Mondays w The Monk: From Fear-Driven Management To Love-Driven Leadership

You can be a strong leader, get real results, and still walk out of the room thinking, Was that biblical. That is where we start. I’m stepping deeper into leading a restaurant team in Florida, and the old playbook of intensity, urgency, and harsh language still “works”, but it is wearing me out. The bigger question will not go away: how does Jesus actually want me to lead when the stakes are high, the standards matter, and people keep falling short?

Brian and I dig into a framework that makes leadership painfully practical: State, Story, Strategy. If my internal state is anxious, pressured, or condemned, my story gets darker and my strategies get complicated. If my state is anchored in God’s presence, my story shifts and the next right move gets simpler. From there we connect leadership, discipleship, and relationship, using Jesus as the model: a leader with magnetism, clarity, and a way of speaking that reaches hearts, not just behavior.

We also go to Acts 3 and 4 and talk about Peter, a leader who failed publicly and still led boldly after redemption. The line that flips everything is this: the Father does not call you out on what you did, He reminds you of who you are. That has massive implications for accountability, coaching, culture, and even when it is time to set boundaries or “cut the cord”. We close with a gut-level conversation about what drives us as leaders: fear that produces outcomes, or love that casts out fear and produces lasting transformation.

If you’re serious about Christian leadership, kingdom entrepreneurship, and leading teams without losing your peace, hit subscribe, share this with a leader you trust, and leave a review with the one idea you want to apply this week. What part of your leadership needs a new driver?

This is the Buddy For Junior Show — where faith, truth, and courage come together. Join us as we explore life’s deeper purpose and carry the torch of conviction. The show begins now.

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Transcript

Welcome And Authentic Leadership Tension

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Welcome. Welcome to the Buddy for Junior Show. Mondays with the Monk. Yeah. Thank you for having me back, buddy. It's awesome. I look forward to it all week, bro. So Brian Metzger. I'll put a link below to go to his website. I gotta do a better job at that. And Brian, one thing we shared last week that I was really excited about that I want to start the episode with this week. First of all, this week I want to I just as I'm talking, Brian, Brian and I really don't do a whole lot of prep for this. We do a little bit, a little bit.

SPEAKER_01 0:36

Our life is our preparation. The life we live is our preparation.

SPEAKER_00 0:40

Authenticity, baby. You know? And so you're getting authentic downloads on this podcast. And one thing that Brian and I talked about was where I'm struggling in leadership, is how does Jesus want me to lead? Like I know how to I know that I have effective leadership, but is it how Jesus wants me to lead? And if there's a gun in my hand, I'm gonna say no. So uh we're gonna unpack that today. That's struggling. If you've been tuning into my podcast on Wednesdays, you're already in tune, you're on that frequency, you know what we're doing. We talked about frequency last Monday. So if you missed that, pick that up. So, Brian, I want to really start practicing with my audience and dialing in before we dive into the leadership conversation. And I think that's a lot to do with it, by the way. It's all it all intertwines. Um state, story, strategy. So can we spend up to a minute and

State Story Strategy And The Gospel

SPEAKER_00 1:38

we'll put a link below to you this great new interaction you have, this interactive practice form of key to what I'm going through and what you're teaching me. I just want my audience members to constantly be hearing state stories story strategy.

SPEAKER_02 1:53

Yeah. But it reminds me that the gospel means the good news. And in fact, part of the good news for me, the one of the first gospels that's proclaimed is the aim is the angel to the shepherds, and it says uh a message of great uh glad tidings of great joy. So even when we say gospel, which we may know means good news, I don't think we're getting how good the gospel is, how good these this it's it's glad tidings of great joy. If it doesn't wake you up, then it's not yet the gospel.

SPEAKER_03 2:37

So we're just we're looking for that. We're we're looking for that other other dimension.

SPEAKER_02 2:45

It's and this tool, State Story Strategy, brings us and introduces the idea that we get stuck in life, we get stuck on the sandbar, the tyranny of how, I don't know how to get off the sandbar. By the way, that kind of thinking, that's the stinking thinking, and it's the stinking thinking is like bad breath. You know, you don't know you have it, but everybody around you does, because every time you open your mouth, that stinking thinking's coming up. So it's worth it to do the work. Not only will you suffer less, suffering is necessary until we realize that suffering isn't necessary. Not only will you suffer less, but everybody around you will suffer less. So, so that that's stuck on the tyranny of how. So there's strategies, there's ways that we get stuck in strategy, and the strategy uh jam is fueled by a terrible story that we're telling ourselves. So there's also all this work that we could do on rewriting the script and telling a better story. However, all the the very best techniques and tools and insights with all that are only as valuable as the state that you're in when you start. So, my philosophy, my approach is start with state. In fact, if you get state right, your story is gonna change instantaneously. And then, in that, once you're in an elevated state telling a great story, when you see the simple strategies, by the way, what's the alternative? Either you're in an elevated state telling a great story, finding a simple strategy, or you're in a depressed state telling a terrible story, having very complex, impossible strategies, and then you'll be convinced that life is hard, and that's the stinking thinking, that everybody can smell it. So let's do the work, get in that elevated, get in the state, it evangelize your thinking. So that that first key catch yourself in the act of being generated, recognize the gift. God's already at work taking you to a higher place, and that's the aim of our spiritual direction sessions, our Christian coaching, and of these podcasts.

