To Serve well

Serving with Excellence for a Life of Excellence

Workplace

Serving well in the workplace

It’s Maundy Thursday today (also known as Holy Thursday or Covenant Thursday). I don’t really celebrate, so to speak,  but always have in the back of my mind that I needed to “go deeper” in my thinking. The significance is that it commemorates the Last Supper of Jesus Christ with the apostles. In other words, those people that became like family in the process.

That day, we also hear the incredible part of the story of Jesus kneeling to wash the feet of his disciples, and while doing so lets them know what is about to happen, giving them the following beautiful instruction:

“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.”

I love that Jesus modeled how to serve well in the workplace so to speak. Without deep reflection, these are the easy lessons I pull from the Maundy Thursday celebration:

  1. Those that work alongside us should become like a second family to us. Caring for them in the workplace and having a great awareness and caring of their personal lives is important for a thriving team. The bottom line is we are to love, and to me that means showing our genuine concern for their lives. (Please know that just like we sometimes have, Jesus faced opposition even within his own team of disciples… He loved them anyway.)
  2. Leaders with humility are rare and important. We should all strive, whether we are leading great numbers or leading ourselves to be humble and honor others when we can. (Side note: There is always an opportunity to give honor.)
  3. Finally, communication is central to any healthy workplace. Jesus was sharing a tough message, but he took the time to gather his team, to celebrate their accomplishments and to share what the near future looked like, equipping them with encouragement and direction. There is a lot to be learned here for all of us.

Have a simply wonderful weekend everyone! Oh, and GO ROYALS! (It’s finally baseball season again!)

Check your complaints at the door

Have you ever stopped to listen to people around you, and even the conversations and comments that happen in your own home?

“The weather is awful. I can’t believe I have to go out this early in this cold.”

“We have nothing to eat.”

“Everyone else has their holiday stuff out already. I have no idea when I am going to do that.”

“The traffic was so bad this morning.”

“He/she is so rude.”

“I weigh 1,000 pounds right now.”

“I am so tired.”

“The line is so long.”

“Parking is disastrous.”

“I can’t believe we have to wait.”  And even: “What, they don’t have a Starbucks?”

All of this seems harmless, right? Except it’s not.

Too often I am struck by the ease by which we simply fill the world (as in the one we live in… in our cars, homes, workplace and yes, even when we are out actually doing something fun). The feeling I get from the barrage of these types of comments can be draining and honestly, I think it can make us physically sick.

I thought it was timely to point this out so we can redirect. It goes along well with the conversations we have had on joy, wonder and living positive lives so that we can serve our purpose here in the best way possible. I heard a message not too long ago where they suggested you pray for a spirit of conviction when you complain. Let me tell you, it’s dangerous… but good. You may feel like you are generally always positive, and this could surprise you. You for sure will notice the conversations around you need to be infused with something different.

Our words impact the ability for us to be AWESOME. Let’s do better!

Have a great week!

Simple Thoughts Sunday: Spread more joy

(Photo creds: Unsplash.com)

(Another throwback for you on this glorious Sunday, because who doesn’t need a reminder to spread some joy?) 

Joy is contagious! It transmits the type of energy needed to thrive. If you are in the work place and happen to be a leader, this may just help your employee satisfaction or engagement as well. Bottom Line: Folks want to work, live and serve where they are happy!

Joy makes a person more productive! I don’t know about you, but getting a bit more done in my given 24 hours would be a huge positive! I found this great little article to back that up.

Joy can make you healthier!  That same article highlights the great benefits of joy, which include reducing stress, solving problems easier and fighting disease! I am all about all of those! A great blog post here that goes a bit deeper!

As you get ready for another week, remember to take some time to spread joy! I promise you will be better for it.

By the way, don’t put it off until later, stop now and send three brief messages and fire up the joy. It will be the best five minutes of your day.

Hello August!

(Photo Creds: We Heart It!)

Happy August ya’ll!

I don’t know about you, but July was both super long and also fleeting. I always have a bit of anxiety when July ends, because August seems to rush in with back to school and a lot of competing agendas in the workplace, community etc.

I always seem to be holding tight to the invisible rope attaching me to longer summer days and cancelled meetings due to vacation schedules. Summer is just a bit easier. August means we need to start the process of putting our game face back on and get fired up to make the last half of the year count! I’m ready – perhaps a little reluctantly! How about you?

