The Charlie Kirk Show - The Reluctant Disciple with Robin Pou

00:00:00.000 Hey everybody, it's on The Charlie Kirk Show, The Reluctant Disciple.

00:00:03.000 We have Robin Pugh joining us about his book, Leadership.

00:00:07.000 What does it require to be a good leader?

00:00:09.000 That and more. Email us as always, freedom at charliekirk.com and become a member today, members.charliekirk.com.

00:00:14.000 That is members.charliekirk.com.

00:00:17.000 Buckle up, everybody. Here we go.

00:00:18.000 Charlie, what you've done is incredible here.

00:00:20.000 Maybe Charlie Kirk is on the college campus.

00:00:22.000 I want you to know we are lucky to have Charlie Kirk.

00:00:26.000 Charlie Kirk's running the White House, folks.

00:00:29.000 I want to thank Charlie. He's an incredible guy.

00:00:31.000 His spirit, his love of this country, he's done an amazing job building one of the most powerful youth organizations ever created, Turning Point USA. We will not embrace the ideas that have destroyed countries, destroyed lives, and we are going to fight for freedom on campuses across the country.

00:00:48.000 That's why we are here.

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00:01:17.000 Kurt Schlichter joining us now.

00:01:19.000 Kurt, welcome to the program.

00:01:21.000 Kurt, your grade, your reaction to the debate we saw last night.

00:01:27.000 Look, everybody talks about how good J.D. Vance is.

00:01:30.000 Of course he's good. He's an attorney, and he's a good attorney.

00:01:34.000 Keep in mind, Not all attorneys are like that.

00:01:38.000 I never cease to amaze me, the poor quality of litigators that I see in other courtrooms who can't put together an argument, can't string together the words to compose a sentence.

00:01:50.000 But J.D. Vance went in and he did a really good job.

00:01:53.000 I thought it was...

00:01:55.000 Definitely a strategic choice of his to be nice.

00:01:59.000 He could have been a lot more brutal, and there were a lot of openings that he didn't run through that I think he skipped on purpose because he was trying to introduce himself to people who didn't know him.

00:02:13.000 We haven't talked enough about Tim Waltz in this big conversation, I think.

00:02:18.000 And I gotta say, I don't think Tim Waltz was terrible.

00:02:22.000 I think he did a competent job.

00:02:25.000 A lay person's job, a person who doesn't argue for a living, a person who's in a blue bubble and doesn't usually have to argue to defend his points.

00:02:34.000 For that, I don't think he did terribly, and I think he's going to appeal to some people.

00:02:38.000 So we shouldn't get out over our skis.

00:02:41.000 But the fact that J.D. Vance was so good, and he was very, very good, really shouldn't lead us to underestimate the appeal of a guy like Tim Walz.

00:02:53.000 So, as we kind of break down some of the elements here, what did you make of J.D. Vance's back and forth with the moderators and his handling of that situation?

00:03:05.000 Well, Charlie, it's very smooth and it's almost obligatory now.

00:03:11.000 I mean, after we saw how Newt Gingrich started by calling out the biased moderators, Donald Trump calls out moderators.

00:03:18.000 It confronts everybody in sight.

00:03:20.000 And we've had other candidates do it, too.

00:03:23.000 I think folks like you and I expect our candidates to confront biased moderators.

00:03:30.000 The day of a sheepish Mitt Romney cowering in front of a behemoth like Candy Crowley when she, you know, makes a false fact check.

00:03:40.000 Those days are over.

00:03:42.000 We're not going to tolerate that.

00:03:44.000 So J.D. Vance knew what he had to do.

00:03:46.000 When they started pulling their shenanigans, he started mansplaining.

00:03:51.000 And frankly, those ladies, I guess, needed a man to explain because they either didn't know what the hell they were talking about or they were lying. 1.00

00:03:58.000 Either way, they were giving their audience bad information.

00:04:01.000 And J.D. Vance wasn't going to stand for that nonsense.

00:04:04.000 So a lesser reported news story seems to be about Doug Emhoff.

00:04:09.000 You know, there's this whole idea that, you know, Doug Emhoff is the best version of the American male.

