Stephanie Warner: Welcome our fellowship of the trail to season four, episode fifty-four. Hello, Father.
Marcus Warner: Hello, daughter.
Stephanie Warner: And happy autumn is finally here this week in the northern hemisphere. And also happy Hobbit Day to all who celebrate.
Marcus Warner: Is this his eleventieth something birthday? Is that what's going on?
Stephanie Warner: Yeah n I mean I guess he's frozen in time. So yeah, Bil Bilbo
Marcus Warner: Okay. All right.
Stephanie Warner: and Frodo have the same birthday actually. So,
Marcus Warner: okay.
Stephanie Warner: you know, extroverts and introverts can can celebrate how you will. You can throw a feast or you can just, you know, read Lord of the Rings or you can Indeed,
Marcus Warner: Or just disappear. Yeah. Okay.
Stephanie Warner: indubitably. Although we do we do recommend avoiding magic rings. So Okay.
Marcus Warner: Frown on magic rings. Yeah. Okay.
Stephanie Warner: There there was our nerd dumb for the day. as we we get into the topic, we are actually continuing our rare leadership book study. We are in chapter four, when the fast track needs fixing. If you don't know what the fast track is, we can re-explain that and also pop into chapters one, two, three. We're unpacking brain science and emotional maturity and all sorts of things here. The goal of this series is to equip you to live and lead with more emotional intelligence and resilience on your walk with God. And you can check out the free discussion guide for this book in the description links. We hope that is helpful for you. Father, let us get into chapter four when the fast track needs fixing. And let's go ahead and just give a a quick refresher what do we mean by slow track, fast track?
Marcus Warner: All right, so there are two systems in the brain, and these aren't locations in the brain, they're systems that function. And the but they are largely the fast track is largely on the right hemisphere, and the slow track is largely in the left hemisphere. So every now and then we'll slip into right brain, left brain language. But we use fast track and slow track, try to be a little more precise about what's actually going on. The fast track is the part of the brain that reacts to things. Faster than conscious thought. So that's the sim probably the simplest way to think about it. It is constantly moving at a speed faster than we can think about things. And so this is where we react in fear or anger. It's where we remember our character and act like ourselves. We don't have to constantly stop stop and analyze like what is my character? How would it be like me? You it's like it just automatically shows up as long as the fast track is working. the slow track is where conscious thought di thought dominates and where problem solving happens and focus and that sort of thing. So that's kind of the difference in a nutshell.
Stephanie Warner: Awesome. And so we are talking specifically and applying this toward leadership and relational dynamics and things like that. And so in this chapter, again, when the when the fast track needs fixing, subtitle The Cost of Toxic Community, right? And so how can we what does that ha what is what does the fast track have to do with affecting toxic community?
Marcus Warner: Yeah, it seems like a leap, doesn't it, in terms of like, well, okay, that's a big, big sweeping thing. So the fast track is houses my character, it houses my sense of identity, and it houses the part of me that is the most relational and feels connection to other people. And so what happens is if my fast track begins to malfunction, I lose my ability to think as clearly as I should, and I Do a poorer job of solving problems and all of my other functions go down. So if I am going to contribute to the toxicity of a culture, if I am going to behave in a way that creates problems in my culture, you will almost always be able to trace that behavior back to somebody, if not a lot of people's fast tracks shutting down. And so when the fast track is malfunctioning, it I stop acting like myself. I stop remaining relational. I'm gonna be more likely to blow up, you know, meltdown, shut down, that sort of thing. So I can give
Stephanie Warner: Yeah.
Marcus Warner: you an example of how this happens. So I one of the first times I ever did a corporate training event on rare leadership, I was we had a slide up there with like ten different ways you can tell that your your fast track is shutting down. And one of was I don't want to make eye contact. One is I just wanna stop this conversation right now. I just wanna get rid of you. I don't want to less finish listening. I just want to, you know, that there's a lot of things like that. And somebody in the room blurted out, I don't think my fast track's ever been on. Because it's like I live that way all of the time was sort of his point. At which moment he said that, it's like every eye in the room looked at me as if to nodding their head as if to say, no, he is not kidding. He is like, does not Does not function that way. And so the result is when you've got somebody in the room like that, everybody else walks on eggshells around them because you never know when they're going to be relational and when they're going to shut, shut down, when they're going to blow up, when they're going to melt down. You never know which person you're going to get. And so you kind of tiptoe around them and they become the unstable presence that everybody has to adapt to in the culture.
Stephanie Warner: Mm-hmm.
Marcus Warner: And so his just that one person shut down fast track affected the whole culture of that organization.
Stephanie Warner: Yeah. That I I had pulled a a sentence kind of fr from the book like this. It says when leaders begin to be swayed by who is going to get upset, they are surrendering their guidance to the most emotionally unstable person in their group. And so whether yeah.
Marcus Warner: No, very true. I yeah, I mean, you think about how often we make decisions based on, well, if I do that, this one person's gonna get really upset. And we don't know how to handle them really upset. We don't know how to deal with that level of emotion. So it's like, well, let's not do that. And it's not you can pretend that it's out of kindness to that person, but it's really out of fear that you're gonna have to deal with something you don't want to deal with. And so that's the challenge here is that if I don't have enough maturity as a leader. I will be constantly just turning into a doormat for whoever the least mature person in the room is, trying my best not to upset the apple cart. And when that happens, fear becomes the driver in the culture instead of joy and toxicity is quick to follow.
