LeaderImpact Podcast
LeaderImpact Podcast
Ep. 56 - Shan Gastineau: Reinvention and Resilience
Embark on a transformative journey with me, Lisa Peters, as I sit down with the fascinating Shan Gastineau, whose life reads like a novel filled with twists of faith, ambition, and heartfelt redemption. From the pulpit to the pinnacle of commercial real estate, Shan's story of professional metamorphosis is nothing short of awe-inspiring. He generously shares the character qualities—courage, purpose, and creativity—that catalyzed his significant career shifts. As we converse, Shan reveals how savoring daily progress rather than obsessing over long-term goals has enriched his life, from the challenge of learning new languages to the grounding practice of daily scriptural reflection. His journey is a vibrant narrative of leadership dynamism and the art of personal development.
In an intimate recounting of personal and marital rebirth, we explore Shan's story that tugs at the very fabric of the human spirit. After an early divorce led him to step away from ministry, Shan's deep spiritual introspection paved the road to self-forgiveness, and against all odds, a rekindled marriage with his ex-wife that has flourished for an astonishing 48 years. We discuss the little rituals that keep love alive and the profound impact spirituality can have on leadership. If you're seeking to enhance your leadership impact or simply looking for a touch of daily inspiration, this episode unfolds a treasure trove of wisdom and resources to ignite your own path of growth and resilience.
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Welcome to the Leader Impact Podcast. We are a community of leaders with a network in over 350 cities around the world, dedicated to optimizing our personal, professional and spiritual lives to have impact. This show is where we have a chance to listen and engage with leaders who are living this out. We love talking with leaders, so if you have any questions, comments or suggestions to make this show even better, please let us know. The best way to stay connected in Canada is through our newsletter at leaderimpactca or on social media at Leader Impact. If you're listening from outside of Canada, check out our website at leaderimpactcom.
Speaker 2:I'm your host, lisa Peters, and our guest today is Shan Gastineau. I'm your host, lisa Peters, and our guest today is Shan Gastino. Shan has packed four careers into his professional life and has learned a few things about reinventing himself professionally. He began his career as a young Methodist minister while at the same time obtaining his university degree in classical Greek and Latin. In his late 20s, he joined a small microcomputer manufacturer as a salesperson and six years later was its national sales director, with company sales exceeding $1 billion in revenue. In his 30s, he left to help start a company specializing in outsourcing services for law firms. The company grew from nothing to $100 million in sales in five years, which then the partner sold to a large publicly traded US firm. After a brief retirement in his early 40s, shan joined a commercial real estate firm and learned the art of corporate real estate advisory and brokerage, which, after 20 plus years and over $3 billion in transaction volume, he is still practicing. Welcome to the show, shan.
Speaker 1:Yes, lisa, thank you, Great to be with you today.
Speaker 2:It is nice. So, as I read this clearly, you're still in the game. You're loving it. Would that be accurate?
Speaker 1:That'd be very accurate. I'm 68 years old and me and two partners just started a new business in commercial real estate, started our own company. So away we go.
Speaker 2:Wow. So what does one do? Brief retirement at 40. You came back, was it just you were missing something?
Speaker 1:So sure. I mean, that was what my third career. We sold the company. A liquidity event allowed me to kind of decompress and I thought I would try retirement at 40 years old Didn't go well, you know. After 18 months, first thing you know you stop shaving every day, then you stop showering every day and you know all sorts of things. So you begin to I can't do. You know mathematical formulas and I go. Something's going wrong here. Playing golf three times a week, and particularly being bad at it, is no way to leave a legacy in this life.
Speaker 2:Right, that's funny because I'm sort of in this retirement and I kind of forgot. You know, sometimes I don't shower, so I'm getting what you mean, so I maybe should pick up my game. But anyway, thank you for joining us, and we usually kick off the podcast with just wanting to learn a little bit more about your professional story. But more importantly is just how you got from you know where you were to where you are today. But those pivotal moments, those moments that are really stand out in that journey, I don't know if you can share with us a pivotal moment.