SPEAKER_04 5:00

Oh man, can you just move in with me?

SPEAKER_00 5:05

Oh God, I want to be at that level. Okay. So speaking at that level, so Brian, I am getting more involved in my Florida restaurant. I run New York. So I I'm an entrepreneur, I'm a serial entrepreneur,

A Restaurant Leader Who Cannot Sleep

SPEAKER_00 5:21

and I've made a ton of mistakes. I've done a few things right. And when you do them right and you have this elevated experience that I have in New York, New York's not perfect, but it's damn near excellent. Which doesn't mean we're flawless. We definitely make mistakes. But overall, when I see the vision that I had and I want it my standards at New York. And in my Florida business, I'm getting involved more in running in leading, not running leading. Sometimes you gotta run it and then put the leadership in, then I leave. So I dove in in the last three weeks. And I'm just I can't sleep at night. I'm tossing a turn in. I I'm not happy with the performance. It's good. Restaurant Florida is good. It's steady review, it's it doesn't very rarely dip below 4.5. I mean, New York will go from a 4.2 to a 4.9 down to a 4.2 because we take enormous risks culinarily and otherwise. And um, and I'm okay with that. You know, it's just what we do. Florida is a different culture, and I'm a New York leader. Like I just lead with passion, fist pounding. And you know, if I'm being honest, some vulgarity use use of the F-bomb, it's it's been effective for me. And now that I'm 55 years old and I care about people, not that I didn't care about people back in the day, but I really care about people's quality of life and their spiritual well-being. And at the same time, I have standards. And I'm in the word, and I want to give grace, and my wife's grace is infinite. Jen's grace is like they can all my time. Like it's just except for sometimes it's pretty quick with me. But that's a longer story. That's a longer story. The grace that she has for people and our employees and relationships, it's what she will, what it will cost her, she'll keep withdrawing from herself, depositing it into someone else to the point of exhaustion. I don't have that. I have a limit because you know, I want to hold people accountable, and we're all accountable for their our own um our own life. And people help us, they lift us up. I want to lift people up, I want to be a resource, I want to give a little bit of a lawnmower, not necessarily a racket to help them get to the next level. But um man, it's exhausting as I read the Bible and I get fed, and then I walk into a room and I lead naturally how I lead, I'm leaving the room saying, man, was that biblical? Probably not. And I'm just struggling with the more I learn read the Bible, the more I want to apply it, the more I want to be a kingdom builder. Yeah, I'm torn between what I find effective to get people beyond their comfort level and what maybe Jesus wants me doing. I'm rambling.

SPEAKER_02 8:28

Buddy, that was beautiful. That was beautiful. That was honest, that was transparent, and you were changing the show as you were explaining that. I was I was I was going through like the arrangement. How that how to how to frame this, but I got I got the angle. You you're ready to dive in on this?

SPEAKER_00 8:46

Bro, more than ever.

SPEAKER_02 8:47

So this is Holy Spirit's fresh version of this show based upon that intro. I want to link together three words leadership, discipleship, and relationship.

Leadership Through Discipleship And Relationship

SPEAKER_04 9:06

Alright, I'm tracking.

SPEAKER_02 9:09

Yeah, so uh maybe we can call the show the ship this this uh show Burn Burn Your Boats. So the ship that I want to be in is in Christ's leadership. So we need to burn all the other ships. Talk about frequency.

SPEAKER_00 9:25

Yeah, constantly coming back to me. Cortez when he burnt the ships, and we're living here, we're gonna make this work. We burnt the ships right in the leaving.

SPEAKER_02 9:32

Yeah, so the ship that I want to be in is his leadership, under his leadership. We get under his leadership through discipleship. Discipleship leadership is built into discipleship. So I want to show you how simple and how real and how practical that is and that can be. So leadership is built into discipleship, especially when we realize that it's all about relationship.

unknown 9:56

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 9:57

So the burns of the three ships.

SPEAKER_00 9:59

We're burning the shit ships. Yeah, that's right.

