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Andy Stanley - Leading Yourself Well · Andy Stanley Sermons

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Now some of you don't know who I am, and you don't care.
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You were told you're going to learn some great leadership stuff. So I just
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thought, as we start off today, I should tell you one thing about
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myself that would, maybe you know, put you at ease and let you
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know that I'm pretty much an expert. And what I'm about to share with
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you, and the thing that I like to share with you is this,
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and I would prefer that we just keep it in the room. Okay,
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here it is. I have participated in every bad decision that I have ever
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made. They don't laugh, Okay, Yeah, every bad relational decision,
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I was there for that, Every bad financial decision, I was there for
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that, Every bad hiring decision, I was there for that. Every long
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and boring meeting that I led, I was there for that. I was
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there for all of it. I have talked myself out of exercising. I've
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talked myself into dessert. I'm a sucker, for you might also like,
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so were you? Come on, I'm also I'm also a sucker. Customers
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who have purchased have also purchased about that, and it's embarrassing. But the
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only reason I feel like I can share this with the whole world. Is
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this you have participated and every bad decision you have ever made as well,
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right, you were there for all of them. You were there for your
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worst spending decision, your worst financial decision, your worst parenting moment, your
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worst marriage moment, your worst professional your worst you know, purchase that stock
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that you were absolutely sure and you convinced your husband or your wife this is
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a this is a great deal. You were there for all of that.
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In fact, this is really embarrassing. You were the mastermind behind your greatest
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regret. Now, the reason I say all that is because of our topic
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today, and here we go. We face all of us, We all
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face our greatest leadership challenge every morning in the mirror. You are difficult to
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lead, and you should know because you attempted every single day. Now,
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our topic for the day is actually self leadership, as hopefully you knew before
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you got here, which isn't necessarily fun to talk about because self leadership.
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The topic of self leadership reminds us that all of us have work to do.
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But it's an extremely important topic. And it's an extremely important topic for
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three reasons. First of all, you will not be a leader worth following.
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If you don't lead yourself well, you won't be a leader worth following.
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If you don't lead yourself well. That doesn't mean you won't be able
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to lead. You'll be able to lead, but you won't be a leader
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worth following if you don't lead yourself well. And organizational leadership, being a
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leader worth following is not a necessity, and great self leadership is not an
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essential. But again, you won't be a leader worth following unless you lead
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yourself well. We all know some leaders who are a mess right. Their
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personal lives are a total disaster. They may be here with you today,
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just keep looking straight ahead, right, So we all know leaders whose personal
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lives are disaster. And here's the thing. Isn't this true? You don't
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want to be like them. You may want to travel like them and vacation
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like them, but you don't want to be like them. And you learn
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this from your parents. You see, whether or not you want to be
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like your mom, or whether or not you want to be like your dad,
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has far more to do with how well they led themselves than what they
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taught you. What they taught you and what they said to you is important.
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But whether or not you want to be like one of your parents has
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far more to do with how well they led themselves, because leaders who are
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worth following and people who are worth emulating are people who have mastered self leadership.
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The second reason this is a big deal is that exceptional self leadership is
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the key to sustained influence. It's not the key to authority. You can
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have authority because of your position or a job title that comes with you know,
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that just comes with you know, the office with the job. But
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in terms of sustained influence, you have to be a leader worth following,
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which means you have to lead yourself well. Because none of us open ourselves
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up to the influence of people that we don't respect. So to be a
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leader worth following, you have to lead yourself well. In order to have
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sustained influence with people, to have them open up to your leadership and your
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influence, you have to lead yourself well. And the third reason this is
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a big deal is that exceptional self leadership is actually the key to sustained performance.
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Now, isn't this true? In most cases when a leader burns out
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or when a leader is taken out, it's because they weren't leading themselves well.