Stephanie Warner: Yeah. Can you talk a little bit more about how just avoiding negative emotions can add to toxic you know, can can can turn toxic?
Marcus Warner: Yeah, so one of the things I learned from Dr. Wilder was that the only thing we truly fear is an emotion we can't handle. And so what happens is I may not be able to put into words that I can't handle that emotion, but in the fast track knows the fast track knows I can't handle that emotion. Right. So my conscious thought may not know that I can't handle it, but my fast track knows I can't handle it. So my fast track's gonna send signals saying, hey, avoid that. Don't go there, stop. Right. And I and I will find myself then on the conscious part of my brain coming up with excuses and reasons why it's a good idea to avoid this and why I shouldn't, that aren't necessarily related to the actual reason why I'm avoiding this situation. and so what happens then is that with every emotion that I can't handle as a leader, if I have to avoid that emotion, That is now a decision I can't make. It's a direction into which I cannot lead. And decisions begin being made for me based off of just things I'm afraid of. And so it is a problem that comes up when we have to deal with the you know, people who have unstable emotions and and sometimes it's not even their unstable emotions. Sometimes it's even our fear that they will become unstable. And
Stephanie Warner: Mm-hmm.
Marcus Warner: so that fear ends up controlling us.
Stephanie Warner: Yeah. Well and it can go it can go dri all d you know, it can be you can tiptoe around a leader or a leader can tiptoe around an employee or or it can be in family dynamics, right? It's not always just in a workplace setting.
Marcus Warner: No, I've definitely done it. I mean, I I know there have been times when I have just avoided making a decision because I didn't want to deal with the fallout it was going to create. And I have usually ended up dealing with a bigger fallout later than if I had just dealt with it the first time. And it's it's understandable because you're like, I just really don't feel like dealing with this person's, you know, reaction to this right now. And so you put it off. And then in the time you put it off, they talk to four other people and now there's other you know, it's and it just escalates and and that's why avoiding emotions can actually feed the toxicity in a culture and help it grow bigger.
Stephanie Warner: So we're talking about slow track, fast track, but slow track can't really watch the fast track 'cause it's slow. So how how do we how do we spot if there's training that the fast track needs? What are warning signs? What are yeah, what are what are what are some ways that we can start recognizing, hmm, something might be wrong.
Marcus Warner: So what this what the slow track can do, right? Is it can't s watch the fast track operate, but it can s the slow track can see the warning signs. So on my the slow track is really good at problem solving and seeing things that need my focus and attention. And so it's my slow track that it's going to say, okay, I see this happening. There is a problem. We better start trying to fix that problem. Now, if I don't have these categories and I don't have this, then the problem I'm usually trying to fix is you, as opposed to something going on in my brain and my ability to motivate myself, find some joy motivation in what I'm doing. But for example, if I find that I just don't want to be around anybody and I am isolating consistently, I may cover that up by saying, I'd just rather do it myself or I just need a break or something like that. And sometimes that is, you just need a break. And sometimes that's true. And it's just true enough that it can be convincing, but it becomes
Stephanie Warner: Mm.
Marcus Warner: a pattern in my life. And I realize that I am becoming more and more isolated from my team. I do not include them in things. I am staying to myself more and more. That's a sign that I am avoiding something because of fear. another one is when I need to motivate somebody else. I find myself turning more and more to fear as that motivator for them. And I will warn of the bad outcomes. Like this is going to be catastrophic. This is going to be terrible. Right. Horrible things are going to come. And I am motivating with fear almost exclusively. And that's another sign that my fast track is malfunctioning because I can't even think of motivations that aren't fear-based when I'm getting like that.
Stephanie Warner: And motivations can be motivating ourselves or other people and so it's
Marcus Warner: Right.
Stephanie Warner: you know, i you can catch it both ways.
Marcus Warner: Yeah, so if I am motivating, you know, my people like this catastrophe is going to happen if we don't, right? That would be an example. And so we see coaches do this a lot. We see parents do it with their kids, we see, you know, even pastors do it in the church, we see at smaller levels, like all of us did lead at something. And and a lot of leadership is about creating engagement, and a lot of creating engagement is about motivation, and so. We need to catch ourselves when we are motivating with fear and find a way to bring some joy into the motivation and not rely just exclusively on things like shame and anger and fear to get people to do what we want them to do. So that's a sign, like that our slow track can catch, like, okay, I am turning to a fear motivator here. Maybe I should take a closer look at what's going on.
Stephanie Warner: I will just don't a tangential comment there on, you know, one of the things when people are leading or are motivating with fear or motivating with problem solving, you know, going back to VCR, which we've talked about on the various episodes before about validating, comforting, recovering, that when you're always going straight to problem solving, you're always going straight to the fear motivator, it turns everything into a crisis. it makes everything feel like, it's a crisis or else, instead of like, well, you know, because sometimes, you know, we need to j you know, there there is some fear or there is some, you know, there is something that that needs to be handled right away. and it's a problem solving thing. But when everything is constantly problem solving first, it makes everything feel like a crisis. And then it feels like, well, if everything's a crisis, is anything a crisis? Like, but anyway, just a random thought I had.
Marcus Warner: Yeah, exactly. No, it's true. And so that's what we're looking at is so I'm looking for the warning signs of isolation, the warning signs of motivating myself and others with fear, because that does turn things into crisis mode. and nothing's gonna burn people out faster. And then the third warning sign I'm looking for is that I am beginning to become predatory. And that is I am starting to hurt people with my words. I'm starting to maybe even track people in order to watch them fail, like I'm rooting for them to go down. That's predatory behavior. I'm bullying, you know, people and not showing them respect and kindness. If I am starting to get predatory in the way I'm treating people, it's a sign that my fast track is malfunctioning and toxicity is going to be the result of that.
