brave

We are Brave. We are NOT Bullies.

January 29, 2016 by Gindi 9 Comments

I did not want to write this post.

Seriously. It’s Fashion Friday time. I had something much more lighthearted to say.

Then a couple of things intervened and knocked me right out of my lightheartedness.

One, a bully candidate bowed out of the debates.

Two, I saw Thirteen Hours.

There are certain things I avoid like the plague on this blog. In fact, if you look over the past five plus years you will not find ONE political post. I love politics. I have political opinions. I find it best not to share them unless you are family or one of my very best friends.

Then Bray and I had a date night. After appetizers and drinks, we headed over for our annual January movie watching (we only manage about one movie date a year). Last year was American Sniper. So of course, what we would we see this year: Thirteen Hours.

It’s a good movie. (The story of the Benghazi attacks. Not a family movie. But a good adult movie.) And I actually managed to hold it together until this flashed on the screen at the end of the movie: Libya is now a failed state. It remains a stronghold for ISIS.

I burst into tears.

I watched a reenactment of these brave and earnest men fight and die, and then saw those words flash across the screen.

Why?

And in striking contrast to raw bravery, what do we see here at home? Grandstanding bullying narcissism.

Y’all. We are watching a grandstanding narcissistic bully. And he’s getting votes. Regardless of your opinion about Saturday Night Live’s political affiliation, when the debate spoof seems oddly realistic, and their characterization of a leading candidate is NAME CALLING and it feels accurate, something is wrong!

We are seeing adult bullies garnering approval instead of reproof.

We have a million school anti-bullying programs, but what does it show our children if we say it’s okay to vote for a BULLY to run our freedom-loving nation?

It. Is. Not. Okay. To. Vote. For. A. Bully. We cannot condone adult bullying. It should be more an anathema than childhood bullying because we should KNOW BETTER.

I do not take any political position here. No issue I am advocating on this platform. But what are we telling our kids if we say it’s okay to yell and call people names and walk away from conversations we might not win? It is terrible.

We have brave men and women fighting real battles for our country. Over life and death issues. Sacrificing their comfort and their families even when the punchline ends up, despite their best efforts, with LIBYA IS A FAILED STATE.

And then we have a self-involved media hound who thinks insults buy him popularity and it turns out HE IS RIGHT. WHY???

Why?

I saw no television on Thursday night. I was at the movies, obviously. So I have no idea what ended up happening and what didn’t and what people covered and what they didn’t.

But this is what I believe.

America needs more bravery.

America needs less bullying.

We are a brave people. I believe we are a good people.

We believe in the American Dream. We want hate to die. We want good to win.

Every single individual person in our country could just say to the loud bullies, knock it off. We have bigger battles to win. You and me, we are not in Libya. We are not in Iraq. We are not in Nigeria. We are not in the dangerous places. The places in need. And neither are the politicians.

If we would agree to be good and brave, then maybe we could start having conversations that matter which result in us being called to action to work for the common good. I know this sounds idealistic, but I’m old enough to have had my idealism knocked for a loop. But I still believe there is good at our core, and if we would get off our lazy asses we could channel it to make things better.

Proverbs 6: There are six things the Lord hates, seven that are detestable to him:
haughty eyes, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked schemes, feet that are quick to rush into evil, a false witness who pours out lies and a person who stirs up conflict in the community.

Ephesians 4: Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another.

2 Samuel 10: Be strong, and let us fight bravely for our people and the cities of our God. The Lord will do what is good in his sight.

2 Samuel 17: Then even the bravest soldier, whose heart is like the heart of a lion, will melt with fear, for all Israel knows that your father is a fighter and that those with him are brave.

Leadership Rewind: Be Brave

March 31, 2015 by Gindi Leave a Comment

Over the next four weeks I will be in Washington, D.C.; Cody, Wyoming and Billings, Montana; Raleigh, North Carolina; Minneapolis, Minnesota; New Orleans, Louisiana; and Austin, Texas three times. With all that travel, for work and for speaking engagements, I will have more limited time to write because the time I’m home I want to make sure I am completely present with my husband and kids.

