Chad Brignac - Entrepenuer and Transformationist

In this episode of the Biblical Leadership @ Work podcast, host Jason Woodard introduces Chad Brignac an experienced entrepreneur and author. Chad shares his journey from early entrepreneurial ventures to discovering his divine purpose and becoming a compassionate leader. He discusses the impact of losing his first wife, his current wife’s stroke recovery, and his transition from authority-focused leadership to one centered on empathy and emotional intelligence. Chad also highlights his book 'Blend Don't Break,' his current business ventures, and his advice for young leaders. The episode emphasizes the importance of self-awareness and fostering a culture of growth and compassion.

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Jason 0:01

Welcome to the Biblical Leadership at Work podcast. I'm your host, Jason Woodard. On this month's show, you'll meet Chad Brina, an entrepreneur, author, and a transformationist who's redefining what it means to lead with purpose. With over 30 years of experience across industries like construction tech and culinary arts, Chad's Ventures include pathways group, food and flavor, and construction ops software. But his deepest impact comes through something less tangible. His commitment to self-awareness, emotional intelligence, and compassionate leadership. Chad's story is one of transformation, moving from pragmatism to empathy, from authority to influence. And today you'll hear how he's helping leaders create thriving workplaces, healthy families, and lives of true fulfillment. And this is one that you won't wanna miss. So brother Chad. Thanks for being on the show, man. I can't wait to, uh, talk to you and have our audience get to know you better.

Chad 1:05

Thank you for having me. I'm looking forward to it.

Jason 1:07

Yeah. So let's go back, go through kind of a resume background. How has the Lord taken you, kind of from your education on, through where you're at? I know you and I have talked a little bit before and it's a fascinating story. You've done a lot of different things. So let's, uh, give a brief overview of, of that.

Chad 1:27

Yeah, I'll try to make it as quick as possible. Entrepreneurship started at the age 15 in my parents' driveway when I was tinting windows. Art that I taught myself before it was available to learn how to do it on YouTube, and that just led me to always want to start new businesses, do new things. By the age of 19, I had my own construction company building residential homes. So fast forward through the last three decades, most of that was spent in the construction industry, bridges, hotels, hospitals. In all different levels of leadership, VP COO, superintendent, senior superintendent, general Manager. And the culinary side was more an inspirational piece of, to learn cooking techniques, to learn ways to maintain sauces and keep things together, which ironically became the subtitle to our book, creating Your Family's Secret Sauce as it related to learning how to make different liquids, men together with the perfect balance, temperature, and timing. So that's always fascinating how God wove everything into this perfect. Piece of art that I totally messed up for a lot of years. At the beginning, I was not saved. I gave my life to the Lord in 1998, was still an entrepreneur. I had nine, nine businesses over that 30 year span. Plus in and out of different leadership roles in construction and just trying to find my way into something that really gave me purpose. It was never my defined purpose until I came to a place of healing and restoration, which has been a journey over the last two years, and that process began as, as part of writing the book Blend Don't Break.

Jason 3:15

So your, your foundation of your career, Chad was construction, right? Sounds like you spent a lot of years doing that, but then you got into culinary arts. Was that. A passion, a hobby, that kind of turned into a business as well.

Chad 3:28

Yeah, it gave me great inspiration. To vision different things, just playing with culinary arts. And it came from a, being a picky eater and. Being inspired in my palette, igniting on what was a food tour for us, and I just became curious. So I spent time in the culinary arts. I would did some catering, different things like that. Never did launch it into a full fledged restaurant, but I, I have envisioned a restaurant group coming forth still on the back end of all of this. Right now my focus is on this transformation and personal development, something that I speak into every business that I'm a part of now. The Lord had built teams around me to take these other ventures and give them fuel from my passion and my vision of what it can be. But I have to walk and live in my divine purpose, which I've discovered at the age of 50, and most people don't discover that their entire life. And it would be wonderful if people would start to discover it early in life because it puts you on a platform to speak boldly for Christ when you are in your purpose.

Jason 4:39

yeah. Once you know that you're doing what God has called you and wired you to do, um, it gives you a different level of confidence and peace. Hey, tell us a little bit about your family, Chad. Like where, where are you from and children, marriage, what's that look like?

