Reinventure Me

Some of the greatest tests of our faith are in the very places we work. Your faith matters at work and in this episode, best-selling author of God is My CEO, Larry Julian discusses why.

Larry offered week’s Inspire Me quote from Joshua 1:9:

“Be strong and courageous, do not be terrified, do not be discouraged, for the Lord you God will be with you wherever you go.”

Larry described the number one issue facing business leaders is fear. Venturing into the unknown takes courage and the willingness to leave your comfort zone. It’s not surprising then that one of the biggest questions in leadership today is how to overcome the issue of fear.

This is why it is important for us to take our faith into the workplace. The Bible says that perfect loves casts out fear (1 John 4:18). Larry asks, “Do you really feel the love and acceptance of God or is there a level of fear that you have that is coming from yourself? Is it real or is it something that’s in your own mind?” The major battleground is internally—in our mind—and not in the circumstances we find ourselves in.

Many leaders fear showing their soft underbelly, as Larry puts it, their vulnerable side, because they’re afraid they’ll “get burned” by it. Transparency displays courage and builds trust in you to those leaders are leading.

Larry’s advice to the next generation of leaders is to slow down and hit the pause button. Develop good decision making skills because the decisions you make may have long, life-changing effects in both your business and personal life. For Larry, that meant becoming a more attentive listener to be able to draw the best out of those he is coaching. One of his “big aha” moments was discovering that underlying every material issue is a deeper personal issue, which can be very hard to get at.

“Business is about relationships,” Larry says, and good leadership fosters a deeper sense of purpose to connect with the business. Larry recalls a time when Os Guinness put a powerful question to a group of business leaders: “How are you going to help each other find and fulfill your calling? How do you hold your feet to the fire to make that thing happen?”

This week’s Challenge Me:

Larry offered a challenge to listeners to build a passport, as Ken Sandy puts it, with others to develop a deeper relationship with them.

Resources mentioned or related to this podcast that may be helpful to you:

Is it possible to inspire better leadership from our bosses? In this episode we look at some ways to gain influence to help them be better leaders.

This week’s Inspire Me quote is from the 15th century archbishop Thomas á Kempis”:

“Be not angry that you cannot make others as you wish them to be, since you cannot make yourself as you wish to be.”

How do you influence your boss to be a better leader, especially if you are not aligned. The first prerequisite, Leary and Armin discuss, is to adopt a mindset to become more winsome. One of the best ways to do that is to choose to show respect, regardless of whether you respect their values, approach or capabilities.

Like love, respect is given not earned. Our culture has corrupted that notion. Yet, the Bible makes it clear that we are to show proper respect to everyone (1 Peter 2:17), especially those in authority (1 Peter 2:18, Ephesians 6:5). There are three specific things you can show respect for:

Second, find ways to serve up praise. You’re not the only one needing praise. Those with high-drives crave it even more. Leary and Armin offer four tips on how to praise your boss:

When addressing situations of conflict or destructive behavior, pray for opportunities to give candid feedback on how their behavior is affecting the perception of their personal brand and the business objectives.

This week’s Challenge Me:

Look for an opportunity to help your boss in some way that’s not something you’d ordinarily do. How did they respond? Leave us a comment on our show notes at reinventure.me/66

We all love to have a great idea. But do great ideas just come to us or is there something we can do to create them?

“The only sure way to avoid making mistakes is to have no new ideas.”

In this episode, Leary & Armin share a simple approach to creating ideas. The approach is particularly useful for those times when you are looking to create something or solve a problem that will take a considerable investment of time.

This week’s Challenge Me:

Pick a topic important to you and start your idea list for it.

Resources mentioned or related to this podcast that may be helpful to you:

We live in a culture that talks about legacy but in reality we live in a “legend” world. Dr. Chuck Stecker, Founder of A Chosen Generation, talks about living a life of legacy.

In this episode, Leary and Armin interview Dr. Chuck Stecker, President & Founder of A Chosen Generation and the Center for Inner-Genrational Ministry. Dr. Stecker holds two Ph.Ds, has served on the Joint Staff in the Pentagon, and presently on the board of directors for the CASA 50+ Network & Christian Service Brigade Ministries. He is the author of Men of Honor, Women of Virtue: Raising Kids to Keep the Faith.

Dr. Stecker’s offered this week’s Inspire Me quote:

“You establish your legend by what you do and you establish God’s legacy by who you are.”

Many people talk about leaving a legacy when what they are really talking about is creating a legend. A legend is left by what you do. It’s established by the things you do, the things you create and what your known for in that doing end of your life. A legacy, on the other hand, is who you really are. Your legacy is your fiber and fabric of you as a person and that’s passed from generation to generation and generations yet to be born.

The difference between legend and legacy is the difference between what you do versus who you are. It’s how you invest your life rather than where you spend your life.

We have an opportunity to change the world. But to do so means we need to change how we are parenting. Too many of us as parents try to raise good kids as measured by what they do. They become an end-product, for us to show off what good kids we have. Instead we must teach the next generation to be the teachers of the next generation.

