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Two men, Emile and Yanni, host a show called Skills Journey where they discuss the power of skills and how they can transform our lives. In their 12th episode, they talk about the importance of mastery and how our engagement with our skills is a testimony of excellence. They also discuss the idea that each person has a unique "God color" or talent that makes them stand out. They emphasize the importance of bringing that uniqueness to the table and how it contributes to the success of a team. They also discuss the journey from being a student to becoming a professional and eventually a master in a particular skill. They mention the concept of sanctification and how surrendering our strongest gifts to God can lead to transformation and a change in identity. They then talk about the building blocks to mastery, which they refer to as the Big Five meta skills: leading oneself, effective communication, problem-solving, teamwork, and adaptability. two men on the Impact 103 app. Welcome to Skills Journey with Emile Robbenheimer and Yanni Bravenbourg, where we explore the power of skills to transform our lives and increase our impact. Thank you for joining us to discover the next step on your skills journey. Welcome back to Skills Journey with Emile Robbenheimer and Yanni Bravenbourg from PopUp. And on Skills Journey, we are exploring so many different discussions in skill. And today we have the privilege of celebrating our 12th episode. And today we'll be discussing lots of things that we've actually been journeying on, but also what we've learned. So Emile, let's talk about Skills Journey overall. Yeah, Yanni, I must say the last 12 episodes have been really fascinating for me. If you remember, we started out with a discussion about mastery, that idea of a man who distinguishes himself in his work will stand in the presence of kings, he will not stand before obscure men. And that kind of led us down this road to recognize that our engagement with our skill ultimately is a testimony. It's this idea that excellence should be something that I aspire to in my skill, whatever that is. And there's something about a calling for me that gets mixed into that, isn't it? It's this idea of the thing that I'm passionate about, the thing that I'm gifted in, the thing that I love doing is a place where I am almost uniquely positioned to be excellent in. Because there's something in me, there's almost like a God color I have inside that can find expression in a particular context, in a particular activity, in a particular industry that ultimately glorifies God. I also think, Emile, oftentimes that's exactly the space that we do not venture in. It's that space where you feel like, oh, that's that one part of me that I don't understand or I don't fit that. That one piece doesn't fit into this mold. And that's that God color where God actually gave you that one specific thing that makes you stand out. And if you don't bring that flavor, the world isn't better with you in it because you have to bring it to play that part of who you are. I love that. So definitely for me, an experience in skills journey, and I've even spoken to Martin about it, is how I've learned that who I am and what I bring in my team, if I don't bring that part, my team lacks almost. If I'm not playing my part, then it's me who's not doing my job, if I can say it that way. Wonderful. I 100% agree. I think there's a couple of stories that are kind of running around in my head at the moment. But before I introduce one of them, perhaps, we also talked about this idea of mastery. And so almost Paul Dundas introduces it in his book called Mastery, which is a brilliant resource just on the topic, about how we journey from being a student and we're just kind of learning the basics, like what is this industry about? What is this subject about? What is this activity about? To becoming a professional, we're marked by this idea that every output I produce is of professional standard, excellent. But then we kind of naturally gravitate towards the season of traveling where we go learn from other industries, we go learn from related spaces, we go learn from almost an interdisciplinary perspective from other masters. It's almost like a second apprenticeship where we're primed enough to be able to see the good stuff that we can cross pollinate and we can bring some of the thinking, some of the quality into our spaces to get more and more excellent until we finally start producing masterpieces. One of a kind expressions, and those could be projects, they could be products, they could be management initiatives, whatever it is. It could be how you schedule your weeks, it could be a million different things, but it's these masterpieces, these nth degree expressions of your area of expertise that starts moving you into this class of being a master. There's – even if I think of people that I know who are functioning in this master space, we all know that one person who is diligent with discipline or is always on time. There's just this mastery in a character as well. Mastery to me is sometimes we feel like as a beginner, I want to function as the master. But there's a way that you go between I start something and I master something, and that's as well something that we spoke about in Skills Journey. And that actually introduces an interesting idea, Yoni. Isn't mastery, though, it's the distinguishing of my work, right? Yes. When I become a master, I am distinguished in my work, therefore