021 Am I Too Far Ahead? | The Gathering CEO Josh Kwan

Josh Kwan leads The Gathering, a national community of philanthropists and impact investors who span the full political and theological spectrum.

His only real currency is trust, and every consequential decision he makes runs through one question: how far can he push this community before he gets out too far ahead of them? 

He points to a line from the organization's founder: if you climb out of the trench and wander so far in front of your community, they start to think you're the enemy. That tension shows up when Josh decides who gets on stage at their keystone event. 

This conversation covers his decision to bring a Republican and a Democrat senator before the community at the same time, what the calculus looked like, and why he tells newcomers he can almost guarantee they will hear someone at the conference they strongly disagree with.

He also talks about why trust is meant to be spent rather than hoarded, why feedback from people on opposite ends of the spectrum is how he finds his way back to center, what he wishes he'd understood about the board relationship before his first time as a CEO, and what Ernest Shackleton has to do with leading a nonprofit.

Josh Kwan has led The Gathering since 2019. Before that, he co-founded Praxis, a creative engine for redemptive entrepreneurship.

Transcript

Navigating Faith in Diverse Audiences

Adam Jeske 0:04

Nonprofit

The Gathering: Purpose and Leadership

Adam Jeske 0:05

CEOs are constantly making consequential decisions, often under pressure or in isolation. I'm Adam Jeski, the Nonprofit CEO Advisor, and this is the Nonprofit CEO podcast, where CEOs talk about the decisions they carry. Today our guest is Josh Kwan, CEO of The Gathering. Josh, welcome to the show. Thank you, Adam. It's a pleasure to be here. For those who are not familiar with The Gathering, tell us a bit about the organization.

Josh Kwan 0:29

Yes. Thank you for the invitation to share and to learn with you. So I lead The Gathering, which is a collection of families that are just passionate about following their faith and being inspired by their Christian faith to steward wealth wisely. That means how to give effectively, how to think about all forms of capital that they are entrusted to care for. So that's how they lead their family office or their family enterprise or the reputation they have in their community, or the relationships they have to nonprofit uh organizations, uh civic or institutions, um, friends in the community, their local churches. How do they steward all these resources so that they love their neighbors well?

Adam Jeske 1:16

And how long have you been leading at the gathering?

Josh Kwan 1:19

Uh I start January 1st, 2019. Uh so yeah, seven full years uh uh at the helm of this organization.

Adam Jeske 1:29

So that's a while and some pretty important years, uh like pretty big geopolitical events, national events. Um tell us about a consequential decision or set of decisions that you've needed to make while you've been leading the gathering.

Consequential Decisions in a Diverse Community

Josh Kwan 1:45

Sure. I I maybe if I can set some of this context, right? Because uh the people who belong to my community uh span the entire country. And they come from all different stories of how they acquired their wealth or inherited the wealth. Some of them are uh first generation wealth creators who've started a business, some are uh multiple generation uh inheritors of wealth, and they come from oil and gas companies and manufacturing companies and high-tech companies and real estate businesses, and they have a wide range of opinions about what would be defined as a major problems that we face as a society. And because we're a faith-based organization, uh, what ails the church, the American church or the global church? And so uh, if you are gonna have differences of opinion on what the problems are, and then most likely you're gonna have a difference of opinions on how to solve those problems. Um and so, as you mentioned in the last few years, we've uh seen quite a bit of a division in our society, a fraying of our society, um, whether that's uh politics or thinking about science or understanding um uh definitions of common everyday words. Um uh we've had a really big division around racial injustice in this country. Um, all those things are playing out in all of our communities, right? All states, all cities, all rural areas. And so these are the people who are coming to my uh annual conference as well. And so that's where we do most of our learning, our conversations. Uh, and so I've had to navigate how do you hold this community that does hold something very cherished in common, but have a lot of differences of opinion on how to express the application of their faith to their giving and to their investing.

