Gaps in our lives come in many forms and flavors.  As I reflect on the gaps in my life, I think of the gaps in my teeth that an orthodontist took care of (LOL), I think of the gap in my skill of playing baseball that hours of practice bridged, I think of the gap in my knowledge as I attended my engineering courses in college that my professors helped me connect with and I think of the physical gap between my brother and I. My brother and I live, and have lived, many states away from each other ever since he went off to the Naval Academy in 1986. I remember that day and knew that life was going to be different for me.

Our West Virginia trip was amazing.  Luke, my brother, Dave, and his two boys, Sam and Joe had a great time of building relationships and creating memories while around the campfire, climbing on rocks and whitewater rafting.  
On the first day, Luke and I connected with another former Marine and he invited us to climb with his group and to use their gear, which we didn't have (yet). What a blessing that offer was.  Luke and I were able to climb multiple walls, but the biggest was a 70' face that you can see behind the title of this post.  What an exhilarating experience it was!

I have come to believe that it is crucial that we as leaders focus our efforts on two areas over all others: 1) on setting the vision for where we are leading our teams or organizations; and 2) on developing the people that we lead within that team or organization. I believe that most of us leaders do an okay job with setting our vision, but when it comes to focusing on developing our people, we can become fearful in fully committing. I think this happens for a couple reasons. First, I believe that we think that if we focus our time and efforts on developing our people, then the work won't get accomplished or not as much work will get done. Second, I believe that we think that if we spend so much time developing our people, they won't get the work done that they need to be successful.

Do you ever fail?  Have you ever tried something different that you've never done before and it caused you to fail?  Or are you one to stay away from the "edge" in your comfort zone? I shared a few weeks ago that True Leaders Embrace Challenges, but I didn't share with you the amount of times that I failed in those challenges.  After reading an article this week, I thought about whether failing makes me a failure.  I reflected on the times I've failed, like when I lost my job the first time and then a second time.  I remember the multiple times I've screwed up in leading my wife and kids when I've gotten angry too quickly or said words that I didn't mean to say.  In all these situations, I did fail. But I didn't allow that to label me intrinsically as a failure.