October 23, 2023 • 52 mins
Join us today on a transformational journey with special guest, Andrea Johnson, a coach and an advocate for female leaders. Andrea's powerful story of breaking free from societal norms and embracing her abilities for critical thinking, creativity, and leadership is not only inspiring, but it prompts us all to question our own preconceived notions. From her unusual upbringing in Seoul, South Korea, to her mother's battle with gender inequality, Andrea has gathered an array of unique experiences and insights that have shaped her perspective on life.
Andrea’s journey towards becoming an intentional optimist is rooted in personal struggle and profound transformation. Her mother’s strength in the face of gender inequality and illness has led her to redefine her beliefs and discover her voice. Imbued with the resilience of her mother and her own accumulated wisdom, Andrea shares how she cultivates a lifestyle filled with optimism, wonder, energy, courage, and resilience.
As we conclude, we turn our attention to the deeply ingrained assumptions around gender roles in leadership positions. We explore how these attitudes impact the way women are perceived and treated in the workplace. Andrea shares her insights from her years of experience and how women can unlock their leadership potential. This episode will inspire you to challenge your perceptions, redefine your path, and step into your leadership potential, regardless of your gender. Tune in for a dose of inspiration, transformation, and an enlightening conversation with Andrea Johnson.
Join Dr. William Attaway on the Catalytic Leadership podcast as he shares transformative insights to help high-performance entrepreneurs and agency owners achieve Clear-Minded Focus, Calm Control, and Confidence.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to Catalytic Leadership, the podcast designed
to help leaders intentionallygrow and thrive.
Here is your host author andleadership and executive coach,
dr William Attaway.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Hey, it's William and welcome to today's episode of
the Catalytic Leadership podcast.
Each week, we tackle a topicrelated to the field of
leadership.
My goal is to ensure that youhave actionable steps you can
take from each episode to growin your own leadership.
Growth doesn't just happen.
My goal is to help you becomeintentional about it.
(00:37):
Each week, we spotlight leadersfrom a variety of fields,
organizations and locations.
My goal is for you to see thatleaders can be catalytic, no
matter where they are or whatthey lead.
I draw inspiration from thestories and journeys of these
leaders and I hear from many ofyou that you do too.
Let's jump into today'sinterview.
(00:59):
I am so excited today to haveAndrea Johnson on the podcast.
Andrea empowers others to takecontrol of their lives and
change their future.
As an adoptive parent who grewup on the mission field of Seoul
, south Korea, navigating mentaland physical wellness, she
learned that emotionalresilience must be earned.
(01:20):
Recovering her own voice becamethe key to the process that
allows her clients to do thesame.
Andrea works with ambitiousfemale leaders, founders,
community leaders and publicofficials who feel stifled and
have grown unsatisfied withtheir current level of impact.
She facilitates improvedcommunication and corporate
(01:42):
culture in women-owned oroperated teams.
Her passion is equipping femaleleaders to define a new culture
by trusting their own abilityto think critically, create
imaginatively and leadeffectively.
Andrea, I'm so excited you'rehere.
Thanks for being on the show,andrea.
Speaker 3 (02:00):
Johnson.
Thank you, I'm excited to behere.
I tell you what when you readit, it sounds amazing.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
Andrea Johnson.
Oh, my Andrea Johnson, I'm likethat's me, andrea Johnson,
that's you, and that's where Iwant to start.
I want to talk about you.
I would love to hear some ofyour story.
I mean, I hit some of the hotpoints there, but how did you
get started and develop as aleader?
Speaker 3 (02:21):
Andrea Johnson, you know I was one of those strong
kids that if you're of a certainage it was like the dobson
strong-willed child.
You know my poor mom was theone who had to chase me around
and while my dad was in seminaryand you know that kind of thing
.
But I had lots of.
I was headstrong, I had lots ofability to think well and move,
(02:45):
and I figured things out right.
I mean, I was just that kid,but it just wasn't, you know,
from the South and from theevangelical culture, and that's
not kind of embraced all thetime, and growing up on the
mission field.
