Episode 144 - Nikita Koloff - Leaders On Leadership
Do you have the passion and desire to be an effective leader that could make a difference in the world? Join Dr. Tracey Jones as she talks with the Host of "It's Time To Man Up" Podcast and Radio Broadcast on Truth Radio Network, Nikita Koloff, about how Nikita reversed his setbacks in life. Despite having experienced an injury playing his dream sport and being abandoned by his father when he was young, he pushed through and climbed the ladder of success with great motivation. He now facilitates a 5-day Men's camp called ManCamp, teaching, equipping, and empowering people with the feeling of contentment to be spiritually, emotionally, mentally, and physically healthy. In addition, Nikita occasionally preaches and holds motivational and inspirational talks to help others rise, which allows him to have a sense of fulfillment in his life.
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Nikita Koloff - Leaders On Leadership
I am so excited because my guest is Nikita Koloff.
Tracey, great to be with you.
Let me tell you a little bit about Nikita. Nikita is an eight time Wrestling World Champion. He’s an academic, all-American in football. He has 28 plus years as a follower of Jesus. He is also the host of the It’s Time To Man Up! Podcast, which he had me on as a guest. I was so honored and the radio broadcast on Truth Radio Network. He’s traveled all 50 states, 30 countries. He facilitates a five-day men’s camp called ManCamp.
He conducts a one-day Man Up Conference. He’s ministered at 1,200 plus churches, preaches crusades, revivals, church services, breakfast as luncheons dinners, as well as corporate motivational and inspirational talks. He’s the author of three books. He has 4 daughters and 9 grandchildren and enjoys weightlifting, playing golf and watching college football. Nikita, what an honor to have you on the show.
Tracey, it’s an honor to be with you. With that introduction, some may be wondering, “Does he ever sleep? When does he have time to sleep?” I have somebody ask me that, “When do you sleep?” I’m like, “I find some time.”
That’s the way my dad was. He’d pick up the phone at 3:00 in the morning and speaking of that. Nikita was familiar with my father. Nikita and I have been in a group with two other people for a few years.
I lose track of time. It’s been several years for sure.
Where the four of us, All People of Faith Speakers, get together once a month on a Zoom call for updates, prayer, praises, connections, you name it. We’re going to talk a little bit. I’m sure Nikita will hit on how the importance of that great group of people that have your back and can support you in prayer is important for the leader.
I’m thrilled to have you on here and I love your perspective on leadership. I’m sure you’re going to be able to give our leaders out there because Nikita, as you can tell it’s tough and he is not afraid to run away from the fight. Leadership, Nikita is not for the faint of heart. My father spoke on the topic of leadership often.
One of his speeches that were the most requested was titled The Price of Leadership, where he talks about the tougher side of leadership, the things you’re going to have to pay, the price of, and that are what you’re going to have to do. That’s why so few people pay it. There are so few true leaders. Let’s get right into it. My father said that one of the first prices that you’re going to have to pay to be a true leader is loneliness. Nikita, can you unpack what does loneliness means for you, as a leader and maybe share a time when you were in it and where you either embraced it or had to conquer it.
By the way, your dad was appropriately nicknamed Tremendous. He lived up to that nickname. I know he impacted so many people’s lives. To the question, one specific time that comes to mind would have been my freshman year in college. My passion, my desire from a young age, I look back and go, “God had to have put that in me, wired me with discipline and a desire for success.” I come from a very humble background. I was born and raised in the early years in what I affectionately call the projects of ghettos of Minneapolis, where we can see the Minneapolis skyline from where we lived.
I had a very humble beginning. It wasn’t like I was born successful, born a leader or born with, you might say, a silver spoon in my mouth because I was not. It was at a very young age, around the age of twelve, when I picked up a muscle magazine. I got enamored by the pictures and immediately got this idea in my head, this vision that, “One day, I wanted to look like one of those folks.” I fell in love with football and again got a vision for, “One day, hopefully, playing professional football.”
From early on, I’d like to say, it was just in me to be a leader. That became more evident the more I participated in sports. Fast forward to my freshman year in college, when in a game up in Northern Minnesota, I suffered what they call a simple fracture, which simply means the bones don’t come through the skin but both bones break in half.
My tibia, my fibula bone both broke in half. It was a brutal lesson for me. I remember laying on that football field and it was well over an hour because they had never experienced anything like that before. The trainers and nobody knew what to do or how to move me or how to get me off the field. It delayed the game for over an hour.
