Woman Evolve with Sarah Jakes Roberts - From Reluctant to Resilient

Episode Date: July 2, 2025

Let's clear this up real quick: being a leader isn't always about having a mic or a massive following. It's about carrying vision. Heavy on the carrying. In this special session from The Called Conference 2025, Sarah Jakes Roberts opens up about her own leadership journey and what it looks like to lead while feeling reluctant, unsure, or unqualified. She breaks down the difference between being a visionary and being a leader, what to do when the vision feels blurry, and how to shift from striving to surrender. From team building and value alignment to navigating change and knowing when to come off autopilot, SJR reminds us that real leadership starts with sensitivity, not status. If you've been tying your identity to your outcomes or wondering if you're built for what God showed you, this is your invitation to move with reverence, release the pressure, and lead like the earth is waiting on what you're carrying because it is.

Okay, as promised, I am dropping the episode from the called conference here at the Woman Evolve podcast. For those of you who may be playing catch up, I spoke at my husband's leadership conference in May, and it was my first time speaking from the standpoint of a leader. Even though I have been leading Woman Evolve for almost seven years now, I have been reluctant to speak as a leader because I am constantly learning so many lessons that I'm like, when I pass the class, then I will share the lesson. What I am beginning to realize is that we don't get to just give our lessons once we have passed the test.

There are some things that God calls us to do that we have to give the lessons even while we are learning new lessons. You may never fully master the thing that you've been called to do, but just because you have at mastered, it doesn't mean that you don't have lessons for people who are on different levels than you are. If you have graduated from any level at all of parenting, of health and fitness, of leading a business, then you have a lesson. Make sure that you are sharing your lessons. I am sharing my lessons from leadership that I feel like apply to anyone, especially someone who may be a little bit reluctant to be a leader because that has definitely been my ministry.

I like to mind my business and leave people alone, not lead people, but here I am leading. And so how have I embraced this call, accepted it, and allowed myself to not experience pressure while doing it? That's what's on this week's episode. Let's get into it. I want to share with you a little bit about my leadership journey. The word leader makes me cringe. I will be honest. I think it's because of my personality type. When I hear the word leader, I hear responsibility. I hear pressure. And to be honest, I have really seen myself as more of a live and let live kind of person. So when I hear leader, I always see it as synonymous with leading people.

And though God has allowed me to have influence and an incredible platform, I was never seeking to really gather people. I just felt like I am going to invite people on this journey and I'll just share what God is doing in my life. But I don't necessarily want to be a leader. Like, I just want us to be on the journey together. I think because I have seen leadership often mishandled or people put leaders on pedestals, and I'm like, listen, I don't want to be anyone's anything.

I want to be everybody something and we'll figure it out together. And so this process has really challenged me. Don't be afraid because now I'm speaking at a leadership conference. So you're like, why do you have somebody who's not a leader speaking in a leadership conference? Questions I ask myself, God, why do you have someone who doesn't consider themselves a leader? speaking at a leadership conference. And God revealed to me that too often we have surmised leadership to be synonymous with people. And when we see leadership as synonymous with people, we miss out on what leadership truly is. Leadership is us leading a vision. I am a leader primarily of a vision,

and by default, I lead people. God has given me a vision. And with that vision, that's a vision, that's what I am leading. I'm leading the vision for my organization. I'm leading the vision for who I'm supposed to be as a wife, as a mother. I am leading a vision. God has given you a vision. Your responsibility is to lead that vision into this landscape, into your industry, into your world, whatever God has designated you to do, you are responsible for leading that vision. you are called to lead a vision into reality. Proverbs 29 and 18 says where there is no vision the people perish, not where there is no leader.

Where there is no vision, the people perish. So if you are a leader and you think being a leader is about how can I get people to follow me, you have missed out on what it means to be in leadership. You can be a leader with no following. You can be a leader with no one who has endorsed you. you, you are a leader the moment that God gives you a vision. It is now your responsibility, your charge to take care of that vision. I am a live and let live person until it is time for us to implement a vision. Anyone who's ever been on tour with me, anyone who's ever done a

conference, anyone who's ever done a book with me, understands that you can do whatever you want to as long as this vision that God has given me for what this night is supposed to be is realized. I will change that Dr. Needle tell you. We'll be on the road and we'll have good nights, but I'm like, it's not there yet. Because I know the vision that God has given me for what's supposed to take place in the room. And I am responsible for leading this vision. And because I am responsible for leading this vision, I also recognize the people and the functions that they bring in implementing and establishing that vision.

