Jumpstart your day with this live recording from this morning’s Fearless Leadership Coaching.
How to Rebound When You're Fatigued, Frustrated or Unfocused
THE NEW NORMAL
Fatigued. Frustrated. Unfocused.
That’s where the majority of leaders are right now.
The post-pandemic world is here and masks are coming off.
As everyone slowly emerges from our social hibernation, we’re all trying to pick up the pieces of the aftermath.
ADRENAL EXHAUSTION
If you’re like me, the past 14 months have been a crash course on crisis management.
Living on adrenaline and swift pivots take a toll on your psyche and emotional health.
You may be feeling fatigued, frustrated or unfocused.
I should know because I’ve experienced all three!
Take a deep breath. You’re going to be okay.
You Did A Great Job. Really.
If nobody else has said these words to you, allow me the honor:
You did a great job.
There was no one you could call.
We had nothing to measure our progress against as leaders.
This summer is a season to tap the brakes, catch your breath, and learn from this experience.
Now is the time to rethink, retain, and retire so that you and your organization can experience a fearless rebound in the Fall.
THE FEARLESS LEADERSHIP PODCAST #55
In the latest episode of my podcast, I tackle how to rebound.
For what it’s worth, here are some shareable key quotes from Episode 55:
SUBSCRIBE NOW &
NEVER MISS AN EPISODE
Connect Through Comedy: Think Ensemble
Post-Pandemic Blues?
Now is the perfect time to make a Holy Shift!
Revealing the secrets of popular comedians, I’m providing your team a fresh approach to life and leadership in my weekly podcast:
- Unleash contagious enthusiasm
- Equip leaders to leverage laughter and passion
- Create sustainable momentum in your life and leadership
WATCH NOW
Fail Harder
Who would have guessed 12 months ago that our lives would look so different today?
As we all begin rebuilding our lives and organizations post-pandemic, it might encourage you to allow two simple words to help guide creating your new normal:
Fail Harder.
As Facebook exploded, founder Mark Zuckerberg realized he had to release more and more of the work to web programmers and developers. He couldn't do it all by himself.
Sometimes details fell through the cracks.
Mistakes happened.
And that's okay.
Zuckerberg knew that effective leaders cannot micro-manage people. You must give them freedom and margin to hit the wall and learn.
Fail Harder. That's his mantra at Facebook.
Move fast and break things.
The same is true for you: your effectiveness at rebuilding your organization post-pandemic will INCREASE as the load on your plate DECREASES.
For leaders, this means enabling more and more people.
The start-from-scratch labor of love that my wife and I began a few years ago, Life Church, has grown to be one of the fastest-growing churches in Michigan.
As the founding pastor, my temptation is to try doing everything in the church. This would only lead to a bottleneck and stunt our organization’s growth.
What I have been learning as we bust through growth barriers is that as the leader I can have either control or growth, but I can’t have both.
When I let go of control, our church experiences more growth!
I believe that this post-pandemic season will lead us all into a stronger future.
We are all faced with a series of great opportunities brilliantly disguised as impossible situations.
As you release things in your organization that you’ve held onto tightly, you also unleash mistakes.
And that's okay.
Comedians get better and better every time they bomb on stage. There is no better teacher than making a mistake.
Wisdom is simply knowledge plus scars.
We cannot microwave leaders.
You have to give your team time to make mistakes.
Crock-pots cook s-l-o-w-l-y.
Thomas Edison famously said, "I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work."
Failure is the incubator of leadership.
Failure says that we get to try another direction in solving this problem.
Leadership is formed when we choose to fail harder.
Whatever happened before is now in the past.
Following Christ is like an improv scene: you always get to start fresh.
Dream big.
Stand back up and stretch your faith further.
That’s the beauty of following Christ. Your vision is never too big for God. He forgives, He authors second acts, and He releases you from your past (see Romans 8:1).
Now be careful; don’t waste this fresh page.
Don’t be obligated to ordinary.
No one will ever follow you down the street if you’re carrying a banner that says, “Onward toward mediocrity.”
Instead, take risks.
Paint a big picture of what could be and should be.
And then do it.
Jonathan Herron is a former comedian-turned-author and the founding pastor of Life Church, the fastest-growing church in Michigan and 11th fastest-growing church in America according to LifeWay Research and Outreach Magazine.
His unique ministry approach has been featured online in Time Magazine, USA Today, The Detroit News, MLive and The Washington Times.
Married twenty-two years to his high school sweetheart, Herron has five adopted children plus a wiener dog with a nervous bladder.
Make It Happen
There are moments in life where you can't overthink your reaction.
All you can do is pivot and make it happen.
Take for instance the adoption of our youngest: Alysia Hope.
Adoption wasn't even on our minds.
We thought our family was complete with four kiddo's and a wiener dog to boot.
Isn't it funny how life interrupts our perfectly-laid plans?
That's when we got the phone call out of the blue: The birthmother of our one-year-old son, Levi, had just given birth to a baby girl -- Would we be willing to adopt her?
