Fear Factor

Are your fears holding you back or are you using them to move you forward?

Your fears can actually lead you to success. Fear is an intense emotion. But that doesn’t mean it has to control you, or even stop you. Fear can prepare you and push you forward just as strongly as it can hold you back. Fear heightens your awareness and increases your physical strength. Fear brings your mind to sharp focus. With all that going for you, does it make sense to just run and hide? Of course not. Fear gets you in shape to take action!

Are you waiting for things to get better before moving ahead? If you’re serious about success, you need to start taking action today. If you’re waiting for things to be perfect, you’ll wait forever and nothing will ever get done.

The way to achieve is to bloom where you’re planted, to do what you can, where you are, with what you have. It’s easy to think up excuses for not taking action. “If only I had more hours in the day. If only I had a better job. If only I could meet the right person.” But excuses won’t bring you anything of value. You’ve got to change your “if only” into an “I will.” “I will make better use of my time. I will work on improving my career. I will create and nurture my relationships.”

Take a chance. Have faith in yourself. Your circumstances will improve when you make the effort to improve them. Start where you are right now. You have everything it takes to reach for whatever you desire. Stop wishing. Use your time, your energy, your thoughts and efforts to make it happen!

You’ll be glad you did!

Respect is Reciprocal

Respect is a word that means different thing to different people. Some may see respect as a plague of seniority while others see it as an epitome of maturity. In respect itself I found answers to action steps that can enable you to earn respect from those you lead.

-Respect yourself and those you work with
-Exceed the expectations of others
-Stand firm on your convictions and principles
-Possess maturity beyond your years
-Experience success in your family life and career
-Contribute to the success of others
-Think ahead of others

Self-respect comes with understanding who you are - your personality and purpose. You may not always win, but when you routinely give outstanding effort and you will experience success. Do not take failure or criticism personally. After failing, never give yourself permission to self-identify as a failure.

3 Lives of Leaders

We all live three lives: public, private, and secret. I first read this in an article by Stephen Covey. In our public lives, we are seen and heard by colleagues, associates, and others within our circle of influence. In our private lives, we interact more intimately with spouses, family members, and close friends. The secret life is where your heart is, where your real motives are the ultimate desires of your life.

Many leaders never visit the secret life. Their public and private lives are essentially scripted by who and what precedes and surrounds them or by the pressures of the environment. And so they never exercise that unique endowment of self-awareness the key to the secret life where you can stand apart from yourself and observe your own involvement.

Most of us live within the purview of our public and private without giving any consideration to our secret lives. Courage is required to explore our secret life because we must first withdraw from the social mirror, where we are fed positive and negative feedback continuously. As we get used to this social feedback, it becomes a comfort zone. And we may opt to avoid self-examination and idle away our time in a vacuum of reverie and rationalization. In that frame of mind, we have little sense of identity, safety, or security.

The most critical junctures in your life take place when you visit your secret life and ask yourself, "What do I think? What do I believe is right? What should my motives be?" These are times when I choose my motives. One such time occurs when you relate with God, your creator...the author and finisher of your faith. It is more noble to give yourself completely to truth, than to labor diligently for the protection and salvation of fallacies." Truth is truth! I have never seen a thing like half-truth or almost-truth.

In the face of daunting situations like "For or Against same-sex marriage"; "For or Against child-marriage" a true leader should know where to pinch his or her tent. Friends, you ain't a leader until you are bold enough to tell anyone "Wait a minute it's my life."

As a true leader who is God-fearing, you should be capable of choosing your own motives.

Stand-out! Never join the crowd.

Leading & Relating

Effective leaders grow their relational skills in the following manner:
1. Have a Leader's Head - Understand people
2. Have a Leader's Heart - Love people
3. Have a Leader's Hand - Help people

I have said many times that if you want to know the effectiveness of a leader, then ask those who are led. This is because there is no perfect assessment, no bright-line test for what makes a leader effective, and no model that can perfectly determine great leadership.