That said, it was a long drive back to Minneapolis, several hours but I remember laying on that football field thinking this, “Life shattered, dreams shattered. My hopes in my football career shattered.” Thankfully, a dear friend of mine who was our quarterback, Tim Peltier, helped nurse me through that lonely time in the hospital. I ended up spending seventeen days in the hospital, having surgery to help keep the bones together and recover.
Those seventeen days and at that moment, that hour or so, on the field was a very lonely time. It’s one of the thoughts on that fast forward to my former high school football coach, whom I saw a few months later. It’s interesting how somebody only has to say 1 thing and it can do 1 of 2 things. It can motivate you or maybe put you into further depression perhaps.
He said to me, “I heard about your injuries. Sorry to hear that. Nobody ever comes back from an injury like that.” I thought to myself, I didn’t say it to him but I only stared at him, “Really? I’m going to show you and the rest of the world that I can come back. This injury doesn’t have to define me. It may be a setback but it’s not going to hold me back. It’s setting me up for a comeback.” That was a very lonely time.
I think he shouldn’t quit his job as a motivational speaker, his day job because to say that but I don’t know. Who knows why people say it? In the end, you heard it and took it. I love that you took a different spin on loneliness. There are going to be times in our careers where, number one, the calling makes you off to the side because other people are like, “They’ve got the calling.”
I love that you shared that as a young person, you got that calling and you knew you were going to be different. I love that you talk about the actual physical loneliness and a lot of times, leaders will think about that in terms of, “I’m making this decision and I may not be the most popular,” like from a professional decision. There are going to be times where you may get sick or removed where you can’t show up.
We’re dealing with the health challenge as you were. I appreciate you sharing that because that is tough to anybody that’s been an athlete. I had a niece that was a dancer and when she suffered an injury, it was terrible because she could not go with the group again, and stay in the collective and practice. I appreciate that. It’s very interesting. Sometimes those things, if you’re in a car wreck or whatever, it takes time to heal. That’s tough as a leader because you don’t want to be away from your group.
You want to be out there engaged from a business perspective. I know the majority of your audiences and looking at things from a more practical, mostly more business perspective, I will touch on that and you hit on something saying, “You’re going to make some decisions that are sometimes not very popular.”
I’ve had to make that even in ministry. In fact, you mentioned in the introduction of a five-day camp. It’s called ManCamp. One of the things we encourage them to do is put their phones away. Is that a challenge to get a guy to lay his phone down not just for five hours but for five days? Think about that. Detach from your phone for five days.
In this last camp we did, I not only had to call out the guys who were there for the camp pursuing the heart of God. Three times, I had to address the phones because it was becoming a distraction and disruptive for the other guys who were there. Even my staff, I had to do an iron sharpening iron Proverbs 27:17, “One man sharpens another,” and even call a couple of those guys out.
You sometimes do have to make decisions that are not popular. It’s been said, as you know very well, Tracey, “It’s very lonely at the top.” The old expression goes and that is true. For me, I’ve learned. I think through that example I gave at a younger age, it’s helped me as I climbed the ladder of success. Even in professional wrestling, that can be a very lonely business as well.
In the days, in the era in which I was in any way, it was a very cutthroat, backstabbing business because everybody wanted to get to that pinnacle. Everyone wanted to have that world championship belt, so they might say or do anything to undercut you to get your position, to get to the top. Even in that realm, as a world champion, there was a level of loneliness even in that realm as well.
I know you say it’s business but we’re all probably on our 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th careers and constantly unfolding, and you do have to watch yourself physically. Even now, I’m like, “I’m going to be sitting on the ground with kids playing with dogs and teaching until I’m 60.” It is lonely to realize there’s also looking back at some things that maybe you could do when you were younger that you cannot. Even though that’s more of a business thing, it is lonely. Not being able to maybe be as active and as robust as you were before but it’s all part of the game.
That brings us to our next topic, Nikita, which is weariness. Weariness is one of those things. You can go to bed tired and feel good about it, like your head hits the pillow and you fall asleep before. There are nights where you can toss and turn all night. There are different kinds of weariness. How do you combat weariness? I know a lot of people talk about health. I’m sure you’re going to hit on that but how as a leader, do you combat the world that runs you down and stay on top of the game?
Leader Setbacks: It's interesting how somebody only has to say one thing, and it can do one of two things: motivate you or maybe put you into further depression.
