Phronesis: Practical Wisdom for Leaders with Scott J. Allen

Josh Lindblom - Those Values Are Living and Breathing

• Scott J. Allen • Season 1 • Episode 260

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After a life of playing professional baseball, Josh Lindblom quickly realized he had nothing on his resume between "player here" and "player there." He felt a deep longing to discover who he had been created to be so that he could do what he had been designed to do. After being guided through retirement by a coach and having numerous discussions with friends and teammates, he realized that the longing he felt also resided deep and unsurfaced in the hearts of everyone he talked to. Congruency quickly changed from something he wanted to do to something he had to do.

Josh is married to his high school sweetheart, Aurielle. They have four children. He enjoys getaway weekends with his wife, coaching his kids and their friends in any and every sport, and hosting friends for any and every reason—like a spontaneous Royal Rumble party. 

Josh has a Master’s in Biblical Studies (MABS), a personal and leadership development certification from Leader Breakthru, and an Associate Certified Coach certification (ACC) from the International Coaching Federation.

Josh’s greatest passion is walking alongside others as they discover who they are and decide to make the courageous choice to align who they are with what they do each day of their lives.

A Quote From Josh

  • "We help you make your invisible life visible so you can break free from where you are and become who you were created to be."


Resources Mentioned in This Episode

 

About The International Leadership Association (ILA)

  • The ILA was created in 1999 to bring together professionals interested in studying, practicing, and teaching leadership. Plan for Prague - October 15-18, 2025!


About  Scott J. Allen


My Approach to Hosting

  • The views of my guests do not constitute "truth." Nor do they reflect my personal views in some instances. However, they are views to consider, and I hope they help you clarify your perspective. Nothing can replace your reflection, research, and exploration of the topic.

Note: Voice-to-text transcriptions are about 90% accurate, and conversations-to-text do not always translate perfectly. I include it to provide you with the spirit of the conversation.

Scott Allen  0:00 

Okay, everybody, welcome to the Phronesis Podcast wherever you are in the world. Thanks for checking in. Today, I have a returning guest. I'm very, very excited for this conversation. Posted it on LinkedIn this morning that I was excited because the first episode just had… Josh, just so many gems. You were dropping one-liners left and right.

 

Josh Lindblom  0:20 

How long ago was that? Almost two years probably, right? 

 

Scott Allen  0:24 

I think so. Yeah. So, I'm excited for our conversation today. For listeners, be sure you go back and listen to our first conversation. This is Josh Lindblom. And after a life of playing professional baseball, Josh quickly realized he had nothing on his resume between player here and player there. He felt a deep longing to discover who he had been created to be so that he could do what he had been designed to do. After being guided through retirement by a coach and having numerous discussions with friends and teammates, he realized that the longing he felt also resided deep and unsurfaced in the hearts of everyone he talked to. Congruency quickly changed from something he wanted to do to something he had to do. Josh is married to his high school sweetheart, Arielle. They have four children. He enjoys getaway weekends with his wife, coaching his kids and their friends in any and every sport, and hosting friends for any and every reason, like a spontaneous Royal Rumble party. Josh has a master's in Biblical Studies, a personal and leadership development certification from Leader Breakthrough, and an associate certified coach certification from the International Coaching Federation. Josh's greatest passion is walking alongside others as they discover who they are and decide to make the courageous choice to align who they are with what they do each day of their lives. Josh, thank you so very much for being with me today. Very thankful for the conversation. And what else do listeners need to know about you? Anything else on the radar that we should add in there? 

 

Josh Lindblom  2:00 

I don't know. I think you cover it. Is that the end of the podcast now, maybe? 

 

Scott Allen  2:05

We’re pretty much done.

 

(Laughter)

 

Josh Lindblom  2:08

We’re done. This is it. No, when you were talking, I was thinking it back to our first discussion. I think you titled that podcast ‘A work in progress.’ 

 

Scott Allen  2:16

Yes.

