Tag: patterns

Podcast Week: Entrepreneurship

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I’m continuing my posts sharing some of the podcasts to which I dedicate my listening. Today, I’m going to go in a little different direction and talk about a genre I hadn’t explored significantly until the past few months: entrepreneurship, specifically online business.

I know this may sound strange for a Youth Pastor in West Texas, but I actually find myself regularly being challenged by the content and ideas being presented, plus I’m a blogger, so there’s that.

  1. Smart Passive Income with Pat Flynn – Pat Flynn is probably the best of the ones I listen to. Because of the nature of his expertise and mine, the overlap is sometimes spotty, but he delivers solid content and does a great job with the interview, so I’m generally fully engaged for the duration.
  2. The Soloproneuer Hour with Michael O’Neill – Michael O’Neill was my first toe in the water with this genre, so I forgive a lot of things that would drive me crazy (he’s a shameless self-promoter, which I am not). He provides good content most of the time, but he’s not a must listen in my book.
  3. Online Marketing Makeover with Amy Porterfield – Her delivery is unique. I’m not sure that she doesn’t manuscript and then read her manuscript when she’s not interviewing. As a result, I listen to her at 1.5x speed, if not 2x. In a recent episode I stumbled across a reference she made that sparked some curiosity, so I went back in her archives and found a gem, episode 149 I believe.
  4. Storybrand with Donald Miller – As with most podcasts, when you listen for a while (50+ episodes), you’re with the hosts for a rebranding. The Storybrand podcast has gone through a couple, and I’m still on the fence about the new direction. But, the early episodes are pure gold. Give them a listen!

There you go. 4 Podcasts dealing with business and entrepreneurship. I’ll be back tomorrow with a special post talking about my favorites and must listens.

Happy Listening!

Check It Out: Recent Musings

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Well, this week is just going to be a little different altogether.

On Tuesday, I posted about my oldest daughter turning 11.

Today, I would like to share a few posts whose concepts and ideas have crossed my mind this week, so get ready for a few links.

But before the links, I know the majority of you have been faithful readers, joining my journey somewhere along the way, and for that I am so grateful. But, can I ask a favor? Would you mind taking a moment today and sharing one of the posts I’ve written that has been beneficial to you? Share on your social platform of choice, or even just emailing a link to someone you think might be encouraged by something I’ve written. Thank you for walking this journey with me.

Now, on to a few links.

Don’t Let Someone’s Character Surprise You – I constantly have to remind myself of this principle, that people will consistently behave within their character. Check it out.

The Horizon of Possibility – This is one of my favorites. A leader looks at what’s ahead and sees what the future could become.

Be Careful Who Speaks Into Your Life – The people around us who have influence over us make a significant difference. Guard whose advice you are taking to heart.

Lessons from the Farm part 1 and part 2 – I enjoy my Lessons from the Farm series the most (and the traffic for those posts show that other people do too!). These two posts deal with the difference between someone who is an owner and someone who is a hired hand.

Once again, thank you for spending time caring about your own leadership journey. I hope you’ll click over to one or two of these, even if you think you know what they say, and be refreshed by one or two of the thoughts.

Accomplish a Little Today

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Earlier this month I ran across an Evernote file I made in January titled “2018 Goals”. In the note, I set out a few goals I wanted to accomplish this year. For example, I wanted to read 24 books this year.

The problem was that I had forgotten about the goals. I failed to keep them in front of me, so I made the goals in January and stumbled onto the file in August.

So, those 24 books I want to read? I have completed 4 (with 2 being finished on vacation, after finding the note). So, yeah, I still have a ways to go.

Then I started thinking: I don’t have to read 20 books in the next week. All I really need to do is to pick up one book and read a little bit today. If I can establish a routine and work reading into one of my habits, then the end result will be something entirely different than the first 7 months of the year.

Accomplishing my goal does not mean reading a bunch tomorrow, it starts with reading a little today.

The same is true for you and your leadership. Whatever goal you are staring in the face is not as large as it may seem.

