. Brandon West: Oftentimes my sense of success and identity are tied

to things they shouldn't be.

My bottom line, my bank account, my reputation, and they're going,

I know that's not the way it's supposed to be, but I'm having a

hard time getting unstuck from that.

And I'd like to trade the soul crushing weight of outcomes for the soul

lifting joy of a life lived for God in faithfulness and surrendered to His plan

Um, uh,

Tim Winders (2): How do you measure true success in leadership?

Today we're joined by Brandon West, a man of many roles, author, speaker,

entrepreneur, and pastor at just 26, Brandon founded FOSS creative,

a strategy first digital marketing agency that has earned accolades from.

to the Best Christian Workplaces Institute.

Beyond his professional success, Brandon is passionate about nurturing

faith in the marketplace, mentoring at Salt Church and enjoying

life's simpler pleasures with his family.

We'll dive into his new book.

It's not your business to succeed, which challenges conventional success

metrics and guides leaders towards a life of lasting impact and purpose.

Join us as we explore how Brandon's journey can inspire

your own leadership path.

Brandon, welcome to seek, go create.

Tim, what a joy, man.

So excited to be with you today.

Speaking about life's simpler.

Pleasures.

How's your wife Shelly doing

Yeah, my wife, Shelly.

Amazing, amazing woman.

We've been married for 18 years now, and she's an avid rock climber.

We live in Gainesville, Florida, so Tim was guessing whether or not

we were on a mountain or in a gym.

Let's just say that we probably couldn't rock climb a mountain for

miles and miles, even if we wanted to.

So in a gym, spiral fracture on her finger, had to have Surgery,

but I was able to be by her bedside yesterday and pray over her and make

her laugh coming in and out of nerve blocks and all kinds of surgery.

She's doing great.

I was confident walking out of there that the Lord was with us the whole

time and that, he met us and heard our prayers and the fact that any one of

us can say that about God's presence, given who we are, and our brokenness,

our sinfulness is just an amazing.

Privilege and delight.

So she's doing great.

Super thankful.

Good.

Now, is she gonna, is there any discussion yet about when she's going to get

back on the wall or climbing again?

Or is it, she's going to have to like take a pickleball or

what's, what's happening there?

Well, fortunately she likes pickleball as well, so that'll hopefully

be sooner, but she's also like, am I going to be able to grip the paddle?

I don't know if it was her, she would be back on the wall tomorrow.

So we'll see.

Well, anyway, we got the message like, we were

supposed to hit record yesterday.

Glory got the message.

So we did pray for y'all and expected good things from that.

And, anyway, I've got more questions later about family and things like that.

But let me dive into question number one here.

And it's kind of my, it used to be sort of icebreaker issue.

Now it's kind of got a little bit deeper.

So here's your choices.

Okay.

Brandon, you could either answer the typical networking, what do you do?

Which is fine.

I love that question.

Or you can answer the much more metaphysically deep, who are you?

Question.

So which question do you want to take and run with and go

ahead and answer it for us?

I'm going to answer what you do, but I'm going

to answer it for this reason.

I love and I am inspired by lives of men and women whose answer to

the question, what you do begins with a definition of who you are.

I love when men and women, leaders who I respect, leaders worth following.

are doing what they do based on a deep understanding of who they are.

I am a man created in the likeness of an eternal God who was once separated

from him by my sin, my rebellion, who God in his kindness sent his son

to be a sacrifice for my sin so that I could be freed from my sin, And

live for him and for his glory by delighting in him for all of eternity.

He has created me in Christ Jesus for good works and by his grace, he's opened

my eyes to moving away from a life of selfishness and pride and rebellion to

one lived in surrender and joy for him.

And that leads me to get to do the things that I feel he's called me to.

Each one of us created with a unique purpose inside of that unique

Positioning of who we are in Christ.

my personal mission is to pastor leaders in the marketplace.

That's what I do.

I do that through a really cool agency called FOSCreative.

And I get to do that in my home.

When I walk home to my wife and to my kids, and I get to pastor them, I get to

do that when I walk into my church here in Gainesville Salt Church, I get to do

that when I walk onto a stage like this.

I get to do that when I walk into a small group of young

married couples that we lead.

Everywhere I go, by the grace of God, lean into who he's created me to be,

to do what he's created me to do.

That's a great response there, Brandon.

You know, there, There's a lot of words that we throw around in our

culture today, especially in the, we'll call it the Christian circles,

you know, purpose and impact and, you know, word, words like that.

I was joking with someone I was interviewing that long ago that when

I was a full out heathen, I never thought anything of that, you know,

it wasn't even didn't cross my mind.

But when, you know, cause I, I know your, I think you're in your thirties.

Is that correct?

just 38.

Okay.

All right.

it's time's marching on Brandon.

So I just turned 61.

So let me I can give you a glimpse of the future but When how long do

you think you would have responded?

That way to that question.

I mean like go back 10 years 20 30, whatever Or was it last week that

you rolled out of bed and say oh now I know Who I am and what did it give

me a little bit of perspective of?

When you have stepped into that, Who you are and what you do type response.

Yeah.

Tim, I fully agree with you that purpose is sort of a first world problem.

And I get it.

Like, I remember two years ago, I'm driving down to this big party that

we're doing for foes, rent out this giant mansion to celebrate 10 years in business.

And on the way down, the podcast I chose to listen to was on Purposed as an Idol.

As much as I love living from Purposed, Purposed can Almost be distracting like

I'm seeking something that isn't God Its purpose is not God purposes from God it

you know people in the the developing world Often don't talk about purpose.

It's hard to translate into other languages I think where I'm coming from

it's I have this revelation recently that my Christian journey It started 20

years ago, actually began with Purpose.

