More than 25 years ago, I was challenged when I heard Dr. John C. Maxwell say, “leaders are learners.” I never forgot that principle. I’ve spent the last quarter of a century – learning through reading, workshops, classes, seminars and mentors. And, I’ve learned that I can learn through a wide variety of people: teachers, friends, children, teens, interns, my spouse, my kids and my grandchildren. The other day, I read a book that involved a business leader learning—from an unexpected person.
The Janitor by Todd Hopkins and Ray Hilbert, is an exceptional book about learning six key principles that revolutionized the life of the company CEO. The subtitle of the book is: How an Unexpected Friendship Transformed a CEO and His Company.
My next several posts will highlight the principles that company janitor, Bob, taught the leader of the company when he came in to clean the office after hours. What Roger, the CEO, learned from Bob was surprisingly simple but profoundly powerful. It changed his personal life, his marriage, his family, his company and his neighbor.
I was moved by the uncomplicatedness of these half dozen principles and their ability to transform someone who was humbly willing to learn. I think you too will find them instructive and possibly life-altering. Tomorrow we will learn together so each of us can be better leaders in whatever arena God has placed us.
QUESTION: Who are some of the people who have taught you over the years? Thanks for sharing below.
It would be amazing if you actually noticed that my blog didn’t show up the last couple weeks in your email inbox, your Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter timeline. If you did wonder, even for a brief second, why you didn’t see any blog posts, I was on vacation. I was visiting my parents and family in Oregon. One thing that has kept me mostly sane and relatively healthy over the years is that I really do take vacations and breaks from my normal routines. So, I didn’t write any blogs other than a short Happy New Year greeting while on my vacation. I enjoyed relaxing, reflecting, connecting with family and my hobby of photography.
Mt. Hood – Oregon
Linda and Analise
My vacation included my wife and I taking, our 7 year old granddaughter with us from Florida to Oregon to visit her extended family. It was a fun experience — Snow-tubing on Mt. Hood, running from the incoming tide of the Pacific Ocean, giving her a first ice-skating experience, her seeing snow fall from the sky for the first time, riding four-wheelers, showing her where Grandpa grew up and helping her make sense of the familial connections with great uncles, aunts and cousins.
Grand daughter tasting snow for the first time.
After a brief break, I look forward to blogging again! Next week, I’ll be starting a series of blogs inspired by an outstanding book I read on the plane ride from Oregon back to my home in Florida. It’s great stuff. I can’t wait to share it! I know you’ll love it too!
Have a fantabulous weekend!
Grand daughter on the Pacific Ocean Beach
Mt. Hood tubing
Happy New Year! I’m enjoying vacation time with my family in Oregon on this New Year’s Eve so I’m celebrating the beginning of the new year 3 hours later than people in my home area of Southwest Florida. Whereever and however you are celebrating the end of 2012 and the launch of 2013, I wish you a very blessed year ahead.
Here’s my prayer for you in the year ahead. It’s the prayer Apostle Paul prayed for those of the first century who lived in Ephesus. It’s written this way: “For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.“ (Ephesians 3:14-21)
May you discover the unlimited expanse of God’s goodness in 2013!
QUESTION: Any prayers you have for the new year? Feel free to share them in the Comment section below. Thank you!
The other day my wife and I, our daughter and son in-love visited the Cheeburger Cheeburger restaurant on Sanibel Island near where we live in southwest Florida. It was our first visit to this “Big is Better” inaugural restaurant that has developed into a nation-wide chain since its launch back in 1986. Due to it being the holiday season and heavy with tourists, there was a forty-five minute wait to be seated. Once we were seated, we waited another fifteen minutes or more and still no one came to the table. I was getting just a little bit impatient so I went to the hostess and manager at the entry check-in desk to inquire. They apologized and sprung into action to find our server.
Our server soon arrived at our table to introduce herself and apologize for her delay. Donah (sp?) told us she was helping an elderly lady in the restroom. I felt a little better knowing there might have been a reasonably good excuse for the lack of attention. But to be honest, I was still a bit grumpy on the inside.
A few minutes later, while Donah was taking our order, the manager, Carol, interrupted to announce that the husband of the elderly lady wanted to thank her and recommend that she get the “Employee of the Month” award for her above and beyond assistance in the restroom. I was embarrassed at even my inner impatience. I felt the nudging of God to remember this lesson: there is usually a story behind the story.
The story behind this story was that Donah was being a true servant. While we were very slightly inconvenienced in our fast-food, microwave mentality, she was doing what was most important—going above and beyond waiting on tables to care for an elderly lady who had an authentic need. She was doing what needed to be done at that very moment. Donah lived out the “Big is Better” model in a Jesus-kind of “upside-down” Kingdom way—Do what is right regardless if it seems small and even if no one is watching.