SPEAKER_02 10:04

Any other ship that we're committed to, uh this is a new way. Christ has a new way for us. All right. So the for the word on discipleship is it's not enough just to be a disciple. To be a disciple is one who follows Jesus. You know, and we learn what it means to be a disciple by reading the gospel. So we see the disciples in the gospels. That's how we know what it is. There's no other way. And our discipleship will never look different than it does for the disciples in the gospel. If it does, then we have a problem. We have to ask ourselves the question: are we a disciple? And so one of the things that Jesus is, that the disciples of Jesus are doing, it all begins with encounter. There's for all of them, there's a moment where they become aware of his presence. And then built into the the recognition of his presence is a call to come follow me. And whether those words are said, come follow me, or the experience is just felt I've that Christ had magnetism. There's something, you know, and how many of us would like this in our leadership to have magnetism? That yeah. The difference between being a boss who barks and tells people what to do, and being a leader who speaks to people's hearts and inspires people.

SPEAKER_03 11:31

So so Christ had magnetism.

SPEAKER_02 11:34

He he says that the Son of Man will be lifted up and he will draw all people to himself. Nothing and no one was ever as attractive as Christ himself was on the earth. I I I love the story about the loaves and the fishes. He was teaching for three days in a place where there was no food because he was so attractive that he was more attractive than they were hungry for three days. So imagine being the kind of leader that could have that kind of anointing on your words where your people are this this leader sees me, this leader knows me, this leader loves me, this leader inspires me, this leader is continually saying and doing things that are that's changing my life.

SPEAKER_00 12:30

Wow. So for three days, his leadership was more filling than food.

SPEAKER_02 12:36

That's right, that's right. So so leadership, discipleship, and relationship, it begins with discipleship. The discipleship is the call to come follow me. Now that following, and see where this is going, is Christ was the greatest leader because he was first the greatest follower. This goes back to the John 5 and the John 12 that we frequently remember, the John 5 anointing and the John 12 anointing. I put the word anointing after it because there's power in these chapters for us to be able to get into that frequency, to be attuned to God, to be in the frequency of God. So that power is on our words. That that power and that beauty, that magnetism, it's in the way we think, in our minds, in our thinking, it's in our hearts, the way we love, the way our emotional life, it's in our physiology, the way we slice and dice it in the I know you got restaurants and kitchens, so I know you're no stranger to the culinary side of it, but whether you're you're doing your work on a keypad or in busting rocks in the field, um the the the physiology, every what if everything we could do could have that anointing on it?

SPEAKER_03 13:54

That'd be amazing. Okay, leader, leadership, discipleship, relationship.

SPEAKER_02 13:58

It starts with leader, it starts with discipleship. The discipleship is following. Following begins with an encounter. We that's us becoming aware of a presence. And that presence is so attractive, it's calling us to follow. That's Christ's leadership. So our discipleship is Christ's leadership in our life. Okay. So we learn what what if we made our model for leadership, the way we lead others? What if we made our model for leadership Christ Himself, the greatest of all leaders? Who, by the way, he's the greatest of all leaders because he's first the greatest of all followers. He's just following the Father. Imagine if you could be the kind of leader that had the type of certainty that you always knew what you were gonna do. You always knew what you were gonna do because, and and how does Jesus, how does you know, this is a dimension we we didn't open this up recently with the with the John 5 and the John 12. Where does Jesus look to see? Where does Jesus listen to here? That's what we're learning. Wherever he looked to see, wherever he listened to here, that's where we're gonna look to see, that's where we're gonna listen to hear the Father. Where did Jesus look to see? Where did he listen to here? And there's lots of good answers. And you could say he looked in prayer, he looked in his heart, he looked in the scriptures, he looked up to heaven. But there's an answer that's more important than all the others because all the others are gonna be subject, not for Jesus, but for us, are gonna be subject to our imaginations. Like how we, our fantasy about how things are. But what we know that we need as real leaders, as king, not just seer entrepreneurs, but as kingdom entrepreneurs, we gotta be meeting the reality. We gotta have our our our ear to the ground. We gotta we gotta know the pulse. We gotta be dialed in, we gotta be feeling the frequency. So where is that? It's in the reality. So what's the reality? Is it, you know, the you know, there's in fact on that tool, State Story Strategy. If you go to you can download it, the link is down there, as we said before. But if you go to the section on strategy, there's a beautiful thing. There's seven pillars for your business about uh uh about the identity of your business, the sales of your business, innovation with your business, marketing with your business. And so there's all kinds, but as a leader, you gotta be dialed into all those dimensions that makes that story move forward. Because why? God's plan for your business is the same, is the same plan as for your life, is the same, is is the same as his plan for the world. God's plan is always the same. Why? Because that's the character of God, that's who he is, that's what he's like, and it's revealed in John 10:10, which is I came that you might have life and have it to the full. This is how ambitious God is. Right now, there's 8 billion people on the planet. What's the Father's plan is to have life and to have it to the full. And one of the ways that the Father wants to unfold his abundance in the earth is through kingdom entrepreneurship. Raising up the most inspired, the most loving, the wisest, the strongest, the most powerful leaders that can build community, that can build up the inner man and can build up people, groups of men and women in communities that can not just, you know, they talk about the difference between uh a customer and a client. A customer, you have a one-time transaction. A client is where you have a long arc, but we don't just want to have uh do more for your clients than anyone else can, and you won't just have a satisfied customer. You won't even just have a lifelong client, you'll have a raving fan. So the the leadership that that Jesus leads with and Jesus teaches us to lead with is that type of leadership that that gives that creates this culture of raving fans. Because why why are they why were they raving fans of Jesus when they're following the thousands of people that stood that stayed with them for three days when there was no food? Can you imagine? Um, why did they stay with him? Because they knew the way he looked at them, the way he spoke to them, the things he shared with them, they knew that he was their raving fan. They felt he sees me, he knows me, he gets me, he loves me, he cares about my destiny more than I do, he knows my identity better than I do, and he cares about my destiny more than I do. So, of course, I'm gonna hang on his every word. Food is nothing compared to this. How are we doing? Talk to me, buddy.

