F3 Podcast - Faith, Family, and Finance
A Gaddis Premier Wealth Advisors Podcast.
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F3 Podcast - Faith, Family, and Finance
Jordan Haddox | Episode 9 | Balancing Fatherhood, Leadership, and Life
Can you balance the demands of raising a newborn while engaging in a year-long leadership development program? Jordan joins us to share his journey through such an experience, providing an enlightening look into the Leadership Durant program. He opens up about the personal challenges and rewards of this balancing act and offers a deep dive into city operations and the relationships he built with city officials and business leaders. Listen as Jordan clarifies his previous remarks on having children and emphasizes the love and desire for more despite the hurdles.
Ever wondered why city infrastructure projects can be so complex and slow? Jordan sheds light on the intricate world of municipal planning, funding hurdles, and the importance of patience and collaboration among multiple stakeholders. His experiences in organizing community events like the Taste of Durant demonstrate the coordination and problem-solving skills essential for successful group efforts. From navigating the escalating costs of road maintenance to understanding the importance of strategic planning, this episode provides invaluable insights into the challenges cities face daily.
Join us as we recount Jordan’s transformative professional growth through memorable trips to Washington D.C. and New York City. Discover how overcoming initial doubts about the leadership program led to significant personal development, particularly in gaining confidence and managing anxiety. Reflecting on the essence of continuous learning, Jordan shares his realization that development is an ongoing journey. This episode is a testament to building discipline, fostering teamwork, and pushing beyond perceived limits, encouraging all to keep learning and growing every day.
So my wife pointed out from our last episode that I needed to make some clarifying remarks. What I meant was not that I didn't want children. It's that if I were responsible for having the children, I don't know that I could have done it, not that I didn't want any. So to my wife and to her family, that is what I meant, not that I did not want children. So there you go, great clarification. I really got to clarify that, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, my name is Derek Hines. I'm the managing partner here at Gattis Premier Wealth Advisors. Welcome to our podcast. So Jordan, who has just publicly confessed a retraction to a previous statement, is our first return guest. Yeah, excited to be back. Yeah, welcome back, jordan. So I know this was kind of an impromptu request, but you just finished a little bit of a leadership, a year of leadership development.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Well, we've got a little bit left from today. After this is posted it will probably be finished. We've got a couple of one other group get together and then our graduation ceremony from it. But yeah, a year of leadership Durant yeah, it's funny.
Speaker 2:So graduation ceremony you use that term very officially. If I'm thinking about my graduation ceremony from leadership Durant and I mean it was, it was fun, but it wasn't really ceremonious- yeah, well, we're going to do both.
Speaker 1:We're going to have like a formal official ceremony where family comes and you will also come, because you recommended me to join the program, and then after that we will have a less official yeah After get together. Yeah, where's it at? It's going to be at Janet's house, okay, yeah, so I'm going out to Tishomingo and going to have like a pool party or something. I don't know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. So give me you know and we'll get into. I'll try to ask questions about all the details and all the all the fun stories, but just give me a high level overview of what. What is this year? What has this year been like?
Speaker 1:Well, for me it was um kind of chaos. So, yeah, Because in the middle of doing, the program was good and I would recommend anyone that's interested to join. You get to see a lot of how the town operates, See a lot of the ins and outs. I would also say if you have a newborn, you might wait a year because you get busy. Yeah, and having a newborn and now I have a six, she's six, seven months old Um, in the middle of it, it was.
Speaker 2:It was a lot so and my wife was not very happy at me sometimes, yeah, so you know I had to leave her with the baby to go do these fun things. Have some kind of disclaimer of you have to listen to the podcast in its entirety. Yes, Context is very important, Very important.
