The Fortified Life Podcast with Jason Davis - EP 193 | Steve Cuss | Author, Speaker, Founder of Capable Life - THE FORTIFIED LIFE PODCAST

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:13):
Welcome to the Fortified Life Podcast, where we learn how
to develop a dependency on Jesus in the marketplace.

Speaker 2 (00:20):
From the boardroom to the bathroom. God is with you.

Speaker 1 (00:23):
Here's our host, author, speaker, teacher, encourager, here a chief coach,
and my husband. It's the man they call mister forty five,
Jason Davis.

Speaker 3 (00:37):
Hey, what's going on everybody? Welcome back to another episode
of the Fortified Life Podcast where we are passionate about
developing a dependency on Jesus in the marketplace. I'm your host,
Jason Davis, aka mister Fortify. Every week we have the
opportunity to bring on authors, speakers, coaches, CEOs, those who

(00:57):
are also passionate about putting God back in business. It's
not different this week, ladies and gentlemen. I'm really excited
this week because our guest today, I'm a big fan
of his books and his material, and he's blessed a
ton of people. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome to the
Fortified Life Podcast. Steve Couss. He's the author, speaker, coach,

(01:20):
and a host of other things we'll get into. He's
got such a unique background, but Steve, welcome to the
Fortified Life Podcast.

Speaker 4 (01:28):
Jason, thanks so much. Yeah, it's a treat to be
with you.

Speaker 3 (01:30):
I appreciate it absolutely well, Steve, as we know, and
I love your bio because I have another friend of
mine that not quite a similar trajectory, but he just
has his combination of his experience. He's the only other
person that I know that has that sort of track record.

(01:52):
And so Steve, we know you didn't wake up in
twenty twenty five doing what you're doing, So give us
just an overview of how you got to do and
what you're doing today.

Speaker 4 (02:04):
Yeah, I love it. Yeah. So I grew up in
Western Australia, moved to America for Bible College to become
a pastor, with every intention of moving back home to Australia.
Ended up settling in America. But after Bible College, I
thought my next step would be some kind of a
church job, but kind of desperation, I was engaged to

(02:25):
be married. I needed work for one year while my wife,
well at the time fiance, was finishing up college and
I ended up doing a one year chaplain residency. It's like,
if you ever watch hospital dramas, you know that medical
students do a medical residency. What that doesn't show on
TV is that is ministry students can do a chaplain residency.

(02:47):
And that's really the fastest link to what I do now, because,
among a lot of other lessons I learned as a chaplain,
I learned how to notice anxiety. I learned how to notice.
And you might think that's a raw, obvious thing, like
when you're chaplain, you know people are dying and they're
at the end of their rope. You're catching people in

(03:09):
the worst moments of their life, So you might say, well,
how hard can it be to notice anxiety in that situation.
But what I was most surprised to discover was how
much my anxiety was coming into the room with me,
things like my need to say the right thing, my
need to make people feel better, so I would bring

(03:30):
my anxiety and not realizing I had any at all.
So that was back in the nineties, and I've spent
the rest of my life in I'm primarily in a
ministry field, teaching people how to notice and diffuse anxiety
reactivity in themselves and in their people. So I do
a ton of organizational consulting because you know, if you

(03:53):
take the average workplace, most people don't leave their jobs.
They leave their boss, or they leave the culture. You know,
the values are written on the wall, but then the
actual unspoken values uh right, actually behave. That's why people leave.
So I'm often brought in to help people notice and
lower reactivity in their work relationships. There's a lot more,

(04:18):
but that's me in a nutshell.

Speaker 3 (04:20):
Wow, Steve, that is uh that is powerful for multiple reasons.
I'm sure you know the data. I mean, anxiety, depression,
just mental health in general is being talked about more
than ever today. I'm curious, Steve, when you began to

(04:42):
recognize anxiety, Like what does it take? And we'll come
back to your book, your books here in a little bit,
but what was that process like, Like, how did you?
Oh man, you know what when I I worry a
little bit too much about what I'm going to to say,
just take us through that personally and then we'll get

(05:03):
to the impact part with your materials in your book.
But how does one even come to that conclusion on
their own?

