Episode 27: Why You Feel So Much Pressure to Provide

Why does it feel like the weight of your future rests entirely on your shoulders?

Whether you're worried about money, your career, your business, or simply trying to keep everything together, the pressure to provide can quietly become one of the greatest sources of fear, anxiety, and burnout.

In this episode of The Navigating Leaders Podcast, Gabriel Griess challenges one of the biggest lies leaders believe about security, success, and control. Through biblical wisdom, practical leadership principles, and personal reflection, he reveals a mindset shift that can replace fear with freedom and help you lead with greater confidence and peace.

If you've been feeling overwhelmed by financial pressure, uncertain about the future, or exhausted from believing everything depends on you, this conversation may completely change the way you think about provision, purpose, and the life you were created to live.

==================== 

RESOURCES

🌎 Website: navigatingleaders.com

👀 Vision Engine: navigatingleaders.com/vision-engine

📖 The Results Tree — A Proven Path to the Life You Really Want: TheResultsTree.com

====================

CONNECT WITH GABRIEL

🎥 YouTube: @navigatingleaders
📸 Instagram: @navigatingleaders

👍 Facebook: @navigatingleaders

🎵 TikTok: @navigatingleaders

🗣️ LinkedIn: @navigatingleaders

====================

ABOUT GABRIEL

Gabriel Griess is a retired US Air Force officer, the CEO of Excel Medical Staffing and MedForceX, and the founder of Navigating Leaders. A graduate of the elite Air Force Weapons School, he has spent decades leading teams in high-pressure environments and equipping others to reach their full potential. As a combat veteran and an entrepreneur, Gabriel helps individuals cultivate self-awareness, resilience, and the ability to create lasting impact.

An internationally sought-after keynote speaker, he addresses audiences on personal transformation, strategic leadership, and veteran empowerment. The Results Tree is the framework he lives by, and when applied, it will unearth your destiny.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

How have you made it this far in life? Where does your provision come from? My name is Gabriel Reese. I'm under number of leaders in the post. We're awake in your vision. So when I bring up provision, right, a lot of people think about money, food. You might even think about things like food and water and housing, right? All the things that we look at to be secure.

unknown 0:50

Right.

SPEAKER_00 0:50

And the story of the world, the story of culture would tell us certain things we need to have.

unknown 0:57

Right.

