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Serving with Excellence for a Life of Excellence

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Bold visions for our families

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Bold visions and a life of excellence starts at home! Whatever home is to you!

Whoever we surround ourself with plays a large role in our lives.  We need bold visions for our families. Families are at the core of our purpose and what drives our actions most of the time.

Some of the best portrayals of families comes from some of the most famous television programs. It’s no wonder that we are drawn to these shows as they help us identify with our families and our world as we know it. When I was a child, Leave it to Beaver was on it’s way out, and we had some fun with Good Times, Roseanne and Murphy Brown. Now we get to enjoy Modern Family, which I have to say is fantastic. In all of these, no matter what the family looked like, they had fun together, encouraged each other, argued and experienced challenges and life itself together. The root of all of these was and is the LOVE that builds the bond that family represents.

My encouragement today is to be intentional about your family. It is so important to really build a strong family!  What three things can you do today in order to be bold in setting priorities for your family? We must be courageous to tackle both the fun and the tough issues that can ease their way into our households. Here are my top three:

  1. Budgets – Teach my boys a bit more about real life finances
  2. Politics – My boys are 19 now. I should have talked about this a lot more at the dinner table or on the way to games. They are voting age and have a huge role in our country’s success. I need to be intentional about upping the game on deeper discussions.
  3. Fun – We have plenty of fun, but honestly we need to crank up the music more on a daily basis!  Somehow between elementary school and now we have had far too few dance parties – HA!

(Thank you to the East Family for this fun photo!)

Bold visions for our country

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What great timing for this topic! With Martin Luther King Jr.’s national holiday being this week, it couldn’t have been better planned. So glad for those moments when the universe aligns.

To me, there is not a greater message than the one Dr. King brought on unity. I believe in people, and that together we can achieve everything we need to in our lifetime. Today, we stand in a world that is facing many challenges, and unfortunately at the root of much of this is a lack of unity.

Most of those reading this fortunately live in neighborhoods and communities that are mostly unified, with safe and progressive schools, churches and places of business. My greatest concern is that we get distracted from what is really going on in our country. We hide behind busy schedules and soccer games, the latest big sport contest (since the Chiefs are out, I’m cheering for the Broncos!), etc. Let’s not forget that last year we faced multiple hate crimes (I hate even typing those words) in America, and some within driving distance. One of my colleagues grew up in Ferguson, Missouri and her neighborhood was a victim of the fighting. It could easily happen in every neighborhood.

I’m sure many of you, like me, have friends of all races and religions. If you talk to them long enough, you know that even today, they face regular accounts of prejudice behaviors. It’s ugly and makes me sick to think about. As you know UNITY goes far past the issues of race and religious freedoms, and our current candidates for president are showcasing that well, as they clearly are not unified on most topics. As Dr. King’s words indicate below, our silence on these larger issues that impact our country will be felt eventually.  Let’s not be silent.

“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.” – Martin Luther King, Jr.

This blog is really about our country. We need bold visions and bold actions in order to secure it for the generations that follow. I encourage you to really take the time to understand the issues and in November to vote for a candidate that can unify our country. We cannot be silent. I personally know I need to do more. How about you?

Bold prayers

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Favorite author- favorite life mantra! I have learned so much from reading Mark Batterson (Circle Maker, In a Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day, Wild Goose Chase, If, Trip Around the Sun, All In, Draw the Circle, The Grave Robber, Soul Print, Praying Circles Around the Lives of your Children, Primal).

He’s a midwest boy, basketball player, turned church planter in Washington D.C. His stories are easy to read, and inspiring. A perfect combination of compelling anecdotes and real life strategies.

This week we will be focused on bold visions, specifically bold visions for our country (since it is an election year, and a big one at that!) and bold visions for our families. What better way to kick off the week than to hit our knees (literally or physically) and push out some prayers into the universe that just might advance us to the next level in peace and personal satisfaction and create positive anticipation for what life has to offer.

I’ll be praying for all of you this week. Be bold.

(Photo Creds:  We Heart It)

Happy New Year!

