My first introduction and interest in business started while I was in Boy Scouts working on a Merit Badge on my way to Eagle Scout. I was about 12 year old and it was while reading the Personal Management merit badge book that I learned about the time value of money. The idea that you could flip the traditional model of trading your time for money completely upside down and have your money work for you was extremely compelling to me. I was fascinated with the idea and pursued everything I could find that would help me understand how to implement it in my life. I read every book I could get my hands on that covered making money, investing, or running a business. I setup meetings and lunches with people who seemed to be where I wanted to be and were willing to talk to me about it.
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Focus
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My life is so full of demands for my time. Employees need direction, my wife and kids deserve my attention and time, my tasks require time, my hobbies and interests are only developed with time, and there are still emails to attend to. There is no shortage of things to do and the older I get, the more demands I have on my time. Continue reading
Fear
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Fear is necessary. Fear is the gateway to wisdom and ultimately to freedom. It’s the internal check that directs attention and focus like a rudder guides the course of a ship. This is why understanding fear and how to process fear in a healthy way is so critical to living life fully and making wise decisions. Continue reading
What does Healthy leadership look like?
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As my personal responsibilities have grown and I have moved further into leadership roles in my family and at work I have been working to get a better understanding of what good leadership looks like. There are a number of methods I have encountered from a variety of people over the years. One commonality I have noticed is that each person has a different style and philosophy (some very thoughtful and formulated and some less theoretical and more practical) and that each leader has found some key points, habits, techniques, or whatever you want to call them that work for them.
The Freedom in Responsibility
StandardIf you don’t accept responsibility for your life, someone will.
In order to live life in complete freedom, you must accept and exercise responsility for your life. Take responsibility for the things you can manage and influence. Accept that you cannot control outcomes, only the inputs. If you are not getting the output you desire, it is most likely because you are focused on or trying to control an input that does not actually influence or produce the result you desire. Explore different inputs, look at the things that others who are ahead of you focus on and work on those inputs.
A New Year, A New Me…
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I find myself in yet another season of self discovery. This seems to go in 3-5 year waves and on the one hand is very discouraging and annoying. On the other hand, I feel quite fortunate to have such a multitude of opportunities to choose from on my horizon and I am thankful that I even have the time and possibility to make some core evaluations about what I really want to be in life and where I want to go.
It is always encouraging for me to look through my goals and the progress, or lack of progress, toward those goals. Some I have far exceeded, some I have not made any substantial progress worth noting, and others I have abandoned all together. Reviewing them periodically is quite encouraging from the perspective of remembering the previous season of live and starting to look toward my next horizon. It serves to close a chapter in a sense.
Gifts & Talents
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Jon was a drummer that I got to know through the band and singles group at my church. Getting to know Jon was also the first time that I specifically recall beginning to see the distinction between gifts and talents. I got to know Jon at a weekend youth camp where we played together in the band. After the evening events, Jon and I spent some time trading guitar licks and showing each other some stuff that we had made up. Jon had only recently picked up the guitar, having always played drums in the past, and I remember being amazed at the way he played the guitar. There was just something captivating about every aspect of his style. Part of it was the way he approached the instrument and handled it. Part of it was his comfort level in playing things that are not ‘supposed’ to sound good, at least when it comes to structured music theory. The most intriguing though was just how naturally the music seemed to flow out of him through the guitar. It was truly amazing! Continue reading