Michael’s guest today is the speaker, pastor, author, and career coach Kim Beckham. Throughout the interview both Michael and Kim discuss the dangers of comparing ourselves to peers, the importance of being honest about your shortcomings, how to practice the right kind of humility, incorporating God’s wisdom into your decision making, and why forgiveness is so key as a leader, among many other things.
One practice in particular to highlight here, and as a suggestion for your own leadership practice, is the habit of making a 5 Minute Journal. It can be a great tool for starting your day off right and reinforcing some key leadership principles in your life.
For Kim’s books and other resources, visit his website: http://kimbeckham.net/
Show Episode Transcript
Manufacturing Leadership
Welcome to Manufacturing Leadership, a podcast for young professionals in and out of the oil and gas industry. And now here's your host Energy Weldfab's, Michael Clements.
Micahel C.: What's up listeners, thank you for tuning in to another episode of manufacturing leadership, I am your host Michael Clements, and we have an exceptional show setup for today. Our guest holds a master's degree in counseling, has authored multiple books, a veteran pastor of nearly 40 years, certified leadership coach and maybe most notably has been married for 43 years. Welcome author, pastor, leader and family man pastor Kim Beckham, how are you doing today Kim?
Kim Beckham: I'm good Michael, how are you?
Michael C.: Man I'm doing wonderful, I got to ask what is the secret to 43 years of marriage?
Kim Beckham: It's just doing what you're told, you do what you're told when you're told you'd be fine.
Michael C.: I like that advice, I think you know if that was all this podcast was about we could just say okay that's it just listen.
Kim Beckham: I always tell people the reason I've been married 43 years is God's grace and my wife's patience.
Michael C.: Yes, February will be five years for my wife and I and patience is key for her, she has to have patience with me, definitely.
Kim Beckham: Yes right.
Michael C.: Well Kim let's get started here, what's a little background on you your family, hobbies?
Kim Beckham: Well I was born in Albuquerque New Mexico, I'd like to say I was a Texan from birth but my family's from East Texas, they're from Pittsburgh but my dad was Air Force so we were born in Albuquerque, trotted around the country for a while and the world and then settled into East Texas and I just love it here. I was actually raised for the most part in the North Dallas, and that's where I got involved I came to be faith in Christ in Dallas area, became a minister and went to Bible College in Arlington and started a church in Opry Texas. I don't know if people here know where Aubree is, outside of Denton Texas as a little community about 700 people we put the church halfway between it at pilot point, we were going to call it halfway Baptist but we didn't think anybody understand, so we called it Midway Baptist.
And so anyway I was there ten years, had a lot of success and then the church here in Tyler Central Baptist Church was looking for a pastor, they reached out to me and invited me to come and I came and I've been there now actually going on 32 years and I've been the pastor of Central Baptist Church and just love working with people, I love the things of God and I'm passionate about human development, passionate about helping people become more than who they are.
Michael C.: Well development seems key if you help start a church in Aubrey Texas is correct?
Kim Beckham: Right, Aubrey pilot point it's outside of Denton, beautiful horse country there is a lot of horses up there and yes we started with five families, 26 people you know ten years later he had about 450 people and we had property and land and buildings and I was very blessed and very fortunate. Then came to Tyler church of Tyler is quite large it's got 30 acres, we have about five to six hundred people show up regularly, we take care of 700 people, active membership probably around 1200 or something like that. But it gets you in the people business you know outside the things of faith and you learn about how important people are, and working with people.
About ten years ago it dawned on me that I needed to get outside the walls of the church, I'd spent my whole world in the church world and I'm happy to be there, I love the things of faith, I love God, I love Christ but I realized that I was no more for what I was against instead of what I was for and I wanted people to know what I was for. I ended up volunteering at some local agencies path which is a great help agency in Tyler and ended up working with AZA children's home is a fundraiser for about ten years just helping them out and had a lot of success at that. And along the way all through my life the second thing that I'm passionate about outside of my faith and family probably I guess I should say third, I'm passionate about human development, I love to see people make real change, real growth in their life.
So I started doing some more studying and training and getting some certifications and started doing some leadership training and some skills building, and some things and probably the most powerful thing that happened to and I know you've had a couple of guys on the show already there's an organization in Tyler called leadership Tyler in which they help develop leaders for the city, got involved in that organization and it was just incredible experience for me, life changing.
That's some great people, learned how much of a great community is built on the sacrifice of people's time, energy and money, but also got some more leadership training and I came out of that with the understanding that I need to be a better leader and I need to be able to help the people that work for me or are under my leadership develop and that's what I've been trying to do for the last 10 years or so.
Michael C.: Well strong leaders build other leaders and it seems like you took that approach at an early time. So going back a little bit you saw an opportunity to get outside of the walls of church and this could be really good advice for leaders out there, maybe say I don't have time outside of work or what I do did you face those types of questions before you decided to get into volunteering your time?
Kim Beckham: I think we all think we don't have enough time, there's a guy named Tim Ferris who wrote a successful book and has a blog and he talks about leadership principles, but he says when you're trying to choose projects you should choose the projects that have generic success characteristics in them. For instance, either you're going to meet some people that are going to help you further along the way in your career or you're going to learn some things, they're going to help you in your career.
So when I chose to get outside the walls of the church not only was I serving people, but I was learning things that were going to help me be a better pastor, help me be a better leader in the church so those were the generic success characteristics.
Michael C.: So mentally did it start to open a lot of doors for you?
Kim Beckham: Oh yes absolutely, I actually teach a leadership course once a month it's all kinds of things from networking, to lifting the lid of belief off your life, changing your mindset and goal-setting some of these other things, but the reason I'm doing that is because I met people who opened those doors for me and I ran into different individuals and one of the things I realized was the people that you spend your time with they're going to have a huge impact on your life. And someone has said that if you want to know your success level you are going to be the average of the five people you spend the most time with, well that became something very important to me.
When I'm looking at success and I want to be successful in every area of my life I want to be around successful people, and leadership Tyler and other organization like that its whole focus is people who want to be successful. As a friend of mine says when you get involved in organizations like that you're working with high-end people, some people have energy and they have passion and they have drive and have discipline they want to do something with their life, and boy when you get in a room full of people like that it'll raise your own energy and help you move more.
Michael C.: So getting involved with others, volunteering your time it sounds like that was really when you started noticing how important it was to develop yourself as a leader and through that you found that you enjoyed developing others as leaders too, correct?
Kim Beckham: Well yes, I'd say that became a final catalyst because it's really always been a passion with me, my first day of Bible College I was in the bookstore getting my textbooks, someone asked me the other day so when did you start getting interested in self-improvement, well that's the day it happened because there was a little book stand you know the kind that just turns around got books on every corner and it had a little paperback on it, it was called success unlimited by Mac Douglas and I still have that book today and I tell you how long ago it was because it only costs two dollars and 95 cents and it was brand new.
So I get this book and it's full of all kinds of principles like vision, discipline, working hard, building relationships and sacrificing for others and I just consumed that book, I loved it. And so really all through my ministry, all through my career I've read every kind of book in the world like that I just love that kind of material whether it's Napoleon's Hill Think and Grow Rich or Brian Tracy's book on goals or Tim Ferris the tools of the Titans or a hundred other books.