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I love a fresh clean page. A new journal to start off the year!

As we close down 2015 today I pray that you will reflect on your year with pride and gratitude for great memories and great lessons. Both memories and lessons make us who we are. Develop our character, our attitudes, refine us and grow us!

I’ll be praying for each of you to have your best year ever. In order to do this, you have to put some work in. What would it look like on 12/31/2016 if you were to truly say it was your best year ever? Document that. Pray over it. Believe it. Take action and be amazed! Let me know if you do take the time to do this and I’d love to cheer you on!

Crazy beautiful all around

blog_737081_2810070_1447905059Today’s a good day to stop and realize the sheer beauty of the world.

We are sitting right on the edge of winter and the shorter days give way to a great desire for comfort food and jumping in bed at 8 p.m.

But wait… in a few days, you’ll get shaken out of the stuper and thrown into the fury and fun of the holiday season. With this week’s theme of “mind the gap,” I can’t help but be somewhat alarmed and exhilarated at the very thought that there is a very short gap between these few days that rest between November 1 roughly (daylight savings time) to Thanksgiving where we give way to a different set of energy.

My thought: soak it up while you can! 

If you need to sleep, sleep! Beg, borrow or steal it if you need to. If you need a cup of great soup and some bread that reminds you of grandma’s house, then make or go get that, too. If you just want to lay under the covers all day and hide, well, try to make that happen!

I was with this amazing Uberdriver this morning and he shared that yesterday he just stayed home and enjoyed his family. He told me he got up to go to work, but was called back by his body and spirit longing to simply enjoy this day before the action gets moving at such a rate, he can’t stop. I thought that was awesome.

As a leader, I’m not advocating everyone calling in sick, although I am a big fan and supporter of flexible work schedules and an integration between work and life that is reasonable and allows us to produce our best. I am, however, advocating that you allow yourself and your staff if you are a leader to pull off of the side of the road, so to speak, and mind the gap that is this brief season.

Perhaps by doing so we will improve our health and get a sense of rejuvination which will help us build energy to have the best holiday season ever.

Train your mind

blog_734618_2805536_1447168536Most every American knows Peyton Manning, Denver Broncos quarterback, NFL Super Bowl champion and MVP. To many, the best quarterback of all time.

Regardless of where he lies in the final stats, there is no doubt that he has demonstrated that training your mind is critical to great success. In fact, when he had potentially career-ending surgery in 2011, he did what many thought couldn’t happen and made a decision to seek the best training of his mind and physical body to step back into the game again. And he has done so with sheer greatness.

The first step in his decision: train your mind.

Most everyday we are hit with an array of challenges, decisions, problems, etc that have the potential to take us down. A simple action or reaction can send us reeling and quite often those are left whirling in our minds, often creating a life of their own. What if he meant that? Did that text she sent mean what I think it meant?

The National Science Foundation estimates that a human brain produces as many as 12,000 to 50,000 thoughts per day, depending on how deep a thinker a person is. Most of the so-called random daily thoughts are about our social environment and ourselves.

As you can see, with our brain on overdrive, we simply must train our minds to think positive and focus on the best of ourselves, our abilities, our intentions and of course, people.

One of the interesting things about the brain is that it is methodical. In my research, I read that a thought actually becomes a physical pathway in the brain. According to life coach Tim Brownson, the more you have a thought, the more you groove that path and the easier it is to have it again. That’s why having the thought “Why do I suck?” is never a great idea.

That’s where the training part comes in. I don’t want to overcomplicate this, but instead give you this to contemplate today. We are all champions in one way, shape or form. Peyton Manning just does it on a national stage. When troubles come our way, we have a choice to train our minds to go into what I’ll callexcellence mode.

What pathways have been etched into your mind due to constantly thinking or focusing on them? It could be a person in the workplace that has driven you to drink or at the very least you have hit your head against the wall so many times trying to navigate the situation. It could be a family member (Thanksgiving is a few weeks away in case you want to get prepared now…), that always seems to say the most life-draining things that leave you wondering where they came from or where you came from. It could simply be that you are really hard on yourself for pick your issue: over spending, not doing enough charity work, not working out enough, never picking up the phone and calling your best friend… You get the picture.

