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2012 Word of the Year Finale – RISK.

January 30, 2013 in All About Andy, Change, Life, Story, Success with 6 Comments

A little background on me.

For sake of context, it’s important for you to know a little more about me. Immediately out of college, I worked at a church helping reach children in their neighborhood in urban core of Kansas City, Missouri. During these two years, Kia and I lived and worked in this neighborhood, and we came into contact with hundreds of kids. However, it was about 25 or so regulars that I formed a really strong bond with.

Andy circa 1997

Over the years, I’ve continued to keep in contact with a handful of these kids (Facebook has really helped). However, most of the children from 15+ years ago, I have no idea where they are, what they are up to or if they are even still alive.

Introducing Trey.

The Friday before Christmas, I was back in the neighborhood. I was there to work to distribute food to the needy. This church connects with various organizations helping hundreds of people in the Kansas City, Missouri area. I led a group of people helping put together these Baskets of Love.

While unloading a truck of food, I was shocked to see one of my regulars – Trey.

Amazingly, Trey, other than a foot or two of growth and tattoos up and down his arms & neck, looked like the same person he was at 9 years old. Looks can be deceiving though. Trey was no longer a child (of course at 24, I didn’t expect it), but Trey had stopped being a child years before.

Trey and I spent the next hour or so reconnecting. He told me his story.

Trey and his brother in silly hats (Trey is on the right).

For the past several months, Trey has lived a clean life, but the years before it was shootings, drugs, robberies, jail and prison. Trey has already spent a fourth of his life in jail. It’s not what he, his family or I envisioned for his life.

A sobering encounter.

Walking away from the conversation, I was struck by a two thoughts.

1. I reap what I sow.

It’s a law of life which seems so simple. It’s so simple we lose how profound it really is.

You reap what you sow.

Trey has been living a clean life for almost a year, but his past sticks with him. He can’t find a good job. He wants to marry his girlfriend who is pregnant with his child, but he doesn’t have the money. He doesn’t have a complete education. His friends dropped him when he went to prison. The list goes on and on.

With someone like Trey, the law of sowing and reaping seems obvious. In our lives, we miss it if we don’t look carefully.

In 2011, I learned to live intentionally (in order have FREEDOM). The law of sowing and reaping is all about living intentionally. What I do today effects my life tomorrow. There is no way around this.

2. RISK is not glamorous.

My 2012 Word of the Year was RISK. Last year, Kia and I made a lot of decisions that are scary. I learned there isn’t much glamour in these scary, risky, but right decisions.

Trey made decisions that were stupid (he admits this plainly). In one instance, he got mad at someone, and fired a gun into a house. Thankfully, no one was hurt. It was RISK, and it was exciting. It was something you expect to see in a movie, but it wasn’t the kind of RISK that changes a life for the better.

A RISK that improves your life doesn’t get books written or movies made. In fact, people around you – the ones closest to you – may question your integrity or sanity or character. There is no glamour in that.

In the end, you and you alone must decide if a decision is right. Again…no glamour in that.

2013. A new year. A new word.

2012, and my Word of the Year in 2012 – RISK – is done. But if I’ve learned anything about my experience with FREEDOM in 2011, I’m hardly done taking RISKs.

Now that it’s 2013, I’ve chosen a new Word of the Year – TRANSFORM. I hope you’ll choose a word for 2013 too. I promise, it will change your life.

New Beginnings

January 15, 2013 in Accomplishing Goals, All About Andy, Family, Growth with 2 Comments

Fresh.

For multiple reasons, I am really looking forward to 2013. It’s new. It’s fresh. It’s a new beginning.

2013 also is a culmination of events, decisions and journey I’ve been on for the past 2 years. I refer, of course, to my Word of the Year project.

In 2012 I completely and wholly lived my word – RISK. Here is just a short list of the RISKs Kia and I took in 2012:

After months of deliberation and various options, Kia stepped out of her family business.
Kia started a new business.
I decided this (The Collective) was not my full-time future (leaving me without another true vocational option).
I accepted the same position, in the same church I had worked at 8 years earlier. How is this RISK? It’s a church in the midst of serious decline. If it doesn’t turn around, very soon I may not have a job.
Kia and I took the first steps toward moving from our current home/studio to be closer to the church 30 minutes away.
We’ve made some really tough relationship decisions.

