Latest / CEO Kingdom Seekers / Ep 25: When God Calls You to Leave Something Good: The Courage to Step Away with Kurt Bush (Ecclesiastes 3:1)

Transcript

Ep 25: When God Calls You to Leave Something Good: The Courage to Step Away with Kurt Bush (Ecclesiastes 3:1) · CEO Kingdom Seekers

0:10
SPEAKER_01: I'm doing well.
0:10
SPEAKER_01: How are you?
0:11
SPEAKER_00: I'm good.
0:12
SPEAKER_00: This is my first call of the day, if you couldn't tell.
0:15
SPEAKER_01: Where are you in the country?
0:16
SPEAKER_00: I'm in um Ohio, Columbus.
0:18
SPEAKER_01: Ohio.
0:19
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
0:19
SPEAKER_01: I don't know anything about Ohio.
0:20
SPEAKER_00: Really?
0:21
SPEAKER_00: Where are you?
0:21
SPEAKER_01: I'm in Iowa.
0:23
SPEAKER_01: Kind of where Iowa, Minnesota, North or South Dakota, Nebraska meet and then a corner of Iowa.
0:28
SPEAKER_01: Awesome.
0:29
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
0:29
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I know a little about Iowa just because I had a friend who ended up going there for school.
0:33
SPEAKER_00: Where'd they go?
0:35
SPEAKER_00: University of Iowa, right?
0:36
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
0:36
SPEAKER_00: Or Iowa University.
0:37
SPEAKER_00: Which one is University of Iowa.
0:39
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's what I thought.
0:40
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, because I went to Ohio State and we played Iowa every now and then, and they were always like the dark horse.
0:48
SPEAKER_00: Because I'm like, there's y'all are out there just they're just playing football.
0:52
SPEAKER_00: That's what they're doing.
0:53
SPEAKER_01: So so I I have to ask, my wife and I, we spent most of our lives right on the Mississippi River.
0:58
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
0:59
SPEAKER_01: What's called the Quad Cities area.
1:00
SPEAKER_01: We had some really good friends who were uh Ohio State University grads.
1:04
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:04
SPEAKER_01: And they would always literally correct.
1:06
SPEAKER_00: Oh yeah.
1:07
SPEAKER_01: The that's a thing.
1:09
SPEAKER_00: It is.
1:10
SPEAKER_00: They trademarked it.
1:12
SPEAKER_00: They literally trademarked it.
1:14
SPEAKER_00: There's like no other no other university can say they're the whatever.
1:18
SPEAKER_00: Interestingly, I think Ohio University can do it because they were they like gave them an exception.
1:23
SPEAKER_00: But I was like, I love how it's two Ohio universities that are like at two hours apart from each other.
1:27
SPEAKER_00: I know it's audacious to say the least.
1:30
SPEAKER_01: And it was never red.
1:32
SPEAKER_01: It was always they would literally oh yeah, they're red and silver.
1:35
SPEAKER_01: No, no.
1:35
SPEAKER_00: No, they're scarlet.
1:36
SPEAKER_00: Scarlet and gray.
1:37
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
1:38
SPEAKER_00: I actually worked at Ohio State for oh gosh.
1:42
SPEAKER_00: I worked there as a nurse and a nurse practitioner for 12, 13 years.
1:47
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
1:48
SPEAKER_00: And yeah, I mean, it's definitely got I say this like somewhat jokingly, but a little bit of a cult vibe.
1:53
SPEAKER_00: There's it's very much like whenever people are like, I don't understand how one side of the world can hate another.
1:58
SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, have you ever been to an OSU Michigan game?
2:01
SPEAKER_00: Because like it's very clear.
2:02
SPEAKER_00: Like it's literally football, and we're like ready to so yes.
2:07
SPEAKER_00: Um I thank you again for being willing to come on.
2:11
SPEAKER_00: I'm really excited about our conversation.
2:13
SPEAKER_00: Your story's very interesting, and so I'm stoked to hear about it.
2:15
SPEAKER_00: We feel like we almost did the flip of things.
2:18
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
2:18
SPEAKER_01: What do you prefer me call you?
2:19
SPEAKER_01: Dr.
2:20
SPEAKER_01: Lee?
2:20
SPEAKER_01: Oh, Lee's fine.
2:21
SPEAKER_00: I whatever, whatever you feel most comfortable with.
2:23
SPEAKER_00: I don't have a preference.
2:25
SPEAKER_01: Whatever you want.
2:26
SPEAKER_00: No, I Lee's great.
2:28
SPEAKER_00: I have some people who insist on Dr.
2:30
SPEAKER_00: Lee.
2:30
SPEAKER_00: And and I sign things that way in business because believe it or not, my husband's name is also Lee.
2:37
SPEAKER_01: I saw this on your website.
2:39
unknown: Yeah.
2:39
SPEAKER_01: So is this a problem?
2:41
SPEAKER_00: Not usually.
2:42
SPEAKER_00: He goes by TLC in our business.
2:45
SPEAKER_00: So Dr.
2:45
SPEAKER_00: Lee and TLC, it's like fully distinguished, right?
2:48
SPEAKER_00: But in our personal, rarely ever.
2:50
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
2:50
SPEAKER_00: But every now and then people will, if they don't know us and we're like going to something together, a lot of times they'll walk up to him and they'll say, Hi, Dr.
2:58
SPEAKER_00: Lee.
2:58
SPEAKER_00: It's like so nice.
2:59
SPEAKER_00: And he's like, Mr.
3:00
SPEAKER_00: Lee Dr.
3:01
SPEAKER_00: Lee.
3:02
SPEAKER_01: Talk about like unconscious biases.
3:04
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
3:05
SPEAKER_00: And people it's funny, people typically go, like, oh yeah, okay.
3:08
SPEAKER_00: I just made an assumption there.
3:09
SPEAKER_00: And he's like, it's cool.
3:10
SPEAKER_00: But but yeah, so, but yeah, most people, believe it or not, people have different intonations in their voices when they talk to women versus men.
3:19
SPEAKER_00: So a lot of times, like I would say we get it right, even with our family, about 95% of the time, like if we're both in a room and someone calls, like we know which one they're calling to.
3:27
SPEAKER_01: That's interesting.
3:28
SPEAKER_01: What say more about the intonation?
3:29
SPEAKER_00: I know like maybe I'm yeah, no, no, this is fine.
3:32
SPEAKER_00: I always leave some room in here for chit-chat.
3:34
SPEAKER_00: So um we like it'll be more a lot of times, it'll be more like it's just like softer or it's a little upturned at the end.
3:44
SPEAKER_00: So people will be like, hey Lee for me, but they'll be like, Hey, Lee for him.
3:48
SPEAKER_01: Okay, yeah, that's interesting.
3:50
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's we've just noticed it over time.
3:53
SPEAKER_01: Can I ask another question?
3:54
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, please.
3:55
SPEAKER_01: Do you think that's like a cultural norm, or do you think that's like your personalities and people know you?
4:02
SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
4:03
SPEAKER_00: No, I don't think it's that because it's even people that don't know us very well.
4:07
SPEAKER_00: I think it's the way that I think it's just maybe the way that we like unconsciously address women versus men.
4:13
SPEAKER_00: Like it's always way more directive to him.
4:16
SPEAKER_00: Even from women, they'll be like, Hey Lee, hey, Lee, because yeah, we've sat with it a lot.
4:21
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, this has been a very fun psychological experiment for sure for the last 20 years.
4:27
SPEAKER_00: Also, because sometimes I'll forget to tell people and I'll be talking and I'll say, like, oh yeah, Lee was saying the other day.
4:33
SPEAKER_00: And then one of two things happens either they think I'm like cuckoo, or they think they misheard my name and that was actually my husband's.
4:43
SPEAKER_00: And so then they kind of get this look of panic as they're realizing they don't know what my name is.
4:47
SPEAKER_00: And I have gotten to the point now where I can see the face and go, like, okay, yes.
4:52
SPEAKER_00: They either think I'm crazy or they have just gotten really confused.
4:57
SPEAKER_00: So I back up and I'm like, Have I ever told you that my husband's name is also Lee?
5:00
SPEAKER_00: And then you see the light bulb, but like, oh, okay, like that makes so much sense.
