Marathon Leadership in a Sprint Culture

Transcript

Welcome And Why CBC Exists

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to the Christian Business Concepts with your host Harold Milby. Christian Business Concepts. Your host, Harold Milpany.

How The Podcast Community Grows

Vision Versus Victory Starts The Topic

Galatians 6:9 And Not Quitting

Perseverance As Maturity Not Just Results

Pressure Reveals What Is Inside

When Adversity Tests The Whole Company

Biblical And Real World Perseverance Models

Practical Ways To Build Perseverance

Prayer And Final Charge

SPEAKER_01 0:17

Thanks, Kelly, and welcome everyone to this week's Christian Business Concepts Podcast. I'm your host, Harold Milby, and I'm so glad that you've decided to download this episode. Now, if you're a first-time listener, you may be wondering what Christian Business Concepts is all about. Well, CBC is dedicated to helping Christian business owners and leaders find true godly success by applying biblical business principles to business concepts. Most of what I've learned about business and leadership has come right out of the Word of God. It's there. You know, we believe, you know, our core value at the very center of our core value is that we believe that God wants to bless your business. He wants to bless your department if you're over a department, or he wants to bless your organization. We believe God wants you to touch and influence others, like maybe employees or customers, people you do business with and others. So today I hope that you're encouraged and enlightened and empowered by what you hear. It's so important to us, and that's the reason that this organization was founded was to help Christian business leaders and owners. We believe in Christian business. We believe it's so, so very important. And so that's why each week we bring this podcast to you with lots of good information, lots of great things, great ways that we can apply God's word into our businesses. Because honestly, there's a huge difference between what the world calls success and what God calls success. I'd rather have God's success any day than I would over the world's success. Now, this week, as I do every week, I want to give a big shout out to Los Angeles, California for having so many downloads this week. So keep it up there in LA. We appreciate you folks there in California. And we are so hopeful that you will gain some insight today, even. So whether you're a new listener or whether you've been listening for quite some time, this podcast is about three years old. We have almost 200 episodes. So maybe you've been listening for a long time, or this is your first one. Either way, we're so appreciative that you've decided to make us a part of your growth plan, at least for today. And so we thank you for that. Uh, you know, now each week many of you help us try to grow uh the CBC community by sharing this podcast with four or five other people and by placing the link to this podcast in a post on your Facebook and LinkedIn pages. You're the reason that we continue to grow so very much. You know, we had our biggest number of downloads uh last month. Uh actually, it was in the month of March. We had uh close to 35,000 downloads for that month. So what a record. We thank you for that. We appreciate all of you who are helping us today. Now, today I want to talk about the difference between victory and vision. Uh, today we're we're we're gonna talk about a trait that I truly believe separates dreamers from builders, it separates starters from finishers, and it separates visionaries from legacy makers. Today I want to talk about perseverance. You know, talent sometimes can be common, you know, ideas at times can be very abundant. Uh capital, uh capital is accessible. But perseverance, sometimes that can be really rare. And here's the truth your vision will test you longer than your excitement can sustain you. Let me say that again, and you listen to this very carefully. Your vision will test you longer than your excitement can sustain you. So what are you gonna do then? You know, every business owner is you is gonna encounter delays, uh possible rejection, um, economic downturns, uh staffing issues, or maybe product failures. I've had that experience, um, personal exhaustion, uh, or maybe you just feel dry spiritually. So the question isn't whether, and I call these things resistance, but the question isn't whether resistance is gonna come. The question is, will you outlast it? Because you're either, you know, experiencing resistance right now, or you're going to get ready to go into some resistance in your life, or maybe you're just coming out. But you're one of those three, you're in one of those three time periods in your life. So it's important for us, it's important. Will you outlast it? That's the question. And that's what we're talking about and why we're talking about perseverance. Galatians 6 9 is a great anchor for this conversation. It says, let us not grow weary in well-doing. For in due season we will reap if we do not give up. So notice the condition. We will reap, but we have to not give up. We will reap, but we have to make sure we have perseverance. See, there is a harvest