Speaker 1:Jordan loves his children. I do, yeah, and we're going to have more. Yeah, but yeah, the program as a whole is really good. Yeah, the program as a whole is really good. You do get to meet a lot of people in a lot of various positions around town, both at the city level, commerce level, operations from the mayor to the people running the water treatment plant. Oh yeah, that was a highlight of our trip as well. Yeah, running some of the larger businesses in town, yep, so you name it. We had a day for it that we went and toured and kind of got the rundown of how things operate, how it affects the town, you know, problems they're facing, what the next three or four years look like, all of that it's been so long since I went through it too.
Speaker 2:I mean drant is just is exploding. I mean the rate of growth is so much faster than when I took it. So what was the most like, what was the most intriguing uh day you had of of learning, or where'd you guys go, hmm?
Speaker 1:You know, I'm not really sure Probably we had one that was city government and kind of the operations of the city itself, and we met with like 10 or 12 different people that work for the city and explain their position and kind of how things operate, the challenges they're having and the things they are actively working on. And I think that was interesting because it showed that they are, you know, everybody in the town of any town, no matter where you are, the people have things they complain about, sure, whether it's the roads or the infrastructure, yeah, I don't know why roads was the first thing.
Speaker 1:You said but and we went, or the parks, whatever it may be, yes, yes, and we went or the parks, or whatever it may be, yes, yes, and we went and talked to and they have plans in place for all of this. Yeah, it's just funding it, that's right. And yeah, cutting through the bureaucracy, yep, and actually getting it done well, and if you think about I mean I'm just thinking about funding sources.
Speaker 2:You know, know, cities operate off of tax right. You have to have tax revenue in order to do things for the community, and a lot of times, as a community is growing, I mean the tax revenue comes on the backend of all that growth, and so I can imagine from a municipal perspective it's hard to put infrastructure in place before the growth happens. I do know, obviously the roads thing was a joke, but that's probably one of the main pain points yeah, roads and infrastructure.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and one thing they said that I'd never even thought of was some of the roads in town are not the city, they're the state. Yep, like the highway state. Yep, that highway 78. Yeah, even when it runs through town, though, it's still the state that does it, so they don't have any say in it. You know, it's just kind of everything else, and then just the cost of some of the projects that they have to do are just astronomical now, of course, as much as everything costs. Five years ago it would have cost a couple million dollars, and now it costs 10. Yep, and yeah, they weren't ready for that, yeah.
Speaker 2:so what are some? I know they have plans in place, but what are some of the other challenges that the city's facing?
Speaker 1:Putting me on the spot. That was a few months ago. I don't remember a lot of it.
Speaker 2:I serve on a nonprofit, drent Trails Open Space, and we've partnered with the city on a bridge project and we've been working on that project for I mean since like 2016, 2017. And that's exactly what we've experienced. You know, they applied for a grant, we came up with the match, and so it really has been a partnership. But sometimes it's difficult when things continue to change. Projects drag out.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, a lot of it is. Just there's so many people that have to get on board with for one thing to get done, yeah, and they're all from different areas, doing different things, different focuses, and just getting everyone on the same page to agree to do the same thing when it's something that costs millions of dollars. It doesn't matter what it is, where you are, it's going to be difficult to do, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And so just time and patience to get it done yeah.
Speaker 2:So do you think Leadership Durant has given you a greater appreciation for that? Or maybe you learned more?
Speaker 1:Yes, because also with Leadership Durant, we do the annual Taste of Durant event. Yes, and that was a big, that's a big part of the group and the class is putting on that event and they put an emphasis on you not going to the previous classes. So, essentially, start it from scratch, teach you how to create event from nothing. Yes, and at first we uh had some difficulties deciding on things.
Speaker 1:I think every class has difficulties and so I think that was honestly the the biggest takeaway and learning point for me was okay, we are all obviously very independent people that want to get things done, because we're all in this leadership class Like there's that attracts a very specific type of person, and so we're all smart, we all know what we're doing and all of our ideas would work. We have to learn to either blend them together or find the best one and do it in a way that either makes the fewest people upset or we all know we're all going to be a little bit upset, yeah, and then being okay with that and that's understanding, that's okay, and then learning how to navigate through that. That was, yeah, that was probably the most difficult part is when everyone has their idea of what we could do. Someone's got to step back and like not have an idea and just help facilitate. Yeah, deciding what to do.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. So where did you find yourself in that conversation?
