Episode Summary: In this episode of the L3 Leadership podcast, Jamie Winship shares a wild story of how he solved a crime, why living out of our true identity enables us to live a fearless life, and more.
About Jamie Winship: Jamie Winship has decades of experience bringing peaceful solutions to areas of the world that experience the highest levels of conflict.
After a distinguished career in law enforcement in the metro Washington DC area, Jamie had a unique opportunity to bring his identity-centric approach of transformation to the field of education. He earned an MA in English and accepted a position at a university in Indonesia. Jamie developed a unique language acquisition program based on this premise: identity transformation is the key to acquiring new levels of learning in any field. His work drew the attention of Fulbright and other educational institutions which extended his work worldwide over the past several decades.
Jamie has worked with leaders in professional sports, business, education, law enforcement, government, non-profit, and other sectors.
Jamie and his wife, Donna, are co-founders of Identity Exchange, a training and consulting agency that helps individuals and teams discover new levels of creativity and resiliency within the framework of true identity.
4 Key Takeaways:
1. Jamie talks about his law enforcement career, from being a police officer to working in the CIA.
2. He shares a story that demonstrates the power of prayer.
3. Identity can influence your life significantly, and Jamie shares his thoughts on this.
4. Jamie talks about how negative emotions get in the way of wholeness.
Quotes From the Episode:
“There are more ways of knowing things than we think.”
“Being informs doing.”
“What do we do with negative emotion?”
“Production is the result, it’s not the goal.”
Resources Mentioned:
The Biology of Transcendence by Joseph Chilton Pearce
Living Fearless by Jamie Winship
Episode Summary: In this episode of the L3 Leadership podcast, Jamie Winship shares a wild story of how he solved a crime, why living out of our true identity enables us to live a fearless life, and more.
About Jamie Winship: Jamie Winship has decades of experience bringing peaceful solutions to areas of the world that experience the highest levels of conflict.
After a distinguished career in law enforcement in the metro Washington DC area, Jamie had a unique opportunity to bring his identity-centric approach of transformation to the field of education. He earned an MA in English and accepted a position at a university in Indonesia. Jamie developed a unique language acquisition program based on this premise: identity transformation is the key to acquiring new levels of learning in any field. His work drew the attention of Fulbright and other educational institutions which extended his work worldwide over the past several decades.
Jamie has worked with leaders in professional sports, business, education, law enforcement, government, non-profit, and other sectors.
Jamie and his wife, Donna, are co-founders of Identity Exchange, a training and consulting agency that helps individuals and teams discover new levels of creativity and resiliency within the framework of true identity.
4 Key Takeaways:
1. Jamie talks about his law enforcement career, from being a police officer to working in the CIA.
2. He shares a story that demonstrates the power of prayer.
3. Identity can influence your life significantly, and Jamie shares his thoughts on this.
4. Jamie talks about how negative emotions get in the way of wholeness.
Quotes From the Episode:
“There are more ways of knowing things than we think.”
“Being informs doing.”
“What do we do with negative emotion?”
“Production is the result, it’s not the goal.”
Resources Mentioned:
The Biology of Transcendence by Joseph Chilton Pearce
Living Fearless by Jamie Winship
Hey, leader, and welcome to another episode of the L3 Leadership Podcast, where we are obsessed with helping you grow to your maximum potential and to maximize the impact of your leadership. My name is Doug Smith and I am your host, and today's episode is brought to you by my friends at Beratung Advisors. We also recorded this episode live from the new reiturn. com studio. If you're new to the podcast, welcome. I'm so glad that you're here and I hope that you enjoy our content and become a subscriber and know that you can also watch all of our episodes over on our YouTube channel, so make sure you're subscribed there as well. And, as always, if you've been listening to the podcast for a while and it's made an impact on your life, it would mean the world to me. If you leave us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts through, that really does help us to grow our audience and reach more leaders, so thank you in advance for that. Well, leader, in this week's episode of the podcast, we're going to re-air our top listen to episode of 2023, which was my conversation with Jamie Winship, and this episode impacted so many people. I'm still getting texts and emails all the time saying wow, that was so powerful. Thank you so much for sharing that. So if you haven't listened to it, you are in for a treat, and even if you have, I encourage you to listen to it again, because there's so much wisdom in this.
Doug Smith:If you're unfamiliar with Jamie, let me just tell you a little bit about him. Jamie has decades of experience bringing peaceful solutions to some of the world's highest conflict areas, starting with a distinguished career in law enforcement. His unconventional efforts to bring about societal and racial reconciliation led him to Indonesia, Jordan, Iraq, Palestine, Israel and back to the US. He has worked with leaders in a variety of sectors, from police departments to pro football teams to faith-based organizations. He's the author of Living Fearless, exchanging the lives of the world for the liberating truth of God, and in our conversation you're going to hear Jamie share a wild story on how hearing from God helped him solve a crime, why living out our true identity enables us to live a fearless life and so much more. Obviously, this was the top listen to episode of the year, and that's why I can tell you you're absolutely going to love this. But before we get into that, just a few announcements.
Doug Smith:This episode of the L3 Leadership Podcast is sponsored by Beratung Advisors. The financial advisors at Beratung Advisors help educate and empower clients to make informed financial decisions. You can find out how Beratung Advisors can help you develop a customized financial plan for your financial future by visiting their website at beratungadvisorscom. It's B-E-R-A-T-U-N-G-Advisorscom. Securities and investment products and services offered through LPL Financial, member of FINRA, and S-I-P-C. Beratung Advisors. Lpl Financial and L3 Leadership are separate entities.
Doug Smith:I also want to thank our sponsor, Henne Jewelers. They were jewelry earned by my friend and mentor, John Henne, and my wife Laura and I got our engagement and wedding rings through Henne Jewelers and had an incredible experience. And not only do they have great jewelry, but they also invest in people. In fact, for every couple that comes in engaged, they give them a book to help them prepare for marriage, and we just love that. So if you're in need of a good jeweler, check out HenneJewelers. com. And I also want to thank our new sponsor, reiturn. com and Leader.
