The Qualities of Skillful Leadership
“Humility is a grasp of the distance between us and the stars, yet having the feeling that we’re part of the stars.”
“Part of the task of leadership is learning to spend eighty percent of your time with the twenty percent of the people who are doing eighty percent of the work.”
“We can’t win everyone’s dedication and belief at once. What we can do is work on ourselves, refine our philosophies, and trust that the believers will be there.”
“If you share a good idea often enough, it will fall on good people.”
The Great Challenge of Life
If you want to be a leader who attracts quality people, the key is to become a person of quality yourself. Leadership is the ability to attract someone to the gifts, skills, and opportunities you offer as an owner, as a manager, as a parent. I call leadership the great challenge of life.
What is important in leadership is refining your skills. All great leaders keep working on themselves until they become effective. Here are some specifics:
Learn to be strong but not impolite. It is an extra step you must take to become a powerful, capable leader with a wide range of reach. Some people mistake rudeness for strength. It’s not even a good substitute.
Next, learn to be kind but not weak. We must not mistake weakness for kindness. Kindness is not weak. Kindness is a certain type of strength. We must be kind enough to tell somebody the truth. We must be kind enough and considerate enough to lay it on the line. We must be kind enough to tell it like it is and not deal in delusion.
Next, learn to be bold but not a bully. It takes boldness to win the day. To build your influence, you have to walk in front of your group. You have to be willing to take the first arrow, tackle the first problem, discover the first sign of trouble. I think we all agree that farming is not an easy job.
Farmers must face the weeds and the rains and the pests straight on. Likewise, if you want any rewards at harvest time, you have to be bold. You have to seize the moment.
Here is the next step. You have to learn to be humble, but not timid. You can not get to the high life by being timid. Some people mistake timidity for humility. But humility is a virtue; timidity is a disease. It is an affliction. It can be cured, but it is a problem.
Humility is almost a God-like word. A sense of awe. A sense of wonder. An awareness of the human soul and spirit. An understanding that there is something unique about the human drama versus the rest of life. Humility is a grasp of the distance between us and the stars, yet having the feeling that we are part of the stars.
Here is a good tip: learn to be proud but not arrogant. It takes pride to win the day. It takes pride to build your ambition. It takes pride in community. It takes pride in cause, in accomplishment. But the key to becoming a good leader is being proud without being arrogant.
Do you know the worst kind of arrogance? Arrogance from ignorance. It’s intolerable. And it can be expensive. A young newlywed couple gets some money from their parents to buy a new set of outdoor furniture. The young couple goes to the supermarket and picks out the perfect set. When
they go to pay though the cashier counter, the clerk scans the UPC barcode. The couple says, “Hey, there are four chairs in this container. You’re only charging us for one.”
“I know my job!” the clerk responds arrogantly. “I scanned the container. Don’t you think I know what I’m doing?”
Well, the young couple tries to explain that she is wrong. The clerk won’t listen. So the young couple gets four beautiful outdoor chairs for the price of one. Do you think the supermarket clerk will change her arrogant attitude when it’s time to close out her cash drawer? Probably so.
Ignorant arrogance is the worst kind. If someone is smart and arrogant, we can tolerate that. But if someone is ignorant and arrogant, that’s just too much to take.
The next step is learning to develop humour without folly. That’s important for a leader. In leadership, we learn that it’s okay to be witty, but not silly; fun, but not foolish.
Next, deal in realities. Deal in truth. Save yourself the agony. Just accept life like it is. Life is unique. Some people call it tragic, but I’d like to think it’s unique. The whole drama of life is unique. It’s fascinating.
Life is unique. Leadership is unique. The skills that work well for one leader may not work at all for another. But the fundamental skills of leadership can be adapted to work well for just about everyone: at work, in the community, and at home.
Building a Successful Team
Once you’ve set a goal for yourself as a leader—whether it is to create your own enterprise, energize your organization, build a church, or excel in sports—the challenge is to find good people to help you accomplish that goal. Gathering a successful team of people is not only helpful, it’s necessary.
So to guide you in this daunting task of picking the right people, I’m going to share with you a four-part checklist. Number one: check each candidate’s history. Seek out available information regarding the individual’s qualifications to do the job. That’s the most obvious step.
