In this episode of The Last 10%, host Dallas Burnett announces that the show’s listenership has doubled and now reaches nearly 80 countries, then interviews Caz McCaslin, founder of Upward Sports and EVP of Facilities at the Fellowship of Christian Athletes. Caz shares how a high school injury and an FCA testimony shifted his dream from pro sports to serving through sports ministry, including leaving a promising Home Depot career for a low-paid church internship and eventually launching youth basketball leagues that rapidly grew. He explains Upward’s scaling through a “gradually and then suddenly” 10-year model, hiring for weaknesses, staying ahead of operational waves, and making volunteers the heroes. Caz also discusses a near-death medical crisis, the pain of leaving Upward “without my permission,” and lessons on consequences vs. circumstances and choosing forgiveness, then recommends leadership consultant Bob Beal as a future guest.

right.

We want to make a quick announcement before the show gets started today.

The last 10% doubled.

Its listenership last month.

I don't know what's going on, but people are loving some last 10% and we are now

in almost 80 countries around the world.

So I'm gonna tell you some of the ones that just came on.

I'm seeing, I'm seeing you in Nigeria, Ghana, I'm seeing you in Belgium.

We have, we have a listener in Thailand and in, we have a lot

of listeners in Vietnam now.

So we're shouting out.

We've got a lot of listeners in Brazil and we've got some all over Europe.

So I just wanna let you guys know that we see you Argentina.

We got some listeners in Argentina.

Thank you for tuning in the last 10%.

Now let's get started with the show.

everybody.

We're talking to Kasm Kalan today.

What an amazing guy.

He's the founder of Upward Sports, the world's largest Christian youth sport

organization, and current executive vice president of facilities at the

Fellowship of Christian Athletes.

He has some incredible stories about stepping out in faith, overcoming

some massive health and leadership setbacks, and creating opportunities

for thousands to know Jesus.

He's a great friend of mine.

You don't want to miss this incredible conversation.

Welcome to the last 10%.

Your host, Dallas Burnett, dives into incredible conversations that

will inspire you to finish well.

finish strong, strong.

as guests share their journeys and valuable advice on living in the last 10%.

If you are a leader, a coach, a business owner, or someone looking to

level up, you are in the right place.

Remember, you can give 90% effort and make it a long way, but it's finding

out how to unlock the last 10% that makes all the difference in your life,

your relationships, and your work.

Now here's Dallas.

Welcome, welcome, welcome.

I am Dallas Burnett, sitting in my 1905 Koch brothers

barber chair in Thrive Studios.

But more importantly today we have a great guest, the founder

of Upward Sports Ministry Leader.

He is impacted hundreds of thousands of kids and families

through sports and the gospel.

He's a man of faith whose story's gonna challenge all the leaders here today.

And he's, he's challenging us to live.

Well, finish strong.

Welcome to the show, Kaz McCaslin.

And thank you so much, Dallas.

What a joy to be with you, man.

I've been excited just to listen to you.

Can't stand, I can't believe the fact I'm sitting with you,

talking with you about this.

It was awesome.

Well, we have mutual acquaintance now.

your friend Jeff Henderson was on the last 10%.

You actually connected.

Said, Hey, you know, Jeff needs to be on.

Jeff gets on and at the end of the show we always ask, who do

you want to hear on the last 10%?

And Jeff says, my man Cas.

So he throws it right back at you.

And so, here we are.

So welcome to the last 10%.

Oh, thank you so much, man.

Joy to be with you.

Looking forward to the conversation.

Yeah.

So let's get started.

So, obviously we're gonna talk a lot about your, your amazing growth of upward,

globally, this global organization.

But I want to get the listeners familiar with who Caz is, who is Caz, where

did, where did Caz come from, and how in the world does he go from CAZ

to cz, founder of, of Upward Sports?

Well, first of all, who's cz?

That's a funny story.

it's really funny you even say that because I'm gonna tell you something

an awful lot of people don't know.

My wife didn't know this till we were engaged, but, that's not my real name.

You know, what my real name is Greg.

There it is, it's global.

Now the words out there, see, you didn't even know that we're so tight,

but, so, you know, growing up playing sports, you know, my last name McCaslin,

everybody calls you Mac, right?

So my dad was Mack Boulder, brother was Mack.

So I started playing sports.

I was the youngest of four kids, and they, first phone call at the

house was, Hey, can I talk to Mac?

And my brother said, yeah, this is he.

They said, no, no, I want, I wanna talk to Greg.

And he goes, oh, he's the next syllable.

And it just never went away.

I got the second syllable in McCaslin.

So, I, I, I'm not a mack, I'm a second syllable.

So that's where that came from.

But yeah, but grew up in a, yeah man, that's where it happened.

So it's a lot of fun.

Leave it to the brother to go ahead and just take

Mac and say nah, nah, nah.

He

That's right.

syllable.

He is

That's

but hey man, he can throw a little shade and now you

got a cool sound of that Kass.

Kasm man that

that's right.

ring to it.

So that's good.

I.

Thanks bro, appreciate you brother.

So now were you, your family, did they travel around or were you in, where was

your family originally from and what was

Yeah, great story.

So I, I grew up in a military family.

My dad was, 30 years military in the army, love, and he, he passed

away several years ago, but, very organized, detailed guy, you know.

everything at my house was, yes, sir. No sir. Absolutely sir. I'd walk in the

door and he'd say, how you doing, boy?

And, I didn't know until I was 21 that that meant, I love you very much.

Hope you had a great day.

But, that's kinda how that story went, you know?

I mean, but growing up in military, we traveled around quite a bit,

but I, I actually, I was, I was the fourth child in a family playing

for three, so I came really late.

Wow.

retired when I was, I mean, he was, he'd already gone 30 years

and I was just in fourth grade.

But, we ended up moving from Washington state down to

the, to the state of Georgia.

grew up a, a big Braves fan and University of Georgia fan.

Ended up going to school there and graduated from Georgia.

And I am a crazy, ridiculous bulldog and, absolutely love, you know, my dogs

and, and, love college football and yeah.

So we're just a sports family.

It's been fun.

we won't hold it against

Yeah.

Yeah.

Thanks for that.

Thanks for that.

show.

Yeah.

Yeah.

say anything for our listeners.

They may have bone to pick with you,

That's okay.

That's okay.

on the last 10%,

Yeah.

Yeah.

I'm not gonna bark at you, but you know.

I love it.

That's good.

That's good.

So, so let's go into, okay, so you've been, you've been moving around your

family's military family, you're coming, you've, you've landed in Georgia.

and so from there, you've, you've gone to college.

Were you always, did you always have this vision of going into the ministry or

Oh, mercy.

entrepreneurial business?

What was your kind of take on that when you were coming outta school?

Well, we, we actually, you know, kind of in school and my

older brothers and, and sister, all of 'em, phenomenal athletes.

And so one of the great things about, you know, the traveling with, with

my dad, with everything, one of the things that he knew is that if you

put 'em on a sports team, then you got a bunch of friends right away.

You know?

And so you get friends quickly when you go on sports teams and, and you

know, it doesn't matter, you know, red, black, yellow, white, it doesn't matter.

You know, we, army, Navy, air Force, Marines, you know, we're just all buddies.

And, but you, you learn how to make friends fast and, and sports

become really important to us.

And so, as we're growing up, just like every other, you know, 12-year-old,

13-year-old kid, I wanted to be, I wanted to be a professional basketball player.

I mean, that's what I was doing.

I was trying hard.

And, and so it was, my junior year in high school, had a pretty bad pole vaulting

accident, broke my kneecap and kind of, had to, had to have that removed.

And, and so, you know, old school surgeries were not like they are now.

And my, my, NBA career was kinda shattered, if you will, and I didn't

really know what I was gonna do with it.

'cause I always thought that my office was gonna be a gym.

That's what I thought.

Ah,

And, and so there, there it was, you know, I thought it

was gonna be playing basketball in a professional sports, arena.

