The Art of Leadership Network.

I would miss deadlines. I was perpetually late for meetings.

I was just sloppy in my work. And so what would I do? Well, I would blame traffic if I was

late. I would explain how my other meeting ran late and I might explain that, well, if you had

as much complicated stuff to deal with as I did,

you wouldn't have your sermon done on time either.

And you know what?

After a while, I realized that is so lame.

But what's worse is I got away with it because I was winning in other areas.

Our church was growing.

Same thing happened in college.

In college, I almost never handed in a paper on time.

But I got straight A's anyway, so what was the point of being on time? Similarly, our church was

growing, so I kind of thought, well, other people can wait for me. But I realized I was losing self-respect.

I was probably losing the respect of other people around me,

and the results wouldn't last forever.

I realized this is eventually going to catch up with me.

So years ago, I decided to make a change,

to stop making excuses and start making progress.

And thank goodness for that,

because what I didn't realize is leadership would become

much harder than just handing in a paper late.

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