Transcript: 3 Reasons Why Leading with Peace Has Greater Impact Than Anxiety // Gem and Alan Fadling, Unhurried Living

Flourishing Culture Leadership Podcast

“3 Reasons Why Leading with Peace Has Greater Impact Than Anxiety”

February 3, 2025

Alan and Gem Fadling

Intro: Is anxiety the fuel that's driving your leadership? What if there's a better, cleaner energy source for a more fulfilling and impactful life? Well, in this podcast we dive into the transformative power of peace over anxiety, with Alan and Gem Fadling, exploring rhythms of rest, the art of soul care, and how to lead with a sense of purpose rather than pressure. Don't miss this conversation that could change the way you approach work and life.

Welcome: Welcome to the Flourishing Culture Leadership Podcast, your home for open, honest, and insightful conversations to help develop your leadership, your team, and build a flourishing workplace culture.

Al Lopus: Hi, I'm Al Lopus, the co-founder of the Best Christian Workplaces and author Road to Flourishing. My passion is to equip Christian leaders like you create engaged, flourishing workplaces, where people thrive and organizations make a Kingdom impact. And if you'd like to learn more about me, my book, opportunities to have me speak at an event, this podcast, or recent articles I've written, I invite you to visit allopus.org. That's A-L-L-O-P-U-S dot org. Let's journey together toward building workplaces where your faith, leadership, and organization flourish.

Well, today I’m delighted to welcome Gem and Alan Fadling to the podcast. They're the co-founders of Unhurried Living.

And throughout our conversation, you'll hear the Fadlings talk about, well, peace over anxiety: discover how peace can fuel leadership more effectively than anxiety; rhythms of rest, where we learn to build daily, weekly, quarterly, and yearly habits for rest and renewal; work and identity, where we shift from earning our worth to expressing our God-given identity through our work; and a self-awareness feedback where we use a notice, discern, and respond process to align actions with values.

I think you're going to love this interview with Gem and Alan Fadling. But before we dive in, this podcast is proudly sponsored by the Best Christian Workplaces’ Employee Engagement Survey. And in today's conversation, we explore the vital role of peace, rest, and personal well-being. Now imagine offering your employees a workplace culture that encourages their engagement and well-being. Well, the Employee Engagement Survey gives you insights that can assess the health of your culture and to help your team flourish. Don't wait. Are you ready to transform your workplace into a haven of sustainable well-being and purpose? Well, visit workplaces.org to learn more to start your journey today.

And hello to our new listeners. Thanks for joining us as we honor your investment of time by creating valuable episodes like this. And be sure to go and subscribe to our podcast. We would appreciate it.

Well, let me tell you a little bit more about Gem and Alan Fadling. Gem Fadling is the founding partner of Unhurried Living, a nonprofit that trains people to rest deeper, live fuller, and lead better. She's a certified life coach and a trained spiritual director, who coaches people at the intersection of spiritual leadership and soul care. Gem also is a co-host of The Unhurried Living Podcast herself, as well as a co-author of What Does Your Soul Love?: Eight Questions That Reveal God's Work in You, and the author of Hold That Thought: Sorting Through the Voices in Our Heads.

And Alan Fadling is the founding partner of Unhurried Living, Inc. Alan has an MDiv. He writes and speaks as an expert on the challenge of hurry in contemporary life and how to overcome it. He consults and coaches leaders and their organizations in the U.S. and around the world, helping them work towards long-term productivity that lasts rather than settling for quick fixes. And burnout is not part of the option. He's an award-winning author of six books, including A Non-Anxious Life, An Unhurried Life, and An Unhurried Leader. Together, through Unhurried Living, Gem and Alan lead training sessions and workshops along with their team.

So, here’s my conversation with Gem and Alan Fadling.

Gem and Alan, it’s great to have you on the podcast, and I’m looking forward to our conversation today.

Alan Fadling: Us, too.

Gem Fadling: Yeah. Thank you.

Al: Right. Well, Gem and Alan, you're the co-founders of Unhurried Living, an organization focused on content and training that helps people lead with fullness rather than from leading on empty. And I think many of us as leaders can identify with that. So, we don't often have a husband-and-wife team on the podcast either, so working together in a way that you do, that's fantastic. As I mentioned, my wife and I worked together for 18 years here at the Best Christian Workplaces and brought, as you do, different gifts and approaches that really made it even better. So, I'd love to hear you describe how you work together. And I'm sure that each of you bring some distinctive strengths to the table and as you collaboratively work on leadership. Describe your journey and the journey of collaboration for us. Gem, let's start with you.

