Why Old Paradigms Are Crumbling - Uta Schmidt

Uta Schmidt — leadership researcher, professor at Fuller Theological Seminary, and author of Dream Chasers — talks about what separates leaders who fulfill their ultimate vision from those who fall short. Drawing on interviews with Desmond Tutu, Les Brown, Andrew White, and six other high-profile leaders, Schmidt explores the "preparation process" behind every great achievement: the storms, betrayals, and valleys that 80% of visionaries never learn to navigate. 

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SPEAKER_00 0:09

Hello everyone, welcome back to a new episode of the Spiritual Inspired show. I am your host, Claudio Morgan. For previous uh episodes, uh please visit uh spiritualinspired.ca, our YouTube channel or our network. My guest uh today is Uta Schmidt, and uh we are going to talk about uh leadership, uh, how to behave in certain uh environments, uh, how to pursue your own uh goal and vision and much more. Utah thank you for joining me.

SPEAKER_01 0:42

It's a pleasure being here and talking to you.

SPEAKER_00 0:46

Yes, and do you like to do research especially about what makes uh leaders being able to implement their vision? So your book, Dream Chasers, um conducted uh interviews with Les Brown, or for your book you conducted interviews with Les Brown, Andrew White, and Desmond Tutu. Which of those three conversations most uh changed how you'd plan to write their chapter before you sat down with them?

SPEAKER_01 1:14

I didn't plan to write the chapter before I sat down, but I wanted to find out what are the most contradictory experiences, the greatest storms, the disappointments, the setbacks that nearly broke them. Did they have such experiences, or was I the only one experiencing this? Because when you're going through a tough time, I have observed that I tend to think I'm the only one, and actually a lot of people share this experience. You think you're the only one, but you are not the only one. And then you tend to look to those that you look up to and you think, oh, they are spared from the trouble that I am, because you don't hear about those stories, you hear about the successes, you see the breakthroughs and uh the dreams that have come true, their achievements. But behind every achievement, there is a struggle. And I felt we need to talk about this because this came from a researcher, uh leadership professor at Fuller Theological Seminary who had studied the lives, had done case studies, uh, 900 of them, over 900, for over 30 years. And he said only 20% of them actually really fulfilled their ultimate dream. And I thought, like, wow, that's a high number. And he looked at the difference between the two and he said, Well, the 80% who started out with a great vision but eventually failed to uh fulfill their ultimate call, did not understand the preparation process on your way to working out your destiny, and they got stuck in the difficult seasons and the contradictions that were diametrically opposed to their dreams. They didn't know how to navigate this and gave up. And I just wanted to know these people's stories, and so for my book, Dream Chasers, I interviewed nine leaders, high-profile leaders from different walks of life. Uh, but I was very interested in their applied spirituality, how it changed their belief and their faith, how it shaped it, and what they did practically to navigate those tough seasons because they obviously already uh lived a great part of their dream. And that was more what I was interested in because I was curious. I thought, like, if these people have walked through difficult seasons, I want to learn from them and I need to know what they did and what helped them.

SPEAKER_00 3:59

Interesting. But also, do you think, from your own perspective, that these leaders encounter certain restrictions in the corporate world that doesn't matter how well prepared one is for something like that, um can can get stuck into this process because corporate is a totally different animal. And yes, we come in with great ideas and we want to implement um all kinds of projects, but then you have the uh the board of directors, you have the shareholders, you have to walk a very thin line to address all their concerns and desires. So sometimes these CEOs, instead of uh failing, uh they say, you know what, I'm going to move somewhere else because I cannot implement my vision in this particular corporation.

SPEAKER_01 4:53

Yeah, and that is sometimes the case because you have to see. I think one of the um aspects that I heard from them is how do you communicate? You have to present your ideas in and your vision uh in a very convincing uh way, and you have to know who you are dealing with, who you are presenting it to, but they all have experienced uh rejection. They all have experience where part of their dream did not come true and some dreams didn't come true, and then they had to move on and start over and present it elsewhere, either this dream or start with a new dream. Because not all dreams, all visions become a reality, but that doesn't mean that none of them do. And sometimes you do you're dealing with difficult people or just with people who have a very different idea, who do not catch on to your vision, and then uh if it's something that burns within your heart, that is important to hold on to it and to find your tribe, the people that catch on that vision and walk with you. You cannot make someone else join your vision, you have to find the people, or even the vision will find them and attract the people that um catch on to your vision.

