Welcome back to the Christianity Business Podcast, an initiative of the RTW Dunham College of Business at Houston Baptist University. I'm your host, Darren Shear, and this is the show that helps Christian business leaders integrate biblical values into business. On this episode, we're joined by John Ramstead. John loves combining his experience as a Navy combat fighter, Fortune 500 manager, and serial entrepreneur with his passion for helping leaders and their teams reach their full potential, all while incorporating the valuable lessons he learned from surviving a near-fatal horseback riding accident in 2011. And by the way, you can go back and listen to our episode on overcoming adversity in your career. You can hear John talk about that experience. And we may hear some of it on this interview, but he's uh he's back on the show. Um, recovering from a severe traumatic brain injury that required 23 surgeries and put him under hospital care for almost two years, radically transformed John's thinking and forced him to connect with who he was meant to be. He learned how to create his best life and is excited to help others do the same. And uh he talks about this in his new book, On Purpose with Purpose, Discovering How to Live Your Best Life. And he's also the host of the Eternal Leadership Podcast, which I've been listening to actually since day one. John, my friend, welcome back to the show.
SPEAKER_02Hey Darren, how are you buddy? So great to see you again on video and uh having our conversation.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, and I'm I'm so glad we got this actually uh on the recording because I know we've had to reschedule a couple of times because on top of everything else you've been through, you've been battling COVID and uh you've kicked that um and still kind of on the mend. But um we know that God's continuing to to restore you and appreciate you taking the time out.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, you know, it's good to be here. I was an ICU for a week, uh, which was a little bit uh um a little scary, mostly because you're just you're alone, nobody can come visit you. It's been two months and still on oxygen, still getting better. And uh, but I gotta, you know, it's you know it's interesting. In in all this, God has created some new relationships and people I would have never met had this not happened. So um, you know, when God says all things work together for good for those that love the Lord, um, man, I I absolutely accept that at face value now in everything, even if the evidence isn't right in front of me.
SPEAKER_03So you've been through uh, you know, there was a a softball injury that kind of knocked you, you had already been selected as a top gun pilot, that kind of put that dream uh to an end. And then a horseback riding accident, 23 surgeries. Now here you are, you know, having gone through ICU with with COVID. How do you how do you take the hits and just keep on moving forward with what God's called you to do?
SPEAKER_02Well, you know what? Uh every time we go through adversity, Darren, here's what I've learned about myself. And in this is how life happens. We are either um heading into a storm, or either coming out, you know, we're in the middle of a storm, or we're coming out of storm and things are clearing up and we got blue skies. And then there's gonna be another storm on the horizon. I mean, it's just how life happens. Like nobody saw a year ago that we might all that life would be radically changed because of a virus. Um, every time you go through adversity, there is never a status quo.
SPEAKER_01You will always emerge from adversity stronger, or you'll emerge from adversity weaker.
