How to Lead Yourself Well

[00:00:05] Speaker A: Hey, welcome back to Grow tential. I am Sarah, and I'm with my awesome dad. How are you, dad? [00:00:10] Speaker B: I'm doing very good. The sun is shining. [00:00:13] Speaker A: It's a gorgeous day. [00:00:14] Speaker B: It is a gorgeous day. [00:00:15] Speaker A: It feels like summer, finally. We are the father daughter duo where we have conversations on things that we're learning and we're growing through. And our hope is to help you grow as we are learning and talking. Tell me about your favorite thing you have done so far this summer. Have you done anything fun? [00:00:38] Speaker B: Well, last week, the most fun thing I did was I drove over to Chestnut Ridge Road. [00:00:47] Speaker A: Yes. [00:00:48] Speaker B: And watched the bulldozers working on the new campus. [00:00:52] Speaker A: It is so. It's fun. It is delightful fun. It brought tears to my eyes. So for those of you who don't know, we. We have three campuses. You started this church 43 years ago, and it's grown into three campuses. And our west campus outgrew their building. I mean, honestly, Chet and I pretty much outgrew that building in 2019. And then we started to look for land, and Chet and I were driving and with a realtor, and we had looked at all these buildings that were just so discouraging because it wasn't the right area. It was just gonna be more money to fix the buildings. And we were driving, and the realtor said, you know, we have a piece of property coming up. And we were on the highway, and he said, you can see it from the highway. And as we drove past it, Chet and I kind of looked at each other and like, why didn't you show us this first? And we stood on that land and we had prayed for it. And that was almost seven years ago. And so to get here, where we're breaking ground, is such an exciting, delightful. Yeah. Brought tears to my eyes. God is so, so, so good and so worthy of following. You know, that story kind of makes me think you have led this church for 43 years, and you have led us into adventure and an adventure with God, an adventure of faith. And as I think about leadership, you will always be kind of at the forefront of my mind of great leaders. [00:02:28] Speaker B: Thank you. [00:02:29] Speaker A: You have a faith in God that motivates and inspires. You have a grit that helps us have courage. You have always spent time with God in the kind of way where there was a future. It was never just coasting. Today, I would love to talk with you about, like, your three core ideas that make you a better leader, because I think for so many people, we are leading ourself. But then we're also leading the people around us. If you're leading a home or a workplace, even if you're not the boss, you're leading. So would you kick us off with one of, like, if you had to say your number one core idea about leadership, where would you start? [00:03:17] Speaker B: I would say you can't lead unless you know where you're going. [00:03:22] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:03:24] Speaker B: Jesus said, if the blind lead the blind, they both fall into the ditch. [00:03:29] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:03:30] Speaker B: Which is why a lot of organizations are in the ditch. So I call it. It's called vision. [00:03:41] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:03:41] Speaker B: Okay. Where is this organization right now? Let's start with self leadership. [00:03:47] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:03:47] Speaker B: Where am I right now and where do I want to be? [00:03:51] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:03:54] Speaker B: What are my strengths that I can start using to. To move from where I wanna be? [00:04:04] Speaker A: And I think for most people, that's harder to define. We're in a series right now in our CC midweek, our Wednesday night services, and this is the topic. Cause it's so easy to define what you're not good at or what your weaknesses are. It's very easy to see. But sometimes it's harder to define what your strengths are. So for someone who's listening and saying, okay, I don't even know where to begin. Where would you help people start to identify some of their strengths? [00:04:38] Speaker B: I would offer two suggestions. If you're really, really lost and you don't know where to start, there's a book out there and this guy did all this research and it's called Strengths Finder. And it's got questions that it asks you and it helps you identify your strengths. [00:04:58] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:05:00] Speaker B: We've used it in our staff several times. And there's workbooks that go with it and everything else. So if you're really, really stuck and [00:05:10] Speaker A: there's a quiz in that. Right. There's a quiz that helps you really identify. Yeah, I think for, like, I'm thinking about the mom. Sometimes you give so much of yourself away to your kids or you. You kind of lose yourself. Maybe you're a boss at work and it's so singularly