Who Are You REALLY? Avoid an Identity Crisis with Jamie Winship

Have you ever seen someone have an identity crisis and wonder what happened? Perhaps they put their identity in a job, a position, a paycheck, and then that thing changed, and they struggled. Maybe you've felt that and wondered, "How do I avoid an identity crisis myself?"

Well, my guest today has spent 30 years helping some of the top leaders in the world find their true identity. We get real personal on this episode with Jamie Winship. Let's jump in.

[Music]

Hello, friend, and welcome to episode 108 of The Intentional Leader Podcast. I'm Cal, and I hope you're doing well today. Whether you're on a run, at the gym, doing the dishes, I'm just honored that you're here. I'm really excited to have Jamie Winship on the show today. Jamie is a real-world Jason Bourne. If you listen to his stories, you'll quickly see what I mean. He started out as a Metro DC area police officer. He has an incredible story about how he became a police officer, and then he was recruited by the CIA and has spent nearly 30 years bringing about reconciliation and peace in conflict areas. He spent time in Indonesia, Jordan, Iraq, Palestine, Israel, and all over the rest of the world. And now he spends his time mostly in the United States. He's the author of the book *Living Fearless*, and he and his wife Donna founded the Identity Exchange, where they help leaders discover their true identity and calling in life. On today's episode, we discuss what often leads to someone having an identity crisis and how you can avoid one, the lies and the fears that Jamie has dealt with since a young kid, how we can deal with our fear, and how we can begin to discover a true identity and how it's actually different than our vocation. So, without any further ado, please enjoy this powerful conversation with Jamie Winship.

All right, Jamie Winship, welcome to The Intentional Leader Podcast. I'm really excited to have this conversation.

Yeah, thank you. It's an honor to be here with you.

So, I wanted to start, maybe, by framing the problem because, you know, you hear this word "identity crisis," and a lot of times when people talk about, "I'm going through an identity crisis," or "That person is really having an identity crisis," it's typically in a moment where they've put their identity in something that no longer is there. So, maybe they put their identity in their job, or their position, or money, and it is not there. Or they put their identity in what people were talking about them or saying about them, and all of a sudden, people aren't saying the same thing. So, I wonder if we could just start with what are some of the identities or false identities that you see people really rely on, and then ultimately don't last? I wonder if we could just start by by talking a little bit about some of the the false identities that you see out there.

Yeah, that's, I mean, that's, yeah. I love starting with the problem because, because, you know, what, what leads all transformation in any, in any situation that you're in, what brings transformation is the first step is always truth-telling or confession. Truth, truth-telling is the, the definition of confession is to truth-tell. And a lot of people confuse that with apologizing, but to just tell the truth. So, so if you're going to, if you're going to solve a problem, the best way to begin is by telling the truth about the problem as clearly as you can.

So, when you think about the question of identity, which is a huge issue, because in our reality, there's no organizing principle for any living system other than identity. Identity is the only organizing principle in any living system. So, it's not a question of, "Should we think about identity?" The question is, that's the only organizing principle we have. So, as from a cell level up to a human being, we are organized around our sense of identity. If that sense of identity is authentic or true, then the, the system remains an open system that's reciprocal, and it's, because it's reciprocal, it's other-focused. So, it's, it's actually sees itself as part of a connected whole, and it needs to remain connected to the whole for the benefit of the whole.

When a system, even at the cellular level, becomes corrupted, so you have a healthy cell that becomes cancerous, it becomes a closed cell system, and it feeds off the systems around it. It becomes parasitic or self-focused, and it's destructive. So, all of, all of how we do things, being informs doing. So, every way that any system is acting is based on its sense of identity.

So, when you, so when you're talking about identity, the fact that for most of us, at least in some part of our life, are operating in an identity that's incorrect, we would say false, or impostor, or shadow, or ego, whatever those, whatever terms you're using, is the false identity. And identity, true identity can only be received. It's received in community, from outside of yourself. So, the difference between identity and its counterfeit, which is radical individualism, and that's what gets confused. It scares us because we look at radical individualism and, "Oh man, that's identity." It's not. Radical individualism is self-generated, and it's subjective, and it's circumstantial, and it produces immediate conflict. True identity is received in community.

So, when you're receiving or understanding your identity, it's always in relation to others or the outside world, and it's received from God, from outside of yourself. It's not self-generated. So, so it creates, as soon as a person understands identity, then they're like, "Oh, well, this, this identity, it's a hand and I on this part of the body." Or, in ancient civilizations, they were named according to circumstances going on around them, or when they were born, and they immediately see themselves as part of a community. Radical individualism sees itself as separate and distinct from everything else, right? And so that's why it creates conflict.

So, if, if identity is received, then, then where do we receive it from becomes critical. And most of us receive our identity from what we do, what we have, or what people think about us. That's where we're receiving it from, which is why it's deadly, which is, it can become super destructive. So, if I receive my identity from what I have, what I do, my vocation, or my role, or what people think about me, all of those things are going to shift on you. Some will go away. Um, but whatever the case, they're going to shift on you, and that identity is going to go with them.

So, I'm just talking to a professional athlete the other day, um, in their sport, and he was really wrestling with depression because he realized that that his role in the sport is coming to a pretty rapid end, and it's been the goal of his whole life, right? His identity has been that sport, sport, and not just that sport, success in that sport. He's trained in it since he was a little kid, you know, and skipped proms and skipped things to get to that place, and he made it. But it's, you know, it's limited. I mean, it is limited. It's, and so as it's going to start to go away, and as it's going away, his sense of self is going with it. He, it, it affects his marriage, it affects his role as a parent, because that identity is, is core to, to everything about him.

So, the false identity, the, the identity that's not authentic, is sourced in what we do, what we have, and what people think about us. For most humans, that's where we're getting our identity from: money, from jobs, from, from even from being a dad, like, because kids grow up and go away. Yes, you can't let go of that. The empty nest is devastating to a human, right? And so that's, that is what we have to address right away. Where the question, where in fact am I receiving my identity? That's a very deep question, and very few people will ask it, or even if they do ask it, know what to do with it.

Yeah, so Jamie, the two that really stand out to me are what I do and what others say about me. I, I struggle with that. Like, I, I certainly have to constantly check myself. Am I putting my identity in my job? Am I putting my identity in my position? Or am I pursuing some future position that will one day fulfill me? Like, once I get that role, or get that job, or make that amount of money, then I'll, then I'll be there. Or, and it's funny because I've heard you talk about this, sometimes people will say things about you, because we think about a negative identity as like people saying bad things about you, but sometimes people saying good things about you, it's, it's, it's the, the positive affirmations that you get, and you're just like, "Okay, I got to get more of that. I got to." And that's certainly something that, that I have struggled with.

So, I guess, and I know we'll talk more about how you've discovered your identity and how you help people do that, but just generally speaking, um, are you, are you, is your advice for people just to completely avoid those types of motivations ever? Because, I mean, I think a lot of us are encouraged by what people say, or we do. Like, being a coach, a football coach, like that's a really noble profession. So, what, how do you kind of thread that needle between kind of virtuous, uh, kind of motivation, a desire to do good, and to, when we do good, people say good things about us, or to even possess things in life that, you know, I guess I'm wondering, how do we, how should we think about those false identities and how should we frame them, uh, in a healthy way of living?

Right. It's a, that's a great question. So, yeah, so, in, think of ID, so identity, true identity, real identity, is your gift to the world, right? It's your gift to the world. So, if I'm a police officer, which I was, you know, and that was my dream since I was 14, once I, but when I got into the vocation of police officer, being a police officer wasn't a gift to the world. My identity *in* the vocation of police officer, huge gift to the world. So, I needed to understand, because we all know, in every vocation, there's good people and there's not good people, right? So, the vocation itself isn't noble, it's the person in the vocation that's noble. It's not money that's good or bad, it's the person with it that's good, you know, these kinds of things.

And so, my desire to be a great police officer, which was absolutely my desire, I wanted to make the active before everybody else, you know, all of that, but the question is, why? Why do I want to do that? Like, did it, if I wanted to do that because, you know, it made me more proud of myself? The whole question is, is this what I'm doing other-focused or self-focused? The true identity is continuously other-focused.

