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Speak up or Shut up: What’s the right thing to do?

July 2, 2006 By 6 Comments

The other day I posted a little rant about my frustration when people don’t plan. In the conversation that developed out of that Liz and I got to talking about being able to see when people are about to make some kind of mistake and when it’s appropriate to say something or not.

That is a whole big issue. When do you speak up? When is it none of your business?

These are tough questions with no single “right” answers. And for sure there are no easy answers. Me, I tend to be opinionated and outspoken. My track record includes an obnoxious streak so I try to be more careful these days and weigh out whether I should speak up or not.

Often it is a tough decision. Let me give you an example.

I had a roommate once. He was a really nice guy, grew up in the church. He was in his mid 20′s and volunteered helping out with the youth group at his church. I noticed there was one girl that he seemed to spend a lot of time with.

Now I didn’t grow up in church. I’ve been out there in the world and seen some stuff, if you know what I mean. I’ve learned a little about people. And I saw a potential problem developing for my roommate and his friend.

She was under 18 and to my perspective they seemed to be spending maybe too much time together. But who am I to judge, right? Besides I knew my track record (borderline obnoxious, hey?).

Well it bothered me enough that I went to two separate friends of mine I trusted and asked them discretely for advice. Both of them independently recommended that I not say anything. They said that I didn’t really know him all that well and maybe I was misreading the situation. He might not take to kindly to my view of things and it might ruin our friendship. Well, knowing who I am I decided to go against my own instincts and kept my piece.

You know what happened.

Doh Homer SimpsonAfter I moved out of the house (actually I moved completely out of the state). She ended up getting pregnant and they got married. Now before you get all outraged at him remember he really is a nice guy who genuinely wants to do right by folks. He was however just as naive as she was. Should he have known better? Sure.

If that was where it ended, then all’s well, right? Well unfortunately their marriage didn’t last. I don’t know any of the details other than there were some more children involved before it was over. So now we have several lives that are more complicated than they needed to be.

Hindsight is 20/20 and I should have said something. I regret not speaking up. The whole thing was a powerful lesson to me on the importance of giving advice and I am now more inclined to speak up even when what I say may not be received well. And even when I might be totally wrong and misreading the situation entirely. I guess I’d rather look like a boob than see someone else get hurt.

Here’s a couple nuggets from Proverbs on the issue:

Wounds from a friend are better than many kisses from an enemy.

The heartfelt counsel of a friend is as sweet as perfume and incense.

But there are definitely times when it is better to keep your peace. Some lessons are best learned by experience. Some of our relationships are just plain not close enough for it to be appropriate for us to speak up.

So here are some things to think about that might help you through this dilemma.

  • How well you know the person versus how serious the issue at hand is. You can think of it as an equation or a scale. On one side put your relationship with the person, how well you know them, the likelihood you can speak to them about a tough subject without them misinterpreting your intentions. On the other side weigh out how serious the issue is. It truly is often better not to sweat the small stuff. If it is no big deal, then shut up!
  • What are the implications and possible consequences of not speaking up? Think through what might happen. What’s the worst case? The best case? How many people might be affected?
  • Is there a lesson that the person probably won’t learn without making the mistake at hand? As much as I prefer to learn from the mistakes of others, the reality is I learn best and fastest from my own mistakes. That’s just the way we’re wired
  • Has the mistake already been made, or is there still time to avoid it. This may seem common sense to most folks. But there are some out there who feel it is their job to point out every single mistake people have made. Telling someone “you just screwed up” is a whole other deal from warning them that they might be about to make a mistake. More often than not, when people blow it, they know it. They probably don’t need you to pick that scab for them.

The bottom line is all our actions have consequences. That principle applies both to us and to them. We face consequences whether we speak up or stay quiet. They face consequences for whatever choices they make, good or bad.

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A Non-negotiable for Success

June 20, 2006 By Leave a Comment

Yesterday we took a look at how to define success. David and Dave both had some great insights and shared what how they evaluate success.

Now that we have an idea what success is, how do we get there? If success can come in many flavors, are there any critical ingredients that are universally required for success?

Just like you can’t have an apple pie without any apples, what are the non-negotiables for success?

The first one that comes to mind is this:

Success Requires Action

Look at any story of great achievement and you will universally see that something was done. The Bible heroes all did things. Leaders do things. If you want to be successful, eventually you have to get into motion.

