.png)
Differently: Stop living by default. Start living by design.
Differently is for when you need to get out of your head and back into your life.
Created and hosted by Carla Reeves, creator of The Differently Journal, her work is built on over 20 years of helping people use writing to navigate real life. Not as a habit to keep up with, but as a way to calm your mind, get clear, and move forward.
You are always writing your life, whether it’s in your mind or on paper.
It's time to take the pen back.
Turn overthinking and self doubt into clarity, confidence, creativity and momentum.
Stop surviving your life. Start creating it.
Differently: Stop living by default. Start living by design.
Be the Leader You Were Made to Be with Amy P. Kelly
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
Are you navigating a challenging relationship?
Today's episode is sure to inspire a different approach!
Amy P. Kelly is my guest today. She is the author of GLUE - A leadership development strategy to bond and unite! and today on the podcast she takes us into the book - a short, profound story and shows us how we can use this in everyday life and biz when it comes to relationships.
In this episode, we talk about...
- the challenges in relationships when there is change, how it can feel personal and cause us to react emotionally
- a 4 step guide to use when we experience upset or conflict in relationships
- how to interrupt our default reactions so that we can step into the leaders we were made to be - and create outcomes that bond and unite people
- and, so much more!
In addition to being the author of GLUE. Amy believes in people and helps them grow. She is the V.P. of Consulting for the Jon Gordon companies and co-author of The Energy Bus Field Guide - a roadmap for fueling your life work and team with positive energy.
Amy believes, like I do, that we have power on the inside that is there to help us fulfill our purpose.
Get ready to be inspired. Put on a lens of love, see things from a new perspective, and step into the leader you were made to be.
Learn more about Amy:
Get her book!: G.L.U.E. A Leadership Development Strategy to Bond and Unite www.gluebondandunite.com
The Energy Bus Field Guide – written together with Jon Gordon
Learn more about Carla: https:/www.carlareeves.com/
Connect on LI: https://www.linkedin.com/in/reevescarla/
Connect on Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/carlasreevesaz/
Explore Coaching with Carla: https://bookme.name/carlareeves/lite/explore-coaching
Support the podcast! Check out the merch! https://www.bonfire.com/store/the-differently-shop/
Learn more about Carla:
Website: https://www.differentlyco.com
Get The Differently Journal:
https://differently.myflodesk.com/journal
Connect on Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/differentlyco/
Connect on LI: https://www.linkedin.com/in/reevescarla/
Connect on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@differentlythepodcast
Go to https://differentlyco.com/events to get The Class schedule, sign up, and/or pass it on to a friend. Come hang out and learn with us for FREE!
Book a Complimentary Strategy Call with Carla: https://bookme.name/carlareeves/strategycall
- If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to share it with a friend.
- A free way to support our show is by leaving a five-star rating and review on your favorite podcast player. It’s a chance to tell us what you love about the show and it helps others discover it, too.
Thank you for listening!
I'm Carla Reeves, and this is differently. Whether you feel stuck in survival, navigating a change, or seeking more for your life, may this podcast be your weekly nudge to take a risk to build a life that is uniquely bold, authentic, and in alignment with your deepest values. After a decade of coaching individuals from corporate leaders to creative artists to multimillion dollar CEOs, I'm convinced we are far closer than we realize to what we deeply desire, and it's a willingness to do differently that can change everything. I have an inspiring guest today. Her name is Amy P. Kelly. She and I met in the fall of last year at a local event, Women Lead Here, which was in Scottsdale, Arizona. I instantly knew I wanted to invite her to meet you here on the podcast. Her energy is contagious and she leads with an open heart. I later found out that she's the author of a book called Glue, a leadership development strategy to bond and unite. And today on the podcast, Amy takes us into the book, which is a short, profound story and how it can help us in everyday life and business when it comes to relationship. We decided to focus our conversation on this because it happens to be the anniversary today of her book being written. And I encourage you to grab a copy. A link is in the show notes. In this episode, we talk about the challenges in relationships when there is a change and how it can feel so personal, how it often causes us to react emotionally or in a knee-jerk fashion, creating division, more hurt, and regret. She's going to walk us through a four-step guide to use when we experience upset or conflict in relationships that can help us to interrupt these default patterns so that we can step into the leaders we were made to be and create outcomes that bond and unite people. In addition to being the author of Glue, Amy believes in people and helps them grow. She is the vice president of consulting for the John Gordon Companies and the co-author of the Energy Bus Field Guide, which is a roadmap for fueling your life work and team with positive energy. Her work is focused on optimal performance for individuals, teams, and organizations. Amy believes, like I do, that we have a power on the inside that is there to help us fulfill our purpose. Get ready to be inspired, to put on a lens of love, see things from a new perspective, and step into the leader you were made to be. Amy Kelly, welcome to differently.
