11.28.2020 - week 82
neal anderson has been a friend for 15+ years, i really believe in him and his new company, i asked him to write the open for the newsletter today:
Five years ago, I applied for a new job. I quickly rose to the top of the candidate pool and got that feeling– I’m going to land this job! It was a step up in my career that included the excitement of a move to a new city on the east coast. After multiple interviews, each better than the last, I was told that it was just a matter of final details and one last interview. I began to celebrate. My wife and I started picking out houses we liked in the endless Zillow vortex, we created a budget that included flights back to the midwest once a year, and we researched the schools our kids would go to. Emotionally, we were all in.
Finally, it was decision week. I waited for the acceptance call coming on a Friday. I couldn’t wait to proudly tell my wife I got the offer. I started to dream about a steak dinner in our home city of Chicago as a celebration for later that night. The phone rang. Words were exchanged. I don’t remember anything except for the feeling of my heart sinking in embarrassment. They went with someone else. I didn’t get the job. I walked home from work that day, feeling significant shame—gut punch.
In the weeks to follow, my process and reflection unfolded. Confusion. Sadness. Disappointment. Embarrassment. I felt it all.
Then, a humbling insight began to rise to the surface. I realized this was the first experience of significant rejection I had ever experienced. I used to be privately proud of my success in nearly everything. I got the jobs. I got promotions. It’s how it always happened. I was successful.
Well, it turns out there are two ways to look at a personal history of success and failure: the first, and my default perspective, is that past success is an indicator of achievement. I looked at my many successes and few failures and felt that I came out successful. But there’s a second way to look at my history of success and very few failures: as an indicator of how much risk and challenge I was taking (or not taking).
More setbacks and failings actually point to doing something that challenges me, that pushes me to grow, that lets me see how far I can stretch and therefore see my true potential. I was good at minimizing risk of failure by avoiding challenges that might ruin my track record.
If I ever thought I was Michael Phelps, it turns out I was just a guy who managed to swim in pools where I knew I could win. All quietly calculated success, small success.
Not getting that romanticized job was the best thing that ever happened to me. My perspective shifted, and risk became something to pursue, not manage.
Fast forward one year. In an effort to push myself to my risk limit, I had applied and gotten into a Ph.D. program in leadership. I was on my first day of residency sitting in orientation. My stomach was in knots. My throat felt tight. What was I doing here? Why did I think I could do this? I won’t be able to do the work. I’m not smart enough.
For three days, I sat through 8 hours of orientation and then sheepishly went back to my Airbnb room I rented from a stranger named Kiki. I laid on the bed, thinking about the day and how I could get out of this enormous mistake without too much embarrassment. Maybe I could use the finances argument? Perhaps I could explain to others that I realized my family needs with two young kids were just too important. I could play the awesome dad card and avoid inevitable failure!
Through every self-defeating argument, I kept coming back to my tendency to avoid risk and failure. It became clear in my mind that I needed to grow to embrace a new definition of failure: not trying at all.
With the support and encouragement of my wife, a renewed sense of purpose, and some hard lessons I had been grappling with the last year, I stepped out and tried something at which I could fail. All the thinking and reflection about leaning into risk became real. So, I took a deep breath and leaned in.
To be clear, getting a Ph.D. was not just a game of risk and challenge. I love learning. I love leadership. I love development and growing. As a lifelong educator, I see degrees as tools, things that help you leverage your gifts, open doors, and create opportunities for impact. I knew in my heart that I always wanted a doctorate, but I didn’t see a clear and certain path to accomplishing it. I had to risk failure to get on the path.
Without losing that job a year back, I doubt if I would have had what it took to actually risk. Since then, I’ve applied to more jobs I’ve been rejected for than had offers. I moved my family to a new state, picked up open-water swimming, started teaching in-seat students for the first time, became the webmaster of a small non-profit, and started a business. I’m not overwhelmingly qualified for any of it, but I’m there doing it, and learning so much along the way. I’m leaning into the opportunities to grow, push my abilities, and see what opportunities arise.
