Interview

"People are loyal to culture, not strategy."

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I really love interviewing people.  I am honored that some of my clients want me to meet some of their most important candidates and that my schedule sometimes allows.  I consider getting to know someone, understanding their story, and getting to the real foundations of what makes them tick an honor.

Someone’s story is their greatest treasure.

Since I am not the potential employer, these interviews often look really different than the typical ones.  As a person who is usually helping articulate and then assisting in translating that transformative culture, I put a pretty high bar on cultural fit.  It is one of the things I am most focused on assessing in the interview.

Two of the statements I typically make to the interviewee are:

• If I believe coming to work here is in your and the company’s best interest, I’ll do everything in my power to convince you to take the job and encourage them to hire you.
• If I believe the opposite, I’ll do everything in my power to convince you and them not to make that decision.

Organizational health and cultural fit are two of the greatest determinants of long-term success.  If I feel like the candidate would fit well with the team relationally and they are a good fit culturally (values, purpose, and vision), there is a much stronger likelihood of long-term success both for them and the company as a whole.

Of course, they need the experience, skill set, and ability to learn and grow that most jobs require, but that is something I feel like the prospective employer is best equipped to assess.  

(In full disclosure, there is a movement away from hiring for cultural fit; some believe it is the playground for discrimination.  I believe it is the foundation for good hearted discriminating leaders to help others and their organization find their greatest success.)

At the end of the day, I believe that every person has a unique contribution to make.  There are experiences, passions, and abilities that make each one of us unique in all the world. If that particular complement of things is allowed to flourish in the right environment, that person and the company that employs them, will both benefit tremendously.  Engagement increases, contribution increases, and turnover declines.

Everybody wins.

But even more important than an individual’s or an organization’s success, when a person increasingly offers their unique gifting, ability, and passion - God is most glorified.  When each of us makes the contribution that we are uniquely created to make… 

• God’s glory is best known
• His hands and feet are most fully employed
• Everything changes for the better

We need more of that.  And to think, it is as close as your next hire.

Consider

• Is your culture clear, articulated, and owned by your team?
• Is it being used as the value filter that it should be?
• Are you currently looking to add to your team or replace current employees?
• Are you fully weighing the impact and glory that each potential hire holds?

Crushed

"For God, who said, 'Let light shine out of darkness,' made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ."

"But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed."

- Paul to the church in Corinth

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We pray before almost every group meeting with corporate clients and before every scheduled one-on-one.  There is a very specific prayer process that we walk through on our own before we sit down with pretty much anyone.  We learned it through a very mature ministry and it has been immensely helpful.  (Let me know if you are interested and we’ll share it with you). 

It is meant to calm, center, and get ourselves clear enough to be able to offer the clarity we are hired to bring.  It is a prayer process that brings strength, protection, and appropriation to everything.  Increasingly, we are getting an advance understanding of where we need to go with our clients, as well as:

• a preternatural understanding of an issue that we need to address…
• the noise we need to sift through to get to the real issue…
• what they need help seeing that they cannot see on their own…

Lately, there has been another general overarching theme:

Before we do anything else with the leaders or their teams, we are finding ourselves reminding them of everything good going on around them.  We are centering them in hope.  Hope is the currency of change. 

If we lose hope, we lose heart.  

Everyone in our families or in our companies are looking to us to know that despite all the chaos and uncertainty, everything is going to be okay.  Despite how hard-pressed we seem to feel in almost every category, they need us to be hopeful and whole hearted.

If we lose hope, it is nearly impossible to believe that change is possible.

And if we don’t believe change is possible, it isn’t.

So we are spending time on the category of hope and helping them remember everything that is good.

Because in many ways we are as fragile as jars of clay. We are…

• Hard pressed on every side, but not crushed. 
• Perplexed, but not in despair. 
• Persecuted, but not abandoned.
• Struck down, but not destroyed.

Despite the fact that we are super invigorated to work with companies on their organizational health, help them build great leadership teams, establish a clear vision, build strategic plans and organizational structures to realize their intended futures - if we don’t first root them in hope (the currency of change), all that potential good rolls like water off a duck’s back.

Because if they don’t believe change is possible, it isn’t.

Maybe that is why so many leaders listen, read, and attend so many things, but see so little real measurable change.  They’ve lost hope.  They’ve lost heart.  And without that, change isn’t going to happen.  That may also explain why the intentional prayer we do before every meeting seems to be leading us there.

Restoration from everything as it is, to what it is intended to most gloriously become, is the major theme of the gospel.  It is the hope that surpasses most of our understanding.  It has never been more difficult (or more essential) to hold onto.  

I feel like I am fighting for it in every conversation.

Consider

• Are you able to notice and celebrate the good things going on around you?
• Are you able to hold onto the hope that is necessary for real change?
• Are your children and employees feeding on your sense of hope and belief that change is possible?
• Who do you have in your life that is helping (even requiring) that you fight for that?

Trough

“A trough is an elongated (extended) region of relatively low atmospheric pressure, often associated with fronts.”

- Wikipedia

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Start-up companies often experience a season they call the “Trough of Sorrow”.  They describe it as being in the place where no matter what they do, the company does not improve.  Adding to the sorrow is the feeling that everyone else around them seems to be succeeding wildly.  All the others seem to be getting acquired, raising huge funding rounds, and announcing new and exciting product innovations.

The trough is the land of credit card funding rounds, late nights, and endless bags of Ramen noodles.  This is where it is easy to give yourself over to despair, begin to obsess about everything, and make the wrong decisions out of fear.

The biggest risk is in becoming demoralized.

We don’t work with a lot of start-ups, but we know a lot of people living in the “trough of sorrow”.  Where nothing seems to be changing and all their best efforts, ideas, and strategies seem to return void.  Where they are getting tossed in an endless sea and they have almost completely lost sight of the land they once hoped to find.  Where the basket of problems they started the year with still feel all too familiar at the end of the year.

Let’s face it, a great vacation can ease the tension for a while.  Allow for an escape that lets you forget the trough for a few days.  Even watching a good movie can be a really good 2-3 hour mini-diversion from the trough.  But once the plane lands or the credit rolls, the crushing reality of things starts to build.

Sound familiar?  

Time for a really honest conversation.

