Individuals and organizations that want to excel must always do their very best.  Everyone within the team must perform to his or her maximum potential everyday.  This includes all aspects of our society: Family, churches, corporations, government, etc.   To get folks to work up to their maximum potential, leaders must be demanding.   They must set high standards for both themselves and their partners / employees, and then demand that folks work to achieve those standards.  And…once those standards are achieved they should “raise the high bar” and demand that folks attain those results as well.  That is the essence of high performing organizations, always doing better.  As Robert Browning once said “ A man’s reach should exceed his grasp”.   To do that, leaders must carefully communicate what the standards are, and what the expectations are for employees to achieve those standards.  To be an effective leader, constant communication is critical.  There

Sarah and I travel a lot, both inside and outside the US. The trips allow us the opportunity to see things outside of our own community, and I am not sure I like what I see.   I worry about the direction our Nation is taking, especially when I see other countries.  We just returned from a week long vacation in Ireland.  The country was immaculate.  The people were friendly and welcoming.  I never saw a police officer the entire time I was in Ireland, but everyone felt safe and secure.   Thomas Friedman wrote a book entitled “That Used to be Us”.  Generally, the book compares the way our Nation used to be, the way it is, and the way it should be.    We must all ask ourselves “Are we where we want to be as a Nation?”  If the answer is no (and I think it should be), we must ask

  At 9:27am Thursday, 16 July Sarah and I were blessed with the birth of our 2nd grandson, Rex Tyler Lynch.  Both Erica (our daughter in law) and Rex are doing great.  This is God’s true blessing.   Times like this make one pause and think about what is truly important in life.  Here, as of this AM, is a brand new human being that God has entrusted to our care.  My son, Lucas and his wife Erica now have a whole new set of extremely important responsibilities.  In addition to raising their first son, JW (now 2 ½ years old) they now have Rex Tyler to raise and care for.   We are blessed in that we all live close together.   Sarah and I are only 30 mins from Lucas and Erica.  Our daughter, Susan and her husband David also live nearby.  We as a Family can help whenever necessary.   I can’t think of

  On our recent vacation to Ireland, Sarah and I were relaxing.  I was out on the balcony doing my thing….drinking a whiskey, smoking a cigar, and reading a book entitled Rescuing Riley, Saving Myself by Zachary Anderegg.   This particular book is about a dog that had been cruelly abandoned and about a young man who was working to rescue to dog….and putting his own life at risk.   Right when I got to the part in the book about the rescue attempt, I looked down from our 3rd floor balcony and saw a young dog looking up at me.   The dog apparently was either a stray or had ran away from his owners…but he was surely all alone.  It sure seemed like much more than a coincidence!  We ensure that the dog was taken care of.  In fact, one of the employees at the hotel actually adopted the dog and took