The Importance of Knowing Life Purpose
Filed under: Core Values, Family Ministry, Leadership Callling, Life Balance, Marriage, Personal Development, Time Management
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.
My Boss Does Not Get It
I spoke this week at an annual conference for the utility industry on the subject of change. The major takeaway was that when this recession cycle is over we are never going back to the way things used to be.
The world has permanently changed the way we live and especially the way we work. The power of technology and the globalization of world economies are driving change in an unprecedented way.
At the end of both my presentations we had a question and answer session. The dominant question from everyone was what do you do when you know change needs to occur but your boss either does not see the need or simply will not give up on the status quo?
The first thing you must do is to continue to respectfully continue to tell the truth. The moment you give up and become a yes man you have stopped doing your job.
The second thing you must do is check your motives. At the end of the day if I have tried to be helpful and share my perspective in the right way then I can go home knowing I did it right.
The third thing is to realize that it is not in your job description to change your boss any more than it is to change your mate at home. When we hit the wall is when we assume responsibility that was not given to us and become frustrated when the people above us don’t seem to get it.
After several months of respectfully communicating what you see from your perspective and nothing seems to be changing and you get the impression that they don’t want to hear it anymore. The you must realize that in the end you will either change the corporate culture you are working in or if you stay too long it will change you.
When I have reached this point the change that needs to occur is not in my boss but where I am working. I will not settle for a paycheck becasue the world is in a mess and I want to make a difference.
Creating Margin
Filed under: Family Ministry, Leadership Callling, Life Balance, Marriage, Parenting, Personal Development, Time Management
A simple definition of margin is the space between our load and our limits. It is the opposite of overload because you will have something in reserve for a time when you will need it.
Richard Swenson wrote an incredible book entitled Margin to help us learn how to restore emotional, physical, financial and time reserves to our overscheduled lives. Of all these important areas he believes everything must start with our emotional energy.
Every day we only have so much emotional energy to give to our family, work, friends and other people. Most of these people are making withdrawals from our emotional bank accounts and if we are not careful we become overdrawn with nothing left to give.
We must start each day knowing our emotional balance and then set limits on those people and things that will tend to drain us to the point of experiencing the pain of being overwhelmed. He lists several things that can restore your emotional energy:
1. Cultivate Social Supports
2. Reconcile Relationships
3. Serve One Another
4. Rest
5. Laugh
6. Offer Thanks
7. Grant Grace
8. Be Rich in Faith
9. Hold Fast Hope
10. Envision a Better Future
Some of the emotional drainers in life cannot be avoided but when you build in things that make deposits then you can routinely within your day monitor your balance and make the necessary adjustments to maintain margin.
We must find ways in this wired world we live in to have peace of mind so that we have something left to give to the people that matter the most.
Weisure Lifestyle
Filed under: Leadership Callling, Life Balance, Personal Development, Time Management
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.
Twitter Power
I just read this book by Joel Comm on how to dominate your market one tweet at a time. I am really just beginning to understand all the dynamics of social media so I am trying to read all I can.
All social media seems to be trying to either build community on the one hand or build market share on the other. When I see that was a good hamburger tweet or please follow me so I can reach 1,000 followers tweets both seem to add little value.
Occasionally I come across people that really seem to want to help other people by supplying helpful information and encourage them in some personal way. When I find this I think it is extremely positive.
This is a very good book for someone who not only wants to know the basics of microblogging but how can this very powerful tool be used to its maximum potential. Social media in its simplest form is content that has been created by its audience.
In one sense twitter is very restrictive with its 140 characters max on each tweet. However, that small message can reach thousands of people in a matter of seconds and then be resent to thousands of other people all over the world.
My first month on twitter has been a very good experience even as I continue to learn something new every day. It forces me to think about major subjects in very succinct and relevant ways and that has to be a good thing for anyone who wants to communicate information that other people really want and need.
Circle of Influence
Filed under: Leadership Callling, Life Balance, Personal Development, Personnel Development
Several years ago Stephen Covey wrote one of the all time best selling leadership books The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. It is a book that I have read several times and refer to often.
The first habit in the book is to be proactive and take responsibility for leading our own lives. He writes, “It means that as human beings, we are responsible for our own lives. Our behavior is a function of our decisions, not our conditions. We can subordinate feelings to values.”
One of the most practical tips for doing this on a daily basis is what he calls the circle of concern in our lives vs. the circle of influence. The circle of concern represents all the things we really care about but have no control over to change the outcome. If we are not careful we can spend most of our day here with nothing to show for all the emotional effort.
The circle of influence though contains all the things that are important to us as well but we do have the ability to control the outcome. When we focus on what we cannot control during the day that just means there were many things that should and could be done that were not.
The amazing thing about this principle is that the more you prioritize the things you can do and start accomplishing them the things you cannot control proportionally diminish in their importance.
When we are doing the things we know we should do it not only allows us to accomplish something but it also gives us the needed perspective to deal with all the things that are beyond our control.
To quote another Covey principle: WIN WIN
Promises We Make
Filed under: Core Values, Family Ministry, Personal Development
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.
Feedback
One of the most successful executive coaches in the country is Marshall Goldsmith. He wrote a great book that I would highly recommend What Got You Here Won’t Get You There.
The simple thesis of the book is you competency and skill set is what has got you to where you are now as far as promotions are concerned. What it will take to get you where you need to be in the highly participative leadership culture of the future will be your people skills. This area is where the overwhelming majority of executive men and women hit the wall.
A key tool in helping people with people skill problems is to use some form of 360-degree feedback. This should involve superiors, peers as well as subordinates and sometimes even clients.
If you are one of the executives that clearly sends the message that I don’t like bad news and you consistently shoot the messenger who delivers it then you are probably in the dark about all your serious blind spots.
Everyone involved in the process must commit to the following four things:
1. Let go of the past-forgive.
2. Tell the truth-even if it hurts.
3. Be supportive and helpful-not cynical or negative.
4. Pick something to improve yourself-so everyone is focused more on “improving” than “judging.”
Feedback will tell us what we need to change. Then the moment of truth, Are we willing to do it?
How Much Is Enough?
Filed under: Core Values, Financial Stewardship, Life Balance, Personal Development
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.
What To Do When You Are Stuck
When some people face dramatic change they choose to live in denial as if this is not really happening to me. On the other extreme others know the change is real to the point of becoming emotionally depressed about their new state of life.
The common sometimes fatal result of both of these mindsets is the paralysis of inactivity. We don’t want to get out of bed, go to work or even talk with anyone.
We must, as Jim Collins said of effective leadership in Good to Great, be willing to confront the brutal facts that sometimes I cannot return to my life the way it used to be.
I must assume personal responsibility to change myself first and start leading myself by making good daily decisions before my life can begin to turn around in different direction. The only way to do that is to do what you can with what you have right where you are and do it today with all your heart.
Change always produces movement. If we let it this movement can be downward and very destructive. The only way to stop this negative cycle is to start doing the simple things that you are able to do right now that will allow you to accomplish something good today.
You must get on offense and use the power of movement produced by activity to turn your life in a new positive direction. You must take some risk today by raising your sails and doing the clear things you know need to be done before you can ever feel the movement produced by the wind taking you to a better place.