Success in Good Works

I have learned that success is to be measured

not so much by the position that one has reached in life

as by the obstacles which he has overcome 

while trying to succeed.

Booker T. Washington

It's that time of year where prom season quickly transitions into graduation and new beginnings. In our family, my oldest niece is preparing to graduate from high school and head off to college in the fall. My middle niece is beginning to make decisions about whether her post graduation plans include vocational training or university studies. And my son is considering the courses he will take in high school, based on his CAP assessment. Three unique young minds with one thing in common, to answer the question, what do I want to be when I grow up?

When our mom grew up, the conventional wisdom was to get a good job and begin a family. A generation ago, we were told to go to college to position yourself for a long-term career. Our children, Millennials,  have so many options and possibilities, that it is challenging to make a decision today about finding career success in a world that is rapidly changing, that will not be the same a decade, let alone 40 - 50 years from now. So what advice are you giving to children trying to decide on secondary education paths?

Over the years, I have become an advocate of vocational training before deciding on a profession. If I had one regret about the decisions I made immediately after graduation, it is that I did not know how to do anything with my hands. I can solve almost any math problem put before me, but if I had to earn a living, I have no immediate skills to fall back on. Jokingly (and seriously), I always wanted to become a welder. Fast forward to present day and my imagination runs wild with the possibility what I could do in manufacturing if I owned and operated a welding shop!

If you look at the history of several well-known colleges and universities, many began as industrial training schools that met the immediate needs of the workforce during that era. Somehow along the way, industrial, or vocational training, became stigmatized as less valuable that university training, but is it really? When you consider the cost of attending a four-year institution, you have to ask, is the return-on-investment a real value in today's rapidly changing society. I challenge that notion.

Some of the most successful people that I know are entrepreneurs with in demand skills. I have a friend who followed his families' business as a master barber and has franchised beauty and barber shops around the region. By the same token, another friend is a plumber, a vocation whose skills always have and always will be in high demand. What both of these gentlemen have in common is they started with basic skills and transformed their companies into success stories not imaginable a few decades ago.

There are no particular route to finding success in the workplace and in a career. We used to measure success by the education required to obtain the job, or the job title earned. Today, our children have so many more options because the expectation is not to get a job, work for forty years, and retire from that company. Life and opportunity give them so many more options to consider that their measure of success will be different that how we defined it. And that is OK. The thing we have to instill in them is that regardless of the path they choose, it will require hard work and dedication to overcome the obstacles they will face along the way.  How are you encouraging the young people in your life to measure what they consider success in their purposed work? Feel free to comment, or send me an email at latanyua.robinson@gmail.com. If you like this post, and want to  catch up on some of my previous discussion, please visit the full Purposed Work blog at http://ltr-latrobe-mfg.blogspot.com/.

Ordained for Good Works

“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you;

Before you were born I sanctified you;

I ordained you a prophet to the nations.”

(Jeremiah 4:5)

I use this platform to share with others things that excite and/or inspire me along my journey of finding my purposed work. Last night, I watched the re-broadcast of #BlackGirlsRock! Founder Beverly Bond launched her purposed work through a youth empowerment and mentoring organization established to promote the arts for young women of color, as well as to encourage dialogue and analysis of the ways women of color are portrayed in the media. (To learn more, visit http://www.blackgirlsrockinc.com/). The fifth awards ceremony aired on Easter Sunday, honoring and celebrating the accomplishments and good works of black girls from eight to their eighties!

The Change Agent honoree, an educator, proclaimed that she “opened a school to close a prison.” Nadia Lopez is the principal at Brooklyn’s Motts Hall Bridges Academy, a school focused on STEM and arts education. She gained national attention when her viral campaign to send five students to Harvard raised over $1M in contributions. She said that before giving her acceptance speech, she paused and drew strength from Jeremiah 1:4-12, and delivered this:

“I wanna thank God for this day and appointed time. I also want to thank Beverly for your vision and conviction. To allow someone like me to even be honored. As women, we are constantly having to prove our worth, intelligence and having to fight for respect on our jobs, in society and many times in our homes. Ironically, when one of us women achieves recognizable success, we are taught to question the credibility of that success instead of expecting greatness and celebrating it.

