Do You Have A Couple Of Minutes

Martin Luther King Jr. was one of the most influential leaders of the Civil Rights Movement in the United States. His leadership style and speeches continue to inspire people around the world to this day. Here are the first two of four leadership lessons that we can learn from Martin Luther King Jr:

These two leadership lessons can be applied to any situation, whether it be in business, politics, or any other field. Having a clear vision and believing in nonviolence are vital elements to be a successful leader. Martin Luther King Jr. was a remarkable leader who changed the course of history, and we can all learn from his example.

Martin Luther King Jr. showed us that leadership is about more than just achieving personal success and more than the impact we experience in our lifetimes, it is about working to make a positive change in the world for today and all the tomorrows. His leadership style and principles continue to inspire people to this day. His leadership lessons remind us that even in the face of adversity and oppression, it is possible to inspire change through peaceful means and with a steadfast determination.  His leadership style taught us to keep dreaming and to keep hope alive.

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There was a TV Show in the 80's called the Facts of Life and the theme song said "You take the good, you take the bad, you take them both and there you have the facts of life..."  It was a great show about young girls at a boarding school coming of age and learning various life lessons.  The first line of the theme song is a good reality lens for life.  

We like to think of our heroes and leaders in a certain way.  We like to focus on the good they have done, many times to the exclusion of even the possibility of them doing something in conflict of our image of them as good.  However, it seems that perfection continues to elude every human, no matter how hard we try to do better.  This is an important thing to remember as individuals and as leaders, no one is or can be perfect.

As individuals, while we hold ourselves to a high standard, we have to give ourselves some grace when the inevitable shortcoming happens.  And we must not use the shortcoming as an excuse to give up, but as the push to do better.  Likewise, when we lead others, we can choose to allow shortcomings to be teaching and learning moments that encourage continued efforts. When we choose to elevate leaders, we must extend this same grace and exercise discernment.  Sometimes those capable of great works and positive change, and who may even be successful at such positive change, may also be challenged to do the right thing and to make the right decision.  This isn't to say that we should exempt people from the consequences of their negative actions.  It is to say that negative actions don't necessarily negate the positivity and progress that may have been realized  from that same person.  It is simply to say that when we take the good, and the bad, we will have a more objectively accurate picture of the facts of life. It is simply to say, that imperfect people are capable of incredible, positive impact and imperfection should not be a deterrent to realizing your goals, your dreams, or your purpose.

Today in the United States of America, we recognize the contributions of Martin Luther King, Jr. and we remain grateful for the dream he shared, the encouragement to take action that he led, and the values of love and inclusion he espoused. 

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This week we've been talking about the importance of relationships and we'll wrap up with your relationship with yourself.  How do you take care of you?

How Do you Treat Yourself?  How do you talk to yourself?  How do you take care of yourself? Where do you put yourself in place of importance?  

On an airplane we're told to put our mask on before assisting others.  When I was a child, I sang a song called J-O-Y, which stood for Jesus First, Yourself last and others in between.  When I played basketball, that coach would say Ball-You-Man, which meant while on offense you needed to be in the center between your possession of the ball and the defending player.  Like all of this varied positioning, we can put ourselves in different positions of importance or allow others to place us where they want to.

Again, the key to all of this is awareness, that allows you to then make intentional decisions in reference to that awareness. Your relationship with yourself can help to set the tone for your relationship with others.  I'm going to suggest you treat yourself like one of your best friends.  Take inventory of how you treat yourself, including what you expect of yourself.  Do you challenge yourself to grow?  Do you give yourself time to play and relax? Do you speak words of encouragement and gratitude to yourself? Your relationship with you matters.  Be Kind to You.  When we work to be the best we can be for ourselves, we will be better able to see and take advantage of the opportunities that come our way. We will be an inspiration to others to take care of themselves so they too can live their best lives. 

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What is your relationship to your thoughts, to the lessons your learn, the information you pick up, and the actions you do or don't take.  How do your thoughts, life learnings , and behavior impact other relationships.

