This week Kevin and Stewart sit down to discuss an insightful email series from John Maxwell which unpacks the relevance of the Bible on life and leadership and the applicability of 2,000 year-old advice. This is, after all, the "greatest book on leadership ever written."
|| Show Notes ||
Strategic Planning Overcoming Exhaustion, by Ruiz Co.
bitl.y/17TLIVE
The Maxwell Leadership Bible
bit.ly/46wSGCb
|| Connect with Us ||
Check out all our episodes on all major streaming platforms, and further engagement with the 17Twenty crew on social media at:
https://17twenty.buzzsprout.com/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/17twenty
https://www.instagram.com/17twentypodcast
Grab your copy of the Mountain Mover Manual: How to Live Intentionally, Lead with Purpose, and Achieve Your Greatest Potential, by Kevin Carey
Originally in print:
https://amzn.to/441OPeH
And now available on Audible:
https://adbl.co/45YIKB2
This week Kevin and Stewart sit down to discuss an insightful email series from John Maxwell which unpacks the relevance of the Bible on life and leadership and the applicability of 2,000 year-old advice. This is, after all, the "greatest book on leadership ever written."
|| Show Notes ||
Strategic Planning Overcoming Exhaustion, by Ruiz Co.
bitl.y/17TLIVE
The Maxwell Leadership Bible
bit.ly/46wSGCb
|| Connect with Us ||
Check out all our episodes on all major streaming platforms, and further engagement with the 17Twenty crew on social media at:
https://17twenty.buzzsprout.com/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/17twenty
https://www.instagram.com/17twentypodcast
Grab your copy of the Mountain Mover Manual: How to Live Intentionally, Lead with Purpose, and Achieve Your Greatest Potential, by Kevin Carey
Originally in print:
https://amzn.to/441OPeH
And now available on Audible:
https://adbl.co/45YIKB2
how many people don't understand what that first emotions tethered to and they just take that one for what it's worth and there's a failure to address that character weakness because they don't understand it.
Stewart:Well, and you're going to get as a leader wrestling with that. You're going to get a pass One, maybe two, but eventually doing these things that starts to break down trust with your team. You're not going to get passes anymore.
Kevin:What's Mountain Movers? Welcome back to the 17Twenty podcast.
Stewart:I didn't lean back.
Kevin:You didn't, but we're in person. I know what's it. Who's that? Is that fat Joe? What? What are you talking about? He's got. He's got a song. Lean back. I have no idea. Somebody's going to give it, most likely Rachel Kennedy she did you see that? She dropped the LeBron James doing the chalk everywhere.
Stewart:I didn't see it. There were so many comments on the LinkedIn from last week so I didn't. It was on your post. Actually, I don't know if exactly so many. I couldn't keep up so I did not see it.
Kevin:Yeah, it made me. I saw it late last night and it made me chuckle because, like you know, the body blows of a very long day and you get home and your guards down and then you just see the Bron James gift and it doesn't register, initially Like I don't get it. Why?
Stewart:are you because you said we're going to get all the LeBron James? Yes, that's right. There it is. Yeah, shout out, rachel. Uh, I don't even know what gift we're talking about right now, though. Yeah.
Kevin:You'll go look and laugh.
Stewart:Okay, All right. Um, a couple of updates before we get to the stuff for today. Um, it's been a week, man, since the uh, the announcement. How's that been?
Kevin:Overwhelming in a in a really positive way that I. I thought you know, the friends and family and the relationships built over the years would show up and just encourage and like the post and all that sort of stuff. But it it's went well beyond that, yeah.
Kevin:And I mean we're sitting inside the tech so office. The beauty of the relationships built here is how many people genuinely care about you, care about the purpose, the vision, the core values. The PVC that was latched onto heavily Like people are all about that. And then the absolute need for people that stand for something more than the widget like we talked about last week.
Kevin:Yeah, and just people that can do some fundamental executing. Yeah, and so the outpouring is not just like we support you as like we need you, and let's figure out how to get you through approvals now. Yeah, and so, way beyond my expectations. God is good, yeah.
Stewart:New, new co, new startup challenges associated with uh, getting the prequels, all that stuff are taking care of. But that's what I heard you say. And what I also heard you say is, when you stand for something, when you have a reputation for execution, when you blah, blah like we're going to figure that out, people are going to lean and say, okay, let me get this involved and check that box. And because I know I don't, it's not actually a startup.
Kevin:Yeah, and I'll give Clint Binkley a specific shout out of just getting the right people on a phone call immediately, because we have a friendship, we have a trust level and he wants to get beyond that. Like, what is the first bear trap that we run into? Probably a pre-qualification process, and what documents would serve that well, and just basically coaching me, yeah, right, so you know, that's the cool thing that we can have vendors and clients that are also friends and that matters, right, and they'll give you the inside scoop or the here's what you need to know, or here's how we can flip this extra switch, or whatever the case may be, to make all the things happen.
