Episode 1171: Impact the World - Interview with author, coach, and podcaster Brian Russell – Part 4

[00:00:00] Scott Maderer: Thanks for joining me on episode 1,171 of the inspired stewardship podcast.

[00:00:07] Brian Russell: I'm Brian Russell. I challenge you to invest in yourself, invest in others, develop your influence, 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 feel those that kind of life is to listen to this. The inspired stewardship podcast with my friend, Scott.

[00:00:33] I'm an ambassador, right? Somebody use my talents, the things that God has given to me, I give them to others, even my own like mission statement. I seek out study and embody the deepest truths about God so that I can share them lovingly compellingly in transformational ways through coaching teachers.

[00:00:52] Speaking and writing. That's, to me, that's stewardship of what we do. And so

[00:00:58] Scott Maderer: welcome. And thank you [00:01:00] for joining us on the inspired stewardship podcasts. 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.

[00:01:15] We'll learn to invest in yourself, invest in others and develop your. So that you can impact the world.

[00:01:24] And today's interview with Brian Russell. I asked Brian about what stewardship means to him. I also asked Brian about his top tips that you need to understand if you really want to make an impact. And Brian also shares with you his hopes for the future and the legacy he hopes to leave behind. One reason I like to bring you great interviews.

[00:01:45] 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. [00:02:00] And that's why today's podcast is brought to you by audible.

[00:02:03] Go to inspired stewardship.com/audible to sign up and you can get a 30 day free trial. There's over 180,000 titles to choose from. And instead of reading, you can listen your way to learn from some of the greatest minds out there. That's inspired stewardship.com/audible to get your free trial and listen to great books the same way you're listening to this podcast.

[00:02:31] Dr. Brian Russell is an award-winning professor of biblical studies and a transformational coach for pastors and spiritually minded entrepreneurs and professionals. His personal mission is to seek out study and embody the deepest truce so that he can share them compelling. Lovingly and transformationally with others.

[00:02:52] He is the author of invitation, a Bible study to begin with aligning with God, reading scripture for church and [00:03:00] world and centering prayer sitting quietly in God's presence can change your life. He is also the host of the deep dive spirituality conversations podcast. Welcome to the show, Brian.

[00:03:12] Brian Russell: Thank you, Scott.

[00:03:13] It's so great to be here today.

[00:03:14] Scott Maderer: So last week I mentioned that there were a couple of words that I like to ask people to fine. And this is the other one. So my brain is inspired stewardship. I talk a lot through that lens of stewardship and yet having now interviewed lots and lots of different people and asked this question, I've discussed.

[00:03:35] Different people put different bins on what that meaning of that word is. So for you, what does the word stewardship mean? And what has the impact of that understanding had on your life?

[00:03:47] Brian Russell: Yeah. I love the question I'm going to try to, I like to think of stewardship at, I may use a different type of a metaphor cause cause I think stewardship has has great implications.

[00:03:58] I'd like to say that for myself, I want to be [00:04:00] an ambassador of abundance to every single person. I. And I like that ambassador language as a way of defining a steward because what's a steward, do a steward, watches over somebody else's kingdom, dominion property, or whatever, and ambassador does the same thing, an ambassador essentially represents. Another. And so when I think of stewardship, I want to be an ambassador of God's abundant, love to other people. And so that gives me a metaphor and what's an ambassador I have to do. I had to do Scott, if I'm going to be the ambassador to China. If I'm sitting in Orlando, Florida, I'm not doing a good job, so I need to be out.

[00:04:38] I need to be in China. I need to have skin in the game. So ambassador is going to show up. And I know you use the phrase, which can I'm in Methodist too, time, talent, treasure. I That just makes total sense, but I want to be an ambassador. So I'm going to invest my time. I'm going to physically show up and use the gifts that God's given me.

[00:04:57] I always liked the phrase I learned from a man named Alex [00:05:00] McMannis. One of my other mentors. He always said the gospel comes to us. On its way to someone else as an ambassador, right? So I'm gonna use my talents, the things that God has given to me, I give them to others, even my own like mission statement.

[00:05:13] I seek out study and embody the deepest truths about God so that I can share them lovingly compellingly in transformational ways, through coaching, teaching, speaking, and writing. That's, to me, that's stewardship of what we do. And I'll stop there, but I think ambassador of abundance is how I would define stewardship.

[00:05:34] Scott Maderer: Okay. Yeah. That's a new phrasing of it, but I liked that. I liked that that, that show that choice of words as well. So if someone really wants to make a dent in the universe, what are some of the top principles that you feel like they need to focus on and learn?

[00:05:53] Brian Russell: Yeah. And I said one of them, I think number one, it's skin in the game.

[00:05:56] We have to show up, it's putting a dent in the [00:06:00] universe. Isn't creating a great plan. It's not what you write down in your journal. It's actually taking action. So we have to have a real skin in the game. If we're going to put a dent in the universe, which means we have to be willing to take some risks.

[00:06:12] That's what I mean by skin in the game, along with that, then you have to become comfortable. With being uncomfortable with failure. And so one of my favorite phrases, I got this from a, another coach named Dan Sullivan. He has a great turn of the phrase. He says winning, isn't always learning, but learning is always winning.

[00:06:34] And you know what he means by that is it's how you you can be successful, but if you don't know why. You're not putting a dent in the universe, you just got lucky, but the key piece is you always want to learn. And so then even if something doesn't go right, when you take your action, if you can learn from it, long-term you're going to win.

