One Generation
What does flushing (or not flushing) have to do with executive leadership?
“If it’s yellow, let it mellow. If it’s brown, flush it down.”
That memorable line was shared with me by a mentor in the early 90s.
I was fresh out of college, helping him with some labor work at his farmhouse. When I came out of the restroom, I mentioned the toilet hadn’t been flushed. That’s when he shared the rhyme – and then explained their bored well and ongoing water shortage.
This was in Central Illinois. In the 1990s.
Another mentor – who tragically passed at age 49 – once shared that (as a boy) his family didn’t get indoor plumbing until the late 1960s.
In Decatur, IL.
Both of these men had lived realities that, for me, felt distant. Foreign.
Inconveniences to me – normal for them.
And yet, these stories are just one generation behind me.
Then I look just one generation ahead… and the disparity of experience is even more staggering.
You’ve likely heard the adage that today’s leaders are managing a workforce that spans five generations.
The disparate lived experience of each? Practically other-worldly.
But here’s the angle I want to explore today: How incredible is it that we get to live and lead in such a time as this?
Yes, it’s messy. Complicated. Pressured.
It has its black eyes, no doubt.
But it also has its brilliance.
So…how might we lead with a deep sense of gratitude?
The kind that comes from recognizing the provision and abundance around us that couldn’t have been imagined just one generation ago.
And maybe more importantly: How might we steward that provision and abundance with great care?
Something to think about, anyway.
Blessings to you, my friends.
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This Week’s Resource Recommendation:
“The Emotionally Healthy Leader: How Transforming Your Inner Life Will Deeply Transform Your Church, Team, and the World"
- Peter Scazzero
From Amazon: Do you feel too overwhelmed to enjoy life, unable to sort out the demands on your time? Are you doing your best work as a leader, yet not making an impact? Have you ever felt stuck, powerless to change your environment?
In The Emotionally Healthy Leader, bestselling author Peter Scazzero shows leaders how to develop a deep, inner life with Christ, examining its profound implications for surviving stress, planning and decision making, building teams, creating healthy culture, influencing others, and much more.
The Emotionally Healthy Leader contains:
Concise assessments for leaders and teams to measure their leadership health
Practical, proven strategies that have been developed over a 28-year period spent both in the local church and in equipping leaders around the world
Helpful applications of how to face your shadow, lead out of your marriage or singleness, slow down, and embrace endings for new beginnings
Going beyond simply offering a quick fix or new technique, The Emotionally Healthy Leader gets to the core, beneath-the-surface issues of uniquely Christian leadership. This book is more than just a book you will read; it is a resource you will come back to over and over again.
MMS 25-24
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Blessings to you, my friend!
