Thomas S. Monson
My brothers and sisters, may the spirit of love which comes at Christmastime fill our homes and our lives and linger there long after the tree is down and the lights are put away for another year.
My brothers and sisters, may the spirit of love which comes at Christmastime fill our homes and our lives and linger there long after the tree is down and the lights are put away for another year.
J.R.R. Tolkien was a master of the fantasy genre. You’ve heard of the titles he’s written. There’s the Lord Of The Rings trilogy, The Children of Hurin, and The Hobbit.
We’ve seen the movie treatment done to his books multiple times. Both Lord Of The Rings and The Hobbit have had different movies made at different times.
This past weekend saw the release of the final movie in the Hobbit trilogy.
Wrapping up the novel in classic Hollywood fashion was breathtaking. The production company did great work on translating the book to the big screen.
The visuals were stunning, enough so that our next major vacation may be to New Zealand where Lord Of The Rings and The Hobbit were filmed. The pacing was fantastic (the 2 and a half hour movie was over before I realized it!). And the storytelling was captivating.
I want to be honest with you. I’ve written frequently on fitness and how leaders should be focused on being fit.
This is something I’ve been utterly horrible at the past year. My running has been infrequent at best. My bathroom exercises pretty much stopped. My motivation was gone.
Image by BK
The more I thought about my failure to run and exercise, the more down on myself I felt. Then, when I’d get back in the game and actually run, I’d begin to feel doubt creep in.
My mind would tell me things like:
You’ll never run as fast as you used to run.
You’ve taken too much time off. It’s better to give up now.
No one cares if you’re out of shape. By the way, isn’t round a shape?
Yeah, yeah… I already know what you’re thinking. Young leaders are innovative. Young leaders have great ideas. Young leaders are seeing things that older leaders can’t see.
You’d be right. Young leaders are all of those things.
Young leaders are innovative. Young leaders generate great ideas. Young leaders have insane vision for the future.
But young leaders can be even more innovative (and influential) with a few tweaks.
Image by Mark Plepers
Thomas Edison was the inventor of the light bulb. But even before the light bulb people couldn’t say Edison wasn’t innovative. He had hundreds, if not thousands, of patents and many ideas that he was still testing.
He was innovative. He was creative. He was the man.
We can see with Edison that even though he was an innovator, he always found ways to be even more innovative.
Many leaders will begin with a clear focus on what’s important. They know the purpose of leadership.
To help others become better. To take others to places they couldn’t have gotten to alone. To show a path.
Image by Nina Matthews
Sadly, many leaders will lose there way. They’ll lose their focus. They’ll begin to wonder about what really matters.
At some point or another this happens to almost everyone. After you’ve seen success after success or failure after failure, you can easily lose your focus.
Focus can be a tricky thing to maintain for the long run. During the beginning, it’s easy to stay focused.
You have a targeted goal. You know what you’re aiming for. You have clearly defined metrics of success.
Yet after successes the next milestone becomes muddied. You can’t clearly see what the next step should be.