So I've always been passionate about self-improvement and I always wanted to help my people in the church, but getting into some of these organizations like leadership Tyler that are focused on actually doing it systemically and trying to get you to go at it in a real organized way really elevated my game in that area.
Michael C.: Well I got a quote from your blog here, this goes perfectly it says past mistakes and failures are not disqualifiers for success, in fact they are usually a prerequisite for real-world impact, do a quick study of some of the game-changing leaders from history and you will see that all of them overcame something on their path to success. After I read that on your blog I knew you're going to be a wonderful fit for our show, it's the entire reason we started actually leadership podcast was for aspiring leaders to hear stories about real life stories of challenges leaders faced and to stay encouraged in steadfast on their own journeys.
You know and little did we know while we're on those journeys or do we want to admit that as we're overcoming those obstacles we're getting better every single day, you know sometimes it's hard to see what's in front of us but that vision that we have in our minds it's slowly developing even when it seems like we're so far off course as we face those obstacles and we come into them day in and day out, we do get better. To elude on that, how do you feel like Scripture and following Jesus has impacted you in regard to becoming a better leader and some of these things is according to success that we discussed?
Kim Beckham: Oh immensely, you know when I started studying Self Help material and improvement material you immediately begin to recognize the spiritual principles involved in that. I think that's because God created all of us and he hardwired certain concepts into us and even if you're not a follower of Christ which is the ultimate thing to be, you can still learn some things about leadership and learn some things about taking care of others.
And for instance I was teaching some of my people today about overcoming failure, and we were talking about that your past failure is not your destiny and what was basically a management decision that you manage the wrong way in your personal life or whatever it's not your destiny, because you made a mistake doesn't mean that's what you have to be. Well of course the heartbeat of Christianity is the forgiveness of God in Christ and when you know that you've been truly forgiven of Christ for all of the things that you've done wrong, all the failures in your life, all your sins you realize how powerful concept forgiveness is and beginning again and moving forward.
And then they're just understanding that if God had so much interest in me, he thinks so much of me or every other human being that he would die for me how can I not be excited about myself.
Michael C.: Just becoming more resilient because of the teachings of the Lord can, I think resilience is just the word that keeps coming to mind right now for me. You know you think about what Jesus did with disciples and if he had just given up you know what this is not going to work, but that was exactly what he didn't do and he stayed steadfast on his journey which eventually led to the church all across the world now as we know it because of that steadfast and investing in those twelve disciples.
Kim Beckham: Yes, and you know of course the followers of Christ to like for instance the Apostle Paul he talks a lot about that, he talks about some of the real troubles and difficulties and problems he went through as that first missionary, you know been shipwrecked and being beaten and then chased out of towns and yet crushed and perplexed but never beaten, never destroyed.
In fact my favorite scripture is Philippians 3 verse 10, which says that I may know him and the powers resurrection the Fellowship of his sufferings and being made conformable unto his death, and then he goes on to say as you go down in that chapter, Paul is saying not that I have already attained but that I continue to strive to attain, this one thing I do I press forward for the mark well he wrote that after many years of serving Christ, but yet Paul said I'm still striving for the mark, I'm still pressing forward and so that resilience of being a believer and knowing that God has a plan for my life and until the day that God has me draw my last breath that plans not over, so I need to keep growing and keep going.
Michael C.: That's right. And you know before the show we were talking a little bit about how important it is for leaders to be resilient and to be able to overcome those obstacles and something comes to mind for me is just trying to develop others in software and in an ever-changing business climate that's something that we're constantly investing in, something we're constantly having to get better at and something that's a constant pushback. And it's not that it's a negative pushback but it requires the leaders in a business to stay resilient to that because you know what the vision is and you know what's coming in this day and age.
Kim Beckham: Or even more striking you have to be resilient because you don't necessarily know what's coming.
Michael C.: That's true.
Kim Beckham: One of the most powerful books I read the last few years speaking about business areas was by Peter Diamandis, it's called bold and it's about the power of financial technology and that technology isn't just growing and doubling, its exponentially growing and as a result of that things are possible now that were not possible three or four years ago.
And now you have people that are coming out of college with a degree, University with a degree especially in the realm of technology that if they don't keep learning and growing they'll be obsolete in three years. So you've got to keep growing and you got to be resilient and you got to adapt to the new changes that are coming.
Michael C.: So how often do you think your team, your church they all focus on development or doing training together?
Kim Beckham: Well we do some formal training every year and then occasionally I try to meet with them, in fact today I actually just did a training with them on some coaching material I was working on them and lifting the lid of belief off of your life. But we take a retreat every year and on that retreat we try to spend time together speaking and training, we have leadership and ministerial conferences that involve leadership speakers and I take them to that.
They're also allowed to attend at least one conference a year that the church will pay for in their specific ministry area, so they can get more skills building. So we're constantly looking at it, I keep them involved in the city of Tyler as far as leadership Tyler and other events that they sponsor, they're local in fact we're putting our executive pastor right now through the leadership Tyler program, he's in this year's class.
Michael C.: I don't want to tie the church to necessarily generating revenue, but have you all seen a rise in maybe attendance or the way different guests or things can happen at your church, do you see an improvement from your team since you all started investing in development and training and doing those things?
Kim Beckham: Well you can't discount what God is doing because there's always God at work, when I train other pastors and when I talk to them I tell them I say okay we're going to start with a given, I'm going to assume that you already praying, I'm going to assume that you are already reading your Bible because that's what you do, so surely you're doing that. I'm going to assume that you try to walk in the spirit, but having done all those things there's also some human skills, some skills of understanding yourself and understanding other people and understanding the power of setting goals etc. that can help you be more effective. In fact I'll tell you a story, when I was in my first church I was struggling, I was very young, I had worked on a church staff and enjoyed it and was very blessed to do it, but I was still in Bible College, actually had a year to go on my education and I got an opportunity to start this church.
So I go out and I'm doing that and we're doing pretty good but I was struggling, I wasn't growing the way I wanted to grow, didn't understand some things and I read a book called you and your network by Fred Smith and Fred Smith was on the board of Billy Graham, he was a very successful business leader for Jeunesse Co and other large corporations. He taught a class at one of the local churches in Dallas which was full of millionaires he was a very high level person, and he'd written this book well it had a lot of practical advice and it I liked it so much that I sent a letter to the editor; this is way back pre-internet days. So I sent a letter to the editor saying you know would you pass this on to Fred just telling how much I appreciate him and how good the book was and how it helped me, and I said frankly you know I'm struggling with some areas of leadership and not sure what to do.
And what I told him was my church isn't growing like I wanted to, that I go to these conferences and they tell me well if you'll just pray and if you'll just walk with God and if you'll just be filled with the spirit your church will grow and I said I feel like I'm doing those things and my church isn't growing. So he wrote me back I was shocked, and he said I live in Dallas which is just an hour away from pilot point, why don't you come over and I'll buy your breakfast and we'll talk about these things and I said great.
So I drove to Dallas he was so gracious, so kind and he met with me and he talked women and he said to me, he said okay he said I got your comments and what you said and he said let me tell you the truth, he said I've worked with a lot of extremely high-level pastors who pastor mega churches and all this and he said they're not telling you the truth when they say that if you'll just pray, read your Bible and one with spirit, he said at least they're not telling you all the truth.
