Hello everyone and welcome back to another episode of the podcast.
Today's episode is titled five things I learned in my thirties that I need you to know.
I am now 35 years old and a lot of these things I'm going to talk about.
I've been learning over the last, I'd say, 15 years, but they have been reinforced and confirmed in my 30s.
And a lot of the things I'm talking about today are related to leadership.
These five things, these five things I'm going to share, all attribute to being a strong, more well-equipped leader, right.
But what I want to preface that with and I've said this before in podcasts that are related to leadership you might hear that and think well, I'm not a leader.
I don't own a business.
I don't lead a business.
I don't lead a team or an organization.
But I strongly believe, more now than ever before, that we are all called to be leaders in one way or another.
And the older I get, and I would argue the wiser I become, the more I believe that.
We are all called to be leaders.
We are all responsible and obligated to be leaders in some way, shape, or form.
Whether that is within your relationship, your family, amongst your peers, your community.
The way that we become better as a collective group of people, a nation, a world, a society is by and with stronger leadership.
I don't know if anyone would argue against that.
Over these last almost 14 years now of building a business, I can promise you that the number one thing that drives success is the same thing that can drive the demise and destruction of a business or an organization, and that is leadership or lack thereof.
There is a book that I'm going to reference throughout this entire episode.
It's by John C. Maxwell.
And it's titled The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership.
I listened to the audio book of this book that I'm holding in my hand right now.
I first listened to it two weeks ago.
And literally the day after I finished it, I restarted it.
I believe it's that good.
There's these 21 Laws.
Applicable to leadership, whether you're leading an organization, a team, your family or trying to lead yourself.
Honestly, I didn't plan on talking about that, but you have to be able to lead yourself to succeed.
If you can't lead yourself, you can't lead anyone else.
I mean, this book is a book for everyone and anyone.
Learn how to lead yourself and In most ways and in most times, leadership isn't necessarily strategic and it's not tactical.
I think most people, when they want to improve their leadership abilities, say tell me what I have to do.
What do I have to implement?
What are these routines and practices?
In most cases, leadership is built off a very strong foundation of core values and beliefs that you practice daily.
That's what this book is all about.
Within the book, John C. Maxwell quotes Stanley Hufty.
And Stanley says, it's not the position that makes the leader.
It's the leader that makes the position.
It's not the position that makes the leader.
It's the leader that makes the position.
Now, John C. Maxwell kicks off this book with his first lull.
And that is called The Lull of the Lid.
And I just want to read this to you before we get started.
So here it is.
How well you lead determines how well you succeed.
Leadership is the lid to your potential.
The lower your leadership ability, the lower the lid on your potential.
The higher your leadership ability, the higher the lid on your potential.
To give you an example, if your leadership operates at an eight out of 10, then your effectiveness can never be greater than a seven.
If your leadership is only a four, then your effectiveness with others will be no higher than a three.
How well you are able to lead, for better or for worse, always determines your effectiveness with others and the potential of your team.
How well you lead determines how well you succeed.
Leadership is everything.
It's everything.
And I've had the fortunate opportunity over these last 13, 14 years to be put in real life leadership positions.
And that started with me graduating college and going right into the army as an infantry platoon leader and leading an infantry platoon, and then transitioning out of the military and starting the business and building a team and leading people, an organization, and being challenged and tested, and then starting a family and having the responsibility of leading my family.
And all throughout that journey and those experiences, having to lead myself.
It starts with the law of the lid.
How effective are you as a leader?
So like I said, there's five things that I want to share with you.
Five things I learned in my 30s that I need you to know, that I want you to know.
That first thing is that leadership is servanthood, right?
Leadership is influence.
There's a difference between influence and popularity.
And then I'm going to go to the book.
I'm going to reference this book a lot.
And I would highly encourage you guys, pick up a copy, whether it's the hard cover or, in my case.
I'm listening to the audio book, but I'm also reading the hard cover of the book as well.
John C. Maxwell, The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership.
So this is from page 16.
This is the difference between influence and popularity, which is extremely applicable to the digital age in which we live in today and how we view people who are leaders have followers, whether those are real followers or fake followers, and influence versus popularity.
Today, people sometimes have a different misconception about leadership.
When they hear me say leadership is influence, they confuse influence with popularity.
You could have a high profile career on television, music or movies, or you can have millions of followers on social media and thousands of likes on your posts, but that does not make you a leader.
