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Record Live is a conversation about life, spirituality and following Jesus in the Seventh-day Adventist Church.
This leadership conversation applies to YOU!
[00:00:00] Hi there, everyone. I'm Jared. And I'm Zenita. We are your hosts of Record Live, a podcast where we talk about church, faith, and living well. We believe as followers of Jesus, faith is more than just a set of beliefs. It's a way of life, something we put into practice. Let's go live.
Hello everyone. Welcome to another episode of record live. We have hit. An exciting milestone this week, Jared, do you want to fill us in on what that is?
We will hit an exciting milestone this week. It's 50 podcast episodes. So Record Live has been going for quite a long time in the video format, but we just started the podcast last year and we've already hit 50 episodes, which is exciting.
A lot of [00:01:00] podcasts don't make it past two or three. Don't get too consistent on that. So yeah, we're excited to reach 50. , it's been fun having that different platform to work with Yeah, it's awesome. So Thank you. I know not everyone has the time to sit down and watch us for 30 minutes every week so that's why we kind of create the platform was just so that more people could listen and Yeah, obviously people are doing that.
, and so we're really thankful for everyone who is supporting us and who was listening, leaving comments and feedback and all that. So,, yeah, we couldn't do it without you guys. We're not here without you also. So thank you to everyone. But Jared, we are hitting on, well, actually before we get to that, I guess in celebration of 50 episodes, I thought it would be good to reflect because one thing that we like to do and.
Every episode is we like to ask our guests, what do we do about this? Like practically speaking, how do we implement this topic, this conversation, this whatever into our lives. And so that's something that [00:02:00] we really intentional every week, on asking people. So I just want to ask you, Jared. , of I guess the last series of episodes, the last 50 or so conversations, what is like one thing that you've taken away from one of those conversations or one thing that is stuck with you or one thing that you've tried to implement more into your life?
It's a good question. I was hoping you forgot. You almost missed it.
Uh, well, recently, very recently, we challenged each other to pray for celebrities. Did you do that Zanita? Yes.
Yes. Well. The week after we had that conversation, I completely forgot. And then you asked me, you kept me accountable, which I think is very important for these like faith conversations is to keep people accountable.
, so thank you, but I completely forgot. And then since that, I've thought about it a few times when I've seen Russell Brand pop up or someone else I'm like, Oh yeah. I need to pray. But it's good. Yeah. That's something that you've been incorporating. Yeah. [00:03:00] Yeah. A couple of times. Not all the time. Not every day, but yeah, a couple of times.
That's been good. , Another one. I just had a look before we went on, to be honest. , We've talked about, , prayer a few times and sort of trying to maintain a healthy prayer life as well as, family worships. We had, , Sylvia Mendez on, , talking about the power of family worships. And. My little family and I, we try and do it as often as we can, in the evenings, we sing some songs, we say a prayer.
Sometimes we read a Bible story , and I guess , she talked a lot about how there were all sorts of different ways and different stages your family might be in to do that well. And I guess it's been nice to just do that, knowing what she shared with us on the program, like, Oh, okay. My kids are a bit rowdy tonight.
That's okay. Like we can find a different way to give them a message or give them a lesson and still, have a good time, have a good time learning songs about Jesus and [00:04:00] learning,, more about each other as well in the process. So yeah, it's been good. That's one thing I think I've tried to be incorporating.
Maybe we were doing it before her episode, but her episode was a really good reinforcement and a reminder and gave me some good tools going forward, I think. So that was one that stood out. Yeah.
Yeah, we've had a lot of really good insight, but anyone who just loves the practical stuff, you can just,, he's a hack.
You can just fast forward to the last episode and hear that, but you'll probably miss all the motivation and pump up around that. . Well, today, Jared, we are having a conversation about leadership, which, I think is a really cool topic., I believe, personally, that we're all called to be leaders.
I don't know if you agree with that statement or not, but whether you're leading in a good way or a bad way, you're leading in one way or another. But I guess surprisingly, it's not really a topic that we've covered on Record Lab. We've talked to leaders, of course, but we haven't really addressed the topic.
