Tyler Reagin (https://tylerreagin.com) joins Aaron Santmyire to discuss the essence of being a life-giving leader, emphasizing that authentic leadership is crucial for positively impacting those around us. They explore the significance of self-acceptance and emotional intelligence, highlighting how understanding ourselves and our past can shape our present and future as leaders. Tyler shares insights from his experiences with Catalyst and the importance of leading with grace rather than demanding it from others. The conversation delves into practical strategies for confronting challenges with empathy and care, rather than merely making points. Ultimately, this episode encourages listeners to embrace their unique wiring and to cultivate genuine relationships that reflect the transformative power of the Gospel.

Takeaways:

• Life giving leadership requires authenticity and the overflow of positive attributes to others.
• Self-acceptance is vital for leaders to embrace their unique qualities and strengths.
• Emotional intelligence is essential for effective confrontation and relational management in leadership.
• Leaders must recognize the impact of their decisions on the faith of others.
• The importance of integrating one’s faith into everyday life and leadership practices.
• Understanding and processing past experiences is crucial for becoming a whole and effective leader.

Send questions for Back Channel with Foth to aaron.santmyire@agwmafrica.org

Hey there and welcome back to the Clarity podcast.

This podcast is all about providing clarity insight and encouragement for life and mission.

And my name is Aaron Sandemire and I get to be your host today.

We get to sit down with Pastor Tyler Regan and get to learn from him about being a life giving leader.

This is a book I came across and some of his teachings and just thought, man, it would be valuable to have him on the podcast to learn from his wisdom and his insight he shares.

When he was getting ready to write the book that he asked his sons, you know, what should he write about?

And he said, well, they said, one said leadership, one said Jesus.

And I think that encompasses, you can hear his passion as he shares about leadership and Jesus and the desire to see ministers and leaders be healthy and to be life giving and not asking for grace all the time from those they serve, not requesting grace all the time, but being the ones that are grace givers.

He talks we get into a little bit about emotional intelligence and just the ability is not only to be self aware and know about self awareness, but what it means to practically put that in place in life and ministry.

Just a wealth of wisdom and you'll love the podcast.

There's, you know, I made a comment about tweetable quotes and he said, well, that kind of highlights my generation.

I'm 40, so I think it's X now.

And I don't know what you call X when you want, but he has a lot of valuable quotes that I think will inspire you, encourage you wherever you're at on your leadership journey, if you're just beginning, if you're a learned leader, whether you're a natural leader, wherever you're at.

Tyler will inspire you to be a leader that people will look back when they look at your legacy to say that was a leader that spoke into my life and how people received you.

And I think he speaks to that and I think that's what we all want to be.

And he challenges us to do that, do and ask you to continue, continue to send in your questions for Backchannel with Foth.

That's where we get to sit down with Dick Foth and get to learn from him.

Dick's been a valuable partner on the podcast and really enjoy our times with Backchannel with Foth.

Also wanted to just mention once again my book A Caring Family has launched.

It's out the Bible study that goes with that.

It's the book that I wish that I would have read or somebody would had a conversation with me 20 years ago when my Kids were still young and still at home.

And I wouldn't have pursued all the things that maybe sometimes that we think are important.

Right position.

And I got more education.

And I say, you know, people at Chick Fil A don't care.

They still charge me $12.69 for my grilled chicken salad with creamy salsa dressing.

It's the same price.

A lot of education, a lot of pursuit.

But at the end of the day, what really matters?

As Arthur Brooks says, we get to choose between being loved and known or unique and special.

And if you're a young parent, grandparent, wherever you're at on the parenting journey, I think this book will inspire you love to tell stories.

The book's full of stories that I love to tell and just really, really enjoy it.

Well, I ask you also to continue to subscribe to the podcast.

I know the podcasts that I subscribe to are the ones I listen to, the ones that show up on my feed, whether that's Monday or Tuesday.

But I know what I'm going to listen to throughout the week.

Well, there's no time better than now to get started.

So here we go.

Greetings and welcome back to the Clarity podcast.

So excited to have a new friend of the podcast.

Got to read his book once and then read it a little bit again the last few days.

Tyler, welcome to the podcast.

Thanks for having me, Aaron.

I'm excited to be a part.

Tyler, for those who have not gotten to read your book yet, maybe not have followed you in Catalyst, maybe this is the first time they've heard your voice.

