Almost 10 years ago, in the spring of 2009, I was working with an organization that took college students on leadership and service programs abroad. As I prepared the final message for our inaugural group in South Africa, I discovered and shared the following story. Ten years later, the message still resonates, and it’s one we all need to hear.

In 1985, Vance Havner wrote a book titled Playing Marbles with Diamonds. The title of the book emanates from a story that he heard about a traveler who had gone to a poor African village and witnessed an incredible sight. There was a large group of children who were gathered in a circle on the dusty ground playing a game of marbles. As the traveler moved closer, he saw something that absolutely astounded him. These children who had no material possessions were not actually playing the game with glass marbles—they were playing it with diamonds. Can you imagine the world’s most precious gem—diamonds—being used in what is possibly the most common game that a child can play—marbles? These kids were kicking up dust, flicking diamonds into the air, trying to knock other diamonds out of a dusty circle. They, and obviously their parents, had no idea what they held in their hands.

What if these young children realized what they had in their possession? What if they understood that those tiny gems could change their lives? What if their communities knew the potential riches they held? It seems crazy; doesn’t it? These children played with diamonds like they were glass. They treated something extraordinary as if it was ordinary. But the truth is that you and I do the same thing every single day. Think about the experiences you’ve had, the opportunities you’ve been blessed with, and the potential you hold in your hands. It’s true that our diamonds may be different, but we each have extraordinary gifts, talents, experiences, and opportunities that we so casually treat as common, mundane, or ordinary. This is as crazy as playing marbles with diamonds.

If we would look through the right lens to see the power we possess in our experiences, opportunities, and gifts, how might that perspective change our lives, and even the lives of those around us?

‍You play marbles with diamonds when your greed exceeds your gratitude.

When you focus more on what you don’t yet have, you’ll waste what you do have. In doing so, you squander opportunities and miss out on so much joy.

‍You play marbles with diamonds when you fail to turn your aspirations into achievements. If you have goals but fail to focus and work intentionally to achieve them, you might as well not even set them.

‍You are playing marbles with diamonds when you allow your memories to be bigger than your dreams. You can’t pursue a bright future if you’re heart is stuck in the past.

The truth is, most of you aren’t in danger of ruining your lives, you’re in danger of wasting them.

Don’t play marbles with diamonds. Take your experiences, opportunities, and gifts and use these precious gems to change your life and impact the lives of those around you.

Did someone forward this blog to you? Did you stumble across it somewhere on the internet? Subscribe and receive these to your inbox every Tuesday morning.

It’s easy. Just sign up below.

SUBSCRIBE

Today is New Year’s Day, a day where many are considering their New Year’s resolutions. But this blog is not about New Year’s resolutions. I won’t be providing advice on how to set resolutions, what they should be, how to keep up with them, or even ways to set them more effectively. I’d like to challenge you to take a step back, and instead of thinking about the additional things you need to do this year, ask yourself: Am I doing the right things?

In Greg McKeown’s Essentialism, he relays the history of the word “priority” and explains that it originally only existed in the singular form for a reason. Only in the 1900s was the word pluralized to “priorities” to fit our evolving lifestyles. McKeown encourages his readers to focus, and I want to encourage us to do the same this year.

“Purpose tells us when to say yes. Priority reveals when to say no” (The Lens of Leadership).

Heading into 2019, it will be tempting to add a lot of things to your already long list—to try to do more, to be more, and to succeed more. But have you stepped back and audited your current activities? You may be doing a lot of good things, but are you doing the right things? Consider this question: What might you need to stop doing, so you can start doing, or more effectively do, what’s most important?

Peter Drucker used to say, “Management is doing things right. Leadership is doing the right thing.” I don’t want us to merely manage our lives in 2019. I want us to lead and lead well. Don’t just look at everything on your plate and figure out how to do it better. Instead, examine that plate with fresh eyes to see if you’ve got the right things on it.

I don’t want us to merely manage our lives in 2019. I want us to lead and lead well.

