On my 30th Birthday: An open letter to my 20 year old self

Dear 20 year old Ben,

It's been quite a journey the last decade. I know you spend your days and nights dreaming, dreaming of being part of something bigger. You dream of helping people on mass, you drive the long route to university everyday to see the city lights, and as you drive past you pray, you pray that you might against statistical odds, as a child of immigrants by any semblance of luck be part of something significant. You don't want to be in the rat race, you don't feel like conventional is for you, you don't want to follow the supposed path society has laid before you, but you don't know where to begin, or what alternatives there are. 

Be careful what you ask for. Significance is synonymous with sacrifice, and everything worth something costs something, the higher the significance the greater the cost. You'll soon realise that everything has a cost. As you'll often discuss with your now business partner, Jess - "if we knew exactly how hard it would be to get here we probably wouldn't have chosen it, but we're grateful we're here"

You now have the privilege of leading a company with hundreds of employees, you travel extremely regularly around the world and in Australia, and you're on the board for a global not for profit serving a network of the world's most influential entrepreneurs. It isn't the life you would have chosen for yourself nor the one you are imagining right now. The sacrifice has been high, the suffering has been real and doing it to the integrity and ethical conviction on your heart has been challenging. It has required countless hours of tears, prayers, planning, hard work and surrender. The next decade is a story of finding clarity around what you want and bearing the costs of getting it.

There are some thing you do know at 20. You know you are passionate about your faith in God, you know that knowing Jesus personally has shaped your dogma, framed your purpose, and shaped your identity. You dream of a sacrificial life working in the local Church or a not for profit. However noble it may appear the deep and honest truth which you don't yet know is that the main driver for this aspiration is vain and desperate attempt not to enter the rat race. You want this because it feels like it is the only possible vocation that aligns with your passion to serve people and devote your life in some way to knowing Jesus and making him known.

However God is far bigger than your thinking. His thoughts are above our thoughts, and ways higher than our ways. He knows you better than you know yourself. The journey is less about what you'll do but rather who you are, it is more about yielding, continually, not in a moment but in a lifestyle. You'll do what he tells you, in circumstances, in ways and with people you cannot see from your limited perspective. Guard your heart, turn it toward him and he will direct your steps. He has never let you down.

You have an incredible family, they are a daily reminder that God is intimately involved in your life. To no surprise to anyone who knows you now but you've married your first and only love Linda. You guys aren't together now, you're just "friends" BUT she will be the single most important person you'll ever know in the next decade. You won't have survived the sacrifices and hardship without her. She has taught you grace, love, understanding, she has made you a better listener and deepened your self awareness. But above all she has emulated God to you, she has shown you that you are capable of being loved without deserving. She is a reminder every day that even if you lose everything you've already gained the world.

You have two young kids, aged 3.5 and 1.5, named Joshua Martin and Caleb Jonathan. They are the best and worst of you and Linda. But they have shown you that your capacity to love is not finite, but almost counterintuitively you love all 3 of your family infinitely and equally. You've learnt a lot, particularly around the idea that significance is sacrifice. To be a good dad will mean sacrifice, Linda and You decide to push yourselves to travel regularly, and keep a strong social life, but this has required careful research, planning and personal sacrifice. You don't surf anymore (which is really sad), and at this age you don't have as much time for sport. But for all the things that you've lost you've gained so much more.

The boys have taught you about love, not the flimsy, self-serving, superficial love that you currently know. That isn't love, it's kindness. Love rather is gracious, deep, and sacrificial. You've learnt that love is not quantitative, it isn't something that you can run out of, but it is only something you gain. With each child you've grown in love and yet at the same time you've fallen deeper in love with Linda, and deeper in love with Jesus. This is one your greatest sources of hope, and peace; that irrespective of circumstances you can always love it doesn't run out.

Love is your fuel, it keeps you going, because for each person who loves you and allows you to love them, you feel grace and gratefulness. It is by this reason that the privilege of leading hundreds of people is bearable. Every employee, has trusted you with their livelihood and this is the highest privilege. A feeling of genuine gratefulness that despite your inadequacy people are willing to trust and follow you.

You dream of leadership, because you see it as a high calling. You'e been told every day since you were 5 years old that you were born to lead. Told by your parents, your family, your peers, your community. The truth is the leadership you have in your mind at 20, is not what you should aspire toward. You picture a kind of leadership that is selfish for the sake of status, power and purpose. The truth is leadership is a high calling because it is service. True and genuine leadership is to daily devote your life to the service of those who have entrusted their livelihood to you. It means listening to those whom you lead, understanding what they want/ need and working with them to help them reach their potential. This burden is heavy, you can't pretend, but just as each of your family has costed and yet added much more to your life so to will those who work with you, embrace this as the most powerful realisation about how you are wired, you love coming along side people and seeing them realise their potential.

