Unforced

“Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.” - Paul to the Church in Rome

Wanna get away?  I do.  That desire to just flee the circumstance we are currently in must be a fairly common denominator among people.  Southwest Airlines has a very successful and long running marketing program based on that very sentiment: 

Wanna Get Away?

There is the sense that if we were anywhere other than where we are, things would be better.  

I used to regularly meet a friend of mine for coffee in a private dining club.  We would sit at a table that essentially offered an elevated view of dozens of planes leaving the local airport.  Watching plane after plane leave to destinations unknown would produce this strange longing that I wouldn’t have identified otherwise.  I was in a challenging season and I think I would have taken a ticket to almost anywhere.

The passage above doesn’t speak to location, but to perspective.  It is not so much about where you are, but what you believe about where you are.  

The picture above in this post is an unedited version of the view from the deck of the home we stayed in for a few weeks in Colorado.  I am still fighting the belief that one of my friends holds; that Jesus is somehow more present in that place than here.  (Every time she says the word “Colorado,” she adds a quiet addendum “where Jesus lives.”)

The reality is, that He is no more in Colorado than he is in San Antonio.  For me, out of my experience and story however, He feels more present, available, and powerful for me there.  The unforced rhythms of His grace seem more attainable and real for me when I am there.

Despite the incredible generosity of others, I can only spend so much time in my beloved Colorado.  Work, money, time, etc., all conspire to make it a place I am blessed and humbled to periodically escape to, but not spend the majority of my time.

There is a finite number of planes on which I can escape.

The real trick is to get away with Him in any context or circumstance.  To live freely and lightly right here in the “river city” or anywhere else I might find myself.  

This last trip to Colorado wasn’t an escape, it was more an “entering in” to a different way of thinking.  “Here” is different because I was “there.”  I am recovering my life generatively, right here in this coffee shop, 850 miles from the base of one of my beloved 14’ers.  I am getting away with Him.

Wanna get away?

Responsible

I spent some time with a young man in Colorado recently.  After a great academic career, he was rewarded with a job out of college paying well in excess of what the average American makes and has all kinds of perks.  Relative to many of his peers entering the work force, he’s cracked the code and gotten life pretty much figured out.  He is very happily married and seems to be living a fairly idyllic life.

Throughout the course of several conversations, the word “responsible” kept coming up related to his decision-making.

"That was the responsible thing to do."

"That wouldn’t have been a responsible decision."

He is an exceptional young man with a bright future in front of him, whatever he decides to put his life towards.  As you might imagine (if you have read almost any other post in this blog), I was pushing through the “responsibility” to the “heart’s desire.”  I am less interested in where the responsible decisions will provide the greatest reward and way more interested in where his life will make the greatest contribution.

A young writer I follow said recently that (in a newly crafted family manifesto) “the life of Jesus” was their true north.  There is something so simple, powerful, and defining about that statement.  

• Not regligion.  
• Not conventional contemporary Christian thinking.
• Not the current direction the trade wind of the culture in the church is blowing.  Not what a well-meaning father might be suggesting.  
• Not what the culture of your family has decided.
• Not what produces the greatest financial advantage.

The “life of Jesus” is their true north.

When I look at the life of Jesus, the only things he said or did are the things his Father directed.  He sought out his Father’s direction in all things and simply did what he was led to do.  For us that simply means living a life that helps encourage humanity to inch ever closer to their true Father.  To glorify Him by living the life so consistent with His intentions and commandments that the truth of our life resonates in some preternatural way to the gospel that is written on their hearts… whether it is acknowledged or not.  

What could be more responsible?

For this young man, who I interact with like a son, staying on his current corporate journey may be that place where he can best find the life of Jesus in his.  But the mountains of Colorado, ministry, authentic community, and a life in front of people and not a computer screen, are calling to him.  I want to make sure he is aware of the tension and not shutting himself off from the deepest desires of his heart.

As a very good friend of mine says,

"I don’t know if being a child of yours would be the coolest or worst thing."

This young man has his whole life ahead of him.  As long as he continues to pull a chair with his true Father or other fathers who love him and intend God’s purposes for his life, everything is going to turn out fine.  I can’t wait to see what sort of story he writes with his life.

I am looking forward to a lifetime of pulling up a chair alongside him, staring into God’s powerful creation, and discussing the endless possibilities.

Alive

“Ecstasy and delight are essential to the believer’s soul and they promote sanctification. We were not meant to live without spiritual exhilaration, and the Christian who goes for a long time without the experience of heart-warming will soon find himself tempted to have his emotions satisfied from earthly things and not, as he ought, from the Spirit of God. The soul is so constituted that it craves fulfillment from things outside itself and will embrace earthly joys for satisfaction when it cannot reach spiritual ones. The believer is in spiritual danger if he allows himself to go for any length of time without tasting the love of Christ and savoring the felt comforts of a Savior’s presence. When Christ ceases to fill the heart with satisfaction, our souls will go in silent search of other lovers.”

