The Importance of the Right Team (Who's Holding Your Ladder?) with Guest: Sam Chand

Recorded on Ron & Hope's show, this interview with leadership consultant Dr. Sam Chand centers on hiring, team composition, and the people decisions leaders must make. Chand outlines three annual leadership questions (Who do I retain? Who do I release? Who do I reassign with retraining?), breaks down the STAFF acronym (Strong, Teachable, Attentive, Firm, Faithful) for evaluating staff, and emphasizes courageous firings, personal development plans (PDPs), stewardship of resources, and the idea that "proper people placement prevents problems." The conversation includes practical examples, pastoral vs. CEO role distinctions, and promotion of Chand's Avail Journal.
Chapters
Foreign.
Hello, everybody. It's Ron and Hope. Unfiltered, real raw, relevant. And we are so glad that you are here today. Ron.
Look, I was just going to say you told. You stole my thunder. We have arrived.
We're official.
We have arrived.
And for the low cost, for the.
$6,000 a piece, you can for the.
Love gift of at least $10,000.
10, like 100 grand or something like that.
Yeah, Ron Carpenter. Where he.
And for 100,000, I'll give you one that I've actually drunk out of. That's what I'm talking about. Yeah, we'll just take a sip out of it. Could be used for communion. It's got so many different things we could use it for. No, really, I'm just sitting here looking at it. I'm proud. The only thing it's got in it is water. I'm done with coffee every day by about 11 o'. Clock. But Hope, we have been so busy. She's been gone all week. You've been to John Maxwell School that she signed up for before COVID I think shut it down. Was it seven years ago? Five years paid for it and then she finally got to go this week. So I ain't seen her in about a week. And that dawned on me this morning. I'd not even had. You've been here almost 24 hours and ain't even had a kiss.
That is not.
I mean when you gone that long, you got to at least I need some sugar.
Always tell stories. You tell bids to people. I kissed you last night when I came in the door. I kissed you this morning.
I got one other complaint.
Oh God.
The way we've got this set up. Don't show my shoes, Ron. My shoes are yellow on the bottom. I think that's so cool. They were talking about my drip over in the music room.
His drip.
It's become undeniable for people that don't.
Know what that means. He thinks he looks good.
No, no, no. It's my style.
And he calls it. He's dripping with style.
When you're 54 and you can wear tennis shoes with yellow bottles.
Oh, God help us all.
We got somebody real special on here today. We need to quit playing around and use our time wisely. Let me take a minute. I'll let you take a minute. Most of the time I would tell you how many books they wrote and how many followers they got.
And he's got a lot of how.
Many conferences they speak at. I'm going to come at this gentleman and totally Different. You can check all that. He has all those accolades and more. He's been doing what he does at a high level for a very long time, but not going from laughing to tearing up. He's our friend.
Yes.
And he is a great friend. If you. If you have friends, you want friends like this. In the most difficult moments of our life, we had a few of those. When everybody scatters like cockroaches. When the light comes on, he's sitting right beside us on the front row. And I mean, the people when everybody else runs away, that they run too. They are the ones that consist of long term relationships.
He's been a good, good friend to you too, and I so appreciate that.
Yeah, just a good friend. Because sometimes I'll just look at hope and I'll say, I gotta call Dr. Chan. I just need to talk to Dr. Chan. I don't even need him about five to seven minutes. But sometime he has a way of looking at so objectively into my world and helping you see your blind spots and this and that and other. So without any further ado and without any more accolades, I'm going to bring him on in. Dr. Chan, I know your time is valuable and the fact that you're here with us today, I am so grateful.
Thank you. Thank you for being here.
Yes, sir.
Today I want to talk to you about one of my favorite books of yours. And it's called who's holding youg Ladder? And if you've never read Dr. Chan's books, you have got to go get every single one of them right now. Go to Amazon.com and get every one of his books.
Well, he's got about 30 ladder books. I mean, I don't know how many. He's written everything about a ladder. You can write about a ladder.
Well, he's a ladder specialist.
Anyway, Dr. Chan, welcome.
