How Leaders Think with Kenny Lange

Chris Young [00:00:00]:
Do you think Jesus was a good accountant? Like, wow, I never really thought about that. I know he was loving and patient and merciful and graceful. Do you think he would. Yeah, I think he would have been a fantastic accountant because he invented numbers. If he's given someone the image bearing quality of being a good accountant, the gift, training, education, and developing that gift, not just for the sake of making more money, but for the sake of making a better disciple, a better human.

Kenny Lange [00:00:29]:
Welcome to the How Leaders Think podcast, the show that transforms you by renewing your mind and giving you new ways to think. I am your host, Kenny Lang, and with me today is the Chris Young. There's many of them, but there's only one of him. He is the president of the Good Place Institute, which is in addition to doing good work, it's just a really cool title and excellent marketing, as you'll see on his coffee mug later on. They are. He is also a co author of the book the Good Place for Organization. Wherever fine books are sold, it's right there. If you're on video, you see this.

Kenny Lange [00:01:04]:
If not, you're just like, what just happened? I heard something false, but go, go check that out. It is a leader's guide to stewarding good place organizations. He spent over 20 years researching and developing biblically based approaches, methods and resources while leading and helping others build and steward for profit and nonprofit organizations. He holds a bachelor's in science in Business management from I. Man, I. I'm not even able to say this. I should have asked you this, but. Keisha.

Kenny Lange [00:01:35]:
Yeah, See, I told you the sneeze was going to come into it. Keisha, God bless you. In Buffalo, New York, y'all just going to have to Google or. Or chat GPT that because I. I didn't do it. I was service. Yeah. Also has a master's of arts, so he's a man of science and art in religion from Trinity International University, part of their Trinity Evangelical Divinity School.

Kenny Lange [00:01:59]:
He is married to his wonderful wife of 25 years. Congratulations. And they have two adult children, Carson and Tyler. Welcome to the show, Chris.

Chris Young [00:02:08]:
Thank you very much, man. It's an honor to be here. I appreciate you allowing me to be on the show. This will be fun.

Kenny Lange [00:02:13]:
It will be a blast. And hopefully we can have more fun with more words that are. Are difficult. It's like when you listen to a sermon and they're like. And they journeyed to hard word and met other hard word. Like just skip right over it. It's like, I don't know how to say this in the Greek. My tongue wasn't built for this.

Kenny Lange [00:02:34]:
Well, tell me Chris, what is on your mind?

Chris Young [00:02:37]:
There is so much on my mind. It was hard to narrow it down actually. But we'll, we'll see, we'll see what we can do.

Kenny Lange [00:02:44]:
Um, yeah, we'll have a mini series with you.

Chris Young [00:02:47]:
One of the haunting things that's been on my mind for years and years and years is, could probably sum it up in one word and the word is purpose. And so what's, what's been on our minds lately? What's the, what's the purpose? Or more specifically, I believe that there is a creator of the universe. And you could get into the intelligent design theory or argument if you will, but there's a creator of the universe that created everything with design for a purpose and that includes work and organizational life and leadership. So what's on my mind, quite honestly and constantly is, hey, Creator of the universe, God of the Bible, the triune God of the Bible, what's your purpose for work, for organizational life and for leaders of organizations?

Kenny Lange [00:03:36]:
I think you're right. We're going to need a miniseries. Even on this narrow, this, the narrow topic of, of God's purpose in work. There's so much that I would love to, to dive into in part because I, I've also been latching on to that term purpose. I've even used it in a lot of my marketing, specifically with like non profits gravitate towards this a little bit easier. But there's a lot of for profits out there that I would say are purpose driven. But it's. How, how do we translate that purpose one, did we get clear on it? Have we aligned it with what we're doing and then have we fully integrated it into every action and decision we're taking? But how do we turn that into performance and to bring this back into what, what is, I would say inherently a theological discussion about, well, people thinking that nonprofits or, or people thinking churches or just people thinking biblically centered, faith centered organizations.

Kenny Lange [00:04:37]:
They're full of purpose, which is to honor God. And somehow that means that we are, we've mistakenly believed. It means to be lazy hippies who just hug on everybody. And I'm sorry, I'm start, I'm starting off. I'm coming in hot. Yeah. And if you have anything that you would like to say in response to what I just said, you can email me@chris youngoodplaceinstitute.com but talk to me about what, what are you noticing obviously in your bio, it Mentioned that you've been, you've been doing not just anecdotal observation, but really research on this sort of topic for a while now. What, what are you seeing as the current thinking we're prevailing wisdom around God's purpose in, in work and in building scalable, profitable, well run organizations?

Chris Young [00:05:35]:
Obviously, certainly I'm not alone in that thinking. I mean there's a couple people here, so I work for Good Place Institute, as you shared, that's actually owned by Good Place holdings and I've been with that company at Al for 23 plus years. And there's a couple people, gentleman by the name of Dale Bissonnet, who's our CEO, gentleman by the name of Scott Myers, who's our chair. And over the course of those 20 plus or even more, those two individuals are 15ish years my senior. So friends, mentors, colleagues and all of that and leaders here at our organization. But yeah, and there's a lot of people in the faith at work movement, if you will, over decades who've been looking at this and studying this and really looking at God. What do you care about in the workplace? What's some prevailing thought? I think there's waves of thought. So one way, one potential way of describing this that actually came from a friend of mine that I was talking with was, you know, and I don't know exactly when this occurred or the decade in which it was, you know, the onset of this was.