I was reading Rick Warren's The Purpose Driven Life, and he was talking

about giving your life to Christ and purpose, like, write this letter to God

surrendering your life and like calling out for God's purpose in your life.

And I just thought, I've never done this before.

And I just wrote, Dear God, you know, come up.

And I'm writing this letter like, I don't want my life anymore.

I want yours.

And I think that was the first time I stepped.

towards purpose.

All of us have the exact same purpose, go and make disciples of all of the

world, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

That's everyone's purpose.

And yet there are these unique components where we can just go,

look, it doesn't define who I am to pursue or do this one specific thing.

People's purposes aren't tied to activities.

They're tied to Who we are becoming because as soon as you say, well, my

purpose is doing this thing and then you lose that job You lost your purpose.

My job was my purpose and now God's like, I don't want to strip that from you.

That's not your purpose Your purpose is for me Blessing my people bringing

something to the world and who you are and the message that I've given

you to steward I think purpose is a long journey And we asked simple

questions along the way to define it.

we make small steps towards a brave, long journey towards purpose.

Andy Stanley would say this purpose is found at the

intersection of a broken heart.

Opportunity and skill.

What breaks your heart?

Where is there brokenness and opportunity in the world?

And what skills do you have to bring to the table to solve that

brokenness and step into those places?

Purpose You can do that being a fry cooker at McDonald's.

You can do that tilling the soil in a farm.

You can do that as an entrepreneur.

You can do that, wherever God's called you to, and in the middle

of that, you can find purpose.

Yeah, I do.

It's interesting.

Something that just came to mind and I don't remember the exact source of this,

but it was someone who is, it was in a book, I believe that was talking about,

they were talking to their grandfather about what his purpose had been.

And this was someone who'd come through the depression and things like that.

he kind of scoffed would be a nice word to say what his grandfather said.

Purpose.

He goes, I got up every day, I attempted to get to my job so that I could bring

money in to keep food on our table.

That was what I was there for.

So I do think there's a certain degree of, like you said, first worldness

that maybe allows us a little bit of too much luxury to think about this

and maybe even overthink about it.

I know that you are in a college town.

Sarah, I know there's a community college there.

Is there a university there in Gainesville?

I can't recall.

There's a giant community college,

There is.

And then there's this other big school called

the University of Florida where the Gators play and Tim Tebow

Yeah.

so my point is, being originally from the Atlanta area and all,

and I went to Georgia Tech, but my wife went to University of Georgia.

So there's probably something there that we don't need to get into, but

there's a lot of young people around and

I'm guessing there's a heavy, heavy young population there.

What are you seeing?

What are they going through?

What's the biggest challenges?

What are they facing in this world that we're in today, where we're recording

this in late 24, people might be listening in, in 2025, give me some observations.

Yeah.

I'm going to speak from the perspective of where I sit right

now, We live in a generation full of anxiety and anxiousness and

Gainesville, the University of Florida.

is full of that.

it's interesting because the university is pumping out the anxious

generation of people who believe that the career they get and the

money they make is their purpose.

It is the definition of who they are.

And when the position is high in the organization and the

salary is high, I am successful.

And when those things are low, regardless of what I do, I am not successful.

I've missed something I have missed out on my potential in life.

And we see those things as the greatest evil in our society, and

what they do is they create anxiety.

They create a sense of our definition and worth tied to what we do, what we make.

And I am so tempted to do that, even in my own leadership.

When things are up and to the right, I am a great leader.

And when things are flat or down, I'm thinking, Lord, what have I done?

what sin did this man's parents commit that he would be born blind?

Like, we're just tempted to go there.

Everything broken in my life is broken.

In me, and that is a really hard place to anchor our identity.

what is it like?

Cause I know you have a business in that.

atmosphere.

You also have a church, so you do ministry.

what is it like for you personally just to be in that atmosphere?

But first of all, just hit each one of those.

What's it like to have a ministry where you're attempting to be

salt, I'm assuming, in that atmosphere, in that environment?

And then maybe talk about what it's like to have a company in that environment.

Well, here's the first thing that I would say.

Um, I don't see the work that I do at my church as ministry and the

things that I do at my business as my corporate marketplace leadership, when

people ask me, Oh, you're a pastor.

So you're like full time there.

I'm like, no, no, no.

I'm just, I'm a volunteer elder and pastor.

They're like, Oh, okay.

So you're not in full time ministry.

So no, no, I am in full time ministry.

And they're like, but you said you weren't full time in your church.

I was like, yeah, I'm in full time ministry at my business.

We We call it business as a ministry.

Bam.

That the reason that we exist is not some lifestyle business where I'm

trying to raise up as much money as possible so I can go play pickleball and

rock climb with my wife all day long.

I'm not trying to raise up so much EBITDA in the company that I can

go have some big exit one day.

I'm seeing actually right now.

Day to day, quarter by quarter and year by year, the grace of God displayed

in us chasing not fame, not glory, not money, but using everything we've been

given every platform, every influence, every bit of power and control or

finances that we've been, we've been granted to see it as a steward to

go and leverage it for care, love, compassion, evangelism, and ministry.

Our mission.

As a company is to cultivate true flourishing in people and

organizations while reflecting the love of Jesus to the world.

Our Our vision is to launch 30 care centers around the world that care

for women and children impacted by extreme poverty and sex trafficking.

We just launched our 17th care center now in 11 different

countries serving over 2, 400.

women and children.

To offer that, that is, that is ministry.

Even Billy Graham said that he believed the next big movement of God was

going to come through the marketplace.

I love what I get to do at Salt Church.