SPEAKER_00 0:57

For those of you listening in the United States, is the phrase of the American dream, right? The three-bedroom, two-bath house, two cars, a white picket fence, a dog named Spot, two and a half kids. Never quite sure how we get to the half kid, but for the story, we'll go with it, right? And so provision is really a step towards survival. And surviving is what you've managed to do. Right? You've heard me say this before, you're a champion, right? For you to be here today listening to this, to have the resources, the time, the device, the connection to the internet, uh, you are winning. But sometimes it doesn't feel like that. Sometimes it doesn't feel like enough. Or I'm falling behind, or I haven't achieved, or I haven't succeeded or measured up, or I'm not keeping up with the Joneses. And so the world will pitch you a story through media, social media, stories, neighbors, wherever it can get its hands on you to say you're not enough. You haven't done enough. Or worse yet, you're not worthy. You know who you've been, you know what you've done, you know where you've been, you know the things you've said, you know the things you've thought. Why would you ever deserve to be provided for? This is all a story, it's all a myth, and it's all a lie. It's the big lie, right? It's the big lie from the devil. And it's perpetuated based on fear, right? So when we're afraid, we're in survival. When we're in survival, we'll do whatever it takes, right? We we fall into our base animal instincts because we're like, I've just got to survive. But if you ever stopped and stepped back for just a second, how many nights have you slept without a home or a blanket or a pillow? How many nights have you gone to bed hungry? I promise you, there are people listening that these things have happened. Right? Maybe they slept in their car, maybe for a long time. Maybe they had to eat from not the nicest places. But you survived. You're here. You're a survivor. So when it comes to provision, I'll tell you it comes from God. We'll get into the story and and and why that's so true and why there's a mind shift that's available to you in this moment today and every day to relax, to breathe, to get present, right? And Luke 12, 24, it speaks about birds, ravens. Do they build storehouses? Do they lay up grains for seasons? No. And how much they're provided for, and how much more does God love you? And He'll provide for you. He already has. Like, look at your life. You're here. Look at what you're wearing, look what's in the bank account. Maybe it's not the number you've always dreamt of or wanted. Okay. We can talk about that and how to create that in the results tree, right? But you are here. You are winning. You are succeeding. And so much of this and what we talk about is in some cases just a switch of your mindset. Right? The actions may be the same. Right? The things, the actual things you do may stay the same, but the intention, the heart space to come from, the energy with which you step into the arena is different. And so the world would tell you what, do good in school, get a good job. In the old days, they'd say stick around until you get a pension. All those, those are few and far between anymore. Right. And so all those are stories about, in some ways, how to be in control. Right. If I do good in school, and then I get a good internship, or I get a good job, or I get a good apprenticeship, then I'm going to get a trade or a skill or a profession, and then that's going to grow into, you know, higher levels of opportunity, higher levels of success, which usually leads to more money and et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. But there's a story and a term that a lot of folks reach into that say that that's the rat race, right? It's just a different version of the same thing. Right. There's a book I'm really into right now, and uh it's called the Lorax, right? It's old children's book. Uh, used to read it to the kids. And uh in our own world, right, in my own world right now, with the business and the things we're doing, um, provisions come up as a topic, right? And I've gotten to look at where provision comes from. In fact, uh, I was going to give a conversation or share with my team uh this this very story at the start of the new year. And uh, and I didn't. I mean, we didn't get around to it. It just wasn't right with the trainings and the things we were doing and kicking off the new year, and and it just was kind of counter to it. And what was funny, right? Funny is that I have this thought that it's for somebody else, when in reality it was for me and for my family, right? Was for me to look at provision, was for me to look at, am I living my vision, right? Is it is it awakened? And am I living boldly? And uh I can be bolder, right? Which is crazy, right? Like I'm I'm sitting here right now, and this is bold and out of the, you know, out of the comfort zone and and and kind of crazy in some ways, right? But I can always be bolder, right? And and boldness is an act of faith, right? I'm stepping out further into surrendering control to say, God, I trust you. You've gotten me this far. I have faith. I know you're gonna take me the next step, right? Because you already know what those next steps are. Right. So this is this is kind of some heady stuff that I'm gonna ask you to sit with and chew on a little bit, uh, because there's a freedom on the other side of this, right? So when we get into the book, the results tree, and there's 11 F's in there. One of them is finance, right? Faith, family, finance, fitness. And so finance is really provision, but there's another one called freedom. And I'll tell you, when you get your provision straight, when you get your finance and and where it comes from, grounded, where it belongs, there's a real sense of freedom. Right. There's a there's just a breath, uh, and a lightness, an excitement that you're like, I'm good. I'm good. I've been taken care of every day of my life, I'm be taking care of every rest of the day. Let's go. Like, let's get after it. What am I here for? What's my purpose? Right. And then I step into that arena, right? So, what I don't want you to hear me say is that your needs aren't real. Your needs are very real, right? We need eight hours of sleep. If you're not getting it, get it. It's good for you. If you can get nine, do it, right? If you're a teenager, a dozen, 13, 14 sometimes, it seems like, as they're growing, right? We need to have a good diet, right? You know, eat on the outside of the grocery store. You can't stay out of the center aisles, avoid the, avoid the processed foods, avoid anything that has a shelf life as long as a Twinkie, right? Like, like we know the things we need to do to sustain this vehicle known as our bodies, right? Uh, to provide for it, right? To clothe it, all those sorts of things. So, so our needs of safety and security and provision and and sustenance are true. What I'm asking you to do is to acknowledge, maybe for the first time, or to realign to it is that it's not up to you, right? It's not for you to do. God's got a plan for you. It's gonna be taken care of. So this is talking about a lot in the Maslow's hierarchy of needs, right? And so if you look it up and you look at the pyramid, most of us have seen it somewhere in our education process about it's it's it's hard to be actualized if I'm not fed or safe and secure, right? And so um that's an attempt, right, to build a structure that people can understand. But I think it also then leans into maybe I have control over this. And you don't like control is an absolute illusion, right? I have faith and I can do in this moment exactly what uh the best I can do, and then and then walk that out, right? So an example I'd give you is have you always had the same job?

unknown 9:59

Right?