Number two: check the person’s interest level. If he is interested, he’s probably a good prospect. Sometimes people can fake their interest, but if you’ve been a leader for a while, you will be a capable judge of whether somebody is merely pretending. Arrange face-to-face conversation, and
try to gauge his or her sincerity to the best of your ability. You won’t hit the bull’s-eye every time, but you can get pretty good at spotting what I call true interest.
Number three: check the prospect’s responses. A response tells you a lot about someone’s integrity, character, and skills. Listen for responses like these: “You want me to get there that early?” “You want me to stay that late?” “The break is only ten minutes?” “I’ll have to work two evenings a week and Saturdays?” You can’t ignore these clues.
A person’s responses is a good indication of his or her character and of how hard he or she will work. Our attitudes reflect our inner selves, so even if we can fool others for a while, eventually, our true selves will emerge.
And number four: check results. The name of the game is results. How else can we effectively judge an individual’s performance? The final judge must be results.
There are two types of results to look for. The first is activity results. Specific results are a reflection of an individual’s productivity. Sometimes we don’t ask for this type of result right away, but it’s pretty easy to check activity. If you work for a sales organization and you’ve asked your new salesman, Brian, to make ten calls in the first week, it’s simple to check his results on Friday. You say, “John, how many calls did you make?” John says, “Well…” and starts telling a story, making an excuse. You respond, “John, I just need a number from one to ten.”
If his results that first week are not good, it is a definite sign. You might try another week, but if that lack of precise activity continues, you’ll soon realize that Brian isn’t capable of becoming a member of your team.
The second area you need to monitor is productivity. The ultimate test of a quality team is measurable progress in a reasonable amount of time. And here’s one of the skills of leadership: be up front with your team as to what you expect them to produce. Don’t let the surprises come later.
When you’re following this four-part checklist, your instincts obviously play a major role. And your instincts will improve every time you go through the process. Remember, building a good team will be one of your most challenging tasks as a leader. It will reap you multiple rewards for a long time to come.
Following the 80/20 Rule
Leadership is quite often an exercise in facing reality. I used to say, “Liars shouldn’t lie.” What I’ve since learned, and what you need to know, is that pronouncements like that are a waste of energy. Liars are supposed to lie. That’s why we call them liars. You wouldn’t expect them to do anything else. If you did, we’d call you naive. And you would be especially naive if you let it upset you.
Somebody cuts you off on the highway, so you go chasing after him shaking your fist. You don’t think he should have cut you off on the highway? That’s what he’s supposed to do. He is known as a “cutter-offer” on the highway. And if you say, “Those people shouldn’t cut me off,” we’d call you naive. Come on!
Here’s a perspective that saved me a lot of agony and a lot of anguish. I can now avoid those sleepless nights I used to experience being upset and wondering why there were liars and people who cut me off on the road. I gave up on all that when I finally understood the 80/20 Rule. Let me
give you some of my insights on the 80/20 Rule, and explain how it applies to you as a leader and manager. Here is the first tip: learn to spend eighty percent of your time as a leader with the twenty percent who deserve it.
There are plenty of examples to show how this 80/20 Rule applies across the board. Ask the pastor of your church, “Who donates the most money here?” He’ll answer, “Probably twenty percent of the people donate eighty percent of the money.”
So what do you do with the other eighty percent of the people? You learn to deal with the situation and not try to solve it. It’s like trying to figure out the laws of nature. You don’t figure out the source of those laws, you learn to work with them. They’re all set, just like this 80/20 Rule is all set. The key is to learn to work with things the way they are.
Part of the task of leadership is learning to spend eighty percent of your time with the twenty percent who are doing eighty percent of the work. We would call that good leadership sense. If you are wondering how you can possibly do that, here’s one answer: spend individual time with the twenty percent and group time with the eighty percent. This is an important aspect of skillful leadership.
However, guess who wants your individual time! The wrong group—the eighty percent. But that’s what life’s all about. So now you’ve to be strategic; and you’ve gto be diplomatic. Diplomacy and strategy are two key words for the effective leader to understand.
Here’s the diplomacy: Rose comes and says, “I’ve got a question.” You say, “Rose, bring your question to me on Saturday morning. I’m going to meet with everybody and cover it then.” It might not always be that easy, but you need to follow the strategy of dealing with the eighty percent in groups and talking to the twenty percent individually. That might be difficult because the pull is in the opposite direction, and it always has been. Just as gravity is a downward pull, life is a struggle in the opposite direction.
