A Conscious Mission

Happy Friday Friends!

I hope and trust this post finds you all having a great day!

This morning I want to share with you excerpts from two separate articles I have read over the course of the past couple of weeks. I trust there is knowledge & wisdom you can glean from them both.

The first excerpts I would like to share are from an article titled How To Become A Conscious Leader by Jim Dethmer.

Move from drifting to committing.

• Conscious leadership is not accidental. It is intentional.
• We commit and then we drift away from our commitment.
• The pattern of life and conscious leadership is commit and drift-shift. Shifting is the act of recommitting.
• Are you committed to being a conscious leader?
• What is one concrete evidence that proves your commitment?

Move from blaming to claiming.

• ...conscious leaders claim responsibility by taking it.
• Conscious leaders understand that responsibility is not something that can be assigned. It can only be taken.
• Choosing responsibility means asking, "How have I created or contributed to this?" and not "Who did it?" Conscious leaders understand that there is tremendous power in claiming responsibility and no power in looking to the past to find fault.
• When conscious leaders ask, "How have I created this?" they are asking from curiosity and wonder. They assume that whatever is happening is for their and their organization's learning.
• ...conscious leaders want to determine exactly how they did. They see that they contributed by what they did or didn't do, by what they said or didn't say and by how they were being or not being as a leader. They lead their organizations by being the first to step into any situation with the words, "I'M RESPONSIBLE" and, "Here is what I'm learning."

Move from being right to being curious

• In order to be curious one has to be secure. Conscious leaders don't need constant outside validation to prove that they are valuable, in control or safe. Because of this deep security, they lead with childlike wonder and curiosity. Like a child they look at all situations with fresh eyes, and in doing so, they see things about people and situations that leaders who are attached to proving their rightness never see.
• If you fight to be right you get to be right, but you don't get to be happy or connected to people or creative or experiencing life in a new and expansive way. Conscious leaders move over and over again from wanting to be right to being deeply curious.

The next article is titled A Mission For Men and it was written by Richard Norris.

• Not every man has a mission to go to the Moon, but every man does have a mission to fulfill here on Earth. No matter the mission, it will not be easy, but it will be worth it. It's significance is determined by the people it serves.
• ...we each have our own mission to live out and fulfill. As per the Oxford Dictionary, a mission by definition is a strongly felt aim, ambition or calling. It's the vocation or calling to go out into the world and spread a particular message or faith. As I understand it, it is the cause for which we were born. Our life will only truly be fulfilling when we live out our purpose and fulfill our specific mission.
• ...your mission will require lifelong commitment and sacrifice. A mission is never easy, but always worthwhile. Once you know your mission it captures your heart. It will keep you inspired and motivated.
• ...a life mission takes a lifetime.
• A mission is much bigger than the person to whom it is entrusted. It will rely on many others directly and indirectly to support it to its very end. Yet, your mission is yours. No one else's. Your mission will be the most important thing that you do.
• God has created each of us with our mission in mind. He has equipped you with a unique set of gifts, talents and abilities we will need to live out our mission.
• Your mission enables you to live on the edge of what's possible and impossible.
• ...you are called to be a champion for all that is good and right:

You are called to do good - to live, lead and serve with integrity.

You are to seek justice for those enduring injustice.

You are called to stand up for the oppressed and deliver them from those who would use and exploit them.

You are to take up the cause of the fatherless to protect and fight for them. Every child needs security and a strong father figure in their life to lead by example.

 

Please don't hesitate to contact me if there is ever anything I can do for you or your families. I will always be willing to help you any way I can.

 

Have a great day, a wonderful weekend and please cherish your precious families.

 

Kev

The Tough Stuff

Happy Friday Friends!

I hope & trust this post finds you all having a great day on this beautiful Friday morning!

This morning I come to you with a full heart. It is such an honor, responsibility & privilege to be a husband & Dad, to understand and tirelessly pursue my life purpose & passion. It was in fulfilling my duty as a Dad that this weeks Happy Friday was born.

My oldest son Payton is 18-years old, soon to be 19. This means we have traversed the landscape from baby to toddler to adolescent to young man to...man. Yes, he has become a man. A couple of things here real quick:

1. To all of you with kids who are not yet men or women - yes, it really does go fast. I know people tell you this all the time however nothing can prepare you for how quickly the time really goes. I once heard it said that when we are raising children the hours are long and the days are short. This is so true. My simple advice on this one is, to the very best of your ability, live in and enjoy each and every moment. Oh I get it, trust me. There are days that are tough with all the challenges & struggles. From experience I will tell, they are fleeting. Before you know it you can stay at work a little longer if you want because there is no game to run to, no parent-teacher conference to attend. Pretty soon you can sleep in, go golf or do whatever you want to do because they now have friends they want to be with or they want to sleep in. We will never get the moments back so we would be very, very wise to live in the moment.