I will stand… You know that one person, he's that one thing. And he's the person that the king is going to call, right? When the king wants that particular thing done, he's going to call the master. But it also introduces this idea of sanctification. Sure. So hear me out, right? We get these gifts and these talents from God. And I think sometimes we conduct ourselves as the prodigal son, where we're like, God, thank you for all of these gifts and these capabilities and these passions. I'm going to go do with them what I want. And we go down that journey, and we're kind of chasing fame, and we're chasing earnings, and we're chasing esteem, and we're chasing all of these things with the gifts that really comes from God. Yeah. And ultimately, we're confronted with a question to say, okay, am I going to be willing to redeem this so that it doesn't only express that which I am capable of bringing to fruition by my own might and power, but that it can reveal all the God colors, not by might and not by power, but by his Spirit. And there's this fascinating story about Jacob that I really appreciate in this space, where Jacob, you know, he's known as the deceiver. He's a cunning man. He's really smart, and he almost has this ability to negotiate and think himself out of any situation. And so, he deceives his brother out of his birthright, and he deceives his father into blessing him, and he deceives his father-in-law into giving him lots of sheep, right? His whole life is marked by his wit. And then at some point, God calls him back to his family, and he wrestles with God for a whole night. He wrestles with this angel of the Lord, and in this wrestling, finally, the angel says, listen, it's almost daybreak. You need to let me go. We need to stop this. And he says, I will not let go until you bless me, because he knows inherently he's never functioned from blessing. He's always functioned from his own activity and from his own kind of effort, right? And this angel touches him on his hip bone, the strongest bone in his body, the bone on which all his existence, all his weight is dependent. His entire posture is dependent on this one bone. And from that day forward, he limps. And to me, it's almost this idea of discovering that when I surrender my strongest gift to God, in this case, his intelligence, God is able to sanctify that. And when he goes into the confrontation with his brother, he's scared. He doesn't know what to do. For the first time in his life, he doesn't know what to do, because that hip bone doesn't just exemplify some wrestling with God. It exemplifies the bringing of all that he is before God and saying, I will not let you go. And in that conversation, after he removes his dependence on his strongest character trait, he changes his identity. And he says, you will no longer be known as a deceiver. You will be known now as the father of many nations. Isn't that incredible? Good. So, Emile, what are the building blocks to this road to mastery? I think, Joni, we discussed it from episode two, where we really unpacked Meta Skills. And you might remember that those Meta Skills, we kind of framed in this idea of the Big Five, right? So, we can kind of cover through them again. But what we meant by these Big Five is, they're the foundations on which we build our skills house, right? This idea of a skills journey to say, the building blocks, the foundations on which we engage this journey, which really a journey to mastery will take the rest of our life. What are those essential things, those Meta Skills that would serve us the best in order to make a foundation strong that a big house can be built? And those Big Five we talked about was, can I lead myself, which really lets us think about the rhino. It has all of this weight. It has all of this momentum when it starts running, if you've ever seen a rhino run. But if that is not led well, it can cause an immense amount of damage. And so, leading ourselves well really helps us to kind of channel that impact and that momentum to places where it can make a difference. And then we discussed this idea of communication. Can I communicate effectively? And we use the lion to explain that because it's roar can just be heard for eight kilometers. It's got this incredible capacity to communicate over incredible long distances. But our ability to communicate, whether that's verbal or written or by images or whatever the case might be, body language, all of those capabilities are so important in just how we communicate and how effective that makes us in the workplace. And then we've got this idea of the leopard in the way that we solve problems. Because leopards, because they're solo hunters, they don't have a team. They don't have all of these things. They kind of have to figure stuff out by themselves. And they're in a complex, ever-changing environment, and they have to adapt, and they have to learn, and they have to solve problems. And so, are we really good at solving problems? And can we do that in the various different mediums? And can we improve and expand those mediums over time? And then we've got this idea of the buffalo. Can I work in a team? You know, buffaloes are really imposing creatures, but they're so formidable because of their ability to work well as a team, as a cohesive unit, when they are confronted with threats and predators. And finally, we've got an elephant, which also is such a big organism, and it has such a big footprint on its environment, but it plays an incredible role in the ecosystem. And