WEBVTT
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We are so excited about this episode of the Lead to Win podcast.
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I'm here with Pastor Steve.
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He and I are close friends.
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He's been such a mentor to me.
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We just finished a session.
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There was about 500 and something churches and a lot of church leaders.
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A couple thousand.
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We bought every single person that attended.
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We gave them a copy of your new book, Soul Leadership.
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And I know that it's it's really exciting to you now to be able to share this with everybody else.
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You know, Jeff, we've worked on this book for a number of years.
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As many of you have heard the story, it's it's my personal story.
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It's a blend of theology, therapy, neuroscience, leadership.
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Yeah.
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And how that comes together.
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My heart's just to really help pastors, leaders.
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Matter of fact, for-profit, nonprofit leaders, a lot of guys are, a lot of people are getting this for teams, and so man, I'm just, I'm excited about the possibility of really helping people.
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Well, we were sitting in a room last night, in fact, and multiple leaders saying this is where I struggle.
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And I think a lot of times, as someone who's giving out to others, you know, there's there's actually something we talk about a lot when the plane is going down.
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You know, you gotta put the oxygen mask on yourself first.
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And so maybe there's a leader out there that this episode is gonna inspire you.
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We're gonna take you live right into the leaders' gathering that we hold every January at leadtowin.com.
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And I'm actually gonna interview Pastor Steve about soul leadership.
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And one practical thought, not only just for you, but if you want to go to Amazon, you want to order this book today, get it get a handful and go through it with your leadership team because if you help your team be healthy, then the organization is healthy.
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And here's what I say healthy leaders produce healthy teams, which build healthy organizations, which have great impact.
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Starts with the soul.
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So you might want me to grab a handful of these, go through it with your team.
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I'm excited you're here.
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You're gonna enjoy this episode, this podcast today.
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You're gonna enjoy it.
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We are here at the leaders' gathering, and we wanted this to also be something that we can share with other leaders as well on the Lead to Win podcast.
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But I thought we might take just a moment just because uh for this moment, Pastor Steve is not you know a guest.
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I want to talk personally for a minute.
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I think when you look back over your life when you're at our phase of life, you it truly is the relationships where you see the the richness of God's grace.
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And I I know we've always said 1999, my wife says it's around 2000.
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Uh we met on a van at something like this.
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I don't know if you ever think about it, but you could meet someone at this that could be a divine relationship.
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And we had little kids, our wives, and then I was like, I have never met someone who I felt, where's this going?
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Well, let's just say you were a little high strung, but uh but you you, you know, I just I thought just inside perspective, you were you're one of the I I want to say this, one of the smartest strategic leaders in the body of Christ you've ever met is this guy right here.
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I'm just telling you.
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Now, some of y'all know that, some of you may not know that, but it just I don't I don't really have to pray, you know.
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I just call him and just, you know, if I don't know what to do, he's already thought about it, he's SWOT-analysed it, he's uh he's mapped it, and he's he's already got like seven several different buckets.
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If you don't, you some of y'all don't know him, but he likes buckets.
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So as we talk today, I'm sure he'll go to his buckets.
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He usually um will say, I'm gonna give you three buckets, but he only has maybe one and a half, but he'll make the other ones up as he's sharing.
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And so he he kind of is developing the buckets as he as he gives them to you.
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Well, single greatest for me, leadership.
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Obviously, we're very close friends, but here at Milestone, he was here when we started in the cafetorium.
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He serves on our oversight team.
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He's a big brother, a leadership uh figure in my life, and really one of my closest friends.
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So, would you guys welcome Pastor Steve Robinson?
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Would you we're gonna jump into your book, Soul Leadership, but would you talk a little bit about Lead to Win?
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And you know, we we want to get you some merch and uh let you wear it.
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And we'll Were you offended I did not wear Lead to Win's?
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Yeah, really I was.
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I mean I'm noting who wears the merch, and and that's gonna impact.
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Well, first of all, I want to just say, and I'm not just saying this, that word just now, I know some people just watching this was a phenomenal pure pastor.
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How many of y'all appreciated that word from Pastor Jeff?
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Wasn't that powerful?
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I I need to know, can they hear me well out there?
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Can you guys hear me?
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First of all, it's so cold right here.
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This stage is not built for thin people.
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I'm serious.
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Big men burn diesel.
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Big men burn diesel.
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Hell is hot, heaven is cold.
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Embrace it.
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Look, you can take your jacket, you can take your shacket or whatever that westernware Tacova thing that you got on.
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You can take that, you can take raw hot, raw hot.
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Okay, whatever.
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Well, I want I want to say, I do want to say this, and you know, you go we all go to a lot of conferences, a lot of things, and we're so honored to have all of you here.
