What you need to succeed?

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Hey Team, Thanks for taking a few minutes to read these blogs when they come out. I hope they’re helpful to you. They’re certainly cathartic for me. They’re often the deeper things I’ve been trying to synthesize in my own life. They’re they “AHA” moments that come out of long conversations, intense books, failures, successes, and the general forward momentum of life.

This one is a backward look at 12 years of one huge aspect of my job: site coordinator. I bet many of you have probably never heard of that job title before. It’s not one I mention a lot. In fact, I’m not really a huge fan of titles either way. I see life more as a calling to the things God has for me and less as a career move. One thing I have noticed, though, is that wherever I am and whatever I happen to be doing, there are different skills and situations at play.

In 2008, I moved to Taiwan to start an Envision Site where we would host short-term teams and interns from the States while participating in launching a certain type (I say certain type because we weren’t really sure at the time we left) of ministry. This was going to be something like a YWAM base, if you’re familiar. When we moved, we knew we wanted to just jump right in and so we got jobs teaching English, started learning Chinese, hung out with friends, and starting sharing the love of God with people around us.

Turns out things got complicated. There were budgets to balance, phone calls to make, partner relationships to build, interactions with the national church to navigate, and the list went on and on and on. I’ve often said I truly enjoy everything I get to do with this job, and it’s true (besides some of the admin work that can feel tedious). But I’ve noticed there are a few things that I have done over the years that I see yielding a greater return for the work I’m putting in.

These are the things my boss recently called “the heavy skills.” He copied a term meaning the things that seem to be neither hard nor soft but that clearly make the difference in leadership and management as well as the accomplishment of the organizational vision and mission.

What are these heavy skills? Here are some I’ve added to the list. Will you please add one or two?

• Casting vision for a unified cause
• Bringing people together, including difficult people
• Discerning what needs to be focused on in a particular season
• Bringing investors or donors onto the team
• Prioritizing certain things and communicating those priorities
• Navigating what needs to be done when “stuff” hits the fan
• Having HR conversations, hiring, holding people accountable, firing, etc.
• Resting well and maintaining spiritual fervor in dry seasons

Be Precise in Your Speech

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Thank you, Jordan Peterson. You’ll probably never see this, much less speak with me, but I have to say thank you. Your book, 12 Rules for Life (中文版), is taking me a long time to finish, but it’s been incredibly insightful and transformative; dare I say, life-changing.

I’m realizing, through this reading and processing, that I run from precision because I’m afraid of what might be. Instead of saying precisely what I want or need, instead of dealing with things directly, I avoid them in vague speech. However, I am also realizing that by engaging in precise speech, I can actually participate in the transformation of chaos into order. What if you could change the world simply by your own personal pursuit of precision. I’m not sure if this experiment will work out, but I’m willing to try simply because the alternative seems much worse.

Here’s an edited version of a message I sent to a friend recently:

Here’s my context: I’m reading that book 12 rules for life, which is changing my life. It’s challenging and encouraging me in a lot of ways. One chapter is called “be precise in your speech.” He talks about how important it is that we are specific about what we need and want in order to help bring the world from chaos to order, just like Jesus did in Genesis 1 and John 1. This is one example of the power of our words. So, I’m trying to think through what I want and why and say it more clearly to people. One example is asking you to read the document out loud. I explained why, because it helps your brain catch mistakes when you read out loud. It’s something that has helped me create and edit great work for myself and others throughout the years I’ve been alive since I learned that trick (I first learned it in 2004 when I was a freshman in college). In this partnership with you, and life in general, I want to work with people who I can trust to do what I ask them to do or discuss and even fight with me about why it shouldn’t be done that way. I don’t want robots, but I do want people who will speak directly and positively with me so that we can turn chaos into order together. I don’t want simply to get someone else’s shortcuts pushed onto me. If I ask for something, there’s a reason. The reasons will get better and better as I learn how to be more precise in my speech. I have not read the document yet, but I want to know if you actually did what I asked or if you didn’t why not. I don’t want to wait until I’ve gone through the entire document to have to ask you that. So, have you?

As I read it, initially it sounds a bit harsh. I mean, do I really have to force this man to do it this way? The truth is I don’t. And he certainly doesn’t need to do it. We’re all free to do whatever we want. But shouldn’t our freedom be used to help others? Shouldn’t we create a society in which we want to live? And shouldn’t we all participate in that by doing what we can? Carrying the load we were meant to carry with all the competency we can muster?

Here’s another benefit: I feel much less attached to my own emotions and struggles. I feel much more open to hearing from other people and discussing together how we might move forward. I am more prepared to receive others’ criticisms and challenges. This kind of inner strength comes as we prepare ourselves by being precise in what we are dealing with.

Please read this book. Please be as precise as you can in your speech.