Category: Leadership

Techno Savior

This is the first part in my series on 5 life lessons that I learned from Labor Day weekend in 2005, while volunteering with efforts after Hurricane Katrina.

On that Monday and Tuesday I served in a temporary data center for a 6,000 person shelter that had been setup at the River Centre in Baton Rouge, LA.  As a computer guru and web application developer, I knew that a few technology tweaks could make this data processing much more useful.  It was frustrating to be there and know that something better could be done.

Then on the drive back to Illinois on Wednesday, we were listening to a Steel on Steel podcast and they were talking about how technology could possibly solve our oil shortage.  I was like, “Yeah… technology can solve any problem.”

Then, suddenly, I realized what I was saying.  I really did tend to think that technology can fix any problem.  Technology is amazing.  It can solve starvation, resource scarcity, data analysis, recovery from natural disasters, etc.  It can literally save people.  Or can it?   Can technology fix all our problems?  I sure tend to think it can if we can just wrap our minds around a solution.

I realized that much of the time I look to technology to fix us, instead of God.  The world’s core problems can only be solved by God.  My deepest problems can only be made right by God’s miraculous touch.

If I don’t watch myself, I start to worship technology, rather than the one who created order to our world and gave us the left and right parts of our brains in order to develop and apply technology to our worlds.

Lord, help me to rely only on you and realize daily that technology is something you created for us to use to glorify you.

How do you tend to worship technology?  What else do you worship instead of God?  Politics?  Wealth?

5 Lessons from Katrina

At the beginning of this year I tried to post a series of blogs about what I learned in 2007.  I never did get past the first post, because I quickly realized that I didn’t really grasp yet what I’d learned in 2007.  It’s often hard to look at your recent past and fully understand what you’re in the process of learning.

But, tonight I was reminded of a huge thing I learned during Labor Day weekend in 2005.  That was the weekend following disaster in the Gulf Coast, known as Hurricane Katrina.  As I was thinking about this one lesson that I learned that particular weekend, I realized that there were some other lessons I learned that weekend.  And each of these were really huge, significant lessons that have shaped my life since then.

So, this is an introduction to 5 key lessons that I learned from the weekend after Hurricane Katrina.  Read about my 5 lessons here over the next few days:

  1. Techno Savior
  2. A Little Less Action, and a Lot More Talk
  3. Pray Tell What?
  4. It’s Safer Driving from the Back Seat
  5. Shouldn’t This Be Less Fun?

One of the habits that I want to develop is documenting my life lessons and glimpses of when I’m certain God showed me something.  These lessons from this one weekend are just that.

How do you remember when you learn a life lesson?  How far after an experience do you typically need to be to understand what that experience has taught you?

Lencioni on Enjoying Work & Obama

At the recommendation of a consultant, I recently read The Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lencioni.  It was a quick, insightful read and I really liked Pat’s writing approach.

Recently Ken Coleman at Catalyst interviewed Pat for their podcast.  Pat offers up some advice on:

  • team building by understanding personalities
  • athletic coaching
  • how to keep a job from being miserable
  • interesting comparison of Obama to JFK

Check out the interview with Patrick Lencioni, starting at about 20 minutes into the following interview:

I’m quickly becoming a Lencioni fan.

What do you think makes for a miserable job?

What do you think of Pat’s comments on Obama?

Discipline, Procrastination, & Passion

Recently I’ve been putting a lot of thought into why I actually do, or don’t do, things. I mean, why is it that I a tend to live an undisciplined life? Why do I not want to do my laundry, wash dishes, lose weight, eat healthy, etc.? You’re issues may be different, but I bet there are things that you feel like you should do, but have a hard time following through with them.

Last week an idea really clicked with me. Living a disciplined life should not be the goal. Rather a discipline is something that I do so that I can live a certain way. The act of taking out the garbage isn’t my goal. Eating healthy isn’t my goal. Rather those are things that I do so that I can live life and not get distracted by those things.

So, what are some of my goals? I want to live a life full of passion. I want to be connected in meaningful relationships with people. I want to help people experience a meaningful life. So, I need to strategically lead my own life so that things don’t distract me from these goals. That’s where discipline enters the picture.

I want to focus on a few disciplines that help me to not get distracted from my goals:

  • By spending time in God’s Word, I can learn from His passion.
  • By focusing on my health, I can live more vigorously and invest more freely in relationships.
  • By studying and reading, I can develop skills in leading people.

I need to understand what my motivation is. It’s so easy to get caught up in a task and forget why it’s even important.

Where have you lost your motivation recently? What is an area of your life you want to grow in, and how can a discipline help with it?