How to Avoid Spiritual Burnout — George Verwer

Paul's Farewell and the Danger of Spiritual Burnout

Acts, chapter 20, passage that we're very familiar with.

I think when we deal with the subject of staying on the cutting edge, of avoiding spiritual burnout or even going further in talking about avoiding backsliding, that the Apostle Paul is certainly a person to look at.

And Acts 20 is one of those beautiful glimpses of the Apostle Paul. Let's start at verse 24. When I was a young Christian heading across the United States, the year before we went to Mexico, distributing gospels in America, and I was still selling firefighting equipment.

I got in Pittsburgh and it was in Pittsburgh. It's interesting. These Tozer tapes I'm listening to he gave in Pittsburgh. I was challenged on the subject of baptism that drove me to read through the whole book of Acts that night.

And at that reading of the book of Acts, I made this sort of my life verse, at least at that time. And that's where I want to start reading tonight. Acts 20, 24. But I do not consider my life of any account as dear to myself in order that I might finish my course and the ministry I received from the Lord Jesus to testify solemnly the gospel of the grace of God.

And now behold, I know that all of you, among whom I have went about preaching the kingdom, will see my face no more. Therefore, I testify to you this day that I am innocent of the blood of all men. For I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole purpose of God.

Be on guard for yourselves and for all the flock among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers. And that's true of most of you to shepherd the church of God, which he purchased with his own blood.

I know that after my departing, savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock and from among your own selves, men will arise speaking perverse things to draw away the disciples after them.

Therefore, be on the alert, remembering that night and day for a period of three years, I did not cease to admonish each one of you with tears that became one of the most motivating verses that I've ever studied.

Let me read it again. Therefore, be on the alert, remembering that night and day for a period of three years, I did not cease to admonish each one of you or each one with tears. Talk about an extreme verse.

And now I commend you to God and to the word of his grace. Which is able to build you up and to give you the inheritance among all those who are sanctified. I have coveted no one's silver or gold or clothes.

You yourself know that these hands minister to my own needs and to the men who were with me in everything. I showed you that by working hard in this manner, you must help the weak and remember the words of the Lord Jesus.

He himself said it is more blessed to give than to receive. When he had said these things, he knelt down and prayed with them all. And they began to weep aloud and embrace Paul and repeatedly kissed him.

Grieving especially over the word which he had spoken, that they should see his face no more. And they were accompanying him to the ship. I really was very much seeking the Lord, I have been for months.

In fact, I start to seek the Lord about the message for the general counsel about the time we finish this general counsel, because I consider it such a privilege, such an important opportunity. And I have all kinds of notes of messages to give at these conferences.

I thought I would read a little bit of one that I don't have time to give. I'll probably give next week, but I didn't find it. And I think that's the Lord's providence. It would go too long. But these thoughts came together just a night or two ago, and I wrote them down on this little piece of scrap paper.

In other words, often I have I come here with maybe 30 or 40 different messages and burdens and I have to narrow it down. And I think this is the one the Lord wants me to to share. And I've called it how to stay fresh.

How to stay on the cutting edge. Of what the Holy Spirit is doing in our day, or if you want to use other terminology, how to avoid spiritual burnout. This is a term that is being thrown around a lot, and I think we must acknowledge the fact that in OM we have an ongoing problem with semantics.

Someone said the other day, I think words aren't that important, I'm sure he didn't mean it the way it came out or maybe I didn't understand it, but I think we all know words are incredibly important.

You as a leader, now that OM has a much higher profile with one sentence, you could set OM back many, many years in your country. And let us not think that some of the things that have happened to other organizations and other fellowships and other Christian leaders cannot happen to us.

Our words are incredibly important. And we think of the peace talks going on right now there in Geneva between Iraq and Iran. The other day, they weren't even looking at each other yet, just starting looking off to the side.

But let's be praying for those peace talks. And we know as these people meet together, what they say is incredibly important. What we say here, what we put into our policy manual is important. People will read this manual 10, 15 years from now if the Lord doesn't come and they will make decisions based on the words we put, not the feeling we get here or what we sense it may mean, but the actual words that have gone.

Of course, we hope they will never become legalistic slaves to that manual, and that is not the purpose of it. So the word burnout means different things to different people. Perhaps a number of the things I say will mean different things to different people, and that's why I've discovered that preaching and teaching is a lot harder than I thought.

