June 2, 2025 • 40 mins
In this #podcast episode, I interview Mary Kelly. I ask Mary about how her experience in the Navy and as an Economist helped her learn to help leaders in business. Mary also talks about how resilience is important to real success. Mary also shares with you how accountability is important to producing.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Thanks for joining us on episode 1545 of the Inspired Stewardship
Podcast. I'm Mary Kelly.
I challenge you to invest in yourself,
invest in others,
develop your influence and impact the world by using your time,
your talent and your treasures to live out your calling.
(00:21):
Having the ability to develop resiliency is the key.
And one way to be inspired to do that is to
listen to this,
the Inspired Stewardship Podcast with my friend Scott Mater.
(00:41):
The things that we do has gotten pretty successful and it's
easy to coast.
It's easy to think,
okay, I'm good,
I'm good.
And I gotta tell you,
Scott, I look at leadership like going to the gym.
You know,
in my 20s I went to the gym to get faster
and better and stronger.
And now that I am decades away from my 20s now,
I go to the gym to not get worse.
(01:03):
Welcome and thank you for joining us on the Inspired Stewardship
Podcast. If you truly desire to become the person who God
wants you to be,
then you must learn to use your time,
your talent and your treasures for your true calling.
In the Inspired Stewardship Podcast,
you will learn to invest in yourself,
invest in others,
(01:23):
and develop your influence so that you can impact the world.
In this podcast episode,
I interview Mary Kelly.
I asked Mary about how her experience in the Navy and
as an economist helped her learn to help leaders in business.
(01:46):
Mary also talks about how resilience is important to real success.
And Mary shares with you how accountability is so important to
producing. I have a great book that's been out for a
while now called Inspired Living.
Assemble the Puzzle of youf Calling.
By mastering your time,
your talent and your treasures.
You can find out more about that book over@inspiredlivingbook.com
(02:11):
it'll take you to a page where there's information and you
can sign up to get some mailings about it as well
as purchase a copy there.
I'd love to see you get a copy and share with
me how it impacted your world.
Mary Kelly is a leadership expert,
retired from the US Navy,
an economist,
a best selling author,
a keynote speaker,
(02:32):
and she's the CEO of Productive Leaders.
And Mary Kelly focuses on improving profit and growth for businesses
as an economist and a corporate strategist and leadership development expertise.
Mary translates economic data that leaders can use to make the
right decisions for their business.
She's been cited in Money Magazine,
(02:53):
Entrepreneur Success,
Forbes, the Wall Street Journal,
and has been on over 500 TV and radio stations.
Mary tries to translate theory into action.
She was one of the first women to graduate from the
Naval Academy and Mary served 21 years as a commissioned officer
on active duty in the Navy.
Some of her favorite jobs included being an intelligence officer,
(03:16):
a counterterrorism officer,
a chief of police,
an HR director,
running a pay and personnel organization,
and being part of the team in charge of Pearl harbor.
With a PhD in economics,
she was a military professor at the Naval Academy and a
civilian professor at the Air Force Academy.
She grew up in a small business family and started working
(03:37):
trade shows when she was 10.
She's the author of 15 business and leadership books,
including 15 Ways to Grow youw Business in Every Economy,
Money Smart,
master your world,
360 degrees of leadership,
Stop the Barking While Leaders fail and the seven prescriptions for
success. A five minutes per week and 52 weeks of building
(03:59):
a Better Business.
And who comes next?
Welcome to the show.
Mary hey Scott,
Great to be with you and your listeners today.
Absolutely. I'm glad to have you here.
So I shared a bunch in the intro,
and you've done a lot of different things over the years,
but at the same time,
I always know that intros and bios and those sorts of
(04:20):
things, it's kind of like showing the highlight reel of where
we've gotten and the journey to get there usually has some
things in it that maybe aren't in the bio.
So would you share a little bit more about your journey
and what brought you to the point now where you're doing
the work you're doing and putting out your message to the
world? As you mentioned,
I was so fortunate to attend the Naval Academy in Annapolis,
(04:41):
Maryland. And you have to understand,
I didn't know anything about the military.
My biggest military exposure was watching mash.
Like, I didn't know anybody who'd ever been in the military.
Nothing MASH would be good exposure.
It's totally realistic,
said no one ever.
All of a sudden I'm in this world that I loved.
There was purpose,
(05:02):
there was discipline,
but there was also a lot of faith.
And you'd be surprised to find out that we have military
chaplains and we have military services and we have all services,
all faiths,
all everything.
And so when I was at the Naval Academy,
I was very fortunate to be part of the Glee club
as well as the Catholic choir.
Back then,
(05:22):
we didn't have that many females at the academy,
and the Protestant choir also needed females.
So I wound up doing double duty on Sunday mornings,
which was fantastic.
So I got to go to different church services,
be part of different faith based organizations,
and these became,
of course,
lifelong friends.
And then after that When I went on active duty,
(05:44):
I mostly was in Asia for about 17 years doing intelligence
and logistics work.
Again, as you kindly mentioned.
It's amazing to me how a lot of those friends just
resurface in your life and how you build a community around
other people who share your values.
And then when I got out of the military,
all of a sudden I'm back,
I'm on my own,
(06:04):
I'm starting a business.
I had no idea what I was doing.
Which by the way,
is awesome.
When you're ignorant and you don't know that it's supposed to
be hard,
you're. You just plow through.
You just don't know.
You just don't know.
You hope,
you pray,
you do all the things.
And then 18 years later,
I'm so fortunate to be in this very much second career
(06:26):
and able to do what I do,
which is leadership and economic development.
So that's an interesting combination,
leadership and economics.
What, what do you think is unique about that kind of
blend of looking at those two fields together?
I thought I wanted to be the mayor of a small
town. I thought I wanted to move to some small town
(06:46):
and be the mayor and run like the Andy Griffin town.
And turns out,
so I go to school for public policy,
I'm taking classes,
I'm trying to be smart.
I'm still in the Navy,
I'm taking graduate classes at night trying to get smart.
That's my whole thing is if you think you want to
do something,
try to get smart about it and then just go ahead
and do stumble into it anyway.
But one of those classes was an economics class and I'd
(07:08):
never had an economics class before.
And all of a sudden it made everything make sense.
The whole world suddenly fell into place and made sense.
And I thought,
wow, the entire universe is really run on this concept of
allocation of scarce resources.
And even if you are prosperous,
you still feel as though you've maybe got some scarcity in
(07:28):
your life.
And all of a sudden I thought,
wow, a lot of my leaders,
a lot of the leaders I've been around,
they make decisions based on a scarcity mentality,
which is not good long term planning.
Now sometimes it's the right thing in the short term,
but sometimes it's not.
And I thought,
w delve into this deeper.
I could be a better leader,
I'd be a better economist and I'd be a better person.
(07:52):
I've worked as a coach with a lot of different business
owners over the year,
a lot of different people.
And one of the things that I've run into is no
matter how much they make,
and I've worked with people that make $37,000
a year and I've worked with people that make two or
three hundred thousand dollars a month,
not even a year.
Ultra high income earners.
It's, at some point there's a limit and at some point
(08:13):
you have to make a decision about what's really important and
what's not.
What do I really want to do with these resources?
And there is a difference though,
between that recognizing real limits and a scarcity mindset.
Do you mind explaining what's the difference between those two?
Because I think sometimes people confuse them and think reality is
I'm going to run out of something.
(08:35):
But that's different than having a scarcity mindset.
A scarcity mindset means that you can't have everything you want
at zero cost.
There's always a cost.
So if you want to work more,
that's at the cost of time with,
there's always a sunk cost.
It's a,
the risk of time with family,
working out in the gym,
making healthy meals.
You could be doing a million other things other than working.
(08:55):
How we choose to spend our time,
I think is one of the most important things we do
every single day.
Our life is a finite number of unknown minutes and we
couldn't, we shouldn't waste them.
We. And if we're going to be effective,
we can't waste time.
So we have to think about what's really important to us
in terms of our time,
our energy and our resources.
(09:15):
And most people think of resources as money,
and that's certainly true for a lot of it,
because with more resources,
with more money,
you can do more good on the planet.
Somebody calls me up and says,
hey, Mary,
I've got this fundraiser,
can you help out?
Great. Do you need me to speak at your fundraiser?
Do you need me to donate to your fundraiser?
Do you need me to serve on the board for your
fundraiser? What do you need from me?
Do you need my time,
(09:36):
my talent,
however valuable that might be,
not always very much.
Or do you need money?
What do you need from me?
And depending upon where they are,
it could be any of those things.
So people with a scarcity mindset are always feeling like I
never have enough time,
I never have enough money,
I never have enough fill in the blank and they're not
happy. So once you make a decision every single day that
(09:59):
you get to be happy with whatever you've got,
you're going to maximize your time with wherever you are.
You're going to make the most of the relationships you have,
the friendships you have,
and the opportunities you have.
All of a sudden,
it shifts from there's not enough of fill in the blank
to wow,
my life is full of abundance.
(10:19):
And that shift in your mentality,
it does.
The universal truth that you attract,
what you think about is,
I think,
very real.
Now. It doesn't mean that your life gets to be sunshine
and roses and unicorns and sprinkles.
It doesn't mean that.
It means that you're just better equipped to move through tough
situations. So you mentioned earlier the work you did and the
(10:39):
time you spent in the choir there,
the Catholic services and Protestant services.
