Monday Musings - “EntreLeadership”
It’s Monday, September 22, 2014
It has been a while since I have “mused”. New season + new schedule = New busyness that takes some time to adjust. Forgive me for my silence.
I just spent 5 days in Nashville, TN, attending Dave Ramsey’s “EntreLeadership” conference. Many know of Dave’s financial programs that have changed the lives of millions, but not as many know of his leadership leg. A few years ago he wrote the book “EntreLeadership” (a blend of entrepreneur and leader) giving away the playbook to the success of his company. It could very well be one of the best books on business and leadership that I have read. When the opportunity to attend this conference came about I jumped at the chance.
Leadership is leadership so while the book and conference are geared toward small business owners, the principles apply universally. I came home so full of knowledge and inspiration if for no other reason than for myself to get better as a leader. I also hope and pray that there will be spillover into my leadership with our teams as well as our staff. I will not bore you with all of the specific details of what I learned as many of them have to do with being more effective in our office settings, but I will tell you this:
What we do matters!
I saw business men motivated to tears with inspiration as to how they can make their businesses and their staff more effective, creative and purposeful. I couldn’t help but think, “These people are so motivated with purpose and they are selling widgets and services”. That's amazing and I am so thrilled that there are going to be people in the workforce that have that mentality about their goods and services. I had to ask myself, “What is it that I am ‘selling’ that gets me up in the morning with that kind of determination, passion and resolve?”
Hope.
I get to be a part of something that is so much bigger than myself that has so much significance in its offering. We offer people hope. Not manufactured manipulative hope in humans, but rather hope that there is a God that is promising eternity. That's huge.
I came home with even more passion about what we do on a Sunday morning, why we do it, how we do it and who it is for. I said it yesterday at church. People matter. God doesn’t need our help and yet he chooses to use broken people to offer the hope of wholeness. He uses flawed humans to point to his perfection. He uses unresolved people to usher in his redemptive purposes.
I don’t take this lightly and perhaps I have in the past. I want to be a better husband, father, leader, staff member, and human because people matter and I have an opportunity to be of service and influence to others.
…and so do you.
Verse of the day:
Accept one another, then, just as Christ accepted you, in order to bring praise to God.
What I’m listening to:
“Jesus Loves Me” - Chris Tomlin
Music theory Nugget:
I had a great conversation this last week about the priorities of what we do musically between Thursday and Sunday so I thought I would take this time to expound on that.
Thursday is an intentionally music driven time and experience. We hone and we sharpen our skills so that we are all on the same page and have unity of understanding as to what is to be expected come Sunday. So we are direct with our musical requests" “Let's do that again,” “Fix that,” “That’s not right,” “Let's clean this up” etc etc…
Come Sunday, we need to be “present”. Not present as in your body can be accounted for in the building, we need you connected. We need your heart and soul to be on display for all to see. That is the difference that will transcend performance. If your performance is you being vulnerable enough to let your face and your body display the reality of how you feel about God, yourself and others then we can’t get enough of that, in fact we need more! If your “performance” is one of trying to prove that you are connected then that's when it becomes just that, a performance.
We pound out rehearsal so that we are not learning on Sunday morning. We are confident in our musical offering so that we can be engaged, connected and present.
If you are still reading this, thanks for hanging on to my musings. More to come next week.
Bobby