so, can I function effectively and contribute to a bigger system? And the way that the elephant conducts himself, knowing that he's got a lot of weight and he's got a lot of impact, but he does that in a way that ultimately allows an ecosystem to function. And this, to some extent, speaks to our leadership to say, when we are the elephants, when we have the weight and the momentum, how are we stewarding that not for extractive purposes, but for generative purposes? Yeah. The discussions I remember when we introduced the Big Five, just how impactful that is, because in South Africa, this vision for us is so imprinted. We learn about the Big Five when we go to school and it's in our money, but when we actually start to look at these pictures and we make this narrative personal, the impact of that is so much bigger. Yes. And I think sometimes we've got this idea in our skills journey that it's okay, I'm just a bad communicator. I'm a creative person. I'm not a problem solver. Or I'm just a guy who functions solo. I can never work in a team. I don't want to work in a team. And so we almost have those excuses. But I don't need to learn that. That's not part of what I'm called to do. And that might be true. But the point is, when you make that decision to say, listen, there's a meta skill that I'm not going to prioritize, what that does is it limits your impact. Yes, it does. Because ultimately, a master has the ability to weave these things together. And so perhaps better language would be to say, that's not a priority right now. Or that is not useful to me right now, because I need to focus energy on another meta skill. But it is a journey. Yes. And we need to appreciate that over time, we're making incremental improvements that over time is going to compound results and take a longer term view. So good. And when we come back, we will unpack this a little bit more, because there's lots more to say. So don't go away. And after the break, we will continue the discussion. Welcome back to Skills Journey with Emile Robbenheimer and Johanny Provenboer from PopUp. And we explore in Skills Journey, everything about skills and how we grow and how that looks. And we've actually now come to a close in our first season of Skills Journey. And sure, it's exciting. We've had great conversations. So Emile, let's look a little bit back on what we discussed with some of our guests and what we've learned. Yeah, what I really appreciated, Johanny, is that we started with this idea that we all almost think very linearly about our skills journey. So some of us have this idea, myself included, before all of these brilliant discussions, that we start in school and then you go study something and then you kind of get into that job and you do that job for the rest of your life. And if that is the case, that introduces a bunch of inefficiencies, right? Because if that's how I view this, failure at school means something very significant. And that doesn't mean failure in total. It means certain subjects that I'm not getting, because now that defines the options I have for my future. And that locks me into a particular thing that I need to study, which I might not want to study, or my parents are forcing me to study. And that has a whole bunch of complications. And then my first job is such an important thing because it starts a trajectory. And that linear thing creates a lot of deception. And pressure. And pressure. And to some extent, lies that we then believe about, number one, our capacity and our value. And number two, about what God is calling us to do. Because skills are almost ingredients in calling. They're not the calling in and of themselves, right? Yeah. That by itself is already a mouthful. And that's really challenged my thinking to say, but my skills are merely tools I have in a toolbox for the glorification of the kingdom. And you told such a beautiful story about someone who thought ministry in a particular way. Don't you want to just share that again? I had a conversation with a friend of mine not long ago who said when she was done with school, she really felt that she wanted to go into ministry. And she had applied to a couple of spaces to get admitted. I wanted to do ministry. And she couldn't get in any of the applications that she did. And so at the end, she was like, okay, I'll go study nursing. And it wasn't long after she started studying that she realized that this is really a very tough field to work in. You see a lot of hurt people physically, emotionally. And then she was just testifying how she was one day just helping someone she was working as a first or second year, and how she immediately felt how God in her spirit dropped, this is your ministry. And what that did for a 19-year-old girl who wanted to be in ministry, our God was positioning her to now be a successful nurse in a very predominant space. And she's a light to a lot of ladies and men in an old age home. And she has these great conversations with people, but she's amassing what she's doing. But she started as an 18-year-old saying yes to something that she didn't understand, because in her heart, she wanted to do ministry. But her job became a ministry. And that's one of those, that was very linear to her, actually, because she went to school, she did study, then she started a job, she changed a couple of times. And now finally, she is in this position where she feels I'm ministering to people all the time. But there are so many of us who do not have that story. 