Beyond High Performance with Joseph King Barkley

Well, welcome everybody to another Nexus webinar. I'm your host, Andrew Estus, and today I'm excited to welcome our

guest, Joseph King Bartley. Just a sweet name. Uh Joseph is a versatile brother

to say the least. He's he's written songs uh for film and TV. He's toured as a musician, also planted a church in LA,

and now dedicates a lot of his professional energy to helping accomplished individuals and teams who

long for more discover what they're capable of, generating the clarity and courage they need to experience it. He

is a a sought-after speaker and executive coach for like little companies like Netflix and Intel and uh

several others. He's also a the president of the MetaPerformance Institute and we'll unpack all of what

that means. But Joseph is a remarkable leader, an entrepreneur, and I'm thrilled to dive into this conversation

today. Joseph, thank you so much for joining us, man. Wow. Thank you, Andrew. I'm excited to

be here. I uh I had the privilege of meeting and uh attending a couple of days of

training with Joseph last year in LA. And uh I'm excited to introduce to our

listeners just some of the concepts and ideas around the uh the meta-erformance

mindset and just all of what all of that world and what that means. Uh but first I'd just love for some of our audience

just to get to know a little bit more of your story and you know having you know had a lot of you know the the

songwriting the musicianship like the church planting just give us a high level of of some of your story and just

how how God has just kind of led you from season to season. Um I went to

school uh and got a business degree and then went right from that into

professional music uh and right from that into planting churches. So you know

really typical path uh but during that time um there's a

memory that really catalyzed this latest chapter of my life and it's uh waking up

Father's Day uh years and years ago. And one of my favorite things to get as a gift is words of encouragement, uh,

words of affirmation. And so, I love a card. And my family knows this. And every Father's Day, they have filled out

cards for me. I wake up, I get to read these cards, and it doesn't matter what happens after that because I've gotten

the the encouragement from my family. At this particular Father's Day, I wake up

and I open up the card for my wife and and it says, you know, Joseph, and then she says some amazing things about um

what she saw in me as a dad. And then for my youngest daughter, dad, and then some encouraging things. And then next

to that was just a post-it note for my oldest daughter. And the post-it note just said, "You've been a good dad so

far." and successful.

Yeah, that that was um funny. And she's she's got this wicked sense of humor, so maybe that's what she intended by

leaving me just a post-it note. But I could not help Andrew but think about uh

all of the relationships in my life up until then that if asked what value our

relationship or friendship was in their lives, I wonder if they would also have a hard time even filling up a post-it note. uh the people that I was wanting

to impact were probably getting my best and the people that I lived with were not. They were getting my leftovers. Um

I was burning the candle at both ends. It ultimately led to a hospital visit where I had adrenal shutdown. I passed

out on a date night with my wife and uh and so at that point I hired a coach

among other things. It was it was a spiritual direction happened at that time. I also started in therapy which I

to this day still am in. I still have a coach to this day. And uh it I still wanted to play a big

game. I wanted to serve with everything that I had. I wanted to find out what I was capable of. Um and I also did not

want to do that at the expense of uh those closest to me of what I

consider to be my primary ministry. And so I tried a lot of things uh over the

years, but as I stuck with the principles that maybe we'll talk about a bit more today, um I now can say that

this last Father's Day, I got some pretty remarkable cards from every member of my family that I think the

people that I live with would say that they get the best of me. Um and I have never been more excited about the work

that I get to do now as a as an executive coach. So that may be a bit of

a long way of saying this is how I've gotten to where I am so far in life, but

I I really care about this work for sure. Yeah, that's super interesting, man. No, it's been uh it's been a blessing, you

know, just over the last year or so just being connected to you and just kind of learning more about some of this world

and um I was uh particularly drawn to just even some of your story and would love to just kind of unpack, you know,

just even some of your church planting journey. Uh especially just for obviously our our church planting

network as we as we look into some of that stuff. Uh so you were you were a professional musician. I mean, you're

writing writing songs for like TV hits or different things and uh in a touring

musician. What was your initial kind of call into ministry? Like, did you did you grow up in church? Like, was that

always a part of your music or was there kind of a pivotal moment that just kind of took you into uh what that what that

world was? I I was raised uh in a church attending family and uh that I consider that a

gift. It was a a rich experience. And so being involved in the local church and seeing God move through the local church

and continue to nurture me uh in that context was like a non-negotiable.

Being professionally attached to that was definitely not on the radar when I went to school. Uh so uh yeah, I I spent

my 20s in professional music touring and like you said, writing songs for TV and

I thought that was going to be the rest of my life. And during that time I my wife and I we were we had been married a

few years at this point. And uh we got very involved in a church in Hollywood. That's where a lot of my work was, a lot

of my uh fellow musicians and colleagues. So it made sense for us to

go to a church where we felt that we could invite the people in our lives who

had never set foot in a church, probably would not have assumed they'd be welcomed in a church. We wanted to be a part of a place where we could invite

them. And so we found an incredible ministry there uh that we plugged into.