I experienced weariness because I woke up and I knew I had this interview and I had a number of other things on my agenda on my list. I’m like, “I do not want to go to the gym early. I am tired. I am weary.” Going back to the early days and the drive, determination, the desire that’s deep within me, I got out of bed, I went down to the gym, I worked out and am glad I did. There have been many times I have felt weary and not felt like going to the gym over 50 years of lifting. I’ve been working out consistently in the gym for many years.
In business, when I think about putting on my business hat, depending on what your workload is, how much you try to do yourself, in other words, are you a micromanager or are you a macro? Can you delegate responsibility and role? Again, I go back to the camp and I delegate responsibility. I’ve learned over the years to delegate responsibility to my staff at camp. Not try to do it all myself. Even if they don’t do it perfectly or the way I would do it, I’m okay with that. If I have to mop something up, I’ll do it.
It’s been a process of learning to delegate duties so that I don’t wear myself out or burn out. A quick story. I had a friend, Kirk Talley came to Camp, 39 years of a college football coach, mostly small level coaching Christian colleges, reached out to me and goes, “I resigned.” It’s mid-season. I’m like, “Are you okay?” He goes, “I’m burnt out. I’m weary.” I said, “You need to come to camp for five days and get refreshed. Come and sit. You don’t have to do anything, just receive.” He did that.
There are times we need to do that, Tracey. We need to draw away, pull away, whether it’s a day or two or a weekend. In my world, it’s called the sabbatical. I did that midyear in 2021. I did a 21-day sabbatical where I pulled away and had fun but I also rested my mind, my body, recharged my spirit man. I think it’s important to overcome weariness to do that on a regular, consistent basis.
When you did your sabbatical, did you still answer emails? Unpack this because I am feeling the lore of taking a month down after many years of running this. How do you do that? How do you push certain things off your plate?
It’s a just decision. That’s not to say I set my phone aside for 21-days. I did.
From the creative aspect or reaching out, you let yourself have space to rest.
I have a pretty heavy travel schedule. If I was doing travel during that time, it was recreational. It wasn’t business-related, ministry-related. It was fun stuff. I was sleeping in, not concerned about how early I got to bed so I could get a good night’s sleep or watch the couple old school movies from the ‘30s, ‘40s and ‘50s. I did stuff that I didn’t have to constantly think, “Where do I have to go tomorrow? What do I have to do tomorrow?” Those things.
I love that you brought up that one of your individuals in your team tapped out and said, “I’m done.” That’s good for the leaders reading. If you’re on teams, even an association that I was on, we had a meeting and one of the people was like, “I’m done. I’m out. I can’t do it anymore.” Eventually, we unpacked it and it was weariness. They were burnt. They were fried with all this stuff going on.
We had to take it back and go, “Let’s see what the issue and came back together,” but that’s wise, watch your people. Some of us can handle a frenetic pace. My father could run and other people would be fallen out of the platoon march-like, “I cannot keep this pace.” It’s important to watch people. Weariness is a psychological thing because most of us aren’t like professional athletes. It’s up here in the head. You got to get in and say, “What is it?” It will suck and deplete your soul. It’s very important to watch that.
I would tag one thing onto that and I 100% agree with that. You say it’s up in the head and it’s mental. I like to say that our camps revolve around 1 Thessalonians 5:23, “Being whole in spirit, soul and body.” When I say whole, I’m talking about being healthy, spiritually, emotionally, mentally, physically. The way God created our bodies, may start in the mind and you get mentally exhausted or tired, but the long and short of it, if you don’t learn how to rest mentally, emotionally, it will affect your physical body.
Ultimately, it will affect your inner man, your spirit man because you can’t separate those three out. They’re all interconnected. The keyword for me, Tracey, is balance. I’m still learning. I’m not there but I’m learning to balance how to be physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually balanced where I don’t burn out. I don’t overburden myself until I get to that place where Kirk was, where he was like, “I’m done. I’m tapping out.”
To recap, because you know how I love these little alliterations, you said, “Deep drive combats weariness.” If you’re tired, you probably are getting a little scope creep or vision drift. We’re going to talk about that, so get back to it and delegate duties. We’re still physical creatures and none of us has meant to do any of this alone. I don’t care if God called you to be the next John, the Baptizer. You can’t do it without people and the right people there, so thank you.