Will you share a little bit about yourself before I jump in asking you some questions?

Yeah, for sure.

That Catalyst used to be a Christian leadership conference that was all over the country and John Maxwell had started it with Andy Stanley.

And your first season, it was probably the most connected, maybe the most appreciated conference in the country because of it was because of its young focus.

Honestly, we always programmed for that 30 year old and what was crazy is we'd have 70 year olds on the front row in this 10,000 person arena and they, you know, you can be a young 70 or you can be an old 70.

And, and so we just always love the fact that between the age and the ecumenical part of it, like I just love that we had hyper charismatics and hyper, you know, Presbyterian.

I'm not saying they're polar opposite.

I'm just saying like we just had people from the whole spectrum of the kingdom.

And it was interesting, Aaron, because people would always want Brad, who is my predecessor or my me to like put a stake in the ground and be like well this is what we.

And I just remember going we're gonna, we're gonna stay under the banner of Jesus and then let everybody kind of work out their space, you know.

And it was, it was a pretty fascinating thing.

But what I loved about it was, it was leadership.

It was, you know, the church in my opinion should be the best run organization on the planet.

The non profits that represent the church, all that's not always the case.

And so we fight really hard.

We fought really hard.

And I still fight in the work that I do to go what does it look like for pastors and leaders and churches and nonprofits that represent Jesus to really have an important understanding of how we lead affects people's faith?

It just does.

And so that's where the life giving leader came out of my time leading catalyst.

Before that I'd worked with Andy Stanley for a decade at North Point and started a couple campuses with him.

And my background was probably more in the service production side of things and teaching and got my seminary degree is from Gordon Conwell in Boston.

And so my wife and I have been married for 23 years from Atlanta originally and when to Georgia.

We're pretty die hard Bulldogs and two boys 17 and 14 and then you know, about a probably nine months away from finishing a PhD now in organizational leadership.

So it's, you know, as a kid that grew up with very little and never thought even a college degree was, was potentially an option to be close to finishing a doctorate is pretty special.

So.

But you know, I'm sure your story is very similar.

It's all based on the fact that I've just been trying to be faithful to what God is opening in front of me.

And that's, it's been a pretty crazy journey.

So yeah, that's a little bit life giving leader just came out of that season of going if I could.

I had a buddy say if you could put all your thoughts on in one book, one idea for your kids to know what you believe about this, just do that.

And so it was pretty interesting because we, when I got the opportunity to write it, I sat with my two boys at the time they were probably gosh, 6 and 9, maybe a little bit, maybe 7 to 10.

And I said hey guys because I wanted to hear what they thought I cared about, you know, like what would I talk about?

And I said what do you guys think I should I'm get to write a book.

Like what do you guys think I should Write.

And my oldest just instantly went, leadership.

And I was like, all right, well, okay.

So.

And then my youngest goes, maybe Jesus.

And I was like, well, that seems like a pretty good book, so maybe let's do what we can to see if we can put those two things together.

So that's.

That's really where it came out of.

That's a good word.

And that is, I think, throughout the whole book, you focus on your love for Jesus.

And I think you, as you were sharing a little bit about your story, the reality that the Gospel is transformational, and you've seen, you shared, you know, how it's.

It's transformed your life educationally, how you see leadership and.

Yeah, I do.

I would say I've been able to share the last few weeks talking about gratitude as I've been speaking, and just the reality of.

I'm living in Morgantown, West Virginia, today, family story.

But just how the Gospel transformed my great.

My grandmother's life, how that impacted me.

And then, you know, she went from watching people walk to the University of West Virginia, never thinking she would ever be able to go to the school, and she wasn't.

But then one day, you know, I.

When I graduated with my doctorate, stood at the podium, was valedictorian addressing the class, all unbelievable.

I really believe the transformation of the gospel, transformed from her life, transformed my father's life, transformed my life.

So, anyway, it's amazing, the gospel.

So you and Pat McAfee, Big.

Big West Virginia Mountaineers.

We're big Mountaineers fan, but we.

A little different lifestyles, but we're.

That's fair.

So, hey, got a few questions for you today.

You.

You.

You share the phrase that you can only give life when it's flowing from authentic leadership.

What exactly do you mean by that?

Yeah, I.

I mean, you've heard this a million times.

You can only give what you.