But, it wasn't long after that where uh, my mom knew how bad I wanted to

be a pro sports player and she told me about this guy coming to our church,

interestingly enough for an FCA event.

His name was John Bramlett and, the bull, they called him the Bull Bull Bramlett.

He's one of the first guys ever.

You look him up if you haven't seen him, but he was the first

guy to play football and baseball.

And

Oh

came, yeah, man, one of the first guys to ever do that.

And so we're, we're sitting in this, this church, Roswell Street,

Baptist Church, October 31st, 1975.

And, and there's thousands of people there.

And he's telling his story about being a pro athlete.

And I mean, he's talking about the cars and the houses and the

autographs and the money and the boats.

And I'm like, yes, that's what I wanna do.

And he talked about being at the pinnacle of being a pro athlete

and how extremely unhappy he was.

And, and there's a good buddy of his, it was actually a lineman came over and

put his arm around him and said, bull.

He said, you're never going to be happy with all that stuff.

He said, it's only gonna make you sad.

And he, he was scratching off all the things he wanted, and he looked at him

and he said, well, what makes you happy?

And he said, man, you, you need Jesus.

And, man, he,

Mm.

he began to unpack that story.

And, my, my desire changed that night.

October 31st of 75, I realized that what I needed was way

bigger than, a, a basketball or a sport to, to make me happy.

And, it was interesting.

It was really that day the Lord started.

Working in my life that, I still want you to work in a gym, but it's not gonna

be to play, it's gonna be to serve.

So,

Different gym.

Yeah.

yeah.

thing.

That's a, that's a awesome story.

I also found out something just now that I did not know

Okay.

is very interesting is that I was a pole vaulter too.

Come on.

I did not

Yeah,

a pole vault.

And I've broke a few things, you know,

yeah,

break my kneecap.

I do have some cartilage floating around,

yeah, yeah.

because of it.

but,

Well, the difference to us, the difference between us is

you probably got over the bar.

I just got into the bar.

I,

I, I landed on the bar.

That's when

yeah.

so

Oh gosh.

Yeah.

we've done a few things like that,

That's awesome.

awesome.

Well see.

so, you knew, early on that you had this kind of awakening,

in, in directional change.

You kinda had your mindset on sports and then that kind of shifted with, okay,

it's sports still is a passion, but, but I wanna have a ministry component too.

So what did you do with that?

How did you, how did you transition that passion to reality?

'cause I think a lot of, of budding entrepreneurs may be

passionate about something.

That doesn't pay the bills, maybe, you know,

Yeah.

So how do you get from, I'm in college with this inspiration,

you know, coming out to I, I can make a living doing what I love.

Yeah.

Well this is, it's a really great story because, you know, the interesting thing

behind it, there's a couple of steps that happened in between there and I,

I'll tell you a few of the steps as quickly as I can, but you know, from

that moment that I really had that life change, I went to, to a, life changing

moment, eternally, life-changing moment when I asked Lord to come into my heart.

And, but, from there, it wasn't like I knew I was going into the ministry.

I was just trying to get outta school.

'cause now I realized I wasn't gonna be playing basketball in college.

I wasn't gonna be a professional athlete, but I didn't know what I was gonna do.

And, and I'll just be honest, we, at Dallas School was not my favorite thing.

I mean, I just didn't, I, it was everything I could

do to get outta high school.

And so at that moment, I was trying to figure out how I'm going to.

Provide for me.

And then, one day my family and my older brother was kinda the same way.

he went on a full ride baseball to, Jack State.

But, he was there for a year and realized school wasn't for him either.

But he, went to work at a, home improvement store.

And uh, there was a guy there that said, you know, I'm gonna start

this new thing called Home Depot and I'd love for you to come join me.

And so my brother went to the very first Home Depot there ever was.

And when I got outta high school, he said, why don't you come

work with me at Home Depot?

And so, man, I, I got outta high school and just went to work at

the very first Home Depot there ever was in Marietta, Georgia.

Oh

you talk about fun watching that unpack and watching that role.

I mean, I, I was, I was the ceiling fan manager Dallas.

I was the man I. You need a sealant fan?

I got you covered, buddy.

I can hang it.

I can fix it.

I got every color you want, man.

I'm your seal fan man.

And so, yeah, I was, I was on a great track.

They put me in the management program.

I was, you know, 19 years old and

Oh

I was, I, this is a story for another time, but I, I hired people

to work in the ceiling fan department that are now millionaires, but I don't

even know how to spell millionaire.

I don't, I mean, they're, they're, these guys have done phenomenal work.

But I, anyway, the, it was a couple years after being there and,

my youth minister came up to me and asked me if I'd go to lunch.

And I said, yeah, I'd love to.

And we went and got a quick burger.

But then he drove me over to this church, and I'd never been there before.

And, he, he walks in and, and he opens this door.

We open this door, we're at church, we walk into this church and there's this

big gym and I'm like, what is this?

He said, man, this is, this is a church.

I said, you gotta be kidding me.

I had no idea there was ever a church that had a gym.

And he started explaining to me that he felt like I had the tools to be

a minister of recreation and sports, and I didn't even know what that was.

And so I began to unpack it and I said, I, I mean everything in

Home Depot, just in the back.

He was in the rear view mirror.

I was like, what am I doing?

And, and he said, CA I i, if you wanna do this, I wanna help you get on this path.

And I thought, this is fantastic.

So I said, what do I gotta do?

And he said, well, step one, I want you to come be my summer intern and

I'll pay you a hundred bucks a week.

And I was like, okay, I can't wait for my dad to hear this.

you know, who's in the military?

And so my dad had retired mom's at home.

They don't make, you know, they're just, I, I'm living in the, in

the basement of my house and.

house.

I had just bought a new car with my Home Depot money, and, and now, I'm

gonna go for a hundred bucks a, a week.

And, and that day my dad began to pace, you know, and, you know,

lightened one cigarette after the other, trying to figure out the stress.

My mother grabs me up and said, I prayed from the day you were born

that you'd be called to ministry, but I didn't wanna tell you that

Wow,

till today.

that's

And so, anyway, that was, that was kind of the beginning of it.

And, it was a

was a

amazing, amazing week or, summer, realizing that that

ministry is where I needed to be.

but that began the calling.

And, I don't know how far you wanna go on that, but I don't, I don't wanna sit

here and talk the whole time, but I, the, the calling into the ministry was.

A powerful story.

And, when I finished with that summer, I said, okay, I'm ready.

What's next?

And he said, well, you gotta go to college.

And I said, well, now I know I'm not called into the ministry

I'm

because, because there, there's no way I'm getting into college.

I can tell you that.

so anyway, the, the, there's a, there's just some, he just said, look, if you

wanna do this, the Lord will work it out.

And so that was, the next few steps are some, some, you

know, amazing faith journeys.

That was probably the biggest faith journey that happened right there.

The first one was leaving Home Depot, you know, the second one is, is

figuring out how to get into college.

But, I'll let you lead on that.

See how many of these, back to back domino stories you wanna go with, but,

it man.

We love it.

And I mean, that's amazing that you literally, I mean, 'cause

Home Depot's headquarters, like globally is in, in Atlanta, right

Oh, yeah, yeah.

We're right there.

there, seen it, it's amazing.

Huge.

Thousands and thousands of people.

And you were at the, literally the, I didn't know that

the first one was right up

I had

oh yeah.

Yeah,

man.

And

first four were right there.

So I worked in two out of the four in that journey, so it was fun.

my gosh.

That's amazing.

And the fact that your mom was so, encouraging, to, to the movement and just

kinda shared that with you, that's pretty

Yeah.

And that's definitely affirming.

'cause you know, sometimes when you're making a big transition like

that, going from Home Depot, you know, massive startup type thing to.

To, the a hundred dollars a week, internship.

Yeah.

I can see how parents could be like, yo, that

ain't, that ain't how this is

Yeah.