Gem: Yeah. Well, thank you again for having us here. And I mean, we've been ministering together our entire relationship. So we started dating when I was 19, and at that point we were just volunteers at a local church in the youth ministry. And so our collaboration goes back more than 40 years, which is just kind of a gift, right? It's a true gift of grace. And I'm also graced to be able to say that for whatever reason, Alan and I have been on the same page spiritually throughout our marriage. And we’ve taken a lot of turns: Baptists who became Anglicans. There’s a story there. And somehow, we’ve been able to stay in sync with that.

Now, of course, the other side of that is we are completely different personalities. I mean, if you know the Myers-Briggs, we do not have one letter in common. And we're just very different. So that comes into play as well, though, because I'm the extrovert, and he's the introvert. And I'm the one that's more pushing into something; he would want to more pull back from something. So when you run into all those different kinds of dynamics, when you're working together, you have to pause a lot and talk things through, right?

So fortunately, in our 40s we had a really nice little stint with some therapy, and we have a lot of tools in our tool belt, and God has been gracious to just grow us over all these years. And so we have developed a good working relationship. We know—we're more aware now, let's put it that way, with some stripes, but we're more aware now of when we need to pause and talk something through than we ever have been, which I think is great.

So yeah, we've got the push, the pull; the withdraw, and the move forward; and the introverted, extrovert; but it all makes this nice little package. And together I think we offer something that's broadly relatable, maybe, because it's got the both/and inside of it.

Al: Fantastic. Yeah. Thanks, Gem.

And Alan, how about you?

Alan: Yeah. Well, I'm tempted to just say “ditto,” and we can move to the next question. But Gem's answers really are the basic reality.

What's wonderful about this last almost 10 years is we really are co-founders of this nonprofit, and it would not be what it is without Gem's strengths and passions and mine. We both bring a lot of commonness in terms of some values, in terms of life experience, but we also bring some unique gifts and contributions to it. So I think our differences have really become a synergy of complementary strengths, even though sometimes differences can be a point of conflict. You know, if you're a little tired or you're having a bad week, you know, sometimes the differences are more challenging. But at our very best, I think our differences have enabled us to be equal contributors to the growth of the nonprofit God led us to start, like I said, almost 10 years ago. And we just wouldn't be who we are today without Gem's gifts and mine.

Al: Yeah. Fantastic.

Well, Alan, your most recent book is A Non-Anxious Life, and this is such an important topic for our culture. And anxiety just seems to be the watchword of the day, and especially as we hear about the rise of anxiety, probably since COVID. And you talk about becoming a student of peace rather than a student of anxiety. So, what's the foundation that you stand on as you learn to focus on peace rather than anxiety? And gosh, that sounds so great to me. Who wants to feel anxious, right? And of course, we want to feel peace, but that isn't always the way it works out. So, how did you make that shift?

Alan: Well, I proposed this book two weeks into the COVID quarantine. And my pitch was, “Look, the more I talk with leaders about hurry, the more I realize a whole lot of it is rooted in anxiety.” And I still believe that. But what I ended up writing was a very different book. It was a far more personal book. And one of the things I had to come to grips with personally was that I, in a strange way, thought of my anxiety as a kind of asset, to say that I might not get anything done. This is what I feared. If I don't have my anxiety, what will—what will drive me? What will move me? What will motivate me? And I had to, at some point, I had to decide, is Jesus right about my anxiety or am I? And I think we know the answer to a question like that. But it was strange how long it took me to wrestle that down and decide, is it possible that peace is a better energy source than anxiety is? And what I began to discover is that if anxiety’s fuel, it's fuel that burns dirty. It's just not sustainable. It causes increasing harm to our physical well-being, our relational well-being, and I would argue, the quality of what we do in our work.

But peace, I think peace is sustainable energy. It gives us access to holy motivations like love or joy or hope. Those will compel us. Those will strengthen us. Those will lighten and brighten our vision for the future. And they sound a lot more like the fruit of the Spirit than anxiety does.

Al: Well, I’m certainly reflective of Paul's admonition, you know, don't be anxious. And at the same time, I'll have to say, Alan, and I kind of relate to what you're saying here, I mean, how many of us have that anxiety that drives that checklist? And then, you know, we've got the checklist because of what we're feeling anxious about, and that's what we work on, and how that is the source of—and I love—dirty energy. It’s dirty energy. It’s not healthy. It’s not efficient. It’s not clean energy that you’re saying that comes from peace. Yeah, I love that. Yeah.