• Have you gotten so comfortable in the familiarity of chaos, that going on a journey to find real change feels like the riskier path?
• Has demoralization dropped its’ roots so deeply into the soil that you feel like moving to a different place is impossible? 
• Have you given up on believing you can really get “there” from “here”?

Things can change.

I promise.

If you are tired enough of the trough of sorrow, genuinely motivated to actually do something about it, and open to having someone else coach you…we should talk.  Getting out of the trough of sorrow is simple, it just isn’t easy.  

But an increasing number of business leaders are doing just that.

“I now know more about my strengths and what my unique role is to play.  The company is operating with a much stronger sense of ownership and unity.  Everybody is shifting into much more focused roles and we have more momentum than we have ever had before.”

— Jason Casey

Consider

• Could you relate to the season known as the “trough of sorrows”?
• Are you in one?
• Has the sense of overwhelm and chaos become so familiar that you’ve almost quit believing that things can change?
• Are you ready to really do something about it for 2018?

Location

Turn on Location Services

to Allow “Maps” to

Determine Your Location

Your current location will be

displayed on the map and used for

directions, nearby search results

and estimated travel times.

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I had to get a new phone a few months ago.  I tend to disable everything until I am absolutely sure it is necessary.  One of the things that took me a really long time to turn back on was “Location."  I had it disabled for quite some time.  On a regular basis (anytime I tried to map something) I would get the error message above, but I just typed in an address nearby to bypass the error message and continued to keep it dormant.

I think if I am really honest, in some weird way it made me feel less tethered, off the grid in the most minimal of ways.  Of course, that is completely ridiculous, but that is the best I can figure as to why my location services didn’t get activated.

Where am I?

Now it is one thing for my phone or others to not to know my whereabouts, but it is another thing entirely for me not to know myself.  No matter what journey you are charting, the two crucial coordinates are:

1. Where you are

2. Where you are going (vision)

Almost every company or individual we engage is looking for a plan.  Something to take their life or their company to some undefined better destination than where they currently find themselves.  Interestingly enough, most people aren’t super clear on their current condition and don't have a very detailed picture of where they are wanting to go.

And before we craft the strategic plan that everyone seems to be most interested in getting into their hands, we insist that some other work must be accomplished first.  Even the simplest map at an amusement park or a shopping mall starts with an indication of where you are…a pretty crucial element in terms of orienting yourself.  

So…

• What is going well?
• What is not?
• What are your current opportunities?
• What are your biggest challenges?
• What is not clearly understood?
• etc.

If you start from the wrong location, the plan you have to get you to an inspired destination is going to be missing a bunch of crucial steps.  If you mistakably think that your…

• team is healthier
• culture is more mature
• systems are more established
• employees are clearer

…than they actually are, you're likely not going to get where you want to go.  You are going to have the wrong directions, not be able to properly make progress, and you will not get there by the least estimated travel time.

Are you sick of feeling like you end every year in a similar place to where you ended the prior?  Where the basket of frustrations and challenges from back then is similar to the one sitting in front of you?  

I know dozens of leaders that are choosing a different way.  They are:

1. Getting clear on where they are personally (leadership clarity leads to organizational clarity).
2. Getting clear on where their business is currently.
3. Getting clear on their desired future (vision) for both.
4. Crafting plans to get from here to there.
5. Actually seeing that happen.

You can too.  It is really simple, it just isn’t easy.

Consider

• As we lean into year end, are you clear where you and your company are?
• Do you have time set aside in this last quarter with your leadership team to get really clear?
• Are you aware that if you don’t get clear on where you are and get very clear on where you want to be at the end of 2018, you will likely end next year in a similar place?
• This is the time of year where you can lay the foundation for very different next year.  Let us know if you are interested, and we can help.

Calm

“Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.”  

- Jesus of Nazareth

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This is one of those passages that keeps coming to mind.  Possibly because that kind of pace, that measure of grace is so uncommon.  

I mean, come on…

Learn the unforced rhythms of grace?

Who doesn’t want that?  

Whose heart doesn’t stir at just the thought of it?

Who even believes that it is possible anymore?

Our Client Experience Coordinator was meeting with one of our clients.  She was going to him for advice and assistance on an event she was helping to coordinate.  She felt honored to get some time with him.

He is a very busy guy running a large company with dozens of employees.  He is also in an industry where the events around Hurricane Harvey are having a significant impact. 

• But he is also a man who really knows who he is.
• He knows, coming out of a recent Lifeplan, his God-intended purpose.
• He and his wife are very closely aligned and on the same page.
• The mature and effective leadership team he oversees is managing the company well.
• He would say that his company knows where it is going, how it will get there, and what role he is supposed to play.

As a result of all that, however, he is finding the essential margin to make his highest contribution as a leader, husband, father, and community leader. 

Back to their meeting.  She wasn’t sure what to expect, but her experience with many leaders prior to joining our team has taught her that they are often harried, overwhelmed, impatient, and lacking focus.  Even though she had heard pretty amazing things about this client, her past experience with executive leaders made her a little dubious.

She called me afterwards and was clearly affected by the meeting.  She said he was…

Calm

Focused

Present

Thoughtful

Patient

Insightful

And the word that kept washing over her was “grace." She even quoted that verse above about how he was clearly experiencing the "unforced rhythms of grace." As a result, she experienced the same.

She got to experience calm water…a port in the storm.

Interesting how she went seeking information, guidance, and support.  She got plenty of that.  But the real impact of the meeting was the obvious margin and grace the leader was operating under.

The real value of the man was not what he knew or offered, but who he was.

How beautiful.  

How uncommon.

How attractive.

How completely available.

Consider

• What came to mind as you read about this leader?
• Do you know any leaders that operate with that kind of grace, clarity, and margin?
• What is standing in the way of you experiencing the unforced rhythms of grace?
• What needs to change so that people are more affected by who you are than what you know or the position you hold?

Paths

“Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;



Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same.

”

— Robert Frost

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A financial advisory firm approached us about becoming referral partners and ended up hiring us to work with their team.  They are fantastic folks who have become good friends.

They do a beautiful job of helping families and businesses transition to a more prosperous and healthy financial future.  Their very comprehensive process not only helps with the management of financial assets but relational, legacy, and physical assets as well.  The “physical asset” part is where they wanted to engage our team.

Much of the wealth of the “greatest generation” was created through some sort of enterprise.  Most wealthy families have a business behind them.  The last estimates I heard mentioned 12 million of those businesses in the U.S. needing to transition in the next 10 years.

