Episode 151 - Cynthia Zhai - Leaders On Leadership

Leadership comes with many struggles but what matters is how we deal with them. Joining Dr. Tracey Jones today is Cynthia Zhai, Certified Speaking Professional, TEDx speaker, voice coach, and trainer at Full Voice Consulting. Cynthia shares valuable insights for leaders on overcoming the hard times within themselves and with their team. You don’t have to carry all the burden and keep the frustrations to yourself. At the same time, there is a right way to communicate these things. Listen in and get enlightened by her wisdom as they tackle loneliness in leadership, maintaining your center, and practicing assertiveness. 

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Cynthia Zhai - Leaders On Leadership

In this episode, I'm excited because my guest is Cynthia Zhai. She is a voice coach. She's a professional speaker. She has the CSP abbreviation after her name. It's a credential. She's a bestselling author and also a TEDx speaker. I had the pleasure of watching her TEDx speech. She has helped professionals from over 46 countries across 6 continents to speak with a powerful voice. Cynthia has been a professional speaker and coach for years and her engagement spans 5 continents and 18 countries. Cynthia, thank you so much for being on the show.

Thank you, Tracey. I feel very honored to be on the show.

Cynthia, we connected on LinkedIn through a fellow friend, Bob Brumm, who I have interviewed on the show. Could you share how you became aware of all things tremendous?

In my early days of college, that was where it led me to Charlie "Tremendous" Jones’s quote. Ever since then, I was not only developing my leadership skills but also helping other people develop that.

The quote that Cynthia is referring to is, "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.” I love that you not only did that for yourself but then you helped others encourage that. I'm amazed. I had a mother of ten order off our website. She remarked the same thing that in her early twenties, she heard that quote. She had issues reading but that impacted her and she went on. She's a prolific reader and so are all ten of her children. It's phenomenal the whole transformation power of books.

Also, the quote changed my life. At the time when I heard the quote, as a college student like many others, I was feeling depressed and I didn't know what to do. That was initially a quote shared by my dad in the Chinese language. Later on, I found out the English quote, which had not only guided me throughout my only college days but my career days. I always share that with my clients and friends.

“Always speak the truth but soften your words.”

That was the spark that ignited this. Isn't that interesting how we can be in such a bad spot but then you hear something and you are ready to take, infuse and then apply it because it doesn't do any good if you don't read great books and meet great people? It's a sweet little quote. You were at that point where you needed a solution and you acted upon it. That's fascinating. Let's get down to talking about leadership. Thank you. That so encourages me. I know it will inspire and bless our leaders because I know they all love that quote too and share that repeatedly.

One of the things that my father talks about in a speech that he gave many decades ago called The Price of Leadership is that if you are going to be a true leader, there's going to be a price that you have to pay. He outlines four different things that are going to happen to you and you are going to encounter. The first of those is loneliness. We have all heard the phrase, “It's lonely at the top. Heavy is the head that wears the crown.” Can you unpack what loneliness might look like for the leader and perhaps when you might have been in a season of loneliness?

These are also some of the concerns that my clients were sharing. They said, “Now, I am in this leadership role that I don't want to get too close with my staff members. There are also times that there is the so-called bad news that I don't want to share with them.” In that way, it does create a lot of loneliness, especially when you have to face all this bad news and challenges on your own. It's almost inevitable that you will feel lonely at the top.

What do you recommend for some of the people that you are working with? As you said, it is inevitable. I always tell people and they are like, “I have never felt that.” I'm like, “You haven't set the proper boundaries because it is a part of leadership.”

I would recommend two things. One is that there are times when we do need to be authentic. It doesn't mean that we don't share the bad news. We do share the bad news but there's a quote, “Always speak the truth but soften your words.” Authentic leadership is also something that many people are after nowadays. Authentic leadership does mean that there are times when you do need to share the so-called bad news and what is the frustration you are going through so that people can understand you more and work with you. It's to be more authentic and honest.

Voice Coach: Develop the quality or the state of equanimity. Whatever storms are happening outside of you, you need to develop that inner solidness, that inner centeredness that will not be affected.

The second thing is if you feel that there are things that you cannot share with your staff members, there is a way that you will want to join people who are outside of your company. There are many executive networks. You can join them so that you can share your common frustrations. We cannot suppress these things in ourselves and our bodies because one day, it will become some disease. It cannot be bottled up all in your body. It needs a channel. Have like-minded people to share with and that will be a very good way.

You get that wise counsel too and you are so right that stress kills. Your body can catch a disease of the mind and that's one of the main things that are causes of death. That's outstanding advice. We talked about loneliness. Along with loneliness is weariness because if you are at the top and you have all these responsibilities, even if it's not physical, it's a lot because if you don't perform and not everybody performs, you may not be in business longer. You've got shareholders and all these people looking at you to see if you are able to deliver. How do you combat weariness? What should our leaders do if they are perhaps feeling the effects of weariness?