Speaker 1:Sure. So I have the great joy of traveling around the world with Leader Impact and going to amazing places in South America and Europe and China and other places, and I do give a pretty similar presentation based on the question you just asked. And it's not just one pivotal moment. I've reinvented myself multiple times. You said that in the intro. I've had four distinctly different careers and each moment required some quality of character to be able to reinvent, because it wasn't just a little tweak here or there and it was, you know, one time. It required courage, where I didn't have a whole lot of courage. Or required a sense of calling and purpose where I didn't have a sense of calling or purpose. Or maybe it required creativity I didn't know that I had, but something to bring that out. So I wish I could say there were one. Know that I had, but something to bring that out, so I wish I could say there were one.
Speaker 2:But after a 40-year career of reinventing myself, I've learned a few things and I think it makes for a pretty encouraging presentation. Yeah, I love that I don't think we're staying in a career for 40 years, like our maybe father did or whomever. We are switching careers and I love that that with each sort of reinvention you had to find something new in yourself.
Speaker 1:Brilliant.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a great answer. So I don't know if you give us your best principle of success and if you have a story that illustrates that principle of success and if you have a story that illustrates that.
Speaker 1:So I would say that even as a young man, I was always goal obsessed not just goal driven but obsessed with outcomes. And that became the all-encompassing moment of a sense of success, a sense of pleasure, a sense of temporary happiness, whatever it may be. And I probably lived the first half of my business career and personal life obsessed on the outcomes. And I rolled into my 40s and we talked about this retirement moment and I realized something was just dramatically missing. And what I realized I was missing's simple attentiveness to daily work, the joy of and we hear the joy in the journey. And it sounds trite and I get that, but but that it's not that I'm not goal obsessed anymore, because I do have goals and I do desire good outcomes. We all do. That's natural, lisa.
Speaker 1:But the beauty of being just attentive to the day and attentive to the little things. For instance, I've learned a few languages and I learned over 25 years. You can learn to speak a language just 15 minutes a day. You can be put a little practice into it. 25 years ago I wanted to memorize a lot of scripture out of the Bible and I was terrible at it and I decided to spend maybe 15, 20 minutes a day, just every single day, just a day here maybe, but after a quarter century I've accumulated this vast memorization of scripture that just required a little attentiveness. I could go on and on with examples, whether of work or personal life or spiritual life, but that's probably been the biggest transformation in the second half of my work career.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I would like to ask you how do you start your day? How does your day start out in the morning? Are you getting up super early to have quiet time? How does your day start?
Speaker 1:So I'm very blessed to be married to a woman whom we are very compatible and, most of all time, compatible. So we do go that early, I admit that. I mean you know we're in bed by 9.30, 10 o'clock at the latest, but I get up at 5 am every morning and I have a routine, and I have a routine that takes about an hour and a half. I don't always get it, and when I don't get it there's no sense of judgment or lack, but most days I do and it's really a simple deal. I've been doing it for gosh 30 years and I get up and I stretch and work out for about a half an hour.
Speaker 1:I read Greek, ancient Greek for about half an hour, mostly the New Testament, sometimes Plato or the playwrights or some different things like that, just to stimulate the mind and have me thinking about how the ancients embraced life. And then I spent 30 minutes in prayer and it's just been a simple formula and I I'm it's not to where it's even drudgery or routine anymore. It's something that I'm addicted to. You can't do it for 30 years and not develop. This is what I would call a positive addiction. So that routine jumpstarts my day in just an amazing way.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I married a similar you know partner, my husband. We go to bed by nine, we're up at five, you know. And this routine. So I'd like to ask you, and just I thought of this, when you, you know, early retirement at 40, did you keep your routine? Did you fall out of your routine? Did you? You know? Because, and I, just when COVID hit years ago, I never stopped my routine. Yet I didn't have a job to go to, I had an event management firm, there was no events, I kept getting up at five. So when you retired, how was your routine? Did you keep up with it?
Speaker 1:So insightful, insightful question. I did, in fact, that was probably that routine contributed the most to my dissatisfaction in retirement. It just sat my dissatisfaction of not pouring into other people, my dissatisfaction of consuming pleasure and, just you know, I thought I needed to decompress, but really it was just a moment for a year and a half, 18 months, where I was just consuming pleasure. It was all about me. And you can't keep that kind of routine and go. You know, that's just a terrible way to live your life, in a terrible way finish your life. And so, yes, I did, but that was the outcome.
Speaker 2:That's great, good to hear. I mean, I kept it and came out on the other side.
