PODCAST | Equipping The Next Generation To Lead Well (feat. Aaron & Hannah Barnett)

Resources:

For more information here are some resources:

https://www.generationdistinct.com/

https://leadnet.org/generation-next/

http://www.hannahgronowski.com/

Follow the Barnett’s on Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/aaronrbarnett_/

https://www.instagram.com/hannah.g.barnett/

Transcript:

Christa Neidig:
Welcome to the Vanderbloemen Leadership Podcast. I'm your host, Christa Neidig, Manager of Marketing and Business Development here at Vanderbloemen. In today's podcast, I get to talk with Hannah and Aaron Barnett. Aaron is a research specialist at Exponential and the Director of Strategy and Partnerships at Generation Distinct. Hannah is the founder and CEO of Generation Distinct, as well as a speaker and author. Together, they work to serve and inspire the next generation, promoting justice and encouraging others to make a difference. In this conversation, Aaron and Hannah share about their mission to help young leaders discover their purpose and emphasize the significance of experienced leaders and investing in Generation Z. They discuss practical strategies for reaching this upcoming generation and share stories of how young leaders from around the world are linking arms to build a better world. We hope you enjoy this conversation.
Well, hey, everyone, thanks so much for tuning in today. I'm so excited because I get to talk to my friends, Hannah and Aaron, the Barnetts. Welcome, guys.

Aaron Barnett:
Hey, we are so excited to be here.

Hannah Barnett:
We are. Thank you so much for inviting us on.

Christa Neidig:
Oh, of course. Well, over the little bit of time I've gotten to know you two and hear more of your story and just see your love for the next generation, I knew that we had to have this conversation and talk all about your two organizations and what you're doing and what's next, but also just to your heart for the next generation and how we, as church leaders, can support and love Gen Z.

Hannah Barnett:
I love that.

Aaron Barnett:
I love it. This is-

Hannah Barnett:
Thanks-

Aaron Barnett:
Yeah, go for it.

Hannah Barnett:
Thanks so much for being willing to have that conversation. I think that's something that we so appreciate about everything that you all are doing as an organization, is that you recognize the importance of reaching the next generation, speaking the language of the next generation, adjusting to reach them in whatever way is possible, and I really respect that.

Aaron Barnett:
Yeah, I second that. That's something I was going to say.

Christa Neidig:
Well, y'all are sweet. Well, Hannah, Aaron, why don't you both kind of give a little intro to listeners who may not have heard of you or your work and what all you're doing.

Hannah Barnett:
Sure.

Aaron Barnett:
You want to start?

Hannah Barnett:
Sure. My name is Hannah Gronowski Barnett, and I'm the CEO and founder of a nonprofit organization called Generation Distinct. And our mission is we are trying to use the conversations the next generation's already having around passion, purpose, and justice to bring them into conversations about Jesus, the Gospel, and the Great Commission. And we do that through six-month cohorts of young leaders from around the world to come in and really understand how they can be an innovative missionary sent out into every sphere of society.
So that's my main heart, my main work. I'm also a speaker, author. I'm also a wife to this amazing leader next to me named Aaron. And I'm a friend, and I just really do believe that my calling in the world is to unleash the calling of other leaders. I believe that every single person has a wrong they were born to make right, and it is my joy and my honor to be able to walk alongside of leaders as they discover what that is and step into that calling.

Aaron Barnett:
I love it. I love it. Yeah, I'm Aaron Barnett. I work for Exponential. If you're not familiar, we are all about multiplication in movements, and so we want to see multiplying healthy disciples through our organization. We also have a huge emphasis on church planting. And so I'm the next-gen catalyst at Exponential, and we believe that the future of the church is bright and that future church planters are beautiful and inspiring and empowering. So my job is to create a space for young leaders to belong, but also build the future of the church together.

Hannah Barnett:
That's right.

