Thank you for reading, subscribing and sharing my blog over the past year! As 2013 exits and 2014 rolls in, here’s a countdown of the top 10 views over the year. Maybe one or more of these will be an encouragement as you start your new year!
8. Four Things to Keep You from Quitting
7. How Do You Want to Be Remembered?
4. What Makes Your Heart Sing?
3. Most Admired Leadership Qualities
And now the drum roll…..
Thanks again for all your comments, your suggestions and shares over the past year! I’m very blessed to be fulfilling the purpose God has for me, inspiring transformissional living in others. Have a blessed year.
QUESTION: What was your favorite post this past year? I’d love to know in the Comment section below. Thanks!
I wish you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! My wife Linda and I will be leaving tomorrow for our 7th trip to one of my favorite places, Israel. We are hosting a group of 19 individuals who will be traveling with us for a life-changing journey. My wife and I will be celebrating our 39th wedding anniversary on December 27, our first day in Israel. Our group will be arriving in Jerusalem on New Year’s Eve. We will visit Bethlehem the first day of 2014. I can’t think of any better place to begin a new year!
Therefore, I won’t be posting any blogs during the next 10 days since I’ll be busy making sure our guests have a wonderfully powerful spiritual experience. I’ll begin with posting regular blogs again the first full week of January 2014! So, my prayer for your new year is this great ancient prayer of one of the very earliest Christ-followers, Apostle Paul:
14 For this reason I kneel before the Father, 15 from whom every family[a] in heaven and on earth derives its name. 16 I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, 18 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, 19 and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. 20 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, 21 to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen. (Ephesians 3:14-21)
May God’s great peace and His grace be enough for you each and every day of the new year!
While recently reading one of my favorite bloggers, Mark Miller, I was grabbed by something his assistant Teneya said as they were looking forward to increase their impact for 2014. She simply stated, “We’re going to have to decide to do the right things vs. the nice things.” Wow! I had to think about that for a bit. Aren’t the right things also the nice things?
As I read Mark Miller’s blog post, I quickly saw myself as a leader who naturally slides toward doing the nice things instead of the right things. I really like to be a nice person. I want to be known as a nice guy. I love it when people like me. It’s easier than doing the right things.
Please understand. I don’t major on doing the wrong things. In fact, I want to be remembered as a person of top-notch character and utmost integrity. I never want a hint of immorality, dishonesty or shadiness to tarnish my reputation. I try to take the high road in every situation. So, this tension about nice or right is not at all related to wrong or right.
This question about doing the right thing or the nice thing is all about choosing excellence over ease. It’s about making decisions that will lead to great not just settling for good. Way too often in my leadership history, I’ve tried to be nice rather than to say what really needed to be said. Too often I should have said “no” to more busyness, but instead I took the easy road and said “yes,” just to be nice.
As you plan for 2014, will you choose to be nice or do what is right? Here are some options you may face:
Pursue truth through conflict or avoid conflict because it makes some people uncomfortable?
Have a difficult performance conversation or continue to give inflated performance ratings?
Confront problems and issues or avoid discussing problems at all costs?
Dismiss an employee who can’t grow with the business or keep the person on the payroll indefinitely?
Give stretch assignments to people and expect them to struggle or avoid giving stretch assignments because they may create some discomfort?
Say, “no” to non-strategic work or say, “yes” to non-strategic work?
Decline a speaking engagement or accept every request regardless of the audience?
Attend a portion of an all-day meeting or stay all day so as not to offend the host of the meeting?
Eliminate a program to reallocate needed resources or sacrifice new ideas so outdated ones can be funded?
Doing the right thing does not always feel like the nice thing to do when you want others to like you. But excellence in leading an organization requires us to do what is right, not just nice. I happen to believe that great leaders do what is right in the nicest way possible. Doing what is right doesn’t mean being rude or uncaring. But leaders must make the difficult decisions that are right. It’s right for the organization. It’s even right for the under-performing individual when you free their future so they can find the right fit where they succeed and shine.
As you prepare and plan for the upcoming year, ask yourself frequently—Is this the RIGHT thing to do or just the NICE thing to do?
QUESTION: What have I missed? Please add it in the Comment section below. Thanks!
Many editorials, blogs and articles have been written over the last days. Hundreds have given their commentaries on radio and television. World leaders traveled to South Africa to pay their respects. The world lost a man who left an implausible legacy a few days ago. I won’t even try to compete with my words to adequately honor this incredible leader.
