Second Wind Leadership Podcast
The Second Wind Leadership Podcast is the perfect resource for anyone who wants to take their leadership skills to the next level. Whether you're a seasoned leader or just starting out, this podcast is designed to help you renew your heart, mind, and soul so that you can lead and live differently. Hosted by James Wilson Jr., a campus pastor and leadership student, this podcast features practical tips and engaging stories from everyday leaders who have found success in different arenas. You can expect new episodes every 2nd-4th Tuesday of the month, and James is always happy to answer any questions you may have. So, if you're looking for a second wind in your leadership journey, be sure to tune in and visit www.jameswilsonjr.com for more information.
Second Wind Leadership Podcast
Finding Your Inner Compass: Christy Foldenauer on Leadership and Identity in Business and Spirituality
Ready for a refreshing perspective on leadership? Our guest, Christy Foldenauer, a hybrid pastor and businesswoman, merges the essence of business and ministry, shifting seamlessly from coaching executives to ministering to a church. Christy's fluid role paints a vivid picture of how business and spirituality can intertwine to foster effective leadership.
Our engaging chat with Christy unfolds in chapters, like a well-written book. We start by exploring her intriguing dual-role and how she discerns when to don her coach, consultant, or pastoral counselor hat. She shares her personal journey of self-discovery, resilience, and the creative practices she uses to stay grounded. Christy opens up about her challenges, shedding light on her unique conflict resolution strategy and her work in relationship reset. All these are a testament to her ability to navigate the complex worlds of leadership and identity.
As we delve deeper into our conversation, Christy enthralls us with her insights on empowering teams, embracing diversity, and the importance of seeking help. We discuss the Strengths, Opportunities, Aspirations, and Results (SOAR) approach that fosters impactful outcomes. Christy also talks about her book, 'Sheer Gifts,' a practical guide for navigating hard seasons. Towards the end, we discuss Kristy's smart leverage of social media platforms like TikTok and YouTube to spread her message of leadership. Buckle up, listeners, for a riveting ride into a new perspective on leadership with Christy Foldenauer.
Check her out at https://www.illumineyourwork.com/
You can learn more about me at www.jameswilsonjr.com Or Follow me on instagram or facebook @jwiljr.
All right, y'all, welcome back to the second-win leadership podcast. I've got a special guest today, kristy Fodenauer, and I am excited to be able to share her with you all. I think that she is a phenomenal, phenomenal leader. I've had the opportunity to spend some time in different spaces that she's been in, and every time I've left those spaces I felt encouraged, I felt empowered. So I'm just super excited to be able to share her with you. So, kristy, why don't you tell everybody about yourself, who you are and even some of the things that you've been doing over the last couple of months?
Speaker 2:Sure, james, it's so great to be here. Thank you for having me and, of course, right back at you on some of the things you just said. I leave spaces where you are feeling encouraged, seen, validated, known, which is a lovely thing. So thank you for that. So where am I in the last several months? Well, I really refer to myself as a hybrid James, and so probably listeners should know that as we get started.
Speaker 2:What I mean by that is I've spent a good deal of time in business spaces over the course of my career and I've also spent a good deal of time in ministry spaces, so I am both an ordained pastor and a businesswoman and I'm sort of finding the common ground between those two spaces and showing up each day to whatever God puts in front of me, which has been a true mix.
Speaker 2:So the average week for me might look like coaching leaders, executives maybe six or eight executives a week, so I coach about a dozen leaders at any given time. I might do a facilitation on site, I may spend time with the team and talk about how things are working out for them and where maybe there are opportunities to improve communication or processes, and then, sprinkled in, I may drive and work with a church one night and help them think together and dream together about mission and vision, as I did this past week. Or on a Saturday or a Sunday, I may work with a church leadership team and or preach, so there's a real fluidness to how I'm showing up right now and that's why I call myself a hybrid.
Speaker 2:I change hats a lot but, maybe it's all the same hat, James. Maybe all the same hat.
Speaker 1:So if you had to because I love that, the idea of being a hybrid and you being able to operate in multiple spaces you said, hey, maybe it's all the same hat. What do you if you could put your finger on it? What do you think the hat is?
Speaker 2:I think I'm a minister in my heart of hearts and you know, I think all of us who follow Jesus are, and so I'm very mindful now of how he moves me into spaces with great purpose and how opportunities open in front of me that I may not have even anticipated. You know, when you're operating as a pastor and I set time as a lead pastor for a number of years when you're operating as a pastor, you fully expect every day that people will bring you things and that you will meet them in a very spiritual, christ-centered way. Right, I mean, that's the work you're doing.
