Brandon West: From Control to Stewardship in Leadership

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. Brandon West: Oftentimes my sense of success and identity are tied

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to things they shouldn't be.

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My bottom line, my bank account, my reputation, and they're going,

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I know that's not the way it's supposed to be, but I'm having a

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hard time getting unstuck from that.

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And I'd like to trade the soul crushing weight of outcomes for the soul

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lifting joy of a life lived for God in faithfulness and surrendered to His plan

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Um, uh,

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Tim Winders (2): How do you measure true success in leadership?

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Today we're joined by Brandon West, a man of many roles, author, speaker,

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entrepreneur, and pastor at just 26, Brandon founded FOSS creative,

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a strategy first digital marketing agency that has earned accolades from.

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to the Best Christian Workplaces Institute.

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Beyond his professional success, Brandon is passionate about nurturing

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faith in the marketplace, mentoring at Salt Church and enjoying

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life's simpler pleasures with his family.

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We'll dive into his new book.

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It's not your business to succeed, which challenges conventional success

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metrics and guides leaders towards a life of lasting impact and purpose.

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Join us as we explore how Brandon's journey can inspire

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your own leadership path.

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Brandon, welcome to seek, go create.

Brandon West: 00:01:28

Tim, what a joy, man.

Brandon West: 00:01:29

So excited to be with you today.

Tim Winders: 00:01:31

Speaking about life's simpler.

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Pleasures.

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How's your wife Shelly doing

Brandon West: 00:01:36

Yeah, my wife, Shelly.

Brandon West: 00:01:37

Amazing, amazing woman.

Brandon West: 00:01:39

We've been married for 18 years now, and she's an avid rock climber.

Brandon West: 00:01:44

We live in Gainesville, Florida, so Tim was guessing whether or not

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we were on a mountain or in a gym.

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Let's just say that we probably couldn't rock climb a mountain for

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miles and miles, even if we wanted to.

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So in a gym, spiral fracture on her finger, had to have Surgery,

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but I was able to be by her bedside yesterday and pray over her and make

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her laugh coming in and out of nerve blocks and all kinds of surgery.

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She's doing great.

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I was confident walking out of there that the Lord was with us the whole

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time and that, he met us and heard our prayers and the fact that any one of

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us can say that about God's presence, given who we are, and our brokenness,

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our sinfulness is just an amazing.

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Privilege and delight.

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So she's doing great.

Brandon West: 00:02:25

Super thankful.

Tim Winders: 00:02:26

Good.

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Now, is she gonna, is there any discussion yet about when she's going to get

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back on the wall or climbing again?

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Or is it, she's going to have to like take a pickleball or

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what's, what's happening there?

Brandon West: 00:02:38

Well, fortunately she likes pickleball as well, so that'll hopefully

Brandon West: 00:02:41

be sooner, but she's also like, am I going to be able to grip the paddle?

Brandon West: 00:02:44

I don't know if it was her, she would be back on the wall tomorrow.

Brandon West: 00:02:48

So we'll see.

Tim Winders: 00:02:50

Well, anyway, we got the message like, we were

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supposed to hit record yesterday.

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Glory got the message.

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So we did pray for y'all and expected good things from that.

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And, anyway, I've got more questions later about family and things like that.

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But let me dive into question number one here.

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And it's kind of my, it used to be sort of icebreaker issue.

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Now it's kind of got a little bit deeper.

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So here's your choices.

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Okay.

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Brandon, you could either answer the typical networking, what do you do?

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Which is fine.

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I love that question.

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Or you can answer the much more metaphysically deep, who are you?

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Question.

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So which question do you want to take and run with and go

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ahead and answer it for us?

Brandon West: 00:03:33

I'm going to answer what you do, but I'm going

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to answer it for this reason.

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I love and I am inspired by lives of men and women whose answer to

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the question, what you do begins with a definition of who you are.

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I love when men and women, leaders who I respect, leaders worth following.

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are doing what they do based on a deep understanding of who they are.

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I am a man created in the likeness of an eternal God who was once separated

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from him by my sin, my rebellion, who God in his kindness sent his son

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to be a sacrifice for my sin so that I could be freed from my sin, And

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live for him and for his glory by delighting in him for all of eternity.

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He has created me in Christ Jesus for good works and by his grace, he's opened

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my eyes to moving away from a life of selfishness and pride and rebellion to

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one lived in surrender and joy for him.

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And that leads me to get to do the things that I feel he's called me to.

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Each one of us created with a unique purpose inside of that unique

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Positioning of who we are in Christ.

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my personal mission is to pastor leaders in the marketplace.

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That's what I do.

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I do that through a really cool agency called FOSCreative.

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And I get to do that in my home.

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When I walk home to my wife and to my kids, and I get to pastor them, I get to

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do that when I walk into my church here in Gainesville Salt Church, I get to do

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that when I walk onto a stage like this.

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I get to do that when I walk into a small group of young

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married couples that we lead.

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Everywhere I go, by the grace of God, lean into who he's created me to be,

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to do what he's created me to do.

Tim Winders: 00:05:26

That's a great response there, Brandon.

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You know, there, There's a lot of words that we throw around in our

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culture today, especially in the, we'll call it the Christian circles,

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you know, purpose and impact and, you know, word, words like that.

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I was joking with someone I was interviewing that long ago that when

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I was a full out heathen, I never thought anything of that, you know,

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it wasn't even didn't cross my mind.

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But when, you know, cause I, I know your, I think you're in your thirties.

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Is that correct?

Brandon West: 00:05:59

just 38.

Tim Winders: 00:06:01

Okay.

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All right.

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it's time's marching on Brandon.

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So I just turned 61.

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So let me I can give you a glimpse of the future but When how long do

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you think you would have responded?

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That way to that question.

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I mean like go back 10 years 20 30, whatever Or was it last week that

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you rolled out of bed and say oh now I know Who I am and what did it give

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me a little bit of perspective of?

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When you have stepped into that, Who you are and what you do type response.

Brandon West: 00:06:29

Yeah.

Brandon West: 00:06:30

Tim, I fully agree with you that purpose is sort of a first world problem.

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And I get it.

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Like, I remember two years ago, I'm driving down to this big party that

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we're doing for foes, rent out this giant mansion to celebrate 10 years in business.

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And on the way down, the podcast I chose to listen to was on Purposed as an Idol.

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As much as I love living from Purposed, Purposed can Almost be distracting like

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I'm seeking something that isn't God Its purpose is not God purposes from God it

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you know people in the the developing world Often don't talk about purpose.

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It's hard to translate into other languages I think where I'm coming from

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it's I have this revelation recently that my Christian journey It started 20

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years ago, actually began with Purpose.

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I was reading Rick Warren's The Purpose Driven Life, and he was talking

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about giving your life to Christ and purpose, like, write this letter to God

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surrendering your life and like calling out for God's purpose in your life.

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And I just thought, I've never done this before.

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And I just wrote, Dear God, you know, come up.

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And I'm writing this letter like, I don't want my life anymore.

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I want yours.

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And I think that was the first time I stepped.

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towards purpose.

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All of us have the exact same purpose, go and make disciples of all of the

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world, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

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That's everyone's purpose.

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And yet there are these unique components where we can just go,

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look, it doesn't define who I am to pursue or do this one specific thing.

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People's purposes aren't tied to activities.

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They're tied to Who we are becoming because as soon as you say, well, my

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purpose is doing this thing and then you lose that job You lost your purpose.

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My job was my purpose and now God's like, I don't want to strip that from you.

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That's not your purpose Your purpose is for me Blessing my people bringing

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something to the world and who you are and the message that I've given

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you to steward I think purpose is a long journey And we asked simple

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questions along the way to define it.

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we make small steps towards a brave, long journey towards purpose.

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Andy Stanley would say this purpose is found at the

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intersection of a broken heart.

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Opportunity and skill.

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What breaks your heart?

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Where is there brokenness and opportunity in the world?

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And what skills do you have to bring to the table to solve that

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brokenness and step into those places?

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Purpose You can do that being a fry cooker at McDonald's.

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You can do that tilling the soil in a farm.

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You can do that as an entrepreneur.

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You can do that, wherever God's called you to, and in the middle

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of that, you can find purpose.

Tim Winders: 00:09:23

Yeah, I do.

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It's interesting.

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Something that just came to mind and I don't remember the exact source of this,

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but it was someone who is, it was in a book, I believe that was talking about,

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they were talking to their grandfather about what his purpose had been.

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And this was someone who'd come through the depression and things like that.

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he kind of scoffed would be a nice word to say what his grandfather said.

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Purpose.

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He goes, I got up every day, I attempted to get to my job so that I could bring

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money in to keep food on our table.

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That was what I was there for.

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So I do think there's a certain degree of, like you said, first worldness

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that maybe allows us a little bit of too much luxury to think about this

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and maybe even overthink about it.

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I know that you are in a college town.

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Sarah, I know there's a community college there.

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Is there a university there in Gainesville?

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I can't recall.

Brandon West: 00:10:23

There's a giant community college,

Tim Winders: 00:10:26

There is.