The SHE that is great, whether recognized or not, lives in all of us. She is significant. She is heroic. And she is exquisite. God fashioned each of us with gifts and talents and abilities that I have been blessed to use. And I use them to empower children. So the daily question that I ask myself that I ask you is ‘What are you doing with God’s gift?’ How are you changing the world? And how are you making a difference in the lives of children?  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had to remind my scholars that learning is a lifelong process and the reason why we wear black and purple is because we are descendants of royalty and they are bound for greatness.”

Transcribed  Speech Courtesy

http://www.awesomelyluvvie.com/2015/04/black-girls-rock-2015-recap.html

There were so many motivating and tear-worthy moments throughout the show. Ms. Lopez became a new shero, a woman walking in her purposed work. Instead of complaining about the education system in her community, she became the Change Agent, doing what she was ordained to do. How are you using your gifts to change your community or to make a difference in the life of a child? Feel free to comment, or, send me an email at latanyua.robinson@gmail.com. If you like this post and want to catch up on some of my previous discussions, please visit the full Purposed Work blog at http://ltr-latrobe-mfg.blogspot.com/.

Faith without Good Works...

…faith by itself is dead

if it doesn't cause you to do any good things

(James 2:17)

I am so glad that February is over. Within my circle of friends, it seems to be the peak to seasonal affective disorder (SAD), where otherwise high functioning, productive leaders fall into this funk about the current state of their lives. Perhaps it is the lack of sunlight or the inclement weather that zaps the energy, leaving self reflective time to feel sad. To prevent myself from having the winter blues, I purposely use the inside time to journal about where I am and what I plan to do (when the weather breaks) to reach my goals.

Every product or practice began as a thought. I remember when I started to have serious thoughts of leaving my corporate job. It was during a period of the frustration when my natural work did not feed my passion. I thought about an exercise that I learned at a leadership conference. The attendees were asked to consider the following questions:  

What drives you?

What disturbs you?

What do you disturb? 

Your passion and purposed work should reflect what triggers you to want to do good things.

Wanting to do good works is a first step that must be followed up by actions that demonstrate wanting and planning to achieve the goal. It is natural to become overwhelmed with the details of how and when, or the doubts of fear or failure. That’s why drive and passion so important in a faith journey. In the words of Margaret Shepard: sometimes your only available transportation is a leap of faith. Keep pushing to move forward.



Image selected from the “Because of Them, We Can” Campaign
http://www.becauseofthemwecan.com/

So it is March and I have shifted into consultant mode. When my friends call and the conversation feels depressive, I turn into a coach: What drives you? What disturbs you? What do you disturb? Stop thinking about and do something. You will never get past the sadness of not living on purpose. What are you claiming by faith and working to achieve in good deeds? Feel free to comment, or, send me an email at latanyua.robinson@gmail.com. If you like this post and want to catch up on some of my previous discussions, please visit the full Purposed Work blog at http://ltr-latrobe-mfg.blogspot.com/.

 

 

Transformed Thoughts of Good Works

Do not conform to the pattern of this world,

but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.

Then you will be able to test and approve

what God’s will is—

His good, pleasing and perfect will.

(Romans 12:2)

Have you ever witnessed your personal flip-flop on an issue? Have you ever been for something, until you were against it? Were you divided by corporate, fiscal obligations rather than moral, community responsibilities? These are the questions fueling my struggle in having a definitive position on the Keystone Pipeline.

I first became aware of promises of oil sands, or tar sands, in 2008. I was working for a Fortune 1000 industrial manufacturing company. We had a wear resistant technology that provided productivity gains in the processing and transporting of bitumen in the mines of Alberta Canada. I worked in Strategic Marketing, as an internal consultant to business unit leaders, evaluating the potential risks and financial rewards for investing resources into this adjacent energy sector. Back then, I was a proponent of oil sands, conforming to the thoughts of energy giants like Shell and Canadian Natural Resources Ltd, who were forecasting an economic boom.

