As you make your resolutions for the new year and get back into the gym to build those muscles, consider playing up your strengths...

I have worked for people over the years who, with very good intentions, have pushed underlings to spend way too much time in attempts to overcome their weaknesses. Generally these managers (note I didn't say leaders) tended to be strong in this particular area so they saw it as an area in which everyone should be strong.  

Big mistake!  This is not to say that the particular area of focus should not be valued by employees but not something that everyone should spend an inordinate amount of time working on.  

The fortunate reality is that we all have different areas of strength and weakness.  The art of leadership is to find complementary people and form a well rounded team.  Part of the art is to recognize the talents of each team member and focus to make their strengths productive and their weaknesses irrelevant by offsetting them with complementary strengths of others.

A person's weakness will stand out especially if the boss has strength in that particular area.  Unfortunately, it is common practice for managers to focus on an employee's weaknesses and push the employee to focus much of their effort and energy on overcoming the weakness.  Now, don't get me wrong, we should always work on our areas of opportunity for growth.  But the reality is that if God wired us in a certain way with certain strengths, we can spend 90% of our time focusing on improving an area of weakness and only improve by 10%.  In business we would say that is a poor ROI (return on investment).  In addition, by focusing so much attention on an area of weakness we can become frustrated and negative if our resulting change is so minor.

Remember, you are what you think about most of the time.  If you think about your weaknesses most of the time, you literally weaken your self esteem which will hurt your performance.

Wouldn't it make more sense to focus on a person's strengths and get the most from what they do well?  If a particular job requires strength in an area that is that person's Achilles heel, don't give up on them.  Consider moving them to a position that allows their strength to benefit the team.  Often a coach will move an athlete to a new position that better uses their strength rather than working to overcome weaknesses at his current position.  Players tend to blossom once they play to their area of strength. The same theory holds true on a business team and it costs less to better utilize someone within your organization than it does to bring in someone new.

In 2013, play to your strengths and encourage others to do the same!

When Your Heart Beats Out of Sync...

Have you ever been in a work situation or a relationship where everything just felt out of sync?


Maybe you went through a restructure at work where the stress and strain of change created "dis-ease" that had everyone walking on eggshells. Or maybe you were in a relationship that you knew wasn't right but the comfort of just having someone kept you trying to fill your tank, though the gauge kept reading "empty."

You just kept showing up, hoping things would feel different.

What is lacking in both situations is love. Unfortunately, any situation or relationship that lacks love lacks life-energy. Selfishness tends to drive people's motives and you can bet God is nowhere to be found.

Too often, we show up to work expecting to find fulfillment or we stay in a relationship hoping to feel loved. Love, whether in work or relationship, is both a feeling and a choice. There will be times when the feeling isn't there and it is at those times when it is up to us to make the choice to love.

No job nor mortal person can fill our tank. This is why so many people go from job to job and relationship to relationship. They are in the mode of receiving - but not transmitting - love and passion. I believe God planted the seeds of love within us. We feel true love only when we nurture those seeds within us and bring them to our work and our relationships.

Love adds an entire dimension to our lives. It gives our day-to-day routine purpose and gives meaning to our human experience. Without love there is movement but no dance; sound but no music.

The next time you are in a situation feeling out of sync, remember - The Choreographer of the World put the dance within us; The Conductor of the Universe put the music in our hearts!

Lighten Up

Have you ever noticed that when you open the curtains and let light into a room, your spirit and mood tend to get lighter and brighter too?

As we enter into the winter season and it gets darker earlier and there is less light in our life, our mood can become darker. Darkness carries with it a certain heaviness that weighs on us. Think about it: Lead is dark and heavy, down feathers look and feel light. Dark beer tastes and sits heavier than its lighter Pilsner brother. Coffee is darker and heavier than tea.

In industries like footwear and fitness, light weight is the hottest trend. Whether light weight running and training shoes or lighter exercise programs to include more core fitness and yoga, people want to lighten up in many areas of their life. Ipods are getting smaller and lighter. Computers are becoming more compact and light weight. You can carry hundreds of books in a kindle that weighs less than a pound.

As we recognize the physical need to lighten our loads, it is important to recognize the need to lighten mentally and spiritually as well. In a world of heavy debt, heavy relationships and heavy workloads, it is critical we find ways to bring more light(ness) to all that we think and do.

When the weight of the world is pressing on us, our mood becomes dark and heavy. We carry yesterday's mistakes and tomorrow's worries, the weight of which slow us down and often leave us sitting in the dark. We find it more difficult to get out of bed; we feel sluggish and lacking in energy and enthusiasm.