Stephanie Warner: Mm-hmm. Yeah, I had written down happens when weaknesses are criticized, power advantages are exploited, and people look out for number one. Yeah.
Marcus Warner: Yeah. We're gonna talk about this later in our podcast as we get through the book, but you know, we talk about the difference between predatory leaders and protector leaders. So predatory leaders are bullies, basically, who and both predators and protectors track weaknesses. They just do it for totally different reasons. One is tracking weakness to know where to attack in order to win, and one is tracking weakness to know where you need help. And so that what our goal here is to be a protector leader, not a predator leader.
Stephanie Warner: It's a really good distinction. I also thought it was really good in this chapter, you bring up also the need for healing in some of these things, and that kind of finding the dishealing itself is is kind of beyond the scope of of this book of rare leadership, but there are times when you have to determine is this something that is a skill that needs trained in my brain? Or is there healing to a damaged system that needs to be done? And can you s speak a little bit to you know, maybe how to recognize that or go about that?
Marcus Warner: Yeah, so they are often related, right? Sometimes the reason I'm lacking a skill is because of wounds that I have gone through in my life. the point we're making here is that simply getting healing for those wounds isn't going to give you the skill. And that is that if you let's just say that you were bullied growing up and now you have a tendency to bully people or you have a tendency to want to be a wall flower and disappear, that's a wound that needs to be healed. but Getting that wound healed isn't going to auto s automatically give you all of the skills that you missed out on during all the years that you were living in fear because of the bullying. So what we're trying to distinguish here is that is just the idea that healing doesn't solve all of the problems, even if it's really important that you get some healing about this. And what it does is it's meant to kind of wipe away some of the things that are that are getting in the way. And make it easier to build these skills. but
Stephanie Warner: vice versa. If you're just learning the skills but you need healing, the skills aren't going to heal you. So yeah.
Marcus Warner: aren't going to heal you. Yeah. So there's a lot of people and so the good news is you can start building some skills before you get healing. And that's good news. It's like you don't have to wait till you're completely healed in order to build any skills. And you don't have to have a whole bunch of you know, the the the two things can work together.
Stephanie Warner: Yeah. So can you I can you talk more about the dangers of isolation and all of this?
Marcus Warner: So, you know, for leaders, there's multiple dangers in isolating. And one of them is you lose touch with the people and you start leading out of your imagination more and more of what you imagine is going on because you're actually out of touch with with with the people around you. That's one danger. Another danger is that you yourself don't have a support group anymore, and so you find yourself doing more and more things to try to soothe yourself and make yourself feel better. And so it tends to lead to addictive behaviors. as you doing more and more things like I can't count on anybody else to help me out here, make me feel better. So I'm gonna do the things that that and so you end up with a lot of high capacity leaders who have some significant addictions. They can be addicted to a lot of sex stuff and a lot of, you know, alcohol and drugs and different things. You're like, how do they function? Well they they There's a lot of anxiety that comes with leadership because you're constantly dealing with those what-if scenarios and what-if catastrophe happen kind of things. And and a lot of people learn that sexual stimulation is the only thing that quiet them. And so they they fill their lives with it. Other people learn, like, I gotta, you know, have enough alcohol or whatever in my system, or I don't feel like I can function. And so isolation adds to that. If I don't feel like I'm part of a group. that I can rely on and that we're all moving in the same direction and that we are looking out for each other, the odds of me turning to addictive behaviors goes up significantly. So those are two, you know, concrete things that often happen as a problem with isolation. There's, you know, probably several others. Does one come to your mind?
Stephanie Warner: Mm-hmm. Well, and ironically, yeah, I mean, I I was just thinking ironically, the you know, so our brain we we're created for people and community and all these things and we're afraid of being alone, but sometimes in our fear of being alone or our fear of being abandoned or rejected or whatever, then we just self fulfilling prophecy make ourselves alone so that we won't be alone, you know. It's like, wait.
Marcus Warner: Yeah, no, it that's absolutely true. It's like it can turn into a self fulfilling prophecy because you know, you keep telling yourself nobody wants me around, nobody wants me here and and you withdraw so much that people get used to you not being around and you have your guard up so much that they don't know how to act around you and it does turn it can turn into that for sure.
Stephanie Warner: Yeah. So we've we've touched on it a lot, but can we speak directly to kind of the idea of this is your brain on fear? Like we've talked about the you know, the our brains are designed to run on the fuel of joy and we and with the fast track we wanna be running on the the we wanna run at the speed of joy as chapter one talks about. what is it like to work to to run at the speed of fear? Like
Marcus Warner: So let's be clear again here that the fuel we're talking about is primarily motivation. And what we're talking about is how do I motivate myself? And if I am constantly motivating myself with fear, that's going to lead to anger, it's going to lead to shame, it's going to lead to a lot of other negative emotions. And and what will happen is those emotions call for more energy. And so now I'm having to work even harder. and so my engine tends to run hot. And it's like the engine is overheating because now I'm not only having to solve these problems, I'm having to deal with the energy being created by all of the negative emotions that are going on with it. And things that maybe would be manageable now become unmanageable and overwhelming because of all the big, you know, fear-based emotions that are connected to it. So that's why motivation matters. That's why this fuel matters. that is not a sustainable recipe for life. And so we have to find ways to motivate with joy. If we don't, we're just gonna isolate more and more. And one of the problems with isolation again is what we avoid things, and one of the things we end up avoiding are tasks. And so sometimes even the failure becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy because I'm so afraid of of my feelings. I'm not getting anything done. And and and so it it cre it can create a really bad situation. That's why we So I'm gonna motivate you to joy with fear. That's what I'm doing right now. I want you to be. It's like it is so scary. What will happen if you're motivated with fear that you definitely want to do joy?