Christa Neidig:
That's so great. Hannah, I want to hear all about the start of your organization because you started from a young age. I love when anytime you share about your organization, you just light up. It's the coolest thing to see. It's so evident how this is your passion and what the Lord's using you for right now. So I want to give you a second to share or a little time to share your story and how you got here even from a young age.

Hannah Barnett:
Sure. It's really fun to reflect back because I think so often as leaders, we can focus so much on the future. And I know I, for one, absolutely live most of my life in the future. Both of us do. So it is a really good reminder even for me to reflect back on where this all started. And really where this started for me was a 16-year-old girl with a really big dream. When I was 16 years old, I had already said yes to following Jesus. I had already started to give my life to Him. I started reading scripture. I was passionately following Him, but I felt like there was still something missing because I had seen stories in scripture of these people who truly gave their entire lives towards the cause of the mission of Jesus, and I wanted to know what is my unique role in the mission of Jesus.

Aaron Barnett:
Yeah, that's good.

Hannah Barnett:
So when I was 16 years old, I remember praying this prayer. I journaled it. I still have the journal where I said, "All right, Jesus, whatever you want me to do with my life, it's yours. Here it is. I want to go all in on your mission." And as I did that, I thought there was going to be this flash of revelation or this really clear mandate that God just gave me, and it wasn't that way. There was a few months of what felt like silence, where I just continued to ask and pray and seek. And four months for a 16-year-old feels like a really long time, and so it really tested my commitment.

Aaron Barnett:
I love it.

Hannah Barnett:
But after about four months, I was sitting on my parents' couch, and I was reading this book about a lot of the major injustice in the world. And so I read through it. My heart broke for injustice after injustice.

Aaron Barnett:
Wow!

Hannah Barnett:
And at the end of the book I wondered, "God, what does this mean for me? What are you inviting me into, God? I want to know what is my unique role in your mission? What do you want me to do on this earth?" And it was in that moment where I felt that God gave me a really clear impression. I felt He was saying, "Hannah, you're not called to solve all of the injustice in the world. You don't have to make all the wrong things right on your own. Instead, I want to use you to empower a generation to make wrong things right in the world, and in so doing, you'll have a greater impact."
And so I ran up to my bedroom at the time, and I had a whiteboard. And at 16, I started drawing out all these ideas and dreams and plans for what it would look like to empower and equip my generation to actually discover the wrong they were born to make right, but not to stop there, but to build a strategy to accomplish it. And then from there, it continued to grow.
When I was around 20 working at a local church, I noticed that the next generation was walking away. We've heard the 70% statistic, and I was seeing it in real time in my own peers. And as I started to inquire and ask, "Man, where are you going? What is better than Jesus?" a lot of what I heard was they wanted to go away because they wanted to change the world and fight for justice and chase after their passions and dreams. And there was this disconnect I was noticing between a generation that desperately wanted to change the world and a God who ultimately, I believe, created them for that. And for some reason, they were not understanding the only reason they even want to do that is because-

Aaron Barnett:
That's good.

Hannah Barnett:
... they're made in the image of a restorative, redemptive God. And so we said, "Man, what if I could actually use that desire to help bring them back to Jesus, and then in so doing, launch them into the mission of Jesus in a way that actually creates radical, lasting change in the world?" So at 20 years old, that was kind of the birth of the strategy. Over the next two and a half years, our team that I grew that was all volunteers, 20, 21-year-olds, that we kind of developed this six-month training program. We collaborated with over 50 leaders from around the world who are way smarter and more experienced than we were. And then in early 2021, we launched our first cohorts through our program. And now we've had over 130 young leaders-

Aaron Barnett:
Amazing.

Hannah Barnett:
... from nine different countries come through this six-month training program.

Aaron Barnett:
She's killing it.

Hannah Barnett:
And we're seeing them unleash as innovative missionaries into every sphere of society. And there's so much more that's ahead, but that's really the core of where we've come from.

