You feel strongly about one thing, but something else is pulling you in a different direction?

Famous children’s book author E. B. White once said, “I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.”

I understand where White was coming from. On the one hand, I have a desire to be productive. I want my time to be purposeful. So I want to attack the day, to grow my business, to impact my community, to share my faith, to invest in my family, and to get things done around my house. I want the world to be a better place, and I want to be a part of it.

Do you feel that same tug?

We don’t want to waste any of the time we’ve been given. I believe that we are all here for a purpose. And as a person who spends his time teaching and working to live out leadership principles, I am passionate about the power of purpose. But that doesn’t mean I always feel so motivated. In fact, there are many times when I desire to simply enjoy the world and the life I’ve been given.

Someone recently shared with me that we only have eighteen summers at home with our children before they graduate high school. Eighteen. They reminded me that this is the only August I have with my son as a two-year-old. Doesn’t that put things in perspective? I want to soak up every moment with my son, watching him enjoy these carefree days as a child. I know they will fly by. Sometimes, we all just want to rest and spend time enjoying life. We don’t want to work, instead, we want to find ways to make our lives easier, more comfortable, and more fun. Life is short.

Lately, I’ve been thinking about this contrast a lot. Unfortunately, I don’t have a quick answer or pithy phrase about which one to choose.

In fact, I believe choosing one or the other will only leave you partially satisfied.

This pull between work and rest, productivity and enjoyment, is not a problem to solve. It’s a tension to manage. My challenge to you today is to lean into that tension. Understand that a fulfilled life is found in the balance.

This pull between work and rest, productivity and enjoyment, is not a problem to solve. It’s a tension to manage.  

As Robert Fulghum says in his book All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten: “Live a balanced life—learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some.”

I think that’s some good advice. Perhaps living a balanced life isn’t as complicated as it seems. If we could do it in kindergarten, why not now?

There are other things you spend money on that hurt a little bit. You need more professional clothes for work. The fence in your backyard needs repairing. You need to replace your broken microwave. The grocery bill is slowly growing each week. These are all things you wish you didn’t have to spend money on, but at least you get the satisfaction of seeing the result: new clothes, a repaired fence, a functioning microwave, a refrigerator full of food. Getting work done on my car is frustrating for two reasons:

1) It’s usually something that can’t wait, and 2) Most of the time, I can’t physically see the result of the work done. My car is now “fixed”, but it looks exactly like it did when I dropped it off. At least after a carwash, I can see my car is visibly cleaner. But paying a mechanic to do work on a car often feels like I’m lighting money on fire. I currently drive a truck, and recently, I was getting the oil changed and tires rotated. At the appointment, I was told my truck needed an alignment, and it was going to cost me around $100. Although this annoyed me, I knew it needed to be done. There are at least three real reasons my truck needed this alignment.

First, if I didn’t get it, the truck would naturally drift the wrong way. Second, without the alignment, I have to work harder to keep the truck going in the direction I want it to. And third (and maybe most importantly), the tires will wear out faster and unevenly without an alignment. OK, I know you aren’t here to read about my visit to the service center.

But this concept of alignment applies to all of us in every organization and in every team. In our organizations, if we are not in alignment, we’ll encounter the same three areas of stress that a vehicle experiences.

1. Wrong Direction:

Just like a car will naturally drift the wrong way when it’s not aligned, our organization will drift in the wrong direction.

Without intentional effort and focus, people will be working toward different goals, it will feel like people are running in opposite directions, and your organization might end up in a ditch!

2. Difficult for the Leader:

‍When a car needs an alignment, the driver works harder, and when a team is out of alignment, the leader of the team has to work in overdrive to keep the organization moving in the right direction. To avoid going off course, it takes extra time, energy, and effort for any leader to keep the team heading toward the same goal.

3. Burnout on the Team:

Just like a lack of alignment wears on the tires of a car, when a team is not aligned, it will have negative effects on the individuals on the team—physically, mentally, and emotionally. Over time, they’ll wear out and potentially burn out. Any leader knows it’s a lot tougher to replace good team members than it is to replace some worn-out tires. This wearing leads to long-term negative effects on your team.

Even though I don’t like it, it’s good for me to spend money on my car when it needs an alignment.

And it is worth it to invest the time and energy necessary to make sure our organizations and teams are aligned.

How do we know if our team is aligned? Everyone should be able to answer the following questions:

- Where are we going?

- What is my specific role to help us get there?

(Bonus points if everyone on the team knows why you’re going somewhere. The “Why” is the fuel that will propel you to get there!)

If everyone on the team can answer these two questions, you’ve taken the first major step toward organizational alignment.

I graduated from college in December of 2007, so I was searching for a job during the 2008 recession. It was not a fun time to be unemployed.