So, when I, when I'm training my students, I always ask them, "What's the difference between a great basketball player who understands identity and an even better basketball player who doesn't understand identity?" Because, because one could be better, you know, points-wise, skills-wise, contract-wise. It's because I can watch one player play the game and be amazing, and as soon as they're retired and gone, there's another one like it. Doesn't matter. Yes. But there's an, but there's a basketball player I watch play, and he's really good, and he's made the pros, and he's fantastic. And then he does a little talk on how to have a good marriage, and it changes my life. I will never forget him, not because he was a basketball player, but because he gave me a gift. He gave me a gift that affected my life. It's other-focused.

So, that's, that's really the difference in, in the true identity. Um, because I realized my identity is my gift to the world. The, I went beyond what the police department trained me in. Wasn't I was less than? I was, I was more. The reason I got recruited, you know, by the State Department was because their question was to me, "Where did you learn to do what you're doing?" Because you did not learn that in a police academy. Like, where did you learn this? And that, see, that's the true identity being elevated and affirmed, um, not because it was self-focused, but because it was other-focused, right? And it's very different. And people, people want to work with people who are other-focused pursuing excellence more than they want to work with a person who's self-focused pursuing excellence, right? Because I'm pursuing excellence, but it's at the cost of the people around me. I will sacrifice people around me to get to the place I want to get to. The other-focused true identity only works for the benefit of the whole. So, either we all go up, or we don't. And so, it's a, it's a pretty dramatic difference.

Parents ask me a lot, "If my kid understands their identity and they don't move in fear and they don't use fear motivators, what's going to make them competitive?" They have this idea that I'm not going to compete. I'm like, "Once a person understands their identity, they, they'll go at a level you haven't even asked them to, because they want to give that gift to the world." Like, "I don't want to just be a cop that walks a beat the rest of my life. I want to be an investigator who's out further. I want to be, I want to be at a level where I can train other police." Like, "I want to give this thing away so that we can get out there further." Because if our job is to serve and protect, then we want to serve and protect at the greatest level that we can. And a self, a self-focused person won't serve and protect. They'll do law enforcement, but they won't necessarily serve and protect, because they might lose their job, they might lose their life. These, this kind of motivation. That's really helpful.

That's just one kind of indicator. If you're operating out of your true identity, you're going to continue to be other-focused. What are some other indicators that someone is operating out of some of those those false identities that you talked about at the beginning? What, what are some other things that, if you're a listener right now, that they might be experiencing if they're operating out of a false identity?

Well, number one is fear. And, and what comes out as a result of that is guilt and shame. Fear, guilt, and shame are the three big indicators. And we'll say it in a lot of different ways. We'll say, "I'm stressed out, I'm overwhelmed, I'm exhausted," because the false identity is always exhausted because it's always manipulating and pushing and striving, and it's never at rest. You can't rest in the false. Um, and so fear, guilt, and shame. But it, it shows, it's the person who is attempting to work on a team, but really sourced in the false identity, they're competitive. They're constantly comparing themselves. They're in constant measurement mode. They can't get out of the measurement system, um, which is the comparing and contrasting, and that produces conflict. It creates conflict.

So, when I'm watching a person operate in the false, um, just watching their, their anxiety level, they're stressed out, they're overwhelmed, these kinds of things. But, yeah, ultimately, and we can talk about this more deeply, in the false identity, it produces in the person a sense of anxiety because they can never quite get there. It's never enough to rest in what you're trying to produce in yourself. And so, it creates internal conflict. They live with internal conflict and need, and they develop coping mechanisms with the internal conflict. But it, but it shows itself in external conflict. There's always, they're always involved in some sort of drama, some sort of external conflict. I mean, you can watch kids in middle school doing it. They're already in it. It's because they're getting their identity from what's around them instead of bringing their identity to a situation.

Now, Jamie, is this, should we think about this as like a permanent thing? Like, you're either in this or you're not? Is it, is it something that a lot of people kind of go back and forth between? It's kind of a constant checking of oneself of like, "Okay, right now I'm operating in, in." And by the way, we're kind of just framing the problem here, and then we're going to jump into what it actually means to have a, a true identity, and I'm going to get Jamie to share his story and some examples. But I'm just curious, kind of conceptually, is it something we kind of go back and forth between? Or is it like, you are either a person who is always, is in your true identity, or you're just a person of false identity? How should we be thinking about this conceptually?

Yeah, I wish it, I wish it was just, you get into the true and stay. No, because we live inside of a system that, that is built on the false. I mean, we really do. We live, we can talk about worldviews in a second. But, yeah, most of us, I mean, for anywhere in the world, you're born into a system that puts you in, in immediate measurement. Immediately, you're in a measurement system, and you're, and your identity comes from your ability to produce according to the system that you're in. And that's, and that messes you up immediately. And so, pretty instinctively, you're going to go towards the false, just because that's the worldview you're being trained in right off the bat. It doesn't really make any difference what, what government system you're in, they're all based in the same sort of separation worldview.

But, um, but the true identity is present. So, what, what I would say is that the true identity is something that's born, that you're born with. And the goal of life is to discover it and develop it through your lifetime in community. That's the goal. But the false is, is sourced in trauma. It's, it's what you learn to do when you're in a negative situation. You know, you're a third grader, and someone tells you, "You're ugly," or "fat," or "stupid," or something. You have to deal with what just happened to you, and you don't have the capacity to walk through it well. So, you develop a coping mechanism to deal with what was just said to you about your identity. And, but you still hear it. You, you know, it's like my little granddaughters, um, you know, they think they're the best singers in the world. They think they're beautiful. They think they're great actresses. And they're not ashamed to put on a play, sing songs. But one day, someone's going to tell them they're not good, and they will never look in the mirror the same again. Once that false identity is, once they have the option to receive, you know, "What, you're not as good as you think," or "You're not as good as that person over there." Now you've got to deal with that. And so, um, so until you develop healthy ways to deal with that, you start either, you accept that you're not good enough and you live to cope with it, or you make a commitment, "I'm going to be better than everybody else," and you strive to be that.

I'm pretty grateful to have an audience that's, that's international. But I think most listeners are probably from the West. They're probably from the US. Anything unique about the US or the Western world as it relates to identity? You did, you mentioned that in many ways, it's no matter where you grow up, you're going to have to deal with these false identities. But is there anything unique that you've noticed, because I know you've spent a lot of time abroad, just about our Western, US culture that leads to some of these false identities?

Yeah, I mean, it's, it's really interesting how it's a pretty common human issue. But I would say in the West, um, celebrity worship is the, is a real issue. You know, when, when you're, I mean, in any, you know, we worship celebrity pastors, and celebrity athletes, and celebrity singers. It's all like, "Can you?" And now it's, "Are you a celebrity influencer on YouTube?" It's this, it's to get to this celebrity status. And when you get to the celebrity status, it's not in community, it's you by yourself. And so, that push to be famous by yourself, above everybody else, I, I think is, I mean, even my Australian friends don't think that way. It's not cultural for them to think that way. But I think, yeah, especially in the US, I think that's a real detriment. And the true identity doesn't seek that, but it's very attractive to someone that has an insecurity. So, "If I can just, you know, get up there and everyone thinks I'm amazing," I'll do whatever it takes to get to that place. If I can't get there, I'm not sure life is worth living.

Yeah, and you can see how that would lead to just so much fear and shame and guilt and striving and anxiety. And I see that in my own life. I see that. I, I struggle with this for sure. So, I just want to be clear to the listeners, I'm not, I am certainly not coming at this as someone who's got this all figured out. Um, and I know you're not either, Jamie. So, before we jump into kind of the, the true identity, if you're, you're comfortable sharing, what are some of the false identities that you struggle with?

Oh, I, I can, or have struggled with. Yeah, mine, and I deal with this every single day. My mother used to say to me that I was a disappointment, and she, particularly when she was talking about religion. You know, if I was a little kid and I didn't want to go to Bible study or church or something, she would say, "You're a disappointment to God, and you're a disappointment to me." Well, when you're telling that to a kid, and I'm 63 now, that is my number. I'm the most sensitive to disappointing people. I mean, I, my wife and I were talking about this the other day because I had to make a shift in what I'm doing, and my biggest difficulty in making the shift was how I would disappoint the people I work with currently to do the new thing, which is, which traps you and doesn't allow you to grow, right? Because, because I can't disappoint them. So, that's probably my root one. So, when I disappoint someone, then I feel guilty, and I feel ashamed.