And so that's what we're tackling today. But I would love to hear from you, Jared, if [00:05:00] you,, yourself, Actually feel like a leader. I know a lot of people say like, Oh, I just don't feel like a leader. I don't think I have those skills. So,, today I'm kind of interviewing you. And so, , obviously you're an editor and you're a boss.
You have big responsibilities, but do you feel like a leader? And if you do, when did you kind of like step into that or take ownership of that, like role, I suppose.
That's a really interesting question. I just want to reflect on what you said for a moment. Like I thought the first thing I thought when I said, Hey, let's talk about leadership as a topic this week was that some people will read that and maybe not listen to the episode or watch it even because they'll say, I'm not a leader.
That doesn't apply to me., and I really agree with what you said that,, I think we're all leaders. In some way or another,, whether we're leading a group of people as in managing or whether we see ourselves as a leader within our friendship groups or our [00:06:00] churches, anyone, everyone is leading someone somewhere, like at some point, maybe not all the time, maybe in different roles, in different spheres, you have different roles.
And in some spaces, you're not a leader. In some places you are a leader , but I think we've all been equipped by God to have a certain amount of free will and a certain amount of autonomy. And because we have the ability to make choices,, our choices impact and influence other people.
So we leading then therefore, and so I think that's really important to point out. So if you're watching this conversation, you think, I'm no leader. Like I don't lead anyone. You're wrong. Yeah, you are a leader. , and we don't often say you're wrong on record live, but for those people that are thinking this, watching that, and thinking in such a way, like, Yeah, I think God calls each of us to reach others, even With a message about him, sharing our faith and that is leadership.
We're taking something we've been given and we're [00:07:00] sharing it around. We're giving that to someone else. So that at a very basic level, I think is leadership. I've forgotten what your original question was. My question was,, Yeah, do you see yourself as a leader? And if you do, when did you kind of step into that?
Or when did you start taking ownership of that? Was it, was it like someone spoke into you or did you just grow up with those natural abilities to like lead people? What was it?
It's an interesting question. I think. Potentially, truly saw myself as a leader in my career. When I was appointed as editor of Adventist record, that was like a pivotal point. It was like, okay, I'm in charge now. I have to make some decisions. I have to, , wear the consequences take responsibility.
And that was a really big thing for me in terms of, embracing that identity as a leader and figuring out what that meant for me., what that meant also for the. The area of responsibility that [00:08:00] I've been given, but then, , I was on the Gold Coast this weekend for a leadership summit. And this is why we're talking about this concept today.
I was attending,, some leadership training this year. The church is,, equipping a lot of different people with leadership skills because, , as an. As a Seventh day Adventist church, they're looking to the future. We are looking to the future and going, we don't always have leaders ready to come behind when key people retire or something happens,, we don't have people to fill all the roles.
So let's empower more and younger leaders as well. And I think that's fantastic. Like just as a premise, as an organization to look to the future and think who's coming after me and how can I equip that person, but it was really interesting at this. Somewhat, we did this exercise of like, look back over your life. , your life story holds a lot of keys, because you're looking at where God's led you, where God's growing you and where that leadership stuff might come from, and so when you do that, when you, [00:09:00] we did a timeline of our life, kind of key points that have shaped us into who we are. And it reminded me.
And as we had different conversations, stuff kept coming back to my memory in terms of people that had poured into me or. People that had spoken leadership to me, as in you're a leader for this reason, or they gave me an opportunity that forced me to lead, for example,, being a school captain or something, or, or hosting, emceeing the school concert, , those were opportunities, those were moments in my life where it was like, actually I had to,, Do some leadership in that space.
, and someone else had given me that opportunity. It wasn't my opportunity that I took or that I ever expected. Someone gave me that opportunity. And so you look back through your life and you see little things. It's like, Oh, actually. That person really gave me a leg up, gave me some training to be a leader, some opportunity to be a leader that I didn't expect would happen or wasn't sure would come [00:10:00] along.
So yeah, I definitely think when you look back, it's a really good exercise to see where God has led and what kind of things he's equipped you for that you don't expect will be useful down the track. But then all of a sudden in some season of your life, you're like, wow, actually this isn't that separate to what I did at that point, but I had no idea why I was doing it, but God actually.
Gave me that opportunity.