Brandon West: 00:10:27

And then there's this other big school called

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the University of Florida where the Gators play and Tim Tebow

Tim Winders: 00:10:34

Yeah.

Tim Winders: 00:10:34

so my point is, being originally from the Atlanta area and all,

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and I went to Georgia Tech, but my wife went to University of Georgia.

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So there's probably something there that we don't need to get into, but

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there's a lot of young people around and

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I'm guessing there's a heavy, heavy young population there.

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What are you seeing?

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What are they going through?

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What's the biggest challenges?

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What are they facing in this world that we're in today, where we're recording

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this in late 24, people might be listening in, in 2025, give me some observations.

Brandon West: 00:11:06

Yeah.

Brandon West: 00:11:09

I'm going to speak from the perspective of where I sit right

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now, We live in a generation full of anxiety and anxiousness and

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Gainesville, the University of Florida.

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is full of that.

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it's interesting because the university is pumping out the anxious

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generation of people who believe that the career they get and the

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money they make is their purpose.

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It is the definition of who they are.

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And when the position is high in the organization and the

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salary is high, I am successful.

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And when those things are low, regardless of what I do, I am not successful.

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I've missed something I have missed out on my potential in life.

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And we see those things as the greatest evil in our society, and

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what they do is they create anxiety.

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They create a sense of our definition and worth tied to what we do, what we make.

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And I am so tempted to do that, even in my own leadership.

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When things are up and to the right, I am a great leader.

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And when things are flat or down, I'm thinking, Lord, what have I done?

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what sin did this man's parents commit that he would be born blind?

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Like, we're just tempted to go there.

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Everything broken in my life is broken.

Brandon West: 00:12:23

In me, and that is a really hard place to anchor our identity.

Tim Winders: 00:12:28

what is it like?

Tim Winders: 00:12:29

Cause I know you have a business in that.

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atmosphere.

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You also have a church, so you do ministry.

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what is it like for you personally just to be in that atmosphere?

Tim Winders: 00:12:39

But first of all, just hit each one of those.

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What's it like to have a ministry where you're attempting to be

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salt, I'm assuming, in that atmosphere, in that environment?

Tim Winders: 00:12:49

And then maybe talk about what it's like to have a company in that environment.

Brandon West: 00:12:53

Well, here's the first thing that I would say.

Brandon West: 00:12:56

Um, I don't see the work that I do at my church as ministry and the

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things that I do at my business as my corporate marketplace leadership, when

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people ask me, Oh, you're a pastor.

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So you're like full time there.

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I'm like, no, no, no.

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I'm just, I'm a volunteer elder and pastor.

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They're like, Oh, okay.

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So you're not in full time ministry.

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So no, no, I am in full time ministry.

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And they're like, but you said you weren't full time in your church.

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I was like, yeah, I'm in full time ministry at my business.

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We We call it business as a ministry.

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Bam.

Brandon West: 00:13:28

That the reason that we exist is not some lifestyle business where I'm

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trying to raise up as much money as possible so I can go play pickleball and

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rock climb with my wife all day long.

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I'm not trying to raise up so much EBITDA in the company that I can

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go have some big exit one day.

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I'm seeing actually right now.

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Day to day, quarter by quarter and year by year, the grace of God displayed

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in us chasing not fame, not glory, not money, but using everything we've been

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given every platform, every influence, every bit of power and control or

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finances that we've been, we've been granted to see it as a steward to

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go and leverage it for care, love, compassion, evangelism, and ministry.

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Our mission.

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As a company is to cultivate true flourishing in people and

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organizations while reflecting the love of Jesus to the world.

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Our Our vision is to launch 30 care centers around the world that care

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for women and children impacted by extreme poverty and sex trafficking.

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We just launched our 17th care center now in 11 different

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countries serving over 2, 400.

Brandon West: 00:14:32

women and children.

Brandon West: 00:14:34

To offer that, that is, that is ministry.

Brandon West: 00:14:37

Even Billy Graham said that he believed the next big movement of God was

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going to come through the marketplace.

Brandon West: 00:14:43

I love what I get to do at Salt Church.

Brandon West: 00:14:45

It's one aspect of my ministry.

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But if each of us would just simply go, no, no, I am a full

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time minister of the gospel.

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Every single leader is a pastor, because you have influence and

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you're working with people.

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You get influence of people, you get to lead people, you get to manage

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people, you get to shepherd people, you get to guide people somewhere.

Brandon West: 00:15:05

And all of us are doing that.

Brandon West: 00:15:07

The question is, who are they becoming?

Brandon West: 00:15:10

Under our leadership, under our ministry.

Brandon West: 00:15:13

that's leadership worth investing in.

Tim Winders: 00:15:17

But Brandon, you know this, that a lot of people really

Tim Winders: 00:15:20

do believe that you're supposed to keep those things separate.

Tim Winders: 00:15:24

I'm not saying that I do, but, I bring this up often here.

Tim Winders: 00:15:28

I spent some time at Bible school a handful of years ago and there really

Tim Winders: 00:15:33

is this pecking order of, you know, this is the way you serve God, you

Tim Winders: 00:15:38

missionary in a third world country.

Tim Winders: 00:15:40

That's like the most virtuous.

Tim Winders: 00:15:41

And then it just keeps kind of going down, but you know, you're Speaking

Tim Winders: 00:15:45

my language here, what do you say to people that say, Oh, come on, Brandon,

Tim Winders: 00:15:52

you need to keep these things separate.

Brandon West: 00:15:55

Yeah, first, I empathize with the people who believe

Brandon West: 00:16:00

that church, faith, religion and business should be kept separate.

Brandon West: 00:16:05

That is the resounding marketplace position for any Christian leader.

Brandon West: 00:16:13

And we only need a single cake baker.

Brandon West: 00:16:15

Or another person to make the news or wind up in the Supreme Court being

Brandon West: 00:16:20

sued for their Christian positioning in the marketplace to believe that

Brandon West: 00:16:24

doing so is a waste of our resources.

Brandon West: 00:16:29

I remember hearing about, David Green, the CEO of Hobby Lobby, once speaking

Brandon West: 00:16:35

to one of his executive board members about, They're positioning in the

Brandon West: 00:16:40

marketplace as a business, as a ministry.

Brandon West: 00:16:42

And one of their risk analysis guys came by one of their legal people

Brandon West: 00:16:46

and said, like, why would we do this?

Brandon West: 00:16:47

Like what a risk.

Brandon West: 00:16:49

And he sat there and told the man a story about the gospel

Brandon West: 00:16:52

and the gospel going forth.

Brandon West: 00:16:54

And the man with tears in his eyes left his office and he

Brandon West: 00:16:57

didn't ever ask him again.

Brandon West: 00:16:59

David's point was, why would we risk, why would we take

Brandon West: 00:17:03

all these risks for business?

Brandon West: 00:17:05

Debt, expansion, marketplace domination, new product lines,

Brandon West: 00:17:10

new service, new people, open a new store, all these huge risks.

Brandon West: 00:17:14

Huge risk with gigantic possible downsides.

Brandon West: 00:17:18

But then over here, we're like, Hey, we have an opportunity here.

Brandon West: 00:17:20

All these people who walk in every day for the gospel, for love, compassion,

Brandon West: 00:17:23

ministry, empathy, discipleship, Bible study, prayer, growing them

Brandon West: 00:17:27

as spiritual leaders in their home.

Brandon West: 00:17:29

too great of a risk.

Brandon West: 00:17:31

I empathize with the person who goes, you know what?

Brandon West: 00:17:34

I bought into everything I got on the news yesterday.

Brandon West: 00:17:37

I think I'm going to step out.

Brandon West: 00:17:38

And that's one option.

Brandon West: 00:17:40

Do your business, do great work.

Brandon West: 00:17:42

You know, even Martin Luther would say, you don't have to put a Christian

Brandon West: 00:17:46

fish on the side of your shoes to be a God pleasing Christian shoemaker.

Brandon West: 00:17:51

You don't have to do that, but man, what an opportunity when we give up that

Brandon West: 00:17:56

we give up when we waste our business.

Brandon West: 00:17:59

We waste our business on the next earnings report when people are broken and people

Brandon West: 00:18:04

are hurting and people are suffering.

Brandon West: 00:18:07

And we have the best answer in the world.

Brandon West: 00:18:09

And the best that we could tell them is no invest in these docs over here.

Brandon West: 00:18:13

And I'm sure you'll be fine.

Brandon West: 00:18:14

One day, what a, what an inappropriate answer for somebody who truly believes

Brandon West: 00:18:20

that, The best answer to all of their brokenness isn't more finances, more

Brandon West: 00:18:25

pharmaceuticals, more fill in the blank, and we're going, actually, this gospel

Brandon West: 00:18:33

message is really good news to you.

Brandon West: 00:18:34

It's good news to your soul.

Brandon West: 00:18:36

It's hard.

Brandon West: 00:18:37

There's a lot of risk involved, but where would we rather take

Brandon West: 00:18:40

the risk as a faithful leader?

Tim Winders: 00:18:42

And what's truthfully, what's the alternative?

Tim Winders: 00:18:45

If people really understand the alternative, it is the choice.

