Episode 154 - Allen Joines - Leaders on Leadership
If there is one thing constant in this ever-changing world, it is that nothing is impossible with God. Today’s guest, Allen Joines, is proof of that. Despite life’s obstacles, he reinvented himself from being a dock worker and janitor to a Pastor and successful business owner in the telecommunication industry. All of his success, he owes to God’s grace. He joins Dr. Tracey Jones to share with us his journey and the price of leadership he had to pay. Allen gives insights about loneliness, weariness, abandonment, and vision. At the end of the day, he reminds us that no matter how tough being a leader is, our faith in God and our purpose will always be greater. And that God will see us through it all.
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Allen Joines - Leaders on Leadership
I am so excited because my very special guest is Allen Joines. Allen has been a lifelong learner and follower of Christ for years. Despite life obstacles, he reinvented himself by God's grace from dock worker and janitor to regional HR Manager of a Fortune 500 company to a Pastor. He relocated a small congregation to a 46-acre campus to a successful business owner in the telecommunication industry. For many years, Allen has been a high-energy communicator sharing his belief that anything is possible with God. He lives in South Central PA with Diane, his wife of 43 years. They enjoy time with their 6 grown children and 11 grandchildren. Allen, it's such an honor to have you here.
Thank you so much, Tracey. It's a pleasure and a joy to be here.
For our readers out there, you've read Allen's background and he's going to unpack the Price of Leadership for us. Allen, you've been in the Jones family for many decades. Could you share a little bit about your interaction with my father?
It goes back a long way. First of all, my love for books brought him into the executive bookstore. I was discipling men at the time, so I was buying books for other men, and we were talking about books. That's how I started. Walking into that bookstore, you didn't walk out with one book. You walked out armfuls. Over the years, Tremendous and I developed a friendship there because of the love for books and reading. That's how it started.
It became my monthly journey to the bookstore to get my shot of enthusiasm and encouragement along the way. That's how my relationship with your dad grew. It was an amazing journey. I loved your father. He made you think. I love the way he phrased things and the way he presented things. You walked out of there encouraged and thinking differently than when you walked in. It was such a blessing to know your dad.
It's wonderful still to have you as a part of the Tremendous Family. We're going to talk a little bit about all the wonderful things God has going on in your life, but first of all, let us unpack the Price of Leadership, a speech my father gave years ago that still continues to be one of his most requested topics because everybody bemoans, "Where are the good leaders?" There's a price to pay. That could be why most people shy away from leadership, but let's unpack that.
The first thing he talks about in the Price of Leadership, he has that little booklet is he talks about loneliness. We've all heard that it's lonely at the top or heavy as the head that wears the crown, but can you talk to me about what loneliness means for you as a leader and perhaps some insights for our readers out there, if they might be in a season of loneliness?
The big thing about loneliness is realizing that you're never alone. You think you are, but you're not.
The big thing about loneliness is realizing that you're never alone. You think you are, but you're not. Our faith and our purpose must be greater than our feelings. With the different work I've done and jobs I've had, our emotions sometimes get in the way. We think we're alone, but we're not. I often asked God to help me. "Give me enough courage to keep moving but not too much to make me proud."
He's good at that. Sometimes we need that sense of downtime or loneliness in our life, so we can quiet ourselves and be in a place where he would want to take us or where he's leading us. The other thing about loneliness was different times in my experience, and it's in my book, whenever he would bring special people into my life to help me during a certain time to remind me, "You're not alone."
Elijah thought he was all by himself and God said, "What are you babying about?" There are 7,000 that had to bow a knee. You're not alone, but he didn't know and realized that. That's the one thing that we need. In our work world or spiritual journey, that is a key lesson to learn and realize that even though we feel lonely, we're not alone. That has helped me on my journey through whatever I've been journeying through.
We are never alone. People say, "Where is God?" No, it's where you are. He's right there. Stop pushing him away. We have the ultimate advocate and the Holy Spirit. Stop thumb sucking, as dad would say.
It's like you're here standing out in the rain getting rained on and the whole time there's an umbrella you can move under. Too many times, we allow our emotions to dictate circumstances.