We’re not Superman or Wonder Woman, and even John, the Baptizer, had disciples.
Superman, not super man, wonder woman, it’s like this collective thing.
Working together and you’re right. One last thought, “No man is an island into himself,” as the expression goes. There are certain times Jesus drew away to pray to the Father but even then, he’s communicating with the Father. He was never isolated, you might say, which in my view, with nothing more than an attack on humanity to drive humanity into the grave.
You got that right because none of this has meant to go like this. Loneliness, weariness, the next thing he talked about is abandonment. Typically, abandonment is a negative word. “I have a fear of abandonment. You abandon your animals. I love my animals.” My dad’s point was, you have to abandon what you like and want to think about in favor of what you ought and need to think about.
In this sense, it’s almost this real hyper-focus because I would look at him as a little girl and be like, “You’re so successful.” He’s like, “Tracey, I do more in a day to contribute to my failure than my success.” I’m like, “What?” He would go back to this and he’s like, “Every day, you have to capture this.” Nikita, with probably the 50 million people that call you or get you and you’re in different buckets of things, your sports background, you’re celebrity, your fan signings, your Christian basis, your writing, you’re a grandfather, how do you stay focused and send your energy on what you need to?
I’ve never thought about abandonment in that aspect of it. I think of my mom comes to mind immediately, my dad left when I was three, so I had no real male role models or mentors until the seventh grade. Bill Burke was my first. Even with her own mom, she was handed off to her aunt to be raised. She struggled her entire life with abandonment as you’ve talked about in the negative sense. I love how your dad put a positive spin on it thinking, “There are certain things in my life I need to abandon. I don’t need to do some of those things because they’re not going to be productive, not going to help me be successful. I need to release those things and let them go.” That is a great positive perspective way to look at things.
For me, that leads right into answering the question by saying, I at least developed and called myself like the eternal optimist. You can bring me as a darker cloud as you want to bring. Somehow, someway, I’m going to try my best to find a silver lining in that cloud. For me, it’s a state of mind that, no matter how negative the situation, no matter how dire it might look, I’m going to find a way to speak and encourage a word, whether to myself or someone else.
One thing that helps me a lot is the word of God, declaring God’s word over my life. I’m very encouraged through scripture and scripture reading. Back to the word balance, I’m a very goal-oriented and very structured guy. I know there’s a lot of people who are spontaneous. They’re like, “Let’s go to the mountains now.”
I’m not that guy. That’s not to say I can’t go to the mountains now but I prefer to have it on my calendar a week ago, a month ago, “I’ll go to mountains now.” Again, there’s the balance there in looking at my calendar, setting goals at the beginning of every year, and having a structure to my life to know whom I am going to see and what I am going to do?
Last note, I like to say this, Tracey. I give the Lord the opportunity to call an audible. Now, if you got sports fans out there, they might know what I mean by that. The quarterback comes up to the line and the coach typically gives him the option, if he doesn’t like the player or what he sees, to change it and call an audible. I’ve learned every day, even though I have structure and things on my to-do list, that God can call an audible and it can change on a dime.
I don’t know if you know this but my dad also was abandoned. His mom walked out on them when he was a little boy. All five of them, he struggled with that. I think part of that was where he was so intense on abandonment because he came from such like flunked out of school, deep poverty, abandonment.
As a child, the trifecta of, “I’m worthless.” He had abandoned that mindset. Like you, like his faith realized, “But I’m worthy in Christ. I’m completely whole and loved.” You hear me talk a lot about The Chosen. That’s one of the main themes. Only the sick need a healer and once you’re healed, you’re healed. You don’t have to keep going back to the doctor.
I, too, abandonment is one of my triggers. Every day, I have to put all that stuff very much back and say that but your nature is something that you can work on. I love that you look at things and go, “But the good could happen.” I also tell people, “Pray that none of this stuff sticks to you.” A lot of people are very sensitive. I am sensitive but when the negative stuff comes, it’s almost like God gave me this force field where it hits me and I even forget about it.
It’s an awesome spiritual thing where I’m like, “I can’t dwell on that.” I do remember it and I try and capture those thoughts and throw them out. I love that you saw that from a young age that there are things that you just have to push out. You hit the nail on the head. Abandonment is a habit. You got to stop doing the stuff that you think you should be doing or you think somebody else wants you to do, or the easy stuff and favor of the hard stuff, which is what you’ve mastered.
