Episode 193 - Nabia Jenkins-Johnston - Leaders On Leadership

As a leader, you may find yourself standing alone, making tough decisions that require courage and conviction. This episode’s guest has shown that and more, effectively navigating the price of leadership. Join Nabia Jenkins-Johnston, Head of Content and Brand Strategy at The Expert Series' ETP Forum hosted by ETF Global, as she explores the profound challenges faced by leaders, including loneliness, weariness, and abandonment. She shares personal insights and practical strategies to overcome these obstacles. Discover how to maintain your identity, embrace vulnerability, and prioritize self-care while leading with compassion and authenticity. This episode offers valuable lessons for leaders at all levels, inspiring you to stay true to yourself and make a lasting impact.

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Nabia Jenkins-Johnston - Leaders on Leadership

Thank you so much for joining the show 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. I am excited to introduce to you our newest guest. Her name is Nabia Jenkins-Johnston. Nabia, welcome. 

Thank you so much, Dr. Jones. This is quite a pleasure. I've been looking forward to it.

Thank you so much. for this interview, please call me Tracey. I so appreciate the honor of the doctor because I did earn itm but thank you. I really appreciate that.

You certainly did. I will call you Tracey, though. I just need to remind everyone, Dr. Jones. 

Now you see, everybody, why I love her so much but let me tell you about Nabia. She is the head of content and brand strategy, leading events at the expert series ETP Forum, which is hosted by ETF Global. She's going to unpack what those acronyms mean. Her work guides innovation, creating opportunities for financial service professionals to connect and grow within the ETP ecosystem. She is a storyteller, managing the delivery of concise, emotional, and thoughtful work, both strategically and creatively, bringing human stories to the stage in person, in print, and on screen. Nabia, I can’t wait to learn more about what you're doing and introduce you to our readers.

Thank you so much, Tracey. It's exciting. I'm excited to be here. I think that your message is incredible. Happy to jump in and answer any questions and just talk about my experience. 

Wonderful. I want to tell our readers, because they always wonder, “Tracey, how do you meet all these great people?” By going to tremendous events. In September 2024, I was in downtown Philly for an event with the American College of Financial Services. Our readers know I'm involved with them with the Center for Military and Veterans Affairs. They did a Soldier Citizen Award. We had one day of leadership speakers. Then we had an event in the evening. 

While we were listening to some of these tremendous speakers, I looked over at another table because this fascinating woman asked a question and I thought, “Huh,” and it was Nabia. Our eyes locked and we connected during one of the breaks and the rest was history. We connected at the event that evening. We exchanged cards. We chatted since then. I asked her to come and be a guest on the podcast. Nabia, before we get started, can you explain to our readers what ETP and ETF Global, what that is, and what that entails?

ETP Forum And ETF Global

I think that one of the things you highlight in your experience and mission is the importance of bringing people together, essentially. I also believe that we learn the most when we are connected, iron sharpening iron. The ETP forum has been running for about 12 years. This is going into its 13th year. The ETP forum is an opportunity for folks in the ETF ecosystem. 

ETP stands for Exchange Traded Products, not just ETFs, but the entire ecosystem, which I really believe is marked by essentially giving choice to our investors, the choice to make decisions on investing that are based on their highest interests, their thoughts about the future, where they feel there will be growth in technology, but doing that in a way that feels a bit safer, because essentially, ETPs and ETF products in general, allow you to make investments with a little bit of a cushion. You have a basket according to the interest that you have. 

Those interests may be what we've called ESG. They may be socially focused. They may mean that we're excluding items. I don't want to invest in items that would maybe highlight alcohol or maybe I think that crypto is the future, but it's been a little turbulent, so let's do something that spreads the risk out across crypto products. The forum essentially has been quality first, focused on incredible content, great speakers like yourself, and connecting the financial advisors with the producers of these products so that they're making qualified decisions. 

You told us what ETP stands for. What does ETF stand for? 

Exchange Traded Funds. A type of ETP.

For late people like me, because I'm not from this world, but I'm getting acquainted with it, all of us have wealth that we're trying to build and invest, so we can use and be good stewards of all the great gifts that we have been given. Really, this is in the financial, she said, hooking financial advisor with the producer of the products. I love the fact, especially nowadays, because I've had some people on the show that talk about value congruence for your money. 

You want your money to go to organizations and away from entities that you don't want to support. I think that it's so incredible today that investors are getting more savvy and the producers of products are aware of this and connecting the right people because I work a lot in the nonprofit space and it's all about dialing into the people that get excited about the mission that you're promoting. 

Mission first, principles first, priorities first. 

Loneliness

Nabia, my father wrote this speech, The Price of Leadership, many years ago, and it's probably one of the most downloaded events. We still sell the little booklet where he talks about what it really takes to pay the price of leadership. Leadership is not for the weak or the faint of heart. In it, he shares four distinct things that you are going to have to pay in order to truly be a leader and not, as I call them, a LINO, a Leader In Name Only because we know there are many of them out there. 

The first thing he talks about, Nabia, is loneliness. We've heard that it's lonely at the top and heavy is the head that wears the crown. Can you unpack what loneliness means to you as a leader, maybe a time when you've experienced it, how you got through it, and what you'd like to tell our readers about loneliness?

I appreciate the opportunity to speak about leadership from a non-fluffy Rose-colored lens perspective, and I think loneliness is absolutely the place to start. One of the things that you mentioned a bit earlier, Tracey, is the importance of perhaps a calling. The idea is that we are essentially doing our life's work, and maybe that starts very young. Maybe that's not something that is just about when we get into positions of leadership, but it has to do with a mindset that is really about being unique and unafraid. 

I think that from childhood, that can mean that you are a little lonely. You may not be the most, excuse me, Tracey. As you know, I am in London and my trip has caused a little bit of a frog in my throat. The loneliness may manifest as not being the most popular kid or being the most popular in a group when you're an adult. I am thankful to say that I have gone through seasons where I felt different. I felt unique. I am West African. I'm originally from Sierra Leone. We're back and forth in the United States. 

As I got older, we made the decision to make this permanent. I experienced quite a few things in my childhood that really set me apart. I was a Sierra Leonean kid who spoke English but was taught to say, sir and madam to all of my teachers. That was not something that was necessarily common in my third or fourth-grade classroom. I was marked by being an immigrant and by automatically being curious in the sense that everyone is curious about what is different. I am thankful for the times when I had to adjust to not having comfort in the form of being the popular vote. 

There are times when you will have to learn how to stand on what you believe in, even if you're standing all alone. I think that that's something where, as much as I have had the benefit of an incredible network as I've gotten older. In the beginning, I learned that lesson because of the opportunity to travel and stand and be a little bit different. Some of the techniques I learned from are things that I still use to this day when I'm called to speak at a meeting and present my work as we all are. 

There are times when you will have to learn how to stand on what you believe even if you're standing all alone.

When I am asked those questions, maybe you get asked when you're presenting a research paper and you're grilled or drilled. The memory of standing with myself and my higher power the entire time reminds me that that's still how I'm standing, and it's how we continue to stand. Regardless of who's around us now, it's you and your higher power.

I love it. In leadership literature, what you talk about is called personal agency. You are your own agent. People say, “Do you have an agent?” “Yeah, it's me.” Nobody's better than me because I know me. I've got all my skin in the game, literally, and figured out this. There's a beautiful term. I love that you talked about young people because now, you look at people, so many young people are in this stage of their lack of self-identity. They lack their self-competence. There are many, many root causes for that. 

I'm so thankful that you talked about your childhood and realizing different is good. Who wants to be like everybody else? We all talk about diversity and inclusion, and I want to be included, but I have always loved being typically the only woman in the room. I was like, this is cool because you hit the curiosity thing. If you walk in and think, everybody's against me because I don't look like them, that's what you're going to manifest back. I was always like, but why wouldn't they want to ask me because I'm the only one like me? I think that's a beautiful way. I also had parents, probably like you, that realized they were different. 

My father realized he was different educationally, upbringing, bloodline, everything. He was always like, “It's good to be different. You are different.” Don't have an issue with that. I love that you talk about loneliness and dealing with it because it comes to all of us. Look, we have people who are adored by millions committing suicide because of loneliness. You're in London, the UK. I just heard it has a ministry of loneliness. It's not good loneliness. It's depressing. It's hopelessness. I love that you talked about how you have to own yourself first as a leader because there will be times when no one will be there standing with you. 

There's a leader and I remember the quote before I remember the leader at certain times. I guess that's abuse that says that if we grow fat off of the praise of others, then we'll starve when it's removed. Actually TD Jakes. That's the quote. If we go fat off the praise of others, we'll starve. Exactly. We'll starve when it's removed. It's a diet. It's a diet, but it's worth it. 

Weariness

I love it. Now, we talked about loneliness. The next thing Charles talked about was weariness. It's tough. You have to be at the top of your game at all times, even when you're not feeling it because people are looking to you. He also talked about how, a lot of times, you may be the one doing the work of 10 people because not everybody is as self-motivated as you. Nabia, how do you deal with weariness and staying strong? 

I will first admit that I could use all the advice that I could get unweariness both from the audience and from yourself and anyone else who cares to share because I think that part of when we talk about the price of leadership, being tired is probably the number one most common in my opinion and that may be as a result of hitting high standards and not having a lot of forgiveness from the environment. Sometimes, the timelines. The deadlines don't allow you to be as balanced as we'd all like to be, stop when we need to, and take moments when we need to cancel things when we need to. 

I think that even in the midst of that weariness, which I absolutely experienced, especially when I'm trying to start something new, taking on a new goal, a new task, a new element of something I've done before, I am really fighting myself with the expectations I'm setting for how quickly I need to master a new task, a new skill. I have found that it's sometimes the cost that I'm paying to be whatever success looks like, whatever leadership looks like. One thing I can say that I am learning is that here goes another quote. 

This one's by Dr. Seuss. I believe the quote, if I remember it correctly, says, “Those who matter don't mind and those who mind don't matter.” Essentially, I take that to mean that if the folks around you, if the system around you, can’t allow you to be human, I'm going to bank on the fact that in a little while, you'll see that there's no amount of work, no amount of exchange in terms of weariness that will gain that approval. It's important to remember to choose carefully who you're reporting to, who you're being, and who's asking things of you because good leaders, we're good leaders, but the leaders that we're reporting to, we're all answering to someone, they need to prioritize your humanity. 

Leadership: If the folks and the system around you cannot allow you to be human, then no amount of work and amount of exchange in terms of weariness will gain that approval.

They need to care about you in a sense, sometimes more than you care about yourself, which is another thing I have learned from you, Tracey, that a leader needs to be more concerned about the success of those they are taking care of. I think that that's something I've learned: if you push yourself and do everything you can, that is all you can ask of yourself. Folks who are aware of your value will be happy with the output, even if it's not perfect. 

That's a hard pill. It's a hard lesson to say, “Sometimes I'm going to fail. Sometimes I'm going to be tired. Sometimes I'm going to get sick, but guess what? You will value who I am and the effort that I put forth.” To sum it all up, my baseline for success is that I have done everything I need to do, not that I have made someone else feel like I accomplished everything they thought I would.

I'm glad I have this recorded because I wrote down about ten unbelievable bullets. Nabia, thank you for that. You had asked about input. The first word out of your mouth is forgiveness. Weariness, there's good weary, like when I would go to war, go to bed, and go, “We did everything we could to get the bad guy.” Then there's that weariness, just like loneliness, there's good and bad loneliness, and there's good and bad weariness. You talked about forgiveness. I think for our leaders out there, Charles wrote a book called, Forgiveness is Tremendous because if there's somebody that had some things that he could have held onto his whole life. 

I tell people, “Charles, if he didn't find God, he could have gone become Jimmy Hoffa or he could have been totally tremendous. Honestly, because he had so many rotten things done to him. He wrote a book called Forgiveness is Tremendous. That I'm going to get you back or I'm going to create this enterprise of vengeance or manipulation, that cult of personality, it's a real thing. Forgiveness. For our readers out there, and that first word you said, a lot of our weariness, if we really unpack it, we haven't forgiven others or we haven't forgiven ourselves. 

You hold onto that, you dream about it, you have nightmares about it, and you wake up tired. You just got to relinquish that. If you want some tips for that, you can read Forgiveness is Tremendous because it's phenomenal. I love that you talked about deadlines, but we had a guest on our show and they said, “The root of all our heartbreak is expectation.” We need to get rid of expectations. You can have goals, but expectations set us up for failure every time. Goals are the outcome of what we want.

I can’t even control the outcome. You talked about it, but I can control the processes and I can control my performance. That's it. These expectations are the root of all disappointment. Disappointment is a self-imposed emotion. Somebody also told me that. They're like, “If you're disappointed, that's on you.” I'm like, “I'm not going to say that anymore.”I'm thankful cause I have to own that stuff. I love that you talked about getting rid of that. I love that. Who are you reporting to? 

The people who love us. I love that you see this at your youthful age because some people at my older age still struggle with, “Somebody says that I disappointed them or let them down.” None of us really care about one another. Disappointment is a jagged word that you cloak on somebody to try and diminish them. All we can do is the best that we can do to help me, but if you're going to critique me, you're not prioritizing me as a human being as a work in progress. 

This is amazing. Excellent thinking. I'm happy that I asked because I've gained a lot just from listening to you. Our lives are so much bigger than whatever project we're leading, whether that's an organization or being a leader at our jobs. It is important to remember that just because you are “failing” or not living up to someone's standard in one area or another doesn't mean that that's your whole being. That's your whole life. We're often tasked, especially as women, with being mothers, wives, and daughters. There were so many things other than our role. I think that's another thing listening to you that just came to mind. We have to ask ourselves what success looks like as a whole.

Our lives are so much bigger than whatever project we're leading.

I met Nabia and I'm going to say something else as far as weariness and the women juggling everything. If you're tired, put some concealer on. Do you know what I'm saying? When I met her, obviously, weariness comes from physical stamina, not just mental and spiritual, but we're still in this mortal coil. We're going back to dust. If we're distilled down, we're worth about 23 cents in minerals and stuff like that. We have infinite value in God's eyes, but basically, this mortal coil is nothing. 

We still have to take care of it because we have to run the race strong. Nabia, when I saw her, she presented well and looked healthy and clear of mind. I watched her ask questions, engaging, clear, sparkly eyes. I tell people, too, “I know you may be tired, but do everything you can to present well because she looked the part.” If we don't take care of our outward appearance, we're going to set ourselves back. It's going to be more difficult. Actually, in implicit leadership theory, where we have our idea of what an ideal leader looks like, attractiveness is one of the categories and I don't mean good looking. What I mean is how put together you are. 

Do you look like a leader? I grew up probably like you, with people who taught me manners, were well appointed, well healed, and just looked great and not in a like they looked masculine and feminine. They didn't look sexual. They looked together like good people. Sorry, I just stepped on my cat's tail. If we focus on this, a lot of times, my point is if you don't do it, you honestly, you're working against yourself. 

I know it takes extra effort to try on your outfits before you go before a meeting and make sure everything looks good. If you're sitting on a stage, make sure everything lays good, you know what I'm saying? It's really worth it because that's one of the things in addition to how you greeted me, your warmth, your persona, and your presence. I think a lot of times, even though we may be barely hanging on there, we still have to still have to present well. 

I really appreciate that. I've been thinking about this, Tracey, if it’s okay to say my side of meeting you quickly? I am honored to be part of the American College of Financial Planning from the perspective of both being a student. Currently enrolled in a wealth management certified professional course, but also engaging as an advisory board member for the Next Generation Task Force, which essentially seeks to, I like to say study, almost study what it takes to create retention for financial advisors, for finance leaders, how do we keep the great people that we hire? 

Obviously, the recruitment and each cohort in the advisory council works on their passion, whether that's retention, cultivation, or recruitment. I was asked just off the cuff, “Would you like to attend this event?” I said, “Sure.” Not having ever been part of a military summit before. I have said this to you before, but I'd like to say again that it was probably one of my most enjoyable days and nights because we also had a lovely dinner. I enjoyed all of the content, but I especially enjoyed being around great people. 

Meeting Tracey, she talks about you, gives great compliments, and I'm very appreciative, but she outshone me completely in her kindness and warmth. That makes such a difference to people. It makes a difference when they are maybe doing something for the first time, but it also says so much about her leadership because folks who are truly centered and strong and know who they are, are not afraid to give that away, to give that word away. I just wanted to say thank you for that, Tracey. 

Leadership: Folks who are truly centered, strong, and know who they are are not afraid to give kindness away.

Abandonment

Thank you. Thank you for that tremendous feedback, Nabia. I truly appreciate it. We talked about loneliness. We talked about weariness. The next thing Charles talked about is abandonment. Abandonment, again, there's good abandonment and there's bad abandonment, fear of abandonment, abandoning pets, abandoning your children, not good, but what Charles talked about in abandonment was he would say, “I spend more time in a day thinking about what I like and want to think about instead of what I ought and need to think about.” 

For him, abandonment is this pruning, the singularity, this hyper-focus. How do you, Nabia, with all the things that people probably see you and are like, “Let's get her involved in this thing.” How do you stay focused so you can pour into the roles and the organizations that are the highest and best use of your time?

I like to think on my past and to think about all of the lessons I've learned because, in certain moments, things seem so important. In retrospect, we know that hindsight is 20-20. In retrospect, we remember the things that are of true value to us. I worked for the AFL-CIO for a period of time, really learning incredible skills and learning incredible leadership skills.

One of the things that I will always take away from that amazing experience is that we are here to replicate positivity, essentially. If in someone that's on your team you see great qualities and a couple of things that may not be perfect, the idea is to emphasize what is positive and to give solutions for the things that perhaps are challenges. 