I once heard someone say that a universal property of life is motion. All living things move at some level. Even with something like a tree, if you look close enough, say at the individual cells, there is motion. (Of course not all motion is life, but all living things have motion.)

Do you want to be alive? Do you want to make a difference? Do you want to achieve something? Then take action!

Christians especially can seem to have a challenge in this area. I’ve heard all kinds of preachers say things along the lines that we are human be-ings, not human do-ings. I get their point. Just the same, nothing is going to happen without action.

EeyoreI can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard some Christian who feels stuck and discouraged in life say, {cue the Eeyore voice} “I’m just waiting on the Lord.”

There comes a time, after all the plans and the prayers, when something has to actually be done if anything is going to change.

Perhaps, just maybe, God is wanting you to get off your butt! Stop moping around! Be bold! Take action!

I once heard someone much wiser than me say

Without work there is no miracle.

The Bible says that when God does His miracles, He is working. (“On the seventh day, having finished his task, God rested from all his work.”)

There is a time for waiting and resting. For most of us that time has long past.

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Success Defined

June 19, 2006 By 15 Comments

I have been bombarded on the subject of Leadership over the past week. It started when a friend of mine gave me a really good book on the subject. Gorgeous went to a leadership conference this week and came back with her mind overflowing with ideas and possibilities. And she signed the two of us up for another conference put on by one of the speakers a couple months down the road. Then to top it all off the message we heard at church yesterday was on the subject.

It’s a good subject to be concentrating on because everyone is a leader in some way. Whether it is at home in their families, out in the work place, or in their neighborhoods everyone has some level influence and is in fact leading someone somewhere.

The single juiciest nugget I’ve gotten out of all this so far was in our pastor’s message yesterday when he shared his definition of success.

Success is having those closest to me respect me the most.

That’s a really good definition. The people who are closest to us see us more clearly than anyone else. We can fool someone we meet in a business meeting, or the guys in the office, or even (especially?) the folks at church.

But our family and those closest to us see the real us, warts and all. If they respect you in spite of those bumps and warts then you truly are successful, regardless of how others might see you.

How about you, are you successful?

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Visions and Dreams: Do We Need Them?

June 16, 2006 By Leave a Comment

Over at Successful-Blog Liz Strauss wrote yesterday about learning writing tips from Peter Gabriel. Now I was a Peter Gabriel fan back in the day. His lyrics are thought provoking and his music is emotional. He was incredibly entertaining (not to mention having a completely Biblical name.)

Reading Liz’s post got me to thinking about dreams and visions. How important are they in our lives?

If you’ve ever been to a “success” seminar, especially here in the Bible Belt, you’ve likely heard someone say, “The Bible says that where there is no vision, people perish.”

Is it true?

Well let’s take a look. The verse those speakers is referring to is Proverbs 29:18. Usually those speakers are referring to the King James Version. In that translation it appears to be a stand alone statement. But when you look at some other translations the statement appears a little different. Go ahead and click on the link for the verse and read through the five different translations there of that sentence. (I’ll wait here for a minute.) What’s that all about?

Well different translators have gone back to the original languages in the biblical texts over the years and translated it from those original languages into English. Language being what it is, sometimes the translations come out slightly different from each other.

So what I do when I’m trying to understand a particular passage is read several different translations, compare them and work out what the original author really meant. That’s why you’ll see me reference different translations sometimes when I talk about Bible stuff.

Does that mean the others are wrong? Nope. Not at all. It just means that I understand the scripture best from whichever translation I reference.

All that said, I like the way the New Living Translation puts it:

When people do not accept divine guidance, they run wild. But whoever obeys the law is happy.

So what’s the vision? It’s divine guidance. Whoa!

That makes total sense. If we refuse divine guidance we will run wild and eventually perish. And at the same time if we accept it and live by God’s biblical principles we will be happy. And happy is in the big three that everyone wants! (The other two are thin and rich in case you were wondering. Everybody wants to be thin, rich and happy.)