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And uh it's a joy to come alongside Jeff and serve him and serve you guys, but but what I love about you, you you can't listen to you, I know that's a double negative, without getting the impartation of a pastoral grace.
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We we love you, we thank you for the pastoral.
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How many of y'all sense that pastoral impartation?
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I'm I'm telling you, it is.
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And I love leadership.
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I think leadership's amazing, but leadership was popularized too much in the body of Christ the last 20 years.
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God's called us first to be shepherds, pastors.
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Amen.
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And I want to be a good leader, I believe in that, but thank you for who you are, because we received uh what you are, the foundation of that pastor.
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So um, yeah, so you asked me to come on to talk about my book.
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Yes.
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So let me give a little backstory on it.
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So all of you got this book, and this is this is the written copy, but really there's so much life here, there's so much experience.
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And I you and I worked with Coach Tom on our doctorates together, and this was actually your study was specifically in the research area of soul leadership.
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So I want to just get right to it because I want to ask you a series of questions that you'll be proud of me.
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I actually wrote them down.
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I've got them right here.
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Um we're not just gonna freewheel it.
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We have buckets right here.
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And so so, so I I I want to I want to just start with, you know, why the book.
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Research has shown that 93.7 percent of American leaders have experienced trauma, adversity, or prolonged stress.
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That's the statistical evidence, but we've all had people we love.
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Yeah, we've all been disappointed, discouraged.
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I think that maybe even young leaders out there could feel like, is it possible to finish well?
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That is a major discussion going on.
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Why is this statistic so significant and what does it mean for organizations?
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Yeah, three things with that.
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Number one, the book came out of an intersection of three points in my life.
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Number one, I've been a pastor 26 years, been in ministry over 30, and walking with leaders, and we all know how callings are derailed.
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Yeah.
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And how great power, great influence, and then you look, my gosh, what happened?
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There is some common factors attached to that.
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And so my heart being broken as a pastor, walking with people, uh, walking with leaders, coaching pastors.
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Number two, my own personal story, which we'll jump into a moment, um, of prolonged cumulative stress.
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And then number three, Coach Tom, like you said.
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I know we call him coach, but he's got a PhD and a two-earned doctorates.
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How many love Coach Tom Mullins?
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Come on.
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How many love, Coach?
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Incredible.
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And and so, Jeff, for me, my my passion, you know, you spoke about the the head, the heart, and the hands.
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I want to equip leaders, but I want to first help them care for their hearts.
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Yeah.
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Soul leadership, Proverbs 4, you mentioned, Proverbs 4, it's you know, tend your heart, tend your soul.
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The word heart there is your inner self.
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Right.
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Your inner reasoning, your soul, your mind, your will, your emotions.
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And uh the pain that I experience, I uh Pastor Dino Rizzo, dear friends, uh, we're friends.
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He was pastoring at a city in our Baton Rouge.
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I was in New Orleans, of course.
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We went through Hurricane Katrina.
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Right.
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And I didn't understand.
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I know now what I can go back and say what was going on, but I didn't know then.
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So you had you talk about in here, like the the sort of crisis moment or sort of the apex moment 2010.
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Yeah.
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And and take us into that for a moment.
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Like what happened?
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Where were you at?
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What was going on?
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Tell take us into that.
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2005, Hurricane Katrina.
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I go through a five-year prolonged intense stress.
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The operative word here is stress.
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PTSD, post-traumatic stress, right, disorder.
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And I I know now what was going on.
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I didn't then.
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I went through Hurricane Katrina, rallying people together, cleaning, gutting houses, all that.
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And then went into a big, massive building campaign.
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We lost a bunch of people in church.
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By the way, loss is big.
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How you manage loss determines the health of your soul often.
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And managing disappointment, and we all experience it.
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And and so for me, that was that was kind of the beginning of it, really put me on a downward slide.
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Then we go into 2007, 208, this big building campaign trying to raise$40 million.
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We raised 20 million, then we had the crash.
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Uh, our loan was pulled, and then 2010, it was February 2010, I come out to preach, and and when I start to preach, I'm like, oh my gosh, this is what happens to people when they go crazy.
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And now literally, I just like, oh my gosh.
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And it wasn't like I was my body was levitating, but I knew, I thought, I'm I'm I'm not well.
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And I remember walking off the stage and telling Pastor Randy Craighead, who's been with us for from almost the beginning, I said, Randy, I'm not doing this anymore.
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Of course, my wife came, she was amazing.
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We called my pastor, Pastor Jacob, actually, Pastor Jacob, Pastor Jim, and uh went to Mobile, Alabama for three days, cried.
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I said, I've not done anything immoral, I've not, I've not done, I said, nothing's coming out, but I will tell you this.
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I said, I don't want to do this anymore.
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It took me about 18 months to go through that process, and then the last 15 years to really understand how to help leaders.