After making it through what appeared to be several impassible situations, we rounded a bend just above 11,400 feet elevation to find impossibly deep snow.  We were in route to a mountain lake at over 12,000 feet, just below one of Colorado’s famed 14’ers (14,000 foot peaks).  We had a sharp turn to make and then up a steep slope to enter the valley where the lake rests.  I thought we might be done, but when even the previously fearless 23 and 13 year old with me thought we couldn’t make it any further, I knew we had to turn back.

The picture above is out the front of my windshield before we headed back down on Memorial Day.

Despite the fact that I am never lost for words, I find it difficult to fully capture what driving in my Jeep feels like.  It is as if the great outdoors are within my grasp even during a commute on a highway.  I strip away a panel from my soft-top, peel back the top that separates my thinning head from sky & cloud, and I am magically closer to the outdoors that my heart so desperately desires.

Because it is such a deep desire of my heart to be outdoors, to feel like there isn’t any trail I can venture down and possibly conquer, there is something else I feel when I drive my Jeep…

I feel that my Father loves me deeply and delights in me.

I know how strange that might seem… maybe a little too close to prosperity theology… but doing the things I love in the way I love to do them, is exactly what a father delights in for his son.  There is something holy about requiting the desires of your heart that were originally placed there by Him.

“Don’t ask yourself what the world needs.
Ask yourself what makes you come alive, and go do that,
because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”

— Howard Thurman

• Spouses
• Families
• Businesses
• Churches

They all need more people whose hearts have come I alive.

I feel close to the Father.  I feel in communion with Him.  I feel alive and exhilarated from the experience and all the earthly wants and desires (The less wild lovers of my soul that John Eldredge talks about in “Journey of Desire”) seem to fade in comparison to being in fellowship with the One I was created to be in relationship with.

Leading and loving well requires a person who is whole-hearted.  Invigorated, fully alive, and operating with all senses engaged.

• Do you feel like you are more a half-hearted creature (as C.S. Lewis says) or a whole-hearted one?
• What makes your heart come alive?  When/where/how do you feel closest to your Father?
• What do you need to start doing that you aren’t currently?

Archetype

ar·che·type (ˈärkəˌtīp/) noun

1. a very typical example of a certain person or thing."the book is a perfect archetype of the genre”
2. an original that has been imitated."the archetype of faith is Abraham"

When you hear the name of certain people…

• Einstein
• Robin Hood
• Bono
• Moses

…a series of ideas or concepts come to mind.  

You will often hear an archetype listed after an expression like, “He’s a real…”.  The uttering of a simple name can communicate a volume of information.  In the faith-based communities that I run in, biblical archetypes are often used.  For instance, I would say that my journey has transitioned from being a Paul to an Abraham to a David.  

Let’s look at each one of those in terms of a leadership profile:

• Paul - A legalist’s legalist.  He was all about whatever he was all about.  The same zealousness he persecuted Christians with, he applied to the way he proselytized the faith.  He is a get it done guy.  He could be clumsy with his conviction and intentionality and his “disruptive for good” posture often antagonized others and made enemies.  Boy can I relate to this guy in the first 15-20 years of my faith journey.
• Abraham - A patriarch of the faith and an iconic father figure.  A mentor, developer, and sage to those around him and under him.  As an unfathered son, I often referred to myself as an “inverse Abraham,” a son of many fathers.  The last 10-15 years of my faith journey has been a season of being powerfully fathered translating into becoming a mentor, father, and coach to many.
• David - Unfettered and free.  King.  Passionate leader.  A man who walked with such honesty, integrity, and proximity to his Father that he often found himself praising Him and cursing Him in the same verse.  Thanking Him for His presence and alternatively wondering aloud where the heck He is, has been part of the regular rhythm of my last few years. 

Intending transformation for leaders and the organizations (businesses, not-for-profits, family systems) they lead has been the most invigorating, fulfilling, but often frustrating thing I have ever done.  At times it is effortless and fully embodying God’s intention, impact, and favor.  Other times it seems that everyone, everything, and even the forces of hell are set against us.

They are.

As much as the deliverable of our faith was always intended to be restoration and transformation, the history of many of our organizations, the culture of our families, and even the experience of our faith journey, has been about everything but that.  That is no accident.  Everything the Father desires is specifically opposed.  And everything the Father ultimately intends, is ultimately opposed.

Bringing real honest-to-goodness change (transformation) to lives and organizations has been the most challenging and rewarding thing I have ever attempted.  And you will often find me both signing the praises and shaking my fist at the heavens.

But why would you spend your time, money, or
energy, doing anything else?

• Which archetype do my most identify with in this season of your life and career?
• Which one do you need a little more of?
• Are you tired of going through the motions and ready for the real work of being about real transformation?

Iconoclast

i·con·o·clast (īˈkänəˌklast/) noun

a person who attacks cherished beliefs or institutions.

synonyms: critic, skeptic; heretic, unbeliever, dissident, dissenter, infidel; rebel, renegade, mutineer

All of us initially came to faith as a child.  I happened to be a 19 year old child, but there was a childlike wonder, a sense of new discovery, and specter of endless possibilities… like a child.  For most of us, something happened along the way to “mature” faith.