Tim Winders: 00:18:51

Did you grow up?

Tim Winders: 00:18:52

In and around the church, I mean, were you, you know, from reading through

Tim Winders: 00:18:55

your book here, it is not your business to succeed, which fits so well into

Tim Winders: 00:19:00

what we do here at, Seek Go Create.

Tim Winders: 00:19:03

did you grow up in and around the church?

Tim Winders: 00:19:05

Do you think you might be moving into like a traditional ministry role or

Tim Winders: 00:19:09

give me a little bit of your background?

Brandon West: 00:19:11

Yeah, so good.

Brandon West: 00:19:12

I was interviewing somebody the other day and we were, I was attempting

Brandon West: 00:19:16

to test their level of desire to join a company whose mission is by

Brandon West: 00:19:24

choice, exceedingly Jesus centric.

Brandon West: 00:19:28

And she turned to me and her response was, I'm, I'm good with it.

Brandon West: 00:19:32

I speak Christian.

Brandon West: 00:19:34

Bye bye.

Brandon West: 00:19:36

And we, her and I both just started laughing out loud because we knew

Brandon West: 00:19:39

exactly what she was trying to say.

Tim Winders: 00:19:41

Yeah.

Brandon West: 00:19:43

I told her, I was like, look, we do not hire here based

Brandon West: 00:19:46

on any preference, any position.

Brandon West: 00:19:50

We hire everyone in the marketplace.

Brandon West: 00:19:53

I just want every single person on the team to go, we have this

Brandon West: 00:19:55

mission and it's about reflecting love of Jesus to the world.

Brandon West: 00:19:58

I see in that historical figure, a love worth exemplifying.

Brandon West: 00:20:01

I'm excited to be on this team.

Brandon West: 00:20:03

We've had non, non believers on this team say that to me, and I turned to

Brandon West: 00:20:06

them and said, that is why I hired you.

Brandon West: 00:20:09

That is why you are here.

Brandon West: 00:20:11

I didn't grow up, around, you know, Strong, faithful, gospel

Brandon West: 00:20:16

centered, Bible driven, church focused leadership in my home.

Brandon West: 00:20:23

I grew up in a loving home with parents that loved me really well, did fun things

Brandon West: 00:20:27

with me, made life really enjoyable, took me to Bible camps and took me

Brandon West: 00:20:33

to church on Easter and Christmas and a few times in between, but there

Brandon West: 00:20:37

wasn't a deep love and affection for Christ and the gospel and Jesus.

Brandon West: 00:20:44

But I'm thankful for the platform that they gave me.

Brandon West: 00:20:48

I think I met Christ most face to face reading that book that I mentioned, The

Brandon West: 00:20:55

Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren, but it came out of a summer in which I had

Brandon West: 00:21:00

met a man at a Christian summer camp who to me, Seemed like the best example of a

Brandon West: 00:21:07

true Christian that I had ever met before.

Brandon West: 00:21:10

There was something about him where I said, man, whatever,

Brandon West: 00:21:12

whatever joy juice you're drinking, like, I want some of it, man.

Brandon West: 00:21:16

Because whatever you are, I want to be when I grow up.

Brandon West: 00:21:20

And I think the Holy Spirit eventually brought to me this message of either

Brandon West: 00:21:23

The conviction of my heart was either they're like a really super Christian

Brandon West: 00:21:27

and I'm just like a nominal Christian, or they're a real Christian and I've

Brandon West: 00:21:31

actually never tasted of the gospel.

Brandon West: 00:21:34

And, when I was 16 years old, surrendered my life to Christ,

Brandon West: 00:21:37

writing that Dear God letter.

Brandon West: 00:21:39

And God's just taken me at each step and gone, I have something more for you.

Brandon West: 00:21:45

And it's, it starts with a deep affection for me.

Tim Winders: 00:21:50

Did that, were you thinking at that point that you were going

Tim Winders: 00:21:55

to do something in a ministry space?

Tim Winders: 00:21:58

Were you going to go out into the marketplace?

Tim Winders: 00:22:01

where was your path leading and guiding you at that late teenage?

Tim Winders: 00:22:06

Because we all know exactly what we're going to do when we're 16, right?

Brandon West: 00:22:11

I think growing up, I wanted to be whatever every

Brandon West: 00:22:14

other young boy wanted to be.

Brandon West: 00:22:15

I wanted to be an astronaut or a jet pilot or something awesome or work with, you

Brandon West: 00:22:21

know, big trucks and things like that.

Brandon West: 00:22:23

Eventually you start going through these classes in high school

Brandon West: 00:22:27

that are talking about careers and you're like, This is real.

Brandon West: 00:22:30

This is a thing.

Brandon West: 00:22:31

And one of the first questions you start asking is how much

Brandon West: 00:22:33

money do each of them make?

Brandon West: 00:22:36

And so you just, you go up the chart to the one that has the highest number

Brandon West: 00:22:39

and you say, fine, I'll be that.

Brandon West: 00:22:41

And for me, that, that number on the top was a lawyer.

Brandon West: 00:22:44

I was like, Oh, I love debating with my mom.

Brandon West: 00:22:47

And that, that lawyer has a lot of zeros behind it.

Brandon West: 00:22:50

Like I can do that.

Brandon West: 00:22:51

I'll figure it out.

Brandon West: 00:22:53

By the time I got to college, God had renewed my heart

Brandon West: 00:22:58

and given me a fresh desire.

Brandon West: 00:23:00

It was, I wanted to do something that I loved to do.

Brandon West: 00:23:04

Joined the University of Florida, started in the graphic design program.

Brandon West: 00:23:08

But I'm literally, my wife is an artist.

Brandon West: 00:23:11

I'm in this graphic design program being told, you're not going to touch

Brandon West: 00:23:14

a computer until your third year.

Brandon West: 00:23:16

So I'm over in my kitchen painting Bob Roth, while she's over in her apartment,

Brandon West: 00:23:22

dying doing chemistry and mathematics.

Brandon West: 00:23:24

So we would just switch.

Brandon West: 00:23:26

She'd be painting my landscapes and I'd be doing her math homework and both of

Brandon West: 00:23:30

us were like, I don't think we're at the university for the right things.

Brandon West: 00:23:34

So, we got married after our first year of college, moved in together.

Brandon West: 00:23:38

At 19, we had our first kid.

Brandon West: 00:23:41

At 24, we had our second kid.

Brandon West: 00:23:44

And then at 26, I started, my company.

Brandon West: 00:23:49

As I finished out the University of Florida, uh, I was like, this is, I

Brandon West: 00:23:54

didn't come to UF to paint paintings.

Brandon West: 00:23:56

So I switched to family youth and community sciences, believing that

Brandon West: 00:24:00

that was the best thing UF had to offer me to go into pastoral ministry.

Brandon West: 00:24:05

But then when I talked to my pastor a year later, he was like,

Brandon West: 00:24:08

If you want to be a pastor, why aren't you studying the Classics?

Brandon West: 00:24:11

And I was like, what is that?

Brandon West: 00:24:12

I don't even know.

Brandon West: 00:24:14

And he's like, that's Greek and Latin language, Greek and Roman history.

Brandon West: 00:24:16

And I was like, that's John MacArthur's secret sauce.

Brandon West: 00:24:20

That's why he's so good at teaching.

Brandon West: 00:24:22

So I switched over, I completed my degree in Classical Studies

Brandon West: 00:24:25

with an emphasis in Koine Greek.

Brandon West: 00:24:27

A business administration minor, and basically what I got from all of that

Brandon West: 00:24:32

was the name of my company, Phosts, which is the Greek word for light.

Tim Winders: 00:24:36

I'm glad you explained that because I told you

Tim Winders: 00:24:37

I'm going to need to ask that.

Tim Winders: 00:24:39

But I want to say I want to back up just a second because we have from the RV here,

Tim Winders: 00:24:44

the 39 foot RV, we have an incredible research staff that's in the back there.

Tim Winders: 00:24:50

And in the midst of the research for this interview, Brandon, we did find out

Tim Winders: 00:24:55

that you may have had one of the best.

Tim Winders: 00:25:00

I don't even know if it's a pet.

Tim Winders: 00:25:01

Pick up line or a way to find a, an incredible woman that we may have heard.

Tim Winders: 00:25:07

And so we are going to need to get your tips on how to find a wife.

Tim Winders: 00:25:13

How did you capture this Shelly?

Tim Winders: 00:25:17

Who's rock climber, brilliant, always sound like that.

Tim Winders: 00:25:19

So you gotta, you gotta give the tip here.

Tim Winders: 00:25:21

Our research staff did the research.

Tim Winders: 00:25:23

So tell us that story.

Brandon West: 00:25:25

I will submit to you that while I'm about to give you this and have

Brandon West: 00:25:28

recommended to my sons that they follow in like path, they have disagreed with me.

Brandon West: 00:25:33

on the effectiveness of this particular methodology for finding the woman of your

Brandon West: 00:25:39

dreams that God's called you to be with.

Brandon West: 00:25:41

So we're in high school and when we go to the same youth group, we don't

Brandon West: 00:25:46

realize it's at a big megachurch.