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Great leaders. This is so important. Great leaders last because they lead
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themselves first. Great leaders last, they go the distance, they have sustained
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influence, the sustained performance because they lead themselves well first. So this is
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a really, really big deal. It's my friend Klay Scroggin says in his
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fabulous book, I love this quote. He says this. He says,
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you don't have to be in charge to take charge. You don't have to
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be in charge to take charge of leading yourself. It's your primary responsibility as
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a leader. And he's absolutely right. And if you haven't read How to
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Lead when You're not in charge, I highly recommend the book because you're not
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in charge anyway. So in terms of leadership, leading ourselves firsts our number
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one responsibility. And we are the most difficult people we will ever be called
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upon to lead. So that leads us to this question, what in the
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world do we do? How do we do this? So what I want
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to do for the next few minutes is just give you some handles because exceptional
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self leadership, I think, requires three decisions that each one of us has
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to make. You're going to hear bits and pieces of this scattered throughout the
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presenters today and their stories, and in the interviews that you're going to be
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exposed to, you're going to hear these three things talked about in different ways,
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with different language. But at the end of the day, extraordinary self
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leadership requires that we make these three decisions, and the first decision is the
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hardest. I will not lie to myself even when the truth makes me feel
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bad about myself. I will not lie to myself, even when the truth
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makes me feel bad about myself and our culture, we've been told that the
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worst thing in the world is to feel bad about ourselves. That is not
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true. There is something worse than feeling bad about yourself. What's worse than
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feeling bad about yourself is not doing anything about the thing that's bad about yourself.
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But we have a very difficult time as human beings acknowledging the things about
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ourselves that need to change. People don't let go of what needs to change
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because they never acknowledge they're actually hanging on. The point being this that exceptional
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self leadership requires brutal honesty with that person in the mirror, the easiest person,
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the easiest person for you to deceive, the easiest person for me to
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deceive is the person in the mirror. Nobody does. Nobody does a better
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job selling you on a bad idea than you. You are a sucker for
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you. Now you know this is true because as soon as you think about
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it, as soon as you see something you want. If we take this
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out of the realm of leadership and just in terms of personal behavior, as
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soon as you see something you want, what do you start doing? You
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start selling yourself. If you start coming out with all the reasons it's a
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good deal, all the reasons you need to down, you begin selling yourself.
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And we have all sold ourselves on some terrible purchases. Why because we
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know how to sell ourselves. The person in the mirror is generally our greatest
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obstacle. You can't lead yourself well. You can't lead yourself well as long
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as you're lying to yourself. Have you ever tried to lead a liar?
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What happens when you discovered there's a liar in your midst at work? You
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don't lead a liar, You fire a liar, right And for some of
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us, if we're honest, we need to fire the version of ourselves that
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keeps lying to ourselves. We need to fire the version of ourselves that keeps
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making excuses for all the dumb decisions that we've made. We need to have
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the courage to lead ourselves well. And to do that, you have to
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be brutally honest with yourself. This is the beginning of great self leadership.
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You can't lead yourself until you are honest with yourself. So I want to
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give you an exercise to kind of make this easy for Okay, whenever you're
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about to make a decision, whenever you find yourself with that little bit of
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tension on the inside of should I go, should I stay, should I
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say this, should I attend? Should I put this off? You just
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need to ask yourself this question. And I highly recommend you figure out a
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place where you can ask this question out loud, even if it's just under
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your breath. But it's got to be more than a thought. And the
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question is this. It's so simple, Why am I doing this? Why
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am I doing this? And then you got to take it up one notch
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why am I doing this? Really? Why am I doing this? Really?
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In fact, I would like for all of us at all of our
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host sites and hear the room with me. I want us to say this
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out loud, and I want you to pause after this and then add the
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words, really, okay, you're ready to do this together? Here we
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go, everybody, Why am I doing this? Really? One more time?
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Why am I doing this? Really? Why am I postponing this meeting?
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Really? Why am I postponing this phone call? Really? Why am
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I avoiding him? Really? Why am I avoiding her? Really? Why
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am I going really? Why am I saying this? Really? Why am
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I about to ask this question? Why am I purchasing this? Why am
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I wearing this? Why am I doing this? Really? Telling yourself the
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unfiltered truth about what you're doing and why you're doing it is the key to
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self to great self leadership. Now here's a little secret when you discover when
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you hear yourself answer this question, why am I buying this? Really?
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Why am I saying this? Really? Why am I going there? Really?
