A Leader's First Duty

The first duty of a leader is personal integrity. Whether in politics, athletics, business, education, or family, who the person is counts for more than what she does. His title, fame, or salary can never compensate for a lack of character.

We all know it is true, but we seem to have ignored it of late. So we have been willing to overlook a person's out-of-control lifestyle so long as he can still score points and win games for our team. We have tolerated flagrant excess and sexual infidelities so long as the bottom-line stayed strong. We have put up with everything from perjury and kickbacks in public officials to abusive language and unfair treatment by owners and bosses. "After all," we said with straight faces, "someone's personal life has nothing to do with his competence for a public role."

But character, integrity, and honesty are alternate names for the thread that runs through those trustworthy people whose leadership we can trust. If a man or woman will deceive the mate to whom public promises were made and betray the children born to that union, he or she won't hesitate to step on you and me. People who are deceitful in one area of their lives will deceive whenever they deem it necessary. And the deciding factor will be their selfish interests, not the public trust or the good of stockholders and investors.

What the likes of Madoff, Blagojevich, A-Rod and others call to our minds is what our mothers taught us as little children. Play nice. Tell the truth. Don't take things that don't belong to you. Treat people the way you want them to treat you.

People who rise to fortune, stardom, or high position tend to be exposed soon enough when their character is fundamentally flawed. But we have been willing to vote them back into office, buy their music, invest in their schemes, pay to see them play, and otherwise support them in their public roles. We lied to ourselves by saying we just didn't see the connection between private life and public life, who they are as people and what they do as professionals.

We lied to ourselves by saying we just didn't see the connection!

Warren Bennis and Burt Nanus studied 60 successful CEOs of major corporations and found that almost all of them were still married to their first spouse. People who value commitments and promises value them at every level. If they live them at home, they live them at work.

If they don't honor them in their personal lives, they may not be working to do so in their business lives either.

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The Bible says this:

Whoever walks in integrity walks securely, but whoever perverse ways will be found out (Proverbs 10:9).

This ancient proverb is confirmed to us again and again. We deny it to our shame and dismay. What is true of the headline-makers is true for you and me as well.

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Written by Rubel Shelly and emailed to me by a friend.

Indian Youth's Rite of Passage

Do you know the legend of the Cherokee Indian youth's rite of Passage? His father takes him into the forest, blindfolds him and leaves him alone. He is required to sit on a stump the whole night and not remove the blindfold until the rays of the morning sun shine through it. He cannot cry out for help to anyone. Once he survives the night, he is a MAN.

He cannot tell the other boys of this experience, because each lad must come into manhood on his own. The boy is naturally terrified. He can hear all kinds of noises. Wild beasts must surely be all around him. Maybe even some human might do him harm. The wind blew the grass and earth, and shook his stump, but he sat stoically, never removing the blindfold. It would be the only way he could become a man!

Finally, after a horrific night the sun appeared and he removed his blindfold. It was then that he discovered his father sitting on the stump next to him. He had been at watch the entire night, protecting his son from harm.

We, too, are never alone. Even when we don't know it, God is watching over us, sitting on the stump beside us. When trouble comes, all we have to do is reach out to Him. If you liked this story, pass it on. If not, you took off your blindfold before dawn.

Moral of the Story: Just because you can't see God, doesn't mean He is not there.

'For we walk by faith, not by sight.'

The Lentil Seed

My boyhood dream was to acquire a big motorcycle and become a Knight of the open highway.

But getting a license to drive a bike was a completely different story! I had to learn the rules of the road by heart and practice driving so I could pass safely between strategically placed pylons without touching them. I had to learn to maneuver through crowded city streets, never forgetting to signal my intentions to other drivers...

It was a long and arduous process. But my driving instructor was philosophical about it.

I remember one particularly difficult lesson. I had taken a fall and simply could not steer the bike around a curve between the obstacles. I got upset and started to doubt I could ever succeed. "It's no good, I'll never be pass the test!" I cried.

"Calm down," my instructor said. "You may not know it, but you're making good progress every day."

I'd been a teacher myself, so I knew about the platitudes teachers use to encourage their students. Which is why I didn't believe a word he said.

"It'll take more than a cliché to convince me of that," I said.

"Tonight when you go home," he replied, "put a lentil seed in some moist cotton. Then, every day, watch it grow for half an hour. Come back and tell me what you see."

Naturally I didn't see anything. I played the game for three days, then gave up.

But finally, two months after I started and with much effort and concentration, I obtained my license to drive a bike.