When I think about what is important every day, the connections I make with my team, with one-on-one conversations that maybe just happen as we all have meetings every day, you meet someone for the first time, I think about what it is that I'm investing because at the end of the day, that's what's going to really create added value, but it's also going to be what's going to grow. All of my weaknesses. All of the disappointing things. Those things are not necessarily going to bear any fruit. If I can make a connection and invest in something, plant a seed, that's what I want to focus on. For me, when we talk about focus, that's what I want to be doing. I want to be planting a seed.

I love that. I love that you talked about one of my favorite parables. I was reading John where Jesus talks about, “I'm the vine and you are the branches and we need to prune away things that are not of value or serving us or are dead, diseased, and dying.” Past experiences are a huge part of what we are. When you draw back to your previous jobs where you were just taught, it's almost like you talked about a beautiful mindfulness that every conversation I have with this individual, yes, we have all the results and we're here for a reason in the bottom line and the shareholders. 

Right now, you talked about it to replicate the positivity. A lot of times, we get too far. Our brains are everywhere rather than in being present with that person. We're not able to encourage growth because we're so scattered. You shared a really unique perspective on abandonment. I love that you take every moment and are mindful about pouring into that and investing in it. People say, “What if it doesn't grow?” As Ken Blanchard would say, “Then we help them to the competition.” 

Everybody has a pearl in them, but if you're not going to be open or grow, that's fine. That's your choice. Free will, baby. I think we lose the majority of people because we just don't spend the time tending and caring for them, which is really at the root of all leadership. Again, I was always told we don't grow our business, we grow people. People grow. A business is nothing. People say, “This church is bad, this religion is bad, this party is bad.” It's the name of something. We need to look at the individuals. It's all about one-on-one. That's how life is lived. Your comments just made me really think about that. Sister, on to the next one. Vision. Where there is no vision, the people perish. 

I would sit there like with these wealth planners growing up or these big motivational speakers like Norman Vincent Peale and Zig Ziglar, and no. I'm just like, “Obviously, these guys are successful because they're visionaries”. I'm just a little Tracey and I don't think I'm a visionary. I'm good at a lot of stuff. I didn't like the lack of self-esteem, but they think differently, like Elon Musk or Steve Jobs. 

My dad's like, “Tracey, vision is just seeing what needs to be done and doing it.” I'm like, “I think I could do that.” It was very strategic, but also with a real tactical, pragmatic thing to it. Can you share, Nabia? You've obviously moved to different roles in your career, and what do you have next? How do you cultivate your own personal and professional vision? 

Personal And Professional Vision

As you were speaking, I thought about different ways to define vision. You mentioned where there is no vision that people perish. Write the vision and make it plain. Another great quote. The idea that perhaps vision is bigger than us is something that's comforting. When I mean that from the perspective, both of having a dream, something literally dropped into your mind, dropped into your soul, something maybe you feel almost like you can’t remember, not thinking that way, it was just always with you, whether it is a calling, something that's pulling you forward, and so it's bigger than you in that way, or it's something that is created with the people around you. 

It's one of the biggest joys in my life to see maybe the start of an idea be really developed by having input from those that are around you. When I think about vision and my process, you talk about your dad and how important it is to think about what needs to be done, know what needs to be done, and then do it. That's how we define vision in our everyday lives for projects. You also mentioned what it means to have your own personal vision. It's something I don't talk about a lot, but I'm going to talk about that here briefly. 

My hair, I was talking about Sinead O'Connor with some family and thinking about what it meant to be a woman and what it meant to be strong. There were times in my life when I really felt like how brave is it of Sinead O'Connor to cut her hair off or whatever it is. As silly and as simple as it is, I think about looking at who you have always wanted to be. We don't need to look around. That doesn't have to be something that is a group project to say, what is beautiful to you? What is strength to you? What does that look like? 

Who you always wanted to be doesn't have to be a group project.

What does happiness look like to you? I have made a large focus on thinking to myself, let's not just survive. Let's thrive by remembering what your favorite place in the world is and what your favorite experiences have been. Let's pack each day with value based on your assessment. It can feel indulgent, but it's like if you wanted to cut your hair, cut it. If you love apple pie, bake it. If you like those shoes within reason, buy them. I think taking the time to reassess outside of all of these distractions is what makes me truly happy and buzzing, and knowing that it's not selfish, it's not self-centered, it's focused. 

That helps me to make every decision align because it does go out of alignment and realign to my highest self, my highest and best self. As a person, I'm top of the charts. I am the highest authority in my own life. That's what I would say is like reassessing and writing that down. I love Italy. It's probably the place where I've always said that one day I would want to live in Italy. What are we doing towards that goal? 

I love that. I love that you said being you is not a group project. I love that. What makes you buzz? You know what, Nabia? Being you is not a group project, but doing you is. You know what I'm saying? I was listening to a podcast. The guy said there are two things that are involved in our life. I would say from a perspective, “What do you want and how do you get it?” What do you want, he calls it your mirror because a lot of people, I want to do this and they start getting ahead. 

You have to get in front of the mirror. This takes so much time, but this is 90% of the groundwork. As you said, you have to understand who you are, what you're gifted at genetically, experientially, and spiritually, and what are you, who are you. We have all these great people who have poured into us and given us our sense of identity that we've gotten through others, but who we are. Get in front of that mirror. Then the second thing he said was, “Then you look out the window.” That's where you pull the resources from the books, the connections, the means, the money, the training, and the mentorship. 

That's where you pour it in. It's this beautiful thing. Before you go, a lot of times, we want to look out the window. We think about vision. What am I going to do? Bring it back. As you said, who am I going to be? That's why people spend decade upon decade doing great stuff, but they still don't know what they really want to do or their highest calling of service. Now, that being said, sometimes that hits us like a bolt of thunder. 

A few of us that's happened to, not me. For most of us, it's like a gradual dawn. It's taken me 61 years to look in the mirror every day and go, I get you now, I get you more. I love you more than I did yesterday than I did yesterday. I know you better than I did. For most of us, it is like the sun's rising. It's a gradual illumination versus, but some people do know right away, “This is who you are and this is what you're going to do.” I love that you talked about what makes you buzz and doing or being you first versus doing you. 

That is vision, but so many times we run, we start looking at everything out there, what everybody else is doing. Will I have to be like them or I'm going to miss the bandwagon or I should have bought crypto because now it's $62,000? Stop. Are you really a girl? Are you just doing this because everybody else is doing it thing? I really appreciate that insight because you can’t see vision until you can look at yourself and know, “What does that mean? 

Perfect, Tracey. 

What does it mean? You just encouraged me. I just love that. I love that you said you take comfort that it's bigger than us. Yes, it's about who we are, but integrating that into the world because you just don't sit there. As kids, we had that little hymn, “This little light of mine, I'm going to let it shine.” I did under a bushel, no. We don't just sit there and say, “I got a vision. Nobody's going to know about it.” It's bigger than us. Your vision was given as you talked about and abandonment to encourage and share with as many people and synergize it with the rest of humanity to make the world a better place. That's all I have to say about that. 

Tracey, I love it. Love it. 

Sister, we did loneliness, we did weariness, abandonment, and vision. Nabia, is there anything else that you would like to share with our readers as far as your wealth of leadership that you would like to share with them?

I am reminded by so many others, including Tracey, that leadership is about servanthood. We talk about servant leadership. If I go out of alignment, I think literally every day is about getting back into alignment, waking up back into alignment. The one thought most helpful for me is that you are a servant. You are a servant and you are here to serve the needs of your team. You are here to serve the needs of whatever project you are leading. You're here essentially surrounded by leadership opportunities. Whether we are, as you said, hopefully not LINOs, correct me.

Leadership: Leadership is about servanthood.

Leaders In Name Only. Yeah, we're not LINOs. 

Leaders In Name Only. Hopefully, we're not LINOs, but even if we don't have the name, even if we don't have the title, which is never what's important anyway, even if we're classically not seen as the leader when we're doing the bake sale at church and we're putting together wonderful items for charity. The leadership opportunity is there to work on those skills by essentially, as you said, finding what needs to be done and doing it. That would be the last thing that I have to say is just we're sharpened daily.

I love that. You really tied that back nicely into vision. You're a pro, sister. Well done. Thank you. It is. I never thought about that quote as the ultimate servanthood. It is. Just find it and do it. Look in that mirror, look out that window, and call out to who you need to do it with. 

I've learned so much. 

So am I. I'm going to go down and start blogging because I got all this stuff. Where do I start? Where do I start? Nabia. I cannot thank you enough for sharing this with our readers, and I look forward to many more connections. I look forward to meeting you in person, either in Philly or New York City soon. Coming up here and visiting, but I just want to thank you for your heart for what you do and just your tremendous spirit. Your parents must be so proud of you. You're just amazing. 

That is so sweet. I can’t wait to go tell them that. 

Yes, you need to tell them that. They can come to talk to me because I'm a doctor and everybody has to listen to me.

Do you hear that, Mom and Dad?

I'm sure you did a good job on them too. To our readers out there, thank you so much for being a part of the tremendous tribe. Thank you for paying the price of leadership. I know you guys are out there doing it. You're reading great books. Remember, as Charles said, you will be the same person five years from now that you are today, except for two things, the people you meet and the books you read. 

You read us share some tremendous people, some tremendous resources, some tremendous books. Pick some up. If you like what you read, please hit the like or the subscribe button and share this with some of your friends out there who are leaders who would like a little boost of positivity and, information, and inspiration. Thanks so much for being a part of us, and have a tremendous rest of the day.

 Important Links

• Nabia Jenkins-Johnston

• Forgiveness is Tremendous

About Nabia Jenkins-JOHNSON

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Nabia Jenkins-Johnston is the Head of Content and Brand Strategy leading Events at The Expert Series' ETP Forum hosted by ETF Global.

Her work guides innovation, creating opportunities for financial service professionals to connect and grow within the ETP ecosystem.

She is a storyteller, managing the delivery of concise, emotional, and thoughtful work, both strategically and creatively-bringing human stories to the stage in person, in print, and on screen.

Episode 185 - Derek Kilgore - Leaders On Leadership

Leadership is all about embracing both the highs and the lows. This episode’s guest finds comfort in the impact a leader creates through it all. Dr. Tracey Jones engages in a thought-provoking conversation with Derek Kilgore, a grounded leader and financial advisor with Northwestern Mutual. Together, they pull back the curtain on the challenges and triumphs of leadership, discussing topics such as overcoming loneliness, navigating weariness, making strategic decisions about abandonment, and crafting a compelling vision for the future. Derek shares personal experiences and practical insights, emphasizing the importance of meaningful connections, intentional prioritization, and the relentless pursuit of a vision. Whether you're a seasoned leader or aspiring to be one, this episode offers valuable lessons and inspiration to help you on your leadership journey.

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Watch the episode here

Listen to the podcast here

Derek Kilgore - Leaders On Leadership

I am very excited because my guest is Derek Kilgore. Let me tell you a little bit about Derek. Derek is a grounded leader with a heart-centered and results-focused approach. He and his wife, Amber, live in Littleton, Colorado with their two children, Addison who is 12, and Ethan who is 10. Derek is a financial advisor with Northwestern Mutual and leads a team of 15 advisors in his office. Derek, welcome.

Tracy, thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited about our conversation.

Thank you, Derek. As I read to the folks, he is an advisor with Northwestern Mutual and that is how we connected. I am with the Center for Military and Veterans Affairs at the American College of Financial Services. I teach their CLF designation, which is their chartered leadership fellows. Derek is taking this tremendous certification because he is very serious about leadership. In the course, I'm like, I would love to have you on my show and Derek graciously accepted, so thank you again.

You're so welcome. I was excited and I think we got a lot to talk about so I'm looking forward to it.

We do. Let's get right into it. My father gave a speech many decades ago, many times. Probably his most often given speech, he was a world-renowned motivator, but he also talked about leadership. very pragmatic, very real. He talked about the price of leadership in that if you are going to be wearing the crown or the mantle of leadership, there's a price you're going to have to pay. You need to be aware of it. In that, he listed four things, the first of which is loneliness. We've all heard that it's lonely at the top, but can you unpack for the leaders tuning in, what does loneliness in leadership look like for you, maybe a time you went through it? Any words of wisdom or resources you can share with our audience?

I love the idea of being vulnerable in the conversation about these are the hard things around leadership and the things that we struggle with. I think it's so easy and tempting to write a beautiful book about all the amazing accomplishments that we've done and all the awesome trophies and look at all this stuff. That can be inspiring, but I think it often can be somewhat defeating. Let's talk about what it's like and let's build alongside each other. I love this idea.

Around loneliness, I am a very connected person and I feel very deeply. It's very important for me to have meaningful and deep relationships with the people around me. I've struggled quite a bit with the loneliness factor. People inside my immediate professional circle professional, they totally get what we're doing right. They're building something alongside, they're in another office in another state or another city and we're encouraging each other. That's amazing and helpful.

Outside of my professional world, people don't understand what I'm building and what we're doing and leading people on a large level. Especially being in the financial services world, I think people look at that as like, "Are you guys on Wall Street up there? What are you doing over there?" They don't understand. There is a little separation where the wins that I have, if we are hitting a recruiting goal or we're hitting a metric for our office or a sales target, we're so excited about that, and then I share that with people outside of my professional world and my church community or my friends. They're happy for me. They're like, "Yay, good job, Derek," but they don't understand what it took to do that and what the scale of that accomplishment is.

On the other side when I'm oh we had this amazing recruit, "He was coming in in April and then he decided to take another job and we were so bummed out because he was going to be a perfect fit for our team. It was an alignment." The curve ball, I share those heartaches and people are like, "That's a bummer. I'm sorry that happened," but they don't understand that it's a big deal. It's important to do that.

Loneliness outside of my professional world has been a challenge to fill. What I've done to mitigate that is surround myself with people who get what I'm doing. People who are building alongside, creating accountability metrics, and also encouraging relationships that say, "What are you working on? I know you were hunting that goal down. How's that working out for you?" They can do the same for me. To mitigate the loneliness as much as possible has been very helpful.

I love that you said building alongside because I would venture probably 80% of our audience are entrepreneurs or retired once, twice, or thrice from other entities and now are already served. It's so important. You talk about building your business, especially in the financial services sector. You need to be with people who are like that because otherwise, you get somebody who may be in a 9:00 to 5:00. They can be very discouraging because the world we live in where you can only eat what you kill, it's a whole different thing. I love that you talked about get people that get you. Sometimes even your family. I can remember my dad saying, "Honey, I got man of the year." She's like, "Where's the check?" She didn't get the fact that all these things are necessary.

I'm echoing that exact thought. Align yourself with people that get you. I've got a buddy, Scott, who we met at church and he's about 20 years ahead of me. We'll talk about mentorship here in a minute, which is crucially important. He totally gets my world. He's built businesses. He's taken them public before. For me to share and for me to feel heard reduces the loneliness factor.

Align yourself with people that really get you.

That's so important because you want to quit. We all want to quit. Especially entrepreneurs, why shouldn't we quit? Why shouldn't I go back to the easy secure way? You get people who have already gone through it and they understand what you're going through. I love that. We talked about loneliness. Next, we talk about weariness. Before you came on, I asked Derek how he was and he was talking about being busy. You talked about sleep, water, rest, and all that stuff. This plays onto weariness because even in times of abundance we can get stretched too thin. Can you talk to us with everything you have going on, you're a father, you're involved in a lot of different things, and building a business, how do you day energized at top form?

We could probably spend hours talking about this subject, about effort and rest at the same time. I've learned this phrase called equipoise, which means two things at the same time. Two things that are both true at the same time but could appear to be opposite. This idea that we can have full effort into our life and also a healthy amount of rest is the ultimate challenge. I think we could all work ourselves to death. Brene Brown says, "Some people wear overwhelmed like a badge." They're proud of how overwhelmed they are. It's like, no, I don't want that, but I do want a high amount of success and a high amount of accomplishment. I want to maximize the life that God's given me, but I also don't want to burn out, be exhausted all the time, not present with my family, and not loving my wife the way she deserves.

There is a tricky balance between the two. Maybe balance isn't even the right word. I like the word harmony quite a bit, meaning some things are louder at certain seasons of my life and some things are quieter in certain seasons of my life. Sometimes the percussion set is taking a solo and it's like this crazy moment. Sometimes it's this peaceful sauna that's playing. The harmony of the pieces of my life, I work hard to do that.

Practically, what that means for me, that's been so helpful. I modeled it after one of my mentors, Ben. The quiet time in the morning is the most important time of my day. I've heard it say, "If you win the morning, you win the day." I'm typically up around 5:00 or 5:30. I try to do 30 minutes, sometimes an hour in the Bible, I'm reading and praying. Sometimes I literally just sit in my chair and be quiet because I know starting at 6:30 or 7:00, it's to the gym and then in the shower and then meetings back to back all the way through. Full productive. We're rocking and rolling all the way through, and then it's home, then dinner, then the kids, then some fuss is going to happen, and then it's in my bed and I'm going to sleep.

I know if I don't carve out the first hour of my day, there also is a tide element I think into that, meaning giving the first of your day and the first of your money to God. If I don't do that, I feel like I'm out of sorts. I work hard to compartmentalize that part of my day. Also, I feel like it gives me more freedom to drive into my day harder because I know I've already rested and I feel renewed and I'm not going to get burned out. That cycle has been very helpful for me in order to stay grounded and stay rested while also producing at a high level.

"Win the morning, win the day." You talked about it being your first fruits, that is a biblical concept. You give your best. We're republishing Ben Franklin's way to wealth, early to bed, early to rise. It seems like it's one of those constants out there thinking of financial geniuses. I love that you talked about that. It's so important. When you say balance, it's not like at any given time we can walk away from something. Balance implies something is down, but I love the harmony or the synergy or something is louder, something is a little bit lower.