Stephanie Warner: Mm-hmm.
Marcus Warner: there's a little irony there. But what we're trying to do is say, is I want to be the best version of myself. I want to have my best brain working on this problem. I want to have a you know relational connection. I don't want to be isolated. I do want team, I do want connection, I do want these things, right? So you're looking at what are the joyful reasons to be doing what I'm doing,
Stephanie Warner: Mm-hmm.
Marcus Warner: that can that can help. And this is like go through like a time of transition in your life where you're leaving behind something secure and you're going into something that where there's significant change. And you can find yourself only motivating yourself with fear. Like I better do this or else. I better do that or else because in this transition, what happens if that takes place? What happens if the other thing takes place? And all I'm doing is I'm rehearsing all the fears constantly. I've got to find the joyful motivator of well, what does this give me the opportunity to do? What does this give me the chance to create? What is, you know, going on here that I can take advantage of? I've got to find something in here that motivates me with joy. and that helps to balance things out, keep me engaged, keep me focused, and it keeps my whole brain operating the way it's supposed to.
Stephanie Warner: Yeah. Well, and if you can find the places to smell the roses, you know, if if there are truly things in crisis or there is a change and it you just can't the change is happening and there's nothing you can do about it and you're s you know I I just think about when I graduated from from Asbury and was I was walking through the process of I okay I'm about to move states and leave this community and leave this apartment and leave all this stuff and and I just really deliberately started documenting th things I appreciated about my surroundings and about that season and was just kind of trying to honor the the change of okay, I love this and I love this and I'm grieving that this is ending but also I'm appreciating it and now we're gonna go to the next thing or whatever and you know anyway that's another tangent, but there's
Marcus Warner: Yeah.
Stephanie Warner: I think that joy baby steps to the elevator, right? Sometimes you sometimes it's it's far reaching to to get the joy on the really big thing. but you
Marcus Warner: Yeah.
Stephanie Warner: can get it in the small things and then work your way up there if it feels like, yeah, but you just don't know the thing that I'm trying to motivate right now, right?
Marcus Warner: Yeah. Well, good job getting a what about Bob reference in there. Okay. So
Stephanie Warner: You know.
Marcus Warner: baby steps to the elevator. Now it's true. We have a we have it's hard to start with the biggest thing going on in your life, right? We need to practice with manageable things. And so the first time we try to do to find a joy motivator is with the biggest scariest thing going on that I've ever had to face. It's gonna be difficult to do. So we wanna practice. with the littler things and kind of see how it works. And then you begin dealing with the bigger things. This can also be an opportunity to bring prayer in and listening prayer specifically into the situation as I begin asking God to show me what the joy motivators are in the situation that I am in and what I have to be thankful for and appreciate throughout what I'm going through.
Stephanie Warner: that that's so good. Well hey next chapter we're going to continue looking at immature versus mature leaders and how to create culture and well yeah I'm excited for that as well. we're so glad that you are all here with us. Thank you for being on the trail with us once again have a happy Hobbit Day or and Yeah, thank you for everybody who prays with us and partners with us and is is tuning in. I w yeah, one of these days I need to figure out how we can get people badges, you know, the listeners. It's great. But anyway, for now, we'll just keep on keeping on, Father.
Marcus Warner: We definitely we definitely need yeah, fellowship of the trail badges, don't we? That sounds like a cool thing.
Stephanie Warner: Yeah. I like it. All right.
Marcus Warner: When you got a slogan like Fellowship of the Trail, how can you not celebrate Hobbit Day, right?
Stephanie Warner: I'm yeah, I'm just saying. I'm just saying. Everybody likes to get cozy and have a meal with someone, right? That's just
Marcus Warner: Exactly.
Stephanie Warner: all right. Any final thoughts on this episode?
Marcus Warner: All right. We get we get now know how to get back off of that trail before we end up somewhere we can't get back from, but
Stephanie Warner: It's okay. One of these days we'll start our In the Weeds off the Trail podcast
Marcus Warner: Yeah.
Stephanie Warner: and digress into all the things. Final thoughts on on
Marcus Warner: My final thoughts. Yeah. So so yeah. Now so learning about fast track, slow track was really kind of revolutionary for me because before that I did not see all the patterns of avoidance that I had in my life. And I realized that I was a very avoidant leader. I didn't want to rock the boat ever. I didn't want to get anybody upset. I didn't want to deal with hard things. And what I realized I was cultivating that in the staff I was leading. And a lot of people were choosing avoidance over problem solving. And when that happens, you stop solving problems, right? And so those problems get bigger and the and it creates a toxic environment. So learning about this helped me to realize, okay, there is a way to actually face my problems, not lose my joy, stay relational and act like myself as I'm going through these problems. And it was honestly a brand new idea for me, a a new concept, and it gave me something to target and to strive. to to achieve because I'm like, okay, well that's a goal now and I didn't even have that picture in my head before. and now I do. And so I think this fast track, slow track concept has been really can be revolutionary for you too.
