The 8 Laws of Leadership

Dr. William Cohen in his book, The Stuff of Heroes, writes that the eight universal laws of leadership are:

1. Maintain absolute integrity.
2. Know your stuff.
3. Declare your expectations.
4. Show uncommon commitment.
5. Expect positive results.
6. Take care of your people.
7. Put duty before self.
8. Get out in front.

© 2009 Family First. All Rights Reserved.

At The End, It's Relationships That Matter Most
By: Gary Oliver, Ph.D.

Several years ago I heard a convicting story of the value and importance of making family relationships a priority. A middle-class family in the 40's had set a family goal of remodeling their old bathroom. After a year of financial sacrifices they finally had enough cash for the project. At the family conference held to pick the colors and finalize the plans one of the children suggested, "Why don't we use the money for a trip and fix the bathroom next year?" Even though it involved a change in plans, everyone liked the suggestion and that summer they took the money and went to Yellowstone National Park.

With the money spent the saving started all over in order to do the postponed remodeling the next year. When it came time to hire the contractor the family's conversation drifted to how much they had enjoyed the trip to Yellowstone and the inevitable suggestion surfaced: "Why not put off the bathroom for just one more year and take another family trip?" They all agreed.

Read more at All Pro Dad

One Supplement That Works
Matthew Herper, 08.19.09, 06:00 PM EDT
Forbes Magazine dated September 07, 2009

A lot of nutritional supplements are quack medicines. Not fish oil.

In the late 1960s Danish physician Hans Olaf Bang became fixated on an epidemiological anomaly: Why did Greenland's Inuit rarely get heart disease in spite of a high-fat diet consisting mostly of whale blubber and seal meat?

"We have to go up there and solve this riddle," Bang told his prot??g??, J??rn Dyerberg, then 33 years old. In 1970 the two doctors cobbled together $6,000, flew to Greenland and collected blood samples from 130 Inuit. The cholesterol numbers were good but not enough to explain the healthy hearts. Back in the lab they used an old gas chromatograph to analyze Inuit blood. They found two chemicals they had never heard of before. The same chemicals didn't appear in the blood of Inuit who had moved to mainland Denmark and switched to a Western diet.

Read more at Forbes CEO Network

Burning Question: How Do I Future-Proof My Digital Media?

By Bryan Gardiner 07.20.09

Illustration: Don Clark

You've spent years hoarding digital media, tossing aside those flimsy tape and plastic prisons after transmuting the information into its purer form. No outdated vessel is going to prevent your endless enjoyment of its contents, right?

Think again, Highlander.

Read more at Wired Magazine

14 Ways To Affair Proof Your Marriage
By: by Brett & Kate McKay

Many people look at infidelity as if it was a natural disaster; no one could see it coming; it just inexplicably happened. Perhaps this is because we are a country that has abdicated its belief in personal responsibility. The truth is that not only can men see it coming, they can prevent it from happening as well.

It is possible to affair proof your marriage. Will it be a lot of work? Yes. But that's what you signed up for when you decided to marry your sweetheart.

What is cheating?

Before we begin our discussion on how to immunize your marriage against infidelity, we should establish what constitutes cheating. Having sex with another woman other than your wife is obviously cheating. But it's also possible to be unfaithful without having to go that far. Infidelity has shades of gray that should likewise be avoided. It is possible to be emotionally unfaithful without crossing any physical boundaries. A perfect example of this is online infidelity. More and more married men are having online romantic and sometimes sexual relationships with women other than their wife. While there's no physical contact, I would definitely say this is cheating. Men who "date" online are violating a trust that their wife has put in them to be faithful-both body and mind.

Now let's get down to business. Here are 14 ways to affair proof your marriage:

Read moreat All Pro Dad

The 2009 Defrag Shootout, and all the defragmentation utilities I can find

The 2009 Defrag Shootout, and all the defragmentation utilities I can find

The 2009 Defrag Shootout is now under way, and results are posted as they come in. It takes time to get these results, because testing is done on Windows XP, Windows Vista 32-bit and Vista 64-bit environments, and numerous tests are carried out. Windows 7 testing will be added only once the final product actually ships.

