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Thursday, September 18, 2008

"What kind of character are you?"


When you think nobody’s looking, do you behave differently than when you know someone is?

For instance, let’s say your boss is out of town and it’s Friday afternoon. You’ve got a lot of work to do, but since the boss isn’t around looking, do you just not return to the office after lunch?

Let’s say you go to the company break room a little before lunch. You peek into the refrigerator and there’s a Styrofoam box in it. You look around to make sure no one is watching, pick up the box, and open it. There’s your favorite sandwich in it. So you take it out, wolf it down, and put the box back in the fridge.

And let’s say you’re sitting at your computer, working away, when you remember you didn’t check your email last night. So with a few clicks, you’re into your account, and reading the jokes and forwards your friends send, peering over your shoulder to make sure no one is looking.

So if someone were looking, would you act differently?

Your character forms out of what you do when no one is looking.

Wednesday, September 17, 2008

"How much paint do you use?"


I can still remember my first experience sitting down with a canvas and paints in front of me. It was in an elementary school art class. The teacher told me to sit down and paint a bowl of fruit on a stand at the head of the class. So there I sat with a blank canvas, lots of colorful paints, and a bowl of fruit. I just sat there, paralyzed; afraid to put paint on the canvas for fear of messing it up.

I remembered that experience when a budding author recently asked me about writing, specifically writer’s block. "How do you overcome it?" she asked.

"I do two things," I told her. "First, I sit down. Second, I type a word, followed by another word, and pretty soon, a story emerges from the words. Now you can change that first word later, but you’ve got to open your heart and head and get that first word out."

Danny Kaye, the entertainer, said once, "Life is a great big canvas; throw all the paint on it you can."

Remember: good enough is good enough. So just get started throwing paint and writing words as you make a life.

Tuesday, September 16, 2008

"What's your story?"


When I speak to groups, I always get this question. Almost weekly in my email, I get this question. As I’m coaching a business person or couple, I get this question—"How do you come up with all of those stories?"

My response is standard—"I listen to my life. And so can you."

You see, they’re not just stories. They’re more like spiritual windows to heaven that are thrown open on our world, but you have listen for them going up to catch what’s going on. And this listening to life can be learned and you can learn it, too.

One of the fun activities I have some of my coaching clients do is to write down their experiences when they see or hear or run into God somewhere in life. There is just something special about writing it down. Writing forces you to process the experience because you have to choose words to describe it. And this process makes you slow down long enough to make a life.

So listen to your life and make a life, not just a living by writing down your experiences with God. Then share them and watch them grow!

Monday, September 15, 2008

"Do you see it all?"


Did you enjoy the opening and closing ceremonies of the Beijing Olympics? I watched most of them and marveled at the pageantry, precision, and scope of the size of everything.

And as good a job as NBC did televising the experiences, I got the idea from watching and even listening to the commentators that the cameras just couldn’t capture the totality of what was going on in the "Bird’s Nest." I mean think about it for a minute—one second there are fireworks going off outside. The next second, there’s music isolated around movement in the center of the coliseum. But then simultaneously there are video images displaying on screens around the upper perimeter. Then there are two huge drums suspended high above the floor, slowly moving toward the center.

Cameras can only focus on one thing at a time. So you miss some things. And when you wear blinders on your life perspective, you limit your enjoyment of God to one thing at a time when God has a whole lot more to share with you.

Listen to life—all of life—and make a life today.

Sunday, September 14, 2008

"Are you stroking to win?"


It’s so amazing that Michael Phelps won eight gold medals in the Beijing Olympics last month. What amazes me the most is the way he captured gold in one particular race; the event he won by one-one hundredth of a second. You realize that’s the blink of an eye, right?

The commentators said the difference in the race was the way Phelps finished. His closest competitor made a stroke and glided to touch the wall, stretching out his arms as far as he could, depending on the momentum of his previous stroke. Phelps was just as close to the wall, but finished with a half-stroke. He stroked one more time and reached the wall in a blink of an eye sooner than the other fellow. That was the difference.

Sometimes the difference between winning and losing is only half a stroke. Phelps and the other swimmer were virtually identical in ability in that race, but Phelps proved that God-given ability isn’t always enough.
Determination makes you a winner. Determine to stroke to win your game of life as you listen to life and make a life today.