So a few of my posts will be some of my greatest hits. On Leadership Tuesdays, I’ll look back at some of the original posts but will have some new entries from the new materials I’m preparing as I speak. Since I’m going to be talking a lot about bravery, here’s a post from this time last year about that exact topic – so go be brave you strong leader!

I’ve not ceased being fearful.
I have gone ahead despite the pounding in the heart that says: turn back, turn back, you’ll die if you go too far.
Erica Jong

Sometimes, when aspiring leaders hear “take risks,” they translate that to “don’t be scared.”

That’s not risk-taking.

Smart calculated risks mean going ahead despite the pounding in your heart.

As Shona Brown, a Senior Vice President of Google, put it, it’s that point where you’re about to jump off a ski slope that you know you can ski, “and your stomach is going woo!”

Or as blogger Lisa-Jo Baker so succinctly puts it, “Scared is the new brave.”

You move forward even though you are still scared. You bravely take the step that needs to be taken even when your knees are knocking.

Change making is what leaders do. If it were easy, everyone would lead. If it were easy, the world would be a peaceful, vibrant, encouraging place. Change is hard. Change means you won’t always win the popularity contest. Change means things might get harder before they get better or easier or stronger.

Yet as Diane Yu told me when I interviewed her for my first book, “We cannot blindly enter into leadership roles without a practical perspective of what that leadership comes with, yet the burden is one we must bear in order to effect change and make a positive difference in the world around us.” (Learning to Lead)

Sooo… I’m writing another book.

Ack. I just wrote that down.

I am scared.

Because I’m doing this one without the safety net. But this is the book I want to write. This is the book that I feel inspired to pen with each new book I read or each new speaker I hear or each new story I am told.

What if it’s a disaster? What if everything I’m coming up with has already been said? What if this and that and the other? You know how those voices in your head work. And they stop you from doing what you are called to do and uniquely capable of achieving. You are marvelously unique. No one else can accomplish what you can in the way that you can accomplish it.

What would you do if you could do anything?

What would you set your sights on if you felt you could climb that mountain of fear that is blocking your view?

Where would you travel, what job would you take, which position would you run for, what decision would you execute, who would you call, what platform would you build?

Do. That. Now.

Don’t do it foolishly. Lightheartedly. Without analysis and perspective and counsel. Of course. Be savvy.

But do not let fear stop you.

Go ahead despite the pounding in your heart. In fact, go ahead because of it. (===> Click to Tweet) That’s when we live and grow and learn and develop.

The Arena and The Sniper

January 28, 2015 by Gindi 2 Comments

Two things happened yesterday.

I read this:

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better.
The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.
Excerpt from President Theodore Roosevelt’s speech “Citizenship In A Republic,” delivered at the Sorbonne, in Paris, France on April 23, 1910

And I saw American Sniper with Bray.

This is what hit me at my deepest core: You Are Too Comfortable.

I have relied on perfectionism being my enemy of progress. But I believe now it’s really comfort that I am battling.

We make a nice living and live in a comfortable house and raise comfortable kids and go to church on Sundays and eat out on Friday nights.

I want to live braver than that.

I want to make bolder decisions that may result in folks criticizing the hell out of me or in epic failures, but at least I’ll be actually moving at a great clip toward progress with enthusiasm and passion and devotion.

Comfort is sitting in the pot that slowly gets warmer and warmer until you’ve ended up boiled alive because you never risked jumping out.

American Sniper was hard to watch last night, but what I saw there was this: an unwavering commitment by the hero to follow what he believed in. It doesn’t matter if you believe in what he believed in. He believed in it, and he followed it tirelessly until the very end.

We care too much about what everyone else will say. I have two friends that I talk to regularly, and we often begin our conversations with, “well people will think I’m crazy.” The good thing about these friends is they go ahead and take the bold step even with crazy faces staring back at them.

