We all have a spark of greatness inside us. What do we need to do to ignite your greatness within? The host of Negotiate Your Best Life podcast, Rebecca Zung answers these questions with the help of Dr. Tracey Jones. Tracey discusses the power of positive thinking, gratitude and letting go, and talks about the importance of having the right people in your life. Listen in for more personal development tips and learn to ignite your spark.
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Spark! Ignite Your Greatness Within" With Tracey Jones On Negotiate Your Best Life With Rebecca Zung
I am super excited to be talking with Dr. Tracey Jones. She is the author of eight books and counting. She's the President of Tremendous Leadership. She's known for her leadership expertise. She challenges her audiences to bravely embrace their challenges and take all the important steps toward having a meaningful change in their personal and professional lives. I'm super impressed that she is a graduate of the Air Force Academy, twelve years as an officer. As a civilian, she built her impressive career as a corporate fixer. She's worked with Northrop Grumman and the National Security Agency and all kinds of incredible things. She has a PhD in Leadership and an MBA in Global Management, and so much more that we're going to be talking about. Welcome, Tracey.
Rebecca, thanks so much. It is an honor to be here with you.
Thank you. I want to know more about your background and the challenges that you had to overcome in order to have this incredible and impressive career that you have had.
I appreciate that. I grew up as you did with some pretty wonderful figures in our lives, primarily some strong male figures. They taught me early on, you do you, and if somebody doesn't respect or like you, you find somebody that does. My father was a motivational speaker. I tell people that was like a cross between bootcamp and a sitcom. Everything was always driven but purposeful. Being a motivational speaker, he ate problems for breakfast.
If you didn't have problems, then you were dead. You weren't living. No crying and thumb-sucking about prompts because this makes you a stronger, more resilient person, not just for yourself, but so you can be with other people and be a blessing or a mentor to them. It was a wild upbringing. He took all the TVs out of the house when we were teenagers. He's like, “You need to read, work, volunteer, play sports. You're not going to watch the boob tube and get your head infected.”
That's before there was even trash on TV. He's like, “You should be learning and doing.” That being said, it was incredible. I also had the benefit, the privilege of sitting under some of the greatest leadership experts of all time, Norman Vincent Peale, Zig Ziglar, Og Mandino, I listened to them as a child. These wonderful men and women were entrepreneurial and much, “You do life the way you want it. You're never a failure until you blame somebody else.”
I went for it and I was a middle child. I've always been like, “Let's try it.” I didn't think I was going to go into the military, but I got an appointment to the military academy. Being open to trying new things, I'm like, “Let's give it a shot.” I loved it and spent twelve years in the military. I had the opportunity to work in high tech, defense, and now I'm back running a publishing company. The challenge for me is honing my focus and my singularity because I'm adaptable and tenacious as all get out.
I don't care if somebody tells me, “You're a woman. You're not supposed to be here.” I don't even hear that. I'm like, “Yeah, that's your opinion.” My real challenge has been getting clear on what I can bring and be best known for. For readers out there that are struggling with that, it's the one thing that is a challenge that I constantly have to overcome.
I want to go back to something you said very quickly in passing that’s so powerful, which is, “You're not a failure until you blame someone else.” I love that because one of the things that I tell people in my webinars, I do this free webinar on the Three Must-Have Secrets to Communicating with a Narcissist, at the beginning, I say like, “You're in the right place if these are things are true, and you can go ahead leave now if,” and then I list five things.
One of the things is, if you think you're a victim and you're always going to be a victim, this is not the place for you because this is the place to learn how to be empowered. You have to feel like you're going to be able to have that. Talk about that mentality and mindset and how important that is in finding motivation and crisis, which is our topic.
Hung by the Tongue: What You Say Is What You Get
There are probably ten books in my life that I constantly go back to and read. It's called Hung by the Tongue and Francis P. Martin wrote it. It's a little trade paperback, faith-based. As a man thinks in his heart, what's coming out of your mouth is a manifestation of what is in your heart. This little book helped me get oriented towards whatever you name, claim, and proclaim is what you're going to manifest. I learned early on that staying in the same stinking thinking or the verbal vomit is not going to do anything and it's going to hold you hostage.
