← The Carey Nieuwhof Leadership Podcast
The Carey Nieuwhof Leadership Podcast
CNLP 755 | 29 Stress Points in 14 Months and My Health Wake-Up Call: Inside My Hardest Year in Leadership in 20 Years
01:23:06
Twenty-nine stressful events in 14 months. One major health crisis. Zero sugar-coating. In this flip-the-mic episode, Sean Morgan interviews Carey to dissect the hardest year Carey's faced in two decades: how external turmoil, internal drive, and an...
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- [00:01]
A
The Art of Leadership Network. As I'm reading through Chapter 10 of Craig's book, I start to journal, well, how many external stressors have I had in the last. In that case, the timeline was 14 months. It was 29. And it blew me away. Everything from my father in law dying to navigating his funeral, which is never easy, to my parents both having significant health challenges, my dad being diagnosed. Welcome. Welcome to the Cary Newhof Leadership Podcast. Carrie, here in a very different kind of episode today we are going to get personal and I'm gonna talk about probably my most difficult year in leadership in the last 20 years. And 20 years ago, I had an episode of burnout. That's not what happened this time around. It was something that I've come to call external stressors or external stress points. 29 different things that happened in about 14 months kind of stretched to 16 and didn't quite take me, really knocked me down. Including a personal health wake up call crisis that I'll explain. Now, why am I sharing all of this with you? I'm sharing it with you because I'm learning something new about leadership. I am learning that, well, there are things you can control and things you can't. And when the things you cannot control really rack up, it interrupts what you're able to produce in terms of your leadership. So today's very, very different. If you're brand new, welcome. We're really glad to have you. You got in on a very personal episode. If you're a longtime listener, hey, you're along for the journey. Some of you have been here since day one. A lot of you we picked up over the years. And I just want to say thanks for your partnership, thanks for your care, thanks for your prayers, and thank you for making this show what it is. And so what I want to do is I want to be transparent. And this is a very transparent episodes. So a little bit of a longer introduction to give you some context. But today I'm gonna flip the mic with my good friend Sean Morgan. So if you don't know Sean, you need to follow him. He is a former military pilot, former executive pastor, probably the best at succession in the church these days, hands down. Meets with a whole lot of next gen leaders who are taking over churches and is the host of the Leaders in Living Rooms podcast where this was originally supposed to be on that show. And he goes, you know what, you should use this on your show. So thank you for that, Sean. Give him a follow. You'll really enjoy him. We'll link to everything there in the show notes. So what is the heartbeat behind this episode? Well, 20 years ago, when I burned out, almost 20 years ago, it was all internal stuff, right? It was stress, it was overwork, it was all stuff within my control. But starting In February of 2024, there was a series of events, 29 actually, when I wrote them down. And thank you to Craig Groeschel for the impetus to write them down through his book Winning the War. In youn Mind was reading that going, you know, he had a roug year in 2019. I wonder what I've had. Wrote them all down. I had 29 events started with the passing of my father in law which obviously was very traumatic. I mean I ended up doing the funeral service for that, which is always a stress point when it's family. But then we had a number of other things happen. My parents got a couple diagnosis, sold their condo, moved into assisted living. We sold the long held family property on Tony's side, my wife's side of the family. And you know, there's a little bit of sibling strife in the midst of that, which was pretty stressful. And well, we had a number of other things happen as well. I had a personal health crisis that came up. I was diagnosed back in late April of 2025 with idiopathic hemolytic anemia. Now the good news is that seems to have resolved. But as of recording this episode, they are investigating me for ongoing autoimmune issues. My recovery hasn't been 100%. So even as I'm recording this, they're doing some more blood work and workups. I'm feeling better, but not like 100%. I've got some pain in my body. It seemed to move a lot when they took me off of this drug that cured the anemia. But it came with all kinds of side effects. If there's a side effect associated with prednisone, I got it this summer. I mean there were manic episodes where I was up till 2 o' clock in the morning or up at 2am, couldn't sleep anymore. Weight gain, your appetite goes through the roof. So I'm working actively now on losing those pounds. So anyway, I was on a very, very heavy dose of prednisone for about two months. I was able to work through the midst of it and then they weaned me quite quickly off of it. So the good news is the prednisone solved the blood disorder for the most part, as much as we can tell. But the side effects of being on that much Medication were unbelievable. As much as you're kind of manic when you're in full dose, when you're withdrawing and tapering, that created a lot of depressive moments in me. So I was able to go to work, but there wasn't a whole lot afterwards. And now I have this lingering pain, particularly in my legs, and they're trying to figure out what's at the bottom of that. And then we had a big ice storm in the spring of 2025 that wiped out my backyard, which, if you follow me on Instagram, you know, has been a bit of a paradise and a refuge for me, for my family, for leaders. So we had to rebuild that. And there was a whole lot of other stuff, 29 in total. And what I've realized is, yeah, I've been paying attention to the internal stressors, but not the external. And I'm teaching on this this month at our Art of Leadership Live event in Dallas and bringing in a group of leaders. 200 leaders, by the way, should come to that next year. And I'm teaching on this for the first time. And really, I think there's a limit to how much external stress you can really handle. And if you have the death of a spouse, say, or a child, maybe one is all you need before it derails you. And I thought I was invincible. But at 29, I was really at the breaking point. By April of this year, I was in tears, on the regular with just simple things, and I'm like, what is going on? And that's when I wrote it down. It's like, oh, 29 stress points. Okay. So now I've got maybe six on the go right now, which is not too bad. Okay. Our water system needs replacing at our house. I can handle that. I'm in recovery. That's great. Yeah, I got some pain in my legs. It's getting incrementally better. I hope it lifts. We're praying it does. But all of that to say this interview was recorded a couple of months ago, before I had a clear idea of what was going to happen to the disease I was struggling with. So there have been some updates, and Also my counselor, Dr. Chappelle, and I have come to a different place than was indicated in this interview. So I want to give you those updates. But my question for you is, how many external stressors do you have in your life? Have you had somebody close to you pass away? And pastors are dealing with funerals all the time? Or did you have a staff member quit on you? Or did you find mold in your house or did your car break down? All those things. Some of them are serious, some of them are pretty small. Add them up and all of a sudden it starts to derail you. So that's what we're gonna talk about and a lot of other things. I hope you find this helpful. That's my takeaway anyway. And we do want you to live at your best. So what I'm gonna do is if head on over to YouTube and type in I'm ready to live at my best. We're gonna give away five copies of my latest book at yout Best to five Winners. So we'll get there. So long. Introduction I know a lot of you are asking questions. Whenever I'm on the ground, I'll be on, you know, on the road, I should say a lot this fall. And I always take your questions, so feel free to ask away. And thank you for caring, thank you for praying, thank you for being the most incredible audience. But here is a transparent midstream conversation in the middle of this kind of illness that I had with my good friend Sean Morgan. We'll get to it right after we hear from some carefully chosen partners. Preachers. What if the next time you stepped on stage, you knew your message would be clear, your delivery would be sharp, and your words would stick, right? Sometimes for months or even years. Well, I've got an exciting announcement. On September 22, the updated and expanded Art of Preaching course launches. Now, Mark Clark and I built it on the foundation of the original course, but the new version goes goes way deeper, adds fresh tools, and gives you a proven plan to transform your preaching. It's rebuilt from the ground up so you'll learn how to get ahead in your sermon prep, how to use humor and storytelling that actually works, how to build a teaching team that's aligned and effective, and even how to leverage AI to make your prep sharper and much, much more. It's a whole new course, so most preaching resources provide inspiration and they don't offer practical skills you need for Sunday morning. Or they hand you a formula that worked for someone el or a decade ago, but it might not be a fit for you. The Art of Preaching gives you the insight, strategies and tools to transform your skillset and develop your gifting. So mark September 22nd on your calendar and get ready for a proven step by step roadmap to transform your preaching starting the following Sunday.
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B
Hey Carrie, thank you so much for coming back on the podcast. Always honored to steward parts of your story and all your learning.
- [09:16]
A
Such a Joy, man, I just love hanging out with you on or off the air. Yeah.
- [09:21]
B
Well, this is a cool season. You got some health back. I think everybody listening has probably paid attention to some of your posts. We're headed into summer, and that's a beautiful feeling. So, yeah, catch us up a little bit, if you don't mind, on health stuff, because it gave me a scare when I scrolled through Instagram, which I do about one day a month, and there was a picture of you in a hospital bed.