Adam Jeske 3:38

And I imagine that that dynamic has oscillated a bit in terms of its intensity, um, the temperature of it, but also kind of ever-present. Like low tide is not very low. And so, how do you find yourself making decisions about how to navigate those waters? Um, you know, not looking for details about individuals, but sketch out some stories, some anecdotes that illustrate the tension and how you go about making uh a series of decisions related to that.

Josh Kwan 4:13

Yeah. I imagine for for many of your listeners, um they're cultivating and fostering a set of relationships, uh, not just to the institution that you lead, but really uh peer-to-peer relationships as well. Um so as I'm thinking about leading this group of people, I have to uh uh keep in mind that the relationship I have with uh my community is based on trust. And that's the most important, most vital, the essentially the only currency that matters uh in my world. And so uh that probably translates really well to lots of other organizations where the donor relationship or the stakeholder relationship or the relationship that you have with the people that you try to serve and support and care for, that's built on trust. And so I think of this kind of question or this contentious issues around the framework of how do I build and maintain a sense of trust? And I do that by uh uh harkening back to the things that we all agree that we care about. I think about trying to accumulate and build and secure and sustain trust. And I also have to think about how I might be willing to use and expend, if you will, uh some of that trust. And I think if you just hold trust without being willing to stretch and nudge and put some of that trust at risk. And I and it's not try putting trust at risk in a dangerous way, but it's more about getting people outside of their comfort zones, outside of their bubble, if you will, outside of their normal ways of thinking or or their hardened set of ideas, and to be placed in positions where we're gonna be confronted with other perspectives that I may not have encountered before, but I need to have someone walk alongside me, someone I trust, to have a difficult conversation, a conversation that may push me to rethink some of my uh uh preconceived notions.

Adam Jeske 6:10

And who might those sorts of conversations be with?

Josh Kwan 6:15

Yeah. So again, uh so the people that the my audience, my core audience, are people are philanthropists, uh, impact investors, uh, business owners. And then I call this a this is a learning community. The gathering is a learning community. So our purpose isn't just to hang out and have fun and hang out at the you know, uh golf club, uh clubhouse, right? Uh it's to learn and stretch. Uh so when I say that we're a learning community, who comes in, who do we invite to help us learn? And these are people uh you know, experts in their fields. So maybe a practitioner in a particular sector or industry. So a lot of our um uh members or participants are are are concerned about human trafficking, they're concerned about global poverty, they're concerned about uh education and healthcare, crime, people who are suffering from disabilities or mental health crisis. My role at the gathering is to try to scour the world and identify who are leading thinkers and innovators and practitioners in those spaces. And then we also will bring in academics or journalists or uh policymakers or theologians uh to provide a um help us give us a grounding uh in sort of the root causes and uh help us understand what are the key trends and maybe who are some of the pioneers in the field.

Adam Jeske 7:40

Josh, describe for me if you are really successful at navigating some of these questions, these tensions, if you make great decisions related to who to invite, uh what to say, what to not say, if you're really successful at this group of decisions, what does that look like? And

Building Trust and Navigating Tensions

Adam Jeske 8:02

if things don't go well, if you make decisions poorly, uh if you make mistakes, then what what are the risks? What can happen?