Stewart:So totally, that's what I'm talking about. You need to make all the things happen. So totally, that's awesome, that's cool. First week, man, let's pitch upcoming. I guess we're probably three weeks out, maybe two weeks out live podcast recording.
Kevin:Yes.
Stewart:So I'll let you you've been having a primary contact on that, but just in broad strokes Friday and over the third we're recording live on strategic planning and overcoming exhaustion. You've been having the primary interface on that, though, so I'll let you give the hard pitch, and then we'll talk a little bit about how to get connected.
Kevin:Yeah, so Priscilla Trevino, she's running point on this which she's kind of like the middle middle lady between us, and she used to be in our industry, so she used to work for Beck.
Stewart:Oh, I didn't know that, yeah.
Kevin:That's kind of that connection there yeah. But Ruizco, they do a bunch of amazing things in Cedar Hill and they put on a few live events and free events each year just for their town to to give back and and and make a positive impact. And that's that keynote I did at Trinity Church several months ago. This is now also at Trinity Church and it's just bringing the community together. So, yeah, that link is for a free event.
Kevin:You could show up and we're super stoked because it's a live recording, the first of its kind we had we had scratched that itch a little bit with planning, but now this is real, where we're going to go to a live recording. I'll warn you now, stewie, like you walk in the stage is a, it's pretty, it's pretty significant. And you're like, well, boy, like this is the big leagues. You know, when you see the big, the projectors, the TVs, the band, like all that's there, the big stage, it's a, it's a really nice church. But it's going to be fun, live engagement. Hopefully some of our tribe comes out that have that has wanted to do this, and then obviously we'll meet some new people in the city of Cedar Hill. The church is beautiful and also like I don't know if you've ever been to Cedar Hill, but once you exit for whatever exit that is, off the off 20 to go further south, it's beautiful.
Stewart:Like it's hilly, yeah, and heavily wooded, like in.
Kevin:Cedars, perhaps, maybe, but I'd never saw that coming Like, like it's almost.
Stewart:Hill.
Kevin:Country Brighton or backyard.
Stewart:Yes, it's. It is ironically close and nobody really knows it's there and it is beautiful over there in Cedar Hill. We went camping over there this is quite some time ago. William and I went and I'm shocked that it's. It's really nice. Yeah, yeah, it's not just shocked that it's nice, that's not what. I'm shocked that it's nice. They did so close and you just forget about it.
Kevin:Yeah, the landscape of it all. It distracted me from having the jitters to that keynote on the way there for just a second and then I pulled up in the parking lot. I'm like holy crap, this place is huge.
Stewart:Yeah, yeah, I'm looking forward to it. I've that not to put like the stage and all that stuff. It doesn't like I'm not worried about that. I just want to make sure we have like a tight present. It feels more like a presentation than this is a sort of ad hoc. We're just chatting in, folks are listening in. I want to make sure we're tight for that so we might get preppies instead of just winging that one man.
Kevin:And that's where we're different, because I'm rooting for the Gerald's and the James's to show up the fishers and just scream random stuff and make it loose. Yeah, um, tight, loose at the same time. Can you do that? Yes, sure we can have it we have a tight structure, but then we want the crowd going ham.
Stewart:Yeah, All right. Well, let me give you in in order to go. Ham, you have to be there so you have to be ham.
Stewart:You have to be ham, must be present to ham. So we'll drop a link in the episode. But for those of you in the show notes, but for those of you listening, we made a bitly link so you can go check it out. It's bitly, bitly Slash 17 T live. It's free event. Go sign up for that, click the link. Uh, it'll be in the show notes. It's bitly slash one. Seven T live. Um, and we will be recording that. And then I guess we'll record it and we'll drop it as an episode. For those of you all who miss it. Uh, we'll drop it as an episode the following couple of weeks, whenever it fits into the schedule.
Kevin:Yeah, we'll probably have to wait for the production of it. So, because I have a feeling we're not bringing any of our equipment, I wait. They got a pretty stellar.
Stewart:AV system. That would be better for me if we didn't have to pack it up and roll out you know, I mean, our studio is pretty cool.
Kevin:I think they all pump this room.
Stewart:Yes, I've seen the clips that they did for your keynote. It's better than this, oh that was fine.
Kevin:It's good. Yeah, this works for us.
Stewart:Yeah, Um, all right, Well, I got a. I actually did. Uh, this is one of seven ever Uno reversey, Uno reversey, and Kevin has no idea what we're talking about today. Um, so we'll chew through it a little bit. Let let's. I'll set the stage just a touch. Um, let's call it, a month ago I don't know exactly how long it was Sometime in the last couple of months, I was talking with someone and I even forget who it was and they said something in passing that stuck in my brain that just if it was. Um, if you're trying to to become a better leader, then why aren't you focusing on the greatest leadership book that's ever been written? Oh, okay.
Kevin:The Bible the Bible.
