Building More Productive Relationships with Ryan Franklin

In this episode, host Mike welcomes Assistant Pastor Ryan Franklin from the Pentecostals of Alexandria (POA) and host of the *Christian Leader Made Simple* podcast. They dive into building more productive relationships, an essential segment of Ryan's *Christian Leader Blueprint*. Ryan shares insights on developing relational skills for effective leadership and discusses his work as an executive coach, helping leaders find balance, growth, and relational health in ministry.

### Key Points:

1. **The Role of Executive Coaching**:
   - Ryan explains the difference between a pastor and an executive coach, noting that while pastors offer spiritual guidance, executive coaches focus on personal growth, leadership development, and helping leaders maximize their effectiveness. 
   - He also introduces his coaching community, which includes courses, forums, and "hot seat" coaching sessions to provide leaders with practical support.

2. **Gifts vs. Fruit of the Spirit**:
   - Ryan shares the difference between the gifts of the Spirit, which are often visible and celebrated, and the fruit of the Spirit, which reflects spiritual maturity and develops over time (Galatians 5:22-23). Leaders must prioritize cultivating the fruit, such as love, joy, and patience, to grow their ministry.

3. **Christian Leader Blueprint**:
   - Ryan introduces his *Christian Leader Blueprint* model, which consists of four key sections:
     1. **Establish a Better Rhythm of Life**: Balancing personal life and ministry.
     2. **See Yourself More Clearly**: Understanding strengths, blind spots, and motivations.
     3. **Leverage Your Strengths**: Developing leadership skills like communication and conflict resolution.
     4. **Build More Productive Relationships**: The focus of this episode, emphasizing the importance of relational health in leadership.

4. **Building More Productive Relationships**:
   - **Increase Social Intelligence**: Understanding and managing interactions with others, being aware of emotions, and listening effectively.
   - **Increase Self-Regulation**: Controlling emotions like anger or depression to avoid negatively impacting relationships (Matthew 7:16).
   - **Expand Empathy**: Developing empathy to connect with others on a deeper level, essential for building trust and fostering growth.
   - **Grow Your Personal Support Team**: Creating a close circle of trusted individuals who provide relational nutrients like validation, comfort, and encouragement. Leaders should intentionally seek support to avoid burnout and isolation.

5. **Personal Reflections and Vulnerability**:
   - Mike and Ryan discuss the importance of vulnerability and the challenge of allowing others to help, especially in leadership roles where isolation can be common. Ryan emphasizes that even Jesus had a support team and that leaders should not shy away from seeking relational support.

### Reflection:
This episode underscores the importance of relational intelligence in leadership, emphasizing the need for self-awareness, empathy, and intentional community. Ryan’s insights offer practical steps for leaders looking to grow their influence while maintaining personal and spiritual health.

### SEO Keywords: building productive relationships, Christian Leader Blueprint, Ryan Franklin executive coaching, fruit of the spirit leadership, apostolic leadership skills, self-regulation in leadership, empathy in ministry.

Transcript

 Today's episode, I have a big dog podcast on the show. We've got assistant pastor Ryan Franklin from the Pentecostals of Alexandria. He hosts a Christian leader, make simple podcast. Go check out that and you'll realize how small my little gig is, but he's got it going on. And today we're going to talk about building more productive relationships.

Ryan, thanks for coming on today.  Hey, Mike. Thank you for inviting me on your podcast. I've listened to several of your episodes and it's a tremendous podcast. So thank you for inviting me on. I know you've been assistant pastor POA for eight years.

You've been full time for 20. That's impressive. But you mentioned an executive coach in a coaching community. Talk to me about that. What is that?  Essentially, executive coaching is leadership coaching, and I've done that for quite a few years now one on one but realizing that I can only reach a certain number of people with that.

I started building a community which includes courses and forum interaction and hot seat type coaching. We actually had a hot seat just before recording this where you may have 10 or 15 people jump on a zoom  and somebody jumps in the hot seat. And I actually coached someone through in front of everybody 

and get everybody involved it's amazing how that can really impact an individual and the entire room. That's what the community is about, but in very short form. But, there's a lot more information if someone wanted to get more information about it at ryanfranklin.

org.  Keep that in mind, folks, ryanfranklin. org. I will mention it again later. Ryan, stop me if we're going to get into this later, okay? What's the difference between a coach and a pastor?  Would you say an executive coach? And a pastor? Okay. Yeah. A pastor Is doing many things, including likely  coaching leaders to some degree but an executive coach is somebody that can take an outsider's view.

And dive into a person's world and help that individual with personal growth to grow the internal of their being to, help them to be more effective in the way that they lead. So an executive coach would be an individual that a pastor would hire, for instance, to increase their ability to lead well, to have health in their leadership. 

Et cetera, et cetera. Like a consultant? It's a little bit different. A consultant would be more process oriented, would be an individual that would which I do both not as much consulting as I do coaching but that would be looking at the internal workings of a church. And consulting on how you can improve the internal workings.

Coaching, executive coaching is more focused on the individual leader.  I got you. I'm picking it up. I'm picking up what you're laying down. I got you. I got you. Folks he's got a, I'm going to give him a chance to talk about it later. But he's got some workbooks out. He's got more workbooks coming out.