Josh Kwan 8:12

That's a tough question because sometimes uh sometimes you find out when you stub your toe. And then you're like, ow, that that's painful. I would say if things go well, if if uh my team and I are effective in what we do, I think someone you know, our you know, our so-called customers, the people who come to our events and participate in our activities and our learning opportunities, they're gonna come in and they're they'll feel like one, that they're um encouraged, their faith is uplifted, their hearts are full, um, they feel empowered and confident in the role that they play in stewarding wealth. Okay. Uh and then they're gonna also, they're they're uh people are coming in with a set of convictions, a framework of how to think about philanthropy, about how to deploy capital. And part of my role is to give them a further grounding in what they already believe and what they already do, right? So that's gonna strengthen uh the conviction of what they're uh how they've been uh deploying capital, let's say, um, what they're passionate about, what they've turned their hearts towards. And then there's another part where uh part of my role is to help them uh widen the scope of what they see and understand and to help them develop an empathy and a listening ear for a different perspective. And I think there's a couple of reasons for that. One is that it may very well just simply sharpen your own ways of thinking, like develop a better argument and better understanding of how to convey and communicate what you believe to someone who doesn't share your uh your worldview, right? So you need to sharpen your own thinking by being having it exposed to somebody very thoughtful, very uh rooted and uh wise. You don't want to put up a flimsy argument and say, oh, my my side is so much stronger than the other side because you put up a straw man and just get easily defeated. No, you want to uh uh encounter the very best steel man arguments from the other perspective. Now, the other uh what I have what sometimes could happen is that the other argument is so strong it forces you to rethink your long-held opinions and views. And that's also a beautiful thing. And that needs to happen again in a trusted environment. I'm not gonna want to, I'm my guard is gonna be up and my defenses will be raised if I don't feel safe and I don't feel like this is a trusted environment where I can grow and learn and ask, ask sometimes humbling questions, ask uh questions that may reveal my ignorance or what might be perceived as waffling, but it's just I'm I'm really wanting to be curious about why would another citizen of America think differently than I do? Uh is there a set set of perspectives or life experiences or philosophy or worldview that I just don't understand yet? Success for me means being able to expose my community to really thoughtful, good, sound ideas and opportunities for action. Should I talk about some of the failures or the dangers of when it when it goes wrong?

Adam Jeske 11:22

Yeah, share a little bit about the risk. Because you you said all of this rises and falls on trust. If you make a decision and are breaking trust with a significant portion of uh the community, then I imagine there's a ripple effect or some cascade of of impact.

Josh Kwan 11:40

Aaron Powell So sometimes the danger is, you know, if you think about uh uh who do you learn most from, or in what settings are you most willing to learn and have have seen the largest step function of learning experiences that you you may have. And and it's again like, okay, so it's trust, but then the message and the messenger both matter a lot. Right? So you may have a really great idea, but if the messenger uh is harsh or um uh presents the idea in a way that makes the content go down uh in a very prickly fashion, you're just not gonna digest it very well. On the on the flip side, you may have a very smooth communicator, a very effective speaker, but as a substance, the core ideas aren't provocative enough or tough enough or well-reasoned enough, or exciting enough or or compelling enough, there's gonna be a lack of a real challenge to uh our thinking. Okay. When I think of things that don't work, it's sometimes when I, when I myself have a blind spot, right? And so part of my role at the gathering is to be exposed to lots of ideas and lots of different perspectives. And so I'm constantly trying to be a vacuum uh to learn and hear from multiple perspectives. And then I'm trying to think about creating the environment in which people can learn. So sometimes it means like sitting in a in a conference ballroom listening to a lecture, but oftentimes that's not the best way for people to learn. And they need to get out, they need to move their bodies, they need to be able to iterate and converse with their fellow peers. Uh, maybe it's a a QA, maybe it's taking people outside of their environment and putting them into uh a learning journey. Um so there's a uh a wide range of ways to do it. Um I'd say going back to like when it fails, sometimes it feels because people think uh they need to know that you understand them and have their best intens you have the best intentions for their life. And uh you're in their corner. So I've heard this phrase. Uh it's a the founder of the gathering. Once one time he told me, and I think I I've repeated it often enough that I I think I I tell other people that uh you never want to get so far ahead of your community, right? If you're in this kind of a struggle and a fight in the trenches with uh with people, if you climb over your trench and wander so far out in front of your community, they think you're the enemy, right? Uh and so that's like wandering too far away from your community. So you have to have a really good understanding of where your community sits on any number of issues or topics uh so that you're in touch with where they are and then not to get too far out in front.

