3 Steps To Share Your Gifts With The World

Over the last couple months, we’ve explored how you might know what you can offer the rest of the world and why you would even want to share it.  If you don’t think you have much to offer or you don’t know what those things are, go back and read this article.  We explored 4 questions you can answer to determine what you do have to offer.  This month, let’s explore the next level to this question.  How do you share your value with others?

Just because you have a gift or talent or message that could benefit others, and just because you recognize the value of sharing it, it’s not going to be valuable to anyone until you find ways to release it into their lives.  So, while identifying is good, you must go a step further and release what you’ve found.  That will require building and executing a plan.  For some, this is an exhilarating prospect, for some, it’s paralyzing.  Whether you’re in the camp of the former or the latter, or somewhere in between, let me offer you three simple steps to share your value with others.

Step 1: Write down a plan of action.  I’ll cut to the chase.  If you think it and never write it down, it’s not a plan.  It’s wishful thinking and not much will come of it. For you to truly share your value with others, you’ll need a written plan to follow.  Your plan should include answers to questions like, “What will I offer?”, “Who will I offer it to?”, “How will I deliver it?” and “When will I deliver it?”.  I have a good friend who decided, earlier this year, that she had a message she wanted to share with other women.  She had never done anything like it before, but she got serious about it and came up with a plan.  She knew of a women’s conference that was taking applications for breakout speakers.  She had never done any public speaking before, but she knew she had a message to share, so she applied to be one of those speakers.  Speaking at that conference was her plan to share the value she knew she had to offer.

Step 2:  Put in the work it takes to deliver real value.  Just because you have a message or a God-given gift to share, does not mean you’re ready to share it.  To be ready to share what you’ve got with anyone in a meaningful way, you’ll need to put in some serious work.  Back to my friend.  She applied to speak at the conference and she was accepted.  That was the plan. But, she had a lot of work to do to get from knowing she had a message to share, to being able to share it in a way that was going to make a real difference in people’s lives.  Since she had not done any public speaking, she found someone to coach her through the process of building her message and preparing to deliver it.  This was a process that took place over a couple of months with dozens of hours of preparation.  It was not easy work, but it paid off in a big way for the dozens of women who benefitted from the message she shared with them.  Imagine if she would have shown up unprepared.  What a wasted opportunity that would have been.  As you build your plan to share your value with others, don’t skip the hard work you’ll need to put in to be truly ready to give your best.

Step 3:  Follow through, despite your fears.  This is all about accountability.  I can assure you that if you build a plan and get yourself prepared, when it comes down to sharing what you have with others, you’ll feel incredible fear.   That’s why you must build accountability into your plan.  One last check-in with my friend.  She had a good plan and she prepared well.  That did not exempt her from fear.  Part of her plan she worked up with her coach was to rehearse her message out loud in front of others.  The day before, she rehearsed in front of a friend and the night before she was to speak at her session, she delivered her talk out loud in front of her husband.  Talk about nerve-racking!  Luckily, she’s got a good friend and a great husband and they both gave honest and constructive feedback.  One of the pieces that helped her follow through with her plan to share her value with others was that she had accountability built in.  She told her coach she would share it live before she delivered it at the conference.  She also was committed to delivering the message at the conference.  Her name was printed on the schedule and there was no turning back.  That is a good thing.  How many of us have turned back in the face of fear, simply because we could?  It’s easy to make plans when emotions are high and you’re fired up.  It’s also easy to abandon your plans when you’re accountable to only yourself.  Don’t make this mistake.  Build accountability into your plan so you will follow through, despite the fear that certainly will come.

Just like my friend who spoke to those women that day, you too have incredible value to share with others.  She saw dozens of women impacted by the message she shared.  Several even asked her to mentor them, as a result.  What kind of value could you bring to people?  You’ll never know until you build and execute a plan to share it.

If you’re ready to get started now, I would love to help you begin building that plan by utilizing some highly effective coaching tools. Just click here to get started on your journey to living out your dreams and bringing great value to others.  When you’re ready, I'll be ready to help you get there.

Punch Your Fears In The Face (excerpt from my upcoming new book)

Have you ever been afraid?  Have you ever doubted yourself?  I'm in the final stages of a book manuscript that covers a time in my life where I was very afraid and I doubted myself very much.  I sure didn't do everything right, but I did a few things right.  Below is an excerpt from my book manuscript.  This is one thing I did right.  I was bold and punched my fear in the face.  I hope this is inspiring to you today.

