Habits of Good Decision Making | Ep. 51 with Larry Osborne

:: 00:00:04

Speaker 1

Well, we are incredibly honored to have a very special guest this week on our No Gray Areas podcast Pastor, author, mentor, leadership consultant. He's literally led thousands of people as a consultant in both the nonprofit and for profit sector. He's written ten books. I've always wanted to sit and have a personal conversation with them. And today you get to listen in to that conversation.

:: 00:23:04

Speaker 1

So here we go.

:: 00:34:21

Speaker 1

Larry Osborne, it is an honor to have you here. What I'm going to just actually read some of your pedigree here because it's quite impressive. And I really for our listeners, I'm honored because I've read you've written written ten books, right?

:: 00:49:01

Speaker 2

Yes. Yeah. Yeah. I think you're my mother, right? This. No, no, no. I pulled this off a different thing. I know my mother in law didn't write it. All right, we'll go. Yeah.

:: 00:58:23

Speaker 1

Well, you're a pastor, author, mentor, leadership consultant. You've coached and trained thousands of top level leaders in both nonprofit and profit sectors. I think that's very important for people to understand. You worked a lot in the church world, but you've worked a lot outside of the church world, too, haven't you?

:: 01:14:04

Speaker 2

Absolutely. Proverbs works in the church and works for a king in the Kingdom or wherever it would be.

:: 01:19:12

Speaker 1

Leadership is leadership. Do you currently serve as a teaching pastor at North Coast Church? You pastored that 44 years. You've been at the age of.

:: 01:28:13

Speaker 2

42, actually 42 years.

:: 01:30:19

Speaker 1

And when you started, there was about 100.

:: 01:33:21

Speaker 2

There were 70 adults at our first service and a million rug rats, because imagine a 28 year old guy and a 24 year old wife. You're going to draw really young families. So I think there were 70 adults that first week and wow, 128 total when you count the nursery and all the little kids. So, yeah, it's.

:: 01:51:14

Speaker 1

A little bigger than that now, isn't it? A little bit, Yeah. Yeah. So now, like we have seven campuses.

:: 01:56:07

Speaker 2

Or has seven campuses, I think pre-COVID physical attendance was like 13,000 plus. Yeah. And now you've got, of course, the hybrid of people who came back, people watch online and all the different things.

:: 02:08:13

Speaker 1

Well, and you've, you've written ten books and I think I've read every one of them. And the thing that I love about your books, this is what I've always said about your books. I'm not just saying this because you're sitting in front of me. I've said it's a little bit like when I would read a C.S. Lewis book.

:: 02:21:05

Speaker 1

There's a lot of things underlined. If someone picked up one of your books that I'd read, they'd see a lot of things underlined and a lot of notes written in the margin. And part of that is, I mean, God has just gifted you is a is is a person of wisdom. And it's one of the things you've done with leadership in churches and businesses around the country is is share that leadership.

:: 02:41:23

Speaker 1

But you also have a very innovative mind. And in fact, you led some really innovative movements in the church world. Correct. So what were some of those things was back in the nineties where you started or maybe even the eighties where you started doing some of these?

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Speaker 2

Yeah.

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Speaker 1

What now would be considered common?

:: 02:59:12

Speaker 2

Yeah, it was: 1980

:: 03:16:20

Speaker 2

e years later there was about: 9196

:: 03:43:10

Speaker 2

And so at that point we began to do things. And yeah, one of the first things we did that nobody was doing was the idea of sharing the pulpit. Most most churches are like a Broadway motif. If you ever been to Broadway and got an understudy, you're disappointed because it's a star system. But that understudy is world class at what they do.

:: 04:07:13

Speaker 2

But you're disappointed. But if you go to a baseball game, which is built on a rotation system, you don't care. You got the third pitcher in the rotation as that's how it is. And so our model was not just other voices, but other voices when I was in town.

:: 04:24:01

Speaker 1

What made you want to do that? Because most people that are on the stage and I spent a lot of my life on the stage, you're on the stage because there's I mean, you get and we're not you know, as pastors, you wouldn't think we'd be like this. But there's something on the stage that you like.

:: 04:36:10

Speaker 2

Oh, yeah. Why that way? Yeah.

:: 04:38:07

Speaker 1

Which is why most don't want to give it up. You're saying while you were in town, you were giving up that stage?

:: 04:43:21

Speaker 2

Absolutely. Because you do that. It's a substitute. But if they're only speaking when you're speaking somewhere else or on vacation, you. Yeah, it's another teacher if you're there. So in the early days you establish a part of it was the mindset in churches was we're paying you to do sermons and if you're not preaching and I kept saying, No, you're paying me to help create with God's help, a great church.