I love that when you say faith and purpose have to be greater than feeling. “As a man thinketh, the mind of Christ,” Romans 12:2. Feelings follow the mind. Feelings long. Feelings fade. It's like happiness. It's such a weird thing, but joy is real. Thoughts are real. Feelings respond and manifest. I'm glad you said that because a lot of it is mental. You're going to want to thumb suck and feel like you're a little martyr. Nobody gets you.
Charles would say that too, that he'd never say to Gloria anything going wrong because she'd say, "I told you so. Why do you think you can start your own business?" He just suffered in silence. There's an element of truth to that. The other thing he would say is, "You want me to tell me your problems? I'm going to tell you my problems. You opened your big fat mouth." I truly appreciate that. Now, let me ask you this. When did you meet the Lord?
Faith In God: “Don't you know that if the pastor leaves, the problem stays, but if the pastor stays, the problems leave?”
I was fifteen years old through a bus ministry of a church. This is all in my book. My dad was on probation and my grandfather was in the Federal Penitentiary for bootlegging, and my mother was involved in sugar-gathering, the sugar for the alcohol making, and all of that. They got caught and that whole operation got shut down. What happened was my mom remarried. This is amazing. She married a guy twenty years older than her who was a World War II Vet. I was raised by World War II Vet. We talk about Memorial Day happening.
Life wasn't easy. One of the things was working on the farm and you had a choice. You either did a chore Sunday morning or you went to church. I had a problem, a dilemma. I hated going to church and I hated working. Sometimes I ended up being forced to go to church. These religious people around us, I didn't want anything to do with that. Finally, they moved again, and lo and behold, I'm fifteen years old, and a neighbor asked, "Would you guys like to go to Sunday school?" I can't get away from these religious fanatics. They're everywhere.
It was amazing because I had moved from one school district to another. For fifteen years, I went by my stepfather's last name illegally. They never had my name changed. They said, "We're going to call you this." When I went to the new school and they saw my birth certificate, I had to legally get adopted or go by my real name.
For the first fifteen years, I went by completely different names. When I went to the new school at age fifteen, my name changed. They forced me to go by Joines, which was on my birth certificate. It was simply three months later when their life literally changed. It was amazing because my friends from the old school would talk to friends in the new school and they say, "This guy, you'll have fun with him. He likes to party, and this and that."
The people were like, "There's nobody here like that. There's this guy only wants to talk about Jesus," it's completely different. My name and life changed, and all that changed at age fifteen. My changes, by the way, I was not perfect. I was a mess for years. I had to work through so many different things, but God was gracious, and that's how that started.
I asked that because you right away went to it. The numero uno point means you had to have been walking with the Lord for quite some time.
It's amazing. My book came out in my 50th anniversary month. I got saved in March of 1972 and my book came out in March of 2022. It took 50 years to live and a couple of years to write.
Our faith and our purpose must be greater than our feelings.
The next thing after loneliness, he talked about his weariness. There's a good weariness like, "Job well done." There's a weariness that's draining. He would always say, "My problem isn't motivating myself. It's keeping other people from de-motivating me." If you're a leader, you're always going to have some people that aren't pulling their weight. Yet we have to stay at the top. We have to take care of ourselves. How do you deal with weariness? What would you recommend to our readers?
A couple of things over the years with weariness, I learned to pace myself. It's a marathon. It's not a sprint. You've got to pace yourself. I have to say the biggest failure of my biggest weakness has been in trying to rush ahead and do so many things. I could burn myself out, but you have to pace yourself and make sure your pace is good. Take regular breaks. Make sure that you recharge yourself. That's why we've been given the blessing of sleep. Sleep is to recharge your body and mind and all that. Not only with sleep, I think we need time off and vacations. Not a whole life of vacations, but a time to recharge. That helps.
The other thing about weariness, and this is two things, and it goes to my relationship with Charlie, is reading encouraging books because there are other people who have gone before you, and being around encouraging people. Find a handful of people that give you energy and will take energy from you. That type of thing is so important.
One of the biggest lessons I remember about your dad was when I was in the ministry. I went through a very hard time where there were some things that needed to be dealt with in the church, and I dealt with them, then it seemed like everything backfired on me. I went from this huge church, then it shrank. We were looking at buying land. It looked like all was lost. My board was divided. Everybody was telling me, "You shouldn't be a pastor. You need to move on. Forget it."
