“I am a wonderful parent!” I like to exclaim. Someone once told me so. So, who am I to disagree? Then I pondered the word: Wonderful. I realized; it is true I am a wonderful parent. I am full of wonder. I wonder if my kids are happy. I wonder if they are making good choices. I wonder what their careers will be like. I wonder how I could have done better. Yep, I am full of wonder especially when it comes to my parenting.
Indeed, I am a wonder-full parent!
All kidding aside, when I was asked to consider Faithful vs. Willful, I again asked myself what fills me personally? How do I approach my family and my business? Is it full of faith? Is it by my own will? I saw these two as opposing competitors in a tug-of-war battle, and I immediately scolded myself for being so strong-willed and for not constantly, “letting go, and letting God.” Recently, two of my pals came for a visit, and we started praying for our families, especially the children still living at home. That is when we realized we each had a son named Will. We chuckled and asked God for extra strength as we attempt to guide our determined young men. We also asked God to forgive us when we let our own strong will get in the way of His plans.
There is wisdom in this prayer for sure. After all, these are God’s children, so we need to parent accordingly and seek God’s will for their lives. Our companies also belong to God, so we need to lead them as such. Even our days are gifts from God, so I want to do my best to ensure He guides my actions. That said, I worry that I and my “Christian-ease” friends may sometimes swing that pendulum too far. We can be so busy “trusting in God’s timing,” we can forget about obedience. I coach sales teams and sometimes hear, “God will provide” as some sort of substitute for not making cold calls or setting up client appointments. Perhaps we should celebrate, not shun, our determination to work hard and be strong-willed.
Grit, tenacity, resilience, determination, stubbornness, doggedness, whatever you call it, I have it to a fault. I am the one person I know who has been down in a tennis match 6-0, 5-0 and has come back to win.
I was playing in a real tournament for the first time when I was about 12 years old. I loved tennis (still do) and had been playing for a while but had never actually registered as a competitor and played in a tournament. My dad thought it would be a good experience. My mom was befuddled by the ten-dollar registration fee, “Why does it cost ten dollars when the balls, a t-shirt, and the court time are not even included? What does the ten dollars cover?”
Of course, I laugh now as I know people who have spent $32,000 a year on their children achieving USTA rankings, traveling to God knows how many cities for sanctioned tournaments, and enrollment into elite tennis academies. But for us, at that time, $10 was the family conversation, and quite frankly, it was getting on my nerves. I was excited to compete in my first tournament. Initially, to be a part of the hustle and bustle of dozens of girls heading out to many different courts was exciting. Yet, the ten dollars dominated my thoughts. In my match, I found myself down 6-0, 5-0. Ugh. How could I go home now? I would never hear the end of it. I just had to stretch out the match. So, I tried to make each point last longer, just keeping the ball in play. ” I simply wanted to stay on the court. Eventually, all the courts around us finished, and the girls went home. Later, the tournament organizer went home. The sun went down. The lights came on. We kept playing. I continued getting one more shot back. I became so tired that I relied on my opponent to keep the score. We went to a third set. Eventually, she was so tired that she looked at our dads to tell her the score. I kept hitting one more shot. The match was a fight to the end, and somehow when we completed the final point and jogged to the net to shake hands, I was the winner.
Surprisingly, I didn’t care about the match victory as I knew I had uncovered something deep inside me that was more important. I learned that I didn’t know how to give up.
In fact, persistence or strong will is the single factor for any success I have personally enjoyed in my career. As a Convene Chair, coaching Christian business owners, I know that the difference between those who succeed and those who don’t often has little to do with skills, brilliance of the idea, investment dollars, etc. Success is often the result of simply not giving up.
I started my company, SourceHarbour, in 2003. At that time, we had only $4,000 worth of revenue and were being sued by a $1.8B company. The company leaders spent $500,000 suing us because we “were putting them out of business”. Talk about a bad day!
By the end of the week, my legal bill was over $25,000. I called my investors and let them know what was happening. Immediately, they all told me to give up and to tend to my family. They did not care about their financial loss as their investments had been small. They knew I had done nothing wrong. The more supportive they were and the more they cared more about me as a person, the more I wanted to fight to save the company and the less I wanted to throw in the towel.
Three months later, the lawsuit still consumed us and finally settled, leaving me with a $384,000 legal bill.
We didn’t have the resources to continue the fight all the way until we won back legal fees and damages. However, in a sense, we did WIN because we survived. The real victory was that we went on to build SourceHarbor into a company that served thousands of clients across fourteen countries. When I finally sold it years later, it was the best performer in my key investor’s portfolio, and I personally afforded myself the opportunity to be a stay-at-home mom for six years with my three children.
In sum, grit, tenacity, perseverance, resilience, and success all come from the desire and ability to stay the course…being willful!
What about faithfulness? I wish I could tell you I won that tennis match because I had hope, I knew I could do it, I saw victory in the middle of defeat. That wasn’t it. I never once thought, “I can win this thing. Nevertheless, in everything I do, I know God is with me. I am not alone. He goes before me and desires for me to be successful. My faith in Him is the most real thing in my life. So faithful and willful are not competitors. Rather, I like to see them as collaborators. Sometimes, my faith serves as the guardrail for my strong will empowering me to stay the course for God’s plan in my life.
What makes these two work well together? How do I fill myself with faith…and do so without becoming lazy? How do I allow my will and determination to blossom as endurance…and do so according to God’s plan and not my own? For me, it is gratitude. I am grateful God is worthy of my faith. I have gratitude that He created me with a strong will.
In the past two years (even during COVID), I have spoken to 57 groups of CEOs conducting workshops largely on gratitude. I know from experience and have read numerous scientific studies confirming that gratitude and anxiety cannot coexist in the brain at the same time. So, I personally practice gratitude and can benefit from its ability to reduce my stress hormones and manage autonomic nervous system functions like breath and heartbeat. The result is a more engaged, productive, and connected me. Indeed, what fills us, fuels us. My memory verse for this week (no “coincidence”) is Proverbs 4:23 “Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.” So when my flesh wants to choose negativity or worry about the circumstances, I turn to gratitude for what God has done, which gives me faith in what is to come.
Ecclesiastes 4:12 tells us, “though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves”. A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.” God, may I be a cord made up of faithful, willful, and grateful strands!
About the Author
Bea Wray
Bea is a Convene Chair and is an entrepreneur who has founded several companies, some of which have suffered long, painful deaths, while one had an exceptional exit affording Bea the privilege of being a stay-at-home mom for six years. Along the way, she has consulted with more than 300 companies across 24 countries. Bea served as Chair of the Entrepreneurship Practice Group at ForbesBooks and as the Executive Director of The Creative Coast, a regional non-profit building the innovation economy in Savannah, Georgia. She hosted TEDxCreative Coast and the innovation conference known as GeekEnd.