From Small Town Dreams to Big-Time Leadership: Mac Lake’s Journey of Faith and Purpose
The Jon Gordon Podcast
Jon Gordon
4.8 • 1.2K Ratings
🗓️ 15 August 2025
⏱️ 57 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
On this episode of The Jon Gordon Podcast, I sit down with my good friend Mac Lake for an honest, funny, and deeply meaningful conversation about faith, leadership, and purpose. Mac shares his journey from a shy kid in a tiny West Virginia town, to becoming a pastor, leadership developer, and the father of chart-topping Christian artist Brandon Lake
We talk about the setbacks, faith steps, and even awkward dating stories that shaped Mac’s life, the surprising ways God weaves together our stories, and the keys to building a strong marriage that gets better over time. Mac offers practical, eye-opening leadership wisdom, like the “learning, growing, mastering” model for developing teams, why investing in yourself unlocks your potential to invest in others, and how to lead with both skill and spirit (plus, he shares the simple-but-powerful system for one-on-ones you need to try).
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the John Gordon podcast, where we share John's interviews with guests, as well as key strategies and lessons from his keynotes, coaching, and more. |
| 0:09.3 | We want to encourage you to check out Johngordoncertified.com if you're interested in growing as a leader, coach, speaker, or trainer. |
| 0:15.6 | When you get certified, you'll be able to teach, coach, and train others on John's most impactful mindset, leadership, and teamwork principles. |
| 0:22.5 | For more information, visit john Gordoncertified.com. |
| 0:25.5 | That's J-O-N-Gordoncertified.com. |
| 0:28.5 | Now let's jump in to today's episode. |
| 0:31.6 | Hey, this is John Gordon with the John Gordon podcast. |
| 0:34.8 | And today my guest is Mack Lake. |
| 0:37.0 | Mack, how you doing? |
| 0:37.9 | I'm doing great, John. |
| 0:39.2 | Always a good day when I get to spend time with you. |
| 0:41.8 | It's always great when I get to spend time with you. |
| 0:44.2 | Mack, where'd you grow up? |
| 0:47.6 | I grew up in the hills of West Virginia, |
| 0:49.7 | little country town called Pratt, West Virginia. |
| 0:53.3 | Now here's the claim to fame, okay? |
| 0:56.6 | Yeah. John, when I was, when I was nine years old, I fell in love with basketball. So I would |
| 1:00.5 | dribble my basketball every, every day up three blocks up the road, there was only four blocks |
| 1:06.4 | in town, but I dribble basketball, three blocks up the road to the post office to get the mail. |
| 1:11.4 | Now, the reason I obeyed my mom on getting the mail but not cutting the grass was my mail lady was Jerry West's sister. |
| 1:21.1 | And I loved Jerry West, idolized Jerry West. |
| 1:24.6 | So I dribble my basketball up there, talked to her. |
... |
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