Finish

We live in the era of  start ups.  Rarely does time pass without a new idea or innovation.  We are inundated on the tv or via pop up ad constantly with the latest and greatest.  The point being, our human nature is and has always been looking for the next thing.  With the upcoming year in few hours many of us are looking forward to a new lease on life, and a fresh start.

There is indeed an excitement associated with anything that has the word new associated to it.  Think about it, how lured are we when we read about the new iPhone, or the hype with the new coach of our favorite sports team.  That word new triggers something in our brains of luster.  Things that are new create not only an emotion but a desire.  The desire creates a pursuit, that could be labeled momentum.

The power to begin something is undoubtedly unique.  That’s why we see gym memberships increase by 200% from January 1 to January 31.  You know what I’m getting at, this time of year, in the next 24 hours people get zealous and create a desired goal.  The euphoria of the ball dropping in NYC creates a belief in self rivaled by adrenaline to achieve the seemingly impossible.

Oh but there is indeed a flip side to the coin, what happens when reality sets in, the plateaus of our goals are in our face, and we can’t seemingly will oursleves to achieve what we set out to do. Wether we have decided run a marathon, or write a book all goals have an uphill season.  Achievement is not attainable without pressing though that point.  If it were easy or common it would not be classified goal worthy.

Sustainable motivation is not found in the new but the finished. Think of your heroes of any discipline or media.  They began a great adventure, saw it through and achieved their goal.  To each individual great things happen from completing their resolutions.  If you carry unfinished goals into your new ones, how will you ever break the cycle of not finishing.  The cycle is one of disappointment. Why start a race only not never finish every time.

Before your ask your self what you are going to do this year, ask your self what you have finished this year.

Finish before you start.

ZF

Who will you choose to spend your time with?

I spent time today with a Pastor who holds both the role of friend and influencer in my life. The time we were able to spend together finishing up our Christmas shopping, proved to he fruitful. Our conversation flowed naturally, as does the relationship itself.

The prior will give ground to what I am about to say.

Discipleship and teaching in itself have to be done in conjunction with life. The principles taught in a classroom are only tested when implemented in one’s environment. Life and circumstance are the proving ground for all things internal. Disciple life with life, and teach with experience.

Regardless of age or title, keep people in your circle who will keep you accountable and not forsake honesty for convenience of relationship. We are doing ourselves a disservice when we live a closed life void of constructive critique.

Who will you choose to spend your time with?

ZF

Family Matters

Transition to fall can be a fast one for a lot of people.  I know that was the case for me.  Families come back from vacation, and settle back into their routines. Although routine provides consistency in our lives, it can also contribute to our ability to passover things that really need our attention and focus.

I was remdinded of this on my current venture down to So. Cal to visit my friends @kohlgreyson , @adumbthompson , @travishartanov & @StewartRamsey (all of which are changing the economic landscape of Uganda, through the empowerment of employment of Ugandan women click here to find out more).  While they were changing the world from 9 – 6, I traveled around, going to the beach, finding an Americano etc.  I got the whim today to go find my grandma’s, great aunt’s and great uncle’s grave.  With the help of Google, I found the cemetery and the plot.

Side note: Whose job is taking pictures of grave stones, and recording their data on a website?  Intense.

I walked up, saw their gravestones, and began to reflect on the blessing they were to me during my childhood.  Lives now marked by pieces of rock, their presence still resonated deep in my heart.  I found myself still engaged in relationship with them even though they no longer walk the Earth.  I left the site, more aware of the importance of family.

If I had not taken the time to make it a priority to see my family, I probably would of not even thought about it and my life may not be much different than it is here now a few hours later.  The effect on me is not as important as the effort extended to make my family know, I love and appreciate them.  I challenge you and I to take time daily, and or weekly to communicate your love and or appreciation to a family member.

You may have a lot of friends, but you get one family.

Families may not be perfect. But family matters.

- If a man does nothing out of love, is he doing anything at all? -

ZF

Ezra’s Delight

This morning the Lord proved faithful in the discipleship of His people.  This morning the Lord spoke to me a fresh and challenging word.

