Point of View February 3, 2025 – Hour 1 : Be a Great Leader by Friday

[00:00:04] Across America, Live, this is Point of View, Kirby Anderson. Thank you for joining me, it is the Monday edition of Point of View and it's our first broadcast of February and some of you might say, where have you been?

[00:00:28] Well I've been traveling around in Georgia, meeting a number of our listeners and donors and been in such places as Athens and Macon and Warner Robins and a variety of other places. I won't even go on to all the details, it has been great to meet some of our listeners and many people that have donated to the program as well as others that are learning about it for the first time.

[00:00:49] So it was a great trip, it's one of the very few that we have planned but I did want to let you know that while we were gone I think we of course were in such capable hands, whether it was Penna Dexter, Merrill Matthews, Chelsea Uman and the Millennial Roundtable, but we're back into the news and I have no idea how we're going to get all this in, because first of all there was a lot happening while I was gone and some of them did cover parts of it,

[00:01:14] but of course it is now February so we have tariffs, we need to talk about that. We have of course the spending freeze panic, we have the Wall Street panic, we have a variety of other issues to address. We also of course have scheduled today a little bit later this hour Kevin Lehman as we talk about his book Be a Great Leader by Friday. I think you'll really enjoy that and it's well done. Casey Lutz is going to be with us next hour, we're going to be talking about this Dallas Conference on Science and Faith,

[00:01:44] as well as just some of the things he's writing about in the area of intelligent design. We'll get back then to talking about the fact that America's schools keep flunking, it's one of the articles I've posted here. And of course when we talk about whether it's immigration or the tariffs, Mexico is significant and our last article, which I hope we'll have a chance to get to today by Victor Davis Hanson, had a lot of facts and figures and statistics about Mexico that I did not know.

[00:02:13] So there's a fair amount to cover, but first of all let me just simply say it was great to meet some of our listeners. Looking forward to the few other times I'll be able to do that. I know we have two different radio stations that carry this program that are having celebrations. I'll be speaking at both of those banquets, so occasionally I get a chance to get out and meet you face to face. And those of you that had a chance to meet me, it was my pleasure to meet you. And thank you for turning out and allowing us to spend some time with you. Okay, how do we get into this?

[00:02:43] Let me real quickly take one that was last week because I think it deserves some more attention. And that is what I call the spending freeze panic. And that is our first article by our editors of the Wall Street Journal. And as you may know, Donald Trump, once he got back in office, decided that he wanted to have a pause on federal grants that could be at least evaluated by the incoming cabinet.

[00:03:09] Because as you have heard us talk about here on Point of View, there were a lot of things in those last month or two, actually two months I guess you could say, in which Joe Biden and his administration tried to sneak things out and push things out as quickly as they could. And so as soon as Donald Trump said that this was a pause for federal grants, of course the reaction predictably from not only Democrats in the House and Senate, but also from the legacy press was over the top.

[00:03:39] This is why I wanted you to see this article by the editors of the Wall Street Journal, because they addressed the spending freeze panic by explaining that the pause on federal grants wasn't illegal, wasn't unconstitutional, and did not even affect most spending. You would not know that if you listened to the mainstream press, the legacy press, which is why I feel it's really important to talk about this for a minute, because you're going to hear a lot of similar things as we get into the issue of tariffs today.

[00:04:09] And I will give you the pros and the cons, the positives and the negatives. And I am disturbed as I start reading stuff that nobody will ever acknowledge there's at least an argument on the other side. And I think there are arguments on both sides of some of these issues. But on this one, it was pretty straightforward because they point out that it was well within Donald Trump's executive authority to pause disbursement of discretionary funds. And, of course, then the editors go on.

[00:04:39] They had to get a shot at Donald Trump. And I think it was justifiable. The White House didn't help itself with the lack of clarity on some of the details. So they had to issue a follow up explaining that although they're pausing the grants, this was not going to affect financial assistance to individuals, food stamps, small business grants, aid to farmers. It's not going to affect the so-called entitlements, Medicaid, children's nutrition and the rest.

[00:05:06] And yet, of course, you wouldn't hear that probably unless you dug deep into an article or saw the follow up memo that came from the Trump administration. Now, you might say, why the pause? Ah, I thought you'd like to know. First of all, there are a lot of things flying out the door that are based upon DEI. And as you've heard us talk about, and even we talked about a week ago, the executive order wanted to stop that.

