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Ron Edmondson Leadership Blog

Packed with practical thoughts on leadership, church, and culture

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    Are We Becoming Afraid to Take a Risk?

    By Business, Culture, Fear, Innovation, Life Plan, Vision

    I was talking with a doctor recently. He said increasingly physicians are deciding not to attempt private practice. They are choosing to work only for guaranteed salaries at a hospital, afraid to take a risk of self-employment. In his opinion, it’s changing the way healthcare is done in America. I can’t speak with authority about the field of medicine, but I have noticed the same trend occur in other fields. I talk with people regularly who are settling for security rather than take a risk in this economy.

    In a way, it’s completely understandable….

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    November 29, 2010
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    Tennessee Titans Have a Leadership Problem

    By Culture, Leadership, Organizational Leadership, Team Leadership

    Yesterday I watched the Tennessee Titans seem to fall apart on the field. From being shut out from scoring to fighting on the field to the defeated look on the Titan player’s faces on the sidelines, this is obviously a team in difficult days. As a student of leadership, I have tremendous respect for coach Jeff Fisher and, although I’m a more silent NFL fan, I have enjoyed watching his team since the Titans came to Tennessee. I’m wondering now what it will take to bring the team back together. I suspect it’s more than getting a new quarterback.

    I wonder if the biggest dilemma for the team these days is a leadership issue.

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    November 29, 2010
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    O Christmas Tree O Christmas Tree

    By Culture, Funny

    Everyone seems to be bragging on their Christmas decorations this year. Is that just me, or is it more than usual? And the decorations seem to be bigger and better than ever…and going up earlier. Am I imagining that?

    Anyway, I thought it was only fair that I share my Christmas tree with you. This year, I too went all out…spared no expense, labored hard, but with a cup of hot chocolate and the right mix of Christmas tunes, I believe I may have outdone myself this year.

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    November 27, 2010
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    We Wrote a Story Together

    By Culture, Funny, Innovation, Organizational Leadership, Uncategorized

    If you follow this blog, then you may remember that a couple weeks ago we wrote a story together. You can read how it started HERE, but basically different commenters each added a line to continue the story. Today I’m providing the completed story. It’s “different”, but reading it shows me how different our minds work. I began the first sentence, but never would I have imagined taking the story in the direction it went.

    Here is our story:

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    November 27, 2010
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    Friday Discussion: #BlackFriday …What’s the Deal?

    By Change, Culture, Innovation

    Black Friday…the day after Thanksgiving when retailers hope their financial books go from red to black…when they are completely profitable for the year…isn’t what it used to be…

    I was in retail for years…I loved the excitement of this time of year…especially after I was in management. Seeing people with their Christmas anticipation and the stores being full gave me energy…even as an Introvert. I love growth, busyness, and energy, so Black Friday became one of my favorite days of the year.

    Fast forward almost 20 years and Black Friday isn’t what it used to be. My youngest son Nate Twittered that he had participated in his first Black Friday event. He was finished and in bed by 6 AM. In my retail days, that’s about the time I was going to work to prepare the store to open. Because of the changes in Black Friday, and because I’m no longer paid to do so, I have participated in the day in years. (Any other former or current retail folks out there?)

    So, let’s have some fun discussing Black Friday today…

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    November 26, 2010
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    A Week Of Thanksgiving: The Top People on My List

    By Children, Family, God, Marriage, Parenting

    I’ve been writing about people I’m thankful for this week, encouraging you to do the same. Obviously our greatest thanksgiving should be for our personal relationship with the Living God, but I’m thankful He allows us to have people in our life to love and help shape us. We’ve shared about people who have helped us professionally, been consistent friends, and helped us grow spiritually. You can still do that in the previous posts HERE, HERE AND HERE.

    Today, I want to share the group most of us would put at the top of our thankful list….our immediate families. The people in my life I’m most thankful for are my wife and two boys. I’ve previously shared most of these points about them, but they are still true today.

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    November 25, 2010
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    Week of Thanksgiving: Who Helped You Grow Spiritually?

    By Church, Encouragement, Faith, God

    We are sharing a week of Thanksgivings; celebrating people who have made a difference in our life. Read the previous two days HERE and HERE.

    Today, let’s talk spiritual talk.

    Who is the person who helped you most to grow spiritually?

    Obviously, as with the other days, you could answer God or Jesus or the Holy Spirit, and of course those answers would be correct, but thankfully God uses other people in our life to make a difference. He shapes our life through the influence of people. So, in terms of your spiritual growth, who is the person who helped you or is helping you the most.

    As I’ve done the previous days, I’ll go first.

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    November 24, 2010
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    The Wheels On the Bus Go Round and Round

    By Culture, Encouragement, Family, Life Plan

    I saw this plaque in a store window in Michigan recently. I snapped a quick picture. I didn’t need the plaque, but I love the statement.

    I dont’ know where the saying originated, but the most memorable time I heard it was when Jack Nicholson said it in the movie “Bucket List”. It’s a powerful and true statement about life.

    It has a similar thought process to one of my favorite verses from Scripture. Ecclesiastes 11:3: “If clouds are full of water, they pour rain on the earth. Whether a tree falls to the south or to the north, in the place where it falls, there it will lie.”

    It reminds me that

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    November 24, 2010
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    Three Ways I Process Ideas

    By Innovation, Leadership, Life Plan, Organizational Leadership, Team Leadership

    Perhaps this has happened to you…

    You read a Tweet…you hear a message…you read a book, blog post or article…it gives you an idea, encourages you, prompts you to want to take action on the idea…

    If you are like me, that thought can soon become lost in a sea of other thoughts and ideas and, as great as it may have seemed at the time, the idea never becomes reality in your life. Weeks, months, or even years later you may even hear the same idea again and remember that you never did anything with it the first time…

    I often am asked: How do you capture great ideas and make them useful in your life?

    Here’s a simple system I use…there’s nothing extremely genius about this, but for me it had to become a habit to be successful. Others will have better systems, but this is what I do:

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    November 22, 2010
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    A Week of Thanksgiving – People Who Helped You Professionally

    By Call to Ministry, Church, Church Planting, Encouragement, Leadership

    Thanksgiving should be more than a day.

    In the United States, we set aside one day a year to ceremonially show our appreciation for all we have been given. No one would disagree that this practice shouldn’t be limited to just once day. With that in mind, I thought I’d use part of my blog this week to share a little gratitude. Throughout this week I’ll be sharing some things and people I’m thankful for in my life.

    Today I want to talk about people who have had a huge impact on me professionally. I’m a pastor now. I haven’t always been one. I was in the business world for many years before God called me into ministry. When I think of the process God used to prepare me for ministry, three men immediately come to mind. There are many people along the way who have helped me, but these three made significant investments in my spiritual maturity and preparation for ministry.

    Here are three people who helped me be where I am today professionally:

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    November 22, 2010
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    The Day My Blog Was Hijacked and How to Protect Yours

    By Culture, Encouragement

    One day this week, I was sitting at my desk and clicked on my blog home page. What I saw was the screenshot in this post, combined with a eerie instrumental tune. I had been hacked by so-called “Turkish Hackers”. I panicked and instantly called the one who maintains my blog (Thank you Tony!) He tells me the hackers replaced my index page with their own. To fix it, he downloaded the latest version from wordpress.org and uploaded the default index.php file to replace the hacked one. (I don’t understand how to do that, but that’s what he said he did.) My Twitter feed then went wild with people asking me what I did or what they could do to protect their blog.

    One of our resident tech gurus (Thanks Jim) at Grace Community Church offers these suggestions to protect yourself from being hacked:

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    November 20, 2010
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