Episode 237 - Entrepreneurs Are An Anxious People with Steve Cuss
Steve Cuss is one of the leading voices on anxiety and leadership in the U.S. His platform Capable Life is growing, while his book “Managing Leadership Anxiety: Yours and Theirs” has become a go-to resource for managers of capital in volatile markets and any leader who struggles with anxiety.
His professional journey began as a trauma and hospice chaplain, where he quickly learned that in order to help people in the worst moments of life, he had to know what was bubbling under the surface in himself: his fears, assumptions, exhaustion, and anger. If he didn’t, those things would infect his ability to connect with people when they needed it the most.
The counterintuitive life lesson: to deeply connect to God and others, we must connect to ourselves first. Steve joins us today to discuss how entrepreneurs can go from being managed by anxiety to managing their anxiety in health and productive ways.
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All opinions expressed on this podcast, including the team and guests, are solely their opinions. Host and guests may maintain positions in the companies and securities discussed. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as specific advice for any individual or organization.
Episode Transcript
Transcription is done by an AI software. While technology is an incredible tool to automate this process, there will be misspellings and typos that might accompany it. Please keep that in mind as you work through it.
Rusty Rueff: Hey, everyone. Welcome back to the Faith Driven Entrepreneur podcast. I'm Rusty. Our guest today is Steve Cuss. Steve is one of the leading voices on anxiety and leadership in the United States. His platform, Capable life is growing while his book Managing Leadership Anxiety, yours and theirs has become a go to resource for managers of capital and volatile markets and any leader who struggles with anxiety. Steve grew up in Perth, Western Australia and came to the United States to study theology. He holds a master of Divinity from Emmanuel Christian Seminary and is a spiritual care professional and the Association for Clinical Pastoral Education. His professional journey began as a trauma and hospice chaplain, where he quickly learned that in order to help people in the worst moments of their lives, he had to know what was bubbling under the surface in himself, his fears, his assumptions, his exhaustion, and even his anger. If he didn't, those things would impact his ability to connect with people when they needed it the most. The counterintuitive life lesson here to deeply connect to God and others, we must connect to ourselves first. Steve has served in a large church in Las Vegas as a chaplain at a level one trauma hospital on a ranch for struggling teens and as a youth minister in the Appalachian region. Since 2005, he has served as lead pastor of Discovery Christian Church in Broomfield, Colorado. He joins us today to discuss how entrepreneurs can go from being managed by anxiety to managing their anxiety in healthy and productive ways. Let's listen in.
Henry Kaestner: Welcome back to the Faith Driven Entrepreneur podcast. I'm here with Rusty and with William. We've got a great guest with us. Steve Cuss with us. And Steve, first of all, welcome to the program. Thank you for making the time.
Steve Cuss: Yeah, absolutely, Henry. Thanks for having me on.
Henry Kaestner: What we're going to be talking about today. Anxiety and leadership is incredibly important. I can't say that every single topic we talk about on the Faith Driven Entrepreneur podcast is relevant for everybody in our audience. And yet I know that this is one that is and it makes me think of some of my favorite times on the podcast. We've had, I don't know, 250 episodes or so, but two of my favorite episodes are kind of these bookends to the world of anxiety. And we had Phil Vischer on maybe podcast 18 or 20 or something like that. And if you find that podcast for our listeners, between minute 16, minute 20 he goes through and he talks about anxiety and he talks about the fact that if our identity is really in Christ, that will help us to not be afraid of things and help us to not have a lot of anxiety. And that was just a really brilliant 4 minutes. And then, I don't know, maybe 20 episodes on, we had Casey Crawford on and Casey like, Dude, I got to tell you the first time on the podcast, but I've been wrestling with this Phil Vischer podcast, which I love, But, you know, I see a lot of great leaders in the Bible, you know, with some level of anxiety. I see Jesus, you know, sweating blood in the Garden of Gethsemane. I see, you know, David kind of stressed out. So, you know, what does the anxiety look like? And so we looked at that a bit in that podcast, but he's not an expert on it. Fortunately, you are. You've been a pastor of trauma and a hospice chaplain. I mean, talking about areas of massive stress, you probably actually seen people sweat blood and now you're an author and teacher. You've written in a book Managing Leadership Anxiety: yours and theirs, which sits at this intersection of psychology and theology. And it's incredibly applicable to lives of faith driven entrepreneurs. And so based on what you've included in your book, what are the common patterns you've seen for anxiety and leaders? What are the unique generators of anxiety that that you've identified for leaders? How do you process this all specifically for entrepreneurs? Please.