Maybe you want to grow your organization (or ministry), but it seems like such a daunting task. Accomplishing your goal does not mean growing a bunch tomorrow, it means growing a little today. Start making relational investments now.

Maybe you want to make family a higher priority in your life. Accomplishing your goal doesn’t mean binging time with your family tomorrow, it means making the most of the time you have today.

Maybe you want to a leading voice in your field. Accomplishing your goal does not mean getting a bunch of recognition tomorrow, it means doing the little things right today.

Then, in all these things, as you make the commitment to accomplish little by little every day, the goal quickly shrinks.

The Refresh of Time Away

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Last week, as you likely read, I flew home from vacation. As I have been diving in with both feet this week (short week last week, and starting the new school year this week), I have done a little post-vacation reflection. Here are a few thoughts I have had as I think about my time off:

  1. Unplug, hard. I love listening to podcasts. The topics of said podcasts vary greatly–business/entrepreneurship, leadership, ministry, and sports are my main topics of listening. On vacation, however, I made a point to limit my podcast intake. Whereas in a normal week I will listen to 15-20 hours of podcasts, on vacation, I limited myself to maybe 3. I wanted a shift in my routine, which brings me to my next point.
  2. Shift in routine. During the middle of June I had a conversation with one of my girls. She was said that either she was leaving or I was leaving, and I told her I knew our summer was crazy, but if we could make it to vacation, we were going to have a blast. While I’m not winning any Father of the Year awards for my summer scheduling (something I’ll definitely tweak before next year), we got on vacation and shifted our routine. We spent an incredible amount of time together, and honestly it didn’t matter to me what we did as long as we did it together. Unless it was a manicure/pedicure, I ducked out for that one.
  3. Relax. Midway through our time away, I realized we were running pretty fast, even in vacation mode. We were, after all, in a very sight-seeing rich part of Virginia. So, the next day, we hit the brakes and hit them hard. We slept in, swam, read, snacked, watched a movie, and just enjoyed time together without an agenda for the day.

I’m very grateful for the leaders in my life who respected my time away and with my family. It means the world to me that the key people above me value my time with my family.

Finally, let me say this: I handled frustrations at the beginning and end of vacation in two very different ways. The end is what I posted about last week. The beginning? Well, let’s just say I am not proud of the things I did, and upon reflecting, I was in dire need of vacation.

When was the last time you got away? What were you able to successfully do to unplug and refresh on your vacation?

 

3 Reasons to Ask for Help

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Honestly, I do not know if today’s leadership lesson is a leadership lesson, or just a life lesson, but seeing how you’re both a leader AND alive, let’s dive in anyway.

Ask for help.

There’s something wired inside most of us that makes us dread asking for help. We think it’s an ego shot, or we think it makes us look weak. The reality, however, is asking for help means we are incapable of doing things all by ourselves.

There are a couple of reasons to ask for help:

  1. Asking for help gives someone with an ability and/or gift an opportunity to use their ability/gift. I doubt this comes as a surprise to you, but not everyone excels at the same things. Where some people have no idea how to build something, others find their greatest joy and fulfillment in building. Where some people love technology, others would prefer to throw their computer through the window. Common sense, right? Why not find the gifted people in your realm of influence, and ask them to help.
  2. Asking for help enables you to accomplish more. Let’s say we have 30 cars that need to be moved from one place to another. If it takes 5 minutes to move each car, it will take me 2 1/2 hours to finish the task by myself. If I get 4 people to help me, we each move 6 cars, and we get it done in much less time (sorry, I’ll have to ask my wife for help on the math of that one). The bottom line is we accomplish more when we work together than when we work alone.
  3. Asking for help is not an admission of weakness. There, I said it. But find the balance between asking for help and wanting to be released from all responsibility. If you ask for help just because you don’t want to do the work, then you’re assigning tasks. The second question deals with this: always be willing to do the work that needs to be done. The reality, however, is if you’re afraid to ask for help, you are not going to just assign and walk away. But if all you do is ask for help, you may want to do some evaluation.

The bottom line today: we accomplish more together than we do alone. Ask for help. Your leadership influence will grow as a result.

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