Speaker 1:I would say, as far as a lot of the ideas that we were doing, they all sounded great to me. So I kind of stepped back a little bit and was like, hey, let's just facilitate. Sounded great to me. So I kind of stepped back a little bit and was like, hey, let's just facilitate. This was there for a little bit. What I did, um, there for yeah, just a few, two, three, four weeks, something like that. And then, when we got closer to the event, I kind of tried to take the role of, hey, you guys tell me what needs to be done and I'll do it.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Um, we get, we get enough people trying to lead captain, captain, the ship. So I will voluntarily take a step back and just listen to what you tell me to do. Yeah, so the event was good. Yeah, it was great. Um, I don't remember the, the, the total. So the event itself is is the goal is to have all as many of the restaurants in town as possible to come together in one place and then we sold tickets and sponsor table, sponsorships, things like that to the public to come and try all of the restaurants. Yeah, and I think we ended up having somewhere around 25 restaurants, 25, 26, something like that. We sold 550 tickets, I think. So it was pretty and we were sold out. We sold them all. Yeah, it was packed. So, yeah, we had the issue we had too many people, so we had to, like the day of, bring out tables and chairs. Yeah, I mean, that's a great problem to have too many people.
Speaker 2:So we had to like the day of bring out tables and chairs and yeah, um, I mean, that's a great, that's a great problem to have.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's always good when the problem is people don't leave. Yeah, so we needed people to leave and no one wanted to.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, so how? What did you? Uh, I know, when we, when we did leadership to rant, you know, everyone got a chance to sort of make a presentation or talk about something that they were passionate about, did you guys get? Did you guys do that?
Speaker 1:Yes, we did. Yeah, I mean my career is what I talked about. You know, helping people get themselves set up for success in a world that, normal, is broke, mm. Help facilitate people to achieve a work, optional lifestyle and financial independence and financial freedom in a world where that's a rarity, yeah, um, and get to a point where you don't necessarily have to retire, but if you want to retire you can't. Yeah, because it you see way too many people working in their 60s, 70s, 80s, even 90s, because they have to, not because they want. If you work that long because you want to, that's one thing. Yeah, but you know, when you get people that old, working because they have to, knowing that I'm, even if it's just a handful of people that old, working because they have to, knowing that I'm, even if it's just a handful of people that I can help not have to do that, you know that's. That's kind of what I'm. Yeah, I'm shooting for. Yeah, it's good.
Speaker 2:Yeah, did the group like. Over time, did you find yourselves being able to work better together.
Speaker 1:Yes, definitely yeah. So at first it was at that. That's what caused some of the issues. We were learning together, learning mannerisms, learning how we react to different things, and after we learned, after we did all that, it definitely went much smoother.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. Was there anything you guys did to help you work together better? Anything. I don't know any events happen. I mean, how did you guys help you work together better or anything? I don't know any events happen. I mean, how'd you guys learn to work together?
Speaker 1:really. I mean, a lot of it was, um, so we did the event the first week of february. So a lot of it was we did a lot of the things before the holiday, like before christmas, yeah, and then we took like a week off for Christmas that we didn't really do anything. And then after that, I think we all just kind of needed a breather. Yeah, had a break, yeah, celebrated the holidays. We came back together with a renewed vigor.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so going into the program, like, what were your expectations of the program?
Speaker 1:I really tried to not have any. I didn't know what to expect. It was not what you told me, it was so.
Speaker 2:I've told you that I disagree with that, and that's why that's specifically why I asked this question.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was more than I expected. More work than I expected. That was really the only thing. Yeah, other than that, I tried not to have expectations. Yeah, the way I was able to learn what the program was meant to teach, mm-hmm, or at least that's what I tried to do. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:I'm pretty sure it is what I told you it was, but I don't know.
