Archive for personal growth
Enlarging others
Posted by: | CommentsTeam members always love and admire a player who is able to help them go to another level, someone who enlarges them and empowers them to be successful.
Players who enlarge their teammates have several things in common:
- Enlargers value their teammates: Your teammates can tell whether you believe in them. People’s performances usually reflect the expectations of those they respect.
- Enlargers value what their teammates value: Players who enlarge others listen to discover what their teammates talk about and watch to see what they spend their money on. That kind of knowledge, along with a desire to relate to their fellow players, creates a strong connection.
- Enlargers add value to their teammates: Adding value is really the essence of enlarging others. It’s finding ways to help others improve their abilities and attitudes. An enlarger looks for the gifts, talents, and uniqueness in other people, and then helps them to increase those abilities.
- Enlargers make themselves more valuable: Enlargers work to make themselves better, not only because it benefits them personally, but also because it helps them to help others. If you want to increase the ability of a teammate, make yourself better.
How do your teammates see you? Are you an enlarger? Do you make them better than they are alone through your inspiration and contribution? Do you know what your teammates value? Do you capitalize on those things by adding value to them in those areas?
Take some specific steps to enlarge your teammates today.
The benefits of mistakes
Posted by: | CommentsI recently shared a few quotes on mistakes here. And based on the comments, they seemed to strike a chord for many of you. I believe you can’t have too much instruction on the value of mistakes. So I thought I’d share one of my favorite illustrations on the subject. This is quoted in my book, Failing Forward
Working artists David Bayles and Ted Orland, in their book, Art & Fear: Observations On the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking
The ceramics teacher announced on opening day that he was dividing the class into two groups. All those on the left side of the studio, he said, would be graded solely on the quantity of work they produced, all those on the right solely on its quality. His procedure was simple: on the final day of class he would bring in his bathroom scales and weigh the work of the “quantity” group: fifty pounds of pots rated an “A,” forty pounds a “B,” and so on. Those being graded on “quality,” hoever, needed to produce only one pot – albeit a perfect one – to get an “A.” Well, came grading time and a curious fact emerged: the works of the highest quality were all produced by the group being graded for quantity. It seems that while the “quantity” group was busily churning out piles of work – and learning from their mistakes – the “quality” group had sat theorizing about perfection, and in the end had little more to show for their efforts than grandiose theories and a pile of dead clay.
It doesn’t matter whether your objectives are in the area of art, business, ministry, sports, or relationships. The only way you can get ahead is to fail early, fail often, and fail forward.
How does today impact tomorrow’s success?
Posted by: | CommentsEveryone wants to have a good day, but not many people know what a good day looks like – much less how to create one. And even fewer people understand how the way you live today impacts your tomorrow.
Have you ever asked someone what he was doing and heard him respond, “Oh, I’m just killing time”? Have you ever really thought about that statement? A person might as well say, “I’m throwing away my life,” because, as Benjamin Franklin asserted, time is “the stuff life is made of.” Today is the only time we have within our grasp, yet many people let it slip through their fingers. They recognize neither today’s value nor its potential.
If we want to do something with our lives, then we must focus on today. That’s where tomorrow’s success lies. But how do you win today? How do you make today a great day instead of one that falls to pieces? Here’s the missing piece:
The secret of your success is determined by your daily agenda.
It all comes down to what you do today. Now I don’t mean your “to-do” list. Nor am I asking you to adopt a particular kind of calendar or computer program to manage your time. I’m focusing on something bigger. I want you to embrace what may be a whole new approach to life:
Make the decision once, then manage it daily.
There are only a handful of important decisions that people need to make in their entire lifetimes. Does that surprise you? Most people complicate life and get bogged down in decision-making. My goal has always been to make it as simple as possible. I’ve boiled the big decisions down to twelve things. Once I’ve made those twelve decisions, all I have to do is manage how I’ll follow through on them.
If you make decisions in those key areas once and for all – and then manage those decisions daily – you can create the kind of tomorrow you desire.
Successful people make right decisions early and manage those decisions daily.
Here are the twelve areas where I make decisions and then manage them on a day-to-day basis:
- Attitude: Today’s attitude gives me possibilities.
- Priorities: Today’s priorities give me focus.
- Health: Today’s health gives me strength.
- Family: Today’s family time gives me stability.
- Thinking: Today’s thinking gives me an advantage.
- Commitment: Today’s commitment gives me tenacity.
- Finances: Today’s financial decisions give me options.
- Faith: Today’s faith gives me peace.
- Relationships: Today’s relationships give me fulfillment.
- Generosity: Today’s generosity gives me significance.
- Values: Today’s values give me direction.
- Growth: Today’s growth gives me potential.
This post is adapted from my book Today Matters, which approaches each of those decisions in greater detail and offers practical advice on how to make them early and manage them daily.
