Hey everybody.
We're talking to Jeff Henderson today.
What an amazing guy He is a former Chick-fil-A marketing executive,
turned pastor and leadership strategist who founded the four company to help
organizations grow with purpose and has some incredible stories from turning
plush cow toys into Peach Bowl phenomenon.
To leaving corporate success to plant thriving churches.
He's a great new friend of mine.
You don't want to miss this incredible conversation.
Welcome to the last 10%.
Your host, Dallas Burnett, dives into incredible conversations that
will inspire you to finish Welch.
And finish strong, strong.
Listen as guests share their journeys in valuable advice on living in the last 10%.
If you are a leader, a coach, a business owner, or someone looking to
level up, you are in the right place.
Remember, you can give 90% effort and make it a long way, but it's finding
out how to unlock the last 10%.
That makes all the difference in your life, your relationships, and your work.
Now here's Dallas.
Welcome, welcome, welcome.
I am Dallas Burnett, sitting in my 1905 Koch Brothers
barber chair in Thrive Studios.
, But more importantly, we have a great guest.
Jeff Henderson is an Atlanta native.
We both lived in Atlanta, who's bridged the worlds of business and faith as an
author of books like What to Do Next.
He's a sought after speaker on leadership and vision and the
founder of the four company.
Man, I can't wait to get into this conversation.
I've heard Jeff speak and I'm just so excited.
Welcome to the show, Jeff.
Hey Dallas.
Good to see you again buddy.
Thanks for having
Absolutely.
So I, I have to tell the listeners how we came to get you on the show.
You actually, were speaking at an event and I was sitting in the audience and man,
I hear a lot of leadership content, read a lot of books and hear a lot of speakers.
We have a lot of great guests on the show, but I was sitting in
the back and I was like, man, I hope he is not looking back here.
'cause he is gonna think that I'm just typing text on my phone.
But I was filling up.
The notes section on my phone 'cause I didn't have a piece of paper or anything.
And it's like, man, you were dropping some amazing value in that talk.
So I just appreciate it so much.
We got to connect afterwards and have you on the show.
So man, just really thankful, for you to be on the show today.
Absolutely my pleasure.
Thanks for being there that
Yeah.
So let's talk a little bit about, 'cause you started out, you were
from Atlanta, which means you, you've kind of got this Atlanta Hawks and
Falcons and all this stuff going on.
You're a big fan, you're a big sports band.
but you, you were actually early in your career.
Tell us how you, kind of, your career from kind of the start to maybe, maybe
the time you gotta Chick-fil-A, 'cause you had some really amazing time down
the hall from some famous people.
I'd love to hear about that.
Well, I grew up huge fan of Hank Aaron, who, in my humble opinion,
is still the alt time home run king, but we won't go there.
But I just loved Hank and, uh, just idolized him.
And I can remember watching, on television when he broke
Hank Aaron's home run record.
actually have over in my office.
It's so right over there, the Sports Illustrated cover
and he autographed it for me
Oh.
along with a, with a baseball.
So it was fantastic.
Um, I may have borrowed the sports illustrator from my, middle school library
back in the day, but, if they wanted, they're not gonna get it back, but yeah.
I actually literally wrote, when I was in college, I just literally
wrote the Braves and a letter, and here's a principle in life.
Just ask, you know, you're probably gonna get told no many times, but
I just said, Hey, is there, can I come work a season in marketing?
And this is before the days of email.
I, and I got a letter back that said.
Sure.
Just call us and
Oh my
the
gosh.
the guy that was over the promotions area, at the time, Promotions being
like, Chick-fil-A poster night, or, Coca-Cola helmet night or whatever.
he was, I was a huge North Carolina fan.
He was, he went to North Carolina, so we kinda hit it off.
So anyway, I ended up, working a whole season there for them.
It was fantastic.
I got to write television scripts, I got to write promotional radio scripts.
I got to work with corporate sponsors.
it was fantastic.
And obviously being a huge brace fan, I was just dropped into the
field of dreams, if you will, but.
Two offices down from me was Hank
Wow.
over the minor league, system at that point.
And I remember one night I was leaving, it was, this was the old Atlanta Fulton
County stadium where he, hit that home
Yeah.
and there's only two cars out in the parking lot and the bras were outta town.
So I look over and it's just my car and somebody else's car, and there's
somebody there, I look over and it's Hank, he's just getting in his
car and he turns over and he sees me and he waves at me and I'm like.
Oh my gosh, I'm waving to the all time home Run King.
So, um, so he was phenomenal, so kind, so gracious.
And, but Dale Murphy was playing for the Braves at that time, and
Dale, who I believe belongs in the Major League Baseball Hall of
Yes.
the top player for the Braves.
And all the corporate sponsors wanted to get Dale Murphy to sign whatever for them.
he always.
Always accommodated any requests.
Just an incredibly nice guy.
great.
And, so yeah, so that was, that, that was really, really fun.
But eventually led me to doing some work down the road with the Braves.
But when I eventually landed with Chick-fil-A, they were, we were launching
the cow campaign of Eat more chicken, and then also sports sponsorships,
particularly in the college realm because.
you know, Chick-fil-A at that time was basically in the Atlantic Coast
Conference in Southeastern conference
Right.
and a predominant characteristic of a Chick-fil-A customer at
the time was a college graduate.
So college sports, um, really.
Made a lot of sense and because of my sports background, just kind of,
morphed into part of my role there too.