- [09:46]
A
Yeah, it was a big surprise for me, too. So I turned 60 in March, and it was kind of a big deal. You know, you and I talked about it a little bit, and I had planned, like, really spent a very intentional year leading up to my 60th birthday. Where am I at? God, what do you want me to do? And I was feeling really good, like, excellent about it. And I thought this was going to be like, I'm getting in the top shape of my life kind of year. I'd been on a fitness journey for three months and. Or three years, I should say. Three months. Three years was feeling really good. And a month later, I'm in the hospital overnight for the first time since I was, I don't know, 18 months old, getting my tonsils out or whenever that happened back in the day. It's one of my first early childhood memories. I remember walking down the hall of the hospital and seeing, like, this TV show, this TV with a show on. I was like 18 months, 2 years old. I don't think I've been overnight in a hospital since then. So fast forward almost six decades, I find myself there really surprised. So the diagnosis that they're still working with that they gave me that day is warm idiopathic hemolytic anemia. Which is, like, took me a long time to memorize that, but basically. But a month around my 60th birthday, I wear an Oura ring, and I just happened to have picked up the latest generation a couple months earlier. So it's got pretty good metrics. And I noticed my readiness score, which is like getting a report card every day, was dropping. Now, we were on a team retreat in Phoenix. I was speaking to leaders in Phoenix, and I'm like, well, you're at a resort. I know what I ordered off the menu. But you don't know 100% what's in the food. And basically, your score is a basis of your heart rate variability, your resting heart rate, your oxygen saturation, all the stuff that you would be totally up to score on that it measures and then it gives you a report card out of 100, you got an 82 or you got a 96 or you got a 14 or whatever. And it's cause and effect, right? Like if you go to bed on time, you eat healthy, you do your workout, you're gonna get a good score. You just know you are. And mine dropped. And I'm like, ah, I wonder what that is. But again, you're at a resort. Like, who knows what was. Did they slather the steak in butter? I asked them not to, but maybe they did. I don't know. So anyway, I just kind of wrote it off and thought, I'll dial back when I get home. But I felt fine and then got home. And it was an ice storm that hit our community. And that's impossible for Americans who are listening. It's like, ice storm. You got ice. It's like, imagine a hurricane went through. Like we had. We lost 70% of the trees in our yard. You've led cohorts in our backyard. So literally I've got like, guys in the back rebuilding my backyard, planting brand new trees, all that stuff as we record this a couple months later. But I came back to what looked like a war zone. And again, my scores didn't recover. So I'm like, well, you know, I'm pretty stressed. And we had no power for 12 days. No Internet for 13, which was almost worse than having no power. Cause I have a generator. Anyway, so that was the case. And then my son and his wife moved back and moved in with us for a little while. And our mutual friend Mark Clark came and stayed with me for a week. And you know, with Mark, there's hot tubs late at night and dinner's out and stuff like that. And then we recorded this course in Toronto, the Art of Preaching, which is coming out this fall. And while all this was going on, my scores were not great. But I'm like, well, it's a weird month. It's a weird month. It's a weird month. We had an apocalyptic storm. You know, it got a house full. We're entertaining all the time. But then I noticed I was getting weak and, like, difficult for me to go up the stairs. Not typical. We were getting landscapers in to try to figure out how to rebuild our backyard and get the crews in to remove all the dead trees and the fallen trees. And I had to dig out a little patch over a drain in our yard. 15 seconds of spade work, and I had to lean against the spade to catch my breath. I'm like, whoa. So finally, literally the day after Mark and I finished recording the new art, which was weird, we're at the studio in Toronto. I'm giving you a long version. I had difficulty getting up the stairs. It was a three floor walk up to the studio, which I've shot courses in before. It's a beautiful studio. It's that brick building, A brick building. Jordan Peterson shoots his stuff in there in Toronto, that kind of stuff. So we went up there and I'm like, whew, I am winded. And I sat down in the hallway for two minutes, caught my breath and then I stood up and I shot 10 hours of video on Thursday, 10 hours of video on Friday, no problem. Lots of muscle memory, clear mind. But by the time Mark and I went for dinner after, I'm like, oh, dude, I'm tired, I gotta go to bed. It was like 8 o' clock or whatever, so. But got up and did it. And the next day Mark had other stuff to do, Tony was gone somewhere. And it was a crappy day weather wise. And I thought, I'm gonna go into emerge and just get checked, like just in case. But I probably would have skipped it if it was a nice day and I would have done something else. So I get to emerge. And they're like, well, you don't want this designation, but you are the most interesting patient in the hospital. I'm like, what does that mean? And they're like, oh, it's not good. We're all puzzling over you. They did enough blood work on me to fill Dracula's castle with blood. Like it was insane. They drew vial after vial after vial. And I'd never heard of a hemoglobin other than maybe in a movie or something like that. And they're like, your hemoglobin is 69. And I'm like, what does that mean? And they're like, well, in a normal male your size, it's 135 to 175. I'm like, so that's bad, right? And they're like, yeah, it's really bad. And they're like, your hemoglobin, your red blood cells, they carry oxygen and nutrients to your entire body. And if you go 10 points lower, I would learn the next day, it's like, welcome to your heart attack or stroke. Like basically your body stops functioning.
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B
Wow.
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A
And I was like, oh, so this is serious. And I'm like, but I feel okay other than a little bit weak. And they're like, yeah, you should be lying on the couch calling an ambulance. But because you've been working out so much and you're generally a healthy 60 year old male specimen, you're able to push through all this stuff comparable to leaders. There you go. And they said, so if you had let this go a little bit more, it could have been really bad. So there's a number of different theories. One is your body stops producing the red blood cells. They did a lot of extensive testing. I'm producing a lot of great red blood cells. But something happened probably in Phoenix, according to my oura ring, and they took the data fairly seriously as doctors. I had a whole team, like eight or nine working on me. And they're like, you get exposed to viruses every day. You get exposed to a cold or a flu, or you get a spider bite or something like that, Your body fights it off. Your immune system, for some unknown reason, decided red blood cells were bad guys and started destroying them. And over the month, that's why your scores were so low, they were destroying them and you don't have enough red blood cells. So what they did was they put me on a massive dose of prednisone. And if you know anything, how many milligrams we've talked about it. 90, dude. 90, jeez. Yeah. Every doctor I've talked to or medical person is like, are you kidding me? 90, like people get nine. They gave me 90. So that made me clinically like, I want to be careful what I'm saying, but I felt insane in hours for certain points of time. Like, it wrecks. Prednisone's a miracle drug. I've learned so much that was invented in the 50s, kept a lot of people alive, still keeps a lot of people alive, but it has side effects the length of Wikipedia. Like, it's huge. And so for me, it was like, I take my pills in the morning and they're starting to taper me as we record this, which is good. So the long story short, tldr.
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B
Yeah, you can't just go off it.
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A
Because apparently not gonna kill your body or something. So anyway, they spiked me. I was on that massive dose for six weeks. And now we're eight weeks into this illness as we record it. So the good news is my hemoglobin's almost normal. It's when two points of normal, all the other levels are coming back. The therapy is working. We don't know whether it's worked, but now as they reduce the drug, they're gonna find out whether my immune system, it's almost like rebooting your computer. Like, okay, this time it's gonna work and the program's gonna open. So after the reboot, as we, you know, get rid of the prednisone from my body, hopefully my immune system is like, oh, red blood cells. You're nice people. We will leave you alone and go fight the bad guys. So that's a theory. And the good news is I'm getting better. The weird part is the drugs were almost worse than the disease.
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B
Prednisone, but 90 milligrams. Wow.
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A
Yeah, that's crazy. So they're like, I've had great doctors, but it's a bit of a reset. You know, you go into 60 feeling so excited, so strong. My wife and kids threw me a surprise birthday party. Just some friends and family at my favorite restaurant. It was like, epic milestone. And then all of a sudden, whoom. Literally five weeks later, I'm in a hospital bed, admitted overnight.
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B
Didn't see it coming.
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A
Didn't see it coming, man. Yeah, that'd be a good book title one day if you could do it. So it looks like I'm gonna be okay, it looks like. But it really makes you rethink everything, particularly when they tell you 10 points more. And it could be. That could be the end.
- [19:10]
B
Yeah, because your body is getting no nutrients to even just function at that.
- [19:14]
A
No, your heart won't beat anymore, or you get a stroke. So. And that could be, you know, debilitating, or it could be life ending, but neither was realized.
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B
So you and I were a couple of phone calls and texts over week to week sort of stuff. And you had said something to me. Well, I'll tell you something. So Stacy and I were talking and I was like, yeah, Carrie. It's scary for me right now. Cause Carrie's in great shape. He takes care of himself and he's got the ability to push and like, he can. He's just a machine in some ways, you know, like, he's the bionic pastor. And so obviously there's that thing, the body keeps score or whatever. And I was like, so he can. I think he can fire up a couple extra cylinders if he really needed to. So he's kind of like in this stage where maybe there's some cumulative effect of things. So Stacy and I were talking about that because I'm in my early 50s now. I just turned. Well, I'm about ready to turn 52 probably by the time this airs. And I notice, like, I don't have the battery that I used to. And in some ways it's demoralizing to feel your age. You were talking with, your interview with John Eldridge was incredible. You guys talked about how in our culture we, we worship youth. And I was like, oh, yeah, nailed it. And so I'm like, in some ways it's demoralizing, but I always am a huge fan of, you know, the, the opportunity. The obstacle is the way the obstacle is the opportunity thinking. And so it's like. But the opportunity is to focus and to get more out of the things that are most important with some intentionality and all that. And so then I was. You and I were engaging and you told me, I think you and Craig had connected and you'd gone through some exercises together and you found 29. What did you. What were the category of the 29?