SPEAKER_00 18:58

That's a tall order, right? So I know what's I know that Jesus. Okay, I get it. That's the goal. I'm a martial artist, I'm a multiple degree

Peter In Acts And Bold Accountability

SPEAKER_00 19:10

black belt, and I wanted to be a black belt, but I had to start with a white belt, then a yellow belt, then a green belt. So that's kind of how I look at the world. And sometimes when I post things online, people are like, you don't want to be like Charlie Kirk. You want to be like Jesus. Yeah, of course I want to be like Jesus. But Charlie Kirk's a pretty good pathway to then getting to the next level, right?

SPEAKER_06 19:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:33

So in other words, being outwardly, being vocal and being truthful. And on Acts three and four, I've just been hung up on it and I never read it before. As leadership, like I feel like, okay, I relate with the apostles more than I do Jesus. Okay. That's me in my head, and and and I'm dead. But I relate because Peter screwed up. Peter denied Jesus three times. Like I screw up, I'm Peter. So like I can relate to man, Peter denied this dude, the Messiah, the savior of the world, that he walked with, and he saw these miracles with, that he caught fish with when there was no fish in the sea. He just scooped them up so heavy that the bottom was sunk.

SPEAKER_06 20:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:20

Witnessed all this for, I don't know, 12 years? Is that what it was? 12 years?

SPEAKER_02 20:24

Oh no. Um they would have been with him for three years.

SPEAKER_00 20:28

Three years. For three years, Peter.

SPEAKER_02 20:30

Twelve disciples. Twelve's in there.

SPEAKER_00 20:34

That's why dyslexia kicking in. So Peter, who denies him, here he is in Acts 3 and 4. They heal a man. He's walking. Because he couldn't give him money. What I have, what I can give you, I don't have money. But what he could give him, he did. And they gave him his legs back, right? And then they get arrested. Now Peter, like I love this, he gets arrested and he doubles down. He's like, listen, man, you guys crucify Jesus. You crucified him with he's reminding them over and over of their tri of their mistakes. While this man held on to Peter and John, right? The guy who they they healed, they get arrested. And the priests and the captains of the temple guard and the Sadge calm up to Peter and John while they're speaking. And then they just look, they're like, oh, you guys are the ones who killed the Messiah. And you freed um, you freed a murderer instead of Jesus. Remember? But but there's redemption. Right? So here this guy is who and and they very easily could have said, But Peter, you denied him, brother, three times. The other apostle next time, which I think was John, said by the way, verify all this in Acts three and four, folks. Go read it. I couldn't mix things up, but I just want to get the story across. John. John very and another apostle could have turned to Peter and said, Yo, brother, what are you doing drinking these people? You denied that dude three times. Like so this just shows the humanity of leadership to me. Peter denies Christ, he's then confronting the people who turned him over and convinced Pilate to crucify him. They free a murderer or uh Brabus, and there's that's up for a whole nother conversation. They free him over Jesus. He could have been just a revolutionist, but whatever. And but there's the point's still the same. But then what kills me is after the arrest, they go to jail, then he gets freed, he goes back, and they don't bitch, they don't burn things down, right? He doesn't create a mob. On their release, Peter and John, yeah, John, went back to their to their people, their people, and reported that all the chief priests and elders what they had said. When they heard this, they raised their voices together in prayer to God. Sovereign Lord, they said, You made the heavens, you know, etc. etc. And then the ground shook. So here they go from being imprisoned, confronting the people who turned Jesus over, that didn't believe he was the Messiah, that were afraid of that power structure, and then they pray. Like, that's the leader than I want to be, bro. Like I'm gonna be like, I screwed up, but I repent and I own it, and it doesn't mean I can't sit here and preach the goodness of God and hold you accountable. And by the way, I'm gonna go back to my management team and we're gonna pray for all of you. They said in Acts chapter four, verse 23, through at the end of the chapter, folks, up to five, in there you'll see, and the ground shook. Yeah. I mean, can you imagine if every boardroom and every company throughout the world were leading and screwing up the way we do, but still holding people accountable, redeeming themselves, what do you call it? Praying and saying, Lord, forgive me. What do you call that when you're um repenting? Repenting right, and confessing, and then going, but not letting your downfalls be an excuse for other people's downfalls that were leading. Look in the mirror, build yourself back up, get back in a word, pray, and then get together your team, be like, okay, we're gonna pray for these employees. We have to pray for these investors, we have to pray for these clients, we have to pray for these customers, and that's that's where we get grounded. Like they went back to a source of community, like thinkers, and they prayed. I'm not doing that.