The philosophy that is in the way we speak and the voice as well is what I recommend my clients to develop the quality or the state of equanimity. Equanimity is that whatever storms are happening outside of you, you need to develop that inner solidness and centeredness that will not be affected by whatever is happening.

You know that tornadoes, typhoons or all these natural disasters can take out an entire vintage or town but in the center of a tornado, there is peacefulness and stillness. It’s because of that stillness, it has this massive power and that's something that leaders need to develop because when we are centered and have that stillness, then we can act with vision, with the right strategy, and cope with whatever is thrown at us.

That's so amazing that you talked about the eye of the storm because I had never thought about it like that but I also thought as far as shelters, they always tell you, “Go to the center of the building where there are no windows.” It's almost like you are going to the center of yourself where you are at the deepest of your own core and the most protected. Stay away from the stuff you can stay away and seek shelter. I will never forget that one because I speak a lot about crisis leadership. I am going to use that.

There's loneliness and weariness. The next thing he talked about was abandonment. Typically, abandonment gets a negative connotation like fear of abandonment. When my father spoke of it, he used to tell me, “Tracey, I do more in a day to contribute to my failure than my success.” I’m like, “What?” He is like, “It’s because I tend to think about what I like and want to think about in favor of what I ought and need to think about.” He was always very intentional about this and hyperfocused that if we cut out and abandon the things that aren't going to move us forward, as a leader, you are going to have to keep doing that. Can you explain abandonment? How do you stay focused and on point?

You need to share the frustration you’re going through so that people can understand you and work with you.

First of all, you need to be clear about what is it. It’s not what you need to do. As your father said, the wise words. When I started my business and even now, the word that I hear the most is, “Cynthia, you are very focused. Since day one, you have been focusing on one thing and one thing only.” That's something that I love to do. It's the same for the leaders. The reason that you are in this leadership role is there must be something in being a leader that draws you. You need to focus on that.

For example, some of my clients love making strategic decisions. They love to see things from a bigger point of view. Focus on what you love. The second thing is don't get distracted by all these other things that might be shining or more than. There may be something new that comes out. Know what you love, what you want to do and at the same time, don't get distracted by all those things so you still stay on track.

It's tough now. There are so many good books or podcasts. You are like, “I never thought about that.” As you said, you have to get dialed in. When I coach people, this is the thing that we struggle with the most. There are so many things we are good at that we could do. As my father always taught me, “There's that one thing that you are put here to do better than anybody else. The joy is discovering that and staying on point, so you don't start drifting.”

How do you recommend the people that you coach to get clarity on identifying that? This is something that a lot of people even leaders struggle with. You heard the age demographic and who I work with. They are still like, “What do I want to do with my life?” They are still dialing it in. What do you recommend for them to help them find that?

One is that we can use the method of ruling out. A lot of my clients know what they don't want but they do not know where they want. I said, “We rule out what you don't want first and we look at the opposite.” That's one way. The second thing is very important. In a post I shared, I mentioned that struggles are blessings in disguise. The reason I'm doing my work is because of the struggle that I went through. As your dad was saying that we are put on this planet for that one thing that only we can do.

How do we know that thing? It's from our struggles because, with the struggles that we are going through, no one would experience the exact struggle that we have experienced. If you are learning the lesson from the struggles, you will see why you are going through the struggle. In my early career, I was not heard and assertive. I went on a journey to be more assertive, to be heard and now I teach people how to be heard. My struggle became my calling. It was a blessing. Look at your struggles.

Voice Coach: A lot of people know what they don’t want but not what they do want. Rule out what you don’t want first and then we can look at the opposite.

My work for 2022 was speaking more with my authentic voice. People are like, “Have you had trouble with that?” I’m like, “Yes.” It's being your most authentic version of a leader and speaking the truth but softening your words. Do you find that people sleep better and get such a sense of release? I don't mean that it doesn't matter how it's received but you feel so much truer to yourself.

I was even having some heart issues like pain and I'm like, “I can tell what's going on. I'm not being authentic in my voice when I share with people.” The more I dialed that in, I don't have sleep problems anymore and it's not fine. You deal with it but I am being true and speaking what needs to be said. Have you found that with your clients?

Yes. It's a sense of liberation.

It can combat weariness because I was finding that I was getting very tired emotionally and spiritually, not physically because there was this constant tension. I was holding back and not saying what needed to be said. It was draining me.

I was sharing that earlier on in my career. I was not assertive. Whatever I felt, I didn't say it. For example, someone did something that upset me but I didn't say anything. I will carry that with me for as long as it can go and then I will stay away from that person. There are only so many friends you have and if you stay away from every one of them, at the end of the day, you are lonely.

