Leadership Development (Character and Accountability)

Hey, what's up? So this is Tim Pratt Jr. here, um, and we're going to get into, uh, so my goal is to do these at minimum once a month, um, probably taking a little bit of feedback. So just be, you know, being very adaptive to what's going on and, and hearing from, uh, Pastor Pratt, Pastor, uh, Pastor Allen, and those things of that nature, of course. But one of my goals this year is to, focus on really creating a space where we can develop our leadership. Uh, and so as I was thinking and just kind of working through this, uh, one of the two areas that I wanted to address before we get to talking about roadmaps, planning, uh, and things of those nature, uh, is, uh, character and accountability within leadership. From my perspective, I think these are huge things. And if we are truly called to leadership, I believe that we first have to address these things. But one of the things I want to say that that's not really represented on here, I really think we need to take a step back as leaders and count the costs. And then on top of that, knowing that it's not a one-time situation when it comes to counting the costs. Like in leadership, we are counting the costs every single day, every single day. And I think a lot of people desire to be in leadership for possibly titles only, perceived power. John C. Maxwell talks about this a lot in The Five Levels of Leadership, but we'll get into all of that throughout the year. I do want to run a couple Lean Coffee and facilitate a few sessions to, like I said, just really, really dig deep and get an intro to the true essence of leadership. Now I'm probably not going to say anything that you haven't heard before. That's one of the things I've been talking to, whether I'm in the secular world, I'm transitioning to doing like a lot of coaching, you know, from executive leaders to teams and things like that. And I want to take a lot of those principles and help focus this on the context of the ministry. So I didn't really do anything fancy. I'm actually just working off my notes feature. And so we'll just jump, jump straight into it. So leadership, leadership, leadership. So let's talk character first. So most of us know that our familiar character is what's on the inside. It's something that has to be cultivated, nurtured. A lot of us, you know, like as we were growing up, as we work through things, you know, people will probably see character flaws. And I don't think that's always a bad thing. It's what we do. To do with it. So if someone identifies the head, it looks like a flaw in your character, I can chisel that, I can work with that and work that flaw out. Uh, yes, through the power of God, but it's intentionality. I have to do something too. And that's what I want to prayerfully use. 2 Peter, uh, chapter 1, verses 5 through 8 from the ESV. And I'm gonna read it as it is. Um, for this reason, make every effort to supplement your faith and virtue and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love. For it is these qualities are yours— for it is these qualities are yours and are increasing. They keep you from being ineffective and unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. I want to go over what we highlighted here, uh, and I'm talking like this because I'm in a coffee shop doing this video, so I'm not trying to really be just monotone, uh, first step without trying to respect the other people around. Um, so for this reason, make every effort. One of the things with character and our leadership, I want to just pause for the cause and ask, are you making every effort to supplement your faith? Are you making every effort to supplement your leadership? Are you making every effort to supplement your character? Are you like— I want you just to really pause this video, talk with someone, work it out with yourself. Hey, am I making every effort to supplement the areas that I'm deficient in? Am I making every effort to grow in the areas, the strengths? What am I doing? Like, how am I really showing up? Am I really studying leadership? Am I really submitted to other great leaders? Am I really working through the confusions that, uh, that they can often come from working through various people? And what I mean by that, uh, sometimes we can, we can over, uh, what's the word I'm looking for, uh, taking information— I can't, I can't think of the, the right technical word for right now— but, but we can take in too much information and we don't sit down and process that and work through and ask God as well as others to help us come up a plan for our life. So are we making the effort to do that? The scripture says, and I love that, and I know wisdom is very important in that. Like I said, I don't believe in hijacking verses. This is just taking the principles from these verses. But are we making every effort to supplement our faith with virtue and virtue with knowledge? Like, are we knowledgeable about the things that we're doing? Are we knowledgeable about the area that we're called to? And we're going to get into this a little bit later. I'm not, because a lot of times in leadership, like, as just for a minute in the secular, uh, I'm a senior ADM transitioning into an agile coach. So I'm working, I've been working for the last year and a half aggressively submitting myself to other coaches in this space that I have respect and I believe they can challenge me. I've been submitting myself to training. I've been submitting myself to books. I've been submitting myself to podcasts for, I mean, really way before a year and a half, but I had to kind of temporarily stop studying some things that I love to study to focus more on the discipline of agile coaching and leadership coaching, team coaching and