Adam Jeske 14:28

Yeah. Now it might be difficult to do this because of the sort of sensitivity of the relationships and the conversations you have. But can you think of an example that illustrates the dynamics that you have to kind of hold and navigate when you had to make a decision about go no-go about something, invite, don't invite, or sort of brokering an important conversation?

Engaging with Different Perspectives

Josh Kwan 14:55

So I a couple of years ago, we were wrestling with this concept of how might Christians, right? So these this is my my audience, people who would profess a faith in Jesus Christ. And uh and so for your audience, it's like it could be any topic that everyone has a unified, sort of shared worldview or or common cause, right? Um, but that common cause may be expressed in a wide range of ways. And so for us, we're thinking about like how do you live out your faith in the public square, right? So in this, in the civil in civil society where there's a um uh pluralism, uh a wide range of people of faith and different political views, how might we live out our particular faith in a way that is winsome and inviting and encouraging for a wide range of people? So we we we ended up uh addressing this by saying we don't want the extremes on either end of the spectrum. That's just not a helpful uh the the way those people talk and carry themselves and describe their um uh the people who think differently than them. We're not gonna enter that uh uh arena. We're not going to our posture matters. And so we ended up uh inviting a Republican and a Democrat uh two US senators to talk about how their policies and how they act as politicians is informed by their faith. And it was fascinating for so many people because whether you're left or right or conservative or liberal or progressive or whatever label we come up with, um, they were able to identify someone that doesn't think exactly what how they do can live out their faith and their principles and respect each other and have a deep and authentic friendship with one another. And seeing that dynamic at play, um so our approach may have uh offended one side or the other. Some say, oh, well, shouldn't all Christians think this way about a topic? Um this sort of pushed people and prodded people to think outside of that box.

Adam Jeske 17:00

Yeah, I find that often there's some sort of meta question upstream of what it becomes the flashpoint. There are questions about any given issue, but then upstream from those, there are often fundamental questions of how should uh someone with a particular worldview on this issue think about how the government should engage with my worldview, you know, from a position of uh a given faith, for example. Um, but then there's also, and how does one hold the beliefs about the particular issue? And how does one hold the belief about the sort of meta-guiding principle? And man, one of those guiding principles is how should people of Christian faith engage with governmental uh authority, governmental questions, and then down into any given particular policy move?

Josh Kwan 17:49

One way we thought about it is you know, going to first principles, right? What are the core set of ideas or beliefs or orthodoxies that everyone in this community can say, yes, I believe in this, or yes, this is the approach we want to take. And for me, I and I think for a lot of leaders uh in in a CEO role is to clearly explain and constantly communicate what those are. So people can uh decide, yes, I'm in, or no, this doesn't describe me. Right. Uh so that clarity is um is a gift, right? So if you can say uh it's it's like feel free to walk away because there are other organizations that may be better suited uh to uh serve and support you, or that you may want to be engaged with. But for us, for our community, uh, we're gonna uh say or we're gonna ask these questions with great humility because we don't have all the answers. We have some convictions about our faith and how it's lived out. Um but I want to sit with my brothers and sisters, and I want to sit with my peers. I want to ask these questions, and I want to learn together, and I want I want to be exposed to a different perspective. And that sense of curiosity and humility are essential to someone having a good experience at the gathering. And I'll say one more thing about this is because um uh the the core principles aren't necessarily gonna be like, you know, like they're gonna be far upstream from the particular, you know, policy issues or you know, a particular um a nonprofit solution to a problem in this world. It's more about our approach, our general approach. And and for people of faith, that you know, that's gonna be a creed or maybe a set of ideas that um animate your work. Uh and so for Christians, it's for us, we're like, um, and again, because there's a broad range of Christians uh in our community, there's some that would be very progressive and some that would be very conservative, and they have a bunch of people in the middle. We say, well, all of us are bound together by uh there's a set of uh sermon or sermons or stories or or principles that Jesus taught, and those are sort of packaged together in what we call the Beatitudes, right? So um, what do we, you know, in contrast to the world, what do we Christians believe in? We we believe that peacemakers are essential. Uh we we believe in uh being gentle and we believe in uh celebrating the fruits of the spirit, which include kindness and meekness and uh and and putting love at the center of whatever we do. And so hopefully uh our our our practices and our actions will reflect those beliefs.

