Newsweek recently profiled a quick story of overcoming failure from world class violinist Joshua Bell.  Now, I’ve been a fan of Bell’s ever since he played a concert in a Washington Metro station just to make a point that we should pay attention to what is going on around us.

Bell tells of being in competition as a young person with a piece that had a very difficult, challenging beginning – - – that he completely “messed it up worse than (he) ever could have imagined.” In the end, he stopped, restarted, and did wonderfully as the pressure to be perfect was now off.  Lesson learned: For me it was a major revelation, and it taught me that when you take your mind off worrying about being perfect all the time, sometimes amazing things can happen.  The article is worth a quick read and certainly is a story worth retelling.    <image source>

Let’s talk modern day metaphor here.

You are on the ship when the Costa Concordia runs aground near Italy’s Giglio Island on the evening of January 14. You hear a crash. Glasses and plates fall down and as you leave the dining room, you are told it wasn’t anything dangerous. Yet, the light are now our and you were navigating darken crowded hallways and stairwells until you found the outside decks. Everyone who walk past shouts instructions, but the instructions contradict each other. (taken from eyewitness reports)

Acts 27 tells of Paul as a prisoner on a ship:  But they struck a sandbar and ran the ship aground. The bow was wedged in and could not be moved, but the stern began to break up under the pounding of the waves… Those who could swim {were ordered} to jump overboard first and get to the shore, and then the rest, some on planks, others on debris from the ship. In this way, all reached shore safely.

We may be moving beyond new maps.  We need new vehicles. There is no righting of the Costa Concordia that will be getting us to where we are aiming to get, to where we need to be.  No ship working for you means it’s time for figure out another way.

Get off the boat safely and begin figuring out your next mode of getting to where you need to be.

< Filippo Monteforte / AFP / Getty Images source >

Sorry to be coming so late to the table regarding a Steve Jobs memorial. (Jesuit Father James Martin offered a great one for America and Time had a cover story.)

In a world of conformity, of going along to get along, Steve Jobs called our attention to the value of thinking different, of investing effort into the design of our dreams.  Here’s to the crazy ones like Steve Jobs. <h/t Adam>

"Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules, and they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify and vilify them. About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as crazy, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do."

If you want ro explore a little more and have not seen it within the last week or so, you must check out Job’s 2005 Stanford Commencement Address. It is because of death that we have an understanding of life!

I’m a fan of DC Comics and so I was watching this coming.  On the left you have the cover of Action Comics #1 as they re-boot their entire line of comics. Note the absence of the classic red trunks as well as the rolled-up cuffs (is this becoming fashionable again?)

On the left is a leaked photo from Warner Brothers’ new film Man of Steel showing actor Henry Cavill wearing a blue Superman suit without red trunks. (as always, click images to enlarge.)

It turns out that when originally created the red trunks evoked an image of the circus strong man. Well, we not longer are  doing that as much…

And now the fanboys of comicdom have got their own panties in a wedgie over the whole thing. Skye Jethani recently wrote about Leadership Lessons from Superman’s Underpants for Christianity Today and commented on 
>> Don’t underestimate the power of symbols
>> One generation’s “cool” is another’s “creepy”
>> Sometimes compromise is just dumb
>> The people, not leaders, decide what’s important
It’s worth a look.

Over the Independence Day break, I spent some solid Poolside time (both my address and recreation) and continued some renovations – both exterior and interior. My kitchen has a new sense of depth with a splash of red.

While stationed nearer to the waters, I knocked off two books. Mitch Albom’s Have a Little Faith (which admittedly, I’s a little late in reading) tells the true life story of two preachers-. The first is Mitch’s childhood rabbi whose holiness seems inaccessible until he asked Mitch to provide his eulogy and, therefore, compelled the author to get to know him better. The other is Pastor Henry Covington, an inner-city pastor with a sinful past and a hole in the rook of decrepit church. Lesson learned was simple holiness is built upon where your focus lies.

The other was Guy Kawasaki’s Enchantment: The Art of Changing Hearts, Minds, and Actions. I must be preety up to date on the latest change materials in business… I found the book interesting and a good read; but not too much much new ground covered. Actually, there is a common lesson to the previous book:  If you want to lead, the core of your life must be alignment with your faith, dreams, hopes, and passions.

Also spent time off in the theaters as well. Page One: Inside the New York Times was an object lesson in change, more than Enchantment was. Watching the newsroom deal with new media and wikileaks and the economic impact on technology upon newspapers was very telling.  While many embraced the workplace of the times as a “place where great ideas happened and were done,” the very earth of their business was shifting under their feet. The prestigious “old guard” finds “new and different” to be, well, new and different and confusing. The line of the movie comes from David Carr who describes his new media colleague by indicating that “I still can get over the feeling that Brian Seltzer was a robot assembled to destroy me.” Catch it is you can.

