Motion brings Clarity | Part 3

Continued...from Motion brings Clarity | Part 2

....When you buy from the leaders, like Barnesandnobles.com or Amazon.com, their technology recommends related books each time you revisit their site.  How easy is that.

Don't be afraid to buy three to five books at a time on a subject to immerse yourself in.    Although this may end up costing you a hundreds of dollars a year, think of it as an investment in your future.  That investment today could net you many thousands of dollars tomorrow.

I remember when I was a 22 year old college graduate working as a youth minister at a small Midwestern town.   It was a smaller church and I was paid a meager salary of $300.00 a month.  I worked a part time job to bring in additional money to provide for my necessary needs.  Looking back it was some of the best times of my life.  During that initial season of ministry I was listening to one of the leading church leadership teachers of the day.  It was 1994 B.C.D - (before CD's) it was a tape.  I have lost the tape, and even forgotten the title of the leadership lesson, however I have never forgotten the message.

At the end of this tape the communicator asks the question, "What is your Plan for Growth?"  I didnt' have one.  After all, I had just graduated from college and was concerned about paying my bills, and what the theme of the next youth group all-nigther needed to be.  I was in survival mode like many others may age or older who did not realize that you either daily grow or you gradually die.  If you don't have a plan, then you have just accepted by default the goal to survive and not to thrive.

The speaker...who became an audio mentor of mine that day began to tell those listening that we needed a plan for growth.  He even went on to share that he had designed one for those what would like it.  The plan he had designed cost $699.00.  I signed up as soon as I could to launch on my plan for growth.  It was simple plan...but it was a plan.  I have found that half of life is just showing up.  The other half is showing up ready!


The plan was to spend 1 hour a day with God, listen to two tapes on leadership a week and to read one book a month.  It was the best year of my life.  Now, you have to understand that I didn't have $699.00 in the bank.  I was only making $300.00 a month as the youth pastor and the board member that I rented an apartment from charged me $275.00 for rent.  I choose to make a sacrifice, I chose to skip meals and even ate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for several meals a week (I don't even like peanut butter) so that I could find the money to grow. 

That year changed my life.  I read each of the books at least once, and listened to each of the tapes multiple times.  The hour I spend in the mornings in the Word and in prayer refined the me.  Those books marked me, the tapes mentored me.  That plan for growth spoke into the leadership DNA of my life.  I do not know where I would be today if I had not had a leader challenge me to grow.  You see, you can either pay today and play tomorrow, or you can pay tomorrow and play today!  You choose!  There is a cost to growth!

You say, I can't afford it Mark.  I would say, you can't afford not too.  Be resourceful.  Invent ways to lesson the bite for the cost for growth.  Ask your employer for an expense account for growth related resources.  Let your employers know that the books can then be put into a library that other employees can use.  Not every boss may agree, but some will, so it's worth a try.  Make a book list to send to your family as ideas for Christmas or birthdays. Check books out at a local library for "FREE".  You can often find used books online for a fraction of the cost of new ones.  Used books are used once you read them anyway!  Don't worry about how good the book might look on your self.  After all many of us have books on our selves that give us a sense of pride which have never been read and internalized.  In short what I'm saying is..."if there is a will...there is a way!"

As you read magazine or journal artices, you can begin to look for book recommendations....

to be continued

Motion Brings Clarity - continued...

I always wanted to be somebody.  I should have been more specific.  

Lily Tomlin

Books give you knowledge.  The news gives you awareness.  The latter is a measurement of today.  Knowledge is a measure of yesterday, today, and tomarrow.  Awareness if finite.  Knowledge if forever.  The books you read today will fuel your leadership and earning potential tomorrow.

There are two types of workers in this world.  Those who work for money & those who work to grow and master their current roles.  Those who work for money never have enough.  To them they do a job and get paid for it.  There is nothing wrong with that.  However their focus is on their current income and current needs.  The second group of people work to grow and master their current roles.  Their goal of their current job is to add to their current knowledge everything they can to master it.  For this group of people...they can  never get paid enough.  They will not be average - they will always rise to the top of their organization or community.
They will always stand out from the crowd.  Like a purple cow among browns-everyone will know and see the difference!  You won't have to tell them you are different, they - they will know and they will tell the world!

Here is a practical four-step program designed to make knowledge work for you:

1. Aggregation - how to know which books to read?

When a football coach tells a player he should own the game, he wants him to know more about his position than anyone else on the field.  For example, former Dallas Cowboys cornerback Deion Sanders didn't just market himself as Prime Time, he worked like crazy.  He watched more videos than anyone else who played his position; he studied wide receivers and quarterbacks on teams he had just played or was about to play, or teams he was watching in other conferences, should they play in the future.  Imagine this guy spending hours on end with a stopwatch timing quarterbacks and receivers, until his knowledge of was so great that when the ball was supposed to hit the receiver, instead there was Deion, intercepting it running it back for a touchdown.

Read books so that you can own your own job just like Deion Sanders own his.  If I were the financier who aspires to be a banker, I would want to be fully geeked on the impact of globalism so I could sit comfortably in any meeting, knowing that  I could add value to any conversation.  Or, if I were that human relations person who aspires to be the best in his/her business, I would want to know everything there is to know about human and organizational behavior as it pertains to my job so that I could lead the pack rather than follow.  If I acquire the right knowledge, I am actively self-promoting in the best sense of the word; I have been moved up from private to four-star general in others' eyes.