Stephanie Warner: I hope so. May it be so. All right, see you guys next week.
Marcus Warner: Hello, daughter.
Stephanie Warner: And happy autumn is finally here this week in the northern hemisphere. And also happy Hobbit Day to all who celebrate.
Marcus Warner: Is this his eleventieth something birthday? Is that what's going on?
Stephanie Warner: Yeah n I mean I guess he's frozen in time. So yeah, Bil Bilbo
Marcus Warner: Okay. All right.
Stephanie Warner: and Frodo have the same birthday actually. So,
Marcus Warner: okay.
Stephanie Warner: you know, extroverts and introverts can can celebrate how you will. You can throw a feast or you can just, you know, read Lord of the Rings or you can Indeed,
Marcus Warner: Or just disappear. Yeah. Okay.
Stephanie Warner: indubitably. Although we do we do recommend avoiding magic rings. So Okay.
Marcus Warner: Frown on magic rings. Yeah. Okay.
Stephanie Warner: There there was our nerd dumb for the day. as we we get into the topic, we are actually continuing our rare leadership book study. We are in chapter four, when the fast track needs fixing. If you don't know what the fast track is, we can re-explain that and also pop into chapters one, two, three. We're unpacking brain science and emotional maturity and all sorts of things here. The goal of this series is to equip you to live and lead with more emotional intelligence and resilience on your walk with God. And you can check out the free discussion guide for this book in the description links. We hope that is helpful for you. Father, let us get into chapter four when the fast track needs fixing. And let's go ahead and just give a a quick refresher what do we mean by slow track, fast track?
Marcus Warner: All right, so there are two systems in the brain, and these aren't locations in the brain, they're systems that function. And the but they are largely the fast track is largely on the right hemisphere, and the slow track is largely in the left hemisphere. So every now and then we'll slip into right brain, left brain language. But we use fast track and slow track, try to be a little more precise about what's actually going on. The fast track is the part of the brain that reacts to things. Faster than conscious thought. So that's the sim probably the simplest way to think about it. It is constantly moving at a speed faster than we can think about things. And so this is where we react in fear or anger. It's where we remember our character and act like ourselves. We don't have to constantly stop stop and analyze like what is my character? How would it be like me? You it's like it just automatically shows up as long as the fast track is working. the slow track is where conscious thought di thought dominates and where problem solving happens and focus and that sort of thing. So that's kind of the difference in a nutshell.
Stephanie Warner: Awesome. And so we are talking specifically and applying this toward leadership and relational dynamics and things like that. And so in this chapter, again, when the when the fast track needs fixing, subtitle The Cost of Toxic Community, right? And so how can we what does that ha what is what does the fast track have to do with affecting toxic community?
Marcus Warner: Yeah, it seems like a leap, doesn't it, in terms of like, well, okay, that's a big, big sweeping thing. So the fast track is houses my character, it houses my sense of identity, and it houses the part of me that is the most relational and feels connection to other people. And so what happens is if my fast track begins to malfunction, I lose my ability to think as clearly as I should, and I Do a poorer job of solving problems and all of my other functions go down. So if I am going to contribute to the toxicity of a culture, if I am going to behave in a way that creates problems in my culture, you will almost always be able to trace that behavior back to somebody, if not a lot of people's fast tracks shutting down. And so when the fast track is malfunctioning, it I stop acting like myself. I stop remaining relational. I'm gonna be more likely to blow up, you know, meltdown, shut down, that sort of thing. So I can give
Stephanie Warner: Yeah.
Marcus Warner: you an example of how this happens. So I one of the first times I ever did a corporate training event on rare leadership, I was we had a slide up there with like ten different ways you can tell that your your fast track is shutting down. And one of was I don't want to make eye contact. One is I just wanna stop this conversation right now. I just wanna get rid of you. I don't want to less finish listening. I just want to, you know, that there's a lot of things like that. And somebody in the room blurted out, I don't think my fast track's ever been on. Because it's like I live that way all of the time was sort of his point. At which moment he said that, it's like every eye in the room looked at me as if to nodding their head as if to say, no, he is not kidding. He is like, does not Does not function that way. And so the result is when you've got somebody in the room like that, everybody else walks on eggshells around them because you never know when they're going to be relational and when they're going to shut, shut down, when they're going to blow up, when they're going to melt down. You never know which person you're going to get. And so you kind of tiptoe around them and they become the unstable presence that everybody has to adapt to in the culture.
Stephanie Warner: Mm-hmm.
Marcus Warner: And so his just that one person shut down fast track affected the whole culture of that organization.
Stephanie Warner: Yeah. That I I had pulled a a sentence kind of fr from the book like this. It says when leaders begin to be swayed by who is going to get upset, they are surrendering their guidance to the most emotionally unstable person in their group. And so whether yeah.
Marcus Warner: No, very true. I yeah, I mean, you think about how often we make decisions based on, well, if I do that, this one person's gonna get really upset. And we don't know how to handle them really upset. We don't know how to deal with that level of emotion. So it's like, well, let's not do that. And it's not you can pretend that it's out of kindness to that person, but it's really out of fear that you're gonna have to deal with something you don't want to deal with. And so that's the challenge here is that if I don't have enough maturity as a leader. I will be constantly just turning into a doormat for whoever the least mature person in the room is, trying my best not to upset the apple cart. And when that happens, fear becomes the driver in the culture instead of joy and toxicity is quick to follow.
Stephanie Warner: Yeah. Can you talk a little bit more about how just avoiding negative emotions can add to toxic you know, can can can turn toxic?