What I have learned was when someone says something that upsets me, I would tell that person, “What you said made me feel sad.” The response that I’ve got was, “I'm sorry. I didn't know.” I then knew they didn't mean it at all. It was me who was overthinking. Once I said it, I never resent that person anymore so we can keep this relationship. I didn’t need to become lonely eventually.

There must be something about being leader that draws you. You need to focus on that.

I love that because you allow them to explain themselves rather than jumping to conclusions like you know their motives because we all say some brusque or pretty stupid things. I love that you approached it that way. Would you recommend being able to use that method in the workforce too if a coworker, a colleague or a boss says something? Do you approach the same thing and say it the same way?

The example I was giving was with a coworker when I was working for a corporate in the past.

If they go, “Yes, so what?” versus, “I'm sorry,” then you know this is not somebody you need to worry about anymore. That's abandonment. The last thing he talked about was the vision. A lot of people have different aspects of vision. Some people are like, “I'm not a visionary. I'm a doer.” My dad always said that he was pragmatic. He had these big picture ideas but it was always very much every day, every person could work this out.

He used to tell me, “Tracey, vision is nothing more than seeing what needs to be done so there's that future aspect but then doing it because otherwise, it's just talk.” Can you share with me what your idea of vision is? How do you continue once you’ve got clarity on what you wanted to do in this experience of where you weren't assertive? How you continue to hone your vision because you have been doing this for quite a long time?

Vision, to me, is also a big picture. It's not only a big picture but also a big picture down the road. In a few years, what can we do? What will happen? At the same time, I like that we are drilling down this big vision into something actionable. People say, “I want to hone my body. I want to get fit,” but you cannot just think about it. You want to do the very first thing. The first thing is not, “Tonight, I'm going to go jogging for twenty minutes,” especially if you haven't been jogging for twenty years. The first thing might be, “Now, I'm going to go down and jog for five minutes.”

Especially with leaders, if there's no vision, you are not a leader. You do need a vision but at the same time, break that vision down into small actionable steps like assertiveness. The small thing I did was how I was ending my sentences. When I was not assertive, I realized I was saying, “I want to do this.” It sounds like a question. That was the small actionable step I was taking which is, “I want to do this.” Instead of making it sound like a question, I'm making it sound like a statement. That one small change made me sound more assertive. That was one of those small steps.

Voice Coach: We need to not only upscale ourselves but also elevate ourselves in terms of not only skills but also mentally, emotionally.

I love that you talked about breaking it down to small steps or chunking as I call it but you hit on something. Leaders create something out of nothing. Something that wasn't there, they create. Managers are the ones that execute making things work. It's important as a leader. You can't just be showing up and watching things run. You have to be this blue-sky person whereas the flip side of the coin is the blueprint people. Both are very different skillsets.

I love that you brought that up because as a leader, I had to look at this and go, "Am I leading? I'm leading myself but am I engaging in leadership?" which is a whole different realm. I love that you touched on that important nuance. We have talked about loneliness, weariness, abandonment, and vision. Can you share anything else that you would like? We have an open floor. I'm fascinated with working with people. What is the demographic of most of the people that you work with? Is it male, female, young or old? What is it?

Most of my clients are in the C-Suites so they are the senior executives in the companies. The loneliness problems and all these problems that we are talking about, they do experience and share. In my early career, men will account for about 60% to 65% of my clients. Now, it's about 50% male and 50% female. One of the main reasons is because more and more women are going up and showing up in the C-Suites as well, which is a good thing. In terms of age for my clients, the average age is about 45 and above. I don't have younger ones in their 30s. I also had old ones. I always mention him. My oldest client, when he was working with me, he was 82. In 2022, he's 90.

I've got authors in their 80s. For our readers out there, as you go through each stage, evolve as a leader and get more clarity in your vision or perhaps you have had changes. You are done with this career or the next one, I can't tell you how important it is to continue to hone your leadership voice. When I came to 2022, I'm like, “This is the voice I'm using.” It isn't that I haven't already been back here for years running the company.

It's that now is the time for the next phase. I'm rolling out something different and I have to find that voice. How do people get in touch with you because I can't encourage our leaders enough to consider continuing to craft their leadership voice? You want to do it up here with tremendous books and update your circle with tremendous people but that voice is such an important part of sending out and communicating all the tremendous things that are coming into you.

The best way is to connect with me on LinkedIn.

Instead of making it sound like a question, make it sound like a statement. That one small change makes you sound more assertive.

That's where we met.

That's one. The second source is my website. My website is PowerfulExecutiveVoice.com.

