Help!

I suppose I am like most guys in that I don't like to ask for help (I know quite a few women in this boat too!). I guess I view it as a sign of weakness. However, it is actually a sign of pride.

This past week was more stressful than most. As I was reflecting on the week, I realized how much I had to rely on others for their help.

• We had a situation with my son which required prayer and many stepped up in a big way
• My wife's sister-in-law passed away last week and her funeral was Friday, the same day as one of our Truth at Work group meetings that I facilitate. As a result, a good friend stepped in to lead that for me in my absence.
• Saturday, we had our Gala Gathering and auction in Toledo which is a great event in our community. Truth at Work was one of the benefiting ministries and many organizations and individuals were very generous in donating some incredible items for the auction.

This weekend I was overcome with thankfulness for those who stepped in to help me. Several of these people shared with me how their helping me actually blessed them. I realized that had I had my usual attitude of "I don't need help," I would have actually been robbing others of a blessing...and I would have been adding much more stress to my plate!

I am discovering that strong leaders know they need help and are not reluctant to ask for it. We all have strengths and abilities. When we allow the body of Christ to come together and do its work, it is amazing what can happen.

For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you. Just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. We have different gifts, according to the grace given us.

Romans 12:3-5a

Words in Anger

As some of you may be aware, I lead four monthly round-table groups of Christian business and ministry leaders in the Toledo area. The purpose of these gatherings is to help each of our members (usually 12-15 in a group) to grow their organizations in a God-honoring way, while at the same time helping them to grow personally and spiritually. The name of this ministry is Truth at Work.

Each of these sessions is four hours long and, though I am the facilitator, I receive so much from these times together--I truly feel like the most blessed person on this planet that I get to do this. This morning's meeting was no exception.

One of our members in today's meeting shared a line which I thought was great. She said, "Whenever I get angry, I try to just leave the room because I have never said anything when I was angry in which I later said to myself, 'Wow, that was brilliant. I am so glad I just said that!'"

You know what? I can say the same exact thing in my life. It seems that when I am angry is when I say the things I regret the most. Perhaps I need to follow this person's advice when I'm angry and just leave before I say anything I might regret. I guess my mom was right all along when she used to tell me, "If you can't say anything nice about someone, don't say anything at all."

A fool gives full vent to his anger, but a wise man keeps himself under control.

Proverbs 29:11

Connecting

Yesterday, my daughter Molly said good-bye to Jolto. Jolto was the name for her first car. Molly is moving out of town soon and does not need a car so she sold it.

The first person who came to see it ended up buying it. Before buying it the negotiation had to take place. Molly had not done this before, but I had prepped her a bit for it.

The amazing thing about it is that all of the negotiation happened without a verbal word being spoken. 100% took place via text messaging. Yes, I guess that’s a sign of the times, but I still find this amazing. (By the way, Molly did very well in her first major haggling experience--I think both she and the buyer got a good deal!)

I heard a similar point made last week. One of our Truth At Work members owns an auto dealership. He mentioned in our last roundtable meeting that many new cars are being made with hookups for laptops and cell phones which will allow them to remain charged. In addition, each laptop will have WIFI capability so passengers can browse the internet.

Just think, with one of these new cars, when you go on your next family vacation, your entire family can be talking to everyone else in the word except each other.

So much is missed in communicating electronically. Much of communication happens through non-verbals. Though text-messaging qualifies as non-verbal communication, you can’t get any additional information from the sender other than the words being spoken.

I encourage you to make it a point today to reach out to someone and actually talk with them...to connect. Better yet, see if you can talk with them in person!

Alone

This morning I had the privilege of facilitating the first roundtable meeting of our fourth Truth At Work group in the Toledo area. These groups of 10-15 business and ministry leaders gather together once each month to act as a board of advisors to one another in helping each another to grow their organizations in a God-honoring way while at the same time helping them to grow personally and spiritually.