Wow.
so it was great.
So yeah, Braves and Chick-fil-A and then, and also did, I managed beverage
marketing for Chick-fil-A, so I got to work for the other Atlanta pillar at the
time, which was, and still at the time is
Coca-Cola.
Yeah.
Huge.
I mean, you worked for some of the biggest brands in Atlanta for sure.
That's amazing.
I love, I love it.
Just ask, you just literally wrote a letter.
Hey, I'd like to come do this, and it's just kicked off an
amazing adventure for you.
That's really, really good.
So when you got into Chick-fil-A, what was the story like?
how did you end up getting into that?
Involved in marketing area in Chick-fil-A corporate?
So there are two resorts in Atlanta, one outside of Atlanta.
One is Callaway
Mm-hmm.
and one is Lake Linear, lake Linear Islands, and pretty well
known within Atlanta, maybe not so much outside of Atlanta.
But I did Mark, I did, I worked for both of those organizations in marketing.
And so, um, I would do promotions with Chick-fil-A, like,
you know, Callaway Gardens.
We would have coupons in Chick-fil-A to trying to drive customers to
Chick-fil-A restaurants to get coupons to come down to Callaway Gardens.
And then when I was at Lake Linear Islands, I came up with this idea
called, we called Magical Nights of Lights, which is basically drive through
the islands with Christmas lights and.
we charged you $15 a car for that.
So, I went to my friends at Chick-fil-A and said, Hey, can we do the same
thing we did at Cowboy Gardens?
And so I just hit it off with them.
And then, a friend of mine who's become a wild time best friend and
mentor David ER's, he was, you know, like, Hey, we're gonna, you know, why
don't you jump on board and help us?
so that's what I did, and it was just.
I had the best job.
But other than Truet, Kathy, the founder of Chick-fil-A, I feel like
I had the best job 'cause I was doing sports marketing, beverage marketing.
I got to open up restaurants from a marketing standpoint and just learn so
much about just marketing, but culture
Hmm.
to, how to create a thriving.
and when I left Chick-fil-A, which I blame Chick-fil-A for 'cause, they
took me to a leadership conference in Chicago at Willow Creek Community Church.
And that really.
Was where I felt called to start a church.
So if Chick-fil-A hadn't, you know, invited me to go to that conference,
we probably wouldn't be talking today.
But, but that was, but even when I left, I kept thinking What would
Chick-fil-A do in this situation?
And there's so many similarities between the business world
and the nonprofit world.
There's a lot that nonprofit leaders can learn from business leaders, but
there's a lot that business leaders can learn from nonprofit leaders and a lot of
that you're seeing today, you're seeing.
for profit businesses talk about they, talk as if they're a nonprofit.
They're
talking about purpose and they should, but it's more than I believe
now, more than ever, you know, profit and purpose travel together.
So the more purpose you have, the more profit you'll have, and the more profit
you have, the more purpose you can fund.
And that's one of the questions that.
This younger generation is asking organizations such as, what
are you doing to help make our community a better place to live?
you need to have a good, good answer to that.
And it could be connected to your business.
It doesn't have to be totally random,
Yeah.
be.
And one of the things I've encouraged businesses is don't forget, one of
the things you do for every community is you provide jobs, you provide
economic stability for people, and you help support the tax base.
Yeah.
So a lot of that I learned from Chick-fil-A.
I think that's so, such a great point.
I mean, just a few years ago I was in an interview and we kinda get to
the end of the interview and it was a standard interview you're going
through and checking the boxes and just understanding, get to know the
person and it was their first one.
So it was just kind of the first of several and it was
just interesting because.
At the end, it was kind of like, well, do you have any questions for us?
You know, that kind of follow.
and the person was like, Hey, I need to know what this company, you know, how
are you engaging with the community?
What exactly are you doing to help the community?
And what volunteer opportunities do you have if I come on board?
And it was like, thankfully we.
We had at the time had just implemented a lot of that kind
of, those kind of programs and we had a a big vision around purpose.
But it was like the person was like, if you don't have a good answer, then
this is be the last time I show up.
And it was, you could tell they were very serious about that.
So I think you're exactly right.
I think there's, people are hungry, if they're gonna spend a lot of their
time and energy and effort, you know, coming in every day and showing up
that it has to be, they have to know and feel like what they're doing
is matter and makes a difference.
So I think that's, that's on point.
I love that.
you've got some great content and, and you have a great story around your
experience at Chick-fil-A, specifically in sports and specifically around event.
I'd love for you.
Share what you can, what you want to about the, the, uh, the event
that, that kind of created an opportunity for you to, I don't know.
I think you're an expert on the pivot and you took, you know, kind
of making, lemonade from lemons, especially in this situation.
So tell everybody what you were doing with Chick-fil-A and then
some of the story about what, uh, what went down, at the Peach Bowl.
Yeah, it's connected to the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl, which is
still in existence to this day.
And now it's in the, you know, it seems like they're changing every
year, the college football playoffs.
Yeah.
but they're in that mix now, and so.
So, we were really wanting to get there.
That was our goal, was to try to get the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl
into the college football rankings.
Wow.
it was, back in those days, it was, a team from the A, CC versus a team from
the SEC, which as I mentioned earlier, really fit our geographic footprint.
And, but we wanted to just, we wanted to be more than just.
and signage and commercials on television.
We wanted to really engage fans and so, this was back in the Georgia Dome.
we blew up that stadium a few years ago, built another one.