- [21:23]
A
I'm glad we're talking about this. And I'm not glad we're talking about this. Yeah. So before, two weeks, before I went to the hospital, you know, we'd had, we had the year to end all years. There was a lot going on. I'll go into some of that. And I brought Groeschel, Craig Groeschel's book Winning the War on youn Mind to this all inclusive. This is to give you an idea of my life. This is the third all inclusive I've ever done in my whole life. I think, if I'm counting right. So it's not typical. It was just my wife Toni and I went to Curacao, little island in the Caribbean, and we had the best time. And I was, you know, I was not getting great scores, but I was feeling fine day to day. I had no idea anything was wrong with me. And so I'm reading Winning the War in youn Mind and I think it's chapter 10. And like I reached out to Craig and I'm like, oh my goodness. He talks about his 2019. I remember seeing him in London. He was speaking at leadership conference that year. And I mean, he was just going. He had something like 25 talks in five cities. And then stuff was happening at home where I'm paraphrasing here, but there was an animal in the attic and somebody's car broke and then a rat got into one of his kids cars. It was just this catastrophe of whatever. And I'm sitting there at the beach because I have trouble unplugging at the best of times. And I'm reading Craig's book and then I start taking notes and I'm like, hey, the last 14 months have been abnormally difficult. And actually Craig and I share a performance psychologist, performance coach, Dr. Wayne Chappelle, who he's writing his new book with. So we're always back and forth comparing notes. And Dr. Chappelle, if you're listening, thank you. Is on me about, hey, you're 60, you need to slow down. Like, you're not a rookie NBA player, you're a veteran. You can't have the game points that you used to have. And he knows this. But I'm kind of resisting Dr. Chappelle going, eh, I don't know that the rules apply to me. I think we're fine. Like, leave me alone.
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B
See what I was talking about? Yes.
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A
I think this is the end of our session today, Dr. C. No, but you know, I've given him polite pushback and he's really been helpful to me. So I'm reading chapter 10 and I thought, I wonder if I've had like some external stressors in the last. This is internal versus external, so didn't see it coming. And at your best. My last two books are all about the internal battle of a leader. And I've had honestly a pretty good life. And so as far as external stress, I'm an enneagram8. I don't feel it the way empaths do, or A4 would, or someone who's got a real shepherd's heart. If I get an angry email, I can usually get over it in about three minutes or if it's worst case, three days. But as I'm reading through chapter 10 of Craig's book, I start to journal. Well, how many external stressors have I had in the last? And in that case, the timeline was 14 months. It was 29. And it blew me away. Everything from my father in law dying to navigating his funeral, which is never easy, to my parents both having significant health challenges. My dad being diagnosed last summer with that dementia, moving them out of this beautiful condo they live for 25 years near the waterfront in Barrie into assisted living, you know, long term care. Not long term care, but retirement residents with help.
- [24:36]
B
Right.
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A
And you know, that's not an easy journey. And then I've got three sisters that we weren't all in sync every step of the way. At the same time, selling the family cottage that's been in Tony's property where her mom lived for 70 years and having to declutter my late father in law's collection of treasures from the last 80 years, which by the way was about 10 tons of stuff. It wasn't hoarders. It was just so much Work and so much stress trying to get that family to agree. And there were family dynamics in that. And then I'd come home from Phoenix and have my entire yard, which is a sanctuary, destroyed by God, by nature. Having to rebuild that, being without power, being without Internet. I mean, it just went on and on. And there were little things on the list too. Not like traffic was slow today, but like even the studio, I finally finished rebooting the studio. I had an old imac that was crashing all the time. And we had a company sale earlier this year, merger partnership with glue. So you can't really make any capital purchases at a time like that. So I'm like, I just got to get to the other side of this.
- [25:48]
B
I got to be really stable.
- [25:49]
A
You got to be so stable. And I'm like, okay, finally I can buy a new imac. Okay, great. You know, and all this stuff. So now I got my dream studio. It all works like all the technology works, all that stuff. So as we're recording this, I think I've got six ongoing stressors, maybe of the 29. Everything else is in the rearview mirror. And like we're not moving my parents to a retirement home again this year. This is like we did all the research, it's done. This is their spot for the indefinite future. Same with my mother in law. All that stuff is in the rearview mirror, but all came up at once. And I felt, and I think we talked about this, like I was in the boxing ring and I got a hit to the head and I'm like, that's okay. And then I got a hit to the gut and then another hit to the gut and another hit to the head and then I got knocked down and then I got back up and then I got hit again and again and again and eventually, you know, so around the time of the hospital, this all hits ahead. Now the psychologists say, so the stress caused this. Nine doctors later, they're like, this is not stress related. So maybe that's an issue in heaven, but it even Sean, I mean, we can go wherever. Cause leaders, I mean, maybe God didn't strike your backyard. I'm kidding. You know, you have an idol and then God takes it away, so you just rebuild it. So that's what we're doing right now. Hopefully this one doesn't get destroyed, but anyway.
- [27:08]
B
Oh, that's the first time I've heard you frame up the backyard as an idol.
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A
You know what, it's a sanctuary. And most of us who have been at this for a little while, we have A favorite spot, a favorite chair, a favorite thing that we do that is just kind of like, okay, the world's on fire, but I'm at peace. And for me, that was my backyard.
- [27:27]
B
Yeah, for sure.
- [27:28]
A
It was great.
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B
I've done that for me many times.
- [27:30]
A
Yes, I know. And for lots of leaders who come up here and we hang out. And so now we're rebuilding it, you know, and submitting it to God. It's good. But there was a period where I felt like I was in the Book of Job. And I'm like, I just need some boils on my body. And then believe it or not, I got a boil on my body after I got out of the hospital, I'm like, okay, well, I am in the book of Job. But I was processing this with Dr. Chappelle and I'm like, you know what? Like, at least the book of Job ends. Like there's only 42 chapters. That's good. And so I feel like we're toward the end or at the end of the Book of Job. And I didn't lose. I lost my father in law, but I didn't lose my children, I didn't lose my wife, My house didn't burn down. And there are a lot of people dealing with a lot less. But the point is, when the hits keep coming, what happens? And it got me to the point where prior, the week prior to going in the hospital, I was like, am I burning out you? And I had that conversation. Like we got together in Atlanta in October and I knew something was off. There was a few of us who do what we do that hid in a corner from everybody else there and just kind of had dinner one night. Cause I was at the end of my capacity to have conversations with people I didn't know. It's like, let's just gather the people I know and let's have a good time and that kind of thing. So the cracks were showing, but I'm like, what is this? I didn't know, but I wasn't keeping a running list. Oh yeah, you just had number 13 of 29 that are coming happen this week. So it really did catch me by surprise. But the good news is when you end up in the hospital and there's. There's nothing to do, you realize whether you're stirred up inside or whether you're at peace. And as soon as the cacophony on the outside stopped, I was like, oh, I'm not at war inside. I am pretty happy. I mean, hopefully I don't die that Would be nice.
- [29:18]
B
But, yeah, that was the marked difference in that conversation around. Is this another form of burnout?
- [29:24]
A
Exactly. That was like. I was starting to really entertain that question because I was more emotional. I remember a conversation I had with my kids and my boys, and I just started crying, which is not typical for me. You know, they were putting their arms around me going, dad, are you okay? And my honest answer was, I don't know. But what I realized was those were external stressors. And when the storm stopped and I got into a hospital room where it was dead quiet, utterly boring, with nothing to do, I'm like, God and I are fine. Tony and I are fine. I like my life. I like my calling. Hopefully I get well. Hopefully we figure this out. But I realized, because I know what it is to have the internal storm that was 20 years ago, where everything on the outside is peaceful, but on the inside, it's dead. It's like, oh, no. It's very much alive on the inside. So that was very affirming. And I don't know. I mean, this is a lot about my life, but. But for leaders, I think my lesson going forward is I really have to pay careful attention to the external stressors versus the internal stressors. And I think there are definitely seasons in the past, and there will be seasons in the future where it's internal turmoil. I'm not a happy guy. I'm not. Whatever. I'm not content. I don't know about this. And then there are times where probably over these last 16 months, it was like I was pretty much all external. And resilience is the ability to get up one more time, then you're knocked down. And so I kept getting knocked down 29 times, and now I'm back up and I'm feeling okay. And if this thing resolves as we plan, think it will, the doctors think it will in the next few months, then it'll be business as usual. But it's a new framework to look at things with. It's a new. I have a lot of empathy for Lee. I've never had the mental health. You know, it's like playing pinball in my brain when I'm on that much prednisone. Who I am at 11am is different from who I am at 11, 18. You know, my joke is it's kind of like the White house changes every 20 minutes. And it's not normal. That's like. That's my interior mind on that drug. And, you know, it's starting. They're tapering my meds now, so it's a little more sane. But I have a lot of empathy for people who have that kind. Like, we all have good days and bad days. You have bad days, good days, good weeks, bad weeks, good seasons, bad seasons. Like every 20 minutes or every two hours. And that's not fair to the people around you or to anybody. So I have a lot less. But now I understand, oh, this is why people reach for alcohol at 2 o' clock in the afternoon. If you're that out of whack, you're like, anything to get back to normal. And so for the first two weeks of prednisone, they said, you're gonna get moon face, you're gonna gain weight, you're gonna gain a lot of weight. It's just a side effect of the drug. And I told myself, I've worked this hard on my fitness. I'm gonna pretend I'm taking Ozempic. I am not hungry. And I didn't eat, but my mood was out of control. And I could have been the road rage guy that ends up in some viral video when I'm driving into town, if somebody cut me off and I'm like, this is not me. I showed up to a family function, sat down next to my sister at a restaurant, and the first words out of my mouth as I'm sitting down is, I hate this restaurant. Now, first of all, I don't really hate the restaurant. It's not my favorite, but I don't hate it. And secondly, why would I say that in public? But that was my. You know, and you get canceled for stuff like that if you do that on stage at scale.
