Relevant Leadership Blog

Do You Know Your Value?

I love the lesson this little story teaches A father said to his daughter “You graduated with honors, here is a car I acquired many years ago. It is several years old. But before I give it to you, take it to the used car lot downtown and tell them I want to sell it and see how much they offer you. The daughter went to the used car lot, returned to her father and said, “They offered me $1,000 because it looks very worn out.” The father said, ”Take him to the pawnshop.” The daughter went to the pawnshop,

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We’re All In This Together

My mind has gone back to this story several times in the last couple of weeks. Several years ago, my friend Cindy and her kids noticed that two robins had built a nest in one of their trees. As they paid attention to the robins’ activity they realized there were eggs in the nest. Those eggs soon hatched four baby birds. Cindy and her kids took ownership of the baby birds. They loved to watch them and would check on their condition regularly. Then one day as Cindy was putting clothes away in one of the kid’s rooms – she

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Leadership & Mindfulness

Have you ever received a phone call from a spouse or a child telling you they wrecked a car? How did you react? Was your first question – Are you ok? Or was your initial reaction frustration? Be honest. . Here’s the truth. It’s ok if you felt frustration or thought “why in the world”, it’s human nature, but it’s probably not best if you said it out loud. . Learning to listen to your thoughts & choose how you want to act is the practice of mindfulness. Learning to control your emotions is a skill that is developed through

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What are your values?

Last week in my blog I mentioned my list of values and I received a lot of comments and questions about it. I have a list of values and understand their priority in order in my life. Why is it important? Because when your values are clear to you then making decisions becomes easy. Simply put – your values make you valuable. I don’t believe my values are important for everyone, they are simply important to me. I would encourage you to spend some time identifying what you value & why. It’s a very clarifying process. My values are: Faith

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Some Thoughts on Freedom

I love the 4th of July! I love fireworks, get togethers & barbecues. But most of all I love what the holiday stands for: Freedom.   And this year as we approach the 4th of July my thoughts keep circling back to the idea that you can’t have freedom without responsibility.   This idea was first introduced to me years ago when a friend told me about the idea for a Statue of Responsibility.   The Statue of Responsibility is a proposed structure to be built on the West Coast of The United States. The original idea of a Statue of Responsibility was the

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Simple Ideas for a Happy Life

At church we gave our kids little notebooks and told them to write some of their thoughts and feelings. To reflect on what was important to them. These are the thoughts that Drew wrote. He’s 8 years old & I found his ideas to be very wise: “When I get stressed looking to God is a way to relieve stress. Another way is to do a meditation 🧘‍♂️ Or listening to music 🎶 If you get sad then go to your parents, your siblings or to people who love you 😘 When you feel scared 😱, say a prayer 🙏

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The Strength To Be Humble

I love these thoughts on humility written by Lloyd D. Newell. I think humility is very misunderstood & at the same time absolutely essential to great leadership.     The Strength to be Humble by Lloyd D. Newell   A national newspaper grabbed attention recently with this headline: “The Best Bosses Are Humble Bosses.” At first, that may seem to contradict conventional wisdom – that a good leader is dynamic, dominating, and bold. But it’s been found that people who work for humble bosses exhibit better teamwork and perform at higher levels. Not surprisingly, when a leader listens to the

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What Characteristics Do You Want in Your Children?

On Sunday we drove 10 hours from Arizona back to Utah and on the drive my wife and I read a book that asked us to do an exercise where we wrote the five characteristics we want our kids to develop. This is the list we came up with. I’d love to see the list you would have.

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People Join Companies But They Leave Bosses

This week I spoke for a Pharmaceutical company. In preparation for my speech I interviewed a couple of their sales reps over the phone and went on a ride along with another rep. I found it interesting that all of them at some point brought up their loyalty based off of the relationship they had with their manager. They said things like: “If you connect with the right manager it will make all the difference” “I left my last company because of my manager and I’m staying here because I have a great manager”   You’ve probably heard the saying

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How Often Are You Having a Culture Conversation?

This week on my podcast I interviewed Tim Sanders, NY Times best selling author and leadership expert. One of the great points that Tim made was that leaders who want to build a strong culture need to have culture conversations often.   He used the example of Zappos and how often they discussed culture within their organization. From the call center employee up to CEO, Tony Hsieh, they had culture conversations on a very regular basis.   I was thinking about that idea yesterday as I was at a conference talking to Chris Tomasso, who is the CEO of First

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