SPEAKER_02And there's been plenty of times where I've mer emerged from uh adversity weaker, not proud of how I did it, who I was in the middle of it. Um and I you know, you know what was actually really interesting for me if you know Lance Wall now. I I got to sit down with him one-on-one, and I was just talking about all as I wanted to really help leaders. And and I was just talking about all the, and you just mentioned a few of some of the big ups and downs that I've had in my life. He goes, you know what? If you got for God to really use you, you have to understand how he's used everything to equip you as a leader, as a husband, as a father, as somebody just volunteering down at the you know, the food bank. Everything is equipped to you today. And he had me uh draw on a big piece of paper and he turned it sideways. Like, you know, one of those things you'd use like at a board meeting that you stick up on the wall after you put your notes on, turned it sideways, put a line through the middle. He says, I want you to draw everything as far back as you can remember, the highs and the lows from a spiritual standpoint. And the first thing I remembered all the way back when I was young, when I was 12, and my parents got divorced, and then I started mapping highs and lows, and we started looking at everything. He goes, Now these low points, is anything associated here with pain, with trauma, is there an emotional reaction? Because what that indicates is healing still needs to happen. There's probably some places in there that maybe it's forgiveness, maybe you need to let God in. But as I went through this process and I even identified some things that I did not realize that in in the present as an adult that was still um either haunting me, driving behavior, probably coloring how I was showing up in situations. But just that that was just one little thing that I did. But through that, um, I've really tried to gear my mind to trust God in everything, Darren, um, to emerge from everything stronger. Like COVID, man, it's terrible. I mean, I mean, I had no income. I mean, this year going in after retooling everything last year, I couldn't work. I was uh in for seven weeks, I had to cancel every meeting, right? My wife is uh home, she helps me, right? So she it's not like she was out making deals happen. And as things got a little tight, right, we're just like, Lord, you got this. You've been faithful in everything since I've had that accident and before. And I I believe getting through adversity is two things. A, choosing to trust the Lord, and B, holding on to hope. Hope that even though I don't see the evidence today that tomorrow or next week or next month or even maybe next year could be better or even will be better. And I think it's those two things that have allowed me to go through so much um adversity, unfortunately, that that we have gone through.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. One of the quotes I loved from your book, uh, which as a reminder for everybody, it's titled On Purpose with Purpose, Discovering How to Live Your Best Life, which is available for purchase now. You said sometimes it takes an extraordinary event for us to come face to face with our true nature. We must lean into that true identity if we are to move forward. If we believe the lie of a false identity we've accepted, it will prevent us from achieving our highest potential. Can you unpack that for us?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, because think about um your identity, your current identity. Um, we have built over, I'm 54 years old, right? I have spent 54 years building this identity. And our mind, our brain, the actually, there's actually a lot of neuroscience behind it, carefully protects it. Now I've had all these different experiences in my life. There's been things that I've done well and I've gotten, you know, affirmations for. There's things that I've done well, not done well, that I've either hidden so people didn't know, um, or I was criticized for by my boss. There's uh things that I've tried and people doubted me. Like when I was gonna go to flight school, all the way back when I was younger, when I was gonna like I grew up afraid of heights. I did. My all my friends knew I was afraid of heights. And I was, and I was not the most social. I didn't have a lot of friends in high school. I had a real low self-image. But when I told people I was gonna go down and be a fighter pilot, do you know all my friends laughed? And man, that stuck in my cry. Do you know when I first applied to flight school? Actually, I didn't apply because I was in Navy Ratsi when Top Gun came out, right? So it was like everybody was hyper aware of this. And I was so I believed what they said. So when I went back to my my Ratsi unit, I didn't put aviation down. Then I realized I had given up on myself in a dream, and I talked to my dad, and I decided this might be the worst decision I've ever made, but I can't give up on my dreams. And I chose to reapply to aviation, ended up getting in. Um so our identity as we go through. If I understand the question, is how how does that because I got off tangent here? Um, I'm gonna blame it on COVID, Darren. Remind me the question again.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, well, basically the the quote from the book was about how we must lean into our true identity if we're to move forward. If we believe in that false identity, it'll prevent us from achieving our highest potential.
SPEAKER_02That's right. So that false identity for me was you know, hey, I'm a victim of circumstances. Life doesn't happen for me, it happens to me. There was a lot of that in my head. And I think what happens is kind of like money. Uh, money is a ample, it amplifies our character. And I think, you know, that's why you actually look at most lottery winners, um, they go bankrupt. Right? They just haven't, most people haven't built a really solid character. Adversity does the same thing. I think the either I could have chosen to be angry and bitter, and there was days that I was, trust me, I'm human, right? I could have seen myself as a victim. I could actually look at everything that I no longer can do, and there's a long list of that. So I can focus on places that I'm lack that I think I'm lacking, have regrets and be a victim, or the other side, the identity in Christ. What is Christ, man? He is an overcomer. I mean, he is he speaks, and I mean, right? He said, if you have a uh uh faith the size of a mustard seed, you you know, make this mountain jump in the water. Um, I mean, let's think about that. He was talking to his disciples when they couldn't cast out a demon. And he like chastised them. He's like, You have little faith, like, guys, you can do more than me. Now, they still, I mean, think about this, right? This is our journey. They still, even though they'd been in his presence, hadn't truly, I believe, accepted their new identity. He gave them new names, right? In him. And yeah, so when you go through adversity, you have this opportunity to give yourself like a feedback loop and say, How am I going through this right now? And if Christ was right here and He'd He was manifest in the room and He was my mentor, and He was sharing with me and He was putting things in context. Because what I do know through all of this and reading scripture is when we do hit adversity, like you know, you and I both lost our fathers in the last year.
