Episode 113 - Ordinary Foundations of Extraordinary Leadership w Mark Merrill

Episode Overview

In this inspiring episode, we welcome Mark Merrill from Family First to explore the timeless principles that make leaders and families truly great. Drawing from the wisdom of legendary coach Chuck Noll, Mark challenges the myth that greatness comes from extraordinary moments. Instead, he reveals that champions are made by doing the ordinary things better than anyone else-both at home and in the workplace.

Mark unpacks the two fundamental pillars of lasting impact: love and leadership. He shares practical insights on how to build a strong foundation for your family, lead with integrity, and leave a legacy that endures beyond material success.

Key Topics & Takeaways

Champions and Fundamentals:  

•  Why greatness is rooted in mastering the basics, not just highlight-reel moments.

Love as a Foundation: 

•  Love is an action and a decision, not just a feeling.
•  True love is unconditional-giving selflessly and sacrificially.

Leadership Defined:

•  Leadership is influence; if you have followers, you are a leader.
•  Every parent, spouse, and grandparent is called to lead by example.

The Four Forms for Purposeful Living:

  1. Makeup: Understanding your God-given identity.

  2. Mindset: Embracing your mission as your most important job.

  3. Method: Loving and leading even the “prickly porcupines” in your life.

  4. Model: Living out consistency and integrity-your walk must match your talk.

Legacy: 

• The true legacy we leave is not material wealth, but the love and leadership we impart to others.

Resources & Links

- Family First (https://www.familyfirst.net/)

- FCCI – Fellowship of Companies for Christ International (https://www.fcci.org/)

- All Pro Dad (https://www.allprodad.com/)

- iMOM (https://www.imom.com/)

Connect with Us

Subscribe: Don’t miss an episode! Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app.

Share: If this episode encouraged you, share it with a friend or colleague.

Feedback: We’d love to hear your thoughts! Leave a review or connect with us at FCCI.org (https://www.fcci.org/).

Transcript

Knowing the fundamentals of parenthood are the key to you becoming a champion for your kids.

Also, as I mentioned, a champion in your marriage as well. And the two most important fundamentals are love and leadership.

Well, welcome to FCC I's Pathway to Purpose podcast, where we explore what it means to lead with faith, integrity and lasting impact. I'm your host, Ken Powell, and today we're diving into a powerful keynote from Mark Merrill of Family First.

He's an inspiring voice on leadership, family, and legacy. So let's start with the question what makes a true champion? Is it the highlight reel moments, the big wins, or is it something deeper?

Well, Mark shares wisdom from legendary coach Chuck Noll, who said champions are champions not because they do anything extraordinary, but because they do the ordinary things better than anyone else.

In this episode, we'll discover how the fundamentals, love and leadership are the building blocks of greatness, not just in sports or business, but in your families and in your faith journey. Mark reminds us that love isn't just a feeling. It's a daily decision, an act of giving, and the foundation for every relationship. Leadership, he says, isn't about titles or positions, but influence the kind of influence that starts at home and ripples out into the world.

We'll unpack the four essential forms for purposeful living knowing your make up. That, of course, being your God given identity and then shaping your mindset or embracing your mission and then choosing your method. Moving in even with loving those that are maybe a little bit prickly in your life, and then modeling consistency and integrity for those who follow you.

So whether you're a parent, a business leader, or someone seeking deeper purpose or all of the above, of course this episode will challenge and encourage you to focus on what truly last. Because at the end of the day, our greatest legacy isn't what we accumulate, it's the love and leadership we impart. So let's get started. And here's Mark Merrill.

I want to share with you a, something that Chuck Noel said. You know who Chuck knows?

He was a four time Super Bowl winning cut. There's always a bunch of Steelers in the in the crowd. That's what they say. They don't say Steelers. They stay Steelers up in Pittsburgh.

And Super Bowl winning coach Chuck Norris said listen champions are champions. Not because they do anything extraordinary, but because they do the ordinary things better than anyone else. Did you hear that? Champions are champions, not because they do anything extraordinary, but because they do the ordinary things better than anyone else. And what he was saying is there's this there's this misconception that you have to do this ESPN highlight reel kind of things to be a champion.

