5 Decisions for Increasing Your Capacity
Most people spend 90% of their time on the things they can't control and 10% of their time on the things that they actually can. The best leaders that I know flip that equation entirely. They spend 90% of their time on the things that they can control. Their attitude, their words, their actions, their inputs, the people and their influence, that's what they spend their time on, and 10% of their time on the things they can't control. And what is that 10%?
Alex Judd:Unlike everyone else, the things they can't control, they don't fill that with worry. I actually think the best leaders fill that with prayer. Focus on the things you can control. Pray for the things that you can't. So I I left to start my business for many reasons, but one of the reasons is one of the reasons a lot of people leave to start their own business.
Alex Judd:Right? People say, I wanna be my own boss, and that that is such a gift and such a joy, right, to have that level of freedom and flexibility and to choose your own adventure and to go and build something. Right? It's such a gift to be your own boss. But inevitably, there are stages, and this has happened to me multiple times, but I'll never forget the first time it happened where it's like you you feel like you're maybe stalling out or you're not expanding.
Alex Judd:You're not growing. You're like, man, the things that used to work aren't really working anymore. We're not we're not expanding the business or I'm not growing personally or stuff like that. And then you realize like, oh, crap. I'm the boss.
Alex Judd:Like, it used to be like someone would tell you where you need to grow, and someone would tell you where you need to move forward. Someone might even provide you with the whole path for doing that, and they'd give you a stack of books and say, you need to read these things. And if you just follow these steps, then you're gonna grow and improve. And that was how you expand capacity. It was like someone gave the path to you.
Alex Judd:And part of the cost and responsibility associated with being your own boss is you are now the boss. And so if you are going to grow, you you don't get to be a spectator to your growth. You're going to play a role in that happening. If your leadership capacity is going to expand, if you are going to be a better leader next year than you are today, which good gosh, I hope that you are, then you're gonna have to play part of that. You're gonna you're gonna make decisions that create actions that result in expanded leadership capacity.
Alex Judd:And that's really the impetus behind what we're going to walk through today.
Ben Loy:So some of the points we have here, I said this before we started recording, like, they can seem counterintuitive or, like, if you read down the list, it could be like, oh, I don't have the time for that or or that, you know, I have too much going on. Like, how why are the things that we are pointing out important, and how do they, like, really contribute to your an increase in your long term capacity and sustainability as a leader?
Alex Judd:I'd go to the way we talk about and define leadership within our coaching community. We always say, if someone depends on you, then you are a leader. And so that means that by stepping into a leadership role, you're saying, man, people depend on me. Right? I'm I'm an elevator.
Alex Judd:I'm not neutral. I'm taking people up or I'm taking people down. And so with that, every single one of these actions to expand your leadership capacity has downstream effects to other people. And negligence is not an option. Because if if you neglect any of these five actions, I actually believe this, you will be taking people down.
Alex Judd:Right? Other people will suffer the consequences of you not expanding your leadership capacity. There is no neutral here. So that's why it's like we gotta choose. Right?
Alex Judd:Do we wanna lead or not? And if we're saying we wanna lead, it's gonna look different at different stages, but we've gotta reckon with these five actions that we're gonna talk about today and really the five decisions we're talking about today.
Ben Loy:Yeah. Let's start with the first action.
Alex Judd:Okay. The first action is the decision to take personal growth seriously. I I can already see it. There's people listening to this. They're like, okay.
Alex Judd:Moving on. I've got this one. Don't worry. They're like, dude, I'm listening to your podcast right now. I've got a whole I I read five books at a time, and they're all nonfiction personal growth books.
Alex Judd:I don't read any fiction books. And they've got all this list of habits and goals and things that they do that are personal growth oriented. And, I get that. I love that. That's a lot of the people that we work with.
Alex Judd:That's that's me in so many ways. Right? Like, I love the topic of personal growth. I think it's excellent, but that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about taking personal growth seriously.
Alex Judd:And what I mean by that is so many of us, we establish all these habits and actions and gather up all these books and gather up all these podcasts, and it's it's all activities oriented around the things that we're already good at, the things we already like, and the things we already enjoy. Right? Sometimes we engage with things we dislike. Rarely, if ever, do we proactively engage with the things that we fear. But what I want people to know is the single greatest growth in your life will come from proactively engaging with the topics, things, conversations, and activities that you fear.
