#55 Iv Marsh - CEO IAM4 Men and Epic Church

IV Marsh is a pastor, entrepreneur, author, and marriage/leadership coach. He leads BCOMING.CHURCH, a mega multi-site church with his wife, Bené.  Epic was planted in 2007, with multiple campuses reaching 5,000 people weekly in the United States and multiple countries. IV is the founder and CEO of Lead Now, a veteran-owned business committed to inspiring and equipping leaders and leadership teams throughout the business world. He is also the founder and CEO of the IAM4 Men's Movement (now Becoming Man) and Warrior Evolution. Warrior Evolution is a 75-hour intensive that empowers men in spirit, soul, and body. A native of North Alabama, IV served in the United States Air Force for most of his career in Panama City, Panama, fighting the war on drugs. He became involved in law enforcement before stepping into full-time ministry. IV and Bené have been married since 1994 and have three grown children and two daughters-in-law.

👉🏽How to Contact Him:
-Website: https://www.bcoming.church/
-Website: https://www.becomingman.tv/about

🫡 My Why: I’ve seen the cost of poor leadership — how it can destroy morale, break trust, and in the worst cases, lead to lives lost, including through suicide. That’s why I’ve committed my life to helping others lead with purpose. Through Tales of Leadership, I share real stories and actionable insights on how to overcome adversity and become the kind of leader people remember for the right reasons.

👉🏽Leadership Resources: https://linktr.ee/talesofleadership

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- Joshua K. McMillion

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:01

You're listening to the Tells a Leadership Podcast. This podcast is for leaders at any phase on their leadership journey to become a more purposeful and accountable leader, what I like to call PAL. Join me on our journey together towards transformational leadership. All right, team. Welcome back to Tells a Leadership Podcast. I am your host, Josh McMillian, an active duty Army officer with over 16 years of leadership experience and the founder of McMillian Leadership Coaching. And I am on a mission to create better leaders, what I like to call a purposeful, accountable leader or a pal. And my vision is to positively affect one million lives in the next 10 years by promoting transformational stories and skills. Well, today's episode, I'm going to be interviewing Ivy E. Marsh. Ivy played college football at the University of Northern Alabama. He then transitioned into the United States Air Force, working in the security forces. He spent most of his military career in Central Africa fighting the war on drugs. And after exiting the military, he worked in the municipal police office, did undercover work, and was on the SWAT team. Ivy has a diverse background that allows him to see the struggles that men go through from childhood trauma all the way up to PTSD. In 2010, he founded Becoming Man, a men's movement focused on restoring biblical masculinity. His passion is to equip men with the tools to be healthier men, better husbands, and better fathers. In 2013, he founded the Warrior Evolution, a 75-hour personal development course for men. In addition to that, he also runs a thriving church with campuses in both the U.S. and South Africa. Let's go ahead and bring on Ivy. Ivy, welcome to Tells the Leadership. It has been a long day. How are you doing, man?

SPEAKER_00 1:57

I've been doing great. I would agree. It has been a long day, bro.

SPEAKER_01 2:01

Yeah, yeah. It's uh that that's the struggle, I think, of being, well, at least you you're you're you're creating you have a crazy story, and I'm really excited to get into that. But you know, being an active duty military officer, I just got off work around six o'clock and then rushed to come in. So, but to me, it's not busy work because I love what I do. This is part of like my purpose of trying to help build better leaders and and kind of be the light for for people. So I'd love to start off with you kind of defining who you are for our listeners.

SPEAKER_00 2:32

Man, you mean like a resume or like who I see myself?

SPEAKER_01 2:37

I think who you see yourself as, who is Ivy Marsh? If you had to give kind of uh you know an elevator pitch before digging into your story of someone that you just met for the first time, how do people want, how would you want them to remember you?

SPEAKER_00 2:51

I'm a man who loves being um a follower of Christ, a husband, a dad, and a a leader who is hellbent on leaving a legacy in the earth.

SPEAKER_01 3:03

I love that, man. You have a really interesting backstory. You played college football, you were in the Air Force, you were in the SWAT, you were undercover police officer. So I really want to dig in through all that and then kind of get to where you are right now because that's such a rich and diverse background, man. Um, it really is. And I have to thank Dan Durbin for connecting us. But before we start, I love asking everyone this same question of kind of how define leadership in your terms, because you have such a diverse background in all these different realms, and especially being in the ministry now, how would you define leadership?

SPEAKER_00 3:41

That's a really dope question, Josh. And it's um it's something that's constantly trying to be defined by certain pockets of people. And for me, it's very simply put a leader is a person who is willing to pay their price to personally grow and develop to empower others to personally grow and develop.

SPEAKER_01 4:03

Grow and develop, yeah. I I I love that because I think at the end of the day, what do leaders do? They're a shepherd. You have to bring people along um the path. And in order to do that, you have to push people outside of their comfort zone and and to stretch their capability. That's that's a beautiful definition. The kind of starting off on your leadership journey. Where did that start? How did you see yourself first time? Was it college football or was it when you joined the Air Force?

SPEAKER_00 4:31

I think it I think it started with college football. Um, I played for a coach who is who is local to where we are right now, and he went on to win, to lead the team to win three national championships in a row. And Coach Wallace was an unapologetic, not only an unapologetic man's man, and what I mean by that, and he was very strong. He was a leader, he had high standards, and the expectation was that no matter who you were on the team, you would meet those standards, and he had very little patience for people who were not willing to pay the price to achieve the end goal. And so I looked at him early on when I began to play college ball as like, okay, I can follow him because he has a standard and he plays fair by holding everybody to that same standard. But I wasn't ever really placed in a leadership position verbally on a college team. I only got to play two years. I say got to play, it was my choice. I stepped out and then went and joined the military. But Coach Wallace's example of hard-pressed leadership stayed with me. And so then when I got in the military, I quickly picked up on the guys who understood the standard, was willing to hold the standard themselves while simultaneously exuding the expectation that everybody else would too. What turned me off from certain leaders that I interacted with in the in the military was ones who wouldn't hold the standard or that played favorites, so to speak. Yeah, I got this guy, I'm gonna let him off, but on this guy, I'm gonna really hard hold him to the standard.

