ILI: History Makers Leadership Podcast
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ILI: History Makers Leadership Podcast
Ep 73. | Why Legacy Matters More Than Success
What happens when your season of leadership comes to an end? Whether through retirement, health challenges, or organizational transitions, every leader eventually faces the reality that "Father Time is undefeated." This profound conversation explores how Christian leaders can reimagine success beyond personal achievement to embrace a legacy that spans generations.
Our conversation with ILI's Daniel Drewski and Norival Trindade proposes a biblical model where calling evolves rather than expires, where seasoned leaders transition into sage mentors who help the next generation avoid their mistakes while making fresh ones of their own. The goal isn't merely survival but enabling each generation to "stand on the shoulders of giants" – seeing further and accomplishing more than their predecessors ever could.
Without intentional succession planning through mentoring relationships, these organizations risk putting an expiration date on their ministry effectiveness. We unpack a simple yet powerful mentoring framework built around two essential questions: "What is your vision?" and "How can I help you achieve it?"
Drawing from biblical wisdom and personal experience, we explore how God consistently identifies Himself as "the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob" – revealing His nature as a God of generations who promises to bless the faithful for a thousand generations. This multigenerational perspective transforms how we approach leadership, ministry, and impact in our limited lifetimes.
Are you building something that will outlast you? Join us as we explore how to leave a faithful legacy that continues to bear fruit long after our active leadership seasons end. Subscribe, share, and leave a comment to help other leaders discover resources for greater kingdom impact.
Join a community of leaders who are ready to change history and make an impact in this world. When you take part in ILI training, you will discover how ILI's Eight Core Values will help you transform your leadership. Discover more at ILITeam.org/connect.
So, norval, I've got a good friend of mine and he has just one of those incredible stories. You know he had spent so much of his childhood dreaming of being a professional athlete. He spent year after year, you know, summers in summer camps, all those kinds of things. He's in high school and he's on the basketball team, he does really well, gets recruited to a college team and so he goes to college and you know, he's earning a marketing degree and he's going through all this stuff and he's playing, he's doing really well. And and then finally he said Daniel, there was one day where my name was called, my number was chosen and he's finally playing as a professional athlete in the NBA. And he has attained a dream.
Speaker 1:And I looked at him. I said man, that's incredible. I'm so happy for you, man, that's exciting. He said, yeah, here's what I didn't know at the time, but I've learned since. He said, father, time is undefeated in sports. He said there's always a moment where you recognize and realize that there's a life after ball. And as he told me that story, I realized that what he was really talking about was something that I think, as Christian leaders, we have to kind of embrace and acknowledge that there's always going to be a season where the thing that God has called us to now isn't the thing that we're called to forever. There are elements that shift or change within that. So in light of that, norval, I'd love to just have a conversation about legacy, about, maybe, something about mentoring, and navigate what are the ways that, as Christian leaders, we should be looking at or understanding what matters most those ideas of success, those ideas of legacy and ideas of legacy and trying to unpack some of those things together.
Speaker 2:Well, we do live in a world where success is everything achieving your vision, achieving your goals, making a five-year life plan where you want to be a five-year life plan where you want to be looking at the end, starting with the end in mind, and all of that yeah yeah, Success.
Speaker 2:But even what is even success? You know we were talking before it started recording. I said you know I love these dystopian, post-apocalyptic movies, with or without zombies, by marauding bands of pirates that roam the failed state land. Just getting through the day is a measure of success. Well, our world is a little more comfortable than that. So we pursue other kinds of success related to significance connection.
Speaker 2:Success, you know, related to significance connection, the so-called inalienable rights of, you know, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That's right, All of those things are measures of success. But no matter how great or how deep and significant your success is, they all have a shelf life. Success has an expiration date. Eventually you retire or you have something that precludes you from doing what you're doing, of something that precludes you from doing what you're doing. And I'd like to think that if success is all you seek, that, particularly as Christians who serve a God that is a God of generations, who promises to bless the faithful up to a thousand generations, to bless the faithful up to a thousand generations, that is a lot longer than being successful in life, in whatever it is that we do or aim.
