Something to Say About Leadership…It’s all about perspective

A great lesson I’ve learned over the years is all people see life through certain filters, or lenses. Our lives are truly a vision of the perspectives we have. Many people can’t seem to get ahead in life, because they see themselves as a victim, so they view life from that perspective. Everything that happens, every relationship, every opportunity, every rejection to them is about the fact that everyone is against them, they are doing their best and people are just keeping them down. It’s amazing what a little perspective change can do. Simply shifting the “way” we see things, can have a profound effect on our lives.

I believe there’s a cycle here. The cycle works this way. We have certain perspectives, view points (the point from which we see things). Our perspectives effect our view, which effects our thoughts. Our thoughts effect our actions. Our actions solicit responses, and those responses bring reinforcement to our perspectives.

Let me give you an example. If a person thinks that others don’t like them, then when they go to pubic gatherings, they are usually reserved, shy, disconnected. This action sends out a vibe that says don’t approach me, so people in response stay back, and this reinforces in that persons mind, “see, I knew people didn’t like me, I should have just stayed home.” Is there truth to this, no. There is no evidence that people don’t like them. They are just stuck in the cycle of fear of rejection, because they have a perspective, for whatever reason that they are not liked. Maybe it was a rejection by a parent, maybe it was betrayal by a friend in their youth. Who knows, but their perspective has them trapped.

On the other hand if you have a person who thinks everyone likes them, their actions speak of confidence and openness, the response is people are drawn to them, and it reinforces their thought, “see, I knew it, every one likes me.”

In either of these situations the fact that people do or don’t like them, doesn’t matter, what matters is their perspective. Because they will behave in ways directed by the way they see things, and their behavior will evoke a response, and the response will reinforce their perspective.

You can see how important perspective is. How do you see your life? What are the filters you see through? What perspectives need to change or even be done away with? If we’re going to lead, then we need to make sure our perspectives are not driven by insecurity. We can’t see the world through fear, and expect to be successful leaders.

There are two places this cycle can be broken. One is in a person changing their perspective, another is in people responding in love to a person regardless of their actions, which can break the cycle and give them a new perspective. Both of these are acts of leadership, and both of these take massive amounts of courage and security. We can do it!

What are perspective shifts you’ve had? How did they effect your life?

Next blog, we will talk about the next step towards security.

thanks
David

Something to Say About Leadership…What is Insecurity?

In life we hear the word insecurity often. We use this word to describe people who lack confidence, people who wear their emotions on their sleeves, and people who are enamored with the idea of pleasing other people.

What is insecurity really? The dictionary defines it as an unsafe feeling. A state of mind characterized by self-doubt and vulnerability. So insecurity is a feeling of not being secure. It is a feeling of being a target for hurt or harm, when you get right down to it insecurity in its true meaning is just plane fear, the fear that we are not safe.

We’ve thought of insecurity as an overly emotional state, immaturity, and a lack of confidence. All these things characterize insecurity. They also Characterize fear. Insecurity simply means I’m afraid I’m going to be rejected. It means I’m afraid I’m going to fail. It means I’m afraid I’m going to hurt. It means I’m afraid to risk. It means I just don’t feel safe.

We can all see how this can sabotage a leader. This type of thinking paralyzes a leader. Keeps them from moving forward. Keeps their focus on their performance not the vision. What we need to do however is remove the mystery from the word insecurity and just call it what it is, Fear. Say it after me. “I am afraid.” We all go through this at different times. It’s what we do in those times that matters. Will we see insecurity for what it is and eliminate it, or will we see it as a small weakness and let it stay. It’s fear, and if you are a leader fear is your mortal enemy!

Fear is the enemy of the leader. That’s the way we should look at it. We need to listen and believe the bible. Romans 8:15 says, “we have not been given the spirit of bondage again to fear, but the spirit of adoption whereby we cry abba father. It says in Timothy, “God has not given us the spirit of fear, but of love, of power, and of a sound mind. So Fear does the transverse of this passage. It eliminates love, makes us feel weak, and paints us into a corner of confusion. Fear is an enemy to the leader.

We need to understand the power Insecurity and fear can have if we allow it in our lives. What does it cause? If I fear people’s opinions than I can’t lead with a clear vision, If I fear taking a risk, or failing, then I will stick with the status quo. If I fear rejection from people I will be obsessed with my performance and never feel like I’m good enough. It really is a killer of leadership. We must force it out of our lives.

I taught our staff today, on the idea that leading progress requires courage. Its possible to lead and not be moving forward, Moses did it for 40 years in the wilderness. It took courage for Joshua to get it moving forward. God told Joshua in the book of Joshua chapter one, to “be strong and of good courage and not to be afraid” four times. He was getting the point across to Joshua that it was going to take courage to lead to the fulfillment of the dream, to do the right things, to stand against fear itself, and bottom line it takes courage to lead people. It requires us to do the uncomfortable, to confront, and to influence others.