Gem, I'd love your reflections on this.

Gem: Well, I wrote a book called Hold That Thought and focused a lot on just your thought life. And I understand that we are multilayered. You know, you've got your intuitions, your heart, your head, your thoughts, your feelings. But sometimes it's good to just notice, what in the world is going on up inside my brain? And anxiety may be a feeling that you can feel, you know, a tightness of chest or upset stomach or, you know, shoulders that are raised. But it can also be a flurry of thoughts: you know, “This isn’t going to go well for me.” You know, “What could go wrong?” “I'm not worthy. I'm not ready.” I mean, just so many thoughts.

And so one of the things I wanted to address is just be someone who notices what's going on inside your brain. Right? And Alan developed a practice that I really blew up more large inside of Hold That Thought, and it's called notice, discern, and respond. And so we talk about those three simple steps. If you can catch yourself in one of those anxious moments, can you just notice it? Can you just see it? Don't be unaware of what's going on and just plowing through the day, which brings in the idea of the unhurried life we talk about. Unhurried just means you have slowed down enough inside to at least be self-aware. What's going on here? Once you've noticed, you could take just a moment to discern. Where is this voice coming from? Is it helping me right now? Just even some of the things Alan just said: “Is this a good energy that God would want me to move forward into my day with?” If the answer is no, then maybe there's some further discernment to do here, maybe some help you might need, which would lead you to your response. How do you want to act? Now that you've come upon this thought or feeling, you've discerned it's not serving you right now, what can you do? And the response could be multi-layered as well. If you're in the middle of the day, maybe just make a quick pivot, and you pray, and God grants you that peace that is beyond comprehension. You can move through. But sometimes we're carrying something that's very deep and very old, very wounded, and we need further support. And so your response might mean, “I need some help.” And so you might want to take some steps.

Al: So, remind us of those three steps again.

Gem: Yes. Notice, discern, and respond. I shortened it up, and I call it NDR so you can remember.

Al: Mm-hmm, yep.

Gem: NDR. And it’s, again, you can use it real quick in the middle of the day, but you can also use it as a discernment process that might be taking a little bit more time for something that's more long lasting.

Al: And you've reflected silence and solitude has been helpful. Talk a little bit about that, because I’ve just found, in my own life, that's so important. That's when I become self-aware. It's like, “Oh, that didn't go well. So what is it that caused it?” Talk a little bit about that.

Gem: Yeah. For sure. I'm so glad you brought that up, because Alan and I were introduced to solitude and silence when we were in our late 20s. Like I said, we’ve been on a spiritual journey together for all these decades, and that was when we met these men who really mentored us. One of them specifically mentored us in the practice of solitude and silence. So for how long is that? 35 years? I've been practicing solitude and silence anywhere from one hour to 24 hours. And I didn't do 24 hours at the very beginning, believe me. I started with one hour. But Dallas Willard called this “the queen of the disciplines” for a reason. It's because you have a chance to really power down. You have a chance to be in receptive mode with God rather than doing mode, which is fine. We're all doing something here. We're trying to make a difference in other people's lives. But sometimes we need to be in receptive mode. You can learn to listen, can learn to receive. And again, I think you can't underestimate, especially in today's culture, the felt sense in your body of learning to power down. And silence and solitude really allows for that space to happen. And then, as I was talking about NDR, as you practice this over the course of time, I think you can become better at being a person who notices. It's hard to notice if you haven't had that sense inside yourself of having enough silence to hear or to see.

So silence and solitude, if Alan and I were going to recommend any practice that anybody do, and you only had one, that's the one that I would say would be good to learn.

Al: Usually, the first of the year I'll take two or three days in a convent or monastery, just to kind of get centered. And I'll have to say—you know, my mother had a health emergency, and I had to cancel it this year—and I just feel shot out of a canon without having that time of solitude and silence, just to kind of get refreshed in that regard. I know exactly what you're saying and fully agree. So, yeah, “the queen of disciplines,” there you go.

Well, at the Best Christian Workplaces, we're focused on helping leaders build flourishing, healthy cultures and workplaces. And one of your chapters was non-anxious work, and I really love that concept because you're really talking about the unexpected idolatry of workaholism. And I know that within the faith, you know, there's so much to do, we are susceptible to workaholism. So, what's the core truth that a leader can cling to that can shift their perspective about work so that we don't fall into workaholism.