Brandon West: 00:25:49

we had this, this, friend in common.

Brandon West: 00:25:50

So I didn't know Shelly.

Brandon West: 00:25:51

She didn't know me, but we both knew this one friend.

Brandon West: 00:25:56

Well, they had this running gag going back and forth on

Brandon West: 00:26:02

So that night, Mike walks into youth group, it's near Christmas, about

Brandon West: 00:26:05

this time of the year, and Shelly hands Mike this Christmas present.

Brandon West: 00:26:10

And it is a bag full of six rolls of toilet paper.

Brandon West: 00:26:14

So in the middle of youth group, he and I go out to the parking lot and

Brandon West: 00:26:17

from head to toe wrap her yellow Honda civic hatchback in toilet paper.

Brandon West: 00:26:23

So you, it was, it turned white.

Brandon West: 00:26:24

We took every single one of those toilet paper rolls and hung

Brandon West: 00:26:27

it on her antenna on her car.

Brandon West: 00:26:30

After youth group, she comes out, sees this, has a great laugh.

Brandon West: 00:26:34

And we hop in her vehicle.

Brandon West: 00:26:35

And that night, Shelly and I fall in love talking about.

Brandon West: 00:26:39

scuba diving, Jesus, music, toilet paper, each other's cars, and she

Brandon West: 00:26:44

teaches me how to, how to drive stick shift in the middle of our So my

Brandon West: 00:26:49

sons disagree with me disobediently, but yeah, I mean, if it worked for

Brandon West: 00:26:54

me, it must work for all other men.

Brandon West: 00:26:55

See if you can toilet paper their vehicle, like Target,

Brandon West: 00:26:58

church, wherever it needs to be.

Tim Winders: 00:27:01

Yeah, I think maybe there's more a message

Tim Winders: 00:27:04

of God's sense of humor, grace.

Tim Winders: 00:27:10

Maybe you think, or is that a tactic?

Tim Winders: 00:27:12

I mean, do you, I mean, I, you know, a little, a little booklet on, you

Tim Winders: 00:27:15

know, toilet paper, her car, she'll love you forever and I don't think so.

Brandon West: 00:27:22

Gary Thomas's five love languages.

Brandon West: 00:27:24

Like, it's an extra one for some women where it's like my love language.

Brandon West: 00:27:29

is toilet paper.

Brandon West: 00:27:30

So it's just, it's a sixth one.

Brandon West: 00:27:31

You rarely get to that one in the book though.

Tim Winders: 00:27:34

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Tim Winders: 00:27:35

But, anyway, I, yeah, we, we saw that somewhere and said,

Tim Winders: 00:27:37

oh, that's pretty humorous.

Tim Winders: 00:27:38

So.

Tim Winders: 00:27:39

Alright.

Tim Winders: 00:27:39

So, so somewhere along the way, and, and I wanna jump a little bit to

Tim Winders: 00:27:45

the topic of your book, which is, it's Not Your Business to Succeed.

Tim Winders: 00:27:49

I had to read that like a few times to kind of grasp it, but it fits so well

Tim Winders: 00:27:55

into this foundational thing that I want to kind of ask right now, which is at.

Tim Winders: 00:28:01

At that time in your life, you kind of did a real quick of college.

Tim Winders: 00:28:05

You did some work, then you started your company at 26.

Tim Winders: 00:28:08

But how were you defining success?

Tim Winders: 00:28:11

What was success to you during that season of your life?

Brandon West: 00:28:17

I think success to each of us, like we define it

Brandon West: 00:28:20

differently, at least when it's healthy, but when it's unhealthy,

Brandon West: 00:28:26

most of us define it the same way.

Brandon West: 00:28:29

If I get this salary, if I'm able to achieve this income level, once I have

Brandon West: 00:28:36

this much in my savings account, once I'm able to check off these number of

Brandon West: 00:28:41

countries that I've visited, Once I have these, this number of kids, once we have

Brandon West: 00:28:47

this number of bedrooms in our home, once I have this many followers on Instagram,

Brandon West: 00:28:53

fill in the blank, once I have power, once I have money, once I have prestige,

Brandon West: 00:29:00

once I have fame, I will be successful.

Brandon West: 00:29:05

I think when I started my company, really all I wanted to do at

Brandon West: 00:29:08

the time was to be successful.

Brandon West: 00:29:09

Was just do what I loved doing all day long.

Brandon West: 00:29:13

I remember when we built the first ever website for folks and

Brandon West: 00:29:17

my wife and I, my wife just asked me this very simple question.

Brandon West: 00:29:20

Will there be anywhere on the website where the name Jesus appears

Brandon West: 00:29:23

like anywhere on the website?

Brandon West: 00:29:25

Will you see the words, the word Jesus anywhere?

Brandon West: 00:29:28

Is it going to be white on white backgrounds?

Brandon West: 00:29:29

This is going to be anywhere through the little fish at the bottom.

Brandon West: 00:29:32

And we just decided, no, no, we are going to do work excellently.

Brandon West: 00:29:38

Amen.

Brandon West: 00:29:38

for God's glory, and that's going to be enough, and that is enough.

Brandon West: 00:29:42

There is a beauty in this and a simplicity to that.

Brandon West: 00:29:45

I was reading Gary Thomas's book right now, Sacred Marriage, and he opens up

Brandon West: 00:29:50

with, the father speaking over the son.

Brandon West: 00:29:52

this is my son in whom I'm well pleased.

Brandon West: 00:29:57

And he goes, what did Jesus done in his ministry at that point that

Brandon West: 00:30:00

the father could say over him?

Brandon West: 00:30:02

You are my son in whom I'm well pleased.

Brandon West: 00:30:05

Like, what had he done?

Brandon West: 00:30:06

He, like, obeyed his parents, gone to synagogue, helped out

Brandon West: 00:30:10

in his father's carpentry.

Brandon West: 00:30:12

That was about it.

Brandon West: 00:30:13

And you're just like, well, he said that because of who he is.

Brandon West: 00:30:17

And I'm like, oh, shoot.

Brandon West: 00:30:21

Like, God would say over me, you are my son in whom I'm well

Brandon West: 00:30:24

pleased, just because of who I am.

Brandon West: 00:30:27

Like, there's a real beauty in you.

Brandon West: 00:30:29

To that, but as we surrender to that, we also get to go now created in Christ.

Brandon West: 00:30:33

And it was from there that God began to open up purpose and

Brandon West: 00:30:38

ministry and what that looks like.

Tim Winders: 00:30:40

I'm going to go to Matthew 6 and I'll say, I'll go to that scripture

Tim Winders: 00:30:46

that says you can't serve two masters.

Tim Winders: 00:30:49

and I will say that the companies I started were looking to

Tim Winders: 00:30:54

serve that master of mammon.

Tim Winders: 00:30:57

I'll go ahead and be blunt about that.

Tim Winders: 00:31:01

What was the balance of those two?

Tim Winders: 00:31:03

If there was a balance at all, when you started the business,

Tim Winders: 00:31:07

because, here's where this really.

Tim Winders: 00:31:11

Becomes a challenge for people that are wired for business These are

Tim Winders: 00:31:14

the people that are listening in to a lot of leaders and all that.

Tim Winders: 00:31:17

It's like how do they strike that balance between?

Tim Winders: 00:31:22

The master that they serve and so i'm trying to drill down to ask you maybe

Tim Winders: 00:31:27

What was your journey like was it like?

Tim Winders: 00:31:29

Oh, no, I woke up one morning and I said nope I'm i'm serving the lord and

Tim Winders: 00:31:34

I am not serving mammon or Was there a process that you went through there?

Brandon West: 00:31:39

Yeah, I will say this.

Brandon West: 00:31:41

I think in a healthy company, there is no tension between profit and purpose.

Brandon West: 00:31:50

In a healthy company, profit is a means of fueling purpose.

Brandon West: 00:31:56

In an unhealthy company, you're like, Well, I can't do purpose

Brandon West: 00:32:00

because I don't have profit.

Brandon West: 00:32:01

Like, well, I can't do profit because I'm seeking purpose

Brandon West: 00:32:04

They're like, no, no, no.

Brandon West: 00:32:05

We're chasing this great purpose and finding a really profitable model.

Brandon West: 00:32:09

That's going to help us sustain that.

Brandon West: 00:32:10

We say at Fost that we want to run a great business for a greater purpose.

Brandon West: 00:32:15

It didn't start that way.

Brandon West: 00:32:17

I did just want to run a great business.

Brandon West: 00:32:19

I knew it was a platform, but it would be a platform in a very personal way.

Brandon West: 00:32:25

That's not a bad thing.

Brandon West: 00:32:26

Again, back to that Luther quote, you don't have to put a Christian fish on

Brandon West: 00:32:29

a shoe to be a Christian shoemaker.

Brandon West: 00:32:31

That pleases God.

Brandon West: 00:32:32

But as it grows, there is this transition, these, these transitions that happen

Brandon West: 00:32:38

between business for business sake.

Brandon West: 00:32:41

And business for God's sake.

Brandon West: 00:32:44

I've been musing on this concept recently.