Cynthia, you gave me quite a bit of wonderful things to think about. Are there any last thoughts or parting words from our guest?

Everything we do for the leaders is not just learning about the skills and techniques. The most important thing over the years that I have realized is that we need to not only upscale ourselves but also elevate ourselves as a leader, in terms of not only the skills but also mentally and emotionally. Once we are able to elevate ourselves to the next level, you will see things start to flow. Even though I haven't been the CEO, I have led nonprofit organizations and my small team. That's what I felt. Whenever I elevated myself to the next level, I started to feel that things are flowing. That's what I would recommend to our leaders.

For our readers out there, this was Cynthia Zhai. We have the connections that you can reach out to her. Cynthia, thank you so much for everything you shared with us, for your wisdom, and for helping make a difference in other people's lives so they can go out and be the leaders that they and the world need. To our tremendous readers out there, if you like what you read, be sure and hit the subscribe button and leave us the honor of a review or a comment.

We answer all those comments personally. Please share this with a friend as well. Come on over to TremendousLeadership.com and check out all the tremendous books, resources, DVDs and CDs. We will introduce you to a world of tremendous people to help you continue your upward trajectory. Thanks so much for being a part of our tremendous tribe. Have a tremendous rest of your day.

Important Links:

• PowerfulExecutiveVoice.com

• TEDx speech - The Transformative Power of Your Voice

• Bob Brumm – Past Episode

• LinkedIn - Cynthia Zhai

• https://www.YouTube.com/user/cynthiazhai

• https://VoiceMastery.app.heroicnow.com/

About Cynthia Zhai

Cynthia Zhai is a Voice Coach, Professional Speaker (CSP), and Best-Selling Author. She’s also a TEDx speaker. She has helped professionals from 46 countries across 6 continents to speak with a powerful voice. Cynthia has been a professional speaker and coach for the past 19 years and her engagement spans 5 continents in 18 countries.

Episode 146 - Al Argo - Leaders on Leadership

As a leader, you have to be equipped with different skills to communicate and deal with things correctly. In addition, you have to be focused on overcoming adversity, making tough decisions, and staying committed to growth. Join your host, Dr. Tracey Jones, as she interviews Al Argo about all of these things and his unique perspective in leadership. Al Argo is a motivational speaker and author. He also speaks on overcoming adversity, gratitude in life and business influence, positive impact leadership, and missions. What price must you pay to be an effective leader? Al provides a deep dive into some of the components you have to deal with as a leader, including loneliness, weariness, and abandonment. How will you overcome these? Tune in!

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Al Argo - Leaders on Leadership

I'm so excited because my guest is the one, the only, the tremendous, Al Argo. Let me tell you a little bit about Al. Al is a skydiving accident survivor, a motivational speaker, an eight-time author and speaks on overcoming adversity, gratitude in life and business, influence, positive impact, leadership and missions, and helping you create ARGO, which stands for A Really Great Organization. Al is an expert in helping professionals achieve more, relate better, grow faster, and overcome obstacles. In addition to all that, he has been a dear friend of many years of my mother and father and myself as well. Al, thank you so much for being on our show.

Thank you, Dr. Tracey. What an honor to be with you and all of our readers.

Tell a little bit about the intersection of you and my father. I like to set the context of how long we've known people. I had a gentleman on who we connected on LinkedIn. Before I even knew about coming back to Tremendous Leadership, you were a part of Tremendous Leadership.

Your dad was always proud of you and his whole family. I first met Charles "Tremendous" Jones back in the early 1990s. I sold books for two summers with a company out of Nashville, Tennessee. That's how he and I connected. We stayed in touch. Toward the late '90s, I ended up transitioning over into Asia, began to work with John Maxwell training leaders overseas, and still work with a nonprofit organization that I've been with ever since then.

Your dad was coming over and visiting us, and then your mom came over and visited us different times, not once, but several times. He and I would speak not only to Christian Ministry groups like Haggai Institute, but we'd also speak for Corporate Asia. I remember doing events with the Napoleon Hill Foundation. He was so proud of you and thankful for all of his readers and listeners, not only in America but in Australia. I still run into fans of Charles from Australia. Several years ago, I did an author publishing masterclass down in Perth and came across fans. Even though he's been in heaven quite some time, his legacy, the influence and impact of Charles "Tremendous" Jones lives on.

He loved Australia, and we still get orders every now and then. They're effervesced and efficacious as he was. He loved them. I interviewed Nikita Koloff.  Al was one of the gentlemen in our monthly Godly Guys and Gals group, our little mini-mastermind, where we get together. We're all speakers, authors, and Christians who share with one another because that's what we're meant to do. Al brought me into this a few years ago. I was so honored. I'm like, "Do you want me to be with you guys?" It's been such a tremendous help.

