Photo from freepik
The mission of the soul is to help others. This is a different idea from just being a leader to gain power. Servant leadership teaches that you feel the most fulfilled when you help others grow. As such is the soul's mission.
This mindset starts with putting others first. It doesn't mean you ignore your own needs, but that you choose to help others. This changes your focus from yourself to others.
In daily life, this means asking a coworker, "How can I help you succeed?" instead of focusing solely on your own tasks. The soul years to connect with another, and it would be delighted to serve.
A true servant leader sees their job as helping others thrive, not just giving orders. This focus on the success of others gives you a deep feeling of purpose. It shows you that your work is about more than just a paycheck.
You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, serve one another humbly in love.
To have a spiritual calling is to have a quiet voice inside you that guides you. Ondrejka's book links this calling to being kind and caring. A servant leader shows kindness, gives healing, and is aware of others.
Kindness is about understanding how others feel. Being kind helps you see things from their point of view. This requires you to be a good listener. You need to hear not just what people say, but also what they might be feeling.
Healing means helping people improve their emotional well-being. It's a way to help someone change for the better by creating a safe space for them to share their struggles. Being aware of yourself and others enables you to act with honesty. Knowing your own strengths and weaknesses helps you lead better. Being aware of the group helps you understand how everyone works together. These are all tools for living a life with purpose.
Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.
The search for life's meaning can be a long one. Servant leadership gives a clear path: help people grow. The book says everyone has value.
Thus, your role as a leader is to help them become "healthier, wiser, freer, more autonomous, and more likely themselves to become servants."
This is about helping people grow, not just in their jobs. You see the good in people and help them reach their potential. This can mean mentoring someone or giving them new responsibilities. You give people a chance to lead, not just to get a job done, but to help them grow.
When you help others, you are also fulfilling your own purpose. The meaning you find in this work is not tied to a job title. It comes from the lasting positive impact you have on the lives of others.
This is a process of helping others that gives you a more profound sense of meaning.
Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing.
Photo by rawpixel.com
Servant leadership is a way of thinking where you put the needs and growth of others before your own. This is a mindset you can use every day.
To be a servant leader, you should listen carefully to what people say and try to understand their feelings and thoughts. This shows you care about them and builds trust.
It's also important to know how your own actions affect others. Take time to think about yourself and ask for feedback to learn how to be better.
Your personal destiny is the path you choose with your actions and your conviction.
In practicing servant leadership, the path involves influence and responsibility. Instead of using power to get things done, a servant leader influences people by inspiring them. This is a way of leading that respects others. It builds a shared goal and gets everyone on board. It shows you trust the people you lead.
Responsibility is about taking care of your organization or team for the good of all. This means you look at your role as a temporary caretaker of a group. You make choices that will help everyone in the long run. This focus on the greater good guides you to a destiny that helps the world, not just yourself.
Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms.
Your inner mission is what motivates you every day.
Ondrejka's SERVANT LEADERSHIP: Ethical, Engineering, and Effective highlights having a vision for the future and building a community.
To be a visionary is to learn from the past and plan for the future.
Having a vision helps a leader create a better future, and it also helps anyone to ground themselves in life.
Possessing a principled perspective is not about guessing what will happen someday, but about getting ready for its inevitability and working towards realizing it.
On the other hand, community building is about creating a sense of belonging and shared purpose with one another.
It's about working together and trusting each other.
Having strong community support means helping members to be creative and flexible.
When you have a vision and build a strong community, your inner mission becomes a force for good. You are not just living for yourself; you are living for a bigger purpose.
This is the mission of the soul.
Photo by rawpixel.com
...so in Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others.
To learn more about these ideas, consider reading the book that inspired them. You can find more information about SERVANT LEADERSHIP: Ethical, Engineering, and Effective, and buy it to start your journey.
Photo from Author
The writings of Dennis Ondrejka hold an overarching theme. In that they are all in pursuit of the road to becoming transcendent seekers. A big part of this road is living intentionally, having the mindset to act with purpose and the magnanimity to accept the world around them.
