Mentoring Lessons- ResilienceSample

Agility in Times of Change

How can you adjust and even prosper when difficult and tragic things happen?

When a key leader on a continental sports team died performing his sport, many other athletes boycotted the competition due to safety concerns. A close friend who was the defending champion couldn’t defend his title. Life throws us many disruptions.

Is your community sports team prepared for the unexpected? The years of periodic pandemics have provided significant lessons in disruption.

To have the agility to adjust to the unplanned, your team must have a strong sense of purpose. If your purpose is to serve your community through sports training and strategies, you are well prepared for the disruption.

To be agile as a team, you need to have significant trust in one another before the unexpected occurs. You need to live the heart values to serve together in sport. You are then prepared to collaborate and make the necessary adjustments when an unexpected crisis occurs.

The unexpected may close many of the usual sports opportunities, but you can expect that other doors will open widely where your team can serve. Your mindset needs to be flexible. Take words out of your vocabulary like can’t, shouldn’t, and won’t!

Think about Paul in Acts 27-28. As a prisoner, he was sent to Rome. Perhaps he expected some quiet time in prison to write. Instead, a violent storm placed him and the ship's crew on an island for three months. Paul was forced to lead and ended up healing the chief official's father and all the others who were sick on the island. Paul inspires us as to how to be agile, change plans, and find new unexpected ways to serve God.

Scripture to Ponder: Jeremiah 29:11

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”

Key Lesson: To be an effective leader you need to develop agility to constantly find new ways to serve. Look and listen to God and your new circumstances.