Let’s “groove” some new paths in our minds today and put our minds on excellence mode.

Bold celebrations: Go Royals!

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Happy Thursday everyone!

We made it past hump day and on the home stretch to finishing week one of November. I started on Sunday with the theme of bold. Bold in our thinking, our priorities, our actions, our intentions, our love, our prayers.

Tuesday we got a little deep in talking about bold thinking… but, since most readers are Kansas Citians and we were celebrating our Royals winning the World Series, you might want to go back and check that one out if you missed it.

So, how do you wrap up a bold theme? Of course talking about the KANSAS CITY ROYALS 2015 WORLD SERIES CHAMPIONS!

My top three thoughts on how we can learn and be inspired following the big celebration this week:

1. Salvy has shown bold passion every game, all season long.

With every dump of the Gatorade and every time he flashes that smile, he embraces the essence of hometown heart and a spirit that literally shines.

2. Hosmer has shown us what bold grit looks like in action!

His “roll up your sleeves” attitude and willingness to put himself out there and make the play is a big reason the KC Royals – and the rest of Kansas City – were able to celebrate this week.

3. Through 162 regular season games and 16 postseason games, Yost has demonstrated bold coaching.

Most of us know that a team cannot be their best without great leadership. Whether you are a fan that loves him, or questions his decisions, his results cannot be contested for long.  He loves his team, takes appropriate risks and has created a culture that is contagious.
Kansas City is thankful today and all other cities hopefully will take a close look at the beauty of this place! Bold and wonderful! 

Simple Thoughts Sunday

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Bold in our thinking, our priorities, our actions, our intentions, our love, our prayers.

Just imagine what could be achieved if we all were to be as bold as possible? You know, we were truly called to be bold: To use the amazing gifts that God gave us, and to step in and be the hands and feet of Christ and serve others to improve our world.

What can you do this week to showcase boldness? Pray bigger and broader, then watch what happens.

The brilliance of courage

blog_731142_2798643_1446129417Courage is always brilliant.

Courage is stepping into a board room prepared to give a killer presentation. Courage is going into an interview for a job you desperately need. Courage is signing for your first big purchase… and second…and third. Courage is bringing your first child home from the hospital. Courage is rising to the occasion to help someone in need. Courage is facing a tough loss and making something better out of the situation! Courage is taking the long road to leave your home and cross borders to achieve your goal. Courage is seeing the good in bad situations with great faith.

Courage is:

Mindy Corporen: My dear friend who has faced incredible loss and instead of hiding, is the very definition of “rising.” Creating an organization, “faith wins” to focus on the good versus evil in this world. And in the midst, galvanizing thousands to do the same in their personal situations.

Alli Pflueger: My colleague and friend who is a young professional, and a newlywed. Facing a new chapter with a rising career, new family and a passion to help others.

YOU: All of us display courage on a daily basis through our everyday choices and actions. We step in and step up and we change lives for those around us.

Go be BRILLIANT!

Fire up the joy! 3 reasons to spread joy today

  1. blog_726457_2791762_1444698176Joy is contagious! It transmits the type of energy needed to thrive! If you are in the work place and happen to be a leader, well then this may just help your employee satisfaction or engagement as well! Bottom Line: Folks want to work, live and serve where they are happy!
  2. Joy makes a person more productive! I don’t know about you, but getting a bit more done in my given 24 hours would be a huge positive! I found this great little article to back that up.
  3. Joy can make you healthier!  That article outlines nicely the great benefits of joy, which include reducing stress, solving problems easier and fighting disease! I am all about all of those! A great blog post here that goes a bit deeper!

As you get moving on this busy Tuesday (it’s the busiest day of the work week, by the way!), remember to take some time to spread joy! I promise you will be better for it!

By the way, don’t put it off until later, stop now and send three brief messages and fire up the joy. It will be the best five minutes of your day!