Steve Cuss: Yeah that's a fantastic question. Obviously, it's a big question too, that, you know, as a general rule, the best thing, first of all, is to realize that that one word anxiety covers so much territory. So you're talking about Kenya, Nairobi. I've been there a number of times. Most of the people who live in the slums of Nairobi who are, just like you said, these entrepreneurial people in Nairobi. Last time I looked into it was like 85% unemployed. So entrepreneurial ism in a place like that is essential. It's really the only way out. But most of them are dealing with trauma, have a traumatic upbringing and so on. That's one kind of anxiety. You mentioned Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane clinically he was in acute anxiety, acute anxieties, life and death. When you know that you're facing a life and death situation. Obviously he knew. But the same experience happens to us when we're driving on the interstate and we have to swerve and brake to avoid an accident. Our body kind of puts us in what's clinically called acute anxiety. Most entrepreneurs and most parents deal with a type of anxiety called chronic anxiety. That's the field that I'm trained in. And what's fascinating about chronic anxiety is it's generated by false belief, false need, it's generated by assumptions. So when Jesus is in the Garden of Gethsemane, he's not anxious because he has false assumptions. He's anxious because he's facing a painful death. People in the slums of Kenya, their anxiety, they do have chronic anxiety, but that underlying trauma, it has its own rulebook. But entrepreneurs, parents, any staff, environment, Thanksgiving dinner, any time you watch a TV show like sorry, we're four dudes on this, but Gilmore Girls, for example, would be a great example of chronic anxiety. I get chronically anxious watching Gilmore Girls with my daughter because it just drives me crazy. But chronic anxiety is based on assumptions. So if you think about, for example, my need to be impressive, my need to always get it right, my need to never make a mistake to win over everybody I meet, these would be assumptions, these would be false beliefs. And what's fascinating about chronic anxiety is the only kind of anxiety that's contagious. That's why I wrote yours and theirs, because in any any group Thanksgiving dinner, staff meeting, you know, startup, venture capital conversation, whatever, because I have assumptions and you have assumptions because I have expectations and you have expectations. Any time you break my expectations, I get what's clinically called chronically anxious. So I appreciate, you know, what Phil Vischer said. But really, chronic anxiety isn't so much worry and fear. That's a misunderstanding. It's reactivity. So the question is, what makes you reactive? That's how you know you're chronically anxious. So I was at an airport in Sacramento last week and there was a huge line for the rental car shuttle, like literally 150 others. I'd never been in a line that long for a rental car shuttle. Finally the shuttle shows up and three guys walk out of the airport just in time. And you can see they think they can skip the line. Well, an expectation I have because of my upbringing is everybody waits their turn, nobody gets ahead. And because they violated my expectation, I caught the anxiety. I then got reactive, which in my case makes me look bigger. And I called them out in front of everybody and hey, hey, hey. I actually yelled at these guys this last week. By the way, this isn't like way back when I was a sinner. This is like recent. And I called a meeting. I made sure that everybody knew that these guys were cheating. You know, none of it ended well. But this is reactivity. And so entrepreneurs, workplace, home place, raising kids, this is the garden variety anxiety that everyone faces. I first learned about it, when I was a trauma chaplain, it's changed my life. And as a pastor, that's my vocation. I'm primarily a pastor. It was phenomenal to me when I discovered that chronic anxiety is based on false belief. Then in every real and visceral way, the gospel helps us lower our anxiety. So yeah, that's kind of it in a nutshell, and I'm happy to chase it wherever you like to go from there.
Henry Kaestner: Well, I mean, there's so many different places. Max Anderson's been a frequent guest on the podcast and he talks about the fact that entrepreneurs are 50% more likely to have a mental health condition and two times more likely suffer from depression and ADHD. And so entrepreneurship can be a really stressful environment. And there are a bunch of things I want to work in. I think maybe Rusty and William will take us there about, Gosh, what's it like to be a trauma chaplain? And what does that teach you about humanity and life and faith and peace? And there's a lot there. But first, on the entrepreneurship side, as an entrepreneur, you need to fundraise, you need to take on risk, you need to make difficult decisions. And anxiety seems to be oftentimes a signal that something is wrong and something needs attention, but maybe not. How do you process as an entrepreneur these feelings that you're having and what's a framework to be able to kind of deconstruct them in the moment? You talked about that with the guys, you know, with the rental car bus. How does an entrepreneur, when they feel these waves coming on, how do you kind of just like, okay, here's what's going on? I'm either a new [...] because you just said it's not that you're afraid of something, you're reacting to something. Give us a framework as an entrepreneur when we feel these waves come on to help us process real time.