It's an honor and joy to be here. And I learned something new. You're dripping. I like that. I like that.
Dr. Chan, he thinks he's dripping. He thinks he's drinking.
Listen, that's a millennial and Z Generation thing. And I walk in there and pray with our band and praise team, who are all younger every morning. And the first thing they want to know is my drip. So I'm having to keep my drip high to connect with these younger.
So let's go any further before we go any further. I know you're 54. It might be difficult for you, but can you show us the soles of your feet?
Yeah.
Stand up and let them see yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, we are all. There you go, there you go.
Yeah, we might need to call maintenance. I think there's water on.
It's dripping all over the floor over here. We need somebody to come clean it up.
You know, you put that out there earlier and we are all saying, okay, so what shade of yellow is? And there it is, there it is, there it is. You're dripping for sure. What a joy it is to be with you all. And I just simply love both of you from the first time I met you, I just love both of you. I remember meeting you through our great friend who is preparing the way for us in heaven, Bishop Tony Miller. He brought us together. And I still remember Apostle Ron. I was doing one of those conferences. He had 1800 conferences, each one had a different name to it. And so I was speaking there and I can still see it was a seminar style room. And Apostle Ron, you were sitting on the right hand side. I could still see that. You know, a few things that have impacted me visually. And as I was speaking about the difficulties in leadership, that's the top topic was somewhere in there, difficulty leadership. And I did not know you at that time. I met you after that meeting and you were sitting there and somewhere in the middle you started crying. And you were just crying and crying and crying. And during break time you walked up to me. I did not know who you were. And you walked up to me and you said, you are speaking where I am right now. And then right then, Apostle Tony Miller walked up and said, you guys know each other? I said, no, I'm just meeting him. And he said, then he went into the whole thing and introduced us. So our meeting was at a point in our lives. I think that, you know, God has a way of connecting that. And so it is just a joy and an honor to serve both of you. I look up to you. I respect you, I honor you. You are generals in the kingdom of God and you are bi coastal. You are, you know, Atlantic.
Did you say bipolar?
Since this is raw and all that, when he's dripping with yellow souls, you. But you all are doing a great work. Last week I stopped by your place in San Jose. What a magnificent campus you have over there.
I'm so sorry I wasn't here. I'm so sorry I wasn't here.
No, no worries. I just want you all to know how much I admire you and love you and thank God for you. You are absolutely global leaders in my estimation. Thank you for this opportunity to say a few words.
Well, thank you for being here. You know, like I was saying earlier, one of the first books I read from you was who's holding youg Ladder? And that was during the time that we were experiencing a lot of transition in our staff. And, you know, whether today, you know, we have lots of people listening, not just church people, we have business people, we have people who aren't even saved. But everybody has somebody in their life that connects. That's their connector, that works with them, alongside them, who is in a relationship with them. And we always have to evaluate our relationships if they are or if they're being maximized to take us to the next place that we need to be. And this book really changed my view on that. One thing I appreciate about you, Dr. Chan, is you're just. No nonsense. You, you know, you're like. I love the statement when you say the first time you think about firing somebody, you need to fire em right then.
Because I mean, the best time to fire somebody is the first time you thought about it.
Yeah, you're such a practical teacher about people and systems and organizations. So today we're going to talk about leadership and those connectors in our life. So talk to them. Who's listening about your book.
Well, thank you so much for letting me talk about my book. But more than the book, I want leaders to know that leadership takes a lot of courage. And to make courageous decisions, you cannot focus on keeping people happy. Because if you're going to lead an organization, you're going to have to always ask three questions on an annual basis. Here are the three questions. Who do I retain? Who do I release? And who do I reassign with retraining? So who do I retain? The people that I'm going to keep with me. Number two is who do I release? I got to let them go. And I'm going to come back to that in a moment. And the third one is who do I reassign with retraining? Now, the challenge is that the releasing part causes us angst. We are always afraid as to the fallout that we will have from that. But what I have discovered is that your organization can go higher because everybody knows who needs to be released. I want every leader to know this very clearly. It is an open secret. It is an open secret as to who needs to go. I'll give you an example. I'll give you one example. I was doing this executive leadership roundtable for large organization. And so they brought their executives into the room and they're about 20, 25, what they call Executive large organization, executive level leaders. And in course of conversation they start saying things like, well, some people there, some people that, some people this. And I got tired of all the innuendos and finger pointing so I said, everyone stand up, stand up. Go stand around the room. They did. I gave each one of them a piece of paper and a pen and said, look around this room. If there's one person you could fire, put their name on it. Did you know they all named the same person.
