Failure is a part of living life fully. Those fully living expect failures. It’s the only way to succeed long-term – in business, in ministry, in love and in life. What if you could not fail? Or better yet, what if failure was an essential ingredient to your success?

Owning our piece of the pie usually requires more than, “I’m sorry.” Sexual infidelity, disrespect, using one another for personal gain, manipulation, name-calling, contempt, passive-aggressiveness, passivity, addictions (the list could go on) — all are common trappings for people who have never learned the power of ownership and accountability.

Leaders are notorious for “pulling themselves up by their bootstraps.” This survival technique, often learned in unsafe environments, can be the very thing to defeat a leader in the end.

Sex trafficking is a dark world that steals the souls of hundreds of thousands of girls world wide, and Portland is one of the leading US cities where sex traffickers thrive. Consider how you can make a difference in this fight as you read to your child this evening.

Did you know that gratitude not only improves our health, but also our relationships, emotions, personality and career? When we practice gratitude habitually, we start to see the good over the bad more often. The more we see blessings in ordinary moments, ones we might otherwise take for granted, the more natural the attitude of gratitude becomes in our lives.

 C.S. Lewis said, “Integrity is doing the right thing when no one else is looking.” The hardest time to make the right choice is when no one is watching; when we momentarily are tempted to “get away” with something for our own gain.

Anxieties cannot exist when we see places of beauty and soak in appreciation all around us. Sometimes I want to return to the days where play and imagination were all I had on my agenda for the day, to breathe in the warmth of the sun and see the brilliance of the green in the trees.

Sometimes we wonder how our talents and our pain can work together to forge a new direction, perhaps far greater than what we have ever before imagined.

Anyone can start the marriage race; sadly, few are willing to do the work necessary to finish the race with their partner. There are many contributing factors to the success of a marriage, but the marathon metaphor can be helpful in reminding us of a few: Train well, remember that there will always be consequences of your choices today, have an encouragement/support team and include regular doses of sweetness.

In the season of setting goals, remember to leave room for unexpected turns, mistakes and disappointments. It’s best to write our expectations and plans in pencil. God doesn’t deal so well with our permanent marker plans.

How do we help our children when news strikes, triggering our worst nightmares, the natural instinct is to immediately protect our own and prevent any harm that could come into our world. However, the very meaning of the word trauma is that it’s unexpectedly too much, too soon.

Today we talk about the 5 biggest myths about sex

Transforming leaders tap existing and potential motives in followers. Are you intentionally looking to lift others up around you? It’s a new year; consider making one of your resolutions a commitment in taking the next step in that key relationship.

Every leader is like a boat, and boats leave a wake. Leaders must be willing to pause and look at the wake they are leaving behind. Be a leader who looks behind and sees the fruit of your labor. What’s in your wake?

This picture reminds me of how often we need people in our life who can see the beauty in us, even when we are broken, messy and sometimes, stinky. These are the parts of our lives we so desperately try to hold together and keep tucked in our Monica’s closets (a reference to the show Friends for those of you old enough to remember it). We are all a mess, in some form or another, and those of us who try hard to hide it probably have an even bigger mess buried deep, if we take the time to look.