Then Decide

Instagram: bobgoff

Most of our decisions are driven by either love or fear.
Figure out who's doing the talking, then decide what you'll do.

-- Bob Goff

LT: Accomplishing Something Together

​I want younger leaders especially to know that few things are as satisfying as the experience of accomplishing something together.

-- Gordon T. Smith

I would have to say that accomplishing something together may have been among the most instructive elements of my early experience as a developing leader.

Wherever I Can Find It

​I want to pursue truth wherever I can find it (or, wherever it finds me)

Ethical Infants

We have grasped the mystery of the atom and rejected the Sermon on the Mount. . . . Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. We know more about war than we know about peace, more about killing than we know about living.

-- General Omar Bradley

I am aware personally today of how easy it is to be binary (and, so hard to be open).  I have to continue to learn the way of openness - faith (living).

Say It: "I Don't Know"

The more that you learn...the more you figure out that you don't know very much....

We always want to be calibrating and updating our beliefs.

Confirmation-bias, motivated reasoning...are going to cause us to protect our beliefs which are part of our identify.  

Embracing uncertainty invites people to be your collaborators.

-- Annie Duke

It Is Necessary

​Make yourself a priority once in a while. It is not selfish. It is necessary.

-- Oleg Vishnepolsky

32

Today, Tami and I have been married for 32 years.  Stopping to consider the significance of that — there is something kind of miraculous about it.

I'm not sure we've ever been more unified and unique.  Perhaps, this is a matter of awareness — we have come together in so many ways, sharing so much of a vision about life and so much more free to both be and to allow each other to be our unique selves.  I am so grateful for the way this works over time and that God has been so merciful to us, individually and together.

Over this last year, we have faced some challenging things; each in our own way.  And, we have done it somehow together.  Some things feel like they are being torn away from us.  At the same time, new things have formed; we wonder about how these realities work, how they may even be necessary.  Dying and rebirth = growing.  As we look ahead, we are excited about the future, about what we are discovering and will yet discover...about God, about life, and our marriage.

Tami amazes me — I'm so glad we're in this together.

Reflection

Mirror Lake, Banff National Park

I've noticed...that I am drawn to reflection — literal and metaphorical.

And, sometimes you need some distance from something in order to see.

LT: Bringing You Problems

The day people stop bringing you problems is the day you have stopped leading them.  They either lost confidence that you can help them or concluded that you do not care.  Either case is a failure of leadership.

-- Colin Powell

Same Way

I speak to everyone in the same way, whether he is the garbage man or the president of the university.

-- Albert Einstein

Spiritual Director, Fool

The person who has himself as a spiritual director has a fool for director.

-- St. Teresa of Avila

Snow & Light

Snow and light — speech without words.

Human Emotions

Man, I'm having a blast these days with the progression of the Saturday Mornings posts. Such a great convergence (more visible at some times than others, to be sure) of ideas.

Like this:
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I'm exploring the emotion of my anger these days; how about you, what are you wondering about in your life?

Wisdom Begins In...

Wonder — when I saw this, I had to get it, as it expresses how fond I am of this perspective of wisdom.

Like a profound and reverberating truth, it is full of so many graces — descriptive, instructive, aspirational, unencumbered, and wide-open — for how it works for me and my view of others through it.

Prefers to Life Itself

It is merely that when a man has found something which he prefers to life itself, he then for the first time begins to live.

-- G. K. Chesterton

Not Like Magic

Self-discipline is not like magic — you don't just try something and then, "poof", you automatically grow by 1.5%. Self-discipline is something that can create a context for growth to occur. That context, when reinforced over and over, can produce substantial growth, especially over time.

Stories You Tell Yourself

​Since you always believe the stories you tell yourself, embracing who we are is the first step to becoming who we want to be.

-- Mareo McCracken

Want To Be

​Unsuccessful people make decisions based on current situations. Successful people make decisions based on where they want to be.