[00:06:53] And then I think the third principle put a dent in yourself as. This is kind of cliche now, but we have to learn to be [00:07:00] kind to ourselves, which means recognize our limitation. And that's where again, all these have a faith component to it, but it's so critical that we make sure that we fuel ourselves.

[00:07:12] Stay rooted. In God's grace. So that way, then we can have skin in the game and one of the easiest ways to overcome when you mess up or have something doesn't go well, it's like you remember that doesn't touch your core identity as being a person loved by God. And when you can serve out of those kind of three areas, yeah.

[00:07:31] You can put a dent in the universe.

[00:07:33] Scott Maderer: So I wanted to ask you, this is my favorite question that I ask each listener. And a few weeks ago you alluded to the idea of seeing people and seeing the ripples that they leave behind. So if I invented this magic machine and I was able to pluck you out of the chair where you set today and bring you into the future, maybe a hundred to 150 years.

[00:07:55] And you were able to magically look back on your whole life and see the [00:08:00] impact and the ripples that you've left behind. What impact do you hope you've left on the world?

[00:08:06] Brian Russell: Yeah. And when I was looking at the, at those questions, that question, I immediately thought of that image that I did share, and I'm going to, I'm going to stay with facts.

[00:08:14] That's a new learning, and I'll just want to talk about how that's different for me. And this has been a game changer. Shift in my own life. Just this year is for a long time when I was more driven, I think by my own fear, guilt shame, I wanted to see tangible my 20 year award for teaching or teacher of the year and that new metaphor that I'm trying to get as I.

[00:08:44] The greatest gift that you can do is with somebody would say I knew Brian and this is new for me in that Brian was 100% for me and loved me. And if I think if I have that looking back, there's going to be thousands of people. And it's not [00:09:00] like I was mean before Scott, but that's literally been the shift that God's been working in my life that it's not about achievements at all.

[00:09:06] Even the dent in the universe, it's like how much, how well can I love other people so that. They know that they're 100% enough and that they can then extend that same kind of feeling to other people. And that would be that vision of the 10,000 of people that can live their lives, knowing that they were enough for God.

[00:09:26] And that God is enough for them. Okay,

[00:09:30] Scott Maderer: so what's coming next for Brian, as you continue on this journey of coaching and teaching and speaking, and writing and all of the various things that you do, what's on the roadmap.

[00:09:42] Brian Russell: Yeah. I'm continuing to take coaching clients and I'm very excited about that.

[00:09:47] And I think the one I'm working on right now, Is again, if you go back to the very first episode where we were talking about why it ended up doing the centering prayer book, I talked about how I had essentially discovered [00:10:00] centering prayer, post divorce, as it was part of my comeback spiritually coming out of the dark night of the soul stuff I'm actually working right now.

[00:10:10] On a project or I'm going to take that down a deeper level, ironically that when, as I was promoting my own book, I'd get on and tell that story. And I told her pretty quick, in that first episode we had. I realized that I was re-traumatizing myself by remembering what it felt like back in 2010.

[00:10:26] And I realized that I had more work that God had to do in me. And so at the end of 2021, I did some deep trauma work on myself and I literally release stuff that I thought was already gone in my life and it completely opened up my inside. And and then I mentioned another episode about this tree that had fallen sideways.

[00:10:49] And so I'm writing a book it's going to be, we'll see what the title is when it comes out, I'm thinking it's gonna be something like the healing tree how to read, how to [00:11:00] live again, when you thought your life was over. And so I'm going to do a deep dive in to how. To make a comeback and what it feels like while you're doing it and get to the point where if you're this tree that's knocked over, you think that everybody sees the root ball.

[00:11:22] But all they really see again, I'm super emotional about this, cause it hits me. It's my heart is they don't see their root ball. All they see is the tree that you became and they would, and I always picture like a little bench under the tree. This tree that I talk about in the park has a bench.

[00:11:41] And you think that's probably what the tree wanted when it was going to be a regular tree. It probably wanted to be a shade. But it's like this. Yeah. I'm writing a book for people who maybe thought that they'd taken a fatal blow and they've been stuck and I'm going to provide a resource that at least talks a little bit about

[00:11:59] how

[00:11:59] Brian Russell: I've gotten to [00:12:00] the point where there's a root ball back there, but just like Jesus, who still has holes in his hands, people don't really see that.

[00:12:09] They see what you became. And again, that's a long answer to your question, but that's, what's next for me. I'm going to take it down another notch and be super vulnerable in another book and talk about what's it look like to live again and even find a true abundance after you took a moral blow in your life of whether it was a divorce or an illness, or you lost your faith in college, whatever it was.

[00:12:35] And it's for a person who didn't just have a dark night of the soul that had an ice age blizzard of the soul type of a thing, and how to walk back out of that. So I'm pretty excited about that.

[00:12:44] Scott Maderer: Yeah, no that I can see that as being really valuable for folks. Cause I think a lot of us get stuck in bitterness and trauma as you said, or betrayal or various [00:13:00] whatever it is that gets us stuck there.

[00:13:01] A lot of times.

[00:13:02] 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.

[00:13:29] 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 that you'd like to share with the.

[00:13:38] 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.

[00:13:47] 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 [00:14:00] serve you.

[00:14:00] Scott Maderer: Thanks so much for listening 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.

[00:14:28] 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 feed until next time, invest your time. Your talent and your treasures develop your influence and impact the world.