So what can we do to shed the weight of our burdens and shed light on our situation? First, focus all your energy in the here and now. You can shed yesterday's regrets and tomorrow's worries by bringing your attention and awareness to the present moment. No matter how much time you spend on yesterday, it will never get better. No matter how much thought energy you give to worrying about tomorrow, it won't make it come any quicker. The present moment is the only time you have to impact your life. When we live in the moment, God's light shines on us. Our mood and attitude lighten and the clouds dissipate. God is only present in the moment. He is does not live in yesterdays or tomorrows.


Here is a list of some activities that can help bring light(ness):

1. Clear you workspace of all the clutter so you can focus on the task at hand.

2. Purge your closet so you focus on the clothing that you love and makes you feel good. If you haven't worn it in a year, take it to Goodwill.

3. Clean your email inbox. File, delete or answer. Try to touch every email only once. How can you focus on what is important if you have 100's of emails to go through over and over.


4. Listen to more relaxing music. The right music can lighten your mood.

5. Laugh out loud. Laughter produces more life energy and more of the chemicals in our brain that make us feel good.

6. Turn off the TV. The drama and death of the news and CSI shows can cause tension and stress.
7. Play a game with your kids. The fun and laughter will lighten you all up...together.

8. Take more deep, cleansing breaths. Our breathing tends to be too shallow and allows tension and tightness in our neck and shoulders. Sit up and open up your breathing.

9. Eat lighter. Have some fish instead of meat. Eat more fruit and vegetables. It will lead to a lighter and more energetic you.

10. Get a little exercise. Take a walk, take the stairs, park a little further from the mall. The endorphins from exercise at any level will bring lightness to all you do.

11. Do something to help someone else. If you help someone else solve their problems, you stop focusing on your own.


Put down your heavy burdens and lighten up...NOW!

Life is an Open Book Test

Did you ever show up to class the day of a test feeling unprepared? The minute you entered the classroom your palms began to sweat; you just knew the test was not going to go well. You sat in your seat all fidgety, just dreading the next hour. Then all of the sudden the bell rings and the teacher proclaims, "Okay, class, this will be an open book exam."

The heavenly choir bursts forth in your head, "Hal-le-lu-ja!" Maybe not a modern-day miracle but certainly an indescribable feeling of relief. The idea of an open-book exam breathed new life into you. Close your eyes and try to remember the relief. It felt as though the weight of the world just lifted...

Well, you can have that same feeling today about life. In this age of information where specialized websites and Wikipedia are just a few mouse clicks away, where every church has a liberal stock of bibles to give away, where you can buy a book in a matter of seconds on your ipad or kindle, the answers can all be yours! It's really just that simple.

The problem for many of us is that the answers are rarely (if ever) on TV or in a bar or in the driver's seat of the newest BMW. These are the comfortable places where we often look and hope to discover the answers or, in many cases, dream of being discovered.

Go back again to the open-book test in 10th-grade Biology or whatever it was. It really wasn't all that easy. You still had to make the effort to go through the book and find the answers. It took time and, if you hadn't read the chapters, it was tough to get the information quickly enought to finish. The entire class still didn't get an A. The reality is that even when you took an open-book test you had to be diligent to make the grade.

So, too, with life. The answers are all there and they are simpler than ever to find, whether on the subject of personal finance, relationships, diet, exercise, meditation - you name it, there are endless sources by which to educate ourselves. Can you muster the discipline to diligently search for the answers and put them into practice?

I'd like to leave you with a summation which can easily double as a meditation:

As with so many things in life, the answer is simple but not easy...

The "Quick Fix" - An Oxymoron?

Americans spent in excess of $150 billion last year on quick-fix, self-improvement products to lose weight, build muscles, buy/sell real estate, fix a golf swing, etc.* And many of the same people will spend $150 billion again this year on something new that promises the same quick results in the same areas that failed before.

We are a quick-fix society - gimme a pill, a 90-day workout, a 15-day weight-loss program to change my life. I want it and I want it NOW!

So now for the big question...

If many of the same people are spending money on new and "better" quick-fix products, were the others really a fix?

Take fad diets, for example. In a 2007 UCLA study, it was found that 2/3 of the people who lost 5-10 pounds in 6 months on any of the various diets on the market had gained it back, plus some, within 4 years. The study concluded that those who do the quick-fix diets would be better off not dieting at all, as their eventual weight would be about the same and they would avoid the physical dangers of "yo-yoing" over this period of time.

What about the real estate gurus who tell you about no-money-down approaches that can have you "kicking back" on your own yacht in no time? The reality is that the majority of people who buy these particular programs never even buy a property! They just end up out the cost of the program. That's quick money for the seller of the program, but nada for the person who dreams of changing their financial future via the quick fix.