Well, I was taught that young. But once that neural pathway is formed, and that even God is disappointed in you, which a lot of people who grow up in religion are taught that God's fairly disappointed with you a lot of the time, even the things you're thinking about in your head, um, it's very hard to figure out how to cope with that. Either you just get rid of religion, which doesn't help, it just, it's like a coping mechanism. But so, yeah, I, I have to wrestle with that every day. And I have to keep going back to, "Okay, what is the truth of who I am? I don't get my identity from what people think about me," which allows me to make decisions on a higher level than, "Am I popular with these people?" But, yeah, all the time, back in it.

Yeah, and when I, when I, you know, when I go to a speaking situation, or when we're doing a training session, I'll even say at the beginning, when I'm teaching truth-telling, I'll even say to the group that I'm talking to, "I just want you to know right now, my biggest fear is that after we're done, this, I was a disappointment to you." That is my biggest fear. I'm just putting it right out there for you because I'm not going to let it be a decision-maker in what I do. But constant, yeah, you're going to constantly wrestle. It's just that, like any kind of training, you learn how to create space between the truth and the lie. Is what you're doing. So, I can see the lie coming a mile away, and I, "Here it comes. I'm a disappointment. Here it comes. Here we go." And I'm just ready for it now, but it still comes.

Well, thanks for sharing that. And that's so relatable. Uh, even as you were talking, I was thinking about just some of the, probably some of the thoughts that go through my mind. And I appreciate also you saying, or maybe addressing that concern that people might have about, "Well, if I don't, if I'm not motivated by these things, am I just going to become lazy?" And I was actually talking to some friends the other day. I almost think about it as like, "No, then you're operating from like this overflow, instead of this, this scarcity." You're, you're operating out of, I mean, even in a faith context, it's like, "Once I know that I am loved, and there's nothing I can do to change that, and I really get that into, like, the core of who I am, well, then I just operate out of a place of love." But what I have to do sometimes, I'm, I'm performing and trying to accomplish in order to be loved, or in order to have people say good things about me. And that's where I have to kind of catch myself. It's like, "Am I doing this out of a place of overflow and, and, and confidence and security, knowing who I truly am, or am I striving to go out and prove that I am worthy of love?" And so, that's that kind of tension that I experience, one of the many tensions I experience day to day.

Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. And it, it limits your freedom, right? We say, we tell our people when we're training them, "You don't get, we call it going into rooms. When you go into a situation or a room, you don't get your identity in that room, and you don't lose your identity in that room. You take your identity with you when you go in, and you take it when you go out." That gives them the freedom to move in the room however is the right thing to do. When you go into that room thinking, "Boy, I could lose my identity here, or get it here," you're already at a disadvantage. You're already limited. You're already in fear mode, self-protection mode. And we, and, and you, it's like an athlete playing tense, worried about the game, and an athlete playing with joy because they love the game. The joyful players are better. They just play at a higher level.

That's a great analogy. That's a great example. Jamie, would you mind kind of giving us a little bit of your story? Uh, I, I know that you were 14, went to a movie, and maybe that was when it started. Maybe if I have that wrong, but tell us a little bit about, because we've talked at this point about these false identities, and you've talked about your false identity that you have to constantly check. Tell us about how you were able to discover and discern your true identity.

Right. So, yeah, so the, so the disappointment, the false identity, is, is more the one that's easier to believe and get, 'cause you, you know, it comes from all over the place. And it's, it takes no real faith to believe a lie. If someone says, "You're not good at math," like, there's plenty of facts to back that up. You don't have to think about it. But to understand the truth of who you are takes faith, because you can't see all of it yet, but it's in there. So, I already think I'm a disappointment by eighth grade. I'm pretty clear on it. I've heard of it 10,000 times by then. And, um, so I got that. And, and I, I wanted to go to this movie. I actually went to meet this girl, but, um, to go to this movie. Um, and the funny thing was, I wasn't allowed to go. I was only allowed to go to G-rated movies. But I'm in eighth grade, and I wanted to meet this girl. And so, I, I, like, had it, and I knew she was going to the theater that night, and I told her I was going to be there. And I don't know if she cared.

So, I see her in the lobby, and I have these tickets to this G-rated movie. Well, she's going with these older guys into an R-rated movie. And so, she's like, "Oh, are you going into this R-rated movie with us?" And I'm like, "Yes," because I, because am now the disappointment thing is so high in me, right? See, I'm disappointing her. I'm not allowed. So, I, I won't go into the movie she's going into. So, instead, I go into this other movie. Um, and it was R-rated, but I didn't know that at the time. I just went, and I just didn't want her to see me going into a G-rated movie. So, I just went into the next theater over, and it was the movie *Serpico*.

And so, I go in there. I feel, feel horrible because of her. I feel horrible because I'm in a movie that I know God would never go to or be in, and he's disappointed because I'm in this movie. I'm not where my mom wanted me to be. All of that is going on. And so, then this movie comes on, and it's, you know, the true story of the police officer Frank Serpico, New York City PD. And as I'm watching the story, like, the, the narrative that I'm watching just does something in, inside of me that I've never felt before. And it's very deep and very spiritual, but I've never felt anything like this, you know, in a Bible study or a church. And, um, and it's, I just start to cry. I just start to weep. And it's a, and I know it's like good, but I don't know what it is, because I don't think God can be doing this, but I know it's spiritual. And so, and I, I, I'm watching the life of this police, police officer, and I'm, I'm saying, "That, that's me. That's who I am." I'm making these identity statements. I'm that, I'm, which is not uncommon for people watching movies. We very much go into the story and pull identity, good or bad, out of them.

And so, at the end of the movie, I go forward. At the end of the movie, because in our church, in our denomination, you go forward to make a commitment. And so, I went forward at the theater, and I just said to God, or someone up there, 'cause I knew this was bigger than myself. I knew it wasn't me doing this. This was something greater. And I just said, "I want to be that. I, I, I hear you. I want to be that right there." And that was my first understanding of calling, or identifying. The movie was naming me, that's how I talk about it. And so, at 14, when I walked out of that theater, I had a direction, because my being now started to inform my doing. And so, through ninth grade, 10th grade, all the way through high school, I wouldn't participate in anything that I thought would stop me from being a police officer, right? And so, life wasn't about trying to avoid bad things so you can be good. It was like understanding that there's certain things, if you're going to be excellent at this, you can't do this. Which is a great principle for kids to get hold of. It's not about not doing things, it's about doing the things that help this identity come alive, become real in your life. And just always would say, my friends would say, "Let's go smoke dope," or "Let's go, you know, do a burglary," or something. And I would say, "Look, I'm going to be on a polygraph one day, and I can't do it." And so, they understood that. I didn't say, "You know, I had a religious experience." And I was like, "Listen, I know who I am, and I'm not going to violate it now, because at 21, I'm going to be on a polygraph." So, that's really helped me.

And then as, and then as I went on in life, then, like, when I was 17, and I didn't, I hurt myself in a wrestling accident, and I didn't think I would pass a police physical. Then I meet this physical therapist nurse who starts to pour identity into me, even though I was resistant to her. But she was, because humans can't do what they've never seen. Humans can't do what they've never seen. They have to see a model of something, then they can innovate. But she was the first person I saw in a vocation who was bringing something deeper than her vocation. So, I would say she's a nurse, but she was a healer. Lots of the, lots of the healthcare professionals in that hospital I was in were good at their jobs. She was reaching inside my soul, trying to make me well. And I, and I knew that's what she was doing, because no matter what I said to get rid of her, she would keep coming back.

And so, when I left the hospital, this was really my experience of coming to faith. I prayed, and I said to God, at at 17, "Can you teach me how to be a police officer like she's a nurse?" Like, that's the only way I knew how to say it. I know she's a nurse, I know that's her job, but she's bringing something to her vocation that's going to affect me the rest of my life. And so, now I had a model in my mind of what if I was a police officer dealing with people who were talking to her like I was talking to her, nasty, and still love them so much that I keep coming back to them with words that they'll say, "We are so glad we dialed 911, and you're the one that came, 'cause any cop could have come, but you came." But what came was not a cop. What came was my gift of my identity to this person. That's what that's what showed up at the door in the uniform of a police officer. And when those people wrote letters back to the chief thanking the police department, I got promoted, right? That's the excellence level. I worked with great cops that would never do that kind of stuff with people. They were great at their job, but they wouldn't necessarily, like, I took gang guys to my house for the weekend. Like, I did those kind of things because I wanted to be the best police officer I could be, right?

