Episode 1166: Develop Your Influence - Interview with author, coach, and podcaster Brian Russell – Part 3

[00:00:00] Scott Maderer: Thanks for joining us on episode 1,166 of the inspired stewardship podcast.

[00:00:06] Brian Russell: I'm Brian Russell. I challenge you to invest in yourself, invest in others, develop your influence and impact the world by using your time, your talents and your treasure to live out your calling. Live by faith. Be known by love and be a voice of hope.

[00:00:23] Those are the keys in one way to fuel those, that kind of life is to listen to this. The inspired stewardship podcast with my friend, Scott.

[00:00:33] you have to get quiet time where you just sit in silence, which is so counterintuitive when you feel like you should be doing something. Because I think the most powerful place that we can. Engage other people engage our businesses or serve pastorally is out of a place of surrender.

[00:00:56] Scott Maderer: Welcome and thank you for joining us on the inspired [00:01:00] stewardship podcast.

[00:01:01] If you truly desire to become the person who God wants you to be, then you must learn to use your time, your talent and your treasures for your true calling in the inspired stewardship podcast. We'll learn to invest in yourself. Invest in. And develop your influence so that you can impact the world.

[00:01:22] in today's interview with Brian Russell, I asked Brian to share what leadership means to him. I also asked Brian about how his coaching works and how it connects to faith and his work. As a pastor, I also asked Brian, how centering. Acts as a part of his coaching. One reason I like to bring you great interviews.

[00:01:43] Like the one you're going to hear today is because of the power in learning from others. Another great way to learn from others is through reading books. But if you're like most people today, you find it hard to find the time to sit down and read. And that's why today's podcast is [00:02:00] brought to you by audible.

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[00:02:29] Dr. Brian Russell is an award-winning professor of biblical studies and a transformational coach for pastors and spiritually minded entrepreneurs and professors. His personal mission is to seek out study and embody the deepest truce so that he can share them compellingly, lovingly and transformationally with others.

[00:02:50] He is the author of invitation, a Bible study to begin with aligning with God, reading scripture for church and world and centering prayer [00:03:00] sitting quietly in God's presence can change your life. He is also the host of the deep dive spirituality conversations, pod. Welcome to the show. Brian.

[00:03:10] Brian Russell: Thank you, Scott.

[00:03:11] It's so great to be here.

[00:03:12] Scott Maderer: So one of the questions that I like to ask all of the listeners is there's a few words that end up, we use them a lot and yet different people mean different things when they use them. And this week, and next week I'll ask you about one of them. So for this week, the word is leadership.

[00:03:29] When we talk about influence the word leadership comes up a lot, how would you actually define the word leadership?

[00:03:36] Brian Russell: Yeah. And in fact, This goes right along with even the, some of the words you use, I've always loved John Maxwell's leadership is influence nothing more, nothing lasts and step back from that.

[00:03:51] I think leadership is about. Serving others to help them bring out their [00:04:00] unique talents, their unique gifts, so that they can then influence the world. So in a sense, leadership is serving others in a way that allows others to then be influential and grow as leaders as well.

[00:04:12] Scott Maderer: And the work that you do with pastors how do you see that as connected to developing leadership?

[00:04:20] Brian Russell: With, just with pastors in particular pastors that the core struggle that most pastors have is substituting their identity as a person loved by God with the role of a pastor in when some of the unique problems there is the the pastor then become. At worst.

[00:04:40] And then this is no disrespect. Any pastors I'm a PA I've been a pastor of several churches. I'm still ordained is we ended up the danger is you become the paid holy man or the paid holy woman. And you just offer religious goods and services, and then you get trapped in. I should do more or I don't do enough.

[00:04:58] I'm not good enough kind of stuff. And [00:05:00] so what I do in my coaching with pastors is essentially I call it deep dive. Spirituality is help pastors to tap back in to the essence of their calling, which essentially is to be a witness to the God who loves us. And then that can be. Percolate into the people that they serve.

