https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=utAOfNfI_vE

The Bucket List is one of my favorite movies. It tells the story of two men, played by Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson, who come from very different backgrounds. The two are brought together through sickness and end up spending time in the same hospital room. They develop an unlikely friendship and decide to do some amazing things together before they die. Some of these experiences are heartwarming, others are heartbreaking, but the most compelling aspect of the movie is the way they both grapple with questions of life and death.

In the clip above, they consider two difficult questions that the ancient Egyptians believed they would be asked after death. They thought that if you gave the right answers, you would enter into heaven.

1. Have you found joy in your life?

2. Has your life brought joy to others?

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While this is not my personal view of what it takes to get into heaven, these questions are thought-provoking and worth asking every day. They have helped me pose the questions below and think more intentionally about my personal and professional life.

Read the following questions, reflect on your answers, and be open to making changes in your own life.

Do you find joy in your work?

Do you add value, even in the mundane aspects of your job?

Do you know why your work is important to your clients, colleagues, or employees?

Do you take time each day to have personal and meaningful interactions with your colleagues?

Do you know what drives your employees or coworkers?

Do you see your work as an opportunity to encourage and connect with people?

At the end of each day, are you satisfied with the work you’ve done? Do you make a daily effort to support and encourage your family and friends?

Do you find opportunities to connect with people who are different from you?

Have you found ways to consistently serve others?

Think about these questions. Are there others you would add to this list? Whether you are a landscaper, a salesperson, a manager, or you stay at home with your children, you can find meaning in what you do each day.

The most important aspect of your life is not your job description—it’s how you choose to care for the people around you.

Have you ever noticed how good we are at solving other people’s problems? If only it were up to me, I could make it better.

It’s so easy to see a situation from a distance and think we know the best solution, but in reality, we can’t possibly see the full picture of a problem until we take a step closer and interact with the people involved. This takes time, intentionality, and vulnerability, so our natural inclination is to keep a “healthy” distance. However, this distance doesn’t solve problems—it actually creates them.

Our resistance to get proximate to problems results in us creating solutions that seem good on the surface. However, we often fail to ultimately solve the needs or desires of the people we’re trying to help. Effective problem-solving requires us to know the people we serve.

The closer we are to a need, the higher our level of empathy, and the greater our ability to solve it effectively.

This proximity principle applies to every environment.

Take business, for example. Our proximity to the customer helps us understand and meet their needs. As a leader, connecting with our employees helps us know their goals. In a nonprofit organization, the closer we get to the beneficiary, the better we are able to solve their challenges. In church, our presence in our community helps us meet specific needs and love people well.

It’s actually one reason that government often fails to solve challenges. Bureaucracy creates layers, layers create distance, and distance inhibits our ability to understand and provide effective solutions.

We’re never going to serve people well if we don’t know them.

We won’t solve the race relations challenge from a distance.

We can’t improve the customer experience from the corner office.

We’re not going to fully understand our employees needs from answers on an annual survey.

We will never reach our community if we stay inside the church building.

Get outside. Connect with your community. Get close to the people you want to serve. Proximity to people means things might get messy, but the results will always be worth it.

What does profit mean to you?

Your immediate inclination is probably positive. Profit is good. It’s something we want. It’s hard to succeed if we’re not profitable, right? So it’s essential to growing a business.

However, I’m not asking whether profit is good or bad. (I think we all agree that profit is good.) But how do you define it?

Today, I want to explain how each of us can have a proper perspective of profit. In order to do this, we need to define each of these terms.

‍Proper: If something is proper, it is suitable, appropriate, or right. It is the correct way of doing something, or in this case, it is the correct way of viewing something.

‍Perspective: Our perspective is the lens through which we view things. It’s our attitude or disposition toward something, and it’s our point of view. Our perspective is important, because the way we view things changes how we do things. Therefore, our perspective is essential to understanding and applying this definition of profit.

‍Profit: Profit is a term that has evolved over time. If you look at some dictionaries from the early 1900s, profit is defined as payment for value added. Historically, it was about the money earned for creating value. Only in the last 100 years has the definition evolved to simply be the difference between revenue and expenses. Too often we oversimplify and undervalue profit by only asking, “Did you make more money than you spent?” In doing so, we fail to recognize the vital importance of adding value.