Here’s to entering 2019 with a relentless resolve to doing the right things!

For me, 2018 has been a year about perspective. I wrote The Lens of Leadership, gained a new perspective of my company and my role in it, and became a father.

As a dad, this Christmas morning is a new experience for me. I get to see it through the eyes of my son. Although he’s not old enough to understand the meaning of Christmas, he still enjoys the lights on the tree, the bright colors of the wrapped presents, and the excitement of his cousins.

Even as an adult, everything looks different at Christmas.

The houses in neighborhoods are covered with decorations and lights. The person behind you in the department store checkout line is a little nicer.

The hope-filled music makes you think about the goodness in the world.

But not everything looks easier during this season.

Oftentimes the bank account balance looks lower than we’d like.

The person smiling and ringing the bell outside the grocery store reminds you that there are people less fortunate than you. The family gathered around the table reminds you of the people you’re thankful for, but it also is a sobering reminder of the people you love that aren’t there.

Christmas creates a constant challenge for our perspectives. We’re surrounded with reminders of the good, the joy, the hope, but we’re also bombarded with the challenge, the hurt, and the need. On this Christmas, let’s fix our focus back to the true meaning of the season, to the baby born in Bethlehem. What a sight when we shift our perspective to the wondrous mystery of Jesus Christ. The God of all creation came to earth, and he came as a baby. He is the King of kings and the Lord of lords, but he came as a baby. And he came for you and for me. And the most important perspective for us this Christmas is for each of us to remember that it doesn’t matter who you are, what you’ve done, or how you feel today. Are you discouraged? Do you feel hopeless?

I’ve got good news.

The baby born in a manger in Bethlehem, the Christ of the Christmas story, came for you.

“For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,    Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”- Isaiah 9:6

Earlier this year, I was speaking at a conference with a group of leaders who have years of experience in their respective fields. An older gentleman was the opening speaker, and he aptly began with this statement: “As you get older, you have to beware of the dangers of cynicism and sentimentality.”

Beware the dangers of cynicism and sentimentality.

Although I felt young among these leaders, his statement struck me personally, and I understood what he meant. On the surface, cynicism and sentimentality seem totally different. Cynicism is negative—it sees the worst in things and is inherently critical. Sentimentality feels more positive—it’s nostalgic, looking back with fondness at a time that was seemingly easier, better, or more fun. This speaker was exactly right. As we age, we all face the temptation to be cynical and/or sentimental. Depending on our personalities and personal histories, we may tend toward one more than the other, but they both are potentially problematic.

Cynicism springs from experience, and as we grow older, we see and experience more things that disappoint us. We quit taking people at their word. We stop believing things will improve. We have a broader and deeper distrust of politicians and their empty promises. Don’t misunderstand me; a healthy amount of skepticism can be helpful, but when it moves to cynicism, we become cold and callous. We begin to expect the worst, so that’s usually what happens to us. Former UCLA basketball coach John R. Wooden said, “Things turn out best for the people who make the best of the way things turn out.” This is bad news for the cynic.

The opposite side of this same coin is sentimentality. This looks like the individual going through the family photo album, reminiscing about the “good old days”. It’s reading a book about the 1950s and feeling like you were born in the wrong era. We look back with fondness and remember experiences in a positive light. Sometimes, our perspective is accurate, and sometimes, it’s exaggerated, but either way, sentimentality is a longing for a previous time. It’s not necessarily bad, but it can prevent us from living for the future. Although it’s different from cynicism, it’s just as dangerous because you begin to believe that what is behind is better than what’s ahead. There’s actually a biblical charge for Christians to pursue the opposite: “Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal...” (Philippians 3:13–14, ESV).

This holiday season, we will be tempted to either be cynical or sentimental about so many things. If you are looking for something to be mad about, you will find it. You’ll walk into a store and be frustrated about the commercialization of Christmas, or you’ll be annoyed with the number of gifts that kids receive these days. On the other hand, you can get lost in the way things used to be, daydreaming about times past and feeling disappointed with your present circumstances.