SPEAKER_01 6:12

I I still see that today, man, um, especially in the military. And that is one of the most frustrating things with me is because part of part of my house of leadership, and I I bet bet to say the yours is too. One of the pillars in that is accountability. And I I see that there is an indisputable rule of leadership, um, the rule of of accountability. And the the the bar that you set and that you hold yourself to should be the same that you hold everyone on the team to. And accountability is not necessarily a bad thing because you have to demand action from people, but you're also, when they do mess up, teaching them how to prevent that from happening again. You have to hold people accountable or we never grow as an organization. Um, so I share that exact same sentiment with you. It is super frustrating when a leader tells you something, holds you to a standard, and then does it totally opposite. And I I see it more than ever now in kind of the realm that I'm in right now is the acquisition career path, because I'm working directly with civilians and military officers. And there is a clear distinction between military and civilians of how they're interacted between each other. But then if you break down the civilians between civilian and government contractors, there's even more of a distinction between that. And there's this whole political aspect that just boggles my mind because at the end of the day, we're all on the same team, and we have to have that mindset.

SPEAKER_00 7:38

Well, I think if a if you know, uh one of my mentors told me he was like, always give people something to respect and God something to work with, and you'll win every time. And so you want to you want to strive to create what I know as, and we talk about among some of my peers, as followable excellence. So I have to be willing to push myself to the limit, so to speak, to honestly, in some ways, if I've created a standard on my team, then in some ways I'm not only meeting that standard, but I'm striving to live just above the standard to show people what's possible. I'm not holding you to what I'm holding myself to. There's a there's a standard. And just so everybody understands the term standard, standard means minimum. It's the minimum requirement. That's what a standard is. And so I'm not even I'm not even asking you to go above and beyond. I'm asking you to meet the minimum requirement required to operate at this level on this team, accomplish this vision. But I, as the leader, need to hold myself to whatever I believe I should be attaining and create that followable excellence that people look at and go, oh man, okay, I can follow him. He's respectable, and he's he's giving the universe, so to speak, something to work with. And things seem to fall just kind of in place when he's calling the shots. Not perfection, not that you don't make mistakes, every leader makes a mistake, and when you do, you need to take the blame, even if your team is the perpetuator of said mistakes. Um you need to you need to take a large portion of that blame. And and when your team wins, you need to celebrate all of the team members that made that come through. But at the same time, they understand when they when they look to you, there's safety there because of the standards you're holding.

SPEAKER_01 9:40

That that is a a great example, and I think how you define you know setting the standard, because we always talk about that that you know you're you're setting the bar. The bar is the minimum. If you meet that, congratulations. You have done the bare minimum to succeed at your job. Uh, but we want you to be above the bar. And I think in the military, and you can probably resonate with this, especially in the infantry and combat arms, we always hold ourselves to a standard higher than normal military units. Our standard when I was a rifle company commander is you're not succeeding unless you get a 290 or before they change it to the ACFT or a 300 on your APFT. You're not, you're not meeting the standard unless you do that. And me as a commander, I looked at it as a personal failure if I did not get a 300 on my uh APFT. Um, because that that was the standard that I held myself to. I didn't hold my men and the women that I led to that same standard because it was it was my standard. Mine was the minimum. This is where I need to be to inspire the men and women that I'm gonna ask to do dangerous things to dangerous people. And I I love how you broke that down. Walk me through, you know, after playing college football, what drove you into joining the Air Force?

SPEAKER_00 10:57

Man, I wish I would I wish I could say it was like patriotism serve my country. But I met I met a beautiful woman which I've now been married to for 29 years, and I had stopped playing college ball, and I was chasing the the rodeo circuit around the southeast, and I met her, and I thought, man, I have to do something with my life, and I was unsure of what I wanted to do. But I kind of knew I wanted to be in law enforcement at some point. And um, I talked to a couple of friends of mine who had just come out of the military, and one guy was like, Do not join the Marines, you'll never see her. Another guy was like, don't join the army, their housing sucks. And and they were like, Join, join the Air Force. And I was like, Okay, I'll you know, I'll join the Air Force. And then I joined into Search Security Forces and I wound up hanging out with the army for four years.

SPEAKER_01 11:49

So Yep, that's what I was gonna say. Like looking at your background, joking on you, man. Oh, that's hilarious, dude. Uh yeah, I think that that the same way when I started off is I wanted to chase the hardest thing possible. So I had a totally different mindset when I was in college. I was like, okay, the Air Force, it would probably be a good life, but I I wanted a test. I wanted to test myself because I was young, full of vigor, uh the Marine Corps and the Army. And the reason I did not go into the Marine Corps because they didn't have Rangers, you know, special forces, all those super sexy things, jumping out of planes, and I was like, well, well, the Army sold me. As soon as I saw those like Ranger commercials, I was like, I want to be an Army Ranger and I'm gonna do everything I can to try to pursue that. That's an interesting story, brother. When you got into you know the Air Force, what were some of some of the struggles that you had to do to assimilate, especially kind of moving from you know, a college athlete newly married, and then transitioning into you know the unknown?

SPEAKER_00 13:00

Well, you know, obviously um Air Force basic training is not that difficult. Um, and coming from a head coach who was pursuing a three-time national championship, you can imagine that regiment living in the dorms and what we had to do was pretty tough. And so when I arrived at basic, I was like, eh, this is not that bad. I think AIT, going to school, staying there at Lackland, and then flying up to uh New Jersey for infantry training. I think that was when I was like, okay, this is this is the real deal. So we got to uh up to New Jersey. There was a um a ranger unit that was being disciplined by making them run our Air Force infantry school. So they were just pissed for six weeks. So I could just imagine it was terrible, they like kept the hot water cut off the showers the entire time we were there. Like it was they'd wake us up at weird hours. Like I everybody was like, uh, you go up to Fort Dix, New Jersey, it's not that bad. And I was like, Well, I don't know where you guys went, but those guys were pissed, dude. So it was it was fine. Integrating was was cool.