So as a part of leading the overarching vision, what I wrote down in my notes is that when we're leading a vision, we have to recognize that the vision has dimensions and details. There are dimensions to the vision. There's the overarching large vision that God gives you. But then there are dimensions to it. Who are the people connected to it? So I have a vision, yes, for a woman evolved, for example.

I have a vision for what woman evolve is supposed to be in the earth. But then I also have dimensions in that vision, because I have a vision for the culture that must exist within my organization in order for that vision to be realized. I have a vision for the type of content that we create that allows us to meet the objective of the overarching vision that God has given me. So you have a vision, yes, but you do need to ask God, what are the different layers, the different dimensions that exist within this vision? And God, can you give me a vision for what that looks like as well? Who am I going to have to be in order to implement that vision? I have to have a vision for myself as a leader.

PT said that this is about honing the leader. That word honing means to sharpen. I want to give you an opportunity to sharpen the way that you define leadership and to sharpen the way that you step into leadership. And I want you to think less about who you are and more about the vision. I'm going to get into that a little bit deeper later. but I want you to understand that you can be a leader without being a visionary. Okay.

Visionaries, we've seen visionaries on the news. They make headlines a lot, but they don't know how to motivate people. A visionary, let me give you the definition. A visionary is someone who thinks about or plans the future with imagination or wisdom. I feel like this is going to help somebody. So a visionary doesn't necessarily have the capability to motivate people, but they have a vision for the future. They may not know how to build teams, they may not know necessarily how to implement systems

and structures to make that vision a reality, but they think about what's going to happen in the future with imagination or wisdom. This is their goal. But a visionary does need leaders. You can be a leader without being a visionary. if you are a visionary, you need a leader. There are people in this room who you're called, I don't necessarily have the vision, but I can lead a team, I can lead a system into implementing someone else's vision.

I wish I could say that real good. Not everyone in the room is going to be called to create the next Tesla or whatever the next studio, Netflix thing is going to be. But you know how to create accounting systems. You know how to move technology. And so you are a leader, even if you are a leader under someone else's vision. And I want you to have permission to have a leadership mentality even as you're serving someone else's vision. So maybe you are straddling the fence of, I want to be a visionary, but I also am in this role right now.

And it feels like the role is in competition with the vision that God has given me. No, the role is practiced for when it is time for you to implement the vision. So how do you bring leadership to your current role? How do you bring a sense of ownership into what God has entrusted you with right now? How do you do it like a leader, not like an employee? How do you do it like a leader and not like someone here who's just here to collect a check? I'm doing it like a leader. This is my corner of the organization.

This is my corner of the structure. And I think about the future. I think about all of the things that are connected. into the role that I have and I move like a leader. I take initiative. I think about the landscape of what we're doing and how I can bring my best to it. You don't necessarily have to be a visionary to be a leader.

I want to talk about as having a vision that is sharp enough to cut through obstructions. I know that you guys are saved, sanctified field with the Holy Ghost and y'all don't necessarily do things like go to like Cowboy Carter where you get obstructive view tickets. Or you go so you can pray. Or you don't go to events, but there are some events where you go and you realize that I'm going to go, but I am not going to have the best view when I go to this event. But some people buy the obstructive view tickets because they realize that if I can just get in the room,

I can overcome the obstruction. I want to talk a little bit about implementing a vision when there are view obstructions that keep you from realizing the vision that God is giving you. Like I said, you can't lead a vision without dealing with the moments where you're going to have an obstructed view. Okay, so I want that to be something that we really embrace because oftentimes God gives us the vision, and when God gives us the vision, it's clear as day. I can see it. I was in church.

I was having a dream. God gave me the vision and I saw it so clearly. And then I had to begin to move towards that vision or I had to share that vision with other people. And now my view of the vision has become obstructed. Has anyone ever been there? Yeah. Oh, that's why we hear, child. Help me to see what you told me was going to happen.