12 million in the next 10 years!

When it comes to transitioning a family business (which many of those businesses are), there are really only three options:

1. Transition it to the next generation of the family.
2. Transition it to a leadership team for an owner to oversee.
3. Sell it outright.

Most of us are pretty aware of the precarious nature of option 1 (failing 60% of the time in the second generation, 90% in the third).  And the second option, given that most of the skills required for an entrepreneurial launch are the opposite of team leadership and management, doesn’t often fare any better.

Option 3 often feels like the only option for business owners but usually results in a sale price less than an owner believes their life work should have garnered.  Given the state of the next generation of many families and the lack of a mature leadership team executing on a clear path to a better future, option 3 often becomes the defaulted, only option.  We often encounter business owners wrestling with which path to pursue.  We tell them all the same thing:

Working on the right things will be incredibly beneficial whether you decide to sell, transition to a leadership team, or pass it on to the next generation of your family.

Our friends at the financial advisory firm helped us connect some powerful dots.  If you build a strong leadership team with clear roles and responsibilities, get clear on who you are as a company, craft a powerful vision for the future, and start executing on a clear strategic plan to get you there:

• The next generation’s probability of success will increase dramatically.
• Your leadership team will be more successful and require less of you.
• Your sales price will likely increase significantly.

We have also found that some business owners who think they would just like to be done with their business and get it sold, actually change their minds once their companies start to get really clear, successful, and require less of them.  Increasingly, the biggest challenge I am facing with many of the leaders we work with is how to deal with the guilt they feel about not working so much.

Now that is a problem I wish more leaders had!

Consider

• Are you clear on whether or not you want to transition your business or sell it outright?
• Do you have a clear leadership team in place, an articulated culture, a clear picture of the future, and a well-defined plan to get you there?
• Are you enjoying the kind of margin in time and money you thought you would be at this point in your career?

Literary

“I say there is really a spectrum in how we read the Bible that stretches from literal to literary.  Everybody moves back and forth along that spectrum when they are reading the text. Literal focuses on facts and literary focuses on meaning. And my belief is that we should be a lot more focused on meaning, because if we are only reading for facts, somebody else is giving us meaning.”

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The biblical narrative begins with the Hebrew scriptures that we call the Old Testament.  We had varying degrees of getting it right, but were mostly unsuccessful in our attempts to follow that law.  Two thousand or so years ago, God took the form of man, made a propitiation for all that “not getting it right” and cleaned the slate.  God decided to show us what it looked like to live the life of God as a man.

Interestingly enough, this left us with more questions than answers.  The Bible records Jesus asking 307 questions, but answering only 3.  

What should we interpret that to mean?

Rather than giving us the right answers, he was more interested in us interpreting an answer ourselves.  

As a recovering legalist, that is a terrifying thought.  Coming from an early life of chaos up until college, I was looking for absolute and complete order in the Christian life.  I even took that treatise on freedom and restoration and made it into a form of well-intentioned captivity.  But Jesus leading the disciples looks like anything but that.

He vanishes and leaves his disciples staring into the sky.  When they ask him obvious things like, when are you coming back?  He sort of says, “None of your business.”  He not only shows them that he isn’t interested in answering their questions, but getting them to wrestle with big questions and find their own.  He also says things like:

• I've got stuff to tell you that you aren’t ready to hear.
• You’re going to do greater things than I did.
• I am giving you something better than me…a Spirit that lives in you to guide you.

That is all the antithesis of legalism and control.  The complete opposite of micro-managing.

So, what does that have to do with leadership and coaching…sort of the two main topics of this thread? 

In a word, everything.

Coaching is all about asking the right questions at the right time and letting the other person wrestle with the answer.  It is about believing that the answer is typically inside of them, but so deeply hidden that they are unable to see it for themselves.  That sometimes, even when they know the answer, they simply need the courage of their conviction (and some accountability) to follow through on the answer they find.

Doesn’t that describe every one of us?

The problem is, however, most of don’t have the humility or courage to allow someone else to ask us those questions and force us to respond.  I have caused a lot of damage and experienced a lot of heartache by not allowing others to do that for me.  But I am getting better at receiving what I am getting experienced at offering.  I not only ask those questions, but welcome others to ask me the same.

And leading great self-sufficient teams is about grooming a team of the right kind of folks to wrestle with challenges, questions, and problems…to find their own solutions.  To not stand around looking at the sky whenever you leave the office, awaiting your return, but wrestling with the questions they are facing and finding their own answers.

Jesus, as a beautiful leadership example, seemed less interested in literal interpretation and more interested in a literary understanding.  

If the disciples were going to stand on their own...

If the work was going to extend beyond His life on earth...

They were going to have to stand on foundational truth, rely on the Spirit inside of them, and come up with some answers on their own.

Consider

• Would you say you are a more literal or literary in your approach to information?
• Is your leadership of parenting based on all absolutes, or are you bonding a safe territory in some truth that allows freedom of decision making from within?
• Does your team make good decisions without you?  Do you children make good decisions when they are apart from you?
• What is keeping you from trusting others to do the right things?

Zero

“Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? ...Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace…Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.”

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How do you define success?  

Increasingly, the leaders I spend time around are talking about the currency of margin…of having "white space" in their calendars.  They are celebrating the opportunity to have the bandwidth to think strategically about their business and actually “work on them” versus just “working in them”.  Several have even noted the guilt they are feeling at not being overwhelmed and working so many hours.

Good problem to have, right?  

And they aren’t being negligent, by the way.  Their teams are organized, clear on their responsibilities, and getting things done.  They are tackling the greatest obstacles facing their businesses and breathing the clean air of momentum and change.  A small business leader said that things are going so well that he is a little nervous.  He described one of his measures of success as…

Inbox zero.

Other leaders assumed he was an aggressive deleter and was just ignoring most of the challenges that the rest of us face with our inboxes.  But that was not the case whatsoever.  He is:

• caught up
• on top of everything
• addressing each issue, challenge, or piece of information in his inbox as it comes

Tell me you didn’t sigh when you just read that.

Caught up?

On top of things?

Margin to address everything in real time?

In retrospect, that is a fantastic barometer for success.  

