jump in and get straight to it. And then we'll, you know, I'm sure as other people join, we will,
we will catch up with them. So a couple of quick announcements, and then we'll do our usual three
sessions. The first session, we're going to go into sort of the thought for today around our
partnership with the Lord and what that is like. And secondly, we're going to spend a little time
going through more workshop. And then around the workshop, we'll do a little bit of laser coaching.
And then the third section is we'll talk about the edge and empowering your team. So we'll get
into all that. All good to go. Yeah. So we, we all know the drill by now. So we'll just jump
straight in. And then dear, if you wouldn't mind just helping those who we seem to have about
by half the group last, I don't know where they are this month. I'll find them. I'll look for
you can find them. Thanks. So everybody is the person. She's our VP of business development
here. I 49. So good to have you back to have all the surgeries and all the rest. So
no one is happier than me about you being back.
So you're that's fantastic. Okay. Anyway, dear, you've got it and we'll do the announcements
and the smallest stuff and buy people time to jump on. A couple of things is on the app.
I know that many of you have been using the app. There's an iOS app and an Android app and a web
app. And so if I'm just going to quickly share that screen so that you can see that. So everybody
see this. So on, on the web app, you know, under the inner circle, for those of you that are part
of the inner circle and the edge, you'll get both, but for the inner circle group, we put the
curriculum together. I noticed several of you found these power tools, some of the power tools
we've put in here. We're going to, we're going to focus on number four today. We'll come back to
that in a second. Of course, all the replays from all the sessions are there, any prophetic words
and so forth are there too. And don't forget the edge bot. So that's the bot that we've taken all
our training of the years and, and built our own bot. You can access it directly from here. So
like, what is the triple bottom line or whatever question you have? What is the, you know, how does
QBook work or whatever, you know, that's all there. But the most important thing is I do actually,
even though it looks like I lost half my brain cells in this photo in reality, I do actually
check this every week. So I will respond and I will, I will engage. So what we want to do is go
through, we just want to go through and make you aware that we are, I do check this and I do
respond and we love you to interact with each other. So get on the community. Last announcement
is under the community section here, you will see a section called questions. If that's where you can
post, if you want us to prioritize you on the laser coaching the following month, drop your
question there and say, you know, for laser coaching colon and then whatever. And then I'll
just make sure you're up first. So that's how you can prioritize yourself. So again, community,
the curriculum is there with the power tools and all the previous inner circles, the replays are
all there and the edge bot. And again, you can do that on your iOS app and, and you can get that.
I think you just look under edge groups on iOS. If you're looking for that, any questions around
that, all the admin stuff, all good. All right. Excellent. We do still have our two in-person
events, one East coast, one West coast. We're still trying to finalize some of that partly
because I'm also trying to coordinate some of this with, with hundred X so that we got people
that belong to both, both worlds. So we're trying to accommodate that if we can't, we'll make that,
we'll definitely make that announcement by next, by June's call. So I'm expecting we'll do something
in July, August, and then maybe something in November. We'll try to fit it in this year.
So we keep it in one calendar and next year we'll spread it out a little more.
All right. Excellent. You're ready to go. Ready to go and do this. Yeah. I see. We've got, so
see Tamara. Oh, you're on two. That's your fathom. I see. Got it. All right.
All right. Well we're jump, we're going to just jump straight into, we want to talk and continue
the topic of, you know, when we were explaining how partnership with the Lord works, we've been
using Matthew 11, 28 through 30, which has been by now, I think everybody has it thoroughly memorized,
which is great. And as we said before, you know, when you first hear a verse and you learn,
hearing the verse is one thing, learning the verse is another. And then becoming the verse is.
what you know that's why it takes so long to become a verse. It takes time for it to become
part of of our upstairs experience in the Lord. So I thought what I would do is just I drew a
little diagram which I hope would help give some of this context. So as we're going through that
let me share with you my my screen on this and then we will go straight into.
All right so everybody see that the edge right you're good. So the whole idea of living a high
impact kingdom leadership lifestyle is that obviously it starts upstairs starts in the heart
of the Lord knowing who he is knowing what he's like and then knowing who we're becoming that
informs our leadership. So we might draw it a little bit like this the three elements might be
you know here we have our partnership in the Lord informs our leadership which drives our team.
Make sense? So the top two partnership and leadership is what we do here at the inner
circle and of course the team stuff is what we do that's our covert training the 40 weeks
training that's every week for the team that does nobody there has to be believers we just
bring all the kingdom goodness to them without any christian language. So that's the covert side so the
the point of the bottom and the last element of team is to empower the kingdom leader to
to create a team of leaders. So that's partnership leads to leadership leads to team. So I hope that
gives a little bit of context and and here's why this works because basically it turns triangles
into squares we've talked about uh you know if we've talked about that triangles um you know
if you think of the upstairs downstairs there are some people are all upstairs man they get a
prophetic word every week they get all these promises God tells them stuff and execution
is zero or very small so we end up with an upside down triangle it's all upstairs stuff
and very little execution and then we have the other group uh in the kingdom or in the church
where we go this way around we get a word once 20 years ago and then we built a global movement
you know I mean it's just massive execution fantastic leadership really know how to execute
and so our job is not to have one triangle or the other our job is to have a perfect square
just like what Jesus did right what he said I do downstairs what I see my father doing upstairs
so this creates and then he said and it will amaze you and he talked on talked about doing
even greater work so this idea that Jesus set up was the idea that uh we get to do greater works
so with that in mind and just to bring some more clarity to it really the partnership elements the
leadership elements which covered by inner circle the key round what drives the partnership I called
it the command and control point the inflection point the point that really drives everything
that's the permission we've often said upstairs permission leads to bold downstairs action that's
what makes the square so the permission here is based on the inner territory so over many
sessions we've talked right through the idea that you can only take external territory based
on the inner inner territory you've taken we've talked through all the dangers around when we
when when our inner territory uh external territory becomes larger than the internet
internal territory we end up in a situation where a lot of people implode you see that I
personally think this is the reason why most ministries or most christian leaders even pastors
will end their lives not even serving the lord let alone being in the ministry and the reason is
when the external territory gets bigger then there's the pressure goes the wrong way so we
always say we want to live inside out but we don't talk and explain how that works or how to be with
the lord and how he wants to be with us in that partnership so the partnership is everything
so the partnership sets the size of the territory you're ultimately going to take
so when jesus said come to me all your weary and heavy laden and i will give you rest take my yoke
my partnership on you and learn from me that's where the learning happens directly from him
from gentle and humble of heart and you will find rest for yourselves then he said for my
yoke is easy and we decoded that word easy christos in the greek literally means highly
effective and and easy to us it feels light there's a lightness to kingdom leadership and then he said
and your burden is light. Your part of the partnership should feel light. So if we find
this place in our partnership with the Lord, it will express itself in our leadership. There'll
be a lightness to our leadership. There'll be a restfulness to our leadership and that's how we
know. So how do we know we're in partnership? How do we know we've stuck inside the partnership?
Is if we become, if we feel and functioning from rest. If we find ourselves in stress, anxiety,
worry, we know we stepped out. That's what Jesus said, you know, exchange the stress and worry,
come to me and receive rest. Now the Lord wasn't talking about a transactional rest,
he was talking about moving into a new modality, to move into the permanent state of rest.
So we'll talk a little more about that. And once we have that, then the last step is how do we do
training? So on the leadership side, the reason why the command and control is your cue book or
the cue system is that you need one place you can allocate all your time, all your resources to.
And so we'll talk a little bit about that today. And now we act with bold action because our
confidence comes from our permission. And then the last part then is how do we train our team?
Okay, because even if you're the only believer in your organization, training your team with the
best leadership practices from around the world, and that's what we've spent 40 weeks doing. And
we'll start that leadership training up again soon, as soon as we get all the final details
worked out, which we're pretty close to doing. So that concept there is a team of leaders. So
where's the command and control point for training your team is that weekly leadership
training. I know I stress this every single month, but one hour a week of investing in their
leadership, not just productivity. Productivity is the wrong focus. When we invest in people
and people feel safe and creative and start acting like owners, productivity goes up almost
automatically. I think focusing on productivity is backward in my view. It's not a kingdom viewpoint
because we invest in people first and then we train people how to be team of leaders. So we
talked a lot of that. So what are the command and control points? What is the pivot point? In my
partnership, it's about permission. So if I got a lot of stuff coming at me, if you've got a lot
of stuff coming at you right now, hitting the pause button, saying, what's your permission
right now, Lord? That just clears out all the noise, gets you to focus on one thing, and that's
where it becomes very restful, very quickly. Once I know that, then I use my cue book, I use my
calendar to allocate resources and to prioritize the time. We're going to get into that today,
to take bold action. And for my team, that once a week training, people say, well,
I can't afford a whole week to pull the whole team together. Honestly, you cannot afford not to.
Productivity can double, triple, or in some cases, go 5X just by investing in people first.
And it's an extraordinary thing. When your team believes that you're actually investing in them,
not to get them more productive and get the most out of them, but actually investing in them,
so that, hey, if you ever leave here, we want you to be the smartest person in the room, wherever
you go. That's a huge shift for people. Good. Questions, any thoughts, questions?
So I was going to just bolden this out a little and just give you a little more context.
So this inner territory, what are we talking about? We're talking about exploring God's heart,
His nature, and who you're becoming. The bold action, that's your yoke, your partnership in
action. And team of leaders is to bring the ways of the kingdom to the benefit of all. So everybody
benefits from God's goodness, whether they know Him or not. And I can give you a little more
detail for those of you who've been around a bit more. So if you're looking at the key elements
on the side, so around permission and partnership, we address things like how to function from peace,
and what to do with promises, and how to do a provision, and how does this feel easy and light,
how does the high impact part work, and the clarity of purpose. All that stuff is part of the
partnership conversation. On the leadership conversation, it's like how do you design your
perfect week that facilitates your partnership. That's today's topic. So buying back your time,
ebb and flow management, which we talked last month about. All this is about facilitating
your partnership in the Lord, taking bold action. And then with the team, it's all about people drive
processes. We talked about the firefighter's net, and clarity of purpose, and innovation,
giving your team a feeling of cognitive control. And so that's that's
that portion. So I just wanted to give all that context. So as
we go through that together, you understand what we mean when we
say your partnership drives your leadership, which drives your
team. How does that sound? I don't want this to be a two hour
lecture. So let's get talking. Any thoughts, ideas around this?
So Glenn, were you clapping hands? Or were you wanting to
say something?
Clapping hands, Dion. I mean, this is I think each time you
share, this becomes increasingly more focused and
clearer. That is a fantastic way to lay it out and to show those
keys as well. Really appreciate it. Thank you.
Yeah, sure. Yeah.
I'll second that. Dion, thank you for the context, man. That
thing that's really grabbing me is the idea of permission. And I
think that how that really helps direct where my focus
should be. So, man, thank you. I look forward, just as Glenn
said, to hear it again. Because, man, I feel like I can put more
and more into action as I do.
Yeah, excellent. You're welcome. Any thoughts, comments? Any
questions?
There's territory to take.
