What It Means To Build Endurance
Endurance is the defining characteristic of Liberatus culture. For this journal entry in Issue 019: The Trailhead—Leadership for American Unity I want to articulate what it means to build endurance, what dysfunction looks like, and how we can create a culture of unity by moving the mission forward. While we need leaders who embody the build endurance ethos, it’s important to note that anyone can build endurance, and in this journal entry I’ll lay out how so that we can continue creating a culture of American unity for the next generation.
With this post, I also recognize that many people have contributed to the mission of Liberatus—and while our work is not first about having a nice time, it’s important to say thank you. Thank you for sticking with the mission and bringing it to life!
Our work takes endurance, and it’s also about including people so that Liberatus is a platform for many voices, and it’s our combined talents that have made Volume One beautiful.
As we go deeper into what build endurance means, here’s to becoming the leaders who make our country more just and free for the next generation.
-Caleb Paxton, Liberatus Founder
WHAT BUILD ENDURANCE MEANS
1: Know your purpose and values
Build endurance is first about knowing what your purpose is and what your values are so you can take on challenges on purpose, and risk rejection as you tell the people around you about it. As followers of Christ, our purpose is first to love God and love others as we love ourselves—and that ultimately, is enough. But as we grow, mature, and interact with the world, a loving life will take a specific form and direction, or purpose.
I don’t think that the Wright Brothers could travel from Ohio to Kitty Hawk and build and fly the first airplane without a sense of purpose and desire for risk and challenge. I don’t think that Harriet Tubman could lead the Underground Railroad for eight years, or that Ernest Shackleton and the Endurance crew could voyage to Antarctica and survive without a sense of purpose and desire for risk and challenge either.
This week I ran my 23rd marathon distance, and while long runs feel natural now, in my first marathons and ultramarathons there was a point where my body wouldn’t necessarily want to keep going, and it became a mental test of will. Creative work is similar, and if our purpose is something other than finishing, we will walk off the course. Build endurance is first about the inner shift or conversion where we know why we’re doing something.
Knowing why we do something and what our values are means that when the work gets hard we will choose to push ourselves instead of quitting, and instead of becoming disillusioned, angry, and burned out from not enjoying the work, we will regroup so that we can keep going.
We are of course not what we do—and that is obvious. We are however image bearers of a Creator, and not creating is dehumanizing because we express who we are through action and creative vocation. I am not a writer or a nonprofit founder. But I am someone who writes and builds community through a nonprofit mission as a medium of expression of how I see and interact with the world and hope to make it better.
Endurance in our chosen pursuits is ultimately rooted in love, and love endures all things. It’s possible to create not out of an anxious need for validation, but rather because of the love that God has for us, and I believe that this motive is the real strength behind the Liberatus community and how we have endured eight years.
For reference, you can read more about how to define your values in an article by Terassa Wren in Volume One, and you can find a story on discovering and acting on a life purpose in the Border Perspective origin story.
2: Stick with it, finish, don’t quit, pursue excellence
Build endurance means that we not only know our purpose and values, it also means that we are committed and will see it through while pursuing excellence in our craft with consistency. When we have a sense of purpose, consistent effort and continual communication will happen naturally—and it’s essential for collaborative work to succeed at a high level.
3: Know how to fuel, rest, and recover
Build endurance is as much about knowing how to rest and rejuvenate as it is about pushing ourselves.
It’s about understanding our creative rhythms and managing our physical and emotional energy through fitness, nutitrition, and time in nature so that it’s possible to keep going. It’s about knowing that our overall success hinges on both consistency and time away from work to restore our energy.
WHAT DYSFUNCTION LOOKS LIKE
Dysfunction is the opposite of build endurance.
1: Dysfunction first means attaching to someone or something outside of ourselves and apart from the Spirit of God and the love of God for significance, validation, and approval. Dysfunction looks like not having a purpose and demanding external people, places, and events provide it.
In politics, we often search for meaning in our ideology or party and divide the truth and communities because of it. It’s why we use fear and anger to manipulate voters, and why we intentionally distort the truth about people and issues to gain so-called wins. It’s why we don’t take care to manage our energy well, use staffers like they are disposable commodities, and feel detached from nature and the communities we serve.
2: Dysfunction also looks like chasing shiny objects, and it’s intensified by the fact that they never provide the significance, validation, purpose, or approval we are really seeking. Ultimately, followers of Christ believe that we all are seeking the kingdom of God, or life with Christ in the kingdom of God, but chasing shiny objects (distractions, or the next exciting thing, or media hit) can also apply to professional work, as is often the case in American politics.
3: Dysfunction finally looks like emptiness or burnout that leaves us searching for significance, validation, and approval. The cycle of dysfunction begins all over again with looking to external people or things to provide it.
Finally, the cycle of dysfunction defines the culture, the times, and the air we breathe. It’s how we govern, run campaigns, tell news stories, and even run churches. We all experience or choose dysfunction and disunity at times—and the more we grow and mature, the more we know how to choose unity.
We can create a culture of American unity in place of dysfunction.
A culture of unity does not exist yet—but we can create it for the next generation through content, community experiences, and by developing leaders that inspire it today. Creating it artistically with a build endurance mindset through stories that communicate intellectual honesty about the problems we face and hope to solve is a way to create new culture by developing or strengthening new leaders—our work is a new form of grassroots organizing.
Any solution to our country’s problems requires us to collaborate and build trust. We don’t have the values in play to do that, at least not in an organized way, and voices that are not organized do not politically exist. So as a brand we began with “the creative pursuit of truth and beauty,” and advocacy for the displaced so that we could focus on values that lead to collaboration and the freedom of the children of God, and so we could find solidarity with those who have been marginalized, and discover their solidarity with us, and find wisdom.
Good governance is not about ideology. It’s not about charismatic leaders to follow. It’s not about seeking approval and validation and significance among marble columns and TV cameras. It’s not about what’s on TV, or political commentary. It’s not about being sensational. It’s about what we choose to create with the time we are given.
We all have power, and we should seek to use our power wisely. Perhaps the world is driven by forces outside of our control, from war in Ukraine, to migration at the US-Mexico border, to mass shootings in the United States. But how we respond is within our control—and rooted in love, and inspired by those who came before us, we can offer a creative response that leads to greater justice and freedom for all.
WEEKLY ACTION POINT:
What do you think of this journal entry, the Liberatus vision, and the journey that we as a brand are inviting you into? Write to me using the contact form at the bottom of this page.
Liberatus has never received major funding. The scale and effectiveness of the mission to inspire American unity hinges on participation. To fund our work, give to the Build Endurance campaign, or become a leader on our team when you apply to join the Leadership Council.
Mission: Inspire American Unity
Create a culture of American unity for the next generation by producing content, experiences, and leaders that inspire it today.
Journal Entry #132
ISSUE 019: THE TRAILHEAD—LEADERSHIP FOR AMERICAN UNITY, PART 9