I've been asked a few times recently about what it means to be certified as a member of the John Maxwell Team.  

This is a short introduction to the training and what it means that I'm certified by this organization.

As a member of the JMT I've got access to training in following "lanes". 

1.  Coaching training - taught by Christian Simpson

2. Speaker training - taught by Roddy Galbraith

3. Sales training - taught by Chris Robinson

4. Business building and career transition - taught by Paul Martinelli

 Each of those is geared to make me a better speaker, coach, and business person.  

Well it also means I'm one of a select few that is authorized to take John's material and turn it into Masterminds, Lunch and Learns, keynotes, and half day or full day training for you or your business or team.

 If you don't know who John Maxwell is you can look him up in Inc. Magazine where they voted John Maxwell as the #1 leadership and management expert in the world.

 To join this team means I've been recognized as being an excellent speaker, coach, and developer of other leaders. 

 If you are interested I can develop a custom training around any of the following materials:

This material outlines the 21 Laws that determine the overall effectiveness of leaders.  On a Lunch and Learn or Mastermind we can either outline all 21 or we can cover 2-3 laws in detail.

The laws include: Law of the Lid, Law of Influence, Law of Process, Law of Navigation, Law of Addition, Law of Solid Ground, Law of Respect, Law of Intuition, Law of Magnetism, Law of Connection, Law of Inner Circle, Law of Empowerment, Law of the Picture, Law of Buy-In, Law of Victory, Law of Momentum, Law of Priorities, Law of Sacrifice, Law of Timing, Law of Explosive Growth, Law of Legacy.

A focused study on the common experiences of loss.  Even as a highly successful leadership guru John knows losing well. As does anyone who's been in the game.  This study is focused on taking attendees on a well worn path in the pursuit of raw leadership by examining what every human has in common; those experiences we can all say, “I have been there.” Every one of us has experienced a disappointing loss in our own personal growth or leadership. How we have responded to those mistakes, errors, slips in judgment or just plain missing the goal has formed us even now. No bad experience has to ultimately defeat us. This workshop helps light the path to a more fulfilling life by examining loss, not from measuring what one does not have, but how loss can bring abundance. Every negative event or loss that occurs can become a great learning opportunity to take us all the newer and greater heights in our own lives. 

In Developing the Leaders Around You we focus on the pathway to growing an organization by growing its leaders. The message is simple: leaders can’t do it alone. To succeed at the highest levels, they must surround themselves with a team of influencers. Although leaders may see the big picture, they need other leaders at their side to make the picture a reality. This study helps leaders learn how to effectively grow other leaders.

Today Matters gives attendees a road-map for growing their influence one day at a time. In the study success is seen as a process rather than an achievement. The focus is on learning to concentrate on the day at hand rather than looking in the rear-view mirror or gazing too far into the future. Most importantly, it identifies ways to adjust daily routines in order to cultivate healthy habits that will help them win in leadership and in life. 

Most successful people are very busy. They are often focused on achieving their goals and getting work done. Rarely do people slow down and become intentional about asking questions. This study is on learning to stop doing and start asking questions. That strategy has been highly effective for the best leaders. The goals for participants in this mastermind are for them to Understand why questions are so important, Become expert questioners of themselves and their teammates, and Leverage the questions they ask and the answers they receive to become better leaders.

 This study is focused on allowing you to reach your potential, by learning to be intentional about personal growth. This training curriculum will help you understand how personal growth really works, and how you can develop yourself to become a more effective and fulfilled individual. You will learn how to build up your sense of purpose and become more successful in every area of your life. Come alongside in your growth journey to become the person you are destined to be!

Connecting Increases Your Influence in Every Situation and this study helps you learn how to connect.  Learn how to identify with people and relate to others in a way that increases your influence with them. To be a successful leader, you need to learn to communicate in a way that connects with others. If you can connect with others—one-on-one, in groups, and with an audience—your sense of community improves, your ability to create teamwork increases, and your influence skyrockets. People who connect with others have better relationships, experience less conflict, and get more things done than those who cannot connect. Leaders who have learned the art of connection are able to communicate their ideas persuasively, establishing buy-in and attracting followers.

