Author Archives

Garry Brackett

BA - Fort Wayne Bible College
MAR - Trinity Evangelical Divinity
D.Min - Grace Theological Seminary
Birkman Certified Coach
John Maxwell Certified Team Member
Myers/Briggs Certified
FIRO-B Certified
TKI Certified
25 Years Executive Coaching

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Leadership Culture – Adding Value

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As we begin a New Year – New You dialogue, we are going to examine what it means to have the right Culture for your team. Culture is a visualization of what we value as a team, so people can see what you personally value. There is no confusion – absolute clarity is achieved.

There is a crucial question that must be asked; “Why do you want to be a leader?” There truly is only one answer – Add value to people! What? Did you really think it is about the perks and privileges? This New Year – New You dialogue is about re-examining the true essence of being a leader.

There are 4 insights that I will give you in this podcast on how to add value to your team members. First, I want you to ponder the quote by Stan Belyshev; “How many people will be better off because of who your are and what value you can add to their life?” Adding value to your team is actually a compounding work. Your effort to add value compounds through your team to other people that you will never meet. “Multiplied Value” is the image to grasp!

I go back to my opening question, Why do you want to be a leader? Leadership done correctly, compounds and multiplies like no other work. Leadership legacy is not about brick and mortar, rather, it is about helping people obtain the dreams and goals within themselves while partnering with you in a vision that is too big to obtain by yourself.

We can only value people to the degree that we value ourselves.

  • We see people not as they are, burt as we are. The cardinal sin of modern day leadership is to not value the people they are serving.
  • Intentionally love people, Intentionally believe in people’s potential, and Intentionally show unconditional love for your team. Practicing this daily will increase your desire to connect with your team rather than correct your team.
  • Perhaps you need to establish a bedrock truth for your team – There is NO ROOM on this team if you do not love people!” When you stop loving people, you risk manipulating people.

You must make yourself more valuable

  • When was the last time you learned something new for the first time?
  • Adding value to your team members requires that you get better. You cannot give what you do not have.
  • What is your “Growth Plan” for this year? What I know by experience is, if you cannot articulate it in writing you are only daydreaming. The old adage is true – If you do not know where you are going, any road will take you there.
  • You have to keep growing, learning, and developing. You must drink deeply in order to give out abundantly!

Know and relate to what other people value.

  • Learn to walk slowly through the crowd. Listen carefully as you talk to people – you will learn what is on people’s hearts, struggles, dreams, and passions.
  • One of the great challenges of leadership is to learn to take your cues from the people you are leading.
  • Care enough to actively listen to them.
    • Passive listening allows for distractions and interruptions.
    • You are never really focused on the person in front of you.
    • Your personal significance gets in the way of effective communication.
  • The biblical passage of Matthew 22:36-40 comes to mind.
    • The greatest thing that God values is “Loving Him heart, soul, and mind.”
    • The next greatest thing that God values is to love people in the same way that you love yourself.

Intentional Living Mastermind Learning Group

LINKS

Shepherds Advantage Leadership Podcast is now on iTunes – SUBSCRIBE

Shepherds Advantage Leadership Podcast is now on Stitcher – SUBSCRIBE

FREE GIFT – “The Art of Balancing Candor With Care” – Click on the icon at the bottom of the page

Executive Coaching Service– Private message me for details on this customizable serviceMusic: “8th Anniversary by Diamond Ortiz

Do the things that God values.



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Tiny Changes – Big Results

You should be more concerned with with your current trajectory than your current results. …If you want to predict where you’ll end up in life, all you have to do is follow the curve of tiny gains or tiny losses, and you will see how your daily choices will compound ten or twenty years down the line – James Clear

Tiny Changes – Big Results!


In this new 2018 book, author James Clear suggests that it is easy to overestimate the importance of one defining moment and yet underestimate the value of making small improvement on a daily basis. He suggests that habits are the compound interest of self-improvement that we engage daily. It is only when you look back years later that you realize the value of good habits and the cost of bad habits.

I am obviously not a commercial airline pilot, but I am told that if you take off from Los Angeles for New York and the nose of the airplane is pointed 3.5 degrees south and if there is no correction you will end up in Washington D.C. instead of New York. What started as 90 inches off course will end being hundreds of miles off course. Do tiny changes end in BIG RESULTS?