Chad 4:55

Yeah, so I'm from a little town called Narco in South Louisiana. It's named after. New Orleans refinery company. So there's a large shell plant in that town. Um, and I grew up there my whole life. My wife is from Metrie. My first wife was also from Narco. She passed away at the age of 30. I was 28 years old. We had two young kids, one in four when she passed, and I got remarried roughly a year and a half later. And I married my wife now who had two older kids. When we met, they were 10 and 15. So we're a blended family, which is the reason and the story behind Blend. Don't Break, creating Your Family Secret Sausage. Written from the heart of our blended family, we transitioned to a town called Mandeville, which. Where we're from, it's called across the lake. We cross over Lake Poncho train. So you live on the North Shore now instead of the South shore. So all those things, God transitioned us to Oklahoma for eight and a half years in 2019 after my wife had recovered her mom from some medical stuff and, and some mild strokes. We transitioned her back home for Thanksgiving that year and four days later, my wife had a massive stroke.

Jason 6:13

Hmm, your current wife?

Chad 6:15

Correct.

Jason 6:16

Yeah.

Chad 6:16

We, um, she's five and a half years past now a warrior. Stroke warrior. She survived. She is doing well. She has left side ailments. Um, I used the word pass and I want to clarify. She didn't pass away. We're five years beyond it and she is doing well. She has a tremendous heart. Her heart actually led us to our nonprofit foundation, which. Pathways to triumph, a stroke recovery foundation that we started this year, and it's to help people through the recovery journey. So there's a lot of things going on in our life, but my purpose is really helping people to find self-awareness, grow an emotional intelligence, not from a place of just knowing how to manage your emotions, but to actually have a true transformation that allows you to respond with the right emotions and, and operate and walk in compassionate leadership.

Jason 7:09

And I wanted to, I definitely want to talk more about that whole idea of moving from authority to influence. 'cause I know you have quite a journey in your leadership that God has led you through. But I wanna ask a little bit about, you've been through, you lost a wife when you were in your late twenties, and then your current wife had a stroke. I mean, how did God use those? Super difficult situations, uh, to just strengthen you spiritually, like were you, were you a believer when your first wife passed away yet?

Chad 7:39

Yes, I had been, uh, I had given my life to Christ roughly two years prior, and she gave her life to Christ right about a year prior to her passing. I write a, um, a workshop that I'm working on called Perseverance, and it's about how scripture says. By the testing of your faith, you have an opportunity to grow in perseverance. If you look at what it says a lot of people say, by the testing of your faith, you will grow in perseverance. No, you will not automatically grow. Your response determines that growth

Jason 8:12

you have an opportunity.

Chad 8:13

and how you respond. You will grow. That's God's heart. That's his intent. That's what he wants for us. But we have to take the choice to respond properly.

Jason 8:23

Yeah.

Chad 8:24

And a ano a moment is fresh in my mind. It's standing outside the hospital just minutes after they pronou, they pronounce my wife, my dad came outside to love on me and he said, Chad, I don't know how you do it. And I said, dad, you know what? I'll never ask God Y. That didn't come from me. That came from a place of his inner work in me. That was the one thing that I would say that I got right in my Christian walk for probably 15 to 18 years 'cause I messed so many other things up.

Jason 8:54

Yeah.

Chad 8:55

And it's not that asking God why is a problem that the issue is if you get stuck on the why, you will be stuck in that moment. If you get stuck on God answering for me what I want to know, you'll get stuck in God trying to answer what it is that you want to know that you will never fully comprehend anyway. So my approach in that moment was, okay, God, what next? Not why. What next?

Jason 9:22

Yeah.

Chad 9:23

And if you have a moment of why I would encourage anyone to take that why and turn it into what next. 'cause God can spend a lot of time trying to heal us, trying to understand why, or we can shorten that time in focusing on what he has for us next. And that moment in my life developed a certain level of perseverance that I was able to accept my second wife having a stroke. Recognizing that God is fully in charge, God is fully in command, and my faith has been built to so high relative to a health issue that I was grateful that I didn't lose my second wife. I was grateful for what we had, and that opportunity brought us closer together in our marriage than we had ever been.

Jason 10:10

Yeah, I think Chad, when you're, when you're talking about that moment outside the hospital, and it reminds me of, of Job, the book of job, you know, towards the end when he, and he was asking God why, and as you said, I, I think. People will ask why that's gonna be, I think, natural for us. But God didn't tell him why. He didn't answer why, and in the end Job realized that that wasn't really the question that he should be asking at that time. So, no, that's, that's amazing, man. I, I appreciate you being willing to share that because I think that's, God leads us through difficult situations and that's. I mean, I can't think of a much more difficult situation than losing a spouse or a child. And we have the opportunity in those situations to, to grow and persevere and, uh, it's not gonna automatically happen, as you said, even for believers, that could really turn 'em. Into a dark place. Um, but yeah. And that, you know, in the end here, before we, before we wrap up, we'll give a chance to people to, to get to know where they can reach out to you. 'cause maybe, you know, maybe I've got people that are listening that have faced or, you know, are going through a dark time like that and, um, yeah, you could be an encouragement to 'em for sure. So, yeah.

