Listening to “Walking in a Winter Wonderland” as our family prepares for Christmas Eve.  I wanted to wish you all a most wonderful Holiday season and to thank you for all of your efforts at making your world of work and our world in general a better place to work, live and play.  Your comments over this last year have lifted my spirits and blessed my life.

Thank you and Merry Christmas from Me and Mine to You and Yours.

Kirk, Rebecca, Brittany, Jake, Josh, Brooklyn & Ashlyn Eve

When my kids used to come and tell me they were  bored,  I would assure them that the only person responsible for their state of boredom was them, and that they were the only ones that could change it.   I was taught along time ago that if there are truly any boring people in the world, they are the ones who are complaining about being bored.

The purpose of life is not to be entertained.

The purpose of parenting is not to keep our kids entertained, but to cultivate in them a desire for education…a hunger for learning.  Likewise the purpose of life is not to be entertained, but to cultivate in ourselves a love and longing for learning.

I agree with Norman Vincent Peale who taught “You only lose energy when life becomes dull in your mind. Your mind gets bored and therefore tired of doing nothing. Get interested in something! Get absolutely enthralled in something! Get out of yourself! Be somebody! Do something. The more you lose yourself in something bigger than yourself, the more energy you will have.” 

I don’t know if my kids are bored anymore… but I do know they don’t come to me about it if they are. 

The holiday season is a perfect time to take a few days off from many things…but growing, serving and becoming is not among them.

Get Engaged… Stay Engaged… and STAY SHARP

Kirk out

 

Learning and teaching are not optional activities for leaders.  They are the very means by which any and all positive change and forward momentum is gained.  They are how people and organizations learn to see themselves and their abilities growing.   The teaching leader transforms organizations by transforming people.  Teaching helps people move towards their full potential and the organization they carry on their shoulders cannot go there without them.  No organization, or individual can be ‘saved in ignorance’.

We must teach, and we must learn… they are two sides of the same coin.

Teaching leaders change lives forever. 

Kirk out

It isn’t the mountain ahead that wears you out - it’s the grain of sand in your shoe. Robert Service

I remember a few times when I was younger that I didn’t want to be bothered with the time it would take to empty my shoe of something, or unbunch a wrinkled sock.  Later I complained quite freely about the resulting blister like I was a helpless victim of an unavoidable malady. 

One of my friends, Gordon Birch taught me, “You can do it hard easy or you can do it easy hard.”  

It was easy to not take off my shoe… the blister was hard to live with for the next few days.   It may have been hard for me as a youth to sit down and take a shoe off but if I had… I would have had a much easier walk.

I’m not a youth anymore…but I still often find myself on the wrong side of the hard easy.  It’s easy not to eat right, exercise or read worthwhile things.  The hard result of such a choice will be poor and declining health and declining opportunities professionally.

Hard easy, or easy hard.  It’s not the mountain that will get you ….it’s not doing the little often hard things that allow you to get injured, side lined and slowed down on the journey.

Do the hard thing first…  Choose  HARD - EASY….

Kirk Out

Two gas company servicemen, a senior training supervisor and a young trainee, were out checking meters in a suburban neighborhood. They parked their truck at the end of the alley and worked their way to the other end. At the last house a woman looking out her kitchen window watched the two men as they checked her gas meter.

Finishing the meter check, the senior supervisor challenged his younger coworker to a foot race down the alley back to the truck to prove that an older guy could outrun a younger one.

As they came running up to the truck, they realized the lady from that last house was huffing and puffing right behind them. They stopped and asked her what was wrong.

Gasping for breath, she replied, “When I see two gas men running as hard as you two were, I figured I’d better run too!”

So as we “Run to get things done”… lLet’s make sure we know and those around us know - what we are running for!  And most importantly let’s make sure we are running after the right things for the right reasons! : )

Kirk Out

I know we all can’t be Google but we can consider doing something Google does.  Google surprises me in little ways as they occasionally celebrate others with a change in their iconic logo.  Opening up my browser to find this new little spin on their logo makes me happy.

