Episode 102 – Jessy Bannister – Leaders On Leadership
We are put on this earth for leadership. It’s what we were made to do. But like everything else in life, there’s a price you have to pay. Despite being in front surrounded by and cheered on by everybody, it really is lonely at the top. On today’s podcast, Dr. Tracey Jones brings on Jessy Bannister to talk about the price of leadership. Jessy is a Financial Services Professional at NYLIFE Securities LLC who helps individuals and business owners create, build, and preserve wealth. Together, they discuss how leaders can battle loneliness and stay vision-oriented and hyper-focused on the business.
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Listen to the podcast here:
Jessy Bannister – Leaders On Leadership
Our guest is Jessy Bannister. Jessy is a dear friend of mine. She's an incredible female leader and she is growing her financial services business and has some incredible insights into the price of leadership. You're not going to want to miss what Jessy has to share.
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I am excited because I have my dear friend, colleague, and advocate, Jessy Bannister as my guest. Jessy is a powerful, loving, and disciplined financial services professional. She and her amazing team are committed to helping their clients grow old, healthy, and wealthy so they never experiencing being old, sick, and poor. Jessy is married to her friend, Ryan, with whom she has honey dripping love. I can't wait to tell you more about that and what she has taught me about honey dripping love. They have three girls and their baby boy, Samson. Jessy, thank you for being on my show.
Thank you for having me. I feel special after you say that.
You should feel special because you are such a blessing to me and many other people. You have helped me sort out many things. Tremendous Leadership is all about having the tribe in your group to help you unpack leadership. That's what we want to know from you about what it took you to pay the price of leadership, so thank you.
I'm excited for this conversation.
My father wrote this book called The Price of Leadership. It was his most given speech throughout all his history of speeches. He loved talking about leadership and was quite passionate about it. It was a pragmatic speech. Leadership is what we are put on this Earth and it's made by our Creator to do, but there's a price you have to pay like everything else in life. The first price that he talks about is loneliness. When we were young, were little starry-eyed leaders, wanting to grow up, and be wonderful, tremendous women leaders.
We had heard it's lonely at the top. We understood that there's an element of this loneliness. A lot of times, people get into leadership because they want to be in front, surrounded by, and cheered on by everybody. Can you explain to me what loneliness has meant to you and your career in any capacity as a leader? When you've been through a time of loneliness? What you would offer to our leaders out there readers if they are going through a season of loneliness?
There used to be a time when stress was considered to be the number one killer, especially in American society where we felt overwhelmed by things. A study was done later on that said it wasn't necessarily the stress but it was what we thought about stress that led to us having health complications later on. It took me time to get to this point but I would say I'm experiencing a degree of loneliness now. What has changed from my early starry-eyed days of loneliness is my perspective on it.
I hope you don't mind me diving into a little bit of my spirituality but Jesus even did that. There were times when he was interacting with his friends, buddies, and disciples, ministering to people, and spending time in crowds but he also was intentional about taking the time to recharge, rejuvenate, and connect with his source. Now, I enjoy loneliness. Don't get me wrong, there are days when I may experience disappointment, or I may expect someone to be there with me during a certain phase of my journey.
Where I am now, I'm at a point where I'm able to count it all joy and understand that there's a purpose to me having this isolated time. It's for nothing else but rejuvenation. I typically find that when I feel lonely, it's an opportunity for me to be more intentional about what some people face like self-care and making sure that I'm spending time thinking. Some of the largest firms in this country pay their employees just to sit and think for eight hours a week. I appreciate loneliness in a way that I didn't when I was younger in my career and building my business.
For me, I enjoy loneliness these days and I enjoy solitude. It doesn't happen all the time especially with four kids and being on my second and last marriage. The opportunities when I get to be alone, I embrace. For me, that's been something that's led me to break through on a psychological level and a mental level. I use something called The 12 Week Year. One of the blocks that's promoted in The 12 Week Year is called a strategic block. The block where we used to spend that time devoting it to only activities that will help our business from a bird's eye level. Not the minutiae, not the email, not the text messages, but just sitting. We can circle back down to the vision part, thinking about our vision. I love loneliness and solitude because it gives me time to tackle that strategic block and think about what I want to do next on a high level.