Yep, territory to take. Was that you, Matthew? Who's it there?
Todd here.
Oh, Todd. Okay, so. Thanks, Todd. Appreciate that. So what
we would, what we want to share, what we would love to do today.
So the big, the big mountain to conquer today is, I know a lot
of us hang around, you know, similar thought leaders, you
know, and, you know, whether it's Simon Sinek, or Greg
McKeon, or, you know, some of the some of the thought leaders
that really help us inform our downstairs leadership. And we
love that. I mean, what's not to love about super effective
downstairs leadership. But as we've just laid out, our
upstairs leadership must drive the downstairs leadership.
Otherwise, it's just one leadership idea after another.
And you don't know which to prioritize, you don't know where
to focus, you don't know what the Lord's doing. So when the
Lord's giving you permission, the permission is giving you
also, then that permission will extend to your team, we're
focusing on this. That is so, so releasing, because suddenly
there's this freedom of, you know, the senior partner is
driving the show. I'm not him. So that is that for me is one
of the greatest aspects and one of the greatest joys in the
whole process. Okay, so let's talk a little bit about this
lightness of kingdom leadership. So I'm going to postulate for
today. And I'm going to call this lightness of kingdom
leadership when you're functioning from rest, Matthew
1128 to 30. If you missed the reference, I'm going to call
this lightness mode. And here's the interesting thing, when
you're in lightness mode, you can go into light speed. There
is an efficacy that happens that when we when we come to a place
of rest in the Lord, that and we start to feel like the lightness
of being when we feel that, wow, my burden, my part of this
partnership is pretty light. When I start to feel that delight
and that joy, suddenly, I'm moving to light speed mode. And
here's the really thing. Here's the big thing I've been
learning. It's like a seesaw, right? The deeper the rest, the
more powerful and effective the light speed is, the faster I go,
the minute I take it on myself, and you all know what I'm
talking about on me, I have to do this thing I have to, I have
it has to be hard. I have to work, I have to do my thing. And
then suddenly, I think slows down again. So I found the way
to speed up the way to go to light speed is to go into light
mode. I was trying to make it simple to remember. But that's
how I think of it anyway. And so as you're going through this,
so let's talk about, let's talk about three things quickly. One,
what is this lightness of kingdom? What does it save you
from? You know, it saves you from feeling like you're on your
own in this venture, I'm on my own in this business feeling
like it's all up to me, carrying the world on my shoulders, you
know, and when you feel like you're carrying the full weight
and that it's heavy, guess where you are? outside the
partnership. So not to be no condemnation in that, because
it's easy to come back. And by the way, just so that you know,
it takes practice to stay there. It's one thing to do this like
little moment where okay, now I'm at rest. And then two hours
later, I'm back in
no i'm doing it all again you know it just takes practice so the lord's super patient with your
learning you know he's okay with that grace covers our learning and um but here's the good news what
he wants you to know that is it is a permanent state of being you can come to a point where rest
is permanent so um just before i get going on i'm noticing so many key people that are not here so
um i don't know if we've heard back from folks um because normally nobody misses so okay
um second point second thing it saves you from is stress is part of the job well it is if you're
downstairs and you don't know the law for sure then that's all you got you know then you can
do all the stress management stuff the best thing you can do with stress then if you live downstairs
is do downstairs stress management which are good you know sleep well get exercise diet
blah blah you know those are good things i'm not i'm not uh i'm not minimizing them i'm just
calling them what they are they're downstairs but the rest jesus is talking about the peace
jesus gives us is the peace that is not like the world gives how does the world give peace it's
fickle it's based on circumstances being great but his peace passes all understanding that means
when downstairs stuff makes no sense yet you have peace that's the peace he's talking about
that's what he's referring to so being stressed you know because we've learned and this is why
we have to learn the ways of the kingdom not the ways of the ways of the world in leadership is
man if you're stressed you're just showing you're taking it seriously you're showing how serious
that i know it's funny from a kingdom viewpoint it's funny now um it wasn't funny then so you
know because we used to believe this stuff right so the lie there is that oh man if if you're if
you're a serious leader then you're like on the edge of stress or i am so stressed i got so much
on my plate and um and so the cool thing it isn't your stress anymore because jesus paid for it and
that belongs to him so it isn't even yours you don't even get to claim it as my stress or my
anxiety or my worries because they're not yours so here's the thing the third thing it frees us
from is it has to be hard to be worthwhile you know we we use expressions like well that's easy
for you to say or we use expressions like um you know anything worth doing you know if it was easy
everybody would do it you know it's only worthwhile if it's hard again downstairs stuff
we learned in the absence but here's what it is you know when it's worthwhile when he gave
permission for it because some of the times it won't even see like the logical thing to do or
the main thing to do some of you have made some pretty serious decisions for your business
not because it was the logical thing to do but because the lord said do this or start that
business i was looking around for robin there a moment ago but you know last week when robin
talked about his second business being funded by the first business and we talked about the
danger of value stack of venture stacking whether one venture pays the other venture
and i called robin the next day to talk to him a little more about it and uh just talking with him
about this idea and i said here's the three problems with venture stacking number one is
do you have permission number two if you're one company's funding the other company it's cloaking
the real risk involved in that company it can't stand on its own feet you can't see what's needed
because it's it's being artificially propped up and three is you usually are distracting or
depleting your resources so are you going to give so it's one thing to say you know that the one
venture pays for the other venture now i'm not talking about structuring yourself so that you
can take advantage of a different market i'm just saying that this idea that it has to be hard and
difficult for it to be worthwhile isn't how it works in the kingdom he's in it with you the lord's
in it with you so what does this open up for us this likeness of being opens up a couple of things
for us number one three things one is it opens up you have to have you get to have a partnership
with jesus being yoked and um it's an interesting farming analogy that that jesus used because when
you yoke two oxen together if you have one big powerful ox and one little ox and the big ox
pushes gets what guess what happens to the little ox gets crushed right because that that wooden
board that yokes them together if the big ox pushes it just crushes the little ox and so in
that sentence in that invitation jesus says it's okay when you learn from his his for i am gentle
It's interesting that he immediately assures us that he's gentle, he's not going to push and crush you in this in this partnership. I love that. And he's humble. That means it's not like I got to get my stuff done. I got my purposes. I got my, you know, and he's, he's not impatient. The second thing is that, you know, he asks you to cast his burdens on him, which if you put it back in the analogy, and I'm smiling, because I just see, you know, how kind is the Lord, not only is he helping put you down, but he's also putting you down.
But then he says, Hey, I can take some of that burden on me. And that will increase our push capability. So that's why the more restful you become, the more he carries everything, the faster you go. I have this impression of this little small ox is a bit scrawny, that would be me. And then next is this big, powerful ox, which is Jesus. And then the board doesn't actually touch my neck. But we're pushing together. And I think he's doing all the pulling. And, and it's so kind.
He said, Look, we pulled it together. I don't think the board even touched my neck. I think it is a bit that way. So we're getting invited to cross over into this lifestyle of rest. Why? Because rest is a weapon. Rest is your primary weapon against the pressure that comes on you as an executive, as a leader.
When everything's coming at you, and you can you can reset to rest. This is your this is your, your secret superpower in the kingdom. Okay, so that's the first thing. Second thing is lightness is your part of the partnership. So the delight, the delight and the wow factor, I get to do this, I get to do this with the Lord. This is and this is, I love what I do.
I think Bridget and I talk every day and say, Don't we just love what we do? We love what we do. And the most important is we love who we get to do with. And so what happens and the reason this all works from rest is because the favor of heaven is attracted to Jesus in you and you learn quickly how to let your favor go before you and prepare away.
Now that may sound philosophical or a bit ethereal, but let me explain what I mean by that. You get to a point of such confidence in your partnership, because the Father is relentless in getting you to a point that you are completely and totally confident in Him.
He will not give up on that. He's going to relentlessly pursue you until He's going to so shy you with goodness. He's going to so put you in a mode to the point where you become utterly convinced and your confidence in Him is unwavering. And what I mean by that, when you're in that mode, you let His favor go before you. You're not trying to make stuff happen. You're just trying to keep up with what's happening.
That's a great way to live.
And the third thing is we become highly effective. So and the reason we become highly effective is because we enter friendship mode. Jesus said in John 15, 15, I no longer call you servants. I call you friends because a servant does not know what his master is doing.
But I have told you everything that I have learned from the Father and everything the Father taught me, I am teaching you. So when we realize the whole setup is the same way Jesus learned. He said he was about the Father's business. The same way Jesus learned is the same ways offering to teach us come to me and learn from me.
And so the deeper the rest, the faster you go. So rest causes us to enter into this light mode, which then gives us access to light speed. Okay, let me breathe there for a second. Feedback.
Because this is the end of the little partnership session that we're going to get straight into the business stuff.
Yeah, this is great. For the last couple weeks, I have just been hunkering down in Hebrews chapters three and four out of the Passion Translation. And it talks a lot about faith rest. It uses that phrase faith rest. And it captivates me to try to understand that more. How do I get to stay there?
You know, so this is right in alignment with what Holy Spirit has been trying to drive me into understanding is staying in the place of faith rest. And how to in partnership with that is how to step into this might be where you're going, I think, in my spirit, I feel like you're going to go here to answer the next thing I'm looking for, but how to step into eating from the abundance of the fruit of self control.
Yeah, you know, so where we get to step into that partnership with him, and Holy Spirit, you know, yes, the fruit of the Spirit is all these things. But he's he's teaching me how faith rest partnership.
with the fruit of self-control. So, but this is perfect. This is, timing is perfect.
Oh, great. Well, glad you're enjoying it. Thanks, Tamara. I appreciate that.
All right. Let's talk a moment about, so I always try to put myself out there on these,
on these sessions. So the new thing we've been doing recently, Jesus said, come and learn from
me. So I asked Jesus, if you were teaching us as a group of CEOs and business leaders, executives,
how would you teach us? And how would that sound? What would be your, what would be your voice?
And it feels like, so I'm going to, so I'm going to do my best to, to capture how he might say
this. So here's, here's, you can take a second and maybe just listen and, listen beyond to what
I'm saying and just catch what, what he's saying to you. So I wrote this out in a first person way,
so we can just take a second with the Lord on this. I think he's genuinely excited about this.
So, so if Jesus were teaching you this directly, it may sound like this.
The reason I no longer call you my servant, but my friend, is that I share everything I'm doing
with you. This is how I learned it from the Father. I love our partnership. In the kingdom realm,
we empower the natural world. Everything in the kingdom starts in rest. In rest,
in rest, you can see what I'm doing. You can hear what I'm saying.
It is my rest that I give you as a gift. Rest is your sole mode of operation in the kingdom.
There is no need for stress or worry or anxiety. My rest sets you up to learn from me.
When the Father gives us permission, we take bold action and that moves everything in the world.
All life is in me. To bring life to your business, I will teach you my ways and my truth.
You are in the world, but you are not of it. You are of my realm. You are of the kingdom
and I am teaching you how to live as a son and as a daughter.
I want you to know how to rule and reign with me. That only happens from rest.