It makes you popular.
And that's not the same thing.
People can be highly interested in someone with social influence, but it doesn't become leadership influence until people following them change their behavior and take action as a result of the interaction with the influencer.
That's the type of influence I'm describing when I say that leadership is influence.
Nothing more, nothing less.
I want to go back to this real quick.
People can be highly interested in someone with social influence, but that doesn't become leadership influence until the people following them change their behavior and take action as a result of the interaction with the influencer.
Being an influencer in today's age is someone who has a big social media following, who does brand deals, who makes money online.
The term influencer within this context is not that.
The term influencer in this context is somebody who has influence over.
That doesn't become leadership influence until the people following them change their behavior and take action as a result of the interaction with the influencer.
That's gold.
That is so good right there.
There is a difference between having true influence, influence on behavior for people to take action and to follow, as opposed to popularity.
That has been one of the biggest learning lessons for me in terms of what I've learned in my 30s.
Leading people, leading teams, building a business, leading my family.
It is that leadership is servanthood.
It is serving other people.
Position in itself does not grant influence.
You know, just putting someone in a director role or a manager role, which there's a big difference between being a manager and a leader.
Leadership is not management.
Management is not leadership.
Just putting someone into a role and having a title that is deemed or typically a leadership role does not grant influence.
Position does not grant influence, right?
I learned this lesson early on in 2013, 2014.
In 2013, I was 23 years old.
I just graduated college with a degree from the Indiana University of Pennsylvania, a degree in nutrition, major in nutrition, minor in business administration.
As many of you may know, and I've shared in the past, I was on an Army ROTC scholarship.
So I knew I was going directly into the military post-college.
Graduated college, went right into the military, commissioned as a second lieutenant in the army.
I spent a year in Fort Benning, Georgia, throughout different military schools.
And then, in October of 2014, I landed in Central Texas because I was stationed at Fort Hood for my first duty assignment.
And as a freshly commissioned army officer, military officer, depending on your job and your performance.
Typically, your first role is a platoon leader.
That is leading a platoon, typically around 40 soldiers and non-commissioned officers.
And you as the platoon leader are in charge.
You are the leader of that platoon.
So I was assigned to the 1st Armored Brigade Combat Team, which is part of 1st Cav, 212 Cav, Bravo Company, 1st Platoon.
The platoon I was assigned to was called the Misfits.
So typically, a platoon leader is in charge of a platoon anywhere from 9 to 18 months.
I had the opportunity, which I'm so grateful for, to have been in a platoon leader position for about two years.
Same platoon.
So picture this.
I graduate college, no military experience.
I do one year of training and That was the infantry officer basic course, ranger school, airborne school, Bradley leader course, because the unit that I was in was mechanized infantry.
So we used Bradley fighting vehicles.
And I was in a combined arms battalion.
So we had two tank companies and two Bradley companies.
I get assigned to my platoon.
And these 40 soldiers and non-commissioned officers were had different levels of experience in their time in the military.
Some people, some of my soldiers were privates and they just got assigned to that unit.
They just graduated basic training, pretty much just the same amount of training that I had.
And then I had I had squad leaders who were staff sergeants.
I had a platoon sergeant.
My platoon sergeant had 20 years of service already.
A lot of these guys had multiple deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan over the years.
Tons of experience, many deployments. in actual real life firefights.
And here I am, brand new, fresh lieutenant, butter bar.
They call it a butter bar because the second lieutenant rank is this gold bar on your chest.
Brand new butter bar leading these men.
I would say that was the most intimidating environment that I ever had to approach and join.
And all throughout college, you're waiting for this moment.
You're waiting for this experience.
And the intimidation over the years, builds and builds and builds.
Because you know when you arrive to your unit, your assignment, you are technically put in charge of these 40 soldiers and non-commissioned officers.
And you're put in charge based off of position and rank, but you do not have influence yet.
You do not have leadership yet.
You have to earn that.
And I remember the day arriving in my platoon, being judged up and down.
And some of the best advice I was ever given was when you get to your platoon as a platoon leader, don't make any changes right away.
Don't come in, guns a blazing, flipping tables, making changes.
Just sit back and observe.
Just watch.
Observe, watch, work, be actively involved, but allow the platoon to invite you in.
Earn their respect first.
And once you earn their respect and they allow you to come in, then you can start getting more involved.
And eventually you can have influence.