:: 05:08:06

Speaker 2

You're not paying me to speak. You're paying me to lead.

:: 05:10:14

Speaker 1

So you got you were getting push up pushback in those early days, even from like a.

:: 05:14:11

Speaker 2

Board o total pushback. And so I said, well, let me give it a try and you'll get a better church. You get a better letter. We will have multiple voices. So what I would do is no one knows when you're on vacation but the inner circle or the board or whatever. So I just for a few years came back a day early, sacrifice one day and made announcements and sat in the front row taking copious notes.

:: 05:38:09

Speaker 2

And it sent an incredible message to everybody, Oh, this other person is a worthy teacher, not the not the Broadway understudy, but the next speech teacher in the rotation picture.

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Speaker 1

On the mound.

:: 05:49:16

Speaker 2

Yeah. And you asked why the why? It was pretty simple. It dawned on me about 201 day. I was just thinking. I went, you know, historically, this is a massive church. Yes. No, pre mobility. You did not have churches, a two, three, four or 500. Yeah. And and by that point a church had three or 400 to well at least 200 wasn't even consider that big.

:: 06:12:11

Speaker 2

It was before megachurches really were all over the map. But what hit me was we've got growing complexity here and I need to lead and not just teach. So before the automobile, you go back to most of history, a pastor was the most educated or one of the most educated and very much a chaplain, a teacher chaplain. You read the old books.

:: 06:37:00

Speaker 2

There was no leadership component because you didn't need to lead. A group of 170 needs a like a a coach of a team or whatever it would be. You're visiting your house, hearing people.

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Speaker 1

Burying people visiting.

:: 06:49:23

Speaker 2

Yeah, Yeah. So not to denigrate a beautiful role, but it was a chaplain role. And suddenly once you get to 53 or 400, there's a leadership component because there's an organization that suddenly is surfaced. And I realized that I needed weeks where I would wake up thinking about the church instead of the sermon. You always got something in the back of your mind.

:: 07:13:16

Speaker 2

And on the weeks you teach, even subconsciously, you don't know it. But you're thinking through like, We're working through John at North Coast now. And I, I was doing a part of John chapter one this week and all this week, subconsciously, I was thinking about that, even though I wasn't aware yet. But I noticed real quickly the weeks that I wasn't teaching, I woke up wondering, Why is our website suck?

:: 07:36:16

Speaker 2

Yeah, I mean, just other things that popped into my head that instead of the back. Yeah, they were in the front. And as you get larger, you got to deal with the front end.

:: 07:46:19

Speaker 1

And this is Larry, what you're talking about here. This is what I want our listeners to catch from this. If if you hadn't gone down the road of being in the church world, I think you would have been in the business world and he would have been leading a business and doing some very innovative.

:: 08:00:07

Speaker 2

Absolutely. And had a fun and served Jesus well. There you would have. You would have.

:: 08:04:03

Speaker 1

just said. You were thinking: 2000

:: 08:25:08

Speaker 1

You were thinking we're not like a first century church anymore because of the automobile.

:: 08:29:18

Speaker 2

Absolutely. In fact, Well, not only that, we always idealize a past. Jesus made a comment about prophets. He said they get killed and after they're dead, they make a monument to them. But they didn't like it when they were alive. And I'll have people in Christian circles say, I want a New Testament church. And I always ask, Have you read the New Testament?

:: 08:48:16

Speaker 2

Exactly. That church was jacked up. Yeah. All the letters are.

:: 08:53:03

Speaker 1

Paul, and.

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Speaker 2

Paul had to write all those letters because they were messed up. And and even the very early church I go, Are you a gentile? And a lot of people are. I go, Well, you realize they didn't want you in their church and you realize they were disobedient to what's called the Great Commission to go into all the world.

:: 09:11:02

Speaker 2

They stayed in their holy huddle until God had allowed persecution to drive them out. Yeah. And I mean, there were just all kinds of things wrong with that. Yeah. Church. God was at work then. He's still at work now. Yeah.

:: 09:24:06

Speaker 1

Well, so you you have this innovative mind that God gave you and you innovated in the church world. You mentioned one of the things is you were one of the early ones that started thinking about a teaching team. What were the two other areas that you really innovated in? We talked.

:: 09:36:07

Speaker 2

About? Yeah, well, as far as we know, we were the first church to do a true teaching team that didn't have a theology of all the elders and everybody teach. But like you're in town to do that. Probably the next one was the simplicity of sermon based small groups, just a lecture lab to close the back door rather than something on the front door where you divide and multiply and all that, that that model seemed to work overseas in different settings out here.