What they're not telling you is if they happen to be extremely good leaders, and they would grow a church no matter where they're located. So yes you need to walk in the spirit, yes you need to pray, yes you need to read your Bible and never discount those things because those are the key, but along with those things if you learn some basic human skills of leadership, you'll be even more productive.
Michael C.: That is a tremendous story and so you read the book, you got to go meet him, he gave you knowledge and advice that it sounds like you still are carrying with you today.
Kim Beckham: Oh he shaped my life, in fact his next book was called learning to lead and the epilogue or the beginning, the preface of the book is that story.
Michael C.: So just kind of a small thing here, you know sometimes it's hard as a leader to want to ask somebody else advice and I think that's a key part of growth as a leader. I know when I was younger sometimes I didn't want to ask somebody, I just wanted to keep that to myself or might not think others knew, I didn't know what I was doing but I've seen now that there's actually a lot of value in people knowing what, you do not know what you're doing but you're trying to figure out how.
Kim Beckham: That's exactly right and the reality is the leaders around you already know you don't know what you're doing, they're just being polite, so you might as well go ahead and tell them. But what I have found is that for the most part really effective leaders and successful people in just about every field are more than happy to share their knowledge, if you are serious and you're not wasting their time.
When I teach my course on leadership training I talk about the difference in organic networking and strategic networking, an organic networking is when you join an organization like rotary or Lions Club or whatever it might be, and because you're in that organization you're going to meet some people and because you work together on these projects you might build a relationship and that might lead to more business or more career success and that's organic networking, and that should be done highly recommend that.
But I believe there's such a thing as strategic networking and strategic networking and from my point of view is when you target somebody, a couple of years ago I realized there was a man in our community, extremely successful man in every era, very successful business, entrepreneur, multi-millionaire, philanthropist leader in the community, great family man just everything. I didn't know it, I knew of him but I wanted to be in this circle and I happen to have a friend who worked for him.
So I decided I'm going after this guy, I'm going to get in the room with this guy, so I told my friend I said look I want you to do me a favor I'm going to rent your boss an email and I'm going to call him, I know he won't answer the phone because sure he has gatekeepers, but all I want you to do is to tell him yes I know Kim he's not crazy, he's not a stalker, you could take his call, she said I'll do that. So I did that, put it in an email and I also left him a voicemail knowing who I was, I told him what I was doing and I told him look I don't want to sell you anything, I don't want to raise any money from you for a project, I just want to be in your circle of influence because I respect and admire and I think just being around you would help me grow us leader, well no answer.
But three months went by no answer, I didn't do it every month because I didn't want them to think I'm a stalker, but after three months I tried again still no answer. Six months in I'd see my friend and I say to her, I said look you know would you please tell him that I'm not crazy and that he can answer this call, she said I will. So again I would send the same email saying what. One year later we're at a community event and it's probably a thousand people there, big community event and I see his team over there they've got a table and my friends over there so I walk over to say hello to my friend, I'm talking to her and he hears her call my name and he said oh you're Kim Beckham, you're the one leaving me the email, you're the one that's living me the voicemail we need to get together, he said get your calendar out right now we're going to set a date and I said absolutely.
So I got my phone out we set a date and we've been meeting now for a couple of years, I'm in a mastermind group with him, he's helped me immensely to think at a higher level and to grow and become, but my point is it was strategic networking I figured out who I wanted to be with and I went drink.
Michael C.: You use so many tools there are too persistence is one that comes to mind for me, getting out of your comfort zone, doing something hey I'm going to contact this guy three months later, I'm going to contact him again, I'm going to contact him again and I think that as a leader you didn't give up and now you're getting the reward of saying hey I'm developed a relationship, now I've been able to be in a mastermind group with him, so that's terrific.
Kim Beckham: Well what you originally said, how do you find the courage or whatever to step out and ask them and what I was saying is this gentleman is a good example, he was more than happy to meet with someone I'm not the only one he meets with, more than happy but do they know you're serious? Are you going to waste their time, if you come to them they're happy to share information with you, but not if you're not serious or not if you're going to waste your time.
Michael C.: That's very true. Let's let that move this into account of one of our topics for discussion today, I wanted to talk about some of the hidden dangers and personal relationships, we've already talked about relationship building and some of those things so this is a great topic, this is something you've discussed in one of your books, give us a little intro.
Kim Beckham: Well for 40 years I've been working with people and been privileged to walk with people through some of the great challenges of their life and faith and I've been in the inner circle of some of their struggles, so it's a great blessing. But what I realized is when it comes to dangers to relationships we're aware of the major dangers, we know infidelity can destroy a relationship; we know addiction can ruin a relationship. But we often overlook smaller things like comparison, when we start comparing our mate to someone else or our children to somewhere else or our job to somebody else's job that can be a real hidden danger that can ruin a relationship.
Well my favorite is taking poor counsel, we look for answers and sometimes when we have a problem and a difficulty we just talk to whoever we can and it's important not to listen to bad counsel, it's important not to get poor counsel, so those are a couple of those things. And so I wrote a book about it, and there are about 15 different ones in the book and so I love talking about it.
Michael C.: So comparing your relationship to others, that's something my generation where we've been consumed by that for over a decade now with social media. So what advice do you have to combat that?
Kim Beckham: Well the scripture says when we compare ourselves to others it's not wise, so there you back to that biblical truth that gives you resilience. God made each one of us unique, one of those chapters is about having good self-esteem you know first of all not letting comparison wounds your self-esteem and Facebook, Instagram all these different social media sites they're wonderful things, I mean I love my Facebook account because I get to see all my family's pictures and all the fun stuff.
But it's a danger if you're not wise because you know people don't put the worst day they ever had on Facebook, they put hey we went to the beach today, had a great time with my family or we did this travel or hey I just got this new award and if you're not wise about that you look at it and say well man they're having a great life, how come I'm not having such a great life. Well that's not their whole life and you have to be wise about that, but even if it was it wouldn't matter and what matters is what do I have that I can be grateful for, I mean what is working good for me and how can I get up in the morning and just be thankful.
The Bible talks about counting your blessings, one of the things that I think is important is gratitude, gratitude is one of the most powerful virtues in life and I use a thing called the 5-minute journal, I don't know if you follow that little book, it basically says first thing in the morning you write down three things you're grateful for and last thing you do before you go to sleep is write down three things you're grateful for, it's just a good way of reminding you to count your blessings. There are so many things I can be thankful for in my life and if I take the time to center myself and God's blessing on my life, I'm not going to be so apt to be wounded by somebody else's success.
Michael C.: The five minute, what was that called?
Kim Beckham: The five minute journal, you can google it on Amazon or wherever I've forgotten who it's by, it's a great concept that a lot of people talk about. Gratitude is one of the most powerful tools because it shifts your focus, it puts you back in the realm of faith and realizing that you know it's no accident you are where you're at and doing what you're doing and having experiences and to be grateful for what's happening in your life.
Michael C.: And I don't think it's unreasonable for a leader sometimes to think how did I get in this situation, what am I doing here, do I have the tools to get out of this or get into it or progress my team I think those are all questions leaders face.
Kind of thinking if someone who's on a low comparing themselves to somebody that's obviously on a high, but one thing we both know is that there's ups and downs in life if you're down you're going up, if you're up the only way you can really go is down I don't say that in like a negative light. Someone told me one time that life is like a wave, it can either go really high and really low or you can keep it kind of balance, but whether we like it or not there's going to be a wave there.
