Out of the Darkness with Ruth Hovsepian

Journey to Leadership Success

Ruth Hovsepian/Earl Morrison Season 2 Episode 90

In this episode, Ruth Hovsepian and guest Earl Morrison discuss the importance of controlling emotions and reactions in both the corporate world and the church. They highlight the need for leaders in faith-based organizations to prioritize emotional intelligence and treat their roles with the same seriousness as in the business world. They emphasize the importance of accountability and setting standards in ministry, as well as the need to address negative emotions and reactions proactively and constructively. They also discuss the impact of personal experiences on emotional responses and the importance of training and equipping leaders to deal with people effectively.

Takeaways

  • Leaders in faith-based organizations should prioritize emotional intelligence and treat their roles with the same seriousness as in the corporate world.
  • Accountability and setting standards are crucial in ministry to address negative emotions and reactions.
  • Personal experiences shape emotional reactions, and leaders should be equipped to effectively deal with people.
  • Training and education should focus on leadership skills and people management in addition to biblical knowledge.

Website | https://earlmorrison.com/
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Facebook  | https://www.facebook.com/EarlMorrisonLeadingandLearningwithCharacter/
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Ruth Hovsepian (00:00.915)
Welcome to another episode of Out of the Darkness, the podcast where we explore faith, transformation, and the journey to finding light in the darkest moments. I'm your host, Ruth Hovsepian Today, we're tackling the topic of controlling your emotions and reactions. Our guest is Earl Morrison, a seasoned leader with over 29 years of experience, including roles as a retired chief of police.

and former assistant director at the Council on Law Enforcement, Education and Training. Earl brings his expertise from decades of leadership experience through consulting, teaching and mentoring. He helps individuals and organizations nationwide overcome challenges and grow through effective leadership. Earl, welcome to the show.

Earl Morrison (00:56.596)
Thank you for having

Ruth Hovsepian (00:58.439)
Listen, I know that this is a topic that interests me. come from the corporate world and you learn very quickly in the corporate world how to control your emotions and reactions. Otherwise you don't make it and you give away your last card and yeah, you're not going to succeed, but we're talking more in the realm.

of our churches and in faith -based ministries. And I think that personally, that to go hand in hand, whether it's corporate or church, and I think that this is part of our downfall in a lot of our Christian organizations where we don't treat it as seriously as we do our leadership in the corporate world.

How do you feel about that? Do we do the same thing? Should we look at it in the same way?

Earl Morrison (02:00.02)
So absolutely, you hit the nail on the head. We don't put enough emphasis on the ministry side of, it's a business. Now I know everybody doesn't think of it that way, but if you break it down, it is just like being in the corporate world. And the reality is, you're still dealing with people, and people have emotions, and people react to emotions.

And I think what we've missed along the way is that we don't look at it the same way. We get it when you talk about the business world, the corporate world. We talk about out in society, everybody understands that. But I think sometimes we forget that we should have, and maybe even a little bit higher, some of the same standards in the realm of ministry that I think we're lacking and we forget. then we just get, our reaction is just shock and dismay.

when it really shouldn't be, should just say, okay, the reality of it is we need to put things in place to make sure that we take care of it just like we would in the business world. So absolutely, I don't think they're exclusive of each other. I think the reality is because you're dealing with human beings, they're exactly the same. It's just a different field. That's

Ruth Hovsepian (03:14.801)
Yeah, and that's what I was going to say. We're still humans and we still have the same emotions and feelings, whether it is in, you know, corporate America or within the church setting or it's not just church setting, but, you know, different organizations, Christian organizations as well. And the problem is that many times and oftentimes, and it has happened to me where you go into a environment where

because it is faith -based, they depend on people's Christian, you know, feelings and how we should treat each other. But once again, especially in environments where it is a business perhaps, or again, you know, people are still competitive and people still want to succeed, whether it's in the church or whether it's in the corporate world.

