Welcome to the Christianity and Business Podcast with Host Darren Sheer, an initiative of the RGW Denham College of Business at Houston Baptist University. This is the show that helps Christian business leaders integrate their local values into business. You can get more information about HPU Center for Christianity and Business, and set up to receive free access to all pages of the Christian Business Review Journal by visiting our website at ChristianityInbusiness.com.
SPEAKER_02On this episode, we're joined by Dr. Elaine Cohey. Lane was educated at the U.S. Air Force Academy, University of Redlands, University of Colorado, and Rollins College, where he received his doctorate in business administration. He currently serves as an associate professor of management at Palm Beach Atlantic University in West Palm Beach, Florida. Not a bad place to work. Prior to joining PBA, Lane spent 30 years in the defense and aerospace sector, most recently serving as an executive business leader at Harris Corporation. And by the way, he's also a former Air Force officer, so we appreciate your service. And he's the author of the new book, The Disquieted Soul: Paths of Discovery and Deliverance, which is going to be the subject of this uh talk today. So, Lane, welcome to the Christianity and Business Podcast. Thank you, Darren. I appreciate it. Appreciate the invitation. Indeed. You said that you once had a friend call you one of those tortured souls. What did he mean by that?
SPEAKER_01Well, um, tortured souls. When people ask me a little bit just this in a nutshell, I use the terms over-analyzing, over worrying, overperforming, overdoing, over-perfecting, um, and and over um and just kind of a lot of overanalyzing and overthinking. And immediately most everybody kind of gets that, because I think we all kind of live in in a lot of those spaces. Um, so when he was thinking about tortured, uh, he was thinking about my tendencies to do those overs.
SPEAKER_02Like what did that look like for you? I think was this was he looking at how you were kind of operating in in your in your profession or just kind of all around?
SPEAKER_01This this was all around. This was a pastor friend who got to know me fairly well and you know, noticed that um, like a lot of perfectionists um who are always trying to you know keep the shields up, as it were, in the world and not let anybody see you know any any failures or any faults, uh, you can spend a lot of time. And that was kind of my forte, if you will, um, my disquiet was uh a good wall uh of of uh perfectionism. So that's what he saw. Now I brought that into the workplace, and uh to some degree that's rewarded. Uh I think anybody who uh is, you know, kind of brings that that element in will be viewed in some cases as a positive employee. But I then begin to, I think it then begins to um eventually take its toll. And that's really the the highlight, if you will, of the disquieted soul.
SPEAKER_02But you were having a lot of success there at Harris Corporation. So is this revelation kind of before that or during that or after that?
SPEAKER_01Um I think, you know, it was uh what I would call post-processing, my business experience. Uh I was running 100 miles an hour, uh like many folks who are doing executive leadership. And uh and to boot, I was also doing my doctorate at the same time. So it was some degree of craziness. And when you get on that treadmill, uh I think it's fair to say that you oftentimes don't even know you're on it. Um, you're just you, you know, you're running as fast as you can and you're ignoring some core things that may be going on that I I say can be very dysfunctional. So when you have an opportunity to step back and kind of look at it, um, you know, God shows you sometimes some of the things that you weren't seeing during that time. Um, but I needed to write the book if for no one else but for myself to remind myself of some of these patterns and these habits.
SPEAKER_02And that is truly one of the best of a book publisher. I don't think I mentioned that in our uh pre-chat here, but that's one of the best uh reasons to write a book is when you need to just truly get a hold of something yourself, to just immerse yourself into the writing and research process on a particular topic. And and now people are like, wait, you're the disquieted soul guy. Why are why why are you so stressed out about this?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I think if uh two ways you know that you know a topic reasonably well. One is if you can write about it, and the other is if you can teach it. And uh so yeah, that it forces you to do the to do the hard work of understanding it.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. And and so what are some ways that this shows up in a person's so if I'm suffering from this uh the this condition of a disquieted soul, it actually reminds me of kind of the the opposite of that from Psalm. And you may have pointed out this out in your book, where David said, But I have calmed and quieted my soul. Like a weaned child with its mother, I like a weaned child is my soul within me. So that you're you're really trying to help people get to that point. Um, but but in business, like how does this what are some other examples of kind of how this shows up?