5:04
SPEAKER_01: So yeah, third person talking is a bold, like, like if somebody thinks you're doing that on purpose, like there's like I'm just gonna like slowly back up.
5:12
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna walk away.
5:13
SPEAKER_00: Yes, absolutely.
5:15
SPEAKER_00: And yeah, our audience, just so you know, obviously Christian, um, or seeking, right?
5:22
SPEAKER_00: And then either already entrepreneurs, like from the sense of leading their own businesses, or we like to call it like high responsibility humans.
5:30
SPEAKER_00: So a lot of these people like they hold a C-suite role, or you know, they're in charge of the lives, livelihoods, or like cost of living for a lot of people, typically.
5:39
SPEAKER_00: So I like how you're saying that.
5:42
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's been helpful to kind of just go like these are people that when they make decisions, they typically impact a lot of humans because it's just a different kind of conversation, I think.
5:53
SPEAKER_00: So just to kind of keep that in the back of your mind as we're talking, because that's a big thing for us, is just making sure that the audience is truly served by the conversation.
6:00
SPEAKER_00: Sounds great.
6:01
SPEAKER_00: All right, cool.
6:02
SPEAKER_00: Okay, we can dive right in.
6:06
SPEAKER_00: Any questions for me before we get started?
6:08
SPEAKER_01: No, I think I asked all the name questions.
6:12
SPEAKER_02: Okay, cool.
6:13
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I did look at your website.
6:15
SPEAKER_01: I always like to, I don't know.
6:16
SPEAKER_01: Uh or part of the joy for me of doing these is getting to meet people like you.
6:20
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
6:21
SPEAKER_01: So I did look on your website.
6:22
SPEAKER_01: I feel like I would normally ask a lot more questions, like, tell me about your journey.
6:25
SPEAKER_01: Right.
6:26
SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
6:26
SPEAKER_01: Is there like what would you say about your journey before we turn off that?
6:30
SPEAKER_00: Well, and this is yeah, this is great too, because I want to ask you about yours as well.
6:33
SPEAKER_00: Like my faith journey or like business journey.
6:36
SPEAKER_00: Okay, yeah.
6:37
SPEAKER_00: I'll give you like okay, I'll give you just like the the three-minute version.
6:42
SPEAKER_00: So grew up Methodist and then nothing because my parents actually stepped away from the church when I was nine because our pastor had an affair.
6:51
SPEAKER_02: Oh, wow.
6:52
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and that just like really split the church up.
6:54
SPEAKER_00: Um, had some pretty significant trauma when I was a kid, not from a family perspective, but from somebody who was like in charge of watching me.
7:01
SPEAKER_00: And so a lot of like anxiety, panic attacks, just a lot of fear, a lot of just like constant terror when I was a kid.
7:09
SPEAKER_00: And then when I was in high school, I got introduced to a non-denominational youth group that was like really supportive.
7:16
SPEAKER_00: It was like the first place that I truly ever fit in.
7:18
SPEAKER_00: And so from there, I went to college, I met my husband.
7:21
SPEAKER_00: I had another really pretty gnarly trauma happen when I was 17, a couple of months right before I met my husband.
7:28
SPEAKER_00: And so at that point, I was like in a pretty low spot.
7:30
SPEAKER_00: So like I truly feel like Jesus sent us to each other at that point.
7:34
SPEAKER_00: But from there, uh, he was Catholic.
7:37
SPEAKER_00: And so I never met somebody who was like so loving and also like so, yes, this is my faith.
7:44
SPEAKER_00: And I ended up converting before marrying him.
7:46
SPEAKER_00: We got married when I was 21.
7:48
SPEAKER_00: We had kids very quickly in the kit in the Catholic fashion, ended up having one, and then um two years later we had twins.
7:54
SPEAKER_00: And then that entire time I was going through my nursing degree and just like underlying just anxiety, restlessness, trauma the entire way.
8:02
SPEAKER_00: Like, I believed in God, I believed in Jesus, but looking back now, I'm like, I didn't really know him.
8:06
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I knew of him and I understood that, and I saw other people who like had this personal relationship with him, and I was like, okay, I want that, but like didn't know him.
8:15
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so fast forward, we just kind of did the whole high achiever striver driver thing, got my bachelor's and then two master's degrees, and then a doctoral degree, and then a certificate as a clinical trauma professional, and then you know, because I wasn't busy enough, started doing network marketing and like coaching on the side.
8:35
SPEAKER_00: And then in 2020, when the pandemic hit, it was almost like God was just like, Hey, I'm gonna take you a different direction.
8:45
SPEAKER_00: So I actually ended up leaving clinical practice at the end of the year and going full time in my coaching business.
8:50
SPEAKER_00: And at that point, then you have a lot more space.
8:52
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
8:53
SPEAKER_00: So I realized that the primary benefit of me staying as busy as I did was I didn't have to look at anything that had happened.
9:02
SPEAKER_02: Sure.
9:02
SPEAKER_00: So then when everything slowed down, both from a pandemic sense and a work sense, like a lot of PTSD symptoms.
9:09
SPEAKER_00: So yeah, so at that point I went, okay, I now need to like apply everything I've learned to myself because I haven't been doing that.
9:17
SPEAKER_00: And then also just again kept trying to do it on my own strength, use my own education, use use those things, and then things just kept getting worse and worse, like in marriage, like in parent, like everything just felt like it was kind of falling apart, even as the business was growing, because the business was doing great, by the way.
9:32
SPEAKER_00: But everything else was kind of falling apart.
9:34
SPEAKER_00: And then in 2024, I just hit my knees one day and I was like, Hey Jesus, I think I need you to do this, not me.
9:41
SPEAKER_00: And that point forward, it was like, okay, everything's gonna flip.
9:46
SPEAKER_00: So we had uh founded our trauma institute at that point in in 2020.
9:51
SPEAKER_00: We had been running it for four years, and he was like, close it.
9:54
SPEAKER_00: And it was a seven-figure business, so that was really tough.
9:57
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, um, and God's so good because now I'm getting to do a lot of the things that I learned how to do and studied how to do in that way, and I'm getting to do it.
10:06
SPEAKER_00: Like I wake up every day and I'm like, I can't believe this is my job.
10:08
SPEAKER_00: This is like the coolest thing ever.
10:10
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that actually leads directly into the question I wanted to ask you.
10:13
SPEAKER_00: And please, if you had any follow-up you wanted to ask, I'm happy to answer.
10:16
SPEAKER_01: No, I mean, thanks for sharing.
10:18
SPEAKER_01: Thanks for being so vulnerable with your answers.
10:20
SPEAKER_01: Thanks for doing that.
10:21
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, absolutely, absolutely.
10:23
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, our audience has, and I'm probably just gonna leave this at the beginning and like let people know that this is how we're starting off.
10:29
SPEAKER_00: Our audience has heard some of that story before, and I'm always happy to share it too, because I think it's like it's a story I see in a lot of people of they just rely on their own strength and they're like, Okay, I I yeah, I believe in God, I believe in Jesus, and it's like, okay, but what is he actually calling you to do?
10:46
SPEAKER_00: So I wanted to ask you about that because like I saw in your bio you're spending all this time in corporate leadership, and then you're in pastoral ministry and then and vocational ministry, and then you're like fully stepping away.
10:57
SPEAKER_00: Sounds like around the same time I'm having my illumination to go all in on your brimstone coaching group.
11:03
SPEAKER_00: So that's a significant leap of faith, and it's also a direction that a lot of people probably have a lot of questions around.
11:08
SPEAKER_00: So, what happened for you in that season?
11:10
SPEAKER_00: Like, what led you to make that move?
11:12
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's a great question.
11:14
SPEAKER_01: It's a long answer.
11:15
SPEAKER_01: I'll keep it brief.
11:16
SPEAKER_00: We have time.
11:17
SPEAKER_01: Okay, okay.
11:18
SPEAKER_01: So I went to seminary late in life.
11:21
SPEAKER_01: I was in my early 30s when I started seminary.
11:23
SPEAKER_01: I took my first call into pastoral ministry as an associate pastor in the Quad Cities, Iowa, Illinois area.
11:29
SPEAKER_01: Uh, that was really, really hard.