You know, moving forward, let's say church for all faith based, you know, environments. And I think that as leaders, as church leaders, we have to put into place, first of all, from the top down, I've always said that. And from the top down, how we, we behave and how we treat others and control our, feelings and emotions

Personally, I know in corporate world, you know, leading, I don't know, 150 people across the US, Canada, and overseas at the time, I couldn't take things personally. It wasn't about me. It was about getting my team from point A to point B to fulfill whatever our goal was for a certain timeframe.

whatever it was. And I think sometimes in the church environment, we become very lax in that area. And it's sort of like, well, you know, the, the children's ministry is doing this and youth ministry is doing that. But as a church, what is our goal?

Earl Morrison (05:35.304)
No, think you're again, I think you're right on. And here's, here's what I would say that kind of ties that in there. I think if you, if you look across these things is that one of the major things that is missing is why we fall into some of these traps that we fall into is the accountability aspect. Now, again, there's a certain standard that we all want, whether that's corporate, whether it's the church world that you have to adhere to on the church side of things.

I think you're right again when you say that we get a little complacent, we get a little lackadaisical because at the end of the day somebody's like, well, who am I to hold the pastor, the worship leader, the children's minister or the youth minister, who am I to hold them accountable? So when I get asked that question, I turn it around as that, who are you to not hold them accountable? Because they should be held accountable to the same standard.

Ruth Hovsepian (06:12.872)
Mm.

Earl Morrison (06:32.126)
that we tell the people that we're trying to get salvation to, there's a standard in the Bible that's there, that there's accountability. Now again, thank goodness that we don't have the same kind of accountability that we used to in the Old Testament. Thank goodness for the grace in the New Testament, right? But we miss that piece because we act like, well, they're the head of this church, they're the head of this ministry, and so God'll deal with it. God will take care of it, that's true.

Ruth Hovsepian (06:46.107)
Right. That's right.

Earl Morrison (07:01.8)
But we have those standards because we have to have people that keep us on the right track on a daily basis. And that ties back into, we get those emotions that, I don't want to address that because we start seeing people going through things. know, what frustrates me sometimes is when we see a change in behavior, a change in someone's emotions and their reactions, and we know it's not them.

But instead of addressing that, we ignore it because it's hard. It's difficult. And then, my goodness, I'm now challenging the head minister. I'm challenging somebody that has a role and I'm just a member or I'm a deacon or an elder in the church. And so I just caution people, just like in the corporate world, you need to put people in place that they are there to recognize those things and they can direct it to the right people to take care of those things.

that we have that accountability piece because the accountability plays a huge role in helping us control our emotions and then ultimately our reactions to things. And on the other side of what you said is that we make everything personal when it's negative. It's our human nature and if we don't do it the right way, we take everything as a personal attack and it's really not.

I tell people this, I'm not after the individual, I'm after the mindset, I'm after the attitude, I'm after the behavior, because if you go through the Bible, we don't attack the people. Jesus never discarded a person. What he attack was mindsets, behaviors, actions. He wanted to change those from the negativity to the positive side of things.

And so that's where we've got to get in there and say, I'm not attacking an individual. I'm not trying to get the individual. It's the other things, the emotions, the reactions to things. Because when we make things personal, mean, we're different and we shut down and it makes it harder to do our daily business. Well, okay. In the church side of things, I mean, we deal with people and people see those things. And even when

Ruth Hovsepian (09:10.163)
Yeah.

Earl Morrison (09:22.476)
We think that we're doing a good job of controlling those things, but really not. It's just that people don't say anything. They basically ignore it or just let it

Ruth Hovsepian (09:30.907)
Yeah. I think all of this also applies at a personal level. I think that we have done a disservice of not teaching our children at a young age about if someone says something to

You know, we're hearing this now in this, political spectrum of it's not about the emotions, I have you feel. And I think this is what we have become. We've become a society where if our feelings are hurt, we don't know how to deal with it. We take things very personally and not in the context that it is being given.