Chad 11:26

I've come to learn that we don't understand each other's situations, but. There's moments of that we can relate from our own perspective, and it's that that puts the relate in relationship.

Jason 11:36

Yeah, that's right. That's right. So Chad, let's talk about this transformation that you've gone through as a leader. I really love this. I, I went through a similar, um, transformation. I, I don't dunno, 15 years ago, I think in my leadership, but I want to hear about yours even as a believer. You, this was, it wasn't that when you became a believer, you. Changed as a leader right away. Right. That's something God had to work in you in, in this next many years to develop these different mindsets of how you relate to others. If I recall from our prior discussions,

Chad 12:17

Yeah, so I would say even as a believer, I was a strong manager. I was a great builder, but a poor leader,

Jason 12:26

yeah.

Chad 12:27

and I can look at when I led, well, my mouth was closed. And I use that. I use an example in the construction industry. When I would walk up on the job, the workers would go, here comes Chad, stop cursing. I never asked him to stop cursing. I never said that there was taboo or there was anything wrong with cursing around me but my life, whenever I was correcting, molding, shaping, managing, or even leading 'cause there was moments of leading. I didn't use foul language. And that influenced them in a way that transitioned their life, that transformed their life. And I didn't ask for it. I just simply lived it so many other places. I messed that up with my tone, my volume, my criticism, my ridicule, all of those things that I had to walk through. And I realized that it came from a place of brokenness. It came from a place of insecurity. It came from a place of me not being confident in who I was in Christ. I, I mentioned to my wife in a conversation just the other day, we have to disconnect our value and our worth from what we do, and we have to reconnect it to what he did.

Jason 13:41

Yep. Yep.

Chad 13:42

And we will actually accomplish more when we make that connection with Christ and who we are. Hint him than we will ever accomplish when our value and our worth is a, is associated to what we can actually pull off of what we can accomplish. And that, that was my story. That was my journey. And it unfortunately came through moments after the stroke. I have a moment, 15 years ago when I said to one of my pastors, I don't even like people. And in the moment, it was truth that came out. That was revelation to even me and God was like, well, how can you lead people if you don't like people? And God began a work in me 15 years ago. Over the course of that years, it was after the stroke, after my head came up above the water, about a year, a year and a half after the stroke. I looked around and I said, I can see many things that have been built. But I see destruction in the lives around me. And I was like, is that the legacy you want to leave? And it was a resounding no, of course. So what I did in my moment is I said, okay, in this moment I am gonna say I am responsible for all of the destruction. I see. Whether I was or I wasn't. I was willing to take ownership of everything broken. It was in that moment that God began to do a mighty work in me because I came to a place of vulnerability. I came to a place of being willing to be hurt, willing to be trampled on, willing to be disrespected, and none of that was going to impact my value or my worth, and that was really my story.

Jason 15:26

Yeah, so talk about. Where God has taken you in your leadership, and let's get practical on some things, Chad, and like how did your approach change and how did, how did that impact your ability to influence others?

Chad 15:43

Yeah. So instead of, I'll just start with my family. Instead of telling my older, now older children and my wife what they're supposed to do, my conversation started to become, what do you see in me that I could do different to help you become your best you? And it didn't matter the answer. I was not gonna have a reaction to it.

Jason 16:07

Yeah, you weren't gonna defend it. That'd be the

Chad 16:09

wasn't gonna defend it. I wasn't gonna step up in pride. I wasn't gonna let, I was gonna let my ego and my pride be crushed. And one moment was with my oldest son and said, what was I missing that I didn't have enough influence in your life that you felt I was a controlling person or the only authority? And he said, you lacked emotional intelligence.

Jason 16:31

He said that, well, how old was he when he, when he,

Chad 16:33

he was, um. In his mid twenties

Jason 16:38

Okay. That's pretty mature.

Chad 16:40

and he said that I didn't just do that right away, I, I created the space for that question to be asked and for him to be confident enough to answer it. Now, he had done his own self work to be confident enough as well, but I was willing to take that answer and I didn't react to it other than a simple thank you. I love you. And I took that back, and that began a journey in my life. Recently, my grandson, who is now 10, influences my life on how he loves people. His kindness, his compassion, his, I believe if I saw Jesus as a kid, it would look just like my grandson. That's how compassionate it is. That's how loving he is. It doesn't matter what someone says to him, he first thinks of that person before he has any reaction, and that has influenced how I see people.