• Windows Disk Defragmenter: Version 5.1.2600.5512 supplied in Windows XP.

Check below for information on other packages, and the 2007 winners of the previous "Great Defrag Shootout".

Read more at Insights and Rants

Roadside Emergency Kit
Even if you faithfully follow our 10 maintenance tips, some breakdowns are unavoidable. Do yourself a favor and save some room in your trunk for the following items. They could turn a potential trip-wrecker into nothing more than an unexpected pit stop:

• Screwdrivers and wrenches of various sizes
• Jumper cables
• A jack and tire iron
• A can of "Fix-a-Flat" for temporarily sealing and inflating a flat tire
• Water for both the radiator and yourself
• Emergency flares and reflectors
• Gloves
• Blanket and towel
• Flashlight [source: CBS News]

Read more at HowStuffWorks.com

Wipe Your Feet

2.22.09 BY David Rupert

Article:

As a boy, my mother routinely reminded us to wipe our feet when we dashed into the house at full speed. She rarely even looked up as we came in. She just knew that brother and I would have dirty shoes.

Mom had good reason for concern. The empty lots and open fields were our playgrounds. And on the way home from our ventures, we walked through every mud puddle.

As an adult, I still clean my shoes before entering my home after a long day at school or work. I don't need my mother to remind me anymore—I get it because I pay for the carpet.

Recently, I've been thinking about the symbolism of removing the dirt from the world before entering my home. For years, I collected bad attitudes and negativity from the work world and brought them home to my young family. They never knew what my mood was going to be. Silently, hesitantly, they would size me up.

"What kind of day did he have? Can I tell him my problems? Can I share some good news? Will he snap at me for no reason?”

Read more at The High Calling

Poka-Yoke: A Misunderstood Concept

Shigeo Shingo introduced the concept of poka-yoke in 1961, when he was an industrial engineer at Toyota Motor Corporation. The initial term was baka-yoke, which means ‘fool-proofing’. In 1963, a worker at Arakawa Body Company refused to use baka-yoke mechanisms in her work area, because of the term’s dishonourable and offensive connotation. Hence, the term was changed to poka-yoke, which means ‘mistake-proofing’.

Poka-yokes are mechanisms used to mistake-proof an entire process. Ideally, poka-yokes ensure that proper conditions exist before actually executing a process step, preventing defects from occurring in the first place. Where this is not possible, poka-yokes perform a detective function, eliminating defects in the process as early as possible.

Read more at Manage Mentor

Got my new Nokia E51 last week. It's quite a nice smartphone. I've been a Windows Mobile user for many years and I though I'd never go back to Nokia. But with my E51, I'm finding that I could do as much as with my Windows Mobile phones.

I'm compiling some useful websites here:

http://www.getjar.com -- lots of free java applications and games
http://www.noeman.org/gsm -- Symbian apps and games forum
http://kma.mv/forum/ -- Symbian apps and games forum
htttp://dailymobile.se/ -- Daily Mobile forum. Your all-in-one phone blog
http://www.persian-forums.com/ -- Symbian forum
http://www.symbian-freeware.com/ -- free Symbian software
http://www.mobilecastle.biz/mobiles/ -- another smartphone forum
http://www.finestfones.com/
http://free-ngage-downloads.blogspot.com/
http://pinoy-symbian.com/ -- nice pinoy forum with a good number of applications
http://www.fillmobile.com/ -- free mobile software
http://www.mobile9.com/ -- online destination to share and download FREE content for your mobile phone

It pays for companies to take care of talent
By Abigail L. Ho
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 00:22:00 07/06/2009

MANILA, Philippines - The economic downturn is forcing businesses to cut costs here and there, sometimes going to the painful extent of letting people go.

While this may make sense at the onset, enterprises should think twice, thrice, 10 times before doing something that drastic.