I watched an interview between Eugene Peterson (writer of the Message version of the Bible) and Bono (ironically, Eugene had never heard of him or U2).  Despite their intellect, experience, and passion about how they feel called to live out their faith… 

Eugene interpreting the gospel for better understanding 

Bono interpreting the gospel for better lives of other humans 

…there was a common childlike innocence about them.  One believing that the scriptures should be interpreted in a way that all could easily receive and understand, the other believing that the life of Jesus is the foundational cornerstone for offering love and mercy to even the most disregarded of our fellow human beings.  They both carried a preciousness, a hope, and as a result, an uncommon joy.

“Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” ”

— Jesus

Jesus was constantly thumbing his nose at the religious elite.  The ones who had intellectualized their faith and interpreted it for power and personal gain.  He didn’t come to create classes of people, but put all of us in the right.  In this respect, Eugene and Bono are very much like Jesus.  They both desire to level the playing field… put everyone on similar footing.

““If death got the upper hand through one man’s wrongdoing, can you imagine the breathtaking recovery life makes, sovereign life, in those who grasp with both hands this wildly extravagant life-gift, this grand setting-everything-right, that the one man Jesus Christ provides?””

— Paul to the church in Rome

I can’t say that I agree with everything that Eugene and Bono stand for, but I pray that I can live more of my life as an iconoclast.  I pray that I will base my life more on the plumb line of Jesus life.  I pray that I will walk in even greater understanding of the particular and powerful role that Jesus intends for me to play in the larger story of the gospel.

I’ve used this wildly extravagant life-gift as personal gain to me… to separate, find advantage over, and intend an un-level playing field.  I’ve been the kind of person that I believe an iconoclast like Jesus would have brought to his knees.  I don’t want to be that kind of man, husband, father, leader, or citizen of the Kingdom, anymore.

I hope you will join me in that desire.  Everything we do is about that:

• Team Leadership - Leading of several verses the leading of one.
• Vision - A newly imagined future that is better than the one we know.
• Purpose - Our particular way to change the world.
• Values - Anchor us and keep us on the path to our true north.
• Strategic Plan - The integrity of accomplishing what has been inspired.
• Kingdom Leadership - Serving those we’ve been given stewardship over.

Let’s advance the Kingdom one leader and one organization at a time.

May Top 5 Reads

1) How You Can Encourage Your Employees to Lead
An important part of leadership is helping others step up into their leadership. Learn how you can encourage more people to be leaders.

2) The Insanely Simple Way To Prioritize Your Work And Life
You already have values. Your company already has values. And they're not what you've sticky-noted to your laptop.

3) How To Get (And Keep) Others Committed To Change
Leaders can't just dictate a new strategy and say, "Go!" They need to get a lot of people on board, then keep them there.

4) Supervising With Coaching Skills
Supervisors have authority over other people. Coaches have no authority and function only in non-directive ways. Great supervisors integrate coaching skills into their role.

5) What To Do During Your Employees’ First Week To Avoid Losing Them
More than 40% of turnover happens within the first month, which means it’s more important than ever to engage them from day one.

Unicorns

One of my partners likes to talk about the “shapes emerging from the fog.”  It is the expression he uses to describe how the real issue eventually emerges when you investigate and approach something thoughtfully from enough angles.  More often than not, the issue you think you need to solve is really obscuring the underlying true one.  If you don’t solve the right problem, you don’t find the right solution.

I was meeting with a client yesterday.  He said something I feel like I hear almost every day as a business coach.  The guy he has in the key position is not quite the guy he and the company wish he were.  He said that the right guy in that seat would solve a myriad of problems.  And then he said something more honest than I’ve heard almost any organizational leader say:

Me:   “So what is it exactly that you are looking for?”

Him:  “A unicorn… something that doesn’t actually exist.”

The realization that he had been waiting in frustration for something that didn’t really exist, opened up a whole new arena of possibilities:

• While he isn’t the mythical creature that can solve all of his problems, he can solve a few… really well.
• He could quit hoping that he would become something he couldn’t and start investing in him to becoming the best he could be while having the greatest impact to the team.
• He is hiring to complement the leader in the key position.  Essentially, he is beginning to create the unicorn in aggregate.

The reality is that no matter how long you wait on the edge of the fog for the mythical character to emerge, they never will.

There are no unicorns.

But for this young leader, what is emerging from the fog is something far grander than a unicorn.  There is now a growing team of leaders rising from the fog that are capable of accomplishing more in the aggregate than he ever dreamed the unicorn could.

The revolving door of a small business is a troubling sign.  It might be evidence of:

• Being quick to hire
• Unrealistic expectations
• Not setting a team member up for success
• A lack of training
• Not surrounding them with the right team

It also may reveal that they are looking for unicorns.

I often get the sense, talking to some business leaders;  that they believe there is someone just beyond the horizon that can do the jobs of everyone on the team better than the folks they currently have. That there is a magic pill, program, person, or thing, that will magically solve all their problems and make their dreams come true.  That unicorns exist.

Like in most things, the answers are already there.  They lie inside.  The key to coaching and great leadership, is crafting together the solutions that are already there… and help them emerge from the fog.

• Are you frustrated with many of the people that work for you?
• Do you often think there are better people who could fill all the key roles in your organization?
• How are you looking past the solutions right in front of you to the unicorns that don’t exist?