By contrast, we were in a leadership meeting and had teed a leader up with some great data on his team’s success for him to celebrate in the meeting.  When the perfect opportunity presented itself in the meeting, we encouraged him to share the information he had.

He didn’t know what we were talking about.

He hadn’t seen the e-mail.

Our conversation after the meeting revealed that it had been lost in the 17,000 unopened e-mails in his inbox.

17,000!

The world is moving really fast.  The speed of information exchange is only increasing.  As leaders, we have to figure out how to get caught up, handle our challenges in real time, and actually start to provide vision and direction for our teams.  

If you are really interested in doing something about it, let us know.  We’ve got some concepts and tools to share that will really help.

CONSIDER

• Would you describe yourself as caught up and on top of things?
• Is your inbox at zero unread messages or is there some other way you define success in this season?
• What is not getting addressed or handled because you are so behind?
• What is it costing you to not be at inbox zero?

Recipe

“I’ve told you these things for a purpose: that my joy might be your joy, and your joy wholly mature.”

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Like virtually every other family I know, we have wrestled with the concept of church (small “c”) and church attendance.  It has been one of the more discouraging journeys over the last decade or so.  Several of the people I work with are working through the same challenges in their families.

I am working on the vision for a client’s business.  I met first with him and his wife to get the vision for their family.

• Leadership clarity leads to organizational clarity.
• Organizational vision should serve your personal vision.

It takes long into the conversation before we are tiptoeing through this minefield.

What I found was beautiful alignment and a deep desire for similar things.  There was a clear picture of what they wanted the life of God to look like for their family, ministry, culture, community, generational alignment, and the heart of their children.  The challenge rested entirely on how they would find that life.

In particular, it had to do with the role that church would play in fulfilling that life of God in their family.  I feel like the Father brought powerful discernment as I was preparing for that conversation and as we worked through the issue.

Church is simply one of the ingredients.

Finding the recipe that produces a great meal, often involves a lot of trial and error and includes varying amounts of different ingredients.  For every taste, the perfect meal requires a differing amount of sweet, savory, and acidity.  So does combining the right recipe of inputs to result in the life God intended for your family.

The way you approach this issue is determined by every day you have lived and everything you have experienced in your life up to that point.  And it is different for EVERYONE.  We all approach this weighty issue with a set of biases, needs, concerns, prejudices, etc.

As we started to connect the desire of he and his wife’s heart with all the incredible ingredients already in the recipe of the life of God in their family, it did several things:

• They realized that they were walking with God in significant ways already
• What they were hoping for from the ingredient of “church” was not realistic
• That unrealistic expectation of church was driving a lot of disappointment
• Traditional Sunday church attendance would likely be part of the solution, but not the entire solution
• The tremendous amount of guilt they were carrying around in relation to this issue was not from the heart of God

He and I met for a follow-up meeting to start constructing his company’s vision (a clear picture of the future).  He was lighter and easier.  He said all the anxiousness around that issue had been diffused.  They had attended a church, accepted the ingredient it offered, had appropriated it in their recipe, and had a really great experience.

Church is simply one of the ingredients.

Consider

• Are you satisfied with your “church” experience?
• Are your expectations unrealistic for what that simple weekly gathering should offer?
• Are you clear about the life of God you want your family or business to have?
• Have you appropriated church as simply one of the ingredients and not the only one?

Poppa

“This resurrection life you received from God is not a timid, grave-tending life. It’s adventurously expectant, greeting God with a childlike “What’s next, Poppa?” God’s Spirit touches our spirits and confirms who we really are. We know who He is, and we know who we are: Father and children. And we know we are going to get what’s coming to us—an unbelievable inheritance!”

- Paul, to the church in Rome

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We had our first set of three children when we were really young.  As our children began to get married at a relatively young age, we began to get excited about the prospect of being young grandparents.

However, some of the sages in my life have done a great job of teaching me that the posture for approaching my adult children and their spouses should be…

• complete support and availability
• little or no pressure or expectations
• letting them set the perimeter and rules of engagement

Our relational target with them is the next few decades, not the next few days.

Like the rain in my part of the country, it seemed like grandchildren would never come, but then they came in abundance.  Within a few weeks of one another, we found out that both of our adult married children are expecting.  We will be grandparents for the first time in January and then again in February.

Again, as a result of the mentoring I received, we have not been actively engaged in the naming of our grandchildren.  We did, however, get an unexpected gift.  We were asked to wade into the conversation of what they would call us.

““What can be more a man’s own than his new name…?”  ”

— C.S. Lewis

• Your parents name you.
• Loved ones and friends give you special names out of the unique relationship you share with them.
• We believe that God knows you by powerfully identifying names.

Names are important, and getting a new one is a pretty big deal.

I didn’t like any of the ones that we found on the websites that collect such things.  We have a fragmented family history without much sense of family and very little in terms of legacy when it comes to the naming of elders.

But Monday morning, when I was preparing for the week, I read the lines above from Paul’s letters to the Romans.  I was overwhelmed and felt like the Father was providing me with an answer.

My hope for my relationship with my grandkids is that:

• They would know more about their unique identity as a result.
• They would feel known.
• They would know my heart for them.
• They would know their true Father better.
• They would see our relationship as an unbelievable inheritance.
• They would approach every interaction with the “breathless expectation" that Oswald Chambers talks about.  

They will hopefully be asking the question…

What’s next Poppa?!

Then I started to translate that same hope for my children, team members, and the many leaders we work with.  At the heart of being a “generative governor” (literally, a life-giving leader) is having that kind of relationship.  The desired result of every person we lead and for every child under our protection and leadership is that…

• They would know more about their unique identity.
• They would feel known.
• They would know our heart for them.
• They would know their God better.
• They would see our relationship as an unbelievable inheritance.

At the heart of leading children or team members well, is the heart of a father…is the heart of the Father.

I'm probably a couple of years from getting to hear it from their precious mouths, but when my grandchildren begin to know me by name, I get to be their “Poppa”.

Consider

• By what name, other than your own, do others know you?
• By what names does your true Father know you?
• Do you feel like those you love and lead see your relationship with them as a rich inheritance?
• What needs to change in how you love and lead so that it will be viewed that way?

Joy

“I’ve told you these things for a purpose: that my joy might be your joy, and your joy wholly mature.”