"Yes" escaped our mouths before our brains had a chance to catch up with what our ears were hearing.
We committed to a major life-change and significant price tag in a matter of 15 seconds.
Suddenly we were responsible for coming up with over $20,000 in 7 days plus preparing our home for a newborn.
We had to make it happen.
I didn't panic, I ran to the internets and did what any good daddy would do: I started a telethon to raise 20 grand!
Every hour on the hour we went live with stupid human tricks, lip-sync battles, and improv games.
The goal was to pay for our unexpected adoption in cash and bring Baby Girl home.
We had to make it happen.
Here's the thing:
When you boldly declare what you want, multiply that with grit + hustle, and then seek help with compassion, empathy prevails and magic happens.
Together with friends and strangers on the internet, we made it happen.
What giant obstacle are you facing today?
What if you leaned in toward the challenge and fearlessly declared what you wanted to do?
How might people around you rally around your cause?
Today let's all dare to make it happen!
Bob Goff on Making a Holy Shift
Welcome to Episode #50
This week's guest: Bob Goff, bestselling author of Love Does, Dream Big, and his latest release, Everybody Always for Kids!
What is this podcast about?
Revealing the secrets of popular comedians, Jonathan Herron provides a fresh approach to life and leadership in this weekly podcast:
- Unleash contagious enthusiasm
- Equip leaders to leverage laughter and passion
- Create sustainable momentum in your life and leadership
Let’s Connect
Connect with Jonathan at @HighFiveJon and JonathanHerron.com
- SUBSCRIBE NOW -
Spotify: http://bit.ly/HolyShiftPodcast
Apple: http://bit.ly/HolyShiftNow
Rebuilding Your Life
Who would have guessed 12 months ago that our lives would look so different today?
As we all begin rebuilding our lives and organizations post-pandemic, it might encourage you to allow two simple words to help guide creating your new normal: Fail Harder.
As Facebook exploded, founder Mark Zuckerberg realized he had to release more and more of the work to web programmers and developers. He couldn't do it all by himself.
Sometimes details fell through the cracks. Mistakes happened. And that's okay.
Zuckerberg knew that effective leaders cannot micro-manage people. You must give them freedom and margin to hit the wall and learn.
Fail Harder. That's his mantra at Facebook. Move fast and break things. The same is true for you: your effectiveness at rebuilding your organization post-pandemic will INCREASE as the load on your plate DECREASES. For leaders, this means enabling more and more people.
The start-from-scratch labor of love that my wife and I began a few years ago, Life Church, has grown to be one of the fastest-growing churches in Michigan. As the founding pastor, my temptation is to try doing everything in the church. This would only lead to a bottleneck and stunt our organization’s growth.
What I have been learning as we bust through growth barriers is that as the leader I can have either control or growth, but I can’t have both. When I let go of control, our church experiences more growth!
I believe that this post-pandemic season will lead us all into a stronger future. We are all faced with a series of great opportunities brilliantly disguised as impossible situations.
As you release things in your organization that you’ve held onto tightly, you also unleash mistakes. And that's okay. Comedians get better and better every time they bomb on stage. There is no better teacher than making a mistake.
Wisdom is simply knowledge plus scars. We cannot microwave leaders. You have to give your team time to make mistakes. Crock-pots cook s-l-o-w-l-y.
Thomas Edison famously said, "I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work." Failure is the incubator of leadership. Failure says that we get to try another direction in solving this problem. Leadership is formed when we choose to fail harder.
Whatever happened before is now in the past. Following Christ is like an improv scene: you always get to start fresh. Dream big. Stand back up and stretch your faith further. That’s the beauty of following Christ.
Your vision is never too big for God. He forgives, He authors second acts, and He releases you from your past (see Romans 8:1).
Now be careful; don’t waste this fresh page.
Don’t be obligated to ordinary. No one will ever follow you down the street if you’re carrying a banner that says, “Onward toward mediocrity.”
Instead, take risks. Paint a big picture of what could be and should be. And then do it.
About the Author
Jonathan Herron is a former comedian-turned-author and the founding pastor of Life Church, the fastest-growing church in Michigan and 11th fastest-growing church in America according to LifeWay Research and Outreach Magazine.
His unique ministry approach has been featured online in Time Magazine, USA Today, The Detroit News, MLive and The Washington Times.
Married twenty-two years to his high school sweetheart, Herron has five adopted children plus a wiener dog with a nervous bladder.
Connect with him at JonathanHerron.com & on social media @HighFiveJon.
