ANGER: Why are you still carrying her?

A senior monk and a junior monk were traveling together. At one point, they came to a river with a strong current. As the monks were preparing to cross the river, they saw a very young and beautiful woman also attempting to cross. The young woman asked if they could help her cross to the other side.

The two monks glanced at one another because they had taken vows not to touch a woman.

Then, without a word, the older monk picked up the woman, carried her across the river, placed her gently on the other side, and carried on his 
journey.

The younger monk couldn’t believe what had just happened. After rejoining his companion, he was speechless, and an hour passed without a word between them.

Two more hours passed, then three, finally the younger monk could contain himself any longer, and blurted out “As monks, we are not permitted a woman, how could you then carry that woman on your shoulders?”

The older monk looked at him and replied, “Brother, I set her down on the other side of the river, why are you still carrying her?”

____________

Anger is an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to anything on which it is poured.

Mark Twain

Anthony weigh's in:  

Life will have plenty of opportunities for anger.  

The tricky part about anger is that it is a  God-given emotion.  Jesus got angry, but His anger was a righteous anger.  I don't want to sound pious, but His anger was healthy, and your anger could be too.

The point of today's post is not that you shouldn't get angry, rather, anger can and will destroy you over time if left unchecked. It has a way of blinding you, isolating you, and spilling over to every area of your life. 

I have heard it said, "If you don't heal what hurt you, you will bleed on people who didn't cut you."  And that's unfair to those that love you...

Reflect:  What are you carrying around that you should let go of?

How to Handle Life's Disappointments?

What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun?
-Langston Hughes, Harlem.

Harold S. Kushner, in his fascinating book, "Overcoming Life's Disappointments" comments on the poem asking, "In these lines, the poet wonders what happens to dreams that do not come true. I wonder what happens to the dreamer. How do people cope with the realization that important dimensions of their lives will not turn out as they hoped they would ..." 
Heavy Stuff.
Especially if you are in touch with reality.



The first thing to grapple with is that you will be disappointed. For most of us, we have already experienced our share. But, there was a time, perhaps when young(er) and naive, you happened to dance around the painful events of life unscathed. Then, it got you. Setbacks, losses, unexpected events.
You were wounded on the inside. Never to be the same again. And NO, your life will not be as it once was. I am a victim of this mentality -waiting for things to return to "normal" - they do not. As a man of deep nostalgia, I stood at this doorstep for years, only to have that door unanswered. So I get it, trust me.

As time passed on, you learned that the question was not, "How do I go through life avoiding disappointment?" Rather, "How will I respond to those disappointments?" Today I was reading in the Psalms something that I know was a message for me:

"Light arises in the darkness for the upright" (112:4)

When your heart has broken and you feel lost a lot of the time you feel like you are groping for something. Whether it is the past, restoration or a specific answer, you grope. You yearn like a blind man for answers around you. In our Psalm, we read something that shifts our mind to a different perspective. "Light arises in the darkness!" Your answer will come. Your restoration is on its way. God is not done with you. Your journey, although confusing, painful and down right exhausting can produce something of value.

The Space Between

Between stimulus and response there is a space.
In that space lies our freedom and power to choose our response.
In those choices lie our growth and our happiness.
-Stephen Covey, The 8th Habit. 

STIMULUS and RESPONSE. 

The space between whatever happens to you and your response to it - therein lies your destiny.

A person says something that rubs you the wrong way...
A friend texts you something that crosses you...
A loved one acts in a way that frustrates you...

No matter what has happened to you, is now happening, or will happen to you in the future, there is a space between those things and your response to them.  Some people's spaces -for whatever reason- are large, others are small.  This does not mean it has to always be this way, however. 

Awareness brings a sense of power; now you have the ability to change.

You have the freedom to choose. 

Have you ever thought about your freedom?

At birth you were given dormant seeds that lay inside of you. Ready for cultivation. 

Seeds that lay ready for the daybreak.  There remains inside of you infinite capabilities.
Author Marianne Williamson wrote a captivating piece about our dormant potential that is worth printing out and keeping on your mirror.  

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. 
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. 
It is our light, not our darkness
That most frightens us. 

We ask ourselves
Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?
Actually, who are you not to be? 
You are a child of God. 

Your playing small 
Does not serve the world. 
There's nothing enlightened about shrinking 
So that other people won't feel insecure around you.

We are all meant to shine, 
As children do. 
We were born to make manifest 
The glory of God that is within us. 

It's not just in some of us; 
It's in everyone.

And as we let our own light shine, 
We unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. 
As we're liberated from our own fear, 
Our presence automatically liberates others.

STIMULUS and RESPONSE.

You have the power of choice.

You can change the direction of your life.

You can change your future.

YOU.  

CAN CHANGE.

BY.

BECOMING AWARE of the space between whatever happens to you and your response to it.

Therein lies your destiny.

What do you see?

"A man entered a village and went to the monastery on the edge of town, where he was welcomed by an old monk, the wise man of the village. The visitor said, “I am deciding whether I should move here or not. I’m wondering what kind of neighborhood this is. Can you tell me about the people here?”

