PODCAST | You Can Live the Dream (feat. Nick Nilson)

Resources:

For more resources, visit:  www.NickNilson.com

Get a copy of You Can Live the Dream: https://www.amazon.com/You-Live-Dream-Disappointment-Discontentment/dp/1546004661/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1M4EIUCJNW2RV&keywords=you%20can%20live%20the%20dream&qid=1679524361&sprefix=%2Caps%2C320&sr=8-1

Follow Nick Nilson on Social Platforms:
Instagram: www.instagram.com/nicknilson

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, William Vanderbloemen talks with Nick Nilson. Nick is an associate pastor at Lakewood Church. His role is giving leadership to the health, culture and development of Lakewood staff and ministry teams. Nick also spends his time consulting, speaking around the world, coaching and investing in teams within the church, marketplace and beyond. In this conversation, Nick shares how listeners can harness the power of perspective in every aspect of their lives, and how to stop delaying and start enjoying life right now. He highlights the importance of trading disappointment and discontentment for peace, joy and fulfillment. We hope you enjoy this conversation.

William Vanderbloemen:
Well, hey everybody, thanks for tuning in today. It's always great to get to introduce you to people that I've gotten to know and maybe you haven't yet, and many of you will know Nick Nilson. It's too bad we couldn't have had Summer on because then you would've met somebody really special.

Nick Nilson:
Very cool. Absolutely.

William Vanderbloemen:
Next time maybe we can talk her into joining you. But Nick has been a longtime acquaintance and a friend for many, many years now. In fact, I think my office is probably about a driver and a wedge to your office.

Nick Nilson:
Yes, it was.

William Vanderbloemen:
Nick serves at Lakewood, I think he's served in almost every capacity except senior pastor.

Nick Nilson:
True.

William Vanderbloemen:
What are they calling you these days, Nick? What's the current title?

Nick Nilson:
They're calling me the associate pastor. I am an associate pastor here.

William Vanderbloemen:
That's awesome. That's great. You've been at Lakewood for how long now?

Nick Nilson:
16 years.

William Vanderbloemen:
Yeah. That's great.

Nick Nilson:
16 years.

William Vanderbloemen:
That makes you a native Texan, but when you lived abroad, where are you from?

Nick Nilson:
I'm a Midwest kid, so I grew up in a small city called Beloit, Wisconsin, right on the border of Wisconsin and Illinois. I grew up a cheesehead, but was a bear fan. Grew up, went to college, gave my life to Christ. But I'm born bred Midwest kid and then came down to Houston and moved to this great country of Texas. My daughter was three months old, Haven was three months, she's now 16. She was three months old when we moved here. My son, Denver, who's 12, he's the only one in the fam that's true blood-borne Texan.

William Vanderbloemen:
That's awesome.

Nick Nilson:
He was born here and he loves it.

William Vanderbloemen:
Well, Denver was in Texas for a long time, I think, in the old days. Eastern Colorado was Texas back in the old days.

Nick Nilson:
You can't throw this historical stuff on me, I have no idea. Already out shooting me here.

William Vanderbloemen:
Well, there's so many things I want to talk about. I'd love to know, tell me what it's like... I love to hear about workplace culture. Tell me what it's like working in the culture at Lakewood now and how does that compare to 16 years ago when you got here? Because a lot's changed, right?

