Okay, let's do this. Let's welcome everybody. All righty. Welcome. Welcome, everybody. Welcome.
Welcome. So good to see you. Hello. Hello, everyone. Hey, Jamie.
Oh, hey, Robin. Nice to see you. It's dear coming in. See Emily's here and Mark, Rich,
Ben. I need to get into gallery mode. Okay, well, so good to see everyone jumping on.
There's going to be a much fuller group than normal. We'll do all the introductions in just
a second. Let us know in the chat where you're tuning in from. Hi, Susan. Nice to see you.
Okay, we're ready to do this. Okay, we got a bunch of people coming on.
Hi, everyone. So for the first time, we have a full inner circle. We have 12 companies now
on this circle. So that's pretty cool. We'll see who all jumps on here.
And I see some people brought their plus one, which is great. It's good to see the OG group
and all the new folks joining. And then in a second, we will get going. So everybody,
I think almost everybody confirmed. Okay. Tyler, Benji.
All right. So Ben, I know you and Tyler had asked if we could get a whole lot of people on your
side of the account. So that's fine. We can definitely do that for you guys.
But not everybody has that component. I was letting you know, but we can definitely get
that for you. The OG group get all that anyway. So there you go. All righty, let's get into it.
All right. Hey, Matthew, how are you doing? And Robin and Susan, Emily, good to see you.
Hey, Tyler. So we have Mark and Rich and Dia. All righty. Okay. Well, I think we're just going
to jump right in. I think various folks will join as we go along. And it is a two hour session,
as everybody knows. And we have a bunch of new members and they will, as they come on,
we'll introduce them. So I'm just going to take a second, give everyone's new,
so maybe they're finding links. Let me make sure nobody's texting me, urgently looking for links.
And then we'll jump straight into it. I know normally we just hit the ground running.
I know I checked the invitation. I didn't see the link in the invitation,
but I did go back to an email and found the link in an email. So yeah, yeah.
It's the first test of being in the inner circles, being able to find the link to get
into the zoom. Yeah. It's to see if you qualify, you know, do you have what it takes?
All right. Okay, guys. Well, thank you for being patient with us. I know we've got a couple more
people joining and then we should be a pretty full house today. Just wait for everyone else.
And then we're just going to jump in and go. Okay. Excellent. Hey, Mark, you there? See you
there. I don't know if you have your camera issues there. Oh, there's Tamara. Good to see you,
Tamara. How are you doing? Excellent. How are you? Good, good, good. Okay. Well, since everybody's
getting to know everyone else, I'm just going to go around the room and ask you all just to
introduce yourselves. And if you're with somebody, because as you know, you get to bring a plus one,
you don't have to, but if you do, just let us know who you're with. And so we don't have to
introduce that company twice. And so I'm just going to ask if we can, I'll just do it as it
appears on my screen. I'll start with Jenny Taylor. Just tell us your name, which company you're with.
And one interesting fact about your business.
business. We'll get into that, just anything you want to say,
just give us a sense of what you do. Jenny.
My name is Jenny, and I'm with Brilliant Perspectives. One
interesting fact about our business is we have mostly
women employees.
Oh, okay. But virtual employees, is that what you said? We
struggle to use?
Female women, I know.
Female employees. Yes, I know. We have very few exceptions to
that rule. There you go. Okay, Robin.
Yeah, hi, guys. I'm with NOAA Certified. And probably an
interesting fact, we're in the remote inspection business,
especially on tiny houses. And COVID kind of drove everybody
into the remote inspection process. But it also showed
everyone that there is a good way and a bad way to do it. Most
of them that are resistant to it have found the bad way, not
the good.
Okay, Susan.
Hi, I'm Susan. Just joining in. I love it already. Opportunity
to get to know everyone and work through a launch for a business
that I'm working on right now in executive master neuro
coaching. And that is all how your brain works, and how to use
that for strategic planning. So I think it aligns really well
with what's going on here.
Absolutely does. Emily, tell us about yourself.
Okay, so I'm Emily, I actually work for a company called Wex
Group, which is a private equity group that owns three logistic
companies, broker, we're giant broker, so they own the three
logistics companies. And I also started a consulting company
last year that's still new. And the idea there is to help start
new businesses and to help existing businesses go into a
whole nother, you know, space with the Lord and the kingdom
focus. So I'm excited to see what the Lord has what he's
doing.
Excellent, Ben. Share with us about K construction.
Yeah, so I'm the CEO of K construction. We're a general
contractor that specializes in post frame buildings and barn
dominiums. In Kansas, we still fun fact, we recently launched a
product called my dream Barndo, which is helping people across
the country to build their own barn dominiums without running
into traps that would cause their dream Barndo to become a
nightmare.
Wow, that's fascinating. Okay. And Tyler, you you guys
together. So why don't you go next?
Yeah, I'm Tyler. Learning. I mean, I'm thankful to be on this
call, Vince, number two or right hand and I don't know an
interesting fact is we have a lot of family here. There's a
lot of family, a lot of a lot of different hats to wear during
the time. So that's interesting. And I got a I got to keep things
running with all events travels and do it how he wants. So we
mind reader as well. But exactly. Yeah, excellent,
Matthew.