facilitating enterprise coaching. This has been for the last year and a half, scaled operations and, uh, scaled agility project management. I've had to submit myself. Why? Because I'm, I'm trying to supplement areas with the necessary knowledge to be effective in this role. The wisdom is gonna come. I'm gaining a lot of wisdom from the people that I work with, but some things I have not experienced. I'm subjecting myself to them to grow and that supplement the knowledge that I currently have. And then what comes with that, I have to have self-control because self-control is what helps me use that knowledge rightly. Of course, wisdom too, wisdom too as well. But you have a lot of people, what's the point of being very knowledgeable and you have no self-control? Like for example, you can know that, hey, Um, it takes money to get a lot of things done. Not going around prayer, but money is a tool, it's a resource. I'm not saying it's the source, but it is a resource. Hey, I know that my family and I want, want to take a trip, so I go gain knowledge. I might listen to Dave Ramsey, Robert Kiyosaki, some leadership expert, and I go get some knowledge in that area. Okay, now wisdom as well. Wisdom can tell me, well, you need to do this, you can do that, and whatever, but self-control is what's going to intact that. And what I mean by that, self-control is going to be like, no, we're not going to spend our consistent $300 out eating. We're probably going to cut that in half because we need to put back $150 extra. No, we're not going to buy this because I want to really take a family trip. So I need to exhibit some self-control. I know we need to give. I know we need to give in areas of ministry. I know we need to help people. We need to be in position. I don't want to always just pray for people. I want to have, I want to have self-control to help me. And that's what we have to do with our leadership. A lot of us can't walk in the necessary self-control. A lot of us can't, uh, use the knowledge that we have because we have no self-control. In other words, we won't do what we know to do. And that's why I love this, this scripture for this, uh, in, in the context of character. Uh, it goes on, self-control with steadfastness, consistency. A lot of us are consistently inconsistent. A lot of us are consistently inconsistent. If you take nothing else from this video, consistency compounds. Consistency compounds. But this is the thing about consistency: it's a principle, it is a law. So if you're consistently inconsistent, then you're going to be consistently inconsistent. If you're consistent in whatever you do, then you're going to eventually be consistent. You're going to see the fruit of that. Again, using the financial principle, if I know that, you know, one day I'm going to stop working and someone is like telling me about retirement vehicles that I can get into, then it's wise of me to gain the necessary knowledge, seek out the wisdom, ask God for help and gain wisdom from others, read books and all that type of stuff, practice self-control. Hey, you need to invest 10 to 15% of your money over the course of time. So, and the earlier you start, keep that, the earlier you start, the more you allow yourself yourself to gain and participate in what I call compound interest. Same thing with our leadership. How much are you putting back? A lot of times people say it don't work. You're not putting any money back. You're not, you're not going to be the person. You might be well off, but if you're saying, hey, I'm going to put back $25 a month for 15 years versus a person say, man, I'm putting my position, I'm going to start with $25, but next year I want to put back $50. The following year I want to put back $100. By year 5, my goal is to be putting back $500 a month. That person, the results, although you're doing the same thing, As time move on, yeah, you're all going to look real close early on, but at a moment of time, this person is going to— their financial portfolio is going to take gigantic leaps because they're putting in more. It's not a thing about prayer and asking God to do— yes, God can move in favor and all of those type of things. I'm not never going around that, but at the same time, uh, it'll be crazy to be praying for something spiritually that you won't even recognize that you're not carrying out the things that God instruct you from the holistic part of the Bible. So you're praying for something spiritually in your leadership, but you're not taking a necessary step in the physical element of it to submit yourself to grow from others and, you know, pray for them, all that type of stuff. So you want to be consistent, consistent in those areas with godliness, modeling God, modeling Christ, modeling him in your leadership. A lot of us don't look like Christ in our leadership. A lot of us aren't modeling godliness in our leadership. Why? Because the first couple of things, all We're not picking one from another one of these. Look at the flow of the language in 2 Peter 1:5-8. Uh, with brotherly affection. It's okay to show brotherly love, brotherly affection. It's okay to champion other people. It's okay to encourage people. You don't know what sacrifices people are making. Have you took some time to say, hey, I'm going to show some affection in this area? Affection doesn't mean you can't hold people accountable. Affection doesn't mean you can't hold yourself accountable, but it's like, hey, leadership is hard. Leadership comes with a cost. Am I showing affection to my team as well, to other leaders, to people that are above me, to my peers, just all around the board, with love? To be consistent in this verse, with the love of Christ. Do I display the love of Christ? Like, so this is why I love this