Steve Cuss: A great question. You know, let's say you're an entrepreneur, you need to raise some money. You're having a meeting with a bunch of venture capitalists. That kind of anxiety is generally healthy. That would be more of a public speaking anxiety, kind of an adrenaline that you really need to do a good job. But then there is this chronic anxiety and it has five markers to it. Five indicators control when you have to be in control. So the difference between that good energy of presenting well versus the need to control every outcome in that venture capital meeting. So one's control, one's perfection, the need to always do it perfectly. One is always knowing the answer. When someone has a question, the fourth one is always being there for others when they're hurting, and the fifth one is people's approval. So it's control, perfection, having the answer, being there for others and people's approval. Every human being is triggered when we don't get up to any of these five. So if an entrepreneur is in that venture capital meeting, or maybe they're doing a job interview and trying to recruit someone, whatever the situation is, you know, a lot of anxiety is actually healthy. But when it crosses into needing to do it perfectly, you never get that false need. That's what makes you anxious, is instead of saying, you know what, I did that well, or instead of saying, for example, an entrepreneur, well, you know, you take your perfectionist, they believe the lie that they're supposed to get it perfectly right every time, the first time, even though they've never done it before. So they don't get that A-plus. And then what happens next is they end up replaying in their mind, they beat themselves up, they're in a critic moves into condemnation and they can't rest. They can't mentally rest, and then they can't be present to their loved ones because they're busy trying to attain that perfection. They'll never get another one just to flesh out, because this is one of mind being there for others. If somebody, somewhere is hurting, I have this compulsion to rush in, and I think it's about that person. Even honestly, guys, I even blame Jesus for it. I even claim that Jesus says, you know, love your neighbor, carry one another's burdens. But what I'm not aware of is it's actually my incessant need to be needed that's being like driven rather than God actually leading me by God's spirit to help someone. So the first step and this is a deeper probably tool that we can do on a podcast, but the first step is to start to get to know which of the Big five is your driver. For some of us, it's all five. Most of us it's a few. One of them for me is having the answer. If somebody ask somebody like even on this podcast if one of you asked the other one a question. I will feel compelled. Actually, I did it during the promo when you guys were talking about Kenya. I had to stop myself from saying, I've been to Kenya. Like, what is that? What's that incessant need in me to have the answer? That's my chronic anxiety
Henry Kaestner: I know that feeling. By the way, that feeling is going to serve you well during the lightning round.
Steve Cuss: Oh, good. Yeah, well, hopefully, Unless I don't know. And then I'll get really anxious.
William Norvell: I want to jump in about Gilmore Girls, but that's a separate conversation.
Steve Cuss: Well, I also host a podcast to my 15 year old daughter. Just joined me and we did a whole episode on Anxiety in Gilmore Girls. So yeah, you can chase that for a good time.
Henry Kaestner: Oh, my goodness.
William Norvell: In 100%.
Rusty Rueff: All right. I am going to stir us in another direction. The best books are those that people write about what they know. And so I'm assuming that you wrote your book on managing leadership anxiety, that it could have had a third title, which is not just yours and theirs, but also mine.
Steve Cuss: Of course. Yeah.
Rusty Rueff: Take us through your journey with anxiety and how it got you to a place to write a book.
Steve Cuss: Yeah, well, great question. Yeah. I graduated from college. I needed a job for a year. I kind of stumbled into chaplaincy because they were hiring and paying and didn't realize it would change my life. That, you know, I am kind of entrepreneurial and driven. I like innovation, I like a lot of ideas. But what's interesting about trauma chaplaincy is all of those skills become liabilities in the face of grief and loss. You know, grief and loss is actually about rather than being proactive, it's actually the capacity to restrain yourself. And so that year, as a chaplain, I attended to, you know, 250-300 deaths in that year, you know, dozens of times a day, people asking me to beg God for a miracle like you think about chaplaincy is so intense, no one ever calls a chaplain in when they're bored and just want to watch TV together, it's always at the worst moment of their life. And that's really I was 24. I was very young, and that's where I discovered my anxiety. I never would have described myself as an anxious person, especially as an Aussie Australians. We work really hard to look like we're fine. And so under the surface of my awareness, were all of these expectations, all these assumptions, all these false needs, that when I'm in a room where somebody is actively dying, all of these things under the surface are bubbling up and trying to get me to do something, say something like, Sir, for example, one of my assumptions would be, I believe I'm supposed to make people feel better, but when you're in a room and someone's dying, that's too big. No human being can speak to it or do anything to take away death. And it really taught me how do I actually enter someone's pain. Then I got really sophisticated. I was trained in a study of anxiety called Systems Theory. That's what I go around the world teaching people now. And what's interesting is how when you're chronically anxious, it actually puts you in a false reality. So when I was in line at the rental car, I was no longer just another customer in line. I'm now judge, jury and executioner. I'm in a whole different reality. And so that's why I train people, because I have bet my whole life that Jesus sets us free and we relate to God in concrete reality. But chronic anxiety puts us in a false reality. You see it all through the Bible. You see it in Judas. You see it when James and John are bickering to Jesus, this false reality is all in Scripture. But that's what I noticed most when I was a chaplain, how often I was in a room with someone who was suffering and my chronic anxiety was giving me a false gospel. Steve, you're got to say something. You're going to do something. You're going to make it better and learning to notice it, get underneath it and invite God down to the deep wells of my life. That was profound for me. And so I've been a pastor 26 years. That's how I pastored. What's interesting for me, as I hand my church over Christmas to a young lead pastor, I'm now an entrepreneur. I now do what you guys are coaching on. I'm traveling the world, teaching anxiety and managing my own financial anxiety, trying to figure out what do I offer all of this stuff because I'm only ten months into being full time in this. So I kind of have a foot in both camps, but that's really where it started for me.