Wow.
Except for one.
That person.
So here's what I want leaders to hear from me. When you don't make the courageous decision to release the person at the end of the day, you're hurting yourself. Own leadership equity.
Yes.
Because people are looking at you and asking questions such as, does he, she see this? And they're not doing anything about it. What's wrong with that picture? Question number two is how come they don't see it? Question number three is, will anybody see it and do something about this quickly? And as soon as you make the courageous decision, the level of leadership goes up. Let me say it another way. I have helped corporate leaders and church leaders over my 35, 36 years of doing what I do. Experience fire thousands of people. Thousands of people. And I can tell you, I can tell you 100% of the leaders have no regret. Not one of the leaders has ever regretted a firing. However, all hundred percent of them have had the same regret. Why didn't I do this sooner?
Wow. Well, you know, one thing that we need to get rid of too is our weight. Let's talk about our.
I know where you're going.
One of our greatest sponsors, one that I love dearly, is Noom. Because you know, at my age. Your age.
You're a little older now.
Am I a little older? That's a lie too. As a woman, we struggle in our 50s with our weight. Have you ever struggled to.
I don't think that's. As a woman, I think that's because of people. Yeah.
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Know what, they didn't ask me to do this, but I just want to say this. We have a friend that's doing really good now, but at one time his life was what we would call morbidly obese and went and had some of the surgeries, I'm not sure which one, and lost a lot of weight and told us not too long ago when he was with us and I gained every bit of it back. And I said, how did that happen? This is what he said. He said because I didn't change my mind.
So true. That changes everything.
That's what he said. Because I didn't change. For those of you saying, ah, psychology to lose weight, let me tell you something. You can go on any diet you want to, but if you don't change the way you think about health and nutrition, you will never be able to keep it off. So we love the guys at Noom. Thank you so much for being a sponsor. I get to ask the next question?
Yes, ask it.
All right. Dr. Chan, one of the times you've been probably done something for me almost every year since the mid 2000s and if we might have skipped a year here or there. But you've been some type of function that we've had. One of the things that goes right along with this book about leadership that revolutionized my life and I'll try to say it in one minute so you can talk more than me is I came from a denominational background. The denominational background that I came from had deacon boards that ran the church. They could hire and fire the pastor. So we were subconsciously taught, yes, keep everybody happy. And I watched my dad almost really go to an early grave just trying to keep everybody happy within a system. And I knew I couldn't function like that. I knew I was different, built different, wired different. But you said something that man, it was like somebody hit me in the chest with a ball bat one time. You stood and I think it was a staff function I had. And you looked over toward me and you said, what are the people in this room? If God gave you a chance to go somewhere and start all over, that you would take with you, who would you choose? And I was already looking around the room and I knew in my mind who I would choose. And I knew in my mind who I wouldn't. And then you looked and said, if you have a group of people that you would not take with you, he said, you said, why do you have them now? That was. I had to go off and chew on that one because to be honest with you, you gave me no room to duck, dive and dodge when you said you put it right in my face. Would you just speak to some of those things?