Speaker 1:It may be, it was all a blur.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, it's a, it's, it's a. You know, it's a good program for getting people. Um, I have found just immersed in the community, you know getting.
Speaker 1:I mean the relationships that I developed in leadership to rant irregardless of how I felt in the moment, have stood the test of time yeah, and I can already tell that, especially after we just got back from our end of year trip to DC and New York is, especially after doing the class, putting on the event, taking the trip is you know that was. It was literally last week that we got, we went, went on that trip. So, yeah, um, even this, shortly after that, I can tell like the relationships we've built will, will last, yeah, and we'll be. I don't know how meaningful, but meaningful in some. Yeah.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, what, uh, what? What were some of the other industries or professions represented in the class?
Speaker 1:So from year to year it varies. Apparently, this year we had a very strong finance technical background. Quite a few people worked at banks Me, obviously, uh, as an advisor. Um, there are three people that worked at the Choctaw nation um, and then a couple of people a couple, a few people that are from the area, moved off, have done various things and have come back and are trying to find exactly what their, their role in durant is going to okay, all kinds of things, um, like actor interesting where at.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, yeah, we've got one guy, jared um, give him a shout out, he's been all over. He like was an actor. He toured with bands. He told us the story the other day of he almost toured with Toby Mac on their set crew and he said he regretfully decided not to do that because he was with another band at the time. But yeah, I mean from that to banks and yeah, working at southeastern all kinds of the things, we got a couple of hairstylists and so, yeah, all over the place awesome yeah, it was definitely a helped me to learn and experience the other types of industries as well and personalities in those industries.
Speaker 1:Yeah so, yeah, so that was really good too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, did everybody go on the dc trip?
Speaker 1:we had a couple that didn't for various reasons. They just weren't able to.
Speaker 2:Yeah, um, but 16 of the 18 did that's, that's, that's, that's a pretty high number.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. Yeah, we had a pretty much. I think we had two that did yeah.
Speaker 2:So yeah, I didn't go on my DC trip, but I don't think we had that high of a percentage of people that did go. Janet can break me.
Speaker 1:I didn't get to go because of the newborn, yeah, but we were able to find a way for my wife to take the kids up to her mom's house for the week. Yeah, I wasn't going to leave her at home with a three-year-old and a six-month-old by herself for a week, but thankfully she was able to go up there and I got to go.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's good. That's good. Have you done a lot of traveling in the past?
Speaker 1:Very little done. A lot of traveling in the past, or, uh, very little. Um, that was the first time I've been like east of the mississippi as well, yeah, so, um, except other than I'm, it's actually the first time I've ever traveled domestically, like from the us to the us. Yeah, other times I've ever traveled by airplane was like to other countries, yeah, and it's only been twice yeahS to the US yeah.
Speaker 1:The only other times I've ever traveled by airplane was like to other countries. Yeah, and it's only been twice. Yeah, once to the first time I ever got on an airplane to East Asia and then just the next year after that, went to my brother's wedding in St Lucia, mm-hmm, and that's pretty much it yeah. So you guys, you flew into new york yeah, no, we went to dc first, okay, and then went from dc, took the train to new york and then flew from new york back, okay, so what was the uh like?
Speaker 2:what are some of the sites you saw?
Speaker 1:We tried to see as much as possible. In DC. You could go for two weeks and not see everything. So we went to the Capitol, we went to, we got to tour the White House. Well, the 10% of the White House you get to tour, that was a little underwhelming. Yeah, we went to some of the, a lot of the museums. We did a bus tour that we saw all the monuments, things, so tried to see as much as we could in just the three days we were there. And then in new york. So I said, if, dc, you could go for two weeks and not see everything, new york, about 13 hours I saw everything I wanted. So one day I saw about everything I wanted to see.
