October 19, 2025 • 32 mins
In this compelling episode, former Navy chaplain Greg Woodard reveals why brilliant leaders burn out and how to lead from authentic calling rather than external pressure. Drawing from 22 years of military service, including time as the sole spiritual care provider for 800 naval personnel during deployment, Greg shares the four essential rhythms, spiritual, physical, relational, and emotional, that kept him resilient in high-stress environments. He challenges the toxic "burnout for Jesus" mentality that has plagued Christian leadership for generations.
Greg's book, "Leadership from Within: Navigating the Path Towards Soul-Driven Success," offers a permission slip for faith-driven leaders to prioritize holistic self-care without guilt. He unpacks the critical difference between leading from overflow versus depletion, explains why character must match charisma for long-term success, and helps leaders rediscover their identity as God's beloved before they are ministry professionals. Whether you're a pastor feeling the weight of congregational expectations or a leader struggling to maintain boundaries, this conversation provides practical wisdom for sustainable, soul-driven leadership that honours both mission and humanity.
WEBLINKS Greg Woodard’s Website Leadership from Within Bleeding Daylight is a Christian podcast of hope and transformation hosted by Rodney Olsen, featuring inspiring Christian testimonies and stories of faith in action.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:08):
Wherever there are shadows, there are people ready to kick at the darkness until it bleeds daylight.
This is Bleeding Daylight with your host, Rodney Olsen.
Welcome and thanks for taking the time to listen to today's episode.
Hundreds more inspiring episodes are available now at bleedingdaylight.net.
(00:31):
Please share Bleeding Daylight with others.
Why do some people thrive in high-level careers while others face exhaustion and burnout?
Are there ways to perform at the highest level in stressful environments without it taking a heavy toll on our lives?
(00:52):
Today's guest has some keys that can help.
I am so glad to have Greg Woodward with me today.
Greg spent 22 years in military service, including 15 years as a Navy chaplain, where he saw firsthand how brilliant leaders can burn out when they lead from external pressure instead of their authentic calling.
(01:20):
That experience led him to write Leadership From Within, navigating the path towards soul-driven success.
He now helps faith-driven leaders find sustainable rhythms that honor both their mission and their humanity.
He's also a devoted husband, father, grandfather, and someone who truly gets what it means to lead with soul.
(01:42):
Greg, welcome to Bleeding Daylight.
Rodney, it's great to be here.
Thank you for inviting me.
Your work has had you leading and interacting with people who are operating at the very highest level, as well as those who might be seen as at the other end of the scale, including those who have battled addictions with drugs and alcohol.
(02:04):
What are some of the common threads that you've seen in people, wherever they sit on that scale?
They all need to learn a version of taking care of themselves.
Obviously, there's differences between a high-functioning leader who is performing and needs to maintain their edge in their leadership versus someone who's struggling with addiction.
(02:28):
There's going to be a very different way that they approach self-care, but both of them need it.
And I think that's the commonality.
There's a sense that both want a good future.
They're approaching it in a different way and have different needs as they approach that future.
You've worked in this leadership space for quite some years.
(02:51):
What do you feel it is within yourself that has drawn you to that kind of role in life, to be looking at leadership and be looking at how to get the best out of other people and help them to be the best they can be?
I've really spent a lot of time in the spiritual leadership space.
One of the arching themes of my life is that I've always wanted to help people.
(03:14):
I didn't know how that was going to look.
It's looked different in different environments.
But I think what drew me is I want people to know that their present circumstances don't have to dictate what their future is going to be, or their past doesn't have to dictate what their future is going to be.
But it depends a lot on how they respond in the present moment.
(03:38):
I've had much experience with leaders who are fairly high functioning and their charisma got in front of their character.
So there's a lot of commonalities in the way that a lot of leaders think they want to perform at high levels.
And it's integral as I've tried to lead people and tried to be involved with people, I've wanted them to understand that that character needs to match and maybe it probably even ought to exceed your charisma.
(04:08):
Because charisma will carry you a ways, but character is going to keep you for the long term.
It is one of those truisms that there are certain skills that we carry just because of who we are, the way that we're wired.
But unless we put in the hard work, it's not going to really come to much.
Is that a bit of a revelation for those people who just are naturally gifted, naturally skilled, that suddenly they find that that isn't carrying them forward as they expected it might?
(04:38):
Yeah, it is.
I'm pausing and hesitating a bit because I think of one friend in particular.
This was a friend that we started off a portion of our career together.
We built a friendship.
This person was a fast mover, was very skilled.
And I mean this lovingly, but could schmooze with the best of them.
(04:59):
He was very good, was very smooth, had an intuitive way with people.
But his character was coming up short.
As fast as he was moving in his career, his family wasn't, there was more strain than he was letting on that there was.
And ultimately, I retired and this friend of mine is not going to be able to retire because his character didn't keep up with what he had going for him.
(05:34):
And he would acknowledge that.
But he also knew that he would be able to bounce back because I'm good at some things.
I can move myself forward in a positive way because I have strong skill sets.
So there was a double edged sword with him.
It was a lot of positives and ways of connecting with people are very strong and very positive.
(05:55):
But when his character started to slip and he began not to pursue the character formation, then that's when the destruction happened.
And I often would tell people that at the end of a career, either you're going to be sitting on the front row with your family as they celebrate you, the family you started with, or you're not.
(06:18):
It might just be you and they're all left beside or left behind.
That's one of the things I wrestle with is just how that character can not keep up with the charisma and the skill sets are great, but that character's got to keep up.
You talk about that balance between external pressure and authentic calling.
Can you help unpack that a little bit for me?
(06:41):
Yeah, I think it's really, really important that people know themselves.
There's lots of expectations.
I spent a number of years, as you've already said, in the military and there certainly are expectations for performance.
