Lynna Morris

A: It’s time to say to him “I love you, I really do want to get married to you but I’m not getting married until you deal with your drinking problem.” Now I know such a statement is threatening. It’s also risky because you may lose the relationship. He may tell you, “Don’t tell me how to live my life.” But it’s far better to hear him say that now before you get married than to hear him say that six months after you’re married. I’m telling you, this is a serious problem. Don’t ignore it. It will not go away. Tough love is the only kind of love that will help him at this point.

“If circumstances control our hope, we are most vulnerable.  Hope or optimism is not about denying reality; it’s about seeing the possibilities for creating a better reality than you currently have.”  Dan Miller, from Wisdom meets Passion (August 28th release)

The scriptures say that when we get married we are to ‘leave’ our parents and ‘cleave’ to each other. What does this leaving and cleaving look like in daily life? It means that we no longer ‘lean’ on our parents but on each other. It means that we do not allow parents to dominate our lives. We show them respect by listening to their ideas or suggestions, but we make our own decisions.

We do not run to them with a list of our spouse’s failures. Parents are not in the best position to be our counselor. Leaving means that we seek to be financially independent from our parents as soon as possible. We are grateful for their contribution to our lives, but now we want to make our own way. Leaving means that we build upon the foundation they have given us.

I recently posted a job at 48days.net for someone to work at the Free Agent Academy as a Branding Professor. We’re paying $2,000 per month for one day of work each week, and almost instantly I received over 60 resumes from very interested applicants. I needed a quick way to find the best person for the job, but I also didn’t want to rush and hire the wrong person. What follows is an inside look at the process I used, along with what it took to actually get hired.

Six things immediately bumped applicant’s eligibility down. I wrote about each of the six recently and also talked about them on the No More Monday’s Show (April 16 episode). It’s important to note that only one of the six actually disqualified people for the job: not following directions.

60 Resumes: the First Cut

As a Branding Professor, our winning applicant won’t be doing the actual work of branding new businesses, but will instead be assisting the business owners. Still, I wanted to see that each applicant had the creativity to brand a company that I made up.

I invented a new company that was making a special kind of soap. I left it exactly this generic when each applicant was sent an email with directions to create an online page showing their branding and explaining why they chose to brand their company this way.

Why post this work online? Well, our Branding Professor can live and travel anywhere in the world. With the exception of a few live events each year, each of our classes is online. I knew a few would have issues with the platform (Squiddo, by the way) which would raise some flags on my end. I needed someone who already has a basic understanding of technology and the internet, even if it’s new to them.

One week after sending the exercise, the deadline passed. Instantly, I discovered almost half of the original applicants were no longer interested. Some contacted me to withdraw their name but many simply didn’t reply at all.

One person was mad that I made it a requirement to post the exercise online. While he knew I wanted that from the beginning, he did the work, then told me he didn’t want to post online in fear someone would steal his ideas. I’m trying to imagine hundreds of soap companies scouring the internet, looking for someone who has already done the branding work for the exact soap they’ve created. Because that guy didn’t want his ideas stolen, he lost out on a great free agent opportunity.

The group had now dwindled to 34 people.

A Surprise Exercise

Intentionally, I didn’t reveal the process I would use to any of the applicants ahead of time. Little did they know I would share their first exercise with the rest of the group and ask them to tell me which they liked best.

These votes weren’t counted to choose a winner. In fact, I can’t tell you who had the most votes because I didn’t even tally them.

Since our new professor would be critiquing branding exercises, I needed to see his or her thought process. Each applicant choose two exercises from the list and critiqued.

One of the common issues of those not making the cut was instantly berating a bad idea and then offering solutions. It was Theodore Roosevelt who said, “People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.”

The best applicants used the sandwich technique. Similar to correcting the behavior of a child, you start with something good, sandwich the bad in the middle, then end with the good again. Few people did that, but it impressed me when I saw it.

The Winner Stands Out

The winner followed directions, he didn’t complain along the way (yes, I did get a few complaints), he had great spelling (this really counted), and he was a people person. He also went above and beyond the call and visited my team and me in my small mountain town in Colorado. That was impressive and not required at all.