I'm so thankful, not only for you but for Nikita and our whole group. It's a small group but very powerful and influential group. We're like your dad. Until his last breath, he was always learning. I tell people, "My name is Al. It's an acronym for a lot of things, but one of those things is Always Learning." I don't know if it was your dad or someone else, but they taught me always to have a book you're reading and writing. Those two things were huge in books. When I was a young boy, I didn't have a TV. All I had was a library. When I was 14, 15, my dad said, "If you want a TV, you can buy it." I bought and watched it for a little bit, but I never lost my love for books.

He took our TVs out of the house. We were in high school and didn't watch that much. This was in the early '70s. He's like, "You don't need that," and we didn't need it. We wrote book reports. I'm thankful for that. Let's get right into the topic of leadership. My father loved leadership, but he was very pragmatic about it. He did not shy away from the tougher side of it and had a speech called The Price of Leadership where he said that there are four components that if you truly are going to be a leader, there's a price that you're going to have to pay.

It's worth it, but you're going to have to pay for it. The first one he talked about was loneliness. We've all heard that it's lonely at the top. Could you unpack what loneliness means to you as a seasoned leader? Maybe share a time when you were in that season. Maybe a tool for our readers if they are walking in a time of loneliness.

I heard your dad speak to a lot of different audiences from the time I was in college to the time I was in ministry and Corporate Asia. All of us, whether we're brand-new leaders or seasoned leaders, can go through a season of loneliness, whether that's a short or extended period of time. For me, when I was selling books, that was hard because you're out there by yourself. I didn't know how to sell.

I began to learn how to sell when I was 14, 15, and then the company kept doing sales training. Continuous education and ongoing education are important. That's why you and I train in Corporate America, Asia, and different places. Loneliness is different than being alone. Leaders, by nature, oftentimes are alone. It doesn't have to impact us negatively. It's what I'm saying. We've served in Asia for twenty years, the first ten years in Singapore, and the last ten years, we've moved over into the Philippines. We travel a lot. The whole concept of loneliness is about making decisions that are tough and giving up the good for the great.

This goes into these criticisms that are tough. The next thing he talked about was weariness. If it's tough, it wears on you mentally, physically, spiritually, all that good stuff. How do you combat weariness so you can continue to go through those tougher seasons and still stay robust and strong enough to move forward?

Overcoming Adversity: The whole concept of loneliness is really about just making decisions that are tough and giving up the good for the great.

I'm a big believer that you give each day all you've got. I start the morning with journaling. I wish I'd begun to do this when I was in my early 20s or late teens, but I've honestly begun to do it in the last few years. I've not missed a day doing this consistently since I've started. I talked about yesterday and today, but I could talk about 4 or 5 years down the road in my journal. I'm not doing it by hand. I'm doing it right here on my laptop, and that way, I'll always have it with me. It's also searchable.

I write my to-do list in my journal, which is important, but I also write my goals. I even write a small prayer and a gratitude list. These are the things that I'm doing every day. As far as weariness, in particular, I also make sure that I rest well. I've written a book about morning habits called Wake Up and Shine, but I've often thought about writing a book on rest and the importance of sleep. How we combat weariness is we honor the Sabbath. It's okay to be tired, but we don't want to be too tired.

Someone passed away, and he left notes on his desk. This was an older preacher, a gentleman from North Carolina. Found on his desk was, "At the first sign of fatigue, I'm going to rest." I thought that's pretty interesting because I've not followed that. I work hard. I worked through my fatigue oftentimes, but this older preacher in North Carolina had a different view. That's interesting because we work hard, but we also want to rest as well. We honor the Sabbath and rest well at night.

How I've combated weariness is, one of the first things that I do in the morning is I drink lots of water. I've learned that from the Japanese. They drink water. While weariness comes, we don't want it to linger. It is part of the price that we or others have to pay. I've got an acronym toward the end when you asked me as we get through the next one because we've talked about loneliness, weariness and there are two more.

That glass of water thing is huge. When I reclaimed my health, that's the first thing I do in the morning. Go get and drink an eight-ounce glass of water. That's amazing what you do, but I love that you talk about you're being very intentional with writing down in the gratitude. Sometimes weariness comes from a lack of focus. You've pulled so many ways in, and you're tired. You're like, "I didn't get anything done," and then you feel more tired. How can you be tired if you are unproductive?

That lack of focus drains you, and that's getting to our next topic. You need to do a book on rest and the Sabbath because that is critical. We're still flesh and blood and the temple. We need to take care of that. The next thing my dad talked about was abandonment. Abandonment typically has a negative connotation, the fear of abandonment. In his world, abandonment was abandoning what you like and want to think about in favor of what you want and what you need. It was a real focus. I'm like, "How'd you get so successful?" He's like, "I do more in a day to contribute to my failure than I do my success." He would get spun off on other things. How do you abandon stuff and stay truly focused?