I contemplated. Maybe I need to give up. It says, "Don't be weary. Keep going because of the rewards at the end." Somehow, that information got leaked to your dad. Somebody told him. I didn't tell him. I remember walking into the store to get some books. He walked right up to me and he had a very firm and stern look on his face. He said, "What's this I hear you're leaving ministry? What's this I hear you're quitting?"
Your dad was a big guy. He grabbed me. He's known for his hugs, but that day, it wasn't a hug. It was a shakeup. He grabbed me by the shoulders and shook me like I was a little kid. I'm a grown man. He shook me like a little kid. He said, "Don't you know if the pastor leaves, the problem stays, but if the pastor stays, the problems leave? What are you doing?"
What your dad did there shook me to the core. When we talk about weariness, every now and then we need a wake-up call. That was my wake-up call and it's your dad. What happened was I didn't quit. I went back. That moment that happened, I was on a little mini-sabbatical trying to figure out what it was going to do. I went back and the church got healed. The land was bought. A new building was built. Now, there's a beautiful church on a 46-acre campus that is making an impact in the community. They designated 20 acres for a community park to outreach to the community, and the vision continues that we started there.
Faith In God: When it comes to weariness, too many of us give up too soon. We give up right before we get to the finish line. We give up right before it's going to happen.
Here's the thing. I almost gave up. It was that encouragement that your dad gave during that moment of weariness that inspired me to keep going, and I did. The rest is history. That's the thing with weariness. The Bible says, "Don't be weary because in due time, you'll reap the reward.” When it comes to weariness, many of us give up too soon. We give up right before we get to the finish line. We give up right before it's going to happen. To me, that was the big thing of weariness. Take moments of rest, but also be around people that can inspire and encourage you. Keep going and don't quit.
That reminds me of Russell Conwell's Acres of Diamonds. You could have gone to find another church, not realizing that the diamonds are right underneath your feet. I've been told that for a leader, the difference between a pat on the back and a kick in the rump is 18 inches. That did that. I would get calls from people. When I first came back and they were like, "Tracey, I came in there and your father grabbed and screamed at me. I started crying." I thought, "Here we go," because I have known that for a long time. They're like, "That was the best thing that ever happened to me," and I'm like, "Okay."
It's so beautiful that you share that because people are going to drag us down. Remember new levels, new devils. The devil is going to hit you hard. This is the other thing he'd say to me every time I'd be like, "This is it. I'm tired of dealing with these betrayers and naysayers. Is it anything worse than what Jesus went through?" He's like, "What is your problem?" You don't get to complain about it until you're the one that suffered. It was maddening, but he lived that. He knew what people would do to the people that tried the hardest. It is a sad thing, but again, look at Jesus. We don't worry about that. We thank God that he's gracious and go right back in there.
Along with that weariness, the other thing I have to give credit to is my stepfather, who I did not get along with. For 15 or 16 years of my life, it was nothing but a head-butting, struggles and all that, but the one thing I learned from my stepdad was this. Sometimes you've got to do things, whether you feel like it or not. You've got to have a bulldog tenacity.
As a young child, he made me do things work ethic-wise that I hated doing, but he forced me to do them. Looking back, it was the best character-developing thing that he could have done for me because what I went through in the work world and church world, all deals with that tenacity, not giving up and doing things whether you feel like it or not. Successful people will do things where they feel like it or not. Successful people go with the flow, but that's an important part there too.
A new common denominator of success. Between failure and success is that success has made a habit. Your habits have nothing to do with your feelings. Habits are, whether you feel it or not, you go do it. I'm glad that we can learn from people. Tenacity and grit, I watched Charles do that, and you too. You'll at least get an A on your report card if you don't quit. I'm like, "I'll take an A. That's fine." I totally appreciate your take on the weariness and what that took. I love that. Pastors leaves, problem stays. Pastor stays, problem leaves. That is a leader for anything.
That's a quote from your dad.
Take moments of rest, but also be around people that can inspire and encourage you. Keep going, and don't quit.