Jason 17:42

Yeah.

Chad 17:42

So what's practically changed for me is in every conversation, in every moment, positive or negative, I am looking for opportunities for me to grow.

Jason 17:52

Yeah.

Chad 17:52

putting aside my opinion so God can reveal to me some truth. That's what's changed for me practically.

Jason 18:00

I think that's, I mean, I love that example that here you have a 10, I have two granddaughters, and they're two and six. I think I just, they're such a blessing. But you look at your 10-year-old grandson and you're being influenced by this, this gift that God has given him. I mean, he's has this special disposition that'll probably, you know, if. Lord willing, he will be able to use it for God's glory. But I, yeah, that's great. I mean, you look around at people that we can learn from and if you, if you, what I hear you saying is if we're humble enough and you know, set our own pride away and look around and see what we can learn from others, there are characteristics and others that we can see that they are. Um, more strong in, more godly in, if you know believers that we know, but even, even some unbelievers, right? We learn from those that, um, just do things very well and are, uh, allow ourselves to be influenced by them. That, that vulnerability piece that you talk about, I can remember the first time that ever really, um, I understood it. I think at least mentally, I certainly. Didn't change overnight. I was reading a book by Patrick Lencioni, uh, who I love. He's a great author. I know this book was the Five Temptations of a CEO, and it just talks about one of the temptations is, and I'm paraphrase, but not being willing to be vulnerable and let our guard down and allow trust to start being built with other people. And at the time I had a mentor who I was working with who was. Happened to be also talking to me about that. It was obviously God at work in multiple ways, you know, trying to teach me, 'cause I'm pretty thickheaded so I think you and I probably gone through some of the same things that God's gotta hit us kind of hard over the head to get through that. So, so now you, so you wrote a book. I wanna talk a little bit about your book and your passion and how you're trying to work to help other. People, leaders, and, um, families with this kind of change in mindset. So let's talk a little bit about your book and that the concept there.

Chad 20:16

Yeah, so the book we put out in 2024 is Blend Don't Break, creating Your Family's Secret Sauce. Co-authored with my wife and our four children actually have an interview chapter in the book. Each of them do telling their version of our home as a blended family, what we set out to write to help blended families, and we know it will help blended families. God chose to write to help all families. All marriages. All pre marriages. In his infinite wisdom, he put out a book that will help anyone in any relationship dynamic that there is, and I would encourage everyone to read it. Yes, I'm partial and I'm biased to a book that I wrote, but the Holy Spirit wrote this book through us. I've read this book five times, and all five times it's changed my life again and again. Um, it's amazing what he put pen to paper and, and it comes from a place of us, us getting most of this wrong and God showing us in the process of writing this book, just from being in a place of a humbled heart, being in a place of vulnerability, being in a place of openness for him to work, he showed us things, the reverse script of what we could do and what we love about creating your family. Secret sauces. To, to make a great sauce, you have to first understand the ingredients. You have to understand everything that's going into it. You have to understand what it's made of, it's makeup and how it, how you can get that to blend without breaking. Well, a family is equally unique. A business is unique that way, and churches are unique that way. We actually are going to turn this into a series. And where? We'll, right blend. Don't break. Creating your business's secret sauce blend. Don't break creating your church's secret sauce. 'cause all of these people come together. And what it is, is this uniqueness of individual. Your primary ingredients are people. And when you try to add everything else into it without first understanding people and each individual person, it will break.

Jason 22:28

Yeah.

Chad 22:29

And that whole thing came full circle. That was not the subtitle. When we set out to write this book, God just put that all together, and he tied it into the food journey and the food adventures that we've been on, the culinary arts knowledge and stuff that he brought to me. He brought that into their full circle, which was totally unexpected, and that landed in the, in the final chapter, the closing, which created the subtitle.

Jason 22:57

Yeah.

Chad 22:58

And that book, that authorship of that book and the reading of the book five times over the last two years is really what brought me to this place of what I teach, why I teach it, and why I live it. And God told me, in order to teach it, you have to first embody it.

