When our daughter was little, my wife and I read a lot of books to her. It was a wonderful time of bonding, thinking, and dreaming. Today, Joelle is becoming an avid reader.  It has been a joy to be part of her journey in becoming a life-long learner, thinker, and dreamer.

The Carrot Seed Book

One of my most favorite books we read to her when she was a little girl tells the story about a boy that has a dream. The dream comes in the form of a seed.

The boy wants to make his dream come true by planting the seed and taking care of it as it grows.

Of course you would expect that the competition and the world at large would be against him.  That wasn't the point of this story.

Instead, the antagonists that opposed him were the people that loved him most.  It was his parents and family that discouraged him from even trying.  In the book, they tell him that it his dream can never happen. They fear the seed he has planted, "won't come up".

Good thing he didn't listen.  The seed he planted did come up and his dream came true, "just as he thought it would."

Get the book and read it for yourself.  It's only a few pages with deep meaning.  It is one of my favorite books to give to others.

Your dream

• What is your dream?

• What stops you from obtaining it?

• How can you re-frame the obstacles in a way you can overcome them?

What is my dream?

Today, my dream is helping individuals and groups achieve theirs.  I'm getting better at it because I plant lots of seeds and help others along the way.  It is the work I choose to do and it spans all of my domains (family, work, community, and personal).

I feel energized when I see in others what they do not see in themselves and encourage them to use their gifts.

As leaders, when we earn the trust of our people, we sometimes can find ways to get their ideas and dreams to come true.  We can help them find a path forward so they can do the work important to them.  Our work becomes providing them our support and encouragement along the way.

What does the future hold?

Sometimes I pray that I can see a miracle one day.  I haven't so far, but I do expect to see the remarkable and that is good enough for me.  I already have!

How does the shepherd leader measure success?

To the shepherd leader there are two measures of success:

• How many people under our care thrived during their time with us? Where they better for having spent time under our leadership?

• The legacy of the shepherd leader is measured by the vitality of our followers' followers. What is the health of the teams being led by those we first shepherded? Did the lessons we taught explicitly or by example carry over?