Posts

Intentional Leadership — D5, W2, M6 — Perseverance

We have come to the end of week two…Friday’s sure do seem to come quicker these days, especially when one is really busy.

I’ve been in Guatemala City all week, working with John Maxwell, EQUIP, and my fellow John Maxwell Team-mates preparing for and teaching Transformational Leadership to groups of leaders from the seven streams of influence: Government, education, business, media, arts & entertainment, the faith community, and family. We have been teaching the principles shared in John’s 15 Invaluable Laws of Growth (this is really powerful material; if you are at all inclined toward growing yourself, and you haven’t read this, I highly recommend it. In fact, I take that one step further and recommend you join a Mastermind Group on this topic and work through the book with a small group of other growth-oriented individuals so you can learn together and from each other), as well as 15 values inherent in transformational leaders.

It’s been an amazing, invigorating, exciting, educational, and fun week. I’ve stretched and grown. I’ve helped others stretch and grow. I’ve stepped out of my comfort zone in many ways. I’ve met some amazing new people. I’ve gotten to know so many of my JMT Team-mates so much better. I’ve discovered new opportunities I hadn’t even imagined. We donated a variety of materials and supplies to some orphanages; I brought art and school supplies, primarily.

Tomorrow, we will have our last teaching sessions, and after lunch we will be the guests at a huge party celebrating our investment in this effort of transforming the culture of Guatemala. What an amazing opportunity this has been!

So, you can see, my weekend will not be a typical time of rest and restoration! Saturday will be quite full and I will be traveling on Sunday.

What will you do with your weekend?

What relationships do you need to build, nurture, grow…repair?

What activities would you like to spend time and energy doing?

What do you need to do to be prepared for the start of a new week on Monday?

What do you need to be thinking about and planning for, for the next few weeks?

Have an intentional, enjoyable weekend!

/by

Intentional Leadership — D4, W2, M6 — Perseverance

As we near the end of week two, month six, look at the team of people working around you. What do you think are the most difficult aspects of their jobs?

As you consider this question, write down the top two or three biggest challenges you think they face.

Now, consider what simple actions could you take to help your co-workers persevere through the challenges of their daily work?

Plan it out and take action. You’ll make a huge difference in their day and you may be surprised by how good you feel…and how much easier it might now be for you to work through some of your own challenges.

The test of character is not ‘hanging in’ when you expect light at the end of the tunnel, but performance of duty and persistence of example when you know no light is coming.   ~Admiral James Stockdale

/by

Words are inadequate — Guatemala Update

This morning, the John Maxwell Team and all of the Guatemala Trip support staff (John Maxwell Company, EQUIP, Guatemala Prospera, and La Red) met in a conference room to prepare to meet our translators. All told, there were probably 170 of us in the room.

Guatemala Prospera (Prosperous Guatemala) arranged for the interpreters who will support us in our mission this week. Some of them are professional translators, some of them — many, in fact — are high school and college students studying English and translation, and they all volunteered to help us this week. We were told there would be more of them than there were of us. This make sense because our schedule is somewhat fluid, and some of them may not be available every time we need them (or for four-hour training sessions). So, they came into the room and filed past all 170 of us, to the front of the conference room we were in. They just kept coming and coming and coming…There were so many of them, it was overwhelming. And they had these expressions on their faces of anticipation and joy and gratitude. They just kept saying “Thank you for coming to help Guatemala,” “Thank you for being here,” Thank you, thank you, thank you…”

For those of you who know me, or maybe you’ve discerned this from reading my posts, you know I am RARELY at a loss for words…but I am today. I cannot adequately describe the feelings from this morning watching them come in to us…the hugs, the hand shakes, the smiles…it was an extremely emotional time for so many of us in the room.

They have been through the same training we’ve been going through this week, so they are familiar with the material. They are excited for the change to come to change their culture and improve their nation. They are familiar with John Maxwell and his teachings and seem pretty overwhelmed to see that John brought a small “army,” so to speak, to help in this endeavor. And they are filled with eagerness and some anxiety.

The woman I worked with is named Marlene. She is a professional translator, most frequently working with pharmaceutical companies, if I understood her correctly. She has two young sons. She does a radio show on Sundays that is broadcast around the country; she shares bible teachings with children and they talk about what they understood and thought of that week’s passage. She is bright and energetic, kind and open, generous with her time and spirit, and just kept thanking me for being here.

We won’t know who our interpreter will be until we get our teaching assignments. Here’s how it’s going to work: At 6 AM tomorrow morning, every one of us will be in the hotel lobby, ready for whatever the day brings. Our logistics folks will tell us where we can find breakfast and give us our assignments for the day. We won’t know, until then, if we are teaching a morning or afternoon session, where the session will be held, how many people will be at the session (average is supposed to be 40, but could be as many as 80), what interpreter we will work with, or who will be driving us to wherever we are going. What we do know is this: Tomorrow, we will be going somewhere, with someone, to teach some group, at some time…

It’s a test of how well we function in chaos, I guess! We will need to be resilient, flexible, and patient. I’ve got the first two down; looks like an opportunity to practice patience may be coming my way!

The way I see it, this whole experience/opportunity is way beyond me and what I ever imagined I might be doing…so I will happily go with the flow, be a river not a reservoir, and do my very best to prepare these people to be confident, competent facilitators of the Roundtables they will lead over the next 30 weeks to begin the transformation of this beautiful place.

Trust that if I find the words that can do the experience justice, I will share them with you.

In the meantime, have an intentional day!

/by