Tag: family

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Leadership

#homesofvictory

Everything about being a leader is like being a parent. It is about committing to the well-being of those in our care and having a willingness to make sacrifices to see their interests advanced so that they may carry our banner long after we are gone.

Simon Sinek

What kind of legacy are you building for your family?

It often brings me great joy to hear how my kids behave when I’m not around. One day, when my son was about 11 years old, I was picking him up from a friend’s house. His friend’s dad pulled me aside with a sombre look on his face and asked, “How does he know to put his dirty dishes in the sink?”

For a split second, my mind raced. I was expecting a conversation about poor behaviour and was pleasantly surprised when it turned out to be quite the opposite.

My response, in hindsight, probably wasn’t all that helpful. I simply smiled and said, “We ask the kids every single night to do it.”

What I didn’t say was that we were also tired of asking every single night.

Like many parents, we’d wondered if the constant reminders were making any difference at all. Yet, when we weren’t there to prompt him, he remembered. He chose to do the right thing because it had quietly become part of who he was.

It’s a simple illustration of the legacy we are choosing to build.

Legacy is rarely created through grand gestures. More often, it is formed through ordinary moments repeated consistently over time. Every conversation, every boundary, every family meal, every reminder to be kind, honest, respectful, and responsible is laying another brick in the foundation of your children’s future.

The truth is, our children may not remember every instruction we gave them, but they will remember the culture we created. They will carry our values into classrooms, workplaces, friendships, marriages, and one day, perhaps into their own families.

So don’t grow weary in the repetition. The habits you’re reinforcing today are becoming the character your children will carry tomorrow. One day, someone else may quietly notice the fruit of your faithfulness, and you’ll realise that the small things were never small after all.

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Leadership

Leadeship trait: running interference

This might not be the first leadership trait that comes to mind, but it is often one of the first to be noticed. There are seasons when leaders need to play offence driving vision, making decisions, and creating momentum. At other times, they need to play defence protecting their people, absorbing pressure, navigating conflict, and creating the space their team needs to do their best work.

The same is true in our homes.

As parents, there are moments when we need to be unwavering advocates for our children, whether that’s partnering with their school, speaking up on their behalf, or helping them navigate difficult situations. Other times, our role is quieter. We cheer them on from the sidelines, create healthy boundaries, or simply stand between them and the pressures of the world, giving them the freedom to grow, flourish, and enjoy being children for a little longer.

None of this is easy. Parenting constantly asks us to balance protection with preparation, shelter with resilience, and guidance with growing independence.

Lately, I’ve been thinking about the amount of news my teenagers consume. I want them to understand the world and become thoughtful, informed adults. At the same time, I want to preserve a little more of their childhood before the weight of the world’s problems becomes theirs to carry. It’s a delicate balance. Ironically, some of the richest and most meaningful conversations we’ve had as a family have come from the stories they’ve read. The tension is real, and there isn’t always a perfect answer.

Perhaps that’s what running interference looks like. It’s not about shielding our children from every challenge or solving every problem for them. It’s about prayerfully and intentionally discerning when to step in, when to step back, and when to create the space they need to grow safely.

Take a moment today to consider this question: How can you create the conditions for your family to flourish? Where might you need to remove a barrier, absorb a little pressure, or protect your children’s hearts and minds for this season?

There will be times when they won’t understand why you stepped in. But one day, they may look back and realise you weren’t limiting their world you were preparing them for it.

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Leadership

Leadership trait : Patience

Patience is a conquering virtue.

Geoffrey Chaucer

The thing about patience is, you can only learn to be patient by being patient. Patience is a skill and an art all in one. Growing up, us kids knew when my Dad was being patient with us, he would clear his throat. As though he was just giving us a little time to start behaving, as we knew better, or waiting for us to say what we needed to say or a little time for him to choose his words wisely. His leadership in this area, has impacted the way I do things. Granted I am not as patient as him, but I try to allow time to pass before making decisions, before correcting my kids, before doing most things. Patience allows time – time for strategic thinking, time for clear evaluation, time for things to settle on their own, time for things to work out. Demonstrating patience in the workplace and home, shows strength. The key is to know when patience or action is required.