Yeah. I like that element as well as like someone saw something in you, because I think sometimes people freak out about the concept of leadership because they think of,, I think of maybe people who are like controlling or just take the lead on everything. But I think like really good leaders empower other people to join them and provide people the opportunity to come alongside, , whether they like, it's almost like the story of Moses and.
Joshua, I'm trying to think of his name, but like everyone, everyone needs like someone like Moses to kind of give them the opportunity and say, Oh, you can lead and you can be better [00:11:00] maybe for those who are already in those positions of leadership, like what, I guess there is an obvious, but what can they do to bring people under their wing and encourage them to.
It's a good question. I think , just reflecting on , your Moses and Joshua sort of concept., and some of the things we've already shared in this conversation,, Joshua may not had have felt like a leader after the AI incident, when they lost the battle and, Moses is gone.
And it's like. Oh, no, you're talking about AI, like artificial intelligence. No, no. Like what? The city, the town, AI.
You know, there are days you wake up and you feel that either imposter syndrome, or you're like, Oh, I'm not feeling this., why is, why have I been placed in this position? And I think that's normal , and natural. , that happens to the best of us. But in terms of, , looking at the future and giving others things, sometimes it's a positive experience. Sometimes it's a negative [00:12:00] experiences. Some of my traits, some of the things that I have developed that are positive for me in my life have been when people have challenged me on something. , I remember I was quite shy at church and I. Was scared to talk to some of the older people that I didn't, people that I didn't know.
So I didn't look at them. I didn't make eye contact. I was Introvert in that sense. And one day mum mentioned to me that one of the older gentlemen in our church, he always made an effort with us young people. So that was one thing that was a positive thing. He always tried to speak to us and whatever.
And, but she said, this guy, he thinks you're a bit rude. Because you don't ever look at him., you don't answer his questions or whatever, whatever. And I was like, it was a fearful thing at the time. It was like my hope that people would see me in a good light or my own reputation was stronger than my fear or my [00:13:00] shyness or my introvertedness or whatever.
So then I made a conscious effort, a decision. I need to. Be better. I need to actually be friendly at church to the point where when I was a young person, a teenager, a bit older, I would look for new people at church and try and say, hi, be friendly, welcome them. Cause I knew that it was quite,, hard to go to a new church,, and so my radar was really attuned to that, but it wouldn't have happened maybe unless I'd been challenged, like called out in that way.
I can think of other your strengths now as a leader.
It's always uncomfortable to talk about my own strengths, Sunita. Maybe that's something I need to work on. Um, I would say, , depends on the day, but sometimes I don't know that I'm actually introverted. I had this conception of myself that I'm a shy kid. Like I can't do certain things. And I still think, , sometimes I have anxieties around new situations and communicating with certain things, but If I'm comfortable, I very much do get energy from talking to other people and, , working the room, making new connections.
It's very different now to when I was, [00:14:00] seven sort of thing. So,, it could definitely be something, I don't know if I've developed it or God's, helped it be developed, but, , it's very clear. memory to me, that progression of how episode or that incident changed, , myself it's happened in the workplace as well.
You know, one former boss of mine, questioned something or made a comment about something. And I was like, Oh, is that how I've been perceived?, I need to work on that. I need to grow that area. , and it's really Stood me for the better. So, Point of all that to say, you can influence young people in your church by paying attention to them and speaking into their lives.
Yes. , I can think of coaches. I can think of teachers who said certain things about me. I can think of my parents who have said certain things and train me in certain ways that have helped me get to where I am today. So there's definitely that element. If we can be intentional. One thing I'll sometimes [00:15:00] lament is the fact that.
There's been incidental episodes of that that have really helped me, but I don't necessarily have an intentional,, I do now, but at times in my life, I've had people, I've wondered who's my mentor, who's actually mentoring me. Like I'm doing a lot of this stuff by myself, but I'm not being poured into.
And so it's made me really conscious of like, who can I pour into? And I don't always do a good job of that. But looking for others to actually mentor Is a valuable thing. And, , just this for our older members in our churches, they have a hugely valuable role. I've heard the stats about, , if five people at a church know your name, you're more likely to stay there sort of thing.
