Embracing Risk and Letting Go of Control: Mike Baer's Leadership Lessons

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
I have this deep passion to seeother people released, taught,

(00:06):
developed, Encouraged, comforted,whatever, so that they are becoming
what they were meant to be.
I think if you ask me what makes me tick.
on my good days, that's it.

(00:32):
It is awesome to welcomeMike Baer back to the seat.
Go create podcast.
Mike was our guest in February, 2020.
now he's joining us again aswe celebrate our 302nd episode.
Mike is a veteran of themodern business's mission.
We're going to call it BAM throughoutthis conversation movement.
He's an experienced pastor,entrepreneur, theologian is actually

(00:54):
attached to his name and executive.
He's led and taught BAM on nearlyevery continent, well traveled.
He's also a prolific author, speaker,and the founder of Third Path
Mike, welcome back to SeekGoCreate.
Hey, Tim, it's good to be back.
I can't believe it was the Februaryof 2020 we had our first interview.

(01:18):
That's staggering to me.
So, it's great to see you.
so we're releasing this.
It'll probably bereleased in March of 2025.
We're recording it towards thetail end or middle of February
to put a timestamp on it.
So it has been right at five years
It's amazing.
And we just keep gettingbetter looking, brother.
I tell you what, for those that arelistening to the audio, you have got

(01:42):
to go over to YouTube and for, youknow, 30, 45, 60 minutes, check out,
what's amazing is that we gave upall that money doing all the modeling
and acting and things we could havedone to, to serve the kingdom, right?
We sacrificed.
We paid a big price, man.

(02:02):
And the world is better for it.
Absolutely.
Well, I shared with you,Mike, this is kind of fun.
You know, our episode 300, we interviewedAI and had a long conversation with that.
last episode was 301.
We had Jim cook, who wasoriginally in January of 2020.
Valley veteran and, you know,great conversation with him.

(02:25):
And, now you're coming back andI love the conversations we have.
The biggest challenge we have isthat we can't do the three and a
half hour, you know, Joe Rogan style.
We've got to keep it to, you
We should, but no one would listen.
I mean, if anybody's listening in andthey're like going, you know what?
love to hear these guystalk for two or three hours.

(02:47):
Let me know.
I could arrange it.
I could do it.
I'd love to do it.
we'll do it live.
How about that?
We'll do it live.
I bet your guests don't rememberthat we actually worked together
almost, what, 30 years ago?
And we got really close and we hadincredibly fun conversations about
business, about God, about the kingdom.

(03:08):
And yes, we can do it.
We can go for threehours without a problem.
Yeah.
One thing we'll do, we probably won'tcircle back to some of those topics
from February of 2020, but we'regonna include a link back to that
episode down in the notes on YouTube.
And, so one of the things we wantedto do here, this is what I was excited
about when I looked back and said,what do we want to do to celebrate?

(03:31):
300. I say, you know what?
going to, I'm going to go back tosome of my favorite conversations.
They did well, downloads,all that kind of stuff.
But I want to just kind of catchup, and let people listen in.
So let's, let's put a mark on whatwas going on in February of 2020.

(03:52):
Do you recall what was happening with
yeah, the day the music died.
Yeah, that, of course, we all knowthat February, March, 2020 is when
the world came to a standstill.
Over COVID and just probably, probably twoweeks after we had our podcast interview,

(04:12):
I was on my way to Jamaica to host acompany celebration trip and got turned
back mid trip because of the pandemic.
we didn't even know what we weredealing with, but that, I'll tell you
one quick memory from that day, and Iknow we don't want to go back there,
but I can remember in the early days,none of us knew what was going on.

(04:32):
I was on my trip home, and I wasin a Delta, Sky Club, we used to
call them Crown Room back in theday, but a Sky Club, and I sneezed.
And all of a sudden, out of nowhere,everybody had these spray bottles of
stuff, and it's like an old Westernmovie where everybody pulls out
their six shooter, you know, it waslike, what in the world's going on?
And we didn't know at the time,the fear and the anxiety and the

(04:59):
lack of knowledge that would driveour world for two or three years.
So, yeah, that's when this was.
Yeah, we, we had, we were inColorado, our first granddaughter
was born, early February.
Glory had come back from a trip toBerlin that she just sort of collapsed

(05:21):
in my arms with some sickness thatwe weren't quite sure what it was.
Probably she had, she had her companyand had an all hands from people all
over the world, Asia and everywhere.
And then, and then, I'd gone toa podcasting, PodFest conference
weekend of March, like, 7th, 8th.
And then, a bunch of us, me and my sonand my son in law, they were with me.

(05:47):
We went to, Disney World on March 9th.
We went to the Star Wars experienceat the, it's not MGM anymore.
It's whatever the studios is down there.
And we were there packed in, youknow, grabbing the rails, which
is massive numbers of people.
No one had a clue then March 13th,that Friday, the 13th, of course,

(06:07):
is when the country shut down.
Yep.
And I think we're clear.
all of that situation now, but when,when you look back on it to two
learning points, what did you learnabout yourself, about Mike as a leader,
business person, man of God, whatever.

(06:28):
And then second, what did you learnabout the world and organizations,
leadership, whatever, just so
Wow.
micro learns and then macro learns,
no, that's a great question.
The, the, what I learned, itwas a very sort of, simplistic

(06:48):
answer for me, but it, it stuck.
It was powerful and it was life changing.
I can remember when this first hit, youknow, and everybody was, I, you know,
people were starting to get sick and wewere beginning to see hospitals fill up.
And I can remember saying in a verychildlike sort of prayer, like, Lord,
I don't know how to deal with this.
So here's what I'm gonna do.

(07:08):
If you want me to getit, I'm gonna get it.
If you don't want me to getit, I'm not gonna get it.
If you want me to get it anddie, I'm gonna get it and die.
If you want me to get it and survive,I'm gonna get it and survive.
Point being, I can't, there'snothing really I can do.
Not that you shouldn't, choices, I'mnot, you know, not being a magical
thinker here, but that was what Tookme very quickly from the potential

(07:34):
panic to peace that I'm going to walk.
I'm going to make wise choices.
I'm going to do what I need todo, but I'm gonna do it in the
context that my father in heaven.
Is all powerful loves me and I canrest in that that was my personal
learning and I will tell you Tim Thattruth guided me for the next two or

(07:56):
three years Not just in the pandemicworld, but in it became a north star
That's why I say it's childlike, butI do kind of remember jesus saying You
become like a child you're going tounderstand the kingdom a whole lot better.
So it was a that was a real personalrevolution for me on a on a more macro
level What I saw and and I think thisholds true today even you know, it's 2025.