He's got a book coming out. He's got a Christian leader blueprint. You really need to go check out ryanfranklin. org and I promise you we'll get back into that later. But right now we're going to talk about building more productive relationships. That is just one segment of the Christian Leader Blueprint.

We're just giving you a taste of it. Brian, go ahead and start us off.  Let me start off by just giving you a great scripture about gifts. 1 Peter 4. 10 says, As every man hath received the gift, even so minister the same one to another as good stewards of the manifold grace of God. 

There's a lot of debate, Mike, about  when we actually receive the gifts of the Spirit.  But there's plenty of scripture. to show that the gifts are given by God and they can be given instantly.  And when we're filled with the spirit of God, he can quickly and fully empower us with his gifts. 

But the fruit of the Spirit,  the fruit of the Spirit is a little bit different.  Galatians 5, 22 through 23, fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance, against such there is no law.  And yes, it's given to us by the Spirit of God as well,  but the fruit of the Spirit is not always an instant thing.

In fact most of the time it's developed over a period of time.  And it's amazing to me. How many Christian leaders  don't actually show the fruit of the Spirit in their lives?  Even though they've been serving the Lord for many years, they may not see those things, that fruit showing up as often as they would like to. 

And I think of the gifts of the Spirit as, Sort of the sign of spiritual desire and commitment.  These are given to us and they're developed over time through exercising them.  And they're developed in a deep communion with the Lord. And we should all covet those gifts of the spirit, right?

Absolutely.  And we want those things. We need those things in our midst. And this is the exciting parts of ministry and actually doing the work of the Lord, the gifts of the spirit.  And it's usually what gets the spotlight.  The gifts is what. Get that limelight and get the attention of the church.

We'll get the pat on the back. But the fruit of the spirit  is a sign of spiritual maturity. Yes, it is.  We absolutely need both.  But scripture says that you will know them by their fruit, not by their gifts.  And so to display the fruit of the spirit is a critical part of any ministry because that is how you and your ministry will grow.

Love, joy, peace, long suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance.  All these things are a critical part of apostolic leadership.  Why is it so hard sometimes, Mike, to see joy in our lives at times?  And why is it so hard to get and give the love and the relational connection that we need at times? 

Why is it so hard for me to even temper back myself when I'm angry, or I'm sad, or I'm feeling inadequate.  Because the Spirit of God empowers us, right? Yeah.  And that is His part. He empowers us.  But the spiritual maturity part,  that actually is what displays the fruit  of all of those things that I was talking about. 

And that is our responsibility.  We have to cultivate the fruit  within us.  I see. So, Mike, I'm going to give you a little back story of my new book, or actually it's not new, it's a year old now, The Christian Leader Blueprint. And I've been heavily involved in ministry, as you mentioned for over 25 years in a variety of roles. 

And I've done church planning, I've done a large variety of things. I know how hard ministry is,  and there's been a lot of good fruit  that has been produced in my ministry over the years.  But I also know what seasons of not producing that good relational fruit looks and the fruit is relational.

And it's during those times that little things in life would just get in my way. It wasn't always major things. Many times it was just small and subtle things, yet it got in the way of me producing that good relational fruit.  I've even allowed my emotions to get out of whack at times where the fruit of temperance was nowhere to be found. 

And there was times where I even  damaged relationships along the way because of these things that would just come out in my life. And sometimes it was the lack of fruit in my life, but I have to admit, sometimes  it was just the presence of negative and rotten fruit in my life.  But there is no doubt in my mind  that it has decreased my effectiveness and my ability to build productive relationships and ministry at times.

And ultimately that's what our goal is to build productive relationships one to help us, but also to actually get work done in the kingdom of God. And this has lessened my influence with people at times. And it has literally drained my enjoyment of ministry and life. And I know Mike, you've probably never been there before,  but in 2016 I took on a new job. 

It was an overwhelming assistant pastor position.  At a large church, as you mentioned, called P. O. A.,  I was handed this massive amount of responsibility.  All of those negative areas, negative fruit in my life,  just started oozing to the surface in ways that I never expected it to ooze like it did.

And honestly, I didn't even know what to do with them.  And I didn't know where to get help.  I started feeling those dreaded feelings of burnout. I sure wasn't feeling the fruit of the spirit in my life at that time. And, I can promise you that others around me were not feeling the fruit of the spirit coming from me either.

And at one specific point,  I wanted to quit, and I wanted to run.  But I knew that wasn't an option for me. And so I knew that Something within myself had to change  and I'm going to start to speed this story up a little bit. I'll skip a lot of the details here, but I found myself searching for answers through prayer and scripture and godly men in my life.

And I also went through a year of executive coaching myself. It was very expensive. I had to sacrifice financially to do it,  but it literally changed my life.  Over the course of the next few years after that I found a work life balance that I had never had before in my life.  I saw myself in ways that I had never even realized I was all of a sudden using my personal gifts and my strengths in a much greater way than I had ever used them before.

And  here's where all of that came together.  I developed the ability to build and resource from important relationships like I had never done in my life.  And all of these things made all the difference in my effectiveness and in my enjoyment in ministry and in life. I started seeing fruit again.