One of the things I like to highlight for folks is
the intersection between our faith journey and our life journey and
how those things feed back and forth into each other.
Would you mind sharing a little bit about your faith journey
and how that has influenced your decisions?
Would love to.
I was very fortunate to be raised in a very Catholic
(11:00):
household, which meant there was a routine of going to church.
And when every Sunday.
And when you go to a Catholic school,
you also have Mass every morning,
which gets you into the habit of stopping,
reflecting, praying,
thinking. It makes you stop.
And I think that's a lot of people,
I think,
confuse the message with the messengers,
(11:22):
where sometimes they say,
I'm not going back to that church because I didn't like
the message on Sunday,
or I thought the preacher was off,
or I thought this,
that whatever.
It's not about that.
It's not about the messenger.
It's about the message.
What are you bringing and what do you need to get
from that?
And so everybody's faith,
I think,
is very personal and very different,
very individual.
Your relationship with whatever higher being you choose to align yourself
(11:44):
with, that is your business.
And that's awesome.
My personal choice had has been what I was taught in
the Catholic Church,
which is Father,
Son, Holy Spirit.
That's what I believe.
Does that mean I'm always happy with everything the church does?
Nope. Am I happy with everything I do?
Nope. That we're fallible.
We're humans and we have to understand that.
(12:05):
But it also helped me in tough situations.
When people get into tough situations,
they pray more.
That's when people talk about their faith being tested.
But it's also,
are you praying just when you need something?
Because if you are,
you're kind of like a teenager who only talks to mom
and dad when they need the car keys.
Are you praying when you're grateful?
Are you staying close to those values,
(12:25):
even when it would be easy not to.
So I remember when I was getting out of the Navy,
there were all kinds of job opportunities around Washington,
dc. My very last tour in the military was back teaching
at the Naval Academy.
I started there,
I ended there.
Full circle,
and there's all these jobs,
but the jobs weren't what I really wanted to do.
(12:45):
And here was the problem.
They were dangling really big pots of money at me.
They're like,
here's a bunch of money.
Just come and work for us for a couple years.
Come and do this just for a couple years.
It's just for a couple years.
And Scott,
more than anybody,
I should have known right away that it's never just for
a couple years.
And if you're tempted by something that you know is not
(13:06):
good for you,
it's not where you're supposed to be,
it's not why you're on the planet,
you gotta walk away.
I got to tell you,
I'm so grateful because one Sunday,
one Saturday morning,
I was at a local diner and I'm at the counter
early morning.
We're the people with big cups of coffee at 6:00 in
the morning,
going through,
going through the work and all that.
And I'm sitting next to a guy from the FBI,
and he'd been working in D.C.
(13:28):
and I said,
wow, how's the community goes?
It's terrible.
I get up at 4 o' clock in the morning,
I get home at 8 o' clock at night.
I'm like,
how long have you been doing this?
He's 12 years.
I'm like,
whoa. He said,
it was only just supposed to be for a couple years.
And I was like,
sir, I need to pay for your breakfast.
Thank you for that moment of clarity.
And I went home to my dogs and I looked at
(13:48):
my. My dogs and I said,
mommy has got to get out of this town.
Because I'm being tempted to do things I don't want to
do for money.
And that's the wrong reason.
Now you have to work for money.
You, it's not just going to fall out of the sky.
You got to pray like everything depends on God,
work, everything depends on you.
But it doesn't mean that you sacrifice your principles,
your values and your time on the planet doing something that
(14:12):
you shouldn't be doing.
One of the things you talked about earlier is that idea
of you didn't feel like it was what you were called
to do or your purpose,
what you were put on this planet to do.
Talk a little bit about what do you feel like your
calling is?
What is the thing that clicks for you?
And then how did you discover that?
(14:32):
I think I'm put on the planet to do leadership and
economic development for businesses,
organizations, government entities.
It is,
it is more fun for me to be speaking on stage
than on vacation.
And I realize most people would rather be in the coffin
than delivering the eulogy.
I completely understand that there's a few of us out there.
(14:52):
We are these weird little unicorns and we love speaking in
front of people.
It's our thing.
You're one of them.
Once I realized that I could convey messages of not just
business growth and productivity,
which is my specialty,
but also of hope and encouragement and how we have to
be better leaders every single day.
(15:13):
And I pray every single day,
Scott. I wake up and I'm like,
lord, please help me be a better person today than I
was yesterday.
And. And it doesn't always work.
Like some days I'm like,
oh, I wasn't a better person.
Maybe I lost my patience or I lost my temper or
I said something I shouldn't have.
Every day we're a works in progress.
But if I could help other people and other people in
tough situations who need that boost of encouragement,
(15:36):
then that's what I'm here for.
If you're a NASCAR fan,
I call it the bump draft effect.
Like our job is to get behind other people and push
them forward,
give them that bump draft forward that maybe they needed at
that time because somebody was.
Somebody was bump drafting me.
And the thing is,
you don't remember who was bump drafting you necessarily.
You don't remember who gave you that push in the right
(15:56):
direction. You don't remember,
but you can be grateful for it.
So a couple of times you've mentioned getting through tough times.
Getting through tough times.
That's come up in your answers more than once.
Talk to that leader right now who you know,
with everything going on in the world,
this is a great time and a great example that,
that their business is going through tough times right now.
(16:18):
Their organization is going through tough times right now.
Maybe they personally are or their employees are.
Whatever it is,
they're in the middle of that,
hey, this is tough times.
What are some of the skills or the tips or the
ideas or the seeds that you'd like them to hear?
I love that shirt that says everyone is going through a
(16:39):
battle you know nothing about.
And I think that is a hundred percent true.
And it may be personal.
It could be a bad diagnosis,
it could be a relationship issue.
It could be you're caring for your aging parents and you've
been up all night because they had a bad night.
You may have children.
Like. It could be a very personal,
domestic issue.
It could be,
oh, my gosh,
our numbers are not making it,
and I don't know how to fix this with my business
(17:01):
right now.
It could be I've got to have a tough,
tough call with one of my employees,
and they've been with me for a while,
but I got to let them go because they're just not
cutting it,
and I haven't been able to get them up to speed.
There's always something going on.
And then if you watch the news,
it is very easy to get discouraged,
because, let's face it,
the news media is about telling you all the bad things
(17:21):
on the planet so that you feel discouraged and uncertain and
angry and sad all at the same time.
And they can do it fast.
They're really talented at this.
So our job as leaders is to help people focus on
controlling what they can control today,
tomorrow, next week.
So if you look at all the things on the planet
(17:42):
you can't control.
You can't control politics.
You can't control who wins a football game.
You can't control what's going on in the stock market.
You can't control a lot of things.
So it's good to be aware of these things.
But you don't make that the focus of your life.
You make the circle of the things that you can control,
which is your health,
your relationships,
how you approach things,
(18:03):
your attitude.
Are you being the best person today you possibly can be?
Are you helping other people do their best at work,
too? Are you making good decisions?
So you have to focus.
To me,
when people say,
mary, I'm just.
The world is uncertain.
I'm not focused.
I just can't get it together.
Okay. During tough times,
we tend to.
(18:24):
We circle the wagon,
we put our arms around the things we can control,
and we look very myopically.
There's a balance there.
So controlling what you can control is my house,
my job,
my kids,
my little league,
my dog,
my cat,
my whatever.
Controlling the things you can control.
Especially during COVID we found a lot of people just focusing
on that and only that,
(18:45):
to the detriment of everything else.
They didn't look externally.
They weren't helping other people.
So when I say control the things you can control,
it's not,
you know,
be a turtle,
pull into your shell,
and ignore the rest of the world.
That's not what I'm Saying what I'm saying is be aware
of what's out there.
But also look at how am I supporting other people?
How am I helping other people manage change?
(19:06):
How am I helping other people with uncertainty?
Am I letting people know the they need from me so
that they can do their jobs well?
Can I help people focus on what they need to be
accomplishing today so that they can be successful?
So yes,
be aware of the things going on the planet and then
start working on the things you can control that make a
(19:27):
difference. And I think a lot of times too,
when you talk about what you can control and it's the
difference between being self aware and selfish,
it's when you look at what I can control that influences
and impacts other people too,
as opposed to what I can control that makes my life
better. And it's not that your life won't get better,
(19:48):
but it's is that your only focus is.
Again, we're back to that scarcity mindset of I gotta get
mine because otherwise somebody else is gonna get it.
Thinking when it's a zero sum game and there's always opportunity
costs. But that's not the same as saying everything is zero
sum, you know?
And this is why I love the work you're doing,
Scott, because when you're doing a podcast,
(20:08):
technically you're competing with all other podcasts out there.
There technically,
except you're also a guest on other people's podcasts.
We're all sharing messages and they're different messages based on who
you're talking to.
Sometimes when you're talking to somebody else,
they elicit things.
They elicit this genius from you that you didn't know you
had. Like you're having this great conversation and somebody goes,
(20:28):
hey, I need to hear that today.
I need to hear that today.
I need to hear that today.
And. And then you say,
I've been saying this on my podcast,
I got 1500 episodes.
We've said this before,
but when,
you know,
Joe Bob or Sally sue said it,
it just sounds a little bit different.
So instead of competing and going,
hey, you're supposed to be looking at my cast,
instead you're out there pouring it into other people too.