Hoping that the Falcons would play better, but that hasn't really happened.
but at each cup, at HH seat, there was a cup holder and I had the idea of
putting an eat more chicken plush cow in the cup holder, and I didn't have money
in my budget to pay for it, but I knew true Kathy, the founder of Chick-fil-A.
And I went, and again, going back to.
Might as well ask and went and met with Truitt and said, you know, rumor has it,
your 401k is fully funded and so, you know, would you a personal check for this?
And Truitt was the most generous person I've ever been around.
He was generous before all the and eat more chicken and all that.
But he also grew up in the Great Depression.
Um.
And so he was very, generous and very frugal, which is a fantastic, combination.
And we had a good conversation in his office.
But anyway, he.
Convinced that I convinced him and said, okay, well let's go do it.
So I bought 72,000 cows and I never bought a single cow in my life
and went from zero to 72,000 in a
gracious day.
of minutes.
but then I gotta figure out how do I get 72,000 cows in the cup
holders at the Georgia Dome?
As my wife says, I'm wow, but I'm not, how, I don't know how to do
any of these ideas I come up with.
So it took us like three days to get these cows in there, but.
Fast forward.
I mean, I'm so excited about it.
And it was Virginia versus Georgia and, um, Virginia Game
begins, Virginia scores first.
They, score again.
They score a third time.
They're up 21 to nothing
Uh.
into the first quarter.
and I'm a Georgia alum, so we're getting a little antsy, but Georgia gets the ball.
They're heading down toward their end zone.
An official drops a penalty flag, effectively ending the drive.
And the fans in the Georgia section just lose their minds.
And so there's one guy that a cow on the field and everybody else follows.
And I'm standing in the Chick-fil-A suite and I, you know, see my
marketing career flash before my
because I just wasted, Truitt kathie's hard earned money.
But David ERs, who I just mentioned, who's now a lifelong friend of
mine, who was my boss at the time.
It came up to me.
It's as they're sweeping the dead little cows off the field.
he said, Hey man, there's an idea here.
I'm like, what are you talking about?
This is a disaster.
He said, no.
Well, first of all, the publicity value we're getting out of this.
they're talking about Chick-fil-A right now, which is great, and,
but if we could get the cows on the field in a different way?
And so he and I and a couple other people got together in an office
at Chick-fil-A the next week.
The idea we came up with was that next year's game when the two teams run into
the field, we went to the top of the Georgia Dome and we had cases of cows.
but the difference this time was that we put parachutes on the cows
and we just dropped, hundreds and hundreds of parachuting cows the fans.
And it was a. Huge hit.
And, uh, it's become a Chick-fil-A tradition for the last 25 years.
And,
Sure.
I don't always go to the game.
I'm not sure.
I mean, I go this year, but whether I go or not, people start sending
me videos of the parachuting cows.
and it's actually gone across the country now, and there was, I
think it was at a. it was a Orlando Magic basketball game recently.
I got one in as well.
but I think the principle is what I thought was the worst day in my
marketing career actually ended up being one, one of my best because I
had a boss who was genuinely for me and was like, Hey, let's figure this out.
and you have two people looking at the same situation, coming to
diametrically opposed conclusions.
And so how you view life determines how you do life.
And that's, so I'm very, very grateful for that.
And then that eventually led to him inviting me to Willow Creek and left
three years later to go Pel Start Buckhead
Good gracious.
Well, I think that's a fantastic story.
to me, I, I mean, it is just a great visual, right?
So I'm sitting there and I'm, you know, I've gone to the Peach Bowl and
it's just a, it's a great experience.
So much fun, but to know that the whole tradition of the cows parachuting
out of the rafters of the, you know, the, the stadium is, it's.
It's all coming out of this moment of crisis that you're experiencing, that you
witnessed, like right before your eyes.
I just see that guy in slow motion, like, ah, you know, and
it's like, there goes the cat,
Yeah.
no, you know?
And then 20,000 more just.
Pile onto the field.
Oh.
And so, yeah, but I mean, like, it's just awesome.
I, I love that you're describing that power of perspective and how sometimes
when we're so close to it, I also think it's really cool that, your boss at
the time just had that perspective.
'cause you were so.
So tied to that idea, like the idea that you had and you know, the idea
of like, I want everybody to have a cow and everybody's gonna have this
when they come to the game and then all of a sudden you see that go on
the field and you're like, it's over.
Mainly it was, 'cause that idea that you had created in your mind was just
kind of blown, blown apart, right?
But it was like he, he was just enough.
It was almost like he was just enough outside that he could, that he had
a different perspective on that and could say, Hey, actually wait a minute.
this is the beginning.
This isn't the finish.
You know?
And so, uh, man, I just think that's so great about collaboration and also
just how we are, how when we move.
That it's not necessarily we get it right the first time.
It's that we have to be willing to iterate and we have to be willing to pivot
and, you know, try something different or look at things a different way.
And so I just think that's a great story how you, you took
that and, and morphed it.
what was the word back at Chick-fil-A after that first event?
I mean, did, was everybody like, whoa band, or were they like, that was awesome.
And did they have any, did you have any kind of feedback once you got
back to the office the next week?
In terms of, uh, them throwing the
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So the good news visit was during the holidays, so I
didn't have to go in the office.
but we already started to see impact the, the Atlanta Journal Constitution,
which I think I just heard.
they're gonna.
their print division down, but
Oh.
in the sports page, the next sec, the next day, the headline was
Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl goes to the cows.