And then uh as so often happens because humans are involved in the in what God's

doing, there were some glitches and hiccups. And uh the leadership of this

particular church decided to change up a lot of what they were doing. And the thing that we were inviting so many

people to and we had seen impacting so many lives was now not available anymore. So, we decided to host, myself

and and several other families decided to host some uh environments where we

could invite people and open up the scriptures. And we didn't think at the time it was going to be a church. We just wanted a place where we could

invite people to have these big conversations. Well, very very quickly that became a church. Uh and that seems

really passive and like whoa, oh shucks, we became a church. But I think if you were to ask any of us at the time,

that's kind of how it transpired. And we we were leading from a place of passion for sure, but definitely not a place of

strategy. And I love that. I love making sure that what we're doing is awakening

um you know the the focus and um the risk and the courage and and living out

our faith in really tangible ways, expecting God to do great things. I love that. But uh it also can be a recipe for

uh you know your own um like addiction to performance if that's what's coming

up for for those of especially those that are listening to this. It could be uh if you have any sort of like

overinflated martyr instincts like I I can't rest while there's still another life to be impact impacted. um then

that's going to without a strategy, without clear boundaries, uh you it's a

recipe for burnout um to lead with only passion, not strategy, not support. So the first couple of years were just a

lot of time spent trying to um do all kinds of things. Meanwhile, all of us had other jobs. I was still

writing music, but we were essentially volunteering to start this church. Well, then a few years into that, uh the the

guy friend of mine who was leading it, he was the lead pastor, um was also a film director, and he at one point calls

me into this little office we had of that the we hosted the church in. And he said, "Hey, man, I I just really don't

feel like I'm going to continue in this role. I don't have a vision. I think you should be the pastor." And I laughed at him. And I said, "I I'm flattered. I'd

never preached a sermon in my life. Um, I was helping out with music as I would because I'm a musician. So, I was doing

worship stuff there, but uh, I said, "Please don't tell anybody. I appreciate this." I went

home, I told my wife, and she laughed. And then we didn't talk about it again for months. But, as God so often does, I

just could not shake this idea that there was something to this this invitation. And I can't even tell you,

Andrew, that I prayed about it. I I don't think I did. I just it just it nagged at me. And then there was months

later, oh by in the interim that he uh the guy that was lead pastoring had told

the board, hey, I'm going to step down and they went on a pastor search process. So that had started. Well,

several months later, this one evening, I said, you know what? I just can't shake this thought. I'm going to sit down with my wife at dinner and tell her

I think maybe we should consider this. And so after months of not speaking about it, I sit down at dinner and she's

the first one to bring this up and said, 'You know what, that pastor thing from months ago, I think maybe you should consider this. And so we thought, well,

maybe this is God going before us, uniting us in this next move. So I that

night I called the lead elder uh of the board and said, "Hey, I'd like to put my name in the hat for being the pastor of

this church." And then he laughed. I'm like, "I get it. That was me months ago." So, uh, he he said, 'Well, can you

preach?' I said, 'I have no idea if I can communicate. And the church was small enough. This will tell you

everything you need to know about the stage of life we were at. But he's like, well, we need some help. Um, so can you

preach some messages over the next few months? I'm like, sure. Uh, and I found out, listen, I I do have a knack for it.

It seemed to connect. It created an impact. And longer story short,

uh whatever five months later, I think it was, I was then commissioned as the new lead pastor of this church. And in

about a year or two, we went from a couple hundred people to over a thousand in Hollywood.

And uh for sure that was uh God's miraculous movement. But there were some

things that we there were some strategies that we deployed that I have found were extremely effective in

reaching new people. And of the thousand actually the statistic

that I'm really most excited about from that season is that we'd been doing a

lot of uh surveys. I love data. So we would study like who's in the room. And

on any average Sunday, between 35 and 42% of those in attendance had never

would not have considered themselves Christians. And many of them had never cracked a Bible before. So,

uh that led to all kinds of new life and baptisms and um and it was an example of

us really taking our vision seriously to be a church for people who were convinced that church was irrelevant.

And that seed had been planted years ago when we were in that one Bible study or

that one church and then it became a Bible study and then it became this call on my life. So um yeah, you know I I'm

happy to answer more questions about what was going on in that season, but that's kind of the whistle stop.

Give me like high level like when when did you first start like kind of that church and like when you became the pastor and just like over the last 10

years or so, what what did that look like? Yeah. So high level I let's see that would have been in 2009

is when I the church was started in 2005 and then I think it was 2008 or 2009

then I became the lead pastor and then we decided to plant another church uh in

200 uh 14. It was either 2014 or 2015.

uh we planted in North Hollywood, which is a a different community neighboring Hollywood.

Okay. And so we had to we got to plant two churches um during that time. So

yeah, that's awesome. And so and and then more recently you kind of stepped out of that role to to really go into

coaching. Yeah. Tell me tell me quickly about that that transition. Yeah, it was uh during COVID

um during the lockdown and in Los Angeles uh they took it even more

seriously than maybe other communities all over the world. And so we were functionally locked down for over 18

months. Yeah. And uh that became an intensely creative

time for us. But it also one of the uh

benefits of that time as hard as it was and debilitating and frustrating and sad all of that for sure. But one of the

gifts in the middle of that was that it created space for my wife and I to discern what was next. And I had already

had the adrenal shutdown thing that I mentioned earlier in the conversation. And so I I had a coach by my side. I had

an incredible board who was supportive and gave me a lot of wise counsel. I was a part of a great uh network of other

leaders and church planters from all over the nation. And so I I was getting a lot of really really great support and

wisdom through that season. And the question on my mind at that time, so this would have been 2021

was God, I want to be obedient, and if you're calling me to essentially revitalize this church post lockdown and

COVID, I will be obedient. And if you're not calling me to do that, I don't know what I'm going to do, but I want to be obedient. and it became clear that we

were not um through lots of different circumstances, I'm not going to revitalize this church. So, I met with

the board. We decided to dissolve the church because we hadn't really functionally met back together again.