So, you know, when, when we chastise a child, when we reprimand the child, we discipline a child and we let those emotions take over rather than teaching them, look, this is the consequence of your actions. Yes, you're hurt, but I think that's when we start to create this emotional crutch, if you want to call it in the future adults.

Who?

Earl Morrison (10:46.578)
No, for sure. know, and sometimes, you know, look, again, even in raising kids, and I've got four, my oldest just graduated high school. And so I just, you know, tell her and used to is that, you know, we were learning together about what the boundaries were. And so in those emotions, you know, if when you do things in anger, you do things that are not normal. Okay. You lash out, your actions are different. You say things.

Ruth Hovsepian (11:02.813)
Right?

Earl Morrison (11:16.816)
If there's a consequence and maybe you need to have a correction and maybe the correction from that at some point there needs to be discipline. Never do it in anger. And you know, when you're talking about emotions and reactions to things is that if you overreact, you usually know you do. So when you realize that it's okay, even if it's your children to go back and say, Hey, you know what? probably overreacted to that. You know, probably got a little angry, maybe a little frustrated.

And here's why. And so in it, what am I telling them? I'm telling them that look, it's going to happen. You're going to react, you're going to overreact, sometimes you'll underreact. But when you know you do that, you hit the reset button, you fix it. Because when we don't teach them that, we don't teach them how to process the emotions. And when we don't know how to process our anger or frustration, and the reality is sometimes it does feel personal.

even when it's really not because we're in there dealing with it. And if we're both honest, there are some people out there that make it personal when they do those kinds of things. And so, but if we don't do a better job of teaching people how to deal with that, well, then it's okay for me to get mad. It's okay for me to lash out. And now my reaction to things, now I justify behavior that was never normal. It was never supposed to be justified. I did that because you hurt my feelings.

Ruth Hovsepian (12:20.325)
Mm.

Earl Morrison (12:46.216)
Well, everybody in this whole wide world, if you haven't, you're going to get your feelings hurt. Some of us more than others. Yes.

Ruth Hovsepian (12:54.119)
And it's a cycle we create, right? Because now you're hurt, therefore you lash out and want to hurt. And we see that in, relationships as well, right? So we're not just talking about organizational relationships or parent and child, but you know, a spouse. And if you don't know how to react or how to deal with someone,

You know, getting upset and getting angry and you know, listen, I, I come, I've come through a divorce and you know, I raised kids on my own and I look back and my kids are older than yours. You know, two out of the three are married and you know, they're in these relationships and I watch the way they interact with each other. And I, at one point had to take a step back and say,

Why do I get this gut wrenching feeling when I see, you know, one of the pair or whatever talk to the other person in a certain way? It was their style of communication, but to me, it was a gut level reaction because to me, it was the demise or the beginning of a demise of a relationship because I carried those memories, right? Those were sensory things.

And I had to take a step back and my oldest is married seven years. So maybe two or three years into their marriage. And I thought to myself, whoa, you're reacting way too much, you know? And I would panic. Is their marriage not going well? And I realized it was about me, not about them. And I actually came out and apologized.

to all three couples and say, I'm sorry, when I react in a certain way, I'm not questioning your relationships, it's me reacting to my past and what I thought, whatever. So I think that is what we need to do. As you said, when a parent tells a child, I reacted this way because now they know

Ruth Hovsepian (15:18.053)
It's not a personal thing. was just, and they learn how to apologize as well. That's a huge one as well is learning how to apologize and own up to a terrible reaction of something.