Speaker 4 (05:12):
Right? I think I was given the gift of I
didn't come to the conclusion on my own. I was
given the gift of some pretty aggressive chaplain supervisors that
just showed it to me, whether I wanted to see
it or not, So I had a unique experience. I
guess I'd say this, Jason, you can't be in the

(05:32):
room with somebody who's dying without being affected by it.
It's not possible. I mean, if you're not affected by it,
you have no business being a chaplain. So the training,
they intentionally plunge you into rooms of trauma and death,
mostly so you can find what's going on under the

(05:53):
surface in your own life. Wow. So that's how I
did it. But you know most people, of course, they
don't do it that way. Most people they just keep
running into themselves. They get tired of the way their
coping mechanisms aren't working for them anymore. That's how most
people find it. I I I when I was a chaplain,

(06:16):
I didn't know I was anxious at all. I thought
I was a confident, well adjusted person. So yeah, for me,
it was the It was the intensive care in the
emergency room that introduced me to my fears, my coping mechanisms.
And I think once you see them, you can't unsee them. So,
for example, if somebody is a people pleaser, by the

(06:39):
time you've gotten to a certain age, people pleasing has
bitten you in the butt so much that just like
enough for others, they might be perfectionists and that tortured
goal of always getting it perfectly right is exhausting them.
So people usually call me when they've gotten to the
end of their rope. You know that the thing that

(06:59):
serve them well for a while is now eating them alive.
That's that's how I would say it.

Speaker 3 (07:05):
Wow, that's very insightful, there's Steve. And what I'm picking
up from you is environment played a big part. Obviously
God in the background too, but just the environment you're in,
the stimulus and the response. And you said something key, Steve,
and I know you're talking about in the specific context

(07:27):
of being a chaplain or in the hospital, that hey,
you can't see death and pain and not respond accordingly.
I think there's a thread there, Steve, just when it
comes to calling and purpose, or even if you're temporarily
working a job or you're in a career. I think

(07:50):
you left a little nugget for us, like what's your why?
Like why do you do what you do and why
are you working in this environment? I just wanted to
point that out because I said Wow. I didn't want
people to miss that, Like, hey, if you're not responding
to death, I question the type of care that you

(08:11):
would give. Just if you could touch on that for
a second, Steve, because I think that's something that a
lot of people don't take the time to really digest, Like, wait,
why am I actually doing this? What do you think
prevents us from maybe doing that level of introspection?

Speaker 4 (08:29):
Oh that's a great quest. I love that question. I
think humans always so Jason. I'm a trout fisherman. I
love I live in Colorado. I love fly fishing. I
love getting in a stream and trying to catch trout.
Trout are trying to eat the most food possible in
the laziest way they can. Like that's how you catch
trout is you're trying to figure out where the food

(08:51):
source is and if the food so, like in most
streams the river is flowing well too, it's too hard
for trout to be in the flowing part of the river,
so there going to be just in the quiet part
trying to get some of the food that's just washing
down like a conveyor belt. Humans are kind of like trout.
We are trying to get through life with the least

(09:11):
pain possible. And I think that's why some people don't
ask why because the answer can be terrifying. It can
be scary to understand why you do what you do.
And so I think most of us, and this was me,
we don't really ask why until we have to, like

(09:31):
the cornered wow. I know for me, You know, I
was in a formal program where every day, for ninety minutes,
the chaplain residents and the supervisors would sit in a
circle for an hour and a half and one of
us would end up being on the hot seat as
the rest of them peppitusts with questions about why did
you do that the day before? We'd have to give
a report for how we showed up the day before,