My peace I give you is not like the world's peace which is fickle. My peace is a ruling power.
It is what enables you to rule with me in this world.
You can learn to fully fulfill your purpose which the Father has prepared beforehand for you to
walk in. That purpose was assigned by Father to our partnership. The genius Holy Spirit will help
and empower all our efforts. He is so excited about doing this with us.
There is no need to feel that you're alone in this venture. There is no requirement
in the kingdom in which you need to be the prime initiator.
I can do nothing of my own or initiate anything. I can only do that which I see Father doing.
But because the Father loves me and loves you, He shares everything He's about to do with us.
I will help you see what we're doing in your life and in your business. It is time
to enter kingdom life in your business. We love doing this with you. We love our partnership
with you. We love your learning and we want you to love it too. I will help you. I will help you.
Surely I will help you. Stay yoked and enjoy the lightness of your burden you carry in this
partnership. I love you. I love doing this with you. Now cross over into rest. I deserve for you
to have all I paid for. Let's do this together. Polio.
Well, I hope that touched your heart somewhere, and I hope that there's something about hearing
something in the first person.
The hardest part of doing these things, I can tell you, is trying to get the tone right.
So I asked the Lord, what's the tone?
What voice would you say this with?
The thing he said, when I wrote it down, is he said, I want you to be restful and excited.
I said, those don't sound like they go together.
So I was trying to switch between those.
Okay.
Any thoughts?
Yeah, that was powerful for me.
It is just a place where I'm going right now with business, you know, God's called me to
be a businessman.
I'm a kingdom-focused businessman, and this is what I love.
This is what I'm needing.
Had a long conversation with my wife yesterday about it, and I just appreciate all of this,
and then hearing it through the voice of Jesus like that, that was powerful, because he was
like, we're co-laboring.
I'm your business partner.
So that really spoke to me.
Thanks.
Oh, you're most welcome.
Okay.
Any questions, thoughts, ideas?
Okay.
Hey, Robin, is that you in your cap in the car?
Yes, it is.
Is this going to be transcribed so that we can have that meditation?
Oh, for sure.
Yeah, we'll pull that out like we did last time.
We did a prophetic word like that, and we'll pull it out as a separate part of the, we'll
drop it in the curriculum as a separate thing.
So you can, if you just want to listen to that piece, and some of you just want the
audio, I know, so we'll do that too.
I'm making all these promises for dear to keep.
All right, thanks, dear, appreciate it.
Yeah, we'll pull that out and give you the transcript as well.
Excellent.
Well, so that wraps up kind of session one.
Let's get into session two, which is really getting down to the nuts and bolts, taking
bold action.
How do we do this?
And so I thought the, so many of us, as I said before, I want to focus today on calendaring
and creating the perfect week.
Many of you follow Dan Mattel, and I think it's a fantastic downstairs practical wisdom
that he gives.
You know, he uses this phrase, design the perfect week you do not have to retire from.
And I'm thinking, wow, that's a pretty good week.
If you want to do this for the rest of your life week, that's a good week.
That's a good design, right?
And great, if you say, I don't want to be doing this for the rest of my life, then it's
a great question you should be having with the Lord about this.
So what I thought to do is to share with you some of the best practices around this.
So how do we design the perfect week or the perfect calendar for your partnership?
How do we accommodate our partnership in our practical weekly design of our week?
And I'd love to hear what you guys do, but I thought I'd kick off the conversation with
what I do.
And again, this is ripe fruit.
This isn't some green thoughts that we just, you know, green fruit, you know, we've talked
about that before.
You know what green fruit is, you've listened to those sermons before, right?
Somebody did something a few days ago, went to scriptures, got some verses together, put
some points together.
We don't live that verse.
We just know about that verse.
And then you, you bite into that fruit and it's really bitter green fruit.
So what we want is ripe fruit.
And so whenever you're sharing anything and everything we try to share on these things
are things that we have practiced for years or things that are, we feel are, have taken
hold in our lives.
And somebody asked me the other day, do you guys at Brilliant know any, you sound like
you know, like five verses, do you know there are more verses in the Bible than five?
And the reason isn't that we don't know there's no verses.
We just want you to become those verses.
And how many verses can you become in a year?
So the idea of reading through the whole Bible in a year at best is going to give you some
downstairs academic oversight thing.
But how many of those verses are going to become verses you live?
So take the pressure off.
You are not going to learn every verse in the Bible and become it.
Not in your lifetime.
But the good news is we have eternity to that.
So slow learning is kingdom learning.
Let's get to it.
So number one, I've learned two questions that have really changed my life.
And sorry to those who heard the story before, but the way I learned this is I had to do
this.
presentation, and I had to write about an 80 page when I was doing my private equity thing.
The person we were doing this for is very well known, and I felt tremendous pressure because of
that. At one point, he was running for president, so I was feeling under tremendous pressure to do
this incredible work. They just dumped so much stuff on me all at once, and I said to Bridget
Mann, if I just work through the night and then work through the next day, by five o'clock the
next day, maybe before that, if I just go flat out, get up really early, do the 24-hour thing,
and then all the way into the afternoon, maybe I'll get it done. But even then, the Lord's going
to really have to help me. I'm going to have to get all the research just exactly. I have to nail
down. The financial models have to work. They never do in those things when you're trying to
model out a business and so forth. There's so much complexity in especially what we were doing.
I sit down to do my big plan. Bridget goes out, and the Lord says, go and read a book.
I said, you mean like for an hour just to relax? No, the Lord says, take the day off.
You know how it is when you start explaining to the Lord in case he doesn't understand.
So I went through that useless exercise. Bridget comes back and says, I thought you had all this
work to do. I said, yeah, no, I'm trying to read a book. I was like reading a book. I don't think
I was really reading a book. I think I was just half ripping out the pages. To say I was functioning
from rest would be a complete lie. There was nothing restful about this day. It was very
stressful. So I go through the day. Of course, I don't work through the night. The next afternoon,
I get a call at four o'clock. The thing's due at five. It's due at five. I've written nothing,
done nothing, written nothing. I get a call at four from the guy, and he says, actually,
the attorney represents him. He says, oh man, we feel so bad giving you this call. I said, why?
He said, man, we don't need that report for another couple of weeks. I said, really? He said,
yeah, I bet you worked through the night. I don't know what you did, but man, we just feel sorry.
We only just found out, you know, whatever. So I put down the phone. I said, Lord,
I wish I had known that I could have rested. And the Lord said, you did know that and you didn't
rest. And then I learned I have to learn to function from rest. So now to circumvent that,
I started asking the Lord every day. So Father, what are we doing today? Now I know the plan,
and I've got my schedule just like you, and I've got all the stuff that has to be done on my to-do
list, and I've got my cue book, and I've got all that. But I want to know, what are we doing today?
I want to know, what's the adventure with you today? Then I learned over time to add that to
the week. So when we're starting the week, Lord, what's the big rock for the week? What's the big
move for the week that you're doing? Because if you're doing, if you're giving me that permission,
I'm taking some serious, bold downstairs action. So it just put me in a such, so I plan out my week,
but I'm kind of holding it lightly. So when I design my perfect week, that's based on my
partnership, you know, I want to prioritize the thing that the partnership is calling for.
So even if I've got all these things, and the Lord says, we're focusing on this. And I say, well,
if we focus on this, I have to move other things around. And sometimes He just takes care of it,
because one thing you learn in business, and as an executive, is that Jesus is a quickening spirit.
By that, I mean, He compresses time. What you thought would take a month, will take a week.
What you thought will take a week, take a day. What you thought will take a day, will take an hour.
He just gets in on it. And Holy Spirit just pounds your brain with ideas, and you get through stuff.
Anybody had this experience, where the Lord, you thought it was going to take a long time,
and then the Lord just compressed it out. Okay, you guys know what I'm talking about.
So because of that, I know that He can compress my schedule, and do whatever He wants.
So here's what I do. I design this week out, and I'm going to show you that design in a second.
And then here are a couple of best practices, before we get into the practical
bookshop side of this. So once a month, once a month, I give the Lord four hours,
one deep work session, four hours, just to talk to Him about, how am I doing? How's my leadership?
How's our partnership? You know, I mean, I talk about it every day, a bit to Him, but then I
take a moment. Why do I do that? Because sometimes we have to take a minute to acknowledge what we're
learning, to acknowledge what He is seeing, and to see, and just to, you know, as you go through
that review, things become even clearer. So we'll discuss promises, prophetic words, sometimes He'll
point me back to an old
prophetic words. By the way, prophetic words were given outside of time and space. So,
but the Southern endless that you don't need, well, prophetic words do not have a sell by date.
So you'll keep them for the rest of your life. You know, there will always be an element of
something beautiful in them. So we talk about my leadership upgrades, Lord, how am I leading?
How, how's our partnership reflecting? How's my leadership reflecting our partnership?
You know, what's my growth? What's my upgrades? And then we'll talk about strategy for the
business again. So I found, I found that once a month working on the business with the Lord
is better than working in it on my own. So that's the once a month thing. The once a week thing
is I spend one four hour session each week co-creating with him. That's a session in which
we do stuff together. We create content strategy. We work on new financial concepts, leadership
stuff that, that we're developing, that we're sharing in our group, because of course,
part of my call is to help others walk in their partnership. Part of my partnership is to help
others walk in their partnership. That's my job, right? So that's part of what I do. And then the
first thing every day is those questions. So what I love for those of you on the brilliant school of
leadership, you already know this, this kingdom routine. Start new every morning, new every
morning. Imagine getting saved every morning. There's no accusation from yesterday. And so the
thing here is to never allow yesterday's negative stuff, especially in the business to compound into
today. The enemy relies on the negative compounding like a snowball because that, because he has no
resources or they're extremely limited in heaven. We have endless resources. We live in abundance in
the kingdom, but what he has to do is he has to rely on you to help him out. And the way he gets
that to us to do that is to compound negatives and just let that compound up into something
of substance and then get you to add a personal pronoun to it. So it becomes yours. Then it
becomes, it becomes my business problem and my pain and my whatever. And once he's got your
personal pronoun attached, then his job is to make it a stronghold and say, you see, this is
just how it's going to be. There's no real way out of this. So, and you watch that, that process happen
all the time. Well, you know what short circuits it right off the bat is if you start new every
morning, his mercies on you every morning. And what it does is it does Psalm 92 for me. Psalm 92 too
says, I declare his goodness in the morning. And I thank him for his faithfulness at night
because I've experienced his goodness. So I start off with an expectation of goodness in the morning
and at night, I thank him for the goodness that I experienced. And my whole mindset is looking for
goodness. I set an expectation of goodness. And then over time, Lord just keeps raising that
expectation and finally teaching your team, how to interact with you in this process. I'll get
into that in a bit. So let me just share with you on the screen. So here's, you may want to get
the exercise portion and then we'll get into some laser coaching around this.
Okay. Can everybody see that just as exercise guys see that? Yeah. All right. So creating
alignment in your partnership, I want to talk through the simple idea. And if you've, if you've
used this before, that's fine. There's your A space, your B space and your C space, right?