Alan: Yeah. Well, you know, so we have to begin by acknowledging that we tend to be a culture that rewards workaholism. It's one of the only rewarded, affirmed addictions in our cultural setting. And this is not to say that we are not invited to work really, really hard. Our choices and not between workaholism and laziness, you know. Those are not the two, the only options. Workaholism is when we look to our work to provide something that work can never do. It cannot provide us a sense of value or a sense of meaning. Work is not the place we earn a sense of identity; it's a place where we express a sense of identity. Our value doesn't rise and fall with our work. And to connect something that Gem said, the reason solitude and silence is so good, especially addressing this dynamic of workaholism, is that in silence and solitude, all the dynamics of workaholism are paused. There's no one to impress. There’s nothing to get done. There’s nothing to achieve. And in that moment, actually, one of the things that God may do in those seasons or moments of solitude and silence is He may remind us that He loves us before we do one thing for Him. That may just sound like a nice little inspirational greeting card, but that will make all the difference in the world. If you're looking to your work to prove something about yourself, you are on a treadmill, and that treadmill is going to start going faster and faster, and you're just not going to find your way to what you're hungry for, which is a sense that I matter, I'm making an impact, I’m making a difference. That's got to start with a sense of identity as given rather than identity as earned. I think that's really critical.

Al: We can't earn identity; we express identity. That's great. So understanding where our identity comes from is at the core of that.

So related to anxiety but much broader is the importance of mental health. And again, in our culture, we're hearing much more about the importance of mental health, and well-being is the term that many are focusing on, even in in the secular workplace. And I'm thinking specifically about the mental-health crisis amongst Christian leaders and pastors, how a large percentage—I heard recently half of the pastors in our country are thinking about resigning, or close to that. So what can leaders do to improve their mental health so that they can be effective, healthy leaders, not just for this year and next year, but for the long term?

Alan: Well, I love using a phrase. It's an older phrase than mental health. It's the idea of soul health or soul care. A lot of the current mental-health frameworks really grew out of the older idea of the care of souls. And we are, all of us, we are souls. And leaders can acknowledge that the health of our souls is not secondary to our work or our leadership; it's primary. The “seek first” is not what I do for God; the “seek first” is God's Kingdom and God's righteousness. And that begins in my life and then moves out into my work and into my leadership. And that sort of soul wellness is essential to the long-term goodness of the work that we do.

So sometimes it feels a bit like leaders see the care of their souls as something they've got to do on their own time if they can squeeze it in. And what I want to say is actually, if you're a Christian in work, soul care is not only something important for you, but it's something you're doing in the lives of others. Even if your job is not a particularly religious job, you're taking care of people. And yes, together you're doing something, you're working on something, you're producing something, you're aiming at something. But if your people aren't well, they're not going to get done what you'd like to get done. And if you aren't taking good care of yourself, you're not going to take good care of the people that you lead.

So our own soul care is strategic, I think. The care of our souls is not something saved for moments of crisis. You know, I've never seen more religious leaders taking sabbaticals than I have in the last two or three years. And most of them are kind of emergency sabbaticals. And God bless them. If they need them, they need them. Okay. But sabbaticals were never meant to be or Sabbath was never meant to be a crisis-urgency mode. It was a way of living. The land would get a year off. People would take a day off every week. And what was that day? It was not a day to measure productivity. It was a day to enjoy God and enjoy the gifts of grace that God gives. These are the rhythms that help us care well for our souls, I think.

Al: Great. And Gem, how about adding something regarding to leaders and the importance of taking care of their mental health?

Gem: One of the undercurrents we like to talk about is a leader's view of time itself. And this, again, continues something Alan was just talking about. You kind of have to believe that there is enough time for all the things that God has given you to do, which includes caring for your own soul. And so addressing your beliefs about time—you know how many sentences we have about time? “I don't have time for this.” All of that kind of phraseology. Well, actually, no, you do. We all have the same amount of time, and it's okay to use it allotted in healthy and sustainable ways.

And one of the ways we talk about this, of course, would be a rhythm of life. It's classically known as a rule of life. We like to call it a rhythm of life just because it's a little more spiritual direction-ish. But basically, what that means is you find out what is the most important in all the aspects of your life, and you decide what those are, and you calendar them first. And so I think that's a very practical thing to do.

We have a way that we teach people by making a list of what is life giving in their life, starting right there: what brings life? Well, how has God uniquely made you to enjoy different aspects of your life? A nature walk or playing the piano or reading a book by a fire. I don't know. Whatever it is you like. We like to counsel people to start right where you are with the things you love and begin to add those into your life.

