December 30, 2025 • 35 mins
You never have to recover from a strong start, and taking time now to set the tone for the year ahead will pay off in dividends. In this episode, Alex talks with Ben about his 5-step process for starting each new year strong, from looking back at the past 12 months to casting a vision for the months ahead. For more of this content and some dedicated time to work on your own strong start, join us on January 5!
Information isn’t the gap between failure and success—action is. Path for Growth’s 1-on-1 coaching helps you create a plan and execute on what matters most for your business. Apply today at pathforgrowth.com/coaching.
Episode Recap:
- You never have to recover from a strong start
- Your growth is your responsibility
- How do we balance taking responsibility and trusting God’s will?
- 5 steps for starting strong in 2026
- 1. Reflection: Look back at how 2025 went
- 2. Vision: Look forward to who you could become
- 3. Action: Establish habits, rhythms, and activities
- 4. Destination: Pray for the things you can’t control
- 5. Elimination: Decide what you want to leave in 2025
- Join us on January 5 to walk through our Start Strong planning activity
If you’re ready to move beyond just gathering information and start executing on what truly matters, Path for Growth’s 1-on-1 coaching can help. Apply now at pathforgrowth.com/coaching.
Resources:
Follow the podcast on Apple or Spotify
Schedule a call to learn more about Path for Growth Coaching and Community
Download the Free Reading Guide
“The Contemplative Pastor” by Eugene Peterson
Connect with our Founder Alex Judd on LinkedIn and Instagram
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Ben Loy (00:02):
So we're rolling into the New Year, and one of the
things that we do at Path forGrowth around the New Year is
start strong. Why is itimportant for us to start strong
rolling into the new year, andwhat what is that?
Alex Judd (00:15):
I have a mentor friend. His name is Dan, and, I
actually worked with him and forhim for a period of time, and he
would always tell me, Alex, younever have to recover from a
strong start. And that's, like,so true. Right? Like, when you
start well, the one benefit tostarting well is then you're not
like, man, I have to recover.
(00:35):
And and, man, what is normal inThe United States today? We
start by the last day of theyear. We prepare for a new year
where there is all thisopportunity and optimism and
hope and faithfulness. How do weprepare for that? We stay up way
later than we should.
We drink way more than weshould. We eat absolute crap.
(00:56):
And then we say start, I don'tknow, start weak, right? Like we
don't start very strong. Andwhat I'm so passionate about is
instead of following what'squote unquote normal around this
time of New Year, what if wesaid, man, what do I actually
want to do?
What do I feel called to do?What am I supposed to be
faithful to steward and beresponsible for in the year
(01:16):
that's ahead being 2026? And howdo I make sure that, man, I I
obviously can't do all of thatright now, but how do I make
sure if I do nothing else, Istart well? Because there is
disproportionate momentum thatcan be gained at the beginning
of the year, and why not ridethat wave?
Ben Loy (01:34):
Mhmm. Yeah. You mentioned taking responsibility.
How does responsibility weighinto a New Year's resolution
starting strong, you know,starting the year off right?
Alex Judd (01:44):
I think it's so sad that sometimes you can talk to
people, and I have been guilty,especially my early twenties. I
think I I was guilty of this. II would say, I just don't feel
like I'm growing. I just don'tfeel like I'm I'm being poured
into. Right?
I I I just don't feel like I'mmoving forward all that much.
And and I would go back andshake my shoulders and be like,
are you waiting on? Right? Andone of the things that we all
(02:07):
just would benefit so much fromrealizing is your growth is your
responsibility. And that's socool because it means that your
growth is also your opportunity.
And it's not like people arejust gonna come and say, man, I
want to make your personalgrowth my primary priority.
(02:29):
People can't do that. People arebusy. And quite frankly, their
growth is their priority too.And so if you wanna grow this
year, if you're gonna moveforward this year, one of the
things that you have torecognize and that we all have
to recommit ourselves to is it'sa powerful day when we all learn
that our growth is ourresponsibility.
But then I get so unbelievablypassionate and excited about
(02:53):
this. Right? Growth is in thename of our business. I think
about it literally every singleday. And it's just because you
could be someone a year from nowthat you are not today.
Mhmm. Right? I have seen peoplebecome married. I've seen people
who are on the verge of divorcebecome recommitted. I have seen
people lose massive amounts ofweight.
(03:15):
I have seen people be able torun marathons, ultramarathons,
ironmans. I have seen peoplehave children. I have seen
people who do have kids becomebetter parents. I've seen people
go from business operator tobusiness owner. I've seen people
who were reacting as a lifestyleto go into a leadership
position.
Right? I've seen all of thatoccur in the span of a year, and
(03:35):
that could be you. Growth isavailable to all of us. It's
just, are we going to takeresponsibility for it?
Ben Loy (03:41):
I feel like, often, the statement growth is your
responsibility can be a hardpill to swallow. Why do you
think that is? Like, what aresome of the lies that people
believe that lead to thatbelief?
Alex Judd (03:54):
Well, if it's not my responsibility, then I have a
bunch of people and things thatI can blame.
Ben Loy (04:00):
Mhmm.
Alex Judd (04:00):
And the minute I say that it is mine, well, then
there's really only one person Ican look at if I'm not growing.
Mhmm. Right? So so if you are ina spot where you're not growing,
the absolute easiest thing youcan do is look at all of the
reasons why you're not growingand point out every single one
that isn't you and yourself.Right?
(04:22):
But we were actually called toself control. That that's
another thing that I would say,you know, Christianese can
actually get in the way ofhealthy growth. And what I mean
by Christianese is lingo that weput around Christian lifestyle.
Ben Loy (04:38):
Let go and let God.
Alex Judd (04:39):
Yeah. Exactly. That that and we use it to excuse
things that aren't actuallyfaithful at all. Right? And and
so what you said is absolutelycorrect is people can be like,
well, you know, I'm not calledto control the universe and and
so I'm just gonna trust God withall of this.
And God did say you should trusthim and we absolutely should
trust him because he's sovereigncreator. But he also said one of
(05:02):
the fruits of the spirit islove, joy, peace, patience,
kindness, goodness, gentleness,faithfulness, and self control.
And so there are things thathe's given us within ourselves
that we have the ability toexert control and dominion over,
and it's actually an abdicationof responsibility whenever we
don't live with that fruit ofthe spirit, which is self
(05:24):
control.
Ben Loy (05:24):
What does it look like when someone overcorrects, in
this way?
Alex Judd (05:28):
Oh, man. There's a book called The Contemplative
Pastor by Eugene Peterson that'ssuch a good leadership book. And
one of the things that he talksabout in that book is that it's
kind of an unfortunate realitythat modern day English actually
doesn't accommodate for a tensethat is used in the original
Hebrew and Greek of the Bible.And so he says, basically, the
(05:51):
tenses that we have in modernday English are passive tense.
This happened to me.
Right? And it's basically theposture of a victim. Right? All
of these circumstances happen tome, and I am just the recipient
of whatever whatever God decidesto do. Mhmm.
Right? That that's passivity. Orthere's the active tense, which
(06:14):
is exactly what you said, theovercorrection to what we just
talked about, which is I amimposing my will. I caused this
to occur. Right?
I I, I have heard peopleliterally say, impose your will
on the marketplace and like andeveryone cheers. And it's like,
you actually can't do that.Right? Like the the marketplace
actually doesn't respond allthat well to your will. You can
(06:36):
maybe influence it, but youcan't impose it.
And that hits on that tense. Sohe refers to it as the middle
voice and the languages of Greekand Hebrew that the Bible was
written in actually accommodatefor this where our English
translations don't. The middlevoice the best we could probably
describe it is is I amparticipating in the process of
reality coming to pass. So it'snot this happened to me. It's
(07:00):
not I'm imposing my will.