SPEAKER_01 14:12

And no, I was saying I've never been to Fort Dix, but I've heard legend uh of that place. So it's kind of like Fort Polk in a way. Uh and I was I spent four years at Fort Polk, so I've I heard legends of that. And I think the worst thing that you can do is have you know a ranger instructor or a ranger unit kind of mad at you, and then running a POI or a pro um a program of instruction because they're going to make life as insanely difficult as possible. I remember going through Ranger School, and it's funny now because one of the companies I work with, he's a seller for their company, and he was my RI going through Ranger School. They were making us sleep on gravel the size of your fist. You couldn't sleep on the grass just just because. And then you couldn't use your sleeping mat that they gave you or any of the gear that they gave you when it was raining. Oh, your poncho goes up and you just sit there uh forever. There's a book, um, it's called The Platoon Leader, and it was a required reading when we first joined, and it has it opens up with this uh lieutenant who has been spent 60 days in Vietnam, and the average lifespan at that time was I think like 17 days or something crazy like that. And he was having a nightmare, but it was him in ranger school, and he it was so vivid that he thought it he was back in ranger school and he woke up and he's like, Oh, thank God. But he was in Vietnam. I was like, what?

SPEAKER_00 15:33

No. That's that's cool. Once we once we got in on on base and integrated, and and she came with me down to Central South America, and I spent a lot of time running around just doing things, you know, flight security and having the chance to go down to guard Air Force radar detachments to track drug planes and just be going in and out all the time. So that was a little bit difficult on her, more so than me, because I was so busy. But then, you know, once we left um Panama is where we were, and then I got shipped up to Wyoming, we kind of settled into a fairly normal um lifestyle. We just we didn't really know what marriage was like. I I was not a very good husband leader or family leader. I I tried to provide, but that was my primary focus and and didn't understand all the other ins and outs. So it just took us a while to adjust to marry life period. I don't I don't know how obviously the military made it more difficult, but it would have probably been even more difficult if I was working at a factory for 12 hours a day and in Redneck, Alabama, dealing with all that culture throws at you as well.

SPEAKER_01 16:48

I get the reason behind that would be probably not having that camaraderie um or that deep sense of fulfillment or purpose, kind of just going to a factory and and going in day in, day out. And I resonate too with that. Ivy, when I first joined, I I deployed immediately to Afghanistan within a month of being newly, newly married, and that's a whole other story for a whole other time. But that was that was a struggle. And I think the areas that we have to be harmonious in is work, family, and self. Um, and joining the air the Air Force, kind of going through that, especially a lot of tours to South America. How frequent were those tours?

SPEAKER_00 17:27

They were volunteer bases, so you could go, you could go every single month. Um, you could go every quarter. It was totally up to you. And so I would go as often as my marriage could tolerate.

SPEAKER_01 17:37

Okay. And then when you transitioned out of the how long were you in the air force before you transitioned into s civilian law enforcement?

SPEAKER_00 17:46

Just over five years.

SPEAKER_01 17:47

Wow. Okay. Walk me through that when you when you made the decision to get out of the air force and and to go into civilian law enforcement.

SPEAKER_00 17:56

I was actually going to transfer from security forces to like a medic or something. And they had locked down security forces and were hurting for personnel, so they didn't want anybody to transfer, and so my other option was to get out because my wife was beginning to dislike the job a lot. And so I called back to um the home area and started looking for police forces that were hiring, and they had that at the time they had some kind of like initiative called uh troops to cops or something like that. I don't I don't think they paid my salary anything, but it was basically if you're somebody who's you know getting out of the military, wants to become a police officer, you're pretty much a guaranteed hire. It's kind of the way it was. And so I I came into town, did my interview, and just so happened the the police chief at my first police job was a retired army colonel, and so he was oh wow, yeah, he was the army. The army keeps getting you. I know I should have just joined. Um so so did that, and um man, he was I have two leaders that I would say out of all the ones I've ever worked for, um, Chief Vest, um, the first police chief I ever worked for, and then who now is known as Sheriff Ron Puckett, are the two leaders that are instrumental in a in pivoting my life to pursue better leadership because I was so impressed by how they handle themselves, how they handle the public, and how they led the men of their the men and women of their department. They are above the bar for sure.

SPEAKER_01 19:37

I love that. And you know, I don't think I've ever really asked this question with anyone on here, uh, but I think it's a powerful wisdom is because we emulate a lot of the best practices from great leaders and and we avoid a lot of the practices that we've had from negative leaders. With those two leaders that you've had, you know, what were what were the characteristics or or traits that made them an exceptional leader in your eyes?

SPEAKER_00 20:02

Chief Vest, again, standard will always come up with for with me because standard's a big deal. Chief Vest and the and his expectation. And man, his office was just clean and put together and organized, and and everything that he did had purpose behind it. And so, but his expectation was his department would be run the same way. And then um Sheriff Ron Puckett, who is our sheriff in the county that we're in today, his relatability and his integrity is unmatched by anybody I've ever met. When he ran for sheriff, you know, when he ran for political office, everybody's like, oh my gosh, what's gonna come out? And I was like, listen, yeah, of anybody I can tell you, they can turn every rock they want to, they'll never find dirt on Ron Hookett. Because he lives his life in a way above reproach. And and he's just a powerful relational leader. Like when you're talking to him, you think you're the only person on the planet.

SPEAKER_01 21:08

Wow. I think that's that is one of the key characteristics that I've noticed is leaders that have a superhuman ability to tap into the individual that they're talking to and drown out all other distractions and be laser focused. And I think it comes down to their ability to actively listen. Um, because when you actively listen to someone, you're giving them their full attention. You're picking up on emotional cues, um, you're picking up on tones of voice changes, physical characteristics, and you're you're listening to them because when you can do that, you can tap into trust. Um you can tap into building more authentic relationships, you can tap into the empathy part of it. And a lot of people that at least I've seen poor leaders, they try to rush conversations or they try to rush interactions with people because they want to move to the next thing. There's always other things to do. And as a leader, we can get distracted by that because there's always another tasker. Like today, I literally left work at six o'clock and I got another tasker about something that I had to do. I was like, I'm done. I'm not reading any more freaking emails today. But I wrote that down. Three characteristics setting the standard, um, accountability, relatability, and integrity. And that reminds me of some of my core values. I call it rad, routine accountability and discipline. We have to be routine in our actions, we have to be accountable to ourselves and to others, and then we have to have the discipline to do what is required, especially when we don't want to do it in those rough times. So I I love those those characteristics. So kind of walking through police officer time.

SPEAKER_00 22:56

God, that's been that's been so many years ago.