, what about our young people? If five older people, You know, they may feel like, Oh, they're not really, they don't have the energy for preparing the lesson and getting up the front and preaching, or they don't have, , the ability to do a whole bunch of mission trips and fly and builds and whatever, but they [00:16:00] can be hugely instrumental in telling stories, passing on what they know and knowing the names of young people,, speaking life.
When you see a young person up the front, Hey, you did a great job , as doing that. I encourage you to do it more. I really enjoyed that, that's the kind of thing that we can be. We can be leaders in that space. Even if we have no leadership roles, we can lead by Encouraging someone else and, that's the servant leadership that we can display by, hey, I'm going to take a risk that you,, don't know me, but I'm going to come and speak something encouraging into your life.
I think that's really important. Yeah, I think that's a good point as well, because not everyone is in like leadership positions or not. Everyone is . Editor of two magazines in a workspace like you, Jared. But, I guess if we think about people,, maybe they are like yourself in that they have a wife and they have children and that they have a job.
And I think some people look at it and they're like, how do I like lead in this? Like, I'm not a leader. I'm not like in that kind of environment. But [00:17:00] as you're saying, it's kind of like just empowering people and encouraging people is like a key part. Well I have a question for you Zenita, you said at the start of this conversation you see yourself as a leader, like we should all see ourselves as a leader, but, you're not leading in a sense of, , work position, career wise necessarily, but how do you see yourself as a leader?
In your life and have people spoken into your life to, to make you feel that way. Like, yes, I have the potential. I am a leader sort of thing in a space. Don't tell me a bit about that. Yeah. I remember someone in my family talking about leadership when I was a child and , he wanted to be a leader. And I used to always kind of like curl up with that thought thinking like, Oh no, no, no.
I'm. I'm not a leader. , I don't really want that responsibility. I think I thought of people like in political positions or like big roles as leaders, , kind of people who are the face of the screen kind of thing. And I just wanted to be a normal person with friends. That was like [00:18:00] what I was interested in.
But I think it was when I started coming back to church, I had a few people like really intentionally disciple me and really intentionally encourage me and empower me in certain areas. And they also said things like, Oh no, like you're a leader. And I was like, what? No, but I think at that point I started to see it with a different lens.
And so now I just see leadership as like influence and that can , look like a million different things in my life, but even just in my friendship circles, it's like, Oh, how can I influence people? Well, is that just like staying consistent or is that just being confident in what I believe, , and so I think,, I don't know exactly.
I think it's shapeshifted a little bit because I have had roles in the church before, like leadership roles. But I think in my day to day life, I just try to be consistent in my character, consistent in my values. Like I tried to just like model life well, and that doesn't always go to plan, but that's what I aim for.
I think it was, was it John Maxwell that [00:19:00] said leadership is influence. I think that I'm trying to remember, there's a famous, there's a famous leadership business., I think it's John Maxwell that says, , in leadership is just influence,, and how do we influence other people? And I want to say this as well, , before people think, Oh, the way to be a leader is to be extroverted or to be out there, , doing things, , up front, like , you had that perception as a child, you have to be on TV, you have to be, a politician or a, , You can lead from behind, if that makes sense, you can lead as a servant, you can, , help and heal, and you can be quite introverted and still find leadership ways to lead out.
, and so I think that's an important distinction to make for people that again, are looking for arguments as to, Hey, I'm not a leader, ? Yeah. I think even on that, I remember listening to a podcast. I think Malcolm Gladwell put it out as something, and he was actually saying that. The second person. So like the follower is often, , more influential than the leader, because once someone starts following it, then someone else, it [00:20:00] kind of has like a ripple effect, but if it's just one person. Doing it or doing something and it sort of gets missed or people get skeptical. But as soon as someone joins the leader, so I think it's just an interesting point , even if you see someone who's doing something you like, if you're too afraid to be the main face of something, follow that person or like do what that person is doing and it can seem a little bit less.
Intimidating. And as Christians, we're all following Jesus, right? So we're following Jesus, but like Paul was saying, as I imitate Christ, imitate me. And that's, we're often uncomfortable with that concept of someone following us, , someone doing the same things as I'm doing. But if I'm doing positive things,, if I'm keeping the Sabbath, if I'm not eating, unhealthy foods, or if I'm not drinking or smoking or something that's bad for my body, that can be influential to people.
