Character

Happy Friday, Friends!

I hope and trust this post finds you all having a great day as a glorious new day begins to dawn in my Sweet Home Alabama!

This week’s Happy Friday is meant to inform, convict, and inspire. I want to share a large excerpt from The Complete 101 Collection: What Every Leader Needs to Know by John C. Maxwell. The excerpt I am going to share comes from Success 101: What Every Leader Needs to Know, Part II: The Core Qualities for Success, Chapter 6: Do Others Find Me Trustworthy?

“The Importance of Character

How a person deals with the circumstances of life tells you many things about his character. Crisis doesn’t necessarily make character, but it certainly does reveal it. Adversity is a crossroads that makes a person choose one of two paths: character or compromise. Every time he chooses character, he becomes stronger, even if that choice brings negative consequences. As Nobel prize-winning author Alexander Solzhenitsyn noted, “The meaning of earthly existing lies, not as we have grown used to thinking, in prospering, but in the development of the soul.” The development of character is at the heart of our development not just as leaders, but as human beings.

What must every person know about character?

1.      CHARACTER IS MORE THAN TALK

Anyone can say that he has integrity, but action is the real indicator of character. Your character determines who you are. What you are determines what you see. What you see determines what you do. That’s why you can never separate a person’s character from his actions. If a person’s actions and intentions are continually working against each other, then look to his character to find out why.

2.     TALENT IS A GIFT, BUT CHARACTER IS A CHOICE

We have no control over a lot of things in life. We don’t get to choose our parents. We don’t select the location or circumstances of our birth and upbringing. We don’t get to pick our talents or IQ. But we do choose our character. In fact, we create it every time we make choices – to cop out or dig out of a hard situation, to bend the truth or stand under the weight of it, to take the easy money or pay the price. As you live your life and make choices today, you are continuing to create your character.

3.     CHARACTER BRINGS LASTING SUCCESS WITH PEOPLE

True leadership always involves other people. (As the leadership proverbs says, if you think you’re leading and no one is following you, then you’re only taking a walk.) Followers do not trust leaders whose character they know to be flawed, and they will not continue following them.

4.     PEOPLE CANNOT RISE ABOVE THE LIMITATIONS OF THEIR CHARACTER

Have you ever seen highly talented people suddenly fall apart when they achieved a certain level of success? The key to that phenomenon is character. Steven Berglas, a psychologist at Harvard Medical School and author of The Success Syndrome, says that people who achieve great heights but lack the bedrock of character to sustain them through the stress are headed for disaster. He believes they are destined for one or more of the four As: arrogance, painful feelings of aloneness, destructive adventure-seeking, or adultery. Each is a terrible price to pay for weak character.”

Great stuff, isn’t it? As I read it and highlighted it all, I knew I had to share it with you all.

My hope is that as you read this excerpt you gained a deep understanding of the critical importance of character, that you understood that it is created one day at a time, that you were convicted if you are missing the mark, and above all else, that you were inspired to become all that you are capable of becoming. Friends, lets really take some time and think about our character. Are we where we want to be or are we getting terribly close to paying a terrible price for weak character? And let us remember a couple of things:

1.      Knowledge without application is just knowledge. Knowledge with application is true wisdom. It is not enough to know, we must do.

2.     Our character is a precious garden that we must tend every day of our lives. There is no end until we have taken our final breath. It is easy to slowly fade away and find ourselves far from anywhere we ever dreamed or imagined we would be. To be people of great character we must forge our character every day from this point forward. It is not always easy however it is always worth it.

Please don’t hesitate to contact me if there is ever anything I can do for you or your family. I will always help you any way I can. You can reach me at kevin@whatwillyourinfluencebe.com.

Have a great day, a wonderful weekend, please cherish your precious family, and please stay well!

Kev

Choosing Intentionality & Positivity

Happy Friday, Friends:

I hope and trust this post finds you all having a great day as a glorious new day begins to dawn in my Sweet Home Alabama! It is in the air; can you feel it?! College football season starts this weekend! I absolutely love this time of year!

 

I want to share what has been on my heart and then hopefully put a couple of tools in your toolbox this week…

 

How are you doing, Friend? What does your morning look like? Are you being intentional with what you are allowing into your heart, mind, and spirit? Is it positive? What does the fruit of your life look like? Are you thriving or surviving? How about those closest to you? Are they full of life, pursuing the greatness that is within them, secure in knowing that they are loved unconditionally by you?

 

So often these messages focus on what our influence will be in the life of another, however we know that what the mouth speaks is an overflow of what is in the heart. Garbage in, garbage out. We also know that what is in the well is always going to come up in the bucket. We can want to have great faith all we want, however if we are not filling our buckets – heart, mind, and spirit – with things that build our faith, we can want it all we want and we are not going to have it. It is the law of sowing and reaping; we will reap what we sow.

 

I want to encourage you this morning to really think about your daily routine. It is the things that we consistently do that will determine the lives we live. We cannot ignore our spiritual, mental, emotional, or physical health and expect to be healthy. We cannot leave these things to chance or what we feel like on any given day. We must determine in our hearts and minds the things that we will do each and every day that will help us grow and become all that we were created to become. And what challenging, difficult moments come? Oh, we lean into those! Those are building strength so we can face, and conquer, greater challenges.

