Graced to Lead

Ep. 11: Getting Unstuck - Finding Clarity and Purpose in Leadership with Pat Layton

• Belinda Gaston • Season 1 • Episode 11

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Feeling stuck in your leadership role? Join us on Grace to Lead as we welcome the incredible Pat Layton, who shares her wisdom on navigating those moments of stagnation. Learn how to recognize when you’re stuck and the importance of pausing for clarity. Pat’s practical steps and personal stories provide actionable advice to help you move forward with confidence and purpose. This episode is packed with insights into overcoming professional, spiritual, and personal roadblocks.

Discover the profound role of patience and reflection during times of transition with Pat, as she underscores the need to stop and listen for divine guidance. We delve into the power of gratitude, especially during challenges, and how it can transform your faith journey. Pat's current projects, including the "Imagine Me Set Free" Bible study, offer resources for women leaders. Tune in for a dose of encouragement and practical tips that will inspire you to lead with a heart full of gratitude and grace.

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Speaker 1:

Welcome to the Grace to Lead podcast. I'm Belinda Gaston, your host, and listen. If you are a Christian woman who leads at work or in your own business, you are in the right place here. You'll find practical advice and encouragement as you lead through real conversations that will challenge and inspire you. So join me on this journey to becoming better leaders God's way. Are you ready? Let the journey begin. Welcome to the Grace to Lead podcast. I am Belinda Gaston, your host, and I am so excited today to have our guest on Listen. If you are a person who is doing a lot of things, or maybe you even feel overwhelmed and you need a moment to just pause, you feel stuck, you don't know what's going on, you are in the right place today because our guest is an expert on getting unstuck on permission to pause, and so today I'd like to welcome our guest, pat Layton. Let me tell you about her first before you hear her voice.

Speaker 1:

Pat is a passionate and inspiring leader who, during her 25 years in full-time ministry, has led the founding of a variety of nonprofit ministries, including one of the nation's largest pregnancy resource centers, a Christian adoption agency and a national abstinence education program. She's currently serving as a busy speaker, author and life coach. She has published six books, y'all. Her three-part post-abortion recovery Bible study, surrendering the Secret, was published by Lifeway in 2009. Listen, that is an amazing book. I have it, and it was updated in 2019. She's also published several Bible study gift book series, including Born to Bloom. You Are no Ordinary Flower, and one of my favorite books of hers y'all is Life Unstuck, peace with the Past, purpose in the Present and Passion in the Future. So listen, grab your notebooks, your digital note-taking devices. If you are in the car, make sure that you are listening while driving, but make sure that you're listening and paying attention, because Pat is going to share her wisdom with us today. So why don't you virtually give us a hand clap for Pat Layton? Welcome to the show, pat.

Speaker 2:

You are so sweet and thank you for that precious introduction. It's such an honor to be here. It's been a journey for us to make it happen and we are here, so I'm excited.

Speaker 1:

I'm excited too, so we are going to jump right in. I know that many of our listeners have been in a place where they may have felt overwhelmed or stuck in a place they just couldn't. You just feel like you can't move. Sometimes, pat, especially for leaders, it's easy to lead the things, but sometimes it's hard to lead ourselves, if that makes sense. And so can we share for a moment first what we mean by being stuck. What does it mean to be stuck?

Speaker 2:

Well, it comes in so many different ways. Or it has in my life stuck. Well, it comes in so many different ways, or it has. In my life I have been spiritually stuck where I have felt like I couldn't hear from God. I had no clue if what I was doing was right, if he was leading me into something different. I have been professionally stuck where I have been in situations in my businesses, in my ministries, that have seemed to be going nowhere, that nothing I do is working or that I'm just exhausting myself with all of my attempts. So, and then I've been stuck in my family.

Speaker 2:

So there's so many places where we can get stuck, which, in my description, is just essentially bogged down and unable to move forward in a positive way. So you know, like I use the example in my book of my husband getting stuck on rocks when we were whitewater rafting, that's how it feels to me. It's like you are in a rapid of one place in your life or another and you are trapped between rocks. Then you're jiggling and trying to figure out everything you can to get out of that and move on. So it's any feeling that women have, where they're just not making progress and cannot seem to find their way out of whatever situation they're in.