Personally, I lean heavily toward sentimentality. I’m a traditionalist, I enjoy reminiscing about the past, and I don’t always think it’s a bad thing. But if we focus on what’s behind instead of what’s ahead, we are not living our lives expectant of the good ahead of us in our careers, our communities, our families, and God’s plan for our lives.

This week, be present, seek to enjoy the gifts you’ve been given, and allow yourself to look ahead with excitement to the good that’s to come.

“We do not remember days; we remember moments." - Cesare Pavese

‍As the holidays are in full swing, think about what moments you remember and cherish from past holiday seasons.

David Salyers, former Vice President of Chick-fil-A, describes these moments as etched memories. These are the pictures, interactions, and feelings that are carved in your mind after an important experience. Earlier this year, I wrote a blog post about the power of moments and the impact of making specific aspects of an experience extraordinary and memorable. So, as we enter this holiday season, how can we intentionally create etched memories with the people we love? How many of you remember the food that you ate on Christmas Day three years ago? Unless you eat the same thing every year (or someone burned the turkey), you probably don’t remember. But if it is your responsibility to prepare the meal for your family, the menu may consume all of your thoughts and energy on Christmas morning and during the days leading up. How many of you remember a Christmas present you received when you were 9 years old? There are a few special Christmas presents that I remember receiving through the years, but on average, I can’t pin a specific present to a specific year. But parents everywhere agonize over having the perfect gifts for their kids to open Christmas morning.

It’s not that the food and the gifts don’t matter. However, as we get closer to the holidays, many of us will spend a disproportionate amount of energy on the components of the Christmas celebration that will have the least amount of impact. We’ll stress out over putting up the perfect decorations in our homes, having each present wrapped correctly, making sure the meal is festive enough, and sending out the Christmas cards before the week of Christmas.

We should absolutely continue to do these things. (I promise if no one ends up cooking food for anyone this Christmas, you’ll create the wrong kind of etched memory!) But how can we take time to intentionally craft a moment at the holidays that our families will be talking about for the next ten years? It doesn’t have to be extravagant or involve a lot of money.

Most of the time, the memories that matter revolve around people, not presents, places, or products.

‍

Take a minute right now. Stop what you’re doing and think about the kind of memory you want to make this year.

A year from now, you might not remember the gifts you receive this Christmas. But you’ll probably remember the way you felt when you decided to give money to a family at church, so they could provide gifts for their children.

Maybe you won’t remember the hours you spent putting up decorations, but you’ll probably remember your kids’ excitement as they watched their dad saw down the family’s Christmas tree.

Maybe you won’t remember what sides you prepared for Christmas dinner, but you’ll remember the Christmas karaoke session with your daughters as you all clean up together.

Maybe you won’t remember everything you planned for Christmas morning, but you’ll remember how hard everyone laughed during that game of charades you originally planned just to kill time.

Be intentional this Christmas. This is not a charge to be extravagant, to spend more money, or to give up a crazy amount of time to plan an experience. It’s a simple reminder for each of us to focus our attention on the memories that will be etched in the minds of the people we love long after the season has come and gone.

The best company cultures have a great balance of being high support and high challenge. I discussed this topic recently with my team, and the further we delved into the conversation, the more I realized that this phenomenon applies to almost every area of life. However, it’s often identified by different terms—enabling and empowering.

When you look up the definition of each word, enable and empower, you find that both have positive definitions. However, enabling has taken on a more negative connotation which people associate with supporting someone so much that it ends up being detrimental to them. Empowering means almost the exact same thing, but we associate this more positively. We empower someone when we encourage and equip but also challenge them to play their part.

The best environments balance enabling and empowering; they offer high support with high challenge, which produces the best results in their people and for their people. Let’s look at a few examples of how this plays out in the world around us.

The best environments balance enabling and empowering; they offer high support with high challenge.