Speaker 2:Yeah yeah, yeah. But when I step back into business, I think I thought I'd be meeting people in more of a business way, and what I find is that I definitely do that. But I also have moments that are very, very sacred holy ground, where I'm invited into something and sometimes a leader will even say to me why did I tell you?
Speaker 1:that.
Speaker 2:It's almost as though they're surprised that they've opened up in that way. So something that I've started saying as I work with leaders, when they have those very vulnerable moments. You know, leaders cry with me not all the time, but sometimes and they'll talk to me about personal things in their life that maybe wouldn't excite an executive to kind of open up about. But I've started to say you know, I show up in three ways as I work with people. So I'm definitely a coach and that's, you know, a big part of what I'm doing right now. I've also been a consultant and so sometimes I wear that hat. When a leader gets stuck, I'll say do you want me to put on my consultant hat for a moment? And I do that. And then the third thing is there's an element of counseling. I've been a pastoral counselor for years and so I wear that hat too. And so the person in front of me and where they are in the moment dictates the hat that I wear on any given day. That makes sense.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it makes a lot of sense. That makes a lot of sense. So this is and it is. It feels like even now I get a chance to spend some time in some of these spaces too and it does feel like it's very fluid. It's very you don't really know and when it's gonna happen or when it's not gonna happen. So I really appreciate your invitation at that permission giving, of saying I need to put on my consultant hat now. Should I put on my coach hat now or just diving into some of the counseling piece. Chrissy, could you tell me about a time, just for the sake of just context, if you're open to it? You said you have these moments often where you're not really sure you know. In ministry you fully expect to be able to pastor someone, but you said in the business realm you've had to do that too. Can you tell me about a specific moment where you saw this happening in real time and you were like, oh, I guess I have to turn this on.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah, you know, and this is a. This is what I mean when I say I'm truly kind of in a hybrid space. I would say that this happens weekly, for me. So yesterday I spent time with three different leaders, and it happened in one of those meetings.
Speaker 1:Wow, wow.
Speaker 2:So you know, without getting too detailed, the person I was spending time with is grappling with a family situation that's super complex, where this individual is needing to really operate with a lot of care, step through difficult situations. I'm picking my words carefully, so I don't get too much of a job right, but as this individual opened up to me about that, she did the thing where she said why am I telling you this?
Speaker 2:You know, so I did the thing where I say, hey, I show up three ways, depends on what you need, and we sort of discern together in that moment that, yeah, that third space would be really helpful. So here's what I think, james. I think for leaders that it's all connected anyway. And when we try to compartmentalize, if I try to show up and say like I'm just here to talk to you about business and processes of leadership and communication and how you're showing up at work, we are all. We all bring our whole selves anyway, and so if I speak only to the outcomes in that setting, then I'm not doing the best I can for that person, because their whole self is in the interaction, right. So if I don't meet their whole self so on this particular day this individual had a lot on their plate right and needed some help to sort that out that happens. So that impacts performance in the office and until those things are sorted, you can't think about how you're leading a team and what you're doing in that way.
Speaker 2:So sometimes the first thing has to be the first thing, right.
Speaker 1:So, yeah. That's good. It's good Again. I'm already inspired by listening to you. I love this. You talk about this idea of being your whole self. So tell us more, christy, because you've mentioned that you feel like somewhat of a hybrid where you have to show up in different ways. So how did you Tell me a little bit about that journey going from ministry into business, which one started first? How did you get into it Some of that stuff?
Speaker 2:Boy. I wish I could discern which one started first. From a super young age I've always felt a sense of being set apart in a ministry capacity. I didn't know how to label that, but that's always been with me and yet in the business sense it always fit for me. I just was able to come in and see things in that way and that was always a very natural place for me too.
Speaker 2:So I think it was post-pandemic that I really started to find this hybrid self, and even sort of, as the pandemic was ending. So I was pastoring in the midst of the pandemic and it just came to a place where the pace of pastoring in a lead chair, a mid-sized congregation that was in the midst of great change, alongside the weight of the pandemic, and raising three teens who were now all thrust into virtual school husbands, who has a tremendous career and travels a lot, my weeks were hitting that 60-hour mark and I was really seeing that it was both not healthy and not sustainable and that is ultimately what brought me to a place of needing to step out of ministry, alongside rediscovering the business piece. When you step out of ministry it's a super interesting thing, right?
Speaker 2:Because so much of our identity is felt in that pastoral role and so I grappled for a bit with how I would show up and would God put me into another ministry context right away, and just really didn't discern that that was the right thing or the right time, that maybe he wanted to do some things in me in that season. I think God does things in us before he does things through us. So as I just tried to be attentive to where he was opening opportunities, a friend asked actually a business-owning friend asked if I'd be open to coaching a woman who was here from China and was leading a team and just kind of there were some opportunities for intercultural competence I said, hey, I'll give it a try, I'll try anything once. At the end of that call I hung up and I was like, oh yeah, I can do this. This really, really fits. And that was exciting to find a place where I felt like I could bring value in a different way.