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The one we refer to as our “little guy” is now fourteen years old, 6 feet tall, and over 200 pounds.  He is incredibly strong and very quick for his size.  He is also the happiest person I know.  He peppers his stories with bursts of laughter and smiles like the rest of us use punctuation.  I promise you, if I stare at him for more than a few seconds, he first smiles and then laughs.

One of the reasons we moved his education back into our home was because we started to feel like that joy was fading.  The challenges of a dyslexic in the classroom were robbing him of his joy.  We noticed that we were well into June before we saw that lightness in him return after a tough year in school.  Fighting for joy in my life has been such a battle, so I fiercely fight for it in our family.

My fourteenth year was very different.   It was punctuated with anger, delinquency, and illegal substances.  It is almost unfathomable to me that the next generation of my family could be so dramatically different.  There is such an overwhelming “proof of concept” in that restoration that it fuels my conviction in every conversation and client engagement.

I know things are hard.

I know it can change.

Let’s get it done.

I am 34 years into my faith journey.  The only “proof of concept” I could muster in the first half of that season was a bunch of truth, knowledge, tips and techniques.  Without experiencing much of the restoration that it offered, I simply bludgeoned others with the unrealized “truth” of it conceptually.

The second half of that 34 years has been a completely different adventure.  Finding restoration, healing, and the literal manifestation of all that truth has not only changed my life, but is marking the generations of my family as well.  It spills over into every conversation, into my business, and affects every person I lead.

It might have something to do with the reason my boy can’t stop smiling.

 

Consider

• Is the primary evidence of your beliefs what you are saying or how you are living?
• Is the reality of the gospel in your life affecting those you love and lead?
• Is the next generation of your family or the next tier of leadership in your company bearing witness?

Longing

“I am homesick for a place I am not even sure exists.” 

– Melissa Cox

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Okay, this is going to be a little controversial.

One of the challenges I constantly face in dealing with clients is actually borne of a very noble quality.  The folks we typically work with are operating from a faith-based or very high integrity place.  

They desire to help others and make a real difference in people’s lives.  This is actually the beautiful collision of the world’s greatest need and our greatest opportunity as leaders.  It is also a minefield when it comes to hiring.  Needing to hire high quality team members and knowing someone who needs to find a job, might be a mutually exclusive proposition.

The main qualification for hiring someone for your key position is not how desperately they need that job.

Okay, I said it.  

The nobility of our leaders often has them:

• hiring the wrong person
• out of the best of intentions
• expending tremendous time and energy to make it work
• realizing it won’t
• and then, because of the same nobility that drove the hire, can’t seem to fire them

out of the best of intentions…comes an incredible mess.

We’re all posting for new hires. 

We need that next great team member. 

We need to upgrade the team in some key positions.  

We need to find the missing piece that might just change everything.

But the answer may not be to find someone who is looking.  

It may be more about finding someone who is longing.  

Someone who is looking might be discontent, desperate, or even unsuccessful in their current role.  Someone who is longing could be very successful, have a great job, but just desiring to be part of a better team.  Someone who likely wouldn’t change jobs unless they knew that they could work in a better culture with more noble aspirations for making a difference in the world.

They might even be longing for a place they quit believing exists.

Of course, if you find someone who is looking for a job and their ability, training, and experience fit the position beautifully…AND they are a great culture fit, it is the best of all worlds.  But in my experience, that rarely seems to be the case.

As people of good intentions, differentiating ourselves in a crowded job market is not only crucial to our business future, it might just address the biggest challenge we are facing with subsequent generations.  The millennials I hear so many leaders complain about are far more aware of their longing than my generation. 

It is essential that we create strong and attractive cultures.

That we clearly differentiate ourselves in the marketplace.

Then and only then, will we attract and hire the right people for our teams.

Consider

• Would you say that the culture of your organization is special and valuable?
• How successful have your most recent handful of hires been?
• Do you think you are doing a good job of connecting what is special and valuable about your culture to those longing for more?

Scale

Build a team.

Define a future.

Create a plan to get there.

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I was listening to an interview of Blake Mycoskie, founder of TOMS shoes, on a podcast.  If you know anything about his story, you know why I am a big fan.  He was a serial entrepreneur that built and sold businesses out of a need he saw that wasn’t being filled.

After immersing himself in the culture of Argentina on a vacation and becoming familiar with the challenges facing villagers there, he decided to address one of the problems.  Foot borne diseases were having a profound effect and getting shoes on the feet of children was a simple solution.

His idea?  Create 250 pairs of shoes, sell them to his friends, and use the profit to provide another 250 pairs of shoes to children on his next visit to Argentina a few months later.  To say that this model was a success, would be a wild understatement.  His buy one, give one away model has been replicated by many others, given him the opportunity to create multiple other product lines of his own, and is responsible for 60 million children receiving free shoes around the globe.

Building businesses around a transcendent purpose to meet a clear and existing need, may be the most profound and lasting impact of his business.  He has changed the way that thousands of other people are running their businesses, which is affecting millions.

He was asked in the interview about how he scaled the business from 250 to 60,000,000 pairs.  They wanted to know what his three most crucial hires were along the way.  

1. Someone to oversee Sales - he rightly identified that being the visionary and evangelist who could tell the story is very different than the professional art and science of selling.  A person to really grow the business.

2. Someone to oversee Production - his stumbling around to figure out how to produce 250 pairs was inefficient, expensive, and not within his sweet spot of ability.  Once sales started to grow the volume, he had to get a key hire to produce all that work.

3. Someone to Manage - the skill set and abilities of the type of person it takes to launch a business (an entrepreneur or visionary) is the exact opposite set of skills and abilities it takes to manage a team and business over time.

In order to get your business started, you had to have a vision, an idea, and a plan.  You had to sell the concept, produce the work, and manage the process.  At one time your org chart had your name in every box.  

But if you are going to really scale the business successfully, you are going to have to balance opportunity with risk, trust the courage of your convictions, and…

• make crucial hires, realizing that there are others better suited to manage those key functions
• give them the responsibility and the authority to do what they can do better than you
• focus your time on supporting the team, looking for next opportunities, and overseeing all of the growth

This is a familiar and ancient path. 

We exist to help others find and successfully move down that path.

Is it a journey your business is ready to take?