SPEAKER_00Thank you, Carla. I'm glad to be here.
SPEAKER_01I'm so excited to have you here. So I want to just give a shout out to Samantha because if it weren't for her, I don't think you and I would have met. And so you and I met at a um a local event here in Phoenix or Scottsdale, and you were the speaker. You were speaking on Energy Bus and John Gordon's book, and I loved what you talked about, and I knew I had to connect with you after, and here we are. So I'm really excited to have this conversation, and I would love for you to tell us who it tell the listeners who Amy Kelly is and what you're up to.
SPEAKER_00Well, yes, the the lead her or here conference that Samantha put together, it really was amazing. I told my family, a lot of friends that I worked with, in addition to meeting you, I was just blown away by the group of women that Samantha and that organization brought together. The diversity, the backgrounds, the expertise, the mixture of work and life, strength and empowerment. It was a phenomenal event. Phenomenal. So for me, I'm just I'm happy to have this conversation with you. My um work in life is you know helping leaders become the leader they were created to be. And I've been in corporate America as the vice president of HR for multiple organizations helping enterprise technology companies do business with the government. Um, and I've also owned my own business, um, a women's fitness center in Spa, where um our slogan was we're not just lifting weights, we're lifting spirits called Trinity. Um, I have been bankrupt as a business owner after a lot of success, and then helped to sell businesses successfully right before the pandemic to a lot of success. And so lots of different pieces of experience. The common thread is just before, I think it was even a thing that I knew about was always coaching and developing people in alignment with business goals. I love business, I definitely am an entrepreneur, and um, as you know, understanding the field of HR and talent development became more of a profession that I was aware of, have pursued that in many different ways. And ultimately that wrote brought me to work with an author, John Gordon, who writes about positive leadership, positive teams, and I helped to create training programs for him and content and work alongside him and an amazing uh team of people that do the same work. We want to create positive leaders and teams all over the world and get to do that now in higher education, corporate America, um, just you know, nonprofit, for-profit healthcare. And it's it's fun, it's exciting, it's rewarding, and that's a little bit about me.
SPEAKER_01And you're a mom, and you have how many kids?
SPEAKER_00So I am a mom and a wife, um, Jim Kelly, not the football player Jim Kelly, Jim Kelly, my husband. Um, and then my I do have four children. I have twins that are 19, Natalie and Patrick, and then some teenage boys, Samuel and Daniel, who are eighth grade and freshman year in high school.
SPEAKER_01So beautiful. So today is a very special day when this airs, because it's gonna be the anniversary day of your book, Glue. Give us a sense of what that book is about and what it has meant to you. And I have read it and I'm so excited to talk about it.