And I worked with a lot of young people that were just starting off in their adult journey.
(07:01):
The military seemed like an option and then they got in and they realized they really didn't like it.
There were a variety of factors.
They didn't know themselves well.
They didn't know what they were good at.
They didn't really understand how they were wired as people.
They didn't know their personality types.
And so there's a way that when you are seeking a career, which is different than a job, it's important to do something that you show up every day and you would do this whether they paid you or not.
(07:34):
And obviously we all need to be paid.
We need to have an income to support our family.
But there's nothing worse than going into a job that isn't suited for who you are as a person.
There's a lot of factors, personality type, temperament.
Are you more inclined to be outdoors or indoors?
(07:55):
Do you like to work with your hands?
Do you like to work with your mind?
What's your education?
Have you pursued something that is in alignment with who you are?
Who you're naturally wired to be, who God created you to be, not because of what you're able to accomplish out of that.
In other words, not so much the pursuit of success and of income and of fame or to please your parents, but to do to the best of the ability that you have because you're naturally wired to do so.
(08:30):
I'm wondering whether there are people
who enter a military life because they believe that there's going to be that structure there
and that they can build a career based on that structure, that everything's laid out,
there's a path to follow, not realizing that first there has to be something
internal that is driving them towards that goal, something internal that helps them understand,
(08:54):
as you say, the person that they are and that if we don't start to understand who we are first
and foremost and then our connection, especially with God, that we're still going to come up short
even though we can follow the structure.
Oh, certainly.
There are many fine examples of young people who have entered into the military system because they needed structure and they found that the structure of the environment worked for them and suited them and helped them to flourish and grow as people.
(09:25):
But then there are some who come in, maybe the structure was good for them, but they didn't enjoy their work.
They were assigned a duty that wasn't suited to who they were as a person.
To your point, yes, very much so.
Many countless that I talked to had broken family structures, had broken relationships with fathers and with mothers and with God.
(09:49):
And the military, especially in the case of the family structures that were broken, the military provided a different form of family.
Now, it's not really the family that I would want, but it's a form of a family.
It's sort of like we know about gang members.
They enter into these clubs or these gangs that become a form of family because the system that they're coming from is broken.
(10:12):
Somebody's there to support them.
Now, we don't always appreciate the kind of support that a fellow gang member might support, but they provide some kind of structure and some kind of system, some kind of familial way of relating that can create an environment where that person at least feels like somebody has their back.
(10:34):
While you've learned a lot of the lessons that you have learned and that you've applied into the book, Leadership from Within in the Military, I know that it's not just for people who are looking for a career in the military, but anyone who's seeking to perform at a high level.
What was it that first drove you to write that book?
(10:56):
Yeah, I really wrote the book for Christian leaders.
When you write a book, you have to be pretty narrow and pretty specific.
So, it's for Christian leaders, and I've said in the first few pages that it's for Christian leaders who are in vocational Christian service.
But I think that the principles apply across the spectrum of Christian leaders.
(11:18):
Now, to the genesis of why I wrote the book, so I was a chaplain on board a deployed naval vessel.
We were in the Middle East.
There were 800 personnel.
There was one chaplain.
I was the spiritual care provider for that many personnel.
Obviously, I didn't encounter all 800 personnel on any given day, but I encountered a lot of them.
(11:40):
The thing that was common when they would approach me is they always came to me seeking help from me, which I was happy to offer.
But that also meant that I was giving a lot, and there weren't very many people.
In fact, I think I can recall one that asked me how I was doing.
And here's the care provider needing to provide care for those who needed my help, wanted to have a connection with God that maybe they could find through a conversation with me.
(12:10):
And if I wasn't whole, then I couldn't be present for that person.
I couldn't provide the kind of support that they needed.
I wasn't as equipped.
I wasn't whole as a person, and so there was a gap in the way I would relate to them if I wasn't doing holistic self-care.
So in that environment, after we came back, I wanted to understand how I stayed resilient.
(12:33):
I wasn't perfect, but I stayed strong during that deployment.
And I wanted to understand why, so I spent some time journaling and writing.
It led me into a doctoral program.
And in the writing process and the research process, I began to understand that there were four key components that helped me to stay resilient.
I looked after my physical rhythms.
(12:55):
I was taking care of myself physically.
I looked after my spiritual rhythms.
I was maintaining my connection with God.
I was maintaining relationships with my family back home, with my crew members, with peers.
I was seeking relationships that weren't just connected to my chaplain role.
And I was also taking care of my emotions.
(13:15):
I was checking in on myself.
So that experience led me into, after I retired, I retired in 2023 from the military, I decided to give myself the gift of writing a book.
I don't know that that's a very good gift that I gave myself, but it was an enjoyable process to put on paper things that I'd learned over the years about how to take care of myself as a Christian leader.
(13:37):
So it's really those four rhythms that you talk about, the spiritual rhythms, physical rhythms, relational and emotional rhythms.
Do you find as you're speaking to people who are working in Christian service that there is a lack of those, that they are actually trying to serve out of an emptiness, that they have given and given and given, and yet they find that there's no one pouring back into them?
(14:02):
The short answer is yes.
It's interesting because in my generation, those who were leading my generation, there was this idea of burnout for Jesus.
So you were to work yourself to the point of being so fatigued that you just couldn't go on.
That was what made you a top flight leader, if you burned out.
(14:23):
This younger generation seems to innately understand some of these things that I've been writing about.
One of the principles that somewhere along the way in my chaplain career, one of the leaders said to us, he said that you should always be seeking to lead out of your overflow.
And so what did he mean by that?
He meant that we are to be leading, we are to be offering spiritual care out of a full bucket, not an empty bucket.