Ben Loy:That's the type of discomfort that we're talking about here. What's an example of a fear that you face, when it comes to personal growth?
Alex Judd:Oh, man. Well, I can give you where I learned this principle. Right? Like, man, I I was a personal growth junkie six or seven years ago. Junkie was reading every single book under the sun, was doing all the habits, had my wake up routines.
Alex Judd:I was running sometimes multiple marathons a month for multiple months in a row. And so I was just all in on personal growth and people would look at me and be like, oh my gosh, you're such a personal growth guy. You're doing all these things. Meanwhile, the thing that I feared was getting anywhere near the conversation related to dating and marrying a Right? Like, I it's like I was like, I can't I don't even know where to begin with all that.
Alex Judd:That's something that I fear. That's something that I don't wanna engage with. Right? And so I would do all these other things, and it was like all of this activity. Mean meanwhile, the the thing that would, and I can say this confidently now, would have the greatest the single greatest impact on my growth as a human being stepping into more of who I was created to be was the very thing I was avoiding because I was afraid of it.
Alex Judd:And I was filling that avoidance with a bunch of activity that was keeping me busy. And so what's crazy is the more I started to recognize this principle, the greatest growth doesn't come from the things you dislike. It comes from the things you fear. The more I started to lean into that, and I literally went to a counselor. And before I would go into my counselor's office, I would sit in the car.
Alex Judd:I would get there ten minutes before, and I would sit in the car, and I would say, what is the single most uncomfortable thing you could talk to Will about today? That's the question I would ask myself. And then I would always give myself an out. I would always say, like, there would always be an answer to that question, but I would always give myself an out. I would always say, you don't have to talk about that.
Alex Judd:You don't have to, but but let's just label it because the greatest growth comes from the greatest discomfort. So what's the single most uncomfortable thing you could talk to Will about today? And there would always be an answer, and they'd be like, dad gum it. I have to talk to him. And the greatest growth always came from those conversations.
Alex Judd:And so that that's an example of proactively engaging with discomfort that I really didn't want to that has massively transformed my life.
Ben Loy:How would someone identify what what that fear is for themselves?
Alex Judd:Oh, man. I don't for I'd be interested to know your thoughts here. For me, it's like, I know it unless I choose not to know it. Literally had someone ask me one time and I got a little bit frustrated with them that they were asking me about my running and everything that I was doing and the number of marathons I was signed up for. This is seven or eight years ago.
Alex Judd:And, he said, one more question for you. I said, what's that? He said, what are you running from? He's like, it feels like you're avoiding something. And I and I've I got kinda frustrated quite frankly.
Alex Judd:I was like, that guy doesn't know what he's talking about. I think he actually did. I think he was, like, hyperaware. Right? Like, there were elements of my life that were going neglected.
Alex Judd:And so I think we do know. Sometimes we know, but we choose not to know. And in that case, having good people that will ask you hard questions is really helpful. But do you have thoughts there?
Ben Loy:I do. I was going through my notes the other day on my on my iPhone, just, like, shared iCloud notes, and I just realized I had a lot of, like, random things I had jotted down, like, things to delete and things to organize. And at some point, I don't remember the date. I'll have to go back and check it maybe. At some point, I was listening to a podcast, a sermon, something, or just thinking, and I had jotted down the note, I'm afraid to be known because being known means I don't have all the answers.
Ben Loy:And it hit in that moment probably just as hard as it did, you know, the couple years ago when I typed that out. It was I like I think, yeah, I think deep down when people really reflect on what their fear is, it's like like that they know it intrinsically. Like, if you take the time, you'll you'll find it. And if you can't, yeah, maybe maybe go to people who who you've spent a lot of time with that will maybe help you pull that out.
Alex Judd:Yeah. I was just at a business conference that yeah. I'm gonna be referencing this a lot just because it was so transformative for me, and it's one of the biggest investments that I've made in my personal growth in a long time. Keith Cunningham, he's 76 years old. He's been teaching this thing called the four day MBA for, I mean, twenty five years now.
