Borrowed Time, Borrowed Land

What if your whole life could be measured on a 75-inch tape measure?

Find your age. Look at what’s already passed. Then look at what’s left.

That idea became the starting point for this episode of The King’s Court with King Roberto.

Because almost everything we think of as permanent is really just ours for a season.

Land.
Leadership.
Businesses.
Organizations.
Traditions.
Relationships.

Eventually, somebody else gets a turn.

In “Borrowed Time, Borrowed Land,” King Roberto looks at what it means to lead, build, protect, and eventually let go.

Camp becomes one of the clearest examples. If everything falls apart when a leader leaves, was it really built to last?

Did the next generation get taught?
Were they trusted?
Were they allowed to make mistakes?
Was tradition preserved without becoming an excuse to resist change?

The same questions apply to businesses, families, organizations, and even the land beneath our feet.

The chair may have your name on it today.

That doesn’t make the chair yours.

Eventually, somebody else gets the keys.

Royal Decree:

Know when it’s your turn to lead.
Know when it’s your turn to teach.
And know when it’s somebody else’s turn to carry it forward.

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Transcript

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I was talking to a friend of mine on the phone a little while ago. She's turning 49. I think next week she said. She said her father-in-law used to take out a tape measure and pull it out to 75 inches. And he'd tell them that's what your life looks like on a tape measure. 75 inches. Find your number on it, and that's where you're at. She didn't really like that analogy and really didn't like looking at it, but it gets you thinking. There's a lot of things in life that feel permanent while we're in the middle of them. In this podcast episode, we're going to talk about a couple of them. Your home, piece of land that you own, a business. Maybe you're in a leadership role somewhere. Maybe you've got the family routine or the family tradition. You're part of an organization or a place that's always just been there. And one day you realize none of it's really permanent. Really, you're just getting a turn with it. You're just getting to spend some time with whatever it is. And that doesn't mean that it doesn't matter. It probably means that it matters even more. Because if your time with something is limited, then what you do with that time becomes the whole point. That whole thing kind of hit me. You know, there's a difference between owning something and just having a turn. And that's where this episode is a little bit different from the ownership conversation. We talked about it in episode three. The ownership and the stewardship. That's not what this is about. The question isn't whether something legally belongs to you. This is about a little bit bigger question. How long, and think about it here, how long is whatever you have really going to be in your hands? Because you can own a piece of property, you've heard it, it's in the family for generations, maybe 30, 40 years for the first generation, another 30 or 40 years after that. And that's exactly what we're talking about. That first generation didn't have it forever, just had it for a short period of time. And you think about on that tape measure, you just stretch that thing out 75 inches, and look at where that 30 or 40 is. And it sounds like forever. You know, 30 or 40 years sounds like forever, especially if you're 15. And you're talking about turning 30 or turning 40. I remember turning 40. It seemed like a big deal, but looking back, maybe not so much. But I know those inches are ticking by. What am I gonna do? What's gonna matter? Because that land, it may have been there for hundreds or even thousands of years before you showed up, before I showed up. And it will probably be there long after we're gone. This world's not going anywhere anytime soon. And the same thing's gonna be true with the businesses you own, or the the companies that you work for, even it's temporary. How many people do you talk to that say I put in my 30 years? I'm done. 30 years of work, I'm retiring. Lots of them. Lots of them. One of my best friends growing up is retired. He's 50 years old, 50 and a half. We just went to his birthday. Pretty much retired. Not necessarily by choice, but he's not complaining. It's temporary. And you can spend your entire life building that career, building that business. You can pour everything into it. You can know every customer, every client, every employee, every problem, every detail. And eventually somebody else is gonna be sitting in your chair doing your job or running that company. Sometimes that's hard to think about. But it's reality, man. Nothing's permanent. In constant motion, and at some point, everything becomes somebody else's turn. And for me, I've I've felt it the last couple years a lot with camp. Because it's really obvious with camp. I don't have any kids in the camp program. My kids have grown and moved on. I have grandkids coming up that go to camp, but every year there's campers who think camp is the biggest thing in the world. And they become older campers, and they get older, and then maybe they become a JC. And then maybe they come back as an adult leader like we are seeing now. And eventually they're gone. But camp keeps going. The people change, though. The adult counselors change, the JCs change, the names change, the personalities change, and the traditions change, they evolve, they grow. And if the organization's healthy, the next group gets their turn. And that's what makes leadership at something like camp interesting. The goal can't be to make myself indispensable for me. I my goal is not to make myself indispensable. If everything falls apart the minute that I leave, did I actually lead it well? It's kind of deep. Maybe the better measure is whether the next group can carry it. Did I teach them? Did I let them make decisions? Did I build systems that survived with me being gone? Did I give them enough room to screw something up and learn from it? Or did I protect the things worth protecting without insisting that everything stay exactly the way that I remember it? And that last part is hard because I've spent the hours, the blood, the sweat, the tears, building the program. And I'm not oblivious to the help that I've had. It hasn't been alone, it hasn't just been me. I've had great people along the way, great partners. And sometimes that translates into, well, that's tradition. And what we really mean is that's how we like it. And that's not always the same thing. Because every leader has to get out of the way eventually. Because there's a season where good leadership means stepping forward, right? Taking responsibility, making the decision, fixing the problem, being the person everybody calls. But there's another season where leadership means stepping back. That part is harder. When you've built something, it is hard to step back from that. Because you think about it, you spent all those years being useful, needed, responsible, and involved. And it can be uncomfortable when somebody else starts doing what you used to do, where they change it, or they do it a different way, or they make a decision that you wouldn't necessarily make. Maybe they're just not good at it yet. And you have a choice. You can grab the wheel back, you can keep driving, or you can let them learn how to drive. And there's probably a point