Category: Leadership

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Who Knows Your Name?

One of my favorite songs on my iPod is Boston by Augustana. It came out in the summer of 2007. Here are some of the lyrics:

You don’t know me and you don’t even care

You don’t know me and you don’t wear my chains

I think I’ll go to Boston

I’ll think I’ll start a new life

I think I’ll start it over

Where no one knows my name

I think that I’m just tired

I think I need a new town

To leave this all behind

Cause you don’t know me and you don’t even care

You don’t know me and you don’t wear my chains

No one knows my name


If you listen carefully you can hear the pain. We all crave to be known, for people to know our name and to be accepted and loved. When that is missing in our lives we want to disappear, because we already feel invisible. Many people are feeling this way. Feeling lost, hurt, broken like no one cares. Even the smallest thing can convey to a person that they matter, that they are worth noticing.


If you are feeling like no one cares, it sounds intriguing to go to a new city and start over, however all of your baggage goes with you. It won’t be long until some of the same old patterns start popping up again. That is why it is so important to work through your conflicts, your hurts, your hangups and your bad habits.


This song is also a reminder to all of us to pay attention to the people around us. Are you interested enough in the people you meet to remember their names. Calling someone by name is huge. We all love to hear our own names. This is an area I can certainly work on. I have my good days and my bad days. Mostly we struggle with peoples names, because we are not really listening to the people we meet and really don’t care. We are usually too busy to take the time to get to know someone. When you get to know them, you remember their names.


This week try to call more people by name. Reach out and do something kind for someone. Make an investment in the life of someone you may not have noticed before. Maybe its the quiet guy at work or the elderly lady in your neighborhood.


Also don’t run from your baggage, face it and deal with it. Get involved in a small group, take the initiative to get connected with other people. Just like “Cheers” used to say on TV – We all want to go where everyone knows your name. Find a church that you feel is accepting and inviting. The really cool thing is that God knows each of our names, he never forgets.

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If You Don’t Know, You Can’t Care

Over the past month I have been challenged in multiple ways to examine what I really care about. It started when I heard this quote: “If you don’t know you can’t care”. How true is that? You are not going to care about something you don’t know about. You are not going to care about someone you don’t know.

So I started asking myself, what do you really care about? What do I think about all the time? What do you talk about? Where do I spend most of my free time? What do I make time for? Where do I spend my money?

It is very easy to live in our own little world and not care about anything outside of that. If we ignore the things around us like poverty, divorce, abuse, addictions, hunger and homelessness it does not just go away.

This weekend I went to our Free Methodist Annual conference. One of the reports was on how the Free Methodist church can reach out and make a difference with the poor, hurting and disenfranchised people around us. We heard many stories about efforts to make a difference. Food pantries, homeless shelters, food delivery, church in a local park in a poor neighborhood. It was exciting to hear that, yet I thought we can do more, I can do more. God has been working on my heart, breaking my heart for people in poverty, people struggling with addictions, people experiencing divorce and separation, families being torn apart. Those invisible people that are feeling abandoned and alone, hurting and hopeless.

I want my church, NewPointe, to be known as the church that cares, that takes the time to listen, that takes the time to invest in one person and one family at a time. Together we can impact our community in a profound and real way. It will take a new way of thinking and a new way of leading. I am praying and asking God to direct me in how we can make a bigger, longer lasting impact in peoples lives. Helping people become healthy, physically, emotionally, relationally, and spiritually. What do you care about? Who do you care about? What breaks your heart?

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PDA

Here are some insights from Mark Sanborn on leadership. Mark was a speaker at the Maximum Impact Simulcast last Friday. He has a new book out called “Encore Effect”.

What if you were so good at your work, such an asset to your company (or family), such a remarkable leader that your boss (or spouse) or board of directors would do almost anything not to lose you to a competitor.

PDA stands for Performance Development Agenda. He challenged us to think two levels up instead of just one. Try to think about being a more remarkable performer, thinking two levels up. Be a more remarkable person, understanding who we are is critical. Help others become more remarkable, help others surpass themselves.

Mark said that both passion and process are needed for success. Passion is not enough, you need a process. This is the process he described:

  • Prepare – This is where remarkable performances always begin. You prepare for what you love. How are you preparing for your performance at work and life?
  • Practice – It won’t make you perfect, but it will always make you better. Learn to summarize critical activities and learn essential skills. Ten thousand hours of practice leads to greatness. Some critical activities of leadership include persuading, vision-casting, coaching, communicating and executing. Are you practicing your critical activities and skills?
  • Perform – This is where preparation and practice payoff. Great performers move people to act, think, feel good and laugh.
  • Pitfalls – Avoid them when you can and be prepared to handle them when you can’t. Most pitfalls can be avoided. Remarkable is not perfection, it is being authentic and real in the midst of pitfalls.
  • Polish – Good is never good enough, keep polishing and improving every aspect of what you do, so that your next performance is even more remarkable than your last.