Hey, guys, this is my first meeting. And I've got my dear
friend, Luke Rabelais with me today. And I'm with shattered
ink, and also the kingdom idea company. And the two companies
that I started this year, and I guess I don't know what's a
unique fact about her.
We were worried that people would misspell shattered ink
like incorporated. So we bought both web domains, I n c and I o
i n k. So also Matthew died. That's two fun facts. But
yeah, we know your story, Matthew, the nominal story, but
y'all were there for that. Thank you. We have context to
understand what you mean. We'll probably get you a chance to to
tell that story. Excellent. Well, Angie, tell us about
yourself.
Yeah, this is my first time in the group as well. And I lead
land run learning. It's a math tutoring business. And maybe the
fun fact the name land run learning, I'm based out of
Oklahoma City, and really want to target local, local families
and local students. And also helping students take ground. So
that's, that's kind of the idea behind the name.
Beautiful. Rich, you're with Noah, tell us about your
experience.
Okay, so yeah, I'm Richard with NOAA, I work directly under Robin.
We are a remote tiny house inspection company, and we are making small inroads right now
and working towards a bigger picture of completing remote building inspections for municipalities.
That's fantastic.
Ray, tell us your story.
Ray is my newest friend, which I've known for an entire week.
Yes, like we've known each other for decades.
I know, it does feel like that actually.
And I was very blessed that Tamara introduced me to you.
And so my name is Ray Higdon, our company is the Higdon Group.
I'm a Christian entrepreneur coach that helps people grow their business,
mainly in the network marketing space.
Interesting fact is I came to Christ 15 months ago.
I didn't grow up in the church, didn't know one verse.
I actually Googled John 3.16 when I saw it on Tim Tebow, but didn't understand it.
But since then, I've converted our entire business to be faith-based.
We run an annual event.
I changed the name to Faith Over Fear.
Just excited to be here and excited to continue to grow in the kingdom.
You've got a conference coming up pretty soon, right?
Yes, last year we had John Maxwell as a keynote.
We had about 1,000 people.
This year we're expecting around 3,000.
It's at the end of October, beginning of November in Orlando.
So we've got a little bit of time.
We'll do a pitch for that as we get closer.
All right.
Tamra and Todd, since you were the ones who introduced us to Ray,
tell us about yourself and share with the group.
Absolutely.
We're Todd and Tamra Engwall.
We lead a few companies and nonprofits.
As Destiny 508, our company, we are a commercial registered agent
to help people set up their faith-based organizations
into a religious nonprofit corporation, which is a private nonprofit.
It's different than a 501c3.
So if you're doing faith-based work as a for-profit,
you can benefit by also adding a nonprofit to it and gaining 30%, obviously.
But we love doing that.
We also run a ministry that the mission program from that ministry.
We plant churches in Kenya.
We're planting six churches, have planted six churches,
and building a school, water well.
Phil and Tara helped us drill that water well, 600 foot,
and we're doing that outreach.
We do outreach and speaking in the U.S. as well.
Yeah, that's fantastic.
Fun fact, you helped set Brilliant Church up a year ago.
I was in 28 countries, yes, thanks to you.
There you go.
You're our biggest missional outreach church right now.
That's great.
Yeah.
We didn't realize that the gas pedal has a range.
We thought it was just on and off.
Nobody told us.
Okay, there you go.
Mark, share with us.
Oh, hi.
Yeah, I'm Mark Group.
I run a company called Red River Pallet down on the border of Texas
and Oklahoma.
And I guess my fun fact is more of a dad joke kind of type thing.
We advertise that we're state-of-the-art.
We are state-of-the-art pallet manufacturer,
but our state-of-the-art is actually pretty run-of-the-mill.
We get it.
Got it.
So you're a manufacturer?
Yes.
About 30 employees.
Yeah.
Excellent.
And Bruce?
Yeah, we're just moved to Nashville here.
I'm Bruce Van Zyl.
I run our company with my wife, Lindsay.
I am related to Dion.
He's my dad.
And we have a software development company.
And so we build a lot of – we build mobile apps for what we call
seven- and eight-figure coaches.
So helping a lot of the, like, e-learning, you know,
coaching community type.
Yeah.
Any apps you touch, fun fact, any apps you touch at Brilliant
or the Edge all comes from Lenovo.
In case you have any bugs, potentially, with the Brilliant TV app
or the Brilliant Communities app or 100X.
The bugs, and it's definitely not us, but no.
It's those other guys.
Yeah.
Exactly.
And Lindsay also does a podcast.
That's another fun fact that I think she would point out if she was
here to let you know.
Yeah, and she's done quite a few projects together with Graham.
They've done a lot of, you know, events together,
a lot of challenges together.
So, yeah, Brilliant Perspectives, I think, has done over 38.
challenges, three-day challenges. So, we've got down that challenge model thing. And of course,
we have Dia. If you can hear me, Dia, I know you can't turn your camera on. Dia is finally joining
us. Many of you know, Dia had to go for eye surgery. She's having some more eye surgery.
So, she's been out of commission, but I think you're making a good recovery. Dia, can you hear
us there? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I apologize for being off camera. I should hopefully be back on
camera next month. And I also apologize for anyone who got weird emails with weird links as
Dion's covering for me in the last couple of months. But we should be back here pretty soon.