It's one aspect of my ministry.

But if each of us would just simply go, no, no, I am a full

time minister of the gospel.

Every single leader is a pastor, because you have influence and

you're working with people.

You get influence of people, you get to lead people, you get to manage

people, you get to shepherd people, you get to guide people somewhere.

And all of us are doing that.

The question is, who are they becoming?

Under our leadership, under our ministry.

that's leadership worth investing in.

But Brandon, you know this, that a lot of people really

do believe that you're supposed to keep those things separate.

I'm not saying that I do, but, I bring this up often here.

I spent some time at Bible school a handful of years ago and there really

is this pecking order of, you know, this is the way you serve God, you

missionary in a third world country.

That's like the most virtuous.

And then it just keeps kind of going down, but you know, you're Speaking

my language here, what do you say to people that say, Oh, come on, Brandon,

you need to keep these things separate.

Yeah, first, I empathize with the people who believe

that church, faith, religion and business should be kept separate.

That is the resounding marketplace position for any Christian leader.

And we only need a single cake baker.

Or another person to make the news or wind up in the Supreme Court being

sued for their Christian positioning in the marketplace to believe that

doing so is a waste of our resources.

I remember hearing about, David Green, the CEO of Hobby Lobby, once speaking

to one of his executive board members about, They're positioning in the

marketplace as a business, as a ministry.

And one of their risk analysis guys came by one of their legal people

and said, like, why would we do this?

Like what a risk.

And he sat there and told the man a story about the gospel

and the gospel going forth.

And the man with tears in his eyes left his office and he

didn't ever ask him again.

David's point was, why would we risk, why would we take

all these risks for business?

Debt, expansion, marketplace domination, new product lines,

new service, new people, open a new store, all these huge risks.

Huge risk with gigantic possible downsides.

But then over here, we're like, Hey, we have an opportunity here.

All these people who walk in every day for the gospel, for love, compassion,

ministry, empathy, discipleship, Bible study, prayer, growing them

as spiritual leaders in their home.

too great of a risk.

I empathize with the person who goes, you know what?

I bought into everything I got on the news yesterday.

I think I'm going to step out.

And that's one option.

Do your business, do great work.

You know, even Martin Luther would say, you don't have to put a Christian

fish on the side of your shoes to be a God pleasing Christian shoemaker.

You don't have to do that, but man, what an opportunity when we give up that

we give up when we waste our business.

We waste our business on the next earnings report when people are broken and people

are hurting and people are suffering.

And we have the best answer in the world.

And the best that we could tell them is no invest in these docs over here.

And I'm sure you'll be fine.

One day, what a, what an inappropriate answer for somebody who truly believes

that, The best answer to all of their brokenness isn't more finances, more

pharmaceuticals, more fill in the blank, and we're going, actually, this gospel

message is really good news to you.

It's good news to your soul.

It's hard.

There's a lot of risk involved, but where would we rather take

the risk as a faithful leader?

And what's truthfully, what's the alternative?

If people really understand the alternative, it is the choice.

Did you grow up?

In and around the church, I mean, were you, you know, from reading through

your book here, it is not your business to succeed, which fits so well into

what we do here at, Seek Go Create.

did you grow up in and around the church?

Do you think you might be moving into like a traditional ministry role or

give me a little bit of your background?

Yeah, so good.

I was interviewing somebody the other day and we were, I was attempting

to test their level of desire to join a company whose mission is by

choice, exceedingly Jesus centric.

And she turned to me and her response was, I'm, I'm good with it.

I speak Christian.

Bye bye.

And we, her and I both just started laughing out loud because we knew

exactly what she was trying to say.

Yeah.

I told her, I was like, look, we do not hire here based

on any preference, any position.

We hire everyone in the marketplace.

I just want every single person on the team to go, we have this

mission and it's about reflecting love of Jesus to the world.

I see in that historical figure, a love worth exemplifying.

I'm excited to be on this team.

We've had non, non believers on this team say that to me, and I turned to

them and said, that is why I hired you.

That is why you are here.

I didn't grow up, around, you know, Strong, faithful, gospel

centered, Bible driven, church focused leadership in my home.

I grew up in a loving home with parents that loved me really well, did fun things

with me, made life really enjoyable, took me to Bible camps and took me

to church on Easter and Christmas and a few times in between, but there

wasn't a deep love and affection for Christ and the gospel and Jesus.

But I'm thankful for the platform that they gave me.

I think I met Christ most face to face reading that book that I mentioned, The

Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren, but it came out of a summer in which I had

met a man at a Christian summer camp who to me, Seemed like the best example of a

true Christian that I had ever met before.

There was something about him where I said, man, whatever,

whatever joy juice you're drinking, like, I want some of it, man.

Because whatever you are, I want to be when I grow up.

And I think the Holy Spirit eventually brought to me this message of either

The conviction of my heart was either they're like a really super Christian

and I'm just like a nominal Christian, or they're a real Christian and I've

actually never tasted of the gospel.

And, when I was 16 years old, surrendered my life to Christ,

writing that Dear God letter.

And God's just taken me at each step and gone, I have something more for you.

And it's, it starts with a deep affection for me.

Did that, were you thinking at that point that you were going

to do something in a ministry space?

Were you going to go out into the marketplace?

where was your path leading and guiding you at that late teenage?

Because we all know exactly what we're going to do when we're 16, right?

I think growing up, I wanted to be whatever every

other young boy wanted to be.

I wanted to be an astronaut or a jet pilot or something awesome or work with, you

know, big trucks and things like that.

Eventually you start going through these classes in high school

that are talking about careers and you're like, This is real.

This is a thing.

And one of the first questions you start asking is how much

money do each of them make?