I love how you talk a lot about in your show about, “This person is hurting you. They're still hurting you. Why does a God come to zap them? How could people believe this awful person?” When you stop thinking about them, trust me, they're in their own personal hell. There'll be a much bigger price to pay for them someday. When you let that go and say, “Thank God I got out of this.” You moved toward the healing perspective. Don't sit there and say, “Why me?”
Believe me, for every bad thing that's happened to you, there are people that would give their right arm to have your life. Norman Vincent Peale has a great line and he says, “The thing about problems isn't that they exist.” It's like death and taxes. When you have a proper perspective of problems and that they are there to make you live, and the more problems you have, the more alive you are, that's when you resonate and realize such a slight perspective.
You get to be the author and the finisher of what you allow in your head. I can't answer for what else somebody did for me. They will have to answer for that. All I can do is answer for me. That has been empowering. It took me many decades to get there. Probably like a lot of your readers out there, when you're in that point of pain, but the sooner you let it go, the sooner you can move out of the wilderness. That's what I tell people, “Please, don't wallow, seek revenge, and murmur because you allow the toxicity to stay in you. Get rid of it. It's not going to change a thing.”
Norman Vincent Peale said, “Anxiety is the greatest virus of all time.” It's not COVID. It's this anxiety and stress that'll kill you. I love that you're addressing that, letting people know. There are awful people out there and there will always be awful people out there. You don't be one of them and thank God that you saw them for who they were, and then you move on. You never do what they did to anybody else.
My dad used to say, “The percentage of idiots per population is the same wherever you go.” I think about that all the time. I'm like, “There's that percentage right there and they are. I'll find my people elsewhere.” I like what you're saying, “These people exist. They're never not going to exist.” Unfortunately, whoever they're around, they're going to make those people miserable because they're miserable inside. If you're in their space, then you get to be the collateral damage. Understanding that it's about them. It's not about you and not taking that personally, but that is so hard to do when you're in that crisis. When they're saying, “You are the problem. There's something wrong with you.” Especially if you have unhealed stuff going on inside of you, maybe you could address that a little bit.
Somebody said this to me because I'd be like, “I can't believe this is happening to me.” I do prison ministry. One of the guys that’s in jail for life said this to me, “Tracey, hurt people hurt people.” I'm like, “You're right.” The other thing is you don't know as much as we like to judge because we're all perfect. Everybody else is the idiot. You still don't know the motivation of that person in there. I know you deal with people that have a serious character malformation, where there is a little bit of evil in there. There are other people that, as a result of their wounds, their mother or father wounds, somebody telling them whatever, they're carrying around so much damage as well, too.
The important part is to get smart, recognizing them and realize that when you come into their orbit, be very intentional about cutting them off. I always think about Aesop’s fable with the frog and the scorpion. The scorpion wanted a ride on the frog’s back across the pond. The frog looked at him and he's like, “No way, you're a scorpion. You're going to sting me as soon as we hop out on the water.” The scorpion says, “No, I'm not, because if I sting you, then we both drown. I want to get to the other side. I want to live.”
Sure enough, the frog lets him jump on his back. He hops out into the water and right after the second hop, the scorpion stings him. The frog is sinking. He looks at him and he goes, “Why did you do that?” The scorpion looks at him and says, “It's in my nature.” We have to realize and not say, “Why is it?” I have a faith-based perspective, so I understand that we're all fallen. The heart of man is wicked who can know its ways. It's a ridiculous question to say, “Why is it out there?” Be aware of it.
I've been in a lot of male-dominated fields and people would say, “Tracey, did you get pushback? Is that the glass ceiling?” I'm like, “I wouldn't call it a glass ceiling. I call it a jackass ceiling.” There are jackasses everywhere. You stay away from them because for every jackass I meet, there are 100 other people willing to advocate and promote me. I tell people, “Stop giving them so much of your time and energy.” I know you're probably in legal battles. Friends, I've been there. Pay it, get it done, move on, cut that cord, and reclaim yourself.
I was thinking as you said, “The glass ceiling,” I'm like, “I'll go outside because there's no ceiling out there.” Find a different place. Break free.
There's plenty of them, but you don't have to work for an idiot, but there are a lot of them out there. One of my other favorite books is called Snakes in Suits. It's written by two PMDs about when psychopaths and sociopaths go to work. They hang out in corporations because they're charming and they can. I don't want you to go around looking at everybody like they're there to get you but be aware and trust your instinct. We all make mistakes and get taken by them, but that's okay. Give yourself grace and then move on.
Greatness Within: Be very aware and trust your instincts. We all make mistakes and get taken by them, but that's okay. Give yourself grace.
You also talk about finding your people. How do you go about doing that? Sometimes it's so hard because you feel isolated when you're dealing with these.
You can't get it right without the right people. My father would always say that you're going to be the same person five years from now, except for two things, the people you meet and the books you read. We have to be very intentional about going out and finding the right people. Typically, we do not have space for this because we have assembled too many of the wrong people. I'm going to tell you who the wrong people are. A few years ago, I was done. I was going to put all my pieces in my game box and say, “I don't feel very tremendous and I don't think people are tremendous. How can I be in a business organization if I can't stand people?”
What I did was I read another book. Dr. Henry Cloud's book, The Power of The Other, changed my life because he talks about different quadrants of people. I had tons of people in my life, but they weren't the right people. They weren't the ones advocating for me. I had people that were for space holders, acquaintances. Anybody on social media, you have a lot of people on there. I had the people that were syrupy sweet that told me what they thought I wanted to hear, not what I needed to hear, the yes people. I had the haters because I was like, “I have to defend myself.”
What Henry Cloud talks about is bringing along these people that are advocating for you and what your success more than even you want it. Rebecca, you and I got connected due to a tremendous advocate, Mark Victor Hansen. When you meet these people, they're like your guardian angels, your benefactors. They're just there. People say, “Where are they?” I'm like, “They're there, but you have blocked seeing them because you're operating from a place of hurt.”
Number two, you probably haven't reached out and asked them for a connection or help. Number three, you probably haven't authorized them. We have to relinquish the pain. When somebody offers to help us keep going back and revisiting, but this, “Tracey, you don't know how it is.” I know how it is, friend. I'm trying to help you. Are you going to let me help you, or are you not going to let me help you? It’s like you said when you're entering that course.
They're out there. Reach out. Mark Victor Hansen has a great book called Ask! and advocates love to be asked. They want to help you. They are more successful than us, and so they have this compulsion to open as many doors as possible to people like us. You got to clean house. The other stuff will zap your time, they’re emotional vampires, or you're scrolling through stuff on Facebook. Who cares? Do you even know these people? No, clean it off until you get in a healthier place.
How do you start? You talk about creating your inner voice and finding that motivation. You're in the middle of this chaos. You're trying to navigate your way. It feels so dark. Where do they start?
First of all, there's a physical component to this. We are still flesh and bones and your body's a temple. I think you need to get to a place where you are clear-minded, level-headed, sober, sleeping, and not indulging in unhealthy habits. Everything that we do and put into our bodies is going to affect that. Reclaim your health first and foremost. It's hard to get to a space of empowerment when you're treating your body like a trash can. Take care of that. What does anybody say? No matter how successful they are, if you don't have your health, you have nothing. I would go back and you're probably stressed and tired, do what you can to get back in there and reclaim your health.
The next thing is, you need to take stock of what voices you have that you're listening to, lending an ear to. Thirdly, you need to get silent with yourself. What you need is already in you. That's why I remind people. It's not outside of you. It's in you. It's been covered up with a layer of nonsense, pain, our negative self-talk, and all the crap going on in here. Either Sabbath, journal, meditate, yoga, whatever it is, you must get quiet and be honest with yourself and say, “Do I want to get out of here? If I want to get out of what is the one lever that I'm going to pull now to start a forward momentum to get me out of where it was?”
Rebecca, let's be honest. A lot of people thrive and love the drama. I do not understand that. I'm not wired that way, but that's where you have to get honest with yourself and say, “Let's do it.” You pick up great books, listen to your podcast, reach out to you, take a course, then you get the tools to start making the change. Until you are intentional about wanting and knowing that's it, “I'm not living in the past anymore,” until you get that spark, that internal source of combustion, you can offer everybody in the world. I can give you a million free books and seminars. If you're not picking up, what's being put down, you're not going to change.
I was thinking about what you were saying about some people are almost addicted to drama or chaos. It's like they know it's terrible for them, and they hate it, but they can't figure out a way to break that pattern, that cycle. Sometimes it started even in their childhood, maybe one of their parents was a narcissist or something happened to them where they felt like, “Maybe I deserve to be treated this way.” It’s not on a conscious level but a subconscious level. On a conscious level, they know what's wrong. They're telling everybody, “This person is treating me this way and this is so horrible.” On a subconscious level, maybe they feel somewhere deep down inside that they're supposed to have it this way, or they don't deserve any more than that. How do you start to create an inner voice and motivation during that time of crisis that is healthier?
Greatness Within: There is a term in leadership literature called personal agency. You are your own best advocate. Nobody can defend and motivate the self like the self.
What you talked about is a term in leadership literature called personal agency. You are your own best advocate. Nobody can defend and motivate the self like the self. That's why we sell self-discipline, self-awareness, self-esteem, and self-respect, it's how you feel about you. There are so many unbelievable books out there to help you unpack, “What is this thing that's blocking you from pulling off the lens and seeing how unbelievably brilliant? You have the God seat in you. What is blocking that?” It is a journey. I still go back to a narcissist as a scorpion. I would ask you because you're the expert. The thing about why narcissism is so difficult is because they will not ever acknowledge that they are the issue.
We're talking about the people that are dealing in the wake and those people. There are some great books. You've got the course. I would Google blogs about how people have broken free and talk to them about the journey. Remember, people have come out of this, and they've found love again, reclaimed their wealth and their health, and you can do it, too. It's a matter of going out there, finding those people and learning from what they did.
There are two things. Number one is you have to see value in it. Number two, you have to have a reasonable expectation of success. If anybody out there is reading and saying, “I see value in it, but I don't know if I could do it,” they need to work with somebody, perhaps a coach to unpack, “Why not you? You can.” This is terrible, but people have overcome terrible things and you can do this. I would recommend getting with somebody, maybe one-on-one, to help them work through that journey. Once you pull off that first boulder that seems so huge, the beauty of fear is the minute you shine a light on it, it dissolves. You realize, “Seriously, this is what I've been scared of for all these years?” Know that's on the other side of you and it's there. If you stay on the path and it is a process, you will get there.
As you were talking about facing your fear, I always likened the narcissist, or even your fear, that's going on, that you're conjuring your mind to the bully in A Christmas Story. I don't know if you've ever seen that movie, but you know how Ralphie's like constantly being bullied by this kid with orange eyes or yellow eyes. Every day he's on his way home and the kid is taunting and teasing him. He's trying to go a different direction and go around him. One day he had enough. He'd had a bad day. He didn't get the grade he wanted on this essay and all these things are happening.
Here comes the guy. He's like, “This is not the day. That’s it. I'm done.” He fights back. He beats the kid to a pulp to the point that his mother had to pull him off. The bully kid gets up. He's crying. He's running away. He never bothered him again. He realized, “He was the one with the fear and the problem.” It went away after that.
That's such a great point. A lot of times, I work with people and I'm like, “Define your goals,” but we go back even before that, “Something's stopping you from wanting your goals.” Anybody who’s reading this is goal-oriented. I tell people, “Define your fears. What is it? What real or perceived lie are you telling yourself and get rationalized?” We back it up and say, “Let's unpack the fear because I can't help you move forward until I find out what's holding you back.” That's a wonderful exercise to look at.
I would recommend for anybody reading, talk it out with somebody whose opinion you truly value. I have my husband and I use him as a sounding board. At the end of it, I'm like, “Thank you.” He's like, “I didn't say anything.” I’m like, “The fact of me being able to hear it said out loud, I know what to do now.” Speak it out loud to somebody else, somebody whose opinion you value, or if you pray, speak it to God. Don't murmur it to the devil. He doesn't need to know where to get you. Speak it out in a positive way to somebody that's going to receive it and hopefully can do something about it.