focused. Like you're so honed in on your area that it's hard to have a broader scope of who you are outside of those things, like outside of work or outside of your kids. And. And that should only be a piece of you. It shouldn't be the totality. [00:05:49] Speaker B: Right. [00:05:50] Speaker A: And I think that's where a lot of people get lost, is it becomes your everything. [00:05:56] Speaker B: Or you're not really leading, you're managing. Yeah, you, you aren't really moving the organization or the team. You're just managing the day to day operation. [00:06:13] Speaker A: And managing is really maintaining. [00:06:15] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:06:16] Speaker A: You're just making sure things go smooth. You might be in the rut of kind of doing the same thing, not trying anything new. So when you think about personal leadership and defining. Okay, where am I going? So starting with your strengths, what would you say your top strengths are? [00:06:37] Speaker B: I'm very persistent. You can tell me you won't help me. You can't tell me I can't do it. [00:06:44] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:06:46] Speaker B: And I do think by the grace of God, I'm able to have clarity about what I want and why I want it. And I'm able to imagine the kind of future that is compelling. [00:07:05] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:07:06] Speaker B: Do you know what I mean? [00:07:07] Speaker A: I do. And I think one of the things that I'm experiencing right now. So our family just came off of a total miracle from God for our nephew. But it was probably the hardest two weeks most of us have ever lived. He. He had an infection that spread to his heart and then spread to every piece of his body from his brain to his feet. And. And he was fighting for his life. So we were taking turns going to the hospital every day. And I would take that morning shift. So I'd get up at 5, drive to the clinic and be there from 6 till, you know, 8 to 12 hours some days. And it was every day. And now I'm back at work. So I've missed two weeks of work doing that kind of things. And now I'm back at work and I'm feeling tired. I was just telling you this morning. And what was your advice to me? [00:08:03] Speaker B: Take a comp day. [00:08:04] Speaker A: Yeah. And my. In my brain though, I feel like a loser. If I can be totally honest with you. If I've already been gone from work for two weeks and I was still in, I still made phone calls, I still led. We still had our midweeks and stuff like that, but not being in the office. So now I'm like, I can't take more time off. [00:08:25] Speaker B: I know it's not part of our theme, but I want to say this. Paul taught us if we don't take care of our family, we are worse than an unbeliever. [00:08:39] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:08:40] Speaker B: That's Paul. That part of the Christian life is they're your family for a God given reason and caring for them is a basic divine expectation. So for you to say you were off work is kind of defining work too narrowly. I would say you are exactly where God wanted you to be, doing what he wanted you to do. [00:09:15] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:09:16] Speaker B: And our church is well enough staffed and organized that it's not like. [00:09:25] Speaker A: So part of my thinking is I want time away so that I can get a fresh wind with Jesus. Like a fresh wind of thinking ahead. We've got. Most people will slow down a little bit in the summer. We gear up. We really don't have a down season as a church. It's like it's from one big thing to the next. And so. But I want to have fresh vision. I want to have. Because part of what I do is lead the staff. And we're going to be doing our leadership planning. There's five or six of us that get together maybe a little more now because we're inviting the campuses, but we get together and we plan for the next year. And so I feel like this is part of your number one core idea, is it starts with you. You've got to take time to slow down and. And seek God, to think ahead. Like, what has God uniquely gifted us in? Cause there's a lot of churches out there. But what sets us apart? What is our giftedness and how do we move forward in it? But part of my question was because of the way our staff works. You're right. I could take a few days, study, get that fresh wind. What about people that are in the grind? You know, they. Their schedule doesn't work like that. They're hourly and they need the money and they've come off something heavy. What would you say to someone who has a little pushback? Like, I don't even have time. What would your. Or not pushback, but help? What would your advice be? [00:11:05] Speaker B: Okay, I would begin by saying you may not have the control over your time that you would like to have, but you do have control over your time. If you would discipline yourself, you might have some extra time in the morning that you could use. And if you would discipline yourself, you might have some extra