Speaker 1:

I think that is a great example, and I know most recently I felt stuck, pat, in making a decision. There was a decision I needed to make. It was pretty important. My husband and I were kind of praying and listening and we just felt like there were so many parts to making this decision that we just felt like, oh, and so we ended up doing nothing, and so I think that's why I'm excited about this. And so you talked about being stuck in many areas and some of those reasons that you gave of how we could be stuck I think is really important. But can we talk about why this is important for women who lead, like, why does it even matter that we talk about this feeling of being stuck for women who lead?

Speaker 2:

Well, you know, I have been in leadership in one variety or another for 30 years. As you mentioned, my earliest day I used to have my own insurance business. So I was in a secular business with employees and staff and it was my own business. And then I went into full-time ministry and have been in full-time ministry for the last 30 years. I think it's inevitable for us to find places where we feel stuck. It's inevitable, it's part of our learning process, it's part of our experiencing the worlds, of the realities of business or ministry. So it's just so important for women to pause. You know, that's my word. I mean, I have my own podcast, it's called Fish, and I just did a five part series on finding clarity. So you're talking about you and your husband were trying to make a decision and I that was actually born out of my own being stuck and having lack of clarity as last year ended and the new started. So I set on a journey with God, looking for actual steps, clear steps to clarity. And so you know, I think that it's important for us, as women, to evaluate on a regular basis, you know, to take inventory of our hearts, of our relationships, of our feelings of success or failure or stuck or whatever in our business endeavors. So I just think it's important for the health of women, the overall health of women.

Speaker 2:

One of my favorite phrases is you cannot give out what you do not have. So if we do not have that piece of knowing, we're headed in the right direction. If we do not have the assurance of what God's doing in our lives and the faith that he's working, how can we give it out to others? And that's our main calling right To share gospel, to share what God's doing in our lives and the word of our testimony. So that's why I think it's important, I think that it's inevitable to find yourself there and it's important to figure out where you are and what you need.

Speaker 1:

I think that's a great, a great way to sum it up. I think, as leaders a lot, we focus on the needs of others and not so much ourselves as leaders and as women?

Speaker 1:

Yes, absolutely, absolutely. And I love your phrase of pausing. I mean, I've taken that permission and if you haven't, for our listeners, if you haven't listened to Pat's podcast Permission to Pause, I highly recommend it. It's great content and it really is nice to take practical steps in pausing and thinking through and getting clarity. So before we start talking about the practicality of it, or how do we move from this place of stuck to unstuck, I would like for you to, if you're comfortable, share a time personally where you have been in a place where you felt stuck, and if you could share that and also how you overcame that place, I think that would be helpful for our listeners.

Speaker 2:

Well, in my ministry and in my business life mean I've always been the leader. I founded the pregnancy center in tampa and the women's crisis center. So I god has put me in the lead position many times where I'm responsible for other people, where I'm bringing people on or letting people go. So I think that one of the most recent and probably the biggest stuck place that I got, which eventually led to the book Life Unstuck, was a transition from running a nonprofit to stepping out on my own and speaking and writing. In that transition I was so used to having a team and having you know like I'm a firm believer in filling the positions that you're the weakest in. So you know I believe in finding that person where my strengths are weak and I need help to finding those people to help employees. When I left that scenario into launching my book Life Unstuck as a single author, as someone you know trying to get into speaking and writing, and I did not have a clue what I was doing. So I lived out that book of finding my way to getting unstuck as I was writing it. I was living it out, I was writing and I've often found as a leader and maybe you can relate to this, melinda, that when what I'm struggling with the people that I'm leading are struggling with what I see going on in my life which is what led to my Clarity series at the beginning of this year that I came to the end of last year feeling like I had my hands on five or six things and I really my goal for the year was less is more in 2024. My goal for this year, after five years of running on my own path, was to figure out, to narrow it down, to have less things that I'm focused on and doing a better job with fewer things. I am not a big social media chaser. I do care if I have 50 million followers. I'd rather have 50 followers than I'm actually serving and that's not the norm. So it was a real struggle in my life to go into the world of independent living and you know, running my own ministry and being my own, I had to learn what that looked like from the expectations of platform are the big buzzword. It's what it's all about building your platform and that was so. You know it was such a crisis of beliefs for me.