However, I read a few words of reflection the other day (and I apologize that I cannot remember who to give credit to). These few lines captured what we can learn from Nelson Mandela about changing the world. I wrote the words down (except for the author’s name). Here they are:
You Can. – Many times the first words that come to our minds and mouths when faced with seemingly impossible challenges are “I can’t,” “It won’t work,” “It’s too hard,” or “I don’t have the resources needed.” Nelson Mandela proved that one individual can do more than ever imagined.
You Can Make a Difference. – So many people I know don’t think they can actually leave a mark on the world. They wonder if any one will even remember their name, let alone their impact. The whole world knows Nelson Mandela’s name and impact.
You Can Stand Up to Insurmountable Forces. – President Mandela showed the world that a legacy of discrimination could be dismantled with persistent intentionality. South Africa’s first back chief executive risked everything to focus on racial reconciliation as he tackled poverty, inequality and institutionalized racism. And, the walls of apartheid collapsed.
You Can Put Up With Far More Than You Think You Can. – It seems nearly impossible to think of spending 27 years in jail for leading a revolutionary movement against wide-spread injustice. But Mandela endured the challenge and it made him better instead of bitter. He relied on the sufficiency of God’s grace and a clear vision of changing the world to get through nearly three decades of imprisonment.
Your Lever is Far Longer Than You Imagine It Is, If You Choose To Use It. – Nelson Mandel found ways to leverage his influence far beyond any other black man in South Africa. In fact, he leveraged his influence way beyond most other world-class leaders of the last couple centuries. He built relationships with other leaders of influence. He negotiated with those who could bring change. His life-long impact was leveraged to the max!
If You Don’t Require the Journey to be Easy or Comfortable or Safe, You Can Change the World. – This is the one we would most like to avoid. We want to accomplish great things and change the world with little cost to us. Nelson Mandela laid it all on the line. He had a vision of a united South Africa. Comfort, safety or ease weren’t a part of his vocabulary. You and I can change the world if we are willing to sacrifice.
There are world-changers who are reading this blog who need to be reminded: You can. You can make a difference. You can stand up to insurmountable forces. You can put up with more than you think you can. Your lever is far longer than you imagine it is, if you choose to use it. And, if you don’t require the journey to be easy or comfortable or safe, you can change the world. I can. You can. We really can.
QUESTION: Which one of the above is the biggest challenge for you? Please share it in the comment section below. Thanks!
It’s been 21,916 days. That calculates out to 3,131 weeks, or 525,984 hours, or over 31 million minutes or about 1.9 billion seconds. And in case you aren’t a math wizard, I’m simply talking about the 60 years and 1 day since I was born. Yesterday I celebrated six decades of air flowing in and out of my lungs. It was my sixtieth birthday.
All of us except my wife Linda (behind camera) and our 4 month old twins (already in bed).
After burping our four-month old twin grand babies in the morning, I spent five plus birthday hours driving from Jacksonville back to my home in Cape Coral, Florida. Then, I picked up some new prescription sunglasses, went out to eat dinner with my wife and came home, unpacked and read through several hundred birthday greetings on Facebook. Life is good!
I know. You must think I live a boring life! I didn’t celebrate the changing of a decade in a big way. Actually, my wife is about nine months behind me in age and we do the big celebrations of the decades and half-decades around her birthday: sky-diving, para-gliding, hot-air balloon rides, hang-gliding, bungee jumping, whitewater rafting and more! We really do love to live on the edge! Next summer we plan to hang-glide in the Swiss Alps and sky dive again in Florida! Life is good!
My birthday weekend was actually spent doing what is most important in life—connecting with my family. All our three adult children, their spouses and our four grandchildren gathered in Jacksonville for the weekend. We spent a part of the weekend making memories together in the oldest city in America—St. Augustine. We took horse-drawn carriage rides, visited the oldest fort in America, and took a magical outdoor stroll to enjoy the over-the-top holiday lights accenting this historic city. And then we enjoyed some birthday cake together. It was a wonderful weekend creating a legacy! Life is good!
Yesterday as I drove home, I reflected on the decade of my 50’s. It was a monumental decade. The last two of our children found their spouses and married. Our four grandchildren were born. I engineered and executed a leadership succession plan for the church that I founded. I started this blog as one medium for living out my personal mission of inspiring transformissional living in others. I launched my Gingerich PhotoArt website. I wrote a proposal and was awarded a significant grant for a four-month sabbatical during 2014. And, so much more. Life is good!