And I have increased my study in the last two years on how to communicate and how to understand people. And I've had some brilliant books lately. I have a new book from a secular company that produces books about culture that I wish every one of us Americans could have read before we left the United States.

It's absolutely brilliant. The problems we have when we go overseas, I would have a thousand of those here, except they are very, you know, I don't have that kind of money. I hope we can increase our orientation in that area, how to communicate, how to be sensitive, how to live in cross-cultural situations.

We are faced with some staggering living situations, you know, not only on the ships. In fact, often living in a flat four or five women from four or five different nationalities with different languages can be more difficult than living on a big ship.

We generally learn on the ship in the old days, maybe it's changed, that there are ways that you can avoid people, except the ones in your own cabin, more difficult. But I know some who are quite professional at avoiding even the ones in their own cabin.

We're dealing with a big subject, and I want to say, as I start with, I don't want any of this to sound simplistic. There may be someone who has a physical burnout problem. They are not well and they need a doctor.

They may need medication. What I say tonight is probably not going to resolve their situation. May help, especially after they get better. It may help them to press on. I just said on the radio two days ago that it has been proven, you know what they mean by that?

I don't. It has been proven in hospital cases, if they will play tapes while people are recovering under the anesthetic about you're going to feel better, all that kind of positive thing in their studies.

It's shown that these people who listen to the tapes when they're unconscious or half conscious or whatever, get well much quicker than those who don't listen to the subconscious tapes. You probably don't agree with that.

I'm just telling you what I heard on the radio. Now, as I look at this passage of scripture and as I think about the apostle Paul, I think he is an example of a man who stayed on the cutting edge. I appreciate the testimony of Cliff Richards, but I think since I get more about Paul, I will stick to him.

We see him going on for three years, warning people night and day with tears. Verse thirty one. We have many other examples of how Paul persevered. He also wrote to Timothy and he said, fight the good fight.

One of the tapes on that table, very new message I hadn't given in that form before, is about being a spiritual fighter. I was asked to speak at Spring Harvest two years ago on being a fighter. So I've been using that terminology and I must confess I like it.

I had the privilege some years ago of touring with Sheila Walsh for 21 days and was quite excited when her biography came out and she said, God put a fighter within me. Then Graham Kendrick came up with a whole tremendous series of songs about being a fighter.

And I think one of the one of the reasons that people get knocked out of the battle is they don't develop that ability to fight. Now, again, we've got a semantic problem, I don't mean with my fists. I don't mean, you know, anger and losing your temper and shouting at your wife.

No, I'm talking about that inward be steadfast, unmovable, that ability to say, you know, here I stand. Everything is going wrong. I'm intimidated. I'm discouraged. I see only clouds, but, you know, I'm going on.

I am going on. Now, we've seen this come down upon the Lagos people almost like a miraculous baptism. By the way, I'm developing a new message on Elijah. I'll just give you a little advance about this.

Oh, I can't wait to where I know where I'm going to give it. Maybe spring harvest 1998. But Elijah, they're praying down the fire on the altar. The power, that's the power of ministry and the field leaders, you know, we got into the power of ministry.

Beautiful. We need it. But what happened to Elijah after the power of ministry? He's under the tree, said, I want to die. And what do we find? We find God ministering to him with some food, God ministering through some sleep.

Then we find him going out in the wilderness. And then there's some more power ministry, lightning, thunder, wind. But how did God minister to Elijah? You remember out in the desert? Still small voice.

What a fantastic comparison. Look, you can study those scriptures, get your own message. I don't have a copyright on that. I give it to you. There's a lot there in the Old Testament to get excited about.

Women's Participation and the Need for Freshness

And the 90s, among other things, is going to be the decade of women's liberation in Operation Mobilization. Hallelujah. How many women believe you need more freedom in Operation Mobilization? Say amen.

Oh, man, I am disappointed. We are not against women preachers. We have a few biases that we're working on. It seems in OM we let any old man, any old character get up and preach. But for a woman to preach, she's going to really be good.

So we hope some of you women will learn how to share the word. If some are upset with your preaching, we'll call it an extended testimony. What's the problem? So we're dealing with probably one of the most important, crucial issues we could ever talk about.

We have the Apostle Paul as an example. We have right in this passage, in fact, if someone else were preaching this message, they could get a number. Most of the points I'm going to share with you, they could get them from this passage, just expounding the passage.

