Our children’s deployments were in their rearview mirrors. We were chatting, and I asked them if there was something that made them extremely thankful. Ironically, there was something both our son and daughter agreed on: being able to take a shower without shower shoes on. Talk to any...
Initiative, which we define as: Recognizing and doing what needs to be done before I am asked to do it. It sounds simple, but initiative is one of the most powerful traits we can cultivate. It’s the difference between being a bystander and being a difference-maker. Initiative means we don’t wait...
Everyone has one of those drawers in their kitchen, office or garage. You know, that drawer…that is the landing place for all the stuff we don’t know exactly where to put. The one benefit of that drawer, if there is a benefit, is that it provides one place to hide our disorderliness so that...
I want to challenge a paradigm—a deeply ingrained way of thinking about a word we know well: responsibility. For much of my life, if you had asked me what responsibility meant, I would have described it as a burden. A checklist. A weight I had to carry. Something I needed to do, accomplish, or...
The character trait of sincerity is defined as “doing what is right with transparent motives.” Most of us are comfortable with the “doing what is right” part. But the qualifier of “with transparent motives” is a much deeper gut check. Motives can be quite slippery. We all believe our own...
We judge ourselves by our intentions and others by their actions…Stephen Covey In June, my wife Melinda and I will celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary. One would think after a quarter of a century of marriage, I’d have this whole husband thing figured out. I don’t. Like all couples, we’ve...
Aristotle once said that “Patience is bitter, but its fruit is sweet.” Although he didn’t have to deal with sluggish Wi-Fi or face lengthy traffic jams on the freeway, I’m sure Aristotle’s time shaping medieval scholarship lent to many opportunities for patience-building. I can just picture the...
I’ll start with a question. What are you looking for? There’s a simple truth that’s easy to forget. Generally, people find what they’re looking for. Where you expect to find kindness, kindness is often found. Where you look for disappointment, disappointment is easy to come by. When you don’t like...
Diligence is defined as “focusing my effort on the work at hand”. A young high school student, just trying to find his place in life, had aspirations to play sports. Although he was relatively short and very skinny, he tried out for his High School’s varsity team. After the try-out, he learned he...
