Life is hard. All of us are doing our best to live a life of peace. A life of joy. We want to experience the great dream of every human being – living a life of purpose. It sounds simple. But it is far from easy. We continually face difficult circumstances. We struggle with a sense of awareness, cleverly deceiving not only one another but ourselves as well. We make wrong choices and have to face the consequences. We experience... Read more
Like so many things in life, there is a fine balance between letting go of our need to control everything and losing our willingness to steward what we can control. We are people of extremes, addicted to the dramatic. We want to control it all or give up entirely. Most of our dabbling in between is a subtle manipulation meant to draw us (and others) to one extreme or the other. The difficulty is the two enterprises look a lot like one another. We... Read more
For the last three years, Kylie and I have been traveling the world, training groups on how to be great organizations. We always start with a conversation about values. Values help determine your mission. They are the heart behind your emotions. Values are the great motivator for people and the lives they long to lead. Throughout the years, we have seen how challenging it can be for people to truly understand their values. Most people want to start with “Truth” as a... Read more
First, let me say right off the bat that being single is important in its own right. It is not just a waiting room for marriage. It is, in itself, a valuable and important stage of life. That being said, the time you spend as a single person also affects your marriage. The relationships you will enter into will not happen in a vacuum. You’ll carry everything from your family of origin, your singleness, and your past decisions into the... Read more
On a recent trip home, my brother and I were reminiscing about this little creek that ran through the high school where my parents worked as teachers. As young boys, it was a place of adventure, an exotic world where we could accomplish anything. As we were talking, I remembered this strange habit I used to have. I would find a rock near the creek and hide it in an otherwise nondescript little area. Every time, I would come back... Read more
One of the things we have discovered when working with organizations around the world is the power of celebration. In short, what gets celebrated gets repeated. Those things we most tightly connect with joy are the things we will be intentional about pursuing once again. If you take a bird’s eye view of the entire calendar, we have a lot of celebrations. From Christmas and New Years to Valentine’s Day, July 4th, and Halloween. We average a major holiday once... Read more
Your family has a culture. What is it? How did it develop? Is it possible to change what has been established? Culture is the values communicated within an organization. Your family is an organization – a group of people gathered for a purpose. You inherited your group, had little say in who makes up the membership of the organization. But for better or worse, you are together and you are an organization. Every organization, including families, has a culture. We... Read more
When it comes to perseverance, my mindset is usually centered on how I can outrun the struggle. I think this is true of almost everyone. The fundamental question we are asking ourselves is, “how long do I have to endure before this is over?” We view perseverance as a temporary obstacle. The longer it lingers, the more surprised and frustrated we become. We’ll often give up – it is no longer perseverance if we abandon ship. There are so few... Read more
Every man or woman who both works and has a family struggles to find a balance between the two. There are a set of standards and demands at work and another set of standards and demands at home. Too many of us focus on one to the detriment of the other. And then, when we realize there is a problem, we overcorrect and focus on the other too much. The result is we end up living fractured lives. We develop... Read more
When we enter into a relationship, we bring certain expectations. Sometimes they are explicit and sometimes they are subconscious. We can’t help it. We have imagined what a relationship would look like, how it would feel, and what it would produce. Whether platonic or romantic, we are looking for relationships to help serve our need for belonging and purpose. Enemy At The Gates Where we go from here is vital. Most human relationships take these expectations from each participant... Read more
Victorious Living
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