(14:49):
When we're offering it out of an empty bucket, at some point we're not going to be able to provide the kind of care that somebody needs.
Things that I found they needed from me, they needed me to be present and they needed to know that I loved them.
If I seemed distracted when they were conversing with me, if I wasn't hearing them, couldn't repeat back, what is it you want to talk to me about?
(15:13):
And they'll offer it to me and I'll be able to repeat it back.
If I couldn't repeat back to them a summary of what they were wanting to talk to me about, well that meant I wasn't present, I wasn't focused, and I was probably distracted.
Those all arose at greater levels when I was trying to do that conversation out of being depleted.
(15:34):
I had to take time away, shut my door, and recoup, recenter myself, and get back into the conversation at a later point.
It's incredibly important that we do a lot of really effective self-care.
I think sometimes Christian leaders forget that self-care is important, it's essential, and really it's required.
(15:57):
You can't lead well if you're not, irregardless of what kind of leadership, you really can't lead well.
Decision-making is going to be different, lots of things are going to be different if you're leading out of a sense of depletion.
I'm wondering if there are people who, whether it's being a pastor or working in other kinds of Christian service, that they see themselves first as a pastor rather than first seeing themselves as a child of God, and the difference that that would make in who they are and how they work.
(16:28):
It'd make a profound difference, because they first are a child of God, second, if they have a family, they're a family, a man or woman, and third is their pastoral role.
That'd be my take.
I get the idea of the pastoral role is of such importance.
(16:50):
It should never come before family, and it should never come before God.
I have a journal prompt, and I write this every morning.
The question is, who does God say that I am?
And I write, I am God's beloved.
God says that I am his beloved, and that's it.
What more is there?
If you're identifying first as a pastor, so this may get me in trouble with some of your audience.
(17:14):
I don't want to get in trouble, but when somebody asks you who you are, your first response is, I am a pastor.
It's a common guide thing.
We refer to ourselves by what we do.
That isn't the first part of who you are, and I think it's important to remember that God loves you as your son or daughter first, and then the doing part of it is somewhere down the list of priorities.
(17:43):
You say that your mission today, or the thing that you really want to communicate with people, is that Christian leaders don't have to choose between faithful service and personal flourishing.
Is that a hard pill to swallow for a lot of people in Christian service, because they say, no, no, I have to put the service first, and they don't realize that if they are personally flourishing, this is not some new age idea.
(18:08):
This is actually what is written in Scripture, that as we say, they are first and foremost a child of God who needs to experience His love poured into them.
Do you find that there are many who just can't get around this idea of being both?
Yes, and if I unpack that yes a little bit, I have had, for whatever reason, I can't fully explain the why, I've become very attuned to the failures in the church.
(18:38):
I could sit here in this conversation, and I could probably name off 10 leaders that I know, well-known, not so well-known, I won't do that.
But if a Christian leader emphasizes the size of their ministry, the amount of people that are saved, the amount of people that come forward for prayer, the amount of offering that's coming in every Sunday, I'm speaking things that are important in the church.
(19:10):
We want all these things in the church.
But if those are the things that are the most important, then I think we have our priorities out of whack.
It's my conviction that leaders who are going to succeed for the long term are going to prioritize self-care.
(19:30):
They're going to prioritize looking after their own soul.
And they're going to do that, and sometimes they're going to say no.
In fact, they probably ought to say no more often to the people that are asking them for help.
If they aren't whole and holy, then why are they helping other people?
Do you think that there has risen up congregations that are expecting their leaders to sacrifice themselves, that because there has been this push over years of bigger, better, this many people, as you say, coming forward after each service, and they're expecting leaders to sacrifice themselves, and so there's that pressure that's put on them as well?
(20:09):
Absolutely.
I know that it happens.
It seems like it's starting to wane a little bit in our current culture, in the current generation.
They seem to be less focused on numbers in some regards, but then I think about how much resource.
I love the local church, and I've been in a variety of settings over the course of our years together as a family.
(20:36):
We've been many places.
I think that there's a couple of different ways to approach the question.
One is that the congregation puts too much expectation on the pastor.
The second is that the pastor puts too much expectation on themselves, because if the pastor isn't setting boundaries and isn't calling people to account when they encroach a boundary, if they keep saying yes, well, then why should they blame the congregation?
(21:06):
Now, that's not to say that congregations don't ask their pastor to overcommit.
They want them to be at every meeting.
They want them to be at every time the doors open, and sometimes you need to let your pastor have some time away.
There's a double-edged sword there.
Pastors let themselves get overburdened, and congregations just keep adding on when the pastor keeps allowing it.
(21:28):
So, it's like a both-and.
For those who have had the opportunity to read Leadership from Within, have there been those that have come back to you and said, just thank you, that suddenly it starts to fall into place, that they realize they don't have to put that expectation on themselves?
I think that what I've experienced with people is that they have been given permission to look after their own selves.
(21:54):
I think of it as holistic.
It takes care of our physical self, our emotional self, our spiritual self.
Those are very key things.
Those came out of that deployment.
Those were the four areas that I needed to focus on.
I've had many Christian leaders that have read it, and they have all said that they found it to be a permission slip for them to take care of themselves in a holistic way.
(22:19):
Maybe further down the track, it's going to be their families that come and say thank you as well for releasing their father, their mother, their spouse from these expectations.
Oh, I hope so.
I think that the work that a Christian leader does should not negatively impact their family.
(22:40):
Now, that's a bit of an exaggerated statement.
There were certainly things in my career that were challenges for my family.
Were they negatives?
I mean, that's probably a better question for my kids, but if leaders are healthy, they're going to lead well personally inside their family structure, and they're going lead well professionally.
(23:04):
And if their professional isn't coaching too much on their personal, then that's a sign that maybe they need to make some course correction and put some stronger boundaries around the time that they have with their family.
