Choose Your Culture

Where do you spend most of the time in your life? My guess is for most it will be in the workplace. Each week, we have 168 hours to live. If you sleep like most average Americans, you probably don't get much more than six hours of sleep per night. Which means, you would have 126 waking hours to experience. If you approach your work like most of us do then, one way or another, you probably spend somewhere close to 50 hours either in or traveling to your place of work. I would suggest most Americans spend over half of their lives at work.

Here is the point. If you are going to spend over half of your life in a place with people who aren't the people you love most or to whom you have the most commitment, why would you not want to do your part to make it the most positive, productive, and powerful experience of your life? Yet, the culture experience at work being produced by most of us is toxic to say the very least. We live it and then go home completely wasted. Then, we get to take on the hard part of living. Is there any wonder family life in this country has and is being ravaged.

I believe we need to create workplace cultures where we receive energy to live the rest of our lives. Before you think it, I know it is work. I also know work done well in the midst of others who are equally committed to creating a special, if not protected, professional environment in which to work can be an experience that is both healthy and positive.

Here is your reality. You are going to have to choose to create it. You cannot wait for others to produce it. You can encourage others to join you in producing it. You can't wait for management or ownership to produce it. They can't do it for you, and in many cases, they won't. You can, however, manage up and influence them toward the difference it will make in company productivity, morale, and ultimately, profitability.

Start a movement in your workplace. Begin as you travel toward it. Listen to something instructive and positive. Choose to represent the culture you want to experience. Respect others. Recognize the kind of behavior in others, management included, you want to continue to experience. Determine to grow and develop. Learn something even if it does help "the man" make more money. Do it for you. Learn to communicate clearly and with power. Engage conflict and learn to produce through the opportunity it represents. Then, go home. Take home with you the energy you will have created. Do well, my friends!

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Life's Limiting Factor

Life is difficult and fear is the complicating factor. In fact, it is the limiting factor in all of our lives. It complicates life because it limits the relationships we were meant to know and enjoy. Fear serves to limit us on several levels, however, it does its primary work in the area of intimacy in relationships.

Fear of someone really coming to know us is one of fear's most limiting factors. The best definition I have ever heard for intimacy is "the ability to share our most present fear with absolute confidence". It is our lack of confidence in who we are that serves to defeat us. Because we are insecure in ourselves, we hide from others.

We are afraid to get too close to others because of our fear of losing them. Once again, fear tends to limit the very thing we were meant to enjoy. We stay afraid of losing something we were never meant to own. Relationships are not possessions. They are privilege. They are meant to be a life experience where we can love and be loved.

Fear keeps us afraid of exposing ourselves and all of our weaknesses. We don't want to look, or feel, foolish. In fact, we work overtime to keep from being seen as we are. We disguise ourselves. We wear masks to hide our weakness. We want to avoid being vulnerable at all cost.

We will only come to know true relationship with others when we allow them to know us as we really are. It is when we allow ourselves to be vulnerable to another person that we begin to know and be known. It is by engaging our fears that we conquer them. The work begins within. We have to find peace. Our identity issues need to be settled. It really is a spiritual matter. Knowing others begins with knowing ourselves. Make peace with self and know peace with others. Do well, my friends.

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How Will You Think?

Why do we think the way we think? We think the way we think because of what we have experienced in life up to this point in time. So, as we begin this new year, we all have the opportunity to think new things because we are all about to experience the unknown of tomorrow. A few weeks ago, I suggested that there is one thing you can depend upon during the year to come, and that is the unexpected. You have a life waiting for you over which you have no control except for the way you will respond to it. Your thinking will be changed forever because of the reality of the unexpected.

What will you do, on purpose, to influence new thought for yourself? I mean knowing that you will have things happen, over which you will have no control, what will you do, on purpose, to influence yourself? I want to encourage you to begin this new year with a determination to change your own thinking. It is going to happen to you anyway. Why not approach it with specific intention?

Begin by meeting new people...on purpose. Make the decision to spend time with people you admire. Contact them and ask for the opportunity to interview them. Ask them questions that make a difference. What motivates them? How do they handle disappointment or failure? How do they deal with conflict? Who has influenced them the most? How have they gone about maintaining some kind of balance in their lives? If they had anything they could change, professionally speaking, what would they do? Keep the time short but make it meaningful.

Read something you have never read before. Read a different genre of book or material to wrap your mind around. Think about reading Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl. Read Oh the Places You'll Go by Dr Seuss or Harold and the Purpose Crayon by Crockett. Read The Traveller's Gift by Andy Andrews and think through unique eyes of history. Pick a classic. Choose some poetry. Read Scripture again for the first time. If you want a suggestion as to where you might begin then read Stephen Covey's, The 8th Habit. If you get into it then read, or reread, Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Covey. I would personally encourage you to begin with The Arbinger Institute's, Leadership and Self-Deception. Just read something.

Ask new questions. Change old habits and choose some new ones. Spend time looking through the eyes of children. Get up earlier and watch the sun rise. Choose to specifically pay attention to more sunsets. Take dance lessons. Learn a new language or at least study a new culture. Watch the Discovery channel. Spend some time alone just for thinking purposes. Maybe use the time for listening to God.