It’s easy to find nice people that will do a good job. It’s difficult to find someone who follows directions, interacts well with others, pays attention to details, and does what it takes to build relationship.

If you want your dream job, do what it takes, but then go above and beyond. No one mailed something impressive like a letter, even though my address is clearly on my website. If they had, that person would have easily stood out and that’s all it takes. If they passed the exercises, I would have likely chosen them.

Have you gone above and beyond to land a job? What did it take to put you at the top of the list?

The dictionary defines a “sluggard” as a habitually inactive or lazy person. Here’s an example. My wife Joanne is mentoring a young lady who just got out of prison. While incarcerated, a grandmother cared for her 4-yr-old daughter. This gal counted the days until she could be reunited with her precious little girl. Three weeks after she was released she was told that the father of the child wanted full custody. It seemed odd that he was unwilling to care for his child while the mother was in prison – and now he has a sudden desire to be the sole caretaker.

However, the rest of the story soon came out. Baby Daddy has discovered that if can get custody of this little girl, he will receive free housing, food stamps and a monthly stipend. He can totally remove himself from having to work, and can live the life he has apparently dreamed of.  I’d call this guy a sluggard.

I have three questions:

1. What motivates a person to stoop this low, in using an innocent child as a ploy for personal gain?

2. What has to happen to a person to give up on this level – to decide that a meager handout is better than the wide-open opportunities we all have in front of us?  And thus deprive oneself of the incredible satisfaction of meaningful, purposeful and profitable work?

3. How have we as a society allowed this kind of option to even be made available?

The Biblical Proverbs are full of interesting descriptions of the “sluggard.”
Here are just a few telltale signs:

• The sluggard is a procrastinator. Sluggards love to sleep, watch TV and put off anything meaningful until tomorrow.
  How long will you lie there, you sluggard? When will you get up from your sleep?(Prov. 6:9)

• The sluggard is self-seeking. Always looking out for number one – himself. He has no consideration for anyone else.
  The sluggard craves and gets nothing, but the desires of the diligent are fully satisfied. (Prov. 13:4)

• The sluggard makes no plans for the future. Every day is like the previous one – just wait and see what happens. He thinks only of the present. He constantly talks about tomorrow, because that’s when he’s going to do something important; but he never thinks ahead.
  A sluggard does not plow in season; so at harvest time he looks but finds nothing.(Prov. 20:3-5)

• The sluggard uses unfounded fears and excuses keep from doing anything. The sluggard cannot possibly get to work because there might be some challenge out there.
  The sluggard says, “There is a lion outside!” or, “I will be murdered in the streets!”(Prov. 22:13)

• The sluggard lacks self-discipline and self-control. Whatever is easy and immediately enjoyable will always be his first choice.
  The sluggard buries his hand in the dish; he is too lazy to bring it back to his mouth.(Prov. 26:14)

Okay, I know this doesn’t describe you – but you probably know someone with some of these characteristics.  What would you recommend for dealing with people like this?

For better and sometimes for worse, our parents and in-laws are a part of our lives. God designed it that way. We are told to honor our parents so that life will go well for us. We are also instructed to leave our parents when we get married. This ‘leaving’ means a change of allegiance. We must see ourselves as a new unit after marriage.

The husband is committed to his wife and she to him. However, ‘leaving’ does not mean that we abandon our parents. Rather, we are to honor them. The word honor means to show respect. It means treating parents with kindness and dignity. Leaving parents and honoring parents are both biblical commands.

We’ve all heard about jobs going to India, China, Taiwan and Mexico.  Well, here’s an even more imposing proposition.  A California company plans to anchor a 600-cabin cruise ship just beyond the three-mile limit off the coast of El Segundo, near Los Angeles, and fill it with foreign software programmers.  The company will classify the workers as “seamen,” and thus avoid U.S. payroll taxes and the need for immigration visas.  The programmers would work 8 or 10-hr shifts, day or night and receive about $21,500 a year.