 

Please Friend, you, the people you have in your life, and the purpose of your life is far too valuable to not be intentional and positive. No, it will not be easy, however it will absolutely be worth it!

 

I now want to put a couple of tools in your toolbox by sharing excerpts from two different books I am currently reading. My hope is that you will learn something and, more importantly, have a desire to dig deeper into these topics.

 

The first set of excerpts I am going to share come from The Complete 101 Collection: What Every Leader Needs to Know by John C. Maxwell. I am going to share from Chapter 8, How Can I Serve and Lead People At The Same Time? in the section titled, Relationships 101: What Every Leader Needs to Know.

 

“You’ve got to love your people more than your position.”

 

“Servanthood is not about position or skill. It’s about attitude.”

 

“Just as you can sense when a worker doesn’t want to help people, you can just as easily detect whether someone has a servant’s heart. And the truth is that the best leaders desire to serve others, not themselves.”

 

A true servant leader:

1.      Puts Others Ahead Of His Own Agenda

“It means intentionally being aware of other people’s needs, available to help them, and able to accept their desires as important.”

2.     Possess The Confidence To Serve

“The real heart of servanthood is security.”

“How we treat others is really a reflection of how we think about ourselves.”

“Only secure leaders give power to others. It’s also true that only secure people exhibit servanthood.”

3.     Initiates Service To Others

“But you can really see the heart of someone who initiates service to others. Great leaders see the need, seize the opportunity, and serve without expecting anything in return.”

4.     Is Not Position-Conscious

“If anything, being the leader gave him a greater sense of obligation to serve.”

5.     Serves Out Of Love

“In the end, the extent of your influence and the quality of your relationships depend on the depth of your concern for others.”

 

To improve your servanthood, do the following:

·       Perform small acts.

“Find ways today to do small things that show others you care.

·       Learn to walk slowly through the crowd.

“The next time you attend a function with a number of clients, colleagues, or employees, make it your goal to connect with others by circulating among them and talking to people.”

·       Move into action.

“If an attitude of servanthood is conspicuously absent from your life, the best way to change it is to start serving. Begin serving with your body, and your heart will eventually catch up.”

“It is true that those who would be great must be like the least and the servant of all.”

 

“If you want to be successful on the highest level, be willing to serve on the lowest.”

 

The second set of excerpts I want to share come from the book Think This, Not That: 12 Mindshifts to Breakthrough Limiting Beliefs and Become Who You Were Born to Be by Dr. Josh Axe. I am going to share from Mindshift 8: Bust Vices By Building Virtues in a section titled, The Greatest Level of Character.

 

“I define virtue as excellence used for the greatest good.”

 

“Virtue is knowing good, doing good, and moving others toward good.”

 

The Seven Virtues

WISDOM (honesty, awareness, seeking truth, principled thinking, creativity)

JUSTICE (integrity, fairness, honor, responsibility, leadership)

SELF-CONTROL (self-discipline, patience, humility, forgiveness, work ethic)

COURAGE (perseverance, confidence, action despite fear and consequences)

FAITH (spiritual devotion, commitment, trust in God, obedience)

HOPE (joy, gratitude, positive outlook, awe, curiosity)

LOVE (kindness, self-sacrifice, compassion, generosity, charity)

 

“Virtues do not operate independently of each other; rather they complement one another and work synergistically.”

 

“Consider the symbiosis of love and truth (wisdom).”

“Truth without love can be harsh.”

“Likewise, love without truth often does little to add value or growth.”

 

“If you want to make your life a masterpiece, you must be virtuous. It is the only way to create a life of beauty that inspires, that is meaningful, and that moves the world forward in a positive direction.”

 

“THINK THIS: Virtues lead you to your personal true north, the best version of yourself.

NOT THAT: Virtues are outdated and boring.”

 

Please don’t hesitate to contact me if there is ever anything I can do for you or your family. I will always help you any way I can. You can reach me at kevin@whatwillyourinfluencebe.com.

 

Have a great day, a wonderful weekend, please cherish your precious family, and please stay well!

 

Kev

Hope or Faith?

Happy Friday, Friends!

I hope and trust this post finds you all having a great day as this glorious new day begins to dawn in my Sweet Home Alabama! Today is going to be a special day…I have faith, believe, and declare it to be so!!!

I have been thinking a lot about the Stockdale Paradox, faith, and hope a lot this past week. The first thing I want to share with you is an excerpt from a concept paper written by Jim Collins on jimcollins.com. You can read the entire concept, as well as the accompanying Face the Brutal Facts concept, at https://www.jimcollins.com/concepts/Stockdale-Concept.html

“The name refers to Admiral Jim Stockdale, who was the highest-ranking United States military officer in the “Hanoi Hilton” prisoner-of-war camp during the height of the Vietnam War. Tortured over twenty times during his eight-year imprisonment from 1965 to 1973, Stockdale lived out the war without any prisoner’s rights, no set release date, and no certainty as to whether he would even survive to see his family again. …

You can understand, then, my anticipation at the prospect of spending part of an afternoon with Stockdale. One of my students had written his paper on Stockdale, who happened to be a senior research fellow studying the Stoic philosophers at the Hoover Institution right across the street from my office, and Stockdale invited the two of us for lunch. In preparation, I read In Love and War, the book Stockdale and his wife had written in alternating chapters, chronicling their experiences during those eight years.