Each time a new group forms, I am eager to see what will happen as each group develops a personality of its own. As I have been with each of our other three groups, I was amazed at how God just seemed to integrate everyone together in a short period of time this morning. It was incredible.

Being a business or ministry leader can be a lonely place. The leader really can't, or doesn't want to, share everything with their employees, their partners or even with their spouse. As I said, it can be very lonely. Today I sensed from each of the members that they were relieved...like they truly felt they were no longer "alone." What a great thing!

So who can you share everything with? If you don't have someone, I encourage you to make this a priority in your life!

Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another--and all the more as you see the Day approaching.

Hebrews 10:25

Isolation

Right now, my wife and I have three friends who are going through really rough situations. They are all dealing with addictions of different sorts and all are causing incredible damage to themselves and to their family members. It is quite sad to see it unfold.

Two of our friends know Scripture as well as, or better than most people I know. Yet, they have chosen to go down this path during this season of their lives.

Though they are all different situations, there is one similarity which stands out. Each of these people have pulled away from their community prior to this change in their lives. In the past, they were each part of a small group in their church and for whatever reason they stopped being involved.

I am a big proponent of "doing life together." I have seen the fruit of this over the past year and a half in Truth at Work for business leaders as well as over the past six years in the men's group and couples group I am a part of.

This has really hit me right in my heart and given me what I hope is a healthy dose of fear. It has shown me that none of us is infallible. We can all go the wrong direction and, in fact, our human-ness desires that. That is why it is so important for us to surround ourselves with others who can encourage us, challenge us, help us, hold us accountable and love us where we are.

Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another--and all the more as you see the Day approaching.

Hebrews 10:25

Discipline For Greatness

A few posts ago, I shared about the fact that some of our Truth At Work groups watched Bill Hybels interviewing Jim Collins, author of Good to Great. This interview took place at the 2006 Willow Creek Leadership Summit.

While discussing what makes companies great, Collins shared this formula for greatness, "Disciplined people produce disciplined thought which produces disciplined actions which produces greatness."

I think it would be safe to say that most of us want to be great (I would also bet that everyone would have a different definition of what "great" would look like to them). Yet, so few want to do what is necessary for that to occur. Not many are willing to pay the price, whatever it might be.

Collins is sharing something that shouldn't be surprising to us. In order for greatness to occur, it must start in the individual, with discipline. That's a word that very few people like. That means hard work and effort and giving up things we really don't want to give up.

Over 3,000 years ago, Solomon shared some similar nuggets of wisdom (all from the book of Proverbs):

• Lazy hands make a man poor, but diligent hands bring wealth (10:4)
• He who gathers crops in summer is a wise son, but he who sleeps during harvest is a disgraceful son (10:5)
• Diligent hands will rule, but laziness ends in slave labor (12:24)
• The sluggard craves and gets nothing, but the desires of the diligent are fully satisfied (13:4)
• The plans of the diligent lead to profit as surely as haste leads to poverty (21:5)
  

Interested Instead of Interesting

Last week, some of our Truth At Work groups watched Bill Hybels interviewing Jim Collins, author of Good to Great and pictured above. This interview took place at the 2006 Willow Creek Leadership Summit.

Collins had some incredible stuff to share about what organizations can do to be great.

However, one thing in the interview stuck out to me more than any other thing. At that point in his life, Collins had been going through a spiritual awakening of sorts and he was beginning to embrace Christianity. When asked about this by Hybels, Collins replied that his journey had been helped greatly by his personal board of advisors.

First off, the fact that he had a personal board was impressive to me and a great lesson to us all to not do life alone.

Second, he went on to say that he received some of the best advice from one of his advisors who said, “Jim, you spend too much time trying to be interesting. Why don’t you spend more time being interested?”

Wow. Great advice.

Dale Carnegie said that the best way to attract friends is to show interest in others. That is also a great way to show the love of Christ!

Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.