But that's not my approach. I like to see the passage, read the passage. I like to find the hand grenades that I find in the passage and just throw them at people. Some people have expository ministry.

Other people have explosive ministry. God can use it all. And praise the Lord for this passage. One of the things we certainly see, and I have it as my first point, that's going to keep us from burnout, that's going to keep us fresh, is deep faith and trust in the living God.

Proverbs three, five and six, we all memorize that. Trust the Lord with all your heart. Lean not to your own understanding. In all your ways, acknowledge him. He'll direct your paths. We need to develop that deep trust.

We see that in the Apostle Paul, we see him standing firm when things are going wrong, we see his great faith, dullness, spiritual dullness and burnout are often caused by worry, frustration and failure to handle various forms of stress.

Criticism, Prayer, and Waiting on God

Especially. Criticism. You've heard me say this before. Some of you are new. I don't want to go into it in detail, but brothers and sisters, you can't be a leader in God's work unless you learn to handle criticism.

You can't live on this planet and do anything without criticism. And Christian leader after Christian leader that I fellowship with between this time last year and now, I probably talked in face to face fellowship with 200 Christian leaders.

From all over the world, some of them pastors of giant churches, one church in Canada, one night commended 200 workers out. I'd been there a year ago. They wanted to start their own type of short term work patterned after OM.

I suggested they do it within their own church and not get involved with us. And they did it. I was invited to their valedictory meeting and sent 200 workers. The pastor was so excited. I think he was nervous before the meeting.

He made me speak all about it the next morning on Huntley Street, which, by the way, you can get a copy of interview that went right across Canada on Huntley Street. And these men all face criticism, they all face criticism, and yet I know that is often the greatest source of stress among Christian leaders, feeling you're misunderstood, especially by a close friend.

Maybe you've even gone the extra mile to show some love to to sort out that situation and you feel you have been misunderstood. You feel you may even be the fall guy in a complicated situation. If you're learning English and I say something you don't understand, you write that down and you ask somebody what it means.

That is what you'll do if you're serious about learning English. Does that make you feel bad? What to do, you can't preach without somebody feeling bad. I would ask you to spend time every day in the Psalms, I would ask you to read some of A .W. Tozer, I would ask you to search your own heart and ask yourself at this weekend whether you are really spending enough time alone with God.

As I listen to that Alan Redpath message today, it was it was in a sense the the final confirmation that this was the Lord's message for me to share, because Alan gave one of those traditional Redpath messages in which he warned people of getting too busy.

It's busyness that so often leads to burnout. You can be busy. There's nothing wrong with being busy. There are brilliant books in the defense of being active and being busy, but you cannot be too busy to wait upon God.

You cannot be too busy so that your Bible is put to one side, your prayer life is in shambles, and you can't even remember when you last had a half a day alone with a living God on your face in the woods or in your prayer closet to seek his power and to seek his face.

That's the message of Ravenhill. That's the message of Tozer. That's the message of Redpath. That's the message of George Duncan. That's the message of David Wilkerson. That's the message of 100 other men and women of God who have affected this movement.

And if we depart from that message, whatever else we have, we will be producing wood, hay and stubble. And yet it's so easy, you know, isn't it? It's always another phone call to make. There's always somebody seemingly at the door.

There's always another project, there's always another vision, there are always people in need. But don't we realize that if we are not filled with God's power, if we are not moving in the spirit, even our attempts to help people will only be human attempts when if we are going to help people, we need that supernatural power and that supernatural touch upon our lives.

So spending extra time with God, extra time seeking his face, extra time in the word and in worship is not going to hinder your ministry, it's going to help your ministry. Wasn't it Luther who said, I have so much to do today, I must spend three hours in prayer before I start the day.

Or was that somebody else? Who was it? Luther, thank you. What a challenge. I'm sure he didn't do that every single day of his life. And probably without electricity, he may have done that a little earlier, like Wesley.

But still, let's not have an excuse. I believe it is important as we consider this subject and related subjects to understand that most of our problems are linked with our relationship with God. I'm going to get into a lot of other practical things, but I want to get the foundation.

Leaving OM, Spiritual Responsibility, and the Centrality of God

Now, I want to say something I don't think I've ever said before about this whole thing of when people leave OM. OM, I think, is developing a guilt complex, or maybe it's just me. Forgive me if I lead you into the wrong thing again.

