Leaders live on the edge of their seats.

For all you non-soccer fans out there I’m about to educate you as to why the English Premier League (like all FIFA leagues , except the silly guys running the MLS) keeps you on the edge of your seat through until the final day of the season – every season.
Football (the real football …not what you guys in the US call football ….which truly should be called Throwball) does not operate to a play-offs system or a draft system. Every year in every league there is something to play for right through to game 39 of the season (though they play nearly 55 games with all the cup tournaments that run concurrent through the season).
One team wins the league but three teams are relegated out of that league (an immediate $40M financial loss). The top four clubs qualify for the next seasons Champions League in addition to the regular league (a minimum of $12M extra) and the fifth and sixth place team qualify for the Europa League (a minimum of $4M extra). Up to the last game of the season clubs are fighting to win, to finish in the top four, to finish in the top six, to avoid relegation. Every game is a meaningful game ……. so much to win; so much at stake if lose.

For the fans we sit on the edges of our seats until the last ball is kicked on the final day.

Just now we are six games away from the finish ….the tension is palpable (and I had to endure the previous ten games without the aid of chocolate due to Lent!).

Every game is meaningful and impactful – it edges you up the table, it slides you down….or it does to your competitor. Even the number of goals you score or concede is important as in a points tie goal difference counts!
It’s magical – exciting, captivating, essential viewing until May 13.
The NBA, NFL, MLB and the MLS could all learn how to keep every game and every fan watching until the final whistle.

Now let’s switch.

Both leadership and life are like the English Premier League. There is something to play for every minute, every move, every decision, every choice.

Let me speak into the leadership aspect of this.
There is no such thing as an empty, wasted or meaningless leadership shout. Leaders live on the edge of their seats – we seldom if ever slide back and sit comfy ……not until the final whistle is blown.
This brings intensity and I place intensity up at the top of the characteristics or quality every leader needs to have.
I’m not meaning that we act like that annoying ‘intense guy’ who can never smile, laugh or joke.
I’m meaning that we can never take our eye off the ball or judge a decision to be arbitrary or inconsequential.
If we lead without this intensity we will slide down the table and eventually be relegated.

One leader said it like this “when uncertainty is gone your leadership is no longer required.”

I think that’s a brilliant observation and speaks into this issue of constant intensity. The climate of leadership is always uncertainty – that why people need leaders. Fail to stay intense and the uncertainty will go – along with you.

If you want a study in a leader who knows how to make every minute, every moment count – check out Sir Alex Ferguson – the manager of Manchester United ….on their way to a record setting 20th English Premier League title.
How many games have Manchester United won in the last second of the game? It’s a higher percentage than any other professional football team. To the last dying second - that’s how intense Sir Alex’s is.
That’s how they keep winning the hardest league in the world.

Evolving in Monkey Town

So my friend Tim made his first ever book recommendation to me – Evolving in Monkey Town @ Rachel Held Evans.
I sat down last night and read it.
Interesting.
A fundamental southern Christian girl speaking out loud the questions fundamental southern girls shouldn’t ask and coming away with all the ‘wrong’ answers.
It’s gutsy.
It’s about the journey from the land of certainty and accepted Christianity to the new land of uncertainty, doubt and ‘that sounds better …. but are we allowed to believe that?’
Some of us have made that journey before.
It’s a journey that takes you away from a place you can never return to.

The journey most often begins through obtaining a different perspective – maybe listening to the story of a complete stranger, maybe through failure, maybe through doubt; maybe by entertaining a new question.

A question perhaps like this: Do we choose our worldviews or are they chosen for us?
Evans calls it the ‘cosmic lottery’.
If I had grown up in a modern Muslim household in, say, Afghanistan or Turkey, I would have faithfully honored the teachings of my parents and followed Islam like everybody else. The Christians worldview throws around terms like predestination and election, but it could look like just the luck of the draw.

And as you allow yourself to entertain new questions a journey begins.
A scary journey.
The fright comes in that you feel as though you have a faith malfunction, a glitch in the system. What you used to believe is spluttering and that spluttering involves even who God is, what God does.
That’s the fright.

You thought you were only questioning interpretations of who all are ‘saved’; is hell eternal or temporary; what’s the role of women; what or where is heaven; if we are pro-life we are pro all life so how does this impact war and the bad guys; which parts of the Bible are to be taken literally and which are not – and how do we tell?

But as you roam around in these topics you discover that these topics are interwoven into a bigger tapestry, a tapestry that is held together by who God is and what God does.

It’s scary to question God.
Is that even allowed?

But this is the journey; a journey that solidly believes God is open for questions and that’s what makes faith, faith.

I recommend Evolving in Monkey Town ….. I more recommend evolving in Reedley Town, Fresno Town, Nairobi Town, Clovis Town, Gourock Town,, Seattle Town.
Just keep evolving.
[Or maybe some of you prefer me to say just keep reforming. Whatever.]

.......check out some insightful interviews with an Orthodox Jew, a Mormon, a Mennonite, an Evolutionary Creationist, a Calvinist, a Gay Christian, a Quaker, an Orthodox Christian, a Muslim, and others at: www.rachelheldevans.com/topics?tags=ask+a&start=0

Countdown to Lent

Runner’s World is as magazine I read every month cover to cover.
Love it.

What’s weird is its only ever saying the same thing every month!!!
But there is something about rereading articles about doing Fartleks (Google it if you’re a non-runner), to how to gain stamina, or Peter Sagal’s running column (host of NPR’s excellent show Wait, Wait …Don’t Tell Me!), the regular what to eat to recover those sore muscles pages and the constant stories of other runners.

Every month, every word – and really nothing new under the sun.

I know of someone else who gets the same magazine and probably doesn’t read every word, might not read any words ….. and only one of us runs!

Runners need constant motivation.
Motivation to pound the streets, sweat the pavement and burn off the 500 calories of chocolate you rewarded yourself with for yesterdays run.
And what motivates seems to be rereading what you already know.

In a similar way leading is like running.
To always be the guy out front; to always be the go to leader; to always be the one people turn to.
Leaders need constant motivation.
Maybe this is why Bill Hybels and others suggest leaders need to read and reread and reread again.
It’s not that many new writers are saying new things – but they are re-saying what we need to hear to keep us staying out in front of people.

Funny when you think about it more – I’m motivated by stuff I already know!
Maybe even funnier – I buy loads of books written by authors who know they aren’t really saying anything people don’t already know – and then people like me buy them!

Is there anything new under the sun?

So here’s one of my Lental practice this year – don’t buy any new books; don’t read any new magazines or articles – for the 40 days of Lent be motivated by what I already know in one of the hundreds of books I’ve already read.

And already I’m thinking about cramming in as many new books between now and the beginning of Lent!