How you start this year is more crucial than your accomplishments thus far in life. Take some time and shut off the digital devices you can listen to the inner voice of the soul. Be bold enough to make mid-course corrections! Fear is not an excuse. Failures are not all bad and to be shunned.

Paul Said, Brothers, I have lived my life before God in all good conscience up to this day….. Acts 23:1

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Who Is Standing In Front of You?

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 15:56 — 14.6MB) | Embed

If you really want to soar in the coming year, end-of-the-year planning is not just about getting your strategy straight and your financial house in order. You also need to get your head right and that means tuning up your spirit, renewing your mental resources, and recommitting to your deepest values.

When you have a team member or potential team members stand in front of you what do you see? Are you filled with questions or thoughts of….

  • WOW, I am glad they are not on my team!
  • I hope they don’t ask to join my team!
  • They are failures!
  • Do  you see how they dress – so tacky

I want to suggest two powerful questions that will change your focus on how you view your team. These two questions will also change you action plan in dealing with your team members and how you are casting vision.

Who are they?

While literally observing your team members, do you as a leader really know who they are? Do you know their hurts, fears, struggles, and dreams? There are two great axioms of leadership;

  1. Do not ask for a hand until you have touched a heart.
  2. You do not get what you want as a leader, you get who you are.

If you continually ask for help and make demands upon your team without ever showing care for them as a person you risk the following:

Loss of engagement

Loss of productivity

Allow mediocrity to settle in

Every leader must come to terms with the idea that employees are evaluating you through the lens of the question – Do you know me? People desire relationships. This is where the millennials are changing the workplace by their desire to be relational. They are not looking for a boss or paycheck. They are looking for relationships and conversations.

The second axiom is, you do not get what you want you get who you are. Therefore, we reproduce our relational traits attitudes and all. Said another way, we must personalize and then model the behaviors we ultimately seek for our team. Said yet another way, people do what people see.

The second question to ask when observing another team members is, “Who can they become?” This is a question about another person’s potential. A leaders perspective then becomes, “How can I add value to this person?”

All individuals ask the same basic questions about our lives. “When my life is through did I leave a footprint that shows I helped someone! This is an issue of significance and legacy. I left something behind for others – I left my world better than I found it. I personally do not think that people wake up in the morning and declare “I want to be average” or “I want to climb my way up to middle management.”

LINKS

Shepherds Advantage Leadership Podcast is now on iTunes – SUBSCRIBE

Shepherds Advantage Leadership Podcast is now on Stitcher – SUBSCRIBE

FREE GIFT – “The Art of Balancing Candor With Care” – Click on the icon at the bottom of the page

Executive Coaching Service– Private message me for details on this customizable service

Music: “8th Anniversary by Diamond Ortiz





The Four Disciplines of Execution:Achieving Your Wildly Important Goals by Chris McChesney, Sean Covey, Jim Huling (New York: Free Press, 2012)

If you are leading people you are probably attempting to get them to do something different. It does not matter whether you are leading a large corporation, small up-start company, or just your family, no significant result is achievable unless people change their behavior. Compliance does not lead to success! When you attempt to lead people’s behavior with an eye upon permanent change taking place, you are stepping into one of the most difficult areas of leadership that you could ask for.

The authors of The Four Disciplines of Execution offer a four step strategy that has been proven and field tested. Here are the four disciplines:

  1. Focus on The Wildly Important
  2. Act on Lead Measures
  3. Keep A Compelling Scoreboard
  4. Create A Cadence of Accountability

It does not matter whether you call it a goal, strategy, or simply adjustments that you as a leader drive in order to significantly move your team or organization forward falls into two categories; the stroke of the pen and behavioral change.

The stroke of the pen is signing an executive order declaring the new direction and for it to be done asap!  Behavioral change strategies are very different from the stroke of the pen strategies. You can’t just order them to happen because this requires people to change behaviors, often a lot of people doing something different and new. If you have ever attempted to get people to change their ways, you know how difficult that can be. Think about it for just a moment, changing yourself is hard work let alone changes a large group.