00:04:15.000 And let's just understand, here's what we understand about Doug Emhoff, is that he impregnated his kid's nanny, he then physically assaulted his girlfriend, lectured us on toxic masculinity, and then hailed for redefining masculinity, and now allegedly...

00:04:31.000 Slapped one of his girlfriends.

00:04:33.000 Walk us through the latest revelations here, Kurt.

00:04:36.000 Well, apparently he was off with his girlfriend, who was another prominent lawyer, and they were in France, and apparently she dared talk to somebody else, and he decided he was going to smack her.

00:04:48.000 And this is completely alien to us.

00:04:53.000 You know, as conservatives, you look at this and you're like, we know who that guy is.

00:04:59.000 He's the loudmouth in a bar screaming at his girlfriend and threatening her, and then you've got to get up and go, hey, dude, you need to chill, or, you know, somebody's going to get smacked, ain't going to be your girlfriend.

00:05:11.000 The thing is, the feminists, you know, these bizarre MSNBC feminists, Have embraced Imhoff as this new kind of man. 0.90

00:05:24.000 Jen Psaki is out there.

00:05:25.000 Oh, you're redefining masculinity. 0.98

00:05:27.000 Yeah, it's a bad definition.

00:05:29.000 And I think they, look, I think at some weird subconscious level, because I think feminism is really the manifestation of a lot of daddy issues and personal psychodramas among affluent girls who never fully grew up. 1.00

00:05:46.000 I think they like it.

00:05:48.000 At some weird, creepy level. 0.99

00:05:51.000 I think they like the idea of a guy who'll push them around, who'll treat them like garbage, who'll treat them like trash. 0.98

00:05:57.000 And it sounds bizarre to us. 0.98

00:05:59.000 It's alien and weird.

00:06:01.000 And the women that you and I are around would not put up with that, okay? 0.95

00:06:06.000 I mean, if I tried that stuff, you know, I'd be ventilated, you know,.45 caliber style, and properly so.

00:06:15.000 But look, I think there's a lot of weird psychosis going on with these feminists. 1.00

00:06:20.000 You look at the rates of mental illness among liberal women, and it's off the charts. 1.00

00:06:27.000 So there's something weird going on here.

00:06:29.000 I think women have a sixth sense about who's the bad guy. 1.00

00:06:33.000 And frankly, I think some of them are just attracted to it.

00:06:36.000 And that's part of feminism. 1.00

00:06:39.000 Call it the Forrest Gump.

00:06:41.000 Do you remember that Jenny's boyfriend in Forrest Gump slaps her around and blames Lyndon B. Johnson in the Vietnam War?

00:06:51.000 That's this guy to a T. So Kurt, I want to shift gears here for the final push to the election.

00:06:56.000 What is your analysis of the state of the race and what does Trump need to do to close strong these last 30 days?

00:07:02.000 Look, I keep hearing how it's close.

00:07:04.000 It is close, but I think Trump and JD are moving ahead.

00:07:10.000 Keep doing what you're doing.

00:07:11.000 Get out there. Make your case.

00:07:13.000 Go on the podcast that the leftists would never deign to be on.

00:07:21.000 Talk to the people they would never speak to.

00:07:24.000 Get out there and make your case to folks who don't usually vote.

00:07:28.000 And inspire them.

00:07:30.000 And I think that's what's happening.

00:07:32.000 I'm feeling excitement.

00:07:34.000 All the fundamentals are there.

00:07:37.000 I feel good about it, which means we should work 10 times as hard.

00:07:41.000 Everybody get out there and channel Scott Pressler.

00:07:44.000 Get out there, get your friends and neighbors to go out and vote.

00:07:47.000 So in closing here, Kurt, your take on the wrinkle of Tulsi Gabbard, RFK, this new unity ticket.

00:07:55.000 I love that J.D. Vance mentioned this yesterday.

00:07:59.000 I think this could be a defining factor in how the Trump movement is more diverse, ideologically diverse than the Democrats.

00:08:07.000 Your thoughts? Look, I don't agree with RFK about a lot of things.

00:08:13.000 I don't agree with Tulsi Gabbard about a lot of things.