Adam Jeske 20:31

As you have navigated these sorts of decisions, you you mentioned uh interactions with the founder. I imagine you've talked to your board and exec team. Give us a sense of the inputs that you sought out and were able to uh incorporate or meld into your eventual decision and response about how you navigated some of these decisions.

Learning from Feedback and Community Dynamics

Josh Kwan 20:55

So some of those inputs, right, into how you shape a decision. Um so absolutely. So I have a wonderful, I am so blessed to have a wonderful relationship with the founder of the organization, Fred Smith. So he started this organization some more than 40 years ago, and he led it for the first, wow, guys, uh almost three decades, right? We are so gifted because we have his set of values that he um, you know, so personally enforced individually and then collectively. And uh, and so he's been our carrier of our values. And then he picked a really wonderful board that I inherited uh at the very beginning of my tenure in 2019. And I've since been able to add uh additional board members and they've cycled out. But what's stayed consistent is how our values and how we seek to learn and grow together. And so I I turned to my board, I turned to the founder, I turned to uh a group of people who I I trust and and and whom I know to have differing opinions, right? Again, I live in this silk. Valley bubble of sort of values and sort of uh uh ways of thinking about life and um uh and and what priorities get elevated over other priorities. And uh and so I make sure to to be able to talk to people in my community who don't live in this kind of uh setting um and are willing to challenge, lovingly challenge uh and to lovingly point out parts of my scope that like, hey Josh, you totally missed this demographic or you totally missed this interpretation or or this way of thinking. Uh I don't see you upholding this point of view as a valid point of view. And so I get that feedback sometimes anonymously in our surveys. I sometimes get this uh through email exchanges, through focus groups, through uh talking to uh people in my community.

Adam Jeske 22:52

A lot of times in a discrete decision process, there there comes, uh at least uh at the consequential uh level, there comes a moment when you bottom out, when there's some emotional like crash. Do you uh remember moments where you've experienced something of a of a dip or friction or doubt about yourself, the direction you've chosen, or something else in the process?

Josh Kwan 23:22

Yeah. I I do because I I think I obsess in many of the of our you know fellow leaders, uh, do you know you may have a hundred uh uh responses to a survey, two will say it was horrible, and then you're just like so focused on those two that you lost or like that you disappointed. And it's hard to um keep keep in mind the context of the 98 that were mostly satisfied, right? I pay particular attention to those who I know have a deep abiding uh love for the community. And they've been steadfast in attending and supporting and participating, uh, giving their time and their relationships to the community. And so I'm gonna pay a particular attention when I've disappointed that group. And then there's gonna be other people on the periphery who it's worth paying attention to, but they may not be within your core audience. So I think it's important to remember where the the context from where where you're hearing these uh uh pieces of feedback. Um I'll I'll say that, you know, there are uh the way that I sometimes describe our community to newcomers is is almost that I I don't know exactly where they stand on all the issues, right? But I'll tell them I I can almost guarantee that you're gonna be disappointed in one of the speakers uh at our event if you come to our conference. You're gonna hear someone on stage say something that you completely disagree with, right? And I don't know what that topic's gonna be. I don't know which speaker, but there's gonna be someone that you disagree with. And but but I want you to be there because it's gonna nudge you a little bit, right? Uh it's gonna strengthen your now. That person uh on stage uh may say something that I end up saying, oh, I maybe I didn't quite, it wasn't quite what I had hoped for, or um the experience wasn't designed exactly what I intended for. And when I'm listening to feedback, uh I've heard people say, gosh, you know, you are this you and the gathering are so far left leaning that, you know, I'm surprised that you haven't tripped over yourself, right? And then there's the other side of the spectrum where they'll say, oh my goodness, this has turned into such a right-wing uh group that I don't see myself in this community. And uh it's important to keep listening to both of those uh perspectives because they're gonna help you navigate um uh where you you sort of wandered off the path a little bit in terms of where's where's the center of this organization? Where's the center of the community? Uh and and not that you always have to aim towards the center, but it's important to know where you're drifting if you're doing it intentionally, right? If you're intentionally moving in this one way or another, or you're intentionally exposing your community to to wider range of views. You're gonna the wider the your your your your aperture, the more you're gonna be bumping into those feelings of like, oh, I don't feel comfortable, or this is this is outside of what I think the gathering um uh ought to ought to be doing. And that's that's where I'm constantly trying to recalibrate.

