When the Path Looks Illogical: What Would You Do?

...[I]t is always right to step in the direction of obedience as best you can discern it and trust Jesus for the results. This is true even when some things do not make sense. Often, we only connect the dots and see what God is doing, when we look in the rear-view mirror...

Our calling is to step in the direction of obedience as best you can discern it and trust Jesus for the results… even when obedience does not make sense.

I have shared from Michael Sprague’s wisdom before. It’s rare for me to read his writings without being moved or challenged by his message.

Well, as we approach Good Friday, I want to share Michael’s cut on the story of how the upper room where Jesus would share His last Passover with His disciples was secured. This message about following the path God has marked out, no matter how illogical it may seem, until or unless He reveals more, struck me afresh - pertinent to my life today even though the events happened over 2,000 years ago.

As I allow myself to be curious, I am challenged to consider if there is a God prompt I am minimizing or ignoring because it doesn’t align with my logical mind.

What about you?

COUNTDOWN TO RESURRECTION DAY: BACK-STORY ON THE WORLD’S MOST FAMOUS UPPER ROOM

Passover week was always a crazy time in Jerusalem. The city swelled up like Times Square on New Year’s Eve. Every house was full. Every bed, cot and couch were spoken for. Every gathering room was rented for Thursday evening Passover meal. Reservations had to be made months in advance.

Jesus uses an unconventional approach to securing a room. He goes all cloak and daggers… with counter-intelligence and secrecy, he sends Peter and [John] out on a Mission Impossible assignment to get their little platoon a room. Little did the team know that Judas was looking to betray Jesus whenever he could identify the right tactical apprehension spot.

Jesus’ instructions to his most trusted pair of disciples (Luke 22:7-12):

1. Go into the city.

2. Look for a man carrying a pitcher of water.

3. Follow him.

4. Walk into the house he enters.

5. Say to the owner of the house, “The Teacher says to you, “Where is the guest room in which I may eat the Passover with My disciples?”

6. Set it up for Passover.

What would you do? The old “Look for the guy with the Water Pot Approach” in the city with a million people. Now understand, waterpots were women’s jobs in the first century. (Sorry ladies.) Peter and [John] saw dozens of ladies with waterpots. The pair thought, “What self-respecting guy is going to have a waterpot?” Wait. Look. There is a guy. They trail him. They are thinking, “Should we follow him right into the house?” Indeed! That was what Jesus said. It all worked like clockwork. The upper room was perfect. VOILA!

The take home message is that it is always right to step in the direction of obedience as best you can discern it and trust Jesus for the results. This is true even when some things do not make sense. Often, we only connect the dots and see what God is doing, when we look in the rear-view mirror.

Peter and John probably thought this plan was stupid, but they obeyed anyway by faith. Likewise, Judas thought Jesus’ enfolding plan was idiotic. He disobeyed thinking he was a whole lot smarter than Jesus. He handed off Jesus’ itinerary to the Religious Leaders, they high-fived each other, exchanged 30 pieces of silver and felt the thrill of victory. They lost. They were so lost they could not see it. Jesus won.

Our calling is to step in the direction of obedience as best you can discern it and trust Jesus for the results… even when obedience does not make sense.

Is God asking you, today, to look for the guy with the waterpot?

 May this Holy week move you to curiosity about where God is speaking and leading in your life right now that you may be overlooking due to its lack of logic.

If you would like to follow me on this adventure, and receive notice whenever I post something new, please subscribe. (It’s simple – at the top and bottom of every page on the Perils & Pearls blog site. *No need to be a 'member.')

**A word about POSTING COMMENTS: I LV engaging with your feedback/responses to my writings! But, if you run into tech obstacles when trying to post a comment, please feel free to do as so many of you have done: Send me a private message using the "Let's Chat" option on the Perils & Pearls Home Page.

And if you know people who would benefit from the support, and/or enjoy the short writings, please share the site or a post with them. Heck, just share it on your social media…Let’s grow it together! 

Blessed to play a part ~

g

Whole-Person Leadership: Why Great Leaders Need IQ, EQ, SQ… and GQ!

