The new year is around the corner and so are New Year’s resolutions. Have you made your resolutions yet? Before you put pen to paper I would recommend taking a different approach this year: Find your truth. You don’t have to search far, just look in the mirror.

A simple tool to find your truth is Same as, More of, Less of. Write these words as headings on a page and commit to them for 2013. What would you like to do the same (be a caring coach)? What would you like to do more (exercise 15 minutes more every day)? And what would you like to do less (hold on to family grudges)?

Traditional New Year’s resolutions are about to-do goals like eat healthy, lose weight or learn Spanish. This year, think about resolutions that are about to-be goals like be a more engaged parent, be a better friend or be patient.

While making resolutions is easy, it is much more difficult to stick to them. So share your truth with someone who can help you stay accountable for your goals. And if you don’t have a trusted confidant in your life to keep you truthful and away from negative patterns, finding one should be at the top of your resolutions

I have a group of “truth tellers” that I trust and have been a part of my life for nearly 30 years. I trust to get the truth from my accountability group, and they know I speak the truth to them. Truth is at the core of our relationship and why it has endured for so long.

So this holiday season I encourage you to look back at the year and reflect on your truth. And as you spend time celebrating the season with family, friends and colleagues, think about who speaks the truth to you. Who can you ask to hold you accountable?

Having an accountability group has been one of the best gifts in my life. And in this season of giving, I hope you give yourself this priceless gift as well. Leave a comment or share with me on Facebook.

Merry Christmas,

Joel

My father on his Oliver 55 tractor in Battle Creek, Michigan.

Recently I have had the opportunity to visit many different cities and organizations to share the principles of Love Works. Reviewing my presentation, the principle I spend the most amount of time covering is unselfish. Being unselfish has many layers and it doesn’t mean thinking less of yourself – it means thinking of yourself less.

At the personal level, it requires being unselfish with your time and treasure. Giving of yourself is not easy, but it is certainly worth it. The people and organizations you support certainly benefit from your gifts, but I would argue that your selfless giving benefits you even more.

With all the need in the world it may seem overwhelming, but that is not an excuse to not give. My pastor, Andy Stanley, helped me see giving in a whole new light. “Do for one what you wish you could do for everyone.” I can’t help everyone but I can help a few individuals and organizations, and that is how I focus my giving.

My father focused his giving differently. As a struggling business owner, he did not have sufficient funds to support organizations. However he gave generously with the one resource he did have – a tractor. He would clear the snow for the widow next door or help the aging farmer down the street with his work. You can give of your treasure or time, whichever works best for your situation.

At a corporate level, giving is important too. At Herschend Family Entertainment, we give to Share It Forward. Employees start with their unselfish giving to the foundation and the company matches those donations. Without your generosity, we would not be able to help as many families as we do.

I am so proud to share that donations for this year have increased 15% from last year. This allows us to help more people with expanded programs.

Thanks for giving of your time and treasure! Leave a comment or share with me on Facebook.

September is back to school season. Summer is over and all the kids are hitting the books again. It has been a few decades since I carried a backpack and lunchbox into school, but I still remember many of the lessons from my school years. Yes, I learned about diagramming sentences, geometry and physics (don’t ask me to remember the formulas), yet some of the best lessons I learned can’t be found in a book.

Those lessons were not about letters and numbers but about people and relationships. They were life lessons. The teachers who took their time to teach me these lessons changed my life, and I remember them fondly. My teachers were the leaders I looked up to.

Some took a bit longer. I was in seventh grade when a caring teacher took the time to teach me about trust. I will never forget Miss Pray. For some reason she had invited me to the parent-teacher conference.

The conference was going as I envisioned with congratulations on my straight A report card and many words of praise. Then came the unexpected, “you are a very poor listener” she said looking directly at me.

She shared several examples of my poor listening skills and then helped me understand why listening matters. “When you don’t listen to others, it sends them a negative and unflattering message. You are telling them they are not important. You are telling them you are better than they are.”

I never forgot that day. Her words stuck with me, and I realized poor listening and interrupting are ultimately signs of distrust. You do not trust someone enough to fully listen and hear what he has to say.

So the next time you are tempted to interrupt someone in order to get to the point faster, rethink what you are doing. You are communicating your distrust in that individual. Is that what you really want to do? Leave a comment or share with me on Facebook.

As the CEO of a themed attractions company, I have the opportunity to visit our properties and interact with our employees and guests. I thoroughly enjoy these visits because there is no better way to experience our company and culture than at our properties. The visits always leave me with a renewed sense of enthusiasm.

This enthusiasm comes from our employees and is shared with our guests. It is at the core of kindness. In fact, being kind is one of the principles in Love Works, and we define it as to “show encouragement and enthusiasm.” All of us can use more encouragement and enthusiasm. And while looking at yourself in the mirror and saying “you can do it” is helpful, it can’t replace the words of encouragement from a friend or colleague.

If we want encouragement and enthusiasm from others, we have to act with kindness to others. This is especially true for leaders as “kindness, encouragement and enthusiasm start at the top.” But it doesn’t mean it is the sole job of leaders. It is everyone’s responsibility to show kindness and enthusiasm.

While I look forward to my visits at our properties, I don’t always look forward to the days I am cooped up in my office with nonstop emails and back-to-back conference calls. I usually step out of my office to grab some water or lunch as refreshment, but the best refreshment I get is kindness. It is when an employee stops and smiles in the hallway and says, “Hey Joel. How are you?” This brief act of kindness gives me more energy than any energy drink could give.

