Marc Estes

I’ve often wondered what it would be like to been in a crowd of millions of people that are all praising God at one time. I came across this unbelievable footage of over 2,000,000 people in Lagos, Nigeria all praying and seeking God. It should make the hair on your head stand straight up (that is if you have any). This is worth the watch for sure.

I hold a strong conviction that a leader is a learner. One of the greatest ways to learn is to read. In our ‘busy’ world, often times the desire to read is clouded out by the tyranny of the urgent. The reality is, something will always be competing for your time. People and things don’t ‘take’ your time, you ‘give’ your time; consciously or subconsciously.

Let me challenge you to carve out a portion of time each day to strengthen your leadership by reading something worthwile. Obviously, start with your Bible. After that read books that target a weakness, need or area of development.

I am often asked what books I am reading. I am excited about a new addition to my blog called Marc’s Store. I have compiled a list of my favorite books that I have read or am reading and put them on a page for your review as well as purchase. Your traffic and purchase will help this sight to get more exposure, ultimately getting the Word out to more people. If you get a chance, check it out and find out the next book for your library.  If you are ever in the market for a book, consider getting your book through Marc’s Store page.

The front page a list of new releases. There are a few great books worth the read.  Here are my top three to consider:

• The Christian Atheist - Craig Groeschel
• Everyone Communicates, Few Connect – John Maxwell
• The Externally Focused Quest - Eric Swanson

Intenational reading leads to effective leading!

One of my favorite authors is John Maxwell. He has a unique way of packaging complex truths into simplistic formulas. One of his classic books, Developing the Leader Around You (see below), mention this idea of training people and the process that should be followed to maximize your time and energy.  Here are some principles to consider:

The best type of training takes advantage of the way people learn. Researchers tell us that we remember 10 percent of what we hear, 50 percent of what we see, 70 percent of what we say, and 90 percent of what we hear, see, say and do. Knowing that to be the case, we have to develop an approach to how we will train. Here is a five step process to follow:

1. Model It – The process begins with doing the tasks you desire to reproduce while the people you are training can watch. Allow them to observe the entire process, if possible.  As you walk through the process, take the time to explain not just what you are doing, but also why you are doing it and how you are doing it.

2. Mentor Them – As they watch you ‘do’, you need to then move them next to you and ask them to assist in the process.  This will give you a chance to observe them in the elementary steps of the process while still maintaining control.

3. Monitor Them – You then need to move to a place where they begin to take charge of the process and you stand along side of them.  It is important to allow them room to grow, learn and fail. Be an encouragement and use their failures as training opportunities and not a time to rebuke them in any way. Work with them until they develop consistency.  You might even ask them to verbally explain the what, why and how to you to insure that they thoroughly understand the entire process.

4. Motivate Them – The next step is to allow them to fly solo.  Once they take the responsibility as their own, your role now becomes the role of a motivator. The trainee must move from sustaining the process to excelling in the process. Allow them to make changes to the process giving them some ownership as long as the changes produce a better end result.

5. Multiply Them – You will never be truly successful in raising leaders until you have taught them to do likewise. Mastering a skill is not enough. Teaching others to master the skill is truly the end goal.  They will find that the best way to learn a skill as well as to reap fulfillment is to teach others to fulfill the tasks at hand.

Try applying these principles practically to what you are currently doing. Find a potential leader for each of your tasks and begin the process of reproducing yourself today.

I have a great friend that spent a great deal of his time rock climbing. He would tell me of the white-knuckle experiences of climbing the face of El Capitan in Yosemite. They would take days to scale 3,000 feet up the face of this behemoth granite monster and would actually tie themselves into the rock to sleep at night. I asked him one time, “What kept you from giving up?” He laughed and said, “Once you started up the face, you were committed. There is no turning back.”  That simple yet profound statement should be applied to all areas of our lives as well.

Commitment is to  show loyalty, duty or pledge to something or someone regardless of the cost. This word is one that is greatly needed in today’s world. Commitment to stick with a marriage. Commitment to pay your bills. Commitment to finish the tasks at hand. Commitment to serve in an area of ministry that God has asked you to serve. The list goes on.