Speaker 1:Well, it makes me think. There's a quote I saw recently In fact I just looked it up to make sure I had it right Nicholas von Zinzendorf. It's famous for having said preach the gospel, die and be forgotten. And, and I think you know, I think that within the, the realm of our faith and our leadership, there's a, there's a right place for legacy, and so I think he was probably exaggerating to some point, because obviously he's quoted as having said it, so he hasn't died and been forgotten.
Speaker 2:Not to mention that he was the one who started a movement, a prayer movement that lasted 100 years. Exactly, exactly what we're talking about. He was much more than that span of life that he lived and influenced and that span of life that he lived and influenced.
Speaker 1:Well, and it's because he understood that success was something that could not be contained within the scope of a single lifetime. It has to be contained within the scope of a much longer period, and that's the timeline that I think God operates off of, and I think that's why in the scriptures and in faithful Christian life, we so often see themes around the ideas of succession for success and for mentoring, for real lasting meaning. And so, you know, we're obviously in some different elements and seasons of our own lives because of just the parts of our own stories and how God's brought us to this point. But I'd love to unpack some of these pieces. So let's start with just success.
Speaker 1:We've already kind of noted there's a lot of ways to think about success. I really think the first framework that I find most helpful is to think about success first on a different time scale. Right, whether that's eternal timelines or just multigenerational timelines. Because the scriptures seem, you're right, they point to blessings to generations, right, not blessings to just to the individual, but to successive generations and the consequences equally over multiple generations. So, as you think about success and its timeline, how do you think about that, and are there other kind of structures that you put around that idea of success for your own ministry and calling Well, first of all, in terms of God being the God of generations, it just occurred to me that the Bible often refers to the God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob, it does, it does.
Speaker 2:It's not just the God of Abraham, that's right. Or it's not just the God of Moses. It's God of Abraham, it's God of Isaac Jacob, it's the God of Moses, it's the God of David.
Speaker 2:He's the God of David in generations and more generations. But you know, I think about who I am, who I am as a man, as a man of God, as somebody who has dedicated my life to serving Him. In my particular case now, others may be different, but I am the fruit of at least three generations of men and I guess, because I'm a man, they were men, but also women. Yeah, yeah, who you know. One of my grandfathers, my maternal grandfather was a farmer, could barely read, but who knew scriptures in depth and who planted it Everywhere he lived. He planted churches, whether it was only house churches or churches that actually became congregations.
Speaker 2:And there's a story of him moving away from a place to migrate within Brazil, the country, to another region where he was going to open a whole new area, and he had a little congregation that he met and before he left he called the local Baptist pastor, though he was a Methodist. He called the local Baptist pastor and said these are the people that have come to Jesus and we worship together. There is no Methodist church here. Will you take them? Will you take them? Wow, and that originated, you know, that one congregation in that community. Then my father, who was a lawyer in my parents. He was a lawyer, he became a missionary, planted the Methodist denomination in the country of Paraguay. So I am the fruit my grandfather. I guess we could say my grandfather sowed my father watered and I'm harvesting.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you know, hopefully my children and grandchildren will continue that legacy. So we are already the product of multi-generations. So to think that whatever success I had in ministry is only the result of my work, or even that God's work in me. It's much more than that.
Speaker 1:Well, again, it's bearing fruit from labors that have gone well before you. And I think maybe that's the first element, that when I'm thinking about success I'm thinking about the timelines. But maybe the second piece is I really need to remember that when I'm thinking about success, if I'm thinking only of myself, really I'm forgetting the legacy behind me and the legacy I'm leaving, Like I'm forgetting that I am a part of a larger story. I'm forgetting that I'm part of a larger narrative and movement that God is working out larger narrative and movement that God is working out Because, yeah, I mean there's.
Speaker 1:You mentioned your family history in that piece. Well, that plays a role into how you understand success for the ministry and calling that you have, and obviously you know you listed your own children and grandchildren as a part of that. I think that's an important part. So when we think about success in our ministry or success in our calling, I think it rightly understands that it's part of a well, it's part of God's bigger plan right, it's part of a larger reality than what we're facing.
