Eric Albright (00:02.402)
Welcome back to the Red Letter Leadership Podcast and right before we went on air we're sitting here just like a bunch of chuckleheads laughing. We're gonna screw this thing up but I don't know. We're figuring it out. But nonetheless we're here now. It's today. It's a beautiful February mid-afternoon morning-ish and we're gonna talk a little bit about leadership for the next 30-40 minutes as we always do. And one we're happy that you're able to join us today. Thanks for coming in.
Jordan Ames (00:15.415)
you
Eric Albright (00:32.336)
Thanks for dialing in, listening, however you're maybe watching the podcast. And we're joined here with Jordan and Ben and myself, authors of Red Letter Leadership. This book right here, Leadership Lessons from the Life of Christ. And today we're going to share one with you from our July 28th. I don't think they're dated. No, they're not dated. But it's from Luke 4, where Jesus attempts, or he actually executes a, or conducts rather, a sermon in his hometown.
And how did that end for him, Jordan?
Jordan Ames (01:06.739)
they were routin' him out of his hometown.
Eric Albright (01:08.812)
Ran him out, tried to kill him, tried to run him off a cliff and turns out that didn't work out well. But the key takeaway here and what we're going to kind of be discussing today is that what he mentioned in Luke 4 there is that no prophet has honor in his hometown. And so a lot of folks look at that and they mean like, you know, because they mentioned, you know, he's the son of Joseph and he's got this guy, he's this brother and that brother and like this is to them,
common man. So a lot of times Jesus is making the point through this story or you see the point like you've got to get out of your hometown to have an impact. And we can I think parlay that into Jordan if you go back and read this particular Daily Devo and Ben. What that really means is you've got to get outside of your comfort zone where you're comfortable used to living at to really make a difference and have an impact and that's
what this story here is telling us. And so, would really like to talk today about what it's like, what the decision-making process looks like, and the decision-making continuum to...
what it means to think outside of the box and get outside your comfort zone and maybe even what some of the barriers are that are preventing you from doing that as well as the reasons that that's not a preferred course of action. Then what's your, in your opinion, what are some of the values of thinking outside quote unquote the box and not living inside your comfort zone?
Ben Hunter (02:49.917)
Well, you know, that's a great question first of all, know I kind of I look at from life experience for sure where I Find myself having to go into uncomfortable space Doing things I've never done before what that leads me to do one. Initially. There's a level of fear But what is important? I think what I've learned over the years is God has shown me
that actually stepping outside of the box allows me to depend on him more and depend on myself less, which I think is super important. Now, granted, I say that as if I do that every time, right? That's not the case. And a lot of times at first, I'll think I'll have all the solutions, I'll figure it out, it's all on me, and then I quickly find out I'm not that good.
Eric Albright (03:28.974)
That's a point.
Ben Hunter (03:48.365)
But as I get older and a little more wise, I find out, okay, I'm about to get into some uncharted territory. I'm gonna have to think outside of my comfort zone and what I've done. I'm gonna have to think outside the box here on this one, because I've never done this before. God, I need your help on this one.
Eric Albright (04:08.834)
Yeah. Jordan, what are some of the... I'm with you. That makes great sense. Jordan, what are some of the drawbacks for staying inside the quote-unquote box or comfort zone from a leadership decision-making perspective?
Jordan Ames (04:20.919)
You know, I think one of the greatest drawbacks is there's no growth. And when we're talking from a spiritual perspective, certainly the whole reason why we exist is to love God, right, and to please Him. Part of that, what our responsibility is on earth is to advance His kingdom. So if we're not able to step out of our comfort zone,
And remember, we live in a fallen world. think Ben and I, a couple episodes ago were talking about this. We admit we're Christ followers in a fallen world. We shouldn't be comfortable there. If we're comfortable there, there's something wrong. Are we truly following Christ if we're comfortable in a world that hates him? So if we are remaining in our comfort zone and we're OK there,
Eric Albright (05:02.926)
Hmm.
Eric Albright (05:08.814)
interesting.
Jordan Ames (05:17.067)
We're truly not doing what God has commanded us to do. I mean, just flat out, it's not what he's commanded us to do.
Eric Albright (05:22.328)
Which is go, G-O. He didn't say stay. He didn't say stay and make disciples.