 

Josh Lindblom  2:17

And I think it's cool now to look back and see two years have lapsed since the last time we talked. And so to see what that progress has been, it's going to be so cool to reflect, and even for me to go back and listen to the things that we talked about and see some of those dreams that maybe became a reality in that process. 

 

Scott Allen  2:36 

Okay. So, again, you had so many just incredible one-liners, just knowledge nuggets that were in there. But you said, “When I look at athlete transition, my entire focus has been shortening the bridge that I need to step across when I'm done playing.” We could almost call this episode, in some ways, ‘Shortening the bridge,’ because that's your work now. Is helping people really, really kind of walk across that space of process of becoming. So, first of all, I love the name: Congruency. 

 

Josh Lindblom  3:06

Thank you.

 

Scott Allen  3:06

I love that logo. The infinity loop, oh, so cool.

 

Josh Lindblom  3:12 

Yeah. My buddy and I, we actually spent a lot of time on that. Michael Mayako does all the design for me, just one of the most creative people that I know, one of my best friends. And there's actually… There's a reason why the Infinity logo is not connected. If not so, you can see the C and the O, it's because there is a gap, there is a bridge that needs to be crossed. We hope, at Congruency, with the people that we serve, we can fill that gap and we can bridge that space from where they are to who they want to be. There's purpose and design in that logo. And when I look at it… I think, whenever we do something, it's hard to separate what we do from who we are. It's almost impossible. But that is such an expression of who I am and what I've been through, like you said, that it became something that I wanted to do, something I had to do.

 

Scott Allen  4:00 

And I love your phrasing also ‘created to be.’ ‘Who I was created to be. Because I think for each one of us, we're kind of dropped on planet Earth and adventures

ensue. And at least one way I think about parenting is helping our children really tap into what are their passions. What are their interests? What are they here to be? And so, I love that phrasing as well.

 

Josh Lindblom  4:28 

Yeah. There's a book that I'm reading currently called ‘Garden City.’ It's by John Mark Comer. And I thought it was really interesting the way he defined parenting in the book as he says. He talks about the goal of parenting is to unfold your children. And you think of that unfolding process of drawing out the things that have been placed inside of them, helping them discover what they want to do, explore passions, encourage. Our daughter the other night, it’s interesting. She's been reading a ton lately. And she sat down at the computer, unbeknownst to us, and she comes down and she goes, “Daddy, I just wrote six chapters of a book.” I'm like, “Time out.” Like, “You've been up there for the last three hours just writing?” And she's like, “Yeah. I just started writing.” So now, as a parent seeing that, and I think helping her develop that gift, explore that gift of writing, encouraging her, helping her unfold what that means. It's just such an important process, not only with our children but also with the people that are around us too. 

 

Scott Allen  5:36 

Yeah. Well, I think that metaphor of unfolding, it's a very nice way of really getting into the work that you're doing now. In many ways, I think there's a lot of adults out there. There's a lot of individuals who either, for whatever reason, never tapped into that, or moved in a different direction. I just recently went through a transition we were talking a little bit about before we started recording, but maybe something new needs to unfold.

 

Josh Lindblom  6:04 

Yeah. You look at the opposite side of the unfolding too, and you see what happens throughout the course of people's lives is that, rather than being unfolded, they get folded up. And what we do, we want to fit what we do under this nice, neat, and tidy category. And we allow other people to do the folding. So, we allow other people to define what it is we do, who we are, so that we eventually just get shoved in this little box. And so, whether you're 10, or 20, or 40, or 60, a lot of that process is the unfolding process of drawing out how you've been created to be. Because a lot of those things don't ever get explored probably out of fear of what others might think, out of the lies that we live. This good life that I think people think is the good life, that the world tells us how we develop value and worth, but really, those things are like pseudo-life. It's not the real thing. 

 

Scott Allen  7:03 

Yeah. And I'm interested in knowing, just hearing and learning about what you've observed in the process of building this organization. So, what have you been observing? What have you been learning? Excited to hear some of those themes that stand out for you. 