The People Management Association of the Philippines says businesses should focus on strengthening their human resource if they want to be able to ride the recovery wave when it comes.

In a presentation at the Philippine International Franchise Conference and Expo 2009 last week, PMAP president and Corporate Executive Search managing director Grace Abella-Zata said the best route was to combine “buying, building and borrowing” talents.

Read more at Philippine Daily Inquirer Money

Chaos Theology

Finding hope in the midst of the terror of creation.

Mark Galli | posted 6/18/2009 11:32AM

The cover story for the July/August issue of The Atlantic is titled, "The Ideas Issue: How to Fix the World." The article addresses, among other things, the housing mess, the Afghanistan war, the collapsing environment, illegal immigration, and homeland insecurity. A subtext of many of the entries is international terrorism, the most dreadful and symbolic of global threats. These are all but snapshots of the terrible panorama of blood, fire, smoke, and darkness of the present world order.

Except that the word order hardly applies. It's chaos we're living in, and we are weary and sometimes frightened. Among the many filmmakers who paint this reality in vivid hues are the Coen brothers. Their movies always feature a character who brings chaos to the world. Yet whereas in early films, chaos is always brought under control (in Fargo, for example, police chief Marge Gunderson captures the cold-blooded killer Gaer Grimstud), at the end of their last film, No Country for Old Men, chaos is still on the loose.

Read more at Christianity Today

5 Traits: What Makes A Good Leader?
Posted on November 18th, 2008
http://pinoybusiness.org/2008/11/18/5-traits-what-makes-a-good-leader/

What makes a good leader? Why are some leaders more effective than others? Leaders lead their team to victories. And most of all leaders make leaders out of their members. But how can you gauge a good leader? What makes them tick? Below are just some of the things which I believe a leader do that makes them a successful one:

1. Real leaders listen. A smart leader accepts that he does not know all the answers, that is why they listen to their people. By listening to their people, not only do they learn more and see things from a different perspective, it also encourages their people. Their people learn to speak their mind, be it something that might contradict the leader’s thought, because it put the member in a position which takes risk and responsibility. A quality of a future leader.

2. A leader connect to his people. A leader can relate to his people, and his people can relate to him. This only means that he knows his people, their interests, their families, their hobbies, and his people know his heart. He does not hide behind a tough emotion-less façade, because while it may earn him respect, it will be brought about by fear and therefore may not get their loyalty.

3. A leader is a good teacher. A leader teaches his people, and usually he does this by example. But most all a leader’s thirst for knowledge rubs off in his people, that is why they also aspire to learn more as their try to emulate their leader.

4. A leader develop his people. Aside from just teaching them, an effective leader develops his people to be future effective leaders as well. That is why he help bring out the best in them.

5. A leader motivates. What’s the difference between development and motivation? When you develop your people, they will be motivated. More so when you listen, connect to and teach them. Motivation is not a one-time effort, it is a conscious sustained action to help his people aspire for more, tap their hidden talent and train them so that they will be ready when it’s their turn to carry the torch.

Why Sing Hymns

Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord. (Colossians 3:16)

The trend today is to replace traditional hymns with contemporary praise choruses. This is not a good trend, especially for youth and new believers who need a strong doctrinal focus. Hymns present clear expressions of the knowledge of God and biblical truth. Col. 3:16 admonishes— Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs.

Read more at Surf-in-the-Spirit

Hymn Singing

December 31, 2002 AM
By Rev. Dr. Robert S. Rayburn
From: Biblical Worship

Over the past twenty-five years, the American evangelical church has moved away from the hymns we sing at Faith Presbyterian Church. What are now widely referred to as “praise songs” have replaced the hymns that had been sung in Protestant worship for many generations.

Churches began to sing these songs, often putting the text before the congregation by means of an overhead projector, in hopes that their worship would be more accessible to the ordinary American who, it was thought, found the established church music alien, dull, and hard to sing. So complete has been the transition in many churches that the rising generation of Christians is now largely unfamiliar with the literature of Christian hymns.