You lead a team and they need you to come down from the mountain and tell them. There's that camaraderie that was part of them, but they're waiting for you to set that. My dad always said, “There's loneliness and then there's oneness. A lot of times, if it's oneness, it's oneness with Christ.” That's when we get clarity on what to do next from Him so then we can go back and share that with other people. It is a maturing thing. In the early stages, for our younger leaders reading, it can be quite disorienting and then you learn to love it because as you get up in rank and responsibilities, you don't always have that time to be alone.
It's one thing that I enjoy, too, with my team. It reminds me of Moses coming down from the mountain also with instruction and with guidance. Even during my and my husband’s anniversary, we've committed to a tech detox. We're not checking emails and we have a narrow definition of what an emergency means in this case. It's only if our kids call us because they have a severed limb or something. Even then, we're assuming their other parents are going to help them navigate that. I'm about to enter into a season of loneliness with my husband.
We have that opportunity to connect, ground ourselves, and determine the vision that we want to come down from the mountain with, even for our children and for our household. To me, that was one of my favorite ones. The world called me-time and self-care. Go for it. I believe in also being intentional and strategic with that me-time and not just sitting and scrolling through social media. Not aimlessly and mindlessly watching television. For me, it's disconnecting from the world so that I can reconnect with my source who’s God and then come back down from the mountain and do whatever He calls me to do next.
Price of Leadership: Life-Changing Classics, Volume XI
I love that you talked about the bird's eye level because a lot of us think with this COVID thing, “It's cleared my plate.” I had to sit there and go, “How much of my plate did it clear? Am I scrolling through stuff?” Take the time, get that bird's eye level, and stop focusing on what's going on because that's material. That's going to happen regardless of whether you scroll or not, but to focus on what is next for your business. There's still time folks because we're still in this weird quasi-place. It gives you such energy, then when you stop focusing on sitting there and wondering, “How is life going to be when I get back out?” You get to figure it out and determine it.
I'm not sure how you plan to transition to the weariness component, but for me, it often ties into that. Usually, when I'm feeling the most weary, it's when I've been the most inefficient with my time.
What a great way to say it. My dad would say, “You can be bored weary or work-weary. When you’re work-weary, you have a heart of joy.” It's because I have not been intentional about focusing on the right things and it's draining.
For me, it's aimless and I feel a little squirrely. My team and I say, “We're squirrely and we're distracted by the things of life.” That seems like they're important at the moment but they take us away from the bigger picture. One thing that I use to keep myself grounded during this time, and it does feed into the other components, is I use my strategic block usually that time of intentional loneliness to create what I call a dream list. You can make these for whatever category or topic in life that you want. I do have a dream business list.
Long ago, I determined that I wanted a team of incredibly competent women who are powerful and aware of their power, in and of their own right, and who are not threatening or threatened by the power of other women. Our team grew from the two women, my mother and myself, to now a team of seven incredibly competent and brilliant women with a like-mind. We have shared goals, collective goals, and corporate goals, but we also have those individual goals that were being cheerleaders for one another.
I've been inefficient with my time, so during the loneliness time, I create the dream business that I like. I've done this in many different areas of my life. What I recommend for this list is making a detailed, unfussy, and as close to real-life as possible where we're able to touch it, feel it, sense it, detect it, and immerse ourselves in the idea of it long before it's manifest in the physical. That's been a fun exercise, too. When I first started, it was scary because the first time I ever did it successfully from start to finish was with my husband.
I'm divorced from my first husband and I got a cute kid out of that marriage. I'm grateful for that season. That marriage dissolved and then I was single parenting for six years. Don't get me wrong, I did it and I survived. My child is still alive. We somehow lived through that, but then there was a time when I thought, “I can do this, I'm tired and I no longer want to do this. Now, I want to do life with someone who is safe, a person of integrity, and has a strong relationship with God. He loves God more than he loves me and that automatically trickles down to loving my daughter.” It was scary.
