Drunk On Your Junk
I tweeted this tonight…
Surround yourself with those who haven’t drank your koolaid.
I’m sure your koolaid is tasty. I’m sure your koolaid is the special sauce.
But when everyone around you is drunk on your junk then you turn into an accidental dictator.
Accidental because those who are blitzed with your ritz don’t know it.
They laugh at your jokes when they are not funny.
They will choose your idea just because you are in the room.
They will soon stop thinking and just start doing.
Accidental because you may not even want it, but you are being shielded from reality.
So if you are a leader, and you all are…
Just make sure someone else is bartending at the party that is your life.
It’s better that way…
Los
epic my friend. welll said.
Wouldn’t the comment above me and I am sure the hundreds to come below…fall into the drinking the Koolaid camp? I wouldn’t hire most of them as bartenders.
Only if you think that blog commentators are my “community” of bartenders.
If you believe that, then you my friend have drank an entirely different Koolaid.
True that regarding your community. But are the commentors drinking yours? Not do you listen (or to what level do you listen)…but what is the responsibility of the drinkers? Or is just up to the pourers?
Boy I am getting thirsty…
hmmmmmm…
translating our drinking language…
I think the responsibility for the drinker is to make sure they keep realistic expectations of the drink.
ie: I think my old boss JEff Henderson is pretty much a step away from Divinity.
But I also know that his wife would tell me otherwise.
Therefore I take his penning for what it is.
Great informatiuon that I can’t get enough of.
But the second he becomes essential to my development as a leader/father/whatever…I’m drunk.
I should be able to survive without him.
I misspelled too many words to even attempt a spellcheck.
I like that. I also like that it seems to go down the whole we can drink wine but not be drunk doctrine. Nice crossover.
HAHAHAHAHA
This is a great question that I seriously had to wrestle with myself.
I got drunk on a lot of blogs. To the point of where I felt like I was friends with the author and should be able to hang with them whenever I wanted.
I think blogs in and of themselves are great community builders. The problem is the community that reads them. It is easy to hold someone to such a standard that we get drunk on every word they say and in all reality do not just treat them like normal everyday people. I guess the real thing is, that we are the problem in this because we promote other peoples stuff to such a level of amazingness that we forget that they are just like us.
love this.
but don’t people use kool-aid to dye their hair? that can’t be good for your insides.
Wow, and I thot that was ur natural color.
yes. i dye my hair with black kool-aid?
Anywhere, w/ anyone, at any place, in any country… this can happen, I agree w/ u 100%. Actually, I’m so afraid 2 see this happening w/ me and my team. =S
We’ll pray it doesnt
Every leaders needs people who will say “no.” Good word.
Exactly why I’ve pulled away from the online world lately. More fearful that I’m drinking the Koolaid of others and losing my own voice in the process. And losing GOD’s voice, most importantly.
You’ve gotta stop, unplug from everything, and hear from God. That’s the best defense for keeping out of the deep end of someone else’s pool – step back from the party and see where the edge is.
But you my friend…have some great tasting Koolaid yourself. I’ll just make sure not to get too drunk on yours.
Hey man we are in Milwaukee (Brew City) We don’t do Kool-Aid.
Great blog! This is actually going on in our church right now and it is bad. One person has dozens drinking their koolaid and it is a bad situation.
That sounds like something this community needs to join you in prayer about. God can change water into wine, I think he can change bad Kool-Aid into Truth.
Like this insight. Wish it was easier for those passing out the koolaid to recognize. When you try to point it out to them, they try to give you more koolaid.
For real…
GREAT advice for leadership. I think we have to toughen up and take it – even if “it” goes against us. We have to learn to listen and grow from the words of those outside our camp. We’ve gotta get out of our little bubbles sometimes.
It’s hard. So I just choose to take everyone through a detox every once in a while.
Great leadership thought from the bottom of a koolaid jar…oh yeah….
HA. great comment
But my kool aid is soooo good. I want everyone to enjoy it!
Sometimes my kool aid is sour and no one wants it, sometimes it’s syrupy sweet and you can’t get enough, that’s how I keep people on their toes! You never know what flavor you’re gonna get!
Can we keep others from drunk-ing on our koolaid?
I personally am tired of the “it-wasn’t-me-it-was-God” chaser b/c it sounds like fake humility.