Speaker 1:So exactly that's, right.
Speaker 2:So good to hear. I mean, I kept it and came out on the other side, so exactly that's right. So the next question is about failures and mistakes. I think we all know we learn more from our failures and mistakes than our own successes. So I'm just wondering if you can share a greatest failing one person corrected me a greatest failing or mistake and what you learned from it.
Speaker 1:You've probably heard this before Andy Stanley. I go to North Point Church here in Atlanta. Andy Stanley is the pastor and he says occasionally you know, you can serve as an example or you can serve as a warning, but either way you get to serve and I thought, well, that's brilliant. You know, some of us serve as a warning that's probably my life and others serve as an example, or maybe we're some combination of both. But talking about reinventing careers, where I've reinvented myself multiple times and had four different careers, I've also had to reinvent myself personally.
Speaker 1:My wife and I married very young. We were married for seven years. I was a young Methodist minister. I thought that's what my career and calling and we just had a pretty rocky marriage. I married her when she was 17. I was 20.
Speaker 1:And after seven years of marriage it just wasn't working and we divorced and I was crushed. I was crushed. We had two boys. I was crushed as a, as a husband. I was crushed as a man. I was crushed in every identity way possible. I was crushed as a minister who supposedly is helping other people whose lives screwed up and messed up, which I didn't realize how much it was until that moment.
Speaker 1:And so, at 27,. I went from the mountaintop, you know, owned a home, two cars, married two kids, thriving ministry, and all of a sudden, in a matter of months, I'm divorced and I'm leaving the ministry because of the crush of divorce and sense of failure. And you know, when you have a deep spiritual life, it doesn't guarantee immunity from catastrophe and failure. What it does give you a chance at is reinvention, a chance of recreating yourself, a chance of making a comeback, a chance of forgiveness, not only of others but of yourself, which is the hardest possible forgiveness of all others, but of yourself, which is the hardest possible forgiveness of all.
Speaker 1:And my wife, as a follower of Christ, felt the same way, my ex-wife and so, after a year of divorce, we looked at each other and said do we love each other? Well, we still did. Do you want to try again? Yeah, we did. You hear that occasionally that people get remarried. But we chose to get remarried and reinvent ourselves. And it was a long journey, but we celebrated in March um 48 years of being married. Between the two added up together, seven and 41. So you know that was a pretty good outcome. Uh, but that was. That was a pretty tough failure to deal with.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I can. Well, I can't imagine being a minister who everyone comes to for that sort of support. And here you are. So because and I want to thank you for sharing that story I think people are listening and we sometimes we look at people and think perfection, which none of us are. So what do you do to this day? I'm going to a family life conference, and it is about keeping our marriage fresh. It's not about counseling, it's so. My question to you would be how are you keeping? You know you're not. Are you reinventing your marriage every day? Are you excited about your marriage every day?
Speaker 1:You know, 48 years later, what's keeping so I go back to my comment of the second half of my adult life, which is daily attentiveness and rather than hyper-focused on outcomes. And I think sometimes we look at those oh my marriage needs to be here and this is an outcome, and it's not there. And there's an enormous sense of dissatisfaction in the gap between where I'm at and where I want to be or where we want to be. And that's a tough way to go. Dissatisfaction in that gap's not necessarily bad, but the daily attentiveness where you know you're two steps forward, one back, two forward, one back, two back, three forward. I mean there's a lot of beauty in that and there's a lot of sacredness in that kind of attentiveness to the day.
Speaker 1:And how am I doing today? What's going on today? How do we do today? And so we, you know, we sit down five o'clock, 5.30 most afternoons. I know that's a short work day, but we start early and we have a glass of wine together and you know we're talking about and it's not always deep but it's. You know, how do we do today? But it's, you know, how do we do today? How was your?
Speaker 2:you know it's, it's a daily thing, it's a ritual that we highly look forward to and are pretty unhappy if we don't get to share that yeah, uh, my husband, when our um, our children have moved away to go to university, but he would ask them every day we always had dinner together, 5, 5, 30, because we get up early and he would say what was the best part of your day? Because if you ask him, how was your day? It was good, like kids, right, but that's still, we will ask that. So it's not a one word answer, it's a what was the best part of your day?