I'm making this happen. It's Iam an active participant in the
process of reality coming topass. And so that's such a
healthy posture to hold is it'slike, is doing a thing. And
let's be very clear. He's doingit regardless of how I
participate.
But I have been invited by thisthing called life, and praise
God for life. I've been invitedto be an active participant into
(07:24):
his will and what is going tohappen coming to pass. And it's
such a powerful day when I say,I'm gonna opt in. Right? God,
you know, in some ways, God,gives us it's like it's like the
ultimate, he's not a spamemailer.
Right? He's not he's not justsending us stuff and saying,
like, you don't get to choosewhether you opt in or not. He's
saying, do you wanna click optin? And and it's our decision
(07:45):
saying, I wanna opt in and askthe question, ma'am, what is God
doing and how do I get in onthat?
Ben Loy (07:51):
Mhmm. One of the things I think you just hit on that I'd
(09:35):
like to zoom a little bit closerin is those two tensions. The, I
guess, more or less the victimmentality versus the Conqueror?
Yeah. Yeah.
Conqueror is a good word. Bothof those are so rooted in
identities. Like, as a victim,you know, you're you believe
certain things about youridentity that are not true. And
(09:57):
then the opposite, I think, canbe or the exact same thing can
be said about the opposite,which is, yeah, if you think
that you are the center of theuniverse and you have all this
this power and influence, like,your identity is just as off
base as someone who with withmore of, a victim mindset.
Right?
Yes. Centering yourself on thepremise that, like, we are just
(10:19):
participants in what God hascreated, and we can either
joyfully participate in that andand strive to create and strive
to improve and influence thepeople around us in a way that
honors God, or we can sort ofsphere or skew off into these
two realms of either, like, avictim mentality or or
(10:40):
conqueror.
Alex Judd (10:41):
It might be one of the greatest life philosophy
mistakes that leaders make todayis unreasonably tying
contentment and joy to outcomesthat you cannot control.
Ben Loy (10:55):
Mhmm.
Alex Judd (10:55):
And it's not even like you you can't control them
a little bit. It's like youcannot control those outcomes at
all. You cannot control whatother people do. Mhmm. You
cannot control what other peoplesay.
You can't control the globaleconomy. Right? And people
experience incredible amounts ofdissonance or even depression
whenever their expectationsdon't align with their reality.
(11:18):
And our common reaction to thatis shaking our fist at reality
and saying it shouldn't be thisway because this isn't what I
expected. That is so pridefuland ridiculous.
It's not even funny. Right? Whatwe should be saying is, how do I
make sure I properly set myexpectations so that when, not
if, when reality happens becauseit always does, I'm not angry,
(11:43):
depressed, upset, shocked, orblindsided. Mhmm.
Ben Loy (11:47):
So we've set the stage for, I guess, where you should
be operating from Mhmm. In your,like, starting strong. Let's
move a little bit more into thepractical of what does it look
like to take responsibility.
Alex Judd (12:00):
Yeah. So five actions is what we'll kind of walk
through here, and this isreally, kind of the primer for
what we're going to do onJanuary 5. So these are things
that you can all absolutely doon your own in your own time and
take some time to do that. Butwe also do a guided public
workshop every year that we opento everyone just because we I
(12:21):
legit think these steps are foreveryone. We've had teenagers
walk through these steps.
Right? And they're just sohelpful. So we're this is gonna
be the primer, then we're gonnado the virtual public workshop.
It's a free workshop on January5, and I'm sure we can put the
link to that in the show notes.Right?
Ben Loy (12:36):
Yep.
Alex Judd (12:36):
Yeah. So with that, these five steps, you know,
people might say, like, I don'treally like those five steps.
And and I can ask, well, whatare your five steps? They say,
don't have any steps. It's like,well, I like my five steps a lot
better than I like your steps.
The way I came up with these isnot like I said, oh, man. I
wanna design a a personal yearplanning lesson for a bunch of
(12:57):
people to walk through. That'snot what I did. I, years and
years ago now, got on a flightfrom Denver to Nashville, and it
was a New Year's Eve flight. Andit was, like, 9PM at night or
something like that.
And, you know, 9PM flights, onNew Year's Eve, like, there were
a couple things going on. Like,most people had their lights
(13:18):
off, and they were going tosleep. There were a couple
people that were definitelyknocking some back. Right? They
were having New Year's Eve earlyon the flight.
And meanwhile, I I've got mylight on. I asked for a cup of
black coffee, and I'm like, I'min a crank out. By the time this
plane lands, I'm gonna have aplan for my growth over the
(13:39):
course of the next year. And Ihad never done this before, but
but I remembered you never haveto recover from a strong start.
And I just said, I don't knowwhat I'm gonna do.
I just know I'm gonna dosomething and kind of prayed
about it and thought about it.And I actually walked through
the five steps that we're gonnakind of walk people through high
level here today and that we'recertainly gonna walk through on
January 5. And I've done thesefive steps, some version of
(14:00):
these five steps every singleyear since. It's now what we
teach to leaders around thecountry because they're
principle based steps that whenwe do these things, they
contribute to us having a plan,and it's amazing. If you've got
a plan, you are way light yearsahead of anyone that doesn't
have a plan, and you're theperson that I'm gonna put my
money on you growing.
So so those that's kind of theprimer for the five steps.
(14:21):
Anything else you want to getinto on that before we actually
jump into them?
Ben Loy (14:24):
No. Let's go. Let's jump in.
Alex Judd (14:25):
So number one is reflection, and the idea behind
reflection is it would be unwisefor you to go into 2026 without
first looking at 2025 and justask how'd that go? It's it's
crazy. You just did this thingcalled a year. Congratulations.
(14:46):
That is a massive gumball.
I like, that's one area where Ithink everyone on the planet
should get a participationtrophy because that is a big
ask. Right? You did a year, andthere was so much that occurred
in that year. And so often, wenever pause for a single moment
and ask, how'd that go? Andwithin how'd that go?
Like, what did you do that wastotally stupid that you want to
(15:08):
avoid as we go into 2026? Butthen also, what did you do that
went well? That if you look backand you say, man, that was
actually like really good. Andmaybe it was good on accident.
And you just took some time toask, man, what could I do more
of that would contribute to moreof that good thing coming to
pass for myself and others in2026?
(15:31):
It would be unwise to go into2026 without asking the
question, like, man, what did welearn from this year that we can
take with us into the next?
Ben Loy (15:41):
Mhmm. So whether it was in that moment on the plane or
years following, what's anexample of something that you
think you did really well andthen you implemented the
following year? And then what'san example of something you were
like, this ends here, and thisisn't this isn't following me
into the next year?
Alex Judd (15:58):
One of the things that I do is I'll list, like,
what are the and this we'll dothis on the workshop on January
5 is I'll list, like, what whatwere highlights of the year?
What were times when I felt likeI was at my legitimate absolute
best? And I'll list those out,and that's what I did one
particular year that I waswalking through this reflection
exercise, and I list out all theopportunities. And I really
encourage people, don'toverthink this, and don't try to
(16:20):
jump to conclusions about whatyou learned. Like, just brain
dump.
Right? And just when you thinkback at your year, maybe scroll
through your calendar, scrollthrough your pictures, be like,
what were some of thehighlights? What were some of
the best moments? And I scrolledthrough all of them, and then I
asked the question, afterwriting all those down, like,
what common themes or patternsshowed up there? And one of the
(16:44):
common themes or patterns that Irecognized is all of these or
many of these were created byintentionally instigating
something with other people.
And, like, the with other peoplepart was really, really key. And
one of the things that Irealized is there weren't as
(17:05):
many of those things as I wouldhave liked for there to have
been. And so one of the thingsthat I said is, man, I am at my
best, and and I enjoy life themost when I intentionally
instigate things and then inviteother people into them. And so
then I just said, okay. Well,what am I gonna do in '20 you
know, whatever year this was?