Rusty Rueff: It had to be tough as a pastor. Just opening up yourself to your congregation and to others about your own anxiety. I'm interested, you know. How did that come about?
Steve Cuss: You know what a great question, Rusty. I have discovered that if I can just be exactly human sized in front of my congregation, if I can enjoy God in front of my people, it relieves me, because I do think a lot of pastors carry a false expectation to be the example. And I guess my question would be, yeah, we are the example, but example of what? And I do think too many pastors and too many congregants kind of expect their pastor to be the example of like this certain model, successful Christian. I would rather just be an example of a human sized follower of Jesus. So I shared my doubts, my fears, my anxieties very openly. Now, as a lead pastor for sixteen years and our whole culture of our church was a culture of openness. Because if you bring your anxiety out to the surface, it kind of dissolves that if you keep it hidden, it grows. It's a lot like shame and it's a lot like sin. So my job as a pastor was to create a culture where the pastors like the Chief of Anxiety and now the congregants can share theirs, too. And I was just very fortunate that when I was hired, the elders understood that that's what I would do, and they welcomed it. It was incredible. So I had an incredible leadership that I worked for that light to this vision of a human sized congregation. You know, what I say is we are humans size followers of a supernatural God. But we get anxious when we think we're supposed to be supernatural. It just to get theological for you guys, the reason we get anxious is we actually reach into God's job and we start doing God's job for God. So that control perfection. Having the answer, these five are actually the five core attributes of God. Anytime we try to be in control instead of just doing something well ordered, like the human size of control is order, the human size of perfection is well, and so on. So anytime we try to cross from human to God, we get anxious. Mm hmm.
Rusty Rueff: So I want to go into your a little bit in your book about group anxiety, but I want to ask you a question that I think you're probably well suited to answer. So. At least in the United States, it's almost become fashionable for people to say they have anxiety. Right. We're just seeing it. You know, William's in a business now that, you know, trying to get a business off the ground where he's, you know, chaplaincy and helping others. And while anxiety is real and we know that, you know, sometimes I wonder if we don't have a health system or other things that are just kind of continually pump in to our culture, you know, hey, anxiety, anxiety, anxiety. Let's let us take care of that. And you know what? If you've got it, okay, that's good. But even more so, let us take care of it. Is that an accurate perception that I've got?
Steve Cuss: It's a big topic. It's definitely worth longer than we probably have to chat about. My overall take is that culture now is more comfortable talking about what we all always faced but didn't know we had or didn't know how to talk about. So if you go back to the Greatest Generation, we often talk about, look, they went and tackled Hitler and rightly named. What we don't talk about is how many of those incredible men came home and drank everyone under the table and abused people. No, I'm not saying everybody. I'm not making a blanket. But there was this underhanded trauma response because no one in that generation could admit I need help because they tackled Hitler. I mean, why would you need help at home? So I do think each generation is becoming more aware and having more conversation. I'm sure you're right, Rusty, that there is a pendulum swing. There's no question like if chronic anxiety is contagious, then social media is the contagion spreading agent. Our reactivity is through the charts on social media. January six Insurrection can largely be described through the science of chronic anxiety. A lot of those people ended up in the capital. They were almost surprised they were there. They just got kind of caught up. That's because chronic anxiety is contagious, so we are catching anxiety from each other. I appreciate the younger generations vocabulary. I think they're much more able to talk and help. Like I'm a Gen Xer, help us talk about it. I think the interesting question maybe we could tackle is resilience. Are we becoming less resilient? Because I don't mind if we're talking about it so long as that resilience is still intact. And that's I think that's the bigger question.
Rusty Rueff: Okay. So talk to us about group anxiety.