And that's what I think is such a gift about the
(20:49):
work you're doing too.
And I think that is,
it's that attitude of it.
It isn't a zero.
Again, it's not a zero sum game.
It's not.
People ask all the time,
like, I'll have somebody on that has a very similar content
to me or Maybe even coaches and works with other business
people. And they're like,
they're a competitor.
Why would you have them on your show?
And I'm like,
like, because they probably can reach and help somebody that I
(21:10):
can't. So why not have them on the show?
That somebody's going to hear it from them.
That would never work with me.
And that's great thing.
It's exactly right.
And you were kind enough to mention some of my books.
And about 10 years ago,
I started collaborating on the books with my closest competitors in
the field,
and that's Peter Stark out of San Diego and Meredith Elliot
Powell out of North Carolina.
(21:32):
And people say,
why in the world would you collaborate on a book.
Book that,
that you're going to write anyway with your closest competitors?
And the answer is,
because it makes me better.
Hopefully it makes them better.
It makes the book.
If I can take that book from 92% up to 98
and just make it that much better because I'm working with
somebody else who's smarter than me,
I want to do that.
(21:53):
I want to work with other people who see different things
from what I see.
I want,
you know,
I want that extra input.
I want that feedback.
And partly it means being open to feedback that you sometimes
think, oh,
I got the answer on this.
And all of a sudden they're like this.
And you're like,
oh, maybe I don't have the answer.
And that,
I think is hard for a lot of leaders is because
(22:13):
we've got.
We've been successful up till now.
The things that we do has gotten pretty successful.
And it's easy to coast.
It's easy to think,
okay, I'm good,
I'm good.
And I got to tell you,
Scott, I look at leadership like going to the gym.
In my 20s,
I went to the gym to get faster and better and
stronger. And now that I am decades away from my 20s
(22:33):
now, I go to the gym to not get worse.
And that's what I think leadership is too.
We can't rest on our past accomplishments.
We can't say,
oh, because yesterday was a good day,
I don't have to work so hard today.
That's not how life works.
And the other thing that you've seen as well as I
have is the people who are working hard every day,
they're showing up with 100 every day.
(22:55):
They're happier because their self esteem is intact.
They feel good about the work they're doing.
The people who are unhappy is.
If you look back at Covid,
the people said,
yeah, I'M only working like three hours a week.
What are you doing?
They're like,
my boss doesn't seem to mind and this way I have
time for self care and I'm focused on thinking big thoughts.
And they were miserable because they weren't getting purpose from work.
(23:16):
They weren't.
They were letting themselves down.
Not just the organization,
but themselves.
And in their head they're thinking,
wow, I'm scamming my job by not working very hard.
In their head they knew their self esteem was not doing
very well because of it.
So I love the idea of the people who show up
100% every single day and try hard.
I think effort matters.
(23:37):
Absolutely. So when you're talking to those leaders out there,
I think you mentioned earlier,
maybe you have to have that tough conversation with somebody.
And I've done that.
I've worked in the corporate world,
I've hired,
I've fired,
I've had that conversation where somebody's sitting across the table and
I've got to let them know that they're not going to
be able to come to work next week or tomorrow or
(23:58):
whatever it is.
And that's never a fun conversation.
It's never an easy conversation.
No. What are some of the things or how do you
look at that idea of accountability?
Both in that kind of situation where we're having to hold
an employee or co worker or somebody else accountable.
But then I also want to extend that and talk a
(24:19):
little bit about self accountability because I think that's a part
of those conversations that oftentimes gets overlooked,
if that makes sense.
Such great points.
So first I have systems in place and that your leaders
can, your audience can get these for free.
They're on my website.
It's the website forward slash free.
My productivity sheet is there every single day.
(24:41):
I map out what I have to do,
the calls to make,
the appointments I have,
the follow up.
I need to do whatever I need to do in these
quadrants. So that's organized every single day.
Every month I map out my goals for the month and
that means I've got my top five goals for the month.
I print it out.
It's in my 12 month planner.
It's fabulous.
Every month has two color coded pages and it's my top
(25:03):
five goals of the month.
What do I want to do more of this month?
What do I want to do less of this month?
What do I need to resolve or streamline or what?
Whatever. And it's mapped out for you.
So you answer the prompts and then if you've got your
top five goals and it doesn't matter where you are in
the organization,
if you're at the bottom,
you go to your boss and you go,
hey, boss,
these are what I think are my top five goals of
the month.
Is this what you're thinking my top five goals of the
(25:25):
month are?
And sometimes your boss goes,
no, I want you going in this direction.
I need you focused on the XYZ project,
not the ABC project.
That's good clarity.
The second thing is if you're in a leadership position and
if you're not mapping out your top five goals every month
and sharing it with your team,
and that's where it gets hard.
If you're not sharing this with your team,
then your expectations that they would magically read your mind,
(25:48):
you're not married to them,
it's not you.
You can't expect them to read your mind.
And then they're not able to align their thoughts,
their behaviors,
their actions to accomplishing the goals that you think they should
be accomplishing with you.
But you're not telling them what the goals are.
Okay, that's just mean.
That's like telling somebody to go drive a thousand miles in
a car.
What direction?
I don't know.
But if you're in the wrong place,
(26:09):
I'll tell you after the thousand miles.
That's just bad leadership.
So let your people know what your goals are on a
monthly basis so that they can align what they need to
align with what you need them to do.
And that's in the 12 month planner.
But then the other thing is when you are doing that
with your people,
it keeps you accountable too.
And it also prevents you,
(26:29):
when you map it out month by month,
you go,
hang on,
is this goal for this month or is it for next
week? Month?
Maybe it's for the month after that.
But it helps you organize all the things you have to
do. Most of my leaders and managers like yours,
they all say,
mary, I've just got so much to do,
I cannot get my arms around it.
Time just seems to fall through my hands like water.
It just disappears.
(26:50):
And at the end of the day,
my to do list is often longer than when I started.
Look, I get it.
We've all been there.
We've, we have days like that too.
But if you're super organized and your time is mapped out
so that you have that hour or two to deal with,
the emergencies that pop up,
they're always going to pop up.
Everybody's got things that pop up.
It's always going to be that way,
if it's not you,
it's going to be one of your people.
(27:11):
There's always a crisis or a challenge or a change.
You've got to be prepared to deal with that.
And you be prepared for that by making sure that you
are focused on what you need to focus on and helping
your people do the same.
Yeah, I actually put about 90 minutes on my calendar every
day for what I call unplanned work upw.
And it's just the email I got,
(27:33):
the thing that cropped up,
the whatever,
there's going to something.
So I might as well go ahead and admit that and
plan that in my day's time so that I don't overfill
my day,
because otherwise I overfill my day.
I don't get it all done,
and then I'm just frustrated at the end of the day,
instead of going,
oh, no,
the reality is I had two hours of work that I
(27:55):
didn't plan on.
That came up.
That's right.
And sometimes it's a client who needs you right now.
Sometimes somebody needs a proposal,
sometimes it's whatever.
But then the other thing is,
if the time is not mapped out to get the things
done, what happens is we revert to doing the things we
want to do or the things that are easiest to do
so that we can cross those things off and feel good
(28:16):
about ourselves.
And meanwhile,
that one thing that we've been dragging our feet on for
the last month and a half still isn't done.
So if you've got something like that on your calendar,
we all do.
Okay? We all procrastinate.
Every single last one of us procrastinates.
If you're one of those people who loves to decorate for
the holidays,
you got to understand that there's an equal number of people
who just hate the thought of doing it.
(28:37):
And if you love doing it,
then you're super excited to pull out all the things for
the holiday,
I don't care what holiday it is,
and put up decorations.
But if you're those people who hate it,
you're going to wait till the last minute and you're going
to not be happy about it.
Same thing.
So what you do is you take that thing you don't
want to do and you say,
okay, realistically,
If I focused 100% focus on this task right now,
(28:57):
how long would it actually take me?
And if the answer is five minutes,
get it done.
If it's 37 minutes,
put it on your calendar,
schedule it,
get it done,
knock it out so you can stop thinking about it.
Our brain is a really powerful thing,
thing. And if we tell our brain you don't have to
do the things you don't want to do,
your brain goes,
oh, remember,
we don't have to do those things.
We don't have to do the hard things.
(29:17):
You have to do the hard things.
And the hard things for you may not be hard for
somebody else.
The easy things for you may not be easy for somebody
else. If it's really hard,
you might want to get help.
You might need somebody to walk you through something.
You still got to get it done.
So map it out,
put the time and minutes on your calendar and then say,
yep, from 9:00 till 9:37,
I'm going to do this thing that's hard.
(29:37):
Get it done and you'll feel better about yourself once you
do. I think one of the other distractions that happens is
not only the things that are easy or that we like
to do,
but also sometimes it's the thing that's screaming the loudest.
It's the tyranny of the urgent.
If it's on fire,
I have to work on that.
But believe it or not,
sometimes letting it burn a little while is the right decision,
(29:57):
or letting it have a little longer to figure out what's
going on is the right decision.
And sometimes in leaders and managers,
we don't let our people work through their own problems.
And sometimes we say,
say, let me know if you want to talk this through.
I'm not going to solve your problem for you,
but I'm going to talk it through so that you know
what to do.
You are enabled to solve this problem.
My favorite example of this is back when we went from
(30:19):
about 600 ICD10 codes.