- [32:52]
B
Oh, yeah.
- [32:53]
A
I'm like, oh, my brain is not working right. And so what I realized is mood and movement, exercise or food and movement regulates mood for me when I'm on prednisone. So after two weeks, you know, Toni was tired of my dog and pony show every day and not knowing what she was gonna get. So I said, okay, I'm just gonna start obeying the appetite and eating. And my mood got better, and I could regulate it better. But, you know, in my case, it was like four meals a day, five meals a day and some snacks. But, you know, I didn't turn to alcohol or drugs, but I could see why people do if it's that volatile. So it gave me a lot. Like, I didn't have any empathy for people who burned out before I burned out in 2006. Now I have a lot of empathy. And I was trying to understand, like, well, why would you be doing that at two o'clock in the afternoon? It doesn't make any sense. No, it makes sense to me. I'm not gonna do it. But, like. And I can, you know, as they taper the meds, I'm tapering my food and getting back in the gym and on my bike and all that stuff. But, like, gave me a lot of empathy. And then really to realize how fragile this all is, dude. Really? How fragile? That was my first, like, you could die convo.
- [34:03]
B
When you think about. I think you talked about the leadership side of this. The leadership gene comes with a burden. And so you're the person that's convincing people how to excel, how to push further than they would otherwise. Go above and beyond. You bring stability in the midst of turmoil. These are all things that leaders do. But there's the shadow side of that too, is what the mantle and maybe the accumulation. Because you had things in your past that you'd moved on from. They're in the rearview mirror. But maybe there's aspects of them that you still carry with you. They still have weight. Certainly when you have some huge ones like that on the list of 29. So what are your. Do you have any conclusions in terms of, I don't know, maybe just the idea of surviving the call of a leader?
- [35:15]
A
Yeah, well, you know, Dr. Chappelle and I are working on that together. He's in the middle. I haven't talked to him in a couple weeks. He's in the middle of the NBA Finals right now. He's coaching one of the teams that are there. But, you know, he's definitely saying, again, I know nothing about sports less than all of your other guests combined. I know nothing. But there's some player he coaches who's very famous, has a big contract. I think he's got two first names. Is Anthony Paul. Is that like a. No, I don't know who he is. Anyway, he told me numerous times, very famous, but I don't follow sports. So he's like 30 and. And he wanted to be in on every play. Like, put me in coach, put me in coach. And that's me. I want to be in on every play. And he's like, yeah, at 30 in the NBA, you can't do that. So when he was coaching him and he's the performance psychologist, he's like, you're. And he worked with the head coach, pardon me, and the general manager. And he just said, you're going to sit out, you're going to be bench, you're Going to do half your normal game time. And he was dying. Like, this is awful. I hate it. And that's what Dr. C was trying to do with me before all this went down. And I'm like, look, I only work four days a week. Four and a half days a week. What do you want me to be? Semi retired? Come on. So I'm giving him appropriate pushback. But what happened with that NBA player is he left the team he was on, became a free agent or something like that and signed for double his contract the next year because it increased his performance. Doing less, increased more. So. So the dialogue is, we'll pick it up. Welcome to my therapy session. We're in the middle of this right now. Okay? But the dialogue the next time I sit down with him is, look, 29 in 14 months is a lot. And three or four things, like one parent going through something, but like, literally four parents going through something in a year and having to move two family properties and this, that and the other thing. And then an unprecedented ice storm and no power and no hydro and the studio's dead. And I can't do my job like it is Book of Jobish. So I would like to pretend that this is a high watermark for stress in my life right now. Like, you know, most leaders could say, hopefully Covid was the high water mark. We're not gonna go back there, but we don't know. And so Dr. C is like, you need to spend a little more time on the bench. And I'm still like, put me in. So what I'm learning, though, is probably my biggest lesson is you gotta stop long enough to know whether it's internal or external stress.
- [37:46]
B
Okay.
- [37:47]
A
You gotta. And probably keep a running list. Like, what is. I wasn't very good at this in the moment. Cause you always think the bad things are an anomaly. It's like, well, I got that one nasty email, but I'm surely there's not gonna be one tomorrow. But then there's one tomorrow and then there's one the day after. And they're, you know. Well, you know. Yeah. And it was already a bad winter up here. But then the ice storm, it's like, there's not gonna be an ice storm, is there? Oh, yeah, there's an ice storm. Right. So. So you end up at that place where you're just. You're always responding to things. And I think keeping a running list and going, okay, I got 10 on my active list right now. There's gotta be a threshold where if you've got 10 external stressors. I'm thinking in real time here. I haven't really processed this because it's happening, but if there's 10 external stressors on your list, you probably need to book that weekend away. Or you need to slam the laptop at 4, not at 6. Or you need to build more margin, more sleep, more rest, more processing into your life. Because it was coming at me faster than I could really grieve it. Ministry is a series of ungrieved losses. That's one of my mentors, Terry Wardle. What he taught me. And there was a lot to grieve. Another big lesson for me is with all the family stuff, I got caught up in some of the family drama, trying to be the firstborn or trying to be the helpful, helpful person. And I'm like, right.
- [39:11]
B
With aging parents, there's always somebody that carries that role, right?
- [39:14]
A
Yeah. And I'm like, you know, maybe that's not my role. Maybe I exit the drama faster. Maybe there's some group texts. I just leave. Maybe. Maybe. Maybe I just don't respond. Like, why does someone else's drama have to be my drama? That was another thing. Because I'm a leader. I'm a fixer. I can fix this. Hey, I advise leaders around the world. Why wouldn't they take my advice? There's a dynamic to process in your family, right?
- [39:44]
B
Totally trying to figure out. I even feel like there's this thing. Leaders handle expectations, usually by exceeding them. But expectations are dangerous because they're written and unwritten and stated and unstated, but they're there. So even in that case, I'm projecting your situation on me. There's typically expectations. You feel of your siblings like I'm the sibling that carries this torch for this leg of the race. And I don't know that that's fair for me to say that my siblings have put on me. I just have put it on myself and felt that, because there's that expectation. I wonder in leadership, you know, where does that begin to change? Where you go, where I'm okay not meeting expectations of others or helping them change their expectations.
- [40:47]
A
Well, there's another dynamic.
- [40:49]
B
It's scary to even ask that question for me.