Jason 23:16

Yeah. Well, I lo I love what you said about what, that you've read it five times and learned from it. That's, yeah, that's super cool. But the fact that, you know, you admit that. Like, we did a lot of things wrong, and this is how we got to where we are by learning, you know, and allowing God to work in our lives and, and, uh. know, especially in a blended family, I grew up in a blended family and it's tough. I mean, I love my siblings, um, that I grew up with absolutely dearly love them. And, uh, but it was tough as an adolescent, you know, it's kind of middle school age when we came together and, um, that's tough, but it's all, it's all about relationships, right? So, like you said, the thought around writing. This book in a series, um, based on business, business culture and relationships and church and church unity. I mean, that's Christ prayed for the unity of the body. One of his last prayer. It's, and it's, it's so, it's so important and it's so easily upended through pride and through being easily offended over silly, minor little things. And it's, but it's just amazes me over and over again how quickly it can happen and how easy, you know, Satan can allow that destruction to come into a relationship, into the church, into a family, uh, into a business that we just, it's pride. It's, you know, lack of vulnerability. It's, um, you know, just being easily offended, which really is a pride issue. So that's good. We'll set up, we'll put a link, uh, in the show notes for people to check that out. Hey, what, uh, Chad, what are your spiritual disciplines? I get a little personal here, and like, what do you do to stay close to the Lord on a daily, weekly basis? Like, what's your, what's your routine there?

Chad 25:06

So you'll con, you'll continue to hear me say over this two year journey, and it's important I go back to November of 2023. God put us in a city. We're in Baton Rouge, Louisiana now, and God put us here. And in the moment of landing here, leading up to November, many times I would tell God, okay, I'm, I'm accepting being here, but in six months I'll be there. In a year. I'll be there. In three months I'll be there. And God's like, would you let go of where you're gonna grow and plant where I have you. And in November I surrendered that moment, and I call it my road to Damascus. 'cause while I was saved, I lived a life that I was always reliant on myself. I heard from God, I knew God gifted me. I knew God gave me talents, but I would say, thank you, Lord. I got it from here. I wouldn't say those words, but that was my actions.

Jason 26:04

Yeah.

Chad 26:05

And on that day, November of 2023. On what I call my road to Damascus. God shone a light on me and said, I am now going to be in charge of your life and you are gonna let me, and I surrendered my life to him in that moment. I had been saved 25 years prior. I surrendered my life to him in that moment, and I gave up my agenda. I gave up my desires, my wants, my self-reliance, all of that I gave to him. Six months after that, I learned a discipline that I could walk with the Lord. I had been taught prayer closet. I had been taught prayer time, read the Bible in a year, spend this much time in worship, spend this much time in prayer, this much time in the Word, and I got caught up in the religion of Christianity, and I tried to fulfill those religious. Things and I failed. My walk with the Lord was very weak on a daily basis because it never fit what I wanted to do. Would it never fit? Not what I wanted to do 'cause that's what I just gave up. But what worked for me and I discovered at a prayer night at church one night, I got up and I went walk and I, my prayer voice just blew up. I was saying prayers in ways I had never said 'em before. I had felt his presence in ways I'd never felt it before. And he spoke to me. He said, Chad, if walkin works for you, walk with me every

Jason 27:42

Yeah.

Chad 27:43

So that's what I do. I walk with the Lord every day for an hour to two hours every day. I don't put a clock on it. I put. In, in his presence on it. And I do worship and I, and I listen to the word and I pray and I take notes and I talk to my phone to take notes, and I go back and I study them later. So every week I review what the Lord had given me throughout the week. I turn those into articles and blogs and things like that every day. And then of course, we we're always at church every week. We're at prayer every Wednesday. But my transition and my transformation in life really started to explode when I began to walk with the Lord on a consistent basis, and I moved from religion to relationship.

Jason 28:35

Uh, it's interesting. I have a friend who is actually on the podcast a couple years ago. He's a runner and he says that's where he does most of his praying. When he is running. He runs every day, like miles every day. And, uh, so yeah, I think that's, I'd never heard of that, but if that's where you're growing, close to the Lord and that's where you're in commune with him. That's great.

Chad 29:00

Yeah, my mind is fixed on the Lord.

Jason 29:04

Yeah,

Chad 29:05

Finally in my Christian walk. That's, that's the difference. When I go to bed at night, I'm thinking of Jesus. When I wake up in the morning, I'm thinking of Christ when I. When I'm going throughout the day, it's, what do you say, Christ? What do you think? Christ and I have reached this place that even in moments of what would be 9 1 1, am I in a place where my instinct will say God before I dial the phone?

Jason 29:33

Yeah.