Jordan Ames (05:27.991)
Right, exactly. And this is one of the big, I guess, complaints I have with the American church, the body of Christ, which I am a part of and I am certainly part of the problem. But I see a lot within the church is a lot of programs and ministries and routines and day-to-day things are serving the people that have been attending there for 30, 40 years.
Like my church just, and I love them, it's a great church family. They baptized, I don't know, maybe half a dozen people last year. I think they were all like.
like children of people that have been going there for a while, or like to say that there has been new people that we have reached out to and because of our outreach, because of us going and seeking to make disciples and helping people find Jesus, that that has resulted in people coming to our church and being baptized in our church, or at least another church. I don't really know if we can honestly say that has happened in, you
the past couple years. Maybe it has, not privy to everything.
Eric Albright (06:42.734)
Yeah.
Yeah, and I don't think that's a Jordan's Church issue. I mean, it's not an American Church issue because there's certainly the... and I think a lot of that's regional Jordan because I've seen in the salad a little further south than you do, although it's still freezing cold here. It single digits the last two weeks and I hate it. I have a whole different story about not plowing my driveway and I should have announced I was stuck with a block of ice. Anyhow, we've seen... I've seen a lot of baptisms down here in the Southern Baptist type style and so it... from new people,
almost exclusively. And so I think it's a little regional too. You know, there's a heavy, you get too nerdy, a heavy Protestant foothold up there in the north, northeast, where it gets a little bit different down south. And it's just a culture thing. So don't know if it's American church as much as it is just a region. I think it's at least minimally or regionally influenced kind of observation. But.
Jordan Ames (07:19.678)
yeah.
Jordan Ames (07:37.462)
Yeah.
Eric Albright (07:38.434)
But anyway, speaking of, well, I'll tell you this, speaking of comfort zone, I'm glad I lived down here in the South because I was, you know, grew up as a Methodist and now I'm a Baptist, but those guys, they scare me, those Protestants. And so that was not my comfort zone. Here we are now. The Jordan, we, especially those Catholics run away fast. No, I'm teasing. I got great friends. Rob, one of them is a good Catholic man. anyhow, so people ask the question, Jordan, I think it's like for, especially for
Ben Hunter (07:52.957)
you
Jordan Ames (08:00.939)
Yeah, yeah, right. Yeah, I got a couple others. Yeah.
Eric Albright (08:08.408)
new leaders or young leaders or establishing developing leaders what does it mean really to think outside the box what does it look like well
I don't know, a couple years ago, I'm gonna pull something up on my screen. A couple years ago, when we were writing this actually, I did my best over a cup of coffee to try to create a visual pictorial representation of what that looks like. And so when people think or say, think outside the box, they're like, whoa, hold on. I mean, the box is my operating environment. No, false, fake news. And everything outside of that's illegal and ethical and moral. No, fake news. Your comfort zone is not the opposite.
Jordan Ames (08:42.636)
Yeah.
Eric Albright (08:47.996)
environment. Your comfort zone is simply that Jordan, Ben, where you're comfortable. The operating environment is generally much bigger and if you can see it on the screen you've got it it's depicted as a triangle right and there's a place outside of that operating environment decision-making continuum that you cannot go and you should not go. It's called illegal, unethical, or immoral. Those Jordan and Ben are your three bounds okay you are bounded by that restriction.
nothing illegal, unethical or immoral. Okay. So therefore, everything that's not illegal, unethical or immoral is in the realm of a reasonable or possible decision, right? Okay, and so as you continue to break the triangle down there, you see then from the outside to the next layer is called the gray zone, where you're getting close to that, unequal or illegal, unethical or immoral, but you have not crossed
that boundary.
So therefore, decisions in the gray zone are still legitimate decisions and usable, we'll call it, decisions. Okay. Now, if you go way to the middle, you're gonna see a yellow box. We're gonna skip over the green for a second. If you go way to the middle, you'll see yellow. Now that, my good friends, is where most people live, right? Dead smack in the center, nowhere near illegal, unethical, or immoral.
Okay, which is fine to a degree, but as both of you just said and alluded to, if you do not leave your comfort zone, you will not grow.