The old monk said, “Tell me what kind of people lived where you came from.” The visitor said, “Oh, they were highway robbers, cheats and liars.” The monk said, “You know, those are exactly the same kinds of people who live here.” The visitor left the village and never came back.

Half an hour later, another man entered the village. He sought out the wise old man and said, “I’m thinking of moving here. Can you tell me what kind of people live here?” Again the monk said, “Tell me what kind of people lived where you came from.” The visitor said, “Oh, they were the kindest, gentlest, most compassionate, most loving people. I shall miss them terribly. The old monk said, “Those are exactly the kinds of people who live here, too.”

A quote:  "We don't see things as they are; we see them as we are." -Anaïs Nin

In other words, what you see is what you get.

APPLY:  A person's perspective colors their entire life.  Everyone you know is living with an invisible set of sunglasses on their face that shades how they see life around them.  Taken further, you could also add a set of ear buds filtering how one hears and takes in information.  
That said, it becomes critical to understand oneself.  To self reflect.  Self reflection becomes vital to healthy relationships because if one is not in touch with themselves to some degree, then they run the risk of distorting everything around them.  We all think that being broken is the worst thing for us but it is equally risky to be bent.

A question:  Do you relate more with the first or the second traveler? 

Mirror, Mirror, On the Wall.

The Mirror Principle

People unaware of who they are and what they do often damage relationships with others. The way to change that is to look in the mirror. Consider these truths that we must learn about ourselves:

-Self-Awareness.

Human nature seems to endow people with the ability to size up everybody in the world but themselves.

-Self-Image.

Your image of yourself restricts your ability to build healthy relationships. A negative self- image will keep a person from being successful. If those with a poor self-image do somehow achieve success, it won’t last because they will eventually bring themselves down to the level of their own expectations.

-Self-Honesty.

Comedian Jack Parr quipped,“Looking back, my life seems like one big obstacle race, with me being the chief obstacle.”What can save us is a willingness

to get honest about our shortcomings, faults and problems.

-Self-Improvement.

Critic Samuel Johnson advised that “he who has so little knowledge of human nature as

to seek happiness by changing anything but his own dis- position will waste his life in fruitless efforts and multi- ply the grief which he purposes to remove.”

-Self-Responsibility.

No significant accomplishments can be achieved by individual effort. However, every significant accomplishment begins with the vision of  one individual. Once we possess the vision, we must take responsibility for carrying it to others.

What is "The Lens Principle?"

The Readiness Question: Are You Prepared for Relationships?

Not everyone has the skills to initiate, build and sustain

good, healthy relationships. Many people grow up in dysfunctional households and never have positive relationships modeled for them. 

Some people are so focused on themselves and their needs that others might as well not even exist. Still others have been hurt so badly in the past that

they see the whole world through the filter of their pain.

Because of huge relational blind spots, they don’t know

themselves or how to relate to people in a healthy way. It

takes relationally healthy people to build great relationships.

The Lens Principle:

Who you are determines what you see and the way

you see it. 

What is around us doesn’t determine what

we see:

What is within us does. 

And who you are determines how you see others. If you are a trusting person,

you will see others as trustworthy. If you are a critical

person, you will see others as critical. If you are a car-

ing person, you will see others as compassionate.

-The way you view others is determined by who you are-

If you don’t like people, that really is a statement about you

and the way you look at people. Your viewpoint is the problem. If that’s the case, don’t try to change others. 

Don’t even focus on others; focus on yourself. 

If you change yourself and become the kind of person you desire to be,

you will begin to view others in a whole new light. 

And that will change the way you interact in all of your relationships.

What is your Wake?

The Wake 

One of my favorite things to do is to sit on the back deck of a boat going across the ocean and just watch the wake. It is such a beautiful, ever-changing creation as the ship continues on its path. 

You can tell a lot about a ship as you look at its wake. 

If it is in a straight line, you get a feeling that the boat is steadily on course, and that the captain is not dozing at the wheel, or that an engine or a shaft is not somehow out of whack. But if it is wavering, you begin to wonder. Also, if it is smooth and flat, you know something about the speed of the boat, and if it is steep, you can tell something about its drag. In other words, what the wake looks like can tell you a lot about the boat itself. 

-With people, the same thing is true.

When a person travels through a few years with an organization, or with a partnership, or any other kind of working association, he leaves a “wake” behind in these two areas: task and relationship. 

-What did they accomplish and how did they deal with people?

So, we must look out over the transom (the flat surface forming the stern of a vessel) and ask ourselves, “What does that wake look like?” 
Are a lot of people out there water-skiing on our wake  -smiling, having a great time for our having been connected to our lives”? Or are they out there bobbing for air, bleeding, and left wounded as shark bait?

Henry Cloud, Integrity: The Courage to Meet the Demands of Reality, HarperCollins.

What is the Ivy Lee Method?