SPEAKER_02 24:51

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. So it's it's interesting, buddy. There's a word that you've used a couple of times, holding people accountable. And I think you great identification of the pattern with Peter. Peter, who denied the Lord three times, now Peter's coming out, guns blazing

Call Up Identity Not Failure

SPEAKER_02 25:08

against these. Look at your denial. You know, so so what's actually happening here? You know, I believe in that passage, I'd have to look at the text so you can confirm for or this or clarify this for me. I believe it says when Peter spoke those words to them, they were cut to the heart. So his words were landing on their heart because his words were spoken with the power of the Spirit. So he was die, he was attuned to what the Father was already saying to them. Frequency. Yep, he's attuned to the frequency of the Father. So he has the Father's heart. He doesn't have his own heart in his own history with uh being a denier, he has the father's heart. Now, here's the amazing thing about the father, like the the you know, we're making Christ our model for leadership, that but that leadership of Christ, it's all about Abba.

SPEAKER_03 26:08

The father, if this touches your spirit, buddy, this will change your life and it'll change your leadership. The father never calls somebody out on what they did. Okay, I'm tracking. Uh uh, you got my attention. The father never calls you out on what you did, the father reminds you of who you are. So now the feeling is entirely different.

SPEAKER_02 26:39

When the father reminds you who you are, you feel yourself pulled up. Imagine if we as leaders, when we spoke to our people, we're not calling them out on what they did. We're reminding them of who they are, who we are, why we have the standard that we have. So that then they're inspired and they're pulled up rather than the frequency of the enemy is that of accusation and condemnation. So Peter knows that when he was reminded, I know, deny me, I know you did, that's what you did, but that's not who you are. Peter, I I know you denied me.

SPEAKER_03 27:27

That's but that's what you did, that's not who you are.

SPEAKER_02 27:31

Peter, I know that you denied me. That's what you did, but that's not who you are. So every time that Peter's denial was brought back to him, another chain was broken, and more of a less guilt, less shame, less condemnation, chain after chain being broken off. So when Peter was speaking to them, that's the spirit he was speaking in.

SPEAKER_03 27:55

He wasn't putting burden on them, he was breaking chains off them.

SPEAKER_04 28:03

That's so good.

SPEAKER_02 28:06

And buddy, here's the beautiful thing: it applies to business. This is you we were talking about with frequency, like my prayer time, the Lord of my prayer time, is the same Lord of the church time. So when I see the same message, I shouldn't be surprised. Um, we didn't get to it in our show on frequency, but in our one-on-one session we did. That's also the same Lord of the heaven and earth, the same Lord of the secular culture. So you're gonna see this whatever you're whatever he's vibing with you in your personal prayer time, not only will you hear it at church, you're gonna see it on billboards, you're gonna see it in movies, you're gonna hear it in songs on the radio, you're gonna turn the actual radio on. You're you're gonna you're gonna hear that message because that's what God's doing in the earth right now.

SPEAKER_03 28:53

So, well, how did I get talking about that again?

SPEAKER_00 28:57

Yeah, so listen, so I'm tracking. And here's where I struggle. I'm assuming a lot of my lead people who are listening to this as leaders struggle. By the way, you don't have to just be leading a house, uh, a company. It could be a household, it could be a group

When Grace Requires Hard Decisions

SPEAKER_00 29:13

of people in a Bible study or a volunteer or a baseball team, like a coach. It could be anywhere. I'm talking about leadership of life.

SPEAKER_02 29:22

You could be leading your own life. Amen. That's what I was gonna say. Leadership starts with a I if I'm not a leader here first, I can't be the leader out there anywhere.

SPEAKER_00 29:31

Right? So even just leading yourself. And like you can, so let's let's talk about so whether you're leading yourself or a team or a company, we see the greatness that they are. Like God sees a greatness that we have. Otherwise, why would we hire them? Why would, or if it's us that we're leading ourselves, why would we be waking up in the morning? Like we see the greatness that we can be, we see the greatness that other people can be. And where I where I'm challenged is when they continue to fall short of their greatness, and you keep investing, you keep investing, you keep investing, you keep showing grace at a certain point when you when I keep feeding into and it keeps being thrown back in my face in disrespect, okay, in arrogance, and uncoachability, I my wife and I lead differently. We both lead the company, but we have different leaderships. Like I I want to send someone away, like, okay, I know that the person's bandwidth has been reached, but I can't feed this person anymore when it comes to leadership. They're they've peaked, they've hit a ceiling, and they gotta go somewhere else. It's time for them to go somewhere else to take it to the next level. They can come back to me, they can come back. I've done that on three occasions with incredible leaders, but they had to leave to see how I was feeding them, to see the level that I would go to help them succeed. And there's some I won't take back. But my wife, Jen, has a hard time cutting the umbilical cord.

