Seeds from each adversity grow strongest when we keep sowing after the dramatic chapter ends. Leadership attributes do not mature in a single crisis; they compound when we refuse to treat the latest setback as the last word. As we hone each attribute through individual, and often smaller adversities...
In late 2015 or early 2016, just weeks after accepting a new role as a Safety and Human Resources manager for a mid-sized construction company, I was invited to lunch by one of the vendors who provided a specific service to that organization. He picked me and the CFO up at our office and drove us a ...
I realize there will be folks who read what I’ve shared here detailing the conflicts we experienced while doing all we could to advocate for Granny during the most vulnerable time of her nearly 97 years as throwing stones at a particular organization. While some of this may have been soft lobs in th...
Earlier, I shared what John Maxwell taught me (and a group of a few hundred others) in 2015 about how one door can lead to another - and then another. The relationships we build, especially when we’re willing to invest the necessary time and energy into nurturing them, do the same. And influence fol...
More than any other adversity I can point to, dealing with the facility being paid to care for Granny through the first six months of 2020 - and being barred from even visiting her through most of that - gave me perspective for sympathy. In complete transparency, I’m developing some of that perspect...
After the sit-down with the organization’s CEO and nursing director, firmly (but still appropriately) calling bullshit on the social media post, and having routine direct conversations about our expectations for how Granny was cared for - as often as we could get someone to actually answer the phone...
A few times to this point, I’ve referenced our 2017 experience in hosting that event an hour away as a “battle.” While it certainly seemed like one at the time, it was really just another adversity we had to work through - and a relatively minor one at that. It was by no means the most significant i...
Had we signed the contract to partner with that institution in hosting our 2017 event, I have no doubt that attendance (and revenue) would have been significantly higher - that day. Living through each adversity prior to that provided a tremendous foundation for us to stand on in that moment, though...
Accepting a position with a new organization after spending nearly my entire adult life with one company was a tremendous shift. The tasks I was responsible for on a daily basis were indeed similar to what I had been doing for years, but the industry and the team members I was serving were wildly di...
Years ago, I heard a story of a traveler stopping at a farmhouse along a country road to ask for directors. As the traveler spoke with the old man sitting on the front porch, he noticed that the dog laying beside him was constantly moaning, albeit quietly. The traveler asked the old man if there was...
The “demotion promotion” stung for sure, but it wasn’t anywhere close to the challenges we dealt with over the four or five years leading up to that. We had nurtured the seeds from each and were on much more stable ground, financially and emotionally. Truth be told, fending off foreclosure, reeling ...
Because we chose to take a moral stand and just were not willing to compromise our values, our financial opportunities tied to that multi-level marketing venture never really recovered. But digging in on what I knew was right provided more value than we would have ever gotten there; the seeds that v...