The day proved to be plentiful even in the first few hours of its existence.  I took my time this morning, brewed up some coffee, made some oatmeal with Agave honey.  Details are menial, nonetheless I grabbed my Bible, Fred Hammond signing throughout my house via  my iphone and began to do my daily devotional, also known as S.O.A.P.  Today’s read through was Ezra 7-8 and Luke 20.

As I began to read through Ezra 7, Ezra was described as a skilled scribe coming out of Babylon.  The letter that King Artaxerxes wrote him  was detailed regarding appropriations for tithes, offering, and worship to the Lord, whom Ezra worshiped.  The king offered his own treasury resources to fund offerings, and the needs of the house of the Lord.  Artaxerxes not only trusted Ezra to be a priestly man in his stewardship, he also publicly placed obedience to God’s and His house through this decree to Ezra.

Ezra in verses 7:27-28 delighted not only in the things written by the king, but more so he was moved that God spoke to the heart of his king. These two verses compelled me to check my own heart, and prayer life and recount how many times I have ever prayed for our national leaders both foreign and domestic.  Or if I have been more concerned with a political position instead of their relationship with the Lord.

27 Blessed be the Lord God of our fathers, who has put such a thing as this in the king’s heart, to beautify the house of the Lord which is in Jerusalem, 28 and has extended mercy to me before the king and his counselors, and before all the king’s mighty princes. So I was encouraged, as the hand of the Lord my God wasupon me; and I gathered leading men of Israel to go up with me.

In a country that is blessed to be free, the United States, we often feel entitled to opinion, and place value in being right.  The challenge that I extracted from the passage today was that, rather than be focused on my formed opinions, I need to be focused on contending for the souls of our nation’s leaders and the voice of the Lord that does speak to them individually. We can refute opinion and position, but as shown by king Artaxerxes, the voice of the Lord is compelling regardless of position.

Focus on justification will shape only you.  Contending for the voice of God in the lives of all will be a catalyst for change.

Delight in our God who speaks.

Pray for President Obama.

 

Matter of Opinion

Social practices are often based upon the premise of opinion, a matter of thought.  Often out of the pursuit of comfort, or validation we press to impart our personal preference upon our environment.  When in fact however we have not taken the time to examine the origin of our agenda.

Now, this is not to say that there are not absolutes in our universe.  Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth and the life.  No one comes to the Father except through Me.” {John 14:6 NLT}  Regardless if anyone approved the statement it stood and stands fact.  To be argued by some yes, but personal gratification can rarely be found in crucifixion, which was the point of action from Jesus’ words.

Opinion and fact both initiate action, creating the importance to differentiate between the two in our own lives.

The abstract beginning of this post is to push you to introspect what you validate your opinion by.

Our thoughts are the foundation of our actions.  Our actions are the expression of our love for Jesus.

Z

Conflict & Correction

Conflict and correction have a bad reptuation.

Our construct of what it is, is not necessarily what it is meant to be. Conflict can be healthy, and is often necesary to keep things ‘fresh.’  We are witnesses to relational fallout when dialouge and discsussion do not take place, creating a back up of emotion and offense.  It is necessary to create an avenue in which our emotion is processed, not stored into a tupperware container from the mid 80′s.

As I/we lead it is imparitive to have the love of Christ be our point of from which we apply ourselves to the situation.  When it comes time to bring correction, it needs to be applied not for the sake of myself or my pride, but because I care about them as an individual.  Displacing our focus and energy from the error, and focusing on them, their emotions and leadership as a result.  Walking them through the process of understanding their role and importance to the organization.

It is easy for conflict to lose any and every element of care.  A shepherd strikes his sheep not for his own liking, but so he can keep them on the right path out of harms way.

When conflict and or conflict is contrived off of self, it tends to have an anything but compassionate tone, creating a noise of demands.  Demands do produce results, however they do not produce leaders.  Leaders lead processes that champion via correction and conflict.