Everywhere I look, the present or future looks much different from the past 5-10 years.

Open Space.

Why do I tell you all of this? It’s my way of encouraging you to create your own Word of the Year project. It has changed my life in ways I never saw coming.

I firmly believe there is a God. I believe there is a God who loves me, wants the best for me, and wants to connect with me. I believe God used the Word of the Year project to bring me to a place where I fulfill the call and destiny in my life.

In 2012 my word was RISK. In 2011 my word was FREEDOM. Interestingly, the way I’ve learned and grown from both of these words is different. As I stated above, 2012 was a year of action. I was taking RISK. However, 2011 was much different.

2011 was a year of learning – hearing God speak to me. I know, this may sound crazy to you, but He does speak. He speaks to me in various ways – YouTube videos, circumstances, people, conferences, books, and more. He never talked in an audible voice, but He spoke like a thought in my head…an A HA! moment.

Maybe the most significant time I heard His voice was very early in 2011. I read a portion of the Bible from the book of Genesis. It was the story of Isaac (son of Abraham).

Isaac was very rich, but he had moved about as a nomad. His wealth was in the form of livestock. This livestock required lots of water, which meant he needed wells. As he moved about, he would find a well, but it was always disputed. Who owned it – Isaac or his neighbor? So he would simply drop the dispute and move on. Finally, after multiple wells (and arguments) he found a well that no one else claimed. To note this, he named the place the well was found Open Space.

This was the first lesson I learned about FREEDOM. Freedom is finding open and undisputed space. I shared about it here on The Collective in March of 2011.

It’s just the beginning.

Why do I bring this story up? Choosing a Word of the Year is more than just 2013. It’s about the rest of your life. It’s about this year and next year and the year after that.

The first FREEDOM lesson I learned 2 years ago, I am just seeing come to pass. Finding open space (FREEDOM) meant taking RISK. It was the list I ticked off above.

All this brings me to 2013 – my new Word of the Year.

TRANSFORM

I’ve come to understand I don’t really have a clue about what this means specifically. What I know is in general. As I stated above, my 2013 Word is a culmination of the last two years. Finding FREEDOM and taking RISK will take me from who I was/who I am to TRANSFORM me into who I will be.

My prayer is true TRANSFORMation will take place in my life in 2013.

I have don’t know what this means. I don’t know what all it includes (my job, The Collective, my family, etc), but I’m all in.

What is your Word of the Year?

Will you join me? Will you create your own Word of the Year project? Will you take steps to change your life for the better?

I dare you. Go all in. You won’t be the same.

Greatness (or how to handle a new life).

November 14, 2012 in Accomplishing Goals, All About Andy, Books, Business, Life with 5 Comments

Dealing with a new life.

I’ve found myself struggling with the strangest things since recently taking a position at my home church.

An example

The church is 30 miles from our home. Kia and I both drive gas-hogging SUVs. For our own sake, we needed to purchase a more economical car. I went back and forth between super inexpensive and a little more luxurious.

I finally fell on a little more luxurious – a used 2001 Infiniti with 157,000 miles. I probably paid a little too much for what I really needed, and this is part of my struggle.

I’ve lived in a world where my greatness, my status, my worth has been found in things like the car I drive. It’s funny how important, truly non-important things are in life.

I might act like I don’t worry about amount of followers I have on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, but I do.

It doesn’t…or at least it shouldn’t…matter. It has.

What is greatness?

I just finished reading the book Who Is This Man? by John Ortberg. Ortberg challenges the preconceived ideas we have about who Jesus of Nazareth really is and was.

An entire chapter outlines why Jesus wasn’t a great man. Here are the opening words about greatness + Jesus:

Jesus was not a great man.

There are two ways to think about a meaningful life, says Georgetown University professor Francis Ambrosio. One is the way of the hero, the other is the way of the saint. In the Greco-Roman world, what was admired was the hero. A hero is somebody who overcomes obstacles to achieve his full potential of excellence and therefore to receive status, honor and recognition. Life is striving for this recognition.

Doesn’t sound too different from the American ideal does it? Pull yourself up by your bootstraps, overcome all challenges, maximize your strengths, minimize your weaknesses and achieve… (you fill in the blank).