Christa Neidig:
It's so exciting. I love hearing it every time she shares that. I also love how Aaron's just the most supportive. He's like, "She's killing it!"

Aaron Barnett:
Yeah.

Christa Neidig:
She's doing great. And I also-

Aaron Barnett:
I try to be the biggest cheerleader.

Christa Neidig:
Well, I just love how the two of you both have this huge heart for the next generation, and the Lord just gave you a place for that. I love how you can see into the next generation so well of this desire for a purpose and a drive, something they can work for. We were looking into studies the other day, and it was like one of the top things that people want in a workplace is to know that their work matters and that they have purposeful work. And I think that really is something core to this next generation that we're seeing.

Aaron Barnett:
Yeah, totally.

Christa Neidig:
And you're doing such a great job of equipping these young leaders with this.

Hannah Barnett:
Thank you. Thank you. It is one of our biggest heartbeats, and Aaron talks about this a lot, that we have an opportunity. We're both young leaders in a sense, but there's a generation even after us. I'm 28 years old, and so some people are looking at me as the next generation. And I'm honored, and I'm working to do the best I can with my 20s, and yet there's also 18, 19, 20-year-olds who have capacity to lead. And Aaron and I have a huge passion around unleashing even them.

Aaron Barnett:
Yeah. So what does it look like to take this moment in our lives to steward it really well, be faithful with what God placed in our hands, to lead down, but then also lead up as well? So yeah.

Christa Neidig:
Aaron, you and Exponential got to launch this thing called the NEXTGEN2DAY event this year.

Aaron Barnett:
Yes.

Christa Neidig:
I was so honored to attend and get to see it in person. Tell our audience all about it and everything that it was, because it was great.

Aaron Barnett:
Yeah, it was so cool to have you guys. Honestly, just wowed by what God did there. Super special to come alongside of the work at Exponential to build something that the next generation can attach themselves to and say, "Yeah, I do believe that the future of the church is brilliant and beautiful and inspiring and compelling and empowering, and I want to be a part of that." At Exponential, I came on as a researcher and was there for around six months, and I was like, "Hey, what would it look like to actually start some Next Gen initiatives at Exponential?" And so we actually had our two-day event in March that y'all got to attend, and it was incredible. We had around 212 young leaders come out for it.
And the vision behind it was my wife was actually being interviewed just like this on a podcast, and she actually brought up that statistic of the 70%. And I was shaving in the bathroom, and I was thinking to myself, "Man, death and life are in the power of the tongue. And what if we are speaking death over a whole generation walking away from the church by talking about statistics, that they are the statistic?"

Hannah Barnett:
Right.

Aaron Barnett:
So Hannah and I have really told ourselves privately, "Hey, what does it look like to really debunk that narrative as a unit, as a team, as Next Gen leaders to say, 'Hey, we believe that the next generation is the future of the church, and we want to build it with you'"? And so I pushed that to our executive team and said, "Hey, I want to create an event where the next generation find a place to truly belong, where they say, 'Hey, we are so better together. When we are on mission together, when we say yes to a God-sized dream of even to become church planters, what could it look like in 5, 10, 20 years from now?'" What started at Exponential blooms out of that from a multiplication aspect.
So we launched it. We had Next Gen speakers, Next Gen worship leaders. This year, we're innovating. We're excited to partner with people like yourself, where it's, "Hey, how do we actually have great minds at the table to mentor, to invest, to bring the why behind the what of what you guys are building and see what God could actually birth through the lens of authenticity, passion, and purpose?" So we're excited to see what the next generation wants to do with the future of the church. That's a little bit about what we're building at Exponential, and we can't wait to see what God has next.

Christa Neidig:
It's going to be great. I'm excited to see it. I'm glad that we happen to have a great seat to watch a little glimpse of it, and I know it's going to continue to grow into great places. Aaron, one of my favorite moments of the whole conference... You probably won't even remember this because you were doing everything that week, but you came up to me, and you were like, "Okay, I want you to take notes. If there's anything with feedback, I'm open to all the feedback. I'm open to... I just want to make this better and better." And that really stuck with me from a leader standpoint, of imagine if every leader just wanted to make it better for God and continue to ask those questions. I just thought it was so great. That really stood out to me.