00:08:15.000 But we agree at the premises.

00:08:18.000 We agree that it's important for every single American citizen to be respected and have a say in his or her government.

00:08:25.000 It's important that every American have the right to speak freely, even if it's things you or I don't want to hear or they don't want to hear.

00:08:34.000 You know, these things used to be common ground. 0.91

00:08:38.000 But now you have Walsh last night explaining that the government can censor speech as long as it's labeled hate speech and citing that idiotic shouting fire in a crowded theater meme that's Speaking of a lawyer, you're going to have to trust me, not a thing, okay? 0.99

00:08:57.000 It's constitutionally illiterate. 0.98

00:08:59.000 The beauty of this coalition is this is a coalition of normal people 30 years ago, okay, where we all agreed on some basic things and we disagree on others.

00:09:09.000 Maybe RK and I have some disagreements on vaccines.

00:09:12.000 Maybe we have some disagreements on foreign policy between me and Tulsi Gabbard.

00:09:17.000 I don't doubt her.

00:09:18.000 I know her military service.

00:09:21.000 And I respect it just like I'm sure she'd respect mine.

00:09:24.000 But we agree on the premises.

00:09:27.000 The left today, Charlie, does not agree on the premises.

00:09:30.000 It does not agree that every American should be treated equally.

00:09:35.000 It does not agree. They do not agree that everybody should be able to participate in their government.

00:09:40.000 And they certainly don't agree that everyone should be able to say what's on their mind.

00:09:44.000 Kurt Schlichter, plug your book, which is awfully applicable given what's happening in the Middle East right now.

00:09:49.000 The attack. It is a novel, but it's a with a lot of detail and realism about a massive terrorist attack in the United States, facilitated by our wide open borders.

00:10:00.000 Charlie, this could happen.

00:10:02.000 And I'm afraid it will.

00:10:05.000 That's why whenever I can, whenever I'm in a free state, I carry a weapon with me.

00:10:10.000 Why? Because you never know when this is going to occur.

00:10:13.000 It's not going to be just one guy, not going to be 10 guys.

00:10:16.000 It's going to be hundreds of guys allowed in to our country by the negligence of Biden-Harris and a distracted FBI that's not bothering a terrorist, not bothering a school shooter, only bothering with Americans who simply want to participate in their own government.

00:10:32.000 Kurt, thank you so much. Excellent work as always.

00:10:37.000 Hey everybody, Charlie Kirk here.

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00:11:36.000 A really great guest in studio, Robin Pugh, who I've known for a while.

00:11:41.000 Robin, welcome. Yeah, thank you, Charlie.

00:11:42.000 Thanks for having me. Author of a very important book, The Reluctant Disciple.

00:11:47.000 It's funny, I was having lunch with Robin earlier this year, I think it was in January, and you were telling me this story on how you went on a mission trip and you got kidnapped.

00:11:56.000 And I was like, you need to write it in the book.

00:11:58.000 You're like, actually, it is in a book, and you're writing it.

00:12:01.000 And so tell us about this.

00:12:03.000 I mean, it was the impetus of this book, and you almost died, you got kidnapped, and it was this divine intervention.

00:12:09.000 Tell us all about it. Yeah, so the book, The Reluctant Disciple, is a fictional parable that is based on just this true story that you're mentioning.

00:12:17.000 So in 2007, headed to Africa on a missions trip with our church, and it's a very long story, but the crux of it is we were coming out of the bush after a welcome celebration for the Village that we were going to be serving for 10 days, Jathini, about five hours from Nairobi at the base of Mount Kenya.

00:12:37.000 And we got pulled over by a rogue band of thugs.

00:12:42.000 And I was sort of thinking, well, you know, just get them their $400 and we'll be on our way.

00:12:48.000 And our project manager, Protazio, who was sitting in front of me, started screaming in Swahili.

00:12:54.000 And I realized he was otherwise a pretty cool customer.

00:12:57.000 And something was not going to go right.

00:12:59.000 And immediately I heard a loud pop and the window shattered and he slumped forward and they reached in, opened the door, and he fell out lifeless.