The beauty of growing up on themission field, though, was it
gave me this ability to see areal ecumenical culture, to see
(03:09):
in the missionary community, butalso to be involved
cross-culturally, to understandthings from a completely
different perspective, and goingto school at an international
school with kids from 65different countries helped me
completely.
I didn't have a worldview thatwas just in the United States.
I had a I have literally had aglobal worldview, and coming
(03:31):
back to the States, trying tofit in with that, was difficult.
You know, I learned in.
We were on for low in sixthgrade, and I learned real quick
that I needed to stop talkingabout Korea, because as I walked
up to a group of girls in avery small Southeast Texas town,
I heard well, here comes MissKorea this and Miss Korea that.
Oh my Right, and we learn thatstuff real early, don't we?
(03:54):
We learn to if we want to beaccepted, we learn to fit in,
and so my leadership journey wasa whole lot of fitting in,
fitting in, fitting in, and thenevery once in a while, I'd pop
out and say but, but, but, waita minute, you know.
And then I'd pop back down andfit in, because we all have that
desire to belong, and Ipersonally that is one of my top
(04:17):
three core values is belonging.
And so I dove even deeper intofiguring out how to belong in
the culture that I had beenraised in and that I chose to be
in.
And eventually I hit a spotwhere it's like this just,
there's too much incongruencehere.
I just can't do this, and I'dlove to blame it on my job,
(04:39):
where, you know, I didn't haveenough money or I was given a
promotion without a raise, oryou know.
I'd love to blame it on thosekinds of things.
But the reality is, william, weall know that we hit a place in
life where we have to decide amI going to take all of those
conditionings and teachings andassumptions and belief systems
(05:03):
that I've been handed, or am Igoing to think critically for
myself, examine what comes intomy life and if you're a
spiritual person, be able to sayam I going to be able to trust
what God has given me?
To be able to understand things?
You have to hit that point.
And when I hit that point it wasa scary journey, but it's been
(05:24):
about 10 years where I just saidI need to really look at this
stuff and much of it I stillretain, right.
I mean, once we start lookingunless it's a place where we
really need to break out of werealize, oh, I can actually have
my opinion, I can actually leadother people and I'm a talker.
I mean, when we met beforepre-interview we talked for like
(05:47):
an hour.
We were scheduled for 30minutes.
I relate to people well, I loverelating to people and knowing
that in my job I couldn'tnecessarily do that as well as I
wanted to because I managedpeople right.
So managing means keeping thestatus quo.
I decided I'd rather teachpeople and coach people and
(06:10):
encourage people to lead and tohave a greater impact.
So that was kind of how Ibranched out and started that
big journey.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
You know, I love how you define management and
keeping the status quo.
You know, just hearing that itdoes not excite one atom of my
being and I can tell the same isfor you right, and I think
every leader listening wouldresonate with that as well.
Sure, and I was like oh, I mean, do we have to manage as part
(06:40):
of how we lead?
We have to do some managementthings?
Sure, sure, but leadership isso much greater and so much
better.
Speaker 3 (06:46):
It is yes, and when I would have people come into my
office and that's, you know, asa relator, that's just they do,
yeah yeah, exactly.
And I worked in universityacademic medicine for 23 years,
so I would have everybody, froma first of the wrong secretary
(07:07):
or administrative assistant allthe way up to the chair of the
department or the head ofresearch administration
literally landing in my officebecause I created an environment
that was safe and anenvironment that was peaceful
and I was a good relator andthey would come and sit and talk
to me and I learned so manythings about people and I
learned that there are peoplewho are fine with number one
(07:31):
being an employee.
There are people who are finewith being told what to do.
They need that definition, theyneed that box and their life is
outside of that and I realized,okay, those are not my people,
that's okay.
And then there are people whoare constantly struggling, you
know, constantly quit this job.
Today I'm like you just tookthat job.
I mean, former employees wouldcome back because they walked
(07:52):
through.
You know I had worked with themwhile they were working with me
and I'd help train them andlead them and they would come
back and say, okay, so I reallyhate this job.
I'm like, because you're notand this is where I started like
diving deep into why you're nothonoring who.
You are right, you're taking ajob for the money, or you're
taking a job because somebodysold you on something, or you're
(08:14):
taking a job because you'restill trying to like.
