A Principled Life

Think for a minute about your life and how you lead it.  When your life is centered on possessions, the important thing becomes what you have.  When your life is centered on principles, the important thing is who you are.

Your principles will help you reach any decision — whether you find yourself immersed in a crisis, or a wonderful future opportunity.  Consider a few key spokes in your wheel of life — your family, your house of worship, your community — and decide what values, what principles, that you hold dear.  Use those principles as your own personal GPS.  Then for each value important to you, Write It Down, make it personal like… I can be relied on to tell the truth.  That would be an example of a principle.

Cynt Marshall, the CEO of the Dallas Mavericks, knows her principles by heart.  She calls them, “The 3 L’s of leadership.”  Listen, Learn, Love.  Recently at a conference I was attending, she talked about the importance of her 3 L’s…

Listen to the people you supervise, learn from them, and love them.

Then she told the story of her little red wagon.  During her annual compensation meetings, she'd bring with her a wagon loaded with files, college textbooks, and a loaf of bread.  When she sees the quizzical look, she is explaining the meaning behind her little wagon.  She says…

What we're getting ready to do impacts the way people put bread on the table and how they send their kids to college.  We love these people, we want them to have great lives, and the decisions we make today impact that.

WOW, Principled Leadership.  Let’s never forget that — as a parent, as a son, daughter, as a leader of any organization. The decisions you make will affect the people around you, no matter if you see them or not.  Someone once said…

Your life may be the only Bible some people will ever read

Make sure they read the right words.  Have a great week.