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Episode 171 - Greg Leith - Leaders On Leadership

Nothing can beat living a well-lived life. That should be our mission in life. Today, Greg Leith, the CEO of Convene Corporation, is gracing us with his presence. Greg enlightens the path of what it takes for leaders to lead the ultimate kingdom. He shares how he navigates into the prices he had to pay being a leader to stack crowns and accelerate the kingdom. To stay focused on his calling, Greg recognizes the value of working because that’s what God wants us to do. So, let’s step into this episode and find the strength to be a great leader that will accelerate you to the kingdom.

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Greg Leith - Leaders On Leadership

In this episode, I’m very excited to introduce you to Greg Leith. Let me tell you about Greg. Greg’s life mission statement is to “strengthen great leaders and exponentially accelerate the kingdom.” He is the CEO of Convene Corporation where thousands of Christian CEOs connect around business excellence that is built on a biblical foundation. Before that, Greg was also a senior executive for twenty years with the ServiceMaster company, which is a multi-national $9 billion firm engaged in healthcare and education management, as well as franchising. He’s also a nonprofit leader where he serves as the Vice President of Arrow Leadership and Director of Leadership Development for the Christian Leadership Alliance. Greg, I am so excited to talk to you about the price of leadership.

Thanks for having me, Tracey. It’s an honor and you know how much I also was a raving fan of your dad’s. This is a treat for me.

Thank you. To our audience, I always like to share how we made this tremendous connection. I am in the Harrisburg area in Pennsylvania. Last November, I was at the Lancaster Prayer Breakfast, where I crossed past with the tremendous gentleman, Bud Handwerk, who then connected with me. Bud chairs one of the local groups here in our area of the Christian Convene. For our audience, those of you who are familiar with other mastermind groups like this stage, this is like that.

We’ll talk about how it’s different, but this is the Christian version of it. I’ve gotten the chance to get connected with the local groups in the area to speak to them, and then I got to meet Greg in person because Bud told me how much you love my father. Not long ago, when you came and did a regional event in the Lancaster Trust, I got to meet Greg in person. Greg, thank you so much for being here again.

It’s great to be with you. One of my stories that I told Bud Handwerk there in the Lancaster area, which by the way, it took me two years to get the audience in Lancaster to stop laughing when I said Lancaster. I remember walking into Lancaster Bible College one day into the library. I’m a raving fan of your dad. I’ve heard him speak many times. He’s giving me the signature Charlie “Tremendous” Jones hug. I walked into the library at Lancaster Bible College and I saw this life-sized portrait of your dad. It was very big. I said to Bud, "What the heck?" He said, "Tracey lives here." I said, "I'd love to meet her." This is great for me.

It is great. That’s where I got my PhD. Many of the audience out there know that. It’s at the Lancaster Bible College. I love that entity and all they do. They taught me all about leadership. Greg, thank you for sharing that. I'm so glad you got hugged multiple times by Charlie. I know you were a true leader and you would have paid the price of leadership if you had not got some of his bear hugs for sure.

I’m also thrilled to meet one of the little children when you were a little bit young girl in some of his stories of the car going back and forth in the snow in the driveway to go to church because “We’re going to go to church.” Of course, he knew you could never make it out of the driveway that snowy day and told you later, apparently, that he was making memories.

Did he ever? He would also tell us, “I always let you guys make your own decisions.” We’re like, “Seriously? Did you really say that?” He’s like, “They have engaged in a little spiritual meddling.” He always had an interesting way of saying different things. Greg, you have decades of leadership experience. One of Charlie’s most prolific speeches is he loved leadership but he was very pragmatic about it.

He said, “If you’re going to be a leader, there’s a price you’re going to have to pay.” The first price that he talked about was loneliness. We’ve all heard that "Heavy is the head that wears the crown and it’s lonely at the top.” Can you unpack what loneliness means for you as a leader? Perhaps, if you have been through a season of loneliness, something that you would share with our audience to help them as they navigate their way through it.

I feel like we could do about three episodes on this subject so I’ll be succinct or I will be here for three days. There are many times when, in my life, I was feeling lonely at the top. I remember Chuck Swindoll, my pastor here in California for quite a while, wrote an article called The Lonely Whine of the Top Dog. It is about moving away from the crowd, as your dad said. I remember a time when I was quite happy in my ServiceMaster corporate job. We were $5 billion or $6 billion at that time. I had started with ServiceMaster when we were $300 million. I was with the corporate side, healthcare management, suits, ties, corporate jets, and the whole nine yards. On the franchise side, these people cleaned carpets and drove yellow vans.