You know?

So, it's really cool that she was so, involved with that.

And we can talk about any of that you want, but I, I would love to talk because

we've got a lot of listeners of the show that are leading teams, leading

organizations, starting, starting new companies or startups or coaching,

employees and team members in their organizations, and that's really what

began to take off in your career.

So when you moved into this area and kind of found your rhythm in sports

and youth in ministry, it was in church originally, but what was it

that got you thinking differently?

that you might could do something in sports ministry

that wasn't what's been done.

Yeah.

great man, great question, Dallas.

like I said, there's, there's five stories between this one and the

next one that you just asked about.

just getting into college was a miracle.

getting from, Truet McConnell was where I went to school, junior

college to, university of Georgia.

And again, you know, sports being a big part of, of that journey, even, you

know, while I was there, not in play at either one of those collegiately,

but, a lot of different sports things.

And I'm majoring in, in, sports and recreation because that's, I

knew that's what I wanted to do.

and just as I was about to graduate, you know, from Georgia, I get a call

from a, a dear friend of mine that is in Spartanburg, South Carolina, and

said, Hey, I, it was great to meet you.

I'd only known him for, I mean, literally a weekend.

And he said, we, we really wanna talk to you about coming to be our sports

and rec guy here at, this church in, in Spartanburg, South Carolina.

And I said, man, are you kidding me?

We just tell me what day.

And I, I came up, had an interview.

they had, they weren't even finished building this gym.

I mean, you could still smell the wood being put down on the hardwood

floors, you know, and it's just like, Hey, this is your deal.

You know?

Had they said, have you ever started anything in your

life from the very beginning?

I mean, like, I'm, 23.

I said, well, I started the Home Depot.

but,

It's turned out pretty well.

it started, okay.

I mean, they always started on Depot and so, yeah, I, I got them up and running,

so I wanna do something different.

so, it,

so, anyway, I'm, I'm, I'm going to this church and they literally just gimme

a blank slate, you know, and, and, Dr.

Walker was the pastor Alistair Walker, and he's just got this Scottish brogue, and if

you ever knew him, he says, because I just want you to do the best you can, brother.

He put his arm around me and he said, because I know nothing about sports and

recreation, but I know we need this.

And he said, I just got one rule.

I said, oh, what's that pastor?

He said, produce or pack.

I was like, I mean, three.

You know, that was, that was my, that was my motivation from my brand

new pastor at my brand new job.

Three words.

And, and, I, I mean, it was, it was a continuation of being under

my dad who's 30 years military.

And I, my two answers were yes, sir.

I mean, I mean, produce or pack.

It was very motivating, you know, I mean, so.

yeah, pretty

Produce or pack.

Bring it on, brother.

That's it.

And, but he loved me.

You know what he was saying?

He's hugging me because,

yeah.

or pack brother.

Like, oh yeah, bring it on.

And, but he, he did it a very loving kind way.

As a matter of fact, one of the greatest mentors I ever had was, Dr. Ster Walker.

And he poured into me and, and covered me.

I made a lot of mistakes and, man, he stood in front of me and,

took bullets for me, you know, just a gem of a, of a mentor.

So, yeah, but, that was very motivating, to say the least.

Now, we did a lot of things as a sports direct guy.

You know, you do.

Uh, basketball and volleyball and aerobics and, and you do softball

and golf tournaments and trips.

You just do all kind of things.

You, my job is to reach everybody from two to 102 through sports and recreation.

I just, that's it.

Just go get 'em.

Produce or pack baby.

And, uh, but basketball was my love.

Okay.

And so I was pouring a lot of my time and energy and focus into making

basketball the best I can make it.

And, I, I'll never forget going down to the YMCA, 'cause there was a, a league

in town and everybody, you know, this church plays that church in this church.

And I just went to him and I said, Hey, I gotta ask you a question.

I said, what, what is your, and we had just built this brand new

gym, you know, and they loved it.

And so he called me and said, Hey, can we play our championship games in your gym?

I said, oh, that'd be great.

I said, but I'd love to come down and talk to you.

You know, just kind of tell me all the things you're doing.

And, I mean, I'm, I'm not, I'm, you know, just right fresh outta college.

And, of course I didn't go to college for two years, so I'm a little older.

And then, you know, it took me four years to get out.

I, I crammed a, eight year degree into, I mean, a, a four year

degree into eight, but eight years.

But anyway, well, I sat down with, I'll never forget his name's, Wally.

I said, Wally, tell me your biggest headache.

He said, man, I love all the things we do at the YI love all the sports,

I love all the stuff he said, but man, if I could somehow hand off

everything that's kindergarten through sixth grade, I'd be a new man.

I said, I'll take it.

And he said, what?

I said, I'll do all kindergarten through sixth grade.

Anytime somebody signs up, send 'em to me.

And he said, okay.

And so I, I just started a league for kindergarten through

sixth grade and we did it all.

We were the kindergarten through sixth grade league in

Spartanburg, South Carolina.

And the first year we had 150 kids.

Two second year, two 50 next year, three 50 next year, 400.

Year after that, we had 520 kids in one gym.

We played those short courts.

good

We practiced Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday.

And we played from 8:00 AM to 9:00 PM on Saturday.

And I'll never forget the year after coming home and telling my wife,

babe, we opened up registration today and we completely filled up.

We got 520 kids, 27 kids on the waiting list, baby, what you think about that?

You know, and I'm waiting for the hugs and loving and waiting for the paddle to back.

And she looks at me and she said, well babe, if that's what you

wanted to do was turn 27 kids away

Mm

and you did good.

mm.

And I said, uh, no, that's not what I wanted to do.

She said, babe, we got into this to reach kids, not to turn kids away.

She said, what are you going to do about those other 27?

And, that was my second motivation.

What she said to me in a much sweeter way was produce or pack.

And so, she, it was, but it was a very motivating, time for me, to think

about a finding a way to reach those that wanted to, because we weren't

doing it just to have a league.

We were having the league because we wanted to make an impact

on the, the lives we wanted.

We wanted to pour into them mentally, athletically, spiritually and

socially, mentally, athletically, spiritually and socially.

So, we, we wanted share, Lord, with these kids.

And to turn that away is to turn away the opportunity that we work so hard to earn.

We earned the opportunity, then we're gonna turn it away,

right.

we're not gonna do that.

So, the next move I did is I went to a man in our church who had the

wherewithal and, and I said, hey, I, I gotta, I told him the whole story

I just told you, and I said, I think you, we should build another gym.

And I said, I, I want you to help me build another gym.

We'll be able to reach another 520 kids.

And didn't even blink.

And he looked at me, he said, CA, you don't need another gym.

I said, sir, he said, you need a thousand gyms.

He said, you need to take, take this and spread it across the

country and around the world.

And, I didn't sleep real good after that.

And you were

I, I,

I was just dealing with 20

yeah, yeah, I know.

now, the next

So

gotta be a thousand gyms.

Come on, man.

I, I'd already, I already done the math on one gym.

He said a thousand.

I thought, man, it's gonna be a, I said, bro, we're gonna lose

a lot of parking if we do that.

but, you know, of course what he was talking about is, is sharing this,

this dream and this vision that the Lord gave me a long time ago that he

planned not, I planned that he planned.

And, and sharing it with other churches that had gyms

that could do the same thing.

and that's exactly what became the vision.

And the vision.

And so, that was the next time that, my wife and I really stepped out on

faith, which by the way is an incredible story about how that happened.

So, but yeah, there's lots of, in-between stories here.

this, I, I told you to begin with, this is a, you know, five podcast story.

that's awesome though.

We love it.

We love it.

Because, I mean, I think this is a, interesting because it's like

the vision, you know, I think some founders think that's like.

you're supposed to walk in and, and have this crystal clear vision of exactly what

you're gonna create 10 years from now.

And what I love about your story is it's more about like progressive

elaboration in a direction.

