Dear 26 Year Old MeSample

David Kinnaman (President of Barna Group)

When I was around twenty-six, I was doing more and more management at Barna Group. I remember going to George Barna and saying, “You know, I really want to have an impact on my generation, like you had on your generation. I don’t want to be only a manager—I really want to be a leader.” I wasn’t disparaging management, but there were certain things I wanted to accomplish that a manager would never have permission to do. 

If I had the chance to talk to my twenty-six-year-old self, I would say, “Just be patient. It will come. Don’t push. Trust God’s timing.” 

When I was that age, I had aspirations to write a book, to lead a business, and to do all these big things. That was good, you know? I think it was part of how God was preparing me for doing important things in the world and for having a broader place of leadership. 

One thing I did do well was to explore multiple areas of the company. At that point I was doing all sorts of things at Barna that if I had been really focused on improving my résumé, I shouldn’t have been doing. They seemed really off topic. I was dabbling in this and that. I was doing desktop publishing and media interviews. I was in management. I was hiring and firing people. I ran a call center. I wasn’t concentrating on things that would be a clear benefit to my career as I saw it then. I felt confident in my role in the company, so I learned all those disparate skills. 

But guess what? Every one of those things ended up serving me now that I’m CEO. It’s amazing that I know about hiring and firing, about management, about working with media, about call centers, and even something about what presentations and publishing should look like. Without realizing it, I was being groomed for something bigger. 

Somehow I’d like to communicate this idea to my twenty-six- year-old self. But maybe it’s best that I didn’t know! I probably would have messed it up if I’d been trying to reach the goal rather than messing around. 

I was too impatient at that time, trying to get ahead, trying to do all the big things right away. But sometimes it takes time to get to the spot where you think you want to be. And then when you finally get there, you realize that all that character building and shaping of your soul have really mattered. 

Because it turns out that being a good leader is not so much about choosing the right project or finding the right employee. It’s really who you are as a person that matters most. Not just whether your strategy is sound, whether people can trust you, and whether they want to work with you. But who you are at your core.