Absolutely. Absolutely. So let me break it down for your listeners because I know you have listeners all over the world. And I took the word staff, S, T, A, F, F, and I broke it down into each Alphabet stands for something. And I'll just do this all in three minutes or less. S stands for strong. Strong simply means people who can handle instruction and correction. People who are not fragile, people who don't get their feelings hurt easily, people who don't go running to mama and daddy and complain about it. People who can say, this is for our own good. People realize they are there for development portion of their life. People who are strong who can handle instruction and correction. That's S. T stands for teachable. How teachable are they? Because to teach such for someone to be a learner, you've got to have a humble spirit and humility starts by saying, I need to learn, somebody needs to teach me. So are they teachable or they know it all? Because the challenge is if you hire people or bring people from another church, another organization, another corpor, they bring the way they used to do things into your organization and pretty soon you don't have an organizational culture. It is a crucible of everybody else's culture there. But are they teachable to. This is how we do things at Redemption. And so how do we teach people? And unless they have a humble spirit and not know it all, that is important. So S stands for strong. T stands for teachable. It A stands for attentive. By attentive I mean do they learn quickly? That means you don't have to go over the same issue again and again. You don't have to circle the same airport and don't know how you're going to land it. You don't have to just, you know, you don't have to pray with them about the same thing. Teach them about the Same thing. Exhort them about the same thing, email them about the same thing. But they learn quickly. They're attentive. S stands for strong. T stands for teachable. A stands for attentive. F stands for firm. F, I, R, M. That means they're not blown about by manipulative people. Now there are manipulative people in ministry, marketplace, church, corporation. There are manipulative people who lead you innuendo. And here's the thing you need to know. Anything you say will show up on social media somewhere. So. And they will coach you and they will tag you and your denials will make no difference. So you got to be careful the kind of people you hang around. And finally, you want faithful people. Now by faithful, I'm not talking about having faith in the Lord, I'm talking about having faith in you. Now I was born, raised in a pastor's home and so were you. And I've never understood why people keep coming to the church but they don't like the preacher. Why people keep coming to the church and they don't like the worship. Why people keep coming to the church and they don't like the organization. I mean, for goodness sake, go somewhere else. But I'm looking for people who have faith in me, who will hold my ladder, who will say that I not only am into Sam Chan, but I am into the way he thinks, the way he leads his paradigms of leadership, how God has brought his life together. And so I think it's important for people to know that if you're going to have a staff, they've got to be strong, they got to be teachable, they've got to be attentive, they've got to be firm and they got to be faithful. And so I want to end with this portion of it by simply saying this. Proper people placement prevents problems. Proper people placement. Placement prevents problems. I won't say it again.
I need to get a shirt with that on it.
Yeah, people placement prevents problems. So I'm a consultant, I'm a leadership consultant. When I go into a church, I go into a corporation, I go into a non profit organization and they're having a challenge. It is usually not always in two places. People, processes, that means systems and people. And in most cases all your problem can be pointed to a person. And at that time you got to, you come to what Pastor Ron, you just said, you know, you're hit in the chest saying, okay, I'm looking at the problem. What am I going to do with this? What I'm going to do with this. And I have found that, that the more merciful you are, the more gracious you are, the more advantage you'll be taken care of. So I put people on a personal development plan. I'll give them six months, I'll have a written plan for their lives. There'll be benchmarks. At two month time there'll be report card. At four months time there'll be report card. By the time I get to the fifth month I know whether they're going to pass or fail. They know whether they're going to pass or fail. All the effort problem in churches, we put all the effort into them. I want them to put the effort into themselves. Otherwise they'll never grow up. Otherwise they will never grow up. And I think we're in a place, especially in the culture we are living in where everybody is looking for something easy. And I am finding out in life I'll be 17 next month and I can tell you life is not easy. And as you get older and God gives you more increase, life gets more difficult. And it gets difficult because you're going to have to make difficult decisions. And the most difficult decision you're going to make are going to be people decisions.
You're right. And a lot of people have not totally and completely recovered from COVID And this is not original with me. I don't know where I heard it but you know, scarcity creates focus and whenever there is a lack of anything it causes you to really nail down what's important and what's not. And I think a lot of, not just ministries but I think a lot of businesses and everybody may be there in post Covid days. I want to give another short story. We got so many things that correlate to you. We were in our house about 3:30 in the morning and one of our alarms started chirping. Has anybody ever had your alarms start? And let me tell you something, let me tell you something. Hope does not like to be awakened. And I'm just going to leave it at that and let people imagine what that is like. But you just don't wake her up. It can get. It deteriorates quickly, Dr. Chan. It deteriorates quickly, it goes downhill fast. And so my ceilings, I'm not in.