You can't give what you don't have.

Right.

And I do a lot of work in the.

In the business space, and what I'm.

What I'm kind of overwhelmed by right now, honestly, is the amount of these leaders who can make a fortune, really be successful financially and realize later in life that they're not whole.

Like, they're.

There's something missing.

Right.

And.

And so when you look at them, you go, hey, all you got to do to lead this person is just care for them.

Yeah.

And they're going, I don't know what that means.

Like, I haven't done that.

You know what I mean?

Like, nobody's done that.

For me, I haven't seen that model or whatever.

So I think a huge piece of this is the recognition that we are an overflow of the things that are inside of us, right?

And so the idea of life giving leadership is like if you, if you and I took a minute and thought through all the leaders in our life who took life like in a sense of like they were not great leaders in our life.

They, they wore us out, they emotionally pulled from us.

Very little flow was towards me.

It was always me having to give grace to them, me having to give love to them.

And then if we took a minute and what.

Who are the leaders in our life?

Your grandmother sounds like one whose life overflowed towards the U.S.

you know, like whose life their, their business, their management of us, their leadership of us, Their leadership, even if it's not on a direct report, kind of way, invested in us in a way.

So.

But there's no way I've just been doing this too long.

That can't be manufactured.

That can't be something that I just go pull up my bootstraps and figure it out, right?

Like, no, that's got to be from a place of authenticity.

Matter of fact, we live in Orlando now and got connected to a guy who's been a part of this church for a long time.

He's an older guy and his, his daughter, actually my wife, are really close friends.

So he's an older guy.

And I went and had lunch with him just the other day and he's like the mayor of this little restaurant.

Like, I mean like everybody knew him.

But as we're sitting there, he's just telling story after story of mentoring these kids that need this or mentoring this young man or mentoring this varsity football coach over here or mentor.

Like he just overflows and that can't be fake.

Like it is like a.

He doesn't just wake up in the morning and go, I'm going to go figure out how to do this.

No, it is an overflow.

So that's the point, right?

Is that when there, you can't do that without something internal, something coming into you, something that's filling your bucket, something that's allowing you to overflow to these people.

And so I think it's, that's where the word authentic comes from in the sense of like, I think the most life giving leaders are genuinely just authentically overflowing into the people around us.

Now you and I have been around people that spill on other people, right?

They're overflowing, but it's not the overflow that brings life.

It's the overflow of toxicity or overflow of anger or the overflow of whatever.

And so my belief is just going, what does it look like for us to overflow the good things of our life?

Well, that has to be from a place of purity, a place of genuine connection with God, that kind of thing.

So that's really what.

What kind of drives that thought.

No, good word.

And you mentioned it in there that the idea that sometimes when the people that are following are giving have to continue to extend grace, rather than the leader being the one that's extending grace.

How does that impact.

Can you share just more about a leader that's continually needing people to extend them grace and they're not giving it to others?

Does that make sense?

It does.

And to me, it's all about who's going first.

Right.

And who's kind of leading the way on this stuff.

It's really.

John Maxwell always said that the lowest level leadership is positional leadership, which basically, I've got the title, so you have to do what I say.

Well, that's not exactly a grace.

Like you as the staff member or whatever, that kind of position is always going to force grace towards the leader.

Like, always.

Like, because you're just like.

Because you got here 10 minutes before me.

What, like, what, what are the.

But his whole point is the leaders that are worth following are the ones that they.

You never even know what their title is.

You just want to follow, like, you just want to be in their orbit.

You know, you want to be in their circle.

And so I think the leaders that are living and breathing going, well, I'm the boss.

Well, I got here first.

Well, I own the agency, whatever the thing may be.

I'm the senior pastor.

I lead the thing.

If you ever have to use that phrase, then you're requiring grace from people.

I genuinely believe that because I don't think you have built enough rapport.

Belief, trust, care for.

Like, I don't have to tell the people around me my job description or title.

I mean, I hope not.

Like, I'm.

I'm not saying.

I'm not patting myself on the back.

I'm just saying, like.

And I bet you don't either.

Like, in a sense of like, I've spent so much time caring for the people in my orbit.

Yeah.

That if I were to say, hey, I really sense this.

I really believe we're supposed to go here.

That's not required.

Now, here's the thing, Aaron, Even if it does require Grace for a minute.