SPEAKER_00 6:21

Yes, and Desmond Tutu told you my greatest weakness was being scared, and uh Andrew Y described himself as someone who's always been fearless and calm-headed. So, writing both chapters, did you find courage and fear serving the same underlying function in each man's story?

SPEAKER_01 6:41

Oh, yeah, everybody was afraid. Uh my greatest heroes, uh, when it came to walking out their vision, everybody struggled with insecurity, and sometimes your greatest insecurity can be your greatest strength. So, with Desmond Tutu, uh him actually having to take the position as a leader while Nelson Mandela was imprisoned for 27 years, and him becoming the voice of the nation and the voice against injustice, he faced a lot of death threats, threats for his family, the lives of their family, and they were scared. And he did not like the confrontation, and he said, Oh, this is something that he struggled with, but we know that he was very good at it, and he was very adamant about injustice. So you have to, each one has to conquer their fear, and sometimes their greatest insecurity became their greatest strength. Uh, with Bill Johnson, he did not want to be a speaker, he is a quiet person, he doesn't like to be in the limelight, and yet he is an international speaker, he's a pastor, he is an author, and uh but he stayed authentic. So you don't have to be like a loudmouth, you know, and uh try to imitate someone else. That is not leadership. Leadership is really being authentic and uh acknowledging your weakness that actually makes you a great leader, but then when you realize your call to something bigger than you are, you have to trust God, you have to trust something bigger than yourself because otherwise you wouldn't step out, and that is what they all of them did. And uh some of them they even said, you know, they did not pursue the path. Another, you know, seven or ten years passed down the road, then that dream kept knocking again, and uh I'm not sure. Somebody else told them no, you're crazy, and then they let another seven or eight or ten years pass, and then a third time they were like now. I'm at an age now I really have to go for it because otherwise I really miss it.

SPEAKER_00 9:10

Yes, indeed. And I think we all go through these um phases. Yeah and going back to uh Desmond Tutu, you interviewed him near the end of his life. Was there a question you that you prepared that you decided not to ask once you were in the room with him?

SPEAKER_01 9:26

That oh, I had 33 questions, I wanted to ask all of them, and I could not. I uh just had very limited time. There was not one question that uh I wouldn't have asked him because this was my opportunity, and I thought, like, I want to ask him everything that I want to know. And afterwards, I thought, like, oh, I wish I would have been more assertive in taking, because there were other people in the room too, and they said, Oh, no, no interview really, or not that many questions. But I did get some time alone, and my core question that I did ask him is what was or what is the greatest life lesson that you have learned? And what would you want to share with the people that own the next generation that of leaders? And he said, What he learned is that he doesn't have invent everything. He's like, for him, it was he had mentors who had already gone before him and taught him. And he said, for him, one of the most important mentors was uh a priest uh called Trevor Trevor Huddleston, who visited him uh as a boy when he was a boy, he was nine years old and he had tuberculosis, he was hospitalized for two years. And so this white priest, Anglican priest, came to him every week and visited him. He said, like, me, a black child, a non-person. And he's like, and he didn't know that he was learning, but he was learning from him what how you can make someone feel special and important. And that is something that Desmond Tutu exuberated, is like he really had he listened to the ones who didn't have a voice and he paid attention to the small people and made them feel special, and he really did that. He had his attention on me when he was talking to me, his attention on other people when he was talking to other people, and that is a great, great life lesson.

SPEAKER_00 11:37

Yes, interesting. And uh, were there other leaders you tried to uh reach out to and uh you were not able?