I did fit into that mold of whatyou think people want and you
know, my heart can only break somany times for people and I've
cried with people.
I've literally had youngresearchers who were brand new
faculty say, when I finally leftthe University of Virginia,
(08:37):
this, especially this one youngguy come in, brilliant, I mean
one of those rock star peoplethat already had, you know,
millions of dollars in grantfunding.
And he said what am I going todo when you're gone?
I'm like what do you mean?
You're on the fast track, dude.
And he said no, no, but yougive me such good advice.
I'm like I'm just a phone callaway.
I mean it doesn't mean you needto be able to find those people
(08:59):
that you can talk to.
And I wanted to be that personand I wanted to be that person
for people who really wanted togrow, because those were the
highlights.
But just as many people cameinto my office to complain
because, we're in a big systemand I can't fix the system.
I'm like well, I know that, yeah, you just have to know.
I mean, there's a certainamount that you have to accept.
(09:20):
So when I talk about managing,there are things that we have to
manage as leaders, but thedefinition of the term really is
making sure that things don'tgo off the rails.
That's what managing is right.
And so if you're willing to goin and do change management,
that's very different and thenyou can make a real difference.
(09:43):
But if you're not willing to dochange management, then
literally you need to workwithin the systems that are
there.
If they fit you, awesome,you've found a great place for
you.
If they don't, let's talk.
Speaker 2 (09:57):
Love that you talk a lot about intentional optimism.
You know when you talkpreviously.
This fascinates me and I'd lovefor you to share more about
that.
I don't know that I have heardanybody put those two words
together before.
Speaker 3 (10:12):
It's my own creation.
I make words up.
I love it, I do.
You know, I don't take theescalator down, I take the
down-a-later, so it just, itmakes life a lot more fun.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
That's so great.
Speaker 2 (10:29):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (10:29):
And you know there are certain words that we have
to use that don't make any sense.
You know feet.
It's feats, you know so.
But I do things like that andpart of that is to just keep
myself amused, because I thinkwhen we laugh and we're happy,
we tend to do things with morefervor, and life is not worth
living if you can't laugh.
(10:50):
So when it comes to being anintentional optimist, this goes
back to the story of my mother,who was my mom, was a pastor's
wife and a missionary wife andturns out an amazing project
manager and was head of all ofthe volunteers for the Red Cross
(11:11):
for Asia and the Pacific andcouldn't get paid for that
because of the fact that she wasa missionary and nobody else
could get paid.
So she couldn't.
She could have gotten colonelspaid, right, she was that high.
But my mother was this amazing,strong woman who was smart but a
little bit like me.
She was called Motor Mouth andbut she was raised.
(11:35):
You know she was born in like44.
So she was raised in thatenvironment of women are seen
and not heard, and but sheworked to put my dad through
seminary.
She went to 14 differentschools before she graduated cum
laude from the University ofMaryland, through the military
base.
She, you know, she was smart,but she just couldn't catch a
(11:57):
break half the time and shechose to work within the system
that she was in, which was thislike Southern kind of
evangelical culture, and part ofthat was because she felt
called by God to be there right.
So there's a certain amount ofthat that I don't want to
disparage at all.
But when they came off themission field, she went to work,
for when they came, my dad cameback to work for the home
(12:19):
office and she went to work fora local country club as, like, a
marketing director and thenended up at the home office
working as an administrativeassistant, and she retired as an
administrative assistant andshe could have run circles
around all of the men who werehigher up than her and she was
(12:41):
diagnosed.
All of this she did diagnosedwith lupus and then breast
cancer, and we lost her inFebruary of 2017 to breast
cancer, metastatic breast cancer, and that was the year I turned
50.
And it was, or I had just turned50 in 2016, excuse me, and so I
was just a brand new 50, shewas in hospice and then we lost
(13:04):
her in February and somethingjust clicked and I said I just
I'm not doing this anymore.
Why do I believe and why do Ibelieve it?
And I was I'm a little bit ofbelieve it or not a private
person when it.
I know that sounds crazy, butI'm a little bit of a private
person when it comes to trulysharing who I am and I don't I
(13:27):
don't even know that private'sthe right word.