One of the thoughts as you’re speaking that ties into all of this, all the things we’ve already talked about, one of the things I’ve been fortunate to have is I call him a battle buddy. A close peer that I can relate to, open up to be transparent and honest with, that can help me through anything I’m struggling with, whether it’s loneliness, weariness, abandonment or anything else. When I look at Jesus and what he modeled, I view it this way, he had an inner circle. He had Peter, James and John. Those three were engaged and involved in more than the others and things he did. Like my devotion, the Mount of Transfiguration, they were there.
Leader Setbacks: An important thing to remember is balancing how to be physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually healthy, so you don’t experience burnouts.
He had I call an outer circle, so then there were the other nine disciples. Three who were close and tight with him, nine others that he was teaching and there’s, I call it, the rest of the crowd, whether that’s being engaged in church, corporate worship or in business. If you own your own business and got a hundred employees but you might have a smaller group that are your leaders, managers or whatever, even perhaps a smaller group that you might lean on and confide in for the success of the business, perhaps.
No, not perhaps. One of my favorite leadership constructs is LMX, which is the ingroup and the outgroup. A lot of scholars are like, “That’s me. You shouldn’t put people in that group.” I’m like, “You have your core people. You marry one person. You don’t marry ten, legally.” There’s that one person that you’re in a unique relationship with. I think for the audience, that’s really wise.
Whenever I’m going through stuff, my husband will say to me, “Who’s pouring into you?” That’s where he’s talking about, the battle buddies or the advocates who want your success, and even to be there to listen because there’s a lot of things you don’t want to tell your spouse. You cannot tell your employees. You may be don’t even want to share with your small group Bible study. You need that battle buddy, as you said, “Iron sharpens iron,” and somebody alongside to help orient you and guide you towards better, more clarifying thinking.
Also, accountability.
That’s like our group. We get together once a month. Not a lot of time but enough to know that we’re going to be checking in and getting updates, and sharing the good, sharing the bad, the ugly, all that good stuff. Loneliness, wariness, abandonment and the last topic my dad talked about in The Price of Leadership is vision. I think sometimes we get this esoteric or so out there, fuzzy, big, hairy, audacious goal.
It’s like, “I don’t even know what I’m supposed to do. How can I get there?” My dad always said, “Vision was seeing what needs to be done and doing it very touchy, the plumbing, pragmatic.” How do you, Nikita, continue to hone your vision? I’ve watched you over the years do it but how do you get those vision clarifiers? How do you keep tweaking your vision?
This is something again that I’ve learned over the years. It ties into goal setting. Typically, at the end of each year, I’ll take some time away. It might be a couple of three days. Back a couple of different years, I went up to this place called Quiet Reflections. It’s up in the mountains of North Carolina. There are probably other places named that. It overlooks this whole valley. It’s got a chapel they built with all glass. It looks out that from floor to the peak of the ceiling. It’s total glass.
In a little tiny cabin that’s right next to it and so, for me, each year, I spent some quality time, again, drawing away and seeing it that the Lord will give me clarity on what the next year will look like. I like to joke and say, “You don’t have to show me the whole picture but if you’ll only give me a glimpse in the direction he wants me to go and what he wants me to do.” I tried being very sensitive to his leading, his guiding.
In a practical sense, I’m probably not going to say anything that the leaders reading to your blog don’t already know but repetition is the first Law of Learning. It doesn’t hurt to hear something over again. I have had in the past a literal vision board. Where that was complete with pictures and again, tying into some of the goals or some of the things that I wanted to accomplish. I plan, do and review.
I plan it, I’ll do it, and then I’ll review it, whether that’s on a day-to-day basis, a week-to-week, month-to-month or year-to-year basis. By the way, I meet with my pastor once a month. He’s one of my battle buddies and share. At the beginning of 2021, I said, “Jay, here are my goals for 2021. Here’s what I feel the Lord guiding me, leading me, directing me to do. Here they are.” I handed him that list.
What I’ll do at the end of 2021 is I’ll look back and say, “How many goals did I hit? How many things did I accomplish? Did I surpass what I had there?” It is fuzzy and that whole visionary part of it but that said, those practical things are what help me fulfill what I believe is the mandate or the call on my personal life so that when I stand before him one day, he’ll say, “Well done. Good and faithful servant.”
I don’t see it all and I love that you said, sometimes a glimpse. “I’ve never got the big picture,” and we’re not. Life is a mystery. God is a mystery. There are certain things that we’re supposed to be in wonderment and walk by faith. It’s like going through the fog, “I can see if the clouds are breaking and I know that’s the way I want to go versus its darker back here.” Sometimes, I don’t want people to think that, “We see it before we go.” A hundred percent of the time, it’s a sense. It’s a calling. You’re only operating on faith to go forward towards what looks to you and then you make tweaks.
Vision is a very tangible thing. It’s not something you put up on the wall on your, I love me wall and sit back and go, “Look at that vision. It’s dirty, dog-eared, crossed out. It’s like the well-worn Bible.” It’s not sitting up there all pretty. People that have books and they don’t mark them all up. My books are all scribbled. People are shocked and I’m like, “I love them.” I look back at these underlines, these tears stain, and that’s what your vision is.
I want to say this too because this popped up as well. Again, go back to the Bible as a foundation for life, the manual for living. God talked about vision in there. There are different translations that say, “Without a vision, my people perish or without having some direction in your life, people will fade away into the sunset,” and/or he even talks about in the last days. In the last days old men will dream dreams. Young men will see visions. We do know even from a spiritual sense that God will give certain individuals an actual vision. They may wake up in the middle of the night with an idea for a widget or something to do, evolving their business, their personal life, or whatever.
We do know from scripture that God does impart vision to certain individuals. I have a friend that in their mind, can see the pictures. I’m not that guy. I’ve never been that guy. I have to rely on how I sense the Lord leading me and what to do. Like many people, I do have to sometimes see it up there on the board in order for it to make sense to me where others can see it in their minds. There’s that aspect, that element of this as well.
That’s good to know. I think most of our leaders know because they’re seasoned leaders, it’s whatever works for you that type of thing. Nikita, thank you so much. We’ve covered loneliness, weariness, abandonment and vision. I want to open it up now about leadership. I want you to tell our audience about your ManCamp and your Man Up! Podcast and what that means because that is all about leadership.
A number of years ago, I say dating back to 2006, the Lord impressed upon my heart to begin to minister to men and my wrestling background. You mentioned in the opening the World Championships and the things that I’ve been able to accomplish in sports, then translate that into business and raising others up. I mentioned my staff at ManCamp and other ministries that I’ve been involved in. It was not to be the guy. I’ve always looked at raising up other facilitators, other ministry leaders on the team, so that it wasn’t only centered around me. In fact, if I were to walk away, the ministry could continue on, even without me because I’ve set those people in place.
It’s not been about me becoming a leader. I’m reminded of that old expression. I said it to a young man. We bought one of the books at the church I was speaking at and I said, “You got to read that.” I gave him the quote, “Readers are leaders. If you want to be a leader, you got to become a reader, young man.” I challenged him on that. I have again learned over the years to focus on raising up others into positions of leadership, and then being able to step back, Tracey.
There is a sense of fulfillment and watching them operate and knowing that I no longer have to do it or it doesn’t all lean on me. That said the conference and the camp. In 2006, it impressed my heart to start reaching out to more men because it’s no secret or last couple of 3, 4 decades, masculinity and manhood have been under attack.
We need men in the homes to be godly men, godly husbands, godly fathers but not be a dictator but be a servant leader. Keywords, servant leader. To lead by example and so, whether it’s the one-day Man Up Conference we do, where we give them a taste of the camp or the full five-day camp and training, teaching, equipping and empowering man, and deploying them, sending them home. Hopefully, have been given those tools to walk it out and be that leader in their home.
That’s what Man Camp and the Man Up Conference, the Man Up! Podcast is. I think you officially were the first woman of, “It’s Time to Man Up! Tracey Jones, Tremendous Tracey.” I had husbands and wives on there but the first full podcast of a woman on it. That was awesome. It was great to get a woman’s perspective on the Man Up! Podcast. All that to say, the goal in everything I’m doing now and I’m in the process of putting together a Man Up TV Show, a Man Up version of the radio show. It all centers around challenging men to man up walking their God-given role as a leader but as a servant leader.
That is a beautiful topic. Nikita, can people go to the one-day conference and hear more about the five-day one?
Yes. I like to say the one-day conference, the Man Up Conference, a local churches and communities, I was in Aiken, South Carolina. I’ll be at the Toledo, Ohio area. I’ll be in Newark, Delaware and Kentucky. Churches will bring me into their local community. We facilitate that in a local church on a Saturday. I usually stay over to preach on Sunday. At the conference, I call it the appetizers. It’s for several hours. They’re going to get a lot of information, and training and teaching. It’s the tip of the iceberg that if they see value in the conference, then they’re going to want to give serious thought to, I call it deep diving and coming to the camp, and going after this.
