A Lesson on Purpose From My Dog
When Sadie, our 12-year-old Golden Retriever, wakes up each morning, the first thing she does is bring me one of her toys. She’s a retriever; that’s her purpose. She starts her day doing what she’s made to do. The starts her day on mission to fulfill...
You Can’t Sell From an Empty Wagon: What a Nonprofit Leader Learned From a Businessman, Part 2
Have you ever imagined what life was like on a wagon train back in the 1800’s? I do, frequently, because there’s a spot on my morning walk along the outskirts of my small, rural Kansas town, where history was made by wagon trains. About three blocks from my house, I...
What a Nonprofit Do-Gooder Learned From a Businessman: Nothing Happens Until Someone Sells Something, Part 1
Admittedly, I am a Do-Gooder. Even my Twitter profile reads, “My goal in life is to be a swizzle stick, stirring up good in people. I want written on my tombstone: He loved well and helped a lot of people feed the hungry.” However, I’ve had the good fortune to spend...
Aligning Yourself With People Who Have Heart
Who is the most compassionate, loving, positive, intuitive and joyful person you know? After spending a few minutes around them, do you find yourself wanting to be like them because of the way they make you feel? That is a person with heart; that is Kathy Hamilton...
Aligning Yourself with People of Vision
When the pandemic hit, the business model of The Outreach Program immediately broke. The model of engaging large numbers of volunteers together to package meals for the hungry was suddenly forbidden by the government. In one day, the 16-year-old method of...
“Life Ain’t Fair, But It’s Our Job to Make it That Way” – Robert McNary (my Dad)
We arrived in the mountain village of Nicaragua with a truck load of food aid for the small village recently decimated by flooding. We began the process of handing out food to desperate families and, as typical, the line was filled with women and children. ...
7 Lessons Learned in the First 7 Days of Shop Kansas Farms Facebook Group
While my wife and I watched a Hallmark movie just a week ago, I had the idea to create the Shop Kansas Farms Facebook Group. Here are some lessons I've learned: 1. 4,580 people want to buy local. Yep, that's how many people have joined in seven days. I was watching a...
What if Our Job Was to Make Others Beautiful?
s,"I didn't know I was so pretty," the young lady said as she flipped through the proof book of her senior pictures. Her eyes welled up with tears. That was the best compliment I ever received as a photographer. For nearly a decade before the digital revolution, I...
You Can’t Do Great Work With Junk Tools
"I thought you were a carpenter," my friend sort-of joked. "That's not a very straight line you cut!" "Well, like my brother Mike taught me," I replied. "You can't do great work with junk tools. He had invited me over to help him build a shed and assured me he had all...
The Gift of Asking the Right Question
A young lady recently asked me for my "wisdom and insight," about some questions she had. Admittedly, there was a time in my life my ego would have kicked in and I would have crawled up on a soapbox and pontificated. However, rather than wax eloquent with pompous...