Kim Beckham: I want to stay on comparison first finish up talking about comparing ourselves to others that's the self-esteem issue; you don't want to be guilty of that too much. The only time I think that is good is when I'm healthily comparing my efforts to someone in my field that I can learn from, for instance most of us collect heroes in our life that we look at whether it's a great sports hero or someone like that or a person of faith and when I can look at somebody who works really hard and they put in a lot of hours, then I can say okay I can compare myself.
I'm not having the success I want but maybe I could learn something from this person because they worked really hard, I'm not going to feel bad about myself but if I compare the fact that I'm working 30 hours a week and having a level of success and they're working 60 hours a week at having different levels success, well I can learn from their success and maybe work harder. But the real of the chapter that comparison was mostly about was when we compare people in our lives to other people, for instance comparing our wife to someone else or a husband to someone else.
You know one of the most damaging things that any husband can ever say to his wife is I don't know why you don't look like so-and-so, I don't know why she's this or she's that. And one of the worst things a woman can say to her husband is I don't know why you don't make the kind of money that so-and-so makes, I don't know why you want to do that those are horrible attacks on the other person and their demotivating and they're dangerous, you don't want to be comparing those that you love to other people.
Michael C.: I'm really enjoying this the comparison of relationships to others, I think that's a wonderful topic you've hit on there and that's something that my quiz mentioned earlier I know my age group for sure that's something that we're always on Facebook or Instagram and saying oh yes they're doing this, they're doing that and it is easy from being someone that's married it is dangerous you don't want to start comparing your spouse to someone else.
I definitely don't want my wife comparing me to someone else, I feel like I should be the only man in her eyes and vice versa. So it builds a strong relationship, now how do you combat this if you start to do something like that, as you mentioned earlier I guess not with a personal relationship but it sounds like there's a level of it admiring someone but not comparing?
Kim Beckham: Yes, I think that's okay to admire people. I mean one of the self-esteem that first chapter one of the mistakes we make sometimes in self-esteem we think that having a healthy self-esteem is the same thing as having an ego problem and it's not, we all know the egomaniacs that embarrass us and they can't talk about anything but themselves and that's not the same thing as being justly proud of what God has allowed you to do in your life.
For instance sometimes in churches somebody will sing a beautiful solo and somebody will come up to them and say oh you bless me today of such a beautiful subtle and they'll think they're being humble and they'll go, oh no I'm just a worm I'm no good that's not the humility, that's a false humility. When somebody says to you blessed me with your message or you bless me with your song, the right answer is thank you, thank you.
Michael C.: Thank you.
Kim Beckham: Yes, and then in your heart you say thank you God for using me because to do anything less than that is to discount what God is doing in your life.
Michael C.: That's true, that's a really good point I'm glad that you brought that up that is a challenge, it definitely is and I think that's great advice on how to combat that, thank you and then in your heart thank you Lord.
Kim Beckham: For using me, thank you for I know I couldn't do it without God, but on the other hand I read the book, I put in the six hours of study, I organized the topic God used my gifts to do that. Or the singer went to school and got the training worked on their voice, learned the music so yes they had something to do with the success.
Michael C.: The second point we have here is accepting poor counsel and before we get into the poor counsel just want to ask, how often are you seeking the counsel of the Lord in your decision-making?
Kim Beckham: That's a very good question and it really should be absolutely all the time. In fact I was just with a man today unfortunately on a committee in Tyler working on mental health issues where it's a citywide committee involving everything from law enforcement to mental health professionals, and I'm trying to help tie together the faith-based community in that, very privileged to be a part.
We were meeting with a gentleman today talking about it, he was talking about something they were doing, he's from another city but he was saying you know the whole key is he said and he's very technical, he built this website, he's doing all this and he said but really the bottom line is it's the time I spent with the Lord in the morning, the first thing I do every day is to put in my time at 5:30 in the morning would be with the Lord and get some wisdom from him.
Michael C.: You have an example of maybe how a conversation with God can go?
Kim Beckham: Yes, I'll give you an example. You're going to buy a car, I mean it's one of the things that we all have to do from time to time, does God care which car you buy well yes and no, Gods got the world spinning in the universe and many things concern him, there are parts of that that probably do concern him. So when I'm getting ready to buy a car, say we're doing that but first thing I wanted want to do is say Lord I am your servant and I want everything I do to bring glory to you, the Bible says do everything you do it under the glory of God and so I want to buy this car under the glory of God.
Now it doesn't mean I have to shout hallelujah when I'm in the showroom or you know put scripture on the carpet, it does mean that in every way in which I'm dealing with that process whether it's meeting the salesmen or doing the research or negotiating the deal or talking to the finance and whatever I'm doing, that I'm being aware that I need to be surrendered to God for his leadership in that area, and then trusting him to get me through it.
Michael C.: If we seek the wisdom from him he's going to bless us with that, I think sometimes even myself as a leader there's probably not enough that I'm taking to him on a daily basis, you know the tough decisions, the ones that keep me up at night, the ones that you know I may have to make a decision at 9 o'clock that morning, I wake up, I'm thinking about it, praying about it. But you know there’s a lot of other smaller decision, while we say smaller but those smaller ones impact those larger decisions and would you encourage leaders to be praying about all of their decisions?
Kim Beckham: Yes, but I think in a way I don't know that that means that you have to have a list and write down every decision, but I think that it does mean that you're facing the reality that you and you're spending some time with God every day saying God I want to be your person, I want to be your man, I want to be your woman, I want what I do to please you and so please guide my steps and please direct every decision I make.
And then of course when there's specific things you want to prevent that's fine to do that and good to do that, but I think it just basically starts with this thing of centering yourself in God and knowing that everything I need to do or should be doing should be able to bring glory to God.
Michael C.: Scripture comes to mind, not sure the exact verse but you know the Lord guides our steps, we got our hearts and so we're taught to keep our hearts clean and pure and to be focused on the right thing, but then the Lord has gotten our step.
You know just like you were talking about that car I've always kind of thought just sometimes the most minuet decisions you know telling what type of impact that has, if you bought that car from that guy he may get a bonus that he wasn't going to get, that bonus may do something and then you never know what ring of events is tied to anything and that's why we just have to have trust in the Lord. I've heard more stories than not of the Lord coming through during times of Prayer.
Kim Beckham: Yes, and I envy you gentlemen and women that work in the oil field or in a corporate world, not that what I do is not important it certainly yes, but I think that you get an opportunity to see God at work and how you negotiate a contract, in how you choose an employee, in how I choose a business partner and those are things that often time in the church world we don't recognize that because we're not doing that in that environment and so I think you get a chance to see the power of God being played out in those areas more often than we do at times.
Michael C.: Back on our point here in accepting poor counsel, we are human so if you're going to accept advice or counsel from another person there is potential there that it could be incorrect, even if they know for sure that's the exact thing you need to hear and you need to do.
Kim Beckham: There's a story in the Bible that preface a chapter of a prophet of God taking advice from some other prophet and it ends up costing him his life, and so you know you got to be sure who you're listening to when you take instruction. And it's always kind of entertained me a little bit sometimes that you know people will take advice from people that's crazy, for instance we take advice from entertainment world we see a movie and we get inspired by that movie, I'm going to do that because I saw him do it in the movie.