In 2020, not only are recent grads (or anyone looking for a job) dealing with economic volatility, but they’re navigating the unknowns of life in a worldwide pandemic and experiencing the frustrations and disappointments that come with it. For those just trying to begin your career, you weren’t able to finish your senior year with friends or have the closure of a graduation ceremony. And in recent months, you’ve probably had enough over-the-phone and virtual interviews for a lifetime. Your world has been turned upside down, and you’re just looking for some sense of normal—like a job.

To make matters worse, you’ve also been given some pretty terrible advice. I get frustrated when I hear people in positions of prosperity or prominence tell young people to simply follow their passions and everything will work out fine. This is not always true, especially in seasons like this. You may not get to follow your passion right away, and you may not get your dream job. You may just need something to pay the bills.

When you’re evaluating different job opportunities, the choice of a boss is far more important than your choice of a company. Especially when you’re young in your career, who you work for means more to your development than the logo on your pay stub.

So here is my advice:

If you can be picky about one thing, be picky about who is leading you.

Radio talk show host Hugh Hewitt said, “My biggest regret was leaving a great boss for a better job.” As a young person, it is tempting and easy to follow the path of a little bit more money, a better title, a bigger office, a more prestigious benefits package, but the truth is who you spend this time with will matter more to your development.

Although a great boss may look different to every person, here are some things to consider when choosing one:

- Do their values align with mine?

- Will they help me grow?

- Is this person ethical?

- Do they provide open and honest feedback?

- Is this person self-aware?

- Do they work to connect their vision to the task at hand?

- Do they genuinely care about the people they lead?

- Do you want to be like them in ten years?

Choose your boss wisely.

If you do, you may not be doing the type of work or making the amount of money you want to make, but you’ll gain the kind of investment you need now to succeed later in your career.

By the way, the reverse is also true. If things aren’t working, you need to do as retired President of Chick-fil-A Jimmy Collins says and fire your boss.

This isn’t just true for young people but anyone in the workforce. Growing in your work is important no matter what stage you find yourself in, so strive to find a boss who is in your corner.

Hear me out: I’m often frustrated when people peddle new age philosophies and obsess over the power of positive thinking.

There are devout followers of this concept, brainwashed to believe it because they’ve read a book like The Secret, listened to a charismatic talk show host praise it, or encountered a self-help “expert” who sells this idea that “if you just think it, it will happen.”

They believe: If you focus on what you want, you can will it into existence. If you have problems in your life, it’s because you’re not thinking rightly about them. People who say things like this are lying. You can have all of the right thoughts in the world, and sometimes, your life is going to suck. Even if you are the most positive person on the planet, you can still lose your job, your family member can still suffer from a terminal illness, you can still have a strained relationship, and you can still face financial hardship.

For the most part, the power of positive thinking is intellectually dishonest, flawed, and destructive.

But on the other hand, some people run to the opposite extreme and say, “My thinking doesn’t matter at all.” This perpetual chip on my shoulder doesn’t have any negative repercussions. This is also false.

“As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.” –Proverbs 23:7

Both of these things can be true at the same time:

1. Positive thinking does not mean your life will always be positive.

2. Negative thinking is certain to have negative consequences.

Viktor Frankl was a Holocaust survivor and psychiatrist who endured great pain and tragedy throughout his life. He is famous for saying this: “The last of the human freedoms: to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances.” Frankl knew what it feels like to be without freedom, but he claimed that even in the most dire circumstances, we have the power to choose our attitudes.

So will our thoughts always change our outcomes? No.

Do those thoughts still matter? Absolutely.

Thinking positively won’t necessarily make your life better. It won’t magically change your circumstances. But thinking negatively will definitely make your life worse.

I'm deciding that today is a good day to have a good day.

So I'm deciding that today is a good day to have a good day. That doesn’t guarantee it’s going to be great, but it’s far better than the alternative.

I honestly enjoy receiving all kinds of input. It could be encouragement that what I have written has impacted you in a positive way. Or it could be a helpful criticism, letting me know that I’ve missed the mark about something that matters to you.

A couple months ago, I received one of the most thoughtful responses from a good friend, Marcia Shurley to the Words Matter blog post. The emphasis of the blog was to choose our words wisely. In her response, she narrowed in on one phrase she worked to eradicate from her home:

“I’m busy.”

And I believe the idea to be so powerful that it warrants its own post. Here’s what she had to say about it:

“When the kids were all in middle school and high school, life amped up significantly for everyone. Academics increased, volunteer opportunities became more plentiful, social engagements skyrocketed, sports and recreation commitments were all over the map. Now, how does that relate to ‘words matter’?

Well, for me it was a simple, four-letter word: BUSY.

It became the most negative word in my day-to-day life with the kids, not my saying it, but their saying it: ‘I’m busy; I’ll call you back later,’ ‘I’m busy; can I do that chore later?’, ‘I’m busy; can we talk later?’, ‘I’m busy; I’ll eat later.’