We talk about leadership and what’s going on in the world. If people aren’t fulfilling their ordained roles, I as a little girl, was the only girl in my neighborhood, my only girl in Sunday school. I went to military schools. Did I get downtrodden? No, I got lifted up by men. For our men out there, connect with Nikita because we, women, what we learn from you, what you do for us, where you have our backs and stuff like that. There are bad men, bad women, bad everything, but I’m so thankful for what you’re doing in leadership because some people are tentative about, “I’m not sure what this role is.”
This role is the role it’s always been intended to be. The reason why we see a lot of entities like the home and businesses and, “She’s ridiculous ethics violations and lying and no backbone, no nothing,” is because we’re tearing down the roles and letting people get off the hook with, “No, you’re not supposed to stand up. You’re not supposed to have a backbone. You’re not supposed to speak up.” Truth and love. It’s not the love part they’re finding. It’s the truth part. I’m so thankful that you are pushing that and having me on your show. That was exciting.
There’s only one perfect man, Jesus. We’re all imperfect people. We live in a fallen, broken world but that’s not to say that we can’t embrace these things, even like what we’re talking about and make it a better place. That’s where we’re salt and light, and we bring hope, whether it’s behind closed doors, in a family setting or out there in the business world where I’m sure many of your audience is out there in the marketplace, in the world. Let’s be determined to make a positive difference in a very negative world.
Leader Setbacks: Focus on raising others into positions of leadership and then being able to step back to gain a sense of fulfillment.
Nikita, how can our audience get ahold of you because I’m sure a lot of them are going to want to connect.
I call it a one-stop shop. The easiest way to connect with me is at www.Koloff.net. On that website, you can learn more about the books you referenced that I’ve written. They are there. There’s a link to the Man Up! Podcast there. There’s a link to the ManCamp for those who maybe want to learn more about the camp. If there’s a pastor that maybe wants to or is interested in bringing me into his community, you can email me right through that website, social media, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, which can link and connect to me. All on that one website.
Nikita is somebody you’re want to get to have in your tribe of tremendous people and I love it. If you’ve got an organization and you want to bring him in as a speaker, he’s the one that you’re going to want to do. Nikita, thank you so much for sharing your wisdom on what it takes to pay the price of leadership. I know our audience got a lot out of it. I got my page of notes as I always do. Thank you for blessing so many.
In return, let me say, publicly, being a part of those calls every month and you being a part of them, you bring in a woman’s perspective has been nothing short of a blessing in and of itself. Thank you for having me on and for being a part of those calls. You’re a tremendous blessing, Tracey.
Right back at you, Nikita. You are tremendous, too. I love it. For our audience out there, thank you so much for being part of our Tremendous tribe. If you like what you heard, please be sure and hit the subscribe button so you don’t miss an episode of Leaders on Leadership. Also, we’d love the honor of a five-star review and leave us a note. It’ll get to us and we will answer all of our comments.
Be sure and connect with Nikita at his links, and go over to TremendousLeadership.com and hit the subscribe to our Newsletter button, where you get two weeks of free eBooks. What can be more tremendous than that? Show and free books, the people you meet and the books you read. Everybody out there, thanks so much for paying the price of leadership. Keep up the good fight. We’re right there with you and have a tremendous rest of the day.
Important Links:
It’s Time To Man Up! Podcast - Apple Podcasts
Facebook - Nikita Koloff
Twitter - Nikita Koloff
Instagram - Nikita Koloff
About Nikita Koloff
8-time wrestling world champion, Academic All-American in football, 28+ years as a follower of Jesus, Host of “It’s Time To Man Up” Podcast and Radio Broadcast on Truth Radio Network, traveled all 50 states, 30 countries, facilitates a 5 day Men’s camp called ManCamp, conducts a 1 day Man Up conference, ministered in 1200+/- churches, preaches crusades, revivals, church services, breakfast, luncheons, dinners, as well as corporate motivational and inspirational talks, an author of 3 books, has 4 daughters, Teryn, Tawni, Kendra and Kolby, 9 grandchildren (Currently) and enjoys weightlifting, playing golf and watching college football.