I think it was maybe 2022, 2023.What am I going to do in '23
(17:29):
that represents more of that?And I instigated more in '23
than I did in '22, and I invitedmore people into it. Now it's
something that, like, I I reallyactively tried to do pretty
regularly because it's somethingthat through reflection, I
realized that's when I'm at mybest, and that's when I'm being
the man and the leader that Ifeel uniquely called to be. So
that's an example of reproducingor amplifying something that
(17:51):
maybe happened a little bitaccidentally.
In terms of avoiding, I mean,there's a lot. I would say, you
know, I I'm trying to think ifit actually occurred it probably
gradually occurred in New Year'sreflection is, like, I would
always come back to like, why dowhy do I drink alcohol? And
(18:14):
that's a like, I honestly thinkit's hard to do a reflection
exercise and not ask thatquestion, right? Like if you do
drink, and a lot of times inreflection, I would be forced to
sit with the fact that a lot ofthe people that I consider role
models that I really, reallyrespect in terms of what they've
been able to accomplish, theyjust don't. My times when I'm at
(18:36):
my best, it's not that I'm at myworst whenever I drink alcohol
all all the time.
Right? But my times when I'm atmy absolute best certainly don't
collide with the times wheneverI'm drinking alcohol. And then
the third thing I would say isit's actually counter. I I
realized through reflection,it's actually counter to so many
of the other things I say I wantto do. And so it's like, do you
(18:58):
actually want to do thesethings, or do you want to be
able to have a beer on Thursdaynight?
And so I would say, you know, itbecame less and less and less
year over year to now, really,now I basically don't drink.
Right? I think in the past year,I've had two drinks. Right? And
those were good glasses of wineon special occasions.
Right? But I often think wedon't examine those things that
(19:20):
we just, like, that we just do,and we never ask, like, do I
actually want to do this? Andreflection helped me ask that
question and therefore helpedcreate different behaviors as a
result.
Ben Loy (19:31):
What's the next step?
Alex Judd (19:33):
Yeah. So it's reflection and then vision. And
what we always encourage peopleon is when you're creating a
personal growth plan, like whatwe're talking about here, it can
be really easy to say, I'm gonnacreate a list of action items or
even habits. Right? If you'rethinking like James Clear.
I would say don't start bycreating a list of action items
(19:54):
or habits. I wanna ask people,who do you want to be at the end
of this year? And the principlethere is I always think bad
growth is rooted in what you do.So it's I'm going to the gym
just for the sake of going tothe gym. Right?
I'm reading books just for thesake of reading books. It's not
rooted in anything other thanthe activity itself, and a lot
(20:16):
of the data proves out that ifyou're just doing it and your
reason why is because it's a youknow, you believe, like, it's a,
something that you want to do,well, then oftentimes that's
unsustainable. It's way moresustainable if you root it in an
identity of who you are uniquelycalled to be. So bad growth is
rooted in what you do. Goodgrowth is rooted in who you are.
(20:39):
I like to think of it as healthygrowth is rooted in who God is.
Ben Loy (20:43):
Mhmm.
Alex Judd (20:43):
So what is the character of who God is? Right?
He's faithful. He's generous.He's compassionate.
He's loving. Right? He's active.Right? That's who God is.
I wanna align who I want to bewith who that is, and that's
what vision is. And what's socool is you can envision a
version of yourself by the endof this year that's not true
today. You might not be someonethat's generous today, and you
(21:07):
could be someone that'soutrageously generous by the end
of 2026. But a lot of times, itstarts with having a vision of
what you could be. Mhmm.
Ben Loy (22:18):
One of the things that I think always think is so
interesting is when peopledescribe themselves as not
creative, you know? And I thinkI think everyone is future
minded. Everyone has a vision ofof who they could be, and that
in itself is an expression of ofgod god's character. Right? I
mean, as as the ultimatecreative, I mean, I I love the
(22:39):
opportunity to to sit back andthink, yeah, like, who do I
wanna become?
What do I wanna accomplish?Like, who who, a year from now,
writing this this next plan forthe following year, like, what
do I wanna be true that isn'ttrue right now? And, like, what
then am I gonna work towardsthat that next year. Right?
Alex Judd (22:58):
Yeah. That's right. I mean, it was in an exercise like
this that I created my firstever vision charter, which is
really a more blown out versionof what we just do at the
beginning of the year. But and Iwrote down some pillars of what
I wanted to be. It was a aspiritual stalwart, strong
husband and father, a centeredbusiness owner, a professional
(23:19):
leader and communicator, apillar of my community, and a
faithful adventure.
Right? And and I have all ofthese written on a document.
What's crazy is when I wrotethat document, I was not
married, and I did not knowAspen. I I thankfully, I went in
order, so I also didn't havekids. I didn't own a business,
and I didn't have a place that Icalled home.
(23:40):
So, like, strong husband anddad, pillar of my community,
center business owner, andprofessional leader and
communicator. Those are allthings that did not exist in my
life that I was prayerfullysaying, god, I I would love for
these things to exist in mylife. But what's crazy is the
minute I think it's a step offaith, the minute you have you
(24:00):
take the time to take those outof your head and your heart,
say, God, I want to align thesewith your will. And then I want
to take them out of my head andheart. And then I want to say,
I'm going to pray for thesethings to come to pass.
You start to see things and youstart to see opportunities. And
I started to pray for who when,you know, what do I want my wife
to be like? And I wrote downwords like confident, faithful,
(24:20):
active, and fun. And what'scrazy is I wrote down confident,
active, faithful, and fun. Andthen I I saw this cute blonde
girl walking to church, and Italked to her for, like, ten
minutes, and she was like, allof those things.
And her name was Aspen. Right?And it's like, I honestly think
I wouldn't I wouldn't have evenbeen able to see her if I
couldn't have envisioned myselfas the type of man that could
(24:42):
marry a woman like that. And sowhat I would say is that's what
vision is, is taking the time tosay, ma'am, what is God doing?
And then how do I align mydesires with that?
Because he wants us to havedesires. And then how do I
attend to it? The final thingI'll say on that is the the
message translation of Proverbstwenty nine eighteen is when
(25:05):
people can't see what God isdoing, they stumble all over
themselves. But when they attendto what he reveals, then they
will be most blessed. So Ireally think of vision not as
just like, what do I want tooccur?
I think that's part of it. Ithink desires are often good and
God given, but it's that's notthe highest version of vision.
(25:26):
The highest version of vision iswhat is God doing, and how do I
get in on that?
Ben Loy (25:30):
Let's move on to the next one, action. Mhmm. Can you
describe that?
Alex Judd (25:35):
Yeah. So we said vision is who's the man, the
woman, the leader, the Christfollower, the community member,
the husband, the wife, theparent that you're called to be.
And in the workshop, we'reactually gonna spend some time
writing down those identitystatements. Then we shift to
action, and action is basicallyjust putting our work boots on.
And I like to think of action interms of actions, habits, and
(26:00):
rhythms.
And so we used to only teachthis through the lens of habits.
And the reason why I used toteach it only through the lens
of habits is because I thinksocietally, we are way way way
too capable of over prioritizingextravagancy, like these one off
things, and way undervalue dailydeposits consistency. Right?
(26:22):
We're coming out with a morningroutine episode here very
shortly that's gonna hit on thepower of every single day. Mhmm.
Right? And so one of the thingsthat we will do on the workshop
is we're gonna say, man, whatare the things that you would do
as a daily rhythm? And when Isay habits, I mean daily. For
me, I I'm I say habits aretypically every day except my
(26:44):
Sabbath day, which right now isSaturday. And Sabbath day is
kinda like, do you want to do ittoday?