Adam Jeske 26:23

Yeah. It thinking about the the center of your particular community and that dynamic of the polarization in our society right now, I think Jesus is an equal opportunity offender that he he taught really hard things that humans tend to not like or that tend to like call us to something much better than ourselves. That's universally applicable to kind of every human, regardless of your political affiliation.

Josh Kwan 26:52

Absolutely. And that was a that's you know, to me, that's part of the the most compelling part of his story and his teachings, is that uh it'd be too simple if he says if Jesus were like, oh, he's he votes one way and only one way, or if he has one set of economic principles. The beauty is that it's so challenging because it challenges everyone, no matter what which leaning uh you may you may have, uh, because it's it's uh uh it's it's so provocative, it's so challenging because his ethic is so grand, and uh the the love that he offers, he compels us to is so challenging, to love our enemy. Like, what does that mean? Right? Like that is it is impossible to live up to, but it's so good to make us think about like how do I treat my enemy, my political enemy, my philosophical enemy, like my neighbor enemy? Like, what does that mean? And then how do I uh extend love? And so those are the kinds of core principles that we want to push our community towards.

Adam Jeske 27:52

Let's move from that grand vision and sense of purpose and move into some lightning round sort of questions. Uh, what's something you wish you had been told before you took this role? Um, before you became a CEO in the nonprofit sector?

Reflections on Leadership and Relationships

Josh Kwan 28:10

The way I would answer this question is um I've been told this over and over again, and I've told other people this in the right. But then trying to live it out and actually doing it is something that I wish I I could do more of and do better of, which is nothing can replace the quality of people and the depth of relationship that you have with your board members.

Building Strong Board Relationships

Josh Kwan 28:36

And so, um uh, and this is, you know, just coming out of uh I I we're having this conversation the day after I returned home from our annual board retreat. And it is uh so life-giving because you've got a room full of people who are your advocates or champions, uh, they need to know what's going on in your organization uh to do a good job of being board members. They need to know what's happening in your life to do their work as a board member. And so the greater depth that you can establish with your relationships with your board, uh, to have this uh authenticity and vulnerability with your board so they know how to support you and how to advocate for you. That's so vital. So coming into this role, um, I had been a co-founder of multiple organizations, both business and nonprofit, um, but I hadn't been the CEO before. And I think the CEO relationship with the board is is really unique. That's different from a co-founder relationship. And so uh that's the one where I'm saying, like, if I um had a conversation with myself uh years ago stepping into the CEO role, it would be to uh really put the time and energy to cultivate those relationships. And then even if they're, you know, the between now and the next board meeting, uh, my goal is to have more conversation and dialogue with individual couples on my board as well as the board as a whole. Uh

Leadership Lessons from Shackleton

Josh Kwan 30:03

what is a book that has been formational for your leadership? I'm gonna pick one that's maybe a little off the beaten path because uh uh there's so many good books. I know I love books. I have too many books because I never get around to reading them. Uh, but there is a book called Endurance, and it's about the story of Ernest Shackleton, the polar explorer. Uh, it was written by Alfred Lansing, and this book is about his Antarctic expedition in 1914. Uh, and by so many accounts, um, the expedition was a failure, right? He uh doesn't make it to the South Pole. And in fact, he uh gets shipwrecked. Uh, but what makes it such a compelling leadership story is that he manages to save his entire crew. Not a single person died in some of the harshest, most difficult, deadly conditions imaginable. Uh, and so this book is it's a rousing adventure story, and there's a million leadership lessons in every single, every single moment of uh how he makes decisions, how he holds a team together, how do you uh uh bring a team to persevere? Uh all those things are are so compelling.