Speaker 1:Yes, we went to the statue of liberty, um, and then from that we stayed in manhattan, like by central park, and so we went to the south end statue of liberty and then kind of worked our way up, yeah, so saw central park times square, went through the financial district, so like up and down wall street, couch, there's like nothing. Yeah, did you place any trades? No, I did send you guys a picture of, yeah, the stock exchange, asking if we needed to do any, but I didn't get any responses. Um, and you know, saw the 9-11 memorial. I'd never seen that, so tried to just hit everything and it was interesting.
Speaker 1:It was a lot. Yeah, there's a lot going on in a very small area. Yeah, yeah, did you have any pizza.
Speaker 1:I did. We got pizza once up there, just at one little hole in the wall, pizza by the slice shop, really good and surprisingly cheap, really three dollars a slice and the slices were like giant. Wow, so it was. Yeah, it's pretty good, glorious. Um, yeah, dc is more of a. If you're gonna go plan the trip the whole time, the new york is more of a wander around and see what you yeah, see what you see on yeah yeah, so you had uh coffee with senator yeah, each wednesday, james lankford, senator lankford, okay, has a an open invitation to to be able to come into his office and ask him questions and um what does he call it?
Speaker 2:java with java with james? I think it was like joe with james or java with james or something.
Speaker 1:Yeah java with james. So that was, um, that was good, um, of course, the one day we were there was the day that he had to leave quickly to go talk with a CEO of a fortune 500 company over a bill they were trying to pass. Um, and so that was, of course, it was the one day we were there. He had to to cut it a little bit short and go do that. Yeah, but it was. We were supposed to get a couple of tours while we were up there, but they, with the storms that he came through the week before, they were all out for a few days before and trying to get caught up. Yeah, so they. We didn't get to do that, yeah so.
Speaker 2:Awesome. Sounds like a good trip. It was. What do you think? So, looking at the, at the year as a whole, what is what? What's one of the most important things that you think you learned?
Speaker 1:So there's really a couple Um. One is. I mean it's cliche, but how to work together with a group of people like that, specifically with a group of leaders. You know if working together with a bunch of people that don't necessarily want to take charge is not as difficult, because then it's a little bit easier to pick one person to lead the group but when you're in a group that everyone wants to lead the group, it's learning how to do that. Is is definitely a an important skill.
Speaker 1:Learning that was was good and then just being disciplined and and everything, both in the group in life, at work.
Speaker 2:trying to balance all of that was was another one. Yeah, what do you think? So, just considering where you're at in the firm and what you're doing, are there any sort of bottlenecks or areas of leadership that you're kind of wanting to lean into now?
Speaker 1:You know, I don't know about right now, um, but in the future I could. I could see a few different directions to go. Um, if we jokingly say, which I don't, I don't know that this will actually happen, but you know I'm being the youngest one here that one of these days I'm going to be running this place, yeah.
Speaker 2:Um, just by natural attrition, like you may be the only one left.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly, um. And so you know I'm not saying that I want to do that or I think I will do that, but yeah that that happens, um, but I'll, I'll. I would say the most immediate would be in the, the research and the investment in the model yeah, which you know we, I kind of handle a lot of the day-to-day on that. I don't necessarily oversee it or manage anything with that. You know Dave is the manager on that, so I could see that being one of the directions of that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, awesome. So on the program, how do you feel that Leadership Durant has helped you professionally?
Speaker 1:One of the main ways is it's given me more resources to use for clients. Yeah, is um. You know, just yesterday we had a client ask a question and I, you know, texted one of the the people in the group and asked and you know they got me an answer and so just being able to to use those resources for clients, um, and then to be able to, you know, use those connections, for connections to expand to, to be able to to do as much for our firm and our clients that we, we can.
Speaker 2:So yeah, that's good, Do you? Would you recommend other people go through the program?