 

Josh Lindblom  7:20 

I think the number one thing is that people have a deep sense of just being unsettled. Most people's lives are not train wrecks. Most people's lives have not gone off the rails, but there is this sense of being unsettled and not really knowing what's going on under the surface. You know that you need to move forward, that going back is not an option, but you don't know what that next step is. You know that there's more out there. You know that you've been created to do more and be more and live life on purpose, but you just don't know so life becomes status quo. And you wake up every morning, you go to bed every night with just this feeling like you don't know. And so, I think that process that I've seen is like coming alongside of people and telling them that, like, “Hey, there is a way forward, we need to discover that.” But a lot of that is looking backwards first and not looking forwards. 

 

Scott Allen  8:23

Say more about that. 

 

Josh Lindblom  8:25

Just in my experience when I look at, take me for example, with the athlete transition, the vast majority of athlete transition programs -- and this is not a knock on any type of athlete transition program, what players associations do for athletes, I think, is amazing. You think of the college career fairs, things like that, the vast majority of those programs focus on what it is that I do. Heading in the next phase of life, what is it that I'm going to do? And not doing the deep work of discovering who I am and recognizing the values and the core convictions that I live my life out of so then I can go discover what I do and embrace what it is that I do. And so, who I am, who we are as people, as the values we hold, and those values determine the decisions that we make. And what I've found is that most people don't live life out of a set of core convictions and values. And so, the decisions that we make get determined on a whim. Do I want to take this job or do I want to take that job? This job looks good, that job looks good. We're being chased everywhere, rather than saying, “You know what? My core convictions and values of my family…” And these are mine personally, “Of my family, that whatever I do, if it separates my family I'm just not going to do it.” Right there, that takes a whole host of things off of my list that I can do. The second value of my time, that I want to spend my time on things that matter to me and that I care about or I feel like I'm making a difference. The third value of development of myself, am I working for or with an organization that can help me become who I've been created to be? So, the leadership that I'm under is vast, is hugely important to me. And I think sometimes in leadership development, we forget that who is leading us is almost as important as us leading ourselves. And so, that development of myself, and then the development of others. Whatever it is that I do, I need to be developing other people. And then, lastly, my last value is the one of congruency. And so, it's taking all of those values and aligning who I am with what I do. There's congruency between every opportunity that I walk into. That's kind of what I mean when I talk about discovering who you are, is like, what are the values you hold? What are the core convictions you have? And then now that becomes a decision-making grid for what it is you go into next. 

 

Scott Allen  10:52 

It's so brilliant because, yes, rarely, I couldn't tell you my four. We can have a conversation, I could spitball it. Maybe steal two of yours. (Laughs)

 

Josh Lindblom  11:03

Yeah, there you go. Take them. Take them, that’s fine. 

 

Scott Allen  11:05

But you know what I'm saying? It's brilliant because, amazingly, rarely do we do some of that core-level work. Another little cousin of this conversation, I was with an individual the other day and they're thinking about a transition. And I said, “Well, where's your energy?” And it wasn't anything this person had ever really thought of. Do you want to be in a large organization or a small organization? Or do you want to be working on something that's mission-oriented? Or is it something where your energy is a place where you can work seven layers up and there's a large runway ahead of you? And, again, it was a conversation that this person really hadn't thought about and paid close attention to. Do you want to work with people from all ages, or is it someone that you want to be kind of an organization that's young and upstart? So fascinating because rarely is that clarified for us, especially at some of the times when we are making some core decisions, like majors or degrees.

