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Leaving the Mountaintop
Leadership is always clearest and compelling on the mountaintop of vision. You see as far as your mind will let you. The expanse is comprehensive, invigorating, and calming almost impossibly at the same time. Sometimes you’ve worked tirelessly to get there, thinking of nothing else but the summit and its beyond. But no sooner than…
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Out of Touch
Doors and walls are not inherently bad. But with enough time spent only on one side of them, the other world becomes more of a mystery than reality. More importantly, when the people on the other side become a mystery, trust inevitably becomes scarce – and leadership is really in peril. The rulers of this…
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Lionhearted
We often think that to be like a lion is simply to be brave and courageous, or to live like the “king of the jungle.” But it is far more complex. Lions show courage in the face of most danger with purpose and ever-mindfulness of what is truly much bigger than themselves. For a lion…
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The Church Built For One
A church is not always what people may tell you it is. It can be many things, places, people, and moments. It doesn’t have to be a multitude, certainly not an enormous building, and it doesn’t even need a sound. Sometimes church is just a quiet place for a highest calling and purpose to simply……
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The Crossing
Leading change and innovation is a journey that often requires a leap into the unknown. Not just once, but many times. The hardest part is not testing the water. It’s crossing it fully, and with the scale of many having the will to join you. Every year there is a massive movement of individuals across…
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The Tortoise and the Flower Farmer
Challenges will happen in life, some that have an immediately visible cause and others that do not. If people don’t see the bigger picture, however, they are likely to blame the someone or something in front of them that they least understand. A strange man settled on the outskirts of a village. He had acquired…
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The Problem of the Crown Physician Chief
It’s a difficult task to wear both the pin of the monarch and the sash of the clans. No one seemed to be able to wear both and survive. The problem wasn’t the person. It was everyone around them. But one by one, the crown chiefs tried their best while the drums played. And one…
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Between the lion and the leopard
The right answer is almost always somewhere squarely between the lion and the leopard. There is a win for the lion and a win for the leopard if you’re courageous enough to find it there in the dangerous, uncertain middle. “They are trapped,” my friend said from the seat next to me. We were driving…
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To Find a Unicorn
A young leopard learns that unicorns are closer than the legends might make them seem, and yet they are also not quite what she expected in the real world around her. NOTE: this is a version of a children’s story that I wrote for my daughters and son to help them learn about seeing greatness…