And that needs to get the emphasis more than the professional.
I understand we have to maintain our professions.
(23:25):
That's not what I'm trying to say here.
But don't do it to the neglect of those that care about you the most.
And I'm very aware that as well as being able to teach well and to lead well, that when leaders are actually practicing self-care, when they're saying no to some of the opportunities that are offered to them because they're spending time with family, that they're actually leading by example.
(23:50):
That the people within their congregations, the people that they're leading, are actually starting to see a life that is well-lived, a life that is lived in Christ, a life that is lived with acknowledging who they truly are in Christ before that leadership comes.
And I imagine that that would be incredibly powerful too.
(24:11):
I think it would be incredibly powerful.
Think about this.
We've been talking a lot about the church dynamic.
Think about sitting in church on the Sunday morning, and your pastor gets up, and your pastor is clearly fatigued, evidently not taking care of himself physically, him or herself physically, and is trying to teach you about doing good stewardship.
(24:38):
Are you going to give that a stronger listen if they aren't those things, if they are well-rested and evidently taking care of themselves physically, or are you going to listen to them if they're doing the opposite?
If you're in a private setting with a public leader, and they're different in private, they're nasty, they're brutish, but they are proper in public, there's something amiss there.
(25:10):
I would advocate that when we are doing something that's taking care of ourselves, we are absolutely setting an example for our family.
When a father is temperate with his son, there's a power there that that son can relate to that father.
But if that father is a brute to his son, well, that son's not going to be able to hear anything else that dad says, because he doesn't have a connection with dad.
(25:37):
I know that the book is going to be helpful for those who are in ministry and are wanting to avoid falling off that precipice into burnout, but I'm wondering for those who have experienced some form of burnout or are feeling like it's just too hard to go on, is there something in there that is going to help them come back from that place?
(26:01):
There are definitely a lot of action steps.
I've put action guides, the book's divided into four parts, and each part has an action guide that goes alongside it.
They could work for 90 days and begin to implement the practices that we talk about in the book.
Everything from relating well with your team, to taking care of yourself physically, to building your spiritual practices, to navigating effective soul care in a holistic sense, looking at your emotions.
(26:33):
When you do those things, I think the natural byproduct will be that you will begin to live a more flourishing life.
Now, there is such a thing as a deep and abiding burnout that you might need a different level of care.
You'll be able to gain some from the book, certainly, but I know of several leaders who've had to have therapy.
(26:57):
The book's not therapy.
If your burnout is to the point where maybe you're medicating, or you're contemplating darker thoughts, or beginning to break with your family, or you're not performing well in your professional environment when you've done well there before, then there's some signs, you can't get over your fatigue, there's some signs there that perhaps you need to seek a different level of care.
(27:22):
But for the leader who's pretty good, maybe needs to improve, and wants to flourish at a deeper level, I think the book certainly could be helpful for them.
Do you think that things like this are missing from ministry training in a lot of senses?
I know that there are more educational facilities, seminaries, who are trying to build in some of these things, but do you think that sometimes what they try and give is too practical on the ministry side, but not on the human flourishing side?
(27:54):
Speaking my language, Rodney, because it was just suggested to me the other day that I seek a conversation with some leadership at a local school that does ministry training, and suggest that they put this book in their curriculum.
I'm not opposed to that.
I was taught some contemplative spiritual practices.
(28:16):
I don't remember much conversation.
Maybe get a little bit of sleep.
That might have been the extent of the physical rhythm.
I don't remember many conversations about looking at your inner self, looking at your interior world, which is what emotions is.
I remember wives support your husband.
That was what I remember about the relational connection.
(28:38):
And I'm missing things.
It's been 25 years since I was in seminary.
If a training program would help ministers put into practice these particular areas, they're already working the intellectual.
When you're in an academic environment, you're already working on the intellectual side of things.
But often you're neglecting these other things.
(28:58):
You're short-shifting your spiritual for the sake of getting the paper done, or you're not getting your exercise because you've got a thousand pages of reading to do, or you're not really checking in on your emotions because you don't really have time for that.
That's not something that you can really navigate right now.
Finding ways to help students that are seeking ministry proactively look after the holistic nature of their selfhood and understand themselves as holistic beings, I think would certainly be helpful.
(29:28):
Do you think there's sometimes a battle for some people who have perhaps grown up in a different system, as you say, for them to come to terms with the fact that what you're suggesting is not self-focused or introspective, but it's just leading them to become the men and women that God has called them to be throughout Scripture?
(29:48):
Yes.
God has called us to be human beings.
We are not human doings.
I have nothing but love for the tradition I grew up in, but it had some leanings towards some more fundamentalist sorts of thinking.
We weren't fundamentalists, but there was some edging into some of that in the tradition I grew up in.
(30:11):
I think that there are certainly some systems that put a lot of emphasis on the works that you do.
There are some systems that aren't much different than the Pharisees.
We add rules just so we have more rules to follow.
I don't want to come off as sounding like I'm judging other traditions.
That's not my intent here.
(30:33):
What I want for people is to have permission.
The church should be giving all of their members, and maybe particularly, I don't know if we want to say particularly the pastors, but pastors definitely need to be given permission to take care of themselves first.
Understand that recreation is a good thing.
(30:55):
Having good quality time with your family is a good thing.
Checking in on yourself.
Maybe having access to some conversations with a spiritual director that the church is paying for, or that we have these regular opportunities for taking a Sabbath for a day so that a leader can integrate themselves with their family or can do something that feeds their spirit.
(31:20):
Everybody has something different that feeds their spirit.
If we're to the point where we have to give people permission for that, then we have crossed the Rubicon.
I don't think that we have.
I think that sometimes we just need a reminder that doing good self-care is really, really critical to you flourishing as a person professionally and personally.