- [40:50]
A
No, it is. And I think I'm probably taking a step further back this year than I would have last year. Because, you know, the problem is when you're used to being in charge, and I've only been in charge for the last 30 years. I was a senior pastor, CEO of my own company, still the CEO of my own company, all this stuff, I've only ever been in charge and most of your listeners have only ever been in charge. And when you're only ever in charge and suddenly you're not in charge, all of those, that list of 29, I was not in charge of any of that. I didn't orchestrate the ice storm, I didn't orchestrate my parents health challenges. I didn't orchestrate any of those things. Now was I involved? Yeah, but I didn't cause them. Secondly, in your family you're not the boss. And it depends on where you are in the birth order. But in one family I'm just the in law, the son in law, the brother in law. And another one, I'm just one of four or one of the children. And you don't have the power to hire and fire and you don't have authority, but you're used to kind of saying something in your church or your company and it just happens. And then you say it in your family and the opposite happens or you get a lot of pushback and you're like, well, you don't have a button to push or a lever to pull to make it happen like you do when you're the leader. So it was a real. And we've had disagreements over the years about well, where will we vacation or what are we gonna have for dinner, big deal. But when you're dealing with existential things like your parents future and their health, the stakes are higher. So it's more loaded. So I think probably what I'm thinking about more is could all be over in a heartbeat. Some stuff's worth thinking about, some stuff isn't worth thinking about, some stuff's worth responding to, some stuff isn't worth responding to and get on with the work. And the other thing I've done is I want to be more present in the day to day. Now I start to sound like a cliche, but when Tony and I went to New York, it was my first trip that I was allowed to make with the condition I have. And we spent six days in Manhattan and like I made sure we went to the good restaurants and we didn't just leave it behind. You know, when I was picking a Broadway show to surprise her with, I picked one of her favorite actors. It was a higher ticket price. It's like I'm just buying the ticket. We're gonna go, yeah, yeah, I'm gonna enjoy it more because otherwise I'd be like, oh, we'll be back in New York again in a year. Or two. And we'll do it then. And I'm gonna bring my laptop and I'll get working on this new book and I'll get this done. And now it was like, just going to really enjoy you. Today's episode is brought to you by the preaching Cheat sheet. So, preachers, I'd love to know if you can relate to this. Okay. It's Thursday night. Sunday's message still isn't coming together. I mean, you can even start early and it's not quite right. Right. The pressure is building. It's hard to decide what to add, what to cut, how to tie everything together. You want some family time. And you know by the time Saturday rolls around, you're just gonna have to call it as it is. Even if you're second guessing some of your message. Well, that's where my ten step preaching cheat sheet can help. It's your quick check guide to ensure you've got an engaging, clear and memorable sermon ready for Sunday morning. From your opening line to landing the plane at the end of your sermon and every step in between, you can use the 10 steps during sermon prep or even to start or to finish your message, whatever you want to make sure you are ready to deliver an impactful message every single time you preach. And the big news is I've just released a brand new version of the cheat sheet. So if you've downloaded it before, be sure to get the new version in your hands. We got a lot of feedback. I improved it still. Basically the bones are the same, but it's going to be even better. Okay. You can download your copy for free by clicking the link in the description of this episode or by visiting preachingcheatsheet.com Again, that's preachingcheatsheet.com to download your copy for free or simply click the link in the episode of this description wherever you're listening.
- [44:47]
B
That's sweet sounding.
- [44:48]
A
Yeah. But I don't know, like, what do you think? What do you see? Cause you've been a good friend in this. You also find out what friends really track with you. And you've been one of those friends who tracks with me. So thank you.
- [44:58]
B
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Oh, I think for me, well, I would go back to what Stacy and I talked about when we found out you were in the hospital was just like the, the, your ability to create and keep a pace isn't. It's just, it's 12 out of 10. We, we got to hike Half Dome and you got to, you put in for a lottery and all that. Stuff. And if you get selected, then they give you a date, and that's the date you have to hike Half Dome. We did it. We invited some friends, and.
- [45:34]
A
Glad you did.
- [45:35]
B
Really cool friends.
- [45:35]
A
You outpaced me on that one. I've done hiking with you. You're intense, dude.
- [45:40]
B
So some friends of ours flew out from New Hampshire, and they were. They were killer on the trail, but all day long, they're just very positive people in general. And one of them's an orthopedic surgeon, which is a great skill to have as a. As an orthopedic surgeon, especially if you get injured.
- [45:55]
A
Yeah.
- [45:55]
B
Yes. Yeah. From.
- [45:57]
A
Oh, he's right here.
- [45:57]
B
In a patient.
- [45:58]
A
Bring your knife.
- [45:58]
B
Yeah.
- [45:59]
A
Yeah.
- [46:01]
B
So they were so positive, and they kept saying, this trail's a 12 out of 10. And we've brought that into our vernacular because it just made us pause to go. There's exceptional beauty in all sorts of things that we encounter. And if you just say, oh, that's beautiful, and move on, or. I've seen stuff like that before, it's like, no. Like, there are things that just. They are 12 out of tens. And I know mathematically that doesn't work, but they are.
- [46:26]
A
No.
- [46:26]
B
You know what?
- [46:27]
A
And part of your personality. It's weird Tony's joking about it now that the danger seems to be passing. But I was only in the hospital for. I think it went on on Saturday morning. They released me Tuesday morning. And, I mean, I was like, suitcase packed, ready to go at the door, you know, and they're like, you can go. I'm like, okay, great. But there were a couple things I did that, looking back at it, are kind of laughable. But you only do what you know in the moment. First thing was they put that stupid blue hospital gown on your yellow one. And I don't know what it's covering, and I'm not very comfortable.
- [47:01]
B
Not much.
- [47:02]
A
No, not much. Not nearly enough. Okay, not nearly enough. And they also were looking for an empty bed to admit me. And I got a bed that first day, but they put me on a floor with a lot of people who are 30 years older than me, a lot of dementia patients. And I'm like, do you guys have something else to tell me here? Is this a hint? I got more than just the anemia. What's going on? So anyway. But they had. It's the only floor in that hospital that had an outdoor terrace, and nobody was using it. And I'm like, I'm gonna go sit there. And then I said to Tony, bring My laptop. So she brought my laptop. And then I said, hey, do I have to wear, like, I'm just getting an I.V. i'm not hooked up on wires. Can I just wear a T shirt and shorts? Cause it was so hot in there because the patients were older. They're like, yeah, that's all right. You don't have to wear a hospital gown. So all of a sudden, within. In 24 hours, I'm walking around in street clothes, and I've got my laptop and my work bag that I take with me everywhere I travel. And between the terrace and an area at the end of the hall with a chair and a desk, I've set up an office. And I'm working from the hospital. And the joke among the nurses is. And people are coming in to see me, they're bringing me coffees, are like, who is this guy? And is he a patient? What is he doing here? And I'm like, no, I'm running my company from the hospital. What else are you gonna do? Lie there like, you know, and so you are who you are, and you are that wiring. And I wasn't harming my recovery because otherwise I'm going to lie in a bed and watch Netflix. So, you know, I'm doing what I know how to do. And, you know, so you're still who you are, and yet you're also trying to take notes for the Future about what 20% might need to change.
- [48:47]
B
Yeah, it's crazy. What. What would you say if someone were to say the 14 months that you went through leading up to that and even the couple of months since. So what is that, 16 months? What would be learning? Leadership learnings. Advice for leaders. Not lifetime stuff, but just. This is pretty recent based on the last 15 months.
- [49:16]
A
You can only take so many hits. Doesn't matter how strong you are. I get why a lot of people thought about quitting or left during COVID and there being, you know, our world is hardly stable right now. Note there might be more coming. And you can only take so many hits. And these didn't take me out, but they made me more unstable than I've been in the last 20 years. And that's somebody who probably wrongfully prides himself on being resilient and strong. And if it had kept going, I don't know what would have happened. People make terrible moral decisions. There wasn't anything active in my life that leads me to think that that would have been there. But who knows? Or you just quit. You're just like, all right. Or you become A shadow of your former self or you limp. I had that hard reset in the hospital and I'm like, oh, if I can get, get physically better, then I can probably get emotionally better. And probably these 29 things aren't going to continue forever. But if I end up with a list that goes past, I'm picking arbitrary numbers here. Six or ten ongoing external stressors. I probably need to make adjustments to my schedule and my pacing that allow me sufficient recovery time. LeBron James. I remember interviewing Rob Pelinka on my podcast from the Lakers and he was saying he's worked with LeBron and also worked with Kobe Bryant. Those are two sports people I actually have heard of. And they focused as much on Prehab as rehab. And I think that's a lesson I haven't forgotten from Rob Prehab is this idea that kind of what Dr. C was doing with that NBA player whose name I can't remember. No, you're gonna rest. So when you go in, you come in strong. And there's a certain point to your point where you started at 52 or me at 60, where, yeah, I haven't got the energy of a 30 year old. I have the energy of a 60 year old, maybe top 20%, 60 year old, health wise or something like that, but it is limited. And that's gonna change what Eldridge was saying about the different seasons of your life. Right. So I have to adjust my expectations accordingly. Now I am working on a new book which is gonna go to market, we think soon, sooner rather than later. And I am jacked and I am energized and I'm pumped about it. So we'll see if that hits the market or not. But I've still got my chops. But the chops are different.
- [51:48]
B
When you talked about keeping better track of the internal and external stressors, that really resonated with me because Rich Velodis gave me some insight. You know, I'm a three wing, four on the enneagram. And you just, you know, especially being in the military and being in four different combat tours, you just kind of go, well, it doesn't really matter how you feel. This is what has to be accomplished.
- [52:18]
A
You gotta fly into this city and do this right, like, and I think leadership's like that. That's a good analogy.
- [52:26]
B
Yeah, I think it's absolutely what leaders have to do. Like, this is what's required. So you compartmentalize. And I can tell you we just had a really sad loss of life with a crash in India this week. And you want Your pilots to be able to compartmentalize certain things and focus on what they're doing to the best of their ability in the cockpit in the moment. But I can tell you as a leader, long term compartmentalization is probably falls under more like repression, where you set it aside and stuff it away and bury it and try not to think about it. That's actually probably really unhealthy as a leader. But to be honest with you, I don't know of any leaders that got good training, myself included, on how to compartmentalize for the moment and not really stuff it away and try to forget about it. One of the things that's helped me is what I learned from Rich. And he's probably a mutual friend. I don't know.