[00:05:34] And yet, even now, there are federal grants going out the door requiring people to actually sign on to diversity statements and check certain boxes about those issues. Even though, interestingly enough, the Supreme Court, you remember the Supreme Court, right? Actually ruled against racial preferences, for example, in education. Yet, those are still going out with educational grants.

[00:06:00] The one I use in a commentary coming out next week comes from the Wall Street Journal. Again, I appreciate the research they've done. They had an EPA grant that went to a leftist group for climate justice, whatever climate justice is.

[00:06:18] And this leftist group is the one that at the time, when it was receiving your tax dollars, was calling for the abolition of Israel and the abolition of immigration and customs enforcement. I think you can see why there was certainly a flap about this, because if you wanted these groups to get their funds, they know that as soon as you have individuals in the Trump administration looking these over, they're going to go, No, I don't think we're going to pass those out.

[00:06:47] That's not a good investment of your tax dollars. That's, of course, why it was the case. There is a constitutional issue, and I thought I'd mention it just before we take a break. I won't get into the deep weeds too much, but there is what is called the Impoundment Control Act. Now, that was passed back in 1974. I'm old enough to remember that. It was an attempt to try to prevent Richard Nixon from not spending funds that had been allocated,

[00:07:15] arguing at the time from the Supreme Court that that was a violation of separation of powers. Every governor has a veto, but unfortunately, and it can even strike out line items, but the president cannot, according to that court. I'm pretty sure this court would declare that unconstitutional. But even if you assume that the Impoundment Control Act is constitutional, and it is still the law of the land, it only prevents a president from never spending the funds.

[00:07:43] All Donald Trump did was to say, you know, before they go out the door, let's look them over. And that seems to me to make good sense. The next segment, we're going to talk a little bit about downsizing Washington. And again, one of the other things that he is suggesting is that if you really don't want to work for this administration, that is just fine. We'll allow you to do so and to actually resign.

[00:08:10] And we'll keep paying you for a while even, as you probably look for another job. We'll try to make it as effortless as possible for you to step down. And that may be a way to start downsizing Washington. Because after all, it is your tax dollars at work, sometimes not working very effectively. So we'll come back and talk about that. We're going to get into the issue of tariffs. It's in the news. And I'll try to give you some positives and negatives, some pros and some cons.

[00:08:37] In a discussion, probably you'll hear almost nowhere else. Let's take a break. We'll be back right after this. This is Viewpoints with Kirby Anderson.

[00:09:04] The term equity has caused great confusion, perhaps because many social justice warriors intended to be ambiguous. Sometimes I've been told by fellow Christians to stop criticizing DEI and equity because Christians should be for equality. Of course, that is not how the term is used. We began to see its meaning during the pandemic. Noah Rothman reminds us that some public health experts talked about the notion of grounding vaccination access inequity.

[00:09:29] What that meant was to provide vaccinations first to the disadvantaged, along with providing it to public servants. Further back in line would be white people, which would include the elderly who were at greater risk. According to one University of Pennsylvania ethicist, this was fine. Older populations, he said, are wider because society enables them to live longer. Instead of giving additional health benefits to those who already have more of them, we can start to level the playing field a bit. The wildfires in Southern California provide another example.

[00:09:59] One newspaper editorial criticized the fact that some wealthy residents were able to hire their own firefighters, but complained that they didn't suffer the same consequence of others. The real problem was the shortage of firefighters, water, and common sense fire management. Heather MacDonald addresses the use and misuse of equity in her book, When Race Trumps Merit, How the Pursuit of Equity Sacrifices Excellence, Destroys Beauty, and Threatens Lives.

[00:10:24] The subtitle of the book might seem like hyperbole until you dig into some of the stories she tells. The word equity shows up in science, medicine, music, and the criminal justice system. We have seen this dangerous drift to equity. It's time for it to end. I'm Kirby Anderson, and that's my point of view. For a free booklet on a biblical view on big data, go to viewpoints.info slash data.

[00:10:53] That's viewpoints.info slash data. You're listening to Point of View, your listener-supported source for truth. Back once again, and let's, if we can, go to our second article here, and that is entitled Downsizing Washington. The editors here say President Trump has taken early steps to fulfill his promise to downsize the federal government. How so?