It is unfortunate that we have allowed the pressure of our secular society to subtly transform our thinking to a position of ‘conditional commitment thinking.’ This is the process where we measure a previous commitment agains present/new circumstances. If we believe that the aging commitment will affect us personally in our current status, we are better off to remove ourselves from the obligation for that sake of new opportunities. What a tragedy! We live in a world saturated with these types of people.

It has been said that no one will follow an uncommitted leader. If you are going to be effective at doing anything, commitment is a prerequisite. Commitment shows that you have loyalty, conviction and integrity. Commitment shows that you are concerned about protecting your reputation and character and strive to be a person of your word.

When it really boils down to it, there are really only four types of leaders when it comes down to commitment:

• The Cop Out Leader - This is a person who has never really committed to anything and positions themselves to benefit only themselves.

• The Hold Out Leader – These are leaders who are skeptical about their ability to obtain a goal, therefore avoiding risk and commitment at all costs is their only choice.

• The Drop Out Leader - This leader made the decision to start the process of obtaining a goal, but decided to throw in the towel when things got tough.

• The All Out Leader – These are the few that set their minds and heart on the goal, commit to them, and are willing to pay any price to achieve them.

If you were to take a few minutes and reflect on your past season, where are you regarding the commitments that you have made? Are you paying the price to achieve them, or have you been looking for ways to escape them?  Why not make the choice to become an “All Out Leader?” The world desperately needs these types of leaders.

I just read a great story that had to do with integrity. I thought you would enjoy this one!

An unscrupulous salesman was delivering a bid that his company had made for an engineering firm. He was ushered into the office where he would present his bid to the firm. After a brief introduction, the firm’s representative politely excused himself for a minute. The shady salesman quickly noticed the bid of his competitor lying on the desk. Unfortunately, there was a cold drink covering up the total amount. He gazed out into the inner office and noticed there was nobody to see him sneak a peek. He lifted the Coke and got the surprise of his life. Rather than a cold drink, it was a bottomless can filled with BBs. The quiet office was filled with the sound of BBs racing across the desk and spilling on to the floor. The firm’s representative then returned to the office and showed the dishonest salesman the door. Integrity is demonstrated more when people are not looking than when they are.

Who are you when no one is watching you?  Are there things that you do that you are hoping no one will see?  If you received an anyonomous letter that stated, “all is revealed, leave town” would you break out in a cold sweat? Are their texts sent that you hope no one will see?

The sad reality is that when we hide things that shouldn’t be a part of our lives, we really aren’t hurting others, we are hurting ourselves. Furthermore, we must recognize that God sees everything we do and we can hide nothing from him. My recommendation is to just learn to live life clean and free! If you have something that needs to be adjusted, don’t wait another day, deal with it now.

Leadership is a special privilege given to one for the sake of advancing a cause.  It is imperative that we use this platform for the sake of others and not ourselves. However, due to our narcissistic culture in which we live, many today are in pursuit of leadership positions for power, fame and greed. Each of these pursuits are self serving and in the end, produce empty leaders and frustrated people.

The type of power you exert, will determine the outcome of your actions and ultimately define your legacy. There are three main types of power that leaders use today to motivate people to follow them or their cause:

1. Coercive Power - This type of power is created by a leader who uses manipulation to present a scenario that puts their followers in worrisome state. It puts fear in the follower that either some bad might happen to them or something good might be taken from them if they don’t submit themselves to the leader and his ways. This can take place in a marriage, from a parent, a teacher, a boss, and yes… even a pastor!

2. Utility Power - This type of power is created by a leader who uses his power to draw people to him with a legitimate ‘carrot’ or reward attach. People become motivated by the benefit therefore the reasoning for pursuing the leader and his objective is now self-serving in the life of he follower. This type of relationship has an exchanges of ‘good and services’ between different parties.  This is a large part of the leadership world today, and in some aspects in not all together bad. But as in the first type of power, it is driven by self motivating factors and not necessarily the overall good of the organization or cause.