Chris Young [00:06:38]:
But there was a wave of like, hey, if you're a faith based kind of leader that owns an organization, be generous. And maybe this happened. This was one of the, the owner of one of our organizations under the Good Place umbrella, founded the organization 1965 and did great work, dedicated the company to Christ. And they, but the prevailing, I think thought at that time was be generous and they would make money, do good business and make money and give it away, quote unquote, to make the world a better place to missions, to nonprofits, to churches, to parachurch organizations. And wow, I think we saw in the 60s, 70s, et cetera, huge mission sending huge growth in parachurch organizations, et cetera, et cetera, which is wonderful, right? And then potentially the next wave. And I was trying to put words to this and I'll call the next wave and I don't know when it started. I think we still live in it, we'll call it the sprinkling wave, where man, we kind of still believe in this sacred secular divide, which could be a whole nother topic we talk about. Right.

Chris Young [00:07:41]:
And so hey, continue to be generous. But you know what, and we heard this from churches and pulpits and things like. And let's also be evangelical. Let's also try to figure out, hey, how do we share our faith at work and how do we be a good Christian at work? And which is wonderful and it's awesome. I would say potentially it's also partial and it's kind of sprinkling Christianity or I say sprinkling some sacred sauce on top of a secular worldly business model that still defines success as making a lot of money. And if I may then get into the third wave, and I'm hoping that this is becoming the prevailing thinking in the kind of faith at work movement, especially faith based leaders of organizations, is a more holistic, integrated kingdom mindset of not just leading like Jesus or modeling the king as a leader, but also designing your organization to look like his kingdom.

Kenny Lange [00:08:39]:
Yeah, there's a lot to explore there. By the way you kept saying sprinkle. I was, I was ripe for like a Methodist joke and I left that alone. That's okay. I'm good at generating emails from people who don't like it when I start picking on different denominations. My church, for instance, did not like it when I say, said I grew up Baptist and then I got saved. But the, it's okay. They just submerged their, their woes.

Kenny Lange [00:09:07]:
But so I, I definitely can see that and I've seen, I've interacted with different businesses that do have that sort of. Okay, we're just, we're going to live like we'll, we'll run solid thing. We're not going to do anything unethical. But maybe we're not overtly faith based or, or centered or anything like that. We just, it's deeply personal. But we're going to be an organization that is generous and makes an impact on the community, which is wonderful. Nothing wrong with that. That's absolutely, I think, biblically oriented.

Kenny Lange [00:09:36]:
The, the sprinkling piece, which has been more of the, I'd say more of the approach methodology that and wave that I've grown up under, I've seen and this could just be, I don't know if millennials or. I'm an elder millennial, I don't feel like one, but we're cynical on, on some stuff. So in that regard I'm more Gen X of. Well, that's like putting a band aid on a bullet wound. Like it's just, it's a half measure and, and it comes across as inauthentic and, and somehow lacking in Integrity from the strictest definition of the word, integrity of just like to be one, like what you say and do or tightly integrated is like I'm going to do all this. And then like I said, sprinkle some Jesus on it. If anybody out there, if you're listening this far, you're, you probably know who Tim Hawkins is as a phenomenal comedian, but he talks about prayers that we make over like food that is terrible for us. It's like, dear Lord, change this Cheeto to a carrot on the way down, put a hedge of protection around my colon.

Kenny Lange [00:10:47]:
And it comes across that way, which I think has maybe turned some people off from going all, all in on faith being a, a faith centered business. Is that something you found? Maybe it's uniquely my experience, but is there a flaw in that approach that makes you think, hey, this shift towards make the business not just be kingdom minded, but a picture of a heaven on earth, if you will, example of the kingdom at work. I know, I said, well that's good.

Chris Young [00:11:22]:
But I'll take an approach where. And this is the majority of the people I speak with speak with a lot of Christian CEOs, faith based leaders of organizations. And they're honestly, they're very well intentioned. The, the generosity wave, the Christian sprinkling wave. I mean they were looking for the right things to do. And if I may say this, that a lot of the holistic integration of work doesn't come from Sunday morning or whenever you hear your preaching, so to speak. And so this is where the infiltration of the sacred secular myth enters into our world. There's I think, a decently famous book called Loving Mondays.

Chris Young [00:12:04]:
And the idea was how do you take your faith from Sunday to Monday? And it was one of those books where you're like, it was a wonderful book and we were sad that it had to be written because if you're, you are taking your faith from Sunday to Monday, you're either leaving it behind or you don't have one, or you're bringing what you know of it into the marketplace. So I would say this. Most people, almost 100% are very, very well intentioned. But we've allowed, I call it learning and unlearning. This is stuff we've learned, well intentioned tradition perhaps, and are we willing to unlearn? And we've, we've kind of mixed the worldly success criteria with what we believe would be biblical success criteria. And sometimes we confuse the, the great commission of making disciples with just making deciders. And maybe we don't realize that the workplace where we spend the majority of our waking hours is a fantastic discipleship environment from a holistic discipleship point of view that we are all, whether you believe or not, we're all made in God's image. You know, the soft skill images that we, that we, you know, pretty much think of.