I think a lot of it was afraidto share who I really am and so
I didn't want to speak at hermemorial service or anything.
But when it came down to it, Idid, and I, when I speak, I can
speak pretty powerfully.
And one of the things Irealized was because when I,
(13:48):
when a conviction hits right,it's I'm gonna.
I'm gonna share it, and I'mknown for having not done that
with a lot of forethought beforein my life.
But I realized that one of thethings I loved about her was
that, no matter what she wasdealing with, even when she was
in the smaller position and keptgetting passed over for
(14:09):
promotions and, you know, when Iknew she could do all this
other stuff she had thispersonality that always saw the
joy in things and she couldexpress joy.
And she could express it waseffervescent like a bottle of
champagne.
You would pop the cork and shewould just the bubbles would
just come out and you know, partof that was her personality,
(14:31):
part of it was she had learnedto do that because she decided,
you know, she knew for 15 yearsI'm basically gonna die of this
disease and I'm gonna live.
She had grand babies, she had,you know, daughters and she had
a husband and she's like I'm not, I'm not quitting.
So what I saw was a reallystrong woman, learn how to be
joyous in really hard situations.
(14:52):
And I didn't quite know how todo that because my, I don't know
if you do the any are youfamiliar with?
Speaker 2 (14:58):
the any.
Yeah, oh yeah.
Well, here's a good one.
I'm a solid five, yeah.
Speaker 3 (15:02):
Oh, that actually makes sense.
Speaker 2 (15:04):
You ready for this one?
Speaker 3 (15:05):
Yeah, so I am okay, I am a self-preservation
counterphobic.
Six wing seven, I thinkInteresting, yeah so.
Speaker 1 (15:19):
Interesting.
Speaker 3 (15:20):
Sixes are the most difficult to pin down.
Yeah, we are on a spectrum ofphobic to counterphobic we.
And then of course there's thethree types.
There's the self-preservationor the social, or the one-to-one
, and so what all that means isthat I'm a very strong wing
seven.
So that's why I'm like, if it'snot fun, you know yeah.
(15:40):
Um, but what that means is I'malways looking to make sure that
my environment is peaceful andhappy and I'm all about kind of
making sure the systems work.
I do kind of get a little bitcaught in how things could go
wrong, but mostly I'm justlooking for preventing them from
going wrong.
Right, it's like, so I can lookdown the road and say how can I
(16:04):
make this work?
You know so, but because ofthat, I do have this bent
towards anxiety, and I alwayshave, and I have a history of
bulimia and depression and youknow.
So all of that is very real inmy life and I believe
understanding myself has helpedme get to a place where, oh, I
could actually do somethingdifferent.
(16:25):
This is my bent, but I couldactually live in a way that
brings me joy and come to findout when a six is in a really
healthy place.
They kind of lean towards thenine, which is a very calm place
to be.
My husband's a nine.
It's a little bit.
It's a little bit frustratingsometimes, but when I looked at
(16:47):
my mom, I think my mom was avery strong three, quite
honestly, the entertainer.
She's like what's a fun andshe's very much a performer.
She was either a three or aseven.
But all that to say, I wantedto use the word sanguine.
I said she's a very sanguinewoman, which is a very old
fashioned word.
You know we use the disc, Iknow you're a disc consultant,
(17:09):
and the sanguine is theinfluencer.
The sanguine is that side ofthe personality.
And what I really wanted was Iwanted to say I'm going to
intentionally and I kept usingthat word I'm going to
intentionally pursue optimism asa lifestyle.
I want to pursue joy, I want topursue those things, and I knew
(17:29):
I was sort of doing that, butnow I want to make it a
purposeful thing.
So I started writing down andyou'll like this as a five oh,
the pages and pages and pagesand pages of all the words and
all the things that I thought Ibelieved and I have.
I have it.
You know, it's just like I'mnever throwing that stuff away
because it's so valuable.
And then I kind of put theminto categories and realized I
had six major categories and Iwasn't quite sure what I was
(17:52):
going to call this, but thesewere kind of my principles.
And so what I came up with wasthe first was optimistic,
because that's very clear.
I want to be optimistic, whichincludes hope and confidence,
and prepared and positivePresent.
If you're not present then youcan't, you know.