The Ivy Lee Method: 

The Daily Routine Experts Recommend for Peak Productivity

by James Clear

By 1918, Charles M. Schwab was one of the richest men in the world.

Schwab was the president of the Bethlehem Steel Corporation, the largest shipbuilder and the second-largest steel producer in America at the time. The famous inventor Thomas Edison once referred to Schwab as the “master hustler.” He was constantly seeking an edge over the competition. [1]

One day in 1918, in his quest to increase the efficiency of his team and discover better ways to get things done, Schwab arranged a meeting with a highly-respected productivity consultant named Ivy Lee.

Lee was a successful businessman in his own right and is widely remembered as a pioneer in the field of public relations. As the story goes, Schwab brought Lee into his office and said, “Show me a way to get more things done.”

“Give me 15 minutes with each of your executives,” Lee replied.

“How much will it cost me,” Schwab asked.

“Nothing,” Lee said. “Unless it works. After three months, you can send me a check for whatever you feel it’s worth to you.” [2]

The Ivy Lee Method

During his 15 minutes with each executive, Lee explained his simple method for achieving peak productivity:

1. At the end of each work day, write down the six most important things you need to accomplish tomorrow. Do not write down more than six tasks.
2. Prioritize those six items in order of their true importance.
3. When you arrive tomorrow, concentrate only on the first task. Work until the first task is finished before moving on to the second task.
4. Approach the rest of your list in the same fashion. At the end of the day, move any unfinished items to a new list of six tasks for the following day.
5. Repeat this process every working day.

The strategy sounded simple, but Schwab and his executive team at Bethlehem Steel gave it a try. After three months, Schwab was so delighted with the progress his company had made that he called Lee into his office and wrote him a check for $25,000.

A $25,000 check written in 1918 is the equivalent of a $400,000 check in 2015. [3]

The Ivy Lee Method of prioritizing your to-do list seems stupidly simple. How could something this simple be worth so much?

What makes it so effective?

Portrait of Ivy Ledbetter Lee from the early 1900s. (Photographer: Unknown)

What makes a leader?

5 Elements of a Great Leader [Do you make the Cut?]

When it comes to defining leadership, no one does it better than Kouzes & Posner. 

In their excellent book titled, "The Leadership Challenge," they outline the 5 aspects that make a leader go from average to great.  Below, I summarize their key points. 

Enjoy! 

Leaders establish principles concerning the way people should be treated and the way goals should be pursued. They create standards of excellence and then set an example for others to follow. Because the prospect of complex change can overwhelm people and stifle action, they set interim goals so that people can achieve small wins as they work toward larger objectives. They unravel bureaucracy when it impedes action; they put up signposts when people are unsure of where to go or how to get there; and they create opportunities for victory. 

Anthony's Summary:  Leadership first starts with the leader.  In order to lead, you must first "be" before you can "do." 

  

Leaders passionately believe that they can make a difference. They envision the future, creating an ideal and unique image of what the organization can become. Through their magnetism and quiet persuasion, leaders enlist others in their dreams. They breathe life into their visions and get people to see exciting possibilities for the future.

Anthony's Summary: Leadership is about creating a preferred future.  The Bible says, "Where there is no vision, the people will perish." 

Leaders search for opportunities to change the status quo. They look for innovative ways to improve the organization. In doing so, they experiment and take risks. And because leaders know that risk taking involves mistakes and failures, they accept the inevitable disappointments as learning opportunities.
Anthony's Summary:  A great leader challenges assumed constraints and seeks to remove roadblocks that stand in the way of healthy change. 

 

Leaders foster collaboration and build spirited teams. They actively involve others. Leaders understand that mutual respect is what sustains extraordinary efforts; they strive to create an atmosphere of trust and human dignity. They strengthen others, making each person feel capable and powerful.

Anthony's Summary:  Let's get real, if you want to accomplish anything of worth in this life, you will need at least one other person to join you along in the process.  Teamwork is essential for the leader because they know that anything worth doing is worth doing with a great group of people.  

Accomplishing extraordinary things in organizations is hard work. To keep hope and determination alive, leaders recognize contributions that individuals make. In every winning team, the members need to share in the rewards of their efforts, so leaders celebrate accomplishments. They make people feel like heroes.

Anthony's Summary: I know far too many so-called leaders that "wield the hammer" over their workers.  This is not a mark of great leadership, rather it is a telling sign of incompetence.

Sermons We See

Sermons We See 

            

I'd rather see a sermon

than hear one any day,

I'd rather one would walk with me

than merely tell the way;

The eye's a better pupil

and more willing than the ear,

Fine counsel is confusing,

but example's always clear;

The best of all the preachers

are the men who live their creeds,

For to see good put in action

is what everybody needs.

I soon can learn to do it,

if you'll let me see it done,

I can watch your hands in action,

your tongue too fast may run;

The lectures you deliver

may be very wise and true,

But I'd rather get my lessons

by observing what you do;

I may not understand

the high advice you give,

But there's no misunderstanding

how you act and how you live.