But we feel so concerned about an ex-OMer if he leaves and he's unhappy. And we write memos and we search our hearts and we repent, we phone people and write people and we make new policies, everything to try so that when people leave, they're rejoicing, they're happy, they believe OM is a good thing.

And let's. Let's be willing to continue to search our hearts, let's be willing to continue to take some of the blame. But isn't it interesting? Try to try to bear with me a minute. When people first get started in their Christian life, we're given all these strong messages about what's going to happen if you don't stay close to the Lord, if you don't stay in the word and prayer, if you don't repent, if you don't discipline your life, you know, all the message in the beginning are all these strong, very biblical principles.

And we say, if you don't do these things, you know, you're going to get in trouble. This is going to happen. The enemy is going to get it. But when people leave. We seldom are willing or have the courage to say, look, this guy let down his armor.

He failed to repent on this issue. He let the enemy in. He he stopped having his quiet time. He let a root of bitterness in. He let cynicism. We we shift over and become very human in our thinking when we look at these people who leave because we don't want to be unloving.

And it would be unloving to point to somebody and say, you know, you're basically backslidden. Let's face it. Oh, it's not your problem. The ship isn't your problem. And I've had some pretty heavy letters from people that have been hurt on our ships and India and Pakistan and Europe.

But I think the bottom line to a lot of this is the fact that people come in and as they're serving during that year, they get away from Jesus. Otherwise, the message we are preaching needs to be changed in the first place.

Let's not talk about all the Holy Spirit dedication, spiritual warfare, crucified living and warn people that if they don't move this way and live this way, they're in big trouble. But when they get in the big trouble, we, you know, we back down and we pat them on the back and we think, well, it's this.

It's that it's you know, we're sorry we failed you. And we are you know, we are really bad guys and we don't love enough. And we do have clicks here and we do. They may be factors. And I am not defending O .M. sins or my own sins, but I am trying to drive home a point that the bottom line is God and O .M. will never make you spiritual.

And envy do us will never make you spiritual and sweating it out in the deserts of Rajasthan will never make you spiritual. Fellowship with a living God, worshiping him, breathing what he wants to give you.

That is what will make you spiritual. And if you can't find it, you know, and then get out as fast as you can. And the word is so clear on that, so clear. And yet Satan is so subtle, he always wants us to blame somebody else.

It's my leader, he wasn't just really loving enough, he didn't set the example, he didn't lead the Bible studies, he went on too many journeys or it was my wife. That was a big thing, right? Your wife kept making you wash the dishes and robbing you of your quiet time.

It's amazing how many excuses we have when we get our life into a mess. And if we really think that some of these messes are going to be sorted out just by taking a month holiday, then we must be very naive, because I tell you, the devil is a professional at knocking people out during the holidays.

And Satan doesn't retire on a holiday. One of my close friends took a holiday recently and I am pro holiday and we'll get a few days next month. And this man went on a friend on a holiday on the beaches of New Jersey and his son on the holiday was run over by a bus and killed last month.

To me, that makes some of my problems look pretty small. I hope when you do go on a holiday and we need this holiday policy that you will be able to get time to seek God. But if that seeking of God can then not be brought back into your workplace, because most people in the world are working in order to live.

And I'm glad that OM is known as a movement where people work hard. I hope it is always that way, because what did Paul say in this very passage? He said that he, in fact, had to go the extra mile and work to support himself with his own hands.

A devotional life that is a devotional life of power, a prayer life, a knowledge of God, and there's so many brilliant books on this. It's incredible these days will function, whether you're on a holiday or whether you're back working in a secular job or in Christian work.

So that's my foundational point. That's my most important point. I know you've all heard it before and you've heard it in clearer terms than I am able to give. And I would appreciate your prayers that this, which has been the strength of my life since my conversion, would never become otherwise.

Biblical Fellowship and Honest Relationships

The second point I've written down on how to stay fresh and stay on the cutting edge is the need for biblical fellowship. For walking in the light, for being open and honest with other people. I'm glad that I never took a stereotyped approach to this and told you exactly how you should do it.

Some of you may not feel. You want to just go up to somebody in the next couple of days and unload everything. But I wonder if during the next couple of days you could just try to pray with a few more people, just pray with it, just pray an honest prayer.