[00:05:19] So instead of just being the person that preaches or does a Bible study and getting all those things are important and good things. I encourage them to play what I call a long game. Take the pressure off. It's not about how many people show up for church on a Sunday, or how many people watch online over these last couple of years?

[00:05:38] How it's about how many people have you taken the time? To deeply impact through personal relationships and poured into individuals so that they can then replicate that in their own lives. And so it's about extending influence. [00:06:00] Not in this public way, which a lot of times we think of a pastor was preaching, but it's how has the pastors shared themselves with a smaller group within their congregation?

[00:06:11] If it's a big church that could be their pastoral staff, that then is influencing others in a smaller church take your train, your core people, or even pastors should always be mentoring. So that's how I would see. The connection between influence and then like coaching pastors.

[00:06:28] It's essentially you build, let's just like Jesus, you build kingdom of God through relationships or you serve the people, love them and introduce them to means of growing themselves deep roots and gods so that they can then help others in turn to grow deeper roots in God's grace.

[00:06:47] Scott Maderer: And that also relates to what you were talking about last week with your philosophy this year that you're focusing on of see the ripples behind them.

[00:06:56] So I know you also work with [00:07:00] business owners that are spiritually minded as well. How do you see the connection between the work you were just talking about that you do with pastors and working with with business owners And your faith.

[00:07:13] Brian Russell: It's a similar dynamic, the hardest stage that an entrepreneur goes through is.

[00:07:22] When you start, you have to do everything yourself in a sense. That's just like a lot of pastors, like I know pastors who end up mowing the grass sometimes and just doing everything around the church. And so if you're a an entrepreneur, you can easily find yourself in what I would call Performance or operator trap.

[00:07:43] You can't separate yourself from the app, actual operation of the business. And so what I try to do in my coaching is to sort out. And a lot of it goes back to fear, guilt, shame. And again, that's going to be the piece. I don't do enough. I'm not enough. I don't have enough. So there's like a fear [00:08:00] cycle that keeps both the pastor and an entrepreneur socked in and they never can step back in, essentially move from being the operator, the person who does everything to be in the owner.

[00:08:13] Now, again, a pastor doesn't own the church. That's more of a metaphor and what's the owner do different than the operator. The owner builds up the people, a business owner buildup the people in your business. So they're not just employees, they're leaders. The pastor builds up the membership, not so they can just be consumers, but so that they can then be essentially the priesthood of all believers, the hands feet, mouthpieces of Jesus as well.

[00:08:41] So that's the commonality it's about stepping back. Getting the own junk out of your own life that just says I got to work more. I got to do it. I can't trust. And then mentoring and training and lifting other people up. And so with business owners, I try to integrate the faith. And so just with pastors, I usually introduce business owners to.[00:09:00]

[00:09:00] Journaling practices, even centering prayer as a way of pulling themselves out of this looping trap of too much work. Again, usually coming out of my fears that the businesses are going to make yet or gelled that I need should be doing something else or even shame. I'm just not good enough. So I got to work work, and so that's, that would be the commonality.

[00:09:20] And that's how I've been able to work with both entrepreneurs and pastors, because at the essence, we're all humans. And so I've learned that Kind of joke and say, I just learn how to talk to human beings and that lets me serve other people.

[00:09:34] Scott Maderer: So how do you think the work you do as a coach connects with you, your faith and your faith.

[00:09:38] Brian Russell: Yeah all the work as a coach essentially came out of my own bounce back from that divorce, having a totally singed out faith on the inside and trying to rebuild a life. Learning how to do some different skills, because at some level the divorce was financially, very ruinous as well. And just, [00:10:00] I needed to grow and step up, take a hundred percent responsible ability yeah.

[00:10:05] Take a hundred percent responsibility for who I am. And so the skills that I learned, I just noticed people started naturally asking me, like, how did you do this? And I'm just this might've been the professor side. I started thinking like, yeah, how did I do this? And so breaking it down. I realized, wow.

[00:10:22] I can show somebody like I think Tony Robinson I'm says, or even Jim Rohn, I think his mentor said success leaves clues. And I realized that one of my gifts is the things that I learned that I've been able to take action on. I've remembered what the steps were and I've can then step into somebody's life and serve them by I don't just tell people what to do, but I knew the psychology of what I had to do for myself.