here, as you know, it says, we will reap in due season. There is a harvest, but there's one requirement: don't give up. So, what is perseverance? Well, I believe that perseverance is a very uh uh sustained obedience to a vision despite any kind of prolonged resistance or issues. You know, we go back to uh what I said a moment ago. Your vision uh will test you longer than your excitement can sustain you. So perseverance is that sustained obedience, keep moving forward, keep moving forward towards that vision despite uh any kind of prolonged resistance. You know, uh perseverance is not emotional hype. That's not what I'm talking about. It's not denial of difficulty. I'm not saying that you just act like difficulty is not there, you act like these issues aren't there, pretend they're not there, and just try to gloss over them and move on. I'm not saying that. That's not what perseverance is. And perseverance is not blind stubbornness. That's not what perseverance is either. And perseverance is not being weak. That's not it either. It's more of a disciplined endurance. You know, in business terms, perseverance is more like staying the course when your cash flow starts to tighten up, or continuing to refine the product after your initial rejection, or leading your team through uncertainty without abandoning the mission. Uh, choosing long-term growth over short-term comfort. I like that. You know, Angela Duckworth, who is the author of Grit, she defines perseverance as passion and sustained persistence toward long-term goals. Let me say it again. Perseverance is a passion and sustained persistence toward a long-term goal. James 1 and 4 says, let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. Perseverance is not just about outcomes. You know, we we know that bottom lines in business that we're looking for. We're looking for these bottom line matrixes, uh, you know, that that is important to us, obviously, to sustain the business, but, you know, perseverance is not just about outcomes. Perseverance is about maturity. You know, most business owners initially value perseverance for one reason. They only really value it because of the results. You know, they well, I got to have perseverance if I'm gonna see increased revenue or if I'm gonna penetrate that market or brand recognition or have investor confidence or uh, you know, some kind of growth metrics. And yes, perseverance absolutely contributes to these outcomes. I'm not denying that. But if the only reason you persevere is to get something, you're gonna miss what perseverance is doing in you. Because perseverance is not merely transactional. You know, James 1, 2 through 4 says, consider it pure joy whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its final work. See, perseverance is transformational. It's transformational. In leadership, you know, we talk about maturity, that's what we're talking about, but in leadership, maturity is currency. You know, so what happens when a leader lacks perseverance? Well, I can tell you, some of the consequences are immediate and long term. Because what can happen is your vision begins to shift, and it shifts constantly. A leader without perseverance, he changes direction. They change direction every time there's an obstacle. You know, then the team, your team becomes very confused. Uh, you have culture that becomes very destabilized, and then you have a lack of momentum. You know, Proverbs 24 and 10 says, if you faint in the day of adversity, your strength is small. So, what you want to understand is that you need to have perseverance because it creates maturity, it creates transformation. And as a Christian, as a believer, it's all about transformation from day to day. Now, another thing that adversity does when you have adversity is it reveals your capacity. See, adversity doesn't just create character, as we've been talking about. It exposes it, you know, it exposes it to pressure. And you need to understand that pressure in and of itself, it doesn't create anything, it just reveals. So when everything is going smooth, you got good, strong cash flow, the clients are happy, the team is unified, you got good, steady growth. Almost anybody can look like a strong leader. But adversity, it kind of, you know, that's kind of like camouflage, but when you when you run into adversity, it kind of removes that camouflage. You know, like when revenue drops 30%, or maybe a key, very important employee leaves, or there's a public mistake that damages the reputation of the company, or a product fails, like in the case I've experienced, or maybe the investors start to get nervous. It's when these things happen that we begin to discover what's really inside a leader. You know, Luke 6, 45 says, out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaketh. See, under pressure is when you when you're under pressure, what happens is whatever's abundant spills out. So when you're under pressure, if fear is the abundant item in you, it's gonna come out. If it's faith, that will come out. If it's blame, that'll come out. If it's courage, that'll come out. If it's control, that'll come out. If it's humility, that'll come out. Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouse speaks. So what he's saying is it's like a it's like a sponge. Whatever's been absorbed into that sponge, when you put pressure on it, is gonna come out. You see, capacity is your internal leadership ceiling. Okay, so that that puts a cap on the ceiling of your leadership ability. Capacity does. So capacity is your ability to remain very steady when there's pressure or to think very, very clearly, even though there may be there may there may be chaos. Um, it this capacity is the ability to make very disciplined decisions when even though you may feel emotional. Uh, it helps you to sustain belief when the results quite, you know, aren't quite there. It helps you to carry weight without collapsing under that weight. So anybody can lead at a level three pressure. But it's harder, and there's a lot fewer leaders that can lead when it's a level nine pressure, if if I can give you that analogy and get that picture in your mind. See, calm seasons will show potential, but storm seasons show capacity. You know, adversity reveals emotional capacity, and it also reveals spiritual capacity, and it and and and it reveals um relational capacity and leadership capacity. Um you know, you're you you've got all kinds of pressures that come and and it can affect you and affect your perseverance with your wealth, your family, your health. Um but even though that happened, and and Job talked about that because Job lost everything. But Job said in in Job 13 and 15, he said, Though he slay me, yet will I trust him. See, that's his spiritual capacity. That's his spiritual capacity. Now, Peter, on the other hand, he denied Jesus when he was under pressure. It it was the same moment of adversity that maybe you could compare with Job, but it had a different revealed capacity. You know, adversity did not make Peter weak, but it did reveal where he was not yet strong. And here's the encouraging part. When you have revealed weakness, that becomes the starting point for growth. That's the good thing. See, capacity can expand, but first it's it's got to be exposed. So adversity reveals that kind of capacity. It reveals capacity for your organization. It's not just personal, but also reveals your capacity as an organization. Economic downturns is gonna reveal uh whether your culture is unified or whether it's really fragile. You know, whether you've got a really good solid strategy or is it just mostly hype? Um, you know, if you're gonna weather uh, you know, these economic downturns, you've got to be disciplined. You can't be sloppy. You know, the it in 2008, I remember in 2008 we had a terrible financial crisis, but I got to tell you, there was a lot of companies uh that was revealed during that pressure that they were over-leveraged. And during the COVID-19 pandemic uh just a few years ago, that revealed a lot of organizations were not adaptable. They weren't adaptable. You know, I think about the restaurants I think that were all closed down and then they started to open up, but you couldn't dine in. You could go by there and pick something up. And I remembered the first company, the first organization that had a really good system that adopted a really, really good system was Texas Roadhouse. Uh, Texas Roadhouse, a lot of people don't know this, but they're based right here in Kentucky. Uh, but they had such a good system. And I can remember my wife and I would order food from Texas Roadhouse, you know, a couple of times a week because for dinner, because they were so good at it. They adapted very, very quickly, very easily. It was a very good system. It worked really, really well. But, you know, that period of time, that COVID-19 pandemic just revealed which companies were adaptable and which ones weren't. So, so why is it that these leaders sometimes they misinterpret adversity? They misinterpret it. You know, uh, so a lot of people, a lot of leaders assume uh that adversity means, well, uh, you know, this must not, you know, if they if anything comes against them, it's like, well, this must not be God's will. You know, that's they kind of mean that. They kind of think that. Uh, or, well, this ain't working. Or we chose to go in the wrong direction. Or I'm not cut out for this. But resistance is not always a red light. Sometimes it's a weight room. Can I say that? It's a weight room. You know, you don't build muscle until you start putting pressure on your muscles by lifting weights. That's how you build muscle. Um, but a lot of times people don't do it, they don't want to do the work. But, you know, when you talk about resistance, when you talk about adversity, it doesn't mean stop always. You know, Hebrews 12.11 says no discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest. So I think that's important to understand. It's like, it's like fire. You know, fire, it it you know, it tests metals, if I could say that. Heat doesn't weaken steel, it reveals impurities. It doesn't weaken it, it just imp it just reveals those impurities. Adversity, I believe, is the furnace of leadership. You know, um there's a lot of a lot of businesses that have to pressure test certain systems within their organizations. I'm talking about physical. And and when you're talking