SPEAKER_00Thank you, Carla. Glue was uh a story that came on my heart during the pandemic, and it was something that combines some of my personal experiences along with things that I've seen in the workplace. And it is about two women in business who one of them decides to leave their business partnership, and ultimately uh there's some anger, some betrayal feelings, um, there's strife in the relationship, and what happens through them working through that particular break. And it is um glue is a leadership development strategy to bond and unite. It's about unification, it's about bonding, it's about the decisions we make that either destroy relationships and ultimately spread out into our family, our communities, the world, you know, one broken relationship at a time, or you know, the things we can do to kind of bring ourselves back together and build a possibly even stronger bond than before the disagreement or the hardship in the relationship. So these women go through that. I've definitely been through that. And people will say, is this exact, this is not just my life, or it is I've seen people have some knockdown, drag out disagreements in the workplace. And I know for a fact in multiple of those examples, um, they took that home. They uh, you know, were very uh, you know, that anger and that frustration spread out into other areas of their lives. I know it destroyed some business relationships that impacted, you know, lots of different people in different organizations, their their well-being in general, also their financial well-being. And as a talent development professional, I'm always searching for, okay, what are some of the key things that people can consider so that this isn't a path of division and destruction, that there's an opportunity to learn and to grow and to um avoid those life-changing things that happen with really strong disagreements. And it doesn't, you know, I don't have one specific formula, but I share something that's worked um with people that I work with. And also, you know, for me personally, as I continue to learn about that, because there isn't a person in the world who hasn't had, you know, a relationship that means a lot to them at work or in their life, you know, not go exactly as they planned. And that can be really painful. And then the second part is one of the concepts in the book is this idea that we own ideas. And, you know, when people work together in business, I've seen um women and men think, oh, well, they left and they took my idea with them. And while intellectual property is a serious thing, and there are instances where that's absolutely the case, a lot of times, you know, for a long time, I'll just use an example. And my husband is amazing, he's hilarious. And he was like, he really thinks he invented the food truck. Okay. That's a whole nother conversation. But he's like, my dad and I had a food truck way before anybody else had a food truck. And I said, honey, be that as it may, I don't know that you can really feel any sort of animosity toward all the food trucks out there. And he's not angry, but he honestly thinks that he was the first one to ever think of that. And who am I to say he didn't? However, people get really tied up in knots about some things that I would say don't really go to that level of intellectual property, and that destroys relationships too. So concepts about broken work relationships come up and how they then impact our entire life.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I think you did such a beautiful job in the story of really drawing out so many. I mean, as I was reading it, I could see so many instances in my own life and in situations that I help my clients through. And and the the the ripple impact of that. Um, I loved how you brought that together in the story. And we won't share all the details so people listening can go get it and be surprised. But I think your your faith really shines through in this story, and I'm assuming that plays a very big role in your life, and would love to just have you share a little bit about that.
SPEAKER_00Yes, thank you. So, in addition to Glue standing for um an acronym for a process that I'm sharing that has been helpful for myself and others in working through um life and workplace conflict and people leaving your team. You know, I have a lot of managers that I work with who have a really hard time the first some time someone resigns. They're like, they're mad, you know, and the way they handle that exit is so they they regret it later because it can it can make um it could be unprofessional, you know, it just get out of here, person is no, you want to support someone then when they leave. But anyway, to the faith-based component, there glue stands for God's love unites everyone. And I do believe that the strongest adhesive and rebuilding tissue bonding tool that we have is God's love. And there in scripture it actually says, above all these things, put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity. And immediately preceding that scripture, there's a list of, you know, pretty much every amazing attribute, whether you're a Christian or whether you are they're just looking at qualities of character in life, it it's listing this long list. And then it says, above all these, put on love. And that's the binding agent that binds everything together where you have a chance of unity. So the anger, the resentment, the um division, the mind, um, the self-talk that happens to the characters, you know, that is how some of how that gets worked out. And I definitely have seen that um in my own life um in different situations and with other people who wanted to pursue, you know, the things that I was sharing among you know professional models of conflict resolution to, you know, some of this information. I think there's both in the book. And it actually talks about um glue in another way at the very end, as the characters do have some different types of conversations, and um, they certainly have different opinions about what's going on, but it tells people to, you know, get ready. This is a part of life, it's going to happen. Like you're going to have these things, and that's the G. And then when people want to leave and move on, um, my recommendation is to love them and let them go and let them grow. Let them go, let them grow. You know, if it you don't want to have your relationship that's been so beautiful turn negative because you're unable to handle their growth process. And um, when you let them grow and you grow true too. But the you is understand the vision of what they're doing as best you can and believe the best. You know, yeah, people really start making up stories about why other people are doing things and they're like, it's they're doing it to me. And it's no, it's not even sometimes about you. And I raise my hand on all of these. It just I watch as things devolve, and this does happen in the workplace quite a bit. And then I'm just um the E is extend love, even when it's hard, because you will grow too. You will grow every time that there's a difficult inflection point in a relationship. Um, going through that one way versus another, it does completely change your life. And everyone's watching, you know, your children are watching, your um co-workers are watching, your peers are watching, and you're creating the culture around you as you walk through these times. And it's when we're under the most stress because we're also really committed and passionate. So we're most likely, we're most vulnerable to make errors of judgment in how we handle ourselves. So we have to be prepared and really get ready.
