Texas Leadership Summit Podcast
Empowering leaders with the courage, tools, and hope to ignite a revival of Christian leadership. In each episode of the Texas Leadership Summit Podcast, leaders bring you empowering insights and easy-to-understand takeaways you can use to lead yourself and others. You’ll learn practical ways to grow as a leader, get involved in your community, lead your family, and grow your faith.
Texas Leadership Summit Podcast
How To Prevent Leadership Burnout with Megan Butler (Part 2)
Have you ever felt the creeping tendrils of burnout threaten to undo the hard-earned equilibrium in your life? As the founder of Texas Leadership Summit, I had the honor of sitting down with Megan Butler to discuss a topic that hits close to home for many Christian leaders. Our conversation is a deep dive into the world of mindfulness, work-life harmony, and the critical yet often overlooked concept of restorative rest. Drawing from my 18-year pastoral journey, I share the intimate details of how I've navigated through the emotional and physical tolls of ministry, and how you too can stay in tune with your body's stress signals and maintain peak health to avoid burnout.
Megan Butler, with her insightful perspectives, joins me in revealing the keys to balancing the demands of leadership with personal well-being. We tackle practical strategies like establishing communication boundaries through technology and embracing the divine wisdom in time management. The episode is rich with anecdotes and advice on how to incorporate different activities that re-energize your spirit, from the physical release of manual labor to the calming effects of exercise. We also delve into the spiritual aspect, recognizing that a vibrant relationship with God serves as the cornerstone of effective leadership, preventing the descent into spiritual burnout.
But the journey doesn't end at identifying the problem—there's a path to healing and hope. We highlight the importance of seeking support, whether it's through counseling or leaning on church staff, and provide resources like desertroadministries.org and TexasLeadershipSummit.org for those looking for assistance. Megan's mission to help leaders find their courage and tools is not just inspiring—it's a testament to the resilience and strength found within the community. So join us, and let this episode be your guide to sustaining the passion and purpose in your ministry, free from the shackles of burnout.
Hello, my name is Tim Webb, founder of Texas Leadership Summit, and I want to welcome you to our Texas Leadership Summit podcast today, where we are joining in the conversation, again coming back to Megan Butler and our conversation about burnout, and so our desire is to give Christian leaders, encourage them, but give them courage, hope and tools to stand for their faith.
Speaker 1:And so part of this, as we are looking at our topic of burnout today, again following up with that Megan, let's switch gears and kind of go into a kind of a preventive mode, okay, okay. So let's say we have a leader listening today and they're relating to everything we're talking about, whether it be environment, all of those conversations bringing our own baggage into the leadership, having a struggle to admit that I'm just burned out, I'm hurting. They know that there's some things that they can do to come out of that and we may wrap up with that. But for those who've been listening, waiting for this, you know we got some fixtures in our audience, I'm sure, and they have a hard time listening because they're waiting for the fix, you know.
Speaker 2:I'm one of those people, okay, so just give me one.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we're the bullet points. We're having a conversation, they're waiting for bullet points. So preventive, what are some preventive? Because we want them to stay in this conversation. So let's help those who are listening who are in that kind of mindset. What are some things we can do to prevent this burnout from coming on?
Speaker 2:So I got three bullet points.
Speaker 1:Three bullet points. Yes, okay, let's do it.
Speaker 2:You got mindfulness work-life balance and restorative rest.
Speaker 1:Okay, let's back up to mindfulness. Just kind of unpack each one of those a little bit more. What do you mean by mindfulness?
Speaker 2:It can mean a lot of things depending on what you need, but it's about being in the present and allowing yourself to take time to look inward and check in on yourself, and that can look different for different people. Like, if you're an introvert, you're going to absolutely love mindfulness in the sense of you know, I'm going to have my quiet time. Maybe people do like to meditate or read their Bible journal.
Speaker 2:like, just get all into the there's thoughts yeah there's thoughts I've got a feel Okay, you know extroverts maybe not so much, and so it might be more so like taking a walk and noticing your surroundings and giving yourself time to mind, wander or savor a moment, but just checking in with your body to see how your body's feeling. Sometimes, if we're struggling with checking out a lot during the workday because we're burned out, it's creating little check-in reminders for yourself and orienting yourself to a moment, and maybe every three hours you have a little chime that goes off to say like you know, what am I doing, what am I thinking?