And so, I mean, you couldn't
Wow.
So we began to already see impact of it.
Hmm
And, you know, Truet.
Truett took the business seriously, but he never took himself too seriously.
One of his famous lines at Chick-fil-A is, if you're not
having fun, you're not doing it
hmm.
So the ability to laugh at yourself is.
a strength.
I think, that's one of the things the cows brought.
I think the cows brought a little levity to Chick-fil-A in terms of
their humor, with Eat More Chicken.
And my favorite billboard that we did, I think we actually had to take
it down, but it was when I think Oprah Winfrey was saying something
against the cattle industry or something, I can't quite remember.
And so we did a billboard with the cows that said, Oprah, you go girl.
And, loved it, but.
Sometimes you have to cross that line a little bit before you, you
know, you, so we actually ended up pulling that billboard down.
But, but you, you know, you, but you've gotta try some things.
You're not willing to fail.
You're probably not trying hard enough and John Maxwell says you're never
good the first time, so you've gotta keep, keep trying and keep iterating.
but it does require someone many times to come outside and see things that you
can't see 'cause you're too close to
Yeah.
I was the only one in the office with Truett that day convincing him to do
Yeah.
So I, to have somebody on the kind of the outside going, oh, hold on, seeing
this from a different point of view.
for your listeners, if they're facing a particular situation, if they've,
you know, many times we just think about it too much in our minds
Yes.
to be able to let someone who's coming at it from a different
perspective and then ask them, what would you do if you were me?
usually that's a, you're gonna get some, depending on who it is, you're
gonna get some helpful information.
I love that we always say, clarity begets clarity.
You know, as we move through these experiences and we have this clarity,
you had clarity like, oh, the cows in the seats, and you went to
Truett and was like, let's do this.
And then as you moved through that.
you actually had another level of clarity that was like, okay,
yes, but this is the way where they're coming outta the rafters.
They're coming down with parachutes.
And it may have taken a lot longer or it may have never come to be if you hadn't
have moved through that first clarity.
So I, I think that's really.
Very true.
I love that.
So let's talk about this.
So you had these great and amazing experiences at Chick-fil-A.
you have a great boss.
You've just made this, you know, at the time what you didn't know,
but stumbled on this new 20 year tradition, 20 plus year tradition on
the cows and Marketing Chick-fil-A.
And it seems like everything is just like up and to the right.
what was it like to start saying, wait a minute, this doesn't, maybe there's
something else, you know, because ultimately you, you went full pivot and
went into a new, a new whole career.
So how, what did that look like for you?
I think it's helpful to remember that I'm a preacher's kid, so I,
I promised myself I would never, ever, ever work at a church.
And so, and we were involved in church and love the Lord and all that, but,
um, You know, and I promise God I, I'm never gonna work at a church.
So I worked at a church for 18 years and so if if your listeners get nothing
out of this, they may just don't ever say you're never gonna do something.
and.
I had started, I started speaking in with my dad in churches.
We would travel around the state, so I really cut my teeth on
speaking when I was in high school, which was a fantastic experience.
But I really enjoyed the excellence of the business world, strategy
of the business world, the creativity of the business world.
And I didn't know that you could do that in church world.
so I go to Willow Creek and I'm with David.
walk into this massive cafeteria and I said, well, I thought
we were coming to a church.
This is a mall.
He goes, no, this is the church.
And then the conference begins and there's speakers like Woodall and
Bill Hybels and others, Irwin McManus.
Oh wow.
they are just connecting dots and wires in my brain.
To in such a way that I just thought I did, and these are countless stories that
happened out of the Global Leadership Summit that's still happening to this day.
But I walked out, this was back in the days when they would do two and a half
I think they just do two days now.
But, so this was, I think on Saturday I kind of, they have a lake outside.
I stumbled outside next to the lake and I just felt like God said,
you're gonna start a church someday.
And I'm like, whoa, whoa,
Wow.
That's not what I'm gonna do.
But I came home and I told Wendy, our daughter was just one at the time.
I said, I don't know if it was all the.
Deep dish Malnati's pizza.
I ate in Chicago, or the Lord spoke to us, but I feel like we're supposed
to help start a church someday.
And that's about all I got.
Wow.
And you know, she could have said, Hey, well Jesse's one our
daughter's, one Chick-fil-A loves you.
You got, you see where this is going.
why in the world would you think that?
But instead she said, if you think that's what we oughta do, I'm in.
And, so now it's helpful for your listeners to know that I didn't walk
into Chick-fil-A on Monday and quit.
Right.
we went on a, we went on a journey.
We started attending North Point Community Church, here in Atlanta.
over the course of three years, just gotten more and more
and more and more involved.
as we got involved this whole.
Plan that I or no one really could have imagined started to unfold.
And, it's, it was bigger and better than I would've ever imagined, and it took time.
But as my friend Louis Giglio says, you know, God, it seems like God
moves slow from our standpoint, but when he decides to move, he moves
Yes.
so suddenly this idea of Buckhead Church and North Point's first multi-site, campus
and video church, which is kind of an unheard of thing back in the day, all it
just started suddenly just started coming, coming out of the woodworks, if you would.
And that's when they approached me.
'cause I was really three years in, I was really involved
in a lot of different ways.