(08:23):
We're dealing with a new administrationwe could get all political we're
not going to but We're seeing thesame tendency of the sheep to panic.
And you know, the term thatcame out during the pandemic
was the term sheeple, right?
And, and I'm not slamming anybody.
I'm not being critical or negative here.

(08:43):
I just saw how easily frightened thegeneral public, all of us at some
days, or on some days, all of us at onepoint or another are easily frightened.
But I saw how quickly masses of people,Can fall victim to fear and if you're
a dune fan like I am Frank Herbertwrote in there Fear is the mind killer

(09:09):
And it is it just freezes your brain.
It freezes your ability to thinkand choose John put it in First
John, fear has torment, right?
Fear is a terrible thing.
And so I just came to grips withthe, the tendency of human beings
in bold relief to, to be fearful.
Translate that into leadership.

(09:30):
I saw that what people need isnot dictatorial, strong men.
They don't need, but they don'talso need a bunch of fear mongerers.
You know, what they need ispeople that know who they are.
they know their purpose.
they can.
Articulate that purpose in a waythat other people can begin to find
some stability and when the normalhuman being begins to find stability.

(09:53):
Their fears start to subsideand that stability becomes
theirs and not mine any longer.
Does that make any sense?
I saw the ability of a leader to sharetheir confidence in a way that wasn't
controlling, wasn't manipulating,but it was liberating and comforting.
so there's a word interesting, it cameup last week when we were in Episode

(10:17):
301 talking to Jim Cook, sort of ina different way when we were talking
about the Silicon Valley culture,the word that kept popping in my head
was the word risk, and, you know, youtalked about it personally, you had
some fear initially and you weren'tthrough it and I think that I did too.
I have this weird personality thatI, maybe it's delusional that I, I

(10:39):
wouldn't admit it, but I was probablyfacing it too because we had traveled
and we were in an RV and it's like,man, a lot of weird stuff was going on.
But I've often wondered if we havebecome an incredibly risk averse culture.
And how that feeds into usindividually, personally, and then

(11:00):
also into business and and government.
one of the things that came up lastweek, I think I recommend people
go listen as Jim was talking about.
When you bring in a Silicon Valley, highrisk, culture into Washington DC, which
is what we're seeing with Elon Musk.
It's like, boy, there'sgoing to be a clash.
Yeah.

(11:20):
have to get off on talking about that.
talk about the word risk in relation towhat you just shared with all that we've
been through over the last five years.
Yeah.
I, and I think you just connectedthe past and the, Present
beautifully because risk is life.
Life is risk.
And we cannot take a step.
We cannot get in a car.

(11:41):
We cannot go to a restaurant.
We cannot marry somebody.
We cannot have children.
We cannot get a new job.
Show me a way to remove riskfrom any of those things and it
doesn't it's not there, right?
So the first thing you have to graspand this is what I dealt with for the
Lord's like look there's risk I coulddie here So I'm gonna deal with risk

(12:02):
the best way I know how and that is takemy hands off of it go forward Trusting
you and I think that when I thinkabout risk I'm not a big risk taker.
I'm not like I'm not going to skydive.
I'm not going to mountain climb.
Maybe I'm a wimp, but for meRisk is not something you take.
Risk is something that's simplythere and you cannot avoid it.

(12:26):
So how do you learn to deal with it?
comment on the political scene.
this is a non partisan critique ofgovernment I am a libertarian at
heart my t shirt says underneaththis says I love Rand Paul.
I love Ron Paul his dad, right?
I mean I'm going to Argentina in afew weeks, and I'm really hoping I

(12:46):
get to meet the president down there,the ultimate, the uber libertarian.
But these are people that recognizethat you can't govern risk out of life.
You can't legislate risk out of life.
You can't executiveorder risk out of life.
Quick analogy, when I used to workin France, I discovered that the

(13:06):
word bureau, from which we getbureaucracy, means desk, right?
And so a bureaucracy isgovernment for people who sit
at desks, a nice, safe desk.
And so they're trying, and I thinkmost of them are well intentioned,
deluded, but well intentioned.
They are trying to legislateand regulate risk out of life.

(13:31):
At which point they takelife and turn it into death.
Remember C. S. Lewis in theFour Loves book he wrote?
He said there is a place where you can befree from the fear of losing through love.
It's called a casket.
Lewis, classic, youknow, but what a point.

(13:52):
so yeah, to me, I have torecognize that I'm going to live.
I now see it in my kids.
You have kids.
I have seven grandchildren now.
One of them's about to graduatehigh school and go off to college.
and I'm wavering because I can't controlthe risk that these kids will face, but
I'm having to go back to that, Okay,God, I've got to give it back to you.

(14:14):
And call me simplistic, many have,they would be probably right.
My response to risk is to want to control.
And control is one ofthe ultimate illusions.
What are you really in control of?
What are you and I in control of?
Nothing, pretty much.
And so, I learned to live, I dealwith risk by keeping my hands open.

(14:40):
If we go back five years, I've putsome thought into this and it's kind of
feeding off that control word you justbrought up, which all this is kind of
weaving together really beautifully.
I like it.
I know I have a high degreeof desire to control.
Maybe a lot of humans do.
I think there's some people thatjust have a natural child likeness,

(15:04):
you know, and in some ways might,those could be people we call sheep.
and so I don't criticize them.
I actually have in the pastand I need to repent of that.
Because there is something to.
Just saying Now I think you need to,whatever Lord should be that instead
of whatever government, whateverboss, whatever, you know what I mean?

(15:28):
you need to align yourself withwhat you're going to follow as
a sheep if you're doing that.
And I, I think I need a littlemore sheep ness in me than, than
shepherd because I'm trying tocontrol and monitor and all that.
If you look back years ago, andkind of where you were on the
control scale, you know, 10 outof 10, nine out of 10, whatever.

(15:52):
then five years now look at whereyou are on the control scale.
You mentioned grandkids and you know,you probably used to be able to kind
of keep, know, your arms around yourfamily and now they're spreading out.
is your control gauge changedover the last five years?
Mine has
Yeah, that's a good question.
So I think about it.