I've put so much investment in there that it's a blip on the radar.

It, the problem is when you're a leader that constantly requires grace, what you find is that when you need it, it has been the well is dry that you are scratching across a empty reservoir and now you're literally having to pull the well, I'm the decision maker.

And this.

And they're going, we know.

And that's what stinks about this whole thing.

So I think it genuinely is just going, which way is life flowing here in this relationship?

And if it is a constant one way street, then grace is going to be required all the time.

And I, to me, that's not a relationship I want to be in long term.

Yeah, for sure.

It makes a ton of sense.

Makes a ton of sense.

The idea, when I was reading through the book, the idea that, you know that the decisions we make, and you mentioned a little bit in the introduction, the decisions we make will impact people and also maybe impact their faith.

How can we recognize this and also not be paralyzed by it?

Right.

Because in the end we need to make decisions.

We're collaborative decisions, we're making decisions.

Recognize it's going to impact people's lives.

Yeah, but some of us could be maybe paralyzed.

Thinking, man, if every decision I make has this great an impact and be in a place where we can't move any way at all, does that, is that fair?

It does.

And the word I like to use with that is integration.

Right.

Okay.

I think most of the time when I'm, I'm.

Whether it's in the business space and I'm working with leaders or in the church space, trying to inspire our church people to be great leader.

Here's a little side note of that.

How many people do you know that go, I just want to evangelize, I want to tell people about Jesus at work.

And I go, yeah, but you're not good at your job or you're lazy or your work ethic is bad or like people don't want to hear it from you.

If you're the one that's late every day to the meeting and you're like, let me tell you about Jesus.

They're going, that's the thing you follow.

And then you act like this at work.

And that's where the leadership stuff for me is so critical for all Christians.

Like, we are representing something way bigger than ourselves.

And so when like I'm, I preached actually a message on gratitude just a few weeks ago here at the Church and then I'm part time, by the way, down at First Orlando.

So it's, I'm on, you know, the teaching team here and there and do staff development, but in a few weeks I'm speaking again.

I don't ever get on the big stage in here and not have some sort of practical, like leadership bent to it, because it matters to everybody.

I mean, literally everything we talk about has an application to it if we do our jobs as communicators.

Right?

Yeah.

And so the word integration is what comes to mind when it comes to this conversation.

Because what I think is we've had years and years and years of Christians who go to church on Sunday.

They hear these great things, they get inspired for, for their own little circle, which is them, and then it never trickles into the rest of their world.

And like, what I'm constantly going is, how can I say this in a way where you recognize, gosh, I can do that today with my kids.

Gosh, I can do that today.

And I can represent Jesus in these settings that I never thought was a space for that.

Here's the thing, if you tell people about Jesus and you've been loving on them, caring for them, and never using that name, they actually might hear it.

You know what I mean?

So the integration piece is where I think.

And the message I'm gonna preach in January is something I've been working on in the dissertation is from 2nd Peter 1, which it Peter says very simply, it's not faith alone, but faith plus these supplements, these virtues, if they are increasing, then your impact will be better, basically.

And it's powerful because there's so many Christians that sit on the sidelines of day to day life and they're going, yeah, but I believe.

And I'm going, I'm glad you believe.

Peter says, believe and have virtue, believe and have character, godliness, self control, brotherly affection, these virtues.

And he says, if these virtues are yours.

So that's a piece of it.

Right?

If you actually display these things and they are increasing, you will avoid falling backwards or, you know, being, being, losing the effectiveness of the kingdom.

So that's what you say.

Like you can tell I get passionate about this because I feel like so many believers think, well, one, it's pastor's job to tell me what to do.

Yeah, well, that's a whole nother conversation.

But how do we live integrated lives where this faith thing isn't just a occasional conversation in our brains or at the table?

This faith thing is super integrated in how I see somebody That I met, how I see somebody I just pulled up next to how I see somebody.

Like when I go and do these, these clients that I work with in the business space, I don't tell them I'm a pastor.

I mean, they know, but like what, what they know is that there's a values based leadership and that comes from that simple principle that if God says everybody has value, everybody that I come eyeball to eyeball with has the image of God in them, then I have to treat them differently.

So that's how it integrates into our lives.

You know what I mean?

Yeah, for sure.

And I appreciate you hit a hot.

Button there for me.

I appreciate you.