So, yeah. So, fun fact about me, where I work with Dion, but this is actually the second company
that I am working with Dion on. So, I'm happy to be here. Happy to see everyone.
Yeah. So, Dia helps me run the business. I'm VP of Business Development. And so,
that's how we get everything done. So, Jenny helps run Brilliant. My wife Bridget helps me
run the church. Dia helps me run this company. And Graham helps me run the Brilliant School.
That's how we get it done. And that's how a team of nine does so much. Okay, there we go. So,
we want to jump right into it. Thank you for the introductions. We appreciate it.
There's one more fun fact. Today's Bruce's birthday. You thought we're going to get away
with it. Not a chance. So, that's great. We'll leave the age part out. There we go.
So, I'm excited. So, we set out a goal to bring together Kingdom CEO leaders who have and share
the same vision. And we wanted to keep it to 12, especially people bring a plus one. We want to be
able to have this kind of very close, informal type conversations, but also have a conversation
at a different level. And so, the fact that we now have 12 companies here, this circle will
fall. We may split it up down the road if more and more people come, probably by revenue or something
that would make sense. We're not there yet. So, we're just going to enjoy hanging out all together.
So, what I'd love to do is just speaking of the app and where we are, let me just share with you
a couple of upgrades since our last discussion. And so, what we're looking at here is on the,
let me try and get this sorted out here. Can everyone see my screen all right on the screen
share? So, on the inner circle, when you go to the inner circle, on the curriculum side,
we've added something new we call Power Tools. So, we've picked from the Edge training,
from the 40 videos from the Edge training, we've picked different key components that we think
the top eight things that might help and each one has a worksheet. So, that's why it says 16 items.
Today, we'll focus on this top one here. So, those are there. And then we've got a new category for
any prophetic words like we did last time when we talked about direct learning and what's the
partnership like. And if Jesus were teaching us in that mode and he was physically here to talk
and explain how direct partnership works with him and how relational engagement worked, how would
that sound? That's about a three-minute clip and the text some people asked for. And then each of
the inner circles we will post here and we'll break them out by their session. So, we are
recording all of this. If we get into the hot seat section, which is session two, second part,
and you bring up something that you wouldn't necessarily like to have recorded, you can just
let us know and we'll just drop that section out and we'll send you the recording and we won't
necessarily, you know, if something you're sharing is particularly personal. Because as people join,
they get to see all the previous ones as well. So, just so that you know, that's how it works.
And then a new very cool thing is you look at the top here on the tab. So, we can go to community.
Hey, drop stuff in the community. As you go through these conversations, you can go live
straight in the group. Very straightforward to do. And if you do that, I will check that. Deanna and
I do check that. We will respond. But the idea is also that you respond to each other. You'll
notice that under community, there's a thing called questions. If you have a, if you would
like us to put it on the hot seat or prioritize a hot seat, something's come up in your business,
and you say, man, I'd love the group to discuss this. I'd love this to be on a hot seat, laser
coaching type mode. Just drop your question there and then we'll prioritize that. So, it's
under community questions. That's that component. And then right at the end, you know, we've got
the curriculum, as I just said. The replays will be dropped at the end, usually by the end of the
day. And then on the, there's a new
component called the EdgeBot.
Many of you have been aware that we've been using this bot.
We've pulled all the training we've been doing
over the years into one and created transcripts
and fed that into a bot.
So this bot is almost exclusively using,
like what does the triple bottom line mean
or how does QBook work or whatever.
And so it's all there, play with it.
The only people that have access to this are you,
the inner circle.
We haven't opened this up to anyone else.
And so it's really there to process
all the different things we say and talk about
and the language we use.
And for the most part, it does a solid B,
sometimes B plus effort, but it's very cool.
You can get it straight here off the top in EdgeBot
and the app is approved on iOS and it's approved on Android.
And I think everybody has access to all of that.
Are there any questions around the app?
Are we all good on that?
Did everybody know we have an app?
Go ahead, Matthew.
So Ask Brilliant, is this the same type of thing
as Ask Brilliant?
It is similar, but it's fed by the similar technology,
just the entire feed is different.
What it's feeding off is different.
It doesn't, the Edge app doesn't use anything
from Brilliant.
It only uses stuff from my company, i49 Group,
which hosts the Edge and all the Edge stuff
and all the Kingdom stuff around Kingdom Leadership.
So just so that you're not confused,
for those who are new to us,
Brilliant has three things that go on.
We have Brilliant Perspectives,
which is Brilliant TV and the store.
We have the church and we have the school,
Brilliant School of Leadership.
Those three things are all under Brilliant's banner.
And then the next level up from Brilliant School
of Leadership is this inner circle.
And Graham's very strong encouragement is,
I'll come anytime you want, but this is yours to do.
And, you know, so we carved it out of Brilliant
and we do it separately on the side.
And it also gives us a far greater reach.
The vision here is to really have an open,
clear conversation with Kingdom leaders,
but then give you a pile of tools that you can use
with your team, which make no reference
to anything Christian.
They're all put in a covert mode.
You can play the videos, look through the worksheets.
They won't suddenly go, so, you know,
how are you partnering with Jesus?