My work at the church is a beautiful thing.  My home life with my wife and my kids drastically improved.  I started seeing that fruit that scripture talks about in ways that I had never seen it before in my life.  And again, I'm going to skip all the details here. For second time, but

 Learned how to help people through executive coaching with the very same things that drastically improved my life.  And I began helping to guide pastors and church leaders to rise above those challenges that they were facing, to help them learn to lead with a renewed purpose and to lead with authenticity and relational compassion. 

And every time I would work with a client, I was seeing a similar success story. I was seeing, I was starting to see a pattern of producing fruit and I started digging deeper and even studying. This pattern, I geek out on things like that. I literally graphed the characteristics and the data that I was seeing with my clients.

And eventually the Christian leader blueprint model emerged from the middle of that. And  this model gives the reader a blueprint that helps them navigate through those complexities of leadership and growth within themselves. And it has a strong foundation in apostolic faith and scripture.  And through the powerful model of the Christian leader blueprint there very practical strategies in the midst of that.

I give real life examples and insights that help to equip the leaders to overcome some of these same challenges that I had to overcome and to embrace a leadership lifestyle that's effective in what they're doing for the Lord and enjoyable and even healthy  

it doesn't all have to be sacrificed, even though we do sacrifice at times. It doesn't have to feel like that all of the time. It could be enjoyable and healthy.  And so this Christian leader blueprint emerged and the tagline for the book is a step by step guide to leadership transformation. 

 This model. Is shown in a Venn diagram in the book.  You can also, by the way download a free short guide from my website at ryanfranklin. org. It's about a 30 page PDF document that you can get an overview of the Christian leader blueprint model before you buy the book, if you want to just see what it's all about.

But there's four sections. And the first section is to establish a better rhythm of life. A lot of times that's where pastors and church leaders, they come to me first because their rhythm of life is out of whack and they don't know what to do about it or they're struggling or they just want some outsider's perspective.

And so establish a better rhythm of life is probably the more common thing that people would gravitate towards. The second thing is see yourself more clearly, and that's understanding your strengths, understanding your blind spots in your life, understanding yourself really in a greater way, what motivates you and things of that nature.

Then leveraging your strengths  is the third part of the model. And that dives into calling and giftings and leveraging developing others being able to lead more effectively. That includes your more common things of leadership like communication and conflict resolution and things of that nature. 

And then the fourth part, which is what we're going to dive into a little bit more here is build more productive relationships.  And we can talk in more detail about that one, but  there's four major parts of the blueprint  and  each of the four parts also has four topics.

So there's a total of 16 topics in the four parts that make up the blueprint. And again, you can buy the book or you can download the free short guide to get  the gist of all 16 of those topics. But this last section is where all the work from the three other sections come together.

Section four is where the rubber meets the road. This is building more productive relationships. This is more effective leadership. And I'll give you those subtopics  real quickly here. The first one is, and we can dive into each one of these if you'd like, but the first one is, Increasing your social intelligence.

The second one is increasing your self regulation. The third one is learning more about one of the most powerful tools that I use of empathy.  And then the final, the fourth one is to grow your personal support team. And this is a vital part of leadership that has literally changed my life, changed my effectiveness in ministry to a great degree.

Mike what of that is interesting to you that you'd like to dive into a little bit more? What's that? I know, I asked you to talk about build more relationships, but a Venn diagram has a center. So what's at the center of all four?  At the center?

It's effective and healthy leadership. In fact,  main heading on my website says learn and master the biblical skills needed to improve your leadership, health,  and effectiveness.

And really that's at the center of this blueprint, which is, All of the products that I have on my website that I have to offer, I've got a free self-assessment that people say that I should be charging a lot of money for, but I give it for free on my website. You can go on there and take that self-assessment if you'd like.

But all of the products, the workbooks that I have coming out the book, the community, everything points to learning and mastering the skills that are needed to improve your leadership health and effectiveness.  Awesome. I do encourage folks to check out whatever suits you, check out the book, check out the worksheet, whatever, just check it out, check out his podcast, because he breaks down a lot of different things there. 

This is just a taste, this is just a sample, and I did remember the culprit. I told you before the recording, I couldn't remember  who directed me to you, and that was The Arkansas District Youth President himself, Austin Jackson. Don't know if you've ever met him or not, but he has his own podcast.

I had him on and he said, by the way, you need to check out Ryan Franklin. So you can either thank or blame. I have heard of Austin and have seen some of the things that he does, but I don't think I have ever officially met him. Maybe that's coming soon. He and I go way back.

Let's dig in. I think you said the first one was increase your social intelligence.  Now I am an IT guy.  So when I think of social intelligence, I think of social as far as your, who you are with and your environment kind of things. Your surroundings, your culture. But what are you referring to with social intelligence?

I can give you the definition that's in my book. Okay. A good start. Yeah. Social intelligence is  your capacity to understand and manage your interactions  with the feelings, thoughts, and behaviors of others. 

Can we give you a scripture for that? Please do. Colossians  4, 5 through 6, Walk in wisdom  toward them that are without, redeeming the time. Let your speech be always with grace, seasoned with salt, that you may know how you ought to answer every man.  That's probably the best social intelligence scripture that I could find.

I'll be honest,  I'm about to derail you, but I don't mean to, this is our discussion that I was telling you about. Scene came to my mind when you were giving that definition I fail at this because I incidentally hurt a lot of feelings  and while I want to care and I really try to care,  at the same time, I really labeled them as crybabies and  over sensitive, but I really need to manage my interactions with people's feelings. 