I would say 99% of our guests talk about that first hour and how important that is to get your spirit fed first because that's what fuels. When you get burned out and tired, it's not your body. I know we're mere human beings. Hopefully, we know enough to take care of ourselves and get rest and stuff, but your soul's tired. Something's not getting fed.

The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry: How to Stay Emotionally Healthy and Spiritually Alive in the Chaos of the Modern World

I totally agree with that. Have you read the book, The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry?

No. Sounds tremendous.

It's awesome. The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry by a guy named John Mark Comer. It's exactly what you described is giving us space for our souls to rest. Left to our own devices, I think we would all, for a million miles an hour, everything's on fire, total chaos, always distracted, always on our phones, and there's a real effort to being restful and being settled. Check that out. It's a very interesting read. I think you'll like it.

I love the title. Thank you. You always recommend the best books. We've been recommending books since we met.

That's right.

We talked about loneliness. We talked about readiness. The next term my dad talks about is abandonment. For those of us in pet rescue or fear of abandonment, that's not the abandonment he's talking about. He's talking about the ruthless elimination of whatever it is that is sucking away the best and highest. Hurry, how do you abandon hurry? With everything that comes to you and you know you've got a million people, you're getting good ideas from, how do you stay tightly focused, singularly focused so you can channel your best into that vision that we will talk about next?

Abandonment, this is a beautiful concept. I think it comes down for me to having the courage to say no to things that are good so that I can say yes to the things that are great. I think that summarizes it. Let's break it down, but I think that's a good starting place because we all have good things in our life. We have relationships, opportunities, business stuff, coaching, "Can you be on this podcast?", and all this stuff. You're deciding, is this good or is this great? Sometimes we need to say no to something that could be awesome and very profitable and probably what God wants us to do in the end. It's not bad. It's pretty good. We need to say no to that and leave some space for something that we couldn't even think of or didn't see around the corner, comes around, and we're like, "That was amazing."

For me, practically what that means is every year, sometimes I'll do it twice or quarterly, but at least every year, I'll reprioritize the things in my life. I literally get a piece of paper out and write down, professional life, my leadership responsibilities, my family, my relationship with my wife, my relationship with my kids, my relationship with God, my responsibilities at church, this other side project I'm working on. I look at them and I ask myself introspectively, are those misaligned? Are we putting more time and energy towards the wrong thing? How much effort and energy we're putting toward each thing? Is it the right priority order?

For me, that priority is first my relationship with God, and then second my relationship with my wife, then my kids, then my professional world, and then all my church responsibilities. At times, those have turned upside down or mixed around and the reassessment helps line out what's most important. What that does for me is it allows me to go with so much more confidence to do the things I need to do because I know it's the best and highest priority. It's easier for me to say no because I know that I'm doing the thing that's the highest priority. What do you think about it?

I love when you say no to people and you have a reason for it because this is what I'm focusing on right now. People get that. I think sometimes we're like, "I don't want to let that person out." When you explain that to them with truth and say, "Listen, this is great, but right now my main focus is this. Can we reconnect in 3 or 6 months down the road?" I love that you talked about that because everybody in the CLF talks about this. When we lay out our refocus or recalibrating or are pruning away not the highest and best use of our time, we do talk about the different areas. Family, faith, financial, physical, relational, volunteer.

For the audience out there, don't try and throw it all onto one plate. Be very intentional about teasing it out and looking at specific goals. People are like, "It all links back up to the one thing." I think sometimes people try and take on too much and it's very good. Successful leaders like Derek sit down with a piece of paper and scrap up. We all do it. It's not like, "Haven't you figured it out yet?"

There is no amount of time during the year that it's not good to recalibrate your flight plan because remember, things are changing too. Doors are opening, doors are closing. There are unexpected things, an illness, a bonus, or an opportunity. Thank you so much for that. I love that you shared with the audience that you get the old-school piece of paper out and write that stuff down.

I love your comment about recalibrating your flight path. That is exactly it. You're in flight and you're like, "Let's make sure we're on track for where we're supposed to be going. Are we in the right seat? Do we have enough fuel?" Recalibrating is so helpful. I remember a time when I wasn't doing that and it didn't go good, so I thought I might share that story. It was the end of 2021 is when this happened. The business was going okay, but it wasn't really where we wanted it to be. I was turning the flywheel hard, like working a lot of hours and putting my effort and energy toward it, believing that this thing was going to take off and be amazing, but it wasn't amazing at the time. It just was okay. My wife's like, "I think you could do it. It's going to be great." I'm like, "This is hard." I'm working.

There are people ahead of me like, "He's there or she's there, it can be built." I was right in the thick of, someone had to graph around the valley of despair. You're excited about the thing, and then it's going great, and then you go to this valley of despair, and you're like, "I'm in over my head and I'm not making the money I wanted to." The failures are stacking up longer than the successes. I was right in that moment at the end of 2021.

I then did that exercise and I realized that part of the problem is I'm giving too much of my time away to my church responsibility. I was on the executive leadership team at the church and I was putting in a bunch of energy and effort. That wasn't producing a ton of fruit, but I felt like it's good work, obviously it's growing the church. I also had some other personal things that I was doing for fun that weren't filling my cup.

It's like good or great. I think it was that comparison. I did the sheet of paper and I was like, "This is a hard decision but this church responsibility has to go down a couple of notches. I got to put my business relationship higher up, my business adventure at a higher level of priority." I talked to Amber about it and she was like, "That makes total sense."

I had a hard conversation with my leadership team at the church and I said, "Obviously I'm still in this thing and love you guys. I just need to put my focus or turn my flashlight toward this business. We're at a crucial point where we need to get out of this dip." Like you said, they were so gracious, so kind to say, "We love you. Go crush it." I felt validated in that, and then we did. We had a great year in 2022. 2023 was even better. I want to share that story for our audience to say, it's okay if it's not going okay. It's okay if it's not going the way you thought there is a path forward.

It's okay if it's not going okay. It's okay if it's not going the way you thought. There is a path forward.

I thought that you said in the thick. You're talking about this and I don't know if I should laugh or cry because I remember those days. I still have them, but I'm laughing because we've all been there. When you talk about being in the thick, that is a great point for our audience out there. That's probably a great indication for you to say, "Stop. Let's lay it out on a paper and see exactly what's going on."

The second point that I love you talking about, you said to be fruitful, not be workful or be productive, but be fruitful. I'm all for kicking down doors and making it happen, but if you've been kicking on the same door for three years, it might be time and there's something not meant to happen. Like you said, you're a man of face, so you and I both know that we're being oriented towards, there are other circumstances, blessing, and things coming into our life. Again, if it's not bearing fruit, I don't want to say quit, but be honest about that and see what you need to do.

As you said, you went to your church leadership and you were honest with them. If you are out of whack or out of balance and you have to throttle back from something, don't just ghost people. Don't just leave them wondering, "I wonder why Derek isn't so engaged anymore. I wonder why Steve stopped coming to our board meetings." Be honest with them because otherwise, that person is like, "Did I do something wrong? Are they upset?" Everybody who loves you understands time is precious. We time tied. That's so wonderful that they would be fully supportive of you, but had you not had the courage to speak truth and love with that tough conversation, they might have been like, "Why is our brother dissing us?" That's never good.

Also, to echo that point, I felt more supported and more encouraged to go into this new season because they were like, "Let us know how it goes. We're rooting for you."

They're praying for you. They can support you from another facet of your life because they know it's all congruent. When you get this dialed in, then you can come back and touch on that again. Like I said a lot of times, like you said, when you're in the thick, we don't want to let people know we're in the thick, we tend to isolate ourselves. Worst possible thing we can do. We don't want to throw out our lifelines.

Loneliness, weariness, abandonment, and vision. I can remember sitting around as a little girl listening to people like Og Mandino, Zig Ziglar, and Norman Vincent Peale thinking, "These guys are smart. How do they get so smart?" I'd hear people talk about vision. I'm like, I'm not sure if I was born with that. My father was always like, "Tracy, vision is simply seeing what needs to be done and then doing it. Otherwise, you're a dreamer or you're a doer." You don't know where you're going. Like we said, you're a busy little bee. Either/or you're dreaming but you're not putting anything to work. Your vision for your business and what's next? You are growing an agency so everybody's looking to you and you have all these different pieces. How do you own your vision for what's next?

We could spend lots of time talking through this subject because it's so powerful. I think I have struggled with vision early in my career. For me, what I struggled with was believing that big things were possible. That was hard for me. We came from a modest income and lifestyle. Both my parents worked their whole life. They were moderately successful. We didn't go without by any means. I paint that picture because in the financial services world, some of the people who've been here for 30 years and have built tremendous businesses, they're wildly successful. The amount of income that they're bringing in is a pretty big number.

When I say I struggled with believing for big things, that's what I mean. It took a lot of effort and a lot of faith for me to be like, "No, I am deserving and worthy of running a successful practice, earning a healthy income, making a big difference in people's lives, and being present for my kids and for my wife." Believing that took a lot of effort. I don’t want to start there because it's not easy. It's not like you roll out of bed and go like, "I'm going to be the next Disney. I'm going to make this humongous." That doesn't happen. It takes a lot of effort to build a vision. Do you have comments on that?

Leadership: I am deserving and worthy of running a successful practice, earning a healthy income, and making a big difference in people's lives.

No. It's funny because one of the things in the CLF was guys how to write your vision and how you're incorporating that, so no. Keep going.

Some practical things that helped me quite a bit. One, I had examples to follow. I had people that I could look up to, buy a cup of coffee, meet with, sit with, buy lunch, and visit with them. Just ask them about their life like, "How did you get there? What is your life like? What are you struggling with. What's going good?" That way, it's not this abstract idea. It's like, I don't want everything that Mike's life is like and I don't want everything like Rachel's life, but I want a little bit of that. That seems pretty good. Her life is pretty cool. It helps you believe more if you can see and meet people who are ahead of you. That takes some humility to go, "I'm not where I want to be but I'd like to be where you're at in 5 or 10 years. Can I buy you a cup of coffee? I'd love to hear."

They're always so honored. They're always like, "I'm still trying to figure it out and you think you want to be like me?" It's always a great connected moment, back to loneliness, helping mitigate that. You then get to use parts of their life as an example on how you want to build yours because if you've never seen what an amazing and tremendous life is like, it's easier to see it from someone else already having it been done, and then you can start to build it yourself.

I love that. To reverse engineer. I love that believing that big things are possible for you. Derek, I know you say your parents were moderately successful but they raised and had you.

I don't mean to downplay my parents. They're amazing.

I'm kidding. I'm just looking at like, "Your parents must be so proud of you." I'm so proud of you and I'm just your acquaintance.

I appreciate that. I had one other thought. Here's a practical idea. I have a vision document that I use typically once a year. I have almost all of my advisors use it on a regular basis. It has the categories of life. This isn't like a hard and fast rule, but generally speaking, the categories of someone's life, spiritual, physical, emotional, financial, relational, and professional as well. Those areas are pockets of someone's life. It's helpful to own this document, write out 2 or 3 sentences of what that part of your life looks like in 24 months. Sometimes 10 years is too far, and I think 6 months is good but you want to stretch it a little bit, so the 2 to 3-year mark works well.

The cool thing is you write it in first person. It sounds like, "I am a loving and present husband and I treat my wife with respect." All these amazing things that you are. "I'm running a successful business and earning this income and I'm impacting my clients in this way. I am a physical body is strong and I sleep well at night." The more detailed, the better, and then you have a literal document, you put it on your wall, you read it, and you're reading the picture that you've painted of the life that you're building.

It helps as a true north to go, "Why are we working so hard and why is it worth the fight?" You then read the document about what your life is going to look like in 2 or 3 years and you go, "Yeah, that's what we're doing. That's who we want to be. That's what we're building. That's what we're going to." That has been tremendously helpful.

We covered loneliness, weariness, abandonment, and vision. Anything else that you want to talk about on leadership, because then I want to talk a little bit about what you do?

Real quick, an advice I would give everybody across the board if they're willing to listen is have somebody who's pouring into you, walk alongside someone who's at your same stage, and always be pouring into someone else. If those three things in your life are happening at every stage, you're more better off than less. You're more doing it the best way than not.

Have somebody who's pouring into you, walk alongside someone who's at your same stage, and always be pouring into someone else.

It's so funny you said that because I can remember 6 years ago when I met my husband. Of course, I was coaching and like you, we pour a lot into people. I remember he looked at me and said, "I read books so I get it. I have my faith, I get it." He's like, "Who's pouring into you?" I remember thinking, I think we overlooked that. Most of our audience are probably like, "Really, Tracy? I didn't." I think it goes without saying be very intentional because that keeps you from getting stagnant. That's the way it's supposed to be to keep that regenerative cycle.

Exactly.

So important. Derek, you're talking about your job as a financial planner. I'll tell you out there for our audience, the more I interact with these people, if I had to do over again, listen to Derek talk about his vision. If I had to do over again, I would've signed up. I would've found Derek and been one of his advisors and helped him grow his business. For anybody out there looking, it's such a tremendous opportunity.

I know what it did for my father, Charles. He had no education, he had nothing, but it is an industry that you'll help people mitigate the risks in life, build for their dreams, and build to take care of those that they love. Like you said, you get to build whatever you want it to be. Yes, it's hard work, but what isn't? I marvel at what you're doing and the gift that you do for other people and helping them achieve financial wealth and most of all security.

I appreciate you saying that. I love that comment. You can build it however you want. I came from a culinary background, so years ago, I was a chef. I didn't even go to finance at college. I worked in the kitchens for almost ten years and have a culinary degree, and then realized that I want to do something more significant. It's been an uphill battle, no doubt, but I just share that story to say, this is not a well-educated Harvard grad that needs to have a finance degree. It's like, if you want to build something, help people, and make a difference in other people's lives, it's a tremendous career.

It is, and my dad didn't even have a high school diploma. I'll tell you what, the company you're working for, Northwestern Mutual, nobody trains better than that. They will not let you fail. That's what's a beautiful thing. Derek, what was the thing at culinary school? Had you heard about this? For our audience out there that may be at a point where they're like, "What's next?" I have a couple of friends midlife that I'm talking to and I'm like, "You need to look into this industry." What made you make that pivot?

I was running a catering business that was mildly minus is how I would describe it. That's not a word I know, but it's like less than mild. Again, I'm working my butt off doing this thing and it wasn't working. It was like not doing what we needed it to do.

Yeah, I know.

That was on its way in a folding fashion, and then my advisor tugged my sleeve and said, "Derek, I think you'd be good as a financial advisor." Honestly, my first thought was like, that's a nice compliment, but I don't know anything about financial planning. That is not in my wheelhouse. I'm not even understanding why you're asking me that question.

I then unpacked. It's not about how beautiful a portfolio you can make or how great at math you are or algorithms, it's about connecting with people and a lot of effort, but building relationships and wanting to build something yourself, wanting to be an entrepreneur, and wanting to grow something. You can learn the tools and the skills of financial planning. You can learn how to build an insurance tool. You can learn how to build a financial plan. You can understand how Roth taxation limits work. You can learn the skills, but the hard around building something and helping people was what drew me to the business.

Leadership: It's not about how beautiful a portfolio you can make or how great at math or algorithms you are. It's really about connecting with people.

Derek, now that we mention that, how do people get ahold of you? Is there a preferred manner?

Yeah, sure. You'll put my email and probably my website in the link. Best way is to click that and check out my website. I'd love to connect and always up to chat.

To our audience and Derek, thank you so much. I got a lot of great notes. The way you say things, you got me laughing and reminiscing about my own personal journey. What a joy to have you share with our audience about what it takes to pay the price of leadership. We wish you so much more success. I know you'll achieve it.

I appreciate that very much. It's been awesome hanging out with you. Thank you.

You're welcome. To our audience out there, thank you so much. If you like what you heard, please hit the subscribe or share button. If you do us the honor of a review, we would be so thankful. Share this with other people. Share this with your friends. I know your leaders, you hang out with a lot of leaders that are maybe looking at how to pay the price of leadership to encourage and inform them. Always remember, you're going to be the same person 5 years from now that you are now, except for 2 things, the people you meet and the books you read. Make sure they're both tremendous. Thanks so much everybody. Have a tremendous rest of your day. Bye.

Important Links

• Derek Kilgore

• The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry

About Derek Kilgore

Derek Kilgore is a grounded leader with a heart-centered and results-focused approach. He and his wife, Amber, live in Littleton, Colorado, with their two children, Addison, 12, and Ethan, 10. Derek is a financial advisor with Northwestern Mutual and leads a team of 15 advisors in his office.

Episode 168 - Lacey Langford - Leaders On Leadership

Leadership presents four key challenges for those in the position. These four keys are loneliness, weariness, abandonment, and vision. Lacey Langford, founder and CEO of the Military Money Show, shares how she deals with loneliness by surrounding herself with uplifting people. She also shares how being in the military taught her to combat weariness. Lacey shares how putting a time limit on your pity party helps her to cope with to avoid draining her energy. Being in the military did provide a huge impact on how she deals with leadership. Tune in to this insightful conversation with Lacey and Tracey today!

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Lacey Langford - Leaders On Leadership

I'm tremendously excited because my guest is Lacy Langford. Let me tell you a little bit about Lacey. Lacey Langford, AFC®, is a financial coach. She's a veteran and a military spouse who changes people's mindsets from being fearful of money to having control and confidence with it. She's an accredited financial counselor with many years of financial planning, counseling, and coaching experience.

