Tag Archives: Emotion

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How to Handle Your Shame

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shame

All of us to one degree or another carry around shame. Things we’ve done, things done to us. Things we’ve said, things said to us. Things we wished we had done, and things we wish that others had done. Shame shows up in all kinds of places and in all kinds of people.

What we often overlook is how much shame shapes our identity and our lives. It becomes a driving force in our lives, how we work and how we relate to others and God.

In Future Grace: The Purifying Power of the Promises of God, John Piper says shame comes from three causes:

  1. Guilt. This is the one many of us know well. The addiction, the hidden sin, the abuse we don’t talk about, the affair, the divorce, the poor parenting, our failure at work and in life. We carry around guilt for ourselves and often without thinking, for others. When guilt becomes public knowledge, we have shame. Now we are known for what we have feared.
  2. Shortcomings. Shortcomings and failures are something all of us experience. Some of them are real and others imagined. Some are life shaping, and other shortcomings we simply shrug off. It is the ones that are life shaping that lead to shame. When our frame of mind says, “You are a failure, you aren’t good enough, you aren’t beautiful, strong enough or worthwhile”, we experience shame.
  3. Improprieties. These are the experiences in our life where we feel silly, look stupid or are embarrassed. We make a mistake, and it feels like everyone knows about it.

What do you do with your shame?

According to Romans 10:11, if you are a follower of Jesus, you will not be put to shame.

Yet shame is a driving factor in the lives of so many.

Shame is a driving factor in the lives of so many.

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Here are six ways to move forward from your shame:

6 ways to move forward from your shame.

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1. Name your shame. If you don’t name something, it takes ownership of you. This is a crucial step. You must name the hurt, the guilt, the shortcoming, the impropriety, the embarrassment, the abuse, the loss, the misstep, the sin. If you don’t, you stay stuck.

Whatever you can’t name in your life takes ownership of you.

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I’ve met countless people who couldn’t say the name of an ex, name the situation of hurt or talk about something. This doesn’t mean that you are a victim or wallow in your pain, but naming something is crucial. Without this first step, the others become difficult to impossible.

The saying, “Whatever we don’t own, owns us”, applies here. This is a crucial, crucial step.

2. Identify the emotions attached to it. Many times when we are hurt, we are an emotional wreck and can’t see a way forward. All we know is that we are hurt, that life isn’t as we’d hoped, but we aren’t sure what to do.

What emotions are attached to your shame? Is it guilt? Loss? Failure? Missed opportunity? Sadness? Hopelessness? Indifference?

Name them.

Name the emotion that goes with your abuse, abandonment, divorce, failed business, dropping out of school, not meeting your expectations or the expectations of someone else.

Often times we feel shame when we have a different emotion attached to it, but shame is far more familiar to us. Do you feel neglected or hurt or sad? What emotion is conjured up from a memory?

3. Confess the sins that are there. Do you always have sin when you feel shameful? No. Sometimes it is misplaced shame. It is shame you have no business owning. You didn’t sin; someone else sinned against you.

Sometimes, though, there is a sin on your part. You may have sinned, and that’s why you feel shame. Sometimes your sin might be holding on to that person or situation.

Sometimes you need to confess that your shame is keeping you from moving forward and keeping you stuck.

Bring those sins to light.

4. Grieve the loss. When we have shame, there is a loss. This loss might be a missed opportunity or missed happiness. It might be bigger than that and be a missed childhood, a loss of your 20’s, a loss of health or job opportunity.

It might be a relationship that will never be, something you can never go back to.

As you think about your shame, what did you lose? What did you miss out on? What did that situation prevent you from doing or experiencing? What hurt do you carry around? What will never be the same because of that situation?

5. Name what you want. This one is new for me, but it has to do with your desires.

Often the reason we stay stuck is because we know what stuck is. We don’t know what the future holds. Beyond that, we don’t know what we actually want.

We carry shame around from a relationship with a father who walked out. Do you want a relationship? Do you want to be in touch?

We carry shame from a failed business. Do you want to get back in the game?

Can you name, in the situation associated with your shame, what you want?

Sadly, many people cannot.

If you can’t name what you want, if you can’t identify a desire, you will struggle to move forward.