Speaker 1:How am I feeling? So I'm a grandpa, okay. So I'm going to come from pastor grandpa, kind of I've had a few years on the trail and so with that, I would say, for someone who's been in leadership for several years, hitting it hard, 110%. For me, that mindfulness is really stopping also and saying, hey, maybe I need to see a doctor and get a checkup. Let me just check my vitals, Let me check, you know, and I've had some things.
Speaker 1:I guess 30 years into ministry some major things happened to me and I didn't have a choice. So I want to encourage our leadership. Now, if you're looking at, if you've got a pace that's 110% and you're go, go, go. You're not going to have the ability. I mean, you've set things up to where you can't have that mindfulness. It's just so I would. I'm just going to piggyback on what you said, that that it's vitally important that you stop and kind of check your engine. You know, I know in counseling, when I was doing that a lot, it one of the things first things we did was when was the last time you saw a doctor?
Speaker 2:Yep.
Speaker 1:When was the last time you had blood work, you know, and just just checking, if you will, the system of the body and just, and so there may be some things going on that you're not aware of. And so I think that mindfulness is not just your thoughts and you're thinking about your life, but it's also physically. How are you doing so?
Speaker 2:yeah, yeah. So if you start noticing like I'm holding a lot of attention, a lot, that's like no wonder I'm getting migraines, or you know like you may start noticing like some trends of your physical body too.
Speaker 2:But yeah, it's just that checking in with yourself, and I even encourage people. You know, with meditation sometimes it's just learning how to breathe, and so if you give yourself even five minutes a day to practice breathing, you'll find that you're doing it throughout the day and it's like, oh, I think I was stressed Right there. But you'll notice your body takes a deep breath and if you train it it can start helping you out when you're not noticing that you're feeling tension.
Speaker 1:And some people may be laughing when they said that talking to practice breathing.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I'll give you a great example. You go to the dentist and you're clenching your jaw because you're afraid of pain and then the dental assistant asks the question are you breathing? Like literally, physically, are you breathing? And I just I find myself, when we deal with real life issues in ministry, I find when I think about certain things internally, I begin to think through that, what that family's going through, what that couple's going through, or what we're getting ready to face in the church, and you can find yourself externalizing the internal, clenched fists, set jaw and they just your eyebrows coming together and just your facial expressions and all of these things come into motion Just from what you're internalizing.
Speaker 1:So people, they can laugh at us for saying, hey, learn how to breathe. But it's necessary and I find that the in that stressful moment, that stepping back and just letting, just just stop, take a breath. You know I have some phrases that I've used through the years, but one of them was shared with me from an older Judeo-Christian pastor who said Tim, this too shall pass, and sometimes we get caught up in the moment, as if this is moment's going to continue forever, and it's not. And so that's a. That's a long way from just learning how to breathe, but, but I think that's the reality of it Sometimes, how it plays out Okay. So what was the next one we said?
Speaker 2:Work-life balance.
Speaker 1:Work-life balance. Oh, this is a fun one.
Speaker 2:Yeah, when do you, you know, shut it down.
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay. So work-life balance for you, that's something that you've had to work through.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm still practicing, still practicing.
Speaker 1:Oh, so we don't have to have it down 100% right now.
Speaker 2:Okay, I, you know all of these things. I feel like it's removing the pressure from it. Things are always up for reevaluation, okay, so it's trying new things all the time. So you know for me, my supervisor when I was in a counseling associate, she told me she doesn't take more than six clients a day because she knows when she hits number seven it's just an automated response Like she's not engaged with the clients anymore.
Speaker 1:In real time. She's not Okay, yeah, and so that's what I'm trying right now. Okay, I'm trying to say how it works.
Speaker 2:But then also, with all the background stuff, trying to figure out like how do I stay caught up on the administrative side and then actually still have a life, you know? Like when do you say enough is enough for the day and trust that it'll still be there tomorrow, right, and everybody's going to be okay?
Speaker 1:For our everyday pastor, I would say one of their hard to balance work-life balance kind of thing would be don't always give your cell number out.
Speaker 2:Your cell phone.