A couple of years ago, Volkswagen was caught cutting corners in vehicle production to save money. Some of their diesel-engine models contained software that allowed them to cheat emissions tests in the US. Volkswagen confessed to cheating, and in this effort to save money, lost billions of dollars. Because Volkswagen was more concerned with earning money than adding value, they lost dollars and their reputation in the process.

The best organizations, companies, and leaders have a proper perspective of profit. Sure, they understand that we need money, income, and margin to survive and thrive. But, when we view profit through the lens of adding value, the result is better products for our customers, enhanced experiences for our clients, and positive environments for our employees.

If you’re adding value, dollars will follow.

Do you have a proper perspective of profit?Seek ways to add value to your work this week. Your profit will have a greater impact than a simple dollar amount ever could.

Catch the foxes for us,

the little foxes that spoil the vineyards,

for our vineyards are in blossom.

- Song of Solomon 2:15, ESV

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‍Recently, I heard Johnny Foster, a pastor and friend of mine, preach a message from this passage, and it surprised me. I had never heard a sermon on this particular verse before. Come to think of it, I rarely hear messages on this book of the Bible, at all.

However, Johnny’s message resonated with me. If you and I apply the life lesson from this verse, it might just save us from making a major mistake. A little bit of context would be helpful: Song of Solomon is a love story. The takeaway from this text can help us with our love lives, but I believe it can help us avoid other potential pitfalls, as well. This simple verse serves as a warning to heed the little things that can spoil our personal and professional endeavors.

In the Song of Solomon, this little warning interrupts a love story in its early days. Things seem blissful and exciting for the happy couple, but then we get this image of little foxes spoiling a vineyard. Foxes forage gardens for food, and often, this happens before the plants reach full bloom. If a farmer is not careful to catch them or keep them away, these little animals could destroy an entire crop and have a huge impact on the farmer’s livelihood.

There is a reason that the verse uses the word “little” to describe the foxes here. Let me ask you a few questions to help put this in perspective.

1. Have you or anyone you know ever been bitten by a lion?
2. Have you or anyone you know ever been bitten by a dog?
3. Have you or anyone you know ever been bitten by a mosquito?

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Most likely, you haven’t been bitten by a lion. (If you have, and you lived to tell about it, that’s a story I’d like to hear!) You may or may not have been bitten by a dog at some point in your life. But I’m willing to bet that you, and everyone else you know, has been bitten by a mosquito.

Think about it—A lion is so large and apparently dangerous, that you’ll take extra precautions to avoid being attacked by one. On the other end of the spectrum, the mosquito is much smaller. However, the smaller mosquito, one that doesn’t pose as severe of a threat, is one that we sometimes struggle to protect ourselves from. Just like the little foxes in the vineyard and the pesky mosquitos at your backyard barbecue.

It’s often the little things that pose the greatest threat to our personal and professional endeavors.

In everything we pursue, we need to be resolute in protecting the things most important to us. To do this effectively, we must keep out the little things that threaten to destroy us.

In the office, it’s keeping the little disagreements from causing deep divisions among your team.

In our work day, it’s preventing seemingly small distractions from taking you away from the important project at hand.

In church, it’s stopping yourself from talking only to those you feel most familiar with and unintentionally creating a culture that’s unwelcoming to new people.

In marriage, it's preventing a few busy weeks without time together from turning into busy months and years of feeling disconnected.

It’s easy to put up safeguards against the big, obvious threats to our endeavors and relationships, but most often, it's the little things we overlook that sneak in and destroy us.

Can you identify some small threats that could potentially hinder your personal and professional endeavors?

Work to catch them before they cause major damage to you and those around you.

‍“Pity the leader caught between unloving critics and uncritical lovers.” - John Gardner

In this quote, John Gardner uses simple and precise words to explain the two kinds of people we most often encounter in our personal and professional lives: the unloving critic and the uncritical lover. The problem is that we need a different kind of person—one who cares enough about us to affirm us when we’re right and correct us when we’re wrong. These people are rare and hard to find. But if you’re in a leadership role, you’ll find plenty of the other two.

