Age Does Not Mean Maturity

All right, so here we are again. What a wonderful, wonderful day. We’re coming up here on the end of September, and we’re going to be rolling right into October. Karen and I just got back from a leadership conference and spent a wonderful time with other men and women that own businesses who are thinking about leadership and helping their teams and their community. It was a wonderful time. We really enjoyed it. We enjoy it every year. For the last three years in a row, it’s been something that we look forward to every year. Meeting new people, building some good friendships along the way, and hearing some great speakers. We heard some really great speakers speak. So it was a great time of access and refreshing for Karen and me.

Today is Wednesday, and the message today is something that sometimes might be a little hard to hear, but please hear me out and think about this. I read this quote that says, “A man matures through early mornings, late nights, pain, loss, disrespect, and disappointments, not age.” I’ve met plenty of people in my life who are older than me or the same age as me, whose actions and the things they do do not show maturity. I’ve had to counsel some young men and women and explain to them that they don’t necessarily need to follow somebody who has been just doing the job longer than they have. Sometimes that person is still doing the job at the same level they are.

This is not me bashing somebody who’s older and doing a job. I’m just saying that some people never grow any further than the base level. That is sometimes by choice or by circumstances and the way they’ve handled them. You don’t mature if you’ve encountered pain and loss and become disgruntled and bitter. That doesn’t help you mature; it actually sometimes holds you back. Pain and loss are a part of life. Disrespect, being disrespected, is part of life. In our line of work, it’s mandatory that we recognize that being disrespected doesn’t bring us down. It doesn’t keep us from excelling, and it doesn’t make us wrong in a situation.

I’ve been disrespected plenty of times in life. But I don’t let it get under my skin, and I don’t react to it quite the same way as maybe I did when I was younger. My gray hair, or the lack thereof, and my maturity rest mostly in my ability to hear and rely on the important things that I do in life. Staying focused on the things that really matter. Many of those times, the most important things are my family—my wife, my kids. The time I spend mentoring and leading the team is more important than some other things that are possibly going on. Staying focused on the things that matter the most, my time with you this morning is more important than sitting and watching TV or sleeping in.

Early mornings are an important thing for some of us. Now, some of you are saying, “But Chad, I stay up late, so I need my sleep.” I get that, and sleep is important. I used to not think it was. But as I’m getting older, I still do sometimes get less of it than I want or need to. I’m getting better at trying to carve out time for sleep because I’ve recognized that for me, physically and even emotionally, it’s a good thing for my body to have rest.

You need to have that, but some of you use it as an excuse to just be lazy. If that’s you, you need to hear what I’m saying. Stop being so lazy. Get up earlier. Spend a little bit more time. Maybe spend some time reading a leadership book or a devotional of some sort that’s going to help spark your mind and make you better at something.

Maybe it’s a technical book or taking a college class. Something that’s going to spur you on and build maturity and wisdom in you. But it’s going to take late nights or early mornings, sometimes both, but definitely one or the other. It might take some disappointment in your life, and that’s okay too. I’ve been disappointed plenty of times in my life. But how I handle that disappointment and how I learn from and grow from the disappointments that have happened in my life have helped slingshot me forward into my future to be a better person than I was yesterday, to help me be a better version of myself.

So that I can be a better leader and handle what is about to happen in my life next. I believe that we’re in those growth places in our lives now. We have things happening in Northwest Enforcement that are going to bring us more growth. So we have to be very diligent in the moments now so that we are more mature and better for our future.

All right, so on this beautiful Wednesday, I want to tell you right now that God bless you. I pray for you daily. And I want you to understand that I care very deeply about each and every one of you who work here and provide great value and security to our community. I want you to know that I pray for God’s blessing on your lives and the lives of those who work here at Northwest Enforcement. I pray that you continue to recognize and hone and shape yourselves to be a better version of yourself so that you can be valuable, because nothing less will do for your community, your family, and those that you work around and with and for.

With that, have a wonderful Wednesday. I’ll see you next week because if I’m not mistaken, next week we’re in October. God bless you guys. See you next week.