(16:14):
Remember an exchange I had withmy oldest daughter when she was a
teenager, and she was mad at me aboutsomething which was Pretty normal.
she said, you're such a control freak.
I said, I am not.
Go to your room.
And that was the, because I was, andI've discovered that by habit, that

(16:35):
whatever, the world, the system, myown frailty, control is what I want.
And it's, it's what I, that prayerwith God was giving up control.
I had no control, wasn'tgiving up something.
It was really acknowledging the reality.
So I would say the last five yearsfor me, you know, and I'm pushing 70.

(16:57):
I turned 70 in two weeks.
And so I think part ofit comes with age, Tim.
Honestly, there's the longer youlive, the more you realize there's
very little you can control.
And then you start to realize youreally had no control over even that.
so part of that is that, but I think forme, the need to control it's no less.

(17:20):
It's, I don't think that, that habit ofwanting to be in control is gone away.
I think what has changed is the,the speed with which, or maybe the
comfort with which I'm being ableto bring it back to God and say, all
right, Jesus, here's another thing.
That you're in control of and I'm not soI think that yes, it's been a journey and

(17:42):
I know you and I were both wired that way.
We're both achievers.
And 1 of the things that drives anachiever is control because it's this
belief that once I achieve ABC or X,Y, Z, I will finally be in control.
And of course, that's not true.
So I, I'm looking and learningabout achieving without being

(18:05):
driven by the need to control.
Achieving for achievement's sake.
Achievement for the sake ofthe person, You know, I'm
serving Versus this unconscious.
Hey, I'm in control now That'syou know, I learned that every
time I get on an airplane, right?
And you recognize the moment you walkthrough the TSA window You are no longer

(18:27):
in control You are in the matrix and youare no longer in control But when you
step on a plane and for me you look intothe cockpit as you walk past and you see
these two children sitting in controls,you realize I'm not in control here.
And, I'm actually enjoying thejourney of giving up control.

(18:49):
It's not easy.
, but there's a certainhealthy enjoyment to it.
And I think that's part of ourjourney, you know, one of our
subtitles here is the leadership
Mm-hmm
specifically leadership in a littlewhile, but I think leadership starts
with, you know, us sitting in theseat and what we able to learn.

(19:12):
Have you.
Have you ridden in one ofthese driverless cars yet?
I was, my son was taking meto the airport last week.
I was going, we were in Phoenixand I looked over in one of
these Waymo cars with all the,
Yeah.
dome on top and all.
Yeah.
took a picture of it in the video andI couldn't see anybody in the back seat
because the windows are kind of tinted.
And I was just thinking to myself, Hmm,I wonder, I wonder if I could do that.

(19:36):
And then, and then I thought, thisis where I connected the dots.
one of the things that happenedfor us, and I think I'd share this
with, you know, my father passed,had some cognitive decline, went
down fairly quickly during COVID.
We believe COVID sped it up because theywere isolated, a lot of things going on.
But, my father grew up in a shop inmiddle of nowhere, North Mississippi,

(19:59):
cars were important to him.
And one of the biggest challengesand struggles we had in his life
was wanting to get in the car.
And my mom was saying, he keeps wantingto drive and we're not sure if he can.
He doesn't even know who any of us are.
And so we'd ordered some wings at a place.
It was two or three miles from the house.
And he was kind of arguingabout I'll drive and all that.

(20:19):
And I said, you know what?
Hop in the driver's seat and drive.
I jumped in the passenger seat withhim and my wife and my mother were
like going, what are you doing?
What are you doing?
I say, you know what?
The only way we can know kind of what'sgoing on is if someone rides along.
And I was sitting here thinkingto myself, Hey, what's the
worst thing that can happen?

(20:40):
But you know what though,he drove like a champ.
Now he didn't know where he wasgoing or where to get back to
or any of that kind of stuff.
But the muscle memory was
Mm-hmm
the reason I bring all that up isto kind of ask, have you ridden
in one of these driverless cars?
I mean, because those kind of things,we have a desire for control, but

(21:02):
yet I am pretty confident thatsome of these driverless cars is
better than the other person that'ssitting beside you driving their car.
yeah.
So, so answering in reverse numberone, I agree with you Totally.
you know, the chances of a humanbeing next to me looking at
his or her phone while they'redriving and swerving into me.
They're much higher than aglitch in the software or the

(21:24):
sensors of a driverless car.
I agree with you on that.
I have not driven in oneyet, but I have wanted to.
I haven't been anywherewhere it was an option.
Would I get in one?
Absolutely.
and it would be an adventure.
I could either live, you know,like, oh my gosh, what am I doing?
Or, this is kind of cool.

(21:45):
I'm one of those weird guys that, wouldgo to the space station in a heartbeat.
You know, 70 years old and they askedme, heck yeah, I'd go if, if Elon Musk
came and said, hey, you want to be thefather figure on the flight to Mars.
Yeah, let's go now.
Don't get me wrong.
I'm not some hero pioneer, you know,but in those areas, things like that.

(22:07):
yeah, I think, I thinkI, I, now I could do it.
I think I would enjoy it.
I love, this is a discipline I, andI keep, because this is a theme, this
control and letting go of control hasa lot to do with leadership, by the
way, but it's a theme of my own growth.
Over the years and those around me isthat I remember I used to do it I still
do but it used to a lot of internationaltravel and I would watch people Just

(22:32):
freaking out on a nine or ten I thinkthe longest flight ever took was 14
hours and they were freaking out Theyjust couldn't handle it and I learned
of course, they would drink and all youknow I'm not saying I did neither but
for different reasons but I learned howto, people say, how do you handle it?
I said, I go to my happy place.

(22:52):
And it was a mental place for me togo to and say, there's nothing within
the realm of possibility I can doto change anything at this moment.
I can, nothing I do, or say, ordrink, or watch, or anything is
going to get me there faster.
So where do I go?
I go to my happy place,which is I'm not in control.

(23:14):
It's amazing to me, Tim, how happyI can be when I'm not controlling.
and so what you're
I say,
is
Yeah,
what you can control.
that's exactly right.
There's a one of my favorite tshirts I saw one time on the front.
It said there are two immutabletruths in the universe on the back.
It said number one, there is aGod number two, you are not him.