100%. And what I love about that is, it reminds me of this idea of Abu Dha. I think it's the Greek or the Hebrew word for work, but it's also the word for worship. Yeah, I love that. And we have this tension sometimes as Christians, where we have a perspective of work that is almost by the sweat of your own brow. It's not fun. It's not fun. It's something you must do, but it's because you were cursed. Instead of recognizing that in the garden, Adam had already been given work long before sin entered the picture, because work is an expression of worship. But if that's the case, and if that's the perspective that we take on to say, but work is worship, then the tools with which I work are kind of significant. And that's what skills are all about. Skills are merely the tools with which I worship God. And if that's the case, surely as a worshiper of God in my workplace, my tools must be excellent, and they must be well taken care of, and they must be polished, and they must be improved. And that really has been challenging me to recognize that if we stop thinking about work as a curse, then we can stop thinking about this linear thing that we just do until we finally retire so that we can do whatever we want, and recognize that every single day, I am bringing the God colors to my place of worship, which is my place of work. Yeah, it's changing the posture by which I'm showing up in my workspace. Love it. It's something that I change. I change my posture. A hundred percent. So, Emil, one of the things that with our discussion with Catalina Prax that was on communication specifically, that was interesting to me, was when we think of South Africans and how we work in English, the implication of a country where we have 11 national languages, and now thinking about when we work, everyone works in English, and the challenge that that brings, it was eye-opening to me, actually, to just sometimes the way I'm expressing myself is already in a second language. Like, you don't know how good I can communicate in Afrikaans, for instance. And we had a joke about that as well, like, you don't know how well I can communicate in Spanish. Was that the joke? Don't even know how smart I am in Spanish. Smart I am in Spanish. So, for me, that was interesting because we don't always think about expressing myself in an easy native language. And then in my workspace, I might try to say something, and you might not hear what I'm saying just because I'm having a hard time expressing myself in a single language. Yeah, and I think, Joanie, what really encourages me with that is it's true, right? Most of South Africans, probably 90% of South Africans, have to learn second language, English, so that they can communicate in a place of work. And we might say, yes, but that's unfair, and yes, that's not, you know, appropriate, and it's, you know, you can't judge a fish by its ability to climb trees, and we have all of these kind of things. But there's two stories in Scripture that really challenge me on that, because I too am a second language English speaker, and it's the one of Joseph, and it's the one of Daniel. Both of them are in different kingdoms, but they're representing God in that kingdom. And if you read Daniel, it says that for three years, he studied the language and the astronomy of the Chaldeans. He had to learn their language so that he could serve the king. And so the question is, if a man distinguishes himself in his work, he will stand in the presence of kings. And here is a Daniel that said, yes, I am here as a captive. Yes, I do not deserve to be here. Yes, this is not my country, but I've been called to serve the king. I'm not called by the king. I'm called by God. Yeah. And so if I take my worship seriously, which in this case is to serve the king of my captors, I will do that in excellence, because it's not for the king. It's for God. Yeah. And that really just challenges me to say, I cannot say that I shouldn't spend time to learn a language of the culture and the context that I'm in, because it limits my capability to bring the God colors into those spaces. And I was really just challenged by that, actually, to say, well, we need to pursue excellence. Yes, definitely. And Joseph's story is the same. It's the same. Yes. He didn't speak Hebrew to Pharaoh, right? No, he didn't. He had to lead, effectively become second in command of that entire nation. And he didn't do that not speaking Egyptian and not being well-versed and not being a good spokesperson. And so all of those things, I think, comes back to this idea of metaskills and the building blocks on which we build the foundation of our skills journey into mastery. I also, when I think of both of those men, I think there was a posture change in, obviously, both of them, in their journey to where they were going, where they had to trust God. They had to have faith that God will show up. He is faithful. And every step that you give, and you give your best in that part of worship that you bring, there will be fruit. So the discussions that we had over the last 12 weeks opened my eyes to the amazing things that people do around us. So let's talk a little bit about some of the other organizations that we invited to talk with us. Yeah, so I really appreciated the discussion that we had about STEM careers, which is really about maths and science and engineering and all of those things. Yeah, that was intense. And that is just a journey, and it's not for everybody. But the interesting conclusions that we came to is that even there, language is critical. Because science, you