So it's my daily cold plungerhythm on Saturdays. It's like,
do I want to do the cold watertoday or no? Right? And it's
it's choose your own adventure.Right?
And so that's what habits are isthe daily. The rhythms are like
weekly, monthly, quarterlythings. Right? So Aspen and I go
(27:05):
on a date night, once a week. Wego we go to church once a week.
Right? We we have specificrhythms for talking about our
finances on a monthly basis.Right? These are examples of
rhythms that we have in ourlife, oftentimes that involve
other people, that we say, man,this is gonna make me into more
of who I'm called and created tobe. And then actions.
(27:27):
What I found is that thatthere's there's two things that
often get in the way for peopleachieving their vision. It's
it's lack of clarity or presenceof conflict. And if there's
presence of conflict, like,there's a conversation I've been
avoiding. I I wanna read thatbook, but I just haven't gotten
it yet. I wanna write that book,but I haven't started yet.
(27:50):
A lot of times, if there'sconflict, like there's something
that's causing you to not moveforward, you do need to take
massive action to get rid ofthat conflict, to just move the
blocker. So a great example forme is like, I had said for quite
a while, I I want to be anauthor of a book. Right? But one
of the things I would alwaysstall out on is the belief
(28:11):
whenever I was writing everyday, I had the daily habit of
writing, but the belief of like,is this ever going to become
anything? Is this going tobecome like or am I just doing
this for no purpose at all?
And that was conflict, and Iwould always stall out with that
conflict until in an exerciselike what we're doing right now.
Was a start strong exercise Iwas doing. The action that I
wrote down is I'm going toschedule a phone call with a
(28:32):
person that I know that is inpublishing, and I'm gonna send
in the book, and I'm gonna askhim, can you evaluate this and
tell me if I've got something?And then tell me, like, should I
keep doing what I'm doing, or isthis like a a wild goose chase
that I'm on? Because I waslacking confidence and belief,
and I did that.
He was like, dude, you'recrushing this. Keep going. And,
man, then the habit of writingevery day became much easier
(28:54):
because I had belief, but itneeded the massive action. So
when we talk about the thirdstep of action, I want you to
divide it into habits, daily,rhythms, weekly, monthly,
quarterly, yearly, And actions,the one off things that you need
to do to remove blockers and getclarity.
Ben Loy (29:09):
Mhmm. What's number four?
Alex Judd (29:11):
Destination. So this really goes into healthy growth
and the idea that we've alreadytalked about at the beginning,
you can't control outcomes. Youcan influence them, and your
actions should influence them,and you should pray for them.
And so we do the destinationstep really as a means of
(29:32):
saying, there are certain thingsthis year actively that I want
to come to pass, that I deeplydesire to come to pass, but I
cannot control. And we shouldfocus on the things we can
control, but we should pray forthe things that we can't.
You know, so much of societytoday has maybe reckoned with
(29:53):
the reality that you can'tcontrol those things, and they
say just give them up. And andit's like, no. I don't think you
should give up those desiresnecessarily, especially if
they're God honoring desiresthat could serve and love
people. I think you shouldretain those desires, and you
should allow those desires toinform a prayer life that is
vibrant and active andpassionate. Right?
A lot of times our prayer lifeis dead because our desires are
(30:15):
dead. So when we talk aboutdestination, what are you
desiring to come to pass thatyou can't necessarily control?
And, man, this is a step that Iam so grateful for because I can
look back at previous thingsthat I wrote down and realize
there are things that I wrotedown in response to that
question. What do you wanna prayfor that I didn't even know if
(30:35):
they could come to pass? And nowit's just called life for me.
Praise God for that. Right? Andit's such a shame that when we
don't actually take the time tolist those prayers, we don't
actually notice them whenever heanswers them.
Ben Loy (30:47):
Yeah. This last one, we've already touched on a
little bit, but I know you'llwanna dive into this a little
more. Elimination. Mhmm. Share alittle bit more about what that
looks like, evaluating yourprevious year, deciding on the
things you wanna eliminate.
Mhmm.
Alex Judd (31:01):
Not everything should go forward with you. Right? And
and so the framework that I liketo think about is what's
unhealthy, what's unhelpful, andwhat's unwise. And so it's
really the elimination sectionin some ways that, like, you
know, things like alcohol kindof you have to wrestle with
(31:21):
them. And I'm not I'm nottelling people they can't or
shouldn't drink.
Right? Like, I'm not saying thatat all. Right? What I am saying
is make sure it's actually adecision and that you're not
just doing it because otherpeople doing are doing it, or
you're just doing it becauseyou've always done it. Mhmm.
Make sure it's something thatyou're saying, I'm choosing to
do this, and these are theboundaries and the guardrails.
(31:43):
And, also, these are the thereasons why I'm doing this.
Right? I think God told us todelight in the good gifts that
he's given us. Right?
And so we can apply that toalcohol, but unhealthy. When I
think of what are the thingsthat I'm doing that aren't
healthy, so often, so muchgrowth comes from the things
that we're for and justenvisioning and acting upon the
(32:05):
things that we're for. But I canhonestly say there's a lot of
growth that comes from juststopping doing the stupid things
that that I have no businessdoing in the first place. And
it's really humbling to look inthe mirror and being like, what
are the things that I'm activelydoing either because everyone
else is doing them or becauseI've always done them that are
(32:27):
proactively contradicting theperson I actually say I want to
become. That's unhealthy.
And then, you know, we'll spendmore time on unhelpful and
unwise, but a lot of times,leaders in particular, they are
overcommitted, and then they addmore at the New Year. Mhmm. And
they don't eliminate anything,and that's unwise. Right? And so
(32:49):
if you're gonna add on more,where is that going to come
from?
Is it are you gonna have morethan you know, are you gonna
sleep less? I I don't know thatI recommend that, especially if
you're already tired. You know,are you gonna maybe watch less
Netflix? That might be good.Right?
Maybe that's a good way to trimsome, but but don't just say I'm
going to find a way to make thishappen in addition to everything
(33:10):
else I'm already doing. Actuallywrestle with what you're gonna
sacrifice in order to make thesechanges in your life.
Ben Loy (33:17):
If there's one thing someone listening to this
podcast could do at the end ofit, yeah, what action should
they be taking? What stepsshould they be making?
Alex Judd (33:25):
Well, I mean, I would say you should show up to our
workshop on January 5, like,because that's actually gonna be
the guided time where weactually say, okay, everyone,
now take ten minutes and work onthis. So the link to that is in
the show notes. If you can'tmake that, totally fine.
Schedule, you know, sixtyminutes to two hours for
yourself and maybe do this withyour spouse, reflection, vision,
(33:46):
action, destination,elimination. Here's what I found
to be true.
You don't even have to have themost high resolution version of
a plan with the Path for Growthlogo all over it for it to be
wildly effective. The differencebetween no plan and a bad plan
is so massively valuable. I Ican't even begin to describe it
(34:07):
to you. So, like, just set yoursights on creating a bad plan.
Mhmm.
And, man, that's a greatexpectation. You're like, I
think I could do that. Right?And and then do it, and I
guarantee you, it will havepositive impact for you that you
can then use to serve others.Thanks, Alex.
Thanks, Ben. Well, there youhave it. Thanks so much for
joining us for this episode. Ifyou want any of the information
(34:30):
or resources that we mentioned,that's all in the show notes.
Hey.
Before you go, could I ask youfor one quick favor? Could you
subscribe, rate, and review thispodcast episode? Your feedback
is what helps our team engage ina sequence of never ending
improvement. We wanna amplifywhat's valuable to you and
obviously reduce or even removethe things that aren't. Also,
(34:53):
you leaving a positive review iswhat helps us connect with,
build trust with, and serveother leaders around the
country.