Speaker 1:You know I could come into play with the balance. I can't tell you how many times I've changed my cell phone number through the years.
Speaker 2:I'll give you a little tip for that one. I use a Google number for work. That's a good point. There you go, so I turn the notifications on when.
Speaker 1:I'm not working, so that's something they can do. There you go. There's a tool you can do Tip. There you go. Tip number two Okay, so work-life balance.
Speaker 2:Yeah and that. So, underneath these three points, I put surrender ultimately, because we have to trust that God knows that we're human and there's only so much that we're built for in a day.
Speaker 1:Oh, now you're preaching.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's true. Like you know, if I'm going to decide to practice mindfulness so that I can care for my body, I have to surrender at least you know maybe five minutes a day to practicing something that I'm not going to be able to do, to practicing something that I'm trying and trusting that God will cover that five minutes. If I'm going to decide when I'm going to turn work off and go be with my family or go invest in something else, because you know you have a life Right, you're a person you have to trust that God's going to take care of whatever you left there. So there's trust, even with burnout. If you're going to share with somebody, hey, I'm going to be there. I'm going to share with somebody hey, I'm struggling and there's a fear that you're going to lose your job because of it. There's a surrender that God's gonna take care of you even if you lose your job.
Speaker 1:I used to have some mentors in my life who would say Tim, if you don't take care of Tim, there's not gonna be a Tim to help take care of other people. Exactly, we gotta look at the marathon and not the sprint.
Speaker 2:Yep, okay.
Speaker 1:Yep, all right. Okay, anything else with that Going a little deeper.
Speaker 2:With work-life balance Work-life balance Anything. I mean really, it's just it's gonna look different for everybody. But you know, just taking a look at your workload, the pressures that you're putting on yourself, if there's any negative control there, where, if you feel like if I don't do it, who's going to or so, and so won't do it as well as I can, you know we're like hoarding work like that and then we're running ourselves down because we can't, you know, shut it down for the day. You know, get something to look into.
Speaker 1:I think also from being an administrator of a nonprofit before we got executive directors who experienced this, pastors definitely experienced this. We have this vision for the future for our organization or church and we think we should be able to do all of these things. And one of the things I've realized is that, with that surrender and trust, I have to trust the Lord to be able to say we're not ready for that.
Speaker 1:If we were ready, for that we would have this person in play. And so sometimes we have to come back and say, yeah, we want to do all these things and it's on our long range planning, strategic plan, all of these things. And so I had to come back to be able to have some humility, humble myself and say we just can't do that right now because I can't do it all, you can't do it all. And so we've got to pray and prepare our team. So for now, this is, this is where we are, and we have to be good with that and trust that when we're ready, we're doing all of the hard work foundationally and trusting that God's going to bring the people when we can care for them and have a culture ready, receive them. And so sometimes, as pastors, we just have to feel like we have to present this big new initiative and create and build and grow, and sometimes we forget the church belongs to Christ, not us.
Speaker 2:The surrender the surrender.
Speaker 1:There you go Back to the surrender. Okay, what was that? We talked about our third restorative rest. Restorative rest. Okay, what do you mean by restorative?
Speaker 2:rest. So that is and I mean this is very simple to think about, but it's essentially the opposite of whatever you're doing for work during the day. So if you're on screens all day, if you go home and watch TV or you're scrolling on your phone, it's not restful.
Speaker 2:And your brain and your body need different kinds of stimulation to feel energized. So if you're on screens absolutely all day to the moment you're shutting your eyes to go to sleep, it's going to be a drain. And so, you know, restorative rest doesn't necessarily have to be like, well, I'm just laying on the couch or I'm taking a nap or whatever. It can be exhausting, but just in a different way than what you've already been doing. So if I'm on a screen all day and then I go home and work on some project, I may be physically tired, but I'm still going to be recharged for work the next day because you know I was doing something different.
Speaker 1:I think one thing for leaders who are in an office all day or working with people, you know, there's that thing called cortisol dump, the as our body, we go through things, that stressors create certain hormones. And so one of the things that I have found that when I'm involved with people and I'm thinking a lot and doing a lot of administrative things, well, the best thing I can do is do something manual, physical. So go to the gym. I don't like going to the gym, but I need to go to the gym because I'm, you know, I'm stressing my body in a different way, physically and I'm working through those hormones that my brain's been dumping on me all day and working through these scenarios and stuff.