The bottom line is that to start doing things you have never done before, you must start doing things that you have never done before. Consider this book as a must read. Listen to the words of Chris McChesney in this short video.

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Top 10 Christmas Leadership Tips

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 16:07 — 14.8MB) | Embed

If you really want to soar in the coming year, end-of-the-year planning is not just about getting your strategy straight and your financial house in order. You also need to get your head right and that means tuning up your spirit, renewing your mental resources, and recommitting to your deepest values. In short you do not just reflect on business, but you also reflect on life! This podcast will focus on the Top 10 Christmas Leadership Tips to assist you in becoming the best version of yourself.

Build Trust With Your Team – We all desire to trust and be trusted. The only way this will happen is for you to build a relationship with your team. Thank you Millennials for pushing the issue of “relational conversations.”

Be Passionate and Positive – You can influence your environment by being passionate, enthusiastic, and positive about your work. Be excited about what you’re doing and the impact your business is having on the world.

Be Open – Encourage your team to being up questions and concerns. Allow them to participate in decisions and policies. Another way encourage openness is to share stories of team members’ contributions.

Delegate – The truth of leadership is that you cannot do it all, all by yourself. Allow others to share in the heavy lifting. Teach them to be responsible.

Hold Your Team Accountable – Remember that delegation and teamwork won’t mean anything if you don’t hold your employees accountable. This is actually one of the most important skills of a good leader.

Be Specific – The quality of any output is determined by the quality of the input. As a leader have you settle the idea that you are clear in what you want?

Be Open – Encourage your team to being up questions and concerns. Allow them to participate in decisions and policies. Another way encourage openness is to share stories of team members’ contributions.

Delegate – The truth of leadership is that you cannot do it all, all by yourself. Allow others to share in the heavy lifting. Teach them to be responsible.

Hold Your Team Accountable – Remember that delegation and teamwork won’t mean anything if you don’t hold your employees accountable. This is actually one of the most important skills of a good leader.

Be Specific – The quality of any output is determined by the quality of the input. As a leader have you settle the idea that you are clear in what you want?

LINKS

Shepherds Advantage Leadership Podcast is now on iTunes – SUBSCRIBE

Shepherds Advantage Leadership Podcast is now on Stitcher – SUBSCRIBE

FREE GIFT – “The Art of Balancing Candor With Care” – Click on the icon at the bottom of the page

Executive Coaching Service– Private message me for details on this customizable service

Music:  “Wishful Thinking” by Dan Lebowitz


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7 Tips To Increase Your Influence

You cannot add value to people unless you see them as valuable – Mark Cole

How do you influence without title or position? You start with the “subtle and empathetic approach as your starting position.Direct leading does not work when you are not empowered. You must connect with the heart before you can ask for a hand!

Here are seven tips on increasing your influence.

  1. Create Rapport – Start with the person that you desire to influence. You cannot influence where there is no rapport.
  2. Listen – Understanding people precedes leading people. Listening builds trust.
  3. Ask the right questions – This improves your influence when you have none.
  4. Be aware of Body Language – How many times has a meeting ended yet you still need to speak.
  5. Sell the Benefits – Adding value versus adding a product will in fact sell a product.
  6. Be Relaxed – Stop being so uptight.
  7. Invest time – Start by investing in yourself before presenting yourself as knowledgeable
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7 Year End Rituals

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 14:08 — 12.9MB) | Embed

We have been reviewing 7 Year-End Rituals in the most recent podcasts. We have reviewed Give Thanks In Writing, Declutter Your Brain, Dealing With Lingering Suckage, and Remind Yourself How Much You Have Learned. In this podcast I want to examine the idea of “Making Peace With Your Failures.”

Making Peace With Your Failures

While counting your blessings in various ways is a powerful way to end the year, it also helps to put to bed any conflicts and regrets you’ve racked up too. 