Striving

“Abraham was first named “father” and then became a father because he dared to trust God to do what only God could do: raise the dead to life, with a word, make something out of nothing. When everything was hopeless, Abraham believed anyway, deciding to live not on the basis of what he saw he couldn’t do but on what God said he would do.”

— Paul’s Letter to the Romans

We live in a performance culture.  The one who is thought of best is the one that accomplishes the most things.  Most of us spend a lot of time trying to earn the accolades of others because that is what our culture (and the Church) has taught us to do.  We no longer own our lives.  The paradox is that the way that most of us receive affirmation from the world, finds us bringing home mere scraps at the end of the day.  The people who love us most are getting the least.

How do you break the cycle that our own need for validation, the world’s expectations, our enemy’s whisper, and even the Church encourages?  When it comes to the spiritual life with God, there is really only one answer:

Stop striving.  Center ourselves in God.

I recently heard a sage talk about the way he does this.  The only thing he truly seems to strive for (even though he accomplishes an incredible amount in life and for the Kingdom) is to center himself daily in the Father.  He recommends the following as a daily ritual:  Go before God and ask these questions:

• What do you think of me as a man?
• What is your heart towards me?
• By what names do you know me?
• What do you think of my future?

Dare to ask God those questions.  Make a regular practice of doing so and recording the answers.  Then comes the most difficult part… believing what He says.  Few have heard because few dare to ask.  Even fewer choose to actually believe what they hear.

Abraham didn’t try to fulfill the improbable and ask God to bless him.  The Father identified him and called him to the impossible.  It had very little to do with Abraham’s striving.  Paul’s letter to the Romans also states, “We call Abraham “father” not because he got God’s attention by living like a saint, but because God made something out of Abraham when he was a nobody.”  Rather than trying to be somebody, he simply operated  out of the identity God gave him.

Maybe the first question we need to address before all the others is…

Father, will you show me how much you love me?

We all say that we believe the Father loves us, but in my experience, it seems like very few of us actually believe that to be true.  At least in terms of a functional reality.  If we really believed that were true, our lives would look very different.  It takes hearing and believing that the Father truly loves us before we can get comfortable asking the other questions above.

Dare to ask God deep questions.  Dare to believe what you hear.
Become who you were born to be.

• Are you weary and exhausted from striving?
• When is the last time you dared ask your heavenly Father the questions offered above?
• When will you commit to doing that?

Outsource

“When internal leaders outsourced the work, they made the mistake of outsourcing the leadership of the work as well.”

— Harvard Business Review

I have seen lots of lists of the things that a company should never outsource. The three that seem to show up the most often are:

• Creating culture
• Crafting vision
• Providing leadership

With the right people in the room and an articulated process led by trained facilitators, the essential boundaries of core values and mission statement can be drawn out from a leadership team to help define their culture. Mission statements and core values become the litmus test for hiring, firing, rewarding, and virtually every decision a company makes.

An inspired vision can be cast that both inspires and motivates a team to reach for more. This is not something an outsider can craft and design, but merely cultivate from the team.  A well defined vision (a clear picture of the future) provides the destination from where you can craft powerful strategic initiatives and action steps to make sure it is realized.  With our clients, we commit to work for as long as it takes to get them in a strong rhythm for execution of those plans and any other issues that incidentally occur.

But we’ve had to face a sobering reality.

• We can walk a company toward crazy clarity, but we can’t make them live there.

• We can define the clear boundaries of values and mission, but we can’t control their decision-making.

• We can define a process for articulating strategic initiatives and action steps. We can even offer to help assist the team in creating them, but we can’t actually write them.

• We can establish a meeting rhythm and even attend the meetings (which we do), but we can’t force them to meet.

At the end of the day, company leadership is going to make sure all this happens or not. It doesn’t matter how powerful, comprehensive, or well-defined the processes are, success will still be contingent on the endorsement and support of your leadership. That cannot be outsourced.

We’re humbled and overwhelmed by the success we’ve seen our clients find. To see a company move from...

Owner to team led
Lack of clarity to clear vision
Uncertainty to defined and articulated culture
“Tyranny of the urgent” to execution on key strategic initiatives
From discouragement to hope

...has been incredibly rewarding.

But we’re a coaching organization, not a consulting one. We don’t roll in with large teams in suits, with six and seven figure price tags. We provide the coaching and establish the tools for your ongoing success.

Our coaching imperative means that...

• We don’t catch fish for you, but teach you to fish.
• We work to develop independence, not dependence.
• Breed an ownership mindset among the entire leadership team.

But we can’t fulfill the role of leadership for someone else’s company. Only you can do that. Thankfully, except for the very rarest of exceptions, we get the appropriate support and endorsement from leadership, the team takes their appointed seats around the conference table, a regular meeting rhythm is developed, the strategic plans get executed, and they find a newly inspired future.

• Is your conference table full of leaders, life, and execution? (or is it as empty as the one pictured above)

• What would it look like if you offered the essential leadership to ensure success? 

Are you ready to...

• Establish a leadership team?

• Create a defining culture and craft an inspired vision?

• Determine strategic initiatives, action steps, and a meeting rhythm to make sure they are accomplished?