These are the insurance codes that you get if you need
your right kidney taken out.
There's a code for that.
We went from 600 to over 10,000.
And that means all these coders now had to learn all
these codes.
Some people learned them really fast because there was this delay
in implementation.
And other people are like,
no, I'm just going to stick with the 600.
And then they'd look at a coworker and go,
(30:40):
now what's the code again for taking out your right kidney?
And their co worker go,
w, x,
y, z 3,
2, q.
But they never learned it themselves.
So I tell people is you can help them out and
give it to them,
but then you have to go,
look, I'm not going to tell you again,
this last time.
I'm going to Tell you you have to either look it
up or write it down or learn it.
Because now I'm just enabling you to not be better.
(31:01):
And it's,
I want to be helpful,
but right now I feel like maybe I'm just enabling a
problem. Problem.
And that's how you phrase it.
I want to help you,
but if I'm actually making it worse,
then I need to stop.
Absolutely. Yeah.
And you're right.
I think I actually there's a great article from Harvard Business
Review from I can't remember the year,
but it was a long time ago,
about the analogy they use as a monkey and where there's
(31:24):
a monkey on your staff members back,
they come walking down the hall and they say,
hey, I've got this problem.
And you say,
as a manager,
I'll look into that.
And they said,
picture the monkey climbing off their back and onto yours.
The question isn't,
is that a good thing or a bad thing?
The question,
is it actually your monkey,
in other words?
Because sometimes as a manager,
(31:45):
that's a legit problem that I need to be the one
that steps in and helps clear that dead wood or get
that information or make that.
Other times it's no,
that's actually the employee's monkey and I need to let them
keep it.
So I actually gave little stuffed monkeys to all of my
management team to keep on their desks to remind them of.
Before you answer the question,
ask yourself,
is that my monkey or not?
(32:06):
Should I solve this problem or should I let the employee
solve it?
Now, I could still help like you said,
but do I let them own the action or the problem?
And what I see a lot,
and you do too,
Scott, is then people tend to get emotional about somebody else's
monkey. They're like,
oh, now I have to take on the urgency of that.
And then they go home that day and they've taken on
all the emotions of other people's problems that hang on.
(32:27):
Our job is to solve problems.
It's not to be emotional about the problems.
So people say,
how do you stop yourself from being emotional?
I said,
oh, I have feelings,
just not every day,
day. And they laugh.
But I'm like,
look, my feelings are my feelings.
If you're having a bad day,
I want to help you through your bad day,
but it doesn't mean I take your emotional baggage home with
me. We're going to work through your issues,
(32:48):
but I'm a better leader and manager if I can be
supportive and objective and helpful.
If you come to my office because you've Got a problem.
And you start to cry.
And then I start to cry.
That's just dumb.
So I had that somebody do that at work one time
I was in the Navy,
and this woman is very upset,
and I was like,
why are you crying?
She goes,
because I'm trying to get your attention.
(33:08):
I said,
okay, you have my attention.
She goes,
so I think you should cry,
too. I said,
but I'm not sad.
Have this emotion right here.
I'm not sad about this problem because I know we can
solve it.
She goes,
oh, we can solve it.
I go,
yeah. She goes,
then I don't need to cry.
I said,
you really don't like.
It's just.
It was the funniest conversation.
But again,
we have to approach people as individuals.
We have to lead individuals where they are,
(33:30):
and that's what being a great leader and manager is.
Absolutely. So I've got a few questions that I like to
ask all of my guests,
but is there anything else about the work you do,
the speaking you do,
or the books that you have that you think is really
important to share with the listener?
I think it's our responsibility to share our unique talents and
(33:52):
gifts. How I do it right now is through books and
writing and blogs and podcasts and all of that.
So whatever your unique gift is,
you have to think about,
how am I best sharing that with other people?
How are other people benefiting from my being on the planet?
So I'm very proud of the latest book,
which is about helping young people navigate their career.
(34:13):
And it's the third in this triad of business,
personal and growth for succession planning and what that looks like,
because a lot of people aren't prepared for the what comes
next. So I do think that's one of the things in
this year and next year that my focus has been increased
simply because I'm seeing a bigger need.
(34:36):
So my brand is inspired stewardship,
and I run things through that lens of stewardship.
Yet, like leadership,
I've discovered that's one of those words that people use,
but they mean different things when they use it.
So I like to ask for you,
what does the word stewardship mean to you?
Stewardship to me is doing the right thing at the right
time to the right person,
(34:57):
with the right spirit every time.
Now, that's not my word.
The word is the word for this.
The Hawaiian word is kina ole,
and it was coined by George Kanahele.
But I think that's what stewardship is,
because to whom much is given,
much is expected.
And you may not think You've been given very much.
But if you are listening to this podcast right now,
you're better off than a whole lot of people on the
planet. So we have a responsibility that means we have to
(35:21):
be good stewards.
So this is my favorite question that I like to ask
everybody. Imagine for a moment that I invented this magic machine.
Machine. And with this machine I could take you from where
you are today,
transport you into the future,
maybe 150,
maybe 250 years.
And through the power of this machine,
you were able to look back and see your entire life,
(35:42):
see all of the connections,
all of the ripples,
all of the impacts you've left.
What impact do you hope you've left in the world?
I would hope it would be an impact of hope when
you're feeling hopeless.
That student who's,
I can't get through this.
I'm not smart enough to graduate.
Yes, you are.
That military veteran who is trying to figure out your place
in the civilian world,
which seems to not care about anything you've ever done in
(36:06):
the past.
And you're not sure where you're going in the future and
you're contemplating some bad moves.
There's hope in your future.
You've got this.
That person who's in a bad relationship who doesn't feel like
they've got the skills or the talents or the resources to
get out of it.
You have to look around and say there has to be
something better and have enough faith and confidence in yourself to
(36:26):
move on that.
If we can just inspire people every day to take the
right action every day,
every day.
Just a little bit of hope.
Take one step in the right direction,
I'd be good with that.
So what's on the roadmap?
What's coming next for you?
I'm working on getting this book called you'd a step by
step guide to taking charge of your career into more young,
(36:48):
talented hands.
So my mid level managers like the idea,
a lot of having a guidebook for them to talk to
their people and say,
hey, I found this book.
And in chapter one it says we should maybe talk about
this. In chapter two,
maybe we should talk about this.
And it's giving my managers a framework to move forward with
their teams.
And then the plus side on that is the team has
(37:09):
said, okay,
so where are the resources for this?
And the resources are all free.
I had a 35 year old gal take the book and
make cartoon summaries of every chapter.
Now this is not going to help my book sales because
then people go,
wait I can get the cartoon book summaries.
Yep, you're absolutely right.
You totally can.
But it's going to help people get the tools they need.
(37:29):
And that's at a different site.
It's called you Totally Free.
Just resources for people.
And I'm getting this as I'm working on this as part
of the succession planning thing.
So many boomers are thinking about retiring,
but there's nobody to give their businesses to or they don't
feel like the people coming up behind them are adequately prepared.
(37:50):
So we've got a program for that.
That's the who comes next and that's you looking really hard
at you being able to move on and do the.
Those other things,
those nice to do things now for a lot of people
I know they're never going to retire and good for you.
I'm not sure I'm ever going to retire either.
When you're running hard and doing fun things and you're helping
people, it's hard to walk away from that.
But when the time comes,
(38:11):
you got to feel good about what you're doing.
And then the third part of that is your individual retirement
plan on that day when we move on,
which I think where we're going is better than where we
are. But are you leaving your family a mess?
Do you have all your important paperwork work done?
And it's a will and a trust is great,
but it's only 10 to 15% of all the things you
need to put together.
So that's like that third triad.
(38:32):
That's the in case of emergency,
break glass program.
What if you get hit by a bus?
And what if you're not actually dead?
What if you're lying there in a coma?
What if.
What if.
What if your spouse is in the same vehicle that got
hit by the bus and you're counting on your spouse to
do all those things?
When people work through that program and they work it through
with their parents,
which is more statistically likely,
or their spouse,
(38:52):
all of a sudden,
sudden they feel like,
oh, if something happens,
we're prepared.
So it's all three books are all about being prepared for
your next opportunity,
for your careers,
for your business,
what's going to happen next,
and for you individually,
what happens next.
And so that's my focus for this year and the next,
I think.
And I'm working on another book called Leadership is Tough,
(39:14):
because leadership is Tough,
especially today.
So you can find out more about Mary kelly over@productiveleaders.com
I'll have a link to that over in the show notes
as well as the other site that she just mentioned.
Unixnow.com Mary is there anything else you'd like to share with
(39:34):
the listener?
I am grateful every single day for the people who get
up when they want to sleep in.
They get up,
they get out of bed.
They show up 100% for the people around them,
the people at work,
their families,
their communities,
their Little League,
the Girls Scouts.
All of that.
If you do nothing else.
Just get up today,
give it all you got and make yourself proud.
(39:59):
Thanks so much for listening to the Inspired Stewardship Podcast.
As a subscriber and listener,
we challenge you to not just sit back and passively listen,
but act on what you've heard and find a way to
live your calling.
If you enjoyed this episode,
please do us a favor.
(40:19):
Go over to inspired stewardship.com
iTunes Rate all one word iTunes Rate.
It'll take you through how to leave a rating and review
and how to make sure you're subscribed to the podcast so
that you can get every episode as it comes comes out
(40:40):
in your feed.