 

Josh Lindblom  12:08 

Yeah. Seriously. You're exactly right. If you look at the timeline of people's lives, though, when you're 17, 18, years old, you usually have the core convictions and values of your family. And so, those aren't developed. And so I think that failure is a good thing. The quote, I don't even know who said it, “But failure is the first step to learning.” I do think there is this process where people need to fail. And not necessarily, I don't know if failure is the right word, maybe, but they need to try things, because sometimes the most important question is not, “What do I do?” But, “What do I not do?” And it's through that elimination, it's,  where's my energy? Like you asked the person you were talking to. If my energy is not in this, I don't do that. What makes me come alive? If I'm going and I'm sitting at a desk and I feel dead to the world, and I'm going through the motions, I probably shouldn't be doing that. 

 

Scott Allen  13:07 

And a really good example of that, Josh, was my parents. This is not me knocking on my parents, but their world, to your point of like we are what we're socialized into early on, my parents' definition of studying was go sit in your quiet room alone. Even to this day, if you put me in an office for hours, I wilt. I literally can see me start to wrinkle up and wilt. And I wilted then as well. You put me in a quiet room, and that wasn't how I learned. And it sounds odd to listeners, it might sound odd to you, but it took me a long time to kind of learn about myself that, once you put headphones in my ear, music playing, like a loud coffee shop around me with a big cup of coffee and bursting on tasks for 20 minutes at a time, then I come alive. I thrive kind of. But if you say you're going to work on one thing for all day, then I begin to wilt. So there's also this self-awareness and what has been placed upon us, so to speak, in a number of different dimensions. I think of that young child whose parents desperately want them to be a physician or an attorney, and they're just nudged in that direction regardless of where their energy is. So, it's just fascinating. It really is.

 

Josh Lindblom  14:24  

Yeah. One of the questions I ask is, whose voice is the loudest in your life? And exactly what you're saying is, like, those voices in our lives determine how we think that we're valued, that our identity is developed, our self-worth is developed. And it's like when those voices become loudest that maybe shouldn't be the loudest, they reinforce, they fold us back in on ourselves. 

 

Scott Allen  14:53

Yes. Oh, that is beautiful. 

 

Josh Lindblom  14:54

And what we want is we want voices in our lives that allow us to unfold ourselves and say, “Hey, go ask her that, try that. There is fear involved in that. There might be some things that you need to work through, but I'm going to encourage you, and I'm going to support you in this.” And so, we need people that walk alongside us, that help us discover and discern what this clarity is for what's next. But that always starts with discovering who you are because you just… Man, I see it time and time again, is that when guys and girls that I work with focus on what it is that they need to do, it's that unsettled feeling that comes back, “Man, there might be something missing.” And I think mostly the thing that's missing is that they're not themselves, and they're missing a piece of who they are in what they do. 

 

Scott Allen  15:47 

And if that base, that foundation isn't… I don't know that any of us ever… I could look at you right now and you would say, “Yes, these are the five, forever only the five.” I think we always have to pay attention to that, that it's having that awareness of where you are now and what feels right. It’s critical, that base, that foundation. 

 

Josh Lindblom  16:08 

Those values are living and breathing. I have a document on my computer that I go back and review and I say, “All right.” Take the last two years, for example. Just because I have these values now, there are people, places, events that have occurred in the last two years of my life, deposits that have been made that I need... I think we talked about phenomenology a little bit last time, and it's like, not only do these people, places, and events have meaning, but they're meaningful in the development of who I'm becoming. And so, I have to constantly go back and do this core, deep, foundational work where it's like, “All right, over the last two years, a lot has happened. How have I been shaped? How have I been formed? What are the patterns in my life that I need to address?” Have my core convictions and values changed? So, it's just this process that's always going on. A lot of us don't have an awareness or a paradigm to even look at the world in this way.

 

Scott Allen  17:11 

This is another little nook and cranny of the conversation, which is so interesting. I started to pay close attention to where my energy is as I thought about this most recent transition I made out of full-time academia. It was probably four years ago that I started having that kind of “Hmm. This is interesting. I'm not as excited to walk into the classroom this evening. This is feeling more like emotional labor. My energy isn't here. It's, ‘Wow, I love the podcast. I'm fired up when I'm doing that. I love being with clients. I'm fired up and I'm learning in that space.’ In this space, it's feeling a little bit dull.” So, there was a process of building a bridge before I could probably make that step. And so, I remember you telling the story of the ball came back at you, you had an injury, and then that moment, “I need to start building this bridge.” So, I think sometimes decisions are made in our lives, whether they're financial, that kind of trap us into certain ways of being. And it's going to take some time to potentially build that bridge to this next place that we want to be. Hopefully, you aren't making a decision that just locks you in.

