I once worked for a clinically-diagnosable narcissist.  This psychological malady renders a person unable to recognize anything that disagrees with the favorable fantasy they hold of themselves.

One needn’t be a narcissist, though, to succumb to the first formidable foe: looking good.

Every one of us prefers to look good—particularly in the eyes of the people we decide are important to us.  Those whose childhood was particularly punitive when a disappointment occurred will relate more closely to the motivation to avoid looking bad.

As kids, many of us made innumerable blunders when taken over by one or the other of these motivators.

Remember your first crush?

If you’re like me, you made a million mindless moves to appear as smooth and slick as your favorite Hollywood hero.  In the decades since, our heroes may have changed, yet we’re still vulnerable to the desire to appear in as favorable a light as possible.  Sometimes, even more favorable than possible.

Not long ago, I helped a pastor work through a difficult situation.  He’d been caught preaching other ministers’ material, failing to fully credit his sources.  As we unpacked Ralf’s failure he discovered he’d long felt inadequate as a rhetorician.  He’d come to believe the swelling numbers in his congregation needed better sermons than he could bring.  So, he “juiced” his messages by plagiarizing others.

For a brief season early in my business career, I enjoyed fairly stunning success.  Near the pinnacle, I was flown by corporate jet to New York to receive some accolade for the performance of the business unit I ran.  The return flight was so turbulent I expected to lose my lunch—literally—at any moment.  Facing me, just inches from my knees was the Chairman of our parent company’s board.  Rather than admit my intense distress, I tried to ride it out— barely avoiding a career-limiting disaster.  Had my greatest fear been realized, the potential damage would’ve been far greater than the brief humiliation of admitting my weakness.

Ministers are particularly vulnerable to looking good.

It seems many congregations would prefer to follow an idealized image of a minister rather than an actual human being who, like every bible character, is flawed, needing the Savior.  So, rather than model what it means follow Jesus amidst struggle and disappointment, ministers hide their scars, failings, and vulnerabilities from an adoring, albeit intolerant, church.

Detrich Bonhoeffer commented on this in Life Together: “The pious fellowship permits no one to be a sinner.  So everyone must conceal his sin from himself and from the fellowship…So we remain alone with our sin, living in lies and hypocrisy.”

The tragic result, too often, is the eventual revelation of gross immorality, which mushroomed in the damp darkness created by the collusion of minister and congregation—both desiring to look good.

Coaching Distinctions # 6

For the rest of us, there is always a reason for whatever we do.  You might not like it, but it’s true.

We prefer to imagine that “something just came over me” when I chewed out the State Trooper while pulled over for speeding.  Or, we claim innocence when we’re caught doing something impulsive and out of character: “I have no idea” where that came from!”

Here’s the thing, since you’re not nuts, you actually had a reason for doing what you did.  True, you’re likely unaware of your motivations.  I’m inviting you to consider that, if you’ll look honestly, you’ll be able to uncover why you behaved as you did.

When coaching a client who’s in some kind of trouble, one helpful practice is to examine the prices (costs) and payoffs (benefits) of the choices that contributed to the mess. It sounds something like this:

What prices are you paying, because of the choice you made?

What prices are being paid by the people on the other side of this difficulty?

What payoffs, or benefits, do you receive by making this decision?

It’s this third question that stumps most folks.  The assumptive answer is “nothing”.  So, I remind my client that they’re not certifiable, and to dig deeper. You see, no matter how incomprehensible your choices now seem to be, they made sense to you at the time.  Inevitably, the client will discover that there was rationality behind the action. 

Over the years I’ve learned that at some level, every decision made sense at the time to the person who made it.  How it made sense is worth investigating.

Even more helpful is what comes next.

We collaborate to identify the beliefs that lay beneath that logic.  For example, a pastor I’m coaching might realize that she distrusts an elder, and afraid of being manipulated like in her last pastorate, she’s unwittingly locked in a conflict she didn’t know was there.

Such a belief can be articulated this way: this [situation, person, experience] reminds me of that [something troubling from the past], so, I reacted as if I was in the same situation. 

Problem is, this isn’t that and when I’m living in the present as if it’s essentially what happened before, I behave in ways that undermine my effectiveness now.  What might surprise you is that this recurring drama plays itself out all the time.