You can be a leader, not based off of position, but based off of the respect, competence, trust.
My job as an infantry platoon leader was to serve that platoon.
It was not for me to beat my chest and lead the way in all things and everything.
My job, my responsibility, was to be a servant to the soldiers and non-commissioned officers.
That was my job.
Based off the John Maxwell website, what is servanthood?
The heart of leadership is serving others first, before yourself.
Here's the problem.
Most organizations operate from a leadership structure with hierarchy.
Leaders move up the ladder in an organization, and once there, they see themselves above their team.
Despite its trending status, as well as its undeniable success, most people do not equate leadership to service.
Rather than focusing on humility, influence and meeting people where they are at.
Too many leaders think being a leader means power and authority.
Leaders are humble, allowing their behavior to communicate their values and their appreciation for their people.
And they are vigilant and promoting the right attitude and belief systems that encourage others to succeed.
If there's one thing you take away from this entire episode, like I mentioned in the beginning, we are all called and responsible to be leaders in some shape, some form, some capacity.
And the way that you lead is by serving people.
Leadership is servanthood.
Okay, number two, the second lesson, build trust and become competent.
I've also listed these five things in a specific order because I believe they build off of each other.
So right now we're going to page 70 in the book.
And this is called The Keys to Trust.
I've become well-known for teaching that everything rises and falls on leadership.
Like I said in the beginning of this episode, everything rises and falls on leadership.
I believe that to my core.
Everything rises when leaders demonstrate competence and good values.
Everything falls when leaders demonstrate incompetence and poor values.
Why do I say this?
When leaders lack competence, they can't accomplish anything.
When leaders lack good values, they can't be trusted.
They lack character.
Without both competence and good values, they can't get anyone to follow them.
If vision is like the head in an organization and mission is like the heart, then values are like the soul.
Oh, that's good.
That's good.
Who wants to be part of a soulless organization?
Come on now.
Come on.
Let's read that last part again.
That's good.
If vision is like the head in an organization and mission is like the heart, then values are like the soul.
Who wants to be part of a soulless organization?
John C. Maxwell.
That was money right there.
That's good stuff.
We need both trust and competence.
You can't have one without the other.
There are people, there are people in my life that I trust dearly.
I mean I trust dearly, but at the same time they are incompetent in so many things and it's hard to follow them.
They don't have influence.
They just don't have it.
And there's people I know in my life that are extremely competent skilled genius smart, but they can't be trusted.
I don't trust them.
And in that case, the same thing, I'm not going to follow them.
I'm not going to change my behavior because there is no influence whatsoever.
Going back to the story I was previously talking about, by taking you over the misfit platoon and speaking about the fact that leadership is servanthood.
As an infantry platoon leader.
There's actually there's two things that are quite intimidating to as you're preparing to go into the military after graduating from college and commissioning into the army, especially as an infantry platoon leader.
One of those, like I've stated, is taking over a platoon and leading a platoon.
The second is the coveted ranger tab.
As infantry platoon leaders, we know that we're going right into ranger school after graduating from all of our schooling prior to going to our first duty assignment.
Why?
It's just expected from infantry officers, junior infantry officers.
Now some different MOSs, and your MOS is your military occupational specialty.
I was an 11 Alpha, which is an infantry officer, 11 Alpha.
If you come from a different MOS, you don't always have the opportunity to go to ranger school.
But 11 alphas, you know you're going right into ranger school post-graduation.
Because you're expected, when you arrive to your duty assignment, to have a ranger tab on your shoulder.
One of the first things that happens when you walk through those doors of your company and you meet your platoon for the first time.
They're going to check to make sure you have a ranger tab on your shoulder.
And if you don't, for better or worse, fortunately or unfortunately, you are instantly evaluated and judged.
And this is just the truth of the matter.
You don't have trust and you are viewed as incompetent right out of the gates.
And it's much harder to gain that trust and establish competence without a ranger tab on your shoulder.
So when I was in all of my schooling in Fort Benning, Georgia, and I finished all that up prior to going to my first duty assignment, I went to ranger school.
And it's very stressful as an infantry officer because you know that if you fail that school and you go to your first duty assignment without that ranger tab, that just makes your life so much harder because you don't have the trust and you're not viewed as competent.
So the pressure is on, as everyone who goes to that school, but especially infantry officers.
For those of you who don't know my story, I went in February of 2014 to the US.
Army Ranger School.