My right mind though when it happens.
Our house is just a one level house but the ceilings are high. And so I'm 3:30 in the morning walking around everywhere trying to find a ladder because I mean this thing is, it's in our bedroom and it's just burp and she is about to lose her mind, you know. And so I get back and I did find that some construction guys had left actually a very large ladder out in the back here. Middle of the night, you know, wiping sleep out of my eyes, things chirping, we cutting on lights and the ceilings were so high that it got me to a place on the ladder. I was not comfortable, but I was still about a foot, foot and a half away from reaching it to where I could unscrew it and pull out the old battery. And Hope looked at me and she said, go on to the next step. I got it. And you know what? My, in my drunken stupid. I looked her in the eyes but I knew she was not going to let that ladder go anywhere. And I took that next step. You know the step on the ladder where it says don't step on this? Yes, I stepped on it. And can you just talk about the adage in your book that you, if you got the right people holding your ladder, the higher you can climb?
Yeah. And I think leaders have to understand that the height of your ascendancy is dependent on your ladder holders. If you have. So you had Hope holding a ladder and you knew that she, you knew there was no doubt in your mind. You had confidence that she is not going to let you fall.
She needs me around. She's not going to let it go.
That's right. And most ladder climbers have those kind of ladder holders with whom they can say, I'm good as long as you got my ladder. And I can tell you that the higher you go, you need different ladder holders. You know, for example, I weigh 158 pounds this morning. So if you are going to be on a 10 foot ladder, I might be good for that. But the Lord comes by and gives you a 25 foot extension ladder, you're looking for somebody who looks like you.
A couple of them.
Yeah, yeah. To hold the ladder. So the challenge is you're hitting on a big point. The Lord has brought so many of us to a higher ladder, but our ladder holders have not grown. They are still the same. So if you have me as a ladder holder, but you are on 25 foot extension ladder, you're still going to go just to 10 because you are looking at me as to how I can handle this. But if you get me out of the way and get a bigger, stronger ladder holder, you can go higher. So your scent of the ladder dependent on who's holding your ladder. And I want to tell you, many, many leaders in corporate and church are stuck with ladder holders that can take them only to 10ft, but they don't have the appetite to bring on stronger ladder holders. So they keep talking about vision, this, that, the other. But you see them stuck all over the country, don't you? I mean, they're stuck, but they are not. They are stuck there not because of themselves. They are stuck because the ladder holders are not the reliable ones that you're talking about. So Hope was not going to let wrong ladder go anywhere because everything about her was dependent on you.
So.
Good.
And so she got out of her comfort zone. She put her preferences aside and said, I'm not going to let anything happen to him because of all the becauses that come after that. And I think. I think that's the missing link. The missing link is having people that you can trust with your life.
Yes.
And who have not just the competency, but they have the commitment.
Yes. That's that last. That's that f. In staff. They're faithful to me. Not just. It's not just a job. They love me like I loved him, to hold that ladder for him. And you said something in your book. You said, those who know how will always work for those who what know why. That is so powerful. Because the ones who. Here we are, the visionaries. We got the why, but we cannot get there without the ones. So the one holding the ladder is just as important.
We can't do this podcast without the how because I have no idea how to even bring you up on the screen.
That's right. That's right. So you, in your position, and I know the positions that you occupy, you are responsible for only two questions, what and why. What and why. Those are the only two strategic questions in life. What and why. Everything else, who, when, where, how, how much, how often, so and so forth. Those are all tactical questions. But if you get distracted from the what and why into the how, when, where and so on, so forth, that is not for you. But the challenge in corporate life is, church life, is that we don't have people around us who can do the what and the why along with us. And that's what I call the wisdom gap. The wisdom gap is not in people who are stupid. Wisdom gap is they just don't understand the what and the why, who don't get the big picture, who cannot see it from the blue sky perspective, who are not in a place in their life who can say, this is what we're going to do and then why we're going to do it. And the rest of it we're going to work out. Because if I was to come to most staff meetings at any kind of an organization, most of the conversation will not be on the what and the why. That will be maybe 10%. The 90% will be who and when and where and how much and how often. And all of a sudden, all that goes away. But the fuel, the gasoline that keeps things going is the what and the why.