And I gave an example in the book about years and years ago when the first Rocky movie came out, and you know Rocky was this boxer and it's all about his success of boxing, they go through this very moving footage of him doing training and the first thing he does when gets ready to do this training is he breaks some raw eggs and puts them in a glass and just chugs them and then he goes out and he goes running. So I'm sitting there and I was probably in my 20s at the time and I'm still running and I'm thinking yes I moved, the music's powerful, that's what I'm going to do.
And so I go home and I get me except raw eggs and I put them in a glass and I chug them and I go out and I start running and I'm telling you I got about half a mile and those eggs were all over the sidewalk, that was really poor council to listen to. But you see people all the time they'll hear some country-western song or rap song or whatever kind of song and there'll be some lyric in that song they go yes that's what I'm going to do, listen I don't know these people but they didn't write the movie Rocky to help me with my problems, they wrote the movie Rocky to make a buck off of me and whoever else who would come and I'd be silly to take advice on my life from somebody who cares nothing for me, he was just trying to make money.
Michael C.: So just motivation alone is not enough for us to maybe try eggs in a glass and go take a run.
Kim Beckham: My word for you but I've learned since then that a great number of people got Salmonella from practicing what rocky was doing, because drinking raw eggs it could be dangerous.
Michael C.: So you know how important is discernment to this notion of accepting poor counsel and being careful about the information that you're listening to?
Kim Beckham: Its hugely and a good you know when we were talking before about a centering Lords advice and direction, you want to ask the Lord who should I ask for this, the Bible does say that in the multitude of counselors there's wisdom. So one of the things about poor counsel is if that's the only person you're listening to, if I'm trying to make a very big decision I'll want to get more than one opinion.
Also it should be coming from people who are successful in their field, you know I wouldn't ask somebody how to fix my car if their car is always broken down and up on jacks that makes no sense, but you see people all the time taking relationship advice from people who've been through multiple failures in their personal life, and is that really smart? I don't think so. I think if I want to get financial advice from somebody, I want to know that they're making some good money and they've done it over a period of time and they know how to hold on to the money they make, that's the people I want to get advice from.
Michael C.: That's right, yes that's a good point because there's obviously folks out there who has seemed it's like they've just walked this path of success their entire life and haven't faced many challenges, but there's a lot of others out there that have made a lot of mistakes and done those things so you know how do you encourage maybe someone who has made a lot of mistakes that maybe they haven't got over the hump yet, but continue pushing.
Maybe they're not prepared enough to give advice maybe, they can tell someone about the things they did wrong, but how do they get over that hump to actually be somebody that could give that advice?
Kim Beckham: Well I think there's several questions in that, one I would say don’t give up, your mistakes are not your destiny and you can learn and you can grow; sometimes failures are a result of our immaturity. You know we make mistakes because we don't know things, and when we get older and wiser we wouldn't do those same things now, so we shouldn't judge ourselves so harshly for a decision we made when we were immature. We need to let that go, we need to forgive ourselves and we need to move forward so don't give up because you've made mistakes, I've made plenty of mistakes in my life, plenty and any successful person has.
And I've made relationship mistakes I'm writing a book about it, because I've got some of my mistakes in there that I made you know along the way. But learn from your mistakes and get better and move forward and I don't think it hurts to say to someone look if I can't teach you anything else I can teach you not to do what I did that was wrong, and I messed up, don't make the same mistakes I made. A lot of parents do, I mean all parents do that, God I hope a lot of honest parents don't make the mistake I made.
Michael C.: You know just kind of thinking with myself I've made a lot of poor errors in management of others some my age, some older, some friends I've made some really poor mistakes as far as management goes and there was really a time I really started thinking am I cut out to be a leader, but since I was a child it was something that I loved to be a team captain or you know be the guy you know just rooting everybody on you know, that was always kind of who I wanted to be, always felt called the leadership. But you know as I got into it and started managing others I found out I wasn't doing very good at it I was upsetting people, I found out I was upsetting myself and I was constantly trying to work out of a hole.
You know there were a few things I had to look at were in line was I working on self-development or was I just working on trying to make business work, I had to focus on where was I getting my advice from, was I actually going out and seeking it from others, was I seeking it from others that had never done it, was I taking my questions to the Lord and all these things were something that I had to come to grips with myself and unfortunately I've had a couple of good friendships not necessarily end, but we're not working together anymore and I don't see some of those guys now like I used to.
And so those were some challenges I really had to overcome for myself it was difficult I'm still overcoming some of that, but what I've seen though is that I wanted to make that be something that I could make myself better, I didn't want to stick in that hole forever and I knew that and also knew there was still over 140 employees here at Energy WeldFab that were depending on my decisions as well as in other businesses.
Kim Beckham: I think that's a big key to getting better is recognizing responsibility, you mentioned that you always wanted to be leader and as argument over whether leadership can be taught or if it's just innate. I think leadership can be taught, but I do think that there are natural-born leaders you have both, but generally natural-born leaders who are willing to do the hard work to become better leaders really become super leaders, but while you were talking about making mistakes here's the good news, you've made mistakes and you grew from them and you will make more.
One of my favorite psychology books is the road less travel by Tim Scott Pei he says life is difficult, once you accept that life is difficult it becomes less difficult because you quit whining about how difficult life is and get on to solving your problems which I think is so good. But then he also says the reward for solving problems is they bring you bigger problems, when you get good at solving problems what do they do they promote you, well what happens is you get promoted to where you are now facing a problem you've never faced before, so you've got a chance to make another mistake because you don't have experience in that area.
I don't think we ever get to the point where we don't make mistakes, but I think we get to a point and I'd be careful I don't know this is just a gut feeling, I don't think we make as bad a mistakes and I don't think we make as damaging mistakes, I think we catch ourselves quicker, we're able to learn when we're headed in the wrong path and the decision-making and we moved quickly back to a better ground.
Michael C.: Which is very important to do, always be thinking how to get the wheels back on track, you know and for yourself you know you're someone who speaks on leadership, you're a pastor at church, you've worked with teams for now over 40 years, you make mistakes still so how does your team respond to that, do you hit those upfront, how does that work?
Kim Beckham: I think so one of the best things I've ever done is to be able to say I was wrong, I made a mistake. I've had to tell my whole congregation this is what I thought we were supposed to do but you know what I was wrong, I'm sorry I made that mistake but the minute you humbly admit it and you're really trying to be a better people they will accept that, they'll be forgiving in fact they'll respect you more for having admitted it.
When we think we can't admit that we're wrong is when we really get in trouble, beyond that people also know do you care for them. If my team knows and my church knows I really do care about them, then even if I make a mistake they give me a lot of grace and then oh you know pastor may have done this but I know it's hard, you know I know that's not what he meant. And of course it helps when you been the same place 32 years so you've got a long track record they can look at and know you better.
Michael C.: It may be easier to think like being a humble leader doesn't sound very hard to do, but I'll tell you leading people being arrogant is extremely hard, that does not go anywhere so I would encourage others you want to be a humble leader and find ways to be humble we're talking earlier find the behaviors of humble people.
