Leading on Empty Quotes

“Solitude is a chosen separation for refining your soul. Isolation is what you crave when you neglect the first.”
― Wayne Cordeiro, Leading on Empty: Refilling Your Tank and Renewing Your Passion

“We don't forget that we are Christians. We forget that we are human, and that one oversight alone can debilitate the potential of our future.”
― Wayne Cordeiro, Leading on Empty: Refilling Your Tank and Renewing Your Passion

“Prayer is thinking deeply about something in the presence of God.”
― Wayne Cordeiro, Leading on Empty: Refilling Your Tank and Renewing Your Passion

“I came across a contemporary version of the twenty-third Psalm entitled “Psalm 23 Revisited.” In it, the author captures perfectly where many of us are today: The clock is my dictator, I shall not rest. It makes me lie down only when exhausted. It leads me into deep depression, it hounds my soul. It leads me in circles of frenzy for activities’ sake. Even though I run frantically from task to task, I will never get it all done, for my “ideal” is with me. Deadlines and my need for approval, they drive me. They demand performance from me, beyond the limits of my schedule. They anoint my head with migraines, my in-basket overflows. Surely fatigue and time pressure shall follow me all the days of my life. And I will dwell in the bonds of frustration forever.1”
― Wayne Cordeiro, Leading on Empty: Refilling Your Tank and Renewing Your Passion

“Anxiety does not empty tomorrow of its sorrows, but only empties today of its strength." CHARLES H. SPURGEON”
― Wayne Cordeiro, Leading on Empty: Refilling Your Tank and Renewing Your Passion

“Friendships are not made in the blur of life. They are made in the margins.”
― Wayne Cordeiro, Leading on Empty: Refilling Your Tank and Renewing Your Passion

“We won’t be held accountable for how much we have done, but for how much we have done of what He has asked us to do.”
― Wayne Cordeiro, Leading on Empty: Refilling Your Tank and Renewing Your Passion

“I drove hard on all cylinders, not realizing that being an entrepreneur means that everything you initiate, by default you must add to your maintenance list.”
― Wayne Cordeiro, Leading on Empty: Refilling Your Tank and Renewing Your Passion

“Worry is a cycle of
inefficient thoughts
whirling around a
center of fear.”
― Wayne Cordeiro, Leading on Empty: Refilling Your Tank and Renewing Your Passion

“Pressure to Excel Moreover David was greatly distressed because the people spoke of stoning him, for all the people were embittered, each one because of his sons and his daughters. (1 Samuel 30:6) Leaders are under a microscope. They become the culprit of choice and the scapegoat to blame. Recently I received a letter from a congregant saying that I wasn’t doing my job since he was absent one Sunday and I didn’t call on him to see if he was okay. He mentioned that in the last church he was attending, the pastor there didn’t care either, and he suggested that this may have been the cause of his divorce!”
― Wayne Cordeiro, Leading on Empty: Refilling Your Tank and Renewing Your Passion

“Character cannot be
developed in ease and
quiet. Only through
experiences of trial
and suffering can the
soul be strengthened,
vision cleared, ambition
inspired, and success
achieved.”
HELEN KELLER”
― Wayne Cordeiro, Leading on Empty: Refilling Your Tank and Renewing Your Passion

“It is important to
become aware that at
every moment of our life
we have an opportunity
to choose joy. . . . It is in
the choice that our true
freedom lies, and that
freedom is, in the final
analysis, the freedom to
love.”
HENRI NOUWEN”
― Wayne Cordeiro, Leading on Empty: Refilling Your Tank and Renewing Your Passion

“During his early years in London, he was often the object of intense slander, ridicule, and contempt. He wrestled between “rejoicing in such persecution and being utterly crushed by it.” In 1857, he struggled: “Down”
― Wayne Cordeiro, Leading on Empty: Refilling Your Tank and Renewing Your Passion

“me, of God not being God, of God not really existing.”
― Wayne Cordeiro, Leading on Empty: Refilling Your Tank and Renewing Your Passion