Chad 29:34

And when you're living there, you're, you're living in relationship with him where he is your primary source and relationship, and that is what an investment made. And God will meet us wherever it works for us. So if you can. You clearly can't drive and close your eyes without running into something, and that be your time. I hear people say, my time's in the car, and all of that, and maybe that works for you. God can be with us any place we are. I don't close my eyes when we walk, but every for, you know, every few minutes for a second I'll do because I feel led by the Lord to close my eyes, so I'm at risk to run into something even while I'm walking or step in a hole, but it works for me and sitting in a prayer closet. Flipping through the pages of the word wasn't working for me. I tried it year after year and I failed. And God wants to meet us in a place where, where it works for us. It's not saying, Hey God, this is my way. Come join me. I'm not, it's our wiring, it's our uniqueness, it's our design. He put Adam and Eve in a garden and he walked with them in the garden. He didn't say, come over to this corner of the garden and I'll meet you there and spend an hour there. And what it did was this transition in my life has now caused me to be mentally and emotionally in his presence all throughout the day.

Jason 31:01

Yeah, that's good. I, I'll tell you, you know, for a long time I tried to spend time in the word and prayer at night, and it was never effective. I'm just, that's not my time, a day to do that. And over years I've realized for me it's morning, early morning. you know, an hour in the morning when it's still quiet and nobody's up and it's dark. And, uh, I put on some, you know, some, uh, instrumental worship music and my headphones, and that's just me and the Lord. And that's been s it's, it relate to what you're saying because it finally was like, this is different. You know, it was finally different and it wasn't just, it wasn't just. Checking a box, you know, I, I did this, I got this done. It's really meaningful and deep and, uh, it's beautiful. So, no, I appreciate you sharing that. That's, uh, that is cool to hear that how God's working in your life. On that, Chad, I wanna talk a little bit again about leadership. What if, what would you say is like your core leadership principle, um, that you go back to all the time? Like what's the main thing for you when it comes to leadership?

Chad 32:07

Compassionate leadership is broad, but that's really what it's about. It's from the model of Jesus, but for me it's real. Success is inward peace, not outward performance or position. That would be the core of what, of what resonates with me that I led a career and a path and a journey control every voice in my life, every action in my life. I treated my family like another project and another job. I treated the drive home to and from work. Like it was an assignment that I had to check off at the end of the day and accomplished a lot of things in my businesses. But failed in the people area and my people. I call it a people Compass was broken. My people Compass was way off. It had crack screens and misplaced dials It, it was terrible, but really inward peace is the true measure of success, and it has nothing to do with out outward performance or position.

Jason 33:07

Yeah, it's, it is putting the relationships and the people before the task, right? Because you're a, you're a task driven guy. I can sense that already. I am too. And it's easy for me at least to get focused on the task no matter what the, uh, relationship is. And yeah, and God has grown me a lot in that. It's like, slow down. That can't be your number one priority all the time. You have. It's how you do things matters greatly. As a believer, as a, as a leader, as a child of Christ, just how we do things, not just what we do, but how we do those things is matters greatly. When you talk a little bit about this, but when I hit on this again, when you were a younger leader, um, what was it that you struggled the most with as you look back? Like what, what were the things that you really struggled with?

Chad 33:59

Given space for people to be heard.

Jason 34:02

Hmm.

Chad 34:03

And you know, a lot of, a lot of leaders I believe, struggle with this, that everything, I used to have this mindset. If you tell me before it's a reason and I can help you with reasons, but if you tell me after the fact it's an excuse and I don't want to hear any of those, and it's putting an expectation and an assumption on people that they are in a way wired the way that I'm wired, in a way, think the way that I think. Putting an expectation that they're gonna do a job the way that I expected them to do it when I didn't give them opportunity to learn the job the way they would do it. And it, that was probably my biggest thing, is I would silence people the minute it looked like excuses to me. And while there may have been a moment to say. Let's get back to that right now. Let's do this because there's a concrete truck just 30 minutes away. I never went back to those conversations to say, okay, let me help you unpack that.

Jason 35:07

Yeah.

Chad 35:08

I didn't care.

Jason 35:09

yeah. Yep. Yep. Yep. No, I understand that. Yeah. It was like, I, yeah, I've been told before that, you know, there was times in my career when I would, I would get, I would get it done, but I'd leave a trail of dead bodies in my wake. You know, we'd get it done. But you, and I'm not proud of that. And God, God took me through a time when he broke me of that, and it was pretty painful. But I'm glad that he did. Hey, uh, I always like to ask people that I have on, who do you follow, read podcast, listen to, to help you stay sharp as a leader? Like what are some books or things that you listen or, uh, read or listen to, uh, to help you? Yeah, just stay on top of your game as a leader. Who do you like?