3. Authentic Power - This type of power is rare, yet the most fruitful. This power is used to motivate all involved to believe in the cause and its purpose with the willingness to forsake all selfish motives for service.  A leader that is able to push aside his own desires and agendas and truly inspire his followers to give their time, talent and treasures to fulfill a greater cause larger than themselves is a leader worth following.

Take a moment and reflect on your leadership style and motivations. Why do you do what you do? What tactics have you been using to inspire people to follow you? Is it working? Is it bearing fruit? Do you need to make some changes? The leader that strives for authentic power will enjoy a life of great satisfaction and fulfillment.

As many of you are aware, I just returned from an oversees trip to Romania. It was an incredible trip with significant impact. We landed safely at home only to wake up the next day to the news of a volcano eruption in Iceland. Little did we know at the time that this natural wonder would shut down most airports in Europe for an extended period of time. All I can say is that I was glad to miss that one, and we must have someone upstairs looking out for us.

I just came across of series of thirty-five  UNBELIEVABLE pictures of the volcano. I thought I would detour from my usual posting topics and encourage you to take a look at the numerous pictures on the website link listed below. Here is one picture to wet your appetite! By the way, good luck on pronouncing the name.

Pictures of Volcano (Click Here)

As ash from Iceland’s Eyjafjallajokull volcano continued to keep European airspace shut down over the weekend, affecting millions of travelers around the world, some government agencies and airlines clashed over the flight bans. Some restricted airspace is now beginning to open up and some limited flights are being allowed now as airlines are pushing for the ability to judge safety conditions for themselves. The volcano continues to rumble and hurl ash skyward, if at a slightly diminished rate now, as the dispersing ash plume has dropped closer to the ground, and the World Health Organization has issued a health warning to Europeans with respiratory conditions. Collected here are some images from Iceland over the past few days.

This is a guest post by Joel J. Miller. It was taken from a blog I follow, from Michael Hyatt.  He is the author of the fascinating new book, The Revolutionary Paul Revere.

When we think of leaders from America’s revolutionary era, our minds jump to military commanders like George Washington, political organizers like Samuel Adams, and rousing orators like Patrick Henry. In the hierarchy of the Revolution, these men stand atop the loftiest rungs. For good reason.

These men accomplished amazing feats against incredible odds. But they could not have done it alone. Like executives in a successful company, they required the service and sacrifice of others to achieve their goals. They required effective lieutenants—people like Paul Revere.

Everyone knows Revere for his famous ride (which incidentally occurred 235 years ago, yesterday). Most are, however, unaware of the vital “midlevel” leadership roles and functions that he played in the buildup to Independence. In researching his life for The Revolutionary Paul Revere, I found four tactics that made Revere indispensable to America’s revolutionary efforts—tactics that can also make you indispensable in your organization.

