Welcome to the Emotionally Healthy Leader podcast. My name is Rich Velotis. I'm the lead pastor at New Life Fellowship Church here in Queens, New York City. And I'm here with Pete's Casero as always. Pete is the founder of New Life, as well as the founder of emotionally healthy spirituality.

And today, Pete, we're beginning a series of podcasts that we're going to be working through

your book, The Emotionally Healthy Leader.

And every podcast, we're going to be just looking, a brief overview of what you're exploring

in each chapter.

And today we're going to talk about the emotionally unhealthy leader, the emotionally unhealthy

leader.

So before we get into some of the content, tell us a little bit about your journey as an emotionally

unhealthy leader, it's hard to believe it.

That's a nasty question. As an emotionally unhealthy leader, it's hard to believe it. It's a nasty question.

But as an emotionally unhealthy leader in your time leading New Life Fellowship Church over 25 years.

So tell us a little about your story.

Yeah, so I like to say I had four conversions, and it's a nice way to frame how I ended up writing this book.

Became a Christian, in 1976, had a wonderful conversion to Christ, his grace, his love, learned

all about spiritual disciplines, etc. But it was almost, boy, 19 years later, in 1996 that

I call, I had my second conversion. I was at point pasturing New Life for a number of years,

but it was the integration of emotional health and spiritual maturity cannot be separated.

And it was out of that crisis of realizing something was missing information in our church here at New Life,

then in my own life as well, that out of that cataclysmic crisis of my own marriage, and pondering for a couple

of years, God met myself, Jerry, in a very significant way.

And it's so significant, it changed the whole way we follow Jesus, and it was his integration

of emotional health.

...