Just Continue That Thought...

A thought by John Townsend from his book, Leading From Your Gut (p. 90). Zondervan. Kindle Edition. (Click on the book title to go to Amazon.com to buy the book.) So we need to look at solving the problem, don’t we? John says, “Anger is a call to address conflict. When we need to face down an obstacle or right a wrong, our energy level rises and we prepare to confront or combat the situation in some way. Anger is a signal that there is a problem to be solved. It urges us to fix something that needs to be fixed. Again, anger can be a response to an external event or to an internal experience, but it must be addressed and dealt with. What makes us angry is not always a bad or difficult person, but at least a bad or difficult situation we want to see changed. We don’t like to see people we care about getting hurt. Or diligently planned projects go south. Or our efforts to reach out to someone result in us being blamed or attacked. Such situations often provoke an angry respon...

A thought by John Townsend from his book, Leading From Your Gut (p. 88). Zondervan. Kindle Edition. (Click on the book title to go to Amazon.com to buy the book.) You really can’t! John goes on, “In fact, they are critical to your success. I have to challenge many leaders about this because they are concerned that talking about anything negative will diminish their effectiveness. They would much rather be positive, energetic, and focused on taking the next hill. I’m as much a take-the-hill person as the next, but a team that doesn’t learn from the defeat on the previous hill is in jeopardy of repeating that defeat. “Every competent leader will look at things like negative financial reports, market problems, and sales issues, and dig into them, as the saying goes, ‘eating problems for breakfast.’ The same needs to be true with negative feelings. They’re just information, and they mean something.” John says, “Don’t minimize your negative emotions and say, ‘That’s t...

A thought by John Townsend from his book, Leading From Your Gut (p. 85). Zondervan. Kindle Edition. (Click on the book title to go to Amazon.com to buy the book.) That is a very good thing to know, isn’t it? John says, “They alert you that something is going on, something you need to pay attention to and deal with. That something may be an event outside of you or one inside. Look at your emotions as you would the instrument panel on a car. The panel includes gauges and indicators that provide information on things like fuel level, engine temperature, RPM, oil level, and tire pressure. When the indicators are in the proper range, you don’t notice them because they signify that things are going normally. But when the indicators turn red, blink, beep, or light up, you pay attention because things are now not normal. The indicators are alerting you that something—usually a problem—needs to be taken care of.” He then says, “In one of my first full-time jobs, I drove a comp...