It's Tuesday at 2:00pm! (PST Time: I live and work from Southern California)
Greetings to you!
Each week I send out a short leadership blog that's called "Tuesday at 2:00pm". The purpose of this is simply to provide a brief thought on leadership that you can read and think about in just a few minutes. I send it out every week at 2:00pm (PST) and encourage you to make an appointment with yourself to pause and think about the thing I'm writing about.
Russ...
LEADERSHIP QUOTE:
"The simple act of paying attention can take you a long way." Keanu Reeves
What does this stir up? Either write me HERE or comment at the end of the blog post HERE.
A LITTLE BIT DEEPER:
I'm on a real-life journey to understand more about the "RHYTHM OF MY LIFE" and over the next number of weeks I want to drag you on this journey with me. To read past posts, visit my full site HERE.
Thanks for being on this journey with me over the past month as I've talked about RHYTHM and shared with you some of my journey. Thank you also to those who have reached out and shared your stories along the way. That's been encouraging to me. We're going to keep going, because surprisingly enough, I haven't arrived! There are still lessons to learn, so let's keep going....
This past week, I got in my "trusty truck", and was honestly heading to the gas station to fill up, and when I started the truck, I had these three lights flashing at me.... one was for gas (and if you know me, running low on gas is a rare occasion). The second light was a "check tire pressure" warning, and the third was a "maintenance required" light. I looked at that dashboard and just laughed out loud.
This wasn't just the dashboard of my truck, it was the dashboard of my life!
Here's the deal though...
When you see these warning lights what do you do?
I had some options...
I could see how far I could stretch the gas in my tank, and run to my next appointment. A little risky, a little exciting!
I could not worry about my tires because they looked fine, so it must be a faulty warning.
I could see the maintenance warning light and just reset it because sometimes that pops on by mistake.
I didn't do any of these things....
I went and filled my truck with gas. The warning light went off.
I checked my tires... they were all fine. I need to get the light checked.
I made an appointment to have my truck serviced this week, as I do about every 5000 miles, because that's what you do if you want your vehicle to run well!
I PAID ATTENTION to what was going on, what was flashing on my dashboard, what was calling for my attention. Thus the quote from Keanu Reeves..."The simple act of paying attention can take you a long way."
When the lights on your dashboard start flashing, what's your response? Ignore it? Address it? Put it off until later? What's your first response and whats your best response?
DEEPER STILL:
DAY 34 OF MY JOURNEY as I navigate some thoughts around rhythm.
I'm reminded today that in the midst of "finding my groove and my rhythm", there is life to be lived, work to be done and relationships to be nurtured. Life goes on, is full, and is good, and you can't just stop living because you're out of sync.
My Dashboard
I'd love to have you spend some time on the idea of a DASHBOARD today.
This past week I had the privilege of guiding a friend through a LifePlan. One of the tools is a dashboard, and there are a couple of elements on the Paterson Tool that I really like.
First, there's a PATHWAY: Where are you heading? What's your vision?
Second, there's RISKS: What could keep you from accomplishing your vision?
Third, there are DRIVERS: What do you actively do to move towards that vision.
I found this definition:
"A well-designed dashboard provides on-demand access to
all of your most important metrics."
This is what your vehicle dashboard is for, and it's what your life dashboard should look like.
If you want to begin creating a personal dashboard on your own, here are some things to begin with:
1) Create a Vision of where you want to go. Spend some time getting picture of what your preferred future looks like.
2) Identify Things to Measure. What things can you measure that will help you get there.
3) Create a Habit Around That. A dashboard is useless if we don't revisit it often and "pay attention to it". Put those things in front of you often!
4) Reevaluate Along the Way. Revisit, Change, Celebrate and Start Again. This isn't a onetime thing, but it's an ongoing process of renewal.
Pay Attention to what's happening in your life and then do something about it. Don't ignore it, don't put it off. Watch for those warning lights!
Things I'm Reading, Listening To and Watching This Week:
I was just introduced to this idea called The Rule of Life. I'm reading about it in John Mark Comer's book, Practicing the Way. What I'm seeing is that the Rule of Life is a DASHBOARD for your spiritual journey with Jesus. Check it out as I learn more.
Lot's of reading this week... I just started Carey Nieuwhof's book, At Your Best. I'm not sure how I missed this, but really good conversation about priorities in my life.
I'm enjoying listening to Stephen Wilson Jr. today. Thanks for the introduction to his music John!
I'm enjoying the coffee in my Nespresso, especially the decaf blend in the afternoon!
We watched a couple of episodes of Searching for Spain with Eva Langoria on CNN. What a great way to learn about a country, and to salivate while watching them eat incredible food. We loved Stanley Tucci's tour of Italy with Searching for Italy