Speaker 2:But one of the different things. I believe that our generation and maybe, yeah, I would say our generation, because one of my mentors is one of the founders of ILI. We worked together for a long time, dr Al Vomsteeg. He always criticized his generation. He is a good 20 years older than I am. He's in his 80s now I'm in my 60s. He said his generation didn't do a good job mentoring my generation, and so there was a gap. A lot of times there was this gap and so there was a gap. A lot of times there was this gap and so the next generation had to kind of learn on its own.
Speaker 2:And although let's go back to my own story, my grandfather mentored me in many ways. We were good friends. He was one of the great joys of his life. He had very severe rheumatoid arthritis and he had to take shots every day, oh wow. And I was a medical student. So one of his joys with that, he was the guinea pig for me to learn how to do IM shots, intramuscular shots. And he wasn't, you know, he didn't have a lot of muscle either, so he suffered in my hands a little bit until I figured it out. Figured it out, um so, but he was a mentor in the sense that I always quote him. Yeah, um, I.
Speaker 2:I did not meet my, my, my, uh, paternal grandfather. He passed away before even my parents were born. But this grandfather was very influential in many ways in some of the things that I do, including my love for gardening, him being a farmer. But there was never an intentionality in that, like what we do now. Yeah, what we're talking about. What we're talking about is being intentional and actually making a plan of. I'm going to invest in this or that young man, whether it's in my family or in my church or in the business that I run, to be the next generation of leaders. So I can transition out of that and I myself I'm looking forward to that transitioning out of the administrative position of vice president for training at ILI to be to a more of a mentor, to more of a teacher mentor position in the in the coming future. That's where I think we can make the contribution of bringing the conversation up and being intentional at, you know, I guess, adding legacy to our list of desired successes, or outcomes, legacy to our list of desired successes or outcomes.
Speaker 1:Well, and I think that's a piece of it is, again, if we understand some of these elements of success, we're part of a bigger story. We understand the timeline. If we understand that success means succession, right, and so we've got to take that vision and the elements of that vision that we own, we've got to give that ownership. It then shifts from that ownership being given over to this idea of legacy, where we're investing, we're mentoring, we're asking those right questions to help that next leader who has the ownership to think through and plan through and then lean on the experience that we have.
Speaker 1:Right, there's nothing that can replace 40 years of walking in light of a vision. You can't buy that education, you can't accelerate that education I'm keenly aware. And so the value of being able to ask those questions and having people that are for lack of a better phrase in your corner as you navigate, those are just invaluable. But I feel like in our context, norval, there's so few that have learned how to step into that sage role. But I feel like we don't have a culture that demonstrates that effective move from leading and owning a vision to being the sage, wise counsel that offers input or insight. Why are we missing some of those things you think?
Speaker 2:Well, I think there might be two. There's a little bit of everybody's fault in that. Yeah, we, our culture, values youth so much. You know I was I was making the joke a minute ago. I'm a guitarist. I love playing the guitar I have. I have several guitars and I play. Um, I don't play well, but I can carry myself.
Speaker 1:You play well.
Speaker 2:Well, but there's very little room in and I probably worship guitar right, sure, sure, yeah.
Speaker 2:So, apart from a few From churches that really don't have a lot of young people today, what they look for a person, for a, a, a guitarist, is, you know, a kid with long hair and tight and tight jeans, and, and, and, and and certain brands of guitar now that are popular, different than the ones I own. So what there's there is we live in a society that values youth over that wisdom, and it's easy to feel like you're being discarded. Once you turn 65 or you turn 70, or even earlier than that, you're no longer relevant, and yet you're relevant in a different way. But I also think the older generation has bought into the idea of retirement. I don't see that in the Bible.
Speaker 2:I don't believe we retire from our calling, particularly those of us who have a calling to build the kingdom of God, which should be all of us, but those with a calling to leadership let's put it this way those of us with a calling to influence others and to lead. There's no expiration date on that calling. We may change the way we do it and I'm looking forward to, as I get older, changing the way we do it, maybe the intensity I do it. If you're eight years old, you can't go jet-setting like we're doing right now, like seven or eight international trips a year doesn't work, becomes too much if you're, if you're older, but, um, if we understand that, once we entered this, this age, once our beard starts turning gray, or your hair and you know, and or or our, our hairline starts receding way back to the back here.