And so, that, so my journey went like that, and I just looked for models, humans that were a higher level of what I wanted to be, and how they did it. And that's discipleship, right? That's what we, anyone, it's not a religious word. We make all these words religious. They're words of truth. This is called discipleship, right? I'm, I'm teaching you how to be who I am and greater. That's what you're, that's what, and a good discipler makes the student better than themselves, right? And so, that I would look for those people. And there's not many. There's not a million of them. They're very, they stand out pretty dramatically, and they're beautiful when you encounter them. And so, I just, in college, there was a wrestling coach that was so much like that. Into the police department, you know, and then, and then, um, because of I was doing that, I would get on certain calls, and I would just say, ask God, which, you know, was my way of trying to know things higher than myself. Anyone who thinks they know everything is crazy. They're, they're not, you're not feeling in reality if you don't think there's more to know in a situation than what you think you know. You're in serious denial of life.

And I would get in these scenarios where the police academy didn't train us, which, you know, you're in the military, you know, those are a lot of sit, you train, you train, you train, and then everything goes way different than what you trained for. A, a person who has access and the capacity to shift paradigms and adjust in health is your best person. Like, they're your highest level person. They don't get mad at someone 'cause the training was wrong, or like, you adjust and you do it with as much calm and peace as you can. Um, and that's just what I practiced. Like, everything, you just have to learn how to do things. And I would just ask God, like, "What's a way to think about this situation in real time? Because I don't know what to do." Exactly. What's, and I would have these ideas. You talk about creativity. This is the creative process, and we train the creative process all the time in every vocation. But I slowly started to realize, "Wow, there's an access to knowing outside of myself that's real. It's real-time, and it's real." And the ideas come, and we bring them from the intuitive down into the rational and work them out in the situation that we're in. That's your again, your be, your high resiliency individual can do this stuff, but you train in it, right? It's not magic. You train. You make, I got suspended three times doing things not quite the right way, but then I would come back and say, "Okay, I still have my job. I learn not to do that one," and I would try it again. But fear would shut you down, right? And so, that's what I did until the State Department called me in my fifth year and said, "Come in. We want you. We want you to explain to us how you know how to do what you're doing. How do you know how to do it?" That was their question.

One thing I want to, I, you know, I just want to say to your listeners and your viewers is, is when you read, when you read the life of a, a model, like, you know, for me, the highest model of a human is Jesus. So, when I'm reading the life of Jesus, because a lot of people I respect and revere, that was their model, like, I always ask people, "Who is your model? Who is your model?" And we all, we keep ending up at Jesus. You know, Gandhi, and for Martin Luther King Jr., and Nelson Mandela, and all these amazing humans, they're at Jesus. So, that's a good place to start, whatever you think about Jesus's divinity, it's still a really good model. And when I'm, Jesus, this is the thing that I noticed about Jesus: Jesus didn't come to tell people what to do. Anyone can do that. He came to teach people how to know what to do, which is a whole different level. He's, he doesn't want the disciples to walk the same way he walks and say the same three things he says. In fact, he makes sure they can't. He won't use formula. That's one thing. But he wants to ask, like, he comes up with these ideas of like, "Let's go talk to the Samaritan woman. Let's go talk to a demon." None of them make any sense until you watch the result, and then you're like, "That's brilliant." He wants them to ask the question, "Ask me how I know to do that. Don't ask me what I did. Ask me how I know to do these things." That's, that's what he's trying to get them, because when I'm not here, you can also know in this way, right? And so, he wants them to say, "How did you know to go talk to a Samaritan? We don't even talk to Samaritans. A woman's not going to have any impact in that culture." And yet, it was brilliant. How'd you know? And then he tells the way he knows things, and for him, he only does what he sees the Father doing, and he only says what he hears the Father saying. And so, that is the best explanation of the intuitive mind that I've ever heard. That's the intuitive mind that Einstein says, "The intuitive mind is the master, and the rational mind is the servant." But we have made the servant the master. So, that's, that's how that's kind of my history. And then State Department, and the State Department said, "Can you do this in another country?" And I said, "I'm pretty sure I can." And on a Wednesday night, my career went from, "I just want to be the best police officer in the world," to God saying, "Well, then I'm inviting you into the whole world." And, and for people that think there's no opportunity, you, it's not true. Wednesday night, everything in my life changed.

Jamie, we'll come back to that. You know, as you're talking, I think about, I think it was Tim Keller, I was listening to one of his sermons. I don't think this was his definition, but he was using it to define wisdom, and he was talking about his complexity with regards to the complexities of life, or sorry, competence with regards to the complexities of life. And he was talking about how so many scenarios in life are not black and white. We'd like to think that it's like, "Do this or do that." But anyone that's lived long enough knows that you do, you have to access something beyond black and white. Like, rules only get you so far. And I, I just appreciate what you're talking about. I want to go back though, to in the movie theater. Do you find that a lot of people who begin to discover, whether you call it a calling or your true identity, go through something like that? It's like they're, they're watching something, or they're experiencing something, it's like there's something inside of them that like feels the most alive they've ever felt, or just they relate. Like, I've, I've had similar experiences where I'm watching a movie and it's like, I'm tearing up, and I did not expect that to happen. But like, there's something in that story or a person that is tapping into something that's inside of me. So, I guess what I'm trying to do is, is help people figure out, uh, or identify with maybe moments in their life where they, something got accessed that was already within them that spoke to a deeper calling. Do you find that that's what happens to a lot of people?

Yeah, it happens to everybody. Yes, it's a very human thing. So, so, you know, we were, we were doing a presentation last week with a group, and very high-level professionals, top of their field, top 1% in their field, different vocations, but all of them were top 1% of what they do. And so, we go into the room, and they want us to talk about identity, they want us to talk about worldview. Um, so, these are people that have got, they've already made all the money, they already have the big name in what they do. That's not the factor, that's not the issue. What they want to know about is wholeness. What is wholeness? And so, if I go into a room like that, and my identity that I struggle with is, "I'm a disappointment," you're not, you'll die in that, in that level of room. You're never going to make it. I am never going to be at the level professionally that these people are at and what they do. But, but I don't get my identity from them, for one thing. But what I know is they're human. They're human beings. And so, I know deep inside they're afraid of a lot of stuff, just like all of us.

Um, and I also know, what you're saying, they've had moments in their life where the true identity has been touched, because it's already in us, and it gets touched. It's like a little flame. And, and when you, and when I'm ever, I'm talking to anyone, I'm always looking to see if I can tap, touch that true identity, because when you touch it, people respond immediately to it. And so, one of the exercises we did with this room, and I think the average age in the room was probably 55 and up, was, "Do you re?" So, we do this kind of contemplative exercise, and like, try and remember a time in your life when you experienced deep joy. Just try and remember. And they, and I mean, people in the room get super emotional. And one guy, who's a very famous builder, architect, remembers playing with little building blocks when he was a little kid. Wow. Right? And he's never, like, put them together. Another guy, then there's a famous orthopedic surgeon, remembers, like, his favorite exercise in a little workbook was connecting things together. Now, he's like 70. And I said, "Do you understand how that's part of who it's always been? You've always been one that connects things together. You just didn't know it was going to be joints and tendons at this level." But you've been doing it your whole life. Because his identity is not that he's an orthopedic surgeon. His identity is that he's a connector. And when he realized he was more than a surgeon, that he was actually, he started to remember times in his life where he did do that, but it hasn't been a consistent part of his life. And he was so moved. And he

Said, "I wish I knew this 50 years ago." And I'm like, "It's not too late, right?" So, yes, every human, if you just sit quiet and think about in my life, where were the times that I felt joy, or experienced unconditional love, or that sublime moment where I was watching, watching some... remember, 'cause it's in there, and it's the real you. Yeah. And my encouragement to people would be, if, if you've never done anything like that, hit pause and take, give yourself permission to take 15, 20 minutes. It probably won't take that long, and just think about it. Put your phone down for just a minute and just think about that. Because you do. When I've done this exercise, uh, recently, actually, Jamie, I was putting together an online course about helping people discover their core values, and that's one of the exercises is helping them reflect through, what are the moments in your life where you felt the most joy? Uh, for me, it was when I was speaking, teaching. There was this mission trip I went on to Jamaica. I remember just the feeling of just like being alive. And I remember others actually on that mission trip being exhausted by things that were giving me energy. And it was just, it wasn't a comparison thing, but it was just a, "I, I don't know why, but this gives me so much energy." Uh, there's something going on here inside of me. So I just would encourage people, uh, in a busy world that we live in, give yourself permission to go think about that.

