Valentines Day is coming up. It is tempting to gloss-up this post with a trite but heartfelt Dobson-approved sentiment and be on my way, but a real love relationship is more complicated than that… This year my beautiful wife and I will be celebrating twenty-four years of marriage. That is certainly a long time for two people to be living together. In certain circles, that is enough time to qualify for freak-show status. We married in our early twenties, at the... Read more
We have a saying here at my company: we like to see managers get “bloodied up a bit” before moving them into more prominent leadership roles. If we believe someone has management potential, we will intentionally put them in a situation where they will encounter extreme conflict, opposition, or just plain ambiguity (which in and of itself can be very stressful). Then we will watch closely to see how the manager candidate responds. How will they handle an impossible situation... Read more
It has only been four short weeks since I predicted that Rick Warren was going to be a hot commodity in 2009 . Sure enough, last week the Wall Street Journal (which somehow has become a major source of my entertainment and celebrity news) reported that Rick is launching a quarterly magazine called (drum roll, please): what else, but “Purpose Driven Connection.” The folks at Readers Digest have teamed up with the Warren Purpose machine with high hopes of reaching... Read more
Continued from previous post This particular church would pause at a point early in the service when everyone was supposed to turn to the person next to them, introduce themselves, say hello and try to be a little friendly. We had a new pastor from out of town who I think picked up on the frosty New England tendencies and was attempting to break us out of the habit. It was working pretty well. Usually it got out of hand... Read more
Authenticity can be difficult to come by, even in the church community. Go figure. People prefer to hide the awful mess going on inside their lives, choosing to maintain some shred of perceived dignity rather than revealing the sober truth. The meager attempts we make at propping up an image of success is much more appealing than spilling the beans about the troubled marriage, the crippling anxiety, or the poor performance at work. But the stark truth is that all of us are struggling with something. People may be good at hiding... Read more
For all of you aspiring leaders out there, let’s just cut the crap and get right to the point. Rather than dragging this out into six years’ worth of leadership-advice-blogging, which would innevitably get picked up by Random House, who would publish a best-selling book series, which would lead to 225 days a year on the motivational speaker circuit and then spin-off to a consulting empire where I teach thousands of people the secrets of “How to Not Suck as a Leader,”... Read more
This Blog’s tag line says “Connecting Business Life with Spiritual Life.” Sometimes I stick very close to business issues, and other times I veer happily on to little side roads, because there really is more to life than business, right? But, today we are going to get back to business. If business is to remain a central theme, then sooner or later we are going to have to say something about leadership. I figured it’s about time that Shrinking the Camel post a good word or two on that... Read more
Continued from previous post. I try to come off like I’m this confident, sophisticated and worldly professional. But when you drop me out in the middle of the wilderness on a rainy day with nothing but a backpack and a poncho, you can bet that within an hour or two the real truth comes out: I’m a basket case of fear, insecurity and doubt. Which is to say, I’m so full of crap. I had a sheepish feeling that perhaps... Read more
Continued from the previous post. The trails in the Adirondacks are marked with colorful tin circles, about four inches in diameter, that are nailed to the trees every several dozen yards or so. The paths you are supposed to follow on any particular trail are usually clear-cut, but they can become iffy at times, especially when crossing some thick patches of forest. But if you look up every now and then, sure enough, the friendly yellow circles will greet you... Read more
Continued from previous post When the appointed time came for this year’s Godcation, I grabbed my journal, a good pen, my hiking boots, a backpack and a dorky-looking poncho. I loaded them into the car, and drove off into the sunrise to meet up with God in the great Adirondack Mountains. The Adirondacks are a pristine swath of six million acres of preserved land in upstate New York. There are 42 high peaks interspersed with a multitude of lakes, and expansive... Read more
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