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Leadership

Quotes That Inspire Me

Wind-in-Sails

I have collected quotes for some time now and have decided to post some of them today. Whenever I read certain quotes they can really be the wind in my sail. My prayer is that you will find some wind for your sail within some of these quotes I’m posting today.

“If you set your goals ridiculously high and it’s a failure, you will fail above everyone else’s success.” James Cameron

“Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it.” Henry David Thoreau

“Things work out best for those who make the best of how things work out.” John Wooden

“Entrepreneurs average 3.8 failures before final success. What sets the successful ones apart is their amazing persistence.” Lisa M. Amos

“If you are not willing to risk the usual, you will have to settle for the ordinary.” Jim Rohn

“Take up one idea. Make that one idea your life–think of it, dream of it, live on that idea. Let the brain, muscles, nerves, every part of your body, be full of that idea, and just leave every other idea alone. This is the way to success.” Swami Vivekananda

“Stop chasing the money and start chasing the passion.” Tony Hsieh

“All our dreams can come true if we have the courage to pursue them.” Walt Disney

“If you are willing to do more than you are paid to do, eventually you will be paid to do more than you do.” Anonymous

“Success is walking from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm.” Winston Churchill

“Whenever you see a successful person, you only see the public glories, never the private sacrifices to reach them.” Vaibhav Shah

“Success? I don’t know what that word means. I’m happy. But success, that goes back to what in somebody’s eyes success means. For me, success is inner peace. That’s a good day for me.” Denzel Washington

“Opportunities don’t happen. You create them.” Chris Grosser

“Try not to become a person of success, but rather try to become a person of value.” Albert Einstein

“It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.” Charles Darwin

“Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people.” Eleanor Roosevelt

“The best revenge is massive success.” Frank Sinatra

“I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” Thomas Edison

“A successful man is one who can lay a firm foundation with the bricks others have thrown at him.” David Brinkley

“No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.” Eleanor Roosevelt

“The whole secret of a successful life is to find out what is one’s destiny to do, and then do it.” Henry Ford

“What seems to us as bitter trials are often blessings in disguise.” Oscar Wilde

“The distance between insanity and genius is measured only by success.” Bruce Feirstein

“Don’t be afraid to give up the good to go for the great.” John D. Rockefeller

“Happiness is a butterfly, which when pursued, is always beyond your grasp, but which, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you.” Nathaniel Hawthorne

“If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.” Albert Einstein

“There are two types of people who will tell you that you cannot make a difference in this world: those who are afraid to try and those who are afraid you will succeed.” Ray Goforth

“Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.” Arthur Ashe

“People ask, ‘What’s the best role you’ve ever played?’ The next one.” Kevin Kline

“I find that the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have.” Thomas Jefferson

“The starting point of all achievement is desire.” Napoleon Hill

“Success is the sum of small efforts, repeated day in and day out.” Robert Collier

“If you want to achieve excellence, you can get there today. As of this second, quit doing less-than-excellent work.” Thomas J. Watson

“All progress takes place outside the comfort zone.” Michael John Bobak

Nuggets taken from Seeds conference prt. 2

seeds conference 2015

This year attending the Seeds conference via Live StreamPass was great. It cost my church a fraction of the price for me to go and attend, travel, food, Hotel etc.. Instead I was able to watch from many places of my choosing ranging from a couple local coffee shops, to my porch.

Just as if I was there I picked up some great nuggets of wisdom, insight, and definitely quotable tidbits. I want to list some more of these below and hopefully you will find them as good as I did. You can also go to my first post with even more goodies that I picked up over here

* Good people rarely leave healthy organizations. @patricklencioni

* Teamwork allows us to build the healthiest possible organization.

* Jesus is LIFTED UP when you do things with excellence!

* How to make your church healthy:
1. Cohesive leadership team
2. Create clarity
3. Overcommunicate clarity
4. Reinforce clarity

* Discipline 1 of creating a healthy organization – Establish a cohesive leadership team

* Discipline 2 and 3 of creating a healthy organization – Create clarity and over communicate clarity.

* Over communicate clarity, people need to hear this over and over.