SPEAKER_01So I think um let's just take, let's take a an individual and kind of walk through it. I I suggest that disquiet largely is driven by uh threats, uh threats of pain, oftentimes emotional pain, threats of exposure, threats of vulnerability, threats of um, you know, just those common fears that we have that people are going to see us sometimes for who we truly are. And um, those who are given to being, let's say, control freaks, um, and I'll I'll put my hand up, uh tend to then not only control but try to over-control our circumstances. And that shows up a lot of times in perfectionist kinds of behaviors. Um, we seed that when we're trying to control everything so that uh there really is no vulnerability. Um now, none of us are perfect, and and then I suggest that when all else fails, if you will, we've we can turn to some coping mechanisms. And you know, the world is full of uh addictive behavior, many of the addictive things we know about alcohol, drug, etc., but things that are below the surface are perhaps not as as clear. Um but let's you know, let's take a person, and I wrote I wrote a little bit about everyday people like us, and one of them, one of the individuals was um, you know, let's let's start with Randy. Randy's a successful professional, but he grew up with a learning disability and he was picked on as a child. Um so he entered into adulthood really with a chip on his shoulder. He wanted to prove himself, and he was going to work harder than anybody else to get rid of those voices, the critical voices that are laughing at him behind his back. And so to do that, he sets up all of his world as perfect, you know, perfect image, perfect wife, perfect children, perfect social media presence. But under the surface, his soul is very turbulent, um, trying to keep it all together. Uh and eventually uh, you know, he becomes largely a slave to that perfectionism. And so that's that's a little bit. Let's let's take um John. John is a corporate executive, uh, he's had a successful career, uh, we'll call it a sales career, but the company has a new CEO, several of the counterparts have been let go. There's been reductions in force, and new people are coming in, and he's anxious, he's fearful of the threat of losing his job, and he feels powerless to be able to out to overcome that outcome. And so, you know, he's doing all the right things, preparing his resume and all that sort of thing, but he can't shake the anxiety and slowly but surely becomes more and more accustomed to you know being at the bar, if you will, every week every night after work and um you know getting that release or getting that escape that alcohol provides at least for a few hours from the anxiety. So, you know, here's two people there's some business aspect to it, but there's a whole lot of just personal aspect to it as well.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, which which then affects the business and affects everything. Um I was thinking about this term disquieted soul, it made me think of uh Bill Pollard's book, The Soul of the Firm. And and so it got me thinking about companies that have a disquieted soul and how that that culture just really affects everybody in the organization and the way that they just approach the the marketplace. And have you found that companies organized that maybe an organization that you've worked in kind of was suffering from that? What did what did that look like?
SPEAKER_01Well, I've certainly seen uh I don't know that I could say an entire company culture, um, although I've certainly seen cultures where because of the sheer volume of change that happens and is introduced and the inability for people to keep up, if you will, people get very anxious. So individuals become very anxious. So I think that's an element of disquiet um that that you could certainly point out. I think if you kind of stepped back and looked, for example, at some of the five dysfunctions of the team, Lancionis, uh, you know, you'd see some of that maybe coming out in terms of lack of trust or lack of accountability, or some of those might have some tie-ins with um with disquiet. Uh, but I think this, you know, this is just really a core visceral personal experience that that everyone, no one is immune from, from the CEO of the company all the way down to anybody who's working in the operations floor.
SPEAKER_02But but this is possible. I mean, what you're talking about is not something that that uh only awaits us in a eternal rest. Because I mean, David, it's like maybe Jesus could get to this point uh or Lane could get to this point, but I couldn't get to this point. I mean, we read about David, again, going back to that that verse there in Psalms, but I have calmed and quieted my soul. So what does that look like? I mean, what kind of uh just kind of cast a vision for our listeners of what that can look like in their everyday lives, especially in in business, because I mean, as an entrepreneur myself, I know that when um you know you you gotta pay your people, you've gotta uh keep the doors open, you want to continue to grow, all of those kinds of things, there's a lot of uh stress that can there's an opportunity for stress. So what would this look like?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so um one maybe one key chapter that would be very helpful, particularly in the business framework, is the chapter on the driven. And this catalogs um the tendency that driven people, and many driven people, of course, are are business leaders, amongst other things, the tendencies that we tend to have. Um a real good um, obviously good book is uh is Goldsmith's um What Got You Here Won't Get You There. And his catalog is really a catalog of disquiet. And so what I do talk about, and and this will lead into answering your question, is what I call the dark side of achievement. Um we all love achievers, but there is a dark side, and there's two core ingredients that I think we have to get our arms around as believers. One is our tendency towards shame, and the other is our tendency towards pride. And I talk about this a lot in the book, and um they seem strange bedfellows, but they're actually very, very related. And I suggest, and we don't have time to go through all of it, that really getting to the root of understanding our core shame and our core pride is very essential in terms of understanding the reasons for disquiet. But as we begin to diagnose, and that's what the first six chapters are about, are really diagnosing, then um I suggest that uh going up the V. I have a V model where we we go down in discovery and we go up in deliverance. First of all, we have to answer the question, who does God say that we are? Um what is we talk a lot about identity, but we usually talk about identity in the context of who do I say I am, or maybe even what does the Bible say about me. But the real question that I think is important is who does God say we are? And rediscovering our sense of self is critical. The second one is rediscovering or discovering, in some cases for the very first time, who God truly is, particularly in the circumstances of life. Um what I call the God of our circumstances. And the last step, um, and perhaps you know, we can't get there without the first two, is truly developing a sense of trust, a heart of trust. But to do that, because trust gets thrown around a lot with God, you know, trust God, easy say, hard do, to do that, we really have to journey through a willingness to accept that sometimes there's going to be pain. There is going to be, there are going to be uncomfortable circumstances, there are going to be things that we're not going to have control of, there are going to be scary things that are going to have to, and we have to be able to walk through that in increased confidence. So the mechanism, and I'll and um and I'll stop in a moment, but the mechanism I that I keep coming back to over and again is what I call spiritual circuit training. It's a process of actually changing the way in which we think, the our ruminations, um, our spiritual thought life, um, the way in which we process um circumstances and the way in which we view God. And I think um a lot of that is training. It's like fitness training. It never ends.