Nick Nilson:
Wow. Yes, huge question. Well, number one, I have to say it's a dream. It's an honor and privilege to serve Pastor Joel and the Osteen family and the story, the God's story. As I told you earlier, we were just meeting with a team that's coming to give us some ideas on improving our kids and we're revamping and remodeling. But I was explaining to them, they asked me some questions about, "Well, how did this happen? How did this happen?" Getting to know Lakewood's story, and I'm just like, "It's a miracle. We're in the middle of a miracle and it's a God story." I'm just humbled to be a part of it, to be written into it, to play a part of it. My responsibility is to steward it well, and to me, I feel like that's somewhat of our approach as a culture, as leaders. When I watch Pastor Joel, when I get the privilege to lead with him in making conversations and decisions and leading forward, a lot of it is just how do we steward this well with integrity, with humility?
This is a God thing. There's this beautiful... The value of ours of just not losing the wonder of the miracle that we get to serve and be a part of every day. That is something that we're constantly trying. I feel like there are things, of course, that have evolved within our team culture. I feel like where we are now versus where we were 16 years ago, I think some of the big differences just would be our advancements with our technology, with our team. I feel like our team communication, our team unity, how we're approaching certain things with utilizing technology and our platform to give as many people hope as we can. I feel like those are the things that are paramount for us right now, still trying to be as effective... John Osteen used to say, "The light that shines the furthest shines the brightest at home," so we want to utilize technology in our platform to give as many people the hope of the gospel.
But especially in our own city, especially right in our own neighborhoods, what are we doing to get better at that? Those are the things right now that I think are so paramount for us, even more so than they were 16 years ago. But I think as far as my role and what I'm in the middle of, I just love fighting for unity. I love fighting for all the different departments and seeing us cohesively work together. We have a Spanish part of who we are as a church, I like to say our Spanish family that's led by Pastor Danilo, Gloriana Montero, and they're phenomenal leaders. Working with them, trying to see how do we speak the same language but with different accents as far as our culture, as far as what we're trying to accomplish? But I don't know if I'm answering your question, but those things are the first things that come to mind when I say what's paramount right now versus where it was 16 years ago. I'll add one more thing, Pastor Joel has evolved as a leader, as everybody should, right? [inaudible 00:06:42].

William Vanderbloemen:
This is what everyone wants to hear about. Tell us this, how has pastor evolved into a different type of leader over the years?

Nick Nilson:
Well, again, I stated before, the core things of how he leads as it relates to character, humility, integrity, those things have always been at the forefront. Leading with compassion, unselfishness, trying to empower those of us around him to achieve greater things. Those things I feel have always been at the forefront of his leadership from my perspective. But I think even over the last couple of years, just this real strong, healthy burden to maximize his influence to impact as many people as possible. Looking at who we are as a church, again, I come back to the word stewardship.
There is this deep urgency in a healthy way to protect and to steward what God has graced this house to do at. It's at an all time high for him right now. Of course, with everything you read around us in the media and everything that's taking place in our culture, even church culture, I think just a deeper press to go, "Hey, we got to protect this with integrity. We got to steward this well. God's entrusted us with it." Asking himself those types of questions, what areas can we improve? What things can we do better in those regards?

William Vanderbloemen:
That's Good.

Nick Nilson:
Those are some big things that come to mind.

William Vanderbloemen:
I tell you what, you interview 20 people from Lakewood and ask them about their pastor. Unless you get liars, it's a pretty boring day because you hear the same thing over and over, I'm serious. That's really high flattery, it's like going to a crime scene and everybody tells you the same story about how it happened like, "Well, that was pretty boring, but it's true." You hear it over and over and over. We serve a lot of different kind of churches, so everybody's got opinions.

Nick Nilson:
Of course.

William Vanderbloemen:
I stop everybody short before anything comes up. I said, "Listen, I have zero objectivity about Lakewood and Pastor Joel, zero." Like that guy, Coach McCartney, you remember this name? He started Promise Keepers a million years ago, [inaudible 00:09:16].

Nick Nilson:
Yeah.

William Vanderbloemen:
He had a great definition of success. He said, "Success is when the people who know you the best, love and respect you the most."

Nick Nilson:
Come on.

William Vanderbloemen:
People are forever asking me, because Joel's been a friend for a long time, long, long time, as long as I've been in Houston, "What's he like? What's he like?" What you see is what you get, man, there's not a-

Nick Nilson:
100%.

William Vanderbloemen:
Not a onstage and offstage.

Nick Nilson:
Again, like I said, the longer I've worked here and the closer I've gotten to him, the more respect that I have and it's why I'm here.

William Vanderbloemen:
He's in great shape, his fitness is great. But I got to say, if I got to have a three pointer at the buzzer, I think I'm picking you now over him. I don't know, I haven't seen him in a while.