I want to offer you some bridges to connecting where you may experience discouragement to a space of more productivity when it comes to realizing your vision. I have three of them, but Lord knows there's probably so many, but there were three that God highlighted specifically for my time here with you, because I want you to recognize that obstructed views are a part of the price that we pay when implementing a vision. There are going to be moments where the view was just not clear. And in those moments where the view was not clear, oftentimes we are willing to release the vision

because we think that an obstructive view means that the vision is dying, and that is not always true. An obstructive view generally means that we need to reposition our perspective, reposition our expectations, reposition our timelines in order for us to see the vision more clearly and to see it the way that God does. I want to talk about bridging your reluctancy, reluctant leadership. That's almost what I called this because I was struggling with this idea of leadership and what it means to be in leadership, even though I recognize that I have some reluctancy. And so when I started exploring this idea of reluctancy, I recognize one, that I'm not the only person who struggles with reluctancy when it comes to leadership. The reluctancy may not necessarily be in stepping into leadership.

It may be reluctancy to build a team. It may be reluctancy to take that vision and to market it in a way that other people have to hear your thoughts and ideas where it changes your identity. And so I want to talk to people who have found themselves being called to something that's bigger than them. But if you're honest, you feel a little reluctant. I want you to know that reluctancy is not a sign that you are not called. Because some of you start to feel a little reluctant and you say, I guess it's a little reluctant. and you say, I guess it's not for me, because if I can't do it with courage and boldness and confidence, then I may not be able to do it at all. Reluctancy is not a sign that you are not called.

Reluctancy is a sign that you have distrust either in yourself, others, or God's provision, or all of the above. I want to talk to you about some people in Scripture who were reluctant to step into leadership. Moses. Get somebody else to do it. Surely there's someone else more qualified. Jeremiah said, I'm not even old enough for this vision. I'm way too young. I don't have enough experience. I'm going to be unqualified in comparison to the other people who you could get to do this. Gideon says, I am of the least tribes. Now is not a time for me to be in leadership. God did not care that they felt reluctant to move into leadership. I believe that God cares about you. I believe

that God sympathizes with you. I believe that God wants to help and empower you to move into leadership, but I don't believe that your reluctancy makes God change his mind about who he's called you to be. But he's generous and that he's willing to work with you to work that reluctancy out of you until your reluctancy turns into, listen, not confidence, not boldness, not courage, just surrender. It's too much of a leap to go from reluctant to, oh, no, I got it now. I'm the big bad wolf. It's in somebody my way. That's a big leap for me.

And I see it on social media all the time. It's like you can just talk your way, like boost yourself into somebody who could step into something and do it with confidence, boldness, and courage. That's not my ministry. But my ministry is this. I can be reluctant, but know how to surrender. I'll trust you, I'll obey, I believe that you'll give me the lessons that I need along the way. You don't have to go from one thing to the other. Just find a way to surrender. Jesus himself, when his time had come, his mother Mary said, turn this water into one. He said,

woman, my time hasn't come yet. We see Jesus having moments of reluctancy. I need you to stop disqualifying yourself because you have hesitation and instead ask, yourself, how do I move from reluctancy to reverence? When we move from reluctancy to reverence, we acknowledge that this call is not about us. We de-center ourselves from what God has called us to do. We de-center ourselves from the outcome. When we see it from a place of reverence, we recognize that this idea, this product, this opportunity to serve within this organization,

is not about me. If I can get to a place of surrender, then that word can flow through me. And by word, sometimes it's not even language. It's the flow of God, like PT said. It's the creativity. It's the innovation. It's why God trusted me to be in the room in the first place.

Your reluctancy is a damn that keeps the flow from moving through you. We've got to find a way to bridge our reluctancy, to reverence. If I am reluctant about myself and stepping into this, God, how do I get to a place where I trust what it is that you see in me? How do I get to a place where I trust that you will take care of me? If I am reluctant to hire people, if I am reluctant to work with people, because I don't want to depend on them, and Lord knows I don't want them depending on me. I did not want to hire anybody. If my account is in the overdraft,

that's one thing, but I don't want your dinner depending on my ideas. No. I don't want you depending on me for how you're going to pay your bills. That's crazy. I bet. No, I'm just playing. But there is something to be said about trusting that God has provision. There is something to be said that there may be moments where someone is willing

to serve your vision, literally to serve your vision, even if you don't have the resources to take care of them in the way that you feel like they should be taken care of. Are you reluctant to work with others, or are you reluctant to trust that someone actually could believe in that vision with just as much passion as you do? That's how powerful this thing is that God has given you. That the right people will hear it, and it won't even matter to them whether or not you are resourced enough to take care of them. They will help you to implement this vision even if they have to do it with bare bones. Just because you sleep on your vision doesn't mean that someone else is.