11:30
SPEAKER_01: It was maybe the hardest, aside from 2020, that was the hardest time of my career.
11:36
SPEAKER_01: Um, from there, I my family and I, we picked up, we moved across the state, and we were going to launch a second campus of a church on January 1st of 2020.
11:45
SPEAKER_01: Uh, so December of 2019, we move across the state to a place we don't know anybody, we didn't even know existed until a good friend of mine said, Hey, what do you think about this church opportunity?
11:55
SPEAKER_01: I said, This sounds great.
11:56
SPEAKER_01: Like, let's start something new.
11:58
SPEAKER_01: An old church or a previous church was dying.
12:02
SPEAKER_01: And then they had kind of partnered with another church in the county to say, like, can we partner on youth group?
12:08
SPEAKER_01: Can we partner with some band help, all this kind of stuff?
12:10
SPEAKER_01: And that turned into like, hey, we're gonna we're gonna close this church, but we want to reopen it as a second campus of this existing church.
12:18
SPEAKER_01: And I thought that sounds amazing.
12:20
SPEAKER_01: This is a new model.
12:21
SPEAKER_01: There's only a handful of churches in the country doing it.
12:24
SPEAKER_01: Like, let's go, let's try it.
12:26
SPEAKER_01: It sounds exciting, it sounds fun.
12:28
SPEAKER_01: There's people that are bought in.
12:30
SPEAKER_01: And then 2020 happened.
12:32
SPEAKER_00: And I don't know if you remember, but I know you were thinking for those who aren't watching the video of this, I'm like shaking my head very strongly.
12:41
SPEAKER_00: Uh-huh.
12:41
SPEAKER_00: Uh-huh.
12:41
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
12:42
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
12:42
SPEAKER_01: So what happened, like doing this, starting a second campus as one church dies and opening it as a new church, like in the same physical building, like that's hard.
12:51
SPEAKER_01: That's really hard.
12:52
SPEAKER_01: And then you throw the pandemic onto it, then you throw all the kind of racial tensions that were happening in the world at that time, all the things, right?
13:01
SPEAKER_01: The political division, all the things made it so much harder.
13:05
SPEAKER_01: And 2020 just exasperated all of it.
13:07
SPEAKER_01: So, what I found was unbeknownst to me, I needed to adjust.
13:13
SPEAKER_01: And part of my role became helping my leaders navigate their own anxiety.
13:17
SPEAKER_01: Uh, because we still had to lead, right?
13:20
SPEAKER_01: We still had to grow a church and we still had to plant this church, and we still had to like do the things that churches do in communities.
13:28
SPEAKER_01: But there was this huge anxiety that just uh held a cloud over everything.
13:32
SPEAKER_01: Uh, so what I realized is I love that work.
13:35
SPEAKER_01: Like, I don't want to go back for anything.
13:37
SPEAKER_01: That was the hardest time of my life.
13:39
SPEAKER_01: That two-year span from the pandemic on, like in leadership, was the hardest time of my career.
13:45
SPEAKER_01: And I don't want to go back for anything.
13:47
SPEAKER_01: But I learned that I love helping leaders navigate their own stuff so that they can still do the things, they can still lead well, even though the world is on fire.
13:57
SPEAKER_01: I loved it and I found I'm pretty good at it.
13:59
SPEAKER_01: I think God was calling me to do that.
14:01
SPEAKER_01: So, what happened was we got away from the pandemic, we got into 2023 and 2024, and the culture we were building was taking.
14:10
SPEAKER_01: Like the culture had kind of taken hold.
14:12
SPEAKER_01: Leaders were coaching themselves, leaders knew how to do what they needed to do to be present and to lead well and to name their own stuff.
14:21
SPEAKER_01: And I wasn't getting to coach as much.
14:23
SPEAKER_01: And I had to be an organizational leader.
14:25
SPEAKER_01: And if I'm honest with you, Lee, I do not like organizational leadership.
14:29
SPEAKER_01: Sure.
14:30
SPEAKER_01: It's not my jam.
14:31
SPEAKER_01: Uh, it's not in line with the gifts God's given me.
14:34
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
14:34
SPEAKER_01: Uh, so I had to come to a decision to say, I can probably do the work to get better at this, but I'm 40.
14:41
SPEAKER_01: Do I want to?
14:42
SPEAKER_01: Is it the path I want to go?
14:43
SPEAKER_01: Is it the path I think God is calling me to take?
14:46
SPEAKER_01: And I didn't think it was.
14:48
SPEAKER_01: I I probably could have like taken another call in another church to do more culture building and to do more sort of leadership development, but that didn't feel great to say, I know that I want to coach.
14:59
SPEAKER_01: My my good friend and I, my coaching partner, we had started to do this on our own.
15:04
SPEAKER_01: We were doing coaching on the side together.
15:07
SPEAKER_01: So I knew coaching was where I was going, and it didn't feel great to go to another church, knowing that wasn't where my heart was.
15:13
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
15:14
SPEAKER_01: So that really left the one option to say I'm gonna step away from ministry.
15:18
SPEAKER_01: It was a it was a great step away.
15:20
SPEAKER_01: Uh, my family and I still call the main campus of that church home.
15:24
SPEAKER_01: Like we still love it, they love us.
15:27
SPEAKER_01: It's a great relationship to this day.
15:29
SPEAKER_01: But it was time to step into that new season where we thought God was calling us to go.
15:33
SPEAKER_00: That is incredible.
15:34
SPEAKER_00: And I would love to hear about your experience of the maybe the preconceived notions or the assumptions that people made when you did this, because a lot of times, if someone steps away from ministry, the assumption is like they're drawing further away from God.
15:46
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
15:47
SPEAKER_00: Did you have people assume that?
15:50
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, I would say some family probably had that reaction of like, what's going on here?
15:54
SPEAKER_01: Coaching, the coaching world, I mean, you know this, the coaching world's a weird place.
15:58
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
15:59
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, there's a lot of like manifesting and name it, claim it kind of stuff, and that's just not what we believe as coaches.
16:06
SPEAKER_01: So there's certainly some like, what are you doing?
16:09
SPEAKER_01: Like, this doesn't feel as high of a call as pastoring does.
16:12
SPEAKER_01: And I would debate that maybe a little bit on what call and vocation means.
16:17
SPEAKER_01: But but but I think that the bigger question was we me in the church, my lead pastor, my supervisor at the time, is one of my closest friends, still is to this day.
16:29
SPEAKER_01: We had conversations early about me stepping away.
16:33
SPEAKER_01: So this was not a surprise, and it was like a seven-month transition out.
16:37
SPEAKER_01: And what we found is that good transitions like that are so uncommon.
16:42
SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah.
16:43
SPEAKER_01: So there were a lot of questions of like, did the church do something wrong?
16:46
SPEAKER_01: Like, what did the church do to you, Kurt?
16:48
SPEAKER_01: Or like, what did Kurt do?
16:50
SPEAKER_01: You know, there's always questions when Pastor will staff leaves unexpected, and it was unexpected.
16:56
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, sure.
16:56
SPEAKER_01: Things were going well, and you know, I I think those are harder to navigate.
17:00
SPEAKER_01: The like, what did the church do?
17:02
SPEAKER_01: Or a parishioner comes up and says, Did the church do something that drove you away?
17:06
SPEAKER_01: And they don't believe me.
17:08
SPEAKER_01: Like, how could it be?
17:10
SPEAKER_00: There's a couple questions that come up as you're saying that.
17:14
SPEAKER_00: And I think that the point you're making around the idea that you can have a mutually beneficial departure.
17:21
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you can go, okay the path that God laid out for us to this point converged, and at this point it's going to diverge.
17:31
SPEAKER_00: And we're both recognizing that.
17:32
SPEAKER_00: And yes, there's grief, and yes, there's tough moments, but that can truly be a okay, the relationship stays just as close, and the way in which we're going to operate in our vocations in God's will is just going to be different.
17:46
SPEAKER_00: And you're right.
17:47
SPEAKER_00: I think that a lot of people haven't experienced that.
17:51
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I'm glad you said grief because there is a real grief.
17:54
SPEAKER_01: Like I do believe that I'm doing what I'm called to do today, exactly.