1. The Unloving Critic:

If you’re developing something new, you will always find people quick to criticize, critique, and condemn. There will be no shortage of people who think your idea is dumb and strategy is stupid. These people don’t care for you or the well-being of your organization. In fact, they seem to be more concerned about being right than being constructive. As a business, we have a goal to inspire people today to impact tomorrow. It’s amazing how quickly people outside of our organization want to offer their opinion by letting us know that “real businesses” won’t care about our mission, vision, and strategies. They seem more eager to discourage than to offer helpful feedback.

2. The Uncritical Lover:

On the other hand, there are plenty of people who just want to be part of the action and will tell you exactly what you want to hear. We all like being encouraged, so it’s tempting to surround ourselves with an echo chamber of people who tell us how great we are. That presentation was spot on. Your writing is perfect. You are such a great leader. Wow, that’s such an incredible idea. However, when we surround ourselves only with people who tell us what we want to hear, we likely won’t hear some of the things we need to hear to be successful. As a result, we risk confidently strutting our way into failure.

Neither the unloving critic nor the uncritical lover help us improve and become who we need to be. “Iron sharpens iron, and one man sharpens another” (Proverbs 27:17, ESV). Try to find the rare third type of person, the loving critic. We each need people who care about us enough to encourage us when we’re right and correct us when we’re wrong. Surround yourself with these people, listen to them, and learn from what they have to say. You will treasure these few friends who both encourage and edify you.

We each need people who care about us enough to encourage us when we’re right and correct us when we’re wrong.

But don’t just surround yourself with loving critics; be one. This is a struggle for me. Because I want people to feel good, I find it difficult to offer correction when it’s needed. However, I have to remember that if I truly care about people, I’ll tell them what they need to hear even when it’s not easy.

I think Peggy Noonan said it best: “Candor is a compliment; it implies equality. It’s how true friends talk.” I want to be part of true friendships, ones that sharpen me and those closest to me. Do you have these kinds of friendships? If not, work to be a loving critic, and find other friends who are eager to help you become the person you were meant to be.

Recently, I was in a meeting with some members of our team, and we were discussing a sales goal.

One colleague closed a huge sale and had been incredibly successful the week before, so I asked him in front of the others, “What did you do last week that was different from other weeks?”

He replied, “To be honest, I didn’t do anything different last week, but the couple of weeks before that, I was very intentional in my work. I just reaped the benefits last week.” His response reminded me of a quote from a great leader.

‍“Great doors of opportunity swing on the tiny hinges of obedience.” - Dr. Ike Reighard

‍My colleague chose to devote himself fully to his work by saying yes to the small, seemingly mundane parts of his job, and he reaped the benefits of a successful sale. We too will experience success if we are obedient to invest the time and effort that is necessary to reach our goals.

We must remember that the payoff does not come at the time we make the investment. Obedience requires patience and consistency to have a lasting impact on our endeavors. When we’re obedient in sewing, we have opportunities to reap in our personal and professional lives.

The opportunity for a sale starts with consistently pursuing a client. The opportunity for stronger relationships begins by investing time in the people you love. The opportunity for your team to succeed starts with creating systems and structures to enable progress. The opportunity for an online purchase is created by intentionally investing in a user-friendly experience. The company culture you want to build begins by fostering the right environment before people walk through the door. The fully committed church member develops through small groups and plugging into other activities.

The successful nonprofit makes a huge impact by consistently connecting with donors and providing strategic training for volunteers.

Each of these successful outcomes begins with consistent obedience in everyday actions and decisions. Open your eyes to small choices today that will create the opportunity you desire tomorrow.

The opportunity you seek tomorrow is created by your obedient investment today.

The opportunity you seek tomorrow is created by your obedient investment today.

You’ll close the sale. You’ll gain the trust of the most important people in your life. You’ll see consistency in your team’s performance. You’ll gain new clients through your approachable online platform. You’ll foster a healthy and enjoyable work environment for yourself and your team. You’ll develop committed leaders, eager to serve in the church. You’ll make a greater impact that you thought was possible.