Eric Albright (10:30.09)
Okay, and so the what's and so we can ask and you said it I think Ben was you one of the primary reasons that people do not want to leave that comfort zone Comes down to a four-letter word that starts with F F E A R Fear Jordan, but here's the good news. Okay That is not a solid line
When you're making decisions inside that yellow triangle there or the comfort zone, that is simply, it's not a barrier, it's simply a pass through. So you, once you make the decision to step around one of those dash lines, around one of those gates we'll call it, you can go right outside the box and start making decisions without any, nothing's holding you back. So the only thing really that's holding you back from making those decisions outside the box is yourself.
Okay, and generally because you're it's it's a fear-based factor and that comes down to your faith and your witness your testimony What will they say about me? What if it's the wrong decision? What are my friends gonna say all these reasons that the enemy puts in your head to not spread your faith or in the workplace? Make bold decisions are because of reasons that you're afraid of what's gonna happen Generally speaking now. Here's the thing once so that comfort zone is
is where people operate. what people say outside the box, is not in the illegal and ethical or immoral realm, Jordan, Ben. It's actually inside of that triangle, but just outside of your comfort zone. So outside the box really means outside your box of aggregate decision-making thought. So now, when you start making decisions that go back, go outside of your comfort zone, you can even at times transit to the gray zone a little bit to find the edge of the box, don't live there.
Because eventually you'll spill over which we said is a no-no, right? You can find the edge of that, find the gray zone, and then you kind of dial it back to where you can operate without fear or worry about crossing the line to illegal and ethical remoral. And as you do that, it's the last thing I'll say, and then I'll hand it back over to you Ben for thoughts, as you do that, your comfort zone and as your aggregate mean of decision-making starts to be scatterplotted outside the box at each decision point you make, your comfort zone grows. And so in a perfect way,
Eric Albright (12:52.552)
Your comfort zone now encompasses that yellow internal triangle is the whole green outside the box area, right? So your ability to make decisions and the experience that you lean on is now based on a much broader understanding, interpretation and area of decision making where you can incorporate far more and you're far more comfortable, okay? And so that's from a personal perspective of decision making. Let's stay there first and then we'll talk about how as a leader,
you can affect or not affect somebody else's comfort zone in decision making. But let's live where we are first and relate that to ourselves. And Ben, if you want to hit it, Jordan, I'm going to pull this down. then where do you all? Yeah, sure.
Jordan Ames (13:27.318)
Hey, Eric!
Jordan Ames (13:35.479)
Hold up, hold up. Can you leave that up for a second? I just want to ask you two questions before you turn it to Ben. So where do you think the enemy wants us?
Eric Albright (13:49.868)
The enemy wants you right where, if you're in your, quote, the smaller the comfort zone, the better. And where the enemy wants you, Jordan, is predictable.
Jordan Ames (13:50.038)
In this.
Eric Albright (13:59.35)
And he doesn't say, like again, that enemy is fear, Satan's fear, that's his tactic. But once again, just like if you go back to the garden when he talks to the woman, not named Eve yet by the way, but when he talks to Eve, future Eve, named Eve, he doesn't tell her you can't. Remember that. Telling you you can't is a solid line. He only has a dash line to operate with, to influence, not to prevent. And so he said, he doesn't...
Jordan Ames (14:18.391)
Right, right.
Eric Albright (14:29.314)
say you can't he says did he or should you he just makes you question it so he doesn't keep he doesn't prevent you from doing it he just makes you question yourself and whether you should transit that that that barrier of fear right and so where he wants you is in a predictable spot because he can work with that
Jordan Ames (14:51.351)
Yeah, that's good. And then last question. So in that green, so what, so fear is keeping us from stepping out of our comfort zone into the green area, the outside the box area. So what like, what's in the green zone there, the outside the box area that we are afraid of?
Eric Albright (15:06.072)
Yeah.
Eric Albright (15:16.109)
Well.
The fear of the unknown is the primary one. What will it look like? I've never done it. Fear of public speaking, I've never done it. It takes time to get comfortable. The more you do it, the bigger your comfort zone with public speaking will be. Go Matthew 28, and go make disciples. Go to Walmart and go proselytize or go find someone who looks like they need the good news, what McDonald's drive-through. So the thing preventing you from doing that is yourself. How will it turn out? What will people think of me?