Lacey is the Founder and CEO of the Military Money Show, a podcast dedicated to helping the military community make, save, and invest money wisely, and MilMoneyCon, which is an annual conference for financial professionals United by military service. Lacey, thank you so much for being our guest. It's an honor to have you here.

It's an honor to be here. Thank you for having me.

You are welcome and thank you for your service as well.

Thank you. You too.

You are welcome. I like to tell people because they are always like, “Tracey, how do you meet all these tremendous people on your show?” I am on, as you know, the American College of Financial Services. I'm the Chairperson for the Center for Military and Veterans Affairs. I have been on it for about a few years and I'm the Chairperson and Chief Master Sergeant Jim Roy. Retired chief master sergeant is on there with me and we had an opening on the advisory council. He had been at Lacey's MilMoney Conference. Connected me with her and now she's going to be on the advisory council too. After a meeting with her, I thought she has to be on my show as well. Lacey, it's tremendous to have you here.

Thank you. I'm excited about it. Everything works out the how it should, getting introduced, and meeting new tremendous people.

It sure does. Let's get right into it. The price of leadership, my father gave this speech many decades ago. It's the one speech he probably gave more in his life than any other speech. In it, he talks about four things that you are going to have to be faced if you are going to truly be a leader and not just a leader in name only. The first of those is loneliness and we have all heard that, loneliness is the head that wears the crown and it's lonely at the top. Can you share with our readers what loneliness looks like for you as a leader? Maybe a time in your career when you dealt with it and how you got through it?

First of all, I want to say thank you so much for sharing your father's speech with me. I had never heard that or read it before. I thought it was very powerful and resonated with me right out of the gate. I don't think people talk about loneliness enough as a leader, especially in business. It can be lonely at the top. That impacts me a lot. Not just in one situation, I don't think. I never intended to truly be a leader. I was trying to help people with their money.

It has evolved over time and grown out of me being focused on my mission and who I'm trying to help. Along the way, I have learned that sometimes it is very lonely because others don't know the full story. They don't know everything that's behind it. Being a leader means that you often are bearing the brunt of everything. You are trying to protect your people, your audience, your customers, or your consumers.

You are not trying to expose them to negative things or anything other than what you are trying to help them with or the service or product you are providing to them. That part is not necessarily a drawback. The loneliness part does make you a stronger leader. It makes you stronger in what you are doing. It makes you more resolute. Sometimes it can be perceived as a negative but I believe in trying to learn lessons and take the most out of it.

Being a leader means that you are often bearing the brunt of everything. The loneliness part does make you a stronger leader in what you're doing. It makes you more resolute.

When you are trying something new, like I have done my conference, doing my show, and coaching people. If things not working out, that's very lonely because a lot of people don't know the effort that you have put into it. I know everybody reading, I'm preaching to the choir here but your heart and soul have gone into that. You have sacrificed time with your family, your life, your health, and your wealth in order to reach your goal.

People see a failure or see something that is only the tip of the iceberg. Not everything underneath that is truly your heart and soul that you have put into it. That part can be very lonely. It's people to not understand what you were trying to do and the good that you were trying to do. That part is hard and also negative. Being in public or putting yourself out there.

For me, what I do is public. You expose yourself to people's thoughts and opinions. Again, they don't know everything that's gone into whatever they are seeing that one tweet, that one show episode, or that one conference. That part is hard but you can't be focused on that because you have to keep moving forward. Moving forward in your goal and what you are trying to accomplish and continuing to excel.

That part for me the loneliness. I try to cope with the things that people I surround myself with. Helping lift me up when I am lonely to realize, “This didn't pan out or you are worn out.” Those types of things. It's the people around you and the things you do to cope with that. Me, exercise is important and getting outside. A lot of the work I do is like this in front of a computer. It's important for me each day to get sunshine and be outside of my bubble to realize there are so much other things in life. This is one aspect of my life. I try not to let my identity get wrapped up in my business and that helps with the loneliness.

I love that you pulled in the protector aspect of loneliness. I never thought about that. Sometimes we as the shepherds, mama bears, or papa bears, I never thought about that but you are protective. As you said, not just your team but your audience and who are probably getting a lot of weird things. That's difficult when you hear people telling them falsities or things that are not going to pan out.

You are very pragmatic about it and I appreciate that. For our readers out there, if you haven't a candidate, or for leaders out there, if you are dealing with the negativity, you feel alone because you failed. It happens to the best of us and as Lacey said, it's par for the course. Be aware of it and surround yourself back with the people that are going to get you back on track because if you are not dealing with the negativity, the failure, and the protector role, then you are probably not truly leading.

If you are dealing with it like Lacey said, I love that she says it's part of the course. I love that you talked about when you put yourself out there. Here we are on the show and you are giving advice and stuff like that. There's always something that has to sit back there and critique you. It is not negativity but it is. It's isolating but you got to push through that. It's nothing that any other great person doesn't deal with when your voice is out there. There's always going to be the little dissenters or snipers and you got to press on from that.

I think of my business as my house, especially the community that I serve. I serve the military community as it relates to money. There are a lot of predators. I don't let anybody in my home around my family. I do feel protective, especially as it relates to money. That's important to me to be a good advocate. I can't police the world. I also have to come to terms with that I'm not superwoman but I do try to be mindful about what I'm doing and the messaging that I'm putting out and who I'm surrounding myself with.

I love that vigilance and it's never-ending. If you think every day something else will pop up, it's the world we live in and it's human nature. I love that you are always in the eye for that. I had never heard of that aspect when it comes to loneliness but that's a beautiful way to put it. You talked about getting outside, exercising your health, and stuff like that. How do you combat weariness? You do have a lot of responsibilities on you and leaders, we carry a lot of weight even though we have people that help us. How do you combat weariness?

This is something I picked up as a military child and as a military spouse. I can't always have a pity party for myself. I am the leader of my children and the leader of my business. I put a limit on my pity parties. The limit is 24 hours. When something negative happens to me, sad, lonely, or all those things, I put a time limit on it, which is helpful. It gives me time to process and cope with whatever has happened to me.

Military Money Show: Put a limit on my pity parties.

That gives me strength to be like, “I handled it. Now it's time to get back up and get back on task.” Having that mindset of trying to find the positive. Again, not trying to push down or smother what you are going through. It is exhausting. There's always a problem but to me that's life. It's not a question of if, it's, or when, how much it's going to cost you in time, money, your emotions, or those type of things. That's important that I do anticipate those things and being protective of the environment that I'm in.

My mind and my physical health help combat that weariness because if I'm not eating right or not taking care of myself physically, then it does wear me down very quickly. I don't have the energy to cope with challenges or opportunities because you could be getting great things happening to me but it's wearing you out. All the hard work is starting to pay off and you have these opportunities. It could be positive or negative.

Taking care of yourself and having a plan. Having systems in place of how are you going to handle whatever is thrown at you will help with the weariness. Also, too, knowing that I'm not special. I may be unique. There's only one Lacey but I'm not special. All of these things happen to other business owners and keeping things in perspective is important to me to handle the weariness.

That should be your book, The 24-Hour Pity Party. I love that because there's good weariness like deployments. You put everything but then there's bad weariness and that rumination, frustration, exhaustion, and self-doubt. Those are all self-imposed emotions. Your body will catch a disease of the mind quicker than anything else. I love that you brought it up. Deal with it. It hurts. We are human. We have emotions but then you got to draw that.

I love that you put that hard stop because too many times, people are still dealing with a failure from years or decades ago and it is they cannot lift their heads up and move forward. They can't run with a baton because they are dragging this anchor behind them. You talked about contingency planning. We learned that in the military too. If it goes wrong and it's probably going to go wrong, that's okay. We learned a lot of good things in the military. There's always something else. You don't end the battle because something went wrong. You go back, you figure it out, and you get right back in there.

That's important. Over the process too, that it's again, that you are not unique. I won't be the first person this happened to and I won't be the last person this happened to. That helps combat the weariness and the letting it go that this was something that happened. I'm going to take the lesson learned and move forward. That's how I try to deal with the weariness, as having a good mindset moving into it.

Military Money Show: To deal with the weariness is having a good mindset moving into it.

Since this is my dad's stuff, the price of leadership, I will give you the line he would always tell me. Every time, I will be like, “This happened or I'm upset about this or can you believe this did this?” He'd look at me and say, “Is it anything worse than what happened to Jesus?” I'm like, “Oh.” It’s somewhat to what you said.

I will put it in perspective.

I'm like, “You did not throw that card.” I didn't ever pity partied him because it's like there are people that have been through a gazillion time stuff worse than me. Let's move on. He would always throw that Jesus card in there and that would shut the pity party down pretty quick.

My grandma always says, “If we all got together and put our problems on the table and we saw everybody else's. We probably pick ours up and turn around and leave the room.”

No kidding, isn't that the truth? Think about that. That's very sound wisdom. Loneliness and weariness. The next price that he talked about was abandonment. Typically, abandonment has this negative connotation. You are abandoning your job, your marriage, your pets, and your fear of abandonment. My father's speech talked about abandonment as stopping what you like and want to think about and do in favor of what you ought and need to do.

It's more of this pruning away. Abandoning what is not your highest purpose and focusing on what you need to. With all these different things and you are an entrepreneur. You are in the creative space and wealth is always growing and looking at different things. It's a changing industry. How do you stay tightly focused on your message, your brand, and what you want to do for your audience?

Going back to the point that who I serve is very much like family. I grew up in the military. I served, my husband and my siblings. That is important to me. I am authentic in that. I do want to help people improve their financial lives. That is my compass. That's my North Star. Also, my morals and values are who I am. In business, it's been very helpful many times, the things I'm not going to do more than what I am going to do is that I'm not comfortable with that. That is not going to help my community. That's going to help you. Knowing that I am trying to help my community, that's very helpful, and not being tempted by money.

I say a prayer all the time to never get greedy. That when it's right, it will come but I need to stay with my values and what I'm trying to do to help people. I try not to look around at other people. That is also very helpful. I'm happy for my peers or people around me that have more success, more money, or whatever it is that's not the path for me.

I feel like cutting my losses. To me, that's what abandonment is. The things that are dragging me down, are helping me towards the path that I'm supposed to be on. That's helpful. Sometimes that's hard to let go of the things you have worked so hard on, whether that be my podcast or my coaching business. Those types of things but I feel like it naturally starts to work itself out the path that you are supposed to be on and where your zone of genius is.

That's how I try to look at that as abandonment. Things I have had to let go of that this has moved me forward in an area that I love. That I get excited about versus handling the things that maybe I'm not as passionate about those things. I always think this is not forever. This is for now. There are things that I wish I could do better or that I could give more attention to.

For now, I need to focus and knock this one thing out of the park, then I can leap to the next lily pad and handle that one. Knock it out of the park, then move to the next one. To me, staying focused that way is very helpful because I do want to do well. I want to deliver well and what I'm trying to do and that helps let go of some things.

I love that you talked about sunken costs. One of my favorite book titles is Sacred Cows Make the Best Burgers. It's all about, there are times when you are going to have to look at something. Maybe for a season or you work so hard but throwing more money or time on it, it's not good. Knowing when to hold them and when to fold them.

I love that you talked about the parking lot mentality because we can juggle a lot of things so we have a lot of great ideas. I love it where you talked about, “No, I stay on this point. I finish this.” That other one, I always tell, “I'm going to put this in this parking lot here.” I have ten things I'm working on. The parking lot I'm in now, I have to finish this and I get calls all the time as I'm sure you do.

Have you thought about this? Yes, but I cannot spend any energy on this now because otherwise, I'm never going to get this one thing that I'm supposed to be getting done. I love that you talked about how you get focused on it. You are so grounded in who you are and who you want to serve. Your virtues and values keep you from getting pulled into areas of costly mistakes or even a six-month period looking at something or partnering with the wrong person. That will help you avoid a lot of the pitfalls that so many of us have made.

I try to think about it. In the military, I give no ground. All the things I have worked hard on, if I'm going to take on a new project, I give no ground on the things that are already built. That’s important. There needs to be systems and structures in place. Those run smoothly and I don't give any ground up while I'm working on this new thing. Where you put your energy is important. Again, it might not work out but if you are ready to move forward and give that thing a shot, give no ground in the other areas.

Can you unpack that a little bit more? I have never heard that before. Give no ground. Unpack that more because that's fascinating. I want to make sure I understand it.

For me, my business and my brand, are at the core of what I do, I help the military community with money but I do that in many different ways. I have found that to reach more people and to help more people, I have had to evolve my business in how I earn money. In the beginning, it was a coaching business then I started a show so I don't want to give ground on my coaching business.

That needs to have a good structure in place, so I have a system for every aspect of my business, which may seem not sexy but, to me, it is because those are the things that make you look good. It’s the systems that you have behind doors. I have a system to intake at this point all my business and my financial coaching clients then I could focus on my podcast. I had to create a system for my podcast because I don't want a very large team.

To me, that's more management. That's more leadership. Now, my goal is to help as many military people with money. I'm very mindful of that. Also, having the right people that I surround myself with and I give my energy to. Creating the podcast, I have to have a system for that. How am I going to intake clients or guests? How am I going to produce this and promote it? How am I going to make money off of this? I give no ground on my coaching that I could continue to do that while I built the podcast and then having the podcast.

More people doing outreach and speaking. I'm not giving ground on either my coaching business or my podcast but now I'm going to take on new opportunities because I have systems and structures in place. Those don't give any ground. Moving into creating MilMoneyCon, which may have seemed like something I shouldn't take on but to me, people kept coming for help. I wanted to provide a solution.

It ultimately helps service members with their money if there's a stronger financial force that serves them. Me, creating a conference, bringing those people together and continuing their education, networking, and empowering them leads to my main mission. I can't give ground on all those other things while I build the conference and so having systems and structures in place helps me give no ground.

I love that you said that this is what you are doing but you do it in many different ways. You had these tentacles coming down but everything is delineated. That's your second book, Give No Ground. I love that. The structure is sexy. I tell it because otherwise, the wing in it is just cavalier. It's like, “No, I'm in operations. I'm a project manager at heart.” I love processes because then you know what's going on. Our entrepreneurs or people that are transitioning into entrepreneurship. If you come from that background where you like structure and that right brain stuff or that left brain stuff, do what Lacey said. Make sure you are building stuff that fits nicely into it.

I love that you hit on that because a lot of times with entrepreneurs, people have different things that they are interested in. They all weave up into the same desire or purpose but they get very dichotomous about, “I can only focus on this.” I'm like, “Really?” Like you with the conference. I know you said, “Maybe I shouldn't have done this.” Yet in doing it, you created a synergy where your main goal was able to be multiplied and other speakers and resources were brought in. It amplified what you were trying to do. That's the true sweet spot.

Thank you. I learned a lot about building a business. When I started the conference, I was more prepared for failure, which made it a lot easier to take that leap because I'm not embarrassed by that anymore. Not that it's fun. Don't get me wrong. Going back to the 24-hour pity party. Knowing what my fallback position is and how I'm going to handle that and being smart about taking a calculated risk and then getting the mentorship. Also, very clear on that. If I want to do this, I need to align myself with people that have put on events and conferences that can support me and be a good sounding board.

I love to be prepared for failure. Charles, again, who wrote this speech was quite humorous. He was like, “I don't like to fail, but if you don't learn to laugh at your problems, you are never even going to be in the ring of the game,” because you have to be able to like, not self-deprecating but laugh, smile, own it, and move on and dust off the failure and get going on. Otherwise, if you are stepping out at anything because everybody is sitting back waiting for somebody else to do it. I love that you said that be prepared for failure and it doesn't hold you back at all.

My little brother always says to me, “If it was so easy, everybody would be doing it.” It's not. That is my mantra too, and I tell myself that I'm not the first. I won't be the last. Any negative things that happen but also the positive things. I don't want to wrap my identity around being a podcaster or financial coach. There are many aspects to me. I don't want to then lose that then impact me in a negative way. I do try to keep perspective about whatever is happening to me.

Loneliness, awareness, abandonment, and the last point my father talked about was vision. We have heard in the good book, Proverbs, where there is no vision that the people fail. Sometimes when I would hear vision as a young leader, I'm like, “I'm more practical. I'm more tactical. I'm not this big Nostradamus type of person.”

My father always taught me, “Tracey, vision is seeing what needs to be done and then doing it.” It was always this attraction plus action equals vision. Otherwise, you are in this blue sky land. Lacey, can you unpack what vision means for you? How do you hone it? Do you have a vision board? Do you go away for a retreat? Do you have strategic planning? How do you do it?

Vision is so important in entrepreneurship and that is the spark that ignites everything to why you are doing this thing. Again, it's not easy. Not everybody wants to do it. For many people, it's foreign. I didn't come from a family of big entrepreneurs. I come from a family of military service. Going into entrepreneurship was a foreign concept to me and a lot of learning. In hindsight, looking back, a business is like your imaginary friend. In the beginning, only you see it.

You are trying to describe this thing to the people that you love and your friends. You might be putting some money into your imaginary friend. It's so hard for other people to see your vision and that's the job of an entrepreneur is to get this out of your head and make it a reality. It's a real boy like Pinocchio. We have built this thing and now it is walking and talking. Now other people can see it. That's a good perspective to have.

It is like, “In the beginning, you are not going to get it. I don't need to try to explain it. I know what I need to do in order to make this thing happen. I have got to start creating the steps to make it happen or figuring out how to make it happen.” It is something you are seeing or feeling. You are motivated like this attraction that you mentioned. It's the driving force and it's these steps to make it a reality then people believe, and then people get behind you. I don't fault people for that because they didn't see it like I did and vice versa.