So thanks in advance for helpingus out on that front. Are you a
leader that wants to grow yourbusiness in a healthy way, serve
people exceptionally well, andglorify God in the process? Go
to pathforgrowth.com to get moreinformation about our community
(35:15):
of impact driven leaders andschedule a call with our team.
Hey. Thank you so much to thePath for Growth team, Kyle
Cummings and the crew at PodCircle, and the remarkable
leaders that are activelyengaged in the Path for Growth
community.
Y'all are the people that makethis podcast possible. Y'all
know this. We're rooting foryou. We're praying for you. We
(35:35):
wanna see you win.
Remember, my strength is not forme. Your strength is not for
you. Our strength is forservice. Let's go. Let's go.
Let's go.
So we're rolling into the New Year, and one of the
things that we do at Path forGrowth around the New Year is
start strong. Why is itimportant for us to start strong
rolling into the new year, andwhat what is that?
Alex Judd (00:15):
I have a mentor friend. His name is Dan, and, I
actually worked with him and forhim for a period of time, and he
would always tell me, Alex, younever have to recover from a
strong start. And that's, like,so true. Right? Like, when you
start well, the one benefit tostarting well is then you're not
like, man, I have to recover.
(00:35):
And and, man, what is normal inThe United States today? We
start by the last day of theyear. We prepare for a new year
where there is all thisopportunity and optimism and
hope and faithfulness. How do weprepare for that? We stay up way
later than we should.
We drink way more than weshould. We eat absolute crap.
(00:56):
And then we say start, I don'tknow, start weak, right? Like we
don't start very strong. Andwhat I'm so passionate about is
instead of following what'squote unquote normal around this
time of New Year, what if wesaid, man, what do I actually
want to do?
What do I feel called to do?What am I supposed to be
faithful to steward and beresponsible for in the year
(01:16):
that's ahead being 2026? And howdo I make sure that, man, I I
obviously can't do all of thatright now, but how do I make
sure if I do nothing else, Istart well? Because there is
disproportionate momentum thatcan be gained at the beginning
of the year, and why not ridethat wave?
Ben Loy (01:34):
Mhmm. Yeah. You mentioned taking responsibility.
How does responsibility weighinto a New Year's resolution
starting strong, you know,starting the year off right?
Alex Judd (01:44):
I think it's so sad that sometimes you can talk to
people, and I have been guilty,especially my early twenties. I
think I I was guilty of this. II would say, I just don't feel
like I'm growing. I just don'tfeel like I'm I'm being poured
into. Right?
I I I just don't feel like I'mmoving forward all that much.
And and I would go back andshake my shoulders and be like,
are you waiting on? Right? Andone of the things that we all
(02:07):
just would benefit so much fromrealizing is your growth is your
responsibility. And that's socool because it means that your
growth is also your opportunity.
And it's not like people arejust gonna come and say, man, I
want to make your personalgrowth my primary priority.
(02:29):
People can't do that. People arebusy. And quite frankly, their
growth is their priority too.And so if you wanna grow this
year, if you're gonna moveforward this year, one of the
things that you have torecognize and that we all have
to recommit ourselves to is it'sa powerful day when we all learn
that our growth is ourresponsibility.
But then I get so unbelievablypassionate and excited about
(02:53):
this. Right? Growth is in thename of our business. I think
about it literally every singleday. And it's just because you
could be someone a year from nowthat you are not today.
Mhmm. Right? I have seen peoplebecome married. I've seen people
who are on the verge of divorcebecome recommitted. I have seen
people lose massive amounts ofweight.
(03:15):
I have seen people be able torun marathons, ultramarathons,
ironmans. I have seen peoplehave children. I have seen
people who do have kids becomebetter parents. I've seen people
go from business operator tobusiness owner. I've seen people
who were reacting as a lifestyleto go into a leadership
position.
Right? I've seen all of thatoccur in the span of a year, and
(03:35):
that could be you. Growth isavailable to all of us. It's
just, are we going to takeresponsibility for it?
Ben Loy (03:41):
I feel like, often, the statement growth is your
responsibility can be a hardpill to swallow. Why do you
think that is? Like, what aresome of the lies that people
believe that lead to thatbelief?
Alex Judd (03:54):
Well, if it's not my responsibility, then I have a
bunch of people and things thatI can blame.
Ben Loy (04:00):
Mhmm.
Alex Judd (04:00):
And the minute I say that it is mine, well, then
there's really only one person Ican look at if I'm not growing.
Mhmm. Right? So so if you are ina spot where you're not growing,
the absolute easiest thing youcan do is look at all of the
reasons why you're not growingand point out every single one
that isn't you and yourself.Right?
(04:22):
But we were actually called toself control. That that's
another thing that I would say,you know, Christianese can
actually get in the way ofhealthy growth. And what I mean
by Christianese is lingo that weput around Christian lifestyle.
Ben Loy (04:38):
Let go and let God.
Alex Judd (04:39):
Yeah. Exactly. That that and we use it to excuse
things that aren't actuallyfaithful at all. Right? And and
so what you said is absolutelycorrect is people can be like,
well, you know, I'm not calledto control the universe and and
so I'm just gonna trust God withall of this.
And God did say you should trusthim and we absolutely should
trust him because he's sovereigncreator. But he also said one of
(05:02):
the fruits of the spirit islove, joy, peace, patience,
kindness, goodness, gentleness,faithfulness, and self control.
And so there are things thathe's given us within ourselves
that we have the ability toexert control and dominion over,
and it's actually an abdicationof responsibility whenever we
don't live with that fruit ofthe spirit, which is self
(05:24):
control.
Ben Loy (05:24):
What does it look like when someone overcorrects, in
this way?
Alex Judd (05:28):
Oh, man. There's a book called The Contemplative
Pastor by Eugene Peterson that'ssuch a good leadership book. And
one of the things that he talksabout in that book is that it's
kind of an unfortunate realitythat modern day English actually
doesn't accommodate for a tensethat is used in the original
Hebrew and Greek of the Bible.And so he says, basically, the
(05:51):
tenses that we have in modernday English are passive tense.
This happened to me.
Right? And it's basically theposture of a victim. Right? All
of these circumstances happen tome, and I am just the recipient
of whatever whatever God decidesto do. Mhmm.
Right? That that's passivity. Orthere's the active tense, which
(06:14):
is exactly what you said, theovercorrection to what we just
talked about, which is I amimposing my will. I caused this
to occur. Right?
I I, I have heard peopleliterally say, impose your will
on the marketplace and like andeveryone cheers. And it's like,
you actually can't do that.Right? Like the the marketplace
actually doesn't respond allthat well to your will. You can
(06:36):
maybe influence it, but youcan't impose it.
And that hits on that tense. Sohe refers to it as the middle
voice and the languages of Greekand Hebrew that the Bible was
written in actually accommodatefor this where our English
translations don't. The middlevoice the best we could probably
describe it is is I amparticipating in the process of
reality coming to pass. So it'snot this happened to me. It's
(07:00):
not I'm imposing my will.
I'm making this happen. It's Iam an active participant in the
process of reality coming topass. And so that's such a
healthy posture to hold is it'slike, is doing a thing. And
let's be very clear. He's doingit regardless of how I
participate.
But I have been invited by thisthing called life, and praise
God for life. I've been invitedto be an active participant into
(07:24):
his will and what is going tohappen coming to pass. And it's
such a powerful day when I say,I'm gonna opt in. Right? God,
you know, in some ways, God,gives us it's like it's like the
ultimate, he's not a spamemailer.
Right? He's not he's not justsending us stuff and saying,
like, you don't get to choosewhether you opt in or not. He's
saying, do you wanna click optin? And and it's our decision
(07:45):
saying, I wanna opt in and askthe question, ma'am, what is God
doing and how do I get in onthat?
