Femi Lazarus spent years praying for his boss to change instead of fixing his own skill gaps. He learned to seek wisdom from anyone, including a high-ranking Muslim mentor in Kenya, and now pays successful practitioners to teach him what he doesn't know.
Chapters
A lot of us are over-indexing on the spiritual to the detriment of the practical. I think, Femi Lazarus, in all honesty, I did that in the early stages of my career. This boss doesn't like me. Father, in the name of Jesus, let her be changed. Let her be changed. It was a skills gap. She didn't like me because I wasn't performing to the standard of expectation. People who are demanding excellence from me shouldn't be a prayer point. I should actually be covering them that, Father, I thank you I thank you for this person who is stretching me beyond my current capacity. I thank you for these people who are calling me out on bad behavior. So I think when I fast and pray now, it's God, help me be sensitive to my blind spots. Introduce me to the new voices that you— that I need to be hearing in this season. And many of them aren't even Christian voices. Some of them are just at the pinnacle of their career. And it's like, this is a person I need to learn and grow from. So I've got this mentor, she's based in Kenya. A very high-ranking person. And the past 4 years, she's been an invaluable blessing. She's been incredibly valuable. Wow. She's a Muslim. Amazing. Old me, you don't believe what I believe, I would wrongly interpret scripture. What fellowship has light to do with dark? I would wrongly interpret that there's nothing I can learn from you if you don't serve the same God that I serve. And I think part of what my growth has been is that God's helped me to see that there's— even creation is speaking. Like, you can learn from anyone and everyone. And you can become wiser than those teachers. My parents were loving. They gave us opportunity. But they entrenched a small thinking in us that I see showing up in how I run business. And so instead of sitting there binding and loosing, I had to find who was working in my space with great success and humble myself to pay the money and learn from them.
Declassified Podcast is now streaming on YouTube and Spotify.