Speaker 2:And so I started working on training to be a coach, because I think when God put something in front of us, we've got to do the very best we can. So yeah, that's sort of how I stepped back into business. That being said, it's always been familiar ground for me and a place where I felt like I could do meaningful work. But it took me a while, james, to be able to name the hybrid state, because I thought I was going to be kind of siloed in it. I thought I was going to just do some business for a while, as I started to spend time with leaders and they started really opening up in different ways with me, and even in some of the I do the work of relationship resets, which is where two individuals who are at odds can come together at the table and we spend time working on how they can work together better and how they can find common ground again. So that's really the work of reconciliation.
Speaker 1:And so.
Speaker 2:I just sometimes the words are different but the actions in the heart is the same. And as I started to see that I was like, wow, I just need to keep showing up. So kind of what I call myself now is a pastor at large and sometimes I pastor in business spaces. Sometimes I'm up front on a Sunday morning preaching. I love to preach, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And many times there's just a real dailiness about it. That's a lot like the pastorate. I'm just praying to be obedient in the moment.
Speaker 1:I love that. So. So, christy, there is. My assumption, with all that you've been a part of, is that you've experienced a lot, right, just a lot of different ebbs and flows, and one of the things I'd love to do because a lot of our listeners, the intent of our community, is to help people get their second win how do you bounce back? How do you just reset, as you said? So, as you think about what you've been through in your journey, what are some challenges? One challenge in particular that you really had to find some motivation to get back up again and push through. Can you walk us through some of that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, I think that the one I was just speaking about is probably the front and center thing. I talk about stepping out of the pastorate and really needing to figure out what his identity looked like and who my call to be in the season where I'm apart from a formal kind of church structure, and what's the highest use of my gifts for the kingdom, and that's a question I think we always need to be asking. You know, where might God want to use me? Because what we expect to be the way isn't always the way right. I mean, I've experienced that over and over. It's just easier to name it on the other side than it is to name it in the moment. So, yeah, what do I do? I think, is what you're asking to be resilient in those moments, right?
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:A couple of things, and this is something that comes up regularly as I work with leaders too I think a lot of leaders because we're operating in a very VUCA world volatile, uncertain, complex, ambiguous because, there's so much change because we're, you know, carrying the freight of leading change within organizations, because we're in complicated times where there are polarities and people don't always agree.
Speaker 2:All of that weighs on a leader, right. So one of the things that I like to do, I really lean into practices to both discern where God is leading me, but also just to hear where I am, to be able to name where I am. So one thing that's huge in my life is journaling, and I really start my day with journaling. I've found that to be a very rewarding practice. But you know what? I did not do it the way I do it now until I stepped out of the pastoral so, it's really been about three years in the making, right, 21, 22, 23, I guess two and a half.
Speaker 2:But I, you know, I begin my day with scripture and listening and my prayer is in the form of the journal and that's because I wanted these people that my brain can go a million places. The journal really helps me keep in it, right.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And it gives a record to like look back and say, oh yes, god did say this or I prayed this and you know, god met this need. So for me, journaling is one way that I ground myself in the present. And another thing that has been helpful for me, james, is metaphor. You know I'm an artist at heart and I think finding the metaphors that make sense for where we are is so helpful. It's metaphors and stories are subversive, I think. They come into the back door of our heart. They're not things we're even totally aware of. They move in and help us and expand our ways of seeing, even as we play with them. So another thing I've done is I sometimes will get out all of my colored markers. I love some colored markers and paper and this is going to sound a little crazy maybe to to your listeners, but I actually I try to draw where I am and that has been a hugely clarifying thing for me. So can I tell you about my last drawing?
Speaker 1:So yeah, because I'm curious, you use metaphors, the drawing where you are. I need to know more. This is good.
Speaker 2:Okay, yeah, so I felt and you know, this is this hybrid world is pace becomes really important, right?
Speaker 2:And so being able to really live in something that's sustainable. It's a part of the reason that I made this shift, and so I need to honor that. So I was feeling that I was pulled many, many directions, but I was having trouble getting my arms around why and what to do about it, and so actually drew a picture. I'm going to pull it out while we're talking. I drew a picture, but I didn't know what it was going to be, of course, but I was thinking you know what's a metaphor for where I am? And what came to me is a monster on a treadmill, and, and so I made this page in my journal. It says how to tame the monster. Can you see that?
Speaker 1:Wow, yeah, wow.
Speaker 2:And you see the monster, my monster has.