Aaron Barnett:
Thanks. Yeah, I believe that curiosity is a marker of a great leader. A lot of my mentors have taught me that. I think when curiosity exists, hungry is on the other side. So I'm honored that you would call that out in me because I do try to be a curious leader, so thank you.

Christa Neidig:
Of course.
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Okay. I want to talk a little bit about the next generation. I know we've talked about some great resources so far for it. But for a lot of our listeners that aren't in that next generation, they might be older, we have a lot of people that are asking us questions about what they can know about Gen Z. What are the markers of Gen Z? What are the trends? What are the things we need to know? How can we reach Gen Z? We get these questions a lot, and it's a really big topic, especially when we see them... how much of the population they're about to make up and how it's important as church leaders to reach them.

Hannah Barnett:
Yes, absolutely.

Aaron Barnett:
Yeah, absolutely.

Hannah Barnett:
Go ahead. I actually think that one of the biggest concepts that Aaron and I are seeing is this idea of positional influence versus personal influence.

Aaron Barnett:
Yeah.

Hannah Barnett:
And Aaron is really good at talking about this. You want to share a little bit about that?

Aaron Barnett:
Yeah. When you paint a canvas, you have the canvas, and then you have the frame typically. And I would say I see a canvas that has a word called margin on it, and the frame around that is positional influence versus personal influence. In previous generations, a lot of organizational development, business development, church structure, the list goes on, is through the lens of positional power, positional influence. So it's a top-down approach, where the next generation is very deep and wide. So they look at their peers. They look at their friends. They grew up on social media. They grew up on secular platforms like TikTok, Instagram, Twitter, the list goes on. And what a lot of these platforms actually do for the next generation is they empower this personal influence.
So what I see with the next generation and the future of the church, where we have such a beautiful opportunity to innovate, is how do we take a generation that grew up on a co-creating, relational connection or positional connection and bring it into a place of positional power? So what I have felt with the next generation is there's a big gap between personal influence and positional influence. And I think we, as senior-level leaders, we have such a great opportunity to baton pass, to invite the next generation to use their voice, to sit at the table, sit in executive meetings, to co-create with the organizations that we get to be a part of. Why? Because they have grown up in a world that is surrounding them with personal influence.

Hannah Barnett:
Right.

Aaron Barnett:
So I feel like if we could actually tap into their heartbeat, their lifeblood of, "Hey, I don't want to just come in and serve and hold the doors and be a small-group leader and the list goes on, or be a youth pastor or young-adult pastor, but I want to be a part of the mission of our church, the co-creation of our future, where it could go."
And I heard a great leader, I think Craig Groeschel mentioned this, is people really care about what you care about. And I feel like the next generation deeply cares about our organizational development, but they want to know that you care about their voice. As a younger leader myself, and we've both been young, we also know, even as yourself, we sat in rooms that most of the time we didn't have positional influence. We actually didn't have money backing us. We only had sometimes our ideas and our voice. So what if we could actually capitalize on the ideation of the next generation and their voice of how they see the world to say, "Hey, if you were me, what would you do?"

Hannah Barnett:
Right.

Aaron Barnett:
When we actually take a posture of Jesus and humble ourselves to say, "Hey, I want to learn from you. I want to be curious. I want to see how you see our church or the future of it," I think that's where our beautiful innovation starts.

Hannah Barnett:
Absolutely.

Aaron Barnett:
Hannah, if you want to share anything else, you can.

Hannah Barnett:
Absolutely. No, I have seen that too. In the work that we do at Generation Distinct, we're really trying to unleash every single young leader in their unique passion, but directing it towards the mission of Jesus. And one of the reasons that we're trying to do that so intentionally is because the next generation will lead with or without us.

