Holidays and You

You're tuned into Made for Mondays with Justin Lester. Justin Lester is an average guy who refuses to let Mondays control him. Justin is a husband, dad, pastor, student, and Jesus follower. He's done a lot, he's learned a lot, and he wants to see you at your best. Let's win Mondays. Hey, Justin. What's up today?

Hey, everyone. Welcome to Made for Mondays. I'm so glad you guys are tuned in and thank you for being such faithful listeners to the podcast and I'm grateful that you guys are enjoying and journeying with me in this journey of what it means to start your weeks well, to own your Monday so Mondays don't own you. For so many of us, we're going into short work weeks this week for obvious reasons, and that is Thanksgiving is around the corner, or as I like to call it, another day to watch the Cowboys play terrible football. Regardless of what you do on Thanksgiving, there's a lot that goes into this week. It's the marker and the beginning of Christmas season. And for so many of you, it's the greatest and most wonderful time of the year. I love Christmas as a preacher and as a pastor, Christmas means so much to me, and Thanksgiving means so much to me as well. So as I thought about this week and I thought about the beginning of this week and how. How to be made for Mondays this week is not normal. And it's by far for so many of us in our generation, Thanksgiving. We've never experienced Thanksgiving where being with your family, being with your friends is being consistently removed or denied, and constantly not recommended do for this Thanksgiving, whether that was the plans that you had, people you wanted to travel to, the planes you wanted to fly on, the cars you wanted to drive in, or just out of complete fear, maybe you're listening to this. Hopefully you're not. Whoever you're listening to this from a hospital where your friends or loved ones are in and you're not able to be with them because they literally cannot breathe or they're unconscious because of what's going on in our world right now. Maybe it's the fear being around that crazy uncle or crazy auntie, or maybe you're the crazy uncle or crazy auntie that sits at the table and you just can't wait to bring up the political season of our world right now. Right? I mean, there's just so much going into this year's holidays and going into our work weeks can cause us to think differently about what's going to happen on Thursday. Maybe you will not have a Thanksgiving. Maybe you will have a Thanksgiving. Maybe you're hoping nobody finds out about your Thanksgiving, whatever it is. This Monday is not your normal Monday. Our days are going, our work weeks are going to end early on Wednesday or Tuesday or some of you may be gone the entire week. And we're looking forward to going shopping on Friday to spend money we frankly just don't have. Right. I mean this is, this is a weird season and not a normal week. And so I thought about, instead of jumping into anything more, I wanted to just completely talk about leading yourself in this holiday. Leading yourself in the holiday season. We can't lead other people if we're not leading ourselves. I think Thanksgiving gives us this reminder that leading starts at home. TD Jake said something really powerful. He said, I knew there was a problem with leadership when common began to give leadership tips. Something is wrong when leadership is something that's just monetized. It's thrown down to self help. It's anyone becomes a consultant, anyone becomes a leadership guru. When leadership becomes something for anybody and everybody to grab a hold of. And I believe leadership much like home, in leadership, much like families, everybody is not the leader. And if everybody is attempting to be the leader, you have monsters. And that's I think what happens in some of our Thanksgiving tables. It happens on our jobs as well where people who are not in leadership positions want to be the leader. Everybody has an idea to the idea needs to be implemented. Then all of a sudden fear and a lack of follow through and a lack of engagement shows why the leader has the title and the paycheck the leader has. And if you are listening to this and you are a leader, if you are listening to this and you have the weight of leadership, the weight of titles on you, I want to challenge you and also encourage you to be sure in this week you are leading yourself. Not just taking time to check in with you, not just taking time to check in and find your pulse and find your center, but ensure that you're leading you so that you can lead your home and lead your space and lead your friendships and if you're single, lead yourself in this moment. So the first tip I would give you, the first suggestion I would give you in this holiday season as you go into this week, number one, don't waste your energy on narratives that don't exist. Don't waste your energy on narratives that don't exist. If this season of our country and of our world tells us anything, it's that the word conspiracy and anonymous sources love to be present in our world. There are so many things we are making decisions on, on conspiracy theories and anonymous sources. And no matter what side of the ball you fall on, politically, we see conspiracy theories and anonymous sources everywhere. If you follow sports and you, you follow sports on Twitter, you see anonymous sources every time you log in on Twitter. If you follow politics, there's anonymous sources and conspiracy theories. No matter what side of the ball you fall on, if you engage in leadership, there's anonymous sources. The, the most famous writer there is is anonymous. They have so many amazing things to say. And I believe what happens for so many of us, and especially as we begin our week is that we begin to create narratives and we spend so much energy and we get so anxious and insecure and worried about narratives that frankly don't exist. So you're worried about what so and so is going to think or say. You're worried whether or not a co worker is going to get an entire week's worth of work done in three days. Can you get an entire week's work done, work done in three days. Don't waste your energy on narratives that don't exist. You haven't seen the individual in your office yet. You haven't engaged with that person yet. You haven't seen that person at your dinner table yet. And I want to caution us to take and I want to caution us and challenge us to caution us not to waste our energy and take this principle home with you this week as well. Don't waste your energy on narratives that don't exist. You don't know who's coming. You don't know who's showing up. You don't know what they want to come in and talk about with. And so often we get anxious about things that don't even exist. And anxiety simply robs us of the joy of the moment because we're worried about a moment that has not occurred. And how many times when you look back over your life, have you created a moment that didn't need to be created? So I want you to go into this week not wasting your energy on narratives that don't exist, but spend your energy and utilize your energy and, and segment your energy in the places where your energy really needs to be. How wonderful would it be for you to spend time with that co worker and spend time thinking about and thinking and thinking about even who you are and what your job is and what that relationship means to you. This is a wonderful time to spend more energy pushing our