If somebody came to me and as like, “We are going to start this thing called Google.” I'd be like, “That's a crazy name. Why would we need that?” It's the beginning. Only you see your vision. That's a healthy perspective to have in that and it's so important to go after it. The way I deal with vision is I try to get out. All the things we talked about, systems, and structures are important. Most importantly, it leaves room for you to be creative and follow your passions or those sparks to be like, “I have some time. This system is working in this part of my business. Now, I can daydream.”

A lot of it comes to me when I'm running or I'm outside. I keep my phone on me. I will be running and coming up with something that's going to be part of a presentation. I will stop running and I will type that into my notes so I have that then I keep running. I let my mind go where it wants to go because that is the space that I have made for it to happen. If you max yourself out, stress yourself out, and don't have a plan for how you are going to cope in business, it’s stifling to your vision.

Vision is a future thing. As you said, I love that you called it daydreaming because that is something that we have to allow ourselves to think outside the box. I also love that you said a business is like your imaginary friend. Sometimes, we have to load money on our imaginary friends. To our readers out there, if you are making the leap, as I said, I like Lacey came from the military to Fortune 100, so bureaucracy, paycheck, and all of a sudden, you are like, “Whoa.” I can remember not everybody does want to do it but there are going to be times and I say this to the readers out there, if you are having to write a check to your imaginary friend, it's okay.

Please don't think you failed because hopefully, you have enough saved up. If you don't, there have been many times when I pulled out my checkbook and said, “We have to cover expenses.” It's what you do in the beginning because you are pouring everything of yours but it's your baby. That's what you do. I'm glad you brought that up because we don't talk about that. I'm not making ends meet. I have to go back and take a job again.

Maybe but let's look at this because very few people are in their first year out, what is it? The first year your business sleeps then it creeps then it leaps. It takes time to build that book of business, especially in coaching or financial planning. If you stick with it and build that with speaking, writing, podcasting, or with everything, it takes time.

It does. I didn't realize how much time it would take but now, I'm enjoying that climb. Everything that I'm doing, I'm not in a rush because I am enjoying what I'm doing. I am enjoying helping other people and having a positive impact. It goes back to leadership, which is that what I do has a positive impact on people. The stronger I am, the more work I do or more importantly, the more productive work that I do. Not just work for work's sake but what I accomplish can do more toward my mission and the people I'm serving. That's important.

Also, too, when you are building this thing that's your imaginary friends. Surround yourself with people that believe and those are fellow entrepreneurs. People that have been there. They are not going to laugh because they have a bunch of imaginary friends lined up in addition to the one that they already built. They have that mindset and so they understand. They are going to say, “It's okay. This thing didn't work out. Get up again. Do it again.” If that didn't work out, get up and do it again. They are going to be like, “Stay positive.” They understand the struggle and the mental capacity and fortitude it takes to build a business.

Understand the struggle and the mental capacity and fortitude it takes to build a business.

I appreciate you saying that. I love that you are in the thick of it because as you are coaching, I always think it's good. People would say to me, “Can you tell us how you got successful?” I always say, “When I do, I will come back and check it and let you know what it took.” How do you measure this? I thank God that I could do what I love, can pay my bills, have some leftovers to give away, and save and how do we measure this? I may not be wealthy but my life is rich. I love that you are still in this. When you are dealing with people because you get to a point where you are just so successful. It's like, “What if you would have been on the ground floor at Google? What if you would be worth $500 billion?”

There are people like that but the rest of us are in the thick of it that want to retire well. I love that you are still in it because they can look at you and you can tell them, “You will get there.” I may be one lap around ahead of you. I used to be sensitive about that. Am I successful enough to talk about this? If you are one step ahead, you need to share with people because they need to know. They may be wanting to quit on that step. You need to do and I love that you are authentic about that.

I can't even count the number of times I have wanted to quit but I'm so stubborn. When you look back and like, “All the work I have put in.” It's like, no. Again, I'm giving no ground.

Charles would say that too and he's like, “You can want to quit all you want, just don't do it.” He goes, “I thought about quitting Monday or Tuesday.” He goes, “On Wednesday, I thought of a reason I never even thought of before to quit but I don't do it.” Since then, he's made millions of dollars wanting to quit but he didn't do it. Lacey, thank you for that. We talked about loneliness, weariness, abandonment, and vision. This is the leadership show and anything else that we haven't touched on that you would like to share with our readers?

You never know as a leader the impact that you have. When I look back at some of the amazing leaders that have impacted my life, I always think I should look them up because they have no idea that one little thing that they did for me set an example that I'm now using as a leader myself. That's something to remember. All of the things you are doing to run your business and make an opportunity, make things happen are the people around you that you are impacting that see you trying. Seeing you not quit, get back up after failure, and not let it go to your head when you have a major opportunity to have a little bit of success. That's important to remember the positive impact you have on others.

Remember the positive impact you have on others.

How do people get in touch with you?

The best way is at LaceyLangford.com or you can connect with me on LinkedIn. Either of those is wonderful or you could check out MilMoneyCon.com.

Tell us about your podcast.

The Military Money Show is to help the military community make, save, and invest money wisely, which is more focused on having guests talk about those topics. Also, I do solo shows but it's trying to help people get to where they want to be with money and have confidence in what they are doing.

Military Money Show: The military money show is to help the military community make, save and invest money wisely.

I know probably at least a third to maybe half of our audience is prior military, active duty military, or has a family member that's in the military. Can they reach out to you as far as if they are looking to make a transition or for some coaching advisement on not being afraid of money?

LaceyLangford.com has all the information about my coaching.

I can't thank you enough. It was so wonderful to know your thoughts. You inspired me. You made me laugh and jot down a whole bunch of scribbles. I thank you for all you are doing. I thank you that you saw a space that needed to be done that you are so committed to what you are doing and that you are fierce and you are not giving up. That is leadership in its purest form.

Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate that and the kind words.

You are welcome. I look forward to serving with you on the committee too. Lots of great times ahead.

I'm looking forward to that.

To our readers out there, we want to thank you so much for tuning in. If you would do us the honor of a five-star review, we'd be so thankful. Be sure and hit the subscribe button and share this with somebody that you think may be interested in it. Also, be sure and connect with Lacey. Remember, my father always said that you are going to be the same person years from now that you are now, except for two things, the people you meet and the books you read. You have a tremendous individual to connect with Ms. Lacey here. I want to thank you all for continuing to pay the price of leadership. Have a tremendous rest of your day. Bye-bye.

Important Links

• Military Money Show

• MilMoneyCon

• American College of Financial Services

• Center for Military and Veterans Affairs

• Sacred Cows Make the Best Burgers

• LaceyLangford.com

• LinkedIn – Lacey Langford

About Lacey Langford

Lacey Langford, AFC®, is a financial coach, veteran, and military spouse who changes people’s mindset from being fearful of money to having control and confidence with it. She’s an Accredited Financial Counselor® with over 15 years of financial planning, counseling, and coaching experience. Lacey’s the founder and CEO of the Military Money Show, a podcast dedicated to helping the military community make, save, and invest money wisely, and MilMoneyCon, an annual conference for financial professionals united by military service.

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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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."

Episode 160 - James Carpenter Barnes - Leaders On Leadership

What does it take to pay the price of leadership? Leadership has one of the most challenging paths to track, but it is a beautiful calling. In today’s episode, James Carpenter Barnes, Ph.D., gives light into leaders on leadership to become more like the Creator. He explains how vision provides the ability to see amid loneliness, weariness, and abandonment. So, what fogs the clarity of your vision, and what fuels it? James is here to fulfill his mission to inspire everyone to become more like the Creator! Tune in to this inspiring episode and become a tremendous leader!

http://Life-Imagined.org

http://theyoubelongfoundation.org

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James Carpenter Barnes - Leaders On Leadership

In this episode, I am so excited to introduce my special guest, Dr. James H. Carpenter Barnes. He is a Christian American Author and Public Speaker. He writes supernatural fiction thrillers and nonfiction books on scriptural-based personal development. His mission is to inspire all of creation to become more like the Creator. We love that here. James, thank you so much for being here.

Thank you. I'm so honored to be a part of what you're doing touching lives and changing lives. That's what it's all about. That is the ministry of reconciliation, bringing humanity in connection with the Creator for us to begin to imitate Him, to duplicate the part of Him that is within us, within other people. Nothing else matters in this life but duplicating the Spirit of God within us, within others and sharing it and enhancing lives.

For the readers out there, I met James in Santa Monica, California, when I was out there for the ETHOS Film Festival and got to see a documentary premiere that many of you that are our followers have heard about. I got to meet James and see a documentary he created, which hopefully, we're going to talk about a little bit at the end. It's been wild these past few weeks, James, and what a blessing how providential that we got to connect at that event.

That was a blessing. Between me, you and the gate post, as they used to say in the South, you were my favorite.

You're tremendous, James. Let's get started. The readers out there love learning all about what different leaders have gone through in their journeys. Leadership is one of the toughest things we're going to do, but it is such a beautiful calling and a triumph. My father gave a speech called The Price of Leadership. It’s probably the top speech that he ever gave. In it, he unpacks the four things that you are going to encounter as a leader if you're going to be paying the price of leadership and not just calling yourself a leader.

James, the first one he talked about was loneliness. We've all heard that it's lonely at the top or heavy is the head that wears the crown. Can you unpack for our readers what loneliness and leadership mean for you and maybe a season when you were in it? Are there any words of counsel that you would give to them?

First of all, loneliness is very different from being alone. Loneliness is an emotional state that you're in. Being alone is a physical condition and it's temporary. You can change it at any given time but loneliness is different. There is a separation between that person and those that are around them. The reason for that is for you to learn the importance of hearing the voice of the Creator.

If you're a spiritual leader, you have to be able to hear the voice of the Creator of the Spirit of God. You have to be able to hear clearly. That's one of the reasons a lot of leaders have difficulty in making crucial decisions because there are so many voices they're hearing. They're hearing so many different sounds. The scriptures say that there are many voices and none of them are without signification. Many of the voices that we hear are not the voice that we need to be listening for.

I learned it early on in my walk as a believer and as I began ministry back in 1982, which is many years ago. The first thing I learned was loneliness because I lived in a car on the lakefront of Chicago. I would sleep at the Field Museum. I slept in the Museum of Science and Industry parking lot and Shedd Aquarium’s parking lot.

Every night, I'd have to move around to three different locations before the sun came up because the police kept making me move. Some nights, I would be in the car. I used to read the Concordance in my Bible. One night, a police officer came up. He tapped on the window. It was raining. It was real heavy rain and my car is sitting over in the cut. He came over and tapped on the window. I had my Bible. He said, “Are you reading a Bible?” I said, “Yes, I am.”

He looked at the Bible and he looked at me. He said, “You can't stay here. You're going to have to move.” I said, “Okay, officer. I'll move on to my other location.” The thing about loneliness is that it's a mechanism that God uses in any person that is of any significance on Earth. The reason for that is that He wants us to understand the importance of our dependence on Him because when you don't go through that preparation, you're susceptible to external input that can discolor your spirit and your focus. It can fog the clarity of your vision, which we're going to talk about.

Loneliness is a mechanism God uses in everyone to understand the importance of our dependence on Him. Because when you don't go through that preparation, you're susceptible to external input that can fog the clarity of your vision.

The beginning point is loneliness. Once you adapt, loneliness is an excellent place to be because if you think about it, Jesus, in his walk on the Earth was lonely but He was never alone. He would go apart to be in solitude to be or to communicate with the Father. If you notice, the Bible never talks about what Jesus said when He would go apart to pray. He never talked about it. The scriptures didn't mention it. The disciples didn't write about it because they didn't know.

They wrote about everything else but they couldn't write about that. What that means is that your solitude is very personal. It's between you and the Creator. That mechanism of loneliness is part of the attrition because it hones away the desire for popularity. It hones away the desire to be seen and to be recognized. It hones you to a fine edge where when you go through that, you are a different person when you're done with that loneliness process.

James, unpack for me a little bit of back your background. How did the Bible wind up in your car with you? Were you raised in a church?

I used to be a drug dealer. I was a musician. I played in the band. First of all, I was a pre-med student at DePaul University. Ending my junior year, my brother had a band. I'm a musician as well. My brother needed a guitar player. I was supposed to go play tennis with Dr. Crozet at Midtown Tennis Club.

He was going to help me get into medical school. I was supposed to play tennis with him and a couple of judges. I was moving into a different world and I went back into music. When I went back into music, I got back into drugs because I wasn't a believer. I wound up moving into an apartment where there had been some type of ritual that took place there.

The people told me later after I went through my ordeal. They told me that a woman had been murdered in that apartment. While in that apartment, some evil forces got ahold of me and that was what the Creator used to get my attention and say, “You need to make a change and you need to make it now.” Many of us know that crisis is the catalyst for change. Until that crisis happens, many of us skip to my loo right along through life, thinking everything's okay, then we wind up in a bad spot.

At that point, I couldn't stay in that apartment. I wound up living in my car that entire summer of 1982. The Lord blessed me finally with another apartment in September of that same year. During that time, June, July, August into September, I lived in the car. I would go to this place called Soul Queen Restaurant. I would eat all I could hold in that one meeting because it was all you could eat. I'd go there once a day and I would get stuffed.

I didn't go back to my mom's house. I went there. I lived in the car. I ate a Soul Queen and I would go to my mom's to take a shower or whatever but I would leave. I spent my time fasting, praying, reading, and studying. I would fast Thursday, Friday, and Saturday and all-day Sunday. That's all I did but my growth was so rapid from 1982. I started traveling as an evangelist in 1984.

It was a couple of years that I began ministry but I had to because of what I came out of. Even in the apartment that I got, there would be spirits walking through the house. I had to learn to take dominion over these things. That's why I know that loneliness is to hone you to a fine edge where you become a weapon, not only spiritually but naturally as well. You're able to help other people because you've been there, you've done that, and you know how to deal with it.

I love that you called it the beginning point and that it's in a mechanism. As you said, loneliness is different from being alone but I have never heard it unpacked like that. Don't we all have to get that desire for popularity and to see it? That's what's driving all this mental illness and this narcissism going on now. Stop. I love that you drew to that. God got to get you alone, even if it's in a car. What better place than that?

The next thing my father talked about is weariness. He would joke and say, “Tracey, you're always going to have some people do way more than what they need to do as a leader and a lot of people that do way less. The buck stops with you, so you have to be able to make it all happen and be on your game.” How do you combat weariness and how do you stay strong, James?

Without going too far ahead because each one of these works in tandem. There's something in the scripture called compound conjunction. That's when you'll see the spirit of love, joy, and peace. What that means is that each component is linked by that conjunction but it needs that to rest upon the next adjective of interpretation. Each description rest upon the other.

Loneliness rest upon weariness, the next one, and so on. The scripture says, “Be not weary in well-doing.” The reason for that is that there are going to be challenges that come to dissuade you and discourage you. The reason Paul wrote that is that he'd experienced frustration. He'd experienced being tired in his body. His spirit is willing but his flesh is weak and we all experienced that.

We have to keep in the forefront of our minds that we have an assignment, a mission, and a vision. Be it in sales, as a writer, in television, movies, music, teaching, taking care of children or dealing with children with special needs or special circumstances. You're going to need that because there are going to be people that fail you that let you down.

We have to keep in the forefront of our minds that we have an assignment, a mission, and a vision.

There are going to be times you're going to have to do your part and theirs. You cannot allow the fatigue or the lexical disposition of another to dissuade your fire and your passion because passion is the fuel that enables you to keep going with your vision when the circumstances have gone against you. When the situation has turned sour, it's no longer sweet and its taste is no longer enjoyable. There are no more people saying, “That's awesome what you're doing. I wish I could do that.” None of that's happening.

You're in the dark now. You're in a dark place. You're dealing with loneliness. You're tired. You are weary. You cannot become weary if you are knowing that you're doing well. The scriptures also say, “Let patients have her perfect work.” The reason James wrote her is that women nurture and bring forth life. That was the reason he used that pronoun. He could have said it or him but he said her. The reason for that is that patience enables you to endure weariness and loneliness. Again, it's honing you, preparing you, and prepping you for that which is to come which we are going to talk about in a little bit.

Leaders On Leadership: Patience enables you to endure weariness and loneliness.

I love how you took weariness and put patience into it because a lot of times it's like, “You got to stay suited up and strong.” You do but a lot of times patience is put to work. I love that. Thank you so much. Loneliness, weariness and now the next term he used is abandonment. A lot of times people think about abandoning a marriage, a child, or a pet. It has a negative connotation but in the price of leadership context, my father talked about how you need to stop doing what you like and want to do in favor of what you ought and need to do.

I can remember looking at him and saying, “How'd you get so successful?” He would say to me, “Tracey, I do more in a day to contribute to my failure than my success.” He kept honing in. You have to be focused. There are all these other distractions. You talked about the voices and he talked about abandonment and that you have to stay hyper-focused on your purest calling. As you said, these are building on each other. James, you've been through a lot of different things. As an evangelist and a writer, you've done these different things, how do you abandon and stay on point and on focus?

The thing I remember about abandonment is this. It’s a twofold thing. There's withdrawing or shedding and there's also the abandonment of people leaving you. I always use Jesus as the example because He's so perfect. When we think about abandonment, a lot of times we hear scripture and we have seen it depicted in films. The night that Jesus was betrayed, Judas came with the 30 pieces of silver and betrayed him with a kiss on the cheek. Peter cut off the soldier's ear and then Jesus healed it.

He told him, “Don't you know I can call twelve legions of angels if I wanted to? My father would wipe out the planet if need be.” The thing was they abandoned Him at the most crucial point of God's plan for men of reconciliation, creating a system to propitiate men from sin and reconcile us back to the Creator. They scattered and ran. Why? It’s because they had to. If they'd hung around and fought, they would have impeded the sacrifice that needed to take place at Calvary.