(09:54):
And it was all about us getting to our why,
getting to our core beliefs, getting to our coping mechanisms
that aren't helpful. So I was given the gift at
a young age of being showing my blind spots. And
once you see your blind spots, you can't unsee them.
So now the question is, well, what am I going

(10:15):
to do about it? Am I going to pretend it's
not there and cover it over? Or am I actually
going to move toward the light, you know, and move
toward truth and actually experience some freedom. I think the
reason we do this work is for relief. I think
relief is reason enough to do this deep digging is
most people I work with, their body does not believe

(10:37):
what their head believes about God. But their head believes
in freedom and peace, but their body is not free
or at peace. And I think that's a good enough
reason to do this work.

Speaker 3 (10:50):
M Wow, Steve, I appreciate you doing that. Breakdown it
just and you gave the nugget, so you gave you
other man of wisdom. He said that. I said, man,
Steve brings up a good point, and I won't forget
in folks. When you think of trout right.

Speaker 4 (11:07):
Think most food possible and the laziest way they.

Speaker 3 (11:11):
Can indeed, And I think that just you know, if
you talk about patterns and human behavior. So thanks for
breaking that down well, Steve. We've been teeing up here
a lot of the resources that you provide to organizations,
and you do a lot of that advice and wisdom

(11:31):
and coaching through being an author as well. So we'll
talk about your latest book, The Expectation Gap. But I
wanted to take it back a little bit with anxiety.
Your book Managing Leadership Anxiety. What's the central point of
that book and why leadership anxiety in particular?

Speaker 4 (11:54):
Good? Yeah, great. The central point of that book is
that what the world needs most is well leader, a
leader that is working on themselves more than any anything else.
Every one of us have worked for an amazing boss,
and most of us have worked for a terrible boss.

(12:14):
Like most people, if I said to you, you know, Jason,
what's the best person you've ever worked for, you probably
have someone in mind. You could probably tell me what
it was about them, and then you probably work for
someone would be like I hope I never worked for
someone like that. Again, I would say the difference between
those two people is one of them managers their anxiety,
the other one didn't. The best boss in the world

(12:36):
you can be exactly yourself around them. You can have
a bad day and they can absorb it. You are
safe to be you, and also you want to be
the best version of yourself around that person. The worst
boss in the world. Rules are for other people, not
for them. They wheeld their power against you rather than
serving you with it. In short, they up their anxiety

(13:01):
on people. And so the tenet of the book is
learn how to be well. Because there's a certain kind
of anxiety I call it leadership anxiety. It's commonly known
as reactivity. It's the only anxiety that's contagious, and so
we catch it and spread it to each other. And
so for a leader to learn how to notice contagious

(13:22):
anxiety and then be the one that diffuses it, that's
the kind of person that everyone wants to work for.
That allows your people to be well if you are well.
So the two dynamics we study in that book is
contagious anxiety and predictable patterns. So the two simple ideas

(13:45):
are there's one kind of anxiety that's contagious and that's reactivity.
And then over time, contagious anxiety forms predictable patterns. So
for example, in a staff meeting, it's always the same
person that uses the most wood every meeting, and it's
always the same people that have their own secret meeting
after the meeting. You know, those patterns are predictable and recurring.

(14:09):
And if a laita can learn to notice contagious anxiety,
notice when they're anxious. But also if a leader can
notice the spread of it, like the pattern, the predictable pattern.
They can be such a powerful agent of change and
health in their organization.

Speaker 3 (14:27):
My goodness, Steve, that is the folks, is why you
need to go go out and get the book for sure.

Speaker 4 (14:35):
Man.

Speaker 3 (14:36):
Just the way you break that down, Steve, that's huge.
One of what I what was really insightful, Steve, is
the way you start the book with the anxiety yap.
There's the I've heard this quote in many contexts, but
the statement from I believe is Victor Frankel, the between

(14:57):
stimulus and response, there is a space and the there's
the power to choose our response, and our response lies
our growth and our freedom. So just talk about not
just the quote, but even just that anxiety gap that exists.