SPEAKER_00 10:00

Think back to your first job. Then was there a second job? Maybe a third. Were they in the same fields? Right. So my background, right, I was a kid who put up hay in Nebraska, right? Built fences, chopped shatter cane out of Milo fields, got some scars to show that because I wasn't very good with a corn knife. Um, you know, then it's go off to the Air Force and fly airplanes, and then some some sort of an adventure and in politics and entrepreneurial land, both of which paid nothing. Uh, and uh I called entrepreneurial land or better known as unemployment until it turned into something, right? And then I got into the space we're in now. And, you know, all those were different. In all those arenas, I was cared and fed and housed and clothed and all those sorts of things. And so it's not my job. That's not where my provision comes from, but it comes through that job. It comes through that business, it comes through that side hustle, it comes through that uh that grant or scholarship or whatever it is, right? But make no mistake that's God's provision for you, right? And so it's it's it's just a really neat, neat, neat um realization, right? And so I invite you to to look at that, right? And so you can surrender the keeping up, you can surrender the insta-worthy, the Facebook worthy, the post worthy, perfect picture, and settle into the fact that if God was willing to send his son to die to redeem you, to bring you back into relationship with him, you think he's not gonna take care of you tomorrow and the next day? So Psalms 37, 25 says, I once was young and now I'm old, which actually with a little bit of a gray beard, there's some truth coming to this, right? Yet I've never seen the righteous forsaken or their children begging for bread. Right? And that's the story, that's the narrative narrative, that's the scary part, right? It's like if you're a father, I was having this conversation earlier today, right? If if I'm a father, then we're taught that we have this role as a provider, right? And mothers and women can take on that role as well, right? They can have that heart space of, gosh, I have to provide. And especially if you're a single mom, then you definitely have that heart space. But what I would say is, God, our father, is our provider. We, those of us that are heads of households, right, are the protectors. We're also the teachers and the healers and the lovers, the different archetypes. But none of those ancient archetypes speak about being providers. Provision comes from a divine place, not from an earthly place. And so just just be with that, right? I'm not saying this is gonna, you know, maybe a bell's gone off for some of you. If it has, shoot us a note, right? Let us know because uh we're in lockstep with you, right? I get it. I'm there with you. It's awesome, it's new, it's invigorating, it's freeing, right? To not be constantly um up against it. But uh it does take, it does take a different look, right? And in Matthew 6, 31-32, it talks about don't worry about what you're gonna eat or drink, right? Pagans rush after those things. But the Father knows you need them, right? He knows. He made us, right? He's before the dawn of time determined the opportunities out before us and where our life is gonna go, right? And so he doesn't, he doesn't have you start that race thinking you're gonna run out of gas before you get to the end of it. So I hope that this discussion around provision uh creates relief, gives you a space for a breath to maybe see something a little bit differently, right? To step back into that work environment or that that academic environment or wherever you're finding yourself spending the more majority of your time every day engaging. Uh, maybe you're toiling, right? But but you're there pouring your life force into it and to not be fearful that if I do something wrong, I'm not going to be provided for. Right. If I don't do something right, I'm going to get scolded or sent away or fired, right? Because that's terrifying and that is no way to live. So uh in the Air Force, we used to talk about this, and I use it a lot now, and that is we talk about bloom where you're planted. In fact, I'm in the process right now working with somebody who has done an amazing, amazing job where they're at. And it's made them, you know, a target to be elevated, right? It's somebody that I'm like, hey, this person gets to be developed. There's there's so much here for them. And so that's your invitation is you're in the present moment, you're here, do your best, pour into what you're doing, do it from a love space, a heart space of love, and and the rest takes care of itself, right? So bloom where you're planted. The other one that I really just heard the other day that I never heard before, and that is, you know, we've heard this the phrase, the grass is always greener, right? On the other side of the fence, which leaves people always wanting or looking or coveting or reaching or thinking what is here isn't enough. And and this one really touched me, and it is the grass is greenest where it's watered. The grass is greenest where it's watered. And so I look at that very similarly to balloon where you're planted, right? So you are where you are in this moment. And as you've heard us say before, right? You're exactly where you're supposed to be. And so from that place, you can go anywhere, right? And one of the first places and the places the devil loves to get us off track is around money. It's around safety, it's around security. And that word is provision in this case, right? So know where your provision comes from. Cut that cord, you know, tell the devil, thanks for sharing, but not today, Satan, right? Go away, dude. Like I don't have time for this. And and just see the the space of tranquility, the space of I'm okay, I'm safe, I'm provided for. So I asked, how have you made it this far in the beginning? It's because of a father's love. He's got you, he made you, he loves you, he adores you. He wants nothing more than for you to live the fullest, most dynamic, outrageous version of yourself that only you can live. And here's the kicker. He gave us free choice. So you get to choose. Here's a beautiful thing. So if you don't choose today, you can choose tomorrow. He's still there, still loves you completely, fully forgiven, fully ready to welcome you home. So um this has been awesome for me personally, right? Walking this dog, going through this experience and looking at it has helped me personally with my relationship around provision. And so I hope through sharing this, there's been something here for you. Uh if it is for you, listen again. Like there's some stuff in here that's gonna shake some stuff up. And in that disturbed space, you can choose differently. You can put the puzzle back together differently. You can put the pieces back together, right? Or it made you think of somebody. Like I always say, drop it into a text, send it to them, invite them to be part of the navigating leaders community, join us on the socials, share with us what's going on. Uh, if you have a massive or when you have a massive illumination around this, share it, right? Let us celebrate with you because this is one of the biggest cords you can cut, and it will open so many doors for joy and freedom and peace and excitement and uh everything this life is meant to be, right? It's meant to be joyful, it's meant to be fun. Let it be fun. So you're a champion. I honor you. I honor you for making it this far, for choosing to take yourself on, choosing to be the better version of yourself, and choosing, thank you for listening to this podcast. I'm Gabriel Greese, founder of Navigating Leaders, your host, and at Navigating Leaders, we awaken your vision so you can live boldly. Let's go do it. Live boldly. Take a chance on yourself. We're all cheering for you. Until next time, be well and God bless. Thank you.