He said, no, no, no, no, that's not it. There are fundamentals it takes to play the game and executing those fundamentals day in and day out. That's how you become great. That's how you win. That's how you become a champion. And just as knowing and executing the fundamentals of football are a key to a player becoming a champion,

knowing the fundamentals of parenthood are the key to you becoming a champion for your kids.

Also, as I mentioned, a champion in your marriage as well. And the two most important fundamentals are love and leadership.

What are the fundamentals? Love and leadership. Love and leadership. Those are the most important fundamentals. Now in just a moment, I'm going to share with you forms that you and I need to know about ourselves to be champions, to love and lead our children well.

But let's first of all talk about these two words love and leadership, because they're absolutely critical in our families and our homes so that we can love one another. Well, first love who said love is fundamental? God? Did Jesus did. Where did he say it? He said, love is fundamental. The greatest commandment, right? Matthew 2237 right before that, the Sadducees to come in and tried to trick Jesus, right?

But they couldn't do it. But then the Pharisees came in. They said, we're going to trick Jesus, because the Sadducees couldn't do it. And the Pharisees says, teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the law? And what did Jesus say? Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. That's the first and greatest commandment.

And the second is like it love your neighbor as yourself. All of the law and the prophets are summed up in these two commandments. So what is God really saying in the greatest commandment? He's saying, love me first, then and only then can you love your neighbor. Who's your neighbor? Everybody, right? It's your your husband, your wife, your in-laws, your outlaws, your enemies.

Right? It's everybody. Love your neighbor as yourself in loving God. Listen is a condition. Precedent comes before the ability to love your neighbor, to love your children, to love your spouse. Listen first, John, chapter four says, for love comes from where God for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.

Whoever does not love does not know God because God is love. God is love. And why do we love first? First John chapter four says we love because he first loved us. So what does that say to us? Well, without Jesus on the throne of our lives, without the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in our lives, we cannot love our husband or wife, our son, our daughter, as God intended.

So loving God is a condition precedent to loving others. So now let's discuss what is love. Love is not weakened wimpy as some would suggest in our culture today. Really, love is strong and courageous is an action verb. You've heard this before. It's something that you do towards another person. Love is not just a feeling, it's a decision.

It's an act of the will to be patient, kind and humble. Hopeful, faithful, giving and trusting. Love is all about what it's all about giving. Giving for God so loved the world that he gave. Love is all about giving of ourselves selflessly and sacrificially to another person. So often say this how do you spell love? G I v e?

Just think about giving. And remember love is unconditional. It's not a if you do this, then all do that kind of thing. Back in my real estate days and I'm a recovering attorney, I don't like to share that with too many people, so let's keep that our secret. We I did a lot of contracts, and there's always consideration.

Everything was conditional. It was always, if you do this, then I will do that kind of thing. And, love is not a transaction. Love is an action. Love is not reciprocal. Love is sacrificial. That's what unconditional love is all about.

So. And how do you spell love? You give a love is all about giving of ourselves selflessly and sacrificially.

And I don't need to talk about the word leadership too much. How many of you guys think you're leaders? Well, raise your hands, everybody, because a leader is simply someone who has followers, followers that they influence. And we talk about leadership all the time. But that's the bottom line. Definition. You have followers, you influence if you have a spouse, if you have children, and if you have grandchildren, then you're a leader.

You have followers, you're influence. So now that we know what love is and that all of you are leaders, let's get started with the forms that you need to know about yourself, to love well in your home, to love and lead your family well. You need to know the forms, your makeup, your mindset, your method, and your model.

First of all, your makeup. Just a couple of years ago, we had a massive flood in our home and we had to vacate our home for over a year. And the contractor, who was a friend of mine, came in and looked at everything and determined that we had to take this thing all the way down to the studs and completely gut the house because it was that bad, the damage from the flood.

And when he did so, they started looking at the foundation of this old home that was built in 1926. And they noticed some, some cracks and some sagging in the foundation. And he had a real concern about it. And he said, Mark, this is going to cost a lot more money than you thought. But if we do not do something about this foundation of the cracks and what's occurring here, this House is going to continue to sag and we can redo all the drywall and make this home absolutely beautiful.

But you're going to start seeing eventually cracks in your walls upstairs and other issues raised in the house and eventually you could see your house starting to sag and maybe even in the future fall if you do not do something about this foundation. So we need to make sure that our foundation is sound. And then and only then can we build something upon that foundation that will ultimately last.

