Here is a little something from John C. Maxwell:
“Several years ago I wrote down ten questions that I felt I needed to periodically ask myself. I believe that answering these questions helped to get me on track, and they continue to keep me on track as a leader and help me grow as a person. I hope they will also add value to you.”

1. Am I investing in myself? - This is a personal growth question.
2. Am I genuinely interested in others? - This is a motive question.
3. Am I doing what I love and loving what I do? - This is a passion question.
4. Am I investing my time with the right people? - This is a relationship question.
5. Am i staying in my strength zone? - This is an effectiveness question.
6. Am I taking others to a higher level? - This is a mission question.
7. Am I taking care of today? - This is a success question.
8. Am I taking time to think? - This is a strategic leadership question.
9. Am I developing other leaders? - This is a legacy question.
10. Am I pleasing God? - This is a faith question.

Peter Drucker, famously said, “People who don't take risks generally make about two big mistakes a year. People who do take risks generally make about two big mistakes a year.”

Why Positive Thinking Is Bad for You
By Srikumar Rao

The "power of positive thinking" is so firmly enshrined in our culture that knocking it is a little like attacking motherhood or apple pie. Many people swear by positive thinking, and quite a few have been helped by it. Nevertheless, it is not a very effective success tool -- and it can be downright deleterious. There are much better ways to get the benefits that positive thinking allegedly provides.

Perhaps the statement that best exemplifies positive thinking is "When life hands you a lemon, make lemonade." It seems so obvious that this is good advice that we never question the wisdom of the adage. But it does not take a whole lot of digging to unearth the flaws in this reasoning.

For one thing, did life really hand you a lemon -- or was that merely your initial, unthinking reaction upon finding yourself in a difficult situation? And is being handed a lemon really a bad thing?

No matter what happens to us in life, we tend to think of it as "good" or "bad." And most of us tend to use the "bad" label three to 10 times as often as the "good" label. When we label something as "bad," we greatly increase the odds that we will experience it as such. And that is when we assume that we need to apply positive thinking. We have been given a lemon, and we had better scramble to salvage something out of the situation by making some lemonade out of it.
How tiresome and tiring!

Think back on your life. Can you recall instances when something that you initially thought was a bad thing turned out to be not so bad after all -- perhaps even spectacularly good?

Maybe, for example, you missed the early-morning train that you always take to get to work on time, and you had to wait a whole hour for the next one. But in that hour, you struck up a conversation with someone else who had missed that train... and a beautiful friendship developed. Or maybe you didn't get a job that you desperately wanted. But then you were unexpectedly offered a much better job -- which you would not have been able to accept had it not been for the earlier rejection.
And consider the story of Olympic champion Michael Phelps. He broke his wrist after slipping on some ice. He was in the middle of intense training for the Beijing games, and thought his career as a swimmer was over. But his coach wouldn't let him quit. And though he couldn't swim for a few weeks, he kept training just by kicking his legs.

Phelps did make it to the Olympics, and he won the 100-meter butterfly by one of the closest margins in athletic history -- 1/10th of a second. Turns out the weeks of kicking had given him leg strength he'd never had before. While his opponent had to stop kicking and glide at the end of the race, Phelps was able to keep going and win.
Now, let me propose something radical and revolutionary: No matter what happens to you -- no matter how terrible it may seem -- you do not stick a "bad" label on it. You are fired from your job... your mortgage lender sends you a foreclosure notice... your spouse files for divorce... or whatever. Is it possible, just possible, that the reason you experience such things as personal tragedies is because you have been conditioned to think of them that way?

In his book Man's Search for Meaning, Viktor Frankl tells about a beautiful girl from a privileged background who was grateful to be in a concentration camp because it allowed her to connect with a spiritual side of herself that she never knew existed. Observations like this led Frankl into his life's work of trying to determine why, when faced with extreme adversity, some people flourish while others disintegrate.

Many who rise triumphantly never label what they go through as "bad" and, thus, don't agonize over it. They simply take it as a given -- like an engineer surveying a swamp through which a road is to be built. From his perspective, the swamp is not a bad thing. It is merely something that has to be addressed in his construction plan.
If you never label a situation as "bad," you won't experience it that way. You won't need positive thinking to get yourself through it. And all of the stress associated with figuring out how to make lemonade out of your lemon simply goes away.
That's a lot different than saying to yourself: "This is bad. Really bad. But somehow
I will make some lemonade out of this lemon -- and then perhaps it won't be so bad."

What you're doing, here, is falling victim to the huge pebble in the positive-thinking shoe. First you think your situation is bad. Then you think you will somehow make it less bad. Meanwhile, you can't help but wonder if you're just kidding yourself. And if you don't manage to make lemonade out of your lemon, you're devastated -- because the success tool you were conditioned to believe in caved in on you. That's why I say that, in some cases, positive thinking can be harmful.
Can you actually go through life without labeling what happens to you as "good" or "bad"? Sure you can. But you have to train yourself not to do it. You have been conditioned to think of what happens to you as being either bad or good. And you can de-condition yourself. It is neither easy nor fast, but it is possible.
Let's say you break your leg. Yes, there is some unpleasant stuff you have to do -- like having a doctor set the broken bone and going to therapy when the cast comes off. But the real unpleasantness in this situation is what you inflict on yourself: "Why did this have to happen to me? Bad things always come my way. I am in such pain." All of that is simply baggage. You don't have to pick up this load -- and the only reason you do is because you were never told that you don't have to.

