Welcome to Episode 1 of the LeaderQuest Podcast. For a full recording, please visit the #NextSteps Coaching page on Youtube. This contains the full recording, plus video. Each channel gets different content and in the full content, Justin and his family try some exciting new foods!
In this episode, Justin gives an overview of his call story to help you understand him better and find your own.
I had gone into college thinking I was going to be a science major. However, I remember one night staring into the microscope around 2 am trying to determine leaf structure, that I realized I didn’t want to do it anymore.
For someone already struggling with their place in the world, this was the last straw. I remember sinking into a deep depression. I felt like my whole world had been taken away.
A new city with no friends.
A lifeless major.
No sports to ground my days as they did in high school.
Lost.
Alone.
Discover Your Call
Defeated.
Gambling with God
During this time, I began a deep dive into my place into the world. I started to study the Bible and see if it had something for me.
I head this small voice telling me to think about a career in ministry.
I had tons of excuses about why that was a terrible idea.
I can’t speak in public.
I’m afraid of crowds.
I’m shy
I don’t want to.
Yet in my desire to find my place, I kept reading. I kept studying. And I kept hearing that voice. Finally, I had had enough. In a fit of rage and the cockiness of a 19-year-old know-it-all, I threw my Bible against the wall, promising to read whatever passage it fell open to.
If you can convince me to go into ministry through this, I’ll do it.
I was willing to gamble with God.
I picked up my Bible where it lay, plopped down on my bed, and read. My Bible (*coincidentially?*) had fallen open to Exodus chapter four.
In this story, a man named Moses is being called by God to free the Israelites from slavery at the hand of the Egyptians. Moses didn’t want to. He fought God’s call. He questioned God’s sanity.
Moses said:
I can’t speak in public.
I’m afraid of crowds.
I’m shy
I don’t want to.
Moses expressed everything to God that I had.
That small voice returned and said, “If I can do something with him, surely I can do something with you.”
Discovering Your Call
Now, I’m not saying I’m the next Moses. I’m far from it.
I’m also not saying that your call has to be as dramatic or painful as mine. I sure hope it’s not.
But here is what I have learned in the almost fifteen years since that day: Everyone has a call.
Your unique experiences, gifts, passions, interests, skills, and background have made you truly unique in this world. There is no one like you and you are like no one else. The world needs you. It needs your voice. Your perspective. Your championing of issues close to your heart. The world needs you, in all of your glory, to embrace who God has made you be at your core and live fully alive.
Without you, this world is incomplete.
Discovering your call is about finding whatever it is that makes you come alive. It is about blending your God-given potential with your world-changing desire.
So listen to that voice. Pursue it. Be open to it. As crazy as your world-changing idea may sound, it echoes in your soul for a reason.
It’s time to answer your call.
We are in a series on calling here on the blog. If you have a story idea, question or topic you want to be covered, or if you’re ready to work with Justin please fill out the contact form below.
As a boy growing up on the plains of windswept Kansas, I led a relatively normal life. My mom spent time as a librarian, teacher, and business owner. My dad worked on the land. My older brother and I spent hundreds of hours outside battling bad guys from all sorts of foreign planets, inventing makeshift toys, and practicing the latest wrestling moves we learned from Hulk Hogan and Randy Savage.
As normal as my childhood seemed, if you knew me, I hardly doubt that “normal” would be a word you would use to describe me. Instead, I’m imaginative, passionate, and perhaps a bit creative. Driven. Focused. Intense. Loud. Thoughtful. Complicated if not a bit too simple.
That’s the tension we all live in right? We bumble and stumble through this world looking to find our place in it.
We ask questions like: Why was I made? What’s my purpose? Why am I here?
Each of these questions and the yearning desires that go along with them can point us to our calling, or in pop culture terms: our origin story.
Discovering Your Origin Story
Discovering your origin story is the quest of all great superheroes (of which I would consider you one. Look at all the amazing things you can do!).
Think of Spider-Man. An awkward, geeky teen suffering from personal angst (something we can all relate to) gets bitten by a radioactive spider.
Or Thor. Passionate and committed, he must also prove himself worthy to his father, to be king, and to wield the mighty hammer Mjolnir.
In May of 2008, your life changed dramatically, even if you didn’t know it at the time. That’s when the first Iron Man movie released and introduced to a wider audience both the Marvel universe and the idea of the origin story.
Your Origin Story
Discovering your origin story doesn’t have to be nearly as dramatic as any of those superheroes though. Instead, it can be done by intentionally investing time in yourself. Discover your unique story, perspective, and outlook on life. What makes you tick? What do you find important? How do you want to better the world?