If they had hung around, they would have been a hindrance rather than a help in God's plan for mankind. So it is with the things we have to shed in this life. When I became a believer, I love music. I was one of the best guitar players in Chicago based in my opinion. I gave all my equipment away. I gave my guitar away. I gave everything away to my younger brother and to other guys in the band I was playing with.

We were in the recording studio. We were recording with one guy that was the band leader who tour with Earth, Wind & Fire. We had the horn section from the commodore. We were in the studio recording. When I got saved, I said, “I'm done with this. I'm out.” My brother was devastated because I used to write a lot of the music for the band. It threw things in disarray. I'm sorry but I had to abandon them.

In a sense, they had to move away because I needed to launch out into a place where they couldn't go. There was nobody else in the boat with me but the Spirit of the Lord and His Word. It was on that sea of loneliness and weariness. I'm out there by myself and I had to let these things go. The reason you have to let them go is that they will be an anchor, a hindrance.

Paul wrote in the book of Hebrews to lay aside the weight and the sin. Now weights aren't necessarily a sin. He said weights and sin, which means they're two different things. The weights can be people, places, things, habits, or things that you enjoy. It could be your diet, your best friend, your parents, your job or a hobby that you have. It could even be something religious. You're tied to a religious organization but it's a hindrance to what you have been assigned to do.

You have to let be willing to abandon things and allow people to abandon you because in the long run, like the scripture says, “Be not weary in well-doing. You will reap if you faint not.” It’s just as Jesus told a rich young ruler, “You've done all these things up to this time.” The Scripture said, “Jesus looked on that rich young rule and he loved him.” He said, “There's one thing you lack. You need to sell all your wealth and riches. Give it to the poor. Take up your cross and follow me.” He said, “You asked a hard thing.”

In other words, in our vernacular, he was saying, “I understand what you're saying but do you know how much money I have? Do you know how rich I am? Do you know how much Bitcoin and gold I have? Do you realize what billions of dollars I have? Do you want me to give it up and go carry your cross? I'm sorry, I can't.” He wasn't willing to abandon the wealth.

Jesus told the disciples. The disciples were like, “If that's the case, who can be saved?“ Jesus said, “Anybody that gives up their mother, father, sister, brother, houses, or land in this life for my sake and the gospel will receive a hundredfold in this life.” When we allow ourselves to not only be abandoned because sometimes that abandonment opens the door for a replacement, it's like a spaceship.

Leaders On Leadership: Abandonment opens the door for a replacement.

A spaceship has 2 or 3 stages and that first stage falls off because it's no longer needed. It becomes a hindrance. Once it has expended its fuel capacity, it falls off. The second stage is the same thing. It served its purpose to launch that capsule into the ionosphere beyond the earth's atmosphere. Now it doesn't need as much fuel because there's no gravity.

You need more energy to break the barrier of the earth's atmosphere. It takes more energy and more power. It’s a different type of power, a different type of energy to lift a movement, a work, a business, a dream, or a vision from ground zero into lofty places. It doesn't get there overnight. You got to expend that level of passion and support and when it's done, it's served its purpose. It's nothing against who or what it was that carried you there. It served its purpose and then it goes forward. Eventually, you are going to fall off and someone going to take up. If it's a work of the Lord, if it's a work of the Kingdom of God, you're going to fall off because you will have served your purpose.

First of all, as an amateur astronomer and sci-fi fan, I love the spaceship analogy. Our readers know that but I love that you talked about that. I love the fact that when you talk about abandonment, I hope this gives our readers. I hope it gives you zah for your soul. A lot of us think, “Somebody who was in my life left or I had to leave somebody.”

You're right, it's not just us doing the shedding. Sometimes we get shed. When Jesus said to his disciples, “You can't come with me,” I'm sure that was not a fine conversation because they were like, “What do you mean we can't?” “I'm going to a place where you can't go.” “What do you mean, Rabbi teacher? You're supposed to be doing this.” I love that you talked about that.

For our readers out there, you can look back to the people that were in your life for a season and they're not there anymore. Sometimes it was a good separation. Other times like a rocket ship. It was a violent falling away or whatever but as you said, James, there's always a reason for it. Understand that reason and I love that you talked about and the trajectory. We'll have our place where we're helping lift other little rocket ships off and watching people, sending off all his stuff and then it's off for you to go do off to glory and for the next person to come up. I am going to read this session again and again. I could sit and listen to you for hours, James.

What's interesting and what's powerful is this. Dr. Tracey, once you break free of the Earthly realm, your dad's already done it, then you can accelerate into the immeasurable vastness that our Creator is still creating. Physicists have proven that the universe is growing at an accelerated rate. God is still creating. There's a reason for that. We have assignments. Once we leave this earth, there are other things.

Once you break free of the earthly realm, you can accelerate into the immeasurable vastness that our creator is still creating.

This physical body stops but we do not stop in him because we are connected to the life of God. This is a launching pad to take us to the higher heights and the deeper depths of the creation. When you stop and you think about that, the life we live here, even the way we handle our money, the way our discipline, our qualities, all of that goes with us.

What we're going to be doing in heaven? I tell people, “Do you want to be unemployed in heaven? No. You better get to work right now because what he's honing for you now is what you're going to be doing for all eternity. This is the proving ground. Do it down here in this age where it's not meant to be because we're going to be doing it for an eternity and perfection.”

We're being prepared, plain and simple.

Loneliness, weariness, abandonment which we could go on and on for that but the last one is vision. James, the vision that Jesus has or some of these people that think otherworldly. My father would always say, “Tracey, vision is nothing more than seeing what needs to be done and doing it.” Jesus said that too, “The harvest is full but the laborers are few.” There's so much out there to do. Vision is not just seeing it but there's this execution. It's putting it into action. Can you share with our readers how you continue to hone your vision and keep propelling to the next level?

Vision is crucial. Vision is what the seven streams of revenue that exist. There's wisdom, vision, and knowledge in this application, a good name, relationships, real estate in land and investments and silver and gold and money. Money is number 7 out of the 7. 1) Wisdom. 2) Vision. Vision is significant to acquiring and maintaining wealth. Why is that? To have vision enables you to see in the midst of the darkness of loneliness, in the midst of the darkness of weariness and in the midst of being abandoned.

To have vision enables you to see amid the darkness of loneliness, the darkness in weariness, and the midst of being abandoned.

Vision gives you a supernatural ability to see in the midst. You could be perfectly blinded. The reason vision is still able to see is that vision is within you. There's one thing to see but to have the vision, you can see it with your eyes closed or your eyes open. When you're going through dark places and through difficulty, it’s like what you were saying. Your dad would say, “You see something that needs to be done.”

Sometimes if you don't have a vision, you can't see what needs to be done because of the minutiae and noise you're surrounded by. You're so concerned about how lonely you are. You don't have any friends. You're so concerned about how tired you are. You're so concerned about who's left you, who's no longer working with you, or who's no longer supporting you. I had people, they were giving and now I don't have anybody. Yes, you do.

The scripture says plainly, “Casting all care upon Him for He cares for you.” That is what is our hope in enabling us to consistently maintain our vision, write the vision, and make it plain that see you fit can run with patience the race that is set before them. Who's going to see the vision? You're going to see it. Your angels see it. Who was working with you can see it with their eyes closed or eyes open. If they're blind in one eye and can't see out the other, they could still see that vision because it's inside. It's within you and nothing can get to it because it's protected by the girding of the loins of your mind.

It's protected. It can't be affected like I was saying earlier about being able to make a decision. If you've got a vision, you don't have a problem making a decision because you see clearly what needs to be done. Jesus did not see. He did not perceive with the natural eyes of man. He saw as God saw. Vision is essential. Vision is the rope that ties the other 3 qualities and the 4 legs of that table of leadership.

Leaders On Leadership: Vision is the rope, the tie that ties the other three qualities, the four legs of that leadership table.

Vision is in the right corner. It’s the cornerstone that ties the whole thing together because as long as you can see, as long as you can perceive, you don't have to worry about money. You don't have to worry about abandonment, loneliness, and weariness because you can see yourself. You can see the light where there isn't a light. You can see it because you're seeing God's plan for your life in your vision, in your mind's eye. That's what we have to look at. That's what I've always looked at.

I'm going to share something with you. Many years ago, in September of 1982, I was in the prayer room at our church. I thought, at that time, that it had been three months. Three months before, I was selling drugs. I'm ready to go forth now. I need $120,000 to fund my ministry. I had learned that much in those three months.

Do you know what the Lord told me? He said, “I'm going to teach you how to invest your money to get that amount of money.” I said, “Awesome.” That was 1982. 1992 came and 2002 came, so I got into real estate. I was buying and selling real estate. I had real estate that I didn't even see that I owned. I was buying and selling silver bullion coins. I had real estate with tennis. I had properties I was flipping. My head was this big. It was so big I could hardly get in a car. I had to slide into the car. My head had gotten so big and God allowed that.

He allowed me to have all of that and then lose it all. Now, fast forward to 1982, 1992, 2002, 2012 and then 2022, God revealed and gave me the opportunity. It was nothing I did. He put me in the spot. As I said, God will put you in that spot for something that he wants you to have when you're ready for it. He put me in a position where I will very soon have that money that he promised me. That's not going to do with anything else. This was a hunk of money I asked for.

He put me in a position where I will have that money. What's interesting, I did the math on it and $120,000 in 1982 is $340,000 in 2022 money, which is the exact amount that I have. I used to trade stocks. I did options and made money but I didn't make money like I didn't have to do anything. God did it. My point is that when you go through these things and you maintain your vision. I maintained my focus on serving. I've always been a servant. I've always sought to help. I was never called to be a pastor. I never tried to be a pastor. My function was to serve whoever needed it.

At my church, I played guitar. I was a soul-winner. I was a Sunday school teacher. I taught twelve-year-olds and teenagers. I took the garbage out at the church. I did some of everything. I never sought to be some great somebody. It wasn't in me. Even now, that's my nature. It’s to serve. When I met you, I was serving Dr. Dentley. I got two television shows on his network and he asked me to come out to be a part of what he was doing there because he knows how I am and the quality of work that I do.

When I'm committed to something, that's all I see. I don't worry about what someone else is doing or being weary. If I'm in a place of service, that is what I do. That's the reason I connected with you because you have that heart to serve. The scriptures say of all things in leadership, “If you desire to be a leader and you don't have the heart to serve, to be the last one fed, to be the one to turn the lights out, to be the one there to open the door when things open up, then you need to think again about being a leader.” The first prerequisite for being a leader, Jesus said, “Those who would be great among you, let him be the servant of all.”

James, we're wrapping it up with loneliness, weariness, abandonment, and vision. What else have we not hit on? I love how you've tied it together. You called it the table of leadership. Each of these are one of the legs, and it’s beautiful. I had never thought about it like that. Is there anything else that we have not touched on that you would like to share with our readers?

There are people who've been designated to read this. I know that because of the calling I saw my life. My voice is for certain ears. When the ears hear it, they'll recognize and there will be an inner witness. Do not be discouraged and the good that you're doing. Do not be disheartened in the efforts that you put forth, the sacrifices that you've made, and the credit that you did not yet.

A monument has been set for you before the throne of the Creator. It’s a monument with your name on it that highlights the work that you've done. You will move into the place that God has ordained because God is raising up those who are last to be first in these end times. Don't be discouraged. Be of good cheer. As Paul said, “Be a good cheer.” Jesus said, “Be a good cheer. I'm coming aboard. We’re going to go to shore.” God is coming. He's going to meet you. He's going to visit you and you're going to see a sudden acceleration and change in your life. In 2023, this new coming year is a year of higher heights and maximum production.

Leaders On Leadership: God is raising those who are last to be first in these end times.

James, I love that. Thank you so much. You said you have a couple of shows going on. How do people get in touch with you, James? I know our readers are going to want to connect with you.

I have two shows on the JD3 Network and now, they're updating the network, so I don't know if they're taking it offline or what, but it will be our real cool. Also, I'm on YouTube. I'm also on Creative Motion Television, The NOW Network and ADtv. I have shows on there as well. You can go to our website, Life-Imagined.org. We also have a nonprofit, TheYouBelongFoundation.org.

The You Belong Foundation is a foundation where we serve the needs and we provide services and resources to members of the special needs community and their families. I have a special needs son, Christian. We endeavor to reach out to encourage the parents, especially a special needs child because many times they feel alone. They feel abandoned and isolated, and they need to know that they are not alone. That is our slogan, “You are not alone.” That's our focus.

I’ve got to tell you something, James. There are a couple of things you said that ignited my soul. I thank you for the wisdom, for your work, and for your using your talents to glorify God. You certainly achieved your goal of helping His creation want to be more like the Creator. I can't thank you enough for your wisdom. I know our readers are going to be very blessed, and I look forward too. It's only been weeks but if this is the pace it's going to be on, that's all right by me.

I'm looking forward to it.

Thank you. For our readers out there, thank you so much for being part of our Tremendous Tribe. If you enjoy this episode, please do us the honor of getting on to wherever you read. Give us a five-star review, hit the like button, subscribe, and also share so other leaders out there can understand what it takes to pay the price of leadership. Thank you again, James, for being a part of this discussion. To our tremendous leaders out there, you have a tremendous day, and keep on paying the price of leadership.

 Important Links

• James H. Carpenter Barnes

• TheYouBelongFoundation.org

• Life-Imagined.org

• YouTube – James Barnes

• Creative Motion Television

• The NOW Network

• ADtv

About James H. Carpenter Barnes

James H. Carpenter Barnes, Ph.D., is a Christian American author and public speaker. He writes supernatural fiction thrillers and non-fiction books on scriptural based personal development. His mission is to inspire all of creation to become more like the Creator.

Episode 154 - Allen Joines - Leaders on Leadership

If there is one thing constant in this ever-changing world, it is that nothing is impossible with God. Today’s guest, Allen Joines, is proof of that. Despite life’s obstacles, he reinvented himself from being a dock worker and janitor to a Pastor and successful business owner in the telecommunication industry. All of his success, he owes to God’s grace. He joins Dr. Tracey Jones to share with us his journey and the price of leadership he had to pay. Allen gives insights about loneliness, weariness, abandonment, and vision. At the end of the day, he reminds us that no matter how tough being a leader is, our faith in God and our purpose will always be greater. And that God will see us through it all.

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Allen Joines - Leaders on Leadership

I am so excited because my very special guest is Allen Joines. Allen has been a lifelong learner and follower of Christ for years. Despite life obstacles, he reinvented himself by God's grace from dock worker and janitor to regional HR Manager of a Fortune 500 company to a Pastor. He relocated a small congregation to a 46-acre campus to a successful business owner in the telecommunication industry. For many years, Allen has been a high-energy communicator sharing his belief that anything is possible with God. He lives in South Central PA with Diane, his wife of 43 years. They enjoy time with their 6 grown children and 11 grandchildren. Allen, it's such an honor to have you here.

Thank you so much, Tracey. It's a pleasure and a joy to be here.

For our readers out there, you've read Allen's background and he's going to unpack the Price of Leadership for us. Allen, you've been in the Jones family for many decades. Could you share a little bit about your interaction with my father?

It goes back a long way. First of all, my love for books brought him into the executive bookstore. I was discipling men at the time, so I was buying books for other men, and we were talking about books. That's how I started. Walking into that bookstore, you didn't walk out with one book. You walked out armfuls. Over the years, Tremendous and I developed a friendship there because of the love for books and reading. That's how it started.

It became my monthly journey to the bookstore to get my shot of enthusiasm and encouragement along the way. That's how my relationship with your dad grew. It was an amazing journey. I loved your father. He made you think. I love the way he phrased things and the way he presented things. You walked out of there encouraged and thinking differently than when you walked in. It was such a blessing to know your dad.

It's wonderful still to have you as a part of the Tremendous Family. We're going to talk a little bit about all the wonderful things God has going on in your life, but first of all, let us unpack the Price of Leadership, a speech my father gave years ago that still continues to be one of his most requested topics because everybody bemoans, "Where are the good leaders?" There's a price to pay. That could be why most people shy away from leadership, but let's unpack that.

The first thing he talks about in the Price of Leadership, he has that little booklet is he talks about loneliness. We've all heard that it's lonely at the top or heavy as the head that wears the crown, but can you talk to me about what loneliness means for you as a leader and perhaps some insights for our readers out there, if they might be in a season of loneliness?

The big thing about loneliness is realizing that you're never alone. You think you are, but you're not.

The big thing about loneliness is realizing that you're never alone. You think you are, but you're not. Our faith and our purpose must be greater than our feelings. With the different work I've done and jobs I've had, our emotions sometimes get in the way. We think we're alone, but we're not. I often asked God to help me. "Give me enough courage to keep moving but not too much to make me proud."

He's good at that. Sometimes we need that sense of downtime or loneliness in our life, so we can quiet ourselves and be in a place where he would want to take us or where he's leading us. The other thing about loneliness was different times in my experience, and it's in my book, whenever he would bring special people into my life to help me during a certain time to remind me, "You're not alone."

Elijah thought he was all by himself and God said, "What are you babying about?" There are 7,000 that had to bow a knee. You're not alone, but he didn't know and realized that. That's the one thing that we need. In our work world or spiritual journey, that is a key lesson to learn and realize that even though we feel lonely, we're not alone. That has helped me on my journey through whatever I've been journeying through.

We are never alone. People say, "Where is God?" No, it's where you are. He's right there. Stop pushing him away. We have the ultimate advocate and the Holy Spirit. Stop thumb sucking, as dad would say.