I thought, “I will never be one of those people,” and then I found out that there was a business in Vancouver, Canada for sale doing $40,000. I said to the guy who wanted to sell it, “$40,000? Is that a day, a week, or a month?” He said, “No. A year.” I went to the people doing what he did in Toronto, Canada, where I was living. I said, “How much do you do?” They said $7 million. I quickly bought the guy’s business in Vancouver but I was driving by myself in my little Audi 5000 from Toronto to Vancouver the entire time thinking, “I spent all the money I had. I don’t know why I’m going out there to clean carpets. This is ridiculous.” On the last day of my drive, I was super tired. I drove through the night. It was about 3:00 in the morning and I found a motel.

I pulled into the parking lot, turned off the car, and slept for two hours until I went to my first meeting with my new business in Vancouver, Canada. The entire drive, I can promise you, I was lonely. As I inherited the business, there was a guy who was mostly drunk. There was a drug addict. There was a broken-down vehicle. I fired everybody and started cleaning the carpet myself. Here I am, cleaning the carpet in the middle of the night at 2:00 in the morning with a Bible College degree and a Business degree, I left corporate with a suit. I said, “What am I doing? This is ridiculous.” I surely was lonely.

This will make you go, “What the heck is that?” but I’m encouraged by the contents of Abraham Lincoln’s pockets the night he was shot. The reason I’m encouraged by that is because what was in his pockets was normal stuff. He had a country boy’s pen knife. He had his spectacles tied together with a piece of twine, a handkerchief, a watch fob, and here’s the best part, eight articles in his pocket on why history would call him a great president. Lonely at the top.

That is fascinating. Have you ever read the poem? I cannot believe I have never heard this. If anybody says, “I can’t believe you have heard this,” I’m going to say, “Why didn’t you tell me earlier about it?” It’s called The Indispensable Man. Have you ever read that poem?

No.

You didn’t know either but it’s very much the same thing and it’s all about the allegory. The parable is when you leave an entity and you think you’ll be missed, “I can’t leave. I’m so good. I’m up here at this paradigm” kind of thing, put your hand in a bucket. Take your hand out of the bucket and look at the bucket. When you go, that’s how much people remember you. It’s not a mean thing but it’s all about listening. It keeps you humble no matter where you go. I love that story that you were up there and here you are in the middle of the night cleaning carpets. That is good for the soul to keep you focused on the peaks and the valleys of leadership. I appreciate you sharing that.

Take your hand out of the bucket, and look at the bucket when you go. That's how much people remember you.

You’re welcome.

The next thing he said is weariness I’m sure you were weary too. My dad would always tell me, “Tracey, so much of leadership is you’re going to have to be picking up the things that other people should be doing but they’re not doing and it’s tiring. We have this beautiful soul and eternal spirit but we’re still mere mortals.” How do you combat weariness as a leader?

I was encouraged. At one point in time in my career, I was a Youth for Christ board member in the Canadian Youth for Christ for the country. I had the privilege of hearing a talk by Torrey Johnson. He was one of the early Youth for Christ people before Billy Graham and during the Billy Graham era as well. Torrey did a talk one time. He was one of the most powerful preachers. He did this talk where he was basically in the genre of your dad. He was talking about when you’re tired. He said, “When you do work, you get tired and you get so tired sometimes. Sometimes, when I’m so tired, I go back to the hotel room and lie on the bed. I’m too tired to take my clothes off and I fall asleep on the bed and wake up at 2:00 in the morning.”

That is encouraging to me. What God is not for is for us to have three vacation homes and golf after we sell the company for $100 million while we're doing absolutely nothing for the kingdom. We might be excessive in our purchasing habits. There's nothing wrong with great cars but you probably don't need 5 or 6. There's nothing wrong with great houses but you probably don't need 4 or 5. I'd rather be tired of the work of the kingdom, leadership, and helping people than live a life full of leisure so that when I get to heaven, I'm going to get through the reward line fast because God doesn't have much to say.

