Leadership Pain: The Classroom for Growth by Samuel Chand (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2015)
Reading Time: < 1 minutePresently, I am reading Leadership Pain by Samuel Chand, affectionately called a leader’s Leader. Right out of the gate, Chand makes a profound statement: leaders will grow only through the threshold of our pain. The greater the pain, the greater the potential for growth. Moreover, Chand’s subtitle says it all: Pain is the Classroom for Growth. Learning through pain has been my story. Whenever God wants to grow me, he sits me down in the classroom of pain – death, loss, church politics. The key for me is submitting long enough to learn the lessons God wants to teach me. Here is a sampling of the chapters from the table of contents:
- Leadership Leprosy
- External Challenges
- Too Much Too Often
- Growing Pains
- What Makes You Tick
- Root Cause Analysis
- You Gotta Love It
- The Privilege of Leadership
- The Power of Tenacity
- Pain Partners
- It’s Your Move
I can’t wait to dive further into the book, and I anticipate it will shape and mold me for this next season in my leadership. This book has 151 reviews and 138 are five stars, and 13 are four stars.
Reading Time: 3 minutesNo family is immune to a crisis. At some point in time, every family will be at a critical juncture in their lives. When families face a crisis, many tend to respond hysterically, with emotional breakdowns, panic attacks, and acting out old habits. Also, some experience loss of sleep, loss of weight, isolation, and even depression. I am convinced that this does not have to be your story.
Reading Time: < 1 minute“The struggle you’re in today is developing the strength you need for tomorrow.”
Reading Time: 4 minutesMy mother’s sudden death several months ago shocked, grieved, crushed, and inspired new life in me at the same time. We were about to tee off on the last hole when I reached in my golf bag to check my phone. I was alarmed when I saw that I had at least ten missed calls and messages. Nervous about returning the calls, I finally forced my fingers to call my wife. As soon as she answered the phone, I knew something was wrong.
Reading Time: 3 minutesHow long have you ever gone without your iPhone? Ten minutes? An hour? A day? Three days? Well, try three weeks. Yes, I went three weeks without my iPhone. I learned a few surprising lessons in the process.
Reading Time: < 1 minuteIt is not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste a lot of it. Life is long enough, and a sufficiently generous amount has been given to us for the highest achievements if it were all well invested. But when it is wasted in heedless luxury and spent on no good activity, we are forced at last by death’s final constraint to realize that it has passed away before we knew it was passing. So it is: we are not given a short life but we make it short, and we are not ill-supplied but wasteful of it… Life is long if you know how to use it.
Reading Time: 4 minutes“I don’t feel close to you this week.” These were the words my wife spoke to me while we were lying in bed the other morning. These words stabbed and seem to slice a major artery. Though she probably didn’t mean it this way, it felt like she was accusing me of causing the present distance in our relationship. This was surprising to me because we had been talking all week long. So, what was she talking about that she didn’t feel close and connected to me? What else could I do to connect with my wife?
Reading Time: 2 minutesIt’s Friday, and you wonder if you have been productive. How do you know if you have accomplished your goals, hit your targets, performed at an optimal level, have had a good work week and have been productive? Laura Garnett, a performance strategist, proposes one habit that, that if we practice it at the end of every week, could make us work smarter, be more productive, and push us to peak performance.
Reading Time: 3 minutesMany people agree that there is a leadership dearth in our world, especially in our churches. However, these same church leaders do not agree as to how to identify and develop new leaders. The one thing that can’t be compromised being up close and personal with those you think are ready to lead. When we find someone who we think might have leadership potential, what do we do? How can we be certain that this person is ready for the leadership mantle? I believe can identify leadership potential in a person by practicing an age-old art – asking questions.
Reading Time: 3 minutesThe most difficult person to lead is me. According to Dee Hock, author of The Art of Chaordic Leadership, leaders should spend 50% of the time leading themselves. Leading yourself is so crucial to personal success in every area of your life. Here is a list of Scripture consistent self-leadership categories and questions that my former ministry coach, Dave Kraft, sent to me. If you want to experience success in every area of your life and leadership and be better than you were yesterday, then engage these game-changing self-leadership questions.