And in dissolving the church, we we didn't have any debt. We didn't have a building. We had to liquidate because we

were meeting in a high school. So, we were able to cash out and then invest in 17 church plants as a result of that. um

one of which came right from our church. So there was a church plant that still is serving in um in the valley of Los

Angeles to this day and it sprung out of the church uh that we dissolved.

And uh so it's amazing what God did uh through that. And then I went on a a

pretty quick search for what would be next. And executive coaching was on a short list for me because I'd been so

impacted by it. So I had firsthand experience of of the the role this could play in somebody's life. And so then at

the beginning of 2022, I began my certification journey to become a meta-erformance coach and then

ultimately join Novas Global, which is a a boutique executive coaching firm.

Yeah, that's fant. So I got introduced to from just a mutual friend um had

recommended like the beyond Whoops. the Beyond High Performance book um by Jason Jagard and um really really read through

that and was was really just kind of impressed by all the material. It was really funny though because I ended up

uh just checking Jason Jagger out like on Facebook or something like that. And it turned out that I had a mutual friend

with him and that mutual friend happened to be one of our Nexus church planters, a guy named Jeremiah Hulkcom. Um because

because Jason actually went to and his sister Amanda who's a part of Novas Global uh they both went to Manhattan

Christian College which is actually like a part of our like faith tribe just restoration movement stuff. So I went to

Ozark Christian College and so it was just this weird little connection and so to me for sure totally. Yeah. So we uh

uh ended up diving into the book and just love the material and just some friends that were just really kind of going into that with uh you know just

the another team that I'm a part of. And so uh being able to just kind of approach that topic would just love for

you to just introduce to people who are just unfamiliar with what is metaperformance and and just this idea

of beyond high performance to be able to go into that. So just just for somebody that's unfamiliar with that, what is

meta-formance? Well, let me say first has nothing to do with Facebook and Meta and Mark

Zuckerberg. Uh there is no copyright infringement either way, but it is uh

based on a a root word that we've used many many times before in language. Meta as in change or new like metamorphosis,

transformation. And meta performance is a particular way of of showing up and behaving in life

where it creates transformation for you and for others. Uh and this is um even

though we've sort of slapped our label on this, it is a timeless idea uh that I

think describes what it really means to thrive as a human. It's what we're created to do and how we're created to live. Um and metaperformance

in short is someone who's showing up with a meta-erformance mentality is thinking of a couple of things. One is

um we are radically underestimating what we're capable of. And that's a framework

a a question that we answer to constantly. We can always be asking that question whether circumstances seem

really dire or whether we feel like we're at the top of our game. We can still be asking the question, huh? what

are we capable of? Uh that's a metaperformance question to be asking.

Uh metaperformers also are are people who care about um not so much only the

results that we're that we've marked out for ourselves, the KPIs or the numbers

that we're going after or uh the goals that we've set for ourselves. Those matter, but really we see those goals,

Andrew, as a Trojan horse in which we deliver life transformation. Who do we

get to become as we go after this thing that used to feel impossible to us? How

do we show up in the world? What what kinds of communities would we create around us? What bold risks would we take

if what we're really up to is something that different outside of what we're used to? Uh so we might get to our goal.

We might exceed our goal but by chasing after it we become different people and that really becomes the most exciting

widget uh that we we create uh as metaperformers. The last thing I'll say

about it is that metaperformers realize that there is more to life than performance.

Uh and we are a lot of times in in the life coaching space or the executive

coaching space uh there's this uh very helpful framework of moral neutrality

where we're kind of hands off and we won't tell you what we think you should do because we want to create a space

where Andrew shows up and he is self-generating an idea of what he feels called to do or what he thinks is the

next best move. That's wonderful. And as metaperformance coaches, we do have a

slight moral leaning as we partner with

uh individuals, leaders and teams and cultures. So even when I'm doing work with the companies that you mentioned

before, as we work with professional athletes, we really really are uh excited about increasing what we

would call nobility. uh some of your listeners and some of your planters uh would understand this as kingdom

principles. Uh whether or not someone is a follower of Jesus or thinks that there is a God who handcrafted them for this

life. Uh we do believe that every person longs to live out generosity and

community and creativity. We think you're built for it. And as we're going after your big numbers and your big

results and your big trophies, uh how will the world be shaped and changed

because there is more nobility uh available as we go after this thing?

There's more generosity springing from your life. There's people are prospering because Andrew is showing up in a

different way. Uh we really really care about the impact you're making, not just the performance that um that you're uh

that you're creating. So those are a few kind of high level concepts of meta performance and how we know that we're

really cooking with gas is answering those ideas. A a couple of the uh the things that

have really kind of stood out to me is uh initially was uh kind of the 10,000

hour versus you know some of the other pieces that you talk about. Uh but then also just the contrast and I I'll let

you just kind of introduce that, let you talk about that. But then also just the the pyramid of of what is just the the

strain or or u maybe the tension of what it is to me to be straining to be a high

performer. Yeah. From like questions that low performers ask or like high performers ask and then

what is what goes beyond some of those type of things as you're as you're kind of introducing this mindset or this

framework. Yeah, Andrew, that's great. Thanks for teeing that up. Uh we we know that in

life there are different kinds of questions. There's questions that we answer and there's questions we answer too. Questions we answer might be uh 2

plus two equals what? That that's a question that has an answer. And then there's questions that we answer too. Uh

a question such as uh what would love demand of me in this circumstance? That's a question we can always be

answering too. Um it it calls us into any number of creative behaviors. When

we think about performance, we notice that whether you know it or not, the way that you're showing up in the world and

the way you're performing, the way our teams are performing is usually answering to a certain question and that

question is creating a certain outcome. So when we notice low performance in our teams or in our lives, we're probably

answering to the question, what is the least I can do and get away with it?