I often find out something I wasn't planning on saying when I pray it comes out and the brother hears it, then he prays and you pray again. What a beautiful thing if along this river and in these woods and in these many different rooms of this building complex, there could be more just one on one personal sharing and fellowship.

Now, I know that is going on. In fact, I believe that is the heartbeat of this conference that's gone on every year since 1961. It's the individual fellowship. And people getting right with one another, approving their relationships, getting to know one another, it's a beautiful thing.

And we are, I believe that OM continues to be a relationship centered movement. Of course, there's unlimited scope for improvement, something that's grown so big, so fast, because many of our deep relationships are with people who have left OM and they are with pastors and they are with all kinds of people.

And so naturally, as we've reached out and we've tried to be very non-exclusive within the fellowship, we often don't know one another. And I don't think we should get under a ton of guilt about it, but I think we should be open.

And can I just throw one word? If you haven't written anything down up to now, please write initiative, please write initiative. You know, even a person in my situation struggle with who I'm supposed to be fellowshipping with.

As you know, I invite different people to come talk with me as many as I can squeeze into. I tell you, the ex-OMers reunion, that was some event. But, you know, if I knew that there was actually someone that wanted a fellowship with me, I mean, somebody that actually wanted to meet with, you know, Mr. Big Mouth was liable to frighten you right out of the end of the bus when he opens now, that would sure help me make my decision sometime.

Because the truth is that in OM today, many of us don't know where we stand anymore with one another. Because we've heard this rumor, we've heard that rumor, we've heard this criticism, we've heard that criticism, some of it probably never even been stated.

I, you know, I have a lie dream every night. I'm getting confused sometimes what's in the dreams and what's in the reality. And I prayed over so many pictures and now I'm getting confused sometimes whether I've just prayed over that picture or whether I prayed to that person, you know, face to face.

Wow, the human mind, what a challenge. Initiative is so often the key. Not many of these new recruits will get time with me because I'm committed and have different levels of commitment. Some will. And I'll call some in, but I tell you, there won't be a single new recruit there that asked to see me, that won't see me.

Now, I don't know how I fit it in every year, but somehow God puts it together. Don't go and announce that, please, in the tent. Just let the Lord work in his own beautiful way. Somebody just listened to an old Tozer message on a phonograph record.

Incredible, that was really old, but the Lord still used it. I think a high percentage of people in OM are on the cutting edge. This message, because I thought you were all backslidden. I have an ability to deliver oranges even to Florida, but I believe that all of us who know something about staying on the cutting edge, know something about avoiding spiritual dullness, want to learn more.

I learned something through this message, so you might as well. I believe most people in OM are widely read people. I am stunned at the reading many people do. I don't know how Gary Dean reads so many magazines and articles.

He certainly seems to send me quite a few of them. And I think it's exciting that you meet workers in the middle of Nepal, in the middle of somewhere else, and you find that they've got a bunch of powerful books in their suitcase, and they're reading quite widely, and they're listening to tapes.

And I think this is healthy. I think it's good. If any of you are missing out on that, be a little open-minded to make a few changes. Somebody said to me, I never listen to tapes. Do you think that attitude pleases God?

What if I had a tape, you know, by A .W. Tozer, that brought 10 ,000 people to a deeper knowledge of the living God? Do you think you'd be humble enough to listen to that tape? I think we ought to make use of the cassette tape.

We are busy people. We live in a busy world. How much time do you sit in that car when you could be listening simultaneously to Elizabeth Elliot, to A .W. Tozer? It's amazing, the tapes that are available.

And I think tapes, magazines, books are not competing with one another. I'm amazed at the lack of reading of Christian periodicals in O .M. Maybe because of the cutbacks. Everybody canceled their subscriptions.

You say, what's the purpose of reading Christian periodicals? I read the Word of God. That's enough. You know, let me just say that if you've got that mentality, you may be in the wrong fellowship. You know, I don't like to make anybody feel not at home.

Because usually behind that mentality is an overdose of spiritual pride. We need to learn from other men and women of God. We, in our kind of movement, cannot afford not to know what is going on in the church.

We need to know what's going on in the church of the country we live in. I live in Britain. I read many British secular and Christian periodicals. And it helps me know who all these different people are.

