Brian Schroller
Minutia

We strongly encourage all the entrepreneurs we work with to go through our LifePlan retreat. Getting clear on the life they are intended to live is a crucial first step in having the clarity and conviction it takes to get their business working for them. Once they have their ideal life in clear focus, doing the work it takes to re-engineer their business to support that life becomes a foregone conclusion…

Minutia
Brian Schroller
IKIGAI

The organizations you lead and the roles you play there, should support and fulfill the purpose for your life, not the other way around.  More often than not, we see leaders completely unaware of their calling or purpose other than what their vocational role might dictate.

It is our contention that you are not only created for a particular purpose, but that your Creator desperately wants you to know what it is.  The clues are written on your heart, have been evident throughout your life, and are fully embodied in the things that bring you greatest joy, deepest pain, and get you out of bed in the morning.

IKIGAI
Wise Counsel
Brian Schroller
Become

When I look at the life of Jesus, for instance, He seemed to only do and say what the Father told him.  In fact, He routinely walked past the opportunity to do good, because He seemed to be called to other places and things.  Often that thing was simply spending more time alone with the Father.

As a Christian, it is hard to look past the opportunity to do good.  As a Type-A person who has spent a lot of time trying to do good things for God, I’ve had to come to the sobering reality that God would rather have me do a few things with Him than do a lot of good things apart from Him.

Become
Wise Counsel
Brian Schroller
Time

This is the time of year, when hope springs eternal.  With 365 days (minus about 25 now), we can accomplish almost anything.  But in the chaos of the tyranny of the urgent, even the best laid plans we’ve made begin to fade.  Like sets of endless waves crashing on the beach, the day to day issues we face in our lives and enterprise, can begin to wear us down.

Time
Wise Counsel
Brian Schroller
Strategy

It is the beginning of a new year and every intentional leader I talk to is hoping that 2016 will be different than 2015. They’re seeing the new year as a grand opportunity to chart a course toward a different future.  Believing that maybe this is the year where a sense of team emerges, their biggest challenges and frustrations get addressed, and they have a huge celebration at the end of the year to celebrate all they’ve accomplished.

Strategy

Wise Counsel

Table

“Can we all still sit at the table and eat as a big family?”

A few years ago, my niece came for a brief visit.  She had gotten in trouble for something she did.  After being gently reprimanded, she asked through her tears, “Can we all still sit at the table and eat as a big family?”  What she did know was that sitting around a large table with a family of eight, felt very different that having dinner alone with a single parent.

What she did not know, was that her desire to sit at that large table with a larger family came from a much deeper heart cry that echoed in eternity.  Having experienced the breaking of the bread with our crew reminded her of something she could not have told you about, but deeply felt and feared the loss of.

Revelation tells of a wedding feast where we will one day all gather together, sharing everything in common and being reunited as a family with our one true Father.  That image, that future, is written on the heart of every human being.  It is what draws us even to the toxic table of many of our families in times like Thanksgiving.

Popular culture understands this:

  • The movie “Antwone Fisher” opens with the dream of an orphan boy, walking through wheat fields to find a great barn, where all the generations of his family are gathered and a seat is set for him at the head.
  • Norman Rockell’s iconic Thanksgiving photo titled “Freedom From Want” shows the generations of a family gathered together..
  • In “Places in the Heart” racism, hatred, murder, etc. are reconciled on a single pew in a church in the imagined future.
  • Even Maslow’s “Hierarchy of Needs” talks about the fundamental needs to belong and be known.

All those concepts and images resonate in the deepest sense because they are evocative of something much larger, truer, and promised for all of us.  Last night our home church had what I believe will be the first of many “big table” gatherings where every member, their kids, and a few guests, joined together for dinner at a single table.

Okay, so a table set for 50-60 might be doable, but is it possible to scale this as the church grows?

Six years ago, my wife and I visited a Young Life camp in Colorado and what we found as we approached the dinner table for the last night’s feast, almost dropped me to my knees.  So powerful a manifestation of this idea, that I could scarcely take it all in.  A single table set for 450 was overwhelming in obvious ways, but also in ways that most of those high school kids probably couldn’t articulate, but deeply understood.

  • It is their one great hope.
  • It is a promise for things to come.
  • They were created for it.
  • The heart is desperate to find it.
 
 

Nieces, neighbors, high-schoolers, your employees, and frankly, every one of us needs to be reminded of this deposit made for each of us in eternity.  It is not enough to merely talk about God’s promises for us, we need to bring that experience to others.  We are not merely offering food and drink, we are bringing the Kingdom here on earth.

Our church is just getting started.