people and pushing the people we lead and pushing ourselves than wasting our energy in narratives that don't exist. Number two, I want you to grieve what's lost. I want you to grieve what's lost. At the end of the day, as much as we can sit here and talk about switching things and becoming adaptable and becoming flexible and becoming curious and unearthing so many dreams and possibilities inside of all of us, we haven't. If we are doing ourselves a disservice if we haven't taken the time to grieve what's lost. Grieve the realities. For those of you going into your office, maybe your office is literally your home office and you're zooming, you're not able to engage with people. You're not seeing individuals. For so many of us going into this weekend, I love this weekend because of the Thanksgiving, college basketball tournaments and oh my gosh, I'm not getting Maui this year, right? I'm not getting some of the best basketball that ever exists in college basketball. Grieve what's lost. Grieve the loss of not being able to attend a football game as a gift that you get or as an early Christmas present. Grieve what's a loss? Grieve not being able to go to high school football games and not having certain people come by your home, not being able to go see your grandparents or people like that or people that literally have lost their lives this year. I want you to grieve what's lost. And the reason why that's so important to me is not to beat up the moment, but grieve what isn't so you can seize what is. Grieve what isn't so you can seize what is. When I acknowledge what doesn't exist, when I acknowledge what I cannot do, I then can seize what I can do, right? And this. And the reason grieving is so important is I'm not telling you to overlook it. I'm telling you to acknowledge the gap. I'm telling you to acknowledge what it means to not have a person, a place or a thing that you're able to think, feel or do so that you can seize the person, place or thing that you can think, feel and do. Grieve what's lost so you can seize what you can gain. And I believe this week can be so fruitful for so many of us. It's if we grieve the reality of what we cannot do and seize the reality of what we can do. I'm almost finished, but I hope you're being blessed by this number. Number three. I want to give you today, if you're alone, to those of you who are not married, those of you who don't have children, those of you who are not traveling to see someone, those of you who are by yourselves this week, and you're actually excited to go to work because you're able to be around people. Let me give you this principle. If you're alone, deepen there's. There's. There's this narrative about sequoia trees in the West. And sequoia trees, they tell a story that they are so strong because their roots are stronger than the tree itself. And that roots interlock under the ground so deep, so that no matter if you cut down a sequoia tree, that tree never dies, because that tree has roots that are so deep and so strong that the tree itself is not the strength. The roots are the strength. If you are alone, I want you to deepen your roots, become so interconnected with yourself, so that no matter what gets cut off from you, you never die. What are the people, the places, the thinking, the feeling, the doing, the dreams, the curiosity, the television shows? What's the Netflix show you can finish this week? What are the relationships in person or out of person? What are the people that you need to remove from your life or you need to add to your life if you're al. Deepen your roots and be so. Become so interconnected so that no matter what's cut from you, you still have life. Our lives are not beholden down to relationships with other people. They're strengthened by the relationship with other people. But if we are not connected to ourselves, connected to our cores, and connected to who God really wants us to be, anything can come and cut us and we'll die. If you're alone, deepen your roots become so connected with who you are that you come out of this holiday stronger than you did going into it. And the last principle I'll give to you today, since you're at home, be home. I'm 32. My wife is 32. My son is 3. This is going to be the second Thanksgiving ever where we haven't had family in somehow some way come to our house or we. Where we haven't gone to someone's house. Every single Thanksgiving, My entire life has always been around my mother or my wife's mother, my wife's extended family or my own extended family. Every single Thanksgiving. This is the first time. Sorry. This is the second time that we've had to be alone for Thanksgiving. And it's different. It's not the Same. And when I came to the realization, the conclusion was what traditions can we create? What. What's the life that we can have? That's not taking anything away from my wife's mother, my mother, my sister, my brother in law. That's not taking anything away from my extended family or friends or loved ones. I would love to see some friends right now. I love to be in. I love to be not on my own couch, but my mother's couch. I'd love to be in my my mother in law's house. I'd love to be in a different city for Thanksgiving. Who wouldn't want a change of scenery, especially in this year 2020. But I came to the conclusion that since I'm home, be home since I'm in my living room, let's create traditions in the living room. What crazy things can you do that your family never did when you grew up? What simple things can you engage in that you never engaged in before? What interesting traditions can you create this year that you didn't know you could create? What? What games, what shows can you guys begin to watch? What things can you begin to do since you're home, be home. What is it about your home that you've missed because you've been complaining about what you can't do for Thanksgiving? What is it about your days when you're by yourself, when you have an entire day without work? Since you're home, be home. And I guarantee you what you'll learn in your house is that there's nothing better than being at home, being one with people you love, with the God you love, with the things that are inside of you, and with the future that God has planned for you, make this week your best week because it is your best week. You were made for this. So whether you're going to work right now, whether you're headed to work out right now, whether you're headed to your home office, whether you're headed to get your top part dressed and keep the shorts on on the bottom for your zoom calls all day, whether you're headed to the grocery store to get some food for your dinner, whether you're going to be by yourself, whether you're ready to order pizza for Thanksgiving, or whether you're sitting down and making a whole turkey. Listen, Happy Thanksgiving and I pray you have a wonderful day. I pray you have a wonderful week and I pray you do amazing things because you are an amazing person. This indeed will be your best week and you were made for this. Mondays don't own you. You own your Monday. So let's say our affirmations together and then we'll go on about our day. Say this with me. Say I am me. I can be me. And no one will ever stop me from being me. Have a wonderful Monday. You were made for this. Now go win.

This has been Made for Mondays with Justin Lester. Be sure to follow Justin online at MrJlester and online at www.jlester.com. see you next week.

Go.

You were made for this.