The Monday Memo from John Stanko

The Monday Memo 282: Enjoy The Ride!

It was 2001 and I had just started PurposeQuest International a few months earlier.  I was in Zimbabwe and had a full week of training sessions ahead of me.  I was teaching five new seminars to people I didn't know.  What's more, they weren't "church" people, so I had to change all my outlines to fit that audience.

I was in a small guest house in Zimbabwe, where I had two beds, a small desk and a bathroom, so i was cramped for space.  It was Sunday night and my first session was the next day.  I still had to change my PowerPoint slides to match my handouts, I didn't know what I was going to wear, I had forgotten something in the United States that I needed and I was nervous about the new people I would be training, people with whom I wasn't sure I could relate.

In a word, I was uptight!

THE QUESTION

Then out of nowhere, a question occurred to me.  I'm not sure if I thought of it, or if the Lord spoke it to me.  You decide.  But the question, or should I say the answer to that question, changed my life and work from that point forward. 

What was the question? 

It was, "I thought this was what you wanted to do?" 

When it came to me, I immediately burst into laughter!  This was what I wanted to do.  I was 50 years of age and had prepared my whole adult life to stand before people and teach them about purpose, productivity, faith, time and organization.  I had a chance before me to do just that for five whole days, and I was ruining it by my attitude.  I was allowing myself to get overwhelmed by the details, and fear and anger were getting the best of me.

I determined then and there to enjoy what I was doing every day and in every way.  I made a decision that Sunday night not to let the details of my work, the logistics, the response of the people or the mistakes I may made to take away from the journey.

THE ANSWER

I have made good on my decision I made that Sunday night. I have enjoyed my work since then.  What's more, I am enjoying it more now than I did then.  It's getting better and better.  I am more experience, have more confidence, trust the Lord more effectively, and know more than I did back in 2001.  God is opening more doors and I get emails with feedback to let me know that I am making a difference in people's lives.

Why do I write this now?  First of all, I am facing a busy schedule from now until March 11, when I return from my visits to Zimbabwe, England and Kenya.  Before I depart on February 7, I have visits to Philadelphia, New York and Nashville. There is still the temptation to get uptight, and I don't want to do that.  I know there will be challenges during that period, but I have decided again to enjoy it all.

Second, I am wondering whether you are enjoying what you are doing?  Are you allowing the nagging problems of work to take away your joy?  If so, then you can make a decision today to stop that from happening.  Do what I did.  I determined I was going to enjoy all of what I do--the good, the bad and the ugly.  When I set my heart to do that, I found that it all became good, even what I would have previously considered the bad and ugly.

You only get one chance at this life, so why not decide to enjoy it?  When you do, you actually help create the joy that God wants you to have.  So stop fretting and fuming over things that challenge or bother you.  Join me as a member of what I call the joy club and together let's fuel our PurposeQuest with the decision to enjoy the journey.  Have a great week!

If you have any suggestions for topics or improvements for The Monday Memo, please send me an email and let me know.  Feel free to post your comments to this Memo on the site where it is located. You can also go to the same site to read the other Monday Memos from 2006 (Memos prior to 240 can be found on my website). Don't forget my personal PurposeQuest website, which has loads of material that will help you find your purpose and be productive.  You can also sign up for my weekly Bible studies where we have started a study of Mark's gospel this year. Finally, please remember PurposeQuest and the Stankos in your missions giving.   

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1.  Here is my itinerary for the coming months:

• January 29-30 -- West Palm Beach, Florida
• February 3-4 -- New York City
• February 5-7 -- Nashville, Tennessee
• February 8-25 -- Zimbabwe
• February 26-March 3 -- England
• March 4-10 -- Nairobi, Kenya

If you would like to meet for a one-on-one purpose session while I am in your area, please write and let me know. 

2.  If you live in Zimbabwe, I will be conducting a session for The Pacific Institute from February 13-16.  You must register right away to reserve your space in the next class.  If you are interested, don't wait.  Write me today so we can help you get on the next class list.

3.  Why not give a gift subscription to The Monday Memo?  Just go to the site where The Memos are posted and add the email address for your family or friends.  Then please write to let them know what you have done so they can be watching for the confirmation email they will receive.  If you can't access the Internet, send me their email addresses and I will add them to the growing Monday Memo family. 

4.  I will send out my third installment of my Bible study from Mark's gospel later this week.  To receive those weekly studies, please go to the site where they will be posted and enter your email address.  If you can't access the Internet, send me the address and I will enter it for you. 