Speaker 4 (15:12):
Yeah, I mean, the simplest way to notice that gap
is any excuse me, anytime you are responsible to do
something and you don't know what to do. That's a
pretty common experience for a leader. You know, most leaders
we have to grapple with the fact that we won't
always know what to do, and yet because we're the leader,
we're responsible to make the call. You know, COVID wasn't

(15:35):
so far ago that we probably remember it. Most of
us didn't know what to do when we were leading
through COVID. Well, that will make most leaders anxious. Okay,
well what now? What what are you going to do now?
Are you going to put up a pretense and act
like you know what to do when you really don't

(15:55):
and your people see through that. Are you going to
shy away from leading because it's too difficult, like it's
vulnerable to make a mistake in public? Yea? Or are
you going to do the deeper work and say, well,
I'm a human being, God has called me to lead.
I'm going to make the call right or wrong, and
I'm going to take responsibility for it, so you know anytime.

(16:19):
That would be one example when so on my team,
we would prescribe for my team, especially my newer team members.
They would have to go out and we would put
them in a situation where they didn't know what to do,
but they were the one responsible, just to get them
practicing that uncomfortable feeling of leading when you don't know
what to do. But the second example would be, you know,

(16:42):
like me when I was a chaplain and the other
residents of my supervisors giving me the gift of blind
spot knowledge. I think the most powerful question a leader
can ask their team is how do you experience me
when I'm at my worst? And how do you experience
me when I'm at my best. Now, that's a vulnerable

(17:03):
question to ask your team, And if you're a domineering leader,
they probably won't tell you the truth honestly by now.
But if you're a safe leader, they may tell you, well,
there's a gap between you at your best and you
at your worst. Well, that's your goal this year is
how do I bridge that gap so that me at

(17:23):
my worst isn't as Kenyon sized from me at my best,
that is more integrated that you know, it's not about
being perfect, it's not about always being well. It's about
being aware of my impact on others and managing that.
So that would be a couple of examples of the.

Speaker 3 (17:40):
Gap, Steve, As you were saying that I'm picking up,
it's not you don't have to be perfect. You just
got to be present that least kind of yeah.

Speaker 4 (17:53):
To be a human being. Yeah, So vulnerability is a
huge asset in leadership.

Speaker 3 (18:01):
Yeah, I love that, folks. If you want to learn
more about this, make sure you get your copy of
Managing Leadership Anxiety. Steve, where can people go grab a
copy of that resource?

Speaker 4 (18:13):
Yeah, they can get it anywhere they buy books, Amazon, Target,
Bonds and Noble. They can go to my website Steve
Customers dot com and that has all my resources, my books,
and my I've got a podcast and other things that
they can check out as well. I love it.

Speaker 3 (18:28):
And folks, guess what that was all the wisdom nuggets.
That's just one item. That was the first book. Steve's
got a more recent book called The Expectation Gap. Now, Steve,
here's what in my short time of knowing you, if
you teed up that much breakthrough on a topic like

(18:49):
anxiety and specifically leadership anxiety, I can only imagine where
this is going with the topic of expectations. So, Steve,
just like we did with Managing Leadership Anxiety, what's the
central theme of this book? And maybe building on the
work that you've done, why attack something like expectations?

Speaker 4 (19:14):
Yeah? Okay, So my specialty is the dynamics that infect
our relationships. That's what I do. In a nutshell, I
help you in all of your relationships, so your precious people,
your friends and family, but also you know, Jason, like,
how do you manage a very difficult human? Yeah, that's
a difficult thing to do. Another example would be how

(19:36):
do you manage someone who's in a very difficult situation
like when I was a chaplain, somebody dying or having
just learned to have cancer, or somebody who's homeless. You know, Well,
there's another relationship that is infected by dynamics, and that's
our relationship with God. So the expectation gap is actually

(19:57):
all about our faith relationship and the gap between what
we believe about God versus what we experience from God.
You know, I believe God loves me, but I struggle
to experience I believe God's with me, but I struggle
to see it. And so that book takes the same
relational dynamics and looks at our faith to show us

(20:18):
how we get stuck in predictable patterns in our faith,
just the way we're doing our human relationships, and how
can we fundamentally enjoy the God we believe in. So
that's kind of the heart of that book.