As I look forward to my 60’s, I’m anticipating that the best is yet to come! Many great leaders have found their 60’s to be their most productive, effective and fulfilling years. Laura Ingalls Wilder’s best-selling series began with “Little House in the Big Woods” at age 64. Benjamin Franklin signed the Declaration of Independence as he was turning 70. Nelson Mandela became President of South Africa at age 76. Mother Teresa received the Nobel Peace Price at age 69. And Ray Kroc finally got the McDonald’s fast-food chain up and running as a franchised business just as he entered his 60’s.
My cousin Dean Gingerich, who is 3 months older than I, just sent me this in a birthday email from his home in Montana, “We had a fellow at church give a 2 day seminar on jobs (learning to love your work). It is a statistical fact that a man’s most productive decade is his 60’s, followed by the 50’s and lastly the 70’s. So we still have 20 good years ahead of us.” I’ve repeatedly observed this to be true.
Life is good! I’m anticipating much fruitfulness over the next years. I’m leveraging my first half success for second-half significance and I’m inspiring others toward transformissional living! Life is good!
QUESTION: What is one thing you are looking forward to in your next decade? I’d love to hear it in the comment section below.
Alex Harvey, a 20-something young leader who reads my blog sent me this email recently: “I just had a great talk with my dad about the difference between confidence and arrogance…I was really hoping you could possibly write a blog post about these topics and any other related topics. I would also love to hear how you have learned to be humble and how that changed your world-view.”
Here’s a quote that has always helped me. “There’s a thin line between confidence and arrogance…its called humility.” (Unknown). The bigger question is, can confidence and humility simultaneously exist in the same person? Is it possible that a leader is both confident and humble? To answer, we must know the difference between confidence and arrogance. Here’s how I would define the difference: Confidence smiles while Arrogance smirks.
Confidence Smiles – When you know who God has made you to be, your calling, your mission, your purpose, your strengths, your weaknesses, your talents and gifts, you should be confident. With God’s wisdom and power inside, you can leverage your strengths with assuredness, decisiveness and confidence.
Arrogance Smirks – When your confidence is unbridled and rooted in your self more than in God and gratitude for what God has given you and who He has made you to be –you can easily slip into arrogance. Leaders who become arrogant can achieve short-term success. But arrogance will ultimately lead to downfall. We’ve all seen it happen over and over again.
Humility Sustains – In order to protect yourself against arrogance, your confidence must be rooted in humility. Humility is that thin line between confidence and arrogance.
It feels awkward to even mention the things that have helped me walk that thin line in my leadership. Just sharing this makes me think I’m possibly stepping off the humility line into arrogance. That line is very thin and I am always very self-conscious about crossing it.
However, leaders take risks so I’m going to confidently say, here are a few ways I attempt to combat arrogance: 1) I remember it’s not about me. It’s all about Someone much greater than me. 2) I stay in awe of God’s grace and blessings. I daily recognize that God has given me more than I deserve. 3) I acknowledge my strengths and talents are not self-created but from God. 4) I try to own my mistakes, weaknesses and screw-ups. 5) I regularly express gratitude to the team members around me who are instrumental to my success. 6) I daily express gratitude to God for life, health and strength to live out His purposes through me.
Bottom line, a very thin line indeed, is that humility rooted in gratitude will be your best protection from arrogance. Only then can you live and lead with confidence to accomplish the great things God has purposed in and through you.
QUESTION: What additional attitudes or actions have helped you avoid arrogance? I would love to hear them in the Comment section below. Thanks!
Now that the official Thanksgiving holiday and weekend is past, it’s easy to revert back to the routine of ungratefulness. We pause for one day to express our gratitude and thankfulness for all the ways we have been blessed. Yet, we can easily slip into grumbling and mumbling as we scurry to find just the right Christmas gift at the deeply discounted sale price that is just right for our over-stretched budget.
Our 8 year old granddaughter Analise with spontaneous gratitude watching an Oregon Coast sunset.
The longer I live, the more I’m convinced that gratitude is the answer to almost every problem we face. Think about it, gratitude can transform anxiety, anger, discontent, greed and depression. Gratitude may not change your circumstance, but it can change you and me. However, when gratitude transforms us, it may possibly change our circumstance.