Alex Judd:But, I mean, his story, his background is, like, he he lost a $100,000,000, hit rock bottom, had to declare chapter seven bankruptcy after he thought he had climbed his way out and then found out he owed the IRS $9,000,000 still. And that's when he said, okay. I'm gonna wave the white flag. Like, can't do this. Unbelievable.
Alex Judd:That was, I mean, fifty years ago. Right? Since then, he's rebuilt his life. I mean, why like, his net worth I I mean, he's one of those guys that's so baller, he doesn't have to talk about his net worth, but you just I mean, this guy
Ben Loy:woah. Woah.
Alex Judd:Rich dad, poor dad. You've heard of that book.
Ben Loy:Yeah. Yeah.
Alex Judd:He is the rich dad that Robert Kiyosaki based that book on, like crazy. And '76, this is the last time he's ever gonna teach this course, he says, which is just wild. And and I was there for it. And I was literally sat there, I was like, I'm in the room right now with a guy that is one of the, if not the best in the world at what he does. He was so good.
Alex Judd:There was so much about the four days that was just so good. But what was crazy to me is three days in, he he set up this this exercise, and it was a very simple exercise. He just said, I'm gonna give you nine questions, and I want you to choose one to three. And he said, I'm gonna give you the really good questions. And he's like, we're gonna do thinking time.
Alex Judd:And he's like, I want you to scratch what itches. I want you to take a sip. He's like, we're locking the doors. No one comes in or out for forty minutes. Like, no one.
Alex Judd:And he's like, if you are in this room when we start, you will be in this room when you finish. He's like, I just want you to get to the bottom of this question for forty minutes is what he kinda said. And he said that's thinking time. What's crazy is, you know, he says go. And, I mean, it's like it's like people taking the SAT.
Alex Judd:They just start writing. Just start going. It was so cool. And then, like, I mean, it felt like three minutes. He just goes because he he encouraged you to look at your paper the entire time.
Alex Judd:Never look up. And then he just goes, and that's forty minutes. And I kid you not, the reaction was people started clapping. And, like, they it was like and everyone, woah. And and then he said, how many of you that was that valuable?
Alex Judd:And people just started, like, going bonkers. And it's like, this guy has figured it out. He didn't have to teach anything. Like, he did just gave people space space to think. And, like, you know where you need to grow.
Alex Judd:That's what I would say. You know where you need to grow. Now I can't, on this podcast, make you make space to think. You can do that, though. You can lock yourself in a room and sit down in a chair, and I would encourage you to do it because it's very powerful.
Ben Loy:Man, I feel like we could spend a whole episode on this, but we have four more decisions we need to get to. So what's the next one?
Alex Judd:The the decision to be ruthlessly responsible. Right? And what we're talking about here is responsibility for a very particular set of things. Most people spend 90% of their time on the things they can't control and 10% of their time on the things that they actually can. The best leaders that I know flip that equation entirely.
Alex Judd:They spend 90% of their time on the things that they can control. Their attitude, their words, their actions, their inputs, the people, their influence, that's what they spend their time on, and 10% of their time on the things they can't control. And what is that 10%? Unlike everyone else, the things they can't control, they don't fill that with worry. I actually think the best leaders fill that with prayer.
Alex Judd:Focus on the things you can control. Pray for the things that you can't. Right? I also would recommend praying for the things that you can control too because it turns out that really, really helps. But, man, we have such a proclivity.
Alex Judd:I have such a proclivity to spend all of my time on the things that I can't control that I can't ever be responsible for. And in doing so, I neglect the things that I am actually responsible for, and we need to flip that on its head. I
Ben Loy:think social media and the news is a a big contributor to that. I think there's a lot that we can focus on or get overwhelmed with that we have ultimately no control over. But, ultimately, it's it's really a distraction is is what it is.
Alex Judd:Yeah. Aspen and I made a mistake of turning on the news the other
Ben Loy:day.
Alex Judd:And and it was wild. We turned it on, and it said, coming up at five. And it's, like, talking about someone that was, you know, murdered horrifically in the middle of the night in, an obscure neighborhood in New York City. And it's like, what is the utility of me knowing that? Like, I need to know if someone you know, let's think historically.
Alex Judd:I need to know if someone in my village was murdered. Right? I really need to know that. And there's ways for me to know that. And and, like, I need to care about that because that's something I can actually respond to.
