What are you going to do with the graces of the resurrection? How will you be different? What behaviors are you clearing away, and what are you replacing them with? Reflect on how you respond to malice and wickedness when you encounter it in the workplace and choose the right way.

Happy Easter! Jesus Christ is risen! This is the greatest mystery and greatest celebration of our faith. For this reason, I wanted to launch By Your Life with the Easter observance. So, thank you for joining me. The name of this podcast, By Your Life, comes from the final words of the Mass when the priest or deacon directs us to “Go in peace glorifying the Lord by your life.”

My goal is to inspire, to empower, to support, to challenge, and to encourage you to connect Sunday with Monday – Friday in our secular, business world – to find the leadership lessons that are present in our Catholic Tradition. And, it is my desire to help you live your Catholic faith in the marketplace and to trust that it is good for business.  In fact, I bet that the majority of best practices in business can be linked to Holy Scripture and our Catholic traditions. I hope to offer you practical ways to go forth and glorify God by your life.

Before we get started, I want to share why I am launching By Your Life.

This podcast is the result of years of prayer and longing.  The inspiration for my book which is called: The Value of Core Values, Five Keys to Success through Values-Centered Leadership, came to me as if someone flipped on a light switch. However, the inspiration for By Your Life has been more like the sunrise. After years of darkness, there was a slight lightening of the sky where things became more well-defined, yet not completely, and then the sun suddenly popped over the horizon and I finally could see with clarity.

Before I was inspired to write The Value of Core Values, I had no desire to write a book. I not only didn’t like to write, I wasn’t much of a reader either. In fact, I was a straight-A student in high school, except for Sr. Margaret Patrick’s freshman English class where I got a B. So, there is no denying that I was not equipped for the title “author.” Then, on a morning in 2009, I was sitting at a seminar writing notes when a thought came into my mind so clearly it was audible. “You are going to write a book about companies that are successful because they live their core values and you are going to use case studies to write this book.” I would have dismissed this thought if I hadn’t been immediately filled with an intense desire to write it. It was incredible how I felt this certainty that the book would one day be a reality.

It took 3 years, but in 2012, I did, in fact, publish The Value of Core Values.  The rest of that story will be left for another time.  For now, I contrast that experience with what has led to the launch of By Your Life.

I am a business person. Specifically, for the past 15 years, I have been executive and business coach, which means I facilitate personal and organizational growth and development. Prior to that, I spent 20+ years in finance, strategic planning, and corporate new business development roles for a Fortune 500 company. I have a BBA and an MBA and multiple certifications in support of my coaching practice.

I am also a cradle Catholic, who strayed from my faith and returned. In all my years in corporate America, and most of my years as a coach, the Catholic part of who I am was kept separate. Like many of you, I went to work each day, doing the best job I knew how to do, treating people the best way I knew how to treat them, but always focusing on the financial results of my projects, my company, or more recently, my practice. That was the measure of success.

Then, I participated in a leadership development program where Jesus was presented as a role model for leadership. Each month, we explored a theme as presented in scripture and looked at how we should incorporate it into our business practices. It was a wonderful program and I gained a lot spiritually and professionally. This program was a Christian but non-Catholic program, and for me, there was something missing. I searched for a Catholic equivalent and could find nothing, and this was the beginning of my longing.

I reached out to the director of faith formation in our diocese, contacted other Catholic leaders in other parts of the country, but I found nothing that focused on faith formation for the business person. I talked to a couple of deacons, and other Catholic business people about the issue, everyone agreed there is a need, but no one could offer advice regarding with “what” or “how” this need could be satisfied.

All the while, for years, my daily prayer has been: “Lord, I give you my heart. If my desires aren’t in harmony with yours, then please change them according to your wisdom and love. Dear Jesus, you know that by myself I am too weak to change my desires, but you can do it. Jesus, I trust you to do it. Jesus thank you in advance for doing it.”

I kept hoping that the “voice” would once again clearly speak the answer to me. It never came, but the desire never went away either. So, I wondered. Was God answering my prayer by fueling the longing in my heart? Was He affirming my desire by not changing it?

Last month, I attended Podfest2018, a conference where podcasters from all over the world gathered to share knowledge, success stories, encouragement, and just to connect with each other. When I went there, I was wondering if and how podcasting should be part of my business plan. Within the first 15 minutes of the first session on the first day, I had my answer. It wasn’t audible, but it was just as clear. This would be the “what” and the “how” I would satisfy my longing… at least, this is how I would start.

So, I am excited by all there is to learn and I look forward to sharing it.  As we journey forward together, we’ll explore the benefits of the gifts of the Holy Spirit, the leadership lessons from the saints, and topics like the Seven Deadly Sins and the implications for business. We’ll look at our traditions and their applications to best business practices. I will interview other Catholic business leaders to share their perspective of the challenges and the blessings of putting our faith into practice, and much more. The more I study about our faith, the more I recognize the brilliance in applying it to all areas of my life, including my business. And of course, we will use Sacred Scripture as our guide. And that is where we will start, with the Scripture readings from Sunday Mass.

So, let us begin with the greatest of all feasts: Easter.

There are optional readings for Easter Sunday and I will be reflecting on the 2^nd reading 1 Cor 5:6-8 and the Gospel of Mark 16:1-7.

In 1 Cor 5:6-8, St Paul instructs us to “clear out the old yeast” and “celebrate the feast, not with old yeast, the yeast of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.”

