Trying to be someone you shouldn’t never ends well.

Your ROLE is more important than you think. Trace back every argument you’ve had with anybody in the past month and I’ll bet you fought about (or quietly resisted) “Who gets to do what to whom?”

We think we are smart enough when we are younger to find ourselves by ourselves but a poor goal still leads to disappointment in the end. Oh, you might find yourself by yourself but it is unlikely anyone will take that journey with you. It is also realistic to say that you might not like some of what you find but are now stuck with yourself and the habit of solving your problems only your way.

Canadians tend to be obsessed with self.
I know it doesn’t look like it from the outside, but dig a few layers into conflict and you’ll find a similar attitude underneath that says “Who died and made YOU boss?!!!?”

Obsession with self creates problems with no answers. The next predictable step is taking credit for the things we get right and blame shifting for the rest. Someone here please tell me “If I was the problem I would admit it!!!”

Right…

Here are a few things that have helped me understand my role in every relationship that I have:

1. There is a God. It’s just not YOU. #dealwithit

If your assumption is that you are in control of your life and that’s the way it was meant to be, your life will be small. Generous sometimes. Kind sometimes. Flawed sometimes. Complicated all the time.
It doesn’t have to be. If the claims of Christ are true, there is a God who loves you recklessly and wants to run the show for you. Your past experience and disbelief of HIs power or motives has probably defined your reality long enough. Maybe it’s time to change your mind?

2. Trying to be someone you shouldn’t never ends well.

We prefer the simplicity of being the final decision maker of our own lives. It always leads to tragedy, that’s how simple it really is. It insults our “intelligence” to hear this, but the results have come back from millions of tests (people’s lives) in the opposite direction of our thinking and we still insist WE will be the exception.

3. Teaching moments.
There are no teaching moments for someone who has decided they are always the teacher. My relationships with high capacity people from church to business to relationships always shifts into teaching moments, depending on whose opinion matters more for a particular aspect of an issue. Why?
Because when they speak in their expertise I listen. When I speak in mine one particular associate (as high level as they come) listens like she’s a twelve year old absorbing information. On the flip side, we try helping some twenty year olds who act like they’re doing us a favour by even listening to our concerns about their destructive decision making which are leading them to great pain they have no clue exists.

4. Everyone believes in TEAM if they get to be the quarterback.

It’s why we have so little traction.

We think that position is the same thing as influence…

If you can’t play a good second fiddle, why would you be a good first chair?