SPEAKER_01Well, and in the book, you really, you know, in the spirit of differently, you really show how you can do differently in these moments of, you know, where that feel like personal attack or feel so deeply personal and people feel hurt. And I walk clients through this all the time, where someone's leaving their team, you know, it's a close-knit team and it does feel very personal. And I've always told them, like, be really curious. Like, there's something happening here. And often, yes, like there is that loss, but often there's something switching in their team or their business that's gonna require a different resource or a different person. And just like that, applying curiosity and applying love can be such a game changer. I mean, and the fact that, like in the book, you really show how this downloads to your kids. And that's what I tell my clients all the time that when you're growing in your life, when you're stepping out as a leader and being brave and doing things differently, it does download to your kids. They're watching. And I loved how you brought that together in the book.
SPEAKER_00Well, thank you. Uh, and uh I've actually had multiple conversations, particularly with my oldest by three minutes, my daughter, about uh a couple times that I've made some mistakes. And I just felt called to talk to her about them specifically. And ultimately, when we had the conversation, she said, I learned the most through watching how you handled the mistakes and really seeing um, I would say 90% of the time, you know, my behavior aligning with what she knows my process to be. Um, but they are watching, they see everything, and it there is a point in the book where you know there's a family interaction that just shows how that translation can happen that quite a few people have identified with. And um, one thing I will say in the world of this is related to all these things because my daughter has done this, I've had one of my sons do this. It does kind of happen in the book. In a world where boundaries are so prominent, the word boundaries, and I believe in healthy boundaries, we have to be careful that boundaries don't become barriers that divide us. And so that's another thing that with glue, you know, and that's very personal, just like everything else. You have to be the context, the situational knowledge, you know, sometimes building a barrier or a boundary is in the short term and maybe the long term, the appropriate thing. But if we use it to block out the opportunity for love where it's possible, it's we get less than optimal for our lives. I'm not saying I know all the times to make that judgment call. It's it's up to the individual. It's just that I do see too, as people go through their journey of emotional intelligence and leadership development at work, one of the steps I see come kind of second to the first one is anger. You're leaving me or you're doing this to me. And it the second one is, well, I just won't talk to them at all. I'll just freeze them out. I'll, I'll don't need them, they're dead to me. I've actually heard people scream that in the parking garage as I was, you know, watching someone leave an executive team. You're dead to me. No, you're dead to me. And I won't say all the other things that happened. And this was someone that I had just seen their families together, you know, at an event a few weeks prior. But it's being vigilant, that get ready aspect, because we can miss a huge opportunity for our own growth and others' growth if we're not vigilant. And again, it's it's because we talked about faith, the prompting of the Holy Spirit will help us discern which direction to go, because protecting ourselves in unhealthy environments and unhealthy relationships is very important. And also at work, you know, there can be some really unprofessional, borderline, you know, all kinds of different work environments. And I'm not saying that, you know, uh if you are extending love, that will fix everything every time. It was certainly more healthy for you. But bottom line, going from I'm mad because someone's leaving or not doing what I want or thinking it's about me, to the second step is don't just say it's over. I'm not talking to you anymore. Because that's also how, like I say in the story, it is how we grow. It's hard because those are the conversations that take a lot of energy. And uh they're while they don't have to be difficult. John Gordon and I are actually writing a book about difficult conversations, don't have to be difficult. While they don't have to be difficult, um, they are still challenging, and that's different.
