Have you ever wondered who you are beyond your job title or family role? Join Courtney and her esteemed guest, Chris McAllister, in a conversation where they uncover the profound layers of identity and leadership. Chris shares his riveting transformation from business success to financial hardship, prompting a deep dive into the essence of his true identity in Christ. You'll find their conversation equally thought-provoking and inspiring.
Have you ever wondered who you are beyond your job title or family role? Join Courtney and her esteemed guest, Chris McAllister, in a conversation where they uncover the profound layers of identity and leadership. Chris shares his riveting transformation from business success to financial hardship, prompting a deep dive into the essence of his true identity in Christ. You'll find their conversation equally thought-provoking and inspiring.
I'm Courtney Markley and this is the Heart of Money. Talking about money can be really hard and uncomfortable, but it doesn't need to be. The problem is, we're taught to think about money in terms that are too much like science, with rules and regulations, and not enough like psychology, with emotions and nuance. Join me on my mission to change the way we talk about money, one conversation at a time. Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Heart of Money podcast. I'm your host, courtney Markley, and joining me today is Chris McAllister. Welcome, chris.
Speaker 2:So glad to be here, courtney, thank you.
Speaker 1:Yes, I'm so glad that you are here. So let me tell you a bit more, chris, about who's joining us today. At the table, we have listeners who are joining us, who, some of them, are on their own faith and finance journey, where they are regularly seeking to live out biblical truths when it comes to their money and their possessions and their life. And then we have other folks joining us who, similar to yourself, they are in the leadership space and they want to help empower people to have deeper, christ-centered conversations, and that's why you're here. I'm so excited to introduce our audience to you. If you haven't heard of Chris McAllister yet, this is gonna be a true gift for you all, so get ready, lean in a bit. He is so wise and has a wonderful heart for the Lord.
Speaker 1:Chris is a speaker, he's an author and he's a leadership coach, and recently we got connected through a friend who said you'll love Chris and you'll want to have him on the podcast, and after one meeting I said they're right, that's a good friend. They were looking out. So I'm so excited that you're here talking with us today and for our audience. Right before we got on the call, I said Chris, how are you doing. He said I'm good, I'm in a no stress state of mind, this is how I'm coming in, and that's what I want for each of you today is to embrace that. I'm in a no stress state of mind, I'm gonna let everything go and I'm just gonna sit here for a couple minutes and chat with Chris and Courtney. So at that, man, welcome Chris, we're happy to have you. And today we're gonna be leaning into a conversation about gospel identity, and this is something that you talk to people about quite often. Tell me a little bit more about your experiences.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was learned the hard way, like so many things, and went through a season where I just put all my energy and effort into business success and leadership efforts and saw all that unravel and had reached a point where, plus seven figures real assets to negative six figures of debt that I was trying to figure out after moving out of our second custom dream home, how to keep us in the house we were renting, had had some success and didn't really understand a lot of the fundamentals that achieved that success and, as it started to unravel in front of me, really faced a big question and it's a question I'm still not over today and that is do I feel better about who I am If I can keep my family stable? Do I feel worse about who I am If we have to go through some kind of tough circumstance? And the fundamental core question there is who am I, apart from what I do in my relationships? So I kind of pulled the thread on that and I'm still pulling that thread.
Speaker 1:Oh, I love this picture. Thank you so much for sharing this. So tell us so far you've been pulling the thread. What are some of the things that haven't earthed for you personally, as you're wondering, who am I, apart from my work and what I do?
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, for me it comes down to how we've defined the three fundamental qualities of what it means to be a leader who builds other leaders, cause that's the high watermark, right, if you're a leader, you're building other leaders. And as I've pulled that thread and pulled that thread, there were things that I thought, oh, I'm discovering something new. No one has thought about this, and the more research you do, the more you go no, no, no, nothing I've discovered is new, it's just a rediscovery of what's true. And in pulling those threads, sadly there's not really a definition of what does it look like? What are the qualities to have a leader who builds other leaders? And found that there were three.
Speaker 2:One is they know how to receive meaning. So we're constantly trying to triangulate in our circumstances and understand what's happening. And leaders who build other leaders receive meaning. They know who they are, apart from what they do and their relationships, so that they can really generate, or, a better way of saying it, receive the motivation. Of course, we know this is our connection to God through Christ that we receive that meaning through that relationship.
Speaker 2:Now, practically, I love what you're about, because how does this live out In our lives, in our money, the average person. You walk up to them at a party and say, hey, tell me a little bit about yourself. Who are you? They're gonna kick reflexively into defining themselves by what they do and their relationships. You can think about it like a tree. I love this as a metaphor, because a metaphor isn't really helpful unless it can handle the volatile and certain complex and ambiguous world we live in.
Speaker 2:And we know one of the most ancient, best metaphors is to think about yourself like a tree. We're planted like a tree by the water, so what we're doing is helping people understand. It's normal and natural If I say, courtney, tell me who you are to go into. Well, these are the roles I fulfill and these are the relationships, the roles being the trunk of the tree, the relationships being the fruit. But there's a whole hidden reality underneath that surface and that's what we focus on, this idea of identity, because if we do the root work, the fruit work takes care of itself. So that first fundamental quality is what does it mean for me to be a leader who knows how to, at the root level of who I am, receive the meaning that defines me, and it's super powerful. When you learn to relax into that. You're going to have stressful, challenging situations in life, but it's there and it's ready all the time, even when you're about to be evicted, which was my story.
Speaker 1:I love it. So how do you lean in If you all didn't catch this? A second ago, chris, you said, if you do the root work, the fruit work will take care of itself, and I love that, because the enemy, he'll attack us at that root level, right at the identity level, and there are so many things competing for our identity, and this is why I've really leaned into this with my clients. When I talk to people, just like you said, when you talk to someone, they respond with the roles that they fulfill or the relationships that they have, but very few people are rooting their identity in Christ and in that thing there's so many different, competing things for our identities. Can you talk a little bit more about that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and let's be specific to the money world. And then I can be more general, if you'd like. Perfect At this root level, when you receive your meaning. If I say to someone, tell me who you are in terms of money, okay, they're going to go into trunk and fruit and skip over root because it's going to be something like well, here's my net worth, here's my bad habits, here's my credit score, here's the changes I'm trying to impose on myself that I might feel bad as I compare myself to someone else. In my world we work with the CEO, founders and owners. We're helping them put a leadership operating system in their companies. And, courtney, it's hilarious because the CEO at 10 million is telling me about the 100 million people they meet. The $100 million CEO is telling me about the billion dollar CEOs they meet, and so we're always triangulating and comparing and to really be in the root to receive and I know your audience will appreciate this you look at how deep we are really grounded in this relationship with Christ.
Speaker 2:So I love 1 Corinthians 3 because it talks about this idea that the church leaders are kind of fighting over who to follow and the way Paul solves that issue at the end of the chapter is. He says all this is stupid to argue about. And he says because you already have everything, you already own it all, you possess it all. Now our minds would go to like spiritual categories, bible study, prayer, worship and he's like no, no, no, you own Paul, you own Apollo, you own the cosmos, you own the world, you own your life, you own your death, you own future.
Speaker 2:What a massive, huge idea. He says all things are yours. So if people really had an identity that was at the root level, secure and whole in regards to money, then they understand the behaviors, habits and practices come out of that root system. So I'm not managing my money, so God will love me more. I'm not giving or being generous, so God will bless me. It's coming out of an identity shift that's already occurred, which was, of course, the story of Zacchaeus, which I think is a powerful, powerful example for us on what it means to be transformed at the identity level with money.
Speaker 1:Hmm, that's so good. And in a world today where we have so many competing things for identity and we can change at the drop of a hat, yeah. Right, one day I can self identify as this yeah, next day I'm going to change my mind, I'm going to go over here.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:It's interesting You've done some research to say regarding the different generations and what they tend to gravitate towards and build their identities around. Can you speak to that a bit?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, it's funny because part of how I started going down this rabbit hole. I was speaking at an event and I had just said because it was mostly boomers in the room and I said you're angry that the millennials are rejecting what you wish they would take. They don't want what you have, and I didn't think that'd be funny. But all these chuckles in the room and we just started to see the pattern and we know this, just the world we live in, that these are big, broad brushstrokes of stereotyping, but they do hold some truth to them. The boomers, by and large, define themselves by their work. So I am what I do and that spurned so much of the crisis that we see now, which is the reactivity to that, and you see this, a lot of millennials You're starting to see it in Gen Z. I don't want to build my identity around work Well, at least work while dysfunctional is something a little more concrete.
Speaker 2:That overreaction now to the other side has left, as you see, the onslaught of social media and all that too millions of combinations of value-building identity, and so when I used the term identity a decade ago, I got to define it. If I use the term identity now in companies, I or the coaches, whoever's doing the work there has to define it, because we've started to think of identity as race, gender, creed, sexuality, all these little parts of you, and the way to say this is some of you S-O-M-E, isn't the some of you S-U-L? I think it was Maya Angelou said I'm Black, samoa and African. I'm a woman. I'm all of these, but none of these is all of me. You know rough paraphrase.
Speaker 2:So our identity is more than our work and that didn't help us. But this overreaction isn't helping us either. Where we really do. Take whatever is the most invalidated, victimized part of who we are and then try to make that all of our identity, and it just can't hold up under that weight. And so on both extremes. What you have is most people in most moments of stress are leading for their own validation more than impact, and this problem just keeps compounding, which is why we do what we do.
Speaker 1:Mm-hmm, that's really interesting. I want to pause here for a moment and lean into this idea of most people are operating for their own validation versus impact.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so the root system of who you are, the identity level. It is normal when you feel stressed and we all have these moments when you feel stressed, it surfaces insecurity and that insecurity makes you feel doubts about who you are and you're trying to get that comforted. So you know, I could claim the dishes while I'm loading them. So my wife goes thank you for loading the dishwasher. Okay, I'm not really doing that to serve or bless her and it needs to be a co-equal partnership anyway. But I'm still stuck in my thinking sometimes. I'm not really doing that to bless or serve her, I'm doing that to be validated. Thank you, awesome, you're a great husband.
Speaker 2:And what most people don't realize is when they're presenting to the board, they're making a decision about the next strategic direction they're headed in. More often than not, it is from a place of an insecurity. They're trying to get comforted about the doubt of who they are. And when we lead that way, we're leading for validation, not impact, and that is the source of our suffering. Insecure leaders ruin the world and insecure moments in our leadership ruin our impact.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely. This is why I love talking about this subject and why I think it's so important and more of us need to be talking about this. It comes up all the time, no matter who you are. I was just recently in a client conversation where this particular family they overspend on experiences. They spend a lot of money on experiences and on the surface level, it's we love our kids and we want to bless them and we just want to provide good things for them, and so this is what we do. But then, as we started to dig deeper and get closer to the root, it's a I'm actually worried that my family's not going to love me if I don't show up this way. I'm worried that my family sees my value by what I can give them. And we start to dig deeper and deeper and then we recognize that actually we're making most of our decisions from this place of fear and insecurity instead of this healthier place coming from again, that healthy root that's rooted in Christ Powerful.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm curious. This is something that I ask myself a lot. You talk about, you know, pulling the string and unraveling. This is where I've been unraveling a bit myself over the last several years. What stops us from really getting rooted in Christ, and you've done some more great work talking more about the institutions that we're a part of and how that impacts our identity. Can you speak into that a bit for us?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I mean this was, I think, one of the coolest moments in the Old Testament where, you know, hannah had prayed for this child. She has the child, samuel, dedicates him to God and the idea is he's growing up in the temple. So he's growing up really in the most powerful expression of what you would think of as an institution. So institutions being family, church, school, government, you know all these things that are the powerful relational groupings in our world and at the time when you think about that, in the life of a young Jewish boy, this is the trifecta right. This is all three of these powers that are so influential in our world For him religion, politics and family. It's all right there.
Speaker 2:And he comes to Eli and says you called for me. In other words, tell me what to do, give me my roles, tell me what to believe. How do I live up to this institutional vision? Well, and Eli does something profound. Of course, it took him a few times, but hey, he got there and it's amazing. And he says to Samuel it's not me, go lay down and say here I am Lord, speak. And so what Eli does there?
Speaker 2:And it's so powerful to see this he hands Samuel off so that Samuel can discover at the root level who he is, what he's to do. The trunk of the tree fruit you know what's his community going to be about Now. The revolutionary thing in that story is the message that he's coming back with is hey, eli, you've been leading for validation with your children, not impact. This tolerating area of your leadership has eroded your effectiveness. It's over, and I think this is what's so powerful in an institution. We don't want to hand people off to discover who they are, because sometimes what they discover about who they are is a dismantling of what we've built. So the role of an institution, church, family, whatever and for us we focus on companies it's that you would be a voice of truth in the individual's life until they discover that voice. For their own.
Speaker 2:That was my philosophy parenting. You know, my kids this year will be 19, 20 and 22. But when they were little, you know I wanted my voice in their life to represent and so align with the voice of grace and truth, that when that handoff occurs it's like seamless right.
Speaker 2:They're not having to dismantle a lot of my strong opinions and thoughts. Instead, they're able to discover who they are. That's the point of an institution. So when you think about money management, you know so oftentimes Christian money management is trying to make people in their image versus helping them discover who they really are. So what I love about what you were showing in that coaching example is you're helping them figure out what's the insecurity that causes them to overinvest in experiences and that ultimately, it's for their feelings about who they are as a parent that they feel like they're doing a good job, or the false lie that they have that if we don't keep our kids busy, they're going to become drug pushing pimps in some way. You know, right, yes, and the reality is, if we do it actually for them, then we're going to understand boredom is a healthy part of growth, that that's a part of learning to be resourceful, that over indexing on experiences can be a way to saturate your children from the things that help them grow up and develop. But you know what? There's people listening to this that have confused stewardship with Scrooge ship and they can't believe in the abundance of God and they can't spend on that experience, right, and that's why what you're doing is so powerful, because it's particular to the individual. How do they discover who they are, what God wants for them versus? This is what I have to do to make them feel better, make God happy with my money.
Speaker 2:I love that story of the parable of the sower. You know the seeds going out. If people want to receive where the Lagos is planting within them, empowered by the spirit, it's going to have that 30, 60 hundred return in their life. But if they're just copy pasting other people's vision never like Samuel laying down and saying here I am, lord, speak. They're never going to find that vision for what their finance could be like. And institutions typically aren't going to get you there because very few institutions have that kind of emotional, relational, social intelligence. So what we do is you know, we have a data tool, measurement tool to measure, you know, a team, a leader, their executives, so we can exactly see what that insecurity is and then help them build an environment, an institution that is intentionally building leaders, who build leaders. And if you don't have that as the standard, you're always going to fall short and that institution is going to drift into serving itself, which is what always happens.
Speaker 1:Sure, absolutely. This is so good. Thank you for sharing all of these things. So I'm curious, as someone who's listening right now and I hope you all are taking notes because you're sharing so many good nuggets with us I imagine, as a listener hearing this for the first time, someone would be saying, okay, what am I supposed to do with this information? How do I solve this problem? Right, yeah, if I'm recognizing that I've been spending a lot of my efforts just focusing to go back to the tree metaphor I've been focusing on the trunk and I've been focusing on the fruit, but I haven't spent much time at the root. And now they're recognizing oh, I might be coming from this place of fear or insecurity, or needing to prove or hide. How do I fix that? How do I start? Where do you guide people?
Speaker 2:I mean, the simplest way is to welcome the insecurity, welcome the fear, welcome the stress, because we beat ourselves up Like I'm doing something wrong, because I feel this. No, that is the fertile soil where the transformation occurs. So we're just accepting it like this is the soil I have and everybody has it, like everybody. You just accept it and go. Okay, this is the insecurity I feel and God is everywhere. But I'm inviting Christ into this moment. There's nowhere we can go where his spirit isn't. So I'm 139.
Speaker 2:Jesus said the Father is always at work. All we're trying to do is to tune into where God is at work, and it's in the insecurity. You referenced this earlier. It was really smart when you said the battle happens at the identity level, and that's exactly what happened. You know, jesus was led by the spirit into the wilderness and at that point the temptations are about if you are a son. So what had just been affirmed is now attacked. So what you're just trying to do is tune into where that attack is occurring, and not in a resistant way, not in a fight it way, not in an angry way, not in a shaming way.
Speaker 2:That's why that message the ego is the enemy is so damaging, because by framing it that way, metaphorically now, I'm fighting and beating up on the insecure part of me, when instead the insecure part of me is the child within. That has to be welcomed. Unless we come as children, we don't enter into the kingdom right, and that's not the childishness, it's the child likeness. So you just welcome that insecurity and invite Christ into it. Christ, what truth do you speak to this? What do you want me to see, feel and hear? That rewrites this code, because this code is flawed and I want to be whole and I wish I could make it more complicated than that and go get this link, buy this thing.
Speaker 1:I don't really want to do that. Five easy steps too. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:And of course there's so much. Both of us are invested in the depth of transformation. When you guide people through a process, right, we need that. We are conformed to the image of the sun through deep relationships where there are no secrets that are redemptive. That's the world you and I live in, so we see how far people can go through transformation. But the starting point is as simple as coming as you are and we have just created this lie that said you're messed up. If you feel false insecurities about who you are, you just need more faith. Just on how it works.
Speaker 1:Man. I have to say, chris, I wasn't expecting you to say that. That surprised me a bit, and there's a lot of gold in what you said of recognizing the insecurity Sometimes. That in and of itself is a bit of a challenge for people, right. They might need a little bit of help really digging in to say, all right, what's at the root, what's really at the heart that's driving all of these things. But instead of shaming it or saying I'm so bad because I'm struggling with this, or, like you said, why don't I have more faith? Why this, why that? Let me go find some different soil, you're saying no, no, that is the fertile soil. Let's lean into this and invite Christ in Versus. Let's just pretend it's not there, let's just overcome it, right. But to invite Christ in to me, that feels a lot more freeing to say, no, I just get to accept this part of me and then give it to God.
Speaker 2:Bingo. That's how you overcome it. It's through not fighting it, but accepting it. That's why the table in the New Testament that we're invited to come to in remembrance of him is so powerful, because the table is all the parts of me and all the people are accepted. That's what upended the Roman Empire and we just we get away from that and that's always going to be the struggle, because we start to think I have to fix this to be whole. When wholeness is full acceptance, then the overflow is the transformation, which was the Zacchaeus story. Right, I'm coming to your house today. I'll come to your house if you give back to the poor and stop stealing. No, he blessed Zacchaeus with presence and honored him, honored his personhood, before his performance changed, which is the pathway of transformation, but it doesn't build institutions quickly.
Speaker 1:That's the challenge, isn't it? We want it all fast. We want it now, yes. So perhaps the encouragement that we can give listeners is, if it feels like it's taking a while and it feels like you're going slow, then perhaps you're on the right path.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. I mean the people listening to this that want to move really slow on something. You probably need to move really fast and the people that want to move really fast on something need to move slow. It's the inversion where the transformation occurs. I'm wired up to be like thought it, it should be real now, and we work with a lot of executives who are over thinkers and they're so stuck in their mind not to shame them they're trying to protect themselves from something bad happening and so, yeah, for some the answer might be slow, for some the answer might be fast. Just depends on where they are.
Speaker 1:Okay, good, so look for the tension. Look for the tension because it's gonna probably feel uncomfortable. Depending on how you're wired, it's gonna feel a bit uncomfortable. That's really good. Thank you so much, chris. I appreciate your time today. I appreciate everything that you've shared and just your heart for the Lord and your leadership. Before you go, I'm just curious we didn't dive in too much about you and all the great things you're up to. Tell me just what's something going on in your life right now that you're excited about?
Speaker 2:I have the wiring to list about 17 things you know. So personally, I love just where my kids are at, so proud of them, who they're becoming at this phase as they're finding their own way Professionally. I love our team so much love seeing them thrive. Got some stuff coming out later this year. One of them I'm really excited about is what'll be my next book and its lead for impact. So why? Mindfulness, empathy and psychological safety don't build great leaders, so we're really excited about getting that message out.
Speaker 1:Oh, I'm excited. And if people are here and you want to connect more with you, which I'm sure a lot of people will, how can they find you Where's a good place?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so siteshiftcom. Sighthshiftcom is where they could connect to start learning about who they are as a leader and individual, or work with their team or company and then, if for them they share the same perspective we do, which I'm assuming the audience does. Where we're doing the work biblically anchored is 15 and could spell out 15 or write the number andwork Either of those places.
Speaker 1:Very good. Thank you so much. One last word of encouragement that you have for our listeners. I'm gonna squeeze you dry for one more thing, if you don't mind. You've done so much for us already.
Speaker 2:I love it. I would say, if you're looking at your life and your finances specifically, as they are served by you and interact with you, courtney, the starting place of vision is to get bothered Like, ah, I wish this could be better. And so often we beat ourselves up because we see what is and what could be, or we push and force things so we avoid, or we try to prove and go too aggressive, when to be relaxed with it is just to go. I see a problem, I see a gap. Great, I'm bothered about something. Great, I'm gonna be excited about that because that's the starting place of vision. So let that flip for you emotionally, because that's what's gonna give you some energy to get in and do the real hard work which is the execution.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much, Chris. I appreciate your time today. All right, y'all listening. You got some work to do and it's gonna be fun. It's gonna be really fun. I encourage you just to lean in. Lean in to whatever might be at the root of your tree right now. Lean in, give it to God and allow him to do some work in you. It'll be good. Thank y'all, enjoy the rest of your day. Thank you for listening. If today's conversation has blessed you, share our podcast with a friend and if you have a money question, email me at Courtney and marglicoachinggroupcom. I'm Courtney Margley and this has been the heart of money.