And what is the Lord saying to you?
You all won't have any of that stuff in there.
It'll just be, you know, downstairs,
good downstairs best practices from around the world,
as you know, which is part of my PhD research and studies,
which I've been keeping up over time.
Now there are nine modules at the moment
in the EDGE program, for those of you that have it
and that use it for your teams.
And each of those nine modules have four each.
So that's a full nine month program,
but we're gonna be adding more modules.
So the quick question here was,
I'm looking potentially to do another recording batch
and to upgrade those modules.
And so at some point I wanna circle back to you guys
and say, if I did that, you know,
I'd probably do it sort of on a Wednesday afternoon
at a set time.
And then if your team wants to join
or you wanna join, you're welcome to do that.
Anybody interested in that, if I did that and ran that,
because I need an audience.
And so you can bring your whole team.
So how cool is that?
Free of charge.
There you go.
So you can just come, join in, bring your team.
And I know Mark, you have a lot of Spanish speakers
and so on in your team,
but you can bring whoever you wish, whoever you think.
And there's no rank involved.
So you can bring any number of team members.
It does tend to be sequential.
We do build on each other.
So if they do start,
they probably wanna start at the beginning.
I'll let you know once, we'll send out an email,
watch for that email.
Let us know what exactly you think
or how many people you think would be interested
because what we do, we do the training.
It's about 20 minutes.
Then there's a worksheet they work on right there
and then for about 20 minutes.
And then we have a conversation
and it's the conversation part that moves things.
Suddenly you bring up issues and as the leader,
you're giving permission to something to exist.
And that's really the most powerful part of the conversation
and that's where things start to shift
in your culture and your organization.
So again, that whole thing is in a covert mode.
There's no reference to anything in the Lord,
but we wanna empower kingdom leaders to empower their teams
regardless of what their teams believe.
So the goodness of the kingdom is all baked in
and we wanna bless them with the goodness of the Lord
and the ways of the kingdom
without telling them that that's what we're doing.
They're just the beneficiaries anyway.
As you know, that's.
philosophy. But for those of you who are new or did not know that, that's what we're doing there.
Okay. Is that good? Yes, Mark. Yeah. Just a quick question. Would this be
on top of what we're currently doing here, Wednesdays once a month?
Yes. Once a month. That one will be every week. Every week.
Every week. And it'll run for... We're going to do them in batches of four weeks. So if there's
something that really doesn't connect with you, which I can't imagine what it would be,
because we try to do it very broadly. Remember, the concept of The Edge is to help you create a
team of leaders, not just a team with a leader. And when you create a team of leaders, you get
a concept of ownership. And once that ownership takes place, a number of very powerful things
happen. You unleash their creativity. You get that shiny eyes thing, or what the neuroscience fusion
is. You get cognitive control of a little bit of your life. You're not just a worker bee
delivering stuff you're told. You manage your inputs and your outputs. And the cognitive
control element is very key. One, they start to get a control of what they're doing. They start
to bring their A game, but they also start getting innovative. Because once that brain
chemistry flips into a different mode, once you have a culture that encourages and sees people,
and that's when we see the triple bottom line kick in. How much money do we make?
How many people do we really help? Not just how many people we sell stuff to,
but how many people did we really help? And how alive is the team we're leading?
So with the triple bottom line mechanism, the idea is that people come alive in that environment.
And when they see you investing heavily in them, not just to get stuff out of them,
because we think the big misstep of the productivity crowd, it's always about
pushing the productivity. We found that if you invest in the people in a certain way
and you empower them, productivity goes up by itself.
Would it be at the same time then too?
Yeah, it will be. I'll nail it down and we'll try to pick, because I think we got a lot of
central time. Ray, you're in Florida, right? Do you have a team? I've forgotten you told me,
but I've forgotten you have a team. So I don't know if you're interested in that. We will try
to figure out interest-wise where the people are mostly, and we'll try to pick a time that works.
We'll give some proposals. So Adia, if you can make note of that, Bridget, that'd be helpful.
On it.
Got it. Thanks. And then the other just quick announcement coming up soon,
we do have two in-person days. So we want to track one down here in the third quarter in
Atlanta. We're looking to do a track day. If you've never been on a track before, it's go-karts,
a lot of fun. And I just love doing that. And so we will go to the Atlanta Motorsport Parkway,
and it's a very corporate thing to do. It's a lot of fun things, but if you actually want to get on
the big track with the cars, we may have that option too. They have two tracks, one for go-karts,
one for actual driving. You can drive around the professional driver. I've spent many,
many hours on that track. That's the thing I love to do. And the second thing is then we'll do the
West Coast probably later in the year, in the fourth quarter. So just trying to figure that
out exactly. So we'll give you as much, not as fun as flying. Yeah. Yeah. We have pilots here.
The jokes will begin. Okay. Here we go. Any other pilots besides Ben and Bruce? Anyone else?
Yep. Oh, two. You're outnumbered. Anybody been to a track day? Just quick. You've been on a track
day? Yep. Okay. If you haven't, you will have fun. It's fun. It's designed for everyone. It's
no special skill needed. Okay. So the objectives for today, let's get into that, is I want to take
a moment, talk about our kingdom partnership with the Lord. Today, I want to focus around
permissions and promises and how that works in business for us. And then I want to spend a little
time doing some active hot seat conversations. I want to work through an exercise and at the end,
we'll pick something from the Edge training program and we'll work through that. Is that good?