When it comes to your thoughts are you able to engage in them are you able to manage them to your advantage?  I was recently talking to a young professional who was working in in situation with a person that had a difficult personality.  This difficult relationship was consuming their thoughts.  And though the individual had done nothing to warrant their colleagues bad behavior, they continued to question what they may have done to cause the situation.  Using Don Miguel Ruiz' Four Agreements  book, I helped remind this your professional that what other people say and do, is more about them.  Sometimes our minds seem to make up stories and create possible explanation to fill in the blanks, to make things rational, in order to make sense of things that are senseless.  And so, it is up to us to do our best to manage our thoughts, such that we are in control of our thoughts and associated behaviors

Sometimes our thoughts can be limiting and this is another reason to manage them.  I was talking to a friend recently who was sharing a perspective and an opinion that I was not necessarily in sync with.  Fortunately, I was able to catch my thoughts coming up that were telling me to negate the whole conversation instead of sifting through the conversation in order to apply pieces of advice that will be beneficial.  Catching my negative thought allowed me to take in valuable information and learning.  I was able to utilize the learning and share some of it with others.  Allowing our thoughts to go unchecked or not managed doesn't serve us, as it doesn't challenge us to grow and mature.

Managing our thoughts, looking for the lessons to be learned in our experience, and applying the good, can be difficult and is a skill that requires hard work.

Learning is important to us and those around us. When we learn, and apply that learning or share that learning it can have exponential positive impact.

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Today let's take a little different angle on relationships and look at our relationship to things - stuff - material things.  First of all let me say that I am not against people having things.  As a person and business professional, I think there is something beneficial about enjoying things, and taking care of them.  The perspective I want us to take a look at is what our relationship is to those things.  Do we see things as status symbols, do we see things as something to be gained that speak to the outside world, do we see things as necessities, do we sacrifice in other areas of life for things that may or may not be of value?  What is our value proposition for things? 

It's important that we understand our relationship with things so that the relationship stays in it's proper place.  In life and in business, we can sometimes allow things to get a hold on us and we can become negatively indebted to them.  We can run up bills for things that are fleeting or of no long term value and need to make sacrifice or be in a position of hardship to get from under that debt.  In business, we can try to ineffectively position ourselves in a market or make risky investments in a bid to gain more things that end up putting us in a financially tough position. None of this is to say that everything is going to work out, however, it is to say that we have the ability to apply critical thinking so that any losses that we experience are manageable or at most are not surprising.

Take some time to think about your relationship with things.  Do you manage and use those things to your advantage or are those things a burden to you?  Be honest with yourself, and then take action to move in the direction you want to go.  in some instance it ma take time to part with the "stuff" of life and business that no longer serves you.  In other situations, it may be a perspective change that steers you in the right direction.  The key is to be aware, to acknowledge your reality.  When we manage the little things, we can help them from building up and becoming overwhelming big things.  Your relationship with your stuff matters.  Ensure your stuff only occupies the space you want it to. 

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It all boils down to relationships.  When we think of relationships, we generally think about people.  So let's spend some time today focusing on how people relationships matter.

I am sure we can all think of a time when we benefited from our relationship with a family member or friend, a professional connection, or a network connection.   Perhaps they helped us resolve a tough problem or they introduced us to someone that could help us move toward realization of a dream or goal.  And likewise we can think of times when we have been able to provide benefit to others. We can grow in relationship with others, by sharing with one another, supporting one another when there is a need, and even challenging one another to reach higher.  Who we surround ourselves with matters, we influence one another. how we treat one another in relationship matters.  If we want people to be at their best, we must treat them in a way that supports them achieving their potential.

Conversely, think of a time when a relationship was lacking. It leaves a gap.  Over my professional business career and even in my volunteer experience, there have been many times where one person thought they were in a good relationship with someone and the feeling was not mutual. Or worse yet, they thought the relationship was not important to the success of a project or goal. Typically, that boiled down to lack of communication and sometimes of understanding the importance of having good interpersonal communications.  When people we interact with don't have accurate information, they are left to try to figure things our based on what they do know.  Assumptions can cause problems in relationship.  

So take some time to think about who is important in your life and who might list you as an important person in their lives.  Then move forward with intention to understand and to be understood, to communicate clearly and effectively with one another.  The more we take the time to know the people around us, the greater opportunity we will have to build relationships that help us each to achieve our potential. 