* People need to be reminded more than they need to be instructed. @patricklencioni

* Vulnerability is the best opportunity for growth. This only happens if the leader goes first

* When people in your organization can be emotionally buck naked with each other, it changes your culture for the better.

* “A healthy organization is one where people come and know that there’s NO politics.”
-Patrick Lencioni

* What makes Chick-fil-a special is not the sandwich it’s the culture.

* “People walk through walls of fire for leaders who know who they are.” @patricklencioni

* When we don’t recognize constructive conflict as good, it ferments conflict around them as people.

* You need to be competent, not perfect.

* If you have people who aren’t willing to grow then you have to be willing to let them go #leadership #churchgrowth

* If people don’t WEIGH in on a conversation/issue, they won’t BUY in. So don’t just SHARE info w/your people, let them SHAPE it.

* The primary source of accountability is the people on your team, not the leader of the team.

* Behavioral accountability trumps result accountability in #leadership & healthy #organizations.

* “As leaders we have to have the courage to hold leaders accountable for their behavior.”

* Minister upward, with the same love and dignity as we “minister-downward.”

* “My department is fine, your department isn’t my concern” it just takes one hole to sink a ship!

Leadership Handbook Book Review

Maxwell Leadership Hndbk.cover

The book, as its title suggests, The Leadership Handbook. 26 Critical Lessons Every Leader Needs, is broken into 26 “lessons.” These are short chapters that you can breeze through quickly, but try to resist the temptation to do so. What should be the goal is slow down and work methodically through them. Having the knowledge is great, but the application of that knowledge is what shows wisdom (this discipline of slowing down and application is what makes you a better leader). Maxwell suggests that emerging leaders read one chapter each week for 26 weeks, and he suggests experienced leaders to take two weeks per chapter — one week for you and one week to mentor someone else about the lesson.

If there was one big obstacle that kept creeping back in for me on not slowing down with the reading of this book was it had that familiar feel of, “I have read this before” and I was very familiar with the lessons and disciplines that were being taught in this book. Then it came to me, I was very familiar with most of this book already due to reading a earlier book of Maxwell’s titled: Leadership Gold. If you the reader are not familiar with Maxwell’s work, you will find the material in this book helpful. However, if you are familiar with his work, you might be disappointed as I was.

Maxwell remains an author that when he comes out with anything new, I will at least review what it is to be over as I hold out for him to bring some new Leadership truths again some day. He is a great story-teller, user of quotes, and has a writing style that I have enjoyed since I started down my purposeful leadership journey back in the early 90’s.

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher through the BookLookBloggers.com review program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

Less take in and more Application

socialmedia-mindset

If you’re anything like me, you’ve probably spent a fair bit of money on books, ebooks and course materials over the years.

You probably get a little giddy when you pick up a new book or sign up for an online course. You’re sure that you’re going to finally do something great.

The problem is, reading isn’t going to get you anywhere. You need to put what you read into action.

And that, for most of us, is the tough part.

Here’s how to put that learned information into practice:

#1: Keep a Reading Journal

When you finish a book, you probably put it straight back on the shelf. You might remember one or two key points, or recommend it to a friend – you might even re-read after a few months. But you don’t necessarily use what you’ve learned.

A reading journal gives you a space to reflect on books, while you’re reading them and after you’ve finished. You can use your journal to:

Jot down ideas that were new to you
Copy out any key sentences – especially any inspiring ones
Describe what you thought or felt about the book
Record any “aha” moments that occurred while reading

I enjoy using my Livescribe wifi pen because it allows me the extra help in remembering things by the physical art of writing and provides the tech side of syncing wirelessly to my Evernote. Evernote is my electronic brain.

#2: Decide on Action Items

Unless you’re engaged in academic study, you’re probably not reading for the sake of absorbing information. You’re reading because you want to do something.

Next time you finish a chapter of your book, or read a great blog post or magazine article, decide on one action that you could take as a result. Write it on your to-do list (I like todoist as my to do list builder) or move it to Evernote.

One small to-do item might not seem like anything worthwhile – but if you have one action per chapter, or one per article, then you’ll soon be making far faster progress than if you’d just read that material.

#3: Take a Real-Life Course

Online courses like those from Lynda.com are great for many reasons: they’re often cheap, you can take part from anywhere with an internet connection, and lessons will normally be recorded so that you don’t even have to show up at a particular time.

The drawback to this is that you may well find yourself signing up for courses, attending one lesson, and then drifting away.

#4: Form a Group

If you’ve got a couple of friends who’re working on a similar goal to you, get together with them and form a mastermind group. Get hold of copies of a good book/e-book/self-study course, and agree to read a certain amount each week.

Every week (or every couple of weeks), get together – face-to-face or on a video conference – and discuss what you’ve read. Make sure that every member states a specific action that they’re going to take during the next week.

When you meet again, start with a check-in so that members can report back on whether they achieved the goals that they set for themselves.

Having the support of like-minded friends – and a sense of accountability to them – will help you meet your goals faster.

3 Things having kids have taught me

child_learn

Having kids has truly been a joy and one of the best adventures I get to take part in. Saying all that I want to list 3 things that having kids has taught me.

Let’s begin:

1.Thinking time is the most precious resource

I have a new-found appreciation for the times when I have time and can collect my thoughts. I never knew how much I took this for granted until every minute of every waking hour (and a few half asleep ones too) was suddenly invaded. Now if all truth is told my wife is the one who may have suffered more with this because she is a stay at home mom, but boy she did great with it.

We simply cannot do good thinking when we’re being distracted all the time. Try writing a grocery list or type up a word document while a small child asks repeatedly “Can I get a drink yet?” and you might find yourself signing off “in that document with:
…”Until we meet again, Yes you can get a drink, I will get you some juice”

Equally, making space for thinking time in my work helps me to do my best work, handle curve balls and even have fun doing it.

Measure your work by impact, not hours

A parent I was counseling once in task management asked me, “how can I compete in business with other people who have more time?”

The answer is, in the same way that niche brands can take on the big boys. By being distinctive, selective and ruthless. Play on your strengths and leverage what you do well. Be incredibly focused on what has the most impact and creates the most value. Truly find what your Pareto principles lies. Don’t be all things to all people.

If I measure the work I do by the hours I put in, it may not look like much. But if I look at what I actually get done in that time, and crucially, the impact of my actions and not the amount of activity, I recognize my successes much more accurately.

My mind gets calibrated to what works well, and not what keeps me busy, and I measure my productivity by what creates value, and not what fills time.

2. Saying “No” gets easier with practice and a little creativity

Saying no is like exercising a muscle. The more you do it, the easier it gets. When you find yourself saying “no, you can’t have chocolate for breakfast” and “no it’s not time to open the Christmas gifts yet” all before 7am, you get a lot of regular practice at saying no.

You also find creative ways to say no.

If you tell a child not to run, the negative is harder to process, so “Don’t run!” becomes “Run!” Instead, when you say “Walk please!” their focus is pointed towards walking and not running.

Telling someone what they can do or have, can be much more compelling than telling them what they can’t.

In other words, say yes on your own terms:

“Yes, you can have chocolate after your dinner.”

“Yes, I’d love to help. I’ve got half an hour at 2pm. Shall we grab a coffee and talk then?”

“I can give you the quick and dirty version today or the polished product wrapped up by Friday next week. Which would you prefer?”

3. Margin is your best friend

Margin is the space between our load and our limits. It gives us flexibility to deal with work that overspills, technical glitches and emergency firefighting.

Margin is like air. You don’t miss it until it’s not there. When there’s less time available, it’s tempting to try to cram as much in as possible. But then it doesn’t take much — a phone call, a spilt drink on the floor or couch, a missing shoe right before you leave the house, — for everything to spiral out of control.

And it’s not just a survival tactic. It also gives us space to explore opportunities we could never have planned for, to be captivated by a perfect sunset or a child’s first step. Margin makes life richer.

There are the 3 lessons having kids have taught me. These 3 are great lessons to help in life as well. Have you had any specific lessons learned from any season of your life?