It's a 61-day leadership and tactical evaluation course.
There's three different phases.
It starts at Fort Benning, Georgia.
Then it goes to the mountains of Dahlonega, Georgia.
And then you finish in the swamps of Florida.
You can fail a phase, but you can't fail a phase twice for the same thing.
If you fail a phase, you recycle, you do the phase over again.
61-day course ended up taking me 145-ish days.
It felt like I was in ranger school for a lifetime because I failed two phases.
So I failed the first phase.
I failed the Fort Benning phase for patrols.
So I did that phase over again.
And unfortunately the class that I started at was during the Best Ranger competition in Fort Benning, Georgia.
So there was a six-week gap from when I finished that phase and failed that phase and had to restart.
So for six weeks we were held in Fort Benning Georgia, just doing random details, preparing for this competition that happens every year at Fort Benning, called the Best Ranger Competition or BRC.
So, after six weeks of being a holdover, I went back into the first phase and which, at this point, I'm restarting ranger school.
And I was at this point stuck in ranger school for nine weeks, nine-ish weeks.
Redid the first phase, passed.
Went to mountains, failed that phase, recycled, redid that phase, passed.
Went to Florida, passed that phase, first time go.
Thank God, praise the Lord.
And when I finally knew I was graduating from the school and I was going to earn my ranger tab, it was one of the most emotional experiences of my life.
That was 2014.
End of June, early July.
I graduated in July of 2014, but my last patrol might've been end of June.
And I remember the day when I found out I passed that patrol.
Everything went well.
It was smooth.
The ranger instructors told me I was a go.
I was a pass.
And as long as something didn't go wrong, from that point until the end of the school, I was going to graduate.
I was going to get my tab.
It was one of the most emotional experiences of my life because the pressure that I was holding on to to earn that tab so that I could then graduate the school, get to my platoon in Fort Hood, Texas, walk through those doors and meet those men for the first time, them looking at my shoulder and seeing the ranger tab and having the bare minimum of trust and competence that I deserved and earned up until that point.
It by no means gave me influence or leadership respect yet, but I at least had the bare minimum of trust and competence based off of the work that I did.
And I've applied that mindset to everything I've done since.
Because I look at.
I look at the people in my life who I follow, who I'm influenced by, who I want to be led by, and that I will make behavioral changes based off of their influence.
And those people have a few things in common, but two of those I can trust them And they continuously work to build trust and maintain trust.
Trust isn't one thing that you get once and then you forget about it.
You have to constantly and consistently keep building trust.
And you do that by being a servant to others, by serving others, servanthood.
And then being good at what you do, being competent.
If you do a certain job We have the obligation and responsibility to be really good at that job.
Invest our time, invest our money, invest our resources, invest our energy, our effort into being good at that thing.
If you don't prioritize, I've had to learn this.
If you don't prioritize building and maintaining trust and being good at what you do, your lid when we go back to the law of the lid, your lid of leadership and your effectiveness in all things you do in life, is capped.
And if you don't build and maintain trust and you don't have competence in what you do, your effectiveness on a scale of 10 might be a two or a three as a leader, which means then, your effectiveness to perform and help others, create impact, lead people it's well below that.
As a leader, you are going to be held to a higher standard.
And there's different levels and echelons of leadership that you may experience over the course of your life.
The reality is that if you want to be a leader, you are going to be held to a higher standard.
And you must be willing to accept the fact that that is just part of the responsibility of leadership.
So lesson number two, build and maintain trust.
You do this by putting people first, others first caring listening, having compassion, working for people and becoming competent at what it is you do, whether that's being a really good dad, a really good husband, a really good business owner, a really good doctor, a really good car salesman, a really good video editor.
Whatever it is, trust and competence.
Lesson number three, protect your priorities, being home, marriage, and family.
Protect your priorities.
Going to go to the book, page 224.
What is required of me?
So John Maxwell states that he has these three R's and those R's are requirement, return and reward.
He says I believe that, to be effective, leaders must order their lives accordingly to these three questions.
All right, here we go.
What is required of me?
We're all accountable to somebody for the work we do an employer, a board of directors stockholders, the government, and so on.
We also have responsibility for the important people in our lives, such as our spouse, children and parents.
For that reason, any list of priorities must begin with what is required of us.
The question I ask myself is, what must I do that nobody can or should do for me?
As I've gotten older, that list has gotten shorter and shorter.