Until next time,
invest your time,
your talent and your treasures.
Develop your influence and impact the world.
Thanks for joining us on episode 1545 of the Inspired Stewardship
Podcast. I'm Mary Kelly.
I challenge you to invest in yourself,
invest in others,
develop your influence and impact the world by using your time,
your talent and your treasures to live out your calling.
(00:21):
Having the ability to develop resiliency is the key.
And one way to be inspired to do that is to
listen to this,
the Inspired Stewardship Podcast with my friend Scott Mater.
(00:41):
The things that we do has gotten pretty successful and it's
easy to coast.
It's easy to think,
okay, I'm good,
I'm good.
And I gotta tell you,
Scott, I look at leadership like going to the gym.
You know,
in my 20s I went to the gym to get faster
and better and stronger.
And now that I am decades away from my 20s now,
I go to the gym to not get worse.
(01:03):
Welcome and thank you for joining us on the Inspired Stewardship
Podcast. If you truly desire to become the person who God
wants you to be,
then you must learn to use your time,
your talent and your treasures for your true calling.
In the Inspired Stewardship Podcast,
you will learn to invest in yourself,
invest in others,
(01:23):
and develop your influence so that you can impact the world.
In this podcast episode,
I interview Mary Kelly.
I asked Mary about how her experience in the Navy and
as an economist helped her learn to help leaders in business.
(01:46):
Mary also talks about how resilience is important to real success.
And Mary shares with you how accountability is so important to
producing. I have a great book that's been out for a
while now called Inspired Living.
Assemble the Puzzle of youf Calling.
By mastering your time,
your talent and your treasures.
You can find out more about that book over@inspiredlivingbook.com
(02:11):
it'll take you to a page where there's information and you
can sign up to get some mailings about it as well
as purchase a copy there.
I'd love to see you get a copy and share with
me how it impacted your world.
Mary Kelly is a leadership expert,
retired from the US Navy,
an economist,
a best selling author,
a keynote speaker,
(02:32):
and she's the CEO of Productive Leaders.
And Mary Kelly focuses on improving profit and growth for businesses
as an economist and a corporate strategist and leadership development expertise.
Mary translates economic data that leaders can use to make the
right decisions for their business.
She's been cited in Money Magazine,
(02:53):
Entrepreneur Success,
Forbes, the Wall Street Journal,
and has been on over 500 TV and radio stations.
Mary tries to translate theory into action.
She was one of the first women to graduate from the
Naval Academy and Mary served 21 years as a commissioned officer
on active duty in the Navy.
Some of her favorite jobs included being an intelligence officer,
(03:16):
a counterterrorism officer,
a chief of police,
an HR director,
running a pay and personnel organization,
and being part of the team in charge of Pearl harbor.
With a PhD in economics,
she was a military professor at the Naval Academy and a
civilian professor at the Air Force Academy.
She grew up in a small business family and started working
(03:37):
trade shows when she was 10.
She's the author of 15 business and leadership books,
including 15 Ways to Grow youw Business in Every Economy,
Money Smart,
master your world,
360 degrees of leadership,
Stop the Barking While Leaders fail and the seven prescriptions for
success. A five minutes per week and 52 weeks of building
(03:59):
a Better Business.
And who comes next?
Welcome to the show.
Mary hey Scott,
Great to be with you and your listeners today.
Absolutely. I'm glad to have you here.
So I shared a bunch in the intro,
and you've done a lot of different things over the years,
but at the same time,
I always know that intros and bios and those sorts of
(04:20):
things, it's kind of like showing the highlight reel of where
we've gotten and the journey to get there usually has some
things in it that maybe aren't in the bio.
So would you share a little bit more about your journey
and what brought you to the point now where you're doing
the work you're doing and putting out your message to the
world? As you mentioned,
I was so fortunate to attend the Naval Academy in Annapolis,
(04:41):
Maryland. And you have to understand,
I didn't know anything about the military.
My biggest military exposure was watching mash.
Like, I didn't know anybody who'd ever been in the military.
Nothing MASH would be good exposure.
It's totally realistic,
said no one ever.
All of a sudden I'm in this world that I loved.
There was purpose,
(05:02):
there was discipline,
but there was also a lot of faith.
And you'd be surprised to find out that we have military
chaplains and we have military services and we have all services,
all faiths,
all everything.
And so when I was at the Naval Academy,
I was very fortunate to be part of the Glee club
as well as the Catholic choir.
Back then,
(05:22):
we didn't have that many females at the academy,
and the Protestant choir also needed females.
So I wound up doing double duty on Sunday mornings,
which was fantastic.
So I got to go to different church services,
be part of different faith based organizations,
and these became,
of course,
lifelong friends.
And then after that When I went on active duty,
(05:44):
I mostly was in Asia for about 17 years doing intelligence
and logistics work.
Again, as you kindly mentioned.
It's amazing to me how a lot of those friends just
resurface in your life and how you build a community around
other people who share your values.
And then when I got out of the military,
all of a sudden I'm back,
I'm on my own,
(06:04):
I'm starting a business.
I had no idea what I was doing.
Which by the way,
is awesome.
When you're ignorant and you don't know that it's supposed to
be hard,
you're. You just plow through.
You just don't know.
You just don't know.
You hope,
you pray,
you do all the things.
And then 18 years later,
I'm so fortunate to be in this very much second career
(06:26):
and able to do what I do,
which is leadership and economic development.
So that's an interesting combination,
leadership and economics.
What, what do you think is unique about that kind of
blend of looking at those two fields together?
I thought I wanted to be the mayor of a small
town. I thought I wanted to move to some small town
(06:46):
and be the mayor and run like the Andy Griffin town.
And turns out,
so I go to school for public policy,
I'm taking classes,
I'm trying to be smart.
I'm still in the Navy,
I'm taking graduate classes at night trying to get smart.
That's my whole thing is if you think you want to
do something,
try to get smart about it and then just go ahead
and do stumble into it anyway.
But one of those classes was an economics class and I'd
(07:08):
never had an economics class before.
And all of a sudden it made everything make sense.
The whole world suddenly fell into place and made sense.
And I thought,
wow, the entire universe is really run on this concept of
allocation of scarce resources.
And even if you are prosperous,
you still feel as though you've maybe got some scarcity in
(07:28):
your life.
And all of a sudden I thought,
wow, a lot of my leaders,
a lot of the leaders I've been around,
they make decisions based on a scarcity mentality,
which is not good long term planning.
Now sometimes it's the right thing in the short term,
but sometimes it's not.
And I thought,
w delve into this deeper.
I could be a better leader,
I'd be a better economist and I'd be a better person.
(07:52):
I've worked as a coach with a lot of different business
owners over the year,
a lot of different people.
And one of the things that I've run into is no
matter how much they make,
and I've worked with people that make $37,000
a year and I've worked with people that make two or
three hundred thousand dollars a month,
not even a year.
Ultra high income earners.
It's, at some point there's a limit and at some point
(08:13):
you have to make a decision about what's really important and
what's not.
What do I really want to do with these resources?
And there is a difference though,
between that recognizing real limits and a scarcity mindset.
Do you mind explaining what's the difference between those two?
Because I think sometimes people confuse them and think reality is
I'm going to run out of something.
(08:35):
But that's different than having a scarcity mindset.
A scarcity mindset means that you can't have everything you want
at zero cost.
There's always a cost.
So if you want to work more,
that's at the cost of time with,
there's always a sunk cost.
It's a,
the risk of time with family,
working out in the gym,
making healthy meals.
You could be doing a million other things other than working.
(08:55):
How we choose to spend our time,
I think is one of the most important things we do
every single day.
Our life is a finite number of unknown minutes and we
couldn't, we shouldn't waste them.
We. And if we're going to be effective,
we can't waste time.
So we have to think about what's really important to us
in terms of our time,
our energy and our resources.
(09:15):
And most people think of resources as money,
and that's certainly true for a lot of it,
because with more resources,
with more money,
you can do more good on the planet.
Somebody calls me up and says,
hey, Mary,
I've got this fundraiser,
can you help out?
Great. Do you need me to speak at your fundraiser?
Do you need me to donate to your fundraiser?
Do you need me to serve on the board for your
fundraiser? What do you need from me?
Do you need my time,
(09:36):
my talent,
however valuable that might be,
not always very much.
Or do you need money?
What do you need from me?
And depending upon where they are,
it could be any of those things.
So people with a scarcity mindset are always feeling like I
never have enough time,
I never have enough money,
I never have enough fill in the blank and they're not
happy. So once you make a decision every single day that
(09:59):
you get to be happy with whatever you've got,
you're going to maximize your time with wherever you are.
You're going to make the most of the relationships you have,
the friendships you have,
and the opportunities you have.
All of a sudden,
it shifts from there's not enough of fill in the blank
to wow,
my life is full of abundance.
(10:19):
And that shift in your mentality,
it does.
The universal truth that you attract,
what you think about is,
I think,
very real.
Now. It doesn't mean that your life gets to be sunshine
and roses and unicorns and sprinkles.
It doesn't mean that.
It means that you're just better equipped to move through tough
situations. So you mentioned earlier the work you did and the
(10:39):
time you spent in the choir there,
the Catholic services and Protestant services.
One of the things I like to highlight for folks is
the intersection between our faith journey and our life journey and
how those things feed back and forth into each other.