And that being present includeshaving what I call a grown-up
(18:15):
sense of wonder, not a childlike.
I understand how things workand they still work, then that's
better wonder than notunderstanding how they work.
Then so, optimistic, wonder,energetic, which is producing
joy and producing energy andexcitement, courageous, which is
(18:37):
perfect for a six.
We have to dive into that allthe time and say, whatever
happens, I'm in, and so that's aconstant reminding.
Like you read in my bio, welearned that resilience is
earned.
Resilience doesn't happen whenyou can't just decide to be
resilient.
Some people are naturally so.
Most of us have to fall downand get back up in order to
(18:59):
develop that resilience.
So courageous, includesresilience being undaunted, like
I can look ahead and see thatthat is Mount Everest, but you
know what?
I'm climbing it anyway.
Just I'm not gonna be, I'm notgonna let obstacles stop me, and
as an entrepreneur, you have todo that.
So the fifth one is wise andjust wanting to and honoring the
(19:21):
wisdom that comes with havingbeen around the sun a few times
and just realizing that I have alot of life to offer people and
that my brain really is quiteamazing and I believe that I
have been given a lot of wisdom.
It's not something that I everwanted to shout, because we're
(19:43):
not supposed to do that, we'resupposed to be humble, you know,
but when I share with someonewho's going through something,
who's going through somethingI've been through this I would
like to let me give you thispiece of advice.
You know, or would you like myadvice?
Every once in a while it comesunsolicited and I'll just say
here's my unsolicited advice toyou.
But wisdom includes alsorespect, understanding how to
(20:05):
respect ourselves and otherpeople, and being willing to see
the world for more than justwhat I can see perspective.
And then the last one is thelast, what I call them tenants,
is intentional, which so theoptimistic and the intentional
book ended.
And intentional means having aplan, working your plan,
(20:26):
preparing what are the thingsthat I could do?
You know, seneca said that luckis when opportunity meets
preparation, and so that's whatintentional is.
And when I'm walking somewhere,like when I was working, I
would wear heels, of course, andwhen I'm walking somewhere, I
had two or three people say Ialways know when it's you coming
(20:47):
down the hall, it's like you'revery intentional in the way you
walk, you're purposeful.
I'm like, well, I'm goingsomewhere, I'm not wandering,
right.
Yes, so those are very physicalexamples, but when it came down
to it, I thought thatintentional optimism was a plan.
I thought it was like this ishow we live.
But as I've grown throughlearning and trying to apply
(21:12):
them and I work with a group ofladies on a monthly basis in a
small group program and we walkthrough all six of them twice a
year and part of that is goalsetting and reflection as I've
done that, I've realized they'renot a plan.
Intentional optimism is alifestyle to live out the things
(21:33):
that are deeper yourconvictions, what I call your
core values and your beliefs andthose kinds of things.
Now I present it a littledifferently.
It's a lifestyle.
I'm flabbergasted when some ofmy clients will take just the
one page intentional optimismand look at the tenants.
One girl said I put it in mynotebook and I went to a meeting
(21:55):
and I came back because I wasvery frustrated about this thing
and I'm like I'm going to becourageous, I am not going to
okay what it became now and theway I presented it is.
It's a lifestyle of living outhow I want to live.
I look back and say, oh, thiswas my remedy for being a six.
We teach what we learn and whatwe know.
(22:20):
That's intentional optimism.
It's not really a nutshell.
I don't do anything really.
In a nutshell, that's awesome.
Speaker 2 (22:29):
I think that was fantastic.
I love the purposefulness of it.
I love the intentionality of it.
You have defined where you wantto be, who you want to be.
Speaker 3 (22:39):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (22:40):
You're like okay, this is where I'm at, this is
where I want to be, this is whoI want to be.
Now I just have to build abridge from here to there, right
, once you've defined the twopoints, right.
I think so many people don'tdefine the two points.
They don't come to sort ofwhere they are-ish.
Maybe sort of but theirself-awareness is fuzzy.
When you say where do you wantto go, they can give you a
couple of things, maybe, butit's not clearly defined.
(23:02):
I love that you have so clearlydefined that.
I think that is so helpful.