What's the least I can do and not get fired? what's the least I can do? Uh,

now there's another level of performance which might create different results. And we would just call that generic

performance, just nice boilerplate standard performance. And when we're

showing up with performance, we're probably answering two-way question like, "How do I do a good job? How do I

get a passing grade? Um, how do I how can I be faithful in this?" really good

questions to ask, but it creates sort of a a standard level of performance. Now,

in many areas of our lives and many people that we're surrounded with, we're probably showing up with a high performance mindset. And we're creating

high performance results. And a high performer is probably answering to a

question like, "How could I be the best at this?" or "How could we win at this?"

And uh we would think that man, our lives would be better if more people

were asking that question, if they were answering to that question. But we have found that if the best performance that

is available to us is high performance, we're going to get some pretty cool results. We're going to rack up some

trophies. We're going to there's a lot that we can be proud of. Um we're going to get a lot of A's in the class. We

might raise a lot of money for our next campus or for our church plant. Like there's a lot of good results that can

happen uh as high performers. But it also comes with some limitations. If

that's the best kind of performance we can bring, oftentimes a high performer or high performing cultures will create

this really odd culde-sac of feeling overwhelmed and bored at the same time.

High level of activity and yet kind of a detachment from thrill and enthusiasm.

Um high performer high performing cultures generally create uh competition in a way that's not healthy uh because

only one person can fit on that pedestal or on that platform. Uh high performers

a lot of times start to be resistant to feedback because their identity can be attached to how successful they appear.

So any feedback towards their on their performance actually feels like it's downgrading them from this uh who they

see themselves to be and I could go on and on. So if high performance is the best that is available to us then we we

might run ourselves into some dead ends that could be disappointing and some of your listeners are might even be

recognizing some of that in their own lives. Now, before I tell you the meta performance thing, which we've already alluded to before, I do really quickly

want to say that the different levels of performance are not bad. They're not like high performance is not better than

low performance. There are areas in our lives where it might be perfectly appropriate to show up with a low

performing mindset. When I think about what's the least I can do and not get fired, I think about doing the dishes.

Uh, and I would love actually to be fired from doing the dishes, but I'm not trying to high perform doing the dishes.

When I think about performance, I think about my taxes. I want to do the very least I can do. I want to do a good job

at my taxes. Not the least I can do, but I want to do a good job. I want to be legal, but I want to do any more than

that. And then, of course, high performance is great. Uh, sometimes it's it's um really great to show up with

that kind of um stop at nothing. I will um create this win. Uh I want to be the

best dad I can possibly be. Uh and it's created some really great results. The metaperformance question of what are we

capable of becomes a resource for us that I I

talked about earlier where we can always be exploring what we're capable of. Uh we can be asking questions that explore

things that are outside of what anybody has experienced before. And it's the people who live in a meta-erformance

mindset that really do shape history whether they would have called it that or not. But people who really are trying

to figure out, wow, we serve for for this context, we serve a God who's capable of doing imaginably uh more than

we could ask or even imagine. I measurably more than we could ask or even imagine. So if that is the God that we serve, then we can always be asking

the question like, "Wow, I know things seem tough. I know that we feel like the story has already been written, but man,

what are we capable of in this moment? I know that we're in a tough context where churches go to die, but wow, if God is

with us, then who could stand against us. What are we capable of in this circumstance? Man, I know that we are

crushing it. Holy cow, there's so much to be excited about and let's celebrate that for sure, but man, what else? If

we're capable of this, what else are we capable of together? and so we can continue to live with passion and

excitement for the future. Um so that's that's a few um yeah few ways of

understand with the within like a just like a pastoral context when you think of just like what is just basic

performance or like low performance or even you know just having having that the total lit off and just going

straight meta performance in pastoral leadership. What are what are some of the nuances or some of the things that

how how you might adapt or how you might contextualize that type of a tool for for ministry leaders?

Oh, that's great. Well, first and foremost, I think it's helpful for uh a

any leader, particularly church planters and and uh pastors to check in on what

question they might be answering to in this particular uh uh category of their performance. So

when they think about preaching or when they think about uh creating their teams,

if if their mindset is what's the least I can do and and not get caught, uh that

might create results that are disappointing. Um before we talk about all the behavior change that may need to

happen as a result of that, maybe start with the mindset of okay, that there's a different question that might be more

helpful for me in this context. Um, so that's the first thing is just a

selfch check. What question am I answering to right now? And what are the results that that's creating? Is there a

more helpful question to be answering to? But then when I look out at um, you

know, the the activities of church planting, I would say more often than not, what I've noticed is that the high

performance traps are are um are everywhere.

