Everyone wants to experience fulfillment in their lives and many search for it outwardly. Although it’s the outward things that pour into us to bring about fulfillment, it’s not the outward things that we are seeking. Let me put it this way, when you pour yourself a cup of coffee, are you wanting the coffee-pot or the coffee? How about when pouring yourself a cup of milk; are you wanting the milk or the jug? You want what’s inside the container. Just like when someone pours into you, you’re not necessarily wanting the person, you’re wanting their wisdom and knowledge. Similar to the milk jug, let’s imagine fulfillment as a container; do you want the container or do you want what’s inside? People have contaminated themselves into believing that fulfillment is about what happens to them and for them, but fulfillment is not about outward success, accomplishment, status, position, or outcome. Fulfillment is the inward transformation of character through the process of continual growth and pouring into others. True fulfillment is more about what happens in you and through you. If that’s the case, then what is the purest form of fulfillment? In his letter to the Ephesians the Apostle Paul says it plainly, “To know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.” The purest form of fulfillment is to be filled with all the fullness of God. And the way to do that is by knowing the love of Christ. This is not the same as knowing God loves you, it’s knowing His love. When you have all the fullness of God in you then you’ll experience the most significant and purest form of fulfillment anyone could ever have.

There are always golden lessons laid in our past experiences. We might have to do some digging and sifting before we find them, but I assure you, gold is there. By reflecting well, learning, and implementing from our experiences, we are placing ourselves at a significant advantage. Do this correctly over a long period of time, and you will gradually increase your abilities and chances of achieving anything you want. When you fail and then reflect, learn, and implement, you increase your chances of success next time you make an attempt. If you fail again–reflect, learn, and implement; you then increase your chances more. Review the graph below to better understand what I mean. This graph shows that each time you fail or succeed in achieving something, you increase your chances of success on the next attempt. Repeat this process until you finally achieve the result you want. You may notice that I showed “success” at 80%. That’s because success rarely comes at the 100% mark–not to say that it doesn’t come at 100%–but that success is most often accomplished around the 60% to 80% mark. This means you do not need to have a 100% chance of success (everything figured out) in order for you to achieve it. It’s most likely going to happen around 60% - 80%. The key is to keep reflecting, learning, and implementing better strategies as you make progress up your mountain daily!

From what I’ve seen over the years, a listening leader attracts the best followers. These leaders were the type of people who didn’t cut their team members off while in the middle of explaining something. They would listen even when they didn’t agree and patiently wait for their turn to speak. If the followers ever made a mistake, their leader would hear them out before attempting to correct them. This is a huge differentiator between the good and bad leaders: Bad leaders often begin correcting and lecturing others based on their assumptions of a situation without having all the information. Good leaders gather all the data, remove assumptions, and wait until they can see the full picture before ever opening their mouth to correct others. I often tell managers that just because you hear your people out does not mean you have to subscribe to whatever they’re telling you. However, it will give you a much better understanding of how they see things and equip you to more effectively lead them.

Leaders who focus on connecting gain the influence to correct, but those who focus on correcting lose the influence to connect!

Here's a short piece of my book, "Facing Reality", chapter 3, "Facing Who You Want To Become". When a goal violates your values; a sacrifice must be made. We can sacrifice the goal or we can sacrifice a few other things. If you decide to keep the goal, here’s four alternative negative sacrifices that are made in its place. 1. Sacrifice Character To Pursue The Goal. If we are pursuing a goal that conflicts with our character it will require us to sacrifice it. We may have the internal conflict of trying to justify to ourselves that this goal is okay and we can pursue it without deteriorating our character, all the while knowing internally that it most likely will. We will justify it to others of lesser character in an attempt to get some support and validation for our character sacrifice. Once we decide to pursue the goal anyways, things only escalate from there as our character becomes more and more susceptible to contorting into this lesser person. 2. Sacrifice Values To Obtain The Goal. The next sacrifice is our values. As we continue in pursuit of our less than honorable goal, we find ourselves in situations where in order to keep moving towards it, we must sacrifice some of our values. Because their character is weakened this becomes the next justification; if any is even needed at this point. We continue grasping for the goal in hopes to obtain it all the while losing ourselves in the process. 3. Sacrifice Others To Claim The Goal. Once we are able to see the goal at arms reach, we then begin to sacrifice those around us in order to claim it for ourselves. We will push others down in the attempt to lift ourselves up. You may be thinking, “no, I wouldn’t do that.” You're right, maybe who you are today wouldn’t do that because your character and values are intact and keep you grounded. But the person you become once you have sacrificed both your character and values does not have the same grounded foundation. That person will sacrifice others for the sake of themselves and their goal. They would sacrifice their loved ones, friends, co-workers, customers, and leaders in order to claim their prize. This may even come out in the form of taking credit for the goal. They may already have the prize in hand, but that’s usually not enough. They also want to take all the credit for the goal too.