I remember sharing this list with one friend and the scariest part for me was putting a by when day on it. By when I was requesting God to fulfill this ask. He tells us to come and ask him for things. I first made this list in October of 2014 and it was scary. I could do everything but the by when, so then I was like, “Fine. I'll just put a date down.” I set December 31 of the same year. I shared it with one friend. December 31st came and went that year, no marriage prospects. There's always someone you can hang out with, eat dinner with, and things like that but there were no solid marriage prospects.
My friend said to me, “What happened to this husband of yours that you asked for?” I felt dejected, sad, and upset, and I said, “God, I know I’m asking for something that's okay.” I felt something say, “Just move your by when date forward by another year.” I said, “Okay.” I dealt with the disappointment and the embarrassment of having shared it with a friend which took courage. The following year, on July 1st of 2015, I was dating who I would call a placeholder at that time. He’s a good guy, he loved me and I loved him but marriage was not in the cards for us.
I remember one day, I woke up and I said, “Since marriage isn't in the cards with him, why am I continuing as if it is?” I broke up with him on a Wednesday night. He invited me out to a networking happy hour event the next day and walks this tall guy who came and stood next to me. He didn't say anything and eventually, I turned to him and I said, “You're going to have to say something. Sit down and have a conversation or walk away because it's weird to loom. You're looming over.” He sat down and we had a conversation, and that's when I knew. I wouldn't give him my number but I said to him, “I'm going to keep you.”
I didn't know what it meant at the time, but 1 year and 3 months later, we were married. It was a scary list. It consisted of at least 25 items but I found it later on because I made only one list, and then I lost it. I found it after we got married and I said, my husband's name is Ryan, “Ryan, this is you on this paper and I didn't even know I was writing about you at that time.” He looked at the list. I said I wanted 6’5” and taller. My husband is 6’10”. I got everything on my list with him and some more.
The second successful one was with my baby. There were no prospects of me getting married or pregnant. My husband didn't want any more children. It was beautiful. He was adamant. He didn't want any more kids and I said, “That's okay.” I feel like God put it on my heart to have a baby, and specifically a son. I started praying for my son and I made a dream baby list in 2018. We found out we were pregnant in early 2020 and we were not trying. He's my miracle baby.
Jessy, when you say the strategic block, how often do you do that? How often do you set timeouts to do that?
This is proprietary. It's not my plan. It is weekly and it's for three consecutive hours, so no text messages, no email, nothing. This is a time where you are intentionally isolating yourself and you're mainly giving yourself time to do some high-level things that will help your business. If it's sitting and thinking, then it's sitting and thinking. If it's sitting and reading a book for three consecutive hours, it's sitting and reading a book, or you can split that up and do other things. It’s undistracted and uninterrupted time. Your door is closed and you let your family know in advance, especially if you're working from home. You let know whoever might interrupt you or try to get your attention at this time, you guard this time and you consider it sacred. According to this book, it is something that you do weekly and that has helped me immensely.
Price Of Leadership: A strategic block is a time when you are intentionally isolating yourself and giving yourself time to do some high-level things that will help your business.
Do you have a different focus on your personal life or your spiritual life? You know how we chunk areas of our life up into professional, financial health, and personal relationships. Do you have a set time for each one of them or is it the one that's leading on your heart? Do you do the business one once a week and the other one is if you get to them? How do you span it all?
What I specifically call my strategic block is just for business, nothing else. The one that is dedicated to personal, according to this book, The 12 Week Year, is called your breakout block. During your breakout block, that's when you're still disconnected from tech and work, and it's just on your family and on personal things. Every week, you get three hours of uninterrupted business visioneering, and then three hours a week, you get consecutive, uninterrupted time being with family, being with self, not working. It's like a self-imposed Sabbath but as it relates to the individual aspects of your life. That is a weekly experience for me.
I've loved that you hit the word Sabbath because everything from loneliness, which is not a bad thing when you're Sabbathing, it's oneness with you and your Creator because there are times when we need to talk to our Father. That's it. He needs to have a good talk with us. We desperately need to hear from Him. The weariness, too, a lot of times, it's non-value-added work. It's a waste. I want to go to the next thing, which my father talks about abandonment.
