May 1st through 3rd are three of my favorite leadership days of the year. Each year, INJOY Stewardship Solutions allows me to live-blog the Orange and ReThink Leadership Conferences. No event stretches my thinking more and make me a smarter and better-equipped leader than this event.
If you are unfamiliar with ReThink and Orange, let me give you an overview. Hosted by Carey Nieuwhof, ReThink is a series of Ted Talk-stlyle lessons from some of the most innovative minds in business and leadership. Orange is simply the nation’s preeminent organization on children’s ministry.
As part of my time here, INJOY Stewardship is offering a FREE Capital Campaign Calculator for your church. If your church needs to raise significant capital in the next two years, this will be a wonderful source of information for you.
The next speaker was the great Brad Lomenick. Brad is a producer, speaker, advisor, and author of H3 Leadership: Be Humble. Stay Hungry. Always Hustle., along with his first book The Catalyst Leader. He is the former longtime president of Catalyst, one of the most recognized leadership conference movements in the world.
The following are 29 leadership lessons and quotes from his session along with additional comments from other speakers:
Joel Manby – Joel is the former CEO of Seaworld Entertainment Inc. and Saab USA.
- Love should be a leadership principle, not just how we treat our families.
- I became a Christian when I was 16 and I wanted to love people.
- Truthfulness is one of the values of love in 1 Corinthians. Be honest with what state your organization is in.
- A lot of non-profits have trouble with truth and hard converations.
- Shamu was our #1 traction and became our #1 liability.
- Christians are under attack in general, the church specifically.
- Christianity is the only answer to the hatred and violence in this world.
- Our only audience has to be God and what He thinks of us.
- We’re just human beings who chose a different form of leadership and maybe some wealth came with it.
Dana Spinola – Dana is the founder of Fabric, a women’s clothing line.
- I was not a Christian when I started this company.
- Our job is to make people look beautiful. My mission statement is to make women look beautiful on the inside and outside.
- “I’ve got an idea where you can help.” I love that question from my pastor.
Brad Lomenick
- I want to build platforms other people can stand on.
- If you equally a platform builder for others as much as yourself, you’re going to do very well for yourself.
- Success is about me. Significance is about others.
- The people in your concentric circles of influence will define how powerful you are and the influence in your community.
- You need to define how you’re going to partner with those levels of your concentric circles.
- Equally important are the circles 10-levels away from the immediate area.
- Be a connector and not a networker. Connectors make something happen that benefits someone else. The networkers are “get me as far away from them as possible.”
- The more you connect people the more power you get.
- The curator is the new leader, the aggregator, the person who brings everyone together.
- Be a list creator.
- When you know who the experts are, you are the expert.
- Bridge-builders have to have foundations and roots on both sides of the river.
- The thing we probably did better than anything at Catalyst was bring hundreds of tribes together.
- Your job is to reach out and be a Who Builder requires that you listen and have deep, deep curiosity.
- A platform is something that gives you an opportunity to have a bigger voice and influence more people.
- TED has struck a chord which fundamentally human.
- The good thing about digital is digital will tell you if something is good or not.
- Access has never been easier to get.
- I’m always listening for pain points.
- The conversations where you do all the listening, that person will walk away from that conversation saying, “Amazing! That was the best breakfast ever!”
- Every great leader I’ve even known, the greatest thing they’ve held onto their whole life is curiosity.
- The greatest fundamental human needs right now are to be known and belong.
- Most of the time people just want you to know their name.
- What are you doing with these 5 C’s – Creating, Content, Community, Conversation, and Connection.
- Content is a commodity now.
- Tell student pastors they need to get better at communicating but to focus on conversations.
- The greatest things you can bring many times to your connections is EQ, emotional intelligence. But this all starts with self-awareness. IQ you can only grow a couple of points in your life. EQ you can grow exponentially.
- Questions should honor the person, not catch them in something. Questions should not setup their answer. Ask a question that wants them to tell you more. Then listen and ask a follow-up connected to what you just heard.
- People always love to talk about their story.
Brad is just a gifted, gifted leader.
My book Timeless: 10 Enduring Practices Of Apex Leaders is available for purchase. If you have ever wanted to become the leader God created you to be, this book is for you! By combining leadership lessons from biblical heroes like Jesus, Daniel and Joseph, along with modern day leaders like Bill Gates, Nick Saban, Kobe Bryant and multiple pastors, Timeless will equip and inspire you. This book is not to be read alone. Discussion questions are included in each chapter allowing you to develop those in your circle of influence. Click HERE or on the image provided and order your copies TODAY.