time in the evening. The problem is you're tired, and it's just easy not to sit down with your notebook and do some work. [00:11:47] Speaker A: Yeah. And I think what is. If you haven't listened to. Is one of our first couple podcasts on grit. I would highly recommend going back to that, because I think what happens is when you take time to think ahead of what you really want, it's like I was saying, you do get a fresh win. [00:12:07] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. [00:12:07] Speaker A: Like, some of that tired is replaced by excitement. It's replaced by joy and hope. And there's some feelings of like, okay, now I know what I need to do, so let's do it. [00:12:20] Speaker B: Yes. [00:12:20] Speaker A: And some of that determination, it changes kind of your mental well being. It changes kind of your thinking. So if you start with your strengths, you're saying, okay, what has God gifted me in? Who do I want to become in the next? I think people push it too far, if I'm honest. If people say like 10 years, it's just too far for some people. So even like this year or next year, what are some of the things that only I can do? What would be another goal or idea for you to help people get started in thinking ahead? [00:13:02] Speaker B: Well, first of all, you have to. Thinking is not enough. You have to get stuff on paper. So finding a calendaring system that you can work with and starting to lay things out. All right, these are the four quarters this year I get. I can use. I got four fresh starts this year. What do I want to do in the first quarter, What I want to do in the second quarter? What do I want to accomplish this year? What do I have to get done in the first quarter? The second quarter. Then you take it and you put it right into your schedule. Now, I'm not only. I'm not driving blind. I've got a map. [00:13:56] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:13:56] Speaker B: And at the end of the quarter, I'm able to say, am I on the right road or are we never gonna get there if I stay? Keep doing this. [00:14:08] Speaker A: This is something Jacob and I did. I know we've talked about this in the podcast. I heard a pastor say a while ago, people have more vision for their vacations than they do for their families or for their life. And he said they will pack a suitcase, thinking of every dinner and every spot they're gonna go to, and they have an outfit and they've got the shoes and they've got the itinerary, and they're more thought out for their vacations than they are for their family or their life. And so years ago, Jacob and I started doing this where we would make little three to five year goals. And I was just thinking this morning, one of our goals, the last time we did this, was we were trying to decide what do we want the future to look like for our family. And one of the things we had wanted was the land. We wanted land that could be legacy land so the kids could build homes on it, our grandkids could have it one day. And without us thinking ahead, we wouldn't even know where to begin. No. But because we were thinking about it and dreaming about it, we were having conversations about it, and we were at a graduation party for one of the kids at churches. And we had a friend there, and we were telling him about this, and he was like, oh, I've got land, like, 30 acres. And it was on the road. We grew up on Branch road when we were kids, and so we got to talking, and now we're in the midst of planning for this, for our future and our kids. But it starts with dreaming and thinking ahead of, like, what do you really, really, really want? [00:15:52] Speaker B: Without a vision, you can't recognize an opportunity. [00:15:55] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:15:56] Speaker B: If you didn't have a vision to have this property, when the opportunity came up, it would have. It would have just slipped right by you. [00:16:04] Speaker A: Right. It would have been unnoticeable. Okay, talk to me about your second core idea in leadership. [00:16:14] Speaker B: Nobody can do it by themself. A mediocre team, a mediocre basketball team will beat a superstar every time because you can't do it by yourself. So I believe leaders are team builders. And they're not just team builders. They are strategic team builders where we get diversity on our team. I don't want. I don't want group think. I want people to have different ideas than I have. I want us to be able to talk about. I want to set a vision, and then I want to say, all right, now how do we get this done? [00:16:59] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:17:00] Speaker B: How do we get there? So team building and building a team that has enough diversity that you get perspectives and ideas that you wouldn't come up with yourself. [00:17:21] Speaker A: Yeah, I think. Okay, so let's talk about. For the person who is thinking about this for them personally. I think of my family as my team, and it starts with my spouse. It starts with the person I choose to spend my life with. [00:17:38] Speaker