SPEAKER_01And it's hard, uh too early, right?
SPEAKER_02Um we are not promised an explanation, but what we are promised is that God, the Jesus, the Father, is going to walk with this through everything because when I was in at my accident, when I was laying there on the ground and my body was crushed from my chest up, found out later from many doctors what happened to me was not survivable. And I'm in God's presence. The first thing he said to me, Darren, first words out of his mouth wasn't really his mouth because it was this voice that came from everywhere and nowhere, and it wasn't booming, but it just filled every space around me. And I was in the mountains and it wasn't to my ears, it was like flowing through me. It's like everything was speaking. Um, but he said, All things work together for good for those that love the Lord. And think about why would he, because he knew what I he knew the next it was going to be not, he wasn't gonna heal me and you know, just like Lazarus, you know, come on out, right? Like you're good, just take off the smelly clothes and we'll get you a bath and have dinner. It's like, no, man, like he knew that there was two years of a very hard road in front of me, and I held on to that every day. That allowed me to develop a positive mindset about the future and really start to shine a light on those things that were honestly not serving me well.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Long answer to a short question, sorry, but yeah, and and before we we started the recording, you were referencing 2 Corinthians 5.17 about how when you're a new creation in Christ, old things have passed away, all things are becoming new. And but a lot of times what we want to do is kind of hold on to that old identity, the old ways of of living, the old ways of doing business. What what's supposed to change?
SPEAKER_02Well, think about this, right? This is our promise of a new lease on life, and also in John 10 10, Darren, Jesus said, I came to give you life so that you may live it to the full. So here, my definition of full life, 1010, Paul just got the tar beat out of him, whipped and rocks thrown at him, and he's thrown in the pit of a Roman prison. And he's shackled to a wall, and I'm sure it's just you just imagine, like, and what does he do? Dude, he starts breaking out in worship songs. Not my reaction, right? That'd be a 10. Okay, like nothing external matters at all. Like, woo-hoo! Wonder what God's gonna do next, right? I just got the tar beat out of me, and I'm chained in the basement of a prison where nobody comes out alive. This is so cool. Okay, that's like the Tigger reaction, right? Number one is like Eeyore, like, oh boy, and you're barely hanging on. I gotta tell you, before the accident, before I've had this revelation, on that scale of one to ten, ten, I guess maybe being tigger, one being Eeyore. Um, I was literally probably closer to a two.
SPEAKER_01And what I realized was um is this when you accept Christ into your life, you have a spirit, right?
SPEAKER_02God says our mind, our body, our spirit.
SPEAKER_01Our spirit is instantly made perfect, justified, because it's there in combination with the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_02Our soul, our mind is filled, like I said, with 50 years, 20 years, 30 years, 70 years of this identity we've created, our experiences, our limiting beliefs, our mindsets, our habits. A lot of us have mental habits, maybe toward anger or other things. And it is a, I believe it is a process. That's why, you know, got you know, that's the difference between, you know, milk, pablum, and you know, meat. It's a process. Um, we are already that new creation, but it takes discipleship, it takes intentionality for us to grow or uh not grow, but close the gap between maybe that person we see in the mirror, the person who we think we are, and the person who God sees when he looks at us. Because what God sees is somebody who's perfect, right? Ephesians 2.10, everybody loves to talk about the Ephesians 2.10 calling. And and man, I was always focused on my per on my what is my calling, what is my purpose. Often frustrated that I didn't feel connected to it. But the first part of that is you are Christ's perfect workmanship. And I gotta tell you, I started this process coming out of the accident, saying, okay, with my body crushed, with a brain injury, with no income, with a million dollar leaned against me for medical bills, with my network gone because I had not been able to, except people that were proactively coming over here to spend time with me.
