Super Penguin

This week, I attended a leadership conference known as the “Global Leadership Summit.” We were at a host site at the Second Church of Christ, and had a live video feed of the summit. It was two days (Thursday and Friday) of speakers focused on bettering one’s leadership through motivational talks. I’ve been a few times. Every year I go, I walk away with loads of motivation. Usually a few days after each summit, I go through my notes and put together an “action plan” for myself. I thought this year, I’d share the parts that stuck out to me, just in case it can inspire someone else. I always find, some speakers connect with the “author” part of my brain, others connect to the “restaurant supervisor” part. Rarely, do they connect to both at the same time (not a bad thing just an odd observation of myself). I won’t share every speaker, just my highlights. Some stories and some of my favorite quotes/paraphrases.

Craig Groeschel, Senior Pastor at Life Church– This one connected to “Supervisor Rob”. His talk was all about trust. Craig presented a formula for trust: Transparency + Empathy + Consistency = Trust. He dissected the three components, and asked the audience to self-evaluate and focus on one. Mine was consistency. I feel like I’m usually transparent, and I can be empathetic, but it turns on and off depending on the situation and how stressed out I am in that moment. Sometimes, as Craig put it, I can be a “seagull,” swooping into a space, “poop” on everything and then fly away. “Don’t Be a Seagull” will soon be scribed onto a post it note, and kept at my work desk as a reminder. He also asked a question for us to ponder. “What’s it like on the other side of me?” Less “What do people think of me?” and more “How do I make other people feel?” That one has been stirring around in my brain and I am going to try to see that perspective of myself more frequently.

Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice–“As a human race, we keep making what seemed impossible before, look inevitable in retrospect.”

Erwin McManus–Erwin is one of my favorite people. When I was in the draft stage of Super Penguin, I was reading his book The Last Arrow: Save Nothing for the Next Life and I credit it as one of the books that got me through my Imposter Syndrome and completion of my book. This year, he talked about failure and once again it hit home. Backstory about me, I’m having a blast with being an author, but I’m absolutely terrified of leaving my “real job” and the financial security it provides. I’m afraid of failing as an author, failing my wife, my kid, parents, and taking a stupid risk. While a part of me is incredibly confident that THIS is what I’m supposed to do with my life, there’s another part that is flipping through my life history, wondering if I misread something. Some notes I jotted down from Erwin. Your limitations are self created. There is NO experience that you can go through that can create internal limitations. Will you settle for the “average” version of you?

Cynt Marshall, CEO of the Dallas Mavericks– “You have to be inspired to inspire others.”

James Clear, Author of Atomic Habits–James spoke about small improvements versus radical changes, and how over time we improve with 1% improvements every day. Evert action, no matter how small, is a vote for the person you want to become. I am NOT a disciplined writer. I would love to tell you how every night, from 8pm-11pm I sit down, pull out my computer and write. In reality, sometimes I’m focused for an hour or two and get a lot of writing done. Other times, I sit down at a computer for three hours, but I don’t touch the keyboard because my phone distracted me and now I’m down a rabbit hole of YouTube videos. And most of the time, I get distracted with fifty other things and I never even make it in the room to turn on my computer. I’m working on making 1% improvements every day to try and get better in the long run.

Ryan Leak, Author of Leveling Up—“What is your definition of success? What would you do if you knew you couldn’t fail? Just Do It”

Albert Tate, Lead Pastor Fellowship Church–Albert spoke about the importance of showing up and leading when times are tough. He spoke about how God will give you what you need for that day, but He’s not a Costco God and isn’t going to give you weeks/months/years of what you need all at once. God will give you what you need today so you’ll trust for tomorrow.

Jamie Kern Lima, Founder of It Cosmetics–Jamie spoke about worthiness and rejection, things that I very much struggle with almost every day. I struggled with it as soon as I entered the church Thursday morning. See, I was invited to set up a table and sell my book at the church. I tend to accept all invitations to sell my book, but this one felt a little weird. It didn’t cost me anything to have a table, so I did it, but I constantly questioned “Will anyone care about my book?” I was set up next to a pop-up bookstore that was filled with New York Times Best Sellers and real authors. The people attending this event are business people and leaders who want to be better leaders, not the typical nerds at a comic-con that I’m used to seeing. I anticipated that the best interaction I would get would be a confused passerby wondering why the heck I was there. I wondered what I should bring, of course I’d bring my books, but what about the other things I usually bring to my table? My giant penguin? The Super Penguin for President buttons? The stuffed animals? I’m gonna stop that story and come back to it in a moment. Some of Jamie’s main points, I was living through and actively learning. One of the first things she said was “God can build a bigger dream than we can imagine.” and that we have a tendency to be afraid, not because we are bad, but instead because we are first. I wasn’t out of place because I was selling fiction when all the other books were nonfiction. I wasn’t out of place because I was writing about penguins in capes while others were talking about real stuff. The fear of sitting at a table with no visitors was total bologna. In fact, I sold 14 books. The pins and stuffed animals I didn’t think anyone would buy? I sold three buttons and four stuffies. I ended up doing better sales than I’d done at events I was supposed to attend. I learned that wherever I am, I am worthy of being there.

Dallas Jenkins, Creator/Director of The Chosen— “It’s not my job to feed the 5,000. God will do that. I just need to provide the fish and the bread.” This was my number one takeaway. If I remember one thing, it’ll be this one. I spend so much time worrying how anything I’m doing is going to work. I’m confident that my burning bush/Clifford the Big Red Dog sighting was a sign from God (referring to a past blog post, click HERE for reference) but I’m always skeptical with how I’m going to use a penguin wearing a cape to make any difference in the world. Is this a purpose? Or just busy work, while others are doing the real work? Then I feel a moment of shame. I’ve already seen it happen, and I still doubt God’s ability to use me/Super Penguin. Back in March of 2023, I had a mom come up to me at a fundraiser for the Fellowship of Christian Athletes. She told me how much her daughter loved my book. Then, she told me how her daughter is dyslexic. She told me that reading Super Penguin sparked a love for reading in her daughter. Pretty cool, but now, pair that with some of the staggering figures tied to dyslexia. A majority of suicide notes have dyslexic patterns in them, a majority of the prison population have some level of illiteracy. I’m not saying this little girl would have ended up in either of those situations, but she’s getting better at reading and lowering the chance of that happening every day she gets a little bit better. THAT’S the miracle. THAT’S God using a penguin in a cape to make the world a little bit better!

One last little cool thing that happened. Throughout the summit, speakers kept using a special word. About six, maybe seven speakers used it, but my ears perked up each time I heard it. That word was “superpower”. These speakers could have used lots of different words in it’s place; gift, secret weapon, and lots of others. I could be reading too much into things (which I’m prone to do from time to time) but I instead choose to believe it was an affirmation from the big guy upstairs. Like a bread crumb down the path I’m supposed to be on, these little mentions of superpowers made me feel like I really am on the right track with these things.

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