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Quote Your Dad

”You learn most things by experience, but it’s usually less painful for you if it’s someone else’s experience.”

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Podcast Season 3, Episode 5: Lessons on Leadership from the Little Things in Life (Learning From the Mess)

Life is full of examples that teach us lessons. That’s why stories and illustrations make learning so much more effective. When a story can be used to illustrate or demonstrate a valuable lesson, the story makes it much more understandable, relatable, and memorable. With that in mind, I want to take some time to do just that – share examples of circumstances and stories experienced in everyday life which illustrate leadership lessons that we can learn and apply. This is one of those examples, and it teaches us some things that we can learn from making messes.

Here is the link to the podcast.

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Lessons on Leadership from the Little Things in Life: Learning From the Mess

Life is full of examples that teach us lessons. That’s why stories and illustrations make learning so much more effective. When a story can be used to illustrate or demonstrate a valuable lesson, the story makes it much more understandable, relatable, and memorable. With that in mind, I want to take some time to do just that – share examples of circumstances and stories experienced in everyday life which illustrate leadership lessons that we can learn and apply. This is one of those examples, and it teaches us some things that we can learn from making messes.

When my granddaughter was a year and a half old, she would make messes everywhere. Specifically, she would dump all of her toys out on the floor. For example, she would point to the Duplo building blocks because she wanted to play with them, and when I would hand her the bag, she would immediately dump it upside down. Duplos everywhere! Then she would try to start putting them together to build something, and would get frustrated because they weren’t going together the way that she wanted them to, and then she would hand some to me, asking me to help put them together. I would let her struggle a little bit, and then I would step in and help build something for her, and she would get all excited. It wouldn’t take very long before she would lose interest in what she was playing with and would want to go play with something else, leaving behind a mess that needed to be cleaned up. But everything that she was doing with those toys was part of her learning and development. 

The same is true for all people, so I see in this illustration at least four things that are important for the growth and development of people around us. You may find more lessons that are valuable for you, but these four jump out to me pretty quickly.

  1. When people are learning something new, they will inevitably make messes. Yes, there will be things that you can do to mitigate how much of a mess is made, but just the fact that it is new, and that they have limited experience and knowledge about it (that’s what makes it new!), will result in messes being made as part of the learning process. Make it safe for those messes to happen.
  2. There will be struggle, and the struggle is also an important part of the learning process. It is in the struggle that they will gain experience, learn what works and what doesn’t work, build their strength, and learn valuable lessons, like perseverance.
  3. They will probably need help somewhere along the way. However, you have the power to make it safe for them to ask questions, ask for help, and learn from the experience. If you shut them down, or make them feel stupid or like a failure, or react with only negative consequences, they will not ask for help, and will likely not learn what you need them to learn.
  4. Finally, there will likely be some cleanup that you will have to do. That comes with making messes. Of course you want people to learn how to clean up their own messes, but because they are just learning, the mess can be overwhelming to them, and they need your help. So teach them what to do to clean up or make things right again, but also help them do it.

People are flawed, learning is a necessary and natural process, and messes will be made. The lessons we can learn for leadership from a little thing in life, like my granddaughter dumping toys all over the floor, are valuable for your leadership. Understand and accept that people will mess up when they are learning. Remember that struggle is necessary for growth. Make it safe for people to ask for help, and encourage them to do so. And be prepared to do some cleanup. Basic lessons from a simple experience, yet incredibly important!

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Quote Your Dad

“How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.”

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Podcast Season 3, Episode 4: Lessons on Leadership from the Little Things in Life (Eating an Elephant)

Life is full of examples that teach us lessons. That’s why stories and illustrations make learning so much more effective. When a story can be used to illustrate or demonstrate a valuable lesson, the story makes it much more understandable, relatable, and memorable. With that in mind, I want to take some time to do just that – share examples of circumstances and stories experienced in everyday life which illustrate leadership lessons that we can learn and apply. This is one of those examples, and it is a lesson that came from difficulty.

Here is the link to the podcast.

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Lessons on Leadership from the Little Things in Life: Eating an Elephant

Life is full of examples that teach us lessons. That’s why stories and illustrations make learning so much more effective. When a story can be used to illustrate or demonstrate a valuable lesson, the story makes it much more understandable, relatable, and memorable. With that in mind, I want to take some time to do just that – share examples of circumstances and stories experienced in everyday life which illustrate leadership lessons that we can learn and apply.

I said previously that learning happens all the time and that opportunities to learn are all around us. One of the implications of that is that those lessons come from both everyday experiences and from life’s challenges. Life is full of wonderful, normal, and difficult experiences and events, and all of them bring lessons from which we can learn. This is one of those lessons that came from difficulty.