Earl Morrison (15:39.25)
Well, and the other thing is that you again, you talk about, know, I don't think we realize as much as we should that the way we react to things is based on our experiences. It is based on the things that we've dealt with, whether that's our own personal relationships, whether that's in the business world, whether you go over to the ministry side of things in the church world, we react to those things based on what we've been through. And so for a lot of us,

that maybe, you know, we were taught to everything in and, you know, for a long time that's what society taught men, but women as well, but really men, we were supposed to be macho, we were supposed to hold it all in and you'll figure it out. And then we realized that we weren't great with the coping mechanisms that we chose. And so it created a whole nother group of issues, but we teach people that it's, you gotta hold it

Ruth Hovsepian (16:14.933)
right

Earl Morrison (16:36.85)
Now, when I say you need to control them, there's a reason why you need to control them in the environment and how you let things out. You know, because there's certain times that especially, you know, when your level of influence is larger than other people, you rise in organizations or you're in the national spotlight, some of those kinds of things where people are watching you, you need to hold it in until you're in more private setting. Now, they can see the emotional pieces and what it does to

Ruth Hovsepian (16:57.584)
Mm -hmm.

Earl Morrison (17:05.512)
But you can't fall apart because people are watching you so that because when you're in the leadership role in those aspects, they're looking at you to make things better. It's as a father, as a husband, my family looks at me for that. When I was a police chief, my organization, my city looked at me for that. When I was at clique, the same thing. And so if I just lose it, whether that's me falling to pieces,

Ruth Hovsepian (17:16.36)
Yeah.

Earl Morrison (17:34.686)
crying or I get angry and blow up and everybody sees that, which is really not the real you. But now what do you have? You have a whole other issue. And so you got to try to control when and how you react to things. And especially again, when that level of influence is great, you just be very cautious, but not to where you're like, I don't feel because we went that direction.

And people thought, you have zero feelings. You're this or you're that. And you know, people like that we've all encountered them.

Ruth Hovsepian (18:07.507)
I was like that as well. it's a slippery slope, as you said, right? Because you as a leader are leading the reactions and emotions of those that you're leading, let's put it that way. So you come at it in a different way. You come across maybe,

Earl Morrison (18:11.508)
I mean, you put the wall up.

Yes, yes.

Ruth Hovsepian (18:34.867)
as cold hearted and you don't understand. So I think with maturity, let me take a step back. If you want to grow and you want to mature, you need to be able to adapt to your surroundings. And yes, coming, I learned very quick at 17, 18, I was in the corporate world, quickly learned.

You need to have that stone face, no emotion. Someone says something. You can't show your distaste to what they've said or your disapproval. You you learn, right? You learn how to arrange your face. And I have found my children, you know, as they got older saying, mom, your face. Because I have that look, right? I'll become very

Earl Morrison (19:27.336)
Mm -hmm

Ruth Hovsepian (19:33.041)
very severe looking and it'll be mom, mom, that face. And I realized it's not intentional because I may be really happy and excited, but that's my, that's my go -to. Yeah. So I've, I've, I've had to learn because, know, I've, I've now transitioned from corporate world. I'm in ministry and you know, I'm, I'm, I'm older.

Earl Morrison (19:42.546)
All right. No, yes,

Ruth Hovsepian (19:58.351)
And I, you know, need to mature with it. So I have learned again, hopefully to adapt to it and have a different resting phase rather than that cold one. But yes, I think that in our relationships as parents, as, as anyone in the church, we need to adapt and grow and mature and understand what those around us need from us. And I think

Oftentimes, I've, I've commented about this. If we are of faith, if we are Christians, if we are mirrors of Christ, we cannot walk around with this miserable look on our face. We need to show the joy and the peace that we have through Christ. And that is what helped me change my resting face because I realized

I am not mirroring that. It doesn't mean I'm not dealing with whatever I'm dealing with. It just means that I have the peace that the Lord is with me and walking with me. And no matter how difficult it is, the situation I'm in, he will help me. It doesn't mean I don't take 15 minutes to boohoo and cry and, and

You know, vent, I have my 15 minutes, but then I'm back and say, okay, Lord, why show me the, know, how I can deal with this, how to deal with this and where, to go. But let's take it now to a different level. How do we, as leaders, whether it's leadership in at home or leadership at church, it could be worse on a school teacher.

Maybe that's our leadership role or we are a pastor. How do we lead our, our people to a better place to deal with what they're dealing with? You know, how do we show that example?