2. I have had several talks with friends who have kids Payton's age who are trying to navigate the leadership, guidance & protection part as we slowly release them to be their own men & women. So here is my two cents on this whole thing. I do believe that God will hold us, as fathers in particular, to how we have lead, guided & protected our families. They, our families, have been given to us as a gift. The ultimate example of the leadership we are to provide, I believe, is the servant leadership Jesus demonstrated to/for us. I believe I have the honor, privilege & responsibility to serve my wife & sons. It is not their responsibility to serve me but mine to serve them. I once heard it described as the relationship of the sun to the earth. The sun pours itself out continually to benefit the earth, expecting nothing in return. Speaking of our kids in particular, we lead, guide & protect. We teach them the things we believe, the values we hold true. We establish rules & parameters...to keep them safe, to help them grow. There then comes a time - as they progress on that great continuum from infant to adult - where we have to let them go and allow them to make their own decisions. You see, we will be held accountable for what we have or have not taught them however we are not held accountable for what they choose to accept & do. This, I think, is the great challenge, the link in the chain that causes so much hurt, heartache, frustration, etc. If God is a God of free will who in the heck do I or you think we are that we can/should make our kids do what we want when they become adults. I think at the point my baby boy becomes a man I am stepping outside God's covering & protection if I make/or try to make his decisions for him. I will certainly give him advice - when he asks - and I will do anything I can to help him however it is now he that will be responsible to God for the things he says & does. Just something for you to think about.

So Payton has made a couple of decisions, done some things, that I wouldn't have chosen for him however he chose them for himself. I thought long and hard about how to respond to these things. I prayed. My spirit was convicted that I needed to speak with him however I wanted to make sure the message wasn't about me, what I thought, what I wanted. It was my desire to get out of the way and allow God to use this time as He wanted. I prayed. While I was on my business trip to Seattle last week I was working out one morning and like walking into a pitch black room and flipping on the light, the message was clear to me. We were busy doing family stuff all day Saturday and we did not have time to talk. On Sunday I tried to talk with Payton however he was busy doing different things. I didn't want to force it. We watched the Super Bowl - Go Pats! - and then went to bed. Monday I waited until everyone went to bed and then I asked Payton if I could talk to him.

In honoring my son I am not going to give you the details - I don't think they really matter as to the point anyways. Here was my talk:

• I know these things that have happened.
• In one case, I was really disappointed. As I prayed about what had happened I realized that every day of your life I have intentionally committed you to God. While everything had not worked out as I wanted, would have hoped, it is quite clear that God was in fact leading your life. I praise God and I am proud of you son.
• In the other case, I told him I understand. I am not here to judge you. We are all trying to figure out life, I love you with all of my heart and as long as God allows me to walk this earth I will help you any way I can.
• And then probably the most important point of all, judging by how my heart felt & by the look on Payton's face, I told him I loved him unconditionally, that I want to have a relationship with him and that I will fight for us - our relationship - until the day I die.

As I have reflected on that talk there are two things that have really stood out to me that I want to share with you:
1. I want to encourage you to have the tough talks with your spouses, sons/daughters, friends, co-workers...anyone you genuinely care about and want to have a meaningful relationship with.  It is in the tough times that growth occurs. We, as humans, are funny. We do everything in our power to make things as easy as possible however this is not where growth occurs. I can lift weights and do some super easy weight so it doesn't hurt or isn't uncomfortable however I will not get stronger this way. It is the same way with our relationships...and every aspect of life for that matter. The key in having the tough talks though is the focus. My sole focus during my conversation with Payton was our relationship. It wasn't about being right - in fact I told him several times I don't have all the answers - or shaming him - I told him I am not here to judge him and I also told him not to hold himself to my standards...they may be too low, too high & I told him he doesn't want to do all the really, really stupid stuff I did to get to the point I am at today. No, the focus was on my heart & his heart and making sure they were aligned.

2. If there is someone in your life that you genuinely care about and want to have a meaningful relationship with I want to encourage you to tell them that you love them unconditionally, that you are committed to them for a lifetime and that you will never stop fighting for your relationship with them. If you truly mean it, neither you nor the person will ever forget that moment. It doesn't mean there won't be struggles, challenges & messes. It simply declares your intentions...it is one heart reaching out to another.

Please don't hesitate to contact me if there is ever anything I can do for your or your family. I will always help you any way I can.

Have a great day, a wonderful weekend & please cherish your precious families.

Kev

Encouragement

Happy Friday Friends!

I hope and trust this post finds you all having a great day on this beautiful Super Bowl Sunday! A little more than 1 1/2 hours to kick off...let's see if we can get this Happy Friday hammered out.