B: Right. [00:17:39] Speaker A: When it came to you choosing mom, how did. And her choosing you? How did that. What did that look like for you? I don't know. They've ever asked you this question, like, did you seek God in the decision? You were young, so was it just. There was not even a question about it. Because it's Sharon Collings. [00:17:58] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:17:59] Speaker A: I'm probably Sharon Brown at the time. [00:18:02] Speaker B: I'm probably not a good example for it because we married very young, and. I did pray about it, but it wasn't strategic [00:18:23] Speaker A: or so you thought. [00:18:24] Speaker B: One of the biggest mistakes I ever made was I never formally proposed to Shay. What a dummy. We dated, and then somehow or another, we started talking about when we get married. I have lifelong regrets about not proposing. Every five years, I try to do. Every fifth wedding anniversary, I try to take Shay somewhere very nice to make up for being a dummy. [00:18:56] Speaker A: So what, you guys just talked about it and it was just decided and. Yeah, yeah. But God has used your personality. [00:19:04] Speaker B: He is good. We are the opposite sides of circles. [00:19:09] Speaker A: Yes. [00:19:12] Speaker B: She's very gifted on one side of the circle. [00:19:14] Speaker A: Yes. [00:19:15] Speaker B: And flat on the other. And I'm gifted on the other side of the circle and flat on the other. [00:19:21] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. You guys do. You bring a wholeness. You bring and it's made a great team. And each of your kids have some of both of you. You know, I think I get a little bit of your grit and leadership. Like, I think that's some of my sweet spots. But I have some of mom's athletes empathy and care, you know, so you've. You've given some of the best of both. [00:19:52] Speaker B: Well, I give her more credit. My kids grew. Grew up better than I raised them. [00:19:56] Speaker A: Yeah. No, that is not true because I got the other stuff too. Okay, so it starts with looking. If you're. If you're single, if you're young and you're listening to this like your partner in life is going to mean everything because they are your team. And you start having kids and then your kids, like you're raising these humans that you love, but you're doing it with your teammate. And if you do it right and you do it purposeful, there is a. A camaraderie and a fun and a joy and a caring of the heavy together, you know. Okay, let's talk about someone who maybe works a job and doesn't have control of the team, but wants to influence the team. What would be some of your. They're in a position, maybe they're new. I was talking to a young man who started a new position. Everyone's been on the team for years, and he's having a hard time incorporating because they're also. They're particular about their job. So what would you say to someone who doesn't have control of a team but wants to produce something healthy? [00:21:07] Speaker B: There is a skill called leading up. There is a skill called leading your peers. Yeah, you're not over them. They're your peers. So most people only think of leading down the people who are under them. But there are skill sets for leading your peers and for leading up. I'll just talk about a couple things. Leadership is influence and quality thinking. Quality work and a quality attitude creates influence. If you have. If you show up at work and you have a good attitude and you do your job well and people like working with you, you're gonna have influence with everybody. [00:22:16] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:22:18] Speaker B: If you show up at work and you got an attitude and you don't think this job is part of your job description or nobody else is doing it, I'm not gonna do it. You're not gonna have any influence. A friend of mine told me he had a part time job and part of his part time job was mopping a certain area that he was responsible for. And so he got the bucket and started mopping. And two or three people said, what are you doing? He goes, part of the job. They say, yeah, nobody ever does that. You don't have to do it. He said, you don't have to do it. I do. And he mopped his spot. People liked him. It was just a part time job and they were wanting to promote him to run the department. [00:23:19] Speaker A: Awesome. [00:23:19] Speaker B: Because he showed up, had a good attitude, worked hard, did what other people wouldn't do, and he had so much influence they wanted to promote him to run the department. [00:23:31] Speaker A: Yeah, that's a great point. I think about this a lot is like how you show up matters and how you show up for your team matters. Even if you're leading up sideways or down, like there is a reality of how you show up matters. I had a handful of jobs before I started working at the church and they moved me up into manage like management pretty quickly. But I think back on that and I think there is like a humility of every part of it is your job. Like