- [53:30]
A
Yeah, I know Rich. Yeah. Yeah.
- [53:33]
B
Is I spent my life kind of just telling myself it doesn't matter what you feel like, just figure out what you have to do and move on. And so in my quiet time daily, and I don't know that I do it daily, but I try to do it daily with significant amounts of time. It's not five or 10 or 15 or even, even 20 minutes. Like it's an hour, it's 90 minutes. Is start out with just like, what are the things that I'm thankful for? I'm just going to spend three to five minutes just mentally going through that. And the next thing I'm going to do is I'm going to say, how am I feeling and why? And then the third thing is God have a word for me and sort of meditation on that. But that second point, how am I feeling and why? I started doing about two years ago. And I can tell you, never before in my life have I ever really spent any time answering the question. I was so bad at it, Carrie. I had to get out. I had to download on a website Emotional Feelings Chart. It's in a big color wheel and print it up. And I have it in my bible so I can get it out and go like, I'm so bad with being in touch with my own emotions. And why. Why am I feeling a little twinge of stress? Because I spent 49 years stuffing it away and just figuring it out. And I don't think that's good.
- [54:55]
A
What difference has it made for you?
- [54:59]
B
I'm way more of a person of peace in general, which. It's a fruit of the spirit. So I think it's pretty good. Like I would say I am way more focused going through that exercise daily has really helped bring focus with things that I want. And people I want to be around more or less, environments, tasks. Or maybe we talked about expectation. Expectations that I could feel building that no one's name. But I'm realizing it's there and I can address it and go, I don't want that expectation on my shoulders. I think a great tenet of leadership is leadership comes with enough. You have to carry on your shoulders. And one of them is with expectation setting and team building and delegation is this idea of, do not carry on your shoulders what should be on the shoulders of others. I think leaders who survive 40 years plus in leadership do that really well. And I've been fortunate enough to be around people who I think do that exceptionally well.
- [56:20]
A
You know, it's interesting. I'm so glad you shared that. And good for you. I'd say prior to my first burnout, I was learning to grieve my losses because I was like you for the first 40 years. It's just like. Just keep it coming. I'm fine. I'm fine. Doesn't hurt. It's great. Well, let's go. And then it all imploded on me. And that's where all the internal stuff came. And that was my burnout back in 06. And since then, I've really paid attention to what Terry Wardle taught me. I referenced earlier, grieve your losses. Grieve your losses. But normally for me, losses have come in sequence with gaps. In other words, somebody you really cared about died. I remember in 2017, I did, like, three funerals and two close personal losses within two months of each other. And that was a tough summer. That was a really tough summer. But I had the margin to grieve it. Right? And then you kind of get on with it and you move through, and still, once in a while, there's a tear with one or two of those people who passed, you know, but it feels processed. I think what was different about these last 14 months was they were coming so fast, there wasn't time and sequence to grieve it. It's like, oh, I got hit again. Well, yeah, okay, I'm gonna grieve.
- [57:30]
B
Oh, there it is again.
- [57:31]
A
Okay. All right. Yeah. Oh, I haven't even dealt with that one yet. And it was 29, 14 months. Just do the math. That's like one every two weeks. And some of them were really deep, and some of them are ongoing. Like, dad has dementia and mom has congestive heart failure. And so these are not going away. And so it was one of those things where you really want to process it. And I would agree. So, Dr. C, this is our next session in therapy where I needed more time to process, and I probably needed to step on the brake more than I did, because had I grieved them in sequence, it would have been better. And fortunately, there was a hard stop and a lot of them moved to the rearview mirror, and we got through it. But, yeah, you just are not designed like the book of job. It's just two or three chapters of events and then 38 chapters of processing, and then a really cool chapter at the end, right? Or whatever the math is in that book. It's not like 42 chapters of events. It's all processing. And a lot of it was bad processing.
- [58:36]
B
Totally. Right.
- [58:37]
A
Friends. I actually agree with Job's friends, and they're all wrong. They're all wrong. But I read it and I'm like, no, that's a good point. No, that's a really good point. That's a good point. What did you do? Is there any sin in your life, Job? Like, there must be some unconfessed sin. And, you know, God's like, nah, that's not it. So if you think about it, right, there's that little bit of action, and then there's all that processing. So for leaders who are going through it internally or externally, it's like that processing time is a lifeline. And if you don't. And a sabbatical isn't going to do it because that's six years away. And your summer vacation is supposed to be for your family or for some rest. So you got to process it in real time.
- [59:16]
B
Amen.
- [59:17]
A
So I don't know how to do that with that much in the future, to be honest with you. If there's 29, I don't know. But I mean, I do. I think one note now, one field note, is I've got to spend some extra time processing.
- [59:33]
B
Yeah, absolutely.
- [59:36]
A
And I wonder if that's what. Und so many leaders five years ago, I think so it was just everything at once. Everything all at once. Like that movie, which I haven't seen.
- [59:44]
B
Yeah, Don't.
- [59:45]
A
Oh, is it not good? I don't know. Don't know. Sports. Haven't watched 99.9% of all movies. So, yeah, you won't miss it.
- [59:53]
B
I think this idea of I wrote down margin to grieve it in processing, that might be one of the.
- [60:08]
A
Most.
- [60:09]
B
Understated skills in leadership. And I'm actually working on a book with facets of leadership. It's just going to be like two or three pages on key topics of leadership. And this is one of them, the margin to process something. I coach a lot of leaders that are in transition to become the lead pastor of a church. And so it's a big step for them. Some of them have maybe planted a church before or have been a lead pastor, but 95% of them probably have not been lead pastors before. It's a huge. Whether the church is big or not, that it's a huge role, and you.
- [60:45]
A
Have a lot to process in that seat.
- [60:47]
B
You do. And one of the key things that I helped him understand is building margin into daily life from now on. Because, like you just said, you shouldn't spend your vacation recovering from things that the leadership of the church has caused you to carry. You're robbing. You're robbing from your family, you know, so you've got to figure out a rhythm where it's a sustainable rhythm going on and building margin. And I always tell leaders, it's not just white space on your calendar, but it is that, too, is you need 20% more than you've had before. Like, what got you here on the team will not get you there leading the team. And one of the keys is margin. And you're going to need 20% more. And then there's a phrase I say, let's see if I can get it right here. It's been a while since I use it, which is the moment you give your margin away will be the precise time when your organization demands more from you.
- [61:54]
A
You know, I have this saying, which I've never published, but I think I can say it on your podcast, like, think about funerals and crises. Death is never convenient. I have never in 30 years had somebody pass away at a convenient time. It's like, perfect, great. I got nothing on the calendar. It's always inconvenient. And so, well, now you got the funeral and the hospital visit and the family and the sermon and your kid's soccer game, and you got this and you got that, and it's like, that's just the life of a leader. Right.
- [62:23]
B
And the capital campaign in 10 months and the campaign where you're a little.
- [62:27]
A
Bit short still, so, you know, roll up your sleeves. Yeah. And I think having that kind of margin is so important, and probably you need to create more. The other thing, too, which we haven't even tapped on, is creativity always happens in the margins. There you go. Right. Like, I was trying to put together a chapter in the book today, and I noticed I was in the shower longer than I normally am. And I'm like, ah, I gotta get to writing. And had a classic shower thought where I'm like, oh, right, this goes here and then that goes there and then you need to say this. And it came together. So we know from brain science. Why does that happen? Because I'm not sitting at a keyboard. Your brain is in passive gear. So when you're on a bike ride on that hike, you're going to have a breakthrough idea. When you're not trying to have the breakthrough idea now, you need to sit behind your keyboard. But all the creativity comes from the margin. And so if you really want an excellent sermon series next year or you want to have that breakthrough idea that doesn't come by doing back to back to back to back meetings, I'll tell.
- [63:33]
B
You what, you're reactionary.
- [63:34]
A
Here's another lesson. I get a lot of book requests and proposals. And will you write the forward and will you do this and will you do that and speaking requests. And I'm honoring every commitment I can. I had to cancel a couple of commitments because I was in the hospital early, not allowed to travel by the doctors. But I'm like, if I make a commitment, I'm in. But what I've been doing and it's really convenient right now when all those requests come in and we get multiples a week, it's like, actually, I'm busy recovering from this condition. I'm taking on no extra work at this time. And just like saying no to pretty much everybody. And it's very liberating. Now I'm going to get better at some point, but does that change my filter level? And part of me feels guilty because I'm going to ask other people to help me with stuff in the future. But if you lead a large or demanding organization, there's a level of no that you have to be really comfortable at. And I can take it. I've asked Craig Groeschel, I mean, we mentioned him earlier, to help me out with one or two projects or we do this together, and he'll be like, you know what? I'm going to take a pass on this one. And that's great. Doesn't impact the friendship, you know, we still do.