Steve Cuss: Right? So if I have assumptions about myself and about you, you have assumptions about me, then our anxiety just spreads freely between us. Any married couple has experienced how anxiety can escalate in a fight, and the general rule is the most reactive person or the most anxious person in any room has the most power. So you'll often see if a CEO is trying to lead a new initiative and that one person is a skeptic. They're what we call. A Yeah, but. A Yeah, but what about this? Yeah, but what about that? Then their anxiety can infect the rest of the optimistic team if the leader's not careful. So I train leaders and actually entire teams how to pay attention to anxiety in a group. Because if everyone's committed to helping everyone stay human sized, the team health goes through the roof, staff turnover down. And so what you're looking for is patterns of behavior and certain indicators. So we have again, a bit more than maybe this podcast. We have 31 indicators that a team is anxious. One example would be when this triangulation triangulation happens any time three or more people are in a relationship, that only should have two people. So, you know, Rusty, if I talked about you to Henry and William, I'm triangulating, I'm not talking to you. A lot of people don't have the emotional maturity to talk to each other, so they talk about each other. That's a very simple indication that the culture is anxious, because anytime I talk about you and not to you or anytime I talk about you differently than the way I talk to you, I'm going to be anxious. I'm going to make the people I talk to, anxious. And when you find out about it, you'll be anxious. So there's 31 indicators like that that we look for in any organization. And then the other thing we're looking for is recurring patterns of behavior in any team. You take a staff that's worked together for a year and anyone listening to this can answer the following questions. Who on your staff uses the most words in a meeting? It's always the same person who's always the first one to speak up, who never speaks unless they're called upon and who has their own secret meeting after the meeting. Now, these four questions just indicate that over time, anxiety puts any grew into a predictable recurring pattern of behavior because your listeners already know the answers they already know. Oh, man, John says the most words and Sally has their own meeting after the meeting. That's because these behaviors become predictable also in marriages or raising kids, parents and children. And husbands and wives fall into predictably anxious patterns together. So your average marriage, what you fight about, might change. But the pattern of your fight, who starts it, who escalates it, Who needs space, who smothers that's predictable. And so someone with my training with systems theory, we can come into an organization only takes us a few minutes to uncover these predictable patterns. And my job is to help people vow to break some obviously some predictable patterns of very healthy laughter, playfulness, teamwork, encouragement. These are healthy, predictable patterns. But to try to look at the toxic ones and help resolve them. And really the role is you're trying to put the anxiety back on the person who's generating it. Oftentimes in an organization, especially with a CEO entrepreneur who's a big personality and maybe that big personality got the company five years in and now they're trying to establish what happens is that CEO's habits tend to generate anxiety on the staff, that maybe that CEO is like, well, you just have to deal with it. That's the way it is. And the staffs like, well, we wish you deal with it like you're wearing us all out. And so sometimes they have to come in and help everybody without blame carry the right amount of responsibility and anxiety each.
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Rusty Rueff: I want to ask a question, but make a point. At the same time, I think so many times we might not as leaders, have the language to talk about this. Right. We know there's tension, but we don't know what to call it and how to get at it. Any easy tricks there for a leader?
Steve Cuss: Well, I mean, yeah, I mean, I'm not the only person that's written about this, but I put a whole vocabulary in the book because if you can name it, you can tame it like everyone's experience, triangulation. But maybe you didn't know that's what it was called. Again, to William's point, why do we love Gilmore Girls? It's nothing but triangulation. So now that you know that you can look for it, you can invite the people in the triangle to d triangulate, have direct conversations. So on our church staff, we have two behavioral values that dead simple. Value number one, when at all possible, we talk to each other before we talk about each other. So in my church staff, it's no problem that you talk about me, no problem at all, especially if you need to vent. But I trust that you're first talk to me. The second value is the way we talk to each other is congruent with the way we talk about each other, because a lot of people vent. And then you get in the room and they shapeshift. That's anxiety. So yeah, there is a whole vocabulary. It's very simple. This is not complicated. It's just about noticing patterns. And I would say Rusty, a lot of people actually didn't realize that there was another way to go, that they could actually be free of these patterns.
William Norvell: Yeah. Steve, I want to go to, I'm thinking about some people listening that, you know, obviously the number one approach is to read your entire book and take detailed notes. So step one, some people may not jump on that. I don't know. I'm curious if you're a leader right now. I'm guessing everyone's nodding along at some level or two something, right? No one's saying I have no problem with this. I'm really sad. I tuned in. You're leading an organization right now. What's the first couple of questions or maybe first couple of actions that you would say, hey, you need to understand this or you need to ask yourself these questions is where would you start if someone had, you know, hey, I'm taking this seriously, but, you know, I've only got half an hour to really think through that.
Steve Cuss: It is a great question.
William Norvell: Where do I start?