Stewart:Yeah, maybe you were with me. I mean, you jumped the answer like that, like maybe we were talking, I don't even know who said it, so maybe this seat was it someone there? Yeah, and I just remember thinking, huh, well, that's it, cause I think a long time ago it was in the first 20, 30 episodes or so we tried to tackle like Jesus's leadership um around the disciples and we talked through a couple of those things. It was a long, long time ago, one of the first, like I said, first couple dozen episodes, um, but that idea like the greatest leadership book ever why aren't you focusing on leadership principles, on the Bible is stuck in my brain. And it wasn't. It's probably because our phones all listened to everything we're talking about. It wasn't.
Stewart:A couple weeks later, I get this email or maybe it's on LinkedIn actually from John Maxwell about doing a little series on, just a five day series on leadership principles from the Bible. I was like, okay, okay, so I got those, I read those, and so what I want to do today was just kick them out there, not because I'm an expert on this or not because I know all the people in the Bible or because I'm some expert on. But just talk through the people who showed up in those little snippets from John Maxwell's team, talk through some of the principles that they were working on and then really just say, look, this is something I've been thinking about. This was a great introduction to it and I'm interested in digging into this more. So this is high level where we're going today. How's that sound?
Kevin:Great Did we talk? Was it on here that we talked about that redeeming your time book by Jordan Rainer that I recently finished?
Stewart:I know you and I have talked about it. I don't know if it was on here or not, though.
Kevin:So it's along these lines. Before we get into the John Maxwell stuff. It kind of kicks off by setting the stage in the book of Jesus is the goat of time management, yeah, and so that's what we're going to study here. And then we're going to try to redeem your time from the Great Redeemer. And if we did that already, I don't want it to be a rerun. But he goes through an entire book of his on redeeming your time of Jesus. Scenarios like the guy falls through the roof to be healed, doesn't lose his mind, he's calm. I think we did talk about it because he's I know you and I have talked about it.
Stewart:I just can't remember if we talked about it while this machine over here was recording everything.
Kevin:Yeah, like the sense of urgency without stress and like all this sort of stuff, and I think it was Brad Brown that said that.
Stewart:Said what the greatest leadership book of all time. Thanks though, there you go, we'll shout out to Brad Brown also. Okay, so the first day of it all is day one. It takes courage to lead lessons on what not to do from King Saul. All right, we're talking about King Saul, old Testament homie. He was generally. He was the first king of Israel. We're talking 11th century BC. I'm not giving like getting all the weeds here, just to kind of frame what we're talking about.
Stewart:You read about King Saul mainly in 1 Samuel and presumptively and I don't know, maybe it's directly in there presumptively tall, dark, handsome, like this is the dude we're talking about King of Israel. Chief accomplishments through this phase primarily is military. He's keeping Israel safe, primarily keeping Israel safe from the advancements of the enemies against it. And this we find in this articulation of the story with King Saul. The David and Goliath story lies in there. King Saul was the king during that story of David and Goliath. He's tragic hero, strength and battle, but really unable to finally solve the Philistine problem, and blah, blah, blah. Okay, you with me. So far, this is who we're talking about, and the thing from that week or that day, I guess, from Maxwell's team is focusing on taking courage to lead and what not to do from King Saul, and so I'm not going to like, go in and cross-reference against, like verses and stuff. I'm just going to hit these high levels and we've talked to him.
Stewart:The lessons about courage we learned from Saul are one courage and cowardice are both contagious. So when Saul ran away, so did his men, and then that will come back to. I'm just going to run through them quickly. Without courage, it doesn't matter how good your intentions are. Saul had good intentions, but when he presented burnt offerings to the Lord, but he let his fear that the people would desert him control his actions Right. So without courage, it doesn't matter what your intentions are. Only courage allows you to do what you're afraid of doing.
Stewart:Saul hid among the baggage to avoid becoming King. Without courage, we're slaves to our own insecurity and possessiveness. Saul was captive to his fears of being replaced by King David. Replaced by David, there's a whole. He chased him into all sorts of crazy Saul chasing down David stories, and a leader without courage will never let go of the familiar. Saul employed a medium this and I mean medium, like in the spiritual sense To ask counsel of Samuel's departed spirit. He goes, and I think it's called the necromancer, which is like a really cool word, trying to like hold on to Samuel even after he's gone. So a leader without courage never lets go of the familiar. Say something about that. I got a couple of points in there. I'm like we'll pull that what you learned on how to not be a leader from Saul, but what do you? Got thoughts on that, any of that stuff, man?
Kevin:Well, just the data points of my life, of collection of what to do versus what not to do being equally important, and I'm happy for both sides of it, because if you don't first hand experience some of those what not to do's, you might walk into them yourself and be that person that does it to other people.
Stewart:And well, it's like the negative mentor relationship, like everybody is desiring someone who's gonna lead them in the right direction, but when you had somebody who was terrible and leading you in the wrong direction, well, you learned just as much as not more, from that. Yeah right, oh wow, that did not work and that was terrible, and now I know right. So there's great examples from what not to do.