Ben Hunter (15:41.318)
Thank
Eric Albright (15:46.512)
That's primarily, I think, the driving factor in that leadership realm.
Jordan Ames (15:52.151)
Yeah, and I think I was thinking failure too, because like failure exists in that green area. That's the whole idea of stepping out of your comfort zone and stretching because people don't want to fail. It's like, hold up. There's a lot of growth and failure. It's just based on our perspective and how we see it. yeah, 100%. All right, I'll stop now. Thanks.
Eric Albright (15:59.246)
Okay.
Ben Hunter (16:01.028)
Good.
Eric Albright (16:11.394)
You have to fail to grow.
Eric Albright (16:16.59)
You're good, man. Now hit it. We think Ben.
Ben Hunter (16:20.922)
Yeah, so this is really good and the model is helpful. couple, two thoughts. One, know folks and when I say folks, including myself, I think we find ourselves remaining in the box because that's the way we've always done it. Which we've talked on this podcast before about how detrimental that statement is for organizations to have folks within your organization that may even be yourself saying,
Well, this is the way we've always done it, so this is the way we need to continue to do it. And that stunts organizational growth and stunts a learning organization. So I think we all have to...
Eric Albright (16:53.452)
Yeah, think that's, yeah, that's toxic.
That's parasitical is what that is.
Ben Hunter (17:03.492)
Yeah, I mean, we've just all got to get to a place where it's like, OK, here's the problem statement or the issue, and we need to come up with a, we need to solve this problem. Maybe I need to look at it from a different angle. And a lot of times, you know, as leaders, we may need to be the one to do that, or maybe we need to have somebody else on our team take a look at it because they see things differently, which again, might be a little outside the box, right? So we're not.
you know, as a leader we think we have to have all the answers when a lot of times we may have team members or folks that work for us that may have some answers that helps us see things from a different perspective to create a solution to a problem. Yeah, I would say number two point is, you know, that gray area. I think back to Jordan's point, I think that gray area too, getting close to that line of
Eric Albright (17:43.882)
That's a great point.
Ben Hunter (18:00.358)
immoral and ethical, illegal is where the enemy wants us to. And the closer and the more often we flirt in that space, the more the evil one will likely try to make us think that we can get into that, it's gonna be okay. Or maybe we do a little bit of it, nothing happens, and so we can keep going into that space. Because last time,
Eric Albright (18:16.942)
That's a good point. I'm interested.
Ben Hunter (18:29.774)
nothing happened. And so I think that's important, another important aspect of maintaining self-control and boundaries within those illegal moral and ethical decision-making and providing orders or telling people to do things that kind of gets a... The other part too is we got to be careful, right? Because you got to think about perception as reality. And I think if we...
If we stay too close to those boundaries, there might be a perception that we are being illegal and moral and ethical. And I think it's important for us as leaders and Christ-centered leaders to maintain a clear line of what we are willing to do in order to solve a problem and where do we need to make sure we don't get ourselves in a
particular circumstance where the perception may be we're doing something unethical or moral.
Eric Albright (19:33.25)
That's a great point and I think there's two, both the things you hit on which are getting outside of that box and then preventing yourself from going illegal and ethical or moral bull come down. You, you, you,
clearly articulated the value and requirement to surround yourself with people, friends, coworkers, other leader decision makers to provide you that backup. One, they're going to help you back, hey, I want to, I'm thinking about this decision, I need your support, maybe a little encouragement, get them, and up to you to do, get you or get them outside the box to start with. Secondly, if you're collaborating with them, they're going to also sanity check that you don't go and dip it through
the gray into the illegal and ethical or immoral, right? And you're bouncing these things off of them when you do it. And that's not a direct example, but Jesus did give us the structure and the breakdown of what that looked like, because he had his three, he had his 12 and he had his 70, right? He had his three closest, Peter, James, John. He had his 12 disciples, right? And so he had folks around him that were at different echelons of trust that he showed things to, spoke into, and surrounded himself.
with right and the same goes for all of us as and for you Ben or Jordan or me or whomever like inside of a if you're a military world like company commanders you got three or four other ones that you can use to bounce things off of
If you're a business owner, a small business owner, you've got three or four others you probably should have networked with to run some sanity checks by. If you're a church and you're a leader, you've got three or four other deacons, who knows, right, elders. Surround yourself with folks, but the key there is communication. Communication and accountability, communication with other people and accountability that they're holding you to is gonna help you get out, but prevent you and make sure you stay in.