about engineering, uh pressure testing exposes a lot of cracks that are invisible when there's no pressure. So leaders, all of us have, at times we have invisible cracks. And when we find them is when the pressure comes. So we we we don't want to not have that pressure. We don't want to not have adversity because that adversity helps us. It helps us, it refines us. Um, you know, you know, there's a paradox here. You know, adversity feels like a threat, but it's it's a lot of times it's it's got great revelation. And revelation's a gift. Because one capacity, once that capacity is revealed, then you can begin to develop that capacity. Romans 5, 3 says suffering produces perseverance, perseverance, character, and character hope. Look at that sequence. You have adversity, then you have perseverance, then you build character, and then you have hope. So adversity is not the end, it's the exposure point. You know, a final leadership truth here for you to understand. Anyone can manage momentum. When you have momentum, you're a great leader. But only mature leaders can manage this adversity and resistance. See, your true leadership level is not revealed by your wins, but by your response to loss. So without perseverance, every challenge that you have, every challenge that you go through feels like a sign to quit. Without perseverance, every time you have a setback, you feel like it's personal. Um without perseverance, every delay feels like a failure. So a leader who quits internally, you know, you quit within yourself, you quit with what you're thinking, you quit with how you're responding. Every leader who quits internally eventually quits externally. So you don't want to quit internally. You know, Steve Jobs said this, and this was a great quote. He says, I'm convinced that about half of what separates the successful entrepreneurs from the non-successful ones is pure perseverance. I think he's right. I think he's right. Uh I think another reason that leaders don't always uh persevere is because of short-term thinking. They let short-term thinking dominate, you know, and and that's just purely impatience. It's impatience. And and impatience leads to uh maybe you you cut back on some very essential investments or capital improvements. Uh maybe you begin to abandon. In training, because you don't think it's doing any good. But it's patience you need to have. Um, it goes back to avoiding any kind of innovation. We're not going to try anything new. You know, nothing's going on. We just don't have the patience. Or maybe we fired somebody too quickly. Maybe we should have given them a give had a little bit more patience and given them a chance. Or maybe we don't scale fast enough. Maybe we hold back on scaling the business. You know, Elon Musk said, if something is important enough, you should try, even if the probable outcome is failure. That's having this perseverance mentality. That's what this is. That's how he could say that. See, without perseverance, leaders choose comfort over conviction. They want to stay with what's comfortable. You know, biblical perseverance is much more than stubbornness. Biblical perseverance is rooted in faith. That's where it's rooted in. As we, as I quoted earlier in Hebrews 12, 11, no discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it. So perseverance in Scripture always connects to discipline, to faithfulness, to obedience, uh, to long-term promise. It's not self-powered ambition. It's not, you know, it's not uh, well, let me say what it is. It's more, it's more anchored in trust than anchored in no trust. You know, and you can look at these biblical examples on your own, but I would study Joseph. Joseph had to persevere through a lot of injustice. His brothers uh sold him into slavery. He wound up at Potiphar's house as a servant in his house. Potiphar's wife accused him of having unwelcomed advances towards her, which was a lie. He was thrown into prison. He was in the darkest part of the prison. And so he had to have perseverance to get to what God had already showed him. You know, he had to do that. Um, he he still remained faithful. In fact, in Genesis chapter 9, God repeatedly says that the Lord was with Joseph. Joseph didn't control his circumstances, but he controlled his character. And perseverance positioned him for that influence. You know, uh, so I think that's important. You know, when you talk about Paul and you look at his perseverance and his mission, if anybody wanted to quit, it was Paul, and he gives you a list in 2 Corinthians chapter 11. He gives you a list. He said, Man, I've been in shipwrecks, I've had beatings, I've been imprisoned, I've been hungered. Uh uh, and yet he continued to move forward and even said in 2 Timothy 4, 7, he said, I've fought a good fight, I've finished the race, I've kept the faith. He finished. You know, so finishing is perseverance fulfilled. When perseverance is fulfilled, you've you've you've finished, you've done it. And so there are those who lacked uh perseverance in the Word of God, too. So you can look at King Saul because uh Saul began with a promise that God had chosen him to be the king of Israel. But when pressure came, he he had more fear of public opinion