Each of us desire more opportunity, but we have to remember that it’s made possible by the tiny hinges of obedience. Be obedient in the small things this week, and reap the harvest of opportunity in the future.

In the business world, we are bombarded with buzzwords and overused phrases.

Let’s circle up on that. Can we touch base tomorrow? Let’s table that conversation for later. Can we do a deep dive? Help me unpack that concept.

But there’s one word the corporate offices of America might just love more than any other: efficiency.

It sometimes hides behind questions like, How do we streamline this? Where can we cut the fat? Is there a more cost-effective solution? But we all know what’s being asked: How can we make this more efficient? I think we can all agree that efficiency is a good thing. As a card-carrying capitalist, I like work that’s done with as little time and effort wasted as possible.

However, I believe there are times when efficiency should not be the primary goal. If you’re an employee restocking an aisle at the grocery store and a customer asks where she can find something, the efficient thing to do is to tell her where that product is and point her in the right direction. However, it’s better customer service and more intentional to stop what you’re doing and walk the customer to the product.

When you walk into the corporate office, the most efficient thing to do is to keep your head down, avoid eye contact, dodge conversation, and go straight to your office. But some of the most important interactions we have with colleagues are the casual conversations that happen in the hallway. If you operate a quick service restaurant, it’s more efficient to have a separate drink station in the dining area where customers can serve themselves. However, by having customers return to the counter for a refill, you create an intentional opportunity for your frontline employees to serve them well and have a positive interaction.

As a church, it’s far more efficient to focus on the one big gathering each week that happens on Sunday mornings, but it’s more intentional and effective to create a culture of discipleship and encourage individuals to meet together in smaller groups. This helps individuals grow spiritually and have deeper connections with others.

Efficiency is good most of the time, but it should not always be the goal. In our busy lives, we are all aware of opportunities to make things more efficient, but we rarely take the time to stop, to look up, and to be intentional with the people around us.

The tougher task is identifying the times we should be intentional rather than efficient.

Take some time to think through opportunities where intentionality can be your goal this week. Efficiency is not a bad thing, but finding the right moment to exchange efficiency for intentionality will provide us a platform to better care for people, connect with customers, and change the world for the better.

I have the pleasure of speaking to and working with lots of different organizations and companies. They all have unique stories and cultures, but it seems that they all struggle with the same problem. Whether it’s a quick-service restaurant trying to hire frontline employees, or a large corporation looking for recent college graduates, the overwhelming majority say they struggle to hire great talent. In fact, out of the organizations I interact with regularly, it’s the number one issue they face.

A couple of months ago, I wrote a blog about selecting the right people for your organization, and I gave an example of a grocery store manager who had extremely low expectations for his potential team members. He even said, “If someone can put a sentence together and tie their own shoelaces, I will hire them.”

Today, I want to talk about how damaging this attitude toward hiring can be. Selecting the wrong people can stunt the growth and delay the success of any organization, and once we begin to hire the wrong individuals, it’s even more difficult to break out of this cycle and hire the talent we desire. Here’s why: We reproduce what we have, not what we want. At some point, you’ve settled for subpar talent, and now, you can’t hire anyone that meets your standards.

We reproduce what we have, not what we want.

Think about it. The University of North Carolina’s Kenan-Flagler Business School performed a survey that asked millennials to state what they are most looking for in a new job. Out of the students they polled, 65% said they are looking for an opportunity for personal development.

The talent we desire is looking for an opportunity to grow in a new job. However, many of us tire of the painstaking process of hiring, so we make the mistake of delegating it to someone else—sometimes, someone that does not exhibit the qualities we now desire in our team. Do you think this potential talent is going to be attracted to the person conducting their interview? If we know millennials are looking for personal development, and they look at our organization and see individuals that lack motivation, discipline, and ambition, then why are we surprised when we can't get the people we want?

When giving dating advice, Andy Stanley challenges people to, “Become the person you’re looking for is looking for.” Think about that. Doesn’t the same apply to the hiring process?

We can see that happy and content people attract other happy and content people and develop healthy relationships. At the same time, unhappy people attract other unhappy people and often develop toxic relationships.