17:58
SPEAKER_01: And you said this before we started that you wake up and you love what you do.
18:02
SPEAKER_01: I would say the same.
18:03
SPEAKER_01: And I missed the staff that I worked with, I missed them dearly.
18:06
SPEAKER_01: These were people that I that I loved getting to see every day.
18:10
SPEAKER_01: Uh, so there is grief.
18:12
SPEAKER_01: No change is without grief.
18:14
SPEAKER_01: I I think it's interesting too.
18:15
SPEAKER_01: I think there's this mental model that people hold that says, you know, a good pastor is like everything to everyone at all times.
18:22
SPEAKER_01: I actually don't believe that.
18:24
SPEAKER_01: Like, I I think I had a specific skill set to build culture, to navigate hard times and anxiety that is a different skill set than saying the culture is in place, leaders are healthy, now let's drive forward.
18:38
SPEAKER_01: I don't have that skill, but I think so much of the Christian world just says pastors should be able to do all of that.
18:44
SPEAKER_01: And I think there's something beautiful.
18:46
SPEAKER_01: I'm biased, so of course I call it beautiful, but there's something beautiful about being able to say, My work here is done.
18:52
SPEAKER_01: Now, like I can hang on, but it's gonna make things work.
18:55
SPEAKER_01: Like, this is not going to be well, this is not gonna go well.
18:58
SPEAKER_01: Um and like I loved the church enough to say, someone else take it, run with it.
19:03
SPEAKER_01: Yes, but but again, I think the mental models of people are you know, what's wrong?
19:09
SPEAKER_01: Why aren't you continuing?
19:10
SPEAKER_01: Like, I just think there are different skills and gifts in different pastors, and I think that's that's on purpose.
19:16
SPEAKER_01: I think God does that on purpose.
19:17
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I got chills when you said that.
19:19
SPEAKER_00: It just like sometimes the most loving, kind, aligned thing is to step away.
19:27
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
19:28
SPEAKER_00: And as you're speaking, I'm reflecting back on my own journey of leaving clinical practice and leaving being a professor.
19:35
SPEAKER_00: And I had this incredible experience of having several students find me a few years later when I was doing the work that I was doing in the Trauma Institute.
19:44
SPEAKER_00: And then even now, when we opened regulated roots, having a couple students find us and be like, oh my gosh, this is what you're doing now.
19:50
SPEAKER_00: This is incredible.
19:51
SPEAKER_00: Like, I want to be a part of this.
19:53
SPEAKER_00: And also having the experience of having people say, Okay, but like you have these skills and you have these talents.
20:03
SPEAKER_00: And are you sure you don't want to stay over here and use them?
20:06
SPEAKER_00: Like, are you sure you don't wanna?
20:08
SPEAKER_00: And I I think this is a place after studying spiritual gifts, like as much as I have.
20:13
SPEAKER_00: I think that this is one of those other, I love what you said, mental models that we have of like part of what makes uh the gifts that God gives us by his grace so beautiful is that it's not just about what he's gifted us with, it's how he uh inspires us and like designs us to be motivated to use them.
20:34
SPEAKER_00: And so as I've been listening to you talk, I'm like, okay, obviously you've got this beautiful gift of like your CEO gift is very developed.
20:42
SPEAKER_00: You can come in and help like with this restructure, with this one thing's dying and another thing's being planted, like you said, in the literal the same spot.
20:52
SPEAKER_00: And it sounds like your primary uh gift is like the one that just lights you up is the one of the motivator.
20:59
SPEAKER_00: You want to be exhorting, you want to be, you know, admonishing, you want to be the one that's coaching and really helping people and navigating those transformational times and spaces.
21:10
SPEAKER_00: And I uh think that if you uh are in a place where you can't use that gift, even if God's given you other gifts, like he's graced you in the other six, seven areas.
21:25
SPEAKER_00: I can't believe I just said that.
21:27
SPEAKER_01: You even did the hand thing a little bit.
21:28
SPEAKER_00: I did, and I was, I know.
21:30
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, oh my gosh, I'm gonna have to cut that out.
21:32
SPEAKER_00: And the other six areas, like I found that was just because I'm a really good nurse practitioner and just because I'm a really good nursing professor, like that's not what I want to be teaching.
21:42
SPEAKER_00: That's not what fully lights me up.
21:44
SPEAKER_00: The structure of how this is set up and the restrictions that come with that don't work with how God's designed me.
21:52
SPEAKER_00: And like, I can keep trying to force myself to stay here, or I can do the thing that, yes, a lot of people are.
22:00
SPEAKER_00: gonna go, this doesn't make sense.
22:02
SPEAKER_00: And like, can I hold that?
22:05
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
22:06
SPEAKER_00: Like, can I hold the fact that other people aren't gonna understand the decisions that I'm making or they're not gonna accept the logic or the reasons that I'm giving them for why?
22:17
SPEAKER_00: Like you said, what did the church do?
22:18
SPEAKER_00: Nothing.
22:19
SPEAKER_00: I don't believe you.
22:20
unknown: Yeah.
22:20
SPEAKER_00: Can I hold that?
22:21
SPEAKER_00: And it is there is some suffering in that.
22:24
SPEAKER_00: And can I also offer that up and be like, God, hey, I understand that that's part of this.
22:28
SPEAKER_00: I understand that this grief and this suffering and and the the questioning that other people are doing of me like that's part of this process and cool.
22:36
SPEAKER_00: I'm still doing it.
22:37
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
22:38
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
22:38
SPEAKER_01: And you know I I always tell people like my my business partner in this coaching practice is one of my best friends.
22:44
SPEAKER_01: We went to seminary together.
22:46
SPEAKER_01: We met in seminary we coached together a long time before we pulled the trigger on a formal business and he is my coach.
22:54
SPEAKER_01: He is the guy that I go to say here's what I'm discerning.
22:57
SPEAKER_01: Can you like poke holes in this?
22:59
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
23:00
SPEAKER_01: Can you challenge this?
23:01
SPEAKER_01: So you know I mean I think for every one voice that says hey this is crazy what are you doing?
23:06
SPEAKER_01: Like I can point to another voice that says 100% it's so obvious this is the direction that your gifts and your passions line up with so finding the right tribe I think if I can use that word to like help challenge.
23:19
SPEAKER_01: And if my business partner would have said Kurt I don't know this like feels really off I I would pause.
23:26
SPEAKER_01: That's a voice I listen to so yeah being able to discern which of those voices that I know are prayerfully discerning versus the ones that might be afraid or might might be uncomfortable or you know whatever that being able to discern those helps too.
23:40
SPEAKER_00: Yeah well and that's I think how you know that you've got a good mentor is that it is somebody who has situational awareness of what you're going through.
23:49
SPEAKER_00: Like maybe they haven't personally gone through every bit but they've been they have enough experience to be able to put themselves in the situation that you're in and be able to offer perspective from this unbiased place.
24:01
SPEAKER_00: And also for me personally and I think for all Christians this person from a faith perspective that has to be the center.
24:08
SPEAKER_00: And that's been one of the the frameworks that I've used for myself in terms of like if somebody's giving me advice is I'm like, okay, if I had a spiritual question, would I go to this person?
24:22
SPEAKER_00: If the answer to that is no, then I'm also not going to go to them necessarily for a professional question.
24:27
SPEAKER_00: And I think that's tough and I think everyone gets to use their own discernment in who they go to and not but there are very few people that I would ask for business advice or professional advice from who aren't also rooted in their faith because I've found that it just changes the perspective so much.
24:49
SPEAKER_00: I wanted to ask you too because I think that this is one of the things that I saw on your bio that I was so interested in talking to you about.
24:56
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to see make the connection here.
24:58
SPEAKER_00: You talk about your use of internal family systems in your coaching work.
25:02
SPEAKER_00: And I have yet to meet another Christian coach or teacher who uses internal family systems.
25:08
SPEAKER_00: And I think it is absolutely gorgeous to use because I think it so clearly illuminates how God designed us and how sin like literally divides us.
25:19
SPEAKER_00: And we were just having this conversation about externally how things look and how the mental models can not line up with how it makes sense for you to make your decisions.
25:31
SPEAKER_00: And I think that those external situations we just talked about where you've got people like doubting or saying oh I think you should do this or maybe like even trying to cajole or influence how you're going to do things all of that's also happening internally as well based on your design.