Fast forward to 2011 and I was an entrepreneur opening a manufacturing consulting office in Port Arthur, TX--the terminal destination of a proposed pipeline to transport oil sands crude from Canada to the U.S. Gulf Coast ports and refineries. Our first ad in the local business journal ran in the same issue headlined by a story of protesters targeting the Keystone XL Pipeline.  I attended a community meeting as a member of the chamber of commerce, supporting the promise of jobs and economic stimulation expected from constructing the pipeline. What I walked away from that meeting with were alternate thoughts on the negative impacts on the community, both environmentally and economically.  This ignited my internal struggle as an industrialist vs. a concerned community citizen and the ongoing battle between my support of fossil fuels and renewable energy sources.  Most importantly, I wanted to know more about the real jobs numbers, both temporary and permanent.

Collage made from September 2011 issue of the  Port Arthur  Business  Journal

To read more on the jobs debate, read the argument presented by TransCanada, the company pushing for the pipeline expansion:  

http://keystone-xl.com/its-time-for-a-better-discussion-about-jobs/

Where do I stand on support of the Keystone Pipeline today? Admittedly, my support has transformed based on having different information and personal experiences.  I have watched local citizens not get jobs in favor of work crews temporarily relocated from other parts of the country. I have witnessed the destruction left behind when a pipeline unexpectedly bursts (re Mayflower, AR in 2013). And I have become weary of the current political debate that fuels more separation rather than solutions toward a real jobs plan. My faith lets me know that regardless of who is in the White House, one day we will know His good and perfect will on this matter. What are your thoughts on the Keystone Pipeline? Feel free to comment, or, send me an email at latanyua.robinson@gmail.com. If you like this post and want to catch up on some of my previous discussions, please visit the full Purposed Work blog at http://ltr-latrobe-mfg.blogspot.com/.

Encouraging Good Works

And let us encourage one another to love and good works

(Hebrews 10:24)

A year ago this week, I accepted the challenge of becoming a community blogger for the Stuttgart Daily Leader and sharing my Purposed Work blog in other Gatehouse Media online editions in Arkansas. At first, I wondered if I could really come up with enough content to post on a weekly, consistent basis. Fifty posts later, I can humbly say that it is possible because of the love and encouragement received. Thank you to all of the dedicated readers and commenters.

It took a lot of courage for me to expose the mountains and valleys of building a business and a brand, while attempting to maintain my primary role as a wife and mother. One the flip side, because I know that I opened myself to more people following the journey, I have had to lean on the knowledge that others are watching to give myself motivation to persevere when unexpected life events happen (like dealing with a major relocation). My faith has been tested in this year. However, the results of those trials have been exceedingly more than I ever expected or imagined. Thank you all for your virtual encouragement.

This blog is titled Purposed Work as a testament of the journey of releasing what I thought I would do through self-effort to receiving instruction for the work I was purposed to do through divine insight. At this point, I can say Thank You for unanswered prayers, for closed doors, and for earthly no’s because I am steps closer to a supernatural yes. On days where I am lead to places I never imagined, I forge ahead on the path, standing on the promise that faith, without good works, is dead. That blind faith and encouragement from those following the journey has allowed my business to grow into areas I never considered. Thank you all for your prayers and considerations.

One of the unexpected outcomes from writing this blog is the opportunity to mentor others in their efforts to walk by faith. I have received so many calls and emails and made so many new friends along the way. We encourage each other by sharing our stories of grace, mercy, favor, love, and humility in doing purposed work that does not happen easily but is needed to improve our communities. Thank you all for your service.

Sometimes you have to encourage yourself. Sometimes you have to speak victory during your test. And no matter how you feel, speak the word and you will be healed.*** Encourage yourself and others through love and good works. Has your purposed work led you to encourage others to persevere in their good works? Feel free to comment, or, send me an email at latanyua.robinson@gmail.com. If you like this post and want to catch up on some of my previous discussions, please visit the full Purposed Work blog at http://ltr-latrobe-mfg.blogspot.com/.

*** http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/donaldlawrence/encourageyourself.html ***

Perfect Good Works

… He who began a good work in you will perfect it…

(Philippians 1:6)

 

My son has discovered a new word: meme. Everyday, he comes home from middle school, finishes his homework, gets a snacks, googles I-funny for the latest meme of the day, and shares with his dad or me what’s trending in pop culture (especially those that have a good video or animated GIF).  We comply, because we both realize that in a couple of years, he may not be as open with sharing the latest in his world.

