There is ONLY leadership

In the context of achievement there is only leadership. In the context of life there is only leadership.  The degree and level of leadership one has with the outside world begins with one's ability to lead hisself.

Leadership is not necessarily a title, although some of the greatest leaders in the world have titles.  Leaders don't need to have a lot of money.  Although some of the greatest leaders have quite a bit of it.
Leaders don't need to be surrounded by a lot of people.  Although many leaders have dozens, hundreds, and thousands of followers.

So if leadership isn't any of those things, what is leadership

"Leadership is influence. Nothing more.  Nothing less." -John C. Maxwell

"Influence" comes from the Latin, "influere" which means "to flow into".   I see influence as an ability to cause movement.  To inspire action.  

Influence is leadership. As we influence people in a certain direction, we are leading them down a certain path to either do something, or think something.  Back to the Latin translation of "influente" meaning to flow into, when we influence we 'cause' someone to think a certain way and ultimately to make a decision to do something, or not.  Our ideas "flow into" them and they choose what they choose.  THAT IS INFLUENCE.

I heard this a lot about my friends, "I don't think they are a good influence on you."  Yet I kept hanging out with them and getting in trouble. But WHY?  Why did my uneducated punk friends have more influence on me at the time than my own parents?

How to change the world!

I realized today that my place on earth is not to save everyone.  I am here to attract and develop a tribe of young people who want to grow themselves and live extraordinary lives and thus impact the world through their example.

A few days ago I was doing my normal daily Yoga routine and listening to some Jim Rohn audio.  PURE GOLD!  Everything out of this man's mouth is a quote.

Jim Rohn passed away this year, and here I am...getting my life impacted by a guy who's not even around anymore.  He said something very interesting about his career in sales management. "I told myself 'I'll make these people a success if it KILLS ME.'  I ALMOST DIED!"

The world is filled with people at different places in life, with different experiences.  To assume we can change someone because WE want to is naive, and not the best use of our time.

To change someone because THEY want to...now that's a different story.

Learning by choice is powerful force to be reckoned with.  Once you plant the seed in someone's mind that they can be, do, and have more, the quest for personal development begins.

Anyone who's been through a personal growth seminar, or who's read a great book can relate to this experience.

BUT ARE THEY THE ONE'S WHO NEED IT?

I don't know about you, but the first thing I think about when I experience a great message is "Ohhhh, if only (insert name of struggling friend or family member) could hear this. I wish they were here. This is EXACTLY WHAT THEY NEED!"

But a-lass, it never works out that way.

HOW CAN WE CHANGE THE WORLD IF THE ONE'S WHO NEED TO HEAR THE MESSAGE MOST WON'T LISTEN???

By committing to living our life as an example of the world we want to exist.

Consider that our own hypocrisy of what we say and what we do is the REAL issue.  The mother who talks poorly of her ex-husband, but wants her children to be more loving and accepting of each other.  The teacher who wants his students to be more engaged and involved, but hasn't picked up a book to better himself in years.  The athlete who complains about the team's performance, but is late to practice regularly.

The answer is not to change the people OUT THERE. But rather to change the person, the only person you really have control of...yourself.

My commitment in life is to be an example of love and acceptance, leadership and excellence, purpose and vision, integrity and humbleness.

To say that I am this every moment of every day is a gross exhageration.  But it's a practice.  A life-long game where the only way to WIN is by getting others to play the game with you.

We rarely do what we hear or what we read.  The rubber meets the road when we see a living example of hope.  Someone engaging in the future we so desperately want.

And it's not that the people out there (who need it most) don't listen.  They just need to see more examples of it ALIVE and REAL.

The point is to be that person you wish others to be, and only then do we give people permission to be who THEY really wanted to be in the first place.

Organic Success

ARE YOU AN APPLE OR AN ORANGE TREE?

How do you tell an apple tree is an apple tree, and an orange tree is an orange tree?

Ask an eight year old that questions and even they will say “you look at the fruit that grows from the tree.”

If the fruit is a reflection of the tree that has grown...what kind of a tree are we.  What kind of a tree are you.

“Who you are speaks so loudly I can’t hear what you are saying.” -Ralph Waldo Emerson

It takes courage to step out of the whirlwind of our life, and truly reflect on that statement.  “What does my fruit reflect that I am?”

Maybe you like the fruit in some areas and not in others.  The garden of life is but a fertile soil that we are granted the opportunity to do everything and nothing.  The garden know’s not judgement, but only to grow that which is planted, and cultivated.

LESSONS FROM ORGANIC FARMING

I love eating organic fruits and vegetables.  Some people have compelling arguments but...I can taste the difference.  But what is the draw?  What is the draw we have to this form of farming?

I think deep down people see how much of our food has been transformed to this processed, insecticide covered, hormone enhanced “unnatural” product.  Organic farming is not NEW.  It’s as OG as it gets.  It’s the natural course of things

BUT WHERE DID WE GO WRONG

Human’s strive to make things bigger and better.  We went wrong when we came at life believing “something is wrong.”  Things shouldn’t be the way they are...people shouldn’t act the way they do...I shouldn’t look the way I look...it shouldn’t take this long.