It's like you're here standing out in the rain getting rained on and the whole time there's an umbrella you can move under. Too many times, we allow our emotions to dictate circumstances.

I love that when you say faith and purpose have to be greater than feeling. “As a man thinketh, the mind of Christ,” Romans 12:2. Feelings follow the mind. Feelings long. Feelings fade. It's like happiness. It's such a weird thing, but joy is real. Thoughts are real. Feelings respond and manifest. I'm glad you said that because a lot of it is mental. You're going to want to thumb suck and feel like you're a little martyr. Nobody gets you.

Charles would say that too, that he'd never say to Gloria anything going wrong because she'd say, "I told you so. Why do you think you can start your own business?" He just suffered in silence. There's an element of truth to that. The other thing he would say is, "You want me to tell me your problems? I'm going to tell you my problems. You opened your big fat mouth." I truly appreciate that. Now, let me ask you this. When did you meet the Lord?

Faith In God: “Don't you know that if the pastor leaves, the problem stays, but if the pastor stays, the problems leave?”

I was fifteen years old through a bus ministry of a church. This is all in my book. My dad was on probation and my grandfather was in the Federal Penitentiary for bootlegging, and my mother was involved in sugar-gathering, the sugar for the alcohol making, and all of that. They got caught and that whole operation got shut down. What happened was my mom remarried. This is amazing. She married a guy twenty years older than her who was a World War II Vet. I was raised by World War II Vet. We talk about Memorial Day happening.

Life wasn't easy. One of the things was working on the farm and you had a choice. You either did a chore Sunday morning or you went to church. I had a problem, a dilemma. I hated going to church and I hated working. Sometimes I ended up being forced to go to church. These religious people around us, I didn't want anything to do with that. Finally, they moved again, and lo and behold, I'm fifteen years old, and a neighbor asked, "Would you guys like to go to Sunday school?" I can't get away from these religious fanatics. They're everywhere.

It was amazing because I had moved from one school district to another. For fifteen years, I went by my stepfather's last name illegally. They never had my name changed. They said, "We're going to call you this." When I went to the new school and they saw my birth certificate, I had to legally get adopted or go by my real name.

For the first fifteen years, I went by completely different names. When I went to the new school at age fifteen, my name changed. They forced me to go by Joines, which was on my birth certificate. It was simply three months later when their life literally changed. It was amazing because my friends from the old school would talk to friends in the new school and they say, "This guy, you'll have fun with him. He likes to party, and this and that."

The people were like, "There's nobody here like that. There's this guy only wants to talk about Jesus," it's completely different. My name and life changed, and all that changed at age fifteen. My changes, by the way, I was not perfect. I was a mess for years. I had to work through so many different things, but God was gracious, and that's how that started.

I asked that because you right away went to it. The numero uno point means you had to have been walking with the Lord for quite some time.

It's amazing. My book came out in my 50th anniversary month. I got saved in March of 1972 and my book came out in March of 2022. It took 50 years to live and a couple of years to write.

Our faith and our purpose must be greater than our feelings.

The next thing after loneliness, he talked about his weariness. There's a good weariness like, "Job well done." There's a weariness that's draining. He would always say, "My problem isn't motivating myself. It's keeping other people from de-motivating me." If you're a leader, you're always going to have some people that aren't pulling their weight. Yet we have to stay at the top. We have to take care of ourselves. How do you deal with weariness? What would you recommend to our readers?

A couple of things over the years with weariness, I learned to pace myself. It's a marathon. It's not a sprint. You've got to pace yourself. I have to say the biggest failure of my biggest weakness has been in trying to rush ahead and do so many things. I could burn myself out, but you have to pace yourself and make sure your pace is good. Take regular breaks. Make sure that you recharge yourself. That's why we've been given the blessing of sleep. Sleep is to recharge your body and mind and all that. Not only with sleep, I think we need time off and vacations. Not a whole life of vacations, but a time to recharge. That helps.

The other thing about weariness, and this is two things, and it goes to my relationship with Charlie, is reading encouraging books because there are other people who have gone before you, and being around encouraging people. Find a handful of people that give you energy and will take energy from you. That type of thing is so important.

One of the biggest lessons I remember about your dad was when I was in the ministry. I went through a very hard time where there were some things that needed to be dealt with in the church, and I dealt with them, then it seemed like everything backfired on me. I went from this huge church, then it shrank. We were looking at buying land. It looked like all was lost. My board was divided. Everybody was telling me, "You shouldn't be a pastor. You need to move on. Forget it."

I contemplated. Maybe I need to give up. It says, "Don't be weary. Keep going because of the rewards at the end." Somehow, that information got leaked to your dad. Somebody told him. I didn't tell him. I remember walking into the store to get some books. He walked right up to me and he had a very firm and stern look on his face. He said, "What's this I hear you're leaving ministry? What's this I hear you're quitting?"

Your dad was a big guy. He grabbed me. He's known for his hugs, but that day, it wasn't a hug. It was a shakeup. He grabbed me by the shoulders and shook me like I was a little kid. I'm a grown man. He shook me like a little kid. He said, "Don't you know if the pastor leaves, the problem stays, but if the pastor stays, the problems leave? What are you doing?"

What your dad did there shook me to the core. When we talk about weariness, every now and then we need a wake-up call. That was my wake-up call and it's your dad. What happened was I didn't quit. I went back. That moment that happened, I was on a little mini-sabbatical trying to figure out what it was going to do. I went back and the church got healed. The land was bought. A new building was built. Now, there's a beautiful church on a 46-acre campus that is making an impact in the community. They designated 20 acres for a community park to outreach to the community, and the vision continues that we started there.

Faith In God: When it comes to weariness, too many of us give up too soon. We give up right before we get to the finish line. We give up right before it's going to happen.

Here's the thing. I almost gave up. It was that encouragement that your dad gave during that moment of weariness that inspired me to keep going, and I did. The rest is history. That's the thing with weariness. The Bible says, "Don't be weary because in due time, you'll reap the reward.” When it comes to weariness, many of us give up too soon. We give up right before we get to the finish line. We give up right before it's going to happen. To me, that was the big thing of weariness. Take moments of rest, but also be around people that can inspire and encourage you. Keep going and don't quit.

That reminds me of Russell Conwell's Acres of Diamonds. You could have gone to find another church, not realizing that the diamonds are right underneath your feet. I've been told that for a leader, the difference between a pat on the back and a kick in the rump is 18 inches. That did that. I would get calls from people. When I first came back and they were like, "Tracey, I came in there and your father grabbed and screamed at me. I started crying." I thought, "Here we go," because I have known that for a long time. They're like, "That was the best thing that ever happened to me," and I'm like, "Okay."

It's so beautiful that you share that because people are going to drag us down. Remember new levels, new devils. The devil is going to hit you hard. This is the other thing he'd say to me every time I'd be like, "This is it. I'm tired of dealing with these betrayers and naysayers. Is it anything worse than what Jesus went through?" He's like, "What is your problem?" You don't get to complain about it until you're the one that suffered. It was maddening, but he lived that. He knew what people would do to the people that tried the hardest. It is a sad thing, but again, look at Jesus. We don't worry about that. We thank God that he's gracious and go right back in there.

Along with that weariness, the other thing I have to give credit to is my stepfather, who I did not get along with. For 15 or 16 years of my life, it was nothing but a head-butting, struggles and all that, but the one thing I learned from my stepdad was this. Sometimes you've got to do things, whether you feel like it or not. You've got to have a bulldog tenacity.

As a young child, he made me do things work ethic-wise that I hated doing, but he forced me to do them. Looking back, it was the best character-developing thing that he could have done for me because what I went through in the work world and church world, all deals with that tenacity, not giving up and doing things whether you feel like it or not. Successful people will do things where they feel like it or not. Successful people go with the flow, but that's an important part there too.

A new common denominator of success. Between failure and success is that success has made a habit. Your habits have nothing to do with your feelings. Habits are, whether you feel it or not, you go do it. I'm glad that we can learn from people. Tenacity and grit, I watched Charles do that, and you too. You'll at least get an A on your report card if you don't quit. I'm like, "I'll take an A. That's fine." I totally appreciate your take on the weariness and what that took. I love that. Pastors leaves, problem stays. Pastor stays, problem leaves. That is a leader for anything.

That's a quote from your dad.

Take moments of rest, but also be around people that can inspire and encourage you. Keep going, and don't quit. 

I never heard him say that and I love it. That's beautiful. We talked about loneliness and weariness. Next, let's talk about abandonment. A lot of people think that abandonment is a negative thing, but in the context of leadership and for my father, that was focus. That was pruning away what you want and like to think about, like quitting, the thumb sucking, and how to mean everybody is to you in favor of what you want and need to think about. Can you talk to me about how you get all the distractions, all the enemies have created a way, and stay focused on what's next?

Here's the thing. When it comes to abandonment, we all have to be abandoned to something. We can't do everything. Sometimes the world tries to sell it. "You can have it all." If you try to have it all, it's going to kill you because you can't possibly do it. You've got to decide what you're going to be abandoned to. To me, that was a thing of abandonment. When I was working up in the work world, I was abandoned to a certain job, or in the ministry, I was abandoned to ministry. This one was what my focus going to be. In fact, when you look at scripture, as the Apostle Paul was abandoned to Christ and he said, "For me to live is Christ and to die is gain," that was his focus.

I'll be honest with you in this day and age, we have too many focuses. We try to do too much. I'm guilty of that. You ask my wife and my children, they will you. We have to determine what's the main thing. What do we abandon to, is it really our time and our energy? When we're young and we go through the young stage where we're thinking about money, making money, surviving, and all that, and as we get older, we shift from wanting to make money to wanting to make an impact. Making an impact is so much more powerful than making the dollar.

Your dad was an example of that too. He impacted a lot of people. I thought about my interaction with him. Like the books, it was not about the money or the book sales. It was always about impacting people. Knowing that if he gave them a book or encouraged them, their life would be changed forever. This whole thing about abandonment is what we abandon or what we are doing and making this decision.

Here's the hard thing. I've reinvented myself three times now. Reinventing myself from a janitor work, in HR, in a corporate Fortune 500 company, then you go from that to a twenty-year ministry, then to a business owner in telecommunication, it's completely different fields altogether. The thing that I learned was that it was a stress point because I had to come to a point where I had to realize I had to give up one thing to gain another thing, that I could not keep both.

Too many times, we try to do that. We try to keep both things going and we end up stretching ourselves and getting to the point where we're going to stop, but we have to be willing to give up one thing to gain another. Even Jesus said, "No man can serve two masters." You're going to love one and hate the other. You're going to hold one and despise the other. That's the same way with our life purpose and things in our life. This might sound counterintuitive, but we can't have it all. We got to decide what we want and be abandoned to that. That's when the blessings will flow.

That is a lie that the world tells us. It is counter-cultural and it will burn you out. It will be disappointingly satisfying like sin. It’s like after they ate the apple, “This isn't so good anymore.” The other thing is we're all collectively all different parts of the body. When the nose tries to do what the stomach or the toe does, it's a no. Stay in your lane of anointing.

Faith In God: God gives us grace in the transition, but then it gets to the point where that transition now must happen.

Focus is not meant to be plural. You said, focus. Focus, one. There should be no such word as foci. I love that you talked about that too many focuses. We do have to be abandoned to something. That's what Good to Great, Jim Collins is all about. You can be good at a lot of things, but what is the one thing, that one thing.

I have five different careers like you. Charles would always say to me, "Tracey, you're leaving that," and I'm like, "Yes, dad. The calling is different.” Whenever I was in, I was all-in, but that made it clear, unlike dad, who built on what he did, he had a major life career change when he left Mutual New York and other insurances agency. He had three pivots. For some people, God has you only doing three layovers before you get to your final destination. For other people like us, it's 4, 5, or 6. We're just getting going.

Anybody out there reading, I like to encourage them. If you're restless in your spirit and you're struggling with what you're doing now, it's not a momentary thing but an ongoing thing. It could very well be you're being called in a completely different direction. When I made my transition from the corporate world to the ministry world, one thing I had done was, when I took over the church, I was part-time for a few years. God gave me grace for that time, but guess what happened at the end was that grace was removed. I had to make a decision.

I'm not going to kill myself trying to do a couple of things or am I going to let go of one or the other? That's what happens. God gives us grace in the transition, but then it gets to the point where that transition now must happen. It seems like he removes his hands. It makes it hard. You're in a corner. You now have to make a choice. You can't keep struggling with that.

I like that you called that out because I'm calling from and calling to. You'll always have a calling. God will call your heart to one thing that's different than quitting. It's important for the readers to know that quitting because you're irritated or having a spirit of discontent is a beautiful thing. It’s like loneliness, weariness, and abandonment. There's good and bad.

There's quitting because you're mad, but then there's also God will say, "You're done here and move on." You got to be discerning with the Holy Spirit. That's what I would tell my dad, "I'm not quitting this job, dad. It's very clear that this is the calling and it's over and it's time to move on to something else." As long as you know that and you're not quitting because you're mad or you're running away.

I appreciate you clarifying that because that is what we do. Sometimes people around you will misunderstand that.

If you see a problem, that means you must be the solution.

Only you know in your heart and God, and be honest with it. It may appear, but you’ve got to do what you’ve got and that's what leaders do. They listen to the calling. Loneliness, weirdness, abandonment, and the last of all is vision. I would hear all of these wonderful people growing up talking about vision. It always intimidated me because that's not my gig. That's not my gift. Dad explained vision as seeing what needs to be done and then doing it. It's so pragmatic. Many people say, "That needs to be done," and you're talking. It's a Post-It note. It's visual. Can you share with me what vision means to you and how you get clarity on your calling or anointing?

First of all, as a pastor, I'd have people come up to me all the time and say, "Pastor, you'll be doing this in the church. You need to do it." "No, I don't want to do it, but I know what needs to get done." If you see it, then that means God's calling you to do it.

You could've saved me a lot of heartaches, but that's okay. If you see it, that means God is calling you to do it.

Some people can see all kinds of problems, "God must have called you to do that." If you see a problem, that means you must be the solution. Too many people want to pass that solution off to somebody else. Here's the thing, faith and fear are exactly the same things. People often miss this. Fear is false evidence appearing real. You're thinking of a negative outcome. You're thinking of something bad happening. Where faith is fully anticipated, it will happen. They're both the same thing.

It's your response to it.

It's amazing, 365 times in the Bible, it says, "Fear not." One for each day of the year. Also, faith is believing. This is in the book. When I was eight years old, we lived on the farm and I was given the job of hoeing field corn. I was not using a tractor. “Here's a hoe. I'm going to work when I come that come home. I expect this field to be hoed.” While I'm out there in the hot sun hoeing this field corn, I started to dream.

I still remember it as if it was yesterday when I dreamed it. I dreamed that someday I would be in an air-conditioned corner office. I would be a personnel manager hiring and firing people. I'm eight years old and I had this vision. I'll be talking to people. Another vision I had was out of the woods. I stood there and I read about Abraham Lincoln and how he worked out in the woods and all that. Imagine talking to people and encouraging them.

Discovering the Good Father: How God's Love and Grace Transformed a Broken Life

Here's the thing. I was eight years old when I had that vision. When I was 30 years old, I was promoted to a personnel training supervisor in the trucking company where I was involved in all those things. It grew from there, but it started as a seed. God puts the seed in each of our hearts when we're young of something that he wants to fulfill in us. We have to believe it. Dream it and believe it, and hang on to that, and now there were a lot of curves and changes.

One pastor that mentored me said, "The Mississippi River runs north a lot of places. If you look at it, it runs north someplace. It doesn't all flow south. Sometimes you might think you're going in the wrong direction, but you might be flowing in the right direction because of everything you're learning and developing." All the different experiences I had all consummated into those different opportunities I was given in life. That happens to us too. Faith and fear are the same things. It's our response to the circumstance.

Even if you're going, you may be flowing. There are going to be some backtracks at times that life, even with the vision. Just stay on target.

You might think you're going in the wrong direction, but you might be floating in the right direction.

You should pay to read this. There's so much wisdom. We talked about loneliness, weariness, abandonment, and vision. Anything else while we have our readers that you would like to share about leadership that we have not touched on yet?

Here's a living token and this was a note of encouragement that your dad had sent me in one season of life. I'll never forget that. I'll never forget the friendship I had with him and the impact he made on my life. It still does. This is so true. This is a famous quote. I think you all know that. You're the same person today as you were yesterday, except for two things. The books you read and the people you meet. That is so true.

When I look back, I am where I am now of the full investment of thousands of people into my life. None of us are self-made. All of us have been invested in by different people. It'll start with our mom and our dad changing our diapers. It goes from there to reading and writing. It goes from there learning different skills. The value of relationships, you can even learn from people and situations that you don't like because there's something there to be learned.

Each of us is a combination of all the influences that come into our life.

Learning from all of those becomes like a funnel into our life. Each of us is a combination of all the influences that come into our life. Along with that are also the books that we read. I had an aunt who had the old encyclopedia, the Britannica. We'd go to visit her and I was always fascinated by all these books that she had. I made it my goal that I was going to read through the pretend Britannica encyclopedia set. Every time I went there, I started with A and then with B. I don't know how far I got, but every time I get it, I go through that.

Later when I came to faith, I started building a library and started reading books. I realized people from previous generations were impacting me. They were helping me think differently. I was one of the things that made your dad so unique. He knew that. That's why he promoted books so much. That's why he did book publishing and selling and all that because he knew the impact of that. I've literally read thousands of thousands over the years, but also the people that I met that made that. To me, when it comes to leadership, those two things can help take you to another whole level if you're going to apply them.

