Self Improvement Information

All of us have had an opportunity to follow someone.  Either in our church as our pastor, or where we work, or in our government.  All of these areas have a huge impact on our lives.  Today’s lesson, taken from John Maxwell‘s book, The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership.  They are the 3 laws of Navigation, Addition and Solid Ground.

Today’s video is a little over 3 minutes long.  Short and sweet but filled with important information.  Enjoy!

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I have worked in the business building field for over 20 years.  I have seen many different kinds of leadership.  Leadership doesn’t necessarily come with a title.  Many effective leaders have never had a title, but have risen to the needs of a group of people.

What makes a great leader?  Is it the way they talk, walk, or part their hair?  Are people born leaders?  Not necessarily.  Most often, leadership is a learned skill.  Yes, some people seem to have a more natural ability.   While others grow their leadership skills with the help of time, education and a  good mentor.

Not everyone embraces the leadership role.  Being a leader means that you are visible inside and out to those that choose to follow you.

Several years ago, I read John Maxwell’s original book, The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership.  I found it insightful.  For those of you that don’t know John Maxwell, here is a link for his bio. He has been a pastor of a very large church.  Any one that has been involved in a church setting knows to grow a large church, filled with very different personalities, takes great leadership.  As an author, he has sold more than 18 million books.  He has a leadership newsletter called Leadership Wired that I have received for several years.  Dr. Maxwell has effectively crossed over into the secular business arena training leadership skills to thousands of people.

I have a short 4 minute video for you today.  It is only a short synapses of the first 3 laws that are spelled out in detail in his book, The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership.  This video will give you a small taste of what the book has to offer.

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I was surfing around looking for self improvement topics that would add value for my twitter peeps.  I came across an article that really made me think.  It is called “Wishing It Don’t Make it So”. In this article, about an author by the name of Barbara Ehrenreich.  The premise of the article is that positive thinking is the cause of many unnatural and “bad things” that have befallen the United States.  Wow!  Doesn’t that statement make you sit up in your chair?!

The 2nd paragraph of the article says,

“In isolation, each of these facts may cause no more than mild disquiet, a sense that the harsher realities of life are being brushed aside. In fact, as a U.S. journalist and campaigner Barbara Ehrenreich has discovered, they are all manifestations of the ubiquity of positive thinking in the United States. When she began to put the pieces together, they revealed a nation in the grip of a collective delusion that does damage to people’s lives all the way from corporate boardrooms to those struggling with house repossessions and poverty.”

The article is written about someone who is from a very liberal or progressive bias.  In this article, my understanding of the premise, is that positive thinking is a negative and leading all of us down the garden path to global destruction.  Positive thinking has become so pervasive that “Anyone who was critical or unable to “get with the plan”, was got rid of, until there were no canaries left in the mine.” In other words, positive thinking has made it impossible for whistle blowers to do what they are suppose to do.  If anyone thinks negatively, they are cast out of corporate American and treated like lepers.

I have a hard time believing that all negative people have been thrown out of corporate America or are forced to change into beams of positive light.   If you aren’t  sunshine and lollipops there is no room for you in the corporate world.  My experience in the corporate world has been that really isn’t the case.

There is nothing wrong with feeling negative thoughts in the face of cancer, job losses, illness and death of loved ones.  Those are natural emotions born of frustration and loss of control in one’s life.  Those feeling should be honored.  But, to suggest that we all walk around raging about the dirty hand that life has dealt us, over and over again, seems to be a fruitless endeavor. Isn’t there enough negatives in our lives without listening to some one else?  If I was battling breast cancer, I certainly wouldn’t want to absorb someone else’s negativity.  That wouldn’t help keep my hope alive.  Reading someone on a forum talking about “sappy pink ribbons” seems like a personal affront to the Susan G.Komen for the cure movement.

I must say, that the “thinking only positive thoughts” might be a goal of some people and is taught in the self improvement industry, it rarely happens that someone is always positive, nor should they be.  The danger of that philosophy, that we attract negative things if we think negative thoughts, is the guilt that can be felt for not thinking positive and having the negative things happen to us.  We do need to take responsibility for our own lives.  To think that everything that happens to us is random is to leave us impotent and self victimized.  Rather than feeling guilt for the maladies that befall us “due to negative thinking” it would seem more productive to watch for the lessons in life that we can learn from experiencing the negative.

The natural order of things is that there are polar differences.  For every negative, there is a positive.  By experiencing negative things we can also experience the positive.  Isn’t whether something is negative or positive a matter of perspective?  Couldn’t one person’s job loss turn into an opportunity for something better?

Even the loss of our loved ones can have blessings wrapped deep inside the feelings of sadness and grief. But, is grief really a bad thing?  It may not feel the best, but to have loved someone so much that you miss them when they are gone is not a negative thing.  We shouldn’t stop loving because we may face grief later by their loss.

Call me Pollyanna.  You wouldn’t be the first.  I would say “thank you”.  To be able to turn the darkness into light doesn’t mean that you are deranged or hopelessly maladjusted.  I say, “live and let live”.  If you wish to choose the negative, that is your choice.  I, personally would rather look for the kernels of hope…after I have railed at my misfortune.