Ready to go. Okay. And it's a long session. So just come and go as you need, get your tea,
coffee, whatever you need. We will just work our way through it.
Last week for us was a, last month rather, for us was an anchor concept in which we talked
through this whole idea of translating Matthew 11, 28 through 30 and putting business terms in.
So you remember that we all know Matthew 11, 20.
eight, come to me all you're weary and heavy laden, I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you
and learn from me and you will find rest, for I'm gentle and humble in heart, you will find
rest for your souls and my yoke is easy and my burden is light. Well we translated that all into
business language, so what if weary and burden was stressed, what if yoke was a partnership,
what if learn was learn everything you need for your life and business and what if
easy referred to the actual greek word christos which means effective, highly effective and
pleasant or delightful and what if burden meant that part of the partnership you carry.
Well then we created our own kingdom leadership version which may sound a little bit like this,
come to me all you who are stressed and I will give you rest. First point we made last month was
this isn't a transaction, when you're stressed come get rest. He was offering us to cross over
into a permanent state of rest upstairs, that's what he was saying. When I say rest I'm not
talking about taking naps, I'm talking about finding a rest for your soul, coming to a place
of quiet calm in yourself and in your leadership, very powerful in leadership. Take my partnership
upon you and learn everything you need for your life and business directly from me. So while
second-hand learning is helpful, if it teaches us how to learn from Jesus that's fantastic,
but if all it is is a downstairs thing, you have something to think about, you have something to
feel, make a good choice, that's downstairs stuff. So for I am gentle and humble in heart
and you will find rest for your inner life. For my partnership is effective and pleasant
and what I want you to carry is light. This is a foundational structure, we're going to spend
a couple of months building this out, really getting to the nuts and bolts. So what does
this mean? Let's get super practical, what does this mean? What if there's no need for you to carry
the weight of the outcomes in your business? I mean downstairs responsibility and accountability
make so much sense because that's where it fits. You hold your employees accountable,
you hold them responsible, you give them areas of authority etc. But upstairs the Lord makes
himself accountable to the partnership. So what happens is he sets us up in which he's saying come
and join me because I have a vision for what you're doing. And so part of how that mechanism works
is we know because that's how Jesus did it, he used this idea that upstairs permission leads to
bold downstairs action, which you guys have heard many times. But where does that come from? That
comes from John 5 19 and 20. And so what I'm going to do, I'll just drop it here in the chat for you.
There we go. And so you can follow along and it's Jesus explaining how it works.
Jesus says I speak to you in eternal truth, the son is unable to do anything from himself
and through his own initiative. I only do the works I see the father doing for the son does
not does the same works as the father. And I love this line because the father loves the son so much
he always reveals to him everything he's about to do. Not everything he's going to do, just what he's
about to do. And then you will be amazed when he shows him even greater works than what you've
seen so far. So I wondered if I put that in first person, right? If you want to put your own name in
there, then it might sound something a little more like this. And I'll drop that in the chat so you
can follow along. Maybe it sounds a bit like I'm unable to do anything from myself or through my
own initiative. I only do that which I see the father doing. For I do the same works as my father
because the father loves me so much he always reveals to me everything he's about to do.
And you will be amazed when the Lord shows me even greater works than you've seen so far.
So when we do this upstairs permission bowl downstairs action, what happens is we create
an amazement factor. And so this is why excellence honors your permission.
The excellence that you execute with downstairs, when people look at your
business and what you do, that honors your permission. I'm
know before it's been used in the sense of excellence honors God and motivates people.