(23:40):
And whenever I can get tothat place, I'm much happier.
When I'm not happy, it'susually an indicator.
But I'm denying thosetwo immutable truths.
Yeah, I've done.
Mike at your, by the way, happy birthday.
a good chance that I won't send you a textor anything and wish you a happy birthday.

(24:02):
I don't do that with anyone.
but happy birthday now.
my wife keeps up witheveryone's birthdays and she
Yeah.
Good.
Good for
Good for them.
I hope they have a good day.
happy birthday.
Thank you.
you know, that's sort of a milestone.
you know, I guess you're a littleover halfway, I think, depending
on how you measure it and all that,

(24:22):
Maybe we'll find out.
how are you measuring, gauging, thinkingabout success this stage, you know,
seeing what we all went through thelast five years, what you're looking
ahead to and all, what is just.
Talk about what success means to you now.

(24:43):
Yeah.
So, and I've listened to a lot of yourpodcasts over the years and I know you
come back to this with almost everybody.
and I would tell you mydefinition has changed.
and I'll tell you my definitionsat the moment seemed pure and
godly with the perspective oftime you realize they weren't.
there were things likenever make a lot of money.

(25:05):
That was never a big motivator for me.
It's always just, I wantto have enough problems.
Of course, there's enough as amoving target, but for me, it was
typically around recognition orrecognized impact in the beginning,
over time, it became more impact.
recognition still matters.

(25:25):
Don't get me wrong.
I still believe I should be oncenter stage, you know, at the opera.
But.
it's more just knowingI've made a difference.
And recently over the lastfive years, I've begun to start
loosening my grip on that as well.
because even that's vainglory, youknow, even that comes back to, you

(25:47):
know, Mike's at the center, right?
And so I've begun to think, and thisis fairly recent, I've begun to think
about what really matters to me.
what is success is.
to fulfill that for which I was created.
Right.
Paul talks in Ephesians two about weare God's workmanship and the Greek

(26:08):
can be translated into we are God'smasterpiece, work of art, you know,
we are his magnum opus and we are,created in Christ Jesus to do good work.
That this is really importantand so does it matter that.
Even I know that that's happeningand I think and I'm not there yet.

(26:31):
Hear me clearly.
I am not there yet But what I'mwrestling with now is you know what lord?
I don't even I don't even need tobe aware What matters is that the
purpose for which you made me?
Is is happening and if you chooseto let me in on a little glimpse
of it great if you don't greatAnd and that goes back again that

(26:52):
childish prayer childlike prayermaybe childish too but that childlike
prayer during covet is It's, it's his.
A guy said something to me years ago.
He said, look, we have a 20 secondwalk on in God's cosmic drama.
Which means our part, which tous is all consuming, in the big

(27:16):
scheme of things, is not that much.
Now, it doesn't mean we'renot important, right?
We are created in the image of God.
We are incredibly loved by God.
We are redeemed by thedeath of Jesus Christ.
I mean, we are incrediblyimportant, but to Him.
And so that's, that's kind of,I guess that's kind of what I'm

(27:39):
being exercised on right now.
So related to that, because, you know,you and I would probably use similar
words like, you know, impact and Ido have a craving for recognition.
You know, it's not just that I wantto quietly go about doing things.

(28:02):
I, and I'm okay admitting this now.
I like for people toacknowledge that I've done some
Mm hmm.
So it kind of helps me keep it hopefullytempered at times, do you have at
this stage of your life, Do you havean awareness of your superpower or
you know what he created you for?

(28:23):
are you more, do you have more clarityin that or less clarity at this stage?
Yeah,
I actually could recognize andprobably spout some of your
superpowers maybe as well as you can.
But what do you believe are your
yeah,
what he instilled in you at the beginning?

(28:43):
So, so let me, let me, let me roll backjust to clarify something because you
said something that triggered for me.
I don't want anybody listening tothis to think somehow I've gone
totally Zen and I have none ofthese, none of these passions.
all that is still there, butit's moved out of the center.
I still want to achieve and Istill want to be recognized.
it's not the total drive

(29:04):
Exactly.
in me, it's like, and I'm not, I don'tlike walk in a room or get on the
phone with Mike I'm about what's in it.
This sounds a little selfish, but it's,you know, what's in it for me, how
does this, how does this impact me?
Yeah,
get me on his podcast so I could get outof, I don't think about that anymore.
And you knew me years ago, Idid, I thought about that years

(29:27):
ago and wasn't good or bad.
It was just where I was at, at that point,
yeah, and that's why I don't want anybodyto think somehow you outgrow these things.
Whatever your particular habitsare, are driven by needs that were
imprinted on you probably when youwere two, three, four years old.
Those don't go away, butyou learn to live with them.

(29:49):
You learn to live beyond them.
And I think that's the point.
So my superpower, it's funny.
I'm constantly comingback to the question.
Okay, Lord, what is the call on my life?
I think there are many calls,but I think there's a core
call the way he made you right.
And for me, this is what I would land on.
I think the heart of Mike is I havethis deep passion to see other people

(30:14):
released, taught, developed, Encouraged,comforted, whatever, so that they are
becoming what they were meant to be.
I think if you ask me what makes me tick.
on my good days, that's it.
have a, some people say,well, you're a pastor.
I, yes, but I don't like that term becausewhat it means in American, you know,

(30:38):
Christianity, it's a job with a pulpit.
It's like, no, a pastor is a shepherd,who equips, who, who helps others learn.
Better how to do whatthey're gifted to do.
That's what really cranks mytractor as we like to say in
the mountains of North Carolina
agree with that.
And the word Sherpa came to mind, youknow, someone who's a leader, a guide,

(31:02):
And, but kind of like the follow upquestion, this is where I've been putting
a lot of thought in myself becauseI think self awareness is probably a
power that a lot of us need more of.
It's huge
And that's part of the journey.
You know, when we subtitle this,the leadership journey, part of the
journey is to be aware, but with asuperpower to use the Superman analogy,

(31:24):
it can often become kryptonite.
What are some downsides that you seeto that calling gifting superpower,
whatever language you want to usethat you've sort of had to either come
to terms with or adjust or whatever.
I think the kryptonite that's builtinto my desire to see others prosper is

(31:45):
taking responsibility for the outcome.
I cannot, if I coach you and I loveyou and serve you and try to bring
you the best insight I possibly can,and you don't use it, that's on you.
But the kryptonite is no, no, no,wait, Tim, you didn't do what I said.