Doug Smith:Let me just ask you this have you ever had an interest in investing in real estate? Well, now, for as little as $500, you can become a commercial real estate investor. Just visit Returncom to learn more. That's R-E-I-T-U-R-N. com. Investing involves risk. Please consult the Reiturn offering circular if you're interested in investing. And with all that being said, let's dive right in. Here's my conversation with Jamie Winship. Jamie Winship, welcome to the L3 Leadership Podcast, really looking forward to this conversation together and I really wanted to start with you just sharing a brief overview of your life. You were a police officer. You worked for the CIA. You now have a company that helps people with identity. Tell us about that. How do you get to where you?
Jamie Winship:are today, wow, yeah. Well, when I was 14, I went to a movie actually and that's a snuck into a movie because we weren't allowed to go to movies in my family and so I snuck into a movie and the movie was about a New York City police officer, which I had no idea what the movie was about. I just sat in the back and as the movie played, it just really affected me deeply emotionally and I identified with the character in the story. We call that naming in literature the piece of art names the reader or the viewer or the song, anyway. So I just knew I felt like that's who I wanted to be and I actually went forward at the movie theater because that's what you do when you're independent Baptist and just kind of committed my life to being a police officer, which was really a metaphor and that's important for young people to know, that what they see is not necessarily literally the thing, but it represents something to them that you explore the rest of your life. But I knew I wanted to be a police officer and whatever that represented. So that's what I committed myself to being when, yeah, and then so through high school, into university, criminal justice, political science, graduated, met my wife. I actually qualified at the range my last day in the academy, jumped in a car, drove to Richmond, virginia, and got married, went away for two days, came back and started midnight shift. So it's from eighth grade to age 23. That had been my dream.
Jamie Winship:So went on the midnight shift in 1983. Got into the police department. I loved it. I absolutely loved the job and had a lot of questions as I was involved in it, like could we do this better? And you know. So I started interacting with people and just issues, with guys on my own squad and all of that Just on a spiritual level. I thought like I don't feel like we're making a lot of gains actually in what we're doing. So I started, I started really investigating other ways. What are other ways to think about police, policing, law enforcement, all of that criminal justice system? And I started experimenting with ideas that I would have while I was working a case or in a house or dealing with a person. And as I did, I started to map out just kind of another way to think about things, more a way of knowing things than actually the vocation. And as I did, I did that over five years and I was officer of the year and I made detective and developed a pretty good reputation in the police department.
Jamie Winship:And then in 1987, I got contacted by a judge who introduced me to the operations guy for the CIA. They wanted to interview me. I went into the interview on a Tuesday night I think it was at a bar. Interestingly enough, that's where we did the interview, which is interesting. And through that whole interview which was quite an intensive, really well thought out interview process which I noticed as soon as they started talking, the way they sat I was like, wow, this is an interview and these guys are really good at interviewing.
Jamie Winship:And so we went through this whole process of how are you thinking about what you're thinking about? And then they gave me a scenario. They were working in the world and said what would you do in this scenario? And I told them I would do this. This would be my strategy, and they offered me a job right on the spot. So I went home that night and the next day my whole life went in a whole, not a different direction, just the same direction, just at a much more intense level and international. So we left the US. Actually, I went and got a graduate degree as part of that strategy and then left the US in 1990 and lived outside the US for 20, almost 27 years, came back in the US in 2016 and started working in this company that we now have.
Doug Smith:Well, that's quite a journey. A lot I want to unpack there and get into. First I want to hear you. I heard this story that you shared. That thought was amazing. You've mentioned in the past that one of the reasons the CIA was interested in you is just because of the way you were doing things as a police officer. And I specifically heard a story about, I believe, someone kidnapped a child and you had a. Really can you share that story Because it blew me away and that really kind of sounds like put you on the on everyone's map at that time.
Jamie Winship:Yeah, yeah, so. So because, because you know, I'm a person of faith and I believe a lot in prayer and which, which to me is a prayer, is a big and interesting topic and we it's too minimized, it's too it's too it's too formulaic and treated as this little shout out for help, but it's actually a very deep, intuitive process that all humans can do and access if they will, and it's like a muscle that you exercise. So I was in my second or third year uniform and I was already. I was already, as I said earlier, I was always saying asking the question is there another way to think about what I'm getting ready to do? So I was trained in the police academy to think a certain way, to work a certain way, and it was great, but it was limited. Which it which? It can only be limited. They can't teach every scenario and all that. And so my question was is there, could I access, another level of knowing things While I'm in process of something? Is there another? Is there another way of knowing and understanding? It's a kind of epistemology, and so I was already. I was carrying a notebook around with me and I'd be in a case working something and I would know my training and I go to the edge of my training, I would say, wow, there was something just beyond. This would probably be better than what I trained in. Or if you're in the military and you know you train all the time and you get in the situation it has nothing to do with what you train for just all the sudden and you got to shift paradigms and all that kind of thing. So so I highly resilient individual. One of their characteristics of a highly resilient, resilient individuals, their ability to shift paradigms on the spot, which for most people is nearly impossible because it's too frightening to do so. I was experimenting on this sort of low level and I was in. So for me that's prayer, that's the contemplative life, it's the intuitive mind, and so I can just go in the reptilian memory based system, or I can keep ascending to the prefrontal cortex and asking God, in my case, what's another way to think about this?
Jamie Winship:So we have this kidnapping case. This is in the 80s, no computers, you know, we, the school notifies us. This kid never showed up, or two hours into the game it's. You know, it's pretty hopeless. There's no real witnesses. It's not a domestic case, it's just a rare Abduction, which back in those days was rare. And so you know we're working the case and I go and I meet with the parents, me and my partner, and the father, obviously super upset.
Jamie Winship:At the time I had two Little boys, my wife and I, and I was emotionally affected by it too and I said to the father I promise you will find this kid which is, you know, you don't, do you never do that? No, that's very unprofessional to make a statement like that, expectation to a parent like that. And so when I walked away, my partner was, who was senior to me he was really upset. He's like why do you, why did you say that to him? You never say that kind of thing to a parent. And I said, yeah, I don't know, I just came out of me. So I go and I get in my cruiser. He goes, my partner leaves and went to work another part of it, and I get in the cruiser and I drive a short distance away and it's fairly hopeless, you know, statistically at this point.