Alex Judd:Yeah. I can make sure my family's safe. I can care for those that are grieving. I can actually do something. What am I gonna do with the information and the knowledge that I now have about the person that got murdered in some, you know, obscure neighborhood in New York that I am in no way connected to.
Alex Judd:I just build up all this anxiety and tension that that can happen, but I have I have zero control. I have nothing I can do to respond. And so, yeah, I think it's good to to kinda reduce our inputs to our village because a lot of times, man, our village is entirely neglected because we're spending time figuring out what's going on in New York because we're watching the news. And so, yeah, focus on what we can control and be ruthlessly responsible for those things. That's a decision.
Ben Loy:What what does it look like to be ruthlessly responsible?
Alex Judd:Well, we teach, we teach a team training. It's it's probably our most popular team training that that we've given. It's certainly the one that I've delivered the most for for teams of, like, 30 or 40 around the country, and and it's called ownership mentality. It's directly related. We always say that an ownership mentality is the decision to be ruthlessly responsible for the things you can control.
Alex Judd:And then we say, okay. What can you control? Your motive, your role, the solution, and your influence. So your motive. Why are you doing what you're doing?
Alex Judd:Guard your heart above all else for out of it flows everything you do. Right? That's a command. Right? Guard is a verb.
Alex Judd:That means you've gotta make the decision that I'm gonna be responsible for my heart. Like, God, purify my motives. Make sure that I'm doing what I'm doing for the right reasons. Right? Your role.
Alex Judd:What are the results at work and at home that when you win in those areas, the whole wins? Mhmm. Right? Like, we know what those are, and we've gotta be ruthlessly responsible for those things. The solution, when you see problems that come in your purview, you've gotta you've gotta be ruthlessly responsible for finding solutions.
Alex Judd:I I I heard this practical example. It's a little bit of a framework or a tactic the other day. I thought it was good. They said, train your team one two one. Right?
Alex Judd:I want you to come to me with the problem or the decision that needs to be made. That's the one. Two possible options of what we could do about it and one recommendation of what you think we should do. Right? That's someone on your team owning their responsibility.
Alex Judd:Right? Really being making the decision to be ruthlessly responsible. And then your influence. We've already talked about this a little bit. You're taking people up or you're taking people down.
Alex Judd:And so you've gotta own where you're taking people. And you can't just, you know, say, well, I'm just a direct person. So, you know, if they don't like that, they just have to deal with it. That's you not owning your influence is what I would say. That, I think, is practically what it looks like to be ruthlessly responsible.
Ben Loy:Let's talk about the next topic, which is justice light,
Alex Judd:our our weaknesses. Yeah. The decision to own weaknesses. And and and the word I would hit on there is own. Because I think when it comes to our weaknesses, these are the things you're bad at.
Alex Judd:And quite frankly, you're probably always gonna be bad at. Mhmm. And that's okay. There are things that you will probably this side of heaven not be very good at. And if you deny that, then you're the person I'm most worried about.
Alex Judd:Right? So so when it comes to our weaknesses, we've got three options. Option one, I hope you're not taking part in. Option one is you're avoiding it. You know, it's interesting.
Alex Judd:The the area where I see this happening most with business owners is the area where it's also most damaging, which is crazy. I'm not a numbers person. Right? Numbers are a weakness for me. So I'm going to avoid the numbers entirely and just not not I'm not gonna look.
Alex Judd:I'm not gonna get a p and l or I'm not gonna look at the p and l. I'm not gonna exert what it takes to understand a cash flow report. I'm not gonna take the steps to get a six month rolling cash flow forecast. I'm not gonna do any of that because I'm not a numbers guy. This is why this is about expanding your leadership capacity.
Alex Judd:There are other people that will experience the consequences of that really bad decision making process to avoid your weakness. Right? And so if you're gonna be a business owner, you don't get to say, I'm not I'm not a numbers person, so I'm just not gonna pay attention. Like, part of your job is to know the numbers. And if that's uncomfortable, if you're weak at that, it just means we've gotta own that and figure out a way to move forward.
Alex Judd:Now now here's the next thing people do. Some people avoid. The next step is we acknowledge. And this is where a lot of people cap off is they say, oh, that's a weakness for me. They say, I'm just disorganized.