Speaker 2:There's another role for us. It's still leadership, it's still influence, and so those two parts if our culture would learn to celebrate that intergenerational relationship of mentoring and if we ourselves stopped looking forward to you know, yeah, Getting an RV here in the United States, getting an RV and traveling the country, or or just doing whatever.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I, you know, I've heard the phrase and I'm sure you have to write the English phrase being put out to pasture, right, yeah, and I think sometimes people feel put out to pasture and I think sometimes they go running to the pasture because they think, oh, I just get to finally relax and do nothing. I don't, you know, I just get to cruise around the rest of my life and I don't have to worry about this, that or the other. And I think I think there's there's wrong and, quite frankly, I think there's sin in both. I think if, if we believe for a second that God has us here not to enjoy him and serve him right out of that enjoyment, well then we're missing something. If it's just here to enjoy worldly pleasure or earthly pleasure, I don't think that that's God's intent or that that's his design.
Speaker 1:When it comes to feeling put out to pasture, I think sometimes it can be intimidating for a younger generation to know the right questions, or maybe they've got ideas, but they haven't encountered failure enough times to know that they don't know what to do and they have to encounter a certain amount of failure for that wisdom, for the need for the wisdom to become as clear as it is right, and I'm a huge believer that we live in a culture that has prolonged adolescence. Right Now, you're allowed to not be an adult, and adulting is a verb as if it's disconnected from the normal growth and process of human development. We're supposed to be an adult and there's a right age and time for that to take place as we grow and mature. But as I think about succession, as I think about legacy, as I think about mentoring, I just we talk about and teach multiplication by mentoring. We talk about how effective Christian leaders are helping to develop other Christian leaders, right, we look at Timothy 2, timothy 2.2, as a framework and a structure for that.
Speaker 1:Right, four generations listed all together there at once. And I love how we have two fundamental questions that frame mentoring and I've actually begun to use it in some of the mentor relationships I have. Right, I shoot for anywhere from 10 years my junior to 15 years my junior and I target young men in that age range and I say, god, who is it? And I try my best to ask those two very fundamental questions how did we find those questions and what's the what's kind of the story behind behind those?
Speaker 2:And maybe let's let's share them, uh, before we go okay, the two questions are and it's so simple, yeah, it it's. It feels simplistic, but it isn't. Um, what are your priorities? And we usually say what is your vision? Yeah, because that you know, at history, makers, training, we, we, we go, we talk a lot about vision. We really lean into the idea of identifying your God-given vision. And so the mentor asks so what are your priorities, what is your vision?
Speaker 2:And then the second question is how can I help you achieve it? And it's like it is very simple, but that is how can I, the mentor, put my experience to help you achieve it? How can I, the mentor, put my experience to help you achieve it? How can I help you learn from my mistakes so you don't make the mistakes I made? That's right. You made fresh, you'll make fresh, new ones. Yeah, you will, but you won't make these ones. And therefore, and a lot of times when we teach mentoring, we finish with that expression about standing on the shoulders of giants, so that those who we mentor stand on our shoulders and see much further, much better and accomplish more. And so that's the simple idea of bringing two generations together around those two questions, of bringing two generations together around those two questions and so that the younger person can go where perhaps the mentor never went, you know.
Speaker 1:Well, and I love them because, in my view, norval, two things. One, they're so Socratic, right. They guide the mentee, they guide the other person through a process of personal reflection. Like if I don't have priorities, if I don't have a vision, then you can't really mentor me. Like I'm missing something here and and if you've not come to the conversation with, with some way that we can work together on this, like we're not going to be able to make much progress. And so it puts into that mentee's hands some very practical things that they can come prepared for.
Speaker 1:But it also, I'll be honest, in our day and age I think we have people that are so desperate to be listened to that it gives an opportunity for them to speak, get some of those things out, and then, all of a sudden, they'll realize I don't really, I don't really know, and then you've got this opportunity to just speak and say, well, hey, here, here, if I were in your spot, right, this is what I do with my mentees. If I were in your spot, here's, here are the things that I would be wanting. Here are the things that I would be thinking. Here are the questions that I would be asking. Do you have some thoughts on these?