Would you mind sharing a little bit about your faith journey
and how that has influenced your decisions?
Would love to.
I was very fortunate to be raised in a very Catholic
(11:00):
household, which meant there was a routine of going to church.
And when every Sunday.
And when you go to a Catholic school,
you also have Mass every morning,
which gets you into the habit of stopping,
reflecting, praying,
thinking. It makes you stop.
And I think that's a lot of people,
I think,
confuse the message with the messengers,
(11:22):
where sometimes they say,
I'm not going back to that church because I didn't like
the message on Sunday,
or I thought the preacher was off,
or I thought this,
that whatever.
It's not about that.
It's not about the messenger.
It's about the message.
What are you bringing and what do you need to get
from that?
And so everybody's faith,
I think,
is very personal and very different,
very individual.
Your relationship with whatever higher being you choose to align yourself
(11:44):
with, that is your business.
And that's awesome.
My personal choice had has been what I was taught in
the Catholic Church,
which is Father,
Son, Holy Spirit.
That's what I believe.
Does that mean I'm always happy with everything the church does?
Nope. Am I happy with everything I do?
Nope. That we're fallible.
We're humans and we have to understand that.
(12:05):
But it also helped me in tough situations.
When people get into tough situations,
they pray more.
That's when people talk about their faith being tested.
But it's also,
are you praying just when you need something?
Because if you are,
you're kind of like a teenager who only talks to mom
and dad when they need the car keys.
Are you praying when you're grateful?
Are you staying close to those values,
(12:25):
even when it would be easy not to.
So I remember when I was getting out of the Navy,
there were all kinds of job opportunities around Washington,
dc. My very last tour in the military was back teaching
at the Naval Academy.
I started there,
I ended there.
Full circle,
and there's all these jobs,
but the jobs weren't what I really wanted to do.
(12:45):
And here was the problem.
They were dangling really big pots of money at me.
They're like,
here's a bunch of money.
Just come and work for us for a couple years.
Come and do this just for a couple years.
It's just for a couple years.
And Scott,
more than anybody,
I should have known right away that it's never just for
a couple years.
And if you're tempted by something that you know is not
(13:06):
good for you,
it's not where you're supposed to be,
it's not why you're on the planet,
you gotta walk away.
I got to tell you,
I'm so grateful because one Sunday,
one Saturday morning,
I was at a local diner and I'm at the counter
early morning.
We're the people with big cups of coffee at 6:00 in
the morning,
going through,
going through the work and all that.
And I'm sitting next to a guy from the FBI,
and he'd been working in D.C.
(13:28):
and I said,
wow, how's the community goes?
It's terrible.
I get up at 4 o' clock in the morning,
I get home at 8 o' clock at night.
I'm like,
how long have you been doing this?
He's 12 years.
I'm like,
whoa. He said,
it was only just supposed to be for a couple years.
And I was like,
sir, I need to pay for your breakfast.
Thank you for that moment of clarity.
And I went home to my dogs and I looked at
(13:48):
my. My dogs and I said,
mommy has got to get out of this town.
Because I'm being tempted to do things I don't want to
do for money.
And that's the wrong reason.
Now you have to work for money.
You, it's not just going to fall out of the sky.
You got to pray like everything depends on God,
work, everything depends on you.
But it doesn't mean that you sacrifice your principles,
your values and your time on the planet doing something that
(14:12):
you shouldn't be doing.
One of the things you talked about earlier is that idea
of you didn't feel like it was what you were called
to do or your purpose,
what you were put on this planet to do.
Talk a little bit about what do you feel like your
calling is?
What is the thing that clicks for you?
And then how did you discover that?
(14:32):
I think I'm put on the planet to do leadership and
economic development for businesses,
organizations, government entities.
It is,
it is more fun for me to be speaking on stage
than on vacation.
And I realize most people would rather be in the coffin
than delivering the eulogy.
I completely understand that there's a few of us out there.
(14:52):
We are these weird little unicorns and we love speaking in
front of people.
It's our thing.
You're one of them.
Once I realized that I could convey messages of not just
business growth and productivity,
which is my specialty,
but also of hope and encouragement and how we have to
be better leaders every single day.
(15:13):
And I pray every single day,
Scott. I wake up and I'm like,
lord, please help me be a better person today than I
was yesterday.
And. And it doesn't always work.
Like some days I'm like,
oh, I wasn't a better person.
Maybe I lost my patience or I lost my temper or
I said something I shouldn't have.
Every day we're a works in progress.
But if I could help other people and other people in
tough situations who need that boost of encouragement,
(15:36):
then that's what I'm here for.
If you're a NASCAR fan,
I call it the bump draft effect.
Like our job is to get behind other people and push
them forward,
give them that bump draft forward that maybe they needed at
that time because somebody was.
Somebody was bump drafting me.
And the thing is,
you don't remember who was bump drafting you necessarily.
You don't remember who gave you that push in the right
(15:56):
direction. You don't remember,
but you can be grateful for it.
So a couple of times you've mentioned getting through tough times.
Getting through tough times.
That's come up in your answers more than once.
Talk to that leader right now who you know,
with everything going on in the world,
this is a great time and a great example that,
that their business is going through tough times right now.
(16:18):
Their organization is going through tough times right now.
Maybe they personally are or their employees are.
Whatever it is,
they're in the middle of that,
hey, this is tough times.
What are some of the skills or the tips or the
ideas or the seeds that you'd like them to hear?
I love that shirt that says everyone is going through a
(16:39):
battle you know nothing about.
And I think that is a hundred percent true.
And it may be personal.
It could be a bad diagnosis,
it could be a relationship issue.
It could be you're caring for your aging parents and you've
been up all night because they had a bad night.
You may have children.
Like. It could be a very personal,
domestic issue.
It could be,
oh, my gosh,
our numbers are not making it,
and I don't know how to fix this with my business
(17:01):
right now.
It could be I've got to have a tough,
tough call with one of my employees,
and they've been with me for a while,
but I got to let them go because they're just not
cutting it,
and I haven't been able to get them up to speed.
There's always something going on.
And then if you watch the news,
it is very easy to get discouraged,
because, let's face it,
the news media is about telling you all the bad things
(17:21):
on the planet so that you feel discouraged and uncertain and
angry and sad all at the same time.
And they can do it fast.
They're really talented at this.
So our job as leaders is to help people focus on
controlling what they can control today,
tomorrow, next week.
So if you look at all the things on the planet
(17:42):
you can't control.
You can't control politics.
You can't control who wins a football game.
You can't control what's going on in the stock market.
You can't control a lot of things.
So it's good to be aware of these things.
But you don't make that the focus of your life.
You make the circle of the things that you can control,
which is your health,
your relationships,
how you approach things,
(18:03):
your attitude.
Are you being the best person today you possibly can be?
Are you helping other people do their best at work,
too? Are you making good decisions?
So you have to focus.
To me,
when people say,
mary, I'm just.
The world is uncertain.
I'm not focused.
I just can't get it together.
Okay. During tough times,
we tend to.
(18:24):
We circle the wagon,
we put our arms around the things we can control,
and we look very myopically.
There's a balance there.
So controlling what you can control is my house,
my job,
my kids,
my little league,
my dog,
my cat,
my whatever.
Controlling the things you can control.
Especially during COVID we found a lot of people just focusing
on that and only that,
(18:45):
to the detriment of everything else.
They didn't look externally.
They weren't helping other people.
So when I say control the things you can control,
it's not,
you know,
be a turtle,
pull into your shell,
and ignore the rest of the world.
That's not what I'm Saying what I'm saying is be aware
of what's out there.
But also look at how am I supporting other people?
How am I helping other people manage change?
(19:06):
How am I helping other people with uncertainty?
Am I letting people know the they need from me so
that they can do their jobs well?
Can I help people focus on what they need to be
accomplishing today so that they can be successful?
So yes,
be aware of the things going on the planet and then
start working on the things you can control that make a
(19:27):
difference. And I think a lot of times too,
when you talk about what you can control and it's the
difference between being self aware and selfish,
it's when you look at what I can control that influences
and impacts other people too,
as opposed to what I can control that makes my life
better. And it's not that your life won't get better,
(19:48):
but it's is that your only focus is.
Again, we're back to that scarcity mindset of I gotta get
mine because otherwise somebody else is gonna get it.
Thinking when it's a zero sum game and there's always opportunity
costs. But that's not the same as saying everything is zero
sum, you know?
And this is why I love the work you're doing,
Scott, because when you're doing a podcast,
(20:08):
technically you're competing with all other podcasts out there.
There technically,
except you're also a guest on other people's podcasts.
We're all sharing messages and they're different messages based on who
you're talking to.
Sometimes when you're talking to somebody else,
they elicit things.
They elicit this genius from you that you didn't know you
had. Like you're having this great conversation and somebody goes,
(20:28):
hey, I need to hear that today.
I need to hear that today.
I need to hear that today.
And. And then you say,
I've been saying this on my podcast,
I got 1500 episodes.
We've said this before,
but when,
you know,
Joe Bob or Sally sue said it,
it just sounds a little bit different.
So instead of competing and going,
hey, you're supposed to be looking at my cast,
instead you're out there pouring it into other people too.
And that's what I think is such a gift about the
(20:49):
work you're doing too.
And I think that is,
it's that attitude of it.
It isn't a zero.