You hit the nail on the head. There’s good weariness and bad weariness, just like loneliness. There’s the good loneliness like when Christ goes off on his own, and then there’s the bad loneliness. The weariness, it is very interesting that you talked about Torrey finishing the race strong. It means you don’t let off the paddle. Dad did not like it when he would ask people, “What are you doing?” They’re like, “We’re retired.” I’m like, “Don’t say that.” He’s like, “We don’t ever retire in the kingdom. What if John would have retired on the isle of Patmos?” We finished strong and beware. There are times when I’m so tired but there’s a good weariness that you know that you’re exhausted but in such a good way. I love Youth for Christ. I was in that as a youngster.

Frankly, there are people who are tired of doing nothing. The redefinition of those people’s “tiredness” is they are actually bored with the lack of accomplishment in their lives. Those are some people that I don’t want to get behind in the rewards line in heaven because they’re going to be getting a lot of rewards from God. We often forget that there are rewards in heaven. Everybody thinks it’s weird and everybody comes and pushes back against it and says, “God wouldn’t set up a reward plan.”

It’s like you didn’t set up a reward plan for your kids when you said, “If you do these chores, you get five stars” or whatever. God says we are going to be rewarded for the things we accomplished on Earth and if we get that, then we will be ready to receive these rewards from God. I don’t want to be the guy who God says, “Next. Leave. You didn’t do much. Go to your mansion and see you later.”

The Ultimate Kingdom: God says we will be rewarded for the things we accomplished on Earth. And if we get that, we will be ready to receive these rewards from God.

I love it. I call that stacking crowns and you said accelerate the kingdom. We’re building it up and doing it now versus later. Have you ever read Erwin Lutzer’s One Minute After You Die?

Yeah.

I read that probably at least every other month. He talks about that and what we’re doing here. It’s the parable of the talents. What are we going to be doing in heaven? I’m like, “I don’t want to be unemployed in heaven.” I want to have discussions with you about how incredible things are. What we’re doing here is we’re honing our chops or spirit. We’re just in a different form that we’re going to be doing that. I love that you brought that out. That’s why he says, “Don’t grow weary.” We say, “I said the prayer. I’m done. I will just sit back and wait until the end.”

To bounce off one of your dad’s eternal life insurance policy pamphlets. You don’t want to say, “I got a fire insurance policy against hell and I have nothing to do until I get to heaven.” That’s ridiculous.

The next thing he talked about was abandonment. Again, there's good abandonment and bad abandonment. We hear the fear of abandonment. If you’re in pet rescue like me, that’s a bad thing. What my father talked about was that abandonment was like a hyper-focus. I can remember one time I went into the basement, where his office was, as a teenager. He was at the height of his career and I remember him sitting there with this look on his face. I was like, “What’s up, Dad?” He said, “Tracey, I do more in a day to contribute to my failure than I do my success.”

I’m like, “What are you talking about?” He’s like, “You need to learn the Law of Abandonment, which is pruning. Stop thinking and doing what you like and want to think about in favor of what you ought and need to be about.” It captures all those thoughts. The devil loves busyness and working our fingers to the bone, but not all work is the purest form of our work. Can you talk about, with all your transitions, things, and all the different requirements on you, how you deal with abandonment and stay tightly focused on the best and highest use of god’s calling for you?

I have a son named Carson. He’s an Anglican priest up in Wenatchee, Washington. He wrote an article one time that I loved where he basically said, “You’re trying to get the first thing on your list done that is important and you decide to go check the news. You read the news about the latest politics and then you see an ad for better dog food. You click on that and then you’re working on looking at this dog food and you see something for dog little outfits. You click on that and then the next thing you see is an article about the Caribbean vacation. You’re talking about the Caribbean vacation and you look at your watch and half an hour has gone by. You’re now looking at what new carpet colors are hot in the world.”

You went from here to here but you never got the first thing done. I remember right here in my office, I have a big whiteboard thing and it’s full of sticky notes. It’s all about our May 2024 conference, which is about ten months away. I was thinking, "There are a lot of fun things I could do today, but I need to do that work on the conference, but it’s ten months away.” I started doing some other stuff that was fun and then I realized I had to go sit in the chair in front of the whiteboard and figure out who are my final speakers for May 2024. Part of it took me to go and sit in that chair. There’s that insurance salesman who wasn’t your dad who said, “The difference between successful people and non-successful people is successful people have learned to do the things that unsuccessful people are not willing to do.”