Just because you have questions about it doesn't mean that someone else won't get it. And sometimes we need people who see us properly even while we're still trying to figure things out. Mary activated Jesus ministry because she saw something in him. She saw that he had grown in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and men. And sometimes you need someone to release you into who God has called you to be. And sometimes that happens through connection. And their belief in you may be the fuel you need to get the party started. Your reluctancy must be broken.

bridge to reverence. When we have distrust in others, we can be reluctant to build teams. When I have found that I have reluctancy to engage with other people, I have recognized that more times than not, my reluctancy is rooted in the reality that we don't have shared values about our culture or organization. I found myself avoiding meetings with someone who's on my team, and I realized that if I was avoiding meetings with them, that then my other team members were likely avoiding meetings with them as well. And I realized that my reluctancy was going to end up becoming contagious within the organization, which means that it was going to distract from our momentum.

And so I had to get down to the bottom of what is it that I feel that when I come into this meeting, like I'm already irritated or I don't trust that when we sit down, that the goal, the intended goal of this meeting is actually going to be what happened, And so when I started kind of boiling down, I realized that we had a misalignment in our values. As your leading teams or as you are engaging with team members, engaging with your executives or corporates, I want you to begin to ask yourself, what is this reluctancy I am experiencing? And how can we align our values and our goals so that we have momentum? Can we align them?

If you're in a position like I'm in where we're leading teams, I recognize that if I am reluctant to meet with this person, my team members are likely reluctant to meet with them, which means that I cannot achieve the goal of leading this vision with a team that is reluctant to engage. So I need to work with this person to make sure that we have shared values on the culture of how we treat our staff, the culture of how we communicate, or I need to remove you from the vision so that we can have momentum. And that's difficult. to do when you're navigating wanting to take care of people, but also leading the vision.

And so I also want you to know that you can have a separation from your organization, a termination from your organization, and it doesn't have to be nasty. Man, because that's the other thing about hiring folks. You may have to fire. And firing generally never is the easiest conversation. but sometimes it is necessary for the sake of the vision. It is possible to release someone and show them honor in the process of releasing them. How do we do that?

We make sure that everyone understands what the goal is here. If you understand what the goal is, what the expectation is, if I give you an opportunity to meet that goal, if I give you an opportunity again to meet that goal, then when it is time for me to release you, I get to say, we just weren't able to get on the same page about this thing that we discussed multiple times. My father says that no one should ever be surprised when they're fired. If you're doing your job properly as a leader, they should not be surprised when you sit

them down and say, hey, this isn't working anymore. Because you've done a great job of outlining what your objectives, what your expectations are, and you've let them know that they were having difficulty meeting them. By the time we sit down, we kind of already know what it is. So when we're building our teams and we're finding ourselves working with other people, it's important that we make sure that our reluctancy also has reverence, but also that we are in a place where we are receptive to new ideas and suggestions. Sometimes we have reluctancy because we know that when we go into an idea,

that that idea is going to be changed. We know that when I bring this to a certain individual, when I put this out into the atmosphere, it may not look the same way that it looked like when I was just the only person touching the vision. I wish I could say that real good. But sometimes most of us just need to be visionaries because when it's time to incorporate other people,

we get defeated because now I have to take in other people's ideas and now I'm not even excited about it no more because they start talking about accounting. You're talking about accounts payable and accounts receivables and contract. I'm not even excited about it anymore. But if you find yourself reluctant to share the ideas, you must be willing to ask yourself,

am I reluctant because I recognize that they're going to have to put some framework around this idea to make it something that has legal protection, to make it something that can be sustainable, and I'm reluctant to moving from the creative side of things into the more structured side of things. Is the issue with me or is it actually with them? Because it is easy to play the blame game instead of taking accountability for the ways that we may need to mature, so that the vision can be more than just a momentary or seasonal something within our industry, but rather something that actually has longevity. I think that you should boil down into why you're experiencing reluctancy so that you can move