[00:11:18] In a series of actions, he has mandated that federal workers return to the office five days a week. Wow, that's a lot. And offered buyouts to those willing to resign and issued an order to freeze some spending. Now, again, you might say, well, why do we have to order people to go back to work? Everyone else that I know, even if they're not there five days a week, or at least in some kind of hybrid circumstance.

[00:11:45] But it turns out that the latest survey that came out found that only 6% of federal workers work full-time in their physical office. Now, again, you've got to be fair. Sometimes if you're in the Department of Agriculture, you're out and about, or you're in the Defense Department, you're deployed places. I understand that, but 6%. So the editors say, there's surely plenty of fat to be trimmed here, and the Trump administration is hoping the fat will leave on its own accord.

[00:12:13] And that gets into the other issue, because those individuals that are not on board with what Donald Trump has asked them to do are given the opportunity to resign. In a very generous package, by the way, because those who choose to resign, other than rare exceptions, would not be required to work, but will still be paid through September 30th.

[00:12:40] Now, let me ask you, when you resign from your particular job, how much severance pay did you get? Well, I'm sure it didn't go to September 30th. Why September 30th? Well, that's, of course, the end of the fiscal year. And again, it's easy to resign. As a matter of fact, this one editorial said, it's hard to imagine how this could have been made any easier for workers who might want to take advantage of this opportunity.

[00:13:07] Federal staffers don't even have to write a resignation letter. Just type the word resign into the subject line of the email that comes from the office of, what is it, one of the particular offices, OMB, OPM, I guess it is, that simply just hit send. So type in resign, hit send, and that's it. Now, again, you might say, is this unprecedented? Not really.

[00:13:35] Under Bill Clinton, when he was president, he wanted to trim the workforce, the federal workforce, by about $273,000 through contract buyouts, which were up to $25,000. Nothing quite as generous as what Donald Trump and his administration is offering. Man, that was done through congressional legislation, but it has been done before. And so you can read this really very well-written three-page editorial on downsizing Washington.

[00:14:06] I think I saw the other day that actually every week, just due to some of the actions being taken already by Elon Musk and Donald Trump and others, they're able to trim and reduce the cost of government by, wasn't it like a billion dollars? Yeah, I think it was about a billion dollars a week or something like that. They're looking for a lot more than that, obviously. But the goal here is to eventually get to the point where they were hoping it might be $3 billion a week.

[00:14:32] And so there's more to do, but this is another aspect of downsizing. And lest you think this is done just to get rid of people who would be supportive of the president, let me share something. And I didn't post this, but you can find it almost anywhere. There was a Napolitan Institute poll. Are you ready for this? That found that two-thirds of federal bureaucrats who voted for Kamala Harris for president

[00:15:01] said they would not follow a lawful order from President Donald Trump if they personally thought it was bad policy. Are you ready for that? I mean, you're supposed to be serving at the pleasure of the president. And it's hard for me to imagine that many individuals that would be called Republicans, conservatives, whatever, refusing to follow an order from Joe Biden. And yet 64% said they would not follow it.

[00:15:30] Interested, only 17% actually said they would follow it, which means the others were uncertain. Which brings me to the idea that the others that didn't say that really brings us down to really 83% of individuals who were in the federal government who voted for Kamala Harris would not probably follow an order that was maybe instituted by Donald Trump, maybe even passed by both the House and the Senate and signed by the president.

[00:16:00] They would not follow it in that particular case. As you might imagine, a few senators had something to say about this. Senator Rand Paul from Kentucky said any bureaucrat who does not follow the law because they consider it bad policy should be fired for cause immediately. Senator Katie Britt from Alabama said this polling data is shameful. Civil servants must serve our nation, not their political party.

[00:16:26] She went on to say the administrative state is a huge problem that demands serious reforms. You think? So again, that's what's going on behind the scenes. And, of course, we haven't even gotten to the immigration issue. We will get to it in due course, but let's, if we can, talk about tariffs. The good and the bad. Okay, if you take Economics 101, you take a class, especially if it's taught by individuals that are using Samuelson's book or something like that, they'll tell you tariffs are bad

[00:16:55] because they distort free market signals. That's probably true. They impose frictions that lead sometimes to less trade. Also true. They increase the cost of imported goods. Yes, they do. They decrease the efficiencies that come from every country that maybe is making something. And, of course, oftentimes they may be privileging one domestic industry over another.