How can I let people know that God mixed my koolaid, and I’m just sharing His flavor (without being fake) ?
Talk more about Him than you is a great start.
I’m still trying to flip that balance in my own conversation.
Doesn’t some of this responsibility fall on the patrons?
Take Andy Stanley for example. He’s great. He will be the first to tell people he’s not always right and that he doesn’t have all the answers. At the same time however, Andy could walk on stage at Catalyst for example, do nothing but burp the alphabet, and the Twitter world would be loaded with tweets discussing how awesome it is.
I just think that we need to step back at times and keep our minds open and not allow ourselves to be taken in by the those serving up the Kool-Aid. Even if it isn’t Kool-Aid, we still need to be able to say to people, “Wait a minute. I don’t agree with what you just said and here’s why.”
I’m speaking more about those you “surround yourselves” with.
Fans are fans.
Koolaid drinking with those who are feet from you on a daily basis however is the road to a fast leadership death.
So you’re talking on a more personal level. Gotcha. It’s more clear now.
I like to call them a posse. Yet usually I turn around and no one is following. That is how I know that people are not drinking my grape kool-aid.
I always need to surround myself with truth tellers and not kool-aid drinkers.
But it is so easy to drink up that goodness.
How do we surround other great leaders who we follow and respect and not drink their kool-aid?
What does that look like?
I think the important point is that they are surrounded by those who are not drunk on their Koolaid.
This blog for example.
As we have talked on the phone…It’s full of Koolaid.
Great Koolaid.
But Koolaid none the less.
For me it goes back to my daily community of tangible relationships.
They are so not drunk.
HEather…Eric…Jarrett…Jeff…They acknowledge the gifting God has given me while holding me accountable.
I think that is the answer.
So surrounding yourself with truth tellers is a must?
I think one thing that helps is actually meeting the individual in person. You are right, blogs can be all about serving you kool-aid that taste really good, but getting outside of that five minute look each day can be very very important.
I think the hardest thing is this feeling that blogs give you a personal relationship with someone without the actual face to face relationship. I can feel like it is just me and you in this room, but in all reality it is me and you and 100 other people. Really I needed to hear this 3 months ago. But it has been good for me to learn this principle (and am still learning) the hard way.
I think the important point is that they are surrounded by those who are not drunk on their Koolaid.
This blog for example.
As we have talked on the phone…It’s full of Koolaid.
Great Koolaid.
But Koolaid none the less.
For me it goes back to my daily community of tangible relationships.
They are so not drunk.
HEather…Eric…Jarrett…Jeff…They acknowledge the gifting God has given me while holding me accountable.
I think that is the answer.
Exactly.
Take it from someone who drank his own Kool-Aid and got too caught up in the world he was living on line and almost lost it all.
You know my story. And it is the very reason I see the “Kool-Aid” and run as far away as possible.
I would rather have a handful of sober people around me than hundreds of drunks.
Great stuff Los. I think its extremely important to have people in your life that will question you, and challenge you, and not just leave you to your own devices when you need to be smacked in the back of the head.
Just because you’re a great leader, doesn’t mean that you never need a good smackdown every now and then.
One of my rules for life: If you truly want to achieve greatness, you can never believe your own hype.
If you surround yourself with kool-aid drinkers, eventually, you’re going to be drinking your own kool-aid.
Awesome thoughts man.
Drunk on your junk… blitzed on your ritz! You be rhyming like Ed Young at STORY ‘09!
Great thought here Los. Thanks!
Have you seen the movie Fred Clause? There is a little orphaned AA kid in it, Vince Vaughn (Fred Clause) gives him a lecture on love and life, he says “don’t drink the cool aide” the little boy replies “I like the cool aide”. Our household is full of shameless movie quoters so we say that line a lot. It’s funny. I think all leaders are just that because they are offering some cool aide and I think all followers just wish they could serve up such tasty refreshment. We all are in danger every day of being drunk on our juice, that’s what the Devil got drunk on and well, things didn’t turn out to well for him in the end did they? So, all that to say we have to balance, read stuff like this post that check us, stay in the word, stay around people that DONT drink our juice and love us. It’s all good. “I like the cool aide”
Wow I loved this. And I love the new website. Seriously. Its so clean.
Good luck with the move! Do you know yet exactly when you’ll be moving? We’ll be praying for ya’ll!
Man, I don’t even want to drink my own koolaid.