I still remember my mom telling me, “Every time you walk past someone, you have an opportunity to make their day better or make their day worse.” I hope you will remember these words too, and the fact that your small act of kindness can have a big impact on someone’s day.

So how will you be kind today? Comment or share with me on Facebook.

My parents, Marki and our four daughters at a Dixie Stampede in Branson, M.O.

In 2002, I learned that my father had been afflicted with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. He was at Stage 4 of the disease and not given much time to live once the diagnosis was made. Because Dad had been such a hard worker when I was growing up, we hadn’t taken many family vacations. But I was determined that we were going to take one now, while he could still enjoy it.

So Marki and I rented an RV, packed my parents and our four daughters inside, and trekked the 12 hours from Atlanta to Branson in style. We visited all of the Herschend properties there and had, for the first time really, that “perfect” vacation as an extended family, one that we fully understood would never be repeated.

Dad and I also discussed things that we should have talked about long before, and relived great memories that we wished we had rehashed years earlier. For our family, it was a highlight of our lives and a time that no one my father left behind will ever forget.

Our family’s experiences at the Herschend venues also helped me realize the critical importance of our vision to the company’s business. And it made me a huge believer. I became even more determined to further the practice of servant leadership throughout the company.

Our mission is simple. We want our theme parks to be a place where people can come to create memories, no matter what life stage or circumstance they are in. Not every guest coming through our gates is dealing with cancer. However, every guest is dealing with something. That may be in the form of problems at home, difficulties at work, nagging health concerns, financial stresses – or a combination of those things.

Supplying theme parks is our way of helping people going through joyous and rough times. Whether it is a person dealing with a difficulty or a family looking for a fun vacation, a visit to one of our properties is the perfect answer. Whatever the circumstances of our guests when they arrive at our gates, our goal is to bring that group closer together – to create their “perfect day” and help them to simply enjoy one another, forgetting the rest of the world if only for a few hours.

Comment or share with me on Facebook.

Writing Love Works. has been quite a journey for me. As a first time author, I had to quickly learn a lot about writing, publishing and selling a book. Frankly, the hardest part was writing. In the past 30 years, the only writing I had done was reports and presentations. The last time I did any substantial writing was in college.

The book is about leading with love but for me it was really about writing with love. As I have gone through the entire book process, I have had to practice every principle of leading with love. Love Works. begins with the principle of patience. To be patient, you must practice the key attribute and have self-control in difficult situations. Writing the book while running Herschend Family Entertainment has been difficult, but this is exactly the time I need to exercise patience.

I wanted to quickly write the book and move on. Yet, I learned that I had to be patient with the writing and editing process. The book went through numerous edits and revisions before it was finally complete. I am pleased with the result now and appreciate the process and time it took.

Another attribute of patience, is patient praise. We must be patient when praising someone so we are exact and specific with our praise instead of generic. “To be truly effective, praise must be legitimate and pointed.”

I experienced the value of patient praise while writing the book. After the first round of writing, I asked an editor to review. After his lengthy review, he simply replied, “It looks great.” To me this was not patient praise and it had no value to me as a writer. I would have appreciated specific praise on what stories really resonated and how I could make the book better.

We have an opportunity to lead with patient love everyday whether we are leading single store, division or a family. So how will you lead tomorrow? Comment or share with me on Facebook.

Earlier this month I had the privilege of joining Andy Stanley, lead pastor of North Point Community Church and bestselling author, for his popular leadership podcast. You can listen to Andy and I talking about leadership, Love Works and more. Comment or share your thoughts with me on Facebook.

Listen in iTunes

Download MP3

I grew up in a humble household in Battle Creek, Michigan, on the western side of the state. It’s well known as the cereal capital of the world—and how many millions of us sent box tops of our favorite Kellogg cereal to Battle Creek to be rewarded with small gifts that would come later in the mail?

Like most residents of Battle Creek, I loved the Kellogg Company, the sweet-smelling plants where it made the cereal, and even going on the factory tours where they would give out free “snack packs” of Kellogg products at the end. And because no Frosted Flakes, Sugar Pops or other sugared cereals made their way into the Manby household, per my mother’s orders, every once in a while I rode my bike to a plant, weaseled my way into a public tour, and then grabbed the snack pack at the end! I figured that if this was the worst thing I did in my life, I would turn out OK. Still, it was a sad day for me when Kellogg stopped conducting those tours. Comment or share your thoughts with me on Facebook.

Since announcing the release of my book, Love Works, I have received many questions about the title and the subject of the book. Many question its premise of incorporating love into the workplace.

Before I can explain leading with love, it is important to first define love. In the U.S. we narrowly define love as romantic love, an emotion. Yet, other languages have broader definitions. In fact, the Greek language has four separate words for defining love. One word is agape, and it is a verb. Agape love is not about emotion; it is about action. In the workplace, you cannot like someone but still love them. This is the love I am talking about.

Leading with love is about putting love into action. At HFE, we ask every employee to treat each other and our guests with love. I share how we do this in the book. We must be kind, patient, trusting, unselfish, truthful, forgiving, dedicated and humble.

Living out these principles is certainly not easy. It is tough to be unselfish and think of yourself less or to stay dedicated in a tough economy, but in my experience, this is what leads to a more successful organization.

In the book, I present principles through lessons I have learned from Jack & Pete Herschend or the mistakes I have made throughout my career. The book is dedicated to my parents for teaching me to love at home and to Jack and Pete for teaching me how to love at work. As you read this book, I hope you learn to embrace the principles too and discover love works. Comment or share your thoughts with me on Facebook.