Now, Jamie, one, one distinction. So you're watching this movie and you identify with the police officer. What was the language, and maybe you didn't have the language at the time, but even just reflecting back, what language would you use to describe your identity? Was it "police officer"? Because that sounds like a vocation. And people might be thinking that, uh, well, my, you know, for me, my identity is being an attorney, or my identity is being an army officer. Like, what, what is some of the language that people often use when they are describing a true identity, or what did you, what did you use reflecting back?

Yeah, no, that's a great question. One thing we have to remember as humans is that our brain, especially the prefrontal cortex, where we're like envisioning and dreaming and intuiting things, only thinks in symbols and pictures, right? It's always in metaphors. So even if I, even if I'm looking at the screen going, "police officer," I know it's a metaphor for something more than a literal police officer. Because I'd seen other police movies, you know, it wasn't, it was something about the story of this police officer and what was happening around him. And what was happening around Serpico was, you know, guys on his squad were taking money, you know, for things, and he wouldn't participate in the take. He didn't turn them in, he just wouldn't participate. And so there was this conflict going on. And for me, it was like, I, I want to be the person who comes into a situation that's corrupted and there's conflict and bring peace to it. Like, that's what I, that's how I thought. And the way the character in the story, you know, the way he talked to prostitutes and the way he talked to people that seemed, you know, as fringe people, was compassionate. He wasn't trying to take money from them, he wasn't trying to rip them off. He was trying to like build community with them. And that's what appealed to me about it. Even when I was watching it, it was like, "Gosh, this guy is just so different than everybody else. Like, he's not, he's not just in the game to get whatever he can get out of the game. He's different. He's, um, and he even feels like he's a disappointment sometimes. I mean, he was penalized for it, but he was still right." And so that all resonated in my mind, all kind of in a clash. And I was just like, "That's me. That's what I want to be." It's not what I, I didn't say, "That's what I want to do." I said, "That's what I want to be." That was the difference. I think it wasn't something I wanted to do, it was someone I wanted to be.

When did you, 'cause, correct me if I'm wrong, but eventually you had a phrase, and I don't, I'm sorry, I don't recall exactly what that phrase was. I thought it was something related to warrior protector. But what, when did you eventually have words that were like a phrase or two-word thing to describe, like, "This is my identity"? Help people understand because we've been talking about it, but I'd love to know, like, yeah, is the goal to get to like a two or three-word phrase of like, "I'm Cal, and my identity is X"?

Yes. So that again, it happened with a person. I was, I was in a vocation, you know, overseas. And by the time I threw the police department into, you know, working overseas, I had a very strong sense of my capacity to be connected to God. I had a strong sense of that God was with me, God was for me, God wasn't disappointed in me. I had that, I really had an understanding of that. That was like level one. Level two was, and I, so then in my role in Indonesia, I, I, you know, I struggled because it was the next level and I wasn't ready for professionally what it involved. But I met a guy that was, I knew was probably one of the best in the world at what he did because I knew him by reputation. And when I finally met him, I, I do this all the time. I said, "Can you train me?" Because I knew he was going to be in country for a while. And I said, "Can I just, you know, glue myself to you?" Which he said no three times. But I kept coming at him. He's a good trainer, H, because he, he wanted to make sure I was serious. But I spent four years with him. Very early on, he said to me, "Watch." He would train me and working, you know, doing the stuff we were doing with Muslims. And he was watching me one time and he said, "You don't know who you are." I mean, he just directly said it. He said, "You don't understand who you are." And I got mad. And I said, "Yes, I do." And he said, "No, you don't." And I said, "How do you know I don't know who I am?" And he said, "Because you're imitating me." He said, "Don't imitate people." He said, "You can use people as like, okay, that's someone I want to be like, but you're not them. And we don't want you to be them. And he said, "I don't want you to be me. I'm already here." But I don't know what to do with you because I don't know who you are either. You need to be able to tell me who you are in order for me to know how to, you know, deploy you or use you." And so he sent me to another guy. And this other guy, that's what he did on the team, he helped people understand who they were so they could tell the other team members who they are, which then they knew your role, right? And so I went, met with that guy. And just like you said earlier, it's not a long process. It's always been there. It's just discovering it. It's always been there. And you kind of know it. And a lot of times your friends know it before you do because they see glimpses of it, right? We call it a solar eclipse. It's like the true identity is there, but it's shadowed over. You can still see the light behind it, but there's a cloud over it, which is the false, which is the coping mechanism. Once that shadow's moved, boy, that identity can grow and shine. And so with that guy, 40, 45 minutes, and I was crying my eyes out again, like I was in the movie theater. And I, my, my sense from God, from love, was, "You are a warrior. You are a warrior." Because I was questioning my capacity to be out there with these level guys. "You are a warrior. You're not a disappointment. You're a warrior. Get rid of the disappointment. You're a warrior." And then I, and then I told that to the guy. And he said, he said, "Ask, what kind of warrior? There's lots of kinds of warriors. Ask what kind of warrior." And so I asked God, "What kind of warrior?" And he said, "You're a militant peacemaker." And as soon as those words came in my head, I knew they were true. My whole life, I knew. And that's what I saw in the movie theater. I saw a militant peacemaker, a person who's not going to just try and make peace, they're militant to come into conflict situations and bring. And it, it said why I wanted to be a police officer. It said why it, it told me why I was in the country I was in and what I would be doing the rest of my life is coming into conflict situations and bringing peace with, with, you know, like aggressively doing it. And it's so liberated me. And so I came back and I told McCollum's name. I said, "I'm a militant peacemaker." He said, "Okay, let's train that. That's what he says. Let's train that identity." And he did for four years. Yeah.

Wow. And I can totally see how if you're just purely copying, which so many of us do, and not that we can't pull inspiration from people and learn from people, we should do all that. But if we're just copying what we see someone else do, it's a big difference than when we're doing what we were put on this earth to do and living out of that. That's right. He said, he said to me one time, "Do you want to just be a cover band the rest of your life?"

Oh, oh man. This is so good. And, and I just, there's a story that I want to get you to tell about towards the end of your time as a police officer, and maybe it wasn't towards the end of your time, about kidnapping. But before that, I, I want to ask you. So, so at this point, and I know that this is a process, and my understanding, Jamie, and you can, I want to get you to talk a little bit about it, but my understanding is this, discovering your identity is something you guys do, like multi-day workshops on, right?

Yes. Yeah. Yes. But if somebody's, you know, maybe they pause the episode and they're going through the an exercise of like thinking about moments like you had where in the movie theater and you just are just overwhelmed with joy, there's something being, you're tapping into something that's inside of you. It sounds like at a certain point, this person directed you just to start asking God, right? "Who am I? Like, what do you have for me?" And, you know, what's interesting to me, Jamie, I'm a praying person. And, and I've been, I've been a Christian for, you know, decades. But there have been seasons in my life where I don't really, like, if I'm being honest, I'm like, "Dude, does God really speak?" You know, like, we see it through the Bible, but I think for many of us, it's hard for us to comprehend that God would, would speak to us. So I wonder if you could talk, and I know that, you know, listeners, I know that this may not apply to everyone, or maybe it's uncomfortable to even think about, but because this is part of your story, talk to people a little bit about the process of asking. Because you've, maybe you've thought about moments in your life where you really felt alive, but then you want to go deeper. You, you want to go past that and ask for a little bit more. What does that look like to ask for more clarity on your identity?

