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Begin Again is for people in the second half of life who sense that the identity they've been carrying no longer fits. Host Winston Faircloth — spiritual director, daily poet, and fellow traveler — brings honest conversation, personal story, and original poetry to the journey of remembering, releasing, and returning to who God created you to be. Visit www.myreuniontour.com for more resources.
Hey there. It's Winston Faircloth, and welcome back to episode 53 of the Begin Again Leadership Podcast. We're back after a short break, and we're preparing for our upcoming season number two, which is coming soon after taking you behind the curtain on changes here at winstonfaircloth.com. And in this series, we've been sharing our emerging plan of how we're gonna serve three types of business owners going forward. Leaders who either want, need, or have teams to help them multiply their impact by creating, growing, and keeping teams that they love.
Winston Faircloth:We call this process for love of team. And over our last two episodes, I shared how taking a pause, otherwise known as refinement, helped give me the margin I needed to reset. We covered our four step refinement framework of unplug, unlearn, rest, and relearn. Unplug was disconnecting from external sources temporarily, social media, other kinds of influences. Unlearned was reevaluating and challenging existing ideas, beliefs, concepts.
Winston Faircloth:Think about all the things you believe about food and dieting. There's so much stuff we know, or we think we know, that we have to unlearn before we can, take the next step. The third step was rest, which was experimenting with and understanding ways to deepen your rest. And then the fourth step was relearn, which is incorporating new practices and beliefs to set you on a new path. And then last time we talked about the most powerful part of pivoting your business and life, and I called it why power.
Winston Faircloth:Many leaders as skilled problem solvers focus new initiatives on what and how. We just are so anxious to get going that we jump right to problem solving. And this can lead to traditional SMART goal planning, grinding, and expectation setting, which is fine as far as it goes. But willpower is not the answer. Instead, why power is the recognition that ideas without purpose are not enough.
Winston Faircloth:Alternatively, why power provides both a destination and a path of self discovery. And in that episode, I provided a counterintuitive process for finding and committing to your why for the long term, a hundred quarters or twenty five years. So today, let's talk about the next phase of this journey. I called it the season of provision. Now perhaps the biggest pushback I get when I bring up the concept of taking a refinement sabbatical is our financial reasons.
Winston Faircloth:We've got bills to pay. We cannot afford to leave the business even for a moment to sharpen our saw and renew our spirit. I hear this all the time. And in our culture where we equate money to work or income to value creation, this is a very challenging belief to overcome. Now, as your virtual mentor today, I have some news for you.
Winston Faircloth:This is gonna sound a little harsh, so prepare yourself. But if we cannot step away from our business to take care of the primary asset in our business, which is you, the owner, perhaps we're just an employee with a really bad boss and not yet a business owner. And if our business is not growing the way we'd hoped, it's usually one of three things. It's either the offer, the price, or the people we're marketing to. There's a misalignment somewhere in that mix.
Winston Faircloth:It's something wrong with the offer, the price, or the people. Now, my case, earlier this year, the biggest gap in the marketplace was the biggest gap in my alignment was me as part of the offer. As I mentioned a couple of episodes ago, I wasn't the best ambassador for my brand because of the burnout I was experiencing. And for many who listen to this podcast, you are the brand. Without you being your best, your business is going to inevitably suffer.
Winston Faircloth:And after making that very hard assessment of my situation, I knew that my current and future clients would not be well served. And more importantly, I could not earn the positive word-of-mouth so essential on how I wanted to build my business. And I bet this is the same for you. So let me put this in economic terms for you. The cost of continuing, especially for the long term, was more significant continue if I continued than to pause.
Winston Faircloth:So yes, there is giving up some income to take this pause, but how does that stack up to what it's costing you in the long run if you're not showing up as your best? So let me restate this one more time. This is important. The cost of continuing, sometimes the cost of continuing, especially when you take a long term view, can be more significant if you continue than if you pause. It's the whole concept of sharpening the saw.
Winston Faircloth:You know, I can sit there and cut, you know, chop this tree and chop this tree and chop this tree, but if I would take some time to actually sharpen the axe or the saw, it's going to go so much faster and better. I can wear myself out with a dull saw. Same with you. Same with you and your business. So let's talk about the provision, the financial impact of making this decision.
Winston Faircloth:Did this taking a sabbatical, did it make my finances tight? You bet it did. More importantly, did I have to guard against fear and naysayers? Yes, Double yes. This was probably the hardest part.