No, not the magazine!

In leadership development, GQ refers to Growth Quotient — the ability to adapt, persevere, and grow through challenge. Whole-person leaders engage the mind (IQ), heart (EQ), spirit (SQ), and the courage to keep growing (GQ).

Many leadership models focus on IQ and EQ; but truly effective leaders draw from 4 capacities, not just 2. This is the concept of Whole-person Leadership.

Effective leaders don't just lead with their heads.They lead with their heads, hearts, purpose, and resilience.

The Leadership Gap

Organizations often prioritize technical competence or cognitive ability (IQ), and yet leadership failures often stem from deficits in:

·      Emotional/self awareness

·      Moral grounding

·      Resilience

True leadership requires more than cognitive ability. It requires depth and breadth around 4 aspects of intelligence. This is where the Four Leadership Quotients come in.

The Four Leadership Quotients

The idea of whole-person leadership draws on insights from thinkers such as Stephen Covey (whole-person leadership), Daniel Goleman (emotional intelligence), Danah Zohar (spiritual intelligence), and Angela Duckworth (grit and resilience). Combining these 4 competencies -the IQ–EQ–SQ–GQ - is my own synthesis of those leadership experts who have written about these concepts. And my experience with coaching leaders and potential leaders over the years has confirmed for me this model for effective and lasting leadership.

Whole-Person Leadership integrates four intelligences:

·       IQ – Intellectual Intelligence

·       EQ – Emotional Intelligence

·       SQ – Spiritual Intelligence

·       GQ – Growth Quotient

Whole-person Leadership Wheel All 4 quotients are important for effective and lasting leadership

Let’s take a look at the distinctions of the 4 quotients:

🧠 IQ — Thinking: Leading with the Mind:

Focus:

• analysis

• strategy

• problem-solving

• decision making

Leadership expression:

• setting direction

• understanding complexity

• making sound judgments

IQ helps leaders understand what needs to be done.

❤️ EQ — Relating: Leading with the Heart

Focus:

• empathy

• emotional awareness

• communication

• trust-building

Leadership expression:

• motivating people

• resolving conflict

• building strong teams

EQ helps leaders understand people and relationships.

✨SQ — Purpose: Leading with Meaning

Focus:

• values

• calling

• moral compass

• purpose

Leadership expression:

• vision

• integrity

• long-term direction

SQ helps leaders understand why their leadership matters.

🌱 GQ — Growth: Leading with Resilience

Focus:

• learning

• adaptability

• perseverance

• humility

Leadership expression:

• learning from failure

• navigating change

• continuous development

GQ helps leaders keep growing through challenge.

Whole-person leadership is not just about having or developing every competence yourself; it is also about building a team that complements your weaknesses. No leader excels equally in IQ, EQ, SQ, and GQ, and wise leaders recognize where their natural strengths lie and where their gaps remain.

Rather than trying to master everything alone, they intentionally surround themselves with people whose strengths fill those gaps.

A leader strong in strategy (IQ) may rely on someone gifted in relationships (EQ) to build trust and cohesion. A visionary grounded in purpose (SQ) may partner with someone strong in execution and adaptability (GQ) to turn ideas into action. In this way, leadership becomes less about individual completeness and more about collective wholeness.

 The most effective leaders build teams where the combined strengths of the group create a more balanced and resilient leadership capacity than any one person could achieve alone.

Not only do these wisely-led teams achieve more, but research shows that this type of leadership is the most lasting, durable, resilient.

That is to say:

The leaders who have recognized their competency gaps and surrounded themselves with those who can fill in for their lacks, tend to finish well. And that is, indeed, a rare accomplishment  in today’s culture!

Thus, leadership not only becomes more effective and powerful when all four intelligences work together, but when the whole-person model is applied, the leader will recognize and mitigate their gaps, which in turn, will result in team members being acknowledged for and developed in their unique and needed strengths. Everyone benefits.