Z

the presence of our words

Often it is said that makings of a man are shown in crisis or adverse situations.  We need not focus on what happens then, but rather the now.  Some of our most powerful leaders in our nation both public and private sector are able to control their presence regardless of what is taking place. Countless times in our history, President upon President has had to either tell of short comings or announce the engagement of war.  These and more are the adverse situations, but for the majority of leaders in our social circles, we will never have the weight of an entire nation upon our words.  However that does not mean, our presence does not matter.

Verbal:

The very thing we speak of has power to tear someone down or lift them up. Proverbs 18:21 NKJV states,²¹ Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruit.”  There are two components of our speech.  The verbiage itself, and the context in which we speak.  Distention and conflict often arise from miscommunication, rarely is it that we audibly heard someone incorrectly mistaking,’cow’ for ‘wow.’  But more over the context in which critique, or observation is given.

Before we engage in a verbal conversation we must be aware of the following: subject, setting, and situation.  Ask yourself, “Is the subject appropriate?”  A critical error in communication often occurs when we choose to engage in the inappropriate that will invalidate our platform.  Setting, are you in the right setting for the style of communication?  Conflict resolution rarely comes in a sea of people.  To be most effective when approaching conflict or critique, address the individual in a neutral setting, removing the noise of an audience often brings a resolution to the situation.  Situation, is the situation even approachable?  Timing is everything.  Communication is a science, we all can communicate, write, speak, blog, etc.  Notably we all do it differently.  But that does not mean we are all good at it.  Leaders know timing is a crucial component to constructive communication.  They know what to approach when. Being to early can bring offense, and calling to late can fall upon deaf ears as the opportunity has passed.

A lot can be discovered about our leadership from what we say and how we say it.

Non Verbal:

If you have studied organizational leadership  and or individual leadership in any magnitude, you are well aware that we say more by what we do not speak then what we do speak.  Referring back to the example of our President giving a national address, the given President is often presented as standing or sitting up straight, with clear eyes, and dressed professionally.  We rarely see an address from them in a sweat suit with their hat cocked to the side.  Their physical presence has less to do with who they are in private settings and more with what they want to communicate.  All of their non verbal in crisis communicate stability and control to the audience.

Communicators often choose their delivery, both verbal and non verbal to not only set the tone of their verbal message, but to control the response of the audience.  Not to be controlling, but to control how the message is received.  For example dressing down to bring comfort or dressing it up to bring a sense of credibility and professionalism.

Our non verbal communication must subscribe the same three criteria as our verbal speech.  Subject, setting, situation.  Subject, does it require non verbal emotion at all? Tears can be drummed up on command by many, and they even communicate sadness, desperation, fear etc.  We must be conscious of what we are allowing to permeate our physical space.  Taking into account who we are speaking to and what we are speaking about.  Setting, are we in tune with those around us.  Are we the only one texting, fidgeting, etc?  Instead of establishing a presence, you are creating a perception in which you look disengaged to the engagement of communication.  The same emotionally can be said for our physical dress, as a leader we must be aware of the culture in which we lead.  What is appropriate and not appropriate. Regarding situation, an inventory must be taken to ensure we are ready to address the situation at hand.

All the previous is necessary to fully maximize our self, in any setting.  Things not to hold tightly, but things to keep in front of us, to rehearse mentally as we enter numerous social engagements daily.

Z

Experience Matters

www.stumptowncoffee.com

As I have blogged previously, I enjoy coffee.

Today I ventured to one of the two Stumptown Coffee Roasters in Seattle.  I was pleased when I found it located right next to Seattle University.  I was excited to see what this location had to offer, as the other locations have very definitive elements that add to the consumer experience.  When I walked in I saw what I had predicted, modern furniture with northwest rustic elements of exposed wood, and metals.  The coffee was great as usual, served in high ball glasses.  But what I would see next blew my mind…

The shop was bustling as expected, and so I ventured down an unknown stairway.  Upon turning the corner, I was met by a full roasting station, piles of burlap sacks filled with raw beans, testing and training facilities, basically the skeleton of the enterprise.  I was really pleased when I noticed that they had a bar of sorts set up conveniently for their customers to sit and enjoy amidst the roasting process.  Stumptown has impressed me yet again.

Get your life right. Get Stumptown.