Uh, I don't think many people plant a church because they're trying to be low performers for the kingdom. I think

maybe next to being a single mom, I can't think of a harder job on the planet than being a church planter. And

so many men and women get into the the

get on teams and be they they want to be a part of planting a church because they want to change the world. And even

though they may not use the language of how could we be the best at it, they are thinking like how could we it's even in

the language of how could we win people for Christ. Um how could we how could we

be um the the how could people see our good works and glorify our father who's

in heaven. Like how could we really show up in an exceptional way? How could we be excellent at serving people? And

again, not bad. What a great place to start. But it also can um start to

breed, especially early on, it starts to breed certain things that might be they

create deadends. For instance, um I've noticed that um when you first get a

church started, uh the the mindset is listen, I um we're not really going to

call people into um well, I used to say that uh when

you're first starting planting a church, uh we want people who are willing or

able. Uh but we'll settle for willing. Um, and there's a whole lot of people

who are doing wearing all kinds of hats because you just need somebody who who can fog a mirror who might be able to

move the chairs for you. And you know, um, it's okay if you know, members of

the band are awful as long as we have a band. I get it when you're getting started early.

But then there is a sometimes there is a this really insidious um

thing that sneaks in early on and then kind of sticks around which is then we must we still have to provide absolutely

everything. Even if God hasn't provided the people, we still need to make sure that we've provided all of the things.

And usually the responsibility to deliver all the different small groups

and all the different ministries and all the different bells and whistles of maybe a more mature

uh more resourced ministry. Usually the responsibility of that is going to follow to the highest performers in a

culture. And I wouldn't be surprised if that's going to be the lead pastor, maybe the lead pastor's family. It might

be a few really gung-ho uh people early on in the planting team. and they are

going to be less attentive to their own rest and their own boundaries because there's still a mouth to feed for the

ministry. And even as God provides more and more people and more and more resource, that mentality still sticks

around. And you'll notice that there's still burnout at year four and year five because we haven't trusted that God will

provide the people and the resource on time. That God that Jesus already died

for us. I don't have to kill myself for this ministry. Um, I know I'm speaking a bit abstractly

in this because um, it can show up in a lot of different ways for our listeners,

but the mindset that creates that kind of stop at nothing to serve people that

might get you started well is definitely not the kind of mindset that is going to sustain you in a healthy way. So

yeah, one of one of the things that just kind of uh as it occurs to me on well, you mentioned in one of the trainings

that you talk about like the two greatest leadership challenges and and it's just really just going towards asking that question of uh what really

are we capable of and the and the first challenge you mentioned is like every leader vastly underestimates what they're capable of. But the second one

specifically in relation to like church planting like every leader vastly underestimates what their team is

capable of. Mhm. And and I'm almost even thinking and just kind of kick this to you and just see your thoughts on it is is just this

the the tension and the struggle of control early on from from pastors and

maybe not even early on just even in established churches that we have this tension of um not being able to release

authority and not being able to like raise others up around us for maybe how

it might feel for us personally. Maybe it's threatening to our leadership and and that could be like a high performance kind of a trap. Uh but when

you when you start asking that question of what is our team capable of or what is our our church capable of, do you

think that that just moves beyond in a different way? Uh or or how might you kind of consider some of that?

Yeah, that's good. I think there's in my experience um there are

a couple of different habits around finding out what we're capable of and finding out what our the body is capable

of or the church is capable of, the team is capable of. There's two sort of um

odd mindsets that conspire together to create disappointment.

One mindset is I cannot release authority until somebody is perfectly suited for this role. So it's a high

level of control. We can call it high standards. Um and I'm not talking about moral authority like obviously we

um you know we want to pay close attention to uh to to use the word to to doctrine and

to character for sure. That aside, let's say those things are aligned. Now we're talking about competence, maybe even

cultural fit to some extent. And we will say that our standards are really high, that we're we are um we're slow to hire

and quick to fire. A lot of different um again, not bad, but just a lot of

different uh mindsets that might uh keep the control very very high. At the same

time in a lot of church cultures because we are communities of grace uh we also are very very slow to give

people direct feedback to give them responsibility because that might expose

that they've got some immaturity in their lives or there's some development there that still needs to happen. And so

it's almost like you need to either perfectly fit the role um or you are um

you get to sort of um coast like because you were willing to do it early on.

We're not going to invest in your development. And so you have this really weird uh imbalance in my experience of a

really strict gatekeeping in certain roles and then also a lot of tolerance

of mediocrity and underdevelopment in a lot of other roles. So those can happen

in the same culture which is really interesting. The space that I would invite us into as meta-formers is the space in between

that where you talked about the 10,000 hour rule before. Like as long as we're doing this work together, what if the

work itself becomes the perfect laboratory in which our characters are matured? What if it becomes the perfect

laboratory in which God is going to shape us? The perfect laboratory in which we can find out what we're capable

of. We might find that the high control mentality, we might relax that a little bit to allow people to take on

responsibility. Not because they're perfect for the role, but because wow, what would it look like for us to develop them into the kind of leader who

can who really can uh succeed in that spot. At the same time, we might allow

uh not only people to participate on a lower level, but we are going to put in structures where we use that as a way of

developing them and finding out that wow, there's capacity in this church that I would not have identified if I

was waiting for somebody to be more perfectly suited for our plan early on. So, you might find there's creativity in

the room that you never knew you had. You might find that there's people who are gifted in finance and

administration, operations that you never knew you had. But by giving them a some lower points of entry and then

being dedicated to their development, we get to find out more of what we're capable of. So those are a few things

that come to mind as we're speaking sort of in in generic things, but I I hope your listeners can kind of apply it to

their context. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Now, there's a there's a couple other tools like that just really stood out to me, really resonated

with me in some of the meta-formance training toolbox and uh would would love to just unpack just a little bit just a

highlevel introduction of of a couple of them. But the the vision and and reality gap uh vision reality gap or however

however the order that you say that in. But talk talk to us a little bit maybe just about the the role of vision for a

team in in an organization or even in a church. what what is that and then just the reality and the gap that that that

teams often find themselves and how do you specifically kind of like what are some principles that you kind of coach

through in that regard? That's great. Your listeners are going to have their own working definition of what a vision is like what do you mean

when you say vision? And it's it's probably some version of it's a clear picture of the future. A vision is you

know it is a a goal. That might be a way that they define it. But for the purpose of this conversation, let's say that a

vision is something like uh a clear picture of the future that incites passion in us and in others. Uh or it's

a clear picture of the future that justifies the pain of transformation. That's another way we've defined vision.

