Mastering Anger

Bobby Jones, one of golf’s greatest players, was only five years old when he first swung a golf club. By the age of twelve, he was winning club tournaments. During this time, he was known for his hot temper, and he soon had the nickname “Club Thrower.”

Jones became friends with a man named Grandpa Bart, who worked part-time in the club pro shop. Bart had been an excellent golfer but had retired when arthritis gripped his hands. After Bobby lost the National Amateur Tournament at the age of fourteen, he said, “Bobby, you are good enough to win that tournament, but you’ll never win until you can control your temper. You miss a shot - you get upset - then you lose.”

Bobby knew Grandpa Bart was right, and he became determined to improve - not his golf swings - his mood swings. When Bobby won a major tournament at age twenty one, Grandpa Bart said, “Bobby was fourteen when he mastered to game of golf, but he was twenty one when he mastered himself.”

"Let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath: for the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God." James 1:19-20 KJV

Sharing Encouragement

Back-to-back victories by the Dallas Cowboys at the Super Bowl in 1993 and 1994 mask the fact that Jimmy Johnson, the team’s legendary former coach, knew as much about losing as he did about winning. In 1989, his first season in Dallas, Johnson’s team had only one win and fifteen losses! However, this overwhelming losing season was still not as humiliating as his first year as a high-school defensive coach, when his team finished the season with no wins and ten losses.

Johnson said about that first season in Dallas, “We had the worst team in the NFL, but I wouldn’t accept anything but being in the Super Bowl.”

Johnson kept a positive attitude. If a running back had the ball, he shouted, “Protect the ball,” rather than “Don’t fumble.” To his field-goal kickers he’d say, “Make this,” not “Don’t miss.” After a loss, he’d spend his post-game time plotting the next win, rather than second-guessing what had gone wrong.

The Cowboys responded and improved. It took four seasons of hard work, but then Super Bowl rings were on their fingers.

From Fortune (May 1, 1995) pg. 32.

Givers

There are three kinds of givers: the flint, the sponge, and the honeycomb. Which kind are you?

To get anything from the flint, you must hammer it. Yet, all you generally get are chips and sparks. The flint gives nothing away if it can help it and even then only with a great display.

To get anything from the sponge, you must squeeze it. It readily yields to pressure, and the more it is pressed, the more it gives. Still, you must push.

To get anything from the honeycomb, however, you must only take what freely flows from it. It gives its sweetness generously dripping on all without pressure, without begging or badgering.

Note, too, that there is another difference in the honeycomb. It is a renewable resource. If you are a “honeycomb giver” your life will be continually replenished as you give. And as long as you are connected to the source of life, you can never run dry. When you freely give, you will receive in like manner so that whatever you give away will soon be multiplied back to you.

From God’s Little Lessons for Leaders (Tulsa, OK: Honor Books, 2001), 73.