In it, he talks about, “We need to stop thinking and doing what we like and want to think about and focus on what we ought and need to think about.” When we talk about abandonment, you’ve got to be pushing all the other nonsense off your plate that fills your day that does nothing but drain you, confuse you, or set you back. You talked about your blocks and doing that. How else, Jessy, do you stay hyper-focused on the business? What your mission is and not drift off?
I have coaches, mentors, sponsors, and cheerleaders in my life. This was definitely a huge growth area for me. There was a lot of opportunity for development here. Some of the ways that I addressed abandonment, I will say I actively did and others, I felt like God naturally made space for me. In this particular section, when I was thinking about that, for me it meant for some people, it was a friendly divorce. There were friendly relationships that were no longer serving either one of us. In some sense, everyone has their view on divorce, but I realized in my first marriage, that season, for whatever reason, came to an end and it took me time to heal from that.
I'm sure it took my former self-time to heal from that, but that happened there. I've had business divorces too. Working relationships that were no longer serving the parties that were involved. Some of them, I understood and I was able to say, “This has been great. This season has come to an end and we were able to mutually agree upon how to move forward and consciously uncouple.” Other things, I felt like I got slammed and I felt like God was saying, “I've been telling you that this is no longer serving you and this is no longer working, and you haven't taken the steps to get it out of your life and minimize its impact, so I'm just going to help you.”
For leaders out there, don't beat yourself up when it happens, even Jessy and I. We're not shy about making the right thing but sometimes, it's tough. You know that this is done. What is it that we're like, “I can breathe life into this dying plant.” It's like, “No, you can. It's not meant to be anymore.” Thank you for sharing that.
It reminded me of the one scripture that says, “There's a time and a place for everything.” There are a time and a place even for death. Death is a part of the life experience and sometimes, the end of a relationship. When we let go of things or our ideas of things, then our poems are wide open and we're ready to receive the next thing that He has in store for us. That's the growth aspect. I embrace the abandonment. I love that we both have parents who raised us in this industry. I feel like we're fortunate and privileged because I realized not everyone got this growing up.
You said the price of leadership. My mom would always say, “You’ve got to pay the cost to be the boss.” It’s the same thing because my mom is vernacular. Another thing that she regularly told me was that rejection and abandonment is a blessing because it makes space and it creates margin in your life for things that are available for the next level and season of my development. Had I not learned to embrace that as a younger person, I would not be where I am now.
For those of us that did grow up with that pragmatic, every step, you're going to have to leave something by the wayside and suit up in a different way. I always knew it's going to hurt but it's par for the course. For other leaders out there, this is par for the course. Talking about that and embracing that as leaders, sometimes, we think, “If I'm a leader, I ought to be able to keep growing, keep everything along with me, and keep balancing more.” It's like, “That's not leadership at all.”
Your father said there's a price to leadership. My mom said there's a cost to being the boss to being in that leadership role. She said that often and I didn't like hearing it as a kid.
I'm like, “Why do people want to be leaders if it's scary?” People say they want to do it but few, when they get up, they're like, “Pruning hurts.” Thank God, He's so gracious with us. I can remember times where finally, He would have to yank the rug out from under me. I'm like, “Oh.” He's like, “I tried to tell you.” He’s so gracious with us. Don't dwell on it and don't beat yourself up as a leader. We're all human. The sooner you can shake your head, suit up, and get on your way. With God, there is no lost time. He knew that you were going to hold on to this far longer than you should have. That was one of the things I had to learn as a Christian leader. There's no lost time with God. For every year that I wallowed in the wrong relationship or focusing on the wrong thing, He can redeem that in a second and exponentially bless that. What a joy.
Restoring the years that the locusts have eaten, even if I invited the locusts in. It reminds me of the story of the Israelites being saved from slavery and bondage. God said they were supposed to spend some time in the wilderness. According to the Bible and from my personal study, I'm not a biblical scholar so hopefully, I get this right. God only intended for them to be in the wilderness for eleven days but because of the ways in which they were trying to hold onto things that were no longer serving them, there was grumbling, complaining, and stuff that was not serving them or working for them. There was a lesson that God wanted them to learn. As a result, it took 40 years instead of eleven days. I'm constantly asking myself, praying, and asking God I said, “Let me learn in eleven days, not 40 years.” That's a prayer that I constantly pray over myself.
