Josh Benner

Tag: leadership

  • Miracle on the Hudson – 10 years later

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    I had just graduated from college and was driving back home to Columbus to take care of a few things. I heard a breaking news story on the radio that a plane had gone down over the Hudson River. “That’s really tragic,” I thought to myself.

    A little bit later, I heard another update that everyone had survived the crash. I was shocked. (more…)

  • What great coaches can teach us about life

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    Relentless effort (not talent or intelligence) is the key to achieving great things in your life. Struggle is part of the process. It is hard and often painful. But it’s also necessary, because it’s in the struggle that great things are achieved.
    -Urban Meyer, in Above the Line

    Tonight, one of the greatest college football coaches of all time retires.

    Urban Meyer concludes his seventh and final season as the head coach at Ohio State. Meyer has amassed an incredible record at Ohio State and throughout his coaching career. Coming into tonight’s Rose Bowl, Meyer is 82-9 as the Buckeye head coach.  In his seven seasons, Meyer never lost more than two games in a season. He lost four conference games total. He won his first 24 games in Columbus.

    He’s one of the greatest college football coaches of all time. Three national championships. He won .85 percent of his games. Meyer had four winning streaks of 20 or more games (to put that in perspective, no other coach even has three).

    Great coaches can teach us all things. I think of things I’ve read over the years from people like John Wooden, Vince Lomardi, Woody Hayes, Bobby Knight.

    For people who have succeeded in competitive endeavors, they have insights from which we can all benefit in terms of work ethic, leadership, and grit.

    We so often make excuses for our failures and mediocrity. Great coaches don’t settle for mediocrity. They demand excellence from themselves, from their staffs, and from their players. We so often chalk up failure to a lack of resources, things beyond our control, or the fault o others. Great coaches show us all that excellence comes from hard work. Success comes from preparation and learning from mistakes. Success comes from wanting it more than your opponent.

    It’s true on the playing field, on the court, and in life.

    “I’ve come to learn that leadership is not automatically granted to you because of your position or your salary or the size of your office. Leadership is influence based on trust that you have earned. A leader is not someone who declares what he wants and then gets angry when he doesn’t get it. A true leader is someone who is going someplace and taking people with him, a catalyst for elite performance who enables people to achieve things they wouldn’t achieve on their own. A leader is someone who earns trust, sets a clear standard, and then equips and inspires people to meet that standard.”
    -Urban Meyer in Above the Line

    Thanks for reading! I’d love to hear what you think, and don’t forget to subscribe! 

    Josh Benner is the associate pastor at Cornerstone Evangelical Free Church in Fergus Falls, Minnesota and has a Master of Divinity from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. He enjoys writing about faith and culture. He lives with his wife Kari in Minnesota.

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  • Life Lessons from Shark Tank

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    My wife and I are huge fans of the show Shark Tank where entrepreneurs make pitches for businesses, products, and technologies to a group of five wealthy investors (sharks). New season started last night.
    One of the things I appreciate about when entrepreneurs go into the tank is that the sharks don’t tolerate excuses.
    People are trying to get investments, generally in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, and the sharks aren’t charities. They’re trying to make investments that will make them money.
    There are a lot of lessons from Shark Tank that I think translate to life.
    Don’t make excuses 
    You name the excuse, people have made it in the Shark Tank.
    Many businesses have cited the economic downturn of 2008.
    Younger enterpeneruers have made the excuse of their youth and inexperience. While those might be legitimate reasons why, they don’t matter much to an investor.
    It’s one thing to have had adversity, but what have you done to overcome that and work through it? Grit matters.
    And that’s true of life as well. We have challenges. Some of us have greater challenges than others. We can have a run of unfortunate circumstances. You can sit back and whine about it or you can learn, keep grinding, keep growing, and keep working.
    Talk is cheap 
    It’s easy to say how great your idea is, how smart you are, how talented you are.
    You need to show it.
    Knowing when to quit 
    Sometimes there will be a business on Shark Tank and they’ve just had tons of issues, they haven’t made money. And it might be somewhat of a gimmicky product, not something that’s going to revolutionize the world.
    And the market has said no, people aren’t buying it, in spite of all of the efforts.
    Sharks have suggested people scrap their ideas before. And that can seem cold hearted.
    But there does come a time to cut your losses. One of the sharks, Kevin O’Leary once brought up the point that the more time they spend working on an idea that hasn’t worked, it’s taking away time where they could be working on something more fruitful.
    The wise thing isn’t always sticking with an idea or product until the bitter end.
    Listen! 
    I’ve seen many a business undone on Shark Tank because their owner didn’t want to listen. Sharks tell them what hasn’t worked, they want to argue. Sharks give advice, they want to get defensive. Sharks tell them something they could try, they want to dismiss it.
    That doesn’t come off well.
    Sharks have often cited that they feel like a person would be hard to deal with when saying “I’m out.”
    None of us knows all. It’s virtuous to have the humility to listen to what others have to say.
    Thanks for reading! I’d love to hear what you think, and don’t forget to subscribe! 
    Josh Benner is the associate pastor at Cornerstone Evangelical Free Church in Fergus Falls, Minnesota and has a Master of Divinity from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. He enjoys writing about faith and culture. He lives with his wife Kari in Minnesota.

    Let’s connect!
    Facebook
    Twitter
    Instagram

  • Leadership comes in a thousand little moments

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    In our society, when we talk about “leadership,” I think we often think of a general, leading people into battle, someone who’s decisive. And to be fair, there are obviously times where that’s necessary.

    But as I think about leadership, those types of situations can be relatively rare.

    To illustrate this point, think about marriage. There are big events in a marriage: the wedding day, the birth of a child, anniversaries. Those are really big moments. And those days can all be great days but that doesn’t mean that the marriage is going to be good. (more…)

  • The little moments that change our lives

    I came across a TED talk from 2010 today entitled “Everyday Leadership” by Drew Dudley.

    His talk is based on an interesting premise.

    I worry sometimes that we spend so much time celebrating amazing things that hardly anybody can do, that we’ve convinced ourselves those are the only things worth celebrating. We start to devalue the things we can do every day.

    Dudley goes on to tell a story from his college years. He was talking to incoming students and happened to spark a conversation between a young man and woman. The young woman had felt very unsure about if she was ready for college, and was looking to quit.

    Her interaction with Dudley helped to break the tension.

    And in another twist of fate, the young woman would go on to date (and later marry) the young man Dudley had introduced her to.

    And he had no idea!

    It wasn’t until graduation when the young woman approached Dudley and told him about that moment (which he didn’t even recall). None of them could have ever imagined at the time, but that would be one of the most significant days in that young woman’s life.

    We never know the impact that we have on people. We never know how a seemingly small event can be a boulder in a pond that sends the water ripping throughout the rest of our lives.

    We do tend to idolize the people who are at the top who are really “making a difference” and overlook the life changing impact we can have on those with whom we interact on a daily basis. And if influencing one person isn’t something we can appreciate as being special and transformational, then why would we deserve to influence many?

    To influence one is to influence many because the one person impacts lives who impact lives. The ripples continues to form.

    Some moments are big moments and we know they’re big moments at the time. Getting married. Other moments are big moments that we didn’t necessarily realize were big moments when they happened (initially meeting that person who would become your spouse). May we appreciate the beauty of the “little” things.

    Josh Benner is the associate pastor at Cornerstone Evangelical Free Church in Fergus Falls, Minnesota and has a Master of Divinity from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. He enjoys writing about faith and culture. He lives with his wife Kari in Minnesota.