Philippians 2:4

The Trap of Isolation

I have the amazing privilege of leading an organization called Truth at Work in the Toledo area. In Truth at Work we put together roundtable groups of business leaders who act as a board of advisors to one another to help each other to grow their businesses while at the same time helping them to grow personally and spiritually. These are extremely powerful.

Yesterday, our 2nd Tuesday group met (they meet the 2nd Tuesday of every month) for the usual four hour meeting. Once again, it was incredible.

We had a new member join the group and he was in attendance for the first time. He was someone whom I had spoken to about Truth at Work about 15 months earlier and he kept putting it off because he said he couldn't focus on anything with the economy doing what it was doing. Besides, he said he wouldn't be able to afford anything else anyway.

Immediately after the meeting, he came up to me and said, "I wish I had gotten involved in this when you first told me about this. I had no idea how helpful this would be to me!"

I know what he was feeling. He felt like he just took a big drink after being in the desert for days. He felt like he was no longer alone. He felt encouraged.

This is not a surprise. In 1 Peter 5 we are told that the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Whenever I have watched a lion chasing its prey on TV, let's say a zebra, I see the lion going after the zebra that is by itself because that one is seen as weaker and more vulnerable. So, the devil tries to isolate us so he can devour us. In fact, the word "devil" actually means to tear or divide.

I encourage you that when you are feeling like you don't want to be around anyone for long periods of time, to fight through that feeling and gather among friends. Especially if those friends can encourage you, hold you accountable and provide you with wise counsel.

Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another--and all the more as you see the Day approaching.

Hebrews 10:25

The Extra Mile

This morning in our 3rd Tuesday Truth At Work roundtable group we had some great discussions. One of the things we spent a lot of time on was employee performance and when to keep or let go a struggling employee or someone who has certain issues.

This is something that gets brought up fairly regularly...the tension between servanthood and stewardship. The servant wants to keep a trouble employee and rehabilitate them and that is a noble cause.

However, leaders are given stewardship responsibilities over their company or department. So, the health of the overall group really trumps the health of the individual. In other words, if keeping an employee does damage to the overall company, oftentimes that person needs to go. Sounds harsh, but better to sacrifice one than many.

The bottom line is, if you are someone who is working for someone else, you need to take ownership of what you do so that you are not one that your boss is struggling to keep. The most valuable employees are those who do the job, and then some...the people who go the extra mile. They make a leader's job easy.

Whether on the job or not, whatever you are doing, are you willing to go the extra mile?

"If someone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles."

Jesus in Matthew 5:41

Cheat Work, Not Home

Last week, I showed a video from the 2006 Willow Creek Leadership Summit for our Truth At Work groups. The session was Andy Stanley's talk on The Best Leadership Decision I Have Ever Made.

During the session, Stanley talked about when he was getting his church up and running and the incredible effort it took. He talked about the long hours he and his team was investing. He said he had the attitude, "If I don't, it won't." In other words, it was all up to him. He felt that if he leaned toward home, nothing would get done at work.

Sound familiar? It does for me.

Then he received a revelation from God.

God revealed to him that Andy was instructed to love his wife (Ephesians 5), not his church. He also received insight in Matthew 16 when Jesus says, "On this rock I will build my church..." Andy said, "OK, so Jesus is promising to build the church, not Andy."

Andy said it was out of those revelations that his greatest leadership decision materialized. He decided to cheat the church (or work) and not his home. He made a deal with God which went something like this: OK God. You command me to love my wife and you say that you are going to build the church, so here's my deal. You have me for 45 hours per week to get this church thing done. If you can't build the church with 45 of my hours, well, I guess it wasn't meant to be. He decided to cheat the church rather than his family.

After making this decision, what he found out was that this forced him to operate in his sweet spot, doing what he does best. He also found out that his organization began to thrive because he was only doing what only he could do.

Andy shared one more thing which I think is relevant to all of us who are leaders. Those who love their businesses and not their families, have neither great business nor great families. Wow.

I must admit, I am now doing quite a bit of soul searching and taking a very close look at how I'm spending my time.