Kevin:Yep and leadership, at the end of the day, is influence, and influence is powerful. And if you have a title of king, so maybe equate that to CEO or president or some sort of high level leadership position. Today, what you do is gonna be contagious Positive, negative or indifferent. Right, like, what do you stand for? What is your benchmark? And if you're out there being a Debbie Downer, like, why would you expect your team to believe in something big, yeah, if you're out there doubting it you know, colby and I talk all the time about how, whether you want to believe it or not, everybody in your orbit is reading you, right?
Stewart:What they're paying attention to, what time you got there when you sat down, who you interface with the tone of your conversations if your door was open or closed, all of it, and it all like again to your point. People are watching and it all becomes contagion, positive or negative. So what contagion are you spreading? Yep, what virus are you spreading, so to speak?
Kevin:Well, and so like people might be listening and think well, I'm not a king or queen or whatever the case may be, they are. But leadership equals influence no matter where you're at. That title comes with those things you just talked about. Like people are watching, people are paying attention, maybe for the wrong reasons.
Kevin:And you know, like there's, I know folks that start Bible studies and people show up for the wrong reasons, but so what they keep showing up, you know what I mean. They're there just to show that they're there, and even with wrong intentions, those people could be positively influenced, and so there's additional responsibility when you do have that title. But don't get it twisted no matter where you stand in life, you have influence, which means you have leadership, correct?
Stewart:The other one that really jumped out to me was the last one a leader without courage. Never let's go with a familiar. What does that sound like? This is how we've always done it, I mean that's interesting, that's it right, this is how we've always done. It Leads him to the necromancer and seeking counsel of the medium. And blah, blah, blah. This is 11th century BC. Here's King Saul saying well, this is how I've always done it.
Kevin:I wonder if that's the of hang up with the Pharisees when Jesus comes rolling around.
Stewart:The idea that this is how we've always done it. You don't get to break the code, man.
Kevin:Law, baby law.
Stewart:Yeah, he's like no, I am the law. So, oh, snap, cool, your jets Need a gift for that. There should be With double guns. There's a guy. I've often laughed at the idea that someone should have a translation of the Bible that felt more familiar, like what we just did. It would be impossible to keep true to it. But there was a guy at a watermark for a long time. His name was. We called him JP. His name was Jonathan Pucluda.
Stewart:He went to Harris Creek down in Waco, but he would do that and when you would get like locked in and you would get like a little bit of like Bible flavor, you know you'd be like, oh, I get it, I get. He would tell these Bible stories as if you were like sitting at a Starbucks and like you're sitting with your home. When you had Starbucks and Jesus walks in and you know, and you're like, oh, okay, I get that a little bit more. Yeah, anywho, okay.
Stewart:So that was the day one, some good things to pull through there. Again, I would refer you back if you want to say hey, all right, that's cool. So where do I find that? Go back. You're going to look generally at first Samuel, and most of what we talked about are in chapter 10. If you want to go like check my work on that, okay, let's see Day two. Take the high road even when they least expect it, all right. And here we're talking about Job. Give me you got a preview on Job. He's a pretty famous dude in the character, pretty famous character in the Bible there.
Kevin:I mean, I can think of people that have stories relatable to Job. Wherever they turn. It's misfortune, disease, death, just negative circumstances outside of their control, and it's like man, I've been faithful. Why is this continuing to happen? And it's hard to relate to that because I feel like I'm a self-sabotager and if I also had those things that are outside my control just pounding me down, I don't know if I would have survived.
Stewart:Well, this is Job, right, he's described as a man who lives righteously. And then the Lord's praise of Job prompts an angel with the title of Satan to go and basically attack him. And the Lord's like give it your best shot, man, he is righteous, give it your best shot and he gets, I mean everything, like the pummel, like the worst of all the worst. The story is in a shocker, a book called Job, and so go read if you want. Job's has like a miserable earthly condition. You get to the end of that story. This is where Maxwell pulls the line through as you get to the end of that story. And in 4210 it says and the Lord restored Job's losses when he prayed for his friends. Indeed, the Lord gave Job twice as much as he had before. So after 40 chapters of like just getting pummeled right, you get to the end of the story and the Lord restores him and he has the opportunity to say you know what? It's my almost I would say my favorite thing. I told you so. And and Job doesn't. Job says, man, that was rough. I'm gonna pray for my homies, yeah, right. And so he pulls. He pulls that idea through of you know, take the high road Even when they least expect it.
Stewart:And then I, the talking points here. Or he sets up like the difference between taking the high road and taking the low road. And some of these man, they jumped out big time at me. Okay, so Job could have taken the low road. I focused on revenge and retaliation, played the same games as others. He could have been guided by his emotions, up and down and could have been reactive. It just lives, lives that were no better than anyone else. Or you could take the high road unconditional love and forgiveness, refusing to play the games because you live by principles Guided by character and values, and proactive lives above merely human standards.
Stewart:And then the question, the zinger at the end of this email I, we can post links to this too. It's it's not my own, it's not our own Thought processes here. So give credit where credits do. But in what ways can you take the high road now in your life and Just sitting down thinking like man? Sometimes I lean, at least my initial instincts are low road. Yeah, oh yeah. That that's stung. I can do you one better. I know I got you want, you want juice, I got juice right, and so I I don't. I don't Play into those, but my brain wants to. My brain wants to go there, yeah. So, anyway, we talk through some of that or just say, yeah, that's cool, move on.