:: 10:00:17

Speaker 2

multi-site thing way back in: 1998

:: 10:13:13

Speaker 1

Yeah, How incredible is that? You're sitting actually this podcast too.

:: 10:17:03

Speaker 2

Yeah, it was quite a weird when you ask me to come, I go, I know this room. Yeah, Yeah.

:: 10:21:10

Speaker 1

How amazing is that? So I love that. And again, I don't want our listeners to miss that, that you've led in the church world and you've done innovative things in the church world, but I believe the mind that God gave you, He would have done the same kind of thing. In the business world. Leadership is leadership and innovation is innovation, right?

:: 10:36:01

Speaker 2

Absolutely. Every time I have a friend who gets a major promotion to a C-suite or something is going on, I always tell him the same thing. I give him two books. One is Peter Drucker's the effective Executive from way back last century century, because in that book was the seed of most things you read now and a Sony or Yelp.

:: 10:58:12

Speaker 2

You know, first things first, know, all that stuff was there. And then the other I said proverbs. So for 17 years I read whatever Proverbs correspond to the date in my personal pursuit of wisdom. It's like, Lord, I don't know how to lead. You had a King compile a book, I think for his son Rehoboam to be king who ignored it.

:: 11:18:00

Speaker 2

And so I'm going to read one chapter every day. The course was a date. If I miss it, I can just pick it up. Three days later. I'll get it next month and I would ask myself, Where am I seeing this? Where have I seen it? My Bible have little initials of names and places and chapter 12 one month would be meaningless for four months and then suddenly like, Oh my gosh.

:: 11:42:18

Speaker 2

So wisdom for today is right there, you know?

:: 11:45:08

Speaker 1

And who knows? You might have been the one that gave me that idea because I did that for years. I actually grew up in a in the church and in Christian. I'm a very legalistic in some ways going to a Christian school. But I came from a very broken family, a lot of hypocrisy and kind of to two lives going on.

:: 12:01:16

Speaker 1

And I realized as a young man, I don't know what it means to be a good father, a good leader, a good husband. And so someone gave me that idea, and I may have come from you, I don't know. And I started I got it from.

:: 12:12:02

Speaker 2

Somebody or.

:: 12:13:00

Speaker 1

I did the same thing. On the 10th day of the month. They read Proverbs ten on the ninth. And exactly like you said, Proverbs ten may not mean anything to me for a long time. And all of a sudden one month I read it. And because of what's going on right.

:: 12:24:05

Speaker 2

Now.

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Speaker 1

hat made this mistake back in: 1994

:: 12:40:17

Speaker 1

We have this curriculum, but I'd love for someone who has wisdom and years of experience and leadership and innovation to unpack this a little bit, to think through, First of all, from a philosophical perspective, what is it about human choice that makes it so powerful compared to the animal, the rest of the animal kingdom, if we will, the rest of the animal kingdom?

:: 13:00:15

Speaker 1

And then also I want to jump into the theological side. So for a second, for a moment, try to pretend that you're not coming from a faith based perspective and just from a philosophical perspective. That's kind of unfair to do for you because everything is filtered through a theological perspective with you right?

:: 13:16:03

Speaker 2

Well, it is for everybody, actually. It just depends on what the knowledge is. Go there. Go.

:: 13:20:18

Speaker 1

I don't want to I don't want to hear what you just said, because there's a lot of truth in that.

:: 13:23:23

Speaker 2

Yeah, we are. I mean, we all have a worldview. My worldview has the idea that Jesus Christ is creator of the universe and the savior of the world, and someone else might say, All that is baloney, Confucius or whatever it would be, they follower. No, I make my own path and every single person has a worldview, a grid through which a human.

:: 13:47:17

Speaker 1

That would say there is no God where, but that's their worldview.

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Speaker 2

So and your worldview impacts how you make decisions. And so to me, so what if you really.

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Speaker 1

Think that's a that's a dumb question. Yeah.

:: 14:01:16

Speaker 2

No, no. But if you want to make wise decisions, the first thing the question is your worldview, is it accurate? And I think a lot of us, we're like fish in water. Yes, a fish has a water goes what water? It's all that's known. So no matter what worldview we have, even as a Christian, I would say, well, have you really thought through your Christianity or is it just something mom and Dad had?

:: 14:25:17

Speaker 2

Or is it cultural? Because there are all kinds of implications. Implications? Get that word out. I speak for a living, not a very good one that come from our worldview. We just make assumptions. So, you know, the old classic, we cut the end of the roast off and finally ask, and it was God's great. Grandma's oven was too small.