They're like, Oh,, you don't drink, , like you don't take part in this. [00:21:00] Why, , I choose to be healthy and, and, I believe it's for these reasons, it's a great choice. , and that gives people permission as well. They can follow you, in those areas. And yeah, just, so just by lifestyle choices, we can also demonstrate.
Some leadership, and it's good if people imitate us in positive ways,, like Paul saying we're uncomfortable sometimes with people imitating us or someone's imitating me, but I'm not perfect. , they should just look to God and look to Jesus well, actually, we can lead people to God and.
To Jesus in a closer relationship with, by our experiences, sharing our lives, sharing our experiences with people. We're actually leading them to get closer to, to that. Yeah. And I think it's maybe something people get wrong about leadership is that you have to like, do it all perfectly. But I think sometimes we can like impress people with our strengths, but , it's often, I think we've talked about this on record live as well, but it's often with Our weaknesses that we actually connect with people.
So as a lead, do something wrong, then it's okay to relate with you more. If you're [00:22:00] honest about that. Yes. , it came into this concept we were talking about on the weekend called having a growth mindset., One of the points, one of the main points of that is don't be afraid to fail because failure is just teaching you.
It's just experience. You're learning from it and growing from that. , and so it's seeing failure instead of as a problem, it's seeing failure as an opportunity to get better or to tweak what you're doing. So that's really helpful. And just more broadly, the growth mindset idea. It's like, Oh, there's a challenge.
That's exciting. It's an opportunity, to grow and to develop and, to improve things. So, yeah, I think we shouldn't be afraid of failure. And as you said,, our vulnerability can sometimes help others more than our strength perceived strength. So if we put. Uh, mask on and lead from a place of invulnerability from strength from like, do this, you know, do what I say, not what I do sort of thing.
We can actually turn people away [00:23:00] from following that because they think it's so unattainable. We put a barrier there. We put a, a distance between ourselves and them. , and that's not necessarily leading and a servant. style like Jesus did. It's not necessarily, using our weaknesses of the kingdom.
Yeah, I love that. If we can be open to constructive criticism, we can really grow from it, I think., I remember something that changed my Perspective on leadership a little bit was when I think I read a study and it was talking about the different like traits of inspirational leaders, because I think often sometimes when we think of leadership, we have kind of someone in our mind that we look up to or that we see as a leader and we think of the traits that they have and we're like, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Oh, I'm not like that person. But the study showed was that there's 33 kind of main traits in leadership. And some of them were like empathy, wisdom, consistency, empowering other people, like self, and then there's all kinds of things. Often people will have like often good leaders. They'll be really strong in just a few of them.
And I think that's cool [00:24:00] because the characteristics that make up. leadership are actually really broad. If you think of 33 different traits, you might not even be able to just list off 33 traits right now, if I were to ask you to. So, even if you just start small and be like, Oh, can I like really work on trying to be a more empathetic person?
Or like what traits am I already, do I already have that I can really strengthen? Because you're not going to tick off all 33, chances are, but, if you're really good at a few of them. Then you'll be able to lead well in those areas. I guess there's a lot of ways we can lead. A lot of ways we can lead.
Definitely. And what you've just sort of said is there's two parts to this, there's, Leaning into what you're good at already, like God has, if God has called you as a leader, God has equipped you with certain gifts and talents, and he wants you to use those for the kingdom, right?
So you can lean into that with confidence, be like, God made me this way. So this is what [00:25:00] I can use for his kingdom. And you will become a , leader in those spaces if you actually develop that, but the other thing, and leaders go through different phases, , they've got life maturing phase and, uh, uh, leadership maturing phase where they growing and , they're getting more, , experience and they're becoming more effective as leaders.
And so, yes, you might get picked as a leader because of your gifts. Like you're a really hospitable person. So you're going to be head of the hospitality team at our church. We really see that and we want to empower that in you. Okay, great. After any length of time working in any sphere of influence, you're going to find.