(31:43):
Greg, I want to thank you for the work that you've done in this space.
I do have a link to your website in the show notes at bleedingdaylight.net so that people can connect with you easily.
They can also see when Leadership From Within, navigating the path towards soul-driven success, is available for them.
But I just want to say thank you so much for what you're doing and for the conversation today on Bleeding Daylight.
(32:08):
Rodney, it was great to be here.
Thank you so much for the invite.
Thank you for listening to Bleeding Daylight.
Please help us to shine more light into the darkness by sharing this episode with others.
For further details and more episodes, please visit bleedingdaylight.net.
Wherever there are shadows, there are people ready to kick at the darkness until it bleeds daylight.
This is Bleeding Daylight with your host, Rodney Olsen.
Welcome and thanks for taking the time to listen to today's episode.
Hundreds more inspiring episodes are available now at bleedingdaylight.net.
(00:31):
Please share Bleeding Daylight with others.
Why do some people thrive in high-level careers while others face exhaustion and burnout?
Are there ways to perform at the highest level in stressful environments without it taking a heavy toll on our lives?
(00:52):
Today's guest has some keys that can help.
I am so glad to have Greg Woodward with me today.
Greg spent 22 years in military service, including 15 years as a Navy chaplain, where he saw firsthand how brilliant leaders can burn out when they lead from external pressure instead of their authentic calling.
(01:20):
That experience led him to write Leadership From Within, navigating the path towards soul-driven success.
He now helps faith-driven leaders find sustainable rhythms that honor both their mission and their humanity.
He's also a devoted husband, father, grandfather, and someone who truly gets what it means to lead with soul.
(01:42):
Greg, welcome to Bleeding Daylight.
Rodney, it's great to be here.
Thank you for inviting me.
Your work has had you leading and interacting with people who are operating at the very highest level, as well as those who might be seen as at the other end of the scale, including those who have battled addictions with drugs and alcohol.
(02:04):
What are some of the common threads that you've seen in people, wherever they sit on that scale?
They all need to learn a version of taking care of themselves.
Obviously, there's differences between a high-functioning leader who is performing and needs to maintain their edge in their leadership versus someone who's struggling with addiction.
(02:28):
There's going to be a very different way that they approach self-care, but both of them need it.
And I think that's the commonality.
There's a sense that both want a good future.
They're approaching it in a different way and have different needs as they approach that future.
You've worked in this leadership space for quite some years.
(02:51):
What do you feel it is within yourself that has drawn you to that kind of role in life, to be looking at leadership and be looking at how to get the best out of other people and help them to be the best they can be?
I've really spent a lot of time in the spiritual leadership space.
One of the arching themes of my life is that I've always wanted to help people.
(03:14):
I didn't know how that was going to look.
It's looked different in different environments.
But I think what drew me is I want people to know that their present circumstances don't have to dictate what their future is going to be, or their past doesn't have to dictate what their future is going to be.
But it depends a lot on how they respond in the present moment.
(03:38):
I've had much experience with leaders who are fairly high functioning and their charisma got in front of their character.
So there's a lot of commonalities in the way that a lot of leaders think they want to perform at high levels.
And it's integral as I've tried to lead people and tried to be involved with people, I've wanted them to understand that that character needs to match and maybe it probably even ought to exceed your charisma.
(04:08):
Because charisma will carry you a ways, but character is going to keep you for the long term.
It is one of those truisms that there are certain skills that we carry just because of who we are, the way that we're wired.
But unless we put in the hard work, it's not going to really come to much.
Is that a bit of a revelation for those people who just are naturally gifted, naturally skilled, that suddenly they find that that isn't carrying them forward as they expected it might?
(04:38):
Yeah, it is.
I'm pausing and hesitating a bit because I think of one friend in particular.
This was a friend that we started off a portion of our career together.
We built a friendship.
This person was a fast mover, was very skilled.
And I mean this lovingly, but could schmooze with the best of them.
(04:59):
He was very good, was very smooth, had an intuitive way with people.
But his character was coming up short.
As fast as he was moving in his career, his family wasn't, there was more strain than he was letting on that there was.
And ultimately, I retired and this friend of mine is not going to be able to retire because his character didn't keep up with what he had going for him.
(05:34):
And he would acknowledge that.
But he also knew that he would be able to bounce back because I'm good at some things.
I can move myself forward in a positive way because I have strong skill sets.
So there was a double edged sword with him.
It was a lot of positives and ways of connecting with people are very strong and very positive.
(05:55):
But when his character started to slip and he began not to pursue the character formation, then that's when the destruction happened.
And I often would tell people that at the end of a career, either you're going to be sitting on the front row with your family as they celebrate you, the family you started with, or you're not.
(06:18):
It might just be you and they're all left beside or left behind.
That's one of the things I wrestle with is just how that character can not keep up with the charisma and the skill sets are great, but that character's got to keep up.
You talk about that balance between external pressure and authentic calling.
Can you help unpack that a little bit for me?
(06:41):
Yeah, I think it's really, really important that people know themselves.
There's lots of expectations.
I spent a number of years, as you've already said, in the military and there certainly are expectations for performance.
And I worked with a lot of young people that were just starting off in their adult journey.
(07:01):
The military seemed like an option and then they got in and they realized they really didn't like it.
There were a variety of factors.
They didn't know themselves well.
They didn't know what they were good at.
They didn't really understand how they were wired as people.
They didn't know their personality types.
And so there's a way that when you are seeking a career, which is different than a job, it's important to do something that you show up every day and you would do this whether they paid you or not.
(07:34):
And obviously we all need to be paid.
We need to have an income to support our family.
But there's nothing worse than going into a job that isn't suited for who you are as a person.
There's a lot of factors, personality type, temperament.
