Embracing God‘s Calling Amid Tragedy and Caretaking - Kadi Cole
[00:00:00] Steve Gatena: There's so much need in this world. It's easy to feel overwhelmed and to become exhausted trying to help everyone, and we're so committed to being of service that we often forget, God never actually called us to meet every need that crosses our path. And He certainly never wants us to suffer in service or have our hearts become hardened.
[00:00:25] Being of service is never about lessening someone's burden by becoming burdened ourselves. Instead, God calls us to meet specific needs that He knows only we can meet. And He invites us to go to Him in prayer to turn to His word and to seek His wise counsel so that we can learn whom, where, and what He's calling us to aid. And we can trust that God isn't asking us to meet every single need because we have Jesus as our example.
[00:01:04] Despite the ever growing needs around Jesus, He often resisted stepping in to heal everyone or to meet every need, and Jesus regularly went away from the crowds to spend time alone in prayer and in communion with God, so that Jesus knew exactly where He was called to go, whom He was called to heal, and what God's special instructions were for Him.
[00:01:33] This week on Relentless Hope, Kadi Cole teaches us about saying no to every need. So we can say yes to the ones God has called us to meet. In part one of this three part series, we learn how Kadi used to try being everything to everyone. But after her husband suffered a horrific accident that almost took his life and which left him with severe chronic health issues, Kadi realized God was showing her a new path, and that it was okay to rest.
[00:02:12] And we hear how Kadi learned to say yes to the specific needs God wanted her to meet by turning to Him in prayer and studying His word. In part two of this three part series, we learned from Katie's more than 25 years of experience studying leadership and organizational development.
[00:02:35] Including serving as the executive director at one of America's largest and fastest growing multi-site churches. Kadi also reveals some of the best leadership traits we can develop, including the ability to lead ourselves, becoming curious learners, asking questions, testing potential before hiring, holding people accountable, and harnessing momentum.
[00:03:02] In part three of this three part series, Kadi also teaches us about the three types of legacies that we'll leave, including our general legacies, which is what we do in our everyday lives, our unique legacies, which is a specific calling God has placed in our heart, and the legacies we'll leave in our friends and family.
[00:03:27] Kadi reminds us that our needs matter to God. Yes, he asks us to be of service. But he doesn't want our hearts to become hardened. Our bodies, minds, hearts, and souls to break from the service that we provide. God wants us to say no to the wrong opportunities so that we can say yes to the most important ones. The ones that are just right for us. I wanna leave you with a key takeaway for the day as we listen to this episode and that takeaway is this.
[00:04:11] And it comes from saying no to 1000 things to make sure we don't get on the wrong track or to try to do too much. We're always thinking about new markets we could enter, but it's only by saying no, that you can concentrate on the things that are really important.
[00:04:37] That takeaway comes from Steve Jobs. I hope you enjoy this episode of Relentless Hope with Kadi Cole
[00:04:51] In high school, Kadi Cole found that she wanted to help everyone in any way possible, but then years later, everything changed when her husband had a fall at work.
[00:05:04] Kadi Cole: First, my husband had survived a major accident at work while I was pregnant. He was an IT guy and was installing some equipment in the gymnasium at the school he worked at, and the cherry picker lift that he was in at the top of the gym tipped over with him in it and he fell about 25 feet to the ground.
[00:05:21] Normally, someone with that kind of fall is either killed or paralyzed, so we were just thankful he was alive and would eventually be okay. We spent the next year in three reconstructive surgeries, endless physical therapy, and we thought he had made it through. But after a couple years, his body started to break down.
[00:05:40] He began losing teeth on the side. He fell on, he would get terrible migraines and pains throughout his face. His back started giving him lots of trouble. Plus he was struggling with depression and difficulties keeping up at work. And we spent several years trying to figure out, That he had long-term injuries, including a traumatic brain injury that would, was affecting his personality and thinking skills, severe arthritis throughout his body from the multiple bone breaks he had and torn ligaments in his hips that were actually being re-injured whenever he walked and moved around.
[00:06:10] It was overwhelming for all of us and I found myself carrying a full load in executive leadership at a large church I was working in, being a full-time caretaker of a husband who could only get outta bed a couple hours a day and trying to raise our little boy in some assemblance of normalcy.
[00:06:30] Steve Gatena: On part one of this three part series, Kadi Cole tells us how she wanted to help everyone at her high school in any way possible. Then after some life changing events, she learned that it's impossible to help everyone. Through Kadi's experiences, we learned how to balance our lives and focus on God's calling for us.
[00:06:54] Kadi Cole: When I was young, my dad was in the military, so we moved around a lot. In fact, I had lived in six states by the time I was six years old. But that spring my dad divorced my mom, so she moved me and my little sister back to her hometown in Montana. This was in the mid seventies when it was a very different time for divorced women with two little girls.
[00:07:15] I was the only kid of unmarried parents in my school for years. My mom couldn't get a credit card because she didn't have a husband to cosign for her. Oddly she was incredibly smart and had lived all over the world as a very talented teacher before marrying my dad. She had let her teaching certificate expire when she married, so she ended up in a secretarial job.
[00:07:35] At this time there were also not a lot of rights for divorced women. My mom got no alimony and only a couple hundred dollars a month in child support. We lived in a small duplex, but my mom was very industrious. Eventually she bought her own home and moved us up to better neighborhoods. As a child, I never knew that we were poor.
[00:07:55] I look back now and I can see it, but the tone of our home was that we had everything we needed. I remember the Friday nights we got to order Domino's Pizza, and it was so much fun to time them and see if they could actually deliver in 30 minutes or less, but I was never worried or felt like we were lacking anything, and that mindset is such a gift to give your children, especially when you actually don't have a lot.
[00:08:19] When I was in the second grade, my mom, who was an amazing piano player, was invited to play at a funeral at a small church in the mountains of Western Montana. It wasn't a very fancy church, but it was a warm, loving and compassionate family that fully accepted us and welcomed us. My mom began playing piano every week, and suddenly we were a part of a church family.
[00:08:41] And it was an incredible place to grow up, especially to grow up spiritually. Our pastor wasn't paid, he had his own business and led the church on the side. Everyone I knew was a full-time volunteer almost. Um, by the time I was in middle school, there were a lot more single parents, and so they actually began a Sunday school class just for singles, and that became my family's community.
[00:09:04] We celebrated holidays, had picnics, and went camping together. I had no idea the gift all of that was, and that most people don't experience that. It was our surrogate family. In fact, one of the themes of my life is how God has always provided me many surrogates for what my own family was lacking. I can look back now and see a dozen different Godly men who stepped in and played a father role in my life, right when I needed a good dad.
[00:09:30] It is such a gift of church. Even though I was surrounded by all this love and great Bible teaching, nothing had really clicked for me with my own relationship with God. By the end of middle school, I had basically ruined every friendship I had. I was stuck in selfish thinking, and I assumed that if I put others down and pointed out their weaknesses somehow that would make me look better.
[00:09:54] But in the summer before starting high school, I was at a summer camp and I realized that I was going into this new big high school without a single friend, and probably even had quite a few people who didn't like me at all. It made that hard transition, all the more intimidating.
[00:10:10] I remember praying and telling God, okay, I've tried it my way and obviously that hasn't worked. I'm going to give you your way a try and see if it turns out better.
[00:10:20] For me, I really was just trying faith out. If it worked, that would be great, but if it didn't, I was definitely gonna keep looking for how to fix my life. But it worked. I went into high school with the focus of loving people and befriending the friendless.
[00:10:36] It's the way I had learned Jesus lived and I wanted to model my life after His way of living as much as I could. I remember sitting at lunch with the special ed students. I brought extra food from home and gave it to anyone who had forgotten to bring their lunch. I left my locker open most of the time and gave away my babysitting money if a classmate needed something.
[00:10:56] I just tried to be kind without expecting anything in return, and an amazing thing happened. I started getting friends. In fact, my best friend today, some 30 years later, resulted from her forgetting her lunch and I invited her to my house to let her eat all the junk food she wanted for our hour, which was something her parents never let her do.
[00:11:16] My relationship with her has been a game changer for me throughout my life, and it all started just trying to love and help people. One of my most significant memories from that time was in PE class toward the end of our freshman year, we had to run a mile for time, so we lined up and took off. I don't remember how I did, but I do remember crossing the finish line.
[00:11:38] The sun was bright and shining in my eyes. I was feeling winded, so I put my hands on top of my head and turned around to walk off any tightness in my legs as I glanced around the empty track, only about a third of the way in was Melinda. She was struggling. Melinda was severely overweight and was trying to walk and slightly jog every few steps, and I could see, or at least I could feel in her face, the desire for this moment to be over as quickly as possible and that hopefully no one would notice that she was the only one left on the track.
[00:12:10] So I jogged across the field. I remember I still had my hands on top of my head, and I just walked next to her, chatting with her and trying to make her feel less lonely until we finally crossed the finish line many, many minutes later. Very quickly, our teacher called us all together to the new thing, so I never really thought much about it.
[00:12:28] This was just how I was trying to live now, looking for opportunities to help and doing what I could. But on the way into the locker room, the most popular, prettiest and wealthiest girl in our class who I never talked to and I was totally intimidated by, and I really honestly didn't even think she knew I existed.
[00:12:46] She walked up to me and said, that was the kindest thing I have ever seen someone do. And that was the moment, the defining moment when I realized for sure that love was the way. It was the way to friendship, it was the way to impact, and most importantly, it was the way God opens people's eyes and makes Himself known to them.
