Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Top 10 Non Church LeadersTo Have Lunch With

10. Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, John McCain, -- one of these people will be our new president. Would love a chance to meet the real person and get to know what makes them tick – make a judgment about them for myself rather than getting in through the media.

9. John Wooden. I would love to discuss his views of leadership. Love his triangle of success. A legend of coaching, he would be a phenomenal person to have lunch with!

8. Earl Scruggs. Banjo legend. The stories he could share! Perhaps he could even work in a banjo lesson.

7. Eddie Sutton, Frank Broyles, Rick Schaffer, Houston Nutt, all Razorback heroes. Just think of the stories they could tell! You knew there had to be a Razorback somewhere on this list!

6. Truett Kathy, Founder, Chic-Fil-La. Talk about a guy who takes an idea, keeps it simple, values excellence; values the Lord’s Day – and is still successful! We’d have lunch at his place. Maybe his treat?

5. John Grisham, author. I love his stories. Would love to ask him questions about story telling.

4. Steve Jobs, CEO, Apple. Talk about a creative genius! His work with Pixar and Apple make him one of the most creative leaders on the planet.

3. Jim Collins, author of Good to Great. Good to Great is one of the best books I’ve ever read on creating vision. I just love the whole concept of not being satisfied with being “good”. Churches need that lesson!

2. Dick Winters. Winters is the central leader in “Band of Brothers”. Man, you talk about a man who understands leadership! What a lunch it would be hearing his stories.

1. Howard Schultz. (CEO, Starbucks). This guy knows how to dream! I love his view of the “third place”. I would love to discuss leadership and vision with this man.

Who would be on your list, and why?

8 comments:

The Tuckenator said...

Well here's my ten...

David Green, founder & president of retail giant Hobby Lobby. He started making frames nearly 35 yrs ago. Since then he has grown his company to the point where it is now doing approx $1.4 billion annually. Green keeps his stores closed on Sundays to allow for those within his company to spend time with family, rest and worship. He attributes his success completely in one thing only, total dependency upon God. All the things we do, all our behavior, should let others know that we are living by and operating in Biblical principles. There is no success outside the success with the Lord." What an amazing individual.

Philip Anschultz is an American business with an estimated worth of around $7.8 billion. In 1970 he purchased 250,000 acre Boughman Farms for $10 million. The following year he acquired approximately 9 million acres near the Utah Wyoming border. With his acquisition of land he is thought to own more fam and cattle land than any other single private citizen in the United States. He also helped finance and distribute both highly successful movies Amazing Grace & The Chronicles Of Narnia.

Dave L Steward founded World Wide Technology in 1990 a company specializing helping customers rapidly build and deploy technology infrastructure in a timely manner. WWT now exceeds $1.1 billion in revenue. Named by Success magazine as 14th best entrepreneur. Dave also authored "Doing Business By The Good Book" (with 288 pgs of 52 lessons on success straight from the Bible).

Bill Cosby is one of the most recognizable comedians of our time. He received a track scholarship to Temple in 1961 but left his sophomore year to pursue comedy. Definately love his material and insights on the family.

Mel Gibson directed and helped produce Passion Of The Christ a movie that noone else would touch. Depicting it as accurately as he best could he even included subtitles in Aramaic, Hebrew and Latin. The Gibson family has donated millions through his charity Healing The Children to providing lifesaving medical treatment to needy children worldwide. While filming Apocalypto in Mexico he personally donated $1 million to the local Rotary club to build houses for those needed assistance in the region after some sever flooding had wiped out numerous homes.

George Lucas directed American Graffiti, Indiana Jones, Tucker (had to include my name in here somehow) and of course Star Wars. His parents sold office retail supplies and owned a walnut farm. American Graffiti was his first successful movie in 1973. In 1996 USC announced he had donated $175 million to his alma mater to expand the film school.

Edward Van Halen was born in the Netherlands but moved to Pasadena when he was 7. His older brother began learning to play guitar when he was learning the drums. Annoyed at the rate his brother had overtaken his ability he decided to switch instruments. He revolutionized rock guitar playing using finger tapping which most use today. Before the release of their first album Edward used to hide his technique by playing with his back to the crowd.

Coach K is the son of polish immigrants and has become one of the all time great collegiate hoop coaches in our time. His former coach at Army (Bobby Knight) gave him his first start as a graduate assistant. He has won 3 national championships and as of 13 Feb 2008 he has 724 wins compared to only 203 losses.

David Robinson is often considered one of the greatest centers to ever play the game. he was the second child of a Navy family and followed his fathers footsteps (majored in mathematics while at the Naval Academy). In the last game of the 93-94 season he scored 71 points against the clippers to win the scoring title. David is one of only four players to ever record a quadruple double. In 1996 he was also named as one of the 50 all time greatest players ever.

Kenny Perry was raised predominantly in Franklin KY and has become a highly successful golfer. In 1982 he turned professional. In 2006 he became the tenth man to reach $20 million PGA tour career earnings. I'd love to hit him up for a few golf tips.

Randy said...

Tucker, Great list! Coach K and David Robinson especially caught my eye. You obviously gave that a lot of thought. Well done!

Hooper said...

Here's a few I'd like to meet (I'm not as windy as Tucker!):

Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, and David Robinson (3 "top 50 NBA players" I grew up idolizing and modeling my own game after).

Mel Gibson, Steven Spielberg,Tom Hanks, and Peter Jackson (4 guys whose movies have meant a lot to me).

Dick Winters ("Band of Brothers")

Randy said...

Speilberg & Hanks, yes! I'll join you for that lunch. Maybe throw in George Lucas as well. Man, that would be a hoot to have lunch with those guys!

Unknown said...

From the music world: Bono (of U2), James Taylor, Dwight Yoakam. I'm a fan of all of them (especially J.T.) These guys have had varying degrees of success in a very cut-throat profession. Some have parlayed that into success in other arenas. I'd like to find out what drives them, lessons learned along the way, etc.

From the sports world: Brett Favre. Being a Packer fan, this is an obvious choice. He seems to have such a love for the game, even after playing for 17+ seasons now and taking some incredible hits. How does he keep getting up?

From the business world: Steve Jobs (Apple), Howard Schultz (Starbucks), Zig Ziglar. Every one of these guys possess a wealth of knowledge in the area of leadership. I'd love to tap into that!

From the public service world: Bill Clinton. Say what you want... but, the guy has charisma and he's an excellent public speaker.

From the everyday guy world: Rocky McElveen. A seminary grad who is a hunting and fishing guide in Alaska. Wrote a fantastic book about his experiences called, "Wild Men, Wild Alaska". I know he's got a ton more stories than were printed in that book. I'd like to hear them all. Maybe we could have our lunch together while he guides me on a moose, caribou, or grizzly hunt. That'd be great!!

That's 9. Here's the 10th, also from the everyday guy world: My dad. Even if we don't talk about serious things and he doesn't pass along great wisdom, I just like being with my dad. Living 1500 miles away from him, we don't get to have lunch together very often. I'll take every opportunity I can get.

Randy said...

Scott, Great list! I thought of Rocky as well. You know he's got thousands of good stories. If my dad were alive, he'd be first on my list as well!

Unknown said...

Hey Randy,

The author of "Good To Great" would be a great person to get to visit with. That book has so much we can learn from.

Keith Lancaster

Unknown said...

Hey Randy,

The author of "Good To Great" would be a great person to get to visit with. That book has so much we can learn from.

Keith