Ben Loy (07:51):
Mhmm. One of the things I think you just hit on that I'd
(09:35):
like to zoom a little bit closerin is those two tensions. The, I
guess, more or less the victimmentality versus the Conqueror?
Yeah. Yeah.
Conqueror is a good word. Bothof those are so rooted in
identities. Like, as a victim,you know, you're you believe
certain things about youridentity that are not true. And
(09:57):
then the opposite, I think, canbe or the exact same thing can
be said about the opposite,which is, yeah, if you think
that you are the center of theuniverse and you have all this
this power and influence, like,your identity is just as off
base as someone who with withmore of, a victim mindset.
Right?
Yes. Centering yourself on thepremise that, like, we are just
(10:19):
participants in what God hascreated, and we can either
joyfully participate in that andand strive to create and strive
to improve and influence thepeople around us in a way that
honors God, or we can sort ofsphere or skew off into these
two realms of either, like, avictim mentality or or
(10:40):
conqueror.
Alex Judd (10:41):
It might be one of the greatest life philosophy
mistakes that leaders make todayis unreasonably tying
contentment and joy to outcomesthat you cannot control.
Ben Loy (10:55):
Mhmm.
Alex Judd (10:55):
And it's not even like you you can't control them
a little bit. It's like youcannot control those outcomes at
all. You cannot control whatother people do. Mhmm. You
cannot control what other peoplesay.
You can't control the globaleconomy. Right? And people
experience incredible amounts ofdissonance or even depression
whenever their expectationsdon't align with their reality.
(11:18):
And our common reaction to thatis shaking our fist at reality
and saying it shouldn't be thisway because this isn't what I
expected. That is so pridefuland ridiculous.
It's not even funny. Right? Whatwe should be saying is, how do I
make sure I properly set myexpectations so that when, not
if, when reality happens becauseit always does, I'm not angry,
(11:43):
depressed, upset, shocked, orblindsided. Mhmm.
Ben Loy (11:47):
So we've set the stage for, I guess, where you should
be operating from Mhmm. In your,like, starting strong. Let's
move a little bit more into thepractical of what does it look
like to take responsibility.
Alex Judd (12:00):
Yeah. So five actions is what we'll kind of walk
through here, and this isreally, kind of the primer for
what we're going to do onJanuary 5. So these are things
that you can all absolutely doon your own in your own time and
take some time to do that. Butwe also do a guided public
workshop every year that we opento everyone just because we I
(12:21):
legit think these steps are foreveryone. We've had teenagers
walk through these steps.
Right? And they're just sohelpful. So we're this is gonna
be the primer, then we're gonnado the virtual public workshop.
It's a free workshop on January5, and I'm sure we can put the
link to that in the show notes.Right?
Ben Loy (12:36):
Yep.
Alex Judd (12:36):
Yeah. So with that, these five steps, you know,
people might say, like, I don'treally like those five steps.
And and I can ask, well, whatare your five steps? They say,
don't have any steps. It's like,well, I like my five steps a lot
better than I like your steps.
The way I came up with these isnot like I said, oh, man. I
wanna design a a personal yearplanning lesson for a bunch of
(12:57):
people to walk through. That'snot what I did. I, years and
years ago now, got on a flightfrom Denver to Nashville, and it
was a New Year's Eve flight. Andit was, like, 9PM at night or
something like that.
And, you know, 9PM flights, onNew Year's Eve, like, there were
a couple things going on. Like,most people had their lights
(13:18):
off, and they were going tosleep. There were a couple
people that were definitelyknocking some back. Right? They
were having New Year's Eve earlyon the flight.
And meanwhile, I I've got mylight on. I asked for a cup of
black coffee, and I'm like, I'min a crank out. By the time this
plane lands, I'm gonna have aplan for my growth over the
(13:39):
course of the next year. And Ihad never done this before, but
but I remembered you never haveto recover from a strong start.
And I just said, I don't knowwhat I'm gonna do.
I just know I'm gonna dosomething and kind of prayed
about it and thought about it.And I actually walked through
the five steps that we're gonnakind of walk people through high
level here today and that we'recertainly gonna walk through on
January 5. And I've done thesefive steps, some version of
(14:00):
these five steps every singleyear since. It's now what we
teach to leaders around thecountry because they're
principle based steps that whenwe do these things, they
contribute to us having a plan,and it's amazing. If you've got
a plan, you are way light yearsahead of anyone that doesn't
have a plan, and you're theperson that I'm gonna put my
money on you growing.
So so those that's kind of theprimer for the five steps.
(14:21):
Anything else you want to getinto on that before we actually
jump into them?
Ben Loy (14:24):
No. Let's go. Let's jump in.
Alex Judd (14:25):
So number one is reflection, and the idea behind
reflection is it would be unwisefor you to go into 2026 without
first looking at 2025 and justask how'd that go? It's it's
crazy. You just did this thingcalled a year. Congratulations.
(14:46):
That is a massive gumball.
I like, that's one area where Ithink everyone on the planet
should get a participationtrophy because that is a big
ask. Right? You did a year, andthere was so much that occurred
in that year. And so often, wenever pause for a single moment
and ask, how'd that go? Andwithin how'd that go?
Like, what did you do that wastotally stupid that you want to
(15:08):
avoid as we go into 2026? Butthen also, what did you do that
went well? That if you look backand you say, man, that was
actually like really good. Andmaybe it was good on accident.
And you just took some time toask, man, what could I do more
of that would contribute to moreof that good thing coming to
pass for myself and others in2026?
(15:31):
It would be unwise to go into2026 without asking the
question, like, man, what did welearn from this year that we can
take with us into the next?
Ben Loy (15:41):
Mhmm. So whether it was in that moment on the plane or
years following, what's anexample of something that you
think you did really well andthen you implemented the
following year? And then what'san example of something you were
like, this ends here, and thisisn't this isn't following me
into the next year?
Alex Judd (15:58):
One of the things that I do is I'll list, like,
what are the and this we'll dothis on the workshop on January
5 is I'll list, like, what whatwere highlights of the year?
What were times when I felt likeI was at my legitimate absolute
best? And I'll list those out,and that's what I did one
particular year that I waswalking through this reflection
exercise, and I list out all theopportunities. And I really
encourage people, don'toverthink this, and don't try to
(16:20):
jump to conclusions about whatyou learned. Like, just brain
dump.
Right? And just when you thinkback at your year, maybe scroll
through your calendar, scrollthrough your pictures, be like,
what were some of thehighlights? What were some of
the best moments? And I scrolledthrough all of them, and then I
asked the question, afterwriting all those down, like,
what common themes or patternsshowed up there? And one of the
(16:44):
common themes or patterns that Irecognized is all of these or
many of these were created byintentionally instigating
something with other people.
And, like, the with other peoplepart was really, really key. And
one of the things that Irealized is there weren't as
(17:05):
many of those things as I wouldhave liked for there to have
been. And so one of the thingsthat I said is, man, I am at my
best, and and I enjoy life themost when I intentionally
instigate things and then inviteother people into them. And so
then I just said, okay. Well,what am I gonna do in '20 you
know, whatever year this was?
I think it was maybe 2022, 2023.What am I going to do in '23
(17:29):
that represents more of that?And I instigated more in '23
than I did in '22, and I invitedmore people into it. Now it's
something that, like, I I reallyactively tried to do pretty
regularly because it's somethingthat through reflection, I
realized that's when I'm at mybest, and that's when I'm being
the man and the leader that Ifeel uniquely called to be. So
that's an example of reproducingor amplifying something that
(17:51):
maybe happened a little bitaccidentally.