And they said, Hey, we're, you know, based on your franchise background
with Chick-fil-A, your leadership background, your church background, and.
that you've been a volunteer for three years, could you
come over here and help us?
in the early days of Buckhead Church.
And so it really, you know, from a career standpoint didn't make much sense.
But, 'cause I thought I was starting all over at the age of 35.
But I learned is that all my business experience from the Atlanta Braves
to Callaway to including obviously Chick-fil-A started coming out of me and.
From a culture standpoint, there were so many similarities.
I mean, the biggest difference really was that as a pastor, I was
closed, I was open on Sunday at Chick-fil-A, I was closed on Sundays.
But you know, there's so many different.
There's so many similarities.
People need to be led.
Well, you gotta pay the power
Hmm.
You need to, excellence is really important.
Creativity is important.
Um, leading team meetings, how you deal with conflict.
All that stuff that I'd learned from Chick-fil-A and others just started coming
out of me and I'm like, oh my goodness.
Now I can see why I was kind of that culture for a season.
and I also love the fact that now I can talk, I can go into business settings and
talk to business leaders, or I can go into nonprofit settings and talk to nonprofit
leaders because of that background.
And I've seen John Maxwell do that a lot, and I love seeing him do that.
And so, um, that was such a gift to be able to think like, because I do believe
the church should be the most well led.
Organization on the planet,
Yeah.
that's where I caught a vision of it at Willow Creek.
And then working at Chick-fil-A in North Point.
We were talking before the show and what's amazing is my wife and I had actually
moved to Atlanta for several years.
In 2008 was our first year in Atlanta, and when we moved down
we didn't know where to go.
We didn't know anything about Atlanta.
it was.
It was incredible.
We showed up with like a couch in the back of my truck and we were just
like pulling in like, well, we're here and we grabbed an apartment.
It happened to be in Buckhead.
And so one Sunday we get up and we're like, Hey, we need
to, where's the church here?
And we look it up on like the, you know, the, the phone and
or the computer, whatever.
And it was like, oh, there's one like three blocks down.
You know, it's Buckhead Church.
So we literally showed up.
At your church.
Had no idea until we were talking before the show that we actually
came, to, to services at your church for several months.
And an amazing, so I've seen you in, in services that had no idea.
And so it was just really cool to connect that if you were, if you, and by the
way, it was an incredible goodness.
What an operation that when you talk about excellence and you
talk about how well it was run.
you know, I couldn't, I don't know how you could run it better.
'cause when we saw it, it was unbelievably impressive.
It was so impressive.
Yeah.
Facilities, the flow, the message, just everything.
The service was great.
But when you were thinking about this, 'cause this is, you
went through a whole process.
So if someone is in there, and this doesn't have to be from, the private
sector to the ministry or vice versa, but if you're just talking to our listeners
on navigating uncertainty, if they're in their thirties or their forties or even
fifties and they're thinking about maybe a career pivot or something like that,
do you have a routine or a mindset shift, that may be helpful for them as they're
making these considerations on what may.
Should I do this?
Should I make the jump?
Should I not?
Any advice that you would give young leaders?
Absolutely.
I think first of all, you need to be.
Going close or drafting near your strengths?
I mean,
Hmm.
the way I say it is God's thumbprints on you are clues about his plans for you.
So I'm not gonna make a career trajectory to go into working
in the accounting department.
I'm just not good with numbers.
So my gift mix, that's where I'm going to, that's where I'm gonna lean.
And even though I from the business world to the.
world.
I was still leveraging the strengths that I had in vision casting, communicating,
leadership, creativity, and communication.
And so was just used in a different format, in a different way.
So if you're not clear about what your strengths are,
you need to figure that out.
There's a lot of ways to do that.
You can do the Now Discover Your Strengths book.
You can ask people, what do you think I'm good at?
But that's.
The more you are clear about what your strengths are, that's a huge step
Hmm.
Then I also think it's that, that networking, Hey, you know, who do you,
John Maxwell taught me this question to ask, who do you know that I need to know
and will you contact them on my behalf?
it's not sometimes what, you know, as, as the old adage says, it's really who you
Yeah.
and then you've got to, another thing that John taught me is you gotta
keep moving forward and don't, don't.
Make the mistake of thinking one email is a small thing now that
Hmm.
if you send an email to somebody asking to meet with them, that's a step.
Just keep doing that, but to keep moving forward and.
That's, you know, those steps will align.
I feel like, you know, apparently we're all six, six degrees away from Kevin
Yeah,
So if that's true, then I think we're six degrees away from trying
to figure out what to do next.
But the more that you can do that and more, you can be cognizant of it.
The better you're gonna be positioned when these seasons come, if you
feel like a season is over, or sometimes a season of next is
thrust upon us company or whatever.
a spouse has to move, so now you find yourself in a different
city, but you wanna do something.
So all of that, and again, in today's world, it's a little bit easier thanks
to platforms like LinkedIn and others.
But I think all of that's really important.
What are your strengths?
Keep moving forward.
And who do you know?
those are really clear indications or really clear pathways,
if rather of what to do.
And there's, when you're in a season of waiting, recklessly waiting.
Like, I'm just tired of waiting.
I'm just gonna go.
Do my own thing.
Right, right,
passively waiting.
Like I'm just gonna sit around and watch.
I'm just gonna write, play video games all day long and then hope that somebody
right.
or there's act actively waiting.
I'm gonna take the strengths test.