[00:13:08] I felt such fullness and joy and satisfaction in that 15 year old moment. It was the complete opposite of how I felt months before at that summer camp, and I knew for sure that God's way of living was the way I always wanted to live. And that vision guided me for the next 15 years of my life. But in my thirties, I entered a new season where that principal wasn't really working for me anymore, or at least it wasn't possible for me to fully surrender to every person and every need anymore.
[00:13:40] By this time I was married, we had a new baby boy. We had family and friends and jobs and obligations and neighbors and ministry, and the needs around me were starting to become bigger than I could meet. I had learned how to say yes to service, but I had not yet learned how to say no to needs I wasn't specifically called to meet.
[00:14:00] It turns out that lesson was much harder to learn. My busy season of adulthood was complicated by two things. First, my husband had survived a major accident at work while I was pregnant. He was an IT guy and was installing some equipment in the gymnasium at the school he worked at, and the cherry picker lift that he was in at the top of the gym tipped over with him in it, and he fell about 25 feet to the ground.
[00:14:23] Normally, someone with that kind of fall is either killed or paralyzed. So we were just thankful he was alive and would eventually be okay. We spent the next year in three reconstructive surgeries, endless physical therapy, and we thought he had made it through. But after a couple years, his body started to break down.
[00:14:42] He began losing teeth on the side he fell on, he would get terrible migraines and pains throughout his face. His back started giving him lots of trouble. Plus, he was struggling with depression and difficulties keeping up at work. And we spent several years trying to figure out that he had long-term injuries, including a traumatic brain injury that would, was affecting his personality and thinking skills, severe arthritis throughout his body from the multiple bone breaks he had, and torn ligaments in his hips that were actually being re-injured whenever he walked and moved around.
[00:15:12] It was overwhelming for all of us, and I found myself carrying a full load in executive leadership at a large church I was working in, being a full-time caretaker of a husband who could only get outta bed a couple hours a day and trying to raise our little boy in some assemblance of normalcy. And at the same time, my husband's mom was diagnosed with terminal cancer.
[00:15:32] We had moved to Ohio and lived with them so that we could help take care of them, help support her and the family as she fought, and eventually lost her battle. Everywhere I looked, there were needs. Every person I loved most in the world needed and wanted more from me. The opportunities to love and help were endless and overwhelming.
[00:15:52] My previous practice of simply loving people and doing my best to meet their needs were no longer working, and I knew God well enough to know that I was important to Him also. Killing myself to help others is not what he wanted, but I didn't know how to do it differently. So I did what I've learned to do when I get stuck in life.
[00:16:11] I went to God's word and asked Him to show me the better way. It took a while of digging and praying and studying, and being open to having my mindset shifted by what I was learning. But eventually I landed at two key thoughts. First, Jesus often left people's needs and expectations unmet. The needs around Him were enormous and constantly growing.
[00:16:34] He always loved perfectly, but sometimes resisted stepping in and helping. He was often late. He left town before everyone had a chance to be healed. He did not meet every need He saw. Instead, He spent much of His time getting away from the needs of people, praying and listening to God's direction. So that He knew what to do and what not to do.
[00:16:57] That was my lesson in learning to go beyond God's generic calling to all believers and to begin to learn and follow God's specific calling for my individual life. When I started to understand that more clearly, I was able to say no to the wrong opportunities so that I could say yes to the most important ones, the ones that were just for me.
[00:17:18] And second, in Matthew 11:28, Jesus says:
[00:17:22] Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light."
[00:17:39] I had worked myself into a place where my yoke was hard and my burden was heavy.
[00:17:44] I love this verse because the high achiever in me would write this totally differently. I would say something like, come to me if you are overworked and I will show you how to be more efficient or how to maximize your time, or how to make an even greater impact. But that is not what God invites us to do.
[00:18:02] He wants to give us rest and not just physical rest, but rest for our souls. And we do that by learning from Him, by learning how to be humble and gentle. By working on our hearts, by letting go of trying to be everything to everybody. And by walking so closely with Him and knowing His voice so clearly on the inside, that we can easily discern our work, the work He's made for us, work that is light and work that is easy.
[00:18:30] To me, that is true calling, that is life.
[00:18:38] I remember the first time I organized and led our teams for Easter services.
[00:18:42] In the church world. Easter and Christmas services are like our Super Bowl. All sorts of people who don't normally show up to church all come on the same day and at the same time, it is wonderful and we love it, but it does create some challenges on our systems and abilities.
[00:18:57] Plus all those volunteer staff I was talking about. Well, they tend to head out, head out of town for the holidays. So we find ourselves in the midst of a weekend where we would normally, more than double in attendance, but a third of our team is gone. But when you are in the midst of high momentum and your company or organization is taking on almost a life of its own, I mean, in our case, without any real effort, God was stirring in people's hearts spiritually and they were coming to us seeking out how to take their next step of faith.
[00:19:25] In these kinds of momentum situations, I've learned that as leaders, we have to walk a very fine line between giving enough leadership structure and direction that we support the momentum, but not so much that we squash it.
[00:19:43] Steve Gatena: On part two of this three part series, Kadi Cole teaches us the steps to becoming a great leader by paying attention, seeking to understand testing potential, and then harnessing that potential. The most important person to lead is yourself by continuously auditing your spiritual life, physical health, intellectual, cognitive abilities, emotional health and social interactions, you can become the best possible leader for others.
[00:20:20] Kadi Cole: I've never thought of myself as a naturally born leader or even specifically gifted as a leader. I feel like my journey was kind of the opposite. I had to learn how to be a leader. But as I learned the principles and skills of leadership and my efforts actually started to work, that as I actually started to see I had the power to influence others and create real change that actually helped people, I started to become very passionate about being a great leader and helping others learn how to do the same.
[00:20:46] And that passion really developed for me out of a heart of service and love for people. At one point I started to realize that some people just can't be helped that much individually. To make a real difference, I would've to change the environment around them.
[00:21:00] There were systems and structures and oftentimes injustices at play that no matter how hard someone tried, they couldn't fight that uphill battle, at least alone. Leading change around them was the only real way to help.
[00:21:14] I remember my first professional job as a registered nurse working in a hospital. I was fresh out of college and learning how to work full-time and be part of a team, but I started to notice that everyone was frustrated with their work schedule.
[00:21:26] It didn't matter what shift I worked. The people on the day shift were upset about working weekends. The night shift was upset about never being on days. The swing shift thought they had to double the work of everyone else. I learned the first step of leadership: paying attention. We have to notice what is going on around us and realize that there is something that needs to be fixed.
[00:21:46] We live in a world that is wonderful and full of hope and many good things, but at its core it's broken. And when leaders start paying attention, we begin to see the things we are called to step in and to fix. The second step of leadership I've learned is to ask questions. Just jumping to conclusions doesn't help anyone and it actually prevents change.
[00:22:07] So I started interviewing everyone I worked with and trying to understand why they were frustrated and how they thought it should be different. Stephen Covey calls this seeking to understand before being understood. When we posture ourselves as curious learners, most of the time we find all the information we need is within the people and the situation itself.
[00:22:27] Those two early lessons paying attention and seeking to understand have been the foundation of my approach to leadership. As you can guess, I went on to create a new system for how we scheduled our staff, which greatly improved how our unit ran and the morale of our team. Interestingly, however, was that there were a couple of people on the team who were very upset about this young woman stepping in and mixing things up.
[00:22:49] It was my first experience of someone trying to overtly sabotage my leadership efforts, but even as a young professional, I learned that when my motivation for leading was truly pure, that it wasn't about me or my ego, or my need to prove something, or even getting something for myself. Even when resistance came, it didn't hurt or damage the core of myself.
[00:23:10] Now it didn't feel good, but I could hold the situation with an open hand and allow the chips to fall where they may, knowing that I had done my part, and the results were really up to God and the team. I went on to lead the health services at a university where I was eventually promoted to Dean in student development, overseeing residential life, the discipline system, and many of our student leadership development programs.
[00:23:32] This is where I got my first taste of actually developing the leadership potential in others. College students are so much fun to work with and there is just nothing like the energy of campus life, especially when you are working with young leaders. But it was here that I learned a third lesson of leadership, the importance of testing potential.
[00:23:51] Because I'm a naturally positive and helpful person, I found that I easily assume the best in people and trust easily. The positive side of this quality is that I see potential and vision in almost every situation and person I meet. The downside is sometimes I can be blind to reality, and I've had a hard time learning that not everyone wants to make things better. Not everyone is willing to do hard work. Not everyone does what they say they are going to do, but nothing brings this lesson quite home like having to fire someone.
[00:24:22] For me, holding people accountable is one of the harder sides of leadership, but it is absolutely necessary, especially in an employee or a development environment.
[00:24:32] To avoid this kind of accountability is to be a lazy leader. I think it actually reveals, at least for me, a selfish heart at times. That I am more concerned about my own comfort than I am about your development or doing what's right for the organization. But in those early situations of having to confront poor performance and eventually let people go, I learned the importance of hiring well in the first place, and the only way to know who someone truly is, is to give them a test and see how they respond.
[00:25:01] Just talking and sounding good is not enough. In fact, this is what God does with us, right? He tests our heart so that we can see what is really going on in there. He obviously knows, but His love for us motivates Him to help us know what we need to work on. The same is true in our leadership. While I was working at the university, my husband and I were attending a local church that was starting to grow rapidly.