Leadership Observations

I decided to post after reading a quote I read from www.georgebarna.com – a blog authored by George Barna and the post entitled Disqualified Because of Personality.  Check it out. It’s a good read.  Here is a quote I pulled from the posting.

“A non-negotiable truth of leadership is that people must trust the person before empowering them to lead.” – George Barna

Leadership has many styles, as people have many different personalities.  Leadership is both observed and studied by students, critics and the marketplace alike.  I am most intrigued with the supposition of what allows one to lead.  Leadership is often ascribed and in the same right prescribed by the members of an organization.  However a  leader has someone or thing must be following you.

Leadership is not an exclusive characteristic, transcending race, gender, and even economic status.  There are many strong driven, outgoing, leaders, and there are just as many type B, reserved leaders.  Leadership does not discriminate, however people tend to discriminate it.  The first reaction not to lead is rooted in many variables,  everyone in some fashion is both a leader and a follower, I believe by choice.

Just as we choose to lead, or follow.  We also choose to be a good leader or a poor leader.  Good and bad  can be a  variable by definition but it is more important to qualify quality rather than quantity.  What makes someone a good leader?

I believe great leaders understand what it means to lead while following.  Leading at high levels can often tempt our minds to think we are above the clouds and untouchable.  The reality is as we elevate in leadership the closer we are to the edge of the cliff that will lead to our fall.  Seldom is the fall considered as we work vigorously to ascend the ladder of influence.  I have heard it said many times, that yes it is possible to be promoted with in an organization at the expense of another person or relationship, but when you get to the top it is lonely, because people will remember how you obtained your successes .  It is not an attained level that makes a leader great, but the quality of the environment that makes him great.  Great leaders produce great people around them.

Submission is often a word not used to describe a mainstream leader.  The dominant person in any organization is not often thought of as submissive. However when someone is submitted to authority other than itself, it displays two things to the followers in the organization.  One, that there is accountability for the leader’s actions, which in turn will give security to its members.  When someone is considering joining a organization rarely does the inquiry of character stop with a person.  People are always curious about structure of the organization, as many have natural concerns trusting someone, they want the assurance that one person will not be able to become a dictator and demand and not lead.  Corruption occurs when someone leads without accountability.  Secondly it keeps the leader balanced, knowing that you are not expected to be the literal one who has to have all the right answers, which is far less stressful and realistic than forcing yourself to be an unintelligible force that attempts to create truth out of contrived misconceptions.  It is not knowing but doing that creates great inertia from leadership. Submission provides freedom to leader, knowing that they have the covering of someone/something bigger than them.

Leadership is that, something far bigger than ourselves.  How we choose lead will directly affect another.

I urge all leaders to free themselves to lead with the effectiveness, being submitted to an authority other than themselves.

Z

The Antithesis of Antics

I am a peruser of current events, whether local or international.  I often spend my spare time expanding my intelecutal self by reading rss feeds from my favorite blogs, or news sites.  My obsession with information was formed largely in my undergraduate studies at the University of Washington.  As a Communication/Public Relations major, I am thus very intrigued on what is reported/communicated and how.  That really doesn’t matter though, because I find myself reading people’s comments regarding the reported news stories hidden by o so creative user names like deerhunter.  I used to be the guy asking myself, “Who has time to read news story comments.” Well now you ask, “How do I have time to sit and read everyone’s comments and not reply.”  The answer is…I don’t have one.

Okay I will stop belaboring the point. People’s online comments often disregard the reported content and begin to address or attack an often unrelated point, creating an argument from their own statements.  Amongst them all, tonight I was reading a news story on king5.com in which a Church was burglarized and one commenter took the opportunity to explain his disproof for God in Richard Dawkins style discounting His existence. Responding as if the article was evangelistic in nature or contained a thesis regarding God at all.

The vast array of comments and opinions, do display the diversity in mind of our world. But also the desire for a platform and a space to attempt to sound unique and educated.  When in reality the often animated, bold and symboled laden text depicts a rather primitive nature seeking so desperately express our limited understanding.

If you want to read the article and comments that are slightly intriguing click the link. King5

Z