Work Harder on Yourself

Yesterday, I drove to Indianapolis with some Toledo Truth At Work members to visit with an incredible company who does a great job of incorporating their faith into their corporate culture.

One of the things that stuck out to me is that they have a phrase which they share with their employees regularly, "Work harder on yourself than you do on your job." It is even on pieces of correspondence with employees.

Let me ask you this, have you ever worked for a company with this sort of attitude? Nope, me neither. Most companies I have worked for have had the exact opposite attitude. They gave me the impression that they wanted me and my coworkers to work ONLY on our jobs and they didn't give a rip about us as people. If it were up to them, they would have liked us to sleep at our jobs.

In spending several hours with some of this company's leadership, I can tell you that they walk their talk. They encourage and reward employees for reading leadership books, attending classes, volunteering in the community and going on mission trips. I talked with some employees who just returned from building houses in Mexico and they were stoked. They said it was the greatest experience of their lives. They even have free lunch Wednesdays where they buy lunch for each of their employees.

They have over 1600 employees and they are only 11 years old. They have been on the Inc. 500 list of fastest growing companies in the US for the past several years. In walking around, it was clear that the employees wanted to be there.

The results show that this company's philosophy is paying dividends. And why shouldn't it? The people obviously feel cared for. This will in turn make them care more about the company. Jesus' advice about the golden rule was right on, even for leaders of companies!

"So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets."

Matthew 7:12

Patience and Faith

Approximately once per month I conduct a Private Briefing for those interested in learning more about Truth At Work. This morning was one of those mornings.

My awesome bride accompanies me to these meetings to help me get setup and to greet the guests and give them name tags, etc... (Did I mention to you that she is awesome?)

Because of the snow we received over the past several days, we decided to take Connie's car because it has four wheel drive. We arrived at the location of our briefing at around 7 AM (for the 7:30 meeting) only for me to realize that the keys to the building were at home on my key chain...D'OH!

We live 15 minutes away which means we would be returning at the start of our meeting if all went well (which also means that a locked building would be all that would greet our guests if they were early). So, we rushed back home and called our oldest daughter who is 21 (and amazing) and asked her to grab my keys and start driving toward us. She did so which saved us close to 10 minutes (did I mention my daughter is amazing?).

We turned around with keys in hand and tried to hurry as best we could, yet it seemed like everyone wanted to pull out in front of us and drive extra slow this morning...Ugh! It seems each vehicle in front of us could have had a sign on it like the truck above. My patience, and my faith, were being put to the test.

All the while, I was praying and reminding myself that I can do nothing about the situation. In my head I knew that God had it figured out and that I needed to just release it to Him, yet I was trying to control the situation from where I sat. Not only did I find out that was impossible, all it did was create more unwelcome anxiety in me.

Though stressed at times, in the end, I did a fairly good job of remaining calm (nowhere near perfect, but better than I used to be!). We arrived back at our location with five minutes to spare and only two cars were waiting on us in the parking lot. We quickly got setup and started only five minutes late with 12 in attendance.

The meeting went great and two big lessons were once again learned by me:
1. Always bring your keys if you need to unlock something
2. Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him and He will make your paths straight. (Proverbs 3:5-6)

Accountability

In my post on Friday I talked about the different faces we all have: the public face, the private face and the personal face. I mentioned that the closer these three faces are to one another the more healthy we are and the more integrity we will have.

Saying we are going to work on this is one thing. Actually doing something about it is another.

One of the things I do for a living is to lead monthly roundtable groups of Christian business leaders. As part of each four hour session, we include a time of accountability. During this time, each member is to share what they want to accomplish during this next month in their personal life and in their business. They will then give a report next month on how they did. If they got it done, we celebrate. If not, they pay a penalty which is usual a stiff financial fine. This drives true change!

I bring this up because as humans, we all have a tendency to do the easy things first and to let the tough things slide. Bringing our three faces in line with one another is definitely not an easy thing and it is certainly not a natural thing for us to do. So, we will need help. We will need accountability.