Rain

“I can’t wait to see what is going to grow as a result of all this rain.”

It’s raining.  It feels like it has been raining for weeks.  And it’s not only raining, there has been lighting strikes, hail, and all kinds of other issues related to so much rain in a short period of time.  For us in South Texas, rain is as infrequent as it is violent and overwhelming when it does come.  Frankly, I am ready for it to stop.

And the rain doesn’t seem to just be a meteorological event.  

It rains.  In our lives.  All the time.

At the end of the day it is not the “circumstance,” but the “perspective” that dictates our reality.  

Attitude is a choice.

I was taught that I was supposed to be joyful when I encountered various trials.  That I was supposed to operate with this sense of peace despite my circumstance.  I was pretty good at looking back and finding the good in most things that happened a long time ago… silver linings and all that… but I had a hard time finding joy or peace in the middle of the trial.  And some of that stuff from my past couldn’t possibly have had any good that came as a result.  Right?

But learning to focus on what might come as a result of the rain, instead of focusing on the rain itself, has been a real game changer.  I can’t say I always approach the rain that way, but when I do, it opens up a whole new arena of possibility and perspective.  Maybe more than anything else, it dramatically changes my attitude.

At our LifePlan retreats, we have people work their way back through their life story.  We capture both the good (which gives us incredible insight into the best life forward) and the bad (what have we learned along the way and how have we grown and changed as a result).  Like a child touching a hot stove, we’ve hopefully learned to not do some things again (and we likely carry some sort of scar to make sure we are reminded).

Re-filtering the most challenging circumstances of your life through a redemptive filter might be one of the most freeing things you will ever experience.  If you can look beyond the struggle to the redemptive perspective that is there, you go from victim to victor in almost every situation.  I can learn to not lament the rain, but actually get out there, splash around in it, and begin reaching forward to what lies just beyond all that water.

At a recent LifePlan retreat, a very thoughtful man told me he couldn’t possibly see any redemptive perspective on the tragedy of his father’s death as a young boy.  What could be more settling or disorienting than that?  But that man is one of the most present and intentional fathers that I know.  Out of that tragedy, he shaped his life to be the antithesis of not having a father who was present in his.

Something he felt victimized by his entire life, is being beautifully redeemed in the life he is living.  Nothing changed in that story except his perspective.  

I pray that we all have the courage and temerity of spirit to look beyond the rain.  May the promised redemption not be something we hope for later on in the way up yonder, but part of our everyday reality.

“I can’t wait to see what is going to grow as a result of all this rain.”

• How is it raining in your life right now?
• How does it make you feel?
• Do you have the courage to do something about it?

Architecture

ar·chi·tec·ture (ˈärkəˌtek(t)SHər/) noun

1. the art or practice of designing and constructing buildings.
2. the complex or carefully designed structure of something.

We’ve all heard the concept of the stage dad or mom.  That parent standing just off-stage, off the court, or even outside the classroom.  Their child’s success is somehow attributed to their success in life.  If the little “me” can somehow make it onto that team, make it into that college, or fit into that crowd, it somehow redeems the fact that I didn’t find the same success.

I think it can translate into repressed hopes, dreams, and desires of the heart as well.  For instance, I’ve always loved architecture.  Our favorite part of living in Chicago was the abundance of great architects and the things they created.  We took tours of their creations and tried to get our many visitors to do the same.

My boys slight interest in building prompted us to grow an almost unhealthy lego collection.  My daughter’s interest in architecture led to a professional drawing board, tools, and even software that would facilitate creating in that space.  No one made it into the architecture field (so far!), but the kids seem to have a strong sense of space, the eldest is involved in timber frame construction primarily with trees that have experienced oak wilt, and the three youngest are still working over the lego collection. 

My personal lone holdover is the exclusive use of a mechanical architecture pencils when I write.  I still carry Moleskine type journals and record almost every thing in .7mm pencil lead.  The heavy weight of the industrial feeling pencils and the need to periodically replace the lead and erasers, makes it feel almost holy to me.

Through our LifePlan process, we spend a lot of time excavating the story of people’s lives.  We monetize the clues found in the good times and fight to find the redemptive perspective from the bad.  Mining those fertile fields, mixing in the essential ingredients of passion, desire, gifting, ability, allows one to start conceiving a different picture of the future.  Often a more inspired future than ever thought possible.

The thing we’ve realized through our corporate coaching as well as our LifePlan work is that writing a more impactful and fulfilling future is a choice.  In both, it is the architecture behind everything that determines the future outcome.

• Is the foundation of the purpose statement clearly set?
• Are the guiding walls of core values solidly in place?
• Is an inspired and motivating future clearly seen by all?
• Does everyone see themselves in the blueprints, understand their roles, and know what part they play?

Writing a different narrative for your business, organization, or family is really that simple… but it is not easy.  Finding a life worth living is about the same.  If you want the next 10 years to look inspiringly different than the last, simply architect a different future and you will find it.  Let us know, we can help.

• How is continuing to do things the way you’ve always done them going to produce the life you always hoped for?
• How is the way you are currently leading your business, organization, or family, going to find the more inspired future you have always hoped for?
• Are you really ready to do something about it?  It really is simple, it is just not easy.

