success on Direction

Success is often the result of taking a misstep in the right direction.

None climbs so high as he who knows not whither he is going.

My Aversion to Self-Help Books & Their Gurus but Why I Recommend This One! I am not one for “self-help” books. I know that I probably could use some more personal coaching advice, but… my habit ...

Success is a Long Obedience, Not a Quick Climb Let me start with this: I am predisposed to believing that the ideal church size is relatively small.  Eugene Peterson has often been quoted as saying h...

We pastors don't drive fancy cars or rake in the dough (most of us, anyway). But there is still a temptation to a skewed version of "holy success" that we need to watch out for, the idea...

Sobriety is the counterweight that must balance out success. Especially if things keep getting better and better.

William James, in a famous letter to H. G. Wells in 1906, credited what he called American “moral flabbiness” to “the exclusive worship of the bitch-goddess Success. That—with the squalid cash interpr...

"How could this happen? I was so careful. I picked the wrong play, the wrong director, the wrong cast. Where did I go right?"

Success is handing the baton to those who come behind us and cheering them on as they run farther and faster than we did.

Your attitude, not your aptitude, will determine your altitude.

In his landmark work, Habits of the Heart, the sociologist Robert Bellah describes thee distinct orientations people take with respect to their work. The first orientation is to see your work as a job...

Since I was very young my life has been dominated by two strong voices. The first said, “Make it in the world and be sure you can do it on your own.” And the other voice said, “Whatever you do for the...

When every option is available to us, we don’t actually have freedom; we tend to shut down. I experienced what sociologists call choice overload (or paralysis) and decision fatigue. If you’ve ever tri...

It is a sprinting, squirting, shoving age.

Those who have arrived at any very eminent degree of excellence in the practice of an art or profession have commonly been actuated by a species of enthusiasm in their pursuit of it. They have kept on...

The fruit of the Spirit is not push, drive, climb, grasp and trample. Life is more than a climb to the top of the heap.

Ambition has no rest.

His authority on earth allows us to dare to go to all the nations. His authority with us leaves us no other choice. And his presence in heaven gives us our only hope of success.

Why did Moses strike the rock? He was a man of faith, whose life had been characterized by trust in God (see, for example, the description of Moses in (Heb 11:24-29). So why did he fall into unbelief ...

I can’t give you a surefire formula for success, but I can give you a formula for failure; try to please everybody all the time.

We should not judge people by their peak of excellence; but by the distance they have traveled from the point where they started.

When Bob Dylan was recording Blood on the Tracks – possibly the single greatest album in popular music history – he had to deal with a junior recording engineer who “explained” to him that he was goin...

If I labor for God, I fail. If I labor with God, I succeed.

Harold Kushner wrote about a very bright, driven pre-med student at a very competitive college. While traveling in the East the summer before his junior year, he met a guru who said, “Don’t you see yo...

The Double Helix, James Watson’s 1968 memoir about discovering the structure of DNA, describes the roller coaster of emotions he and Francis Crick experienced through the progress and setbacks of the ...

Lord Nelson once said that all his achievements in life came down to one simple habit: he was always there a quarter of an hour early, never a quarter of an hour late.

Do you wish to rise? Begin by descending. You plan a tower that will pierce the clouds? Lay first the foundation of humility.

Nick believed his purpose was to speak to audiences, to become a motivational speaker, yet he had no experience, no resources, and no invitations. He decided to begin calling schools and offering to s...

The wonderful word master used to describe the person who is at the top of his or her craft, whatever the profession. It was a title that one could work toward and with some degree of confidence ascri...

I attribute my success to this - I never gave or took any excuse.