In terms of avoiding, I mean,there's a lot. I would say, you
know, I I'm trying to think ifit actually occurred it probably
gradually occurred in New Year'sreflection is, like, I would
always come back to like, why dowhy do I drink alcohol? And
(18:14):
that's a like, I honestly thinkit's hard to do a reflection
exercise and not ask thatquestion, right? Like if you do
drink, and a lot of times inreflection, I would be forced to
sit with the fact that a lot ofthe people that I consider role
models that I really, reallyrespect in terms of what they've
been able to accomplish, theyjust don't. My times when I'm at
(18:36):
my best, it's not that I'm at myworst whenever I drink alcohol
all all the time.
Right? But my times when I'm atmy absolute best certainly don't
collide with the times wheneverI'm drinking alcohol. And then
the third thing I would say isit's actually counter. I I
realized through reflection,it's actually counter to so many
of the other things I say I wantto do. And so it's like, do you
(18:58):
actually want to do thesethings, or do you want to be
able to have a beer on Thursdaynight?
And so I would say, you know, itbecame less and less and less
year over year to now, really,now I basically don't drink.
Right? I think in the past year,I've had two drinks. Right? And
those were good glasses of wineon special occasions.
Right? But I often think wedon't examine those things that
(19:20):
we just, like, that we just do,and we never ask, like, do I
actually want to do this? Andreflection helped me ask that
question and therefore helpedcreate different behaviors as a
result.
Ben Loy (19:31):
What's the next step?
Alex Judd (19:33):
Yeah. So it's reflection and then vision. And
what we always encourage peopleon is when you're creating a
personal growth plan, like whatwe're talking about here, it can
be really easy to say, I'm gonnacreate a list of action items or
even habits. Right? If you'rethinking like James Clear.
I would say don't start bycreating a list of action items
(19:54):
or habits. I wanna ask people,who do you want to be at the end
of this year? And the principlethere is I always think bad
growth is rooted in what you do.So it's I'm going to the gym
just for the sake of going tothe gym. Right?
I'm reading books just for thesake of reading books. It's not
rooted in anything other thanthe activity itself, and a lot
(20:16):
of the data proves out that ifyou're just doing it and your
reason why is because it's a youknow, you believe, like, it's a,
something that you want to do,well, then oftentimes that's
unsustainable. It's way moresustainable if you root it in an
identity of who you are uniquelycalled to be. So bad growth is
rooted in what you do. Goodgrowth is rooted in who you are.
(20:39):
I like to think of it as healthygrowth is rooted in who God is.
Ben Loy (20:43):
Mhmm.
Alex Judd (20:43):
So what is the character of who God is? Right?
He's faithful. He's generous.He's compassionate.
He's loving. Right? He's active.Right? That's who God is.
I wanna align who I want to bewith who that is, and that's
what vision is. And what's socool is you can envision a
version of yourself by the endof this year that's not true
today. You might not be someonethat's generous today, and you
(21:07):
could be someone that'soutrageously generous by the end
of 2026. But a lot of times, itstarts with having a vision of
what you could be. Mhmm.
Ben Loy (22:18):
One of the things that I think always think is so
interesting is when peopledescribe themselves as not
creative, you know? And I thinkI think everyone is future
minded. Everyone has a vision ofof who they could be, and that
in itself is an expression of ofgod god's character. Right? I
mean, as as the ultimatecreative, I mean, I I love the
(22:39):
opportunity to to sit back andthink, yeah, like, who do I
wanna become?
What do I wanna accomplish?Like, who who, a year from now,
writing this this next plan forthe following year, like, what
do I wanna be true that isn'ttrue right now? And, like, what
then am I gonna work towardsthat that next year. Right?
Alex Judd (22:58):
Yeah. That's right. I mean, it was in an exercise like
this that I created my firstever vision charter, which is
really a more blown out versionof what we just do at the
beginning of the year. But and Iwrote down some pillars of what
I wanted to be. It was a aspiritual stalwart, strong
husband and father, a centeredbusiness owner, a professional
(23:19):
leader and communicator, apillar of my community, and a
faithful adventure.
Right? And and I have all ofthese written on a document.
What's crazy is when I wrotethat document, I was not
married, and I did not knowAspen. I I thankfully, I went in
order, so I also didn't havekids. I didn't own a business,
and I didn't have a place that Icalled home.
(23:40):
So, like, strong husband anddad, pillar of my community,
center business owner, andprofessional leader and
communicator. Those are allthings that did not exist in my
life that I was prayerfullysaying, god, I I would love for
these things to exist in mylife. But what's crazy is the
minute I think it's a step offaith, the minute you have you
(24:00):
take the time to take those outof your head and your heart,
say, God, I want to align thesewith your will. And then I want
to take them out of my head andheart. And then I want to say,
I'm going to pray for thesethings to come to pass.
You start to see things and youstart to see opportunities. And
I started to pray for who when,you know, what do I want my wife
to be like? And I wrote downwords like confident, faithful,
(24:20):
active, and fun. And what'scrazy is I wrote down confident,
active, faithful, and fun. Andthen I I saw this cute blonde
girl walking to church, and Italked to her for, like, ten
minutes, and she was like, allof those things.
And her name was Aspen. Right?And it's like, I honestly think
I wouldn't I wouldn't have evenbeen able to see her if I
couldn't have envisioned myselfas the type of man that could
(24:42):
marry a woman like that. And sowhat I would say is that's what
vision is, is taking the time tosay, ma'am, what is God doing?
And then how do I align mydesires with that?
Because he wants us to havedesires. And then how do I
attend to it? The final thingI'll say on that is the the
message translation of Proverbstwenty nine eighteen is when
(25:05):
people can't see what God isdoing, they stumble all over
themselves. But when they attendto what he reveals, then they
will be most blessed. So Ireally think of vision not as
just like, what do I want tooccur?
I think that's part of it. Ithink desires are often good and
God given, but it's that's notthe highest version of vision.
(25:26):
The highest version of vision iswhat is God doing, and how do I
get in on that?
Ben Loy (25:30):
Let's move on to the next one, action. Mhmm. Can you
describe that?
Alex Judd (25:35):
Yeah. So we said vision is who's the man, the
woman, the leader, the Christfollower, the community member,
the husband, the wife, theparent that you're called to be.
And in the workshop, we'reactually gonna spend some time
writing down those identitystatements. Then we shift to
action, and action is basicallyjust putting our work boots on.
And I like to think of action interms of actions, habits, and
(26:00):
rhythms.
And so we used to only teachthis through the lens of habits.
And the reason why I used toteach it only through the lens
of habits is because I thinksocietally, we are way way way
too capable of over prioritizingextravagancy, like these one off
things, and way undervalue dailydeposits consistency. Right?
(26:22):
We're coming out with a morningroutine episode here very
shortly that's gonna hit on thepower of every single day. Mhmm.
Right? And so one of the thingsthat we will do on the workshop
is we're gonna say, man, whatare the things that you would do
as a daily rhythm? And when Isay habits, I mean daily. For
me, I I'm I say habits aretypically every day except my
(26:44):
Sabbath day, which right now isSaturday. And Sabbath day is
kinda like, do you want to do ittoday?
So it's my daily cold plungerhythm on Saturdays. It's like,
do I want to do the cold watertoday or no? Right? And it's
it's choose your own adventure.Right?
And so that's what habits are isthe daily. The rhythms are like
weekly, monthly, quarterlythings. Right? So Aspen and I go
(27:05):
on a date night, once a week. Wego we go to church once a week.
Right? We we have specificrhythms for talking about our
finances on a monthly basis.Right? These are examples of
rhythms that we have in ourlife, oftentimes that involve
other people, that we say, man,this is gonna make me into more
of who I'm called and created tobe. And then actions.
(27:27):
What I found is that thatthere's there's two things that
often get in the way for peopleachieving their vision. It's
it's lack of clarity or presenceof conflict. And if there's
presence of conflict, like,there's a conversation I've been
avoiding. I I wanna read thatbook, but I just haven't gotten
it yet. I wanna write that book,but I haven't started yet.