Life is a veritable gauntlet, and often, we don't know where to go. But what if there was a way to choose our own path, one that truly mattered to us?
That is what living intentionally is all about.
Deciding what's important and then living that way, every single day, is the heart of mindful existence.
When we do this, we grow closer to becoming transcendent seekers—people who live for deeper meaning and who feel more connected to the world around them. It's not just about being alive. It's about building a life that feels right and good, one thoughtful choice at a time.
Dennis Ondrejka recently partnered with Thomas Thibodeau to talk at length about leading others, helping them with kindness, humility, and clear goals found in Servant Leadership Works. Dennis is also partnering with Sage Luis Bastista and number one best-selling author Robert G. Allen to create a powerful book on regaining one’s purpose in life, which will be out later this year.
When we live with deliberation and intent, we are serving our best selves and helping to make our lives truly meaningful. Just as servant leadership is about helping others, intentional living is about helping our own potential grow.
Commit to the Lord whatever you do,
and he will establish your plans.
Living intentionally is living with purpose. Of course, that doesn't mean needing a huge, important job for your life. It's more about figuring out what truly matters to you. Take a journey to learn more about yourself and find your core values. Knowing what you love to do and how you want to make a difference will open your eyes to broader horizons.
When you live with purpose, your actions aren't just random things you do. The steps you take are guided by an internal pull that you've acknowledged.
Living with purpose doesn't mean every moment has to be something big or important. Living intentionally can manifest in the small ways too: how carefully you make a meal, how you listen to someone, how quietly you take time to think, and other minor instances. It's about putting meaning into every part of your life, understanding that even the small things can add up to a bigger, more important story.
Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.
To truly be living intentionally, we need to learn to have a mindful existence. Mindfulness means being fully in the present moment, noticing our inner world and what's around us without judging them.
To live with purpose is to turn off autopilot and truly experience life with a much greater awareness than before.
It's easy to rush through the day, just checking off tasks without really living them. Food just becomes something to fill the stomach, music something to be distracted by, and the world around us simply an interchangeable scene.
A mindful existence helps us fight this apathy by inviting us to slow down and enjoy each experience.
This practice isn't just limited to finding new ways to relax. It's actually a powerful way to understand yourself better and manage your feelings. By watching what's happening inside us with curiosity, we learn about what makes us tick, our habits, and what we truly want.
Having this kind of awareness is key to making conscious choices that fit with our beliefs and move us toward our purpose. Being mindful helps us react to life with proper wisdom, rather than just reacting without thought. So, pause, breathe, and choose your next step carefully. Living like this brings a sense of calm and control even when things seem like they're going crazy.
And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.
An intentional lifestyle takes big ideas and puts them into everyday practice. Setting up your daily life in a way that supports what you believe in and what you want to achieve--this is what it means to live with intention. It also involves making clear decisions about how you use your time, energy, and money.
Living intentionally requires setting clear boundaries between your work and home life, taking specific time for personal growth, or making your living space a peaceful and creative place. It's about taking charge of your days instead of letting your days control you.
This kind of lifestyle encourages us to think about the impact of our choices, both on ourselves and on the world around us. One should choose thoughtful living over just acting without thinking. By actively shaping how we live on a daily basis, we create a strong foundation that helps us live in line with our deepest hopes.
In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.
Deliberate action is the foundation of living intentionally. You shouldn't go into your day-to-day just getting dragged along by the wind or whatever. It's not enough to just think about the purpose of making good choices. We have to actually turn those ideas into real steps. Deliberate actions are the bridge between our inner thoughts and our outer experiences.
These actions are special because they match our overarching goals.
Just as Dennis Ondrejka’s writings show us that true leadership means helping others grow and be well, our deliberate actions in an intentional life help us grow and be well, and in turn, help those around us. It's about putting our beliefs into practice, even when it's hard.
Photo from Author
To learn more about Dennis Ondrejka's powerful ideas and how his books can help you live with more intention, look for his writings, including Servant Leadership: Ethical, Engaging, & Effective and AIs in Search of Jesus.
