Inspiration, text

Building Relationships

Building Relationships

Let’s start with kindness. How kind should you be? As kind as you possibly can. Who should you be kind to? To everyone you come in contact with. From taxi drivers, to hotel clerks, to servers, to store clerks, to people on the street, in your office and at home. Be kind to everyone.

A kind word goes a long way. Perhaps somebody is having a bad day and you don’t know it. He or she is really feeling down and you offer a kind word. Maybe it’s just a friendly, “Hello, how are you today?” Maybe it’s just taking a minute or two to listen to what somebody has to say. But your few moments of attention could turn somebody’s day around. You might make them feel more worthwhile and important.

Be generous with your kindness. It will go a long way. People will remember, whether you know them or not. If you’re in a crowded restaurant and you’re especially nice to the waiter, he’ll remember you next time you come in and give you even better service.

When you give kindness, it’s not gone. It’s invested. It will come back to you two, five, 10, 100 times. Kindness is important in every aspect of your life, especially in building good relationships with others.

The next relationship-building essential is sensitivity. Allow yourself to be touched by the experience of others. Understand the plight of others. Open up your heart, mind and attention to the needs of others. Whether they’re people you work with or people you live with, you need to put yourself in other people’s shoes. Try to find out, if you can, what’s going on in their hearts.

-Rohn – via Success

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Grow your Faith

“So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.”
(Romans 10:17, NKJV)

Grow Your Faith
Scripture tells us that every person has been given a measure of faith. Faith can grow and increase, or it can be diminished. Notice today’s scripture doesn’t say, “Faith comes by having heard the Word of God one time.” It’s by hearing—present tense. Sure, God’s Word can transform us in an instant. But most of the time, we need to hear God’s truth over and over again in order for it to become active in our lives. The more we hear the Word, the more His truth chisels away at the doubt and unbelief that’s been built up over the years. His truth sets us free and causes our faith to grow!

Just as a seed needs water daily to grow, your spirit needs the Word of God daily. Your faith needs to be watered by His Word. It can be as simple as selecting a few scriptures to meditate on daily. Write them down and carry them in your purse or wallet. Read them out loud over and over. Let His truth sink down into your heart and move you forward into the freedom and victory He has prepared for you!

–Thanks to Joel Osteen
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Making Changes

(appeared first on Carey Nieuwhof.)

1. People aren’t opposed to change nearly as much as they are opposed to change that they didn’t think of.
Everybody’s in favour of their ideas, but most organizational change is driven by the ideas fostered by a leader or a leadership team. That’s simply the way leadership operates.
When you float an idea, there’s often initial resistance from people who didn’t think of the idea or who weren’t involved in the process. That resistance isn’t fatal though.
You just need to realize that most people will come on board. You just need to give them time until the idea spreads widely enough to be owned.
Great ideas eventually resonate, even if they’re initially met with resistance.
How do you know you have a good idea? Like a fine wine, good ideas get better with time. Bad ideas get worse.
Good ideas get better with time. Bad ideas get worse.

2. Change is hard because people crave what they already like
You have never craved a food you haven’t tried, and change operates on a similar dynamic.
Your people want what they’ve seen because people never crave what they haven’t seen.
That’s why vision is so key – you need to paint a clear enough picture that people begin to crave a future they haven’t yet lived.
Visionaries need to be clear enough that people begin to crave a future that they haven’t yet lived.

3. Leaders crave change more than most people do because they’re leaders
The reason leaders love change more than most people is because they’re leaders.
Your passion level is always going to be naturally and appropriately higher than most people when it comes to change. Just know that’s how you’re wired and don’t get discouraged too quickly if your passion for change is higher than others.
You’re the leader. That’s your job.
4. Most of the disagreement around change happens at the strategy level
Most leaders stop at aligning people around a common mission and vision, but you also need to work hard at aligning people around a common strategy.
It’s one thing to agree that you passionately love God, it’s another to create a dynamic church that unchurched people flock to.
One depends on vision; the other is a re-engineering around a common strategy. When people are aligned around a common mission, vision and strategy, so much more becomes possible.
5. Usually no more than 10% of the people you lead are opposed to change
Most leaders are shocked when they hear that only about 10% of their church or team is opposed to change at any time. Almost all swear it’s higher.
But usually, it’s not.
When I’ve challenged leaders to write down the actual names of people who are opposed to what they’re proposing, most are hard pressed to write down more than a dozen or so. And often, that’s even less than 10%.
It may feel like 50% of the people you lead are opposed to change, but that’s almost never true.
The question, of course, then becomes this: Are you going to sacrifice the future of 90% of people you lead because of the discontent of 10%?
I hope not.
I dissect the 10% rule in detail in my book, Leading Change Without Losing It. (I promise you it’s good news for leaders.)
6. Never sacrifice the future of 90% of people you lead because of the discontent of 10%.   Loud does not equal large.
So why do the 10% feel bigger than they are?
Because they’re loud. Conversely, the proponents of change are usually quieter, even respectful.
Just because the opponents of change are loud doesn’t mean they’re a large group. The most opposed people make the most noise.
Don’t make the mistake most leaders make when they assume large equals loud. Almost every time, it doesn’t.
Just because the opponents to change are a loud group doesn’t mean they’re a large group.

7. Most people opposed to change do not have a clearly articulated vision of a preferred future.
They don’t know what they want. They just know what they don’t want.
In fact, most just want to go back to Egypt; you can’t build a better future on a vision of the past.