Winston Faircloth:My finances is one thing, but guarding against the fear and other people's opinions about what they said, and is this a good idea? And should you be doing this, or maybe you should be doing that? Boy, I had to really guard my mind and my my heart. Did I have to take on debt? No.
Winston Faircloth:Not at all. I watched my spending, but more importantly, I watched my rest and energy carefully over this period of time. I ended up employing two targeted coaching resources to help me heal and grow at just the right rate. But most importantly, this season taught me a great deal about surrender and provision. Because the financial increase in my business didn't come from my effort, working harder or longer, or from being everywhere on social media, or even, as you might remember, the frequency of posting podcasts here or sending out to my mailing list.
Winston Faircloth:In fact, the less I did, the more I received. The biggest hurdle of all during this process is trusting. Trusting a process and allowing fear to come but to also go. And importantly, activating my faith, believing in the long term cost benefit of taking action now to slow down and reset. And throughout this season, there was one scripture that kept appearing in my day to day life over and over again.
Winston Faircloth:And I'm gonna read it from the Passion Translation. It's Matthew six twenty five and twenty six. This passage came to me so many times, especially during the early part of this season. And I just think it says everything we need to know. Let me quote, This is why I tell you never to be worried about your life for all that you need will be provided, such as food, water, clothing, everything your body needs.
Winston Faircloth:Isn't there more to life than a meal? Isn't your body more than clothing? Look at all the birds. Do you think they worry about their existence? They don't plant or reap or store up food, yet your heavenly father provides each of them with food.
Winston Faircloth:Aren't you much more valuable than your father than they? So which one of you which one of you, by worrying, could add anything to your life? And it goes on from there. But the first two verses of the three I just read were so impactful to me. Such a comfort during, you know, what could be a pretty scary time of stepping away from a business and from income.
Winston Faircloth:So what's happened? What's happened since I took that decision? Well, I've signed up more new clients in the past thirty days than all the other months of 2020 combined. Think about that. That's a pretty bold statement.
Winston Faircloth:Yet, I would say, I would submit to you that given the energy I had prior to refinement, it wasn't a super high bar to cross. Now, why did that happen? Well, I can't really be sure. I don't have a four step framework for surrender and provision. But what I can say is that this was one of the most faithful seasons of my adult life.
Winston Faircloth:And I saw his provision in so many daily and small ways. People who came to me with requests for assistance, conversations, just casual conversations that said, Hey, send me a quote or how can I become a client? Being vulnerable open doors that I never expected. But overall goes back to last week's podcast. Once you become aligned with your why, opportunities you never considered start coming your way.
Winston Faircloth:I say that open heart and open hands lead to creativity and possibilities. And that's why I'm covering provision prior to planning in our four P process in this series. Because without this surrender, I could come up with any kind of plan, but it wouldn't necessarily be consistent with the person that I'm becoming. And it's from this posture of surrender that a full range of options come into view. Without it, I'd still be inclined to think that my cleverness or my instincts or my intelligence were the reason for this increase.
Winston Faircloth:Thankfully, none of the above were the drivers. And surrender to provision has one other side benefit, growing courage. Once you've experienced this kind of provision once, it takes less courage to step out again in faith. Not reckless chances, mind you, just the next right step. So in this series, just to recap, we're sharing our journey from burnout to breakthrough with four P's.
Winston Faircloth:Earlier, we talked about pause. Last time we talked about purpose. Today, we talked about provision. And next time we'll talk about planning. And what's been uncovered for us during this season is that we've gotten clearer and clearer on our why and also now our who.
Winston Faircloth:What we know for sure is we'd love to work with we know that working with teams you love unlocks and multiplies your impact, but we wanna do that with long term relationships. We wanna be strategic partners to our clients. And we're preparing ourselves to meet you wherever you are along that journey, whether that's want, need, or have. And we'll do that in ways that are manageable and meaningful to you, whether it's seminars, intensive mentorship. And then we've got this really cool, approach on unlocking team innovation.
Winston Faircloth:But we're just getting started. And you won't yet see this on our website because we're working with our initial cohort of business clients across this want, need, and have a team you love spectrum. And over the coming weeks, you'll see that shift in this podcast and in our online presence. I invite you to catch our next episode again next Monday morning, and make sure to subscribe at Apple Podcasts or any of your favorite podcast players so you don't miss a single episode. And I'd also invite you to check out the show notes for a special thank you when you leave a positive review.
Winston Faircloth:And finally, as we share on every episode, the biggest breakthroughs in life and business occur the moment you decide to begin again. I'll catch you on the next episode.