So we need to accept divine guidance. But what does that have to do with dreams and visions? Actually a bunch. Let me give you a partial list of folks the Bible says that God influenced through dreams and visions:

  • Abimelech
  • Abraham
  • Jacob
  • Leban
  • Joseph
  • Pharaoh
  • Eli
  • Isaiah
  • Ezekiel
  • Gideon
  • Solomon
  • Nebuchadnezzar
  • Daniel
  • Zechariah
  • Joseph (husband of Mary)
  • Pilate
  • Paul
  • Ananias
  • Cornelius
  • Peter
  • John

The list reads like a who’s who of the Bible, complete with the good, the bad and the ugly. It starts at the very beginning in Genesis and doesn’t end until the final book of the New Testament in Revelation. There is a consistent pattern of God communicating with people this way throughout scripture. And that makes sense because the Bible also says that God is the same yesterday, today, and forever. So He is still using dreams and visions to communicate with folks.

The folks on the list all were offered an opportunity to do great things for God. Many of them took that chance and changed their world. Some didn’t. Some started out well and finished in disgrace. And others had really bad starts but finished well.

I once heard someone say that the stories we read in the Bible fall into two basic categories. Some are there to encourage us and show what we can accomplish if we choose to listen to God. Others are there as examples for us and show us what can happen if we choose not to listen to God.

What’s your dream? To be an encouragement or an example?

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Repetition and Learning

June 14, 2006 By 2 Comments

StudyingThis whole experience of swapping my blog over to the new platform has been a huge learning curve. It is sort of like I put my mouth around a fire hose and someone when over to the valve and spun it open telling me to “drink it down.” The process has me asking the question

How do we learn?

Yesterday I looked at imitating others. Another good learning tool, maybe even the best, is simply repetition. The times we experience something, the more solidly we learn it.

Napoleon Hill once said

Any ideas, plan, or purpose may be placed in the mind through repetition of thought.

Then there’s Shad Helmstetter, who is a big advocate of something he calls Self Talk. Shad explains how simple repetition over time can completely change the way we look at ourselves and the world around us in his book What to Say When You Talk to Your Self. Good Stuff, for sure.

But as most of you know, I tend to filter things through the Bible to see what that source has to say about them. Sure enough. The Bible tells us that repetition is an effective learning tool too.

So commit yourselves completely to these words of mine. Tie them to your hands as a reminder, and wear them on your forehead. Teach them to your children. Talk about them when you are at home and when you are away on a journey, when you are lying down and when you are getting up again. Write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates, so that as long as the sky remains above the earth, you and your children may flourish in the land the LORD swore to give your ancestors.

So there you have it.

You want to learn something? Immerse yourself in it. Let it soak through you until you have it mastered.

Enjoy!

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On Planting and Harvesting

May 20, 2006 By Leave a Comment

I had a conversation with a friend of mine a couple of days back. My friend was getting discouraged about doing some good things that involved being especially nice to folks and not really seeing much back in return.

It prompted me to go on a bit of a rant.

Planting and Harvesting

I’m sure most you have heard of the principle of planting and harvesting (sometimes called sowing and reaping by the old schoolers out there). It seems to be a universal principle that you will always harvest what you plant in time.

The principle obviously works in agriculture. You can’t plant corn seed in a field and harvest wheat after those seeds mature. To get wheat, you have to plat wheat.

The Bible says it this way:

“Don’t be misled. Remember that you can’t ignore God and get away with it. You will always reap what you sow!”

And the principle holds true in other realms too. Down in Jacksonville last night (actually I guess it was this morning) one of the guys in the office had John Tesh on the radio. John was talking about some study or other that showed people who were generally nice and had senses of humor tended to be healthier overall than people who worried and were selfish.

Sure the results of the study may seem obvious. But this is another example of the planting/harvesting principle. If you are friendly, then most people will be friendly back to you. Doing nice things for others lowers your stress levels and helps you stay healthier.

And while it’s true that you will harvest what you plant in time, the challenges of the principle are twofold.

First, people tend to want to leave of the “in time” part of the equation. They forget that the farmer has to wait along time after he plants his crop, time spent working like a dog tending his fields, before he finally gets to the harvest. They think the principle is invalid if they don’t harvest as soon as they get the seed covered with dirt. How silly!

Here’s a Bible’s take on that one:

So don’t get tired of doing what is good. Don’t get discouraged and give up, for we will reap a harvest of blessing at the appropriate time.

Another thing that is true about the life principle of planting and harvesting, and this is much less obvious, is that you often don’t harvest from the same fields that you planted in.