Leadership Lessons Book review

Leadership Lessons book cover

Ralph Hawkins and Richard Parrott shine some light on the life of Saul, Israel’s first king and expose the tragic leadership failures of the man whom God chose to be the earthly leader of His people. Although King Saul is credited with some small successes, the authors term his overall reign as a “net-negative”. Bringing up the point that

it is not so much how you start but how you will finish.

Hawkins and Parrott list the ten areas where King Saul suffered leadership failure. These pitfalls are:

1. Saul Failed to Handle Authority Humbly.
2. Saul Failed to Break Out of His Tendency to Isolate Himself.
3. Saul Failed to Think Before He Spoke.
4. Saul Failed to Act When the Time Was Right.
5. Saul Failed to Lead the People, but Let Them Lead Him Instead.
6. Saul Failed to Promote or Make Necessary Changes.
7. Saul Failed to Love the People.
8. Saul Failed to A Be True to His Own Ethics.
9. Saul Failed to Admit Failure or Concede to David.
10. Saul Failed to Consult God.

In Leadership Lessons: Dr. Ralph Hawkins and Dr. Richard Parrott offer a practical leadership guide with proven steps that could help anyone in a leadership role. They tell the stories of King Saul’s leadership missteps and connect those stories with the challenges facing today’s leaders. In our current climate of rapid change, intense competition, you will find valuable advice that will give your leadership a firm foundation.

A quick run down comparison of Saul’s pitfalls and many Children’s pastors same pitfalls.
1. Handle authority humbly. Many cp’s once given more responsibility by their senior pastors begin to lord things over the same people who earlier on were treated like responsible co-team members
2. Isolate themselves. Get so busy with their ministry and separated from rest of church it creates isolation. The children’s pastor doesn’t change this.
3. Think before he speaks. Enough said on this one.
5. Not leading but being led. Often times cp’s can get so tired they don’t have the energy to lead like they have been called to and instead will go with the flow of the most vocal ones.
6. Not making changes. Again see earlier downfall and the cause can be the same, tired.
7. Not loving people. Due to various reasons, we can often times see people as here to carry out “our ministry” not the ministry here to help complete the people. Fall in love with he people or the first will happen quickly.
8-10, go ahead and complete the comparison. There are many!

This will prove to be another good leadership resource to add to my book shelf.

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher through the BookLook Bloggers book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 : “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising

You do not, not have time to read.

books

I have heard and I am sure you have too, “Leaders are readers…” and with the amount we have all heard and read this one statement, I must believe there is some truth to this. Actually I whole heartily believe this.

You need to develop an appetite for life-long learning. In today’s world with all of our great technology like the internet, e-books, blogs on every imaginable topic under the sun, and all of this just a click away with the device all of us hold in our hands from phones, tablets, and laptops, there is truly no excuse to not read.

If you think you don’t have time to read, think about this:

Reading just an hour a day adds years of experience and research to your life. You actually gain time by reading. Time you would have spent doing something the wrong way.

And that just scratches the surface at the benefits of reading.

Reading expands our minds.
Reading provides access to mentors who may not be with us anymore.
Reading allows you to travel places you may never get to go to otherwise.
Reading ignites our passion as we get to link dreams with others.
Reading frees us to learn about anything our hearts desire.
Reading clarifies our thinking as we connect with someone who has traveled further.
Reading fuels our creativity as we are challenged by someone taking one of our thoughts further.
Reading helps us lead more effectively and efficiently.

If you aren’t in the habit of regular daily reading, I suggest you take out your calendar and make an appointment with yourself and a good book or e-book everyday. Start your day or end your day this way, it doesn’t matter as long as you do it.

First let me say upfront, one book that we all should be reading is the Bible. This blog post is assuming that you are already starting there. So now, let’s add to your reading.

Sir Francis Bacon’s advice on reading says it best:

“Some books are to be tested, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested.”

Books.

Some of the books I have spent some time chewing and digesting for a various amount of reasons:

Start here: “11 Books that have caused change in my life”.