You run up against challenges, whether that's interpersonal challenges or other things. And sometimes it's not your gifting to deal with some of those things. Sometimes there's a weakness because your natural gift is what got you to leadership in the first place. But then at some point you have to actually improve or work on your [00:26:00] weaknesses and focus on those.
And so there is a discipline of. identifying like, actually, I'm not very good at this area, but if I can make myself just a little bit better, it'll save a lot of hassle. It'll save a lot of headache for others. I will lead better. I'll have less interpersonal clashes. I'll have more, , opportunity to serve people.
It's not my gifting, but it is important that I get better at leading. And so there's those two areas. There's the stuff we're really naturally good at and wired for God's given us that, but he's also given us, we should be as leaders teachable and , continue to try and develop the character of Christ.
And sometimes. Some of our weaknesses are stopping us from leading well, and we need to work on those. Myself, I could give you a raft of reasons why I need to be a better leader, like, I'm picking this up as I go, you know, a lot of times we get appointed in leadership and it's just because we have a talent or we [00:27:00] have experience in a certain area and people will go, well, you're good at that thing.
, but there's a whole lot of more nuanced leadership techniques or tools that we can equip ourselves with that actually, and you don't have to be an expert by any means. Sometimes it's just talking to the Holy Spirit and being like, look, I'm struggling with this area. I'm struggling to really relate to people , in my influence, , in my sphere, help me to figure out how to grow through that.
And If we can be self aware enough to grow some of those weakness areas, that's really going to help us as a leader. That's really going to bring us maturity and it's really going to help the people around us to actually respect us and want to follow us because we've improved the areas of our Sort of weakness.
And I, I have lots of those. I'll be the first to put my hand up. Yeah, I love that perspective, though, to leave our listeners or something. I know that you just went to a leadership conference. Was there anything stood out [00:28:00] to you that maybe you got wrong about leadership or something that you're like?
Yeah, I really loved that and wasn't aware of that before that you can just , leave us with To end this conversation. It's gone so quick. It's gone really quick. We may have to revisit this topic, , specific angle or something. Cause this is, this has been really fun., I don't know if it's new necessarily.
I'll do two things. I'll give you a quick, we had some chance to reflect at the end of the retreat. , what do you want to take away from here? And that was really positive. Cause it was like, I was like, Ooh, we did, we do this on record live. Like what's practical, what's your application.
And I think that's really important to have time to process and to reflect. So it's part of that. That's really good. , I learned about a thing called the outward mindset, which I think is very helpful., it's really good. Instead of focusing on yourself and we can get into all sorts of trouble, fostering a culture in your sphere of influence of outward mindset.
In other words, servant leadership. It's, we've mentioned the term, but it's like [00:29:00] having a mindset that features others and focuses on how to help them, , is a very important, , element. , but a lot of the leadership models that were shared on the weekend also sort of, focused on this, idea of leading the self first.
Like that's where you start figuring out how to lead yourself. Well, , and one thing I've been putting into practice this year, , that I've Found very helpful is an exercise called morning pages. I just make sure I try during some point of my morning to write for 15 minutes or so some reflections, some it's like a journal, it's like gratitude or it's whatever topics bothering me for the day.
And just doing that and getting some ideas out in that space. I've had some real breakthroughs this year, just, I mean, not even this year, the last two or three months when I've started doing it, not as regularly as I'd like, but when I do it, it's something really helpful to me. And it's people do it already in journaling or devotions.
And I've done it at different points for my life, but only when I felt like I [00:30:00] needed to not as a regular, trying to make it more regular habit. So I'm trying to make that a more regular thing in my life. And I found it super, , helpful. , yeah. So yeah, if you haven't tried morning pages or doing a devotional, like a journal, like get into it, it's good, , To help you reflect and to help you figure out a course of action.
And sometimes it just acts as a prayer, like, Lord, I don't know, but I'm dealing with this stuff. Like here it is. So yeah, very practical.
Love it. Well, that's a good thing to leave us with. Everyone out there listening, you are a leader. You do have potential and skills, but if you are lost and don't know where to start, just start by leading yourself.
Well, I think that's a really cool. So thank you everyone for joining us. Thank you, Jared, for instilling us with leadership wisdom, and we will talk to you all next week. God bless. [00:31:00]