Aaron Barnett:
Right, right.

Hannah Barnett:
And this is the opportunity, but also the danger. I mean, there's some real danger in the next generation leading without a covering, leading without mentors, leading without individuals who can sharpen them, who can provide perspective for them. So if the next generation is going to lead with or without us, the exciting thing is that they're going to lead. And Gen Z and millennials, I have found, are somewhat different in that. I'm right in between. I'm either the youngest millennial or the oldest Gen Z. I'm somewhat of a Zillennial. So I kind of understand both perspectives.
But millennials were known... Time Magazine came out with an article about the me, me, me generation. But at the same time, they were considered the most social justice-conscious generation of all time. There was this weird paradox to them. Millennials were famous for saying they cared, but were really doing very little that inconvenienced their own life to make any lasting change. Gen Z is different in that they grew up seeing the millennials talk really big game and do very little, and so Gen Z has almost had this reaction to that. And therefore, they're leading at greater speeds. They're going at different paces, and they're going with or without leaders who are covering them.
So senior leaders, we can either see that as a threat to our organizations, to our infrastructures, to our businesses and ministries, or we can see it as an opportunity to partner with them and to see their impact multiplied because we're willing to maybe even take a back seat and empower them and cheer them on because we're the one discipling them in the background, right?
There's a young woman that I've been able to invest in mentoring for about eight years now. And when she was 13, I think I was 18 or 19, and I just started investing in her because I saw that she didn't really know where she was going in life and she had a lot of potential. And now about eight years later, I'm 28. She is 19, and she has built a lot of leadership for herself. She, just a couple days ago, was out speaking at an event. She's an athlete, and she's on her way to the Olympics. So she has now this little platform that has grown that she can reach all these athletes that I would never be able to reach.
There have even been some events that have brought me in to speak about how I invested in her life, not even what I've built. And I could either see that as, oh, well, they should be asking me about what I've built and all I've accomplished, or I could say, "No, the best thing I can do with my life as a leader is to try and invest in other young leaders so much so that they outpace me, that they do more than me." If we can have this abundance mindset when it comes to investing in the next generation of leaders, I think we'll find ourselves leaving even deeper, more robust legacies than if we were to just focus on our own leadership.

Aaron Barnett:
Yeah. And I think to that point is when I see the canvas of positional influence and personal influence surrounding this canvas of margin, a lot of what we see in the life of Jesus even, he created margin for the things that matter.

Hannah Barnett:
Absolutely.

Aaron Barnett:
And I think we would do a disservice to ourselves if we didn't prioritize margin in our own calendars to actually reach the next generation.

Hannah Barnett:
Yeah.

Aaron Barnett:
Culture is what you create or what you allow. We've heard this multiple, multiple times. So what Hannah and I have really even tried to adopt and change in our own life when it comes down to the next generation is how are we creating margin in our own organizational calendar, our personal calendar, for the next generation? When we prioritize that and we prioritize the life of Jesus, of creating margin for the things that matter, what are we actually doing then, what Hannah was talking about? We're actually being about discipleship and mentorship. And I think the next generation is craving leaders, senior-level leaders, leaders like myself, leaders like you that are saying, "Hey, I'm going to carve out time in my own calendar to see you, to believe in you, and find ways to even empower you."

Hannah Barnett:
Absolutely. Yeah. That's great.

Christa Neidig:
I wanted to ask on that, what are some of those keys to discipleship and mentoring this younger generation? What do you think some markers of that would be?

Aaron Barnett:
Go ahead.