SPEAKER_01 22:59

What drove you, I guess, to do that?

SPEAKER_00 23:01

Uh, my background from the military. Um we they didn't one town over had a SWAT team, and we had whatever was something was happening, we had to call them in. And so some guys got together and was like, hey, we're gonna make we want to make a SWAT team. And I I think they actually made us call it special response team. The city was all weirded out about you know, special weapons and tactics. So can you name it friendlier than that? So I think it was actually called SRT, but it's SWAT's what it was. And there were a bunch of guys um that were, you know, that department size, you had to work patrol and SWAT at the same time. You couldn't just be, hey, we're just gonna train all day and and serve warrants. And so I had made friends with some of them, and I think one of them was prior military, and I had always been interested because I had been on a similar team in the military. And um they said, well, you know, you might be a little, they're actually like their um their 360 review of me when I was applied, they were they were concerned that I was a little bit too laid back.

SPEAKER_01 24:03

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_00 24:04

And I which is that's the first time I'd ever been told that. But some of it was I was trying to tone down, you just you come back from the military and doing all that we did. I didn't I didn't want to roll into a small town Alabama and be snatching people out of the windows and getting all kind of crazy. So I I was trying to peel back a little bit. My wife would tell me that's not true, but I really I really was, and they're like, you know, we're we're concerned, you're a little bit too laid back. And I was like, you know, I said, I assure you, any standard you put out, I will meet and go beyond that. And so they had me do the physical standard, the testing standard, the shooting standard, and and not bragging, but like I blew it out of the water, and I feel like I really added to the team from just an overall morale standpoint. Because as serious as I am about all of those things, I also believe that even if we're doing something super dangerous and everything has to be on point, all the I's have to be dotted, T's have to be crossed, and we have to be on time, and we have to understand the layout. There's a certain level of fun that has to be in that element because if not, your stress rises too high and you'll make a mistake. There does have to be a level of, hey, we've prepared, we've done everything that we can. Let's not hit this door tense. Let's hit this door relaxed. And so I have always been on the football team in the military at a police department, even in the leadership parts that I'm in now. I am the guy who's a little bit crazy, but in a good way.

unknown 25:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:45

Yeah, not dangerous. Like, I mean, I do push the envelope, but and not aloof where I'm making mistakes, but I bring a sense of calm and the right appropriate amount of fun to put everybody else at ease. So when the door is kicked in, we're all relaxed and we're, I don't mean going through the motions, but doing what you do, you know what I'm saying. We've we've practiced, we've rehearsed, let's just do the deal.

SPEAKER_01 26:09

Yeah, there's um it I keep going back to this one moment in my career when I was a company commander, and I had a Delta Force operator that transitioned back to the military to be a lieutenant colonel. And I was sitting down, I was talking with him, you know, sir, what separates you know tier one operator from a normal soldier like like me? He's like, There's nothing. Nothing separates you from me, but the amount of training that I go through and consistently doing it and doing it and doing it and doing it to where it becomes muscle memory. But I agree with you of what he said is that you have to love what you do so much that that it's it's fun. Because the the moment that it's no longer fun, I think from my standpoint, that's when uh complacency sets in. When when you no longer have fun and you're just going through the motions, can complacency and contentment sets in. And when contentment sets in, I believe that breeds dangerous risk into whatever operational environment that that you're that you're leading. Um, so you have to have a uh level of fun. And to kind of go back just to dig into the army thing a little bit more. I want to say you shot really well because of the training that you received from the army. I wouldn't help it for sure. But what another thing that you said too that I really want to dig back into because that this is the base foundation of my leadership. Now I was really concerned when I came into acquisitions leading civilians that I was gonna come off way too strong, uh, especially with my background. And I really thought on this of how would I define my leadership in a nutshell? And I know that you'll resonate with this because it's a a biblical type of leadership of meekness and defining what meekness is, meekness is not you know weakness to put my Dr. Seuss hat on. I I define it as strength under control. Just because I have the power to do something doesn't mean that I should do it, but just know that when I need to turn it on, I will turn it on. And I I feel like Ivy when just hearing you talk and sharing your story up to this point is that you have that monster inside of you kind of channeling Jordan Peterson, we all should be monsters, and then we should learn to control it. But you can control it, and I think that's what separates a healthy level of masculinity that the world needs.

SPEAKER_00 28:34

I think if you're going to a man or a leader who's never had a massive failure has a hard time controlling the monster. He he believes I have to I have to put all of my power front first to intimidate, to impose, to get the job done. I would say more times than not, I don't think this is a law, but I believe the large percentage of guys that I have encountered that act that way are very insecure, but I think they're insecure because they've never encountered a massive failure and learned how to navigate that. One of the one of the things, and I don't do it near as much as I wished, um, just because I do love it, but in my military career, I took up kickboxing. And so I never I never really wanted to go the ground. But I I went to uh a jujitsu gym with um some friends of mine, and I thought, that's gotta translate a little bit. I mean, I gotta be ahead of the game than these guys. I mean, I've wrestled around as a cop, I did all this stuff. Dude, I got my butt handed to me by a 160-pound guy, and I'm like 250, 6'4. You're a big dude, man. Yeah, and I'm like, this guy's owning my world, man. Like I couldn't do anything with him. And but I say that to say I try to put myself in environments where while I might be the quote unquote alpha male, like I believe in myself, I assert myself, I also put myself in environments where I'm not the king. Somebody can teach me something that I might not think can teach me something. Um, so you go to jujitsu, most of the guys in there are really very intelligent computer programmers, kind of thin guys, because it's a it's a chess game. It's strength's not always the answer. I put myself in those environments, but I have been putting myself in those environments for a long time. And so I have learned to utilize meekness because strength, power, and assertiveness, while they are good, completely out of control, damages yourself and everybody around you.

SPEAKER_01 30:49

You have such a diverse history, man. And I want to kind of get to where you are right now because that's even more incredible, I think, than kind of your leadership journey up to this point. But me kind of knowing you and reading your your background, I think your spark happened when you you decided to you know leave law enforcement and then kind of go into ministry, that of where you discovered your purpose. Could you walk me through that moment of when you were called into ministry, leaving this career of you know the Air Force, training up to be a a police officer? I w how I would say how long was that that you were in law enforcement before you transitioned into ministry?