So, so, you know, again, because a lot of the folks that I work with aren't from faith backgrounds, and, and so our, our prerequisite to what we do is, you have to be human. You don't have to necessarily be from a faith background, but you do have to be human. So what we're, so what you're talking about, and, and I'm talking about, and we use the word prayer, that's our word for it, um, God, but, but the truth is, in, again, in the reality that we're in, is that all innovation in any human being, all innovation is preceded by contemplation. There's no other way for a human to innovate without contemplation first. So like, when we're in public schools, I'm telling the teachers, if you want those kids to be innovators, you need to make them experts in contemplation. If that's, if your whole goal is just innovation, then, then teach them contemplative skill. Because Einstein's not coming up with the theory of relativity without years of contemplation on the problems of, of, um, Newtonian physics and the limitations of it. I mean, he's all of them. And so nobody in, in the Eureka creative process, which you can study from Archimedes forward, the first step in any creative process is asking a question. And the question that you're asking is about something that's not known. If you're a true innovator, like Kepler's asking the question, "What's moving planets?" Like, what's the force that moves planets? No one's even thought about it before. And his whole process for that is contemplation. And for him, it was contemplation on the movement of Jesus by the power of God. That's how he figured out planetary motion and gravity. So, so you have to ask a question and then you have to search for an answer. So when you're talking about identity, "Who am I?" I mean, I can go ask a hundred people, but I want to ask someone greater than just what my friends think with limited knowledge. And I know to, in any creative process, starts with asking a question and searching for an answer. Like those are the steps of the creative process in any topic. At Disney, it's anywhere. And the creative process is engaged. So the first step though, in the creative process in understanding identity, anything, is get rid of the limitations before you ask the question. So the first step in the identity is, take a piece of paper. I do this all the time with people. And let's ask this question first: "What are the names I believe about myself that hurt me?" And write them down. This is truth-telling. Write them down. "I'm a disappointment." Every human knows what they are. I mean, it doesn't take long. You know, you look in the mirror, you see and believe things about yourself that hurt you because they were said about you, you determined them from some failure, whatever. Write those down. We write those down. Number one, we have to get rid of these because these will block your ability to receive new information. So if I'm an engineer and I'm locked into one engineering style of thinking, I can't, until I move that out of the way, I can't allow for my brain to go further than the rules of what I've put in place, right? So this is confession. So we take those false names, we give them, we give them to God, we give them away. Way. And then we call it getting empty. Sweep those out of the way. Okay, this is what I believe about myself. I'm giving them to love. I'm giving them to God. What does God do with the false names? What? Because they have to go away. And then when the house is set, swept clean, so to speak, to prevent the false identities from coming right back, which they will, you have to replace them with something else. And that's when you're ready to ask God, "What do you say about me?" I know what they say about me. I know what I say about myself. What do you say about me? And I'm telling you, when you proceed with the emptying before the asking, the asking is quick. It's very, the response is very quick. And I just make people start talking. When you ask God, "What do you call me?" Start. Don't, don't think about it. Hold on. Start saying it because you'll shut it down. You'll go, "Well, I don't know if that's true. I'm not, not sure." Because, and then all the false starts. Say it out loud in community and let the community go, "Yeah, yes, yes, that's the community part." Yeah, that's right. "We see that in you." And the community could be one other person, right? It could be one other person. But that exercise, it takes 20 minutes. Just like you're saying, just stop everything right now. "What are the names I believe about myself that are killing me? They're destroying you, and they're creating fear, guilt, and shame and stress." And, "Okay, I'm a terrible dad." Let's get rid of that. Because for those of, for those, if you have, if you read the Bible with any integrity, you're going to find out that one thing God never does is accuses people of things. He's not an accuser. So, so if I say to a person, "Ask God what kind of father he thinks you are," they won't do it because they're afraid of what they already believe about themselves. "I'm a failure as a father. I'm a failure as a." So they won't ever ask. But it's not, "You're not a failure." So you move it. Ask God, "What do you say?" And God will say things like, "You're a great father. Let's work on these things together. Let's act like a great father. You are a great father. Why are you acting like you're not a good father?" That's how he talks. "Why act like, what, what would a good father do?" And not any good father, you specifically, you in your situation. Don't compare yourself to any other dad out there. That's a mistake. "What kind of dad are you? And what is your gift to your kids?" Your identity is your gift to your kids. Not parenting. We don't even know what that means. Your identity is your gift to your kids. Your identity is your gift to your spouse. Your identity is your gift to the world. Not a thousand identities. So when I, so when I'm with police officers or military or whatever, it's like, you're not one identity out there and then another back here. You'll go insane. Whatever your gift is to the world, world is your gift to everyone in the world. And it unifies your life. It reconciles it and gives you wholeness so that you're just giving your. So with, if you ask my kids, who are all married now and have kids, "What was, what, what kind of parent was I?" Because my most specific identity right now is "untier of knots." That's what, that's how I bring peace. I untie conflict. I'm an untier of knots. And if you ask my kids or my wife, "What kind of husband is Jamie? What kind of parent?" They'll all say, "He unties our knots." Wow. That's the greatest gift I can give them. They don't say, "He's a great Christian dad" or, you know, they say, "He unties our knots." And my wife's identity is "timeless lifegiver." And what she does to me every day is gives me life. That's her. But she gives life to everyone she comes in contact with because that's her identity. Do you see? When you put a timeless lifegiver with an untier of knots, you have a very powerful combination. And when God joins those identities together, nobody can separate them.

So, um, Jamie, just to clarify, so you, you had that word, uh, "militant." Was it "militant protector"? "Militant peacemaker"?

Oh, I'm sorry. "Militant peacemaker."

And then you also have "untier of knots." Is the "untier of knots" kind of further clarifying that greater identity?

Okay. Yeah. Kind of what it looks like in this particular season or...

Right. It's like, you're starting with general ed, general education. And God says, "You're a warrior." And then, but don't stop. Don't stop. Like, "What kind of warrior?" There's a million kinds of warriors. "You're a militant peacemaker." Okay. As a militant peacemaker, strategically, how do I bring peace? "Untie their knots." And it's a journey, right? It's a journey. And you just become more and more skilled in that identity. And as you do, God rewards that with greater authority and greater influence. That's how he rewards people. Not with money. Money can certainly come with it, but his reward is greater authority and greater influence. Yeah.

And I can see how that would be so powerful because it's not attached to a position. It's not attached to a title. It's not attached to how much possession you have. You can go in and out of vocations and roles, but you're still showing up. And I can see how knowing that is so powerful because you have, we all like you mentioned, we all have thoughts that come into our mind that don't serve us, that are all, that are lies about us, or someone has said something to us. And to your point earlier, I mean, someone says, "You're bad at math." Well, yeah, there's plenty of evidence that I can point to. But that's not really who I am. And that's not really who God says I am. So that's really powerful. Jamie, I, um, I'd love to, and in the little bit of time we have left, I'd love to get you to share your story because I, I think this is another powerful example of wisdom in action or insight in action. Tell us about your, you're a cop. There's, uh, a child who has been kidnapped. Obviously, any parent or anyone, you know, with kids, or anyone who's associated with kids knows or can imagine just how incredibly scary that would be. Tell us what happened when you were working on this case and you started to get some additional insights.