Speaker 2:It's not like my art is good, I'm an artist, but I'm an artist. It's a bad art If you can't see that on line. It's not even pretty, but it's a, it's a, it's a. So a couple of things, and this is how, like how, this works for me. My monster has one big eye, and you know, that was a a wake up to me. Like hey, we're given two eyes for a reason, right, like, how am I so? I'm too singular in my vision right now. Like I'm not, I'm not looking wide enough. And then my monster has a gazillion arms but only two feet, and that's because I was carrying many, many, many things for many, many, many clients, but I had these two feet and so that's an, that's an out of order sort of monster, right?
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 2:And the treadmill represented just like holding space and like not moving forward in the ways that I felt like I could or wanted to. Right, yeah and so yeah. So how to tame the monster? Laura, laura it off the treadmill. Engage less clients and focus on deeper engagements. Expand its vision, I wrote, create a holistic plan and then limit the arms to less movement, less reach, not more. Wow, so that was a real check for my spirit. That's an example of one of the ways I ground myself in a creative practice.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I'm finding those as I navigate this time. But yeah, this is good.
Speaker 1:No, that's so good, because it's one of the things I love about you, christy, and the spaces that we've shared, is that you have a really. You have a really keen ability to be able to take very complex things and to simplify them into a way that is like oh, I can use that. Or creating a tool or something that is allowing people to take all of the emotions and the craziness and put it down on paper. So I really appreciated that. Even about the example you just shared, I think about that's brilliant. So, as we talk about this right, I think about the leaders who have already hit a spot where they feel like you know what I'm done, I'm burned out. I've already like what I've you mentioned hey, I can. This is a course correction, but for the person who's like I'm just stuck, what do you share generally with those leaders? How do you help them in your hybrid model? How do you help them?
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely so. The first thing I would say is we've got to figure out how we're so stuck, and so good questions open things up in ways that we wouldn't expect. I think most often, james, we are living the questions. What I mean by that is we are so hungry for answers. As people, we're just like give me the answer, give me the next thing. But what life really is is that we just live in these questions and we grapple with them and like sometimes they open up and sometimes we don't ever really get the answer, but we've lived the question well and maybe we get a new question for the next season.
Speaker 2:So the first thing I would encourage someone who feels stuck in is to say what is it that's sticky about where you are? Like, let's name that, let's name that, and I say that because sometimes naming it unlocks the capacity to work on it right. What I feel called to do, james, and I so appreciate what you just said about the complex ideas and making them simple. So for me, it's about this giving language to people, and so it's taken me, you know, the whole of my career to understand that. That's part of my wiring right, but being able to say like, hey, here's a way to name the space. And then here's some other words you might want to think about right now. You know that can help you move through it.
Speaker 2:So the first thing I would say is what's sticky about where you are? And then the second thing I would say to a leader who feels very stuck is I would, I would use a time shift with them. I would ask them think about yourself in one year. And everything is working well, everything is. You are hitting your stride. Really feel that, feel that like deep in your being. What are you doing?
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And we would like walk through that. And then I would say how did you get there? Because here's what I find with leaders like we know, we just haven't tapped it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, that's it, that's it.
Speaker 2:Like God's given us this hugely powerful intuition, right? The other thing I would say practically, james, that I think is super, super good right now. Okay, so I think that there's nothing new under the sun and the old ideas come back around, right? So Covey wrote about this concept of three circles, and if you've never seen, like, look this up, the center circle is control, and then the next circles influence and the outside circle is concerned. Right, so it's like a bull's eye, okay?
Speaker 2:And so as I'm working with leaders who feel stuck. One thing that we do is we draw that bull's eye and then I say let's go item by item what you just said, right, and so we'll take like. Let's say they think like I'm not sure if my job is secure, okay, so. So I will say, all right, that must be a terrible feeling. Let's look at control influencing concern. Where would you place that? Do you control that? And usually they'll say I don't control that. I guess I control how I show up, yeah, ok, so put how you show up in the center circle and on that outer ring your concern put job security. So here's what I found to be true with people. James says I use this tool when leaders focus more on the concern ring than anything else. They feel stuck and out of control. They feel low agency, right.
Speaker 1:Right right.
Speaker 2:But we have to name why we feel it in order to work on it. And so then, here's the magic of this. I love that Stephen Covey gave this concept we're always standing on the shoulders of people.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no doubt.
Speaker 2:When he drew the center circle of control. So in reality, james, there are not a huge number of things I control, but if I will relentlessly focus on what I can control, my agency grows.