Marcus Warner: Yeah, so one of the things I learned from Dr. Wilder was that the only thing we truly fear is an emotion we can't handle. And so what happens is I may not be able to put into words that I can't handle that emotion, but in the fast track knows the fast track knows I can't handle that emotion. Right. So my conscious thought may not know that I can't handle it, but my fast track knows I can't handle it. So my fast track's gonna send signals saying, hey, avoid that. Don't go there, stop. Right. And I and I will find myself then on the conscious part of my brain coming up with excuses and reasons why it's a good idea to avoid this and why I shouldn't, that aren't necessarily related to the actual reason why I'm avoiding this situation. and so what happens then is that with every emotion that I can't handle as a leader, if I have to avoid that emotion, That is now a decision I can't make. It's a direction into which I cannot lead. And decisions begin being made for me based off of just things I'm afraid of. And so it is a problem that comes up when we have to deal with the you know, people who have unstable emotions and and sometimes it's not even their unstable emotions. Sometimes it's even our fear that they will become unstable. And
Stephanie Warner: Mm-hmm.
Marcus Warner: so that fear ends up controlling us.
Stephanie Warner: Yeah. Well and it can go it can go dri all d you know, it can be you can tiptoe around a leader or a leader can tiptoe around an employee or or it can be in family dynamics, right? It's not always just in a workplace setting.
Marcus Warner: No, I've definitely done it. I mean, I I know there have been times when I have just avoided making a decision because I didn't want to deal with the fallout it was going to create. And I have usually ended up dealing with a bigger fallout later than if I had just dealt with it the first time. And it's it's understandable because you're like, I just really don't feel like dealing with this person's, you know, reaction to this right now. And so you put it off. And then in the time you put it off, they talk to four other people and now there's other you know, it's and it just escalates and and that's why avoiding emotions can actually feed the toxicity in a culture and help it grow bigger.
Stephanie Warner: So we're talking about slow track, fast track, but slow track can't really watch the fast track 'cause it's slow. So how how do we how do we spot if there's training that the fast track needs? What are warning signs? What are yeah, what are what are what are some ways that we can start recognizing, hmm, something might be wrong.
Marcus Warner: So what this what the slow track can do, right? Is it can't s watch the fast track operate, but it can s the slow track can see the warning signs. So on my the slow track is really good at problem solving and seeing things that need my focus and attention. And so it's my slow track that it's going to say, okay, I see this happening. There is a problem. We better start trying to fix that problem. Now, if I don't have these categories and I don't have this, then the problem I'm usually trying to fix is you, as opposed to something going on in my brain and my ability to motivate myself, find some joy motivation in what I'm doing. But for example, if I find that I just don't want to be around anybody and I am isolating consistently, I may cover that up by saying, I'd just rather do it myself or I just need a break or something like that. And sometimes that is, you just need a break. And sometimes that's true. And it's just true enough that it can be convincing, but it becomes
Stephanie Warner: Mm.
Marcus Warner: a pattern in my life. And I realize that I am becoming more and more isolated from my team. I do not include them in things. I am staying to myself more and more. That's a sign that I am avoiding something because of fear. another one is when I need to motivate somebody else. I find myself turning more and more to fear as that motivator for them. And I will warn of the bad outcomes. Like this is going to be catastrophic. This is going to be terrible. Right. Horrible things are going to come. And I am motivating with fear almost exclusively. And that's another sign that my fast track is malfunctioning because I can't even think of motivations that aren't fear-based when I'm getting like that.
Stephanie Warner: And motivations can be motivating ourselves or other people and so it's
Marcus Warner: Right.
Stephanie Warner: you know, i you can catch it both ways.
Marcus Warner: Yeah, so if I am motivating, you know, my people like this catastrophe is going to happen if we don't, right? That would be an example. And so we see coaches do this a lot. We see parents do it with their kids, we see, you know, even pastors do it in the church, we see at smaller levels, like all of us did lead at something. And and a lot of leadership is about creating engagement, and a lot of creating engagement is about motivation, and so. We need to catch ourselves when we are motivating with fear and find a way to bring some joy into the motivation and not rely just exclusively on things like shame and anger and fear to get people to do what we want them to do. So that's a sign, like that our slow track can catch, like, okay, I am turning to a fear motivator here. Maybe I should take a closer look at what's going on.
Stephanie Warner: I will just don't a tangential comment there on, you know, one of the things when people are leading or are motivating with fear or motivating with problem solving, you know, going back to VCR, which we've talked about on the various episodes before about validating, comforting, recovering, that when you're always going straight to problem solving, you're always going straight to the fear motivator, it turns everything into a crisis. it makes everything feel like, it's a crisis or else, instead of like, well, you know, because sometimes, you know, we need to j you know, there there is some fear or there is some, you know, there is something that that needs to be handled right away. and it's a problem solving thing. But when everything is constantly problem solving first, it makes everything feel like a crisis. And then it feels like, well, if everything's a crisis, is anything a crisis? Like, but anyway, just a random thought I had.
Marcus Warner: Yeah, exactly. No, it's true. And so that's what we're looking at is so I'm looking for the warning signs of isolation, the warning signs of motivating myself and others with fear, because that does turn things into crisis mode. and nothing's gonna burn people out faster. And then the third warning sign I'm looking for is that I am beginning to become predatory. And that is I am starting to hurt people with my words. I'm starting to maybe even track people in order to watch them fail, like I'm rooting for them to go down. That's predatory behavior. I'm bullying, you know, people and not showing them respect and kindness. If I am starting to get predatory in the way I'm treating people, it's a sign that my fast track is malfunctioning and toxicity is going to be the result of that.
