157. Seamless Leadership, with Steven Garber, author of The Seamless Life

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Steven Garber is Senior Fellow for Vocation and the Common Good at the M.J. Murdoch Charitable Trust and author of The Seamless Life.

In this episode, Steven Garber helps us reflect on some important leadership questions.  What does it mean to live a life of deep coherence?  What does it mean to live a life in which every part of our life is a reflection of and an expression of our whole life?  And why do we as leaders need to live seamless lives?

THIS EPISODE'S HIGHLIGHTS INCLUDE:

• Steven Garber is Senior Fellow for Vocation and the Common Good at the M.J. Murdoch Charitable Trust and author of The Seamless Life.
• To think of our lives as “incoherent” is to live our lives in compartments.  But Steven Garber says we don’t have to choose, for example, between being a scientist and a Christian.  Both are part of our coherent self.
• John Newton, the slave trader who wrote “Amazing Grace,” for many years lived a compartmentalized incoherent life.
• When Steven Garber was a young man discovering the invitation to “coherence” in his life, he realized that he was going to have to rethink how he thought about girls!
• Tamim is the Hebrew word for integrity or coherence.
• Seamlessness has to do with identity.
• The question of vocation, according to Steven Garber, always begins with Who am I?  And the next question is Why am I?
• Vocation is integral (not incidental) to the missio dei, to the very meaning of God’s work in the world.
• Pastors can begin to live more integral and seamless lives by being mindful of the teachers they listen to and follow.  Are our teachers, not only speaking words of coherence, but living lives of coherence and seamlessness?

RELEVANT RESOURCES AND LINKS:

• Website:
  • Washington Institute for Faith, Vocation, and Culture
• Books mentioned:
  • The Seamless Life, by Steve Garber
  • Visions of Vocation, by Steve Garber
  • Captain Blood, by Rafael Sabatini
• Authors mentioned:
  • John Stott
  • Leslie Newbigin
  • Augustine of Hippo
  • Helmut Thielicke
• Related episodes:
  • Episode 48: Integrity and Coherence in Leadership, with Lisa Slayton, CEO of Tamim Partners
  • Episode 77: To Know the World and Still Love It, with Steven Garber, author of Visions of Vocation

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