into a place of reverence and receptiveness. I want to talk about moving from being rooted to routed. Okay, so this one, I'm going to try and say. the way that I heard it when I was speaking to the Lord, but your leadership cannot afford to be rooted. Now, I know that that made some people maybe kind of feel away in your spirit. Your identity should be rooted, but your leadership cannot afford to be rooted, which means that you're going to have to have clear separation between your identity as an individual and your role as a leader, which that feels like a completely different subject matter

within itself. But you need to have separation because your identity, that's your character. That's who you choose to be as a person of integrity. That's your morality. Those are your ethics. That must be rooted. But your leadership is not supposed to be rooted. It's supposed to be routed. Your leadership's got to be nimble. It's got to be able to move. It's got to be fluid. Your leadership must have a destination. And when we find out where leadership becoming rooted instead of routed, we should suspect that we are going to end up dissolving, not evolving. Blockbuster, rooted, and this idea of what their leadership had to be ignorant to the times around them. In leadership, where you're rooted is where you will rot.

Where you're rooted is where you will rot. Where you are unwilling to change, where you are unwilling to hear new ideas, where you are unwilling to understand what is effective and impactful for these times, you will rot. And we must be honest about the moments where we recognize that our leadership is becoming rooted. Maybe we are too tired. We've been at the wheel for a very long time and we're too tired to continue moving the ball down the field, moving and taking a pulse on market trends and industries. We've got to be honest when we're no longer having the momentum to route our leadership so that we can get the help and support of people who are willing to do that work.

But your leadership must be rooted, not routed. You can't be married to sameness. Success is not sameness. Success is sensitivity. Success is being able to sense the times. It's being able to understand what works and what doesn't work. If we are not careful, we will achieve a certain level of success and think to myself, now how do I keep a keep a lot of success?

on doing the same thing over and over again. Instead of asking ourselves, what was it that I became sensitive about in that moment that allowed me to produce that success in the first place? You are not here to reproduce the same results over and over again. You are here to be sensitive to recognize what is a result that is necessary for this time, for this room, for this audience. This is a perfect example. I could have come up here. I could have taken up here. I could have taken a text and I could have preached like we were at church or at woman evolve. And while I do believe that someone could have been blessed, the definition of success is different in this room than it is when I'm preaching on a Sunday.

The definition of success when I'm having a one-on-one encounter with my children is different than the definition of success when I'm in this room. Success is sensitivity to the moment. Success is sensitivity to the times. Success is sensitivity to who you're speaking to when you're having these moments where you're advocating for your ideas, for this vision God has given you. Success is sensitivity, not sameness. Which means that we have to be willing to move out of our autopilot mentality. Your leadership has to be willing to change with the times.

When we're flying a plane, the plane is on autopilot most of the time when we're on a plane. planes. But there are some moments where autopilot does not serve us in achieving our goals. And I want to talk a little bit because autopilot does serve a function. There are going to be moments within your organization specifically where you needed to be able to function on autopilot. You can't be so sensitive that you're constantly changing it. As a leader, you want to be sensitive so you have a bird's eye view of what's happening in the world, what's happening in your industry, what's happening with technology. You want to know how the world is moving, shaking, and growing.

But you also want to have a system that is on autopilot enough that your shifting doesn't necessarily throw everything off because what you sense is going to require a structure so you can't pivot every time you sense something new happening. You do need autopilot. But there are moments in the world, moments in industries, where you have to take your organization off of autopilot because you recognize that you're entering into uncharted territories.

There are some moments when autopilot doesn't serve you, and I want to make sure that as a leader, you're sensitive to these times. In these specific situations where your autopilot, your systems, your structures, your way of always doing things no longer works, is during takeoff and landing. On a plane, the autopilot is not on during takeoff and landing. And your organization, when you are launching or inviting a new initiative, a new product into your organization, you cannot afford to have your organization on autopilot. You're bringing in a new employee. I've recently made some key executive hires within my organization. And if I trusted autopilot, I would have hired them, put them in position, and left everything alone. But because I realize that any time you're introducing something new into your organization, it requires a certain level.