Earl Morrison (22:15.528)
So for me the biggest way is that the more you're around people, the more you observe when it doesn't feel like they're themselves. And so I always say, look, if you're in that kind of position and you have people that come through your class or you have people that are in front of you all the time, you should always be seeking to understand them in all kind of levels. What makes them tick? How do they communicate?

you know, you're looking at the body language because for somebody like me, you know, I'm, everybody accuses me being very serious because of, usually have this stoic look on my face. And it's like, you know, the reality is that when someone gets to know me, they realize that there's a lot more to that than, because I just, again, lot of that's the way you raise, you know, I've been in the military, I've been on the police side of things.

So you really don't walk around with just a grin on your face the whole time when you're doing business. And so after 30 something years of doing this, like you said, it's hard to adjust. And so for me, it's like you talk about that and you talk about that sometimes we forget even when we're not saying anything that this right here is saying a whole lot. And so you try to set the example and get them to understand and then to talk about

when you feel off or you feel emotional, you feel like that maybe you're gonna react the way that you shouldn't, maybe you have, that you have those conversations with people. And then for me, it's that, you know, those of us that have that, the level of influence over other people, it's setting the example. And it's saying, you know, again, because we don't, we like to hold these things in, and especially when we're talking about emotions, we like to hold them in and we don't realize

Yes, you haven't said anything, but your facial expressions, your body language has said tons. And so you just, have to talk to them, ask questions. Hey, here's what I'm seeing. Is that real? Are you going through something or are you like me where, you know, that's, that's just you over these years that you're not angry and I didn't need those other things. But I think we don't approach that enough when we see that. And it's, it's almost like this. It's like

Ruth Hovsepian (24:11.463)
Yeah.

Earl Morrison (24:30.994)
The warning light that goes off in your car and some of us will take care of it instantly, but others will ignore it or your gas light goes off and you drive it till you know exactly how far you can go. Right. So we see the signs, but we don't address them. And I think anybody in that role, that I think it's our obligation to do that. Now, some of us may be able to do it deeper than other people.

Ruth Hovsepian (24:41.703)
The fumes.

Earl Morrison (24:56.382)
But the other thing that you may be able to do when you see that is you may be able to guide them to someone that can really talk to them or help them through that. And I think, you know, a lot of times we see that, but we ignore it because we're like, well, we don't want to get involved. I don't want to make them angry. I don't want to evoke another emotion or reaction. But the reality of it is, that if we're going to do that right, if we're going to take on those roles, it's not just about sitting in class and teaching a lesson.

Ruth Hovsepian (25:03.464)
Mmm.

Ruth Hovsepian (25:13.756)
Yeah.

Earl Morrison (25:25.957)
I've been there, I've done that. But there's more relational pieces to that when it comes to building the kingdom.

Ruth Hovsepian (25:31.911)
Mm -hmm.

Ruth Hovsepian (25:35.877)
Yeah, I think that's, you know, that is important to keep in mind. We're not, you know, even though on the, you know, at the beginning of this episode, I said that whether you're in a corporate world or in a church, we should, you know, take care of things, you know, in a similar fashion. And yet when we are in ministry, when we are serving our heavenly father, we need to take things to a different level, right? Because we are taught

skill sets or we should be and, and discipling in our churches, which we should be doing. And that's another conversation, Earl, we're not, we're not there, but, but I think that this is, this is, these are responsibilities that we should, you know, really look at and set into place. We don't, you know, we've, we've, and we've said this several times. You have said it. I've said it. We don't treat.

Earl Morrison (26:12.08)
Yeah, yeah.

Ruth Hovsepian (26:33.977)
our churches and the setup of it in the right way, or we don't put in place the, the, the catch, you know, like the net to catch a situation. We're always reacting. We're not being proactive to things, but how, what do you recommend, you know, leaders in a church, how do we address the negative Nellies that inevitably you're going to have on a committee?