If I'm doing something that's not necessary, I should eliminate it.
If I'm doing something that's necessary but not required of me, personally, I need to delegate it.
So the first question I ask, what is required of me?
Second question, what gives the greatest return?
As a leader, you should spend most of your time working in the areas of your greatest strengths.
Marcus Buckingham and Donald O Clifton have done extensive research on this subject, which you can read in their book Now.
Discover Your Strength.
People are more productive and more content when their work is within their natural gifting and strengths.
Ideally, leaders should get out of their comfort zone, but stay in their strength zone.
I love that.
I firmly believe that.
Ideally, leaders should get out of their comfort zone, but stay in their strength zone.
Why?
Because there's the greatest return.
What's the practical application for this?
Here's my rule of thumb.
If something I'm doing can be done 80% as well by someone else, then I delegate it.
If you have a responsibility that someone else could do according to that standard or that could potentially meet that standard, then develop and train a person to handle it.
Just because you can do something does not mean that you should do it.
Remember, leaders understand that activity is not necessarily accomplishment.
That's the law of priorities.
And the last R is reward.
Tim Redman, president of Redman Leadership Institute, observed there are many things that will catch my eye, but there are only a few things that will catch my heart.
Life is too short not to do some of the things you love.
I love teaching leadership.
I love writing and speaking.
I love spending time with my wife, children, and grandchildren.
I love playing golf.
No matter what else I do, I will make time for those things.
They are the fire lighters in my life.
They energize me and keep me passionate.
And passion provides the fuel in a person's life to keep him going.
Protect your priorities.
Something I wrote down here.
Your home is the foundation of that allows you to go out and conquer all of life's battles and ambitions.
If you protect those things and you create boundaries to protect those things, The success of everything else you do in your life depends on it.
It's like the law of the lid in terms of leadership.
I know, and I've had to learn this a hard way.
Trust me.
If I don't take care of my priorities, being my home, my marriage and my family, my ability to be effective in all other things in life, whether that's my work, leading my team in my business, making money, my fitness ambitions and goals, my health.
I know that if I don't prioritize my home, marriage and family, I don't take care of those priorities.
The effectiveness of everything else in my life will be below the effectiveness of my home.
Everything in your life depends on protecting those priorities.
Right now, I just recently started reading Pastor Joby Martin's new book.
It's called Stand Firm and Act Like Men.
It just came out a few days ago.
And I just started it this morning.
I love it.
I can't recommend...
I'm speaking to men specifically right now.
Men, go follow and listen to Pastor Joby Martin.
And especially read his new book, Stand Firm and Act Like Men.
As a man, speaking to men, we have the responsibility to protect and lead our home.
That is one of the most important things of our lives.
Protect and lead our home.
Protect our home, protect our family, protect our marriage, protect our children, protect those relationships.
That goes back to being a servant leader, selfless servant, putting our family first, our home, our marriage, those relationships above ourselves and above anything else we want for ourselves.
Priorities of my life, God, family, everything else.
And I know, if I put those things in that order God, family and everything else I can be an effective leader.
And I can be effective in many other areas of my life.
But if those things are out of order in any way, if it's God work family, if it's family God work, if it's work family God, all of those combinations, I am instantly less effective.
We have to protect our priorities.
We have to.
Because everything else depends on it.
And honestly, that comes to building your inner circle.
So let me go back to the book for a second.
Who are you drawing into your inner circle?
This is page 138.
Most human beings have some kind of inner circle, people close to them who help to make or break them.
However, many people are not strategic in choosing them.
Few people give enough thought to how those closest to them impact their effectiveness or leadership potential.
We naturally tend to surround ourselves with either people we like or people with whom we are comfortable.
But people who bring nothing more than fun or easiness will not help you to be successful.
You see it all the time, with certain athletes who transition to the professional ranks and with entertainers who achieve professional success.
Some plateau or self-destruct because their inner circle is composed of people who are not helpful or even harmful to them.
So who are they?
Anyone who is going to be an integral part of your life needs to have good character and share the same values as you.
When I invite people onto my team or consider them for my inner circle, I expect them to have integrity, possess a positive attitude, value excellence, show flexibility, exhibit loyalty and value people.
Now some people hearing that are going to take that the wrong way.
If you take that for what it is, face value without context and perspective.
What this book and these words are not saying is if someone doesn't help you succeed, you should get rid of them.
