365. How to Lead When You Don't Have all the Answers

[lips smack] Uh, many years ago, we had been in California not that long, and we went back for our first trip, ministry trip back to New Zealand.

And Andy and I were doing a dream culture course.

We, we had three days of about 150 people in the room, teaching them what does it look like to find out the dreams of your heart and to pursue those.

And as we were doing that three days, I felt totally comfortable in front of 150 people talking about dreaming.

But we had a meeting planned the day after these three days that was to be with one wealthy business person.

And e- each evening after the conference, I would say to Andy, "Oh, this conference is fine, but I don't want to do that meeting.

Are you sure I should come?" He was like, "Yes, I'm pretty sure you should come." And I felt inside myself that I should go, but the businessman I knew was wealthy, and I knew he was successful, and at that time we had zero money coming in, literally, and we didn't-- I f- I didn't feel very successful, and I had no business experience, and I was kept thinking, "Well, I'm tw- totally unqualified to be in this meeting." [lips smack] Well, the last day of the conference came, and o- one of our last sessions we gave a Q&A time.

And for some reason, I remember I was standing up there answering questions, and a gentleman in the conference asked me, "Hey, Janine, you have told us the story of coming from a place of zero self-confidence to where you are now, and how was it? How do you, how did you transition from no confidence to being confident in the Lord?" And I can remember, you know, giving him some of my tips and tools and then saying, "But actually, in every moment I have to choose to believe that who I am is enough because He is inside me." Well, Andy's sitting on the front row, and he knows I've been struggling with not feeling like I'm enough to go into the meeting the next day, and he says, "Say it again, honey." So I was like, "I have to choose to believe that who I am is enough." [lips smack] And something resonated on the inside of me, like that's the key.

So I'm feeling disqualified, and I'm feeling like I don't know what I've got to offer this wealthy, successful business person.

And we turn up, and I'm like, "Who I am is enough.

Who I am is enough because He lives inside of me." So we get up to his office, and he tells us his business pedigree.

He's all the fancy things he's done, the businesses he started.

He was also, uh, involved with government, involved with national level sporting things, and, and he tells us this whole pedigree, and it's pretty impressive.

In fact, he whiteboards it for us in his home office.

Then he turns to Andy and he asks him, "Well, you know, what have you got to offer? Who, who are you and what have you done?" And Andy tells him, "You know, I was a bank manager and I was a consultant and I've done this and I've done that." And you could tell he was somewhat impressed.

Well, obvious- the next obvious thing is to turn to me, and so he turns to me and I was honest and I said, "You know, listen, I have a degree in physiology and anatomy.

That's what I've done.

I did some adult education, and then I've been raising our four kids and here's what I'm doing now." [lips smack] And you could literally, as I sat and watched him, I could see him mentally pushing me to the side.

Uh, you have nothing to offer.

You, you are disqualified.

You're unqualified to be in this conversation.

And in that moment I had a choice to make, and often we, we are in that place and we have a choice, and one of two things usually happens.

Either we pull back and just agree with somebody else's assessment and say, "Yep, you're right.

I'm unqualified to be doing what I'm doing, and I'll pull back and I'll just let everybody else, uh, take over the conversation or take over the project or take over my role, and I will pull back and become nothing." [lips smack] Or we're determined to prove them wrong and we lean in and we, we lean in too much and we're determined to try and prove ourselves and we overcompensate and then we're pushing in and, and then it comes across really bad.

And so I, I kind of in that moment looked at those two options and went, "No, I, if who I am is enough, if the Lord has put me in this room, then I can't do either of those things.