verse, uh, from my perspective. And then it— because like I said, again, not to hijack verses, I'm not a fan of the whole isolate Jesus movement. I do believe that we should strive to keep things in context. But, but I love the principles in these. And then as it concludes with verse 8, it's like, for these qualities are yours and are increasing. They keep you from being ineffective. They keep us from being ineffective. So if you're not effective in your leadership, and you're unfruitful in the things, in the knowledge of God and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, can we go back in the context of this verse and say, man, I wonder, am I practicing these things in my leadership? I wonder, am I practicing these things in my character? Does my character reflect God or does it reflect myself? Does it reflect my insecurities? Does it reflect so many different personalities? I sound like 20 different people, but I don't sound like who God called me to be. I don't sound like the area that God called me to steward. So who are you really like when no one is looking? Who am I really like when no one is looking? Do I have a zeal to get up and say, talk about leadership when I'm, again, not putting in necessarily work through the day? I was just talking to my father-in-law the other day. I say, you know, it's 52 Sundays in a year. But it's 365 days in a year. But yet somehow we've convinced— please don't take this the wrong way— but somehow we are convinced that— can't go around preaching and teaching, don't get me wrong, can't go around speaking, speaking engagements and things of that nature. But somewhere along the lines, I just believe that we are convinced that we are more effective. That, hey, I'm going to overlook the people I see 365 days a week, 24 hours a day, just to get up on the stage, just to preach and teach the gospel, but yet I'm passing up all of these people that I can disciple? Why doesn't God give me a word in 365 days, but yet he always gives me a word to speak on a Sunday? Like, these are things that we have to, to question ourselves in the context of leadership. Again, not trying to go around the gospel and preaching and teaching, not disrespecting preachers and teachers and evangelists and prophets of the God or anything like that, but I am asking us just to pause a little bit I say, man, God, he gives me a zeal, and I have this, this word from heaven to preach, but yet he doesn't give me the same fire, same zeal, uh, to reach out and try to impact someone or the same person in the 365 days that he's graced us to live and make it throughout this year. You pause and you sit with that, because I have, and I still am, and probably will forever will, um, We can do— oh, this is supposed to be can't. We can't, we can't do this by ourselves, but in Christ we can. We can't do this by ourselves, but in Christ we can. We can't do this by ourselves, but in Christ we can. We have to have the Holy Spirit. That's the beauty in the counselor. Why? Because it's not easy to do a lot of things. It's not easy to lead people that consistently talk about you. It's not easy to lead people that consistently reject you. It's not easy to lead people that are postured to try to, um, plot your downfall. But why? There's a counselor, the Holy Spirit. He's there consistently. Through him, we have the ability to keep these qualities, not in our own strength. It's an inside job. A lot of times we, we like to project, and when the tension— like right now, I won't get into the full details, but I was just talking to my wife earlier I've had to surrender before my wife got deployed. I live in a posture of surrendering. But God had to refine so many things and do an inside job and continue to do an inside job because surface Tim, things would have went haywire with this type of tension and what I'm experiencing in my life now. But a surrendered Tim, a postured Tim after God, totally emptying himself and striving to be filled with things of God, that's why he get the glory. Career. So effective leaders, um, I'll just read this. Effective leaders, uh, use the same standards, if not higher, for themselves that they apply to others. You have to hold yourself accountable before you will be accountable to others. What do I mean by that? We truthfully, we can only lead ourselves through— really, when I tell people with leadership, leadership is influence. My goal is to try to influence people's behavior in secular. That's essentially what it is, uh, I would say. And, and but within the context of ministry, in my day-to-day life, yes, it's trying to influence behavior, but it's also trying to point to the greatest influencer of behavior, the greatest transformational leader, and that's Jesus Christ, along through the power of the Holy Spirit. So, so how are you holding yourself accountable? Because I can tell you, it has been times for people have wrote me, uh, in my podcast, uh, in the preaching and teaching of the gospel, and they said, man, I see the growth, I see the trajectory, you did a phenomenal job, man, you're going to be a phenomenal speaker. And I'm not saying this to whatever, because everybody— I'm not everybody's cup of tea. But, uh, but in that, sometimes when that has been said, I have gotten still, and God has literally told me I wouldn't please which voice matters the most. And then there's times that I thought I bombed it, like, and I'm like, man, I just, Lord, I believe that I sat with you. I was praying, I was communing, and I look and it's like I'm not getting the response I need. And then the Holy Spirit leads me, I'm well pleased. And then sometimes God will let me in and he'll see why he said that because someone will reach out to me in private or some feedback I get, and it's the impact