When I was starting out, I wanted everyone to like me. I thought that was leadership. It made me second-guess my communication. I wondered constantly if I was measuring up. It caused me to compete with others in my own mind, and to compare myself with others. I was afraid I would be rejected or I wouldn’t succeed. It wasn’t until I realized leadership is a “stand alone” place much of the time and It takes courage to help people. You can’t help people if you are constantly seeking their approval, because then it’s all about you and not them.

There are ways to defeat this fear. There are perspectives we must have, and perspectives we must change to defeat this enemy. It can be done.

Next blog I will talk about the first way to overcome insecurity, and how our perspectives can create either a vicious cycle of fear, or a victories cycle of confidence.

Hope this is helping you. Please comment on fears you have faced in leadership and how you have overcome them.

-David

Something to say about Leadership

Over 20 years ago I began my journey as a leader. My Journey if far from over. I still have much to learn, and haven’t begin to tap into the true potential that could be realized in my life. I wish I could say that I have reached some sort of pinnacle, but what I have found to be true at the age of forty, is that those who think they have reached the top, really haven’t, but have left themselves no where to go but down.

True, effective leaders are always growing, and developing themselves, and everyone around them. A true leader gives the benefit of their growth to those following them.

I am going to attempt over the next few weeks to blog each day on an issue of leadership. Over the last two decades I’ve read many books, I’ve attended many conferences. I have had the privilege of setting under the ministry of some of the greatest leaders out there and had the opportunity to meet them and set and listen to them.

Over this time I have gleaned enormous amounts of resource, but to be honest this is not where I’ve received most of my leadership “education.” In those settings I learned principles, and leadership thoughts, but it has been in the everyday activities of leading alongside the leaders over me, beside me, and those following me, where I have learned the most. Not because they knew more than the experts, but because we were putting into practice those things we learned.

In this series of blogs I am not going to try to tell you all the principles of leadership that will work for you. I am going share with you experiences in my own life, and in the lives of leaders I’ve watched rise, and fall.

There are things that kill Leadership. Enemies of leadership. Most of them are not external. They are not an enemy from without, but an enemy from within. Pretense, Fear, Jealousy, competition, envy, pride and Greed. All of these, everyone of them, can be summed up in one word, “INSECURITY.” In my mind the greatest Killer of leaders and our influence. Insecurity is sneaky, its often hidden, its always revealed under pressure, and ultimately it will choke the life of leadership out of any leader who doesn’t remove it.

As I write these next few blogs, I hope it will reveal places of insecurity in us and help us to understand there is a way to overcome it. Our leadership can thrive! Our Potential can be realized! We can be Secure, confident, happy, and content, and at the same time very influential.

stay tuned….

Does anybody Care?

I have a great life! I get to meet a lot of people, from different backgrounds, in diverse settings, and issues on different levels. Just for the record, everyone deals with “stuff.” Everyone. Everyone in this life has ups and downs. Many victories and many travesties, and sometimes they come right on the heals of each other.

The one thing I know that “life” is not prejudice. It does not prejudge in any way. Everyone goes through it. By the way there is only one option if you don’t want to go through it. I think that life is what you make it, our perspective has a lot to do with our survival. Whether dealing with good or bad times, we can choose to be positive.

I think one problem we have, is when we get down, we can’t see anyone else. Its like, all of a sudden our life is locked in to a long stare in the mirror, and we don’t like what we see. I was watching “extreme home makeover” the other day, I love it. I love seeing people do good things for other people. There was a young man on it named Patrick Henry Hughes. He was born without eyes, and without the ability to straighten his limbs. He is now nineteen and quite an inspiration. He is a great musician! I can’t do his story justice by any mean, he is so inspirational! He has a book out, I’m going to get it. I can’t Imagine how so many of us have such minor issues compared to him, and yet he and his dad worked together to keep him moving forward, and we can find every excuse to slow to almost a stop.

When we are down and in that stare down with ourselves we can’t see anyone else, so the question arises, does anyone care? The answer of course, is yes! Absolutely yes! Someone does care. First and foremost God cares. The bible says in 2 Peter, that we should cast our care on Him because He cares for us. Others care. I bet we would be surprised how many other people care, if we would just let them in, if we, when we’re hurt would let down our guard and quit sending the message that we don’t want to be bothered.

I’ve had several wake up calls in my life. I call them that, because they are I was asleep to, until someone woke me up. Issues like human trafficking, foster kids, HIV/aides, orphans, starving people around the globe. When I first wake up to an issue, i always get zealous, then I see the need, it seems overwhelming, then I decide what i can do to help, then I go about doing it. In this process there is always a temptation to say, why doesn’t anyone care? Where are all the people that should be doing something about this? However, invariably I find out as i continue my quest to help, there are a lot of people out there caring. Some of them have different motives than others, but what I can say is Somebody does care.