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Speaker 2

So it's a family tradition and there are all kinds of things that we do that way. We think, well, this is what integrity is, This is what morality is, this is what everybody does. And for me as a believer, even, well, this is what Christianity says. Well, is that really what it says? Or only the Christians I've known have said it.

:: 15:04:21

Speaker 2

So wise decisions start with constantly checking upstream. Does my worldview fit with reality? It always needs some midcourse corrections.

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Speaker 1

Let me just jump in here real quick and I want you to keep unpacking it because this is so deep where you're going with this. In my mid thirties, I was reading a book about worldview, the importance of worldview, and they asked the question at the end of the book, Where's your worldview tainted? And I wrote the author that I said, You messed up my sleep for several nights because I wouldn't I wouldn't buy into or live out my worldview if I didn't think it was working or that it wasn't truth.

:: 15:40:21

Speaker 1

But he made me step back and go, No, actually there's all kinds of things that are familial or cultural, cultural Christianity sometimes. And I still to this day, now almost 20 years later, I'm I'm still rocked by that question. Yeah, That's actually what you're telling us right now, right?

:: 15:57:23

Speaker 2

You always ask, is this true? So a few moments ago, we were talking about idolizing the early church. I had done messages on why we want to be like it. Then I like I read. Let's read the rest of that's where the lens of was at early church doing that. Oh, well, they didn't want anything to do with general Gentiles.

:: 16:17:23

Speaker 2

In fact, they fought tooth and nail when Gentiles started showing up, they were supposed to go out in all the world. Instead they stayed behind with their holy huddle. Well, actually, if I want to follow things they do, do I have to meet every day? I mean, it just it just falls apart. So part of even for me is when I have the privilege of teaching the Bible, I always love to just sit on the side and look at the passage and go, Ha, let's read the whole picture here and see the context of it rather than, you know, I call it Jesus jok little phrase.

:: 16:49:00

Speaker 2

It goes on a coffee mug or a poster or whatever it would be. And that's true in every part of life. It's more true today than ever because of social media. And what social media has done is we've always lived in echo chambers. Always have. Yes. But it used to be your neighborhood or your geography. So somebody from the Deep South would have a harder time when they moved to New England or all these different things because they were actually in an echo chamber.

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Speaker 2

But now our echo chambers are by choice. So we can live in a a talk radio left or talk radio right world. We can live in Fox Land, we can live in mass NBC land, and everybody thinks they've got the perfect balance. But the reality is there is so much if you stay only in your echo chamber. That is true and so much you think is true, but you've never checked because you believe it, because somebody told you, I get that all the time.

:: 17:46:05

Speaker 1

You're saying, well, you're suggesting that our echo chambers may be even worse off than in the past because of social media?

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Speaker 2

Way worse off than in the past. I do this all the time. I hesitate and I spend an hour and a half pretty much every day chasing things on the Internet little system that I set up feeling that my calling in life means that I better have a strong worldview of not what people say about these people, but what they actually say.

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Speaker 2

So I literally read the original source newspapers and things from the left and from the right every single day, and I laugh at how inaccurate each side's idea is of what somebody else thinks and believes. So when I'm in the right, anybody who disagrees with me is obviously stupid or immoral. And I get over to the left and of course, vast majorities in between on this continuum, but they do the same thing.

:: 18:44:05

Speaker 2

Anybody who's over here clearly is immoral or stupid. And I know they're not. Yeah, no, they're not. Yeah, that's how it is. Part of life. Always. Question Is this true? Yeah. A contractor knows measure twice, cut once.

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Speaker 1

My dad would tell you I never learned that.

:: 19:02:01

Speaker 2

Tells you that he's not alive anymore. But he's been like. I tried to teach Patrick.

:: 19:05:20

Speaker 1

That when he was a.

:: 19:06:08

Speaker 2

Boy, and he never got it. That I cut. I cut once I have to cut to three or four times after that. And it still keeps getting too small. Yes, exactly. You can't lengthen or stretch your board.

:: 19:17:07

Speaker 1

So going back to the complexity of the power of choices then. So I totally agree with what you're saying. You can't separate theology and philosophy, but then what? What is it about us as human beings compared to all of the other creation that makes choice so powerful with us or with different?

:: 19:36:13

Speaker 2

Yeah, well, we seem to have the ability to be less genetic and environment driven than the rest of the creation. So we do get to a degree to create our own destiny. We can we can choose to go upstream, whereas you kind of you, you look in the animal world of God's creation and there's not a bird that can decide, I'm not going to migrate.

:: 20:01:05

Speaker 2

The drives are so great, whatever. And and so we have this ability to step back and say, do I really want to do this? But what we don't have is the ability to change the outcomes. Our choices are going to make outcomes even well intentioned. And one of the great myths of our culture right now is if I a piece about something, that's okay, because God must be good with that.