[00:25:24] None of us had ever experienced anything like this before. Over the past few years, we had grown from 80 people meeting each week in a school cafeteria to over 3000 and moving into a brand new church building. He and I were volunteers, and through that, the church's leadership came to me and asked if I would come onto their staff and help the executive team lead this new fast growing church.
[00:25:45] By this time I had picked up a master's degree in human resource development, and I was feeling ready to take my own leadership and influence to a new level. So I jumped at the chance and it was a little crazy. I had never experienced momentum in an organization like this before. Every service we had would get more people than expected, and we would quickly outgrow our capacity and have to figure out our next plan.
[00:26:08] Plus, the dynamics of leading church is very different than in most organizations and businesses. Not only does our best and most important work happen on evenings and weekends, but 90% of our staff are volunteers. And as a nonprofit, we have a totally different way of navigating funding, and we have often limited spending.
[00:26:26] So when you put all these extra dynamics on top of a fast growth experience, I had to learn my fourth lesson of leadership, the importance of momentum and how to harness it. I remember the first time I organized and led our teams for Easter services in the church world. Easter and Christmas services are like our Super Bowl.
[00:26:45] All sorts of people who don't normally show up to church all come on the same day and at the same time, it is wonderful and we love it, but it does create some challenges on our systems and abilities. Plus all those volunteer staff I was talking about, well, they tend to head out, head out of town for the holidays.
[00:27:02] So we find ourselves in the midst of a weekend where we would normally more than double in attendance, but a third of our team is gone. But when you are in the midst of high momentum and your company or organization is taking on almost a life of its own, I mean, in our case, without any real effort, God was stirring in people's hearts spiritually and they were coming to us seeking out how to take their next step of faith.
[00:27:23] In these kinds of momentum situations, I've learned that as leaders, we have to walk a very fine line between giving enough leadership structure and direction that we support the momentum, but not so much that we squash it, and that's what I learned that first Easter. Because we had so much going on and I wanted to organize and strategize and plan in a way that created an amazing experience for our guests.
[00:27:47] But so much of what I was trying to do was actually strangling the spontaneity, the unexpected, and that supernatural energy that was happening all around us. My favorite metaphor for this is based on a book called The Trellis and the Vine. Our businesses and organizations are like a vine. They're meant to grow and stretch into new territory, and our job as leaders is to create the right environment for that growth, but we don't actually make it grow.
[00:28:12] We just facilitate the environment. Now, at some point, a vine gets big enough that it needs a trellis to come behind and support it. Otherwise, it sends out branches onto the ground where they don't get enough sunlight or nutrients and they stop growing. But if we aren't careful, we can create a trellis or a system or a structure that is so big and so complicated that instead of holding up the vine and allowing the plant to flourish, the vine has to start holding up the trellis.
[00:28:40] Our organizations can become top heavy, and before you know it, we start making decisions to figure out how to keep the trellis in place rather than making decisions that allow the vine to stretch and grow into more territory and nothing kills momentum like policies and procedures and bureaucracy that isn't supporting our people to flourish.
[00:29:00] I spent 16 years leading in church ministry and eventually became the executive director of our multiple campuses, overseeing hundreds of our staff and our school of leadership. When I transitioned out of my staff role a few years ago, we had nine campuses and a regular attendance of over 20,000 people every weekend, plus thousands of people watching every week online.
[00:29:21] The decision to leave my leadership role in ministry was a difficult one, and it took me a long time to process and finally make it. Much of this decision was influenced by what was going on in my personal life. My husband's chronic health issues were a significant part of our daily life, and after 12 years, he was finally starting to get better and was even back to work full-time.
[00:29:40] Our son was now in middle school and I could tell that this would be an important season in his life to be engaged in a new way, but most importantly, I could tell that I wasn't coming out of crisis mode. For over a decade, I had been leading at very high levels, but also caring for a very ill husband and raising a little boy, mostly as a single parent.
[00:29:59] And I just could not shake the feeling that everything was about to crash, even though I knew it wasn't. My bosses were wonderful and I tried adjusting my role at work. I was implementing all the things I normally would to lower my anxiety level, but for some reason I just could not readjust. And so I decided to take a step back and recalibrate.
[00:30:20] I had no idea honestly what I would do next. It felt so risky to leave my full-time job, and after all, I had been the breadwinner for our family for over a decade, and we still weren't sure whether my husband's health would take a downturn again, but I really felt God was calling me to trust Him and to take some time to rest.
[00:30:37] It took about three and a half weeks, but I remember the exact spot it happened. I had dropped my son off at school in the morning and was driving up an overpass that I probably crossed a dozen times a week, but this morning was different. I had worship music playing, I was singing, and as I came to the top of the overpass, I looked up and saw the sun rising on the horizon, and I felt happy.
[00:30:58] It actually kind of surprised me. I didn't even realize I had not felt real happiness for such a long time. And this brings me to my final lesson in leadership. The most important person we lead is ourselves. Self-leadership is the foundation of anything else we will ever do. All of our leadership decisions and impact flow from who we are on the inside and our ability to lead ourselves well.
[00:31:21] For me, self-leadership are all those aspects of my life in which I am 100% in control. No one else gets the blame nor the credit for how I'm leading myself. As Henry Cloud says, I am ridiculously in charge of my own life. When I start feeling like I'm not doing well, I do a quick check on the five areas of my self leadership, my spiritual life, my physical health, my intellectual cognitive ability, my emotional health, and my social interactions. It doesn't take long to figure out where I have let something go and what I can do to reclaim it. Leading ourselves well in these five key areas keeps our leadership engine strong and healthy so we actually have something to offer others.
[00:32:02] Today I find myself in one of the most exciting leadership seasons of my life. I own my own leadership consulting company, and I get to spend my days working with leaders and business and ministry organizations, coaching them and helping them think through their growth and development strategies. And just like my first job back at the hospital, I spend a lot of time paying attention and asking great questions.
[00:32:22] Most recently, I've been exploring the needs of women leaders around me and discovering the lids and barriers they're facing as they grow and advance in leadership. And most importantly, how the men who are running our churches and businesses can unlock doors of opportunity for them like never before.
[00:32:37] I think the momentum we are seeing around this topic right now in our society makes this a critical topic that we all need to be exploring. And so I've ventured into a new area of leadership, thought leadership through becoming an author and a speaker. It's been fun to learn how to test not only the potential of my team, but also my business ideas.
[00:32:56] I'm learning how to lead as an owner and harness momentum from the number one seat. And most importantly, I'm leading myself in healthier and better ways than I ever have before. But I'll be honest, it still feels risky. I'm still learning lessons and most of them aren't easy, but I'm more convinced than ever that when we know the basics of leadership, how to lead ourselves well, how to surrender to God's leadership and how to leverage the leadership and influence we've been given to make a difference, we can truly fulfill our purpose and make a big impact in the world.
[00:33:30] I was praying, and I was crying about this and grieving the loss of the family and the kids that I knew I would never have. And I was reading through my Bible, which is my normal practice when life gets hard. Um, and I read a verse that really spoke to me. It said more are the children of a desolate woman than of her who has a full husband. And I know that seems kind of strange and uh, it's probably not the exact context of it, but to me, in that moment, I just felt God's uh, holy Spirit whispered to my heart that my legacy wouldn't just be about, um, having lots and lots of kids that I was gifted with an only son who's going to be a huge piece of my legacy because of all that he will be and all he will grow into.
[00:34:19] But it's not going to stop there. That legacy isn't halted when our plans don't come to fruition, that God actually had a different legacy for me. That He had spiritual children that he wanted me to invest in. That physical children are important, but spiritual children are also important.
[00:34:43] Steve Gatena: On part three of this three part series, Kadi Cole tells us about how we can leave a legacy through unintentional acts, helping others achieve their full abilities and connecting closely with family and friends. By following God's calling for us, we're fully capable of leaving a great legacy behind.
[00:35:08] Kadi Cole: I believe that we all make an impact in this world, whether we know it or not. I believe we are all created by God, are loved deeply by Him, and that who we are and what we do matters every day, each one of us, and it doesn't just matter a little, it actually matters a lot. I think science is finally catching up to what God told us a long time ago.
[00:35:33] We are all interconnected. We impact and influence each other all the time. I keep seeing news stories of great scientific discoveries that when people are in a room together, they don't even have to say anything or do anything, but they will actually change the physical and neurological activity of each other just by being in one another's presence. Who we are and what we do matters, and we are all making an impact and leaving a legacy whether we know it or not.
[00:36:05] The question then is, what kind of legacy do I want to be leading? For me, there are a few parts to this. First, I think we have a general legacy. This is basically what we do with being human and spending this time around these people at this moment in history. It's what we do in our everyday life and sometimes don't even think about it when we do kind of a big thing, like help someone who needs it. And it's also in the small things like smiling at someone as you pass by them in the grocery store.
[00:36:38] All these micro moments add up over time to make a big impact and a big difference. My best friend from high school, the one I told you about earlier, often talks about the power of a shopping cart. That a simple neighborly act such as returning your shopping cart to where it belongs, can make a big difference in a community, how they think, how they act, how they treat one another.
[00:37:01] I have a feeling that when we get to heaven, we will be shocked to find out how much we made a difference in our small everyday ways. My goal is not to miss an opportunity to leave a lasting positive impact every chance I get.