Again, it's not a zero sum game.
It's not.
People ask all the time,
like, I'll have somebody on that has a very similar content
to me or Maybe even coaches and works with other business
people. And they're like,
they're a competitor.
Why would you have them on your show?
And I'm like,
like, because they probably can reach and help somebody that I
(21:10):
can't. So why not have them on the show?
That somebody's going to hear it from them.
That would never work with me.
And that's great thing.
It's exactly right.
And you were kind enough to mention some of my books.
And about 10 years ago,
I started collaborating on the books with my closest competitors in
the field,
and that's Peter Stark out of San Diego and Meredith Elliot
Powell out of North Carolina.
(21:32):
And people say,
why in the world would you collaborate on a book.
Book that,
that you're going to write anyway with your closest competitors?
And the answer is,
because it makes me better.
Hopefully it makes them better.
It makes the book.
If I can take that book from 92% up to 98
and just make it that much better because I'm working with
somebody else who's smarter than me,
I want to do that.
(21:53):
I want to work with other people who see different things
from what I see.
I want,
you know,
I want that extra input.
I want that feedback.
And partly it means being open to feedback that you sometimes
think, oh,
I got the answer on this.
And all of a sudden they're like this.
And you're like,
oh, maybe I don't have the answer.
And that,
I think is hard for a lot of leaders is because
(22:13):
we've got.
We've been successful up till now.
The things that we do has gotten pretty successful.
And it's easy to coast.
It's easy to think,
okay, I'm good,
I'm good.
And I got to tell you,
Scott, I look at leadership like going to the gym.
In my 20s,
I went to the gym to get faster and better and
stronger. And now that I am decades away from my 20s
(22:33):
now, I go to the gym to not get worse.
And that's what I think leadership is too.
We can't rest on our past accomplishments.
We can't say,
oh, because yesterday was a good day,
I don't have to work so hard today.
That's not how life works.
And the other thing that you've seen as well as I
have is the people who are working hard every day,
they're showing up with 100 every day.
(22:55):
They're happier because their self esteem is intact.
They feel good about the work they're doing.
The people who are unhappy is.
If you look back at Covid,
the people said,
yeah, I'M only working like three hours a week.
What are you doing?
They're like,
my boss doesn't seem to mind and this way I have
time for self care and I'm focused on thinking big thoughts.
And they were miserable because they weren't getting purpose from work.
(23:16):
They weren't.
They were letting themselves down.
Not just the organization,
but themselves.
And in their head they're thinking,
wow, I'm scamming my job by not working very hard.
In their head they knew their self esteem was not doing
very well because of it.
So I love the idea of the people who show up
100% every single day and try hard.
I think effort matters.
(23:37):
Absolutely. So when you're talking to those leaders out there,
I think you mentioned earlier,
maybe you have to have that tough conversation with somebody.
And I've done that.
I've worked in the corporate world,
I've hired,
I've fired,
I've had that conversation where somebody's sitting across the table and
I've got to let them know that they're not going to
be able to come to work next week or tomorrow or
(23:58):
whatever it is.
And that's never a fun conversation.
It's never an easy conversation.
No. What are some of the things or how do you
look at that idea of accountability?
Both in that kind of situation where we're having to hold
an employee or co worker or somebody else accountable.
But then I also want to extend that and talk a
(24:19):
little bit about self accountability because I think that's a part
of those conversations that oftentimes gets overlooked,
if that makes sense.
Such great points.
So first I have systems in place and that your leaders
can, your audience can get these for free.
They're on my website.
It's the website forward slash free.
My productivity sheet is there every single day.
(24:41):
I map out what I have to do,
the calls to make,
the appointments I have,
the follow up.
I need to do whatever I need to do in these
quadrants. So that's organized every single day.
Every month I map out my goals for the month and
that means I've got my top five goals for the month.
I print it out.
It's in my 12 month planner.
It's fabulous.
Every month has two color coded pages and it's my top
(25:03):
five goals of the month.
What do I want to do more of this month?
What do I want to do less of this month?
What do I need to resolve or streamline or what?
Whatever. And it's mapped out for you.
So you answer the prompts and then if you've got your
top five goals and it doesn't matter where you are in
the organization,
if you're at the bottom,
you go to your boss and you go,
hey, boss,
these are what I think are my top five goals of
the month.
Is this what you're thinking my top five goals of the
(25:25):
month are?
And sometimes your boss goes,
no, I want you going in this direction.
I need you focused on the XYZ project,
not the ABC project.
That's good clarity.
The second thing is if you're in a leadership position and
if you're not mapping out your top five goals every month
and sharing it with your team,
and that's where it gets hard.
If you're not sharing this with your team,
then your expectations that they would magically read your mind,
(25:48):
you're not married to them,
it's not you.
You can't expect them to read your mind.
And then they're not able to align their thoughts,
their behaviors,
their actions to accomplishing the goals that you think they should
be accomplishing with you.
But you're not telling them what the goals are.
Okay, that's just mean.
That's like telling somebody to go drive a thousand miles in
a car.
What direction?
I don't know.
But if you're in the wrong place,
(26:09):
I'll tell you after the thousand miles.
That's just bad leadership.
So let your people know what your goals are on a
monthly basis so that they can align what they need to
align with what you need them to do.
And that's in the 12 month planner.
But then the other thing is when you are doing that
with your people,
it keeps you accountable too.
And it also prevents you,
(26:29):
when you map it out month by month,
you go,
hang on,
is this goal for this month or is it for next
week? Month?
Maybe it's for the month after that.
But it helps you organize all the things you have to
do. Most of my leaders and managers like yours,
they all say,
mary, I've just got so much to do,
I cannot get my arms around it.
Time just seems to fall through my hands like water.
It just disappears.
(26:50):
And at the end of the day,
my to do list is often longer than when I started.
Look, I get it.
We've all been there.
We've, we have days like that too.
But if you're super organized and your time is mapped out
so that you have that hour or two to deal with,
the emergencies that pop up,
they're always going to pop up.
Everybody's got things that pop up.
It's always going to be that way,
if it's not you,
it's going to be one of your people.
(27:11):
There's always a crisis or a challenge or a change.
You've got to be prepared to deal with that.
And you be prepared for that by making sure that you
are focused on what you need to focus on and helping
your people do the same.
Yeah, I actually put about 90 minutes on my calendar every
day for what I call unplanned work upw.
And it's just the email I got,
(27:33):
the thing that cropped up,
the whatever,
there's going to something.
So I might as well go ahead and admit that and
plan that in my day's time so that I don't overfill
my day,
because otherwise I overfill my day.
I don't get it all done,
and then I'm just frustrated at the end of the day,
instead of going,
oh, no,
the reality is I had two hours of work that I
(27:55):
didn't plan on.
That came up.
That's right.
And sometimes it's a client who needs you right now.
Sometimes somebody needs a proposal,
sometimes it's whatever.
But then the other thing is,
if the time is not mapped out to get the things
done, what happens is we revert to doing the things we
want to do or the things that are easiest to do
so that we can cross those things off and feel good
(28:16):
about ourselves.
And meanwhile,
that one thing that we've been dragging our feet on for
the last month and a half still isn't done.
So if you've got something like that on your calendar,
we all do.
Okay? We all procrastinate.
Every single last one of us procrastinates.
If you're one of those people who loves to decorate for
the holidays,
you got to understand that there's an equal number of people
who just hate the thought of doing it.
(28:37):
And if you love doing it,
then you're super excited to pull out all the things for
the holiday,
I don't care what holiday it is,
and put up decorations.
But if you're those people who hate it,
you're going to wait till the last minute and you're going
to not be happy about it.
Same thing.
So what you do is you take that thing you don't
want to do and you say,
okay, realistically,
If I focused 100% focus on this task right now,
(28:57):
how long would it actually take me?
And if the answer is five minutes,
get it done.
If it's 37 minutes,
put it on your calendar,
schedule it,
get it done,
knock it out so you can stop thinking about it.
Our brain is a really powerful thing,
thing. And if we tell our brain you don't have to
do the things you don't want to do,
your brain goes,
oh, remember,
we don't have to do those things.
We don't have to do the hard things.
(29:17):
You have to do the hard things.
And the hard things for you may not be hard for
somebody else.
The easy things for you may not be easy for somebody
else. If it's really hard,
you might want to get help.
You might need somebody to walk you through something.
You still got to get it done.
So map it out,
put the time and minutes on your calendar and then say,
yep, from 9:00 till 9:37,
I'm going to do this thing that's hard.
(29:37):
Get it done and you'll feel better about yourself once you
do. I think one of the other distractions that happens is
not only the things that are easy or that we like
to do,
but also sometimes it's the thing that's screaming the loudest.
It's the tyranny of the urgent.
If it's on fire,
I have to work on that.
But believe it or not,
sometimes letting it burn a little while is the right decision,
(29:57):
or letting it have a little longer to figure out what's
going on is the right decision.
And sometimes in leaders and managers,
we don't let our people work through their own problems.
And sometimes we say,
say, let me know if you want to talk this through.
I'm not going to solve your problem for you,
but I'm going to talk it through so that you know
what to do.
You are enabled to solve this problem.
My favorite example of this is back when we went from
(30:19):
about 600 ICD10 codes.
These are the insurance codes that you get if you need
your right kidney taken out.
There's a code for that.
We went from 600 to over 10,000.
