October 21, 2009

It Takes Skill

Skill is knowing what to do and having the ability to execute. Last week in my pick-up basketball game I threw a long alley-oop pass that swished. When one of the young guys told me how lucky I was, I just winked and replied, “all skill baby.” However, skill is more than knowledge and execution. A skillful person usually has a sense of timing.

I admire the skill of an artist, a surgeon, a song writer, a carpenter and a great athlete. I even have to acknowledge the skill of my kids to do great homework, my mother on her ability to remember every detail of my flawed childhood, and the skill of cooking that Ms Pat shares at the Y!

I am looking for an executive right now and I am looking for skill and will. I know that people with a great resume may just look good on paper. I also know that a person that interviews well just may be a great talker. I am looking for the entire package. I want the leader that is striving to be better tomorrow than he or she is today. I want a leader that can inspire others around them to greatness. I want a servant leader that has proficiency in the job and knows how to create success.

Do you see any truly competent workers? They will serve kings rather than ordinary people (Proverbs 22:29)

Many of my best candidates are great young leaders. I hope they understand how achieving great things takes experience and hard work. We all need to spend time in prayer asking God to show us our talents. We are on earth for a purpose and God has a plan for us.

We often aspire to be something that is measured in the eyes of our neighbors not in the eyes of our Lord. But what if we use our skill and our will to serve in whatever job role we lead? How would that be measured? The bible clearly states that those who serve others will be rewarded in heaven. In fact, the best leaders display a servant’s attitude.
Commit yourself today to developing and using the talents and gifts blessed from God. Ask God to show you the areas of service where you can use those talents. Work hard to develop those skills. Ask for humility that regardless of the world’s hierarchy that you would have a servant’s heart!

October 17, 2009

So Cal Saturday (Repost)

Let me take you back to 1973. I was 9 years old and I had just spent the fall watching the Notre Dame football high light show on Sunday mornings before I went to church. I can still hear the late Lindsay Nelson’s voice say, “And now to further action.”

It was a Saturday afternoon in the Spring of 1973. My father had taken me and several of my friends to swim at the Greensboro Central YMCA. As we were leaving, the TV in the lobby was playing the UCLA vs. Notre Dame basketball game. My dad said, “we might want to stop and watch the end of this game. Notre Dame just might upset UCLA.” The UCLA Bruins had won 88 straight basketball games. And this my friends, was how my sports marriage to Notre Dame sports was born during the last ten minutes of that game. Screaming and cheering wildly at the TV in the lobby, my father could only chuckle or note to passersby, “Do these kids not have parents?”

When Notre Dame won that afternoon, I must have practiced throwing the ball in the air like John Shumate 10000 times. I wanted to die my socks Green and Yellow. I asked for Green carnations for my lapel for Sunday Church. I quietly aspired for my nick name to be Digger.Like a smoldering volcano, my love for all things ND lay dormant for many years.

There was no request for conversion to Catholicism. No, special requests for the pope. And I promise you there were many things to go to confession over but to this day they stay locked in the vault.I suffered under the Gerry Faust years. I anguished when they ran off Digger and I cheered for a few years the acquisition of Lou Holtz. Lou Holtz came about in my college days and my roommates thought it would be funny to burn all the ND memorabilia off my door. That day stays in the vault.

I became a true ND fan. Pulling for basketball as well as football. In the advent of the internet even looking at baseball, hockey, women’s basketball, etc. Could I name my first born Muffet? Then the movie Rudy came out and I felt in some way that the script was for me. The music, the tradition, the culture, the aura of all things Notre Dame. Hard to believe that the small town southern Baptist bred wished he was born red headed with the last name of O’Shannon or something.

Today I am a 44 year old man with one hobby; Notre Dame. I don’t ask for much but please let me see my football games every Saturday and the occasional basketball game.

As I reflect, I almost broke off the engagement to my wife, for during the national championship year of 1988, she made me go to dinner with her parents [promising to tape the USC vs. ND game.] Later that evening as we returned for the evening my future brother in law met me at the door screaming the results of the game. “I am sorry April, but the wedding is over! Oh, and I have to kill your brother Joe.”

We play Southern Cal on today. I hope we keep it under 45 points. It is usually not pretty but you have to love them during the tough times. Love hopes all things and endures all things. Love never fails.

Go Irish!