 

Josh Lindblom  18:20 

Yeah. The encouragement I'd have for people listening is that no decision is final. And so you might feel like you're trapped, you might feel like you've locked the cage from the inside and thrown the key out, but that is not the reality. It's interesting, I think I mentioned this book last time we were on, but J. Robert Clinton ‘The Making of a Leader,’ what he found in transition is that a transition follows a distinct process in his research and can last anywhere between three months and three years. It's like the good news bad news. “Hey, three months or three years of this transition…” What most people do in a transition… And another good friend of mine, the guy that actually walked me through my transition, Terry Walling, he has a quote. I'm going to butcher it, but he says, “When most people enter a transition, one, they don't recognize they're in it until they're knee deep.” Most people's primary concern in a transition is getting through the transition. How do I make a decision to get out of this because I don't want to walk through it? Whereas the most important thing in transition is, how am I going to allow this transition to shape and develop me, and then what do I want to get out of it? A lot of the work with transitioning athletes that I've done, or even just normal… It's so weird, being in baseball my whole life, and being like, “Oh, normal people…”

 

Scott Allen  19:47 

In academia, our version of that, “Well, out in the real world…” (Laughs)

 

Josh Lindblom  19:51 

In the real world, yeah. For “normal people,” air quotes, it's the same thing. And we don't see these transitions, we don't have a paradigm for seeing these transition. With athletes, it's a very distinct moment in time. Career ends, what do I do? And what's interesting? I think we mentioned this last time in our talk, was that what's interesting about professional sports in general is the only known in your career is that it's going to end one day. That's the only known, but it is the least talked about moment in an athlete's career. And so, it's no wonder why the perfect storm is created for when a jersey gets taken off somebody's back. You've spent your entire life elevating an identity that's not safe. And so, what I mean by that is we all have different identities that we carry around. It's multifaceted. I'm a husband, I'm a father, I'm a friend, I'm a business owner, I'm a former baseball player. And when we elevate the wrong identity, and what I mean by that is it's not safe. Somebody can take that away from me at any moment in time. And so, what happens is that I walk around and I'm in constant fear because what I'm doing is I'm allowing the wrong voices to define who I am and how my worth and value is developed. And so, what you have is you have an athlete whose identity is wrapped up in being an athlete. That gets ripped from them, and then now they don't have any groundwork that's laid to walk into that next phase of their life because they just don't have it. And so, a lot of that work is going back and looking at how they'd been shaped, how sport was used to develop them and who they are, and figuring out what those next steps are based on who they've been created to be.

 

Scott Allen  21:51 

Well, and Josh, I see that in corporate America as well. There is a little bit of a parallel here where you come across individuals who their identity is so wrapped up in the organization. It's entangled, and it's meshed with who they are as a person. We see this a little bit in the military as well where people who transition out of being a general in the military, and then, “Who am I now?” It's just really interesting. And so, for me, having a coach, having thinking partners to help us make sense of what we're experiencing. Now, I can go get another job. If I'm let go as CEO of X, I can probably go get another job and still be okay. To your point, “Look, it's just over. It's done.” This thing that [Inaudible 22:45] the singular focus for decades, in many cases, it's ending. And that's why I just had such great respect for your foresight to say, “Okay, someday this will end, and I'm going to start building that bridge and making that transition.” And it sounds like you also reached out to and sought out the help of thinking partners and others with that transition.