Yes, more should care, and its up to us to get more people informed and involved, but lets not curse the baby as we are throwing the bath water out. I encourage you if your down, realize no one can read your mind. Ask yourself, “is my attitude a sign on my forehead that says, stay away from me?”

Ask for help. Ask someone to get involved. Tell someone close to you, that you need them, because I tell you with certainty, someone does care. Don’t give up, don’t quit, someone does care. If you can’t do anything but cry out to God and ask him to send someone to you, He will. He cares.

Someone Who Cares
David

Last Night…

Well the trip has come to a close. I can honestly say we have done all that we could to help the people of Cambodia on this short trip. We have laid a good foundation for future work and have further developed relationships with teams. I love my life, getting to share Jesus with people who so desperately need Him, and get to help people who have need.

Ended the night tonight with a debrief meeting with the team. We do this because I want to talk to them about returning to the states and re acclimating to the culture at home and not allowing reverse culture shock to set in.

We allowed everyone to share important moments to them, and to talk about how the trip made them feel and how they felt about the help we provided. As always it was a great meeting and good for perspective. This team was remarkable. They are resilient, flexible, positive, team players, great attitudes, a real joy to lead.

I am sorry that I haven’t been able to get up as many blogs as I would have liked due to poor internet connection and in some cases none at all, there will be more video and written blogs to come when I get home. Here are some things that the team said.

Some said they sensed the real responsibility to carry the vision of bringing justice to the world because of what they have seen. They vowed I will not forget.

Some said they were impressed by the leaders here and that there is hope because of the all out commitment to Christ that they have. They said that one leader told them that all the things we have done are such an encouragement because it makes them know that they are not forgotten and they don’t feel like the are in this all alone.

One said she was just so thankful for being able to come on the trip and sees it as a destiny move for her. God has opened her eyes to the need around her.

Others said, the have a revelation how simple it is to meet need if you just have a mind to do it.

One said it is so powerful how much compassion God has and how he provides for the orphans through Christians and the church. She said I have seen God use teams here and our team to provide the needs of widows and orphans, she sees how God works and what the church is really all about.

One said “I have never seen anything like the things we have encountered on this trip and it opens your eyes to our responsibility to use our blessings wisely and to be grateful for what we have been given.

Others comment were things like, “I have more compassion,” also “I see Hope.”

There was much more and these are just a few paraphrased comments. Truth is the experience is life changing, for us and the people we are helping. I’m glad God lets us be a part of helping others. Its awesome.

David

We can do something…

In the last blog I gave some thoughts and statistics that are really staggering, heartbreaking, and shocking.  Several people responded and most said what most say.  They were outraged, irritated, and frustrated, then went on to say, someone has to do something.  What can we do?

A few years ago, when I became aware of the sex trade, and the unyielding problems that come with hiv/aids internationally the effects of war, and poverty, and the lack in underdeveloped nations, it profoundly effected me.  I always knew about these problems, but you can know, and not really “know.”  I knew mentally, but had never seen it for myself, and I have to say its way to easy for us as Americans to bury our head in the sand and just deny what goes on around the world, and even in the impoverished areas of our own nation.  People think if they just ignore it, it doesn’t exist, but when i took my first trip to Cambodia there was no denying the travesty that exists, and no ignoring the roaring voice in my mind that yelled, “DO SOMETHING ABOUT THIS!”

My mind realed, i was thinking about all the problems.  starvation, poverty, disease, war, children being orphaned, the sex trade, and so much more, and for a moment i just became overwhelmed.  I was thinking, this is horrible but what can I do?  I mean, really what can I do?  Then I adopted a new thought.  “I can’t do everything, but  I can do something, but what I will never do, is nothing!”

So we have been doing something.  You can read in previous blogs some of the things we are doing, and in future blogs what we are going to do, but I want to give you some thoughts, on how to do something.

Whether local, regional, national, or global you can do something.

1.  make up your mind you will do something. Something, meaning anything that you have the power to do.  Many people do nothing because they think if they can’t do something huge it wont make a difference.  The truth is most of what is making a difference in the world today are things that started by someone saying, i will do what i can, and just grew from there.

2.  Wake yourself up, and those around you up to the need, and take responsibility for it. If everyone is thinking someone else will do it, then no one will.  It takes all of us doing what we can, when we can, where we can, to effect a change.

3.  Brainstorm what you can do. Don’t think that the answer to everything is merely money.  We have lots of resources that are based on talents, and time, and not just treasure.  Yes it takes money but you can do things that make a difference that don’t cost a lot.  Its at least a place to start, and remember our resources go a lot further in the third world than they do here.