 Few People Are Successful Unless a Lot of People Want Them To Be and this study helps you learn how to bring success to your team so that you can succeed.  We venerate great leaders, and we have the tendency to assume their accomplishments came about regardless of the assistance they received from others. The truth, however, is that no leader would be great without the support and help of teammates. As a leader, you will never get ahead until your people are behind you.

 Success is: knowing your purpose in life; growing to your maximum potential; sowing the seeds that benefit others. It is a rather simple recipe yet requires awareness, study, practice and mentoring to achieve. This study helps you become a REAL Success by learning to:

RELATE to others better as you understand relational rules. Adding value to people helps them to reach their full potential.

Recognize and build on the leadership potential in those around you and applying teamwork laws will help you take others to a higher level by EQUIPPING them with the proper skill sets.

Improve your ATTITUDE through daily practices, understanding the affect your attitude has on you and those around you, and adopting an attitude that makes challenges easier to overcome is key to your success.

Emulate what successful leaders do to remain at the top, LEADING others successfully to where you have gone and beyond, and influencing others from the heart and not just the head is the remaining piece of the puzzle for REAL success

What Do You Need to Make Your Dreams Come True? Your dream has power. It can inspire you. It can empower you. But will it reward you? Most people fail to realize their potential because their dream remains hypothetical. Put Your Dream to the Test takes your dream from ethereal to achievable. You will be shown how to crystallize your vision and galvanize your commitment by instructing you how to answer ‘yes’ to questions like:

♦ Is my dream really my dream?

♦ Am I depending on factors in my control to achieve my dream?

♦ Do I have a strategy to achieve my dream?

♦ Have I included the people I need to realize my dream?

♦ Am I willing to pay the price for my dream?

♦ Does my dream benefit others?

If you know the right questions to ask yourself, and if you can answer these questions in an affirmative way, you will have an excellent chance of being able to achieve your dreams. The more questions you can answer positively, the greater the likelihood of success! Have you reached your full potential and are you living your dream?

Why Stewardship?

No really, Why Stewardship?

Why did I declare myself recently as a stewardship coach.  

It was tough enough explaining to people I was a financial coach not a financial adviser.  Yes there is a difference.  An adviser tells you about investment types and is usually licensed (though honestly many are not teachers they are salespeople).

A Coach is the teacher.  Someone who listens to your situation and helps you reflect on how you got there not to counsel you on how it's all your mother's fault and you had a terrible childhood but to help you then reflect on how to get to a new place where you've never been before.  (truth be told the best counselors do this as well, but they generally deal with something other than your financial life).  

No explaining what a financial coach was and does is challenging, but now I've gone and changed my name. 

I'll give you a hint. As far as I can tell there were very few people calling themselves stewardship coaches. But I decided to complicate things and call myself one.  But even more most of the people who call themselves stewardship coaches are focused only on working with churches on giving campaigns and capital campaigns. 

So why did I do this? What does it mean that we are now stewardship coaches?

I declared myself a stewardship coach because I found that my calling, the questions I was being asked, the work I was doing, was both bigger and smaller than financial coaching.

Stewardship is about living you life God's way. Finding ways to truly live you life managing your time, talent, and treasures to help bring the Kingdom of God a little closer here on Earth. I've spoken on this topic in my churches since 2012 and I've discovered that stewardship is about way more than money despite that being the normal focus in church.

We've found ourselves just helping people learn how to prioritize and budget their time and focus on what's most important. We've given workshops on time management and coached people on how to manage their daily time budget.

But we've also helped people figure out a new career and navigate a career transition. We've helped people figure out their calling and the way they could live that out in the place where they were. In stewarding talent I've been trained and served in a leadership position for much of my career. I've given training, coaching, and workshops on leadership development and growth and done executive coaching on how to grow as a leader. Growing as a leader myself as well as teaching others is one reason why I've been recently trained as a John Maxwell Coach as well, that's part of becoming a better Steward of my leadership and growing other leaders.

Of course, we've had coaching clients who did need help with their finances. My wife and I together have coached clients that were in crisis about to lose their house and declare bankruptcy and we've helped them come up with a plan to avoid this. We've also helped clients with things as basic as how to make a budget that works. We've helped people pay off and avoid debt and credit cards and we've helped people negotiate with debt collectors when they were behind.