Crossroads 04-June-23

Theodore Roosevelt was the man I chose for leadership lessons today.  He is one of my absolute favorites and there are several good quotes listed below.  We discussed how closely these relate to Qsource even though they were more than 100 years ago and there were several branch discussions.  It goes to show that what it takes to be a leader never changes. I have two good books I can loan and recommend.  Mornings On Horseback by David McCullough and The Rise Of Theodore Roosevelt by Edmund Morris.  I can also recommend The River Of Doubt by Candice Millard, which is in his later years as he rides the Amazon.

Announcements:  2nd F Lunch at Logan’s this month,

Prayers:  Broke’s coworker with heart surgery, pax with injuries

Pledge, Prayer, Qsource.

Leadership Lessons

1. 1. If I have anything at all resembling genius, it is in the gift for leadership…. To tell the truth, I like to believe that, by what I have accomplished without great gifts, I may be a source of encouragement to Americans.
   2. As soon as any man has ceased to be able to learn, his usefulness as a teacher is at an end. When he himself can’t learn, he has reached the stage where other people can’t learn from him.
   3. There were all kinds of things of which I was afraid at first, ranging from grizzly bears to “mean” horses and gun fighters; but by acting as if I was not afraid, I gradually ceased to be afraid.
   4. Whatever I think is right for me to do, I do. I do the things that I believe ought to be done. And when I make up my mind to do a thing, I act.
   5. No man has a right to ask or accept any service unless under changed conditions he would feel that he could keep his entire self-respect while rendering.
   6. There is nothing cheaper than to sneer at and belittle the great men and great deeds and great thoughts of a bygone time—unless it is to magnify them and ascribe preposterous and impossible virtues to the period.
   7. If my virtue ever becomes so frail that it will not stand meeting men of whom I thoroughly disapprove, but who are active in official life and whom I must encounter, why I shall go out of politics and become an anchorite**. Whether I see these men or do not see them, if I do for them anything improper then I am legitimately subject to criticism; but only a fool will criticize me because I see them.
   8. It is a peculiar gratification tome** to have owed my election…above all to Abraham Lincoln’s “plain people’; to the folk who worked hard on the farm, in shop, or on the railroads, or who owned little stores, little businesses which they managed themselves. I would literally, not figuratively, rather cut off my right hand than forfeit by any improper act of mine the trust and regard of these people…. I shall endeavor not to merit their disapproval by any act inconsistent with the ideal they have formed of me.
   9. There are many kinds of success worth having. It is exceedingly interesting and attractive to be a successful businessman, or railroad man, or farmer, or a successful lawyer or doctor; or a writer, or a President, or a ranchman, or the colonel of a fight regiment, or to kill grizzly bears and lions. But for unflagging interest and enjoyment, a household of children, if things go reasonably well, certainly makes all other forms of success and achievement lose their importance by comparison.
   10. Most of all, I believe whatever value my service may have, comes even more from what I am than from what I may do.

**anchorite:  a person who lives in seclusion usually for religious reasons
**tome:  a volume forming part of a larger work

I did not include his more notable “man in the arena” or the “best executive”, but we did read them and discuss them.  There is a tremendous amount of information on the internet, just trust the source.