SPEAKER_01Um I'm perfect laying here in this bed right now. God said, Yep, right now. No dependent events, you don't have to do anything.
SPEAKER_02You don't have to, you know, get ready to get ready to get ready. Like, nope, I have a plan. I'm doing things in the world, I'm doing things in the lives of the people around you. And I want, he doesn't need my help, but he goes, I want you to help me. In that moment, I realized I'm good enough.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_02And that started a process. And when I bring this out into business, because most of my clients, um, Darren are not believers. That is the mission field that God has literally chartered me on. I can tell you so many stories of territory he's prepared in environments where God is not welcome. Um some of the military places, and you've been in there, right? And it's gotten worse. They are the it's not a friendly place for people of faith. And also there's some corporations. And he's prepared the territory, and he's given me this amazing mission to go in and work with the leaders and be as representative in that. And what I have found, even as somebody who doesn't know him, and I bring them through this same process to understand who they are, what who is that best version of yourself? Stop comparing yourself to others, start competing with that best version of yourself. Bring all those things out in your life. And when you start doing that as a leader, even a little bit, you start making some small improvements, you can start doing that for the people that work for you. And then you can teach them how to do that for people that work for them. And what I have seen is transformation throughout small to large organizations that when God is honored in that process, all of a sudden you start bringing kingdom principles. It's like the law of gravity. You know, people have probably heard that, right? You know, the law of gravity doesn't matter whether you believe in it or not. It's, you know, you throw something off a building, you throw yourself off a building, you're gonna fall. God's principles of uh are are immutable.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And when they get incorporated into an organization, all of a sudden people are like, hey, this place is awesome. Why are we getting these results? Everybody's getting along better. Nobody wants to leave. I can't even tell you how many times coaching people from the process that's in this book, because that's really where this book came from, this whole process God gave me to go through personally, right? From self-awareness to who I am, to really get clear on everything that God sewed into me from my passions, my values, my talents, my skills, on this concept of convergence on actually where they all come together, because that just gives us absolute rocket fuel toward our calling. And when it happens, it's just a beautiful thing. Um, I've had so many conversations, Darren, from people are like, okay, John, we're getting all these results. And we've had other people in here, and like your stuff sounds familiar, but what's going on? Like, where does your stuff come from? I'll never forget, I was sitting down with a guy, he's well known here in the town that I'm in. He's an atheist, he's very adversarial to the faith community. And um I got called into his office. He's it's a public company. You'd you'd you'd know the name. And he he asked me that question. He said, Where does your stuff come from? And I said, Well, I don't think you want to know. Which he he did not like that answer. He's actually probably about 20 years older than me, right? And so he kind of demanded, and I said, Well, sir, my everything I'm teaching your people and everything that I do comes, it's based 100% on the Bible and my personal relationship with Jesus. And he looks at me funny, you know, like uh, you know, like a puppy when you whistle and they kind of turn their heads sideways. Yeah, that's what he did, like in the moment. I I literally, this is a serious moment, but I when he did that, I I had to not chuckle, seriously. And um, I knew that his wife had also had um uh a brain injury. I said, Hey, can I tell you a story about my brain injury? I'm like, I got nothing to lose here. I just felt the spirit nudge me. I shared with him, and I don't normally do this. God always gives me the words on whether to tell uh a very spiritual version of my accident or a little more, I guess, plain glass version, the way Ford Taylor says it. Dude, I went all in. I didn't leave out a thing. And at the end of this, he goes, he kind of puts his fingers together and steeples them, steeples his two index fingers, puts his chin on his two fingers, and goes, huh. Interesting. That was the end of the meeting. As soon as I did that, I feel it now. My hairs and my arms are sticking up. Dude, I felt, I can feel my whole body has chills right now because I felt the joy of the Lord filling that room. It was almost like I could like put my hands or like putting your hand through water, like it was thick. Like I was like, this, gee, this is so cool. I'm like, well, I didn't convert him. I didn't witness to him. I didn't do the sinner's prayer. Like, guess what? That was John, that wasn't my job. My job was to share my testimony on somebody who'd he respected in business who'd gotten results that he'd been trying to get. And as I walked back to that elevator, I knew that I had just played a part in a plan and work that God is doing in that guy's life. And I have no idea how it's going to be used in the future. We have never had a conversation again. And it doesn't matter because I knew in that moment, through all this hard work of six months, it was actually one of the least favorite clients I've ever worked with. It was toxic. It led to that moment. And now talk about that. That was my purpose.