Meet Mike Goldsworthy of Live Contrarian

Today we’d like to introduce you to Mike Goldsworthy.

Hi Mike, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
I served as a local church pastor for over 20 years, becoming one of the youngest megachurch pastors in the country at 29 years old. In 2019, I stepped out of local church work and began working with people in two different streams – (1) with post-evangelicals, whose faith had evolved and outgrown the systems and beliefs they had grown up with and their churches, and (2) with high capacity leaders from all walks of life who wanted to build sustainability into their life and leadership.

I did my Graduate work in Transformational Leadership, which amongst other things, says that the work of leadership is first and foremost self-leadership and that everything else (including your role, responsibilities, and the outcomes/results) flows out of that. I’ve taken that framework alongside other training and certifications to be able to help people and organizations focus first on the internal work of self-leadership to bring about a kind of transformation that has resulted in outcomes like work performance, sales, etc., but that is more sustainable than just striving for higher performance.

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
I left my role at the church in August of 2019 and seven months later, we were in a global pandemic. It obviously affected everyone significantly, but for us, I had never been in a position before where my income was being directly affected by larger forces outside of my control. In addition to the practical things that we needed to do in order to have a sustainable income during that time, it required a lot of personal work as well – realizing that there is a gift in receiving and embracing limits.

Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know?
Live Contrarian works with organizations and high-capacity leaders to help build sustainability into life and leadership so that you can enjoy both more.

We use contrarian as a part of our moniker because we don’t necessarily fit in the typical development space. We aren’t interested in short-term fixes and just helping people achieve their goals. Instead, we see those as outcomes of developing a healthy understanding of what you need for your own self-leadership. We help people and organizations create action plans that build a trajectory over time where they become the kinds of people and the kinds of organizations they want to become. And if you are becoming the right kinds of people and organizations, you will naturally do the right kinds of things as an overflow of that.

Any big plans?
I’m currently developing a course called “Don’t Wait for Burnout” to help individuals develop a plan of sustainability before they are forced into developing that sort of plan on the other side of burnout.

I’m also working on some short writing projects around what it looks like to be values-driven vs goals-driven and hope to help high-capacity individuals and organizations find unique ways to develop sustainability and growth that may be a bit contrarian to the collective consciousness of advice they’re receiving that are exhausting them and those they work with.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.mikegoldsworthy.com
• Instagram: mgoldsworthy
• Facebook: mikejgoldsworthy
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-goldsworthy/

Image Credits
Charla Avery Jacob Titus Cody Miller