SPEAKER_00 31:28

Um, six years.

SPEAKER_01 31:29

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 31:30

So coming around to my seven-year mark, I transferred um from one PD to another. And I don't know about other people's journey, but if I was to look at my overall journey, I have a series of failures that pivoted me to the next season.

SPEAKER_01 31:47

I love it.

SPEAKER_00 31:48

Like I just I'm super hard-headed and driven, and I I would have been a police officer potentially forever because that was my plan. And I was following Jesus at the time, our marriage was going well, and so we got a call one night, and the call went bad. We wound up getting in a pretty, pretty good fight with weapons and knives and all that stuff, and so we were suspended upon investigation for excessive use of force. And the way it went down in my mind, I'm sure if I went back and was in that moment now at 50 years old, after leading a bunch of people, I would understand it better. But in my mind, it was almost like so I'm guilty until proven innocent. Like you're gonna, you're gonna set me aside, and there's no discussion what happened, how it went down. And so it kind of um, you know, coming from the military, where it's not perfect, but there's some pretty strong camaraderie in the PD I had been with before. Man, everybody had each other's back, and and this just this just put a bad taste in my mouth. Simultaneously, I was bivocationally a youth pastor, and so we were entertaining the idea of what full-time ministry could look like, would look like. And so this suspension gave me like a week or so to just pour into the ministry world and nothing else. And and a um a job cave opening to frame houses and stay with a bivocational. I just told my wife, I said, you know what? The system's broken. I put a lot of the same people in jail. Um, if you miss one thing, which is on our on us, but if you miss one thing, the lawyers can get you out. I said, I I appreciate what law enforcement does. I love I love my brothers in blue. I still consider them brothers, but if we're gonna change the world, we've got to get serious about the gospel and we've got to get serious about equipping men. And so I I drove up there and turned my badge and my gun in and said, I appreciate the opportunity, but I'm gonna go a different route. And they were respectful, there was no no hard feelings, and that started our ministry journey that got got us to where we are today, where I am pastoring a church. My church is just short of 60% men, but my wife and I focus on men, women, and marriages to try to change the trajectory not only of this world, but that's really the answer for somebody who is going to end up on the other side of the law. Going to prison is not necessarily going to help them, but what I try to pour into them from a scriptural standpoint, equipping them to be real men, that's what's going to help them in the long run.

SPEAKER_01 34:34

Team, I want to take a quick break from this episode and personally invite you to join our tribe. Are you looking for a community of leaders? If you are a leader at any level, join our purposeful accountable leaders private Facebook or LinkedIn group. We would love to have you on the team. My mission is to create a community that allows leaders to ask questions, celebrate wins, and share lessons learned. All I ask is that you follow the B rule. Be respectful, be humble, be present, and add value to the community. You can find the link in the show notes to either join the Facebook or LinkedIn group or simply just search Purposeful Accountable Leader. Back to the podcast. There's a quote that I was looking for because it kind of reminded me of that is that you're you're bringing salt into the earth. When we discover our purpose, we're we it's it's like everything that we do has more flavor to it. And I think the best way to kind of describe that is Matthew chapter 5, 13, is that you are the salt of the earth, but if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything except to be trampled on. When you live your life and you discover your purpose like you have now, every day is Christmas morning. You get up every day with that level of enthusiasm to go out and try to change the world. Or you can go through the motions of how you were going to stay in law enforcement and and just be content with life. And it kind of goes back to what we talked about. When we're content with life, that's when danger, uh, that's when darkness, that's when the evil will, the enemy's going to get a vote and they're going to try and find weakness within and fill that gap. I I dude, I I I love that. I do. What were some of the most impactful lessons that you've been able to correlate up to this point in your career before you really jumped into ministry full time and the becoming church? Because that's where I want to take it next. Kind of bringing everything together, your your football, your Air Force time, your police time into ministry. What was the one theme, the one leadership characteristic that translated between all those?

SPEAKER_00 36:56

The the one super important characteristic that was evident there in certain leaders, but not so not necessarily in certain environments. That I would get through all of those and realize, okay, I'm gonna take tools from every leadership funnel I've been in, from every leader I've been around, and I'm gonna try to be the best that I am. But what's the one thing that's typically not or was not in many of those environments? And I would have to say it's vulnerability. We especially in strong masculine leadership cultures, which is what I was primarily in my entire life. And listen, I am not advocating be over-emotional, whiny, and bitch and complain. That's that's not vulnerability. That's that's that's excusing yourself from opportunities. Vulnerability is just being honest about my real struggle. So openness and vulnerability is different. Um, openness is what you typically experience with people. And some people are way too open. But vulnerability, yeah, vulnerability is I have to share this struggle or this thing with somebody, and when I do, I'm exposing myself to a to a point that they could choose to hurt me. That's what true vulnerability is. It's it's in those moments when you feel desperately unqualified and you're scared to make these decisions that you have someone in your corner that you can talk about that with to bring clarity to what are the what are the lies you're listening to and what's the truth. And most of the time there's a balance between those that you can't see for yourself, and you have to be vulnerable with somebody. And so when we decided to, hey, we're gonna lost the church, we're gonna do this men's ministry, we're gonna do all this stuff, I we, my wife and I, decided to make authenticity and vulnerability a massive part of who we were, not what we did, but this is who we are. And freed myself up to share my failures, my struggles, where I blew it, where I could have done better, and also it creates space to share victories in a way that doesn't sound like you're tooting your own home.

SPEAKER_01 39:24

Vulnerability from the standpoint of being in an alpha-led world most of my career is the one trait that I never saw enough of. But the leaders that did have that trait were extraordinary. So, ordinary leaders, there's a lot of them in the military. There's a lot of really good leaders. But you know, John Maxwell always said, What's the difference between ordinary and extraordinary? It's extra, that little bit uh extra. And vulnerability to me is being able to be truly authentic and communicate with no agenda, but just you and the other individual. And I love how you define that to the point of where they could use what you tell them to hurt you. And I never thought of it kind of defining it like that, but that that is a great way to define it.