Speaker 1:I would um pretty much anyone you know, even if you're not necessarily wanting to be in a leadership role in your organization or in the city or anything like that, I would say, you know, it's something that everyone should consider, unless you have a newborn and then wait a year, wait until they're not a newborn anymore. That would. That would be my only citation. Yeah, yeah, it was a. It was a great, great experience, Great group, Good. There was times in there in the middle that I wasn't so sure about that. If you'd asked me five months ago, I probably would have said never don't do it. Yeah, but now at the end, looking back even those times, you can see I could see how beneficial that is and the point of it, you know, hindsight's 2020.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And see the point of you know, see why it was, why it's done that way. Yeah, the skill you learn from it is, yeah, yeah, the skill you learn from it is yeah.
Speaker 1:So because I misled you on the program, how would you anyone that you know that you would encourage to take the program? How would you describe it to them? So there's really two main aspects. One is the, the networking, yeah, both within the group itself and within the city as a whole. But then, two, it gives you a better understanding of what it takes to actually operate um within the different you know organizations of the city, the different companies, all the city, the different companies, all the different struggles they have. It makes you a lot better, lets you have more empathy for the things that you may be frustrated about. It gives you a better understanding for that and realize the issues that are faced quite literally on a daily basis, hurdles people have to jump through. In that the people in charge at least, at least here they feel the same way. Yeah, they're more frustrated than we are because they're the ones trying to get it done and it it helps you to to realize that and give you a better insight into you know, just everything going on.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. So kind of what I hear is you've, you've gained a a a better perspective.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:A better perspective for the the challenges that cities and growing communities face, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's. That's, that's a great way to put it. Yeah, for better perspective. Yeah, I know it's face. Yeah, yeah, that's a great way to put it. Yeah for better perspective.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I know it's easy. It's very easy to complain and it's very easy to find yourself just complaining and griping. But whenever you take the time to listen and to learn and to gain a better perspective, you know, a lot of times, things, things make more sense. And as members of, as members of a community, you know it's, it's it's going to take that, you know it's going to take citizens being willing to take the time to listen and to learn and to see how they can better collaborate to make, to make this the community that we want, that we want to live in yeah, and you know, especially with everything going on in the world, of the craziness you see, and you're like, well, I hope, I hope that never makes it here.
Speaker 1:Well, the way you do that is by being involved and making sure the craziness of the world stays the craziness of the world instead of becoming the craziness of wherever you are yeah is, you know, stepping in and stepping up and standing up for what you believe in, and you know, making having a voice. Yeah, yeah, there really is. I mean, you know there making having a voice.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, there really is. I mean, you know, there really is a sense of of bringing bringing order to the chaos. You know, and even when you said you did the other program got started, it was, it was pretty chaotic. There's a lot of, you know, a lot of leaders trying to lead Um, but over time you guys learn how to work together. You grew with in your relationship with each other. Um, that's even kind of what I'm kind of what I'm hearing you say from a community perspective. Uh, it's just this idea of of, you know, communicating with each other, participating, going in the same direction and just bringing order to things.
Speaker 1:It's definitely a, it's a lot, yeah, and you realize how much it is in in in doing that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know, yeah, yeah, yeah. I know I'm kind of scared to ask you what you heard me say before you took the program, but I know when we, when I went through Leadership Durant, it was very much, you know, very similar. It takes a lot of time to get to know people. I don't know how many people were in your class the 18 that you said yeah.
Speaker 2:I think, yeah, so you know, you get introduced day one to your new 17 best friends that you've never known. Yeah, and now that you have to learn alongside and to lead with, and especially when you have the you know the looming obligation of taste of drink coming, specific instructions to not ask previous classes when everything inside of you wants to ask previous classes, what to do. You know, and there's a, there's a method, there's a method to the madness. It really forces you to think creatively and you know, do things as a team, work together as a team. But, yeah, I know, you know a lot of good things have come out of, out of the class that that I took and obviously I've got a. I have a passion for leadership development, seeing people continue to grow and develop as leaders, and there's just something to be said for collaborating together as a group of people.
