Alfred Ells > Quotes

“More than education, more than experience, more than training, a person’s level of resilience will determine who succeeds and who fails.”
― Alfred Ells, The Resilient Leader: How Adversity Can Change You and Your Ministry for the Better

“Leaders aren’t just born. They’re made. You can never stop learning. You can’t lead from the back. You have to take care of your people first.”
― Alfred Ells, The Resilient Leader: How Adversity Can Change You and Your Ministry for the Better

“The presence of anger is an indication that something is seriously wrong. But instead of lashing out in anger, we need to face our fears and shame, take them to God, and be healed.”
― Alfred Ells, The Resilient Leader: How Adversity Can Change You and Your Ministry for the Better

“Once you’ve experienced any emotional pain, the pain is imprinted on your inner being and remains there until you intentionally resolve it.”
― Alfred Ells, The Resilient Leader: How Adversity Can Change You and Your Ministry for the Better

“There are likely kernels of truth in the complaints that can be turned into valuable insights.”
― Alfred Ells, The Resilient Leader: How Adversity Can Change You and Your Ministry for the Better

“Unexpected adversity is often painful yet crucial to the later success of a leader.”
― Alfred Ells, The Resilient Leader: How Adversity Can Change You and Your Ministry for the Better

“If your crisis has turned into a long-lasting trial, it’s more important than ever that you surround yourself with intelligent, caring friends who will be in it with you for the long haul. The greater the spiritual battle, the more there is likely at stake—in your life and in the spiritual realm. Gird yourself for battle, and refuse to give in or give up.”
― Alfred Ells, The Resilient Leader: How Adversity Can Change You and Your Ministry for the Better

“anger in a leader rarely produces good results.”
― Alfred Ells, The Resilient Leader: How Adversity Can Change You and Your Ministry for the Better

“Low trust is the greatest cost in life and in organizations, including families. Low trust creates hidden agendas, politics, interpersonal conflict, interdepartmental rivalries, win-lose thinking, defensive and protective communication.”
― Alfred Ells, The Resilient Leader: How Adversity Can Change You and Your Ministry for the Better

“resilience this way: the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties; toughness.”
― Alfred Ells, The Resilient Leader: How Adversity Can Change You and Your Ministry for the Better

“We must make sure we confess our own sin and shortcomings before approaching our adversary with his.”
― Alfred Ells, The Resilient Leader: How Adversity Can Change You and Your Ministry for the Better

“Much of what you learn through times of adversity will become lifelong wisdom, and these truths will sustain you throughout your ministry.”
― Alfred Ells, The Resilient Leader: How Adversity Can Change You and Your Ministry for the Better

“BIRGing, which stands for basking in reflected glory.”
― Alfred Ells, The Resilient Leader: How Adversity Can Change You and Your Ministry for the Better

“Remember Matthew 5:25 (“Make friends quickly with your opponent”) and Matthew 5:44 (“Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you”).”
― Alfred Ells, The Resilient Leader: How Adversity Can Change You and Your Ministry for the Better

“they refuse to cry, because they don’t ever want to feel again the anguish and the pain they’ve locked away inside. Abused individuals often don’t cry for the same reason.”
― Alfred Ells, The Resilient Leader: How Adversity Can Change You and Your Ministry for the Better

“God has our best interests at heart and wants to work on us in order to work through us.”
― Alfred Ells, The Resilient Leader: How Adversity Can Change You and Your Ministry for the Better

“Correction without connection yields rejection.”
― Alfred Ells, The Resilient Leader: How Adversity Can Change You and Your Ministry for the Better

“You can more easily partner with God instead of making the situation worse by reacting emotionally.”
― Alfred Ells, The Resilient Leader: How Adversity Can Change You and Your Ministry for the Better

“As a leader, you must choose wisely with whom you will socialize. Friendship with a subordinate or congregant can be a blessing or a trap fraught with dangers.”
― Alfred Ells, The Resilient Leader: How Adversity Can Change You and Your Ministry for the Better

“If you don’t invest time in your children when they are younger, you’ll pay for it when they are older.”
― Alfred Ells, The Resilient Leader: How Adversity Can Change You and Your Ministry for the Better

“It’s often been said that the only real mistake is the one from which we learn nothing.”
― Alfred Ells, The Resilient Leader: How Adversity Can Change You and Your Ministry for the Better

“Be on guard for yourselves and for all the flock, among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers” (Acts 20:28).”
― Alfred Ells, The Resilient Leader: How Adversity Can Change You and Your Ministry for the Better

“first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye” (Matt. 7:5).”
― Alfred Ells, The Resilient Leader: How Adversity Can Change You and Your Ministry for the Better

“Success is moving from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm.”
― Alfred Ells, The Resilient Leader: How Adversity Can Change You and Your Ministry for the Better

“Henry Ford went broke five times, was accused of having poor judgment, but ultimately transformed the automobile industry.”
― Alfred Ells, The Resilient Leader: How Adversity Can Change You and Your Ministry for the Better

“My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Cor. 12:9 ESV).”
― Alfred Ells, The Resilient Leader: How Adversity Can Change You and Your Ministry for the Better

“A brother offended is harder to win than a strong city, and contentions are like the bars of a castle” (Prov. 18:19 NKJV).”
― Alfred Ells, The Resilient Leader: How Adversity Can Change You and Your Ministry for the Better

“He who is slow to anger is better than the mighty, and he who rules his spirit, than he who captures a city. Proverbs 16:32”
― Alfred Ells, The Resilient Leader: How Adversity Can Change You and Your Ministry for the Better

“For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.”
― Alfred Ells, The Resilient Leader: How Adversity Can Change You and Your Ministry for the Better

“To determine whether you are truly thriving, you must also consider your eulogy virtues—the virtues others will extol at your funeral. These are the character traits at your core, the deep internal part of you where it’s not always comfortable to look for any length of time.”
― Alfred Ells, The Resilient Leader: How Adversity Can Change You and Your Ministry for the Better