RLL 48: My Best Friend's Wedding

Real Life Leading #48

My Best Friend’s Wedding

My best friend and me, goofing off and re-enacting a post from our younger days, before putting on our fancy clothes for the ceremony

Yesterday I had the privilege of standing up with my best friend as he got married, and during the ceremony and reception, I was reminded of a few important things that I wanted to share. First, that marriage is all about love and respect, as best told by Dr. Emerson Eggerichs in his aptly titled book Love and Respect: The Love She Most Desires, the Respect He Desperately Needs. Second, I was reminded of the privilege and joy and spending time with family and friends in celebration.

In Ephesians 5:22-33, after a discussion on the roles of spouses in marriage and about what love looks like, Paul ends by stating, “However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.” This verse is the key to Dr. Eggerichs’ book, and it provides a great reminder to all of us who are married; namely, that as husbands we are to love our wives sacrificially, giving up our own desires in order to serve, protect, and cherish them above ourselves. When seen this way, marriage is a reflection of the Gospel of Jesus, wherein Christ gave Himself up for his bride, the Church.

Yesterday’s ceremony was a wonderful reminder of what marriage is and the picture that it paints of how spouses are to reflect Christ’s love to each other in different ways. This is also a great reminder to us as leaders in general: we are to lead through service, through self-sacrifice, putting the needs of others above our own desires. When we lead this way, we honor Christ, and we also serve others out of love.

My sister and I with the groom at the reception!

After the ceremony, the reception also provided an amazing reminder of just how much fun it is to celebrate an amazing occasion! We danced, we ate, we laughed, we took pictures with friends and family, and we it was all done as part of an encouraging send-off for the newly-married couple. What joy it is to be able to share in those celebrations! We saw our favorite teacher from elementary school, my sister and mom and stepdad all came in from different states, and we had a very encouraging afternoon sharing in the occasion. This is also a great reminder to us that life can be joyous, and we need to celebrate it whenever possible. Life is a beautiful gift, and when we have the chance to share in such joy, we should embrace it.

I hope your week has been as enjoyable as mine has, and I would love to hear about it!

Action Step: This week, ask how you can better serve the people around you, and remember to celebrate the successes—large and small—that you experience!

RLL 46: Goals and Goals

RLL 46: There Are Goals, and Then There Are Goals

Happy weekend, everyone! I hope your week was excellent, full of learning and opportunities to show leadership. As usual this week, I had a great time teaching, coaching, living, and learning, and today I want to share a couple lessons I learned from coaching youth soccer that apply in other areas of life as well. The lessons this week are about setting goals, not necessarily scoring them in youth soccer games.

My daughters and I with two of my favorites! These two girls (one already a Division I player, the other on her way to becoming one) know from experience how to set goals and how to accomplish them. Also: YES, I’m standing on my toes in this picture!

As background: last weekend was the first soccer game of the year (if you read last week’s blog post, I mentioned it just a bit; if you didn’t you can go check it out here: https://reallifeleading.com/real-life-leading-blog/h2z6f5p2n8cc766t46jmf59r8jmtth). What I didn’t mention last week is that, though we had fun and worked hard, we didn’t actually play very well. And that leads to the main point of this post: if we are to improve, whether in soccer, in our family lives, or in our businesses and education, we have to honestly evaluate what we’ve done well and what we need to work on.

The first thing my team needed to address was our inability to play as a team, to work together. Lots of kids all running around doesn’t actually mean we worked as a team. As legendary UCLA basketball coach John Wooden said, “Don’t mistake activity for achievement.” We needed specific goals to work on this week, and they had nothing to do with actually scoring goals in the game. So, my first question for you is: what are your goals? Short-term, intermediate, and long-term? If you’re not sure, then you probably shouldn’t be surprised if you’re not making as much progress as you’d like. So, lesson #1 today: set goals! For more specific info about goal-setting, check out the excellent work being done by Jon Acuff in his book ‘Finish’ (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01N4VVT1Z/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1). [And for the record, I’m not affiliated with Jon in any way, other than following him on social media; I don’t get anything if you buy his book. I’m just sharing it as a resource.]

If you want to learn more about why goals are important (but relationships are even more important), go pick up a copy of my book on amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Inverted-Leadership-Others-Forgetting-Yourself/dp/1983110167/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1528802141&sr=8-1.