I am telling you now. Don't pick up that useless burden. Don't label what happens to you as "bad." Then you won't need positive thinking -- and much of the stress in your life will simply disappear. Poof! Just like that.

[Ed. Note: Dr. Srikumar Rao is the author of the new book Happiness at Work -- Be Resilient, Motivated, and Successful, No Matter What.

Do you agree or disagree with this article? Post your comments below!

How to be a Team Player

I love watching the March Madness games. I’ve noticed through the years that the teams that win are the teams that play together. Individuals play the game, but teams win championships.

One Chinese proverb states, “behind an able man, there are always other able men.” One is too small of a number to achieve greatness. President Lyndon Johnson said there are no problems we cannot solve together and very few that we can solve by ourselves

Why do people stand alone.

1. Ego -- people don't like admitting that they can't do everything. There are no Superman or superwomen. Spinning more plates doesn't increase your talent. It increases your likelihood of dropping a plate.

2. Insecurity-they were threatened by the ability of other people. Only secure people can empower others. Woodrow Wilson said we should not only use all the brains we have, but all that we can borrow.

3. Naiveté -- if I had it to do all over again I'd get help. People naïvely underestimate the difficulty of achieving big things. As a result, they tried to go it alone.

4. Temperament -- some people are very outgoing, and they don't enlist others
You may be good, but you're not that good.

Check out other valuable resources and ideas at http://www.crosspointechurch.tv

GOD WANTS US TO OBEY HIM
"Our first problem is that our attitude toward sin is more self-centered than God-centered. We are more concerned about our own "victory" over sin than we are about the fact that our sins grieve the heart of God. We cannot tolerate failure in our struggle with sin chiefly because we are success oriented, not because we know it is offensive to God.

God wants us to walk in obedience not victory. Obedience is oriented toward God; victory is oriented toward self. Until we face this attitude and deal with it, we will not consistently walk in holiness.

This is not to say that God doesn't want us to experience victory, but rather to emphasize that victory is a by-product of obedience."

Quote taken from the book "The Pursuit of Holiness" by Jerry Bridges.

For more information about finding and following God:

How do you defeat sin and walk in obedience in your life? Comment Below?

I've heard it said, "The only people that liked to be changed are babies." I'm blown away by how many people resist new ideas and change.

Last week I heard my friend, Jeremy McCarter from Lifechurch.tv explain how people in the church will perceive you when you inflict change in the culture of the church.

1. They will Call you the Devil
Luke 11:14-15 (NIV)14 Jesus was driving out a demon that was mute. When the demon left, the man who had been mute spoke, and the crowd was amazed. 15 But some of them said, "By Beelzebub, the prince of demons, he is driving out demons."

2. They will Call you Rebel
"That guy does some crazy, wild, outlandish stuff, but he get's the job done!"

3. They will Call You Leader

Here are some famous people and their thoughts on change.

There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home." -Ken Olson, President, Chairman and Founder of Digital Equipment Corporation, 1977

• "I think there is a world market for maybe five computers." -Thomas Watson (1874-1956), Chairman of IBM, 1943

• "The concept is interesting and well-formed, but in order to earn better than a ‘C’, the idea must be feasible." - A Yale University management professor, in response to student Fred Smith’s paper proposing reliable overnight delivery service (Smith went on to found Federal Express - the professor went on to live in oblivion.)

• "640K ought to be enough for anybody." -Bill Gates, 1981

• "This antitrust thing will blow over." -Bill Gates, July 11, 1995

• "We don’t like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out." -Decca Recording Company, rejecting the Beatles, 1962

• "Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?" -Harry Morris Warner (1881-1958), Co-founder of Warner Brothers, 1927

Why I Believe The Bible is True

2 Peter 1:20-21 (NIV)20 Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet's own interpretation. 21 For prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.


I'm reading some of your comments right now. I know what you are thinking. "You can't prove the Bible by using Bible Verses. Are you aware that the Bible was written over a 1,500 year time span, by over 40 authors from all walks of life. Some of them were kings, peasants, military, poets, musicians, scholars, and philosophers.

These people wrote the Bible from different places. Moses was in the wilderness. Paul was in a prison cell. The Bible was written in three languages – Hebrew, Greek, Aramaic.

They wrote about hundreds of controversial subjects including marriage, divorce, adultery, homosexuality, parenting, and God.

With all of that time and diversity they all agreed on one unfolding story. "The redemption of human beings."

Let's take your field of choice - medicine, construction, leadership, parenting, etc. If you were to take 10 author's over a period of 10 years. Do you know how many different opinions there would be? That's right! Many!

This is one reason why I believe that the Bible is the inspired - "God Breathed" Word of God.

Why do you believe the Bible is the inspired Word of God - Comment Below!

For more information about myself and our church go to http://www.crosspointechurch.tv

Plato said, "The greater part of instruction is being reminded of things you already know."

I need to be constantly reminded of true leadership.

Here is an paragraph from John Maxwell's book, "Leadership Gold."
Leadership requires diligence, time and effort. Leadership is a willingness to put oneself at risk. The passion to make a difference with others, being dissatisfied with the current reality, taking responsibility while others are making excuses, seeing the possibilities in a situation while others are seeing the limitations, readiness to stand out in a crowd, having an open mind and an open heart, the ability to submerge your ego for the sake of what is best, invoking in others the capacity to dream, it's inspiring others with a vision of what they can contribute, the power of one harnessing the power of many, heart speaking to the hearts of others, integration of heart head and soul, capacity to care, and in caring to liberate the ideas energy and capacity of others, the dream made reality, leadership is above all courageous.