6. Identify what God wants you to know about Him. When we carry around shame, we carry around a lie. In identifying that lie, we are identifying the truth that God wants us to know about Him.

If you feel unloved, the truth that God wants you to know is that you are loved. If you feel unwanted, God wants you to know you are wanted. If you feel dirty, God wants you to know the truth that in Him you are clean.

All throughout scripture we are told that God is a Father, that He is as close to us as a mother nursing her child, that God is compassionate, slow to anger, abounding in love, gracious, tender, strong and for us.

The list goes on and on.

In that list, though, is the truth, the antidote to your shame and what you need to remind yourself of to move forward and live into the freedom of Jesus.

6 ways to move forward from your shame.

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Freedom is hard.

Let’s be honest, freedom is difficult. Living in sin, shame, guilt and regret is easy. It is what we know. It is where most people live and reside.

Freedom is scary. Freedom is unknown. Freedom leaves us vulnerable. Freedom leaves us not in control.

Yet, this is what it means to be a child of God. To live in freedom. Overflowing freedom.

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4 Things Healthy Leaders Do

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healthy leaders

No leader or pastor starts their career or starts a church with thinking about quitting. All of them start with grand plans and dreams of the future and finishing, retiring, making it to the end with friends and family around them.

Yet statistically that is incredibly rare. Most quit, give up, fall out of the race or simply stop trying while still collecting a paycheck.

According to stats:

  • 78% of pastors say they have no close friends.
  • 1,500 pastors quit each month.
  • 70% of pastors battle depression.
  • Only 10% of pastors will retire as a pastor.

Recently I’ve had several pastors talk about not wanting to burn out, which seems like a good goal. But the moment you start talking about burnout, you have moved into a dangerous place.

Let me throw out a different question, one I think is better: How can you lead and live at a sustainable pace?

How can you lead and live at a sustainable pace?

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There is a great passage in Matthew that you have more than likely heard a sermon on, or if you are a pastor you’ve preached on this passage. It is so common and so easy to forget the power in it.

To remind you, this is what it says in The Message version:

“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.”

I think according to this passage, there are four things healthy leaders (or non-leaders) do:

4 things healthy leaders do.

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1. Healthy leaders don’t try to be God.

We say we aren’t trying to be God or we say we can’t save anyone, only the Holy Spirit can, but many leaders carry the burden that they can, or at the very least, they will try.

We think, “If I can just talk to them, or get them to read this book or hear this podcast, that will help.” It might, but it might not.

We can also drift so far from God personally that we simply lead out of our abilities and strengths. This is easy to do if you have a strong speaking gift. You can cover up your lack of relationship with God by being charismatic or interesting on stage.

Healthy leaders don’t try to be God.

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2. Healthy leaders walk and work with Jesus, not for Jesus.

Yes, Jesus is the chief shepherd and the senior pastor of your church, but you don’t work for him. We work with him and through the power of the Holy Spirit. We follow what the Spirit starts and is doing.

We talk about our priority list as Christians being God, family, job. Yet it is easy for a pastor’s list to be God/job, family because of how closely connected his job and God are. Often this is so subtle that no one sees it, or if they do they don’t say anything about it.

I firmly believe there is a calling that comes with being a pastor, but, and please hear this: being a pastor is also a job. A job that will end. A job you will retire from one day.

If we aren’t careful, we start to become unhealthy when our identity is too wrapped up in what we do. This is why we get hurt when someone rejects a sermon, our advice or the vision of the church. We feel like they are rejecting us, because our sermon, that vision, is who we are. It is our identity.

That’s a dangerous spot.

Healthy leaders walk and work with Jesus, not for Jesus.

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3. Healthy leaders don’t force stuff.

The reason I love this version of these verses are two phrases. The first is, Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I am like most leaders. We are incredibly driven, we make things happen, and we force it.

How many times have you played a conversation in your head before it happens: you’ll say this, they’ll say this, then you’ll respond, then they’ll respond, and this is how it ends. Then the meeting goes just like that and you think, “That could’ve been an email.”

We also can very easily force our kids and our wife to be something they aren’t.

