The Daily CHEW™
Moving God’s Love from Head to Heart for Christian Professionals
He was a Vice President at a major corporation — Oxford-educated, Stanford MBA, the kind of résumé that opens every door. He had built a career on self-reliance, strategic intensity, and fourteen-hour days. He expected everyone around him to operate the same way. When they did not, he let them know — publicly, forcefully, and in ways the team would not forget.
Then his engagement score came back: 35 out of 100.
He knew it would be bad. He had no idea it would be that bad. His boss told him to hire a coach. He resisted. Coaching felt like weakness to a man who had built everything on never needing help.
When we began working together, he was intense, demanding, and at times unreasonable — and he did not fully see it. He wanted his team to be like him. He read team-building as a waste of time for people who could not keep up. His strategy was simple: outwork everyone and expect them to follow.
Then he heard a number that stopped him: 58 percent of job performance is built on emotional intelligence. Not IQ. Not drive. Not refusing to take no for an answer. Emotional intelligence. For a man who had built his identity on being the smartest and hardest-working person in the room, that number rearranged something.
He went quiet. And then he started talking about his father.
His father ran a major company in Latin America. Everyone was afraid of him. They worked hard — not because they respected him, but because they feared what would happen if they did not. And sitting in that session, this VP said five words that changed everything:
I have become my father.
What came next was one of the most painful and courageous conversations I have been part of in thirty-four years of this work. He shared a story about his childhood that I will not repeat here — except to say that the intensity he brought into every boardroom had been forged in a house where survival required it.
The turning point was not a technique. It was the Gospel. As he looked at how much Christ had forgiven him, something broke open. He began to extend forgiveness — to his father, to himself, and to people he had carried bitterness toward for decades. The grip loosened. Not because he decided to be softer. Because God’s love reached a place his Oxford degree and his Stanford MBA never could.
Over the next year, he grew in humility and compassion. He still held his team to excellence — that did not change. But he started seeking to understand instead of seeking to demand. He asked questions before he gave directives. He stayed in the room when things got tense instead of detonating.
His next engagement score: 84. His boss was stunned. The year after that: 95.
That is not a coaching success story. That is what happens when God’s love moves from a leader’s head to his heart — and every room he walks into changes because he did.
Clarity
Where am I leading from a pattern I inherited — from a parent, a mentor, or a season that required survival — that is costing the people closest to me more than I have been willing to see?
Hear
“Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.” — Ephesians 4:32, ESV
God does not ask you to forgive from an empty tank. Scripture reveals that forgiveness flows from what has already been given to you in Christ. God reshapes the leader who receives His forgiveness into someone who can extend it — to a father, to themselves, to the people whose names they have been carrying in bitterness. The compassion that transforms a team starts with a heart that has been transformed first.
Exchange
If I really believed God’s love is redemptive enough to break the chain of what was passed down to me — that I am not condemned to repeat what I inherited — how would that change the way I show up with my team this week?
Walk
Name one leadership pattern you know you inherited — from a parent, a boss, a season of survival. Before this week ends, bring it to God honestly: Lord, I see where this came from. I do not want to pass it on. Show me one way to lead differently this week because of what You have already forgiven in me. Then do the one thing differently. If this is the only thing I do from this CHEW today, it is enough.
With you on the journey,
Ryan
If you had to put this into one sentence for today, what would you say God is inviting you to rest in or return to?
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