And the same holds true with us as parents, with us as grandparents. We need to make sure that not only is our foundation sturdy, but we need to make sure that our children, our grand children, have a sturdy foundation as well that will last so that they can build upon that. A life that ultimately honors God and glorifies God in everything.

So your foundation and your children's foundation, your grandchildren's foundation, is is knowing your makeup. When I say makeup, I'm talking really about how you're put together. It's your identity. Your identity rests in who you are, not what you do, who you are. That's what ultimately gives each and every one of us value. You and I were created by God and for God.

That's our ultimate identity. And God doesn't create junk, does he? There are no flaws in our design. There were no errors in our construction, and you were handmade, custom designed, and fully loaded by God. Scripture says, for what? For good works. And it's very, very important that we understand our own identity. Why? Because you can't really give to others what what you don't have, what you don't truly understand.

And so it is absolutely essential that we validate our children's identity. We validate our grandchildren's identity, and that is absolutely essential for them to be able to build upon it. And live a life that ultimately glorifies and honors God. Our children need to know that we love them. For what? For who they are, not for what they do.

We value them as a person, not because of their performance. We may not like something they say or do, but that we love them no matter what. So it's so important to validate our kids. We, have five children, as I mentioned, and they're ages 19, 19, 21, 21, and 24. And now they're all out of the house.

So we are in the empty nest stages of life, but we're talking to him every day. And, one of our children, came from another country when he was only nine years old and the other was 12 years old. We had two adopted from Siberian Russia, and they had a very challenging childhood. And our son, especially and, he came over when he was nine years old and he had a very, very difficult time really attaching to us and receiving the the love that we wanted to pour into his life.

He felt like that would kind of be disloyal to his biological mother and father, even though they beat him. And he had a very difficult life with them. And so he really continued to push us away more and more. And I remember one time walking into his bedroom and he just whacked me across a stick when he was mad with, whacked me across the head with this lacrosse stick and about knocked me out.

And so and he would go into fits of anger and rage. And I remember one time just grabbing him at that point in time and just looking him in the eye after he settled down and looking at me and, and said, Grant, I love you no matter what. God loves you, I love you, mom loves you. We will never, ever leave you or forsake you.

We are always here. And it took us saying that time and time again of our love for him, for who he is, not for what he does. And ultimately that sank in. And as of today, he actually is in the Great Lakes Naval Station and basic training for the Navy. And he has always wanted to been be a career person and serve our families and serve our country.

And the military. So we are very excited about that. And God really did change his life in an incredible way. And you know what he really needed? He just needed love. He just needed love and he just needed love time and time again. That doesn't mean we didn't discipline them, because God disciplines who those he loves, but it just means he needed that constant reassurance and that constant love and validating our children for who they are and their identity is absolutely so important.

They need to understand that they are God's child and they are our child and they are grandchild. They need to hear that often, not just one time. I'm not going to talk too much about mindset. I'm going to skip to the next one because of time, and I want to make sure that we leave a few minutes, maybe just to ask a few questions.

But, mindset really, here's the bottom line. Let me give you the bullet point on this. The summary and mindset, because I want to spend the rest of our time on the two final points. And mindset really is just having, you know, when when God changes your life, when the Holy Spirit indwells in us, he gives us what not a new and improved mind, right?

Not a new and improved heart. He gives us a brand new heart and a brand new mind, a brand new mindset. And as part of that brand new mindset, we have to think of our job as parents or grandparents as being our most important job. And anyone who has a very important job also has to understand what their mission is.

What would you think if last night if, if the lieutenant colonel said, you know, I really didn't understand my mission was in Vietnam, you think, well, this this is crazy. Or what about what? About an executive at an office that didn't understand his mission? We think, well, he's definitely going to fail. Well, the same way as in in parenting and in marriage.

We have to understand our mission, and that is to love our family well, to love our spouse well, to love our children well, to love our grandchildren well. So that's really what mindset is all about. And let me move very quickly into method. You have to know your method of loving and leading your family well. You know, it's easy, easy to love people when they're sweet and kind and lovable.

And when your child or your grandchild is sitting on your lap and gives you that sloppy oatmeal kiss on your cheek, I mean, you just you just melt. But how do you deal with that challenging child, that child who is always irritating and always getting into trouble or that spouse who seems to be hormonal? And this applies not only to ladies, but also to men as well.

