It's Tuesday at 2:00pm! (PST Time: I live and work from Southern California)
Greetings to you!
Each week I send out a short leadership blog that's called "Tuesday at 2:00pm". The purpose of this is simply to provide a brief thought on leadership that you can read and think about in just a few minutes. I send it out every week at 2:00pm (PST) and encourage you to make an appointment with yourself to pause and think about the thing I'm writing about.
Russ...
LEADERSHIP QUOTE:
"Continuous improvement is better than delayed perfection." Mark Twain
What does this stir up? Either write me HERE or comment at the end of the blog post HERE.
A LITTLE BIT DEEPER:
Here's a final thought this month on productivity from Mark Twain. I love these simple words that should be an encouragement to all of us.
We'll never fully accomplish being productive. It's a work in progress.
The quotes I shared from Tim Ferriss, Albert Einstein and Martin Luther King Jr. are all words reminding us to keep moving towards purpose and value, and to not get bogged down in getting everything right.
That's what I need to be reminded of today: It's a process, and my hope is to keep moving towards the goal, towards fullfilling what I've been put in this world to do, and towards my calling or purpose.
January can be a month full of pressure because we spend it trying to get it all right, and when we don't, we end up just quitting: quitting on our dreams, our goals, our new ideas, rhythms... all these things.
Today, just commit to taking another step forward.
The passage from Philippians 3 reminds us of this...
"I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus."
The Message translation says it this way:
"I'm not saying that I have this all together, that I have it made. But I am well on my way, reaching out for Christ, who has so wondrously reached out for me. Friends, don't get me wrong: by no means do I count myself an expert in all of this, but I've got my eye on the goal, where God is beckoning us onward - to Jesus. I'm off and running, and I'm not turning back."
Today, do your best and take another step forward... Then another.
Think of the things in your life that motivate you, that pull you, that "press" you... How does God use those things to keep you moving forward?
DEEPER STILL:
I've been sharing a few of the basic tools I use when I do a LifePlan with someone. In a normal LifePlan, there are 22 different tools that help to define perspective and help you to figure out what is most important now. I'm sharing just a couple of them this month with you, but when you put the 22 tools together, it creates a powerful roadmap to the future you are creating and being called into.
Here's the final tool I want to share with you, and it's a simple one:
We Can't Do It All Alone!
In a LifePlan, one of the final tools is called a LifeNet, and the idea is to identify some people in your life who you are on the journey with.
Think of people:
Who invest in you as Coaches, Mentors & Leaders
Who are on the journey with you as friends, partners and co-workers
Who you are pouring into as disciples, mentees
Who you can be 100% honest & vulnerable with
There is no way we can get through life on our own, and we need to identify the people that are around us and be intentional about how we connect with them.
My mentor shared with me years ago that I need to always have 3 important relationships in my life:
Someone pouring into me: mentor, coach
Someone I'm investing into: mentee, disciple
Some people who hold me accountable: friends, partners
I have these people in my life today, but it's a constant process of defining them, being intentional with them then providing these things to others.
Who's in your LifeNet? Who is speaking into your life? Who are you speaking into? Who are you doing life with? If you can't answer that, you have some work to do.
Things I'm Reading, Listening To and Watching This Week:
This week, I was in this book twice preparing for an upcoming Barnabas Board Meeting. Check out this book from my friend John Pearson & Dan Busby: Lessons From a Nonprofit Boardroom.
A friend told me about this playlist and I had missed it: U2 Songs of Surrender. I'm listening to it now.
I've enjoyed seeing the growth and vision of this impact on Ecuadorian Soccer Players, and now so much more. Check out Cumbre Alta, a ministry of Inca Link and the impact they're having using futbol to impact lives.
I listened to an interesting podcast on How I Built This in an interview with Mike Cessario, the founder of the viral water brand, Liquid Death. Interesting story about branding, marketing and crazy ideas!