Welcome to Wise Men Wednesday, your weekly dose of Christian wisdom to thrive at home and in your business.
Posts published this week:
Love Your Neighbor Like John The Baptist:
Writing this made me realize I’m not doing enough to help those around me. Far too often I forget how great my life is and I often believe I’ve earned these comforts I enjoy. That I’m responsible for them, but this is completely false. Everything in my life is a gift from God.
It can be very uncomfortable and nerve-racking to leave a life of comfort to help a stranger. But let me close with this except from the excellent book Taking Men Alive, by Jim Wilson, which I suggest you read:
“You may fear being taken advantage of. That is normal. Nobody wants to get walked on. Nobody wants to be stomped, even very strong people. In general, everyone would rather do the walking than the getting walked on. No one is naturally willing to be a slave to someone else because that means the other person is in control and can do what he wants, and it might not be nice. Yet who really wins when we make ourselves vulnerable to the lost? We do, and they get won to Christ.”
Promote Your Favorite Employees and Ignore Your Bottom Performers:
Do you play favorites?
Many leaders spend the majority of their development and coaching time with their weakest team members. This is easy to do because they need the most attention and are fairly demanding. The phrase the squeaky wheel gets the grease became a cliche for a reason. But this is another leadership cliche that needs to be retired.
I don’t like working with bottom performers. Instead I like to work with stand out team members and coach them to an even higher level.
You should be spending most of your time with your employees that actually have the capability of carrying your team.
In case you want to catch up on all the prior posts the full catalog is here.
Words of wisdom:
“I do not believe one can settle how much we ought to give. I am afraid the only safe rule is to give more than we can spare. In other words, if our expenditure on comforts, luxuries, amusements, etc., is up to the standard common among those with the same income as our own, we are probably giving away too little. If our charities do not at all pinch or hamper us, I should say they are too small. There ought to be things we should like to do and cannot do because our charities expenditure excludes them. I am speaking now of ‘charities’ in the common way. Particular cases of distress among your own relatives, friends, neighbors, or employees, which God, as it were, forces upon your notice, may demand much more: even to the crippling and endangering of your own position.”
Mere Christianity, by C. S. Lewis
Listen to this excellent podcast episode on the EntreLeadership podcast: How to Run a Be-Rich Business with David Salyers the former CMO of Chick-fil-A
Have a great rest of the week!
James Quandahl