I never heard him say that and I love it. That's beautiful. We talked about loneliness and weariness. Next, let's talk about abandonment. A lot of people think that abandonment is a negative thing, but in the context of leadership and for my father, that was focus. That was pruning away what you want and like to think about, like quitting, the thumb sucking, and how to mean everybody is to you in favor of what you want and need to think about. Can you talk to me about how you get all the distractions, all the enemies have created a way, and stay focused on what's next?
Here's the thing. When it comes to abandonment, we all have to be abandoned to something. We can't do everything. Sometimes the world tries to sell it. "You can have it all." If you try to have it all, it's going to kill you because you can't possibly do it. You've got to decide what you're going to be abandoned to. To me, that was a thing of abandonment. When I was working up in the work world, I was abandoned to a certain job, or in the ministry, I was abandoned to ministry. This one was what my focus going to be. In fact, when you look at scripture, as the Apostle Paul was abandoned to Christ and he said, "For me to live is Christ and to die is gain," that was his focus.
I'll be honest with you in this day and age, we have too many focuses. We try to do too much. I'm guilty of that. You ask my wife and my children, they will you. We have to determine what's the main thing. What do we abandon to, is it really our time and our energy? When we're young and we go through the young stage where we're thinking about money, making money, surviving, and all that, and as we get older, we shift from wanting to make money to wanting to make an impact. Making an impact is so much more powerful than making the dollar.
Your dad was an example of that too. He impacted a lot of people. I thought about my interaction with him. Like the books, it was not about the money or the book sales. It was always about impacting people. Knowing that if he gave them a book or encouraged them, their life would be changed forever. This whole thing about abandonment is what we abandon or what we are doing and making this decision.
Here's the hard thing. I've reinvented myself three times now. Reinventing myself from a janitor work, in HR, in a corporate Fortune 500 company, then you go from that to a twenty-year ministry, then to a business owner in telecommunication, it's completely different fields altogether. The thing that I learned was that it was a stress point because I had to come to a point where I had to realize I had to give up one thing to gain another thing, that I could not keep both.
Too many times, we try to do that. We try to keep both things going and we end up stretching ourselves and getting to the point where we're going to stop, but we have to be willing to give up one thing to gain another. Even Jesus said, "No man can serve two masters." You're going to love one and hate the other. You're going to hold one and despise the other. That's the same way with our life purpose and things in our life. This might sound counterintuitive, but we can't have it all. We got to decide what we want and be abandoned to that. That's when the blessings will flow.
That is a lie that the world tells us. It is counter-cultural and it will burn you out. It will be disappointingly satisfying like sin. It’s like after they ate the apple, “This isn't so good anymore.” The other thing is we're all collectively all different parts of the body. When the nose tries to do what the stomach or the toe does, it's a no. Stay in your lane of anointing.
Faith In God: God gives us grace in the transition, but then it gets to the point where that transition now must happen.
Focus is not meant to be plural. You said, focus. Focus, one. There should be no such word as foci. I love that you talked about that too many focuses. We do have to be abandoned to something. That's what Good to Great, Jim Collins is all about. You can be good at a lot of things, but what is the one thing, that one thing.
I have five different careers like you. Charles would always say to me, "Tracey, you're leaving that," and I'm like, "Yes, dad. The calling is different.” Whenever I was in, I was all-in, but that made it clear, unlike dad, who built on what he did, he had a major life career change when he left Mutual New York and other insurances agency. He had three pivots. For some people, God has you only doing three layovers before you get to your final destination. For other people like us, it's 4, 5, or 6. We're just getting going.
Anybody out there reading, I like to encourage them. If you're restless in your spirit and you're struggling with what you're doing now, it's not a momentary thing but an ongoing thing. It could very well be you're being called in a completely different direction. When I made my transition from the corporate world to the ministry world, one thing I had done was, when I took over the church, I was part-time for a few years. God gave me grace for that time, but guess what happened at the end was that grace was removed. I had to make a decision.
I'm not going to kill myself trying to do a couple of things or am I going to let go of one or the other? That's what happens. God gives us grace in the transition, but then it gets to the point where that transition now must happen. It seems like he removes his hands. It makes it hard. You're in a corner. You now have to make a choice. You can't keep struggling with that.
