Welcome to Living My Faith, a weekly show that celebrates the everyday believers who are walking with Jesus not just on Sundays, but in every area of their lives. From relationships and parenting to health, habits, and home, our guests share how they keep their faith at the center of it all. Hosted in Jacksonville, Florida and supported by Christ-centered partners, Living My Faith is a space where real life meets real faith. Today our host, Morgan Yonge, spoke with Chuck Coker of Lifethrive Performance Systems.
Transcript:
Speaker 1
Welcome back to another episode of Living My Faith, where we highlight those who are making Kingdom Impact. I’m Morgan Yonge, joined today by Chuck Coker with Life Thrive Performance System and Yasha Ministries.
Speaker 2
Correct.
Speaker 1
Well, so such a pleasure having you on the show. You’re a wealth of knowledge. I’m grateful.
Speaker 2
Well, thank you very much. I’m glad to be here.
Speaker 1
So tell me about. First, let’s start with Yasha Ministries and how cool it is that you’ve trained up all these black belts who are also leading people to faith.
Speaker 2
Yes. Well, about 43 years ago, I closed my commercial schools and opened, a taekwondo class at Neptune Baptist Church in Neptune Beach. And it it grew from that. And soon we started having schools here and there. And some of my black belts wanted to teach. So we just continued to grow. And now we’re in four states with 16 schools.
Speaker 1
Oh my gosh. And you have not only just developed, you know, minor taekwondo hobbies. You’ve developed Olympians.
Speaker 2
That’s well, 63 junior Olympians and four Olympian finalist at this point.
Speaker 1
That’s absolutely incredible. And you’ve got some bling to show for it. Will you show off your bling for us?
Speaker 2
A little bit of bling.
Speaker 1
That I’ve seen. So you got tell me, tell me.
Speaker 2
Okay. This is the United States Masters Hall of Fame, and, it was presented to me based on the growth and development of our students over a long period of time, because our students don’t have to pay month to month charges. They come. No, no. Charge for that, monthly training. All they have to do is buy their uniforms.
Speaker 2
And if they want to advance pay for their test.
Speaker 1
That is amazing. What an opportunity for these these kids and young adults. That’s exciting.
Speaker 2
Yes. And we like parents, too, because it takes a 21 year old to open a school and I don’t pay my instructors. They volunteer. They invest in the next generation and the next generation is where my life is focused and will be until I graduate.
Speaker 1
Until you graduate. Love it. And that’s coming from a man with nine amazing children. That’s correct. You are focused on the next generation.
Speaker 2
That’s right.
Speaker 1
Yeah. We’ve raised a lot of,
Speaker 2
And the neat thing is, they still talk to me.
Speaker 1
That’s, you know, that’s how you know you’re winning. So there you go. So tell me about how life thrive. How has that poured into and balanced out the Yasha ministries?
Speaker 2
Well, when you when you teach for free, you have to make a living. Yes. And so, After running a New York stock exchange company for a number of years, the company was sold off. And so I was, asked to help create a program in the United Kingdom called the hub program that teaches at multiple universities.
Speaker 2
And so there’s 12 campuses now. And, it’s kind of like an executive MBA where, the people come in for a week and get two classes and then I have to read their papers, so, and grade them. But then we also, teach via video, and I would teach, like, two campuses at a time, Monday or Tuesday during that week.
Speaker 2
And so much of the information and research that I gathered while I was there, focused on emotional intelligence and people development. After 2015, I stepped back. My hearing got really bad in teaching 300 students at a time. It’s not always workable. So I took that material and the research that my graduate students and I had done over the past few years, and built a program, called Personal Formation and Development, and that was the foundation for the 15 courses that my company has online now, that you can learn how to apply the people skills.
Speaker 2
I did I did some research for a group called Marketing Sherpa. I don’t know if you’ve heard of them, but they have over 300,000 case studies. And we surveyed 1632 companies. What are the biggest inhibitors to productivity, performance and profitability? The eight common factors in companies of all sizes. Number one was finance. 74% of those companies. And number five, which was down to about 4,243% was technology.
Speaker 2
The other six were what people issues. So 75% of the issues that impact productivity, profitability and performance are people related. All of that boils down to as a leader, are you using your emotional intelligence to engage? And you see here in America, the quarterly profit is king. And so engagement according to Gallup, not many got went up last year to a whole 35%.
Speaker 2
That means 65% of companies are disengaged. And the sad thing, because I prefer to work in faith based organizations, is the fact that none of the pastors that go to seminary to become preachers are taught people skills. They are taught theology and that theology is the basis for everything. And you know, I’ve got faith. I obviously wouldn’t be here, but faith alone is not going to solve all your problems.
Speaker 2
You have to use the brains God gave you. Yes. And if you can do that then you can engage and build an organization. And here’s the scary thing I did a survey a number of years ago. Did you know that 52% of church staffs are dysfunctional?
Speaker 2
The turnover in faith based institution is 70% after five years.
Speaker 1
Wow.
Speaker 2
Pastor’s graduating from seminary. The attrition rate is 51% after ten years. So people are going to school, and they’re not equipped to deal with people because they know theology, but they don’t understand people. And what’s what’s scary about that is the fact that the Bible very specifically addresses this. In the pastoral epistles, Paul uses a foundational word. So from and that word is used in variables.
Speaker 2
So for uneasy go it means speak to a person in a language that they understand and and can engage with. Yes. So Paul told us 2000 years ago that we are to engage with our employees, especially church staffs and faith based institutions, because if we don’t, what happens? 70% turnover after five years and they lose not just their passion for the ministry, but often times they walk away from God.
Speaker 2
And that’s what’s scary.
Speaker 1
Yeah, it really is. Well, it’s amazing that you have taken all of this. You’ve made it digestible through these online courses that anyone can access. And now that’s also feeding into the ministry. So it’s it’s just beautiful. We’ve put together.
Speaker 2
Well, we’ve we teach our black belts the same thing.
Speaker 1
Yes.
Speaker 2
And I think that’s why God has blessed us and allowed us to be as successful over the years as he has.
Speaker 1
Well, it’s it’s really cool to see how that how you’ve brought it all together and what you continue to do for these upcoming generations. So thank you so much for sharing with us today.
Speaker 2
My pleasure.
Speaker 1
Yes. And viewers, thank you for tuning in to another episode of Living My Faith. If you want more information on Mister Chuck Coker, head on over to Living My Faith. Com and we have it right there. We’ll see you in the next episode of Living My Faith.
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