- [64:45]
B
Yeah, you can't be offended by that.
- [64:46]
A
You can't be offended by it.
- [64:47]
B
Stay in focus.
- [64:48]
A
It's okay for me to have other people say no to me, but it's not okay for me to say no to other people. And I mean, I know I wrote about that. Nat yout Best I got a whole chapter on all of that, the categorical decision making thing. But I think I have to probably take my categorical decision of what I do and don't do because at the end of the day I just want to help people. I want to be a nice guy. But it's that that eats up your margin. It's like, well I said I was gonna endorse it but in this day I have to read every book I endorse. And that means that's a seven hour prospect for two lines that may or may not appear on the book jacket. And so you wanna parcel those out in the right way. On the other hand I was a first time author and people endorsed my book who shouldn't have endorsed my book. So it's that tension of, of leadership where you're trying to figure that out in real time. But margin, lack of it is going to kill your creativity. And I think in the age of AI you need more margin to process the rapid change that's going on to come up with the right responses to figure out what the strategy is. So yeah, I'm probably going to need more margin.
- [65:58]
B
Best books for that. You have any?
- [66:01]
A
There's a book by Richard Svensson written over 20 years ago. You're going to get like pagers and fax machines in it. But the principles are really good. It's called Margin. Excellent. Anything from Cal Newport from slow productivity to deep work. Really good essentialism. Greg McKeown, excellent book. I mean it's dated now, they've updated it but the Four Hour Workweek. Tim Ferriss, it's more hacks. That's more a strategy book than anything. Those are some good books. Juliet Funt has some good material. She's got a book called A Minute to Think. Jordan Raynor has written Redeeming youg Time. There's a lot of books in that space. It's just, it's the ability to execute and the hardest part. And again I wrote about this in my book on that subject. At your best. But like I have to recalibrate this every six months. Like I'm actively. This conversation is me recalibrating my theory for this season of life. And it's diminished capacity. That's what I had when I was sick. It's probably, I might increase impact but I can't increase capacity five years from now from what it is today. We know what the odds are on that. The long game is at 70 you're not gonna be quite as strong and energetic as you were at 60 as you were at 40 as you were at 20. So you know where the trajectory is going to. On the other hand, I want to be the best version of 60 or 70 or what's ahead that I can be.
- [67:33]
B
You talked about diminished capacity. Obviously, that makes a lot of sense.
- [67:37]
A
That's depressing to say out loud.
- [67:40]
B
But let me ask you something totally different than the capacity thing. In the time that you've had diminished capacity, how have your relationships been with Tony and the boys?
- [67:52]
A
You know, other than the crazy meds, Amazing. The one thing I really debated, because I wasn't going to say anything publicly, I'm like, oh, gosh, just let this thing pass. So I'm lying in the emergency room and realizing, well, actually I'm supposed to fly out tomorrow and go to Seattle and speak at an event and then go to California Direct after that. I got to tell these guys something. So I did. And we just let them know, hey, I'm so sorry. Surprise admission to the hospital. Not sure what's going on. Can't make the conference feel terrible about it. But I wasn't going to say anything on social media. And the next day I kind of woke up and I'm like, well, I woke up in a hospital. I think I better say something. There's a lot of people who have been very nice to me. And so I just did that post which you saw and lots of other people saw. And the response of the church was unbelievable. I was not ready for how much kindness, how much goodness, how many prayers, how many texts, how many DMs, how many. How many people were genuinely, honestly, authentically concerned. And the number of people who have tracked, people who are way too busy to track, who have tracked with me. Lots of people I know, lots of people I don't know. So it made me incredibly grateful for people. And that was true. Like doctors that, you know, because I've been in the Same community for 30 years, some of the doctors who weren't on my case came in, in their off hours. Cause they were Christians or involved in our church or another church just to sit with me and kind of give me their perspective on what was happening. I was overwhelmed relationally. And I also realized at the end of the day, like, you know, that trip to New York City, Tony and I had three days where it was just us. And I'm like, no, I'm going deep with you, girl. Like, come on, let's go. And that's true with friends, too. We had Father's Day recently. Here we're Recording this in June, it was like eight hours with my youngest son, sometime tonight with my oldest, and just really, really. And treasuring my team, treasuring the people around me, Dunbar's number, that inner circle of three to five friends, just really, really treasuring that. And at the end of the day, it's relationships in your character that matter the most. And so I really want to focus on that. But I still want to work. I love what I do.
- [70:11]
B
I do love what I do. And let's shift gears a little bit, because I was thinking about that this is more of a succession thing. We have a big succession audience tracking with us. How important was having something you love to do to go to, even though that's changed a lot. What your organization looks like today and what it looked like, like, at the time of transition with Brody is different. But you had something there. You had vision, you had inspiration, you had something. How important has that been to you?
- [70:46]
A
It's huge. I mean, that was part of my getting ready to turn 60 reflections for a year. And I thought about a lot of my friends are retiring. And the question is, do you have any grandkids? Nope, we don't. One day, maybe, we don't know. But if you look at how our culture approaches life, you're supposed to reach a certain stage where theoretically, in some magical economy that doesn't exist, you have enough money that you don't need to work anymore. And I know this is a pastoral audience, so I'm not trying to rub salt into an open wound, but the idea is you don't work anymore, and then you move into consumption mode. So it's endless beaches, endless vacations. And literally a week, Yeah, a week before I landed in hospital, we're on the beach at my third, all inclusive in Curacao. You know, all the stereotypes. Like, it's just, you know, beaches and palm trees and ocean, and it was amazing. We had a great time. And I'm like, in a week is plenty. And Tony agrees. And so I've been thinking about that, and my metaphor is, I think we were not designed. We were designed to consume in small quantities. It's like food, eat healthy, enjoy your meal. But, you know, at some point, shut up and move on, right? You're done this meal. Move on. And so take a vacation. Enjoy your backyard. You know, go for a bike ride or whatever. But we're not designed to do endless vacations. And now, you know, our culture on social media, people, you know, 30 years ago, people took one vacation a year. Now they take 18 and the retirement is. And then we're in Croatia. And then we went to France, and then we did this and we did a private. And we did this and we did that. And I'm like, like, you can only lie on a beach for so long. So for me, where the joy is, is not in consumption. I do enjoy consuming in moderation. It's in contribution. And I think God designed us to create, he designed us to contribute. And so what I want to do in the next 20 years is I want to contribute. And if I can contribute to the dialogue, if I can contribute to the things that help the church in its mission, that help leaders, that is a greater joy than lying on the beach forever. I'll go once or twice a year and lie on the beach. We have a vacation coming up this summer where go to this little cabin an hour north of us and drive our boat for a week. But a week's plenty. Get a couple of doses. I take generally six weeks a year where I'm kind of in non work mode. And at this point, at 60, that's plenty. I don't need more. Maybe I'll say differently at 65 or 70, maybe my health will change. I don't know. Someone else's health will change. But that's enough. And I want to contribute. So what does contribution look like? And for. One of the big issues you and I have talked about, we deal with in our course is a lot of guys in my position, they don't want to leave because they can't imagine not contributing or they need the salary. But on the other hand, well, contribution can look like a million different things. It can be a zoom call for free for pastors. It could be meeting somebody down the road for coffee. It could be writing a book that maybe sells 1,000 copies. That's fine. You helped a thousand people. That's great. It's not New York Times bestseller. So what contribution can be redefined according to season and stage? And so you just gotta look at that. And Tony and I, we're pretty tight on. We want to be contributing into our 80s or however many years God gives us. And one day that may not be paid. That's fine. That's fine.
- [74:14]
B
Well, and I love that. Contribution looks different in different stages too. And you know, you interviewed Eldridge and he talked about the King stage, the Sage stage. And you know, it's like the word retirement isn't in the Bible. The picture of doing nothing isn't really in the Bible outside of a day of rest. And maybe some Sabbath type things.
- [74:42]
A
Well, and that's where Arthur Brooks and John Eldredge come together. You know, if you look at his different stages around this age, Arthur Brooks would date it after 40. That's where he moved from fluid to crystallized intelligence. This idea of wisdom and one thing, and it's funny, I've told Arthur, like, I found that at 42, I still remember the season where, you know, my 30s, I burned out at 41. My 30s were rapid growth years. We had 15 to 30% growth year after year after year, which is just amazing and exhausting. But everything seemed random. The relational patterns seemed random. The weirdness seemed random. The church scandals seemed random scandals. They weren't scandals, but you know, where somebody's mad at you about something or an elder resigns or whatever. I don't even think we had elders resigning, but somehow wanted to fire. But anyway, that's another story for another day. But you know what I mean? Just the day to day of leadership where you gotta fire a staff member. But it all seemed random. Random. And then at 42, I remember somebody going, yeah, we're leaving the church. And I'm like, oh, well, that's exactly like what happened with this person and that person and this person. And I started to connect the dots and I would see the pattern. And basically, you know, if you were to see me at a party and say, what do you do? Sometimes I tell people I connect dots. That's all I do. I just sit down and I look for the common denominator and I'm like, oh, that connects to this. Connects to this. That started for me less than 20 years ago. And Arthur Brooks says that's actually the function of how we develop as human beings, that our brain does different things that move from crystallized to fluid to crystallized intelligence. And Eldridge would make the same thing, right? He'd make the same argument. He'd be like, no, at 60, you shouldn't be in sports. You're the player, you're the rookie, you're the all star. And then you're the player coach. And then you're the coach. And you need to get into that coach phase. And I think those of us who've been through a few laps, we can maybe coach younger leaders, which is what I love doing, to avoid some pitfalls and go further, faster, as they say.