Eric Albright (21:30.616)
own inside that full decision-making continuum you know
Ben Hunter (21:33.751)
Yeah, that makes sense.
Eric Albright (21:37.398)
I think with the last 10 minutes or so, I would love to hear you guys, Jordan first. So we just talked about how leaders themselves can think outside the box, right? And develop their own style to do that. But now let's flip it, okay? Now let's go up one echelon where now you're not the leader in the tactical sense, you're on the... what do you call it?
Jordan Ames (21:37.846)
That's good.
Eric Albright (22:01.166)
boy. That's the way. You're one above tactical. Help me out. It's not strategic. It's... It's operational! I've only been retired for six months.
Jordan Ames (22:05.431)
Operational.
Ben Hunter (22:07.318)
operational.
Jordan Ames (22:12.087)
Yeah, I was about to say, man, you were just there a couple months ago, come on.
Eric Albright (22:16.642)
shows you how much I never mind and so and so anyway so let's go up one round from the tactical to operational which essentially in the military world is company grade to field grade okay and so now once you get to the field grade level ish you're now not a leader with boots on the ground you're now leading leaders and so whereas before you were developing your style that folks needed to generally conform to you're now enabling or empowering other junior leaders to develop their style so they shouldn't be
Jordan Ames (22:20.097)
You
Eric Albright (22:46.616)
forming to yours or you'll be, well I don't want to ruin it, but stifling to some degree. So now you need to be a leadership chameleon per se and you need to figure out what their style they're developing is and then talk to each one of them individually at a level that they'll respond to. But the point here is, so as that next level up and you're trying to help somebody else get outside their comfort zone and teach this or enable this Jordan, what are some ways you can do it that will assist them in thinking outside the box and then
maybe even prevent them because of your leadership style and who you are from doing that.
Jordan Ames (23:23.287)
Yeah, that's a really good question. And I'd imagine there's a lot of people listening that, know, there's leadership is leadership, right? Whether you're, whether we're talking about fatherhood or we're talking about very tactical type of things, or we're going up the echelon chain, but it's an art and it has to be applied differently considering the environment, considering
the leaders that you're trying to help develop, right? And considering their behavior style and whatnot.
I think even then, it's more important to get their buy-in. Because if you're at that level and you're just kind of, our whatever. Let's say I'm a major, I'm a lieutenant colonel, and I got leaders below me that are whatever, company commanders or that supervisors of some sort that lead, you know.
100 or 200 each right so I got several hundreds of people that Decisions at my level, you know, it's going to affect And I see them like they seem like they're in their comfort zone. I know that's not good I want to take our organization out of it. I want us to grow like all good things But if you're way up at that level and you're just like hey We need to do this this and this because I know that's going to take us out of our comfort zone. That's going to grow us be at those
Eric Albright (24:36.75)
Right.
Jordan Ames (24:57.875)
know, intermediate leaders, those company commanders, so to speak, are like, this is a little too much. This is, don't know how I'm going to execute this or that. So I think it's most important, you mentioned communication is the key. It's most important to bring those guys in and get their buy-in. You still need to have the ownership, the responsibility of leading your organization out.
outside the box thinking for growth to stretch them. But you need to be like walking them in that. Developing them to take ownership of that stepping outside the box. Does that make sense? Yeah.
Eric Albright (25:41.838)
Yeah, it makes great sense. Ben, in your opinion, is there anything leaders do that limit that? Maybe intentionally or unintentionally.
Ben Hunter (25:51.126)
Yeah, mean for sure and I've been there myself as a leader where you think, know, nobody else can come up with a solution but me because I'm in charge or, you know, I need to be able to be in a place where I can tell everybody exactly what they need to do and how to do it. And I think a lot of young leaders find themselves in that spot where, you know, they're not providing an environment where feedback and input and ideas
are not and there is a structure that we tend to be like this in the military for sure because the way the command structure and things like that. But I think there is opportunity for sure and like I've always said I'm hopeful that we have some listeners that are young military leaders who can learn from some of our experiences and definitely from a lot of our things we've done wrong where we can go back and kind
see where we could have been better. I think it's fostering an environment where we allow folks that they feel like they can come up with some solutions, they can provide ideas. And we've created some systems and processes that allow that to happen. You've got the AR process or the IPR process in the Army. Huh?