Chris Young [00:13:20]:
When we think of an image of, of God, we think of those soft skills. In Christian land, these are the fruits of the spirit, you know, and we should be discipling the love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, self control, you know, those kinds of things. What about the hard skills? What about. I often ask, do you think Jesus was a good accountant? They're like, oh, wow. Do you think Jesus was smart? Like, wow, I never really thought about that. I know he was loving and patient and merciful and graceful. Do you think he would. Yeah, I think he would have been a fantastic accountant.

Chris Young [00:13:49]:
Cause he invented numbers. So if he's giving you quote unquote, and bear with me for a little bit here, if he's given someone the image bearing quality of being a good accountant, the gift, hey, training, education and developing that gift, not just for the sake of making more money, but for the sake of making a better disciple, a better human. It's a more holistic view of discipleship and we get to do it in the workplace. It's a fantastic way to extend God's grace in the workplace. Right. And so anyway, I could go on and on and on, but I'll pause there and.

Kenny Lange [00:14:25]:
Yeah, well, I love that example because I also go to. And I'm probably stealing this from. Maybe it is from. Stolen from Tim Hawkins. But I think about this as Jesus was a carpenter. It's like, what was his return policy for products? Like, did he ever have like a wonky chair? Like Jesus, I got this home and I'm just kind of like wiggling. And he's like, you ever think like the dirt underneath it is unlevel? Like, what sort of conversations was he having? Were all of his right angles perfect? You never know. I'd like to believe that they were.

Kenny Lange [00:14:56]:
But I want to go back to something that you mentioned, which is, is this, this notion or of good intent well intended? And I certainly think we should be well intended. See everybody, there's the mug. I told you I was making an appearance. You should have it say like the good sip or something like that. Like, there's an evolution of the brand on, on merchandise. But I, I run into so many people, Christians and non Christians alike, that. But if they are more let's say more heart in their approach to life and, and leadership and, and business. And I'm going to include non profits in business too, because nonprofit's just a tax status.

Kenny Lange [00:15:38]:
It is not a business or growth strategy. And more and more people need to hear and understand that. But good, good intentions are not enough. Like, sure, they're essential, but you didn't, you didn't take it far.

Chris Young [00:15:49]:
Jealousness without knowledge, is that where you're going?

Kenny Lange [00:15:51]:
Hey, hey, for me it's, it's not just been troublesome, but also as a person of faith, as a, as someone who says, yes, I am also a member of this community. And, and just like any sort of business that becomes large, that I teach organizations, it was like your customer service, your frontline people represent the company to your end user or your customer as much as the CEO. Because like when I call Amazon or, or go to Walmart or whatever, like I need to make a return, something's not going right. I'm not demanding to meet with the Walton family to address my issue. Certainly they would have the authority to make whatever decision they need to. I'm talking to this person and this person in this moment is representing the number one in person retailer in the world known as Walmart to me. And it becomes troublesome when I, when I see brothers and sisters out there stopping short by just good intentions. So I want to cheer them on and I want to say, hey, that's great, you got to start there.

Kenny Lange [00:16:59]:
But you didn't take it far enough in the pushback I often get. And this is where, and I know we're not trying to venture into the land of, of, of church building and leadership, but I'll wrap on this note, is that I get pushback from people. I've literally had people leave my church of the push I have towards taking our intentions, our purpose and, and saying let's make this actually show up in what we do and do it with excellence. That just being, just feeling, not being, but just feeling loving is not enough. And I'm curious for you, as you see the people who are sprinkling, they're well intentioned, right? And a lot of our future leaders, they've grown up in these organizations, right? How do you see us making that transition without people feeling like they're sacrificing the soft skills of Christ that you mentioned and not just be loving, caring, compassionate, empathetic, sort of wholehearted, but also being that great accountant, that great carpenter, that great leader, that great business mind, that, that financially shrewd Individual who knows how to negotiate a deal and come out ahead and build something that endures. Well, how do you help and talk about that transition? Because I'm finding more and more people struggle with either believing that that's the right thing to do or they want to do it, but they've never seen it modeled. So they struggle with how to make good on it.

Chris Young [00:18:34]:
One great question and great point. I will attempt to answer that maybe in a couple different ways.

Kenny Lange [00:18:40]:
Please.

Chris Young [00:18:40]:
One is the practical application, what I would call like the pillar. Some pillar, teachings of the. Of God and His Word. The first or a. I wouldn't say the first, because I want to prioritize here. One of them. We already mentioned the sacred secular mythology. If you read through the Bible, which we don't need to, you know, get through all of, you know, all the verses that back this up.

Chris Young [00:19:01]:
But you know, God cares about everything. Everything is sacred. And so we can back that up. But I'll move on to the next one. Everybody's heard of the Lord's Prayer. Our Father art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. What's the next? Thy kingdom come. And I, I like to ask.

Chris Young [00:19:17]:
Well, everybody's hurt. Most everybody's heard of that. Thy kingdom come. I ask, well, where. Well, the next next few words is well, on earth. Excellent. When is it? Now or then? Well, both. Okay, so so part of our.

Chris Young [00:19:30]:
Yeah, boom, right? A little bit. But, but so, so part of our job description at least as people who believe and profess Christ. Right. And follow him, we have the unbelievable honor of co laboring with him and each other to bring about more and more of his kingdom right now, right here on earth. So that's great. And Chris, great. That's great philosophy. I've heard that.