Yeah, so, yeah, kid abducted from a bus stop in the morning. And, you know, so like when I was a cop in those days, no computers in your car, none of that kind of stuff. And, um, and so we get notified by the school. Get to the school, the parents are at the school, the kid's not there. So, you know, you've already lost a couple of hours. And in those situations, every hour, like, is pretty desperate. And so I'm, um, we're in that scenario and I, I'm talking, I'm interviewing the father, you know, "Is there any domestic problems going on?" His father's hysterical. And, you know, to ask these kind of questions is hard because you got to go through them. And he's freaking out, like, "Why aren't you looking for my kid? Why are you asking me these questions?" And get, we get through the questions. And I said to them, you know, "I got, I have little kids, and I know how you feel. And I'm, we're going to find your kid." My partner, who's, who's there with, with me, like, who's older than me, he's furious that I said that because you don't, you know, you don't say that to a parent. You can't make those kind of statements and give him hope. And, and I, and he chewed me out. And I was like, "Yeah, I don't know. I don't know why I said it. I felt sorry for him. I felt, I don't know. I just wanted to give him some hope." We split up. I, I, I drive away from the scene. We, you know, we have a perimeter set up as much as we can, helicopters up, all that stuff's going on. And I'm, I'm, I, I go about a mile away from the school. And, and, uh, I'm sitting on a side street. And I, and I just ask God, because in my own journey, we're all in our own journey. I'm asking God, "Can you do? Can you respond to something like this? Do you, do you still do like stuff you did in the Bible? Do you, you know, where this kid is? Can you tell me? How do you still tell people? How would I know if you were going to tell me?" Like, all these questions in my head. And I'm, and I'm mad, actually. I'm agitated. And I was like pounding on the steering wheel, sitting on this, by the, on the side street. And down the, down the road behind, from behind me comes this car. He's just going speed limit, you know, 25 or 30 miles an hour. He just comes past me. And as he kind of gets his car, gets near my cruiser, I just feel really sick to my stomach, like someone punched me or something. And this is what I tell people, and I read about this in my book, is like, when you ask God a question, look for the answer. Like, pay attention to to everything. We ask God questions and then completely ignore everything around us. Like, pay attention to the, everything. The weather, what's on the news, everything around you. When you ask a question, any good creator, inventor knows this. Search for the answer. Like, look. And so I ask, "Can you find it? How would I know?" So I get really nauseous, like someone punched me. And then I just look up, and I'm looking around, like, "Okay, I just prayed that. I feel like I'm going to throw up. What's going on in this car?" It's almost like slow motion. He passes me. And I just look right in his eyes, the driver. And he just kind of smiles at me. And he just goes past me. And I'm like, "Whatever is going on has something to do with that car." And so I pull out and I cut him off and just go, cut in front of him. And, you know, he stops. And I jump out. And I look in his car, there's no one in the car I can see. And I said, "Get out and open your trunk. Get out and open your trunk right now." And he gets out. He complies with me. I think I just freaked him out. But he gets out and he opens the trunk. And the kid, the kid's in the trunk. And the kid's, you know, he's okay. He's crying. He's curled up in the trunk. Open up the trunk. And the guy, the, the perpetrator is freaked out. Like, he's just staring at me. And he keeps saying to me, "How do you know? How did you know? How did you know?" You know? So like, I get him on the ground, handcuff him. Tell the kid, you know, "You okay? Are you okay?" And the kid's crying. I'm like, "Stay there. Don't move." Handcuff him. You know, call the, call the backup. The detectives come. And the guy's on his face on the pavement asking me how I knew to stop him. And I was like, "I don't, actually. Now." And so they come. The ambulance comes, check the kid. The investigator, his name was Agnew in those days, he walks up to me. And it's, you know, it's clearly the guy. The guy pled out in court and all that. But Agnew pulls me back. And he goes, "How did you know to stop that car?" And I, I said, "Well, I was praying to God." And he, Agnew goes, "No, no, no, no, no. He goes, you have no, what was your probable cause for stopping the car?" Because in court, if you say you were praying, that's not probable cause. It could blow this whole arrest. "What's your probable cause?" And, um, you know, so we had to have probable cause. And so I got Officer of the Year for that arrest. What I, I learned so much in that little incident. Agnew, the, the senior investigator, he, he C, he kept saying, "You know, you trust your gut." That's how they talked about it in the police department. They said, "The best cops trust their gut." They're talking about intuition, intuitiveness. They know how to know things. They just don't explain it. And, and I knew that's what it was. And he knew that that's what it was. But I had a name for it. I had a process for it. And then I learned God's. And this is part of the creative process. Because the final step in the creative process is, you have to write it down so others can read it and move with it. So Einstein figures out relativity, he writes four papers on it. Because if he can't demonstrate it to mathematicians, it's just a thing in his head. Um, so whatever comes in the intuitive mind, you have to bring down into the rational. You have to work it out and figure out probable cause. And you have to be able to testify in court in a way that a juror can listen to what you say and go, "Yeah, that makes sense." And the Lord is teaching me all this in this one lesson. Like, you're going to know things in your life. You're going to understand them. You're going to move on them. But you have to be able to articulate them to people that don't, don't come from your background, don't have all the buzzwords that you use. And they can go, "Okay, that makes sense to me." So when I, when I got the Policeman of the Year, when I stood up to, you know, my speech to thank them, I thanked my sergeant, my lieutenant, you know, for, for the all the great training I had and for how they taught me to listen to my gut and to learn how to listen to my gut. The funny thing was, before that incident, my sergeant, who I loved, I, I was, we were working midnights together one time. And I pulled up next to him and I said, "Can I, I want to tell you something." And he stopped me and he said, "Do you want to talk to me about Jesus?" And I said, "Kind of." And he goes, "What kind of cop are you?" And I said, "What does that mean?" He goes, "What are you, a good cop or a bad cop?" And I said, "I don't know yet. I'm still new into this." And he goes, "I don't know either. When I know that you're a good cop, you can talk to me about Jesus." After I, and that was it. He left. After I got that award, when I walked, when I walked out of the room, you know, with the chief and all that, he was out in the hallway. And I was past him. He goes, "Okay, now you can talk to me about Jesus." And I, I think that's a good lesson for all of us. Like, you got to be able to say things in a way that makes sense to other people, in a way that that's helpful to them, and not some language they just don't, can't grasp.

I love too the way you use questions. That was something that was new to me reading your work. And there were two questions that I really keep coming back to. And and really, they're prayers for me. It's just, "God, what do you want me to know? And what do you want me to do?" And then just the willingness to listen. That's right. And it's funny how those are so simple. And yet, I've never heard anybody talk about that. But just like you're describing, there's a, there's a creative process. There's a process of accessing information that I don't currently have. And often, it seems like most of the time, it begins with a question. And so I love, love that. Jamie, I want to ask you, so, and just to, and that eventually led to you being on the CIA's radar, is that right? Or that stuff like that?

Right. Yeah. So they interviewed. So when they brought me in, um, when the State Department guys brought me in, they had all my casework. And they were, and they had it on a table in a bar. We were in a bar. And, and they were flipping through and they were saying, "Say, explain to us your thinking process in this case." And that's what they wanted to know. They wanted to, they knew the result. And I, and but they wanted to know, could I articulate the process that was going on in my head in such a way that made sense to them? And then they wanted to give me a real-life scenario that was going on that they couldn't resolve. And they were looking for a resolution. And wanted to know, could I on the spot do the process and come up with a resolution to the problem they were facing? And if I could, then they wanted to offer me a job. So, so that was the process they took me through while I was sitting there with them. Yeah.

Pretty, it's pretty crazy. The cool, the cool thing about it was because I wasn't afraid of them. You know, I didn't think, "Oh my gosh, am I going to disappoint them with my answer?" Because I was past that. I felt totally free to take a shot at it. And if I, if they were like, "Loved me, great. If they didn't." But that gave me the freedom to tell the truth. I kept telling them, "You're not going to like my process." I kept saying that. "You're not going to like my process." And they're like, they would say, "We don't care what your process is. It works. We just want to know if you can explain it." And then I would, I told them. And they're like, "Yeah, we don't like that process." We, in fact, because, you know, it had a lot to do with my faith, which was new to them, which was unusual to them. But as Jesus said, "It's by your fruit that people know you, not by what you say. It's by the result of your life that they know." Yeah. And that's what those guys were looking at, which was comp, I felt honored by that, that they were respecting the result, even though my process was not what, um, they thought. They didn't even think it was real until I explained it. So, you know, it became a, a kind of a testimony to those guys. Yeah.

And, uh, Jamie, and our last few minutes here, can you talk a little bit about what you do at the Identity Exchange? And I'm curious how that impacts, and maybe this is too big of a question, so feel free to pass on it, but, uh, I would, I'd love for people to hear about the work you do at Identity Exchange, where they can find that. And then I'm also curious about where conflict fits into this. And again, that might be, that might be too long, too, too big of a topic to, to hit here at the end. But I, I, I sense, and I, that you've worked a lot with conflict. And leaders obviously deal with conflict in the workplace. They deal with internal conflict, as we've talked about already. But I'd love for people to, two things, Identity Exchange, and then if, and if appropriate, a little bit about how conflict fits into this whole picture.