 But to aggregate, you must engage in the first step - find the right material.  This is not a difficult process.  Stroll through a book store and look for title and sections that seem interesting to you.  Begin to develop key words you look for for your topic/field of desired study.  Go to an online book selling website.  There you can type in your keywords and research every available volume on that subject.  Take advantage of those sites that recommend books.  Study which ones people with similar interests purchased and follow the links to them.  When you buy from the leaders, like Barnesandnobles.com or Amazon.com, their technology recommends related books each time you revisit their site.  How easy is that.

to be continued....

2.   Encoding
3.   Processing
4.   Application

Motion Brings Clarity -- continued

"People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are.  I don't believe in circumstances.  The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and if they can't find them, make them!"

George Bernard Shaw

I have always said there are three types of people in this world:

• Those who make it happen....
• Those who let it happen...
• & Those who wake up one day and say, "What happened"

I believe God is looking for make it happen people.  Far too many of us are sitting on the bleachers of life telling others how to play the game and have never, nor will we ever get in the game.  Often times we do not even do what it takes to prepare to get in the game.  I have always believed...the will to win is not as important as the will to prepare to win. 

I have always been of the opinion and belief that I can speak life into my children.  I have four daughters - tenderly and lovingly referred to as my estrogen enhanced humans of the female gender tribe!  Since they were young I have chosen what to speak over them...one such life maxim that they have heard me say and could repeat it too you is, "The only place success comes before work is in the dictionary."   I have spoken into the fabric of my daughter's world and into their spirit the belief that if you want to be successful in this world you must work hard.  I don't want them to think that success is based on luck.  I believe luck follows hard work.

Being good at anything is like figure skating - the definition of being good at it is being able to make it look easy.  But it never is easy.  Ever!  That's what the those who are sitting in the grandstands hoping the "catch" a break think.  I think luck is far simpler...it is you taking personal responsibility to find that extra hour or two in the day that belongs to nobody else but you, and make it productive.  Put the hours in, do it for long enough, and magical, life-transforming things happen -- LUCK! 

to be continued.....

Movement Brings Clarity

I have been toying with what I am calling a "Mark Maxim" on leadership and life.  It is called "Motion/Movement Brings Clarity".  The idea behind it...one that I will be developing more and more in the future is that at times you won't or don't know if you don't start!  At times we sit and wait till we have all the information and then start...at that time it's too late.

I was tossing this idea around in my head again today, all the while wondering what the "squeaking" noise was that was coming from my daughter's room.  It was "Hammy" our daughter's hamster spinning on his exercise wheel.  As much as Hammy is just going in circles...atleast he does more than some of us do with our ideas.  I just posted a quote on my blog recently that said:

"An idealist believes that the short run doesn't count. A cynic believes the long run doesn't matter. A realist believes that what is done or undone in the short run determines the long run.

We must do something!  We can't just sit there.  Now I am not proposing movement for the sake of movement....however the alternative to me is much worse.  Just sitting where we are without doing something.

I think of the Old Testament story of the Lepars who realized if they sat there they would die...if they acted they may die...however...what would happen if they acted and were successful. 

Just some random ponderings...come back as I develop this idea more and more! 

Any thoughts?  Please respond!

Quote of the Week

An idealist believes that the short run doesn't count. A cynic believes the long run doesn't matter. A realist believes that what is done or undone in the short run determines the long run.

What to do when we don't know what to do!

In 1 Samuel 14:1-4 there is an interesting story concerning Israel's challenge of being overwhelmingly out numbered by the Philistines.  I see it as a powerful example of what to do when we don't know what to do.  Here are some quick, but powerful truths that can be extracted from this passage.

1.  God can't steer a parked car.
2.  Act on the last order's you received (possess the land)
3.  It might not add up...but it lines up! (only two swords...yeah...but we have a sharp sword)
4.  Trust him when you can’t trace Him and He will fill in the lines (God will show as we move out....)
5.  Learn how to crawl before you walk.  (Learn to get on your hands and knees as God directs you)

Just some simple thoughts...for some of you preachers....some fodder! 

Quote of the week

"Vision without execution is hallucination!"
Thomas Edison

6 Altitudes of Life

As I have lived life (as if I'm an expert...LOL...4 kids and a minivan later) there are times that I feel like I'm thriving and walking in my destiny...and there are times when I feel like I'm surviving.  The difference is not the circumstances of life alone.  I have thought hard about this and have come to realize it has a lot more to do with attitude than anything else.

Back in College I read one of John Maxwell's first books, "The Winning Attitude" where John mentions that our Attitude determines our Altitude.  Thinking about that I want to give you what I think are the 6 Altitudes of Life...

6 Altitudes of Life

• 50,000+ feet: Life
• 40,000+ feet: three to five year vision
• 30,000+ feet: one to two year goals
• 20,000+ feet: areas of responsibility
• 10,000+ feet: current projects
• Runway: current actions  

As we approach life we must understand that we can't just live on the runway of life.  Just managing to survive the current "rat race".  (If we win in the rat race of life...does that make us a rat?)  We need to find times to climb "out of the rat race" to the summit and look around to make sure our runway is facing in the right direction for our life goals.  If we have the runway facing the right direction...we need to "see" our current projects as a means to fulfilling our responsibilities.  This should help us fulfill our one and two year goals and feed our three to five year vision!  It's all about the altitude and attitude of what we are currently doing!


Just a thought!