From my upcoming, yet untitled, book:

Making a difference in the world is fairly broad job description.  That was going to take some focus.  Like I’ve said before, one of the best ways to decide who you are is to decide who you are not.  It’s process of elimination and it takes effort, risk and some time.  As Summer turned to Fall in 2012, I was mowing less grass and picking up more leaves.  It’s the nature of the landscaping business.  As I spent those countless hours with a leaf blower strapped to my back and earplugs in my ears, it was just God and me for most of the day.  I knew I wasn’t to quit on life.  I knew God had a purpose for me to make a difference as a coaching leader.  But how would God accomplish that work through me?  I was still very unclear on that.   There were a couple fundamental questions I needed to answer.  The first was, which arena would I be making this difference in?  The previous 18 years of my life had all centered around church ministry.  My only real career had been church ministry.  But, just months out of the biggest ministry disaster and personal pain I had ever endured, did I want to dive back into ministry?  This was a real question I had to explore.  I prayed about that often.  I talked with Sara about it often.  I confided in her that sometimes I wondered if church leaders were second-rate leaders who couldn’t really make it in the business world.  Maybe those guys were the real rock stars.  I just didn’t know, but I was curious enough to venture into the business world, just a little. 

I saw a listing for openings for Farmers Insurance.  Of course, there are always openings like these.  It’s the business model for some insurance companies.  They interview as many people as they can, tell them all they can have their own business, train them and set them up as agents, all the while, knowing that 90% plus will fail.  But, the 10% who stick will make the company and themselves some good money.  I guess it’s a good business plan, except for the 90% who feel like failures on the back end.  I guess that’s a different story for a different time.

So, with the understanding of what I was interviewing for, I took an opportunity to be bold.  I showed up for my interview at a small mid-town office with a District manager named Kirk.  He was a good guy and I could tell he had been, himself, a successful agent.  He started with the normal spiel about how successful I could be and how I was “just the kind of person they were looking for.”  When he asked me for my thoughts I told him I was not at all the kind of person they were looking for, but I was the kind of person they needed.  He was a bit taken aback but seemed intrigued enough to not ask me to immediately leave.  He asked me to elaborate.  I proceeded to tell him that I hated sales.  I would never be good at it because I didn’t want to be good at it.  If the only job openings they had was for more people to sell more insurance, our conversation was over.  He was still listening so I went on to tell him that what I could bring to his team was almost 20 years of leadership experience and an understanding and passion for a coaching style of leadership.  “Imagine how much more insurance your agents could sell if they had a coach who could help them be their best.”, I said.  He put his hand up, much like Simon Cowell does when he's heard enough of an awful American Idol audition.  I stopped my pitch.  “It’s very interesting that you would show up here today with this coaching thing in mind.  It just so happens that Farmers has a program just like that set to launch in a couple test markets very soon.” 

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As it turned out, Farmers Insurance also suspected their agents could perform better if they were being coached.  Kirk told me that he would really like to hire me, but his district, unfortunately, was not one of the test markets, but he had a friend who was over the East Tulsa district and that was one of the test markets.  He made a call to his friend, Cory, about this strange guy who showed up for a sales interview squawking about coaching. I left there without a job offer, but I did have another interview scheduled and this time it was for a job I could actually see myself doing.  But much more importantly, I left that day with a new confidence in myself.  I was more than just a church leader.   I held my own with these business guys just fine.  It was a liberating and invigorating feeling. 

Here's what you need to notice.  Don't miss this or you miss it all.  That liberation and invigoration came only after I faced my fear and walked it down.  I pray that this will inspire you to walk your fears down.  Imagine who you can become on the other side of fear . . .

The Great Unknown Is Just The Future Version Of The New Normal. Fear Not.

Why do most of us fear the unknown?  Isn’t the unknown just the future version of the new normal?  

In 2003, my wife gave birth to twin boys.  They were premature and spent four weeks in the hospital gaining weight and stabilizing.  I recall the fear I felt as I drove home from work the first day that our babies were home with us after we left the hospital. They were our responsibility now.  No nurses to do the job when we felt overwhelmed.  Just Sara and I.  Thirteen years later, we’ve added two more boys to the mix and I can’t imagine not having a house full of kids.  It’s the new normal.

In July of 2009, I walked the parking lot of an East Tulsa hotel.  The gravity of the move I was about to make hit me.  I was about to move my family from a stable life we knew well in Pennsylvania to a completely unknown and new life in Oklahoma.  The fear inherent in all the questions hit me hard that night.  What if this new endeavor we’re jumping into in Tulsa fails?  What if this experience hurts or even scars my kids for life?  What if this puts a strain on our marriage that we can’t recover from?  Is this something a responsible – or even sane – man does?  We moved in December of 2009.  After seven of the most challenging and most growing years ever, we love living here and wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.  It’s the new normal.

Change is usually scary, but not often fatal.  In time, the things you may fear the most become your new normal.  The mistake we often make is to run from the fear at the decision point.  If we do that, we never know what could have been.  If we can find the fortitude to lean into that fear, no matter what the outcome, the thing we feared the most becomes the new normal . . . in a surprisingly short period of time.  Is there a decision or move you should make, but fear is holding you back?  Of course, I’m talking about a decision where the cost has been counted and you’re convinced it’s a good and right decision, not a flippant gut-level decision.  If you’ve done your homework, and you are truly convinced it’s right, lean into your fear.  Isn’t the unknown just the future version of the new normal?  

I’d love to hear your story, as it relates to this topic.  Will you share it?