You know, you're like, I want to be in sports.

I think I need to do this in the ministry, and then what's the next step?

And it's like, that takes you to the next step.

And then,

That's right.

we need to have, I need to produce or pack.

What am I gonna do?

I better start a league.

I'll do that.

There's an opportunity for me to jump in on one through six, right?

I did that.

And then it's like the step one, step two, but it wasn't, like you said, at 23,

I'm gonna create a global organization in

No,

I mean, it just wasn't there.

So it's really cool.

you know, you're dead on it, man.

I mean, and, and, it's so funny because fast forward we're, we're

some 40 years later, you know, at this moment, talking about this.

And I just met a, a brand new dear friend, mark Batterson, who many of you know

from the books he wrote, just incredible.

But he just came out with a brand new book, and it's exactly what

you just said, just in the title.

The title of this book is Gradually and then Suddenly.

Gradually and suddenly,

Hmm.

and, and it's interesting.

I I, I mean, I'm reading this book, I was just resonating with

every single word that he said.

I'm absolutely loving it.

And, and, uh, when I was at Upward and we were, we were growing and booming.

I, I can't tell you Dallas, there were so many times people would

call and say, Hey, I need to come sit down with you for an hour.

Let's just talk about this.

I, I need to know I got something.

I wanna scale across the country.

I need you to tell me how you did it.

And, and it got to the point that we started having these, little

moments once every four months.

We called it Coffee with Kas.

And we just came in and had these coffee.

So rather than just having one person, there'd be seven or eight people that

had their different ideas and thoughts.

And we would sit around a table and we'd have coffee with Chasm.

And, and they always were really excited to get there.

And they always hated the first answer to their question because

their first question was, okay.

They pull out their pen and their paper and say, Hey, what did you do first?

What's the first thing you gotta do to, to scale something of this

magnitude across the country?

Okay, what do you do?

And, and I said, well, if I look back at it, everything I've ever seen that's

ever been done, and the thing that the Lord led me to do, and I, I'll

be honest with you, while I was doing it, it's gradually while I was doing

it, I didn't even know I was doing it.

But step one was there was a 10 year model.

Mm.

I, I was at the church creating this 10 year model, fixing, tweaking, working,

doing things, making it better next year.

Don't do that anymore.

Do this more, do that more, do this better.

Don't do that.

And every time we were taking it from.

70% great to 80%, great to 90% great.

And ultimately Dallas, you gotta get that last 10% and you get it.

You, you get to that last 10% and then all of a sudden, exactly like what he said in

the book, suddenly things start happening.

It starts exploding.

And so the answer to their question was, the first thing I

did was created a 10 year model.

And many times you hear 'em say, oh no, no, we don't wanna test it.

We just wanna scale it across the country.

You know?

Yeah.

We're, we're ready to roll out this idea nationwide, you know, have you ever tried?

No, we haven't tried it yet, but we think it's gonna work.

You know, it's like, yeah.

And it's gonna be awesome.

But yeah.

So anyway, the way I did it was very gradually and then

suddenly, so, yeah, I was pretty.

I love that because we've had several guests in the, from, you know,

music business on and other, even other things, and they always say the overnight

success, we've actually talked about this on the show multiple times with different

guests, is the, the overnight success.

But in the music business, they're like, yes, the, it's the 10 year

overnight success because the folks in Nashville know that that person's

been grinding it out for over a You

a hundred percent.

on just like what you're saying, I'm, I'm doing this.

Then you get a little bit better.

I'm doing that and a little bit better.

And they perfect that style.

They perfect that song, whatever it is.

And then all of a sudden it's like, boom.

Yeah, that's right.

oh, he just walked into, it's like, no, been

slogging it out for a decade.

On a

Yeah,

He's been on the 10 year model, like you said.

that's right.

think that's so consistent.

It's fascinating that whether it's in the music business or, or

growing a nonprofit sports, brand globally, it's still the same thing.

It's a lot of hard work, a lot of attention to detail,

creativity, and solving problems.

On a small scale and then scaling.

Right.

And

that's right.

I love it, man.

so let's, let's jump into this a little bit because I, I wanna

make sure we get into your time at Upward 'cause you're okay.

Let's fast forward a little bit.

You're in, you're in the groove, you've moved through gradual.

You are in, suddenly you're,

Mm-hmm.

fast, your team is growing, you're, you're moving,

you're expanding, not just in, not just in the US but globally.

What are some things that you took from that hypergrowth that

you would say is advice for other leaders leading their teams?

How, how can someone lead their teams Well, when things are going well

that sudden growth and that growing.

Yeah, a really good question.

You know, first of all, when you, when you stepped out, I've

stepped out of the church where everything's very comfortable,

consistent paycheck, everything's coming along, everything's good.

There's no, no risk involved.

I got three daughters, a beautiful wife, and, and I'm trying to figure out

how to feed them and what we're gonna do and how it's gonna make it work.

And so you start getting creative on how you're gonna, you know,

fund things and do things, and.

In the early days, there's a lot of different decisions you have to make

just to keep going that a lot of people don't, don't realize, especially on

that founder entrepreneurial side.

So, when I, I stepped out, I literally was a one man show.

Okay.

I mean, a one, one person.

I brought my wife on and, I asked her to volunteer.

So, so, uh, she would help me pack boxes.

Our first year, we had seven churches.

We literally packed 'em outta my garage.

And, the next year we went to 64 churches, and I hired my three

daughters who were 10, eight, and six.

We gave them cookies and, you know, juice to help us with, you know, pack boxes.

And, anyway, we, we did that for a year and, and then, you know, you go from,

we went from literally one church to seven seven churches, 64, 64 to 1 27.

And, and here's what's really interesting, Dallas, is that, that you obviously

don't do seven the way you do 64, and you don't do 64 the way you do 127 and you

sure don't pack 127 the way you did 350.

And that's, that was what was happening next.

We were doubling every year.

It was things, I mean, it was crazy.

But, and, and the other thing that was, we were focused on is at this point in,

in the ministry, it was just basketball.

It was just basketball.

And,

Oh

and, the first thing I realized I had to do early, early on was

I had to hire people who had strengths where I had weaknesses.

I, I needed people to come in to do things that I can't do.

That's number one.

And so, I mean, I loved, more than anything being the guy.

We, we had, we broke the year up into three major sections, okay?

3, 4, 4 month sections.

The first four months, what I would do is, I would literally, go out to every

single, conference, youth conference, children's conference, you know, all the

different things I could do and buy time on the stage to say, here's an idea.

I'm, I'm marketing, I'm sharing, I'm vision casting.

Quite frankly, I'm making promises we're, this is what we're gonna

do for you the next four months.

We did all of our training and we would invite all these people

that gave interest and said, come to training, and we did 18 to 20

training sessions around the country.

We would just, the idea where they were and churches would bring masses of people.

They'd bring four or five, six people with them, and we might have.

20 churches, we might have 50 churches.

And so there, there'd be, you know, 300, 400 people at all these training sessions.

And we did that every weekend for four months, you know, in those second months.

And then the last four months, we, so the first three is, is cast division, make

the promise, the second one is train the promise and how to do it in your church.

And then we, the last four months, we, we were keepers of the promise, and so

we were shipping product, well, I mean, everybody wants to do their basketball

league during basketball season.

So this number of people kept expanding, but we had to ship

it all through the same window.

So we had to get more and more organized and systemized every time.

So our processes changed every year for seven years until we'd finally

decided we gotta make this big enough so that we could keep growing without

it keep, keep changing our processes.

So, anyway, those were some of the big things that we realized is what do we

gotta, we gotta get ahead of the wave to find out what do we gotta change?

To be prepared for what's coming.

And, and much of it, Dallas again, was, was faith.

And I, I gotta go all the way back to my mom because my mom never blinked.

When I told her I was gonna leave Home Depot and go into the ministry

and I had no idea how I was gonna, you know, feed my family or children.