One of the saddest things to watch is, as a man is pushing his calling and planting his church, his wife is sitting there dying emotionally, physically, spiritually.

Here’s a question for you as a leader: Is your family too much about your calling and goals? Does your wife have space for hers?

Healthy leaders don’t force stuff.

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4. Healthy leaders don’t carry burdens they aren’t meant to carry.

I’m a perfectionist. In every part of my life, I carry a burden of wanting everything to be perfect. Every experience with my kids and my wife, I build up in my mind, and when it fails to reach that I get stressed out and angry.

Another struggle for many leaders is they don’t know how to handle the emotional side of ministry. We struggle with our emotions of hurt, depression, loss, anger, and then as those emotions entangle with the emotions of those in our church and we walk with them through divorce, miscarriages, death, suicide, and addictions (just to name a few), we become at a loss of what to do with all the burdens.

Healthy leaders don’t carry burdens they aren’t meant to carry.

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In the end, Matthew 11 is an invitation from Jesus to live freely and lightly. That’s the second phrase in this passage that is so beautiful. Many pastors do not live in this place. Many followers of Jesus never experience this, yet this is supposed to be the normal Christian experience.

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How You Talk about Your Spouse

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spouse

Recently I was at a leadership conference and was struck by how the speakers each spoke about their spouse. Some of them spoke highly of their spouse, while others were disparaging, even taking a passive aggressive tone as they told stories about their spouse.

The truth is: How you speak about your spouse dictates what others think about them. 

How you speak about your spouse dictates what others think about them.

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We don’t often think like this, but it is true. We may vent about our spouse, tell a story that makes them look silly or stupid, or even talk down about them. We think, “I love this person,” and our story stems from there. But the person we’re telling the story to doesn’t love our spouse; they may not even know them.

Consequently, all they know about your spouse is what you say about them.

Two things happen when we talk negatively about our spouse:

  1. We don’t realize the full damage our words are doing.
  2. We know full well the damage our words are creating.

If you have kids, they will look at your spouse and speak to your spouse based on what you say about them. If you put your husband down, talk about how he doesn’t come through, your kids will treat him as such. If you talk about how your wife always nags, is never grateful, your kids will treat her that way and believe that about her.

Where do these words come from?

Often when we speak passive aggressively about anyone, there is truth in it. We are masking our hurt and pain with humor. What this does is keep you from experiencing a truly great relationship with your spouse. When you make fun of your spouse, you miss out on trust, oneness and affection. You will each walk on eggshells around each other, just waiting for the ball to drop on you and to be made fun of, to be cut down.

One of the rules Katie and I have for our marriage is that we will never talk down to each other in public, we won’t make fun of each other in public. I want people who hear a story about Katie to hold her in high regard. I want them to think highly of her like I do. This doesn’t mean that we don’t do things that drive the other person nuts or hurt their feelings. We do. We just deal with them in our marriage.

Whenever I hear a pastor or someone make a snide comment about their spouse in a sermon or a conversation, I think, “Why don’t you just tell your spouse?” It is uncomfortable for everyone else.

Remember: No one will think more highly of your spouse than you do. 

No one will think more highly of your spouse than you do.

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You are the lid for that. If you have a respect level for your spouse at a five, no one else is passing four.

While this might seem like a small thing, and the idea of not picking on each other may seem like a silly rule, the reality of how many arguments stem from snide comments, passive aggressive comments, mean jokes and stories that make people look stupid has an enduring effect on a relationship.

Here’s how I know.

The next time you are with a couple, and one of them tells a story that makes the other look stupid. Now I’m not talking about a silly story like we went camping and got stuck in the rain, and we’ll laugh about this for the next decade; but one that makes everyone think, “This person is an idiot.” Watch the spouse who the story is about while it is being told and everyone is laughing at them. Watch the life go out of their eyes as they are reminded in front of a group of people, “You aren’t good enough. I can’t believe you did this.”

So, why do we do this to our spouse?

For many, passive aggressive comments and making fun of each other is a love language. A very unhealthy, surefire way to kill a relationship, love language. Many people grew up watching their parents make fun of each other. I know one family that when they get together, all they talk about is stupid things people did in the past and make fun of each other. They do this instead of talking about anything new in their lives, which shows a lot of unhealthiness.