1. Take the initiative. Revere was a blue collar guy, an artisan. Unlike other revolutionary leaders like John Adams or John Hancock, he received a minimal education and was entitled to none of life’s higher stations in colonial Boston, his hometown. That didn’t stop him from serving the cause. He led from where he was.A goldsmith by trade, Revere led where he was able. One example: During the British military occupation of Boston following the Tea Party, who helped to organize a spy ring of workaday patriots to keep tabs on the redcoats and their commanders? None other than Revere—repairman of silverware by day, cloak-and-dagger coordinator by night.Anyone can fill time and work a to-do list. Taking the initiative to lead is what sets apart someone truly valuable to an organization.
2. Leverage your strengths. Everyone brings unique talents to their situations, because everyone’s unique. The trick is in leveraging those strengths. Revere was a sociable fellow; he joined several different local clubs and associations and could regularly be found in the taproom of the Salutation or Green Dragon taverns. Connectedness was one of Revere’s strengths. So he used it.Historian David Hackett Fischer sorted the membership lists of seven different Boston political groups and associations. He found 255 members in all, of whom 94.1 percent were in just one or two groups. And at the other end of the spectrum? Only Revere and his friend Joseph Warren belonged to more than four groups—each was a member of five different groups. Revere’s network made him useful as someone who could link disparate revolutionary parties, and his connectedness applied in other areas as well, including his role as an express rider.Whatever your unique strengths, leveraging them in a leadership capacity increases your worth to your organization—especially if you excel at the third tactic.
3. Be reliable. When Sam Adams needed someone to send word to New York that Boston patriots had just dumped several hundred crates of tea in Boston Harbor, he sent Revere—who was also one of the likely participants in the destruction of the tea.That was 1773. He served as an express rider through start of the war in 1775. In one of countless messages Revere carried to New York during this period, Boston patriot Thomas Young referred to Revere as “Steady, vigorous, sensible, and persevering.” Whether it was riding express or printing money or casting cannons or even figuring out how to construct a gunpowder mill, Revere was tapped time and again because patriot higher-ups could count on him to get the job done, whatever it was and even if he’d never done it before, which oftentimes he had not.That last fact highlights Revere’s strength at creative problem solving, something he reliably leveraged every day. It’s also one area that every leader at any level in an organization should cultivate.
4. Cultivate creativity. Human creativity is life’s only truly renewable resource. The more you use it, the more you get. In his business life, Revere was constantly creating and developing new methods, fresh approaches, and ingenious applications. He transferred that facility into the patriot movement. Whether it was unknotting technological problems for the patriots or coordinating communications, Revere reaffirmed his value at every turn.Take the ride itself. Revere realized that if the British were to seize the powder stores at Concord, they might try to lock down Boston to prevent any word about the assault from spreading. Revere’s job was to spread the news, so coming home through Charlestown several days before his famous ride and the Battle of Lexington and Concord, he contrived the one-and-two lamp signal from North Church tower. That way, if he were unable to get back to Charlestown, the patriots there could still get the news and spread the alarm.Revere’s fears proved true. When the Brits did move, they seized almost every boat in town and placed sentries along the roads. Revere was able to get out by one of the few undiscovered boats, but the people in Charlestown already knew about the troops when Revere arrived because he’d charged someone with hanging the lights in the tower. The solution worked.

If it’s true that most of a leader’s job involves problem solving, then one of the most important things you can do as a leader is to follow Revere and cultivate creativity in the endeavor.

This book is worth the read, click below and get a copy today, you won’t be disappointed!

For more than a century the Swiss dominated the watch industry. In 1968, they commanded 65 percent of the world market and 80 percent of the profits. Within ten years those figures had plummeted. By 1978, Japan had assumed world dominance, and the Swiss held just 10 percent of the watch market. This led to a three-year process of laying off 50,000 of their 65,000 watch workers.

So what happened? In 1967 the Japanese were open-minded and the Swiss weren’t. In that year Swiss researchers invented the quartz watch. The Swiss watch manufacturers rejected it because it had no gears or springs. In short, it wasn’t made like a watch is “supposed” to be made. The Swiss were so certain the quartz watch would never sell, they didn’t even protect their invention. They displayed it at the Annual Watch Congress in 1967. The open-minded Japanese saw the potential of a watch that is one thousand times more accurate than conventional watches and went from zero percent of the world watch market to global dominance in less than a decade.

Hindsight is always 20/20 vision. All of us would be quick to chuckle at these narrow minded watch geeks and wonder how could they be so blind? Yet, there is a little ‘watchmaker’ in us all. We are all creatures of habit. We have a tendency to lean towards the familiar, even if it is no longer effective. Why? We don’t like change! The only people who like change are babies with bad diapers.

Here are some reasons why change is so rare for most people:

1. It will require you to leave your comfort zone.

2. It will force you to exhert energy to think towards things that may not yet exist.

3. It will cause you to have to let go of past successes, which also means letting go of the pride that is attached.

4. It may allow others to take your place.

5. You might lose control.

6. You just might like it the way that it is and not even be interested in pursuing a new option.

Unfortunately, change is inevitble. Fortunately, change in most cases, can be a great benefit to moving you from you are to where you need to be.  The next time suggests change in your world, before reacting, give it some thought and consider where it might take you. You never know it might be right where you are wishing you could be.

Rarely do I use my blog to address controversial areas that our fought in the political arena. However, I felt compelled to share with you the “rest of the story” as to the real reason we have seen a change in teen births. Many today would applaud the great work of our government programs without giving close consideration to the real facts. In reality, we should be deeply concerned not celebrating regarding the issue at hand. Put on your seat belt and take a look at what is really causing the national trends:

Teen pregnancy isn’t the story. The demise of marriage is.