[00:17:18] Well, you would hear all that and think, well, then certainly there are no tariffs in the United States of America. And you would be very wrong. Even some of the tariffs that were put on by Donald Trump that Joe Biden spoke about against were not removed under Joe Biden. So tariffs are kind of that hidden secret of certain companies and certain industries actually like them. Well, what are the positives?

[00:17:48] Well, quite a few here. First of all, if you haven't noticed, we've basically hollowed out the middle class. We've lost our manufacturing sector. And a lot of that is simply gone overseas. And the reason for that is, first of all, the dollar is it's a global reserve currency. And so as a result, these global currencies like the dollar traded a higher value than maybe the local ones.

[00:18:16] So it oftentimes is less expensive and more efficient for me to take this factory that produced steel and just simply close it down and buy my steel from China. Or for a while, we were buying it from Korea and a number of other places. And as a result, what we find is we become more dependent on other countries. And, of course, we raise this massive trade deficit. Meanwhile, look at the Rust Belt.

[00:18:45] What has happened there in terms of just so much of a problem? You've had these deaths of despair we've talked about. We've had fentanyl. We have the opioid crisis. We've lost all of the middle class, it seems, because of that. But you run into some other problems because once your manufacturing leaves, then you begin to realize we're very dependent, in some cases, upon our enemy, China. Yes, I'm going to call China an enemy.

[00:19:12] Our next Outlook magazine that will be arriving in your box goes into that in some detail. Those are individuals that are producing, oh, I don't know, antibiotics. They're producing masks, we found out. Turns out they're also producing a lot of the bullets and even the bombs that our military uses.

[00:19:30] I think I'm going to do a commentary on this op-ed that came from Brigadier General John Adams, pointing out that our trade deficit has put us in a situation where our Defense Department is really dependent upon an enemy like China for some of the supplies that we need. That's not so good. And one last one, you know, when we run such a trade deficit, China doesn't want to buy our treasuries anymore. I don't blame them. So what do they buy? Well, they buy land.

[00:19:58] Have you noticed how much farmland that China has been purchasing? Have you noticed how some of the ports are almost run by China? Of course, that gets us into the conversation about the Panama Canal and the rest. So anyway, we've gone from a time in which imports from Canada, Mexico, for example, were at the average ad valorem, which was about 1% or something like that, to one that is very high. And of course, then we have the China issue as well.

[00:20:28] China and Canada and Mexico, for different reasons, find themselves dealing with these tariffs. And as we'll talk about a little bit later, there has been an attempt to impose tariffs on American goods that comes from who is going to be the outgoing Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and the current Mexican President Claudia Schinnenbaum.

[00:20:50] And so we'll get into some of the details because there are ideas that certainly should be surfaced in some of the discussions. But I have been disappointed so far in individuals not at least talking about both the positives and the negatives, the good and the bad that come from something like tariffs. And of course, if you don't like Donald Trump, it's easy to attack the tariffs.

[00:21:15] And if you're convinced that that's going to make the cost of some goods go up, you can see why they would attack tariffs. But there are some other issues we just talked about, and you heard them here on Point of View. We'll be right back. In 19th century London, two towering historical figures did battle, not with guns and bombs, but words and ideas.

[00:21:40] London was home to Karl Marx, the father of communism, and legendary Baptist preacher Charles Spurgeon. London was in many ways the center of the world, economically, militarily, and intellectually. Marx sought to destroy religion, the family, and everything the Bible supports. Spurgeon stood against him, warning of socialism's dangers. Spurgeon understood Christianity is not just religious truth.

[00:22:08] It is truth for all of life. Where do you find men with that kind of wisdom to stand against darkness today? Get the light you need on today's most pressing issues delivered to your inbox when you sign up for the Viewpoints commentary at pointofview.net. Every weekday, in less than two minutes, you'll learn how to be a person of light to stand against darkness in our time.

[00:22:35] It's free, so visit pointofview.net slash sign up right now. Pointofview.net slash sign up. Point of View will continue after this. You are listening to Point of View.