[00:37:15] But second, I also believe that we have an individual legacy. To me, this is what makes up our unique calling. It's the contribution that God has set aside specifically for us. And this isn't supposed to be scary or hard because when God calls us, He also gives us the ability to fulfill that calling. He is with us, helping us. It's part of how wonderful His love is for us. There's no pressure, just incredible opportunities that He will help us accomplish if we trust Him.
[00:37:45] For me, I help people lift their lids. This has taken me a long time to figure out, but, uh, whether as I think back through my life, whether it's a girl falling behind in the mile run at high school, a college campus that needs someone to help step into leadership for its students, maybe it's a church that's trying to solve a problem.
[00:38:04] Or more recently trying to educate and advocate for women who are the minorities and male populated industries. A big part of my calling is seeing where there are lids on potential of people or organization, things that are holding them back. Uh, systems are structures that are preventing them from flourishing, and then my job is to step in and help lift those lids so that that person or that team or that organization can be everything it is meant to be.
[00:38:32] And it's been interesting as I've been trying to fulfill this in some areas of my life. God continues to open up doors in other areas that I never even thought of before. I'm beginning to learn that that's a lot how calling and legacy works. If we don't worry too much about the big picture, about trying to make some big difference in the world, but instead just be faithful to what we've already been called to the opportunities we've already been given, God will bless that and bring more opportunities to make a difference and leave an even greater legacy.
[00:39:03] It's kind of upside down and backwards, but that just seems to be the way He works. And third, and this is probably my favorite. It's the legacy we leave with our close family and friends. This has been a new one for me. I've always really valued my family and my close friends and the people that are that I'm in my life.
[00:39:22] But because I grew up in a divorced family and I didn't have a lot of stability early on, it has taken me most of my life to realize the power of our family connections, even when they don't always feel very positive. I think I was always just ready to move on or easily shut the door on something or someone to probably let go of it quickly, avoid getting hurt.
[00:39:45] I didn't like to feel left out or forgotten, or I just didn't know to value them in that, how they would become less frequent as I got older. But as the years have gone by, the more I've become to treasure those relationships and really invest in them and look for ways to connect myself to the legacy of other people, especially those in my family.
[00:40:06] One surprise in this journey for me has been reconnecting with the legacy of entrepreneurship in my dad's side. Although I loved my dad very much and he loved me as best as he knew how it wasn't always a very close relationship or it didn't always feel very safe, I should say.
[00:40:23] He died over 10 years ago, but since that time, I've reconnected with his sisters and learned more about the many businesses that they started, as well as my grandfather and many others in my extended family.
[00:40:34] The more I learned about this, the more I realized that I am actually a part of that side of my family's legacy, and that sense of inheriting an ability to succeed in business has given me so much courage and so much energy and been so motivating for me as I start my own company. It's made it more fun. It's made it more exciting. I call them and ask about stories or talk about my own sort of business ventures and get advice. I've just never been a part of a legacy quite like that before, especially in my family.
[00:41:07] Now, I know for many people, doing what your family has done in your vocation seems totally normal.
[00:41:11] Maybe you even don't like the fact that you're carrying on a family tradition. But for someone like me who's never connected into a legacy like that before, it has been a really special experience. Another surprise for me when I think about legacy at this season of my life has been the idea of not being able to have more than one child.
[00:41:31] I grew up in an era and a community in which having kids was very important, and especially in church world, that highly values family. Having a big family and lots of children and having lots of people to love is a very top priority, and I valued it and always imagined it for my life. But my husband and I tried for seven years to have a baby, and I'd almost given up hope when we finally got pregnant.
[00:41:56] But during my pregnancy, my husband had his major accident and his long-term injuries changed our plans of what our parenthood, what my motherhood, what his fatherhood, what our family would really look like, and how we would navigate that on a day-to-day basis. And it took a couple years, but finally we decided that having only one child in the midst of everything else we were dealing with was probably the right decision.
[00:42:20] It was so hard for me, but I knew we just couldn't take on any more kids and we were barely surviving as it was for so many years. One morning during that time, I was praying and I was crying about this and grieving the loss of the family and the kids that. I knew I would never have. And I was reading through my Bible, which is my normal practice when life gets hard.
[00:42:44] Um, and I read a verse that really spoke to me. It said more are the children of a desolate woman than of her who has a full husband. And I know that seems kind of strange and uh, it's probably not the exact context of it, but to me, in that moment, I just felt God's w uh, holy Spirit whispered to my heart that my legacy wouldn't just be about, um, having lots and lots of kids that I was gifted with an only son who's going to be a huge piece of my legacy because of all that he will be and all he will grow into.
[00:43:19] But it's not going to stop there.
[00:43:22] That legacy isn't halted when our plans don't come to fruition, that God actually had a different legacy for me. That He had spiritual children that He wanted me to invest in. That physical children are important, but spiritual children are also important. So many times in my life, the very thing I think is the answer or the way, or what makes the most sense to me.
[00:43:45] Just isn't what God has planned. It isn't accurate. It's not actually for my best. God usually has something so much bigger and better in mind. My son is amazing and I love him with all my heart, and I just could not be prouder of the man he is becoming and the people that he touches and the way that he loves people.
[00:44:06] But God also has a spiritual legacy that he wants me to pass on, and that is just as valuable. It took me a while to get my heart around the idea that my legacy doesn't end with just one kid, but that it actually gets maximized because of the many people I can touch in the life that I now live. And I think that's one of the pieces about Legacy is that we're not fully in control of it.
[00:44:31] We're in control of the daily, everyday things. We're in control of some of the plans that we make, but at the end of the day, we're making an impact whether we realize it or not. And we can't always control the outcome, and more often than not, sometimes the things we think are holding back our legacy are actually the things that are positioning us for the greatest impact of all.
[00:44:57] One of my favorite quotes is by Bob Buford, who left an incredible legacy in both small acts of his daily life, but also in big parts of his calling. He used to say:
[00:45:08] My fruit grows on other people's trees.
[00:45:12] I just love that, that our fruit grows on other people's trees. Isn't that really true for all of us when we think about legacy?
[00:45:20] We may make contributions ourselves or do a lot of things on our own, but at the end of the day, our real impact, our contribution that lasts the longest is the difference that we make in other people's lives. That's the ripple effect. That's the rock we throw into the lake that has ripples and ripples and ripples and is felt all throughout the body of water.
[00:45:43] Our best and sweetest and most important fruit will grow on other people's trees. So I have to constantly be asking myself, how well am I planting those seeds? Because what we do matters. Each of us, how we live matters because we are all important. You are important. The gifts that God has given you, the calling that He has put on your life, the legacy that He has for you to invest in, it makes a difference.
[00:46:12] It matters in the world today, and it will continue to matter in the importance of the world tomorrow. That's what legacy is. Our fruit growing on other people's trees, the small acts, the big acts, the legacy that we don't even realize we're leaving. Sometimes the unexpected legacy. Those are the things that make the real difference.
[00:46:34] That's why each of our lives is so important.
[00:46:40] Steve Gatena: Living in a broken world, we know the opportunities to love and help are endless. And as children of God, we take our responsibilities to be of service seriously. Still, we can't be everything to everyone, nor is that what heeding God's call to service actually means.
[00:47:01] God asked us to meet specific needs. Not every need that we bear witness to our task is to learn to say no to the wrong opportunities so that we can say yes to the right ones and to know that our needs matter to God too. Jesus understood this, and through His actions, He showed us a model for how we can learn to discern the difference.
[00:47:29] While Jesus loved everyone perfectly, He often left town before everyone had the chance to be healed, nor did He meet every need that He saw, and He spent much of His time away from people praying and listening to God's direction. So Jesus knew what to do and what not to do. This week on Relentless Hope on Part One, Kadi Cole taught us about learning to say no to the wrong opportunities so that we can say yes to the most important ones.
[00:48:06] The ones that are for us.
[00:48:09] Kadi opened up about how she once tried to be everything to everyone until she realized that this was an impossible task, that her yoke had become hardened, and it was not what God asked of her. As Kadi reminds us, we matter to God too, and He never asked us to burden ourselves to burn out or to harden our yolks in the name of service.
[00:48:36] Kadi also taught us in part two that to be great leaders, we must first learn to lead ourselves, as she explained, all of our leadership decisions and impact flow from who we are on the inside. And if we don't tend to ourselves and our own needs, then we'll have nothing left to give to others. Kadi also taught us the five areas of our lives to regularly check in on and audit, include our spiritual lives, physical health, intellectual, and cognitive abilities, emotional health and social interactions, and she invited us to reclaim any parts of our life that we've let spiral out of control. In part three, we learned that when it comes to leaving our legacies, we learned that the legacies that last the longest are those that make a difference in people's lives.
[00:49:34] Kadi reminded us. That we're all connected and how we live our lives from the big to the small moments. It matters who we are, what we do. It will leave a lasting impact and influence on people. And we learned the three types of legacies we will have include our general legacies, which is how we show up in the world every day, our unique legacies, which is the specific calling that God has placed on our hearts and the legacies that will leave to our friends and families, including our biological and spiritual children. Yes, the needs in our world are enormous, but rest assured. God doesn't expect us to meet all of them, just the ones that he calls us to.
[00:50:28] Spending time quietly in prayer, contemplation, and turning to God's word can help us discern what needs were meant to meet, including our own. And when we do this, we have an opportunity to make a great impact on the world. I want you to remember that what you don't do determines what you can do. And one thing that you can do is share this podcast with someone in your life.
[00:51:03] Never be afraid to give hope a voice. Thanks for listening, my name is Steve Gatena and I'm the host of the Relentless Hope Podcast.