Chris Young [00:19:54]:
Okay, so practically speaking, so here's a question. If your business or your organization was in the kingdom, how would it operate? And so this is one way of viewing this. Like, hey, do you think we'll be working in the kingdom to come in heaven? Like, oh, wow, I never thought about that. I think so maybe we don't need some jobs because of this or that, but I think so. Excellent. So when, when the sprinkling isn't needed anymore, which it's needed now, by the way. It's still needed. We still need to share Christ verbally.

Chris Young [00:20:26]:
And it's great to have a chaplain and it's great to pray and it's great to have understand how to engage in a conversation in a way that's whimsical and meeting people where they're at. And all of those are wonderful, wonderful things. But when those things aren't needed anymore and your business is in the key now, what does it look like? How does it operate? How are people treated? How well do they do their work? How well, I'm going to get to your. I love your point. The Walton Walmart story. How well does the frontline worker align and is integrated to the total, the collective purpose of the organization? And I know this isn't a commercial for Good Place Institute, but the Good Place Institute, the way we like to describe it, is a why, what, how rhythm. Very simply, what's the why? It's. It's God and his Word, glorifying God and bringing flourishing to creation and humanity.

Chris Young [00:21:17]:
That's the why. Well, what's the what? Well, what indicates that we're fulfilling that why? We have three main aims. So I'm moving forward. Hey, how do you do this? Like you said, how do you do this? How do you bridge that gap? Right. A potential way. And it's not the only way. There's other ways, but we're putting forth a way. What's the what are those success criteria or kingdom success criteria that indicate we're fulfilling God's why or God's purpose for organizations? We think he cares about people, or I should rephrase it, we think his word demonstrates and the metanarrative of his word says he cares about people and places and he cares about what we would call economic regeneration because that's the currency we need to build up more people and build up more good places.

Chris Young [00:22:03]:
So the idea of, the idea of people, people flourishing, experiencing. We like this word, shalom. They experience purpose, fulfillment, meaning harmonious relationship with God, harmonious relationship with each other and themselves and harmonious relationship with creation in our context, with the work they do. Right? And then building up good places where we work and live. How do we influence people to steward well that which they've been given or to bring about more kingdom characteristics in our own workplace, but also for our customers and our suppliers and the associations we're a part of in the geographic community we're a part of. How do you do that through the organization and the products and services you make and the skills that you build up. Right. And then there's the how to how do we do this? How do we align purpose to every person in the organization? And so again, I don't mean to make this a commercial, but we've assembled and designed what we call the Good Place Organization operating system.

Chris Young [00:23:02]:
So there are building Blocks of an organization that if you put them in place, allow you to achieve kingdom success criteria and fulfill God's purpose for work and business and organizational leadership. So that was long winded. I apologize for that. But hopefully that it's a way of connecting the dots for your question, I think.

Kenny Lange [00:23:23]:
Yeah, man, there's, there's so much to, to unpack in what you said and some of it again, I, I, I love bringing pretty much every guest I, I bring on is smarter than me. That's why I like talking to them because I learned something. This is a strangely timely for me and just some things I've been thinking about my own business. But you said something that, that I want to go back to and if, if we're, if, if we are to le. If our business, our organization institution were in the Kingdom, right? Like not, not here on earth as we exist now. So how would it operate? I don't know why like it, it sounds dumb because I think about this stuff a lot too clearly. Not, not on the level that you do. Which is why I need to like read the book and do all the things is I started thinking and this could be some freedom for people because I'm finding even some freedom just in this initial thought is well, would I be working myself to death? Would I be, would I be moving at a frenetic pace? And there's fine to have a sense of urgency because purpose drives that.

Kenny Lange [00:24:29]:
But, but driving from a, oh, somebody's going to be first to market, somebody's going to be this, somebody's going to do this. There's not enough pie to go around right? The, the, oh, if I, if I, if it's meant to be, it's up to me, which is, is a method of thinking like it sounds cute and funny and like, oh my gosh, what a great little saying. But it's infiltrated my own thinking and something I deal with quite a bit is if it is meant to be, it's up to me. And no longer am I trusting in God. Now I'll get up in the morning and I'll read my Bible and I'll pray for wisdom on how to work hard and what people to talk to and what podcast guests to have or whatever. Like, lord, please bless. It almost gets into blessing the Cheeto on the way down. Sort of thinking is like, lord, I'm just going to work my face off with little to no trust in you, but I'm going to ask for you to bless all of my dispersed and displaced effort in the name of my own sort of glorified.

Chris Young [00:25:25]:
Jump in there real quick, Kenny, because that, that's a great.

Kenny Lange [00:25:27]:
I would love for you to stop.

Chris Young [00:25:30]:
This might get us off on a tangent, but we mentioned the Lord's Prayer and it was. We were sharing in another group. I'm in kingdom come. Let's just stop right there. And whether you're an individual or whatever role you play in life or roles you have in life, or you're a business leader or where do you really want God's kingdom? Or to your point, do you really want him to bless your kingdom? A lot of times, I'll have to admit, you know, darn. I really, I really would like him to bless my idea of what the kingdom looks like. And that's why we kind of set out, you know, researching, you know, God, what's your purpose for business? And we always say, hey, work is a means of grace. Again, one of those main aims.

Chris Young [00:26:11]:
We would say, hey, how do we. In a business setting, how do we provide the opportunity and encouragement for people to grow to their full potential. Their full potential vocationally, spiritually, financially, physically, emotionally, psychologically, relationally, all those HR wellness categories that make up the whole person. Right. It's like, hey, how do they have shalom? Or how do they flourish and thrive in each of those areas? And as an organization, what's our influence, contribution, responsibility, perhaps to them? Flourishing, especially as they're working here, that could be. I think it is a significant characteristic of God's kingdom. First of all, holistic flourishing. Holistic shalom.