You're going to have in the pew, you're going to have in your leadership, right? Because you know that no matter what happens, they have this negative mindset, you know, and within a team that starts to fester. So how do we change it or how do we deal with it to foster a healthier culture within our teams?

Earl Morrison (27:27.998)
So for me, what I believe that we should be doing is that you said it again, that we take these people, we put them in positions. Now there's paid positions that are within a ministry team, right? And we look at those, and we always are looking at those people to make sure that they're trained in the understanding. I still believe we can be better at that, because a lot of that we're looking at is the educational piece and the biblical training. We don't look at the leadership aspect

Ruth Hovsepian (27:48.817)
Yep. Right.

Earl Morrison (27:55.994)
And I think across the board, we need to be better at whether you're a volunteer or you're a paid employee, that we're much more intentional and disciplined about training them and providing expectations. Two programs that I came up with because it was a church client of mine through my brother that they were having some difficulty was one is Foundations of Leadership. Okay. And I suggest that any

any group of elders, deacons, church workers, you put them through it or find a program that you put them through because it talks about accountability. talks about learning from your mistakes. It talks about building on things and the responsibility that we have. And then the other was overcoming challenges within your team. Okay. And now you wouldn't think that a ministry team would have challenges, but I have a client that's a ministry team and they're just like every other team out there.

They have the same challenges, lack of communication, lack of teamwork, lack of understanding for each other. And so we don't teach them those things. We expect that they come in and we've got a set of goals that we want to achieve in our ministry and our churches. Okay. But we don't look at, we teaching them how to deal with people and Ruth, that's what leadership is, dealing with people. Okay. That's all it is. Managing is the processes.

Ruth Hovsepian (29:18.099)
100 % I'm in agreement.

Earl Morrison (29:23.186)
And we do a whole much better job of teaching in the management side, but not the leadership side. And so if we could get better at teaching the leadership side, then we get better at dealing with the negative people, the negative things, the toxicity that comes through, because we're better equipped to deal with it when we understand. Because part of what happens is that when we think we're the only ones going through

You know, it's a whole thing because we're like, my gosh, this is just me. We start going in a direction that we shouldn't. And when we realize that this is across the board, I don't care what entity you want to throw out there. We experienced the same challenges when dealing with people and we don't do a well enough job of teaching each other how to lead people. I volunteer. I'm going to teach Sunday school. Okay. My goodness. It took us a year to get a teacher.

Ruth Hovsepian (30:06.323)
Yeah.

Earl Morrison (30:19.762)
So we're not gonna put any requirements on you other than here's the lesson, you go teach it. And we miss the mark because we could be really equipping them even better and then everyone that comes through that class because we took a little bit of time and said, okay, you're gonna volunteer and invest. So we're gonna invest a little bit in you and help you be the best teacher or whatever you can be because we value you.

That's all the investment is, is a value in saying that we want to do this as best we can because we are going to deal with the difficulties. We're going to deal with difficult people. We're going to deal with the negative Nellies. We're going to deal with those people that you could, you could give them everything that they ever wanted and they're going to find a reason that they, that it's not great. Right. And so the better we can equip each other, the better we can deal with those things. And he goes right back to the emotion piece.

Ruth Hovsepian (31:13.107)
Yeah.

Earl Morrison (31:19.036)
Then we don't overreact, we don't underreact, but we do

Ruth Hovsepian (31:24.935)
Yeah. I mean, you see it in the, in the corporate world where the basic trait, part of basic training to work, work, you know, in an environment like that is people skills, management skills. That's why they're called managers. That's why they're directors. You know, the names you're directing people. And I think we've lost that as we've, many of us have gone, for example,

a corporate world into church environments. And you're right. One of the things you said, and I don't want to really stay on that, but it's something we need to address is that you may not fit in to what a ministry is looking for because you may not have the book experience, so to speak, of a Bible school or, you know, field work as a missionary.

but you're bringing a lot of value. And I have seen that, you know, over the years that oftentimes those that have other work experience, other than church experience, oftentimes deal with things a lot better and do not take it personally. And also they don't burn out as quickly. And I don't know what that says about the corporate world.