Jamie Winship:So I just I'm sitting on the side of the street and I just say to God, in this kind of exercise it's like God, you, you know where this kid is, like you mean, I don't you and if you do, could you communicate to me where he is? And if you were going to communicate to that, to me, what would be the process where I would know? How would I know that those are just a series, and I was just asking questions and I was just sitting there and I was thinking about justice and God you're a God of justice and this kind of thing. So and this is the interesting thing for the creative process, which is a whole nother discussion, but the beginning of every creative process and every human being in the world Einstein, kepler, all of them, mozart is you have to ask a question. You go through life never asking a question, you never create or innovate, and but then when you ask the question, you have to wait for an answer, like you have to, like become super aware and search for the answer. So these are things humans don't do because we're, for whatever reason. So I asked the question and then, and then I just became super attentive to like how would I know?
Jamie Winship:And I'm looking around in this car comes down the street behind me, from behind me, go on the speed limit, and when he goes past me I feel really nauseous, like someone punched me in the stomach and so then. So then you just start putting the pieces together like, okay, I asked this question, I'm looking around what happens after I asked the question? What events? Who did I need this kind of thing? Okay, it's this car. I feel incredibly sick. This is a. This is a sensation. I have come to really cherish this sensation.
Jamie Winship:Lots of guys I work with have different ways they feel things or sense things, but they're good, you know they. It's like trust your gut kind of thing, which every old cop used to say trust your gut. So anyway, I pull the car over, I cut, I pull in front of him, actually force him to the side of the road, and I get out and there's just the driver in the car and no one's in the car. And I just say get out, get out and open the trunk. And he gets out and opens the trunk and the kid is in the trunk of the car. And so you know, all three of us me, the guy, the driver and the kid were astounded at what happened. We all just kind of stood there and shocked. The kid was okay, and but like for me, I was like, oh my gosh, there's more ways of knowing things than what we think like that was more the thought. This is not a guarantee, you know. This is not like magic or a formula or all that, but it is God showing me there are ways of knowing things that you don't know, but you can know like they're knowable, and so you know.
Jamie Winship:I call the detective. They came and you know, the guy confessed and all that, and then the detective said to me what was your probable cause for pulling this car over? Because you got to be able to testify in court why you pulled them over. And I said well, I was praying. And he said no, no, no, no.
Jamie Winship:And this is the other thing about the creative process. If you work through this intuitive creative process and you don't have a way of explaining it or demonstrating it to a world that doesn't believe in that process, then it's of no value. Right, it's just in my head or In, but I can't go into a courtroom and explain to a jury my process that makes sense to another human being. It's of no value. And unfortunately, this is what happens with prayer and ideas there. It gets to be this way.
Jamie Winship:God told me, or I had this thought and like, well, practically, let's work it out and you can't, then yeah, that's, it's actually. It's actually not the creative process. So like, if Einstein can't write down the theory of relativity in a paper that other mathematicians can read and go, wow, it's crazy, but he's actually right. Or Mozart can't take the symphony that he can hear in his head and write every note for the clarinets which Mozart called tedious, then we can't hear what he hears, and so that's important for a believer, it's got to go from up here down through and out and back at the profit says that you have to write it down so men can read it and run with it. They have to be able to use what happened. So, yeah, so I was off through the year for that and and that got that got me going right. That got me like, wow, what can we do that? What's possible?
Doug Smith:Yeah, a few things I want to untap, just because you just mentioned it. You talked about hey, saying you heard from God or you prayed what it flow. How have you because you can't communicate like that in that that role how have you, as a believer, learn to communicate practically, because I think a lot of people struggle with that?
Jamie Winship:Well, I talk about what I mean. I just did this the other night with a group. It's interesting. So I just talk about the. The human mind. It's like incredible, and I read a great book a long time ago called the biology of transcendence, written by an educator. It's talking about the biology of a human being is to ascend and transcend. That's how humans are made. The fact that we don't do it is is abnormal. That we live these sort of rational, imitative, compulsive repetition lives is counter to being human. So when I'm talking about, like when I would have to train a rookie police officer and how I was doing what I was doing, I had to be able to explain it to him. And so I talk about the intuitive mind, I say a thought begins down here.
Jamie Winship:It's a thought about relationship to a situation. It's always. Humans are always. Their most basic instinct is attachment. So whatever scenario you're in, you're going to try and attach to it in some way than the assessment centers, the amygdala and that's the library of your brain going. You know, we've experienced something like this before and either we're going to go ahead or we're not going to go ahead, and most of the time it's we're not going to go ahead. It's fear based. But if that fucking get passed, that into the singular cortex, which is the attunement level, it's like, ok, we're going to do this, ok, I'm going to stop this car. Ok, so when I do it, what am I going to do? That's the attunement level, all the way up into the prefrontal cortex, which is the administrator. It's where you dream and have vision. It's the only part of them and it only can think and symbol and picture that part of the brain. So our highest level of thinking, when it gets up there, like then you imagine the scenario and then it goes over to the left brain to do it. That's the administrator, and so that's the process going on in every human brain. The problem is, most of us shut it down in the assessment center every sixth of a second, like that.
Jamie Winship:And so when I'm telling a jury, I had an idea and the idea was up here what if, what, if, what if this? Kids in a car, right, what would I be looking for? I'd be looking for a loan driver, you know that's. And then this is my process. And then how would I? Why would I stop that car? Because it was in this neighborhood and this incident and this was what this is what I felt like and my probable cause was this is a good possibility of of a car, just to check, like that. But it's all the way the brain works.
Jamie Winship:So I didn't call it prayer in court, although different people that came in because they would confess to crime, because me and my partner would pray over them in the interview and they would come in and use the officer. The officer prayed with me before he questioned me. Well, that you know they brought those kind of terms in, but for me it's like look, you have an intuitive mind that goes way out like this, and so let's use it. And in contemplation, one other thing about. I said this in a public school the other day to a bunch of administrators. I said innovation has to be preceded by contemplation. All innovation is preceded by contemplation. So if you want your students to be innovative, don't teach them innovation. It won't work. Teach them contemplation, which leads to innovation. And then I asked the principals how many of you know how to contemplate or have a practice of contemplation which puts you in the intuitive mind all the time? They didn't know. So I said would you like it if I would teach a course on contemplation. They all signed up public school Wow.
Doug Smith:I'm in too. Send me the link. So, speaking of that. So, man, that was so good. You talked about hearing from God too, and you said early on in our conversation just a lot of times people think about praying and contemplating and they just kind of throw prayer up in hope that it works. It's one thing to think through thoughts like how do you? I have a lot of leaders ask me because I'll say I feel like God dealt with me on something and they'll say, well, like how do you actually know you heard from God? How do you know? You just didn't need pickles last night before you went to bed et cetera, right?