of sensitivity and care, you have to be present to make sure that what you see in the organization is what's actually happening in the organization because you cannot effectively achieve takeoff on autopilot. Oh, I feel this prophetically for somebody, but even as you're here that you're going to have to see this as a takeoff, you're going to have to see this as a launching, and you're going to have to be willing to go back home and wonder what systems do I have on autopilot, even as it relates to my own routines as it relates to the way that I'm showing up in the world. What do I have on autopilot that I'm going to have to disengage from autopilot and be present and sensitive in a way that allows me to experience takeoff? What am I going to have to change about the way that I'm

functioning? What am I going to have to change with my team as I'm launching this new idea? One of the things that I have seen happen in organizations time after time again is that they introduce a new idea but they don't do anything with the existing structure. And so we have employees that are overworked or we have balls that are dropped or other initiatives that end up failing because we introduce something new without changing the structure to accommodate that new thing that we brought in. So asking the question, who's going to be most impacted by this change? What support are you going to need in order to implement this vision? What do we need to do less of if we're going to do more of this? because we cannot expand other people's responsibilities,

we cannot expand the weight of what we're doing if we're not willing to also accommodate structure that allows for us to successfully lift this weight. There's another time in which autopilot no longer serves us in leadership, and that is when we are landing or off-boarding. When we are off-boarding certain systems or people or initiatives, when we're changing the way that we're showing up, Maybe we have been exclusively, I feel like for me within Woman Evolve that I'm experiencing

the duality of takeoff and landing, to be honest. Because I recognize that right now we have this, I would say a flagship annual event that most people are familiar with. But because we're in a unique stage within our organization and that we have an event that is, it's a little bit too small for regular stadiums, but it's too big for most arenas. Oh, this is okay. I know. And like, I don't even know if that sounds like an actual problem, but trust me, it's an actual problem.

I know that's not, trust me. Let me tell you why this is a problem. Because in order to put on a production in a stadium, the cost is crazy. And yet, we sold out of our event in the arena in one week. And in order to charge what we would have to charge in order to cover, having it in a stadium, that we'd be on the news. They would be like, who do they think they are? What is this about?

And so I realized that if God is going to continue to bless woman evolved to be who she is, I'm going to have to figure out ways that we can have touch points, ways that we can gather our arms around people that doesn't center around everyone trying to get into one room a weekend. That's an old model. And our goal is to send them out. not to bring them to us. And so how do we create content?

How do we continue to create events in different cities with different expressions that allow us to not figure out how do we accommodate one weekend, but to see ourselves as bigger than just an experience for a weekend, but as a brand, a companion, a coach, a partner for the lives of women. I'm having to revisit what I thought success was. I'm having to revisit what I thought our initiative was. And so we're going to take off into a new dimension, but I'm also going to have to land some of the other things we were doing in order to do that because I have a small team. And I can't say, hey, now we're still going to do the conference, but I want us to really begin focusing on creating content or I want us to do more experiences.

I realize that my team is taking everything they have to focus our energy towards this one specific event. And so as we're introducing new ideas and playing with what our expression is going to look like, I realize, that that's going to have to come at the expense of something or the expansion of something and being sensitive to what that looks like is a task. So y'all pray for me and don't judge me. Okay, I got eight minutes. We're going to have to move from this. This is what I really believe that is going to be helpful for us as we hone our leadership.

So far, just to recap, we've talked about moving from reluctancy to reverence, moving from reluctancy to being receptive to new ways of being, receptive to new ideas. We've talked about being rooted to routed in our leadership expression. And as we close, I want us to consider how do we bridge our remorse to resiliency? In Genesis 6, when the Lord looks at creation, in verse seven it says that the Lord said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth, both man and beast creeping thing and birds of the air,

for I am sorry that I have made them. So God has a plan for creation. He sets this plan in motion, and what God sets in motion doesn't look like what he anticipated. I hate to burst your bubble, but if God can have a plan that doesn't look like what he anticipated, nine times out of ten, ten times out of ten, you're going to have a plan that looks like a really good idea

if everyone would just play their part. And these people don't read their lines, they don't study. I gave you very specific instructions. And you are not aligned with the way you need to be aligned for, plan that I have. Have you ever had a plan that would work if everyone would just do what the bank was supposed to do what they was supposed to do? The audition was supposed to do what it was supposed to do, but nobody's playing their part. And God looks at me, he said, you know what, I am sorry that I have made them. But he does not say, you know what, I'm going to throw everything away. He found a piece

of favor in the plan. And he says, I'm going to work what worked. When your plan falls apart, If you walk away from the plan and think to yourself, I got to throw everything away because I didn't get the outcome I wanted. Instead of examining the plan to see what favor did work in this plan, and maybe I'll just work from what worked. He looks at Noah, and Noah found favor in his sight. That's something I can work with. Maybe your plan fell apart, but there was this one thing that did work. I was able to pay everyone on time. So maybe there is something on the administrative side that I did well.