SPEAKER_01 11:45

Yes, I uh I approached other leaders on the list. Um, the first one that was my uh maybe a regret. Yeah, it's a regret in some way. I wanted to actually interview Nelson Mandela when I started out with this uh idea, but I thought it was impossible. It's like, hey, nobody is waiting for Utter Schmidt to call them. Yeah, of course I'll do the interview. Uh to me it it seemed impossible. And but once I started my interview series, he had already taken his health had taken uh a bad turn, and he he passed away shortly after. And then I thought, like, okay, yeah, I missed that, but but there's still Desmo Tutu. So I put him on the list. And um, and the way this came to pass was really incredible. That for me was a guard encounter because um I had actually conducted an interview in uh in California uh with Bill Johnson, and somebody told me about a writer's group and uh said if I would be interested to go there, and I thought, like, yeah, I already did a lot of writing workshops. I nah. And then I thought, like, you know what, let me go there and just see who's there because I like to network, I like to connect, meet new people. We were in a group sharing about each each person who was sharing about what they had on their heart, what was their book project. And when I shared mine about Dream Chasers, I told them I'd interviewed Les Brown and Bill Johnson and Heidi Baker, and he's like, What? How did you even get an interview with Bill Johnson? That's so amazing. And there was this one guy from South Africa, he talked to me in the break, and he said, like, who do you still want to interview? Yeah, that project is so cool. And I lived in South Africa and I heard his South African accent. And I thought, like, oh, you know who I really had on my list. He's kind of off the list now. I tried already, like, probably made like four or five attempts, uh, and put in an official interviewer request that is Des Want Tutu. Oh, the arch! That is so amazing. You have to go for it. He would be open to this. I was like, I just don't know how to go about it because I've done the I've gone through the official channels and I didn't get a response. And he said, like, hmm, you know what? My wife, she works for a charity, and this woman, she works for Desmondutu. And I knew at this point, I was like, this is not a coincidence. This was an open door. And I got in touch with this woman, uh Kim Highfield from South Africa. Uh actually, Desmond Tutu was uh the patron of her charity, and she just said, Oh yeah, just come to South Africa, we'll make it happen. But this woman was so African, so chaotic. I was like, So have you already contacted them? I said, Oh, come on, darling, just come and make it happen. I thought like, oh man. And I I bought a ticket, I flew to South Africa. We had no interview scheduled yet, but I thought I have to take the risk. So the last bit of money I had, that was my last interview. I flew to South Africa, and I was like, this has to happen. Because it might as well just be the last chance I will ever have, because we didn't know how long would he still live. And um, so there were still some hurdles, but she made it happen for us to meet. So um, and then this is once you engage on the journey of pursuing your dream, once you uh pursue steps, that is what I learned. I had some amazing door open. Um, but I had to be persistent, I also had to take risks. And um it's in the going that doors open. Uh, I didn't have all the interviews up front. No, I just thought, like, you know what? I'm gonna I'm gonna go for it, I'm gonna pursue it, because I'd rather fail and sell tell myself in retrospect, I tried, than thinking at the end of my life, what if I had tried and God it would have actually met me on the way or it would have worked. Yeah, so I thought like I didn't want to have that regret, so that's why I did it. And there were some amazing doors, yes.

SPEAKER_00 16:12

And in fact, in one of my uh books, Crystal Cloud, I make uh uh one of um the characters travel to South Africa, Cape Town, to deal with uh a diamond uh dealer, and he has some interesting uh challenges there, but it's again it's all fiction. Um, so because you live there and this is an avenue I didn't know about it. Um, did you check anything related to spirituality? Did you visit any sacred sites that uh give you that empowered you that made you uh really like the um the country?

SPEAKER_01 16:52

Uh South Africa is a very special country, and I went there when I was 20. I uh lived there for two years. I worked with uh the international organizational mission organization, Youth with a Mission. Um, so I was there on the base, I did some training, but we also visited, you know, we we served the poor people in the squatter camps. Um, but I got to know different places. What back then to me was really amazing, for me that was a spiritual renewal and encounter because faith, the Christian faith was really alive, and uh I had never experienced that before, and this is where my spiritual foundation was laid, and I really had an encounter with the Holy Spirit, and uh this really strengthened me for the journey ahead, and each step is so each step we take, we don't know the impact it has up front, we can only see it in retrospect. Uh, it was a very special time. Yes, I also got to know later on. I visited again some tribal people. Yes, there's a lot of spiritual things going on, but there's also a lot of spiritual bad things going on, so you have to discern. And um yeah, that that is my journey. And back then I was there in 1993, 94, and I witnessed the first democratic elections in South Africa when there were lines, like people were waiting for six, eight hours in front of the um booth to be able to vote. And when Nelson Mandela became uh the first black president, that that was incredible. But the willingness, you know, like what I find such a spiritual uh uh encounter and also a blessing in South Africa is they experienced so much oppression, and yet the willingness to forgive, particularly later, what Desmond Tuto also witnessed about the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, so many people were so generous to forgive. I thought, like, wow, we learn from the poor, we always think we are rich, but or or maybe not, but in terms of we we belong to the Western rich civilization, these people have nothing, they live in a shack, and they are so generous of heart. And I thought, like, that is true spirituality, that is true humanity, and to see that we all belong to each other, that's uh uh that is amazing. Um, I love the they exuber is exuberate love and uh they share, they exuberate joy. There's a lot to learn uh for us westerners about gratitude and the joy of life, the joy of living in the moment.