We all need people in our lives who we can share everything with, who will love us anyway and will care enough about us that they will hold us accountable to doing what is right.

Do you have 1-3 people like this in your life? If not, I encourage you to seek them out.

As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.

Proverbs 27:17

Sharpening the Saw

Yesterday, as I mentioned in my previous post, I got two or less hours of sleep before leading our 3rd Tuesday Truth At Work group that morning. I arrived back to my office around 12:30 and tried to catch up on some stuff that came up while I was away the prior few days. I really wanted to get caught up.

However, it seemed I just couldn't get much done. I felt like I was running in quicksand and getting nowhere fast. So, I decided to take a nap.

I then went to a production my son was involved in at school last night and came home and immediately went back to bed and had a great night's sleep.

Today, I had another Truth At Work group to lead and I am now in my office making some nice headway on my tasks.

Stephen Covey's seventh habit in The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People is Sharpen the Saw. He says that we must rest or refresh in order to be most effective. This is obviously a Biblical principle as well (see the 10 commandments). In the book, he tells the following story:

He's walking through the woods and he hears a sawing noise. He investigates and finds a guy sweating profusely as he tries to cut down a tree. He says to him, "What are you doing?"

The man replies, "I'm cutting down this tree, you dummy!"

Stephen says, "No, I mean, it looks like you have been working hard. How long have you been at this?"

"Two hours."

"Why don't you take some time to sharpen the saw? It will make things go much faster and easier."

"I don't have time to do that--I've got to get this tree cut down!"

Yesterday afternoon when I was trying to get my work done, I had the same attitude as that tree cutter. I could have worked for hours without getting much done. What I really needed was to sharpen my saw which in my case was getting some sleep.

How sharp is your saw?

For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day.

Exodus 20:11a

The Power of Community

As many of you know, I lead an organization in the Toledo area called Truth At Work. We work with Christian business leaders to help them to grow their organizations in a God-honoring way, while at the same time helping them to grow personally and spiritually.

This is all done through four hour long monthly roundtable meetings in which 12-15 peers act as a board of advisers to one another. As a result of these meetings many ideas are developed both on the business and personal side of things.

The thing that has become apparent to me over this past year is the incredible power of community. When things are tough, as they are now in our economy, our natural tendency is to hole up by ourselves to weather the storm. That is not what God wants from us. He wants us to do life together because he knows we need the encouragement. The way I look at it, life is like this formula:

Me + Community + God = unlimited potential

In the above video, Lynn Fruth shares that he pays a substantial sum of money each month to be a part of this group...and he'd pay ten times that amount because of what he gets out of it! I hope this encourages you to surround yourself with other Christ-centered individuals.

Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.
Ecclesiastes 4:12

Axioms

ax⋅i⋅om  [ak-see-uhm]–noun
1. a self-evident truth that requires no proof.
2. a universally accepted principle or rule.

I have become a big fan of axioms. I think I've always liked them but I've become more aware of their power after reading Bill Hybels' book Axiom.

Fortunately, as Chapter President for Truth at Work I am in an environment in which I get to hear new axioms regularly. Here are a few from recent roundtable meetings:

* When you live your life by principles, you have very few decisions to make.
* Transformation begins with a profound relationship with the way it is.
* The answer to the “how” is saying “yes” to God.
* Tomorrow never comes.
* Good management is truth, not avoidance.

I came across the above video and I loved it because it has some really good axioms we can live our life by. I hope you enjoy!

Living in the Moment

Yesterday, we hosted a seminar entitled, Trusting God in this Economy. Ray Hilbert, the founder of Truth at Work led the session and there were some great points made.

One that really got my attention is that God made our minds in such a way that we cannot think of two opposing thoughts at the same time. For example, it is impossible to be angry with someone and be praying for them at the same time. We can waffle back and forth, but we cannot do both at once.

Along those lines, a great way to live your life is to live in the moment.