Speaker 1:Yeah, those are good open-ended questions for sure.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so thanks for sharing that and daily attentiveness. I agree it is super important At Leader Impact. We want to grow professionally, personally and spiritually for increasing impact. So I was wondering if you can share a personal example of how your spiritual makes a practical difference in your life as a leader.
Speaker 1:Well, I had you know. It's amazing. I believe you can at least it was true for me, lisa where someone said are you a follower of Christ? Yes, absolutely, I mean shoot, I was a minister for a season and a sense of purpose and a sense of what the plan is and a sense of why you're here, and I know that sounds outcome, but it's really not. Because, you know, I was reading Hebrews 11 this morning and it talked about Abraham receiving a calling to go into a place where he didn't know he was going. He was called to get up and go, but he wasn't quite sure where that was.
Speaker 1:Well, that was the big epiphany for me in my mid forties is that, yeah, I, I, I didn't really know where I was going and I wasn't even sure I was going, even though I had been on this journey. I was not pouring into people's lives, I was not having an impact on anybody and my golf game wasn't getting any better and I just, it was just a terrible place to be, and that was the turning point in my life. I was probably 47 when I just said I can't continue like this, and that's when I began to intentionally live a life that wasn't about consuming pleasure, but was about constantly figuring out how to pour into other people. That was a big deal for me. I don't know how you do that without having a spiritual life. I mean, it's from our spiritual life, from which Jim Collins would say you know, a spiritual life isn't about religion, though I don't necessarily agree with that, but that's what he says. But he says it is important because that's where you derive your sense of purpose, your sense of meaning. Totally agree with that.
Speaker 1:And so how do you live a professional life and a personal life without your spiritual life and that sense of meaning informing those other areas of your life? I don't know, I tried it. It didn't work. Maybe it works for others, but it sure didn't work for me. Your life, I don't know. I tried it, it didn't work. Maybe it works for others, but it sure didn't work for me. So the last 20 years of my life have been about that spiritual life, heavily informing all these other areas of my life.
Speaker 2:Yeah, um it. So we're taking Jim, we are studying Jim Collins book right now. My leader impact group uh, great, by choice. And we were really talking about living intentionally. You know you can live, and if you don't have intention, if you don't have purpose, other people are going to put it all on you, what they want you to to do, and so we talked about just, we all need to live more intentionally. I loved your Hebrews reading this morning. The person was called to go but they didn't know where they were going. And I think sometimes we are all feeling that we don't know where we're going and I don't know if you have any advice. And when we talk about sense of purpose and I know ultimately I have a purpose I think sometimes people are maybe they're listening and they're like, but I don't know where I'm going. I don't even know where to start. I sometimes feel like, just just call us Leader Impact.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I would. I'd actually draw from one of the ancient philosophers, aristotle, who he talked about. You know, most of us are obsessed about kind of thinking and doing. We're obsessed about beginnings and endings and outcomes. But he did a whole thing and I think it's in his work on metaphysics, but I may be wrong on that but he talked about how becoming is so underrated.
Speaker 1:You know, we are who we are. God has made us who we are. That's just he's put in us our identity, from whom we derive? We should derive who we are, not what other people say, not what I even say about myself. What I say about myself is equally unimportant to what others say about me. All that matters is what does God say about me, and that's our sense of identity. But then it has to become, it has to come forth.
Speaker 1:A great preacher here in Atlanta, now retired, would say on the way to doing something I became someone. Well, it's not that on the way to doing something I am someone. That's not my identity is doing something. But who I am has a chance to become, has a chance to come forth, has a chance to reveal itself when I at least start taking steps. All I got to do is start taking steps. And on that path of taking steps and that's what Abraham did he didn't know where he was going, but he started taking steps. And on those steps, this becoming, this amazing becoming and journey of faith from which we have all derived extraordinary encouragement over the years, and I think all of us desire the same thing. So I would encourage somebody yeah, just stop sitting on your hiney, get up and start doing something. Taking steps doesn't matter how obscure, insignificant, low on the food chain it appears to be. Start doing something and, on that way, have a chance for God to bring the becoming out.
Speaker 2:That's great advice, shan. Thank you for sharing. Two last questions. So Leader Impact is dedicated to leaders leaving a lasting impact. So, as you continue to move through your own journey and all your transitions and reinventions in life, have you considered what you want your faith legacy to be when you leave this world?