This is exactly what we are going to be discussing on Oct. 11th at Hotel Emma.  (see details HERE)

Consider

• Does your business have your name in all the key boxes?
• Have you hired the key people to run the key functions of your business as you have grown?
• Have you hired competent team members that can move into a management level oversight of their functional area?
• Are you getting out of the way to allow them to do that?

Foundation

‘These words I speak to you are not incidental additions to your life, homeowner improvements to your standard of living. They are foundational words, words to build a life on. If you work these words into your life, you are like a smart carpenter who built his house on solid rock. Rain poured down, the river flooded, a tornado hit—but nothing moved that house. It was fixed to the rock.”

- Jesus of Nazareth

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When we talk about core values and purpose, we are talking about the deep, powerful, and defining foundations of your business.  When talking to a client the other day, the thing that I compared them to was “the law and the prophets”…the thing upon which pretty much everything else rests.

While many of the companies I come into contact with have created both of those things, one employee at a company told me,

“Those are just words on the wall that sound nice, but don’t really mean anything.”  

In other words, he either doesn’t feel them being lived out on a day-to-day basis or he doesn’t personally buy into them.  Both of those interpretations are a real problem.  

And sadly, they are pretty common.

Your purpose and core values should...

• be unique to your organization.
• be known and felt.
• experienced by everyone.
• be foundational to decision making.
• determine who you hire, who you fire, and how you incentivize.

We also coach that they are for you and your team alone.  They aren’t meant to be worn on t-shirts or used in marketing campaigns.  It is a true north that should guide you and be felt by everyone that comes into contact with your company. 

Our core values are unique to us and differentiate us from every other business in the world…even the ones who believe what we believe and do what we do.  Every business is as unique as the people who make up that organization.  Yours should reflect that uniqueness as well.

Here are ours:

• Team - Enjoy & Celebrate (we work with people that we like, we have fun, and we work hard to celebrate one another)
• Coaching - Asking questions that no one else asks (There are a lot of coaching organizations out there, but we take the profession of coaching very seriously.  We have very intentional meetings with direct conversations and formal write-ups after every one.)
• Restoration - Unearthing Glory in others (Restoring the business to the owner’s original intent, but also digging for the more transcendent way that the business might change the world.)
• Stewardship - Ownership mindset for a Transcendent Purpose (We believe in the deep responsibility to care for the people God has placed right in front of business leaders.)
• Adding Value - Do what it takes To "Add Value" to every interaction

While we believe in the values that so many other people believe in - honesty, integrity, hard work, etc. - we feel like those types of things are generally accepted and don’t powerfully differentiate us from other companies who do what we do.  Our values suit us to a “T”, uniquely define us, and are the foundational support that everything we do rests upon.

Consider

• Do you have stated core values?
• Do your values truly reflect who you are as a company?
• Do they powerfully differentiate you from every other company who does what you do?
• Do you use them as a foundational guide for everything you do?
• What do you think you are missing out on by not having core values that define your business in this way?

Mis-hire

“If you hire people just because they can do a job, they’ll work for your money. But if you hire people who believe what you believe, they’ll work for you with blood and sweat and tears.”

- Simon Sinek

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Are you hiring?  So, it seems, is everybody else.  Trouble finding the right fit for the position and culture seems like an epidemic.  And while there are some great tools that allow you to post your job opportunity in hundreds of places now, it almost feels like our needle is getting even smaller in an increasingly larger haystack!

And let’s be honest, we’re all doing our best to look away from the mounting pile of evidence of how much these mis-hires are costing us, but it's getting pretty hard to ignore.  And the pressure to get it right continues to increase.

• A study from the Dept. of Labor three years ago says a mis-hire will cost you a minimum of $11,714 - while business leaders surveyed at the time talked about a number 3 times that one.
• A recent survey by “Fast Company” reported 41% of employers say the cost is $25,000 and another 25% say the cost is $50,000 for a mis-hire.
• Most estimates point to a 25-50% cost of their first year’s annual compensation as the bill for this kind of mistake.

Sadly, the cost of a wrong hire is way more than just financial:

• Lost worker productivity (our teams spending time trying to make our bad hires work)
• Lost time due to having to recruit and train another worker
• Expense associated with recruiting and training another worker
• Negative impact on employee morale
• Negative impact on client relationships

A friend of mine lamented over dinner that they had been having a hard time filling a crucial position.  After one month of posting on one of those sites that blasts the ad to hundreds of potentials, they only had a handful of inquiries and none had seemed to be a fit.  When I told him I had begun using the powerful elements of story to craft unique job postings, and had seen really good results for some other business leaders, he wanted to give it a try.

The ad we created contained some of the same information, but was crafted in a completely different way with a different focus.

Here were the results:

• So many replies they had to turn off the ad after 3 days
• A bunch of really great prospects for the job
• Three superstars they interviewed that they would have been happy to hire
• One hire who they still can’t believe is joining their team

All prospects independently mentioned that their inquiry about the job was 100% related to the unique type of job posting.

If you have done the hard work of creating a great culture as our clients are doing, you deserve to be able to hire really great people.  

Differentiating yourself in a crowded marketplace full of others looking to hire, is getting really challenging.  The cost of getting this right is worth 10’s to likely 100’s of thousands of dollars for even the smallest businesses.

1. Build a great culture.
2. Differentiate yourself from the millions of other looking to hire.
3. Hire great people that are a great fit to your culture.

Consider

• Looking for some new folks to hire?
• What has been your track record and experience in hiring?
• What is not having the right team costing you?
• What is not having a great culture that you are clearly connecting to the potential workforce, costing you?

Appreciation

“The deepest craving of human nature is the need to be appreciated.” 

- William James

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Like many of our clients, the culture of our family is good, but I want it to be great.  And like many of our clients, we have been working hard on developing the kind of culture that will not only make life better, but encourage others to find the same.

Vacations are always disruptive to our family rhythm.  While we regularly spend more time together as a family than what I hear others do, we aren’t spending all day, every day, together.  Vacation takes a bit of recalibration.  And as an intentional leader, I am always full of ideas and inspirations about how to push the envelope with them given that proximity.

On this vacation, I had it in my heart to push the boundaries on the way we honor and appreciate one another.  I am spending a lot of time with senior leaders encouraging and helping them to honor and celebrate their team members and the progress they are making. 

With all that still needs to be done, leaders sometimes have trouble seeing all the good that is actually happening and all the ground already taken.