And so you just, you go up the chart to the one that has the highest number

and you say, fine, I'll be that.

And for me, that, that number on the top was a lawyer.

I was like, Oh, I love debating with my mom.

And that, that lawyer has a lot of zeros behind it.

Like I can do that.

I'll figure it out.

By the time I got to college, God had renewed my heart

and given me a fresh desire.

It was, I wanted to do something that I loved to do.

Joined the University of Florida, started in the graphic design program.

But I'm literally, my wife is an artist.

I'm in this graphic design program being told, you're not going to touch

a computer until your third year.

So I'm over in my kitchen painting Bob Roth, while she's over in her apartment,

dying doing chemistry and mathematics.

So we would just switch.

She'd be painting my landscapes and I'd be doing her math homework and both of

us were like, I don't think we're at the university for the right things.

So, we got married after our first year of college, moved in together.

At 19, we had our first kid.

At 24, we had our second kid.

And then at 26, I started, my company.

As I finished out the University of Florida, uh, I was like, this is, I

didn't come to UF to paint paintings.

So I switched to family youth and community sciences, believing that

that was the best thing UF had to offer me to go into pastoral ministry.

But then when I talked to my pastor a year later, he was like,

If you want to be a pastor, why aren't you studying the Classics?

And I was like, what is that?

I don't even know.

And he's like, that's Greek and Latin language, Greek and Roman history.

And I was like, that's John MacArthur's secret sauce.

That's why he's so good at teaching.

So I switched over, I completed my degree in Classical Studies

with an emphasis in Koine Greek.

A business administration minor, and basically what I got from all of that

was the name of my company, Phosts, which is the Greek word for light.

I'm glad you explained that because I told you

I'm going to need to ask that.

But I want to say I want to back up just a second because we have from the RV here,

the 39 foot RV, we have an incredible research staff that's in the back there.

And in the midst of the research for this interview, Brandon, we did find out

that you may have had one of the best.

I don't even know if it's a pet.

Pick up line or a way to find a, an incredible woman that we may have heard.

And so we are going to need to get your tips on how to find a wife.

How did you capture this Shelly?

Who's rock climber, brilliant, always sound like that.

So you gotta, you gotta give the tip here.

Our research staff did the research.

So tell us that story.

I will submit to you that while I'm about to give you this and have

recommended to my sons that they follow in like path, they have disagreed with me.

on the effectiveness of this particular methodology for finding the woman of your

dreams that God's called you to be with.

So we're in high school and when we go to the same youth group, we don't

realize it's at a big megachurch.

we had this, this, friend in common.

So I didn't know Shelly.

She didn't know me, but we both knew this one friend.

Well, they had this running gag going back and forth on

So that night, Mike walks into youth group, it's near Christmas, about

this time of the year, and Shelly hands Mike this Christmas present.

And it is a bag full of six rolls of toilet paper.

So in the middle of youth group, he and I go out to the parking lot and

from head to toe wrap her yellow Honda civic hatchback in toilet paper.

So you, it was, it turned white.

We took every single one of those toilet paper rolls and hung

it on her antenna on her car.

After youth group, she comes out, sees this, has a great laugh.

And we hop in her vehicle.

And that night, Shelly and I fall in love talking about.

scuba diving, Jesus, music, toilet paper, each other's cars, and she

teaches me how to, how to drive stick shift in the middle of our So my

sons disagree with me disobediently, but yeah, I mean, if it worked for

me, it must work for all other men.

See if you can toilet paper their vehicle, like Target,

church, wherever it needs to be.

Yeah, I think maybe there's more a message

of God's sense of humor, grace.

Maybe you think, or is that a tactic?

I mean, do you, I mean, I, you know, a little, a little booklet on, you

know, toilet paper, her car, she'll love you forever and I don't think so.

Gary Thomas's five love languages.

Like, it's an extra one for some women where it's like my love language.

is toilet paper.

So it's just, it's a sixth one.

You rarely get to that one in the book though.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

But, anyway, I, yeah, we, we saw that somewhere and said,

oh, that's pretty humorous.

So.

Alright.

So, so somewhere along the way, and, and I wanna jump a little bit to

the topic of your book, which is, it's Not Your Business to Succeed.

I had to read that like a few times to kind of grasp it, but it fits so well

into this foundational thing that I want to kind of ask right now, which is at.

At that time in your life, you kind of did a real quick of college.

You did some work, then you started your company at 26.

But how were you defining success?

What was success to you during that season of your life?

I think success to each of us, like we define it

differently, at least when it's healthy, but when it's unhealthy,

most of us define it the same way.

If I get this salary, if I'm able to achieve this income level, once I have

this much in my savings account, once I'm able to check off these number of

countries that I've visited, Once I have these, this number of kids, once we have

this number of bedrooms in our home, once I have this many followers on Instagram,

fill in the blank, once I have power, once I have money, once I have prestige,

once I have fame, I will be successful.

I think when I started my company, really all I wanted to do at

the time was to be successful.

Was just do what I loved doing all day long.

I remember when we built the first ever website for folks and

my wife and I, my wife just asked me this very simple question.

Will there be anywhere on the website where the name Jesus appears

like anywhere on the website?

Will you see the words, the word Jesus anywhere?

Is it going to be white on white backgrounds?

This is going to be anywhere through the little fish at the bottom.

And we just decided, no, no, we are going to do work excellently.

Amen.

for God's glory, and that's going to be enough, and that is enough.

There is a beauty in this and a simplicity to that.

I was reading Gary Thomas's book right now, Sacred Marriage, and he opens up

with, the father speaking over the son.

this is my son in whom I'm well pleased.