[00:23:02] The opinions expressed on Point of View do not necessarily reflect the views of the management or staff of this station. And now, here again, is Kirby Anderson. On Point of View, oftentimes we talk about leadership, but this is going to be one that will be very practical, and it is given to us by Dr. Kevin Lehman because of his wit and humor. I think you'll really enjoy this particular book. An internationally known psychologist and known for his wit and common sense psychology.

[00:23:31] Known probably best for books like The Birth Order Book, Making Children Mine Without Losing Yours, and a variety of others. Been practicing almost a half a century. And I might just mention later on in the second hour, we'll be talking about how America's schools keep flunking. He's the founder also, I might add, of the Lehman Academy of Excellence in Schools. But he also derives a great deal of expertise from speaking to various CEO groups and Fortune 500 companies.

[00:23:59] So, Kevin Lehman, welcome back to Point of View. Well, we meet again, don't we? Oh, boy. How far do we go back? We go back pretty close to 40 decades. Yes. Oh, my gosh. I'm getting old. I'm sure you're not, but I'm getting old. But, you know, I wrote a book with my friend Bill Pentak called The Way of the Shepherd. It's a leadership book. And you know the publishing business about as well as I do.

[00:24:28] And, you know, books are in hardback for one year, and then they go into paperback. Well, The Way of the Shepherd has been in hardback for 21 years, has sold about 350,000 copies in hardback, which is a lot of books in hardback. And so the new book, Be a Great Teacher, I've got a book coming out in April called Be a Great Teacher by Friday.

[00:24:52] Be a Great Leader by Friday is sort of the on-hands version of The Way of the Shepherd. So The Way of the Shepherd is the big picture. This is the book that if you're a wannabe or a CEO, it's what do I do today to become a great leader? I should have mentioned The Way of the Shepherd. Yeah, this is kind of CliffsNotes. And you and I got through school sometimes looking at the CliffsNotes, so that's what this is. But Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday.

[00:25:18] And since I have about half an hour with you, let's focus first section there. No surprise, it was the longest because it says know yourself, maximize your strengths. And a lot of that is birth order because you help us understand the difference between firstborns, middleborn, only child, those kinds of things. But if you don't know yourself, you're probably not going to be a very good leader, are you? Exactly.

[00:25:44] You know, not to be political, but if I'm a Democrat and I just suffered a huge loss, the first thing I would do is take a look at myself. I would look at the mirror. I would look at the issues. I would listen to the people. And so, yeah, you better know yourself. You know, one of my little things in this book is simply, you know, know those you serve and serve those you know.

[00:26:12] So when you talk about birth order, and I do in the book to start it off. Sure. You know, most of your authoritarian leaders, and by the way, if you used to tell people you're the leader, you're not. But most of the leaders who are authoritarian are old school and say, listen, I'm the boss. You're going to do what I tell you to do.

[00:26:33] Now, whether you're a parent today or a CEO or CFO or a manager, if that's your approach, I'm going to tell you straight out, you're planting the seeds of rebellion within your people. On the other hand, if you go to the opposite extreme and look at permissive leaders, they want to be liked by everybody. Well, good luck with that, Charlie, because if you're a leader, you better know who you are.

[00:27:01] Your yes had better be yes, and your no had better be no. So just so I point out in books like Making Children Mind, which you referenced, or Have a New Kid by Friday, as a parent or as a leader, there's a huge difference between an authoritarian and being authoritative. Right. And for our people of faith who are listening, most of them are, of course, ask yourself the question, is God an authoritarian?

[00:27:28] Does he grab us by the earlobe and twist it and tell us we'll do this or do that? No. But he is a supreme authority. The scripture says every knee shall bow. So trying to get a leader to move from authoritarian stance to authoritative stance sometimes takes a lot of talking, but it's ditto for parents and ditto for men in marriage. If you want to be a leader, you better know who you're leading.

[00:27:54] I just mentioned, too, you've sprinkled with it all sorts of thoughts from a successful leader. Of course, you've known Herb Kelleher, who when he was alive was the head of Southwest Airlines and a number of others and some great material. But since you mentioned rebellion, I think I might just mention that early on you talk about the three R's, and they're all relationships, relationships, relationships. Some people don't realize that to be a good leader, relationships are the very foundation, aren't they? Exactly.