:: 20:25:21

Speaker 2

And if my intentions are good in my moral choices and life choices, everything's going to work out. But the truth is, if I take mislabeled medicine, I'm not going to get better. In fact, if my intentions were absolutely and I could die from it, even though I was told inaccurately by somebody well-meaning who didn't know, hey, take two of these.

:: 20:47:08

Speaker 2

I mean, it happens every day somewhere. And so choices have outcomes that are out of our control. Yeah, what we get to do is make the choice, which is why we need to measure twice and cut corners.

:: 21:00:03

Speaker 1

That's a double edged sword then, especially because there's good and bad with that, right? That from a faith based perspective, we would say as the pinnacle of God's creation, we see that in the beginning of the story, the beginning, the narrative he created is with this choice. And you're saying we're not like the birds, we're not running on instinct.

:: 21:16:08

Speaker 1

It's not just that you have to migrate. If you're a bird, you're going we can we can push back against that. What's the what's the good and bad of that then? Well, if we have that power as human.

:: 21:26:12

Speaker 2

This I mean, it's a beautiful power. The bad thing is we also tend to make ourselves our own God in the center of the universe. And so we think we know better from a biblical viewpoint. You see that in Adam and Eve from the very beginning. Well, you know what? Maybe God's holding back because I don't quite understand this.

:: 21:47:09

Speaker 2

And he he does seem to have died of this thing. So let me eat it, not realizing, Oh, it was spiritual death, not physical death. And it's a lie that is continued to this day.

:: 21:58:07

Speaker 1

That's why I was smiling when you said that when you use the words because they didn't really understand it. I'm like, man, how many times does that got me in trouble? I didn't really understand what God was doing. So then I decided I was going to do something my own way. And that's where you're going. That's that. That's one of the negative sides.

:: 22:13:03

Speaker 2

Everything has a built in consequence and we have bought the lie that good intentions and feeling peace about something means it's okay. Yeah. I grew up in a generation that felt peace about, you know, I grew up here near the beach. We felt peace about going to the beach and putting baby oil all over our skin. And now we know where that's gotten.

:: 22:34:10

Speaker 2

Yeah, but we all feel good about skin cancer. That was a whole period of time where people felt peace and really good about. And hey, the site's verifies bloodletting will make this person better. Yeah, that's why I say I always go. I want to see what the results are. I don't care about your watering schedule. I want to see the fruit and the fruit.

:: 22:54:05

Speaker 2

So good. I need to change watering schedule. No matter how much peace I feel about it or what everybody else is doing.

:: 22:59:12

Speaker 1

That goes back to that book though. The earlier in this interview, you start talking about this this book that you read many, many times proverbs that goes back to the value of that, doesn't it? Because those proverbs are time tested.

:: 23:12:07

Speaker 2

Their time thousand year old, they they flow out of a value system, you know, and if I believe these things are true, then I'm going to make different.

:: 23:20:21

Speaker 1

So unpack that. They flow out of a value system.

:: 23:23:06

Speaker 2

Well, a person left of their own is going to make a mess of their life. A generous person is going to be well watered, well in in the short term, Generosity doesn't always seem like the right thing to do. But if you really believe, well, no, that's an insight into how life works, then you're going to grit your teeth and you're going to be generous.

:: 23:45:03

Speaker 2

I mean, as silly. A little things of the service someplace as poor. Well, can I be generous and make somebody who's having a bad day, have a better day? Or is everything hyper transactional in my life? Oh, Proverbs would have told me, you know what? Give first and and be generous with people. Proverbs also would have told me the flipside of that what's often called a poverty gospel, that in the house of the wise are stores of oil and grain wealth.

:: 24:14:20

Speaker 2

Am I a pure existentialist that believes, you know, I live once better take it all now, or do I live below my means? Do I build margin in my time? Do I build margin in every aspect of my life? Because in the house of the wise are stores of these things or nope, use it or lose it. So over time, all of these things really are creating that upstream value system.

:: 24:39:08

Speaker 2

Yeah. Out of which you decide to do something or not do something.

:: 24:42:22

Speaker 1

This is why I want you to unpack that because that's so good. Years ago I read Blaise Pascal that whatever century, centuries ago, right. The French philosopher theologian, and he made a quote. He said, I may goof this up, but he said, every man does what's in his best interest all the time. And I struggled with that. And then he started really thinking through, I'm like, that's deep, because it's true.

:: 25:04:05

Speaker 1

You're going to be what you're saying is you're going to be generous if you believe that your value system comes from the fact that, well, actually God says generosity will reach generosity. And so you are doing that in your best interest, right?