Speaker 2:Because I start to influence others more and I start to show up better, and so a lot of my work with people is like so let's get from this outer ring of concerns and let's get super serious about what you control and let's really focus right there, right now, right when we spin on things like oh, I don't know, but politics and the world around us and all the news these are things that are concerns right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:What do I control? I control how I show up. I control how I use my time. I control what I do today about the things that concern me.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And when I get focused there, my agency grows and I start to get unstuck.
Speaker 1:This is so exciting for everybody listening. We've just been hybrid, like we've just been coached, like this was amazing For real. This is one of those things where I just watched you do it. I just watched you put on the different hats in one motion and I really appreciate it.
Speaker 1:That was helpful for me, as I think about just spaces being in ministry right, being in a lead role at times and having to navigate multiple chairs and multiple teams, you can often feel very stuck. There's a sense that's like, oh, my goodness, what do I do? How do I do this? Because you're not just in leadership roles, you're not just navigating your own emotions. We're reading a book called Managing Leadership Anxiety. You're not just managing your own stuff, you're actually managing that of others as well. And so, christy, you, in your experience, tell me then, how do we help the leader who's leading a team? He or she is leading a team. How do they actually re-energize a team? Maybe the team is stuck and maybe they've gone through a season where they were stuck as a leader and now they're trying to re-engage the team. Is that making sense? How do we get some momentum and move forward?
Speaker 2:Totally Well. First of all, the book you just dropped is amazing. So if your listeners aren't reading Steve Cuss, I highly recommend Steve Cuss. He's got this fabulous site called Cuss Words which is great.
Speaker 2:I love Steve Cuss and a lot of the. So Steve Cuss talks about systems theory and it's super relevant to the question you just asked how do you help a team move forward? Steve Cuss has some great thinking around that A number of leaders do, so what I like to do with teams that are feeling stuck, first of all, is to help them see that the individuals on the team are not alone. It's very important to name and normalize how teams are feeling, and I came back to that idea of language, being able to give language to teams, so being able to say hey, I work across industries, right, I mean like many industries at this point, I'm in and out of all sorts of organizations. This is not unique to any one organization and people need to hear that right now because they feel like they're the only ones. And it always is true when we start to talk about the concept of Bucca. And what does that look like? Volatile, uncertain and complex, ambiguous. How?
Speaker 2:do we see this, everyone around the table is always like, oh my gosh, that's exactly where we are. That's always the answer, always what happens, james? And so then I say, yeah, it is. And guess what, it's also where everyone is. Let's look at just two other industries with me and we'll just shift our hats and think about other industries and all of a sudden they're like, oh my gosh, it's like this for everyone. So they say Bucca is here, bucca is here.
Speaker 2:And I say, yes, bucca is everywhere and so you've got to lead differently when you're in the midst of this environment, and I just don't think it's going away, james. I think we're in a space now that requires different skills, and I think that is part of my passion in helping leaders.
Speaker 2:It's one of those skills you have to identify right. So a couple of things I use. I really love the work of Jackie Stavros and she has these questions. There's an acronym the acronym is SOAR, and I use this acronym as the secret sauce to questions to get a team to start thinking bigger and differently. So the S stands for strengths. What are the strengths that we uniquely bring? Right now? People need to get back on the solution side right.
Speaker 2:So what are the strengths we uniquely bring to this. When people start thinking about their strengths, they stop thinking about the limits. So much so strengths. So then the O is opportunities. What are the opportunities in front of us right now? Like, if we did this well, what could happen? Let's just think about that for a minute For any church. If we do this kingdom thing well, what could the impact be? You can people there and you'll see them all start rolling. A is aspirations. What do I hope might happen? What are the things I aspire to personally, professionally? What does this group aspire to? Get people thinking about that. And then the R is results. If we do this well, what will it look like? What's possible? You?
Speaker 2:know, I float in the midst of those questions with a group at any time, and sometimes I lay that acronym out and other times I'm just pulling on those threads Because when a group is below the line, which is where most people find themselves now and what I mean by that is that they're stuck in kind of more of a scarcity mindset, a victim mindset, a place of feeling disempowered.
Speaker 2:When groups are there. You have to help them first name and remember the ways that they do have agency and capacity. It's the same idea, james, as control.
Speaker 1:It is, I'm watching it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's it. It's the same thing. We'll come right back to it, right?
Speaker 1:This is good. This is good.
Speaker 2:Let's stop spinning on all the things that are in that concern ring and let's get back to what we control.
Speaker 1:So one of the spaces that I vaguely remember us being in together, christy, was this you mentioning when I think I first met you. We were talking about the idea of diversity and talking about what it looks like, and you mentioned having to lead a team through some of this stuff Having to lead both in the past right now you shifting your life but also leading a team through a very volatile avuca environment. Can you talk more about that?