Nick Nilson:
I don't know, man, I might challenge you on that. I haven't played basketball in a long time, so I don't know if you're taking my shot over his still. He is good at tennis though.

William Vanderbloemen:
Yeah.

Nick Nilson:
You better take his serve over mine, I tell you that.

William Vanderbloemen:
Well, I wanted to have you on and we could talk about a million things for a million hours, but I was particular... Anytime I've talked to Nick, [inaudible 00:10:33], "How you doing?" "I'm living the dream."

Nick Nilson:
Living the dream, baby.

William Vanderbloemen:
I'm like, "So guess what the title of Nick's new book is? You Can Live the Dream."

Nick Nilson:
That's right.

William Vanderbloemen:
I was so taken by the title. Frankly, Nick, I'd just love for you to tell how... Every time I've written a book, I just finished one, it's coming out in the fall.

Nick Nilson:
Let's go.

William Vanderbloemen:
I have seven children. I've never gone through labor and delivery, but I've watched it a lot. I think having a book is pretty close. It better be something deep within you to go through what you got to go through to get it out. What was the deep thing in you that made you say, "This has got to get out of me, I got to get this to other people?"

Nick Nilson:
Well, I felt like this desire to write a book and release a book had always kind of been lingering in me and in my heart. You see your peers write books and put books out, and I've just never wanted to write a book to write a book. I feel like there's so many great authors and minds and leaders and pastors putting books out, by the grace of God, I just always resisted when I felt like I was stepping out and doing it for the wrong motive. In the end of 2021, I really felt this desire and this impression, like God saying, "Green light, it's time to go. There are things in you, there are things that... There's messages, there's things you need to put out there and just start writing." At the beginning of 2021, I locked myself away on different book retreats throughout the year, I just... Had no publisher, I just said, "I just need to write this. I need to get this out, what's in me."
Like you said, I kept hearing young adults around me and certain individuals around me saying, "I'm living a dream." It's this commonly used cultural cliche that's an Instagram caption, that's usually of a great vacation spot or the dream car or something that encompasses joy, peace, contentment. To me, I always thought when you follow Jesus, you don't have to wait for those things to experience joy, peace, satisfaction, contentment, fulfillment, you can live the dream right now. You don't have to wait until you attain these things or reach a certain relational status or get through this challenge before you can experience joy, you can experience happiness. It just really is about your perspective. If you can shift your perspective, then you can experience and begin to see things from God's perspective, see this situation through his lens and you can start experiencing the peace that he intended you. Nothing has to change, you don't have to wait to live the dream. You can change your perspective and you can live it now and so it's really a-

William Vanderbloemen:
That's kind of your story though, right? Isn't that part of who you have become over the years? Walk me through how this message was born in your own life?