I had to go sit in my chair, look at the whiteboard, and figure out what had to be done. I could go home and say to my wife, Shelly, “All the speakers for the conference are done.” I felt great like Torrey Johnson said, “You feel great.” Here’s the deal. God is the creator. God, Jesus, and the holy spirit worked to create Earth. They gave Adam and Eve work in the garden. They said work is going to look different until Jesus comes again. When we go to heaven, we’re going to work in heaven. It’s work, not leisure or there would be no men and women created, no Earth created, and no work in heaven. Some people think we’re going to sit in heaven with white robes, harps, and clouds. That’s not the deal. We are going to work in heaven and work now is a test. Work is a good thing so let’s get to work.

That abandonment and the quote that you talked about were habits. It’s Albert E.N. Gray’s The New Common Denominator of Success. Probably, at least half of our audience out there haven’t read that. If you haven’t gotten what Greg was talking about, it is habits. You’re sitting there and saying, “Turn it off. This is what I’m going to do.” It reminds me, Greg. You got to drive an Amish buggy when he was in Lancaster. Correct, Greg?

Yes ma’am.

For those of you who have been up in Amish country here in South Central Pennsylvania, the horses are on there. Sometimes they have those blinders on so they’re not distracted. That’s what you need to do with yourself. You need to saddle up, get your lobe behind you, put them little blinders on, and get to walk. Every time I think about those horses, I’m like, “God, may I have the focus in the singularity of those Amish horses.”

Loneliness, weariness, and abandonment. The last topic he said is vision. I know growing up, I’m listening to the great people. I thought, “They have something going on. They have this visionary gene.” My dad is like, “Tracey, vision is seeing what needs to be done and then doing it. If all you are is talking about the future but not putting a plan of action, that’s not vision. That’s daydreaming.” Can you talk to us about how you continue to hone your leadership vision, maybe even for what’s next for Convene?

COVID was something that helped us to hone our vision, which is oddly juxtaposed with the COVID situation where we couldn’t get together. What we do is we get together. We don’t manufacture things. We don’t invent or necessarily just write things. We get men and women who are CEOs in a room to work together on their business and do it on a biblical platform. All of a sudden, we couldn’t get together. Thanks to our amazing team. In about 48 hours, we reinvented the organization, and all the groups from coast to coast, 70-plus groups, were getting together on this crazy thing we never heard of before called Zoom.

We became a Zoom room organization in 48 hours. That was a vision from our field leaders and our headquarters leaders. We basically said, “How can we reinvent the original vision?” The original vision as you indicated was, “Let’s create a faith-based version of Vistage,” which is a take-off from these mastermind groups of earlier days that said, “The power of many minds around a table is greater than the power of one.” That was a reinvention of our vision and it was a very exciting time. Now, the virtual Convene groups are emerging as a very significant piece of our business. That’s exciting.

The Ultimate Kingdom: The power of many minds around a table is greater than the power of one.

Thank you for sharing that, Greg. We covered loneliness, weariness, abandonment, and vision. Anything else all things leadership that we have not hit on with the price of leadership context that you would like to share with our audience?

Something that I learned in my ServiceMaster days in twenty years was that you need to value people and not see people as a unit of production but as a person to be loved, valued, and appreciated. In those days, that seemed very faith-esque. It's like "That's what you Jesus people do. You love people, pat them on the back, and say I love you." The studies have now concluded that when you love people, they perform at a higher level and the organization is more profitable.

You need to value people. Don’t look at a person as a unit of production but as someone to be loved, valued, and appreciated.

That was a Harvard study called The Service Profit Chain. The Service Profit Chain said exactly what I said, “When you value and appreciate and love people and take care of them, you will end up having them do a better job for you and there will be more profits.” The Service Profit Chain is a big deal and we try to teach that throughout our Convene network.

I love hearing that. That’s so important. In more and more leadership stuff that I’m teaching, they say the L word, which is love. Before, it was like, “Of course, she would say that.” It’s the heart and the love of the leader for the people. I know Ken Blanchard would always tell me, “Tracey, look at every person as an oyster. There’s a pearl in there somewhere. Remember that. Even though they may be slimy and stinky outside, get them to open up and find that pearl in there.” I love that you said don’t treat them as a unit of production. That’s beautiful. Greg, talk to us about Convene. I love for our audience to hear more about it because everybody I talk to, I tell about it. Bud and I are going to a lunch and I’d love to share if somebody is interested in it. What does that look like for them?