Chris Young [00:26:59]:
Right. And so how do we bring that into again, the place where we spend the majority of our waking hours?

Kenny Lange [00:27:05]:
Board. We need a longer time. We're going to have to turn this into Joe Rogan experience with three hours. Yeah. Welcome to part four of the trilogy. But I Can you elaborate on, and you've. You said this a couple times, on how the Good Place has started to define God's purpose and work. And he mentioned that it's grace.

Kenny Lange [00:27:28]:
And that's not. I don't think that's a word frequently associated with work, work ethic. Now, is it sometimes associated with leadership? Sure. Like we've got to, we've got to give grace here. I would think even people who, who would not claim the, the that Christ is at the center of their business or, or to. To be a, a believer or of some sort, they would still have an understanding of, of grace, of sort of like not getting what it is that. Or is getting something you don't deserve. It was a mercy is not getting something you did deserve.

Kenny Lange [00:28:04]:
Can you elaborate on what do you mean by part of the purpose of, of work is grace?

Chris Young [00:28:11]:
Great question, because I'm with you. Having work and grace in the same sentence is a little bit foreign, right? But again, I like your like tights. I like your, your definition of grace. Getting something you don't deserve. So let's, let's just start there. Work. So this is a good place. This is what kind of we would espouse or try to anyway.

Chris Young [00:28:30]:
Work has an opportunity to work on you, in you and through you. Work in the workplace community, right on you, in you and through you, to make you something you're not, something better, something that you could never become on your own. So again, not to over spiritualize that, but in another context, salvation. That's what Jesus provides us. The Holy Spirit works on us, in us and through us. But Jesus provides us something better. In this case, a rekindled, a restored relationship with him through his life, death and resurrection, that kind of thing. And he provides something better for us that we could never achieve or earn on our own.

Chris Young [00:29:16]:
So again, that's the spiritual salvific side of grace. But how about the practical side of work being grace? Again, a lot of learning comes through work. A lot of growth comes through work. Whether it's work at a vocation or working out, physically working out. It's work and it's making you're a pump and iron. It makes you better, right? But the workplace community has that opportunity to be that grace and make you better, make those around you better, make the business better, make the, make the industry better, make the whole world better through the work that we do.

Kenny Lange [00:29:51]:
Right. I, I love the, the on in and through you sort of thing and not just because it could sound good from a stage. A pastor I listened to said something so I'm really good at parroting what other smart people say is he was like, I firmly believe every person was put here on a purpose, with a purpose, for a purpose sort of thing, like all those different categories. But it also made me think of something I haven't saying, I haven't heard or reflected on in some time is like as you are working on something, it is working on you, right? Like so often we think about, I would say we probably begin, we initiate a lot of work, whether it's a new job, a new venture, a church plant, what have you, or a podcast. But it's. You endeavor to do something to, to exert your, your intellect, your energy, your effort, your, the soft Skills, your character on something to produce something. You're like I'm giving of myself. It's always a.

Kenny Lange [00:30:57]:
I'm pouring from this cup to, to make a thing. In reality, I think it's a both and it's in the way that you've described it is that it's also working on you. Like, Like, I'll go to. One of the clearest examples for me is in parenting, great example as and. And I, I have a silly one I can include there just because my brain won't allow me to be sincere and serious all the time. But in parenting is I've. I take that very seriously as it's my, my job and I believe it's all parents jobs to impart and shape and, and raise. You're raising adults, you're not raising children like their.

Kenny Lange [00:31:38]:
Their goal is to eventually to go out into the world and be productive members of society and do what fulfill their potential. Right. But in the process, as I'm trying to change and shape and transform them as I believe I'm supposed to, it's changing, shaping and forming me right back almost like under my nose. Do you see work as something that is like that? I mean, here's my silly version is there's all these like, like getting a rescue dog. And I'm not comparing children to rescue dogs, at least not right now. But the, but the idea of like, well who saved who? Like I saved the dog. But there's like you. You see stories of like veterans that get service dogs and things like that.

Kenny Lange [00:32:26]:
And it just. The animal does. It just does something to help heal them. Like, I mean we're all like, God created everything, he's in everything. He's working through everything. So if, if he can make rocks and trees cry out, why can't he work through the majesty of canines? So how do. So silliness aside, is that part of. Of what your research, the institute's research has found is see seeing whether quantitatively qualitatively of as we do the work, it's doing a work on us and through us to where there's sort of.

Chris Young [00:33:01]:
A mutual shaping that's happening research again, probably qualitative. I think that's just biblical, honestly. And God working on us innocent through us through a number of different circumstances and situations and roles of life. And a book I read a while back, a little bit of a tangent, but I think it kind of answers your question. There too is as things happen in your life in this book. It was. They viewed it as resistance comes whether you're physically working out at the gym, or you're working and it's challenging or frustrating, or you're working and it's great. Or where.

Chris Young [00:33:38]:
But really, when resistance comes, let's. A parenting moment, a work moment, when there's some resistance or friction or whatever, do you view it as. What's your perspective on it? And in this case, the book was talking about, do you view it as a victim or as a student? And like, wow, for me, at that time, that was very powerful to say, wow, God, I. Please help me. I always want to. We always want to view circumstances in our life as students. God, what do you want us to learn? What are you doing in us or around us? Maybe we don't have it. Maybe it's not about us.