But it's some clear picture of the future. We're not there yet, but it's a clear picture of the future. Uh then we

also have this pesky thing called current reality. And that's where you and I are at today. And current reality

is however our finances occur to us, our abilities occur to us, the resources

that we have available to us as far as we can tell, you know, um

uh so that's our current reality. And when we think about the distance between our current reality and this big

exciting, thrilling, passioninducing vision, we have something that many

people call a gap. It's just the distance between where we are and where we say we want to be.

And when we think about that distance, all kinds of emotions come up. So don't

be surprised if when you think about that gap, you are feeling overwhelmed.

When you think about that gap, you're feeling stressed. Uh your teams feel stressed. When you think about the gap,

you feel shame because other people's gap is not that big. Other church's gaps are not that big. You feel embarrassed.

You feel you feel afraid. What if it doesn't work out? Now, those are natural responses to the

gap. That is the brain that God gave you working the way it's supposed to work because your brain is trying to protect

you and it's telling you stories to keep you safe. And there are times when being

afraid is really, really resourceful. Uh when my kids were much younger, I

wanted them to be afraid of a hot oven. when they were younger, I wanted them to be afraid of uh running out in the

middle of the street. I wanted them to be afraid and I wanted that to drive their behavior.

So, your brain's doing its job if you feel afraid about the gap and overwhelmed.

And sometimes your brain overplays its hand. And if that's the only thing you have to work with is fear, then I don't

blame you for doing one or both of two things. One is let's reduce that vision.

Let's make that gap a little bit smaller so that the overwhelm feels a little bit more digestible. No problem. Another

thing that I notice I do and others do is let's inflate our current reality. Um, you know, I loved my uh Sunday

afternoon estimations of how many people were in the room and how many lives were changed. Like there was probably a million people there. Um, that was me

inflating my current reality. Uh, and and it's probably because I did not I

didn't like the uncomfortable feeling of like, wow, there's still some distance between where I'm at and where I think God's called us to go.

So, I would invite and we do this with our clients all the time. I invite our church planters and pastors and leaders

to be thinking about this also. What if there's a different way of relating to that gap? What if we could learn or

choose to love it to love to create to love it so much that we would create one

in an area where we don't know we have a gap? What if we inject a new vision into

our marriage? Inject a new vision into our parenting. Inject a new vision into our church leadership and our culture. A

new vision that is so audacious and yet so clear that the gaps become obvious.

Wow, we are not there yet. Wow, we've got some growing to do. Wow, we probably need a lot of help.

Uh, and then learn to love that because that gap that is being created is your

life right now. Andrew, you and I are living in that space between where we were five minutes ago and where we would

love to be five years from now. We're living in that gap whether we've identified it or not. So, when I say

let's love that gap, what I'm really inviting you to do is let's love the journey. Let's love life because you

will die with gaps. So if we can learn to love the gap, then that means we keep that vision firmly in

place. This is this is that clear picture of the future that's worth going after. And it also helps us be very very

sober about our current reality. Let's not lie to ourselves about where we are. So that great great now we found a gap.

And that's and when we do that, when we learn to love the gap, then the third way we close it is not going to be by

reducing the gap, but instead it's by growing into the gap and growing closer to that vision. So

yeah, that's the concept that um that you're Yeah. No, that's fantastic, man. And I feel like there's a there was a couple

of tools uh that I'd love for you to talk about. One of them feels like it was directly related to the vision. One

of them directly related to our reality. and uh with the with the vision tool is just the the idea of the intuitive fence

and what what really feels possible and what just feels completely intangible.

And it's interesting in and I'd love to have you just like explain that tool, but then specifically like in a faith

stretching type of an environment in a ministry type of environment that you already quoted the verse like you know

that God can do immeasurably more than we can ask or imagine and that that by nature just stretches us to go a little

bit longer. But I'd love to have you uh just kind of introduce that tool or just like how you use that to help people set

a a really stretching and compelling vision. Yeah, the intuitive fence is uh

something we all have and it's a it's an imaginary electric fence and inside that

electric fence is what you and I think is reasonable, possible. Right now your

brain is estimating uh what is reasonable in the next 12

months. And if we sat here and slowed it down and said,"Andrew, what do you think is possible in your ministry in the next

12 months?" You would have some details that feel reasonable to you. Oh, we'd probably grow 10%. Oh, we, you know, we

might hire two more people on the staff. Um, I'll still be married in 12 months.

That all seems reasonable and good. That's great. And your brain is sending you messages that like, yep, let's

estimate things that won't disappoint us that we have there's a high it might

require some activity, but there's a high likelihood that we'll get to celebrate some of it when we get there.

That's inside your intuition or your gut. We'd say your intuitive fence. And then there's a whole host of things that

right now your brain is telling you are outside of that electric fence. They're outside of what feels reasonable and

possible. You might even call it fantasy. But man, it would be so great if somehow

by some miraculous move of God, we get to experience that.