Embracing God‘s Calling Amid Tragedy and Caretaking - Kadi Cole
[00:00:00] Steve Gatena: There's so much need in this world. It's easy to feel overwhelmed and to become exhausted trying to help everyone, and we're so committed to being of service that we often forget, God never actually called us to meet every need that crosses our path. And He certainly never wants us to suffer in service or have our hearts become hardened.
[00:00:25] Being of service is never about lessening someone's burden by becoming burdened ourselves. Instead, God calls us to meet specific needs that He knows only we can meet. And He invites us to go to Him in prayer to turn to His word and to seek His wise counsel so that we can learn whom, where, and what He's calling us to aid. And we can trust that God isn't asking us to meet every single need because we have Jesus as our example.
[00:01:04] Despite the ever growing needs around Jesus, He often resisted stepping in to heal everyone or to meet every need, and Jesus regularly went away from the crowds to spend time alone in prayer and in communion with God, so that Jesus knew exactly where He was called to go, whom He was called to heal, and what God's special instructions were for Him.
[00:01:33] This week on Relentless Hope, Kadi Cole teaches us about saying no to every need. So we can say yes to the ones God has called us to meet. In part one of this three part series, we learn how Kadi used to try being everything to everyone. But after her husband suffered a horrific accident that almost took his life and which left him with severe chronic health issues, Kadi realized God was showing her a new path, and that it was okay to rest.
[00:02:12] And we hear how Kadi learned to say yes to the specific needs God wanted her to meet by turning to Him in prayer and studying His word. In part two of this three part series, we learned from Katie's more than 25 years of experience studying leadership and organizational development.
[00:02:35] Including serving as the executive director at one of America's largest and fastest growing multi-site churches. Kadi also reveals some of the best leadership traits we can develop, including the ability to lead ourselves, becoming curious learners, asking questions, testing potential before hiring, holding people accountable, and harnessing momentum.
[00:03:02] In part three of this three part series, Kadi also teaches us about the three types of legacies that we'll leave, including our general legacies, which is what we do in our everyday lives, our unique legacies, which is a specific calling God has placed in our heart, and the legacies we'll leave in our friends and family.
[00:03:27] Kadi reminds us that our needs matter to God. Yes, he asks us to be of service. But he doesn't want our hearts to become hardened. Our bodies, minds, hearts, and souls to break from the service that we provide. God wants us to say no to the wrong opportunities so that we can say yes to the most important ones. The ones that are just right for us. I wanna leave you with a key takeaway for the day as we listen to this episode and that takeaway is this.
[00:04:11] And it comes from saying no to 1000 things to make sure we don't get on the wrong track or to try to do too much. We're always thinking about new markets we could enter, but it's only by saying no, that you can concentrate on the things that are really important.
[00:04:37] That takeaway comes from Steve Jobs. I hope you enjoy this episode of Relentless Hope with Kadi Cole
[00:04:51] In high school, Kadi Cole found that she wanted to help everyone in any way possible, but then years later, everything changed when her husband had a fall at work.
[00:05:04] Kadi Cole: First, my husband had survived a major accident at work while I was pregnant. He was an IT guy and was installing some equipment in the gymnasium at the school he worked at, and the cherry picker lift that he was in at the top of the gym tipped over with him in it and he fell about 25 feet to the ground.
[00:05:21] Normally, someone with that kind of fall is either killed or paralyzed, so we were just thankful he was alive and would eventually be okay. We spent the next year in three reconstructive surgeries, endless physical therapy, and we thought he had made it through. But after a couple years, his body started to break down.
[00:05:40] He began losing teeth on the side. He fell on, he would get terrible migraines and pains throughout his face. His back started giving him lots of trouble. Plus he was struggling with depression and difficulties keeping up at work. And we spent several years trying to figure out, That he had long-term injuries, including a traumatic brain injury that would, was affecting his personality and thinking skills, severe arthritis throughout his body from the multiple bone breaks he had and torn ligaments in his hips that were actually being re-injured whenever he walked and moved around.
[00:06:10] It was overwhelming for all of us and I found myself carrying a full load in executive leadership at a large church I was working in, being a full-time caretaker of a husband who could only get outta bed a couple hours a day and trying to raise our little boy in some assemblance of normalcy.
[00:06:30] Steve Gatena: On part one of this three part series, Kadi Cole tells us how she wanted to help everyone at her high school in any way possible. Then after some life changing events, she learned that it's impossible to help everyone. Through Kadi's experiences, we learned how to balance our lives and focus on God's calling for us.
[00:06:54] Kadi Cole: When I was young, my dad was in the military, so we moved around a lot. In fact, I had lived in six states by the time I was six years old. But that spring my dad divorced my mom, so she moved me and my little sister back to her hometown in Montana. This was in the mid seventies when it was a very different time for divorced women with two little girls.
[00:07:15] I was the only kid of unmarried parents in my school for years. My mom couldn't get a credit card because she didn't have a husband to cosign for her. Oddly she was incredibly smart and had lived all over the world as a very talented teacher before marrying my dad. She had let her teaching certificate expire when she married, so she ended up in a secretarial job.
[00:07:35] At this time there were also not a lot of rights for divorced women. My mom got no alimony and only a couple hundred dollars a month in child support. We lived in a small duplex, but my mom was very industrious. Eventually she bought her own home and moved us up to better neighborhoods. As a child, I never knew that we were poor.
[00:07:55] I look back now and I can see it, but the tone of our home was that we had everything we needed. I remember the Friday nights we got to order Domino's Pizza, and it was so much fun to time them and see if they could actually deliver in 30 minutes or less, but I was never worried or felt like we were lacking anything, and that mindset is such a gift to give your children, especially when you actually don't have a lot.
[00:08:19] When I was in the second grade, my mom, who was an amazing piano player, was invited to play at a funeral at a small church in the mountains of Western Montana. It wasn't a very fancy church, but it was a warm, loving and compassionate family that fully accepted us and welcomed us. My mom began playing piano every week, and suddenly we were a part of a church family.
[00:08:41] And it was an incredible place to grow up, especially to grow up spiritually. Our pastor wasn't paid, he had his own business and led the church on the side. Everyone I knew was a full-time volunteer almost. Um, by the time I was in middle school, there were a lot more single parents, and so they actually began a Sunday school class just for singles, and that became my family's community.
[00:09:04] We celebrated holidays, had picnics, and went camping together. I had no idea the gift all of that was, and that most people don't experience that. It was our surrogate family. In fact, one of the themes of my life is how God has always provided me many surrogates for what my own family was lacking. I can look back now and see a dozen different Godly men who stepped in and played a father role in my life, right when I needed a good dad.
[00:09:30] It is such a gift of church. Even though I was surrounded by all this love and great Bible teaching, nothing had really clicked for me with my own relationship with God. By the end of middle school, I had basically ruined every friendship I had. I was stuck in selfish thinking, and I assumed that if I put others down and pointed out their weaknesses somehow that would make me look better.
[00:09:54] But in the summer before starting high school, I was at a summer camp and I realized that I was going into this new big high school without a single friend, and probably even had quite a few people who didn't like me at all. It made that hard transition, all the more intimidating.
[00:10:10] I remember praying and telling God, okay, I've tried it my way and obviously that hasn't worked. I'm going to give you your way a try and see if it turns out better.
[00:10:20] For me, I really was just trying faith out. If it worked, that would be great, but if it didn't, I was definitely gonna keep looking for how to fix my life. But it worked. I went into high school with the focus of loving people and befriending the friendless.
[00:10:36] It's the way I had learned Jesus lived and I wanted to model my life after His way of living as much as I could. I remember sitting at lunch with the special ed students. I brought extra food from home and gave it to anyone who had forgotten to bring their lunch. I left my locker open most of the time and gave away my babysitting money if a classmate needed something.
[00:10:56] I just tried to be kind without expecting anything in return, and an amazing thing happened. I started getting friends. In fact, my best friend today, some 30 years later, resulted from her forgetting her lunch and I invited her to my house to let her eat all the junk food she wanted for our hour, which was something her parents never let her do.
[00:11:16] My relationship with her has been a game changer for me throughout my life, and it all started just trying to love and help people. One of my most significant memories from that time was in PE class toward the end of our freshman year, we had to run a mile for time, so we lined up and took off. I don't remember how I did, but I do remember crossing the finish line.
[00:11:38] The sun was bright and shining in my eyes. I was feeling winded, so I put my hands on top of my head and turned around to walk off any tightness in my legs as I glanced around the empty track, only about a third of the way in was Melinda. She was struggling. Melinda was severely overweight and was trying to walk and slightly jog every few steps, and I could see, or at least I could feel in her face, the desire for this moment to be over as quickly as possible and that hopefully no one would notice that she was the only one left on the track.
[00:12:10] So I jogged across the field. I remember I still had my hands on top of my head, and I just walked next to her, chatting with her and trying to make her feel less lonely until we finally crossed the finish line many, many minutes later. Very quickly, our teacher called us all together to the new thing, so I never really thought much about it.
[00:12:28] This was just how I was trying to live now, looking for opportunities to help and doing what I could. But on the way into the locker room, the most popular, prettiest and wealthiest girl in our class who I never talked to and I was totally intimidated by, and I really honestly didn't even think she knew I existed.
[00:12:46] She walked up to me and said, that was the kindest thing I have ever seen someone do. And that was the moment, the defining moment when I realized for sure that love was the way. It was the way to friendship, it was the way to impact, and most importantly, it was the way God opens people's eyes and makes Himself known to them.