Even if you’ve built a terrific team, this 80/20 Rule will apply. It’s inevitable. But if you learn to work with it, your bottom eighty percent can raise their competence level dramatically. And that will push your top twenty percent even higher. They will be simply exceptional. You will have a true high-performance team.
Mysteries of the Mind
An interesting story says that the day the Christian church was formed, a magnificent sermon was preached. It was a great presentation. In fact, it was one of the classic presentations of all time.
According to the story, this presentation was given to a multitude of people. When the sermon was finished, there were a variety of reactions from those onlookers. I find that fascinating since they were all listening to the same sermon.
Some who heard this presentation were perplexed. I read the presentation, and it sounded pretty straightforward to me. Why would somebody be perplexed with a good, sincere, straightforward presentation? The best answer I’ve got is that they are chronically perplexed people. It doesn’t
matter who’s preaching, these people are going to be perplexed. Some who heard this presentation mocked and laughed. They made fun of the presentation. The presentation seemed pretty sincere to me. If you give a sincere, honest presentation, why wouldsomebody mock and laugh? There’s an easy explanation: they are the mockers and the laughers. What else would you expect them to do?
Some that heard this magnificent presentation didn’t know what was going on. Those are the people who usually don’t know what’s going on.
Finally, some that heard the presentation chose to believe, and I think that’s who the speaker was looking for, the believers. Those believers numbered about three thousand. That is a pretty good first day!
With anything in life, some will believe, some will mock, some will laugh, some will be perplexed, and some won’t know what’s going on. And you just have to leave it at that. In this particular story, as far as we know, there weren’t classes after the presentation to try to de-perplex the perplexed. As far as we know, they left them perplexed. They left the mockers mocking. They left
the laughers laughing. All they needed to build a church were the believers, and they knew that with each presentation, more believers would emerge from the masses.
That’s the perspective we all need to cultivate. We can’t win everyone’s dedication and belief at once. The Law of Averages tells us that. What we can do is work on ourselves, refine our philosophy, and trust that the believers will be there. We just need to find them.
Nurturing Your Crops
Our next subject in the study of leadership skills involves a simple story from the Bible. Here is my interpretation of the parable of the sower.
The sower in ancient days was the person who planted the crops. Very simply, he got the ground ready, and with a bag of seed he would walk across the ground and sow the seed. This is how he got the crops going. And it’s a very fascinating story that has a lot to say about the qualities of a true leader.
Here’s the first leadership quality demonstrated by the sower: he was a wise man. That’s a great advantage, isn’t it? You don’t want to send a stupid man out to plant. If you do, we’d all starve.
Second, he was very ambitious. Ambition is an admirable quality, but it is one that has to be tempered. One writer said, “I’ve learned to be both ambitious and content.” That’s a unique combination of characteristics, being both ambitious and content.
Third, the sower was a hard worker. It takes productivity to bring forth new life. An idea without action is stillborn. It never becomes tangible. It never becomes real. You’ve got to motivate yourself to take action.
Fourth, the sower had the best of seed. It’s exciting when you feel that you’re involved with the best, whether it’s the best product, the best service, the best idea, or the best enterprise. We all need something to feel proud of.
With all of these qualities, the sower begins to learn about the Law of Averages. Here’s what happens.
The first part of the seed that he sows falls by the wayside, and the birds get it. This is a very common scenario. And it’s very important for leaders to begin to understand and teach this concept. Leaders must understand birds. Why? Because birds are going to get part of the seed. It’s inevitable, and if you don’t understand this, your team will get very upset. They won’t know what to expect. We must all be prepared for the inevitable, including the fact that the birds are going to get some of the seed.
Let’s say you’re building an organization. You’re out recruiting. You’re talking to Kevin, and you say, “Kevin , I’ve got an important story for you to listen to. It could represent a big change in your life. You could earn a lot more money. Come and take a look.” And he says, “I think I’m ready for something like that. I’ll see you Thursday night.”
Thursday night arrives, and Kevin isn’t there. The birds have gotten to him. Who knows what form they come in? Maybe his brother-in-law said, “Sales! You’re not going to get mixed up in sales, are you? What makes you think you can be a salesman?”