 

Josh Lindblom  23:08 

Yeah. It's just a key part of that process, is having somebody, that alongside presence that you can bounce ideas off of, that you can talk things through, that can challenge you to move forward. Going back to the identity piece that you're talking about, is that when we develop our identity, when our identities are developed, what we're talking about is how we determine our value and our work. And so, there's four primary ways that we develop our value and our work. It's through what I do, so my job, my profession. Through what I have, what others say about me, or what I produce. So, what I do, what I have, what others say about me, and what I produce. And those four questions are so key in the development of identity because when you think about an organization… And this is where it gets really interesting when you think about organizational leadership development. And I'll just give a really quick example in sports where you can see the connecting piece here. So, if I'm an athlete and my identity is developed through what I do, what I have, what I produce, primarily, what I produce, so my stats, and I fail, then I don't feel as valuable. But here's the kicker when we think about creating organizational culture, is that you also have a coach or a leader or a front office person who is also developing their identity based on what they do, what they have, what they produce, or what others say about them. But the kicker on this is that if their identities developed based on what they produce, they don't have control over what a player produces. And so, as a leader of an organization, if we need to finish this project, or I need a player to perform, or whatever the situation might be, I've now handed who I am over to somebody else that I have no control over. And you can just see how this gets stacked one on top of the other. And then you wonder why organizational cultures and team cultures are train wrecks. You wonder why there's dysfunction and people perform out of fear rather than freedom and peace. We've handed the keys over for who we are to people that don't know who they are. As a leader, I cannot give what I do not have. And so, if I don't know who I am as a leader, and I haven't done that deep work, I can't help other people discover who they are. And then we just get locked back into the same story, and we come to work every day and we worry about what we produce. We talk about being a CEO of a company. If I'm a CEO and I get fired, that story still follows me. Just because I'm in a new position with a new title and a new role doesn't mean that I still don't develop my identity based on what I produce. And so, it's just this whole interlocking web that's so interesting when you… When I walk into a team or I walk into an organization, the first people that I look at are how do the leaders interact with everyone else. Because then you start talking about human relationships, and it's why connection is so important is, let's say that I'm a baseball player and I go [Inaudible 26:30] If I'm living and I'm finding my identity in what I produce, and a coach walks by me and doesn't say anything to me, what does that do? That reinforces that my value and worth is based on what I produce. And so, now a coach has reinforced a story that is not true. It's just so interesting when you start actually diving deep into human connection, and relationships, and why it's so important when we're developing culture on teams or in organizations.

 

Scott Allen  26:59 

And to go back to a conversation I think we were starting to have a little bit before we started recording, it helps you also understand… I think there's some elements, you could go faith or spirituality. I think that is an element that can ground an individual in a really nice way. And regardless of what that faith is or that spirituality, that can ground an individual and provide a good set of values, provide a community of support. There's a number of things that can provide. I think it also then reinforces, for me, the importance of parenting because what is the environment we are, that foundation we're laying, and that environment we're providing from a social learning theory [Inaudible 27:49] point for our children. Because that kind of sweet spot of, “Let's just go 4 to 11 or 12,” and then the world starts having greater levels of influence. We set a strong foundation as parents. I think it's one of the most important leadership roles, and what we're reinforcing as parents.

 