8. Fear of opposition derails more leaders than actual opposition
Fear of opposition derails more leaders than actual opposition. Wouldn’t it be horrible to look back on your leadership and realize there was little opposition to change—you just thought there was?
So push past your fears. And push past the opposition.
Courage isn’t the absence of fear; it’s the determination to lead through your fears. By the way, this also does wonders for your faith.

9. Buy-in happens most fully when people understand why, rather than what or how.
What and how are inherently divisive. Someone’s always got a better, cheaper, more expensive, faster, shorter, longer way to do what you’re proposing.
Articulating why you’re changing something is different. It unites people. Why reminds everyone why we do what we do, and why we’re doing this in the first place.
So focus on why when you’re communicating. Why motivates. Always start with why, finish with why and pepper all communication with why.

10. Unimplemented change becomes regret.  If you don’t muster up the courage to usher in healthy change, you’ll regret it.
You’ll look back and yearn for what might have been, not for what was.
Unimplemented change becomes regret. Remember that.

11. Incremental change brings about incremental results
People will always want to do less, which is why many leaders settle for incremental change, not radical change, even when radical change is needed.
You’ll be tempted to compromise and reduce vision to the lowest common denominator: incremental change.
Just know that incremental change brings incremental results. And incrementalism inspires no one.
Radical change brings about radical results. Incremental change brings about incremental results. You choose. Also, incremental change inspires no one.
Incremental change inspires no one.

12. Transformation happens when the change in question becomes part of the culture.
How long does change take? It takes a while, and it’s important to persevere. Because over time, change becomes transformation.
You can change some things in a year and almost everything in 5 years. But transformation happens when people own the change. That’s often 5-7 years; only then do most people not want to go back to Egypt.
So how do you know transformation has happened? Simple. Most people no longer want to go back to the way it was.
You know transformation has happened when people no longer want to go back to Egypt.

13. The greatest enemy of your future success is your current success
As I wrote about in Leading Change Without Losing It, success has its own problems.
The biggest problem? Success makes leaders conservative. The more successful you become, the less willing you are to change.
The best way to overcome that?
Keep changing. Keep experimenting. Keep risking.
Successful organizations create a culture of change because they realize that success tempts you to risk nothing until decline forces you to reexamine everything. Keep changing.
Success tempts you to risk nothing until decline forces you to reexamine everything.

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Inspiration

8 Habits to Avoid

HABITS TO AVOID FOR SUCCESSFUL PRODUCTIVITY

It’s important to analyze how we spend our days, hour by hour, and regularly look for ways to work smarter, ways to eliminate time-wasters. So, to get started, here are eight things that productive, successful people never waste their time doing (and you shouldn’t either):
1. Productive, successful people don’t get sucked into social media.
Being on social media—checking notifications Facebook, scrolling through pictures on Instagram, reading quick updates on Twitter, whatever—it’s part of everyday life. But if you don’t control how much time you spend on it, the hours will fly by and you won’t have accomplished anything on your to-do list.
So either put a time limit on it—set an alarm for when you need to minimize it, close the app, do something else—or only get on after completing necessary work projects. Use social media as a reward.
2. Productive, successful people don’t go through the day without a plan.
Successful people have a purpose, a laser-focused plan of things they want to achieve on a particular day.3 I believe in writing things down—but only the top two or three priorities I need to accomplish that day, not a long list of things.
Write down your top priorities and break down those large tasks into more reasonable steps and you’ll see yourself wanting to get them done and crossed off the list.

3. Productive, successful people don’t do emotionally draining activities.
If you want to step into a truly successful life, you have to focus on things that positively fuel your life. Productive people don’t waste their time on things that emotionally drain them.1
Before committing to activities on your schedule, be sure the activity will positively add to your life. If you believe it won’t, then think about saying no to it. Also, don’t feel obligated to give an answer right at the time you’re being asked to do something. Think before you say yes and know that it’s OK to say no to requests for your time.

4. Productive, successful people don’t worry about things they can’t control.
Successful people realize that worrying gets you absolutely nowhere in life, especially if you can’t do anything about a situation.
So turn your thoughts to action-based activities. Focus on things you can get done.

5. Productive, successful people don’t hang out with negative people.
It’s said that you are the average of the five people you spend the most time with. So if you want to be your best, you have to surround yourself with the best people.
Be sure to eliminate negative, toxic energy around you. If you want to soar in life, you need to unload what is weighing you down.

6. Productive, successful people don’t dwell on past mistakes.
Successful people make mistakes. Everyone makes mistakes. The key to being successful in life is not making the same mistake twice, learning and growing from mistakes, and becoming a better person because of them.

So when you make a mistake, get into a mindset that the mistake is done with and you can’t go back to the past. Focus on what you learned and design a strategy to positively move forward from it.

7. Productive, successful people don’t focus on what other people are doing.
It’s great to be inspired by what other successful people are doing, but when you’re constantly comparing yourself to the next person and it’s bringing you down, it’s time to shift your mindset.
Be inspired by others, but focus your mindset to only compete with the most important person: yourself.

8. Productive, successful people don’t put themselves last in priority.
We all go through times that we don’t get enough sleep or exercise because we need to work on a big project. But for long-term success and happiness, you must put yourself first on the priority list.

Some great ways to do this is to kick start your day by doing something you love to do—maybe it’s completing a great workout, meditating, journalling or reading your favorite book. Do what works for you. Because when you start off your day doing something you love and that is good for you, you’ll feel happy, focused and strong the rest of the day.
Are there things on this list that have been time-wasters for you? Eliminate them so you can step into your best life.

– thanks to Success

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happiness

QUOTE OF THE WEEK  “When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives means the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand.” — Henri Nouwen

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