even at the church, I'll constantly, I'll walk the parking lot and pick up garbage, you know, like, I'll never [00:24:09] Speaker B: outgrow that and think bad thoughts about people. Yeah, you can't throw this in the trash. [00:24:16] Speaker A: Yeah. In the name of Jesus. [00:24:18] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:24:21] Speaker A: So what would you say to somebody who is struggling with the people around them? How do they show up in the kind of way that makes a difference? [00:24:31] Speaker B: Ah, So leadership is self leadership to begin with. I'm not taking the cue from them, I'm giving them the cue. I don't care what your attitude is. I come here with a good attitude. If you are harsh, I don't have to be harsh back. I'm here to make things better. If you need help, I'm gonna help you. If I have to go the extra mile, I'm gonna go the extra mile. Because I think that's what leadership is. Leadership is not figuring out how to do less leadership. Jesus said, who is greater, the one who sits at the table or the one who serves? And Jesus said, it's not the one who sits at the table, it's the one who serves for the Son of man came not to be served, but to serve. [00:25:29] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. So if you have the opportunity to build your team and you're talking about the diversity of gifts, what would be some of the things you. You would look for in hiring your team? Would you look. Start with your strengths, and then, like, here are some of your weaknesses. So you'd hire around that. What would be. What would be your. [00:25:51] Speaker B: The first person I hired was, believe it or not, everybody thought I should hire all these other places. The first person I hired was a secretary. I can generate more work than I can manage. You know what I mean? [00:26:12] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:26:14] Speaker B: If I. If I don't. If I didn't have Marianne, I would be working 12 hours a day, and half of them would be on things that aren't of first importance. [00:26:26] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:26:27] Speaker B: So I want to hire the. The people who have skills that release me to do my best work. [00:26:41] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:26:46] Speaker B: Our relationship together. I think I am preaching the best sermons of my life, but I'm not managing the church day to day. So I want people on my team who have gift sets that they're actually better at their gift set than I am. [00:27:08] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:27:15] Speaker B: I wouldn't hire Lexi if she couldn't sing any better than me. I want people who have a gift set I don't have, and a gift set that they enjoy that work. [00:27:28] Speaker A: Yeah. There's joy and passion and fire. [00:27:30] Speaker B: They're not doing the job because it's a job. They enjoy their work. They're gifted in it. [00:27:40] Speaker A: Yeah. And it's easy to tell when someone does and someone doesn't. [00:27:43] Speaker B: Then I'm gonna help them. I'm gonna get them training. I'm gonna send them to seminars. I'm gonna get them books. I'm gonna teach classes. We. We're going to help everybody on the team get better. [00:27:57] Speaker A: Yeah. Okay, so let's move to your third. So your third core principle of, you know, becoming a great leader. [00:28:06] Speaker B: Persistence. [00:28:07] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:28:08] Speaker B: You can't get done in a day what you can get done in a week. You can't get done in a week what you can get done in a year. You can't get done in a year what you can get done in five years. [00:28:19] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:28:21] Speaker B: And, I mean, look, if you look at this church, you see the cumulative results of 43 years of persistence. [00:28:31] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:28:32] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:28:33] Speaker A: I think it is easy to start strong, you know, have ideas that you're excited about, but there can be a fizzle, and if you aren't careful, you can start stuff and then never really Finish it. Well, so what would be in a growth area for persistence? Like, how do I initiate that in myself? Or how to the people listening, how do you. How do you become persistent when maybe you've lost a little bit of the fire? How do you fan that flame? [00:29:04] Speaker B: Well, part of it, like you said, is a fresh vision, a new excitement about if we do, if we. If we want to be this, then we got to do this and this. Second of all is accountability is a big deal. I can remember when I did my plan review days and I would take out that Franklin planner and I would say, I was supposed to do this. I was supposed to get this done. What did I. I didn't get it done. Why didn't I get it done? I would hold myself accountable. My personal performance reviews are more demanding than my professional performance reviews. Second of all, you can have an accountability