5.  Below is my monthly installment of A Daily Dose of Proverbs for your reading enjoyment. 

Download February.doc

 

The Monday Memo 281: Who You Aren't.

Did you ever stop doing something you once did or even quit a job?  Did you feel like doing either of those things but did not for whatever reason?  If you can answer yes, then you may have a clue as to what your purpose is based on what it isn't.  Confused?  Read on and see if I can bring some clarity.

WHO YOU ARE NOT.

I recently conducted a seminar and met a woman whom I described in Monday Memo 275.  This woman told me that she had quit her job as a pharmacist because she didn't see anyone get better.  She found out that she wasn't cut out for the pharmacy, not because she could not do the work, but because she wanted desperately to see people improve and be healed.  She found out who she wasn't and that propelled her on a PurposeQuest to find out who she was.

I was a pastor for four years and I was miserable.  It's a bad sign if you're a pastor and you don't like Sundays.  It's like being a surgeon and not liking to operate on people! I tried to like it and even went back to school to earn an advanced degree in pastoral ministries.  It didn't help.  I was still miserable.  So part of my PurposeQuest was facing who I was not.

WHO YOU ARE.

Yet my eventual departure from the pastorate did not mean I left church work.  Today I do more work in churches than I ever could or would have done as a Sunday-morning pastor.  What didn't I like about being a pastor?  I didn't like being in one place all the time.  Facing that fact enabled me to embrace my love for travel and speaking more than once a week.  It led to the eventual formation of my company and the rest, as they say, is history. 

In other words, facing who I was not enabled me to accept who I am.   

When I asked the woman I mentioned above why she left the pharmacy business, she said she never saw anyone get better. That led us to a discussion of whether or not her purpose was to see others improve.  I think you can see how facing who we were not helped both of us see who we are. 

So who are you?  Perhaps more important this week, who aren't you?  Why are you unhappy in your current position?  Why have you left other jobs you've had?  If you can see who you aren't, it may provide the clues I promised as to who you are.

Spend some time this week, with your journal close by, thinking about the questions I just posed. Be honest and see if there is an answer to what you haven't been able to achieve but would like to.  Be careful, though, for once you get some answers, you will be responsible for what you know.  It could very well thrust you into a whole new world of purpose and productivity.  That is where I live now and I wouldn't trade it for anything else.  Care to join me?  I hope you do.

If you have any suggestions for topics or improvements for The Monday Memo, please send me an email and let me know.  Feel free to post your comments to this Memo on the site where it is located. You can also go to the same site to read the other Monday Memos from 2006 (Memos prior to 240 can be found on my website). Don't forget my personal PurposeQuest website, which has loads of material that will help you find your purpose and be productive.  You can also sign up for my weekly Bible studies where we have started a study of Mark's gospel this year. Finally, please remember PurposeQuest and the Stankos in your missions giving.    

The Monday Memo 280

I am in the Pittsburgh airport heading out of town for the week.  This past weekend I did some leadership training for church leaders after I returned from Dallas, something I really enjoy doing.  I started out talking about purpose and had planned to move on to include some other material.  We never got past purpose, however, as I got a lot of questions about purpose and how it relates to church work.

One of the questions really got me thinking while I spoke, so I thought I would include the question and my answer this week.

THE QUESTION

One man raised his hand and asked me, "What about the pain that you have to go through to achieve your purpose?  How can you press through it?"  My initial response was that purpose is the answer.  When you find something that you love doing, that is so important to you that you can't ignore it or walk away from it, then you have a reason to press through or endure the pain.

It is said of Jesus, "For the joy set before him, he endured the cross, despising the shame" (Hebrews 12:2 NASU).  Jesus had joy and that propelled to the cross and through the shame.  That is why I am so adamant that joy is critical to your PurposeQuest.  Without it, you don't have what you need to take you through the tough times that will surely come.

Do you have that kind of joy?  Is there something that you are willing to suffer to achieve, paying whatever price is necessary?  I hope you do.  If not, I urge you to do whatever you have to do to find it.

MORE ANSWERS

But then we kept talking and I identified two other things that leaders need to deal with in addition to pain.  The second is money and the third is fear.  When you don't know where the money is coming from, you can limit your vision and dreams, reducing them to meet your current resource pool.  Whenever that happens, you shrink back from the brink of success, living in your potential but never seeing it fulfilled.