00:13:09.000 So the whole time I thought that they had shot the gun and that he was dead or dying.

00:13:14.000 What had ended up happening just to suspend, you know, all the suspense was that they had broken the glass with the butt of the gun and knocked him out.

00:13:23.000 And so what happened was they started tapping on my window, and I really looked away because I was trying to disappear myself.

00:13:31.000 Like, this was happening, but my brain wasn't catching up to it.

00:13:36.000 And so with my own free will, I literally had to reach over and unlock the door because I had seen right in front of me what would happen if I didn't And I opened the jump door and what transpired was two hours of being held against our will.

00:13:54.000 It was the most verbally brutal and physically brutal event that I could ever, you know, hope to not have happen.

00:14:02.000 And I don't even like to say that we Americans were even mishandled, even though we were mistreated, because they beat the holy tar out of the Africans that were with us. 1.00

00:14:15.000 The expats that were with us and all the, you know, our hosts.

00:14:18.000 And so that was really, you know, problematic, but it just showcased the evil.

00:14:22.000 Anyway, at the very end, or what ended up being the very end, they stood us up, did a very official police pat down and said, we will not hurt you, and they laid us face down in the ditch by the side of the road.

00:14:33.000 And so how did that segue then into the book?

00:14:49.000 I had her entry into heaven and mine. 0.93

00:14:51.000 And then I realized that if 13 people were dead or dying in a ditch by the side of the road in otherwise peaceful Kenya at that time, the whole world was going to know about it, especially if we were Christian missionaries.

00:15:03.000 And then I realized, oh my gosh, the purpose of my life is going to be my death, because in my death, God would shine a light on this region and eradicate this evil.

00:15:14.000 And so I just started saying the Lord's Prayer and got to deliver us from evil, and a set of headlights was coming down the road and spooked the bad guys off.

00:15:24.000 And so as we scrambled to get into the vans, the headlights caught up to us, and it was an all-white delivery van.

00:15:32.000 Deliver us from evil and here's a delivery van standing between us and the bad guys.

00:15:35.000 We'd see no cars going in, no cars coming out.

00:15:37.000 There were no homes to deliver anything to at 1030 at night.

00:15:41.000 And so in my own personal debrief, I was like, okay, wait a minute, Lord.

00:15:44.000 First of all, you saved me.

00:15:46.000 So good on you. That's great.

00:15:48.000 Appreciate that. But second, if the purpose of my life was going to be my death in that ditch and you miraculously saved me and now I don't have this purpose, what is the purpose of my life?

00:16:01.000 And he said, Robin, tonight I do not demand your life.

00:16:04.000 Knowing that you would give it to me is all that I ask.

00:16:07.000 Get up, dust yourself off, and let's get to work.

00:16:11.000 And so from that point on, I'm living on extra days because I died in that ditch.

00:16:17.000 And so taking this book and really making it available to everybody to understand these types of circumstances in your life, because every single person that's listening to this right now is either going into a ditch, in a ditch, or coming out of a ditch.

00:16:32.000 And they're wondering why.

00:16:34.000 And so this book is meant to help illuminate that question for them.

00:16:39.000 It's great. The book is The Reluctant Disciple, a parable about reconciling faith and business.

00:16:44.000 And I'm just going to read part of this from the back.

00:16:47.000 If you're in the business world, you might be asking, is that all there is?

00:16:49.000 Robin wrote The Reluctant Disciple to encourage you on your own journey to reconcile your own professional life with your faith.

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00:17:50.000 Robin Pugh is with us, author of The Reluctant Disciple, a parable about reconciling faith and business.

00:17:57.000 So let's talk about that. A lot of people here are listening on podcasting, and they're in a business world where it's hard to share their faith, hard to share their values.

00:18:05.000 Talk about how you should reconcile your calling for Jesus or your calling in the marketplace.

00:18:10.000 Yeah, I mean, somebody once told me you either need a missionary or you are a missionary.

00:18:15.000 And so if you need a missionary, then, you know, make sure that you're walking with somebody who can, you know, be on that faith journey with you.

00:18:21.000 And yet, if you are a missionary, not everybody's called to vocational ministry.