Are you more inclined to be outdoors or indoors?
(07:55):
Do you like to work with your hands?
Do you like to work with your mind?
What's your education?
Have you pursued something that is in alignment with who you are?
Who you're naturally wired to be, who God created you to be, not because of what you're able to accomplish out of that.
In other words, not so much the pursuit of success and of income and of fame or to please your parents, but to do to the best of the ability that you have because you're naturally wired to do so.
(08:30):
I'm wondering whether there are people
who enter a military life because they believe that there's going to be that structure there
and that they can build a career based on that structure, that everything's laid out,
there's a path to follow, not realizing that first there has to be something
internal that is driving them towards that goal, something internal that helps them understand,
(08:54):
as you say, the person that they are and that if we don't start to understand who we are first
and foremost and then our connection, especially with God, that we're still going to come up short
even though we can follow the structure.
Oh, certainly.
There are many fine examples of young people who have entered into the military system because they needed structure and they found that the structure of the environment worked for them and suited them and helped them to flourish and grow as people.
(09:25):
But then there are some who come in, maybe the structure was good for them, but they didn't enjoy their work.
They were assigned a duty that wasn't suited to who they were as a person.
To your point, yes, very much so.
Many countless that I talked to had broken family structures, had broken relationships with fathers and with mothers and with God.
(09:49):
And the military, especially in the case of the family structures that were broken, the military provided a different form of family.
Now, it's not really the family that I would want, but it's a form of a family.
It's sort of like we know about gang members.
They enter into these clubs or these gangs that become a form of family because the system that they're coming from is broken.
(10:12):
Somebody's there to support them.
Now, we don't always appreciate the kind of support that a fellow gang member might support, but they provide some kind of structure and some kind of system, some kind of familial way of relating that can create an environment where that person at least feels like somebody has their back.
(10:34):
While you've learned a lot of the lessons that you have learned and that you've applied into the book, Leadership from Within in the Military, I know that it's not just for people who are looking for a career in the military, but anyone who's seeking to perform at a high level.
What was it that first drove you to write that book?
(10:56):
Yeah, I really wrote the book for Christian leaders.
When you write a book, you have to be pretty narrow and pretty specific.
So, it's for Christian leaders, and I've said in the first few pages that it's for Christian leaders who are in vocational Christian service.
But I think that the principles apply across the spectrum of Christian leaders.
(11:18):
Now, to the genesis of why I wrote the book, so I was a chaplain on board a deployed naval vessel.
We were in the Middle East.
There were 800 personnel.
There was one chaplain.
I was the spiritual care provider for that many personnel.
Obviously, I didn't encounter all 800 personnel on any given day, but I encountered a lot of them.
(11:40):
The thing that was common when they would approach me is they always came to me seeking help from me, which I was happy to offer.
But that also meant that I was giving a lot, and there weren't very many people.
In fact, I think I can recall one that asked me how I was doing.
And here's the care provider needing to provide care for those who needed my help, wanted to have a connection with God that maybe they could find through a conversation with me.
(12:10):
And if I wasn't whole, then I couldn't be present for that person.
I couldn't provide the kind of support that they needed.
I wasn't as equipped.
I wasn't whole as a person, and so there was a gap in the way I would relate to them if I wasn't doing holistic self-care.
So in that environment, after we came back, I wanted to understand how I stayed resilient.
(12:33):
I wasn't perfect, but I stayed strong during that deployment.
And I wanted to understand why, so I spent some time journaling and writing.
It led me into a doctoral program.
And in the writing process and the research process, I began to understand that there were four key components that helped me to stay resilient.
I looked after my physical rhythms.
(12:55):
I was taking care of myself physically.
I looked after my spiritual rhythms.
I was maintaining my connection with God.
I was maintaining relationships with my family back home, with my crew members, with peers.
I was seeking relationships that weren't just connected to my chaplain role.
And I was also taking care of my emotions.
(13:15):
I was checking in on myself.
So that experience led me into, after I retired, I retired in 2023 from the military, I decided to give myself the gift of writing a book.
I don't know that that's a very good gift that I gave myself, but it was an enjoyable process to put on paper things that I'd learned over the years about how to take care of myself as a Christian leader.
(13:37):
So it's really those four rhythms that you talk about, the spiritual rhythms, physical rhythms, relational and emotional rhythms.
Do you find as you're speaking to people who are working in Christian service that there is a lack of those, that they are actually trying to serve out of an emptiness, that they have given and given and given, and yet they find that there's no one pouring back into them?
(14:02):
The short answer is yes.
It's interesting because in my generation, those who were leading my generation, there was this idea of burnout for Jesus.
So you were to work yourself to the point of being so fatigued that you just couldn't go on.
That was what made you a top flight leader, if you burned out.
(14:23):
This younger generation seems to innately understand some of these things that I've been writing about.
One of the principles that somewhere along the way in my chaplain career, one of the leaders said to us, he said that you should always be seeking to lead out of your overflow.
And so what did he mean by that?
He meant that we are to be leading, we are to be offering spiritual care out of a full bucket, not an empty bucket.
(14:49):
When we're offering it out of an empty bucket, at some point we're not going to be able to provide the kind of care that somebody needs.
Things that I found they needed from me, they needed me to be present and they needed to know that I loved them.
If I seemed distracted when they were conversing with me, if I wasn't hearing them, couldn't repeat back, what is it you want to talk to me about?
(15:13):
And they'll offer it to me and I'll be able to repeat it back.
If I couldn't repeat back to them a summary of what they were wanting to talk to me about, well that meant I wasn't present, I wasn't focused, and I was probably distracted.
Those all arose at greater levels when I was trying to do that conversation out of being depleted.
(15:34):
I had to take time away, shut my door, and recoup, recenter myself, and get back into the conversation at a later point.