So, here are some thoughts I have as we set ourselves up for GREAT SUCCESS in the last five months of 2017:

I think we need to start with a strong game plan. Not a multi-point strategic document, but a handful or less of key “must haves” for you to feel like you slayed the year in the best possible way.

Here’s my #1: Go BIG on PHYSICAL AND SPIRITUAL WELLNESS. Keep this top of mind, force it in my schedule, focus on my spiritual life, stop eating s***,  exercise more, challenge myself, renew my commitment to discipline in all things in this category… (Here’s the thing – I can’t do what I need and want to do without amazing health and energy, so it has to be #1)

Others on the list…

Stay focused on my “50 year” plan. That little document I put together to identify the 13 things I want to do this year leading up to my  big “50” in March… Let’s just say I’ve got some work to do.

Career growth. I launched a health care strategy company in May and need to get laser focused on where God wants this to go. It has a different “feel” or rhythm than my career so far, so I need to get in the “flow” of this new world!

Parenting. This is always a top priority because I want to be the best mom in whatever stage the boys are at. As they get older and they begin to take on this whole “adulting” thing, I need intention and guidance on how to step up in the best way possible. It’s always top of mind.

I think I have a few others, but the intent is to get you started with your “short” list this week. Let’s make every day count. I hope you’re reading this on a beach or lake somewhere and still soaking up summer. I pray it’s been ridiculously restoring and if not, that you figure out a way to carve out some time before the days shorten.

Always cheering you on!

– Lori

Cultivate… something that brings joy

(Photo Creds: We Heart It)

I love the idea of community gardens. If you aren’t familiar, community gardens are managed by a collective group of people, generally to meet a need in a community. That might be an area that doesn’t have access (financially or otherwise) to fresh produce, but also teaching. No matter the reason, it is a positive initiative that brings great value to our communities… and improves health and happiness.

Our church is doing a sermon series right now on the idea of “cultivate.” This has me thinking about areas in my life where cultivation is needed.

Cultivate has a double meaning, one being to prepare and use land for crops or gardening. We do this by tilling, plowing, fertilizing, mulching, watering, weeding, etc. It is HARD work as anyone who has run a garden knows. The second meaning, according to Google, is to “acquire or develop” a quality, sentiment or skill.

The two definitions are connected, as it is my thought that anything that is developed requires a level of passion and good ole’ fashion work.

I wrote down the word “joy” in my program on Sunday. I’m not sure if that was an example given, or if I felt that was the immediate area I could use some FOCUS on. JOY is so important. I am usually an evangelist for SPREADING JOY in our world, and feel like we all need to consciously keep that top of mind.  The momentum that comes from a “joy campaign” can be incredible.

While you may have an area of your life that you want to “cultivate,” I am hopeful some of you will join me in generating some JOY in our homes, neighborhoods and workplaces! What can you do today to ELEVATE AND CULTIVATE JOY?

What if … Today I ….

(Photo Creds: We Heart it)

If you are in the workplace and have anything to do with marketing, you might follow Seth Godin.

He has daily, short blogs that offer up simple ideas on pushing you to the next level in creativity. His recent post caught my attention, and my mind took it another direction. His title, “Three simple and difficult steps” offered this:

  1. Get Smarter. Hurry. (Technology and life is moving fast)
  2. Solve interesting problems.
  3. Care. More.

His thinking was that most people do one of these, but what would happen if you became the type of person and does all three? You might add leverage and value and ultimately choices to your life.

I thought it was good, but here’s where my mind went with it…

What if today we set a goal to acccomplish something that really impacted our life/world? What if today was the day that we did not operate our daily routine, but instead choose to take a new route to work, craft a personal mission statement outlining what we’d love to do right now, and set forth a plan to make it so?

One day can be so impactful, yet we often let our days become routine and settle in. I like settling in, but I LOVE feeling energized and like I’m really doing something important. That one is much better! How about you?

What can you do today to UP YOUR LEVERAGE? To get smarter, or change paths or to just be a part of a nicer and better world?  My guess is that we can ALL DO SOMETHING.

Love and technology help the world go ’round

(Photo Creds: My Own)

South by Southwest (SXSW), the “convergence of the interactive, film and music industries” is an annual event (since 1987) held in the ultra-fun city of Austin Texas.