Brandon West: 00:32:46

I recently read a book called The Intentional Father by John Tyson.

Brandon West: 00:32:51

An incredible book.

Brandon West: 00:32:53

For fathers, I cannot recommend this book enough.

Brandon West: 00:32:56

If I can do 20 percent of the things in this book, I'll be one of the

Brandon West: 00:33:01

best fathers in all of history.

Brandon West: 00:33:03

It is so, so good.

Brandon West: 00:33:05

But one of the things I've been musing on, he mentions in the book

Brandon West: 00:33:08

these five transitions that a boy makes from boyhood to manhood.

Brandon West: 00:33:13

Things like, he moves from the easy to hard, he begins to think less about the

Brandon West: 00:33:18

earthly, and he thinks about the eternal.

Brandon West: 00:33:21

And I've been thinking, like, as an entrepreneur, this, this, this,

Brandon West: 00:33:24

this transition, these transitions that happen over time to become a

Brandon West: 00:33:28

real business as a ministry leader.

Brandon West: 00:33:31

Those five shifts that I've been thinking through are from profit

Brandon West: 00:33:35

centered to purpose driven.

Brandon West: 00:33:37

Or somebody says it was just about profit and profit was at the

Brandon West: 00:33:40

center, but now it's purpose driven.

Brandon West: 00:33:42

It doesn't mean that it's profit lists.

Brandon West: 00:33:45

It's not profit discenter.

Brandon West: 00:33:47

That would be unprofitable for the business in every meaning of that word.

Brandon West: 00:33:52

But we shift from profit to purpose driven, purpose driven positioning.

Brandon West: 00:33:57

I think that leader also shifts from me to we, oftentimes an entrepreneur,

Brandon West: 00:34:02

like you start at the center.

Brandon West: 00:34:04

People love to say, Oh, Brandon, you're, you know, you're, these awards that you've

Brandon West: 00:34:08

gotten for being an employer, you do such a great job leading your company.

Brandon West: 00:34:13

Look what you've done.

Brandon West: 00:34:14

Look what you've accomplished.

Brandon West: 00:34:15

I'm like, look, first, there's no God in that equation.

Brandon West: 00:34:18

Secondly, I have an incredible team of people behind this door who are leading

Brandon West: 00:34:23

out on all the things that our culture is.

Brandon West: 00:34:25

And our culture is strong and it's beautiful and it's rich.

Brandon West: 00:34:28

Maybe it started me, but at some point we shift to we.

Brandon West: 00:34:31

We shift to shared leadership, delegation, collaboration, over competition, the

Brandon West: 00:34:35

need for community around me to fuel my leadership, fill in for my weaknesses and

Brandon West: 00:34:40

my gaps and make something happen that's far beyond my ability alone as a leader.

Brandon West: 00:34:44

I think that that leader shifts from control to surrender.

Brandon West: 00:34:48

I am a recovering control freak,

Brandon West: 00:34:51

Like, I want to have my hands on everything.

Brandon West: 00:34:53

I want to control it.

Brandon West: 00:34:54

And then when you shift from me to we, you actually have to surrender more.

Brandon West: 00:34:57

And you're like, okay, I'm just a steward.

Brandon West: 00:34:59

I have to release my identity from the company.

Brandon West: 00:35:01

I'm not self reliant anymore.

Brandon West: 00:35:03

I'm, you know, I made it happen in the beginning.

Brandon West: 00:35:05

I started this up.

Brandon West: 00:35:06

It's like, oh, actually, God, you've done all this.

Brandon West: 00:35:09

And if you've done this, I am so desperate for you to do more.

Brandon West: 00:35:13

In the future, I think that they shift from short term wins to kingdom

Brandon West: 00:35:18

outcomes, where we go, it's, it's not just about 90 day excellence.

Brandon West: 00:35:24

It's about multi year legacy that I can leave in this.

Brandon West: 00:35:27

And then finally, I think that they shift from ownership to stewardship.

Brandon West: 00:35:32

I'm the owner of this business.

Brandon West: 00:35:34

I'm the CEO.

Brandon West: 00:35:36

I call myself now, folks, the, the CPO, the Chief Purpose Officer, that

Brandon West: 00:35:42

really at the end of the day, my job is about stewarding what God's done,

Brandon West: 00:35:45

a purpose that's worth working for, so that these people get to walk in and

Brandon West: 00:35:48

go, what a joy it is to be a part of something that's so much bigger than

Brandon West: 00:35:52

just banging on my keyboard every day.

Brandon West: 00:35:53

So what it started as, what it is now, I think all of us as entrepreneurs,

Brandon West: 00:35:57

the more we move towards business as a ministry, we shift from, you know,

Brandon West: 00:36:00

Profits that are purpose driven from me to we, from control to surrender,

Brandon West: 00:36:04

short term wins to kingdom outcomes, and from ownership to stewardship.

Tim Winders: 00:36:10

I love that the way that answer flowed and it led to,

Tim Winders: 00:36:15

I think that exclamation point of ownership versus stewardship.

Tim Winders: 00:36:19

You talk about stewardship in the book and stewardship is something that we've

Tim Winders: 00:36:23

talked a good bit about here as someone who has adhered to the statement.

Tim Winders: 00:36:28

If it is to be, it's up to me in the past as someone who is

Tim Winders: 00:36:32

somewhat of a control person also.

Tim Winders: 00:36:34

So I think that journey is.

Tim Winders: 00:36:37

one of the biggest challenges That we go through and I think I love the

Tim Winders: 00:36:42

subtitle brook You can't you know what to do in your leadership role when you

Tim Winders: 00:36:45

can't control your outcomes and that's kind of tough for control people.

Tim Winders: 00:36:51

I think that's part of our journey many of our leadership journey

Tim Winders: 00:36:54

So let's talk a little bit about your journey What has happened?

Tim Winders: 00:36:58

That has allowed you and I and my guess if you're watching this If we're

Tim Winders: 00:37:02

honest here, you probably haven't done a total surrender with the outcomes

Tim Winders: 00:37:08

don't matter and things like that.

Tim Winders: 00:37:09

So you could talk about what that might be, and I'm not sure

Tim Winders: 00:37:12

that we're supposed to, but maybe that's something we can look at.

Tim Winders: 00:37:16

Talk a little bit about the journey you've been on.

Tim Winders: 00:37:18

To go from control freak to the statement that you just made at the end

Tim Winders: 00:37:23

of that last, comment you were making of thinking more of being a steward

Tim Winders: 00:37:29

as opposed to an owner, because a lot of people would say, Oh, you're the

Tim Winders: 00:37:31

owner of the company, but no, you use terms like we use terms like stewards.

Tim Winders: 00:37:35

So talk about the journey you've been on.

Tim Winders: 00:37:37

Cause I think people need to understand some steps along the way,

Brandon West: 00:37:40

Yeah, it breaks my heart for myself and for the other leaders around me

Brandon West: 00:37:47

that we so often tie our sense of success.

Brandon West: 00:37:51

To outcomes that we cannot control.

Brandon West: 00:37:55

What have I walked through?

Brandon West: 00:37:56

Well, one of the things I've walked

Tim Winders: 00:37:58

but we think we can though, right?

Tim Winders: 00:37:59

Brandon, do we fool ourselves into thinking we can at times?

Brandon West: 00:38:03

well, it's worked sometimes.

Brandon West: 00:38:06

the problem is it worked sometimes you're like, well, I set my

Brandon West: 00:38:10

heart to this and it went great.

Brandon West: 00:38:12

Therefore I am an awesome leader.

Brandon West: 00:38:14

My control is out of this world.

Brandon West: 00:38:16

And when I control things, I do great work.

Brandon West: 00:38:18

Look at the wake behind me.

Brandon West: 00:38:20

The problem is sometimes it doesn't work.

Brandon West: 00:38:22

And we go, I gave myself to this in every possible way that I could financially,

Brandon West: 00:38:28

physically, emotionally, relationally, maritally, I gave up my, you know, you're

Brandon West: 00:38:32

just like, I gave everything for this and I didn't get anything I wanted.

Brandon West: 00:38:36

And then we look at the wake behind us and we're seeing not the

Brandon West: 00:38:38

wake of mountains being created.

Brandon West: 00:38:40

We're seeing like a wake of dead bodies behind us.

Brandon West: 00:38:44

And we're like, what we're tempted to do in that situation is blame it on God.

Brandon West: 00:38:49

God, I did everything that you told me.

Brandon West: 00:38:51

I listened to your voice so carefully.

Brandon West: 00:38:53

And now look at all of these dead bodies behind me.

Brandon West: 00:38:56

Like, why didn't you show up?

Brandon West: 00:38:58

You're not good.

Brandon West: 00:38:59

You weren't present.

Brandon West: 00:39:00

Or we turn inward.

Brandon West: 00:39:02

I would say, and, we turn inward and we go, Isaac is a leader.

Brandon West: 00:39:06

There's no place for me in this company, no place for me in this marketplace,

Brandon West: 00:39:09

no place for me in this church.

Brandon West: 00:39:11

Look, look what I've done, uh, or look what God hasn't done.