Chad 35:51

Yeah, one of my most important is John Maxwell. I was in the first room when he launched the John Maxwell team, so I'm a certified speaker with the John Maxwell team. I can teach six of his books. Um, that's always been an inspiration to me. It's, it's the honesty about his life that's been inspired to me. There was a season in which I just wanted to be like John Maxwell, and I had to come into my own and realize that I had a different message, I had a different purpose, I had a different, God was gonna use me in a different way. He remains that person that I look to. We have a lot of the same thinking, but we come at it from a couple different ways. But Patrick Lit, you mentioned, uh, Renee Brown, Craig, Rochelle, those people is who I follow, who I track with. John Gordon is another one. I love his positive message that he talks about, the message about positivity, and there's just so many, but those are probably my primary ones that I, that I follow and keep connected with.

Jason 36:54

John Maxwell was transformational for me when I first became interested in. Learning to be a leader, you know, learning to lead well. 21 year Refutable Laws of Leadership. I remember reading it

Chad 37:06

Yes.

Jason 37:07

and that would've been in like the late nineties I think, when I first read that. So yeah, he's actually, I was just yesterday at a meeting. Um. With a nonprofit I was, that I'm on the board of, and we were having kind of a, an offsite for the day and somebody shared a devotional that was from a John Maxwell book. So yeah, he's prolific. God's used him a lot and broadly for many, many decades. If you had a young leader who came to you, and maybe you've had this before with children or somebody that you know, that ask you for advice because they first, they got their first chance, um, in a formal leadership role, uh, in their profession or even in a ministry setting, what advice would you give 'em?

Chad 37:56

The main thing that I teach young leaders, and even leaders that I believe have tried to control too much in their space what's actually in our book, which is why we believe it's, it's part of a business program that we, that we, that I'm going to teach and it's, it's the greenhouse. That you are responsible to create an environment where people can be nourished and people can be grown. You're not responsible to control their growth and you're not responsible to stunt their growth or for the fully development. If you create the right environment, you will create the right opportunity for growth.

Jason 38:40

Yeah, I like that greenhouse effect. I love doing that too as a leader. Seeing people on my team grow. We've got, yeah, I work in manufacturing and we've got, you know, we've got apprentices now. We have other people who have new into team leadership roles or supervisor roles and just supporting them. Right. You know, watch 'em struggle and honestly, I don't want to say fail, but fail a little bit, have rough days, you know, and just making sure as a leader though, that we're there to support them and encourage them and give them guidance. Yeah. That's, that's exciting. I mean, for me, that's been the most rewarding thing. And that's, that's an area that I've grown in. Like you talked about, you know, more than the accomplishments, the metrics, the objectives, those are all, uh, good and fun to hit. But when you see people develop and you had a chance to be a part of that, God's used you in their lives. Um, that's. That's stuff that you think you just, you, you remember. And I think they remember for decades there's people that I've had a, had had the opportunity to help them grow 15, 20 years ago. You know, and we still have a connection, you know, and a friendship. And same for people who gave me a shot, you know, all those years ago, you know, who gave me a shot and Dev helped develop me and saw something in me that others didn't, or even I didn't. Um, that's, yeah, that's a lot more. Impactful. It's a lot more long lasting, and I think as leaders, especially believers, we're called to, to strive to have that kind of influence on, uh, on others. So Chad, let's talk a little bit about like, what are you doing right now? What to, for your newest entrepreneurial focus and, you know, what do you, what, what thing has God called you to do right now? What's that area?

Chad 40:32

Yeah, so three businesses right now, construction Ops, software Co, which is a. A tech company focused on construction software to help that industry be more user friendly and more robust. On the Back End Pathways group, which is where my Che and Brina brand, my wife's brand is where we teach leadership, we write, we author books, and then Pathways to Triumph, a Stroke Recovery Foundation, which is our nonprofit to help people after that 30 to 45 day mark when the. Hospital care ends you transition, home recovery really begins, and you're left with two days of outpatient therapy and trying to navigate this life on your own at home. That's the other thing. Chet and Brina, I am in a coaching program right now to. Develop and improve my public speaking. So I am looking for 20 to 25 stages in 2026, and I am working on some course content on those topics that we talked about. Perseverance, um, identity and vulnerability blend. Don't break theory. The brand don't break philosophy. I didn't drill down the name yet, but I'm working on some things where it talks to all dynamics of life. And then I got another talking topic called eggshells, um, which is what my family walked on, including myself. And how do we create an environment where there are no longer any eggshells and, and in that we use, I do use a tree analogy a lot. And plotted potted plants in the greenhouse and roots being severed when you go from one position to a next. So that is really my passion right now, is how can I get more public facing conversations, more public facing disciplines out there from what I have walked through through my speaking engagements. And I just finished the rough draft of my second book called The Visionary Storm. Which is talking about the mind of the visionary and how chaotic they are in the rooms when they just blast ideas everywhere and people have to navigate this journey with them, and we help teams on how to navigate it. We help the visionary gain awareness and we introduce what we call a strategist. That is really the funnel to harness the visionary mind and make it deliver the most powerful results that it can. In 2026, I'll be writing a book called Let's Get Naked. Patrick Lencioni wrote a book that has the word naked in it as well. I'll actually be reading that book before I author mine to see if there's any insights that I can pull in. But mine really comes from my life journey, and it's called Living a Life of Vulnerability, openness, and Unshakeable Confidence.