So, if those who try the quick-fix approach in life are further behind in the long run, it's really only a temporary solution at best. It may elicit quick results in the case of weight loss or muscle building but it isn't a long-term fix if the results don't last.

It's been said that nothing good comes easily. Wouldn't everyone be better off if they took the long-term view and focused on a lifestyle of healthy eating, exercise plans for life, no-gimmick golf lessons or career pursuits in areas of passion that would make "moving up the ladder" somewhat enjoyable? Yes, these approaches all take time, but if you don't have the time to do it right in the first place, what makes you think you will have the time to do it over?

So the next time you are watching t.v. (especially late-night t.v!), lured in by that seductive, quick-fix infomercial, remember - most of them don't give you lasting results. Take the time to develop your own plan and approach. Consider your challenge thoughtfully and develop a long-term plan by doing a little research online or at the library, or by asking someone who is currently living the change you desire.

(*according to tapebeat.com, over $150 billion of consumer products in the U.S. are sold through infomercials.)

Living Without Labels

What age were you when you concluded you were intelligent...or not, creative or not, coordinated or not? Were these labels you put on yourself or were they bestowed upon you by others?

Labels are just words. But once we accept labels, we emotionalize them and, sadly, often end up living them as our reality. Words can be a great tool as well. When used wisely, they enable us to communicate effectively by converting the abstract to something more tangible, which is necessary if we want to interact and make sense of the physical world around us. They allow us to develop relationships and to entertain or enlighten one another. They are the common intellectual currency of all societies.

Words can also be a weapon. When used in anger or without thought for the consequence of their interpretation - as in the use of labels to describe someone - they can be as destructive as any knife or gun. A teacher who labels a child as a "C student," a classmate that labels a peer as "stupid" or a parent that labels a child as "a slow learner" can cut to the core with these words and contribute to creating a fixed mindset that traps a child into living the label.

We all understand the potentially destructive nature of negative labels, but what about the potential destructive nature of positive labels? Seems odd, but they can be just as limiting. Say, for example, a young boy is labeled "the kid with amazing athletic ability; a natural." As a young child he may be able to overpower other children due to a size, strength or coordination advantage. But what if the child begins to believe the label and feels that his God-given talent doesn't require work for improvement? I mean, he is superior to all the other kids so why work at it? But then the other children begin to grow and catch up in terms of size, strength and athleticism. All of the sudden, "the natural" is just average.



In her book, Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, world-renowned Stanford professor Carol Dweck describes a person with a "fixed mindset" as someone who feels they were endowed with a set level of intellectual ability, creative ability, physical ability, etc. And no amount of effort will get them to a more advanced place. Once the mindset is fixed, the person will have a tendency to only try those things that they feel are within the realm of their set abilities. Unfortunately, this creates the condition in which a person tends to have success in the limited realm in which they try, but generally underachieve based on their God-given potential.

Those with a "growth mindset," on the other hand, understand that with hard work and applied effort, they can improve and grow in any area of life. In fact, Dweck explains how recent scientific research shows that the brain is more like a muscle - it changes and gets stronger with use. As a person tackles new and tough challenges, the neurons fire and gain strength for future application.

Our muscles and our ability to be creative are no different. We always have the ability to grow and improve if we believe in ourselves, apply ourselves to challenging situations and work hard at our chosen endeavors. The growth is even more dramatic in areas where we bring passion to fuel the hard work and focus.




So let's work to live our lives without labels. Let's not label others or label ourselves. And if we see someone else labeling, let's step in and remove it. Why not live each moment in a growth mindset where every new challenge is an opportunity to expand our horizons and move a bit closer to fulfilling the potential built into us at birth.

Let Your Light Shine

I believe that you can never realize your potential in life by simply trying to eliminate those things that would prevent you from getting there. This may not make sense at first, but let's consider why such an approach is ineffective.


It's no secret that bad habits are one of the main things that stand in the way of reaching our potential. They're so hard to break because we expend all our mental energy trying to eliminate them. If we're not successful, we fall right back into them, sometimes worse than ever. We tend to think that when we fail it's because we lack will power. But it's when we focus our energy on what we don't want that we wear down mentally and end up giving in.



Mental energy, like physical energy, is not unlimited. Just like you can't lift a weight an unlimited number of times without the muscle fatiguing, so it is with our mental energy. Attached to the mental energy we exert focusing on eliminating negative habits, come emotional connections that make them that much harder to break. This process tends to leave us depressed or even despondent - sitting in emotional darkness.


Instead, if you work to shine a light on the person you want to become, you can awaken your positive life force rather than empowering the negative forces that create darkness.

Think about it - illuminating a room isn't the removal of darkness from that room, rather it is the introduction of light into it!