School is never out for the encore performer. Passion is the fuel for remarkable performances.

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Simulcast

I have been sitting in the Maximum Impact Simulcast at NewPointe today. I just finished listening to Liz Murray talk about her story of going from being homeless to attending Harvard. What an amazing story of growth. Her parents were both drug addicts and they lived in welfare her entire childhood. She described going days without food, eating ice because it felt like eating food. Splitting a tube of toothpaste with her sister and on.

She talked about making empowering decisions or dis-empowering decisions. Those moments in time when we can go either way. She said that self-pity will always lead us to dis-empowering decisions. After losing her mother to AIDS, she started to realize that she had to change something. She started to make empowering choices, like going to school, working hard, getting up ever morning. She ended up applying for a scholarship and getting it, which allowed her to get into Harvard.

Hearing her story was worth the entire day. You can check out her website to learn more. You can also learn more at this site as well.

Also heard from Linda Kaplan Thaler, John Maxwell, Kevin Carroll, Tony Blair, Al Weiss (Disney CEO), Mark Sanborn, Jack Nicklaus and Bill George. More on some of them later.

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Living Life

I have been reading the Message version of the Bible. Today I read Colossians. Chapter three is one of my favorite parts of the Bible. There is such good instruction on living life and how to handle our relationships and our work. Reading this really challenged me today and I hope it will challenge you as well. Take some time and read this several times. Ask God to speak to you about your life.

Colossians Chapter 3:

“So if you’re serious about living this new resurrection life with Christ, act like it. Pursue the things over which Christ presides. Don’t shuffle along, eyes to the ground, absorbed with the things right in front of you. Look up, and be alert to what is going on around Christ—that’s where the action is. See things from his perspective.

3-4Your old life is dead. Your new life, which is your real life—even though invisible to spectators—is with Christ in God. He is your life. When Christ (your real life, remember) shows up again on this earth, you’ll show up, too—the real you, the glorious you. Meanwhile, be content with obscurity, like Christ.

5-8And that means killing off everything connected with that way of death: sexual promiscuity, impurity, lust, doing whatever you feel like whenever you feel like it, and grabbing whatever attracts your fancy. That’s a life shaped by things and feelings instead of by God. It’s because of this kind of thing that God is about to explode in anger. It wasn’t long ago that you were doing all that stuff and not knowing any better. But you know better now, so make sure it’s all gone for good: bad temper, irritability, meanness, profanity, dirty talk.

9-11Don’t lie to one another. You’re done with that old life. It’s like a filthy set of ill-fitting clothes you’ve stripped off and put in the fire. Now you’re dressed in a new wardrobe. Every item of your new way of life is custom-made by the Creator, with his label on it. All the old fashions are now obsolete. Words like Jewish and non-Jewish, religious and irreligious, insider and outsider, uncivilized and uncouth, slave and free, mean nothing. From now on everyone is defined by Christ, everyone is included in Christ.

12-14So, chosen by God for this new life of love, dress in the wardrobe God picked out for you: compassion, kindness, humility, quiet strength, discipline. Be even-tempered, content with second place, quick to forgive an offense. Forgive as quickly and completely as the Master forgave you. And regardless of what else you put on, wear love. It’s your basic, all-purpose garment. Never be without it.

15-17Let the peace of Christ keep you in tune with each other, in step with each other. None of this going off and doing your own thing. And cultivate thankfulness. Let the Word of Christ—the Message—have the run of the house. Give it plenty of room in your lives. Instruct and direct one another using good common sense. And sing, sing your hearts out to God! Let every detail in your lives—words, actions, whatever—be done in the name of the Master, Jesus, thanking God the Father every step of the way.

18Wives, understand and support your husbands by submitting to them in ways that honor the Master.

19Husbands, go all out in love for your wives. Don’t take advantage of them.

20Children, do what your parents tell you. This delights the Master no end.

21Parents, don’t come down too hard on your children or you’ll crush their spirits.

22-25Servants, do what you’re told by your earthly masters. And don’t just do the minimum that will get you by. Do your best. Work from the heart for your real Master, for God, confident that you’ll get paid in full when you come into your inheritance. Keep in mind always that the ultimate Master you’re serving is Christ. The sullen servant who does shoddy work will be held responsible. Being a follower of Jesus doesn’t cover up bad work.”

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Leader’s Leading

This week I got the privilege of sitting in a room with business leader’s from our community. We are talking about the idea of a leadership development program at NewPointe. We identified a problem, a lack of leader’s, and are working on changing that. Right now we are talking about the vision statement and mission statement.