Is that correct? Is that what you're telling me? I need to be more  sensitive and  understanding? Yeah. And managing of your interactions? Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's what I got.  I don't interact with you on a daily basis, Mike, so I don't know if that's what you need, but that's what you're telling me that you need.

 I'm pretty rough. I can be rough. And I don't mean to be that I've got nicknames and they tell me I'm rough and I don't even know it.  Do you want me to give you some quick bullet points on maybe some things that could help you in that area? Absolutely. Let's go. Okay. Coach. So I would say and this is not coaching.

This is just information. But  what I would recommend and what the book recommends is number one, you want to become a student.  And that would be studying people, studying, what personalities are like things of that nature. You can go as deep as you want or as shallow as you want in that, but becoming a student of people.

Okay.  The second thing is learning to listen. Effectively  and that's  listening to the words that are being said,  listening to the things that are not being said, watching a person's facial expressions considering the things that are going on around them, maybe considering the things that have happened to them just before you're interacting with them or that they may be about to go into after they leave you.

Considering all the, all of those things you're listening effectively.  Third thing would be to know how to manage your body language. And that would be what are you doing with your face? Are you looking them in the eye? Are you looking off? Are you looking at the floor at your shoes or you looking at your phone  as may be text messaging or whatever, as we're having a conversation  versus leaning in  towards them, eye contact showing that we're interested in what they're saying or presenting to us. 

And the fourth thing that I would say to help with social intelligence is stay curious in your conversations with people. A lot of times we jump to conclusions we may hear a line or two and we immediately want to  give them a piece of our own mind or a word of advice or our perspective. And I say,  slow down, slow that down a little bit and maybe just tune in a little bit more and let them talk a little more, ask a few questions of curiosity in why they may be experiencing what they're experiencing or saying what they're saying, especially in contentious conversations.

That's a really good principle of staying curious.  And then the last one would be to be a student of your own social situation.  Maybe if you walk away from a situation where you didn't feel emotionally good about your interaction with that individual, analyze that in your head.

What's what was the good parts of that conversation? What were the negative parts? How could I have done things differently? How could I have prepared myself better to move into that conversation or move out of that conversation? And just being a student of your own social interactions with, is a wonderful thing.

So that's kind of social intelligence in a nutshell. That's very light level, but tips that could help someone. Is that what you came prepared for that one or did I knock you off and you just winged it from there?  Oh I had a few notes on it, but go ahead, we can get as well.

No, that's I just.  But go ahead and give me what you wanted to share on social, if you have more to say on social intelligence. I don't mean to,  I just, when you gave your definition, I realized, Oh no. I'm happy to, I'm happy to answer any of your questions. You're not going to derail me or if you do, I'm okay with that.

Other things to consider would be like our social insecurities,  their social insecurities are not a lot of people think of that as an introverted thing.  Extroverts have social insecurities as well, and those are things that can negatively impact our interactions with others and hinder our ability to develop healthy relationships with people.

It's an awkwardness or insecurity within us. And, many times we need to work on our own emotional health to overcome some of those things. We need to push ourselves sometimes. Sometimes it's just pushing ourselves beyond our comfort zone and really engage in with somebody.

You, and I would encourage people not to avoid  even critical feedback. You don't want to seek it. You don't want to seek unhealthy, seek critical feedback in an unhealthy way, but don't avoid it. If somebody's wanting to give you feedback, even if hurts, stings a little bit, that's a good thing that you can learn from.

Sure. And I would say one of the biggest things to avoid in social insecurity  with social intelligence is don't compare yourself to others. And that's a,  in the world of social media these days, that's really hard for people to.  Saddens me when I see  one church planner comparing themselves to another church planner or one pastor comparing themselves to the results of a, we're in different settings, different personalities, different dynamics involved.

And we just have to be careful not to compare ourselves and that, that is one of the quickest ways that we can really draw into our insecurities is when we start comparing ourselves. Absolutely. Preach, brother, preach.  All right, what's next? The second part of building more productive relationships is increasing your self regulation. 

Yeah. I don't know what that means.  You want me to give you a definition of that? Yes. Please.  So self regulation is, allows you to control your emotions. If you have self regulation, you are controlling your emotions and impulses with honesty and with integrity. For instance you're angry  and scripture says, be angry and send not, right?

Yep. Some of us are angry and we verbally harm someone or emotionally harm someone. We want them to know we're angry. And we want to, beat them over the head with that anger.

It could be another emotion. Maybe I'm depressed. And I'll let that depression take over. Really dampen the mood of everybody around me. I'm not able to reel that back certain settings and deal with that depression or those emotions in a positive way or in a helpful way that will lead towards a healthy environment. 

So that's just a couple of examples. I was wondering when you were talking, I was like, what does this got to do with building relationships? And then you hit the nail on the head. First of all, the anger is obvious, but when he's talking about depression, you're right. You can bring a ring down and people will subconsciously, they love you,  but they will  tend to stay away because you'll bring them down.

You're absolutely right. That will have an effect on your relationships. And Mike, this is where  that fruit stuff really comes into play. Matthew 7, 16 says you'll know them by their fruits.  And I would say that there's no pastor or Christian leader out there that intends to beat somebody over the head with negative fruit. 