Brandon West: 00:39:16

And so the fact that sometimes it goes well makes us believe I am in control.

Brandon West: 00:39:21

Sometimes it doesn't.

Brandon West: 00:39:22

We have to, somewhere in the middle is going, look, I'm

Brandon West: 00:39:25

gonna aim for great results.

Brandon West: 00:39:27

I don't want to aim for anything other.

Brandon West: 00:39:29

In my company, nobody in my company is going, yeah, Brandon, shoot lower.

Brandon West: 00:39:32

You know, like everybody's like, just shoot lower and lower and lower.

Brandon West: 00:39:35

People are going, no inflation.

Brandon West: 00:39:37

I'd like to make more money.

Brandon West: 00:39:38

I need more of this.

Brandon West: 00:39:39

I need more of that.

Brandon West: 00:39:39

Okay, well let's aim up and let's aim as high as we can.

Brandon West: 00:39:44

Let's do everything that we can in pursuit of that high place that we've set.

Brandon West: 00:39:49

And let's leave our hands wide open and go, if God doesn't want

Brandon West: 00:39:54

those results, Let's define success in those moments differently.

Brandon West: 00:39:58

There was a line in the book that I wrote where an outcome based mindset, you know,

Brandon West: 00:40:04

I am what I do when I do great things.

Brandon West: 00:40:06

I'm a great, I'm a great person.

Brandon West: 00:40:07

I'm a great leader.

Brandon West: 00:40:08

I have a lot of value and worth and watch me walk into a room and I got

Brandon West: 00:40:10

confidence because I got awesome stories about everything I'm doing.

Brandon West: 00:40:14

You know, people like you're talking about networking events and Oh,

Brandon West: 00:40:17

hi, what do you do as a company?

Brandon West: 00:40:18

And then people want to know, Oh, how big is your company?

Brandon West: 00:40:21

Oh, how much revenue do you do?

Brandon West: 00:40:22

Cause That will tell me how successful you are as a leader and

Brandon West: 00:40:25

how much I want to listen to you.

Brandon West: 00:40:27

We're not going to play that game.

Brandon West: 00:40:28

The faithful leader says, I am successful if only I am faithful, regardless

Brandon West: 00:40:37

of whether or not I am effectual.

Brandon West: 00:40:40

I'm successful if only I'm faithful regardless of whether or not I'm

Brandon West: 00:40:44

effectual because they go in the end, I can't control these outcomes.

Brandon West: 00:40:49

I can't make sure that my beautiful 80 page strategic planning

Brandon West: 00:40:55

guide that I put together for 2025 is, we spent weeks on it.

Brandon West: 00:40:59

We spent hundreds of thousands of dollars investing in consultants.

Brandon West: 00:41:03

And information and data to prove this amazing plan.

Brandon West: 00:41:07

Then something blows up.

Brandon West: 00:41:08

You lose a key player.

Brandon West: 00:41:10

The business goes under lock.

Brandon West: 00:41:12

It's forced into COVID 19, whatever it comes.

Brandon West: 00:41:15

And all of a sudden your plans that you have are just eroding in front of you.

Brandon West: 00:41:19

And you're tempted to think in pursuit of what do I do next?

Brandon West: 00:41:25

you're you're saying things about yourself that aren't true.

Brandon West: 00:41:28

You're saying things about God that aren't true.

Brandon West: 00:41:30

And it's because we've tied our sense of success to the wrong things.

Brandon West: 00:41:34

Tightly We've got to hold tightly to God, loosely to everything else.

Brandon West: 00:41:38

And man, how that protects our emotional wellness.

Brandon West: 00:41:40

And to, you know, Tim, like you said, in all honesty, I wish I

Brandon West: 00:41:45

could do that well every day.

Brandon West: 00:41:47

I remember when we went through the first draft on the book, I

Brandon West: 00:41:51

remember it was just a Google doc.

Brandon West: 00:41:52

You know, you just write the book in Google docs, share with people, go

Brandon West: 00:41:55

through the editing before you get into a publisher and all that good stuff.

Brandon West: 00:41:58

My wife was one of the first people I had read through it.

Brandon West: 00:42:00

And I just remember this little Google comment, comments on this one

Brandon West: 00:42:03

little line, you can see the little bubble pop out and she goes, Can I

Brandon West: 00:42:07

remind you of this in the future?

Brandon West: 00:42:11

I, I wrote that book because I need to be reminded of it.

Brandon West: 00:42:16

We just together as a team, it's, our FOS giving party today here at FOS

Brandon West: 00:42:21

and just an hour ago, we spent, uh, 30, 40 minutes together as a team.

Brandon West: 00:42:26

Just writing down things that we're thankful for.

Brandon West: 00:42:29

And I, as we started that activity, I just pointed out to him how many times the word

Brandon West: 00:42:33

remember is in the Bible, like, remember this because you're going to forget.

Brandon West: 00:42:37

Remember that one of the things my wife wrote down a couple of

Brandon West: 00:42:40

days ago in our household that she's thankful for two hands.

Brandon West: 00:42:44

I doubt two weeks ago she would have written that down.

Brandon West: 00:42:46

Today, she's reminded of it.

Brandon West: 00:42:48

How beautiful it's having two hands when one of them's in a cast.

Brandon West: 00:42:52

We need to remember, we need to come back to God and say,

Brandon West: 00:42:54

you're at the center of all this.

Brandon West: 00:42:56

I just, tightly to you, loosely to everything else.

Tim Winders: 00:42:59

Sure.

Tim Winders: 00:43:00

as a leader of an organization, a successful agency, let's just

Tim Winders: 00:43:04

say you've had 12, sounds like 12 plus years of running the agency.

Tim Winders: 00:43:09

what's the most important, guess, leadership characteristics, traits that

Tim Winders: 00:43:14

you can share with us that is important?

Tim Winders: 00:43:18

What's the most important thing as a leader right now in the organization?

Brandon West: 00:43:23

Yeah, let me answer that, personally, and then I'll answer that.

Brandon West: 00:43:28

a little bit more globally, I have been so challenged by the leadership culture

Brandon West: 00:43:34

that I'm in right now at the church that I pastor at, at salt church, the

Brandon West: 00:43:38

leadership team there, the pastoral team, the elder team, that shepherds

Brandon West: 00:43:42

that church has taught me so much about this one leadership concept.

Brandon West: 00:43:47

That I think I've highly devalued in most of my leadership experience.

Brandon West: 00:43:51

I don't think it comes naturally to me.

Brandon West: 00:43:53

It's probably why I've devalued it.

Brandon West: 00:43:55

I think our culture devalues it as well, but the thing I'm being

Brandon West: 00:43:59

most challenged right now in my own leadership about is gentleness.

Brandon West: 00:44:06

We love choleric red leaders.

Brandon West: 00:44:09

They run the world, you know, people who can just walk in and

Brandon West: 00:44:11

go, you shut up, you get this done.

Brandon West: 00:44:13

Where are we at on this?

Brandon West: 00:44:14

you world shakers.

Brandon West: 00:44:15

And how many like, like if there's any television shows out there that are

Brandon West: 00:44:20

about leadership or that exemplify the concept of leadership, all of the leaders

Brandon West: 00:44:24

in those movies are all red leaders.

Brandon West: 00:44:25

go this, go this way.

Brandon West: 00:44:26

And then like, you got like the Marines and, and, and you got like.

Brandon West: 00:44:30

None of the soft leaders, none of the soft, let's go.

Brandon West: 00:44:33

You know, there's a place for that.

Brandon West: 00:44:34

And there's a beauty to that.

Brandon West: 00:44:36

And I am naturally wired that way.

Brandon West: 00:44:40

But man, that, that doesn't work with everybody.

Brandon West: 00:44:44

That doesn't work with everybody on your team.

Brandon West: 00:44:46

That doesn't work with all your kids that most of the time

Brandon West: 00:44:50

doesn't work with your wife.

Brandon West: 00:44:53

Like I have been so challenged recently to go, Am I a gentle leader?

Brandon West: 00:44:59

Am I, am I a gentle person?

Brandon West: 00:45:00

Do I have a gentle demeanor?

Brandon West: 00:45:01

Do I have a warm persona that invites people into my leadership

Brandon West: 00:45:07

and what God's calling me to do?

Brandon West: 00:45:09

I think my global answer on what's most important with

Brandon West: 00:45:12

leadership fits into that category.

Brandon West: 00:45:15

A good friend of mine, John Spence, he's one of the most world renowned

Brandon West: 00:45:18

leadership experts in the world.

Brandon West: 00:45:20

He, does this activity when he's in a workshop where he asks all the leaders

Brandon West: 00:45:25

in the room to write down at the top of a paper of two columns, the names

Brandon West: 00:45:29

of two leaders that they've, really loved in their leadership, like two

Brandon West: 00:45:34

leaders, you've really looked up to.

Brandon West: 00:45:36

And he asks like, write down things that you loved about each of those leaders.

Brandon West: 00:45:41

I love this about them.