I like that you called that out because I'm calling from and calling to. You'll always have a calling. God will call your heart to one thing that's different than quitting. It's important for the readers to know that quitting because you're irritated or having a spirit of discontent is a beautiful thing. It’s like loneliness, weariness, and abandonment. There's good and bad.
There's quitting because you're mad, but then there's also God will say, "You're done here and move on." You got to be discerning with the Holy Spirit. That's what I would tell my dad, "I'm not quitting this job, dad. It's very clear that this is the calling and it's over and it's time to move on to something else." As long as you know that and you're not quitting because you're mad or you're running away.
I appreciate you clarifying that because that is what we do. Sometimes people around you will misunderstand that.
If you see a problem, that means you must be the solution.
Only you know in your heart and God, and be honest with it. It may appear, but you’ve got to do what you’ve got and that's what leaders do. They listen to the calling. Loneliness, weirdness, abandonment, and the last of all is vision. I would hear all of these wonderful people growing up talking about vision. It always intimidated me because that's not my gig. That's not my gift. Dad explained vision as seeing what needs to be done and then doing it. It's so pragmatic. Many people say, "That needs to be done," and you're talking. It's a Post-It note. It's visual. Can you share with me what vision means to you and how you get clarity on your calling or anointing?
First of all, as a pastor, I'd have people come up to me all the time and say, "Pastor, you'll be doing this in the church. You need to do it." "No, I don't want to do it, but I know what needs to get done." If you see it, then that means God's calling you to do it.
You could've saved me a lot of heartaches, but that's okay. If you see it, that means God is calling you to do it.
Some people can see all kinds of problems, "God must have called you to do that." If you see a problem, that means you must be the solution. Too many people want to pass that solution off to somebody else. Here's the thing, faith and fear are exactly the same things. People often miss this. Fear is false evidence appearing real. You're thinking of a negative outcome. You're thinking of something bad happening. Where faith is fully anticipated, it will happen. They're both the same thing.
It's your response to it.
It's amazing, 365 times in the Bible, it says, "Fear not." One for each day of the year. Also, faith is believing. This is in the book. When I was eight years old, we lived on the farm and I was given the job of hoeing field corn. I was not using a tractor. “Here's a hoe. I'm going to work when I come that come home. I expect this field to be hoed.” While I'm out there in the hot sun hoeing this field corn, I started to dream.
I still remember it as if it was yesterday when I dreamed it. I dreamed that someday I would be in an air-conditioned corner office. I would be a personnel manager hiring and firing people. I'm eight years old and I had this vision. I'll be talking to people. Another vision I had was out of the woods. I stood there and I read about Abraham Lincoln and how he worked out in the woods and all that. Imagine talking to people and encouraging them.
Discovering the Good Father: How God's Love and Grace Transformed a Broken Life
Here's the thing. I was eight years old when I had that vision. When I was 30 years old, I was promoted to a personnel training supervisor in the trucking company where I was involved in all those things. It grew from there, but it started as a seed. God puts the seed in each of our hearts when we're young of something that he wants to fulfill in us. We have to believe it. Dream it and believe it, and hang on to that, and now there were a lot of curves and changes.
One pastor that mentored me said, "The Mississippi River runs north a lot of places. If you look at it, it runs north someplace. It doesn't all flow south. Sometimes you might think you're going in the wrong direction, but you might be flowing in the right direction because of everything you're learning and developing." All the different experiences I had all consummated into those different opportunities I was given in life. That happens to us too. Faith and fear are the same things. It's our response to the circumstance.
Even if you're going, you may be flowing. There are going to be some backtracks at times that life, even with the vision. Just stay on target.
You might think you're going in the wrong direction, but you might be floating in the right direction.
You should pay to read this. There's so much wisdom. We talked about loneliness, weariness, abandonment, and vision. Anything else while we have our readers that you would like to share about leadership that we have not touched on yet?
Here's a living token and this was a note of encouragement that your dad had sent me in one season of life. I'll never forget that. I'll never forget the friendship I had with him and the impact he made on my life. It still does. This is so true. This is a famous quote. I think you all know that. You're the same person today as you were yesterday, except for two things. The books you read and the people you meet. That is so true.
