Meet Josh Olds

We recently connected with Josh Olds and have shared our conversation below.

Josh, thanks so much for taking the time to share your insights and lessons with us today. We’re particularly interested in hearing about how you became such a resilient person. Where do you get your resilience from?

I did competitive gymnastics as a teenager. I wasn’t the best, but loved the sport. Maybe the best thing that sport taught me was how to get back up after falling and continue onward. Failure is fine, so long as you fail forward pursuing something challenging. The way I’ve looked at it is that if you’re going to improve yourself, that means constantly expanding and testing the boundaries of what you are comfortable with or what you can already do. That leads to a resilience that comes from constant testing. Resilience is a learned trait you get by experience. It also means you deem the end goal worth a pursuit that comes at the guarantee of risk and sacrifice.

When it comes to any long-term goal, whether it’s in a hobby or career, there area going to be setbacks and times you have to press pause or reevaluate the path toward one’s goal. Resilience is that ability to pursue the goal without getting locked into a particular timeline or pathway to that goal. It’s adaptation from what once might have been the best way or the preferred way to what actually allows you to move forward in practical terms. As such, my resilience is based in the confidence that what I’m pursuing is worth the continued effort toward the goal.

Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?

I’m in a bit of a weird spot professionally at the moment. From 2013-2020, I worked as both a youth and teaching pastor at a mid-size church in Oklahoma and as a competitive gymnastics coach. During that time, I also pursued a hobby in book reviewing that took off with my website, Life is Story, growing to amass hundreds of thousands of readers. In 2020, my family and I took a leap of faith, quit our jobs, and had the intention of travelling the United States while my wife – an occupational therapist – took on a series of short-term contracts. We wanted to explore the world and see where God placed us. We sold our house and most of our things and then COVID hit and everything locked down. We ended up in England with my wife working on an American Air Force Base. I took some time out of formal ministry to pursue a doctorate. Then, in 2024, we returned to the States for a brief stint while preparing for a long-term move to Australia.

So I’m not quite sure what to say about what I’m focused on professionally. I’m a pastor to the churchless, working in online spaces to be a voice for those disillusioned by the institutional church. For the past six months here in the States, I’ve done work as a church consultant and itinerant pastor helping churches gain an outside perspective on their ministry. And I have plans to expand my online church work as I move to Australia and seek a pastoral position there.

If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?

First, don’t assume you know what the journey to the end goal will look like. If you had told me five years ago or ten years ago or fifteen years ago what my life and ministry would look like, I would not have believed you. I entered undergrad with the intention of being a pastor. Almost immediately, that dream took a hit as unexpected financial problems in my family meant retooling what college looked like for me. Instead of going away to school, I ended up doing distance learning and keeping my job as a gymnastics coach. When I graduated seminary and got a pastoral position, I never expected that I’d continue to coach gymnastics, but financial realities made a second job necessary. And let me tell you, being a coach made me a better pastor and being a pastor made me a better coach. I never thought I’d move to England or Australia. The goal hasn’t much changed, but the context of the journey has shifted dramatically.

Second, go until you hear “Stop.” Too often, people find themselves faced with the analysis of paralysis and wait until they think they have everything figured out before they start. I would advocate for the opposite. Pursue your goals, pursue your dreams, and allow that pursuit to be defined and refined through the process. Don’t wait until you hear “Go,” go until you hear “Stop,” then adjust accordingly and keep moving forward.

Third, get advice from people who have been on the same journey you’re on. Travel with them – metaphorically and maybe even literally. Learn from their journey and let their experiences inform your pathway forward.

Alright, so before we go we want to ask you to take a moment to reflect and share what you think you would do if you somehow knew you only had a decade of life left?

Moving to Australia, my wife has her job and life figured out. (Seriously, you should check out The Occuplaytional Therapist, she’s got about a quarter million people who follow her.) I’m just kind of along for the ride. Pastoral ministry is a widespread need, but positions that pay a living wage and fit my particular theology and style of ministry aren’t. So I’m off into the unknown praying that the right thing will open up for me. It’s a challenge to not have the next step figured out. It’s a challenge to have to trust outside of myself to make the next thing happen. But I have learned to pursue what I’m supposed to pursue and see what opportunities come from that. My job is to be faithful to my calling. It’s up to God to provide results.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.lifeisstory.com | https://www.josholds.com
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61555392179045
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@drjosholds