Speaker 2:Yes, absolutely so. I do a lot of training around diversity, belonging, helping teams understand difference as something that's powerful and something that needs to be engaged and not shut down, so I think a lot about polarities. I think that's kind of what we're hitting on when we think about the differences that exist in any group the diversity.
Speaker 2:That's at the table in any group, even diversity in the way people think, the way they show up to the tasks, the way they think about the world in which we're living, and so a lot of times, groups think we have to all get to the same place to move forward. I think that's just a misnomer, because the different places from which we all come and that's everything from our unique lived experience to the ways that we're wired, to the experiences we've had professionally and personally, to what we think about ideologically, about the world, I mean there are just so many ways that we bring different perspectives. The room is richer for the difference, and if we all start at the same place, we're not going to gain the wisdom of the group. The trick is this the trick is to be able to recognize. Polarities don't have to be solved, they have to be managed, and if someone is able to hold space for difference in the room, whatever that difference may be, if we're all on this journey of learning to hold space for one another and the different ways, we see.
Speaker 2:I've been the odd one out in the room. Many, many, many times I've been the only woman gosh. For so much of my career I was the only woman right, both in a business setting early on and certainly in the past. Women think differently. We come to the table differently. If I were to try to come to the table like the men around the table, we would lose what it is I bring uniquely as a woman to that conversation.
Speaker 2:We've all got to bring our whole self. The key is not to try to make the difference go away, but rather to recognize that as we lean into the difference, we find answers. Does that make sense? Yeah the answers are on the margins, right. Even something as simple as breathing is a polarity, James. We're built with polarities by God. We breathe in, we breathe out. That is a polarity. We don't try to make that go away. If we did, we wouldn't be living.
Speaker 2:Instead we learn to breathe in and breathe out, and it's a rhythm, and in the same way, polarities need a rhythm, and we need to not fear it, but rather embrace it.
Speaker 1:This is good. So I want to switch gears, because I want to dive in just a little bit more into you that I feel like you've shared. Some I've literally on my desk right now are tons of notes. I'm like I got to save this. I got to save this, and this is really good. So tell me about, though. You recently wrote a book called Sheer Gifts, and it explores this connection between your faith and your personal growth and some of the journey that you've been in. How can you walk us through? What are the highlights of it? What are the things that, as you, I want to make sure that everybody goes and gets this book. Afterwards, what is it that you'd want people to get? Because, again, you're in this hybrid model, but this book begins to unpack some of that. So tell us more.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So first of all, I didn't set out to write a book. This was just not anywhere on my aspirations in life. I was pastoring. I love speaking much more truthfully than writing, and so I just was. We were in the midst of the pandemic and I felt like God was whispering things to my heart that were not just for me, and I didn't see a lot of spaces honestly to share those in a speaking capacity and I felt like the word was asking me to start to write, and so I leaned into that. It was different. It was a different practice for me. I mean, I journal, but writing a book is different chains. It takes serious sweat equity, right.
Speaker 1:And.
Speaker 2:I mean, I gosh, reshaped that thing repeatedly and then worked with an editor to reshape and it just it was a labor of love in many ways, but I think. So what Sheer Gifts is about is basically the times in life where we feel like we are less, we're downsized, we've lost something, we are struggling, just in general. Just those times of struggle, right? What are the gifts that come out of the times of being cut back, the gifts that come out of the times of feeling like we're yielding what we love, right? So Sheer is S-H-E-A-R like Sheers, yeah, and the story of the title is in the book.
Speaker 2:So I won't tell you all of that right now, but the book is meant to be a very practical guide for people who are in a hard season, so I tried to write it like I was having coffee with whoever the reader is, right. So what are the things that I might say to someone who's feeling really stuck, both pastorally and pulling on the threads of the coaching wisdom, right? And then just also out of my own season, sharing parts of my life? So there are little sections of my journal, there are small sections in there, which is a very vulnerable book for me.
Speaker 2:But yeah, so just helping people again. I think the thing of naming and normalizing like sometimes these hard seasons happen, and what I was seeing pastorally is that many people were in this season of what I would call Sheer gifts, meaning particularly coming out of the pandemic, trying to find their grounding again, feeling like life has changed in ways that they can't get back. You know, I sat with a group, I guess, two weeks ago and a woman told me this story.
Speaker 2:She said I have been working for 50 years when the pandemic hit and overnight my job was gone and she wasn't quite ready to retire. Think about the loss for that individual right, many people they lost loved ones, relatives, friends. I mean this was such a time of loss for us all, collectively and individually. So how do we process and how do we make sense of that? So the book seeks to answer some of the questions, like where's God when life doesn't make sense?
Speaker 2:You know how do I have a framework for faith when it feels like I'm not in a winning season? And I'm air quoting that if you're listening you know, because there's a lot of pressure to be in a winning season like 24 seven right.