Jason 43:30

Yeah, that's good man. You got a lot going on. I love it. I

Chad 43:34

Yes, and it's fun.

Jason 43:37

That's good. You know it's funny 'cause you talked about being an entrepreneur since you were 15 and I think. There's a streak of entrepreneurism. So I don't know if that's a word, but in my family, my grandfather was one, my dad is kind of skipped me, and now my oldest son is one. And I remember my oldest son, man, he was doing lemonade stand when he was like, I don't know, eight, nine years old. I was like, this kid's, it's what he, it's what he wanted to do, you know? It was always a, a dream for him that God planted in his heart. So now that's, that's, that's amazing. Uh, a couple last questions before we wrap up. What do you hope will be your legacy, Chad, when God calls you, you know, into a retirement, if I know retirement, but you know away from a full-time professional career, even as he calls you home, what do you hope will be your legacy?

Chad 44:24

Yeah, I'm, so, I'm gonna step back just a minute 'cause the, the entrepreneurial spirit. I have now realized that I can't operate outside of my purpose and my defer. My purpose is divine, and my purpose is to help people to become more self-aware. Emotional intelligence and walking, compassionate leadership help people to make small internal shifts that leaves a lasting outward result. That is my purpose. So in every venture I have to realize my lane is right there,

Jason 44:55

Yeah. No matter what, whether it's, yep.

Chad 44:57

That is different from my past entrepreneurial journeys that I have to recognize that that is my lane. That is my contribution to everything that we embark on. And that brings me to what my legacy would be is I lived my first 50 years for something that gave me purpose, and I will live the rest of my life in my purpose. There is a big difference. So if I leave a legacy, the biggest legacy that I could leave is that my life impacted my family, my friends, and my network to find their true purpose.

Jason 45:38

Yeah, that's, no, that's great. I think, um. That's, it reminds me of, you know, developing your own like mission statement. Like what has God called you to do in understanding that and staying focused on it. Even across, you just named three different businesses that are pretty different. Software consulting, you know, these are really different businesses, but all along there you have that, that focus mission that you wanna, that you wanna stay on, on task with. So I really respect that. Uh, what are some ways that people, what's the best way for people to get ahold of you, man?

Chad 46:12

The best way to reach me is through my website, Chad m brina.com.

Jason 46:17

all right. Yeah, we'll have a link to that as well as your book. And, uh, you said you're looking for some speaking engagements for 2026, so you'd be sure to reach out to Chad, um, if you wanna put him in front of a group to talk about. Leading, uh, in a way that's with vulnerability and love and compassion for others. I think that's come out very clearly. And I would say that you're probably not the only leader, uh, that we're engaging with today who has gone through that, you know, that gone from task oriented, you know, people, uh, are a means to an end to. Focused on the, you know, the people in the relationship are, are the means, you know, that those relationships that we have so well, brother, I appreciate you being on today. Um, love your story. Love to hear how God has used some difficult situations through your life to grow you and to glorify himself and, uh, the relationship that you have now with he, him, and your family. Yeah, that's great. I love, I love hearing these things. It's, it's so good to see what God is doing in another, uh, person's life and a family clear across the country, way down south in New Orleans. So thank you for being on today, man. Appreciate it.

Chad 47:38

Thank you for having me. It's great. When I started writing the book, God said, I'm gonna make you a vulnerable author and. I fought with him a little bit about that, and now we're at a place where he's just made my life completely vulnerable. So I love sharing. I love being a part of it. It's not about me. I hope that our conversation today challenges people to look within themselves and find the opportunity for God to show them something that needs to be transformed according to his.

Jason 48:06

Yeah. No, I, I do too. That's the goal here is, uh, for people to grow, uh, in as leaders, but grow closer to the Lord and grow in sanctification. So thank you, uh, for being on, and, uh, thank you to the, my listeners, appreciate you tuning in again. Uh, be sure to join us next month as we meet another faith-driven leader who's pursuing excellence and influence for God's glory. Uh, in the meantime, keep leading with courage and compassion because impact always begins with insight. I.