In fact, in the upcoming release of my new E-Course “Discovering Your Origin Story,” we look at the three questions you must ask to discovery your calling:
What makes me feel totally and completely alive?
Who am I called to serve?
What does success look like to me?
While much more could certainly be said, this is the foundation for all work in discovering your origin story. Passions, hobbies, skills, are all important and all play a role, but it is these foundational questions that must first be answered.
Living Worthy of the Calling
All superheroes, even our modern-day ones, must choose to live worthy of their calling. One ancient writer, a man named Paul, wrote to a group of early Christians and said the same thing. He urged them to, “Live worthy of the calling they have received.”
My sincere desire and prayer for you is that you would do the same. Your life, gifts, passions, and unique quirks are far too valuable to waste, lose, or go unused.
Recently I was on a trip and I loaded the destination into my phone’s GPS, and started driving.
I didn’t feel like I needed it at first since I know how to get out of my neighborhood. But it’s easier to do in the beginning than to plug it in while driving.
Through a series of short straightaways and quick turns, I soon found myself on the highway.
Stay on this road for 227 miles.
Staying on course means having discipline and eliminating distraction.
Immediately I had a knot in my stomach.
I knew it was a long trip. I knew how many hours it would take. I had even accounted for traffic times so I could make it as short as possible.
But there’s still something about seeing that number and the accompanying time frame that made me feel a tad frustrated.
Can you relate?
Why we need to practice staying on course.
Whether we like it or not, we all need to follow the advice to stay on course.
Trying a new startup venture? Stay the course.
Repairing a broken relationship? Stay the course.
Losing weight, changing your eating habits, or completing a degree? Stay the course.
Too often, we bail too quickly on our goals and never see real results. We hear the other dreaded word of a navigating GPS system: “Recalculating.” It means we’ve veered off course and need to get back on track.
Staying the course means eliminating distractions.
Staying the course means staying hyper-focused.
Staying the course means developing extreme discipline.
Staying the course means knowing what the end destination is, and refusing to stop before you get there.
Staying the course is not easy, but it is deeply rewarding. It is the only way to truly get to where you want to go in life.
The only way your side hustle becomes your main gig is by staying the course.
The only way you’ll have the body you dream of is staying the course in your diet.
The only way to have a thriving marriage, growing business, strong team, or financial success is by staying on course.
Your goals, dreams, visions, and plans for life are all at on the line. Don’t settle for anything less than reaching your final destination.
In April of 2009, I became a father for the first time.
My wife, more than a week past her expected due date, was ready to burst. We tried everything that was supposed to help induce labor: drank strange teas, ate spicy foods, gobbled down pineapple, applied special lotions. You name it, we had tried it.
In intense pain and ready to not be pregnant in the warm California spring, we started walking.
We walked.
And walked.
And walked.
Late at night, on the campus of my master’s program, we created a half mile loop from our tiny apartment to the fountain at the center of campus. Over three miles into we finally collapsed into bed. The night was warm. The air was muggy, and after a full day of school and labor-inducing hacks, we were tired.
We got ready for bed, drank some water and tried to lay down. Roughly thirty seconds after I fell asleep she woke me: “It’s time!”
We hurried to the hospital, got admitted, and eight hours later had the joy of seeing my daughter born into this world.
First-time fatherhood is scary.
After the doctors were done running all of their tests, one of the nurses turned to me and asked, “Do you want to hold her?”
Call it naivete but that thought had never actually crossed my mind.
I stared at the nurse with a panicked expression on my face and said something along the lines of, “Uhhh….But she’s so little, what if I break her?”
Leadership’s “Secret Sauce”
As a first time father, I was overwhelmed at all of the things I was “supposed to know.” I’ll be honest: I didn’t know any of them.
I felt overwhelmed, under-prepared, emotionally fragile, and unsure of myself.
Thankfully, a decade and three additional kids later…..I’m still all those things (but with many more chances to doubt myself and screw it up).
Leadership, as it turns out, is often the same.
We have these grandiose ideas about our favorite leaders and how they make it look “easy.” The truth is that they have had to learn about leadership under pressure.
Great leadership happens, not because people are innately born with super-human capacity but because they committed themselves to show up, admit their inexperience, learn, try, fail, and try again.
Leadership’s Secret Sauce
Growing as a leader has a fairly simple (not easy) formula:
Show up.
Commit to learning.
Progressively challenge yourself.
Fail.
Try again.
That is the secret sauce to leadership. It is about showing up, every day, in all situations, with our full selves, to be fully present in service to others.
What are you committed to learning as a leader? Chime in below!