You do it, too.

It’s also common to be unaware that you’re motivated by of these four powerful desires:

• To look good
• To feel good
• To be right
• To be in control

More on this next time.

Huh?

Envy – that ugly, distasteful character defect that fuels pettiness, judgments, isolation, and division – grows in the soil of comparison?

I never thought about that before… comparison.

Hmmmm.  I do that a lot, I thought.

It’s been how I orient myself in life. 

“She’s much smarter than I am, but him — not so much”.  “That guy’s career is in better shape than mine, I’m glad I’m not in her shoes”.  “Shoot, I’m fatter than she is, but not as heavy as that slob…”.

Comparison seems so natural. In my marriage with Annie the thought stream is endless: which of us is messier, better with money, more consistent with the kids, more creative, less fun to be around, healthier, harder working, better with people, etc, etc, etc.

Comparison, I learned, breeds envy and it’s impossible to love the one I envy.  Impossible.

See, comparison invites me to focus on all the areas where you and I are different. Rather than serving to bring us together, the practice of comparison divides, distances, isolates.

So while the differences between us may be real they don’t have to be important — at all.  It’s possible to surrender the practice. It can be eradicated from your thinking.  I can choose to focus on what we share; what we have in common; what connects us.  The more I do this, the more rich and satisfying my relationships.

In coaching this practice is indispensable.  To coach well, I ‘get on the same side of the table’ as my client.  When a client perceives that we’re together, she’s less defended, more open to what I bring.  Conversely, if you sense that I think I’m better than you, even if you believe you could benefit, you’ll likely resist what I have to say.

Ever sat with a couple heading for divorce? 

It’s terrible.  All they choose to see is what divides them.  As if they’ve made a ritual of examining and magnifying every difference between them while ignoring and overlooking the wonderful things they have in common.

Envy, jealously, resentment, bitterness – these grow in the seedbed of comparison.  Unchecked, they’re deadly to intimacy, to collaborative effectiveness at work, to friendship.

Catch yourself comparing.  Catch yourself ten times in the next week or two.  With Thanksgiving family reunions on the horizon it shouldn’t be hard. When you do, choose to find something you two have in common — and focus on that.

Watch what God does in your relationships, and your heart, as you do.

Coaching Distinctions # 4

Right?

And, most of the time, you end up in the same place, just more exhausted.

About a decade ago, a friend taught me: When what I’m doing isn’t working, I’ll try anything else.

Anything else.

Any thing else.

And, while this might make intuitive sense, we almost never do it.

In a recent coaching session, Pastor Clay lamented that his sermon prep habits left him drained, embittered, and isolated from his family.  The family from whom he disappeared every Saturday morning and to whom he reappeared days later.  He thrived “in the zone” with God for 48 contiguous hours.  And, he’d crash so hard after Sunday night’s service he’d be nearly comatose ‘til Tuesday. Every single week.

Kirk: Great!  What else have you tried?

Clay: Nothing.

Kirk: Huh?

Clay: I’ve been doing it this way as long as I’ve had a church.

Kirk: When did you first notice it wasn’t working?

Clay: The very first week.

We spent the next several minutes imagining completely new ways to organize his work week.  He began developing a plan to move from the intense concentration of sermon-prep-and-ministry of the past several years to a way that wouldn’t brutalize him and those he loves.  One ground rule: never again will he do the three-day disappearing act.

Most people don’t think of themselves as creatively-challenged.  They don’t think of their lives as monotonous.  They don’t consider themselves “stuck in a rut”…

And many are resigned to less-than-satisfactory experiences across great swaths of life.

Einstein is credited with having said: “The significant problems we have cannot be solved at the same level of thinking with which we created them.”  What must change, is not who is thinking, but how you are thinking your solutions.

Bring to mind an area of life where you’re unhappy and don’t see a way out.

What if you’ve given yourself permission to stay right where you’re stuck? 

What if you’ve unknowingly negotiated this exact situation with yourself? 

What if you’re the architect of this disquieting compromise?

I invite you to ponder these questions carefully.  How might they be true?

