Inside Job

Doing the Work Within the Work

Stephen W. Smith

• Publisher: IVP
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN: 9780830844289
• eBook ISBN: 9780830864874
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Leadership

Effective leaders work very hard to succeed, but often at the cost of their own souls. They are challenged to keep themselves emotionally and spiritually healthy in order to survive success—to keep their humanity intact. This is the work within the work. Stephen W. Smith helps leaders in the marketplace and in ministry set aside the life-draining values of power, fame, fortune and position and instead explore the life-giving qualities of building character. In this book you will learn to:

• Recognize and determine the inner and outer markers of success
• Explore eight compelling virtues that every leader must possess
• Use the principle of rhythm rather than chase the myth of balance
• Recognize the limits of your own leadership
• Discover how to thrive, not just survive

There is a better way to live than the craziness we experience in our driven world. Inside Job is your invitation to journey inside and do the work within your work.

Part One

The Crisis in the Leader’s Soul

Long ago a Chinese man began his career making bell stands for the huge bronze bells that hung in Buddhist temples. This man became prized and celebrated for making the best, most elaborate and enduring bell stands in the entire region. No other person could make the bell stands with such strength and beauty. His reputation grew vast and his skill was in high demand. One day the celebrated woodcarver was asked, “Please tell us the secret of your success!” He replied:

Long before I start making and carving the bell stand, I go into the forest to do the work before the work. I look at all of the hundreds of trees to find the ideal tree—already formed by God to become a bell stand. I look for the boughs of the tree to be massive, strong and already shaped. It takes a long time to find the right tree. But without doing the work before the work, I could not do what I have accomplished.

1

Life Is More Than Chasing Success

The ground at the foot of the ladder of success is littered with the names, faces and stories of leaders who self-destructed on the way up. Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you know their names and faces. You’ve seen them interviewed by nightly news anchors, you’ve read the scandalous articles online, and you’ve possibly thought, But that could never happen to me.

According to the Harvard Business Review, two out of five new CEOs fail in their first eighteen months on the job. It appears that the major reason for the failure has nothing to do with competence or knowledge or experience, but rather with hubris and ego. In other words, they thought, But that could never happen to me.

I’m here to tell you that it can happen to you. And if by some stretch of the imagination you believe you’re immune to a crash-and-burn because of your faith in God, then you’re living with the exact kind of naiveté that can ruin your reputation, your family, your health and your legacy. Your name can be added to that ever-growing pile at the bottom of the ladder of success. In my work with hundreds of leaders from across the world, I find that far too many have eagerly entered the workplace, marketplace or mission field with the goal of establishing themselves and striving toward a successful future. But unfortunately they overlooked something crucial along the way. They end up in my office soaked in tears and shame because they were fired for ethical violations, they didn’t know how to work on a team, or they even succumbed to the dark allure of money, sex and power. At one time they thought, But that could never happen to me. But it did.

The obvious question here is, why? I’ll offer my take. But I warn you, the answer is not pretty.

Dirty Little Secret

We can prostitute our very souls in our attempts to be successful. We can sell out, cave in and go morally bankrupt chasing the god of success. Knowing this perilous potential, Jesus himself warns us that we can lose our souls by too much gaining, saying, “What kind of deal is it to get everything you want but lose yourself? What could you ever trade your soul for?” (Matthew 16:26). It is no deal at all to lose our soul in striving after the goddess of success. In doing so we pay the ultimate price—a price we do not, in fact, need to pay.

That’s strong language. Success as the world defines it has become a god to us. Yet the first of the Ten Commandments is “You shall have no other gods before me.” We may not have put success before the Lord God, but we’ve sure put it alongside him. Moses feared success for his people more than he feared a life in the wilderness. He warned his people of its dangers:

Make sure you don’t forget GOD, your God, by not keeping his commandments, his rules and regulations that I command you today. Make sure that when you eat and are satisfied, build pleasant houses and settle in, see your herds and flocks flourish and more and more money come in, watch your standard of living going up and up—make sure you don’t become so full of yourself and your things that you forget GOD, your God,

the God who delivered you from Egyptian slavery;

the God who led you through that huge and fearsome wilderness,

those desolate, arid badlands crawling with fiery snakes and scorpions;

the God who gave you water gushing from hard rock;

the God who gave you manna to eat in the wilderness, something your ancestors had never heard of, in order to give you a taste of the hard life, to test you so that you would be prepared to live well in the days ahead of you.