I was in Seattle all last week - talk about a city, a state, supporting a team!! Everywhere you look you see "12." It was so awesome, so beautiful, driving from Yakima to Seattle late on Thursday night. Driving across Interstate 90, fog and low hanging clouds, it is completely dark outside. Then all of the sudden, way up on the side of the mountain, beautifully illuminated...12. Now that has nothing to do with this Happy Friday however it was truly a beautiful sight and I just had to share it with ya'll. :) Oh, and by the way, I am a huge Patriots fan...something I only revealed twice all of last week! :)

O.K., back on point, something happened, I honestly don't recall what it was, early last week and it made me think about "encouragement." Many times throughout the week I thought about encouragement, our - all of us - need for encouragement, our opportunity to encourage others, etc. This, encouragement, is what I want to talk about today.

When I Google the word encouragement it says, "the action of giving someone support, confidence, or hope."

Let's break that down:
Action - Dictionary.com defines action as "something done or performed; act; deed."
We can think, feel or say whatever we want...it is the actions that we take that speak to the hearts of others. We have to go from thinking, feeling and saying to actually doing Friends. Without action we fail to encourage others. Let us be men & women of great action!

Giving - Dictionary.com defines giving as "to present voluntarily and without expecting compensation; bestow"
Love this definition! To voluntarily, for no reason other than your heart speaking to you, do something while expecting nothing in return...nothing! Feel the weight of that Friends, feel the weight!! Will you, will I, on our own accord pour into the lives of another without expecting anything in return?

Support - Dictionary.com defines support as "to sustain under trial or affliction; to maintain by supplying with things necessary to existence; to provide for"
There are really two different components here:
- To sustain under trial or affliction - Every one of us has been there and will most likely be there again. I bet anything you remember the person, the people, that were there for you, that helped you get through it. We ALL have seasons where we need someone we can lean against, when we are tired & weary, when we need someone to help us just a little bit. Will you, will I, be that person to someone?
- Maintain by supplying with things necessary to existence; to provide for - We always think about the big, grandeous things...how about the small, day to day, matters? To see someone that is not in a trial or affliction but is just chugging along, doing the very best they can each and every day...will we lend support to that person? Perhaps if we looked outside ourselves just a little bit and supported others in this manner we wouldn't have such the crisis' of trial & affliction. Just a thought.

Confidence - Dictionary.com defines confidence as "full trust, belief in the powers, trustworthiness, or reliability of a person or thing"
Have you ever looked someone in the eye and pure-heartedly said, "I believe in you"? If you have, you know the look that comes across their face...it is truly priceless. If you haven't, I would encourage you to look for opportunities to pure-heartedly tell someone...you won't regret it. And please don't forget how this whole thing started...by taking action. When possible act out the confidence you have in another...show them.

Hope - Dictionary.com defines hope as "the feeling that what is wanted can be had or that events will turn out for the best"
Without hope, what is left? It is pretty bleak. Sometimes we get beat down & worn down, we are tired & weary. Sometimes we are so deep in the thickness of life that we can't see the light at the end of the tunnel. A word of hope spoken into the heart & soul of another can not only change the trajectory of that persons life but can literally reverberate for generations to come. Yes Friends, hope is really that big of a deal.

I now want to share a few quotes about encouragement before wrapping this up:

"Our chief want is someone who will inspire us to be what we know we could be." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Will you, will I, be that person? Will we help someone see what they could become?

 

"Treat a man as he is and he will remain as he is. Treat a man as he can and should be and he will become as he can and should be." - Stephen R. Covey

How do we treat people - as they are or as they could be?

 

"Encouragement requires empathy and seeing the world from your spouse's perspective. We must first learn what is important to our spouse. Only then can we give encouragement. With verbal encouragement, we are trying to communicate, "I know. I care. I am with you. How can I help?" We are trying to show that we believe in him and in his abilities. We are giving credit and praise." - Gary Chapman

Love this quote. The one thing I would say is we could take out the word "spouse" and put "son", "daughter", "friend", "coworker", "colleague", etc. Read it that way with whoever is on your heart...

 

"Encourage yourself, believe in yourself, and love yourself. Never doubt who you are." - Stephanie Lahart

So powerful, so true! Encourage yourself. You cannot give what you do not have. To encourage others you have to be encouraged. Be the best you that you can be Friend - and please believe in & love the amazing you that God created!

 

"...You can do something extraordinary, and something that a lot of people can't do. And if you have the opportunity to work on your gifts, it seems like a crime not to." - Morgan Matson

Yes, you...

Encouragement...we all want & need it. I want to challenge (yes, I typed encourage at first and then changed it! :) ) each of us to intentionally be encouragers this week. Please start in your own home and then work out to your areas of influence.

Please don't hesitate to contact me if there is ever anything I can do for you or your families. I will always be willing to help you any way I can.

Have a great day, enjoy the Patriots win and cherish your precious families!

Kev