:: 25:17:04

Speaker 2

Nobody is altruistic. You know, we think idealistically you should be. Nobody is.

:: 25:23:21

Speaker 1

See, that's and that's so that's so contrary to what we hear so often now. But because we want to believe we are right.

:: 25:29:23

Speaker 2

Yeah. Well, we want to believe where this paragon of virtue each of us on the is I mean Jesus himself the ultimate one calling to sacrifice. What's he do? He talks about a reward. You give up this and this and this. Here you're going to get more. So the question is, at the end of the day, what's best for me?

:: 25:48:21

Speaker 2

You know, what's best for me to put the needs and interests of others is more important than my own. Now, there's a Bible verse. It says that in a book called The One of a Kind in the Apostle Paul, one of his letters, and he said, Do nothing out of selfishness or empty conceit, but consider the needs of interest, others more important than your own.

:: 26:07:19

Speaker 2

And then he says, Why? And he says, You ought to have the same attitude you had that Jesus had. And he goes, How Jesus laughed. Heaven became a man, went all the way to the cross and died. And then he ends. And therefore the Heavenly Father exalted him above to the whole names. Yeah. And so right there in that call to put others first is Yeah.

:: 26:29:21

Speaker 2

An example of if you do. Yeah. But you want to set it the right hand or left hand be a servant. Yeah. So at the end of the day I go, don't give me this altruistic stuff. And it's not that I'm manipulating people. It's no out of a really pure heart. I've come to believe the best thing to do for me is to the best thing for others.

:: 26:52:04

Speaker 2

Well, and that's the ultimate win win, I would think.

:: 26:54:17

Speaker 1

Absolutely. And this is circling back around to what you said earlier, right. That your your worldview, your value system, the choices we make are going to flow out of that, correct?

:: 27:06:16

Speaker 2

Absolutely. Yeah. Absolutely.

:: 27:08:03

Speaker 1

Yeah. So how how does someone lead themselves out of poor decisions or failures? Because there's not a listener who's going to listen. Maybe again, this, this whole podcast is built off of these guys that made this mistake. We're making this movie about it, and they're still paying the consequences of that. But any listener can look back on their life.

:: 27:28:23

Speaker 1

They've lived very much life at all and they see these mistakes they made and maybe they're still paying for some of those mistakes. How would you help someone lead themselves out of those situations?

:: 27:39:21

Speaker 2

This sounds simpler to say than it is to live, but at the end of the day, you wake up every day and say, What is the right thing to do? Now it's as simple as that. And on the front end you won't have the problems. But let's say you didn't listen today. Well, there's always a right thing to do now in this situation.

:: 27:58:23

Speaker 2

And so, Joseph.

:: 28:01:04

Speaker 1

This is why I underline so much of your book.

:: 28:03:05

Speaker 2

That's so good. Yeah, I mean, simple but profound.

:: 28:06:12

Speaker 1

Yeah.

:: 28:06:20

Speaker 2

It's every day there's. Well, now that I'm in this situation, what is the right thing to do to come clean with it, to respond with it, to accept the consequences of it. You know, there's there's a guy in the Old Testament, a Hebrew scriptures named David. And I mean, he jacked up his life one day, but the one thing he constantly did was accept the short and the long term consequences.

:: 28:31:19

Speaker 2

A lot of us think it's okay to accept the short term consequences. I've I won't do that again. I'm truly sorrowful for that. I've changed. And so we think the long term consequences ought to be taken away. And they aren't. I tell my kids runners and when it came to track, sometimes you get you'd clip the heels of somebody in front of you or they would do that cut off.

:: 28:57:02

Speaker 2

And let's say you fall down in a four lap, one mile race. Well, the truth of the matter is when you get up, you have to run faster than everybody else just to catch up. And and once you've kind of caught up, it's like, well, this is unfair. So we want to stop the race and get me back to where I was.

:: 29:17:06

Speaker 2

Well, you fell. Whether it was your fault or not. What do you do right now after your fall? You get up and run as fast as you can and see how far you can go. And and I find every day is like that. Yeah, I've had failures in my own life and it's like, Oh, crud. Yeah, but this is where I am today.

:: 29:35:13

Speaker 2

What is the right thing to do today? And for Joseph, the right thing to do was run and then it ended up, I'm in jail. You can sit there and be mad at God or you can go, Well, I'm in jail. What's the right thing to do now? I'm in jail.

:: 29:49:00

Speaker 1

Accepting the short and.

:: 29:51:00

Speaker 2

Long term.

:: 29:51:22

Speaker 1

Consequences and what is the right thing to.