If you are a regular reader, you know what I have had to say about fear.  Recently I have come to see that it isn't fear of failure that often paralyzes you.  It is the fear of criticism.  I have realized in the last few years how many times I didn't do something that was in my heart to do because I was fearful of what someone would say about me. 

I felt good about my leadership session and I hope the people left with those three things in their mind:  pain and joy, money and fear.  Maybe this would be a good week to see how you're doing with those three things.  What could you do if you had joy, didn't worry about money at first, and overcame your fears?  Those answers will go a long way toward you understanding and fulfilling your purpose.  Have a great week!

The Monday Memo 279

Have you wondered where creativity comes from?  Have you also wondered why some people are more creative than others?  You haven't?  I have and I don't have many answers.  For the most part, creativity continues to be a mystery to me. One thing I do know, however, and that is that creativity is hard work!  Today I am sitting in a cafe, composing this Monday Memo.  This Memo won't descend from heaven, even if God inspires it (which I hope He is).  I have to write it and send it out.  That's not glamorous or spiritual; it's just effort.

Many people tell me that they are more productive because they don't have enough time to write, paint, study, or think, for that matter.  You know my response to that excuse:  You have all the time there is in the world--24 hours every day.  It's what you do with that time that will set you apart as a creative or non-creative person.

If you have read many of my Memos, you know that I am a big fan of Julia Cameron; In her book The Sound of Paper:  Starting from Scratch, Cameron had this to say about the issues of time and creativity:

Most of us think, "If only I had more time, then I would create." We have a fantasy that there is such a think as good creative time, an idyll of endless, seamless time unfolding invitingly for us to frolic in creativity.  No such bolts of limitless time exist for most of us.  Our days are chopped into segments, and if we are to be creative, we must learn to use the limited time that we have.

When ego is siphoned off creativity, when creativity becomes one more thing we do, like laundry, then it takes far less time to do it.  Much of our desire for creative time has to do with our trying to coax ourselves into being in the right mood to create.  We want to "feel like it," and when we don't don't quickly, we think the solution is more time.  Actually, the solution is less attention to the vagaries of mood.  In short, creativity needs to become daily, doable and nonnegotiable; something as quotidian [everyday, commonplace, ordinary] as breathing.  When we make a special occasion out of our art, we rob ourselves of the time we actually have.

Often I don't start creating because I don't believe I have enough time to complete what I start.  When that is the case, I need to trust that God will help me use the time I have.  At other times, I don't start something because I am afraid I won't have enough time to do it well.  When that happens, I need more courage, not more time.  I need to begin and trust that what I don't consider "good enough" may be more than good enough to impact someone else.  I can't let my perfectionism inhibit my ability to produce what I can, when I can, no matter how meager it may seem.

I have begun most days for the last five years writing my daily installment for my weekly Bible studies.  I have completed 16 books in the New Testament by focusing on four verses a day every day, usually investing 15-20 minutes.  I sit down to write and somehow the creative process kicks in, and the result is a large body of work of which I am quite pleased.  Even today I just had to sit down and begin to write; the result is this edition 279 of The Monday Memo thirty minutes later.

You have the time and you also have the creative ability.  Now all you have to do is spend a little time every day bringing forth what has probably been in you for some time. You are a creative person; don't waste your creativity on excuses of why you can't produce.  Move past your fears and invest some time and hard work.  In the long run, you and the world will be the better for those efforts.  Have a great week!

Feel free to post your comments to this Memo on the site where it is located. You can also go to the same site to read the other Monday Memos from 2006 (Memos prior to 240 can be found on my website). And don't forget my personal PurposeQuest website, which has loads of material that will help you find your purpose and be productive.  You can also sign up for my weekly Bible studies where we have started a study of Mark's gospel this year. Finally, please remember PurposeQuest and the Stankos in your missions giving.   

The Monday Memo 278

Happy New Year!  I trust that you had a great holiday season and are now ready to be more purposeful and productive in 2007 than ever before!  Our holidays were good, but they went by way too quickly.  I did a lot of writing over the Christmas break. Now I begin a busy travel schedule for the next few months, which you can see below, along with a number of other important notices that I urge you to read.

Last week we began talking about creativity.  I think we will maintain that theme for at least the next few weeks.  This week I was reading my last book for 2006, entitled The Best American Spiritual Writing 2006. One of the essays in that book, entitled Into the Wonder, was about C.S. Lewis, the great Christian author and apologist and one of the great creative minds of the last century.  I thought the article had merit for our discussion on creativity.