[00:13:08] I felt such fullness and joy and satisfaction in that 15 year old moment. It was the complete opposite of how I felt months before at that summer camp, and I knew for sure that God's way of living was the way I always wanted to live. And that vision guided me for the next 15 years of my life. But in my thirties, I entered a new season where that principal wasn't really working for me anymore, or at least it wasn't possible for me to fully surrender to every person and every need anymore.
[00:13:40] By this time I was married, we had a new baby boy. We had family and friends and jobs and obligations and neighbors and ministry, and the needs around me were starting to become bigger than I could meet. I had learned how to say yes to service, but I had not yet learned how to say no to needs I wasn't specifically called to meet.
[00:14:00] It turns out that lesson was much harder to learn. My busy season of adulthood was complicated by two things. First, my husband had survived a major accident at work while I was pregnant. He was an IT guy and was installing some equipment in the gymnasium at the school he worked at, and the cherry picker lift that he was in at the top of the gym tipped over with him in it, and he fell about 25 feet to the ground.
[00:14:23] Normally, someone with that kind of fall is either killed or paralyzed. So we were just thankful he was alive and would eventually be okay. We spent the next year in three reconstructive surgeries, endless physical therapy, and we thought he had made it through. But after a couple years, his body started to break down.
[00:14:42] He began losing teeth on the side he fell on, he would get terrible migraines and pains throughout his face. His back started giving him lots of trouble. Plus, he was struggling with depression and difficulties keeping up at work. And we spent several years trying to figure out that he had long-term injuries, including a traumatic brain injury that would, was affecting his personality and thinking skills, severe arthritis throughout his body from the multiple bone breaks he had, and torn ligaments in his hips that were actually being re-injured whenever he walked and moved around.
[00:15:12] It was overwhelming for all of us, and I found myself carrying a full load in executive leadership at a large church I was working in, being a full-time caretaker of a husband who could only get outta bed a couple hours a day and trying to raise our little boy in some assemblance of normalcy. And at the same time, my husband's mom was diagnosed with terminal cancer.
[00:15:32] We had moved to Ohio and lived with them so that we could help take care of them, help support her and the family as she fought, and eventually lost her battle. Everywhere I looked, there were needs. Every person I loved most in the world needed and wanted more from me. The opportunities to love and help were endless and overwhelming.
[00:15:52] My previous practice of simply loving people and doing my best to meet their needs were no longer working, and I knew God well enough to know that I was important to Him also. Killing myself to help others is not what he wanted, but I didn't know how to do it differently. So I did what I've learned to do when I get stuck in life.
[00:16:11] I went to God's word and asked Him to show me the better way. It took a while of digging and praying and studying, and being open to having my mindset shifted by what I was learning. But eventually I landed at two key thoughts. First, Jesus often left people's needs and expectations unmet. The needs around Him were enormous and constantly growing.
[00:16:34] He always loved perfectly, but sometimes resisted stepping in and helping. He was often late. He left town before everyone had a chance to be healed. He did not meet every need He saw. Instead, He spent much of His time getting away from the needs of people, praying and listening to God's direction. So that He knew what to do and what not to do.
[00:16:57] That was my lesson in learning to go beyond God's generic calling to all believers and to begin to learn and follow God's specific calling for my individual life. When I started to understand that more clearly, I was able to say no to the wrong opportunities so that I could say yes to the most important ones, the ones that were just for me.
[00:17:18] And second, in Matthew 11:28, Jesus says:
[00:17:22] Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light."
[00:17:39] I had worked myself into a place where my yoke was hard and my burden was heavy.
[00:17:44] I love this verse because the high achiever in me would write this totally differently. I would say something like, come to me if you are overworked and I will show you how to be more efficient or how to maximize your time, or how to make an even greater impact. But that is not what God invites us to do.
[00:18:02] He wants to give us rest and not just physical rest, but rest for our souls. And we do that by learning from Him, by learning how to be humble and gentle. By working on our hearts, by letting go of trying to be everything to everybody. And by walking so closely with Him and knowing His voice so clearly on the inside, that we can easily discern our work, the work He's made for us, work that is light and work that is easy.
[00:18:30] To me, that is true calling, that is life.
[00:18:38] I remember the first time I organized and led our teams for Easter services.
[00:18:42] In the church world. Easter and Christmas services are like our Super Bowl. All sorts of people who don't normally show up to church all come on the same day and at the same time, it is wonderful and we love it, but it does create some challenges on our systems and abilities.
[00:18:57] Plus all those volunteer staff I was talking about. Well, they tend to head out, head out of town for the holidays. So we find ourselves in the midst of a weekend where we would normally, more than double in attendance, but a third of our team is gone. But when you are in the midst of high momentum and your company or organization is taking on almost a life of its own, I mean, in our case, without any real effort, God was stirring in people's hearts spiritually and they were coming to us seeking out how to take their next step of faith.
[00:19:25] In these kinds of momentum situations, I've learned that as leaders, we have to walk a very fine line between giving enough leadership structure and direction that we support the momentum, but not so much that we squash it.
[00:19:43] Steve Gatena: On part two of this three part series, Kadi Cole teaches us the steps to becoming a great leader by paying attention, seeking to understand testing potential, and then harnessing that potential. The most important person to lead is yourself by continuously auditing your spiritual life, physical health, intellectual, cognitive abilities, emotional health and social interactions, you can become the best possible leader for others.
[00:20:20] Kadi Cole: I've never thought of myself as a naturally born leader or even specifically gifted as a leader. I feel like my journey was kind of the opposite. I had to learn how to be a leader. But as I learned the principles and skills of leadership and my efforts actually started to work, that as I actually started to see I had the power to influence others and create real change that actually helped people, I started to become very passionate about being a great leader and helping others learn how to do the same.
[00:20:46] And that passion really developed for me out of a heart of service and love for people. At one point I started to realize that some people just can't be helped that much individually. To make a real difference, I would've to change the environment around them.
[00:21:00] There were systems and structures and oftentimes injustices at play that no matter how hard someone tried, they couldn't fight that uphill battle, at least alone. Leading change around them was the only real way to help.
[00:21:14] I remember my first professional job as a registered nurse working in a hospital. I was fresh out of college and learning how to work full-time and be part of a team, but I started to notice that everyone was frustrated with their work schedule.
[00:21:26] It didn't matter what shift I worked. The people on the day shift were upset about working weekends. The night shift was upset about never being on days. The swing shift thought they had to double the work of everyone else. I learned the first step of leadership: paying attention. We have to notice what is going on around us and realize that there is something that needs to be fixed.
[00:21:46] We live in a world that is wonderful and full of hope and many good things, but at its core it's broken. And when leaders start paying attention, we begin to see the things we are called to step in and to fix. The second step of leadership I've learned is to ask questions. Just jumping to conclusions doesn't help anyone and it actually prevents change.
[00:22:07] So I started interviewing everyone I worked with and trying to understand why they were frustrated and how they thought it should be different. Stephen Covey calls this seeking to understand before being understood. When we posture ourselves as curious learners, most of the time we find all the information we need is within the people and the situation itself.
[00:22:27] Those two early lessons paying attention and seeking to understand have been the foundation of my approach to leadership. As you can guess, I went on to create a new system for how we scheduled our staff, which greatly improved how our unit ran and the morale of our team. Interestingly, however, was that there were a couple of people on the team who were very upset about this young woman stepping in and mixing things up.
[00:22:49] It was my first experience of someone trying to overtly sabotage my leadership efforts, but even as a young professional, I learned that when my motivation for leading was truly pure, that it wasn't about me or my ego, or my need to prove something, or even getting something for myself. Even when resistance came, it didn't hurt or damage the core of myself.
[00:23:10] Now it didn't feel good, but I could hold the situation with an open hand and allow the chips to fall where they may, knowing that I had done my part, and the results were really up to God and the team. I went on to lead the health services at a university where I was eventually promoted to Dean in student development, overseeing residential life, the discipline system, and many of our student leadership development programs.
[00:23:32] This is where I got my first taste of actually developing the leadership potential in others. College students are so much fun to work with and there is just nothing like the energy of campus life, especially when you are working with young leaders. But it was here that I learned a third lesson of leadership, the importance of testing potential.
[00:23:51] Because I'm a naturally positive and helpful person, I found that I easily assume the best in people and trust easily. The positive side of this quality is that I see potential and vision in almost every situation and person I meet. The downside is sometimes I can be blind to reality, and I've had a hard time learning that not everyone wants to make things better. Not everyone is willing to do hard work. Not everyone does what they say they are going to do, but nothing brings this lesson quite home like having to fire someone.
[00:24:22] For me, holding people accountable is one of the harder sides of leadership, but it is absolutely necessary, especially in an employee or a development environment.
[00:24:32] To avoid this kind of accountability is to be a lazy leader. I think it actually reveals, at least for me, a selfish heart at times. That I am more concerned about my own comfort than I am about your development or doing what's right for the organization. But in those early situations of having to confront poor performance and eventually let people go, I learned the importance of hiring well in the first place, and the only way to know who someone truly is, is to give them a test and see how they respond.
[00:25:01] Just talking and sounding good is not enough. In fact, this is what God does with us, right? He tests our heart so that we can see what is really going on in there. He obviously knows, but His love for us motivates Him to help us know what we need to work on. The same is true in our leadership. While I was working at the university, my husband and I were attending a local church that was starting to grow rapidly.