April Top 5 Reads

1) Why Successful People Spend 10 Hours a Week Just Thinking
Warren Buffett has spent 80% of his career thinking. Here's why.

2) The Three Habits Of The Most Trustworthy Person In Your Office
Stop worrying about whether other people trust you and start doing things that actually encourage them to.

3) You Have 9 Months Left in 2016. Here's How to Achieve Success This Year
Your calendar can be a powerful tool to help you reach new heights.

4) Why I'll Never Put My Company's Clients First
One marketing leader explains how companies shortchange their own employees by letting their clients drive the work they do.

5) Marketing: It's More about You than Your Customers
"We need more sales." At some point during the life of your business you've probably uttered these words. But with that being said, it’s the follow-up statement that really consumes us.

IKIGAI

Ikigai (生き甲斐, pronounced [ikiɡai])

A Japanese concept meaning "a reason for being."  Everyone, according to the Japanese, has an ikigai.  Finding it requires a deep and often lengthy search of self.  Such a search is regarded as being very important, since it is believed that discovery of one's ikigai brings satisfaction and meaning to life. 

Your ikigai is found at the intersection of…

• The things you love
• The things you are good at
• The things others will pay you to do
• What the world needs

It is at the crossroads of…

• Passion
• Profession
• Vocation
• Mission

In the simplest terms, it is your reason for being; the thing that gets you up in the morning.  There might be other nuances to this expression that don’t line up with my Christian ideology, but it seems to point toward the answer to the fundamental question that haunts all of us:

Why do I exist?

Scripture tells how we are uniquely created and wonderfully made.  C.S. Lewis points out that each one of us uniquely offers one particular aspect of the Divine that no one else can.  We are told that we are the crown of His creation and were placed here specifically to rule and subdue all that exists.  Clearly we are here for a particular reason.

“Don’t ask what the world needs, rather, ask what makes your heart come alive and go do that, because what the world needs is men whose hearts have come alive.”

— William H. Macy

If it is the “beautiful collision” of the world’s great need, your passion and desire, and the unique purpose of our creation (the way God’s glory will be most powerfully proclaimed), we shouldn’t be surprised by how opposed it seems:

• It is exhausting, exhilarating, draining, and invigorating, all at the same time.
• It sometimes seems incredibly difficult and yet you can’t imagine doing anything else with your life.
• It paradoxically is both the hardest and easiest thing to do.

We’ve also learned that clarity about your life leads to clarity for your families, organizations, and companies.  And elusive as it might seem, we know hundreds of people who are experiencing the clarity, momentum, and freedom of knowing who they are and why they exist.  

It doesn’t always work out this way, but we would always prefer that a business owner or senior leader go through the LifePlan process and be really clear about the purpose for their lives, before we start working with their teams.  

The organizations you lead and the roles you play there, should support and fulfill the purpose for your life, not the other way around.  More often than not, we see leaders completely unaware of their calling or purpose other than what their vocational role might dictate.

It is our contention that you are not only created for a particular purpose, but that your Creator desperately wants you to know what it is.  The clues are written on your heart, have been evident throughout your life, and are fully embodied in the things that bring you greatest joy, deepest pain, and get you out of bed in the morning.

• Are you ready to live with more momentum, power, and clarity?
• Are you ready to understand more about the role you were created to play?
• Spend some time looking into our LifePlan experience and follow the stirring of your heart about whether or not to attend.

Restoration

RESTORATION [res-tuh-rey-shuh n] noun.

1. the act of restoring; renewal, revival, or reestablishment.
2. the state or fact of being restored.
3. a return of something to a former, original, normal, or unimpaired condition.

We just went through the process of redoing our websites (Coaching & LifePlan) .  Current thinking is all about being simple, clear, clean, and succinct.  We are so overwhelmed with images, thoughts, and ideas, that we can barely focus.  The media assault on our senses continues to gain momentum and there seems to be very little escape.

One of the exercises we had to go through in route to simplifying our messaging, is the distillation of our purpose.  At the end of the day, what is the essence of what we are doing and what are we primarily about.  If we had to sum everything up into a single word, what would it be?

RESTORATION

It came quickly and is as pervasive as the blood running through our veins.  It is the foundation of everything we do.

For Your Company

Most entrepreneurs launched businesses because they wanted to experience the joy and freedom of doing things in the ways that were consistent with their ideas/beliefs, and provided the most freedom of movement.  They didn't start their businesses to find less freedom, operate in frustration, and have the business own them.

Solution:  By building a team, defining a future, and creating a plan to get there, you are restoring your businesses to its original intent.  Corporate Coaching

FOR YOUR LEADERSHIP

Many of us believed that leadership would be about charting vision, setting a course, inspiring a team, and directing the work of others.  For most of us, however, our experience as senior leaders feels more like working harder and longer than anyone else, having to constantly direct or hold the hands of our team members, and experiencing very little margin to think strategically or cast vision.  