Here is the list of books that I have on my iPad Kindle that I still have yet to read.
1. Tech Savvy Parenting
2. Creative Teaching Methods
3. Bit Literacy

Blogs

There are so many good blogs on the internet that you can learn from an expert in just about anything. And best of all, you don’t have to pay for it!

If you don’t read blogs, you are missing out. Get yourself a free Feedly Reader account. Get an app for blog reading on the go (I use feedly here as well). Then, find good blogs about topics that interest you.

Here is a list of the top 100 Kidmin blogs to help you get started. Notice this blog post has been in the list and steadily moving up over the last couple of years.

Now go and start your reading.

Get the LEAD out – Strategic Execution

planning

When I was younger I would always hear from my parents, “Todd you better get the lead out!” I always wondered what that really meant.

According to the Free Dictionary it means: “get the lead out and shake the lead out
Inf. to hurry; to move faster. (This originally refers to getting lead weights (used in exercise) off so you can move faster.)”

Here is a quick formula to “Get the lead out” with your execution plan.

L=Leverage. Do you have the right people in the driver seats to carry out your strategic priorities?

E-Enviroment. Have you created the right atmosphere and culture that will allow your people the ability to support your priorities?

A=Alignement. Do each of your team members agendas move them toward your ministries final goals?

D-Drive. Does your team have the ability to quickly move once the first 3 pieces of this formula are in place?

In closing, maybe you answered no to some of the above formula, what then?

Well, if you said no to the Leverage piece then you will need to work on your Talent/Resource side.

If you said no to Environment, then you have a Cultural/Engagement issue.

If no to Alignment, then work on your Communication/Productivity.

Lastly if no to Drive, then your Speed/Agility.

So, want to succeed, Then Get the lead out.

Top 20 Improvements I’ve Made Due to Kidology Coaching

kidology coaching coaches

Every weekend our churches are filled with those who have the responsibility of ministering to our children, connecting with and resourcing the parents, equipping those who are also responsible to help reach children and the list of responsibilities just goes on and on.

You may call these wonderful gifts to your churches: Children’s pastors, Children’s directors, Kidmin ministers etc.. With the responsibility that these people carry out many churches have figured out that it is wisdom to make sure they are equipped, developed, trained and ready, to carry out all that they are expected to do with excellence. These expectations and responsibilities have evolved beyond what our colleges are preparing leaders for.

It is this group of children’s pastors that I have had the privilege of being part of for 22+ years. For the last 3-4 years I have also had the privilege of formally coaching those in this group.

Here is a top 20 list that Andy Partington, one of these great children’s pastors have put together as he reflected over his last year of coaching with me before he went into our graduate coaching program.

1) I am seen as a pastor and parental help to the families in my
congregation more and a facilitator of children’s programming less.
2) I have put in place a volunteer training schedule that doesn’t burn
out volunteers while still maintaining growth.
3) I use my time intentionally.
4) I integrate Gospel presentations into each ministry setting.
5) My goals are clearly defined and communicated.
6) I know how to appreciate and affirm my team: My team clearly
knows that they are a special part of our ministry.
7) My meetings are awesome: Each meeting has a purpose and flow.
If it didn’t we wouldn’t have it.
8) I know what the acronym S.M.A.R.T stands for and I now live by it.
9) I know that I can manage tasks instead of time.
10) I know how to present good news and bad news to my fellow
staff members.
11) I now have a ministry team instead of a committee.
12) I now work with leaders instead of workers.
13) I know how to have fun with my staff and with the kids that I
minister too.
14) My “bag of tricks” is open to other people in ministry. What I’ve
learned just could help someone else and I’m glad to share.
15) I delegate. I wasn’t designed to do 100% of tasks. There is 20%
out there with my name on it.
16) My ministry is geared to do that one thing that we were meant to do.
17) I know how to help people find their “one thing”.
18) Multiplication isn’t just for grade school math classes. It’s a regular
process in my ministry.
19) I listen to parents.
20) I know how to learn from anyone I come into contact with.

If you would like to enjoy more growth personally and with your ministry I want to invite you to join coaching or a new avenue that many will find useful as well online training for your team. It’s not just your future that depends on it.

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