[00:25:24] None of us had ever experienced anything like this before. Over the past few years, we had grown from 80 people meeting each week in a school cafeteria to over 3000 and moving into a brand new church building. He and I were volunteers, and through that, the church's leadership came to me and asked if I would come onto their staff and help the executive team lead this new fast growing church.
[00:25:45] By this time I had picked up a master's degree in human resource development, and I was feeling ready to take my own leadership and influence to a new level. So I jumped at the chance and it was a little crazy. I had never experienced momentum in an organization like this before. Every service we had would get more people than expected, and we would quickly outgrow our capacity and have to figure out our next plan.
[00:26:08] Plus, the dynamics of leading church is very different than in most organizations and businesses. Not only does our best and most important work happen on evenings and weekends, but 90% of our staff are volunteers. And as a nonprofit, we have a totally different way of navigating funding, and we have often limited spending.
[00:26:26] So when you put all these extra dynamics on top of a fast growth experience, I had to learn my fourth lesson of leadership, the importance of momentum and how to harness it. I remember the first time I organized and led our teams for Easter services in the church world. Easter and Christmas services are like our Super Bowl.
[00:26:45] All sorts of people who don't normally show up to church all come on the same day and at the same time, it is wonderful and we love it, but it does create some challenges on our systems and abilities. Plus all those volunteer staff I was talking about, well, they tend to head out, head out of town for the holidays.
[00:27:02] So we find ourselves in the midst of a weekend where we would normally more than double in attendance, but a third of our team is gone. But when you are in the midst of high momentum and your company or organization is taking on almost a life of its own, I mean, in our case, without any real effort, God was stirring in people's hearts spiritually and they were coming to us seeking out how to take their next step of faith.
[00:27:23] In these kinds of momentum situations, I've learned that as leaders, we have to walk a very fine line between giving enough leadership structure and direction that we support the momentum, but not so much that we squash it, and that's what I learned that first Easter. Because we had so much going on and I wanted to organize and strategize and plan in a way that created an amazing experience for our guests.
[00:27:47] But so much of what I was trying to do was actually strangling the spontaneity, the unexpected, and that supernatural energy that was happening all around us. My favorite metaphor for this is based on a book called The Trellis and the Vine. Our businesses and organizations are like a vine. They're meant to grow and stretch into new territory, and our job as leaders is to create the right environment for that growth, but we don't actually make it grow.
[00:28:12] We just facilitate the environment. Now, at some point, a vine gets big enough that it needs a trellis to come behind and support it. Otherwise, it sends out branches onto the ground where they don't get enough sunlight or nutrients and they stop growing. But if we aren't careful, we can create a trellis or a system or a structure that is so big and so complicated that instead of holding up the vine and allowing the plant to flourish, the vine has to start holding up the trellis.
[00:28:40] Our organizations can become top heavy, and before you know it, we start making decisions to figure out how to keep the trellis in place rather than making decisions that allow the vine to stretch and grow into more territory and nothing kills momentum like policies and procedures and bureaucracy that isn't supporting our people to flourish.
[00:29:00] I spent 16 years leading in church ministry and eventually became the executive director of our multiple campuses, overseeing hundreds of our staff and our school of leadership. When I transitioned out of my staff role a few years ago, we had nine campuses and a regular attendance of over 20,000 people every weekend, plus thousands of people watching every week online.
[00:29:21] The decision to leave my leadership role in ministry was a difficult one, and it took me a long time to process and finally make it. Much of this decision was influenced by what was going on in my personal life. My husband's chronic health issues were a significant part of our daily life, and after 12 years, he was finally starting to get better and was even back to work full-time.
[00:29:40] Our son was now in middle school and I could tell that this would be an important season in his life to be engaged in a new way, but most importantly, I could tell that I wasn't coming out of crisis mode. For over a decade, I had been leading at very high levels, but also caring for a very ill husband and raising a little boy, mostly as a single parent.
[00:29:59] And I just could not shake the feeling that everything was about to crash, even though I knew it wasn't. My bosses were wonderful and I tried adjusting my role at work. I was implementing all the things I normally would to lower my anxiety level, but for some reason I just could not readjust. And so I decided to take a step back and recalibrate.
[00:30:20] I had no idea honestly what I would do next. It felt so risky to leave my full-time job, and after all, I had been the breadwinner for our family for over a decade, and we still weren't sure whether my husband's health would take a downturn again, but I really felt God was calling me to trust Him and to take some time to rest.
[00:30:37] It took about three and a half weeks, but I remember the exact spot it happened. I had dropped my son off at school in the morning and was driving up an overpass that I probably crossed a dozen times a week, but this morning was different. I had worship music playing, I was singing, and as I came to the top of the overpass, I looked up and saw the sun rising on the horizon, and I felt happy.
[00:30:58] It actually kind of surprised me. I didn't even realize I had not felt real happiness for such a long time. And this brings me to my final lesson in leadership. The most important person we lead is ourselves. Self-leadership is the foundation of anything else we will ever do. All of our leadership decisions and impact flow from who we are on the inside and our ability to lead ourselves well.
[00:31:21] For me, self-leadership are all those aspects of my life in which I am 100% in control. No one else gets the blame nor the credit for how I'm leading myself. As Henry Cloud says, I am ridiculously in charge of my own life. When I start feeling like I'm not doing well, I do a quick check on the five areas of my self leadership, my spiritual life, my physical health, my intellectual cognitive ability, my emotional health, and my social interactions. It doesn't take long to figure out where I have let something go and what I can do to reclaim it. Leading ourselves well in these five key areas keeps our leadership engine strong and healthy so we actually have something to offer others.
[00:32:02] Today I find myself in one of the most exciting leadership seasons of my life. I own my own leadership consulting company, and I get to spend my days working with leaders and business and ministry organizations, coaching them and helping them think through their growth and development strategies. And just like my first job back at the hospital, I spend a lot of time paying attention and asking great questions.
[00:32:22] Most recently, I've been exploring the needs of women leaders around me and discovering the lids and barriers they're facing as they grow and advance in leadership. And most importantly, how the men who are running our churches and businesses can unlock doors of opportunity for them like never before.
[00:32:37] I think the momentum we are seeing around this topic right now in our society makes this a critical topic that we all need to be exploring. And so I've ventured into a new area of leadership, thought leadership through becoming an author and a speaker. It's been fun to learn how to test not only the potential of my team, but also my business ideas.
[00:32:56] I'm learning how to lead as an owner and harness momentum from the number one seat. And most importantly, I'm leading myself in healthier and better ways than I ever have before. But I'll be honest, it still feels risky. I'm still learning lessons and most of them aren't easy, but I'm more convinced than ever that when we know the basics of leadership, how to lead ourselves well, how to surrender to God's leadership and how to leverage the leadership and influence we've been given to make a difference, we can truly fulfill our purpose and make a big impact in the world.
[00:33:30] I was praying, and I was crying about this and grieving the loss of the family and the kids that I knew I would never have. And I was reading through my Bible, which is my normal practice when life gets hard. Um, and I read a verse that really spoke to me. It said more are the children of a desolate woman than of her who has a full husband. And I know that seems kind of strange and uh, it's probably not the exact context of it, but to me, in that moment, I just felt God's uh, holy Spirit whispered to my heart that my legacy wouldn't just be about, um, having lots and lots of kids that I was gifted with an only son who's going to be a huge piece of my legacy because of all that he will be and all he will grow into.
[00:34:19] But it's not going to stop there. That legacy isn't halted when our plans don't come to fruition, that God actually had a different legacy for me. That He had spiritual children that he wanted me to invest in. That physical children are important, but spiritual children are also important.
[00:34:43] Steve Gatena: On part three of this three part series, Kadi Cole tells us about how we can leave a legacy through unintentional acts, helping others achieve their full abilities and connecting closely with family and friends. By following God's calling for us, we're fully capable of leaving a great legacy behind.
[00:35:08] Kadi Cole: I believe that we all make an impact in this world, whether we know it or not. I believe we are all created by God, are loved deeply by Him, and that who we are and what we do matters every day, each one of us, and it doesn't just matter a little, it actually matters a lot. I think science is finally catching up to what God told us a long time ago.
[00:35:33] We are all interconnected. We impact and influence each other all the time. I keep seeing news stories of great scientific discoveries that when people are in a room together, they don't even have to say anything or do anything, but they will actually change the physical and neurological activity of each other just by being in one another's presence. Who we are and what we do matters, and we are all making an impact and leaving a legacy whether we know it or not.
[00:36:05] The question then is, what kind of legacy do I want to be leading? For me, there are a few parts to this. First, I think we have a general legacy. This is basically what we do with being human and spending this time around these people at this moment in history. It's what we do in our everyday life and sometimes don't even think about it when we do kind of a big thing, like help someone who needs it. And it's also in the small things like smiling at someone as you pass by them in the grocery store.
[00:36:38] All these micro moments add up over time to make a big impact and a big difference. My best friend from high school, the one I told you about earlier, often talks about the power of a shopping cart. That a simple neighborly act such as returning your shopping cart to where it belongs, can make a big difference in a community, how they think, how they act, how they treat one another.
[00:37:01] I have a feeling that when we get to heaven, we will be shocked to find out how much we made a difference in our small everyday ways. My goal is not to miss an opportunity to leave a lasting positive impact every chance I get.