00:18:26.000 And so most of us are called to the marketplace.

00:18:29.000 And if you have faith as a priority in your life—so you may not be a sold-out believer, but you're not hostile to it—if you're sitting in the pews at church, the pastor's telling you, go love on people.

00:18:43.000 And so men in the marketplace and women who are wondering, well, wait a minute, I have to swim with the sharks Monday through Friday.

00:18:51.000 How am I going to go love on people?

00:18:53.000 And then if I am faith forward, is that going to be a hostile environment for me?

00:18:59.000 And so I just had this deep sense to actually write this book as a source of encouragement to say, you can live a fully integrated life.

00:19:07.000 You don't have to be one way in the workplace and then one way on Sunday or the weekend.

00:19:13.000 And so I was going to write a memoir, and this book coach that I was working with was saying, okay, what are you trying to accomplish?

00:19:18.000 And I said, I want to activate the single largest sitting army in the world, which are the believers in the pews at church. 0.99

00:19:26.000 I mean, think about the inventory of spiritual gifts and capacity and influence in relationship.

00:19:31.000 If that was truly activated for the cause of faith and liberty.

00:19:38.000 And liberty and freedom.

00:19:39.000 I mean, what our country has been built on.

00:19:42.000 I mean, imagine if that was unlocked.

00:19:44.000 And yet there's this governor, this sort of depressive governor on our ability to share our faith.

00:19:49.000 And so I wanted to share the actual memoir of the story.

00:19:52.000 And he was like, wait a minute. So you're telling me you've got to get fired.

00:19:55.000 You have to have a mission strip to Kenya. 1.00

00:19:57.000 You have to have a gun to your head and a machete to your neck. 0.99

00:19:59.000 And you have to have a near-death experience. 0.98

00:20:01.000 And you're expecting people to read that and be activated for God?

00:20:05.000 And I said, yeah.

00:20:07.000 And he goes, I don't think that that's going to fulfill the purpose of the book.

00:20:11.000 And I said, okay, Big Shot, what do you recommend?

00:20:13.000 And he said, a fictional parable.

00:20:15.000 And I was like, oh, okay. I'm out.

00:20:17.000 I don't know how to write a fictional parable.

00:20:20.000 And so here we are, fast forward, the reason that it's a fictional parable is because it's the everyman's story.

00:20:27.000 It's the every person's story.

00:20:28.000 So some of the best compliments I've gotten are I've never been in the head of a main character of a book as much as I was in Peter Christensen, the protagonist of this book.

00:20:40.000 And so that's the whole purpose of making it available for people to be able to put themselves in this story and say, okay, this is what it means to actually step forward and marry my faith with my marketplace calling.

00:20:54.000 Why do you think that so many Christians are hesitant to speak their values and express their worldview in the marketplace?

00:21:02.000 I don't know that they know what their values are.

00:21:05.000 I think we've got a massive identity crisis.

00:21:07.000 And so if I'm thinking about my identity in the marketplace, I'm only as good as whoever's telling me that I'm doing a good job on that particular day.

00:21:15.000 What we're talking about here is your identity in Christ and true truth.

00:21:20.000 And so if you're not understanding what true truth is, like who you are in the faith in Christ, then you will never step out, hot sports opinion, you will never step out and actually share that because you're just day trading on your position inside of the marketplace.

00:21:37.000 But if you're anchored in the truth of who you are and who God is and who you are in your relationship with him, Then you'll step out more boldly.

00:21:47.000 So the part of also what you do professionally is developing leaders.

00:21:51.000 Talk about that because there seems to be a leadership crisis in the West of people that aren't sure, you know, who to follow, what a leader actually is, and how does that intersect with your book and, you know, our desire to fight for liberty in Christ.

00:22:08.000 Yeah, so I started a leadership development firm about 14 years ago, trained and practiced law for five years, owner-operator of different businesses over a decade, and then I found this industry, if you will.

00:22:20.000 And so I used to build businesses, and now I build into the leaders who build businesses, because leaders cast a long shadow.

00:22:27.000 And that shadow is either a positive impact or a negative impact.