Hannah Barnett:
I think one of the most impactful things in my life, if I look at the leaders who have created space for me, and there are so many of them, one of the biggest pieces is not so much that they sat down with me and gave me all the perfect advice. They didn't go through a million books with me. They didn't fix all of my issues. The biggest thing they did was they invited me into their own life and leadership. And by understanding how to do it because I saw it, it has equipped me to lead in real spaces.
Sometimes when we learn about leadership through a book or on a stage, those things are all great, but it can feel very disconnected from what it actually feels like to lead in normal life. But some of the memories that I have that are most impactful to me is when one of my mentors, Aubrey, who is a pastor and a phenomenal communicator, an author of multiple books and very gifted, she would just invite me over to her house. She lives in Chicagoland, and I would get to see how she is working on a sermon while cleaning up her kitchen and telling her kids to behave and then going and leaving and hosting a radio show.

Aaron Barnett:
Yep, yep, it's so good.

Hannah Barnett:
And I got to just be in her atmosphere while she was doing that. Or I got to see the way my pastor, when I was on staff at a church when I was about 18, 19, even though I wasn't on high-level teams, he would invite me into those meetings just so I could see how it worked and see what they were talking about. It was leaders who created space for me to just be a part of their life and leadership. So that has impacted how I lead.
And even now, most of the time when I'm traveling for a speaking engagement or for a conference, I'll often have a young woman with me, an 18, 19, 20-year-old woman who also feels called to speak or lead in some capacity. And I'll say, "Hey, I might not have all this time to have a weekly meeting with you, but come with me, and I'll show you what it looks like when I do a sound check. I'll show you what my notes look like on my iPad. I'll talk you through what I do before a sermon to prepare." And I'll give them a glimpse. I'll give them access-

Aaron Barnett:
Yeah, that's good.

Hannah Barnett:
... to my life. And I don't even have that much wisdom yet to share, I know, compared to so many leaders. I've just thought, though, "If I can start that now in my 20s, then how many more decades will I have of leadership inviting young people with me?"

Aaron Barnett:
Yeah, that's great.

Hannah Barnett:
And I think every senior leader can do that. Whether you are a full-time parent and you're a leader, you can invite them into your life. Or if you're a full-time in ministry, you can invite them into meetings with you. You can have them follow along with you as you're sermon-prepping. If you are a full-time business leader-

Aaron Barnett:
It's so good.

Hannah Barnett:
... invite them into the executive team meeting. Have them sit on the side and take notes and unpack it afterwards. Find the leaders in your circle who are just looking for access and invite them into what you're already doing.

Aaron Barnett:
Yeah. And I would add to that is two things. I was going to say three, but you covered one of them. But two things is, in my own personal leadership and development growth, I've grown exponentially when leaders said, "Hey, I'm going to toss you into the deep end. I hope you can swim."

Hannah Barnett:
Absolutely.

Aaron Barnett:
And when leaders have done that, I have found my capacity to grow. But then I've also found that not every leader wants to toss you in the deep end and watch you fail, but actually provide coaching. And I think that is a true marker of what we can do for the next generation, is how do we give them personal influence or positional influence to actually say, "Hey, I'm going to toss you into something that is going to challenge you, that is going to scare you, that is going to probably bring a lot of fear or even anxiety in your own life, but I'm going to sit back and be so pleased as a senior-level leader because I get to sit on the back end and watch you flourish and walk out... like in real time work out your calling and what God has anointed you for."

Hannah Barnett:
Yeah.

Aaron Barnett:
So that would be one. And then two, I would just say is, yeah, just to touch on this topic again, is how are you creating margin in your calendar for the next generation? I've also seen just inviting. If you're an invitational leader, we can grow so much as young people. I'm sure in your own life when you've been invited or when a senior-level leader has been so curious to say, "Hey, what do you see? What do you think we should change here?" I think that adds so much value to-

Hannah Barnett:
Absolutely.

Aaron Barnett:
... not only you as a senior-level leader, but then also it creates this "it" factor in your organization or in your church when people know that they are extremely valued.

Hannah Barnett:
Yes. Absolutely.

Aaron Barnett:
And I don't know about you, but in my personal experience as a young person, I go where I feel valued.