Eric Albright (27:11.028)
After action report, that's what that means. Yeah. No, I was just saying that's after action report for those that don't know what that is.
Ben Hunter (27:17.639)
After action report or in progress report where we're allowing an environment where feedback and ideas can be cultivated and folks trust their leader to be able to say, I'm not sure that's going to work or I got maybe something better we could do, I think is super important.
Eric Albright (27:44.258)
Yeah, I think you hit it on the head in the aviation world. We call it the debrief. You don't learn as much from the, you do what you learn nowhere near as much from the flight as you do from the debrief, which is really the key takeaway here. If you want folks to really begin to gain confidence and confidence will help them overcome that fear. need to debrief them on each evolution. Yeah, it could look like lessons learned every other Friday over a cold frosty beverage, right? In the, the, in the squadron bar or at the Oak Club or whatever. Maybe it is, maybe it's with your church group.
Ben Hunter (27:55.21)
Yeah.
Eric Albright (28:14.192)
You know on a Wednesday night, but whatever it is like you've got after actions been we're basically talking through what we did How it went and what went well and most importantly what went wrong and how we fix it because it isn't generally what you did It's what you do that matters and what you're gonna do with it And we've said before curses that so things that seem like curses look at job things that seem like curses to some people or to you and it's happening our blessing to someone else who gets the value and benefit of your experience of having gone through it only if you share it with them, which
is what not what you did what you do and Job right look at what he went through you know in the Bible and you and Ani and we're all benefiting from it today so it's a blessing to us to see that and it it emboldens our faith because look Job went through this this is an example so that's just one one way to look at that and
And so it's really important, I think you guys kind of both hit on it, is like, leaders, immature leadership stifles growth, and it stifles growth because of micromanagement, and generally micromanagement's bred from insecurity, a lack of confidence in your decisions, and so another, another way, another important thing is, fellas, is like, and I'll end here, I might have said this last time, I'm not sure, yeah, it was about David, I mentioned it, what are you doing in your prep time?
Right? And last night on the other podcast that I do, we had a guy, a fella on named J. Packy Dempsey. In 1994, he was in a gunfight. He was a cop. He was in a gunfight with his dog. Survived it, clearly. The other guy did not. But the point is, the guy in a wrestling match took his weapon, and he had to pull his back up, and then basically...
say exterminate that's not the right words he had to defend himself but the whole point is he suffered from a lot of things who include PTSD for years and he has he says he has a website or a book called the fastest four seconds and he was saying this that our entire life is made up of a finite amount of four second segments okay you never know what's gonna happen in a future four second segment so you have between now and force three seconds from now and then you have then three seconds
Eric Albright (30:27.394)
more to do something to prep you for that and what are you doing with it because four seconds in his example could change your life changed his life changed the life of the other individual involved in that that that arrest or altercation and so we live in a finite amount of four-second segments fellas what are we doing with them what pennies are we putting in the jar to get in be in our prep time for decisions we're gonna have to make tough conversations we'll have to have transition Ben right
You get a transition out of the military or other things and so we are constantly, we are in a perpetual state of prep time and if we get to a point in which we're unable to help a brother or a sister in need
because we weren't prepared to do so when we had the ability to do that prior to that's on us fellas and the parable of the talents is the last last thing I'll say I'll hand over you guys for closing comments but we were talking about the peril of the talents you were handed one guy was handed five one servant was handed five one was handed two and one was handed one the pair the one with five went traded it risked a little bit came over came fear doubled it ten the guy with
doubled it to four through trading and bartering. And the other guy was afraid of God and what he'd do with the talent he was given, so he didn't want to risk losing it out of fear, so he buried it. A talent is 20 years worth of wage, okay, in this parable. That's a lot of stuff. He buried it out of fear because he didn't want to lose it.
Jordan Ames (32:00.215)
this morning.
