other people as the target of their generous spirit. These are the people that are always adding value to whatever they do from community involvement, relationships, work and faith. They simply love to give more than they take and people are moved by their humility and servant heart.

It is never to late to work on your legacy. The really important thing is taking the time to decide what you want it to be and then when the time comes other people will gladly step up and write your eulogy for you.

What practical steps are you taking to build your legacy?

Categories: Church Scattered Personal Leadership Servant Leader Spiritual Growth Work Life Integration | Comments Off on 3 Ways To Create A Legacy