You are a leader. Maybe you are a strong leader or maybe you don't see yourself as a leader at all. But by God's design, you are a leader. How can you strengthen your leadership? It starts by understanding what leadership is. Those who have been in M3 since this past winter know that leadership is intentional influence. When you intentionally influence someone to choose God's way, that is godly leadership. If you skillfully influence your child to do what at first he didn't want to do, that is parental leadership. If you carefully convince someone to buy something from you, that is sales leadership. If you persuade your wife to wash the car while you watch the game that is dreaming! :)
Leadership is intentional influence. We all need to continually grow in our leadership or abilities to influence or persuade others. But how do we do that? What are the elements of effective influence or gentle persuasion? Our passage in Proverbs (16:16-33) gets us started with the first principle of gentle PERSUASION.
P- Pleasant words- "Pleasant words are persuasive" NLT. If we want to persuade others, we need to keep our words pleasant or sweet in tone. People are most receptive to our words when they are sweet. That's why yelling, sarcasm or a sour tone fails so miserably with family members. I've seen that I am much more persuasive with my sometimes testy teenage son, when I keep my words and tone pleasant. If I resort to angry demands, I may get the demanded behavior, but I have damaged the relationship. As Josh McDowell has said, "Rules without relationship lead to rebellion." So keep your words and tone pleasant. Yep, easier said than done in times of tension, but it's worth striving for and apologizing for when our words and tone are unpleasant. So persuade with pleasant words. People are far more apt to go along with you if they can get along with you.
E- Encourage- Many of you are excelling at encouraging others on the blog. If you are weak in this area, work out this muscle. It will become very powerful for you. What if your child didn't get a good grade in one of his classes? Encourage him or her in what they did well at. Apply this bit of horse sense and encourage your wife often as well. This can change a Nag into a thoroughbred. People blossom when you water them with encouragement and whither under faultfinding. Be a good finder, not a fault finder.
R- Rapport- You've just met a new person you'd like to win over as a customer, friend or future employer. What's a good ingredient to include? Rapport (Ah, one of those funny French words that have letters at the end that never get pronounced. It means agreement or accord.) Build rapport with people by talking about things you discover that you have in agreement or in common. You often hear the statement that opposites attract, but actually the more you have in common, the stronger the relationship. Want to refresh a relationship? Revisit enjoyable things you have in common. "Remember when we did so and so together?" People like to follow people they like. Pointer for papas: Seek to like, or at least show an interest in, what your children like. Build rapport!
S- See their bright future- Leaders see a better future for others. They are not trying to persuade people for selfish ends. So see and share how much better off others would be following your pointers. When you talk to men about joining M3, share how you see their lives making a great impact on others. See their family tree of many spiritual sons in the faith. We men are wired to make an impact. We hate the thought of living and dying for nothing, of never fighting for a cause that was heroic and made a difference in the world. We long to hear our Father say, "Well done!" So point out the great future a man or your child can have.
We are on the verge of discovering the most powerful principle of persuasion. But to keep this from getting any longer, we will reveal it and the remaining principles of PERSUASION tomorrow.
Closing note: These principles of persuasion are not a clever bag of manipulative tricks to get what you want. They are all found in God's word and are rooted in love. Love seeks the best for the other person. As loving leaders we are seeking to influence or persuade people for their good. Manipulation takes advantage of others. Godly persuasion seeks to bring advantage to others. Increase your leadership by influencing people in ways that are better for them. Love is the greatest!
1.-Share a time when someone influenced/persuaded you to do something good that you were hesitant to do at first. Perhaps it was to jump out of perfectly good plane to skydive. What made them persuasive? Or you could share about a time you helpfully persuaded an adult or child when they were hesitant. What do you think made you persuasive with them?
2.-Read Prov.16:16-33 and write on your MP3 card a verse or phrase that grabbed your interest. Also please write it out for us. Today for time's sake, you don't have to explain why you like it.
Announcements
I'm happy to welcome Mark (Marcos) Estrada to M3. When I first shared the vision of M3 with Mark back in September, he liked it a lot, but his crazy schedule of work and school prevented him fully participating. Mark serves with Homeland Security and before that as a Marine Master Sergeant, leading troops in combat in Iraq and Afghanistan. So glad to have you fighting with us Mark!
Welcome to June and a new tab on the Scoreboard to put your points on ( coincidentally, the tab is named, June). Please make sure to put your 5 or more points up each day. Today's points would represent all that you've done over the weekend.
Speaking of scores, here are the scores form last week. As you can see, most all of you hit the goal average of 5 points a day (25 per week) or more. Others were way above that as you can see. Way to go! Some of you just joined us, while others faced tough challenges. But you are overcomers. This week will be a great week for us all. You will also see a U for Unstoppable by your name if you were Unstoppable this past week on the blog. (This U is not to be confused with the U on the scoreboard that represents those of you who have earned and received your Unstobbable award pin.) I noticed that almost all who were unstoppable scored 25 points or more and vice versa. Go for it!
| Fire Team 1 | Fire Team 3 | Fire Team 5 | |||||||||||
| Eddie Morales | U | R4 | 83 | Robert Roman | U | R1 | 82 | Jack Rogers | U | R4 | 74 | ||
| Phil Raymond | 23 | Guillermo Baez | 16 | Andre Vargas | 31 | ||||||||
| Alex Dyckman | U | 28 | Vince Diaz | U | R1 | 33 | Armando Hernandez | 24 | |||||
| Ismael Andrade | U | R1 | 59 | Antonio Palomar | U | R1 | 32 | George Doherty | U | 27 | |||
| Gary Remson | R1 | 13 | Nic Palhegyi | 9 | Roger Vinlasaca | U | R1 | 56 | |||||
| James Schmidt | U | 28 | Osiris Alday | U | 38 | John Martinez | 0 | ||||||
| William Dyckman | 12 | Fire Team 4 | Fire Team 6 | ||||||||||
| Fire Team 2 | George Rabiela | U | 28 | Dave DeBoer | U | 25 | |||||||
| Sam Vargas | U | R2 | 40 | Mike Pagan | U | R2 | 24 | Ed Lake | 0 | ||||
| Oscar Nunez | U | 35 | Rich Guardiola | U | 12 | Horacio De La Torre | |||||||
| Marcos Rico | 0 | Dave Heidekruger | U | R1 | 25 | ||||||||
| Israel Fuentes | U | 39 | Chuy Cervantes | U | 26 | ||||||||
| Flo Juarez | U | 10 |
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