00:22:31.000 And the leaders that I work with, I only work with successful leaders, I don't pick them, they pick me.

00:22:36.000 If you don't care about your people, then you're not hiring an executive coach or a leadership development expert to help you improve your leadership.

00:22:45.000 They almost to a person say, I fear I'm becoming the leader that I swore I would never be.

00:22:53.000 Because bad leadership leaves a significant imprint on us.

00:22:57.000 And if we don't know how to actually be a good leader, we will just continue that generational impact from bad leadership.

00:23:06.000 So when you deal with leaders, what are the characteristics that define a good leader versus a not so good leader?

00:23:13.000 Yeah, so Collins in his book Good to Great sort of imprinted on all of us a couple of decades ago, and the number one thing that he says, a level five leader, is humility.

00:23:23.000 So think about a captain of industry who's raising his hand or her hand to say, you know what, I need a coach.

00:23:31.000 So Harvard Business Review did a survey of the Fortune 500 CEOs that utilized a coach, and it was only about 50%.

00:23:38.000 And they reported a 7 to 41x return.

00:23:43.000 And when they took all the qualitative data and they quantified it, they were able to say, gosh, the leader, like I said, casts a long shadow.

00:23:50.000 When the top leader is focusing on raising their leadership lid, the entire organization benefits.

00:23:56.000 So if you start with humility to say, hey, I need some assistance, these are the same people who are hiring fitness trainers and nutritionists.

00:24:03.000 I mean, they're trying to operate, optimize for their maximum.

00:24:07.000 And so I would say that's the number one trait.

00:24:09.000 And then the second is that they care about their people.

00:24:12.000 They genuinely have care and compassion for the people that they work with, that they do their leadership in and through.

00:24:19.000 Do you believe that leadership, you're born a leader or that it is developed?

00:24:23.000 That is such a great question.

00:24:25.000 So I believe that there are some natural-born leaders, but the majority of us are developed leaders.

00:24:33.000 We're trained leaders. In fact, I'm betting my entire career on the fact that leaders can be built, that they can be trained.

00:24:40.000 There's an entire science to leadership.

00:24:44.000 And leadership really is just influence.

00:24:46.000 You either have functional leadership or positional.

00:24:49.000 So have you ever worked at an environment where the front desk person has more influence than almost anybody else in the organization?

00:24:57.000 They're a leader because they are able to utilize their role to influence others.

00:25:03.000 So leadership isn't this high-minded thing.

00:25:05.000 It's basically your ability to understand your influence and use it for good.

00:25:10.000 So when you try to replicate other leaders, what is the one, two, or three, I'm sure you talk about this in the book, of the standard operating procedure to try to do that?

00:25:21.000 Yeah, so we've got a five-part leadership development framework, and we call it the confident leader.

00:25:27.000 If you're 70% confident, which sounds like a pretty high percentage, you're 70% confident, You're 30% doubtful, and doubt changes your performance level every single time.

00:25:41.000 So the three things, if I were to pull out of our five-part framework, is you've got to have a vision.

00:25:46.000 So think about a leader that isn't able to communicate where they are going or where they're taking the team.

00:25:53.000 I mean, this is playing out right now.

00:25:55.000 Without a vision, people perish. Yeah, without vision, people perish.

00:25:59.000 And write the vision plain on tablets so that he who runs may read it.

00:26:05.000 So this is Habakkuk 2-2, right?

00:26:07.000 Or Habakkuk, as my son calls it.

00:26:10.000 And then the second is identity.

00:26:13.000 So you're on the team because of your strengths.

00:26:17.000 So many leaders are focusing on their deficiencies, and they have this idea that you can make your weakness your greatest strength.

00:26:24.000 You can't do that.

00:26:26.000 Where does that come from?

00:26:27.000 I have no idea. It's like some sort of weird self-help thing.

00:26:31.000 Well, I think it's the enemy speaking to us, which is this is why you're not good and we want to be able to solve for that.

00:26:37.000 And yet, you're not on the team because of your weaknesses.

00:26:40.000 You're on the team because of your strengths.

00:26:41.000 And this is why we work on teams when we have the complement of strengths.