And he goes, what did Jesus done in his ministry at that point that

the father could say over him?

You are my son in whom I'm well pleased.

Like, what had he done?

He, like, obeyed his parents, gone to synagogue, helped out

in his father's carpentry.

That was about it.

And you're just like, well, he said that because of who he is.

And I'm like, oh, shoot.

Like, God would say over me, you are my son in whom I'm well

pleased, just because of who I am.

Like, there's a real beauty in you.

To that, but as we surrender to that, we also get to go now created in Christ.

And it was from there that God began to open up purpose and

ministry and what that looks like.

I'm going to go to Matthew 6 and I'll say, I'll go to that scripture

that says you can't serve two masters.

and I will say that the companies I started were looking to

serve that master of mammon.

I'll go ahead and be blunt about that.

What was the balance of those two?

If there was a balance at all, when you started the business,

because, here's where this really.

Becomes a challenge for people that are wired for business These are

the people that are listening in to a lot of leaders and all that.

It's like how do they strike that balance between?

The master that they serve and so i'm trying to drill down to ask you maybe

What was your journey like was it like?

Oh, no, I woke up one morning and I said nope I'm i'm serving the lord and

I am not serving mammon or Was there a process that you went through there?

Yeah, I will say this.

I think in a healthy company, there is no tension between profit and purpose.

In a healthy company, profit is a means of fueling purpose.

In an unhealthy company, you're like, Well, I can't do purpose

because I don't have profit.

Like, well, I can't do profit because I'm seeking purpose

They're like, no, no, no.

We're chasing this great purpose and finding a really profitable model.

That's going to help us sustain that.

We say at Fost that we want to run a great business for a greater purpose.

It didn't start that way.

I did just want to run a great business.

I knew it was a platform, but it would be a platform in a very personal way.

That's not a bad thing.

Again, back to that Luther quote, you don't have to put a Christian fish on

a shoe to be a Christian shoemaker.

That pleases God.

But as it grows, there is this transition, these, these transitions that happen

between business for business sake.

And business for God's sake.

I've been musing on this concept recently.

I recently read a book called The Intentional Father by John Tyson.

An incredible book.

For fathers, I cannot recommend this book enough.

If I can do 20 percent of the things in this book, I'll be one of the

best fathers in all of history.

It is so, so good.

But one of the things I've been musing on, he mentions in the book

these five transitions that a boy makes from boyhood to manhood.

Things like, he moves from the easy to hard, he begins to think less about the

earthly, and he thinks about the eternal.

And I've been thinking, like, as an entrepreneur, this, this, this,

this transition, these transitions that happen over time to become a

real business as a ministry leader.

Those five shifts that I've been thinking through are from profit

centered to purpose driven.

Or somebody says it was just about profit and profit was at the

center, but now it's purpose driven.

It doesn't mean that it's profit lists.

It's not profit discenter.

That would be unprofitable for the business in every meaning of that word.

But we shift from profit to purpose driven, purpose driven positioning.

I think that leader also shifts from me to we, oftentimes an entrepreneur,

like you start at the center.

People love to say, Oh, Brandon, you're, you know, you're, these awards that you've

gotten for being an employer, you do such a great job leading your company.

Look what you've done.

Look what you've accomplished.

I'm like, look, first, there's no God in that equation.

Secondly, I have an incredible team of people behind this door who are leading

out on all the things that our culture is.

And our culture is strong and it's beautiful and it's rich.

Maybe it started me, but at some point we shift to we.

We shift to shared leadership, delegation, collaboration, over competition, the

need for community around me to fuel my leadership, fill in for my weaknesses and

my gaps and make something happen that's far beyond my ability alone as a leader.

I think that that leader shifts from control to surrender.

I am a recovering control freak,

Like, I want to have my hands on everything.

I want to control it.

And then when you shift from me to we, you actually have to surrender more.

And you're like, okay, I'm just a steward.

I have to release my identity from the company.

I'm not self reliant anymore.

I'm, you know, I made it happen in the beginning.

I started this up.

It's like, oh, actually, God, you've done all this.

And if you've done this, I am so desperate for you to do more.

In the future, I think that they shift from short term wins to kingdom

outcomes, where we go, it's, it's not just about 90 day excellence.

It's about multi year legacy that I can leave in this.

And then finally, I think that they shift from ownership to stewardship.

I'm the owner of this business.

I'm the CEO.

I call myself now, folks, the, the CPO, the Chief Purpose Officer, that

really at the end of the day, my job is about stewarding what God's done,

a purpose that's worth working for, so that these people get to walk in and

go, what a joy it is to be a part of something that's so much bigger than

just banging on my keyboard every day.

So what it started as, what it is now, I think all of us as entrepreneurs,

the more we move towards business as a ministry, we shift from, you know,

Profits that are purpose driven from me to we, from control to surrender,

short term wins to kingdom outcomes, and from ownership to stewardship.

I love that the way that answer flowed and it led to,

I think that exclamation point of ownership versus stewardship.

You talk about stewardship in the book and stewardship is something that we've

talked a good bit about here as someone who has adhered to the statement.

If it is to be, it's up to me in the past as someone who is

somewhat of a control person also.

So I think that journey is.

one of the biggest challenges That we go through and I think I love the

subtitle brook You can't you know what to do in your leadership role when you

can't control your outcomes and that's kind of tough for control people.

I think that's part of our journey many of our leadership journey

So let's talk a little bit about your journey What has happened?

That has allowed you and I and my guess if you're watching this If we're

honest here, you probably haven't done a total surrender with the outcomes

don't matter and things like that.

So you could talk about what that might be, and I'm not sure

that we're supposed to, but maybe that's something we can look at.