and what that person got. I don't care about antics. I don't care about all— yes, you know, I know it's different type of communication styles, but I told God, I say, Lord, if I'm going to get up and proclaim your gospel, I don't want to do this. I am fine. You can tuck me away. I would rather work my way up to be a CTO or something like that of technology. I want to make a lot of money, help people, work behind the scenes. I don't care about having a name. Don't want to do none of this. So in so many words, you know, over serious conversation, I was like, I believe that my ministry is going to be through a balanced transparency and vulnerability to where people can see a true work in progress, not somebody just using it because I want to live in sin, but a true work in progress, a true reflection of the transformational work and teaching me how to share that gospel. No matter, I've gotten feedback where people say I'm too open, I'm too this, but God has been pleased. And so, you know what, I take the feedback, I take the licking. Some things I make tweaks and some things I'm like, I'm absolutely not. Because at the end of the day, I am doing the necessary character work through the power of God. And I believe that he's leading me to do it this way. It's not that I'm not teachable, because those same people, I try to make tweaks. But when it comes to what I know, what I know God told me, I'm not compromising on it. And that can— but it's in order. I have conversations. So not sitting up here saying, oh, well, you know, someone says this. I'm not talking about, hey, Tim, I want you to talk for 20 minutes, and I get up there and say, well, God told me to talk for 40. No, that's out of order. I'm not talking about things like that, but that's a whole nother subject for another day. But we want to make sure that we're holding ourselves to the same standard. What does it look like if my leader came to me and said, hey, Tim, typically when you do your presentations at work, You kind of go around 15, 20 minutes. I want you to summarize that and get that out in 5. And I say, well, I'm gonna try, or I'm gonna do how I want to do it. That's not exhibiting good character from my perspective. So again, that's just something that I think we need to consider in the context of ministry leaders, per se. Next one. It's 2 Samuel 11:27. And I'm going to give a little context here and hit it and go on. But, and when the morning was over, David sent and brought her to his house and she became his wife and bore him a son. But the thing that David had done displeased the Lord. Many of us are context with the story of David and Bathsheba, and I don't want to read that entire passage, but I do want us to focus on displeasing the Lord. Just check this part out right here. You know, I was asking God and observing this story, and, you know, David was the king who had it all, truthfully, in this particular context. He had a very intimate walk with God. Like, it wasn't just a relationship. We know David, according to the scriptures, he had an intimate walk with God. He had a family. We know the stories that the Bible lets us in and insight on. He had a stable political position. He was a great political leader. You know, in today's time, so many things are unstable, but God had allowed him to be a stable political leader. And he had consistent military victories. I mean, it's like, just think about, you have a stable position and you're consistently just dominating year in, year out, month in, month out. And in all this consistency, in all this that God has given David, to steward over, he wants Uriah's wife. And that's the area that God didn't give him. That's the thing that God didn't give him. It wasn't his wife, it was Uriah's wife. And this is why I want to look at the principle of this. And we can go in right here. Matter of fact, let's, let's zoom this in because this is the meat of the presentation here. And for some reason it's not zooming in, so let's highlight it. I want to read this slowly. What happens when we focus on what we don't have, like David did with Bathsheba, rather than staying accountable to and consent the calling and blessing God has already entrusted to us. In other words, in accountability, God has called you to be accountable to an area, whether that's him working through the shepherd, the pastor, whether it's working through your supervisor, whatever he's called you, because we can't do it all. I don't care how effective, I don't care what leader you admire, If they are a great leader, we should model something from them. And they are always going to model that they cannot do it all. I was just telling my kids the other day, I love when I see a person like Patrick Mahomes, Tom Brady, in the past, other greats that would get up. In the NBA, you look at Steph Curry and others. And when the team, it could be a close game and the team loses, the first thing people like Patrick Mahomes would do or say is, "I got to be better." And we can look and we're like, "Dude, you went 38 for 40. You only missed 2 passes and you threw 400 yards and 5 touchdowns and you lost by 1, lost by 2. You ran out of time." But in his mind, he's like, "But I could have got my team in field goal position if I would've done this, if I would've done this. What if I would've made those other 2 passes?" We see it all the time in great leadership. When things go great, they say, "Man, you played a phenomenal game." Same game and they win. Typically, we see those leaders and they say things along the lines like, "Man, if it wasn't for my offensive line, the receivers, the defense." They're always putting the glory back on others. And it seems to be authentic. I believe that it's genuine. I really do. It would be crazy if Patrick