Patience is the companion of wisdom.

Anonymous
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Victory

#homesofvictory

The world is changed by your example, not by your opinion.

– Paulo Coelho, Brazilian writer

Actions speak louder than words. In families and leadership, setting a good example builds trust, teaches values, and inspires change. Leading by example creates lasting impact. Children and family members learn more from what we do than what we say. When we show patience, they learn calm. When we act with integrity, they learn honesty. Leadership in families isn’t about control, it’s about consistency, presence, and modelling the values we hope to see.

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Leadership

Leadership trait: Humility

Every person that you meet knows something you don’t: learn from them.

H. Jackson Brown Jr.

Humility is attractive. Humility is a magnet for integrity, collaboration, appreciation, and acknowledgement.  Humility attracts staff, who will want to work with you, look forward to being around you and motivated by you. They know you will acknowledge their efforts, appreciate their hard work, and offer a human side to leadership.

Likewise, when we are humble in our homes, humble toward our children, we show them reality, the realness of life. Yes, difficulties arise, and challenges are met – not perfectly but to the best of our abilities. Granted it may take humiliation to encourage our humility but if our families witness it firsthand, how much more are they going to value us as parents. How much more are they going to value humility and being humble themselves. In turn they will begin to value integrity, want to receive our appreciation, be acknowledged, and finally behave like this towards others.

Humility is not thinking less of yourself; it’s thinking of yourself less.

C. S. Lewis

Never curse a fall. The ground is where humility lives. 

Yasmin Mogahed
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Victory

#homesofvictory

In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock.” -Thomas Jefferson

This quote is one example of a guiding truth for those leading families. Effective family leadership means adapting to changing seasons: children grow, dynamics shift, and communication styles evolve. Flexibility fosters connection and understanding.

Yet, core principles like respect, honesty, and love must remain unshaken. These values anchor the family through uncertainty and change. Leaders in families must model both adaptability and conviction, showing that while we adjust how we relate, we never compromise who we are. This balance builds trust, resilience, and a legacy of integrity across generations.

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Leadership

Weed Free Garden

I love to garden. I love being outside, I love being in the sun, I love dirt and I love plants. Everything about it makes me happy. In another life, I wouldn’t be a cat lady, I would be a crazy plant lady – with a home full of plants. For now I am happy with my deck covered in pots and my garden overflowing with natives.

One thing I have learnt from cultivating the same garden for about ten years, is if you don’t pull out the weeds from the roots they come back – often multiplying. When we first moved into the house we live in now, the yard was barren, the garden beds that spread around the perimeter of the yard, contained unkept palms, green looking plants that were more than likely weeds, a lot of clay like dirt and weeds. As time went on, we slowly improved the soil, eventually chopped down the bat attracting palms, planted and planted and planted. While the plants were little the weeds tried to strangle them, outgrow them and take the new nutrients we had added to the soil.

Now our garden brings delight to us and our kids. The natives attract birds and bees. They flower and provide shade for the yard. We love being outside and enjoying the garden that has grown out of sheer hard work and tending to it, season after season.

Applying this same type of effort and tending to, to our own lives, is at times harder and more complex. I find it way easier to pull weeds out of my garden, then out of my heart. In our home, we try to be self-aware and look for ways to be better – not just for those around us, but for ourselves. It does start, by looking for the weeds, and pulling them out by the root. Not always easy, not always fun – but worth it.

In the back corner of our garden, we have a spot that still needs plants in it, the weeds grow freely and I actually refuse to pull them out. My husband often says, ‘ when you have time, pull out those weeds’… I refuse and say, ‘when I have something to replace them with I will, or they’ll grow back.’ He concedes it’s a fair point. In our own lives, make sure when you find a weed in your heart – something that holds you back, something that is unwanted – make sure you not only pull it out by the roots, but replace it with something worthy – something that brings joy and peace. Something that will multiply in a positive way.

Spend some time thinking about what is in your life that is a ‘weed’? Is it an addiction, a habit, something that is not productive or positive for your family?

What could you replace it with?

Think about some steps you could take to remove the ‘weeds’ from your heart? This isn’t always easy, but it’s worth it.

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Leadership

Leadership trait: Resilience

Do not judge me by my success, judge me by how many times I fell down and got back up again.

Nelson Mandela

The road is getting tougher and tougher, yet you keep on walking. Life is getting to you, yet you keep going, finding strength you didn’t know you had. You get through it, stronger and more victorious that you expected.

Hello increased resilience. Face the battle with your weapons of determination and perseverance, standing fast knowing when you succeed and you will, you will be stronger and better for it.

The human capacity for burden is like bamboo- far more flexible than you’d ever believe at first glance.

Jodi Picoult, My Sister’s Keeper 
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Victory

Undefeated = Victorious

We love it when our sporting team is undefeated. It’s such a strong word. One that sends a clear message. Momentum builds when a team keeps winning: the joy of the streak, the confidence that others are trying and still can’t break through. Undefeated carries both strength and quiet authority.

It got me thinking… are we living undefeated? Are we living in victory?

So often, we feel the need to defend ourselves, our thoughts, our opinions, our integrity, who we are at our core. Pause for a moment and ask: why?

Why do we, as humans, feel this need?

Dare I suggest ego?
Dare I say the desire to be heard?
Or perhaps the need to feel elevated, validated, or more knowledgeable?

It doesn’t take much to see this play out. Read the news. Scroll through online forums. Take discussions about something as simple as personal car use or travel choices, the list goes on. We see identity and worth tangled up in opinion. Yet our identity and perspective are not meant to be dictated by external factors.

Yes, the current global climate affects every one of us. But our response, our attitude, whether or not we live in victory, remains our choice.

To live undefeated means nothing is truly defeating us.

To live in victory doesn’t mean we never face battles. It doesn’t mean life will be perfect; it never will be. It doesn’t mean every dream will come to pass, some may not.

What it does mean is this:
Our reaction, our response, our disposition toward life can be the best it can be and that is a choice we get to make.

In a wild and noisy world, I want to encourage you to lift your eyes above it all and choose to live undefeated. Choose to live in victory. It’s not about what’s happening around us, it’s about remembering that we have a choice.

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Leadership Victory

Choosing Influence Over Overwhelm 

Recently, I was lucky enough to be in New York on a study tour, where I had the opportunity to interview some truly incredible people working in roles similar to mine.

One conversation in particular has stayed with me.

She spoke about the changes she’s witnessed in her community over time especially the visible and alarming rise in mental health concerns. Increasingly, frontline staff are encountering difficult and negative interactions linked directly to people experiencing crisis. While she remained hopeful and deeply committed to the role she and her team play in supporting community members in need, the emotional toll was unmistakable.

So, I asked her a question that many of us quietly hold: How do you lead a frontline team through incidents involving people in crisis, especially when you simply can’t fix the situation?

Her response was both honest and powerful.

She shared that when situations feel heartbreaking and gut‑wrenching, she asks her team one simple grounding question:

Is this a problem we can solve within our scope of work, something within our control or is this a broader societal issue?

She said, “I can’t give unhoused people a home. But my team and I can treat them with dignity, respect, and refer them appropriately. I can’t change the cost‑of‑living crisis. But I can continue to offer our free service with kindness, clear boundaries, and an understanding of the pressures impacting our community.”

I’ve mulled over this response many times since. At its heart, it’s about control and influence. What we can and can’t control, and where our influence truly lies.

Bringing this perspective into our homes can help us make sense of everything happening in the world around us. When something feels overwhelming, we can pause and ask: Is this something my family and I can control or influence? Or is this something we need to navigate together as part of a wider social, economic, or global challenge?