Steve Cuss: Yep. And one of the challenges of entrepreneurial ism is the pressure to do, to do and be efficient. And unfortunately, this is not an efficient path. So if you only have half an hour, I would actually say don't open the door to this. But if you have half an hour a week, then I'd say, yeah, absolutely, open the door. This kind of thinking and approach takes several months, but step one is learn to notice when you are spreading anxiety. That's it. What are the signs that you are anxious when maybe you don't even know you're anxious? The simplest way to know you're anxious is to ask somebody who cares about you, how they know you're anxious before you do. And this is especially true for entrepreneurial, mission driven, others focused leaders. We are usually the last in the room to know when we're not well. But anxiety is like poker. We all have tells and so others can see it before us. By the time a child is nine, they can tell you your anxiety tells. So that's number one. Number two is deeper is can you commit to not spreading anxiety any more? And not catching it when others are spreading it. If chronic anxiety is contagious, then if the leader can be the one to say, you know what, as much as it's upon me, I'm going to try to not spread it and I'm going to try to not catch it. So what that looks like is usually I can tell I'm anxious because I'm blaming someone else. I'm irritated. Like those rental car guys. That was just evidence that I was anxious. I'm blaming them, you know, this kind of thing. But in systems theory, system theory has zero interest in blame. It's another thing I love about it, because I think that lines up with the gospel. Paul says one of the fruits of the spirit is self-control. System theory says your job is to control your self. Don't worry about other people. And so typically when I'm doing this stuff, people are always saying, Oh, I wish Jim was here. I wish Sally was listening. But really what happens is if your anxiety gets into a pattern, then what are you doing that's contributing to the pattern? So, you know, I'm always on time. I really value promptness and it'll be a simple pattern. Maybe John is always late and I tend to blame John, but I'm contributing to the problem because I'm not confronting him. So the problem is John is late. My attempted solution is act like he's not late. And then five times being late in a row, I'm now having an anger fantasy about John and think about firing John. But I've never had the courage to just sit down and say, John, here's the deal. And so if I take responsibility for myself, rather than blaming John and say, well, what am I doing that might be contributing to John always being late? Well, here's what I'm doing. Avoiding conflict like I always do. I love to avoid conflict. Okay. I can do difficult things because of Christ. I'm going to sit down with John and I've done this a number of times where then I'll say, Hey, there's two problems here. Problem number one is you're chronically late. Problem number two is I'm letting you get away with it. And I'm really sorry. I'm really sorry I've been letting you get away with it that does not serve you unreasonably angry at you. And I don't like that because I actually like you. I'm getting really petty like last time you were late, John. I count it up every minute that you wasted in the room. That's how petty I'm getting. So here's the deal. I am not going to let you get away with it any more. If you're late again, big, terrible things are going to happen. Armageddon is going to happen. What's that like for you, John? Like I've not been leading you. Well, that's different than me saying, John, John, you're the problem. So systems theory tells you to really focus on how you're the problem. Those are be. The two steps I would start with is how do I know when I'm anxious and then how can I commit to not spreading it and catching it? And I guess that was step three. How do I break the pattern where I'm contributing and feeding into the anxiety?
William Norvell: That does not sound fun.
Steve Cuss: Oh, it's such a great time on the end of it. So much freedom. So much freedom after that.
William Norvell: That stuff is so good and so not fun. Very pastoral of you. I was sitting there remembering. One of my favorite pastor jokes is when they're giving this hard sermon about a sin. And of course, everyone's thinking about the five people that need to hear that sermon. Cause they struggle with that now? Like if you're thinking of those five people, you probably need to pay attention to yourself. You're probably the one struggling. Don't send it to other people. Just pay attention.
Steve Cuss: 80 to 90% of systems training is focusing on yourself and you'll be blown away if you make yourself healthier and more aware and manage your anxiety, you will be blown away. How it can infect your organization. It's a gospel value Jesus' health infected ill health everywhere he went. And that's the same value that systems has. A healthy leader can infect sick people and make them well. And I think if I can just rant as a preacher, what our society is in most desperate need of is healthy Christians emotionally and spiritually healthy Christians. That's really the best evangelistic tool we have in a culture where people are suspicious about us nowadays.
Henry Kaestner: Amen. You know, you said something earlier on in the conversation that I clearly want to ask you about, which is resiliency. And the way you brought it up made me think that there is a resiliency needed within society, maybe within the church that maybe once existed, but might not as much anymore. But I don't want to presume what you're going to say on that topic, but I'm curious to hear what your thoughts are about resiliency.
Steve Cuss: I think resiliency is such a fascinating topic, isn't I mean, it's such an important topic. But when I study history and these resilient generations, if we go back to the greatest generation, you know, one of my favorite TV shows is Band of Brothers. It's such an incredible example that like Dick Winters, he's actually considered a model of system theory leadership. He did not catch anxiety around him and he did not generate it. He was healthy and he made his people better. Like actually, Band of Brothers becomes a great model. But I think the advantage that that generation had is they had a worldwide outside pressure and that's how you know your resiliency. We are recording this podcast right on the heels of Hurricane Ian. If we all went down to Florida, we would see that same resiliency at work on a local level. But the difference was World War Two lasted years. It took over the whole world. Hurricane Ian lasted a couple of days and the impact is going to be months. But that's where you can kind of test human resiliency as these local pockets of struggle and suffering. And then, of course, as a chaplain right down to the micro struggle of one human who is sick and how are they managing, facing death. That's to me, the only real way to measure resiliency. I was disappointed as a pastor that in America where we live, it did not feel like culturally COVID humbled us at all. It felt like that was an opportunity for us as Western people to get on our knees and seek God. And I didn't see a whole lot of that happening inside the church or outside the church. You know, a lot of church people love to blame, unchurch culture kind of drives me crazy as a pastor because I think Jesus spent most of his critique on religious people. But I didn't see a whole lot of that going on inside the church either. We kind of retrenched into our rights through COVID rather than died to self and sort the face of God. So that was disappointing to me. But I think that's how you find resiliency.