25:48
SPEAKER_00: So I'd love to hear a little bit more about like why you decided to use that and how you use it in your work.
25:54
SPEAKER_01: For sure.
25:55
SPEAKER_01: Thanks for asking Lee here's what I want to say I talk to a lot of Christians who are like that feels weird.
26:01
SPEAKER_01: Yeah or like that feels wrong.
26:03
SPEAKER_01: Uh so thank you for teeing it up in a Christian context.
26:07
SPEAKER_01: I actually got introduced to this through an author named Dr.
26:11
SPEAKER_01: Alison Cook.
26:12
SPEAKER_01: She wrote a couple great books I can't recommend enough she wrote Boundaries for the soul and I shouldn't feel this way.
26:18
SPEAKER_01: And she is a Christian psychologist so she's coming at this from a Christian perspective.
26:22
SPEAKER_01: In Boundaries for the soul she talks about parts and she talks about the way that God has given us parts and given us emotions created us with all these things and and and that in and of themselves these parts and these emotions are not bad.
26:36
SPEAKER_01: That they are given by like these were pre-Genesis three things right that these were not post fall creations like like my emotions all of them are not in me because of Genesis 3.
26:51
SPEAKER_01: They're in me because of Genesis 1 and 2.
26:53
SPEAKER_01: Wow and if that's true then they are not bad or they are not to be discarded like sin is to be discarded right so she actually so I just love her work.
27:03
SPEAKER_01: So I'm answering like she would answer instead of how I answer but she would say when one of those parts or one of these emotions that comes with the part stirs up can we find a way to listen to it and then ask here's the question I love she says what would Jesus want to say to that part of you if Jesus was standing next to you what would Jesus want to say to that part of you and that for me shifted how I saw life.
27:25
SPEAKER_01: That shifted how I thought about things like anger or sadness or protection or fear.
27:31
SPEAKER_01: It changed all of that for me.
27:34
SPEAKER_01: That's why I incorporate it is because I think so many of us have these parts of us that we've learned either from church or church leadership or church history or whatever we want to say about that.
27:45
SPEAKER_01: We've learned that those parts of us are bad and to be stifled or to be suppressed.
27:50
SPEAKER_01: I I think honestly that suppression is where trouble comes from like instead of saying I hear you anger I recognize you and then asking like Jesus what do you want to say to that part of me like I think that allows for better processing for better handling of anxiety and trauma and crisis.
28:08
SPEAKER_01: I'm not a psychologist so I don't do a lot with trauma but yeah I I think being able to name them and offer them to Jesus is such a different posture than hey Christian you can't be angry.
28:18
SPEAKER_01: Jesus the Bible says don't be anxious in anything okay well I'm just gonna try harder well I think internal family systems would say trying harder is not the answer.
28:28
SPEAKER_01: Yeah right listening to parts and like realizing they're there for our good they're Genesis one and two they're not Genesis three.
28:35
SPEAKER_00: That is amazing and for those who aren't familiar with internal family systems number one I highly recommend you go read about it.
28:42
SPEAKER_00: And it sounds like Dr.
28:44
SPEAKER_00: Allison Cook's going to be a good resource for that.
28:46
SPEAKER_00: It's great can I give one more resource real quick please yes inside out both inside out one and two they are internal family systems 101 made thank you for sharing that because one of the things that I used to coach on was whenever we'd have somebody in front of us and there's like a dilemma or a problem a situation I'm like okay first of all before we go any further we've got to figure out what you're feeling.
29:10
SPEAKER_00: Yeah and so I'm like we're gonna break this down super easy okay happy sad scared confused upset angry and I'm like all of your emotions are in those five categories okay and the likelihood is is that you are feeling at least two if not all of these in some way but when people ask you to tell them how you're doing a lot of times you're like well I can't just pick one of these so I'm fine.
29:39
SPEAKER_00: Yeah we used to say fine is like when you don't want to figure out what you're feeling and okay is when you're feeling more than one and you just don't want to have to like explain it right so we would actually go through and I'd say okay how are you sad right now?
29:55
SPEAKER_00: Like how are you angry right now?
29:58
SPEAKER_00: How are you confused right now?
30:00
SPEAKER_00: How are you scared?
30:01
SPEAKER_00: How are you happy?
30:03
SPEAKER_00: And we'd always end with happy because if you start with happy they're gonna be like I'm not happy about any of this and or you'd have some people who'd be like oh no I can see the good in it and they'd start with happy and then they'd ignore the rest.
30:14
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
30:15
SPEAKER_00: And what was so gorgeous is like by the time they were done they could see and in in internal family systems there's a conversation around how there's this core self of you that has been created by God that experiences emotions.
30:30
SPEAKER_00: And then these I think it's Myron Golden he doesn't do this in an internal family systems way but he calls them this and I think it's beautiful he calls them the lie denities and the my identities okay so your my identity gets built upon the lie identity.
30:48
SPEAKER_00: So the lie identity is all of these pieces of yourself that people tell you are bad or wrong.
30:53
SPEAKER_00: So you exile them.
30:54
SPEAKER_02: Yep.
30:54
SPEAKER_00: And then your my identity is internal family systems calls these your managers and your firefighters and these are the ones that try to control and like project an image out to the world of like no no I'm not really that bad person.
31:07
SPEAKER_00: I'm this I'm good.
31:09
SPEAKER_00: If we did that five emotion thing and went through it they could start to see like oh okay these are the things that I don't even want to own.
31:17
SPEAKER_00: So here's like where the lie identity is really coming in and okay and here's how I'm trying to avoid or fix or control.
31:28
SPEAKER_00: And back when I taught this it wasn't from a Christian perspective.
31:32
SPEAKER_00: So we'd always ask their future self it was very new age I'm yeah not ashamed to admit but I love this idea of like asking Jesus.
31:43
SPEAKER_01: Yeah yeah the core like when we do this work with people one of the most beautiful things I get to do is when we talk about firefighters and managers there's a very real and it does feel new agey Leah like I'm not ashamed of it because I think it's good but yeah there is a very real sense that we get to tell our manager hey I don't need you right now right yeah I take a break the the fire's not burning right now take a break but I think when we root that when we like root that and ground it in this idea that like Jesus is a part of this conversation too I think it it's not how IFS was intended.
32:16
SPEAKER_01: And I think it's a beautiful adaptation of a wonderful theory.
32:19
SPEAKER_00: Yes I have to tell you this has been happening on almost every podcast episode this morning very clearly I got out of bed and I have like a pretty normal routine and heard so clearly I need you to do this different I was like okay and it was like I need you to go read the catechism and I was like all right that's like a random and I was like okay sure because I have been working my way through it but the last several days I haven't and I was like okay so I got in there do you know what it was all about wait is this the Heidelberg Catechism oh no so the Catholic Church catechism yes okay but still I mean yes but um I love the Heidelberg catechism too right but I have been but it was about Genesis three and you just you were like it's not just Genesis three it's like back to Genesis one and two and I'm like God you are so funny and also just like so good right but I think that what he's been laying on my heart recently is okay a lot of these things that you did in your trauma institute yes they were secular and yes they were new age and most of this stuff is good yeah it was just slightly distorted so don't throw it out bring it back yeah and that was a deep journal conversation I was having with him this weekend and so then to have him be like go read this and then to have this conversation right here about IFS which I haven't talked about in years yeah I think it's just for me personally as someone who's my primary gift is that of the professor so I love to learn and then I love to teach.
34:03
SPEAKER_00: Yeah he's kind of showing me like hey when you decide to make one of these ships like you just did you don't have to throw everything out bring as much with you yeah as is good and you don't have to like do the thing that I think a lot of a lot of coaches and a lot of secular people teach which is just burn the ships burn the boats go all in on this new thing like forget the old thing no you don't have to do that.
34:30
SPEAKER_01: Yeah yeah I actually I mean I love that Lee I have a reformed lean which has some Catholic overlap for sure which probably has some Catholic fighting at some point in in history too obviously probably yeah yeah but I mean I agree with you 100% that there's sort of this beautiful reformed theology that says all things good and true come from Jesus.