Josh Lindblom  28:09 

It’s interesting you make that statement because these stories that we live are reinforced at 4 through 11. And so, we take our working theory of being a work in progress, like from 4 to 34, to 54, to 64, that's time where things can be reinforced. Especially with little kids, what I realized coaching my kids and other people's kids, kids cannot differentiate between failing at a task and being a failure. And so, the reactions that parents have… It's interesting how youth sports have such power for good, but they also have such power for destruction. When I see a kid fail on a field, the first thing that I always do is I look to see where their eyes go. 99.9% of the time, their eyes go to their parents. If their parents aren't there, it goes to their coach, or usually it's parent then coach. And so, the reaction that we have as parents, if I drop my head, or I shake my head, or I frown, that doesn't reinforce that my kid has failed at a task, what that communicates to them is that they are a failure. And that voice in their mind and their hearts takes root and that carries with them throughout their entire life. And so, we talked about ‘Inside Out’ too before, when anxiety starts taking, call them those self roots when Riley says, “I'm not good enough,” it's such a beautiful picture in that movie of what is actually happening on the inside of a person's mind and heart and spirit and soul. Is that, “I'm not good enough,” becomes a statement of being, and then kids start living out of that. And so, when you take a professional athlete, or when you take anybody, these things start when you're young. And if you don't ever do the work to realize that… It’s so cool to see how when joy and sadness and all those other emotions come back and there's this, like… All those emotions are important, but when they start to realize having a voice in my life that helps me differentiate between failing at a task and being a failure is so important because I think that's what we see with kids and even into adulthood, is these lies get reinforced. That people are constantly living their lives out of lies rather than the truth about who they are and who they've been created to be, and, to go back to identity, the safest thing about us. And so, that's what we want, really. We're all searching for safety, freedom, acknowledgement, affirmation. It's what voices am I allowing in my life that reinforce those things that are most true about me and safest about me? And then, how then do I live out of that safety and truth?

 

Scott Allen  31:16 

Yeah. And, ultimately, you achieve or you're in pursuit of that congruency.

 

Josh Lindblom  32:24

Exactly.

 

Scott Allen  31:24

And then that's where we thrive, that's where we can, hopefully, move into the best versions of ourselves. And it's such a conversation, and it's so… You've touched on it, the complexity that is a parent-child dynamic, coach-child dynamic, coach-player dynamic. But what kind of was in my mind is it's almost like, as parents, we're almost at battle with all of these other things to help keep intact, and again, honor those different emotions that our children are feeling. I go to growth mindset; acknowledge the process not the end result. And so, I think of my daughter right now, she loves singing. Josh, we will someday miss the singing that comes from the upstairs while she's showering, just meltings. (Laughs) But she's had five or six hits in recent times. Hasn't gotten the part or hasn't gotten the part she wanted, but she's just working her butt off. How do we support her through that and the right message through that? Oof.

 

Josh Lindblom  32:30 

Yeah. That's where the thinking partners come in. And recognizing, like, I think, in our family, in yours too, we want our voices to be the loudest. And when you think about… We had this discussion with our daughter the other day, she's 11. She wants a cell phone, she wants social media, she wants all this stuff. And what I told her was, I said, “I'm not going to let you have those things because, the second I do, I open you up to a myriad of other voices that are going to try to tell you who you are. And what I need is I need to know that our voice is the loudest. And amidst all the other voices that tell you that you're not a singer because you didn't get the part, I need you to hear me tell you that you are a singer, you've been created to do this, and you're going to do what you've designed to do because we are here to support you in that.” I have to protect my kids from those other voices, and they're going to be exposed from them, I'm not going to shelter them from those. It's probably more so a point of having them differentiate between the voices, rather than not hear them at all. 

 

Scott Allen  33:39 

Yes. Because that's an important lesson too. We struggled with that. We struggled with, “Okay, what age do we open some of these things up?” It's this dance of you don't want to totally shelter from, but you want to shelter from as long as possible. (Laughs)

 

Josh Lindblom  33:54

Yes. Yes.

 

Scott Allen  33:56

And then, how do we help shape the effective use of. It's complex.

 