“It’s always show time.* A manager is leading people. You lead by example.”

If you are to be a leader in the church…

If you are about making disciples…

If you want to help make change in the world…

Then lead.  But commit to leading and lead all the time.

Because others are watching.

They dissect what you’re wearing and who you’re talking to and the way you present yourself and the kinds of questions you ask, and so on.

If you want to see change, be change.

Doug Fields started blogging in the new year and recently posted an interview with Rick Lawrence. He asked for an important tip about leading others. I thought the answer was great. Rick says:

If you are not, as C.S. Lewis used to say, “under the Obedience,” then you’re operating like a grenade with its pin pulled. Sooner or later you’re going to blow somebody up. True leadership flows out of the life that comes from embracing our true nature as “branches” intimately grafted into the Vine, who is Jesus. All of my mistakes in leadership have come when I have operated outside of my Obedience—whether from ignorance, laziness, arrogance, or insecurity. The other thing, related to this, is that all of the leaders who have changed my life have had three magnetic characteristics:

(more…)

I recently finished reading Doris Kearns Goodwin’s Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln. Near the end of the book, Godwin considers the legacy of Lincoln by recounting this story:

In 1908, in a wild and remote area of the North Caucasus, Leo Tolstoy, the greatest writer of the age, was the guest of a tribal chief ”living far away from civilized life in the mountains.” Gathering his family and neighbors, the chief asked Tolstoy to tells stories about the famous men of history. Tolstoy told how he entertained the eager crowd for hours with tales of Alexander, Caesar, Frederick the Great, and Napoleon.  When he was winding to a close, the chief stood and said, “But you have not told us a syllable about the greatest general and greatest ruler of the world. We want to know something about him. He was a hero. He spoke with the voice of thunder; he laughed like the sunrise and his deeds were as strong as a rock… his name was Lincoln and the country he lived in is called America, which is so far away that if a youth should journey to reach it he would be an old man when he arrived.  Tell me of that man.”

“I looked at them,” Tolstoy recalled, “and saw their faces aglow, while their eyes were burning.  I saw that those rude barbarians were really interested in a man whose name and deeds had already become legend.” He told them everything he knew about Lincoln’s “home life and youth… his habits, his influences upon the people and his physical strength. When is was finished, they were so grateful for the story that they presented him with “a wonderful Arabian Horse.”  After reading this, I thunk a few thoughts…

> Do we live the sort of lives that, to quote Barney Stinson from How I Met Your Mother,  would be legend-ary?
> Would others attach the Christ-story to your own legend?
> Reflecting on the Lincoln legacy, have we become so accustomed to the Christ-story that we undervalue it’s impact?  
> Would we speak and tell stories, are they worth of an Arabian Horse?

It is still Easter season, so we can still reflect upon these resurrection moments… “They found the stone rolled away from the tomb; but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. While they were puzzling over this, behold, two men in dazzling garments appeared to them. They were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground. They said to them, “Why do you seek the living one among the dead?

Now, let’s get this right… I do appreciate celebrating the witness of those holy ones who have called our attention to the Living One who is Jesus.

And this video does not even pretend to acknowledge all the holy ones who have gone before us…, just the ‘known.” Not mentioned are those names who  quietly but effectively ministered two decades ago along side a much youngrt me in Iowa. Not mentioned is Mike Yaconelli of Youth Specialties. Not mentioned is your own early influences. <Name them and pray for them now please.> Where is my late father? Where is John Paul II, one of those with whom we had actually marched who might eventually end up being recognized as a saint?

And none of this conversation acknowledges those living and ministering presently at our side… We celebrated Mark Pacione in the ArchBalt recently. I call Mike Carotta often enough to let him know I appreciate his ministry.  I try to be loving and supportive of the Phenomenal Women on our staff.

In a commitment to avoid vision slippage, let us seek the Living One among the living… What is the Church if not the assembly of all the saints?” The communion of saints is the Church. Since all the faithful form one body, the good of each is communicated to the others….  [CCC 946-947] In this season of New Life, let us intentionally celebrate the living who help us form the living Body of Christ.

In 1974, the school was a “typical Catholic college,” suffering from cultural and financial upheavals. But new leadership, then took the opportunity “to step out in faith, and do something radical – because a radical solution was needed.”

That leader took a leap of faith to renew the school’s Catholic identity and set out to “make Jesus Christ the Lord of the campus in every aspect.”

I’ve been to that school.  It is so easy to imagine it as a no-nothing bump on a hill not making much of a difference.  But, today, that is certainly not the way of Franciscan University of Steubenville and definitely was not the way of that leader, Fr. Michael Scanlan, TOR.

Recently, FUS announced that its chancellor and past president Father Michael Scanlan will be retiring on June 30, 2011.  When we retire, may we all be creditied with thinking so boldly and setting such clear direction.