It's Tuesday at 2:00pm! (PST Time: I live and work from Southern California)
In this New Year I'm going to continue to explore some leadership quotes that might challenge us, inspire us or remind us of different aspects of the leadership journey. This is part of my personal journey to keep growing, learning and being stretched! Join me each Tuesday at 2:00pm (PST). It will take you just a few minutes to read through the 2 sections of this post, but don't miss the final section where I share some of the things I'm reading, listening to and enjoying this week.
You can find past posts on my website HERE.
Enjoy!
LEADERSHIP QUOTE:
“Working hard for something we don't care about is called stress; working hard for something we love is called passion." Simon Sinek
What does this stir up? Either write me HERE or comment at the end of the blog post HERE.
A LITTLE BIT DEEPER:
We're looking at some quotes from Simon Sinek this month.
Looking at the quote above, there are a couple of things that stand out:
First, not all work creates stress, but the idea that we're putting our time towards something that isn't important to us can "become" stress inducing...I would agree.
Second, passion is a driver for all of us, and the connection between stress and passion is clearly drawn back to what we value and care most about.
Sometimes I choose a quote simply because I want to think about it a little more, and that's the case here. I'm thinking about times in my life where I've felt that level of stress that is induced because I don't value the thing that I'm doing, and I'm also thinking about times in my life where I'm working hard and loving every minute of it.
Think about that in your life. I'll share 2 personal illustrations below, but can you identify a "STRESS" time and a "PASSION" time?
DEEPER STILL:
I've shared these 2 stories in different ways over the years, but these both jumped out.
In college, I worked a job going door-to-door raising funds for the Junior Olympic Foundation. It was a high-pressure, high-stress, big-rewards kind of job. I took the job for the money, and did fairly well, but I then began to find out that there was a lot of fraud involved. I was told to tell people that I was a junior olympian, I was told to push people to make larger donations, and when I did the math of the bonuses that were being paid, I realized that not much money was going to the Foundation. This took about 3 weeks to put the pieces together, and I was pushed into a very stressful situation, and had to quit. I was happy to get out early, but the second I quit, the stress disappeared. I learned some valuable lessons in the process, but one of the most important was that if I was going to commit my time and energy to something, I had to believe the people I was working with and I had to believe in the cause.
Fast forward this 12 years... our family made the decision to sell our home, pack up our kids and move to Ecuador to launch a training center for youth workers. (Youth World). We experienced this chaotic 8 weeks of life where we sold our home, packed our shipment, lived out of our cars, did a "farewell tour", raised the needed funds to survive, jumped from place to place, and eventually ended up in Ecuador. If anything could have been stressful, it was that transition, however we were PASSIONATE about it because we believed in the vision, we felt God had called us, we were excited about it, and we knew that all the work would pay off in the end. It wasn't easy, but we were ALL IN.
What have you learned about yourself as you explore times of STRESS and times of PASSION?
Things I'm Reading, Listening To and Watching This Week:
Simon Sineks "How Great Leaders Inspire Action" on TED.
Another book I really enjoyed from Simon Sinek is "Leaders Eat Last: Why Some Teams Pull Together an Others Don't."
Last week I highlighted some Paul Simon music, then I came across a new work he did this year, Seven Psalms. Really nice music with some deep themes!
We spent some time this weekend volunteering with Unidos South OC, an organization committed to strengthening under-resourced neighborhoods in San Juan Capistrano. We're really impressed with their vision, their model and their impact!
Check out Seth Willingham's Instagram: waterproject. Great images and photography of the water!
Gina and I are enjoying watching the new season of The Parisian Agency, a French real-estate show that showcases some incredible properties all over France.