(32:05):
so we're kind of back to control.
I think that's part of it.
Or the alternative to thatwould be taking the glory.
Wow.
Look at Tim.
I developed that boy.
Well, you see everysuperpower has a kryptonite.
and I think frankly now for the jobpastors of the world, I think that's their
kryptonite very often is they're trying tolive on the outcome of what their service

(32:30):
creates and then they can't do that.
one of the things you and I discussedthis, I think in depth five years ago was.
because you'd been a pastor, youleft the pastoral role of church
planner and running a church.
And, you know, everybody thoughtyou had backslid and all, I highly
recommend people go listen to that.
It was a great conversationabout the state of

(32:53):
Yeah.
and things like that.
And it's interesting that you don't wantto use the word pastor, but truthfully
maybe disciple, you know, cause we,I think as a coach today's world, we
might be the closest thing to truly, youknow, spending time discipling people.
And some people might be upsetabout that, you know, whatever.

(33:14):
But you and I will often discussissues with what we call the church
in our current culture, et cetera.
What have you seen either positivesor negatives over the last five years
with what general call the churchand sometimes I'm wondering if we
call the church the wrong thing.

(33:34):
I don't even know if what we seethese buildings dotted all across, you
know, first world 501 c threes and allthat, you know, shady acres, whatever.
I don't even know if that technicallythe church now, but anyway, just,
Yeah.
a few thoughts on that
Yeah.
on and talk leadership
Yeah, a couple of quick thoughts.

(33:55):
there's a friend of mine here in NorthCarolina that we, we're very, very close,
and we will, we'll talk to each other.
We'll text each other on a Sunday morning.
He'll say, hey, are yougoing to the building today?
All right, and we do that on purpose,to make the point, sometimes we
say, no, let's meet for coffee.
sometimes, my wife and I'll stay home and,watch some guy on TV because it's just she

(34:16):
and I, but we need Cindy and Mike church.
So, let me go back towhen we all closed up.
Or most churches closed up,and ours did for a while.
We didn't panic, but everybodywas trying to do what they thought
was right, and trying to saveeach other as best they could.
So we closed up for a while, and Iremember during that time, I was on
the board of elders, and I asked therest of the elders, I said, guys,

(34:36):
are you listening to what God maybe saying to the church right now?
And they said, what do you mean?
Well, that's a problem right there.
But I said, are you sensing thatthere's a message to the church right
now that we need to hear we've beengiven this beautiful pause, right?
It's halftime and we get a chanceto really, look at the game plan.

(34:58):
they weren't, but I kept going around.
This is what I did.
I kept asking people when weweren't meeting, what do you miss?
Invariably, 80 percent of thepeople would say, you know what?
I just miss being with other believers.
I said, well, what about the sermon?
Yeah.
Yeah, I do.

(35:18):
Not really.
How about the music?
Yeah, kinda.
I mean, you see the point?
And so, I heard over and over and overwhat we miss is the being together,
the interaction with other people.
So what I've seen coming out ofCOVID is the church, most churches
just went on their merry way.
They just reopened and did literallyeverything that they were doing before.

(35:41):
They did not listen to whateverI think God was saying.
What I've begun to see is a, nota drifting from the Church, the
organized building church, but amovement, a conscious movement away
from the formalized and whatever.
You can be in high church, low church,whatever, but the programmatic thing

(36:03):
we do in the building, When we'resupposed to do it to a, I'm seeking
out an authentic relationship withanother brother or another three or
four brothers or a couple of couples,
Don't hear me just now.
You're talking small.
I'm talking about somethingthat's a revolutionary and it goes
back to my roots like you, Tim.

(36:23):
I was not converted in a church setting.
I grew up in the building,but I never heard the gospel.
I was converted by myself in my dorm roomat the University of Tennessee in 1974.
And immediately there were threeor four other people who had come
to Christ about the same time.
And they came from similarbackgrounds to mine.

(36:44):
They'd grown up in the church, butthey didn't know anything about
church, didn't know Jesus at all.
And I can remember one night we weresitting around and it was early.
I mean, brand new babes in Christ.
And one of the guys says,it's Friday night's coming up.
What do we do?
and what he was getting at was, we knewwhat pagans do on Friday night, but we had

(37:05):
no idea what does a follower of Jesus do.
So we began to meet together to readthe Bible, to pray, and to play cards.
That soon became this gathering ofcollege students just meeting together.
Now it turns out to do all kindsof wonderful New Testament stuff.
But we wouldn't have dreamedof calling it a church.

(37:26):
And those are my roots.
And I feel like I'm kind of coming back tomy roots of these deep, very accountable
relationships in faith, growing together.
And that, that I think is what I'm seeing.
And I find it refreshing and topunctuate that, I'm seeing what
looks like a rerun of the 1970sJesus movement in America today.

(37:51):
On college campuses, thousands andthousands of kids are coming to Christ.
They're being mass baptized,which is freaking out the church
hierarchy, because that can't be real.
And I think they're searching forthis thing that I'm talking about,
this authenticity of relationshipwith another brother, and of
course with Christ who is with us.

(38:13):
I've often wondered, and I thinkyou and I've had this conversation.
If, our structure was wrong,you know, I'm a systems and
structural guy at a Georgia tech.
So I'm like going, you know, I wonderif we're, first of all, this kind of
leads into a leadership conversationwe'll have in a minute, but I've wondered
if we've put people, mostly men inroles and it's almost an impossible.

(38:39):
success opportunity.
I met with a guy last week in Sarasotathat has been attempting to help pastors
get side gigs so that they're not poorall the time so that they could eat.
Mm-hmm
he says it's one of the hardest thingshe's ever done because they think,
you know, number one, that God willbe mad at him if they something,

(39:00):
you know, to chase after that,you know, filthy lucre, whatever.
And then number two, they also,some of them have boards that they
truthfully want to keep them poor.
so I do wonder if we'vegot a wrong structure.
Gloria and I are very similar.
Don't usually go to a lot of thesestructured, you know, building situations
and I still love some of the music to me.

(39:22):
It's a little bit more entertainmentin a lot of the ones we pop into.
I mean, I would love to hang out.
I think you're probably talkingabout Jonathan a second ago.
I would love
Yeah.
be able to hang out with you and Jonathan.
He visited us in Rapid City, by the way.
I don't know if you heard that
Oh, Awesome.
Yeah, he told me that.
I didn't know where youwere, but I knew he, yeah.
sat on the back of, yeah, the RVthere and visited and had church.