If someone doesn't help you make more money or level up in your professional life, you should get rid of them.
That's not what that's saying.
But the people you surround yourself with.
They are either going to push and inspire you or they're going to pull you back down.
One of my favorite analogies and maybe it's a metaphor it's the crabs in the bucket analogy, which I've actually only recently heard about somehow, some way.
But the crabs in the bucket analogy say all of you friends, you and your friends are crabs and you're in this bucket.
And you come from a group of friends who gossips, who's negative, who wants comfort, who wants ease.
And you are afraid to leave that group.
Well, you become awakened and you see this opportunity to grow and pursue these new ambitions and have a better attitude and just do better things, more valuable things, and create true impact and change.
And you try to get out of that bucket.
You're a crab.
You start crawling out of that bucket but you don't want to leave those people who are so comfortable with you and are familiar, and they're fun.
So you slowly start to climb out of the bucket.
What's going to happen?
And this happens with crabs.
One crab tries to climb out, the other crabs will pull that crab back in the bucket.
Those people sometimes will pull you back down into where you were, the way you were thinking, what you were doing, who you surround yourself with.
That inner circle you build.
That is so vitally important.
And I would say that this year ever than ever before, I've truly learned the value of that.
A few months ago, committed my life to following Jesus Christ.
I was saved, completely transformed my life and my purpose, and the true joy that I have been able to experience.
And I have found that I've had to be very intentional with who is in my inner circle, because it's really easy to go back to your old ways, depending on who you surround yourself with.
So I'm very careful who I have and keep my inner circle now because I've seen this light.
I've experienced this light.
I don't want to lose that light.
I have the fear of God.
But if you surround yourself with the wrong people and you keep this wrong inner circle around you, you can be distracted and you can go back to your old ways.
The way that you protect your priorities.
You protect your home, your marriage, your family.
It starts with creating boundaries in and outside of your life and in and outside of your home.
But also, how are you curating and being intentional with that inner circle to ensure that you have stability, you have strength and you're maintaining those priorities?
You're protecting those priorities.
Lesson number four, balance is not broken.
It's maybe just mismanaged.
Go into the book, page 237.
There is no success without sacrifice.
Every person who has achieved any success in life has made sacrifices to do so.
Many working people dedicate four or more years to their lives and pay tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars to attend college, to get the tools they'll need before embarking on their career.
Athletes sacrifice countless hours in the gym and on the practice field preparing themselves to perform at a high level.
Parents give up much of their free time and sacrifice their resources to do a better job raising their children.
Philosopher, poet Ralph Waldo Emerson observed for everything you have missed, you have gained something else.
And for everything you gain, you lose something.
Life is a series of trades, one thing for another.
Leaders must give up to go up.
That's true of every leader, regardless of profession.
Effective leaders sacrifice much that is good in order to dedicate themselves to what is best.
That's the way the law of sacrifice works.
Effective leaders sacrifice much that is good in order to dedicate themselves to what is best.
That's good.
I share that because I believe that we sometimes confuse sacrifice for balance.
Of all the lessons that I've learned, I have the most notes written down on this one.
Because I think a lot of people like to throw shade at the term balance, because balance gives off the perception that you may be able to do many things.
But none of them can be exceptional because you're working on so many things.
You're trying to balance them out.
So the default conclusion is that balance doesn't exist for high achievers.
But I would actually disagree.
I used to be someone, especially in my early and late 20s, who was influenced by hustle culture and the work work, work mentality, and that balance is for the weak.
And I think that I've just reshaped the word balance in my head, in my mind, and I just look at it differently now.
Every day isn't going to be balanced.
Every day looks different.
There are days where my schedule and calendar is jam-packed, from the time I get to the office until the time I go to sleep.
I mean it's from one meeting to a call to a podcast, to a training session, to going to a lesson with my daughter, to a dinner, to podcast prep, to all of these things.
Nighttime routine.
I mean, some of these days are jam-packed and it's nonstop.
And then there are days where my schedule is later and I have one meeting on the schedule which allows for more rest and flexibility and just creative time.
So none of my days ever look the same.
There's variation from day to day.
And even every season isn't going to be balanced.
There are seasons of life where my schedule is jam-packed and there are seasons of life when it is not.
I have more flexibility.
Like right now, for example, I am an Ironman prep and that requires a lot of sacrifice, because time is limited, energy is limited.