What are those things, how do they say thank you in a time when someone's praising them and how do they deal with that praise, because as you grow as a leader the expectation is you realize success, your team realizes success whether that's a growing attendance in a church, whether that's more revenue or profits in a company, whether that's more customers, vendors whatever your goal is in your job or in your management position but it's important to remember that.
Kim Beckham: When the team makes a mistake you don't say we made a mistake you say I made a mistake, and when the team has a victory you don't say I had a victory you say the team had a victory, so you praise them.
You've had this happen and we had things not long ago or something was happening and somebody on my team made a big mistake and we had to explain it to the church and terrible, but it changed the way we were going to do a particular program and we had to change it. So I didn't get up and say well this person that I hired did this for whatever reason, I said I made a mistake and we're going to fix it, we're going to do it better.
Michael C.: You spoke earlier a little bit to un-forgiveness and we're kind of discussing some things about clinging to the past and whatnot, how important is it for leaders to forgive?
Kim Beckham: Both themselves or others, both, its huge. You may need to give me a little more inside where are you going with that?
Michael C.: You know I work with a young team in our freight business and sometimes there’s a consistent mistake that they make, we'll talk about it on Tuesday we make the same take on Wednesday and Thursday and it's like we just talked about this on Tuesday. But being steadfast in that approach still owning that maybe I am not communicating how this needs to go, how important is that forgiveness to team building?
Kim Beckham: I think it's hugely important, I wrote a blog a few months probably years go about building chains is probably the greatest work you will ever do because nothing of any size and success happens without team, you got to have a team. That being said how do you keep a team motivated and keeping the team motivating is letting them know that you got their back and they are going to make mistakes, in fact every business leader book I've read in the last ten years or blogger always says you fail your way to success, and if you're not having some failure you're not trying hard enough.
Well I tell my team that but I better be okay with the fact that if I say that and they come into my office and say we just had this big failure I can't scream and holler and throw things and say I can't believe you did that or they'll just say oh if that's going to be your reaction then I'm not going to put myself out there anymore. Because failures sometimes happen because you've gotten a team so motivated they're pushing the boundaries, trying to find new and creative ways of making things happen and that some of that's going to work and some of its not.
So you got to be okay with their failure and that means you've got to communicate to them that look I got your back, as long as you're not doing this out of laziness or it's not a matter of poor character or whatever but this is a genuine honest mistake, you were trying hard, you were trying to make this happen then hey we'll figure it out, we'll get past this, we'll move on.
Michael C.: So just to kind of run back through you know we were talking about the hidden dangers in personal relationships and we've discussed a little bit about comparing your relationships to others, accepting poor counsel, clinging to the past, you know letting those things shape more of who we are, I definitely think our past does need to shape us but in a positive manner and in one that is promoting growth within ourselves and development of others.
Kim Beckham: Yes, the chapters’ call being addicted to the past and you got to let the past go. I have some people I know that they've been married a while, it's amazing that they've been married over 25 years because every time they get in a major argument they circle around and eventually come back to fighting over the same argument of something that happened on the honeymoon, that's crazy.
You got to have a discussion, talk it out, pray it out and let it go and you can't keep going back to the past and this is what we have to been. Well I have a deal I do it's called how to have a fair fight because every couple with any energy is going to have some fights and one of the things I say is you got to stay on the subject, if the fight is over the fact that you were 20 minutes late then let's stay on that, let's not go back to what happened on the honeymoon 20 years ago.
Michael C.: I had a buddy who recently reached out to me and him and his wife-to-be were going through the little altercation and he had reached out to me and another friend of mine and we're both married and you know we both encouraged him, we were saying that's part of it. You're probably actually going to become stronger and have a stronger relationship because of this occurrence, and I mean he didn't do anything outlandish or anything but it was just a small fight he was looking for a little advice.
And so why I was really thankful that he reached out to me and my buddy and thought enough of us to ask that question, but also I thought it was very wise of him to be humble enough to reach out to a couple of good friends that he knew would answer them honestly and not sugarcoat it. We both gave similar advice and that hey you're going to get better from this and you'll actually have a better relationship because of it.
Kim Beckham: Yes, I want to stay on this as far as they do to the past, but it made me think of a another chapter which is assuming it's permanent and this is a terrible place to get in a relationship and what you're kind of relating to is what I wanted to say is, one of the teachings of that chapter is as long as you're fighting about an issue in your marriage it's not that bad. What's really bad is when you're really upset about an issue in your marriage and you no longer fight about it, because what that means is you've decided it's never going to be repaired and so you've either given up and that means there's not a whole lot left.
If you assume something's permanent, like for instance if my wife's 15 minutes late or I'm 15 minutes late and you might say well he was just late today, but if she said or I said he's just a jerk now we've moved from an act to a character description and if it's a character description then I've only got two choices accept the poor character or give up on the relationship. So the fact that you're having a fight, the fact that your friend had a fight is a good thing you know as long as you do it well and you work through to a conclusion and you respect each other. I want to have difficult discussions, I laugh I've got my wife I've been married actually now 45 years since that bio on that book and I say I've been married eight different women and they've all been named Barbara.
And what happen even by that is that I married this wonderful girl when she was 18, well she's not 18 anymore and so obviously she grew and changed through the years, and as she grew and changed I had to change along with her because she became a different person, not a hundred percent different but different. And one of the things that happened was as she became much more assertive, we were very young like a lot of young girls all she wanted to do was please me, so she never had an opinion.
Whatever it was she was agreeable, you know I want to go over here two o'clock in the morning yes okay, well then somewhere along the way she started having an opinion and that was a little adjustment because I was used to you know whatever, but I tell people the truth I like her better this way because I'm living with a whole woman now not just a little girl who pretends to be something she's not.
Michael C.: As a leader how important do you think it is to have a spouse that supports you?
Kim Beckham: Huge, we've known for centuries that a person's success in life is hugely determined by their success in their primary relationships and it's a well-known fact that married men live longer than unmarried men and on and on you can go the level of success, all major corporations have known for statistically that people have successful marriages are going to usually make better employees.
Because you know we've all had those rare occasions where we're not happy at home and that is going to take away from your work, and so if you've got a healthy home and you've got a supportive husband, a supportive wife and you got good communication that's going to translate into you being able to focus your work and be more successful at work.
Michael C.: Now that we're on the topic a little bit of relationships and discussing some time with our spouse, I'd like to move into living selfishly. This is the fourth part of hidden dangers in personal relationships, so give us a little background on that.
Kim Beckham: Selfishness is really the bottom root of sin, it's when we want what we want no matter what God wants so what is good for other people or whatever it's just totally self-centered.
And when I am thinking about what I want all the time to the exclusion of other people, then that is sin and that's what caused me to be sinful whether it's stealing somebody else's money, whether it's betraying my mate or whether it's being crooked in my dealings with other people what I'm doing is thinking about what's good for me what do I want, what I want and that's a dangerous thing to be.
Michael C.: In the middle of your journey of growth did you experience much of that living selfishly, because you know whenever we're doing training or you're being coached a lot of time you're so focused on yourself and development, do you ever find yourself looking around at others and analyzing others too like well why don't they know that, you know it's like well I just learned that. I find myself not a lot but at times I'm like you know that person could really benefit from what I just learned over here, but I think that's a selfish way to look at it.
