“Comfort is the worst addiction.” – Marcus Aurelius
Happy Friday, Brew Nation!
Grab your favorite coffee cup and get ready to embark on a transformative journey. The Champions Brew Newsletter is here to invigorate your mornings and ignite your drive for personal growth and impact! Fuel your mornings with motivation and purpose. As you savor your first cup of the day, let the Champions Brew infuse you with the insights and strategies you need to make each day a stepping stone towards your aspirations. Let’s Go!
- Uncommon Leader Insights – In the latest episode of The Uncommon Leader Podcast, I had an insightful conversation with Kevin White. Throughout our leadership journeys, we often come across extraordinary mindsets and methodologies that shape not just our professional selves but our souls. Reflecting on my recent interview with Kevin White, a spiritual leader and founder of Spirit Media, here are three compelling takeaways. The math is simple:
- Develop self + Develop team = Impact – Kevin White’s approach to leadership prioritizes mission over monetary gains. His commitment to spiritual formation and professional development for himself and his team underscores the essence of setting a purpose-driven vision.
- Intention + Discipline = Excellence – Another significant takeaway from Kevin’s story is the profound power of disciplined prayer and casting vision. Kevin has embedded these practices into his daily life and leadership style, seeing prayer as both a compass and a source of strength. You’ve heard this from me before: Good intention WITH discipline leads to excellence. How else could he author and publish seven books and write his latest in less than 24 hours?!
- Passion + Purpose = Fulfillment – Kevin’s journey as an author, inspired by deeply spiritual experiences and biblical affirmations, emphasizes writing as a tool for empowerment. His books were born from his vision to comfort and strengthen others, especially those facing adversities. His upcoming book, “Stepping into the Kingdom as Kings of the King,” aims to inspire readers to embrace their authority in God’s kingdom.
Undoubtedly, Kevin’s journey illustrates how spiritual discipline, purpose-driven leadership, and a commitment to impactful storytelling can redefine success. Reflect on where you can integrate these principles into your own life and leadership, and be inspired to create a lasting, spirit-filled impact.
You can catch the entire uplifting conversation I had with Kevin here. While you are there, go ahead and subscribe to my YouTube page so that you can receive new episodes when they come out each week.
Are you aware that The Champions Brew explores various topics that I frequently coach and consult on with other leaders and organizations? If you or someone you know is seeking to elevate their business or personal life from underperforming to uncommon, I would love to connect with you and discuss 1:1 or group coaching, as well as performance consulting. In fact, click the following link to schedule a FREE CALL to explore how coaching could benefit you and your team. Let’s work together to unleash your full potential and achieve your goals
- Improve Your Communication – In a recent episode of The Craig Groeschel Leadership Podcast, Priscilla Shirer shared how to become more inspirational in your leadership and communication. Here are two takeaways from their conversation that impacted me:
- Be an Encourager – Looking back on your years of leadership, you can probably think of individuals who encouraged you on your journey. Priscilla’s aunt saw her leadership potential and gave her opportunities to lead their Sunday school class. Zig Ziglar saw her growing as a communicator and invested in her by giving her public speaking advice. Every leader needs someone to see great potential in them and call it out. So, as you lead, be looking for young leaders that you can encourage to grow to the next level, AND, when you find someone who is an encourager to you, hold on to them tight!
- Be a Better Communicator – According to Zig Ziglar, your audience is going to remember only 10% of what you say. So, you must intentionally attack the most important 10% of your content from different angles over and over throughout your speech. One of the best ways to do this is through stories and illustrations. Priscilla recommends you collect stories and illustrations as often as possible, even if you don’t know exactly how you’ll use them. She does this by looking for illustrations in everyday life and saving them in a simple notes file on her phone. Another way she suggests you might grow as a communicator is to record yourself talking for 60 seconds, watch it, and critique yourself. Look for the annoying phrase you repeat, or the distracting gestures you make. Once you identify these areas of improvement, train yourself out of these habits. Practice over and over until you’ve stopped doing them.
Priscilla Shirer is an American author and inspirational speaker. She is also the co-founder of Going Beyond Ministries. You can listen to her interview with Craig Groeschel here.
- Read More – Here we go. We are traveling together on a journey with an inspiring speaker, and author, Ed Mylett, and his book “The Power of One More – The Ultimate Guide to Success and Happiness”. As an avid listener of Mylett’s podcast, I’m thrilled to revisit this great book that holds a special place in my Top Ten influential reads. Join me as we uncover wisdom within its pages.
Chapter Sixteen – “One More My 11 Leadership Principles”
In this week’s chapter Mylett outlined 11 leadership principles he puts into practice that have helped him to produce significant results over the years. While many of them had me nodding as if I used those principles as well, there was one that struck me more than the others: “Have a Cause, Crusade, and a Mission” Mylett suggested that any great organization is both cause and mission driven. He suggests that a mission has two components:
- What are we for? This feels like a common approach to the development of a mission. Define what you believe in and then inspire others to rally around the cause.
- What are we against? Now, THIS question sparked some curiosity on my part. He stated that a mission “has to have an enemy. There needs to be something you’re against. For example, if you lead a food bank, then you’re against hunger. If you own a gym, your enemy could be obesity.” This compelled me to ask myself what I was ‘against’ as the Head Coach of Growing Champions. I still have some work to do but a few of these words came to my mind: I could be against… Mediocrity… Distractions…Variation… Waste (my Lean friend would expect that from me!). While those may be focused on performance, I might also be against Evil… or Ordinary… or Common… or empty shopping carts in the middle of the parking lot at the grocery store left three feet from a cart corral that could easily roll into my vehicle while I am parked to go inside!
The distinction between principles and values also surfaced in my mind. While Mylett defines his list of 11 principles as practices, Dr. Stephen Covey’s definition of principles as objective truths or law (for example, gravity) offers a different lens.
This chapter left me wanting more.
Next week: One More Degree of Equanimity
Quote of the week:
“The test of an organization is not genius. It is its capacity to make common people achieve uncommon performance.” – Peter Drucker
What You Need to Do:
Call to Action: What are your guiding principles? What do you stand against? I invite you to share your thoughts. Let’s learn together.
It’s an honor to be your trusted “Friday Coffee Guy”. Each week, I’m excited to provide yet another round of curated content that I’ve been reading, listening to, watching, or thinking over. The purpose of the Champions Brew is to inspire, equip and encourage you to become the uncommon leader you were designed to be. I am so grateful for your decision to invest a few moments with me! I hope you enjoyed this week’s edition of Champions Brew. If you did, I would appreciate it if you would share it with someone who might enjoy it as well and ask them to subscribe! I will make sure they automatically get this email every week.
Until next time, Go and Grow Champions!
P.S. – Are you a podcast fan? Maybe the Uncommon Leader podcast is for you. Are you interested in being a guest on the Uncommon Leader Podcast? Do you have a story to tell? Email me [email protected] and let’s have a chat and set something up!!