A space is when you do, by the way, the things I'm talking about here are all things that you
are good at doing. These are, there's not a skills list. This is how it feeds your soul list. What
energizes you. So when I do teaching, when I, when I'm finished teaching, I'll have more energy than
before I started. You know what I'm talking about, right? When you've done the thing you were
designed to do, grace flows through you. It's why we call it grace space. Grace flows through you
and it energizes you in the process. So if I were doing something that was awful, like leading
worship, then everybody would be stabbing themselves in the leg with a fork and asking,
please get him to stop immediately. Grace would flow the wrong way. I would suck grace out of the
entire group because they, you know, they're not my space. So that's why we have the leaders lead,
the worship leaders lead worship, you know, the teachers teach and so on. But when we get that
wrong, what happens is grace doesn't flow in the right direction. So the idea here is to identify
with the Lord, Lord, what this energizes me.
Neutral things, they neither energize nor deplete me.
And then there's stuff that depletes me.
So if I'm, like for instance,
I love doing financial modeling
because it teaches me the nuts and bolts of the business.
I learned this when I was doing private equity.
If we were gonna invest in a business,
I had, doing the model myself
and not giving it to a CFO to do was really critical
because it taught, I really got deep
into what makes this business work.
Where's the money?
What's the one thing, what's the knob we have to turn?
I love doing modeling,
but you know what I hate doing?
Accounting.
You'll say, well, they're so similar.
No, the one is being a CFO work
and the other is an accountant's work.
Accountant is like a journalist, tells you what happened.
Hey, a month ago, we went bankrupt.
You know, not much you can do about it,
but here's the report.
So I'm not mocking accountants.
I know we have accountants here.
I'm just saying for me, it's a depleting exercise.
I need a nap afterwards.
You know, it's like enough already.
So let's take a minute.
Why don't you just draw three columns or make a quick list?
What is it that you do that energizes you?
And then go straight to the things.
What do you do that depletes you?
Again, these are things you're good at doing.
They're not things you're incompetent at.
These are things that you're clearly good at doing.
Take a second on this.
Maybe I have some of you guys share.
What energizes you?
What depletes you?
And what's like a wash?
As simple as this exercise builds, by the way,
so we have to go to this part to do the other two exercises
that follow.
As simple as this exercise builds, by the way,
so we have to go this part to do the other two exercises
that follow.
Emily, I'm glad to see you don't like accounting either.
Finance, yes, accounting, not so much.
Yep, that's me.
So where, Emily, do you have a list?
Are you busy building your list?
I do, so for my A, I love analytics and strategic anything.
I actually was gonna ask on,
have you guys done the leadership assessment
where it asks you like, I don't know, 300, 200 questions?
It's like, it's done by like 4 million.
It's a very well-known one,
although I can't remember the name of it.
Anyways, strategic was my top tier for leadership.
I have, there's like top, there's four that they assess.
And yeah, so that's my A is anything with analytics,
strategic conversations that just pioneer
and all that good stuff.
And then the C, I did depleted accounting
and aging reports, I can't even look at.
They make me like nauseous, I can't.
I don't know anyone who loves aging reports.
I know, and I'm in that space right now in the new,
so operations would be logistics.
So anyways, yeah.
Yeah, no, great, thanks for sharing.
Anyone else?
I can share,
because I just did this exercise on my own this week,
as you know, because it's a good refresher.
So unlike you and Emily,
while I don't love being an accountant,
I love the administration piece of that.
So that's really an A seat for me.
Content, creating content, business administration,
and then leading the team, that's an A seat.
B seat is any kind of like calendar scheduling.
I'm good at it, but it doesn't drain me,
or I mean, it doesn't energize or drain.
And then C seat, something that just,
that drains is doing these repetitive,
like the uploading of calls,
things that other folks can do,
and event coordination, oddly enough.
So.
That's funny.
I could jump in there, if anybody wants to hear more.
Yeah, go, Roman.
Yeah, I like building value in things.
I just recently bought an RV at an auction,
and I'm like, oh, that's a good idea.
I bought an RV at an auction,
and I've gotten it in the last two days fixed back up,
and I've built.
value in something. I like drawing plans, coming up with a floor plan or an idea of a house.
I like finding a gem, finding a house that's at a discount or something like that,
and I like developing ideas. Those are my likes, you know, if I get an idea for a remote inspection
process and I just kind of research and develop and that's a lot of fun for me. What's
not fun is writing copy. I don't like writing emails and I've been supposed to write
an article forever, you know, for two years actually somebody asked me to write an article
and I've been working on a book forever and so that's tough for me and what's neutral is
follow-up phone calls. I'd rather I do them but I don't really care about them.
That's great, thanks for sharing. Michael Osler, do you want to share?
Sure, it's a great exercise. I know for me like just designing future things,
setting up new systems, when I get to use my gift when I'm composing or worship live events,
I just get energized by that but often yeah just the designing something new or working with,
collaborating with other people creatively, that's like the ultimate for me. I love working
with other people and now I'm the same way as some of you guys, just the admin or the details
of a structure that's harder for me to just to focus on. I really just want to collaborate but
I'm glad that there are people that love that but I'm not one of those.
Jenny's waving her arms about, you need a Jenny in your life, Michael.
Yeah, in case you don't know who Jenny is, Jenny runs Brilliant Perspectives.
So that's fantastic, thanks for sharing. Anyone else want to share? Yeah, let's have a couple
more shares. Yeah, I would love to. Yeah, go Tamara. My A is doing anything that's creative
but spending time and brainstorming with others. I love team collaboration,
being strategic, doing the administration, coaching, building teams, I love that part.
What I neutral for me is answering people's tests, doing the accounting, calendaring,
that's all neutral stuff. What I don't like, I don't like emails, I don't like social media,
I don't like mundane repetitive tasks, I hire people to do all of those because I don't like them.
That's so funny. Susan, since you're the neuroscientist among us here,
I'm interested in your view here. Well, talking anything neuroscience obviously energizes me.
There you go. Yeah, any learning, any studying, reading, research, stuff like that I get really
jazzed about. I realized that I'd like to start things, I like to plan things,
not particularly, I can coordinate them so they're kind of neutral into depleting
and I just don't like repeating. You know, we did this already, why do we have to do it again?
Let's just move on, let's go, let's get something new, let's get something fresh,
some energy flowing. That's kind of my perspective, yeah. I can tell Bridget's laughing because she's
laughing at me, so I'll give you the mic, Bridget. What depletes you and what energizes you?
What energizes me is being with people and encourage them, especially spiritually,
if it's a parent or an older person trying to find their new space.
It's neutral, it's emails, I prefer being one-on-one speaking to people than doing it
through correspondence and I do not like anything with numbers. It's very dangerous for me to be
around numbers and I get totally depleted trying to do that, so I'm very thankful I'm married to
Dionne. Also anything with technology, doing notion and that, so that's my place of practicing
my patience and peace. That's your grace grower. You should pay extra for notion because they're
helping you grow grace in your life. Great, who else would like to share? I'll go. I love strategic
planning, brainstorming around a person's idea and help them create a plan for it. I'm a
professional project manager and business analyst, so I can help get the requirements
of the owner and then put a project management system together to make them
get that project standing up and get the result that they want.
I love, I love all of that. I don't like operations. I don't
want anything to do with the running the office and whatever.
I love the sales and marketing and then the project, create
the systems and then be able to implement on that, but get it
stood up and then give me the next project. You know what I'm
saying?
Yeah, no, for sure. Well, if you guys like that exercise, it's
going to get more intense. So let's take the next step here.
Let me go back to sharing my screen. So we talked about the
gray space part. So here's an exercise, which actually, I
think, I just asked Jenny to recently do this. And this is a
great thing to do for your team members at least once a year and
for yourself. So if you map your joy versus your contribution,
your contribution to the organization, so obviously, then
you're going to have in the top left, you're going to have high
joy, but low contribution. Top right is going to be high joy,
high contribution, and so on, as you go through that process. So
the question is, you know, from doing a four square strategy,
which we've done several times, I think we did something similar
last month on products and services, and which ones should
we get rid of and kill and so forth. But this is about your
personal joy and contribution. Obviously, number one quadrant
here is high joy, high contribution. That's where you
want to spend as much of your time. By the way, this is also
what you love doing is your highest contribution to the
organization. That's the reason you love it. It's your a seat,
it's where your grace flows, etc. Number two is there's still
high joy for you. Because you know, again, joy is also part of
your strength. So but low contribution. Number three is
low joy, but high contribution. You don't necessarily get joy
out of it, but it really helps the organization when you do it.
And number four is the worst, low joy, low contribution. So
the question here then is, what do we do about these? So very,
you know, I would love you to take and put one, two or even
three examples in each quadrant for yourself. Just take a piece
of paper, draw the squares and do this for yourself. And write
down what is high joy, high concentration for you. And then
map each of those. So fill out quadrants one, two, three and
four, try to put at least two items in each and then we'll
get straight back to the nuts and bolts of this. Okay, so I'll
give you a minute there.
So, that's good.
Be back in a second. Give you a minute here.
Okay, let's, let's get to it. So before you do any shares, as
you know, whenever you do the four square, and whenever you do
this, this four square strategy, it always uses the same
approach, right. And you know, the approach by now is, you
know, step one, delete everything in four. Today, if
possible, you should not be doing this. This needs to get
off your list.
you say, well, we're a small team,
we've got whatever, we don't need a lot of people.
You have to delete this off your list.
These low joy, low contribution things,
somebody else can order the stationery.
You have to get this stuff off your list today.
You know, when we talked about doing this,
when we went through the product analysis
and looking at how to look at the products
and services you offer, it's the same thing.
We wanna get rid of four.
Three, this is a high contribution, so you need to,
this is where you can buy back your time.
This is where you can hire someone, get a VA,
or delegate this to someone else in your organization
who does love this, who for them it is a high joy.
Maybe they can't do the same contribution
at the same level you can, but to quote Dan,
even if they can do 80% of what you did,
that's good enough.
Don't look for somebody who can deliver it
at the same level or better.
You know, over time you could, but this is a great place.
If you're looking for your next hire,
here's where you're gonna focus on.
You're gonna focus your next hire
in the business around this.
We need someone.
Now, if you're in a team and there's literally no one
to delegate it, you definitely,
it's gonna be your next hire.
If there's no one in the team that can carry
a high contribution element to the organization,
this is your next hire.
Think that makes sense to you guys?
Yep.
Okay, the next thing we're gonna go through is,
right, so then this number two,
the high joy, low contribution,
here is the trick, the key here is to contain it.
This is where when we don't feel like doing
the number one stuff or other stuff,
we do this stuff because these are like
our filler tasks we do, you know?
It's like, well, I'm just gonna tweak that design
a little more, gonna get it pixel perfect.
It's not making any contribution,
but it gives me so much joy doing it.
Gonna get that color in that design just right,
because I'm telling myself that, man,
I'm just committed to excellence.
What I'm really doing is making an excuse
for not containing quadrant two stuff.
So, hey, just do it, just contain it, you know?
Set also, if it's a high joy thing,
it usually doesn't need your prime time.