(39:43):
Truthfully, we had church, for, youknow, a couple of hours, just the four
of us, you know, his wife, Lori and him.
But something that I've, I saw, Iheard this term recently and it was
called the church industrial complex.
what I see, and this is maybe a littlebit looking forward, predicting,
and I don't like making predictions,but I'll just ask you about this.

(40:04):
actually see some large church, eitherorganizations or what we'll call
megachurches, that are beginning to formup, and a lot of the smaller disappearing,
and it's almost like what we see.
the large corporations in our countrywith, you know, large military.
I mean, we're starting toget some extremely large

(40:26):
organizations and then there's notanything kind of down below it.
what do you think, what are you seeingwith some of the, as things are moving
forward, does that make any sense oris there some different things that
Yeah.
I think there's, it's funny you talkabout being an engineer by training.
I'm a historian and theologianby training, so it colors my
thoughts, but I do think whenyou look at history, you see.

(40:49):
The constant bifurcation ofevery civilization, right?
You see, we talk about thehaves and the have nots.
we talk about the empoweredand the marginalized.
I mean, this has been going on from thebeginning and we're seeing it today.
this story plays out again andagain where it's a little bit of
the, Dialectic of, you know, theone point second point synthesis.

(41:15):
Right.
And so I think that's what we beginto see in sociological development is
that there's a bifurcation companies.
economies.
church.
The church is an industry.
I don't like to think that way,but I do think that the evangelical
industrial complex, it's very real.
And so we're seeing, again, we'reseeing the big churches and we're

(41:37):
seeing the little churches are kindof dying, but, the dialectic says.
That a new life willcome out of this tension.
And I think that's whatwe're seeing today.
I hope that's not too philosophicalfor folks to think about, but I
do think that's what's happening.
And I think, you know, we're seeingno disrespect to pastors, but I
think we're putting men into a role,primarily men, they cannot succeed.

(42:02):
Even the ones who are wildly successfulby what standards, congregational
size, how many sub campuses they have.
I don't know what metrics you use.
But even those, they'refalling apart on the inside.
There's the horrible moral failures,but there's also just the bad insides

(42:22):
of guys who go to bed at night weepingover They know they're missing the mark.
It's terrible.
I've told people for years.
I said guys, this is an unnatural rolethe church has never been meant to be
built on one person and you can saywell We have a plurality of elders
look all all animals are created equalBut some animals are more equal than

(42:43):
others to quote George Orwell, right?
I think we've created a non sustainableDynamic and we're beginning to see
it run its course and by the way,I'm not discouraged by that Tim
I'm encouraged that what comes outof it will be new and fresh and
vibrant and living once again Okay,

(43:06):
ago, Wayne Previtt, I think I mightbe interviewing him next week.
He's from Canada.
He now lives in Virginia.
he did some things with chaplaincyprograms up in Canada and he, he's done
like 4, 000 burials and things like that,but had an interesting conversation about,
was talking about what it's like living ina post Christian country, which Canada is.

(43:30):
And he says that what took 15 years inCanada took five years in the U S and
we're, we're heading that direction.
Maybe it's slowing,maybe it's speeding up.
I don't know.
I think that the place that peopleare going to get the connection to the
father, their spiritual nourishment,whatever, more in environments like

(43:52):
business as mission and places like that.
think this is a goodkind of transition into.
What all went on with business's missionover the last five years and what are
some things happening now and maybewhat are some things in the near future
that are going on with that movement?
So, I think to understand what'shappened the last five years in

(44:14):
business as mission, you have togo back a little bit further to
where the modern movement began.
It began as a strategic attempt toreach people in unreached people group
areas, restricted access countries wheretraditional missionaries couldn't go.
Business people could go,not fake business people.
not what we call business as visa,but real business people doing real

(44:37):
business, but also on real mission, right?
This integrated view of, oflife and faith and so forth.
And it, it grew, that was kind of thelate eighties, early nineties, it grew
and grew and then the pandemic hit.
What we discovered was, it was abeautiful thing because up until that
point, I would call that the, that firstpart, you know, multiple chapters, but

(45:01):
the first section of the book wouldbe called from the West to the rest.
Right.
It was, it was us lighterskin guys for the most part.
taking business into the hinterlandsto reach people for Christ.
And it was good.
It was a beautiful thing.
what we discovered when we said,all right, we're, we're going
to go virtual for this Congress.
We, you, nobody knew how long thepandemic would last, of course.

(45:24):
And so we're going to go online andinstead of having everybody flying
to Chiang Mai, which has been maybeThree or four or five hundred people.
we're going to go virtual.
Well, what we discovered is suddenlyit's like wow We're everywhere
and we're all different colors.
This is not a light skin help the darkskin America help the other country.

(45:50):
This is like it's literally everywhereand these folks are as different as
I know diversity is a hot word thesedays, but we were as diverse as you
could possibly imagine that peoplefrom pretty much every kindred tongue
tribe and nation to quote the scripturewere already engaged and they weren't

(46:11):
doing it because we went there.
They were doing it on their ownbecause God called them into it.
So we had this massive online celebrationof the true international, multi
ethnic, quality of the business'smission movement is beautiful.
It was kind of like one of those thingswhere God was just looking at us and just
kind of wagging his finger with a smile.

(46:32):
Like, see, I did know whatI was doing the whole time.
And so that now has given, that'sabout, that was sort of the
pandemic era of lots of virtualwork, which then proved two things.
One is, We're truly diverse andinternational, which is beautiful.
And the other is you don't haveto get on a plane to fly to Chiang
Mai, Thailand to get blessed.

(46:53):
God is using the virtuality of technology,in ways that I don't think any of us
would have ever believed possible.
that's changed the dynamic of howwe teach, how we mobilize, how we
equip, how we fund, how we coach.
everything.
We're still hopping on planes.
I mean, you still need to be with people.
I love seeing you on screen.

(47:13):
This is fun.
You and I are close enough.
We can do this, but 10 timesrather be sitting outside Theo,
you know, by the fire and justenjoying time with you and glory.
I mean, I'd far rather do that.
So, but we discovered that wecan go further faster by, you
know, all these different means.
So that, that's, Iguess, the second piece.
The third thing.

