Morning Muse
Failure is the opportunity to begin again more intelligently, purposefully, and tenaciously.
The Law of Strawberry Jam
The fewer things we focus on, the greater our impact is in our life and the greater possibility for success in our chosen fields we give ourselves.
Most people live their life according to the Law of Strawberry Jam:
The wider you spread it, the thinner it gets, and the less you enjoy it.
Could you imagine going to a fight, a boxing match, with one hand tied behind your back or trying to play the piano with only every second key?
You would say, that is crazy, you would be insane to try and do that, yet most people spend their life like that.
They are not present in their life.
They are not purposeful with their gifts.
They are not passionate in their pursuit.
They have never stopped to examine their life.
They have never stopped to align their purpose, with their vision, their mission and their values.
So when it comes down to living a life of integrity, living a life being true to themselves, their calling and God given passions, they don’t.
They spread themselves around primarily because they have never felt they had the right to choose, the ability to say yes and the freedom to live with no.
If you are going to live a purposeful, present, passionate life you have to be engaged in the choices that construct your life.
Your life is the result of the choices you have made, the relationships you have built and the words that you speak.
Your choices yesterday have given you the fruit you are living off of today.
If you are going to be able to exercise the full gamete of choices over your present and future destiny, you have to:
a) Examine all the motivation and criteria you use to make choices
b) Become deliberate and fully conscious in your choices daily
c) Be responsive and not reactive in your choices
Avoiding making a decision about something is the same as making a decision about it.
There is a consequence to your inaction to the same degree that there would a consequence to your action.
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Leave Nothing in the Ring
Have you ever wondered what your life would be like if you fully gave yourself to something?
If you just did it.
You didn’t question it.
You didn’t second guess yourself.
You didn’t allow yourself to get distracted.
You didn’t allow others to tell you if you were right or wrong in your dream, you just did it.
And what if you did it with such abandonment, such glee, such a sense of joy and expectation that even if it didn’t work out the way you envisioned, the journey was so exhilarating, the endeavor so worth it that the experience itself made you a better person.
Have you ever played a ball game, a match and got to the locker room, you have lost, and you sit there with your head down and you are thinking to yourself….man I really didn’t give it my best?
You play back the scenes, the shots, the plays and you know in your “knower” that you were holding back or distracted or lazy…and you regret it.
Or conversely…
Have you ever got to the locker room absolutely hammered, you still lost, but you know you gave it everything, you played full out and you left nothing on the field?
Life is like that.
I don’t want to step from this ring and have anything left.
I want to have lived it to the max. Done everything I can to have become all that I could have…
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What is Leadership?
Perhaps the best way to determine the nature of leadership is to look at various definitions of it:
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“Leadership is influence, the ability of one person to influence others. One man can lead others to the extent that he can influence them.” (J. Oswald Sanders. Spiritual Leadership. Marshall, Morgan and Scott. 1967).
Since time began we have been striving to understand what is leadership and how to better develop as leaders.
Here are some definitions, thoughts, musings by great leaders…
John Mott:
“A leader is a man who knows the road, who can keep ahead, and who can pull others after him”.
Lord Montgomery
“Leadership is the capacity and will to rally men and women to a common purpose, and the character which inspires confidence.” .
Harry Truman
A leader is a person who has the ability to get others do what they do not want to do, and like it!”.
Les Pritchard
“A leader is one who has an objective, who knows where he is going and can persuade others to follow; who knows what he wants done and can persuade others to help him”.
John Haggai
“Leadership is the discipline of deliberately exerting special influence within a group to move it toward goals of beneficial permanence that fulfil the group’s real needs”.
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