[00:28:24] Exactly. You know, as the head of Pepsi told me one day, and he was the head of Pepsi and Tam Brands and Frito-Lay and Pizza Hut. And by the way, he learned to make pizzas when he was the CEO of Pizza Hut. But he told me, Kevin, you've got to let your people win. And, you know, when I was a young head resident at the University of Arizona years ago, prior to my becoming a dean of students, I took a job with 180 young men.

[00:28:53] And the dean of students, who ended up being a dear friend, pulled me aside and said, Kevin, I'm just going to give you one piece of advice. And I said, what's that, Bill Foster? And he said, you've got to learn to win their cooperation. That's one of the things that I've learned in my years, not only in publishing, but in the world of education as a practicing psychologist for 40 years. You've got to learn to win people's cooperation. Wow.

[00:29:22] It's important all the way around. One of yours on Tuesday is, of course, grow your leadership traits. And that's where, again, you have to deal with different kinds of people. You mentioned a minute ago the permissive leader, the authoritarian leader. You know as well as I do, and we've said this many times before, be careful if a person only has a hammer in their toolbox, they'll treat everyone like a nail. And if you've come from the military or you've come from a very strict family, you're going to bring those kind of leadership characteristics in there.

[00:29:51] So you devote a whole chapter on growing your leadership traits, because sometimes you have to break old habits and develop new ones, don't you? You do, Kirby. It's exactly right. You know, I've got a, you know, I have so many things to say about leadership. If I seem to be stumbling, it's just I've got 10 different thoughts I want to share with you at the same moment. But, you know, leave it to a bunch of psychologists, okay, which I am.

[00:30:17] I'm not an experimental psychologist, but nevertheless, some psychologists went and found a real shepherd with a huge flock of sheep. And they did something interesting, Kirby. They literally took the clothes off of the shepherd and found a man of similar statue and put a false shepherd out in front of the sheep. And they digitized the shepherd's call.

[00:30:47] And this was eye-boggling and mind-boggling to me when I found all this out. When they fell out the call of the shepherd, all the sheep would turn and look at the fake shepherd. But guess what? They wouldn't follow the false shepherd. Interesting. And sheep are supposed to be stupid. I'm here to tell you sheep are a lot smarter than we give them credit for.

[00:31:13] So the good leader, as he refines his skills, has to keep in mind they have to be authentic. They have to be visible. And you mentioned my dear friend Herb Kelleher, who I got to know quite well. You know, he was something else. He was the youngest in his family. And everybody just think for a moment. When you flew Southwest last, would you admit that you probably had more fun when you're receiving the instructions from the flight attendant

[00:31:42] than any other airline that ever existed? Yes, sir. Well, he was the youngest of four children. He said, Kevin, I believe that business ought to be fun. And he said, by the way, we're in the service business. And I quoted him in the book Be a Great Leader by Friday. Right. He said, we're in the service business. It's incidental that we also fly airplanes. And I say, Kirby, every note the man ever sent me.

[00:32:12] He was full of what I call vitamin E, which is encouragement. Right. And he was a fantastic person who died a couple of years ago at age 87. But his indelible imprint forever will be on that airplane. But it just goes to show you that most of our natural leaders, this is the birth order part, tend to be firstborns. And check this out, from Jimmy Carter to Lyndon Johnson to younger Bush. Clinton was an only. Hillary. Yeah.

[00:32:41] By the way, Hillary. Yeah. Hillary was a firstborn. She was the one that said it took a village to keep, to raise a child. And I always say, actually, it took a village to keep an eye on Bill. But that's a whole other segment. I was waiting for one of those one-liners. Let's take a break. But again, the Herb Keller one, I love it. If you take care of people, they will take care of your customers, which will take care of your shareholders.

[00:33:05] But we do have those vitamins we need to talk about in just a minute and some other great wisdom in this book, Be a Great Leader by Friday. Five winning plays to spark your world changing potential. No doubt you can find it in your local bookstore. But we do have a link to Dr. Kevin Lehman. If you want to follow him on X or Facebook, we have, of course, his website. And, of course, if you can't find this for some reason, you can get it both in Kindle and hardcover. And you can find out more about that by simply going to the website pointofview.net.

[00:33:35] We have a lot more to cover with Dr. Kevin Lehman. We will continue our conversation with him on Be a Great Leader by Friday right after this. You're listening to Point of View, your listener-supported source for truth. Back once again with Dr. Kevin Lehman for a few more minutes.

