Thanks to all of our amazing guests on the No Grey Areas Podcast, we've been inspired, motivated, and transformed!

As you reflect on 2022, what are some lessons you've learned that you want to live out in 2023? What do you want to change? Improve on? Succeed in?

We've taken several key highlights from past episodes and put them into one new giant episode!

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Speaker 1

Speaker 1

It's a great reminder because I think a lot of times we start rolling through life and we got to do list, right? And and you start planning out what's, you know, three months or six months or something, and you forget to really live.

Speaker 2

In the moment, especially when a lot of bad things are happening to you. Right. And it's really easy to get into that victim mode and why me type mode? And I can always think back to that and go, Hey, yeah, wake up. Only yesterday was yesterday. Adapt and improvise that. That was a follow on saying that's what it would be behind.

Speaker 2

That's me. I mean, in the field we were talking about special operations. You're dropped in, you have a you have a plan. But we all know we know what happens to plan. So you hit the ground. Yep, yep, yep. That is the life of a seal adapting. Improvise. There is no script.

Speaker 1

So all your training is basically training you to recognize that you're going to hit the ground and.

Speaker 2

You're prepared to it. Yeah. You're going to flex. Yeah. And you have to flex. In life. Things don't go your way. Yeah, I just think about that. Everybody has this image, right? You got a girl's got to get married. She's got to get married on the altar. But we're going to have great in the kid. We all know that that plan doesn't play out for 99.99% of us.

Speaker 2

You've got to be able to flex. You can't not be rigid in your thinking and your thought process. You will be like this. You have to open your aperture and you have to get out there, goose people get stuck. I think a lot of depression comes from this. I think a lot of anxiety comes from this. What happened?

Speaker 2

What happened to my picture? Right. It's gone.

Speaker 1

It's not true that it's not right.

Speaker 3

Sometimes you have to take on a position that by your unfortunate I didn't choose to be. I wanted to be a nurse. I didn't want to be this all these things. But I am a nurse right now. I get to go and take care of my cousins, my grandkids. I get to be honest. I get to help them, you know, as I heal and still let them know that know I'm still struggling, I'm still got some issues.

Speaker 3

I'm not all there and I don't want to even get there into I'm there wherever there is.

Speaker 1

I think a year ago or so, I posted something on social media. I said, You and I have no idea where we will be or what we will be doing ten years from now. I've got all kinds of plans I did like, you know, when I was leading organizations, sometimes I put together a five year plan. I realize a five year plan is almost ridiculous nowadays.

Speaker 1

Yeah, I would probably rewrite that quote now and not put we have no idea where we will be or what we'll be doing in ten years. You might say a year from now. Might even say a month from now. Right. Things are constantly changing.

Speaker 2

Yep. It's okay. Have it's okay to have a plan, right? You have to just realize it's not going to go that way. Yeah. And that this is adapt and overcome.

Speaker 4

Life for all of us. In life is a pilgrimage and it's a hard at times. It can be a very hard pilgrimage. And we can we can just start looking at ourselves. We can start looking down and there's enough around us that just can pull us down.

Speaker 5

We are living in such a fear based society that we don't even know how to handle it. And so are shutting down and we're isolating instead of engaging in our lives. And when we isolate, that's when a lot of times that's when that depression and anxiety come in. Because what isolate from the people in the community and then you add in social media with comparison to other people's lives that other people didn't have the the access to what other people's lives always looked like supposedly, quote, air quotes.

Speaker 5

Yeah. And so in that we're adding in comparison, which adds on to the anxiety but we are being desensitized because we we don't know when to process all of this information and it's coming out through ways I think that none of us really enjoy. But we also don't know what to.

Speaker 4

Do in this world of perception. Yeah, in this world of, Oh, I got it. I'm giving giving, giving, giving. I'm performing, performing, performing, performing. I'm trying to keep up with the Joneses. When your output is greater than your intake, what you're bringing in, how you're filling yourself back up, then your upkeep, right? Your perception, your your, you know, your your presence will be your downfall.

Speaker 6

How are you leading prior to the tragedy? Are you impacting your organization? Are you a servant leader? Prior to the tragedy? Have you built that trust factor with your lead, with your organization as a leader? Are you pouring into them pre tragedy? I know a lot of the people who've ended up working.

Speaker 1

With us even have come out of their own.

Speaker 6

Background of abuse or trauma or whatever.

Speaker 1

And you want to set yourself up for success when some of those triggers start to flip, you need to have a strong support base.

