When the Future Fails...

(A follow up and very personal reflection to the last posting I made)
Harv

Why Bother? Your Future Might Fail.

Are you contemplating a vision that will fuel your personal life or organization for the next phase? Do you want to ensure it will work out as planned?

Ten years ago when I was 48, I started to think about that arbitrary, yet significant marker of age 50. At that stage, I decided that I would not succumb to ‘retirement’ thinking and set out on creating a path to challenge myself vocationally & personally. I had a vision to achieve. Now that I am approaching the marker of 60, I am contemplating what the vision might be for the next stage of life. 

You should know there was a “disturbance in the force” while executing my previous vision.

The plan I put in place in my late 40’s and executed in my 50th year did not turn out as I imagined over the next seven years. There were twists and turns I never anticipated. In hindsight the path I walked enhanced and redirected my thinking and vocational orientation, but to be honest – this wasn’t the script I wanted to write. In fact, a lot of it hurt and just plain sucked.

Failure to achieve a vision as dreamed begs these questions:

Is it worth dreaming and executing on a vision?

Why dream about making things different in your personal or leadership life if what you start out with isn’t where you end?

Why pursue a future that may fail?

True personal and corporate leadership is less noun and mostly verb. In other words, leadership isn’t a position. It’s a risk.

Leadership by nature takes risks because to lead is to enter a process to discover the way to a place you have not yet gone. Thus not all people in positions of leadership actually lead. Many are managers. Not all people who say they want to lead their life forward actually do. Many are responders to life.

No one has a lock on the future. Despite all our geeky dreaming about time travel, no one has been to the future and sent back reports that will give you the information needed to come up with a no-fail

Many people ‘speak’ the language of risk and advance, but in practice simply manage their way forward. As an example from my world of Christian non-profits, church leadership teams can often speak about risk and mission advance to reach to the very edges of a society, but their default organizational orientation to safety, management processes, systems and orthodoxy of thinking and execution militates against their language, squeezing out those who are actual risk takers.

Risk is part of advance both personally and corporately. Real risk. Not the language of risk. That means:

Acting on your convictions. There’s a saying that in old age you won’t regret the things you did, but the things you did not do. Think about that. I have met many ‘leaders’ over the years in my work that possessed deep convictions about issues but never executed because they feared others wouldn’t follow, or they feared the potential change was too much for their organization. Some even feared they’d lose their job if they acted on their conviction. If any of these are your story, then…

…you are not a leader, you are an employee.
…something potentially significant was never birthed in or through you.
…the real you has been diminished

Prepare & Plan. Then be ready for it to change. German military strategist Helmuth von Moltke famously noted: “No battle plan survives first contact with the enemy”. Risking doesn’t mean ignoring good preparation. It does mean that what you started with won’t last because the future is full of the unexpected and unanticipated. You will have to adapt and change. Will the prospect of that keep you from launching out?

Learn as you go. No one can ever know it all at the start. “Risk management” while it has its place, is also an oxymoron (and likely the creation of managers). Risks inherently can’t be managed but when faced; they can both inform and guide what needs to happen next.

Adopt a new perspective. A truly nomadic leader/thinker that is capable of navigating the changes life and leadership inherently contains, takes on a perspective I have taken from a book title: The Obstacle is the Way. (Author: Ryan Holiday). This perspective means we don’t view the obstacles that risk often presents to us as inhibitors to a vision but rather as the pathway to what’s next. You’ll need this if you have any hope of persevering. In fact, you’ll need this to even get started!

The next things in this world, whether it’s a cure for a disease, your personal dreams & visions, a new form of energy to be developed, a means to address exploitation, a path to get an organization ‘on purpose’, a way to bring true abundance to the marginalized etc., will ONLY come from those who say:

   This isn’t right.

      This isn’t enough.

         It can be better.

            I will try a new thing.

Be bold. God knows this world desperately needs courageous people.

What Good is Hope?

Two young men dead in the last week. Both known to my son. One was known to me. They guy I knew died of an overdose and we do not know if that was intentional or an accident. The other was beaten to death and dumped outside the city Two stories in a litany of seeming hopelessness in our culture around drugs and violence.

Could hope have shown up for these young men? Could Jesus have been ‘hope’ to them?



