Field notes
for the leadership journey
Leadership
Do you have a filter for saying YES and NO? You should. YES. We feel the pressure to say it. We feel badly when we don't. We love when people tell us YES, but we often hate saying it to others. It's a cheap word in our culture that often comes at a high price...
It’s easier than you think. There is a process that I coach people through to help them gain clarity and momentum with growing their organizations (small business or otherwise) in a way that yields actual results and generates sustainable momentum in the right...
Each week I take 30 minutes in my Right Side Up Journal and analyze last week. It's taken my strategic leadership to the next level. We leave space in the journal every week to LOOK BACK at last week before looking ahead at this week. Very few leaders do this, but it...
Coaching
We don't need more painful fallout stories in the news to realize this has been a brutal season to lead through. Stay Forth Designs exists to help leaders GET HEALTHY so they can lead well for the long haul. Our coaching and experiences are changing lives, so we...
I often helped around the house growing up. Contributing involves work. What teenage boy enjoys work? I often found myself complaining and my dad would always reply, “Jason, if work was supposed to be fun, it would be called fun, not work.” There is quite a bit of...
We spend so much of our life wandering trying to figure out who we are, what it is that makes us tick and what we want to do with that knowledge. Most of us want our lives to contribute to a greater story of the common good. We want to feel alive and know that we...
summaries
Dangerous Calling is one of the few books I read year after year, and every time I read it, it challenges me. Paul David Tripp masterfully weaves real-life stories and often forgotten spiritual truths into this book. As the pages turn, the wounds, temptations, and...
It’s rare to find a book where every chapter invites you into a new way to think and a better way to live. David Brooks, a popular columnist, and author, walked through a valley and emerged on his second mountain with a refined and weathered view of life. He recorded...
Talk about timely! This book is nailing leaders between the eyes right now. In his typical concoction of honest, sarcastic, and well-researched John Mark Comer lays out the problem; hurry is slowly killing us and our relationships. But he also builds a hopeful and...
Church
I competed in a race at the Talladega Motor Speedway. The redneck deep in my DNA has my mullet blowing in the wind, while my arm is hanging out of the window of my lifted truck, and blasting “Sweet Home Alabama” at the mere mention of ‘Dega. But before you think I...
This past Saturday, my daughter and I went to Denver to participate in a peaceful protest against the murder of George Floyd and the mistreatment of POC all over America. As we marched around the capital, I saw that man… you know the one… he stands on the corner with...
I spend a lot of time with church leaders. Sometimes we’re sharing a meal, sipping a coffee or sitting around a fire pit. Other times we’re digging deep into their life and leadership in a coaching session. While there are several studies out there about pastors I...