My wife and I had lived in our home for almost 10 years, but this home was different than others that we had lived in because we believed it would be our last home. Over those 10 years, we had done a lot to make it our dream home. But then God changed the direction of our life, and we had to list our home for sale and move. Part of me resisted this change because I didn’t want to leave this home. Part of me struggled with the uncertainty that it brought because, although God had stretched my faith with experiences of uncertainty in the past, in our years in that home, I had grown complacent in my faith, so this experience caused me to struggle much more than the challenging experiences that had affected me in the past.

Because of those things, I began to struggle with feelings of anxiety and being overwhelmed. I had to pack up our home, but I kept putting it off. Of course, that only increased the anxiety, because it caused me to get further behind and have more to do, even as I was resisting. I had started moving some things out of the house and a storage unit, but I kept looking at what I still had left to do, and the time I had left to do it, and was finding it difficult to move forward. In that moment, I had to make a decision to force myself to act in spite of my feelings, and take the next step anyway. And then I had to keep doing that over and over again, one step at a time. In the end, after everything was packed and stored, and we were on to our next adventure, I could see God’s presence in the whole process, and knew that He was moving us for a purpose and was teaching me along the way.

So, what is the little lesson to learn from this life experience? Among other things, it is a reminder that when you are called to do something, it takes effort, self-discipline, and commitment to move forward with what you have to do, especially when you are battling against yourself. Like the old proverb that pointed out that the way to eat an elephant is one bite at a time, when you are faced with a task and your emotions and anxieties are making it difficult, you only need to do the next step. Then, keep doing the next step after that. What matters is that you keep going. It’s the idea of “facts over feelings,” of exercising the discipline of doing what you have to do even when you don’t feel like it. It’s taking responsibility for what needs to be done and doing it.

The leadership lesson from this little thing in life is simply to do the task you have to do even when you don’t feel like it. It’s a necessary part of your responsibility as a leader (and as an adult!), and eventually your feelings will follow (meaning, you will feel good about getting it done once it is over). Eat that elephant one bite at a time.

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Quote Your Dad

“20 years from now, you will be the same person you are today except for the people you meet and the books you read.” Zig Zigler

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Podcast Season 3, Episode 3: Lessons on Leadership from the Little Things in Life (Learning Happens All the Time)

Life is full of examples that teach us lessons. That’s why stories and illustrations make learning so much more effective. When a story can be used to illustrate or demonstrate a valuable lesson, the story makes it much more understandable, relatable, and memorable. With that in mind, I want to take some time to do just that – share examples of circumstances and stories experienced in everyday life which illustrate leadership lessons that we can learn and apply. This is one of those examples, and it reminds us that opportunities to learn are everywhere.

Here is the link to the podcast.

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Lessons on Leadership from the Little Things in Life: Learning Happens All the Time

Life is full of examples that teach us lessons. That’s why stories and illustrations make learning so much more effective. When a story can be used to illustrate or demonstrate a valuable lesson, the story makes it much more understandable, relatable, and memorable. With that in mind, I want to take some time to do just that – share examples of circumstances and stories experienced in everyday life which illustrate leadership lessons that we can learn and apply. This is one of those examples, and it reminds us that opportunities to learn are everywhere.

Sometimes the little lessons are right in front of us are but not necessarily always in something that we are doing or something that happens. Sometimes those lessons are simply in something we read or hear. One of those for me came from reading the Bible.

My wife and I are in the habit of reading a chapter in the Bible together every night. When we were in Deuteronomy and got to chapter 6, I read a passage that I was very familiar with, one that I had used often in an educational context. That passage was Deuteronomy chapter 6, verses 6 through 9, which says:

“And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.”

In a classroom setting, and in the application of biblical truth to teaching and learning, I always used this passage to point out integration, modeling, and both formal and informal instruction as essential to good teaching. Integration is the idea that biblical truth ought to be woven into everything. Modeling is the idea that the application and content of learning should be lived out and demonstrated. Including both formal and informal instruction is the idea that teaching and learning is planned and structured, but also spontaneous and relevant.

However, as I was reading this passage with my wife, what struck me this time was a life application lesson. The lesson was this: you are always learning. Or, at least, opportunities to learn are always in front of you. It’s your choice whether or not you learn from them, but they are always there. It might be in something you’re reading (which often happens with me). It might be in something you’re listening to or watching. It might be someone who is a mentor or model for you, a public figure that you admire, or even someone who is being a bad example. It might be something that you were experiencing in your own life, whether big or small. But the opportunities to learn are always there.

When I was in college and did a summer sales experience, Zig Zigler led a workshop in one of the training activities, and I remember him saying, “20 years from now, you will be the same person you are today except for the people you meet and the books you read.“ The truth is, you will be changed as you walk through life and experiences, but you get to decide if that change is for your good or not. If you choose to learn from what you experience every day, you will grow throughout your life. So the lesson on leadership from a little thing in life that I learned by just reading a chapter in my Bible is the reminder that I always have the opportunity to learn and grow if I choose to see it and take it, because opportunities to learn happen all day long and are everywhere around you.

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Quote Your Dad

“He who answers a matter before he hears it, it is folly and shame to him.” Proverbs 18:13

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