For the last 40 days, we’ve been praying, fasting, and giving alms…and for what purpose, so that after Easter we could go back to our old habits? Not exactly! Paul is clear, we need to be different people. We need to be sincere and truthful, not wicked and filled with malice.

Think about who you’d rather work for, someone who is wicked or someone who is sincere? Someone who spreads lies, or someone who speaks the truth. Which creates a better work environment? Which attracts and retains great employees? And which is valued by your clients or customers? The answer is obvious. Yet, we encounter the opposite quite often.

I don’t think people get up and go to work every day with the intention to do evil. I don’t think we desire to be wicked. Yet, we find it in our workplaces, in places we eat, where we shop, or go for entertainment. We certainly encounter it on the roads on the way there!

Let’s assume you aren’t the one whose behavior is wicked. But when you face these bad behaviors in the workplace, what is your response? Do you return an eye for an eye – responding to the wicked with wickedness? Or do you do nothing, ignoring it and hoping it goes away. Do you tolerate another person’s misdeeds, not wanting to rock the boat and make things worse?

Jesus gave us instructions for dealing with people who behave badly.

“But I say to you, do not resist an evil person; but whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also.” Mt 5:39

He tells us not to return insult for insult in retaliation, which is how most people might expect us to react. Instead, Jesus says, respond to evil with love.

This is really a tough one. Depending on your behavioral style, a more likely response is to fight or take flight. Yet, if we trust Jesus, if we believe him and his word, we would choose neither fight nor flight, and instead turn the other cheek by lovingly helping the person see the error of their ways.

When I’m coaching a manager and he complains about employees who are not performing up to expectations, I usually respond that people who fail either 1) Don’t know what they are supposed to do; 2)Don’t know how to do it; 3) Don’t want to do it; or 4)They don’t agree that it is the right thing to do – they don’t believe it will work. Let’s explore these 4 reasons as it relates to our inability to perform up to Jesus’s expectations of turning the other cheek.

1. Don’t know what to do – If we attend Mass regularly, or read the Bible, or heck, just paid attention to others when scripture is quoted, we certainly have heard the “turn the other cheek” message. We surely know what Jesus said to do. So, we have to eliminate this as an excuse for why we don’t do it.
2. Let’s look at the second reason why people fail to perform. They don’t know how to do it.

I was asked to work with a team of people who were not getting along. By their own admission, on a scale of 1-10, where 1 is toxic and 10 is a great place to work, their work environment was a 3. Things had gotten so bad that they were not even able to describe what a positive, healthy work environment would look like. So, I asked each member of the team, what they thought was the root cause. Each of them pointed to someone else as being the source of the problem. So, I asked them how they managed to come to work every day in an environment that was so negative. They each said they just focused on the work and tolerated it.

While this was an approach, it certainly wasn’t helpful in making things better. If you’re not a part of the solution, you are part of the problem. Yet, they didn’t know how to be a part of the solution, so they did nothing, and the problem got worse.

3. The third reason people don’t perform up to expectations is that they Don’t want to do it, their attitude gets in the way.

I have another client who is working on his “short fuse.” He acknowledges that he needs to change how he reacts, but when he thinks someone has treated him with disrespect, he lets the f-bomb fly and gives it right back to them.  I asked him if he thought it was okay for others to treat him with disrespect, and he said no. “So why then,” I asked, “if you think these people are wrong in the way they treat you, why would you want to be like them? Why would you be disrespectful if you think it is wrong?” He acknowledged what the appropriate response is, yet he finds a sense of “fairness” in giving back what was given to him. Perhaps he’s right. But being “fair” doesn’t mean it is right. In the end, no one wins.

4. The fourth reason people don’t do what you expect them to do, is that they Don’t believe that “it” is the right thing to do.

Think about this one. Is this really our problem? Do we not believe that turning the other cheek will make things better? After all, this is somewhat counter-cultural. Our culture says we should teach people a lesson! What we fail to realize is that in turning the other cheek, we are in fact teaching the person a lesson – a lesson that is taught by modeling appropriate behavior.

This may be difficult to do. It may be difficult to even want to do. But, when we fail to follow Jesus, we are saying we don’t trust that His way will work. We don’t believe that His word is truth.

I know this is difficult. Before you get down on yourself, remember that even the disciples who were closest to Jesus failed to trust. When Mary Magdalene and her companions arrived at the tomb on that first Easter Sunday, Jesus was gone, and Mark 16:5 says they were “utterly amazed!” Why were they “utterly amazed”? Jesus told them repeatedly what had to happen. They should have expected an empty tomb because He told them He would rise!

In the same way, we should expect that turning the other cheek is the right response and confidently put it into practice.

After these 40 days of Lent, what are you going to do with the graces of the resurrection? How will you be different? What behaviors are you clearing away, and more importantly, what are you replacing them with? Reflect on how you respond to malice and wickedness when you encounter it in the workplace and choose the right way.

Let us ask the Holy Spirit to empower us to trust in the Truth and put it into practice.

Come Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful and kindle in them the fire of your love. Send forth your Spirit and they shall be created. And You shall renew the face of the earth. 

May God bless you abundantly with the grace to trust Him and go in peace, glorifying Him by your life.  Amen

Many thanks to Fr. Stan Fortuna for his musical gifts, especially the traditional and contemporary versions of Come Holy Ghost (Come Holy Spirit) that you hear in this podcast. You can find more from Fr. Stan at http://www.francescoproductions.com/ or on Facebook.