Wonderful “words” warm our heart this Christmas season as we talk of Jesus as the ‘hope of the world’. How nice & even charming. However, Jesus The Hope of the World is not some ethereal, ‘spiritual’ or merely future reality. His hope ‘showed up’ when He showed up on earth. He did not merely talk and preach hope. If He came to us today (and He does), He would show up in the ditches, drug houses, dysfunction and desperation where humanity lives and struggles.


WHERE DO YOU SHOW UP?
 

Jesus is the hope of the world ONLY if we who claim to be His ambassadors show up in our actions to address the issues with which our society struggles.


I recently came across the Hebrew phrase “tikkun olam”. It means ‘repairing the world’. God intends to restore and repair the world. He signaled that intention soon after humankind broke their relationship with Him by promising a Redeemer, a “Repairer of the World”. He then sealed the deal when Jesus came to the earth to usher in a new way of being; a renewed Kingdom order. Jesus is not just a representative or figurehead of hope. His life & His ways actually deliver hope in the now.


BUT…


…unless and until we get out of the confines of current church practice, or organizational and business 'arms length' charity, to be with the poor, to advocate for the oppressed, to give shelter to the lonely and come alongside those rejected by society, to walk the hard road with an addict, to engender positive identity in a young person etc., then HOPE has no currency. God Himself said that only once you have expressed these actions (which He considers as true worship – Is 58) can you be known as the repairer of walls and purveyors of real, tangible, life-changing hope.


This season, find a way to BE hope to the world. The Jesus in you is real, tangible hope.


And maybe we can save the next two kids.

Building a Future That is Not Your Own OR, "Yes, We Have NO Bananas"

Did you know the banana you eat is in danger?   

One type of banana, the Cavendish, dominates the global market.  95% of the N American market consumes the Cavendish banana and a disease that could wipe it out threatens it.  That’s the problem with the commercialization of fruit.  Genetic diversity is sacrificed for any type that will maximize productivity, durability, & profit.  If that disease does take hold, goodbye Cavendish.  Will there be a ‘hello’ to a new type?   Perhaps, but it won’t come easy, or fast.

I was fascinated as I listened to a CBC documentary and further watched an (unlinked) episode by David Suzuki, on the effort it takes to produce a new variety of banana (or ANY fruit/vegetable).  In the case of the banana, it can take up to 10 years of experimentation, testing, failing, and waiting for a new variety to be produced.  Some people will work on these efforts and never see the ‘fruit’ of their labour.

Got me thinking: If I see a need for change, exactly how far ahead am I ready to commit myself?

We as leaders read all the time about ‘change’.  However, we usually have the expectation that the time window is months and at most a few years.

 

But 10 Years?

What if what you want to accomplish (and I think here especially about social change) is way out there?  Would you be ready to start towards something you might never see finish?  Other cultures and generations of the past seemed to be able to think further down the road than we do now in the Western world.  They thought generationally, often sacrificing their own comfort and future for the sake of the next generation(s).  Others fought against social justice issues for decades before seeing any change.  Think of the 40 years William Wilberforce battled entrenched slavery in England. 

Can significant change happen if it is trapped in the cultural expectation of “7 steps to…” or “40 days of…”?

For real, systemic change to occur I believe it  will take: 

• A conviction that change must occur.
• A decision that this is worth giving your life to implement.
• A readiness to set aside a lot of other short term, more immediately satisfying efforts to give attention to it.
• An ability to see life beyond today, tomorrow or even the next decade. 
• A sense of the ‘rightness’ of what you are committing to do.
• A readiness to unselfishly & deliberately hand over your ‘project’ because you are OK being a prophet of a future that is not your own.

Harv Matchullis

Designer, Developer, Dreamer, Devoted to things that matter.

A Second Choice Life

We all know the “you can be anything you want to be” mantra of many parents is patently false.  Sounds empowering.  The brute reality is it can set kids up for disappointment and failure. 

However, you have grown out of it, right?  Maturity has set in and tempered expectations and dreams. Realism now rules.  You have settled in with contentment. 

Not for a lot of us.

Either spurred on by a leadership culture that presses us to grander visions, or our own deeply personal drive for the next thing, many of us develop scenarios and plans to reach toward our preferred life.  We then became heavily invested in that future.  It becomes us.  Our identity and even our sense of fulfillment, legacy or calling are tied into that life becoming reality.

