Lead Where You Are - In the Afternoon

Everybody has an opportunity to be a leader everyday. If you are in any kind of relationship, you are presented with multiple points where you need to influence the other person. To influence on purpose is to lead. Most people don't think of themselves as leaders. But if you become intentional with your life and continue to influence your family, friends, coworkers, neighbors for good, you are doing leadership stuff. So, the challenge: lead where you are.

Last Thursday and Friday I participated in The Global Leadership Summit. It's a gathering of top-notch leaders from across the nation and the world. Leaders who lead in the real world, who are intellectually challenging, are results-oriented, focused on the long haul. These are leaders who care and who are willing to work hard for the people in their life. 

Maybe you'd like to become better at leading where you are? Here's some of the notes I took from the two-day event - you'll likely find something here that is helpful. If it is, be sure to pass it on.

Tony Dungy

The goal of a teacher: help your students get an A.

The goal of a coach: help your players get better.

The goal of a leader: help those you lead get better in what they do.

Stubbornness is a virtue if you are right.

Be efficient with your time, don't waste it. Do great work, and then go home. 

Don't mistake long hours for productivity.

To mentor is to show what you are doing.

First: be willing and available to mentor others.

Second: who do you admire? ask them questions. Read books by who you respect. 

Relationships are about trust, about being able to speak into the life of another.

Who can you mentor? Look around. Young people are always in need of someone to speak into their life, if you are willing to build the trust. 

Consider the power of fathers and mothers as mentors. 

Jesus it the master mentor, for those that can respect his ways.

Adam Hamilton

Ways to Resist Temptation

1: Remember who you are.

2: Recognize the consequences of your actions.

3: Rededicate yourself to God.

4: Reveal your struggle to a trusted friend.

5. Remove yourself from the situation.

Say no to the moment of the maybe.

In marriage, a husband and wife will continually fall in and out of love. You won't always feel in love. 

All of us are tempted as human beings.

* There are always consequences for sinning.

* There can be grace and restoration and renewal.

* No one is beyond redemption.

* Better to resist the temptation than to wreck what is good.

Andy Stanley

Myth: all problems can be solved, all tensions can be resolved.

Reality: leverage unsolvable problems, use unresolvable tension for progress.

In a marriage, the tension between time at work and time with family cannot be eliminated, only managed.

In a church, the problems between taking care of those already there and reaching out to those not yet there - the problems will not go away, they are to managed.

If two people hold valid opinions on two different sides of the issue, you have tension that will not go away, you have a problem that needs to be managed.