On the day I took my exam my lentil seed sprouted. A tiny green shoot had pierced through the cotton. In a flash I understood the meaning of what my instructor had said.

It's impossible to make a seed grow. It has to stay underground until the moment it is ready to break through into the open air. Even if the seed were in a hurry to grow, it could not have speeded up the process. Sometimes it takes time and quiet for things to sprout in us, and come to fruition.

Although undetectable, new seeds are always present, making slow but steady progress inside us, preparing to burst forth and bloom at the right time.

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"Trees teach us patience - they do not break at the first sign of a storm."
-Carl Beaupré

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Doing What is Necessary

At home, at the office, you take care of your day-to-day life... I'm sure you have had the following experience:

Some important work needed to be done and EVERYONE was asked to help.

EVERYONE was sure that SOMEONE ELSE would do it.

ANYONE could have done it, but NO ONE did.

So SOMEONE got very angry because the work was meant for EVERYONE.

But EVERYONE thought SOMEONE ELSE could have done it...

And NO ONE doubted that SOMEONE would.

In the end EVERYONE blamed SOMEONE because NO ONE did what ANYONE could have done.

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Why keep hoping that someone else will do what you are supposed to do? Experience teaches that if you wait for someone else to do your work, you'll never find anyone and the work doesn't get done.

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"Being an aristocrat means creating your own duty."
-Nietzsche
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How to Grow a Vine

A wine grower named Giorgio called for his two sons Anton and Vitto and told them he would have to test each of them in order to decide who was best qualified to take charge of the property when he retired.

The two young men were very different: Anton was daring and mischievous, always smiling and friendly, while his brother was taciturn and hard-working, but entirely devoid of emotion.

The father gave them each a vine seedling and said: "I want you to choose the place that you think has the best conditions for your vine to grow. The one who harvests the best grapes a few years from now will take control of the property."

Anton was in no hurry to get started. "I have a lot of time before I have to start looking around. A vine grows slowly, and only yields grapes after four years anyway."

Vitto knew that too, but he decided to find the best place to plant his vine right away.

He planted his seedling on a parcel of land facing south, on top of a rocky hill. Anton made fun of him, saying: "You idiot, you chose the worst possible location! A hilltop facing south make the leaves shrivel and burn, and soil full of rocks won't allow the roots to grow. You won't get any grapes from that vine at all!"

Four years later the father once again summoned his two sons so he could taste their fruit.

Anton's basket was filled with beautiful, juicy grapes, while Vitto's basket held only a few small grapes.

Giorgio picked two grapes from each basket and tasted them in silence. The ones from Anton's basket were filled with seeds and their size was due to all the water they contained.

"Tasteless," his father said. But when Giorgio tasted Vitto's grapes his face lit up with pleasure. "These grapes are small but they're bursting with flavor," he exclaimed. "Their juice will produce excellent wine. This is very good work. How did you do it, my son?"

"I followed a simple principle," Vitto replied. "Like people, vines only yield good fruit when challenged with adversity."

(c)www.positive-club.com
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You may sometimes wonder why you have to put up with so many obstacles in life. But now you can understand that problems - the things that make you work harder - are really there to teach you. They are the events that form your character and make you the person you are today. So be prepared to confront whatever Destiny places on your path, and use it to become stronger!

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"You learn more from a good enemy than from a good friend!"
-M. de Cornouardt

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A Person is Always Unique

Did you know that scientist still haven't been able to figure out the number of possible combinations of DNA molecules? The best they've been able to do is provide an estimate: 2.4 billion to the power of 10!

That's an incredible number when you consider that the possible combinations of all particles in the universe amount to only 76 to the power of 10!

As you can see, that is vastly less than the possible combinations DNA, which form your identity.

So scientifically speaking, you are unique! There's no chance of ever finding another person exactly like you on the planet.

And you can also be sure that there never has been - and never will be - two identical human beings in the entire universe.

So why waste time and energy trying to fit into a mould? To be like someone else? You are unique, and thus radically different, no matter what you think and no matter what you do.

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The best cabinet makers always work in the same direction as the grain of the wood, never against it. You should do the same. When you have to do something that doesn't fit with your personality, that goes against your 'grain' (against your inner beliefs), you always feel it and should simply say "no". Stay unique and always refuse to do anything that may destroy your beautiful sense of unity.

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"There is One, the source, that which has no beginning and no end, which created all things, which governs all things, which is good and just, and which illuminates and supports our life." -Hermes Trimagistus

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Do You Have a "Pleasure Book?"

She is an aged woman, but her face is serene, and peaceful, though trouble has not passed her by.