Over the 30 years, it has grown in scope and size and the “coolness” factor is off of the charts. Technology has become a key player and big names such as Twitter were launched into the public conscious at SXSW. (A bit of research shared that Twitter only paid $11,000 in 2007 to host some signage at the event… and from there, they were able to blow up their brand. Influence grew from there.)

All of that said, SXSW seems to be a great place for those “game changer” hopefuls to see and be seen. I personally haven’t been – though hopefully next year! – but have been a “follower” for a few years.

Here’s what stands out to me: technology is the single greatest influencer in our lives right now. Well, that and love… One helps the other is what I’ve found. When you bring it together with music and the arts, it’s a marriage made in the heavens.

Just why is that? The tools of technology have helped us simple humans express love in more active ways. It’s pretty cool that on your birthday, your friends and family from all generations of life can send you a greeting and spread the love and good energy. That’s an easy example. I also love that my mom can text now and that alone has given us an opportunity to cheer one another on, which didn’t exist at that level prior that technology. Instagram and Snapchat allow us to share visuals that bring us joy.

(But, of course, technology can also be blamed for mass sharing of negative. To be honest, my feeds are 95+% positive so in my opinion, we have the ability to scroll or swipe past the “stuff” that makes us crazy… our choice.)

Two key messages today:

  • Embrace technology and the “movements” such as the annual SXSW event that help leverage those into our world… (By the way, I have listed below the various tracks at this year’s event so you can see the diversity and potential impact to our society.)
  • As crazy as technology can sometimes make us, FOCUS ON THE POSITIVE and that it is a  TREMENDOUS VEHICLE FOR LOVE… sharing and growing. We can use this to our advantage and create a world that we all would love to be a part of.

Finally, for all of those that wished me a happy birthday, I want to thank you! Sometimes I get busy and don’t take the time to utilize that awesome feature on Facebook, so I greatly appreciate all of those that took the time to reach out! It  means the world to me that you did. KEEP ON SPREADING THE LOVE.

SWSW17 TRACKS:

  • Brands and Marketing
  • Design
  • Development & Code
  • Government
  • Health
  • Intelligent Future
  • Style
  • Tech Industry
  • Workplace
  • Entertainment influencers
  • Film & TV Industry
  • Making Films & Episodics
  • Making Music
  • Music Industry
  • Music Influencers
  • Touring & Live Experience
  • CLE  (Continuing Legal Education)
  • Experiential Storytelling
  • Food
  • Journalism
  • Social Impact
  • Sports
  • Startup Village
  • VR/AR (Virtual/Augmented reality technologies)

Joy is a function of gratitude and gratitude a function of perspective

(Photo Creds: We Heart It)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This phrase stopped me in my tracks. I was simply reading yesterday’s advent message and I had to take a moment to let this idea soak in. I get the idea that once we are grateful we can be more joyful. That seems simple to grasp. If I can understand how blessed I am and call those areas out, my life is happier and more joyful.

The second part hit me, because I think since gratitude does have to come first and we have to realize it’s not that simple if your perspective has shifted. Like most of you, I have many friends and family that have a different perspective due mainly to unfathomable loss that they have experienced. This can be in their health or of someone they care for, loss of a relationship, or even the sudden loss of a loved one. THESE REAL LIFE REALITIES NO DOUBT SHIFT your perspective and possibly can get some stuck in “neutral.”

This “neutral” creates, in some situations, not necessarily a heart nor soul that is ungrateful but a heart that can’t quite get to full gratitude and joy. After all, the pain is real, and our human nature causes us to not easily hurdle over pain to shouting joy to the world.

So, what to do? As you know, the goal of my writing almost always goes back to how to best SERVE WELL in our homes, communities and workplaces/schools etc. We really need to remember that we have an entire world around us that isn’t feeling joyful during this season. We need to maintain an empathetic PERSPECTIVE and do what we can to be that smile and that listening ear to possibly help move someone out of neutral and into gratitude & ultimately joy.

Have an amazing holiday weekend!

It’s LAUNCH TIME!

groundbreaking_01

(Photo Creds:Rodrock Homes)

New seasons of life are fun, exciting and also scary! My family and I just “dug dirt” on a new home last month, and today I am launching my new and improved website. I call it phase 2.0. I think maybe I should call the move something else, something clever. I’m open to ideas! I tell my friends that this is my “big girl” house, complete with a guest bedroom that is actually safe from kid toys, teenage God-knows-what and most importantly, a lovely refuge for those I adore to get a good night’s sleep. It’s definitely a time of “ground breaking” all the way around, and a season that I am really looking forward to seeing where God takes it all (but it is a bit scary… needless to say! But what’s life without a little risk taking?).

