Session 9 – What If I’m Near The End Of My Career?

Action Step

No action step for this session.

Session Transcript

Welcome back to another session of Guidestone University!

In this session I just want to spend a few minutes talking about the question, “What if I’m the near end of my career? How can personal plan can help me? Do I have a lot of runway to make a difference?” And I want to say to unequivocally, yes. Absolutely. You can see significantly progress in your life and in your work and in your leadership, whether you’re retired, whether you’re near in retirement, or if in what you believe were some of the best days of your career and you have some of the best days of your career ahead.

So, the question for us is, how does it help me especially if I’m near in the end of my career? You’ve heard me say this before, it’s the quote that I heard  Andy Stanley say several years ago, “Your greatest legacy may not be something that you do or you become in your life or in your work, but it may be something that your kids or your grandkids or someone that you mentor or someone that you spent significant time with, something that they do or they become in their life and in their work.”

And for that reason, as we think about how we want our life and work to matter and how we want to be remembered by those closest to us, we can make a significant  difference even if we just have months or few years left. That make sense?

Let me tell you a quick story that may help with this. My wife would tell you and many people that know me well would tell you that, that until I was about thirty-three years old I had a terrible relationship with my mom.  I had the kind of relationship that I would not wish on my worst enemy. It was a bad relationship. Not because she’s a bad person, she’s one of the hardest working people that I’ve ever met in my life, and that’s probably the reason why I worked so hard and I’m so focused in my work.

And so, growing up, my goal was to try and figure out how to get my mom to prove what I was doing or even accept me and love me for who I am and what I am doing. She was really hard on me.

I was the oldest boy in my family, and there came a time – I was working in Northern Virginia, and we made the decision to leave Northern Virginia and move back to Florida.

And I had a conversation with my mom. We sat down in our living room and I said to her, “We are leaving this area. We are living the state because of you.”

We tried having that conversation with a parent. We’re leaving the state because our relationship cannot get any better while we are here, while we are close to you. That’s a tough conversation to have. And that day, something happened. Something started in my mom that has allowed her to make progress, not only her relationship with me, but in her relationship with scores of other people.

And today, years later, more then 10 years later, we have the best relationship that we’ve ever had in her lifetimes.

So, if you have relationships or key areas, significant areas in in your life or in your work or even in your leadership, that you haven’t been able to get significant traction in it, maybe your entire life, entire career, working through personal plan will help you as you encourage and lead other people. You can still make a difference no matter where you are placed in life. Got it? Now here’s the best thing about this session, there are no action plans. So, you can take a break.

And we’ll see you on the next session of Guidestone University.[/text_block]