Speaker 1:And so I think for other, at least for some of the guys out there in leadership just doing manual labor and I grew up in a farm and ranch background, and so I'm in an office all day or I'm working with people all day, sometimes just doing manual tasks. I can think really well during that. And so you say restorative rest. I'm keying in on it's not so much just be still, but, like you said, the opposite of what you do. So it can be very helpful. And then, and obviously your sleep patterns and sleep yes.
Speaker 1:Yes, and so I think uh, unfortunately, we have leaders who want to tackle many different things, and I am one of them. And so as I'm looking and listening, as we're having this. I'm looking at my life and I'm listening to you. I'm going wow, I have a lot to learn.
Speaker 2:I've been in this for a long time.
Speaker 1:So I keep telling my wife, one day I'm going to get there One day.
Speaker 2:I'm going to get there, I'm going to figure this out. Jesus comes back, yeah.
Speaker 1:Please don't say that, at least not around her. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And that's for me too. If I'm counseling and I'm talking to people all day, I get in my car, I want to call someone and I'm like whoa, like Don't you like be silent? A little bit.
Speaker 1:What one of the questions I had for you was. When it comes to visionaries and staying focused and seeing that vision through, are there certain things that they can put into place and this may be some overlap with what we've already said, but some things that they can put into place to be disciplined with keeping that focus Is there. Have you seen things with enable you to keep your focus on your vision For your ministry? And some things that may have been helpful.
Speaker 2:I feel like these prevention methods are really good for visionaries because it it's like a big pause button. Okay, I'm a visionary too. I'm very impulsive. Oh if I come up with an idea, I'm like doing it now.
Speaker 1:Okay, you know.
Speaker 2:So I'll start working on a whole new project for hours and I'm like you know, you just literally had this nonprofit you're working on or this private practice you're working on. You don't need to do this whole new thing. And so, you know, making sure that I'm being fine, mindful and taking care of myself, for that I'm making sure I have a work-life balance. I'm doing restorative rest, surrendering everything to God. It does make me pace myself and so it's like there's not. You know, we can't run all day long and and work Forever like we have to hit pause. And so, you know, looking at all the things that can be done in a day, it may say like, okay, god, I'm surrendering this idea to you. Or, like you were saying, we're not ready for that step yet, so we're putting that one on hold and seeing when God delivers what we need. So I'd say, for visionaries, you know I'm keeping your focus on God and not the project or the result that you're looking for.
Speaker 1:I think to just to go along with that. This has been true for the vision for TLS or Texas leadership summit. This was an idea, as a visionary that I had over 16 years ago.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I just had to put it on the shelf for for a long time. Now we're engaging in that and doing some things, I think. Ultimately, though, for a Christian leader, we have to acknowledge that this is about one person, that's Jesus Christ, and in our lives we are stewards of what he has given us, this life he's given us, and so it's been very helpful for me to focus on, no matter what I do. This is for Christ and not Tim. This as leaders, and we're gonna follow his model of leadership Servant leadership We've got to come back to.
Speaker 1:If you're going to to be a great leader, you have to learn first how to be a great follower, and so, when I look at the life of Christ, he would go off to the mountain side to pray. He'd get alone. He'd leave the multitudes, go and be alone with a father, because everything he did was Towards the will of the father and not his own, and so I think, when you talked about these three things, it just kept reminding me of what Christ did. It kept reminding me if I'm following him Really well and I'm following his example. You know he came and served and suffered. That obedience ultimately took him to the cross, and so I'm going okay in my life, if I'm gonna be a good steward of the life that he has given me would be a pastor, christian leader, whoever you may be.
Speaker 1:That's what we got to nail down first. So these are some great thoughts and practices and preventive things, but let's keep it in the right context that your life doesn't belong to you. I think it's one of the best things for me to keep my focus. My life doesn't. I was purchased by the blood of Christ, so these things, I'm gonna incorporate these things to be a better steward of the leadership that God has entrusted to me, and so I think it's very powerful for the leaders and that we're we're sharing with today is that in their leadership role, we simply want to encourage them with these tools and these opportunities to improve their personal leadership life and understand that there's a lot of fear involved and what you've talked about maybe behind the scenes as I'm connecting that, I'm trying to read between the lines here.