For instance, try forgiving an enemy. “Forgiveness doesn’t mean welcoming someone back into your life. It doesn’t even necessarily mean contacting them again. It just means making the conscious decision to let go of any anger, resentment and blame that you’ve been holding onto. It means accepting that we’re all fallible people, and allowing ourselves to head into the new year with peace in relation to that fact. Face your own failures from the previous year head on. “It’s tough to make it through the year without a single failure. But rather than dragging that beaten horse into the New Year alongside you, have the strength and the audacity before this year ends to let it go. To accept that you have failed. To let disappointment sink in, but also to revel in the freedom it allows you.” 

Why do you suppose that failure is so difficult for us to overcome? Perhaps we see failures as a sign of weakness, less than perfection, others may discover that we are not as great as we have portrayed. It is hard to pinpoint any one main thought to this question.

I would suggest that we see our failures as growth and something that is to actually be celebrated. Failure should be celebrated! We learn from our failures on what not to do or what does not work. Isn’t that better than attempting to hide or drag our failures around in shame?

Let’s take a quick look at 4 steps to overcome failures.

Graham Young, COO of an Investment Group, Graham, Theodor & Company suggests…

Accept Failure As Part of A Process

When times get tough, one of the most frustrating things we can hear from someone is to “stay positive.” The concept of positive thinking has been misused, misconstrued, and abused by us all.

Despite what we hear, it has nothing to do with smiling and being happy with everything that happens to you. Anyone who says that is either lying or crazy. Positive thinking, rather, is used so that we can learn, grow, and evolve from what we experience in life.

This does not mean try to fail. It simply means that if you are faced with a setback, understand it is not your final destination. It is a stepping-stone in your journey that is getting you to where you need to be.

When we do experience difficulties in life, it is okay to get down on ourselves. It is okay to get upset and disappointed. Our goal however is to not stay down.

Let Out Your Frustration

Once you have have taken some time to walk it off and clear your head, you can then begin accepting what happened. The initial emotional rush will eventually dissipate and you can then slowly return your focus back to the issue at hand.

This does not mean try to fail. It simply means that if you are faced with a setback, understand it is not your final destination. It is a stepping-stone in your journey that is getting you to where you need to be.

When we do experience difficulties in life, it is okay to get down on ourselves. It is okay to get upset and disappointed. Our goal however is to not stay down.

Be Brutally Honest

The most critical part of the process, which 90% of people don’t do, involves taking a couple of minutes to reflect on what happened and being brutally honest with ourselves on why it happened. It’s easy to turn on the TV, pull out the smartphone, or find some form of distraction. Most people will do anything to avoid confronting their own self with mistakes they’ve made.

Fail Forward

We can’t stop obstacles from appearing in life, but we can choose how to handle them. They may block our vision temporarily, but if we persevere then we can discover opportunities that have always been waiting for us on the other side. As we get more efficient with this process, we enable ourselves to see the positive side in even the toughest of situations.

LINKS

Shepherds Advantage Leadership Podcast is now on iTunes – SUBSCRIBE

Shepherds Advantage Leadership Podcast is now on Stitcher – SUBSCRIBE

FREE GIFT – “The Art of Balancing Candor With Care” – Click on the icon at the bottom of the page

Executive Coaching Service– Private message me for details on this customizable service

Music:  “Wishful Thinking” by Dan Lebowitz

Cucumbers Vs. Pickles

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6 Ways To Evaluate Your Life

As we approach the end of another year it always helpful to set aside some time to reflect upon the pathway we have traveled. What were our goals to start a new year? What were the mistakes that we made in this year? What were the happiest moments of this year? What event caused us to reflect upon the preciousness of our life?

In the upcoming blog articles I will speak to the our need to establish goals, micro-wins, life plans and other thoughts. In this blog article I want to offer some ways in which you can evaluate your life on a daily basis. These suggestions will cause us to stay grounded in the moment-by-moment steps of our daily living.

