Five Ways to Lose and Gain Influence
How do you gain and keep influence with people? Love them. It’s almost that simple, and it flow from this principle that’s true of almost all of us: We listen most to the people we love the most. This is…
Leadership
What to Do When Your Passion Fades
Most of us would love passion to fuel our life and work every day. That’s always how it starts, right? When you begin something, it’s pretty much all passion. Whether you’ve felt a call into ministry, you’re starting a new…
Elephant Room Insights
I was at Elephant Room this week, a forum hosted by Harvest Bible Chapel for pastors and church leaders. The best part for me was the honesty, candour and wisdom shared by the panel: James MacDonald, Mark Driscoll, Steven Furtick, Jack…
Is there Balance in Greatness?
I finished the Steve Jobs biography by Walter Isaacson a few months ago. Not only is it one of the few books I actually wished was thousands of pages longer than it actually was (I LOVED it), it offered fascinating insight into…
Focus on One Big Thing
The problem with most of us is not that we don’t dream big enough, it’s that our dreams and goals get lost in the shuffle each working day. The biggest casualty of the daily grind, surprisingly, is not your inboxes…
11 Ways to Bring Your Best to the Table
What you and I should bring to the table every day is our best. There are some people who can solve a crisis in a moment that others couldn’t solve in a millenium. There are some people who are constantly…
Nothing is Actually Free
Years ago, one of my best friends told me “Nothing is actually free.” We were talking about a free lunch I won. He said, “Sure, it’s free to you. But somebody paid for it.” Never forgotten that. And it’s completely…
Imitation is the Sincerest Form of Squandering
I love social media. I love life online. But I’m worried about what it might be doing the souls of some leaders. Does closely following the lives of other leaders threaten to erode the unique footprint of your leadership? Let…
Seven Things That Won't Fuel Your Passion
The longer you’re in leadership, the more aware you become of what really fuels passion over the long haul. The question that drives me (a lot) these days is this: How do you stay passionate over a long period of…
How No Leads to Yes
The longer I’m in leadership, the more I realize so much hangs on the ability to say no. I don’t like saying no. It’s hard to say no to your kids, to people you like. Honestly, it’s even hard…
Does God Trust You?
“But not with my servant Moses. Of all my house, he is the one I trust.” (Numbers 12.7). That’s God speaking, by the way. Most of us spend a lot of time trying to figure out whether we think God…
Crisis Reveals Character
I almost got into a fight yesterday. Not bad for a pastor on a Sunday night. The details aren’t that important, but let me just say it involved a hockey rink and another dad who started to act out toward…