Speaker 1:Yeah, with all of that, with the group, and having the newborn and a three-year-old, and then having work, you know still go alongside that. No, it's nothing else in while you're doing that, nothing else keeps going on. Is it helped me to? You know, we talked about this the other day of help, of learning to manage complexity, yeah, and making me realize I'm not as disciplined as I thought I was. There's the overarching theme, which is what we've talked about, and then one thing specifically for me, just on a day-to-day internal level, is I realize I need to learn to be more disciplined in in everything, yeah Personal life, uh, through work, spiritual life everything, yeah.
Speaker 1:Is I need to be more disciplined through, through, all of that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, there really is a wonderful relationship between discipline and freedom, or the development of disciplines and our experience of freedom. I think with what you've experienced in Leadership Durant, there really is. There really is an idea of like or a thought of building capacity. So whenever you and you don't know what your capacity is until you reach capacity right Until you, you know, wake up one day and you're just completely overwhelmed. You've got a newborn, a job, a new leadership program, you know 17 new best friends and you realize that you can use to build capacity or to increase capacity or to increase efficiency in things, to give you more capacity. But that really is a sort of a defining developmental mark.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and then yeah kind of going off of, like your, your conversation with jeremiah the other day. It was an end of that, um, kind of along the same path of learning that, like sometimes you, just you, just got to buckle down and do what's got to be done yeah you can be tired, you can be exhausted, yeah, you could have no willpower to do, but sometimes you just got to do what's got to be done.
Speaker 1:Yeah, um, and that's the discipline in and of itself. Like there's, there's um. One guy I listened to a lot it, you know. One of his sayings is um, I will not do my best, I'll do what's required. And if what is required is beyond what is your best, then you make your best better. Yeah, beyond what is your best, then you make your best better. Yeah, and and learning now, living life long enough, all seven years of it that I've lived yes, yes, sage, sage wisdom here um is learning that when people say you know, I've heard people say it doesn't get easier, you just get better at it.
Speaker 1:And then realizing that, like, things don't get easier If you're doing, if you keep doing things, things actually just get harder and harder. That's right. That's right, yes, yes. And learning, and you get better at understanding what is important, what is not important, what do I, what do I say yes to? And you get better at saying no to more things. Yeah, which is one thing I'm trying to learn to do now is, even to this point, you ask me to do something, I just say yes and then figure it out later. Yeah, I'm getting to a point now that I have to start saying no to things. Yeah, now that I have to start saying no to things, yeah, that don't align with goals of of either me at work, or my family or spiritually. If it doesn't align with the goals and the direction we're going, yeah, you just have to say no, even if it's a great opportunity Sometimes, you just have to say no to yeah.
Speaker 2:You telling me you're going to be saying no to me at some point in the future.
Speaker 1:No, I prefer to keep my job.
Speaker 2:Oh man, that's funny. Yeah, you know, we just finished a two-day training with a cohort that we're taking through a lot of leadership material and it was a hard two days and it was a hard. It was a hard two days and we we were talking about, you know, jordan Peterson does a lot of. He has a lot of content around uh, dragons and there's a, there's a children's book I think I've shared it with you.
Speaker 2:There's no such thing as dragons and it is this idea that you, you need to do like, you need to do hard things and you need to look in the places that you don't want to look. And so, mythologically speaking, we draw maps and there's a really good video that we show and it's this idea of maps and how they've evolved over time and how previous generations, they would draw dragons on the map and the dragons would bring them comfort. And the dragons brought them comfort because now they had a reason not to go to the place that they didn't want to go. And so Jordan Peterson sort of sort of uh, you know, draws on this topic. It's, it's, it's, you know, the dragon hordes, gold, and gold represents the thing that you need to do, what you have been called to do Right. So you have to go to the place that you don't want to go to to get the thing that you need to do, the thing that you want to do.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And so when we think about leadership and development, like that's the cost, you know you have to intentionally engage in. You know you have to intentionally engage in not saying you didn't want to do leadership to ramp, but right, you know there are that program to some degree. You know it stretches your capacity, you know it forces people in the program to do things that they may not, on their own, will necessarily choose or want to do. And that's the cost of development. And if we want to, and and that that never stops, right, you know, we, we, sometimes we think that we, we get so wrapped up in this idea of arriving at a destination that we don't realize that the whole objective is the journey. Right, Like the point is the journey, not the destination. And so as we continue to grow and develop, I mean we get better at doing these things. But it really is, it really is, uh, it really is a struggle and I'm sure anyone listening is going to be really excited and encouraged by by those, by those great words.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's, and we could talk about this for another hour. I don't know that we want to do that, but you know the, the idea of the, when we've talked about the finite game and the infinite game. Yes, exactly Exactly. Life is an infinite game. Yes, Everybody's playing. There are no known rules. The point is to keep playing. That's right.