Mahomes was to get up there in any kind of way, be like, "Yeah, I work out every day. I do this." And we know that. "And I'm phenomenal. I threw for 5, but I wanted 7. I could have had 7 if this person would've done this and done that." That's what we do in leadership. And this is the thing, a lot of times we do that and our insecurity screams so loud that everybody else sees but us, and we think we have them covered., but that's another topic for another day. We have to embrace and glorify others because we are not leading alone. And the other part of this is that I love how these leaders stay focused on their area. Patrick Mahomes is not going out there trying to be Andy Reid, the head coach of the football team. He's not trying to be the general manager. He probably has conversations with him that we're not privy to, but at the end of the day, when that game and things that we see, Andy Reid is the head coach, Patrick Mahomes is the quarterback, Travis Kelce is the tight end. The defense, Chris Jones is on the defense. These players, they are playing their role. It would be crazy for Chris Jones to say, well, I'm super effective. You all need me. You probably wouldn't even, we probably wouldn't even have been back-to-back Super Bowl champions if I didn't get my contract situated on the defense. But I'm so great, Patrick, I need to step into your area. Patrick, this is how you do your area. I don't see you doing— no, he can have a conversation with Patrick because of the expertise, and it can lead to some great things. But I believe that there is no way that as great as Patrick Mahomes is as a quarterback, and his greatness could go over and do what Chris Jones do, and Chris Jones can't move into what Patrick Mahomes do and do it. The team is not winning the Super Bowl. I don't care how great everybody else is, because it's out of balance, because two people have switched to what what they are accountable to. And we do that so much in ministry, so much, so much. We do it in ministry all the time unknowingly because we can't stay true and recognize, man, God, you give me all of this, but because it's not that and I want that, then now I'm going to start doing things that's going to displease you. You're gonna— I'm gonna start moving in a way and leading in a way and question accountability because I want Uriah's wife, I want the senior pastoral, I want to be, uh, the youth leader, I want to be the praise and worship leader. Did God call you to it? Did the, the pastor or the team or whatever allow you to step into that? What is so hard about being accountable to our area? Like, I I like teaching and preaching the gospel. I do. And but at the same time, I love this stuff. I love planning. I love coaching people. I love coaching leaders. I love sitting down and helping people put together plans and helping people step into whatever God called them to, step into their greatness, see teams go from underperforming and the perception of them. It's like, oh, should we just let go of the entire team? You know, just dismember, for lack of better terms, you know, disembodied team, whatever, all across place. So we see if it's just some tweaks and things, then you see the team go from like, "Oh, this is crazy," to, "Wow, this team is great." And I love that area, just having those and bringing it all together. It consumes me. I love it. I love being accountable to it. Don't nobody have to tell me to be accountable to it. It's because it's an area I love. I don't show that same zeal. I work out, And I want my body to look right and things. I want to be healthy, but I don't have the— I was just telling my wife, some of the people I see and I'm like, damn, and it'd be nice to look like that. I always now ask myself, am I willing to put in the work that they're putting in? Am I willing to be accountable to what they are to look like that? So that's just the reality of it. So let's replace Uriah's wife. So what area are you— seeking to have that God didn't bless, that God didn't ordain. That's a, that's a very, very dangerous game, I would say. And so that, let's just, let's just sit with it and ask, you know, is God pleased with my accountability that he's called me to, or is God displeased? And then one of the last, uh, two points is, uh, are you accountable to someone in private and your public life. In other words, who are you accountable to? Who can call you up? Who can tell you, hey, you know, I'm not really— I like you and I think you're doing a lot of great things, but I'm not overly impressed with you. I'm not scared to speak truth to you. Who can call you up? Everything is not about negativity. Some things is about just calling you to greatness, calling us to greatness. And so who are we accountable to? It was when I got my first agile coach about Well, maybe it's 3, a little bit over 3, so this had to be over 3 years ago. The leaps and bounds that I took in my development in this space was literally because somebody looked me square in my face in so many words and said, "You need to grow up in your leadership. You can be great, but this is what can help you be greater. Are you willing to submit yourself to this?" And that's what I had to do. And then the last thing is, do you practice 360-degree feedback? Do you practice 360 honest feedback? Can people really be honest with you? Or do they say, no, I don't see no areas in your leadership? All of us have areas. And the thing is, can we take that feedback? Can we really embrace it? And yes, it is on the deliverer. Some people are more blunt than others. Some people are more fluffy than others. But at the end of the day, are we seeking it out? Are we even willing to say, man, I just want to send out a thing I'm not going to get overly defensive and insecure