Kevin:But no, no, I want to hear the story of Joe right. Take the high road even when they least expect it and that's hard, that could be hard sometimes, and I think everybody can have high character in the good times.
Kevin:Oh yeah adversity strikes, how are you gonna react? Right, and if you don't have a game plan for it, chances are you might. If you don't have that habit built of taking the high road, you're gonna. You're gonna just naturally spin off and have a negative emotion, negative reaction, burn a bridge. Whatever the case may be Right, and I feel like I'm in a season now we're worship lyrics.
Kevin:We're actually talking about this before we got on. I'm listening at a deeper level, like understanding at a deeper level, that sort of thing, but like there's plenty of songs that talk about praising in the storm, right, oh yeah. And so like it's not just that Good times, bad times and different, all times, right, and it's so like making a pre-decision that, okay, things are going really well right now. I need to be prepared for when they aren't. How am I gonna react when it? Like if your area of weakness is anger, lashing out some sort of negative emotion, identifying it and be like I this this does come up, how can I offset this trigger a little bit? And just having a game plan. So, because you said Job was proactive, having a proactive pre-decision of when adversity strikes, how am I gonna react rather than just letting your emotions control you in the moment.
Stewart:Well, and it I'll use the like a water analogy here, because if you aren't more moored to something I think that's the word like connected to something, and you're just your boats, just in the water. When it's calm, you just sit there, everything's fine. But when it gets choppy, what happens? Dude, that boat is gone, like you are in the middle of a crazy, and it's ups and downs and it's packing forth. But if you have moored your ship to something that's immovable I mean to continue that analogy the dock, there's a pier there, and your boat is lashed to that and the water gets choppy. Yes, you know, you're not worried about getting chucked out to sea because you're latched to something that's immovable and it's easier to focus on. You know what? I'm not worried about what's out there. I'm not worried about the ups and the downs because I can. I know what is true that that pier will not move and I'm Connected firmly to that pier, and so the ups and downs and the waves of this water, it's not gonna. It's not gonna fade me like I am.
Kevin:I'm, I'm connected to something that is is greater and sturdier than the boat that I'm in and it makes it easy, and I think that's why both of us and many others Encourage quiet time, prayer time, reflection time, especially in the morning when your day is fresh. But aim it like we're we're struggling, we're. If you have a chaotic day, that's all the more reason you need that quiet time before you start, just to set the tone Right and get in front of these things before they happen, and maybe you got a shot at reacting positively if you've prepared properly, right, right that's a good, all right day.
Stewart:Three distraction, the enemy of direction.
Stewart:A cautionary tale from the life of Solomon. A little framework here on who Solomon was born in Jerusalem, a Second-born child of David and Bathsheba. You don't know that story, go look it up. But he became and he built the first temple in Jerusalem. Portrayed as wealthy, wise, you have these moments of like. He is a teacher of wisdom and and so he's often revered as just not kind of being smart, rich, did a lot of right things, righteous in the Lord. But that's that story takes a turn at the end, and so the question here is just the framing of this top talk. Or here's distraction is the enemy of direction. The temptations that enticed Solomon continued to tack every leader, because once we arrive, becomes easy to stop feeling hungry and grow for excellence, we become satisfied and spiral downward.
Stewart:Here's the process of the decay for Solomon distractions. He deviated from his call to lead and to be a light to the nation. Adversaries, god, god raised up adversaries to steer him back to his priorities and call Self-absorption. He became consumed with himself rather than his calling. The loss of God's presence. God eventually withdrew his anointing of Solomon, his pursuits of pleasure. You can go read about that. But he became more and more obsessed with his own pleasure and emptiness. He finally grew weary of his pursuits and recognized his own emptiness. And then and then, maxwell just hand grenades it and says Consider your journey, what's distracting you, what's redirecting you, what's consuming you, what are you folk, what are you chasing and how are you empty? And I was like, oh man, okay, right, but that's it. Distractions, the the framework is distraction is the enemy of direction.
Stewart:A cautionary tale from Solomon Decay looks like distractions adversaries absorb, self-absorption, loss of God's presence. Pursue the pleasure, emptiness, boy. That that story lots of people heard. That's like, oh yeah, I could see that sucking me into a vortex or I might, I might be pulling, be pulling in, be being pulled into that right now. So I mean thoughts, move on ideas.
Kevin:No, I mean a lot, yeah. So like again, tied to pre-decision, like if you, if what's distracting you in a negative way or what temptations can pull you down. So like I have temptations, I mean if you can open the intro to my book, you know what some of them are, and so I've had to tie a statement to them that says at what cost. Like those temptations aren't. Yeah, go on man.