Speaker 6

The more that you have that going on before a tragedy ever happens. And I believe that the more positive impact you can have on the people at the end of the tragedy, because all about leadership is impacting people, right, Even through tragedy. It's our job as leaders to impact people in a way that makes a difference in their lives.

Speaker 4

So the advice I give is make sure that you're taking care of yourself. You know, it's the bio psycho social model, right? Make sure that you're you're you're sleeping, You're you're you're exercising. You make sure that you're being honest. Make sure that you're fellowship. Being a maitre d sure are getting poured into by good people. Mentors. Make sure that your home life is taken care of.

Speaker 4

Make sure that if you have to take medicine for whatever you know, the condition that you're predisposed to, that you're that you're doing, that make sure that you're reading, you're meditating, praying, whatever the case may be, make sure that you're feeling yourself back up to be who you are so that when life squeezes, you write the true essence of who you are, comes out, and you don't have to put up a facade and say, You know what?

Speaker 4

I'm going to just make it look like everything's okay.

Speaker 6

Because logically, why would you put your security and your identity into something that you know is going to change if you know, culture is going to change, if you know society's going to change, if you know what's popular is going to change, if you know how you feel about yourself is going to change, then why would you want any of those things to determine something?

Speaker 6

Because clearly we believe identity is important because we're all trying to find our identity in something. Why would we not want to put it in a secure place? Like why we we don't want to put it somewhere that we know. If I put it here, it doesn't matter what what else happens outside of me. It doesn't matter what anyone else says.

Speaker 6

I'm going to be secure. Yeah. When I let my identity be led by my desires or I let my identity be led by my emotions, it has never led me to a place of security. It's always left me lacking. It's always left me lonely. It's always left me isolated. And but when I choose to, even in the heart seasons, say I'm going to put my identity in Jesus because he's the one thing that's consistent.

Speaker 6

It's like the circumstances around me don't change. They never they never have. That's never changed my circumstances, but has always changed my perspective.

Speaker 4

I start by saying like, What do you do if you're on fire and you stop, drop and roll? And I said, Well, it's kind of like symbol of grief and suffering. If you don't have a plan on what you're going to do when it happens, when it happens, you are going to lower your theology to match your pain.

Speaker 4

That's what we do when someone experiences intense temptation or sin in their life or pain in their life, they they're willing to bend God around the theology of their pain. So if you don't have a proper theology, if God in almost like a cannon or a measuring stick or a mold, then if you've got a proper mold of who God is, then when you suffer, you pour your suffering into that more than it becomes God shaken, you understand it.

Speaker 4

But if your emotions rule, or if your paradigm rules and you have a suffering shaped box, you pour God into it and He becomes that shape of your suffering. So my challenge to them is like, if you haven't gone through it, you're going to go through it. And so I said, Here's three, here's your stop, drop and roll for suffering.

Speaker 4

God is good, God is sovereign, and God is making me more like Jesus every day in the pain, the suffering, the valleys in the mountaintops all together. And that was it. It was God is good. God, a sovereign cosmic me more like Jesus. What these attributes do is they lift us up, they lift our gaze up. Now, eventually they lift our gaze up to Christ himself.

Speaker 4

And so even in the in the in the darkest, most difficult places around the world, and you see a shack that might be some tarps or tents put together, but you see that the husband and wife and and they've planted flowers outside of their shack. So it's you know, it's a rundown shack, a tent of of cardboard put together.

Speaker 4

But they've planted flowers. What are they doing? They're saying that I am made in the image of God and I have dignity. And I'm going to project that dignity through beauty right here. Yeah. Or you see, I'm thinking of seeing children playing, you know, and making toys out of trash, you know, making a little toy truck in a refugee get.

Speaker 4

That's all they had. But they they created beauty. They brought order into the chaos. And that's that's them saying that's God speaking through them, that this child is a child of the king with incredible dignity.

Speaker 1

Hating like their creator.

Speaker 4

And their creators. They're co-creators with God. They're taking something. They're redeeming it and making it beautiful. And in that beauty, there's a truth that's spoken. And I remember telling them if that isn't foundational to what you understand about grief, when grief comes, if you don't bleed that truth, you'll bleed something else that's wrong.

Speaker 3

If you don't reveal it, if you don't talk about it, if you don't say, This is a challenge that I'm struggling in this area, you'll be stuck and in your pass on those generational curses to you children, to your grandchildren, in a cycle of addiction and prostitution and molestation and drugs that won't be broken, you have somebody else's blood on your hand.

Speaker 3

It's not all about you. You're probably the one that's been chosen to get healed so the family can be healed to take a risk. You can get three no matter how scary it is.