partner. [00:29:56] Speaker A: Well, I don't want to move past that first part because I feel like that is something a lot of people don't do, is take the time to assess, like, how did it go? What were some of the things you want? Some people don't even write the things they wanted to accomplish down. And so you're just existing without leading. And so I think to lead, you have to know, like, one of my things every week is, what are the three big things I want to accomplish this week? And then that's what I hold myself accountable to. But before that, you're just. You're just moving. You're not. You have to have something to aim for. And so I think holding yourself, I think everyone sees the success on the outside. You know, 43 years you've done this. There's three campuses we're building, another one we're working on. [00:30:43] Speaker B: I got lucky. [00:30:43] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. But the truth is, like a huge part of people's success in leadership is what happens behind the scenes and that quiet time that no one sees. And so I think this is one of the things that is underrated is this self assessment of what are you really trying to accomplish? And did you. And why. Why not? Do you do it personally, dad? [00:31:10] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:31:10] Speaker A: So do you. I'm not saying that was. Do you plan and review for your personal life? [00:31:16] Speaker B: Yeah, it's part of it. Right. Sadly, my plan review is. It begins and Marianne puts it on my calendar. [00:31:28] Speaker A: Yeah, Marianne's your executive assistant. [00:31:30] Speaker B: Yeah, it's on the calendar for a Monday in every single month. So generally, I hold myself accountable spiritually first. Am I reading the scriptures or am I just reading the pages? I'm supposed to read or I've gone beyond that now and I'm working on spiritual qualities. I think I shared Psalm 34 with you. I'm working on spiritual qualities. So I'll start my plan review with, okay, these are. I review the spiritual qualities again. This is. This is. This is the person I'm growing into. All right, how did you do on that this month? And I will hold myself accountable for. I'm supposed to read this many pages of theology that I read the theology, then I go to my work and I say, these are the things I said I would get done last month. Did I get them done? If I didn't, why didn't I? And what am I going to do different? So that. And then if I go two months and don't do something, then I really get grouchy with myself and I say, you're avoiding this. Why are you avoiding this? You missed this for two months and you got to be honest with yourself. [00:33:08] Speaker A: What's your tendency? Why do you typically avoid stuff? [00:33:13] Speaker B: I get annoyed with it and I go, I'm already annoyed. I'm going to put this off. Often I avoid because I'm trading one thing for another. You know what I mean? [00:33:31] Speaker A: A million percent. [00:33:32] Speaker B: I did this. [00:33:33] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:33:34] Speaker B: I said this was a priority, but really this was a higher priority. So I let this go. [00:33:40] Speaker A: Yeah. Okay, so where does your personal review come in? It comes in after work in your list. Spiritual. [00:33:51] Speaker B: No, I start with my spiritual and then I do the work. And then I try to think of, okay, I want to grow to the end. I don't want to come to a point where I say, now. I coast now. I just let the river take me wherever it goes. So I want to be. I want to be growing into the best old man I can possibly be. Not just spiritually, but intellectually. Here's an example. I committed myself this year to reread Greek grammar. It's miserable work, but I want. I'm going to reread that grammar. I'm going to rethink some stuff. I'm going to remember stuff I hadn't remembered. I'm going to learn stuff I didn't learn the first time. And I hold myself accountable for that. [00:35:08] Speaker A: Yeah. All right. Well, thank you so much for your insight. I feel like. I feel like self leadership and leading others is. It's every avenue in our life. And so to put it back into the context of the three. So the very first thing you do is you have to have a vision for where you're going. The second one is making sure you have a team around you, that you support one another. It complements each other's strengths versus weaknesses. There's a diversity to it and getting the right people on the team. And then the last is having a persistence that you do not quit and you do not give up, and you're consistent. Great. [00:35:50] Speaker B: That sounds right to me. [00:35:52] Speaker A: All right, good. Well, I love you. Thank you for your expertise. I appreciate you. [00:35:56] Speaker B: I think you're doing an awesome job. [00:35:58] Speaker A: Thank you, dad. All right. We hope this was helpful. If you find this helpful, we ask that you share it, send it to a friend, maybe a coworker, a leader, and see what God might do. We pray you have a great day.