When I look back, I am where I am now of the full investment of thousands of people into my life. None of us are self-made. All of us have been invested in by different people. It'll start with our mom and our dad changing our diapers. It goes from there to reading and writing. It goes from there learning different skills. The value of relationships, you can even learn from people and situations that you don't like because there's something there to be learned.
Each of us is a combination of all the influences that come into our life.
Learning from all of those becomes like a funnel into our life. Each of us is a combination of all the influences that come into our life. Along with that are also the books that we read. I had an aunt who had the old encyclopedia, the Britannica. We'd go to visit her and I was always fascinated by all these books that she had. I made it my goal that I was going to read through the pretend Britannica encyclopedia set. Every time I went there, I started with A and then with B. I don't know how far I got, but every time I get it, I go through that.
Later when I came to faith, I started building a library and started reading books. I realized people from previous generations were impacting me. They were helping me think differently. I was one of the things that made your dad so unique. He knew that. That's why he promoted books so much. That's why he did book publishing and selling and all that because he knew the impact of that. I've literally read thousands of thousands over the years, but also the people that I met that made that. To me, when it comes to leadership, those two things can help take you to another whole level if you're going to apply them.
You're living proof of that. It's so interesting that you were like a little sponge, even early on. Clearly, God has his hand on you. He has it on all of us. You let him work his way. You haven’t talked a lot about your book. Can we talk a little bit about that? Where can people pick up your book?
They can pick that up at Amazon. Go to Amazon and type my name or type in Discovering the Good Father, and you can get a copy of that there. It's a combination of a little bit of my bio, but also some life lessons from business and my spiritual walk, and all that, and all the different things I've learned on that journey. I originally wrote it for my children and my grandchildren because I wanted to leave a legacy. I didn't want them to lose all my stories of the amazing things that the good father has done for me.
Why it's called Discovering the Good Father is I was raised by three fathers. Robert Kiyosaki has Rich Dad, Poor Dad. While I have a good father, I was raised by my stepfather. I was abandoned in my younger years by my biological father, but I had a Heavenly Father who was there the whole time. It took me a while to discover all that, but now that I've walked for years. I look back like, "It's amazing."
We're never alone. We might think we are, but we're never alone. He said, "I'll never leave you nor forsake you," but there are times when you feel like you're alone because it's a test of faith. Do you believe it? The thing is, we're never alone and we need to work through that. I gave the synopsis of the book.
What's the best way for people to get in touch with you?
They can be in touch with me in a couple of different ways. I have LifeMessages.net. You can email me at Allen@LifeMessages.net or AllenJoines.org or DiscoveringTheGoodFather.org. Any of those will get you to me. I'd love to hear from people. If I can be an encouragement to you or your group, I'd love to do that. I've been communicating for years and I would do seminars and conferences and stuff like that. Also, many years of being a pastor. If I could be of any service encouragement, please let me know. The book came out a couple of months ago, and I'm already getting amazing reports of people who are encouraged and impacted. That blesses my heart.
To our readers out there, please make sure and connect with Allen. Get his book and give him a review on Amazon. We love that. Let him know how that's changing your life. Allen, it has been such a joy chatting with you, learning from you, sharing with you, getting caught up. Thank you for sharing your wisdom with our readers.
Thank you so much, Tracey, for this opportunity, and hope you have a blessed day.
To our readers out there, thank you so much for being a part of the show. If you like what you read, please be sure to hit the subscribe button. Sign up at Tremendous Leadership. We've got a few weeks of free eBooks, and you can pick up a copy of the Price of Leadership. Also, we'd love the honor of a five-star review. Drop us a note or share it with somebody that you think may be encouraged with paying the Price of Leadership. Thank you so much. Keep up the tremendous work and have a tremendous rest of the day.
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About Allen Joines
Allen Joines has been a lifelong learner and follower of Christ for fifty years. Despite life obstacles, he reinvented himself by God's grace from dockworker and janitor to regional HR manager of a Fortune 500 company, to a pastor who relocated a small congregation to a forty-six-acre campus, to a successful business owner in the telecommunication industry.