:: 29:54:05

Speaker 2

Do. And we always think the long term consequences should be taken away. Once we've proved that we're accepting the short term. Everybody wants to do that. And it's like, no, you drank too much, your livers jacked up forever. Don't be going, God, why am I dying of a liver cancer? It's like, Well, because you drank too much. But even as you're dying of liver cancer, there's a right thing to do every day and a wrong thing to do every day.

:: 30:20:03

Speaker 2

That's never a day that you can't wake up and say, What's the right thing to do today in this circumstance.

:: 30:26:15

Speaker 1

Man, you almost have me speechless. You really? Because that is, man, I would tell our listeners that is profound, what you just said. And I think I mean, even as you're saying that I find myself where I'm almost speechless as I'm processing my own life and going where if I accepted some short term consequences and I'm refusing to accept the long term, that's a powerful question.

:: 30:50:15

Speaker 1

And then the the application part of is what is the right thing to do?

:: 30:54:02

Speaker 2

And it's not easy, but we can sell. It's called self-talk. In counseling circles, there is an ability we have God given ability to step out of ourselves and say, What will we tell someone else? Yeah. And when I find myself struggling with the situation I don't like in my control, out of my control, self-inflicted or the backwash of someone else's bad decision.

:: 31:16:00

Speaker 2

Yeah. Every single day I can wake up and ask, what's the right response today?

:: 31:22:14

Speaker 1

Wow. How would someone find you've written ten books you have? Where would someone find your information? What's your website? Well.

:: 31:31:00

Speaker 2

Larry Osborne dot com is my website. I don't post much there, but there's contacts up there. You know, you can always go to Amazon to get the books or North Coasters pick up some of the messages.

:: 31:43:07

Speaker 1

Yeah so let me you because like I said, I've read most of your books and loved them, maybe all of your books, but one of the titles that I really love is Accidental Fairies. Yeah. Where did that title come from?

:: 31:55:02

Speaker 2

Again, Just true. I love to sit back and go, What's it really like? So if somebody knows the New Testament, the Pharisees are always the bad guys. But when I step back and don't jump to conclusions, I look at the forest, not the tree. I realize, well, there was nobody more committed than they were. There was nobody more learned than they were.

:: 32:14:22

Speaker 2

There was nobody more disciplined than they were. And their number one goal in life was to bring glory and honor to God.

:: 32:21:00

Speaker 1

That's really good.

:: 32:22:11

Speaker 2

Yeah. And so what hit me is, oh, they weren't the bad guys, they were the good guys, but they did the bad thing. It's interesting to me in one passage where Jesus talks about you want to earn your own salvation, he says, Oh, it's easy. You just have to be more righteous than the scribes and Pharisees. Then he gives.

:: 32:43:21

Speaker 2

You've heard. But let me tell you a higher one. You've heard either. And then he ends it therefore be perfect. So he bookends what we've turned into a ruler to show that all we are, it's a ruler to show. Like on a Disneyland ride. You're too short, you'll never get into it. And he bookends it by, Oh, I got to just be perfect or can't do that.

:: 33:02:12

Speaker 2

But on the front, he says, You got to be more righteous. Describes the Pharisees. Well, we read that and go, Well, Pharisees were bad guys. They weren't bad guys. They accidentally became bad guys because they turn their focus into using their growth as a measurement to look at everybody else, to see how far short everybody else was. Yeah.

:: 33:24:15

Speaker 2

And slowly what happens is, is passion and success can turn into arrogance. You know, passion.

:: 33:32:23

Speaker 1

And success can turn you.

:: 33:34:09

Speaker 2

Because you start out going, look how short fire short I am with the goal out there and you're charging for it. And then you suddenly notice, well, some people certainly are falling back. And so then my eyes are no longer on where I'm trying to go, but how much further I've gone than everybody else. And that's accidentally in that book and the New Testament.

:: 33:56:08

Speaker 2

That's how they became Pharisees. Yeah, they started thinking, Well, I'm not perfect, but I'm sure way better than all these people. Yeah, the end result of that choice. Yeah. You've started down a path of arrogance.

:: 34:09:07

Speaker 1

Well, this is what I want to really encourage our audience to go to, is that Larry Osborne icon?

:: 34:13:17

Speaker 2

Yeah, Larry Osborne.

:: 34:14:13

Speaker 1

Doug Osborne dot com. Because your books are packed with that. You mentioned one book and I'm sure just actually.

:: 34:20:00

Speaker 2

Just go to Amazon.

:: 34:21:23

Speaker 1

Yeah well you're here let me just just read one of the quotes off of though because you wrote some blogs or something that are on.