Many couples also don’t know how to have an honest conversation about how they feel, what hurts them, things that drive them nuts that their spouse does. So instead of saying, “I wish you would ask for help, I wish you would say thanks for the things I do,” they nitpick and cut down.

In the end it leaves a lot of couples longing for more and wishing a different way were possible.

There is. Start to think: How do I want people to think about my spouse? And then start talking about your spouse in that light. The irony of this is that people have a way of becoming what we expect them to become. 

Our spouse has a way of becoming what we expect them to become.

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Why Pastors Think about Quitting

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pastors think about quitting

I heard at a conference recently that 2 out of 3 pastors are thinking about quitting. While many statistics often feel made up, I can say that as a pastor, this stat rings true.

Pastors know this.

Many people in their churches do not.

There are a few reasons why pastors think about quitting:

1. Ministry is hard work. Every job is hard. Whether you are a pastor or an electrician or an engineer or a barista. Life and work is hard. Ministry is no different. You can’t be naive about this. Too many pastors have rose colored glasses about putting out a church sign and just expecting people to show up and the people who show up will be bought in, not messy and without difficulty. Yet, the leader and the people who walk through the door are sinners.

Handling your energy is a stewardship issue.

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2. They aren’t sleeping or eating well. There is a direct connection between how eat, how you sleep and the level of energy you have. Handling your energy is a stewardship issue. Leaders have a lot of meetings over meals, drink a lot of coffee or energy drinks. They stay up too late watching TV, surfing social media instead of sleeping, taking a sabbath or doing something that is recharging and refreshing.

There is a direct connection between how eat, how you sleep & your energy level.

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3. They don’t have an outlet. Whenever I find myself getting tired, it is often because I am not taking my retreat day, hanging out with friends or doing things that are fun. Leaders and pastors are notorious for being bad friends, having hobbies and doing things that are fun. You will start to think about quitting, not being thankful, begrudgingly going to meetings or counseling people. Get outside, take a break, slow down.

4. Misplaced idols. If pastors are honest, they struggle with an idol of ministry. In our hearts, many pastors struggle because they want to have a larger church, a larger platform, they want to be known, they want people to be changed by their sermons. Not all of these are wrong, but the motives often are. You will run out of steam if you have an idol. Be honest with someone, have someone ask you hard questions and hold you accountable.

You will run out of steam as a pastor if you have an idol.

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5. Not leading from a place of burden. Leaders are idea machines. We read books, go to conferences, listen to podcasts, look for the latest trend, but those are ideas, not a vision. It is easy to confuse the two. A vision, what drives you comes from a burden. Any leader, if you want to know their vision, ask about their burden. You must keep that in the forefront. I wake up and want to lead and build a church that helps to reach 20-40 year olds. This burden is ingrained in experiences growing up and watching churches fail to reach not only this demographic, but men in particular.

Vision is not an idea, it is a burden.

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6. Not dealing with emotions. One thing I was unprepared for was how emotionally tiring ministry and leadership can be. It can be hard to walk with people who get a divorce, get fired, wreck their lives, funerals, miscarriages. This can wreck your heart. You must learn to deal with the emotional ride that pastoring is. If you don’t, you will become a statistic.

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When You are Most Likely to Sin

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sin

Ever wonder why you sin? What if there was a specific time that you were most likely to give in to temptation? What if you could see negative emotions, thoughts from your past, addictions you thought you were free from coming a mile away?

You can.

In his book Soul Keeping: Caring For the Most Important Part of You, John Ortberg shares this:

Psychologist Roy Baumeister has coined the term “ego depletion” to describe a level of fatigue that goes beyond mere physical tiredness. People living in this depleted condition report more tiredness and negative emotions, but those are not the only effects. Depleted people who watch a sad movie become extra sad. When facing temptations like eating chocolate chip cookies, they are more likely to give in. When faced with challenges like an especially difficult assignment at work, they are more likely to fail or turn in lower quality work. The brain area that’s crucial for self-control (the Anterior Cingulate Cortex) actually experiences a slowdown.