What if it doesn’t?  What if your first choice of a life is derailed or unattainable?



What if you are now living a second choice life?

It’s happened to me.  I pursued a dream  (a God-given dream at that) to develop a ministry to international teams.  Left Canada for Kuwait in 2009.  Came back in 2010 crushed.  The life I now live isn’t what I planned.  It’s good, but there is a nagging sense that an ‘other’ life has eluded me.  The prospects of ever re-engaging it are fading.

This experience is shared by millions.  Refugees, entrepeneurs, modern day slaves, leaders and ordinary people who dare to dream.  What will we do in our second choice lives?

The ancient character Joseph walked this same path. His story (Genesis 37 & 39) has inspired me toward first choice living in a second choice life.  Josephs’ first choice life with his father & brothers was interrupted when he was sold into slavery.  Definitely a second choice life!  Somehow, he chose to live well and with integrity in his new context.  In so doing, he prospered.  Incidentally so did entire nations of people at the time and down the historical line!  Who knows the impact of first choice living in your second choice life?

Though your first choice life may have been taken away from you, the power to demonstrate and enjoy first choice living can never be taken.

It could be that God has made a 'first choice' life for you whether you believe it or not.

Carpe diem.  It’s all you have.

Getting Outside the Camp

The experiential reality of the nomadic leader is non-conformist.  They are wanderers and often seen as a bit ‘outside the camp’.  Their experience, thinking and perceptions typically are unconventional.  That is in part because they have eyes open to things beyond their current context.  Not all these wanderers are lost (thanks for the affirmation J R Tolkien!).  Nor are they unstable leaders.  For them, clarity and direction often comes while in a ‘wandering’ state.  Neuroscience affirms this.  We often have to stop thinking about the thing we need to think about in order to let our brains wander.  It’s during those times when our brains are released to make the kinds of connections that eventually lead to creative thought, clarity and ‘aha’ moments. 

Check out http://www.inc.com/geoffrey-james/neuroscience-relaxing-makes-you-more-creative.html

as a brief introduction to the benefits of 'wandering' for the brain .

I serve as a leader in (and from) an environment where not only are we outside the camp, but we seek  & serve others also who are not part of the mainstream.  Encompass Partnerships is a collaborative I lead that acknowledges society in general, and unfortunately often my own Christian community, have frequently ignored the needs of the 'others' who are not like us.  Collectively we have an ingrained tendency to be ‘campy’, settling into a great life with those who are like us. 

Encompass Partnerships' reason for existence is to collaborate with individuals, agencies and churches who have a commitment to go to the edge of society where the transforming presence, power and abundance through Jesus Christ isn’t yet evident. We have a profound belief that no one is ever to be left out of experiencing the love of God through Jesus.  On the ground, it means we act as nomadic, wandering leaders, agencies and churches.  We wander to the edge.  We go outside the camp.  As we do so, our minds change.  New connections are made in both the brain and the soul.  This causes us to see and feel things differently than those in the camp.

Jesus Christ, who inspires and leads all we do, was definitely outside the camp: 

He was born outside the normal human process.  This also resulted in a ‘outside the camp’ family vis-a-vis cultural expectations.  Jesus positioned Himself outside the camp of the religious system of the day.  Interestingly God Himself had instituted this system.  However that system had not only overdeveloped beyond God’s intentions,  but those in it failed to see what (Whom) it was actually pointing to.  There’s a lesson here for our current institution of the church.

Jesus was crucified outside the city.  Today, His followers are predominantly outside the camp of mainstream thought, morality & philosophy worldwide.  

Perhaps most profoundly, Jesus’ loves to walk with those who are considered outside the camp of the broader society.   The oppressed, the marginalized, the socially outcast, the struggling ‘foreigner’.

There’s good reason to be nomadic.  Perhaps you need to wander a bit from your own conventional thinking or well-established theology.  Let the Creator of ALL humankind make some new brain and soul connections.

Get out of where you are.  Go outside the comfy camp of your church or suburb or apartment. Do a walkabout.  See.  Smell.  Taste.  Touch.  Feel.  

“Not all who wander are lost”.  In fact, by doing so you may just find Him there, outside the camp.