I freely admit in the grand scheme of things it’s a small thing.  But in relationships the small things are most often the biggest things of all.  The small things can also be the most neglected, the easiest to overlook, put off, or just dismiss. 

NOT TODAY!  Today I will do some small things to serve the people around me….and I’ll try not to let them catch me doing it!  I’ll start by eating my spinach…. something my Mom seldom saw me do as a child, but if she could see me now…she’d be so proud.  Then, powered up like Popeye…I’ll dive into the dishes and dirty laundry before my flight out today,  so my wife Rebecca can focus on other things.  Then…. I might buy a hot chocolate for the person behind me at Starbucks….or give up my first class seat to a soldier coming home…or ….. or   WOW the possibilities are endless.   But first I need to POWER UP…, I need to start with “Spinach for Breakfast” YUM!’

Kirk

I have long maintained that one of the primary roles leadership is to teach. 

Leaders must both teach and learn from and with the people they serve.   While we learn from and with the people we serve for many obvious reasons I would like to highlight one of the less obvious reasons.  We learn from and with our people so that they can see their leaders learning.  Our people, like our children, learn how to learn from us.  It is an undisputed fact that children who have parents who read are far more likely to be better readers than those who do not.

Likewise in organizations that have developed strong learning cultures there are overt signs of leaders who learn.  This learning occurs in both formal and informal ways.  The formal ways may include institutional training programs, obtaining required CEUs, conferences etc.  These are important, helpful and necessary but they are not the most influential element of a strong learning culture.

INFORMAL LEARNING -  is where the real magic takes place.  This is where, because of the leaders own passionate pursuit of personal excellence and development people around them are affected as they are infected by the leaders contagious enthusiasm and example.  They see their leader learning more and becoming more.  They see their knowledge, competence and confidence increasing and these attractive attributes attract their attention and can awaken and inspire in them their own longing for learning.

Great leaders are teachers…. and the truest and most noble purpose of teaching is not to impart knowledge but to change lives for the better…it is to improve the human condition.  The most effective teachers teach by example.  Yes feet must match mouth, but we are far more effective when our words match our footsteps.  Then as we talk joyfully about the walk we are already on we allow our example in inspire and invite others to do the same. 

As leaders let us teach to change lives - and use words if necessary.

Grow for it!  ~ Kirk Weisler

Adversity has the effect of eliciting talents which, in prosperous circumstances, would have lain dormant.  ~– Horace (65-8 BC) Roman Poet

Adversity does awaken something in us that is rarely, if ever, is awakened during times of comfort and contentment.  To be content with what one is alloted may be wisdom,.. IF, at the same time we strive to not settle for less than our fullest potential.  This is both a choice and the challenge of a lifetime.

Adversity can make us bitter or better, discouraged, or determined, feeling depressed or feeling blessed.  

Learning to treasure and be grateful for adversity… is part of any chanpions journey towards the worthy and worthwhile.

Kirk out  

 

“Individuals who are positive in their thoughts always tend to look upon the brighter side of life. With their faces turned toward the sunshine, they attempt to see the good, even in the bad. Such individuals habitually think thoughts of a positive nature and they are a blessing to the world. They are in a Positive Vibration, and therefore attract other positive personalities to them.”  ~ Bob Proctor - Author & Speaker

Sing it, love it, live it!  GROOVY BABY

Kirk

 

I have been thinking a lot the last couple of days about what happens when we “settle down”.   I remember as a kid hearing “OK, settle down.”  As a parent now my kids hear this from me.  And if they’re breaking furniture or bones then “settling down” in that context is probably not a bad thing. 

But in the bigger context, the life context… too often settling down seems to equate to settling for less, and settling for less equates to settling for less than the best.  By best I mean “your best” and “my best”.  The minute we stop striving to be and become our best…we settle for less.  Maureen Dowd said it this way,

 ”The minute you settle for less than you deserve, you get even less than you settled for. “

If your Tom Cruise and your worth millions, or if your just a regular Joe like me and you happen to be on Oprah…  don’t let anybody tell you to “settle down”.  You just JUMP AWAY!!