I think it was Bill Hybels and there's an element to that but this goes we want to take that a bit
further because that upstairs permission he gave you gets backed by all the resources of heaven
because all of heaven is attracted to Jesus in you. I love that Jesus holds all the promises so
when the father gives us a promise Jesus holds it for us it's not going anywhere we can't mess it up
it can't be you know we we may be a little slow on the uptake but that the father wants to make
sure we get it and so everything given to you is given to Jesus in you and and that sets you up
to run your business at a completely different level. So one of the things I've noticed when
we teach this or talk about this the first thing is the exciting thing of my permission needs to
have an excellent downstairs execution there needs to be excellent action and that's part of why we
create the EDGE program to pick the best execution abilities from leaders around the world and teach
that to people whether it's you know deep work or whether it's you know doing you know thin slicing
projects not trying to boil the ocean and all those practical really clever things or how to
make things less dumb or as they call it at SpaceX the algorithm you know where you're deleting things
and stop trying to stop trying to optimize things that shouldn't even exist and as leaders we spend
they've spent hundreds of millions of dollars these leaders learning all of this and we've
cherry-picked those put those together so that we can help kingdom leaders execute with that level
of excellence. So as we put that all together there's some inferences that means I don't have
to do anything that I don't have permission for. I remember we joined a church a few years ago
and it was a church you know with 12 campuses and this is a church been going a long time
and they had a global footprint and we got became very bridge and I became close with the friends
with the senior pastor and his wife we had so much in common we were like instant friends
and of course we wanted to jump in and help we can do this we can do that we can run this program
we can teach we can do that we got excited we got together we talked about all the things
and I was excited I went to the lord I said lord this is so exciting we can
help build and I said what's my permission and the lord said your permission is to be their friend
I know that's going to go down well because you know pastors man they're looking for help
especially people can really really help and I remember sharing it with them and you know
there was that that moment of so you're not going to help them I said we may just not right now
our permission is to be your friend because I understand that one of the most helpful things
for a pastor in that position is to have someone to talk to they're not ready to talk to the
eldership board or they're not ready to speak to their own board or they're not ready and they just
wanted someone to bounce things off and they said yeah that is actually really helpful so we went
in their leadership structure at the time so the permission is not just for doing things it's also
for patient permission not to do things and this leads us to a very key idea in kingdom ministry
and it's called the permission during ebbs and flows many of us atypes we just want to flow
take more charity it's like the ocean it's like the waves going out right we just want to take
more ground take more ground take more ground we all know that's not how the ocean works at some
point it does what it retracts it it there's a there's an ebb there's a pulling back and
there's times to draw back deeper into a relationship with the lord and usually when
circumstances are quite negative usually when there's been a reversal just like you were flowing
out and then there seems to be a reversal and we think oh what's wrong where did I go wrong what
what mistake did I make no what's happening is the lord's gearing you up for more territory
and so what happens is during an ebb mode when when you're in a permission time of ebb where
there seems to be hey we might even feel like we're losing a bit of territory there's a drawing back
in that at that time is often what's going on is the lord's not just pruning you he's often pruning
the business too you become very aware of boundaries you get start becoming aware of
things like do we really need this are we really being effective who's our right fit client are we
serving people properly you start really digging deep into that mode but when you're in a flow
mode man you're taking territory you're going so fast you're expanding adding new products and it's
and it's working and it feels almost like you're like in the golden moment everything you touch
is working and that's a great time too
but understanding this ebb and flow and how the lord sets us up and how he regulates that
and the reason is that during an ebb time he's building much deeper resources in us so that when
we hit the next flow we're on a completely different level it's like he put us in the
elevator for a moment you and the doors close and it suddenly feels claustrophobic and i'm
in this little space but when the doors open i'm on a whole different floor at a whole different
level and that's a good way of thinking of ebb and flow and we often act like we've done something
wrong i've missed the lord what did i what did i miss here anybody know what i'm talking about
or is this me only okay thank you thank you i appreciate that so as we're going through this
here's some key thoughts that i've learned through the ebb moments you know it's it's a time of
getting very you know getting clarity because we know that clarity drives simplicity and simplicity
drives speed in any business the simpler you can make your business the faster you'll go
and it takes courage to bring that level of to to wade through the complexity you know as one
leader said you know the the the fog in your mind becomes the mist in the organization
and i think in many times what happens is we're not perfectly clear and it's often in these
ebb times that we really start to gear up that takes us sometimes even more than one level up
so it's not about the right plan when you're in the state when you're in this mode it's about
the team and what the lord is doing in the team and what he's doing in you and at this point
it's really important as a leader that we keep things really simple you know it's often that
it's hard for people to follow you if you lead in a complex way the simpler you can be the clearer
you can be i mean we know a lot of you know all the usual stuff about getting really clear on your
mission your one line we like one line job descriptions and we like that clarity of what
are we doing why are we doing it how do i fit in and everybody can answer that question with exactly
the same phrase you know and that training is available and you can take your team through all
that because great leaders make something so simple that anyone and everyone can follow it
when they hear it the first time and that is not as easy as it sounds so during ebb times
there are three types of pruning strategies that go on you know i was thinking about a story that
henry cloud told about his friend who bought a 25 million dollar company and how he took it to 500
million and what he did was he figured out that that the life of the company was only 20 of the
business all the other divisions were profitable but he sold them so profitable doesn't mean it
let's keep it because it's like a rose bush you can trim off the dead roses and some of the
nutrients will go and then you can trim off the sick rose but the hardest ones to trim are the
good roses so that the best roses get all the nutrients all the focus all the energy of the
organization go to those top few roses and when the when the buds when the best buds get all the
nutrients what happens is you become best in the world at something but you will never be best in
the world at something while you have too many levels of roses and so it's so counterintuitive
for especially if this is your first or second or whatever business and you're still going through
that that first round there's the temptation to think god gave me this everybody needs it
and we all know about you know niche markets and micronation focus down and we know that
but but within that the lord helps us figure out how do we get rid of sell off close off the 80
because the life of the business is in 20 of the business and this guy who did this
and i think i seem to remember that the time period is super short like two years three years
time he went from 25 million to 500 million and some you know when you find yourself banging on a
ceiling revenue wise man we just can't crack 3 million we can't crack 10 million some of you
are trying to get to your first million that's fine whatever it is but when you're trying to
crack that boundary this is usually what you're sitting against you're dragging all these roses
and with all those extra roses you're dragging complexity and so what's happening is you get
really slow you're so complex and you're dragging so much stuff and so we're going to talk about how
to shed that in one second we're getting very practical in a moment the second thing so the
first one is you know um trim the bush right let's let's go and find out where where the 20%
of the life of the business is then let's ask ourselves the tough question what's
are not going to get well. Let's just be blunt, be real. One of the jobs of a leader, define reality
as it is, not like we hope for. In fact, in this situation, the worst thing you can do is be hopeful.