There are many influences that pull people away from a good idea. That’s always going to be the case—the birds will always get some of the seed. When that happens, you may feel the need to chase the birds. But here’s the problem with this course of action: if you go chasing birds to straighten things out, you have now left the field. The Law of Averages isn’t going to work for you until you get back into the field.
It is so important to know what is a good use of your time and what is a waste of time. Focusing on the negative is a waste of time. In fact, it is often a massive error in judgment. The best thing to do is to spend your energy and time on the things that count and understand the law of averages. Don’t chase the birds; it’s much more important to stay in the field.
Here’s what the wise sower does. He ignores the birds, and he keeps on sowing. Why? Being so bright, he understands the Law of Averages.
As he keeps on sowing the seed, the seed falls on the rocky ground where the soil is shallow. Again, this is inevitable. As a leader, you can help people grow by understanding this law of nature. Even if the seed takes root and a plant starts to grow, the soil is so shallow that on the first hot day, the little plant will wither and die. It’s disappointing, but it’s a fact of life.
Inevitably, some of your team members will quit on the first hot day. You’re going to be disappointed, especially if it’s somebody you were really counting on, but here’s what you must learn to do as a leader: limit your disappointment. This is part of the challenge of life. It’s part of the Law of Averages.
Here’s what the wise sower does next: he keeps on sowing. How brilliant! He is so well-schooled in the Law of Averages that he keeps on sowing. This time, the seed falls on thorny ground. The little plant starts to grow, but the thorns choke it to death. Once again, this is inevitable. What shape do these thorns take in our lives? They are the excuses some people use for not pushing on and getting the job done. Some people are going to try so little. They’re going to let other things limit their opportunities, and I don’t know why. They key is to take the inevitable and study the obvious. If you don’t let it unduly disturb you, you can learn to manage the obvious and get on with the more important things of life.
So the sower keeps on sowing. He is so bright; evidently, he’s been well-schooled in these numbers regarding how many seeds the birds are going get, how many the hot weather will destroy, and how many are going to get caught in the thorns. He must have gone through the school of hard
knocks because he understands the process. He just keeps on sowing.
Finally, the seed falls on good ground. And let me give you a promise as a leader: it always will. Always remember that if you share a good idea often enough, it will fall on good people. Why? Because of the Law of Averages.
Of course, even the good ground has a range of productivity. Part of the good ground will yield thirty percent of what is sown, another part will yield sixty percent, and the last part will yield a hundred percent. It’s the Law of Averages. That’s the way it is.
As a leader, can you find some “hundred percenters?” Of course! But first you’ve to go through the birds, the hot weather, and the thorns. You’ve to find some way to use the “thirty percenters” and the “sixty percenters.” That is how you become a skillful leader. When you learn how to deal with all this, you’ll have some hundred percenters to work with. It’s the Law of Averages.
The Frog and the Scorpion
All good leaders must understand the story of the frog and the scorpion. It’s one of the most important stories for a leader to keep in mind.
According to this story, the frog and the scorpion appear on the bank of a river at about the same time. The frog is about to jump in the river and swim to the other side. When the scorpion sees what’s about to happen, he engages the frog in conversation. He says to him, “Mr. Frog, I see that
you’re about to jump into the river and swim to the other side.” The frog responds, “That is correct.”
So the scorpion asks for a favour. “Well, you know, I would also like to get to the other side. Unfortunately, I’m a scorpion, and I can’t swim. Would you be so kind as to let me hop on your back as you swim across the river? If you could deposit me on the other side, I would be grateful.”
The frog looks at the scorpion and says, “No. You’re a scorpion and scorpions sting frogs and kill them. I’d get out there halfway with you on my back, and you’d sting me and I’d die. Do you think I’m crazy? Absolutely not.”
The scorpion says, “Wait a minute, you’re not thinking. If I were to sting you halfway out there, surely you’d die, but so would I. Since I’m a scorpion, I can’t swim. I’d drown. That would be kind of foolish. I’m not about to do that. I just want to get to the other side.”
The frog thinks about that reasoning and says, “That makes sense. Hop on.”
So the scorpion hops on the frog’s back and they start to swim across the river. Sure enough, halfway across the river, the scorpion stings the frog. They are now both about to sink down into the water. The frog cannot believe what has happened, and he says to the scorpion, “Why did you do that? I’m about to die, but so are you. Why would you do that?”