However, it happens all the time  and it's not their desires, not what they want, but they don't know how to regulate that emotion within them. And that's why a big part of building more productive relationships is learning and increasing our ability to, to self regulate.  And it's super important. 

What I'm just thinking off the cuff here,  I wonder if the issue for some people Wouldn't necessarily be bad fruit, but could it be lack of fruit, like the fig tree?  Yeah. Oh, a hundred percent. Yeah. Fig tree is a great example of that. And that  lets you also know when Jesus cursed that tree it lets you know just how important fruit is to Jesus. 

It's a vital, it's a critical part of our leadership because it's, if we can't build productive relationships in our ministries, we're not going to have a ministry very long. That's right. It's not enough to not be angry, not be rude. Where is your joy? Where is your patience? Where is your long suffering?

You, you have to have the fruits of the spirit,  otherwise the lack of is just as offensive.  Absolutely.  You want me to give you some tips on how to control that, control your emotion in a healthy way?  Number one would be  to just step back, take a breath, and ask yourself,  what am I feeling? A lot of people have a very limited vocabulary when it comes to emotion.

It's happy, sad, or mad. That's the three emotions that are really common. But there's tons of emotions out there. I could be edgy,  or I could be agitated, or I could be feeling loving, or I could be comfortable, or I could be anxious, or I could Feel degraded or, there's a lot of different types of emotions out there.

And so understanding what I'm feeling is super important. And there's a saying out there that says, if you name it, you can tame it,  and if you can put a name to what you're feeling and get it pretty accurate, it's going to help you go a long way and tame it. And I encourage people, you can Google feelings, will, or emotion, will.

 online and you can easily pull up an emotion wheel that can give you a vast knowledge of emotion words out there that can help you. But I'm telling you, if you can name it, you can tame it. So that's the first one. What am I feeling?  Second one, second part of that would be asked God to help you. 

Sometimes we bypass that when we're emotional and stressed  is we don't even think about that, but pray, ask the Lord to help you regulate that emotion. Third thing would be, get back to a normal routine as quickly as possible. Sometimes the emotion within us, especially if it's way off Kelter, it could make us move out of our normal routine and not get anything done and, derail us a little bit.

And so the quicker we can get back to our normal routine, many times the quicker that we can Get our emotions back under control. And then ask yourself,  why are you feeling the emotion you're feeling? 

And there's a particular reason, and many times people are not aware  at all of why they're feeling what they're feeling. Or they don't spend enough time thinking about that. So slow it down, asking yourself, why am I feeling this?  Many times that can bring a lot of understanding and help bring down the pressure and regulate that emotion.

And then if there's something that we can take action on when we ask ourself why, that's number five. We take action  and do what's needed to get ourselves back into regulation. And then the sixth thing, if none of those things have worked, if we've  asked ourself, what are we feeling?

Why are we feeling it? We've asked God for help. We're trying to get back to our normal routine and we're still struggling.  The sixth thing is to resource from other people.  That's the hardest thing, by the way. It is hard. But it's one of the most effective things and I'll give you some scripture on that and a little bit when we get to the fourth part of this.

But it is critical that we learn to resource from others. And I have found over and over again, many pastors that I work with one on one,  they're lonely. They're isolated from peers. They may have friends that they call occasionally, or they see at a conference or something, but they're not really diving deep with anyone. 

And they're giving to a congregation and people around them that are just draining them dry, but they have nobody that's filling them up.  And again, we're going to talk about that and I'm getting ahead of myself. We're going to talk about that in a minute but resourcing from others is a critical part.

Proverbs 4, 23 is keep thy heart with all diligence for out of it are the issues of life. That's a powerful scripture. Yeah, absolutely.  I'd like to add that. I don't know, you listen to a couple moments just so you can get familiar with the podcast, but I'm very honest that I've struggled with mental health over the years and yeah, I'm going with that here to encourage people to  get help if they need to get help.

What helps me or has helped me was identifying the thoughts almost like a separate object. If I can pull it out of my head and  examine it like you were talking about. Yeah, but what I've learned and what I really encourage people to do is  be aware that the thought, just because you have that thought, just because you have that feeling, does not mean it's true. 

For example, you mentioned lonely. Just because you feel lonely does not mean you're alone.  God's there if no one else is. Just because you feel lonely don't mean you are. Just because you feel like a failure don't mean you are. Just because you feel defeated don't mean you are. Just because we need to keep in mind that your feelings are not always accurate and that will have very true not that I am qualified to add to your list here.

I just wanted to throw that in there on cell notes that's very true.  All right. What's next  the third part of that building more productive? Relationships is expand your empathy I love that word.  Yeah, it's a powerful word, Mike. It's, and it's something that  has literally changed my life in regards to my home life with my kids, with my wife, my ability to lead at a church.

It's a huge thing and it's a biblical thing.  We see it all throughout scripture, but for some reason, it just doesn't come natural for me. There's some people that really, they're very compassionate. They're loving, caring. That is not natural for me. I have a very low compassion.

I didn't realize that until later in my life, but  I will encourage people here. Growing your empathy and your compassion is possible. Number one, the Holy Ghost is going to give us hope. A certain amount of that's been my saving grace through the years. But then we can also do things to, to exercise our ability to express empathy.