We absolutely have a say in how we teach our children to behave what we don’t control is how every other child behaves.

We absolutely have control over how we manage our household budget, even if we don’t like the external pressures of rising costs. I can’t change the cost of living, but I can change how I approach it, plan for it, and move through it.

And perhaps most importantly, we absolutely have control over our own actions, thoughts, and emotions. We can notice them before we tip into anger, frustration, or impatience. We can pause, reset, and choose differently. And when joy bubbles over, we can share it freely, because positivity, when offered generously, becomes wonderfully contagious.

What I can’t control is how others respond.
What I can do is show up with kindness, clarity, and compassion and trust that small, intentional choices still make a meaningful difference.

And sometimes, that’s more than enough.

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Victory

Strong vs Stubborn

In my life I’ve been called strong and I’ve been called stubborn. I’ve called my kids strong to their faces and stubborn behind their backs. Is one trait better than the other or do they hold their own merit?

Stubbornness is a skill and an art. A person can be thought stubborn for no reason other than they have dug their heels in. Likewise a person can be thought stubborn for not giving up and being persistent until the goal is achieved.

In leadership being stubborn tends to have negative connotations, while the trait of being strong tends to imply a positive.

How then can we have the right tension between stubborn and strong. How can we still be perceived as a strong leader without the negative pull of being stubborn.

An example of this rang true in my home one afternoon. My 10 yr old approached me and asked if she could do a $10 pocket money job. Usually at my place the going rate for a pocket money job is $1 with the max of $2 for a car wash. … I suggested she could fold the washing for $2 as I was feeling generous. She asked for $3, I said $2 and the back and forth negotiation continued for some time. I finally said, it’s my final price if you want it do it, if not don’t. I was testing her resolve as I knew she wanted money to buy books. ( Side note: she is a book worm and spends every cent she gets on books) She walked off a little upset, turned around and said in a quiet voice, “Oh well you miss out….” She thought she could one up me by implying that I now needed to do the folding… when I assumed she missed out on pocket money as the task wasn’t done. By the way the folding still didn’t get done for a few days…

Can you see it – we are both stubborn and strong. We at times go toe to toe and I rarely pull out the line – “I’m just as stubborn as you, I’ve got all day….” I figure I have that privilege for want of a better word, as I am the parent. Placing this in a work environment, I would never make this type of comment, nor would I accept this level of stubborn. I would on the other hand accept this type of strong – if it was respectful. What I would also accept and action is working with staff on their stubbornness – turning it into a positive.

In our modern day and age of busy – do we take the time to look at the stubborn and see the potential? The potential determination, the strength and the tenacity? Or do we see the perceived weakness and dismiss it? I try so hard, to not tell my children they are stubborn – I’m not perfect, but I try to use the word determined or tenacious. I try to flip the perceived negativity around the word stubborn into the perceived positive of strength, tenacity and determination. These traits you will all agree are awesome to have as an adult in the real world, but when your a child – living in a family environment – stubborness is not always the most sought after skills. Likewise, when you are a parent of a stubborn child – it is not the most desirable either.

To balance the tension between strong and stubborn it is vital to connect with the character behind the stubborn, connect with the character behind the strong and you will be delighted with what you find. Draw out the positives, direct and steer them towards determination, tenacity, never giving up attitudes and leadership. They will not let you down.

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Victory

I have not failed…


Failure is coming into its own after what seems like forever – it is no longer seen as a ‘ bad’ thing, a thing to avoid, a thing to hide from those around us. Modern day Failure – is what I like to call it, is being celebrated, is being acknowledged, spoken about, and most importantly learnt from. Some companies have even started ‘ Failure parties’ that celebrate the lessons learnt from failures along the way.

Even the very definition of failure is changing, as what may have been viewed as a failure in years gone by, is now seen as a valuable lesson learnt, or even better – used to fuel more research, more trial and error and eventually a greater outcome. 