Encouragement is the necessary fuel for the rest of your team’s journey.

In order to help our leaders be at their best, I filter a lot of content.  I read books, listen to podcasts, read blogs, watch documentaries, etc.  Our team also keeps our swords sharpened by getting ongoing coach training and additional coaching certifications.  I am always on the lookout for new and inspired ideas.

A friend and client recommended a podcast and book called The Cure & Parents. Fantastic stuff.  I pulled an appreciation exercise from this book that I planned to utilize with our family.  (We actually do a more aggressive and powerful version of this exercise with clients that we learned from the TableGroup folks.)

I gave everyone in the family something to write on in the morning.  I told them sometime during the day, they needed to write down a trait or characteristic they valued in every other person in the family.  It needed to a part of their character and not merely a skill.  They needed to support it with an example of how they saw it exhibited and how it affected them, personally.

After dinner, we had all gathered at a table outside on a beautiful Colorado evening and I asked them to all get out their pieces of paper.

It was beautiful in every way.  Watching my children honor and acknowledge one another was a really incredible experience.  We took real ground that day.  It changed some things, and the rewards were worth the awkwardness and relational currency I had to spend to get this done.  

Even as a coach that regularly helps others do this sort of thing, it was still hard. Hard, but completely worth the effort.  All it takes, though, is a few simple steps:

1. Get the buy-in from a spouse or other leaders.
2. Commit to what you are going to do.
3. Look for the right time and place.
4. Exercise the courage of your conviction.

Let’s be honest, as leaders, we are not very good at this.  We have to find ways to regularly appreciate and honor those that we lead.  It is a win for everyone and a crucial step in developing a great culture that organically cultivates more of the same.

Consider

• How good are you at honoring and celebrating others? (This is muscle we have to exercise.)
• Does the culture of your family or organization foster this well?
• Who do you need to honor and appreciate?  (The right time to do the right thing is as soon as possible.)

Riparian

ri·par·i·an -

rəˈperēən, rīˈperēən

adjective

1. relating to or situated on the banks of a river.

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While we were hiking along a stream in Colorado just outside of a city, we came across a sign.  It read:

COLORADO’S THIN GREEN LINE

Lands along rivers and streams

are called riparian areas.  These green

ribbons of life comprise less than 5% of 

Colorado’s total land area, yet 90% of

Colorado’s wildlife species use it.

In other words, these are these thin ribbons of life that comprise just a very small fraction of all the available territory, but help sustain the overwhelming majority of all life.  

My mind immediately went to Henry Blackaby and his epic treatise, “Experiencing God”.  The quote everyone references from that book is…

“Watch to see where God is working and join him in His work.”

Not where God is being shouted the loudest...

Not where the largest crowd has gathered…

Not where is contemporary Christian culture is the most articulated…

Not the traditional places where folks who believe seem to be…

But, instead, where God is really working.

Where do you see transformation of life occurring?

Where are people and companies becoming different as a result?

Where are the stories of clarity, change, and life transformation accumulating?

Where are people visibly changed by their involvement?

Where can you say that life is sprouting up and sustaining like a riparian zone in a parched land?

Most of my Christian life has been about the appearance of a changed life.  Listening to the right music, reading the right books, and hanging out in the places that would allow me to identify as a “Christian” (literally, one who is following Christ).  The wrapper, veneer, the very appearance of my life was pretty tight.

But the transformation the gospel offers, that was far from me.

I was a new creation in an eternal sense, but inside, if I am really honest, nothing had really changed.  I was still the same exhausted, uninspired, and discouraged dude.  I read about a new heart set within me and living waters of hope and life.  I just wasn’t really finding it as I flipped through all the channels that traditional contemporary Christianity seemed to offer.

Turning my gaze from the places where life was supposed to be found, to the true riparian zones, has changed everything.  Turns out, they occupy a very small percentage of the Christian landscape, but offer an overwhelming majority of the truly transformational life available. 

I’ve lost the energy to go through the motions.  I’m not really interested in playing Christianity any longer.  I, like Jerry McGuire, “Have lost the ability to bull$#!?”.

But now...

• I have infinite energy for people who really do want to change their lives.
• I am incredibly invigorated by leaders who really want to change their businesses.
• I am involved in 5% of the things I used to be involved in, but I feel like they are the things where I see 90% of the life happening.

I run with a growing tribe of leaders that are interested in doing more than just talking about their faith and admiring their problems.  These folks are living the life of Jesus, addressing their problems, and changing lives.

I feel like I am surrounded by the 5% bringing the 90%.  I have never felt more invigorated or alive.

Consider

• Do you feel like you are finding the riparian zones, the small sliver of contemporary Christianity where 90% of the life is being found?
• Are people gathering around your business, around you?  Are people acknowledging the change in your life and the culture of your organization?
• Can you truly say you are experiencing the abundant life the gospel offers?  It is truly available and it is really simple…it just isn’t easy.  Let me know if you are interested and I’ll share with you how we are finding that life.

Honesty

“Come out of hiding
You’re safe here with Me
There’s no need to cover
What I already see

You’ve got your reasons
But I hold your peace
You’ve been on lockdown
And I hold the key

’Cause I loved you before you knew it was love
And I saw it all, still I chose the cross
And you were the one that I was thinking of
When I rose from the grave”

— Steffany Gretzinger

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I was talking with a client recently who was clearly in some state of overwhelm.  I asked him about some things that he had decided were most important , but soon realized that he hadn’t made as much progress as we had both hoped.  

I have several tasks in that moment:

• Remind him about all the good things he has accomplished.
• Remind him of the more inspired destination we are working toward.
• Remind him of the importance of focusing on getting the most essential things done.
• Help him get back on track and excited to do the things he must do.
• Help him cultivate and agree to next steps.

As with most leaders, we had to first wade through the pile of things that he felt were keeping him from getting the most important things done.

He said, “I have this whole sh…” 

Caught himself and then said, “I have this whole pile of things I need to get done.”

I said, “You were about to say sh$#load, right?”

He sort of smiled.

He said that he was trying to be respectful.  He is not so predominately a faith-based person as I am and we have spent time talking about that.

I said, “If you were going to say sh$#load, you should just say sh$#load.  If your honest emotion out of all the things you are under is best communicated in that word, that’s what you should say.”