Um, and as we start to increase what we

want in the future or what we feel called to in the future, we'll notice in our bodies and in our brains and in our

emotions uh the the um as the vision gets closer

and closer to that electric fence, we'll start to feel these signals of, oh,

that's starting to feel impossible. And maybe you feel like a pit in your stomach. you start to feel nervous. You

might even giggle at it. Um you might to you might start feeling some of that gap

like the overwhelm and the stress and the shame and the self-doubt, the imposttor syndrome and like I'm not the

kind of person who's going to get us there. Um so that's rather than that

being a reflection of reality, that's just a reflection of your brain telling you um what it thinks is inside the

fence and outside the fence. So, we have a tool that's, you know, better experienced than explained, but a a tool

where we say, "Okay, let's come up with one version of the future. Let's pick a date on the calendar. It's the end of

the year. It's New Year's Eve, and we're celebrating a year wrapped up." Well, what what's a vision of what's happening

in our ministry and what's happening in our personal lives that feels well inside the fence, but really exciting?

Uh, my marriage is still intact. uh we've reached 5% more people, we've

raised this much money, and we've launched this ministry. And it's going to be a lot of work, but it's going to

be a lot to celebrate at the end of the year. And it feels reasonable. Like I I kind of know how we're going to get there. I I can already see the resources

and the team around me. Other churches have done it, so probably I'm not crazy for thinking it. Okay, that's all inside

your fence. Now come up with a version of that same vision that feels like it's just outside your fence. And the way you

would know that it's um helpful and productive is it would be clear and measurable. It's very specific.

Uh it is uh it feels impossible. And the way we test for that is that you're not

totally sure how you would get there as we sit here today. Like there's going to be some transformative ideas and way of

being that'll have to happen. And then number three, it's got to feel exciting, thrilling, um, passioninducing.

That's how we know we have an outside the fence meta-erformance vision.

And the last thing I'll say about that, because I'll often get this, um, the question here when I lead clients

through it, and uh, I I've gotten a chance to coach some local church pastors as well in the last couple of years, and they'll say like, "Well, how

do we know the difference between a helpful vision and a fantasy?"

And that's a great question. Um because I had a client say this uh quite some

time ago. He's like, "Well, what if I told you that my outside the fence vision is to play in the NBA and here

he's a 52 um man in his 50s that weighs 270 pounds." Like, what if that was my

vision? Um I would then say, "Okay, well, let's just imagine there's a world in which

it's somehow you you were committed to that. There's surgeries, there's

training, you'd probably have to quit your job. You the amount of time you'd be spending, the coaches you would hire

to give it to even increase the likelihood that you would be playing in the NBA.

Would you be willing to do that? And that particular gentleman said,

"Well, no. I'm not going to do all that. I'm not going to quit my job and tell my family I'm going to go live for this MBA

dream that I have now." And okay, great. Then that's a fantasy.

Now, let's talk about a real vision. Well, okay. I want to I want to 2x the

amount of people that we're impacting next year. Um, I want to only be focusing on my three areas of genius and

calling because there has been remarkable people deployed to handle everything else in ministry. Um, I want

my wife to say, "This is the best year of our marriage ever." Uh, and I want to take my kids on a one-mon trip overseas

where we're spending time two weeks on the mission field and two weeks just having a blast. I want to do that next

year. And then I might say, and I'm making that up, but I might say, "Oh,

does that feel that feels specific to me. Does it feel do you know how you're

going to get there?" I I don't totally know how we're going to get there. Great. Would it be exciting if somehow

we could? Yeah, that would mean the world. Great. Now we have a vision.

Yeah. Yeah. So, Oh, that's great, man. Yeah. So, is your Yeah. Just being able to stretch people's thinking, being able to uh

really push people people beyond what they really think is is reasonable or attainable. Can I say one more thing about that,

Andrew? Oh, please. I think this might be helpful because your leaders might want to do exercises

like this with themselves or with their teams. Right now, your brain is estimating what is possible in the future. And your

brain loves nothing more than being right. And so it is going to look for evidence all around you to reinforce its

conclusion about your future. So what if you can redirect that energy,

that wanting to be right energy towards a future that you would love to live in

and let your brain prove itself right about that. Uh because both versions of

your future are makebelieve. We're sitting here today. We're not sitting in your future. We're not sitting in next July, next August. So,

you have two visions of the future. You get to choose which one you give yourself, give your brain something

worth being right about as long as it's addicted to being right. And what if we proved ourselves right about what God is

capable of with this big audacious vision outside the fence. So, yeah. No, that's fantastic, man. No, for

dude, I could sit here and talk to you for hours about some of this stuff. And uh just with the the few minutes that we

have remaining, I would love to uh just quickly talk about just the idea idea of the reality and specifically about the

concept of ownership and the little fortune cookie phrase that you guys often often help people people

recognize. I'd love to tee that up. And just to to quickly talk about just um just the the ownership of what is like

just recognizing like like facing facts, not trying to inflate whether it's numbers or or our reality in any given

way, but just coming to grips with this is truly what is. Um so I'd love to start there and just kind of quickly get

your talk on that and then uh and then we can wrap. Yeah, I'll be concise with this. Uh

exploring how much agency and ownership you have in any given situation is like finding 20 bucks in your pocket. that

you didn't know you had. Uh so if you right now are feeling stuck, if you're feeling like it's too late, exploring

how much more agency you have, even if it's 1% more agency, is like finding

freedom that you did not know was available to you. It's like finding a little crack in the brick wall that you