Ray shared that we only have three options. We can live in the past, in the future, or in the moment. When we live in past, we can experience guilt. When we live in future, we can experience fear. Living in the present is the only way to truly experience joy and peace.

A great attitude to have is this, “There is nowhere in the world I’d rather be than right here, right now.”

I AM
I was regretting the past and fearing the future.
Suddenly my Lord was speaking.
“My name is I AM.”
He paused. I waited. He continued,
“When you live in the past with its mistakes and regrets, it is hard. I am not there.

My name is not I WAS.
When you live in the future, with its problems and fears, it is hard. I am not there.
My name is not I WILL BE.
When you live in this moment it is not hard. I am here,
My name is I AM.”

Trusting God In This Economy

For those of you in the Toledo area, I wanted to make you aware of something that you and others you know might have an interest in. I am hosting a seminar on September 17th at CedarCreek’s Toledo campus (corner of Sylvania & Douglas) from 8 AM to Noon. The seminar is entitled Trusting God in This Economy. Ray Hilbert, http://truthatwork.org/ founder will be conducting the meeting which he has done in other cities around the country to rave revues.

I believe this will be a great encouragement and bring some much needed hope to those in the business community in our region.

I highly encourage you to attend and if you feel so led, would you be willing to share this with others? Thanks! I hope to see you there!

You can register here. Early bird pricing ends this Friday (Tickets are $39; after Friday they are $49)!

Fanning The Flames

This weekend was unusually cool so on Saturday evening, my son and I went out to our backyard firepit to get a fire started. We rolled up some paper and then stacked a few pieces of wood, lit the fire and watched as it burned for a little while, then went out.

It seems we didn't account for the fact that the wood was a little damp from the rain we had received over the previous several days. So we tried again several more times.

When we got a little fire going, we began to fan the flames using newspapers. This helped considerably and finally we had ourselves a full-fledged fire.

Fanning the flames like we were doing reminded me of something my wife and I learned about on Friday evening. We had hosted a marriage seminar for our Truth At Work members, their spouses and guests Friday. Dan Rogers (CEO of Cherry Street Mission) and his lovely wife, Crystal led our discussion which was great.

They said that all relationships, and especially marriage need a solid infrastructure. The only way to build it is to work on it regularly. In other words, you need to fan the flames.

Here are 10 ways they suggested you fan the flames in your marriage relationship:

1. Daily prayer for your spouse
2. Rest (one day per week – remember the Sabbath)
3. Quality time together every day – Determine love language for each other
4. Weekly dates with your spouse – What can we do that we shouldn’t or wouldn’t do with someone else? – Don’t need to spend money to have a great date
5. Get away with your spouse for a couple days once per quarter
6. Attend a seminar every 6 months for mental stimulation. Commit to learn something new every six months
7. Building lasting memories – don’t be event centered
8. Taking a family vacation at least once per year
9. Apologize to your spouse when you don’t understand (not just for major issues) – Think about how you would treat a friend…Am I as thoughtful with my spouse?
10. Forgive your spouse internally – Do you trust God with changing your spouse or do you try to change them?

Mistakes

Yesterday morning I was leading our Truth At Work group that meets every third Wednesday of the month. In the first 60 minutes of our four hour time together we typically go through a case study which sheds Biblical truth on a business issue. This month I was to share a video which went along with a workbook each member has.

About 10 minutes into the video, I realized that the video did not match up with the outline in our books. I had a surge of panic go through my body. I had brought the wrong DVD! I immediately began to run down my list of options. None were very good.

So, I did something out of character for me. I just let it go.

At the end of the 40 minute video, I explained that I had obviously made a mistake. Everyone in the group seemed a little surprised because they each mentioned how awesome the message in the video was. In fact, they wanted to see parts 2 and 3 to the video I showed.

So even in my mistake, God used it for good. I hope I can remember this and regularly apply this to my life so that I can chill out and not fret about it when things don't go as I had planned!

For I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances.

Philippians 4:11b