in every good leader's life where success starts looking less like control and more like trust. I can tell you for sure, there are people in the camp program that I trust. But I also know that they're tied to that program as a partner of mine. So it's a little bit of a catch 22. Because this applies to a lot of stuff beyond camp. You know, every board member that you know out there, every elected fish official that you can think of, every business executive, a coach or a director or a person with authority, they're all occupying a temporary seat. The chair may have their name on it today, but that doesn't make the chair theirs. Think about some of the sports organizations and the coaching carousel that goes around and around and around. How many coaches come and go? How many general managers come and go? Problems begin when people forget that it doesn't make the chairs theirs just because their name's on it today. That's the trap. That power starts feeling permanent, that authority starts feeling personal. People start acting like an organization, an office, institution, or position exists because of them instead of recognizing that they are simply the current caretaker. Maybe that is one of the most important things anybody in power should remember. One day you are going to leave. And whatever it is, will either be stronger because you were there, weaker because you were there, or completely dependent on you because you never prepared anyone else. Those are very different legacies. And I'll be honest with you, it's something that I struggle with. I like things being the way that I like them being. But I know that I have to teach the next generation of leaders to lead. I know there's going to be a handoff at some point. I don't know when. That there are things worth fighting hard to protect. But protecting something and refusing to let it go are not the same thing. Can hold on to leadership for too long. Can hold on to control for too long. Can hold on to an old way of doing things long after it stopped working. And you think about some of the traditions that you've got in your life. You don't necessarily throw it away, but some of those traditions were fun ten years ago, but not so much today. Because you can even hold on to an image of what something used to be so tightly that you prevent it from becoming what it needs to become next. How many times does that rang true in your life, in your own experience? It doesn't mean that you throw away all that tradition because that tradition matters, that history matters. The institutional memory matters, but maybe the real responsibility is figuring out what's got to be preserved and what needs to be allowed to change. And that's a much harder job than simply saying this is how we always done it. I just heard that the other day about something. Well, this is the way that they've done it over there for 20 years, so that's how we're gonna do it. It doesn't work that way. Because relationships, they've got seasons too. This idea gets more personal when you think about family. Your kids are little, they need you one way. Then they become teenagers, and then they become adults who live at home and play Xbox all day. But we won't get into that. And if you do it right, eventually they need you less. Love them to death. But the goal is to make sure that they launch and they don't need you. Because you spend all those years teaching them to become independent, and then that independence actually shows up at the door, and you're like, what? Wait a minute. Is this what we were working for? Because sometimes it feels like you're losing something, but maybe it's just evidence that you did something right. Your role didn't disappear, it changed. That is true in your friendships, too. It's true in marriages, true in the parents as they get older. Relationships are not static, they're not just the same every day. Trying to force every relationship to stay the same forever probably creates more pain than accepting that the relationships have to evolve. And then you think about the land itself. You can build on it. Maybe you bought your house and you can improve it. Plant trees, put up fences, raise animals, kids, have weddings there, have parties, have arguments, make memories. You can know every corner of a piece of property, every nook and cranny of what you call home. Still one day, and here's the kicker, somebody else is probably going to walk around that ground. And they're gonna learn every nook and cranny. They're gonna learn every piece of the property. That thought doesn't make ownership meaningless, though. It gives it weight because for a short period of history, you get to decide what happens at that place. You could improve it, you could neglect it, you can protect it, you could sell it, you can build something worthwhile that's gonna withstand the test of time, or leave it to the next person in a mess. The land keeps the score in its own way, and I've seen both sides of that. Just a couple months ago, my daughter and I went to look at a house that they were thinking of buying. It was a complete renovation, it was a tear it down to the ground and rebuild it. Because the people before left it in a mess. It was a disaster. Then I walk around my house around here, and I think if I was to go tomorrow, is it in a state that I would want to leave it in? Because that matters. Matters to me. Because honestly, everything stops being about land or organizations at all. We are the temporary part. It's not all the stuff around us. The permanent stuff is the land. The permanent stuff is the house. It's the business. You and I, we're the temporary part. We talk about it, what we own, what we build, our assets, what we lead, what we control, how we commute you know, how we contribute to the community. All that stuff is good. But ultimately, but ultimately, the one thing none of us gets to keep is time. Always ticking. And you don't know how long your season is. You don't know how many inches on that tape measure you get. Nobody does. So maybe the goal isn't to hold on to everything forever. I just experienced it this last week. Friend of mine said, Hey, can you help me close out one of the old bank accounts for the community club that I was a leader of years ago? I said, Yeah, sure. If I'm still on it. And she said, you are. Everything changes. And I didn't, even though I was still on it, I had let go. I wasn't holding that forever, but it still carried on. That goal, maybe it should be to recognize the season you're in and just do the job well. When it's your time to lead, lead. It's your time to teach, teach. Protect it when it's time to be protected. And when it's somebody else's turn, help them succeed. And when it's finally time to hand over the keys, hopefully you can look back and know that the places, the people, the organization, or the family was better because you had a turn. Told you it was gonna be deep. That 75 inches got me thinking, man. Royal decree for ya. Know when it's your turn to lead. Know when it's your turn to teach. And know when it's somebody else's turn to carry it forward. Because in all of this, maybe the question isn't how long can I hold on to it? Maybe it's when my time's done, my turn's over, will the next person be ready? An even harder question. Will I be ready to let them take it? Sitting here tonight, I don't know that I can answer any of those, but something to think about. Hope you've enjoyed the podcast, King Roberto, coming to you from the King's lair. See you later.