And I would say that this is probably the number one tool in my toolbox as a coach, as a pastor. It's the most effective thing that I have in order to really make a difference in a person's life.  Absolutely. When I worked at Verizon wireless call center, no doubt.  That was the number one thing they drilled in us in training was to learn empathy, being able to relate. 

It's not sympathy. You don't got to feel sorry for them, but being able to relate to them. Man, that's gotta be horrible that you to go through that. I would hate to have that bill happen to me. If you're dealing with somebody, just being able to relate, just being able to get on their level. 

 Not sympathy, just empathy. Yeah.  I was just going to say that empathy  done the right way with the right intent, it can lead to growth in a person's life. It can lead to healing. It's amazing the healing power that it has can lead to forgiveness or character development in individuals and in relationships.

I love this scripture, Ephesians four verses one through two, I therefore the prisoner of the Lord beseech you that you walk worthy of the vocation wherewith you are called, with all lowliness. and meekness with long suffering for bearing one another in love.  So  that's a, it's a great scripture on empathy.

It's empathy is a reflection  of us walking worthy of our calling  and relates to the way that we love and relate to others.  Essentially, it is love and it is a skill that can be developed and learned even if it doesn't come naturally for you. Active listening is a big part of empathy.

If you can learn to, that's a tactic of listening that will help you with empathy. Again, naming the emotion that you see.  Now before I was talking about self regulation, now I'm talking about someone else. Naming the emotion that you see in someone else. If they're telling me, oh, I'm fine, but I'm seeing, their face say that they're not fine, You know, they look sad to me or whatever it's being able to name that emotion  for that individual is showing that you care enough to really dive into the individual's emotion that they're experiencing.

And when I named that emotion in somebody,  I don't have to get it right. I can be looking at you, Mike and I could say Mike,  I hearing sadness in your voice?  And  whether I'm right or wrong, you're either going to confirm it  or you're going to say, no, not really.

I'm just disappointed.  And you're going to clarify with me. And so you name the emotion, then you wait for a confirmation or clarification from the other person.  And then you can ask tell me more about that disappointment.  And I'm reflecting and asking for more.

And I'm creating a place for you or whoever the person may be to share more about what's going on in them. And it's an empathetic process. It's showing empathy towards that person.  It's been my experience when talking to people,  they don't need you to say you understand  if you cannot understand.

Don't pretend to relate if you cannot relate.  Don't tell a mother who just lost her kid that you understand if you've never lost a kid. Just be honest. If someone's grieving and you don't have words, tell them. I don't have words right now.  That's empathy. I'm telling them,  I'm here for you, but you don't have to pretend. 

Think about this.  You're exactly right, Mike. Think about this with Job. His friends just sat with him. For five days, they just sat with him.  That's, that is presence. That's speaking presence and love and care and empathy in such a great way. And they didn't even say a word to him. Nope.

 Exactly. Good point. Good example. And in our relationships, people just crave to be understood.  I crave that. I need that in my life.  We crave to be understood. Proverbs 17, 27 says, He that hath knowledge spareth his words,  and a man of understanding is of an excellent spirit. Just giving individuals the space to express themselves without being interrupted, without judgment. 

And that just promotes a sense of trust and really a lot of times an emotional release for someone. Sure. Yeah I don't know why I didn't want to say this, but I guess I need to.  When you're trying to relate to someone, I'm not talking to you, Ryan, I'm talking to the listener, who  I'm picturing a young minister just getting started, when you're trying to relate, I know you're, you have the burden to say the right, a word fitly spoken, you're trying to say the right thing,  even if you have been through the same thing, oh, that happened to me,  sometimes you don't need to match stories. 

Yeah. Let it be about them and just say, I know, the technical word for that is identification. Identification. There you go.  And here's  when people identify, it could be a powerful relational nutrient  for someone,  but it has, here's the key. And if everybody could get this,  it has to be 60 seconds or less. 

That's the rule.  If you identify with somebody less than 60 seconds, then you're helping them.  But if you go on and on about your story more than 60 seconds and it all of a sudden becomes about you and not about the individual. That's exactly what I was trying to say. Don't make it about you,  because now you're not helping them.

That's exactly what I was getting at. Thank you for having the words that I did not have.  Paul, that's a very good point.  I believe your last one is grow your personal support team. You were itching to get there earlier.  Tell me about it. This is one of the hardest,  but the most important  components of the Christian Leader Blueprint.

When I work with one on one clients this is something that I begin working on very early in the stage  of executive coaching with an individual.  There's very few individuals that actually have a support team around them.  And it's by the time I finish executive coaching with someone sometimes this is the one that is like the redheaded stepchild that's just been left out and it's still lingering.

They know it's important, but they still haven't done what's necessary to produce this in their life. Because it is a difficult thing. When I have a personal support team, I have to be needy, Mike. Yeah.  And who wants to be needy?  Nobody wants to be needy. My wife. We won't tell anybody.  She'll never listen.

But the reality of it is that we need to need others in our life. 1 Thessalonians 5 11 says, Wherefore comfort yourselves together and edify one another even as also you do.  It is biblical that we support one another.  And the only way that,  Mike, if you and I were support team members, the only way that you would know what I need is if I ask for it. 

