Hi, my name is Pete Kizzerra, and I want to welcome you today to the emotionally healthy

leader podcast. I'm calling this podcast 10 leadership lessons from the life of David,

10 leadership lessons from the life of David. And I try to imagine if David was sitting down with you

and with me towards the end of his life, and we asked him, hey, you know, what tips on leadership

might you have for us? What would you

say? Again, he was a man after God's own heart, very flawed, but brilliant in so many other ways.

So here's the following that I think might be included in his top 10. And they are for me,

the top 10 that I've really been able to drink from over the years.

And here's number one. They'd say, hey, be yourself. Be yourself. I mean, David was a

groundbreaker in his day, and that flowed from his high level of differentiation, which we

talked about in the last two podcasts. I mean, his entire leadership trajectory, beginning from his earliest decision

to remove Saul's armor, which didn't fit, really consisted of one courageous act of leadership

after another. Again, just the way he was himself. I mean, he broke through in the way he

fought Goliath, of course. He broke through

in the kind of leader he was, the expressive worship that he initiated for all of Israel out of the

mosaic model. I mean, he just reminds me of that woman with the alabaster jar of perfume

at the end of the Gospels, that with all her emotionality, which was being

criticized by the disciples, but yet, you know, Jesus affirms her and said, wherever she goes,

this will be preached, her name will be remembered, or this will be remembered, wherever the

gospel is preached, and here's David, just dancing before the ark, and again, being criticized

by, you know, Michael and others of being so expressive.

He just, he wasn't afraid of what other people thought.

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