SPEAKER_01Yes. So in the book, you talked about like just that that flip, right? When it feels so personal, and then she put herself in kind of like a different, I think she was sitting in church, right, and heard a message that like had her start to think differently about it, like what might have caused her to actually make this change or communicate this, or what might cause her to be behaving like this, right? Like that to me, and I see it with my just this week with my clients, she's she said, you know, at the end of the day, instead of me just quickly like dumping my day on my husband, I stopped and asked him about his day, and he told me he had a really hard day, and that completely changed the next thing she did. And I think as people like just stopping and pausing for a moment in your hurt to actually just look from a different angle, look from a different perspective. You know, you could almost as I read it, you could feel her heart open, and all of a sudden something else was available, which led to a much different conversation.
SPEAKER_00You have a very soothing voice. I like it. And uh you're you're describing something that I really Admire from another author, and his name is Ryan Gottfriedson. He's a PhD, he's a leadership uh instructor at Cal State Fullerton. And he asks the question, which I'm not sure if anyone else has asked, but he said, What if we just believed everyone was doing the best that they can? And how that's every so often I will, you know, when I get hooked with, you know, going to a place of judgment or wondering why. And the other thing that you said, the character in the book goes from this feeling that really was a spiral. She was telling herself a story, um things get worse and worse because of it. She feeds her own anger. Um, her mind is filled with negative thoughts that keep building on each other. And the disruption to that, you know, in the story, it is the Holy Spirit. And it is her decision to trust instead of control the whole narrative. And we do that. We, you know, many people do that. I've I've done that. It's like, well, I'm angry.
SPEAKER_01And then you start kind of planning how you're gonna make this whole thing like serpentine for now, and fabricate a whole story that like adds fuel to the your fire, right?
SPEAKER_00It's it I don't think there's anyone that can't identify with that. And it's intellectually very easy to recognize, but as far as the amount of people that actually know how to interrupt that process, whether it's you know, by you know, just what you said, asking a question and and being curious about that person's day, or you know, saying to yourself, you know, what if they're doing the best that they can, really? What if that's the case? And then, you know, why don't I just trust and not try to make this happen the way I want it to happen? Listen, trust, you know, that in the book there there's plenty of scripture. I I will share the one that just um I find resonates with a lot of people. Um there's a message version of Matthew 5, 9, and it says, you are blessed when you can show people how to cooperate instead of compete or fight. That's when you discover who you really are and your place in God's family. And I do think it's a discovery of who we really are.
SPEAKER_01Well, and that brings me to the last kind of point from the book I wanted to talk about is like that ability to choose instead of react, right? And that's like that moment of where you get to become something you didn't know you had in you, or that you know, God equips you to do in the moment.