Chris Young [00:34:12]:
And yes, I absolutely think in experience, exponentially, that work is absolutely a part of that. And are we students? And biblically speaking, I think it's potentially why in Jesus's famous speech, he comes out of the gate and says, hey, blessed are the poor in spirit, blessed of those of you are humble, who obviously, number one, understand your position in front of a holy, righteous God, but also just understand humility and be a student of the circumstance, the resistance, the work, the relationship, the role God, what are you trying to do? Because the Bible tells us what he's trying to do. He's trying to develop us into our full potential, more and more like the full human that we're supposed to be. And that Jesus was right is the book you're.

Kenny Lange [00:35:05]:
You're mentioning it reminds me of. And maybe it's the same one. The War of Art by Steven Pressfield.

Chris Young [00:35:11]:
I don't believe so. I believe it was a Bob Goff, one of Bob Goff books, I think.

Kenny Lange [00:35:18]:
Yeah, he's good, too. Get you a balloon. He's good too. He's got cool stories, right? What you're describing makes me think of the book the War of Art. Steven Pressfield calls it the Resistance and gives it a capital R. Because it could be external circumstances. It could just be the. The difficulty of the job of something that.

Kenny Lange [00:35:38]:
That you're. You're setting out to do and getting back to pumping iron. Like, with. Without resistance, there is no way we.

Chris Young [00:35:45]:
Know that that's how we grow, right?

Kenny Lange [00:35:47]:
Like, no. No muscle can be built apart from that. Even if you just look at like, well, I'm. I'm not a weightlifter. I'm a runner. And I was like, okay, well, cool. Well, you have to work against gravity. Repeated resistance against gravity builds a certain Amount of muscle and then depending on where you're running, you may just have like a gale force wind in your face.

Kenny Lange [00:36:06]:
But that I love that the. Do we choose to see it as, as a student or do we che. Choose to. And there are truly circumstances in which someone is a victim. But as a, A, A guy that I really follow and, and admire, he wrote the, the book the Power of Ted, which is the empowerment dynamic and talks about. You have the dreaded drama triangle of like there's victim, there's a persecutor and there's a rescuer. And it just like cycles. You can start to see it in television and movies and office drama.

Kenny Lange [00:36:37]:
And then he says that we can flip those things and move to creator, coach and challenger. And, and he creates the distinction between truly when there are moments in which we are victims of something and victimhood being more of that mentality that I hear you describing is that that part is our choice, which I, I am all for. Like, I think the central message of anything and everything I've ever said apart from I, I want it to be biblically based and God honoring and, and show that being. Being a Christ follower does not mean being a, a precious moments figurine is that you have agency, you have a choice, you always have a choice. And there's. It's terrifying, right, because we want things such as, oh, it's fate, it's destiny, it's these things. Now I don't. You could say, well, was it.

Kenny Lange [00:37:36]:
Aren't you and Chris just talking about, well, there's a design, there's a bigger design in all this. Yes, there is. There is a potential. But it, but, but it's your choice on whether or not to step into that and allow yourself to be shaped, to be molded, to press up against that resistance and say, what can I learn from this? As opposed to what is this doing to me?

Chris Young [00:37:59]:
And if I could. So one of the things that we enjoy talking about quite a bit is again, from a leadership perspective, are you creating in this case an organizational design or the environment that allows people to do that? Right, to reach full potential or providing the encouragement to do that? Are you or, or are you just. We call it this. We want to manage systems and develop people. We don't want to just manage people. Well. Well, why? Because you, you want to provide an opportunity. Well, first, why is.

Chris Young [00:38:31]:
We want people to reach their full potential and we want to help them get there and work as a part of that. And so are other relationships and roles and things. And it's It's a mindset shift of how do we view work but our culture. And again, I don't want to over stereotype, but I make fun of. There's songs about it. I'm working for the weekend or, or there's a whole. I'm just working and making money so I can. So in the, on the weekend or when I.

Chris Young [00:38:58]:
When I retire, I can actually do what I want. Well, that's, that's cultural. And I'm not saying work's not hard and sometimes you take jobs just, you know, to provide and I. We get all that right. But it's like I love one of CS Lewis's, I don't know, maybe most famous quotes or one of his most famous quotes, and I'll probably butcher it a little bit, but it's the idea of pleasure seeking. You know, he said, hey, the problem with the human. Human race or human beings is not that we are too much pleasure seeking. We're not pleasure seeking enough.

Chris Young [00:39:30]:
He's like, we're satisfied with making mud pies in the slums. You know, our own version of the kingdom or our own set of success criteria. When God has an opportunity for a holiday at the sea, you know, we're far too easily pleased, you know, so in business, we have our own version of success. When God's got this grander idea of success where humans are flourishing, he's getting glory, customers are getting all of this kind of. People are getting served, people are getting loved, cared for, treated with honor and respect. Why? Because God's word said we're all made in God's image, so everybody should be viewed and treated that way. How do we create an organizational environment to do that? I think it's the best diversity strategy on the planet when businesses look more and more like his kingdom. And so again, another.

Chris Young [00:40:17]:
Probably another tangent, but kind of what you're sharing and probably the number one quality is it. It. I think we struggle with this. I struggle with this. It takes the quality of humility. God, what do you want me to learn and what do you want me to unlearn that the culture is trying to teach me that that's not. That is mud pies in the slums and not a holiday at the sea.