The reality is, you and I sin at specific times. Those times are most likely going to be when we are tired, worn down, exhausted. For a pastor, that is most likely on a Sunday night or on a Monday. We are tired at other times, but follow me.

When are you most tired? What time during the day do you feel the weakest in terms of your will to fight sin and temptation?

Let me apply this to pastors and help you understand why this as. I’ve learned while pastors are good at helping others fight sin in their lives, we tend to lack self-awareness.

On Sunday night you have preached hard, led worship hard, sat with people, hugged them, cried with them, counseled them, prayed with them. You have gone to battle for them and with them. You have had hard meetings with people who told you they are leaving the church, that you don’t live up to their standards of things, that you don’t preach the gospel, use too much Bible, are too deep, not deep enough and your head feels like it is spinning because you can’t please them all.

If you aren’t a pastor, you have a day of the week that simply runs you down. You come home exhausted, barely able to stand, let alone think and certainly not up for fighting sin and temptation.

This is the moment we must be aware of.

Often, the reason we fall into sin is because we don’t see it as a battle, or, once we feel tempted we feel like we have already lost the fight with sin so we simply give in to it.

Don’t.

When you see that moment coming, go to sleep, hand your smartphone or table to a spouse, pick up a banana, turn off the TV. Fight the sin you are facing by removing the temptation in your moment of weakness.

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Strong Fathers, Strong Daughters

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bookOne of the books I read as I prepared for our current series at Revolution was Dr. Meg Meeker’s great book Strong Fathers, Strong Daughters: 10 Secrets Every Father Should Know.

To me, this is such an empowering book for fathers. We often feel unsure, at a loss of how to relate to our daughters, how to treat them differently than a son, or how to feel like we are moving forward in a relationship with them.

This book is about what a daughter needs from a father that a mother cannot give.

Here are a few things I highlighted:

  • What you say in a sentence, communicate with a smile, or do with regard to family rules has infinite importance for your daughter.
  • Friends, family members, teachers, professors, or coaches will influence her to varying degrees, but they won’t knead her character. You will. Because you are her dad.
  • Loving your daughter better might seem complicated to you, but it’s very simple to her. Being a hero to your daughter sounds daunting, but actually it can be quite easy. Protecting her and teaching her about God, sex, and humility doesn’t require a degree in psychology. It just means being a dad.
  • Fathers, more than anyone else, set the course for a daughter’s life.
  • Boyfriends, brothers, even husbands can’t shape her character the way you do. You will influence her entire life because she gives you an authority she gives no other man.
  • Being a twenty-first-century hero is tough stuff. It requires emotional fortitude, mental self-control, and physical restraint. It means walking into embarrassing, uncomfortable, or even life-threatening situations in order to rescue your daughter.
  • Whatever outward impression she gives, her life is centered on discovering what you like in her, and what you want from her.
  • The only way you will alienate your daughter in the long term is by losing her respect, failing to lead, or failing to protect her. If you don’t provide for her needs, she will find someone else who will—and that’s when trouble starts. Don’t let that happen.
  • Authority is not a threat to your relationship with your daughter—it is what will bring you closer to your daughter, and what will make her respect you more.
  • Nothing feels better to a teen or young daughter than being protectively embraced by dad’s strong arms.
  • Do a gut check on your own beliefs, and think of what sort of woman you want your daughter to be. She’ll learn not only from what you say, but from what you do.
  • If you don’t accept the authority that is naturally yours, if you don’t set high standards, if you don’t act to protect your daughter, if you don’t live a life of moral principle, your daughter will suffer.
  • The minute you waffle on your convictions, you lose stature in your daughter’s eyes.
  • Let me tell you a secret about daughters of all ages: they love to boast about how tough their dads are—not just physically, but how strict and demanding they are.
  • When I talk to daughters about their fathers, the conversations are almost always emotionally charged. They adore their fathers or hate them—sometimes they do both simultaneously.
  • Your daughter yearns to secure your love, and throughout her life she’ll need you to prove it.
  • We talked about how difficult it is for parents to be realistic about their own children. Because we want them to make good decisions, we assume they will. We want to believe our kids are stronger, more mature, and better capable of handling situations than other kids. And that’s when mistakes happen.
  • Most parents pull away from their teenage daughters, assuming they need more space and freedom. Actually, your teenage daughter needs you more than ever. So stick with her. If you don’t, she’ll wonder why you left her.
  • Daughters who feel a stronger emotional connection with their fathers feel more attached to them. And the more attached she feels to you, the lower the likelihood that she will be depressed or have an eating disorder.
  • Girls hate feeling invisible.
  • When you show a genuine interest in being with her, she feels more attached to you.
  • If you listen to your daughter attentively for ten minutes every day, by the end of the month you’ll have a completely new relationship with her.
  • Boundaries and fences are a must for girls, particularly during the teen years.
  • Remember that whatever she says, the very fact that you thoughtfully and consistently enforce rules of behavior makes her feel loved and valued. She knows that these rules are proof that you care.
  • Your daughter needs to feel unique and important in your eyes.
  • When fathers don’t teach their daughters humility—that we are all created equal and are equally valuable—advertisers, magazines, and celebrities will teach them otherwise.
  • Girls who have the gift of humility are better placed to have deeper, longer-lasting friendships. With humility, your daughter is free to enjoy people for who they are; she’ll have no haughty desire to cut people out of her life.
  • Happiness is truly found only when it is routinely denied.
  • Protect her budding sexuality and defend her right to modesty. Reiterate to her that sex isn’t a simple bodily function—it is powerfully linked to her feelings, thoughts, and character.
  • Parents are the most important influence on their teenagers’ decisions about sex.
  • Think very seriously about her as a girl growing into a woman, a sexual being. When she is three years old, think about what you want for her when she is twenty. You must, because even when she’s three you give her messages about her body—whether it’s beautiful or chubby. And all these messages count.
  • Your daughter needs you to hug her often. If you are gentle, respectful, and loving, that’s what she will expect from boys. And she needs to know—all the time—that you love her.
  • All girls from eleven years old on feel fat. They feel ugly, pudgy, pimply, and unattractive. Watch how your young teen stands. Most girls slouch if they’re tall. If they’re short, they wear platform shoes. Girls almost inevitably lack confidence in their appearance. So move in and hug her. The effect can be profound.