Stewart:They pop back in and it's usually at stressful times when my guards down the enemy sees that Little kink and he's like I'm going in and if I don't have a mechanism there, who knows where that can spiral and so I'll still hold on, because we talked about that a little, about think two weeks ago about having these ideas that you get to Insert into when the decisions or the ideas run through your brain that you hate, right, or that you're trying to avoid, yeah, right. So the that, the way you said that, either what you said it last time and I wasn't listening. It's the first time I said it. Whenever you get that, like man, you know, what I would love right now is Snickers bar. Snickers bar.
Stewart:That's PG, this thing, yeah, and and and the question that You're saying you've like trained yourself to think immediately after Dude Snickers sounds awesome is at what cost?
Kevin:Yeah, and and the tethering, the, because I struggle with people being an idol over God and and so like Re-framing the God over people as you rain above it all. So if you rain above it all, and at what cost, as those triggers and and and that's making a pre-decision that I sometimes got to do a bunch right, like it's not one and done, that's building that habit. So then when it does creep in my brain every time I knock it down with a statement. It reduces how long it stays within my brain of watching the movie versus me right in the script and saying at what cost we're moving on from that thought yeah, because that could very quickly manifest in your head to something bad. And or to like acting out on the temptation or or lend the distraction Completely take over, whatever the case may be.
Kevin:But this story also makes me think about generational curses and and chains and and chain breaking and Until we're willing to be vulnerable and communicate our shortcomings, not just like in a book or on this podcast, but with your own family. You know, like, hey, I struggle with this and this is in the blood, like what? This temptation? And unfortunately you have it, and let me tell you about my bad experience and bad decisions Just to better equip you hopefully to make some good ones. Because you know and maybe I'm getting this wrong between David and Solomon, but like getting bit by, that temptation bug could be generational and if it's the same bug over and over, it Absolutely is. And it's like how can you break that? You know, through prayer, through, hopefully, communication, through vulnerability. I just never talked about it Up until like a year ago.
Kevin:Nobody knew and I didn't talk about it with my family upstream, but I would you better believe I'm talking about a downstream someday.
Stewart:Yeah, I Mean you can. You can run that across any of these Distractions, adversaries, absorption Well, you can run through any of those of like trying to cross check it against at what cost? Right, I think at the question, asking your question out, asking yourself the question at what cost, is like a pretty good check against a bunch of stuff you know, not not just a, but a particular temptation or particular. You know, like all of it I got, I need to go talk to this person, or I don't want to. I don't want to go talk to this person, or I'm feeling like I just need to withdraw from this situation, or like all of those things like I, what costs? That's a great like. Like mental checked, that's a great.
Stewart:Second, immediate thought to have around a lot of different stuff, including some of these things they were talking about here in the life of Solomon and the cautionary tales that we're getting from him here. Yeah, those are good ones. All right, next week I had two more weeks and a few more minutes. This is good, okay. So, samson, the next week Is the next day. Day four was five. Signs of leaders in trouble Lessons learned from the life and leadership of Samson.
Kevin:Let's talk to Samson.
Stewart:What is that?
Kevin:Nothing looks a bad reference. I.
Stewart:Don't even know what that's wrong. Somebody will laugh that's funny. Um that, I don't get it. Samson and Delilah, do you know this story? Super homeboy. At the time he was yoked.
Kevin:Yeah, and then he lost his hair and couldn't rip that door down anymore.
Stewart:This is Samson right, you know, samson, he's bishops proud of me right now. Yeah, he's like oh, that's it. Of course, kevin knew the strong guy and the strong guy with the hair.
Stewart:That's so funny. Yeah, so he was notoriously strong. The Bible recounts superhuman feats to protect him against his enemies and blah, blah, blah. But Long hair was cut. He was betrayed by his lover, delilah. We cut the hit. Blah, blah, blah. Okay, they're Delilah. Yeah, that's it. So this is the the.
Stewart:The five things here are gonna come at that a different angle. Um, as Maxwell said, samson could have been one of Israel's greatest leaders and he turned about to be one of the worst. Started strong, finished poorly. And the idea here is like, when you get into trouble, what are some of the signs that you are having trouble? When leaders are in trouble, what are they doing? And failing to acknowledge or course correct? Okay, so he gives five examples from the story of Samson, which, generally, you're gonna find a judge the book of judges if you're trying to cross check us on this stuff, it's a judges 13 through 16 somewhere there.
Stewart:Okay, fail to address glaring character weaknesses. You count on a deception to safeguard yourself. Act impulsively Overcome by an area of weakness or misuse their God-given gifts. And so these are the five things that Maxwell has pulled through the story of Samson Failure to address character weaknesses. Count on deception to safeguard yourself, act impulsively, overcome by weakness or misuse your God-given gifts. Man, any of those right, any of those could be devastating, but it's you know, as we draw this leadership story through the Bible.
Stewart:These are the things that Samson struggled with and eventually gave rise to demise. So thoughts on that.