34:50
SPEAKER_01: Yeah right so if something proves to be and also common grace right there's this idea that that good and true things can come and will come to people who do not know Jesus like got like the sunrise it's beautiful that's a common grace we all see it and we all get to enjoy the fruit of a sunrise.
35:08
SPEAKER_01: Yeah so I think there is something to be said about there is good and beautiful things outside of people who identify themselves as Christians and I think we can say those all come from God.
35:17
SPEAKER_01: Yeah how we think about them can shift and be adapted but yeah I don't think we should throw anything out that passes the good and beautiful test.
35:25
SPEAKER_00: I love that so much and it's also just a testament right here of like we were talking about two different catechisms and yet this is also something I'm realizing because I think in a lot of places the denominational argument supersedes like it's just okay yes there are some things that like one of us is going to be right on and one of us is going to be wrong on.
35:51
SPEAKER_00: And the core piece of what we both believe is good and beautiful and like if we start from there and that's also I think it's gorgeous that you talk about that there's this common grace that's available to everyone because a lot of times I mean even even the Pope said this he's like there's a ray of truth in every single religion out there.
36:16
SPEAKER_00: So if the Pope is saying that then we as as Catholics need to also believe that too of we can't just like throw these things out and also one of the the biggest pieces of respecting the dignity of of the human person which is a fundamental principle in what they call sacred to tradition or the beliefs of the Catholic Church is respect for religious freedom.
36:40
SPEAKER_00: And so this has been something that's interesting for me because a lot of times the guests that we have on the show or the people who are coming into our space they're like oh you're Catholic and I'm like yes and like that only means something if you decide it means something okay yeah so I'm a little like what can I ask questions?
37:01
SPEAKER_01: Yeah please what would sorry I'm I'm kind of taken off off guard if like what assumptions might people make about about a Catholic it is very fascinating to me how how many people do not believe that Catholicism is actually part of Christianity.
37:17
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
37:17
SPEAKER_00: Yes they're like you're you don't believe in Jesus the right way um so in the same way that they're like Judaism isn't like they Judaism believed Jesus existed but he wasn't the savior Muslim like he's a prophet in those same ways they'll lump Catholicism in or Orthodox because they're like who you believe Jesus was is not who we believe he was.
37:37
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
37:38
SPEAKER_00: I've had that and then the other piece is that I think a lot of people make the assumption and I've talked about this inside of our regulated roots academy I think that the Catholic Church has had some serious PR issues and could use the in the same that a lot of denominations have but 100% there's just this idea of it's super strict it's all about the rules Catholic guilt was a big thing.
38:02
SPEAKER_00: So I think a lot of times people think like oh you're gonna make me come in and like pray to the saints and I'm like well first of all we're not worshiping the saints if we don't pray to the saints in the sense of like saints whoever like you're on the same level as Jesus we're just I'm basically going to a saint if I prayed to them and saying hey can you pray for me the same way that I would come to you Kurt and be like hey Kurt I'm going through this thing can you pray for me?
38:25
SPEAKER_00: That's what's happening.
38:26
SPEAKER_00: But a lot of people have misconceptions and I get it because I had a lot of misconceptions when I first came in too so that's why I've been really led both from a gifting perspective by God and just like in the work that he's calling me to do to read the catechism because like we're getting a ton of questions of well what about this and what about this and it's been really helpful to go oh my gosh I have an answer for that.
38:50
SPEAKER_00: Yeah and you may disagree but I have an answer for it.
38:55
SPEAKER_01: Lee I mean I I think you just captured this is probably not what we were going to talk about but I think you just captured this really beautiful part of church history right that this idea that like humans like Christians have done these things before and and have adopted and accepted and held these catechisms as answers to these hard questions and I there is something beautiful about being able to say I'm not the first one to ask these questions.
39:18
SPEAKER_01: Yeah and I'm not the only one and I'm not even the smartest one.
39:22
SPEAKER_01: Yeah for sure yeah so I I think catechisms are are be I I know here's what I know there was a time where like church planting church culture was like avoidant of anything tradition.
39:35
SPEAKER_01: I am a child of that that era but my kids and Gen Z kids love tradition and love like being rooted in something bigger than themselves and being rooted in something that they don't have to have the answer to or they don't have to have to be the decider of the answer.
39:50
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
39:51
SPEAKER_01: So I'm glad you brought up catechism I I'm with you.
39:53
SPEAKER_01: I love it.
39:54
SPEAKER_00: I think it's beautiful I was reflecting yesterday on how the I think a lot of us millennials and Gen Xers were raised if we were raised in the faith were raised with a lot of truth and not a lot of love.
40:13
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
40:14
SPEAKER_00: And so I think what happened what had happened was like we did this thing where we went okay let's bring in all the love and then in some places we're like but don't worry about the tradition and don't worry about the truth.
40:29
SPEAKER_00: Yeah this is what humans do we just pendulum swing back and forth and well this went too far so let's bring it back and then we end up swinging the other direction.
40:38
SPEAKER_00: I mean that's what I think happens in a fallen and broken world.
40:42
SPEAKER_00: And what I think is so gorgeous is in the trauma trauma trainings we used to teach, we had this saying T T A T, two things are true.
40:51
SPEAKER_00: Right.
40:51
SPEAKER_00: So like it can be true that I had a really negative experience in the Catholic church when I was younger because I had a priest who basically like made me feel like I was going to hell.
41:03
SPEAKER_00: Yeah and it can also be true that's not what Catholic teaching is.
41:11
SPEAKER_00: That was just a person who interpreted it poorly.
41:14
SPEAKER_00: It could be true that I grew up in a family that said oh you just need Jesus and that's it.
41:18
SPEAKER_00: Like you don't need church you don't need community like just a personal relationship with Jesus and that made it really hard to get to know him.
41:25
SPEAKER_00: And it's also true that Jesus calls us to be in community with one another and to worship together and to love one another.
41:33
SPEAKER_00: So we don't have to encamp ourselves in one side and neglect the other side and we talked about this in our when the institute was open like that requires a lot of energy yeah you've got to stop you've got to pause you've got to get regulated you've got to be able to be curious you've got to be willing to take that time and energy to go okay I'm having this strong emotional response here and what else is true?
42:04
SPEAKER_01: Yeah yeah I love two things are true I can I see a question I know it's your show but I want to like turn this is great I don't get to do this that often so this is great yeah gen genuine question not a setup.
42:17
SPEAKER_01: Yeah why do you think we're so resistant to having two things be because I'll be honest I've done a lot of self-work and I'm still resistant if two things are true.
42:25
SPEAKER_00: Like why do you think that is for us I think it actually goes back to original sin honestly I think it goes back to if two things are true it makes it a lot harder to play God.
42:40
SPEAKER_00: Interesting if two things are true then I can't just decide how this is and like cast off the rest.
42:50
SPEAKER_00: And that that's also it's again so funny like that's what I was reading about today was the fall and what I also love about the the catechism of the Catholic church is it's like this there's this whole question of what is evil and why is it here and they're like we don't know yeah like we know what it is like like we know what it is but we don't know why.
43:07
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
43:08
SPEAKER_00: And I love that that it's like we have ideas the here's what we do know but like we're never gonna know the answer to that.
43:15
SPEAKER_00: But what I've seen in people is that they want that absolute understanding and knowing and that requires you to encamp yourself in a position.
43:27
SPEAKER_00: You can't be curious because curiosity means that you might be wrong.
43:32
SPEAKER_00: Yeah which means you're not God.
43:35
SPEAKER_00: Yeah yeah that's interesting that's so interesting I'm grateful for that question because I haven't had the chance to really think about that but when I had that moment in 2024 where I like legit hit my knees and I was like Jesus take it because I'm obviously not doing a good job with this he met me with so much compassion and so much love in that moment and what happened for the next two Years was he was like, I'm gonna show you every place that you played God.
44:05
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna show you every place that you haven't been willing to hear people or see people or change your perspective.
44:11
SPEAKER_00: And like goodness gracious, was that painful?
44:14
SPEAKER_00: And also it's been so helpful because now it's like it's such a relief to not have to play God.
44:21
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, 100%.
44:23
SPEAKER_00: Like when bad things happen and people are like, I don't understand this, and why?
44:27
SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, hey, y'all, again, two things are true.
