Leadership Summit - Day Three
Last two sessions this morning definitely were a great climax to a great Summit. I had never heard Wayne Cordeiro, but he was a very engaging speaker. Again no need for me to summarize when Tony Morgan and a lot of others have done it.
Dead Leader Running: Wayne's experience of impending nervous breakdown & burnout connected with me as I experienced much of the same thing last summer. It was at a different level of intensity, but the feeling of having a heart attack, numbness in my arm, twitching and numbness in my face, difficulty breathing. My wakeup came when I was in Seattle and thought I so sure I was having a heart attack, I called for an ambulance and spent 6 hours in the ER with nothing found. A great pastor friend of mine, Tony Liston, was the one who told me, "Dude, you are having an anxiety attack." It was his counsel into my life and the counsel of a psychologist friend, Tom Colbert, that helped me begin the road back to health.
Couple of things Wayne mentioned that I needed to hear - again. Let me add from my experience...
1) I can't forget the disciplines that brought me back to health and are keeping me there. It is so easy, when you start feeling better (and better than before the anxiety attack) - that you start slacking off of the basic disciplines that brought you back to health such as adequate sleep, protecting a sabbath, exercise, daily quiet times, and "filling your tank" as Wayne spoke.
2) Look to the horizon and know when you are coming up on a season of intensity in your schedule and prepare/plan for it. Just like a marathon runner knows the race is coming and prepares physically and mentally. We need to look ahead and know when the intense times will be coming and then prepare physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. We also need to plan for some "downtime" after the intense season. A time to just shutdown and download in a time of rest and carefree fun (doing whatever you would consider carefree fun). There is a strategic reason a presidential candidate will escape for several days after the presidential race. They have been running an intense schedule and they put into their strategy a planned time of escape and downtime.
A relative side note here...we are entering into a building campaign. My schedule began to pick up intensity the first of June and it will continue to increase in the pace and intensity all the way through October 15. Sandy and I are already planning a get-away with Jessica when it is all over.
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