Kevin:I mean we're reflection city, right, like and this reminds me of being self-aware, verse learning in hindsight repeatedly and trying not to make the same mistakes over and over and over again. Because you are reflecting, you are being self-aware, but that takes some deep work on the. I want to pick on the character weaknesses. Yeah, like, sometimes those failures are just pure ignorance. Like you don't, you haven't went deep enough to understand why you're lashing out in anger. You're like you're just taking that emotion for what it's worth and not stripping it back and going back 10 steps to figure out the trauma you know to that negative emotion. If it's not anger, whatever it is. For you, like, for me I've there was lashing out at people and not like an angry but more like a bitter way, like making fun of somebody to hurt them if that makes sense in the past Right.
Kevin:But it was. It was rooted in deep insecurity, you know, but I didn't have that figured out at that time in my life. Unfortunately, I had to learn that in hindsight and and you know how many decades ago or whatever. But I was a mean person and it was. It was mean to be mean, but I think it was because no, I think I didn't like the person in the mirror and so I was lashing out on others because of it. And it's like how many people don't understand what that first emotions tethered to and they just take that one for what it's worth and there's a failure to address that character weakness, because they don't understand it Well, and you're going to get.
Stewart:I agree with that. Sometimes that is well, it's rooted in. It could be a rooted in a variety of things the you're going to get as a leader wrestling with that. You're going to get a pass one, maybe two, but eventually, like doing these things, that starts to break down trust with your team. You're not going to get passes anymore and so if you have slipped or tripped, you had this situation like oh man, I need to stop doing that. I got that's a stop, because eventually, eventually, you'll you'll lose the trust, you'll lose the team, you'll lose the all of it and, before you know it, delilah's going to sneak up and cut your hair and you're going to have lost everything. That's what happened to me bro, that's I don't.
Stewart:I had dreadlocks before this I don't think Delilah got your hair oh okay.
Stewart:I think Father Time got your hair. That guy's a jerk, that guy's terrible. Also in the, in the words of one great Charles Barkley undefeated Bam, bam. Okay, one final, one, final one here, and then we'll. We'll wrap it up on day five. We go to one of the great saints, right, we go to Paul in the New Testament. How do leaders confront lessons from Paul's letters to Corinth, right? So won't belabor this story. But who's Paul? This is Paul is the new version of the old soul. The guy was killing Christians and blinded on the road and blah, blah, blah Turned into.
Stewart:Most of the epistles in the New Testament are pinned by Paul and he has a great effect for the church in Corinth. He writes a couple of letters that we find in the New Testament there. Um, I've always been intrigued by the communication style that you find in the in the New Testament because I think, like this is this is a wonky way to talk about stuff, but again, it probably just needs like a little bro Bible put on top of it. We're like, oh, okay, this is, this is why we're doing it. But, uh, maxwell talks through some of the ways that Paul, who is trying to correct, uh, the the church of Corinth like, help them think rightly about things. Um, he, he works through the letters in a way that kind of gives a framework for confronting people who need to be, you know, returned to the right path. And so this is, is, is, uh, maxwell has drawn it through. This is his sort of 10 point um method for uh, tracking this, the epistles. So address the issue immediately and personally.
Stewart:And lots of times the epistles start out directed at somebody or something specifically, most often to the church. Confront it with the right spirit. Start out on a positive note. Outline the problem, encourage a response. Show that you understand the other person's position. Circle that one that's a big one to me. I like I just that really speaks to me.
Stewart:Explain why the action is damaging. Indicate the desired action, reiterate positive strengths in the person and put it behind you All right. So go, go, go, double check our work on this, or I guess Maxwell's work on this, uh, primarily from current first Corinthians 14, uh, one through 40 is kind of where he's pulling this through. But um, address I'll run it again, just cause lots of us are listening in the truck on the way to whatever. So address the issue immediately and personally. Confront with the right spirit. Start on a positive note. Outline the problem, encourage a response, show that you understand the other person's position, explain why the action is damaging, indicate a desired action, reiterate positives and then 10,. This is really hard for me to put it. In the past, I mean, that's maybe that's not your order, maybe that's not exactly the way you would approach it, but I don't know that I take beef or issue with any of these in terms of like trying to positively um confront issues that need to be resolved.
Kevin:Yeah.
Stewart:And it's a little easier when you're you're chasing, you know, towards something that this is firm and unchanging right, Like Paul is trying to direct them back to God here, back to Jesus, back to God, back to the things that he's been teaching them. It's probably a little tricky when you're like, hey, I just need to do your TPS reports differently, but, either way, I think this framework helps you understand like this is addressing. Touching on these things is going to result in something better than all the other nonsense that happens in the workplace.
Kevin:Yeah, and if you've made it to step 10, you've solved it, and so why do we so often go back to dwelling on something that's solved? There's no action needed If you've made it to 10, that's it.
Kevin:I'm not throwing stones, unless if I'm throwing stones at my own face. Yeah, because it's like that, dwelling in the past, dwelling in the future, like if you've already solved it, it's almost it's. It could be neither, it could be fantasy land, like you're just making stuff up to dwell on, like, move on Right Again, have a trigger to it. Time to move on, whatever the case may be Right Because you, there's no point of dwelling on that Right, we fixed it.