Speaker 2:

So I think that started getting stuck, you know, with the Getting Unstuck book of getting unstuck from living one life of ministry, one world, and stepping into a whole new world. So I would say to your leaders, because I've been a leader for a long time, speaking to someone who is trying to decide is this still right for me? Is this still my path? Is this what I love? Is this exciting me? Is my passion still here? Is this exciting me? Is my passion still here? And really evaluating where am I going next and how do I get there?

Speaker 2:

So, using that rock example on the rapids, you know, part of getting unstuck is is really taking the time to evaluate your circumstances, to figure out what's the best escape route, and not only the best, but the one that god's calling me to.

Speaker 2:

So that was where, when I got this recent time, was a transition of ministry, a transition of my life, work, a transition of my no team to you know, being like I'd have meetings with myself, you know, and I'm used to having meetings with teams of people that are giving me feedback or giving me thoughts.

Speaker 2:

So that was a big stuck place in my life and as I was writing the book and applying those precepts from Psalm 139, that's what the book is based on the 24 verses of Psalm 139. And really living those out, listening to what God was saying about how he created me, what my personality was, what my gifts were. And this changed, right, belinda, from when, maybe when we start in our work and our ministry, our gifts change and our passions change and our focus changes. We can get burned out from one area but take those skills that we've learned into a new area. So that was where I was stuck. Was that transition of life? Then we moved here. You might remember from when we were at Rest Quest, but we moved from our lifelong home of Tampa, florida to.

Speaker 2:

Atlanta and we moved to this little, beautiful little Hallmark community. But I became very stuck again because I had no friends, no community, no home church. So I found myself stuck then in a very personal way, not a professional way, but in a personal transition of friends, family, loneliness, you know, wondering if we'd heard from God at all, because everything seemed to blow up. So that would be my latest two examples.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, thank you for sharing that, pat, and I have so many thoughts God's brought to my head to ask I want to talk about. So, first, thanks for being so transparent in sharing. But you talked about something that I think from just my network of colleagues, people are experiencing more and more and I don't know if it's just the state of the world where we are spiritually what's happening in private sector markets. But that word transition really hit me because I think if I were to think of my best girlfriends the five best girlfriends I have, the five people closest to me that don't live in my household I would say that at least four of them are right now going through some sort of transition, whether they are transitioning in life.

Speaker 1:

I have one friend that's going through a divorce right now, so that's a transition. I have another friend who is trying to figure out what to do with her business. She's been successful at it, but she's questioning whether this is even the business she should be in. I have a corporate person that's. I mean, it's like another friend kind of in this similar, it's just this place of transition, like another friend kind of in this similar, it's just this place of transition. And I think that what we hear often is, when you're in transition, you're supposed to, you know, push your way through it. You do all these things to help the transition move, but what I heard you say, pat, is the actual is actually the opposite. Right that you don't is the actual is actually the opposite right that you don't you pause. So I'd love for you to share more about that and that this transition and being stuck.

Speaker 2:

Well, I think that that is so true what you're saying, because I mean, when I think of my ministry life, I transitioned in 1988, I think it was from my insurance business to me in Tampa. I spent 25 years in that ministry so it wasn't like I was living through a lot of transition. I was living through growth and change and learning experiences, but I was raising my children. I was, you know, involved in the same church all those years, so that I agree that transition is kind of a new buzzword that I'm living and I see many women living. It is like it is definitely, within the last five years, a bigger word. So I definitely see that I agree with it. I, when one of the things we're talking about you and your husband being kind of stuck in a decision, one of the things I've learned and that I experience and hang on to is stopping in the middle of indecision, because I feel like there are two things I try to kind of follow in that One is pause and wait on God.

Speaker 2:

I am what was identified early in my ministry years as a quick start. I am like Peter I have an idea and I'm going to go for it. I tend to ram my head against walls because I'm moving ahead of God, because I feel like if this is a God idea, it's time to do it. I've so learned, especially in the last few years, that that is not true and it could have to do a lot with our culture and the way things have changed in our world.

Speaker 2:

It may have some things to do with that, but I think pausing is and just slowing down, just taking the time to listen to what God is speaking and really hearing God, is a very big weakness in our faith, in our faith world, in my opinion.