SPEAKER_00 20:06

Yes, and it's the same um feeling of sharing with the the shamans and the uh the medicine people in uh South America. They are embracing the the Westerners who are ready and willing to learn uh with humbleness and respect for the sacredness of uh the Amazonian jungle and the teachings. But they are sharing it even after hundreds of years of uh years of oppression from the West.

SPEAKER_01 20:34

Yes, because they they realize what really matters. All of this will fade, all of the materialism will fade away. But what we have is our who we have become as a person and our relationship, our relationship to God, our relationship to each other, and that is the trace, the legacy we build. It's not with wealth, with materialism. It's great if we have it and we can use it, but uh I think in the Western world we are really on the wrong track with what really matters.

SPEAKER_00 21:12

Yes, indeed. And and going back for a second to uh one of your uh guests, Andrew White's um I mean, his back that host his story turns uh on him worrying about his fingers so he could keep writing, then finding cash in his pocket to pay his way out, you know, small absurd details like that recurs across uh his chapter. What was that his own narrative instinct or your editorial choice in how you told it?

SPEAKER_01 21:41

No, that I because I asked him, because I wanted to know can you learn one person that was fearless or is fearless is Andrew White. And I wanted to know have you ever encountered fear or did you grow into this person? How have you Overcome it. And he said, no, that is actually my personality. And he related this hostage situation, you know, and he said he wasn't really scared, he wasn't really afraid. He just thought, like, oh, when he saw he was so the story is he was uh in Baghdad and uh he had bodyguards around him, and you know, he were they were uh on their way to um negotiate a hostage release of a hostage, and then they were actually kidnapped, and he was thrown into a prison cell, and then he looked around and he saw some chopped-off limbs, fingers and toes, and he thought, like, oh, not so good. And then all of a sudden he's he said, he prayed. He said, like, Lord, you know, I need my fingers to write. And he has a very dry sense of humor, and I just wanted to know it's like was it just trying to be funny? Or and it's like, no, serious. I was at that moment, I was really just worried about my fingers. I wasn't worried about my life. I said, like, it's the strangest thing, but I have this personality. I was, you know, this is not something that I developed into. And when you then you can also see uh each person has a unique calling because every person has a different makeup, different personality. Like if I would have been in Andrew White's place, I would have died. You know, I would have been very scared and I would have been miserable to try to fulfill the vision, the destiny that he had. But this was made for him, and he was thriving with the adrenaline. Yeah, I mean, he talked to presidents, to ayatollahs, to Saddam Hussein, he even made friends with terror terrorists because he said, like, yeah, I mean, we have to be realistic. Nice people don't start wars. So this is when you really have to love your enemies. It doesn't mean that I agree with them, but I am here to listen to their pain and to try to understand. And he has a unique personality where he became friends with so many people, and that that is unique, and that's what I learned from him from his story. So it was not an editorial funny thing, he really is like that.

SPEAKER_00 24:24

Interesting. Utah, one last question for you. In your opinion, what are the stages that are involved in pursuing a dream?

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SPEAKER_01 25:14

The stages, uh, there are many stages, but I would say it's this up and down movement. When you have a dream and a vision,