Here’s the short: if you are a father of a daughter or will be, you need to read this book. As soon as possible. I was so challenged and encouraged by this book in how to interact and love my daughter to become who God created her to be.

To see other book notes, click here.

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24 Ways to have Charisma

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book

  1. Charismatic people impact the world, whether they’re starting new projects, new companies, or new empires.
  2. Research shows that those following charismatic leaders perform better, experience their work as more meaningful, and have more trust in their leaders than those following effective but non-charismatic leaders.
  3. Charismatic leaders “cause followers to become highly committed to the leader’s mission, to make significant personal sacrifices, and to perform above and beyond the call of duty.”
  4. When you meet a charismatic person, you get the impression that they have a lot of power and they like you a lot. Charismatic individuals choose specific behaviors that make other people feel a certain way.
  5. Three quick tips to gain an instant charisma boost in conversation: Lower the intonation of your voice at the end of your sentences. Reduce how quickly and how often you nod. Pause for two full seconds before you speak.
  6. Charismatic behavior can be broken down into three core elements: presence, power, and warmth.
  7. Being seen as powerful means being perceived as able to affect the world around us, whether through influence on or authority over others, large amounts of money, expertise, intelligence, sheer physical strength, or high social status.
  8. People will tend to accept whatever you project.
  9. For charisma, your body language matters far more than your words do.
  10. Because what’s in your mind shows up in your body and because people will catch even the briefest microexpression, to be effective, charismatic behaviors must originate in your mind.
  11. Anxiety is a serious drawback to charisma.
  12. The ability to be comfortable with uncertainty and ambiguity turns out to be one of the strongest predictors of success in business.
  13. You can display nearly any body language just by picking the right visualization.
  14. Focus charisma is primarily based on a perception of presence. It gives people the feeling that you are fully present with them, listening to them and absorbing what they say. Focus charisma makes people feel heard, listened to, and understood.
  15. Once we’ve made a judgment about someone, we spend the rest of our acquaintanceship seeking to prove ourselves correct. Everything we see and hear gets filtered through this initial impression.
  16. So how can you make a fantastic first impression? Our default setting here is actually quite simple: people like people who are like them.
  17. People will associate you with whatever feelings your conversation generates.
  18. Good listeners know never, ever to interrupt.
  19. To be charismatic, you need to create strong positive associations and avoid creating negative ones.
  20. Don’t try to impress people. Let them impress you, and they will love you for it. Believe it or not, you don’t need to sound smart. You just need to make them feel smart.
  21. As a leader, the emotions conveyed by your body language, even during brief, casual encounters, can have a ripple effect through your team or even your entire company.
  22. People simply accept what you project.
  23. Presentations are about convincing people of something.
  24. Charisma’s greatest danger is that it gives you the power to convince people even when you’re completely wrong.