And the scorpion replies, “Because I am a scorpion.”
Raising a Solid Family
The skills of leadership are required at work, yes. But they’re also required at home, with our families, in the community, in education. I call leadership the challenge to be something more than mediocre—a step up to a new challenge, a new opportunity.
What are some of the skills involved in raising a good, solid family? Communication is number one. Every member of the family has to know that he or she has a voice and that his or her voice is respected. Every person in the family has to know that his or her opinion counts, that the family is a democracy. If there’s an issue, they can put it on the table. And that’s what’s so important about the dinner table. It’s not just a place for the evening meal, it’s a place to bring forth all the issues, to talk about the day, to share experiences, to ask questions and hope for answers. You can
accomplish all that and more around the dinner table.
In today’s society, there are a lot of broken homes—divorced parents who share custody of the children. How do you raise good, solid children when they’re split between two households? Make sure the child-rearing philosophies in both households are compatible. Obviously, each parent’s
values are different. That’s why the home is split. But parents who are facing this kind of challenge need to put away their personal differences and develop one set of philosophies by which to raise the children. Why? Because if they don’t, the children will be a mess, with one set of rules for one
house, and another set of rules for another house. The children will grow up confused as to what’s right and what’s wrong.
Regardless of how your household is set up, make sure that communication plays a vital role. Everybody needs a voice. Everybody has to be heard. And everybody has to acknowledge that everyone else’s voice counts. That’s number one: communication.
Here’s number two in raising a solid family: activity. There was a study done a while back that surveyed a large group of happy families. And here’s what they all had in common. First, they made a regular habit of eating dinner together as often as possible. Second, they were all involved in one physical activity or another together—walks, swimming, football. They planned family
physical fitness activities. Third, they made a regular habit of spending Sunday mornings in church. And the fourth common denominator among successful families? The parents scheduled quality, personal time together. Alone.
Why would the parents’ personal time affect the entire family so dramatically? Because when the parents are happy with each other, and invest in each other, they present a unified front to the kids. Personal time together is important.
Outside activity is also important. Activities such as planned outings, trips to the game park, football… whatever outside interests your family has, make sure to schedule them on a regular basis.
And schedule inside activities as well. Regularly do things together at home. If you have a young family that is used to plopping down in front of the TV during every spare moment, start weaning them off this activity one day a week. Plan an evening each week without the TV. During this time, read together, work on household projects together, go through the family picture albums and videos together, plan vacations together.
Start a family journal. Write in it once a week. Record what you did, where you went, who you saw, how you felt. Family journals are a wonderful way of tracking the growth of your family and the growth of your children. When you look back on these family journals, you’ll find they’re among the greatest treasures you have.
There’s another fun way to log the history of your family. A friend of mine tells me that when she was a kid, one of three children in a family full of sibling rivalry, her parents used to record the family dinner conversation.
Those kids get together now and have a great time with the videos. They’re grown now, but when they go back and listen to scenes from their upbringing, it has a way of rekindling the family bond.
Here’s the third most important key to raising a strong, healthy family with bonds that will last a lifetime: a spiritual connection. Your beliefs are your own, and whether or not you call God the power behind our existence is entirely up to you. But whatever your faith, whatever your beliefs, share them with your family. Share them with your children. Make time, frequently, to discuss the spiritual aspects of your life. Give your kids the opportunity of choice by giving them a basis of knowledge.
There are all sorts of wonderful programs at churches these days. Aside from the Sunday sermon that’s so valuable, there’s Sunday School for children, Vacation Bible School, camping trips, family outings, weekly Bible studies, picnics, plays, and concerts. If you’re searching for a new church, visit several churches to find out which one is right for you.
There are many things you can do with your family to build strong bonds and healthy relationships. The tips I gave you are just a few. You may have other ideas, and that’s great. Just remember that the more energy you expend on your family, the more time and attention you give to your family, the more love and attention you’ll receive in return. Your children will love you unconditionally when they’re young. Just make sure that when they grow up and know better, you will have given them a reason to continue their unconditional love.
Embracing the Responsibility of Leadership
There is undoubtedly a strong relationship between responsibility and leadership. As a leader, you’ve to be responsible for preparing your subordinates for the challenges they’ll face—and if the result is not positive, you’ve to accept responsibility for not having prepared them adequately.