Jamie Winship:So yeah, and that's a great question, and that's an important question, because then in some spheres, the idea of hearing from God gets really abused. Right, it's just awful. And so again. So, hearing from God. So there's two parts in hearing from God. Number one is to know your own identity. That's really critical, because how God is going to communicate I mean, this is all scriptural, like you can just do case study, starting with Adam, and go all the way through the scriptures and watch this over and over again with human beings before they understand who they are. They're doing things based on how they're seeing the world around them and it's not working Like. That's the beginning of the scenario.
Jamie Winship:Even like Moses, like even Moses, who has a sense of his identity as Hebrew, and it says he doesn't forget it even though he's in the palace of Pharaoh. He has his sense of like, he has some I have some role of delivering Israel out of bondage. He's got that in his head. He's being trained by the best superpower in the world, but when he comes into the scenario of an Egyptian oppressing a Hebrew, his strategy is to kill the Egyptian, which is the most counterproductive thing he could have done. But in his mind. It's like I'm liberating this guy. But that's a low level, fear based, reactionary. So then, but in the, when he interacts with God, god speaks it to, into him, the truth of who he is. That's so important. And so, once you understand your identity, your God in the faith world can only speak to the true you, right so, and the true me. I know my identity and I, being in forms, doing so. When I pray and ask God a question or direction and something, I know my identity and I know how that identity is going to probably go. I know it, right so. It's like if I'm a catcher on a baseball team and I'm asking the coach, what do you want me to do, he's not going to say pitch right, he's going to teach me all kinds of skill about catching, like so when I ask God a question about what do you want me to know, what do you want me to do, I know the range of how he's going to speak to me. I know so, like when Moses goes to the burning bush and has that intuitive, high level encounter with God. In the symbol and the metaphor of the burning bush, basically, god says to him I didn't create you to be a shepherd. I'm not here to give you shepherding advice. I'm here to talk to the deliverer of nations. That's who I came to talk to and everything I say to you will be related to that identity. So it just narrows the scope of the range of what you're going to hear.
Jamie Winship:And when you hear from God in your identity, it won't violate scripture, it won't go outside of scripture. It will energize you, it will fill you with love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, kindness, gentleness and it will make sense to you. I always ask people, when they say I heard God say does that make any sense to you? Does that make sense to you? Does that make sense that God would say that to you? Like if God came to me and said join the NBA, I would be like that's probably not him. Right, it's not that complicated. It's not that complicated and it should make sense to you. And if it doesn't make sense, you need to keep asking questions. But it's so simple, it's so nice and simple, and the more complicated we make it it's because we're afraid. But that's it Know your identity and asking God questions.
Jamie Winship:And then one other passage I love in John Jesus says the Father knows what you need before you ask him. The Father knows what you need before you ask him. So a great prayer is God, right now, what do I need? Wow. And then, when he tells you what you need, ask him for that and I guarantee you he'll do it. But we're just shotgunning stuff up there and then we have ideas that come like was that God? Was that not God? It's like you're out of line. Get in line with who you are. Understand that all deep doing is informed by being. First get your identity square with God, understand it and then start asking questions from the truth of who you are, and then it's pretty clear what happens.
Doug Smith:Yeah, so the foundation is identity and you are giving your life literally to the organization of the identity exchange and you're helping people with their identity. I just want to transition into that subject. I'll just leave this really really open ended. Why is identity so important to you that you've decided to give your life to this, and why do people need to focus on on their identity?
Jamie Winship:Okay, well, for two reasons. Number one well, I get number one. The term identity has been totally hijacked. So in in in life, you know, words are the way we have of connecting and communicating and if you, if you, from a scriptural standpoint, there's a really a battle for words all through scripture. And it's fascinating to me that Jesus's title is the word, he's the word. So if you want to understand the definition of a word, you need to look to Christ. That he's. Christ is the definer of words. So if I'm going to understand identity or or anything, it's it's like. It's so fascinating to subject that to the idea of Christ. So that's one I hear identity misused all the time.
Jamie Winship:And what people are saying my identity is, this is not identity. They're not talking about identity. What they're talking about is names of organizations and teams and gangs and roles. That's what they're talking about. Or who they sleep with. That's that's. Those are not identities, but the whole, all of us are arguing about them as if they are identity.
Jamie Winship:So identity, true identity, is received in community, from God. That's my definition, that's that's the scriptural definition of identity. It's received, it's not self generated. That's called radical individualism. Radical individualism is the counterfeit to true identity. Radical individualism is self generated and it's subjective and it produces immediate conflict. True identity is received in community and the identity connects with community. It knows its place in the community, so it's balanced and it's not in competition. It's received in community and it's from God, so it's the essence of who you are, deeply rooted in love. Apart from what you do, it's not connected to what you do. It's who you are. We get our identity from what we do, what we have and what people think about us, right.
Jamie Winship:So so identity is the only thing that a living system can organize around. This is just a rule of science. All living systems organize around identity. There's no other organizing principle in the universe.
Jamie Winship:So if the identity is true, then the system, the living system, whatever it is, from a Amoeba to a tree, to a human if the identity is true, that living organism is an open system. It's adaptable, it's flexible, it's always connected, it's reciprocal relationship to everything around it and it knows what to produce. It will produce from what it is right. Jesus talks about this. You know, a good tree produces good fruit.
Jamie Winship:So so if the living system organizes around an identity that's corrupted like a cell, it becomes cancer, which is a false identity of a cell, and it becomes a closed system and it starts to destroy everything around it. So when you look at a whole country that gets their identity from God, in community and reciprocal, it's not at war all the time, it won't be or a neighborhood or a community. But if it has a false identity and it's living in a worldview of scarcity, it will take from everything around it. It won't give and the the identity will be based in self-promotion and Self-protection and it turns inward and closes down right. So identity, since it's the, it's the organizing principle of all living organisms, it's got to be the starting point of every conversation. Every conversation has to start with identity of a person, of a company, of A town, of a nation has to be identity.
Doug Smith:So you work with people all over the world. You've worked, you've been in this work for a long time. How many people, if you had to put a percentage to it, do you feel like are actually living out their true identity versus false identities?