Solution: By building a foundation of organizational health, creating an ownership mindset, and helping craft a transcendent vision for your company, you not only restore your leadership hopes, but ascend to an even bolder standard of stewardship.  Team Coaching

FOR YOUR LIFE

We all know that there must be more to this life than the one we are living.  It is that deepest question that we carry, but are almost afraid to ask:  Why do I exist?  The Christian tradition talks about how "all creation groans" in the anticipation of the restoration that is to come for each of us.  We were created to be whole, healed, and free.  And we were created for a purpose and to make a difference in the world in a way that is unique for each of us and points back to our Creator.  

Solution: By rekindling your passions and discovering your purpose, you take control of your life and restore it to the life you were always intended to live.  LifePlan

Restoration at every level is the cry of our hearts... for our life, our leadership, and our company.  Helping others find the restoration they most desire and were ultimately created for, is why we do what we do.

• Do you feel whole, fully alive, and free?
• Do you feel like you are leading or babysitting?
• Do you own your business or does your business own you?

March Top 5 Reads

1) 4 Ways You're Unknowingly Stressing Out Your Coworkers

It's one thing to offer help and another to actually be helpful.

2) You Might Be Confusing Trust With Transparency

"Trust is situational," one CEO explains. "Just because I trust you in one circumstance doesn’t mean I'll trust you in another."

3) How I've Learned To Cut Back On New Hires And Make More Promotions

Why not develop the leaders you need long before you need them?

4) The Secret to Spotting Trends in Your Business

So, how does trendspotting work for a business owner? It might surprise you the number of ways you’re doing this already every week, month after month. It shows up in the analysis of your metrics: Key Strategic Indicators, Key Performance Indicators, dashboards, etc. All of these tools ought to improve your ability to spot trends in the data. If they aren’t, chances are you’re not using them effectively.

5) 9 Surprisingly Simple Ways To Get People To Respond To Your Email

We get an average of 120 emails every day. Here's how to make your messages stand out and actually get a response.

Father

“It would have been better not to have known Him, than to have learned Him wrong.”

George MacDonald

The reality is that the first thing we understood about our true Father, came from how we knew our earthly one.  If God is the same “yesterday, today, and forever,” then the fact we all seem to know Him differently must point to the unique experience we have had with Him and our particular perspective of Him.  MacDonald and many others believe that how we knew our father (or other significant male role model in our early life) was the greatest determinant of that perspective.

There is obviously a little of a chicken-or-egg conundrum here.  How we know Him determines our experience with Him and vice versa.  But the unique way we “learned” Him and know Him seems to be less the particular issue that MacDonald is picking at here.  He is fundamentally addressing the fact that learning Him wrong is worse than not knowing Him at all.  Learned behaviors are hard to break, especially the ones that come to us earliest, when we are in the most formative stages of life and imprinting seems to run most deep.

I learned family wrong.

My childhood was so fragmented and my parents marriage so completely broken that I was left with no other choice than to seek out a completely new model for my life and marriage.  It was so obviously wrong that what I “learned” was that I would have to choose a completely different path.  I read every book I could get my hands on about what a healthy marriage and family should look like and sought out mentoring from the best examples I could find.  And yet, despite how wrong I knew my experience of family was and how fervently I wanted to write a different story with mine, some of those practices, beliefs, and ideas, still turned up in my marriage and parenting.  Imprinting from our childhood runs powerful and deep.

My father was a good and kind man, but he was not Jesus.

Turns out that the way we “learned” the Father not only affects the way we view Him and our relationship with Him, but also the posture we carry in our approach to life.  The “orphan spirit” we find in many senior leaders is closely aligned with the entrepreneurial spirit required for launching into life and uncertainty on their own.  One is the shadow effect of the other.  It can also affect our submission to authority and the way we wield our own authority.

We were created for reconciliation and restoration

The iconic final scene in the movie “Field of Dreams” so beautifully illustrates the reconnecting of a son with his father, that it has powerfully affected many men’s lives.  So many men, in fact, that Dwier Brown who played John Kinsella and is reunited with his son Ray (played by Kevin Costner) wrote a book about all the stories people told him.  The owners of that Iowa cornfield tell stories of men that show up on that baseball diamond alone, walk the field, and are sometimes even seen crying their eyes out on hands and knees.  That longing to be reconciled to the father is defining.

What we really desire is to be connected to our heavenly Father

A good friend of mine had a distant and absent father.  The lone exception to that experience was when the two of them were hunting.  For those few days a year on that lease, he had his undivided and complete attention.  It may not surprise you that as an adult man, it is at that same place where that man feels closest to and best able to hear from the Father.

Whenever he most needs to hear from the Father, you will find him, journal in hand on the tailgate of his truck, sitting just outside the hunting lease.  Expecting and finding Him there.

He knows the Father the way he “learned” the father.  It is the same for all of us.

How did you learn the Father?

Did you enjoy your father’s delight, approval, and attention?

Are you reaching beyond the example of your father to find your true one?

What is learning Him wrong costing you?

Incomplete

“Long before He laid down earth’s foundations, He had us in mind, had settled on us as the focus of his love, to be made whole and holy by his love.”

Paul (To the Church in Ephesus)

WHOLE + HOLY

It was always intended this way, from the very beginning.  His plan is that His love would make all of us complete through His love.  That obviously implies that we were incomplete.