00:26:46.000 And then the third piece, so if we have vision and then we have identity, would be purpose, which is the why.

00:26:52.000 Why, Charlie, are you doing this job?

00:26:55.000 This job that causes you to, in this moment in time, work 23 hours a day.

00:27:00.000 What is your why?

00:27:02.000 To save Western civilization.

00:27:04.000 There you go. Only a very small, you know, stakes.

00:27:08.000 As abstract as one can get.

00:27:09.000 Well, and think about Viktor Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning.

00:27:12.000 One of my favorite books. 30 million copies sold.

00:27:14.000 He, you know, bases that on Nietzsche, who says...

00:27:17.000 He who has a why can bear almost anyhow.

00:27:21.000 So how you have to march through the next 33 days might be very challenging, but you're armed with your why.

00:27:29.000 I mean, Simon Sinek has made an empire on answering this age-old question, why?

00:27:34.000 Start with why. And it's very powerful.

00:27:36.000 So vision, identity, and why would be three pieces.

00:27:39.000 From your perspective, just generally, and I know this is one of the reasons you wrote the book, why is it that so many young people are lacking a why?

00:27:48.000 That's a great question.

00:27:49.000 I think that if I were to summarize it, I think everybody else has been telling them what their why is up to this point, and they haven't actually had to think about it for themselves.

00:28:00.000 And if everything is served up for them and their parents or other people are answering that question for them, it's like, wait a minute, now I'm in the real world, perhaps?

00:28:09.000 Who's going to answer that question for me?

00:28:11.000 That's why I Anybody that is dissatisfied with their life either doesn't have the answer to the question why or somebody has answered that for them.

00:28:19.000 So you're either going to have somebody else define your why or you're going to stand on your own ground and say this is why I'm doing this.

00:28:27.000 And if a Christian is lacking a why, that's a problem, because you should have an ultimate why as a Christian, correct? 0.50

00:28:34.000 Yeah, I mean, the grand why is to glorify God, and then the calling, which is based on how you're uniquely wired, that's your individual unique why.

00:28:44.000 And in the book and in your work, you help people develop that.

00:28:49.000 Yeah, I mean, it's central. I mean, your why is your intrinsic motivation for everything that you do because sometimes we're lazy and we just don't want to do it.

00:28:59.000 So what is that drive?

00:29:01.000 What is that motivation that otherwise gets us through those challenging times?

00:29:05.000 I mean, Peter in the book hits a pretty significant wall and wrote it in such a way that it It allows people to say, wow, that's me.

00:29:16.000 And when you hit that brick wall, are you going to crumble or are you going to move through that?

00:29:21.000 The book is The Reluctant Disciple by Robin Pugh.

00:29:28.000 Hey everybody, Charlie Kirk here.

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00:30:26.000 MyPillow.com. Robin, let's keep talking about leadership.

00:30:32.000 What if someone says, though, I'm not a leader and I can't become a leader?

00:30:35.000 Yeah, well, I mean, do they have a desire to be a leader?

00:30:37.000 Or maybe they're thrown a place where they have to be a leader.

00:30:40.000 So you, sir, are now a leader.

00:30:42.000 Yeah, well, and this is happening with the great resignation, if you think about it from a couple of years ago, if you've got this flight of leaders leaving your organization, The way that you keep the people who are still there is that you promote them.

00:30:57.000 And so a little bit of an epidemic is people being promoted beyond their skill level.

00:31:02.000 And so you will hear these leaders, so talking about managers or directors or vice presidents, they're like, oh my gosh, Robin, I'm an accidental leader.

00:31:11.000 Like, I don't even know how I got here.

00:31:13.000 I do the thing really well and now I'm in charge of the people who do the thing.

00:31:18.000 And some of those people are my peers.

00:31:20.000 And so the question is, do you have the will or the skill?

00:31:24.000 If you don't have the will to be a leader, then you should question whether or not you should be in that spot.

00:31:28.000 If it's just a function of, I desire to be a leader, or I desire to steward this role really well, but I don't have this skill, then that goes back to, well, we can develop those skills.

00:31:39.000 I mean, we have a six-month leadership intensive that we do for...