Hannah Barnett:
Absolutely.

Aaron Barnett:
And so when people value your mind or your heart or your emotions or the way that you see the world or the way that you see the local church, I think we're going to see great expansion or great beauty just kind of flourish from that point.

Hannah Barnett:
Absolutely.

Aaron Barnett:
So those are the things I would add.

Christa Neidig:
I love it. I think it's so sweet, Hannah, the way you talked about the wonderful mentors and people you discipled and you took in. I, as you were talking, couldn't help but think of the people that did that for me and just the mark that leaves. And then also you talked about church leaders. I was thinking of one example. My senior pastor at my church growing up, every year he would have summer interns at the church, and he always would take the interns to hospital visits with him and go pray over people in the church that were sick. Or he would take them along to pray over newborn babies or do these things that it's like this is the ministry that we get to do.
And I remember hearing stories and stories of interns that would share like, "Oh, I got to go with Pastor Steve to do this. Oh, I got to pray over this newborn child." And it's just so beautiful, like how simple an opportunity. He's like, "Hey, I'll bring you to lunch, and then we're going to run by the hospital and do this, and you get to come along and ask as many questions as you want on the drive there." And I just loved it. That was how he created that margin and that space. He knew he had to drive there anyway, so why not bring the intern along so they can learn what ministry really looks like?

Aaron Barnett:
Absolutely. Yep. I love it.

Hannah Barnett:
That's so cool. That's powerful.

Christa Neidig:
I need to keep an eye on the time over here because I know we're getting close to the end, but I have so many questions, of course, because I just love the way that your hearts adore this next generation and the things they're going to do. I want to talk... Before we end, I just want to ask some questions to you as leaders and some things that other leaders and young leaders can learn about taking care of yourself as a leader and how you can be a good... I think you mentioned earlier, the next generation's going to lead with or without us, and we want to provide them some guidelines. So what are some things that you would tell young leaders to think about and take care of themselves so they can lead well?

Aaron Barnett:
Wow, it's such a great question.

Hannah Barnett:
It's so important. And one of the things that-

Aaron Barnett:
It's super important.

Hannah Barnett:
... I believe has been a really big deal for my leadership are the people that I have in place who keep me grounded, and there's a few different groups. I'll mention three different groups. There's the people who are investing in me, the people who we're mutually investing in each other, and then the people that I'm investing in. Those are kind of my three levels of people in my life that I have said, "I will always have these three categories."
First, those investing in me. I have a woman who's more of a mentor spiritually. She's that person I can call with the random question of am I being a good wife? Am I totally missing it here? Am I crazy? Am I making a wrong leadership decision? She's kind of an overall spiritual mentor to me.
And then also I have an emotional health coach who I meet with every other week. We both meet with him individually. And he is that person that will take me deep, who will say, "Hey, where are you personally at spiritually? Where are you emotionally? Are you mentally healthy?" And will also help me recognize when I'm not and how to overcome that. And he's my really healthy check-in there. So I have that going as well as a lot of other... I have business mentors and entrepreneurial mentors, and there's so many individuals who I've intentionally placed in my life to invest in me.

Aaron Barnett:
Yep.

Hannah Barnett:
And then I have individuals that we're mutually investing in, and I have a few different groups of friends. I have two of my closest girlfriends who've known me for a long time, and our group text is called Core Team. And that was an intentional conversation we had with all three of us. We said, "Hey, we're going to be each other's core team," which means when I'm feeling... When I wake up with a lot of anxiety over leadership, I don't just have to keep that to myself or just tell my husband. I have girls that I will text and say, "Hey, you all, I need you to know I have a lot of anxiety right now. I'm not okay. I need you to remind me who I am. I need you to remind me I'm more than my leadership." And they're the people that will show up when I really need people. That's my Core Team. We also have a group of couples who intentionally arrange their lives and have said, "Our marriages are going to be stronger because we have these other couples in our lives that we intentionally get away with."