AN UNLIKELY CANDIDATE

The essay began by describing a particularly trying time in Lewis's life when he was living with his brother and an elderly woman.  The woman was bedridden and increasingly used Lewis as an extra maid to help meet her needs.  Meanwhile his brother, who helped him with correspondence and filing, drank himself to insensibility and ended up in a hospital.  The pressures of this situation, along with his work load at Oxford, drove Lewis to the point of collapse and he was eventually hospitalized for exhaustion. 

It was shortly thereafter that Lewis had a friend over to read him a portion of a new children's book that Lewis was writing.  This book became The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, which was the first of the Chronicles of Narnia, which to date has sold 85 million copies in 30 languages.

What is so interesting to me about this scenario?

First, Lewis wrote perhaps his most famous work at a most inopportune time in his life.  I often feel like I can't be more creative or productive until certain things change, until my life is free of worry, anxiety or mental clutter.  Lewis didn't wait for the best time.  In fact, in a time of suffering and professional busy-ness, he began to write fiction for children, a most unusual exercise for a man known more at that point for his theological rather than fantasy work.

Second, Lewis was not married at the time and had no children (he had two stepsons from his marriage to Joy Gresham and maintained a relationship with the boys after his wife's death).  I think it remarkable that Lewis could write so effectively for children when he had none of his own.

Finally, Lewis was a loner as a child.  His childhood, while not sad or abusive, wasn't filled with the kind of childhood joys upon which he could draw to write his stories. 

NO MORE EXCUSES

Lewis produced creative work in spite of his personal difficulties.  You must learn to do the same.  You can no longer not create because circumstances in your life aren't quite right.  Neither can you dismiss your creative ideas because you don't see yourself as qualified or fit.  Lewis was neither a happy child nor natural father, yet he wrote children's books that changed the world.  What could you do if you stopped hiding behind excuses and limitations and just did it?

It seems that Lewis's hardships prepared him to create; his suffering somehow fueled his drive to write.  If you can see that your suffering is preparation and not a hindrance, you will find new freedom to produce when it may not seem like a good time to produce.  And please don't tell anyone that you don't have the time to create.  You have all the time in the world--24 hours every day.  It's not that you don't have time; you aren't using it creatively to create. 

May 2007 be your most purposeful and productive yet.  Together let's do things that will change our generation (and future ones) just like C. S. Lewis did.  Have a great week and year!

Feel free to post your comment to this Memo on the site where it is located. You can also go to the same site to read the other Monday Memos from 2006. And don't forget my personal PurposeQuest website, which has loads of material that will help you find your purpose and be productive.  You can also sign up for my weekly Bible studies where we will begin 2007 with a study of Mark's gospel. Finally, please remember PurposeQuest and the Stankos in your giving.

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1.  Here is my itinerary for the coming months:

• January 7-11 -- Dallas, Texas
• January 14 -- Cornerstone Baptist Church in Pittsburgh
• January 15-17 -- Nashville, TN
• January 18 -- Seattle, Washington
• January 19 -- San Francisco, California
• January 21 -- Brown Chapel AME in Pittsburgh
• January 22 -- Providence,  Rhode Island
• January 24-30 -- West Palm Beach, Florida
• February 2-25 -- Zimbabwe
• February 26-March 3 -- England

If you would like to meet for a one-on-one purpose session while I am in your area, please write and let me know. 

2.  If you live in Zimbabwe, I will be conducting a session for The Pacific Institute from February 13-16.  You must register now with a deposit to reserve your space in the next class.  If you are interested, don't wait.  Write me today so we can help you get on the next class list.

3.  Why not give a gift subscription to The Monday Memo? Just go to the site where The Memos are posted and add the email address for your family or friends.  Then please write to let them know what you have done so they can be watching for the confirmation email they will receive.  If you can't access the Internet, send me their email addresses and I will add them to the growing Monday Memo family. 

4.  I will send out my first installment of my Bible study from Mark's gospel this week.  To receive those weekly studies, please go to the site where they will be posted and enter your email address.  If you can't access the Internet, send me the address and I will enter it for you. 

5.  Below is my monthly installment of A Daily Dose of Proverbs for your reading enjoyment. 

6.  Also below is a Monday Memo index of every issue with the topic and Bible references.  All Monday Memos prior to 240 are on my website.  All Monday Memos after 240 are on the blog site where they are posted every week.

Download January.doc

Download memo_index.doc