For example, I have helped bunches of my friends move. And, as a result of the planting/harvesting principle, whenever I’ve moved I have always had plenty of help lifting furniture. But it is rarely the same people helping as I helped, mostly because one of us isn’t in the same spot because we’ve moved!

I shouldn’t be frustrated with Jim-Bob because he didn’t personally return the favor to me. The help will still come, just from another quarter.

It’ll come because the planting/harvesting principle still holds. What goes around comes around, eventually.

The last thing I want to point out about the planting/harvesting principle is that the size of your harvest is directly related to how much seed you plant.

Once again I go back to what the Bible says on the subject:

Remember this: Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously.

A Recap

What do we know about the principle of planting and harvesting?

  • The principle is universal (even if you don’t believe it!)
  • The harvest takes time to appear
  • The harvest often comes from a different field than the seed was planted in
  • The size of the harvest is directly related to the amount of seed planted.

That about sums it up.

Choose your seed well. Plant lots of it. Be patient. And expect the harvest because it is coming!

Enjoy!

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Time is Relentless

May 4, 2006 By Leave a Comment

Why did God set up the day with only 24 hours in it?

As if that would be anywhere near enough time to get done all the things I want to do on top of all the things I have to do.

No matter what we do, the clock keeps ticking. Time is one of the places where everyone is equal. And while we may each be allotted a different number of days on this planet, every one of us is given the same 24 hours each day.

Right now my schedule has gotten a bit nuts. This past weekend I did nearly a month’s worth of work in three days. I am still digging out from under the paper work. I have a meeting in less than an hour with a guy and I am not completely prepared for it. Gorgeous is heading out of town this morning and won’t be back until after I leave on Saturday for a few days.

I want to keep my blog here up to date. The neighbors would appreciate it if I cut the grass before I leave. My car needs washing and Gorgeous’ needs some maintenance. I want to do some computer work to support a couple of projects Gorgeous has going.

And somewhere along the way I should actually go to the Y. (Apparently I can’t get into shape just by cutting them my membership check each month. I have to physically go there and exercise. I don’t remember reading that in the fine print!)

Oh, yes. And my body still won’t let me skip the whole sleep thing.

And we don’t even have kids! I truly can’t imagine what life would be like if that dynamic was added in.

So we are all restricted to 24 hours in any given day. It doesn’t seem right.

But maybe God knew that we needed limitations. Maybe if he gave us even more hours, we’d keep going until we exploded. Perhaps the whole sleep thing was built in to force us to take some down time to recharge so that we could keep going through an entire life.

All I know is I am late for a meeting (again) and I have to get moving. I am looking forward to the day that I step into eternity and have all the time I need to do the things I want.

Not that I want to get there today, mind you.

Enjoy!

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Naming our Fears

May 3, 2006 By 2 Comments

I was poking around the net this morning and I came across a really good article by Curt Rosengren about dealing with fear appropriately titled The F-Word. Check out his opening paragraph:

FEAR IS A DREAM KILLER. It’s the biggest and most common obstacle I see in my work helping people create passion-filled careers. Fear paralyzes, and it magnifies failures. Worst of all, it brings an acceptance of the status quo, however unpalatable that might be.

Bam! Right in the kisser.

Curt lays it out there for us. Our fears could very well be the single biggest thing that keeps us from actually moving forward and accomplishing great things in our lives.

There are so many take-away’s from his article you really need to read the whole thing.

He talks about “shining a light on our fears.” He says that if we don’t name our fears then

Without realizing it, you make that fear your de facto reality.

That is so true! I grew up with this vague fear that I was never going to amount to anything. As a result, for the vast majority of my nearly 40 years on this planet I have pretty much hung out in the middle of the pack. I rarely ever attempted anything big and then when I did actually take something on I’d be prone to give it up earlier than I really should have. That fear was becoming a reality in my life!

Fear feeds on the belief that we can’t handle what might happen, and then we unknowingly reinforce that belief.

Again Curt is spot on. Gorgeous and I have worked hard over the years to get debt free. And at one time in our marriage we actually were. But we share a fear of never really having any kind of savings to speak of. Because of that financial fear, we tend to be a little too risk adverse with our money. We have turned down opportunities to invest because we tend to “what if” them to death. As a result, our savings is not what we’d like it to be. Go figure.

Taking action, any action, is one of the most effective tools for success I know.