Developing Whole-Person Leadership

Of course wiring comes into play when observing the innate competency strengths of various leaders. For example, some personality types will tend towards higher aptitudes in strategic thinking and/or embracing challenges, while others’ have strong suits in emotional awareness and/or value alignment. But all 4 intelligence quotients can be further developed with intention.

Here are a couple qualities in each of the 4 quadrants on the Whole-person Leadership Wheel (above) that can be focused areas of development for leaders or potential leaders:

Re: developing IQ: Focus on: learning and strategic thinking

Re: developing EQ: Focus on: feedback (giving and receiving) and emotional awareness

Re: developing SQ: Focus on: reflection on values and purpose alignment

Re: developing GQ: Focus on: embracing challenges and learning from failure

A Simple Leadership Self-Check

In summary, The most effective leaders don’t rely on a single strength - or even their own strengths. They integrate mind, heart, purpose, and growth., and recruit and invest in others who complement their natural leadership wiring. Whole-person leadership is not about being perfect, but rather, it’s about becoming more wholly human as a leader.

Questions for Reflection:

• Where am I strongest?

• Which quotient do I rely on most?

• Which area needs development?

• Who around me has strengths where I am weakest? How can I empower and develop their Whole-person Leadership potential?

**My offers of support: If you contact me via ‘chat w/ me’ on Perils & Pearls, I will gift you a thirty-minute coaching session to talk about how you might develop your Whole-person Leadership competencies.

**And if you have been stirred to further explore your unique wiring – strengths, passions, challenges - & you would like to experience a strength assessment with a certified life coach, I invite you to contact me.

If you would like to follow me on this adventure, and receive notice whenever I post something new, please subscribe. (It’s simple – at the top and bottom of every page on the Perils & Pearls blog site. *No need to be a 'member.')

**A word about POSTING COMMENTS: I LV engaging with your feedback/responses to my writings! But, if you run into tech obstacles when trying to post a comment, please feel free to do as so many of you have done: Send me a private message using the "Let's Chat" option on the Perils & Pearls Home Page.

And if you know people who would benefit from the support, and/or enjoy the short writings, please share the site or a post with them. Heck, just share it on your social media…

Let’s grow it together! 

Blessed to play a part ~

g

Looking Beyond the Stress: Finding Growth in Life’s Changes - Part 2

Change is inevitable, but growth is optional.

In my last post, I set out to share the Transformation Model that has evolved for me over the span of my life coaching career. But I decided to share a personal illustration of the stages of the change process before I gave you the framework.

Part 1 left you with my description of the peculiar discomfort of liminal space - the in-between - where you are no longer who you were, but you cannot yet articulate who you are becoming. It requires staying present without rushing toward resolution. And that, for someone wired like me, felt like its own form of discipline.

And so, the surrender came. The softening happened. The receptivity started to form. All of this while my body still punished me for the lack of easy oxygen.

...Let’s pick up the story from there...[Click here if you want to read Part 1 in its entirety.]

Gradually, clarity began to surface—not about my circumstances, but about my values. I began to see that strength did not mean override. Faith did not mean force. Resilience was not synonymous with relentless striving. My body was not my enemy; it was my messenger. I found myself reaching for a concept I knew in my head, but now needed to live as a daily truth: God was less interested in relocating me than in reshaping me.

What began to reorganize inside of me was a quieter conviction: I could choose alignment over achievement. I could honor limits instead of denying them. I could measure success not by altitude conquered, but by integrity between my inner reality and outer life.

I began to make some adjustments - outward signs of an inward shift - that I never would have considered before running out of my well-worn performance-based strategies for managing outcomes.

For instance, I begged off when my biking buddies asked me to do a ride that was all climb - with the initial trailhead above 7,000 feet, and only up from there! I pulled back on my workload, as well as creating more white space in our social calendar. I did more of the outdoor adventures solo, or just with my husband, so I could regulate the anaerobic cardio impact better. So, my circumstances stayed, but my response to them changed.