Jamie Winship:10%, 10%, maybe, maybe, just you can. The way you know is just by look at the level of conflict. Just look at the level of conflict. Even when I'm in a conversation with one person, I just look at the level of conflict going on just inside of them. The true identity, the true identity. And Jesus is the model of the true identity, of the human and the true identity. He never has internal conflict. There's no internal conflict. He's dealing with all kinds of external conflict, but he never experiences internal conflict. He's sad for things, sad as a form of love. He's he. He longs for things, he laments for things, but he's not in an internal conflict. Jesus is never in a win-lose scenario, never we. We are. Everything we do to us is a win-lose scenario. As soon as I think I'm in a win-lose scenario, I have to self protect and self promote and I move into the false.
Doug Smith:So so that 90% that are not living out their true identity? Where did their identities come from? How is it shaped? Because I feel like so many I mean, I just had 90% of the people on the planet, and that's your estimation Struggle with this struggle with identity. Why is that and where did that come from?
Jamie Winship:Be okay. So I and I'm probably being generous by saying 90, it's probably, but okay so, and this is actually what my next book is about. So we worked on identity for many, many years and we did it. We started it as a counterterrorism strategy, like can we do counterterrorism without use of force or Coversion? Is there a way to walk a person out of a terrorist conflict mindset without shooting them or Imprisoning them or bribing them, which none of which works, none of which stops anything? And so we went after. It has to be their sense of identity. They're getting their sense of identity from what they do, what they have and what people think about them. That's what they're doing. So if you ask a kid, okay, you're 12 and you're already part of the Bloods and the Crips. Why? Because they give me identity. That's why they give me a sense of identity, belonging, safety, security. They give me a sense of value Until they, until they take it from you. But that's how they lure you into it.
Jamie Winship:So we worked on identity. It worked really well. It was hard to figure out, it took us a lot of time, is super costly for those of us that were experimenting in this, and it started to work really well. We started to see the results, but the longer we went, the more that it was like okay, that that group understands their identity. They moved out of violence. That's great, but they drift into another kind of conflict. It's just interesting.
Jamie Winship:So we, we, I. So you go back to God and you're like what are we not thinking about? What are we not thinking about? So here's where we are, lord, and this is the contemplative exercise. Here's where we are, here's what we've done. What do we not know? What do you want us to know? What do you want us to do?
Jamie Winship:And the thing that really struck us was worldview, worldview. Okay, so worldview is not biblical. People say I have a biblical worldview. That's not a worldview. That's that's your view of the Bible, and there's a hundred views of the Bible. Worldview is the lens through which you see everything that you see, and you can't see the lens, so you don't know what it is. But it's a worldview, and your how I look at the Bible is through my worldview. So we started really digging into worldview. Okay, what is worldview? How did the scriptures talk about worldview? How does anthropology talk about worldview? How does economics talk about worldview? Because, if it's true it's. All of those are going to go together and Our conclusion was there's only ever been two worldviews, ever, ever, in any.
Jamie Winship:It doesn't matter in what civilization You're starting, in what religion, there's only two worldviews. I just did a thing on this at Harvard, just to prove my point with with the Fellows program in the in the Kennedy School of Diplomacy, and I just said I'm gonna put this forward and you tell me where I'm wrong. There's only ever been two worldviews. So one worldview is the separation worldview and the other worldview is the connection worldview. Those are the only two. If you come from Abrahamic faith, you'll see those two worldviews explained in Genesis, one and three.
Jamie Winship:Right so, and so, just briefly, so Moses is Explaining Genesis to the Israelites like this is what Christians forget. It's not the beginning of the Bible. It's Moses telling a people group whose whole identity is slave. That's their entire identity for 400 years slave and listen. Their identity comes from what they can produce. Their identity comes from what they have. No identity apart from what the marketplace tells them is valuable. If you can produce bricks, then you have a kind of value, and when you can't produce bricks, you have no value. Our kids learn very early in life. Your only value is what you can produce. That's your only value. And they start getting measured in production in kindergarten, because they're in the separation worldview, because we hold to it all the time and Separation worldview.
Jamie Winship:This believes number one in scarcity. Scarcity, two words, not enough. It's a worldview where there's not enough, there's not enough time, there's not enough money, there's not enough nice people, there's not enough Christians, there's not enough of my team, there's not enough jobs, there's not enough food, there's not enough of everything. So when we're working with people, the very first thing I get them to do is I want you to write down Every time in the day those two words not enough come through your brain because you're Living in it and you totally agree with it and you can't live in that world without ultimately thinking you're not enough. You can't. So if I'm not enough, what does that mean about what I got to do in life? I have to self protect and self promote. Why? Because there's not enough jobs and there's not enough opportunity and there's not enough money. So my whole life becomes the pursuit of my own good. So scarcity leads to a search for certainty, which leads to a search for perfection, which leads to self-interest. It can only lead to self-interest. The way we know in the US that we're dying In scarcity is when you have a crisis, come the crisis comes, co vid comes.
Jamie Winship:No one knows what it is. A Culture that's healthy, that understands identity. When they hit a crisis, they band together, they go. We don't know what this is. Let's figure it out together. Let's protect each other. We need all the identities together.
Jamie Winship:A scarcity culture goes as fast as it can to the store and buys Everything that it thinks it needs, to the detriment of everyone around them. Wow, and we and Christians led the way in the scarcity mentality. And Then the scarcity world goes to war against anyone that questions their viewpoint on it. Because, because in scarcity you hit, search for certainty, and when you're looking for certainty, then you have anything that shakes. What you're certain about is your enemy, and and and. So it's not like did you get a vaccine? Did you know? You're like we're, we're, we hate you because you did this and this and and. It's like how fast did we move into those warring conflict camps? Immediately, immediately, and we couldn't tell the difference between a Christian and a non-Christian neighborhood, couldn't tell the difference. They all did the same thing.
Jamie Winship:Right, that's a scarcity world view. That's what we live in, and in the scarcity world view, the measurable becomes more important to the human than the immeasurable. That means love, joy, peace, pay. We don't care about that stuff. What we want is ROI. How many people did you lead to Christ? How long was your quiet time? What are you producing for God? Because the marketplace is what gives us identity. That's what gives us identity, and if you can't produce something that makes money, you don't have any value. Right, that's that. That's the separation world view. How much of the world is in that? What percentage of the world is in that? All of it, all of it, all of it. Right, I was just gonna say yeah.