This was a very interesting evening and I got a chance to see some quality leaders in action. We shared thoughts, ideas and even had some disagreement. I believe that for great things to happen you need to go through meetings like this. It can seem tedious and mundane at times, but until you can identify the problem and articulate the vision, which is a preferred future, you can’t make progress.

I am very excited about the potential of this leadership development program. This will not only help our local church, but also our community. Each leader that grows will have more influence in their families, communities, workplaces and schools.

Leadership is so important. Without great leadership things don’t happen. Things don’t change and people don’t grow. Leadership is about influence and relationships. It is about motivating people to do things they wouldn’t otherwise do and like it. I know that I need to continue to grow as a leader, and my desire is to help other leaders continue to grow as well. When you stop growing you won’t be leading very long.

I hope to be able to share some more soon about the NewPointe Leadership Academy.

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Monday Life Lessons

Here are some life lessons from Proverbs to start your week:

Proverbs 3:5-6: Depending on your own wisdom obstructs God’s better plans for your life.

Proverbs 4:23: Your hearts affections determine your life’s direction. God’s Word keeps your heart pure and safe.

Proverbs 5:1-23: Beware of pursuing a cheap alternative to the blessings a faithful marriage can bring. Evil always tempts us to settle for less than God’s best.

Proverbs13:7: Live by godly priorities. What seems worthless to fools is often valuable to the righteous; what fools pursue is often meaningless in God’s eyes.

Proverbs 16:16 – “How much better to get wisdom than gold!”

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Questions

One of the things I do is coach and mentor people toward change. One way I try to do that is by asking good questions. Questions that get people thinking. Questions that challenge people or bring reality to a situation.

I just read this quote from a book I finished tonight called Becoming A Coaching Leader by Daniel Harkavy. “Powerful questioning enables you to go from head to heart. Habits change only when convictions change or are clarified. Most people will not change their habits simply because they have the necessary knowledge. They won’t make a change until they have hurt enough, heard enough, or had enough – all heart-level experiences.”

When you help people reach that point where they are ready for heart change, incredible things can happen. I can usually tell fairly early in a session with someone if they are really ready to make changes. Asking the right questions can help them take a step closer to a decision to make a real lasting change. Most people tend to hang onto bad habits, prolong bad decisions and ignor destructive behavior until the pain becomes too great to ignor..

This book has been an incredible tool for me to grow as a leader. I am trying to implement some of the things I have learned. I am working on a Life Plan, a Ministry/Business Vision and Plan and Priority Management. I want to be able to coach other people in doing these same things to become more effective in life and work.

Here are a few questions for you to think about:

  • What are the top three regrets you have today with regard to your personal and professional life?
  • If you could go back to school to learn a new skill or trade, what would it be?
  • What would you say are the top two or three greatest limiting factors in your career or your life?
  • What is the one thing you would most like to see improve in the year ahead?
  • Rate your personal life on a scale of one to ten
  • Rate your physical life on a scale of one to ten.
  • Rate you spiritual life on a scale of one to ten.

Keep Growing and changing. Don’t wait for the pain to intensify before you start to make changes in your life, your habts and your behaviors. Start with little things and build on that. If you need help making those changes, find a coach or a mentor to help you.

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StarLight School

Last week I had the honor of hearing and seeing the vision for Starlight School in New Philadelphia Ohio. Last year NewPointe Community Church donated funds to all the area schools systems including Starlight. Starlight used the funds we gave them to purchase a “Smart Board” or white board. They use this as an interactive learning tool for the kids. I was able to meet some of the staff and got a tour of the facility. I left very impressed with the staff and leadership at Starlight. They are dedicated and passionate about helping children with learning disabilities. What a tremendous asset they are to our community. I hope we can continue to work with them in impacting families and children in Tuscarawas County.

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This Week

This week I want to move from reactive to proactive, from unfocused to focused, from unclear to clarity, from being driven by circumstances to being directed by purpose.

To do that I must carve out time to work “on” things and also schedule time time to work “in” things. What I mean by that is this: “On” time is when you step back and take a look at the big picture. It’s like getting into a helicopter and taking a look from above. It’s when you spend time thinking, observing, planning, prioritizing, reading and studying. This is a time for self-development and identifying where your blind spots are. It’s a time of putting your strategy together for the coming days, weeks and months. It’s sharpening your ax.

“In” time is also important. That’s when you do administrative things. The day-to-day stuff that needs to get done. The reports that need completed, the emails, voice mails, notes, memos and meetings. It’s doing the laundry, washing the dishes and sweeping the carpet. “In” time is a vital part of every leader’s day. If you don’t pay attention to the details some of the time you lose track of things and balls get dropped.

So this week I am going to work on a better balance of “on” time and “in” time. The only way to do that is to think ahead and plan out your week. By planning out your week, you bring clarity, purpose and focus to the things you are doing.

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