Quotes from The Charisma Myth By Olivia Fox Cabane

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Sustainability Questions

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book

I recently read Necessary Endings: The Employees, Businesses, & Relationships that all of us Have to Give up in Order to Move Forward by Henry Cloud. He had a great list of questions to help someone determine if the life they are living, whether in work, pace or a relationship is sustainable for a long period of time. Here they are:

  1. Are you in an emotional state right now that is not sustainable? I am not talking about just a “hard time” or a time that you would not want to continue forever. Life is full of difficulties, but with proper support and other resources, we can endure them if we have to and if we have a good reason to. What I am referring to is a hard time that is truly not sustainable and often continues for no good reason. Are you in a state that is eating your heart, mind, soul, or energy in such a way that you are headed for some sort of crash or burnout?
  2. Are you in a physical state right now that is not sustainable? Too much travel? Too little sleep? Too much “on the go”? Too much taxing of your physical system? For a prolonged period of time with no end in sight? Too little exercise? Too much junk food?
  3. Are you in a state right now in your relationships that is not sustainable? Is there some relationship that is depleting or damaging you? Is there a context in which you feel compromised or forced to adapt to another person’s needs and demands out of fear? Are you in a situation where someone has power over you and is slowly diminishing you?
  4. Are you in a professional state right now that is not sustainable? In your work, is something going on in the culture or in your relationship with your boss that you cannot continue long-term without some sort of damage to your drive, talents, or passion? This does not include all difficult cultures or bosses, as most people have some period of time in a setting like that, which really builds them or equips them over time, even if it is hard. What I am referring to is something that is not equipping you or causing you to grow but is slowly wearing you down or killing something inside of you.
  5. Are you in a spiritual state right now that is not sustainable? In your spirit, is something causing you to be diminished? Is hope being deferred in some way that is causing a sickness of spirit? Are you losing a sense of meaning in life? Is something happening that is causing you to feel depleted of a sense of purpose, mission, transcendence, love, or other spiritual dimensions? A diminished belief in humanity or diminished faith? Is your ability to hope being affected?
  6. Are you in a financial state right now that is not sustainable? In your business or personal finances, are your expenses greater than what’s coming in, with no end in sight? Is the curve between investment and certain returns way out of whack? Do you not know how your real, fixed, non-negotiable expenses are going to be covered in the current path that you are on? Said another way, if something does not change, are you going to run out of money and have no options? If “cash equals options,” are you on a path of diminishing options?
  7. Are your energy reserves being depleted in a way that is not sustainable? Is there something so draining to your energy that you have to make yourself keep going? Do you have to drag yourself in a particular path continually? Is there a clear drain that is causing that? • Are you letting your strengths fall into disuse in a way that is not sustainable? Are you on a course where your strengths are not available to you? Are you being cornered, at work or elsewhere, in a way that requires you to be “not you” most of the time? Is the real you slowly going to sleep? Do you fear that it may not be able to be reawakened?
  8. Do you find yourself in a situation where you are overextended in some way, one that began as an anomaly but now has become a pattern? Many times this happens with a person’s schedule or workload. What they thought was going to be a lot of work or extra hours or effort for a while has now become what is required to keep it all going, as the entity or enterprise has become shaped and formed around exactly that ingredient, all that effort from just one source—you. So what was supposed to be a season has now become a pattern, the new normal.

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