Stephanie Warner: Mm-hmm. Yeah, I had written down happens when weaknesses are criticized, power advantages are exploited, and people look out for number one. Yeah.
Marcus Warner: Yeah. We're gonna talk about this later in our podcast as we get through the book, but you know, we talk about the difference between predatory leaders and protector leaders. So predatory leaders are bullies, basically, who and both predators and protectors track weaknesses. They just do it for totally different reasons. One is tracking weakness to know where to attack in order to win, and one is tracking weakness to know where you need help. And so that what our goal here is to be a protector leader, not a predator leader.
Stephanie Warner: It's a really good distinction. I also thought it was really good in this chapter, you bring up also the need for healing in some of these things, and that kind of finding the dishealing itself is is kind of beyond the scope of of this book of rare leadership, but there are times when you have to determine is this something that is a skill that needs trained in my brain? Or is there healing to a damaged system that needs to be done? And can you s speak a little bit to you know, maybe how to recognize that or go about that?
Marcus Warner: Yeah, so they are often related, right? Sometimes the reason I'm lacking a skill is because of wounds that I have gone through in my life. the point we're making here is that simply getting healing for those wounds isn't going to give you the skill. And that is that if you let's just say that you were bullied growing up and now you have a tendency to bully people or you have a tendency to want to be a wall flower and disappear, that's a wound that needs to be healed. but Getting that wound healed isn't going to auto s automatically give you all of the skills that you missed out on during all the years that you were living in fear because of the bullying. So what we're trying to distinguish here is that is just the idea that healing doesn't solve all of the problems, even if it's really important that you get some healing about this. And what it does is it's meant to kind of wipe away some of the things that are that are getting in the way. And make it easier to build these skills. but
Stephanie Warner: vice versa. If you're just learning the skills but you need healing, the skills aren't going to heal you. So yeah.
Marcus Warner: aren't going to heal you. Yeah. So there's a lot of people and so the good news is you can start building some skills before you get healing. And that's good news. It's like you don't have to wait till you're completely healed in order to build any skills. And you don't have to have a whole bunch of you know, the the the two things can work together.
Stephanie Warner: Yeah. So can you I can you talk more about the dangers of isolation and all of this?
Marcus Warner: So, you know, for leaders, there's multiple dangers in isolating. And one of them is you lose touch with the people and you start leading out of your imagination more and more of what you imagine is going on because you're actually out of touch with with with the people around you. That's one danger. Another danger is that you yourself don't have a support group anymore, and so you find yourself doing more and more things to try to soothe yourself and make yourself feel better. And so it tends to lead to addictive behaviors. as you doing more and more things like I can't count on anybody else to help me out here, make me feel better. So I'm gonna do the things that that and so you end up with a lot of high capacity leaders who have some significant addictions. They can be addicted to a lot of sex stuff and a lot of, you know, alcohol and drugs and different things. You're like, how do they function? Well they they There's a lot of anxiety that comes with leadership because you're constantly dealing with those what-if scenarios and what-if catastrophe happen kind of things. And and a lot of people learn that sexual stimulation is the only thing that quiet them. And so they they fill their lives with it. Other people learn, like, I gotta, you know, have enough alcohol or whatever in my system, or I don't feel like I can function. And so isolation adds to that. If I don't feel like I'm part of a group. that I can rely on and that we're all moving in the same direction and that we are looking out for each other, the odds of me turning to addictive behaviors goes up significantly. So those are two, you know, concrete things that often happen as a problem with isolation. There's, you know, probably several others. Does one come to your mind?
Stephanie Warner: Mm-hmm. Well, and ironically, yeah, I mean, I I was just thinking ironically, the you know, so our brain we we're created for people and community and all these things and we're afraid of being alone, but sometimes in our fear of being alone or our fear of being abandoned or rejected or whatever, then we just self fulfilling prophecy make ourselves alone so that we won't be alone, you know. It's like, wait.
Marcus Warner: Yeah, no, it that's absolutely true. It's like it can turn into a self fulfilling prophecy because you know, you keep telling yourself nobody wants me around, nobody wants me here and and you withdraw so much that people get used to you not being around and you have your guard up so much that they don't know how to act around you and it does turn it can turn into that for sure.
Stephanie Warner: Yeah. So we've we've touched on it a lot, but can we speak directly to kind of the idea of this is your brain on fear? Like we've talked about the you know, the our brains are designed to run on the fuel of joy and we and with the fast track we wanna be running on the the we wanna run at the speed of joy as chapter one talks about. what is it like to work to to run at the speed of fear? Like
Marcus Warner: So let's be clear again here that the fuel we're talking about is primarily motivation. And what we're talking about is how do I motivate myself? And if I am constantly motivating myself with fear, that's going to lead to anger, it's going to lead to shame, it's going to lead to a lot of other negative emotions. And and what will happen is those emotions call for more energy. And so now I'm having to work even harder. and so my engine tends to run hot. And it's like the engine is overheating because now I'm not only having to solve these problems, I'm having to deal with the energy being created by all of the negative emotions that are going on with it. And things that maybe would be manageable now become unmanageable and overwhelming because of all the big, you know, fear-based emotions that are connected to it. So that's why motivation matters. That's why this fuel matters. that is not a sustainable recipe for life. And so we have to find ways to motivate with joy. If we don't, we're just gonna isolate more and more. And one of the problems with isolation again is what we avoid things, and one of the things we end up avoiding are tasks. And so sometimes even the failure becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy because I'm so afraid of of my feelings. I'm not getting anything done. And and and so it it cre it can create a really bad situation. That's why we So I'm gonna motivate you to joy with fear. That's what I'm doing right now. I want you to be. It's like it is so scary. What will happen if you're motivated with fear that you definitely want to do joy?