The second lesson for today, and this is just as important: celebrate when your team does well. When you reach certain milestones along the way, celebrate them! I spoke with the players at halftime of our game yesterday, and I asked them to remind me what we had worked on at practice. They were able to tell me, and so then I asked them if they felt that we had done those things better in our game. Every one of them said yes, and so I said, “You’re right, you’ve played great this morning!” They got excited, they continued to work hard, and if possible, we played even better in the second half of the game. When we see that we are making progress toward our goals, in encourages us to continue working to achieve more. Whether that’s in sales, in speaking, with grades in school, or with losing weight, we need to celebrate when we accomplish tasks.

The best compliment I received after the game was from one parent who said, “The season in our league is so short that we normally don’t see real improvement from the team and players until the final week. We’re only in week two, and the kids played so much better!” That made me smile as a coach, and I’m already excited about sharing that compliment with our players at practice this week. I hope that your week is also successful and that you see results as you move closer to your goals!

Action Step: This week, set some goals that are reasonable, measurable, and attainable, and then celebrate as you work your way toward accomplishing them. Then email me and let me know how it’s going!

As always, be sure to share this with friends, and also be sure to check out my latest media mentions and podcast interviews:

Media: https://theperfectinvestor.com/2018/08/joel-hawbaker-of-real-life-leading-discusses-confident-humility-on-influential-entrepreneurs-radio-show-with-mike-saunders/

Podcast interview: https://soundcloud.com/user-461894793/episode-26-humility-with-guest

Beginnings and Endings

RLL 45: Beginnings and Endings

Happy Sunday, everyone, and I hope you’ve had an amazing week! Mine was quite busy (as usual), and I’m excited to share with you some of the experiences I had and also some of the lessons I learned.

My younger daughter and I, back when she was still too young to play in our local league.

Each fall for most of the last decade, one or both of my daughters has played soccer in our local church’s youth league, and I have been their coach. Yesterday, my older daughter got her first experience as a referee in the same league, and my younger daughter is now in her last season of eligibility before she ages out of the program. This is a time transition for them and for me, as they continue to get older.

Thankfully, yesterday I had an opportunity to be reminded of why I have spent so much time coaching youth soccer (and especially my daughters’ teams). Each season I tell the parents that I have three goals for our team, and none of them involve winning soccer games. You may ask why we play, if not to win; well, please don’t misunderstand me: I LOVE to win. At anything and everything. But when it comes to youth sports, winning is not the main thing. For me, youth sports involve the three goals I referenced above: 1) I want the kids to HAVE FUN, because if they do, they’ll continue playing and they’ll enjoy themselves at each practice and game; 2) I want the kids to LEARN something about the game, because then I know I’ve done my job at each practice and game; and 3) I want the kids to WORK hard, because then their parents are happy!

None of those three goals involves winning a soccer game, but if we do those things each and every time we play, then our season will be a success. These kids are 9-11 years old, so no one is winning scholarships or awards or anything like that; so winning games shouldn’t be our main focus. What we are there to do is to teach character through competition. We still keep score, and there is a tournament at the end of the season whose winner gets a trophy. So the competition is very real; but it’s also a great reminder that winning is not the ultimate end.

My younger daughter and I yesterday, on her last “First Day” of the season. Time flies!

For anyone who is competitive, though, the temptation to “win at all costs” is always there: in youth soccer, in life, in business, and everywhere else. What I’ve found is that coaching youth soccer is as much about character development for myself (and the other coaches and parents) as it is for the children. How often have we witnessed parents yelling horrible things at each other or at officials, over a game being played by kids in elementary school? I know myself well enough to know that I have the potential to be that parent, if my emotions aren’t kept in check. That’s not fun to admit, but I do know it’s true. So for me, coaching the kids is about helping them, and it’s about helping myself grow.

What’s the point? Just this: we all need to continue to foster growth in ourselves, and one of the best ways to do that is to help others grow. It’s hard to expect children to do well if we are setting a poor example. And when we do mess up, it’s important that we set a good example in how to apologize, ask forgiveness, and try to make things right (and I had an opportunity to do those things yesterday, too; not something I’m proud of).

This week, ask yourself two questions: 1) how am I continuing to develop my own character? and 2) how can I help others grow as well?

As always, I’d love to know what you come up with! Also as always, please feel free to share this with anyone you think needs it! Come by the website and sign up to receive your free copy of my ebook called ‘(Extra)Ordinary Leadership: 10 Things Dad Taught Me Without Saying Anything’. Have a great week, and keep leading!