SPEAKER_06 31:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:08

It's a leadership conflict. And we just recently she said, you know, why do you get so worked up? No, in other words, why are you so unbiblical? Or are you so unesus?

SPEAKER_02 31:21

Well, okay, the problem isn't getting worked up. The problem isn't getting worked up. Jesus made a whip out of cords and flipped over tables. The problem isn't getting worked up. The problem is when I'm doing something the father's not doing or I'm saying something the father's not saying.

SPEAKER_03 31:40

So if it's time to flip over tables, then that's kingdom.

SPEAKER_00 31:45

Say that one more time.

SPEAKER_02 31:46

Okay. If it's time to flip over tables, if if the father's flipping over tables, then it's time to flip over tables.

SPEAKER_00 31:53

It's so wild you say that because I I'm struggling with this one, this particular person, and my wife is constantly coaching, coaching, coaching. And this person's had my brother in law and my wife as their coach for two years. So it's like, man, you guys have been warmed up for Buddy. Buddy's stepping in, he wants to get this place at the next level. And like, we've warmed you guys up. Like we've been training you. Here he comes. Like the tornado is entering the building. You better have shit tied down and you better be ready to perform, right? But I will perform with you. I will wash dishes, I will clean the grill, I will jump behind the line, like I will help you, but you got to help yourself, right? And I actually went to bed, I prayed, I said, Jesus, I'm trying to extend grace, I'm trying to be a good leader. I I had a meeting the other day, I used the F-Bomb, and I, you know, it got across, it was effective. I saw complete change quickly with most of my crew. And that's my hard-charging behavior and leadership style that got my internet company to um the one of the fastest 500 growing companies in America on Inc. magazine. It got us to raise $30 plus million dollars in private equity. It got me to Entrepreneur of the Year finalist rewards. But I'm having a hard time with it as I'm reading this Bible because it's a lot of energy, a lot, it's exhausting. And I feel God wants me to pivot to be a different leader. And I'm struggling with that, Brian. Like I want to inspire people, and I always have. But you know, the grace to train with me is shorter between stops. And I don't know if that's maturity, I don't know if that's the Lord, or I don't know if that's ego. But I do know I did lay, I did get on my knees and pray, and I woke, and I didn't know what to do. I called three or four people that didn't answer the phone, people that I respect, that didn't answer the phone, and maybe the Lord, but you know, the Lord definitely gave room for the Holy Spirit. I got on my knees, woke up in the morning, I said, Jen, here's what's happening. You have to be okay with this. In order for me to alleviate how amped up I get, you have to give me, you have to let me cut the bulk accord.

SPEAKER_03 34:06

Because when it's cut, I'm not amped up anymore. Right? So the Lord did say cut it.

SPEAKER_00 34:14

Cut the bulk accord. So just because you're in Jesus and you're in the Bible doesn't mean the grace train doesn't run out. Am I wrong?

SPEAKER_02 34:23

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 34:23

Help me with it.

SPEAKER_02 34:25

Well, uh, so the grace train doesn't run out. Okay. Sometimes the grace train shows up. When Jesus was flipping over tables, that was the grace train. Sometimes grace looks different than we expect it to. So there's a couple of things that I'm hearing in there, buddy. And one, uh, I want to talk about maturity. So that's that's a beautiful, you know, you use the word coming to maturity. And um so I'm gonna set maturity

Hiring, Alignment, And Owning Mistakes

SPEAKER_02 34:53

right here and face nothing first, then we're gonna come to the maturity. Is all right, so there's the selection process. Oh, greatest movie of all time, other than The Passion of Christ. What's your answer? No thinking about it.

SPEAKER_03 35:07

Greatest movie.

SPEAKER_00 35:09

Save it prying, save it prying right. Save it prime.

SPEAKER_02 35:12

All right, here's where I thought if if you ask me, Gladiator. Miracle on Ice. Miracle on Ice. I say, I say Gladiator. The first one.

SPEAKER_00 35:24

But yeah, Gladiator, top three.

SPEAKER_02 35:26

Yeah, top three. So so leadership, the line from Marcus Aurelius to his son, Commodus. Your failure as a son is my failure as a father. Amen. So whenever our employees fail, or our companies fail, or our endeavors fail, the the failure is not theirs, it's mine. Yes. All right, and sometimes that failure is a lack of clarity on my identity and my mission, on the company's identity and the company's mission and the person's identity and the person's mission. So in the election or the selection process, can the person job, can the person do the job? Will the person do the job? Will the person do the job long term? You know, am I practicing the greatest leadership skills in in who I'm hiring? And that is gonna be, so that's that's a part of that journey. Do I have the right? Maybe, maybe what I'm bumping into is a bad decision that I made a long time ago.