What a blessing, too, He made it so they weren't hungry and their shoes didn't wear out. I still remind people, “We are fallen and pathetic but He still loves us unconditionally and will provide for us even in our obtuse, boneheaded, worst days.”
The 12 Week Year: Get More Done in 12 Weeks than Others Do in 12 Months
He provided the quails even with manna that was less than a day. He said, “Do not take any more than what you need to eat for the day. The people who kept more and tried to save it, there were flies and maggots and things that had gone terribly bad overnight.” He kept giving them opportunity after opportunity to trust, develop, and grow. That abandonment aspect, He'll make sure we get what He wants us to get during that time regardless of how long it takes, and He'll restore the years. There are so much promise and hope in that whole message.
That's why I tell leaders, “I don't care if you're 20 or 80. It doesn't matter. Your whole life that you can change and you can impact people is out there.” I interviewed a guy, Jerry Bellune, who's 84. He's every day talking strategically about what's going on because life gets better every day. We realize we're going to lose these physical shells but we're going to keep pressing on into eternity doing what we're doing here, so what's the point? Just keep on going.
The last point that he talked about was vision. When I was a young girl, I'm tenacious but I don't think I'm visionary. I don't think I have that all coming down from the mountain type of thing. My dad talked about that vision is nothing more than seeing what needs to be done and doing it. I'm like, “I can get my head wrapped around that.” How do you hone your vision and your clarity? You're growing a business, things are changing, and the world's changing. How do you stay vision-oriented?
The first step for me and my team is establishing what our common mission is. Our objective at the end of every single day, and I don't always share this with clients, but on a spiritual personal level is how can I be intentional about putting a smile on God's face? With my team, our constant reminder is how can we help our clients grow old, healthy, and wealthy so that they never experience being old, sick, and poor? That's a holistic approach.
I've had people tell me, “You're doing too much with your clients. It doesn't take all of that.” There was a time when I questioned whether I was doing too much for my clients, I was over serving them, or I was giving them more than what I was being compensated for. Over time, I realized that's what makes myself and my team distinctive because we are adding value in that sense. The conversations that I'm having with my clients and for the vision, it's all based on that smile on God's face and helping others.
Those are the two greatest commandments we realized, love God and love others. After that has been established and that's a solid mission that we all have memorized, from there, especially during the strategic blocks, we allow ourselves to get caught up in wonder and be creative. If we're made in His image then we already have masterpieces. Oftentimes, I sit and ponder, and then these lightning bolts of epiphanies come to me.
For me, it's effortless. With my team, we call it visioneering. Whatever does pop in your head, it's the end product, and then we trace it back and we explore its origins. That's what we love spending that time thinking. It was Tesla who said, “The reason why he believes a majority of his experiments went well and a majority of the things that he invented ended up working is because he saw them as finished and complete long before they were ever materialized in the physical.” Now that we're spending that time doing that, we first say, “What do we want from a business standpoint?”
We then begin reverse engineering in our minds before the pen even hits paper, especially during the strategic block. I kid you not, Tracey, I wish I had a more sophisticated answer, but things just happen after that. It's almost like we get the idea and we leave the logistics to God. Les Brown is one of my favorite people like your dad. Les Brown’s laugh and your father's energy is contagious. I never got to meet him but I've seen videos and I've heard his talks. Les Brown often says, “The how is none of our business.”
I realized when I try and force an outcome, and when I try and make every nitty-gritty detail work, I end up feeling frustrated and the person I'm interacting with feels frustrated. Oftentimes, during vision time when we're visioneering, we get those lightning bolt moments, those a-ha moments during a quiet time. We then do explore, think about it, and trace it back but I do leave a lot of the logistics to God. I say, “You know I need to meet this person. You know we need this much in revenue to make this happen, so I'm asking for that thing. How you do it? I don't care.” If God does, it'll be legal and it'll be fun. I do leave the logistics to God.