than he did of what God told him to do. He disobeyed God. He acted with impulse. Instead of waiting on Samuel, again, he didn't have the patience and he forced a sacrifice. You read about that in 1 Samuel 13, but impatience cost him his kingdom. So perseverance requires tolerance for uncertainty, because without it, people are going to go back to that comfort even when that comfort is holding them back. What perseverance looks like in the business culture, well, it means that the organization doesn't abandon mission even during downturns. It means that the teams expect resistance, but they prepare for it. When they do fail, they don't quit, they just analyze it. They analyze the failure, they don't dramatize it, and then they learn from it and they move on. You know, Jeff Bezos said this. He said, all overnight success takes about 10 years. I love that. You know, I know he was saying that tongue in cheek, but I love that because it's kind of true when you think about it, but all overnight success takes about 10 years. So perseverance culture says we expect friction. We we stay disciplined, we adapt without quitting. See, perseverance is the marathon mindset, not the sprint mindset. It's a marathon mindset. You know, it's the root system of a tree. You know, storms reveal whether the roots, roots are deep enough, but it's the root system. That's what perseverance is. Um, you know, so there's a lot of leaders that overlook um overlook it, you know, and they do that, you know, with this myth, this idea of immediate success. You know, social media really amplifies that. Or, or um, you know, they've had some early wins, so they think that's it's always going to be easy. And that's not true either. Um and they get too comfortable, you know, they get too comfortable. But I like John 16, 33. He says, in this world you will have trouble, but take heart, I've overcome the world. So trouble's guaranteed, but victory is promised. You know, perseverance bridges those two together. They bridge the the from trouble to victory. It's what makes the bridge that gets you to the very promise that God's promised. Um and so when when you don't have that, it causes a lot of problems. Uh having that lack of perseverance, you'll have high turnover, inconsistent brand messaging, um uh loss of credibility. You know, there's all kinds of things. You know, I think about Walt Disney. You know, Walt Disney was fired from a newspaper because they told him he didn't have any imagination. His very first studio went bankrupt. But because of his perseverance, he turned it into an empire. You know, Oprah Winfrey, uh, she was told that she was totally unfit for television. But her perseverance really reshaped media. The way we have media today is very uh different, and a lot of it comes from her. So you learn perseverance, and first that you learn that it's not personality. You know, some people say, well, he can per, you know, he's just got that perseverance in him. You know, no, it's not personality, it's not a personality trait, it's practice. It's it's practice. That's why, again, Romans 5 and 3 and 4, it says suffering produces perseverance, perseverance, character, and character hope. You know, so what you have to do is you have to reframe failure, number one, reframe it. You know, you got to look at failure as feedback. You know, Thomas Edison said, I've not failed, I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work. So you have to reframe the setbacks, re reframe it, refine it. And then build some, what I call micro-endurance, micro-perseverance. You know, this is per perseverance that you practice every day, even in small things. And then you've got to anchor yourself to the purpose that you know that you know, that you know you're there for. Because purpose will sustain you when motivation can't. You need to persevere. Uh, then you need to surround yourself with enduring leaders. Make sure you have enduring leaders. You know, Proverbs 13 20 says, walk with the wise and become wise. And then you need to have some spiritual depth about you. You need to grow because perseverance turns pain into a platform. It it's it's delay, it's not denial. When you endure today, it prepares you to lead tomorrow. I believe that. You know, the promise is real, but so is the process. And so we we've got to understand that. Stay consistent, trust God through this uncertainty that you may be going through. And here's the final truth: Vision starts businesses, but perseverance builds them. Vision starts businesses, but perseverance builds them. So today, stay faithful, stay steady, and stay anchored. Lord, we thank you today for all of the men and women who have listened to this podcast today. Help each one of us to learn the power behind perseverance. Help us to grow into and help us to see how important it is to us spiritually and professionally. Lord, we thank you for that in Jesus' name. Amen and amen. Well, thank you again for listening to this week's Christian Business Podcast, uh Business Concepts Podcast. We appreciate it. Uh, and we're out of time. So uh let's remember Jesus is Lord and He wants you blessed.

SPEAKER_00 31:37

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