There are government models that are high support but not high challenge—we call this socialism. They want everybody to get something, but they don’t challenge them to earn anything for themselves. It doesn’t work. On the other hand, governments that are high challenge without being high support are dictatorships. These governments drive and force action without any positive incentives. The best governments enable and empower—true capitalism works in this way. It’s high support in that it creates an environment that is great for people to do business, but it’s high challenge because it is up to the people to make it work. When individuals succeed, they reap the benefits.

Let’s apply the same thinking to raising kids. If you are a parent that is only enabling, you are always encouraging, but you never make your child earn anything. In its worst form, you produce a dependent individual, completely lost and unable to function as a responsible adult. Dr. Tim Elmore, president and founder of Growing Leaders, says to these parents, “A lot of times, we want to prepare the road for our children, but we need to prepare our children for the road.”

Other parents are high challenge without high support. These parents push their kids and want them to achieve in the classroom, on the field, and among their peers, but they don’t provide the love they need. It’s clear that the best parenting is both high support and high challenge. It’s not easy, but when parents find this balance, they raise kids who live well in their years at home and beyond. If this is true in government and in family life, it is equally as true and applicable to work environments. It’s incredibly challenging to create a company culture that enables and empowers its people.

Chick-fil-A would say it this way: We value results and relationships. A high challenge work environment is what most people traditionally expect. It’s the high pressure, corporate environment that’s only about results and does not care about the individual, which leads to burnout and disengagement. The flipside is a high support environment that isn’t high challenge. This often happens on non-profit or church staffs where people feel cared for and loved, but the organization doesn’t always get the results it needs because it fails to hold people accountable. At different points in leading an organization, I feel like I’ve swung to either end of this spectrum. There are times when I’ve been good at loving people but haven’t been good at holding them accountable. Then I see the budget or the deadline approaching, and I swing to being high challenge without the support that people need.

This blog is a challenge to both me and you. We must support and challenge, valuing both results and relationships. Don’t get caught in the extremes of being an enabler or an enforcer, but focus on empowering and equipping individuals to succeed.

During a recent fight through Atlanta traffic, I was listening to the radio and turned the dial to 101.1.

It’s a station out of Ellijay, Georgia that plays southern gospel music during the day and country music at night. One simple and soulful song called “He’s Pouring Out Blessings” rang through my car speakers.

It starts like this:

‍I woke up this morning and got out of bed; He poured out his blessings on me.

I went to the kitchen for my daily bread; He poured out his blessings on me.

I went out to get in my old Chevrolet; He poured out his blessings on me.

I was down at a job; it’s another payday; He poured out his blessings on me.

‍This song of thankfulness for some of the smallest things in life was a reminder I desperately needed. Of course I’m thankful for the big things. But how often do I overlook the small, seemingly simple things we take for granted?

When was the last time I was truly grateful for getting up in the morning? Other than the sometimes obligatory or rehearsed prayer I say before a meal, when was the last time I sat down at a meal and was truly grateful just to I have something to eat? When was the last time I was grateful for the car that I get to drive? When was the last time I thanked God for my job? It seems like it’s far easier to voice my frustrations with my job rather than being grateful to have one.

So in this season of Thanksgiving, let’s not forget the blessings we often overlook.

This week, be grateful for the things you typically take for granted. American journalist Germany Kent famously said, “It's a funny thing about life, once you begin to take note of the things you are grateful for, you begin to lose sight of the things that you lack.”

In other words, when you appreciate what you have, you forget what you don’t.

Take a few minutes this week to make a list of things, big and small, for which you’re thankful.

Every single person faces change, and it shows up in various ways.

It’s the new system implemented at work that changes your routine. It’s the software update on your cell phone that annoys you. It’s the new microwave in your kitchen that you don’t know how to use. It’s the changing holiday traditions as your family grows. It’s the new salad dressing you have to choose because they’ve discontinued your favorite. It’s your new and longer route to work after your shortcut has been blocked.

