Line to Line
February 28, 2012
Sometimes life is like walking a tight rope. Have you ever noticed a person walking a tight rope?
Well, most likely you have seen the clips of the tight rope walkers from the 50′s through the early 70′s. In it’s time it was high level entertainment and found it’s home in the circus tours around the world.
Sometimes real life symbolizes walking a tight line. Some of the walkers did fine without props, others needed them.
One of the main props was a weighted bar that was about 8 feet long. This bar gave the walker leverage and balance! In these days most of us need both. Something to leverage our strengths and keep us in balance.
Here are a few lines we can leverage and balance:
1. Offline
In this media age we need to take breaks from the connection of social media. Hit the offline button. When you work offline you create time to develop your own thoughts and ideas. We must give our brains think time to develop our own ideas, concepts and strategies. We have the tendency to duplicate others thoughts rather than develop our own. Our greatest idea, blog title, and content is within us. Sometimes getting offline may get us online to our self and our creator.
2. Online
When we are online the world opens us to us. Online opens the door to information that we need and resources that are vital to our personal development, research and future. I am an advocate for using the world wide web, social media, apps, and the highest levels of technology in order to advance my personal life and the life of my organization.
- We also need to get online with our dreams – Many spend most of their online time reading about others and fail to pursue their own dreams. I am a strong advocate for challenging people to pursue their own dream!
- Get online with your risks – taking risks is vital in the pursuit of your dream. Risk takers are dream chasers!
3. In-Line
- Get inline with your values – Values tell you what’s most important. If you want to know how to discern good from best this is the way. Values define for you what’s most important! It’s simple and profound. Values also place an order of importance to your daily life. The first step is to make a list of the things you value most and begin to order your daily life accordingly. This is a line you want to cross over! Get inline with your values.
- Get in-line with your relationships – Some said; there is relationships and the rest is just life. Relationships are the sum-total of our lives. Your relationships are vital and requires the bulk of your time. It’s simple; others are more important than ourselves!
- Get in-line with your health – Life is lived less with bad health. Health must be on your values list. Good health begins with the food you eat and the energy you give your body. The ingredients to good health include: healthy food, healthy water, daily exercise, adequate sleep, vitamin supplements, and maintaining stress.
- Get in-line with your spiritual life – I am not ashamed to say I am a Christian. I am not ashamed to say that I gave my life to Christ over 25 years ago. The truth is that we are spiritual beings having a human experience. Getting in-line with your spiritual life aligns your life for eternity.
Well, there you have it. What are our choices? Offline, online and in-line. I hope you and I make the adjustments we need to live a life that leverages our opportunities and keeps us walking in balance.
The lines are drawn. Which one are you walking on today?
Your comments are solicited and appreciated.
Reflective Leadership
February 24, 2012
Like many in our time I am a continual learner on the topic of leadership. I actually consider myself young on the topic, but I am consistently seeking to develop my leadership skills. I guess you could say I am mesmerized by the topic.
I deeply respect John Maxwell and coaches like Mike Myatt who I consider high-level leaders to the world. Also Seth Godin definitely has a unique ability to challenge our current leadership models and thinking patterns. I love the challenge!
One of the things that can make a leader remarkable is to consistently examine themselves through the eyes of leadership concepts. Leadership is never separate from who you are. Some try and separate their lives from their leadership. This only creates self conflict and disgruntled followers. You are-how you lead!
Here are my thoughts on reflective leadership.
1. A Leader ‘s Call
I believe everyone is a leader and everyone is called to lead, even if it’s yourself! I strongly believe in leader’s that are called to specific types of leadership and to specific places. In using the word “called” I mean the leader has an instinctive drive to become an effective leader to a distinct group of people. Some leaders are called to minister in a church setting, others in a business setting, etc. This calling is the confirmation that as a leader you are fulfilling your purpose in life.
I also believe there are people who are great leaders wherever they are employed, volunteer, or serve. Their greatest and most satisfying moments are simply leading-somewhere. Their calling is more to leadership than to where they lead!
2. A Leader’s Role
One of my unique discoveries has been how my role has changed in different seasons. As a young leader in a small organization I was virtually responsible for practically all the leadership decisions and duties. As the organization began to grow we added new employees and began delegating to others. This process allowed me the opportunity to develop a greater focus to my specific skill set.
My strongest point in this section is the reality that a leader’s role in a growing organization changes in different seasons. This requires reflection. As leaders, we must reflect on what duties we should be performing and most importantly, what duties we shouldn’t. This requires reflection, maturity, and the willingness to let go of roles and duties we performed in previous seasons.
3. A Leader’s Style
Every leader has a style. My intention here is not to determine or list specific leadership styles but to talk about the leader’s personal style. My style is very personal and maybe to a default. I like personal interaction, personal involvement, and lots of information. I do not think I am controlling, but can be.
I also have the tendency to act as I think-like almost minute to minute and topic to topic. I see weakness in this and most likely I steal some production time from my team due to interrupting them often on days I feel inspired. There is a huge weakness in this style. I am sure many of you can comment on this to give me some much needed assistance.
I would love your comments, thoughts and experiences.
Remember, to spend some time reflecting on your leadership role and style!
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