SPEAKER_00 36:39

Sometimes empowering people before they're ready is a mistake.

SPEAKER_02 36:42

Yeah. And and that's not what's best for that person. That's not what's best for the company, that's not what's best for those that we want to serve, and that's not what's best for me and my leadership. So, Father, I repent. I got out of alignment, I did something that you weren't doing. I said yes to something you weren't saying yes to. I blessed something you weren't blessing, and now I'm paying the price for it. And I repent, Father. You showed me once again how important discipleship is to my leadership.

SPEAKER_00 37:17

Now, how do you know you're not doing the father's will in that regard?

SPEAKER_02 37:22

Well, in that instance, you'll know a tree by its fruits. Got it. So, but you get better at where do we look to see where do we meet the reality? How many things do we see in the beginning we just look past because we don't want to see it?

SPEAKER_06 37:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 37:38

Like, no, all the signs were there. You knew. You knew. Yep. All right. So let me set that aside for a second. Give one last tool, one last takeaway. You were talking about the white belt before the black belt. Fair fair enough. Can I give a simple paradigm for leadership that inspired me with leadership?

SPEAKER_06 37:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 37:58

All right. Please. The it has to do with certainty. So certainty is the currency of the leader. In the journey of maturation, this is what I said it

Certainty As The Leader’s Currency

SPEAKER_02 38:10

has to do with maturity. A child is completely resp is completely dependent on external sources for certainty. The parents provide the certainty for the child. So a child is completely dependent on external sources for certainty.

SPEAKER_03 38:32

Stage two. That's stage one, childhood. Stage two is you become an adult.

SPEAKER_02 38:38

An adult is able to create certainty from within themselves. By the way, certainty is born from familiarity with his presence. Certainty comes from I see what God's doing and I hear what God's saying. That gives me certainty. I'm familiar with, I've been a disciple long enough that that's God. And you know what? That's not. So that's that's a yes, and I bless it, and that's a no, and we're going a different direction.

SPEAKER_03 39:08

Right, right. So, so child, external source of certainty. An adult creates their own certainty. How do they do it? By familiarity with his presence.

SPEAKER_02 39:22

A leader is able to create so much certainty within themselves that they can transmit it to others. That's what Jesus was doing when he was three days speaking to the people. And so this is why the most valuable work that we can do is to grow, is our discipleship. So leadership, discipleship, relationship, realizing that my discipleship is my relationship with Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Jesus says the two greatest commandments love the Lord your God with all your heart, love your neighbor as yourself. So discipleship and and relationship, that gives you everything that you need for every version of leadership. And I love the fact that you said it's not just serial entrepreneurship or kingdom leader, kingdom entrepreneurship. It's every dimension of leadership starting with my leadership over my own heart, my leadership over my own mind, that my thoughts would be evangelized, that my heart and my emotions would be evangelized, that my life would be evangelized.

SPEAKER_04 40:31

That's good.

SPEAKER_03 40:32

So childhood, adult, and leader create so much certainty that you can transmit it to others.

SPEAKER_00 40:41

Can you on power can you say one more time what Jesus exuded to others? What was that point in leadership? He was so confident.

SPEAKER_02 40:54

Yeah. Okay. So if certainty is born from familiarity with the presence of God, who was more familiar with the presence of the Father than Jesus? No one. Right. Like Jesus, he saw the Father. He heard the Father. He had a locked-in gaze. And remember, that's the stress-free zone. Suffering's necessary until I realize that suffering isn't necessary. Stress, how many leaders believe stress is necessary? Ah, this is going to get us one last piece. We're going to close here with this, buddy. Is drivers. You're either driven, leaders will often say stress, which is actually anxiety

Fear Versus Love As Your Driver

SPEAKER_02 41:40

is worry.

SPEAKER_03 41:41

What emotion is at the core of all those? Anxiety. What's that core of anxiety?

SPEAKER_02 41:49

Fear. Fear. Fear is an incredibly powerful driver. Many of us have experience of how fear has produced fruit in our lives. We've gotten things done driven by fear.

SPEAKER_03 42:06

But there's a more powerful driver. And the leadership of Jesus, his leadership was not driven by fear.

SPEAKER_02 42:15

In fact, his leadership cast out all fear because his leadership was driven by love, and perfect love casts out fear. And so this is going to be a real conversion. And perhaps this is the conversion that you were talking about earlier. Is in the past, with fear as my driver, I might have called it stress, I might have called it pressure, but it was really fear. In the past, fear was my driver, and I got things done. But I'm learning how to have a whole new driver. I'm learning how to have a whole new Lord, the Lordship of my life. We want his leadership. Yeah. And that's a lead, it's a it's the leadership of love. It's driven by love. And more and more you're going to have it. I prophesy this over you, buddy. I prophesy this over the listeners, and I prophesy this over the leadership of a generation that a whole generation of leaders who are driven by love rather than driven by fear are going to produce more results than the world has ever seen before. And we're going to know by experience another dimension of the value of God's own leadership, fatherhood and leadership in our lives.