Kenny Lange [00:40:39]:
Right? Yeah, I've heard it said quite often, like, what the enemy of God's best is what's good. We end up stopping short for something that's good. It wasn't God's best. It wasn't his greatest. It wasn't the holiday by the sea.

Chris Young [00:40:57]:
Well, yeah, Sorry.

Kenny Lange [00:40:59]:
We chose to go to the Gulf of Mexico and Galveston and thought that that was a beautiful beach. No offense to those people down there, but it's. It's not like a destined Florida or. Or one of these tropical paradises, right? Where you're saying, like, okay, well, there's a sea there. There's a. There's salty water and there's some sand and some shells. Good enough, right? Like, but if you had the. If you knew that there was a different option, would you have rather have gone to Tahiti or Fiji or something like that? Obviously not while there's, like, hurricanes, but that's hard.

Kenny Lange [00:41:36]:
It's enticing, right? Yes, it's enticing. I like what you're saying, because it's like.

Chris Young [00:41:41]:
I was gonna say, I like your analogy. Maybe a couple of bits about that. Yeah. It's like going on vacation somewhere, and it's the first time you've ever been there, and you're having a good time and you're discovering things, and then you go back home. And I talked to Kenny. He's like, where'd you go on vacation? I say, well, we went here. And you're like, oh, awesome. Did you.

Chris Young [00:42:00]:
Did you. What restaurants did you go to? What beaches? Did you. Or whatever you did, right? And I go, well, we went here and here and here. And we had a fantastic time. And you're like, you should have talked to me. You know, I know the best restaurants to go to. I know the best beaches to go to. I know the best views of those mountains.

Chris Young [00:42:16]:
I know that I've been there a million times. And if. And if you want to take it to the next step, you go to God who created it all, and. And you say, hey, I know the best views of. Just for fun on that one. But yeah, it's like in John 10:10, the book of John, in the Bible, Jesus says, this is why I've come. Yes, he came to save sinners, Right. He said, I came that you could have life and life to the full.

Chris Young [00:42:41]:
And so what does a full life look like? What is. You know, again, we like to use this word, shalom. A full life looks like a life. It doesn't. It doesn't necessarily look like I have a ton of cars and yachts and houses and stuff. No, it looks like no matter what's going. There's a book out there called into the Depths of God, Calvin Miller, and he calls it scuba diving. Shalom.

Chris Young [00:43:02]:
No matter what's going on in the world, your life is still full. And Purposeful and meaningful because you have a deep relationship, Right. You're scuba diving snorkeling versus scuba diving snorkeling. You're in the water, it's beautiful. You're seeing that. You're seeing the stuff in the ocean, but you're still being tossed by the waves. If you're scuba diving, you're up close and personal with that beauty. The waves still come, but there's stillness in the depths of the water.

Chris Young [00:43:30]:
You're scuba diving, right. So we have a phrase here, a good place, like, how do we build up hearts of love and lives of shalom? Because life is going to deal you lots of different waves. Right? How do we have. Yeah, that depth of shalom.

Kenny Lange [00:43:45]:
Paul talks about this, but he says, I've learned to be content then. I've had. I've had wealth and riches and all sorts of things, but I've also. And I've had a full stomach, but I've also. I've gone hungry. I've been shipwrecked. I've done all these things. And that to me, not just because he was shipwrecked, so maybe he could use some scuba gear, but that.

Kenny Lange [00:44:06]:
But he really did. There was a stillness on the inside of him that came from that. Reflecting the kingdom on earth as it is in heaven. Right. Getting back to the Lord's Prayer, a friend of mine and an author, Tim Spiker, who wrote the book, the only leaders worth following in his research, they were like, well, what makes an effective leader? And they. They drew it down to eight. Eight different things. And I was like, okay, this is a good, good eight.

Kenny Lange [00:44:34]:
Well, two of them, when they looked at the weight of the items, because they weren't equally weighted, two of them accounted for 77% of what the respondents said made an effective leader. And they were the only two that described who the leader was. The other six described what a leader does. And those two things were being inwardly sound and others focused. And a lot of what I hear you, then that's a long path to take to what you're describing. When I think of that scuba diving, that shalom, that peace, that fullness of the waves are going to come. I mean, we're guaranteed. Heed that in scripture.

Kenny Lange [00:45:11]:
But there's that inwardly sound, that stillness, that if we are scuba diving, as opposed to snorkeling in through life, that we can withstand those things. It doesn't mean that they don't affect us. It doesn't mean that they. They can't be hard. I mean, you and I were Talking before we hopped on the call of just like stuff. I did not choose to have loved ones and those near to me pass away even. Even expectedly or those are. Those have been hard things for me to.

Kenny Lange [00:45:42]:
And to be honest. And I talked to a friend about this. It's like I don't know how people go through things like this. Of just tragedies of life that come up without being tethered to. Rooted in a faith in Christ. I simply. I have no idea. Maybe I'm just.

Kenny Lange [00:46:01]:
I'm. I'm a. I'm a weak human being. But I don't know how they do it. And a lot of what I hear you say is like, if. If we as leaders, because to draw it back to leadership, we get a disproportionate amount of attention. We get a disproportionate amount of influence. And when we think about what makes us as a leader worth following and to draw it further still of when we are verbally professing a faith in Christ as a leader, whether in a church, a nonprofit, a for profit, whether it's Christ centered in its mission or.

