Discovering the Value of Your Personal and Professional MVP's

It is football season and I'm an avid Pittsburgh Steeler fan...yes I am a self proclaimed etymologist so when I utilize the word fan, I understand it is short for fanatical...I'm fanatically a Steeler faithful. Now allow me to share with you the importance of placing in appropriate perspective the depth of my fanaticism. I have not just begun to follow the Steelers. From a young boy during the genesis of the "terrible towel" days, in an almost forgotten place called Three Rivers Stadium, I was introduced to personalities like Terry Bradshaw, Lynn Swan, Franco Harris, John Stallworth, Mean Joe Green and L.C. Greenwood, just to name a few. These men mesmerized me and terrorized their opponents, especially that little team from Dallas....the cowboys or cow something, the name escapes me because of their insignificance, yet when the Steel Curtain was formed no cow, redskin, patriot or the like was going to easily accomplish any play or objective. It was in the following of my team that I became introduced to the concept of the MVP, the most valuable player.

Week after week I saw these men, offensive and defensive players play as a team, a unit, but I also watched as weekly one would emerge as the MVP. Sometimes this was governed by the opponent and his strength or the temperament of the players themselves. If the opponent was an offensive powerhouse the attention was centered around the defense as they shut down play after play, limiting yards and spoiling third down conversions. If the opponent was a defensive strength it was up to the offense to pull out of the playbook those plays we have since become famous for, not to mention the magical sometimes mystical abilities of Swann to catch a ball that no one even saw as catchable and then hold on to it as his body hit the hard cold steel city ground with an embarrassed and stunned defensive back landing on top of him. Regardless, it was always amazing to me that there would emerge an MVP. Not always the same person, not always for the same reason, but the sport has always been able to recognize them and celebrate them even if their tenure of celebration is short lived.

Well in life and specifically in kingdom leadership I believe we need to adopt this style of personal celebration and discover the real value of our own personal and professional MVPs. It is certain we all have them and we definitely all need them. I have them in my family members, I have them on my staff and I also have them among my friends who are neither family or staff, but are certainly essential to the success of not just me winning in this game of life but also executing and advancing in the individual downs that assist me in the yardage needed to score. It's interesting that everyone wants to win the game but few of us sense the importance of single plays (decisions and commitments) that effect the whole of our existence.

If we don't discover the value of our MVPs we will certainly minimize their value and loose their needful assistance. You can be as successful as anyone. You have had most valuable persons whose presence made the difference. You can be fledgling and on the verge of your own personal or professional tipping point and it will be required of you that you find your MVP's and allow them to do what they have been assigned to your life to accomplish.

I have lived through both success and failure, personally and professionally. I speak experientially when I say to you it was my own inability to recognize my MVPs that caused me minimized success' and maximized failures. It was simply founded in these very important facts. Firstly, for one to be an MVP for you they must first be on your team. How many times have we all placed too much value on those who were not on our team? Whether an adversary or simply an opponent, I have learned my focus must go back to my team members. I will either win or lose but whichever the outcome, my team members will help to determine it. I learned just recently the opponent was not my issue, it was my focus on what and who it was that would support me. Personally I found that I was surrounded with enough team players to win and their skill level was only rivaled by their commitment to my success. This is ardently the power of the team concept, no matter your position, it's ultimately about the team. No quarterback wins a game alone. The offensive line is essential to his protection and the backs and receivers are the true carriers of his vision. So in recognizing your MVPs it is always imperative to understand and thusly embrace this truth..."It ain't just about you"! Matter of fact, I believe the major victories are only won when there is as strong a team as there is a team leader.

Secondly, it is key and must become priority, to help each team member in their own personal developments. This is true no matter how one applies this particular subject matter. Personally no family will be be peaceful and successful if the personal development of all those within the family is not pursued. How miserable are so many families because someone in that home is content being what they are and not what they can be. Even in an subordinate and supportive role ,don't ever abandon your own dreams to the extent that you are not working at them even if you can't presently work on them. Parents must stay focused on their own dream realization even while provoking their children to do the same. Spouses, even as they encourage each other must also realize some personal satisfaction in their own accomplishments. You can't bring your best to the team and become an MVP for others in the family if you don't feel valuable yourself. Self worth and valuation is key to your attitude, and last time I checked, it still affects altitude. Professionally one has to secure your own value by continuing educational pursuits. As a team player in ministry or in your career it is important that you continue to build yourself up. King David teaches us to learn the art of self encouragement. You must surround yourself with resources and material that keep you not just valuable but essential to the organization to which you are assigned. The most valuable persons in any organization are those persons who understand the need to remain vibrantly needed and a voice that can be trusted. When I speak of trust I am not just adjusting to the integrity of the team member but the safety of the counsel. Have you been exposed to anything lately that will cause you to approach your assignment with a fresh perspective or are you simply showing up hoping all the plans from yesterday will work again today? What I find so wonderfully equalizing about the entirety of this conceptualization is that I only have to be an MVP when I'm needed, other times I can assist the MVPs around me in their moments or allow the MVPs assigned to me to provoke me into my own greatness. I say that to preface this, no one can afford not to be prepared for your moment in the spot light. If you...no when you are needed you must be ready.

Thirdly, and lastly I believe all the MVPs in our lives have a specific and determinate role and the cross pollination of those roles can become detrimental to our process and it's subsequent success. I heard Bishop T.D. Jakes just this week in an excerpt from his latest book warn against this very thing. I found myself so guilty of this, not allowing people to be to me what they have been assigned to be. I admit this as a personal and professional challenge. So I speak to you as one who is learning how to allow my MVPs to have their moment because it helps my minute and sustains my season. Let family be family first, even as they have dual roles. Let staff be staff and manage you, even when it appears to family and friends as if they have too much voice. They know your vision and your heart. When you know who they are and that they can be trusted, then do just that, TRUST THEM. Stop trying to be the MVP every play, down, game and season. Let your contemporaries and colleagues be those tools by which you better yourself, not in the sense of competition but provocation of your own manifestation of the greatness that's locked inside of you. Finally, discover those persons who may be from your past whose very presence in your life makes you better. An old college roommate, a former classmate, former neighbor or co-worker or even that individual whose been present but unaccounted for because they have either not be given opportunity to emerge, they don't know their real value and worth or they have not been shown the power of becoming an MVP in someone else's success and process. Discover these persons in your personal and professional life and make it happen together.

I believe for all who secure this principle the win column will definitely outweigh the losses. The joy of being on the team coupled with the possibilities of endless team championships and an eventual place in the Hall of Fame of Life will cause us to value the MVPs and celebrate the continued need for them in our lives.