Speaker 2:To get other people to play, to get other people?
Speaker 1:Yeah. To wake them up to the game yeah. The only way you lose the game is by it's. If you stop. Is if you stop?
Speaker 2:sure, as long as you keep playing yeah, yeah, yeah, that that is a fantastic book. Uh, yeah, finite and infinite games.
Speaker 1:I don't know that I've ever actually read the book, which, yeah, it's my, my generation. We just watch you youtube shorts on the book and the speeches and keynotes and things like that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, it's a fantastic book. Well, jordan, what would be the one takeaway from your year if you were to sum your year up in one statement from your time in leadership, to ramp.
Speaker 1:That's a great question. I wish you would have asked me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, probably Give me some 45 minutes before we started Some prep time probably that you that I can do more than I think I can do I should expect more of myself, not in like a legalistic or like way, or you know whatever yeah, but I need to push myself more, yeah, way. Or you know whatever yeah, but I need to push myself more, yeah, in all aspects of life. Like you said earlier, that's the only way to grow is to push myself. Take whatever I think I can do and extend it by 10 or 20%, yeah, and then or even just by 1 or 2%, and do just a little bit more than I think I can do, because the reality is I can actually. You mean, whatever you think you can do, you can always do a little bit, yeah. And and stop setting the limitations on myself, stop labeling myself yeah in various ways, yeah that's good.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, I have. I don't know. I mean it's a heck of a thing to tell you for the first time on the podcast. I think I've told you this. If I haven't, I sincerely apologize, but I mean I have. I have noticed your growth over the last year and it's it's been pretty cool to see you know it's stretched you in very healthy ways. I mean there are, I feel like there are things in your life that before the program I mean would have been a big deal, that you just kind of take in stride now and that's really cool to see.
Speaker 2:My whole saying on the trip was eh it'll work out, yeah, yeah, and there's always going to be, you know, broken water lines and things to deal with, but that's that's life and for the most part, we, you know, we can't necessarily control the things that happened to us, but we can control our reaction and I think, I think that's that's one thing you've you've learned this past year.
Speaker 1:So I would agree. Um, and with that there was in the group. There's someone that I actually used to work with before I worked here, and they were there the first time I had to call a client. I had a literal anxiety attack and couldn't.
Speaker 2:Yeah, at the previous employer.
Speaker 1:Yeah, where I worked at before here, I literally had an anxiety attack and like I had to go outside and walk around, yeah, and then now that's what I do for a living like that's it day. Yeah, people for hours at a time, yes, and just talk about everything. Yep, yeah, so thinking about that jordan versus this one and that was just five or six years ago, yeah, trying to use that and imagine where I'll be five years from now is bizarre.
Speaker 2:Yes, yep. Well, good job, man yeah.
Speaker 1:Just try to keep keep going every day and keep keep learning and, Yep, Keep growing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and congrats on being the first returning guest on our podcast, which not technically you're not a guest, right, um, but the first returning participant. Uh, congratulations on having children that you want and love. Congratulations on having children that you want and love. So, anyway, thank you for joining our podcast. We really appreciate everyone watching. If you enjoy our podcast, please like, please subscribe, please share with your friends. Thank you.