Speaker 2:What do you?
Speaker 1:think or here, okay, you're looking for this. Well, let me find a relationship or two. Let me make some introductions for you, because I don't have all the answers, but I do have some relationships. Let me make some connection points for you.
Speaker 2:And a lot of times those questions I don't know. You probably had the same experience. You think something and you think in a certain way, but the moment you verbalize that thought, you realize either that that was very silly or that is wise, or even, as you verbalize, you say wait a minute. So sometimes, in answering the question, the mentee finds the answers that they need. And I've learned to ask more questions than try to provide answers, even as a mentor, even as I have that experience, experience you know, and so that's that's the as simple as a as a mentoring relationship has and can be. And, um, and it could be in and I've been thinking about internal mentoring relationships as well, daniel um, because you are the the product of one of those. You came into our organization that's right With one function. Our then CEO founder and CEO identified a potential in you and started introducing you to the people he knew, and then you transitioned into the position that you are right now.
Speaker 2:This is something that have been done very successfully, even in Fortune 500 companies. One of the famous stories is from Coca-Cola, where the CEO was preparing somebody to be his successor and then had a sudden stroke and passed and the new guy took on the position and took the company to the next level, general Electric, in a really harsh transition. That really affected stock price bottom line, all kinds of effects in the company, because there wasn't an intentional thought about mentoring the next generation. And I think as leaders we have this opportunity. Think as leaders, we have this opportunity or that risk. If we don't, we run the risk, just as our success has an expiration date, we may end up putting an expiration date in the organizations or even movements that we have helped to steward and, if I'm honest, norval, I think that there are some ministries that struggle with that.
Speaker 1:They don't recognize that. They lack vision beyond their own life and you know, when you're in the startup phase, that's completely reasonable. I mean, you're so scrappy, you're trying to figure things out, you're trying to make ends meet, but there's so many ministries that are making incredible kingdom impact today. They're making incredible kingdom impact today, but they're lacking vision beyond their founding generation and the consequence of that will be massive gaps in the next 15 years, as they physically can't keep going with that and they haven't had. You know, instead of having a you know, a transition that's developed over time, they're having to just instantly flip something right and they're not able to step into that mentor and sage role and pour into that next generation for the longer period of time, end up spending all that energy just trying to keep it afloat, and no one wants their plan for succession to be survival right.
Speaker 1:You want it to be thriving, you want it to be alive, you want it to be active, and so again, as we think about why legacy is the more impactful or more important metric for success, I really think that there's this deeper call to lead and live in that kind of mentoring space, who is a God of generations, amen.
Speaker 2:And so it's not an option, because there is a generation coming down the line and there is another one coming after that, and another one coming after that until Jesus comes. Amen. And every new generation has to be one all over again. Every new generation has to be equipped to lead all over again. That's right. And it's incumbent upon every generation to pass on a legacy to the next one. And my generation is not my generation, it's me. Your generation it's me, it's you.
Speaker 2:That's right it's me, your generation, it's you. So I hope that we have helped leaders think about this, consider the legacy, you know.
Speaker 1:It reminds me of the old hymn may all who come behind us find us faithful, may the fire of our devotion light their way and may the footsteps that we leave lead them to believe. And that kind of call, I think, rests so deeply with each of us and, you're right, with each generation, but not the generation in the abstract, the generation in me that each of us represents. I think that's a good reminder, and a good thing for us to reflect on.
Speaker 1:Hey, listen, we are so thankful for each of you for participating in this and being a part of this conversation. We hope that it is helpful and serves you well. The International Leadership Institute, man. We earnestly desire that men and women would be equipped to lead well, so that the kingdom of God would advance and the name of Christ would be known among all peoples. We want to leave a faithful legacy. This has been helpful and encouraging to you. I just want to ask will you leave a comment or a like? We do some of those things. It helps the algorithms and all those other pieces, but really it helps other leaders like you to discover some resources that will be helpful, faithful, fruitful, to help disciple and develop them so that they would be more effective leaders in the future. Thank you for being a part of our legacy as we seek to impact the nations and make Christ known.