Proverbs 16:9 says, “The heart of man plans his ways, but the Lord establishes his steps.” For far too long, my plans were small and self-serving.
I wonder what you might accomplish or learn if you leaned into more risk, stepped out of your comfort zone, and pushed into territory where you fear failure. There’s one way to find out.
KG Korner
(a few wise words from lady kristen macdonald)
Last week a friend of mine invited me to her spin class. She has asked many times before and she must have caught me at a weak moment because I obliged. We got to class just in time to get our shoes locked in and start cycling. Did I mention I haven’t worked out in a while? By minute three (of forty-five) I thought I was going to die. I had too much pride to get down off my bike so I kept having an internal conversation that I have been having now for a few years. Typically it has been in situations more difficult than an exercise class but it’s a mantra that has helped me in moments I’d rather give up. I whisper to myself, “you can do hard things.” You see, because I haven’t worked out in a while those muscles were yelling at me the next day whereas my friend who's a regular didn’t feel any soreness. In my heart of hearts, I have come to believe that ‘doing hard things’ is a muscle that you build.
A few years back a lot of our students who had come through our youth group started to get married. Before Luke would perform the ceremony we would do a few pre-marital meetings with them. At this point the couples were typically twenty year olds and they always had a really great ability to say that they were so busy. Although that may have been true, many of them didn’t have any children, they were getting full nights of sleep and had much time for leisure even though they were working hard at their first job. I can say this because I did and said the same exact thing when I was in my twenties!! In one of the first meetings with these young couples, Luke and I would remind them that capacity is a muscle and that in your twenties it is a great time to build and strengthen that muscle.
As a mom of four I feel like a lot of people over the last few years have said I don’t know how you do it with all those kids and the truth is had I been handed all four at once I wouldn’t have survived! But because they came one by one, Luke and I have kept exercising our capacity muscle along the way and we have had the ability to strengthen and grow it. There have also been moments where we have felt stretched and sore, where it felt like if anything else got added to ‘the plate,’ we would drop everything in our hands. But day by day, you use the muscle and decide that even when you feel the soreness and the stretching you’d rather grow and develop than give up altogether.
2020 has been anything but easy for most of us and whether we were choosing to or not you have learned to flex your ‘do hard things’ muscle. The thought that always comes to mind after I whisper this ‘do hard things’ mantra is God’s faithfulness. I read Psalm 36:5 this week which says, “Your steadfast love, O LORD, extends to the heavens, your faithfulness to the clouds.” I know when I have pushed through difficulty and painful circumstances that God has never left my side and that He sees our persistence, our endurance, our tears, our fears, and our perseverance. So many of the Bible heroes we talk about are not amazing because they were perfect but because they trusted God and held onto His faithfulness while they endured til the end.
We are so grateful for each of you that read our newsletter each week. We pray it’s an encouragement to you and that no matter what the rest of this year brings you ‘do hard things’ He puts in front of you to bring Him glory in the season he’s called you to right now. Be blessed this thanksgiving!
book review
this book has a dangerous premise. esau mccauley believes that black people will be better able to understand themselves and their creator when they incorporate their experience into their interpretation of the Bible. yet, his manner of executing this concept is rich fidelity to biblical truth. if you are wrestling through the theological concepts surrounding this year of racial uprising, i encourage you to check this book out. it will challenge you in a good way.
super christian guy
stuff for you to click on
1. my mid-week service this week will be an encouragement to you i think. the message is called ‘true greatness’ and it’s about servanthood in a world of selfishness. watch it here!
2. the sporting world was shaken this week w. the death of diego maradona, who i may or may not have met about 6 weeks ago… about a year ago, hbo made an AMAZING documentary about him that i cannot recommend more highly, check out the trailer
3. my friend dr. aaron rock is a calming and reasonable voice i trust. i am not saying i agree with every line of his assessment of what churches should be doing w. government intervention, but i am certain these conclusions were arrived at wisely and prayerfully. read the article here