Alex Judd:I'm a disorganized leader. That's a weakness for me. And so they just basically say, we're gonna be a disorganized organization, or everything around me in the organization is going to be disorganized because I'm disorganized. Right? And that's acknowledging it, but there's nothing productive, constructive, or forward moving about that.
Alex Judd:And you will cap out if all you do is acknowledge your weakness. The final thing is to actually own your weakness. And when we own our weakness, what we do is we say, I am either gonna grow in this area because I have to, or I'm going to hire for this area. I'm gonna hire my weaknesses, or I'm going to delegate this. But acknowledging and then just saying that's just the way option.
Alex Judd:That that is not what we're going to do. Expanding your leadership capacity always involves owning your weaknesses.
Ben Loy:Well, and you brought up the numbers conversation. I feel like one of the things that has been most compelling to me and interesting to see is CFO bookkeeping, accounting services that do a good job at breaking what's complicated down into a way that a business owner who's not good at numbers can actually see and understand. Right? Yes. They don't have to be an expert, but it's like, oh, here are a there are
Alex Judd:a
Ben Loy:plethora of companies out there that you could go to that are like, we're expert at at this, and we're good at breaking it down into a way that you actually understand so that you don't have to be good at numbers, but you still have to, like, understand you know? Like, here are the key metrics that you need to understand. Right?
Alex Judd:And and that and that's what's crazy is most business owners think, I I should have this. I have to have this, And they feel a lot of shame associated with the fact that they're like, I see these reports, and I don't even know I mean, I don't even know which way is up from down. Right? And I'm like but, like, literally, all I do when I look at my financial reports is look at the bottom and see if it's red or black, and that's all I do. Right?
Alex Judd:And and they feel like they feel bad about that, and then they feel afraid to tell anyone about that. And so what they'll say is, I need to figure all this stuff out on my own so then I can work with a fractional CFO or something. It's like, that's like saying, hey, I'm gonna go make sure I get healthy so I can go to the doctor. It it is just crazy. Right?
Alex Judd:Like, we don't do that. Right? You go to the doctor because you're like, need to get better at this. And owning your weaknesses looks like outsourcing. It looks like getting someone you trust.
Alex Judd:Now with finances in particular, like, the biggest thing is you gotta know that people aren't gonna take advantage of what you don't understand and that they're also gonna have the heart of a teacher. And that, I mean, that literally, that right there is why we have a an incredible partnership with Fulling Management and Accounting. Right? Like, which we'll put the link to their organization in the show notes of this episode because they provide accounting and fractional CFO work for business owners and and leadership teams, but they I I have known Rusty for, gosh, almost a decade now. Like, I just trust the guy implicitly.
Ben Loy:Salt of the earth.
Alex Judd:Oh my gosh. Just like one of the best people on the planet. And his team is the same way. They're just such solid people, and and they have a heart of a teacher. They are not good with, like, I understand this, but you're not gonna understand this because you just can't get it.
Alex Judd:No. Like, they're like, hey. We are going to over time increase your understanding of the lifeblood of your business, which is profitability so that you can make good decisions about how your business grows and moves forward, which is just so good. So if someone's looking for that, I I could not recommend fulling management and accounting more highly.
Ben Loy:What are some practical approaches to, like, identifying and eliminating an area where you experience shame?
Alex Judd:That acronym has always been helpful for me. Shame should have already mastered everything is that is naming it. Right? Like, oh, man. I should I should have that already.
Alex Judd:If you feel your if you're if you feel yourself saying I should or I need to or, man, I can't believe I haven't, a lot of times that's shame language. Right? Not all the time, but a lot of time. What I've had to grow in is I cannot consciously be aware of shame first. That's not what happened.
Alex Judd:I I don't just, like, sit there in a conversation and then be like, I am experiencing shame right
Ben Loy:now.
Alex Judd:Right. What I what I have gotten really good at realizing is like, man, my neck just got really tight or my shoulders just got really up high or my breathing just got really shallow. Or there is a there is a whole season of business ownership for me where it's weird. Like, my my left side would just start to ache a little bit, and I would know, like, I better start paying attention. What's crazy is I have learned my body has been giving me those signals for a very long time.