It doesn't need your prime allocation at that moment, right?
It doesn't need, if you're best in the morning,
then don't do quadrant two stuff first thing in the morning.
Put all your quadrant one stuff, prioritize this,
your high contribution, high joy stuff.
Also, by prioritization, I don't mean just do it first.
I mean, schedule it in your day at the time
you have the highest energy.
When you have the highest energy
together with your high joy, high contribution,
this is when you're gonna become
massively effective at what you do.
And I would also put around quadrant one here
is quadrant one needs defense.
You need to protect this time.
This time needs protection.
What do I mean by that?
No emails, no social media, no distractions,
because you know from all the research
we've already shared with you
that multitasking makes you dumb.
It literally causes you to drop your IQ
by 10, 15, even sometimes as high as 20 points.
So none of this, I'm brilliant at multitasking stuff.
It's not true.
You just do a lot of things poorly.
So what you do when you're in this mode,
really prioritize this stuff together
and cut out and don't answer your texts,
don't answer your phone, lock this down.
If you can protect one and delete four,
you've already doubled your productivity
in this one session, literally.
Think about it for a second.
If you can protect one, delete four,
you're on the road.
The two is easier to contain,
three may take a little more work.
What do you guys feel about?
And yeah, if I could say something about that, Dion,
it's interesting that what you said
just makes perfect sense.
But what I've been doing is prioritizing
the number three items
because I don't have the grace for those.
And it's like, I really am trying to tackle those
when I have, because if I have low joy and low energy
and kind of brain fog and not clear,
it's extra hard for me.
So I'm trying to prioritize those items
I don't have as much grace for when I'm freshest.
But then the downside of that is,
I'm feeling like I'm gonna have more grace
to do number one naturally.
You know what I mean?
So, but it's still not optimal.
you know. No, it is a temptation. That's like trying to fix your weaknesses. It is a temptation. The
better thing is to lean into your strengths. So what you're doing is give your best time to once
for sure and then on three use that time to figure out how can I give this? Can I do this with a
virtual assistant? Can I outsource this? Can I delegate this to another team member? You know,
is there some other way that I can do this? I know that Dan Mattel's view is your first hire
should be an executive assistant. I know that's what he thinks. If you're starting a business
that your first hire should be an EA. That is fine up to a point if it fits in this grid.
It depends a lot about what you're doing and how you work. So there's no doubt in his case that
must be the case because of the way that he works. Because once you've done this prioritization,
this is only step two of the exercise. Step three is still coming when we start putting this down
into a calendar. So as you're putting that going through this process, I found that you need to do
this for yourself at least every six months. You've got to stop for a sec because it drifts.
You know, you start off getting clear and then it just drifts off and taking stuff off you. You say,
well, I'm the owner. You know, I'm a kingdom leader. I should be a servant leader. I should
be willing to do the lousy jobs. Actually you're not serving your team by doing this.
You're not serving your partnership because it's not your biggest contribution to the organization.
So you have to not only prioritize and protect your, thank you so much, your contribution
to the organization, but I bet you that's also where your permission is.
So it's counterintuitive, right? So I can see, yeah, I can see Jeremy that one would think that,
but I would use your time to get rid of it or get it off your plate or at least oversee it and make
sure someone else that you might find though, that there is a way to add joy to a three,
to make it a one. Sometimes it's the way you're doing three. So if you think of what,
what moves the needle there, let's just, let's just go back there for a second, right? What's
moving the needle. So think about why is it a three and not a one? It's lacking joy. Maybe
there's something I can add to that process. Maybe there's a way I do it. And you know,
we talk about inversion where you add two things that don't go together, you know, like I think
the example Greg McKeon gave in his book, Effortless, he hated returning phone calls,
but he was very good at returning phone calls to his key clients at the end of the day.
But he was, he always left him to the end of the day because it was a low joy,
but high contribution to his business. But then he thought, what do I love to do?
I love to sit in the hot tub and drink my favorite wine. So guess what he did? He sat
in the hot tub with his favorite wine and call these customers. And the first thing he told them
is I'm calling you from the hot tub. Now that's a way he added joy and he made a three, a one.
So that is an option. You can do that. So, you know, there are ways to, there are ways to do it.
I don't think you should try to fix fours. I think you just get rid of them
as fast as possible, but threes you can work on. And twos, you think, well, what's, if it's high
joy, why is it such a low contribution? You might, you might find a way to increase its contribution
somehow, maybe by combining it with something else, like something else that's also more strategic.
So you can be clever by changing and combining things. So this idea of combining something you
don't like doing with something you love doing, that can be a very powerful way. It's a technique
called inversion. It's a very powerful way. So what, why it's called inversion is in quadrant
three, it's like, oh, this is, this is, you know, such drudgery. Well, what if it's not?
So that's what you've asked the opposite question. What is it? What if it's not drudgery to me?
What if it's not, I have to do this thing? What, what would not make me feel that?
And so you could, you could up it that way, but I prefer the delegating and higher planned.
I do think it's better. Okay. That makes sense. It's a great question,
Jeremy. Thanks for bringing that up. That really is great.
So as you're thinking about, if you're thinking about all of this stuff that's going on now,
does anybody, does anybody have any epiphanies right now about my, that opens up my mind.
That's given me some new possibilities. Yeah. Matthew, did you want to share some,
what did you get out of that? Let me call on you there. Oops. I just saw your thumbs going up.
So I just, I, well, I just, I, I, I caught fire there. You, when you showed me the chart and I'm
very visual and, and I just, I realized.
that I've been really challenged.
It's been a ridiculously
to crawl space kind of week.
And I was sharing with Bridget earlier,
but it just, I'm so glad I'm here.
I've been so exhausted at the end of every day
that getting up and doing what I love has been really hard.
And I realized in this moment
that I need to shift my schedule
to all the things that I love doing,
that bring me joy, that I get excited about,
that made me wanna get up at five in the morning,
shift all of those to everything
at the beginning of my day,
so that I come out of the chute just on fire,
excited about what I know I'm gonna get to do
in the morning, pouring into people's lives,
doing discipleship, mentoring,
and all of the things that are part of my job,
the part that I love,
and move all of the other things to the end of the day.
And I just, I scheduled all that out
while you were talking.
So I'm just really, I'm super excited.
And it's, I can't wait to wake up tomorrow.
That's fantastic.
Well, I was thinking of another story that might help.
I think I'm quoting Pat Flynn,
the guy who wrote Superfans.
And Pat says that he doesn't,
you know, it's just,
it's a lot for him to respond to his subscribers.
There's so many of them, firstly.
And you get so many,
he feels like, oh, I'm not doing enough.
But he does love walking his dog.
So on Friday afternoons,
he does an extra long walk with the dog for an hour,
and he takes his phone,
and he just does these quick down and dirty.
He doesn't try to do a production level anything,
just his phone, raw, go live.
Hey, I was thinking about you,
or just saying, thank you.
And he calls it surprising your customer.
You know, they weren't expecting to hear from you.
It's a very powerful way to connect with people.
So anyway, he combines something he doesn't like doing,
you know, responding to the social media crowd
of subscribers and so on,
with something he does love doing.
So, and I wanted to call on Diya, where are you?
There you go.
I know you've been practicing this for some years,
this inversion idea.
And one of my favorite techniques,
once you really get it down for yourself,
is to use it for all your team members.
Because you can take someone
who maybe was performing well or mediocre,
and rearrange and shifting their table
or their work responsibilities
to making them a superstar and a super contributor.
So it's really empowering, and it's really exciting.
And it's just one of my favorite things to do,
because it gets it right down
to the very, very core elements very quickly.
And then learning, okay, can I automate?
Can I batch tasks?
Can I use inversion?
How do I hack this system
so that we get all the things done that have to get done,
but do it in a way that brings more life and more joy?
Was there something specific
you wanted me to talk about, Dionne?
No.
Well, have you ever combined two things
to help you increase joy over competition?
I have.
I know the answer, but I wanted you to say it.
Yes, exactly.
It always comes down to coffee and chocolate.
So I always use my inversion.
If there's something I don't wanna do,
I'll make sure I have my coffee prepared ahead of time
and my chocolate prepared ahead of time
so that I can get through whatever those tasks are
that are maybe my B-seat,
or it's definitely the C-seat items
if I can't delegate or move those onto somewhere else.
Yeah, yeah.
We'll go through the, thanks for sharing that.
We'll go through the power hack of this in a second here.
But if we go back to this exercise.
So here's how you design your week.
So now we know our A, B, C-seat stuff.
We know our joy table.
Now, how do we put all that into a schedule?
So I thought I'll share mine with you.
This is how we do this.
And I'll go through all the design elements and so forth.
So the first thing for me is in my partnership
with the Lord, as you know, I run four companies.
So in the four entities, they are four entities,
but they're very strongly related.
Effectively, we're one company
that serves four different customers groups,
four different who's your who.
We have four different who's.
That's why we have four companies.
So for me, this design element number one
is set up a rhythm to your way.
Think of a hat.
What hat am I wearing?
Think of a, so I can put on my school of leadership hat
or my church hat.
So as Bridget and I,
who are the senior pastors of the church,
we have responsibilities in the church.
We run this program, The Edge.
We run the school of leadership.
Of course, Jenny helps me run Brilliant Perspectives.
So the way I've set this,
the way I'm set up is I start with what's my focus.
I've given each day a focus.
focus. So for me, my Monday is my leadership focus. And I'm not
talking about the topic of leadership, I'm talking about
leading the people I lead. So in my case, you know, Bridget helps
me run the church. So she runs all the community stuff. And so
for the church, Jenny helps me run brilliant perspectives, you
know, Graham, and I run the School of Leadership. And then
Dio helps me run I 49 the edge. So when you go through all of
that, so for me, Mondays is my leadership day. So I will speak
to the leaders who are involved to Bridget, to I speak to
Bridget anyway, but I'm talking about specifically about the
church. So just just just be really clear. We don't have
marriage issues. So and then of course, I meet with meet with
DIA and with Jenny and so forth. So that's what we end with
Graham. So I meet with all four of those leaders on a Monday.
Now, I've got here what we call bucket one and bucket two. So
those of you who've been through this training, just bear with me
for those who haven't, a bucket is a four hours, think of it as
the morning and the afternoon, right? So you've really got, if
you think about it, you've only got 10 buckets in the week,
right. And the reason why we think of buckets and not hours
and half hours and all those other things is because the
second design element is group similar activities to reduce
switching costs. What do we mean by switching costs? So if
you think of what creates fatigue, at the end of your
business day, is when you keep switching from one task to
another, that are quite different. When you switch tasks
and they are materially enough different, what happens is it
takes your brain 20 to 40 minutes to fully switch up
although you've already started working on the new thing, your
brain takes a while to fully commit, it's like deep sleep. If
you're going to sleep, and then you hit that very deep sleep
stage, work is the same, you can hit deep work, that deep and
Cal Newport talks about that in his book, deep work. So it's the
same thing. If I wake you up every half an hour through the
night, said, how's your sleep going? How's your sleep going?