Nick Nilson:
I was a big sports guy, my dad was my football coach growing up. I didn't grow up in church, so really had no church context. We went to church on Easter, that was basically it. My parents were divorced when I was three and just walked through some unhealthy things in our home life. My dad struggled with different things, but he tried his best. My parents tried their best with what they were given. But when I reached high school, my focus was football, get good grades, play football, party, that was basically my goals in life and what consumed me. The summer before my senior year, a friend of mine invited me to a church summer camp. He was the only believer that I knew of in the school, invited me for some odd reason.
I said yes, I think because he said there was pretty girls there and we were going to have some fun playing basketball and stuff. I'm like, "I'm in. Count me in, I'll be there." We go have a great time, but there was one service, I'll never forget it, June 18th, 1998. God just gripped my heart. I don't remember the sermon, I don't remember what happened in the service. I just remember responding to give my life to Jesus and saying yes to him. Repeated the salvation prayer, accepted Christ. Two days later, got water baptized there and my life was just radically changed at this retreat. Came home now with obviously a different perspective on life, a different perspective. Obviously, Jesus introduces us and offers us this ability to possess a whole new perspective of our lives that provides hope and possibility and purpose and contentment and I found that.
My parents didn't quite understand it, but I went into football that fall of my senior year with this deep passion now that I had this purpose and football was my purpose now for God. This is what God had called me to do. I had already been on college visits and had verbally committed to Michigan State to play football. This is when Nick Saban was the head coach, and I was preparing, ready to do that. Third game of the season, I played running back, tore my ACL. At that point in my life, I had just given my life to Christ four months before this. Here in my mind, I walked away from partying, walked away from all these things, was following Jesus, a new perspective on my life, on my purpose, on football. In a moment now, it's gone. As a young believer, I'm sitting on this football field and I'm just like, "What in the world? Why is this happening?"
It was the one thing in my life as a little boy that I dreamt about doing is in a moment here temporarily taken away and pushed pause on. Long story short, William, I went through rehab, but while rehabbing being away from the football field, I just began to pray. It was in that season of my life where God just began to open my eyes and give me the desire to pastor. The desire grew and grew and grew. The opportunity to go to Michigan State was still on the table, as well as others, but just felt like pursuing ministry was what God wanted me to do. Had I not gotten hurt and had God not pushed pause on that, I would've never stepped into my purpose. Now I look back and what obviously was a massive painful season as an early believer actually was the very thing that propelled me into my destiny. Now I see obstacles with a unique perspective because I look back on my life and I go, "Had that not happened, I wouldn't be where I am today. I wouldn't be doing the very thing I was created to do."
That's what I wanted to do, but that wasn't what I was made to do. Obviously, this message about perspective and trying to see not the good things, but sometimes the hard things, the things you didn't expect, your marriage not working out, you not getting that job, your kid not serving Christ, you battling that sickness. These things are difficult, but we can choose to have the right perspective in spite of them and still see, all right, God's going to somehow work this for good. God can use this to propel me to my destiny. There's opportunity hidden within every obstacle, it's just are we going to choose to see those things and believe those things when we're going through it? There's other stories that I have throughout that I've wrote about in the book that really exemplify those.

Christa Neidig:
Compensation is a critical component of building a great team and retaining your staff members. Talk to our team today about our customized compensation solutions or visit Vanderbloemen.com/compensation to learn more.

William Vanderbloemen:
Well, and it feels to me like each chapter is sort of a module in a different aspect of living the dream, right?

Nick Nilson:
Yes.

William Vanderbloemen:
Can you talk about... Let's pick one, I've heard you talk about how service can change things. Walk us through that? It's a great... By the way, next book I write, can you title all the chapters for me? Because they're pretty good chapter titles.

Nick Nilson:
You want me to tell you that chapter title?

William Vanderbloemen:
I want to just do that for me, if you want.

Nick Nilson:
Chapter one is Drowning Worms, which is a hilarious story, you'll have to get the book to read it. It's about me and my son going fishing for the first time, hilarious. Again, another story that opened me up to, wow, perspective is everything. Chapter two, Power of Letting Go. Another funny story, my first time riding a mini bike, didn't let go and it went south for me. Chapter three, Progress Over Perfection, celebrating the good on the way to great. A lot of times we find ourselves in discontent seasons because we're not growing. But I talk about learning to celebrate good on the way to great. Do It Afraid, chapter four, don't let fear keep you from stepping out. God trees, discover your prepared blessings. I talk about sometimes we don't want to step into new seasons because we don't feel like we're prepared or there are... I just talk about things being prepared already for you before you even get there.
Dream Team, I love this chapter, William. This one's about your relationships, your environment, your team, you need healthy people around you. Where you put yourself, the environment you're in. You can't get there alone, we know this. The power of consistency, finding your miracle in the mundane. Favor follows you. Chapter eight, Heaven Has Your Back. Chapter nine, You Have Nothing to Prove. Chapter 10, live within the margins. Another one that I love, that'll speak to leaders and pastors. That that was a big one for me that came from a deep place in my life and experience. Chapter 12, Power Moves. Chapter 13, The Dream Awaits. 13 chapters.

William Vanderbloemen:
Tell me what the power move is?