Let me come out interestingly from some of the four things that we talked about. We did some surveys that are very empirical and we discovered that people were lonely in leadership. We discovered that people didn’t have a good track to run on how to integrate their faith into their business. We discovered that people were concerned about profitability, faith, and all those kinds of things. At this stage, we looked at other models and the bible. We looked at this whole notion of Jesus and the 12 disciples for 3 years where he was in a peer-to-peer networking group. We said, “How could we create something that champions business performance, profit, people, and excellence, and how do we do that all by laying it on a biblical platform?”

About 28 years ago, we were at Saddleback Church with a pastor named Brian Thatcher and an elder named Rick Green. Tick was in Vistage and Brian was with the Navigators, and they put the peanut butter in the chocolate together and created BBL Forum, Beyond the Bottom Line, turning the Sunday stuff into Monday stuff for better lives and business. That was how we began. Rick Warren, if you’re tuned in, it started at Saddleback Church. It did because Brian and Rick were going to Saddleback Church. Back in the day, Saddleback was not this giant mega church. It was an organization meeting in high school gyms. We’re very grateful for the fanning the flames of Convene that Rick Warren did, and the great blessing that occurred by us being able to build on some of the relationships at Saddleback.

We are basically about business performance and eternal perspective. We’re about people helping each other to run a great business. I’ll never forget there were four objectives that ServiceMaster when I was there. One was to honor God in all we do, help people develop, pursue excellence, and grow profitably. We would often, at times, not be as close to being on budget as we wanted to be. Our president Bill Pollard would remind us, “We’re not the Salvation Army. We’re not the Billy Graham organization. We’re a business. We need to be profitable because if you’re not profitable, you don’t have a business to honor God.”

The Ultimate Kingdom: Honor God, pursue excellence, love people, and according to Harvard's Service Profit Chain. It'll all work together.

Frankly, if you’re a nonprofit, it doesn’t mean you can’t have excess revenue over expenses. You still need to be cash-positive and income, meaning you need to be more than expenses or you don't get to do the mission that you're doing. It's profitable, honors God, pursues excellence, and loves people. According to Harvard's Service Profit Chain, it'll all work together.

How do people find out about the Convene Groups?

Our website is ConveneNow.com. Click on it and get out there. Don’t keep leading alone. That’s not how God designed you. He designed you to work in a community and when you bring an idea, problem, or difficult situation to the group, it happens all the time that you come up with a better solution than banging your head against the wall by yourself in a locked room.

I love that and I love you tied it back to the price of leadership because leadership is a shared endeavor. You have your followers, but leaders have to pour into one another like Jesus with the disciples. For the leaders tuning in out there, who pours into you? I’m not talking about your spouse. You need to get with peers so they can pour into you. I was a Vistage member earlier and when I first got back, I knew enough to know that I could be the smartest person.

This is where we are never meant to do this alone. There are so many benefits and advantages to it. Thank you, Greg, for stepping in, sharing about leadership, and all the work you’re doing with Convene. I know so many people who are involved with it. I met so many business owners and to see the impact you have on them is profound.

It's a pleasure that we get to do it and fan the flames of the vision of our founders to honor the biblical values of community and advance the kingdom of God. It's not very fun to say I'm building a business for myself to make a lot of money so I can scroll it away and die with millions of dollars in the bank. That is not a life worth living.

To build a business for yourself to make a lot of money so you can scroll it away and die with millions of dollars in the bank is not a life worth living.

That’s what happened in the Parable of Talents. That didn’t end too well. He got cast out and called lazy and wicked. I love you’re bringing that perspective. Greg, I thank you so much. To our audience, we wouldn’t have a show without you. We thank you so much for tuning in and for paying the price of leadership. If you like what you’ve heard, please be sure and hit the subscribe button. If you do give us the honor of a review, we would be so thankful, and share this with some other leaders who need to hear some of the wisdom, insights, and experience that Greg has shared. You keep on paying the price of leadership. Greg, thank you so much. I’m thrilled we connected. I look forward to many more tremendous connections in the future.

Thanks, Tracey.

You’re welcome. To our audience out there, you have a tremendous rest of your day. Bye-bye.

 

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About Greg Leith

Greg's life mission statement is “to strengthen great leaders and exponentially accelerate the kingdom”. He is the CEO of Convene Corporation where thousands of Christian CEOs connect around business excellence built on a biblical foundation.

Before that Greg was a senior executive for 20 years with The ServiceMaster Company, a multi-national, $9 billion dollar firm engaged in Health Care and Education management as well as franchising. As a non-profit leader, he served as Vice President of Arrow Leadership and Director of Leadership Development for Christian Leadership Alliance.

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.