So what managers do to employees all the time? How's your work
going? How's your work going? Yeah, I'm doing what I'm
supposed to be doing. How's your work going? So when we do that,
what we do is we interrupt this process. If we allow, if we
batch stuff together that is similar, there's no switching
costs. The reason you feel tired and mentally fatigued at the end
of each day is because you were switching too many times in a
day. Go back and look, the days you were most exhausted were the
days you switched the most, almost always. The days that you
were able to really deeply concentrate on things. Here's
the thing, because you're in rest, and you're partnering with
the Lord, you don't have to worry about carrying everything
that allows you a new level of freedom in architecting your
week. So my bucket one, bucket two, morning, afternoon, if you
prefer, but I'm thinking them as a bucket of similar things. But
most people's buckets, they have holes in them, what is a hole in
the bucket, emails, interruptions, whatever, keeps
cause all that switching. So when you're in a certain mode,
you turn off your emails, you turn off your message, you turn
off everything else. And you allow yourself the joy of having
a protected focus time. So bucket one, I meet with the
leaders and I review with them the goals for the week, what are
we doing? More precisely, I'm asking them, what's your big
goal for the week? And I'm expecting because they're all
kingdom leaders, I'm expecting them to tell me out of their
partnership with the Lord, what's the big thing for the
week? What's your big deliverable for the week? And
then the second part is Graham and I spent our time together
just doing content. So we create content, work on our theology,
work on a lot of you know, and that content, by the way, feeds
all the other elements of what we do. And the reason our whole
the reason why we have, however many eight people who can all
teach and coach and all that stuff at brilliant is because
that content is spread throughout, you don't get a
different thing. It's like if you go to one McDonald's or
another McDonald's, it's the same, you're going to get the
same burger, right? It's the same idea, that consistency is
really important to us. So how that how that language, those
concepts, those ideas, and it's not just Graham and I creating
the whole team is creating, but somebody has to put it all
together. On my Tuesdays, that's my school, the brilliant School
of Leadership, or BESOL, as we call it internally, for those of
you that are on BESOL, on the BESOL school. So that's the 40
week, once a one hour a week school. And that's Graham and I
together. And so we do the class one in the morning class two in
the in the afternoon, I do not schedule meetings, I try not to
schedule meetings on these days. And the reason is, if I schedule
meetings right up, and I'm still in a switching cost mode, by the
time I start teaching the class, the class gets a raw deal. Like
even a perfect example, right?
today's Wednesday obviously and afternoons in a circle and when it's once a month when it's not
that i'm trying to connect to the community or handling some of your sos calls just to remind
you by the way when you sign up in a circle you get two free sos calls we can just hang out and
talk about whatever you want to talk about so we can do that so sometimes i'm doing that just
before i started this call half an hour before i started this call i got a call from one of the
other team members and you know and you want and it's a pretty important thing he wanted to discuss
with me about some issue and i said dude i'm the only reason i'm answering this call is to let you
know i'm not ignoring you but i don't want to discuss anything i don't want you to switch my
mind out of the mode and i've been in this inner circle mode the whole day i got up early this
morning i was with the lord early this morning i was talking about what he wanted what what was the
gift he wanted you to have and while i was thinking and talking about that i felt like i should invite
some guests which we have three guests on here for that reason all that came out of that
partnership and then of course d and i work on edge marketing on wednesdays thursdays is content
management i pull it all together we have automated tools and all the cool stuff we do to because we
record transcribe collate every single piece of document everything we do whether we're coaching
in the church or whether we're doing this or anything else everything gets tracked managed
and we have a management system for that and then we have church staff meeting in the afternoon
that's when we talk about the once a month gatherings we talk about small groups and how
they're going and we talk about coaching brilliant life coaching and everything else that goes on
there and then on fridays is my co-creation time with the lord remember i said i give one session
where the lord and i create new stuff together and so uh and then finally i i get on and i get
on the community app and i respond to people on the on the school of brilliant school of
leadership and i also do a little bit of of coaching one-on-one coaching that i do um and
that's so in this in this structure here is all the design elements set up a rhythm to your week
so think of wearing a different hat now switching costs is like switching hats all the time
if you're constantly switching hats from this to this to this to this so batch all the tasks
together my suggestion is do not start your morning with answering emails i know that's a
high temptation don't do that in fact do that at the end of the day or some dead spot or between
two buckets or something um that will really mess with that will really mess with the switching
costs for sure group similar activities together create margin between events it's always amazing
or between appointments it's always amazing to people be so oh my last meeting ran over
and when you i mean happening once i get that but when their last meeting's always running over
it's like um okay you know so if you ever on a call with with team brilliant you'll know three
minutes before and everybody's on and we're waiting and the meeting part starts at the
announced time not we don't start getting on at the hour and then it takes another three four
five minutes and hello can you hear me and all that stuff all that's gone so we get on the call
beforehand and we hit the meet and and it's so respectful to each other's time that if somebody
got so into a deep work and they forgot and they weren't watching the time we're getting ready to
call 9-1-1 they must be dead on the side of the road it's already four minutes past the hour
because we have such a reputation that we don't do that that something else must be going on and
and some of us you know life happens we skip meetings because we weren't watching the time
but at least that's not our normal way and then you take appointments based on your buckets
so you group appointments together and then you tell your your ea if you have one or your
virtual assistant or whatever to set aside the same time each week for appointments what you do
not want to do is just have appointments spread and just nilly-willy throughout the week that's
the last thing you want that will just literally destroy your ability to get any deep work done
so and then with your appointments make sure there's a gap between them even if it's 10 minutes
so that's my suggestion thoughts ideas to share some let me ask you to share some of your
best practices and stuff you do let me hear from you guys i was putting it into the chat this is a
very been awesome session but one just very technical tactic that has helped us with the
perfect week or kind of once you've got these buckets it's just we created like a separate
google calendar called bruce's perfect week template and so we could just toggle it on and
off when we're looking at our calendars and so that way it's always like right there when you're
scheduling it was just a really simple hack but it made a huge difference for us oh that's a great
idea so you you set up a google template and then you can you can map your week against it is that
the idea
Yeah.
Exactly.
Yeah.
And we just color coded.
So it's all gray.
So it just kind of looks like a template.
So if you're curious, like the, you know, between my EA or myself and I'm looking at
it because you kind of forget, or I make exceptions, like if, if a client calls or they want to
schedule something, I kind of use that back as my reference point as like, just to be
able to toggle it on and off.
Yeah.
Very good.
Yeah.
Any other great hacks or thoughts, Glenn, I know you've had to, you've been a scheduling
maestro until recently, not because you lost the skill, but because you changed jobs.
That's right.
There's so much there, but I think the whole concept of fire meetings, you know, focus
support with two perspectives that, you know, that you've, you've told them before, I think
that really is, that really is key.
One of the challenges that I've faced in that is, is in how to scale that across a large
organization where you don't necessarily have that ability to kind of define the structure.
So we had to find ways that within teams and give permission for, for, you know, really
give that, almost that, that, that five star permission to each of the participants.
So that what that means is they, that we say from a leadership point of view, you have,
you have permission to manage, you know, and we teach them, so this is how it should be.
Then you have permission to decline any meeting that is not within, if that's in your deepest,
we are telling you, not only do you have permission, we ask you to please decline this meeting.
It doesn't matter if it came from you or from anyone else, decline that meeting.
Because until you start to force that, you can't strip the culture of the organization.
And the moment that you start peppering in these meetings in, and it's a whole manager,
you know, make a best or deeper thing.
The problem is, is that, you know, the more senior the people, the more junior folk in
the organization feel obligated to take the meeting, and you can just blow up everybody's
calendars and it becomes incredibly inefficient that the total amount of lost productivity.
I wish there was that we could actually find the proper research on that maybe Dion you've
come across it.
But I've got to, I've got to imagine there must be some something in order of a 30% improvement
in productivity that could be achieved by putting these disciplines in place in an organization.
Yeah, that's true.
I mean, I don't know anyone do more meetings than you.
In my career, I don't know anyone, I know you had several thousand people in your area.
And we've talked so much about this, you know, I mean, I don't know that when you had 40-50
meetings in a week, and then that was only about a third of the ones you were invited
to this idea of giving permission.
But it has to start as a kingdom leader permission for yourself.
If you do the three things we talked about today, and you protect number ones, and you
batch stuff together, and you get rid of fours, and you start improving threes.
And you put this simple structure together, I'd be shocked if you don't double your productivity
in a week, seriously.
So my goal was always to do a month's worth of work in a week.
And I felt that I achieved that a little while ago.
But what I've really found is that the more restful I become, the more I do.
It's the craziest thing.
It's like you end up that light speed thing kicks in the largest.
Now, Bruce, I think you dropped something earlier in the chat here about the thing called
I didn't call it that.
But I think there's one of the productivity gurus calls it the rainbow calendar.
Now the idea of a rain anybody know about the rainbow calendar?
Yeah, yeah.
So what the rainbow calendar idea is, is that you allocate every hour of the day.
Even if it's I'm going to take a nap, I'm going to do a walk, it doesn't matter what.
And the reason is you give every hour a name, right?
So if you do, you got your bucket one, and in that bucket, you're trying to group all
that similar stuff in the same bucket.
So they're all similar stuff to get rid of switching costs.
But you also want to take breaks or whatever.
So what happens is, if you showed me your calendar, there should be no gaps.
Because that means you've allocated.
And I find that the refinement of that happens early in the morning, you can do it early,
you can start the week off.
And what I do is I start the week off with the ideal big map things.
And then each day I start, you know, I start to prioritize based on what the Lord said.
So if he said, today, we're doing this, then I prioritize that if you're doing the Q system,
I would circle those those Q elements.
So you know, in your Q book.
So that's, that's the way we do that.
So to me.
Any other thoughts? Anybody thinking like, man, I need help with all this.
I'm not very good. The week happens to me. I don't happen to my week. Anybody feels like
they need help, we can take a minute and do a little bit of help or laser coaching.
I think Glenna has something to contribute.
Yeah, I just wanted to add one other thing, Dion, as a lesson learned. We went through this
exercise of teaching deep work inside of our organization. We said, yeah, this is awesome.
The guys started putting two deep work sessions a day on the calendar. Do not try that. Don't
do that. Because what happens is you immediately don't make space for everything else that needs
to happen, other types of work that needs to get done. At the moment that that is not protected
and preserved, it's going to unravel. Therefore, then if you don't have one deep work session
that's really meaningful, you try to do all of these 10 or 15, it just doesn't work.
So then nothing works. The whole thing is just a false flat. The thing would be to start with one,
get that thing down and make it immovable. Then if you can fit another, that's awesome,
but don't try and just put everything on the calendar.
Jenny, thanks, Glenna.
Yes. Can you speak to when there are different modes in the business? We've often talked about
times of innovation or steady state. What happens to your scheduling and your calendar
when you're innovating and things are turning around, you're pivoting quickly? If you could
just speak to that. Yeah. This is a little more of an advanced topic, but a great question,
because what you're bringing up here, Jenny, is that when your business is in a more steady state
condition, in other words, you're not pivoting, developing a whole new division,
bringing in a brand new product to the market, and it's all hands on deck and so forth.