SPEAKER_00 40:15

Kind of walk me through what is the the church that that you run right now, but becoming becoming church is a um man, we are we are just a faith family that is extremely focused on building kingdom men, women, and families. And um kind of if you if you were to hang around me or anybody connected to the house, you would pick up on very quickly that we have very little interest in perpetuating white picket fence American Christianity. I don't believe in it. I think it's a false gospel, I think it's non-scriptural. I don't have a problem with the American dream. I still actually believe America is the greatest country on the planet. Uh we're doing the yeah, we're doing the best we can to make it feel like it's not sometimes, but um, it still is. If given the opportunity, I would if I was called up, I'd re-enlist and I would I'd die for my country and I'd die for my family. But our our church is a place where we want to help you see the scriptures from a kingdom perspective because we do have a king and there and it is all about his kingdom, and there is another kingdom that wants to adamantly come against and oppose our king's kingdom. And if you can see your life as a Christ follower in the context of war, it begins to make way more sense. But anything outside of that perspective, you feel victim to circumstance and politics and disease and economics. You just you you fill in the blank. Well, this is why I this is why I can't. Well, if you saw yourself living on a battlefield every day, which now takes strategy and execution to make things happen, it would it wouldn't be easier, but it would make more sense.

SPEAKER_01 42:13

There was a a moment in time before I even learned what a burning desire was. You know, the her Hernan Cortez burning the ships when they landed and telling his men you have no nothing, no other option but to win or die. When I was doing an aerosol in Afghanistan and the bird dropped us off, and as soon as we hit the ground, we we landed in a complex ambush. Uh, and luckily, it wasn't an ambush on us, it was that we surprised a high value target because the pilots dropped us off two clicks in the wrong direction. Very mad at them for that. When we landed straight into a firefight, and it dawned on me, you know, hearing the snaps of the rounds and the blades going, the dust kicking up, there's no one here other than me and the men that went through the training. And if if we don't act and we don't push forward, we're going to die. And that's when I realized, like, hey, that's a modern day definition of a burning desire. And you have to have that kind of mindset going through life, uh, that unwillingness. And there's a mentor of mine that kind of took through the coaching classes. He talks about a key characteristic in leadership as being unreasonable. And I think leaders nowadays are they need to be more unreasonable, stand up for what they truly believe in and and and give a damn. So you talk about your church. What is becoming man?

SPEAKER_00 43:38

So it's all it's all under this guise of becoming. So it's becoming church, becoming man, becoming woman. That's my wife's, and becoming one. That's our marriage thing. And so we use the word becoming because you're constantly striving to become the next better version of yourself. There's never an arrival, there's never a oh, I can't. Coast, I can relax. You're always pursuing. And then and the Bible invites us to grow, you know, glory upon glory upon glory, to become more like Christ every day. And so becoming man teaches the four attributes of biblical masculinity modeled by Christ, which is prophet, priest, king, and warrior. And we believe that is the standard, that Jesus is the standard, and how he modeled those is how we should model those in everyday life, in our marriage, in our communities, um, in the world. And if we all as men understood that, the world would be a much better, it may not be great, but it'd be a way better place because it would squeeze out the room we have made for passivity and sinful abusiveness and just this overarching self-deprecation that plagues masculinity to some degree today. Um, that we can step into who we were, and once you understand who you are, your actions follow suit.

SPEAKER_01 45:05

That's that that's key. You're once you understand who you are, then you can more confidently live your core values. And then when you understand your core values, when times get tough, you can make better decisions in in those moments because now you have a filter. Um, I had a guest on before that talked about that our core values act as a filter for us when we make critical decisions. And it's true that whenever I have to make a life or death situation or a situation at work, I always ask myself, uh, am I giving everyone respect? Uh am I having a high level of integrity? And am I adding value to the army, a sense of duty? So those are my top three character um core values that I always go through. So walk me through um warrior evolution. What is what is that?

SPEAKER_00 45:57

Man, that is um that is our that is kind of like our baby. That is our it's so hard to describe it. It's it's the thing that we develop that we would take a guy 75 hours long, and we're gonna hit you all at one time with what we call the three-leg stool of discipleship, which means I have to get you really good um theology, I have to hit you psychologically, and I have to kind of press in on your physical capacity, your body. And if I can simultaneously hit all three of those, then you can have breakthrough, you can have in 75 hours, you can have five years of growth and life change in those moments. And so what we did was we um you mentioned Dan, Dan's former Army, Jason Pike's former Navy SEAL, I'm former Air Force, and we have a couple of other guys who are high-level entrepreneurs and they're the instructors. And we took everything that we understand from their college world, our military world, military training, where you put someone in this pressure, you isolate them, you take everything that's normal. They all wear uniforms, they're completely disoriented, and you put them in this pressure cooker, that's radical physical activity along with teaching that they've probably never heard or understood, and you're pushing that into their body, and they come out the other side a different person. But it is, you know, everybody says this about their grinder. You know, if you go to Seal Fit or whatever, or you go to any number of masculine men's weekends where they're just gonna grind you for 75 hours, 100 hours, whatever. Everybody says it's so hard, maybe you'll make it. But here's what we're not trying to do. I'm not trying to produce, gosh, I'm not trying to produce abusive men or forgive me, assholes. That's not what I'm trying to make. I'm not I'm not trying to just get you to grind it out and be hard. We're really trying to get you to understand a comprehensive man, a balanced man, is like tough, but he's sensitive. He's strong, but he understands to control that strength. He's mentally strong, emotionally deep. He understands the spirit world and and following his king and knows what it means to love his wife as Christ loved the church. How to leave both a legacy and an inheritance to his children and his great-grandchildren. And we're pumping that all into them in those moments to bring an answer to the problem. And the problem is we've spent some generations over-correcting things. Hey, this generation was a little tough, and they needed to be. You're talking about World War I, World War II, Korea, Vietnam, they had to be hard. But then you got guys that overcorrect and say, okay, let's be super soft and sensitive. Well, that is definitely not the freaking answer. And so we're trying to show guys what the scriptural balance of masculinity looks like. Because I'm, you're right. I have a monster in there, I've learned how to control, and I would say I I I can do what needs to be done. But I can also hold my hand, I mean, hold my wife's hand, hold her, and cry with her if that's what the opportunity presents itself with. I'm not insensitive either.