I'm going to ask people, seven people, what do you think I'm good at?
Hmm.
I'm going to.
Network, look at my phone and network, and I'm gonna try to
do something every single day.
And that's what you have to ask yourself in a season.
When if you're in a transition, what did I do today to get closer to my next step?
Oh yeah.
word being today.
Yeah, I love that because you're you're controlling what you can control in
the present, but you are preparing for the opportunity that is on the horizon.
And I, man, I love that.
I just think that's a fantastic advice.
I love, talking about drafting your strengths, man, that's just a great.
Great advice because I think through it in this, it goes back a lot to
what you were talking about earlier.
As a company is gonna find that profit, but when they unlock their, when they
can articulate and align with purpose and because it just infuses energy into
that organization and people have that belief and they start coming alongside
that purpose and working towards this end.
It reminds me of Hershey, Pennsylvania that, you know, when they were,
touring the Hershey factory and.
And they were making chocolate in this massive factory, but they could look up
on the hill and the house that Hershey was supposedly building for him and his wife
ended up being a house for, like an orphan educational facility for these kids.
And so when someone came in, I was reading this quote.
Someone came in and they said, well, hey, tell me you know, why
you work and what you doing here?
And they're like, well, we work right here to pay for that.
Up on the top of the hill and it was like, man, they could be saying,
well, we make chocolate so we can make money and you know, make kids
that know it's like that right there.
They could look every time they came outta the factory, they could
look at the top of the hill and see that reason why they were doing it.
I think the strengths, your.
Comment about drafting your strengths is almost taking
that to the individual level.
You're saying if you have a thumbprint, if there's a purpose, there's a purpose
that has been implanted on you, in you, on you, then you know, it's part of
our responsibility to figure that out.
Just like a company has to figure out its purpose.
As an organization, we kind of have to figure out, well, hey,
what are my strengths like.
Am I good at?
Because the more we can align with that, it's just like unlocking that energy.
We're gonna get energized from living in our strengths.
We're gonna do a better job.
We're gonna, people are gonna notice that because we're living and
doing what we were created to do.
So I think that's just a. Fantastic, fantastic advice.
So if you're listening to the last 10% and you're facing a transition, do what
our friend, Mr. Jeff Henderson says.
start focusing on what you can do today to prepare for that opportunity tomorrow.
And look and lean on those strengths and discover those
strengths, draft those strengths.
So, uh, I really like that a lot.
Um, so, you know, we've talked a lot about Chick-fil-A.
We've talked a lot about moving and transitioning.
What do you feel like is one thing that you learned going from a very
corporate, very strong centered, culture centered kind of environment
in the non, in the for-profit industry to, a ministry or nonprofit?
what do you feel like is one of the things that was like the biggest,
like, oh wow, this is not the same.
this is something that's even different for me here.
Even though you took your strengths from one place to another.
Well, again, I, I think there were so many more similarities.
Hmm.
things that I noticed at Chick-fil-A in North Point is that everyone
could recite the purpose.
Hmm.
Like everyone knew the corporate purpose at Chick-fil-A, which is to glorify
God by being a faithful steward of all that's entrusted to us and have
a positive influence on all incoming contact with Chick-fil-A at North
Point, it was to lead people into a growing relationship with Jesus.
Everybody knew that.
right, so it's easy to go, oh, that's pretty cool.
No, no, no, no, no.
That's that.
So when people ask, well, why, how do they, know, stay on
vision and mission and purpose?
It's because everybody can recite it.
And for many organizations.
I encourage leaders to do what I call as a vision inventory, just to walk around and
go, what do you think we wanna be known
Hmm.
And if you get blank stares or you're like, well, I think, you know, we had
this retreat seven months ago and it was a 14 paragraph mission statement
that we came up with on a retreat.
If nobody can recite or remember it, then nobody's living it.
Hmm.
And so we want to be living.
Down the hall, what's on the wall,
Hmm.
if you can't recite it or re or remember it, why I encourage leaders.
Your vision needs to be memorable.
It needs to be repeatable, and it needs to be portable.
That it goes with people.
So again, I saw that, with.
With both organizations, you're talking a different level of scale.
You're talking about a multi-billion dollar company versus a
multi-million dollar nonprofit.
But again, there's so many similarities.
the was really critical that, and really vital that the operators
out in the field at Chick-fil-A.
Had a really good relationship and honest and open and thriving
relationship with the corporate staff.
Hmm.
now at NorthPoint, it was reversed for me.
'cause now I was the operator, I was the field versus I at
Chick-fil-A was the corporate staff.
So I got to see those dynamics you want to have tension in
those relationships because that means that we're pushing forward,
But that tension can become.
a tremor and an earthquake if you're not careful.
And that's what you see in a lot of franchise organizations.
And when, you know, when churches ask me, should we go multi-site?
I try to talk them out of it.
Not because I don't believe in it, I firmly do believe in it.
Both my kids work in multi-site churches, but.
It's just, you've got to be really, really careful about what you're doing
with your culture because if your culture is dysfunctional at your first location,
Hmm.
just gonna spread that dysfunction around the community.
Yeah.
so that's it's, and it's much easier to operate one location versus.
Four.
Yes.
when we went from one to two at North Point, that was one thing.
But when we went from two to three, it was now there's all sorts of complexity.
imagine Chick-fil-A going from one over the last few decades to 3000.
gosh.
just complexity
Yeah.
that the organization did not have when there was only 300 restaurants.