Stewart:Yeah, that's, that's the thing, and not that I have really thought about it in that context, but putting it or contextualizing on some of the things you say, like that's the thing I say unconsciously to myself when I want to like hold a rug or be frustrated or like no, we fixed it.
Kevin:Yeah, what's the big deal?
Stewart:What's the big deal? We fixed it. Yes, you, that's yours. It's what's the big deal.
Kevin:It's not going to say it, I got to say it.
Stewart:I picked up to an annoying level two arm loads of trash out of the uh game room yesterday when I got home from work and said to myself what's the big?
Kevin:deal.
Stewart:What's the big deal? What's the big?
Kevin:deal Serenity now, yeah, what's the big deal?
Stewart:Like I was a coke bottle tipped over and my little yogurt cup that the dog had clearly dug out of the trash and licked on because the kids won't close the lid, and I was like what's the big deal? Yeah, what's the big deal.
Kevin:I had somebody recently tell me that Paul is like cocky for Christ, so like oh, that's my old digs as heals him, but it ain't for for him.
Stewart:Yeah.
Kevin:His cause, like, yeah, he'll flaunt it. Yeah, about Jesus, right? I thought that was pretty cool and, like the whole, there's been some scenarios in my life where I've regretted how I've confronted, let's say, a client. But I've had friends in my tribes be like, no, you were standing up for them and they needed to be stood up for it. It might've been you Like I wouldn't dwell on that one Like if you're being bold and digging your heels in for the right things, for the greater good, that's a good thing.
Stewart:Yeah, moving on. Yeah, they're not going to worry about that anymore. Nope, yeah, I mean you have to. I don't remember that specifically yet Check the way you did it, like you don't get to just throw flamethrowers, but like doing it correctly, like this and standing up for what's right. You can be cocky for Jesus.
Kevin:Yeah, is that what you said? Well, no, cause, I know that was yes, that was Paul.
Stewart:That's what you said about Paul.
Kevin:Yeah, I'll tell you offline what I did, probably not the, it was Chicago. Kevin came out.
Stewart:Oh, whoops.
Kevin:But, I think, yeah, whatever, yeah it's, I think I.
Stewart:I don't. I actually might have been the one that said that now, Cause you said that as, like I remember the story.
Kevin:Yeah.
Stewart:You don't need to repeat it. I remember the story. So I went ham to circle this full ham, yeah. So, speaking of ham, um bitly slash 17 T live. There you go. Now I'm put it full back together and that's it. Man, we've talked through ideas that were not mine. Um, we pulled them out of some emails that I was curious about. Uh is um, I heard people talking about you want to read the greatest leadership book ever. Go read the Bible and then boom in my inbox Uh, so that was good and it actually got to the end of it and I didn't know this resource existed, but I'm interested in getting my hands on it now.
Stewart:Is um Maxwell actually did a leadership Bible? I don't know if you know this or not. It's called Journal, please, the Maxwell leadership Bible, and apparently it is um, it's your stand. I think it's an enemy standard NIV translation. But instead of like annotations in the sideline on the side being like, oh, this actually is a reference to the apocryphal blobs of you know, like the cross references for the Bible, it's like cross references for like leadership skills. Like, okay, we're reading about Samson Mark over to the high over the column. Here's some principles you can pull out from the story, and so when I got to the end, I was like, does marketing work? Just did yeah, cause that is like I'm super excited to get my hands on that cause. Um it well, it's got something to think about for a while. So, a resource for you guys. I've never read it, I don't think about it, maybe it's terrible, but, um, I'm going to get my hands on one and I'll let y'all know.
Kevin:So I'm smiling as you say that cause I'm thinking about Craig Rochelle and how, why I love his sermons, and it's because he brocodes it.
Stewart:Like he talks he's Ruth, then slides in Boaz's DMs you know like he makes it very current if people are chuckling but he's driving the point across, you know right and it's okay to tell some of those like non-theologically based stories around the Bible. Bro, to make a point and you remembered it.
Kevin:Yeah.
Stewart:You know, uh, I, someone needs to do that. He does it every week, yeah, yeah, Um, all right, so that kind of gets into that. Uh, kind of five leadership principles through the Bible that we stole from Maxwell. I hope you guys got a couple of points, uh, a couple of points through that as we talked on it. And if you got any questions, reach out it's always it's a conversation and be happy to take a challenge or say, man, that's not how I read that. Let's talk through that. Awesome, let's do it. I'd love to grab coffee, chat with it, see what your thoughts or perspectives are on that. So reach out if you've got any thoughts, um, anything else before we wrap man, no, just take one thing from this and just apply it.
Kevin:If you've taken the time to listen to this, apply it to your life, please. Yeah, that's it.
Stewart:That is been a long, long undercurrent of the podcast is just grab one thing, hmm, just be a little bit better today. So, uh, I guess in that vein, uh, grab one thing, go be better, and you all stay out there and keep moving Mountains.