Yeah, I appreciate, I appreciate your passion.

And you know, I wrote a book called A Caring Life and I share.

I've never, you know, I've grown up in the church and my whole life and have never heard a testimony that, hey, someone was angry, mean, hateful to me.

And I said, man, I'd like to be like you.

And they said, oh, I follow Jesus.

And so they just said they became, they became a Christian.

Right.

It's as you said, it's that caring.

It's that cumulative effect that's people watching your life and saying, hey, they're caring for me.

They're doing the right things, they're walking it out.

And man, those are the testimonies.

At least in my 48 years, those are the testimonies I've heard, but I've not heard the other side of it.

Not very often.

Not very often.

Not very often.

So one of the things you talk about is the idea that some people may say, hey, as a leader, I'm a straight shooter.

I just tell it as is who I am.

I'm just going to say, say, say it the way it is.

But you talk about the impact of that and maybe what we say without a filter, it can, it can be harmful.

What, what are some reasons that some.

A leader that's listening is, says, I'm a straight shooter, but it's not, it's not an excuse for hurting others.

And just because that's your communication style.

Yeah, there are times for that right there, I think.

I think actually, I think ministries are notoriously bad at being honest with people, but there is a.

To do it.

Yeah.

So one of the places I always go foundationally for leadership is emotional intelligence.

You know, Daniel Goldman released that back in the mid-90s, and it was the first time that there was actual data to say that the best leaders in the world lead people best and so what.

When.

When it came out, there were five attributes of emotional intelligence.

It was self awareness, self regulation, motivation, empathy, and social skill.

Well, in the last 15, 20 years, they've kind of simplified that into four.

So it's self awareness that leads to self management, which.

I like that Phra phrase better.

Okay.

Then you have social awareness, relational management.

I've worked with leaders over the years that have a lot of self awareness.

They know their Enneagram number.

They have.

They could tell you their Myers, Briggs, all these different things.

And so they can be blunt and they can kind of say things that, you know, say, I'm just being honest.

And you're like, one of those things is, if you're just self aware and you spend your life apologizing for what you say, then you haven't moved to self management.

Self management saying, there's a behavior change going on here.

I'm not okay with being a jerk to people.

I'm not okay with the fact that I keep having to apologize because you and I both know this.

An apology doesn't remove the memory of that.

They don't.

Doesn't remove the trust in that that was lost.

It doesn't remove those things.

And so I'm all for being honest with people, but if you don't have a good emotional intelligence, even in the consulting world, I do.

I say this all the time.

There's a lot of people that can tell you what's wrong with your organization, but very few you want to hear it from.

You have to have enough emotional intelligence to learn the system, learn what's going on, learn the landmines so that when you communicate it, it's in a way that is received.

And there's another phrase that I've used in a lot of consulting for years, which is you can be right and approach it wrong, and you're not right anymore.

I don't hear you when you approach me inappropriately.

I don't even want to hear what you have to say.

But if you've done the work, if you've done the prayer and I, you know, I would rather lose sleep before a hard conversation than after because I handled it poorly.

Wow.

And that to me is just the extra steps of going, I want to integrate this faith thing so that I care for you, even though I've got to be honest with you, a lot of people would rather just go, yeah, well, somebody's got to tell them.

And I'm like, in a way that they can hear it.

So it's a really big deal.

That how we say things.

Yeah, you said about approaching.

Approaching a conversation.

What are some things, as you approach a conversation that you think about?

You talked about prayer, and that's.

Man, that's a tweetable quote there.

That you'd rather lose sleep before than after the conversation.

That's right.

That's a gold nugget.

But as you approach a conversation, what are some things that are going through your mind?

Yeah.

First of all, Aaron, I guess we're both 48, because you still said Twitter like it's tweetable.

I mean, that doesn't even exist anymore, bro.

It's X now, which I don't even know.

How do you say that?

There you go.

I don't know.

It's X able maybe.

You know, it's.

To me, it is a.

It's a.

It goes back to our very first conversation.

What is our heart condition in this stuff?

Like, even if I'm really angry, but I'm overall doing.

Doing the work internally, the soul care, I've added those supplements to my faith.

I'm doing these things to try to be okay emotionally.

Anger is a good thing sometimes because we should be frustrated.

Yeah.

But if I'm doing that from a constant place of redlining, if I'm always intense mode, if I'm always in this space of just ready to.