I love what a Benedictine monk, Brother David Steindl-Rast said, “You think this is just another day. It’s not just another day. It’s the one day that is given to you today….It’s the only gift that you have right now. And the only appropriate response is gratefulness.” Wow, as I’m a week out from my sixtieth birthday, that’s exactly how I want to live each and every day of the rest of my life. Maybe we would live this way if we saw today as the first day of our life—or our last.
Here are some things I’m finding helpful and I suggest them to you as we seek to live each day with gratitude:
Notice life around you. Most everything can be awe-inspiring if you pay attention. Whether it is the natural beauty of a flower, the aeronautical marvel of a bird in flight, a sunrise, a sunset, the interesting people you encounter at an unexpected moment, or the simple beating of your own heart—life is a gift. Notice it. Tune in to it. Enjoy it.
Receive everything as a gift. It’s so easy to feel entitled and become cynical when we don’t get what we want or feel we deserve. I’m trying to intentionally receive everything as a gift. Each day is a gift. Each person is a gift (that’s not always an easy one to practice). Each challenge is an opportunity. Each blessing received is more than I deserve. God’s grace is all important. It’s not about me but all about Him.
Express gratitude often. This is one of the things that makes us humans unique and sets us apart from the rest of the animal kingdom. We can express and articulate our gratitude. But honestly, we have to speak it to experience the power of it. Find ways to say it often.
Bless someone else. Let your gratefulness overflow into the lives of those you encounter today. It doesn’t have to be fancy—just offer them a smile, a touch, a kind word, a simple expression of thanks or the simple gift of your presence. You should have seen the face of the young floor-mopper outside the restroom at the local grocery store the other day when I thanked him for keeping everything so clean. He thanked me for thanking him. Gratitude inspires gratitude.
One of the best recent books I’ve read that inspired me toward more gratitude is by Ann Voskamp, One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are. Read it. Give it to someone as a gift.
Think about it. Today will never be repeated. It is unique among all the days of your life. Live it with gratitude.
QUESTION: What have I missed that helps you to live with gratitude? Please share below.
There is nothing uglier than a person with an entitlement mentality, a spoiled brat spirit. In contrast, there is nothing more beautiful than a grateful person. Everyone loves a person who is thankful. You can’t stay away. You just want to hang around them all the time.
Charissa Gingerich Higdon with twins Haley & Noah
My beautiful daughter Charissa is one of the most grateful persons on the planet. When she was little, she would thank her mom and I over and over again for a gift we gave, a treat, time spent with her, driving her to a soccer practice, or whatever. We even had to tell her she could stop thanking us because we had heard it a dozen times already. To this day as a 30 year-old mommy of twins, she still can’t stop thanking people when they bless her.
This past weekend, I was trimming shrubs and cut the television cable feed into my home. The contractor who buried the cable had left an 18 inch segment above ground right where it went through my shrubs. My hedge trimmer discovered the error. I had a choice to make. Was I going to whine and complain all weekend because I had no cable TV in the house or make the best of it? After all, it was one full day of college football and another day of NFL football that I was missing until the cable company finally sent someone out to fix their screw-up.
I intentionally set out to be thankful. First of all, I had a first world problem to deal with. My third world travels have taken me to many homes where there are no televisions. While having a pretty basic cable package, I still have dozens of high definition channels to choose from 24/7. I even have a seven-inch portable color screen television in my closet that gathers a half dozen over-the-air HD channels. I dusted off the box and used it.
Frankly, most of the complaints I hear or see posted on social media arise out of an entitlement mindset that has permeated our North American culture. There is a lot of ugly spoiled-brat kind of grouchiness that saturates our culture with ungratefulness. We complain about the weather—too hot or too cold. We gripe about the customer service of businesses we procure from. We grumble about the traffic and the driving-habits of others. We hate to wait in line. Fast food isn’t fast enough. We think we deserve better. Really, it’s not very pretty when you stop to think about it.
Gratitude comes out of the overflow of a thankful heart. When we realize how blessed we are, it makes all the difference in the world. We used to sing a song in the church of my childhood, “Count your many blessings and name them one by one.” When I practice that one line of that old hymn, it changes my perspective. It changes my attitude. It changes my heart. And it changes my actions.
This week, slow down enough to reflect on your blessings. Name them. Write them down. Express them to someone else. Repeat them over and over. You will turn what could be an ugly self-centered week into a beautiful week of thanksgiving and gratitude. Happy Thanksgiving!