I just want to encourage you to begin this year with new intention. Intend to think, on purpose. To a measured degree, what you think will determine how 2014 will go. Do well my friends living a purposed new year!

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Everyday Miracles

Everyday really is a miracle. Think about it. Every breath you take is a miracle in and of itself. Everything you see is a miracle. Having eyes that provide insight into the world itself is a miracle. What we call natural is really not natural at all. The expression “natural” childbirth is really pretty ridiculous. If you have ever witnessed the birth of a child, you could never think in terms of it being natural. It is an “out of this world” experience from beginning to end.

How about all of the “coincidental” things we experience in this life? What qualifies as coincidence? What if they aren’t coincidental at all? What if they are meetings that have been intended from the very beginning? If you think about it, relationally speaking, our story is not coincidental or chance based. We were born in a particular place, at a recorded time, to specific people. Our life entry suggests purpose and intent. Coincidence and chance simply do not qualify as an adequate explanation for who and where we are. Neither does it qualify for our intersections in life. Our chance meetings simply do not qualify as chance.

Bruce Wilkinson wrote a book a number of years ago called The Prayer of Jabez. The book captured the imagination of the world because of three short Biblical verses that celebrated the spirit of prayer. People all over the world were awakened to the reality of a supernatural heritage from which we can draw. Jabez looked to his God as One who could “expand his territory” and who would provide him blessings beyond his ability to imagine. All he needed to do was ask in faith.

Wilkinson has now written a sequel to his expose on Jabez entitled, You Were Born for This. In this book, he suggests that the prayer of Jabez actually ushers us into an every relationship to the world of “miracles”. His suggestion is that every single day we can look forward to living in the midst of the supernatural. He describes God as being One who is actively moving in His world and who is inviting those who believe to join with Him on a providential journey.

It is ultimately all about life perspective. We get to choose. Are we living a life of coincidences? Or, are we living a life that provides the potential for miracles everyday? While you can argue against the reality of a heritage and a calling that is a miracle from beginning to end, I am not really sure why you would want to. Think about it. Do well, my friends.

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Fierce Leadership

Welcome to Tappe Talk, a Purposed Connection podcast by The Tappe Group. Leadership is not easy.  Allen spends some time discussing why we should take a more passionate approach to leadership.

1. It is our destiny
2. It is our responsibility
3. Its is our opportunity
4. It is our role to play
5. It is our integrity
6. It is our fulfillment and our joy

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 To comment on this blog, click on the COMMENTS link located directly below. I would love to hear your thoughts!

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Changing Seasons

The seasons are changing. Fall is falling. You can feel it in the air. Things are getting cooler and precious rain is falling. I love it. However, it won't be long before Winter will be blowing in and it is not a pretty thing in Texas. At least, not in Dallas/Ft. Worth. Our snow is ice and it can get brutally cold. Of course, people in Montana would not have much sympathy for us nor would those living in Michigan, Minnesota, or Alaska. It is all relative. However, even when Winter comes we know that the relief Spring is just aroung the corner and the birds will sing. For awhile at least, and then the blast of Summer's heat will be felt. We will begin to look for some place cooler to go or we will look for water to soothe our sense of burn alongside some beach. And then, Fall saves us again. Somehow, nature knows just what we need.

I think life has its seasons, too. Sometimes it is so hot we don't think we will survive. We can't breathe. It feels that was for many of us right now. Then, we will feel some welcomed relief. Things will ease. And, I think that is where we get confused. Somehow, when relief comes our way, we think it is going to stay that way. We believe that we will stay in the glory days of Spring and we throw caution to the wind. Life is good. And then, summer's blistering heat hits us between the eyes. We have to quit being surprised by the changing season's of life. Life, like nature's seasons, will change and we may not like the experience. So, what do we do? I think we invite them. I think we should learn from the wisdom change brings.

Think about it. In the midst of this brutal season of life, what have we learned. People are getting actively out of debt and they plan to stay that way. Others are realizing that life is more than a job. Still others are gaining new understanding of continued education. Learning is becoming a lifestyle for people who had otherwise become stale and tired. Without the extreme discomfort of this season, it would never have happened. It is like there was a need for change and it came our way at just the right time.

I think we need to realize life is dynamic. Like the seasons He created, God knows how life needs to turn. His timing is always just right. It really is good to believe and trust that Someone knows and understands. I think He can handle it. Do well, my friends.

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Maximizing Our Resources

As we have turned the corner and are into the 2nd half or this year Allen encourages us (in this past podcast) to give some serious attention to maximizing our resources. So, we start by evaluating our unused resources.

• Make a list of all of the resources you have at your disposal
• Create an analysis for how you are using those resources available to you
• Change your life response to maximize the resources you have been given
• Journal the difference the change makes in your life and work experience
• Spend time giving thanks for what you have been given and for what they mean to you
• Invest time in helping others understand what they are leaving on the table

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