Henry Kaestner: So that's interesting to me. I had a maybe with some of our listeners. I have a little bit of a different take on that. There are things about Christian culture that deals with resiliency that does get me like there are seven and a half billion of God's image bears that do not live in the United States, and yet 2 billion of them profess the name of Christ. And yet when major calamities happen to Christ followers around the world, we're not getting on our knees and we're not mourning, we're not crying, we're not seeing the injustice and seeing what might we do about it. We seem to be much more comfortable and focus on the lives in our immediate periphery, and I think that's not so bad. If you've gotten down on your knees and prayed to God and said, God, how would you have me deal with this injustice? But maybe it's also that we are maybe you could speak this is that we are anxiety avoidant and we worry that if we get called into the anxieties that are outside in different countries, that it will trouble our lives. But like you, I mourn the reaction of the church at times and wonder why we are seem to all be coasting to our funeral. But is it because we're trying to avoid anxiety or any thoughts you have on that?
Steve Cuss: I think you've nailed it, Henry. I do think it is an avoidant issue. I think one of the massive cultural values in Western culture is comfort and another one is safety, whereas the gospel compels us to discomfort and danger for the sake of Jesus and God's people and lost people. So, I mean, I do think there is a compassion fatigue with globalization and global news. It's an ongoing barrage of brokenness. So which of the many broken places in the world do you tackle that's genuine? But I'm with you. I think as a general rule, Western culture is discipling us more than the gospel in the West. Again, man, that's a blanket statement. So there are of course, there's exceptions, but I do think that's what we're up against is, yeah, Western culture has a gospel and it says, Make as much as you can, be comfortable, be safe, you know, shop for a school based on the crime rates. But the gospel says, no, no, comfort zone is massively overrated. Not good for your soul. That's why, you know, I heard you guys talk about Kenya like I've been to Kenya, I've been a number of developing nations. And you talk about with a gospel thriving innovation, the way I grow being around there, I think that's where salvation is found. But I do think you've put your finger on a big issue there.
Henry Kaestner: With the worries of the world and the deceitfulness of riches. If we can get through that third level, we get this investment return that at a minimum is 30 fold. I'm an investor, man. If I can get a ten bagger man, I'm high five. And anybody who will hold up their hand to me but 30 fold, 60 fold, 100 fold, but man, that worries the world. It's difficult. And I tell you, you know, you get called in what's going in in Eastern Europe or caught in what's going on in Ethiopia. You can easily not look at that because we're focused on having, you know, time to fit in nine holes. So I'm just trying to understand if we indeed are healthy, does helping people who are suffering through a financial or spiritual poverty or whatever, they're maybe not as healthy, Does that make us more healthy or does that make us more weak? How do you think about that dynamic? Because that's what we're talking about. We're talking about anxiety and leadership. You're saying as we are strong and as we are healthy, we can then engage with other people that are broken and have anxiety and we can help to heal them. Does that make us stronger, make us more healthy, or does that drag us into the anxiety? And actually, while some of us rubs off on them, a bunch of them rubs off on us and we return from that staff meeting we had where there's some anxiety, a little bit more damage from the experience, or we return from a mission trip to Croatia, a little more damage to the experience. How do you have those type of interactions where you emerge healthier instead of weaker in both instances?
Steve Cuss: And I think the work that I'm calling for, you think about trauma chaplaincy. I would do these 28 hour overnight shifts in the hospital, just like medical residents do with sleep overnight and be on call all night. And typically, not very often, but occasionally you get four or five or six deaths in a shift. What a year of chaplaincy did was deepen my capacity to step into pain and be present to people and present to God in pain and suffering. I think the vision I'm calling us toward is to deepen our capacity. And so the only reason it would make us weaker is if we do have some kind of idolatry that's unaddressed. Like if you are in a chronically, systemically poverty situation, like the slums of Nairobi, like that's a tough place to go work. Chronic long term poverty. But if you have this false belief that you're supposed to make everyone better, it will make you weaker because it's going to reinforce this false belief and you're going to then do more and burn out. But you talk about a guy like Father Gregory Boyle, incredible Catholic priest in Compton. He's put 30 years in Compton, Los Angeles. He's probably gone to more teenage funerals than anyone has ever. And he is about the most joyful, alive human you can meet because he is there to learn and grow in Christ, not to live out of his false anxiety. So it's a great question that I wish I had a simpler answer.
Henry Kaestner: No, that was a great answer. Thank you. Outstanding.
Rusty Rueff: And as you said, we've asked a lot of complex questions. Now we're going to ask some really simple, easy questions. Okay. So it's lightning round time. You answer quickly. We asked you quickly and there'll be more fun than anything else. So I'm going to kick it off. Aussie, Aussie, Aussie, oi, oi, oi. Is that appropriate for me to say or should only Australians say it to each other?
Steve Cuss: Oh, you can say it. I think what your job is to say Aussie, Aussie, Aussie. And then we get to respond. Oi, oi, oi, I'd be careful doing both. You might end up in a bar fight.