Speaker 3 (20:32):
I think the big thing, kind of like you did
in Managing Leadership Anxiety, Steve, is I always love how
you start things off, just like you started with the
anxiety gap. You talk about the false reality and the
expectation gap, and I think you just gave an example like, Okay,
I know God loves me, but I'm struggling with the

(20:56):
experiential nature of that. So when we think about the
false reality in that that first chapter, what helped set
the tone there?

Speaker 4 (21:05):
Yeah, that's exactly it. So reactivity contagious anxiety. It's the
only anxiety that's always based on something false, but your
body acts like it's real. So, for example, Jason, I
grew up in Western Australia. When I go home to
visit my family, my parents used to live in a

(21:27):
remote part of Australia, and I remember walking into the
guest room once, this is like three years ago, and
there was a reptile tail wrapped around the vacuum hose
in the guest reptile had moved in, and you know,
Ossie reptiles not to be messed with, correct. You know,
I can only see the tail, so it's either a

(21:47):
big lizard or it's a tiger snake. And one of
them is deadly and one's completely harmless. Well, that's what's
called acute anxiety. Anytime your body might be in danger,
or a loved one's body might be in danger. That's
what's clinically called acute anxiety. So my heart was racing.
I get a big dose of adrenaline right like, I'm

(22:09):
on a high alert to flush out this reptile. It
turned out just to be a big lizard. It was
like a two and a half foot long lizard.

Speaker 3 (22:15):
Oh wow.

Speaker 4 (22:16):
But you've had that same experience if you've ever had
to avoid a car accident, or if you've ever lost
a child in a playground. That's a cute anxiety. But reactivity,
it gives you the same bodily response when you if
you're a people pleaser, so like people pleasing is not
a real threat like a tiger snake is, but my

(22:39):
body is telling me it is a real threat. If
you're a perfectionist, making a mistake is not a real
threat like a tiger snake, but your body is telling
you it is a real threat.

Speaker 1 (22:50):
Wow.

Speaker 4 (22:51):
And so the heart of reactivity as a false belief
or a false reality, no wonder, we struggle to relate
to God because we're not in reality anymore. We're in
our own fiction. We're in an assumption. And this you know,
This has all kinds of implication. This is why we
get in fights with our spouse because where we forget

(23:11):
that she's our lover, she's now functionally like our enemy
in the moment where I have to be right or
I have to get the last word. Like we just
lose all sense of reality when we're reactive. Well, the
same is true of that faith. We lose sight of
God when we're reactive. So learning to notice when we're
in false reality it's a deeper work, but it's it's

(23:32):
fundamental to healthy relationships.

Speaker 3 (23:34):
M wow, Steve, thank you for that, that breakdown of
the false reality. It shapes so much of how just
everything our perception, the responses, and the triggers. I appreciate
that breakdown Steve. Again, just like managing leadership anxiety, where

(23:58):
can people go get a copy of the Expectation?

Speaker 4 (24:01):
Yeah, yeah, same, Yeah, it's it's published anyway you buy
your books, you get you know, I've got the benefit
of a weird last name, so you can search my
name and find find my books and stuff as well.

Speaker 1 (24:12):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (24:12):
Absolutely, Before we go, Steve, you have a podcast, a
show of your own, uh, and you've kind of given
us some sneak Peaks Today, but tell us about your podcast.