And so how do you love this prickly porcupine in your life? And really, that's what Jesus really tried to address, not just the wonderful, nice people, but he talked about the importance of loving those who are prickly porcupines in our life. I mean, think about it. When did Jesus love us? When we were sweet and kind and lovable?

No, he loved us when we're ugly. When we opposed him, when we were literally dead in our sin. So how do you love the prickly people in your life? Well, the porcupine is a very vocal animal, and the porcupine, after I've done some research on it, has about 30,000 quills all over its body, except for the vulnerable area of its tummy and when the porcupine gets threatened or irritated, you know what the porcupine does?

The porcupines growls and hisses and starts screaming, and this loud screeching voice and start spinning around, and he puts his head between his legs. And then he presents his rear with these big porcupine quills sticking out, and he shoots them into the person who is irritating them. And I've seen some ugly, ugly porcupine quills stuck in dogs and animals or whatever that that porcupine is irritated.

Well, the same holds true for us. I can tell you on a number of occasions I have come home and walk into our house and Susan looks at me and she immediately knows, oh, the porcupines home. And at that moment she has at least maybe four options. The first option is she can prod the porcupine with her words.

I think you did that last night, didn't you? Did you say you're you're. Why are you so cranky? She can prod the porcupine with your words. Like, what's your problem? But that doesn't really work too well, does it? That just makes the porcupine even angrier. Option number two she can run from the porcupine. But what's the problem with that, right?

Porcupine follows them around, says you're not getting away from me, and they follow them around the porcupine still in the house. Option number three shoot the porcupine. I guess we can't do that, can't we? Option number four hug the porcupine. How do you hug the porcupine? You hug the porcupine in a very careful way because if you don't hug the porcupine, right, you can get stuck by their quills.

So you put your arms over them very gently, and you bring them in close, and you just hug the porcupine with your arms. But you can also hug the porcupine in others ways as well. And I'll just give you a couple more. You can hug the porcupine with your words. The tongue is a wild animal and you can chain it, tame it, and train it.

You really can. And we need to do that with our spouses, and we need to make sure that the words that we use to our spouse are not tearing down, but building up. They're not hurting, but they're healing. And words are absolutely critical. Hear me on this. Words really are not neutral. They're one way or another. They're tearing down or they're building up.

Make sure that the words you use to your porcupine are building them up. Another way that you can hug the porcupine is with your ears. Hug your porcupine with your ears and honey. I didn't check with you on this beforehand, but sometimes Susan and I do it to likes to vent, and she doesn't want me to do what.

She doesn't want me to fix it. She just wants me to listen and nod my head and say, oh, I'm so sorry that's happening to you. Oh that's terrible. I can't believe they did that. And that's what she wants. She just wants me to listen. But I always go back to my default of trying to fix it. But sometimes the porcupine just needs you to hug them with your ears.

They need you just to listen to them. So make sure that you know your method and you make your method loving and hugging the prickly porcupine in your life. Finally, let's talk about knowing you're a model, knowing your model. So we start out with knowing your makeup. And we briefly talked about knowing your mindset, knowing your method of loving your family well and now knowing you're a model.

And I think what I want to do very quickly because we finish in about, 15 minutes. Let me, let me first talk about consistency. In modeling, I'm going to talk about two words that I think are very, very important consistency that we need to model for our children and our grandchildren. And integrity. I remember one time, not too long ago, I was being a little bit harsh with Susan.

I was being that prickly porcupine, and she said, you know, Mark, why don't you just talk to me and treat me like you do your Family first supporters? And wow, that was like a shot over the bow of our marital ship that hit me right between the eyes. And I started thinking to myself, you know what? She's right.

I don't always treat her like I treat other people. I don't always love her like Christ loved the church. And why shouldn't I be? I should be doing that. In fact, above all, I should be treating her better than I treat anyone else. Christ called me to do that, to love my wife as he loved the church. You know, it's so hard to walk in consistency and to make sure that we are living a modern life, no matter whom were with or where we go.

So we all need to ask ourselves this question. If the current were pulled it back on my life and people got to see everything about it, would my walk match my talk? Would I be living consistently? Whether I'm at work, at home, at the FCC conference, at church, or wherever I am? Because you know what? Our spouses, our children, our grandchildren want the real deal.