still do in a particular language. And if you don't have access to tuition in English, and you now have to learn science in a different language and then transition at university, that's really tough. But the opportunities and the excellence that our country already expresses, in that we have some of the best engineers in the world, that's just incredibly inspiring to me. Yeah. One thing that I also enjoyed about that discussion was the way that children are learning how to code without computers. That's so good. Because we continue to think, oh, no, there's so many of our schools who don't have electricity or those things that make the world turn. And then people are saying, these constraints will not put me down. They will help us to actually conquer and build bridges and go spaces. So the discussions there were really so encouraging to me. And then as well, the adventure. I love the idea of when we get to be in the outdoors, I'm also an outdoorsy person. So that resonated with me to just think there's opportunities in our country. It is one of the most beautiful spaces. And I know we don't live in Cape Town for us who are in Pretoria, but it doesn't mean that we can't also have a job in an adventure space or that that's an alternative for someone to find employment in. 100 percent. The statistics that they gave us was that the adventure industry, I think, is the second biggest sector in the world, industry-wise. And in the US economy, they're the third biggest employer in the entire country. And so that for a place of our natural wealth and beauty just in our country, in the proximity that it has, that everything is kind of close together, is really a blessing. And it's something that we can explore and dive into. And people like the Adventure Institute are doing awesome work in that space. But to get back to your discussion earlier about just the innovation with what Tangible was doing and coding without computers and all of that, I think the one thing that I discovered in all of these discussions is that ultimately, in every single one of us, there's creative potential. For sure. And it brings me back into that discussion with Liesl Dover-Monks from Revelation Enterprises and how arts and culture and that entire sector could be an opportunity for us as skills. But fundamentally, the one thing that distinguishes us from every other organism God created is our ability to create. And I think that innate potential is to say, listen, we can go into spaces where there is nothing, and we can speak into the darkness, and we can create the light, right? We can bring creative essence into spaces which literally turns nothing into something. And that act of value creation is possible in every industry, in every sector, in every environment. But it requires us to say, God, I'm going to bring the God colors in me, and I'm going to allow that to bring expression. But the canvas on which that expression happens is our skills to some extent. And our willingness to bring those skills to a level of mastery is going to increase the creative potential that we can bring to spaces to bring redemption. I love this. So you, unfortunately, might have missed some of these discussions, but it's not a problem because at Impact, you can ask for the podcast. So if you want to listen to any of the Skills Journey recordings, you are welcome to just send a WhatsApp on the Impact WhatsApp line, and then request the Skills Journey download. Or if there's a specific one you wanted to listen to, you can also ask them for that or ask us for that. So, Emile, let's talk about the future and what's ahead for Skills Journey. What can we listen or look forward to? Yes, I think Gionni and I are super excited to just introduce the next season. So the next season is actually starting next week already. And for the next couple of weeks, we're going to be having discussions with masters. Oh, exciting. People who have really have gone through this journey, they have distinguished themselves in their work. They are standing in the presence of kings. They have gone from student through professional and traveler and master. And some of them have even achieved artistry, you know, they're rewriting the very rules on which their trade is based. And I think the awesome opportunity that presents is, you know, sometimes it's so hard for us who are in the beginning of our Skills Journeys. And we look at these masters, and we're like, that's just a bridge too far. I can't even imagine how to get there. It's like, you know, reading something about the president and trying to envision yourself being a president one day, right? It's nice to dream, but it's really hard to see the steps that get you there. And so we're excited to bring those discussions into studio and talk to these masters, not about their mastery, but about their Skills Journey. How did they get there? And maybe there's some lessons for every single one of us to say, hey, if this normal person also has a chapter one like me, not just the chapter 20 or the finished book that I'm seeing, but has a chapter one and a chapter two, has the same challenges and the same opportunities and failures and things that I'm confronted with on a daily basis, if they can achieve that level, maybe there's some things that we can learn and employ in our own Skills Journeys. And we're so excited to share that with you. So join us next week on Skills Journey as we start this new season on Masterclass. I've heard the propaganda, I've heard the lies they whisper to my soul.