Don't give hope to something you're about to kill. Don't give hope to this division of the
business that you're about to end. Just call it. And it's tough. You know, even recently at
Brilliant, we've had to, you know, turn off some of our staff. It's sick. It's not getting well.
It doesn't matter how hard we work. It's just not getting well. And so, you know, sometimes there's
just as a leader, there's just that time where a product, a strategy, or even some key person that
you're attached to, it's time for a change. This isn't going to change. They've hit their capacity.
They're not going any further. You've helped them. You've taken them as far as you can,
or this product is exhausted. It's run its lifetime. Let's move on. And sometimes leaders
get so vested in something and so much energy that we feel like we've got to keep supporting it
because we already got so much money in it. Warren Buffett refers to this as the institutional
imperative. The institutional imperative in simpler English is putting good money after bad.
Because we have so much money in it, we've got to keep putting money in it. And it takes a lot
of courage when you're in an ebb mode to cut it. So we're done. Enough. And here's the thing.
The father's permission in that is what gives you that confidence, because you're stepping
out in confidence. The father just gave me permission. We're done with this. And it takes
a lot of courage to do it. So, and I mean, it's very, you know, we just avoid necessary endings.
If you love that concept, there's some really great books by Henry Cloud, Boundaries for
Leaders, Necessary Endings, too, that come to the top of mind that are immediately useful.
Hey, Ray, do you want to jump in? Give my voice a break. Thank you.
I mean, I'll share something that happened on Saturday. You know, we have a, I have,
you know, one main person who sells my speaking engagements, you know, client brings in clients
and things like that. And I've been nudged by God a few times to redefine our relationship.
And I was just fearful, because I don't have a backup. She's the only one that does this thing.
And, and so on Saturday, I just got nudged very strongly. And I'm like, okay. And so,
you know, she was, you know, 10,000 a month income, and, and commissions. And so I called her
and, and, and God was so kind and giving me how I was going to help her and some of her endeavors
while also no longer pay her, you know, the 10,000 a month income. And so I was very nervous
about it and just prayed about it. And, and so I have this conversation. And, you know, it was
like, she's like, Are you are we breaking up, you know, and, and, but then later that day, we talked
again, and she thanked me profusely. And she's like, you know, this really made my day, I've
been really struggling with some of the things I want to pursue, but I care so much about you and
your stuff. And, you know, the lesson there is just to have, you know, faith, and, and, you know,
just trust that, you know, if he's nudging you to do something, it didn't make logical sense,
because I don't have a backup. But just to have faith that he's, you know, he's telling you this
for a reason. And so it, it was yet another scary thing that he's prompted me to do, but it actually
worked out really well. You know, I love that. Thanks so much for sharing. And yes, keep interrupting
guys, that's exactly what's conversation. But I want to, I also want to give enough momentum to
the conversation. But Ray, let's take a second on that. Because I think so many, so many of us,
because we're thinking it entirely from our own viewpoint. And so what happens when we think it
from his viewpoint, he already has the other person's best interest in mind. And when we see
it through his eyes, certainly our tone can be right, we can be kind, because we're experiencing
his kindness on how to deal with it, therefore puts us in a kind modality with them. And, you
know, I'm amazed how many times people phone you back or say, thank you so much, you know, because
we, you know, somebody who isn't keeping up in your organization, you say, well, I'm just trying
to help them. We're trying to work around them. Don't do that. It is unkind. It is truly unkind.
Who wants to live in an environment where you know, you're not keeping up and you can see
everybody's trying to help you because it's clear you're not, you're not doing your thing.
So when you call it and you release them back into the marketplace, they get to go to a new level too.
They get to have a new testimony with the Lord and what he's doing for them.
It's not on us.
And I think what I was sharing this idea with Graham and his view was, yeah, you're not the savior.
Just, you know, PS, you're a terrible savior, you know, so you're not the savior.
They belong to the Lord.
So while they're not walking with the Lord, that's okay.
The Lord's walking with them, you know, and on your behalf, God will take care of them.
I hadn't thought of that before.
You know, I thought, oh, well, if they know the Lord, it'll be a little easier.
But that's actually none of that.
The Lord, because of his commitment to this partnership, he takes care of it.
We think, oh, I have to go and fire them for God.
No, he's in it.
He's taking full response.
He's in the meeting.
And then afterwards, he's still responsible with them afterwards.
It's a very comforting thought to know you have a partner will walk with them after they leave you.
And I think that just helps make us bold.
I don't know if that's how you thought it through.
Um, I didn't before that.
I tried my best to think that way before the talk, but I still had fear.
And, uh, but after the talk, you know, just like so many times, um, that first step is scary.
I'm nervous.
And then it's, it turns out amazing.
I never could have guessed how it went.
And so that's, that's how this went.
That's beautiful.
Well, thank you.
Hey, Tyler, did you want to weigh in on that?
Yeah.