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You don't have to do anything with that new information, but you owe
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it to yourself to know the truth. And I'm just telling you, if
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you'll develop the habit of pausing and saying, Okay, I'm moving in this
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direction, my emotions are moving in this direction. This is how I've always
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done it. This is what I've been told to do, but at least
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owe it to myself to be honest with myself and ask the question, Okay,
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but why am I doing this really? So first decision you've got to
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decide, I will not lie to myself even when the truth makes me feel
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bad about my self. Second decision for great for exceptional self leadership is this,
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I will prioritize what I value most over what I want now. I
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will prioritize what I value most over what I want now. This one just
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needs a little bit of explanation. In organizational leadership, you know this if
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you're a manager, or you're a or you lead a franchise, or maybe
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your business owner or you to have a division, or if you have anybody
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reporting to you. You know that when it comes to leading a team,
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you have to know where you're leading the team. Right. If you're leading
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a team, there has to be some sort of destination, there has to
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be an endgame, there has to be some kind of goal. And the
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same is true for self leadership. So here's the question, where do exceptional
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self leaders lead themselves? Where do it? In other words, if leadership
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is about going somewhere. If leadership is about an endgame, if leadership is
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about we're moving in a direction. This is an important question. Where are
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exceptional self leaders leading themselves? And here's the answer. And this may be
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the biggest take away from our first session today. Exceptional self leaders lead themselves
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toward what they value most, not what they want now, toward what they
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value most, not what they want now. What you want now is rarely
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what you value most. What you want now. This is a lesson most
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people never learned, but this is essential for extraordinary exceptional self leadership. What
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you want now is rarely what you value most. We know this right because
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later today, I mean it's going to happen before this day is over.
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You are going to want dessert, but you value your health. I want
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dessert, and we can go down. We could create two columns with dozens
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and dozens of these illustrations that tension between immediate and ultimate, immediate and ultimate.
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What you want now is rarely what you value most. That means there's
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a catch. That means, as I said earlier, there's some work to
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do. You can't really lead yourself well. You cannot be become an exceptional
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self leader until you discover what you value most. And because of what I
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do as a profession, I'm convinced of this. Most people never discover what
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they value most until it's too late. Most people never discover what they value
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most until what they value most is out of reach. So how do you
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discover what you value most? It's actually pretty simple, Ladies. It'll take
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you about an hour and a half. Men, it'll take you about fifteen
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minutes. Okay, now that's a little bit of an exaggeration. But as
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I've taught this through the years, and as I've helped people work through this
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exercise through the years, ladies, you are so much better generally speaking at
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understanding and thinking about things as it relates to what's going on on the inside
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of you. Guys, we oftentimes have to work on this. But here's
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here's the easiest way you can. You can do this in an hour,
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the easiest way I think, to discover what you value most. And you
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may think you know what you value most, but let's be honest, very
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few of us have sat down and even ask ourselves this question. We always
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know what we want now, but how do we discover what we ultimately value
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most? And again, the worst thing that could happen to you is to
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get toward the end of your life and realize what I value most is out
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of reach. And that happens all the time. So about twenty eight years
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ago, I picked up the copy of Stephen Covey's book, The Seven Habits
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of Highly Effective People had just come out, and I read the whole book.
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And many of you've read that book. If you haven't, of course,
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it's just the standard extraordinary book. And in the middle of the book,
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or actually about two thirds of the way through the book, he suggests
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that the reader stop and work through what he calls essentially a funeral exercise,
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and you ask yourself this question, what do I want set about me in
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the end? What do I want set about me in the end? Now
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he gives some you know, he sort of teases this thing out, and
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here's what he suggests. And let me just be honest with you. When
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I'm reading a book and I get to the part where the author says,
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set the book aside and answer these three questions, I'm like, I'm not
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doing that because the goal is to finish the book. I'm not here to
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learn anything. I'm here to say, oh, yeah, I read that.
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Oh yeah read that. Oh he's so smart. I didn't learn anything,
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but I read all these books. So when I get to the assignment
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part of a book, I very rarely stop and do the assignment. You're
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probably the same way, right, So, but I actually, this is
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almost thirty years ago. I actually stop. I set the book aside and
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for the next four mornings, because I have a habit of getting up early
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in the morning and spending some time alone, and as a Christian, I
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use that as a devotional time. But I decided to spend the next few
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mornings actually working through this exercise. And here's what he suggested, and here's
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what I highly suggest. If you'll work through this exercise, you will discover.
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You will discover what you value moved. He said, Imagine you're at
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your own funeral, and imagine the following people get up to talk about you.