I think, also, for leaders—and this is a hard one, I know, especially in our culture—to admit that it's okay not to be perfect, to actually think it's okay to be appropriately vulnerable, maybe to salt in a little humility. You're not the only one that can make something happen. I know this is sort of “rubber meets the road” kind of conversation, but I think we need to talk about the fact that we are not the Savior. There is only one Savior. It is not us. We are companioned by One who makes changes in people's hearts and lives. And so just having that modicum of humility.

And then, I guess, finally, I would just say, you know, as you think through all these things, get the support you need. You don't have to go it alone. I think that's another kind of American trait is that we think we have to manage things on our own and pull ourselves up by our bootstraps. But it's absolutely okay—I mean, even Alan. Alan is a man in his 60s, and I would call him a man's man, right? But even he has sought help. He has a spiritual director. He has had a therapist. He's had mentors. Me, too. I’ve had all these things. I’m not ashamed to tell you that I need help. I need someone holding space for me so that in a way I'm confessing. “Here's what I'm struggling with. Here are my questions, my doubts, or my joys and my triumphs.” I just think getting the support you need is absolutely critical to your own mental health. So, those are just a few ideas.

Al: And Gem, you've talked a little bit about rhythms. Are there some specific rhythms that you'd encourage leaders to have throughout the year, you know, on a monthly basis?

Gem: Yeah.

Al: You mentioned sabbaticals. You mentioned, you know, Sabbath, obviously. We understand what that is. You know, what would you recommend?

Gem: I mean, all of the above, of course. It's hard to give people a huge list all up front because it seems overwhelming, and they wouldn't be able to start. But yes, it would be wonderful if you could have a weekly Sabbath. I would suggest a monthly, some version of a solitude day, even a half day, four hours, or even from nine to noon once a month. If you could have a bona fide time of solitude and silence, which would just mean get yourself somewhere lovely, take your Bible, take a good book, take your journal, take a walk, meet with God in a non-performative, receptive way. That's how I would describe that. Could you do that once a month? And if you've never done it before, start with one hour, move up to half day, and then, at some point, your soul is going to be longing for one full day of that. So, weekly, monthly, yearly, yeah.

So, Alan and I, again, we’re now empty nesters. We have our own organizations. We’re in our 60s. We now have—and we copied this from our own mentors and spiritual directors—they take one month off, and they call it a mini sabbatical. So we've begun to do that now every year on the month of July. We power down, we answer no emails, we do no work. We do not talk about work. And we spend time on vacation. We spend time with friends and family. Alan, now, inside of that month, has one week where he goes on a full week of a silent retreat. So I know that's a big one. I wouldn't throw that out to a beginner. I'm just telling you, this is where we are in our lives, we've been doing this for so long. So we do have weekly, monthly, yearly.

We have a quarterly rhythm that we've enacted in the last, probably since we started Unhurried Living. We get away for a 24-hour, we call it a silent retreat. We go to a local monastery, like you were saying, Al, and we have 24 hours there, and we're silent, except we do talk to each other at meals. We have our own rooms, we have our own times with God, but at meals we come together and we talk. And then, we go back into silence. And we do that quarterly.

So, those are some of our big rhythms. Of course, people have daily rhythms. You have your quiet time with God, Scripture, prayer. The thing about all that is you've got to start where you are. What can you do right now? Pick one thing you could do, and add it in, and get it going.

Al: Well, thanks, Gem. That’s helpful. And yeah, I encourage our listeners: start. Start something, right, Gem?

Gem: Yeah.

Al: Daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, annual. I haven’t quite gotten to the month off yet, but there's a—

Gem: Yeah.

Al: —there's a thought. July.

Gem: We've only done it—this will be our fourth time or fifth time, and it's because we have an assistant, and July tends to be a super, super quiet month. A lot of people are doing this now, and so there's no speaking engagements to miss, people are on vacation, kids are home from school, so people aren't trying. So for us, it's a great month because it's already powered down a little bit anyway.

Al: Well, I’ve listened to Michael Hyatt webinars or podcasts, where, yeah, he's been taking a month off for a long time. Yeah. So there's a thought for us, leaders.

So, one area that's essential for leadership is having and developing strong character. And our research around leadership and flourishing workplace cultures, character comes right to the top. And so I know each of you have coached many leaders over the time that you've been working, and let’s hear a story that you can share about a leader that you've worked with that's an example of how someone develops strong character, strong values. And Gem, let's start with you.