Outside of my time with family and work and training and my time spent with God and prayer at church in the Bible.
There's not time for anything else, anything else.
I say no to everything.
But that is required in seasons of focus.
And the reason I've just had this slight mindset shift around the word balance is because I see so many people and I've been here before where I embrace this hustle culture, anti-balance life.
And there used to be a lot of pride behind that for myself.
And what I found that I was doing in that pursuit is I was sacrificing the wrong things.
And I intentionally put this lesson balance is not broken.
It's just mismanaged after protecting your priorities.
Because I have had seasons of life where the season is unbalanced.
But also there's these negative consequences that I'm experiencing because I am sacrificing priorities and I'm emphasizing the wrong things.
And that can and will get you to certain places.
You can succeed, you can achieve, you can receive, you can win, you can make more money, but the process is pretty painful.
And at times it creates more harm than actual good.
You know, a few weeks ago I recorded a podcast with Dr Kyle Gillette and we talked about REDS, which is Relative Energy Deficiency in Sport.
And I think this paints a pretty good picture in terms of like there are going to be days, or even short periods of time where your life can be unbalanced.
So REDS is Relative Energy Deficiency in Sport.
And what happens when athletes experience REDS?
Typically happens with athletes because, and especially endurance athletes because they are expending so many calories.
They're burning up so much energy through training.
And they sometimes are unintentionally not eating enough to keep up with their energy expenditure.
So in the beginning, not a big deal.
Few days, maybe even a few weeks, they're not eating enough to make up for what they're burning.
So performance starts to decline, energy levels decline, mental clarity declines, sleep starts to decline.
But as this compounds over longer periods of time weeks months, even years it turns into what is called reds.
And now these issues become chronic where it disrupts the immune system.
It disrupts the endocrine and hormone system.
Bones become brittle and fracture or break.
Muscles tear or sprain.
The individual can't sleep anymore.
It's just like, it's a bad place to be.
But it's happened because there's been this unbalanced ratio of too much caloric expenditure, not enough caloric intake over a long period of time.
That creates these negative consequences.
Well, the same thing can be applied to your life.
There will be seasons and times of sacrifice and unbalanced schedules and focus.
And that's okay.
Sometimes that is required.
But if it's managed or mismanaged for extended periods of time.
That's sometimes when life starts falling apart and becomes destructive.
I would argue that the balance isn't possible approach is a myth.
I would say that my life is pretty balanced right now outside of Ironman prep.
My focus is not on too many things.
My focus is on, in my opinion, the right amount of things. where I can spend time with God.
I spend a lot of time with my family.
I spend a lot of time on my personal fitness goals.
I spend a lot of time in my business.
And outside of that, I'm not pursuing much else.
And it feels like, to me at least, I am spending the appropriate amount of time on those things.
Now, from an outsider looking in, it might look unbalanced, because I'm not going on trips or vacations or I don't have much leisure time.
I'm not watching TV series and we're not going to dinners frequently because my diet is very dialed in based off the training that I'm doing right now.
But based off of me and my family's priorities, my life feels pretty balanced right now.
And it's just a mindset shift of what do I prioritize and what I want to focus on in this season.
Now, I wanted to share this.
When I used to really buy into the balance isn't possible myth 2019.
We were in the thick of building this business.
BPN was much smaller.
We had... three, four employees at the time.
And I bought into life can't be balanced.
So I spent all of my time energy bandwidth on building the business, creating content, doing what had to be done.
It was a time of sacrifice.
And in 2019, early 2019, my mom got diagnosed with stage four ovarian cancer.
And it progressively got worse and worse and worse.
And I should have, in retrospect, I should have gone home more often to see my mom.
My family was still back in Pennsylvania.
My brother and I were in Texas, but we were so consumed with what we were building.
And we were willing, I was willing to sacrifice a lot in order to spend more time on the business.
I went home one time to go visit my mom from the time she was diagnosed with cancer until the time she came back home with seven days left to live on hospice.
I believe she was diagnosed in January.
I came home for a weekend in April.
And even when I was home, I was still filming YouTube videos for the business, distracted.
And then the next time I came home was early June when she was in the ICU, came out of the ICU, went into hospice, passed away a few days later, in June of 2019.
Because I bought into that balance isn't possible myth.
And my priorities and my focus were off.
And I think back to those times and I realized, no, I could have done things different.
I should have done things different.