Eric Albright (32:03.126)
and risk it. Well, that is similar to the gifts we've been given and the time we've been given and it's similar to our faith witness, fellas. The faith witness we have isn't ours because without God, we would be no witness. So he's given that to us as a gift. what comes down to it is you've been given that gift, you've been given that witness. What are you doing to share that? And if you say, hey, you know what? I'm reading my Bible every day and I'm staying in my man cave or woman cave, redneck rooms, that's where
I call it redneck room and just reading and I'm keeping it to myself at the end of this thing He makes it very clear you will be thrown to the outer edges and there will be wailing and gnashing a teeth he is not pleased as in God is not pleased and so unless you're taking those gifts and talents and
that you've been given and multiplying them? Fellas, you said that in the beginning, Jordan. We are not doing it right. And the same thing goes with training these young officers or these young leaders in how to think and make decisions inside that decision-making continuum of comfort zone or not. I rest my case.
Jordan Ames (33:11.061)
That's good. Yeah. I was thinking, when you were talking about the four seconds, have you read the book Blink by Malcolm Gladwell? Great book. that's, yeah, obviously he's talking about like the subconscious and how the subconscious, you know, reacts without thinking. And I was just like, we can train the subconscious by preparing, right?
Ben Hunter (33:12.913)
Good man.
Eric Albright (33:21.7)
yeah, Malcolm Gladwell. I almost brought that up last night.
Eric Albright (33:37.19)
That is the training of the subconscious. 10,000 times or 10,000 minutes or whatever it is. System 1 and System 2 thinking. That's the difference. System 1 is natural reaction. System 2 is you got to think about it first.
Jordan Ames (33:42.603)
Yeah, yeah.
Jordan Ames (33:48.021)
We have to be preparing.
When we think about Jesus, his preparation, I mean, he is God, yet we understand he didn't start his ministry until he was around 30 years old. But he's God. He could have been out there, you know, whatever, 10. Right, right. Yeah, he could just got up and started giving his sermons then, right? No, he was, man, patience, prep time.
Eric Albright (34:08.438)
He was 12 years old in his prep time in the temples.
Eric Albright (34:18.766)
His time had not yet come. But he knew and he was prepped. Yeah, with you. Alright, Ben. Final word goes to you, buddy. What do you got?
Ben Hunter (34:30.07)
I would just say Eric, this is such a great and fruitful topic, man. And I think in so many ways, this can correspond with folks who are at different levels of leadership out there listening to this. Whether it's leading our families, leading an organization, leading a volunteer team at your church. Think of ways in which you out there listening can
Get outside of your comfort zone. What is something going on in your life where you are thinking inside the box that God is calling you to step outside of your comfort zone, step out of your box? And I, from experience, can tell you that God will bless you when you get out of your comfort zone and you lean into God through obedience.
Eric Albright (35:17.71)
Good point.
Ben Hunter (35:26.333)
and through hearing him speak to you through his word, through the Holy Spirit, and you will be blessed when you step out there in that space. It's uncomfortable and it's, you know, we talk about it here and it's the three of us, it's still uncomfortable, but we know from experience that when we do step out of that comfort zone and we lean into God, that blessing will be on the other side. That's my word.
Eric Albright (35:56.29)
That's it. Well, listen, thanks for letting me join you all again. That was a good rift. 36 minutes. That's right on Jordan. He beats us if we don't meet his timeline thresholds. And so verbally at least. And so yeah, it was great to join you all again. I look forward to the next one in a couple of days. So join us. Come visit. Come take a look at the book. Come look at the website. Jordan, you want to end with where they can find this stuff and where they can go to get more information and we'll shut it down.
Jordan Ames (36:07.024)
Okay.
Ben Hunter (36:07.312)
Ha ha.
Jordan Ames (36:13.451)
Yeah, always.
Jordan Ames (36:23.243)
Yeah, I try to put it in the descriptions of the podcast notes and stuff. But yeah, you can grab the book. You can read more about it. And then there's a link to Amazon. But go to www.redletterleadership.com forward slash book. And you can check it out and even download 31 lessons from it as like a free PDF just to check it out, preview it.
Eric Albright (36:50.092)
Rock and roll fellas, it was real.
Jordan Ames (36:50.903)
All right, see you next episode.