[00:37:15] But second, I also believe that we have an individual legacy. To me, this is what makes up our unique calling. It's the contribution that God has set aside specifically for us. And this isn't supposed to be scary or hard because when God calls us, He also gives us the ability to fulfill that calling. He is with us, helping us. It's part of how wonderful His love is for us. There's no pressure, just incredible opportunities that He will help us accomplish if we trust Him.
[00:37:45] For me, I help people lift their lids. This has taken me a long time to figure out, but, uh, whether as I think back through my life, whether it's a girl falling behind in the mile run at high school, a college campus that needs someone to help step into leadership for its students, maybe it's a church that's trying to solve a problem.
[00:38:04] Or more recently trying to educate and advocate for women who are the minorities and male populated industries. A big part of my calling is seeing where there are lids on potential of people or organization, things that are holding them back. Uh, systems are structures that are preventing them from flourishing, and then my job is to step in and help lift those lids so that that person or that team or that organization can be everything it is meant to be.
[00:38:32] And it's been interesting as I've been trying to fulfill this in some areas of my life. God continues to open up doors in other areas that I never even thought of before. I'm beginning to learn that that's a lot how calling and legacy works. If we don't worry too much about the big picture, about trying to make some big difference in the world, but instead just be faithful to what we've already been called to the opportunities we've already been given, God will bless that and bring more opportunities to make a difference and leave an even greater legacy.
[00:39:03] It's kind of upside down and backwards, but that just seems to be the way He works. And third, and this is probably my favorite. It's the legacy we leave with our close family and friends. This has been a new one for me. I've always really valued my family and my close friends and the people that are that I'm in my life.
[00:39:22] But because I grew up in a divorced family and I didn't have a lot of stability early on, it has taken me most of my life to realize the power of our family connections, even when they don't always feel very positive. I think I was always just ready to move on or easily shut the door on something or someone to probably let go of it quickly, avoid getting hurt.
[00:39:45] I didn't like to feel left out or forgotten, or I just didn't know to value them in that, how they would become less frequent as I got older. But as the years have gone by, the more I've become to treasure those relationships and really invest in them and look for ways to connect myself to the legacy of other people, especially those in my family.
[00:40:06] One surprise in this journey for me has been reconnecting with the legacy of entrepreneurship in my dad's side. Although I loved my dad very much and he loved me as best as he knew how it wasn't always a very close relationship or it didn't always feel very safe, I should say.
[00:40:23] He died over 10 years ago, but since that time, I've reconnected with his sisters and learned more about the many businesses that they started, as well as my grandfather and many others in my extended family.
[00:40:34] The more I learned about this, the more I realized that I am actually a part of that side of my family's legacy, and that sense of inheriting an ability to succeed in business has given me so much courage and so much energy and been so motivating for me as I start my own company. It's made it more fun. It's made it more exciting. I call them and ask about stories or talk about my own sort of business ventures and get advice. I've just never been a part of a legacy quite like that before, especially in my family.
[00:41:07] Now, I know for many people, doing what your family has done in your vocation seems totally normal.
[00:41:11] Maybe you even don't like the fact that you're carrying on a family tradition. But for someone like me who's never connected into a legacy like that before, it has been a really special experience. Another surprise for me when I think about legacy at this season of my life has been the idea of not being able to have more than one child.
[00:41:31] I grew up in an era and a community in which having kids was very important, and especially in church world, that highly values family. Having a big family and lots of children and having lots of people to love is a very top priority, and I valued it and always imagined it for my life. But my husband and I tried for seven years to have a baby, and I'd almost given up hope when we finally got pregnant.
[00:41:56] But during my pregnancy, my husband had his major accident and his long-term injuries changed our plans of what our parenthood, what my motherhood, what his fatherhood, what our family would really look like, and how we would navigate that on a day-to-day basis. And it took a couple years, but finally we decided that having only one child in the midst of everything else we were dealing with was probably the right decision.
[00:42:20] It was so hard for me, but I knew we just couldn't take on any more kids and we were barely surviving as it was for so many years. One morning during that time, I was praying and I was crying about this and grieving the loss of the family and the kids that. I knew I would never have. And I was reading through my Bible, which is my normal practice when life gets hard.
[00:42:44] Um, and I read a verse that really spoke to me. It said more are the children of a desolate woman than of her who has a full husband. And I know that seems kind of strange and uh, it's probably not the exact context of it, but to me, in that moment, I just felt God's w uh, holy Spirit whispered to my heart that my legacy wouldn't just be about, um, having lots and lots of kids that I was gifted with an only son who's going to be a huge piece of my legacy because of all that he will be and all he will grow into.
[00:43:19] But it's not going to stop there.
[00:43:22] That legacy isn't halted when our plans don't come to fruition, that God actually had a different legacy for me. That He had spiritual children that He wanted me to invest in. That physical children are important, but spiritual children are also important. So many times in my life, the very thing I think is the answer or the way, or what makes the most sense to me.
[00:43:45] Just isn't what God has planned. It isn't accurate. It's not actually for my best. God usually has something so much bigger and better in mind. My son is amazing and I love him with all my heart, and I just could not be prouder of the man he is becoming and the people that he touches and the way that he loves people.
[00:44:06] But God also has a spiritual legacy that he wants me to pass on, and that is just as valuable. It took me a while to get my heart around the idea that my legacy doesn't end with just one kid, but that it actually gets maximized because of the many people I can touch in the life that I now live. And I think that's one of the pieces about Legacy is that we're not fully in control of it.
[00:44:31] We're in control of the daily, everyday things. We're in control of some of the plans that we make, but at the end of the day, we're making an impact whether we realize it or not. And we can't always control the outcome, and more often than not, sometimes the things we think are holding back our legacy are actually the things that are positioning us for the greatest impact of all.
[00:44:57] One of my favorite quotes is by Bob Buford, who left an incredible legacy in both small acts of his daily life, but also in big parts of his calling. He used to say:
[00:45:08] My fruit grows on other people's trees.
[00:45:12] I just love that, that our fruit grows on other people's trees. Isn't that really true for all of us when we think about legacy?
[00:45:20] We may make contributions ourselves or do a lot of things on our own, but at the end of the day, our real impact, our contribution that lasts the longest is the difference that we make in other people's lives. That's the ripple effect. That's the rock we throw into the lake that has ripples and ripples and ripples and is felt all throughout the body of water.
[00:45:43] Our best and sweetest and most important fruit will grow on other people's trees. So I have to constantly be asking myself, how well am I planting those seeds? Because what we do matters. Each of us, how we live matters because we are all important. You are important. The gifts that God has given you, the calling that He has put on your life, the legacy that He has for you to invest in, it makes a difference.
[00:46:12] It matters in the world today, and it will continue to matter in the importance of the world tomorrow. That's what legacy is. Our fruit growing on other people's trees, the small acts, the big acts, the legacy that we don't even realize we're leaving. Sometimes the unexpected legacy. Those are the things that make the real difference.
[00:46:34] That's why each of our lives is so important.
[00:46:40] Steve Gatena: Living in a broken world, we know the opportunities to love and help are endless. And as children of God, we take our responsibilities to be of service seriously. Still, we can't be everything to everyone, nor is that what heeding God's call to service actually means.
[00:47:01] God asked us to meet specific needs. Not every need that we bear witness to our task is to learn to say no to the wrong opportunities so that we can say yes to the right ones and to know that our needs matter to God too. Jesus understood this, and through His actions, He showed us a model for how we can learn to discern the difference.
[00:47:29] While Jesus loved everyone perfectly, He often left town before everyone had the chance to be healed, nor did He meet every need that He saw, and He spent much of His time away from people praying and listening to God's direction. So Jesus knew what to do and what not to do. This week on Relentless Hope on Part One, Kadi Cole taught us about learning to say no to the wrong opportunities so that we can say yes to the most important ones.
[00:48:06] The ones that are for us.
[00:48:09] Kadi opened up about how she once tried to be everything to everyone until she realized that this was an impossible task, that her yoke had become hardened, and it was not what God asked of her. As Kadi reminds us, we matter to God too, and He never asked us to burden ourselves to burn out or to harden our yolks in the name of service.
[00:48:36] Kadi also taught us in part two that to be great leaders, we must first learn to lead ourselves, as she explained, all of our leadership decisions and impact flow from who we are on the inside. And if we don't tend to ourselves and our own needs, then we'll have nothing left to give to others. Kadi also taught us the five areas of our lives to regularly check in on and audit, include our spiritual lives, physical health, intellectual, and cognitive abilities, emotional health and social interactions, and she invited us to reclaim any parts of our life that we've let spiral out of control. In part three, we learned that when it comes to leaving our legacies, we learned that the legacies that last the longest are those that make a difference in people's lives.
[00:49:34] Kadi reminded us. That we're all connected and how we live our lives from the big to the small moments. It matters who we are, what we do. It will leave a lasting impact and influence on people. And we learned the three types of legacies we will have include our general legacies, which is how we show up in the world every day, our unique legacies, which is the specific calling that God has placed on our hearts and the legacies that will leave to our friends and families, including our biological and spiritual children. Yes, the needs in our world are enormous, but rest assured. God doesn't expect us to meet all of them, just the ones that he calls us to.
[00:50:28] Spending time quietly in prayer, contemplation, and turning to God's word can help us discern what needs were meant to meet, including our own. And when we do this, we have an opportunity to make a great impact on the world. I want you to remember that what you don't do determines what you can do. And one thing that you can do is share this podcast with someone in your life.
[00:51:03] Never be afraid to give hope a voice. Thanks for listening, my name is Steve Gatena and I'm the host of the Relentless Hope Podcast.
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