Josh Lindblom  34:02 

Yeah. Man, we could probably do a whole series on this just because when your eyes are open to it and you start to see it, you can't unsee it. You can't see why organizations are the way they are, and why families are the way they are, and why we are the way we are because we just skirt and glide through life, and we don't ever take the time to really sit down and be like, “All right, who am I and how does that inform what I do? Where is my identity coming from? Who am I allowing into my life to speak into this?” I think I mentioned this last time, but the greatest privilege in my life has been getting a front-row seat to watching light bulbs go off in people's minds when they get it. A conversation I had with a guy on a baseball field the other day was so cool. I walk him through this entire process, and we're talking, I'm asking him a question. And we get to the point and he goes, “I've been pitching afraid. Every pitch that I've thrown over the last two weeks, I have been so afraid that it wasn't going to be good enough for the people that are making the decision.” And that is every single baseball player, from 4 to 34, 44, however long they're allowed to play. It's being afraid of failing, and not even failing, of being a failure, of not being good enough, not having enough, nothing you ever do being good enough. And that's the stuff that people carry around. That's why Congruency came about, is because I want to help people sort through this stuff. There's an entire invisible light that's going on under the surface that they don't even know is going on, that needs to be made visible so they can see what's happening. And so, it's just been so cool to walk alongside of people. You can probably hear it in my voice now.

 

Scott Allen  35:57

Oh yeah. 

 

Josh Lindblom  35:57

Where do I find energy, and where do I come alive? This is where I come alive. This is exactly where I come alive.

 

Scott Allen  36:02 

Maybe that's the title of the episode, ‘This is where I come alive.’ 

 

Josh Lindblom  36:07 

Where I come alive. I love it. You're great at picking titles. 

 

Scott Allen  36:11 

Okay. So, as we begin to wind down our time together, because we're at about 45 minutes, what's caught your attention recently? What have you been listening to? What have you been reading? What might listeners be interested in knowing that that's on your radar?

 

Josh Lindblom  36:23 

I knew you were going to ask this, so I was getting ready this morning, I was like, “Man, what have I been reading?” Two books that I've been going through. First one is Ruth Haley Barton, ‘Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership.’ What I realized in this journey, this leadership journey, for me, is that you see when position outpaces character. Go back to the foundation talk, I didn't want that to happen. I didn't want my position to outpace who I was because I think it's just a recipe for failure, and you see it happen all the time. And so, making sure that the habits, practices, disciplines that I have, to reinforce everything we've been talking about, who am I? It's not just one thing to know who I am, but it's to reinforce that so I wake up every day and I can make decisions based on that. So, that book has been great. And then another book that I've been going back through is by Dallas Willard, ‘Life Without Lack,’ which Dallas Willard is probably one of my favorite authors of all time. But Life Without Lack basically walks through Psalm 23, and the vision and picture that we have of God, and the reality that Psalm 23 is in our lives. And that it's not just like a pie-in-the-sky-type vision, but it's the actual reality that God was into in his kingdom life here on Earth. And so, those two books, I've been going back and forth, hand in hand. But those two things, and then writing, and reading, and trying to do all this stuff. I've been busy. I've been really busy.

 

Scott Allen  37:50 

I appreciate you taking the time to check in. And congratulations. I'm excited to see how all this unfolds, to learn more about your learning. And it will check in again. I'll reach out again, for sure. I always just love the conversation, Josh. So, appreciative for you. 

 

Josh Lindblom  38:07 

I love it. I love talking to you. We just need to not wait two years to do it next, this time and come back. Maybe we need to have a quarterly where we just check in with everybody on the podcast. 

 

Scott Allen  38:18

(Laughs) I’d love that.

 

Josh Lindblom  38:19

If people enjoy the conversation, then I come back. But you can check the views. And if it's down, you just kick me off and don't ever talk of it again.

 

(Laughter)

 

Scott Allen  38:29 

What a fun conversation with Josh. I'm just so appreciative of him sharing his wisdom with all of us. A couple of things stand out for me: Congruency. And congruency begins with you having a clear understanding of who you are, what you stand for, those values, and Josh just beautifully communicated those in our conversation. And I think a lot of that conversation, we talked about who's walking alongside you. At times, I'll use the phrase, ‘who are your thinking partners?’ But who are those individuals helping you be the best version of you? Oof. Congruency, ove it. Josh, we'll do it again, it won't be two years. Thanks for all you do. Excited to see what it is that you build. And for everyone listening, as always, thank you so much for checking in. 

 

 

[End Of Recording]