4.  Become a partner. Nothing significant will ever be done on any level without partners.  We need each other.  Others need you and you need them.  We all bring something different and good to the table, and working together gets more done than trying everything on our own.  We are developing partners all over the world.

5.  Make people aware. I used to think awareness efforts were a waste of time.  I would say, people need to quit talking and start doing something about it.  Then I realized that with our ability to ignore things awareness is very important.  To do what we do we need financial partners and we have learned that people are motivated by getting a revelation of what is really happening, rather then us just saying we need help.  People need to know that little girls and boys are being sold and bought for sexual perversion.  People need to know that people have no medical care, or no education, or no hope because of corruption or poverty.    When we make people aware it incites a riot on the inside of them, it turns their world upside down and demands action.

6.  Don’t get frustrated when people aren’t as motivated as you about these needs. It takes time and your frustration will only negatively effect you and put an edge on you that will repel people not attract them to help you.

So those are some things I think about.  Just remember you can do something.  So do it.

David

Press

I love Paul’s words in Philippians 4:13, I press toward the prize of the high calling in Christ Jesus. He said I forget the past. I look forward to the future. I press.

To succeed in life we must learn to press. I can’t stand mediocrity. I dislike it very much when people do things half way. Especially Christians, I think we as Christians need to leave the world a strong message.

Paul Said, I forget the past. We must learn to walk in Gods grace, and quit pilfering through the past. Whether good or bad, our past can paralyze us because its easy to get stuck there.

Paul said, I look forward to the prize of the high calling. Two words that denote great value. Prize, and High Calling. We should see the things of God, the dreams, and goals, and passions He places in us should be seen as a prize as a high thing. Something of great value.

He said I look forward. People who are mediocre or do things half way are people who are wallowing in the past or can only see what is right in front of them.

Remember to reach the prominence of purpose, you must press. You can’t go at it half way. It must be apprehended. It must be pursued, it must look in the face of obstacles and pressed through.

Sometimes when we are in the middle of change, or involved in lots of areas of ministry, we just look at each other and go wow, we have a lot to do, isn’t it awesome! Then we just press until its done, and done well.

value the press, and press for the value.

David

harvest summer so far…

WOW! we are having a great summer so far. The ministry and outreach that has happened sense June at harvest is incredible. I am so thankful that God has challenged us to reach out, and count it an honor to serve God in this way. GFC, impacted many ladies lives from around the region, our Rwanda trip, became more than we ever hoped, Royal family Kids camp was phenomenal and Kids camp was off the charts. We have now completed our first week of Youth America Camp.

As I stood by the stage last night and watched as our young adult staffers prayed for the young people. I felt such pride, such passion, excited that we have a church that promotes, embraces, and empowers the next generation. Janae and I stood in that room watching as our young adults rose to the occasion in their worship, and passion for God, and for the church. We have so much to be thankful for, but the one thing today, I am thankful for is that my girls are growing up in a culture that lets young people see, there is room in the church for them, and the future of the church is in their hands.

The recording was powerful. We truly captured a night with God! Its been a great summer.

I love summers at harvest. Stay tuned, two more weeks of Camp and then we leave for Cambodia. Can’t wait.

David

Independence day…

My encouragement to all on this wonderful celebration of the Independence of the Untied states of America. Is to remember where we came from. Remember what are true roots are. Read for yourselves the history of the men and women who founded this country. Read their very own words. Not words taken out of context to influence history. This Country was clearly founded on the Bible and Christianity. The founders themselves said so. So as we celebrate our Nation, find yourself at church on Sunday giving honor to God, to our leaders, and to our military men and women who are so valiant in there efforts to preserve freedom. God bless America, and God bless you!

David

Innovation….

Whatever you may think about Michael Jackson, no one can deny his talent, skill, or creativity. When I think of MJ, I think if innovation in the music world, and the music video world. He started at such a young age, and it didn’t take him long to realize that he had thoughts of his own about music, dance, and entertainment.

So many dance moves can be traced back to him. So much of modern pop style has its roots in his creativity. He was a pioneer in many ways. He tried things that people had never seen or heard before.

He obviously did get way out there, and for whatever people are saying he obviously had some personal issues and problems.

You still have to appreciate his innovation. His obsession with perfection may have caused him lots of personal pain, but it drove him to do some great things in his industry.

So be inspired to step out and do things that no one has. Be creative, try and risk and see if good things happen. While you do it though, remember there is a reason for our skills and talents and abilities. They are given to us by God for God’s purpose.

Line those things up with purpose, then you can have greatness and fulfillment.

I Pray for MJ’s family and hope that he made his peace with God.

David