The key is to focus and be proud of who your children are becoming, not what they do. These principles apply equally well in business as well as in home.

This week’s Challenge Me from Dr. Stecker:

Ask yourself, “Am I living my life for a good resume’—for my next promotion and the honor that comes with that—or am I living for my eulogy—for what’s going to be said about me by those who know me?”

Resources mentioned or related to this podcast that may be helpful to you:

There are many ways to grow your emotional intelligence. This episode proposes four very practical ways to do so.

This week’s Inspire Me quote is from Albert Einstein:

“The measure of intelligence is the ability to change.”

In this episode, Leary & Armin pick up from the previous episode on emotional intelligence to suggest four ways to grow your emotional intelligence:

This week’s Challenge Me:

Practice the “When…I feel…because…I would like” formula in your next conflict. Let us know how it goes by leaving a comment in our show notes at www.reinventure.me/63

Resources mentioned or related to this podcast that may be helpful to you:

Are you smart? Emotionally smart? What is emotional intelligence and why is it important to get emotionally smarter?

This week’s Inspire Me quote is from Eleanor Roosevelt:

“To handle yourself, use your head; to handle others, use your heart.”

Emotional intelligence is our capacity to understand and manage our emotions and those of others. As a psychological theory, it was developed by Peter Salovey (President of Yale University) and John Mayer (Psychologist, University of New Hampshire). In 1995, it was popularized by New York Times science journalist Daniel Goleman. His book, Emotional Intelligence, spent more than a year-and-a-half on The New York Times Best Seller list.

Emotional intelligence is one of the greatest indicators to the level of success an individual can attain. Goleman lists five categories of emotional intelligence:

This week’s Challenge Me:

Self-awareness exercise: What situations or people are most likely to trigger an emotional response which stresses you or is more difficult to manage?

Resources mentioned or related to this podcast that may be helpful to you:

You’ve really want to do something for a long, but can’t seem to do it. That’s persistent resistance. Here’s how you find the source of it.

This week’s Inspire Me quote is from the witty Yogi Berra:

“90% of the game is half mental.”

Do you have a bucket list dream? Something you’re dying to do and it’s killing you?

If so, you have a case of persistent resistance. Understanding its source is key to getting going on the very thing you want to do, but can seem to start. We’re not talking about the stuff you don’t like doing so you procrastinate getting it done. No, We’re talking about the kind of resistance that we feel whenever we want to the thing we dream of doing.

Resistance is made up of two parts: the behaviors of resistance and the beliefs of resistance. The key to unlocking what our area of persistent resistance is in asking four questions. The first is easier to uncover than the other three:

This week’s Challenge Me:

Identify your areas of persistent resistance and take note of when the resistance comes up.

Resources mentioned or related to this podcast that may be helpful to you:

We all like to be with others who leave us feeling better than when we first met them. Here are five simple ways you can leave others better than you found them.

This week’s Inspire Me quote is from Maya Angelou:

“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”

We’re here not just for ourselves, but also to make others better. When we do, we make ourselves more attractive to others and they’re more likely to help us as well. But it requires an intentional choice to put ourselves in a mindset to leave people better than we found them.

Here are five ways to do that:

This week’s Challenge Me:

Share a strategy you use to leave people better than you found them. Comment on our show notes at www.reinventure.me/60

Resources mentioned or related to this podcast that may be helpful to you:

We all love the approval of others. Sometimes our craving for approval can lead us to silly things, however; like not following our gifting or purpose. Here’s how to beat the need for approval.

This week’s Inspire Me quote is from Mark Twain:

“The worst loneliness is to not be comfortable with yourself.”

We’re all are wired to impress others. It shows from our earliest ages, trying to impress our parents. As we get older, the ways we seek approval get more sophisticated and we start promoting an image of ourselves. It takes self-awareness to detect when we’re driven to seek approval.

Some of the symptoms of approval anxiety are:

Some of the ways Leary and Armin discussed how to beat the need for approval:

This week’s Challenge Me:

Choose one of the five suggestions above and set your mind to work on it this week.

Resources mentioned or related to this podcast that may be helpful to you:

We all hate when commitments aren’t kept. Especially when they’re the ones we break. Like anything though, we can get better at keeping commitments. Here’s how.

This week’s Inspire Me quote is from Ralph Waldo Emerson:

“What you do speaks so loudly that I cannot hear what you say.”

It’s easy to keep commitments. All you need to do is STOP making them. But that’s not practical, nor helpful.

Instead, if you’re going to push yourself, you’ll likely break a commitment or two. In fact, you’re probably not really pushing yourself unless you do. And that requires also working on getting better at keeping commitments. Here’s some ways to do so:

This week’s Challenge Me:

As you were listening to this episode, what changes came to mind that you could make to improve your ability to keep commitments? Waiting, Weighing, Communicating, Taking ownership, or Reviewing. Pick an area and make a commitment to work on one thing.

Resources mentioned or related to this podcast that may be helpful to you: