Ep.042: Signal vs. Noise (Part 2)

Are you leading or just reacting?

In this episode, we break down how to separate signal from noise so you can lead with clarity instead of constantly putting out fires. We talk about identifying the work only you can do, protecting your top 20 percent, and building margin into your leadership rhythm.

We also get into real challenges inside churches and organizations. Handling preferences and complaints. Clarifying roles. Tying decisions back to core values. Balancing discipleship and mission without losing either. These principles apply whether you lead a business, a franchise, a nonprofit, or a ministry.

We close with a simple weekly leadership cadence. Audit your calendar. Prioritize strategic work over reactive tasks. Cut one noise item. Develop one person.

Transcript

Welcome Back & Listener Message

SPEAKER_04 0:14

Alright, Veggie Brady, welcome in. We're back. Back at it. Part two of our signal verse noise. So episode three, season four, right? I didn't joking before this trying to figure out how many episodes we've done. We know how many overall of the episodes of the season. So, but you know, we split it up.

Purpose, Faith, And Feedback

SPEAKER_03 0:31

So yeah, we're here. You know, before we get into that, I thought it'd be I thought it'd be good. We actually had someone reach out to us uh this last week and text into the show. Um, I think I sent it to you guys, but it the person said this. I know it's been a minute, but I wanted to say I appreciate the new podcast. Uh I recommitted my life to Christ this last year, and it's great to see you and your team unapologetically lifting up Christ through your communication, the great stuff and keep it coming. So that's why we do this. I mean, yeah, it's great to have business, but the Lord leads our business and um leads us where we're supposed to go with wisdom and such. But I think that's a great, a great way to kick it off to say, look, send send in your send in your thoughts, your requests, because we do keep them anonymous. Uh, but it's it's good and thank you for giving us the feedback. Um, I know a lot of you share our stuff on social, on higher up podcast, and um, you know, you you comment and whatever, YouTube. So just just keep them coming. We appreciate the feedback.

SPEAKER_01 1:26

Um yeah, the feedback for me kind of gives me uh oh, somebody actually is listening out there.

SPEAKER_04 1:31

Well, Brady needs all the analytics, given the data so you can keep getting them to show up.

Signal Vs Noise Recap

SPEAKER_03 1:36

So guys, we're I mean, to that point, we're we're we're in a lot of countries across the world right now. Yeah, yeah. Um, it's pretty, it's unimaginable what what the Lord's doing with this this podcast. And uh it just take it takes listeners to listen in, it takes content to be to give out good content, you know, where people can take it and use it in their local business. But never forget, Jesus is the reason we do this. And um that's right. If if you if you choose to have him which you we which you should, um it's a free gift that the Lord gives us, but um, you choose to have the Lord lead, guide, and direct you, good things will happen. Does not mean the trials won't come your way. Uh doesn't mean that you're not going to go through mountains and valleys in your business. Uh maybe it's you owning it, managing it, being employee or what have you, but um the Lord is the foundation. And you know, there can, as Brady mentioned, talked about last week, there's a lot of signal and noise out there. Um it just it comes down to what what you as a leader need to focus on because I think I think one of the key things he brought up last week, and we'll we'll get into the show, but was um just because it's noise to you doesn't mean it's not signal for someone else.

SPEAKER_02 2:42

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 2:42

So that's that's a great way to it's a great quote.

unknown 2:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:46

Yeah. We might coin that one. Let's coin it.

SPEAKER_04 2:48

Well, coin it because put it on the merch. You have a history, you have a history of people coining your phrases. So hey, I just stole one from somebody else. No, so you gotta keep it. Uh but no, I mean, I think that's a I think that's a great kickoff. That was actually uh one of the reasons I was intentional about you know some of the content we put out this week. I thought, what was a great way to start off uh you know season four. Yeah. Um, where you were talking about, hey, what are you gonna give up this year? What are you gonna give up to God? What are you gonna, you know, what have you, what are you thinking through that you've got to, you know, kind of let go? And so that's something that we're work we're working through. Like uh my wife and I are still kind of fasting. We're still following, doing some things. We got some stuff we're trying to stick to. I mean, you know, we've got to figure out, we've already talked of what do we want to do this year. I know we brought that up in the first episode of the season, but you know, we're try we're still thinking through what do we want to do this year? What vacations we want to take? Where, what do we need to, you know, what right now in our life is just noise that's slowing us down, that's making us, you know, that's just it's things that we don't need to be a part of, you know. Not not whether it's negatively affecting us or positively, whatever it is, what's taken away from our family, what's taken away from our, you know, just mentally. Like you, I know you guys deal with it. You're stretched. You have people wanting something from you every single day, all day. You know, um, that was something I was going through last week. I just and I've I gotta figure out, okay, what honestly do I need to signal in on? And what do I need to realize? Like, I've got to could be noise, could be signal. It could be. And so I gotta figure out what is the most important for right now and kind of focus on that.

SPEAKER_01 4:17

So speaking of signal and noise, Adam. I was on a I was on a video call with him yesterday, and I'm like, what you're why are you outside right now? Was there any noise going on in your office?

What To Surrender This Year

SPEAKER_04 4:27

No, I yeah, yeah, there was. We are we are construction. I told him we hopped on the call yesterday. I said, Hey, please forgive me. Uh he was like, Well, like trees. I said, Are you in Oak Mountains right now? Like, what are you doing? And I was like, No, our church has been been going through some construction. So there's uh there's five of us in one room that was never meant to house five people. Oh goodness. So anytime I take a phone call, I had to go out last week. So uh Hey, but you focused on the signal, yeah. And stepped outside. I had to leave that room about 18 times because Brian Stone, I think I talked to him more last week than I've talked to him in my entire life. I hope he listens to this. But I did. I think he and I were on the phone every other hour when we were just like prepping for storm and and all that. So but yeah, it was uh yeah, it was a lot of noise yesterday. But that's a great example, yeah. Because I we had things we had to discuss, and I just I can't focus like that for me, especially focus if if there's if there's other things going on. I have to hone in on it.

SPEAKER_01 5:19

So kind of as we get back into the day, I mean, um, I guess I'm gonna be known as the the one that has the the two parters of the episodes on here.

SPEAKER_04 5:28

It just means more good information, yeah.

Creating Margin Through Clarity

SPEAKER_01 5:30

May maybe, maybe. But yeah, we talked about signal versus noise last week and a lot of good content there. Encourage you guys, if you if you if you didn't listen, go back and listen. Um but I if we were gonna just boil it down to like one word, uh Adam, as you were talking, I think clarity is the word. And it's really just what what do you want to be clear about this year? And and sometimes, you know, you were talking about margin and and and uh being able to do more things. Um sometimes you have to give up things in order to do more things, and and so that's how we create margin. Um, you know, we we see that in the life of Jesus that he retreated and he rested and he, you know, and prayed in the garden and yeah. I mean, so he he did all these things. I mean, even you know, when he was when he was uh tested in the in the wilderness, he was 40 days, 40 nights. You know, he fasted and prayed and getting ready for, and so that's kind of what this is about, like as a leader, you know. Uh I think we talked about this last week, but I would say most people that are in a leadership position are there for a reason. Like they got there for a reason. They had skills, they had abilities, they can do things, yeah, right? That's how they got to where they were. But as we grow in our leadership journey, what I'm learning is just because I can do it, doesn't mean I should do it. Just because I yeah, just because I can answer that question, or just because I can solve that problem, I have the ability to do it. But what am I if you're I heard somebody say this and it it to me one time and it stuck, is if you say yes to something, that means you're saying no to something. Yeah, yeah. So what do you what are you saying no to that could be the signal that you need to be paying attention to? So we we went through a a lot of the the why last week. Uh I think what we wanted to focus on this week is is more the how. But from a leadership perspective, a leadership uh filter, if you will, like how do we put this into practice? And this is gonna be almost like a like a daily thing of questions that you ask yourself. Because most of us, even in a leadership realm, we don't live in slow environments. I mean, it's fast-paced, this stuff coming at us all the time. But you're gonna have to constantly ask yourself questions before you act or before you answer or before you do certain things. And you and go back and maybe you know, from this podcast, write down some of these principles here. We talked a lot about Steve Jobs last week, but as those things start flying at you, you know, say, okay, hold on. Maybe you're not saying this out loud, but to yourself, is this 20% or is this 80%? Yeah. Is this signal, is this noise? Yes, I can do it, but should I do it? You know? And so those are the questions that um that you need to ask yourself because you're gonna you're the only one that's gonna be able to hold yourself accountable to it. Yeah. You know, otherwise you're just gonna keep doing what you've always done, and we know what the definition of that is.

SPEAKER_04 8:36

Well, and what you're saying, I feel like is is real timely. Like even this morning, um, I gotten a message from somebody and they're like, hey, I just want you to know I went ahead and did this. I didn't, you know, I was supposed to get A this week, but I didn't get B, so I went ahead and did C. You know, so we're talking through it, and I I was responding back to the individual and I was like, Look, something like, can you do it? Yes. Okay, like, you know, and I even said, Hey, I'll put on me, I need to be better about making sure my team members are aware and making sure these things are done. And I'm trying to get away from that. I'm trying to get away from not having to remind everybody, but we're working through that. And I I told the individual when they messed, I said, Look, here's what I want to challenge you. You have to let that person fail. Yeah. Yep. Like you have to let that person fail. And I was like, I know that's tough. And I know you have things that you want to do. Now, I'm not talking like fail to the point that it's deprivate, you know, that it's gonna hurt your business, sure, it's gonna hurt your ministry. I'm not talking that. I'm saying like things, small things, things that you're wanting to do, you have to get off your plate. You have to let them go. And I said, I know that's tough. And I said, I want you to know I'm working through the same thing. I'm trying to let things go and realize that I've got to coach these individuals through what we're trying to grow. We're trying to have a bigger team, we're trying to be better so we don't have to worry about these things. We don't have to have that. But if you come in and save that individual every time, then you're just gonna end up doing it all the time. Yeah, that's right. And it's gonna fall on you all the time. And that doesn't need to be you, your focus needs to be here, not here. Like, and I don't mean to say it's it's negative, but what that person did with them like this, and this is gonna sound negative with it, but it's it's if it's bottom shelf in terms of what you need to be doing, right? Same thing with what you guys deal with from ownership. There's things that could you do it? Yes. Yeah, and it doesn't mean the person doing it is demeaning their job or what they're doing, sure. But you have larger things that you've got to handle so that way you can keep pushing. You want to hire more people, you want to grow, you want to be, you want to be able to give raises, you want to be able to have more benefits. Guys, you got to let me handle this while you handle this.

Can You Do It Or Should You

SPEAKER_03 10:33

That's right. Well, to that, to that point, too. I mean, as a leader or manager, no one's ever gonna do it like you. I mean, that's right. They're not ever gonna do it like you. I shouldn't say ever. If you don't give them the chance to do it, they're never gonna do it like you. So you have to, to your point, you gotta give them a shot to try to figure it out. And yeah, give them coaching guidance along the way. Yeah, but again, what could be noise to you could be signal for someone else. So you you give them the chance.

SPEAKER_04 10:59

Well, and to flip that too, you know, and I don't you're always I hope you feel this way, but you're always gonna think like, I'm gonna do this the best way. Like, I'm gonna do the best job. And I want you that. I think there's a very thin line between being confidence and cocky. Like, hey, but I think where you grow as a leader is you, yeah, in your head, you're like, I do this well, this is what I do, this is my look, this is all this. But I think where you grow as a leader is saying, like, okay, this person still does it to a high quality that will bring some type of improvement that we're seeing some type of you know, ROI on, whatever it is. Just realizing that, yeah, I may think it needs to be here, but even being here doesn't mean we're doing less of a job, but we're still seeing a return.

SPEAKER_01 11:42

That's right. Yep. So let's look at some real life examples. And most of our examples are in the server pro world because that's where we live. But I think these could be applicable to um a lot of a lot of different environments. Adam, you touched on this. Uh, I know that I have struggled with this as a leader uh in my my leadership journey, but you you know, you you hear about a situation, you hear about a problem, and you just want to go fix it. I still I still struggle with that today. And I can fix it. I can fix it right now, you know. But if I'm spending time doing that, then what am I not spending time on? You know, you you feel like you want to be the hero, right? You want to rescue the situation. And when you do, you I mean, let's just be honest, we we feel really good when we do that. Yeah. Like, oh, I was the hero, you know. But that's not necessarily the best situation.

SPEAKER_03 12:34

See, I'm different in that case. I'm I'm glad you said that because I'm like, thank goodness it got done. Yeah, I'm not necessarily thinking about being the hero. You know, and it's it's not a way on different spectrums. It's like, man, we got that thing accomplished, it's off my list. You know, I can move to the next thing, and then then another noise comes along, right? And you got a signal going over here, and you're like, okay, I'm gonna get that one put out. So sorry, I don't he'll send you a chance to do that.

SPEAKER_04 12:54

No, no, no, that's good. I need to get this off processed. Is it done?

SPEAKER_01 12:57

Yeah, yeah, because differ different people are gonna react in in different situations, you know. But as we develop, we need to be developing other people. We need to be be developing leaders, we need to be developing people, you know, on our teams. But so that's kind of the serve pro owner, is we're just putting out, I mean, we are in the fire restoration business, but we should not be putting out fires with our own people all the time. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 13:17

Well, think about this. What yes gives somebody else an opportunity? And when I say that, I'm not saying yes to you doing it, yes to you allowing your team member, your leader to do something you know you 100% have the ability to do by you saying yes to be like, hey, yes, you go do that. What opportunity have you given that individual to grow, to experience something maybe you've experienced plenty of times? Like, hey, now it's your turn to see what it's like to be in this seat.

Coaching, Failure, And Delegation

SPEAKER_01 13:45

So well, and uh, we may have talked about this on the podcast, I don't know. Um, but there's a there's a principle out there, I think even maybe Dave Ramsey have talked has talked about this, but it's the one-three-one principle. Okay, we've talked about it in our leadership meetings. When somebody comes to you, okay, so let's say that Adam, I report to you and like, hey, we got this problem, you know, then I'm expecting Adam to, I'm just gonna be quiet and let him solve the problem, right? What you want to what you want to try to do is change it and say, okay, all right, Adam comes back to me and says, All right, Brady, well, here's here's the here's the challenge. Why don't you come up with three solutions? And then of those three solutions, let's decide together which one like would be the best one. But have have the person underneath you, instead of you just putting out those fires and solving all those problems, say, Well, give me some solutions. And then what do you think is the best? And usually people will come up with a solution that that is that works. Sometimes though, it's not gonna be potentially what you one of the solutions. Oh, yeah. You know, I remember you gotta be okay with that. And you gotta be okay with that. I like uh I think it was a couple weeks ago, you know, we were talking about something at our leadership meeting, and somebody said something. I just kind of had this look on my face, and one of our leaders said, Well, well, do you not like that? I said, Look, I've been on the receiving edge. It happened, it happened. I said, Look, that's not the way that I would have done it, but that's okay. It got it got done, yeah, it got solved, it it's it's okay. It's not like life or death, you know, type of thing. And so um, but that I know that a lot of people struggle, you know, but that that's kind of in the serve pro world. What what are some and uh some um potential things that may come up like in the church world? Benji, you you see this?

SPEAKER_03 15:34

I mean there are things that come up because you have people involved, you know, and and sometimes this is my opinion, sometimes people think that they can do whatever because it's a it's a nonprofit, yeah, right? And and there's it's not a business. And you have to, I believe that to take church leadership to the next level, you have to still run it organized. Okay, yeah, it's not a business. I I get that, even though I think it could be because there is money coming in, there's expenses going out, regardless of what you know. Yeah, but I I think in the church world you have, well, I got this problem over here, I got this problem over here, I got this problem over here. Oh, by the way, music's too loud, or you know, it looks dirty, or it's you say people complain? 100% they do. Okay, and and here's the here's here's the thing that I have an issue with in the church world. The problems don't get dealt with. So they just become magnified problems. Yeah. So it's avoidance. Yeah. And it it's noise. Yeah. Yeah. But at the same time, the signal is go have a conversation with them. I'll give you, for instance, we had an issue, this is several years ago at our church, that uh lights were going everywhere. And um, you know, and I say that being jokingly, it wasn't really that bad. But there were times where lights would hit people in the eye, right? So we made adjustments to it. Okay. Well, then the person just kept complaining, too many moving lights and too many of this and too many of that. So I got wind of it from our leadership team, and and the pastor was like, you know, let's do something about this. I said, No problem. Come with me and we're gonna go to the person. So we went to the person and we had a conversation with them, and I said, Hey, this is this is what CCW is about. This is who we are. Forget the lights. This is what we have. Vibrant worship, intimate fellow. We went through our core values. Yeah. And the person, after we explained to them that the lights are just a tool. They're not, it's not worship. The tool, the light is not a worship fixture, it's a tool. And either we use the tool or we don't. And they were like, Well, I don't think we should use the tool. And I said very professionally, I was like, I totally understand that. You have two choices. Option one, CC, we're not gonna change who we are just because you don't like it. Yeah, but what we will do is if you don't like it, I think there's 30 other churches around here you could go to. Why do you have to be? We want you here. You know, we want you to be involved in this body. And when we got done, our pastor said that was handled very professionally. There's a way to talk to people, there's a way to do things, address the issue. So that's what happens in the church world a lot of times is issues don't want to be addressed just because you're afraid of hurting someone. You're not hurting anyone, you're having a conversation with them. They they're hurting you by saying there's a problem. Let's go fix the problem.

The 1-3-1 Decision Principle

SPEAKER_04 18:16

Right. Well, I think sometimes too, you do in the church world where you get a lot of noise from is people, and I I agree with you. Like I agree with, I think the church needs to be handled as a business. It's gotta, you, you've gotta see a return so you can do more ministry. I mean, you've got to. But I think a lot of times people will be like, well, you know, they feel like because of what they tithe and what they give and the things they do, they should have a voice. And I'm like, but that completely defeats the purpose of tithing.

SPEAKER_03 18:43

Like, yeah, whether somebody gives a million dollars or one dollar, they're giving out the abundance of their heart.

SPEAKER_04 18:47

You're trying to give. And so, and you gotta think too, you're creating more noise for your church. Like, and that's the other side. Like, hey, you you have a church that obviously cares, they're trying to uh they're trying to appease to a lot of people. I mean, there's a lot of different people, and I've always agreed with that. There's different places you can go because there's different opinion for everything. Like, where my parents go to church, I wouldn't, it's just not for me, yeah, our family. Yeah, but my parents thrive, and they're probably involved. And they're involved. My dad teaches Sunday school, but you know what? That fits who they are. Yeah, sure. And so it does that. So I think you do, I think that's something that you have to see a lot in those things and realizing, like, hey, you don't have to appease everyone. And I think, but I think that's for church or or business. I firmly believe we've moved into a time, especially in business, where I hate to say it, but the customer's not always right. Yeah. Like, and I don't say that negatively, but what I'm saying is because we've moved into a world, especially dealing in what I do with like customer service and dealing with, you know, like digital marketing with Google, people now can just do whatever they want to do. They can say whatever they want to say, and there's no ramification. That's right. I was about to say there's no consequence. There's no consequence. Now we can go in and you know, we try to prove it, like our team does a really good job. Like we've got one right now we're dealing with, but we get all the facts and we go in and we do it, and then we hopefully send it to Google. Hey, this is how it is. But I think a lot of things too, we're moving into those things where people create noise, and you got to figure out all right, what is what really is the thing here? What's the issue?