This is kind of a little bit off script, but I got you right here. And you and I have been friends a long time and had some really great conversations. I do think it's a little bit different in the nonprofit, the church world than it would be marketplace. And I know you're in both worlds, but, you know, a guy in a business, if the IT guy can't do it, he can let the IT go, have security clean out his desk, walk into his car and go tell HR I need another IT guy. And that's about the end of it. When you're in a church, people think that firing people is unchristian. You go in and let them go. They're like, well, I thought you were a Christian. You know, don't you love me? So I've had to learn you cannot pastor the administrative and you cannot administrate the pastoral. They have to be two different hats. And when I walk into a room, I have to decide what hat I'm wearing. And so how do you. How would you tell a guy in a church, I'm going to move this to church? How does he make the hard decision? Because a pastor is always calculating the ripple effect. Because in church, it's very difficult to deal with a person isolated. There's always the ripple effect of everybody that picks up their offense. So it does take courage to make the hard decision. What would you say to that guy?
So I wanted to say two things there for leaders, church leaders. Which hat you're going to wear? Everybody you pay, you are the CEO first, pastor next. Everybody who you don't pay, you're the pastor first and CEO next.
That's so good.
So it's pretty clear to me, if I'm paying you, if I'm paying you, I'm paying you to do a job. I'm paying you to meet a need. I'm paying you to fill a gap. I'm paying you to do a specific role. That's what I'm paying you for. I'm not paying you to be a church member. I'm paying you because you're doing a job. Now volunteer is someone different. So that's the first thing I want to say. Second thing is, earlier on I talked about creating a pdp, a personal development plan. And when I create a personal development plan, I'll usually bring in four or five other people into that mix in which this person is responsible for 0.1 to this person, point 2 to this person, point 3 to this person, point point forward to that person. So if it comes time to fire them, we have a cloud of witnesses. I'm using church language now. We have a cloud of witnesses that this person is just a loser.
You just didn't do any of this.
And why are we taking God's money? I mean, that's poor stewardship, right? That's bad stewardship. I mean, how do we pay people in church? We pay people because people make donations. People give tithe and offering. So they give not to us. They don't give to the church. They give as unto the Lord. So this is the Lord's money. This is sanctified money. And I'm going to use Lord's holy sanctified money to just flush down a toilet. I mean, to just waste it. I mean, that is, that is ungodly stewardship. It is more than hr. All of a sudden, incorporate is HR over here. I think our consequences are higher because now it's about stewardship. Because one of the questions the Lord's going to ask us is, what did you do with what I gave you? Yeah, it's true. I gave you resources. And you just kept this person on their job because you, you are afraid that mama and daddy is going to leave your church. So what kind of stewardship is? What kind of stewardship is that? I want to tell you, I made pastors that I work with. And even including you, they have made peace with the fact that people will always leave your church. People will come, you go, people will come to go. And if our, if our tendency is just to try to work hard to keep people there, we will lose our focus now. You're absolutely right. You're always thinking about the ripple effect. You're always thinking about who could and who couldn't and what could and what if. I get that. But I also know that there comes a time after the PDP has happened, personal development plan. And it's pretty obvious to everybody because all these people that you brought into their life will be able to say, didn't do it, didn't do it, didn't happen. Couldn't do it. And now it's not just you firing people. It is. They fired themselves. And you create that Runway for them. They can either go up or they can go out.
That's so good.
Yep. And one of you know, our mutual friend, Bishop Tony, who's going on with the Lord. I remember one time he came into my life and he introduced me to you. But he was probably one of the first voices, I guess you would say, that I had when I got out. See, when you get out of the denominational system, you lose their support. And so I was really on an island for a while. And about 1998, 1999, I met him. He came into my life, and that was right when the church began to take off and we had a staff member. You've heard of those staff members, that they get the job done, but when you look behind them, there's a trail of blood 10 miles. I had one of those staff members. I mean, to tell you they would get it done. And on the day of, they made you look like you were amazing, but they killed everybody. Then after the conference was over, you go look, and there's a trail of blood from here to Alaska, you know, and they just did not know how to execute in the right spirit. And it came to a head, and I was perplexed because this person loved us, but they didn't love anybody else.