She seems utterly above the little worries and vexations which torment the average woman and leave lines of cares.

A fretful Woman asked her one day the secret of her happiness; and the beautiful old face shone with joy.

"My dear," she said, "I keep a Pleasure Book."

"A what?"

"A Pleasure Book. Long ago I learned that there is no day so dark and gloomy that it does not contain some ray of light, and I have made it one business of my life to write down the little things which mean so much to a woman.

I have a book marked for every day of every year since I left school. It is but a little thing: the new gown, the chat with a friend, the thoughtfulness of my husband, a flower, a book, a walk in the field, a letter, a concert, or a drive :

but it all goes into my Pleasure Book, and, when I am inclined to fret, I read a few pages to see what a happy, blessed woman I am.

You may see my treasures if you will."

"Slowly the peevish, discontented woman turned over the book her friend brought her, reading a little here and there.

One day's entries ran thus: "Had a pleasant letter from mother. Saw a beautiful lily in a window. Found the pin I thought I had lost. Saw such a bright, happy girl on the street. Husband brought some roses in the evening."

"Have you found a pleasure for every day ?" the discontented Woman asked.

"For every day," the low voice answered; "I had to make my theory come true, you know."

The Fretful Woman ought to have stopped there, but did not; and she found that page where it was written:

"He died with his hand in mine, and my name upon his lips."


http://www.positive-club.com

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"I'm awfully worried this morning," said one woman. "What is it ?" "Why? I thought of something to worry about last night, and now I can't remember it."
-O. S. Marden

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There is Always a Solution!

Wishing to encourage her young son's progress on the piano, a mother took her boy to a Paderewski concert.

After they were seated, the mother spotted a friend in the audience and walked down the aisle to greet her. Seizing the opportunity to explore the wonders of the concert hall, the little boy rose and eventually explored his way through a door marked "NO ADMITTANCE."

When the houselights dimmed and the concert was about to begin, the mother returned to her seat and discovered that the child was missing. Suddenly, the curtains parted and spotlights focused on the impressive Steinway on stage.

In horror, the mother saw her little boy sitting at the keyboard, innocently picking out "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star."

At that moment, the great piano master made his entrance, quickly moved to the piano, and whispered in the boy's ear, "Don't quit. Keep playing." Then leaning over, Paderewski reached down with his left hand and began filling in a bass part. Soon his right arm reached around to the other side of the child and he added a running obbligato.

Together, the old master and the young novice transformed a frightening situation into a wonderfully creative experience. And the audience was mesmerized.

Whatever our situation in life and history--however outrageous, however desperate, DON'T QUIT. There is always a solution. You have the power to transform any problem into a way to mesmerize your audience...


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"Live and make the present hour pleasant and cheerful. Keep your mind out of the past, and keep it out of the future."
-John A. Schlinder

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"If there is righteousness in the heart, there will be beauty in the character". "If there is beauty in the character, there will be harmony in the home". "If there is harmony in the home, there will be order in the nation". "When there is order in the nation, there will be peace in the world".
- Chinese saying

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Life is Good!

The story is told of a king in Africa who had a close friend with whom he grew up. The friend had a habit of looking at every situation that ever occurred in his life (positive or negative) and remarking, "This is good!"

One day the king and his friend were out on a hunting expedition. The friend would load and prepare the guns for the king. The friend had apparently done something wrong in preparing one of the guns, for after taking the gun from his friend, the king fired it and his thumb was blown off.

Examining the situation, the friend remarked as usual, "This is good!"

To which the king replied, "No, this is NOT good!" and proceeded to send his friend to jail.

About a year later, the king was hunting in an area that he should have known to stay clear of. Cannibals captured him and took them to their village. They tied his hands, stacked some wood, set up a stake and bound him to the stake.

As they came near to set fire to the wood, they noticed that the king was missing a thumb. Being superstitious, they never ate anyone that was less than whole. So untying the king, they sent him on his way.

As he returned home, he was reminded of the event that had taken his thumb and felt remorse for his treatment of his friend. He went immediately to the jail to speak with his friend.

"You were right," he said, "it was good that my thumb was blown off." And he proceeded to tell the friend all that had just happened. "And so I am very sorry for sending you to jail for so long. It was bad for me to do this."

"No," his friend replied, "This is good!"

"What do you mean, 'This is good'? How could it be good that I sent my friend to jail for a year?"

"If I had NOT been in jail, I would have been with you."

Situations may not always seem pleasant while we experience them, but it depends the way you see them... the choice is yours!