Now, I fully understood the challenges I saw unfolding right before my very eyes. I knew the pressures were mounting in their lives, especially in this often unrealistic world of being, striving, feeling like everything has to be perfect, but the word ‘busy’ just hit me hard one day, so I had a conversation with each of my children individually and asked them to try to eradicate the word ‘busy’ from their conversations with, not only me, but others.”

If I were to search the word “busy” in my email inbox right now, hundreds—if not thousands—of messages would pop up. Not just from others, but from me. When people ask us how we’re doing, instead of the traditional “I’m good” or “I’m fine,” we’ve started to say “I’m busy.” Marcia’s exhortation to her family is one we all desperately need today. In our fast-paced culture, we like to wear busyness as a badge of honor. We feel overwhelmed, our schedules are slammed, and we feel like we need to tell everyone.

Don't believe the lie that a full plate equals a full life.

Being busy is not a badge of honor. So I am going to challenge you and me to take it out of our vocabulary.

Try to answer these questions for yourself and think about why you use this word in the first place:

• Do you say you’re busy because you’re being lazy with your words?
• Do you say you’re busy to impress others or to avoid sharing details?
• Or are you truly overwhelmed, underwater, and stressed to the max, but you try to downplay it by simply saying you’re busy?

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If you responded yes to any of these questions, you know firsthand that busyness is not a positive part of your life. You may simply need to intentionally use different words and trust that the work you do is meaningful. But for some of you, the only way you’ll be able to remove the word busyness from your vocabulary is to actually work to be less busy. I know that’s not easy, but we need to frequently evaluate what’s on our plates and make some big changes.

Let’s stop pretending like busyness is a badge of honor and work to encourage one another in the things that matter.

Recently we’ve been reminded of the prevalence of racism. I know I’ve been spending more time listening and learning from my black friends.

On the health front, as our world confronted COVID, we’ve grown accustomed to social distancing and wearing masks in public. We’ve watched our calendars be upended by cancelled gatherings, events, and trips.

In more ways than we can count, our world is continuing to change.

When it comes to our jobs, the way we work has changed and may never be the same. If you’re like me, you’ve worked remotely for most of this season, but some of you may have had to go into your workplaces and figure out a new normal, implementing the CDC’s guidelines. In either case, we’ve had to change our methods without changing our mission. We’ve had to pivot in order to keep moving forward.

We have to change our methods without changing our mission. We have to pivot in order to keep moving forward.

How have you adapted in this time?

I hope you’re finding new ways to serve your customers, to grow your organization, and to encourage the people you lead.

In my world, speaking engagements and in-person leadership training came to a screeching halt. I have been so proud of how our team at ADDO has strategically pivoted during this season by creating two new courses for growing leaders. And to the people who receive this blog every week—I want you to be the first to have access to these new projects.

Take a look at the information below, and please let us know if you’d like more information.

In the meantime, the world needs what you have to offer, so keep innovating and finding new ways to serve the people around you.

Our 8 Essential Exchanges course helps leaders identify the clear exchanges that often confront us and provides insight on what we have to give up to have a profound impact. This course is uniquely helpful for developing young leaders individually and professionally.

The Lens course is designed to help leaders change the way they see their roles, their relationships, and quite possibly the rest of their lives as they make strategic shifts in perspective across nine areas of leadership. This course is perfect for established or growing leaders in a business context.

Each course includes access to a digital platform containing engaging video lessons, activities, and resources, as well as hard copies of the book and interactive facilitator and participant guides. All of these materials work well for in person or virtual meetings.

For more information on these courses, click one of the links below:

8 Essential Exchanges

The Lens

When I set out to write a blog, I wondered if I would have the discipline to keep up with it for a few months, or even a year. But here we are—almost four years and 200 posts later. To be honest when I look back over the posts some are really insightful, others are unremarkable, and there are quite a few that land somewhere in between.

I have learned so much from the process of writing each week, and I’ve truly enjoyed doing it. But it’s not always easy. Sometimes, I sit down with Marjorie, and we’re planned out six weeks in advance because I have so many ideas I’m excited to talk about. Other times, I struggle to think of anything worth saying, and it’s truly a grind to come up with a post for the next day. As much as I desire for these posts to add value to you, I know that what I get out of this process is beneficial to me.

The process of writing is not always fun or easy, but it’s good.

In honor of my 200th blog, I’d like to revisit the message I shared in the very first one. It’s as true today as it was then.

I love the principle contained in Proverbs 14:4: “Where there are no oxen, the manger is clean, but abundant crops come by the strength of the ox.”

This passage contrasts two different farms. The first one has no oxen to plow the fields or to turn the grinding wheel. The manger, or eating trough, is clean because the farmer doesn’t have any animals to feed, and the barn is pristine because he doesn’t have any manure to shovel (200 posts ago I called it poop, but let me just be real with you, we’re talking about crap). The farm is clean, but it’s also unproductive.