But I was willing to sacrifice everything, things then that I no way or by any means would sacrifice now.
But I bought into.
This balance isn't possible.
Lifestyle scenario and myth.
And lesson number five, impress less, impact more.
I had to learn this one the hard way.
You know when I started the business in 2012.
I've shared this story many times before, but it never gets old.
I told my dad, we were going to make a million dollars that first year.
And he said, Nick, if it was that easy, everyone would do it.
And I said, I'm going to prove you wrong.
And we didn't do a million dollars in 2012.
We didn't do it in 2013.
We didn't do it in 2014.
We didn't do it in 2015.
We didn't do it in 2016, but we did it in 2017.
Took us five years to cross the seven figure revenue mark.
And because the business wasn't growing initially, I started creating content on YouTube and documenting everything.
In 2014, two years after starting the business.
And that slowly started to help drive revenue and awareness and build a business.
And I started spending a lot of time creating content in 2014 up until today.
And you know, part of creating content was doing these fitness preps documenting the journey, training for marathons and triathlons and ultra marathons and all of these things.
And in that pursuit, in that process, I don't want to say I lost myself, but I started trying to be more impressive than anything else during that process.
Impressive in terms of striving and trying to accomplish more, and not just accomplishing more, but showing that I was accomplishing more.
Showing off things and just receiving validation of my worth through a place of insecurity being the need to impress.
I believe that the need to and want to impress people comes from a place of insecurity.
That is the desire for validation.
And I think that's what majority of social media is used for right now.
Would most people do the things they're doing in their life if social media didn't exist?
Like would people be doing the things that they are striving towards to accomplish and achieve if they couldn't post a photo of it to share with the people they know, but the many people they don't know and will never know personally to receive validation.
And social media is the source in many ways for insecurity for many people.
And Now there's a book I read about a year and a half ago.
It's called Halftime by Bob Buford.
Talking about how, for many people, the first half of your life is focused on success.
And you experience this halftime moment where it shifts from focusing on success, which is sometimes driven by the need to impress people, to then significance, which is impact.
We impress to become popular.
We impact to lead through influence.
And something I heard a few months ago was we should focus on building our life for our eulogy as opposed to our resume.
And I love that.
What are people going to say about you, your character, your values, when you are dead, at your funeral?
Build your life from that foundation, as opposed to building your life for what your resume said you did, where you worked, how much money you made, what your title or position was.
And we're going to go to the book for some reinforcing material on that there.
It's called A Lasting Legacy.
What do you want people to say at your funeral?
What do you want to see happen after you're gone?
What do you want your legacy to be?
These may seem like odd questions, but they may be the most important things you can ask yourself as a leader.
Most people never consider it.
And that's not good, because if they don't, their lives and leadership can take a different direction from that of their greatest potential and impact.
If you want your leadership to really have meaning, you need to take into account the law of legacy.
Why?
Because a leader's lasting value is measured by succession.
We do a lot of things in our life.
I'm doing a lot of things in my life to become stronger, to become better. to build and develop.
But what I've learned over time, especially in my 30s, is that the strength that we are building, the strength that I'm building, the skills, the perspective, the wisdom, it's actually not for me.
It's not for us.
It's for the people we are called to serve and lead.
Impress less, impact more.
This goes back to the first lesson I learned.
At its foundation, leadership is servanthood.
Our purpose, one is to live a life following Jesus Christ.
And it's not to impress, but it's so we can create impact.
We can leave legacy.
And we do that by humbling ourself, being proud of what we've done, what we're doing, who we're becoming, but leaving our pride behind.
Impress less, impact more.
Those are the five lessons that I wanted to share with you guys.
Five things that I learned in my 30s that I need you to know.
And again, I want to reinforce that.
I do believe we are all called to be leaders.
And if we build and develop stronger, more equipped, more competent, confident and better leaders in this world, this world will be a much better place.
I can promise you that.
But we got a lot of people who want to be popular, but not a lot of people who want to have leadership influence.
Leadership influence facilitates the change that we all want to experience.
And instead of sitting back, looking out and saying, well, who are those people?
Who is that?
Who's going to do it?
You're that person.
Be that leader.
Leadership is servanthood.
Build trust and become competent.
Protect your priorities, your home, marriage, and family.
Balance is not broken.
It's just mismanaged and impress less, impact more.
Thanks for tuning in, guys.
Appreciate you.
Love you, as always.
And go one more.