And, and she said, man, the the, the Lord will provide for that.

And this is, this is how it starts.

The number one thing you gotta do is you gotta pray for wisdom

and ask the Lord to speak to you.

For me, I had to speak, ask the Lord to speak to me, gimme the

wisdom to do the right thing.

I wanna do the right thing.

Well then when you get that word, just because you have got the

knowledge doesn't mean you have to have to not put it to action.

So you gotta move from wisdom to works.

You actually have to work.

Faith without works is dead now, and, and this is where it gets hard.

I, I think I got this from my mom.

I've got the faith.

To do absolutely anything that I know God told me to do.

The key is knowing what it is that God told you to do.

So you gotta be a good listener, okay?

You gotta know what it is that the Lord's telling you to do.

And, and, so for me, it's not like I, I'm, I'm getting a new little

whisper in my ear every day.

It's like the Lord comes in and says, I want you to do this.

It's like he told Noah, build an arc. Well, it took him 600 years.

He didn't need to talk to him anymore.

After that, you, you get one message and then you just go and stay

obedient and follow what it is.

But when you hear what you're supposed to do, you get on that horse and ride as

hard as you can and, and get after it.

So.

I think that's really encouraging.

I love that.

as you're going through, you've come through that 10 year model.

One of the things that you were saying is that you wanted to have

that, you know, hire people with the strengths where you had weaknesses

and that you are constantly just trying to stay ahead of the next wave.

I love that visual because if you do that, it's kind of, I I think about that as

mentally, like you're on a boogie board or a surfboard and you, if you, you can

ride the wave if you stay in front of it, but if it gets over you, you get eaten.

Yeah, it's right.

It's a hundred percent right.

so in growth situations it's, it's, if you don't stay in front

of it, then everything's on fire.

But if you can be just a, if you can be proactive about, Hey, hey, I'm going

ahead and planning for what's next.

You just stay in front of it and you can ride that wave.

So I, I love that advice for all you leading teams, man.

You gotta ask the question, what do I need to do to stay in front of the wave?

What do I need to do to stay in front of the waves?

That's really good.

So now we've gone through this.

I would say, I would, I would love to know this.

What was your favorite part?

in, when the organization had matured, you've stayed in front of the wave,

grown a massive global, I mean, you guys were in like 70 countries

or, you know, something like that.

It was crazy.

You all over the world, I mean, you've, you've created this, what was your

favorite part about being at that place?

well, I think, one of the things that I tell a lot of people, as a

matter of fact, I'm, I'm really grateful to be able to say this right now.

You know, when you walk in to meet people and you say, Hey man, how you doing?

What you, what you doing today?

my favorite, one-liner was, man, I'm on top of the world.

I'm on top of the world.

I mean, man, I'm just on top of the world.

And sometimes you say that to people and they're like, you know, really,

you know, because most of the time they get, I'm okay, you know, I'm all right.

You know, how you doing, man?

I'm on top of the world.

And, and I really felt like for, I mean, for years and years and years,

man, I'm just on top of the world.

I'm just so thankful to be doing what I know that God's asked me to do

and be being in that, in that grind.

But I think that one of my favorite things about the whole deal was.

when you're doing that and you're, you're actually out there, my favorite

part is the vision casting and, and sharing with them what we've seen in

the past, what we're doing now, and where this could take you in the future.

And there's nothing more exciting to me personally than to unpack for somebody.

When we were at those training sessions or we were at churches, we're doing things

and we're sharing with them that they have all the tools right there in their hands.

I mean, they got a church, they got a facility, they got people around them.

They got all these people, in their community that are searching for the

truth and they don't even know what it is, but they're looking for it.

And, and, and then you start telling 'em what you could do

and how you can make this happen.

My favorite thing, Dallas, is watching the light bulb turn on.

In their eyes and they're like, oh my goodness.

And, and for them to go from, this is impossible to man.

We can do this.

We can make this happen.

There's nothing about that.

That was, that's more exciting to me than to see the light bulb come on

and people get it and then, and then to actually watch it happen for them

is probably the biggest blessing.

Man.

That's just fun to watch.

Well, I love that.

That's really great.

The light bulb moments are, are the best for sure.

Yeah.

that I, I want to talk to, I want you to speak to the leaders specifically.

We've got a lot of leaders that are coaching teams, a lot of

leaders that are leading teams.

But you talk about, doing more than what's to separate kind of high performing teams.

I'd love for you to just kinda, you know, speak about that because you've

had a lot of experience leading a high performing team, a high growth team.

so what does that mean to you when you talk about doing more to, to, to separate.

Oh, unfortunately, there's a, there's a lot of.

too many times I've been with certain people in certain roles and they wanna

know what their expectation is because they, they don't wanna fall short, but

they certainly don't wanna go past it.

You know?

I mean, it would be just be terrible, but yeah, just

yeah.

show me what to do.

What, when do I need to clock in?

When do I need to clock out?

And, and there, there has to be something that clicks inside of you

to realize if you're really gonna lead a team and lead things, you, first

of all, you gotta lead by example.

And I mean, I, I mean, I go all the way back to my mom and my dad

and, and even probably the most motivating moment in my life of all

things was when my, when I thought that I had not only hit a threshold,

but I'd crossed it by 27 kids and.

You know, my wife of all people looking at me saying, man, that

that's what you wanted to do was, was turn somebody away from this.

It, it was like, there's gotta, what is the next level?

And, and even when you're in the midst of running a basketball league, I'm gonna

transfer this over to the organization in a moment, but when you're, when

we were running a league every year we were saying, look, we've got this

thing humming, but what can we do next year to take it to the next level?

What can we do to the next level?

And so just in our league, we would do things like, okay, yeah, you got

schedules and here's your uniform and here's this and here's that.

But the next thing that we would say is.

Is, man, what can we do next year?

And we started introducing players and we had the ESPN music on and,

you know, kids are coming in.

Then we started running 'em through tunnels and then we had to open the door.

These are third and fourth graders, man, we got fog, and they're coming

through the fog and running out there, and they're calling out their name.

Who doesn't wanna be a part of that?

I mean, you know, the kids are having a blast.

Well, you transfer that over to an organization and you think, how can we

run a, a, a ministry where we're serving churches, their staff and volunteers.

I mean, we, we got to the point, Dallas, where we were in over 2,500

churches, where're reaching 550,000 kids.

I mean, that's 250,000 volunteers a year.

I mean, we, we had just crossed over reaching over 7 billion kids.

I mean, that was, that was a half, I mean, over the course of time, I

mean it's, it's 5 million volunteers that were pulling this off.

Well, if you serve a volunteer and you set them up to be the hero,

then you don't have to wonder if they're gonna come back next year.

And I think the biggest thing we had to realize is that it wasn't

about us and what you could do.

For me, the big question, every decision we made is what can we do in

our organization to make it easier for them to implement this in their church?

How can we make it easy for them?

There was a lot of times we made it, we, we could have made a decision

that would've made our business easier for us, but we wanted to create a

business where it was easier for them to do what we wanted to do.

And that changed everything.

Everything.

So.

I love that.

I think that's really great.

And I think making, the volunteers the hero, is, is a fascinating perspective.

'cause you're just, kind of targeted what the necessary thing was to make

this organization function well.

'cause it was so volunteer centric.

So it's like, well, why wouldn't we make that be the hero?

So if you've got the team members in, you're celebrating in your organization.

We're going through last lab, we did the kinda similar things.

So we've got all of our team members, what we had.

That was a, employee appreciation day last month.

And I, I mean, I, I love appreciate employees, but I was like.

Kind of seems like luster.

Just like, have a day.

All right, we appreciate you.

Now get back to work.

You know?

So, so

Yeah.

something different this year.

We're having employee appreciation month, and every Tuesday

in and they're wearing like, first theme was like, superhero theme.

And so we had action figures coming in.

This, this week's story time.

So they're coming in as like movie, you know, movie stars.