Brandon West: 00:45:42

This is what And then once that whole list is created, he says, next to them,

Brandon West: 00:45:46

I want you to write down one of two things, either IQ or EQ is this thing

Brandon West: 00:45:51

that you loved about them, something that they did pointed to them being really

Brandon West: 00:45:55

smart, really good at what they did.

Brandon West: 00:45:56

That's why you love them or EQ.

Brandon West: 00:45:58

There's something about them, their character, the way they treated people.

Brandon West: 00:46:02

And he said, for every one IQ, there's nine EQ.

Brandon West: 00:46:08

The things that we love most about leaders, we exalt the highly competent,

Brandon West: 00:46:13

but we love the highly emotional, the high emotional quotient leaders in our lives.

Brandon West: 00:46:19

At the end of the day, most of our leadership is really just about character.

Brandon West: 00:46:23

Like who we are, how well we care for other people.

Brandon West: 00:46:27

And he said, you get a room of executive leaders from across the world to do

Brandon West: 00:46:31

that activity and see how high EQ is all of a sudden this barrier goes down

Brandon West: 00:46:35

on EQs, the soft garbage of the world.

Brandon West: 00:46:38

We don't need that.

Brandon West: 00:46:39

You teach us how to run our scorecards better.

Brandon West: 00:46:41

And then he runs that activity and they're like, all right, we'll We'll listen.

Brandon West: 00:46:46

Cop character.

Brandon West: 00:46:48

Over competence.

Brandon West: 00:46:50

That's great leadership character over competence.

Tim Winders: 00:46:53

Yeah, and the good thing about that, what you, this is

Tim Winders: 00:46:56

what I heard as you were talking, you didn't specifically say it,

Tim Winders: 00:46:59

but I heard gifts of the Spirit.

Tim Winders: 00:47:01

You know, I heard The biblical foundation of, and to me, I think there's the gifts

Tim Winders: 00:47:08

of the spirit are in order for a reason.

Tim Winders: 00:47:09

There's a reason love is first.

Tim Winders: 00:47:10

And then I think everything else spills from that.

Tim Winders: 00:47:13

But that was interesting gentleness.

Tim Winders: 00:47:15

that's something that I think I tempt to work on also.

Tim Winders: 00:47:20

Thanks for sharing that.

Tim Winders: 00:47:22

I think that was a nice little mini masterclass that you gave.

Tim Winders: 00:47:26

Brandon, why write a book with the title?

Tim Winders: 00:47:31

I'm going to read the title with the subtitle.

Tim Winders: 00:47:33

It's not your business to succeed that first of all, it's, it's going

Tim Winders: 00:47:38

to be right there on the shelves with the success books, right?

Tim Winders: 00:47:41

It's not your business to succeed your role in leadership when

Tim Winders: 00:47:45

you can't control your outcomes.

Tim Winders: 00:47:48

What's up with what's up with that?

Brandon West: 00:47:52

C.

Brandon West: 00:47:52

S.

Brandon West: 00:47:52

Lewis has a book that maybe is one of the less prominent, less

Brandon West: 00:47:56

known books because it's actually just the collection of letters,

Brandon West: 00:47:59

letters that he wrote to a friend.

Brandon West: 00:48:01

It's called letters to Malcolm and in one of these letters, Malcolm had written

Brandon West: 00:48:05

to him about an initiative that he had undertaken that wasn't producing the

Brandon West: 00:48:09

result that he wanted this initiative, big initiative, a lot of investment.

Brandon West: 00:48:12

It wasn't producing the results.

Brandon West: 00:48:14

And C.

Brandon West: 00:48:14

S.

Brandon West: 00:48:14

Lewis wrote back and he, and he writes Malcolm and he says, Malcolm,

Brandon West: 00:48:18

it is not your business to succeed.

Brandon West: 00:48:22

It is only your job to do what is right and then entrust the

Brandon West: 00:48:27

results to a faithful God.

Brandon West: 00:48:31

If each of us could grasp that this week, not, not the

Brandon West: 00:48:35

leadership applications are clear.

Brandon West: 00:48:38

Take your mind, take your eyes off of your profit and loss statements, set them on

Brandon West: 00:48:42

the people around you and go, Hey, what's most important in our purpose this week?

Brandon West: 00:48:46

How do we build something that's actually worth working for?

Brandon West: 00:48:49

But there's so many more applications.

Brandon West: 00:48:52

This book that I mentioned that I'm reading by Gary Thomas, Sacred Marriage.

Brandon West: 00:48:57

How do we apply even that same thinking to our marriage?

Brandon West: 00:49:01

It is not your business to succeed, but only to do what is right.

Brandon West: 00:49:04

What's your role in leadership when you can't control your outcomes?

Brandon West: 00:49:07

Gary Thomas would say, Hey, you realize the purpose of marriage

Brandon West: 00:49:09

is not to make you happy.

Brandon West: 00:49:11

You go back home tonight and you believe that marriage is about making you happy.

Brandon West: 00:49:15

Every single time your wife doesn't make you happy or doesn't do the thing that you

Brandon West: 00:49:18

would have chosen to make yourself happy.

Brandon West: 00:49:20

You're tempted to think, why am I married to this person?

Brandon West: 00:49:23

They don't care about me.

Brandon West: 00:49:24

They don't love me.

Brandon West: 00:49:24

Does God even love me?

Brandon West: 00:49:25

I hate this thing.

Brandon West: 00:49:26

And then as soon as we get deep enough into that, we're like, I'm out.

Brandon West: 00:49:29

And we abandoned marriage.

Brandon West: 00:49:31

He Gary Thomas would say, what if the purpose of marriage wasn't

Brandon West: 00:49:34

about making you happy, but it was about making you holy.

Brandon West: 00:49:37

Here's another place where it's like, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.

Brandon West: 00:49:39

It's not about the outcome.

Brandon West: 00:49:40

Me being happy in marriage, it's about actually who I'm becoming.

Brandon West: 00:49:43

What's my role in my marriage.

Brandon West: 00:49:44

Let me ask you this.

Brandon West: 00:49:45

What's your role in your parenting when you can't control your

Brandon West: 00:49:48

outcomes, we go, Oh, you know, we ask like, like older parents were

Brandon West: 00:49:52

like, Oh, tell me about your kids.

Brandon West: 00:49:53

What are they doing?

Brandon West: 00:49:53

And we'd love to say like, Oh, he's in, he's at this prestigious university.

Brandon West: 00:49:57

Oh, he just landed this great job.

Brandon West: 00:49:59

Oh, they just purchased their first home.

Brandon West: 00:50:01

And it's like, wow, you're such a great parent.

Brandon West: 00:50:04

You can't control the outcomes of your kids.

Brandon West: 00:50:07

Like what happens when they wind up in prison, they wind up in a rehab facility.

Brandon West: 00:50:10

It's like, man, I taught them the gospel.

Brandon West: 00:50:12

I worked with them.

Brandon West: 00:50:13

I want, you know, like I can't control them.

Brandon West: 00:50:17

It's not your business to succeed.

Brandon West: 00:50:18

It's your business to be faithful, to bring them the gospel and love

Brandon West: 00:50:22

and care and correction encouragement and counsel over and over again.

Brandon West: 00:50:26

the parents who sit there and go, I've told you this a million times.

Brandon West: 00:50:29

God's going to look over those parents and be like, well done,

Brandon West: 00:50:31

good and faithful servant.

Brandon West: 00:50:33

And like you're doing the right thing when we're doing what God's asked us to

Brandon West: 00:50:38

do in our parenting, in our marriage.

Brandon West: 00:50:41

In our leadership, in our business, in our ministry at church, in our

Brandon West: 00:50:45

connection groups, in our friends, with our family, over those things, God

Brandon West: 00:50:49

would say, you be faithful unto death.

Brandon West: 00:50:53

I'll give you the crown of life.

Brandon West: 00:50:55

That's the best.

Brandon West: 00:50:55

That's the best promise we have.

Tim Winders: 00:50:58

Yeah.

Tim Winders: 00:50:58

Brandon, it sounds like.

Tim Winders: 00:51:00

Shelly believes this book, you wrote it for yourself, but when you were writing

Tim Winders: 00:51:04

it, who, who did you have in mind?

Tim Winders: 00:51:07

Who was the reader?

Tim Winders: 00:51:09

Who was the audience going to be as you were writing it?

Brandon West: 00:51:12

It's the honest leader.

Brandon West: 00:51:18

It's this book is written for the honest leader.

Brandon West: 00:51:22

You who put on a mask every day and walk into every single networking event

Brandon West: 00:51:27

and every single community event and somebody asks you, how are you doing?

Brandon West: 00:51:31

To you who say, great.

Brandon West: 00:51:33

Good, great, amazing.

Brandon West: 00:51:36

Life's amazing.

Brandon West: 00:51:37

God's so good every you're a liar.

Brandon West: 00:51:40

You're not an honest leader.

Brandon West: 00:51:41

you are broken.

Brandon West: 00:51:43

and you just have a hard time being honest and inviting people into pain.

Brandon West: 00:51:46

You would prefer, as I do, to put on a mask.

Brandon West: 00:51:50

to feign success, even in the hardest seasons.