And honestly, I think my kids get that sometimes.

Like, dad is tired because he's been traveling or working too much or whatever, and then they get the short end of the stick, you know, and then they.

They feel like.

But the truth is I get it from them, too.

Right.

I get the short end from them because they.

They're on all day at school, they're on for their coaches, they're on for these things.

And so they do need a place to unwind and let go.

But it's not fair sometimes that the people closest to you get that, the.

The lack of direction, the lack of care that comes from the work.

And so I say that to say it is in the times when I'm not angry that I have to be doing the work.

It's in the times that I'm not frustrated that I've got to be doing the work, because I can handle that and the conversation of that better if I'm okay, like, if there's good parts in me and if.

If I feel balanced and again, integrated with my faith, integrated with emotional intelligence and integrated with this belief system that I'm going to do whatever it takes for you and I to get to a better place, like that's the heartbeat of it.

And yeah, so I think it really requires a lot of heart work, a lot of soul work.

Yeah.

And to continue on that idea of heart work and soul work.

You mentioned that you're, you're surprised by the amount of leaders who have not paid attention to how their past is impacting their present.

What are some of the reasons you found that processing the past is paramount if we want to be life giving leaders?

If we want to be life giving leaders, what's.

What are the paramount reasons we need to process our past?

Yeah.

One of my really good friends is a guy named Miles Adcox and he owns on site workshops in Nashville.

So it's this kind of therapeutic retreat center.

It's amazing.

And I went through their living centered program.

It's like a seven day group therapy thing.

It was awesome.

Hard, but really powerful.

And there's a phrase they said a couple times, which is what's hysterical is historical.

And the point was when somebody gets to that point of hysteria, that something gets triggered in them.

Something sends them over the edge.

It's historical.

It's coming from somewhere.

I tell the story of my freshman year in college.

My parents went through bankruptcy and they came and took my car from the parking lot.

Well, that's, that's a historical trigger.

That financial insecurity is always going to have an emotional connection to me.

Right.

Like you talking about your grandmother and what you grew up in.

And with the, like, when you think about some of those layers, that's self awareness as much as knowing that I'm a introvert.

Right.

Like there's this historical awareness that if I'm not prepared or I haven't grieved that thing or I haven't paid attention to that historical thing, it's going to get me.

It's going to show up at some point and I'm not going to be prepared for it.

So to me, again, it all comes back to this wholeness idea.

What does it look like for me to be a whole leader?

I need to know those things.

I'm not, I'm not ashamed of those things.

I mean, they're.

If I.

If you know, they're just part of my story.

Yeah.

I'm not even mad at my parents because like, it's just.

I've had to work on that stuff.

But it allows me that when in my marriage of 23 years, all of a sudden we have some sort of.

I lose a client or there's a financial toll that's taken.

I know I'm Preparing my heart ahead of time because I know what's going to happen.

Right.

I know what I'm going to feel.

And so I think that history is really important.

But I love that phrase.

If people can remember that phrase when they get hysterical, not like losing it, but like elevated.

Yeah.

I bet it comes from history.

So what's hysterical is historical.

Has been a super helpful principle for that.

Wow.

And so do you think it's.

Leaders just don't want to think about it or you think they don't have maybe the courage to go back and process the past?

Or is it easy just to have a dichotomy?

Hey, that was the past, this is the present.

I'm not gonna.

It may be leaders are so future focused that they're, they don't want to spend time because you said you work with business leaders, you work with church leaders.

Is there some common threads that may be some reasons why?

Because you've, you've outlined it, it makes, it makes a logical sense to do it.

But at the same time you're surprised about the amount of leaders that have not paid attention to it.

So any kind of common reasons?

Yeah, and there's a few.

One of the things in that on site process they talk about is this pain box that you have to go into it.

Yeah.

You.

But most leaders medicate and go around it because it's hard, because it's hurtful, because there's a lot of pain in that spot.

It's called the pain box for a reason.

Right.

But we, we jump around it all the time because we don't go there.

We don't have.

I don't have time, I don't have time to deal with that.

I don't have time to pack that.

I don't have time to process it.

And honestly, we're not skilled at that.

Like there's a reason.

And again, I, I talk all the time about therapy and Jesus.

Jesus and therapy.

Like to me it's not one or the other.

Like there's a, there's a reality.