And somebody wore a, you know, I don't even know, a mermaid, little Mermaid

and somebody else shows up as a chicken.

I mean, the whole thing is just hilarious.

So every, every Tuesday we're having these things where people

are dressing up, coming in, and we're telling people thank you.

And they're sharing what makes you a hero?

We've got all these posters on the wall inks here.

So it's like we wanted to be a big deal, and at the end of the

thing, we're gonna have contests and gift cards and giveaways.

'cause we want it to be a big deal until thank you.

But it's that, it's just like what you're saying, that doesn't

come without intention and it doesn't come without effort.

It doesn't come without thinking to yourself like, all right.

All right.

I could just be like, yo, thanks on employee appreciation day.

Appreciate you.

You

Yeah,

that's not what you, it is like, how can we make this fun?

let's show 'em that we really care.

Let's do something really meaningful that they're gonna remember.

You're gonna wear, you're gonna remember wearing a chicken outfit to

the office showing up and laughing with your, your friends and, and, and

then winning a gift card, you know,

that's right.

outfit, right?

You're gonna

that.

So I love that.

And I think the intentionality that you share, if you're leading a team

in your organization or you're leading an organization, the question is, what

can you point your finger to inside your company, inside your leadership,

under your umbrella that you're doing, that you're being intentional

to take it to the next level.

If you're just checking the box, if you're just meeting the

standard, then what are we doing?

What are

Yeah.

Can we do a

Yeah.

You're, you're, you're exactly right.

And, and I may not have answered your question completely

from the very beginning.

I got off on the story of what we're trying to do for our folks out there in

the field, but with inside the office, I mean, our, our staff was growing from, you

know, from five to 10, to 50 to a hundred.

And, and to your point, we, it, what's celebrated is repeated, right.

And so, we got to the point that what we did at our office, we would have a

monthly meeting and we would have a lunch.

We'd bring in, you know, catered food and, and my wife would just set it up.

I mean, it's, it's so first class, I mean, it

And my idea is, you know, hey, let's just, everybody, let's grab some, sandwiches

and let's have a Coke and let's do this.

But she would lay it out and treat them like they just had, you know, won

the, Nobel Peace Prize or something.

It was just so first class and they just felt so appreciated and celebrated.

To your point, you gotta stop long enough to thank the people making it.

You know what, it's for you, just like what you're doing with

your employee appreciation thing.

And, and Christmas and holidays were really important to us.

I mean, just fun things.

Just fun things.

I mean, we, we did a crazy thing one day, I'll just tell you one story, but we,

we did one thing at Easter and of course we're always celebrating what Easter's

really about, but when they came in.

We, we had come in the night before we, we had hidden a thousand eggs around the

office and we had this Easter egg hunt

oh,

and ju I mean, a bunch of adults running all over the

place looking for Easter eggs.

But, when we told them that there's one golden egg with a hundred dollars

bill in it, I mean, people just went bananas for a hundred dollars.

You know, it was just absolutely bananas.

It was just a blast because everybody was just, just outside of the norm

and you just gotta stop every now and then and, and have some fun.

And so yeah, we, we did a lot of that.

We did a lot of that fun stuff.

That was great.

that's awesome.

Now I want to, I wanna pivot a little bit because we've

Yeah.

all, all growth.

All up into the right, you know, we had the, we had the getting started phase,

now we're in growth and where everything's humming, we're a global organization.

But man, you have, over the last few years you've experienced some real,

transition and difficulty, I would say, because you've had some, trouble

in Paradise, as I would say on that.

And also you've had some health issues that you've had to deal with.

So I wanna talk through that.

Would, would you, you know, first of all, I guess with the, with the

health issues, I guess we, we will start, I guess you wanna start there

Sure man.

It's up to you.

Huh?

with the health issues because, and we're not going to dive into your

medical records, but I, but I wanted to, I wanted to say like when we look

at this near death, you know, health battle, that you've had, you've had

multiple surgeries, how has that.

Reshaped or maybe given you a perspective, is there any different

perspectives that you come away with, with leadership, with and with life

after going through these events?

Yeah.

First of all, let me just tell you that you don't have to go through

a near death experience to have what I'm about to share with you.

So don't, don't everybody wait for that moment.

Um, uh, 'cause 'cause I'll be honest with you, if you get in your car and you drive

home today, it's a near death experience.

I mean, it,

Yeah.

I mean, there's just this, we got, it's more dangerous to drive a car.

It is, to fly a plane.

I mean, I, I don't know what you do in your life, but there, we're promised a lot

of things, but tomorrow's not one of them.

But this moment that, happened with me is, was really one that is riveted in

my head as a huge milestone in my life.

Bottom line is to not dive into everything.

But, you know, I was just getting really weak.

I was getting really sick.

It was the year after COVID, you know, so if COVID was over and I'm like, woo,

man, at least that one's behind us.

The, the can't get any worse than that.

And, for whatever reason, I, I had, I was actually going septic.

I had a leak in my colon, you know, and I, and it was just so slow.

I was just getting sicker and sicker every day.

Didn't know what was going on.

And, doctors couldn't figure it out.

But I, and I was a little stubborn, not going, you know, to

the doctor, that kind of thing.

I'd, I'd lost, you know, over 50 pounds and, and I was really getting

skinny and thin to the point I couldn't even, I couldn't even make

it up a set of steps, you know?

And finally my daughter and my wife just said, Hey, either we're,

we're taking you to the hospital, or we're gonna get an ambulance.

And so I, I submitted, went to there and sat in the hospital for five days

while they scratched their head and looked around, couldn't figure it out.

And praise the Lord for a dear friend that send in a surgeon that

was really expert in this area.

He comes through and in about seven minutes he flips through my

file, looking and reading, comes over with his stethoscope, puts it

on my chest, and looking around.

And my wife and three girls are sitting there and, and, they're looking and

watching me as I'm just literally disappearing in front of their eyes.

And, he looks at, my wife and says, you got about 15 minutes to

get him on the operating table, or he is not gonna see tomorrow.

Good

uh,

gracious day.

yeah.

And, and this is where, what happened?

And, and she said 15 minutes.

And he said, more or less.

Good

so, so here's the life changing words, more or less, I don't know if

you've ever watched movies or TV or if you're, somebody walks up to you

say, Hey man, did you like that movie?

Yeah.

Well, more or less, I mean, Hey, was dinner good last night?

Well, more or less, you know, Hey, are you doing a good job?

Well, more or less, what a horrible answer.

Okay.

But in that moment, when he answered my wife by saying, more or less, it

could have been more than 15 minutes, could have been less than 15 minutes.

Bottom line is we didn't need a second opinion.

We went straight to the, you know, operating room and, and

started doing what we had to do.

But on the way to the operating room, this is what happened.

I'm reflecting.

I, I'm a, you know, I'm completely out of it.

But this is what happened in my mind by myself.

All I could think about was my mother and Billy Graham who led her to

the Lord, Alistair Walker, who I've already mentioned, producer Pac, who

had poured into me so incredibly well.

Both of those men had had, were probably the most influential, incredible

leaders I've ever seen in my life.

And they knew the Bible up one side and down the other.

And they're gone.

They're gone.

And all their wisdom, all their knowledge, all the things that they

had, all their experiences, all the things they had learned, they were gone.

And what hit me in that moment is that they knew so much more than I would

I'll ever dream to know about the Bible.

And they were gone.

And I looked at my wife and girls and I thought.

If I look at just those people I know more through my experience, my life,

my, my experience with the Lord.

I know more about God's word more than they do, but every day that I live, I

have less time to share it with them.

I have less time to be able to share the things that I know.

And all of a sudden Dallas there was this incredible urgency that came over me that

the more I live, the more I know, the more knowledge I have, the more wisdom that I

gain, the less time I have to share it.

Everything you, the more you know, the less time you have to give it away.

And, and so every day that I get older, there's one less day I have to share

the knowledge that, that the Lord's given me in whatever case it may be.