Speaker 1:So, at the risk of it being misunderstood, but it's just how I think about it. And again, I'm at the risk of it being misunderstood, but it's just how I think about it. And again, the Bible and the New Testament are my favorite, but I do draw insight and truth out of the ancients that are not just in the Bible. Like Plato, plato's second most famous work, the Symposium, he makes a case that most humans desire, all humans desire immortality. Most of them try to achieve their legacy of immortality through their children. That's what they do, you know, they kind of live life and they do that, but ultimately through their children. If they're able to have children of their flesh, that's where they hope to see their legacy carried on. And he says that's beautiful. But then he makes a case for something that he claims is more beautiful, and that is not just having children of your body. But what about children of your soul? Do you have children of your soul? Well, what does that mean? Spiritual children.
Speaker 1:The apostle Paul called the people that he brought to faith his spiritual children. That's the legacy that I want. We all desire immortality. It's not that I want to be remembered or this or that, but I'd love and I do have three amazing children and grandchildren, but I have way more spiritual children, and I'm not saying they're more important, because that's not necessarily the case, but they're super important. I don't, you know, I have no idea who the apostle Peter's children were. He was married and had a family. I don't remember his kids. I don't remember Socrates' kids. I don't remember. You know their kids are long gone. But we all know their children, their spiritual children that live generation after generation, even today. That are Paul and his spiritual children. I'm one of them, you're one of them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, wow, good answer, shan. I haven't thought of it that way. Thank you for sharing. So our last question that we always ask all our guests is what brings you the greatest joy?
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. So final question, right, I would. I used to desire a stage and a platform and you know I was a young minister. I just dreamed of you know, speaking to thousands and people you know being dramatically affected by me. And I look back and it's laughable at the arrogance of how I but you know I was in my 20s I mean, give me a break. I guess I, you know, I look at 20-somethings now and you know they're equally sometimes.
Speaker 1:You know, I mean anyway, and what's totally changed is my desire for obscurity, my desire for just be under the radar, my desire to pursue just one person, my pursuit of Luke 15, the pursuit of the one, the pursuit of the one sheep, the pursuit of the one coin, the pursuit of the sun. I think that's possibly my favorite chapter in the gospels. It's that sense of the one. I think that's possibly my favorite chapter in the gospels is. It's that sense of the one. You know you have the 99 sheep. Fine, let let people go minister to the 99 and let them that. That's needed and thank, thank the Lord for it. But my heart's after that one and that's what's given me the greatest joy right now.
Speaker 2:Wow. Thank you, shan. It was a great 20 minutes with you. I don't have any more questions, do you have?
Speaker 1:anything you want to add. I don't know, you kind of brought it out of me, I did.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I want to just thank you for spending this time with us and sharing your stories. It is just, it's a pleasure to show for me. I love showing up here every every two weeks just to hear, just to hear from people like yourselves, because everyone has a story and I think unless we share, people don't know us, people don't know. So thank you for sharing.
Speaker 1:Well, thank you for doing what you do.
Speaker 2:I appreciate it, Lisa. So this ends our podcast and we've enjoyed our time. If people want to follow up, if they want to engage with you, what is the best way to find you?
Speaker 1:Certainly on LinkedIn. I'm email to shangastineau at gmailcom. If you can spell Shan and spell Gastineau, it's first name dot last name at gmailcom.
Speaker 2:Okay, well, your name will come up on this podcast. So thank you again for joining us, lisa. Thank you, you are welcome, all right. Well, if you're part of Leader Impact, you can always discuss or share this podcast with your group. And if you're not yet part of a Leader Impact and would like to find out more and grow your leadership, find our podcast page on our website at leaderimpactca and check out our free leadership assessment. You will also find on our webpage chapter one of Braden Douglas's book Becoming a Leader of Impact. You can also check out our groups available in Canada at leaderimpactca or, if you're listening from anywhere else in the world, check out leaderimpactcom or get in touch with us by email. Info at leader impact dot ca and we will connect you. And if you like this podcast, please leave us a comment, give us a rating or review. This will help other global leaders find our podcast. Thank you for engaging with us and remember impact starts with you. Impact starts with you.