The same happens in our organizations. Churches full of passionate and proactive members attract other people eager to learn and serve.

Colleges that develop talented and driven people will attract more talented and driven individuals, elevating the entire school.

And of course, businesses full of hard-working, ambitious individuals attract more high-caliber team members.

We can desire great talent, but the majority of the time we will not attract what we want but more of what we already have. If you want to attract the right people, you have to get the right people in the first place, so you can create the environment that other top-tier people want to join. And if you don’t have the right people already in place, spend every effort to develop your team into the people you want to hire. Until you develop your existing talent, you’ll never attract the talent you desire.

If you’re the manager of a team, work to help your team members reach their full potential and become the talent you want to hire.

If you’re the pastor of church, encourage your congregation to grow in their faith, so you’ll attract other people eager to learn and fulfill the Great Commission.

If you organize volunteers for a nonprofit, frequently share your passion for this cause to help develop more eager and effective volunteers.

If you are a student recruiter for a university, showcase the kinds of students you desire to enroll.

Developing and hiring great talent takes intentional time and hard work, but the efforts are well worth the lasting positive impact on your organization.

Has your mind ever wandered at a stoplight?

The other day, I was driving down the road and approached a familiar intersection. The stoplight turned yellow, then red, so I slowly rolled into a stop. I took advantage of this free moment to adjust the air, change the radio station, check the time, and before I knew it, my mind began to drift to the things that needed to get done before the end of the day.

All of the sudden, the car on my left moved forward, but I felt like I was moving backward. I slammed on the brakes and searched for something stationary, like a tree or a building, to fix my eyes on and confirm that I was standing still.

In this moment, I was searching for something to confirm that I was stopped. The car beside me was a moving object and I needed something constant, consistent, and immovable to see whether or not I was grounded in place. This situation got me thinking about other times that we search for something anchored to determine our position. As our culture shifts, and our values are challenged now more than ever, aren’t we also searching for something to fix our eyes on to confirm we’re standing still?

Today, it’s tempting to base our values on the changing tides of culture. As an organization, you want to stay relevant. As an individual, you want to fit in with your peers. As a movement, you want to attract more people.

But if you’re measuring your values against a moving target, your identity is as grounded as a ship without an anchor.

If an organization's values are based on the personality of its CEO, it won’t have the consistency that customers desire. If a church’s doctrine is based on cultural trends instead of the Bible, it will not teach its members lasting truth. If an individual’s values waver with the tide of popular opinion, they will never really know who they are and what they believe.

In order to be successful, we must stay true to our values, and we’ll only stay true to our values if they are rooted in something lasting and secure. Companies should be able to stand on their values like the wise man who built his house on the rock. “And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock” (Matthew 7:25).

Time will pass, trials will come, and cultures will change, but if your company can stand on its values, its identity will remain pure. This standard may be different for you than it is for me, but it should always stand firm in the midst of change. Let’s take a look at what the following successful businesses have chosen to value based on their mission statements.

Chick-fil-A: “To glorify God by being a faithful steward of all that is entrusted to us and to have a positive influence on all who come in contact with Chick-fil-A.”Whole Foods: “Our deepest purpose as an organization is helping support the health, well-being, and healing of both people — customers, Team Members, and business organizations in general — and the planet.”

The American Red Cross: “To prevent and alleviate human suffering in the face of emergencies by mobilizing the power of volunteers and the generosity of donors.”

Patagonia: “Build the best product, cause no unnecessary harm, use business to inspire and implement solutions to the environmental crisis.”

IKEA: “Our vision is to create a better everyday life for many people. Our business idea supports this vision by offering a wide range of well-designed, functional home furnishing products at prices so low that as many people as possible will be able to afford them.”

American Express: “At American Express, we have a mission to be the world’s most respected service brand. To do this, we have established a culture that supports our team members, so they can provide exceptional service to our customers.”

Each set of values, while very different, have a common thread—they are rooted in something that will stand the test of time. Have you established your values? If so, take some time to evaluate them to see if they will stand firm in our changing culture.

If not, work to make your values clear to your team and customers, so your company has an anchor to look to as you grow.