Brandon West: 00:51:53

And we don't know how to deal with and communicate our trust in God

Brandon West: 00:51:58

when we're struggling to understand his sovereignty in the middle of

Brandon West: 00:52:01

pain, personally or professionally.

Brandon West: 00:52:04

This book is for the honest leader who goes, leadership is hard.

Brandon West: 00:52:09

Oftentimes my sense of success and identity are tied to

Brandon West: 00:52:12

things they shouldn't be.

Brandon West: 00:52:13

My bottom line, my bank account, my reputation, and they're going,

Brandon West: 00:52:19

I know that's not the way it's supposed to be, but I'm having a

Brandon West: 00:52:22

hard time getting unstuck from that.

Brandon West: 00:52:24

And I'd like to trade the soul crushing weight of outcomes for the soul

Brandon West: 00:52:31

lifting joy of a life lived for God in faithfulness and surrendered to His plan

Tim Winders: 00:52:37

so what do you say to someone who's, they're

Tim Winders: 00:52:41

still listening in, let's say.

Tim Winders: 00:52:44

And they're, they're kind of struggling with this moving

Tim Winders: 00:52:46

from the beyond outcome based.

Tim Winders: 00:52:50

I know read the book is one thing.

Tim Winders: 00:52:52

Let's tell them to get the book, but I guess just give a word of

Tim Winders: 00:52:55

encouragement for someone who it's really hard for them to let go.

Tim Winders: 00:53:00

If they're a control freak, like we talked about you being in, but they know they

Tim Winders: 00:53:03

need to, they're being nudged pretty hard.

Tim Winders: 00:53:06

Give a couple words of encouragement.

Brandon West: 00:53:09

let me, let me just first say, when I wrote this book

Brandon West: 00:53:14

at the very last second, I was asked by my publisher Write A Forward,

Brandon West: 00:53:19

and I said, forwards are dumb.

Brandon West: 00:53:20

I don't read them.

Brandon West: 00:53:22

And he said, you need a forward, you have to write it, Brandon.

Brandon West: 00:53:25

And I said, fine.

Brandon West: 00:53:26

What?

Brandon West: 00:53:26

What is a good forward?

Brandon West: 00:53:28

And he just said, wrote.

Brandon West: 00:53:30

forward why you wrote the book.

Brandon West: 00:53:34

I wrote that book because I need it because every single day when I walk

Brandon West: 00:53:38

back in the office and I'm shooting for great business for a greater

Brandon West: 00:53:41

purpose, I'm shooting for a profit and a margin that fuels a greater purpose.

Brandon West: 00:53:47

I am tempted to go back to the outcome based mindset and say, yeah,

Brandon West: 00:53:55

God's sovereign, but it's on me.

Brandon West: 00:53:57

But it's on me.

Brandon West: 00:53:59

We're called to be faithful.

Brandon West: 00:54:01

That's a high, high calling in all of our activities to be like Christ, to model

Brandon West: 00:54:08

Jesus to our team, our family, the world.

Brandon West: 00:54:13

That is a high enough calling right there.

Brandon West: 00:54:16

Let us not, in the same degree of accepting that, accept a responsibility

Brandon West: 00:54:23

that lays way too much on us.

Brandon West: 00:54:25

You can't control your outcomes.

Brandon West: 00:54:28

If you say this is success this year will be us doing and accomplishing

Brandon West: 00:54:33

this one thing and it doesn't happen.

Brandon West: 00:54:35

You can say nothing over yourself except you are a failure.

Brandon West: 00:54:38

As a leader, as a parent, as a husband, as a wife, whatever.

Brandon West: 00:54:44

That is, that's too much.

Brandon West: 00:54:45

so we run to the father again and again and again.

Brandon West: 00:54:49

What does running to the father look like?

Brandon West: 00:54:51

Surrender.

Brandon West: 00:54:52

Surrendering outcomes, surrendering purpose, surrendering finances, the time

Brandon West: 00:54:58

that we have, the gifts that we have, and just saying, Jesus, they're all yours.

Brandon West: 00:55:02

They're all on the table.

Brandon West: 00:55:03

My whole business, my whole life, my kids, my parenting, my

Brandon West: 00:55:06

marriage, it's all on the table.

Brandon West: 00:55:07

Use it for your glory and shape me in the middle of it because who I'm becoming is

Brandon West: 00:55:13

more important than what I accomplish.

Brandon West: 00:55:16

I wrote the book for me and I hope that as you read it, you'll get a sense of that

Brandon West: 00:55:21

and the true joy of coming to the Father again and again and again in surrender.

Tim Winders: 00:55:27

I think that's good advice and coaching for the leader

Tim Winders: 00:55:32

that is, we'll call it burden if that may not even be the right word.

Tim Winders: 00:55:36

But Brandon, I would love right now for you to, there's a few

Tim Winders: 00:55:40

resources that I know you have.

Tim Winders: 00:55:43

You've got the book we just talked about.

Tim Winders: 00:55:45

You've got your agency and I think you've got a new ebook that's coming out.

Tim Winders: 00:55:50

could you give all those coordinates now?

Tim Winders: 00:55:53

And then I've got one more question that we're going to wrap up with.

Brandon West: 00:55:56

Absolutely.

Brandon West: 00:55:57

Amazon has my book.

Brandon West: 00:55:58

It is not your business to succeed.

Brandon West: 00:56:00

My personal website,

Brandon West: 00:56:04

brandonmichaelwest.

Brandon West: 00:56:04

com has, our podcast that we did the top 10 life and leadership lessons learned in

Brandon West: 00:56:09

our first 10 years at FOS has articles, things I speak on and opportunity requests

Brandon West: 00:56:14

speaking, but FOS's website, FOS creative.

Brandon West: 00:56:17

com.

Brandon West: 00:56:20

PHOScreative.

Brandon West: 00:56:20

com has a ton of really cool learning articles on marketing and branding

Brandon West: 00:56:25

and consulting and leadership.

Brandon West: 00:56:26

But it's also got two really fun resources on it.

Brandon West: 00:56:29

One is an eight page prayer guide that we made for strategic planning to

Brandon West: 00:56:34

submit our plans to the Lord as we go into strategic planning as a business.

Brandon West: 00:56:38

And then a bigger 40 page ebook that we've written on, Flourishing at

Brandon West: 00:56:42

work and this mission that we have to cultivate true flourishing and people

Brandon West: 00:56:46

and organizations while reflecting the love of Jesus of the world is best

Brandon West: 00:56:49

seen in six dimensions of wellness, financial, intellectual, spiritual,

Brandon West: 00:56:53

physical, emotional, and relational.

Brandon West: 00:56:55

And we've developed a really cool framework that we've just given to

Brandon West: 00:56:58

the world for free so that they can go implement a flourishing culture

Brandon West: 00:57:02

inside of their organization.

Tim Winders: 00:57:04

Those resources sound good.

Tim Winders: 00:57:05

We'll make sure all the links are down in the notes.

Tim Winders: 00:57:08

Brandon, we're Seek, Go Create.

Tim Winders: 00:57:10

Those three words.

Tim Winders: 00:57:11

I'm going to allow you, to pick one of those words and why, and don't ever think

Tim Winders: 00:57:16

it just what resonates the most with you means the most to you right now.

Tim Winders: 00:57:20

Seek, go or create.

Brandon West: 00:57:24

We, our full name is two words, Fost Creative.

Brandon West: 00:57:28

I'm going to have to go with create.

Brandon West: 00:57:30

You were designed to go and create big things for the Lord, whether

Brandon West: 00:57:34

that's big things for one person, 100 people, or 1 million people, you

Brandon West: 00:57:39

are called and gifted with things that can go and bless the world.

Brandon West: 00:57:42

Go find those and God will use you in big ways for one or 1 million.

Tim Winders: 00:57:53

bringing all these topics together that have been

Tim Winders: 00:57:56

extremely important to what we do here at Seek, Go, Create.

Tim Winders: 00:57:58

We're, we're approaching our 300th episode and probably what

Tim Winders: 00:58:02

you've discussed and talked about encapsulates as well as anything.

Tim Winders: 00:58:07

What we're all about as far as the journey and success.

Tim Winders: 00:58:10

I'm going to highly recommend I've got it on my Kindle here.

Tim Winders: 00:58:12

I'm going to hold it up, but highly recommend you get, it's

Tim Winders: 00:58:15

not your business to succeed.

Tim Winders: 00:58:17

I read that over the last few days.

Tim Winders: 00:58:18

Excellent book, great read, good resource.

Tim Winders: 00:58:22

I'm going to recommend people get that and check out the other

Tim Winders: 00:58:24

resources that Brandon mentioned.

Tim Winders: 00:58:26

We are seek, go create here.

Tim Winders: 00:58:28

I appreciate everyone listening in.

Tim Winders: 00:58:29

We've got new episodes every Monday.

Tim Winders: 00:58:32

We're on YouTube, all the platforms.

Tim Winders: 00:58:34

Thanks for commenting and sharing and subscribing.

Tim Winders: 00:58:37

All of those things we really appreciate So thanks again for

Tim Winders: 00:58:41

listening until next time continue being all that you were created to be