-- Benjamin Hardy

Alive and Active

Obviously, then, the 'Word of God' is bigger than the Bible itself — in other words, it is bigger than a book.  The Word of God is present in the Bible, as it is everywhere else.  In that way, it is living, not just 'there'.  And, it is moving — circling, penetrating, revealing, leading; it is active, not passive.

So, what activates the efficacy of this truth in me?  It has something to do with me, my disposition to it, my working assumptions about it — how awake I am to it.

It is almost as if this — Word of God — is life itself.  If I want to be alive and active, I must recognize it (wherever it is), because it informs and impacts my sense of reality.

What Everyone Gets Wrong About The Economy

Something You Attract

​Your level of success will rarely exceed your level of personal development, because success is something you attract by the person you become.

-- Ryan Holiday

BS

​People believe their own bullshit.

-- Dom Price

“In the digital world, we’re privy to an abundance of knowledge,” he says. “We believe getting smart means knowing more, but in fact, it is not. We’re not practicing what we know. The acquisition of knowledge is dangerous when you don’t practice it.”

In order to succeed, Price argues that you need to understand the importance of unlearning—identifying the things you know that you don’t have time to nurture, and then letting some of them go. Continue here....

— Stephanie Vozza

Work We Have To Do

I've noticed...​that at least on the human level, the work I have to do to develop and grow is primarily mine — no one else can do it for me.

LT: Don't Listen

​Leaders who don't listen will eventually be surrounded by people who have nothing to say.

-- Andy Stanley

Monday Morning, Pastor Press Conference

Isn't Slow

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The beauty of Scripture is that it reminds us of the reality (observable in many places) that God has been entering our human contexts from the very beginning, with great purpose...inviting us to reconsider all of our conclusions about life and Him.

We Each Must Enter

What a remarkable perspective, from someone hurt so badly by Larry Nassar:

In our early hearings. you brought your Bible into the courtroom and you have spoken of praying for forgiveness. And so it is on that basis that I appeal to you. If you have read the Bible you carry, you know the definition of sacrificial love portrayed is of God himself loving so sacrificially that he gave up everything to pay a penalty for the sin he did not commit. By his grace, I, too, choose to love this way.

You spoke of praying for forgiveness. But Larry, if you have read the Bible you carry, you know forgiveness does not come from doing good things, as if good deeds can erase what you have done. It comes from repentance which requires facing and acknowledging the truth about what you have done in all of its utter depravity and horror without mitigation, without excuse, without acting as if good deeds can erase what you have seen this courtroom today.

If the Bible you carry says it is better for a stone to be thrown around your neck and you throw into a lake than for you to make even one child stumble. And you have damaged hundreds.

The Bible you speak carries a final judgment where all of God's wrath and eternal terror is poured out on men like you. Should you ever reach the point of truly facing what you have done, the guilt will be crushing. And that is what makes the gospel of Christ so sweet. Because it extends grace and hope and mercy where none should be found. And it will be there for you.

I pray you experience the soul crushing weight of guilt so you may someday experience true repentance and true forgiveness from God, which you need far more than forgiveness from me -- though I extend that to you as well.

-- Rachael Denhollander

As painful as they may be, we must continue to acknowledge such things — talk about them, enter them...not avoid them.  We have such a model of entering in, in the Bible.  I suspect that this may be among the greater themes of the Christian Scriptures — God entering such contexts of our world throughout time.

And, each of us can do so; in fact, we are called to do this.  To enter, where others can't or won’t go (more on this part of the issue related to the church here).  We aren’t called to all do it for the same thing or in the same way.  So, we can have great appreciation and encouragement for others and the way they are entering the many contexts of life.

Here’s an example: http://wvpe.org/post/listening-new-year

Approval

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We can't give away love freely
if what we're really looking for is approval.

-- Bob Goff

Companioned

​The human soul doesn’t want to be advised or fixed or saved. It simply wants to be witnessed — to be seen, heard and companioned exactly as it is.

-- Parker Palmer