Speaker 5

But what happens is it breeds it and grows in the dark. So if you're isolated from people, the depression gets bigger, the anxiety gets bigger because you didn't speak it, you haven't share it. It's in your head, it's in your mind, it's in your feelings. And once you bring something to light, then the truth can be shed over it.

Speaker 5

And then then you can find healing. You can find hope in truth. But when we hide it away, which is what happened in the garden, they hid the moment. They felt shame about stoning, and then God calls them out. He's like, Where are you?

Speaker 6

I was able to compartmentalize as long as I could.

Speaker 4

But then when I retired, it was time to unpack some of that and get to the next level of really getting some help. And we talked about that. What does help look like in you? And I can help each other. Maybe we go meet for lunch, maybe we talk informally, but I'm not in a position to help you unpack what you're seeing and get that off your shoulders.

Speaker 4

I'm in a position to say I care about you. Do I care about your marriage? I care about your kids. Call me at any time. I'll walk alongside this as best I can, but I don't have the tools at my disposal to help you get past that trauma that you're encountering. I will bear that trauma with you, and I will bear it with any first responder that comes into my path.

Speaker 4

But I don't have the tools to get you past it, whereas I don't want to call it real help. I'll call professional help. They have the tools. Yeah. And I think.

Speaker 6

Really what we need is both. There's a good blend between the two.

Speaker 4

But we got to make sure we emphasize the professional help because they do have the tools. I made a four part. What's the best thing to say? Someone in grief? What's the worst thing to say? Someone in grief. The best thing you can say is the right thing at the right time. Second best thing is to say nothing but be present.

Speaker 4

The third is to say something stupid. The fourth is to not be president, not say anything. And I think people are so concerned they're going to say something stupid. They don't say anything. But that's not I would rather you make an attempt and me go, Oh man, it was dumb then to be silent. Silence is deafening to the person who's grieving.

Speaker 4

It's loud and it's irreconcilable with your position because you just go, How do you not communicate with me? At a point I this How do you not show some level of solidarity or whatever and you watch people that you've had beef with, lay it down and walk towards you and be there for you.

Speaker 6

And yes, I used to I didn't realize I was using unforgiveness as self-protection. So we hear these things forgive and forget. And so I thought if I forgive and forget, it's going to happen to me again now. But we can now learn from that experience. It doesn't mean that we, when we forgive, we have to trust that person because trust is earned, not granted or trust.

Speaker 6

You don't have to even bring it back in your life. So you can learn from that experience, you can forgive, you can let it go, and some of those things forgive and forget. Things like that made me realize I was using that forgiveness as self-protection. I afraid if I.

Speaker 2

Was if you forgot.

Speaker 6

You wanted to get. Absolutely.

Speaker 3

I guess maybe that's why I say 70 times. Seven times seven. Yeah. You got to continue to remind me. It's like, okay, forgiveness is like, almost is like a suicide. You're the only one that can free you and pardon you from this diversion, but you say, Nope, I'm not going to forgive like drinking poison and waiting on somebody else to die.

Speaker 1

But it's not. They're not going to die. You die.

Speaker 3

And I'm dying inside all the time, dying because I'm reliving this. And I read doing it and it's traumatizing me and it's trauma me. And every time I think it was like and there's times even lately, I'll be like, Man, I need my sister right now. I need my big sister right now. If I'm not careful, I will go into why she's not here and I can become very angry all over again.

Speaker 3

But I have to say, Lord, please take this anger. Please take this rage, this hurt. You know why my nieces and nephews part of my family? Well, we have to stop. If somebody took something from us and in my family, you take us, we going to take you back and you have to forgive. You can't play st.

Speaker 1

Because it doesn't.

Speaker 3

Work. It don't work like that. You can't just not do that. Yeah, and that was pain and that was pain.

Speaker 1

And you're saying that doesn't work because you're the one that gets hurt. That's what you're saying? Yes. It's like suicide. It's like drinking poison and hoping the other person dies.

Speaker 3

That's right. Holding on to that anger and forgiveness.

Speaker 1

But it's not easy, is it?

Speaker 3

Is not easy.

Speaker 5

Well, the way I see it, there's this really great form of art called Can Sooji art. Have you ever heard of it?

Speaker 4

No.

Speaker 5

Okay. So it's amazing. Okay. And what it is, is the Japanese would take broken pottery and they actually glue it back together with gold and lace it with gold and make it a new God to look it up. Kintsugi Art. I'm obsessed with it now. I'm going to have just gotten a housefly when.

Speaker 1

You were describing that because.