44:29
SPEAKER_00: This sucks.
44:30
SPEAKER_00: And also, I know that God will use it for his good.
44:33
SPEAKER_00: Don't ask me how, don't ask me when.
44:35
SPEAKER_00: I don't, I don't know.
44:36
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
44:38
SPEAKER_00: The one thing I know is that I can trust him.
44:40
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
44:41
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
44:41
SPEAKER_01: I think the psalm writers would agree with you, Lee, that two things can be true.
44:46
SPEAKER_01: This that I hate it, and I don't understand what God is doing, but I trust that God is doing something.
44:51
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, David has a lot of valid crash outs where he's like, I love you, God, and also what is happening?
44:57
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
44:58
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
44:58
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
44:59
SPEAKER_00: When you coach, what do you find people coming to you for the most?
45:07
SPEAKER_00: Because oftentimes I find people who end up coaching, like they not to use like a new agey word, but like a lot of times people are drawn to them for specific things.
45:15
SPEAKER_00: Like, what do you find are the common themes and the people who end up on your doorstep?
45:20
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
45:20
SPEAKER_01: So let me say first, our coaching practice is not explicitly Christian.
45:24
SPEAKER_01: Sure.
45:24
SPEAKER_01: We are this is the common grace thing, right?
45:27
SPEAKER_01: Like my partner and I are both ordained ministers, and we believe that the work is for the world, even if people don't follow Jesus, that it's good work because of common grace.
45:37
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
45:37
SPEAKER_01: So what we find, like we we get a lot of pastors because we know the language and we know the world and we know how isolating it can be.
45:45
SPEAKER_01: Also, because a lot of pastors don't have any resources that look anything like what we do.
45:49
SPEAKER_01: A lot of pastors find themselves alone and on an island.
45:53
SPEAKER_01: Church leaders can be really great, and church leaders in general, like volunteer consistories and elders and deacons, like they are doing the best they can, but often they're super ill-equipped at like helping their pastor be healthy.
46:06
SPEAKER_01: So we get a lot of pastors, we get a lot of nonprofit directors too.
46:10
SPEAKER_01: But the main problem we find in all of those is because they don't have resources, they feel stuck or they feel like they're getting to the end of how they can sustain their leadership.
46:20
SPEAKER_01: Like it's not a sustainable rhythm, or they can't keep doing what they're doing, but they just don't know what to do.
46:27
SPEAKER_01: We believe deeply, and this goes back to my manufacturing time, that processes will always get the results they're designed to get.
46:34
SPEAKER_01: So there's no accidental results.
46:36
SPEAKER_01: And I think the same is true for our life and leadership too.
46:39
SPEAKER_01: There is no accidental results.
46:41
SPEAKER_01: So if I want a different rhythm or I want a more sustainable kind of leadership, I'm gonna have to do something different in my leadership or in my life or in my rhythms.
46:50
SPEAKER_01: And I actually believe the solution is inside people.
46:53
SPEAKER_01: But when they come to us, they say, I don't know what the I don't know how to do this.
46:57
SPEAKER_01: So we our job is to like help them see the solution that's already there.
47:01
SPEAKER_01: Instead of giving them one, we kind of help them have in biblical terms, they have the veil removed, if you will.
47:08
SPEAKER_01: But yeah, it's mostly that like I'm tired, I'm exhausted, I maybe I look successful, but I'm like kicking the dog when I get home.
47:16
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
47:17
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
47:18
SPEAKER_00: You're speaking to um something that I think is really troublesome, like when people get to that level of depletion, which is called moral injury.
47:26
SPEAKER_00: Like you start doing things that are not in alignment with your values, yeah, because the process you are using is not one that's actually designed for sustainability, yeah, for thriving.
47:45
SPEAKER_00: And then that makes you feel bad.
47:46
SPEAKER_00: And then you, it's like wash, rinse, repeat, right?
47:49
SPEAKER_01: Yep.
47:49
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
47:49
SPEAKER_01: We think about it like a beach ball.
47:51
SPEAKER_01: If you try to hold a beach ball in a pool underwater, like if there's a circle of five of you and you're trying to hold a beach ball underwater, you can do it for a little bit, but that ball's gonna like wanna pop up and it takes a lot of work.
48:02
SPEAKER_01: And the deeper in the pool you try to hold it, the harder it is to control it.
48:05
SPEAKER_01: At some point, that beach ball is going to come to the top of the surface.
48:09
SPEAKER_01: And if we try to hold it deep for a long time, it's gonna rush up faster and splash everybody.
48:14
SPEAKER_01: So we think about this as like, man, are the rhythms and practices of life, are they forcing people to hold the beach ball deeper to where like it's coming out, like it's definitely coming out.
48:25
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
48:25
SPEAKER_01: Or can we can we get that beach ball closer to the surface with people or get it on top of the surface where there's not gonna be, you know, this is why pastors cuss on stage and walk away and never preach again.
48:36
SPEAKER_00: Or they commit adultery, like we just talked about at the beginning.
48:40
SPEAKER_00: Like, that's what happened in our church.
48:41
SPEAKER_00: And I understand the impetus to like condemn or judge.
48:45
SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, if something like that happened, something along the way went fundamentally wrong.
48:50
SPEAKER_00: Like this person was not supported in the way they needed to be supported.
48:54
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, nobody wakes up and says, Man, I want to have a catastrophic life failure today.
48:58
SPEAKER_00: Right.
48:58
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
48:59
SPEAKER_01: And not to excuse, like I do think the church excuses way too much, but but I also think I can all two things are true.
49:06
SPEAKER_01: I can also say, I don't think anybody wakes up and says, I'm gonna have an affair today, or I'm gonna, I'm gonna uh lash out from the pulpit on the internet.
49:14
SPEAKER_01: I don't think anybody wakes up to do that.
49:16
SPEAKER_01: So I think for me, that's like the beach ball coming out moment.
49:20
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and we really try to help people understand there's a beach ball here, like let's let it up gently.
49:25
SPEAKER_01: Let's find ways to create rhythms where you're not having to hold that thing under.
49:30
SPEAKER_00: I think tying this back to IFS too, I feel like this is such like a perfect bow on this, is that beach ball is oftentimes the exiles, right?
49:38
SPEAKER_00: It's those parts you don't want to look at.
49:42
SPEAKER_00: You've not surrendered to Jesus and been like, hey, Jesus, help me with these.
49:46
SPEAKER_00: We used to use the analogy of like you have this house and you take your exiles and you put them in the basement and you chain them up to the wall and then you lock the door.
49:59
SPEAKER_00: And then you try to pretend they don't exist, right?
50:04
SPEAKER_00: Those exiles are going to try to break out because they're part of you and they want to be connected to you.
50:11
SPEAKER_00: And so your managers are those things that try to keep the the exiles in the basement.
50:18
SPEAKER_00: And you're when the exile comes upstairs, like busts out and like lights the couch on fire, your firefighters are what then drench the entire house in water and ruin everything trying to put the fire out.
50:30
SPEAKER_00: And so we used to just say, you know, the the best answer to this is to bring your exiles upstairs and to sit them on the couch, and we're not gonna leave them there unsupervised because it's because they have not learned how to be integrated and properly show up.
50:47
SPEAKER_00: But you're gonna hand them a glass of lemonade and you're gonna sit there and you're gonna give them a hug and you're gonna listen to them.
50:52
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
50:53
SPEAKER_00: And like if you do that, they'll stop lighting the couch on fire.
50:58
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
50:58
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, they just want to be heard.
51:00
SPEAKER_00: They just want to be heard.
51:01
SPEAKER_00: And so again, I love bringing that back to the Jesus piece because I think part of not trying to keep that beach ball underwater and slowly letting it come up is asking Jesus, hey, how do I release this pressure?
51:14
SPEAKER_00: Like, how do I allow you to come in here and really see and hear those parts and allow you to give me forgiveness and grace and like coming back to that grief piece?
51:26
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
51:26
SPEAKER_00: There's gonna be a lot of grief when you have those pieces come up because you're gonna realize how cutting those parts off negatively impacted you and your family and your congregation, your clients, like whomever.
51:40
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, there was a real moment for me in like 2022.
51:44
SPEAKER_01: Um, I hadn't coached formally yet.