00:31:42.000 What does that look like?

00:31:45.000 What do you do to those leaders?

00:31:46.000 Yeah, so we bring them through a pretty significant curriculum that is anchored by an emotional intelligence assessment.

00:31:54.000 We think that the emotionally intelligent leader going forward is going to be the one who wins the day.

00:32:01.000 So emotional intelligence, people think, oh, it's based off of emotions.

00:32:04.000 They're emotional or not emotional, and that's not really what it is.

00:32:07.000 It's 15 specific skills that you can develop.

00:32:11.000 Name some of them. Yeah, so there's reality testing, there's optimism, there's flexibility, and so it's how well are you aware of the emotions that you're having, how are you expressing those, building relationships, managing stress, and making decisions.

00:32:28.000 The two emotional intelligence skills that I think are the most important are reality testing.

00:32:35.000 Are you seeing the world the way it actually is or the way you want to see it?

00:32:40.000 What do you find? That's super interesting to me.

00:32:44.000 Why is that resonating with you?

00:32:45.000 Well, because we're governed by people that don't see reality.

00:32:48.000 Okay, and so you've got people that see things more skeptical than they actually are or more optimistic or, you know...

00:32:55.000 And you want to be within reality.

00:32:57.000 Yeah, you want to be able to see the facts as they are.

00:33:00.000 So how do you go about making sure that you, Charlie, are seeing things the way they are?

00:33:04.000 What are some tactics? I have no idea.

00:33:06.000 Okay, so you would surround yourself with other people or like, are we seeing the same thing?

00:33:10.000 And so you're able to actually communicate with others.

00:33:12.000 Yes. Because then leaders go make decisions on those...

00:33:16.000 Based on that. So is there a practice that you can go through to be more in the real and less in the pessimistic or optimistic?

00:33:25.000 Yeah, I think being on your leadership team, being able to have people communicate, no, you're seeing this more skeptical than it actually is, or you're seeing it more optimistic.

00:33:34.000 And so if you've got this feedback culture where you are actually open as a leader for your team to give you feedback...

00:33:42.000 And you say, oh, but.

00:33:44.000 Well, if you say but to them, that erases everything that they just shared.

00:33:49.000 In closing here, you mentor, coach, top business leaders.

00:33:52.000 Not all of them are Christian or godly.

00:33:55.000 Can you talk about the kind of the people that are very, very wealthy, but they don't have God and the emptiness that sometimes you see in their life and the need for advice for people that are young, that it's not just about business success, but putting the divine, the eternal and the beautiful at the forefront.

00:34:11.000 Yeah, so I'm not a Christian executive coach or leadership development expert.

00:34:17.000 I want to be the best executive coach that I can possibly be because I want to be able to be in the company of influencers so that I can influence them with God's wisdom, not my wisdom, because I'm going to run out of stuff.

00:34:31.000 So if God's going to give me supernatural wisdom...

00:34:35.000 How then do I show up for those people?

00:34:37.000 So they find me, and, you know, prior to writing this book, they may not even know— It was word of mouth, yeah.

00:34:43.000 Yeah. Well, but I'm saying even from a faith-based perspective, well, now that I've published a book that is clearly faith-based, it's like, okay, this is what his beliefs are.

00:34:51.000 But the point is, is that as I'm chatting with them, everything that's rooted—everything that I coach is rooted in Scripture.

00:34:59.000 And so even though I may not be quoting chapter and verse— God's Word does not return void.

00:35:05.000 And they're like, wait a minute, write the vision plain on tablets so that he who runs may read it?

00:35:09.000 Where'd that come from? I'm like, oh, it's an old parable or an old proverb.

00:35:13.000 And so just being able to offer that to those folks.

00:35:17.000 The reluctant disciple, check it out, Robin Pugh.

00:35:19.000 Thank you, Robin. Thanks, Charlie.

00:35:21.000 Thanks so much for listening, everybody.

00:35:22.000 Email us, as always, freedom at charliekirk.com.

00:35:24.000 Thanks so much for listening, and God bless.

The Charlie Kirk Show - October 03, 2024

The Reluctant Disciple with Robin Pou

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