“of being abandoned by God. In personal correspondence, she wrote: “I am told God loves me—and yet the reality of darkness and coldness and emptiness is so great that nothing touches my soul.”2”
― Wayne Cordeiro, Leading on Empty: Refilling Your Tank and Renewing Your Passion

“The ultimate measure
of a man is not
where he stands in
moments of comfort
and convenience, but
where he stands at
times of challenge and
controversy.”
MARTIN LUTHER
KING JR.”
― Wayne Cordeiro, Leading on Empty: Refilling Your Tank and Renewing Your Passion

“Nobody ever outgrows
Scripture; the Book
widens and deepens
with our years.”
CHARLES H.
SPURGEON”
― Wayne Cordeiro, Leading on Empty: Refilling Your Tank and Renewing Your Passion

“He explained, “Serotonin can get depleted when you don’t live with a cadence that allows it to be replenished. This happens in all types of people, but it is most obvious in Type A leaders and those who live with an overload of expectations. Depression takes the place of initiative; your indecision and anxiety increases. You begin to feel a greater need for aloneness and isolation. This isn’t a sign of sinfulness or abnormality. At this point, however, a break from your ministry would allow those chemistry levels to return to normal.”
― Wayne Cordeiro, Leading on Empty: Refilling Your Tank and Renewing Your Passion

“The only way to finish strong will be to first
replenish your system. If you don’t,
prepare for a crash.”
― Wayne Cordeiro, Leading on Empty: Refilling Your Tank and Renewing Your Passion

“Serotonin is a chemical like an endorphin. It’s a natural, feel-good hormone. It replenishes during times of rest and then fuels you while you’re working. If, however, you continue to drive yourself without replenishing, your store of serotonin will be depleted. As a substitute, your body will be forced to replace the serotonin with adrenaline.”
― Wayne Cordeiro, Leading on Empty: Refilling Your Tank and Renewing Your Passion

“We began talking about the diminishing shelf life of pastors and leaders: how those whose vocation is all about giving out are wearing out.”
― Wayne Cordeiro, Leading on Empty: Refilling Your Tank and Renewing Your Passion

“Save me, O God,
for the floodwaters are up to my neck.
Deeper and deeper I sink into the mire;
I can’t find a foothold.
I am in deep water,
and the floods overwhelm me.
(Psalm 69:1–2 NLT)”
― Wayne Cordeiro, Leading on Empty: Refilling Your Tank and Renewing Your Passion

“It is in the quiet
crucible of your
personal, private
sufferings that your
noblest dreams are
born and God’s greatest
gifts are given in
compensation for what
you have been through.”
WINTLEY PHIPS”
― Wayne Cordeiro, Leading on Empty: Refilling Your Tank and Renewing Your Passion

“Loneliness is the
poverty of self; solitude
is the richness of self.”
MAY SARTON”
― Wayne Cordeiro, Leading on Empty: Refilling Your Tank and Renewing Your Passion

“To keep a lamp burning
we have to keep putting
oil in it.”
MOTHER TERESA”
― Wayne Cordeiro, Leading on Empty: Refilling Your Tank and Renewing Your Passion

“One of the greatest lessons I’m learning (and yes, I am still learning it) is that rest is not sin.”
― Wayne Cordeiro, Leading on Empty: Refilling Your Tank and Renewing Your Passion

“I find that doing the will of God leaves me no time for disputing about His plans.” GEORGE MACDONALD”
― Wayne Cordeiro, Leading on Empty: Refilling Your Tank and Renewing Your Passion

“We don’t forget that we are Christians. We forget that we are human, and that one oversight alone can debilitate the potential of our future.”
― Wayne Cordeiro, Leading on Empty: Refilling Your Tank and Renewing Your Passion

“Only I can give myself permission to rest or to overachieve, to pace myself or to run at the pace others expect of me.”
― Wayne Cordeiro, Leading on Empty: Refilling Your Tank and Renewing Your Passion

“A leader’s role is not to maintain. It is to gain altitude!”
― Wayne Cordeiro, Leading on Empty: Refilling Your Tank and Renewing Your Passion