I love how you talked about for people. I love that, “You're doing too much.” That's a real concern for business people because we have to turn a profit. As much as we'd love to give, we still are in a for-profit business. Russell Conway even said, “You should make a profit. To not make a profit is wrong.” I love that you talked about, too, what differentiates you is going above and beyond. That's where dad created that tribe for everybody. It was books, people, laughter, and Christ, but it was so much more because it was always this outpouring. I love that you brought that up and you put a lot of stuff squarely in God's column to figure out the logistics of how to make it happen. For our leaders out there, I'm telling you, we're good, but we're not that good.
I've come to realize this time and time again, I said, “God, I've got nothing. You've got this.” He tells us to exchange. He says, “I'll trade you. I promise you I can handle this if you give me your burden and you take on the few, simplistic things.” He said, “I prefer obedience over sacrifice. I prefer you loving people over anything else. They aren't always so easy people, but if you do these simple things, I promise you I'll take care of the rest.” For me, He has every single time financially and with my business. Even people ask me, “How did you grow your sales force?”
I don't have an answer other than I knew what I wanted in the end and I knew what kind of sub-agents I wanted. Outside of that, I didn't know how to attract them. Every single person who's on my team now was introduced to me by someone else that I knew who I shared my vision with. I encourage people to share your vision with others, even if it's scary to do that because oftentimes when I would share it, people would say, “How are you going to do that?” I would honestly say, “I don't know. I just know that's what I want and that's what is on my heart right now.”
I was listening to dad. We do our Throwback Thursday, and it's part 3 of a 5-part series on leadership. He talks about, “If we learn a lesson, we talk about the lesson, but if we learn about Christ, then we talk about Christ.” I'm with you. Growing a business and sustaining a business, people are like, “How do you do it?” I'm not sure. I wish I could tell you avoided that. I tried not to quench the spirit. I love that you put a smile on God's face. Otherwise, I don't know how I did it, and even if I didn't know how I did it, it's probably not going to work for you because everything is contextualized. If I could tell you all about, “God did it,” I know 1,000% of the time, that's the guaranteed success method. That's how you're doing it and the proof is in the pudding.
God is awesome.
He's a great business partner.
Price Of Leadership: Rejection and abandonment are blessings because they make space and create a margin in your life for things that are available for the next season of your development.
Little credit other than blindly saying, “Let's see if it works.” I do encourage people to do that, too. There are few areas where God says, “Try me and test me in this.” That faith there, if nothing else, try it. I will say there's a bigger space in my world for generosity than there was before. There is something, too, at being better to give than to receive. I'm not saying leave oneself destitute but I do know that the most generous people are often the most wealthy. There's a bigger space for that in my world. It's fun. It's an adventure.
Acres of Diamonds and As a Man Thinketh is all about the righteous use of wealth, the gospel wealth, and the more that we create for other people. We don't love money, but we love what we can do to help other people. The more we pour out to other people, the more that we're good stewards of it and we're entrusted with more. Jessy, we could go on and on. Jessy, we covered the four main tenets of the price of leadership. Is there anything else that you would like to share with our readers that we have not directly addressed?
One thing I would like to share that has also helped tremendously, I will say, for me, as a female. I don't know what it's like to be a guy. I know what it's like to be married to someone and work with them. I have four brothers. I will say in my group, which consists of all women, women sometimes need a different way to recharge and connect. With the women that I work with, we leave time for three things. I call them a drive-by hi, where we call and check on one another how are we doing. I call it a drive-by sigh, where we need to vent. There’s something that's built up. We might not have managed ourselves well, or there might be something happening on the operation side that's frustrating.
The drive-by cry, where we don't even know what's happening. It's just a day. When we acknowledge where we are then we can more quickly get over it and get on to the larger thing. That's one thing that is a staple in the way that I run my team and my business, and we leave room for that. We have that vocabulary where we can quickly say, “I need this. I need that,” and then one of us delivers for the other person, even if that means stepping in to handle the meeting. With my group of women, that has been essential. If one of the kids isn't feeling well, that has been huge and has helped us tremendously.