Kim Beckham: Well it depends it didn't have to be selfish, it could be coming from an altruistic place of I really wish they had this information so they could enjoy some of the success, but sometimes it could be selfish if we're judging the other person and saying you know I can see where they're failing and why nobody wants to do work with them or whatever, that could be selfish. But you don't have to remember that when you're doing coaching and training the thing I've learned through the years is people have to be ready to receive it, even the Lord talked about that let him that has ears to hear, let him hear. You know a lot of people heard what Jesus had to say and a lot of people walked away and left him, they had to have ears to hear.
As I did a training I spoke at East Texas professional summit and then we had about oh I don't know how many people in the room, I was talking about game changers the people, places and ideas that change your life and we had a great session together and people taking notes. Well one lady came up to me about a month later, two months later I was at another event and she said I want you to know I was in that session and I did everything you said to do and I got the biggest raise I ever got in my life and I got a new job thank you so much, I said great that's exciting.
And I said you know what's interesting is about that is there were a whole lot of other people in that room and I can promise you some of them did absolutely nothing with the information they were given, because they weren't ready to receive it. You were ready, you were sitting there going teach me something, give me something I want to move forward and you move forward, but not everybody's ready.
Michael C.: So how do we start prepping ourselves to be less selfish?
Kim Beckham: I think scripture you know you're talking about the things of God is a great place to begin because when we center ourselves in God, he will center his heart for other people in us and it talks about the love of Christ being shed abroad in your heart. And you know you get God in you and he starts loving other people through you, so he helps you focus on other people.
But even just humanly speaking I think what we realize that it's not all about me and if I want to have a successful life I've got to have other people in my life, if you're going to have a successful business and it's going to grow, once you maximize the use of your time and once you maximize the use of technology whether it's your phone or computer whatever, the only way you can grow is through other people. Well if you're going to grow through other people then what other people are and who they are is going to be very important to you, so you're going just out of self-interest you're going to be less selfish thinking about them because if they don't succeed, I won't succeed.
Michael C.: That is wonderful advice. Like just with my wife and I we're both only children, so...
Kim Beckham: You're not used to sharing, are you?
Michael C.: Were not used to sharing and so this is something that we're really learning together, I think for us I think leaders start to kind of find out what is it that I'm good at, what is it that I'm constantly challenged with, you may agree or disagree but I kind of feel like some of the challenges that I've had for a handful of years are still the same challenges that I have today and I still have to be mindful of those even if some of them are eliminated I still have to be mindful because as soon as I stop thinking about it or not necessarily thinking about it, but having good behavioral practices I can revert back and you know I think you definitely know about that as a pastor, that's something we all do with sin. You may out run it for a while, but sometimes it can come back on you.
Kim Beckham: Well we're all wired differently, part of that is the scripture talks that we have a sin which so easily besets us and the indication is that some people struggle with some things that other people don't and other people struggle with issues that we don't. And so usually we all have certain things and it's a result of our wiring, genetics and it's also a result of our nature and nurture, what we experienced in life, and so that causes to be more prone to certain sins or certain temptations or certain human weaknesses than others.
The good news is what you just said we can recognize that, learn from our mistakes and get better and build some defenses around that, but it will probably be something that you always deal with. If a person has a problem within their jealousy and they've had it all their life they're probably always going to be prone to that, that doesn't mean they can't overcome it, doesn't mean they can't get better at it and doesn't mean they can't keep it pinned up in their life, but it will be something that you always need you know what that's just an issue for me and I'm going to have to keep my guard up and when you recognize. But I like the old point but I can't quote it exactly, but it talked about a guy says he's walking down a road and he falls into a hole and he's hurt, takes him a really long time to figure out what's going on and finally gets out.
So a couple days later he's walking down the same road and he falls into the same hole, he's hurt again, he's discouraged but the good news is because he's already been in the hole before takes him less time to get out. Few days later he's walking down the road and he falls into the hole the third time, this time he knows what happened, he said realized that and he jumps out immediately out of the hole. Next day he's walking down the road, he sees the hole in ground and he walks around the hole, doesn't fall in it and the next day he walks down a different road. But the point is the hole is always there...
Michael C.: What are we doing to go around that hole or to get wiser to say hey maybe I shouldn't take that path.
Kim Beckham: That's right, maybe I shouldn't and there are so many stories. There's this one guy he was saying you know he went somewhere, he's traveling and he had some things to drink and he ended up kissing a girl that he shouldn't have kissed and then he had to tell his wife about it and it caused a lot of problems in his marriage, a lot of difficulty.
So he's talking to me about it he said do you think you know this was wrong for me to drink alcohol, and I said look he said every time I drink alcohol I'd do something dumb, I said well I think you just answered your question buddy. If you could drink that, and I'm not promoting drinking alcohol, I'm just saying for him in this particular case, if you could drink the alcohol and not do something dumb we could have a different conversation, but your own words are every time you drink alcohol you do something dumb, well then you need to walk down a different road, you need to not be drinking alcohol for you that's not going to work.
Michael C.: So sometimes we need to realize when we're running down the road jumping in the hole our self...
Kim Beckham: Well that's a whole other discussion and why do I want to go jump in this hole.
Michael C.: We talked a little bit in our leadership training here at the office we've been doing and this has been a topic in our last class was selfishness and starting to recognize it and one of the things our coach mentioned for us to do is start when you go in a parking lot, park at the back of the parking lot don't go to that first parking spot even if it's open, let somebody else have that, let somebody else who's more selfish that can walk there just fine have that parking spot.
Because you know it only takes a few times of you sitting there getting that front parking spot and seeing your grandma or your mom or somebody walking to the door from backup parking lot. When I was hearing it I was like you know it's kind of cheesy but it makes so much sense in the world, and so if you can start to learn how to practice how do I always go to the back of the parking lot no matter the circumstance, if you can start to make yourself start to see those I think the road without the hole becomes more clear to us, but if we're constantly living a life of selfishness and this is a really good one for leaders because we focus so much on self-growth. So if we're focusing so much on self-growth, we a lot of times can focus on our issues as well and we tend to let those...
Kim Beckham: That's very true because if we're writing goals and stuff and I'm big into writing goals and trying to accomplish big things, we do end up spending a lot of time thinking about ourselves and I think then you have to come back and say okay what's my motive, is my motive just merely so I can have more and be more or do more or is my motive so that my business can prosper, my employees can prosper and my family can prosper and my church can prosper and try to see how I can serve other people through that, how can I be a servant leader? Then it's okay to focus on how can I be better, because I'm being better for other people.
But I think your key about your friend talking about parking disciplines are an old truth, okay selfishness is a habit everything's a habit right. If we get in a habit of being kind we can get a habit of being unkind, we get in a habit of being selfish we'll get in a habit of being unselfish, so your friend is teaching you let's do things that are unselfish, that we know it's unselfish so we can develop the habit of unselfishness. One of the things and this came to me from another leader, we have a large campus, we have a lot of nice things there and we'd be in a large campus there's usually some paper, something trash we want to buy on somebody drop up something and I say this humbly I'm on the top of the food chain of that organization, I have 11 different employees I don't have to pick up that paper, I could say you know what this piece of paper out there go pick it up.
But you know what my friend challenged me said just pick up the paper and don't tell anybody you pick it up, just go pick it up and just do that because what that says to me it's a reminder to me as a leader you know what it's not all about you and you're not Mr. special because you've been given this position, you're just a guy and it won't hurt you pick up a piece of paper, you can pick up a piece of paper pick it up.