Speaker 1:Yeah okay, what I'm seeing play out, and people who are afraid to acknowledge they are in burnout, mm-hmm, is fear. Yep, you mentioned trust, you mentioned surrender. We've talked about these things we needed, but when we are fearful, then it can paralyze us and then we can move into this overthinking things, and so I want to encourage the, the leaders who are listening today. You have nothing to fear. We serve a risen king and and ultimately, that's where this is, this path that we're on is heading down to how we're serving him. Right, and so when he says to his disciples in this world, you shall have tribulation, but take courage, I've overcome the world.
Speaker 1:That is true for the believer today. He is still overcome the world now we just aren't seeing it played out to its fullest potential. We're waiting for his return, right, yeah, but in the meantime, what can they do? We're looking to the resurrection, and so Not to get preachy on us, but but I am a pastor, so and we are talking pastors and Christian leaders you know whether they're serving in the church or a nonprofit Christian nonprofit Ultimately, we have to come back to that place in our leadership that we're a great follower and follower of Christ, and so the things that you've shared with us today. I think it is when you build on that right, right foundation, then you have a freedom to Investigate the things you're encouraging us with today. I would like to ask you this, as we're getting closer to the end of today Do you see any correlation between Burnout and time in the word? You see any ties there with the power of God's word, and is there any correlation that you've seen, whether in your personal life or with other people you've dealt with?
Speaker 2:That I mean. That is a very interesting question because it's Sometimes depending on the severity of your burnout Mm-hmm, I the word is going to feel very empty.
Speaker 1:That's interesting. You said that.
Speaker 2:So you know, if your body is depleted and you're going through a discouragement or a depression or you're just totally shut off, you know, maybe the words on the page used to like leap out to you and they're very encouraging. Or you know motivational or just grounding truth and you may look at it and have zero emotional response to it. It may not sit with you like it used to, it may just be words on a page, and that can be really scary for people, especially if they're in the ministry where it's like this has been my lifeline for so long. This is my job. Do I really believe this stuff anymore? Like, is it true? You know what does it mean that I'm sitting here and I'm looking at it and I feel nothing? And so you know, depending on the severity level, sometimes it can be a grounding place for people and other times it can be kind of scary and discouraging when you're like you know.
Speaker 1:This has been my life.
Speaker 2:Yeah, this has been my life.
Speaker 1:And I'm not getting anything from this.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and if you're still serving in ministry, say you're a pastor and you're preaching and you're feeling that way, that's also scary because it's like do I believe this anymore? And I'm sharing this with people and I feel nothing.
Speaker 1:I think, if I may speak to that again, just in pastoral ministry, one of the things that I see with pastors who find themselves at that place is they focus too much on relationships with their people and not primarily, first of all, focused on their walk of faith themselves, because they've allowed other people to direct what they do and how they do it, or fear of rejection or fear of not being successful, and you can focus on well, I've got to be in the word because this is what I do and not who I am as far as preventive, and so, having been a pastor of our church for 18th year, I've seen that trend personally. And you get caught up and this is what I do, this is what I do, and then for too long you forget. I wait a minute. I began this out of passion for Christ and I got into the word because it's my passion for Him and I just wanted to serve Him, and then you put people in the mix. You know church would be great if you didn't have to deal with people.
Speaker 2:Right or they just do what you want to do, they just do what they want to do. Yeah, it's one where actually honest with each other.
Speaker 1:it causes a problem. You know we're starting working through our issues. So I say that just. I think you're right on it too.
Speaker 2:Because I think in the last podcast you referenced that the chief end of man is to love, to know God and enjoy forever and maintaining that is crucial to doing ministry, because it's you and God first, and then what comes from that is what overflows into everything you do.
Speaker 2:And so you know, if we're trying to do things from our own strength, or we're trying to produce and get people to do this or that, or you know we're trying to produce results from what we think needs to happen with an idea or what we think people need to be doing, then we get into that negative control and it can start getting really messy. But you know, if we're centering ourselves in God every day, surrendering the day to Him and whatever happens, we trust this as well. Trust and we surrender. Life becomes an adventure, it becomes interesting, it's an opportunity where it's like man, that didn't really feel good for me but I wonder what God did with that, you know. So it's always that curiosity and that walking with God through your day. That's the pleasure of doing ministry. You know it's not about the outcome that we think should happen necessarily.