What are all these different organizations? What in the world is happening? So that when I go into a church and preach, I have a little idea of what people are thinking. What are the big issues? And what are some of the big problems?

Do you not think there's any strong, mounted criticism against O .M.? If you don't, then you are living, you know, really in a fairyland. There is strong criticism against O .M. in Scandinavia, and it is affecting our recruits.

I will not accept that it is not. Now, we have many victories in Scandinavia as well. But don't think if people are saying strong things against us, and it's getting in print, it's getting talked about, that is not going to affect.

One of the reasons we're getting so many recruits is because the average young person who wants to come on O .M., when he goes back to his church, the church says, great, we'll send you. I tell you, if it wasn't for that, a lot of these people wouldn't be here next week.

Those relationships built over 30 years, the ex-O .M .er who's now a pastor, the man who had a strong question, but sat down with David Hicks and got the question beautifully answered. These are the people that are fighting for us, sometimes more than we're fighting for ourselves.

Study, Reading, and Learning from the Wider Church

In fact, I was stunned listening to this message by Alan Redpath, preaching at Moody Church, Founders Week, 1982. Used me as his major illustration of God finding a man and somehow filling him and using him, sending him out of Moody to do a few things.

You know, I seldom hear what people say about me. It must be, you know, except the negative things, must be quite awesome. I guess I have a lot to learn in that area. I will tell you, we cannot measure what men like Charles Stanley in Atlanta, like men that each one of you know in your country who are speaking favorably of this work, who are putting down criticism, we cannot measure how much they are helping us.

Of course, even the word says don't speak about yourself. Let someone else, let someone else. Let someone else say O .M. is a great work. Let O .M. say, somebody else say O .M.'s good thing for you to join.

Isn't it exciting to see so many ex-O .M .ers sending their sons and daughters back into the work? I tell you that, that, that, that roars my engine. Study, reading. I think we're in agreement. We got a little dialogue about this at the field leaders meeting, but we have always basically believed it's a beautiful thing when people are let out of O .M. for a time of study.

Many have done it. Others have gone through correspondence courses. Others have gone to short term seminars. And I hope we'll continue to do this as the Lord enables, as we have the finance, the new school at Rill, and other similar things like the study program at Lucknow, and all kinds of opportunities we have in the area of study and reading and spiritual refreshment, going to courses on counseling, going to courses on business management, going to this course and that course.

I try to send as many people as I can up to Rill, and I hope that that ministry can be a part of God's program to keep people fresh and on the cutting edge of what the Holy Spirit is doing. The fourth thing I just listed is work.

Work, Servant Leadership, and a Positive Attitude

Developing a positive attitude toward our work. Learning how to turn some of the work to play. I remember an Indian who had listened to way too many Verwar tapes, came up to Kathmandu once, and to really watch me, you know, when we had these leadership schools in Kathmandu back in the late 60s.

Came up to watch this Verwar and how he really functioned. And when he left, I took him to the airport. And that's always a beautiful thing. Whenever you have the opportunity to drive one of your Timothys to the airport, that's always a good thing to do.

They don't always give somebody else the privilege to drive the guy to the airport. Oh, yeah, we got it. We got a driver. We, you know, that's his ministry. He drives everybody to the airport. Don't give him all the privileges, huh?

And don't give him all the blessings. Because I tell you, when you drive someone to an airport and you embrace them and say goodbye to them, you'll often remember that. And you might have even won a friend.

And he might decide that you're no longer the leader up in the ivory tower who tells everybody what to do. But that you're a servant. And the servant leadership is what we're committed to. It doesn't mean you have to do it every time.

Work. Positive attitude toward work. This brother, as I took him to the airport, I said, what did you learn from your time in Kathmandu? He looked me in the face. He said, I learned that you know how to convert the work into play.

Now, if you don't enjoy, I mean in yourself as a human being. If you don't enjoy any aspect of life on OM, you need counseling. Oh, really? You need counseling because you can't function that way. This is not some kind of punishment to her.

This is not some kind of extended purgatory for non-Roman Catholics. And I know, you know, there are many things, there are many things in OM that I find hard. I'm not the greatest fan of sitting in conferences, but I've spent a fourth of my entire life in the last 25 years.

Approximately a fourth of my entire life in meetings and conferences. You've got to learn to convert some of that work to play. Now, one of the things that may help that is if you develop a little more ability to laugh at yourself.