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Your father or your mother, your husband or your wife, a son
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or a daughter, a best friend, an employer, a coach, somebody
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you work with. He goes through a list of people. He said,
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imagine that these different peoples from these different walks of life get up and say
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something about you. At your funeral. Then he said this right down what
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you would want to hear them say. Say so I did, and it
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was amazing. At the end of that exercise, I spent about four mornings,
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about twenty twenty five minutes, about four or five mornings in a row.
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At the end, I looked at what I'd written, and I realized,
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this is my personal definition of success. This is what I value most.
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What you want said about you at the end is what you value most.
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And you owe it to yourself to discover that. You say, well,
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Andy, that's just so depressing. Now let me tell you what's depressing.
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Depressing is getting to the end and realizing what you value most is out
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of reach. And it happens all the time. So opt for ultimate over
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immediate. Opt for ultimate over immediate. Don't settle for what my friend Adam
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Johnson calls not goals. You know what a not goal is. A not
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goal is I'm not gonna be like him. I'm not gonna be like her.
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I'm not going to end up there. I'm not gonna. I'm not
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gonna. I'm not gonna. But Adam says this, He says not is
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not enough in defining your future and defining your success or trying to lead yourself
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with not goals will not set you up to lead yourself. Well, you
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have to discover what you value most. So, second, the second decision,
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I will prioritize what I value most over what I want. Now,
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the third decision is this one. I will not attempt to lead myself by
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myself. I will not attempt to lead myself by myself. Now this seems
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a little bit not intuitive. It seems like if I'm leading myself or I
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leading myself by myself, you're not. In fact, you can't lead yourself
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by yourself. And you know this from personal experience. You know this from
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childhood. You may have a few stories from your adulthood that underscore this,
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because we know as we think about our childhood, as we think about our
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college years, as we think about adulthood. For some of us, your
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greatest regrets, let's be honest, your greatest regrets. When you were creating
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your what would become your greatest regret. You were with friends. You were
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with some friends that now you wish perhaps you had never met. And what
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happened. What happened? It was very simple. You were moving in a
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direction with people who supported you moving in that direction. And now you look
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back and you think that was terrible self leadership. That was a terrible decision.
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It was a terrible financial decision, it was a terrible investment, it
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was a terrible idea. But you had people around you that supported you in
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that decision. You can't lead yourself by yourself. And here's why. It's
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a principle. Our friends, your friends. Our friends determined the direction and
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the quality of our lives. Our friends, your friends determine the direction and
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quality of your life. And in fact, if you have kids, I
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have three children, I have two out of college, one that graduates Monday.
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Yes, it's such a wonderful thing to write that last check back in
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November to Auburn University War Eagle anyway. Yeah over here on the right,
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Yes, I'm sure out there in the broader world there was much clapping about
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Auburn anyway. So the point is, says, if you have middle school
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kids, and you have high school kids, and they're starting to kind of
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pester you about that first tattoo, you know, I want a tattoo.
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I want a tattoo. Here's what I would suggest. I would suggest as
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a parent, if you're in that season of life you say, sure,
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honey, you can get a tattoo, but Mama gets to choose it.
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And I suggest that you tattooed right here. Your friends will determine the direction
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and the quality of your life and have them look at that for the next
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ten years of their life, because you know what you know from your past,
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and I know from my past. My friends determine the direction and the
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quality of my life. And that doesn't end at thirteen or fifteen or eighteen.