SPEAKER_00It's true, and you know, there's when people ask really reasonable questions about God or other things in the world, like why would God do this, why would God do that? I often come back to the let the redeemed of the Lord tell their story. I can tell you what God has done in my life, and that has really helped me to um see supernatural power come in certain moments. Whether other people have experienced that or not, it's okay. I can tell you what I've seen God do, and the reason I'm bringing that up is there's a scripture that says when you're at your weakest or when you're weak, God's power can be made perfect in you because your reliance is on Him and the trusting and faith. You know, faith is the most, you know, without faith, it's impossible to please God. And so we the way we describe strength in relationships and disagreements is different than how the Bible and God's word does, you know, that desire to make peace, and there's strength and peace, there's unity in peace. And I've heard from other people, not just myself, but I've seen that that's the strongest thing out there. So, yes, as we experience the supernatural, you know, going into a situation and being worried or scared or nervous, and then just trusting doing our best to prepare, but trusting that God will show up and that He will help us understand the words we need and the posture of our heart. And a friend of mine who is a brilliant coach too, and an amazing um leader and professional and businesswoman, her name is Petra Krebs. And when we were having as a team a discussion about difficult conversations, because to me, it always rubbed me the wrong way that people would say, we've got to have a difficult conversation. And I was like, why are we defining it before we ever have it? You know, I just ah, don't call it that. What else can we call it? And we were going through words and kind of having a collaborative discussion about it. And we still do that mindset shift activity quite a bit. She spoke up and said, you know what, I don't call them hard conversations. I call them heart conversations. And that that topic comes up in the story too. And um just that preparation, I believe that God will help us have the outcomes that far surpass what we could produce in our own power. So, like you said, the choice. We have the we have the ability, the power, regardless of what you believe, we have the opportunity to pause or whatever we need to do to break the downward spiral and to interrupt what could be a huge divide, a division, and turn it into something beautiful. And I've seen it happen many times now.
SPEAKER_01Me too. I um I love these conversations with my clients of just like really like because our tendency is to like force and control and resist, right? And that creates so much anxiety and stress in your body and your being, and it's uh it's so hard to go through life like that. And and then there's like surrender and trust and like really being curious and stepping back to see there's something bigger happening here, and how am I gonna show up to it? And I love that you talk about that in the book too. It's like, who do you want to be as a leader? And these moments, these hard, challenging moments, are the moments that you get really get to pause and choose. Oh my goodness. So we are running out of time, but um, everybody listening, check out Amy's book. Um, and we will put the link in the show notes. And so is there another you said there's another book coming. Anything else that you're excited, inspired about, or any final summarizing points you want to leave with everybody?
SPEAKER_00Well, uh I I do believe in people becoming the leader they were created to be, and the power in that people will say, you know, if you believe in God, we're really following Jesus, and we are some of the best leaders I've ever met, understand the power of followership in their leadership. And that's not a new concept either, but follow to lead. And that that as well as I would love to see people, I'm excited about difficult conversations, don't have to be difficult. That won't be out until early next year. But I'd love to see people come to some of our um public events. We're doing power of positive team and positive leadership events all over the country this year. And um, the author John Gordon that I was talking about will be there. And, you know, just because you and I got so much from meeting each other and believe in that so strongly, those events, some of the wonderful things that I see happen, not just in the content and the opportunity, are the relationships that come from them because it's phenomenal. I wouldn't have been able to participate in Samantha's conference if I didn't already have an event happening for those programs in the in the um in Arizona at the same time. So it it just I'd love to see people and meet people, and I really am very grateful to you, Carla. I love your idea of let's do it differently.
SPEAKER_01So good. Okay, so where can people find you and all about all these events and things you're up to?
SPEAKER_00Sure. Go to amypkelly.com. The P in my middle name and my URL stands for you know, Pauline, which is my middle name. It also stands for the power inside each of you to fulfill your purpose, amypkelly.com. Go to Glue Bond and Unite for the book and a free downloadable discussion guide and development resource. And then go to thepower of a positive team.com, power of a positive team.com. So thank you.
SPEAKER_01Okay, and we will put all of that in the show notes. What a joy to spend time with you. Everybody have a beautiful day and thanks so much for being here.
SPEAKER_00Thank you.
SPEAKER_01Hey, thanks for tuning into this episode of differently. I hope it stirred your thinking, and I invite you to take one inspired action from something that stood out to you. If you want to hear more conversations like this, be sure to hit follow on your favorite podcast app. And if this episode could impact someone you know, please help us spread the word and pass it along. Remember, new episodes drop weekly. See you next week.