Carey Nieuwhof: Facing Limits and Finding Balance
On today’s episode, we get to have a discussion with the authority on quality leadership, Carey Nieuwhof. When he was a young man working at a law firm, Carey had a vision that he was supposed to be a pastor. Following that calling led him to become a founder of Connexus, now one of the most influential churches in North America. Carey has been an instrument of change that has helped the church evolve drastically over time to better serve its community, and has since found his passion for helping leaders all over the globe thrive and become the best versions of themselves. In this episode, Carey walks us through what to do when we get burned out, exhausted, and life seemingly falls apart. How do we recover from that in a way that helps us become exceptional leaders? How do we learn to balance each important element of our lives, each of which seem to demand too much from us? Carey discusses the difficulties of establishing boundaries in today’s ever-connected world, how to build better relationships with people, and how to live in a way that will help us prosper tomorrow.
Links, Products and Resources Mentioned:
Carey Nieuwhof Leadership Podcast
“Didn’t See It Coming: Overcoming the Seven Challenges that No One Expects and Everyone Sees” book
The Genesee Diary: Report from a Trappist Monastery
History of the Eagles Documentary
Archibald D. Hart, Ph.D., FPPR
*This episode discusses suicide. If you or a loved one are experiencing thoughts of suicide, there is free and confidential support for you. Call the National Suicide hotline at 1-800-273-8255 to receive prevention and crisis resources.
Interview Quotes:
“Andrew Steen, a physicist at Cambridge and a person of faith, talks about how physics informs the way that we think about God and theology; and in the 17th century Newtonian physics, the universe is like a giant machine. So thinking about God and His sovereignty in a pretty mechanical way kinds of made sense. Everything is cause and effect. Now with the law of indeterminacy, reality looks so much different and [Steen] says it actually fits the story of the Bible better because the God of the Bible is a God of improvisation.”
—John Ortberg
“When you're on the outside looking in, or you're 25 years old, you think, Oh, all these successful people, they're successful because they don't have any struggles right there.They're just really gifted, really talented. They work hard,they hustle and therefore they succeed—and they must not have the struggles that I have. They don't get tired. They don't argue with their spouse.They don't struggle with identity or purpose or any of that. I've had the great privilege over the last decade plus of meeting a lot of the people I used to read or admire or listen to. And you realize, when you get to know them as people, they've all got that story. And one of the ones that almost everyone moves into is the end of what they can accomplish.”
—Carey Nieuwhof, on our perception of others
“Most people, if they don’t have a burnout story, there is a pivot that happens where they really, really struggle with, with the limits of what they can do.”
—Carey Nieuwhof, on life’s essential moments
“I think one of the traps that got me was, Oh, so working for God must earn me points of some kind. And, oh, to not work harder is probably unfaithfulness. And so all through my thirties I cheated my family. And as our church grew, more people equals more hours, and more success equals more accolades. And I was winning church, but losing at home. And I realized when you're winning at church and losing at home, you're losing. That is a temporary victory, an empiric victory, an empty victory. But it's not really a victory.”
—Carey Nieuwhof, on untangling his job from his personal faith
“I think technology has made [life balance] more complicated because we're never really on and we're never really off anymore. You know, the office is something we used to go to and now the office goes to us. And that is really difficult because as a CEO or as a founder or an entrepreneur or a pastor, you've got 11 inboxes and you're available 24/7, and this device that you're using to figure out where you're going to go for dinner with your wife is the same device that your team is emailing you on.”
—Carey Nieuwhof, on having life balance
“By the time this race is over, I want the people closest to me to be the people who are most grateful for me. I want [my] relationships to be healthy, and good, and real, and the friendships deep, and the team that I actually work with day to day and have to put up with me day to day to want to work with me day to day.”
—Carey Nieuwhof, on relationships with others
“We are designed to be fully known by God and by a handful of others.”
—Carey Nieuwhof
“Let God go deep—go deep into whatever this dysfunction is, or this season is—go deep. Because if God wants to go deep, it's because He wants to take you far.”
—Carey Nieuwhof
“We just get used to mediocre living. We get used to living drained or with a lack of motivation, or inspiration, or elevation, or a dream. And nobody sets out for that. Nobody says, ‘I want to live a life where I'm exhausted or tired or not inspired.’ We just get used to it.”
—John Ortberg
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