On the second farm, the farmer uses the power of an ox to plant and harvest “abundant crops,” but there’s a cost: he has to lug feed to the trough for his oxen and shovel the crap out of the barn. So here is the inherent question the writer asks: Are the farmer’s profits worth the labor expended to use the strength of the oxen? The implied answer is yes. The growth is worth it.

If you’re working to grow, I want to help you change your perspective of the junk that you’re dealing with and realize that it is a side-effect of a good thing. On a farm, the crap you are shoveling may be hard and frustrating work, but it is because animals are working on your farm to help you plant and yield a bigger harvest.

The biggest frustrations and problems we walk through in one season are the ones that help us grow as leaders, as spouses, and as friends in future seasons.

And in the same way that the crap on the farm becomes fertilizer down the road, the crap in one season becomes a catalyst for growth in another season. The reminder for you and me? The biggest frustrations and problems we walk through in one season are the ones that help us grow as leaders, as spouses, and as friends in future seasons.

If you missed it, the story is about a pouty fish whose perspective is changed by the love of a friend. Once he sees his “pout” in a new way, it changes the way he lives his life. Isn’t it interesting that it’s often the simplest lessons that have the greatest impact on our lives? Robert Fulghum certainly thought so when he wrote his #1 New York Times bestseller All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten. In it, he explains how those simple lessons from the sandpile at school are still valuable down the road.

In kindergarten, you learn to share everything, to play fair, not to hit people, to clean up your messes, to say you're sorry, and to enjoy a balanced day of work and play. Fulghum dives into many more, but even from this short list, you could see how each one could be extrapolated and applied to our adult lives.

Another simple idea I’ve found helpful in my own life is the concept of the dipper and the bucket. Donald Clifton and Tom Rath, experts in psychology, explain in their book that everyone has an invisible bucket and dipper. You can pour into someone’s bucket by saying or doing things that build them up. Or you can take from somebody’s bucket by saying or doing things that tear them down. The same is true for your own bucket.

People can pour into or take from your bucket, so the health of your relationships can impact every area of your life.

There is a reason these experts chose to unpack the importance of human relationships with the most elementary image. (In fact, it’s so elementary they wrote their own children’s book about it!)

As we grow older, it’s easy to think we need to move beyond these elementary ideas. But we should take care to remember this: Simple ideas are easier to understand. Ideas that are easier to understand are repeated. Ideas that are repeated change the world.

Simple ideas are easier to understand. Ideas that are easier to understand are repeated. Ideas that are repeated change the world.

Whether it’s a pouty fish, a book about kindergarten, or a simple illustration about a dipper and a bucket, we are reminded of the power of simplicity. As Albert Einstein said, “The definition of genius is taking the complex and making it simple.”

My hope is that you and I will never stop learning from the simple lessons that come our way as adults.

And by a lot of books I mean that, in a given week, I read the same two or three books countless times. He’s almost two years old, so you can imagine what these books are like. Some have silly rhymes, others have crazy characters, and a few are honestly . . . downright terrible.

But many of them, though written and illustrated for young children, contain deeper truths that apply to people of every age and stage of life.

George’s favorite book right now is The Pout-Pout Fish by Deborah Diesen. At this point, I have two groups of people reading this blog post:

Group one has never heard of this book and wonders where the heck I’m going with this; and group two immediately begins saying in their heads: “I’m a pout-pout fish with a pout-pout face, and I spread my dreary wearies all over the place.”

If you find yourself in the first category, let me catch you up to speed. The Pout-Pout Fish is a book about a pouty fish whose negativity is contagious, so he spreads his “dreary wearies” to other sea creatures like Mr. Jellyfish, Ms. Clam, and Ms. Squid. At the end of the book, another fish comes along who simply gives him a kiss and then swims away. The kiss changes his perspective of his “pout,” and he realizes he too can spread love to his friends.

It’s a simple, silly story in many ways, but the final message is just as applicable to me as it is to my two-year-old son. One interaction in one moment can forever change our perspective of ourselves. And a shift in our perspective could change the course of our lives. As we’ve repeated before, the way we view things changes how we do things.

One interaction in one moment can forever change our perspective of ourselves. And a shift in our perspective could change the course of our lives.

This is true for the fish in a children’s book, but it’s also true for the middle-aged CEO, the student in school, the frazzled new parent, and the retired empty nester. The great news for us is that we can be multiple people in this story. Each of us has the potential to help a friend, a family member, or a co-worker see themselves or their circumstances in a different way. At the same time, we also have the chance to have an interaction or an experience that changes our own perspective.

Consider this week how you’re helping yourself and the people around you to see through a new lens.

When you change your perspective, you can change your life.