Connect on Twitter
-
Remember that often life’s greatest lessons are usually learned at the worst times and from the worst mistakes. Just be sure you LEARN! -
Prediction: Next year Time Magazine will declare A.I. as their Person of the Year. https://t.co/S2R6CYdRqE
-
RT @theryangeorge: Paul McCartney's "Wonderful Christmastime" is about friends practicing witchcraft but then someone walks in and the… https://t.co/GUGnd30BDy
-
Sad, sad news. Full Video + review from last month’s Monkees Farewell Tour stop in Detroit, Mike’s final performan… https://t.co/JGNypu4REt
-
I just saw Mike perform live 5 weeks ago in Detroit. Awfully sad news. https://t.co/cnWE25tTxk
-
LET’S CONNECT ❄️ Instagram @HighFiveJon ❄️ Facebook @HighFiveJon ❄️ TikTok @HighFiveJon ❄️ YouTube: Jonathan He… https://t.co/zIp0HOkNX1
-
God can put a panic in a great army so that they are defeated by very few (1 Samuel 14:15). Never assume that grea… https://t.co/5oLHOXRgdV
-
Guest Post: Sermon Plagiarism Isn't a Sin https://t.co/ZFEtNBPWsK
-
God didn't say this would be easy; He said He'd be with you.
-
Better days ARE ahead if you’ll only have faith! #TogetherWeWin https://t.co/FabKocFrQD
IF YOUR CHURCH IS DRIFTING AND STUCK, SHOULD YOU TRY TO CHANGE FROM WITHIN?
What do you do if you’re a frustrated support staff member of a visionless church?
Do you try to change things from within?
Recently this question came to my inbox:
Hi Jonathan,
I was at the Youth Workers Retreat that you spoke at last weekend, and I had a follow up question for you. First of all, thanks so much for your honest words and practical advice. I had a lot of great takeaways from the retreat and really appreciate your perspective!
My husband is the youth director at a 100+ year old church, and I am his most faithful volunteer leader (whether by choice or not :). We’re also on the worship team and a part of an effort to grow the young adult population in our church (we’re both in our mid-twenties).
As many very established churches are, ours is an “insider” church full of church politics and stagnancy.
The building itself is in a rich mission-field, directly across the street from a very high-poverty inner-city high school, but most of our members don’t live in the community and are primarily middle- to upper-middle class, white, grew-up-in-the-church Christians (not much diversity).
We felt a strong call to become members of the church and for my husband to take the role of youth director a couple years ago. Probably the largest factor in that decision (and our decision to stay at the church since then) is our intention to try to make a change within the church.
We often feel like all of our energy spent in relation to our church is pushing and pulling the congregation to think and act less self-centeredly and more missionally.
My husband has been pushed in his job as youth director to focus more on making other church members happy than to focus on outreach.
It’s frustrating to say the least, and we consider leaving the church just about every week, to be quite honest!
After hearing everything you had to say about deciding who you’re willing to lose (Christians or non-Christians) and how in most circumstances, the only people that get mad about things in the church are other Christians, our feelings of “what are we doing here!?” are especially strong.
In your opinion, do you see any value in having a personal mission of trying to open the eyes of the insider, self-centered culture of an old church like ours…or are we just wasting our time?
MY ANSWER:
Hey there!
Thank you for your email — I completely understand what you’re saying because my wife and I have been in your exact shoes!
Let me cut to the chase: In church-world, you can either resurrect the dead or birth a new baby.
Birthing a new baby is easier (that’s why my family sacrificed everything to start Life Church Michigan from scratch).
Any meaningful change within a church HAS to be birthed out of the heart of the senior pastor.
If the senior pastor is not the one leading the change, the change will not happen.
Period.
Your job is to support the leadership of the lead PASTOR CALLED BY GOD TO LEAD AND LOVE YOUR CHURCH.
Hebrews 13:17 says,
Be responsive to your pastoral leaders. Listen to their counsel. They are alert to the condition of your lives and work under the strict supervision of God. Contribute to the joy of their leadership, not its drudgery. Why would you want to make things harder for them?
My advice?
If you cannot 110% support and champion the vision of the senior pastor, quit.
Today.
Flip burgers for six months until God brings you to a church where you can completely champion the vision, love the senior pastor and have his back, and use your gifts to further the Kingdom through the local church.
Your job is NOT to create change from within.
God did not appoint you as senior pastor.
I’ll take it a step further: even if your senior pastor were a Disney Villain, it is not your job to challenge him and try to hijack the church.
David was given the opportunity to kill King Saul and stage a coup d’etat, yet he didn’t:
For I said, ‘I will never harm the king— he is the Lord’s anointed one.’
God will always honor leaders that can submit to authority and be in harmony with the church’s vision.
If you can’t do this at your current church, leave quickly and quietly.
Don’t stick around for a paycheck (wrong heart motivation!).
God does not bless sin, but He does bless humility and patience.
He will direct your steps and it is ok to work at the local video store or pizza delivery for a season. (I have literally done both in the past 15 years!).
At the end of the day, you have to ask yourself, “How big is my God?”
Hope this advice helps!
=========================
ABOUT JONATHAN HERRON
I am the founding pastor of Life Church, the fastest-growing church in Michigan and 11th fastest-growing church in America.
I am focused on strategic leadership and engaging teaching, all fueled by a gnawing passion for reaching people far from God.
My unique ministry approach has been featured online in Time Magazine, USA Today, The Detroit News, MLive and The Washington Times.
Married twenty-two years to my high school sweetheart, I have five children plus a wiener dog with a nervous bladder.