[00:34:03] Let me just mention again that book, The Way of the Shepherd, Seven Secrets to Managing Productive People, which is the larger version. But this one, Be a Great Leader by Friday. I might just mention some of his others in that series. Be a Great Teacher by Friday. We were just talking about that. Be a Great Husband by Friday. Have a New Teenager by Friday. Have a New Kid by Friday. That whole series of books.

[00:34:25] And, again, I'm fortunate to have this book in my hands for a few more minutes because I was able to pry it out of my wife's hands because she loves every Kevin Lehman book. And I can show you a bookshelf at our home that's kind of bowing under the weight of all these Kevin Lehman books. But another great wisdom from this book. And, Kevin, in some respects, we're talking about the need for us to have what you call essential vitamins. You know, vitamin A, accountability. You mentioned, of course, vitamin E, encouragement.

[00:34:54] Vitamin D, discipline. Vitamin L, laughter. There is a sense in which if you're going to be a good leader, you need to be a very well-rounded individual. And this is a book really encouraging you to develop every aspect of your personality. Yeah, you know, the book could be titled, I told somebody this the other day, the book could be entitled How to Be Successful in Life because the basic ingredients for being successful are found in that book. But, you know, one of those vitamins is vitamin N.

[00:35:24] And I'm sure you know who John Wooden was. Oh, yes. He was the great basketball coach. But, you know, there's a story about him that I love. Bill Walton, his big, somewhat goofy center, brought his bike into Pauley Pavilion at UCLA. And he put it, he walked across the court and put it in the locker room so it wouldn't be stolen. And Coach looked at him and said, hey, Bill, haircut. That's all he said. Bill, haircut. I remember the story. Yes.

[00:35:54] Oh, yeah. It's a great one. And so, of course, Bill comes back and he says, Coach, I got to talk to you. You know, my hair is a statement. And you always told us to know our convictions and stick to our convictions and know who we are. And I just want to tell you that this is my way of saying I'm against the Vietnam War. I don't like the way the government's doing this and that.

[00:36:20] And as only Coach could say, he said, Bill, I am so proud of you. I am so glad that you know what your convictions are and you stick with them. And I can't be more proud of you for doing that. But I got to tell you, Bill, I'm going to miss you. You know, every time I hear that story, I just chuckle a laugh to myself. But as a leader, I implore you, your yes has to be yes. Your no has to be no.

[00:36:47] At the same time, you've got to reach out to your people and you've got to ask them for their input. Because quite frankly, your people don't care what you know until they know you care. And that's pretty basic leadership right there. And that's why I say this book is for a wannabe. It's for a manager. But I get to rub shoulders with the YPO groups. And, you know, there are people under 50 years old who are all CEOs and they're all basically millionaires and then some.

[00:37:17] And I always ask them, you know, why do you invite a guy like me to be your resource? Because you can't tell you guys anything. And it is sort of true for a lot of them because a lot of CEOs chuckle a laugh at that because they know that's their personality. But what they've learned in the journey of leadership is to be respectful of other people, to draw the good out of people, to look for the best in people. It's not just getting that employee on the right bus. It's getting them on the right seat on that bus.

[00:37:46] Yes. Well, again, you have on Thursday, of course, the winning play number four. By the way, there are these Lehman-isms all the way through the book as well, along with the thoughts of a successful leader. But that gets into it. Refine your leadership strategies. There is a sense in which some people say, well, this leadership type, this leadership skill that I developed that got me to the top of the heap is something that will work for the rest of my life. And yet the culture is changing. The corporation is changing.

[00:38:16] The business is changing. Even if you're a leader within your own family, your kids are getting older, your spouse is changing. And in some respects, you have to really focus on the fact that you need to refine some of those strategies, don't you? Yeah. Let me give you almost a profound statement. The world today will never be as slow as it is today. If you think about that. Wow. We are changing at warp speed.

[00:38:46] AI is about to turn our country on end in many ways for the better, I should add. But it's changing. And as a leader, I always tell people, I said, I'm old-fashioned. I just found out Nixon resigned. But I've always been good at getting people to laugh. But my kids say, Dad, quite frankly, Dad, you shouldn't have a cell phone or a computer.