SPEAKER_02Yes, yes. That's so good. Um on a personal level, what what has been how has this changed your own life? What kind of uh victory has have you had on a personal level through this journey?
SPEAKER_01Well, in chapter three, I talk about something I call cruel masters, and um I I uh many people have used different terms like you know, functional idols or um counterfeit gods. I talked about cruel masters, and one cruel master that I absolutely um struggled with for many, many years was alcohol. I used alcohol as a coping mechanism, I used alcohol to calm myself down. It was my reward, you know, after working hard. Uh it was just an area of chilling out. And um, that's an area where I have seen God's um faithfulness in terms of seeing deliverance happen. Um, not perfect, but certainly a lot of improvement in that area. Um, I also not coincidentally lost 40 pounds when I was, as I was kind of going through that process of really retuning myself spiritually. But so a lot of these are you know, these idols that we carry around. Some of them we hide, some of them are more clear. Um, but I think to be honest with you, although it's always a work in progress, I think every one of my relationships, my core relationships, my relationship with my wife, my relationship with my you know, with others, um, has seen noticeable improvement over the last you know year since I've been writing on disquiet.
SPEAKER_02Beautiful. Thank you for sharing uh that the personal uh victory you've had. So we definitely want people to go get the book, The Disquieted Soul, which actually releases on the day of this recording. So you can go out to Amazon, you can go to disquieted soul.com, and uh, I'm sure there's a link from lanecohey.com as well. That's c o h e dot com. Um any other places you want people, uh things that and there's a a great video series on the book as well at disquietedsoul.com. Anything else you want to say about that?
SPEAKER_01I I I think that yeah, I think disquietedsoul.com would be an excellent starting point for somebody who has perhaps heard this um uh this podcast and and is interested in in studying it in more detail. We did a nice video QA, um, two or you know, three or four minutes per chapter um with a student, uh Davina Sand at Palm Beach, Palm Beach Atlantic. So disquietedsoul.com is is a great starting point.
SPEAKER_02And wrapping it up, what would be a parting piece of advice? Uh something that's that's very actionable that you would want our listeners to do uh in response to this message about the disquieted soul?
SPEAKER_01Well, I think um, first of all, I've tried to catalog a journey, and it's a journey that never ends. And um, I tried to write the book that one could read uh again and again because we need to constantly remind ourselves of this. So I think that the most important thing is as as you alluded to with the psalm, David teaching himself, coaching himself to quiet his soul, changing his ruminations, changing his thought life, seeking God's power to be able to really actively change the way we think about ourselves, the way we think about God, and the way we approach trusting him, those three elements. I think that's changing the way we think and changing the voice we hear. Going back to pride and shame, the voice we hear, I think are critical.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Well said. Well, Lane, thank you so much for taking the time to join us on this uh episode today. And everybody run out to get the book, The Disquieted Soul. And again, those link, that link is disquietedsoul.com. We'll have that in the show notes as well. Lane, thank you so much. We appreciate you. May God uh get bless this book launch and continue continue to bless uh the consulting, the teaching work that you're doing and your family. Thank you, Darren. I appreciate it. Thanks for your time.
SPEAKER_00We 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 and Business at Christianityandbusiness.com. Thanks for listening, and remember to keep integrating biblical values into your business.