The only way I would know what you need is for you to ask for it. And that's difficult for us at times, but let me give you a definition of a personal support team. It's a group of intentionally selected people  who provide relational nutrients and connect without judgment.  A group of intentionally selected people, and that's from Dr.

John Townsend. A  group  of intentionally selected people who provide relational nutrients  and connect without judgment. 1 Peter 1. 22 says, seeing ye have purified your souls and obeying the truth through the spirit unto unfeigned love of the brethren, see that you love one another with a pure heart fervently. 

And even Jesus, Mike, even Jesus had a support team. Yes, he did. And he demonstrated the importance of having a close circle of trusted individuals in his life.  And who are we to think that we can make it through this life without a personal support team? We have to build that inner circle of supportive people to provide relational nutrients.

And when I say relational nutrients,  there's things that we all need. We don't like to think that we need these things.  But I'm telling you, I need them. You need them, Mike. Everybody that's listening to this needs them. Things like acceptance.  We need that connection without judgment. We need attunement or somebody tuning in, empathy, tuning into what we're feeling.

We need validation.  We sometimes need containment.  We sometimes need identification, we need comfort at times. We need affirmation. I need encouragement  at times.  I need hope at times, I need forgiveness. Those are all relational nutrients that we can get if we have a close  inner circle.

I don't want to have to accidentally  get those things or unhealthily seek them.  If I'm intentional with seeking the things that I need to fill my relational tank,  then I'm not going to go out and unhealthily seek them with the insecurities of my life. And that's where it becomes a game changer.

 Just to give you some practical parts of this of what a support teammate would look like. I encourage people to have two or three people, and you don't want it to only be your spouse. Your spouse needs to be one of them, if you have a spouse, but he doesn't need to be the only person.

And the reason is because many times, if I'm going through something, my wife Angie is going through the same thing. She's feeling the same effects of whatever I'm going through. And if she's not or if it's something that I'm going through that she's not, she may be stressed with her own things in the moment.

Now many times I do unpack these things. I do dive into things with her. But there's times where she's not available or it's not appropriate for me to put extra things on her in the moment. And that's why it's so important for us to have two or three individuals in our life because, one person may be dealing with something, the other person you may have to call someone else or they may not be available.

Maybe they're on vacation and you don't want to disrupt their vacation because of things that you're going through. And having two or three is a really important thing. And I would say this, you have to meet with these individuals routinely. If you don't meet with these people, it can't be once a year at a conference.

Or once every six months, you give them a phone call. My support team, I meet with them on Zoom, if they're not local, and I meet them face to face, and we dive deep into things at least once a month. Every three to four weeks I'm meeting with these individuals. And if they need me, sooner than that, or I need them sooner than that, we can jump on a call or jump on a Zoom and unpack things.

And here's the structure  of the way that I structure those life team or those support team meetings. We'll just  talk about what's going well since we last met,  and then we talk about what's not going well.  And then what's going on in my life currently, or what's going on in their life currently. 

And then we may ask ourselves, or ask one another, what relational need do you have today?  And that could be  that I need validation,  I need encouragement.  I could need celebration,  I could need just containment, where I just vent to them and they just contain it don't even say anything to me, they just contain it or, they stay warm in the conversation.

 Or I may need feedback or advice. But we're able to do that because we meet regularly. We have a relationship and we dive deep into these things regularly. When I do have something going on in my world that I'm not able to regulate myself effectively, or I just need support in some way.

I can quickly jump into a conversation with these individuals and really unpack that with them. Because I have this routine relationship with them.  That takes a lot of investment.  It does, but it's worth it.  The right relational nutrient at the right time  can have a powerful and a healing effect on a person's mindset.

Absolutely.  What I was thinking of as I was listening to you, it's easy to listen to someone else say that and say, you're right. Amen, brother. Preach it. You got to have it.  But it's a whole lot harder to let yourself receive that help,  to let yourself become that vulnerable and that open to someone else.

It is not easy, Mike. It's not easy. But still needs to be done.  I will confess that just recently I was talking to someone that I love very much and they reached out to me for prayer and it was a prayer request that I could  bluntly understand. So that's what I told her. I said, I understand.  And then  she asked about mine.

I said, yeah if you had asked me a month ago, I would have scared the socks off of you, but I'm okay now. Why didn't you ask for prayer? It's not that easy.  Yeah. Loud. Not easy. Honest. It's not that easy. So I get it. You have to, but listener, you have to let someone help you.  You have to let people help you. 

You're not a burden.  And Jesus sent the disciples out two by two. We need one another. We need to be needy and there's over 60 different scriptures in the Bible  of one another scriptures. We need one another. One another. God designed it to where we need God.  That's first and foremost. Nothing takes the place of that.

But then secondly, he designed it where we need one another. That's a critical part of our life that many people, including Christian leaders, miss quite often. I agree. There is no isolation. We are a unit. We are a body, collectively. Not  alone.  So true. That is just  hard to accept, but true.

Good word, my friend. Good word.  So I personally need to work on how I treat hurt feelings. Be more aware that I'm hurting feelings and care more about  pansies. Heh.  Ah. Talk to us about your book now you said it's been out for a year, but I thought you said you had one coming out. Tell us about it.

