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Giving
Most of us believe that it really is better to give than to receive. Whenever we volunteer in the community, donate to a cause, enjoy the sleepless nights of parenthood, or take time to listen to someone’s story, we remember that it’s true. Funny how easy it is to forget that, though. It’s easy to…
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Finding Your Voice
Donald Miller says that the first stage in writing a book is finding your voice. That might be true of writing a book, on a micro level, but it’s also true of being a writer in general. You need to find your voice. If you’re a leader, an artist, a musician, a speaker, whatever, you…
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Bunting for Singles
I played baseball ever summer as a teenager. I was an average player, but a left-handed thrower, so I automatically got to pitch and play first base. I never really enjoyed going up to bat because of the pressure to do something great to help my team. One season I remember being particularly frustrated because…
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Give to Love
I’ve been reflecting on this quote for the past couple weeks. I like it because it’s counter intuitive. Normally when we talk about why we love someone, we refer to the things we get from them or how they make us feel. But that’s not actually how love works. The more we invest, the more…
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To Build a Cathedral
We all want to build a cathedral, something great, lasting and awe-inspiring. The thing that’s too easy to forget – amidst our cleaning up messes, taking care of details and our inbox, going back to the drawing board, checking items off our checklists – is that every cathedral was built by a million small bricks,…
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Be Enchanting
Enchantment – turning cynics into believers, causing voluntary change of hearts and minds, winning over true fans – isn’t just for slick salespeople and charismatic leaders. If you want to make an impact, change the world, or give a great presentation, you need to learn how to enchant your co-workers, clients and audience. Guy Kawasaki…
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Loving People
We don’t love people so much for the good they have done us, as for the good we have done them. Leo Tolstoy
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8 Minutes
Doing great work requires focus, and you need to be intentional to create time to focus. In any classic bank robbery film, there’s always a safe to crack. As the leaders of the heist put their team together, they always need to find the ex-locksmith guy who will know how to crack this particular latest-technology…
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Perpetual Harvest
I once heard that in the Netherlands, because of over-worked farmland, vegetables now contain about half the nutritional value that they used to. I wonder how many of us are giving less the full “nutritional value” into our work and relationships because we’re over-worked. Our “always on” culture seems to amplify the importance of working,…