51:45
SPEAKER_01: I'm still kind of doing my own work.
51:47
SPEAKER_01: There was a moment where I'm in this place that that I don't know anybody.
51:51
SPEAKER_01: We're in a pandemic.
51:52
SPEAKER_01: You know, I'm the bad guy in a lot of senses, as the pastor launching a new culture and saying no to things during the pandemic and all this kind of stuff.
52:00
SPEAKER_01: And I'm angry.
52:01
SPEAKER_01: I'm actually angry at God in that moment.
52:03
SPEAKER_01: And I'm sad.
52:04
SPEAKER_01: And there's every part of my manager at work telling me, good pastor doesn't feel angry, right?
52:11
SPEAKER_01: Good pastor doesn't feel sad.
52:13
SPEAKER_01: I I'm fortunate enough that I had a good coach.
52:15
SPEAKER_01: The church I worked for paid for a tremendous coach.
52:18
SPEAKER_01: And my lead pastor, good friend of mine, was a tremendous listener and a tremendous emotional health advocate.
52:26
SPEAKER_01: And there was a moment where like I remember him saying, Have you allowed yourself to feel it?
52:31
SPEAKER_01: And I remember him asking so clearly, and I actually said back, I'm like, I don't know how to do that.
52:36
SPEAKER_01: But that's the the exile coming out of the basement.
52:39
SPEAKER_01: And I love that analogy.
52:41
SPEAKER_01: Like, I let it out of the basement.
52:42
SPEAKER_01: It didn't get easier the next day, right?
52:45
SPEAKER_01: It didn't like magically, okay, now I feel better.
52:48
SPEAKER_01: That didn't happen.
52:49
SPEAKER_01: But there's also this thing where when we let these parts out, I think we do allow God to show himself as something, as a part of his nature that maybe we might not see otherwise.
52:59
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
52:59
SPEAKER_01: I realized that I would say from the pulpit, God is our comforter.
53:03
SPEAKER_01: Well, I never actually had to be comforted until that moment.
53:06
SPEAKER_01: I let those parts out, and it's like, okay, now, okay, God, I get it.
53:09
SPEAKER_01: I know what comforter means.
53:11
SPEAKER_01: When the parts can sit on the couch and have a lemonade, now I know what comforter means.
53:15
SPEAKER_01: So that's gorgeous.
53:16
SPEAKER_01: I Lee, I love the basement.
53:19
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna steal.
53:19
SPEAKER_01: Can I steal?
53:20
SPEAKER_00: Please.
53:20
SPEAKER_00: Oh my gosh, yes.
53:21
SPEAKER_00: I always tell anyone, I'm like, any story or any training, whatever we've used, take it because I think it's these kinds of analogies that make things make sense for people.
53:31
SPEAKER_00: I talked about the work that I do every day and like how joyful I feel with it.
53:37
SPEAKER_00: My absolute favorite moment in the world, cherry on top of the icing on the cake, is like when somebody understands themselves better in a place that's just had so much complexity, just with like a simple story or a simple analogy.
53:55
SPEAKER_00: And that is my favorite thing in the world when you see that light bulb go off and they're like, oh, and when it helps them be kinder to themselves and to other people.
54:06
SPEAKER_00: It's just I think that that's those two things are true, right?
54:11
SPEAKER_00: We can hold ourselves accountable, we can hold ourselves responsible.
54:14
SPEAKER_00: We can also accept the consequences of our actions because even if you didn't mean to do it and we now understand there was a bunch of reasons why and stuff underneath, like there's still fallout, and you've still got to deal with that.
54:25
SPEAKER_00: And you don't have to feel ashamed of it.
54:30
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
54:30
SPEAKER_00: And that is, I don't think a lot of people have been taught that both of those things can coexist.
54:38
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
54:38
SPEAKER_01: I'm so glad you talked about shame.
54:40
SPEAKER_01: I'm just now reading a book called Healing What's Within by Chuck De Grote.
54:43
SPEAKER_01: Do you know Chuck De Grote?
54:44
SPEAKER_02: Uh-uh, uh-uh.
54:45
SPEAKER_01: Can't recommend him enough.
54:46
SPEAKER_01: But he he writes this whole book about that that's centered on like the interaction between God and Adam and Eve.
54:52
SPEAKER_01: And I just read a piece where God says, Where are you?
54:55
SPEAKER_01: He theorizes this.
54:56
SPEAKER_01: He says, Look, we all have kind of grown up with this, like, where are you?
55:01
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
55:01
SPEAKER_01: Um, he he says, Well, what if what if God says, guys, where are you?
55:05
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
55:06
SPEAKER_01: Like a gent, a gentle, it's just that makes me want to cry.
55:09
SPEAKER_01: It makes me want to cry.
55:10
SPEAKER_01: And it's just a shift away from shame, right?
55:12
SPEAKER_01: This the shame culture is so prominent.
55:14
SPEAKER_01: So I'm glad that you mentioned, like, we just don't have to feel shame about these things.
55:17
SPEAKER_00: No, he doesn't want us to.
55:19
SPEAKER_00: That that shame is really oftentimes it's it leads to more sin, it leads to more separation.
55:24
SPEAKER_00: It makes you take the exile and throw him back down in the basement.
55:27
SPEAKER_01: 100%.
55:28
SPEAKER_00: So well, Kurt, this has been absolutely phenomenal.
55:32
SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much for joining and also for like low-key interviewing me back.
55:36
SPEAKER_00: That was great.
55:37
SPEAKER_00: Uh, you don't have your own podcast, do you?
55:39
SPEAKER_01: I I do, yes.
55:40
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
55:40
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna have to go check out your podcast because I didn't realize that.
55:45
SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, I would listen to you all day.
55:47
SPEAKER_00: If our listeners would like to get to know you better, besides listening to your podcast, which is called what, by the way?
55:52
SPEAKER_01: Live fully lead authentically.
55:54
SPEAKER_00: Okay, great.
55:55
SPEAKER_00: So we'll put that in the show notes.
55:56
SPEAKER_00: And besides the podcast, where would you like us to send people who would like to connect with you further?
56:02
SPEAKER_01: Yep.
56:03
SPEAKER_01: So our website is brimstonecoaching group.com.
56:05
SPEAKER_01: And let me say a little bit Christians hear brimstone and think something naturally.
56:09
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we're all about transformation.
56:11
SPEAKER_01: We think God invites us into transformation.
56:13
SPEAKER_01: So we could not think of a better way to capture that than by using a species of butterfly as our sort of corporate logo.
56:19
SPEAKER_01: So brimstone butterfly is the longest living butterfly.
56:24
SPEAKER_01: So the longest living as a butter, like as a transformed creature.
56:27
SPEAKER_00: So brimstone.
56:29
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's not like it's gorgeous, not like hellfire and brimstone.
56:33
SPEAKER_00: Okay, okay.
56:34
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for the clarification.
56:35
SPEAKER_00: I think that's just like with me and having to clarify names with my about with my spouse, like you probably have to do that a lot.
56:42
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we do in Christian circles.
56:44
SPEAKER_01: They're like and some Christian circles, they love it.
56:46
SPEAKER_01: They're like, Yes, give us some more brimstone.
56:48
SPEAKER_01: Like, we're not gonna do it.
56:49
SPEAKER_00: You're like, actually, let's talk about why you love that so much.
56:52
SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
56:52
SPEAKER_01: Yes, yes.
56:53
SPEAKER_01: So, yeah, brimstonecoaching group.com is the best place.
56:55
SPEAKER_01: So there's all kinds of links on there that are free, no obligation.
56:58
SPEAKER_01: If people want to like see if our philosophies line up with where they're feeling stuck.
57:01
SPEAKER_00: Awesome.
57:02
SPEAKER_00: Well, yeah, I think it sounds like you are a wonderful resource for these people who, like you said, there's they're holding these positions of leadership and they may not have people around them that are equipped or who really understand what that weight is and who probably have just again been holding the beach ball underwater for a really long time and need to learn how to let it up.
57:26
SPEAKER_00: So that's amazing.
57:27
SPEAKER_00: So thank you for joining us.
57:29
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, thanks for having me.
57:30
SPEAKER_00: All right, we will catch you all next week.