Now, I don’t generally condone expletives and I work real hard not to use them.  But in this situation, his honesty with what he is feeling and experiencing is crucially important to me. 

If we are going to chart a course to where we want to get, we have to be honestly clear about where we are.

The integrity of his honesty is way more important to me than his discretion in this case.  If he is censuring the words he is using, what else could he be possibly censuring?  I am a big boy, I can handle a little language.  I can also handle the cold hard reality of what is really going on in the life of a leader.

I have the experiential currency of having gone through a “sh$#load” of stuff myself.  I know what it feels like and if I can get a client to honestly tell me what it feels like to them, we have a beautifully honest foundation to begin solving all the issues that are causing them to feel that way.

Honesty is always the best policy and if you desire to make real changes in your life, it's also the necessary currency we have to spend.  

Really caring for someone requires that you allow room for their honesty.  Ultimate love tells us that we can come out of hiding.  There is no sense in hiding what He and pretty much everybody else already sees anyway.

Consider

• How is it going?  No really, how is it going?
• Who really knows how tough, challenging, or overwhelming things feel to you right now?
• Do you have a friend, a coach, or a family member that not only encourages your honesty, but knows how to guide that honesty to better ground?
• What is it costing you to not have that?

Clearing

clear·ing

ˈkliriNG/

noun: clearing; plural noun: clearings

1. an open space in a forest, especially one cleared for cultivation.

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There is a mediocre movie called The Astronaut Farmer that has a fantastic trailer.  It is often part of the broad complement of media we employ at our LifePlan retreats.  The trailer does a great job of telling the story, but the few lines it pulls from the movie are extraordinary.

The movie is based on the true story of a man in Texas who builds a rocket with his eyes set on launching himself into space.  Everyone, of course, thinks he has lost his mind.  Government officials express their concern and mobilize the appropriate forces to keep him on the ground, but Jon Farmer is undaunted.

Farmer shows us a beautiful example of living intentionally.  So intentional in fact that he makes most people very uncomfortable, but also inspires his family in an incredible fashion in the process.  He is focused and clear on his mission, despite the crowding chaos around him.

In the trailer Farmer says to a classroom of kids…

”You’d better know what you want to do, before someone else knows it for you.”

He also tells a panel of government officials,

“When I was a kid, they told me that I could be anything I wanted to be.  No matter what.  Somewhere along the line we stopped believing that we could do anything.”

And finallly, after watching Jon’s wife and children getting swept up into the adventure of the Farmer Space Program, Jon’s father says,

“You are one fabulous father. You’ve got your family dreaming together!”

I have yet to meet someone who didn’t want to be a good spouse, parent their kids well, or lead their employees and company effectively.  I don’t know anyone who doesn’t want to inspire those they lead to greater things.  It isn’t due to a lack of desire, but a lack of knowing how to get from where they are stuck to where they want to be.

From time to time, we all need someone who isn’t lost in the forest where we live, to help us locate where we really are and show us how to get to where we want to go.  To elevate above the situation and bring some clarity and understanding.

What I love most about coaching the kind of incredible intentional leaders we get to work with, is that we…

• get to help them see the things they can’t see
• craft solutions to the problems they are painfully aware of
• dream of a future they quit believing was possible
• create a simple plan to make that a reality

Basically, we are helping them see past the tyranny of the urgent and helping them focus on the essential few things necessary to get them to a more inspired future.  To rediscover the most noble and inspired version of themselves and locate a clearing among all those towering trees with a simple way through.

Consider

• How much clarity are you operating with right now?
• How overwhelming is the forest that is crowding around you?
• Do you have anyone who helps you get perspective, determines the right path forward, and then makes sure you get there?

Iron

“Then they cried to the LORD in their trouble, and he saved them from their distress.  He brought them out of darkness, the utter darkness, and broke away their chains.  Let them give thanks to the LORD for his unfailing love and his wonderful deeds for mankind, for he breaks down gates of bronze and cuts through bars of iron.”

- A Psalm of the Lord

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In the circles I run in, we often use the phrase “Aslan is on the move." That is an obvious allusion to the Chronicles of Narnia series where the lion, Aslan, is a clear God and Christ figure.  

Most people understand that expression, but one time when I was telling a guy about our house church and how “Alsan was on the move” there, he actually interpreted that Aslan was the name of our church.  Every time I saw him after that, he asked me how “Aslan” (meaning, our church) was doing.  

Well, we’ve been using that saying a lot lately.  

Aslan IS on the move.

The kinds of conversations we are having with our tribe and the stuff that is happening at their companies, doesn’t make any sense other than the fact that is God is at work and moving.  But, I am also reminded of that great saying from Augustan:

“Without Him we cannot, but without us He will not.”

Aslan is on the move because some really intentional leaders are partnering with him and answering the bell for the next round of their leadership journey.  It is really fun and humbling to watch.  I am inspired by virtually ever interaction.  Their courage and strength gives me fuel and momentum for the journey.

While we have regularly scheduled meeting with our team later on in the week, we do a Monday morning phone huddle to start every week.  The purpose of the huddle is to WRECK:

• Worship - verse, lyric, prayer, story, etc to center us in God
• Remind - purpose, values, & the why behind what we do
• Encourage - encourage one another for the work ahead that week
• Calendar review - make sure we are all on the same page in regard to meetings that week
• Know - check-in on how is everyone doing coming out of the weekend

I was preparing for our weekly call this morning and the image of a welder came to me as I was reviewing some client correspondence ahead of the call.  A person, mask down, torch in hand, playing with fire and molten metal…cutting through metal when it needs to be cut and reconnecting things that are broken/separate that need to be joined together.

Healing and Restoration.

We love metaphors and visual reminders.  I had to resist ordering pairs of leather welding gloves that reached to our elbows for all of our team.  Increasingly, we are partnering with a growing tribe of very intentional leaders, bringing clarity and freedom from their captivity, and restoring the broken places to how they were originally intended.

 

Healing and Restoration.

Consider:

• How clear and free are you feeling?  Do you feel trapped?
• How much of what you hoped for and knew needed to change at the start of the year, has actually changed in the 2/3 of the year we are through?
• Are you ready (I mean, really serious, right now) to actually strap on some welder’s gloves and get started on the healing and restoration of your life and business?
• Are you just running with the wrong tribe?  (We have a few spots available for a new one launching in January.  Let us know if you are interested in a conversation.)