(47:35):
Which to me is really excitingis that it is time for the
next generation to take over.
This is not me retiring.
This is not the, you won't haveMike bear to kick around anymore.
this is me recognizing as anolder brother that the young
guys are no longer just kids.
They are young men, women, that Godis prepared and it's their turn.

(48:00):
And so I think that sort of transitionsfrom what I'm seeing to what I'm
looking at in the future is that thisis time for the next generation to step
up and they're doing it and they'redoing it in the most respectful way.
Somebody said the other day, he said,we're standing on your shoulders,
which is the most honorificthing I think I've ever heard.

(48:21):
You know, they're notsaying you did it, man.
You're the man that that's hollow.
But when they say we're standing on yourshoulders, like, That's as it should be.
And someday somebody should bestanding on their shoulder, just
like I'm standing on the shouldersof a guy named Richard Barr, who was
instrumental in me coming to Christ.
And so this is, the great transitionI see, beginning and, I see in the

(48:43):
near future, it really excites me
Yeah, it is interesting because I recallyou have never been one to shy away from
jumping on a plane and going somewhere,
too much.
So I think
Mike, you, you know, you, Delta, there'sprobably a plaque somewhere that Delta
has with your name on it, I believe

(49:04):
I used to think there should be.
there should be, but somewherealong the way, I don't know if
it was before then or right afterthen you started doing a podcast.
That obviously is part of this, I'llsay digital communication or this new
media or whatever words we may want to
Yeah.
Tell me about that and how that formed up.
was that a pandemic project?

(49:26):
it was.
so the, I got the idea, we call it,we originally named it BAM Stories,
but it became the Business's MissionPodcast and it's now, you know, like
you, it's on every platform out there.
It's not, here's a commercial we donot have near the listenership you
have, so if you're doing something,I love your podcast, but it was
a pandemic initiative, and it wasanother attempt to just Keep leaning

(49:50):
into what we felt like God was doing.
And so, and we built it around theidea of rather than teaching and
lecturing, we just tell people's stories.
I learned a lot fromyou in the early days.
and it's helped a lot to say,you know, let people tell their
stories, stories resonate.
And so that's going on.
We've got, we've launched a YouTubechannel called Businesses mission with
Mike Bayer and it's picking up a lot of,a lot of followers, a lot of subscribers.

(50:15):
And so it is a, there's multiple thingslike this third path initiative, as you
know, is an online education platform.
And it's meant to give people avirtual place to go study and learn.
They don't have to go to a university.
They don't have to go toa conference in London.
they can at least begin to grow andhone their businesses mission skills.
But.
Tim, this plays into something thatto me is really becoming important

(50:39):
and it's a leadership lesson.
It's a life lesson.
I feel like there's a transition that weas men, as people, I should say, because
I'm sure it's true for women also, thatwe move from being the doers to we go,
we start becoming the advisors, right?

(50:59):
But I think there's something beyondthat where we start becoming the B ers.
And what I mean by that is there's atime when you're out there doing it.
That was the me, you know, payingDelta's bills, flying millions of
miles with those guys, literally, tonow advising, trying to share with the
younger generation what I've learned,particularly where the landmines are.

(51:22):
Don't step there.
Then I kept thinking what'sbeyond that and a guy introduced
me to this about six months ago.
It's called being just being in itAnd I don't think this is for kids.
I don't think this is an earlystage I think it's a later stage
where just the who you are.
All right, you're talking about leadershipI think the who you are begins to eclipse

(51:45):
the what you say And what you do and sothat's To me where I, for me personally,
and some of the other senior guys in theband movement, that's what we're beginning
to learn is let them run with it.
They need us, but they don't need us todo, or they don't even need us to teach.
They need us to be who Jesus has made us.

(52:06):
one thing that's interesting about that,I saw an article, this Wall Street Journal
is one of these articles where I saw theheadline, but I didn't read it, I'm sure.
People never do that, it got methinking about things in the article
headline went something like this.
There was an investor tapping into50 and 60 year olds to lead startups
and businesses and stuff like

(52:28):
That was just the last couple of weeks.
yeah, yeah, yeah.
and it got me thinking, Ithink it feeds into this.
I think this is kind of how we'llmove towards landing the plane here.
But I was just thinking about, andespecially in, you know, talking
with you and then last week,Jim, and you just brought it up.
And I think this is a good,valuable thing to discuss here.

(52:50):
How do we, as we'll call it mature,leaders, business people, men of God,
whatever, whatever term or title wewant to add, I don't think any of
us are hung up with titles really.
How do we, support thegenerations behind us?
How do we raise them up?
How do we allow them tostand on our shoulders?

(53:11):
Yeah, I don't, I don't even know whatthe right terms are, but it seems as
if that's kind of one of our callings.
I don't even know if I have a questionaround that other than a statement.
So respond.
What, what say
Yeah.
it's a hard thing to put into words.
I think the hardest thing for the moremature leaders out there is learning.

(53:39):
Not when to retire.
I don't believe in retirement.
I mean, I'm still workingprobably as much as I ever did.
I love what I do, doing itfor different reasons, but I,
so don't think of retirement.
I do think there's a place forhanding off the baton, for, letting
the next generation take the batonand run the next leg of the I

(54:00):
don't think we do that very well.
Even guys like me at almost 70, it'd bevery easy for me to think about running
things, leading things, being the CEO.
I think that's the first lesson we need.
You know, if we've done a good job ofmodeling the way, if we've done a good
job of inspiring a shared vision, if we'vedone a good job of communicating values

(54:23):
and, Teaching them what leadership is andhow to lead and they've begun to see it
and grasp it Getting out of the way andletting them do it becomes a big part of
this process the other is knowing, youknow, when do you stop even advising?
When do I shut up and stop advisingbecause that's just another form
of bossing It can be when do I?

(54:47):
You know what?
They need me around.
They need my presence.
They need to know I'm there and theyneed to know they can come when they
need encouragement, when they needto be listened to, when they need
a safe place to kick around ideas.
I think that's my next challenge.
And I'm just literally, I'm just beginningto enter this phase of, Lord, show me

(55:10):
the difference Between even being a goodadvisor and just being a good man and
letting them come and get what they need.
Maybe that's a grandpa on me.
I don't know.
You're you're a grandfather.
You know, maybe that's the, you know,let them come and ask for what they need.
But I do think.
This, this article that you'rereferring to in the Wall Street
Journal is a great article.