Right.

Of that.

And again, I don't, I'm not saying you have to go to therapy for everything, but there are some things the.

So you get me in another space that I get excited about.

But there are three topics or there's three areas.

So you got counseling, coaching and consulting.

Right.

And coaching assumes.

So coaching's in the middle.

Coaching assumes that whoever I'm coaching is in a pretty good place.

So they just don't know how to get from A to A to M.

Yeah.

My job is to help, but they are the experts.

So a coach, a real coach, is pulling out, getting them to realize, like helping ask the right questions so that they the answers in them, if that makes sense.

Yeah, but when I'm doing coaching and consulting is more.

You're getting paid for advice.

So it's somewhere in between that.

But when I'm coaching or even consulting and I realize that somebody keeps tripping on something historical, something in the past, that is not my skill set.

I am not trained in counseling.

That's what counseling defines.

Counseling defines working through history, working through our childhoods, working.

So counselors are literally trained on how to ask the right questions, how to, to sit in those spaces.

We're as just normal humans, me and you.

Like, that's not what our skill set is.

And so that's why I encourage people going, like, if there's something historical that you have not jumped in that box for a second.

And you and I both know this, if you don't get in that box, it's going to always sit there.

Yeah.

Like there's a healing required, there's a work required.

So I think the big answer is it's hard.

Yeah, yeah.

Like, and we ain't got time.

I ain't got time for that.

I gotta go do this.

And I think a lot of times, like, even the consulting stuff I do these business leaders that make millions and millions of dollars, they're like, so what's the formula?

Just give it to like two months, right?

And I'm going, so you're thinking that I can come one day a month for two months and fix the culture problems you've had for 10 years.

It's not easy.

Yeah, you're gonna have to look at yourself.

I just, one of my clients I'm with, I'm super proud of the work they've done.

If you would have told me six where they are today as an organization, I've been like, ain't no way.

There is zero chance that's happening.

But one of the key leaders has been doing some internal work that I did not expect them to do.

Like, genuinely, my first few months I was like, I don't know.

And watching these leaders go, yeah, I think that was me.

I think that was my fault.

I think that's my problem.

And you're like, it was, this is huge, huge breakthrough.

So I think it's just harder, Aaron, honestly.

And I say this all the time.

One of the reasons that people aren't life giving, it's because it's Hard.

It requires sacrifice.

Wow.

Like things of value require sacrifice, you know, and, and to do this, this is not the easy way to do it.

It's the right way in my opinion, but it's not the easy way.

And so, you know, because we live in a day and age, we're short and quick.

Is.

Is better.

This is not one of those things.

This takes work.

It's a good word.

Good word.

Got two more questions for you.

You talk about the idea of identifying our confrontation style and you mentioned earlier that you know, in the Christian world we're not necessarily great at confronting and sharing the truth.

You said there's a way we need to do that in a loving, kind way, but at the same time we don't.

So what are some ways we can identify our confrontation style and what are some reasons that this understanding your confrontation style is so vital to be a life giving leader?

Leader, yeah.

Again, it goes back to building on my self awareness.

I know myself so I can lead myself.

Then I can move to self management.

But the ultimate goal is relational management.

If I don't manage myself, I'm probably not going to manage relationship.

What?

Relational management is the building block or it's the, it's the culmination of all these things.

Right.

And so confrontation index.

I actually learned from an old assessment we used to use called right Path.

And I loved it because I could put a couple scores in attributes and I could figure out what your confrontation style is.

But let's just take it back to the bigger conversation we had that how we approach something is equally as important of what we're going to say.

I worked with Andy Stanley for a decade and one of the phrases he always said, is it better to make a point or make a difference?

Is it better to make a point or make a difference?

And we live in a day and age that everybody's trying to make a point.

Like very few people are genuinely willing to go, you don't need to know my opinion on that.

And you're like, what?

Like everybody wants to tell you their opinion and why it's right.

And so they would rather make a point.

And Christians are maybe at the top of this list, right?

We're the ones going, that's wrong.

But the ways we go about it is not loving or caring or, you know, we can't even be friends with people that we're supposed to disagree with.

It's like, what, what happened to that ability to do that?

And so when it comes to confrontation, you cannot confront somebody in the way that you Receive confrontation best.

That's what this whole idea is.

You have to confront them in the way that they're going to receive it best.