Read more at faithacoma.org

BlogSpotting: Time Management for Leaders

Keeping the main thing the main thing.
Tim Avery

One of my colleagues recently pointed me to the blog of Barry Werner, whose background includes serving as director of operations for World Wide Pictures at the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association. In his entries, Werner has been walking through the Old Testament and considering how different leadership principles are represented in the passages he reads.

One of his recent posts—which he relates to Numbers 33—addresses the issue of self-discipline. He's primarily talking about time management, and I found this line to be the most helpful:

The essence of self-discipline is to do the important thing rather than the urgent thing.

An urgent task, after all, is easy to discern. All you have to know is the deadline, and how much time will be needed to accomplish it. In fact, an urgent task is almost impossible to ignore.

But an important task—well, to discern that requires a bigger-picture perspective, something quickly lost on a busy afternoon. Without a concrete deadline to remind us or compel us, we let it slide. So what do you do to clarify your daily priorities and stick to them?

Tim Avery is the associate editor of BuildingChurchLeaders.com.

Posted by Tim Avery at 1:55 PM on June 15, 2009 | Comments (2) | Trackbacks (0)

Read more at Building Church Leaders

'I Stayed'

There's power in knowing you and your spouse are in it for the long haul.

Christy Scannell

One of the advantages of living in San Diego, aside from the fantastic weather, is that we have two theaters that stage Broadway-bound shows, both to test how they fare with audiences and to get out the kinks before hitting the Great White Way. In the last few years I've seen several of these big productions, some winners (Dirty Rotten Scoundrels) and others not (The Full Monty).

A few years ago, my husband, Rich, and I zipped over to the Old Globe Theatre to take in A Catered Affair. We agreed the musical had its plusses and minuses, but one of the standouts was Tom Wopat (yes, that guy from the Dukes of Hazzard) singing a lump-in-the-throat-inducing number, "I Stayed."

To understand the impact of this song, you have to know that Wopat plays a 1950s middle-aged husband whose wife, among other issues, is accusing Wopat's character of having never really loved her. They married because she was pregnant, so she always suspected he rather would have been anywhere but with her. Now that their daughter is marrying and moving out of their home, she frets over what kind of life she will have with this man who only tolerates her.

Read more at Christianity Today Marriage Partnership

Master the Art of Working Remotely
Gina Trapani, Work Smarter

10:23 AM Tuesday June 16, 2009


Over the past five years I've worked off-site and online for employers across the country using email, chat, and web-based collaboration apps. My work life has been the envy of my traditional nine-to-five friends. While they suit up in an office-appropriate outfit, grab the briefcase, and brave a commute every weekday, I get to work from home (and my employers get to save money on office space).

But working with people in different cities and time zones with minimal face time presents a whole new set of challenges. While the tools available for working remotely are better than ever, it's how you use them that really counts. Constant and clear communication is the key to a good remote working relationship. Here are some best practices I've found for working remotely online.

Read more at Harvard Business Publishing

How To Spot an Email Hoax
By David Emery, About.com

Without researching the factual claims made in a forwarded email there's no 100 percent sure way to tell it if it's a hoax, but here you'll find a list of common signs to watch for...

Here's How:

Note whether the text you've received was actually written by the person who sent it. Did anyone sign their name to it? If not, be skeptical.

Read more at Urban Legends

Conversation starters with your wife

Try out these questions on your spouse: What is your favorite memory of our dating days? What is your best memory of your mother? Your father? What are your three favorite movies of all time? What's the one thing you'd like to be remembered for? If you had more time, what hobby would you like to pursue? What living person, other than family members, do you admire most? What's your idea of a perfect night out - or in? If you could only spend $10 on a date night, what would you do?

Print out these questions and ask her tonight. You might learn something about her you never knew before!

Why does your marriage matter so much to your kids? Find out here.

Huddle up and ask your wife tonight: Mind if I ask you a couple of questions?

© 2009 Family First. All Rights Reserved.