The story behind the story goes back even further to the excellent restaurant leadership. The server obviously knew she had the freedom to do what was right and management would support her decision. Carol, the manager, displayed outstanding leadership in that restaurant encounter. Their motto is “Big is Better.” She publically praised the server boldly in front of our table when she walked up and announced the “Employee of the Month” nomination. A great trait for all leaders!
And finally, great customer service was exemplified. Carol not only took 10% off the check for the inconvenience of waiting on Donah to actually serve a real need, she also gave us a coupon for four free milkshakes. In my opinion, Cheeburger Cheeburger went far above and beyond our expectations! That’s fantabulous customer service. My expectation was fully satisfied when I realized why the server was delayed. To get a discount and free desserts, was an unexpected “Big is Better” action. And, by the way, I made sure Donah was tipped on the full amount! Big is better. That’s the story behind the story!
QUESTION: Do you have a story of a lesson learned when you found out the story behind the story? Share it below in the Comment section.
Thirty-eight years ago today, I married my love, Linda Augsburger. It was a cold, icy evening in Youngstown, Ohio when we shared with each other the vows we had written to each other before God, our family and friends. As much as my heart was bursting with love for this beautiful woman, I can honestly say that on our wedding night, was one of the days I loved her the least. In other words, I love her much more deeply now than I ever dreamed of back then.
As a pastor and police chaplain, I’ve done hundreds of weddings over the decades. I often read the best definition of love that I know of: “Love is patient,love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking,it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.” (The Bible -1 Corinthians 13:4-8a NIV).
After reading this unsurpassable definition of love to a couple that I’m uniting in marriage, I frequently share four words that are important in making sure their love will flourish and grow in the years to come:
FLEXIBILTIY – Adjust as needed and be aware of the natural tendency toward being selfish, rigid and self-centered.
FUN – Laugh often. Don’t get bogged down in the routines of everyday living and live boring 
predictable lives.
FORGIVENESS – No one is perfect. Everyone blows it. We all make mistakes. Forgive frequently.
FAITH – Nurture your relationship with God as individuals and as a couple. Marriage was God’s idea from the start, just look at the plumbing. He designed us to be physical, emotional, relational and spiritual beings. He wants to be a part of our marriages.
These four basic practices have kept our marriage developing and prospering into a greater love than I would have ever imagined 38 years ago! I’m looking forward to the future with my incredible wife!
QUESTION: What have you found brings success to a marriage? Please share it in the comment section below.
The other day I wished you a Happy Holiday and gave you a summary of Hanukkah, Kwanzaa and Christmas. Today, it is my joy to wish you a Merry Christmas to all my regular readers, regardless of your faith background! As a Christian pastor, I remind you the story of Christmas is that God has come near.
I love this scripture from John 1, “Because He was full of grace and truth, from him we all received one gift after another. The law was given through Moses, but grace and truth coma through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God. But God the only son is very close to the Father, and he has shown us what God is like.”
God became flesh and made His home among us in the baby born in Bethlehem. Let him be as human as he intended to be. Let him into the mire and muck of our world. For only if we let him in can he pull us out. Merry Christmas!
It’s a wonderful time of the year! It’s the holiday season! Depending on your roots, you may be celebrating one of several holidays this time of year – Christmas, Hanukkah or Kwanzaa. Sometimes we don’t even know much about the holidays outside our own faith or cultural roots. Let’s learn just a little about each of them so we better understand each other.
Kwanzaa is the newest holiday celebration. It’s a week-long celebration held in the United States and Canada that honors African-American heritage and culture observed December 26 to January 1 each year. Kwanzaa was created in 1966 by Maulana Karenga as an alternative for African Americans to celebrate their unique culture and history. The name comes from a Swahili phrase meaning “first fruits of the harvest.”
Each of the seven days of Kwanzaa is dedicated to seven principles of African heritage: Unity, Self-Determination, Collective Work and Responsibility, Cooperative Economics, Purpose, Creativity and Faith. Families celebrating Kwanzaa decorate their households with objects of colorful African art and fresh fruit. Candle-lighting, music, artistic performance, a feast and gift-giving of heritage symbols such as books are usually key components of the Kwanzaa celebration.
Hanukkah is the oldest holiday celebration. It is also know as the Festival of Lights, an eight-day Jewish holiday commemorating the rededication of the second temple in Jerusalem after the time of the Maccabean Revolt and Jewish victory over the Syrian-Greeks in 165 BC. Since this celebration is based on the Hebrew calendar, it may occur at any time from late November to late December in our most commonly used Gregorian calendar. This year, Hanukkah is December 8-16.
