Saturday, May 24, 2008

How Valuable is Life?

How valuable is life?

How valuable is YOUR life? Better yet, how valuable is the life of the person you love the most?

Why does it make the news when workers are trapped in a coal mine? Why do we stare at the TV in shock when we learn an earthquake in China has killed tens of thousands of people? What makes our hearts ache when we hear a local high school student died in a car accident?

How valuable is life?

How far would you go to save the life of a loved one? What would you do to keep them alive? How far would you want someone to go to save YOUR life?

How valuable is life?

If your life was disabled indefinitely from a horrible accident, what would you want to happen to your life? If you were unable to communicate, would your loved ones keep you alive, or let you die? Can an accident change the value of your life? Do you think your life would be worth less?

If your most cherished loved one was disabled indefinitely, would you keep your loved one alive or let them die? Is their life worth less?

How valuable is life?

What if you were going to be disabled in a tragic accident tomorrow morning on your way to work? Would you rather die than live?

What if a person told you were going to be disabled in a tragic accident tomorrow morning on your way to work and you would remain on life support for 15 years, but at the end of that 15 years technology would be invented that would allow you to return to a “normal” life?

Would you want to wait 15 years? Would you wait 15 years for your loved one?

Who wouldn’t?

How valuable is life?

Tuesday, May 20, 2008

Over Prepare

Over prepare. How many people over prepare? Most people under prepare. Most people try to prepare as little as possible and just get by. “How little can I prepare and still get away with it?” is the question most people appear to be asking themselves.

Have you ever finished a project, taken a test, given a speech, or presented material to your superiors, and after it was all said and done, thought to yourself, “Man, I wish I wouldn’t have spent so much time preparing”? I doubt that happens very often, but I wonder how many times in a week, or even how many times in a day, you have thought, “Man, I wish I would have prepared more for that.” Or, “why did I not spend more time preparing?!”

Has that happened to you? It sure has to me. And you know what? I’m kind of tired of those times. I’m fed up with them. I don’t want that to happen anymore. Under preparing has frustrated me much more than over preparing ever could.

I just watched an online video of leadership expert John Maxwell, and he said something to the effect of “Over prepare and go with the flow. It’s better than under preparing and trying to create a flow.”

I had a meeting today, and I felt slightly over prepared for the meeting. I wondered if I was taking the meeting and my role in it too seriously, but half-way through the meeting, I realized that I was indeed slightly over prepared and that realization was actually liberating. I had a firm grip on what was being covered and those I was leading would have a much better understanding of the subject matter because I was over prepared, and not under prepared.

“There are no traffic jams on the extra mile.” Over prepare.

Thursday, May 1, 2008

Leadership Thought

Are you the respected Captain of the ship, or the chartered Bus driver?

One ensures the ship gets to where it needs to go, and does what it needs to do. The other goes wherever the passengers tell him to go.