Ken Hensley DOT Com

John Quincy Adams, the sixth President of the United States, once defined leadership in these terms: ”If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.” That’s a great definition.  You’ve probably heard that leadership is influence (thanks to John Maxwell).  That’s true.  If you’re not influencing [...]

“If you give in to “just this once,” based on a marginal-cost analysis, you’ll regret where you end up. That’s the lesson I learned: it’s easier to hold to your principles 100 percent of the time than it is to hold to them 98 percent of the time. The boundary—your personal moral line—is powerful because [...]

A black hole is a “region of space-time where gravity is so strong that nothing that enters the region, not even light, can escape” (Wikipedia). Black holes are the enemies of good ideas. A father can become a black hole if he puts down every suggestion.  Children want to be affirmed, to feel valued.  No one wants [...]

Yesterday afternoon, while driving home from a radio interview, I got word that Junior Seau had died.  The initial reports were saying it was a suicide; a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the chest.  For those who don’t know, Junior Seau was an All-Pro linebacker for the San Diego Chargers for many years. I never met [...]

“The words influence and influenza are cousins.” — David Jeremiah We are a contagious people and not just when it comes to germs and viruses and hand sanitizer. Attitudes are contagious.  One sour person can sink an entire meeting.  A little grumpiness goes a long way.  On the other hand, a gentle answer to a [...]

Thanks to his bathtub, Archimedes discovered the concept of displacement.  As he sat down in his bathtub, he noticed the water level would rise.  The weight of his body displaced the water.  From this epiphany, he realized he could use similar experiments to measure the volume of certain objects. In life, we have … Placements [...]

Perry Noble says the number one sign of an insecure leader is that they see people as working for them and not with them.  (Read the full list here). These two small words (a combined seven letters, average of 3.5 letters per word) reflect a large difference in attitude.  This difference not only affects the [...]

As a young preacher, I learned one important truth: people will forget your main points but they will remember your stories.  In fact, I’ve become convinced that I could preach the same points multiple times and people wouldn’t notice — but tell the same story and it’s immediately familiar! That’s the power of a story. [...]

If you’re wondering, “Who in the world is John Cleese?” then you were probably born after 1980.  For the rest of us, we remember him from Monty Python.  Brain Pickings, a wonderful web resource/curator of interesting facts, has an old video of Cleese talking about the creative process.  Here are the five main points: Space (“You [...]

Have you ever licked a battery to see if it still had any juice in it?  Me neither. In the days before rechargeable batteries, when a battery went dead you would throw it away.  Now you just plug in your iPod or phone (or car) and recharge the battery.   It’s a wonderful thing! When [...]