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_02In that moment. And dude, that was so fun. So I get to help people with what I do now. And I love it, man. I get to be a king maker.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_02God is calling people right now. He is moving big time, leaders in business, in ministry, in the media, um, in government. I'm getting to work with these amazing people behind the scenes and being this little catalyst versus trying to be that person out front, which is what I was trying to do before. And I'm not saying that's right or wrong. For me, my role right now, my purpose is to come alongside leaders and just show them what could be and give them the tools on how to move toward that.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. And you share a lot of these tools, kind of your your greatest hits in this book. Um, with the time we have remaining, John, why don't you give us uh a sense of kind of where we're going when we enter the world of this book and all the amazing stories and principles that you teach? What is the process that you're taking people through? Or maybe just hit kind of uh a couple of them?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, let's here, let's think about this real quick. Um so everybody here on the call, if you're listening, right? The think about the last time you were on an airliner and you're up at 38,000 feet and you're kicking back, and the crew's got autopilot on. What percent of time do you think that airplane's actually on course? Do you know, Darren? You might have read it.
SPEAKER_03I know because I read it.
SPEAKER_02So I'll tell you right now, here's the answer. It is less than 3% of the time. Now, that might sound concerning to some of you, but let's think about what's going on. The airline, you're flying through the air. When you feel turbulence, do you know what that actually is? Our big giant wind gust up at altitude. It pushes that airplane off course. The engines are turning, people are walking up and down the aisle. Any one of those would just subtly move that um aircraft on course. Now, here's the deal: in our own life, we are constantly being pushed off course. Our own health, a decision somebody else makes, a new law, a pandemic. I don't know. But we are our own stupid trash we got in our head. I mean, we are constantly being pushed off course. Now, that autopilot that we use as a pilot um has some significant components we got to think about. And it needs three things to work well. The first one is true north. I have to have a navigational reference to first of all set that first course when I'm on a new mission, and to be able to make course corrections. And here, what I would ask everybody listening is how connected are you to your own true north? I had a deep season when I studied two questions, which led to my true north even more foundationally, and that is who is God? What is his nature, and what is my relationship to him, and what relationship does he have with me? When I was in his presence at the accident, I felt unconditional love. I had never felt that before. I knew, and I know today, everything I've ever done in the past, good, bad, or otherwise, it does it is not even relevant to the relationship and the love that he has with me right now. And I'm not special. That's every single one of you out there listening. Second question on True North for me was identity. And it was off. It was skewed because of all this stuff that was in my head when I looked in the mirror that was not um what God saw when you really so I had to work at pulling that stuff away. The second is think about you, you grab your phone, you just ran an errand, and your your like your wife texts you and says, Hey, um, would you mind uh running this errand for me? So you what do you do? You you put the first thing you do is you put the destination in your in your app. That thing is useless to get you where you want to go unless you tell it, and then it can actually route you out. So here's a question for each one of us Is what is that destination that you're moving toward? And do you have one that's so exciting that you wake up on Monday morning and you can't wait to get out of bed? Now, there's been times in my life where I've been pursuing goals that were so meaningful, so worthwhile to me, dreams, like getting my wins and being a fighter pilot and building my first company. Man, I couldn't wait. I'm like, I stayed up late, so I could sleep less, so I could get up in the morning. And then as I got older, man, that just all faded and everything just became this routine. And I think it's reconnecting in partnership with the father to a destination and a goal that's really meaningful to you. It could be short term, it could be long term. And here's the other thing, too, is