  1. Are you gathering with others to break bread?  Is there room at your table for others?
  2. Who did God bring to mind as you worked your way through this post?
  3. Put a date on the calendar, prepare a list, and let me know when it will occur.  I’ll pray for you.

Disruption

Disruption

The truth is that in being thwarted, laid up, or even slowed down a bit, the Father seems more present, available, and real.  The trials in the unforced rhythms of our lives is where we seem to meet Him more deeply.  The condition I most need to address this morning is not the violently inflamed heal soaking in Epson salts as I type, but the condition of my heart.  There is an essential rhythm of walking with God that can be as regular as the breathing in and breathing out of air in my lungs.  The relational offer of our God means that I shouldn’t find Him any different or deeper in my trials.  That I wouldn’t find him in the disruption, but in the every day.

Offering

Offering

The best set of eyes are often the newest set of eyes (I think I stole that from Andy Stanley).  Someone new has seen other things and ways of doing things that the others likely haven’t.  Traditional thinking would say that they know less than our seasoned employees, but in the areas of new thought, ideas, and creativity, they probably know more.  The tension is that a newbie presuming to know more, is not well received.  The reality is that we are all unique creations.  We have all walked different paths to arrive at precisely the same place.  We carry toolboxes full of varied practice, knowledge, and the experiential currency gained from redemptive turns in our troubled journey.

What's Kind Of Culture Are You Creating?

What's Kind Of Culture Are You Creating?

It is worth all the blood, sweat, and tears.  It is the most powerful determinant of your long-term success.  It is obtainable.  Nothing is more honoring to a father than when a child echoes back truth and nothing is more powerful for a leader’s heart than when the team owns the culture, vision, and values.  Nothing is more honoring to our Father than when we understand and intend His Kingdom on earth.

GoPro

GoPro

Avid surfer Nicholas Woodman said that he and his friends used to dream of “Going Pro” so that there would be some footage of them surfing.  He figured a wearable camera was something that they might find of value.  With a few hundred thousand in borrowed money, he launched GoPro and within 10 short years was America’s newest young billionaire.  The videos recorded by GoPro and their millions of fans have become legendary with a recent product launch video for their Hero 3+ camera racking up 33 million views.  In our voyeuristic society, watching others find life is equated to finding it yourself.

Is Your Leadership Bringing Life To Those You Lead?

Is Your Leadership Bringing Life To Those You Lead?

Ironically, the most powerful example of this in my life has been in a corporate setting and not in a church.  These last 4 years have been filled with victory, defeat, soaring heights, and bitter disappointments.  It has been simultaneously the most challenging and glorious season I have ever experienced.  We are finally stepping into the realization of what an owner-to-team led conversion looks like.

Conversation

Conversation

Do you know me and love me?  Am I important to you?  It is that deep knowing and confirmation of the Father’s heart for us that unleashes untold opportunity.  If I am unsure of the answer to that question, I am looking to have it answered at every turn, by every person, and in every conversation.  How am I able to truly offer to others as a leader if I need something of such great importance from everyone I lead?  If I need my spouse, employees, friends, or even my children, to fundamentally and pervasively answer that question, how can I possibly be in the posture of offering that as my leadership requires?

Are You Coaching Others With Your Leadership?

Are You Coaching Others With Your Leadership?

One of the primary goals of leadership is to help others makes decisions on their own.  One of the greatest challenges of leadership is to allow the space for others to make decisions on their own.  This paradox is beautifully illustrated in this passage.  Jesus already “had in mind what he was going to do.”  He could have just taken the bull by the horns, told them to grab a few fish and loaves from the boy, and worked His magic.  Instead, He asked a beautiful coaching question: What are you going to do?

How Are You Stewarding Your Power?

How Are You Stewarding Your Power?

The incredible paradox of this whole thing is that God’s plan was to entrust mankind with His power and He really didn’t have a plan “B.”  Whether it is leadership of a ministry, business, or family, we find ourselves in often unchecked and ultimate authority.  That puts us in an enviable place per the world but a very precarious place per the Kingdom.

In(ter)dependence

In(ter)dependence

The prototypical small American business owner is an extension and celebration of the pioneering spirit that made our country great.  While we love that about them, there can be an ugly undercurrent to that path.  Many of the small business owners we encounter are overwhelmed, frustrated, and completely alone.  The same pioneering spirit that afforded them the courage and independence to chart their own course is often the source of their isolation and eventual failure.

Are You Living Alone?

Are You Living Alone?

Head knowledge of God was important, but could not sustain.  Rules, tips, and techniques were important for behavior modification, but sustaining, generative, and transforming power comes only from walking in conversational intimacy with the Father.  He didn’t come to validate a rule book, but to establish relationship, to reconnect us to the only source of true life that matters.  Relationship led to revelation.