I, no I don't have an actual book coming out. I've got some workbooks. Workbooks, okay. That, at the time of this recording which should, they should be out by the time you release this. Yeah, it'll be about three weeks before I release this. Yeah this coming Monday at the time of the recording We will I'll release four workbooks. 

That actually encompasses all four of these topics of the Christian leader blueprint model. Establish a better rhythm of life, see yourself more clearly, leverage your strengths, and build more productive relationships. I've found that there's a lot of people out there that are using my book in small groups and things of that nature.

It's not a book that's easily digestible. There's a lot of content in it. And a lot of principles within it. Producing these four workbooks, I couldn't put them all in one because it's about 150 pages a piece. But releasing these four workbooks, I think will help with personal study of the concepts of the book, but also help with small group interaction as well.

And I would encourage people if they're, if you're struggling in these areas and just need,  You want a community of people who are driving towards personal growth in these areas of their life. The community is an amazing place. It's easy. You go to ryanfranklin. org. You can click on the community coaching button and then there's a join now.

And you can quickly join and it's an online community where there's forums. We do courses together you can do courses on your own as well but we also do weekly hot seat coaching. I had a hot seat coaching today and coached a couple of individuals through some things they were going through.

It was an amazing time together and, it's one thing to learn and implement these concepts by ourselves. It's another thing to do it with other people. And that's what the community provides is growth. And doing these things,  growing these things within us with a community of believers that are all moving in the same direction. 

All right. So you got the community, you got your blueprint, workbooks. What else can we find at ryanfranklin. org? I would say I mentioned it earlier, but the self assessment is  vital. If  you will go and do the self assessment, it'll rate you on these 16 topics of the Christian later blueprint, and it'll tell you exactly what you need to zero in on.

And so if you're struggling, for instance, with work life balance, it's going to show up in the self assessment if you're struggling with developing others or your personal support team, or, clarity of mind, whatever it is that you're struggling with, it's going to rate you on all of these things, and it'll give you a task list of growth opportunities for you, and I have found that is probably the most valuable thing That I offer and it's free it gives you exactly what you need to move towards to find effective growth in your life.

Many times people just grab whatever's on the hot list of books or whatever and they read a good book that everybody's talking about. And it may not be what that individual needs. The self assessment is going to tell you exactly what you need to focus on to move the needle in your leadership life. 

What if I take that assessment and it says I stink at everything? Can I throw it out the window as a bunch of malarkey? Or do I just need to quit the ministry? Need to join the community and get to work.  Good answer, sir. Good answer. Good answer.  I will check out this self assessment.

Do you have anything else before I close this up with a question? No, I think that's it. Okay. Anything else I need to plug? Anything else going on? Anything happening in Alexandria I need to promote? No, I think we're good on that front. Okay. Speaking of Alexandria, you mentioned the very obvious problem of  Comparing ourselves, and you are Assistant Pastor at the Pentecostal of Alexandria.

A tiny church, okay?  I'm, obviously, I'm joking, it's one of the largest, if not the largest, UPC church in our organization. I got to attend it for the first time  because of the times, not 24, but 23. My brother in law was able to give me tickets, and that was my first time ever.  And I noticed as you had your singers on the platform that you actually had more microphones on the platform at the time than I actually had members.

I think he even had more just microphones than I had pews.  And it's hard not to compare when you're in a situation like that.  Here's my question to you, and I did not prepare this, I was just thinking. How do you, on your side of the fence, handle  the comparisons  when you walk around?

Cause I know there's  an atmosphere. I know little guys may have a chip on their shoulder.  Dare I say, cause I hear it and I've dealt with it when I attended a church in Florida that was jealous he would back talk. So I know you've heard mumblings and grumblings of people who do compare.

So how do you handle that as someone who's.  Part of a successful church. How do you handle this? I don't hear a lot of that, Mike. It's rare that I would, but occasionally I do, and I just let it roll off my back.

It's not something that I'm going to dwell on. And the reality of it is if we look at the picture of anybody's life, that's successful. We're looking at the positive aspects and the fruit, the positive fruit that has been produced. We're not seeing all of the negative parts of it and the challenging parts of it.

And, yes, POA may be successful in a lot of ways, but there's also some very challenging things. There's some hard things about it that other churches may not face. And so just keeping that perspective of yes, there's some positive aspects of it, but also, we get a big dose of reality in life as well, and that's just not something that we can avoid.

Sure. Sure. Yeah, I'll keep my power, Bill. I don't want to pay yours. I'll keep my water bill, thank you. I just was wondering I've learned  that, the largest church that I've ever attended as a member involved in the ministry is probably a hundred people. Okay.  And I've learned as I've pastored  that I have a small church mindset and I didn't know that. 

There's things.  A very good friend of mine, he's the IBC pastor campus pastor, Jared Turner.  I miss having conversations with him because he grew up there at Calvary under Brother Mooney, and  he would say things that would just blow my mind. I'm like, what? That exists? Anyway, I like to ask questions when I think of them.

Sure. No problem. Thank you. Thank you so much for coming on. I hope I didn't bore you with my style. I know it's different than what you're used to, man. I love your content. This is perfect. This is good. I will push it and then I will continue to push it  and thank you for coming on. 

No problem, Mike. Thank you so much for having me on.