think about this. You're you're in that same parking lot. And this is why I don't use Waze anymore. Waze is the worst at this. It never knows where you are when you first boot the thing up. It doesn't figure it out for like a minute or two. So I always guess, like it routes me somewhere, and I guess, and I almost nine times out of 10, you think it'd be 50-50, but I guess wrong. And now it finally figures out where I am, and now I'm like, oh, I got I added eight minutes to my route because I went on a one-way street, and now I'm frustrated because I'm late. Well, guess what, folks? We need to know our own present position. We have to figure out what are our values, our passions, our mindsets are. We have to look at our association. There's so many elements in each one of these areas, but we can absolutely get clear on all three of these. And then the whole fourth section of the book. So I have the book is these, those three sections. In the fourth section is convergence. And it's where all these come together. When they start coming together, what I found for me and people I've worked with is then that sense of purpose, that sense of calling, man. It's right in front of them. And then it's about, hey, how do I take all this strategy and move it down into execution, daily action habits, flight? We in the military, it was, you know, mission planning and and you know, flight planning. And so I take people through exactly how I did that, how I do it with clients in a way that they can just do it for themselves. Um, and then, you know, just launch off into, and here's something I realized through the accident is I was given this amazing second chance, Darren. I mean, I should literally, I should not be here. We should not be having, you know, physical God aside, we wouldn't be having this conversation. And what do you do with the second chance? It's this unbelievable gift. And I'm sharing that with a friend of mine. He goes, John, you know what I would argue as part of your message is because here's what I heard when you shared that is that you know what, this morning for me, it was a second chance. And I've never understood that before. And every morning before your accident was a second chance, and I don't think you understood it. And now you do. And that's the good news for every single person listening. If you're not where you want to be, your business, your business growth, your team, your family, um, your spiritual life, what you're doing in God's kingdom, whatever is bubbling up right now to the top. Oh, yeah, that's where my area of either frustration or discontent is. Tomorrow morning is a second chance. And I give you permission to rewrite your script. And I would find people that have done the same thing, that have achieved peace and joy and prosperity in whatever that is that's on your heart. You know, success, significance, whatever word you want to use. And in and I gotta tell you, power of association is huge. But I would I would tell you because the evidence was not there, but what I didn't realize is my best days I'm living right now. And it sure didn't feel like that was even a possibility at times nine years ago.
SPEAKER_03Well, as everybody is hearing, John is uh is a Barnabas. Uh Barnabas is the son of encouragement that comes along side and um and helps to to point us to be that wingman, uh, like like we all need. And and he's had that in his life, and he's um committed his life to being that for others. Uh John, we sure appreciate you. Any um any places you want to point people? Beyondinfluence.com is the is the website. Certainly, people subscribe to the Eternal Leadership podcast.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I'd love for people to go to beyondinfluence.com forward slash book. The book comes out April 27th. Um, man, we are just trying to create a a movement to change not only who people are, but how they lead, especially you know, across different spheres. And so we're giving away all kinds of just great stuff if people buy the book and then leave us an honest review. So go there and you can actually register. So when you buy the book, you can come back and um get a free copy of the audiobook. Get some of my best courses that I sell for free. We're just trying to really serve and create our community. And if you just want to go buy the book, it's on all the booksellers for pre-order right now Barnes Noble, Amazon, Books a Million. Um, anywhere you you're a you go buy books.
SPEAKER_03Excellent. Beyond influence.com forward slash book. John, thank you again for your time. Um, appreciate you coming back on the show. And uh, I know our audience is better for it. Appreciate it.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, Darren, great to be here. And thanks for what you're doing, brother. It's so needed. And I gotta tell you, the the biggest opportunity, I believe, for ministry right now in the is in the US in the marketplace.
SPEAKER_00Couldn't agree more. We hope you've enjoyed this episode, and if so, we would greatly appreciate it if you would leave us a quick rating and review for the Christianity in Business podcast on iTunes. You can get more information about HBU Center for Christianity in Business at Christianity in Business.com. Thanks for listening, and remember to keep integrating biblical values into your book.