I like that you also talked about defining your goals because I talk about that in my Slay Program. One of the things that I tell people right away is, “What's your guiding vision? What's your goal?” A lot of times, when I'm helping people negotiate through crisis, I realized that they haven't even stopped to think about what their goals are. All they're doing is pointing the finger at the other side and how bad it is, “They did this. How are they getting away with that? Why is this happening to me? This is so unfair.” They haven't stopped to go, “What do I want? Where are we going?” They're in crisis mode. I love the fact that you're saying, “Let's think about your goals. Where do you want to go with this? You can't set that GPS unless you've figured out where you're going.”
You'll stay back in a cesspool with the monsters and the scary thing. You either pivot on purpose or on pain. I know I've been in crisis. For years, I was in that pain point and wanted revenge. That gets you nowhere. The thing about the valley, it's not a black hole. You eventually hit bottom and then you start climbing back up. Stop digging the hole deeper than it needs to be and look at where you want to go. You're eventually going to come out of this.
I went through a divorce. I can remember the mediator looked at me and he's like, “I know this is very raw right now, but one of these times, this is going to come up to you, this whole relationship, everything that happened. You're going to look at it with as much dispassion and whatever as you look at that doorknob handle.” I'm like, “It’s never going to happen.” He was right. It didn't take all that long because I suddenly realized pain has a shelf life. If I don't feed it, it can't stay. Realize that you're going to come out of it.
I've been there, too. I've been in situations where I think, “What did I do to you? I was nothing but good to you. I was nothing but kind. Why is this happening to me?” That's a victim mentality. If you are in that victim mentality, you can't be in creation mode, positive mode, and doing good things for yourself or others because you can't be in both places at once.
Greatness Within: The thing about the valley, it doesn't go down. It's not a black hole. You eventually hit the bottom and then you start climbing back up, stop digging the hole deeper than it needs to be.
You can learn from it. Remember, even if you tangle with a narcissist, you get smart. There are lots of them out there. You get to be wise counsel to somebody else. Trust me, you don't have to make this mistake more than once. You get more confident in your skin. You get more discerning and wisdom. I tell people, “It's not on you who they are. You happen into the orbit. You're not a bad person. Don't beat yourself up because you were trusting or forgiving. Never beat yourself up for that. Realize, thank God, you finally saw it for what it is and let's move on.”
When my father passed away, one day before he died, he shared with me his upbringing and how horrific it was. I'm like, “Are you kidding me?” He's like, “Yeah. I don't have to be ashamed of that anymore.” We all walk around and carry these wounds, but he did not tell me about them. He did not want that to define him. Bad stuff happens to good people. Good things happen to bad people. It is what it is. You get to choose your mindset, resiliency, and who you have in your life.
You've written eight books. Which one of the books might be best for people who are dealing with negotiating with a narcissist?
Probably the best one that I would talk to people about is my latest one, SPARK: 5 Essentials to Ignite the Greatness Within. Remember, all I can do is me. The pure form I get to me, that ignition, singular focus, persistence, the advocates, resources, and knowledge. When you dial in your best version of yourself, you're going to be on the path so far. You're not going to be thinking about who did what to you even six months ago. SPARK is good because it helps you get into the truest version of you and how you get clarity on your vision, you stay persistent, and then the tools that are going to need to help you navigate unfolding the best version of you.
Where can people find out more about you and what you're up to?
Come on over to TremendousLeadership.com. That's where we have all our books. We're a publishing house, too. If we have any aspiring authors out there, our niche is personal development. Anything related to motivation or leadership, even sales, communication, all that stuff is wonderful. TremendousLeadership.com has all that stuff. From my speaking, in my online courses, you can go over to TraceyCJones.com, and we answer every email. If you sign up, you get two free weeks of tremendous eBooks, some great reading material, and we'd love to connect with you.
I am so excited. I feel like you and I could talk for hours because it's great stuff. Everything you say is so powerful and I love that you're able to punch it right to the point. If anybody thinks they might need some additional help with some of their skills, follow, reach out, and use Tracey. She's a tremendous resource. I'm grateful for you and for having you on the show. Thank you so much.
Thank you, Rebecca. Thanks for everything you're doing for all those people out there. You help them with the healing and helping people get clarity, too.