I know our listeners are goingto really appreciate that.
I think you would challengethem to define this for
themselves.
Speaker 3 (23:15):
Oh, absolutely.
If intentional optimism is alifestyle that you think will
work for you, you can justdownload the thing.
And download the one page orget them.
It's free, but I'm happy toshare that with everybody.
But it's not.
If you're not somebody whoneeds that, then take the time
to look and do the reflection inthe mirror and it's like the
(23:39):
evaluated experience is the best.
So take that time.
I would definitely say,challenge yourself to look at
what you need, what's yourrecipe, because so many clients
say, well, I want to be betterat blah, blah, blah.
Yeah, ok, go do so.
Speaker 1 (23:55):
Our time here is done .
Speaker 3 (23:57):
Did you pay me?
What's your plan.
You know, it's like I'm gladyou paid me up front because
this was real simple, you knowand I don't really get that
snarky, I mean, unless I justreally feel like there's a
client that can do that but mostof the time like, well, let's
back it up and let's define that.
And that's why I work withwomen on a monthly basis on
(24:18):
goals.
You know, we don't want todefine ourselves with goals and
break ourselves down to wherewe're constantly missing them
and and setting ourselves up forfailure.
So sometimes we set intentionsfor the month.
But you're right, having it,even if it's just a midpoint of
where you want to be, makes thedifference, because then you
know it's.
It's Remember Joe versus volcano, yeah, yeah, ok.
(24:42):
At the end of the movie, whenhe's out on this in the walking
down this dirt road and he getsthis crossroads, like, oh, where
do I go?
Or when you're watching, likemy son is almost 15, so we're
watching Fast and Furious movies, oh, they'll go off road, right
, they'll go off road, and whenyou're off road you don't have a
(25:03):
map right and so you're just onan adventure.
Well, what if you go off a cliff?
But when you have a map or whenyou have a plan, then you know
where you're going, and so allof those things are very helpful
.
Speaker 2 (25:16):
You and I grew up in evangelical church culture Right
, and we spent a great deal oftime there and in so often in
that world and this this may be,you know, a bit shocking for
people who are not in that world, but in that world so often,
like you alluded to earlier,women are not valued in
leadership roles.
In fact, in some places, theyare barred from those roles.
(25:40):
You believe that women areuniquely qualified to be leaders
, and this is something that youand I have spent some time
talking about, because we agreeon this topic that God has given
gifts of leadership to both menand women to lead in all kinds
of contexts, so many differentplaces, so many different ways.
(26:01):
And when we devalue that, weare devaluing not just the gift
that God's given, but we'redevaluing the person that he
created in his image.
You talk about why women areuniquely qualified to be leaders
.
I would love for you to unpackthat just a little bit Well, if
you want to go all the way backto Genesis, all the way back.
Speaker 3 (26:23):
Eve's an example of stepping out in leadership.
Unfortunately it wasn't thegreatest example, but she did.
And if you want to look atevangelical culture and
interpretation of certain things, women were created to complete
the whole Right and thereforeyou can't have one without the
(26:46):
other.
And if you can't have onewithout the other, then one is
not the leader over the other.
And, sorry, I just gave myselfcold chills.
These are truths, william, thatI shared.
I've been working through thelast three to five years.
These are truths that are verywell ingrained in me.
(27:06):
I call them your ABCs, yourassumptions, your beliefs and
your conditioning, and breakingout of those are some of the
hardest work that you will everdo, and if you are not willing
to challenge them, you will notever grow as a leader.
So, whatever it is that youhave in your ABCs, that is what
(27:28):
you need to challenge.
For me, the very first placewas to challenge some of my
assumptions and beliefs and veryhighly conditioned
understanding of women's rolesin different places.
I think women, for me, I thinkwomen are so uniquely qualified
(27:50):
because we are created with alittle bit of a different
mindset than men, and there's areason for that, especially in
the evangelical culture.
We talk about how we're bothequal in God's sight, but we're
created differently and a lot oftimes people want to say that's
different roles, and I'm like,well, maybe it's different ways
of fulfilling the role.
Women are, by nature, usuallymore nurturing.
(28:13):
Women are by nature believe itor not, more logical, and this
is documented.