Kenny Lange [00:46:37]:
Or that's not explicit, we are going to take on a. A, a disproportionate amount of attention and scrutiny over our decisions, even if we're surrounded by other believers. And all the more reason to be that scuba diver to be in that place of shalom, to be as. As. Forgive me if I said it wrong, but to be a. Like we're managing business but developing people.

Chris Young [00:47:05]:
Yeah. The Bible calls. Right. Discipleship.

Kenny Lange [00:47:07]:
I think the. The importance of it.

Chris Young [00:47:09]:
Yeah.

Kenny Lange [00:47:09]:
What a.

Chris Young [00:47:10]:
What a.

Kenny Lange [00:47:10]:
What a novel idea. Right, that discipleship could have Not. Not building deciders, as you were saying at the top of the conversation. And so we're thinking about this leader who's listening here who says yes and amen that this resonates. I. This I. I purpose myself. I endeavor to be more like what.

Kenny Lange [00:47:32]:
What Chris has. These are. It's giving me language that I didn't have before or it's just connected dots I didn't have before. And they say I maybe. Maybe I. I'm not the owner and I can't turn this into a good place. As maybe the Good Place Institute defines which great material. Go to the website, please go y'all go check that out and read the book.

Kenny Lange [00:47:55]:
But maybe they say with what I have influence over. I want that to be a good place and I endeavor to be a good leader. What's something they can do in the next 24 hours? Little to no money to take a step towards that, to exercise their agency and how they show up as a leader.

Chris Young [00:48:11]:
Great question. Maybe my first answer is going to be a little cliche. Dive into the Bible. Read it. Whether you believe, you know, read the Bible, it'll bless you the inerra word of God or it's just the bestselling book of all time. Read it and read it. Read it for relationship, not just for information. But the meta narrative of the Bible gives us unbelievable clues of what obviously who God is, what his kingdom looks like, how we can relate to him, how can we understand his design and his purpose.

Chris Young [00:48:43]:
And then we can apply that to all areas of life, all of our roles that we get to take on or we have the opportunity to, to play, you know, as you said, as a potential, as a friend, as a spouse, as a son or a daughter or a, or a, or a worker or a leader or all of the above or a spouse or whatever. Read I would say this too. Next step if you're a leader. And again, some of those dots got connected or whatever. I love talking with people. I love having coffee, I love doing virtuals. Throw me an email, jump on our website and connect with us. We would love that.

Chris Young [00:49:18]:
And if you want to grab the book first, that's great too. But maybe those are just a few practical things that like you said, somebody can do in the next 24 hours. Pray about it. God. What, what are you doing? What are you doing around? What are you doing in me? On through me, around me. That I can co labor with you to bring about more and more of your kingdom characteristics so that more. This is a good place. Right.

Chris Young [00:49:40]:
So that more and more people can experience your kingdom and therefore more and more people get to experience the king himself.

Kenny Lange [00:49:46]:
Yeah. But I think there are, there's a simple questions that can really make us reflect on the decision. So just even that slowing down to be more thoughtful around these things. So that's, that's excellent. We're certainly going to link up the book which can be purchased wherever fine books are sold. But if somebody does want to reach out to you and have that virtual coffee or just throw a few follow up questions that for whatever reason I didn't cover because I was making silly metaphors. Where can they connect with you? The good place and then also talk for just a minute about your podcast.

Chris Young [00:50:20]:
Yeah. So easiest way you're welcome to grab our website, we have a contact us kind of thing and we get back to you and all that. Chris youngeplace.com. that's my email address. You're welcome to throw me an email. Love to chat. And about a podcast. We've taken a little bit of a hiatus.

Chris Young [00:50:39]:
We looked at getting back on board, but it's called Business is Good. But that'll give you some ideas of the why and the what. And we're getting into the how to part of it. The Good Place operating system. How do we build organizations that are set to achieve again biblical success criteria and fulfill God's purpose for this? You know, the podcast might be a good place to start as well. That might be another good thing in the next 24 hours if you want to, you know, check out the podcast, it's on the website. It might bring up some questions or some some thought and we'd love to hear your feedback on all that. That'd be great.

Kenny Lange [00:51:11]:
Absolutely. And, and I would love to thank you so much for being a guest. This is a phenomenal conversation. I have like 14 other ideas, topics that are probably coming to mind. Would definitely love to have you back to talk about like what are the components of a Good Place organization and maybe get a little bit more practical and tactical around some of those things to help people take those steps. Thank you so much for being a guest. Certainly hope you'll come back again. Thank you to all you listeners.

Kenny Lange [00:51:42]:
Obviously otherwise I'm just having like really cool conversations and I get a lot out of that. But I'm doing this so that you get value. And one way you can let me know if this is of good value is to, is to give me a subscribe for the show rate review like follow whatever the right button and call to action is on the platform that you like the best. Leave a comment if there's any feedback. Any way I can make this better for you? I want to. Although I am going to tell you like I would tell anybody I've ever led before, your feedback does not necessarily mean I'm going to take action on it, but I will consider it. But that also gets this in front of other leaders. So you never know what conversation, what topic could unlock somebody's like just next step to take them from, from point A to point C.

Kenny Lange [00:52:32]:
And this could be a free and easy way for you to make a dent in the universe and, and help somebody else on their leadership journey by giving it more attention. But until next time, change the way you think will change the way you lead. We'll see ya.