thought was a stop. What if it's merely just a an obstacle? What if it's a speed

bump towards your future? And exploring your ownership and agency is a way of

unsticking yourself from that. Couple things to say about it um really quickly

is we will often intuitively add a phrase to the end of our current complaints that keeps those complaints

in their place. And that phrase is it is what it is. They will never. It will

never. I will never. It is what it is. And that is a way of of again your brain

proving itself right about a conclusion you've drawn of your current circumstance. It frankly if we're honest

with ourselves it is also a way of us not taking a risk because risk scares us. So I'd rather just say it is what it

is and put up with it. Um so what we will do is there's multiple tools for

this but we will then invite people to try on a lens of ownership and that lens

might look like um hey uh I ministry has

not grown in the last year because it's exactly the way that I want it. H just try on the lens. I'm not saying

it's objectively true but if you see your circumstances through that lens for a moment how might that be true? How

might it be true that your ministry has not grown in the last 12 months because it's exactly the way that you want it?

What are you choosing? What are you avoiding that is keeping you stuck?

And what would it look like for us to choose something different? For us to rather than avoid to engage, rather than

do it all on our own, to make a request to enroll the resources around me. uh

what would it look like for us rather than to sit in apathy to choose messy action and see what results uh can be

generated because if if I'm willing to do something I think God is capable of

doing anything. So that's on a very high level. What? Yeah. Yeah. No, and I'm just I remember

that exercise where it was just like come up with like what are what are two or three of your just just basic

complaints like what are things that you complain about on all these different things. But that was that core phrase where it's just to take the ownership of

because that's exactly the way I want it to be. And it's and then you just do this exercise of you like repeat like

this is my complaint and then say that at the end of it like three different times and you're just like

well crap like it's all my fault. Like and by the way if you're offended

look twice at that thing the thing if you try on the phrase and you're like oh forget that like I'm that's that's an

offensive it is not exactly the way I want it. Like hold on sit with it for just a second because wherever we're offended is probably where the next

breakthrough is. Yeah. Yeah. because Ive I've I've even used that exercise with a couple of people that I've talked to over over the

last year or so and gal that was just struggling with like just this nonprofit leader and just oh my team is is doing

this and they're just acting immature and there's doing this xyz and then I just had her do that thing and she's

like and I don't like that at all like I just or like another guy where it's just like

was a leader of an organization and uh one of the board members like he was just having just this tense time

relational ally uh kind of a power struggle, all these different things. And we just ran that exercise with him

again. And and it was just like for him to own own a significant part of his his

his piece and that that agency aspect of man, how could I literally behave

differently in order to to move the needle in some of that stuff? And so just that ownership, I don't know, that was just a really fun uh kind of

meta-erformance exercise as I you know, just walking through some of those tools, man. just the uh the what are we

capable of the the reality vision gap the the intuitive fence some of the ownership that question and there's

probably 20 other questions on here that I never even got a chance to to talk to you about but um to to wrap I I'd love

to just kind of hear your thoughts initially so so you're the president of the Meta Performance Institute

which literally trains coaches to do what you do to to be executive coaches

and uh I'm curious if Do you have any any people in this of any pastors or

even church planters that are that are doing like bivocational or like co-vocational ministry as an executive

coach on the side and and what that kind of looks like in their context right now.

We do we have uh several examples some come to mind right now. I I know of uh

I'm counting in my head. I would need more than one hand to count how many of my colleagues are are very dedicated in

local ministry and are also metaperformance coaches in Novas Global um and are

leading effectively in both of those spaces. And the reason that is true, Andrew, is because a lot of the work

overlaps. So by becoming an exceptional metaperformance coach, they often become

better pastors. By really leaning into pastoral ministry, they become better executive coaches. Uh because the

foundations are identical. We we are convinced that we

are transformed by the renewing of our mind. Uh and we are convinced that there

is more to life than performance. Uh we are convinced that the most

important questions are the ones that we would rather avoid. Search me God, know my heart. Test me and know my anxious

thoughts. How am I relating to the gap? I'm anxious.

I I want to avoid. I want to run away. Sit with that. What would it mean to

take courageous action uh in the midst of all of those emotions? So that's why you see a lot of

people who succeed in both categories. In fact, I think people with ministry backgrounds make exceptional meta

performance coaches. Some of the best I think they have a massive head start in this work.

Yeah, that's fantastic. Give me a quick like 15 second commercial and like what is what is like the Meta Performance

Institute like if somebody was like interested in and just going deeper into into seeing what this looks like. What

is that? Yeah, really quickly I would say just go to our website which is MP that's like metaperformancempp.institute

and on there is a whole host of resources and start there. And the first step for many people is to set up uh a

conversation with one of of the team to talk about what the work looks like and

to see if maybe that's uh an right next step for them. So go to mp.institute institute and you'll see ways to contact

us and myself or or one of my team would love to talk to you about this work and see if it's a good fit for you.

Yeah, that's fantastic. Well, Joseph, dude, so thankful for for who you are, what you do, and for your time uh with

us. Uh you guys can follow Joseph on LinkedIn for for sure. Uh a lot of a lot of great content that you con

continually post on there. A lot of inspiring stuff, a lot of challenging stuff. Um there's a Meta Performance uh

podcast, right? or or Novas Global podcast that you guys can listen to the book Beyond High Performance and a slew

of other resources as well. But um just so grateful for your time, man. Thank you so much for joining us today.

Absolutely, Andrew. Yeah, thank you. Appreciate it.

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