Speaker 5

And I feel like it's so. And when you see it, I go look it up. I've positive every now go look it up. It's amazing to see how the artwork shines and the pottery shines so much brighter after it's broken and put back together. And I feel like that's what God does with our lives right? He He doesn't just like glue us back together.

Speaker 5

He puts gold in the cracks that were once broken. Yeah. And that image is just like, I will forever hold that because he doesn't want to just give us the bare minimum fix. He wants to restore and renew and create something new.

Speaker 1

And don't you, don't you see, J when you're using that illustration like picture though, in order for God to do that with us, we have to bring the pieces. Totally, Totally. That's where that transparency and honesty comes, right? Where we're saying I'm not okay if that's okay here, God, take these and fix these. But for a lot of us and I'm saying I think a lot of listeners myself, you and Josh, are probably well, not probably you're still on this journey to where we want to hold stuff back, right?

Speaker 1

Why? Why do you think that is? Why is it that we're not willing to be fully honest and transparent?

Speaker 5

What happens is this imposter syndrome.

Speaker 1

Everyone knows what you're talking about right now. Every listener feels like an imposter, right? And that's what you're saying?

Speaker 5

I just feel unworthy. And I just thought, who am I? And that's enemy, right? Because when you start going, okay, wait for such a time as this God has put you right here at this table with this executive and you have something to offer. Yeah, but we just beat ourselves up and we feel less than and you know, it took a lot, right?

Speaker 5

That you what is captivating my thoughts and I had to go No, you can do this. And it's really easy to do it for other people. Yeah it's hard to do it for yourself. I can tell you how. Well, what are you doing, Pat? No, let's. Let's move you. Let's get you over here. But we all need a coach.

Speaker 5

We all need someone to guide us to get to that. We have to surround ourselves with people who can chisel us.

Speaker 6

We see a smart man learning from his own mistakes. Was a wise man. Learn from the mistakes of others.

Speaker 2

But if you could build people around you that had paid those debts, already has had paid that stupid tax, have navigated different waters as to what's good and what's bad, and hey, don't go down that road because there's there's a whole bunch of bumps down that road. It's going to cause you a heck of a lot more pain.

Speaker 2

Go this way. Instead.

Speaker 5

I don't think you can really handle avoiding the gray areas and being able to learn from the experiences of others. If you're not also working on becoming a more whole person, that gives you the strength to make the right choices.

Speaker 2

That's where we get around our circle. Who's our circle? Who are we looking up to? Who? Who? Who's guiding us?

Speaker 6

The company you keep will determine who you become. Yeah, it's just true. Yeah. Don't try to be any age. Any age. Does it matter what age you are? Does it matter what walk of life you are in? If you if you have solid values and you keep the wrong company, those values will eventually mean nothing to you. Yeah.

Speaker 6

And you'll. You'll get a whole new set of values, and then you get away from you. And. And then we could talk for hours about when people go through life. It's why they're always unhappy. And power.

Speaker 4

Corrupts. Yeah, money corrupts.

Speaker 1

We see that throughout history, right?

Speaker 2

Sorry. Throughout history. Full of history, people. Yeah, it really erupted.

Speaker 6

Speaker 6

Now it's me and this other guy that are only doing it, and we call each other once a month. He's in New York City. I'm here in Phenix. We'll call each other once a month and all we do is help each other up. Yeah, we just say.

Speaker 3

You're still doing it.

Speaker 6

Keep going, Keep going, keep doing it. Yeah, because everybody else quit. And I only had one time in my entire career where I woke up and I thought I was going to quit. And I remember thinking, Well, you know what? Just by me, going means I'm winning everybody else. They just give up. So it's like suddenly the race becomes easier and easier just because you're the only one still running it.

Speaker 2

It's the same thing. Is is you got to fail to succeed. Yeah, it's the same mentality.

Speaker 6

Which is interesting because you just said that. I like that. And this is just one of many quotes in this is like the only way you can get ahead is to fail early, fail often and fail forward. Failure in the Bible is never a person. It's an event in the economy of God. Failure is not a person, it's an event.

Speaker 6

Speaker 6

And I'm like, oh, man, I shouldn't be teaching. And then I'm like, Wait a second, I've never been in Dakota. I've never been with prostitutes or cocaine. And Satan is like, Oh, I almost got, you know, that's stupid.

Speaker 1

That's not how he works.

Speaker 6

Satan doesn't lie about you. Satan goes, Hey, Chris, can you remember 89 to 92? He goes, Me years? And I'm like, Yeah, what if she's in the audience today? What if her husband said today, What if you and that's Satan has I've armed him, I've given him all the ammo to make me feel like I'm a him. But when you read scripture, failure may have been something you've done.