Talk a little bit about the journey you've been on.

To go from control freak to the statement that you just made at the end

of that last, comment you were making of thinking more of being a steward

as opposed to an owner, because a lot of people would say, Oh, you're the

owner of the company, but no, you use terms like we use terms like stewards.

So talk about the journey you've been on.

Cause I think people need to understand some steps along the way,

Yeah, it breaks my heart for myself and for the other leaders around me

that we so often tie our sense of success.

To outcomes that we cannot control.

What have I walked through?

Well, one of the things I've walked

but we think we can though, right?

Brandon, do we fool ourselves into thinking we can at times?

well, it's worked sometimes.

the problem is it worked sometimes you're like, well, I set my

heart to this and it went great.

Therefore I am an awesome leader.

My control is out of this world.

And when I control things, I do great work.

Look at the wake behind me.

The problem is sometimes it doesn't work.

And we go, I gave myself to this in every possible way that I could financially,

physically, emotionally, relationally, maritally, I gave up my, you know, you're

just like, I gave everything for this and I didn't get anything I wanted.

And then we look at the wake behind us and we're seeing not the

wake of mountains being created.

We're seeing like a wake of dead bodies behind us.

And we're like, what we're tempted to do in that situation is blame it on God.

God, I did everything that you told me.

I listened to your voice so carefully.

And now look at all of these dead bodies behind me.

Like, why didn't you show up?

You're not good.

You weren't present.

Or we turn inward.

I would say, and, we turn inward and we go, Isaac is a leader.

There's no place for me in this company, no place for me in this marketplace,

no place for me in this church.

Look, look what I've done, uh, or look what God hasn't done.

And so the fact that sometimes it goes well makes us believe I am in control.

Sometimes it doesn't.

We have to, somewhere in the middle is going, look, I'm

gonna aim for great results.

I don't want to aim for anything other.

In my company, nobody in my company is going, yeah, Brandon, shoot lower.

You know, like everybody's like, just shoot lower and lower and lower.

People are going, no inflation.

I'd like to make more money.

I need more of this.

I need more of that.

Okay, well let's aim up and let's aim as high as we can.

Let's do everything that we can in pursuit of that high place that we've set.

And let's leave our hands wide open and go, if God doesn't want

those results, Let's define success in those moments differently.

There was a line in the book that I wrote where an outcome based mindset, you know,

I am what I do when I do great things.

I'm a great, I'm a great person.

I'm a great leader.

I have a lot of value and worth and watch me walk into a room and I got

confidence because I got awesome stories about everything I'm doing.

You know, people like you're talking about networking events and Oh,

hi, what do you do as a company?

And then people want to know, Oh, how big is your company?

Oh, how much revenue do you do?

Cause That will tell me how successful you are as a leader and

how much I want to listen to you.

We're not going to play that game.

The faithful leader says, I am successful if only I am faithful, regardless

of whether or not I am effectual.

I'm successful if only I'm faithful regardless of whether or not I'm

effectual because they go in the end, I can't control these outcomes.

I can't make sure that my beautiful 80 page strategic planning

guide that I put together for 2025 is, we spent weeks on it.

We spent hundreds of thousands of dollars investing in consultants.

And information and data to prove this amazing plan.

Then something blows up.

You lose a key player.

The business goes under lock.

It's forced into COVID 19, whatever it comes.

And all of a sudden your plans that you have are just eroding in front of you.

And you're tempted to think in pursuit of what do I do next?

you're you're saying things about yourself that aren't true.

You're saying things about God that aren't true.

And it's because we've tied our sense of success to the wrong things.

Tightly We've got to hold tightly to God, loosely to everything else.

And man, how that protects our emotional wellness.

And to, you know, Tim, like you said, in all honesty, I wish I

could do that well every day.

I remember when we went through the first draft on the book, I

remember it was just a Google doc.

You know, you just write the book in Google docs, share with people, go

through the editing before you get into a publisher and all that good stuff.

My wife was one of the first people I had read through it.

And I just remember this little Google comment, comments on this one

little line, you can see the little bubble pop out and she goes, Can I

remind you of this in the future?

I, I wrote that book because I need to be reminded of it.

We just together as a team, it's, our FOS giving party today here at FOS

and just an hour ago, we spent, uh, 30, 40 minutes together as a team.

Just writing down things that we're thankful for.

And I, as we started that activity, I just pointed out to him how many times the word

remember is in the Bible, like, remember this because you're going to forget.

Remember that one of the things my wife wrote down a couple of

days ago in our household that she's thankful for two hands.

I doubt two weeks ago she would have written that down.

Today, she's reminded of it.

How beautiful it's having two hands when one of them's in a cast.

We need to remember, we need to come back to God and say,

you're at the center of all this.

I just, tightly to you, loosely to everything else.

Sure.

as a leader of an organization, a successful agency, let's just

say you've had 12, sounds like 12 plus years of running the agency.

what's the most important, guess, leadership characteristics, traits that

you can share with us that is important?

What's the most important thing as a leader right now in the organization?

Yeah, let me answer that, personally, and then I'll answer that.

a little bit more globally, I have been so challenged by the leadership culture

that I'm in right now at the church that I pastor at, at salt church, the

leadership team there, the pastoral team, the elder team, that shepherds

that church has taught me so much about this one leadership concept.

That I think I've highly devalued in most of my leadership experience.

I don't think it comes naturally to me.

It's probably why I've devalued it.

I think our culture devalues it as well, but the thing I'm being

most challenged right now in my own leadership about is gentleness.

We love choleric red leaders.

They run the world, you know, people who can just walk in and

go, you shut up, you get this done.