SPEAKER_01 49:28

There's a scripture, I think Revelations is looking it up, chapter five, verse five through six, of where it talks about you know, David sees Jesus as a lamb, but everyone else sees him as a triumphant lion. And I think that that that is again, I'm gonna say it. I probably overuse this word all the time. I love it. Um, that is like my entire leadership style in in a nutshell. And men need to be tested. They need to be tested. And I was telling my wife about this yesterday. She thought I was crazy. Uh, she's like, I I want to go on you know, a ruck mark challenge. Someone um inspired me to do this that I work for right now. Um, he's probably listening. But why do I go on ruck marches so often? Is because I I truly love the suffering from the standpoint is that it's therapeutic in a way, because one, you know that you you can push yourself beyond your mental capability, your capacity, and tell your body to to shut up uh when you get into those moments, but also too, you can tap into those gears that you just did not understand. And it's it's preparing you for life. Those tough situations are preparing you for life because failure is going to strike exactly what you said before. And you said something else, too, that kind of brought back to me is that you want to surround yourself with failures. And I don't mean failures of like, hey, you know, people that you know play the victim card, but they play the thriver card. I want to surround myself with men like you, Ivy, because you've been tested. You know what it means to fail, but you demand excellence and accountability in your life. And if you surround yourself with failures, people who have failed but learned to overcome it, that is where growth can happen. And especially in those intimate circles of where you're not only testing spiritually, physically, and mentally, you're now creating a bond. And I think that's the secret sauce. That tight-knit group of men, the next five years, are going to push each other outside of that 75 hours for the next 75 years. Um, so I think that's genius. And if I wasn't so involved with the military, I would love to do that. That'd be fun.

SPEAKER_00 51:46

We need to bring in as a guest instructors what we need to do.

SPEAKER_01 51:50

Oh, I would love to.

SPEAKER_00 51:52

Oh, yeah, we'll let you in. And well, you you said a word that's key, I think, to true masculinity. Suffering is the incubator to true masculinity. Um, without suffering, there can't be a true man. It I think it's impossible. And the balance is the man can't suffer just to suffer. He has to be able to embrace that suffering and cause it to be good for him, to learn in it, to adapt, to overcome to all of those things. And if you can do that, then you will be successful.

SPEAKER_01 52:29

Yeah, suffer for a reason. And I go back to Ranger School because it was just a suckfest. It was just a 90-day suckfest. And I was going through this obstacle course, and I was feeling so sorry for myself. We just did a 12-mile ruck march and we got smoked before that. We had no sleep. We just did a you know, a five to six mile land navigation course. We just did the Derby obstacle course, and now we're doing this other obstacle course after doing another 12-mile ruck march out to this training site. And I'm I'm sitting there and I'm doing iron mics or lunges, and we're getting ready to jump over this eight-foot obstacle. And I'm just sitting there, like just feeling sorry for myself, going through the motions. And the RI looks at me and he's like, think about all the men that came before you in this school, men that have given their lives in combat so you can have the freedom. And what are you doing with it? You're sitting there with your head down and you're feeling sorry for yourself. And man, dude, that he's like, He's right. I never thought of it like that. I was I was thinking of it from the perspective of me. I'm feeling sorry for me, not from what I could do with the gift that you're trying to give me and what others have done with the gift that you have given them. Um, I do I love that, man. So think of like the next five to ten years. Where where do you want to take this? Because I I love your mission. I really do, and it's something that the world needs, especially America needs right now.

SPEAKER_00 53:59

We just uh about a year ago, we purchased 70 acres. It's called Legacy Ranch. We live on it right now. We um finished uh six months ago the Center for Becoming Man. It is where guys come and stay to learn what it means to be masculine. Uh they more evolution comes here, they stay. We have a pretty good firing range that's capable of taking a 50-cal round down on the bottom side. Um, we will be building um a few more facilities out here, a sawmill. Um, we're gonna build another barn, and so we're just we're building this facility up um to house the next forever that we're doing this. And um I have two sons, my oldest son, Garrett, and my middle son Joshua, and my daughter's Ella. And they are all slated to take over various parts of the ministry in the next five years.

SPEAKER_01 54:56

Joshua's probably the best, right? He's pretty good. Just because his name is his name.

SPEAKER_00 55:01

Yeah, yeah. Um Joshua's gonna take over the church, and Garrett's gonna take over the men's side. Um, and Ella's looking at taking over the women's side and what that looks like for her. And so that's that's a legacy. So the legacy is legacy is poured into, inheritance is handed down. Legacy is a way of thinking, um, a mode of operation, of philosophy of life, a way of life. And so I've been spending, my wife and I've been spending time to pour legacy into our children and to think a certain way and to have a certain outlook. The inheritance is the property and you know, money and all that stuff. And honestly, inheritance is super easy. I can leave you a million dollars if I want to. But to take the time, the energy, and the effort to teach you along the way how to think about certain things, that's legacy. And and that's that's what I want my great-grandkids to talk about. I want to live a life in such a way that my stories are good enough to be listened to and told by my great-grandchildren. I want to make that kind of impact where it's not, oh yeah, we my great-granddaddy Ivy, yeah, I don't really know what he did. No, I want them to know what I built, I want them to know what I passed down, I want them to know what I left them, I want them to know who I was, because that legacy of thinking has made it all the way to them. And they're also enjoying enjoying the inheritance as well.

SPEAKER_01 56:31

I love that. I love how you had the quote too: legacy is born into and inheritance is handed down. I don't think I've ever heard that. That's a that's a beautiful quote, man. You have such a diverse background, and I kind of tap this podcast off at about an hour. And I can keep going, trust me. I I and you probably hate me for it too. But what what one of the questions before we get to our final show segment? You have really such an interesting story and background. How has your leadership philosophy changed? The leader that you were when you played college football, learning those very disciplined, accountable lessons going into the Air Force, going into law enforcement, doing undercover work, going in and starting a ministry, and now where you are of testing men, how has your leadership philosophy changed over the years?