(55:31):
It reminds me a little bit of thesilly movie called The Apprentice with
Robert De Niro and Anne Hathaway in it.
if you haven't seen it, I wouldencourage your listeners to watch it.
It's silly, but it makesa really good point.
And part of it is this old guy who'd beenin the role comes back as a temporary
employee and no one knows who he is.

(55:52):
But he's there and he turns, it'sa great story and a good ending.
But it really is the idea that, youknow, we, we need the old guys around.
Let's don't put them out to pasture.
You know, it's, it's not Soylent Green.
We don't send Edward G. Robinsoninto the room to listen to
music while he commits suicide.
I mean, we need the old guysaround and we've never quite
figured out what to do with them.

(56:13):
And part of that is they've neverfigured out what to do with themselves.
So learning that I think is huge.
I'm gonna circle back to something webrought up at the beginning and I think
this will be a good ending point for us.
I think for me, maybe for the wayyou're wired too, I'll, I'll make the
statement and then you can respond.

(56:34):
I need to be okay.
With not getting credit.
And I think one of the things I'vewanted, you and I brought, we discussed
it earlier, it might've been somedifferent languages that, you know, we
need the impact we need, we need to, youknow, if, if Mike mentored Tim and Tim

(56:55):
does something great, Tim's given theacceptance speech and need to say, I'm
here because of Mike bear, there's somedegree of truth to that, but, but if.
If Mike needs that, and I, I, I will admitthat I have needed that, I recognize when
I'm dealing with my grown children andothers that if I am thinking about how

(57:20):
they're going to mention myname at some point, it, it,
Yeah.
across with the right Attitudeand maybe it's that servant heart.
Maybe it's being a good steward.
I don't know There's probablysome spiritual things here too.
But I do think and it doesn'tmean we just go out to pasture.
I Think we're available and Ithink somehow there's this balance
between we need to make sure theyknow we're available and we're

(57:42):
Yeah.
but we're not crotchety about it.
Like well, it's about time.
You came and asked the question seeyou and What, what, what pops in
your mind when I, when I go on thatlittle mini rant that I just went
No, it's a great winning.
And part of it comes back to guys,let's don't, let's don't live in a
fantasy world where we're going to besuddenly delivered from all of these,
you know, substandard motivations.

(58:04):
They're not going to go away.
Stop looking for that.
You'll beat yourself up.
Forever.
the thing that comes to mind as you'retalking about that is if I'm sitting in a
cave on the mountain and waiting for thepilgrims to come to me, I think that's a
fool's errand to quote Shakespeare, right?

(58:24):
I need to be engaged.
I need to be among the people.
The word, even the word retire islike, you know, it's like leave
the field, get out, go away.
I'm not going away and I'm notgoing to come in and try to run
things, but I'm going to be there.
If I was a CEO of a company thatwas being handed over to my son, for

(58:46):
example, I would not stop coming in.
I'm not going to suddenly go awayand, and play the, you know, if you
want my wisdom, then you come to me.
That's a, that's arrogance.
Just remember the difference betweenadvising is I'm waiting to be asked,
or I'm seeking to be asked andbeing, it's just literally just that.

(59:09):
But to be, I have to be present.
Me being by myself in North Carolina,you know, The wise sage helps nobody.
So I've got to engage.
And I think that's the temptation.
I'm being, I'm using toomany words to express this.
It's a fairly new thought, as youcan tell, but the, the idea that

(59:30):
I'm, I got to stay connected.
Otherwise I'll die.
but the cool thing about that is that wecan stay connected, you know, businesses,
mission, podcast, seek, go create here.
And I, and I do recommendpeople listening in here.
mission podcast is a great place to go youknow, I know you listen to a lot of things

(59:55):
Mike, wouldn't you agree that audiencehas some similar characteristics, right?
Yeah.
They're all in different stages of theirquest of figuring out, you know, if
I'm called to business, which is alwaysthe first principle, then Lord, why?

(01:00:16):
And that's what the stories are about.
That's people how they discoveredtheir call and The different ways
that can express itself, but I thinkthat's they all have that in common.
Yeah.
so check all those things out.
We'll include links so podcast player,go over and listen to a few episodes and
subscribe to businesses, mission podcast.
Last question for you, Mike, kind offorward thinking, you know, what kind

(01:00:41):
of message do you have for, this iswhere we share the wisdom of the, I was
going to say old guy, mature guy, with,
It's all the same.
we could talk about issues andchallenges, but I know you're an
optimistic guy, I know we're lookingforward and excited about the future
and things like that, but, Justwhat's, a parting message you have

(01:01:02):
for people that might be listening in.
And most of them are probably insome form of a leadership role.
what do you want to share?
Wow.
so It's two words.
We win if you're seeking in any way, formor fashion to know and follow Christ.

(01:01:22):
And I'm not going to prescribe whatthat looks like, because it looks
different for different folks.
But if you're on that continuum, wewin, which is a optimistic statement.
It's a confident statement, but it'salso, it's back to where we began.
It's me taking open hands and saying,I'm not going to win the game.
You're going to win the game.
And I'm going to win with you.

(01:01:44):
Yeah, that's good, man.
Mike bear, always good to talk to you.
see what we could do and get a, you know,three, four hour episode in at some point.
I think that would
Let's do it.
I think every listenerknows they could do it.
It may not be good, but
do it.
But could do it.
Yeah.
I just listened to a five hourpodcast with Dan Carlin on hardcore

(01:02:06):
history and He was talking about,Alexander the great for five hours.
well,
incredible, conversation.
Thank you, Mike.
Thank you for helping us celebrate this,
you bet.
episodes for those that are listening in,make sure you jump down, make comments.
If you're on YouTube, love to hearyour thoughts on some of these things
we've talked about, agree, disagree.
That's fine by us.

(01:02:27):
If you're on your podcast,listening, make sure you subscribe
and share and all that helps.
We appreciate it and are just thankfulfor 300 plus episodes now Thank you all.
So thanks for listening in andwe'll see everybody next week.

All Episodes

About Our Guest:

Reasons to Listen:

Episode Resources & Action Steps:

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

Stuff You Should Know

Dateline NBC

On Purpose with Jay Shetty

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Embracing Risk and Letting Go of Control: Mike Baer's Leadership Lessons