Jamie Winship:So Moses is warning Israelites coming out of Egypt. This is the world view you've been raised in. We're gonna be a different world view. We're gonna be a different kind of nation. We're gonna be an influencer. We're gonna be a light on a hill, and then to do that, we have to stay in the connected world view. It's not about scarcity, it's about enough. What's the example? Manna? There's the example manna. How much should we gather of the manna? Enough for today? Well, we. What about for tomorrow. It'll rot on you if you collect more than you need.
Jamie Winship:The whole story, the whole journey of Israel, is to walk them out of the separation Empire world view into the connection kingdom world view. It's astounding the Bible is astounding how it presents this, and so mosaic governance is presenting a whole another way of governance debt canceled every seven years. We're not building an empire here. We don't want an empire, empires of the enemy, we want kingdom and an. Israel's job was to never become an empire, and when Solomon took them to become an empire, they completely fell apart and went into exile, right.
Jamie Winship:And so all of us are living in either a separation or a connection World view. Every day. Most of us Breathe in separation. We can't even tell. And so when I go and say look, there's another world view this is what I did at Harvard I said we're in the separation world view, do you agree? I mean there were underclassmen, there were postdocs in the room. They're like, yeah, we all agree, we never thought about it, but yeah, we all. And at Harvard, oh my gosh.
Jamie Winship:So you talk about separation world view. You talk about empire builders, like their whole career is like we got to Harvard. Does that give you identity. Does that give you identity? Yes, it does. It doesn't, but man does it. And so if I didn't go to Harvard, see, I'm down here. I didn't go to Harvard in the measurement world like that. So that's why we don't understand identity. Because even when I go into the church, its production, it's production is how famous is the pastor? All of this Empire nonsense. So you have Jesus and Caesar all the time. Connection connection versus separation, empire versus kingdom, right. So it's hard to maintain a true identity in a separation world view.
Doug Smith:Well, you're never gonna be out of work With a lot of work you've gone into, so let's, let's get practical and just you know this is a leadership podcast and clearly leaders deal with us all the time. As you were just mentioning, you help people change their identities. How can we move, and even help those we lead move from a separation identity to a connected connection identity?
Jamie Winship:So first is just to help people see that you have a worldview and it's dominating the way you live and think Like there were just not paying attention to it, right? So one is just the awareness of it. So when I write this, what we I teach up business ethics class at the university here, and when I'm teaching I'm on economics and I'm talking about this is the world view that everyone of you guys are gonna are in right now how you're understanding business. Your understanding business in a separation world. You, you're being taught business in a separation world. You and you're gonna embrace it as a separation world. You and you're gonna go out there and do it. So let's just pay attention what it is, and I listed it's shocking to them. It's shocking to them like, yeah, that is exactly what I think. Why do I think that? So one is just making them aware of it.
Jamie Winship:The second thing and this is what, what the question I asked at Harvard is okay, we agree that the separation world is not good, it's not healthy. The connection world view is a better option. Will you move from separation to connection? And they all said no, really, yeah, you know why. Do you know why not? Why they won't, they don't want to let go right, they're afraid yeah, what are they afraid of?
Jamie Winship:that the scarcity world. You will kill us. So then they asked me and this is what's hard for the marketplace? Because because business leaders, some business that we want to live and leave like Jesus. I'm like, really, is that really what you want? That sounds so sweet and that's such a empty cliche. So at Harvard they asked me who do you know that leads like this? Who? Because in our world you're just gonna get run over like Caesar. The empire's gonna run you over and you can be all nice and happy and sweet, but you're gonna get run over.
Jamie Winship:So they believe the lie. This is. This is this is pilot looking at Jesus saying don't you know, I have the power of life or death over you. That's the empire says that to people every day. Don't you know, we control your future. If we control your money, we control your future. And we say, yeah, that's right, you do, money does control my future. So what? So what you have to do?
Jamie Winship:When the Harvard guys said, what's a model of this, I said, well, martin Luther King King junior was a model. Gandhi was a model, nelson Mandela was a model. Their model was Jesus. And the first thing they all said was yeah, but they all died, right, they all sacrificed their life and I like, yeah, so now we're down to the real heart of it, right? So in the so for a, for a business leader who wants to bring transformation and not just be we call them chaplains for the empire just want to be a Christian making as much money off the empire should can. That's just a chaplain for the empire. We want to be priests in the kingdom. This costly, it's costly. But Jesus said if you seek first the kingdom, the rest will come with it. We don't believe that. We don't believe that. We think no, you got to play the rules, play by their rules and so. So for the leader, what stops them is fear.
Jamie Winship:So the number one thing, the number one excertion in scripture is don't be afraid. That is the number one. Why is that the number one excertion? Because fear shuts us down. Fear shuts down innovation is just down creativity, it's just down the true identity.
Jamie Winship:So the very first thing you have to teach anyone is what do we do with our fear? That's what you have to teach. Every, every conflict in the world is based and sourced in fear and false identity. That's where it starts. Once you're afraid, you're going to self protect and self promote. Once you're afraid, you're not going to create. You won't create. Once a student is afraid, they don't receive information.
Jamie Winship:So you have to institute practices in your company or in anything when number one is what do we do with negative emotion? What do we do with negative emotion? Fear and anger are the two main negative emotions fear and anger, and anger is secondary to fear. I become afraid, I get mad. That's what it is and it's happening every day in the workplace and companies silo and companies have internal conflict because the people are afraid, they're afraid of all kinds of stuff and nowhere do we deal with the fear. So we don't have wholeness in the workplace. We have fragmented people In the workplace.
Jamie Winship:So imagine I'm a police officer. I'm at home, I get in a fight with my wife, then I go to work, I put on a gun, I put on a badge and go out and I'm supposed to settle fights between people. But I just came from a fight that I don't know how to resolve. So I'm broken here, I'm conflicted here, and you're going to give me a gun in a badge and go say go solve their problems out there. What are you going to do? Like it's the most ridiculous idea possible. Now, if you sent a whole person into those broken places, that's a whole different story. But we're sending fragmented people to help fragmented people in a fragmented system.
Jamie Winship:So the key is wholeness. The way to wholeness is take away fear. Take away fear, guilt and shame. And now you're back at what Jesus came in the world to do. He came in the world to to destroy the work of the enemy and make us well. That's what he came to do, and we're not well. We're trying to act well, but we're not well. So what we do in our staff meetings? I've been in this, working in this group here, for two years now Every Tuesday, full staff meeting with our 16 leaders. Every Tuesday we start with what are you afraid of? It's called confession. Are you afraid of? No, that's what confession is. It's yeah, so good. And confession if you don't?