Speaker 6

It's not who you are unless you allow it to be. And so I can't lead myself to any guts. Forgiveness first, John. One night, if we confess our sin, God is faithful and just He will forgive us and cleanse us from unrighteousness. It's not forgiveness you desperately seek. It's freedom from guilt and shame. I'm hanging on to my failures that have been long since forgiven because I haven't allowed the spirit to cleanse me from unrighteousness.

Speaker 6

I'm trying to deny it. Well, and.

Speaker 1

That's why almost every time you and I talk together, we come back to this this concept of embracing discomfort. Right. Right. And that's something that's that's near and dear to your heart. You're passionate.

Speaker 2

About that. I'll stand on stage until you got to get.

Speaker 1

Out of your comfort zone. Yeah. Why? Why? I mean, I know.

Speaker 2

This word for all the reasons we just talked about and then some. So if you're living in a world of comfort and you're you're okay with where things are and okay because you're not here, trust me, if you're in a comfort zone, you're not feeling fantastic about it. You're not advancing, you're not growing mentally. You're not growing physically.

Speaker 2

If you're if you sit inside this comfort bubble, in most people, it's at a point, right? People climb and then they just suddenly stop. And anybody that was as big as a person, they're going, Yeah, I think I'm there now. Right? There's a I bet the preponderance of people say it. I'm there now. I'm comfortable. You got to get out of it, right?

Speaker 2

You in there? How do you get out of the comfort zone? You have to do something that's challenging. You have to challenge. You have to push yourself.

Speaker 5

If you're not experiencing mass in your life, I would just encourage you to spend some time thinking, are you opening yourself up to something outside of your comfort zone? Are you opening yourself up to what God has planned for you? I remember I was reading a book by David Platt and it was a game changer for me. They said to follow after Jesus means that you lay everything in the flood zone and you ask God to break the dam and wash away whatever it is he wants to wash away.

Speaker 5

Are you choosing to live your life in a way that says, God, anything I have, anything I own is yours and I will. Whatever you choose to wash away or whatever you choose to bring to me, I will choose to take that and multiply it, you know? And I constantly go back to that parable of the talents. 2 a.m. I using my life to multiply?

Speaker 5

What God's asked me to do with it?

Speaker 2

I've literally said to strangers, I mean, you know me well enough. This is a good one of Yeah. I've literally said to people, I know you better than you do because I know who made you and I know why they made you. And it's to uniquely reflect him to the rest of this world around us.

Speaker 5

I actually think that we are called to do good, that we are called to be exceptional, to be as a church, to be that city on the hill. We might differ. We might have different backgrounds, we might have different life experiences. But you are still a human being and you still then therefore have dignity and worth. And I need to respect that.

Speaker 5

And if I don't, well, shame on me, because then I'm not living into who God's called me to be. I can't speak to what anyone else's journey is. I just know what God has allowed me to do. But I do know that God has a journey for you, and if you are actively seeking Him and asking Him to take you out of your comfort zone, asking him to bring the best in your life, because I truly believe that's another thing that I've really been processing lately.

Speaker 5

What moments in my own life am I exchanging good for? Great? What moments in our life are we taking and choosing the good and the comfort and losing out on the greatness that God designed us for simply because we haven't said God? I'm willing.

Speaker 6

Nobody just drifts.

Speaker 4

Towards being a person of integrity. It takes effort. And I think that's the part of the surrender and the effort. Like, I don't like going to the gym. It it's painful. It's painful. It takes work and just showing up once a week, then cut it. You got to go multiple times. And there's a process of surrender and commitment and effort and showing up and pushing yourself and having a coach and having a plan.

Speaker 1

I mean, it's all of this stuff that in any part of our life is.

Speaker 5

Yes, but the work is what's the invitation? Are we willing to work when no one else will see it? Are we willing to wrestle with new disciplines, new habits? Are we willing to tell the truth to God even in the midst of our fear, in the midst of our struggle, or in the midst of I want to quit and look for God, for help and resiliency.

Speaker 5

So sometimes for me I stop at inspiration because it's easy and it feels good and it's inspiring. But I think the beauty is if you and I say what's been inspiring me lately and what's the theme in all of that, and might there just be an invitation in there that God is trying to get a hold of our attention to say, I've got something for you, Lean in.

Speaker 5

It's not going to be fast. It's not going to be overnight. But let me invite you into the next step in your journey.

Speaker 1

Speaker 1