Right.
So there's again, so many different lessons that are the same.
And and the thing I really loved about NorthPoint and Chick-fil-A
is they really valued purpose
Hmm.
they knew that they were working for a higher purpose.
and so to be able to work for those and both really value valued family.
Hmm.
Really did not just talk a game about that they really did value.
Obviously Chick-fil-A's closed on Sundays.
So there, there's that and, so again, so many similarities that I was just
really blessed with that I could.
and both were learning organizations.
They wanted to learn.
And sometimes in church world it seems odd that we would
learn from the business world.
I don't know why that's odd, but some people think it can be odd.
But I love that NorthPoint would be bring in business leaders and I
would bring in business leaders to our staff to say, you don't have
to connect the dots to what we do.
Just tell us what you do.
We'll figure that out.
uh, both were learning organizations, meaning that we just want, we don't
want the world outside to outgrow
Hmm.
and I love what Dan Kathy said at Chick-fil-A, you know, as Chick-fil-A
continue to grow, he said, we want to grow a small company,
Hmm.
that we wanna grow, but we don't wanna lose the culture
and the feel of a small company.
And that's easier said
Oh yeah.
Yeah.
So those.
That's why it's important for leaders in growing organizations to not talk
themselves out of, doing good gestures.
Hmm.
yourself.
The way I say it is don't talk yourself out of warm hearted impulses.
Do that.
Yeah.
Andy Stanley used to say, do for one what you wish you could do for everyone.
If you do that consistently, that the compound interest of
that really impacts your culture.
I love that.
I would love for you to share this just on what you just talked about because you,
you said two things that stuck out to me that I would love for you to speak on.
number one, if I'm a leader.
I'm a young leader.
Maybe I'm 35 or 40 or 45, and I'm leading this team.
You mentioned there being a tension between this leadership and, and some
either corporate and managers or between managers and line, on the line in the
field, or on the floor or whatever.
First question is how would you advise.
I guess the leader that's in that spot to manage that tension well, or what does
it look like when they're not managing it Well, you know that if any advice you
could give a leader that's having to live in that tension and maybe even feels like,
oh, is this, am I doing something wrong?
'cause I'm in this tension spot.
and the other thing is, If they're not the CEO, they may not be able to do
it for their whole organization, but I love the idea of when you said we were,
I were part of two organizations that were learning organizations, and so if I
wanted to lead a team that was a learning team, if I couldn't do it for the whole
organization, any advice you would give to a leader to try to create that atmosphere
and what that would look like for a team?
Those are two things I'd love to hear your insights on.
Yeah, I'll start with the second one first.
I think it really starts with you as the leader, are you learning?
Hmm.
Because if you're asking the team to learn and you're not reading any books, you're
not sitting down with people that are.
You know, you're trying to learn from, that's, you know, as John Maxwell
says, if you're the smartest person in the room, you're in the wrong
Yeah.
and then what podcast are you listening to?
Hmm.
what are you doing to get better?
Truet used to say, the two ways you are the books you read and
the people you interact with.
So what's your improvement plan?
And then when you go first, you're, oh, I read this book, or I know this
person, I'm gonna have 'em come in and.
I think so many times we waste a lot of overhead cash in an organization
with ineffective staff meetings, uninspiring staff meetings.
We don't have a plan for it, and so that's one of the things I love to do
is just bringing business leaders in.
I, you know, everybody from.
Chick-fil-A to Sid Mashburn, who owns a clothing brand to, Dana Spinola,
who also owns a clothing brand.
I had all these different people come in and just tell us what they
did and so we could learn from them.
I think when it comes back to the, your first question about that tension
in organizations that would Start.
I think the most important one is what I call the above all else strategy,
which is if you forget everything else above all else, don't forget this.
And it's, It's Proverbs 4 23, which starts with, above all else, guard your heart
for everything you do flows out of it.
when franchised organizations and not just franchise organizations, when leaders
don't guard their hearts and there's conflict that can lead to bitter leaders.
and a bitter leader is easily cynical.
a brittle leader is easily discouraged because they just don't think they can
get anything done in this organization.
you wanna have leaders that are trending toward better.
And that's not that we always get along, but that we feel heard and valued better.
A better leader is easily.
Resilient and we're hopeful.
And so you have to fight for that.
And that's why, but it, this, here's the challenging thing in
today's world, that takes time.
Oh yeah.
Yeah.
as much as AI is gonna help things, I don't think it's gonna solve
I don't either.
the emotional capacity it's gonna take to deal with people
to, to deal with one another.
So.
That's what you know, thriving organizations.
Cheryl Bachelder, who's a huge hero of mine, she was,
the CEO of Louisiana Chicken.
She really led one of the best turnarounds in business, in recent business history.
In my humble opinion.
she went all in on the strategy of valuing people and serving people.
And someone on our leadership team said, yeah, this is working, but
it's just taking so much time.
Uh,
And she's like, yeah, that's what happens with people, right?
yeah.
in a fast-paced business world, you have to, again, as John Maxwell
says, you know, you have to walk slowly through the crowd, even though
you got a lot of stuff going on.
Hmm.
I love that.
I think it's fantastic advice and I, I agree a hundred percent and I think that,
um, the trending toward better, we have a coaching system that we help organizations
implement so they can drive coaching further down in their, the organizations
because of that exact principle.