When a lot of people think about abandonment, it might have a negative connotation, but it doesn't have to be because it's us abandoning what? It might be good, but it's not God's will. It might be good, but it's not great. TV in and of itself, it might be good, but it's not great. I'm not preaching against TV. Back in the '70s and '80s, a lot of people preach against TV. One of the reasons why we grew up without TV is because someone preached against it, and my dad threw it away. Your dad probably did the same. When we talk about abandonment, it's about us giving up the mediocre for the incredible.

God promised us life and life more abundant. AL is an acronym for a lot of things, but it's also an acronym for Abundant Life. That's God's promise for you and me if we not only know about him but if we know him. God wants us to do four things. He wants us to know him and have freedom in him. Just because you know Him, it doesn't mean you have freedom. He wants us to know Him and have freedom. He wants us also to understand our purpose, whether that's Corporate America, Corporate Asia, or even ministry. Your dad loved the ministry. He often told me, like, "Why couldn't the Lord call me into the ministry?" I don't know if he ever told you that.

He did all the time.

I've been able to walk that fine line of ministry and marketplace. I love it. I'm so thankful for being able to work with the bankers in Nepal, tourism departments in very interesting countries across Asia. I'm very grateful for your dad and other mentors. This whole concept of abandonment is we give up the mediocre for the best for that day. I do write every morning. I don't do one thing every night, but as we're going to talk more, I do this often, is I review the day. I ask myself what went well and what I could've done better. I'm being transparent.

My morning routine is very solid as far as exercising, water, and getting my morning started. Those seven habits are outlined in the book, Wake Up and Shine. We're talking about the price of leadership. We've talked about loneliness, weariness, and abandonment. There's one more, which these three leads to vision, which is very important. Do you have any other comments on weariness?

No, weariness in your abandonment. I love that you are always looking at abandoning every day, and it's a daily thing. We were on point, but it's like your car. You constantly have to be tweaking, preventative maintenance, and rest. It's like you dust your house, and a day later, there's dust. It's a constant tending to getting out the weeds, the non-value-added, and staying on point. You never, ever can sit there, and maybe for ten seconds you can, and then stuff starts happening again. That was beautiful talking about abandonment.

Overcoming Adversity: How we combat weariness is how we honor the Sabbath. So it's okay to be tired. But we really don't want to be too tired.

We're talking about abandonment, and then I circled back to loneliness and weariness. If we rearrange those three things, I like acronyms and alliteration. I do this all the time, even with my last name, when I teach sales. Our sales professionals, if we give a great offer, that's what we want to do. As far as consulting organizations, we want to give ARGO and help build ARGO, which is A Really Great Organization.

If you rearrange those first three things, loneliness, weariness, and abandonment, it's LAW, Loneliness, Abandonment, and Weariness, and that's the law. A lot of our readers love the Lord and have a real relationship with Christ like you and I do. Some may not, and that's okay because we love everybody. We welcome everybody to your leadership broadcast. I love what you're doing, the people that you've interviewed since you've begun this.

I can't wait for the future, but we're not living under the law. We're living under grace. For me, have I dealt with loneliness? Yeah, we've dealt with it. Has it been a big issue? Not so much because I'm never alone. We have to abandon the mediocre to achieve God's best, but that's okay. We give up so we can go up. We grow weary. Sometimes we get tired, but it's not a big issue because we pay the price, but he paid the ultimate price.

I want to bring that out because it's close to Christmas. When he visited us over in Singapore, your dad told me these stories about keeping up the Christmas tree all year long. You can maybe give us more insight because I never got to come up to the house. To this day, I've never been up to where you grew up. Even when your dad passed away, I was overseas. It was very challenging for me to get back. I wanted to. In my spirit, I was there, but he told me these stories about keeping the Christmas tree up all year long.

We're coming into the Christmas season. As I prepared for this interview, I realized Loneliness, Abandonment, and Weariness are an acronym for LAW, but we have a vision. The law leads into vision. God gives vision. We know that verse where there is no vision, the people perish. Vision is also the price that we pay for leadership.

How do you hone your vision? Dad was pragmatic, down-to-earth, not fancy talk at all because he was real. He would say, "Vision is seeing what needs to be done and then doing it." How do you incorporate this into your leadership?

I'm a big believer in goal setting, but I also take action toward those goals. The Bible says, "Faith without works is dead." I shared that verse with a corporate audience in Asia. Some of these young people had never even heard that. We have a lot of faith in different things. I have faith in the chair that I'm sitting in. I have faith in the car that we drove up to speak at an engagement in North Carolina. If I'm flying to Asia, I certainly have faith in that airplane and the pilot.

