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Four Leadership Lessons From Bruce Bochy

by Tim Milburn | Twitter

Photo by Max Morse/Getty Images North America

What? You don’t know who Bruce Bochy is?

He’s the manager of the San Francisco Giants. You know, that team from the National League that’s headed to the World Series this year.

What you also may not know is that there weren’t very many people who thought the Giants would make it this far into the postseason. It was pretty obvious there were a lot better teams out there (at least that’s what the analysts kept saying). On paper, the Phillies were supposed to dominate the National League Championship Series. On paper…

But the San Francisco Giants are a team that scratched, clawed, and won a lot of close (CLOSE!) games with grit and determination. This was a group of good players who had been overlooked and looked over from other teams. The Giants organization brought this rag tag group together and turned them into…a Pennant-winning team. Continue Reading…

Way To Go Giants!

by Tim Milburn | Twitter

I have been a fan of the San Francisco Giants for many, many years. The last time I celebrated like this was 2002. The SF Giants have never won a World Series. Of course, neither have the Texas Rangers.

I’m pulling for the ragtag group from the Bay area to kick and claw their way to victory in this one.

A Better Kind Of Character

by Tim Milburn | Twitter

I want to come back to the leadership image I shared with you a couple of weeks ago. I firmly believe the best student leaders (or most any leader) will lead from the inside out. They will take the time to develop who they are on the inside more than the type of person they hope to portray on the outside.

One of the most important areas of a person’s core is his or her character. Character can be defined as the will to do what’s right even when it’s hard. Great definition. Often hard to do.

Based on the definition above, I think you can identify two different types of leaders. Both will do what’s right even when it’s hard. But the reasons why are different. Continue Reading…

Who Are You…Really?

by Tim Milburn | Twitter

This week I’m preparing for the monthly LeadershipLab I host on our campus. The focus of this month’s training is the discipline to lead yourself first.

Leading yourself is a lot harder than leading others. I think it’s easier for us to look at someone else and identify what that person needs to do or be in order to grow and develop (at least it appears to be easier). But when we begin to point the finger back at ourselves, there’s all kinds of games we play to often avoid the painful realities of who we are…really.

The best leaders are themselves. They don’t try to be somebody else – someone who they are not. They know who they are.

The less a leader knows about him or herself, the more that leader will simply role play. Continue Reading…

My Top 3 Excuses

by Tim Milburn | Twitter

All this talk about productivity, calendaring, discipline, and consistency on a daily basis. You people reading this blog might start to get the wrong idea. I’m not as good as the posts I’ve been writing this week. While I will admit that I am pretty proud of the fact that I stuck with, worked hard, and completed P90X…I had my moments.

In an earlier post, I talked about how I would lie to myself. My inner “me” would try to convince the rest of “me” to not do what needed to be done. Seth Godin calls this “the resistance” or “the lizard brain.” (Folks…you gotta read his latest book, Linchpin…I’m just saying). Continue Reading…

Water: Blog Action Day 2010

by Tim Milburn | Twitter

Today is Blog Action Day. Today, more than 5000 bloggers from 130 countries are coming together for a single day of blogging about a single topic: water. The subject of clean water is a critical need on our planet.

Blog Action Day 2010: Water from Blog Action Day on Vimeo.

Here’s some startling statistics:

Unsafe drinking water and lack of sanitation kills more people every year than all forms of violence, including war. Unclean drinking water can incubate some pretty scary diseases, like E. coli, salmonella, cholera and hepatitis A. Given that bouquet of bacteria, it’s no surprise that water, or rather lack thereof, causes 42,000 deaths each week.
More people have access to a cell phone than to a toilet. Today, 2.5 billion people lack access to toilets. This means that sewage spills into rivers and streams, contaminating drinking water and causing disease.
Every day, women and children in Africa walk a combined total of 109 million hours to get water. They do this while carrying cisterns weighing around 40 pounds when filled in order to gather water that, in many cases, is still polluted. Aside from putting a great deal of strain on their bodies, walking such long distances keeps children out of school and women away from other endeavors that can help improve the quality of life in their communities.
It takes 6.3 gallons of water to produce just one hamburger. That 6.3 gallons covers everything from watering the wheat for the bun and providing water for the cow to cooking the patty and baking the bun. And that’s just one meal! It would take over 184 billion gallons of water to make just one hamburger for every person in the United States.
The average American uses 159 gallons of water every day – more than 15 times the average person in the developing world. From showering and washing our hands to watering our lawns and washing our cars, Americans use a lot of water. To put things into perspective, the average five-minute shower will use about 10 gallons of water. Now imagine using that same amount to bathe, wash your clothes, cook your meals and quench your thirst.

I wrote about my support of charity:water last week. Today would be a great day to contribute to an organization that is working hard to bring clean drinking water to those who don’t have it.

One Calendar To Rule Them All

by Tim Milburn | Twitter

Continuing with the theme of planning from yesterday’s post (read it here), I want to share some observations about my calendar.

1. I have one calendar.
You might walk into my office and see a calendar hanging on the wall, but that’s not my calendar. The calendar that shows me the date on my desktop isn’t my calendar either. I am surrounded by gadgets and paper – all of them provide calendar information. But none of them are my calendar. My CALENDAR is Google Calendar (or Gcal). It’s the only one I use to keep track of my schedule and to note deadlines and timelines. One Calendar. If you have more than one…consolidate into one. Continue Reading…

Love It When A Plan Comes Together

by Tim Milburn | Twitter

The title of this post is one of the classic lines from the 80′s TV show, The A Team. Colonel Hannibal Smith usually cites it toward the end of the show (while lighting his victory cigar).

It’s the plan that helps them save the day.
It’s the plan that helps the good guys beat the bad guys.
It’s the plan that helps everyone on the team know what to do next.

I’m discovering I do better when I have a plan. Without a plan, I tend to be more reactionary than intentional.

Think about it – prioritizing is simply creating a plan that shows what’s most important. Scheduling is creating a plan that determines how you’ll use your time. ToDo lists create a plan for accomplishing what’s next.

Each of these organizational tools are merely different ways to plan. We are more productive with the right kinds of plans. Continue Reading…