Personally, I add on my natural pre-disposition to achieve and fall into the trap of measuring my greatness/hero status based on the car I drive, the number of Twitter followers I have, or how much I sold in October.

For the past few years, all of these things have defined my status – my greatness.

RISK + FREEDOM = GREATNESS?

My word for 2011 was FREEDOM. My word for 2012 is RISK. Consider my last post the summary of what I’ve learned about RISK so far, but let me add to it a few more words.

RISK is the willingness to define what it means to be great in different terms.

Back to Jesus for a moment, On the night he most needed served, he became the lowest on the totem pole – the foot washing servant. He washed the feet of those who were his students, followers…his fans.

It didn’t stop there. Adding insult to injury, Jesus knowingly washed the feet of a close friend who literally minutes later would leave to sell him out to his enemies (Judas). All of this Jesus knew.

That was humility. That was not any culture’s definition of greatness.

That was a risk. It led to true, impacting freedom.

FREEDOM and RISK are held closely together. It’s hard to take true risk if you aren’t free. It’s near impossible to find freedom without taking risk.

Being great versus doing great.

Maybe what I’m learning right now is how others perceive me just isn’t important. As obvious and basic as it sounds, it’s a hard truth to realize. My greatness will never be determined by what I achieve. My greatness will be because of the great things I do with what I’ve achieved, and it may not look all that impressive to the world around me.

This week I heard the story of a college professor who began a lecture by asking her students to write on a piece of paper a one sentence description of what they would be doing in 10 years. “I am…”

The answers were exactly what you would expect of any 18-25 year old:

I own my own business, have developed a name in my profession and have 1500 Twitter followers and 5000 Facebook fans.

The teacher asked a few students to share their dreams, and then she moved on to her lecture for the day.

At the end of the class she asked a very similar question, only this time she asked her students to write down what would be said of them in 60-70 years at their funeral. Again, they wrote very typical responses:

Andy was a man who loved and invested in his children and others around him. He lived what he “preached”. He made a difference in the world he lived in.

The professor asked a few students to share their answers, and again several read their hopes aloud. Finally this teacher asked her students to compare the first answer with the second answer, and asked this question:

Does the first piece of paper get you any closer to the dream you have on the 2nd piece of paper?

The answer was obvious.

No. My car, my Twitter followers, my status, my achievements means nothing if what I am doing with what I have been given don’t lead to greatness…true greatness.

How I went “Back to the Future”

October 25, 2012 in All About Andy, Change, Life, Story with 5 Comments

Ummm…it’s been a while.

It has been exactly 31 days since my last post. One month. In blog time, it’s like a million years.

Let me share what is happening in my world.

Back to the Future

I’m moving into the future, looking back at my past.

Growing up, one of my favorite movies was Back to the Future starring Michael J Fox. I’m sure you’ve seen it, but it’s the story of a teen who time travels to the past, meets the teenage versions of his mother and father, saves their relationship, and fights to return unharmed to the future.

On September 24th, I started a new job. Not exactly new – I stepped back into the past. And not a job exactly…

I became the children’s pastor at my home church – Cross Points Church in Shawnee, Kansas. For those of you who have not read The Collective’s About Page, I was a full-time Christian minister for 10 years. I left that “world” to work with my wife, Kia Bondurant, and her family in the photography industry.

This is not what I was planning, thinking or heading.

Why the change?

So…why? I’ve been thinking about this question for a while, and I’ve come up with 4 answers.

These are the 4 reasons I made a HUGE change in my life, but they are also reasons why you might make changes (big or small) in your life.

1. I was open to change.

Most people believe in the concept of change. Here’s the catch…change means DOING something different. Most people don’t like that part of change.

After joining my wife’s family business 8 years ago, I worked directly with them for 6 of those years. 18 months ago I started The Collective. From the beginning, I knew The Collective had to become either a viable business or a hobby (sound familiar?).

Fast forward 1 year. The Collective was a big success in some ways (more and more people were finding and reading, sponsors and advertisers were interested, people were finding value in the content), but it was apparent it wasn’t going to pay the bills on it’s own. Beginning in late Spring of 2012, I began to wonder what was next.

I really had no plan, and I was open to listen.

The true question was this -

Will I do anything different?

2. I waited.

Waiting sucks. It’s doing nothing, with nothing really to do.