A lot of times the systems and the training that you're putting in place during steady
state times all go out of the window. What happens is this new crisis, spontaneous,
it's like you're in the lab, you're trying this, it blows up, you're trying this, it blows up,
but you're in that experimentation mode. The issues are that you have to acknowledge
as the leader that that is normal. You have to give permission, look for the next three weeks,
you may not get any deep work time, it might be being very responsive to each other.
So let's talk about the antithesis of that. I found that if you as a leader must give your
team permission, and it's the same permission you have to restrain yourself to, and that is,
we call it the one bucket response time. You only have to respond within one bucket. The idea that
we jump on Slack and seconds later somebody responds, I either got really lucky in that moment
that they happened to be working on that, but if they're always doing that on Slack, and they're
always texting back, and they're always, I just want to show you the boss, I'm really responsive.
No, all you showed me is you're chaotic. You just show you live a very highly interrupted life,
and I need to help you. Which means as a leader, that means I ask something for someone, and then
I have to wait a bucket. I have to wait four hours. I have to wait till the next bucket to get
a response. I can't be on top of their case. So you have to talk, you have to have a breakthrough
mechanism that you can break through the system if there's an emergency. So we use text for that.
But guess how long it takes before people start texting you anyway? Because they got a super quick
response on text, because that's the crisis mode, then people start texting. So I've constantly got
to remind team members, don't text me, don't text me, don't text me. The other way is if you call
twice in a row, I will answer your call no matter what I'm doing, unless I'm training,
you know, doing a training session. I will take your call. Even if I'm in a meeting, I will take
your call. But don't call twice in a row and say, I'm looking for that document that, I'm like,
that's not a crisis. That's just you being chaotic. So that's the, that I give away,
Bridget's love, because that's my favorite thing in the world. Keep asking me the same question over
and over. And if you can make it more trivial and keep asking, man, that just grows my faith
and patience in the Lord. I get to practice patience at a whole new level. Take me up to,
take me up a level. So, so here's some power hacks. I'm focusing on finding delighted work.
So in the app, there's finding delighted work. This is something you want, that little exercise
we did with delight versus contribution, joy versus contribution. It's called the joy table.
Get your team to do this.
The reason is when they get to do it, you'll end up with a fantastic
conversation because you can teach them to delete certain things, right? Stop
optimizing things that shouldn't exist. Stop optimizing things that should be
deleted, right? SpaceX calls it the algorithm. We can get into that, how to
make things less dumb. So the idea, so you know, teach your team what can you delete,
what can you delegate, what can you automate. Those simple three things will
will shift stuff around on that joy table for them. Maybe we need an EA. So
so you know when, Jeremy, when you were talking about your your category 3
stuff, you know, that you were talking about earlier, what you might find is if
you did the joy table one of your team members, you could free them up to do
something that take on that level 3, but then get them a VA, which will give them
more delight, brings more joy to them, brings up certainly more joy to you,
frees you up, now you're in the game. So it's this, it's these tiny little shifts
in the organization that just, you know, people often say to us, how did you get
500% productivity improvement at Brilliant with half the size of the team?
How did, how did you do that? Here's the trick, we didn't try to do that. What we
did is, it's these tiny small adjustments, mindsets, giving your team permission,
and just constantly Kaizen, constantly improving, improving, improving, but the
key is invest in the people, not the processes. People first, let the people
create the processes, teach them how, then if you suddenly have to pivot, they can
do that. They are the ones who made the process, they can pivot. And it's these
little conversations. And then I think Ben, you and I had this one conversation
once when you talked about this and said, how much training time should I do? You
know, and my answer to that was a lot. You spend a lot of your time as the primary
coach, because think of leadership metaphor as the conductor of the
orchestra, not the primary player of the big musical instruments. But how many
leaders are playing the violin, then rush over, hit the drum, then rush over
and then do the, that's not an orchestra. That's just you running around trying to
play all the instruments because nobody does it better than you. Yeah, you know
what you don't do better with is everybody playing at the same time. So
that's what you don't do better at. So here's the thing. That means as the
conductor of the orchestra, you're the only musician who doesn't make a sound.
You become successful by making other people powerful. That is kingdom
leadership. So from your viewpoint, when you're thinking about this, think this
through in this way. What can I do to make this person more powerful? Take that
little joy table, make them draw it up. You'll have a great conversation. And by
the way, if you pick two people a week or three people a week, if you have a
bigger team, just work through them slowly. You don't have to do them all at
once. Just work through it slowly with them. You'll be astounded at how much you
release them. By the way, just showing them the attention and even just showing
the kindness of the conversation has an effect. That has an immediate lift right
there. So Ben, I wanted to know, I know we've talked a lot about you being the
coach in your team. How's that grown for you? Or how's that going? What have
you learned in that process, would you say? What's been effective for you?
I think trying to protect the time. I mean, to be honest, I probably need to be
more intentional still. Even this exercise, I mean, I think it's a good way
for me to do that. I probably don't get enough time one on one with them still.
Yeah. Yeah, coach, be the primary coach. Yeah, no, for sure. Yeah. So Jack Welch,
at the time, I know there's been a lot of stuff around Jack Welch. But at the
time, many people thought he was one of the greatest CEOs of the 20th century.
And he, he spent 70%, 70% of his time training. So don't think it's a little
sideshow thing. It's not. You invest in your people, you'll get to a point where
they'll run the business for you. But if you always have to run the business,
some point, you have to stop being the expert and manage the expert. That's a
tough transition, man. I remember when I love software programming, when I had to
stop writing code and manage people who wrote code. That was a that was a big
shift. I remember that day. That was a that was a tough decision. Because I
don't want to be a manager, I want to write code. You know, some point, you
have to stop being the expert, manage the expert, but not just managing them,
but setting them free with these ideas and these tools. Because everything we're
talking about is designed to build people, not use people. We grow people,
we don't use them.
Just like
Lord doesn't use you because you're, okay.
I think, yeah, I think Jonathan,
you mentioned over the weekend,
you were talking about, you know,
people trying to be a good Christian.
And I said, don't be a good Christian.
Jesus wasn't one.
He was a son, you know,
it's time to become sons and daughters
and stop trying to be good Christians
because that's just a downstairs performance thing.
You know, so liberating this stuff, right?
So Jonathan, I'm going to give you
any questions you want to ask.
I know for you guys, a little bit sipping from the fire hose
cause you've kind of come in midstream,
but it was been great to have you.
Any thoughts, questions, inputs?
Yeah, thank you so much for having us.
So last minute, I think we got the invite,
what an hour before this meeting.
I know ample time to prepare.
No, it's so good.
All of these tools, I think I have at one time
or the other been made aware of.
I think oftentimes the actual implementation of it,
I'm just reminded today of, no, you got to do it.
And you got to get it all the way to the end
where you're implemented,
because I find sometimes I get stuck in the in-between
where I have an idea and then I'm like,
I get too busy or get distracted.
And then I don't get to these core principles
that will not only help me, but help the rest of the team.
So I'm very encouraged today.
I've learned a lot, reminded a lot of a lot, actually.
I think it's the reprioritization.
We're in a pivot.
So our normal business is,
it's like we're in one of those hard times
where there's a little bit more formation
than running the operation.
And so on many fronts,
so that's been a challenging season,
but I see us by implementing these tools now
with even the team members that we have now,
we can build something so much better for ourselves
and then for others.
And I feel like I'm grateful to have this insight
even in this meeting,
because I'm realizing how much I need this
and then I can help others do this.
I can't teach or train others
if I'm not implementing it myself.
Yeah, you know, you raise a great point, Jonathan,
and that is nothing we're saying is new in that sense.
And in fact, mostly we try to quote the sources
and where we get the things from,
with Greg McKinn's book on effortless or whatever.
And here's the thing, we as leaders, we read this stuff
and we go, that's a great idea.
And we might try one or two of the things,
but we haven't made it into a unified system
that becomes culturalized.
We haven't given permission to ourselves first
and then to our team for this to become culturalized.
Because I think when you culturalize it,
if we're all doing this,
if we all having moments we knock off four hours
and it's okay because the CEO said it's okay
and they themselves are doing it,
that's when the shift happens.
The conceptualization is not where the shift happens,
as you say.
So I think that is the issue.
The issue is the courage to lead the team.
You lead yourself and lead your team there.
So thanks for sharing that.
I appreciate that.
Is anyone else in a reinvention mode
that Jonathan mentioned?
Reinventing, reinventing a business,
or inventing a business or reinventing.
Anybody else in that mode besides, yeah.
Okay, there you go.
Several, okay.
So there are at least four hands up went up there.
I know, I think I know all your stories.
I think it's probably a little more than four.
And I know one or two people who aren't on the call
are definitely in a reinvention mode.
Maybe we should tackle that next month.
Why do we hit these moments of complete reinvention?
And what are the, how does the Lord wanna be?
Who does he wanna be for us?
And I know that he wants in those moments,
sure he wants to be your innovation,
but he also wants to be your protector.
He wants to protect you and your provider.
Because in those moments,
you don't have the consistency of income.
You don't know how to focus the team.
You don't know which product to work on next.
It's just a mess.
At least it looks like one.
So this is why I brought up permission
because the permission takes all that other stuff away
and you focus on the one thing.
Paul said, this one thing I do in the church
is these 30 things we do in our program,
not to knock the church,
but it's not always been the most focused of environments
that I've been in.
So, but the church is changing and for kingdom.
So as we wrap up here,
I'd love to take, just do a quick spin around,
give everybody a one minute on,
what was your takeaway today?
What do you feel like the Lord gave you?
So Jenny, why don't you kick it off
and then we'll go from Jenny, dear Glenn.
Glenn Hobbs, yeah. Not Ben, Glenn. Go, Jenny.
Yes. So I think that for me, the takeaway is what we talked about in the beginning of
the call is the hearing, learning, and the becoming, and how you are at the different
states and what that affords you when you're in the hearing state versus the learning state,
and then the becoming state, and how that translates to your team and how you translate
to that team. And then secondly, implementing the joy table on a regular basis with the
team. So those are my two takeaways.
Excellent. Dia?
Yeah, I think for me, just these things are, they redirect our course again and again and
again. If you're sailing in a boat, you're headed on target, right? But it's always meandering
off course and you have to redirect. And I think it's so helpful to have the reminder
again to work from rest, to work from permission, work from those places. And then as many times
as I've done the joy table, I know I need to do it again and again, because things get
squirrely and there's just needs and there's demands, especially in times of pivot for
new projects. And so having that as a constant refresher, I'm definitely going to be doing
that again this week because yeah, it's always needed.
We'll go from Glenn to Emily, then to Jeremy.
Yeah, I think for me, permission is very much the focus right now. I have a list of
multiple things on my sheet of paper saying, okay, Lord, which is the one here we're working
on now? And to the Lord, he pointed to something else that wasn't on my list, but that's fine.
That's the area that I'm really focused on right now. I really appreciate the encouragement
you're on team on just in that framework that you put together with just that role of it
all starts with that permission. And from there it flows down. So thank you.