Well, I mean, that's what Identity Exchange does. So our website's identityexchange.com. Anyone can go there. There's good resources there. Um, and I think there's even some di, there's some diagrams about the conflict part. But we basically, we're just walking people from what's false to what's true. So when you're thinking about life, it's not about, it's not about what's religious or not religious. The question is, "What's true and what's false?" That's always the question. So we're not like putting forth a brand of religion. We're, we're saying what Jesus said is, "You'll know and experience truth, and truth, truth will always set humans free." The truth will always, experience truth, not just in your head, but experience truth will always liberate humanity. And most of what we do is not true. It's not based in anything that's true. So, so it was interesting. So when, you know, when we got sent overseas, and we've worked everywhere in the world. I, I don't even, can't remember all the places where we've worked. But we typically work in conflict situations. But our challenge was, is, is if we go to, you know, work with the Uyghur Muslims and, you know, with the conflict with the Chinese government, and then we're down in the Sahara and Algeria with the Algerian and the Moroccans conflict, and then we're in Kosovo and the Balkan Peninsula, and, you know, it, in the, in the Middle East, oh my gosh. If each of those is a different conflict with different issues over ethnicity or or, um, history, we're never going to resolve them. I mean, it's just, we don't have enough time. But if they're all the same conflict, then we can do them all. We could, we could actually resolve all of them. And so that was our question. Again, I'm asking, when I ask God, "What do you want us to know? What do you want us to do?" In relation to this. And when we ask God, "What do you want us to know?" What's important is to, is like I said before, pay attention to everything. It's not like just magic and all of a sudden we know the answer to everything. A lot of times, a lot of times I'll be say, "God, help me to understand what is the cause of this situation." And then I'll read a book on economics, and boom, there it is. It's like, pay attention to everything, right? It's not like you rub a bottle and everything pops in your head. I wish. So it's like, read, study, ask a lot of questions to people. But we're pursuing a specific question. And I mean, God just always leads us to the right book, the right person, the right. So we, we kind of figured it out. And it's a simple. We called it the conflict narrative. Any, any external conflict anywhere in the world, at any level, whether it's between two people or two countries, all external conflict in the world comes from internal conflict. Um, and this is even in the scriptures. If you read it, James chapter 4 says, "You want to know why there's wars among you? Because there's wars inside of you." I mean, that's common sense, right? If you have conflict inside of you, you are not going to ever be able to produce peace. Never. And the way we know this is true is there's never been a peace treaty in the history of the world that stood. They always break down. The closest you can get is is, you know, you just killed everybody on the other team, or everyone's too broke and exhausted to continue. But you don't have peace. You don't get to peace. I've been in a hundred of these peace conferences. You're not going to have peace because the people in the peace meeting are filled with internal conflict. What are they going to come up with, right? And whenever, whenever we're doing, um, peace and conflict resolution with city governments who can't get along, I just go around the room. Go, "Tell me what you're most afraid of." I don't let them introduce themselves. I just say, "What are you most afraid of?" And then, and they all start this. We go all the way around the table. And I said, "Okay, this is a room full of fearful people in a false identity. Why do you think we're going to solve any problems? We're not." Until the true identities come together, we can solve any problem. So all external conflict comes from internal conflict. Where does the internal conflict come from? In every person, fear. They're afraid of something. They're going to take my land. They're going to, whatever. Fear. Where does the fear come from? A wrong view of who you are. A wrong view of who you are. And definitely a wrong view of who they are. It's a wrong view of who everyone in this circle thinks they are and thinks the other one is. False identity. So we don't try and solve the conflict. We move from the false identity to the true identity first thing in the room. So if you have a Muslim and an Israeli and they're together, their identities are "Muslim" and "Israeli." Wrong. And those two identities will never, ever, ever solve a problem. But the true identities can solve any problem. And so we do a process called the Identity Exchange, just like I explained, just like the guy did to me. Let's all talk about our false identity. Let's get them out on the table. Let's get rid of them. It's, it's the most beautiful process. And people are so grateful to get involved in it because their fear and the false identity doesn't come from this. It's from when they were young. And all that clear it out. We, it's like a, uh, external conflict, internal conflict, fear, false identity, shift, true identity. The fear is replaced by courage, encouragement, not bravery. We feel like, "Oh my gosh, we can, we can do something here." Right? And then the internal conflict goes to peace. So we're moving not from conflict to peace. We're moving from peace to peace. Like that'll work. You can't go from conflict just to peace. You have to have peace here. And then we can. So they're, so they, instead of internal conflict, now they have peace. Peace. And this then is no longer external conflict. It's just a creative challenge. That's all it is. And we can figure it out. And so we just do that with people, whether they're struggling in their marriage or with your kids, or kids at school, all that. That's what we do with every human.

I've never, I never heard anyone talk about it like that. It makes a lot of sense. You know, and I, I've noticed as I've been thinking more about fear because of your work, I notice how much fear shows up in my life. Yes. And if I don't take the time to acknowledge or name those fears, sometimes they should. I, I think there's something else. Um, even for me, Jamie, like, sometimes there's a fear to succeed. It's like, I'm worried that if I go all in and then if it doesn't work out, then it's just, you know, then I've got no excuse. You know, there's, there's so many layers to that. That's right. And I've heard you even talk about it in your leadership meetings or your team meetings, starting out the meeting with, "What are you afraid of?" And you lead with it. "Hey, this is what I'm afraid of. Here's what I'm dealing with." And just the willingness for leaders to to lean into that kind of vulnerable space. And it's almost not even that vulnerable in a sense because we're all human. We all have it. It's not like any of us can sit there and say that we're not afraid. If, if that's what we're saying, then we're just lying, right? So, uh, yeah, I, I really appreciate it. Jamie, well, you have really blessed me. You've blessed leaders today. Um, I'd be remiss if I didn't at least just ask you, is there anything else on your heart to share with the leaders that are listening or watching?

Well, I, I think one, and you did it perfect because, you know, I, you know, I know your background, and you're certainly, you, you have a, you have a background like, if we read your background, it's like you're one of the bravest dudes out there, right? And so for you to sit here and say, "I struggle with fear" is, you know, there's not a better invite to people to tell the truth. You said it well. When I say people, I don't, I don't want you to be vulnerable. I just want you to tell the truth. I'm not going to ask you what sin you committed. I don't care. I just want to know, tell me what you're afraid of. That's all I want to know. And, and people, once they start doing it, it unifies the room because we're all the same. That's what unifies the room. And so when you're talking about, "What are you afraid of?" I, I think just as an encouragement for folks, all fear is learned. All fear is learned. The only two fears a human is born with is the fear of falling and the fear of loud noises. Other than that, all fear is learned. So you can, you can be, you can unlearn any fear. And, and the goal of fear is just to point you. It's just an indicator that points you that whatever you're getting ready to do or believe or engage in is going to hurt you. That's what fear, that's its only function. So if I start thinking, "I'm a disappointment," my fear is screaming, not that I'm a disappointment, that the disappointment lie is going to kill you. That's what it's doing. As soon as I address the lie, the fear goes away, right? That's all it is. It's a warning device. But we use it as a decision maker, and it's not. It's just a warning device. So, and it's learned. So once we, so when when someone says, "I'm afraid of whatever they're afraid of," we're at, "Okay, where's the first time you learned to be afraid of that?" That's our question. "Where, where did you learn to be afraid of failure? Where did you learn to be afraid of disappointing people?" It was taught to you, and it's wrong. And the fear is trying to tell you that it's wrong. Once you address, "You're not a disappointment," the fear, the fear is gone. Don't, we don't need it anymore. Fear is valuable. It's precious. But we use it as a decision maker. So all fear can be unlearned, except the fear of falling and the fear of loud noises. But the rest of it can be unlearned. And you become not brave, courageous, encouraged on the end, inside. That's what joy. It's joy is the greatest motivator of a human being. It's the creative, it's the jet fuel of creativity. Joyful people, you can kill them and they sing. You can kill them and they'll sing at you. But you're never going to take away their joy. That's what we want in high resiliency people. Joy would, would.

Jamie, you, um, you're tapping into something that's deep within the human, uh, spirit, deep within the human soul. I notice it. I was even, uh, the other day, I was looking at some of your videos and I noticed that your message is just, it is outsized in terms of the, the consumption of it. And so you're certainly tapping in. And obviously, I think as we talked about, it's something deep within the human, uh, the condition. And so thank you for speaking into us today. Thank you for the work you're doing. Uh, I, I pray for you and your wife for protection. And, um, I'm excited for what will continue to be a, uh, a fruitful ministry. So thank you for your time today.

Yeah, thanks for having me. I appreciate it.

Well, friend, thank you so much for sticking around to the end. I hope that you found this conversation helpful. And if you did, please share it with someone you know. Share it with someone in your network, someone on your team. If you want to go deeper on Jim's work, just head on over to IdentityExchange.com. Or you can pick up his book, "Living Fearless." I highly recommend his book. It's really good. It's really a short read, but lots of great exercises in there to help you discover your identity and deal with fear. I am just honored that you would spend this time with me today. This is something that I feel called to do. It's something I love doing. And I hope that it adds value to you. So thanks for investing in yourself today. Because when the leader improves, we know that lives improve. I hope you go and have a wonderful week. Remember that life is short. Let's go make it count.