Where are we at on this?

you world shakers.

And how many like, like if there's any television shows out there that are

about leadership or that exemplify the concept of leadership, all of the leaders

in those movies are all red leaders.

go this, go this way.

And then like, you got like the Marines and, and, and you got like.

None of the soft leaders, none of the soft, let's go.

You know, there's a place for that.

And there's a beauty to that.

And I am naturally wired that way.

But man, that, that doesn't work with everybody.

That doesn't work with everybody on your team.

That doesn't work with all your kids that most of the time

doesn't work with your wife.

Like I have been so challenged recently to go, Am I a gentle leader?

Am I, am I a gentle person?

Do I have a gentle demeanor?

Do I have a warm persona that invites people into my leadership

and what God's calling me to do?

I think my global answer on what's most important with

leadership fits into that category.

A good friend of mine, John Spence, he's one of the most world renowned

leadership experts in the world.

He, does this activity when he's in a workshop where he asks all the leaders

in the room to write down at the top of a paper of two columns, the names

of two leaders that they've, really loved in their leadership, like two

leaders, you've really looked up to.

And he asks like, write down things that you loved about each of those leaders.

I love this about them.

This is what And then once that whole list is created, he says, next to them,

I want you to write down one of two things, either IQ or EQ is this thing

that you loved about them, something that they did pointed to them being really

smart, really good at what they did.

That's why you love them or EQ.

There's something about them, their character, the way they treated people.

And he said, for every one IQ, there's nine EQ.

The things that we love most about leaders, we exalt the highly competent,

but we love the highly emotional, the high emotional quotient leaders in our lives.

At the end of the day, most of our leadership is really just about character.

Like who we are, how well we care for other people.

And he said, you get a room of executive leaders from across the world to do

that activity and see how high EQ is all of a sudden this barrier goes down

on EQs, the soft garbage of the world.

We don't need that.

You teach us how to run our scorecards better.

And then he runs that activity and they're like, all right, we'll We'll listen.

Cop character.

Over competence.

That's great leadership character over competence.

Yeah, and the good thing about that, what you, this is

what I heard as you were talking, you didn't specifically say it,

but I heard gifts of the Spirit.

You know, I heard The biblical foundation of, and to me, I think there's the gifts

of the spirit are in order for a reason.

There's a reason love is first.

And then I think everything else spills from that.

But that was interesting gentleness.

that's something that I think I tempt to work on also.

Thanks for sharing that.

I think that was a nice little mini masterclass that you gave.

Brandon, why write a book with the title?

I'm going to read the title with the subtitle.

It's not your business to succeed that first of all, it's, it's going

to be right there on the shelves with the success books, right?

It's not your business to succeed your role in leadership when

you can't control your outcomes.

What's up with what's up with that?

C.

S.

Lewis has a book that maybe is one of the less prominent, less

known books because it's actually just the collection of letters,

letters that he wrote to a friend.

It's called letters to Malcolm and in one of these letters, Malcolm had written

to him about an initiative that he had undertaken that wasn't producing the

result that he wanted this initiative, big initiative, a lot of investment.

It wasn't producing the results.

And C.

S.

Lewis wrote back and he, and he writes Malcolm and he says, Malcolm,

it is not your business to succeed.

It is only your job to do what is right and then entrust the

results to a faithful God.

If each of us could grasp that this week, not, not the

leadership applications are clear.

Take your mind, take your eyes off of your profit and loss statements, set them on

the people around you and go, Hey, what's most important in our purpose this week?

How do we build something that's actually worth working for?

But there's so many more applications.

This book that I mentioned that I'm reading by Gary Thomas, Sacred Marriage.

How do we apply even that same thinking to our marriage?

It is not your business to succeed, but only to do what is right.

What's your role in leadership when you can't control your outcomes?

Gary Thomas would say, Hey, you realize the purpose of marriage

is not to make you happy.

You go back home tonight and you believe that marriage is about making you happy.

Every single time your wife doesn't make you happy or doesn't do the thing that you

would have chosen to make yourself happy.

You're tempted to think, why am I married to this person?

They don't care about me.

They don't love me.

Does God even love me?

I hate this thing.

And then as soon as we get deep enough into that, we're like, I'm out.

And we abandoned marriage.

He Gary Thomas would say, what if the purpose of marriage wasn't

about making you happy, but it was about making you holy.

Here's another place where it's like, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.

It's not about the outcome.

Me being happy in marriage, it's about actually who I'm becoming.

What's my role in my marriage.

Let me ask you this.

What's your role in your parenting when you can't control your

outcomes, we go, Oh, you know, we ask like, like older parents were

like, Oh, tell me about your kids.

What are they doing?

And we'd love to say like, Oh, he's in, he's at this prestigious university.

Oh, he just landed this great job.

Oh, they just purchased their first home.

And it's like, wow, you're such a great parent.

You can't control the outcomes of your kids.

Like what happens when they wind up in prison, they wind up in a rehab facility.

It's like, man, I taught them the gospel.

I worked with them.

I want, you know, like I can't control them.

It's not your business to succeed.

It's your business to be faithful, to bring them the gospel and love

and care and correction encouragement and counsel over and over again.

the parents who sit there and go, I've told you this a million times.

God's going to look over those parents and be like, well done,

good and faithful servant.

And like you're doing the right thing when we're doing what God's asked us to

do in our parenting, in our marriage.

In our leadership, in our business, in our ministry at church, in our

connection groups, in our friends, with our family, over those things, God

would say, you be faithful unto death.

I'll give you the crown of life.

That's the best.

That's the best promise we have.

Yeah.

Brandon, it sounds like.

