If you were a stock, would you buy or sell? Would you short sell or tend to stay in for the long term? What truly is your valuation? Has your overall “worth” as an employee, father, son, daughter, wife, child gone up or down in the last year?
A friend asked me this the other day, and it got me thinking. Something to ponder for the weekend.
Listen to an interview I recently did with Dino Rizzo, pastor of Healing Place Church in Baton Rouge, LA. Dino has become a great friend, and I don’t know of another leader around the country who is more intentional about serving and his church serving the community than Dino. It is part of their DNA at Healing Place. They don’t just serve to check it off the list- serving is not an event to them, it is an identity.
If you haven’t heard about the 7 Days of Servolution, then check it out. A great cause with over 250 churches participating around the world next week leading up to Easter. Serving together in partnership in their individual communities.
Here are a few things I am learning right now, over the last month:
1. having a great reputation doesn’t mean anything unless you can execute and fulfill the latest “promise” to your customers or network.
2. No one should ever underestimate the potential of someone who is strongly motivated, for good or for worse.
3. The more and more I seek to understand others, the greater clarity I have in understanding myself.
4. If I don’t exercise, I get fat. Duh. If I eat crappy food, I feel crappy. Duh even more.
5. Busyness is not getting things done. Focus is getting things done. And sometimes getting things done requires me to carve out significant windows of time for thinking, which to most people looks unproductive and not like focus. But as a leader, I crave times to think, and not just respond/execute.
6. Leaders, by their very positional influence, but also because of their DNA and hard-wired skillsets, are both obligated and expected to make the hard decisions. Deal with it. But don’t gloat in it.
7. When I think of someone or God prompts a memory of someone or a moment that was significant in my life, if I stop and give them a call or write an email or send a text immediately- right at that moment, it always seems to be a great decision and have great outcomes. The key is to act immediately.
8. Keeping strong relational equity with friends or co-workers more than 10 years is a big deal. Family is expected, but friends of longer than 10 years is rare and a huge blessing.
9. Team members who are highly trustworthy and who can get it done are the most valuable employees in any organization. Someone who I tell something once and then know I don’t have to worry about it again- priceless in my book.
10. Many great companies continue to go out of business during this season because of bad cash flow management. Strong potential, but bad business skills and savvy, are crushing thousands and thousands of people right now.
I read about 50 books a year, and usually skim about 45 of those. Rarely do I read a book from start to finish. But Chasing Francis by Ian Cron was one I couldn’t put down.
Probably not a book for everyone. And you’re not going to get 10 steps to this or the next 3 great leadership principles. But you’ll be asking questions, pondering, thinking, and laughing out loud. Ian is a great writer.