If you, or anyone you know is in a season of “ground breaking” — change in any way, shape or form — I have found the following to be helpful when thinking about change:

1. It’s an opportunity for personal growth
If you’ve read my blogs at all you probably know that I am big on this need to constantly learn. I’ve heard it from wise teachers, centurions and respected leaders… That’s enough for me. Personal growth is critical to our happiness and change provides the occasion for us to dive in and grow. The “STRETCH” that happens with change gives us what we need to move toward our potential.

2. It provides a platform for re-evaluating life’s priorities
Whenever you are starting something new, you naturally think through how this aligns with your personal values and priorities. With the blog, well, I knew I wanted to continue to grow in that area so that was fairly easy. With the house, I had to put it to prayer for quite some time before I had discernment. At the end of the day, I want a home that my boys and eventually their families and my grandchildren will find refuge and fun in. I want to entertain and bring in community, to provide a refreshing place for all. (Oh, and I also want my guest room!)

3. Change adds EXCITEMENT
Without a season of planting we wouldn’t have the harvest. I can only imagine how boring the farmer’s market would be without HARVEST. Without change, we’d have a bunch of ugly caterpillars and no beautiful butterflies — you get the picture. One brings the other, and the other is often MORE EXCITING!

As I embark on this new “season” you can rest assured I’ll be focused on both the growth and the “STRETCH” that surely will come. I hope to share words of inspiration and insights along the way that I hope will also expand your personal growth.

I WOULD BE HONORED IF YOU WOULD ENTER YOUR EMAIL ON THE RIGHTHAND SIDE OF THIS POST AND SIGN UP TO RECEIVE THE BLOG ALSO BY EMAIL.  

Some notes about the blog…

I kicked off the website and blog in June of 2015 with the goal of just taking the step to get started. I have known for quite some time that I am meant to write, and blogging gives me an opportunity to do that on a consistent basis. I am also about 70 percent through my first book, To Serve Well.  (I have no specific time that I want to release that but I feel like it will be before my big 50, so I have one year and five months, but who’s counting!)

I hope that the fresh look on this site will not only be more visually appealing, but allow those that land there to find posts and other resources or materials that will enrich their lives. SERVING WELL in this world is so important, and what we are all called to do. Having others come alongside and help us so that we can achieve that is a key of this site. I love it when folks take time to comment and share their thoughts on whatever the topic is so that others can learn and grow from each other.  

I will still be posting three times a week, with Simple Thoughts Sunday being posted on Sunday early evening with the goal of inspiring your week. This posting generally has spiritual content. I also post on Tuesday and Thursday mornings, and those are intended to focus on serving well in the community, home and workplace. If you have any ideas for me, I’d love to hear them! If you want to write a guest post, I’d also love that!  

I’d love to give a shout out to my design team, Ruthie Stark, photographer and Andrea Corless, MO Design & Illustration — Both of these ladies are beyond amazing and have made me better through this process. THANK YOU SO MUCH!

Fire up the JOY: A retro post worth repeating

blog_845031_2965601_1476144341I love this post so much from last October that it bears repeating!

  1. JOY is CONTAGIOUS – It spreads the type of ENERGY needed to THRIVE! If you are in the workplace and happen to be a leader, well then, this may just help your employee satisfaction or engagement as well! Bottom line: Folks want to work, live and SERVE where they are happy!

  2. JOY makes a person MORE PRODUCTIVE! – I don’t know about you, but getting a bit more done in my given 24 hours would be a huge positive! Check out this great little article to back that up.

  3. JOY can MAKE YOU HEALTHIER! This little article outlines nicely the great benefits which include reducing stress, solving problems easier and fighting disease! I am ALL ABOUT all of those! A great blog post here that goes a bit deeper!

As you get moving on this BUSY TUESDAY (busiest day of the work week, in case you didn’t know), remember to take some time to SPREAD JOY! I promise you will be better for it! By the way, don’t put it off until later, stop now and send three brief messages and FIRE UP the JOY. Best five minutes of your day!