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Most leaders don't understand how much unprocessed trauma they're carrying.
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It's true.
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And what happens is there's three parts of the book.
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It's called soul leadership cycle.
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This is in the book.
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You guys will see this.
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There's so much information.
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But the soul leadership cycle is divided into three parts.
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Number one, traumas, triggers, and terrible habits.
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That's part one.
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Okay.
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Unprocessed trauma, you get triggered, it resurfaces, and if you don't deal with it, we develop negative pathologies to soothe our soul.
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What you soothe with, you will ultimately serve.
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It better be good things.
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Really good.
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What you soothe, you will ultimately serve.
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What you soothe with, you'll ultimately serve.
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It better be the presence of God.
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There you go.
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If it's alcohol, if it's addictions, if it's spending, whatever soothes your soul.
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And the more so, so trauma, triggers, and terrible habits, section one.
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Number two is the resilience equation.
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I talk about in the book, and this is important.
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I talk about, you know, when you get on a plane, many of you flew here, when you get on a plane, you better hope there's enough fuel on that plane if it gets rerouted that they don't crash.
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Yeah.
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Resilience, you can build it up.
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Resilience is your ability to respond in crisis and to absorb pain in crisis.
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But here's the thing: you can grow in resilience.
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So I talk about resilience-building habits, and then I'll talk at the end of the book, it's called the growth model, PTG, post-traumatic growth.
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I talk about how you can grow on the other side, you can become a better leader on the other side.
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You're turning your wounds into wisdom.
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And so the soul leadership cycle kind of outlines the book, and um, and it's it's uh it's been a journey for me, absolutely.
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And and so this is this is we talk a lot about self-leadership.
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In fact, this time of year, in fact, we're here at this leaders' gathering and we're all kind of getting our year started, and we we we learn about, you know, don't just work in it, but learn how to work on it.
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We set goals and stuff.
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Talk about the difference because we do know from leadership teaching your church, your business, your team, your family is a byproduct, obviously, of you as a personal, as a leader, right?
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You're you're the greatest impact on all of that.
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So, what what is some of the differences in soul leadership and self-leadership?
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What does that mean?
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Great question.
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So, contemporary business or leadership genre language is self-leadership precedes team leadership, which precedes organizational leadership, which precedes community impact.
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The reason why I wanted, I wanted to go a step before self-leadership because there's nothing wrong with it.
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It's been a popular topic: self-leadership, make sure you're going on vacation, you know, ladies get manicure, pedicure, all that's good stuff, right?
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Take care.
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Physical, but but soul leadership is when you become aware of what's happening in your soul.
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Awareness is the key.
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You understand why I am so hyper-vigilant, why am I emotionally dysregulative so quickly?
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Right, why am I uh numb on the inside?
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And so awareness is a first step, and I talk about that in the book because here's the thing you do produce what you are as a leader.
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So in the book, I talk about mirror neurons.
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Okay.
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We unconsciously sync with those that are around us.
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Let me give you an example.
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If you see somebody yawn, within 60 seconds, 93% chance, you'll yawn as well.
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Because your neuron unconsciously syncs with them.
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So what's the point?
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If you're a leader, a calm leader produces calm organizations.
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A dysregulated leader produces a dysregulated organization.
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That's good.
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So you can bring in consultants, you can retweak your values, you can have them look at all your packaging, but if you're jacked up in your soul, you're gonna produce a jacked-up culture in your church.
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Yeah.
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Does that make sense?
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Leaders don't understand that.
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And they think, well, I just need another consultant.
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No, you need soul healing, is what you need.
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Nothing wrong with consultants, and I love consultants, but re tweaking your verbiage doesn't heal the soul.
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So that that's the premise.
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So so you have this conceptually, you do empirical study, you have yourself, obviously, the process you went through.
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Um, but then you also like biblically talk to us a moment about the you use King Saul as a biblical model.
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Talk talk to us about the the biblical connection with this.
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Yeah, so I want to go back on before I get to Saul, I want to talk about one thing.
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The one thing it's in the book, it's I think it's on 49 or something, but I talk about the brain.
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This is really important, and then I want to get into Saul.
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So the brain, the most, the the parts of your brain, parts, your brain's very sophisticated.
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I studied it for three years.
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It's very but the three parts of your brain that are most impacted by stress, trauma, and adversity.
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Number one, your prefrontal cortex, that's your thinking brain.
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Number two, your limbic system, and inside your limbic system is your amygdala and hippocampus, that's your emotional brain.
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Your memory is your emotional brain.
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And then you've got your brain stem, which is your kind of breathing heart rate.
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So what happens is that when you go through adversity and crisis, your prefrontal cortex literally shrinks.
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And what becomes activated is your emotional brain.