We try to short cut everything and now our fruit doesn’t look or taste the way we know it could.

It’s that unacceptance that has us feel like we have to “fix it”.

Marriages are meant to last. The human body is made to live as long as possible.  People are meant to be happy.

So what do we do?  We step in and bring our “opinion” of how things should or shouldn’t be and metaphorically throw insecticides on our life and relationships so we don’t have to DEAL with the real issues.  We inject fake pleasure into our oranges to mask the lack of happiness available to us.

We, in effect, don’t get to be human anymore.  At least not organically.

We are the over-marketed, over sexed, over stimulated, silicone injected, Prozac poppin'’ version of ourselves.  

SO HOW CAN WE FIX IT?

There we go again! Trying to fix the fixed. It’s not the right mindset.

Back to organic farming.

RIP OUT THE OLD TREES:

If you want new, quality, organic trees you must first get rid of the old trees so that they don’t strangle the life from new ones.

It takes a moment of awareness that we aren’t living a truly “organic” life the way we were meant and truly “want” to live.

Goals and dreams change in life.  We always live out our primary goals or concerns.  A student who says I want straight A’s, yet is only really concerned about passing class so their parents don’t get on their case will most certainly achieve the latter.

We must rip out the roots of mediocrity to plant the seeds of greatness.

PURIFY THE SOIL:

To be organically certified the soil from which the fruit grows, must remain free from any pesticides or manufactured fertilizers.  

Our lives must be purged of the things that are not natural.   My wife and I went through four months of marriage counseling.  We spent a lot of time reconfiguring our past views of relationships and marriage.  A lot of current day culture was present in our view.

We had to till up the soil purify it to create the right environment for a quality marriage to grow.

It looked like sacrificing things in our lives, completing past relationship issues to set the stage for our marriage.  It wasn’t easy. But fortunately we weren’t trying to plant the seed of “easy”.  We were planting the seeds of “a happy and fulfilled marriage of passionate love and purpose.” 

PLANT THE RIGHT SEEDS:

You can tell the people who have planted the seeds of success because of the fruit they bare.

You can also tell the people who have planted the seeds of fear, anxiety, survival, “undeserving of good things” because of the fruit that THEY bare.

It takes moments of consciousness to plant the right seeds of the life we truly want.  

Again, the soil of life know’s no bounds.  Only the human mind through years of conditioning puts parameters on what’s possible.

“What would you do if you knew you could not fail?” -Robert Schuller

Take the time for self reflection of what’s really important to you and plant THOSE seeds.

HAVE FAITH

In the moments after the seed has been planted, and the commitment to a new way of life is made...nothing appears to have changed.

Tomatoes will not show up the day you plant the tomato seed.  

One must BELIEVE with out a shadow of a doubt that the possibility of the new seeds is imminent.  IT WILL GROW.

Fear, concern, resignation will start to set in when results don’t show.  It is imperative to have faith that all will work out.  

The seeds of “fear” and “doubt”,  like weeds, start to creep up on our dreams and strangle the life out of it before it has the chance to sprout.

People give up on their dreams too easy.  They want the quick fix, hormone injected life.  You can’t make a tree go faster than it is designed to grow. As soon as you do so, the fruit it bares will not be as sweet or juicy as it could.

I started in sales 9 years ago and was always in shock and awe over how much the top income earners made.

I was in fact angry with myself because I wasn’t there yet.  

One day I heard a legendary sales person, now good friend, Hal Elrod say at a conference “The only difference between me and you is TIME and the ACTIONS that were taken in that time.”  

Patience and faith are REQUIRED to grow the seeds of big dreams.

FOSTER AND CARE 

Just like a child in it’s early years, so do our dreams need love and attention.  There are seasons of life where we need different things.

What ever you put attention to will grow.

“The grass in never greener on the other side.  It is always greener where you water it.”

In 2007 I was challenged with the thought of leaving my company.  I had accomplished a lot and was looking for “something better.”

That January I had the privilege of sitting in on a Jeffrey Gitomer Sales Seminar. He said something that I’ll never forget. 

“If you want to leave where you are at because there is a better opportunity somewhere else you will always find the same experience of unfulfillment.  Because everywhere you go...there YOU are.

Successful people make it a habit of being successful no matter where they are.

If you want to leave somewhere, leave knowing that you’ve accomplished everything possible. Because that’s a habit that you will take with you wherever you go and it will make you a fortune.”

Give love, attention and energy to your dreams especially in the early stages.  In any given moment it may not look like much has happened, but you have to keep putting in the energy and love day after day after day after day.

Soon enough, life is amazing, you’re baring the most wonderful, amazing, delicious organic fruit...you couldn’t imagine it being any other way.

This ladies and gentlemen is the way we were meant to live. 

Good Friday, Crabs, and Jesus

Good Friday, Crabs, and Jesus

I’ve had a recommitment with my faith this weekend.  On Good Friday our church had a service I’ll soon not forget.