Compare that to the salary of an American programmer – median salary for programmers is around $60,000, and those with extensive experience can make $125,000 or more.

Blueseed Co. in Sunnyvale, California plans to dock a large ship 12 miles off the coast of San Francisco – placing it in international waters – to house foreign workers who cannot get employment immigration visas. The vessel could hold 1,000 workers who would use temporary business or tourist visas to meet with clients, partners or co-workers on land.

Major U.S. oil companies are using foreign workers – again using the letter of the law to avoid paying the approximately $2500 visa fee for each worker by keeping them far enough off shore.

That ship you’re passing on your way to Hawaii may be filled with tightly cramped cubicles rather than the luxurious cabins you’re envisioning.

I can’t decide whether to admire the creativity or be outraged by the audacity.

Are there times we have to make distinctions between what is “legal” and what is “right?”

Question: My daughter’s primary Love Language is gifts and I’m concerned that in this materialistic world, she confuses what love really is. How can I teach her?

Answer: I think it’s a genuine and legitimate concern. What I would suggest is this: If a child’s love language is gifts, the gifts don’t have to be expensive and they certainly don’t have to be everything a child is asking for. That would be a serious mistake. You can give them little things: a stone you pick up in a parking lot, a flower from the garden, just one bite of candy. Little things will mean a lot to this child. In terms of gifts, you give them something you think will be helpful for them. Don’t give them everything they ask or that will teach them materialism. But give them those things that will be beneficial for them.

If you’ve ever led people, you’ve come across followers who would rather act the part than do their part. Those people are pretenders, and while they can sometimes masquerade as players, there are ways to tell the two apart. It’s important to find all the pretenders within an organization, because otherwise, they will steal momentum [...]

Originally posted at: John Maxwell on Leadership
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Knowing the difference between players and pretenders

You know the term – Bulimia.  The disorder where someone binges on food and then induces vomiting to compensate for it.  As horrible as it sounds, I see people who display the same characteristics in their work.

Rob is a layout editor for the local newspaper.  His cell phone never stops ringing:  reporters are demanding deadlines that are impossible to meet, journalists are furious their stories have been bumped, a national news story breaks 15 minutes before press time, he knows that his chest pain is more than just indigestion, and once again he’s missed his son’s baseball game.  But he sucks it up – knowing that in just 10 more days he can leave for his annual two week vacation.  He’ll unwind and get rid of all this stress.

But we know that plan doesn’t really work.  This bulimic way of handling stress – letting it build to a boiling point and then stopping work completely for several days doesn’t work.  It is dangerous and destructive.  That daily accumulation of stress doesn’t just go away in a few days of relaxation – it tears down as it occurs in ways from which you will never recover.  It clogs arteries, raises blood pressure, reduces concentration and creativity, and saps our spiritual and emotional energy.  The ongoing effects are that it makes us more vulnerable to colds and more serious diseases.  It sets us up for weight gain, facial wrinkles and strained relationships.

We have to have a process of “breathing” in our work.  Just exhale and you will eventually turn blue and pass out.  Can you allow yourself time within your workday to inhale – and exhale?

I actually had a physician mention recently that he had considered sticking his hand in a meat grinder, so he could collect disability and escape the daily demands of his position. It may have been said partly in jest, but the pressure felt is not uncommon among workers at all levels. A dentist told me he had an ultralight plane – specifically because he was preparing to make a socially acceptable exit from the life of stress he had created.

Here’s a better plan: learn to deal with the stress daily rather than letting it build up to a boiling point. When you feel tension building, take a deep breath, pull your shoulders back, take a walk around the block, drink a full glass of water, eat a couple of carrots, let your phone take messages, or spend 10 minutes in silent meditation. Come visit my work area – we’ll take a walk and see the bunnies, the deer and try out the new zipline I just installed.  Drive a different way home tonight, check out getting an ergonomic chair, remove agitating music from your work area, and include small “Sabbath” times of positive reflection and anticipation into every day.

Do you have healthy habits at work or are you showing signs of bulimia?