Excellent. Emily.
Yeah, so for me, practicing resting with Holy Spirit in a secular environment, you know,
because I'm, it's different because you've got kingdom companies and you're practicing this,
but I'm in a big secular, like Daniel in Babylon type of deal. And I love it because
even this last month I've been having tests and passing them on practicing resting with
Holy Spirit and responding to his nature. And then all of the technicality and practices of
what we talked today flow in that accelerated space and, you know, just being able to explore
and have that safe space with Jesus and his grace in this place. So yeah, that would be mine.
Yeah, no, that's great. Jeremy. Now we'll go to Ben and then Tamara.
This has all been very timely for me. So I'm just so ecstatic about it because I've been
trying to figure out, I've been knowing what my problem is and that I'm too reactive and
I've got my cue book, you know, but I'm going into my emails periodically. I'm getting in these
whirlwinds. I'm dealing with stuff coming at me. I'm not guarding those, you know, times that I'm,
even when I am being intentional about doing my focus sessions and I need to, I never get to the
dang deep work sessions, you know, and it's like, there's just so many things. So I'm,
this has just been really helpful for me. I'm seeing what I need to do and now I need to just
execute and it's going to be a game changer for me. So this has all been super helpful and the
restfulness, you know, light speed, you know, not carrying the load. That's just killing me. So.
Good for you. Hey, Ben.
Yeah. So I think, and I love the questions we started with and I think the, got an invitation.
I need to look again at designing what the perfect week looks like for my partnership with Jesus.
I feel like we have just an endless number of possibilities. Like there's lots of directions
and there's lots of opportunities and awesome things, but I really need to hear from the Lord
about what my permission is. So that was, that was my big deal. I can't wait to hear from Him.
Yeah. That's huge. Yeah. After Tamara, Todd, let's go to Nathaniel and then Jonathan.
Yeah. Thank you so much for inviting us to this today. I'm just, I'm literally in tears over here
half the time because it's just resonating so deeply with what God has been showing, showing
me. And so I'm so grateful to have this kind of like reinforcement and that I feel like.
God is giving the permission.
Just even just a couple of months ago,
I did this exercise or asking God,
what does my ideal week look like?
And I saw like an hour every morning with him
and then one day a week, all day strategizing with him.
And so that we've been doing the one hour most mornings
but I haven't gotten to the day
of strategizing and planning with him.
But just all the stuff that you're saying
is just reinforcing and confirming
that this is the right direction.
And that I'm just, one thing even this morning
in our time with God, he also showed me it is finished.
And kind of like, even in relation to our company
and the movement we're trying to start
and all the things we're doing in the kingdom,
he's already did the work.
It's already completed.
And we just get to walk into it with him
in that partnership.
And so like that even just takes the stress levels
down to the floor, but that's the concept, right?
It's like, we're just in partnership with him
and we can operate out of a place of rest.
And so just reinforcing that.
And the thing that really jumped off the page to me today
was the concept of if we're upstairs with God
and we're his friend, he's gonna tell us
what he's doing in our company
and what he's going to do in our company, right?
So all of a sudden like that clicked.
Hey, if you're my friend
and you're gonna tell me what's coming
and then we can partner together
and walk through it together.
That's like amazing, amazing.
We don't have to guess.
Yeah, we're not reading tea leaves.
We're just listening to his voice, yeah.
Yeah, so that all comes against the normal sense of like,
I'm not sure how it's gonna work out.
How are we gonna make it?
Now we're gonna get through this cashflow crisis
and like you can get stuck over there
in the downstairs so easy.
And he's a genius of helping us.
Thank you for sharing.
Yeah, let's go to Tamara and Todd and then to Jonathan.
Yeah, this was great.
It was wonderful to have,
because we're restructuring.
We're in the process of restructuring.
We had to rehire a whole new staff.
And so the reminder to make sure
that the partnership conversations are happening regularly
and making sure, I mean, you and I have been together
for a bit, so I know the blocking
and I know getting all that together.
But now I learned something new today
about I felt like I got permission
to keep all this stuff that it's mandatory
that I don't like, like emails and texting
and all the things that I have to do,
put it at the end of the day.
Because right now I'm throwing it at the beginning,
this stuff out of the way that I don't like to do
so I can enjoy the rest of my day.
So now I think I'm gonna take my phone outside for texting
and enjoy my garden so I get to do something together.
Also, yeah, I love the reminder.
I've got all new staffing, all new staff.
Most of them haven't even met each other yet
because it's all virtual.
So I am excited to bring them all into the same room
and do some of the things that we were talking about today,
just do the joy thing.
And so, yeah, I love building team.
That's what we get to do, but I love this.
So today was a lot of practical takeaways for me
and just reminders that I get to implement
the things I already know how to do
that I'm not consistently doing.
That's great.
Well, Todd, just before you share,
I know we try to always be on time.
Well, I'd love to give everyone else a chance to talk.
So if you do need to go, we won't consider you rude.
Just drop off, loved having you.
Thanks so much for joining us,
but I'd love to give everybody else a shot.
So just drop off if you need to go.
Todd, what was your takeaway today?
The strategizing with Jesus, again, like others have said,
that priority, because I have so many opportunities
and so many projects that I wanna get started on,
but I don't know which one the priority is.
And they're fantastic growth projects.
So I need to go deeper with Jesus and in the partnership
and listen to him to tell me what's coming
and what to prepare for.
So, I mean, he's dropped some solid things in
and now I need to like plan around that.
So I just have to go deeper.
So I appreciate what you shared.
Yeah, permission makes us plan boldly.
I love it.
Yeah, Jonathan.
I'll make it quick.
I think probably the biggest takeaway for me is,
although I can't control the circumstances,
I can control my calendar.
And so the permission of making the calendar a lineup
with the things I know are the most important.
And then in that will help me organize my approach to the chaos, rather than trying to control the chaos with my chaos.
Well said. Lovely. Mark, then we'll go to Susan.
Yeah, I guess for me, I just love how it just continues to, and I heard it's a lot from others, the permission to just rest. And from the moment, I missed the first half hour, so I'm going to enjoy going back and listening to that.
But I jumped on right when the prophetic prayer was happening. I felt like at that point, I just got permission from the Father to, it was just like a huge paradigm shift in me to stop attacking and to rest.
And then when you bring the joy table, I'm so excited about taking that to a team.
So yeah, just brought clarity to the whole situation.
Awesome. Susan, then we'll go to Tyler.
It's great listening to what everybody else took away because it helps reinforce, you know what we have already heard, even though we've already got our own things going.
One of the things for me is kind of tightening up my chambers on my tasks, because I tend to, I'm going to do my writing here, and then I've got to do this, and I've got to reach out, and I've got to catch up.
And I need to parallel them a little bit more, like you were talking about, put all the buckets so I don't have that switch. I think I knew that cerebrally, but having it pulled out and put in front of me and looked at it that way, that's huge for me.
I'm excited.
Excellent. Tyler, and then we'll go to Matthew.
Yeah.
It was really good. I thought that I tend to be very reactionary to things happening with my schedule and be responsive or responding to people or distractions or things.
So taking that cognitive control over my week and schedule and trying to batch as much as I can was really, again, reinforcing. And then just all the stuff at the front side of the call, the truth to rest in and to stand on, it replaces all the lies.
So I'm very thankful.
Excellent. Let's go to Angie and then, sorry, I said Matthew. So Matthew, then Angie, then Bridget. Yeah. Matthew?
Yeah, you can skip me.
Today was kind of a great combination of wildly practical things for me.
The idea of buckets was really brilliant for myself just because I actually had people messaging me during the meeting going, I need you to answer the phone, call me back right now.
And I'm just thinking, you know what?
No, thank you. Because chaos is not what defines me.
The other part of it too that I love so much is the idea of, you know, as overwhelming as things get, sometimes to remind myself that I'm at rest because he's at rest.
And I'm not going to miss anything that he wants me to do, wants me to accomplish because he won't let me.
And he keeps me and just all the combination of all the brilliant things coming together, all the brilliant groups, all the activities and moving into this, it's like progressing and weightlifting.
You know, we're getting really effective and I love it and it's just, I'm so excited.
That's so great.
Thanks, Angie, Bridget, and then we'll go to Bruce.
Yeah, for me, the discussion on the buckets and batching tasks.
I've heard that before, but I've never really put it into action.
And so it's just new revelation of how much not doing that has cost me.
So I'm actually excited to take some steps forward in that.
So thank you so much.
Certainly.
Bridget?
I think just there's a lot that I really loved and good reminders, but I love the fact that rest is our weapon against the enemy.
And I think he tries to distract us by keeping us busy.
And when we come back to that place of peace and rest, we can hear him more clearly and be a lot more productive and, you know, better contribution to the kingdom.
I love that.
Rest is a weapon and an accelerator.
Okay, we'll go to Bruce and then Robin, we'll wrap it up.
Yeah, I think this is really good.
I think Jonathan said as well, you get a lot of tools, but the productivity and the time management, I think, is something we should listen to once a month.
Because it's just everything sort of deteriorates to bad habits, like sneak in.
And I think this demand, you can kind of justify why.
to talk to this client for this and I had to do this for this team member. So it's good just to
reset and be like, you know, kind of be a little bit more strict with that. And I think the
starting each day, I think is going to be helpful to, you know, kind of have a theme for the day.
I think that was great. And then also have kind of then on, you know, when the day is there,
just asking the Lord, like, what, what are we going to partner with today? And then what's
the main thing for the week? That's something I want to implement for sure.
Awesome. That is, that is great. That's a huge thing. Robin, I give you the last word.
Well, thank you so much, guys. Good to see you all. One of the things that we're having
a challenge with here, I don't know whether you all know it or not, but I have kind of
stepped away from running the company and we've hired a president, I'm still CEO, and morale is
down. And I am, you know, sitting in a place where I have somebody in between me and the rest
of the company. And not that I can't go talk to people or anything, but I liked the idea of the
quadrant, you know, the joy contribution quadrant. And I think I'm going to take one of my days
and kind of schedule that with one or two of the people that I'm with. And just with a whiteboard
on Zoom, just do the quadrant with them and see if we can kind of talk through some of the issues
that they may be having. And maybe we can make some changes in what we're currently doing to
bring up in the company. So that's kind of my takeaway. That's really good. Thank you all for
sharing and being together. This is such a lot of fun for us to do and to hang out with you guys.
So really appreciate it. And I hope you have an extraordinarily blessed month. And we'll see you
back in a month's time. Don't forget to go to the app. Later today, we'll post the replays and
all that stuff. And we'll try and pull out the prophetic word and so on as you ask.
Where do we find the app? I can't find the app on the app store.
Just search for Edge Groups on the app. Oh, Edge Groups. Okay. Yeah.
There's a link. Dia dropped a link in here. If you'll scroll through the chat,
it'll take you to the My Edge Group and all the stuff is there.
Yeah, you can get on web, you can get on iOS, you can get on Android. They all exist.
Beautiful. Okay. Thank you. Thanks, guys. Appreciate it. Have a wonderful month.