Monthly Archives: November 2015

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The Stinging Pain Of Leadership

Anyone who has led for any period of time knows that leadership isn’t easy. In fact, leadership will be the most trying thing you ever attempt to do.

Leadership has a funny way of starting out.

You feel a pain. Your heart breaks. You see wrong.

And you feel the need to step up and lead.

Pain Leads To Leadership

Just the other day, I was stung by a sweat bee, I believe. I knew I’d been stung because I felt a burning sensation on my arm.

My first reaction was to get the thing that was stinging me off and away from me. I swatted and swatted and even ripped my shirt off.

It must have been a sight to see.

Once the immediate threat was gone, I also took action to reduce the pain from the sting/bite.  Read more...

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How To Be A Writer: An Interview With Jeff Goins

I recently had the opportunity to sit down and chat with a friend that I’ve followed in the blogging world for quite some time. That friend is Jeff Goins of GoinsWriter.

He’s been an inspiration as I’ve watched him grow his audience to over 100,000 people. His journey has been amazing.

My interview with Jeff Goins

Today, I want to share with you the video of our interview and a transcript of what we talked about.

After you’re done viewing the video, I think you’ll have a new vision of what being a writer really is.

 

Jeff Goins Interview

Q1: Hey Jeff, can you tell us a little bit about yourself?

Jeff Goins: I am a writer who helps other writers. That’s probably the simplest definition of what I do. I write books and teach online courses helping other writers and creatives use online marketing to succeed.  Read more...

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What Bad Leaders Can Do To An Organization

Jim Collins in his book Good to Great shares that we need to get the right people in the right seats on the right bus. As leaders, we know this is crucial.

What we often forget is that we can place the wrong leaders in the wrong seats on the wrong bus and this creates more issues than having the wrong team members.

Bad leaders are dangerous

I recently came across a great quote and I don’t know who said it. The quote is

A bad leader can take a good staff and destroy it, causing the best employees to flee and the remainder to lose all motivation

Ouch, that stings. Especially for those of us in leadership.

There’s a huge responsibility that comes upon us as we accept the mantle of leadership. We are now in charge and we are responsible for what happens.  Read more...

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It’s Time To Have That Hard Conversation

We put them off. We hold back when we have them. We pass the buck to someone else to be the one to deliver them.

What are these things? It’s the hard conversations we know we MUST have but are unwilling to have.

Why Hard Conversations Suck

We put off hard conversations because, well, they’re hard. Bringing faults or poor performance to someone you are leading hurts.

The conversations bring up hard feelings and bad business. We’re even possibly laying out reasons for someone to be removed from their position in this talks.

It’s not fun.

We’re dealing with people. People who have emotions. People who have families to provide for. People who have desires to do good work.

And our conversations are telling them something is wrong.

This is why the hard conversations suck…  Read more...

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8 Things Church Leaders Are Doing Wrong

Church leaders, I know you mean well but you’re doing some things wrong. So much so that you’re turning people away from the church.

That’s the bad news. There’s good news though.

You can change your habits and begin reaching people again. You can stop the mass exodus of people from the church and have a healthy congregation and volunteer team.

Isn’t that great?

Let’s take a look at what church leaders are doing wrong and what we can do to fix them.

1. Trying to make church FUN: This isn’t to say church shouldn’t be fun. Church can be fun, for sure. However, we can’t make that the end goal of the church.

Church is so much more than having fun.

Church is about community. Church is about relationship. Church is about loving God. Church is for preaching and teaching.  Read more...