Michael C.: That's right that can begin a whole I guess a whole series of habits or development for yourself and combating that selfishness, I think it's so easy to let that into, I think for younger leaders and aspiring leaders it's something they'll be able to recognize.
Kim Beckham: Yes, just recognizing what can I do that is an unselfish act and then I can what else can I do that's unselfish and little by little unselfishness will become a habit with you and you won't be trapped by selfishness and so just do little things.
Michael C.: Kim, it's been a wonderful show with you here today and I appreciate all the knowledge and wisdom you've shared with us today, I think the good Lord has really blessed you with a voice and a way to speak to others and make an impact.
I know very well I've heard some things here today that I already want to be exercising, one thing right away that comes to mind is the 5 minute journal I made a note of that during the show, I think that's really neat, I'm going to be looking into that after this show. And also tell us a little bit about your book?
Kim Beckham: Well I appreciate that, I've actually written two books one is called letters to the heart and it's how to say the most important things to the most important people in your life. It came out of learning that when I was a kid just a teenage boy my best friend said he hated his dad who was a pastor and I thought well that's crazy because it we all loved his dad, and I said why do you hate him he said because he loves everybody but me.
And I knew that one so even as a 16 year old boy I knew that wasn't right, I just had a gut feeling they were evident disconnect and sure enough over time their relationship got really good and they went on to have a great relationship. But I thought at that moment if God ever gives me a family I don't want them wondering how I feel about them, I've done over 200 plus funerals and I can't tell you how many people have said at the graveside I wish I'd have just heard my dad say he loved me one time, I said that's not happening to my kids.
So I started writing them cards, notes and letters from the time they were little writing to my wife telling them how I feel, writing to my team members to tell them I appreciate them and so that's what that books about how to use cards, notes and letters to encourage the people and to build relationships that'll change lives.
Michael C.: I like that.
Kim Beckham: Yes, and then the book we've been discussing today hidden dangers to our relationships, both of these books are on Amazon and you can get them on Amazon.com and we'd love for you to pick them up.
Also I have a webpage KimBeckham.net I write a blog there and I would love for people to subscribe to that blog, all you have to do is put in your email address on the first page of my webpage and hit subscribe and that just means that every time I write a blog you get it in your email and that would help me I'm trying to get up to, I need to get to quite a few swings so the next book. But the third book is actually an agent guided trying to sell a hand sold it yet it's called game changers, the people, places and ideas that change your life. So ask you folks to pray for me that we sell that book, get them moving forward.
Michael C.: Yes sir. well you brought me a copy today of hidden dangers, I can't wait to check that out and maybe after I read through it it'd be nice to have you back and maybe we can discuss some of the other hidden dangers.
Kim Beckham: I'll love to do that, I love talking about the things of life and the things of God and helping people grow and I appreciate the opportunity to be with you today Michael, it's been fun.
Michael C.: Yes sir. Your website, is that the best place for someone to reach you, email address?
Kim Beckham: You can reach me at Kim@KimBeckham.net there's a website right there and email right on there and of course they can find me in central Baptist Church in Tyler Texas anytime they want, love to have reach out to me.
Michael C.: Yes sir. Well if you live in the Tyler area go check out his church and also if I'm in the Tyler ever on a Sunday I'm going to come by and check on you.
Kim Beckham: I hope you do, I'll put you on the platform, we'll talk about it, and we’ll change places.
Michael C.: Wonderful. You know I'm going to leave our listeners with this, this is another quote from Kim's blog it says be gentle with yourself you will get better, step one on claiming the real you is to accept yourself with all your warts and weaknesses, as being part of the human race that has fallen broken.
Keep working at your goals but enjoy today, other people love you, love yourself and you'll be better able to love other people, claim the real you because the real you is pretty fantastic right now. Kim, it has been a wonderful show with you today, it's a pleasure, and its wonderful meeting you and I look forward to discussion and talking to you.
Kim Beckham: Glad to do it and proud of the work you're doing here, thank you Michael.
Michael C.: Yes sir, thank you. Well listeners thank you again for tuning in to another episode of manufacturing leadership, I've been your host Michael Clements and I just like to say a special thanks to our producer Gabi and what a wonderful job she's been doing here with the show and we'd love to hear your feedback, her and I love to look at these emails and go through and see how we can get better at what we're doing here.
So shoot us an email Podcast@EnergyWeldFab.com you can also check us out on all the major or podcast platforms as well as our website EnergyWeldFab.com/podcast.So thanks for checking us out and we look or to bringing you a great discussion with more leaders in the future, thank you.
In This Episode
Background on Kim’s life, work as a minister, and eventual shift to human development.
Why the people you spend your time with will have a huge impact on your life.
How scripture and religion has helped him become a better leader.
His important meeting with Fred Smith.
The value of being honest about your shortcomings.
The difference in organic networking and strategic networking.
The dangers of making comparisons to others while in a relationship.
How to admire someone but not compare yourself to them.
Why consulting God before business decisions is important.
On the difference between poor and effective counsel.
Advice on failures and why they’re necessary tools for instruction.
Why forgiveness is so essential as a leader.
How to become less selfish.
Strategies for walking the right path versus continually falling in the same hole.
Takeaways
Kim says that you should look for projects or leadership opportunities that have “generic success characteristics” This will ensure carryover for all aspects of your life: learning new skills or becoming a more effective leader. It doesn’t have to be groundbreaking.
You are the average of the 5 people you spend the most time around. Surrounding yourself with other leaders and successful people will translate well.
Don’t go to established leaders for networking or learning purposes unprepared. This means not wasting time or coming to a meeting without first establishing the necessary seriousness.
Comparing your relationship to others is a very harmful practice. Social media makes it even more difficult to not compare. You have to be wise about the content you run into on these various platforms.
Having a healthy self-esteem is not the same as having an ego problem. You can be proud of the skills that God has granted you in your life, to paraphrase Kim.
If someone praises your ability, the best response to have is a simple “thank you”. Anything less discounts God’s involvement in your talents.
If you humbly admit a mistake, people will respect you more because of your admission.
Letting go of the past is key for having ‘fair fights’ with your spouse or friends.
Resources
Kim’s website: http://kimbeckham.net/
Kim’s books: Hidden Dangers: Combatting Threats to Healthy Relationships & Letters to the Heart
Central Baptist Church (Tyler, TX): http://www.centraltyler.org/
Leadership Tyler Website: https://leadershiptyler.org/
Bold (Book Referenced): Bold: How to Go Big, Create Wealth and Impact the World (Exponential Technology Series)
You and Your Network (Book Referenced): You and Your Network: 8 Vital Links to an Exciting Life
The Five Minute Journal: https://www.amazon.com/Five-Minute-Journal-Happier-Minutes/dp/0991846206
The Road Less Traveled (book referenced): The Road Less Traveled, Timeless Edition: A New Psychology of Love, Traditional Values and Spiritual Growth
Quotes
“I am passionate about human development. I love to see people make real change and build growth in their life.”
“Past mistakes and failures are not disqualifiers for success.”
“You don’t want to be comparing those you love to other people.”
“Don’t give up. Your mistakes are not your destiny.”