If you start thinking to yourselves, “I did all this. And all by myself. I’m rich. It’s all mine!”—well, think again. Remember that GOD, your God, gave you the strength to produce all this wealth so as to confirm the covenant that he promised to your ancestors—as it is today. (Deuteronomy 8:11-18)

Have you ever thought some of those things to yourself—those phrases that are the whisperings of success?

“I did it all, all by myself.”

“Look at what I have become.”

“It’s all mine.”

J. B. Phillips was a successful pastor and prolific author in the mid-twentieth century. He was a colleague and friend of C. S. Lewis’s, and it was Lewis who personally endorsed Phillips’s translation of the Bible into everyday language for modern readers. His books sold into the millions and are still popular today. Phillips’s legendary success established him as a leading voice in the work of the church all around the world. But in Phillips’s autobiography, The Price of Success, he personally laments the great cost of his worldly success. He writes:

I was in a state of some excitement throughout 1955. My work was intrinsically exciting. My health was excellent; my future prospects were rosier than my wildest dreams could suggest; applause, honor and appreciation met me everywhere I went. I was well aware of the dangers of sudden wealth and took some severe measures to make sure that, although comfortable, I should never be rich. I was not nearly so aware of the dangers of success. The subtle corrosion of character, the unconscious changing of values and the secret monstrous growth of a vastly inflated idea of myself seeped slowly into me. Vaguely I was aware of this and, like some frightful parody of St. Augustine, I prayed, “Lord, make me humble, but not yet.” I can still savor the sweet and gorgeous taste of it all: the warm admiration, the sense of power, of overwhelming ability, of boundless energy and never-failing enthusiasm. It is very plain to me now why my one-man kingdom of power and glory had to stop.1

A one-man or one-woman kingdom of power and glory—that’s the danger. That’s the kind of success that leads us to forget who is behind any strength and wealth we have achieved. As we will explore in this book, what’s at stake in our success is the “subtle corrosion of character, the unconscious changing of values and the secret monstrous growth of a vastly inflated idea of myself.” It’s not that success is inherently wrong. It’s that we have allowed it to rival God and God will share his worship with no one and no thing. God is a jealous God. And we have become unfaithful spouses.

But guess what? It doesn’t have to be that way.

Here’s the good news. We can climb that ladder of success to live and finish well. Now does this indicate we’re going to have to define exactly what “success” and “finishing well” mean? Yes, and that’s a part of what this book is about. In fact, much of what is presented here will be a redefinition of such words and phrases. We tend to form our definitions of success and happiness by the world around us. We begin with childish ways of demonstrating success—the one with the most toys wins—and this attitude carries forward in life as we age, acquire more power and increase the size of the shadow we cast amongst all the other trees in the forest. But here, childish ways must be put aside. And as we put aside childish definitions of success, we will be challenged to form a more virtuous, precise and life-guiding understanding of not only success but also inner contentment and deep satisfaction.

And here’s the hard news: It’s going to take work, something called “the work before the work.”

In the opening of part one, I shared the story of the celebrated Chinese woodcarver. What set this man apart from his peers was his decision to do the work before the work. Had he skipped this crucial step he would have been like any other woodcarver. Whether it is work before the work, work during the work, or work after the work, I call this the “Inside Job”—a process of learning, adjusting, repenting and starting anew with courageous convictions. These convictions are anchored in ancient truths lived out by ordinary folks who have assumed the helm of leadership and lived well. In the wake of their conviction and choices, they hearken to a higher calling, live with a more noble passion and experience contentment not found in mere earthly pursuits.

Nothing New

It would be tempting to think that we’re the first to see such an unprecedented crisis of character—that this is some new phenomenon. But that’s not true. This problem, sadly, is recorded throughout the pages of the Bible where we see men and women with undeniable promise and gifts get tripped up in unwise choices and bottom out in disgrace and dishonor.