So how then can we relate more effectively as leaders? Here are seven simple steps for improving your ability to do so:
1. Express genuine care and concern.
2. Establish high standards.
3. Bring in the perspective of others.
4. Share relevant information.
5. Role model the behaviors you want to see.
6. Clarify your understanding.
7. Provide your reactions and candid opinions.

I should hint that while these ideas may be simple, that does not mean any of them are easy to do. The right behaviors are frequently filled with common sense, yet that does not mean they are common practice. Consistent effort and attention to relating will improve your skill.

Self Factor

Just thinking aloud - "Why do we (myself inclusive) inevitably support the underdogs in a sporting event, those that are perceived as really having no chance at all of getting the prize but somehow made it to the finals?"

Because we can see ourselves. The big stars of the game are far removed from our reality and we can’t compete at their level, but bring in the underdog, and we instantly see something there that could be us. And because we see ourselves it makes it real and achievable to us with our “if they can do it, so can I” attitude.

It doesn’t stop there though; there are more instances we look for ourselves subconsciously.

Take the true story about a CEO whose company had some pretty tough staffing issues. He took himself and the majority of his team through a behavioral profiling process and found that each one of the team was an identical profile type to his own, he had employed 20 people that were all like him! Can you imagine how their business was running internally, the frustrations involved with no mix of behavioral styles?

Take a group photograph with you included in it. Who do you look for first? You. Try it if you don’t believe me, its really hard not to seek yourself out first.

We are not being selfish when we do this, but somewhere in our subconscious, it registers. There is something inside us, the way we are wired maybe, that makes us think about ourselves but not selfishly so. Call it an interest, call it human nature, call it hog wash, I don’t know I can’t explain it, but its there.

What Make Life Worthwhile

Over the years as I’ve sought out ideas, principles and strategies to life’s challenges, I’ve come across four simple words that can make living worthwhile. These words are Learn, Try, Stay and Care.

First, life is worthwhile if you LEARN. What you don’t know will hurt you. You have to have learning to exist, let alone succeed. Life is worthwhile if you learn from your own experiences—negative or positive.We learn by what we see, so pay attention. We learn by what we hear, so be a good listener. Now I do suggest that you should be a selective listener. Don’t just let anybody dump into your mental factory. We learn from what we read, so learn from every source: from lectures, from songs, from sermons, and from conversations with people who care. Always keep learning.

Second, life is worthwhile if you TRY. You can’t just learn; now you have to try something to see if you can do it. Try to make a difference, try to make some progress, try to learn a new skill, try to learn a new sport. It doesn’t mean you can do everything, but there are a lot of things you can do, if you just try. Try your best. Give it every effort. Why not go all out?

Third, life is worthwhile if you STAY. You have to stay from spring until harvest. If you have signed up for the day or for the project, see it through. Sometimes calamity comes and then it is worth wrapping it up. And that’s the end, but just don’t end in the middle. Maybe on the next project you pass, but on this one, if you signed up, see it through.

And lastly, life is worthwhile if you CARE. If you care at all, you will get some results. If you care enough, you can get incredible results. Care enough to make a difference. Care enough to turn somebody around. Care enough to start a new enterprise. Care enough to change it all. Care enough to be the highest producer. Care enough to set some records. Care enough to win.

Four powerful little words: learn, try, stay and care. What difference can you make in your life today by putting these words to work?

Generosity...Recipe for Leadership

Leaders must be generous and predisposed to give their resources to others. As leaders, we must believe that a candle loses nothing when it lights another. The biblical law "Love others as yourself" is synonymous with leadership. Show concern, show care, show love and people will follow you.

According to John C. Maxwell, "You can give without loving, but you can not love without giving." Leaders who fail to display generosity should ask themselves: Do I really love the people I lead? Researches have shown that when great leaders err, they always err on the side of generosity. And do you know the resource they seldom give? It's TIME.

Beloved leaders, kindly create time for caring, loving, listening, sharing and giving to your followers.