Adam Jeske 31:16

Josh, what is a practice or habit within the work of leading at the gathering that supports you to do the work? Something that that you do that helps you carry on.

Leading from Abundance

Josh Kwan 31:28

Yeah. So so I find myself constantly trying to come back to um, I need to be leading out of overflow or abundance. And so that means having to make sure my tank is filled, the metaphorical tank, whether it's a tank of energy, gratitude, hopefulness. Because I think so much of uh my team is going to be relying on me to provide a sort of emotional direction. And so I tend to be the person who was, I want to lead intellectually. I want to lead with the best ideas, the best practices. Uh, and then um I tend to underestimate the emotional leadership that's involved in being a CEO. And so it's not to put on a fake pretense of everything's going well, uh, but it's more of having um a rootedness and a centeredness on I I'm I'm leading from a place of uh safety, security, calm. And uh it may not be calm on the outside, on like what the issues that we're dealing with, right? But it has to be that um uh I'm confident in the direction that we're going, and uh here's what we're aiming towards, and we're gonna do that in a very steadfast way. And this is a good example, like good way, it may hark back to the Ernest Shackleton story. Yeah. Right. So he never had these highs and lows. So he didn't despair to his men, uh, and they were all men, so so, but in in our context, it's men and women. Um, he never showed this kind of like, oh, uh, I'm so scared. This is like everything's going, you know, this is the worst thing that could have happened. And yet he also didn't say, wow, uh, we're about to get arrested, guys. Like, no, this is gonna be hard. He's gonna tell the truth about the reality of their situation, and he was steady and reliable. And I think you have to sort of be steady and reliable on a day-to-day basis. And that steadiness comes from somewhere. And for, you know, wherever that comes from, I would encourage our CEO friends to think about okay, maybe it's exercise, maybe it's having a good diet, maybe it's being around your friends, maybe it's diving into your faith and reading the holy text of your faith. Those elements are crucial to having a steady posture and leading your team.

The Joy of Nonprofit Leadership

Adam Jeske 33:43

Josh Kwan, CEO of The Gathering, what do you love about your work?

Josh Kwan 33:48

So if you're familiar with the Enneogram, uh, I am uh very clearly a seven. That's the glutton. It's the uh the person who uh just loves fun. Yeah. Loves to have fun, adventure. There's no new experience that's not worth trying, right? So uh now the flip side, the downside is that uh you the hardship is like when you're governing by or you're leading by FOMO, fear of missing out, uh, that's not a really good way to lead an organization. Yeah. Yeah. This constant, you know, you know, it's like, wait, what are we working on this week? Right. Like uh so uh I love leading the gathering because I get to help my organization, my team, my audience, my community understand and embrace and love this world. Uh we get to do amazing things for and on behalf and in love with other people, right? So uh when we see something that's broken in this world, uh our our hearts are pained and we share in that pain with other people. And then we can we have the opportunity to step forward and offer something to address that that issue. Uh and so that gives me such such joy to help people uh discover what those challenges are, understand what their giftedness and their resources and what they can do to address something in this world that they see as broken.

Adam Jeske 35:13

Lovely. Josh, thank you for joining us on the Nonprofit CEO podcast. Thank you, Adam. Everyone, if you know a nonprofit CEO who's carrying something significant, send them the show. And if you want more of the patterns that I'm seeing across hundreds of CEO conversations, you need the Nonprofit CEO briefing delivered weekly and available at nonprofit CEO.com. I'm Adam Jeski, the Nonprofit CEO Advisor. Thank you for what you're leading.