The press has rushed to report a minuscule drop in “teen births” based on data released Tuesday by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). As usual, the mainstream media are focusing on a trivial, politically correct story while ignoring the real story buried in the data.
 
Here’s the real story: According to CDC, a record 40.6 percent of children born in 2008 were born outside marriage — a total of 1.72 million children. The overwhelming majority of the unwed mothers were young adults with low education levels, precisely the kind of individuals who have the greatest difficulty going it alone in our society.
 
Only about 7.5 percent of these out-of-wedlock births, 130,000, were to girls under 18. Of course, these births can be disastrous for the girls involved. But as a social problem, teen pregnancies and births are of quite limited importance. By contrast, 1.72 million out-of-wedlock births amount to an overwhelming catastrophe for taxpayers and society.

The steady growth of childbearing by single women and the general collapse of marriage, especially among the poor, lie at the heart of the mushrooming welfare state. This year, taxpayers will spend over $300 billion providing means-tested welfare aid to single parents. The average single mother receives nearly three dollars in government benefits for each dollar she pays in taxes. These subsidies are funded largely by the heavy taxes paid by higher-income married couples.
 
America is rapidly becoming a two-caste society, with marriage and education at the dividing line. Children born to married couples with a college education are mostly in the top half of the population; children born to single mothers with high-school degrees or less are mostly in the bottom half.
 
The disappearance of marriage in low-income communities is the predominant cause of child poverty in the U.S. today. If poor single mothers were married to the fathers of their children, two-thirds of them would not be poor. The absence of a husband and father from the home also is a strong contributing factor to failure in school, crime, drug abuse, emotional disturbance, and a host of other social problems.
 
In 1963, as Pres. Lyndon Johnson was launching the War on Poverty, 7 percent of American children were born outside marriage. White House staffer Daniel Patrick Moynihan, later U.S. Senator from New York, warned the nation of the calamities associated with the growing number of out-of-wedlock births. For more than 40 years, our society has ignored Moynihan’s warnings. Despite the transparent linkages among poverty, social problems, and disintegration of the family, the liberal intelligentsia has watched the steady collapse of marriage in low-income communities with silent indifference.
 

The reason? Most liberal academics regard marriage as an outdated, socially backward institution; they have shed no tears over its demise. Even worse, liberal politicians and anonymous government bureaucrats have a vested interest in the growth of the welfare state, and nothing grows the welfare state like the disappearance of marriage.

Single mothers are inherently in far greater need of government support than married couples, so an increase in single parenthood leads almost inevitably to an increase in government benefits and services and a thriving welfare industry to supply them. Marital collapse creates a burgeoning new clientele dependent on government services and political patrons. When liberals refuse to talk about marriage and the poor in the same breath, they are guilty of willful neglect of the major source of poverty.
 
For the statist, the collapse of marriage is a gift that keeps on giving. It’s no accident that the modern welfare system rewards single parents and penalizes married couples.

The Left, with the complicity of the liberal media, hypes the issue of “teen pregnancy” — partly because feminists think girls should attend college for a few years before becoming single mothers, partly in order to strengthen their agenda of promoting condom use and permissive sex ed in the schools. (In reality, condom proselytizing is a bogus answer to actual social problems. Contrary to conventional wisdom, lack of access to birth control isn’t a significant contributor to non-marital pregnancy among teens or non-teens.)
 
Liberal journalists and pundits deliberately remain silent on the far larger issue of out-of-wedlock childbearing among adults because they believe the collapse of marriage is irrelevant, if not benign. From their perspective, concern about marriage is a mere red-state superstition; the important task is to increase government subsidies as we build a post-marriage society.
 
It should, thus, be no surprise that President Obama’s new budget proposes to eliminate the only government program aimed at strengthening marriage in low-income communities. If Obama and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi have their way, the tiny, recently created “healthy marriage initiative” ($100 million annually) will be abolished next year.
 
The statist Left is not content to merely watch marriage die; it seeks to nail the coffin lid tightly shut.