The good news is Curt offers up some things we can do to get past our fears. And as far as I can see he is not at all wrong.

Fear is a big reality in the everyday lives of us mortals. The Bible mentions the word fear over 250 times. And when you add in the word afraid and other variations the number more than doubles to nearly 550 references. Apparently God knows about our fear issues.

Here’s my favorite passage about fear:

For God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity, but of power, love, and self-discipline.

Since the first step in dealing with fear is to name it, here are some of the things, silly or not, that I am afraid of:

  • Snakes
  • Talking to people I don’t know
  • Cold calling on the phone in a sales situation
  • Failure
  • Mediocrity
  • Dropping the ball
  • Being irresponsible with my money
That should get me started.What are you afraid of?

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Fall in Love with O-R

April 2, 2006 By 1 Comment

Gorgeous and I were in the car for a while this weekend on my favorite section of tourist pilgrimage corridor. On the way down to Jacksonville on Saturday I made a mental note that the sheer masses of humanity abandoning the Sunshine State northward were having a parking lot effect in the construction zones of I-95. Since we had nothing pressing this afternoon, on our way back we decided to dodge the migrating hoards by taking the scenic route up US-17.

We had no idea this weekend was the Blessing of the Fleet in Darien. Trust me. It’s big times in a small town. (woo. hoo.)

We ended up arriving on the outskirts of town this afternoon, and came to a complete stop for a half hour, just as the priest was blessing the shrimp boats. The best laid plans…

But the whole trip gave Gorgeous and I time to talk.

She shared with me about some business training she had recently. The trainer was talking about falling in love with reality. Basically the trainer was saying that what maters is not what you think about what is happening. Nor is it necessarily important what others say or think about what is going on. The critical thing actually is what is really taking place, what she called reality. We would do better to “fall in love” with reality.

Some times we get fixated on our feelings which can lead to all kinds of twisted thought patterns, often producing less than desirable results. If we focus on reality rather than feelings, we will have a clearer thought pattern leading to more desirable results.

It makes sense.

In Gorgeous’ business this principle is fairly easy to apply. She may feel like things are going well, or poorly. She may have people on her team that say all kinds of weird and wacky things. But the reality of her business is actually measured by her stats: her sales volume, her numbers of presentations, leads, contacts, the size of her check, etc.

As we talked about it, we decided to modify our terminology to “Objective Reality.” Sure there are intangibles out there. And they are real too. But I think it would be helpful if I spent more time focusing on my Objective Reality.

In a moment of traffic induced giddiness we shortened it to O-R. (It wasn’t pretty there for a while.)

I may feel out of shape or a little overweight. But the O-R is that I am a little soft around the middle. I get winded more easily than I’d like. And I lead a fairly sedentary lifestyle (clackity-clack goes the computer keyboard). But until I fall in love with that O-R, my condition is not likely to change.

The other thing to note is that my O-R is really pretty stinking good in some areas of my life. If I don’t fall in love with it in those instances, I’ll never be contented.

What is your O-R?

Maybe you should fall in love with it.

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A Reminder

March 20, 2006 By 2 Comments

Every now and then you meet someone or hear about someone and you think something like, “man, I thought I had problems…” Yesterday was on of those times. I heard a man tell his story and just when I thought it couldn’t get much worse, it did. Repeatedly.

Fortunately for him, God stepped in and steadied out the rapidly descending out of control downward spiral that he had made of his life. It was a story that I can relate to. Fortunately for me, my story has been on a much smaller scale.

It is amazing how often the bad decisions we make usually lead to worse decisions, isn’t it?

The good news is that God knows all about our biggest blunders and still wants to have a relationship with us anyway. He even put together this intricate plan involving His son to give us a way for that to happen.

One of the things that I took away from that guy’s story was something that was said about it afterwards. Really it is unhealthy for us to dwell on the mistakes of our past once they have been properly dealt with.

We were told that if we find ourselves stuck in the past, its like driving your car staring in your rearview mirror – if you do, you are going to crash.

Then at lunch, after we had all heard that same story a bunch of us were talking about how hard it can be to back a boat trailer down a boat ramp. Two of the people said that they can do it pretty easy when they look over their shoulder. But if they try to do it while looking in the mirror, they mess it up every time.

Funny none of us connected that comment to the message at the time…

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