When most of us think of change, we dwell on the big things—new jobs, new kids, new relationships. But every moment of every day presents change, and our natural response is to resist it.

That’s why leaders are positioned to help people accept the change that comes their way. Pastors are to fold new believers into their church families and help them navigate the everyday challenges of their Christian lives. Salespeople must convince their customers that the change to their product makes it better. Parents should help their children transition from one developmental milestone to the next and make a change as simple as drinking from a sippy cup feel like a good one.

Leadership is easy when things stay the same. It’s when things are changing that effective leaders stand out among the rest. So whether you are the president of a company launching a new branch of your organization or a parent in the throws of potty-training, here are four things that anybody leading change must do.

Leadership is easy when things stay the same. It’s when things are changing that effective leaders stand out among the rest.

1. Communicate why. Human beings are naturally opposed to change, so if we’re going to convince someone that they need to change, it’s not enough to tell them how to change; we have to tell them why. Why is this change going to make their life better? Why is this change necessary? If they don’t change, what are the risks they face? We are quick to analyze the risks of the change, but we often overlook the risk we face if we don’t change.

2. Use stories. Some people are driven more by facts and others by feelings, but when it comes to change, each of us tends to have an emotional reaction. In order to motivate people to change, we should use stories, narratives, and examples to help explain what life will be like once the change happens. We all feel more comfortable with change, and more willing to lean in, when we can grasp an image of what it might look like for us.

2. Confront criticism. As a leader in an organization, this is the toughest for me. When people criticize, complain, and say the change is not going to work, we have to confront it head-on. This doesn’t mean that you argue with or yell at people. It just means that you can’t allow push-back to go unresolved because it can stir up dissension, dissatisfaction, and discouragement.

2. Celebrate acceptance. What’s celebrated is repeated. When somebody has the courage to embrace change, we need to highlight it, acknowledge it, and thank them for it. If you’ve ever potty-trained a child, you know how big of a deal it is every time they use the bathroom. We ought to have that same level of excitement when someone in our office embraces change.

When change is necessary, use these tactics: communicate why, use stories, confront criticism, and celebrate acceptance. And don’t get discouraged. Leading change is tough, but if we didn’t have change, we wouldn’t need leaders.

To sprint is to run at full speed over a short distance.

It’s running the 40-yard dash instead of the marathon. In most cases, life is more of a marathon than a sprint. Whether it’s pursuing your goals, investing in your career, raising kids, or maintaining friendships, it’s more about pace than speed and endurance over a long period of time.

But there are times when sprinting is valuable. We use this term a lot in the business world, specifically in the realm of technology. If a company wants to develop a new technology, they might issue a sprint to make it happen quickly. They will do all of the research and preparation ahead of time, and then focus on actually building the new solution during a shorter period of time. So instead of taking years to develop a new technology solution or platform, a fully devoted team could be ready to launch in a matter of weeks, or even days.

While considering the way we leverage sprints in the business world, it made me think about how we might implement a sprinting strategy in our daily lives.

Often, I struggle to start an important task because it feels like it will take a marathon to complete it. It’s daunting, and the thought of getting it all done is exhausting. But in these instances, couldn’t we implement the concept of sprints to help us make progress?

Maybe you can’t muster the energy to go through your entire email inbox. What if you commit twenty minutes of your undivided attention to get through as much as you can?

Maybe the prospect of getting your house organized after a move feels overwhelming. What if you start by only organizing your closet in the 30 free minutes you have today?

Maybe developing a habit of reading seems impossible. What if you commit to reading five pages of a book each night? The average book is 200 pages long, so if you read just five pages a night, you would be on your way to reading up to ten books in one year!

The best way to tackle the task in front of you is to start with a small sprint.

The best way to tackle the task in front of you is to start with a small sprint. What area of your life could use a sprint? Identify it, define a short period of time that you can run at full speed, and block out the time to do it. A lot of times, the progress we make from a short sprint gives us the energy and momentum necessary to decide to run the entire marathon.