As I moved through the book, I found myself getting depressed. It just seemed so bleak—the uncertainty of his fate, the brutality of his captors, and so forth. And then, it dawned on me: “Here I am sitting in my warm and comfortable office, looking out over the beautiful Stanford campus on a beautiful Saturday afternoon. I’m getting depressed reading this, and I know the end of the story! I know that he gets out, reunites with his family, becomes a national hero, and gets to spend the later years of his life studying philosophy on this same beautiful campus. If it feels depressing for me, how on earth did he deal with it when he was actually there and did not know the end of the story?”

“I never lost faith in the end of the story,” he said, when I asked him. “I never doubted not only that I would get out, but also that I would prevail in the end and turn the experience into the defining event of my life, which, in retrospect, I would not trade.”

I didn’t say anything for many minutes, and we continued the slow walk toward the faculty club, Stockdale limping and arc-swinging his stiff leg that had never fully recovered from repeated torture. Finally, after about a hundred meters of silence, I asked, “Who didn’t make it out?”

“Oh, that’s easy,” he said. “The optimists.”

“The optimists? I don’t understand,” I said, now completely confused, given what he’d said a hundred meters earlier.

“The optimists. Oh, they were the ones who said, ‘We’re going to be out by Christmas.’ And Christmas would come, and Christmas would go. Then they’d say, ‘We’re going to be out by Easter.’ And Easter would come, and Easter would go. And then Thanksgiving, and then it would be Christmas again. And they died of a broken heart.”

Another long pause, and more walking. Then he turned to me and said, “This is a very important lesson. You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end—which you can never afford to lose—with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.”

To this day, I carry a mental image of Stockdale admonishing the optimists: “We’re not getting out by Christmas; deal with it!””

Before sharing my thoughts and what has been challenging me this week, I also want to share another little nugget. I simply Googled “What is the difference between hope and faith?” and the following popped up – I do not know who to attribute this to, however know that it did not come from me!

“The difference between hope and faith can be summarized as follows:

Faith is our unwavering belief in something greater than ourselves, characterized by certainty and trust.

Hope is an optimistic attitude or mindset that good things are possible in the future, characterized by perception and possibility.

Faith is the foundation upon which hope is built.”

Perhaps it is confirmation bias, however this explanation lined up 100% with what I was thinking I would find. And the thing that was bothering/challenging me all week? Am I living a life of faith or a life of hope? How about you?

Admiral Stockdale made it very clear; the ones who didn’t make it were the optimists, those who relied on hope. Conversely, those who did make it had faith that in the end they would prevail. Look at the above; “faith is our unwavering belief,” while “hope is an optimistic attitude.”

As I have pondered this repeatedly, I have determined that I want to commit to living a faith-filled life, not a hope-filled life.

1.      It is a daily choice as to who or what I am going to place my faith in. I am going to intentionally choose to place my faith in Jesus Christ. Hebrews 11:6 tells us, “And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.” I am not simply hoping, I have faith. I have faith that He never leaves me or forsakes me, that He works all things together for the good of those who love Him, and are called according to His purposes, and that when I cast my cares upon Him, He will give me a peace that goes beyond all understanding…just to name a few.

2.     I will live my faith, not sit, and hope. James 2:14 – 26 says,

“14 What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save them? 15 Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. 16 If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? 17 In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.

18 But someone will say, “You have faith; I have deeds.”

Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by my deeds. 19 You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that—and shudder.

20 You foolish person, do you want evidence that faith without deeds is useless[a]? 21 Was not our father Abraham considered righteous for what he did when he offered his son Isaac on the altar? 22 You see that his faith and his actions were working together, and his faith was made complete by what he did. 23 And the scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness,”[b] and he was called God’s friend. 24 You see that a person is considered righteous by what they do and not by faith alone.

25 In the same way, was not even Rahab the prostitute considered righteous for what she did when she gave lodging to the spies and sent them off in a different direction? 26 As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead.”

This is what I believe has been bothering me. It is somewhat easy to profess faith with the mouth, however am I living my faith? How about you?

Hope or faith? For me there is a significant difference between the two. With God’s help, I will live a faith-filled life every day for the rest of my life. And at this exact moment I am reminded of the quote often attributed to Francis of Assisi, “Preach the Gospel at all times. Use words if necessary.”

Please don’t hesitate to contact me if there is ever anything I can do for you or your family. I will always help you any way I can. You can reach me at kevin@whatwillyourinfluencebe.com.

Have a great day, a wonderful weekend, please cherish your precious family, and please stay well!

Kev