You know, the one-on-one coaching app is what we like to implement, so that.
they may can hire a 2000 or more dollar coach a month for a CEO or a vice
president or whatever, but they, you know, the ladies and gentlemen that's on the
front lines can benefit from that as well.
And so, to your point though, it's not something that just happens overnight.
You don't get better just by, clicking your heels together,
snapping your fingers.
Right.
It's a, it's a process that you have to be able to engage in.
And Man, that's really good.
Just being in the trenches with people and, and moving through the work together.
So I love it.
Man, this has been a fantastic conversation.
I really appreciate, you being on the last 10% today, you've mentioned
several huge names of people, John Maxwell Truet, Kathy, Hank, Aaron.
What would be one principle that you've gleaned from like the,
just the proximity principle?
Like just what?
Just being around some of these great leaders.
What is one thing that, that, from any of those people stands out that in your
life and your career is like, man, this is something that, that has jumped out to
me that, would help leaders, and coaches.
Truet was more interested in getting better than he was getting bigger, and he
was not in it for the money, even though he wanted to grow and he wasn't, you know?
It's not, there's nothing wrong against that, I think he, his
goal was not to be the biggest restaurant company in the world.
He wanted to be the best that he could be because that was a stewardship issue.
And so he knew that in his leadership.
He was gonna be held accountable not for how Burger King was doing,
Hmm.
but how was he doing?
And his life verse was Proverbs 22 1.
A good name is rather to be chosen in great riches.
And so that.
To see him live that out was, fantastic.
And the first time I had dinner with John Maxwell, he was asking me questions.
I mean, he kind of tricked me.
I'm like, what?
Oh wait, what do I know I should be asking you?
But that showed me that he had the heart of a student and was
curious, and still has that heart.
Today.
And so those leaders that just kind of really modeled and they were
really in it for the right reasons, I
Yeah.
you have to understand, and I'll close with this.
Chick-fil-A started, Truit started his restaurant in 1946.
we could go back in time and tell Truet or ask him, so, okay, it's 1946.
So tell us your vision for launching Chick-fil-A here in 1946.
he didn't, he wouldn't know what you're talking about.
He wasn't even serving, he wasn't serving chicken at the time.
That's right.
you look at people from a distance, you're like, oh, so they just had
this grand master plan, and, but it reminds me of what my dad said.
Be faithful in the small things, God's paying attention.
and
Truett just would be faithful, faithful, serve people really, really well.
Treat his staff really, really well.
And then one day, many years later, these two guys walk in from Delta
Airlines and said, Hey, we just had Delta cancel a large order of
chicken that we were gonna serve them.
Do you have any use for this?
And as he often did, he negotiated a really good price and now suddenly he's.
You know, sitting on this chicken, he is like, what am I supposed to do with this?
And, 50 something years later, it's now one of the largest
chicken restaurants in the world.
And so part of that is just the faithful obedience day in and day out.
And
you
your best and then God shows up and you're ready.
what breaks my heart for a lot of people that I see is when the opportunities
arrive and they're not ready for them.
and that's why I tell people in career transitions, of the most important
things that you need to do right now is I tell this to married couples.
I know this isn't the most romantic thing.
It may not sound like it is, but trust me, it is romantic.
You need to get your finances in order.
yeah.
Right outta the
Yep.
because Wendy and I did not know that six years into our marriage,
this opportunity with Buckhead Church would come along, which was fantastic.
We loved, but.
We had to take a significant pay cut to do that.
But because we had done the due diligence and God, because God had been faithful,
we were able to make that transition.
so we were being, we were preparing for something that we
weren't even sure what it was.
Mm.
And so that's why I tell people, just 'cause you can't.
See the future.
you can see right now what can you do now be faithful where you are.
And so that's one of the lessons I've learned.
And nobody was calling true at 1950 and saying, can we, the Wall
Street Journal wasn't calling him saying, can we interview
No.
' cause he was just this little restaurateur with this little bitty restaurant.
but over time that faithful diligence, um, you know, led us to where they are
That's awesome.
Well, I, I just appreciate it.
This is, unbelievable.
We could talk for three hours today 'cause this has just been great, man.
Jeff, this is awesome.
I know our listeners have just enjoyed this conversation, but we asked the guest
when we close out the show, two questions.
Number one, how can people reach you?
If they wanna connect with you or buy your books or hire you to speak
or whatever, how can they do that?
so that's first.
So we'll start there and then we'll ask the last question.
Sure they can just, go to jeff henderson.com and you'll see that
there's some free resources there in terms of some free assessments that
you can take and, they can contact our team and yeah, we'd be happy to help.
That's awesome.
We'll put that in the show notes, so if you're driving, don't worry.
That'll be in the show notes so you can check it out after the show.
Jeff, we always end by asking our guests who they would like to
see as a guest on the last 10%.
Have you had our mutual friend Kas McCaslin on here?
Oh, no, I haven't actually.
Oh, that's good.
Yeah.
that's who I'm voting for.
that would be a good episode.
Yeah, I think that's the, we need to make that happen.
I think.
Hey, we can actually make that happen, you know.
We'll, uh, we'll reach out to Cas and, see if he wants to be a guest on last two.
I'll say that he has to 'cause Jeff, you know, Jeff said so, so
he's gonna have to do it right.
Absolutely, and I don't even live in Spartanburg, so there you go.
That's right.
Alright, well Jeff, thank you again for being on the show and,
being a guest on the last 10%.
Thanks Dallas.