Speaker 2:I mean, pull up Instagram and everybody's in a winning season, right? So, like, what do you do when that's not your reality, and how do you find God in those times and how do you keep moving forward in a way that helps you to come to the other side? That's what the book is about, and so it's full of practical. You know, we talked about the spiritual exercises, actually, interestingly, drawing the pictures, not in the book, that's. I didn't put that in the book.
Speaker 1:All right, all right.
Speaker 2:Many things like that. So like things like how do we use breath prayer in daily life? What does it look like to pray in Haiku? How do I learn how to pray when it's a really long prayer of time, like, for instance, I don't mean like long in minutes, I mean I'm praying for a very long time for the same thing. What does it look like to do that? How do I persevere in it? You know, how do I? I call that praying through, but not in the old-school sort of way, in a very new school sort of way.
Speaker 2:How do I, how do I constantly reorient myself in the midst of difficult times to who God is, who he's promised to be and who he is helping me to become?
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. The question that I've had as you were talking you mentioned that this book started originated because you felt like this is what God was whispering to you. Tell me more about what. What he's whispering to you now as you, as you think about where you are, as you, as you are drawing the monster on the treadmill, as you're, as you're navigating so much, so much different. You know different spaces. What do you feel like he's whispering to you now?
Speaker 2:Yeah, boy. So a couple of months ago I was very clear on needing to just re-scope in terms of work and just for some again some family things and personal reasons needing to be able to do a little less in the near term.
Speaker 2:Right, it's an uncomfortable thing to do less, James in the world in which we live, and yet sometimes obedience requires that we listen to that prompt, and what I'm experiencing right now is the fruit of being willing to listen to the prompt. My days have more margin right now and I've needed it, and I'm able to look at right now and say, god, you told me this and I listened right In this very present moment. Again yesterday, one of the people I was spending time with uses this phrase of the ellipsis Right like so in writing.
Speaker 2:The ellipsis is, you know, the dot dot dot between one statement and another statement, and this individual has used this with me multiple times and says that they are in the midst of the ellipsis, and as they were talking to me about that yesterday, I felt like the spirit whispered into my ear you are in the ellipsis too, and and so this morning I journal about that, james and I I said so, if I'm in the ellipsis, first of all, what? What is there to learn from this time in my life where there Not as many words, right, I don't see that plot being spelled out, but yeah but.
Speaker 2:I'm sort of in the in between. How do I steward that in a way that honors God? And one of the things that I really was sensing this morning is this this idea that I'm in that third dot and so there's a next. That's coming right. Just Stewarding well right now means being ready for whatever. That next is just being obedient, open-handed. I tell God on the regular I'm at your service, my hands are open, I'm holding things, but it is a loose hold. God, take it, do what you want with it. Show up the way I expect, show up a way I'd never expect. Just let me be faithful. However, you do show up right. That, for me, is where it's at, and so so I mean I wish I could. I wish I could know more about my next season. I wish I could like look over the horizon and be like oh yeah, that's where it's gonna be.
Speaker 2:That's what you know, you know.
Speaker 1:the truth is, this morning I was like you know Lord, so as I juggle, this hybrid thing like just keep putting before me the right thing, the next, thing, yeah whatever that is yeah and my constant prayer is let me stay in step with the spirit. Let me see where the spirit is moving and what it looks like to be in step.
Speaker 2:With the spirit you know, and some days that might be working with a big team around Agile and their processes and the financial industry, and the next day it might mean sitting with a group of creatives and figuring out what a mission and vision look like in their organization. And then on the third day, it might be a church, and then I might be preparing to preach. Yeah, yeah. And then, hey, I might get to come on a podcast. No, this is awesome. So.
Speaker 1:So, christy, before I let you go, a couple of things I've realized over the last, I guess, couple of weeks my daughters have been coming to me and saying that we've been listening to your podcast, we're like they're, they're a part of the podcast community and so now it's, it's raised the stakes for me in particular, because I'm not gonna be, I'm not gonna be, I'm not gonna be, I'm not gonna be.
Speaker 1:Now it's, it's raised the stakes for me in particular because I realize that there are emerging leaders Wanting to, to grow, not only emerging leaders. For me, that there's a sensitive place in my heart For, you know, women, women in leadership, for my, my daughter's sake. There, you know brown girls, black girls and leadership. So so, christy, in particular, I know you often you're coaching some friends of mine that you're doing a phenomenal job. So, as you're thinking about Emerging leaders, people who are stepping into new spaces, what, what advice would you give them? Or what, what do you see in terms of in your experience in your Years? What is it that you feel like you should impart or give to them?