Even with that pilot in that plane, that plane naturally will tend to get off course, and vision is the act of pulling it back on the course to make sure it gets to the right destination. Even before we were born, God knew all of our days. He understands our purpose and the plan that he has for life. Many people never discover that purpose. No wonder a lot of people aren't happy and don't have real peace.

Whether your purpose is working at the post office or driving a truck, or selling insurance, I met with a guy who's been in the insurance for several years. I told him about your dad. I was like, "You got to read some of these books." Every one of us has a purpose and a vision. If we get it, we'll understand that the desires in our hearts were probably put there by God.

I love that you tied it back to freedom. I heard a quote and tried to find who did it, but they said, "For the center, this world is the closest to heaven they're going to get. For the saint, this world is the closest to how they're ever going to get." Even in our most lonely, tired, messed-up days, we have that freedom. I love that you brought that because that gets the wind back in your sails. We don't just do it on our own.

Those of us that have the faith paradigm know may be alone, but never all alone. When we are weak, he is strong, and abandonment is constantly, as Paul said, "Dying to self," and then we get into another biblical principle of vision where there is no vision that people perish. I thank you for that, Al, and those insights and how you're weaving that into all aspects of your life.

I believe that the best for you and me is yet to come. We have to keep learning and also apply what we're learning.

Overcoming Adversity: We just have to keep learning and also applying while we're learning.

Somebody told me this, "Embrace, but then you have to integrate. Faith without works is dead." We're still learning, but our minds, all the leadership stuff says, cognitively, if you keep your mind active, you can stave off senility, all that stuff. Retirement is not a biblical principle. We're meant to keep going and growing. That's why I love our tremendous fan base because these are seasoned people that already have 1, 2, 3, 4 great successful careers. They're always still like, "There's more." That's what true leaders do, always growing and sowing.

Somebody at lunch asked me where I plan to retire, and I'm like, "Retirement is not even in my mind." I'm barely half a century. I'm so grateful that I've known your dad and family for many years. I declare that for me and my future and the ministry, the marketplace, everything that our hands, the consulting or the books. I love Asia. We've invested two decades. The legacy, the generation that will come as the Lord tarries.

They asked me, "Where do you want to retire?" I'm like, "I want to live forever in Asia." The truth is I go back and forth. I'm at home in America, even though the weather's getting cold. This will be my first Thanksgiving in America since 2015. I'm very thankful to have a Thanksgiving birthday and Christmas in the US in 2021. It's interesting but cold.

Come up to Pennsylvania, where it's even colder, and we'll give you some beautiful winter.

Do you have your Christmas tree up yet?

No, after Thanksgiving. I like to add, "Keep a tree up all year round," because that reminded him every day about the birth of Jesus. When you look at that every day, it helps keep you focused. Every day, there's my reminder that this price was paid for me, and I can live as a free, liberated child and claim my inheritance. I love the tree.

I don't keep a tree up all year round, but maybe we should.

I changed mine out every month. It's a seasonal tree, but it still is the joy of the seasons, the remembrances. It all hearkens back to the birth of Christ. We have Easter for the resurrection, all those data points, and everything in between. We've covered the four points. Share with our readers, too, how you do walk in the ministry and the marketplace? I want you to share a little bit about your ministry and what you're doing with that?

Our purpose in Asia and even in America is to teach. I tell people that it's all about the team. I like acronyms. We're all about Teaching, Equipping, Activating, and Mobilizing. That's an acronym for TEAM. Specifically, we want to help the Asian church move forward and become all that God wants them to be in the ministry. In the marketplace, we want companies to make sure that they hire the right people. I'm teaming with a group of high-level industrial psychologists who've developed software to help HR departments hire the right people. We're not talking about small companies, but these are companies that are 500, 1,000, 1,500, 5,000 employees or more, whether it's Asia or America.

In the ministry, for many years, whether it's a relief in Indonesia after the tsunami, we'd help train a team of locals and were mobilized immediately to go in after the Christmas tsunami back in 2004. It killed 144,000 people in 15 minutes. It's a hard area to get into, but the US government under the USAID got in. We got in as a religious nonprofit. They're still effective ministries in that area there in Indonesia. We work with Bible schools across Southeast Asia. We do relief, whether it's the tsunami. We've done volcano and typhoon reliefs. It's very sad, some of the craziness.

When you talk about loneliness, abandonment, and weariness, when you see some of that without the grace of God, you can tend to go that way. Thank God for vision and provision. The ministry may be a relief, or education, whether that's elementary education or reading programs. One of the reasons why I do the books is to promote literacy and encourage children and parents to read to children. Our readers can find the kids' books on Amazon. We promote literacy, do relief, leadership training for the church and corporate. I get bored easily. Someone told me not long ago, "You might have ADHD." I'm like, "I've never been diagnosed with that." They went on to say, "If you do, you manage it well."