When you realize that you’re powerful enough to have chosen your way into the conundrum, it’s possible to recognize that you also have the power to get yourself out.

Determine to do what you’ve not done before. Consider all kinds of possibilities.  Experiment with alternatives.  As many as necessary ’til you find something that works. Stay open to being surprised.

You will!

When you’re surprised by life and find yourself frozen in uncertainty, the pervading impulse is to stop.

Ponder.

Evaluate.

Assess.

Trouble is, often life’s reality won’t give you the luxury of opting out.  Action is required—and it’s the last thing you want to do.

So, while my brain is screaming: “Stop!”  “Wait!”  “Protect yourself.” “Stay safe.” another option appears: Kirk, throw your body into the middle of the room…

Trust God and leap into the chaos.

I imagine myself picking my body up and – literally – heaving it into the midst of whatever it is that has stymied my brain.  It’s a decision of my will – my heart – overriding the cautioning calculations of my head.

Once I’m there, in the middle of all that mess, God seems to show up.  Options appear.  Resources seem to arise.  And, maybe best of all, I’m 100% alive and awake looking for God to step in.

Driving home from work, I come upon an accident. It’s just occurred.  Broken glass, twisted metal, a stunned, vulnerable fellow amid the wreckage.  I leap toward his car… An hour later the police have left.  He and I are talking about Jesus who has preserved this young man’s life… I’ve thrown myself into the middle of the room.

We’re in Washington, DC touring with our young sons. The hotel room phone rings and I learn that my brother Glen, on a short-term mission trip in Irian Jaya, is dead.  Malaria.  We didn’t even know he’d been sick…

Without hesitation, I book a flight to tell my sister and parents the horrible, terrible news.  They must hear it in person.  I am the one to tell them.  I throw myself into the middle of the room, trusting that God will be there in the brutal, painful hours that must follow. 

Our word crisis comes from the Greek.  It means “to decide”.  In moments of crisis you are thrust into conditions where you must decide—right away.  To hesitate is to decide.  Not to decide is a decision.  Each has repercussions.

All through life you are training yourself, preparing yourself for an uncertain future. 

It can be no other way.

Practice throwing yourself into the middle of the room.  The more you do, the more effective you’ll be when you don’t have the luxury to sit and wonder and weigh and ponder.

The night of my conversion to Christian faith on the Baker Library lawn, I discovered that my penchant was borne of the unwillingness to trust God with my life and the most important parts of it.  At that moment, I knew it was really important to God.  The surrender that accompanied my conversion was deep and thorough and whole-hearted.

A bunch of it didn’t last.

Years later, in the midst of that deep character work, I was challenged to consider how much our culture loves to analyze, to assess, and to reflect.  We in the Church have just about perfected the art— reducing a vibrant, adventuresome life following Jesus to sitting, listening, learning, pondering, evaluating, judging, and isolating ourselves with those who most closely have reached the same conclusions.  Christianity isn’t so much a way of being in life as a series of ideas and ideals we agree with.  Sad.

Friends in that ministry who I respect and trust challenged me to throw my body into the middle of the room and see what God does with it.

To do whaaaat? 

The “middle of the room” is where the action is.  It’s where the messiness is.  It’s where God’s provision is needed most.  

When uncertainty invites me to stop and study and analyze and consider and hedge my bets – I stop moving.  Ceasing to move had become a way of life.  As I’ve aged, life’s become more intricate, interwoven.  As my career advanced, the challenges have become more pernicious.  As my children have grown, so has the complexity of their difficulties.   All this entices me to stop, to evaluate, to assess … to not take action.

What about you?

Life is meant to be lived in action.  When you’re in motion, learning accelerates.  Discoveries come quickly.  Feedback is instantaneous.  Mid-course corrections yield immediate results.  The provision of God that you are is added to the mix.  As you engage, trusting God, divine resources appear—sometimes through you, sometimes not.  Often, they surprise everyone.

When I don’t know what to do, the last place I wanted to be was the middle of the room.  Funny thing is, that’s exactly where God’s waiting to meet me.  My friend, Dan Tocchini told me: if I will give all that I am, God will make up whatever I lack.

I’ve found this true too many times to doubt it.

What about you?