QUESTION: What are the top three things you are thankful for today? Share them in the comment section.
What would you rather be remembered for, being persistent or tenacious? Have you thought about the difference between them? Which is preferable for leadership? I know which one I want to be known for.
Think about it. Persistence is doing something again and again until it works. It sounds like ‘pestering’ for a reason. Telemarketers are persistent. Not my preferred way of doing business. Not the way I want to be remembered.
Here’s the contrast. Tenacity is using new information and insight to make new decisions to find new pathways to find new ways to achieve a goal when the old ways didn’t work (inspired by Seth Godin). Now, that’s what I want to be known for and remembered for. How about you?
Leaders are learners. Leaders quickly learn that just doing more of the same thing that isn’t working but somehow expecting different results, is the recipe for frustration. Remember that persistence is doing the same thing again and again thinking that somehow it will finally begin to work. Not a great leadership quality, correct?
Here’s what I’ve learned about developing tenacity in leadership:
Tendencies Tend to Be Learned – I know that some people tend to give up quickly and some seem eager to look for new routes when there is a detour in the road. My observation is that such tendencies come from our family experiences. My father was very solution-focused. If one way didn’t work, he would look for another way. I learned that approach to life. You can learn a new way if you didn’t have a tenacious model.
A Compelling Vision is Critical – If you have clarity and focus about the preferred future, it makes all the difference in the world. If you are lacking vision, you will find it most difficult to be tenacious. A compelling vision is the prime motivation for exploring every possible option. There will always be speed bumps, potholes and detours on the road to success. Mary Kay Ash said it well, “For every failure, there’s an alternative course of action. You just have to find it. When you come to a roadblock, take a detour.”
Confidence in Your Calling – I have no clue how one can be tenacious if you don’t have a clear sense of purpose in who God has created you to be and how He wants you to use your time, talent and treasure. My mission statement is to “inspire transformissional living” in others. If you aren’t on a purposeful mission in life, it will be difficult to be motivated and tenacious about anything meaningful. Get clear on your mission and calling and perseverance gets a lot easier.
Journey with Others – There’s an old Africa proverb that says, “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to far, go together.” I’ve discovered that building a team around a focused vision makes it much easier to be tenacious. Empowering others on the team to be innovative and creative helps immensely when it comes to finding new pathways to achieve a common goal. And the caring support of others during moments of discouragement is essential over the long haul.
I’m sure there is more to be said on this topic. But these four come to the top of my mind. What would add to the list? All of us would love to hear it in the comment section below. Thanks!
Ted Turner—media mogul, entrepreneur extraordinaire, Forbes-list billionaire, Time magazine’s Man-of-the-Year, a star on Hollywood’s Walk-of-Fame and much, much more—is turning 75 today. What does a larger-than-life guy like that think about when he sees the sun begin to set in the west? Does he mull over the same things in his life as the rest of us every-day kind of people do?
A recent CNN story asked the question of it’s founder, What will matter most about Ted Turner’s life story when they roll the final credits? It turns out, that Ted Turner’s deep inner-gut questions are the same as yours and mine.
CNN writers editors pose it this way, “You can be a billionaire or a bum, win sailing’s biggest prize or swab decks, own a television network or have trouble paying the cable bill: By the final curtain, life boils down to a few simple things.”
Did I make my Mama and Daddy proud?
Am I loved?
Will anybody remember me?
Do I get into heaven?
While Ted Turner has openly called Christianity “a religion for losers” and previously proclaimed faith in God wasn’t something he needed or was interested in, it sounds like he too is now throwing a prayer or two heavenward just in case someone up there really does care. As he looks in the rear-view mirror at three-fourths of a century, Mr. Turner understands that you only get one shot at life.
In less than a month, I’ll be looking at six decades in my rear-view mirror. I’m so grateful I have a clear confident answer to each one of these simple questions above. Yes, yes, yes and yes. My relationships with family, friends and God gives me total confidence as I face the future. I love to inspire transformissional living—especially for adults over age 50. I write this blog to help folks answer these very questions.
How about you? Do you have clear and concise answers to these four simple questions that Ted Turner is struggling with? If not, what changes will you make today to get clarity? You only get one shot.
QUESTION: How many of the four questions can you answer with clarity? Which one(s) do you need some help on? I would love to hear more in the comment section below.