Your employees have shown you so much grace when you have stumbled as a leader, and they are a daily reminder that that leadership is not an entitlement. No one owes you their allegiance, or their friendship. Every relationship is a blessing not an entitlement. It is a gift. A gift that you don't deserve, because you are far from perfect and yet every person who works with you, every person who gives you their affection, see those as an act of generousity, and hold a disposition of gratefulness.

I'll conclude with some advice that i'll give you that would have made the last 10 years even better: 

Resilience is the foundation of legacy, it forms the building blocks for anyone who had ever changed the world's story. History is written by the ongoing, devotion and sacrifice of someone's life. 

• Resilience is very important: Starting something is hard, and requires courage, but it is just a momentary decision, the journey after is endurance and requires resilience. From marriage, to starting a business either way it's a momentary leap coupled with a journey. The leaps, as scary as they are to take are not the end, but the beginning. It's the relentless commitment to finishing that makes something meaningful, beautiful and precious. Resilience is the foundation of respect, because respect isn't given because you have an idea or even just because you have the balls to start something. Rather respect is earned over time. It's given because you persist in continuing with integrity and zeal over a long period of time. Resilience is the foundation of legacy, it forms the building blocks for anyone who had ever changed the world's story. History is written by the ongoing, devotion and sacrifice of someone's life. 

Who do you want to be? What is that person doing? The answer to this question must capture your imagine, demand your affection, and create in you a joyful disposition to lay down everything for it.

• Passion matters: The simple cliche and calling to do what you love is vastly understated. "What do you want do?" Is the question you are thinking about at 20. BUT the more important questions are: Who do you want to be? What is that person doing? The answer to this question must capture your imagine, demand your affection, and create in you a joyful disposition to lay down everything for it. Know it with clarity, but this is only the first step. Count the costs and pre decide to pursue it with an unwavering devotion. In a world of lost young people, this unwavering pursuit will continue to push you forward.

Humility is the foundation of all learning.

• Humility is the only disposition that matters: Humility as you currently know it is a self serving, conservative and timid disposition. This is not humility. This is pride with the skin of meekness. Humility is the inner disposition of knowing that you don't know everything. This inner disposition leads you to trust in God, being confident in his immutability because it trumps your iniquity gives you boldness. Irrespective of faith, it forces you to seek help outside of yourself, be it God, or others. Humility is the foundation of all learning. At 20 you think that you have the answers, you're independent, at 20 you'll study alone, you'll use your resourcefulness to get ahead, but the fact is, if you'd humble yourself and ask who not how you would have gotten a lot done a lot faster and with less mistakes. Humility makes you more efficient in hardship and more grateful in success. It deepens empathy for others because you know your own imperfections and hardships, and as such gives you a greater capacity for generousity.

The fact is, time isn't the most important resource as you so believe, focused time is.

• Clarity is King and worth fighting for: The world is distractible, full of things that demand your focus. This only worsens over the next decade as the internet becomes far more important that you can even imagine. The fact is, time isn't the most important resource as you so believe, focused time is. You have to fight for boredom. Find time to be creative, play music, play golf, fight for solace. Devote yourself to stillness until you have clarity of who you are meant to be and what that person is doing. Pre-decide what you will fight for and what you wont, because you can't fight every battle, you can't stand for every cause. You have one life, and one legacy, what wrongs have you been put on the earth to make right? Discern what is in your hands, what have you been given, and pray for wisdom in piecing together the cards you've been dealt to right said wrongs. Clarity doesn't come, it has to be fought for in this world, if you don't fight for it you'll live reactively as life happens to you. But if you devote the time to stop, pause, and seek it you can live proactively. 
• Prioritise relationships and your past: You are good at prioritising your family, Linda and the boys, BUT don't forget to honour your parents and grand parents. Never forget where you came from, that all that you have has been built on the foundation of the sacrifice they laid. Never forget who you are and where you came from, tell the family story, honour it, make time for them. They have given you their life, so give them your time.

Ben above all stop worrying - As Linda has said, if we lose it all you'll always have God, and we'll "have each other". Take risks, fight for life, fight for legacy and never forget who you are. 

Here's to another 10 years.

Love your older and only a little wiser 30 year old self

Ben