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Episode 3-245: Relationship Matters -Showing Up

I've recently had and am having a chance to spend some time with people who I don't normally have a chance to spend a lot of time with.  I am incredibly grateful for that time, because it is an opportunity to develop a stronger bond and to mutually pour into one another's lives.  Strong bonds and adding value to one another are valuable in helping up move through life changes. And so, I am once again reminded in personal life and in my professional work a business partner and leader, that everything we do and are has a way of boiling down to relationship and how we show up in that relationship.  We have relationships with 

- People at work, at home, in our personal involvements with groups & organizations

- Things/Stuff/Material Things

- Thoughts, Learnings, Application

- Self

This week let's be intentional about paying attention to how we are showing up in our relationships.  Think about how you are interacting with others.  Do you fail to acknowledge people that are always there, doing their thing?  Do you provide a hearty hello to the friend you run into at the grocery store, but fail to acknowledge the checker or the person bagging your food? Do you acknowledge some people and not others? When you are leaving the office do you say goodbye to some people you pass but not others.  Perhaps, you hold a grudge from time to time, that negatively impacts the positive vibe of the office. Relationships Matter - Show Up with Good Intention.

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This week we've been talking about awareness.  Let's finish up with a question that embodies awareness: What's Your Plan for You?

What is your plan for you? Have you really thought about what you want to do with your life or maybe you are looking to make a change?  Your plan might be  to have a process to figure out what you do want to do - which means exposing yourself to different options and being aware of what you enjoy or don't enjoy.  Another way to figure out your plan, might be to work backwards.  Envision what your would like to be doing, where you would like to be be living, what job you want, what family lifestyle you would like, what you want to do in retirement - then gain understanding of what you can do now to make those things happen.

A few years ago I was working with leadership of a non-profit organization.  They had reached out to me to help review some of their plans to partner with other organizations to advance their cause.  We talked about their vision and the value and resources they planned to bring to that partnership. Then we were able to align the asks with the value.  Having a plan and knowing the direction you want to go, can really help to identify and clarify the steps needed for progress.  If you have a goal of not working in retirement or you want to practice philanthropy in retirement, you may have a retirement savings goal, and you will take actions to reach that goal. Some people may be content to live frugally in retirement and others may prefer to vacation, so their similar goals for retirement savings may have very different details.

Take some time to think about and pull together your plan.  Your plan will will be unique to you - it's your plan.  You can revise your plan.  However, having a plan will create an anchor of awareness that you can look to to ensure your decisions are aligned with your goals.  I encourage you to take some time to know your plan and if you have one already, review your plan to see if it needs revision or further detail.

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Continuing our theme on awareness, I thought I'd spend some time on relational awareness.  In order to know how people are feeling and what they are thinking, it's important that we check in with them.  It's important for us to listen to words, to hear what is being said and what is not being said, it's also important to look for consistencies and inconsistencies between words, current behaviors, prior behaviors, and expressions.

Check-In not only on the people who seem to need help, also check in on the people who seem like they have it all together.  What we see from the outside is not always representative of what is going on inside.  An organizational leader once told me early in my career to remember that things are not always in reality as they may appear to be.  I am reminded of the popular song Tears of a Clown, where the main character who is seen as the life of the party and tells jokes, is actually feeling deeply saddened.  People know that when we look at them and even spend time with them, without asking questions, we only have our own frame of reference to try to understand what we can see from the outside. 

So, remember to check in, ask questions, and listen. And once you check in, check in again.  Showing people we are interested, that we care, and that we are listening is part of our awareness journey that will help us to be more aware of ourselves as well.

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This week we've talked about topics that deal with awareness.  Recognizing when something is broken and needs to be repaired, replaced, or tossed out is also an important part of awareness that can positively impact us.

Imagine a car that has a small hole in the gas tank.  You can keep filling up the tank, but it never gets the gas mileage you need or expect.  The leak also creates a hazard for the car and potentially for those in the vicinity of the car.  Not only that, all the gas that has leaked in other place, though not immediately apparent creates a potential hazard for those that may come in contact with it.  And good resources continue to get wasted.  If you change the oil, it won't fix the problem.  The solution requires that we know what the problem is in order to get it fixed and then we must take the proper steps to fix it, duck tap is likely not the answer.

There is a parallel to this analogy when we are broken and we don't take time to fix things.  We can continue going, however, we will not reach our full potential until we figure out what is broken and take time to deal with it.  Sometimes we may need to repair something, sometimes we may need to replace something, and sometimes we may need to let something go.  However, when we apply the proper fix in a way that sticks, it allows us to move forward in fulness. Applying the fix, also allows us to better help ourselves in the future, by being able to recognize issues and knowing the resolution.  This also allows us to help others.

So when trying to move forward, try to use your awareness ability to understand if there are things that might need repair in order to best serve you in your journey forward.

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