Failure wrapped up in the positive, at the end of the day is still failure, and it can bring with it the emotions of disappointment, frustration, and even anger. Failure in its raw form, is still hard to swallow. What I love about Failure now is, that it is talked about, it is thought about it is dissected to a point where, greater understanding of the process behind the failure can occur.

I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways
that won’t work.

Thomas Edison

In team situations and family situations alike, we deal with failure in all of its glorious forms. As a leader it is critical to have empathy when failure is concerned. It may be us as leaders who have failed – we then to make sure we are humble about it. It may be our team our family, our loved ones who are dealing with a perceived failure. 

Recently my daughter struggled with two perceived failures in one week. She felt so disappointed. She was dreadfully critical of herself as she tried to unpack what happened and how she felt about it all. After listening to her talk as I drove her to her ballet lesson, I turned to her and said, ” Does this change who you are? Just because someone doesn’t think at this point you have what it takes – does that change who you are?” She looked out the window – silent. My heart sunk a little, as I hoped what I said, was received with love. She finally looked at me with a smile and said, “no”.  

Sometimes failure can blind us to the reality of who we are – we are not the failure itself. Our actions etc… may have contributed to a failure, but we ourselves are not the failure. 

When it comes to our family, when it comes to teams we lead – it is easy to take it on and feel like it is our fault. Take responsibility for your actions but do so with a positive mindset. One thing an amazing supervisor once taught me was, whenever we had a perceived failure, she would never finger point or blame. She was sit back in her chair, looking very relaxed – she would say ” What can we learn from this?” She never had preconceived ideas of what we could learn, but she encouraged everyone in the working group to reflect, and to learn for next time. That’s how I want my mindset to be. The first response to failure being “What can I learn from this?”

Of course, disappointment will still come, emotions will enter the mix, but if we choose to have a positive mindset and set our minds beyond the failure, we may just keep stepping in the right direction and face great achievements and discoveries.  

You always pass failure on the way to success.

Mickey Rooney
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Leadership

#homesofvictory

 I am personally convinced that one person can be a change catalyst, a “transformer” in any situation, any organization. Such an individual is yeast that can leaven an entire loaf. It requires vision, initiative, patience, respect, persistence, courage, and faith to be a transforming leader.

 Stephen R. Covey

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Victory

Go home…

There have been times when I feel the world generally speaking, sees ‘busy’ as a status symbol. Where employers expect far too much of employees and feel that the dollar will buy them what they want – which is more dollars, giving no thought to the person behind the task. Other times, I feel that the ones closest to us, miss out on the best of us, when we are too busy – trying to make a go of it.

Mother Teresa once said,

If you want to change the world go home and love your family.

Mother Teresa

I have three take away points I’d like to share with you based on this quote.

1. You are a world changer – your circle of influence is far better because you are in it. No matter what you think of yourself, whether you are confident or not, negative or positive – you change the world of those you influence. It may not be the whole world, but to many you do change their world.

2. Your family is your world – imaging your life without your family or your family without you? How does that make you feel? How would they individually feel? Mother Teresa subtly states in this quote that family is your world and family should be your first love. They need you as much as you need them. How amazing do you feel after a long hard day, your little one squeals with excitement that your home and runs full pelt into you for a hug. If your family is in need of some TLC, work through it together, commit to change and work on it. No other achievement will be worth more than loving your family to the core and have them love you too.

3. Love is the foundation of everything – Love, is the foundation of belonging, it is the foundation of confidence, it forms a basis for decision making, it is a safety net it is wide open arms ready for a hug, it is forgiveness, it is grace, it is everything in between. Stop seeing your career or other achievements as the measurement of success in life. Measure your success by the foundation of love you bring to your family and home. Adjust how you see your family, how you see your world, how you see yourself – you are a world changer and your love for your family means the world to them.

Sometimes we cannot change the whole world, but we can change the lives of those in our world.

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Victory

#homesofvictory

Many people never reach “greater” because they don’t leave “good enough” behind.

 Steven Furtick