Hi Friend,
What a fun week. My son came over Monday night and cooked dinner. He is moving to Chicago in a few weeks, so it was nice to get to spend time with him. Also, he is an amazing chef! Best meal I’ve had in a long time. He started his first adult job last month at an ad agency called HUGE. He is working on one of their car group accounts as a Junior Strategist. It’s a bit humorous because he’s not what you’d call a “car guy.”
This week we pulled the trigger on printing some coasters with a QR code. I’m heading to National SHRM next month to speak in the Monday morning MEGA SESSION. We wanted to provide a resource to them and stay connected, so I’m shooting a bonus add-on video to my Ownership message. That message continues to evolve, shifting to emphasize #BestDaily.
It’s interesting to me how all of my messages continue to manifest new perspectives and truth within the same principled framework. I regularly tell clients that the structure affords for me to insert their localized realities within the message. It’s that way by design. However, I didn’t realize the messages themselves would morph over time, thankfully staying relevant to current workplace, leadership, and workforce issues.
With our new website iteration, I’ve actually eliminated offering 2/3rds of the messages I can provide. Too many options dilute the strength of focus in serving clients. Thankfully, I still possess the insight those messages rendered, which pops up from time to time in other messages.
Sometimes I think “Should I stop doing my Ownership message or my Navigate (Raft) message?” so that I’m faced with a new challenge. I land on “no” because so many people have not heard it and it continues to grow with the times. Also, I believe we are called to…
Steward the Messages of Our Life
Whether you are a professional speaker, like me, or not doesn’t mean you haven’t been gifted with a message – or two, or three, or four – that you have the privilege/responsibility of sharing with the world. I’m not so much a “share your story” kind of guy, because I believe we are multi-purpose creatures and our lives are made up of numerous factors.
Certainly, our past experiences inform and shape our current realities. There’s a good chance the messages you possess are
rooted in them. However, that’s not the singular criteria for what unique perspective you have to offer the world.
Message Stewarding
Passionate About a Cause
Imagining a Different Future
Personal Experiences (Good/Bad)
Peripheral Life Encounter
Unique Understanding of Knowledge or Truth
Stewarding inherently means we’ve been entrusted with something. It’s not actually ours. Stewardship is a step above ownership. If you’ve ever borrowed someone’s car or truck, I suspect when you were done, you cleaned it out, filled it with gas, and maybe took it to the car wash. You returned it to the rightful owner, better than you got it because they granted you access.
With our own cars, we’ll let junk pile up, not wash it forever and forget to care for it appropriately. Unfortunately, that’s what some people do with the calling on their life that has been gifted to them to steward for impacting the world around them.
What’s the message in your heart?
I’m convinced you and I have been given custody of a brood of messages. It’s not just one, but we have to start with one. It’s not just for a particular season, but we have to start in a season. It might be for a specific group of people or the masses. It might get distributed one-on-one, via social media, on a stage, or pre-recorded. However, wherever, whoever… are you mindful of what you’re stewarding?
I’ve seen new emphasis come and go over the years in my own life. I’ve also seen consistently re-emerging common themes that are simply intrinsic.
Instigating Ideas…
1. Define three messages you’ve been entrusted to steward.
2. What unique life experience is actually a gift for you to share?
3. What lights a fire in your soul?
4. How do you see Ownership and Stewardship?
As you might imagine, I’m entirely proud of Lincoln. He’s an amazing young man, taking big steps and giving himself fully to this next season of life. He’s “my” firstborn son. But he’s not really mine. Fortunately, I was designated to be his dad. Always will be. However, my role and responsibility has shifted in regard to our relationship. I’m not sad or mad about it. That has been the plan from Day One.
What an incredible thrill and opportunity it has been to steward that young man’s life. He certainly has taken on a life of his own. I’m hopeful the messages that burst out of me, both professionally and personally, will do the same.
What if each of those Message Stewarding Elements above were perceived to be given to us instead of happen to us? Our “giftings” are by no means limited to our talents. You and I have been entrusted with so much for the sake of others. Let’s steward these messages well.
I would love to hear how over the course of your life, you have recognized that what you’ve been entrusted with has evolved? Also, if you discovered other compelling factors that fuel your motive for sharing your messages? Please Share!