The Festival of Lights is observed by sequentially lighting each of the nine-branched candelabrum, called a Menorah, over the eight day period. In addition to lighting the candles, the 8-day Hanukkah holiday is celebrated by telling the historical stories of how one-day’s worth of oil miraculously kept a menorah burning for 8 days, prayers of blessings, reciting of Psalms, singing songs and traditional foods like potato pancakes, there will be gift-giving for children and playing with the dreidel—a four-sided spinning top.
Christmas is undoubtedly the most popular holiday of the season. The word literally means Christ’s Mass and is an annual celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ, generally on December 25. Now days, it is celebrated both as a religious and cultural holiday by billions of people around the world. The popular celebratory customs with Christmas have an eclectic mix of pre-Christian, Christian and secular themes and origins.
Christmas will be celebrated with decorated trees, elaborate light displays, nativity scenes, mistletoe, holly, Santa Claus, reindeer, Christmas music and caroling. Because gift-giving is a central part of the celebration, the heightened commercial activity among both Christians and others has become a significant event and an economic engine for retailers and businesses. Of course, like the other holiday celebrations, there will be family gatherings, lots of food, compassionate actions toward the less fortunate and for some, very deep and meaningful worship of the baby that changed the world.
The common theme in all three holiday traditions is gift-giving and taking time to connect with family and friends in an environment of celebration. Whether you are Jewish, Christian or an African-American celebrating Kwanzaa, don’t miss out on the blessings of being generous or the joy of connecting with family and friends. Use the season to celebrate every chance you get. Reach out to your neighbors. Care for the less fortunate. Understand your heritage and culture better. And, go deeper in your faith.
QUESTION: What do you love most about the holiday you celebrate at this time of year? Share your comments below.
My mother is one of the best pie-makers in the world! Not that she has ever competed in a contest to prove it, but you know, moms are the best—well almost. My wife has given mom some photo-finish, split-jury close competition over the years. In fact, my mom taught my wife the fine art of baking a pie. Spending the summer months of each of our first five years of marriage living near my parents in Oregon, created a splendid environment for pie making. With Oregon-fresh strawberries, blackberries, raspberries, boysenberries, marionberries, blueberries, peaches, cherries, rhubarb and apples all surrounding our farm, pie-making was a weekly event. I’m convinced, the world needs more pie!
The point is—everyone can make a difference—especially pie-bakers! Beth Howard, author, pie baker and TV producer, had a thought while she watched the earth-rattling, gut-wrenching grief that rippled across our nation from its epicenter in Newtown, Connecticut last week. Beth Howard drove her RV from Iowa to Connecticut loaded with supplies to bake hundreds of pies to hand out slices to first responders and residents and to gift pies to funeral receptions and grieving families.
The world needs more pies! Even pies can ease the grief of a devastated community. Beth’s actions unleashed an avalanche of generosity. A simple post on Facebook about her idea generated $2,000 in donations for gas and supplies within a two hour period. By the time she made the 1,100 mile trip, sixty volunteers had gathered in the New York area to help “the pie lady” make pies. Over 235 were made. One family made 60 pies in one day. Beth says, “Pie is meant to be shared. Pie connects people.”
The reality is, Beth knows about grief. Her husband of only six years, died three years ago at the age of 43 from a ruptured aorta. She poured her grief into baking pies. She wrote a book, “Making Piece: A Memoir of Love, Loss and Pie.” She has a website – The World Needs More Pie. She is developing a TV show, “This American Pie.” In the summer time, she runs the Pitchfork Pie Stand at the American Gothic home where the artist Grant Wood got his inspiration for his most famous painting—the farmer couple with a pitchfork.
I’ve never tasted Beth Howard’s pies. My mom and my wife might both be able to beat her in a pie-baking competition. But I love her philosophy of life. She believes that pie can change the world. And she is proving it in Newtown, one slice at a time. The world needs more pie.
QUESTION: What is the best kind of pie you’ve ever eaten? And where did you eat it? Share it in the comment section below.
With non-stop news coverage of the horrific massacre of children and educators at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, CT, what is there to add? Words are inadequate. I could give my opinion on gun control laws, cops in schools, mental illness, video game violence or a myriad of other societal ills. There will be plenty of those discussions this week on the airwaves, over the internet and around water coolers. Words are inadequate.