It's incredibly important that we do a lot of really effective self-care.
I think sometimes Christian leaders forget that self-care is important, it's essential, and really it's required.
(15:57):
You can't lead well if you're not, irregardless of what kind of leadership, you really can't lead well.
Decision-making is going to be different, lots of things are going to be different if you're leading out of a sense of depletion.
I'm wondering if there are people who, whether it's being a pastor or working in other kinds of Christian service, that they see themselves first as a pastor rather than first seeing themselves as a child of God, and the difference that that would make in who they are and how they work.
(16:28):
It'd make a profound difference, because they first are a child of God, second, if they have a family, they're a family, a man or woman, and third is their pastoral role.
That'd be my take.
I get the idea of the pastoral role is of such importance.
(16:50):
It should never come before family, and it should never come before God.
I have a journal prompt, and I write this every morning.
The question is, who does God say that I am?
And I write, I am God's beloved.
God says that I am his beloved, and that's it.
What more is there?
If you're identifying first as a pastor, so this may get me in trouble with some of your audience.
(17:14):
I don't want to get in trouble, but when somebody asks you who you are, your first response is, I am a pastor.
It's a common guide thing.
We refer to ourselves by what we do.
That isn't the first part of who you are, and I think it's important to remember that God loves you as your son or daughter first, and then the doing part of it is somewhere down the list of priorities.
(17:43):
You say that your mission today, or the thing that you really want to communicate with people, is that Christian leaders don't have to choose between faithful service and personal flourishing.
Is that a hard pill to swallow for a lot of people in Christian service, because they say, no, no, I have to put the service first, and they don't realize that if they are personally flourishing, this is not some new age idea.
(18:08):
This is actually what is written in Scripture, that as we say, they are first and foremost a child of God who needs to experience His love poured into them.
Do you find that there are many who just can't get around this idea of being both?
Yes, and if I unpack that yes a little bit, I have had, for whatever reason, I can't fully explain the why, I've become very attuned to the failures in the church.
(18:38):
I could sit here in this conversation, and I could probably name off 10 leaders that I know, well-known, not so well-known, I won't do that.
But if a Christian leader emphasizes the size of their ministry, the amount of people that are saved, the amount of people that come forward for prayer, the amount of offering that's coming in every Sunday, I'm speaking things that are important in the church.
(19:10):
We want all these things in the church.
But if those are the things that are the most important, then I think we have our priorities out of whack.
It's my conviction that leaders who are going to succeed for the long term are going to prioritize self-care.
(19:30):
They're going to prioritize looking after their own soul.
And they're going to do that, and sometimes they're going to say no.
In fact, they probably ought to say no more often to the people that are asking them for help.
If they aren't whole and holy, then why are they helping other people?
Do you think that there has risen up congregations that are expecting their leaders to sacrifice themselves, that because there has been this push over years of bigger, better, this many people, as you say, coming forward after each service, and they're expecting leaders to sacrifice themselves, and so there's that pressure that's put on them as well?
(20:09):
Absolutely.
I know that it happens.
It seems like it's starting to wane a little bit in our current culture, in the current generation.
They seem to be less focused on numbers in some regards, but then I think about how much resource.
I love the local church, and I've been in a variety of settings over the course of our years together as a family.
(20:36):
We've been many places.
I think that there's a couple of different ways to approach the question.
One is that the congregation puts too much expectation on the pastor.
The second is that the pastor puts too much expectation on themselves, because if the pastor isn't setting boundaries and isn't calling people to account when they encroach a boundary, if they keep saying yes, well, then why should they blame the congregation?
(21:06):
Now, that's not to say that congregations don't ask their pastor to overcommit.
They want them to be at every meeting.
They want them to be at every time the doors open, and sometimes you need to let your pastor have some time away.
There's a double-edged sword there.
Pastors let themselves get overburdened, and congregations just keep adding on when the pastor keeps allowing it.
(21:28):
So, it's like a both-and.
For those who have had the opportunity to read Leadership from Within, have there been those that have come back to you and said, just thank you, that suddenly it starts to fall into place, that they realize they don't have to put that expectation on themselves?
I think that what I've experienced with people is that they have been given permission to look after their own selves.
(21:54):
I think of it as holistic.
It takes care of our physical self, our emotional self, our spiritual self.
Those are very key things.
Those came out of that deployment.
Those were the four areas that I needed to focus on.
I've had many Christian leaders that have read it, and they have all said that they found it to be a permission slip for them to take care of themselves in a holistic way.
(22:19):
Maybe further down the track, it's going to be their families that come and say thank you as well for releasing their father, their mother, their spouse from these expectations.
Oh, I hope so.
I think that the work that a Christian leader does should not negatively impact their family.
(22:40):
Now, that's a bit of an exaggerated statement.
There were certainly things in my career that were challenges for my family.
Were they negatives?
I mean, that's probably a better question for my kids, but if leaders are healthy, they're going to lead well personally inside their family structure, and they're going lead well professionally.
(23:04):
And if their professional isn't coaching too much on their personal, then that's a sign that maybe they need to make some course correction and put some stronger boundaries around the time that they have with their family.
And that needs to get the emphasis more than the professional.
I understand we have to maintain our professions.
(23:25):
That's not what I'm trying to say here.
But don't do it to the neglect of those that care about you the most.
And I'm very aware that as well as being able to teach well and to lead well, that when leaders are actually practicing self-care, when they're saying no to some of the opportunities that are offered to them because they're spending time with family, that they're actually leading by example.
(23:50):
That the people within their congregations, the people that they're leading, are actually starting to see a life that is well-lived, a life that is lived in Christ, a life that is lived with acknowledging who they truly are in Christ before that leadership comes.