So I have all this love in my, in my.

My soul for my family, but I got one less day to share it and I'm gonna go share it

with all that, with my bride and with my kids and my son-in-laws and my grandkids.

I, I just, the more I have, the more I know, the less time I'm to share it.

So that more or less moment is something that's been driving me since

the day I woke up from that surgery.

so

More or less man.

More or less,

it.

we definitely

That's it.

We know we got a little less

We got a,

so, that's, we gotta, we gotta do more so with our, with our less.

Right.

I think that's great.

I think it, obviously, it's also something that You've, you're not

just sharing with your family.

'cause I mean, recently, you know, we were actually talking and, I was sharing

some of the, the legal woes that our company is doing, not any fault of

our own, that that has been put on us.

And

yeah.

Hey, I need to tell you some stuff.

If you're gonna do this and this, I need to, so come, meet me, uh, this week.

So, so we sat down on a, you know, in a greasy spoon, for breakfast one morning.

And, and you could, you know, share, but it's funny because when we left

there, we had, we saw a person come in, you're like, Hey, I might actually have

to go, and, and, and go back inside.

And so I'm gonna segue that because, you know, in spite of the health

issues, one of the other transitions that you've made is leaving the

global organization that you founded.

And so, that is not obviously something that's easy to do.

And, and so for anybody that has started a business and grown it successfully, most

of the founders that I talk to usually refer to it at some point as their baby.

Like

Yeah.

it child.

Like, you know, I put it to bed, I nurse it, I've made it.

Well, when it's sick, you know, the whole thing.

It really feels like another member of the family.

So to transition out, whether that's through retirement, you know, selling the

company, you know, whatever it is, it's usually topsy-turvy upside down world.

So tell us a little bit about that and, and that transition into how

it got you to where you are now.

Yeah.

well, I, I've heard that terminology many times about, you know, this is my baby.

Or, when you separate out, they say, man, this is like a death.

I mean, it's just like a, it's just like a death.

And, and I'll be honest with you, when somebody first shared that with me, when I

stepped away from, from upward, they said, man, I, I'm sure this is like a death.

And I said, actually, it's worse.

I said it, it's like a divorce.

I said, because when my mom left and, and, and when she died, when my dad

died, when I had a dear friend that died, when they died, they were gone.

It wasn't there anymore.

a divorce just means you're completely separated, but they're

still there and you can still see it.

You still live it, you're still feeling it, and you're in the same environment.

It's like, man.

It's so painful because the, the, it's, it's not like they, you

know, they're permanently gone.

They, they're still there and it's, and you live within it.

So, to me, I feel like sometimes a divorce from something you don't wanna

be divorced from is, is worse than death.

You know, it's just really hard.

So

Hmm.

anyway, that's just one piece of the puzzle.

But, yeah, to your point, you know, 10 years at the church and then, 25

years, growing and building and pouring literally the very best years of our life.

And then getting to the point, like you said a minute ago, if you had asked me

on, you know, in, in, uh, uh, 2018, hey, hey, Kansas, how you doing today, man?

I'm saying, I'm on top of the world, you know, I'm, I'm out, I'm out there.

This is all before my health issue, you know, so that's, we kinda went backwards.

But, so I'm, I'm on top of the world.

I'm having a time in my life and.

I mean, we had just reached our seven eighth kid.

We were, you know, 550,000 a year.

And, and of course there were some, you know, every

organization has some challenges.

You begin to plateau and then you gotta pivot and you plateau and you move some

things and you, you do some things.

And so we had some.

Some challenges that we were working through, but, we had, we had done a

lot of, a lot of really fun things and, and we're a hundred percent debt

free, not-for-profit organization.

I mean, we're 60 million in assets and, and corporate office

built distribution center.

And, we had built a star center with, with six gyms and six ball fields out there.

And I mean, things were rocking and we were, we were very probably

in the best financial position you could possibly imagine.

I mean, it was just, it was just, we were just a great spot, you know, and

continuing to grow every, every year.

And I, I came into the office one day and, and, you know, if you would've, said

to me in that moment, or if, if the Lord himself, if God himself would've tapped

me on the shoulder one day and said, Hey, I really think it's time for you to

leave upward, move on to something else.

I was like, man, that was a bad taco from the night before.

I mean, there's just no way.

I, I mean, I have been doing it all my life right here.

There's no way in the world I'm supposed to be leaving here, and,

and I just don't know that I would've even entertained listening to that.

but in that moment, what, what actually happened through a series of events,

you know, there was, three of the board members of the five, had decided that

it was time for a change in leadership.

We needed to move and go to a different direction.

And I was one of those board members.

So, myself and the chairman of the board, did not agree with this assessment.

but there was no, there was no immoral, no financial, no.

I mean, they literally shared with me, there's nothing out there.

We just want to go a different direction.

And I was like, I, you gotta help me out here.

What kind of direction?

They said, well, we, you know, we're, we'll determine that later, but right now

we just wanna go a different direction.

It completely.

Unbeknownst to I, it just, it was the, it was the most unbelievable

thing I'd ever been through.

And so it was really, really challenging to say the least.

it was a, a process that I would never wanna go through

or wish upon anybody else.

But, the bottom line is, is, I, I had an opportunity to actually

preach about this at my church.

And in the process of that, I, I titled this message without my permission

because, I would've never thought that I needed to, step out of there

and go do what I'm doing today.

And I know that this is where the Lord wanted me to be because of all the

things that are happening today at the Fellowship of Christian athletes

and doing what I'm doing for them.

And I just don't know that I would've been a, you know, of strong enough

or deep enough in my faith to believe that that's what God's actually said.

I would've thought, man, that is, that's an error.

right?

and so as a result, God moved me without my permission.

He picked me up and set me down.

The title of the message was, without my permission, and God doesn't

need our permission to move us.

he, he moves us when he wants to move us.

And, and there's two things here that I think are really

important pieces of the puzzle.

And it's gonna happen to everybody that's listening.

This is gonna happen to everybody.

Two things I can promise you, okay?

there's a big difference between consequences and circumstances.

Okay?

Consequences is when you do something that you shouldn't do

and you know you shouldn't do it.

There are going to be consequences, not might be consequences, or

there should be consequences, or there could be consequences.

But when you do something that you know you should not do outside of God's

will or outside of your marriage, or outside of your work, or outside of your

business, something that's integrity or character or illegal, there are

going to be consequences for that.

And here's the thing, you know, there coming.

Just write it down.

It's coming.

Okay.

It's coming.

I promise you circumstances are exactly the opposite.

There is things that will literally change your life on a dime that

you never knew were coming.

You have no idea it's happening.

You don't know what's coming.

It could be a car accident.

It could be cancer, it could be losing your job for no reason.

It could be, it, it could be any number of things that you had nothing to do with.

I mean, you could be a part of a, I mean, I, I think about, you know,

I, I got, I got let go from my job, but I, I'm a big sports fan.

Every year, at the end of basketball, at the end of baseball, at the end of

football, there are slews of coaches.

They get fired at the top of the food chain.

Well, all of the assistant coaches, they get fired.

They had nothing to do with it.

They're just a part of the circumstances.

You know, they just got, they got moved out.

Joseph, I mean, in the Bible, I mean, his brothers, you know, sold him.

I mean, threw him in a pit and, and sold him away.

He didn't do anything but be obedient to God and time after time, after time, there

was circumstance after circumstances.

This is the thing I want you to know.

Wow, there's only one person on the planet that ever saw a circumstance

coming that ever saw it happen.

And that's because Jesus was God and he knew that he was about to be betrayed.

And even in that moment, nobody once a circumstance to happen to

you, he even prayed and said, well, would you take this cup from me?

And then he said, but it's not my will yours be done.

So even though he knew it was coming and he didn't want it, he

wanted God's will more than the ramifications of the circumstance.

But here's the other thing I can promise you.