It's like loneliness and weariness. It can be a good thing.

I don't want my hand in too much. Whatever I do to be done with excellence, and I want it to be fruitful. We've talked about vision, but we also need people to pray for us and support us, but we need people you and I can delegate work to. John Maxwell always teaches that you inspect what you expect. That's so important. There are other aspects of leadership, including numbers. I may not be a natural numbers guy, but I understand that numbers tell a story. At the end of the day, if I know the numbers that matter, I can see how my day went. Whether that's a Sunday in church or a Monday through Friday in corporate, the numbers always tell a story.

Overcoming Adversity: We need people not only to pray for us and support us, but we need people to help, that you and I can delegate work to.

Al, what is the best way for people to get in touch with you?

Anyone who might want to donate to the ministry can receive a tax deduction if they're given in America. I have a URL, a short link that would go right to the ministry site. It's www.Bit.do/AsiaMissions. If they want to look at the books, they can search Al Argo on Amazon or Al Argo on Audible. If they want to get in touch with me as far as consulting or some of the HR work we've been doing, or to ask a personal question, they can connect with me on LinkedIn and message me.

There's only one Al Argo on LinkedIn. That's a skydiving accident survivor, author, and consultant. There is a couple more Al Argos out there on LinkedIn, but they don't have any pictures. I'm not sure who they are, or even if it's a fake profile, but my LinkedIn profile has a picture and it is very clear which one it would be.

Touch on some of your children's books because the readers need to know you've got some kids' books, too.

Thank you. When I was down in Australia, my event organizer named Chris, he’s a pastor, a corporate guy, and an all-around good guy. He's my good friend. I've known him for years. We've attended events together in Canada and America. He was coming up to Singapore and the Philippines to see us. He invited me down to do not only speak at a leadership event, but we also did an author training masterclass. On the night before I was leaving Australia, he took us out for ice cream. In that ice cream shop, he got the hiccups. In the Deep South where I'm from, if you get the hiccups, you're going to get scared.

I looked over at him and scared him. He never had that happen. He had a fit. The whole ice cream shop got silent. We all bust out laughing because his hiccups were gone. I made a comment. I said, "Don't worry. I've written the book on hiccups." I was joking, but the next morning at the airport, I wrote this cute, almost like a Dr. Seuss type rhyme. It all rhymes.

At the end of the book, I wrote about 5 to 7 true hiccup facts. This is a book for early readers. It rhymes like Dr. Seuss. All the artworks are hand-drawn. All the parents and the little kids love. That was the first book. I wrote a book about hiccups, and it's based in Australia. A couple of days later, I wrote one about doing number two, which all kids have questions about. I didn't realize a lot of parents would go to that book when their kids had questions about potty training, but that's pretty interesting.

I wrote one about hiccups and then sneezing. Those are the four books in the kid's series called The Adventures of Chris. Chris is a real person. All the books are educational, and our goal is to give away 1 million books in Asia. What we do is whenever someone buys a book on Amazon or they buy a book at one of our events, we immediately donate a book in Asia as well. It's a neat little giving model that we have.

Al, thank you so much for what you meant to my family, the blessing you continue to be to me and for sharing your wisdom with our leaders out there and our Tremendous Tribe.

What a tremendous opportunity to be with you. We have the opportunity to be together every month via our speaker and author mastermind. Thank you for being a part of that. Thank you for being a friend to our family and ministry. We appreciate your prayer and support and friendship. It means a lot to us, and we love you. I love your mom and your dad. They're great people.

You as well, Al. Thank you so much. To our tremendous readers out there, thank you so much for taking the time to read. If you haven't done so yet, please hit the subscribe button so you don't miss another episode. If you do us, the honor of a five-star review, we’d be so thankful. Drop us a note, we'd go ahead, and I forward anything you say to Al, and we answer all of our responses.

Please, make sure you go over to TremendousLeadership.com, sign up for our email letter, where you automatically receive two free weeks of eBooks in addition to making sure you don't miss another episode. To our tremendous leaders out there, you keep on paying the price of leadership. We're right there with you. We're so thankful for you.

Important Links:

• Al Argo

• Wake Up and Shine

• www.Bit.do/AsiaMissions

• Al Argo - Amazon

• Al Argo - Audible

• The Adventures of Chris

About Al Argo

Al is a Skydiving Accident Survivor, Motivational Speaker, 8x-Author, Speaks on Overcoming Adversity, Gratitude in Life & Business, Influence, Positive Impact Leadership & Missions. Helping you create ARGO (A Really Great Organization!)