As a leader who resides in the United States at this point in history, how does that word “incomplete” hit you?  There is something in me that recoils at the thought.  An author I love says that we are all “unfinished” men and women.  I feel a little better about that word, but nonetheless, both imply that there is something lacking.  How dare they?

I spent the first 20 years of my spiritual journey working my tail off to try to achieve the “holy” half of that equation.  I regularly listened to all the right radio stations, read all the right books, attended all the right bible studies, and fastidiously worked to keep the rising post-Christian culture out of my home and my mind.  The reality is that despite all the work and effort I was putting forth…

I was failing miserably.

I was not allowing His love and a deep understanding of my sonship to have its’ intended effect.  I was just aggressively working (applying every tip and technique I could find) to try to make my life appear more that way.  As a result, the veneer (the appearance) of my life, might have looked a lot more holy, but my frustration and disappointment was rising.  I felt no relief.  I was operating as an orphan, on my own, trying to make it all work.  Something didn’t feel quite right.  Do you know that feeling?

A dozen or so year’s ago, came the revelation that I wasn’t supposed to do this on my own.  Despite everything my life had taught me up to that point, I was not intended to do life as an orphan.  I needed to not only walk in close and deep fellowship with other men, but more importantly I needed to bask in the full weight of my sonship.

“…He predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with His pleasure and will...”

Walking with a band of men and developing a much deeper understanding of my Father’s desire and intentions for me, changed many things.  I am understanding a strength and nobility, as a son of a King, that makes the journey to holiness much more scalable.  I am not fully fearless, but I operate with a heck of a lot less fear.

But that is only half the equation…

The offer is so much greater than that.  We can not only find a life that is more holy in His love, but also enjoy an inheritance that carries the opportunity for healing… to be made “whole.”  This is a much newer category in my life, but each step into true restoration is so powerfully transformative that I wonder how I ever got any traction before.

We are the focus of His love… to be made whole and holy.

It was always intended this way, from the very beginning.

We were not meant to walk alone.  We need deep and authentic fellowship with others.

We are not orphans.  We are the sons and daughters of a King.

Our wounds (and all of us have taken a few shots in our lives so far from Eden) were meant to be healed.

How is the pursuit of holiness going for you?

Are you basking in the affirming strength of deep fellowship and understanding of your sonship?

How whole, finished, or complete do you feel?

Are you even aware enough of your pain or desire to do something about it?

Revolution

“Here’s to the crazy ones. The rebels. The troublemakers. The ones who see things differently. While some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do,”  

Apple “Think Differently” Ad Campaign

After a particularly intense conversation (maybe one of those campfire ones I am so fond of), a friend told me that I have the spiritual gift of disruption.  He went on to explain that it was “disruptive for good” and that he thought that was one of the necessary spiritual gifts modeled by Jesus that is woefully lacking today in the Church.  I just thought I was clumsy with people.

Like all the other gifts, when we try to practically exercise them, it can get a little messy.  I have long quit trying to be “disruptive” and now just know that it often means that I end up in very long conversations as a result… or very, very short ones.

The story goes that the introduction of the operating system, Windows 95, was completely destroying the small market share that Apple had gained up to that point.  In a fit of desperation (remember they had thrown him out some years back), they reestablish Steve Jobs at the helm of Apple in 1997.  With only 3 months cash in the bank and rapidly declining sales, they did what every team does when they are down to the remaining seconds ticking off the clock; they threw a hail mary.

In this case it was in the form of a revolutionary ad campaign.  With images of Einstein, Gandhi, MLK, JFK, etc., flashing the screen, the words quoted above were spoken.  It found an audience.  The first group of millennials were firmly into their teens and looking to make a break from the prior generations.  They either wanted to see change inherently or ad campaigns like this, popular during this season, shaped them this way.

Think Differently

It became the cry of a generation and an internal rallying cry for the kids at Apple.  Trying to compete with the Microsoft PC world on their terms had proved catastrophic.  A completely different path was required.  The journey they took from that point forward changed the way we integrate and use technology forever.

• 1998: iMac released – very consumer friendly desktop
• 2001: iPod – music has never been the same
• 2001: MAC OS X – PC users could switch to Apple much easier
• 2003: iTunes store, physical and on-line
• 2007: iPhone
• 2010: iPad

Their plan was to disrupt the status quo and change the world.  There is some argument to whether or not it has all been for good, but change the world they did.

The Bible is the most disruptive text ever cobbled together and the central protagonist of the new revelation penned there was the most revolutionary figure to ever walk the face of the earth.  Now, Jobs is no Christ figure and the other young leaders on the Apple team bear no resemblance to the early disciples, but they both illustrate something vitally important:

Change requires different thinking.

Revolutionary change requires radically different living.

Revolutionaries of every generation have typically been embraced by a few and ostracized by the multitude, before the traction was finally found.  Revolution is not for the meek or the timid.  If we want to change the direction of our culture it is going to take more than minor course directions.

At this point, we need more than minor shifts… we need tectonic ones.

Does your life make anyone uncomfortable?

What does following the example of the Revolutionary we are called to follow look like in your life?

What is the next bold step you need to make in that direction?