Currently, he is into “Deal with It.” At one point, we were inundated with every “Keep Calm” directive imaginable to a seventh grader. One day, he noticed that I was frustrated about work progress, which is unfortunately a common theme because I want things to progress faster than reality, when he looked at me and said: Keep Calm. You are exactly where you are supposed to be. All I could do was smile.

Today, I have to remind myself of those words: I. AM. EXACTLY. WHERE. I. AM. SUPPOSED. TO. BE. I have been grounded more than I prefer this year due to the unexpected amount of ice and snow. As frustrating as that is, it has also afforded me some much needed time to reflect on the journey of where I am compared to where I thought it would be. God does not call the qualified, but he qualifies those whom He calls. I thought I would be focused in one area, but I have been chosen for some things never imagined. One of those areas is to be a witness and encourage others to endure and persevere as we live through the season between now and not yet. So

• to the grandmother who wants to work, but is needed to help with her daughter’s children,
• to the daughter who wants to practice her trade, but is needed to assist with aging parents,
• to the wife who wants to start a community program, but is needed to support her family,
• to the son who wants to open a restaurant, but is needed to work in the family business,

I am here to remind you that you are exactly where you are supposed to be. The vision for your good works shall come to pass. You have been chosen, but you have to have the faith to go through the process and trust that everything, including the setbacks and roadblocks, will sooner or later turn in your favor.

As I minister to you, I minister to yourself. Have patience that you are exactly where you are supposed to be. My job is to share with others that the road to purposed work does not always lead to where I planned to go, and to witness that He will perfect that concern in me...He who began the good works in me. Has your purposed work led you to the unexpected? Feel free to comment, or, send me an email at latanyua.robinson@gmail.com. If you like this post and want to catch up on some of my previous discussions, please visit the full Purposed Work blog at http://ltr-latrobe-mfg.blogspot.com/.

Expecting Good Works

Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think,

 according to the power that works in us

(Ephesians 3:20)

It is hard to believe that the first month of 2014 is already considered the past. This is the coldest winter that I can recall. Despite the gray and overcast days, my outlook and disposition for what is coming can only be described as filled with expectancy. In fact, I am having an EX-theme word season. To explain, I refer back to an older blog post from 2013 where my theme was GREATER:

http://ltr-latrobe-mfg.blogspot.com/2013/05/greater-works.html

Four weeks into this year and my world has been filled with subtle and overt examples of EX-themed prophecies of what is coming: EXCELLENCY! EXCEPTIONALISM! EXCEEDINGLY!

EXCELLENCY: By favor, I recently took my car into the dealership for routine maintenance. While sitting there, I had an epiphany about customer expectations for premium quality and service. For our business interactions, we used this word for robust, honest debate on whether or not our clients and partners see Latrobe as a premier industrial service provider. The internal response was underwhelming, forcing us to examine our work processes and our company’s Code of Conduct to explicitly include the following: Show yourself in all respects to be a model of good works, and in your actions show integrity, dignity…

EXCEPTIONALISM: By grace, we have been operating for four years. Most days are not easy and we have made many mistakes along the way. But the shouting moment is that we are still here, despite some of the challenges that we have faced. I went to a bible study were the pastor reminded us that the will to endure and never quit is the basis for exceptionalism: But He chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; He chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; He chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring from nothing things that are (1 Corinthians 1:27-28). My explanation of what we have been able to accomplish in these few years: except (the root word), because He chose us... 

EXCEEDINGLY: By faith, because He chose us, the expectation is that our self-efforts are not required to do the good works that He is perfecting in His time. The harvest will be abundantly more than anything we could have imagined, because He is able to do exceedingly (Ephesians 3:20).

Expectancy is one of EX-theme words that I am using in 2014 to describe my purposed work. Despite the cold temperatures that have momentary slowed the pace, we are preparing for a harvest that includes excellency, exceptionalism, and exceedingly more than we could have imagined for our customers and our communities.  Do you have any EX-themed or guiding principles to align with your good works in 2014? Feel free to comment, or, send me an email at latanyua.robinson@gmail.com. If you like this post and want to catch up on some of my previous discussions, please visit the full Purposed Work blog at http://ltr-latrobe-mfg.blogspot.com/.