You're living proof of that. It's so interesting that you were like a little sponge, even early on. Clearly, God has his hand on you. He has it on all of us. You let him work his way. You haven’t talked a lot about your book. Can we talk a little bit about that? Where can people pick up your book?

They can pick that up at Amazon. Go to Amazon and type my name or type in Discovering the Good Father, and you can get a copy of that there. It's a combination of a little bit of my bio, but also some life lessons from business and my spiritual walk, and all that, and all the different things I've learned on that journey. I originally wrote it for my children and my grandchildren because I wanted to leave a legacy. I didn't want them to lose all my stories of the amazing things that the good father has done for me.

Why it's called Discovering the Good Father is I was raised by three fathers. Robert Kiyosaki has Rich Dad, Poor Dad. While I have a good father, I was raised by my stepfather. I was abandoned in my younger years by my biological father, but I had a Heavenly Father who was there the whole time. It took me a while to discover all that, but now that I've walked for years. I look back like, "It's amazing."

We're never alone. We might think we are, but we're never alone. He said, "I'll never leave you nor forsake you," but there are times when you feel like you're alone because it's a test of faith. Do you believe it? The thing is, we're never alone and we need to work through that. I gave the synopsis of the book.

What's the best way for people to get in touch with you?

They can be in touch with me in a couple of different ways. I have LifeMessages.net. You can email me at Allen@LifeMessages.net or AllenJoines.org or DiscoveringTheGoodFather.org. Any of those will get you to me. I'd love to hear from people. If I can be an encouragement to you or your group, I'd love to do that. I've been communicating for years and I would do seminars and conferences and stuff like that. Also, many years of being a pastor. If I could be of any service encouragement, please let me know. The book came out a couple of months ago, and I'm already getting amazing reports of people who are encouraged and impacted. That blesses my heart.

To our readers out there, please make sure and connect with Allen. Get his book and give him a review on Amazon. We love that. Let him know how that's changing your life. Allen, it has been such a joy chatting with you, learning from you, sharing with you, getting caught up. Thank you for sharing your wisdom with our readers.

Thank you so much, Tracey, for this opportunity, and hope you have a blessed day.

To our readers out there, thank you so much for being a part of the show. If you like what you read, please be sure to hit the subscribe button. Sign up at Tremendous Leadership. We've got a few weeks of free eBooks, and you can pick up a copy of the Price of Leadership. Also, we'd love the honor of a five-star review. Drop us a note or share it with somebody that you think may be encouraged with paying the Price of Leadership. Thank you so much. Keep up the tremendous work and have a tremendous rest of the day.

 Important Links

• Allen Joines

• Price of Leadership

• Acres of Diamonds

• Good to Great

• Discovering the Good Father

• Rich Dad, Poor Dad

• LifeMessages.net

• Allen@LifeMessages.net

• DiscoveringTheGoodFather.org

About Allen Joines

Allen Joines has been a lifelong learner and follower of Christ for fifty years. Despite life obstacles, he reinvented himself by God's grace from dockworker and janitor to regional HR manager of a Fortune 500 company, to a pastor who relocated a small congregation to a forty-six-acre campus, to a successful business owner in the telecommunication industry.

Episode 139 - Lisa Marie Platske - Leaders On Leadership

The price of leadership can be steep. Every leader has to be ready to pay that price if they want to be great. In this episode, Dr. Tracey Jones gets coach and entrepreneur Lisa Marie Platske to discuss the principles of leadership. Lisa and Tracey discuss the how-tos of leadership and the price of leadership as seen from Lisa’s point of view. Lisa also shares her pillars of leadership and how these lead into a leader’s wellbeing. Tune in and learn more on the principles of leadership from Lisa and Tracey.

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Listen to the podcast here:

Lisa Marie Platske - Leaders On Leadership

I am excited because we have our guest, Lisa Marie Platske. She is an award-winning leadership expert in human behavior and has received accolades from the United States Small Business Administration and The International Alliance for Women. She's also recognized as one of the top 100 women making a difference in the world. She left her Federal law enforcement career after 9/11 to build Upside Thinking, Inc. She's a member of the Forbes Coaches Council and has trained or coached over 100,000 leaders around the globe. Lisa, I'm excited to have you on the show.

I'm excited to be here, Dr. Tracey. This has been something I've been looking forward to spending some time with you.

Thank you. For our readers out there, you want to get your notepads out because Lisa has talked to hundreds of thousands of leaders, as well as her own journey. I am excited to know what you think about The Price of Leadership.

I have been a raving fan of Tremendous' work for what has been decades. Speaking about The Price of Leadership, I did not realize that leadership had a cost. When I first took my journey, I thought that being the leader, you get to the top. It's where you want to be and you get to be number one. I did not recognize all of the things that come with that journey that gets packed in your backpack.

That's a beautiful way to put it. Thank you. A lot of times, our readers want to know the context of how Lisa found the Tremendous universe. She was telling me before we started that her grandparents knew our Founder, my father, Charlie “Tremendous” Jones. She's a PA girl too. That's exciting. With that intro, I want to unpack the four tenets or the four costs, as you beautifully put that leadership has a cost.

My dad talked about that in one of the speeches that he gave, and that is probably the speech he gave the most. That was called The Price of Leadership. His premise is that if you're going to be doing true leadership, there are going to be three things that you're going to have to pay the price of. The first one is loneliness and we've heard it. I'm sure you've coached many leaders. It's lonely at the top. “Why am I the only one out there thinking this?” Can you unpack what loneliness in leadership looks like? Maybe share a time when you went through for our readers out there.

My background is in Federal law enforcement. There was its own loneliness in that journey as I rose through the ranks in supervision because of being a woman in law enforcement. I thought that especially being in law enforcement where guys have your back, you're in uniform, and you're working together, that there would be this camaraderie that happened when you rose through the ranks.

There wasn't. There was a bit more of, “What did you get that I didn't get? How did you get that? It must've been because you slept with somebody. It must have been because you did something that we didn't see.” That was incredible. You'd think that when I opened my business, I would have remembered some of those things. However, I didn't.

I thought, “I'm going to be my own boss. I get to call the shots.” The reality is opening a business left me feeling many times that I was on this island someplace with this great idea and God-given purpose to make a difference in the world. Yet, I had to do it by myself. I had a lot more surprises. The word loneliness is not something I would have used. It's more surprises on the journey.

How long did that last? I appreciate your authenticity because many of our readers out there are like me and you. We're entrepreneurs, maybe they're solopreneurs. We know God put us and what we're supposed to be doing but it's like, “Where's my part in this? Where are the resources?” How long did it take you before you started to jell? I know it's all in God's timing. I get it but can you unpack how long that took? Maybe somebody is out there dealing with this now.

It's been waves. I've been in business for many years and there are still waves of loneliness. I have a huge circle of friends, colleagues, peers, mastermind groups, and coaches that I could call. There are times when I'm in my office and I could call my assistant or other coaches on my team and yet I'm going, “I can feel the weight of responsibility.” It'll move me to tears because the why feels so big. I sometimes feel like I'm traveling alone.

Principles Of Leadership: You get to the top and it's where you want to be and you get to be number one. And you do not recognize all of the things that come with that journey that get packed in your backpack.  

I appreciate your authenticity because there is this thing that after 10,000 hours, you ought to have this dialed in. No, it isn't. My dad would always say that there's the pendulum. You're going to have to walk alone sometimes. You're going to be alone because you make mistakes. It's par for the course. I appreciate you sharing that. I would echo that too. Loneliness ebbs and flows but you said it. It's the weight of responsibility. Although you have a great team, there are only two shoulders that that fall on. We have to remember as leaders, that heavy is the head that wears the crown.

That's the part where I don't know that I truly understood that. I don't know that I got that. It was just, “I'm going to go do what it is that I'm called to do. We're going to have fun.” It was like, “It's resting on my shoulders. I'm the one that received the scrolls.”

Along with loneliness is weariness. My dad was very pragmatic, snarky, and funny because he had worked with people. He flunked out of school in the eighth grade so he was very real. Whenever people would be talking about, “Everybody's great. Let him be great and then they will be great.” He's like, “How many people do you work with?”

He was always like, “Weariness. You're going to have people that do more than their fair share and you're going to have a huge swath of people that do less than their fair share. You'd have 80/20. Eighty percent of the work is done by 20% of the people. It's draining for us as leaders. How do you stay refreshed and replenished? Do you celebrate Shabbat? How do you stay on point and strong spiritually, mentally and physically?

I have seven areas of wellbeing that I examine and look at every single day. Those seven areas of wellbeing are ones where I look to see if there's anything out of balance. From physical wellbeing, emotional, intellectual, spiritual, financial, relational, and in my work it's, “What do I need? What's missing?” There's a SNAP technique that I use over and over again during the day. SNAP means stop, notice, ask questions, and then pause, pivot, pray. This is not something I do once a day. It's not something that I do two times a day. It's understanding when something is off.

Sometimes, I'm working on a project. I am committed to it, and something's not right. It could be that I need water or I need to be quiet and say a prayer. It could be that there's something that is nudging me in the back of my head around a relationship with a client, friend or loved one. Whatever that is, it's going to pull you from whatever you're to do because there is such responsibility. Those are my two, ensuring that I stay within those seven areas of wellbeing, and then also using the SNAP technique.

What a great little mental hack. I love that your soul will let you know if something's not right. You know when it is well with your soul. You know when your little spiritual radar or something doesn't compute. SNAP is a great thing, stop, notice, ask, pause, pray and pivot.

Pivot if you need to. Maybe you need to do something else.

There's loneliness, weariness and abandonment. Abandonment typically gets a negative rap. There's a fear of abandonment. I'm in pet rescue so that has a bad term. My dad looked at abandonment as a good thing. We need to focus on what we need and ought to think about and not what we'd like to want to think about.

For him, abandonment was hyper-focused so you can stay singularly focused on everything else. I'm sure you get that as an entrepreneur, all the new things. A hundred new ideas come to us a day. All these people are calling us to do these partnerships and let's do this. How do you stay on point and focused?

Just like I have seven areas of wellbeing, my business is built on seven pillars of leadership. In those seven pillars of leadership, pillar number six is the one that I use all the time. It's to evaluate your progress. Sometimes people go, “In my company, we do an annual review.” Some people say, “I do a quarterly review or even weekly.” I say, “I evaluate every single day, whether or not it's efficient or effective.”

Principles Of Leadership: Staying hyper-focused on what matters most means you have to say no to some things, even if they seem like great ideas, because they are distractions and pull you from what it is that you're called to do.  

Is this a task that's I'm just looking to get checked off? Is this a task that allows me to be a force for good on the planet? Is this something that's actually effective and moving me towards what it is that I want and what I'm called to do on the planet? Is this the thing that somebody told me that needs to get done? What is it and which bucket does it fall in? With 24 hours a day, staying that hyper-focused on what matters most means some things I've got to say no to, even if they seem like great ideas because they still are distractions and pull me from what it is that I'm called to do.

That's good for your team. Working for somebody like us, I know when I worked for my dad it can be a little maddening because there's so much going on, and if you're a more linear thinker, you need a little bit more, “Bring it all down.” You clearly outline your roles and responsibilities but I'm all about the results. Everybody's telling me, “We should be doing this and this will do this.” I'm like, “What are the results?” We're supposed to be good stewards of our time and resources. You do that every day. Is it at the end of the day?

Every single day I look in the morning, in the afternoon, and in the evening. Where is it?

Readers, how freeing would that be if you decluttered, pruned, and cut off the non-value-added stuff? I'm telling you whenever my soul feels awry, stressed or I'm spinning, it's because I have not put up boundaries. I love Henry Cloud's book Boundaries. It's because I have let something weasel in or scope creep. They're all good things but I'm supposed to be focused on this and not that. I appreciate you talking about that this is a daily struggle.

I appreciate you using the term scope creep. I did a board retreat for an organization and they had seventeen things that they wanted to accomplish for the end of the year. I said, “This is great. However, you've got to pick two,” and they couldn't do it. By the end of the retreat, they said, “We're going to keep all seventeen.” At the end of the year, they ended up doing none. What you said is also that you have this idea and it's so easy to think that you can get more done or let something creep. I think that this one is really important if you're going to make an impact on the planet.

This is the one thing that people struggle with the most. Number one, getting the clarity as to what is that one great purpose. Number two, staying focused because it takes time to work your purpose out. You're going to be, “I'm looking over here. I should be doing this or that,” but the leadership literature even says one thing at a time. I know we like to think, “If you're Elon Musk, you can probably think one thing at a time.”

Prioritize it. Pick the big things and knock them out. I appreciate you bringing that up. When I came back to run the business, they're like, “What do you want to focus on?” I'm like, “All of it. I love all of it. I want to do it all." They're like, “You're so young and naive.” I'm like, “What?” They were right. You need to hone it down.

There's loneliness, weariness and abandonment. The last term my dad talked about was vision. For him, vision was seeing what needs to be done, which everybody can. Number two is doing it, which very few people do. There are the executors, integrators and pontificators. He said, “If you're not able to execute or draw the right people, you can't call it a vision. You can call it an idea or hope, but that's no strategy for growing a business.” How do you keep your vision going, getting honed, moving forward and cast?

Vision is one of my three elements of courageous leadership. I agree so much with your dad. You don't have a vision, you live a vision. It's action-oriented. It's not something you write down on a piece of paper. It's having that courage to do that. I believe that the practical part of this, I'm going to bring in my law enforcement, is that you're a detective. That's how you get to live your vision. It’s to be a detective. I ask questions about the who, what, where, when, how and why of a situation. Whatever it is that I want and that allows me to stay.

This is my vision. My vision is to be somebody who makes everyone feel valued, appreciated and loved when I'm around. I'm moving towards creating a world where everyone wins. All of my actions have got to be taken in order for that vision. Who is it that I'm seeking to do that with? Where, when, how and why for everything that comes my way on my desk. Whether it's being here with you on this show, choosing to get up and go for a walk, whatever I put in my body, everything is about me becoming that vision. Not me only speaking about it. It's truly the embodiment of it. It's about who you are, not what you do.

A world where everyone wins. You should have a book with that title. You embody that. I can tell that. That's difficult because a lot of people are like, “Yeah,” because we're self-oriented. There's that element of you're not here for yourself. You're here to bring out the other things and create for other people or lead in other ways.

I find that I want to be a bridge-builder and not a divider. Just because you have an idea and it's very different from mine doesn't mean that you can't win and I can't win at the same time.

Principles Of Leadership: The world needs your brilliance and it needs all of you, not a part of you, not a segment of you, not a part that somebody told you is acceptable – all of you.

A Bridgett, a bridger. Not a burner, a Burnett. That was my latest book. Burnett or Bridgett. Do you want to burn or bridge it? We need bridgers and you were that. What else would you share with our readers? As you've coached all these people in leadership, what are the pearls of wisdom would you share with them?

The world is hurting for great leadership. You're here on this planet for a reason. The world needs you, your brilliance, and all of you. Not a part of you, not a segment of you, not a part that somebody told you is acceptable, but all of you. If every single person did that, stepped up and fully allowed themselves to be seen and to do whatever they're called to do, the world would be a very different place. It would be so purposeful and so much lighter. My call-to-action is the world needs you and your brilliance now more than ever. Go shine your light and go do whatever it is you're called to do to be a force for good on the planet.

Amen, sister. I think you are my sister.

I think so too.

There's so much congruence here. How can people get ahold of you?

My website is UpsideThinking.com. That's the best way to find me. I have an annual event that is Upside Summit, which is my Design Your Destiny Live event every January. I host that. You'll get some information on the website about that and my blueprint as well.

You were talking about working with coaches. Do you train coaches or do you work with leaders who need a coach? What's your area of focus?

I work with leaders, influencers and world-changers. They're people who understand they've got something big burning inside of them and they aren't sure how they're going to live it out and position themselves. For some people, it's internally companies. They'll come to me and say, “I want to start a business.” I'm like, “You're actually called to be in this company.” For some people, it's for them to have businesses. For some people, it's to sell their business. It's leaders, influencers and world-changers.

For our readers out there, make sure and check out Lisa's website. Lisa, thank you so much. You fueled my spirit, and I know our readers out there. Thank you for your transparency and the difference you're making in the world. You're offering so much and it's so needed. For readers out there, don't waste any more time wandering in the desert. Hook up with somebody like Lisa who can help you. The big burn. You got it. No more grousing. Get that big burn and turn it into a beautiful flame that lights the world. Thank you, Lisa.

Thanks so much, Dr. Tracey. I appreciate being here. It's an honor.

You're welcome and welcome back to Pennsylvania. I hope to see you soon at the summit. I would love that. I'm going to check that out. To our guests out there, we couldn't do this without our Tremendous tribe. If you like what you read, please be sure to hit the subscribe button. Do us the honor of a five-star review. Also, thank you so much. Leave us a comment. We answer all our comments. Share this with somebody else that you think may need a little bit of uplifting or tremendousness in their life. Remember to never stop paying the price of leadership. We're so thankful for you. There are many leaders out there in name only but you're the real deal. Thanks so much.

Important Links:

• https://www.Facebook.com/UpsideThinking/

• https://www.Facebook.com/lisa.marie.platske

• https://www.LinkedIn.com/in/lisamarieplatske

• Upside Thinking, Inc.

• Boundaries

• Burnett or Bridgett

• The Price of Leadership

About Lisa Marie Platske

An award-winning leadership expert in human behavior, Lisa Marie Platske has received accolades from the United States Small Business Administration, and The International Alliance for Women, recognized as one of the top 100 women making a difference in the world. She left her Federal law enforcement career after 9/11 to build Upside Thinking, Inc. A member of the Forbes Coaches Council, she has trained or coached over 100,000 leaders around the globe.