Nick Nilson:
The power move to me is it's finding significance in serving other people. We live in a culture where leadership, as you know, William, is often expressed, look at my authority, top down, I'm going to flex my muscles. For me, it's a chapter that I just unpacked that finding true significance is found in serving other people. It's what Jesus showed us. Think about this, one of the stories, Jesus' last moments with his disciples, he gathers them together. This is his business meeting, this is his plan. Like, "Guys gather around, here's the vision. Here's what we're going to do, this is how we're going to change the world." He doesn't throw out the PowerPoint, four steps on how to build the church or three keys.
Those things are all great, I love steps, I love strategy. But he washes their feet and he says, "Go do this to each other. This is how you're going to make an indelible impact and difference in the world," it's serving others. This is just after he said, "I've given you all the... God gave me all authority and this is how I'm expressing my authority. I'm going to serve." I just feel the greatest expression of our authority as leaders is found in serving. It's found in the ability, how can I empower someone? How can I lift someone, encourage someone, protect someone, care for someone? Just how do I serve? That's the genesis of the power moves.

William Vanderbloemen:
So good, that's so good. Well, I know we're airing this a little before the launch, but book's going to launch August 8th, something like that.

Nick Nilson:
August 8th. Absolutely, August 8th.

William Vanderbloemen:
Here in Houston, there is nothing to do but be inside in August. Everyone in Houston needs to sit inside and read.

Nick Nilson:
Yes.

William Vanderbloemen:
Because you don't want to go outside, you just die. That's not a power move in Houston in August. But I assume Amazon, is there a website besides that you should go to?

Nick Nilson:
Yeah. You can go to nicknilson.com, and-

William Vanderbloemen:
Nicknilson.com.

Nick Nilson:
Nicknilson.com will give you all the spaces that the book is going to be available. Everywhere books are sold, you can find at Amazon, Target, Books-A-Million, Barnes and Noble, all those, but you can just go to my website and get information. Because I will say on there, if you're a team leader, pastor, coach, business owner, I've already had people ask me in my space for pre-order bulk orders for their team. They want to read it through as a group.

William Vanderbloemen:
Sure.

Nick Nilson:
On my website, you can find an email there where you can email a point person from my publishing team that will give them a discounted rate if they pre-order a bulk order for their team. I think it's a great team exercise for teams, businesses, wherever you find yourself in as a leader. I think it's a great book to read and discuss, talk about. I think there's some things that I think would help team culture, like you said, power move, some of these other chapters I think can really be helpful.

William Vanderbloemen:
Well, and those of you who are just meeting Nick for the first time, the title might be associate pastor, but he leads massive sized teams, so if he's taking a team through it or suggesting it's worth listening to. I don't know, man, I'm still taking you for the three-pointer. I don't know, [inaudible 00:25:09] in good shape. Now Adrian, my wife, sees him on the tennis court from time to time says, "Probably don't want to mess with him out there," because-

Nick Nilson:
You don't.

William Vanderbloemen:
... he's got it going on.

Nick Nilson:
He can play some tennis, yeah. I try to athletically keep up, but there's just no chance I have out there. Probably like I would look like with you out on the golf course, just absolutely no chance.

William Vanderbloemen:
Well, I look forward to having you back on when you're telling us how well this book's done and how you're starting the second one. We'll get Summer on and then people will really start listening. I just thank you, you got a busy, busy life and to take time out to visit with us, really, really a treat. Thank you, Nick, for making time for us and best wishes with the book launch.

Nick Nilson:
Thank you, William. I appreciate you having me on.

William Vanderbloemen:
Yeah, and those of you who are regular listeners know this is when I start to ramble about if you want the links and the show notes and all that, just go to vandercast.com. Give us the email address, we will not beat you up with Ginsu knife orders, and but wait, there's more. Just the show notes and the highlights, that sort of thing. Tune in next time for another visit with one of my friends that maybe you know, maybe you don't, but is serving team Jesus, so we can get this whole movement going farther and faster. Thanks for being here today.

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.