(27:50):
A lot of times, if there'sconflict, like there's something
that's causing you to not moveforward, you do need to take
massive action to get rid ofthat conflict, to just move the
blocker. So a great example forme is like, I had said for quite
a while, I I want to be anauthor of a book. Right? But one
of the things I would alwaysstall out on is the belief
(28:11):
whenever I was writing everyday, I had the daily habit of
writing, but the belief of like,is this ever going to become
anything? Is this going tobecome like or am I just doing
this for no purpose at all?
And that was conflict, and Iwould always stall out with that
conflict until in an exerciselike what we're doing right now.
Was a start strong exercise Iwas doing. The action that I
wrote down is I'm going toschedule a phone call with a
(28:32):
person that I know that is inpublishing, and I'm gonna send
in the book, and I'm gonna askhim, can you evaluate this and
tell me if I've got something?And then tell me, like, should I
keep doing what I'm doing, or isthis like a a wild goose chase
that I'm on? Because I waslacking confidence and belief,
and I did that.
He was like, dude, you'recrushing this. Keep going. And,
man, then the habit of writingevery day became much easier
(28:54):
because I had belief, but itneeded the massive action. So
when we talk about the thirdstep of action, I want you to
divide it into habits, daily,rhythms, weekly, monthly,
quarterly, yearly, And actions,the one off things that you need
to do to remove blockers and getclarity.
Ben Loy (29:09):
Mhmm. What's number four?
Alex Judd (29:11):
Destination. So this really goes into healthy growth
and the idea that we've alreadytalked about at the beginning,
you can't control outcomes. Youcan influence them, and your
actions should influence them,and you should pray for them.
And so we do the destinationstep really as a means of
(29:32):
saying, there are certain thingsthis year actively that I want
to come to pass, that I deeplydesire to come to pass, but I
cannot control. And we shouldfocus on the things we can
control, but we should pray forthe things that we can't.
You know, so much of societytoday has maybe reckoned with
(29:53):
the reality that you can'tcontrol those things, and they
say just give them up. And andit's like, no. I don't think you
should give up those desiresnecessarily, especially if
they're God honoring desiresthat could serve and love
people. I think you shouldretain those desires, and you
should allow those desires toinform a prayer life that is
vibrant and active andpassionate. Right?
A lot of times our prayer lifeis dead because our desires are
(30:15):
dead. So when we talk aboutdestination, what are you
desiring to come to pass thatyou can't necessarily control?
And, man, this is a step that Iam so grateful for because I can
look back at previous thingsthat I wrote down and realize
there are things that I wrotedown in response to that
question. What do you wanna prayfor that I didn't even know if
(30:35):
they could come to pass? And nowit's just called life for me.
Praise God for that. Right? Andit's such a shame that when we
don't actually take the time tolist those prayers, we don't
actually notice them whenever heanswers them.
Ben Loy (30:47):
Yeah. This last one, we've already touched on a
little bit, but I know you'llwanna dive into this a little
more. Elimination. Mhmm. Share alittle bit more about what that
looks like, evaluating yourprevious year, deciding on the
things you wanna eliminate.
Mhmm.
Alex Judd (31:01):
Not everything should go forward with you. Right? And
and so the framework that I liketo think about is what's
unhealthy, what's unhelpful, andwhat's unwise. And so it's
really the elimination sectionin some ways that, like, you
know, things like alcohol kindof you have to wrestle with
(31:21):
them. And I'm not I'm nottelling people they can't or
shouldn't drink.
Right? Like, I'm not saying thatat all. Right? What I am saying
is make sure it's actually adecision and that you're not
just doing it because otherpeople doing are doing it, or
you're just doing it becauseyou've always done it. Mhmm.
Make sure it's something thatyou're saying, I'm choosing to
do this, and these are theboundaries and the guardrails.
(31:43):
And, also, these are the thereasons why I'm doing this.
Right? I think God told us todelight in the good gifts that
he's given us. Right?
And so we can apply that toalcohol, but unhealthy. When I
think of what are the thingsthat I'm doing that aren't
healthy, so often, so muchgrowth comes from the things
that we're for and justenvisioning and acting upon the
(32:05):
things that we're for. But I canhonestly say there's a lot of
growth that comes from juststopping doing the stupid things
that that I have no businessdoing in the first place. And
it's really humbling to look inthe mirror and being like, what
are the things that I'm activelydoing either because everyone
else is doing them or becauseI've always done them that are
(32:27):
proactively contradicting theperson I actually say I want to
become. That's unhealthy.
And then, you know, we'll spendmore time on unhelpful and
unwise, but a lot of times,leaders in particular, they are
overcommitted, and then they addmore at the New Year. Mhmm. And
they don't eliminate anything,and that's unwise. Right? And so
(32:49):
if you're gonna add on more,where is that going to come
from?
Is it are you gonna have morethan you know, are you gonna
sleep less? I I don't know thatI recommend that, especially if
you're already tired. You know,are you gonna maybe watch less
Netflix? That might be good.Right?
Maybe that's a good way to trimsome, but but don't just say I'm
going to find a way to make thishappen in addition to everything
(33:10):
else I'm already doing. Actuallywrestle with what you're gonna
sacrifice in order to make thesechanges in your life.
Ben Loy (33:17):
If there's one thing someone listening to this
podcast could do at the end ofit, yeah, what action should
they be taking? What stepsshould they be making?
Alex Judd (33:25):
Well, I mean, I would say you should show up to our
workshop on January 5, like,because that's actually gonna be
the guided time where weactually say, okay, everyone,
now take ten minutes and work onthis. So the link to that is in
the show notes. If you can'tmake that, totally fine.
Schedule, you know, sixtyminutes to two hours for
yourself and maybe do this withyour spouse, reflection, vision,
(33:46):
action, destination,elimination. Here's what I found
to be true.
You don't even have to have themost high resolution version of
a plan with the Path for Growthlogo all over it for it to be
wildly effective. The differencebetween no plan and a bad plan
is so massively valuable. I Ican't even begin to describe it
(34:07):
to you. So, like, just set yoursights on creating a bad plan.
Mhmm.
And, man, that's a greatexpectation. You're like, I
think I could do that. Right?And and then do it, and I
guarantee you, it will havepositive impact for you that you
can then use to serve others.Thanks, Alex.
Thanks, Ben. Well, there youhave it. Thanks so much for
joining us for this episode. Ifyou want any of the information
(34:30):
or resources that we mentioned,that's all in the show notes.
Hey.
Before you go, could I ask youfor one quick favor? Could you
subscribe, rate, and review thispodcast episode? Your feedback
is what helps our team engage ina sequence of never ending
improvement. We wanna amplifywhat's valuable to you and
obviously reduce or even removethe things that aren't. Also,
(34:53):
you leaving a positive review iswhat helps us connect with,
build trust with, and serveother leaders around the
country.
So thanks in advance for helpingus out on that front. Are you a
leader that wants to grow yourbusiness in a healthy way, serve
people exceptionally well, andglorify God in the process? Go
to pathforgrowth.com to get moreinformation about our community
(35:15):
of impact driven leaders andschedule a call with our team.
Hey. Thank you so much to thePath for Growth team, Kyle
Cummings and the crew at PodCircle, and the remarkable
leaders that are activelyengaged in the Path for Growth
community.
Y'all are the people that makethis podcast possible. Y'all
know this. We're rooting foryou. We're praying for you. We
(35:35):
wanna see you win.
Remember, my strength is not forme. Your strength is not for
you. Our strength is forservice. Let's go. Let's go.
Let's go.
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
The Breakfast Club
The World's Most Dangerous Morning Show, The Breakfast Club, With DJ Envy, Jess Hilarious, And Charlamagne Tha God!