Shelly believes this book, you wrote it for yourself, but when you were writing

it, who, who did you have in mind?

Who was the reader?

Who was the audience going to be as you were writing it?

It's the honest leader.

It's this book is written for the honest leader.

You who put on a mask every day and walk into every single networking event

and every single community event and somebody asks you, how are you doing?

To you who say, great.

Good, great, amazing.

Life's amazing.

God's so good every you're a liar.

You're not an honest leader.

you are broken.

and you just have a hard time being honest and inviting people into pain.

You would prefer, as I do, to put on a mask.

to feign success, even in the hardest seasons.

And we don't know how to deal with and communicate our trust in God

when we're struggling to understand his sovereignty in the middle of

pain, personally or professionally.

This book is for the honest leader who goes, leadership is hard.

Oftentimes my sense of success and identity are tied to

things they shouldn't be.

My bottom line, my bank account, my reputation, and they're going,

I know that's not the way it's supposed to be, but I'm having a

hard time getting unstuck from that.

And I'd like to trade the soul crushing weight of outcomes for the soul

lifting joy of a life lived for God in faithfulness and surrendered to His plan

so what do you say to someone who's, they're

still listening in, let's say.

And they're, they're kind of struggling with this moving

from the beyond outcome based.

I know read the book is one thing.

Let's tell them to get the book, but I guess just give a word of

encouragement for someone who it's really hard for them to let go.

If they're a control freak, like we talked about you being in, but they know they

need to, they're being nudged pretty hard.

Give a couple words of encouragement.

let me, let me just first say, when I wrote this book

at the very last second, I was asked by my publisher Write A Forward,

and I said, forwards are dumb.

I don't read them.

And he said, you need a forward, you have to write it, Brandon.

And I said, fine.

What?

What is a good forward?

And he just said, wrote.

forward why you wrote the book.

I wrote that book because I need it because every single day when I walk

back in the office and I'm shooting for great business for a greater

purpose, I'm shooting for a profit and a margin that fuels a greater purpose.

I am tempted to go back to the outcome based mindset and say, yeah,

God's sovereign, but it's on me.

But it's on me.

We're called to be faithful.

That's a high, high calling in all of our activities to be like Christ, to model

Jesus to our team, our family, the world.

That is a high enough calling right there.

Let us not, in the same degree of accepting that, accept a responsibility

that lays way too much on us.

You can't control your outcomes.

If you say this is success this year will be us doing and accomplishing

this one thing and it doesn't happen.

You can say nothing over yourself except you are a failure.

As a leader, as a parent, as a husband, as a wife, whatever.

That is, that's too much.

so we run to the father again and again and again.

What does running to the father look like?

Surrender.

Surrendering outcomes, surrendering purpose, surrendering finances, the time

that we have, the gifts that we have, and just saying, Jesus, they're all yours.

They're all on the table.

My whole business, my whole life, my kids, my parenting, my

marriage, it's all on the table.

Use it for your glory and shape me in the middle of it because who I'm becoming is

more important than what I accomplish.

I wrote the book for me and I hope that as you read it, you'll get a sense of that

and the true joy of coming to the Father again and again and again in surrender.

I think that's good advice and coaching for the leader

that is, we'll call it burden if that may not even be the right word.

But Brandon, I would love right now for you to, there's a few

resources that I know you have.

You've got the book we just talked about.

You've got your agency and I think you've got a new ebook that's coming out.

could you give all those coordinates now?

And then I've got one more question that we're going to wrap up with.

Absolutely.

Amazon has my book.

It is not your business to succeed.

My personal website,

brandonmichaelwest.

com has, our podcast that we did the top 10 life and leadership lessons learned in

our first 10 years at FOS has articles, things I speak on and opportunity requests

speaking, but FOS's website, FOS creative.

com.

PHOScreative.

com has a ton of really cool learning articles on marketing and branding

and consulting and leadership.

But it's also got two really fun resources on it.

One is an eight page prayer guide that we made for strategic planning to

submit our plans to the Lord as we go into strategic planning as a business.

And then a bigger 40 page ebook that we've written on, Flourishing at

work and this mission that we have to cultivate true flourishing and people

and organizations while reflecting the love of Jesus of the world is best

seen in six dimensions of wellness, financial, intellectual, spiritual,

physical, emotional, and relational.

And we've developed a really cool framework that we've just given to

the world for free so that they can go implement a flourishing culture

inside of their organization.

Those resources sound good.

We'll make sure all the links are down in the notes.

Brandon, we're Seek, Go Create.

Those three words.

I'm going to allow you, to pick one of those words and why, and don't ever think

it just what resonates the most with you means the most to you right now.

Seek, go or create.

We, our full name is two words, Fost Creative.

I'm going to have to go with create.

You were designed to go and create big things for the Lord, whether

that's big things for one person, 100 people, or 1 million people, you

are called and gifted with things that can go and bless the world.

Go find those and God will use you in big ways for one or 1 million.

bringing all these topics together that have been

extremely important to what we do here at Seek, Go, Create.

We're, we're approaching our 300th episode and probably what

you've discussed and talked about encapsulates as well as anything.

What we're all about as far as the journey and success.

I'm going to highly recommend I've got it on my Kindle here.

I'm going to hold it up, but highly recommend you get, it's

not your business to succeed.

I read that over the last few days.

Excellent book, great read, good resource.

I'm going to recommend people get that and check out the other

resources that Brandon mentioned.

We are seek, go create here.

I appreciate everyone listening in.

We've got new episodes every Monday.

We're on YouTube, all the platforms.

Thanks for commenting and sharing and subscribing.

All of those things we really appreciate So thanks again for

listening until next time continue being all that you were created to be