I went to Catholic school from Kindergarden until I graduated college.  I have heard the story of Jesus and his life more times than I can remember.

Now I’ve always believed in God, but had a difficult time with submitting my life to Jesus. You might be wondering, “How can that be the case John?  You grew up in a good Christian household.  You came from good parents.  You’ve been surrounded by it your whole life. What could possibly still hold you back.”

I developed Christian hand sanitizer syndrome.  Have you ever heard that if you use hand sanitizer to much your germs will soon become immune to it?  Well, my heart became immune to the life and story of Jesus.

My wife Monica and I went to Good Friday Service this last week, and I was going with the flow as I usually do.  

At the end of service, they put the words of the worship music on the screen, while behind the words they played excerpts from Mel Gibson’s “Passion of the Christ”.  The excerpts you want to close your eyes to.  The excerpts you wish to God weren’t real.

I fought back the tears as much as I could that night, but the tears won.  

The next night, Monica and I went to one of our favorite places to eat... Joe’s Crab Shack.  She asked me if I was planning on going to the Men’s retreat at our church in a few weeks.

And then it all came out.

Every fear, every concern, every gripe I had about being a Christian.  Again, I had a great personal relationship with God.  I prayed to him every night. 

Being a follower of Jesus on the other hand meant:

-Giving up drinking

-Giving up the hilarious sometimes dirty stand up comedy and TV shows

-Being judgemental of others

*Especially homosexuals, or non-believers

-Guilt of lusting over other women (I am a man after all...right?)

-Being alienated from friends because they don’t agree

-Giving up the opportunity to learn from other spiritual leaders and teachers

-Giving up power to “the devil” vs. taking personal responsibility

I feared judgement.  Being the recipient, and being the giver.  

It took me a good 24 hours of quitness and reflection before it all started to come to me like one of those movies where the plot thickens and thickens until the final scene where everything starts to make sense.

The life and story of Jesus is one about one thing... love. Love for humanity, love for enemies, the lost, the sick, and the suffering.  It’s not about judgement.

Judgement is a human condition to make sense of things that we do not understand.

Being a follower of Jesus is about being committed to love.  That’s all.  Everything else is noise, noise of the human condition.

I am happy to say that I am a follower of Jesus and will be at the Men’s retreat with my church in two weeks.

Have a wonderful day, I hope you enjoyed the read.

Credibility...Wait...who are you again?

People always told me, "You don't need to prove yourself to anyone but yourself."  That is unless you're trying to do something significant with your life.

What's your track record for success?  Before I was a young professional, I was just young.

Every time I wanted something in life, it took some establishment of growth in my credibility with others and myself.

At 15 my parents promised to help pay for my first car if I committed to play one sport a year, every year of high school.  So I chose cross country.  The easiest sport in the world that was nearly impossible to get kicked off from.  Or so I thought.

My mid-semester report card shows up and coach tells me, "Don't bother coming to practice, until you fix this."  I'm not passing three of six classes.

To tell you this was the only problem occurring in my life at this point would be a lie.  Everything in life for me was HARD. 

I can't adequately describe the emotion of dissappointment I felt in myself.  I can handle all the detentions and trash pick up for being a wise ass.  But once it becomes public knowledge...I break down.

Like all teenagers, I desperately want the acceptance of others.

I go to tutoring, pick up my grades, get my attitude in check, make the Varsity cross country team, and 

make my parents, coach, and most importantly myself PROUD.

I learned THREE life altering lessons from these events:

1) I can do anything with the help of others. My worst class, Geometry, went from a D- to an A- with after school tutoring from Mr. Soto.  The teacher who gave me enough time to figure it out.

2) Expecting the best in others allows their best to show up. If my coach had said, "You're no good for this team.  You must be some type of idiot to get grades like these" I probably would quit. Rather he leaves me with a choice..."fix the grades, or leave."  No judgement.  Only choice.

3) Self Credibility is the key to maximum achievement.  By getting results, and honoring my commitments, trust in myself grows.  Trust is the catalyst to confidence.  Confidence is the precursor to action when uncertainty is present.  Maximum achievement requires ones ability to force growth, over come challenges, and move through uncomfortable spaces in life. Self-credebility is the starting point.

5 ways to create Self-Credibility?

1) Make commitments, and honor them...even when you have an excuse not to.

2) Complete something you start, even when something "more interesting" pops up.

3) Clean something that's dirty.  The act of improvement stokes the fire of achievement.

4) Create a habit that will make you more successful...even one you've given up on in the past.

5) Do something you've been avoiding.

Matthew Kelly is one of my favorite writers who states that successful people "believe the future can be greater than the past, and THEY can do something about it."

Self-credebility and self-confidence cannot exist in the same space as self-judgement from past mistakes exist.  

Although I often find myself saying "You've tried this before and it didn't work then.  What's different now?"

What moves me through these places of self-defacation (you read that right), is to DRAW STRENGTH from past achievements and accomplishments when "the future became better than the past." 

Self-credebility (private win) -> Public Credibility (public win) -> Street Cred (worldly influence)

Honor yourself today and take a step into that future life you want by creating credibility in yourself.