Don’t you love the end of that quote? Who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

Don’t you want that? To at least not to be left at the end with neither victory or defeat? Wouldn’t you rather fail while daring greatly ? I would. And I’m drawing a line in the sand. I will consciously evaluate decisions against the backdrop of comfort, and I will not let my personal ease or people’s opinion be the determining factor in whether I follow the bold trail God is blazing for me.

Art: The Battle of the First June, by Philippe-Jacques de Loutherbourg, 1795

On Being Brave

December 31, 2014 by Gindi 11 Comments

There’s a theme out there in the blogging world about selecting ONE word for the new year ahead. I’ve never done it. I’m not doing it this year. But I love the concept. If you had to capture all you want out of the year ahead in one word, what would it be?

For me, as I have written earlier, my word for 2015 would be brave.

Brave as dressed in entirely new clothes.

Brave as being rather than doing.

You see I’m a doer. It turns out being takes far more courage (for me) than doing.

When I wrote a God-sized Dreams link up post last year at this exact same time, I wrote about wonderful stuff but it generally involved doing. I did not envision just being one year ago. I envisioned doing. And so I did. I thought I was brave this year by working on a second book and taking more significant assignments at work and speaking on bigger and brighter stages in front of hundreds of women and leading an organization with an increasingly national profile.

That was not actually all that brave. It was good, don’t get me wrong. God opened those doors and I am grateful for every single one of them. But what God is teaching me, in these hours we’re spending together, is that brave MUST look different this year.

It takes more bravery for me to offer a dozen neighbors cookies in my front yard that to stand on a stage in front of a thousand women. It takes more bravery for me to read bedtime stories every single night I’m given with my children this year than to finish writing my next book. It takes more bravery for me to wake up early every morning and work out so that I can lose weight and be a healthy momma than to attend dinner parties with “the important people.” It takes more bravery for me to spend less and live “smaller,” than to gain everything but lose my soul (Matt. 16:26).

It will take a mighty act of courage, with significant assistance from my patient Heavenly Father, to focus on my influence within my property lines than my influence within my city or state or anywhere else.

I studied the 40 Day Prayer Circle Challenge by Mark Batterson this fall, and in it he writes about drawing a circle of prayer around the area you most fervently want God to work. Then he uses this beautiful image of how God draws a circle around us:”Long before we woke up this morning and long after we go to sleep tonight, the Holy Spirit was and is circling us in prayer. And if that doesn’t infuse us with holy confidence, I don’t know what will. But it isn’t just the Holy Spirit who is interceding for us; the Son of God is interceding for us as well. They are interceding for the will of God to be accomplished in our lives. We are double circled. They are circling us all the time with songs of deliverance.” (Day 15, Draw the Circle)

He wants His work to be done in you even more than you want it! I could just visualize that 2015 is the year God is drawing a circle around my family and saying, Here. Here is where you stand. You stand in this circle this year. I have a plan for you. But it will take you being brave to trust me that I can accomplish it while you stand right here in a circle that might feel a little small at first.

I wrote for God-sized Dreams, “God sometimes requires us to lay down our dream, even the dream He placed on our heart, in order to know him more.” I want to be brave enough to do that.

He must increase, but I must decrease. John 3:30

The line in a song by Francesca Battistelli resonated in my core, “I don’t need my name in lights, I’m famous in my Father’s eyes. Make no mistake, He knows my name. I’m not living for applause. I’m already so adored. It’s all His stage. He knows my name.”

You see, it’s all HIS stage. Thousands of articles have been authored by media specialists and blogging experts about the size of your platform (aka your stage). Your reach is supposed to grow and your name found at the top of every search engine. But it is His stage. I only need HIM to know my name.

So my God-sized Dream for 2015 is for the size and shape of my stage to just so reflect Him. The stage may look, from the outside, smaller and less bright, but oh friend it feels so brave and big to me.

Linking up with God-sized Dreamers today: