Episode 187 - Bill Keller - Leaders On Leadership

Before living the entrepreneur’s dream, Bill Keller, the founder of Staffing Global, found himself on a rough path along the journey to reach that dream. Although he experienced loneliness on that journey, Bill learned to become comfortable with loneliness. He also explains how alignment with your mission and vision will help you forge forward and persevere through weariness because weariness will always be on the path towards success. Bill also shares how he abandons a dream for others to keep theirs and believes that is what leadership is about. This is an inspiring episode with Bill Keller. So, sit back and relax, and let’s retrace Bill’s journey towards living the entrepreneur’s dream.

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Bill Keller - Leaders On Leadership

Get ready for another Leader on Leadership episode where we pull back the curtain on leadership and we talk with leaders of all ages and stages about what it takes to pay the price of leadership. In this episode, I am tremendously excited because my guest is Bill Keller. Bill, welcome.

Thank you for having me. It's a pleasure to be on the show.

Thank you, Bill. Let me tell our readers a little bit about you. Bill Keller's entrepreneurial journey evolved from leading manufacturing businesses to founding Staffing Global, a pioneer in remote staffing. Although Bill is a PA native, he currently lives in Colombia, South America with his wife and two children. In his free time, he enjoys reading, traveling, and biohacking. I want to hear about that. Again, Bill, welcome.

Thank you so much. It's great to talk with you again. It's always a pleasure whenever we get a chance to speak. We had a great conversation not so long ago. It was awesome.

To our readers who wonder, “How does Tracey know all these tremendous people?” Bill and I go way back, and his sister was also on the show. I think that's what led you to reach out to me. Is that correct, Bill?

I've already seen you on LinkedIn and I see a lot of your posts. We have some conversations that way and I was thinking about leadership for my own podcast. I think the podcast with my sister brought you to mind again and I said, “She would be an awesome guest.” That’s what brought us together again.

Before Living The Entrepreneur’s Dream

I want to talk as we unpack this. You're in Colombia, so Bill's like, “You're on my podcast, but I don't live in this country.” I'm like, “What?” As somebody who's lived all over the world, I love that. I love that you're running your business. We'll talk a little bit about that so our readers can hear about that because you were truly living the entrepreneur's dream.

I was doing this before and it was cool. When COVID came, everybody was like, “We can travel and go anywhere.” I was doing it many years ago and it's been quite a journey. I don't know if we talked about this. There were some books that led to my journey. It always goes back to books. You're going to be the same person five years from now except for the people you meet and the books you read. It's so true in my own life. There were two seminal books that led to that transformation for me. One is called The World Is Flat by Thomas Friedman, and then the other is The 4-Hour Work Week.

The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century

The World Is Flat talks about how the internet was flattening the playing field all over the world and gives some examples of everything that you could do. Coming from a manufacturing business and then being exposed to this virtual world, I was like, “You could do that. What could I do with that?” It got my mind spinning. The other was The 4-Hour Work Week and that was a life changer as well. There was a lot of tech in that book in the beginning, but it's about a mindset shift. It’s about changing the way you're thinking.

I found it to be an incredible book that opened up the possibilities for me. That started my journey to build a remote company and specifically made it that way. I had four things. I had come out of bankruptcy. It's a long story and it's one that your readers might want to learn about sometime. I got caught up with the wrong partner. I was investigated by the SEC. There were some challenging times. That's all part of leadership. While I would never want to go through it again, I'm thankful that I went through it the first time because it was an amazing learning experience.

I love the fact that you're talking about staffing because as we're going to talk in leadership, no matter what your vision is, you can't get it right without the right people. I'm reading all these books on Jesus and how he developed his exemplary followers and it's like, “You've got to be very intentional about that.” I can't wait to unpack this and I want to hear about that wrong partner story because I know our readers have gone through that. I went through that. I want to hear about that because that goes into one of the prices you're going to have to pay.

However, let's talk about loneliness. Charles, in his speech, The Price of Leadership said that leadership isn't for the faint of heart. It's what we're all called to do, but it's not for those seeking the easy road. He says that one of the things you're going to have to do is be able to tolerate and deal with loneliness. Can you unpack what loneliness looks like for you as a leader when you were in a season of it, and what words of wisdom you would share with our readers?

Be Comfortable With Loneliness

I don't think about being lonely a lot. I think it goes back to when I was a kid. I was a loner. I never had a whole lot of friends. I went to a private Christian school. One, there weren't many kids in the school to begin with. It was one of those. I was not integrated with the kids in my neighborhood. There wasn't a lot that was my age. My sister was seven years older than I was at the time. It was just me and myself. I got comfortable with that.

There's a quote that I like. “Loneliness is a tax that one must pay for a certain complexity of mind.” I think there's a lot of truth to that. I hate to say that quote and say it like you're bragging that you have a complex mind. I think I could probably say that and the people who know me would probably say that as well. I think there's some truth to that. As I've gone about this, I think this is all about perspective. We assume things should be in certain ways. I should not be doing this alone. I should have other people supporting me. Other people should be willing to come alongside me and help me with my goals.

Loneliness is a tax one must pay for a certain complexity of mind.

I’m like, “Why?” Why do we automatically assume that that should be the case? I think when faced with adversity, we often ask, “Why me?” “Why not me?” I've experienced that loneliness, but I think that I've also become comfortable with that loneliness. Also, the older I get, while I like being with people, I'm even more comfortable being by myself than I was at one time. I was like, “Okay.” The other day, I went out to eat by myself. I was away in a city on a business trip and I went out to a restaurant. I sit and eat by myself. I was okay with that.

You have to be okay being comfortable with yourself and I think that that is something that you can learn over time but something you need to be prepared for if you're going to be in business. You think your family's going to be there to support you. They aren't going to understand you. I think of Andy Andrews. “People don't understand the higher purpose to which I've been called.” He has that, and it's one of his quotes. Also, I think that's so true. Be prepared for that. Don't expect certain things.

Expectation is the cause of a lot of pain. I know that's a Buddhist philosophy, but I think there's some truth to that. Expectation and attachment are the cause of a lot of pain. I've been going through over the past ten years a lot of soul searching and saying, “What are these expectations? What am I attached to? What am I thinking that I'm entitled to?” By doing that, it's allowed me a different perspective to be okay with not necessarily having the people that I would like by my side all the time.

Expectation and attachment are the cause of a lot of pain.

Also, when you're okay with it, you're at peace and that's priceless. I think that's the thing beyond success and fame is we want to be at peace. I love that. Expectation is the cause of a lot of pain. We look in the world, “I did this with the team,” and we all understand we're meant to be in this collective call humanity yet as you said, there are going to be times when we are going to be the only ones getting the call. It's our call. I love how you unpack that. That's what I love about getting older too. You become so much more comfortable with it. I wouldn't want to do my 40s again or 50s.

I don't know if you've ever heard of Scott Galloway. He talks about the smile of happiness. He says when you're young and you’re in your early twenties, it's generally a happy time. There's not a whole lot of anxiety. You then go into the 20s, 30s, and into your 40s. He says that's when the stuff gets real. Typically, you're dipping in your happiness, and then as you start to come out of that, as you go into your 50s and your 60s, that happiness increases. I think there's a lot of truth to that. Hopefully, I'm an early bloomer. I've noticed that. I think that I've gotten that before I've gotten into my 50s. I've experienced that in my 40s and it's taken a lot of work. You can do it sooner, but it requires a lot of introspection.

Thank you for unpacking loneliness for us, Bill. The next is weariness. Charles was always in the mindset that you're always going to encounter some people that do more than what's required and a lot that do less or in your case when you talked about with the wrong partner, people that do something you didn't even expect was going to be done. I'm sure that was incredibly taxing and draining. Any of our readers out there who have been through something like that, it is a drain like no other but can you unpack weariness for us?

How do you deal with it and how do you stay strong when you are in those challenging seasons? As I said, half the stuff maybe we should have seen coming, but the other half, it's the nature of living in a fallen world. Bad stuff happens to good people. Some of the stuff, there's no way we could have prevented it. For whatever reason, God threw it on us. It is what it is. Can you talk to us about weariness?

The Road To Success

There was something you said there that I want to point out. “Bad stuff happens to us.” I think in the podcast with my sister, I shared a story with her about the Chinese farmer. You mentioned that. I think that's so true that oftentimes we don't know what's good and bad. We think we do because we equate pain with bad but pain doesn't necessarily mean that it is a negative or pleasure with a positive all the time. As I've gotten older, we think that the things that cause pain are bad. I don't know if that it's the case. We only know that in time.

As far as the weariness is concerned, I think it's Jim Rohn who said, “Do you have enough reasons for success?” What are the reasons that you're moving forward? You might be having this vision, but what are the reasons for completing this vision? I think you need to keep that in mind. “Why am I doing this?” This other thing is delayed gratification. Am I willing to put it off? Am I willing to do the work? That's what we're talking about. Am I willing to do the work before the payoff?

Understanding that it's a prerequisite to success and understanding what it's going to look like. Again, going back to the expectation portion of it, it's like, “Why would I expect that I am any different than anybody else?” If you go back in and look at Edison, a thousand light bulbs he had to do 1,000 times or 10,000 times. I don't know what the actual story is. You say, “I shouldn't have to do that.”

No, he persevered. There's a book by Andy Andrews called The Traveler's Gift. One of the principles in that book is, “I will persist without exception.” Weariness is part of the process on the road to success. If you're getting there and you haven't experienced the things we're talking about, the loneliness and the weariness, my guess is you probably are not that successful. Maybe you think you are, maybe that's okay in your world but the reality is there's going to be a price that you're going to have to pay.

Entrepreneurs Dream: Weariness is part of the process on the road to success.

Also, that expectation to understand that, the only thing that I would tell people is if they truly understand the price that they would have to pay, they probably wouldn't go on the journey. That's the great thing about youth that I love is this incredible belief that they can do anything. There's this balance as I get older because I'm like, “I wouldn't do that again,” but it's this foolishness of youth that allows us to move into places that we probably shouldn't have gone.

However, by doing it and going ahead anyway, we get it done and then we persevere through. We don't understand when we begin and then if we have enough reasons to continue, we continue through the weariness. What are your reasons and how does that relate to your mission and to your goal? How do you want to be remembered?

Thank you so much for unpacking weariness, Bill. Loneliness, weariness, and I love that you tied that back into expectations again because that can make you tired too because just the thought, “Why did this not happen?” That can drain you too. I love that you tied that back to that. You mentioned the Chinese farmer. What is that? Unpack that. I think I know what parable you're talking about, but you mentioned that.

The Chinese Farmer

The Parable of the Chinese Farmer is that there was a Chinese farmer and he had a horse. One day, his horse ran away and everybody in the village came to him and said, “This is terrible. This is horrible,” and he said, “Maybe.” The next day, his horse comes back with seven wild horses and now, he's a rich man in his community and everybody says, “This is fantastic. You're richly blessed.” He says, “Maybe.”

The next day, his son breaks one of the wild horses, he falls off and breaks his leg. Everybody comes around and says, “This is horrible. What a horrible turn of events.” He says, “Maybe.” The next day, the subscription officers come and take the rest of the men to go to the army, but they leave his son because of his broken leg. Everybody says, “This is fantastic,” and he says, “Maybe.” That goes back to we don't know at the moment what we think is good or bad. I think that having that perspective allows us because when things go bad in our minds, you're like, “This is the end,” and they're like, “No, this isn't the end.” It could be the best thing that ever happened to you.

I think back to Paul, my biblical hero who talks about, “Yay. You get to suffer. You have been chosen to suffer.” That's a beautiful thing. I still struggle with that, but an excellent point. We don't know at the moment. Thank you so much for that.

I wouldn't want to contradict Paul, but I would like to say pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional though.

Entrepreneurs Dream: Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional, though.

I think in his, it's a spiritual sense. Certainly, we're coming up on Easter. I think Christ suffered on the cross. There is suffering like anybody that's dealing with cancer. We live in a fallen world.

I think there's that difference between pain and suffering. Sometimes you use that synonymously. Sometimes we make a distinction between that because I've seen so many people who are in pain who aren't suffering in the way that we would think. That's the choice. You see them and you're like, “How are you doing that? You're in so much stress.” What I would be in distress, and you're able to come out and go, “You have such a cheerful attitude. Even in the midst of all of that, it doesn't seem like you're suffering.” Also, you have other people who seem to have everything and the world is falling apart.

Do you know what Charles would call them?

Thumb suckers. That is so indelibly imprinted on my mind. We talked about this before I had seen him as an early teenager and I've heard many speakers after him but to use thumb sucker, no holds barred. I understand there was an act to it, but there was a way to try to build it up and I think he did that. He brought it forth and said, “Why me? Why not me?” That's the same thing. You are a thumb sucker. What's your problem? Why are you expecting it should be any different for you?

He’d say, “Of course, you got a problem. You're not dead.” In other words, “Welcome to life. Get up, you thumb sucker.”

You better have a problem. If you don't have any problems, you don't have a job.

You better have a problem. You don't have a job if you don't have problems.

That's to your point where you said, “If you're not experiencing this, you may be a LINO, a Leader In Name Only.” You may not be paying the price kind of thing. Bill, loneliness, and weariness. The next you talked about is abandonment. Typically, abandonment is one of those words I want to unpack the meaning of. We hear a lot about fear of abandonment, abandonment issues, or I'm in pet rescue abandonment. It’s a very bad thing but for Charles abandonment was stop thinking about what you like and want to think about in favor of what you ought and need to be thinking about and doing.

It was almost abandoning or pruning away the non-value added or not the highest use of your time to focus on what you need to. As entrepreneurs, we're chronically involved with ideas. Can you unpack for us what abandonment was? How did you abandon what you did in high volume running, a very tangible stateside manufacturing business, which is where I grew up as an operations girl into this world of virtual global staffing?

Abandon Old Ideas

What are the things you're going to need to abandon? You're going to need to be able to abandon old ideas. It's one of the things that I think people have a hard time letting go of. They say, “It shouldn't be this way.” Going back to my partner, I address that. I was in the manufacturing business. I think 21 at the time. I didn't have any money to go back to school. My family didn't have any money.

We found a partner to back us. My dad had found a partner who was going to provide us with the money and we were supposed to have a division of labor. My father was supposed to do the sales, I was supposed to do the manufacturing, and he was supposed to do the finance. He was from the community and basically, because of his former profession, he was an accountant. People were coming to him to invest money. He was taking large amounts of investments from 1,500 people across seven different states. If it sounds like a bank that's basically what it was but he didn't have all the licenses and all the regulations therefore causing a lot of problems.

He didn't steal the money. He didn't do anything like that. It wasn't nefarious in that way, but there was a lot of hubris involved that got me into a very bad position where I had to make some very difficult decisions. Having to abandon a dream because I had worked thirteen years, sometimes 100-hour weeks up to 36 hours straight. I wouldn't recommend that to anybody. I think that was stupid. At the time, I wore it as a badge of honor but as I look back at that, I don't necessarily think that that was a good thing, I had invested my life and had to pay a lot in terms of loneliness and in terms of all these different things.

Weariness definitely, as you're working all these hours and you're giving up your time. You're saying, “It shouldn't be this way,” but I think you need to abandon those ideas and say, “Why do I say it shouldn't be this way?” You need to understand what are you willing to sacrifice for. What are you willing to gain? It will help you to understand what you might need to abandon and what you're willing to leave behind or if you're willing to leave “easy life” behind.

It’s hard decisions now, easy life later. Easy decisions now, hard life later. I think that willingness to make the choice to do things that others are unwilling to do will lead to a life that others don't have. I think it was Jerry Rice, the famous football player. “Today I will do what others won't so tomorrow I can do what others can't.” Whether that is, “I'm going to work harder. I'm going to abandon things that I need to leave behind.”

Hard decisions now, easy life later. Easy decisions now, hard life later.

I was talking about what you need to abandon. You need to sometimes abandon a dream. Sometimes you need to abandon foolish beliefs or naive beliefs that I had when I first went into business like, “I'll be in this for two years. We'll make a bunch of money and then I'll go back to school. Thirteen years later, I was going bankrupt but I understood where I was going and that helped me to stay the course even when during those difficult decisions because I structured a deal in which pretty much all of my employees got to keep their jobs except for me.

I had to abandon that dream so that others could keep theirs and that's part of what I believe leadership is all about. What else do you need to abandon? If you have friendships, sometimes you're going to need to set those aside because those aren't the people who are going to drive you forward toward your vision. I think it was Jim Rohn who I remember saying it first. “You are the average of your five closest friends.”

If you have a desire and if you have a vision to go far, you need to make sure that those people around you that you have close to you are going to be leading you forward. I think it was you in another conversation. You can't change the people around you, but you can change the people around you. You can change the people you associate with. It doesn't necessarily mean when we say abandon that it has a very negative connotation like, “I'm leaving you. I'm never going to talk to you again.” I don't think that's what I was talking about in there.

“I can't spend as much time with you. I can't invest in you the way that I could have if we were on the same page or if we were headed in the same direction but we're not. At this point, my vision, in my role and goal in life holds a higher importance right now than our friendship does.” For many, that might seem bad. Those who it seemed bad probably don't understand what it takes to be successful in the calling and where you want to go.

I appreciate you unpacking that. I love the “Easy life now, hard life later.” We got Ben Franklin's The Way to Wealth coming out and that's the same thing now. You work hard and you save now so you can retire early. That's it. If you don't do it, you're going to be in debt to your eyeballs until the day you die. It's like, “It's so simple everything that we do right now.” We're not talking about ghosting people or discarding them, but when you said, “I can't spend time with you if,” and I said, “If we're not reading the same book,” because life even work is like a book club discussion.

I always say this. We talk about this. Leadership and followership as a dance. If you're not hearing the same music, reading the same thing, or that value congruence, you can still be friends but when it comes to the large chunk of your life that is developing your passion, you're calling making money, helping other people make money, and paying taxes entails being very intentional about who you spend time with.

For me, going back to the loneliness portion, I never had a lot of friends that I would call good friends. My friends and how I tried to keep people close or how I tried to keep people around me through books. I was in the same company, the manufacturing company, and we were having some serious problems. I had the worst employees ever. They were horrible and I was like, “I need better employees.”

I started to sit there. I was thinking and I go, “What do all these relationships have in common?” I figured out it was me. I was the problem. I wanted to blame it on others and then I just started diving in because I was like, “Somebody else has figured this out and they know more than me.” I started surrounding myself and listening to the John Maxwell podcasts and every book that I could get ahold of.

I remember one about Danny Cox. I think you know him. He was The Sonic Boom Salesman. He talked about how he had to go out and sell that Sonic Booms were good for people because he was an Air Force pilot. I don't know what he was selling at the time, but he had taken his number one office to 32nd place in a matter of three months. His boss came in and said, “I have to tell you that I am looking for your replacement.” He says that is not only the shortest but the finest motivational speech I have ever heard.

He then determined at that point in time that he was going to get moving and find out what he didn't know. I think he said, “I called all these people and said, ‘I took my office from first place to 32nd place. I need to have lunch with you now.’” He said it was never turned down. For me, it wasn't necessarily calling other people, but it was reading those books and taking that to heart. That's one of the things that I have an innate ability to do is take in huge amounts of information, recall it, and hopefully, assimilate that into my decision-making process.

We can always call people. People know they can call me. We can call each other. I called Dave Ramsey to get him on the show. We can call each other, but I love that you talked about reading because then you get to unpack it for yourself. It’s because sometimes people may not be as truthful as you. Although we love smacking people around, we're kind and we don't want to hurt anybody but sometimes they need to hear the tough stuff.

I love that you said somebody else's has figured out. It's why I went back for my PhD, not so I could be the smartest person in the room. That never dawned on me. It’s not so people could call me Dr. Jones, although that was a little bit of it but somebody else has figured this out. At 45, I could not figure it out. I was having some successes, but a lot of failures.

I'm like, “It shouldn't be this hard. Something's not right. I've worked in enough places,” as you said. Maybe I should work on leading myself first and not others. I love that you talked about it. Read it. There is nothing out there. There is nothing new under the sun. There's no new revelation. You just have to go out and discover it. I love that you talked about it.

I think a wise man once said that. Let's go back to Solomon of the Bible.

He said that. It's all revelation and wisdom. Now, we're going to talk about vision. Again, some of us, I grew up sitting under people like Zig Ziglar and Og Mandino. I'm like, “These guys’ brains are wired in ways that mine is not.” My father was like, “No. Vision is not something so esoteric where you're like Nostradamus, Elon Musk, or these great inventors.” He said it’s seeing what needs to be done, the attraction kind of thing, and then doing it. It’s the action.

My father was always very pragmatic about, “Yes, you can have strategic planning, but without strategic execution. Vision is very tangible and very active. It’s not just this esoteric thing. How do you define vision, Bill? How do you craft your vision for the future? You can tell our fans a little bit about the different offices you have in different countries, and I can't wait to hear it.

One, for me, it took me probably at least 20 years or maybe closer to 30 to try to figure out what my life purpose was. I've figured out that I'm here to give people opportunities and help them to grow. I'm taking all this information in and then, “Am I able to speak into their lives to help them to grow?” Also, I believe in giving people opportunities. That's why I like working overseas.