Speaker 2:

I mean it's just really listening and quieting ourselves long enough to really hear what God is speaking to us, and so pausing in our transition, I think is just so important, taking time to evaluate what's going on around us and just taking all the things into account. So I think that's a big thing is just taking time enough to just quiet ourselves to listen to what he says and trust and believe that we will hear him and then, if not, getting the coaching and the input from outside. The coaching and the input from outside, coaching and mentoring, I think is so big in this day and age in terms of our spiritual listening right, but just really having the time to have somebody who sits in God's presence with you and listens with you is also a real new thing in my life and something I really see powerful.

Speaker 1:

It's also a real new thing in my life and something I really see powerful. So you've shared that. Stopping in the middle of a decision is a great strategy when you're in transition, when you're feeling stuck. You also talked about having a coach or a mentor to help. Because we are so busy, Sometimes it's difficult to hear from God when you're making a decision. Are there other tips you would give?

Speaker 2:

Pat, I say go back to the last place where you heard from God. I was just thinking of that this weekend of just stepping back when you feel like you're you know you're confused or ruffled or I think you know going back and thinking back where you feel like you're you know you're confused or ruffled, or I think you know going back and thinking back where you felt God led you Like. For an example for me would be when we moved here to Atlanta. We sold our house, we gave up our lifetime of residency and friendships and everything in Tampa, but we clearly heard God tell us to do it. We knew without question my husband and I both that God had directed our path and so we never wondered. Now we did wonder when everything exploded. Our son got transferred back to Tampa, so the very place we left our family was moved back to. Our daughter went through a serious heartbreak and her situation here changed.

Speaker 2:

But we did feel that God was in our mood. We never doubted that, but we did wonder what the heck he was doing. So I think there are times when God gives us instruction, like we just watched a series on Moses. If you haven't seen it, it's on Netflix and it's so good and it's just was such an example of someone who was clearly following God at the best of his human ability following God but he ended up wandering with the people for 40 years and did not get to see the promised land. That was a good example to me of what, when we are obeying God and following God, but we're not seeing it with our eyes or we're not experiencing what we think to experience. So I think going back and remembering what God has said, how he's directed you, and just rebuilding our faith and trust is a great thing to do in transition. Going back to the last place you heard from him, sometimes, like we said, using a coach or a mentor to help us think that out, to listen to what we're hearing and I think that's another good step is going back to the last place so that you can hook onto that and remember that God is in this and this is what he told you to do and this is what you're doing.

Speaker 1:

Does that make sense? That is a great tip. I've never thought about that. I've never thought to going back to the place when I've been in a position where I felt stuck going back to the place, the last place that I heard God speak. That's. That's great advice. That's great advice. And you know one of those places for me Now I'm going to segue a bit One of those places for me that I felt like I clearly heard God speak to me was when I attended your rest quest. And so for our listeners, pat Layton hosts a series of rest quests, their weekend kind of getaways, where it's designed really for you to hear from God. So I'd like for you first to share what a rest quest is, pat, because I remember when I went I didn't understand what it was. So if you can explain what a rest quest is and why you chose to host those first, then I'll ask my next question.

Speaker 2:

Yes. Well, restquest is as I mentioned to you earlier, that I have discovered that the way I coach and lead women is what I'm going through and what I'm experiencing. There's some other women out there somewhere who are going through the same thing, seeing there's some other women out there somewhere who are going through the same thing. So Rest Quest was designed because I had a desire for a conference and someone leading a getaway that was not focused on downloading information. So, as a professional, as a business woman, I have been to countless conferences where I leave with a spiral notebook that's full of ideas and things to do next. And then I've gone to spiritual retreats and conferences where the same thing happens in a different way. I leave there downloaded, with great teaching and great information from God's Word. But it's always been a challenge to me to actually figure out how to apply those things or how they look in my life. If I go to a conference and I leave with pages of notes, but I come home with those notes, you know, actually living that out and applying them to my life, it's always a stuck place for me. So RestQuest was designed to bring a small group of women it's called a unique boutique retreat, a small group of women together to seek God together. So there's no great teacher. As you know, I have led with Dr Sondra Dalton-Smith, who is a great teacher, and many other leaders. But we do not intend at RestQuest to do a bunch of download teaching. We do not intend at RestQuest to do a bunch of download teaching.