And I imagine that that would be incredibly powerful too.
(24:11):
I think it would be incredibly powerful.
Think about this.
We've been talking a lot about the church dynamic.
Think about sitting in church on the Sunday morning, and your pastor gets up, and your pastor is clearly fatigued, evidently not taking care of himself physically, him or herself physically, and is trying to teach you about doing good stewardship.
(24:38):
Are you going to give that a stronger listen if they aren't those things, if they are well-rested and evidently taking care of themselves physically, or are you going to listen to them if they're doing the opposite?
If you're in a private setting with a public leader, and they're different in private, they're nasty, they're brutish, but they are proper in public, there's something amiss there.
(25:10):
I would advocate that when we are doing something that's taking care of ourselves, we are absolutely setting an example for our family.
When a father is temperate with his son, there's a power there that that son can relate to that father.
But if that father is a brute to his son, well, that son's not going to be able to hear anything else that dad says, because he doesn't have a connection with dad.
(25:37):
I know that the book is going to be helpful for those who are in ministry and are wanting to avoid falling off that precipice into burnout, but I'm wondering for those who have experienced some form of burnout or are feeling like it's just too hard to go on, is there something in there that is going to help them come back from that place?
(26:01):
There are definitely a lot of action steps.
I've put action guides, the book's divided into four parts, and each part has an action guide that goes alongside it.
They could work for 90 days and begin to implement the practices that we talk about in the book.
Everything from relating well with your team, to taking care of yourself physically, to building your spiritual practices, to navigating effective soul care in a holistic sense, looking at your emotions.
(26:33):
When you do those things, I think the natural byproduct will be that you will begin to live a more flourishing life.
Now, there is such a thing as a deep and abiding burnout that you might need a different level of care.
You'll be able to gain some from the book, certainly, but I know of several leaders who've had to have therapy.
(26:57):
The book's not therapy.
If your burnout is to the point where maybe you're medicating, or you're contemplating darker thoughts, or beginning to break with your family, or you're not performing well in your professional environment when you've done well there before, then there's some signs, you can't get over your fatigue, there's some signs there that perhaps you need to seek a different level of care.
(27:22):
But for the leader who's pretty good, maybe needs to improve, and wants to flourish at a deeper level, I think the book certainly could be helpful for them.
Do you think that things like this are missing from ministry training in a lot of senses?
I know that there are more educational facilities, seminaries, who are trying to build in some of these things, but do you think that sometimes what they try and give is too practical on the ministry side, but not on the human flourishing side?
(27:54):
Speaking my language, Rodney, because it was just suggested to me the other day that I seek a conversation with some leadership at a local school that does ministry training, and suggest that they put this book in their curriculum.
I'm not opposed to that.
I was taught some contemplative spiritual practices.
(28:16):
I don't remember much conversation.
Maybe get a little bit of sleep.
That might have been the extent of the physical rhythm.
I don't remember many conversations about looking at your inner self, looking at your interior world, which is what emotions is.
I remember wives support your husband.
That was what I remember about the relational connection.
(28:38):
And I'm missing things.
It's been 25 years since I was in seminary.
If a training program would help ministers put into practice these particular areas, they're already working the intellectual.
When you're in an academic environment, you're already working on the intellectual side of things.
But often you're neglecting these other things.
(28:58):
You're short-shifting your spiritual for the sake of getting the paper done, or you're not getting your exercise because you've got a thousand pages of reading to do, or you're not really checking in on your emotions because you don't really have time for that.
That's not something that you can really navigate right now.
Finding ways to help students that are seeking ministry proactively look after the holistic nature of their selfhood and understand themselves as holistic beings, I think would certainly be helpful.
(29:28):
Do you think there's sometimes a battle for some people who have perhaps grown up in a different system, as you say, for them to come to terms with the fact that what you're suggesting is not self-focused or introspective, but it's just leading them to become the men and women that God has called them to be throughout Scripture?
(29:48):
Yes.
God has called us to be human beings.
We are not human doings.
I have nothing but love for the tradition I grew up in, but it had some leanings towards some more fundamentalist sorts of thinking.
We weren't fundamentalists, but there was some edging into some of that in the tradition I grew up in.
(30:11):
I think that there are certainly some systems that put a lot of emphasis on the works that you do.
There are some systems that aren't much different than the Pharisees.
We add rules just so we have more rules to follow.
I don't want to come off as sounding like I'm judging other traditions.
That's not my intent here.
(30:33):
What I want for people is to have permission.
The church should be giving all of their members, and maybe particularly, I don't know if we want to say particularly the pastors, but pastors definitely need to be given permission to take care of themselves first.
Understand that recreation is a good thing.
(30:55):
Having good quality time with your family is a good thing.
Checking in on yourself.
Maybe having access to some conversations with a spiritual director that the church is paying for, or that we have these regular opportunities for taking a Sabbath for a day so that a leader can integrate themselves with their family or can do something that feeds their spirit.
(31:20):
Everybody has something different that feeds their spirit.
If we're to the point where we have to give people permission for that, then we have crossed the Rubicon.
I don't think that we have.
I think that sometimes we just need a reminder that doing good self-care is really, really critical to you flourishing as a person professionally and personally.
(31:43):
Greg, I want to thank you for the work that you've done in this space.
I do have a link to your website in the show notes at bleedingdaylight.net so that people can connect with you easily.
They can also see when Leadership From Within, navigating the path towards soul-driven success, is available for them.
But I just want to say thank you so much for what you're doing and for the conversation today on Bleeding Daylight.
(32:08):
Rodney, it was great to be here.
Thank you so much for the invite.
Thank you for listening to Bleeding Daylight.
Please help us to shine more light into the darkness by sharing this episode with others.
For further details and more episodes, please visit bleedingdaylight.net.
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