Now Discover Your Strengths – 2.0

I loved the book “Now Discover Yours Strengths” and it was great fun to discover mine: Woo, Strategic, Communication, Focus, and Arranger. I had to agree they all rang true. Now they’ve come out with 2.0 – a smaller book – very cute. Just holding it made me want to buy it and take the test again.

But I was thinking – do you really discover your strengths by taking a test? How DO you discover your strengths?

If I was wanting to know how much iron I could pump, I would keep adding weight..to see how much strength I really had. I wouldn’t pick up a couple of 25 pound weights and say..there you go, that’s my strength. I’d keep adding weight to discover how much strength I really had. (Incidentally, I don’t have very much!)

So I’ve decided that to truly discover my strengths, I need to do some things that are a stretch for me. That makes total sense. You don’t know it’s there, until you try it. Which means that failure is a huge part of discovering my strengths. Perhaps if I have never failed at anything, I don’t really know where my strength lies. Or at least what the limits are. I think I need to forget about fearing failure, and instead fear never really knowing my strengths.

Now if you add the fact that Paul says – “I can do all things through Him who strengthens me” there is some serious weight lifting that should be going on!

The Best of Blog

This post is for you Carolyn.

Carolyn is my friend who is an amazing writer. She volunteers to write for our church publications and every time hits a homerun. I can tell writing brings her much pleasure. So today some of us were trying to talk her into starting a blog. So for you, Carolyn…here’s the best reasons to blog. Maybe you’ll take the dive!

1. You can just get thoughts out there, and it feels great!

2. You are forced to write with at least a little bit of purpose and order, but you don’t have to worry too much about typos…people are gracious. They all have them!

3. You can touch someone with your writing. People you know, and people you don’t. It’s really fun when someone you know mentions something you wrote. Or maybe this is prideful..whatever!

4. You can run into old friends. I’ll never forget the day Stephie showed up in my comments!

5. You can meet new people, sort of. And sometimes if you are Mary they send you a birthday present!

6. You have a cool way to let people you know into your life a little bit if they are interested…you don’t have to know if they read it or not, and they feel no pressure but it’s out there if they want to read it.

7. It gives you a semi-public way to talk about things and people you care about in encouraging, inspiring ways. You can get on your soapbox, or brag on someone.

8. And if I can give a plug for VOX (sorry Mary) it seems like there are many voxers who love Jesus, want to live life for him, and are trying to figure it all out. It’s often inspiring to learn from their candid posts.

Any of you bloggers want to give Carolyn some incentive pitch in…what’s the best of blog for you?

Leadership Lesson #2 – Someone really ought to do something…

“Someone really ought to do something about this!” Don’t we hear or think that often? From a patch of ice on the sidewalk, to the plight of the homeless its a common refrain. I think or say it so often. And then get back to my personal agenda.

One thing I observe in my dad (another leadership lesson from him) is this common refrain. He notices so often when something should change. I guess its a leader’s job to see problems. Or even forsee problems before they actually occur. But the thing about my dad, is that he does something about them.

Last week he was talking to a company executive that is building a huge complex in his Iowa town. He listened and realized that there would be hundreds of workers coming in to build this place, probably needing places to stay for weeks on end. “Someone really ought to do something.”

My Dad is really smart. He knows he can’t do everything, but he can do something. He used to be the President of the Chamber of Commerce. So did lots of other men in his community. They are all getting up there in years, but they meet once a month or so as “past presidents”. He took his thoughts to this meeting. “if we put our heads together we ought to be able to give a real welcome to these workers, get some of the organizations to host dinners, open up more campgrounds, etc.” This group that usually just drinks coffee, have some work to do now.

We have a cabin on a lake in Northwest Minnesota. For 40 years my Dad has fished for walleye. 10 years or so ago the fishing had gone from bad to worse. We used to catch our limit easily. Now it took weeks to get a handful of walleye. “Someone really ought to do something…” My dad got some of the property owners together and the Big Pine Lake Association was born. They are working on water quality, it is improving every year. Almost all of the lakeshore owners are members. They are becoming a model for water clean-up in Minnesota.

No one can do much on their own. Yet so often we think or say the words “someone really ought to do something…” My Dad often chose to be the “someone” instead of hoping another someone would act.

That’s a leader.

There was a bad storm a couple weeks ago. My Dad’s entire small town lost electricity for a few days. The neighbors were cold and hungry. “Someone really ought to do something…” My 83 year old Dad opened up what he called a “neighborhood shelter”. He built a big fire in his fireplace, got some hotdogs. Invited the neighbors over to eat, to stay the night. He cooked dinner for them the next night too.

That’s a servant.

There is so much pain and sorrow in the world. You don’t have to look very far to find it. “Someone really ought to do something…”

Enough Light for the Next Step

I ran across this quote from Henri Nouwen. He mentors me through his writing. One of the best. This quote resonates with my blog title “Journey in the Dark.”

“Often we want to be able to see into the future. We say, “How will next year be for me? Where will I be five or ten years from now?”

There are no answers to these questions. Mostly we have just enough light to see the next step: what we have to do in the coming hour or the following day. The art of living is to enjoy what we can see and not complain (or worry – my edit) about what remains in the dark.

When we are able to take the next step with the trust that we will have enough light for the next step that follows, we can walk through life with joy and be surprised at how far we go. Let’s rejoice in the little light we carry and not ask for the great beam that would take all shadows away.”

Enjoy your next step by His light! Sometimes it’s even good to walk blind-folded. Like that trust game you played as a kid. Each step definitely leads to the future, whatever that may be. You’ll know it when you get there.