Stephanie Warner: Mm-hmm.
Marcus Warner: there's a little irony there. But what we're trying to do is say, is I want to be the best version of myself. I want to have my best brain working on this problem. I want to have a you know relational connection. I don't want to be isolated. I do want team, I do want connection, I do want these things, right? So you're looking at what are the joyful reasons to be doing what I'm doing,
Stephanie Warner: Mm-hmm.
Marcus Warner: that can that can help. And this is like go through like a time of transition in your life where you're leaving behind something secure and you're going into something that where there's significant change. And you can find yourself only motivating yourself with fear. Like I better do this or else. I better do that or else because in this transition, what happens if that takes place? What happens if the other thing takes place? And all I'm doing is I'm rehearsing all the fears constantly. I've got to find the joyful motivator of well, what does this give me the opportunity to do? What does this give me the chance to create? What is, you know, going on here that I can take advantage of? I've got to find something in here that motivates me with joy. and that helps to balance things out, keep me engaged, keep me focused, and it keeps my whole brain operating the way it's supposed to.
Stephanie Warner: Yeah. Well, and if you can find the places to smell the roses, you know, if if there are truly things in crisis or there is a change and it you just can't the change is happening and there's nothing you can do about it and you're s you know I I just think about when I graduated from from Asbury and was I was walking through the process of I okay I'm about to move states and leave this community and leave this apartment and leave all this stuff and and I just really deliberately started documenting th things I appreciated about my surroundings and about that season and was just kind of trying to honor the the change of okay, I love this and I love this and I'm grieving that this is ending but also I'm appreciating it and now we're gonna go to the next thing or whatever and you know anyway that's another tangent, but there's
Marcus Warner: Yeah.
Stephanie Warner: I think that joy baby steps to the elevator, right? Sometimes you sometimes it's it's far reaching to to get the joy on the really big thing. but you
Marcus Warner: Yeah.
Stephanie Warner: can get it in the small things and then work your way up there if it feels like, yeah, but you just don't know the thing that I'm trying to motivate right now, right?
Marcus Warner: Yeah. Well, good job getting a what about Bob reference in there. Okay. So
Stephanie Warner: You know.
Marcus Warner: baby steps to the elevator. Now it's true. We have a we have it's hard to start with the biggest thing going on in your life, right? We need to practice with manageable things. And so the first time we try to do to find a joy motivator is with the biggest scariest thing going on that I've ever had to face. It's gonna be difficult to do. So we wanna practice. with the littler things and kind of see how it works. And then you begin dealing with the bigger things. This can also be an opportunity to bring prayer in and listening prayer specifically into the situation as I begin asking God to show me what the joy motivators are in the situation that I am in and what I have to be thankful for and appreciate throughout what I'm going through.
Stephanie Warner: that that's so good. Well hey next chapter we're going to continue looking at immature versus mature leaders and how to create culture and well yeah I'm excited for that as well. we're so glad that you are all here with us. Thank you for being on the trail with us once again have a happy Hobbit Day or and Yeah, thank you for everybody who prays with us and partners with us and is is tuning in. I w yeah, one of these days I need to figure out how we can get people badges, you know, the listeners. It's great. But anyway, for now, we'll just keep on keeping on, Father.
Marcus Warner: We definitely we definitely need yeah, fellowship of the trail badges, don't we? That sounds like a cool thing.
Stephanie Warner: Yeah. I like it. All right.
Marcus Warner: When you got a slogan like Fellowship of the Trail, how can you not celebrate Hobbit Day, right?
Stephanie Warner: I'm yeah, I'm just saying. I'm just saying. Everybody likes to get cozy and have a meal with someone, right? That's just
Marcus Warner: Exactly.
Stephanie Warner: all right. Any final thoughts on this episode?
Marcus Warner: All right. We get we get now know how to get back off of that trail before we end up somewhere we can't get back from, but
Stephanie Warner: It's okay. One of these days we'll start our In the Weeds off the Trail podcast
Marcus Warner: Yeah.
Stephanie Warner: and digress into all the things. Final thoughts on on
Marcus Warner: My final thoughts. Yeah. So so yeah. Now so learning about fast track, slow track was really kind of revolutionary for me because before that I did not see all the patterns of avoidance that I had in my life. And I realized that I was a very avoidant leader. I didn't want to rock the boat ever. I didn't want to get anybody upset. I didn't want to deal with hard things. And what I realized I was cultivating that in the staff I was leading. And a lot of people were choosing avoidance over problem solving. And when that happens, you stop solving problems, right? And so those problems get bigger and the and it creates a toxic environment. So learning about this helped me to realize, okay, there is a way to actually face my problems, not lose my joy, stay relational and act like myself as I'm going through these problems. And it was honestly a brand new idea for me, a a new concept, and it gave me something to target and to strive. to to achieve because I'm like, okay, well that's a goal now and I didn't even have that picture in my head before. and now I do. And so I think this fast track, slow track concept has been really can be revolutionary for you too.
Stephanie Warner: I hope so. May it be so. All right, see you guys next week.