Maybe this seems like a harsh standard to live up to, but that’s just the way it is. If you can’t handle responsibility and leadership, at least admit it to yourself, and don’t let other people start depending on you. Choose the standard by which you want to live, and follow through on it.
During the time of the Roman Empire, there was a unique perspective toward this kind of decision making. The world was brutal in those days to say the least; anything could happen, from plagues to revolutions to Barbarian invasions. Even for the upper classes, it was a challenge just to survive.
Yet certain people attempted to do more than merely survive. There was a tradition whereby people attempted to create themselves and their characters exactly in the way that an artist would create a painting or a sculpture. And like a work of art, these people looked upon their minds and their characters as things of beauty that would live on after their deaths in the memories of their friends and families.
People who chose to live their lives this way were not monks or ascetics or in any way removed from life in the everyday world. They were just very serious about building strong character.
In fact, the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius was a well-known example of this type of person, and his journal is a powerful example of everything that’s involved in building character and leadership. Much of it was written in military camps while the Emperor was leading the Roman armies against Barbarian tribes in what is now Germany.
The writings of this ancient emperor and of other people from the same period reflect a conscious choice to live according to certain standards of responsibility and character. This kind of clear decision about how to improve your inner self is something that we rarely witness today.
Most people want to be good, they want to be ethical and moral and successful in every way. They want to fulfill their potential, but they think it’s something that will just happen by itself. They don’t see that there should be a conscious decision to take responsibility for one’s life, for what one does and becomes.
There’s an old saying that goes, “I slept and dreamed that life was beauty; I woke and saw that life was duty.” If you want to really be in control of your life, and if you want other people to be able to depend on you and look to you for leadership, you must wake up from the dream that somebody else will handle the responsibility. You must accept the responsibility of leading both yourself and others. No one else can do it for you. And if you develop the skills of a highly effective leader, no one else can do it as well as you, either.
Developing Your Craft
Effective leadership is a skill that must be consistently developed and nurtured. It is a craft requiring constant study. And there are five areas of this discipline in particular that deserve special attention.
Number one is the area of possibility. It’s so important for leaders to play the “what-if” game. What if we had enough people? What if we had people with special talents? What if we had leaders? What if we had a good team? What if we accomplished our goal—what could we achieve? The what-if game is crucial, because possibilities are all around us. We must all be students of
possibility. Dr. Robert Schuller calls it “possibility thinking.” This is the first area of focus for leaders.
Number two is the study of opportunity. Leaders must always be conscious and aware of the expanded potential for opportunity. And sometimes opportunity is closer than you might think.
Number three is the study of ability. Leaders must be good students of ability—their own ability as well as those of the people in their charge. Sometimes it’s easy to have somebody working right next to you without ever discovering all of their talent and potential.
Leaders must be able to perceive ability. You’ve just got to find a way to uncover all the talent that may lay dormant right under your nose.
Number four is the area of inevitability. We should all be students of inevitability. Ask yourself, “In all honesty, if I keep up my current daily practices, where will they lead me in ten years?” You don’t want to just cross your fingers and continue down what may be the wrong road. And you
don’t want to influence others to move in the wrong direction, either.
Imagine being fifty metres from a water fall in a little boat with no motor and no oars. What a tragic place to find yourself! If somebody would have painted you this scenario when you were still further upstream, you might not have drifted this far into what we now call the inevitable. As a leader, you have to help people by telling them about the danger of the Falls long before they get within one hundred meters of them in a little boat with no motor and no oars.
Some people around you may be drifting, and it’s your responsibility to perceive which ones are drifting toward danger. You’ve to tell them the truth, thereby giving them alternate choices while there still are options available. It’s the gift of leadership to help people make changes in their personal lives and career. You must help people change their thinking, change their attitudes. You must help them face the inevitable. It’s simply a part of leadership.
Finally, area number five is the study of rationality. Being rational allows you to come to the right conclusion based on the information at hand. You understand that what you do is the product of your own common sense. You take advice but not orders. You let everybody around you offer advice, but you then put it through your own mental computer and draw your own conclusion
based on all the input. This is a true sense of leadership—to make rational decisions based on all the input.
These tasks are not easy, but they’re possible when you develop excellent leadership skills. Whatever price you pay at the outset will lead to greater riches—spiritually, intellectually, and financially—down the road.