Speaker 4 (24:25):
Yeah, thanks, thanks for asking. It's called Being Human. It's
on the Christianity Today platform or channel, and it gets
into all of these dynamics. So we help you notice
the dynamics that infect your relationships, and we talk about
those types of relationships, you know, your relationship with yourself,
with your people, with difficult people, with God. So it's

(24:48):
all about being human sized. Uh, And that's kind of
a code word because when we're reactive, we no longer
are human sized. We tend to get bigger than human
to cope or we tend to go more than human
to survive. So it's helping people relax into God's presence
by being human size. So that's yeah, Being Human is
the name of the show.

Speaker 3 (25:09):
Love it, Love it folks. Make sure if you like
Steve and if you like what you've heard, go get
a copy of Managing Leadership Anxiety, Go get your copy
of The Expectation Gap, and make sure you support Steve
and his show. It'll be some life changing wisdom that
he shares. Steve, when you think about we're kind of

(25:31):
nearing the midyear, which is outrageous, but at the time
of the recording of this podcast. But Steve, as we
kind of hit the tipping point of the year, what
are you excited about maybe the back half of twenty
twenty five?

Speaker 4 (25:49):
What a great question. I mean, I everywhere I go,
I feel like I see God is doing something new.
So you know, I'm in my fifties now, I've been
a follower of Christ for all what almost coming up
thirty seven thirty eight years. I feel like there is

(26:11):
kind of a revival. Most of my workers with churches,
and almost every church I'm working with, there are more
baptisms than ever, more people come into faith. I think
that's what I'm most excited about. And then on a
personal level, you know, we as an organization are starting
to build more experiences for people, so we host intensives

(26:32):
here in Colorado. But October we're doing our first Communo
walk in Spain. People who want to do this work
on a Communo journey, and I'm pretty pumped about that.

Speaker 3 (26:44):
Very cool, Steve. I don't have all the details, and
I can tell you I'm excited just on the highlight
that you've given. So thank you for sharing the or
Steve is I would love to stay with you another
three hours but folks, we can't do that. Steve's got
to go and he's got to finish impacting lives. But Steve,

(27:05):
you've given information about your books, website, social media. What's
the best way for listeners to connect with you and
your content.

Speaker 4 (27:13):
Yeah, they can go to stevecoswords dot com. I've got
a free couple of video courses on there they can take,
they can join I'd send a newsletter of tips every
week and they can join that or chase any of
my resources, or if they want me to come out
and help them with their organization, they can, you know,
submit an inquiry through there.

Speaker 3 (27:32):
I love it, And folks, don't you worry. Steve's given
a lot of nuggets of wisdom and resources. Will have
his books, the podcast, and his website all in the
show notes. So don't you worry. You you will be
able to interact with him and his content for sure. Well, Steve,
I have thoroughly enjoyed this. Thanks for stopping by here

(27:54):
on the Fortified Life podcast. Cannot thank you.

Speaker 4 (27:57):
Enough, Thanks so much. Thanks for having me on.

Speaker 3 (28:00):
For sure. Well, folks, you know how we leave things
here on the show. Don't compartmentalize your faith in the marketplace,
and remember, from the boardroom to the bathroom, God is
with you. We'll see you next time on the Fortified
Life podcast.

Speaker 2 (28:19):
Thank you for listening to the Fortified Life podcast.

Speaker 1 (28:22):
You can catch us live on Wednesdays at eight thirty
pm Eastern Time and on demand.

Speaker 2 (28:28):
Check out fortifiedlifepodcast dot com for more details. So learn
how to live out your faith in the marketplace.

Speaker 1 (28:34):
Grab a copy of Jason Davis's book Fortify Being Rooted
in God's Plan

Speaker 2 (28:39):
For work in Business, Available on Amazon

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The Fortified Life Podcast with Jason Davis - EP 193 | Steve Cuss | Author, Speaker, Founder of Capable Life

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}The Fortified Life Podcast with Jason Davis - EP 193 | Steve Cuss | Author, Speaker, Founder of Capable Life