Alex Judd:I just start paying attention to them. Then I started to be like, what is going on right now? And a lot of times for me it can be shame that's driving those by. And then I can start to say, okay, what's the story I'm telling myself and how does that story interact or contradict with truth? And then you start to breathe through truth, and you start to feel your shoulders go down, you start to make better decisions.
Alex Judd:Emotions grip our brain. And if if emotions go unaddressed, like we don't identify them, then they're in the driver's seat. And so it's really helpful to know what shows up physiologically when you're experiencing emotions because if you can name it, literally, there's been neuroscientists that have done incredible work that suggests the minute you label an emotion, it reduces its effect on your cognitive abilities. So helpful to be aware of.
Ben Loy:I'm a breath holder. You hold your breath? When I'm stressed or when, yeah, when I'm holding something emotionally, I I realize I, like, I'm holding my breath.
Alex Judd:Oh, that's not your solution. That's what
Ben Loy:you No. That's like my physiological response to things sometimes. So So I know
Alex Judd:Ben So I know Ben ever turns purple. Yeah. Probably being underwater a lot
Ben Loy:had something to
Alex Judd:do with that. No kidding. Holy cow. That's interesting.
Ben Loy:Alright. What's the fourth decision?
Alex Judd:Yeah. The fourth one is very much getting into a path for growth, a uniquely path for growth way of thinking about business leadership in life, I would say. But I also think it's right, so I think we're gonna share it. Right? It's the decision to define success as faithfulness.
Alex Judd:I mean, it might have been nine years ago now. I it was about nine years ago that I I really wanted to be the host of the Entre Leadership Podcast. And there were some things going on that they were not making me the host of the Entre Leadership Podcast, and I started to get a little bit irritated about that, and and, like, was a little bit impatient. But then, praise god, some of that impatience kind of transferred into, okay. What can I do productive in this season?
Alex Judd:I don't have exactly what I want, but what can I do? Spoiler alert. I I I ended up eventually becoming the host of the Entre Leadership Podcast, which was just an amazing experience. But in this in between time, I just I kinda looked myself in the mirror, I said, well, what what does everyone in the organization say? They always say, like, don't wait for someone to give you the job.
Alex Judd:Just start doing it. And I I couldn't just take the microphone. That wouldn't go too well. So what I said is like, why am I waiting to interview remarkable people? Why don't I just start interviewing people right now?
Alex Judd:And so I set out a monthly challenge for myself where I said, I'm gonna I I put this out on Facebook and LinkedIn and Instagram. I said, over the course of the month of March, I want to interview 17 people, and I just wanna know a few things. I wanna get to know you. I wanna understand your story, and I wanna get past surface level as fast as possible. Those are my three objectives.
Alex Judd:And, oh my gosh, had so many interesting conversations. 17 people, we did this. Strangers, people I hadn't talked to since high school. It was crazy. To make a long story short, one of the questions that I asked every single person was how do you define success?
Alex Judd:And what's crazy is every single person I talked to, I would say, was chasing success. Only one person out of the 17 that I talked to had a natural definition and didn't hem and haw and, like, make stuff up. Some people literally, I mean, ended up saying, I think success is just what makes you happy. And I was like, that is a very insufficient answer to, like, something that you're basing your life around is success. And the person that had the answer was a guy named Dan.
Alex Judd:He's he's a mentor and friend of mine. He pastors a church in Austin called Cornerstone. I said, Dan, how do you define success? And he didn't even skip a beat. He didn't even skip a beat.
Alex Judd:He said, did I do what God said? Mhmm. Period. And or question mark. Yeah.
Alex Judd:So good. Right? And and what that is is success equals faithfulness, which is so good because, everyone else that I interviewed that month, and myself included, was setting themselves up for frustration and disappointment because success for them was related to circumstance or it was related to outcome that they might have been able to influence, but they could not fully control those outcomes. Mhmm. Or it was related to things that were entirely out of their control.
Alex Judd:And and, also, it was related to things that God never asked of you. Right? God asked us for faithfulness. That's what he asked for us. And and Dan was the one that actually that actually got that and put words to it.
Alex Judd:Did I do what God said?
Ben Loy:That answer is so far from flashy.
Alex Judd:Yeah. That's right. That's so true. Alright. What's the fifth decision?