Speaker 2:

Our goal is to act as guides to help women find a place of quiet and pause and, as you know, it is like. The one that we lead in St Simon's Island is waterfront balcony rooms. We have an afternoon of silence. We use a process called Lectio Divina. Lectio Divina is meditating and settling in on a specific place of scripture so that you get hear from God in that place of scripture. So that's the main difference in RestQuest. Restquest is all about your hearing from God, not people. We are there to lead the event, to lead you into the presence of God. We're trying to set a path for women to hear from God, to get into their own hearts and have time to pause in God's presence, in the presence of some girlfriends, but it's a very private, intimate time with the Lord.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and I thoroughly enjoyed my experience and for our listeners listen, I am a list girl, I want the agenda, I want a diagram, I want all the things so that I could go to every session and glean. And so this was a counterintuitive experience for me, especially the afternoon of silence. I mean, you don't realize how much you talk and how much you don't listen during the day until you're silent.

Speaker 1:

And that moment of that particular day was when God laid out even the idea of this podcast to me and some clarity around just some things even in my work life that I had been thinking about, and so I would say that probably the last tip to share is the importance of intentionally setting that time of rest to listen.

Speaker 2:

And the hard thing, it's very difficult thing to do on our own. I mean, I have learned over the years about finding rest, about finding pause, and I can lay out on my hammock with my Bible or my worship music. But I think the difference in Rest Quest that I needed for myself and prayerfully you needed, is just someone to lead you into that place of rest and to kind of hold you accountable in it, so that you're not having to figure it out all out yourself.

Speaker 1:

Yes, absolutely Absolutely, and it reminds me of a time where I remember I asked my husband I was like I need to get away from the house and I just need to have some time away and I think he got me like a hotel room to get away for the weekend and I slept, but I don't think I left with any clarity which I thought, and so I do think it's important to have that those mentors and coaches helping to lead, and that's what Rest Quest provided.

Speaker 2:

Well, sometimes it is like it sounds like, sometimes I think it is just physical rest, and we tell the women at Rest Quest. We use the story of Elijah and second Kings, about how he ended up under the broom tree in total exhaustion, and the angels ministered to Elijah in multiple ways. There was the physical rest that was needed, there was the emotional encouragement that was needed. There was the emotional encouragement that was needed. There was spiritual direction. All the things that we use at Rest Quest are represented in that story.

Speaker 2:

So another thing I'm doing, though, with the quest is that I am a firm believer in our next steps and our purpose being found in our past, and I'm a believer in story. So one of the things I'm going to be doing this fall is called a story quest, or it'll be something along that line I haven't settled all the details where women will come and consider their story, consider where God has led them in their life, where they have encountered him, where they have felt stuck and got unstuck. So it'll be a quest to help women look back into their story, to see what God's doing today.

Speaker 1:

Oh, that's so good. Oh, I'm excited, I can't wait, I can't wait. So I think we've talked about some practical ways of moving from being, how to get unstuck, and that now we've talked about some practical ways of moving from things how to get unstuck and now we've talked about the power of rest, and you said you know, stopping in the middle of your decision-making process to hear from God. Hearing from God is important. We talked about coaching and mentoring, we talked about going back to the place where you last heard God, and now we've kind of talked about the power of rest. Are there any final kind of practical advice you would give to the woman right now who is feeling stuck, whether they're stuck in transition, whether they're stuck in a decision, whatever those things, maybe even spiritually. Whether they're stuck in transition, whether they're stuck in a decision, whatever those things, maybe even spiritually, if they're feeling like I'm just not hearing from God, I feel stuck. Is there any other practical advice you would give to women who find themselves in that space?

Speaker 2:

I would say the next thing I think of is truly is cultivating a heart of gratitude. I find in my own life and maybe some of your listeners can relate that when I get stuck in the place I'm in life and I can't figure out the next thing that God, that often I have slipped into a place of discontent and I think that one thing I've learned, or that I believe in my life is that God will not trust me with more until I'm content with what I have. So, in other words, just really cultivating a heart of gratitude with where I am, with where God is working, how he is blessing me, all the good things that he's doing within the situation I'm, in my example, like moving to Atlanta, being in the beginning of COVID, having no family all of a sudden but he had given us a beautiful three and a half acre tree covered property in a little hallmark town and just really trying to refocus on those things that I do have so that I feel like I get into a place where God is able to take me to the next place or take me to the next level. So for me that's a big thing and it's something I'm working on now, working on constantly just cultivating a heart of gratitude for where I am, what God's doing in my life, and just really focusing on that so that I can be ready for what he wants to do next.