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And this is the thing, and here's the application as it relates to
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this third decision. You don't simply need friends with common interest Most people develop
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friendships with people who have common interests. That's a shortcut. It's easy to
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find people who share common interests. You need to find people who share common
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values because self leadership, exceptional self leadership, is value driven. Consequently,
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you need to find a way to connect with people who don't simply have the
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same interest that you have. Although obviously there's nothing wrong with that. You've
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got to do life with people who are moving toward and embracing the same values
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that you embrace. And the reason you know this is absolutely true is because
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if you have kids, that's exactly what you would tell your kids. But
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mom, we like the same music, and you're looking at the people who
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like the same music as your kid, going that's great. I still don't
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want you to go over there, right, But you know he's you know
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we have the same I know, but I still don't want you to hang
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out with him. Why Because you know this as a parent, you know
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this as an older brother and older sister. The values that a person embraces
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ultimately determines the direction and quality of their life, and embracing or spending time
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with, or building community with people who are moving in the same direction has
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more to do with helping us in terms of self leadership than perhaps anything we
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can do on the outside. Which means, and this is the wh hard
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part of this one, it means you may need to disconnect from a friend
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or two. Again, this isn't just for high school students. This is
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for grown ups. And the reason you may need to disconnect from a friend
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or two is this is that ultimate can be threatening to folks who've opted for
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immediate. That ultimate can be threatening to people who opt for immediate. When
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you decide you know what I'm going to spend the time to decide, to
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determine, to discover what I really value most. I'm gonna quit lying to
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myself. I'm going to fire the liar, and I'm going to become brutally
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honest with myself, and I'm gonna embrace what I ultimately want to look back
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on. The people who aren't moving in that direction, the people who are
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living for immediate as opposed to ultimate. There may be some conflict, and
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that's okay because you're leading yourself. Now, here's the bottom line. I'm
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gonna wrap up in just a couple of minutes. Everybody, everybody, Everybody
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ends up somewhere in life. Everybody. There's no option. This is just
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the way it is. Life's a journey, right, It's the principle of
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the path. Direction determines destination, direction, not intention determines destination. Right,
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Everybody ends up somewhere in life. And the reason we're doing this day
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today, and the reason we put all this together is we want you to
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end up somewhere on purpose. And there is only one person on this planet
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that can determine whether or not you end up somewhere on purpose, and it's
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the person that you are, that you're confronted with every single morning in the
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mirror. So my friends lead that person. Well, you have very little
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influence perhaps at work in terms of who you lead, But every single day
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you get up with the opportunity and the responsibility to lead the person that has
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more to do with your destiny than any other person you'll ever meet. You
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think it's your boss, you think it's your company, you think it's stock,
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you think it's the economy, you think it's a whole lot of things.
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The person the influence that has more influence over your future than anybody or
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anything you'll ever confront is the person in the mirror. So lead that person.
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Well, decide today I will not lie to myself even when it makes
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me feel bad about myself. Those days are over. I'm going to fire
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the liar. Decide that you are going to prioritize what you value most over
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what you want. Now, now, I realize that I've already ruined lunch
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for many of you today with this one. Because you're going to sit down
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with the people on your team, the people you came with, and you're
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gonna sit at you know, most of you're gonna go to some fabulous restaurant,
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or you're going to be served a lunch, you know, on your
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site, and everybody's gonna look at dessert and feel terrible. So I just
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want to free you of that guilt. But I do want to remind you
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of this. Dessert is immediate. Health is ultimate. Okay, enough about
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that. So what I want you to do and you and the thing is
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that you can do this before this weekend or during this weekend, is to
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sit down and some spend spend some time asking the question what do I value
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most? And work through that funeral exercise. It won't take very long.
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It's not depressing. It's going to open you up to the reality of what's
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most important to you. And once you decide, and once you discover what
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your values are, write those down. When I went through that exercise,
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I forgot to tell you this. When I went through that exercise, I
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actually I took all those paragraphs I want, you know what I want.
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I wasn't married at the time. I actually I was engaged. You know
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what would I want my future wife to say? All those things? I
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took all that information. It was several paragraphs and I condensed it to nine
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words. Nine words, and I could rattle off those nine words today.
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Those nine words, those value words became a perimeter around my behavior, a
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perimeter around my thought life, a perimeter around the way I did business,
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the way I did ministry, and the way I did relationships. Those became
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because I recognized, as I want you to recognize, that's what success is
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for you. And then, third last, you got to decide, I'm
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not going to lead myself by myself. I'm going to find a way to
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do good life with to build a community around me of people who value what
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I value. They don't simply share the same interest that I share. Leading
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yourself well is not an essential for being a leader, but leading yourself well
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is essential if you want to be a leader worth following. A leader with
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sustained influence, a leader with sustained performance, and every day of your life,
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every day of my life, we will be tempted to opt for immediate
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over ultimate, but don't do it. The person in the mirror is counting
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on you. And not only is the person in the mirror counting on you
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for most of us, there are some other smaller faces in smaller mirrors that
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are counting on us as well, thank you, assass