SPEAKER_00 57:20

I'm gonna say two things. It's probably more than two things. I'm like you, I could talk about leadership and influence and legacy for three hours. I used to believe, I think pretty strongly, that the people, the people who were around me needed to learn to adjust to my leadership. And I have since learned and changed. No, I need to adjust my leadership to them. Now, here's what I mean by that I have to know who I'm talking to, the personality, their apology language, love language, their Kindle life language profile, all the tools that we have to at our disposal as leaders. I need to have a personnel file that I can access at any time when I get ready to have a meeting, so I know how to communicate to the person that they can hear me clearly and not expect them to be able to cipher through me. The next thing would probably be, and it's not that I didn't always tell the truth, but I think any leader worth their salt and enough failures has held back certain truths in fear they would hurt the person, or told a half truth, or said it in a way that it wasn't very clear, trying to the truth is you're trying to manipulate the outcome. Um, you're insecure, you're scared, so let me manipulate the outcome where everybody gets to save face. And what I have learned and what I teach now is man, look, tell the cold, hard truth no matter the consequences. Because I think people are are afraid of consequences, and we assume consequences only come when wrong or error is made, and that is not true. Consequences happen even when you're doing good, and so I think a leader has to be okay with consequences, period. So, man, look, are you gonna hurt somebody's feelings? Yep, you sure are. It doesn't matter how well you communicate it, when you tell somebody the truth, that's hard to hear. But tell the cold, hard truth no matter the consequences, and you you will sleep better. And in the long run, if someone leaves because you're truthful, that is a positive subtraction on your team.

SPEAKER_01 59:43

Boom. Mic drop. Yep. I love it, brother. It's time for our final show segment that I like to call the killer bees. These are the same four questions that I ask every guest on the Tales of Leadership podcast. Be brief, be brilliant, be present, and be gone. Question one. What do you believe separates a good leader from an extraordinary leader?

SPEAKER_00 1:00:11

Vulnerability.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:13

So, question two. What is one resource that you can recommend to our listeners?

SPEAKER_00 1:00:19

Public library.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:21

Question three. If you could give one piece of advice to your younger self, what would it be and why?

SPEAKER_00 1:00:28

Take yourself more seriously, but not too seriously. I missed opportunities because I tried too hard sometimes.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:36

And the final one, how can our listeners find you and how can they add value to you with your mission?

SPEAKER_00 1:00:42

Good. Um, you can look me up on the gram at ivy.marsh. You can um look me up on my website, becoming man.tv. And if you want to add value truthfully, follow me on Instagram and um help me leverage influence to help men become real men.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:02

Ivy, this has been one of my favorite podcasts. Um, I absolutely love it. Thank you so much for putting up with me for an hour and all the questions that I wanted to ask, and then my army puns. So I appreciate it, brother.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:15

Hey, man, thank you, Josh. And I'm sure you hear it all the time, but from somebody who has served, seriously, thank you for your service to our country and to your wife and your family. I love, honor, and appreciate you, sir.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:27

I appreciate it, brother. Have a great night. All right, team. It's time for After Action Review AAR. What are the top three takeaways you should have from Ivy? There was a lot of really rich conversation focused on leadership and his diverse background that he's had. But I kind of boiled it down to the top three takeaways. And the first one is setting the standard. Ivy did a really fantastic job of defining what that is. As a leader, as uh ourselves, of our families, of work in organizations. When we set a standard within that organization, it's not a mark of excellence. The standard that we set is what is accepted. Anything below that is below the standard of the organization, and anything above that is above the standard of the organization. But if you meet the standard, all you're doing is you're hitting the bare minimum. And as a leader, remember the first phase of leadership is self-leadership. We have to be above the bar. So instead of going into an organization into the mindset of setting a standard to just hit the bare minimum, flip that and set the standard of above the bar, above the bar mindset versus setting the standard of where the bar lies. If you have above the bar mindset, you're going to create better performing team members and you're going to have better results. And that goes into accountability. When you set the standard and people don't meet that, you have to hold them accountable. And there is no different levels of accountability in your formation, in your team, in your personal life. You're held to the same standard that everyone else is held to. You can't give special treatment because once you do that, you have just now lowered the standard instead of raising the bar. The next key takeaway that you should have, and we talked about this several times, is meekness. And I define meekness as strength under control. But to break that down even more, you know, meekness has a lot of different characteristics in it. Um, I think one of which is the acronym that I use a lot, which is hugs. Uh, and that is humility, understanding, gratitude, and having a servant heart. But let's actually define meek. Meek, if you break down the words in itself, meek is not a weakness, it is strength under control. That is what the M stands for. E, engaged listening. You have to listen to the concerns, act decisively, but look for those whispers when people are talking to you. And in the second E is evaluate the moment, confidently align what you've heard with your words and then your deeds. So confidently aligning deeds with words. And then the K is keeping a servant heart. And in order to do that, to keep a servant heart, we have to keep our head and hearts aligned. And because if we don't have our head and hearts aligned, that's where we can begin to deviate from being a meek leader. And meek in the terms of how it's used so often in society nowadays is perceived as people who sit in the corner, that don't talk, that always gets stepped on, that always get pushed over. That is not meekness. Meekness is having the ability to influence others through power, through communication, but not having to tap into that unless it's called upon. Just because you have the power to do something does not mean it's the right thing to do. And that's what creates extraordinary leaders. That's what creates purposeful, accountable leaders is their ability to have that strength, the confidence that they can do something, but the restraint to not act. That's what makes a great leader, being meek. And we need more of that, especially now. And then the final thing is being vulnerable. And it kind of goes back to what we just talked about with meeknesses when you're vulnerable with your organization, you're building relationships, true relationships, because a lot of times when I've met leaders, they create this wall, this thing. Third wall between them. I even know people who change their voices. There is a work voice of how they interact with their boss and their peers. And then there is the father, you know, when they're home talking with their family. They're different voices. They are literally different people. You have to be the same person. There's no work Josh. There's no dad, Josh. For me, I'm talking about myself right now. And Josh with myself, my personal self. Work family self is the same person. I am the same person in and out of my uniform. And I'm vulnerable in those situations. I will give people the uncomfortable truth, but I'll also tell them what I'm concerned about. I'll give them information because when I do that, I'm helping build better relationships. You have to be vulnerable. So summing it up real quick is setting the bar, but being above the bar, having a meek style of leadership and being vulnerable. Hey guys, if you like what you hear, do me a favor, subscribe, rate, and share this podcast. It would do me a huge favor in extending my mission and vision and being able to reach other people who are just starting out on their leadership journey. I'm your host, Josh McMillian, saying every day is a gift. Don't waste yours. I'll see you next time.