Rusty Rueff: All right, that's good, good, Good to know. So your preference rugby or cricket?
Steve Cuss: Cricket, but, but they're not competitors. Those two sports don't compete against each other. But cricket for me.
Henry Kaestner: Okay, I was going to go. So Rusty took one kind of from me, but I was going to go. Rugby or Australian Rules Football.
Steve Cuss: Aussie Rules Football. Just because the state I was raised in some states play Aussie Rules and some play rugby. But if you're talking the All Blacks New Zealand with a haka rugby, every time.
Henry Kaestner: I'm reading a book right now on the All Blacks called Legacy, talking about their team dynamic and fighting with a purpose and about how their small country has been able to be so successful.
Steve Cuss: New Zealand is one of the most astonishing countries in the world and New Zealanders. I'll say as an Aussie we have a big rivalry with New Zealand. They're incredible human beings.
William Norvell: I have got one that's complex and I am excited to do it in 30 seconds pastorally. Obviously you just said healthy identity in Christ is the antidote to these things. If you had one thing to pass along to our entrepreneurs that they may not be seeing or they're missing in the gospel or in in the Scripture that can help them re anchor that, what would it be?
Steve Cuss: John says in one John 3:20 or 3:19 and 20. John actually gives us a way to be at peace with Christ. He says, This is how we set our hearts at rest in God's presence. Even when our hearts condemn us. God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything. And I think what happens is that in a critic condemns us that need for perfection, that need for control. I think Jesus died to release us from these false needs so that we can be exactly human sized in the presence of God. So what I do, I practice daily. I practice containment. With that inner voice of condemnation. I ask God to examine my false beliefs so that I give God the first word in my life and the last one in my life. Because that's what you do when you're in the presence of a king. You know, I'm an Australian. We have King Charles now. If he were to usher me to Buckingham Palace, I'm not just running my mouth. He speaks first. I get to speak and then he speaks last. Jesus is my sovereign king, so I'm trying to live my life where what Jesus says about me supersedes what I think about myself. And that's what I think a lot of entrepreneurs are lacking is this this pressure that God is not calling you to carry and listen. There's a false belief in entrepreneurs. I have to live under this pressure so he can be successful. You will thrive more and be more productive and more profitable if you are relaxed internally.
Steve Cuss: Wlliam, you're cheating. That's a deep question.
William Norvell: Oh, but it was so worth it. I've been thinking it for a while and I didn't see any place else to fit it in, so it showed up in the lightning round.
Steve Cuss: I feel like I should get some kind of credit or rebate. That was not lightning round.
William Norvell: Oh, but it was so good. My body, my whole body think I changed my whole.
Steve Cuss: Oh well you can see, you know I typically do a four day workshop like that would be my typical offer. And you can see why. Because people need time to hear this, talk about it with each other. So this is obviously a deeper process. If people want to dig in more, they want to set a few hours so we can, you know, get them talking to each other about it, because that's really how we change.
William Norvell: So now we've got 2 minutes. I got to end the farm. Most anxious disciple.
Steve Cuss: What a great question. Probably Peter, but his anxiety, his reactivity made him get bigger. So it's easier to see his anxiety for some people. Their anxiety makes them smaller. They get really quiet. There's no question Judas would have been very anxious. But Peter's anxiety is the most easy to see in the gospels. Foot and mouth disease, that whole thing.
William Norvell: Got it.
Steve Cuss: I guess, I got to add John's anxiety's more insidious where he he's like, Hey, Peter and I ran to the tomb and I want everyone to know that I outran Peter. Like, that's anxiety. That bragging is usually anxiety.
William Norvell: Oh, I love it. Okay, well, speaking of, you gave us a great scripture second ago, but we love to end our show by going back to God's word. And if you had something to share with us, maybe from today or maybe something you've studied, then just coming alive to you in a new way from God's Word, we would invite you to do that with our audience.
Steve Cuss: Yeah. Yeah. First, John, three, 19 and 20. That's the main passage I'd want to leave us with. I just think there's the gospel right there. And the idea that God supersedes my opinion. And that's how I live by faith. Because I have it in a critic and a voice of condemnation like everyone does. But that's how I truly relax into the grace of God. And I guess tied with that, I just keep thinking of Psalm 139, just the way David invites God to search him. David's like, Search me, Lord, show me my ways. And I love that. Even in the Old Testament, David is saying, I may not know myself, but you know me. So show me any ways where I can repent. So when I see the Scriptures teaching us to confess and repent, that to me is just a pathway to freedom. When I hear repent, I think, Oh, I get to be free. And so I'm often praying. Psalm 139 and inviting God to show me where I need to repent. What false belief that I am living for that's keeping me bound.
William Norvell: Amen. Amen. So grateful for you. So grateful for your work. Thank you for spending some time with us.
Steve Cuss: Yeah, thanks for having me, guys. There's a good time.