:: 34:28:09

Speaker 2

Yeah yeah I've yeah, I it used to be called Larry Osborne live tell is able to get Larry Osborne but one of those Larry Osborne live I used to joke is it's really Larry Osborne dead. I don't put a lot of stuff there but there's contact information and all that.

:: 34:42:11

Speaker 1

Well, and here's one because right along with what you just said, because you just wrote one, I read it last night. I got on there, looked at some stuff again, and you wrote an article about the longevity in leadership for this. I don't know how long ago that was, but this is a quote from he said, Don't take yourself too seriously.

:: 34:58:07

Speaker 1

We're just a missed that here's that is here today. And gone tomorrow. That's from James. And you go on and you say when our work is done, God will say next and the kingdom will go on quite well without us. Absolutely. Oh, my goodness. That's a deep one.

:: 35:12:09

Speaker 2

Yeah, Well, it's to me it's very comforting. Well, people say of millennials, they foolishly want a world changing job. And that's true. But I always go, Have you met a boomer? They're just the backside saying they want a legacy. And I go, You're probably not going to have a world changing job. And Boomer, you don't really have a legacy.

:: 35:29:00

Speaker 2

Nobody knows. They're great, great grandpa. You play the role you're given, you do your best, take a nap and just enjoy the journey. Yeah, well, this.

:: 35:40:03

Speaker 1

Has an honor and a joy. When I used to teach speech, I always told people, Get off the stage when people still want more. Our audience right now, I guarantee you, is really mad as they can tell that I'm starting to bring this to a conclusion because they say, No, no, no. We want to hear more from him, and I wish we had more time because you are you have so much wisdom.

:: 35:59:18

Speaker 1

So I encourage again, people to go to Larry Osborne dot com and they can get they can get the books that you wrote and find some of the message. It's just you speak so but one fun things we do here to wrap this up is it's ironic because we call this no gray areas and I'm going to ask you to lie to me so our audience has heard from you for about 40, 45 minutes.

:: 36:19:23

Speaker 1

I've heard from you. We're going to see if you can you can trick us here. If you can stump us here. Two truths in a lie. You wrote something.

:: 36:27:11

Speaker 2

Down. Something down because it would be bad, a bad poker player. But one is I have not looked at this for the audience. I played on a basketball championship team in California. One of the best ones. I have won writing awards when I was young. That's what stirred my interest in writing. And I was CFO of an organization because I actually have some money gifts and like it.

:: 36:57:15

Speaker 1

Oh my goodness, this is actually good. You I don't know if you take this as a compliment, but you're a pretty good liar.

:: 37:04:00

Speaker 2

Because this is actually.

:: 37:05:08

Speaker 1

Really good. Because I could all three of those sound true to me. Okay. So the first one was played.

:: 37:11:11

Speaker 2

On one of the best teams in.

:: 37:12:10

Speaker 1

California. I didn't realize, you know, I've I've seen you speak a lot of it. But when I was just standing next to you when we came in here, I'm five nine, but you got to be six. Two, six, five.

:: 37:21:16

Speaker 2

Smile for a basketball player. I was a point guard. Okay.

:: 37:24:21

Speaker 1

All right. But still. So I'm going to say that's true.

:: 37:26:23

Speaker 2

Okay.

:: 37:27:19

Speaker 1

And then I'm going to say because see the CFO one, I know your gifts. I can see that you do really well in the business world as well. And then the writing. You're a great writer. I'm going to say the CFO and is true.

:: 37:41:06

Speaker 2

That is true. The one that's not true is any writing rewards. I hate writing. I love having written. Really? Yeah. And you've written ten books? I have 23 journals, all with about three pages in them. Yeah, that's. That's great. Well, I got it right. You got it right. Good for you.

:: 37:59:02

Speaker 1

Well, Larry, thank you again. Thank you for the impact that you've had in in lives in both the nonprofit sector and the profits sector in the church world in the kingdom. Impact. And as you said, if Jesus doesn't come back 30, 40, 50 years from now, a lot of people probably won't know Larry's name anymore.

:: 38:17:04

Speaker 2

I guarantee you.

:: 38:18:01

Speaker 1

But the impact you have will have will still be going on. So we are very, very appreciative of you. Thank you, Larry.

:: 38:24:00

Speaker 2

Thank you. Pleasure to be here. Yeah. Wow.

:: 38:27:02

Speaker 1

Now you can see why I was so excited to have Larry Osborne on here. What a man of wisdom. The takeaway for you and I is, Larry, challenged just by asking us, what can we do today? What can we do right now to begin making better decisions in our life? We can't change the past, but what can we do right now?

:: 38:48:01

Speaker 1

Like follow and subscribe to no gray areas? Have a great day.