I was able to motivate. I was able to fundraise. I was able to get people into the room. The production worked out well. You have to find the favor within the plan, even if the plan ended in failure. How do we move from remorse to resiliency? If God experienced it in his plan, you're going to experience it in your own.

When I started praying about our time together, God revealed to me that too many of us see our leadership as our identity. Not even our leadership. I will say our leadership outcome as a part of our identity. This is how you can tell whether or not you see your leadership outcome as connected to your identity. if a negative leadership outcome makes you feel bad about yourself, then your identity was connected to the outcome. If you say, I'm not smart, I'm not worthy, I don't have value, I don't have what it takes, then your identity is connected to the outcome in a way that is not healthy.

Because the flip side of that is that if you have a successful, outcome, now you feel good about yourself. And so now you are only able to have esteem that is based on your outcomes. And when your esteem is based on your outcome, you are not manufacturing products, initiatives, or ideas. You are manufacturing self-esteem. And if your leadership, if this idea is about manufacturing you, you are really the center of your organization.

It's not the idea that God gave you. It's not the product. It's not the nonprofit. It's really about how can we do something to make you feel better about who you are? You have to separate. Somebody is praying that I would shut up and that's not nice. Don't do that. That's not.

You got to be willing to separate your eyes. outcomes from your identities. There's any number of reasons why something could fail. There's any number of reasons why something doesn't look like what God told you. But if it always comes down to it being about you, then you need it to fail. Because it needs to be about the vision, not about you. And when you make it about the vision, it doesn't matter how many times it's, it's a lot of, it doesn't work or it kind of works or even fails, you get up and you try again because the vision

is more powerful than failure. God did not give up when the vision failed. If you look at the story of scripture time and time again, we see him putting a plan in action and us messing the plan up. God doesn't say, well, I must not be good because my plan don't work. He said, no, it's something wrong with them. But the vision is yet alive. So I keep working the vision until the vision looks like what I have in mind because the vision is not about my identity. The vision is about what is necessary in the earth. Your vision is necessary for the earth. It is not meant to heal your trauma.

It is not meant to be your boo. It is not meant to make up for the fact that life didn't pan out the way that you wanted to. Maybe you have the kids. Maybe you don't. Maybe you have the partner. and maybe you don't. This is not about making you feel better about you. Your vision is not meant to prop you up.

This vision is for the earth. God is trusting you with this vision for such a time as this. Do not make your outcomes about you. I grew up in church. They say, to God be the glory. When the vision works to God be the glory. When the vision doesn't work, to God be the glory. because God's going to get some glory even out of the moments that didn't work.

And when I was praying, God told me that in order for you to really be effective as a leader, that you are going to have to be resilient. You're going to have to be resilient in a world that may or may not see your value. In a world that may or may not affirm you in an industry that may think your ideas are too innovative for what we have. going, you're going to have to be resilient. Because the outcome is not about you. The outcome is about what is necessary in the earth. You are not always going to get it right.

You will have moments that feel like failure. Get comfortable with that. Because the failure is not your identity. And when you have experienced failure in the past and you have allowed it to define you, I want you to revisit those moments and separate those failures from your identity. You are not where you failed.

You are not less smart, less capable, less powerful because something didn't work out. Like I said before, there are any number of reasons for why something doesn't work. when you get to a space where you recognize that your identity is not connected to your outcome, you can be free. Free to create, free to dream, free to speak up in a meeting, free to take ownership, free to walk in your power, because you know who you are outside of the outcome.

My offering to you as you embark on this journey of leadership is to know who you are, and to know who you aren't. That is the greatest gift that you can give yourself as you hone yourself as a leader. I'm over time. Thank you.