Jamie Winship:start with truth telling the whole rest of the things just going to be the same old thing. I mean, you might get rich in it, but nothing's getting better. Nothing's getting better and that and I don't care in the separation world view, as long as I'm getting better. I don't care about the rest because I'm not really connected to any of them. Right, I can just go live in my neighborhood and I don't have to worry about those bad people downtown because, because I'm separate from them and I that's the goal Is to get into my own little neighborhood with my own little team and the and the false belief that if those guys all pairs just not going to affect me, which is the biggest lie.
Jamie Winship:Right, because in the, in the universe that we're in, everything's connected, whether we like it or not. Right, I like that thing where they where they said the wolves in Yellowstone or are a nuisance, so they took them out, and when they took them out, the fish in the streams died, because everything is connected, all things are held together, all things are connected and what they had to put the wolves back Because it through the whole system out of whack. Well, if you have a population in your city that you don't care about you like, just get rid of them. There are nuisance. The whole system is going to die. This is what the Bible keeps trying to teach us, and we don't believe it.
Doug Smith:There's so much unpack, I guess I'm curious. So when it comes? You went back to just your basic definition of identity. I think you said it's an identity received in community by God and so I guess, if I to summarize the way I'm thinking, it's like okay one, you have to follow God and if you follow God To reveal to you who you really are, and then that gets work. Yes, ask him, and then that gets affirmed and worked out in community, hopefully, of other people who are following God.
Doug Smith:Community is one of our core values at L3 and we always tell people we want you to have a group in which you're fully known, fully loved and fully challenged. Is that? Is that if people have those two things, if they're following God and they have a group where those three things are present, will they start operating in the world of connectedness? And at that point I guess I would just be curious your input on. You know what does production look like in a connected world? Because is it no longer important? Hey, I don't have to produce, I have to prove anything, or yeah, I just want to hear you talk about that.
Jamie Winship:Yes, so okay. So in a community, yeah, so on a good team, on a really good team. So we brought a team together work on the concept of human trafficking. So our question to God was can we stop human trafficking? Our strategy in human trafficking is to clean up the mess that traffickers leave behind. That's our strategy. It's never gonna end, it's never gonna stop it. Can you stop it? That was our question to God. Why don't? I don't know why we're not asking these kinds of questions, not how do we cope with it, how do we stop it? Humans can do anything. It's unbelievable what humans were co creators with God at our highest level. That's what we are. So, anyway, you have a community come together. It's.
Jamie Winship:What's absolutely critical in the community is that they, each one in the community, knows who they are right. Okay, and so you have to go into this process. It watch. Jesus does this with everyone. He talks to. It's confession, repentance, transformation. This is the circle that we have to live in.
Jamie Winship:So in a in a community that's not necessarily Christian or based in the Bible, confession means truth, tell right. I talk about this in the book. Confession doesn't mean you're saying you're sorry for stuff Jesus never asked anyone to apologize to him? Not one time. Does he ever ask anyone to say they're sorry? Never, that's our thing. What he does demand is that they tell the truth. Confess means to tell the truth. Your community has to be committed to truth telling about this. Truth telling leads to repentance. Truth telling leads to mind change, which is repentance. If you don't tell the truth, no one's mind is ever going to change. You can meet in a group, you can pray in a group, you can do Bible study in the group. Nothing changes. I go into these groups like we've been meeting together for 25 years. I'm like why are you still here then? Why are you still here then? You bet, if you've been in community this long, nothing has changed. Like, if you are you being, if you've been being transformed for 25 years and you're still here Like I don't know, that sounds maybe, but tell me, like what's the transformation? Is your neighborhood dramatically transformed then? Because if you've been here that long, like, truth tell leads to mind change, repentance, and mind change leads to form change, transformation, truth tell, mind change, form change, confession, repentance, transformation. This is the message of the kingdom. So when your group gets together, you want to focus on truth telling.
Jamie Winship:So in our neighborhood we started a group people, I don't know them, we've been meeting for two years now. We invited them over for dinner, brought them together. They didn't really know each other and what we practice was truth telling. That's all we practice. I didn't do a Bible study with them. I said let's practice telling the truth together.
Jamie Winship:And they're that made them nervous, like about what I said, just like, what are you afraid of? And we just and I started you know, I'm afraid I'm insecure about the and then we just and. And then that's how we talked about, that's what we talked about. And the next week they couldn't wait to come get back into that, because no one addresses this, right. So they started telling the truth. And then the more they would tell, then they would start to change their thinking about it, and then the more we would say well, where does that fear really come from? What are you really afraid of? And eventually we got to as a group we don't believe that God is for us. That's wow. Hmm, so if God's not for you, then it's all on you in life, right? Yeah? And then you got to self protect and self promote, right? And then so yeah. And that was how does that make you feel anxious? Is all get out. And I said, ok, so let's figure out if God's for us or not. And that's how they started to become mind change and then they started saying you know what we should do? We should go down over here in our neighborhood and do this, wow, wow that. So that process. So I've been in groups. You know that are better. I've been in a mice. Have let them where.
Jamie Winship:I feel like you know, almost like the enemy is leading the group, because the group, some accountability groups, just become accusation groups. So like, for example, if I say in my group my name's Jamie and I was addicted to porn for 25 years, I'm like Jesus would never introduce you that way. He would never say that about you because that's the false you. He would never bring that up. He would say I'd like you to meet my friend Jesus's single mom. Well, he would never say that because single mom is accusing her of something right. So I always ask people how would Jesus introduce you? How would he if he brought you up here? He would say, hey, you know who this is. You know who I knit together in their mother's womb when I made this person and he says who we are, it would. You would be embarrassed at the level of how he talked about you. Wow, do you see what I mean? We're leading groups that focus on what the enemy says about us and not about what God says about us, because we don't know what God says about us. We never asked him. That's so good, do you see? And so when people come into that group, it's it like does something to their spirit. So when I'm meeting with employees and I say, tell me what you're, what are you most anxious about in your life? Because when you're coming to work you're distracted, like you're distracted. Tell me what is distracting you. So again, we did this.
Jamie Winship:We started doing this with school super and public school superintendents. They started bringing their principals in because of how much it affected them. They, public school, started bringing in their principals. Then they made the meetings open to all principals during the school day at the school board office, because it was making their principals whole.