Church Leadership And Hard Conversations

SPEAKER_03 20:15

Well, Brady, two things before we move on to this, because one, I'm as being a part of the there's a large ministry that Brady and I are part of. I'm on the board of it, but it's the Isaacson Foundation, the the founders of SurfPro. The number one problem that they found across the world, not just America, but across the world is a discipleship, a leadership in the church. And how do we multiply disciples? You know, so I I have two schools of thought. We should be multiplying disciples through uh through discipleship programs, whether that's groups or classes or Bible study, whatever, whatever you want to call them, doesn't matter. But the second is never stop having the Great Commission is lead people to like lead people to Jesus. Yeah, you know, you have to have a, I think you still have to have both. Because look, if we're not following the Great Commission to get other people to come to church, right? Or to lead them outside the four walls of the church to the Lord, how are they ever going to be discipled? Yeah. So you have to have the constant, you know, bringing people in, getting them, if they're not a Christian, they become a Christian and then they get discipled. You know, that's how we were raised. Yeah. So but I I love, I think that's the biggest thing is a real life application is how do we multiply disciples?

SPEAKER_01 21:29

Yeah, absolutely. Well, I know we're kind of coming down to the wire here with with this uh with this episode, but where we started this whole thing last week was really asking every leader a question. Are you tired? Are you frustrated? Are you exhausted? I mean, even some of these conversations today, it's just like getting me to the point where like, oh my gosh, you know. But it, you know, sometimes it can be exhausting. And I think that if we can, and I'm saying we. Because you know, we're we're we're in this together with you. Yeah. You know, we're not saying that we're perfect at this by any means, but if we're not focusing on the right things, then we're gonna be exhausted. You know, there's there are only things that that you can do. Um I I remember one time that we've talked about this, but my uh my C12 chair, he's one of my mentors, he said, Brady, what what is the highest and best thing, or what are the highest and best things that you like like only you can do? Like you can do a lot, but what are the things that only you can do? That's good in your in your leader leadership position or the position that you're in. So some of that's gonna come down to to guard some of our thinking time. You know, so you know, you should be, if you look at your week and planning out your week, which hopefully you guys do, um, but you should be preparing for what percentage of your time is strategic and what percentage of your time is tactical. And if you look at your if you look at your calendar, if you audit your calendar for the last month and it's all tactical, that's probably why you're tired. And I know we all get into that that mode sometimes, but so as we as we kind of wrap up and um you know, just want to challenge you guys to start thinking through this and really signal versus noise, like filtering that through a lens. So when situations come, when questions come, when when problems arise, then and they hit your desk, then ask yourself the question, okay, hold on. Is this signal or is this noise? Do I need to handle this? Can somebody else handle this? You know, is it the highest and best use of my time? Because remember, we tied this into 10x is easier than 2x. Yeah. You know, so when we start to freeze some things up, then we can um be ready and available. And and I'll go back to a spiritual principle, but you know, Jesus' most famous sermon, the Sermon on the Mount, he started by saying, Blessed are the poor in spirit. And blessed are the poor in spirit from from my study of it, is that we need to come, we need to start empty. Because if we start empty, then then we get we we we give ourselves the opportunity for him to fill us up. And that's an everyday thing. So that's that's how we create margin and even in our spiritual life. So hopefully this was helpful to you guys. Uh there's a lot more that we could probably talk about. Adam, in fact, we could probably do like an eight-part series. What do you think? Just on this kid this sermon series?

SPEAKER_02 24:45

Sorry.

SPEAKER_04 24:46

I mean, it's a great way to start off 2026. Like, how do you cancel out the the noise versus I mean, it's but it's in every day. I mean, it it's I think this is uh I think this is something. Honestly, I think this is where you find real growth at. It's it's honing in on what those things are because then that's where you can be productive.

SPEAKER_03 25:01

Yeah, that's right. Just a couple things you could you could consider doing. Uh identify your top 20%, whatever that is as a leader or manager, it's an employee. Uh choose to cut one thing that may be noise, you know, that you could delegate to someone else, or maybe it's not even necessary to be done at that point. You know, what what matters most? Um great leaders don't manage everything, they just protect what matters most.