So just another perspective than people, um, it's been, uh, I don't know, somewhat,
somewhat difficult to live from rest when I was caught on Friday.
You know, we landed a pretty good job.
Um, so like we, we finished our sales in this first quarter with a pretty good number,
but like my emotions or my rest came after that landed, if that makes sense,
instead of just kind of being in this place of the unknown, you know?
And so even with people, I think with jobs or revenue, I, I was surprised that my,
that I, I reacted to it, if that makes sense.
And didn't just say, yeah, that's expected and move on, you know?
Yeah.
Well, I, I think there are two parts to that.
First, I wouldn't be too hard on you yourself for that.
But certainly I think the, it is true that the lawsuit, will you trust me with the outcomes
back to that childlike trust?
We never, as leaders get away at the core, think of concentric circles going out as you
grow as a kingdom leader at the core is always childlike trust there that you never get,
never graduate past that.
But then once that childlike trust starts to grow, the next thing is faith, which you
just mentioned, right?
That some point you step out in faith that God is with you.
Isaiah 41, I will help you.
I will help you.
Surely I will help you.
And you step out, you contract with his help.
And then as you start to get used to that, the trust and the faith working together,
then you start to learn what favor does.
And when you start to learn favor, you start to move more into a sonship mode or, you know,
men and women sons.
Sorry, I always have to explain that because I always want the ladies to know you have
the same inheritance in Christ.
There is no male or female, but the Bible uses this beautiful analogy of bride and sons
for two different reasons to bring up more of our inheritance in each case.
So we don't have to say the sons and daughters, like we don't say the bride and the bridegroom
of Christ for the same reason.
So the issue here is as boy and girl sons, God takes us into a new space of favor.
And we start to rely on that favor.
And people say, well, you shouldn't take him for granted.
And you know, Graham's response, when God grants you something, he expects you to take
him for granted.
Right.
And so that's what you start to learn.
And your confidence grows so deep there.
And then the last area is you start to step into the fullness of what you and the Lord,
the partnership was originally designed for you, were created for good works in Christ,
not on your own, in Christ.
How do I know I'm out of the partnership?
I'm weary and heavy laden.
How do I know I'm in the partnership?
I'm addressed.
Robin.
Yeah, I just wanted to volunteer for maybe a hot seat when we get to that point around
this same idea we had recently to release someone into the marketplace.
And we're looking to bring some people on.
So I could use some of everyone's advice on this.
Yeah, no question.
And we're going to have an exercise right up that alley in a second.
So, OK, well, we're doing well on time.
OK, so we said there were three, there were strategies for the pruning.
The first.
First, where's the life of the business?
Second, what's sick and not getting well?
And thirdly, what's dead and just needs to go?
Come on now, let's call it.
That thing is dead.
Let's stop.
Okay, yesterday is gone.
Time for a brutal reality check.
Let's stop trying to chase that thing down.
And this exercise we'll go through in a second.
So the five quick questions, again, just in summary,
where's the life of your company?
Where's the 20, in the 20% of your company
has 80% of the life, where is that?
And is there still something that we're attached to
that needs to go?
Is there something dead and just taking up space?
And then the hardest one of all,
what is good but not best?
And if you're wanting to know the source
of a lot of these things we've used over the years
as a combination of Henry Cloud,
I think it's been a little while,
but a lot of it is just our own constant use of this.
Jenny, how many times have we been through this exercise?
Five or five times?
It's one of my favorite ones.
It's one of my favorite ones
because anything can fall under the category
and it brings such a clarity
as to how you move forward in it.
Yeah, I know we opened up one more internally
and that is what's coming in the Lord
that we need to make room for?
Because if you're so massively,
if all your resources are so allocated
that you have room for nothing,
and so there has to be some margin, some space.
So that's really where it starts
to become more prophetic.
Lord, what is it we need to open up?
What do we need to make space for?
And we can spend a lot of time surrounding that.
So that was all when you're in ebb mode.
Let's talk for a second when you're in flow mode.
When you're in flow mode,
as we've said previously,
there are three primary ways to grow a business
when you're in flow.
When you're taking territory,
when you're spreading out,
if you want 10% growth
and just to really improve your processes,
nail down your processes, clean up,
you'll get your 10, if you're lucky, 20% growth,
but mostly around 10 to 15% growth
just by improving your processes.
Focus on that.
If you want 100% growth,
add a new product, create something new.
If you want 10X growth,
you have to pivot and rethink your business.
That's when you have to say,
hey, what if we took the whole thing online?
I loved hearing Barry's story from Sage,
how they did conferences everywhere
and then they have the crisis when COVID hit
and suddenly they run out of business.
And so they built a studio
and they took the whole thing virtual
and they really drove the virtual business.
And if you think about that,
that's what I mean, rethink your business.
If you're looking for a missing zero in your business,
you can't be tweaking the processes.
If you're looking for that missing zero,
adding a new product is very difficult
to add a zero just from adding a product.
Now, if you happen to hit some massive product
and it goes viral, I mean, there are exceptions,
but in general, in my experience,
having owned 24 companies and run three others,
and it's almost always this that I can see.
So as we go through this process,
let's stop there for a second
because this kind of end of our first part,
and I wanna stop the recording there
unless there are any questions.
We're good?