[00:39:14] I forget my passwords regularly. But, you know, all of us need to change. And we want to be good servants to the God we serve. But if you're in leadership today or want to be in leadership today, you have to remember that you have to be able to relate to, listen to, and learn from those you lead. It's real simple.

[00:39:38] In the Bible, the shepherd, he had a rod, and we sort of overdo that, you know, spare the rod, spoil the sheep. Well, I got news for you. The shepherd didn't just beat the sheep. He used it to guide the sheep, you know, in every possible way. And so as a leader, and there's an analogy there, sometimes, you know, if you know anything about sheep herding, there's usually a sheep in the group that will just become a hedge runner. And he'll try to dig his way out and put a hole under the fence.

[00:40:07] And I asked the question in one of my books about what do you do with a hedge runner, the sheep? And I answer it with two words, lamb chops. You know, there's times you eat the sucker. But as a leader in your organization, you might have a cancer, and just like if you have a cancer in your body, you cut it out. So we're not talking about manby-famby leadership. We're talking about authoritative leadership that works. And people who trust my words, I'm just telling you, you will like these leadership books. They're practical. They're fun.

[00:40:37] And I hope they'll make a change in your life. That would be my wish. Again, we have a link to your website. I might just mention that you even have a place where you can do a self-test. Just indicators of an ineffectual leader, indicators of effectual leadership, a top 15 leadership countdown. This is a book that you really can read and become a great leader by Friday. Are you money back, right? No. But it's a great way to get people into this issue of leadership. And, Dr. Lehman, just before I let you go, everybody's a leader.

[00:41:06] And somebody might think, oh, no, I'm not leading a CEO company or I'm not necessarily a CFO. But whether you're in a position of leadership or you're just certainly encouraging people, these are principles that everybody can apply, aren't they? They are. And with Valentine's Day coming up, here's a special message to you men. It's coming. Don't be at Walgreens looking over somebody's shoulder on the 13th looking for a card or a gift, okay? You guys know your wife.

[00:41:37] If she's anything like my wife, Mrs. Uppington is my nickname for my wife. I wouldn't dare bring her a box of chocolate. I think she hit me with it. You have to do better than that, man. You've got to lead this woman, and she'll love you more and more and more if you lead her in the right way. So figure it out. Again, Be a Great Leader by Friday, five winning plays to spark your world-changing potential. Just another wonderful book from Dr. Kevin Lehman.

[00:42:02] And we go back decades, and I'm so grateful that you're still willing to come on the program and be with me. So thank you for joining us today. You're welcome. My pleasure. We're going to take a break. And when we come back, we will get into some other issues, first science and then back into the news. There's a lot to cover. I might just mention real quickly that if you'd like to know more about Kevin Lehman or our guest next hour, Dr. Casey Luskin, we have information there. We have posted some articles.

[00:42:26] I thought I'd also mention, I haven't said this in a while, that we, of course, do have a trip to Greece, May 17th to the 27th. And I just found out two couples we thought were coming or not. So we do have some space. You might say, why do we need to know now? Well, we have certain seats reserved on the flights, certain seats reserved on the boat that we are going to be taking. And to go to Ephesus and Patmos and things like that. And very quickly, as a matter of fact, very soon, we have to give those back.

[00:42:55] So we do have some spots. If you're interested, contact us, 800-347-5151. We'll send you more information. We'd love to have you join us. Let's take a break. We'll talk with Dr. Casey Luskin right after this. The Bible tells us not to worry. And yet, there is a lot of worrying stuff in our world today. Thankfully, the Bible doesn't stop at telling us not to worry.

[00:43:23] God gives us a next step. He says we need to pray. But sometimes, even knowing what to pray can be difficult. And that is why Point of View has relaunched our Pray for America movement, a series of weekly emails to guide you in prayer for our nation. Each week, you'll receive a brief update about a current issue affecting Americans, along with a written prayer that you can easily share with others.

[00:43:53] We'll also include a short free resource for you in each email so you can learn more about the issue at hand. Will you commit to pray for America? Go to pointofview.net. Click on the Pray for America banner at the top of the page to subscribe. Again, that's pointofview.net. Click on the Pray for America banner.

[00:44:20] Let's pray together for God to make a difference in America. Point of View will continue after this.