From the archives: How to know you’re out in front
Posted by: | CommentsI’ve been blogging here for just over three years, and this week I was looking at some of my past posts to find those that were the most helpful to people. This one seemed to have a very positive impact. I hope it serves you. (And the comments on the original post were at least as beneficial as what I wrote. Click here for the original post and comments from 2010.)
When You Get Kicked in the Rear,
You Know You’re Out in Front
Greek philosopher Aristotle said, “Criticism is something you can avoid easily—by saying nothing, doing nothing, and being nothing.” Obviously, that isn’t an option for anyone who wants to be successful as a leader.
Good leaders are active, and their actions often put them out front. That often draws criticism. When spectators watch a race, where do they focus their attention? On the front-runners! People watch their every action—and often criticize.
Since criticism is a part of leadership, you need to learn how to handle it constructively. The following has helped me to deal with criticism, so I pass it on to you.
Know yourself.
Do you really know yourself? Are you aware of your weaknesses as well as your strengths? Where do you fall short as a person and leader? Not sure what your weaknesses are? Ask five trustworthy people close to you. They’ll be able to tell you where you come up short.
Know the criticism – and the critics.
When you receive criticism, how do you tell if it’s constructive or destructive? (Some say constructive criticism is when I criticize you, but destructive criticism is when you criticize me!) Here are the questions I ask to get to determine what kind of criticism it is:
- Who criticized me? Adverse criticism from a wise person is more to be desired than the enthusiastic approval of a fool. The source often matters.
- How was it given? I try to discern whether the person was being judgmental or whether he gave me the benefit of the doubt and spoke with kindness.
- Why was it given? Was it given out of a personal hurt or for my benefit? Hurting people hurt people; they lash out or criticize to try to make themselves feel better, not to help the other person.
Stay open to change.
Let’s assume you now know yourself pretty well. You can tell when a criticism is way off-base; maybe it’s directed more at your position than at you. And you know when a criticism is 100% legitimate because it’s about a weakness that you’ve already discovered.
But what about the gray areas? The criticisms that might hold a grain of truth? A good leader stays open to improvement by:
- Not being defensive,
- Looking for the helpful grain of truth,
- Making the necessary changes, and
- Taking the high road.
Accept yourself.
Jonas Salk, developer of the Salk polio vaccine, had many critics in spite of his incredible contribution to medicine. Of criticism, he observed, “First people will tell you that you are wrong. Then they will tell you that you are right, but what you’re doing really isn’t important. Finally, they will admit that you are right and that what you are doing is very important; but after all, they knew it all the time.”
How do leaders who are out front handle this kind of fickle response from others?
The Serenity Prayer, made famous by Alcoholics Anonymous and other 12-step programs, gives direction in this area:
God, grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.
If you have endeavored to know yourself, and have worked hard to change yourself, then what more can you do?
Forget yourself.
The final step in the process of effectively handling criticism is to stop focusing on yourself. Secure people forget about themselves so they can focus on others. By doing this, they can face nearly any kind of criticism—and even serve the critic.
I try to live out a sentiment expressed by Parkenham Beatty, who advised, “By your own soul learn to live. And if men thwart you, take no heed. If men hate you, have no care: Sing your song, dream your dream, hope your hope and pray your prayer.”
As leaders, we must always be serious about our responsibilities, but it isn’t healthy for us to take ourselves too seriously. A Chinese proverb says, “Blessed are those who can laugh at themselves. They shall never cease to be entertained.”
***
My friend Joyce Meyer observes, “God will help you be all you can be, but He will never let you be successful at becoming someone else.” We can’t do more than try to be all that we can be. If we do that as leaders, we will give others our best, and we will sometimes takes hits from others. But that’s okay. That is the price for being out front.
Cultivating a Positive Attitude
Posted by: | CommentsEnglish heart surgeon Martyn Lloyd-Jones asserted, “Most unhappiness in life is due to the fact that you are listening to yourself rather than talking to yourself.” What kind of voices do you hear? When you face new experiences, does a voice in your head say you’re going to fail? If you’re hearing negative messages, you need to learn to give yourself positive mental pep talks. The best way to retrain your attitude is to prevent your mind from going down any negative forks in the road.
To improve your attitude, do the following:
Feed yourself the right “food.” If you’ve been starved of anything positive, then you need to start feeding yourself a regular diet of motivational material. Read books that encourage a positive attitude. The more negative you are, the longer it will take to turn your attitude around. But if you consume a steady diet of the right “food,” you can become a positive thinker.
Achieve a goal every day. Some people get into a rut of negativity because they feel they’re not making progress. If that describes you, then begin setting achievable daily goals for yourself. A pattern of positive achievement will help you develop a pattern of positive thinking.
Write it on your wall. We all need reminders to help us keep thinking right. Alex Haley used to keep a picture in his office of a turtle on a fencepost, to remind him that everybody needed the help of others. As incentive, people put up awards they’ve won, inspirational posters, or letters they’ve received. Find something that will work for you and put it on your wall.
Allow yourself to dwell only on the positive
and not the negative today.