Gem: Yeah. Well, someone that came to my mind, I worked with her. She was young. She was age 26 to 31. I worked with her, actually, for five years as a spiritual director, but also as what I was calling at the time, a soul-care coach. And what was great about her was she was young and vibrant. She was working in the corporate world, and she was making a transition into being an entrepreneur and working for herself. And she longed for a more balanced life, but of course, she was caught up in the swirl of the culture. And you've talked about this, Al. So she had workaholic tendencies. She answered email around the clock all week long. She didn’t really give herself any kind of breaks. Basically, she put herself on call all the time. And as Alan said, this is an acceptable vice, right? Because we're like, “What's wrong with this?” And Americans would say, “What's wrong with that? That's a great work ethic.” Except she really longed for a different way, but she didn't know how to make a change. So we did. We started our conversation kind of with the basics about that conversation about time itself. What do you believe about the time God has given you, and what do you actually believe it takes to become the kind of person you're longing to become? That takes some intention. And the great thing about her was she was already very open to this conversation. She was wanting this. So she was a joy to work with. And so she didn't want to burn out, and she wanted to make the change. So over the course of time, we had to have quite a few sessions just talking it through so she could get into her mind, what does this mean? What do you mean Sabbath? What do you mean boundaries? What do you mean don't check my email? Like, you know, till she started to sort of believe it. And then she began to experiment with Sabbath vacations.

While we were meeting, she went on her very first vacation, right? She learned what boundaries were. “I'm not going to check email after whatever time.” You know, she had people around the world that she was meeting with, so she had to make sense for that for herself. And everybody can do that. You don't have to say, “After five;” you just do it for whenever it works for you. You know, maybe, “I won't be looking at email on Saturday.”

But the character that I saw develop was one that wasn't as run by the fast-paced culture and that driven achievement. She actually saw—we worked together long enough that she actually saw the fruitfulness that comes from a person who's living a more rhythmed and patterned life: a little bit on, a little bit off, a little bit on, a little bit off. And she became a believer because it happened in her life. She thought that if she took her foot off the gas pedal, that she would lose business or become less effective. And she actually found it to be the opposite. Her business grew. She was a coach herself, and she found that she was the person that she wanted to be when she was with the women that she was coaching. And so that was just a beautiful, beautiful thing to witness.

So now she's thriving. She and her husband, she calls herself bi-continental because her husband's family’s from Vienna. So they live part of the year in Vienna, part of the year here in California. And so she's got this beautiful life. And she knows what work is, and she knows what rest is. And she's young. She's in her 30s, and she now knows how to live a life that's going to be more sustainable, I think.

Al: Yeah. Wow. That’s a great story. Yeah.

Gem: Yeah.

Al: The fear, and I know the leaders who are listening, the fear of taking your foot off the pedal, I can understand that fear, what you're talking about. Yeah.

So, Alan, can you share a story of how you've seen someone develop their character and values as well?

Alan: I like to think of character as the capacity and the resolve to be able to say the yeses and nos that Jesus is inviting us to say. And we live in a culture that has certain yeses and nos that it wants us to say, and those can come into conflict. And so, you know, as we were talking earlier, many of the leaders I work with are in religious contexts: churches and chaplaincies and religious nonprofits and such. I'm thinking of a couple of leaders that I've been interacting with recently, one of whom is over probably 70 to 100 churches in a particular denomination in a particular region of our country. And if you have a job like that, your life is mostly full of crises because whatever couldn't get solved at the local level makes its way up the chain to you. Well, it's real easy to internalize that. It's really easy to just feel my life is solving problems. This is my identity. I am the problem solver. And part of you can get very excited about having that identity and being able to help people like that. But part of you can get really overwhelmed. Part of you can begin to think you're playing God, solving everybody's problems. And when we first connected, I could tell he cared about his job. He cared about his work, his ministry. But it was chewing him up, and it was spitting him out. And over time, on this question of character, what I began to appreciate was his willingness to say yes to what Jesus was inviting him to as it related to his soul, as well as doing the best he could to say yes to what Jesus was inviting him to in the work. And so this whole matter of soul care, that if he wanted, he could spend every waking hour solving crises. They would never let up. They never did. They never do in that kind of role.