  1. At the end of every day ask this question; “Did Today Matter?” This question is not concerned with your to-do-list or the hundreds of emails, text messages, phones calls, and interruptions. This question causes us to rethink our day and respond with either today mattered because…… or I missed opportunities that would have…. Take inventory of those things caused the day to become significant in your life of another’s life. Repeat those things.
  2. Define success for the day at the beginning of the day. Before you hit the ground running, take a few moments in meditation or thoughtfulness to decide what you’d like to see happen by the end of the day. Again, be sure to prioritize: it would be great to make a ton of progress on everything, but you probably won’t. What’s most important? What is realistic to achieve?
  3. What are the 2-3 top priorities that you absolutely need to cover today. Schedule those first and fill in the rest of the day after the fact. Unless there is a compelling emergency that interrupts you make sure that you stay on task.
  4. Do the thing that you have been delaying. Whatever that one thing is – DO IT NOW!! This is a sure way to accomplishing what needs to be done. Stop procrastinating!
  5. Create new metrics to measure your accomplishments. What is the standard you use to measure how you are progressing? At times you need to change the metrics of what you are measuring.
  6. Answer these two questions daily; How are you feeling? What do you want? Literally write down your response. Your answer will give clarity to your life purpose. So, how do you feel and what do you want?

These simple steps will assist you in the micro-wins that are so important. It has been said that a marathon is a series of smaller races that help comprise a larger race. Win daily and win often.

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7 Year End Rituals

SA Leadership Podcast Episode #203

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 16:07 — 14.8MB) | Embed

Remind Yourself How Much You Have Learned

Just as you have probably accomplished more than you realized, you also have learned more than you realized. But the key to getting the most out of that new knowledge is actually putting it to use. This ritual from coach Christi Heisted can help, she states;

“Cull your notes from the conferences, classes, and webinars you’ve attended throughout the year, as well as the books you’ve read. Summarize your key learnings and set your top 3-5 action steps. Knowledge is great, but knowledge plus implementation makes you unstoppable.

First begin with the conferences, webinars, College classes, and new certifications that you attended in this calendar year. Get the notes, workbooks, notepads, digital documents, etc our in front of you. Take one set of notes at a time and review those notes. Write out the top 3-5 action steps that you learned in that moment. Now add these to your planning tools for the new year. Enter action steps that will lead you to the fulfillment of what you learned in that moment.

Remember that small steps are to be preferred versus attempting to conquer the action step all at once. FOCUS – Leaders do not grow in a day, but they grow daily!

This leads to a deeper life goal – What is my growth plan for the new year? It seems that our digital age has lured us into thinking that digital habits are the new normal. While digital technology is the new normal, our daily habits and ritual need refinement. When you implement new action steps that lead you to a “newer version of yourself,” you must be aware of distractions. We now know through research that when you are engaged in “DEEP WORK”, any distraction that interrupts your thoughts and  development will cost you 25 minutes of your time to regain that momentum again. If you are not setting your schedule, others will set it or you.

Once you have dealt with how you will minimize the distractions in your daily routines, now you can move forward to actually developing a growth plan.

I know that my next statement is going to sound “old school,” but I truly believe that if you cannot articulate your plans and dreams in writing, you are only “daydreaming!” Without getting lost in research speak, there is something to be said about the art of writing and deep thought being placed on paper. A Growth Plan that is going to be transformational in producing  a new version of yourself cannot be “copy and paste.” In my humble opinion the millions of Google searches are not necessarily deep research leading to deep thought. They are more representations of algorithms that represent others curiosity. Deep work that is transformational in your life is far more sophisticated that a quick Google search.

I want to say a few words in closing about the books that have been read this year. In the same manner of reviewing the notes from various conferences, take some time to review the top 3-5 ideas from the books you read this year. Either journal your learning in terms of its impact or establish action steps to implement your learning from the book into action steps for the new year. For me personally, I find that when I put pen to paper in my journal notebooks, the learning stays with me in thought and practice. The books that we read are more about personal development versus some new model to implement. Growing at the personal level definitely cannot be a “copy and paste” practice. That method will eventually show itself in your leading. FOCUS: You cannot lead where you have not walked! You cannot go to a new place until you leave your present. What will you leave in order to reach forward?

LINKS

Shepherds Advantage Leadership Podcast is now on iTunes – SUBSCRIBE

Shepherds Advantage Leadership Podcast is now on Stitcher – SUBSCRIBE

FREE GIFT – “The Art of Balancing Candor With Care” – Click on the icon at the bottom of the page

Executive Coaching Service– Private message me for details on this customizable service

Music:  “Wishful Thinking” by Dan Lebowitz

Cucumbers Vs. Pickles