SPEAKER_00 43:41

When you say love, what's love look like?

SPEAKER_02 43:44

Well, exactly. What does love look like? This is the John 5 and John 12. All right. It looks different every day. Remember, let's go back to the

What Love Looks Like In Reality

SPEAKER_02 43:53

very beginning of today's session. I talked about being a disciple. It starts with discipleship. So the disciples, it all begins with encounters. The encounter includes the call to come follow. Why, what's where's the call? I didn't hear him say come follow me. Sometimes he says it out loud, but oftentimes the call to come follow is just the attraction that we feel to come follow him. That's his leadership.

SPEAKER_03 44:16

So encounter to call, then um you were asking me the question. I know I know I have I've got this. What's love look like what's love? And I was gonna answer it going down the route of encounter. Oh, okay. So what what does love look like? So this this is it.

SPEAKER_02 44:42

Um the discipleship, it's it always starts with encounter, then it goes to the call to come follow him. But next, buddy, is and this is what's missing from so much discipleship in the church today, is the surprise. So it's not that easy to say what love looks like because it changes. Like God is always Jesus surprised them at every on every page of the scripture, the disciples that are following Jesus are surprised. They're surprised where he goes, they're surprised who he talks to. So when you say, What does love, love look like? Well, I gotta get, I gotta get my hands dirty. I gotta get in the mix. I love the way you say, like, I'm a storm when I come in, but I'll get in, I'll scrub the grill with you. We're gonna get into it. We're gonna meet the reality. We're gonna know that Christ is in this reality, a loving, uh, you know, a beautiful God is doing a beautiful thing in a powerful, uh, a beautiful God is doing a beautiful thing in a beautiful way in this reality, and a powerful God is doing a powerful thing in a powerful way in this reality. And this is where love is happening. This dance between God's power and God's beauty.

SPEAKER_03 45:51

And it's fun. That's why I laugh. Because not just because I'm on the spectrum.

SPEAKER_00 46:01

Well, at least now I know. Yeah, it's good. I mean, I think we're gonna have to we're gonna have to have a part two of this.

SPEAKER_02 46:11

Oh, you know what, buddy? We we we could do a whole uh course on this. This is all, by the way, under the strategy column of that state story strategy. This is all gonna be, and I'm just beginning to build it out, so get it now. But I'm I'm getting ideas even as we're speaking. I'm gonna build this out and I'll build that out. I want to make this so simple for people because in the elevated state, you're gonna tell a great story, and all your strategies are gonna be so simple, you'll be able to smile, you'll be able to laugh, and you'll get the greatest results you've ever imagined.

SPEAKER_00 46:46

All right, I'm in, bro. Let's do it. So, gang, stay tuned. We're gonna we're gonna go deeper into this because I'm getting it, but I I'm I'm chasing this ball. I want it in the center of my glove.

SPEAKER_03 47:01

Fair enough. Amen.

SPEAKER_00 47:03

All right, probably want to pray us out.

SPEAKER_02 47:05

This is your turn to pray us out.

SPEAKER_00 47:07

Oh man, I thought I got you to the punch. I'm so uncomfortable with this. All right, Lord,

Prayer, Intimacy, And Closing

SPEAKER_00 47:14

we just thank you for Brian. Thank you for the word. We thank you for your blessings and your frequency. And we thank you that there are twelve disciples that follow you.

SPEAKER_04 47:28

And that's written. It's a written word.

SPEAKER_00 47:31

And it's just amazing that when we open it, a mystery just completely unfolds in front of us. And every time we read it, we see something different. Thank you for the courage of those twelve that followed. Thank you for the courage of those twelve that never gave up. Praise God. We thank you for the Holy Spirit that's intercedes for you, for us, between us. And we just pray that we understand the Holy Spirit, we give the Holy Spirit room, and that we build your kingdom here, kingdom here on earth. And God, I pray that all of us listening that we figure out this intimacy conversation and what that means. In Acts on Pentecost, they said they saw something different in these people. And what they saw is intimacy with you. And that's what I want for me. I want people to see something different. That's what I want for my listeners. That's what I want for our country. That's what I want for our world. And Lord, I put prayer for our country 250 years, July 4th. I love this country. I know that you have us in the palm of your hands. And everything that's being unfolded, everything that's being done, is your will. If it isn't, you will turn it to good. Praise all this in the name of Jesus Christ.

SPEAKER_04 49:00

Amen. Amen. Beautiful prayer, buddy. Hi, brother. Thank you.