13 | When Culture Of Honor Became Real For Me

Read the lesson.

Welcome back.

Now that you're moving from an internal source of honor, you can begin to extend it out to others.

And the task is simple.

Honor who people are.

Before you honor what they do, whether you're a leader or a teammate, you have the opportunity to build up their confidence on the sturdy foundation of who they are by honoring who they are, both when they're meeting all your expectations and trust comes easy.

In the last session we gave it a test run.

Thinking of someone who missed your expectations, offended you, disappointed you, and practiced honoring WHO they are in your mind first.

We also practiced thinking of someone who exceeded your expectations, and focused on honoring WHO they are - character qualities in them that are much deeper than simply their actions.

Building a culture of honor involves remaining consistent in our view of other people as (at minimum) human beings - that have worth - not because they’ve DONE anything,

but because they are a human being. they’re not an accident.

They’re not here for no reason.

They’re on this planet for a purpose.

And at minimum our standard for how we treat people, talk about people, talk to people, needs to rise to that minimum.

It’s easy to honor people when they’re meeting all your expectations.

It’s hard to honor people when they’ve disappointed you or offended you.

It’s easy to honor people you trust.

It’s hard to honor people you don’t trust.

So let me tell you a story that was my point of no return moment:

a moment that was so inspiring, it solidified forever a hope inside of me that this reality of a culture of honor can happen.

There are people in this world that truly live it out . . .

that live it out past the point I ever thought possible.

There are pioneers of culture of honor in this world that i can follow.

and their story is hard to share, but worth spreading.

• 2015 I was working as a culture coach for sports teams, business teams, teacher teams, on a specific type of culture that I was calling a “Culture of Honor” One afternoon I was hosting a group of collegiate beach volleyball athletes at my house for dinner and I got a call from my dad. My family is based in Charleston. I was in California at the time and the news hadn’t reached me yet. He asked if I’d heard about the shooting at the AME church downtown. Apparently a young man showed up at the AMC church, asked to join the wednesday night bible study, was welcome with open arms, sat through a majority of it and at the end opened up fire.

Unfortunately we hear shooting stories, violence stories almost daily now.

It unsettles you. It disorients you.

About a week later my dad calls me again and asks if i’d heard what happened. I told him no and he said the families have responded in a way that will shock you.

They’ve forgiven him.

Two thoughts ran through my mind:

The first thought: I don’t know if i could ever do that.

The second thought: How do you become someone that can carry that response?

I realized these family members understand culture of honor at a level I didn’t know was possible

They understand that you treat someone according to their identity as a human being and you give them room for their actions to grow into it.

While most leaders, coaches, treat someone according to their behaviors and never give room for their identity to be shaped.

Maybe it’s one special person that led the way . . . but no . . . different people without ever sharing their plan to respond with forgiveness . .

one . . .

and then another . . .

So it must be the environment that created this type of response.

My question is how did they become the kind of people that carry a Culture of Honor?

We all have the capacity to lead like this. We can create cultures of honor anywhere we go as long as we begin with treating people according to their identity as a human being as the baseline.

Yes, consequences still exist.

The court had that taken care of. I’m not saying we should have no consequence positive or negative for our behaviors or actions.

What I am saying is the basis; there’s at least one moment right beside the consequence of your action that is on the basis of our identity as a human being worthy of connection, eye contact, forgiveness.

He is a human being. That has worth, at minimum as a human being.

Yes there are consequences, and justice will happen.

But honor and justice have enough space to both exist.

In doing so, I think these family members, these pioneers of culture of honor, they found their own freedom in the midst of tragedy.