Seasons of Character Building
The Setting
Many of the lessons in life begin before we know that we are being “taught”. Unfortunately, as an older man I have many such lessons to share. Many of which were good lessons that I enjoyed learning, but there were a few that almost broke me, and wreaked havoc on not only my life but those that were impacted from the fallout. Experience was gained and character was built as my son-in-law likes to say.
It is in the seasons of character building that you find out a lot about yourself, and about those in your circle that you can lean on and trust. You will question your skill, your relationships, your choices in life and possibly even your faith.
The Set Up
If you have waited until this point to plan for or prepare for such a time, you are likely in big trouble! You cannot in an instant manufacture a plan to deal with the assault, you are at the mercy of the situation. For many of us pride keeps us from even thinking about such a thing. I am too big, too good, too skilled, too blessed or even too smart for anything to happen to me.
It is at this point that the enemy has us right where he wants us! When I trust in my own strength, my own intellect, my own intuition alone, I am setting myself up for a fall. I am not saying we should not plan, nor strive to learn, improve and grow. What I am saying is that trust in myself alone will not take me very far.
Wisdom from others
There is an ancient African proverb that says “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together”! There is much wisdom in this saying. Ecclesiastes 4: 9-12 says “Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their labor: If either of them falls down, one can help the other up. But pity anyone who falls and has no one to help them up. Also, if two lie down together, they will keep warm. But how can one keep warm alone? Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. A cord of three strands is not quickly broken”.
Self-learned wisdom
The wisdom described above, for me has been costly. As a man, asking for help or admitting weakness or failure is taboo and discouraged. Yet, the men that penned those words, undoubtedly wrote them in relation to learnings of their own. My own learnings and reason for this post are spelled out in the title of this post. “CYOTI” is an acronym that I created after a particularly hard learning in my life. The acronym stands for “Cover Your Own Tail IDIOT”, and the events that spawned the creation of this acronym very nearly cost me my job and the reputations of many that were close to me, and that I admire.
The Story
Without sharing too many details, I can simply say that I was in a prominent position as a Continuous Improvement manager at one of the premier manufacturing facilities in my former company. I was leading a highly visible improvement project that had the potential to drastically reduce raw material usage, however the raw material was highly important to our product quality. I put my trust in others to assure that our improvement work was not going to negatively impact our quality.
You can probably guess where this is going! It very nearly led to the single largest product recall in the history of our company! As my son in law says, character was built, lots and lots of character. When the dust had settled, everything worked itself out. I still had my job, and our product was not impacted to the degree that required a recall. It was during this time that I learned what Solomon was talking about. What it meant to have people come along side me and become that three stranded cord or the brother to keep me warm. In the long run, God used this to grow me and through that help others through my learnings.
Humble Confidence
It sounds strange to use humility and confidence in the same heading, but the valuable lesson I learned from this character-building session, was humility, extreme humility. When you are faced with the fact that you are responsible for the position you are in, you have basically two choices. 1. Come to the end of yourself, humble yourself and learn from it, improve from it. 2. Blame others, shun your responsibility and harden your heart and mind to the learning.
You can move forward in confidence with your skill level, or your character, or whatever just took the hit. But you can’t if you don’t approach it in humility and understanding that you cannot do it alone. Especially during these times of character building, you need community, and people that will be honest with you and help you grow.
In Conclusion
Learn from this old guy, take the wisdom and the acronym and use it for your life. Cover Your Tail Idiot has served me well over the last years of my life. I used to have a boss that would say, “If the worst thing that could happen, happens to you, what are you going to do?”
Humble yourself, don’t think more highly of yourself than you should, and don’t be afraid to ask for help!
Thanks for playing along
Remember; “All of life is Ministry”!
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