Yeah, they only loved us.
They loved us, but they didn't love anybody else. And they made it happen. But they hurt people deeply in the process. And I was perplexed because I cared deeply about this person. And I remember walking around in a parking lot, and I just called Bishop Tony. I said, you know, I don't know the decision to make here. And one of the first difficult decisions I've had to make, because this person was at a high level. He said, ron, when you stand before God, he's going to ask you, how did you steward the kingdom? He's not going to ask you, did you retain a friend?
Wow.
And that was my first experience. Understand that Ron Carpenter will be held accountable for the whole. Not to make sure somebody likes me.
So you went and fired him.
I did, yeah. Yeah. And, you know, and you're still here, and you got churches everywhere, and you got this unfiltered thing going on. I mean, imagine if you had still stuck with that same person.
You're right. You're right. And so many pastors say, what if I do this? But the flip side is, what if I don't?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Because the longer you wait to make the tough call, the lower your leadership is going and when it goes lower, lower level people are attracted to you because you attract who you are.
That's good.
So if you want higher level people attracted to you, you gotta be at that higher level. But you won't never get to the higher level till you are willing to pay the price for it. And the price is, there's pain, there's disappointment. But I can tell you what, looking back on every decision that I've made, as far as that goes firing, just my only regret is I should have done it earlier.
I love it.
And that's what I love about it right there. Let's wind it down. Anything, any last thing.
I just would love for you to tell people how to get ahold of you. You've got an amazing magazine called the Avail Magazine. It's a journal, Leadership journal. Tell people about that.
So when we went into shutdown In March of 2020, I wanted to create resources for people. So we came up with a journal called Avail Journal. This just happens to be the one I have close by here. Of course, of course, of course. You know, everybody's promoting themselves, so here we are. So you can get this. It is five color glossy Christian leadership, but you can utilize it in corporate and you can in church as well. And you can get it into your mailbox simply for availjournal.com free of charge for the next year. Free of charge next year. In fact, if you're in the United States of America, everybody in your leadership team, your volunteer team, your elder team, staff, everyone on your staff can get this individually in their mailbox like this. If you're listening to us overseas, you can still get it on a digital format, which would be availjournal.com it will be on your phone, your iPad, whatever computer, but you can read it online as well. So availjournal.com this is for every leader. And we have built our business model in such a way that for one year we can give it away free of charge. And after that, if you want to keep it, you can get it. But here's the thing. You will never throw this one away. I was talking to Pastor Hope just before we went online, and she said she's stacking these up.
They're everywhere. Because they're so pretty, you don't want to throw them away. And somebody that we all know and love, who would it be, is in this issue of A Veil.
Yeah. I will tell you this. You're doing it at a high level. That is a fantastic publication.
Yes, it is.
So congratulations on that. I want people to grab your mini books. And when I say many, he's written many. They're all good. I think I've read all of them, but, like, two. And the fact is, also on your website, Dr. Chan, could they get you for what it would be to book a conference and things like that? Because that. Getting you in A. Getting Dr. Chan in a room with your staff, with your leadership team, life changing. I can't tell you how many times I've just had him come speak to a small group of people. Yes, he can speak to the masses, but you get him in there with your core team who you're depending on to make it happen. He has a way of being able to develop them like very few can. So I think you can tell already me and Hope are pretty high on this guy's list. And maybe you are high on my list.
You are high on my list.
I appreciate it. Dr. Chen, we're going to close out, but it is such a pleasure for you to be with us, and I hope to see you real soon. Any last statements?
Thank you so much for your love for. For us, for your shepherding us and wisdom for us and your time today to pour into all of these listeners.
I just totally love Ron and Hope and. Keep dripping.
All right, we'll do it. Thank you, everybody. God bless.
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