In every circumstance there's a reason.

And there's always a phenomenal ministry opportunity or opportunity for you that

is gonna come on the other side of a circumstance that's outta your control.

It happens over and over again.

So if you're in the midst of waiting for the other shoe to fall

from a consequence of something that you did, just brace yourself.

But if you're in the middle of a circumstance that happened to you

and you can't explain it, just keep looking around the corner.

'cause something is coming that the Lord wants to use in your life to make that a

powerful, a powerful part of your life.

So.

Oh man, I love that.

I think that is gold, actually.

And I think that is unbelievable perspective.

I think the and circumstances so true because I think some people.

Fail to see that, you know, well, I, because they'll second guess or

they'll, they'll blame or there's something, well, I, if this hadn't

have been, I wouldn't have had this.

Or if this, or I can't believe this happening to me.

And you know, whether it's guilt, pride, shame, you just the laundry

list, they just have a hard time because something's happening and you feel like

this shouldn't have happened to me.

I did nothing to bring this on.

You know, one of my best employees just, you know, whatever didn't turn

into notice or they turned in something or they said something terrible.

They were me.

Or, or the company just lost its biggest client.

No fault of ours.

We got perfect service and they just walked off.

And now we're in financial, you know, whatever it is you

That's right.

it is daily in business.

And, and

Every day.

a business, you totally, I'm, I'm sure if you're leading

a team or leading business, when you heard him say circumstances or

consequences, you're just like, Bing.

Oh, wow.

And so I think that's really good because we, we have an

opportunity and we have a choice.

I think what you're saying too is, that we have an opportunity of

how we respond to circumstances.

We're kind of

A hundred percent.

we're creating the, we're creating the, consequence and

hopefully we respond to consequence by stopping doing whatever we doing

as causing that consequence to come.

Right.

But if, if we have a circumstance, it's, it's, it's like Willie Nelson's song.

It's not something you get over, it's something you get through.

Yeah.

There you go.

That's right.

That's right.

we gonna, we gonna walk through this, we have an

opportunity to respond to it.

And, and what I love what you're saying is, is that you're giving a reason

for something that has seem, that has no reason to us In the beginning

you're saying it may not make sense, but it has a reason and and we have

an opportunity how we're gonna respond to that when we move through that

circumstance, that wasn't our cause.

Then we can walk through that and say, I'm getting to the other side.

Sometimes we know the reason we get to the other side and go,

ah, at least one reason is this.

'cause

That's right.

better for this.

And I think back to my own career, my own life.

Like, you walk into something, it's like, you know, you get the Joseph, like

you mentioned, Josephs, like Joseph, like, are you, are you kidding me?

And,

and if you're a person of faith, you may be saying, Hey, throw me a bone here.

Like, Lord, are you just trying to beat me over the head every

time I step out the door?

Or just, you know, the last a hundred days,

That's right.

mean, there's a, there's this feeling that as you're going through

this, these circumstances that may be out of your control, that don't go

the way you want it to go, you know,

right.

that there's, that something's either wrong with you, wrong with

the universe, wrong with God.

And what you're saying is not, it's not, there's a reason.

And if there's a reason, then we can choose how we're gonna respond.

And we can choose to respond in, in, in, in a, in more healthy ways with

humility, with gratitude, you know, with wisdom and insight versus reaction and

emotion and just, you know, rejection.

So, I, I love that.

I love

Yeah.

It's

Yeah.

A hundred percent.

A hundred percent

that, that circumstance occurred.

right.

it moved you.

Yeah, absolutely.

and it was without your permission, essentially.

It's like you said in the message without my permission.

when you went through that and then you've, now you're on the other

side of that, you're thriving.

how would you describe that process for you and the perspective that you have now

as you move through that circumstance?

Yeah.

Well, you know, you can imagine when something like that happens, the, there's

all the reasons why we wanna be, bitter.

And mad and frustrated and, and I'll, I'll probably I, I'll tell you that for

the first several months, probably longer than that, if I was to really look at

it, one of the things that I love doing more than anything, the whole time that

I was at the church or I was at Upward, I, I'm not much of a big radio guy in

the car or, you know, songs and, you know, there's occasionally with the kids

in the car, we have some fun with that.

But I like it quiet and I just like to think and, and

I'm, I'm dreaming about stuff.

I, I think almost every day I would say, alright, what can we

do to make upward better today?

What can we do to make, you know what I'm doing at the church better today?

What can I do to make, take better care of our employees today?

And if you just stop and stop the noise and start thinking about

what can I do to make this better?

And, and I would think about and dream about those things literally

every day coming and going to work.

You know, I mean, obviously now we got the phone, people are calling, doing stuff.

But if I have a quiet moment, I just like to think, okay, what

can I do to make this better?

And I think the biggest thing that I felt like I was being robbed of

is that when all this happened, all of my think time completely shifted.

And my think time was, my think time was this.

Why did they do that to me?

Why?

Why is this ha, why is this why I can't believe they did that?

To me, that is the, that is the cruelest thing.

Why, what did I do to make this happen?

Why did, and so everything moved from being windshield.

How can we make a difference in the future to looking in the rear view

mirror and complaining about it?

And finally, the more or less moment.

Changed everything.

I'm like, I, if I'm not gonna spend the time I have in the rear view mirror

when I could be talking about the things we're gonna do in the, in the front

windshield, because that is, that is, that is losing to the enemy to look

in the rear view mirror and complain.

And so then I, I, I don't, I don't have all this in front

of me, but it's literally, you know, the, the Lord's Prayer.

I mean, when, when we pray that prayer, you know, it's, there's a sentence in

there that, that just says, forgive us of our trespasses as those who forgive, you

know, as those who trespass against us.

And, and you, you think, wait a minute, I'm supposed to, forgive

others the same way you forgive me.

And if you go a little bit further in there.

Jesus even gives the illustration and talks about what it is to forgive others,

and he compares it to him, forgiving us of all the things we've ever done, and yet

we're gonna turn around and not forgive other people for what they've done.

And, and there's this massive gap between, you know, anything that's anybody's ever

done to me is so minimal to my life.

Failures in eternity of life.

It's like, what am I doing?

And let me just tell you, the only thing you're doing, if

you've got somebody in your life.

That has done you wrong or you feel like they've done you wrong, or there's

the perception you've been done wrong or anything like that, and you're

holding that grudge with inside of you.

All I could do is tell you that I could tell you that you, you haven't

experienced the freedom of forgiveness.

The only thing better than being forgiven for something that you've

done is giving forgiveness for something that's been done to you.

It is the most freeing, releasing, most unbelievable thing because it's

the example that's been given to us.

And when you, when you can let go of that and move on to the future, and it's

a choice, Dallas, I mean, it's not a, a lot of people say, well, it's a process.

I'm working through it.

Lemme just tell you it, it might be a choice that you have to make

often, but it's a choice in the day.

And, and I get up every day and, and just, I have to realize, man, I.

There's, there's some people do you wrong and they don't even think they've

done you wrong or know that they've done you wrong and, but it, all of us are

gonna get done wrong at some point and you gotta live in that forgiveness bro.

I love it.

And I think that, when you speak about that, I just, there's, there's

so many things that come to mind and I think for leaders, if you're

listening to the last 10%, man, you are getting some wisdom today.

And if you're leading an organization, you're leading a team, you're a part of

a team, so many times that we go through life and we experience circumstances

that are out of our control that negatively impact us, our family,

our friends, our job, our finances.

And what you've stated there is you've got, we've got several

different ways we can respond.

One way is to ask that question that you are saying, why, why did this happen?

Why?

And it's a question, most of the time when you get into the why's, you don't

ever get to the real answer, and you just, it's that circular loop and it

just keeps on going and keeps on going.

So.

One of the things that we have to do, it's like you were saying it it

festers this bitterness and whatever, and it's outside of our control.

So you know, at the last 10%.

are for you.

If you're listening to this episode, we are for you.