Jamie Winship:A whole principal is a better leader than a fragmented, freaked out principal who's only looking at measurables in the school, getting his identity or her identity from the measurables. It's like your identity is your gift to your teachers. Figure out what your identity is. Give it to your teachers. Teachers, give your identity to your students. Teach them what identity is and their grades will go. So we did this in all the schools in our city here except one. At the end of the year all of their test scores went up, except the school that didn't participate. So when people say, well, if I go into the connection worldview, I'm not gonna be successful, I'm like, oh my gosh, you will be successful at a level you wouldn't even know how to measure. You won't even know how to measure it because you're so. You're just gonna let this little scale tell you whether you're successful or not. Let the one who made you tell you, show you what success is.
Doug Smith:What does experiencing pressure look like in a connected world? So you've worked with, say, high stakes. I mean you still have to produce right. That principle still has things that they're being measured by. Is it you just no longer care whether or not you hit your goals? Like I'm just curious, how do you view?
Jamie Winship:that. So I'll give you an example. I'll give you an example Like a lot of them, because we work in this all the time. So the measurables, the measurables are fine, as long as you don't get your identity from them. That's the key. Don't get your identity from the measurables. Bring your identity into the vocation. Don't get it from the vocation, and you can't lose it in the vocation. So we say it like this you bring your identity into the room. You keep your identity while you're in the room and you don't leave it in the room. You bring it in and you take it when you leave. A person who can do that is gonna be your highest performer, right, because they're bringing the true self and because they don't get their identity from things, they do it with more freedom and grace and creativity. So here's my. This happened to me yesterday from my own.
Jamie Winship:So like I wanted to write the screenplay. I don't know anything about writing a screenplay, I know nothing about it. I can read every book there is on screenplays and here's what they tell you You're not gonna make it, you're 63, you're gonna start Like do you know how hard this industry is? It's impossible. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Now if I believed all that, I wouldn't do anything, because it would scare me, it would make me afraid. But I'm not afraid, because I don't wanna get my identity from it. I wanna bring my identity to an idea and write it out as a script. So I do that. I do that and then I just carry the script with me. Like I carry it around with me because now I'm looking for wow, now that I have the script, I should start looking around for the opportunity that God wouldn't give me if I didn't have a script. Do you see that? Yeah, it's like, put your toe in the Jordan and the Jordan will move, but standing back praying, it'll move Wrong way, wrong way to do it. So I carry the script with me.
Jamie Winship:I'm in this scenario, talking to this person, and the person says to me he says, well, that'd be an interesting story. Have you ever thought about reading a script? Well, why did I write a script? Because one time, when I was praying, this idea came to my mind. It's like this invitation, the whole Bible, is one giant invitation from God to humanity, one giant invitation, and all it is is who took the invitation and what happened, and what happens when you don't and why don't you? And the reason you won't take the invitation is because you don't know who you are. That's why. So Israel goes all the way to the promised land. They go all the way there ready to go in, and they're like we can't go in. Why? Because we're grasshoppers in our own eyes and they won't go. The Lord's like let me know what day you wanna go in. Let me know what day one year, 10 years, 20 years, any day you say we wanna go, we'll go. But if you're just gonna do this, you're gonna work that factory job for 100 years because it's safe and secure. You're gonna die there, but you could go over here. You could do this.
Jamie Winship:So I show the script to this guy. These things work out. I get out of these bizarre circumstances and my main goal is to bless the person I'm talking to. I don't care about presenting the script. So this person says I want you to meet this person. I go to this person. I start talking to this person. I said tell me how you deal with fear in your life. I'm asking this person and the person gets emotional. I'm under so much pressure, I don't know. And I walk him through this process.
Jamie Winship:It turns out he's a major producer.
Jamie Winship:I don't know who he is.
Jamie Winship:You never know who people are.
Jamie Winship:It doesn't matter who they are. Would I be different with him if I knew he was a major producer? He knew I didn't know that and I spent three days with him, walking him through his own personal woundedness. And then he says to me you're a good storyteller. Have you ever written a script? Yeah, he goes, I wanna see it. I said I don't wanna show it to you. I don't wanna show it to you because I don't want that to be our relationship. And he goes do you know who I am? And I said I do now, but it doesn't make any difference, because that's not your identity, that's your vocation. He would walk me around the studio going this is my new friend, jamie.
Jamie Winship:He's the first person that refuses to let me see us. So finally I let him read it and yesterday was the first time I sat with him and he just went through it line by line. He said get rid of this. Why would I not do any of that fear Of what? I'm not good enough, I'm not enough. I've never written a script before. They're gonna think it's stupid, not enough, not enough, not enough. Not enough so God can't invite, not enough into anything. So it comes back to identity and hearing God, right and then. So then production goes up and Jesus says he who abides in me will bear fruit, and it will be fruit that remains, but it's fruit you'll never predict. You'll never predict. So that's production is the result, it's not the goal.
Doug Smith:Well, unfortunately, Jamie, we're out of time. I wish we could go on. I could go on for like five hours. Hopefully we can do this again sometime. But if you're listening to this and wanna connect with Jamie, we'll include links to all the ways that you connect with him. He has a book and multiple ways that you can connect, but I can't encourage you enough to dive in. Just anything else you wanna leave leaders with today, Jamie?
Jamie Winship:Hearing God and knowing who he made you to be. That's it. That's the secret.
Doug Smith:Well, thank you so much for investing in me and everyone who will listen to this. You add massive value to the world. Thank you, thank you. Well, hey, leader, thank you so much for listening to my conversation with Jamie. I hope that you enjoyed it as much as I did. You can find ways to connect with him and links to everything that we discussed in the show notes at l3leadershiporg forward slash 402.
Doug Smith:And, as always, I like to end every episode with a quote, and this is the last episode of 2023. And so, if you're listening to this, you're likely getting ready for the new year, and one of my favorite new year quotes that I share every year is by John Maxwell. He said this. He said although you cannot go back and have a brand new start, my friend, anyone can start now and have a brand new end, and I hope you and your family have a wonderful new year. I hope you have an awesome start to 2024. Let's go get it next year and, as always, know that my wife and I love you. We believe in you and I say it every episode but don't quit, keep leading. The world desperately needs your leadership. We'll talk to you in 2024.