But what he began to find—and this is where, I think, that whole point, taking your foot off the gas thing—we think that productivity is a plus-minus game. So if we take an hour away from our work day, then we're getting one hour of work less done. But productivity just doesn't work that way. It's more exponential and multiplication oriented. When I take an hour away to be with God, that hour changes me, and I'm a different me doing the work I do for the other hours of that day or that week or that year. And so what I began to see just in a year of our working together, he is enjoying what he does. He has a pacing and a capacity still to address the crises that fill his job, but not as anxiously as he used to, not as driven as he used to be. He's got a better sense of perspective. And again, character, the ability to say yes to what Jesus is inviting us to, and some of those yeses will be countercultural.

Al: Wow. Yeah. Great stuff, Alan. Thanks. Repeat that definition of character again. That really stuck with me.

Alan: So you think of that line from the Sermon on the Mount, “Let your yes be yes. Let your no be no.” I think character is the capacity to say the yeses and nos that Jesus is inviting us to offer. And again, I just think sometimes the culture that surrounds us is pressing us to certain yeses and nos that may not at all resonate with the Kingdom values of Jesus.

Al: Yeah. Yeah. Great.

So, you're both coaching leaders in Unhurried Living and the principles of soul care, that we've already talked about, and leadership for some time now. And I’m curious if you’re seeing generational changes in leaders that you coach. Or is there a common human foundation to our struggles with the kind of integrated life that you're suggesting or, you know, an unhurried life, Alan?

Alan: It strikes me that there are some modern dynamics to hurry: technology and such. But having worked on this theme for as long as I have, I've found complaints about hurry 100 years ago, 200 years ago, 500 years ago. So it is a very human dynamic.

In terms of generational, I think of some of my mentors. And a real common line—I don't know if you ever heard this one, but I would hear people say, “I would rather burn out than rust out for Jesus.” And at the time, I thought, “Wow, that's commitment. That is serious commitment.” And the longer I've gone, the more I think, “Well, are those my only two choices? I mean, either I destroy myself, seeking to serve the purposes of God, or I just fritter away my life, getting rusty and such. Could I be John the Apostle in his 90s, still being fruitful, might be more fruitful than ever? Isn't that a trajectory?” And so what I want to say is there's a pacing to a long-term, productive life and ministry. And if you are running out of gas as you're coming into retirement years, I don't think that's what the Kingdom of God is about. I think these years some have said your most productive years could in fact be your 60s and your 70s because you're not measuring productivity just, you know, in terms of making widgets or doing organizational things. But it's the influence of your life that is the main way that you measure productivity. So, I think there's an essential human dynamic. We tend to believe that we are what we do. Therefore, by definition, the more I do, the more I am. That is an essential engine for workaholism. It's an essential engine for hurry. I do out of who I am. That's a different vision, a different motor, a different engine, and it has a different outcome, I think a better one.

There was a saint from a few centuries ago who said, “The one who hurries, delays the things of God.” Dagger in my heart. I mean, how many biblical stories can you think of where somebody rushed to some activity that had to then be redone for years, for decades, maybe for centuries? So hurry is not always the virtuous benefit that we think that it is.

Al: Yeah. And those that are workaholics—and I can confess that I was one and have to be careful—it's the hurry that actually causes the messes. And sometimes workaholics are looking around for problems that maybe they need to create in order for, you know, to get the activities that they're looking for, and they're actually causing more problems than solving them. Yeah, no, that's exactly right. Yeah. And you've heard the saying, Alan, “We've got to leave it all on the field.” You know, that's a sports analogy, which much like you say, it's not really going to help you with a long, productive life, short-term thinking. Yeah.

Gem, what are you seeing in the different generations of women that you coach? Are there any generational challenges, or are there, you know, common foundations to living an integrated, unhurried life?

Gem: Yeah. For women, for humans, and but for the women I work with, you know, no matter the age, we’re struggling with identity all through the seasons of life, self-worth, anxiety, making space for God in life-giving ways. And so it does seem to be a human struggle, especially in this culture.

I will say that we are seeing a greater amount of anxiety, I think, maybe in a unique way among younger people. And this is well documented. People are talking about it all over the place. But this information age is really doing a number on our young people, and so I think anxiety is something to take very seriously. And that is another reason why Unhurried Living exists. Again, it's not laziness; it’s taking the time to address these things. And this is going to be a long conversation, I think, coming out of COVID, coming in and through this, again, the tech age. It's driving us to be more solitary, which is different than solitude and silence, which is causing loneliness and anxiety. So that is something that's concerning.

I just interviewed a young woman. She's in her 30s. I interviewed her for our podcast. She wrote a 40-day devotional, and the sections in her book were telling. It was identity and insecurity, wisdom and humility, capacity and burnout, and scarcity and abundance. And I think, you know, here we are. We're in a different generation than her. But I look at all those words and I go, “Yes, let's have that conversation.” So I think these are common: identity, security, burnout, capacity, scarcity. We're all talking about this stuff.