Aaron Barnett:
For sure.

Hannah Barnett:
Once a year, we all take a trip. And then also throughout the year, we are checking on each other. We're keeping each other accountable. The men are saying, "Hey, how can I be a better husband?" The women are saying, "How can I be a better wife?" There's that accountability. And then there's the people I'm investing in. And actually, those people keep you healthy as a leader because when young people see you up close, they're not that impressed by you, right?

Aaron Barnett:
Yep, yep.

Hannah Barnett:
If I go speak at a conference to a room of a thousand young people, I might start to feel that I'm kind of cool because all the young people are trying to take pictures with me, and they think I'm something. But when I get home to Chicago and I take out the young girl I'm discipling or mentoring out for coffee, she does not think it's funny that I'm five minutes late, and she will tell me. And she does not think I'm that important and cool, and that's good. We need to be surrounded by people who are not impressed by us. That's something that I have said often, and I continue to believe it. All three of those categories, none of those people are impressed by me. None of those people think I'm anything that special outside of my own identity as a daughter of the King. And I'm grateful for that. And that is, I think, a really important element for every young leader to have in place.

Aaron Barnett:
Yeah, that's so good. A lot of what Hannah touched on is my own personal rhythms, but one thing I would just add for if you're a young leader listening to this podcast is health is on the other side of your ask.

Hannah Barnett:
That's good.

Aaron Barnett:
And what I mean by that is when Jesus looked at Peter when Peter was... He was toiling all night, trying to cast his net in the water to catch all this fish. He was like, "Jesus, we toiled all night. We toiled all night. We didn't catch anything." And he cast his net on the other side of the boat, and he pulls up so much fish that his nets were breaking, his boat was sinking, and he needed a community and an army of people to pull up the amount of fish that he caught in that moment. And I don't know about you, but when my boat is breaking or my nets are breaking or I need the community around me, I am thankful for friends that have the heart of Jesus and provide everything I need.
So I would just say, if you're listening to this, find people that when you are in a crushing season, emotionally, physically, spiritually, mentally, whatever it is, that when you are in need of something just like Peter was, that you have people in your life that says, "There is a source, and his name is Jesus. And have you gone to him first?"

Hannah Barnett:
Good.

Aaron Barnett:
So I would just add that. Out of that place, that secret place of just going to Jesus first, you really find everything you need: peace, abundance, hope, faith, and the list goes on.

Hannah Barnett:
That's great.

Aaron Barnett:
That's one thing I would add as well.

Christa Neidig:
Well, thank you, thank you, thank you so much for hopping on here and having this conversation with me. I know it's going to be so fruitful for so many. Real quick, where can listeners hear more about your ministries that you get to be a part of? And we'll make sure to add links and everything to show notes so they can find that.

Aaron Barnett:
Yeah, you can find me on Instagram. That's typically where I post the most, even though I'm not huge on social, is aaronrbarnett_. You can also check out our website. We have our big conference in Orlando every year in March, and then we have different regional events throughout the country. And you can check those out at exponential.org.

Hannah Barnett:
That's right. And you can find out more about me at hannah.g.barnett on all socials, and then as well at generationdistinct.com. And that is where you can find out more about our cohorts, our partnership with churches, and other ways that you all can get involved.

Christa Neidig:
Wonderful. Well, thank you guys again so much.

Hannah Barnett:
Thank you so much. Thanks for all that you're doing.

Aaron Barnett:
You're welcome. Thanks for having us.

Hannah Barnett:
We're so grateful and honored to be a part of it.

Christa Neidig:
Thanks for listening to the Vanderbloemen Leadership Podcast. At Vanderbloemen, we help Christian organizations build their best teams through hiring, succession, compensation, and diversity consulting services. Visit our website, vanderbloemen.com, to learn more and subscribe to our Vanderbloemen Leadership Podcast wherever you listen to podcasts to keep up with our newest episodes. Thanks for listening.