[00:10:51] So I know, understand mindsets to help people get into, and then I can point people to Processes or frameworks that [00:11:00] allow them to put themselves in a position where they get out of their own way and can just succeed in what I'd like to say is just allow the abundance to flow.

[00:11:09] Scott Maderer: So how does centering prayer fit into the coaching you do?

[00:11:13] What role do you see it taking?

[00:11:15] Brian Russell: I don't require people that work with me to do centering prayer, but I always share that you have to get. Quiet time where you just sit in silence, which is so counterintuitive when you feel like you should be doing something. Because I think the most powerful place that we can engage, other people engage our businesses or serve pastorally is out of a place of surrender.

[00:11:43] And so surrender to the silence in. Don't focus always on what you think you need to do. Just learn to be in that puts you in a position. I'm going to go back to a Bob Tuttle quote. I think I did on the last episode, when if you can get yourself in a position where [00:12:00] you can show up, pay attention and recognize that God has way more invest in everything else that's going on than you do that frees you up just to be at your best, puts other people at ease and allows you to serve.

[00:12:13] And at the, at its essence for business, You learn to surf and you give more value than what you're asking for most of the time, your businesses can really thrive.

[00:12:23] Scott Maderer: So when you think about that we've talked a lot about coaching pastors, coaching, business owners, and their focus. What is it that you think makes someone a, an ideal person.

[00:12:37] To go through coaching with you what would be the perfect person to tight go through the kind of coaching that you work with? I

[00:12:45] Brian Russell: think the ideal person would be someone that has tasted some success and they've worked really hard, but they recognize that deep on the inside that they lack fulfillment.

[00:12:58] And that's true of both [00:13:00] pastors and entrepreneurs. Usually the people that work with me have a bent toward. Being high achiever, high work persons, people that on the outside would look successful, but they feel burned out and empty. And they're wondering what's next and I'm able to step in with those folks and walk with them for a season and help them define really true freedom, which is freedom of purpose and calling.

[00:13:27] And I know in the past episodes we were talking about calling. And your greatest levels of fulfillment when you're following in your call of serving other people. And when you are growing yourself and I help my clients to to grow deep roots and then they can serve people again, a metaphor I used a couple episodes ago as reservoirs, not persons that you're so burned out and exhausted that literally every time you get a drop of energy, you're sending two drops out and that's a lot of people that come to me.

[00:13:58] Are afraid that they're [00:14:00] going to burn themselves out.

[00:14:01] Scott Maderer: You can follow Brian on Twitter as Brian D. Russell, or follow him on Instagram as your professor for life. He's also over on LinkedIn is Brian Russell PhD. You can also watch some videos that he's got on YouTube as deep dive spirituality. Dr. Brian Russell, that's Dr. Brian Russell, or the best place probably is over on his website.

[00:14:28] Brian Russell, phd.com. Of course I'll have links to all of that as the sh in the show notes as well. Brian, is there anything else you'd like to share with the.

[00:14:36] Brian Russell: Yeah, thank you for all the links and just encourage the listeners to, if you're interested in centering prayer, you can check out my book.

[00:14:45] That's been out since the fall of 2021, centering prayer sitting quietly in God's presence can change your life. And if I can be of any service to you, you can check out all my free resources, or if you want to go a little deeper, just reach out to me. I'd love to see.

[00:14:58] Scott Maderer: Thanks so much for listening [00:15:00] to the inspired stewardship podcast, as a subscriber and listener, we challenge you to not just sit back and passively listen, but act on what you've heard and find a way to live your calling. If you enjoy this episode. Please do us a favor. Go over to inspired stewardship.com/itunes rate.

[00:15:26] All one word iTunes rate. It'll take you through how to leave a rating and review and how to make sure you're subscribed to the podcast so that you can get every episode as it comes out in your. Until next time, invest your time, your talent and your treasures. Develop your influence and impact the world.