Alex Judd:Fifth decision is the decision to surrender. This is also very counterintuitive and like, what? Like, you know, you're there's certain conferences that you will never hear the word surrender ever uttered ever. But, like, I think it goes in alignment with faithfulness. It goes in alignment with calling.
Alex Judd:It goes in alignment with, like, man, if I wanna expand and grow as a leader, I gotta really know in my bones, this business that I lead, this is not my business. This is God's business. And then let's get a little bit even more challenging, convicting, uncomfortable. This life is not my life. This life is God's life.
Alex Judd:Right? That, like, I've been chosen to steward. And when you start to view yourself less as a hero and more as an instrument, then you become an instrument that he's able to use. And and when you become an instrument that God can use, well, then what you're gonna find is your capacity expands because he who can be trusted with little can be trusted with much. So a lot of us, the struggle, disappointment, challenge, and I'm certainly not immune to this, that we experience is related to the fact that we're still scratching and clawing for my life to be my own.
Alex Judd:And the areas where it's like, man, God can have all of that. He just can't have this. I need to control this. That's the area where you're gonna experience the most stress. And it's also the area where you're you're limited because you're relying on human willpower.
Alex Judd:I had a friend that used to tell me, Alex, willpower is no power. Right? God is ready and willing to give you everything that more than everything you need, more than anything you can ask, think, or imagine, but he gets to own it. Mhmm. And a lot of times, you don't wanna give him that.
Ben Loy:Man, I feel like that just cascades back onto the other four things that we've talked about, like surrender. Like, if you're focused or you're making the decision of on personal growth, you're probably surrendering a lot of time to other things, like Mhmm. In the efforts to increase your capacity and your ability to be a healthy leader. Like, if
Alex Judd:you're
Ben Loy:if you're being ruthlessly responsible, like, you're surrendering the things that you know you can't control so
Alex Judd:you
Ben Loy:can focus on the things, you know, in weaknesses. Like, you're surrendering the reality that you're human, like, you're or you're acknowledging it. Right? You're surrendering the reality that you're you're not perfect. There are things that you need to work on, things things you just can't do, and you need other people and God to help you, like, bridge those gaps.
Ben Loy:Mhmm. And then in faithfulness, like, you're you're ultimately, you're just surrendering the fact that, like,
Alex Judd:my job is not these outcomes. My job is faith. Like, sow the seeds. Yeah. Exactly.
Alex Judd:Right thing. That's so good. I I haven't honestly thought about that, but I I do think it sums up what we're talking about with all of these. And and it's how you make sure all of these are actually healthy too. Because, I mean, you can take any any podcast we've ever done, you could take and be like, I'm going to retool this and reframe this for my own glory or or something like that and and surrender hamstrings you from being able to do that.
Alex Judd:Right? I've been spending time in Colossians lately. In Colossians, there's this there's one of the most epic descriptions of Jesus that there could possibly be. It says, he is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. In him, all things were created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions, rulers or authorities.
Alex Judd:And then it says, all things were created by him and for him. All things were created by him, but also all things were created for him. That I I actually think, like, when it says all things, it means, like, all things. Like, everything. Right?
Alex Judd:Very applicable to what we're in right now with AI. AI was created. God's not like, what? What is this new thing they figured out? It's like, no.
Alex Judd:He's not surprised. Right? All things were created by him, and also all things were created for him. And when we throw up our hands and say, I'm I'm gonna stop trying to orient these resources, these good things, these created things that God gave me. I'm gonna stop trying to orient these towards my glory and start aiming it at what it's actually for, which literally he it says he created it for him.
Alex Judd:Everything just gets way better. Like, way better is what I would say.
Ben Loy:Well, we're gonna end on that.
Alex Judd:Okay. Sounds good. Thanks, Bandai. Well, there you have it. Thanks so much for joining us for this episode.
Alex Judd:If you want any of the information or resources that we mentioned, that's all in the show notes. Hey, before you go, could I ask you for one quick favor? Could you subscribe, rate, and review this podcast episode? Your feedback is what helps our team engage in a sequence of never ending improvement. We wanna amplify what's valuable to you and obviously reduce or even remove the things that aren't.
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Alex Judd:Remember, my strength is not for me. Your strength is not for you. Our strength is for service. Let's go. Let's go.
Alex Judd:Let's go.
