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Pruning for Success

Photo Credit - Paul Holley

My wife is a master gardener. There is nothing she cannot do when it comes to flowers, plants or trees. She studies it, she knows it, she lives it. So, why is it that when I see her snipping away perfectly good looking stems from her rose bushes I begin to object? She’s the expert, I don’t know jack, but it just does not seem right to me.

“You have to trim away the parts that keep the bush from reaching its full potential”, she tells me and I know that she is right. Left to its own the rose bush would become a tangled and unorganized mess instead of the long stemmed beautiful creation that we all love to admire. She has to cut away the dead stems and blooms, the stems or blooms that look sick or dying, and even some healthy stems or blooms that might look good, but are not the best.

Avoiding a Tangled Mess

If your life is the rose bush then that makes you the master gardener. The need for pruning is constant and that job falls to you. If you want to reach your full potential then you need to take on the intentional practice of pruning away the parts of your life that are holding you back.

Dr. Henry Cloud in his book, “Necessary Endings” says that, “growth depends on getting rid of the unwanted or the superfluous”.  In my life, just like that of the rose bush I need to Continue Reading…

Making Your Minutes Matter

Photo Credit - iStockPhoto

I had a doctor’s appointment today. It seems that no matter how good intentioned the office staff may be there is always a wait. They try to keep you moving so it seems like something is happening, but moving me from the outside waiting room to the inside waiting room still has me waiting. As I look about these various waiting rooms it is obvious to me that people have differing ways of dealing with the wait. Most are staring blankly at the floor or at the TV in the corner that inevitably gets tuned to a cartoon to keep the children from losing it. A few are looking at People or Sports Illustrated magazines that are easily over a year old. A few are playing games on their smart phones. Continue Reading…

Get More Done, In Less Time, with Better Results

Photo Credit - iStockPhoto

Over the past three weeks I took my first domestic airline trips of the year. The biggest difference between flying domestically and flying internationally is obviously the length of the flights is much shorter domestically. Oh yeah, and I get upgraded to first class EVERY time on domestic flights and NEVER internationally, but that’s (as we say in the south) a “wholenuther” story. What I noticed most recently was that I could barely get out my books, my pen and paper or my computer before the pilot was telling us we were getting ready to land. I have lost one of my all time great “productivity palaces”, the international airline seat.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I am all in favor of a little less time in an airline seat, especially since the size of the seat is more appropriate for me when I was 12. Continue Reading…

Problems, Problems, Problems

Photo Credit - iStockPhoto

I recently returned from a business trip and before I could put down my suitcase my wife began to advise me of a couple of problems that needed my attention. She had been dealing with them for over a week and she needed help and I was the help. I, being exhausted, had a bit of a bad response to this reception. “I would be thrilled to come home to no problems”, I said to her. “Well, that is just not the reality we live in”, she said to me. And there you have it! She is exactly right. A world with no problems is just not the reality we live in.

“If you find a path with no obstacles, it probably doesn’t lead anywhere.”

Frank A. Clark

My reaction to my wife’s proclamation of problems was probably a fairly standard response for many of us, but her focusing on reality got me to thinking. Continue Reading…

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