Remember David, the warrior poet? Instead of going to war with his men he went to bed with another man’s wife. The consequences were catastrophic. Or how about Barnabas, Paul’s companion on many of his missionary journeys? He simply could not find a way in his heart to be a team player. The result was a tragic split in their shared leadership. And it’s not just the men. The women are there too. Two women in one of Paul’s first churches nearly split the church because of their uncontrolled tongues and poisoned hearts for each other. Then there’s Sapphira. She and her husband could not bring themselves to make good choices with money. They fell into hoarding, a couple of misers with their God-given resources—and as a result became a negative example for all.

And don’t forget Peter, that impetuous disciple who always spoke before thinking. He would be an unlikely candidate to speak about character. Or would he? Interestingly enough, based on the extraordinary writings of this apostle, I’ve found that we can discover the much-needed and absolutely necessary character building blocks that assure us we will “never fall” and keep us from becoming “in­effective and unproductive” (2 Peter 1:8, 10 NIV).

There’s Something About Peter

Tertullian (A.D. 155–250), the early Christian historian, wrote that “Peter endured a passion like that of the Lord.” Peter’s name is mentioned roughly two hundred times in the New Testament. He began his vocational career as a small business owner along with his brother Andrew and their associates James and John. His fishing enterprise was abruptly cut short, perhaps in a midcareer crisis, when he met Jesus. That encounter changed everything for Peter.

Peter became one of only a handful of important eyewitnesses to the life and legacy of Jesus of Nazareth. Not only did Peter’s passion change from fishing for food to shaping and discipling men and women, but Peter’s own life was transformed—changed from the inside out. Perhaps this is why Peter is so concerned with the inner traits of a would-be leader and outlines for us the inner markers necessary to live successfully and finish well. Peter knows about the work before the work.

Luke, a medical doctor and the first church historian, tells us that Peter was the leader, second to none, of the rapidly spreading church. It was Peter, not Paul, who first realized that the message of Jesus was intended for people outside the Jewish faith (see Acts 10). He was a persuasive preacher, a formidable thinker about life, faith and leadership, and a passionate defender of the faith against the criticisms and persecution that threatened the expanding church. In the end, Peter was martyred for his participation in the greatest movement the world has ever known. According to legend, he was crucified upside down. The world’s final assessment of him was that he got it all backward.

On the practical side, Peter was married and his wife even accompanied him on some of his journeys (1 Corinthians 9:5; 1 Peter 5:13). Peter was a family man, caring for his mother-in-law (Mark 1:29) and brother Andrew. He knew well the challenges of balancing the pressures of small business with the competing demands of family. Peter’s proximity to Jesus is clearly seen in the Gospels; he was present during many of Jesus’ major miracles, including his walking on water and the transfiguration. Peter’s witness of the remarkable miracles of Jesus foreshadowed the miracles he himself would do later, as seen in the book of Acts. Luke tells us that Peter had such power that people scrambled to stand in his literal shadow as he walked by (see Acts 5 for this story). This kind of charisma, influence and leadership make Peter worthy of our examination. It ought to tell us something.

Every single time we see a list of the twelve disciples in the Gospels, Peter’s name is first. In the New Testament church, Peter’s leadership was vast and unquestioned. Evidently he was first among equals in the first-century world. Peter’s journey of becoming a great leader is chronicled for us in the New Testament. And it is precisely this process of Peter’s shaping as a leader that gives him the transparency, vulnerability and authenticity to speak to us today. Eugene Peterson writes:

The way Peter handled himself in that position of power is even more impressive than the power itself. He stayed out of the center, didn’t “wield” power, maintained a scrupulous subordination to Jesus. Given his charismatic personality and well-deserved position at the head, he could have easily taken over, using the prominence of his association with Jesus to promote hims...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Part One: The Crisis in the Leader’s Soul
• Part Two: Doing the Work Within the Work
• Part Three: Leading to Live
• Acknowledgments
• Notes
• Resources
• Potter's Inn
• Praise for Inside Job
• About the Author
• More Titles from InterVarsity Press
• Copyright