- [76:53]
B
Along those lines of learning along the way. Sage Yoda, wisdom. I'm gonna throw a quote at you and just love for you to process this in terms of wisdom along the way. Things you see now that you didn't see 10, 20 years ago. It's Henry David Thoreau. And it says. I don't think this is actually a hard quote. I think it's a summary of some of his words. But many men go fishing all of their lives without knowing that it's not a fish thereafter. Hmm.
- [77:26]
A
It's funny, I read a lot of Thoreau last year. Yeah? Yeah. I mean, my reflection, this is where my mind goes, is, yeah, you can chase growth as a young leader, you can chase size, you can chase the Outreach 100 list, you can chase whatever your title is. You can chase podcast downloads, you can chase whatever. But I think at the end of the day, what I'm really chasing is meaning, significance, love, affection, relationship. And it's funny, the thing you think is gonna get you there actually pushes that stuff away the harder you achieve. I mean, Thoreau lived in a really tiny cabin, probably not quite the size of my office. And everyone thinks he was way in the wilderness. He was only a couple miles from town, and he would entertain visitors and so on, but he would see the striving. And he found it really hard to move back into town after he abandone his because he saw the railroad had come and everything. Mid 19th century America. And so Thoreau was that interesting character who kind of saw it and then couldn't quite. I wonder if sometimes if that's what happened to Vincent Van Gogh, is he saw so clearly. We went to the Met and saw more original Van Goghs. We've seen a bunch of them, and the guy was geniusly talented. But if you read his letters, his letters are published on the Internet to his brother Theo. And he really saw deeply into human desire. And there's a certain point at which the psyche just disconnects and says, I can't live in this rat race. And so fortunately, I think God has done better than cutting off your ear and committing suicide. In Van Gogh's case, or Thoreau, who never. He really didn't embrace Christianity. God has done a lot better in giving us the gift of each other and the gift of his son, Jesus. And I think that is where our contentment. You know, I spent some time with some of Keller's team in New York and just reflecting on his legacy and interviewing another one of his biographers for my podcast. And that's someone. The deeper I go on Keller, the more I realize two things. Number one, he had a real friendship with God, a real friendship with God. Like, he really considered Jesus to be his friend, which is weird because he's so intellectual. But the second thing is, and this is what nobody really knows about Tim, or I didn't know about Tim, is we say his legacy lives on and is preaching in his books. True. But you can't spend 10 minutes at a church leaders conference in New York without some next gen church leader bringing up Tim's name and saying, tim. Tim used to have coffee with me. Tim had me in one of his cohorts. I was in one of Tim's seminaries class. He would come over from Roosevelt island and answer questions till 11 o' clock at night with a group of pastors I was discipling. His fingerprints are all over that next generation of leaders in New York City. So when you think about the legacy that Tim Keller left, yeah, it exists on the pages, but it really exists in the people. And so when I think about that Walden quote, I think about all the stuff you're chasing is actually the chase to find what you're really chasing. And when you really find find it, then perhaps you'll be satisfied, but it's not what you think it is.
- [80:56]
B
Yeah, so good. So good. Well, Carrie, this has been maybe my favorite podcast interview. This was super rich.
- [81:07]
A
We didn't have much structure, man.
- [81:09]
B
We didn't know.
- [81:09]
A
I texted you this morning and I said, you can talk about my health, that's fine. So here we are. No, but it feels like dinner, man. It feels like just conversation or in the backyard or at the fireplace or fire pit or whatever. No, this has been really, really enjoy. Thanks for permission. Just to talk and consider and reflect. I hope it's been helpful to other people. It's enjoyed it.
- [81:32]
B
Hugely helpful just being a part of this. And I'm overjoyed to think about people that we get to share it with. And I'll let you know what I hear back. And hopefully you'll hear some things too, from some of our listeners that maybe.
- [81:44]
A
Oh yeah, this was really rich. Thanks for your friendship. I really appreciate it. The older I get. And this is actually one of the presenting issues. Dr. Chappelle, when I started working with him maybe four or five years ago, we've really been working on that inner circle of Dunbar's number, those three to five friends, those 10 to 15 friends who know you well. And one of the things I so appreciate about your friendship is we just pick up where we left off and there's no and. We talk about everything. We talk about this, we talk about work, we talk about podcasts, all of that. And so I'm just really grateful for you, man. And bummed we didn't get to hang out in Davis because I was in the hospital, but looking forward to the next time. Time.
- [82:23]
B
Absolutely. Yep. I say, you know, I've gotten to know Carrie over the years and he's one of my best friends now and just love the joy of that statement and that it's mutual and also that we both just get to do such inspiring work with like, you talk about relationship. We're in relationship with people we respect profoundly.
- [82:48]
A
I sit in the back row taking notes. It is, it is. That was another thing since the hospital is like. Like, I have these moments regularly, but how did this become my life? Like, this is. This is pretty amazing. God. Like, wow. Like, just in awe. And you don't wanna lose that. Cause you have bad days. You have days where you can make stupid decisions and regret it. But, like, it's not bad. And if you have the margin to really reflect on that, I think most of us will realize it's better than we think it is.
- [83:16]
B
Yeah.
- [83:17]
A
Well, thank you.
- [83:18]
B
Such great stuff. Honored to have you. Thank you.
- [83:20]
A
Well, I hope that was a helpful conversation. Really grateful to Sean for that. It was funny the morning of. He's like, what do you want to talk about? I'm like, oh, I'll talk about AI. And he's like, something else. I'm like, well, you can ask me about my health. And here we go. So, man, sometimes on the outside looking in, it can be really difficult. You think, oh, other people don't have struggles. I have struggles. Well, you know what? Other people do have struggles. I have my own. And I wanted to be very transparent with you and I hope this has given you a filter, as I would now call it. You know that there are external stressors and I'm going to be paying attention to that. And I'm going to be keeping a running list. Like, I've got three things on the go or five things on the go. And depending on their severity, you know, five can pretty much disrupt your every day where you need to make time for it or, you know, I got to 29 before I almost reached my breaking point. So anyway, that's just something to think about, something to pray about. A new category for me, maybe it is for you. Hope it was incredibly helpful for you. Make sure you check out our partners. We are really, really grateful for them. Hey, next time we are going to come back with a fresh episode with Mark Clark. We're going to talk about preaching for a few weeks on the podcast. And we're going to talk about preaching secrets that actually work. We also have faith Urie Cho, Dr. Judah Smith and Les Par. We have Megan Fate Marshman and a whole lot more Bobby Gruenwald, et cetera, et cetera. Coming up on the podcast, if you haven't subscribed, please do so and you can get the shownotes@carynwhoff.com shownotes I'm particularly interested in you joining the Art of Leadership Academy. That's where we house the or give home to the show notes these days. And we have some really great discussions and I hope that this episode is going to produce some really healthy discussions inside the Acute Academy. Totally free to join up. Click the link underneath this episode wherever you're listening. And speaking of wherever you're listening, if you enjoyed or found this episode helpful, please subscribe, leave a rating and review. We would love to hear from you and maybe share it with a friend. Thank you so much for listening everyone. Thank you for your prayers and thank you for all of the concern and all the kindness. And if this conversation was helpful, do leave a rating and review. And I hope it helped you identify and perhaps even scale a growth barrier you're struggling with. Hey, before we go pastors, I know how hard it can be to keep your sermons fresh and relevant, especially when you are preaching week after week after week after week. So whether you're hitting writer's block or you're in a rush trying to put the finishing touches on your sermon, it can be hard. And so I want to help. I've created a 10 step preaching cheat sheet. Actually, I just totally revised it. After decades of preaching, I've simplified my sermon prep into a series of steps and reminders. Now updated, they're engaging, relevant, memorable, and ready for preaching in Today's culture. It's 10 simple prompts with examples that you can start using as early as today for next Sunday. So start transforming your preaching. Visit preachingcheatsheet.com get your new copy for free. Even if you downloaded this a year ago or so, we've had 40,000 church leaders download it. It's updated. Check it out preachingcheatsheet.com to download your copy absolutely free.