But I'm seeing this trend of being able, because I think part of burnout is that, you know, the emotions and the feelings and it just, it is exhausting. So there is merit to it. And I would love to see churches put into place different types of training. And I'm not talking about official training. You know, you need to go through.

training of people skills, but a course like yours, there's so many different ones out there. And it should be for everyone, starting from the pastor down to the guardian, know, custodian, I should say of the church where everybody is, it's a team. How do we deal with it? How are we going to deal? And I have a friend who's a, an ex PI.

Ruth Hovsepian (33:50.127)
And she deals with churches and their security. And when she goes in, she sees how they're all over the place and don't have those, you know, and you also with your background, I'm sure you see it. And it is so difficult to implement those because we're a church. We need to trust. We know them, but you don't know them.

Earl Morrison (34:22.351)
It's put in another layer there to really make us more efficient and effective in the ministry aspect of things. It's that whole thing and you're right, I can sympathize with your friend because as what I've done for 30 plus years, when I go in and I see certain things and it's like, I try to do certain things without

trying to take over anything, but it's difficult when you see people struggle and you know the reason that they struggle and it would just take just a little bit of thinking differently because again, think, you know, I love education. You know, I've got my master's degree. I love education. I love the experience aspect of things, but you know, for some of us that, you know, maybe we didn't go to Bible college or we didn't go here. We didn't do some of those other things.

Ruth Hovsepian (34:58.865)
Right a tweak.

Earl Morrison (35:15.794)
Maybe I don't know the Bible like a pastor does, but I know the concepts of the Bible and I know enough of the Bible that I keep myself as close to where I'm supposed to be when I'm right, when I'm doing it the right way, right? That we forget some of these other talents because we're always looking for the formal pieces and we miss some people that would be really effective for us even if nothing other than to help us get on the same page.

Ruth Hovsepian (35:24.593)
Mmm.

Earl Morrison (35:43.944)
to be able to better deal with people because when that happens, we can deal better with our internal pieces and the external pieces that not our team, but the team that we're shepherding, the church, and then our ministry that goes out because we're much more intentional about keeping ourselves in the right mindset with the right attitude that when we stumble or there's an issue, we take care of it and we're equipped to take care of

Ruth Hovsepian (36:11.815)
Mm -hmm.

Earl Morrison (36:14.492)
Because what happens is we're not we don't allow those people to use their talents and we're just looking for You know the person that has all the education. Yeah, that's it. That's a piece I love it, but there's a lot of us that people overlook That have the other talents because they're only looking for one piece and you're thinking okay Who do you think can deal with a lot of negativity and adversity if not? security or police

Ruth Hovsepian (36:41.778)
Right?

Earl Morrison (36:41.968)
or somebody in the corporate world who deals with customers or customer service. You're dealing with people and not necessarily good people all the time. And a lot of times you're dealing with people that are good, but dealing with their worst possible moments, right? We all have that issue. so we just, for me, it's like, you we just need to kind of maybe sometimes take a look back and see the value of

Ruth Hovsepian (36:52.87)
Ugh.

Earl Morrison (37:09.148)
looking at things a little bit differently than we've always done in the formal aspect of

Ruth Hovsepian (37:15.991)
Yeah, I agree with you. And this is, I think this has been a great conversation, whether, know, wherever you are in your life and whatever you're doing, I think these are things that we can implement. So I thank you, Earl, for sharing your insights and controlling our reactions and our emotions at the right time, right place. It's really been interesting to hear about these principles and how we

really transform both personal and organizational dynamics for our listeners who want to connect with Earl and learn more about his work. Be sure to visit his website, follow him on social media. All his information can be found in the description below. So don't forget, subscribe to Out of the Darkness for more inspiring conversations and stories. Until next time, keep seeking the light.

and sharing it with others.