I found it even with my brothers. My brothers don't always need things like that. My male colleagues don't always need that. Guys are emotive also but because generally speaking, women emote differently, we leave space for that, too. I will say if you're working with a younger leader and if you're working with a female leader, there could be an opportunity to incorporate something like that. Especially if someone is having a day or their kid vomited before they got to the office or the Zoom call. Sometimes, we need to decompress and that's been useful for ourselves.
Women carry so much. There are many different things in us. I'm like you, I'm tough as nails and we were brought up, you don't cry, and I get that. There are times where you do need to have that hi, that sigh, and that cry, especially in what's going on. There's a lot of heartbreaking stuff going on in the world more than we have ever had to deal with. You’ve got to stop and acknowledge that this takes a toll emotionally on us. Share it, get that support, and let it out.
The sooner you address it, the more it gives you time. I can remember I've been sick and I had no idea how that affected my emotional state. Why? Because I'm never sick. All of a sudden, I was like, “Why am I even on this planet? What does anything mean?” I'm like, “Where is that coming from?” We're human. I got with Leon and I’m like, “I don't even know how to articulate what is going on but I'm going to start processing words.” Here comes the clean access, and it was healthy to do.
I like that you said that, too, because with me, I haven't been pregnant in many years. I have one baby that was born in 2010 and another born in 2020, so I had forgotten one, what it felt like to be pregnant and two, every pregnancy apparently is different. I've had to give myself space to be pregnant sometimes. One of my agents is pregnant also. We're due two weeks apart and we're both having boys. Even that has been an experience of extending grace to myself, to needing extra time in the morning for nausea to pass, or whatever the case may be. If we're more gracious with ourselves, we're able to extend more grace to others. Especially with women, that is well received and appreciated.
It was good, too, even with Leon with what's going on with the change in environment. It's like, “It's okay. Bring the kids to work, take time off, and we'll figure it out.” To be able to adjust and not be rigid about, “If you don't do this then you're going to be on the chopping block.” The way the world now is also different. That grace and finding a way, “You don't want to lose somebody good.” You can find a way around it and through it. That's what family is about. Work family, too. Jessy, how do people get in touch with you?
I am on LinkedIn, Instagram, and Facebook, and I have an email address. I know you have a link to my website. Being an older Millennial, I’m all over the internet. Remember, it’s Jessyca Bannister. I'm googleable. If that's the word I can make up here.
Thank you. For our leaders reading, please reach out to Jessyca. She's in the South Central PA area like us. Call us up, we'll meet, and we'll talk it together. Check her out. Jessy, I can't thank you enough for the insights that you shared. You always bless and teach me.
Thank you for having me. I appreciate you in ways that I don't have the time to articulate but know that you are causing the matter for a lot of breakthroughs that I've had on a personal level as well as on a business level. Thank you for you. Keep being a light in this world. I appreciate the time we spent together.
Thank you. For our readers out there, if you like what you read, send us a note and we answer all our emails. If you do us the honor of a rating, that would be incredible. Be sure and hit the subscribe button as well. Reach out to Jessy. To our tremendous leaders out there, keep on paying the price of leadership. I hope you got some wonderful insights about how you can be all that God puts you on this Earth to be. Thank you for being a part of our tribe and thanks for reading.
Important Links:
Jessy Bannister - LinkedIn
Jerry Bellune - Previous episode on Apple Podcasts
Instagram - Jessy Bannister
Facebook - Jessyca E. Bannister, Licensed Agent with New York Life
About Jessyca E. Bannister, MBA
As a licensed Financial Services Professional with New York Life, I offer a variety of products that can help you meet a number of insurance and financial needs, including, but not limited to, college funding, retirement, managing costs for extended periods of care, and lifetime income strategies. Please contact me to help you fully analyze your needs and to recommend appropriate solutions.
Neither New York Life Insurance Company nor its agents provide tax, legal, or accounting advice. Please consult your own tax, legal, or accounting professionals before making any decisions. Any testimonial on this site is based on an individual's experience and may not be representative of the experiences of other customers. These testimonials are no guarantee of future performance or success. I am not licensed in all jurisdictions.