Lead where you are

'Ello 'ello my beautiful Candorteers. Wanted to hop on to assure all my loyal fans that news reports are not correct, I am alive, I didn't drink myself into an alcohol induced coma over my Birthday weekend =)

I also wanted to recap how the Leadership Summit went this past Thursday and Friday. Overall I had an enjoyable experience listening to people that were as different as you and I, but came together under the common bond of Leadership. The speakers not only talk the talk, they walk the walk.

I found more than a few valuable pieces of info while I was there and I hope after you're done reading, you will leave with you're own nugget or two.

Please to enjoy.

First up was a man by the name of Bill Hybels, besides being a well renowned author he is also the founding pastor of the Willow Creek Community Church.

Pastor Hybels talked about navigating through the Rouge Waves that life sometimes brings. When these Waves threaten to throw your boat of course what do you do to get back on course?? What is your replenishment strategy?? A leader has the innate ability to give of him/herself, but there is only so much in the bucket. We need to have a plan to fill up the bucket once it starts getting low. Ask yourself what fills your bucket, is it vegging out in front of the TV, is it taking a long walk, it can be anything.

Make sure to have a Replenishment Strategy.

Next up was visiting professor from the London Business school, Gary Hamel. Prof. Hamel had a wealth of knowledge to pass along that had to deal with management, success, and overcoming denial.

Much like everything else in life, denial has a pattern, and if we are able to recognize this pattern we can break past denial and get on with correcting the problem.

Denial Pattern has four steps; 1) Dismiss- we tell ourselves nothing is wrong, 2) Rationalize- this is where we make excuses, 3) Mitigate- this is where we realize there is a problem, 4) Confront- well this is self explanatory =)

Harvey Carey wrapped up day one with an impassioned speech about breaking the huddle and play the game. Carey explained that you can have all the tools and plans of attack in the world but if you don't get out there and start using them, what's the use?

Some people suffer from Paralysis of Analysis. Which means we are so busy thinking everything through we fail to get off out butts and go do something, and Pastor Carey knows a little something about getting out there and acting. He leads a congregation in the poorest zip code, in the poorest city, in the state in the country, but does that stop them from breaking the huddle and playing the game?? No way, if you want to learn more about how Harvey Carey breaks the huddle and plays click here http://www.harveycarey.org/

There were other orators that had interesting things to stay and I will be incorporating what I learned from them in later Blogs, but I wanted to highlight these three people to get you thinking.

Remember to replenish your bucket, break the denial pattern, and get out there and PLAY THE GAME!

Love attacks Saturday

L.O.V.E it's just not my favorite Nat King Cole song, but it's something much more. If we loved unconditional, without letting our bias, prejudice, fear, get in the way this world would be in much better shape.

Before I get into the meat of what I want to talk about let me add this precursor...I am not a biblical scholar, what I know about the good book, I've learned from my pastor, Dad, the little amount I actually read, and the bible category on Jeopardy. So some of the following stuff, might be a little messed up, but the message is still there. Do you remember playing the telephone game when you were younger?? Where you and your friends would sit in a line and one person would whisper a phrase into the ear of the person next to him/her and so on until the message reached the last person in line, and you ended up with something that didn't have anything to do with the original phrase. Like "He has risen" turned into "the bread has raisins" Ya I'm not that bad, but don't put it past me to throw in a few raisins =)

Now that I posted my disclaimer, back to the topic at hand. Somewhere in the bible a dude asked Jesus, what was the most important commandment? And JC basically said, Love God and Love your neighbor like you love yourself.

CAN YOU BELIEVE IT!?!? It's just that simple, but others (myself included) complicate the heck out of it. Everything else would fall into place if we followed these two commandments wholeheartedly. You wouldn't want to murder yourself, you would totally honor your Mother and Father, cause you totally honor yourself. Theft, coveting, and all those other ones I can't remember would be a piece of cake to follow all because you'd treat others the way you wanted to be treated.

It's funny all I can picture while I'm writing this is the earth populated with 6 billion Chris Della Valle's. Yes, I know a scary thought to some, but I can't help but smile.

So my challenge to you, if you're up to it, starting right now, treat others as you would your clone. If you don't know what I'm talking about, rent Multiplicity starring Micheal Keaton, or read Amazing Spider-man issues 534-553.

When you're in the checkout line at the grocery store, picture yourself as cashier, how would you brighten up your own day.

The next time somebody cuts you off, and you know it's coming, picture yourself driving the car that cut you off. You know if you ever cut someone off, yes there's a first time for everything, you would have a good reason.

I'm going to start taking my own advice and I'll keep you posted on how living on planet Chris is working out.

Check your zipper,

Chris Della Valle

P.S. I don't actually know the exact issues of Spider-man's clone saga, I not that big a nerd =)