about my leadership. What happens, it's times I've got to, it doesn't seem like Tim is engaged. And then I got upset. I was like, well, they don't know what I— And then I thought about it. I was like, well, it doesn't look like I'm engaged. I'm looking off in la-la land while they're talking. And it's been many other things, but I had to take that feedback and consistently. And then some feedback I've gotten, I was like, well, that's not necessarily true. But now I'm concerned, why do they have that perception? So it's just, is it a willingness to work through it? Because a lot of times, and I've said this in other videos, we perceive our leadership being this. Other people believe our leadership is here. And what 360 feedback does, it allows us to minimize that gap. But some of us don't have the willingness to lean in and be honest with ourselves and allow others to be honest and completely transparent without always rebuttaling, without always being defensive, and that gap Spreads. And so now it's in this perception through character accountability. You think your leadership is a 10, but everybody around you says it's a 3. You're a 3. Now, but if everybody around you, some people you're just going to drive and you can't please some people. So it balances out. But if I, right now, if I came in and did a leadership assessment on you and I talk with 20 people that know you, and let's say for instance, you say, I'm about an 8.5. And combination of these 20 people, your inner circle, people that's kind of far removed from, just a balance, talking to key people in your family, just kind of get a good average and say, yeah, this is not to, I'm sure it's a great person, but what is it that annoys you? What is it that you love about this leader? And I sit with it. That takes time. And I work it and work the data. And then it balances out to say, it's an 8.1. 1. I think I just said, can you say, Vince, you schedule like an 8.5? I can live with that. I know technical assistant was a round down, but I'm like, okay, I can see that being an 8.5 leader, but I'm going to have a hard time doing all of that research, gathering all that data before I start coaching you or whatever, and it's coming in at a 4.1, 3.2. That's a huge gap. There is definitely a misunderstanding somewhere. And as a leader, you have to take that responsibility and say, why is Why is this gap so big? I don't too much care about the self-proclaimed stuff. Again, I was just talking to my boys about this. I don't care about I'm the self-proclaimed best basketball player. What does everybody around you have to say about this? Because this is the thing. We know that there's a lot of manipulators and Judases and all of that type in the world. But keep in mind, Jesus also had Peter and these other people around him as well. And for whatever Judas would have screwed or whatever, you know, in the context of like manipulated, just using a term, I believe he had enough people around him to balance that out. That's what I'm trying to say. And we know Jesus was a perfect leader. He didn't do no wrong or no sin. He perfect in everything. We know that. And we're not Jesus. We're striving to be like him. But what I'm trying to say is sometimes we can say, well, people jealous of me. Everybody's not jealous of you. Everybody's not jealous of you. Everybody's not jealous of me. Let's stop it. Everybody don't hate your teaching. Everybody don't hate your preaching. Everybody don't hate your leadership. Sometimes it's just you. It's just you. It's just us. It's all inclusive. So again, this is what we have to look at when we talk about character and accountability. And this is why I want to kind of just start here for us to just really take a step back and say, hey, have I counted the cost? Do I really have the character to be in this area? And then if I have the character, and will I be accountable to it? Will I zone in? Man, if we— I'm going to say this and I'll be done. If we would, I believe leadership would be totally different. People are so advanced in stuff. I mean, people can run circles around me. But what does that matter if you can do all of it, have all of that information, but you lack character and you lack accountability? It doesn't matter. And as Greg Groeschel always says, people aren't looking for a leader to be perfect, always right. They're looking for— he's looking— the people are looking for a leader that's real, that's authentic. And when a leader gets better, or when the leaders get better, everything else gets better. That's typically how he ends the show. So I want to really challenge all of us in this area Do we have the character? If we don't, are we cultivating the character? And are we really accountable to the area that we have been placed over, or what we have been allowed to steward over, manage over? Because God owns it all, but we have a responsibility. Because I can also go here, and that's another topic, but do we even have— truthfully, God gives me something according to the— the— not again isolating Jesus, but the parables of the talent, the talent Um, can I say this little help me? Because I really want to end on this. Can I really give God something back the way he gave it to me? I want you— I want us to think about that. Can I really give God something back the way he gave it to me? Or is God looking for an increase, not just numerically, but spiritual development, the cultivation of people? And sometimes it might be numerically, but am I allowed to give God back something the way he gave it to me? And let alone, am I allowed to give it back to him at a worse state than it was in when he gave it to me? I'll leave you with that, man. You all be blessed. I love you. I'll be up the content and we'll get into it more.