Which, guess what, means you got to know them, means you got to understand them, means you've got to get to know their wiring you.

And I, like, if you called me out on something today, that would be a challenge, right?

Why?

Because you and I have just gotten to know each other.

Sure.

But we live in it because of social media, because of the websites and all the different things.

People feel like they can say anything they want and they're experts at it.

And the problem is people listen to it.

Right.

Like literally the amount of times that we, even at this big old Baptist church that some Yahoo has said something online one day about a one second clip of somebody and I mean, again, Andy's lived through this a million times over.

Sure.

And all of a sudden there's this Facebook, you know, stream that's going out and everybody's going, did you hear that?

I can't believe the train has left the station.

These people are losing their minds and you're going, you didn't even listen to the message.

Yeah, we don't know each other.

And so what happens is if you don't know somebody, confronting them is not going to work.

It's not going to work.

But man, when you're caring enough, you spend the time enough, then when you sit and have an honest, hard conversation, but you've done the work on the front end, you could genuinely change someone's trajectory.

You could genuinely be the first person that's been honest in a way that grows that human.

And that to me is worth every bit of awkward moments.

You know what I mean?

Yeah, yeah, Good word, good word.

Last question for you.

You write about the importance of self acceptance and what, what's to be a life giving leader?

Self acceptance, what does that mean?

And why is that so vital?

Is, is, you know, I think the majority of people listening to this podcast, they, they want to be a life giving leader.

Same time you've challenged us that we got to do some work at the same time, we want to do the work in the right direction.

So how does, how does self acceptance play into that?

Yeah, that's, you know, the book is based on Psalm 139 and the idea that God knit us together in our mother's womb.

And a few verses down it says while looking at the story he has for us, while looking at the chapters of our life.

You know, like basically it's imagine a painter that's looking like, kind of almost like, okay, this is what I want it to look like because I see it.

Yeah.

And so many of us have spin our wheels chasing other people's knitting, other people's uniqueness.

Like we see that thing, we've watched.

Watch this.

Oh, I need to be more of this.

I want to watch this.

And, and there's something that says, and I've done this my whole career where I'm like, I make fun of a sense that God gave me this personality or this struggle or this challenge or whatever.

You know, I had a, had a leader one time tell me that if I'm not successful, don't blame the organization.

It's probably just my personality.

Right?

Well, well, that was very.

And I got, I mean they, they were, we were just very different humans.

And so in their mind, they couldn't reconcile how my personality would lead to a good leader, leadership or, you know, getting things done or whatever that thing is.

And the amount of young leaders that spend 15, 20, 30 years chasing other people's uniquenesses, other people's wirings, and never accept and become proud of that unique thing that God did in them.

That wiring that's different, that personality, that's like, you see.

And so when I do my coaching and consulting, I am, especially with assessments, I am looking for those little moments where I can look someone in the eye.

Guy who maybe has never been told this and go, what a cool thing that you think that way.

What a gift that you are to the kingdom.

Do you realize we don't think that way?

Like that's super awesome and we need you to think that way.

So self acceptance is the recognition of like man, maybe just maybe the creator of the universe that's writing a story for me before I ever even showed up on this planet, wired me to do that story.

Yeah, that's pretty awesome.

Now I still got a lot of growing up to do and smoothing out the edges and doing all those pieces of the puzzle.

But what if I became proud and accepted this unique thing that God's given me?

I would bet if I was a betting man, which I'm not often that maybe God has something in store for that uniqueness and that self accepting, becoming proud of God's unique wiring that he knit me together my hid, my Psalm 139 wiring, that's a pretty awesome thing.

And the fact that I have a God that cares about me like that, that's pretty awesome too.

Yeah.

And it goes along with know that we are, I think we struggle to internalize, that we are masterpieces created in Christ's image to do good works that he created long in advance for us to do, you know, and that ties in.

Ties in right there.

Tyler, it's been a phenomenal to spend some time with you today.

Will you pray for us?

I would.

I'd love to.

Thanks for having me.

By the way, Aaron, I appreciate with the work you're doing in Africa and the things, you know, I pray, I really do pray for rest for you during this season.

Appreciate it, Father.

Thanks for just this time to sit and just rest in who you are and who you've made us.

Would you give us the ability, God, this week to be life giving to the people around us?

In Jesus name, Amen.

Amen.