(Cont.) Untitled Episode

SPEAKER_01 25:24

you're usually excited and you think like, yeah, this is I'm gonna go for it. Because you see the mountaintop. But between the mountaintop of conceiving a dream, having a dream and a vision, and the mountaintop of fulfillment, there is a valley, and you have to walk it out. And the stages involve like you have to first of all have a reality check. Where are you at? And do some inventory. What does it take to get there? You need to do some proper planning. What does it take to really uh fulfill this dream? Do I have everything in the house? And usually at the beginning, when you have a vision, you don't have everything in the house, but then you need to see, okay, where do I need to develop, where do I need to build a team around me that has the strength uh that where I have weaknesses, what I need, the expertise, the skills, uh, depending on your dream. Uh, and definitely a very important part is the I would say the refining process, because you will encounter when you really have a vision to impact people's lives and make this world a better place, you will encounter betrayal, disappointment, setback, and then it's a purging of your heart and also a development of resilience. It's like, will you choose hold on to bitterness? Because some of the things we experience are bitter. But will I hold on to bitterness or will I choose the path of freedom and let go? Will I continue? Will I grow in character? And it's usually in the low places in the valleys, let's say when our subconscious beliefs come to the surface. They don't come to the surface when life is great and we are living the dream and we are on the mountaintop. They surface when we are in the valley, in the dark season, in the tough season. And so these difficult seasons, the storms, they're really a gift in disguise. We think this is terrible. We don't like going through it, and it's not easy going through it. But we need character, we need integrity, and this is where really our spirituality is formed. You know what I like. Uh Les Brown always says, I'm not, I don't consider myself a religious person, I'm a spiritual person. Religious people are afraid of going to hell. Spiritual people have been there, and that is my motto too. You have to have experience, the fire, and the furnace in order to make a real difference, and this is the opportunity. We see a lot of leaders fall, you know, um having you know scandals uh in their private lives, embezzled money and and all of this fraud, and it's all coming to the surface. It's all and and people are shocked. But this is that if people have not engaged, if you if you are interested or gain power without the character, this is usually what and you know what what you end up with, with broken people and uh and people who break other people, leaders who break other people. And if you have a vision that you want to build up other people and uh leave a legacy of um releasing other people into their destiny, uh that takes uh that takes some refining process. And once you learn the resilience, and really one of the greatest parts, and I think that's what probably a lot of podcast guests have already told you, and what what you know, it is you this the subconscious beliefs, wrong beliefs that you have, they surface, and that's what you need to deal with. It's the limiting beliefs, they can be on a conscious level, you will be confronted with it, but they are even far deeper in the heart, in in your spirit, and they come up, and that's the opportunity is to deal with it and to retrain your brain and accept healthy new belief systems, and they will enable you to actually then carry the larger vision because if you have limiting beliefs, the vision doesn't fit in there. You need that foundation uh of a healthy belief system, and I think it's a continuous process, it's a lifelong process, it's not a one-off thing, and once you've reached one dream, you you develop a new vision, you go you know to the next stage, and then there is a next level of um refining and challenges, and they never really stop. But once you see these as opportunities to grow, even though they're not comfortable, then you will win, then you will uh become the person that you were really created to be, and uh we'll see your vision come true. So never give up, uh, engage in the process, even though it sucks, but a comfort won't get us anywhere. We need to suck up the discomfort and actually view them as opportunities to grow.

SPEAKER_00 31:04

Yes, thank you. And you know what? I have one more question. What is your daily spiritual practice that keeps you balanced?

SPEAKER_01 31:14

I'm not always balanced, you know. There is there is there are days where I also get knocked down and out of balance because sometimes life gets really busy, but I do have a spiritual practice, definitely in the mor first thing in the morning. Uh I have an app called The Pause, um, which is spiritual practice of meditation to really practice communion with God. I do that, I pray in the spirit uh for a lengthy time. It's not five minutes, it's longer. And I definitely also for myself, I have to encourage myself. So I have certain for me, it is scriptures, but also other declarations about myself that uh I have to tell myself because I don't wake up in the morning happy. I have to, it's like, hey, I have to practice gratitude to get my emotions there where I want them to be. And then I regularly take time to listen to something positive, like Napoleon Hill, different different things, like different positive input that distracts my myself from the challenges that I might be dealing with, and to break through the maybe negative mindset or programming, which we all have and easily fall into when we just sit and watch news. So I don't watch the news. I don't, I'm I'm not doing it because I get depressed, and I focus on that on positive input because negative input doesn't help me. Hey, if the world is going downhill, it you know, I can't do anything about it. I can do only do something about my world, and I want to guard my inner world to maintain peace, and that is very important to me. So I listen to positive messages that encourage me, and in different seasons there are different voices that I listen to, but I have to learn, I have to encourage myself, and that is a very important practice. Even when I don't feel it, I say it because it's true, and uh because that is the only helpful thing, not going with my emotions, and sometimes they are up, but not always. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:41

So we are all humans, thank you very much.

SPEAKER_01 33:43

Exactly. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 33:45

Your feedback for everything um you did. Uh good luck with uh your new projects. Thank you very much.

SPEAKER_01 33:51

Thank you. Thank you. It was a pleasure.

SPEAKER_00 33:53

And to my viewers, thank you for watching. Share it, leave a comment, and until next time, love and gratitude.