Speaker 2:Yeah, the first thing that I would say to anyone listening is that I believe in my heart of hearts that God has purposes for your life that are planned and ordained by him, and that he has these sealed purposes for each of us, every single one of us, right, and as we Continue to show up obediently and keep open hands, he guides our feet and puts us in the right place. I heard Beth Moore say years and years and years ago, before I ever was moving toward ministry, that she wouldn't want to walk through a door that God hadn't opened Because she wouldn't be ready for what was on the other side, and that just resonated so deeply with my spirit. You know, it's an interesting thing. As someone who, I think it you know, lives with a pretty big vision, like I, have a pretty big sense of where I feel like calling us right. Yeah, I'm always right, sizing that in light of what, what God's part is in that and what my part. Is that right?
Speaker 2:And so I would say to young leaders like listen, your, your part is, be relentless about being who God's called you to be right, and I validate you that God can put a call on your life, no matter where you're coming from. You know he, he has a call on you. You are stepping into that call. So be open-handed, do that thing of the open hands. You know, even as we're talking, my hands are open.
Speaker 2:Yeah the open-handed, be willing to, to lean in and to have the courage to do the thing. He whispers to you so, as we're attended in his presence, he shows us the next. Sometimes it takes a while, like I've prayed before. You know the verse I'm doing. Behold, I'm doing a new thing, do you not perceive it Right? So sometimes this is legit what I say to God. No, I do not perceive it. Thank you very much. Like you were doing it, but I don't see it. So like, give me eyes to see it, god. Right. Like, help me perceive what it is you're doing, right? I think that's a prayer that honors God, because I don't want to be out ahead of him, nor what I want any young emerging leader to be out ahead of him. So my heart for any young leader would be I validate that you are called, that you are set apart, that God has this amazing plan for your unique life and as you come with your whole self and you bring it to him, you just watch what he's going to do. You just watch, yeah.
Speaker 1:Christy, this has been awesome. I want to give you the floor just before we take off Any last words. Anything that's like man. I really I need for people to hear this. This is what. Maybe it's a question. I didn't ask that. You wanted to be asked what. Any last thoughts or words?
Speaker 2:You know you've asked me some great questions, james. I'll say that, and I appreciate each and every one of them. I think the thing I would say to those listening right now to this podcast is, if you're feeling tired, if you're feeling weary, if you are worn out, don't try to hold that yourself Like. Put that heavy pack right at Jesus' feet and enable him to meet you in it, because he does every single time. And I also would encourage your listeners, if they're feeling that kind of heaviness in their leadership, to really start to ask those questions.
Speaker 2:What is it that has me here? What is it that I need to maybe think differently about? Or you, you know, think about finding a coach, think about finding someone to journey with you, think about finding a therapist. Hey, that is one of the healthiest things. Healthy people seek out help. They seek it out professionally, they seek it out personally. That's a mark of health. And so be willing to look for the people God's place to, right around you, that he's equipped right now to help you right now, because he is himming you in and so he goes before and behind, and the people are already there. You just need eyes to see.
Speaker 1:Yeah, this is so good Christy you have. I hate to say often, but not that I'm impressed, but I'm inspired. I've like man, this was really, this was really really good for me, really, on so many levels. So how do people get in touch with you? You're coaching, you're preaching, you're speaking, you're building and leading teams. Where's the best place for people to connect with you if they need him?
Speaker 2:Yeah, sure, well, okay, so you can find out about the book online at what's on Amazon, but you can find it at sheergiftscom. So S-H-E-A-R. Sheergiftscom. My work is at Illumin, your Work. So the name of my company is Illumin, which means to light up, right, and so really felt clearly, as I was kind of branching out and launching out, that I was called to be a light in all the places, and so for me right now, being a light carrier means showing up in some business spaces, and so Illumin IlluminYourWorkcom has all the details about how I work with people and businesses and churches, nonprofits. I would love to connect with anyone who is interested, and you can find me there and connect there through the contact. You can follow me on Instagram it's just Chrissy Fultonauer, that's my name. Facebook, I'm there too and, yeah, my kids are constantly trying to get me to be more and more on the social media. So we'll see what happens, we'll see what happens.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm watching TikTok and trying to figure out what's next, but yeah, so yeah, I do have a YouTube page. It's small but growing. So yeah, it's just my name also.
Speaker 1:So why me all like this? Yeah, she's in all the places. I'll make sure we link it into the show notes. And, Christy, this has been such an awesome experience. Ladies and gentlemen, this is Christy Fultonauer. This is the second win leadership podcast. I'm excited. I hope that you've been taking notes, and this is one of those episodes that you probably wanna go back a few times and just jot down each point because it was so full of gold. Again, Christy, thanks for being on the podcast.
Speaker 2:Thank you, James, for having me.