So one of the things I love doing is I have these coaching groups of anywhere from four to six women, and I make sort of sacred space, holy listening, where we can come together and talk about these kinds of things so you don't have to go it alone. You can remember who you are in Christ. You can learn to share authentically. And I’ve worked with different groups. I had a group once that was younger leaders. A lot of the women I work with are over 40, but whoever's there, there's a bond that happens. And I think people really do want to have this deeper-level conversation about life and how to live well with God in whatever season they find themselves.

Al: Great.

Well, Gem and Alan, we've learned so much from this conversation. Thanks so much for joining me on this conversation. Starting off with I just love the, are we living a life of peace or anxiety? And let's live lives of peace. It just makes such a difference. And you know, Alan, you described anxiety as an asset. You know, gosh, if I didn't have the energy that's created by anxiety, will I actually get things done, what I need to do? But, you know, how peace is much better. And how the anxiety energy is a dirty energy. I love that phrase. So it's something for us all to think about.

And Gem, you talked about being self-aware and how important that is and how to sit in silence and solitude and notice our own behaviors, to discern, you know, what God wants those behaviors to be or what they should be or what went wrong with them, and then respond. And oftentimes, we might notice and discern, but not respond. So those are three great steps. And the importance of solitude and silence and how solitude and silence are “the queen of disciplines,” to remind us of that. You know, as Christian leaders, we all deal with the sense of we have to do more, and workaholism can be such a trap for us. So you really helped us with that. With mental health and well-being and soul care, talking about healthy rhythms. And I encourage our listeners, you know, do we have a daily, a weekly, a monthly, annual rhythm, maybe even quarterly in there as well? So what's our rhythm? And that's becoming—that’s such an important foundation so that we can actually put boundaries on our work life to have the peace that we're talking about.

So this has just been a great conversation. Is there anything else that you'd like to add that we've talked about?

Alan: Well, on the theme of a non-anxious life, I think of a line I remember hearing Dallas Willard say, which was, you know, “Anything you could do in anxiety, you could just do a lot better in peace.” I love that. And I've come to believe that more than I used to believe it. We are serving a Prince of Peace. That will probably make a difference the more we realize that reality. It's not just a nice Christmas-time idea. It is a description of the nature of Jesus: gentle, humble in heart. This is the One we follow, this is the One we serve, this is the One we're joining in His work in the world, and that's been helping me over time.

Gem: Yeah. I would say wherever you are, if you heard anything in this conversation, choose one thing and step forward in it, because all you can do is acknowledge right where you are and begin right where you are, and you can make progress by just making one step after another. So I wouldn't allow yourself to be overwhelmed by any list you're supposed to be making or doing or not doing, but choose something and lean into it and give yourself the grace to do it imperfectly and get the help you need.

Al: Well, Gem and Alan, thanks so much for your contribution today. And most of all, I appreciate your commitment to equipping leaders to live whole heartedly in their soul care and leadership. So thanks for taking your time out today and speaking in the lives of so many listeners.

Alan: Thank you.

Al: Well, thank you so much for listening to my conversation with Gem and Alan Fadling. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did.

You can find ways to connect with them and links to everything we talked about in the show notes and transcript at workplaces.org/podcast.

And if you have any suggestions for me about our podcast or have any questions on flourishing workplace cultures, please email me at al@workplaces.org.

And as you reflect on today's conversation, take a moment to ask yourself this question: what one step can you take to cultivate peace and rhythm in your leadership? Whether it's setting aside time for solitude, creating boundaries for rest, or redefining your identity beyond work, start small and be intentional. And remember, leading well begins with living well. So choose one actionable take away from this discussion and begin incorporating it in your daily or weekly routine. And let this be your first step toward building a flourishing God-honoring leadership.

And next week, the Best Christian Workplaces announces its annual list of certified best Christian workplaces. I'm sure you'll want to read about it. Next week, we'll take you behind the scenes as a few of BCW’s expert consultants share the inside stories of some standout organizations and what makes their cultures truly flourish. You won't want to miss these inspiring insights.

Outro: The Flourishing Culture Leadership Podcast is sponsored by Best Christian Workplaces. If you need support building a flourishing workplace culture, please visit workplaces.org for more information.

We'll see you again next week for more valuable content to help you develop strong leaders and build a flourishing workplace culture.