Fruitfulness Highlights 1

So I'm talking now in a personal growth development setting, right? But let's flip this into business, right? And speak specifically to business. If you're in business and you say, look, I want to make $10 million a year over the next 2 years, right? That's your goal. That's your vision. That's where you want to be. If you're making bad decisions, I always say to people, look, you'll never get rich making poor decisions. You'll never get good making bad decisions. You have no chance of making that— well, let me back up. Because how much was the Powerball a couple weeks ago? The Powerball was like $10 billion. $1 billion. So I shouldn't say you have no chance of making $10 million with bad decisions. You can make a bad decision and get lucky with the lotto, right? But what are the chances of that happening, right? Slim to none. Right. But in the real world, right, in the real world, you will never make the goals you set if you make bad decisions. What's a bad decision? To do a good thing, yet it be a bad decision. This speaks to the whole issue of distraction. We could often get distracted by good things, right? In fact, it's only good things that would distract us, because if we thought it was bad, we wouldn't do it, right? So we have a vision of getting to a certain point, and someone comes up, man, you need to take a look at this business opportunity, man. It's really good. I researched it. You know, you really can make some money. And you say, you know, it really is good. I like that. That's good. Alright, I'm going to join you. Let's do this. Right? Now you're trying to get over there, right? That's your goal over there. So you're starting over here. Good. Oh man, okay, I'm going to check that out. Two weeks later, somebody comes, Good decision, right? Good. I mean, you know, it's something like helping the needy in the inner cities get food. Good. It's a good thing. But if you're trying to get there, this good thing will take you like over here somewhere, right? All the time, what are you doing? You're delaying the time it takes you to get to that vision. And so often we make decisions to do good things that are not necessarily what I call strategically aligned with our vision. Right? That's important. We already talked about strategic engagement, right? So I have some homework for you again. Again, I wouldn't be doing justice if I didn't give you some assignment. Those are the 5 factors. If you rise to fruitfulness and you adopt these 5 factors, then it's all but guaranteed that you will bear good fruit. Are you with me? Make good decisions. Engage with the right people. Innovate, be creative, don't get stuck in the past, right? Adopt values and make lifestyle changes and measure what matters. If your fruitfulness is based on these 5 factors, right, you're all but guaranteed to bear good fruit. This matrix is going to help you do that. Beyond just being a leader of yourself, most of you, if not all, are leaders in some capacity. Because here's the definition of leadership. The definition of leadership is influencing a group of people to work together to achieve a common goal. I don't believe that's in your notebooks, so you might want to write that down. A leader is one who influences a group of people, and the group could be just two. It could be you and somebody else influencing a group to work together to achieve a common goal. See, sometimes leadership is confused with having a title or position, but title and position has nothing to do with leadership. Some of the most powerful leaders in organizations that I've worked with are people that work in the mailroom, you know, people that are junior staff that have a strong voice and a willingness to work together. So that's leadership. So as you lead your own organization or lead your department or lead in a non-conventional sense, how does fruitfulness come into play? Well, a leader Well, a leader's responsibility, or part of a leader's responsibility, is to create what I call an organizational fruit salad. Anybody loves fruit salads over here? Right. Over here too? Okay, good. Everybody loves a fruit salad. Here's a leader's role. When a leader looks out over his organization, Let's say it's a small business. There's only 5 people in there, right? His responsibility is to understand what fruit John bears, what fruit Jane bears, what fruit Sally bears, and create an environment that helps them to be more fruitful to contribute to the organization's success. Does that make sense? So in essence, all you're doing as a leader is creating a fruit salad. You got a lot of fruit to make a fruit salad with, right? And it's very important that as you lead, you understand what people's gifts are so that you can help them convert gifts to fruit. Because you remember earlier we talked about the difference, right? 'Cause there might be a lot of people in your organization, on your team, in your classroom if you're a teacher, who have gifts, but they're not fruits. The leader's role is to pull those fruit out of that gift and make a fruit salad where everybody's contributing to the success of the organization. That's the fruitfulness. So now apply that to I want to be on this journey with you, right? I'm on this journey with you of being more fruitful, understanding that we are all fruitful. So just join me one more time, one more time. I am fruitful. Let's go. I am fruitful. I am fruitful. Be fruitful, everyone. Be fruitful. All right, so I'll see you downstairs and we'll do some Q&A then.