They want a genuine and authentic man and an authentic woman. And they want to make sure that we are living a life of consistency because who sees it all? God sees it all. And guess what? Our kids see it all well as well. They know if we are the real deal or not. So we need to make sure that we are living lives of consistent see?

Secondly, very quickly we need to talk about integrity. We need to model integrity to our children, our grandchildren, and to everybody. And C.S. Lewis has a great quote on this. He said, integrity is doing the right thing even when no one is watching. Integrity is doing the right thing. Even when no one is watching. So important for us to remember.

I remember I was a freshman at this little Bible college down the road called the University of Florida. And, and I decided I didn't have enough to do my freshman year. And so I went and got my pilot's license. Why not? So I went to Gainesville Regional Airport and got my pilot's license. And one thing you learn very quickly after ground training, you learn when you go out and check out the aircraft, you have to do a preflight inspection.

How many of you guys are pilots in here? And you pilots, you got a couple of pilots and you can correct me on this, but basically do a preflight inspection, check out your instruments. Then you walk on the aircraft, you check the wings in the fuselage to make sure there are no cracks in the wings or fuselage. You need to make sure that that fuselage has integrity to it, because if you're in the air and you have just a small minor crack or breach in that fuselage, it can mean a lot of hurt for the people in that aircraft and even death.

Well, as parents, we need to make sure that we are living lives of integrity. To compromise even the slightest can be devastating for our families, and I find more and more as I as as we do research on the internet and we reach people online through our this family first organization that we have through all pro dad one of our programs and through I'm mom one of other programs that there are so many dark secrets that people are living, even believers, even Christ followers.

It's amazing. And dark secrets in our lives can cause a dangerous breach. And our parenting and marriage fuselages as well. Especially addictions, sexual addictions, pornography online is absolutely rampant. It's a beast that kills it. It rapes the soul and it ravages relationships. Alcoholism is a serious issue as well. And, my dad, is an incredible man.

He's now 84 years old. But ever since I could remember, he's been an alcoholic. And he he struggled with that in so many ways. And anybody that knows about alcoholism or has that challenge in their family in some way or drug abuse, they know that one of the greatest things associated with alcoholism or drug abuse is the lies and deception that surrounds that.

And so, those kind of things can really cause a serious breach and our fuselage in the home and keep us, keep us from becoming the leaders in our homes that we need to be. So we need to make sure that we understand that Jesus, the Bible says, will bring to light what is hidden in darkness and will expose the motives of man's heart.

And that's what Christ does for us. That's from First Corinthians chapter four and five. So we need to be men and women who live lives of consistency and integrity and be models for our children and grandchildren to follow. Well, those are the forms, that will help you to love your family. Well, to lead your family well. And, let me finish up right now with a, quick illustration.

I started with a football illustration, and I want to close with a board game illustration. Then we maybe we have about ten minutes for some Q&A. Have you had any of you guys ever played monopoly? Well, I, used to play it all the time when I was a child. And then my mom would ring the bell for dinner and all of the things the boardwalks, the park places, the hotels like the Ritz Carlton, the houses, the railroads, everything would go back in the box.

And we were done. And, you know, we can all spend years playing the game and acquiring stuff. But then one day, our life is over. And our greatest legacy, ladies and gentlemen, won't be the material things we leave behind to our children and grandchildren. It really won't. But it will be the love that we leave behind. That will be the legacy that will endure even after our life.

And so let's make sure that we learn to love one another well, to love our children well, to love our grandchildren well. And that will be the legacy that endures.

Again, thank you for joining us on FCC I's Pathway to Purpose podcast.

And as Mark Merrill has reminded us, our legacy isn't measured by what we acquire, but by the love and leadership we leave behind. Champions aren't born from extraordinary moments, but from doing the ordinary things with extraordinary consistency, faith, and with heart. As you go about your week, remember that love is a choice, an action, and a gift. Leadership is influence starting right where you are and your greatest impact will be found in how you love and serve those around you.

Well, if today's episode inspired you, please share it with a friend and subscribe for more conversations that equip you to lead with purpose. For more resources and a dynamic Christian leadership community, visit us at FCC dawg. Well, until next time, keep walking your pathway to purpose.