Speaker 1:Well with Desert Road Ministries. You know nonprofit and focusing specifically on leadership, burnout and wanting to work with couples and families and where do you see this going with this ministry, or hope to see it go?
Speaker 2:We see well, sounds big, but I think this can have a worldwide impact.
Speaker 1:Bruno right now you are a visionary.
Speaker 2:I see it totally. But you know, seriously though, with our ministry we want to enrich the spiritual health of ministry leaders and their families, but what we see happening with that is whenever you have ministry leaders and their families that are, you know, overflowing the love of God and the freedom in Christ onto their congregations, joy like that is contagious and you know it gives people a model and it gives people permission to live out that same freedom and their own walk with God. And then they share that with the people they come into contact with in their daily life. And to me that's where the community impact happens and you know if you do that there's no stopping it.
Speaker 1:Yeah right, the joy is contagious. So you're willing to walk with people through their difficulties. I have a team ready to do that and walk through. Is it possible for us to focus on a Christian leader or a pastor and their spouse and be able to say, let's push pause and let's just walk through your location? Where are you as a couple, where are you as an individual, so you're able to do that individually and then as a couple, and then they may have children. There's a family impact. Are you looking to bring leaders together and have, maybe, topics that they want to address or walk through things like that?
Speaker 2:I would absolutely love that. I mean, my vision is I really want to help ministry leaders take the academic side of the Bible and to take that spiritual, you know, interwalk with God. And to take that spiritual, you know, interwalk with God and combine them together to have that fullness of that encounter with God and just have more opportunities to be their authentic self. So, you know, I'd love to have retreats where we bring ministry leaders together and they can do their, you know, silence and solitude moments and then have group meditation moments and reflections on what's coming from that time alone with God. You know, having spiritual or just different trainings and workshops on connecting with God. You know that, looking inward part, If people struggle with how do I do that? Because, you know, even if they're struggling with burnout and the Bible isn't helping them in the way that it has before, helping them engage with God in a way that maybe they haven't thought of before, but just walking alongside people to help them enrich their spiritual health and their mental health so they can serve and enjoy God.
Speaker 1:That's the point. That's the point you know we're enjoying forever. Yes, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, Megan, any thoughts as we're wrapping up the day?
Speaker 2:Recovery. Okay, we kind of talked prevention.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:Recovery. Okay, foundational self care is what I talked to people about a lot and it may seem really simple, but it's what you got to do A lot of times. It's looking at your sleep hygiene Are you eating, are you drinking water? Are you going to the bathroom when you need to Like? Are you showering? Like you know, whenever we're the basics, yeah, whenever you're in severe burnout, we're looking at that stuff.
Speaker 1:Oh okay.
Speaker 2:So you know whenever you start taking care of your body and you're building trust back with yourself that you're going to be taking care of, that's when your body can start to warm up to like feeling things again and like you know, because it's being taken care of Right. So you know we focus on that, getting support. So you know whether that's seeing a counselor or if there are people in your church staff that can come alongside. You know having that happen and then engaging in more restorative rest, okay so, yeah.
Speaker 1:So if I find myself in a bad place. You can help me get to a good place. Yes, all right, that's what we're looking for. Yeah, so we have people that are in the middle of it. We have people who have been waiting for that preventive part of it, and now, for those who are in the darkest of moments, there is hope and there is healing available, and so we want to definitely reach out to them and so they can go to your website.
Speaker 2:Yes, what's your website, desertroadministriesorg. Okay, yeah, and we're on Instagram and Facebook as well.
Speaker 1:And if anyone who's listening would like to know more about this, they can also reach out to us through our Texas Leadership Summitorg website and reach out to our director, deanna Kennesale. And we just want to walk with leaders and encourage them, give them the courage, the tools and the hope to stand for their faith, and some of the things we've talked about today have been vitally important. So, megan, thank you for being with us today. Thanks for having me, looking forward to working with you in the future.
Speaker 2:For sure, thank you.