Sonship...

Sonship...

During the filming of the final scene from "Field of Dreams," everyone involved knew something special was happening.  Though the scene required a small subset of the cast and crew to film, everyone who knew about the scene crowded the edges of the Iowa cornfield to observe the magic.  Ray Kinsella, played by Kevin Costner, got the amazing opportunity to reunite with his dead father for a game of catch.

Invest

Invest

It is interesting contrast to our performance based culture where the one who has the most knowledge of something or who can communicate it most clearly, is typically regarded as the expert and the one most likely followed.  The size of the audience determines the measure of success.  Our Christian faith and the example of Jesus’ leadership seems to point in almost the opposite direction.  The hallmarks of His leadership plan seemed to be proximity, relationship, and investment in a relative few.

Focusing On The Few

“It all started by Jesus calling a few men to follow him. This revealed immediately the direction His evangelistic strategy would take. His concern was not for programs to reach the multitudes, but with men whom the multitudes, but with men whom the multitudes would follow. Remarkable as it may seem, Jesus started to gather these men before He ever organized an evangelistic campaign or even preached a sermon in public. Men were to be His method of winning the world to God. ”
— Robert E. Coleman
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A couple of years ago, we were meeting with some young men at our offices.  They were there for a marketing related project, but clearly trying to walk the missional road more than a path to worldly success.  Before they left they slid a book, “The Master Plan for Evangelism“, across the table.  You could tell that it was a pearl of great price for them.

After 30 years on this journey, I have become jaded about many things; the political system, the church, faith-based leaders, and even the latest and greatest book about a new evangelistic method.  While I completely trusted the sincerity of these guys, I had a sort of “good for you” but “not for me” response in my heart.  I put it in the stack of books that I intend to read when I get the time (that I likely never will).  Meaning… it wasn’t going to get read.

Last week I was cleaning a pile of stuff of the dining room table and I saw another copy of that book mixed in with the crayolas and coloring books.  One of the other “elders” of our home church dropped it by for a study we were doing.  Now, I didn’t really have a choice.  Sunday night, we plowed through chapter one.

Coleman makes a case for evangelism based wholly on what Jesus did.  He doesn’t do much referencing of the Law.  Jesus was the fulfillment of the Law and he was here to reconcile mankind to their Father… to reestablish sonship and advance the Kingdom.  His incontrovertible plan can be summed up in some of the first chapter sub-headings:

  • Men Were His Method
  • Men Willing to Learn
  • Concentrated on a Few

It reminds me of the 1980 hockey team.  To turn the tide and produce maybe the most unlikely upset in sports history, something incredibly unorthodox was required.  Coach Herb Brooks defied the U.S. Olympic Committee and virtually all conventional wisdom.  He didn’t choose many of the superstars of the sport, but the essential building blocks with the ability to be conformed to a system he knew would win.  And he did.

Jesus intended something unconventional as well.  Rather than using an established model to raise a multitude, He went a different way.  Rather than utilizing all the likely players of his day, He focused on a few un-likelies.  He had a clear plan and laser focus.

“You can do many things, but invest in only a few.

You can know many people, but invest in only a few.”

If you want to change the world you need a plan.  No better place to get a plan than the Master.  Want to accomplish big things?  Focus on a few… the right few.

  • Who are you being mentored by?
  • Who are you mentoring?
  • Does your leadership focus on a few or the multitude?
  • How does the way you measure your success intend that result?

Are You Taking The Low Seat?

Are You Taking The Low Seat?

Jesus spent the last few crucial years of his earthly ministry pouring into a group of seemingly incapable chuckleheads.  He emptied His cup into them so that they could advance the Kingdom of God here of earth.  He took a group of men likely less capable than the current leadership of our organizations and handed over a mission far more important than anything we are doing.  I am little embarrassed by how hard I find it is to do the same.

What Are Your "Squirrels?"

What Are Your "Squirrels?"

I was hanging out with some new Australian friends doing some coach training in Portland, OR last week.  When talking about distraction, we both simultaneously uttered the word "squirrel."  As I reflected this morning on the juxtaposition of their situation and ours, I was reminded of Paul’s charge to the Philippians.  It really is an issue of focus and perspective.  It is about not being distracted by what has happened before, but keeping a razor-sharp focus on where you are headed.

What's Your Verse?

What's Your Verse?

There is a life intended beyond the one we know and finding that is more assaulted than anything else I’ve ever known.  You could almost recast that verse to say that because Jesus came to offer us abundant life, our enemy is waiting to destroy us.  For if you can find the life coherent to the one He uniquely created and intended for you to live, everything changes.  It is the game changer of all game changers.