Hm...doesn’t sound unlike how God works sometimes. He’s hearing our prayers, and answering them; just not the way we had in mind...(See Isaiah 55:8-9)

Over time, those outward adjustments became less about accommodation and more about identity. Saying no to certain outdoor challenges no longer felt like failure; it felt like wisdom. Pulling back from social expectations no longer felt like withdrawal; it felt like stewardship. The white space I once resisted became sacred space.

The mountains I lived in had not moved.  But something inside of me had. And that shift—not the change in circumstance—became the true transformation.

Although the altitude still challenged my physiology,  it no longer defined my worth. Now when the ingrained performance patterns surfaced, they no longer felt like my de facto mode. Something new challenged those old grooves. A different rhythm was taking root.

It took getting to the other side of this decade-plus narrative to realize I was walking through the same pattern of transitions to transformation I had been observing in my clients’ journeys over the many years of my coaching career. How I had been accompanying them through the uncertainties and lack of closure and understanding - all that comes with the change process - I was experiencing in and for myself.

I believe that’s what they call having to drink your own Kool-Aid?

My husband’s retirement signaled the end of my intractable dilemma - after almost twenty years of living in a contraindicated environment for my body, we traded the thin air of the mountains for oxygen-saturated, sea-level air. It didn’t take my systems long to absorb the change - my energy shot up to what my husband calls “intimidating." Now that's a problem we are both thankful to take on.

I would not go so far as to say I am glad for the grueling, soul-searing trial of those years; but what I carry forward is much broader and deeper than just an up close and personal understanding of how living at altitude can affect the body systems.  What I did not realize at the time was that this physical relocation marked the beginning of the embody stage relative to this particular awareness journey of an old way of moving in the world that wasn’t a part of who am I becoming - closer to my true self.

The journey through transitions to transformation is not neat or time-boxed. The stages can twist, overlap, and sometimes circle back on themselves. But the points on the path are recognizable. Looking back now, I can trace the movement along the line of an arrow, from left to right, that illustrated my story:

The stirring of discomfort, the unraveling of old identities, the long stretch of liminal uncertainty, the slow reorientation of values, and finally, a more authentic way of living.

Let me now translate my personal journey into the model that I believe depicts our common quest for transformative growth through the inevitable changes and challenges we face in life.

Think of this set of stages, placed along an arrow, not as a rigid rule, but a guide—an invitation to notice where you are, to lean into growth, and to trust that transformation will unfold as you intentionally move through the transitions.

As you reflect on your own path, consider where you are on the arrow. Are you just noticing an old way of moving in the world is not working anymore for you?

Maybe you are ready to name that pattern, and then consider releasing it for movement towards something more authentic to who you are becoming?

Or does “no turning back” resonate with where you are - in liminal space, between the old and new behaviors?

Or maybe you most identify with the embodied stage - where a new behavior has become a new habit and feels more natural.

Rest assured, if you remain receptive, another awareness will come along to challenge your internal status quo, and you will find yourself back on the left side of the arrow - but more practiced as to what is to come in the ongoing journey towards integration and wholeness.

Another way to capture the essence of this recognizable pattern:

Where are you along this path today, and what small step could you take to move toward the next stage of growth?

**My offer of support: If you contact me via ‘chat w/ me’ on Perils & Pearls, I will gift you a thirty-minute coaching session to talk about where you are on this arrow, and where the opportunties for growth can be found in the in-betweens.

**And if you have been stirred to further explore your unique wiring – strengths, passions, challenges - & you would like to experience a strength assessment with a certified life coach, I invite you to contact me.

If you would like to follow me on this adventure, and receive notice whenever I post something new, please subscribe. (It’s simple – at the top and bottom of every page on the Perils & Pearls blog site. *No need to be a 'member.')

**A word about POSTING COMMENTS: I LV engaging with your feedback/responses to my writings! But, if you run into tech obstacles when trying to post a comment, please feel free to do as so many of you have done: Send me a private message using the "Let's Chat" option on the Perils & Pearls Home Page.

And if you know people who would benefit from the support, and/or enjoy the short writings, please share the site or a post with them. Heck, just share it on your social media…Let’s grow it together! 

Blessed to play a part ~

g