You do what you’ve done, but you know it’s not what you really are going to do. It’s a place of being temporarily temporary.

Kia is an activator. She has an idea, and her first impulse is to act. That’s not my nature, but sitting and doing nothing is not my default either.

During this process, I learned waiting builds character.

3. I was asked.

I don’t know Dane Sanders well, but I had an interesting conversation with him at After Dark KC about this “Why” question. He summed it up well for me.

It’s nice to be wanted.

In my words, it feels good to be pursued.

It’s why people get married. Pursuit is why something lost is found. It’s why people change from what looks like a good (if not great) job to a different one. In the movies (and hopefully real life), it’s why bad guys get caught.

Happening almost concurrently with my journey, my good friend David Jones waited to hear if he would become the next Senior Pastor at Cross Points. Within a few weeks he talked with me about joining his staff.

It was surprising (read below for more), but it was also flattering.

David had spent a lot of time with me in the previous months (while he waited), so he knew me. He knew what made me tick. He wanted me. I’ll be honest, it felt good.

I was pursued.

4. I laid down my pre-conceived ideas.

When David was hired, I blindly told him I was willing to help him in any way he needed. I write blindly, because in my mind it meant helping re-design a website, teach a class or help in some leadership position. My pre-conception did not include coming on staff, doing the exact thing I quit doing almost 10 years earlier.

In late summer he asked me to join his staff as the new/old children’s pastor of the church. To be honest, my first answer wasn’t Yes. It was much closer to No.

I was open to change, but the doing part was holding me back.

As Kia and I talked and prayed about his offer, I came to the conclusion that I needed to drop the ideas, thoughts and plans I had for my life. I needed to take this offer serious. I needed to see how this fit into my life.

With this frame of mind, the offer from David from a probable no to an obvious a yes for me. After more thought and prayer, it became a definite yes.

What’s next?

You just spent several minutes reading about me, but you might be wondering how this fits in with The Collective. Will this be updated?

My honest answer is I don’t know.

I do know this, I love to write. I truly enjoyed sitting at my computer and creating this post. I loved putting my thoughts on-screen, and working to make them understandable and usable.

I also know my time is valuable. Everyone wants some. My God. My wife. My kids. My church. My job. My friends. My Twitter feed (sorry about that too). My website. I can’t give it to everyone. I must be intentional about who I give it to, and when I give it to them.

I’m figuring it out.

17 years ago.

August 13, 2012 in Adversity, All About Andy, Family, Life, Story, Success with 1 Comment

Highlights from 1995

If you were alive 17 years ago, yesterday, here are a few things you might have been talking about.

The top songs from that year:

Big Poppa by Notorious B.I.G.
Buddy Holly
Dear Mama by Tupac
Fantasy by Mariah Carey
Gangsta’s Paradise by Coolio
This is how we do it by Montell Jordan
You Oughta Know by Alanis Morissette

Top album of the year, History Past, Present and Future Book I by Michael Jackson.

You might have been talking about one of the summer’s blockbuster hits:

Batman Forever
Apollo 13
TToy Story (the original)
Pocahontas
Ace Ventura

Or you might have just seen my favorite movie from 1995 – Braveheart.

You could have been following one of these top news stories:

The Oklahoma City bombing by Timothy McVeigh
The OJ Simpson murder trial
The Kobe, Japan earthquake (killing over 5,000 people)
The 49ers winning the previous Superbowl.
The record setting pace on the Dow Jones – up to 4400 in August!

August 12, 1995

My highlight from 1995 happened on August 12, 1995. That Saturday, Kia and I were married. It remains one of the best days of my life.

Over the past 17 years, Kia and I together have watched major news stories come and go. We’ve attended and graduated from college. We started and quit jobs. We opened and closed businesses. We’ve brought 4 children into the world. We’ve bought and sold homes. We’ve dreamed and cried.

We have done it all together.

It’s not easy.

Let me be quick to distill any brewing myth…it’s not been easy. We’ve had to fight for our marriage. We’ve had to learn to cling to one another.

This past year has been one of us drawing closer together than we’ve ever been before. In this year, I’ve seen Kia’s strength, creativity, vision, passion, fear, intensity, anger, and love more than ever before.

I’m proud to say Kia’s my wife.

Happy Anniversary, Kia Antisdel Bondurant. I love you.

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