Speaker 2:

One of the things I really feel like I've discovered in my life of leadership is that it is not what I say.

Speaker 2:

It is not. You know, my message is my life, so it's how I'm living my life and what God's doing in my life. Even in the tough times Like I am watching some of my friends right now who are walking through cancer diagnosis or loss of a spouse, and their life is preaching, you know, their life itself is ministering and preaching, just by allowing people to see how they're handling the rough spots and the spots of indecision, the spots where things aren't going the way we want them to. So really just cultivate that'd be. You know, what I'd say is just cultivating that heart of gratitude and looking for where God's working, looking for what he's done and a lot of that is like going back to where he last spoke, but looking at what God has done, doing instead of focusing on the future. You know, not as worried about what's going to happen tomorrow as as are not worrying about the next right thing as much as being appreciative of what God's doing now, in the here and now.

Speaker 1:

God's doing now, in the here and now. I love that. I love that cultivating gratitude it does, it really does something for for you, mentally, I would say, for folks who are feeling even as if you know God's not with you, perhaps thinking back on all the ways and all the things that have happened in your life.

Speaker 2:

where God showed up is, I think that's oh, that's such a great place, that's such a great place for us to to end.

Speaker 1:

I love it.

Speaker 2:

I love it well, it rebuilds our faith to do that. It reminds us of who God is and how good he is, and that he's not going to leave us stuck. If we surrender our hearts to him and we're seeking him, he wants to be found.

Speaker 1:

Yes, listeners, I told you this was going to be a great conversation and I think that Pat has dropped so much wisdom, so many wisdom nuggets. That's what I've been using all season wisdom nuggets in our conversation. So I I think, before we go, pat, I'd love for you to share what you're working on, that's new, if you'd like, or how people can can reach you. How can people stay in touch with you?

Speaker 2:

well, there's my website. It is patlaytonnetnet, and I'm on all social media. Social media does not drive me, but I pop into it, so I can be found on pretty much every area there. What I'm working on is my whole theme of less is more in 2024. So I've been narrowing down to the things I really love and I really feel that God is doing in my life and with my life.

Speaker 2:

So the events that I host are big and I'm working on a few of those towards the fall. Also, I'm really big on two other things. One is healing the heartbreak of your past, and I think you mentioned that, belinda, some of my things had ministered to you that way. But I've just put on my website a new interactive Bible study called Imagine Me Set Free, and it is really focusing on helping women look back at the past in a healthy way that leads them into the future. So Imagine Me Set Free is something I've been spending the last couple of months getting onto my website, so I'm just launching that. And then, like I said, I have a couple of different Quest events that I'm working on, so I'd love for the listeners to join. You know to visit my website, sign up for my email and I know you're going to be getting the updates on upcoming Quest, so those are the things for the fall that I'm looking at.

Speaker 1:

Excellent and listeners, I would highly encourage you to check out Pat Layton's website, the resources. She has an abundance of resources and many of them have very little investment, if any. There's some free resources there as well, and so I highly suggest it, especially if you're in this place where you feel stuck, whether you're going through transition and you're looking for God to give you some answers to some decisions, and so, of course, as always, I'll put all of the information that Pat shared in the notes section, in the description section of this podcast episode, so that you can have that at your fingertips. Pat, thank you so much for joining. I really appreciate your time and your wisdom. It means so much to me, so thank you so much. Thank you for that.

Speaker 2:

I'm so glad to be here with you and I'm so excited about your podcast. I can see the importance of it and I'm excited to watch you grow. I'm proud of you for stepping out in faith into an unknown territory and pressing in to see what God wants to do with your surrender.

Speaker 1:

Thank you, pat. Thank you, pat, and for our listeners. Thank you so much for listening to the Grace to Lead podcast. I did not take your time for granted. Remember to subscribe to the podcast, to share the podcast and continue to listen. And until we join each other again next week, have a blessed week and remember you are graced to lead. Bye-bye.

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Belinda Gaston

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