Breakfast for Leaders

Breakfast for Leaders

Good leaders feast on the wisdom left by great leaders like Abraham Lincoln.

All great leaders are voracious readers even though not all readers are leaders.

In times like this where politicians are gridlocked defending their positions, words from past leaders carry a little more meaning.

Here are some words of wisdom from honest Abe:

1.      Every man is said to have his peculiar ambition … I have no other so great as that of being truly esteemed of my fellow men by rendering myself worthy of their esteem.

2.      The better part of one’s life consists in his friendships.

3.      No man is good enough to govern another man, without that other’s consent. I say this is the leading principle, the sheet-anchor of American Republicanism.

4.      Always bear in mind that your own resolutions to succeed, is more important than any other one thing.

5.      If you once forfeit the confidence of your fellow citizens, you can never regain their respect and esteem. It is true that you may fool all of the people some of the time; you can even fool some of the people all of the time, but you can’t fool all the people all the time.

6.      He who would be no slave, must consent to have no slave. Those who deny freedom to others, deserve it not for themselves, and, under a just God, cannot long retain it.

7.      Writing, the art of communicating thoughts to the mind through the eye, is the great invention of the world … enabling us to converse with the dead, the absent, and the unborn, at all distances of time and space.

Take these powerful words and study them. Ponder and reflect on them and realize how much wisdom Abraham Lincoln left us. What wisdom are you leaving behind for others to feast on?

The purpose of the 7 Daily Nuggets is to teach us what we need to know to live a prosperous life; the things that we may not have learned or are not currently learning in church, school, home or at work. Let’s apply what we learn here and share these nuggets with others. We make a living by what we get; we make a life by what we give. Be a giver in a world of takers.

Be blessed and be a blessing to others.

Carlos Fontana, President of Phalanx

Co-author of the book Follow to Lead (The 7 Principles to Being a Great Follower)

Author of the book PRICELESS (Sixty-Six Simple Stories of Reflection, Love, and Legacy)