As a pastor and a police chaplain for many decades, I’ve spent countless hours with people who are struggling and wrestling with the biggest question—the WHY question—in the face of relentless tragedies and injustices. And like spiritual leaders of any sort, I scramble to try to say something in response and I always come away feeling inadequate. It will not be any different this time. But we can’t shrink from the task of responding to that question.
It seems to me, the very best way to honor the memories of the ones we’ve lost and love is to live confident, productive lives. And the only way to do that is to actually be able to face the “why” question. We need the strength to face a world filled with constant devastation and loss.
First, we must recognize the problem of tragedy, injustice and suffering is a problem for everyone no matter what their beliefs are. The problem of injustice and suffering is a problem for those who believe in God and for those who don’t—or for any set of beliefs. So abandoning belief in God does not really help in the face of it. Okay, then what will?
Every faith offers resources for dealing with suffering and injustice in the world. But as a Christian pastor I know my own faith’s resources the best, so let me simply share with you what I’ve got. When people ask the big question, “Why would God allow this or that to happen?” There are usually two answers. One answer is: “Don’t question God! He has reasons beyond my finite little mind. Just accept everything. Don’t question.” The other answer is: “I don’t know what God’s up to – I have no idea at all about why these things are happening. There’s no way to make any sense of it at all.” Neither answer is fully adequate.
Tim Keller, pastor and author wrote these words on Facebook this weekend: “One of the great themes of the Hebrew Scriptures is that God identifies with the suffering. There are all these great texts that say things like this: If you oppress the poor, you oppress me. I am a husband to the widow. I am father to the fatherless. I think the texts are saying God binds up his heart so closely with suffering people that He interprets any move against them as a move against Him. This is powerful stuff! But Christianity says God goes even beyond that. Christians believe that in Jesus, God’s son, divinity became vulnerable to and involved in – suffering and death! He didn’t come as a general or emperor. He came as a carpenter. He was born in a manger, no room in the inn.” I completely agree.
Another pastor, John Stott wrote: “I could never myself believe in God if it were not for the Cross. In the real world of pain, how could one worship a God who was immune to it?” Do you catch what this means? Yes, we don’t know the reason God allows evil and suffering to continue, but we know what the reason isn’t, what it can’t be. It can’t be that he doesn’t love us! It can’t be that he doesn’t care. God so loved us and hates suffering that he was willing to come down and get involved in it. And therefore the Cross is an incredibly empowering hint. Ok, it’s only a hint, but if you grasp it, it can transform you. It can give you strength.
QUESTION: What gives you hope in the face of evil and injustice? Share your comments below.
A certain amount of water has to have gone under the bridge of life before we can effectively begin to develop a personal mission statement. A lot of us come out of college with very little real world experience and we make choices about our careers, despite our lack of experience. One of the things I love about being past halftime is that I have years and years of hindsight and experience. I know what I’m good at and not so good at. I know what I’m passionate about and what I could care less about. These things are a huge plus when it comes to developing a mission statement.
According to the management guru, the late Peter Drucker, a mission statement is designed to say, “Why we do what we do. What we want to be remembered for.” Your mission statement doesn’t need to describe how you will go about it. How you accomplish it will change as your environment and technology changes.
Lloyd Reeb, author of Success to Signficance, reminds us there are three elements to developing a personal mission statement:
What kind of people or what cause do you care about the most?
What difference do you dream that you could make for those people or that cause?
What is your greatest skill or area of competence that you can bring to bear?
As for myself, I’ve discovered that I care deeply about people who are in mid-life and beyond and seem to be unclear about their mission. I hate the thought of mature people just coasting toward the grave. I also know that every spiritual gift inventory I’ve ever taken over the past several decades always scores me very high in encouragement or exhortation. And, I know I’m also a fairly skilled communicator. I know I have coaching skills too.
Therefore, my personal written mission is “to inspire transformissional living in adults over 50.” Every word is aligned with my gifts, my passions and the impact I want to make. I’m dedicated to using my gifts of encouragement and exhortation to inspire. I’m passionate about seeing change happen in the lives of people I influence. I’m fervent about helping people live intentionally and purposefully. And my target audience is adults over 50. It’s all wrapped up in my personal mission statement.
So, if you don’t have a mission statement or need to write a second-half mission statement, why don’t you start developing one today by writing your answers to the three questions above. And, maybe just jot down a few words or phrases that summarize those answers. And then stay tuned, I’ll have more to suggest in my next post that will help you to write your personal mission statement. And in the meantime, go to the Mission Statements website for some ideas that might stimulate you toward developing your own statement.
QUESTION: Would you share what you are learning about yourself through these exercises? Use the comment section below.