And that means all these coders now had to learn all
these codes.
Some people learned them really fast because there was this delay
in implementation.
And other people are like,
no, I'm just going to stick with the 600.
And then they'd look at a coworker and go,
(30:40):
now what's the code again for taking out your right kidney?
And their co worker go,
w, x,
y, z 3,
2, q.
But they never learned it themselves.
So I tell people is you can help them out and
give it to them,
but then you have to go,
look, I'm not going to tell you again,
this last time.
I'm going to Tell you you have to either look it
up or write it down or learn it.
Because now I'm just enabling you to not be better.
(31:01):
And it's,
I want to be helpful,
but right now I feel like maybe I'm just enabling a
problem. Problem.
And that's how you phrase it.
I want to help you,
but if I'm actually making it worse,
then I need to stop.
Absolutely. Yeah.
And you're right.
I think I actually there's a great article from Harvard Business
Review from I can't remember the year,
but it was a long time ago,
about the analogy they use as a monkey and where there's
(31:24):
a monkey on your staff members back,
they come walking down the hall and they say,
hey, I've got this problem.
And you say,
as a manager,
I'll look into that.
And they said,
picture the monkey climbing off their back and onto yours.
The question isn't,
is that a good thing or a bad thing?
The question,
is it actually your monkey,
in other words?
Because sometimes as a manager,
(31:45):
that's a legit problem that I need to be the one
that steps in and helps clear that dead wood or get
that information or make that.
Other times it's no,
that's actually the employee's monkey and I need to let them
keep it.
So I actually gave little stuffed monkeys to all of my
management team to keep on their desks to remind them of.
Before you answer the question,
ask yourself,
is that my monkey or not?
(32:06):
Should I solve this problem or should I let the employee
solve it?
Now, I could still help like you said,
but do I let them own the action or the problem?
And what I see a lot,
and you do too,
Scott, is then people tend to get emotional about somebody else's
monkey. They're like,
oh, now I have to take on the urgency of that.
And then they go home that day and they've taken on
all the emotions of other people's problems that hang on.
(32:27):
Our job is to solve problems.
It's not to be emotional about the problems.
So people say,
how do you stop yourself from being emotional?
I said,
oh, I have feelings,
just not every day,
day. And they laugh.
But I'm like,
look, my feelings are my feelings.
If you're having a bad day,
I want to help you through your bad day,
but it doesn't mean I take your emotional baggage home with
me. We're going to work through your issues,
(32:48):
but I'm a better leader and manager if I can be
supportive and objective and helpful.
If you come to my office because you've Got a problem.
And you start to cry.
And then I start to cry.
That's just dumb.
So I had that somebody do that at work one time
I was in the Navy,
and this woman is very upset,
and I was like,
why are you crying?
She goes,
because I'm trying to get your attention.
(33:08):
I said,
okay, you have my attention.
She goes,
so I think you should cry,
too. I said,
but I'm not sad.
Have this emotion right here.
I'm not sad about this problem because I know we can
solve it.
She goes,
oh, we can solve it.
I go,
yeah. She goes,
then I don't need to cry.
I said,
you really don't like.
It's just.
It was the funniest conversation.
But again,
we have to approach people as individuals.
We have to lead individuals where they are,
(33:30):
and that's what being a great leader and manager is.
Absolutely. So I've got a few questions that I like to
ask all of my guests,
but is there anything else about the work you do,
the speaking you do,
or the books that you have that you think is really
important to share with the listener?
I think it's our responsibility to share our unique talents and
(33:52):
gifts. How I do it right now is through books and
writing and blogs and podcasts and all of that.
So whatever your unique gift is,
you have to think about,
how am I best sharing that with other people?
How are other people benefiting from my being on the planet?
So I'm very proud of the latest book,
which is about helping young people navigate their career.
(34:13):
And it's the third in this triad of business,
personal and growth for succession planning and what that looks like,
because a lot of people aren't prepared for the what comes
next. So I do think that's one of the things in
this year and next year that my focus has been increased
simply because I'm seeing a bigger need.
(34:36):
So my brand is inspired stewardship,
and I run things through that lens of stewardship.
Yet, like leadership,
I've discovered that's one of those words that people use,
but they mean different things when they use it.
So I like to ask for you,
what does the word stewardship mean to you?
Stewardship to me is doing the right thing at the right
time to the right person,
(34:57):
with the right spirit every time.
Now, that's not my word.
The word is the word for this.
The Hawaiian word is kina ole,
and it was coined by George Kanahele.
But I think that's what stewardship is,
because to whom much is given,
much is expected.
And you may not think You've been given very much.
But if you are listening to this podcast right now,
you're better off than a whole lot of people on the
planet. So we have a responsibility that means we have to
(35:21):
be good stewards.
So this is my favorite question that I like to ask
everybody. Imagine for a moment that I invented this magic machine.
Machine. And with this machine I could take you from where
you are today,
transport you into the future,
maybe 150,
maybe 250 years.
And through the power of this machine,
you were able to look back and see your entire life,
(35:42):
see all of the connections,
all of the ripples,
all of the impacts you've left.
What impact do you hope you've left in the world?
I would hope it would be an impact of hope when
you're feeling hopeless.
That student who's,
I can't get through this.
I'm not smart enough to graduate.
Yes, you are.
That military veteran who is trying to figure out your place
in the civilian world,
which seems to not care about anything you've ever done in
(36:06):
the past.
And you're not sure where you're going in the future and
you're contemplating some bad moves.
There's hope in your future.
You've got this.
That person who's in a bad relationship who doesn't feel like
they've got the skills or the talents or the resources to
get out of it.
You have to look around and say there has to be
something better and have enough faith and confidence in yourself to
(36:26):
move on that.
If we can just inspire people every day to take the
right action every day,
every day.
Just a little bit of hope.
Take one step in the right direction,
I'd be good with that.
So what's on the roadmap?
What's coming next for you?
I'm working on getting this book called you'd a step by
step guide to taking charge of your career into more young,
(36:48):
talented hands.
So my mid level managers like the idea,
a lot of having a guidebook for them to talk to
their people and say,
hey, I found this book.
And in chapter one it says we should maybe talk about
this. In chapter two,
maybe we should talk about this.
And it's giving my managers a framework to move forward with
their teams.
And then the plus side on that is the team has
(37:09):
said, okay,
so where are the resources for this?
And the resources are all free.
I had a 35 year old gal take the book and
make cartoon summaries of every chapter.
Now this is not going to help my book sales because
then people go,
wait I can get the cartoon book summaries.
Yep, you're absolutely right.
You totally can.
But it's going to help people get the tools they need.
(37:29):
And that's at a different site.
It's called you Totally Free.
Just resources for people.
And I'm getting this as I'm working on this as part
of the succession planning thing.
So many boomers are thinking about retiring,
but there's nobody to give their businesses to or they don't
feel like the people coming up behind them are adequately prepared.
(37:50):
So we've got a program for that.
That's the who comes next and that's you looking really hard
at you being able to move on and do the.
Those other things,
those nice to do things now for a lot of people
I know they're never going to retire and good for you.
I'm not sure I'm ever going to retire either.
When you're running hard and doing fun things and you're helping
people, it's hard to walk away from that.
But when the time comes,
(38:11):
you got to feel good about what you're doing.
And then the third part of that is your individual retirement
plan on that day when we move on,
which I think where we're going is better than where we
are. But are you leaving your family a mess?
Do you have all your important paperwork work done?
And it's a will and a trust is great,
but it's only 10 to 15% of all the things you
need to put together.
So that's like that third triad.
(38:32):
That's the in case of emergency,
break glass program.
What if you get hit by a bus?
And what if you're not actually dead?
What if you're lying there in a coma?
What if.
What if.
What if your spouse is in the same vehicle that got
hit by the bus and you're counting on your spouse to
do all those things?
When people work through that program and they work it through
with their parents,
which is more statistically likely,
or their spouse,
(38:52):
all of a sudden,
sudden they feel like,
oh, if something happens,
we're prepared.
So it's all three books are all about being prepared for
your next opportunity,
for your careers,
for your business,
what's going to happen next,
and for you individually,
what happens next.
And so that's my focus for this year and the next,
I think.
And I'm working on another book called Leadership is Tough,
(39:14):
because leadership is Tough,
especially today.
So you can find out more about Mary kelly over@productiveleaders.com
I'll have a link to that over in the show notes
as well as the other site that she just mentioned.
Unixnow.com Mary is there anything else you'd like to share with
(39:34):
the listener?
I am grateful every single day for the people who get
up when they want to sleep in.
They get up,
they get out of bed.
They show up 100% for the people around them,
the people at work,
their families,
their communities,
their Little League,
the Girls Scouts.
All of that.
If you do nothing else.
Just get up today,
give it all you got and make yourself proud.
(39:59):
Thanks so much for listening to the Inspired Stewardship Podcast.
As a subscriber and listener,
we challenge you to not just sit back and passively listen,
but act on what you've heard and find a way to
live your calling.
If you enjoyed this episode,
please do us a favor.
(40:19):
Go over to inspired stewardship.com
iTunes Rate all one word iTunes Rate.
It'll take you through how to leave a rating and review
and how to make sure you're subscribed to the podcast so
that you can get every episode as it comes comes out
(40:40):
in your feed.
Until next time,
invest your time,
your talent and your treasures.
Develop your influence and impact the world.
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