In the book The 4-Hour Work Week, he talked about using overseas resources and I was like, “This is a whole new world for me,” because I had problems with employees and I had also seen a lot of people where I'd given them opportunities and they didn't take advantage of it. It costs me a lot to give them those opportunities and it was disappointing to me, “Here's your opportunity,” and they were like, “I don't want it,” or, “I'm not going to take advantage of it.”

The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich

However, I find that working overseas, people are more appreciative. They understand that this is an opportunity and it also helps us as business owners. That's one of the reasons that I moved into the staffing. I used overseas staff to help me run my marketing company, which I still have. That's how I moved into the staffing company. I was using these resources. People were asking me how am I doing this because I'd go to Costa Rica for three months. I'd worked from Florida for a couple of months before remote was cool. They were wondering how I did this.

That made the transition into staffing. I still have the marketing company but moved away from the marketing because it was all about products and it wasn't about people. If you're going to make a difference in this life, especially with my vision that I had to help grow people, I was going to need to move more into that. That's one of the reasons that I moved into the staffing side.

I partnered up with a gentleman in India, and he runs our India operations. He helps with making sure that all our people are taken care of, that our office is going well, and that our HR activities are going well. We partner very well together. I think that the vision is going back to the book, Good to Great. It’s having a BHAG. If you're not familiar with that term, it's Big Hairy Audacious Goal. What is that for me? We should be so much bigger and everybody nowadays is talking about scaling. How do we scale this?

If you look at most of the companies that have scaled, they just threw money at it. I'm going through India in Uber and I'm looking at this. I can go a whole way across town for a half an hour's drive for $2 or $3. It’s a crazy amount of money. I’m like, “How are they able to do that?” I see an article that Uber's paying for 40% of my ride. They're borrowing money from some VC firm and they're paying for 40% of my ride so I can go across a city in India at a reduced rate. It goes back to the old adage. “I'm losing a dollar on every sale, but I'm making it up in volume.”

If you see all these people scaling, we often get disappointed in our own growth, but not understand at what cost did that growth come. I want to make sure that people keep that in mind but I would say is one, have a big vision, but understand you're working in the present. Also, do not get discouraged by that big vision because you say, “How far am I from that?” The other thing I would say is there was a gentleman. We used to go to Vistage. You're probably familiar with this CEO group. Those speakers were also influential in my life.

He talked about where you have a rubber band. I think it was in The Fifth Discipline by Peter Senge. If you have a rubber band between your two fingers, if your down finger is your current reality and your top finger is your goal or your vision or where you want to go, the further you are from your current reality, what does that create if you have a rubber band there? It creates tension. Think of tension as being bad. He says, “No. It's just tension.”

Part of this vision process and the reason I'm getting to this is to be able to have a good vision in my mind you need to be okay with tension because if you're going to have a big vision for your life, you're going to have this tension in your life because you're not there. You haven't met it. The thing is with that rubber band in between your two fingers, there are two ways to reduce the tension, isn't there? I can bring my current reality up to where I want to go where I can drop my vision down to my current reality but one could be done immediately and one takes time.

Being comfortable in this constant tension, which is not easy, is paramount to a great vision. As far as what does that vision mean for you? I don't necessarily know. I think that that comes partly through action. Most people think that they're going to go into a room and that vision is going to be handwritten on the wall. They’re like, “There's the handwriting on the wall. There's my vision,” in this miraculous play of vision or whatever. It’s this Nostradamus-like type of effect.

It could be the road to Damascus.

I don't think that that's the case. I think it's more of working through the small things. John Maxwell said, “Do what you can, where you are with what you have and that will lead you forward.” It's like rock climbing. If you know me and you've seen me, I'm not a rock climber. I don't have the body for that. I’m a little too heavy but when you go to that wall, you look up and you say, “There's no way that I'm going to be able to climb this wall.” If you look at it closer, you’re like, “There's a handhold right there, but I could probably only go two feet.”

I think it's a matter of starting and as you move forward through that, more of the vision is shown to you. You'd never probably get a full vision right from day one. That vision, as you're moving forward through the fog as it were, it can get clearer. There are things that you can do through personal growth and through introspection that can give you greater clarity through the fog but there's also this portion of faith and understanding that you're moving towards the vision even though it's not fully developed. If you're waiting for the plan to be fully developed, you're going to be waiting a long time. I'm sure you've heard the analogy, “I'm going to go across town, but I'm going to wait until all the traffic lights are green.” That's not going to work. You need to go from one to the next and that's the way life works.

Bill, we covered loneliness. We covered weariness, we covered abandonment, and vision. Is there anything else leadership-related that we haven't touched on that you would like to share with our readers?

Personal Growth

Going back to the expectation, I think spending a lot of time on personal growth, it's the development of ideas but I think it's also the understanding of self. It's that understanding and until you understand yourself, you're going to have a hard time leading people. It’s because to understand, “Why am I doing this right? Why does this upset me?” I think this ability to handle your emotions, I find it very interesting because while I do get upset, I very rarely get to the point where I'm not in control.

Many people like to say, “You don't understand what they did. You don't understand how they upset me.” I’m like, “You're giving them your power. You need to understand yourself.” If that's the case, you need to go back in and I think that leadership is a lot about understanding self. When you can do that, it is the key. There was a book that I read called Awareness by Anthony de Mello and that for me was a fantastic book to open up my mind and to what I didn't understand about myself and why I wanted certain things.

Let's say we're in a crisis. He says, “You don't want enlightenment,” but people say, “I want to know about myself.” He says, “No. You just want your toys fixed.” Let's say your business is going bad. Do you want to understand why it's going bad or do you want somebody to come in and fix it? “Put it back to the way it was before so I don't have this problem anymore.” He talks about that in the book. The book is made up of his talks. Each one is probably only a few pages, but as you go through it, at least for me, I had to read each one a couple of times because it hit me so hard.

I think another good book is Mind Hacking Happiness. I don't know if you've ever read that. I don't always agree with everybody's philosophy or the books. Depending upon your audience, if they read this book, it’s like, “This doesn't jive with some of my values.” It's so you know that but I think we as Christians and people of faith need to understand like, “I can read an idea and there could be truth in an idea that might not necessarily be a “Christian” idea per se.

Although there’s something in my mind that the Mind Hacking Happiness helped me to understand like, “What am I attached to and why am I feeling this pain?” That allowed me to disconnect in many ways so that I wasn't so emotional about the issues and I was able to be more dispassionate and able to make better decisions in my life. Also, there's a place for emotion. Be moved by the emotion but don't let it control you.

Don't be held hostage or have it cause you to go off the deep end. I love that you're talking about emotional regulation because, with leadership, I think 1% of it is about people doing things. Everybody knows how to do things unless you're a rocket scientist and even they already know how to do things. It's all about personalities and how you show up. Also, attitude, emotional regulation, thumb sucking, optimism, and self-efficacy.

I love that when we dial ourselves in you're always going to have to be dealing with this with people. One of my dearest friends, Arnette Wright, in my PhD program, used to say to me. She goes, “I love people but people.” Charles would say that. My problem isn't motivating me. My problem is keeping other people from demotivating me.

We're fairly intrinsically motivated and a little bit of a loner. If it was just me, my dogs, my books, and Mike and that was it and the whole universe, I would be cool with that but it's all the other people that you have to interact with. I love that you're talking about it. You've got to unpack your biases and your self-awareness blind spots. What is it that's triggering you and see it for what it is? Thank you for sharing all these books that have made quite an impact in your life.

If I leave you with one other thing, don't go into this for the accolades. If you're going into leadership and business and you're like, “I'm going into it because I need something and I need affirmation,” you are in the wrong business.

What would you do to be that? Go rescue a pet. It’s the quickest way to affirmation. No matter what you do. It's love. That's why we love our animals so much. It’s pure affirmation. What's the best way for people to get in touch with you, Bill, in case they're interested in hearing more about what you do or about your business? Are you for people like us all over the globe or who's your ideal client too?

The ideal client is primarily a small business owner who is looking for accounting help. We also do some other things. We are focused on bookkeeping and accounting. We feel that it's the easiest entry road for many people to use remote staff. It's a language in itself. I have offices in Colombia and in India, but I also work in three other countries. Our job is to connect people. We hire them in the other countries. They come work for you inside your business, albeit, remotely.

Our job is to make sure that that relationship is working because we work on both sides. We have coaches who coach our team in India and in Colombia to help them gain a greater perspective on culture and then also success principles. We also are the glue that brings everybody together and makes sure that it is a successful relationship.

We backed that up with like a three-month 100% money-back guarantee to make sure that it is absolutely fit for you. If you're looking at remote work, even if it's not about accounting, I'd love to talk with you even if it's not the right fit for us. I can give you a lot of helpful hints and tips. I've been doing this for over fifteen years. Look me up on LinkedIn. You can go to our website StaffDifferent.com. We also have a YouTube channel @Staffing Global.

Bill, thank you. I hadn't thought about accounting, Bill. I'll have to talk to you about that. That's one thing. It didn't even dawn on me, but that makes sense. I love the fact that if not, Bill, you will help people talk about it because I think everybody, especially entrepreneurs, is dealing with staffing issues and there is no shortage of success stories about remote workers. I use it for everybody in the publishing industry from pagination to cover artists to uploading stuff.

We do that as well. We have an art division, but your readers might like to know this. I do the ads for five Amish newspapers across the country. In the Plain community, they send us our ads. They get shipped over to India. We produce the ads for Amish newspapers here in the States. They send them back, get printed in the States, and go out anyway.

If somebody in the Plain community can use us to run their ads, anybody can do this. We do artwork. I've done many different things, but our focus moving forward is on accounting, if you need artwork design and all sorts of other things, I will be happy to help you and point you in the right direction.

Bill, thank you so much. To our readers out there, I want to thank you for tuning in and for paying the price of leadership. As Charlie “Tremendous” Jones said, remember, you're going to be the same person five years from now that you are now, except for two things: the people you meet and the books you read. Now, you met tremendous Bill. You heard about his tremendous experiences. He gave us probably about 25 different books that we can go out and read too. If you like what you read, please hit the subscribe button. Give us the honor of a five-star review and send this out to other people so we can continue to grow our tremendous drive. As always, thank you for paying the price of leadership. Thank you again, Bill.

It was a pleasure. Thank you for having me on. I hope you have a great day.

Everybody, you have a tremendous rest of your day too. Bye-Bye.

Important Links

• Bill Keller - LinkedIn

• Staffing Global

• The World Is Flat

• The 4-Hour Work Week

• The Traveler's Gift

• Good to Great

• The Fifth Discipline

• Awareness

• Mind Hacking Happiness

• @Staffing Global - YouTube channel

About Bill Keller

Bill Keller's entrepreneurial journey evolved from leading manufacturing businesses to founding Staffing Global, a pioneer in remote staffing. While a PA native, he currently lives in Colombia, South America, with his wife and two children. In his free time, he enjoys reading, traveling, and biohacking.

Episode 165 - Derrick And Tavia Jackson - Leaders On Leadership

Leadership is not just a title, it comes with a price, and the first cost is loneliness. But those who are willing to pay the price and lead with courage and conviction, will inspire others to follow and change the world. In today's episode, we'll be chatting with Derrick Jackson and Tavia Jackson. They are the joyful married couple who own Tastebuds Popcorn in Concord, North Carolina. Together, they discuss what it means to be a true leader. They share the valuable insights and gold nuggets they earned in their 10 years of experience in network marketing and leadership development. They explore the first cost of leadership as discussed in “The Price of Leadership”, which is loneliness. Derrick and Tavia discuss what loneliness looks like for leaders, and share their own perspectives and experiences about the sacrifices and challenges of the role. Further on, they emphasize the value of resilience, unexpected connections, and more. Tune in now and gain insight on what it takes and costs to be a true leader!

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Watch the episode here

Listen to the podcast here

Derrick And Tavia Jackson - Leaders On Leadership

I am so excited because my guests are Derrick and Tavia Jackson. Let me tell you a little bit about these two. Derrick and Tavia Jackson are happily married. They love the Lord and own Tastebuds Popcorn Concord in Concord, North Carolina. That is the trifecta, happily married, loving the Lord, and popcorn, my favorite food. More about that to come. They have over a decade of experience in network marketing and leadership development. Tavia is a veteran, and she has served in the United States Marine Corps. Respect, sister. I love that. Derrick and Tavia, welcome. Thank you for taking the time to share with our audiences.

Thank you so much for having us. We're honored to be here.

It's our pleasure.

I always like to tell our audiences how we made this tremendous connection. That is through Nikita Koloff. Many of our audiences know that Nikita has been a longtime friend of mine and brother in Christ. He has been on the show himself. We do a monthly Zoom call in the last few years. He connected with you two and then reached out. We connected, and the rest is history. You never know who you're going to get connected with. Do those follow-up calls with people. I can't encourage you enough.

Before we get started, my father wrote a pamphlet called The Price of Leadership based on a speech that he gave years ago. He was all about leadership. In it, he talks about the price of leadership, meaning what you're going to have to pay as a price to be a true leader, not just a leader in name only. Derrick and Tavia, the first price that he said you have to pay is loneliness. We have all heard that, "Heavy is the head that wears the crown. It's lonely at the top," but could you share with our audiences what loneliness means to you and looks like as a leader?

With Tastebuds Popcorn Concord, we launched that business in the middle of the pandemic. It was loneliest at that point in time. We already knew entrepreneurship was a very lonely place but in that particular time, everyone was so isolated from one another. We have the tendency to lean into what everyone is not doing because that's usually where success is. It's outside of our comfort zone. We have gotten comfortable being uncomfortable. We decided to start a business with a lot of human interaction during a time when humans weren't interacting. There are a lot of ideas and great ways to make money from friends but let's take some action.

We agreed in December 2020 to launch our business during the middle of the pandemic. There are lots of feelings associated with the uncertainty and the trepidation of, "I don't have too many people to ask. Everyone I talk to about starting a business now is probably going to try to talk me out of it. Let's keep this one close to our chests and only confide in people that understand our potential and the calling of our life." It was a very lonely start. There was funding available from the Federal Government but we started the idea after all that. It seemed like where we want small businesses to survive, we missed a lot of those windows. That was even lonelier in that regard.

How did you come to popcorn?

I love popcorn. I used to send Derrick all over to get popcorn, or I would chip popcorn places. One day, I asked him to get popcorn for me. He was driving probably about 45 minutes to an hour away to get popcorn. He ran into a gentleman that said, "I want to talk to you about our possible opportunity." Derrick came home. He was so excited. I said, "I'm sure that it's more work than whatever somebody told you. Let's pray about this and make sure it's what we should be doing as a family."

At that time, we had three children. Creed was eight months at the time. Zoe was 7 and Creed was 8 months old. We prayed about it and fasted about it for a month. We asked our spiritual leaders and our pastors, "Can you pray with us and fast with us about this and let us know what you're hearing as well?" One day, Zoe came downstairs and said, "Creed was born on National Popcorn Day." "First, how do you even know that? Two, let me google it."

I did that. Sure enough, Creed was born on January 19th. I was in the hospital for three days in labor. I winded up having him on that third day at 1:00 in the morning. I said, "You mean to tell me I was in the hospital all those days pushing because we were waiting for National Popcorn Day as a confirmation?" It was so awesome. Everyone in our family loves popcorn. We have loved popcorn since we were kids. We have Christmas pictures holding the two-gallon tins. We have always loved popcorn.

Think about the implications of three days. There are a lot of biblical things that were for three days before they were birthed.

That puts chills in my arms.

You saying that puts chills in mine. Thank you for sharing that and your comment about, "Be careful who you tell your dream to. Only tell it to the people that see your potential." Even Disney's closest friends are like, "You're crazy. Don't do this." You have to be very discerning about this when you have the calling because people aren't going to see it. Tavia, we will talk at the end. Popcorn is my favorite. I could eat popcorn in the morning. I love it. When I saw you were popcorn, I'm like, "That's another thing." I love that. We will get back onto leadership because I'm excited about popcorn too. Were you already employed elsewhere or running your businesses?

We were both employed at major banks. I also own two other businesses. One of them is doing makeup. I do makeup for weddings, events, and TV and film as well. Derrick had other adventures as well. We had multiple things going on. We're also very involved in our church. I'm an elder at our church as well. Derrick is a minister at our church. We had many irons in the fire at the time as well.

Did you then look at that timing other than the Lord laying it on your heart because the banks were still not as active or makeup? You have an entrepreneurial streak. What made you decide to go in that direction?

Derrick and I have done business together since we graduated college. We went to Elon University, the Fightin’ Christians, which turned into the phoenix out of the ashes. Everybody loves a good success story and an overcoming story. Right after college, it was Quixtar at the time. It wasn't Amway.

I remember that. Executive Books was involved in that. You're taking me way back.

We built that together. We were dating at the time. At first, he was in the business, and then he brought me into the business. We got married and combined our businesses together. We learned how to do business together with our temperaments, strengths, weaknesses, love languages, and communication styles. We wanted to do something else together. We wanted to add more to our business acumen and what we're doing.

When the Lord dropped popcorn, I was thinking, "It's brick and mortar, God. Can you give me something that people only get online? Do I have to go somewhere?" You realize the risk is higher with the real building. His answer did not change, and I'm fine with that. We wanted to continue to do things together. I'm doing makeup. I do coaching now and things like that. Derrick supported me in everything I was doing but we still wanted to do something where we were 100% together.

In talking about loneliness, how beautiful that not only are you in the covenantal relationship of a marriage but you have taken that to be business partners. The cord of three strands is not easily broken. There's power in that. A lot of the guests that we have on here do have a spouse that works closely with them but there are still times of loneliness. We all go through them but how beautiful that you had a co-partner in life in all aspects. That is truly a gift.

Tavia was one of those people I could confide in. We understood that the world was at such a lonely point that we could be a part of the solution. We can be a catalyst for bringing people back together. If we're going to do that, we have to do something where there's nostalgia involved in family, freedom, fun, and certain themes that are prevalent in our culture. Popcorn was a way to be able to do that. I knew she was going to bring her light, her smile, and all that fun stuff to the equation. When we put our heads together, nothing is impossible.

I love that. The next topic my father talked about was weariness. He said that a lot of times, you're going to be working your fingers to the bone and you're going to be relying on people. Not everybody is doing what they need to be, and it's going to fall on you. You're married. You're involved in your church and your community. You have children. How do you combat weariness?

For myself, it's an understanding that you grow weary in well-doing. If you're not at some level of awareness, you're probably not doing what you're supposed to be doing. You're out of purpose, or at least that's how I interpret it. To be well-doing, there's doing involved. We stay active. We stay participating in this thing called life. We have been a part of the 80/20 equation or the Pareto Principle where 80% of the people do 20% of the work, and the other 20% are doing 80% of the work.

We have been there. Even in that 20%, there's a smaller percentage that is running with what we know. That was nothing unfamiliar to us. We have always been high-level achievers, whether it be in church, whether it be in Corporate America, or whether it be in business for ourselves, or even in relationships. Being able to go the extra mile because there's no traffic there has never been an issue for us. Tavia, do you want to speak to it?

There's a book called Now, Discover Your Strengths. Two of my top five are Responsibility and Relator. One of Derrick's is Maximizer. We take responsibility for what we're involved in. Sometimes you do get tired. I remember one time shortly after having Creed, working, and running multiple businesses. When I woke up, I was crying because I was already tired. I had to come up with my plan and create my system so that I was able to function in a place of peace and not be exhausted.

Weariness is a state of our mentality as well. Sometimes we are mentally tired and mentally exhausted. It's important to have self-care, systems, and family in place. It's important to not carry it all, communicate, and release some of those things. We journal. Our faith is so important to us, being able to trust God in situations and having an optimistic outlook because we know it's not over until it's good. He who began a good work in us will be faithful to complete it.

Sometimes we are mentally exhausted. It's important to have self-care in place, as well as systems and family.

I don't want to look back over my life and the story and say, "You wanted to complain through the story knowing that you were going to win instead of enjoying the journey, believing in God, having faith, and letting praise, honor, and joy be your testimony." I remember that in every situation and everything that happens when I have to tell this story, am I going to be proud of it? How am I going to feel?

I love it. I interviewed Mike Ettore. He retired from the Marines as a Command Master Sergeant. He said, "In the Marines, we call it a bias for action," meaning we're going to get whatever we said. You are coded that way. Another one of my favorite quotes is from Lena Horne, "It's not the load that breaks you down. It's the way you carry it." Life is tough. Think of what Jesus went through. You offload and get the right people. If God called you to it, he's going to equip you.

We don't want to spend 40 years wandering around in circles. That's what grouses will do to you. You will carry that weariness on the inside. We're all externally weary because we're mere flesh and blood, and we're going to break down until we get our renewed bodies but intrinsically, we still should be ready and always look to share that load. That's so beautifully put for both of you.

There's loneliness and weariness. The next terminology my father talked about was a word called abandonment. Abandonment typically has a negative connotation. There's fear of abandonment. I'm in pet rescue. His abandonment was that you need to focus on what you ought and need to do rather than what you like and want to do. I can remember seeing my father. I was a teenager in high school. He was so successful. He was telling me, "You may think I'm successful but I do more in a single day to contribute to my failure than my success."

His point was if you're not meticulous about expunging and staying focused on your best and highest for God, you can do a lot of rabbit trails. With all these things on your plates, because entrepreneurs by nature and people that are gifted tend to carry a lot of different things because they're always in different zones of gifting, how do you stay focused on what you need to stay focused on?

I had to realize that I was willing to do what most people weren't willing to do for a certain amount of time so that we could live a life like no other. I don't believe that this thing called life is a dress rehearsal. We get one major shot at it. There's lots of grace inside there. You can make mistakes along the way but ultimately, we want to use our life so that the use of our life outlives our life. We do everything with the X factor involved, which means we're developing a legacy. We want to have our name spoken well of. We want to be good glory carriers for the father. It's being able to abandon some of the things that my friends were doing or that weren't leading necessarily to success. They were just topical self-care.

Life is not a dress rehearsal. There's lots of grace inside there. You can make mistakes along the way, but ultimately we want to use our life.

The way I like to look at self-care is it's not bath bombs and back massages. It's more about creating a life that you no longer long to escape from. We try to have viable feedback loops for one another, "We're not doing what everyone else is doing. I'm sure it's going to be a lot of fun but it's not the wisest financial decision for our household. It's not the right thing for where we're going and what our calling is. We have to paddle our canoe. We have to run our race." It's cultivating a life around that.

We set measurable goals as well. I have a background in project management. I'm also a certified Scrum Master. In Agile and Scrum, we do two-week sprints. It's very easy for me to set a goal, say, "This is what we need to do. These are the productivity goals that need to happen," and monitor it daily to make sure that it happens. Sometimes we are not focused because the goal and the vision are not in front of us. Maybe we did not write it down. Maybe we wrote it down at the high level but we didn't flesh it out to all the pieces of the goal and everything that we need to do.

We may have a team goal and not make a specific goal for ourselves, realizing that there are so many variables that can impact that goal. We also have mentors and coaches in place that help with clarification and accountability. One day, Derrick taught me to give the gift of no. Sometimes abandonment is, "I'm not going to do that." Walk in your power in it. It's not that I can't. I used to say, "I can't." I can but I'm not. It's understanding the reality of that in a kind way and staying focused.

I had to grow from being a people pleaser but when I looked at it spiritually, my steps are ordered by the Lord. If I'm not being obedient to where God wants me to be and who he's calling me to interact with at a time, I'm missing valuable things that I could be doing for the kingdom and for other people to assist. It's not about the person who wanted me to do something that I had to say no to. Ultimately, am I pleasing my heavenly father and what I'm doing on a day-to-day basis? If he gave us a vision, am I also pleasing him by following through to bring that to pass?

We also decided to be positive about our word choices. There are times when you would say in more so a victim mentality, "I'm not going to be able to do that." Someone invites somebody somewhere, "I can't do that." I get to do everything that I am doing because I'm on purpose. It's not, "I can't." I get to do so and so. It's the mentality of making a positive word choice about the price that you're paying, "I'm going to do this." I get to do X, Y, and Z as opposed to the negative or sad words that we may say sometimes.

Lastly, I want to say that when it comes to staying focused, sometimes our brain does go to different places. We have social media. Some people may not use it as often as others but there are phone calls, TV, and many things that are screaming for our attention daily, even our thoughts. When it comes to our thoughts, I always say, "You can't interrupt a thought with a thought. You have to speak out loud and change the course." It's a simple example if I told Derrick to count to ten.

1, 2, 3, 4.

What's your name?

Derrick.

He had to stop counting to say his name. When you start to speak out loud, you have to stop thinking about what you used to be thinking to say something else out loud. It's the same thing with songs that get stuck in our heads. I don't like this crazy song. I heard it somewhere. It's stuck in my head. I'm walking through the grocery store. This random music they're playing is stuck in my head. This is not what I want to say. It's not what I pronounce. It's not what I want to think. What do I do? I pick a different song to sing and sing it out loud. It's making sure we do the simple things to keep our brain on track and going where we want it to go and then reprogramming our subconscious mind to do the same thing.

When you start to speak out loud, you have to stop thinking what you used to be thinking to say something else out loud.

You mentioned the words on purpose. A lot of people are like, "We need to be on purpose." We all have the same 24 hours every day. I even saw a mug on Amazon that says, "You have the same 24 hours in a day as Beyonce." I was busting out. Time is the great equalizer. It's what you do in those moments. I love how you said not just on purpose but in purpose every day in every way your billable hours like you're a lawyer.

At the end of the day, you go to God and say, "Here you go. I spent an hour dorking around. That wasn't in productive rest. It was wasted." I love that you said that. If we weren't recording, I would stop recording, shout, and run around the room. What you're saying is so exciting but we have to finish this recording. I already have 50 book titles for you. I cannot even get over the wisdom and your giftedness in sharing it. Thank you.

You mentioned the V word for vision, Tavia, when you were answering. Derrick, you did too. Let's talk about the vision. I'm not particularly visionary but my father said, "Vision is seeing what needs to be done and then doing the plan of attack." How do you craft your vision? You've talked about the calling for the Lord and getting the right help but even where you're at now with everything going on, how do you craft what's next? Leadership is all about the idealized vision of the future.

The first thing we focus on is clarity of vision because I'm an ideation type of person. Ideas come very fluently. They're almost like red bouncy balls to a puppy, "I could do that. I'm capable." I could be productive in everything but it's not necessarily in purpose. That helps to prioritize so that we're not serial entrepreneurs but everything is feeding a common purpose. We stay locked in the people who know because I may know how to do a particular task but that person can see it from a different vantage point, whereas the thing that's closest to me may be the most pertinent thing at that particular moment.

Be able to step back a little bit and say, "We know that without vision, people perish." As soon as you get a vision, you stop perishing. That's a very comforting thought. I'm capable of a lot of things and I'm blessed to do a lot of things but I can't do everything. The vision has to align with our priorities as well. There are certain non-negotiables inside there. Our marriage is number one. Our family is number two. There's God, family, business, and country. There are certain things that are paramount to our decision-making in the process.

True Leader: As soon as you get a vision, you stop perishing.

You hit on the underlying foundation of values for your vision. You hit on the family. Once you lay that foundation, Charles always said, "There are only three decisions in life, who you're going to live your life with, what are you going to live your life in, and who you're going to live it for." Once you lay those down, we have a tremendous amount of latitude in Christ to do different things.

Leadership is all about values. When you said everything comes back to the common purpose, can you unpack that? That's the core of life management services. There are a lot of different things I'm involved in but everything overarching goes back to helping people realize the image of Christ that they have. Therefore, they can do anything. How do you thread that back? A lot of our audiences out there are very talented. They have that puppyish entrepreneurial spirit too. Could you help us with some of that?

A lot of times, people make mission statements for companies and organizations. We made one for our family. We also made a family crest for what we represent. Who are we in the world? What is our shield? What do we carry with us? There are a couple of things. I won't give you the whole because it's a lot. We're called to do a lot but one of the things is to set the captives free and to be a free family backed up by free families. Everything that we have done has been bigger than us. When you build something bigger than you, is it scary? Absolutely, but there becomes a sense of obligation to make it happen because if not us, then who? If not now, then when? That's what I would say.

One of the scriptures that resonates is the scripture that says, "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because He has anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor. He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted and preach deliverance to the captives, recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, and preach the acceptable year of our Lord."

Every situation that we encounter, every business, and everything we're doing is an opportunity to utilize the Spirit of Christ and the same power that rose Jesus from the dead that lives in us to give life, set people free, and heal the brokenhearted, every employee we interact with, and every business we come in contact with. We want our spirit to resonate with and come in contact with people. That brings healing and joy.

There are so many people that have come into our popcorn store. We have hugged, cried, and shared God. They have shared their stories. We have veterans that have come in and told us what they experienced in their duty stations and overseas. I was in Operation Iraqi Freedom too. Some have come in and shared about those experiences and shared about being in Beirut or the wars. To be able to hear people's stories, connect with them, and share the love of Christ, the Word of Christ, and the wisdom that God gives us in those encounters will continually make it never about us and always about Him.

Every time we have the opportunity to share, we want to push people closer to Christ. When we started this business, I said, "I'm sure popcorn is not the end-all and be-all but every vehicle and every venture God gives us is to give Him glory in this time and this season. There are people that are connected to popcorn that need Jesus." We thank God every day that he has utilized a venue and a product to give His name glory and to give us the opportunity to make Him famous.

Popcorn is still created by God. He created us who made the popcorn and then He created the land in one of the days of Genesis. Everything is his. You're bringing glory to it. That's like a song. I love that you use that and that you're sharing that. You said you are living it. You're showing up for everything you do on purpose and living it. It's a very present thing. There's the doing going on but you are manifesting or resonating. When you're anointed, you don't have to announce yourself. It comes from within. We know that's the Holy Spirit shining from within.

You're such a blessing. You're going to bless so many of our audiences out there and be so encouraged because the devil loves to get us, "Are you doing it or not? Why aren't you successful on that?" You're like, "You have to be in that moment and live every day." God takes care of the rest. He will bring you who needs to come into that story and tell you that story.

One thing I understand is that we give out of our abundance. If we're living in lack, then there's only so much we can give. The more prosperous we are when there's nothing missing and nothing broken, we can make real lasting changes and create other change-makers that can make more changes. I look at it like we are vessels. Tavia is the same way. We're vessels to be used. What we put in our vessel is ultimately what we're pouring out because we're blessed to be blessings.

True Leader: If we're living in lack, then there's only so much we can give. The more prosperous we are, when there's nothing missing and nothing broken, we can make real change.

We have experienced many hurdles along the way. Some years ago, the doctors diagnosed me with multiple sclerosis. It's incurable and degenerative. I preach at church. Almost every time it was time for me to preach at church, my arm would go numb and heavy. My vision went out. I couldn't see more than two inches in front of me. Things were happening back-to-back.

My cousin also experiences MS, and she's paralyzed. I laughed at the devil. We're caretakers for her. I said, "The one thing I see every day is what you wanted to bring into my life to bring fear. If this is a package that came to my door, I'm returning it to the sender." The vision that we have for our family gave me the strength to call down fire Heaven and the gift of healing that God put in our lives to not be debilitated or restricted by what a doctor said that I don't receive and manifest it through the Word and other people praying. Our pastors prayed. Young ladies professed hands on me but the healing power of God is true and evident.

There were different things that have happened to both of us. We didn't take those diagnoses and say, "Woe is me. I can't do this anymore. This is over." We fight back. I put scriptures all over my house. I believe the report of the Lord that I am healed. I am not going to take this in, process it in my body, and allow it to be true because we know the power of our minds and the power of our God. There comes a time in our life when we have to fight back. We refuse to give the enemy victory because we have a vision. I said, "Lord, you already told me what our family is supposed to do. Me being sick doesn't line up with your Word and vision. I refuse to lay down and accept this."

In that fight is where you produce the difference between what you know and what you believe. What I know is one thing but I'm going to act according to my beliefs. That's when you hunker down and figure out what you're made of. That's the pressure cooker. Life continually puts us through the pressure cooker but we time and time again figure out what we're made of and what our God is capable of. We're excited about the future.

True Leader: Life continually puts us through the pressure cooker, but we time and time again figure out what we're really made of and what our God's really capable of.

What makes you pop in a good way? It doesn't make you explode. It makes you pop. It makes you pop, and then you bring joy. How beautiful that you went through that because people watch, especially Christians. They watch us all the time. They watch us in our grief and when bad stuff happens. That is the number one time to show your testimony because you can show that you process this stuff and let people know, "The victory is already mine. If not a medical healing or a miraculous hearing, we still have eternal healing. We got that to look forward to."

How beautiful that you're able to share that. Thank you for sharing that with our audiences too. We all have setbacks but even though successful people probably have ten bad things that happen for every one good, you hear about the good. I appreciate that you have shared the victor side of your journey, not the bad stuff because we know that's there. I appreciate you sharing that too because health is one of those things that shake you to the core.

To think about Job and what he went through losing everything and his family but then to destroy his health and have him sit there, what else can there be? I appreciate you sharing that but also keeping the grand scheme of things. It is a grand scheme. It's the glorious scheme of things. We talked about loneliness, weariness, abandonment, and vision. Is there anything else leadership-wise that we have not touched on that you would like to share with our audiences?

We are Tastebuds Popcorn Concord. We do well over 200 flavors of popcorn. I don't know if we got into all that but we do over 200 flavors of popcorn. Somebody is like, "That's not possible." We do well over 200 flavors of popcorn, everything from cookies and cream to cheddar jalapeno, and everything in between. It goes crazy. In our first year in business, we were blessed enough to forge a relationship with the Carolina Panthers down here in North Carolina, the Charlotte Football Club, as well as a lot of other large and well-known corporate structures and entities because we add more fun.

We have done several celebrity golf tournaments, which is where we met Nikita, countless other athletes, and things of that sort. It's cool because we get to be ourselves there or shine our light in those venues. Popcorn is a gift given in love. That's one thing I did not know. It was an epiphany for me. You can get a lot of different gifts and things of that sort but when someone gives you popcorn, they love you. They may not say it a whole bunch but as far as love languages go, number six is probably popcorn.

I was going to say my love language is popcorn. All is forgiven. Forget diamonds. If you bring me popcorn, I'll follow you wherever. We're going to be doing in Heaven what we did on Earth. You have 200 flavors here. You're going to have 200 zillions in Heaven. I can't wait to try them all.

In leadership, I believe that it's important to take away those limiting beliefs that stop us from moving forward. There are so many people. There are businesses and books inside of you. You've heard this voice that said, "You're too old. Did you forget about this and all these little things? Will people read it? Will somebody find out about you?" These tiny limiting beliefs have been planted in our brains.

True Leader: For leadership, it's important to take away those limiting beliefs that stop us from moving forward.

One of the things we know is that when you stop learning, you start decaying. We have to continue learning but we also have to continue reprogramming our brain. It's important for each and every audience, entrepreneur, network marketer, and veteran to think about your subconscious mind and programming and continue to purposely reprogram it daily.

Reprogram what you think about creating financial prosperity. Reprogram what you think about your health and your wellness. Reprogram what you think about your personal success and your self-esteem. Those things don't come haphazardly. We have to be intentional about programming our minds and our brains to live life abundantly and the way God said we should.

We hear all these other things on the news. We live in a fear society. We don't watch the news often. If something happens, my family knows. If I need to know, call me. We don't want to subscribe to that. Ultimately, it's remembering all of those things that we were listening to were subconsciously programming our minds. We wonder why something is a good idea. We wrote it down but we can't seem to move forward to be motivated to do it, "I know I should do it. I know why I should do it. I know why it's important but I can't seem to get going."

Whenever that happens, it usually comes down to our subconscious programming. Knowing that the program is there is not enough. We have to actively reprogram our brain with the right thinking to move forward, be successful, believe in ourselves, walk in what God called us to do, utilize our leadership abilities, and carry out every vehicle he's given us to lead in with those abilities.

The apostle Paul said in Romans 12:2, "Don't be conformed to the world. Be transformed by the renewing of your mind." I read the New Testament with his epistles. Every day and every word, he was so focused and intentional, "I was there but now I'm here." If Paul had to do it every day when he was in the third Heaven, and he had some major inspiration, look at what we have to do. Be as intentional with that mind-renewing. It's not one-and-done. Derrick and Tavia, where is the best way for people to get ahold of you? What's the best way that our audiences can connect with you? I know they're going to want to.

If you want to start with some of those 200-plus flavors of popcorn, banana pudding, white chocolate, birthday cake, jalapeno ranch, Hot Cheetos, kettle corn, or some of those, you're going to go to TastebudsConcord.com. We're on social media. We're on every platform out there. It's going to be @TastebudsPopcornConcord. We're even on LinkedIn. We have a pretty thriving page that's fun to watch because we bring the fun everywhere we go. Those would be some of the most premier ways to get ahold of us.

You can also email us at Popcorn@TastebudsConcord.com. We would love to hear from you. We would love to hear your thoughts. We would love to hear how this may have impacted you and anything else you would like to share with us.

I love it. Make sure you stay in touch with them. Do you do specialty flavors too? If somebody had an idea, could they create one of their own?

Absolutely. We started Mix It Up Monday to have a tangible interaction with our popcorn patrons. We call them pop stars. In Mix It Up Monday, you're allowed to mix different flavors inside the same container. If your flavor is good enough, then it may become an official flavor. We will name it after whatever you want to name it.

We do baby showers, weddings, and corporate events. A lot of companies will say, "Can you do my company colors and things like that?" We also create them for various events and occasions.

I can't believe it. Thank you so much. Derrick and Tavia, thank you for sharing. You're such an inspiration and an encouragement. Thank you for utilizing all the talents that God has given you and for glorifying Him and raising your sweet little babies. Your success is somebody else's miracle. I love that you are continuing to bless others throughout your state and pushing through. Thank you for sharing with our audiences.

Thank you, Dr. Tracey.

I look forward to many more connections with you. I know we will have many more of them when I get down to North Carolina or you get up to Pennsylvania. To our tremendous audiences out there, I want to thank you so much for being a part of our Tremendous Tribe. If you like what you read, please hit the subscribe button and do us the honor of a review. A five-star review would be tremendous. Share this with others so they can hear great ways to encourage others. Keep on paying the price of leadership and have a tremendous rest of the day.

Important Links

• Tastebuds Popcorn Concord

• Nikita Koloff - Previous episode

• Now, Discover Your Strengths

• Mike Ettore - Previous episode

• @TastebudsPopcornConcord - Instagram

• LinkedIn - Tastebuds Popcorn Concord

• Popcorn@TastebudsConcord.com

• https://Linktr.ee/TastebudsPopcornConcord

About Derrick and Tavia Jackson

Derrick and Tavia Jackson are happily married, love the Lord, and own Tastebuds Popcorn Concord in Concord, NC. They have over a decade of experience in network marketing and leadership development. Tavia is a Veteran and served in the United States Marine Corps.

Episode 164 - Connie Martin - Leadership on Leadership

We always look at the top of the organization, especially when it comes to leadership. But what about the middle? How do leaders lead from the middle of the organization? In this episode, Connie Martin, the author of The Art of Picking Up Dog Poop, shares her insights on thriving and surviving when leading from the middle. She discusses the frustrations and challenges leaders feel as they hold the organization and its teams together. On a brighter note, she then shares the opportunities that can be found in the middle for growth. Giving us a peek into her book, Connie also describes feedback as dog poop. You don’t have to stick with it, you may process and deal with them, but when done, you can put it in a bag and throw it away. Get ready to grow as a leader by tuning in to this conversation.

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Watch the episode here

Listen to the podcast here

Connie Martin - Leadership on Leadership

I have a very special guest, Connie Martin. Connie, welcome. It's nice to have you here. Connie is a dog lover. Right there, she went way up in our book. She's an owner with a degree in Computer Science and more than 25 years of technical leadership experience, navigating corporate and middle management. She enjoyed a short career in the military. She continued to grow through diverse technical and leadership assignments across multiple domains. Along the way, she has become a gifted mentor and facilitator who has learned how to solve problems creatively. Connie, welcome. We look forward to hearing your take on the price of leadership.

I'm excited.

I like to tell our audiences how Connie and I connected. We connected in 1983 in the beautiful land of enchantment at the New Mexico Military Institute or NMMI where I was a cadet, and so was Connie. It’s all those years ago. We're on LinkedIn. I get this email. She's like, "Remember?" I'm like, "Isn't that cool? Worlds were colliding." We reached out. We had a phone call and got caught up. I thought, "I got to have Connie because she has had a brilliant career and is a published author now." Connie, thank you so much. Forty years later, we get to share how we have transformed with the world.

What an adventure for sure.

First of all, The Price of Leadership is a speech my father gave many times. He says that the first price you have to pay in the price of leadership is loneliness. We have all heard that it's lonely at the top. Can you unpack what loneliness looks like for you as a leader and maybe give our audiences a word of wisdom or a tool that they can use if they are in a season of loneliness?

I spent a lot of time leading in the middle. If you're all the way at the top, it's a very lonely place. Even in the middle as a leader, your team is looking to you. Some of those tough spots are when you change jobs. You moved from one team where you're not the top dog but you've gained all the experience. You have the expertise, and then you take over a new team, and now you're the new person.

To make it even tougher, if you move and go from Colorado to Florida, now you know nobody. If you're in a new company, you know nobody. That's a lonely place. You've got to learn to trust some people, get to know them fast, learn their names, and figure out how they tick and what that landscape now looks like. You've got to adjust your approach.

That's situational leadership. That's good for leaders because a lot of times, especially in the military, you're there for a couple of years, and then you're somewhere else. Even in the corporate world, we have changed jobs. When you start, it's like starting a new school. You're always going to have that time but understand that you will get integrated.

It takes some time. Some teams will embrace you very quickly. I use a lot of icebreakers, "What's your favorite ice cream? Where are you from?" We went around the world one time, "Where were you born?" It was a lot of fun. In a team of 60, we had 2 native Floridians and a team of 65 sitting in Florida. I happened to be one of them who had moved from Colorado. That was fun. The icebreakers can help in getting to know your team.

I love it. That's the first one we have heard. Icebreakers are so crucial because my father would also say, "There's no communication without identification." There you find that commonality just like us. If you meet anybody that has been prior military even if it was for five minutes, it’s like there you have it. We're brothers and sisters. I love icebreakers. The next thing he talked about was weariness. You've been stressed out in jobs, and so have I. Being in the military is tough. How do you combat weariness and stay in top fighting form?

You have to take breaks if you see an opportunity. A lot of times, especially in the software business, we do peaks and valleys. It's peak time to get that delivery out. You're going to have to hit it hard and do what needs to get done but when you see that valley, as a leader, you have to make sure that your people take some time off during the valleys. If there are no valleys, then you've got a different problem. You have to talk about that. That's where burnout tends to show up. It’s when you never take a break. It keeps going on and on. You take a step back, reevaluate, and keep going forward. That's how I've overcome the weariness.

Burnout happens when you never take a break. Take a step back, reevaluate, and keep going forward.

That's interesting, especially for the audiences out there, those of you in the field. I was in tech for five years in Austin but it would come on strong. You would be working 100 hours a week and then throttling back layoffs, "I'm paying you to stay home." You learn to go with it. Entrepreneurship is like that. There are times when you're speaking three times a day and times when it's three times a month. I like that. Keep your eye out for the future and push hard, knowing that you're going to get a time of replenishment but also to watch for burnout. That's very sage wisdom. Thank you.

The next topic was abandonment. As dog lovers, we're not talking about abandoning a pet or fear of abandonment. This is about pruning out things that no longer are in your life helping you get to your highest and greatest purpose, be it a board, volunteerism, or people. You're growing. You got to suit up differently. How do you deal with abandonment? You transitioned into a different person probably several times.

On the abandonment side, I focus on some things like feedback. Everybody gets feedback. Everybody gets reviewed. You're walking down the hall, and somebody tells you something you probably ought to throw away. For me, the offenses and the feedback as a leader are the things that we have to sometimes abandon and walk away from. Process the emotions. Deal with them for today but don't let them stick because those become the chip on your shoulder and those triggers that show up out of nowhere, "How did I react that way?"

Those are the things that need to be put to the side and abandoned, especially some of that negative feedback. You want to grow. You want to process it and understand it but then you have to let it go because some of those can stick for years or decades. That's not good. Process the feedback for a day or maybe two, let the sting go, and then throw it away like dog poop.

I have never heard about abandoning the stink or the offenses. I love that you said, "Take it, listen to it for a day, and process the emotions, and then we're done." Own what you can but don't let it go because otherwise, that rumination or that critical spirit will absorb so much of your leadership persona, and you don't even realize it. That's when we get tired or weary from that internal friction of carrying these self-imposed emotions of anger and frustration. That's all self-imposed. I love that you can abandon it, "I'll own what I can own, and the rest I'm abandoning." Thank you for that.

We all make choices. We get to own our choices. We talk a lot about accountability. I flipped that around and said, "You made the choice, not own it. You have a choice on how you want to react, and only you can choose that." When we make those choices, we should own them.

We can't own whether the person did it or said it. All we can own is how we can react. That does not matter. They did. Let's not even carry that. There's no sense going there.

Let it go. Throw it away.

I love it. It's dog poo. Put it in a bag and throw it away.

Who knows? There would be wisdom.

I tell people, "Hound wisdom is twice as good as sound wisdom because it's got double the legs to stand on." Hound wisdom is a higher form of learning.

I like that. That's fun. That's awesome.

The last topic he talked about was vision. For technical operational girls like us, I would always sit there and go, "That's squishy and out there," but my dad would always say, "Vision is seeing what needs to be done and then putting a plan together to do it." I'm like, "It's the practical or the pragmatic side." What does vision look like for you and how you transitioned? You can tell our audiences about that. You're in the next chapter of your life. How did you cast out that vision? How are you using that to create the next future version of Connie?

One of the times, I did get some feedback that I decided to hold on to for a little bit. Everybody sits in these meetings and forgives the meetings. I appreciate I don't have as many of that now that I'm not in Corporate America anymore. We would be talking about how you could take a system from here to there. I would get what they're saying and then zoom, "I'm over here. I'm ready to go. I've got the vision. I caught it." The rest of my team is sitting way back over here at the beginning. I'm like, "You've got to walk them through it. When you do that, they will come along and get the buy-in that you need to go where you're going to go."

That's one that stuck that said, "Let's take that vision and get the team to rally around it so then everybody can go there. As it shifts, this let's retire." I cast that vision eight years ago. Somebody said, "You should write a book." I'm like, "I got all these good stories. Maybe I'll write a book." It turned into, "I'm writing a book.,” and then it's done. It's out in the middle of a pandemic. Maybe I can focus on this book thing and see what happens next. I'm excited to see where we're going to go around the corner and what that next adventure around the bend might be.

Leading From The Middle: Leading From The Middle: Let's take that vision and get the team to rally around it so then everybody can go there.

We're going to talk to our audiences about that so they can hear about that and support that. I love that you said, "Vision isn't about the leader because if the followers don't get the scent and the buy-in for the vision, I don't care how talented you are. You can't do it alone." We're not meant to do anything alone. That spoke to me. As soon as the words come out, I'm like, "Where is everybody?" I love that you said that. I got feedback on that too. I'm always thankful that we have leaders that will appreciate that.

I always tell people, "It's always easier to rein somebody in than trying to push the rope or the needle," but I still needed to hear that and say, "Vision is a shared enterprise." You may see it but it may take some people some time to process it. That's sage wisdom. We did loneliness, weariness, abandonment, and vision. Is there anything else that you want to share with our audiences on the topic of leadership?

I created a company called Words from the Meander. I got a lot of feedback on the meander but I chose it because, in addition to wandering aimlessly, it's also the middle course of a river where all the action is and all of the twists, turns, and things that we get asked to do. I wrote a book about leading from the middle. I used a dog poop story to set the stage. You've stepped in it. Everybody can relate to what happens when the bag breaks. Those set the stage for some of those hard conversations.

We talk about what it looks like in the middle of the organization. You're going to see a few things in the middle because you're the glue that you may not see at the top. Not everybody wants to get to the director, the CEO, or the corner office, but there are a ton of opportunities sitting in the middle of the organization. Here's the thing. Everybody has to go through it. Everybody has to get their stripes, understand, and get the experience. There are some things in leadership. You can't learn it from a book. You have to go and do it. You have to try, take that risk, and see what happens.

I like that. Talking about your website, tell us also about the book and how people can get a copy of that.

It's in all the outlets. It has been out for a while in hard copy but the audiobook is coming out in a couple of weeks. We're very excited about that because I put it in my own voice. I did all the editing and production. I'm very excited. We got a couple of more weeks on the blooper reel but it's coming as well. You can buy my book on my website at WordsFromTheMeander.com. It should be available also on all the other ones. If you want a signed copy, you got to go to my website. You will look for some discounts there as well.

The Art of Picking Up Dog Poop: Leading from the Middle

It's The Art of Picking Up Dog Poop: Leading from the Middle. I love it. For our audiences out there, you've heard Connie's background. She's a technical girl with decades of experience in leading technical teams. If you want to reach out to her now that she's in a free entrepreneurial role to share her wisdom and all she has learned about it, please reach out to her. Connie, do you coach? Do you go into organizations? Who is your ideal client?

The ideal client is those younger leaders or technical folks that now have taken on a leadership role. They are looking to gain some more of those skills in scheduling, planning, and all the stuff that they don't focus on when they're in the technical role. I would love to be able to come in and facilitate meetings and help folks get to their next best opportunities. I would love to come and speak. You can find me on my website.

Pick up your book for a book club too. That's awesome.

I do have a discussion guide out there that could help people grow their unique leadership styles. That's the other piece that I'm very passionate about. We can copy what everybody else does but then it's not authentic. What we want is authentic leadership. They're going to follow you because they trust you and not necessarily what somebody else did.

For us, otherwise, it's exhausting when you try and lead like somebody else. You will keep drifting. You won't be yourself. Life has a funny thing about always reorienting back that freedom. Joy only comes from being yourself. You will start attracting those other followers that resonate with that leadership style. Connie, let's not make it another 40 years.

No doubt. That would be too long.

We will be like The Golden Girls then.

Thank you so much for having me.

That's not bad to be The Golden Girls.

There you go.

I love it. Thank you so much. It was an honor. Thank you for your wisdom. You gave us some wonderful pearls to digest. Our audiences out there are going to be truly blessed by this. Thank you again, Connie.

Thank you. I appreciate you having me.

You're welcome. To our audiences out there, thank you so much for being a part of our Tremendous Tribe. If you like what you heard, please be sure and hit the subscribe button. If you would leave us the honor of a five-star review, we would be so thankful for that. Make sure you subscribe, like, share, and get in touch with Connie. Get her book. Reach out to her, especially if you're in technical fields, and you have leaders new to the field that know how to lead people, not just manage processes and products. That's such an important thing. Thank you so much, everyone, for paying the price of leadership and being a part of our Tremendous Tribe. Have a tremendous rest of your day.

 Important Links

• Words from the Meander

• The Art of Picking Up Dog Poop: Leading from the Middle

About Connie Martin

Connie Martin is a dog lover and owner with a degree in computer science and more than twenty-five years of technical leadership experience navigating corporate and middle management. She enjoyed a short career in the military and continued to grow through diverse technical and leadership assignments across multiple domains. Along the way, she has become a gifted mentor and facilitator who has learned how to solve problems creatively.

Episode 161 - Dr. Diely Pichardo-Johansson - Leaders On Leadership

"I see this abandonment as something more pleasurable. It is connecting with your true voice and figuring the things that are important to me." - Dr. Diely Pichardo-Johansson.

Dr. Diely Pichardo-Johansson, an Amazon bestselling author, shares her thoughts about leaders on leadership and the price you have to pay for it. She shares how she lost many friends after she became a life coach because people think that change is contagious, and they're afraid that in a way that if you make a change in your lives that makes you happier and better, you are challenging them. Dr. Diely adds that when we are finally ready to start listening to our voice and not to the world, we already finish our milestones. Tune in to this episode and listen more about the price you must pay for leadership.

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Watch the episode here

Listen to the podcast here

Dr. Diely Pichardo-Johansson - Leaders On Leadership

In this episode, I am extremely excited to connect you with our guest. Her name is Dr. Diely Pichardo-Johansson. She is a former Hematologist-Oncologist. She's a life coach. She's also an Amazon bestselling author, but she prefers to describe herself as an oncologist who, after becoming a cancer survivor, decided that, “Life is too short. I don't want and make a living fighting death anymore. I'd rather make a living celebrating life.” She now specializes in helping professional women make romantic career transitions so that they can live the life they want. Diely, thank you so much for being our guest on the show.

Thank you for having me. You’ve said my name very well.

Thank you so much. A shout-out to our readers. For those of you that have read Dr. Madeline Frank before, she's the one that introduced me to Diely. I like to tee it up and let people know how our paths crossed. It's all about the people you meet and the books you read. Thank you again, Diely. I'm going to get started because I want to hear your perspective on The Price of Leadership.

Our readers know that my father talked about the four key tenets that you are going to have to be paying to truly call yourself a leader. The first to them is loneliness. We've all heard the saying, “It's lonely at the top. Heavy is the head that wears the crown.” Could you unpack what loneliness as a leader looks like for you and share with us a time when you went through it in your life?

As a life coach, I love a saying that says that people would rather be unhappy than lose their identity. For me to become a leader as a life coach, and one of the populations I help also are physicians, I had to leave medicine behind. I had to decide I had enough. I want a better quality of life. I don't want to make a living fighting death. That made me lose many friends in a similar way as when I decided to be a happier person many years ago in divorce, someone who was making me very unhappy, I lost many friends.

People think that change is contagious, and they're afraid in a way that if you make a change in your lives that makes you happier and better, you are challenging them. They may want to pull you back. They may want to disappear and not be near you because you remind them of the unhappy life they have now. That has been my face with loneliness. When I left medicine and became a life coach, I started meeting wonderful people. I started making great connections and lost a huge amount of my former friends and colleagues.

I love that you said people fear that change is contagious because, in the world that we're in, even in your medical career before, if they're there seeing you, there's an issue. Typically, it means something has to change, either a medical issue or a lifestyle issue. It is interesting when people will look at you and say, “You've changed.” You're so right. That means that they don't want to, and they're afraid it will somehow leap on them.

I never realized that could be the spur of the sense of loneliness. It’s also good to hear that there's always somebody on the other side there to fill that gap with what you're looking for. Thank you for that, Diely. Now, weariness. How do you combat weariness? It must have been very exhausting in the medical profession, but how do you deal with weariness in your role?

We should normalize weariness in a way. We will have good days and bad days. We'll have phases when everything goes our way and see the fruit of our work. We will have phases where we are going to feel despair. The difference between the weariness that practically cost me career burnout and had me leave oncology and the weariness that you feel in a leadership role that you are committed to is, “Am I in the place where I want to be? Maybe things are not going my way right now. Maybe I'm second-guessing myself, but right at this moment, am I exactly where I want to be?” That is the way I've been combating weariness. If you can answer that question one day at a time, “Yes, I believe in this message. Yes, I still believe that what I am working for is worthy and is in alignment with my values,” then that's how you overcome the recurrent weariness of the leadership role.

I appreciate you saying we should normalize weariness because if you are in your purpose and you're pouring out into people, there is going to be an element of that. I love that you said that. If you're in the place, it's a good weary versus an exhausted, frustrated type of weary where you realize there's a difference when you're run down because you know you're in the wrong place and there's not a value congruence. As you said, there's a good weariness where you at least know you're in place, but there's a lot of work to do.

For people who work out, I compare it to when you are tired after a good workout at the gym. You feel tired and sore, but you feel good. It’s different from having spent your whole day working in a coal mine doing work that is exhausting and hurting your back lifting heavy things. That is a pain in a bad way.

He talked about loneliness and weariness. He talked about abandonment. When he talked about abandonment in The Price of Leadership, he referred to it as, “Stop doing the things that you shouldn't do.” It’s almost hyper-focus. You need to abandon all the things that aren't truly getting you to the place that you say you want to be in.

This is a tough one for us, especially as women because we like to be all things to all people. Can you share with us how you hone your sense of abandonment, especially since you abandoned past careers and past relationships and moved on to the next? Can you walk us through that or give us some advice on that?

Remember when you and I had the first talk, that's where I say, “I have a little objection to that,” but I see what you mean. In my case, change came from abandoning things that the world was telling me I was supposed to want but were not in connection with what I felt my mission in life was and what I wanted to do. I see this abandonment as something more pleasurable perhaps and is connecting with your true voice and figuring out, “What are the things that are important to me?”

You can prioritize and learn to say no. That is going to include recharging your batteries. That was the other tweak I have to that. It’s doing things that bring you happiness and expressing your creativity. Having a hobby that recharges you that is not connected with your cause of leadership is also very important because you cannot give what you don't have. In my case, I'm teaching people to be happier, to live life with passion, to love, to reinvent themselves, and find what they love. I have to be an example of that day by day.

Isn't it wonderful when you're working with people too? You talked about true voice. When you're listening to so much and for so much of our lives, we pretend. We pick up other masks, we drift, or we're not our authentic selves, but then when you truly abandon it, it's almost this huge relief because it's there all along. We only have to peel off all the other things that we have somehow put on ourselves and unfold that true voice that you said.

That difference between what I want versus what the world is telling me I'm supposed to want makes a big difference.

That's a secret to your unique purpose for being on this planet. The last point he talked about was the vision. For vision, he said that vision is nothing more than seeing what needs to be done, but then also going out and doing it and having a very practical, tactical aspect to it. Can you share with us how you craft your vision and how that drives you forward?

That is probably my favorite because the biggest transition I had to make from physician to life coach was to understand that I'm not here to prescribe. I'd come to the client-coach relationship with a vision of what I think would make this person happy and is worthless if it's not what they envision would make them happy. My biggest role as a leader and as a life coach is to help people find their own definition of their vision and what they want.

Sometimes, I help them raise the bar. Maybe they have a very low bar, and I remind them that there are other things. I help them elevate their mindset so they can see options that were previously invisible to their eyes and help them reconnect with that through voice and separating it from the noise. Ultimately, my leadership as a life coach is to help people figure out what their own vision is.

Do you have somebody help you figure out your vision too?

I have had coaches. Now, I have a coach that is helping me with my business vision. She's challenging me in many ways.

Can you unpack that for us? Tell us about what's next for what you're doing. It's great that you're pouring into other people, but we have to always realize we have to have somebody pouring into us too. Can you tell me some of your thoughts about what that looks like for what's next for you?

Precisely because I refuse to repeat the story of burnout in medicine, I have been until now very limited to a very exclusive one-on-one practice and refusing to visit. This coach is helping me break to the next level. Not only to see one-on-one clients but also to have groups and courses and expand my message. If I want to touch more people and grow regarding my income, I need to break that glass ceiling and start speaking to a larger audience.

Tell me, Diely. Where do you speak? Do you have anything coming up? Do you get out and speak?

Yes. I've spoken in the community a few times. The next time, a support group for female physicians is inviting me to speak in April 2023. The last time was a group of breast cancer survivors. I'm a breast cancer survivor. I have been exploring keynote speaking, but little by little. It is mostly a way to give back to the community.

We talked about loneliness, weariness, abandonment, and vision. I appreciate your input on that. Is there anything else regarding The Price of Leadership that we haven't touched on that you would like to share with the audience?

A couple of things come to mind, but I think the most important would be to be intentional. Every moment when you are going to speak to someone or take a step, know what your intention is and why you are doing it. In my case, that is very important for me to differentiate. “Am I here to help this person or to be liked? They may not like something I need to tell them, but I am not here to be liked right now.”

Leaders On Leadership: Every moment when you are going to speak to someone or take a step, know what your intention is and why you are doing it.

Usually, I'm a very loving coach who's very soft, but sometimes I have to push a little bit in that direction. Sometimes, “Am I connecting with this person? Do I have a message for this person, or do they have a message for me? Is my intention to learn from this person right now or to give to them and have them learn from me?” At every step, you ask the question, “What's my intention now?”

Tell me about your ideal client and if our readers are thinking about this. Also, I noticed in some of the books on Amazon that you talk about the romance aspect of it. Can you unpack that for our readers?

When I first started being a life coach, I was a little on strike against medicine. I did not want to call myself a life coach for physicians. Most of my clients were women transitioning after divorce and heartbreak. I have a very interesting story myself. I was a divorced mother of four kids, including a kid with special needs. I had never dated in my life and nobody thought I was ever going to find a husband.

I ended up finding my soulmate. We're happily married. We've been together now for many years. He's become a stepfather for my four children despite the fact that he never had biological kids himself. That success story was inspiring women that you can find love after divorce. Divorce could be something good that happens to you and not the end of your life. That's where my initial interest was and where my first clients came from.

Divorce could be something good that happens to you and not the end of your life.

However, because I'm a physician and they knew me that way, I started having more and more physician clients, and I now specialized also in helping physicians make either career transitions, job transitions, or to be happy where they are when it’s time to retire or to change. In summary, my ideal client is usually a woman. I call her a fully grown-up woman.

At that moment when we are finally ready to start listening to our voice and not to the world, we already finished our milestones. Maybe we already decided whether to have children or not. We finished our careers, but now it's time to listen to our true voice. That varies, but it usually starts as early as the mid to late '30s and as late as the mid to late '50s.

According to Jung, depending on whether your parents are alive for longer or not, our midlife decisions and changes can be anywhere in that age range. My ideal client is a woman in this age range. They are usually very smart and highly educated and are now, because of a life transition, divorced, burned out, has a breast cancer diagnosis, or empty nesting for the first time in a while asking, “What do I want? How do I want my life to look like?”

It is listening to her voice and not the voice of the world. Diely, that's beautiful. Thank you so much for sharing that. What is the best way to connect with you? Is it LinkedIn, is it social media, or your website? How do you prefer to be contacted?

Nothing beats booking an appointment. My calendar link is there, face-to-face. There's so much more that can happen especially checking for feed, chemistry, common ideas, and common values. There's so much that is better done in a quick talk than trying to engage, but if there is someone who wants to check and exchange ideas before getting there, email is always better.

Diely, thank you so much for sharing your story on what it takes to pay the price of leadership, for your courage to find your true calling, for sharing all the things that you've gone through, and now for your desire to help other women walk along the way and give back to your community.

Thank you for having me. It is a pleasure to share some ideas here.

To our tremendous readers out there, thank you so much for being a part of our tremendous tribe. Remember, if you like what you read, please be sure and hit the subscribe button, share this, and we'd be honored if you would leave us a five-star review. Be sure and reach out to Diely too. You're going to want to stay in touch with her. For our readers out there, have a tremendous rest of your day. Thank you so much for paying the price of leadership.

Important Links

• Dr. Diely Pichardo-Johansson

• Dr. Madeline Frank – Past Episode

• https://JoyfullySuccessful.com/seven-steps-to-freedom-and-passion/

• https://www.Amazon.com/Bouncing-Back-How-Minimal-Expenditure-ebook/dp/B094LJMG7K

• https://www.Amazon.com/stores/D-Pichardo-Johansson/author/B071G6VF64

• https://Calendly.com/joyfullysuccessful/clarity-session

About Dr. Diely Pichardo-Johansson

Dr. Pichardo-Johansson is a former Hematologist-Oncologist, a Life Coach, and Amazon bestselling author. But she prefers to describe herself as an oncologist who, after becoming a cancer survivor decided "Life it's too short. I don't want to make a living fighting death anymore, I'd rather make a living celebrating life." She specializes in helping professional women make romantic and career transitions so they can live the life they really want."