I had two fascinatingconversations with financial
planners and one was like adivorce attorney that worked
with women in financial matters.
So for three years I did apodcast where I interviewed
(28:35):
other women leaders and it justit taught me so much.
But one of the things I learnedwas that women make better
financial investors for thesimple fact that they for two
things number one, they investin things that they understand
and use, and, number two,they're not usually motivated by
competition.
(28:55):
They don't need to beat theother person.
I almost said they don't needto beat the other guy, right,
yeah, right, and they don't.
So women tend to be reallysavvy investors.
They invest in things that arereally solid.
Women were the first to investin Amazon.
I mean they understood what itmeant to get toilet paper
delivered to their door.
(29:16):
So learning these things aboutwomen kind of changed the way I
saw women as leaders, and womentend to be fabulous
communicators because we tend tobe very good relators.
These are all still, and thereare plenty of people who would
break this down and say thoseare stereotypes.
There is a certain amount of itthat is, but there's always a
(29:37):
reason for a stereotype.
I mean, some of it is nefarious, some of it is not, but there's
usually a reason for astereotype.
And I think that, especiallycoming out of the pandemic, with
so many things gettingchallenged in politics and the
way we do business and workingfrom home, I loved some of the
(29:59):
silly videos about how womenwere able to handle all the Zoom
meetings and things when mencouldn't.
And the baby coming in and frythe chicken and clean the toilet
and all of that while they'relike in a suit on an executive
call.
Women can do that kind of thinggenerally because we've been
trained to do it and there areways in which we have been
(30:21):
raised, in the Western cultureespecially, that are
advantageous to us stepping intoleadership roles, except for
the mindset that we've been toldthat we can't.
So we're uniquely designed anduniquely equipped to do it.
Well, not equipped.
We're uniquely designed andefficient in certain ways, but
(30:44):
in other ways we still have somuch to overcome in the areas of
mindset and equipping, becausewomen still get paid 70 cents on
the dollar.
Women still won't apply for ajob unless they think they're
100% qualified, whereas a man60% qualified.
And that's all conditioning inthat ABC quotient.
That's all conditioning.
(31:05):
And one of the things that Ilearned about myself is that I'm
not that woman.
I don't apply for jobs.
I'm 100% qualified for thosesound boring.
So I learned that I could applyfor a job and if they asked me
(31:26):
if I was, are you familiar withthese data or programs?
Right, and it's like, yes, I amfamiliar, google, what does
that say?
Let me tell you.
I interviewed, maybe from thetime I was 21 till I was.
(31:47):
I guess the last real interviewI had was 45 or 6, right,
because I switched departmentsat UVA, I probably only had 10
or 12 job interviews, becausewhen I get in the room I can get
the job.
(32:07):
So it's rare for me to not geta job, and one that I applied
for at UVA.
I went from researchadministration back into the
School of Medicine and I appliedfor the job and I got a great
interview and I sat down withpeople that and I was like this
is really good.
I thought it went really well.
Come to find out it was one ofthose situations where they
(32:28):
already had somebody identifiedand they needed to prove that
they could interview at leastone more person.
Well, in the room was theComptroller, the head of one of
the divisions for the Departmentof Medicine and the head of the
Department of Otolaryngology,and I left that meeting thinking
, oh, this was a great interview, and then I hear back a week
(32:51):
later.
So we already had this personidentified and we're giving her
the job because she's coming upthe right minute to make sense,
right, and even so, even if itwas a man, but you impressed us
so much that we want to developa job for you.
That's awesome, yeah.
(33:13):
So these are things I stumbledinto and the more I reflect and
I look back, I'm like these arethings that all women could have
.
Yes, and these are things thatall women could develop, these.
And it wasn't that I had thatmuch self confidence, I was just
a great performer.
I could just walk in.
And what would you do in thissituation?
And it's like, oh, let me turnon my high school acting, let me
(33:35):
think how would I act that out?
And I just would.
So what I would I love to do iswork with people, and especially
women, and especially women whoare newer in some of their
their supervisory or leadershiproles, or who really want to
elevate up and be able to say oh, actually, even the ones who
have gotten the promotions, butdon't they've done this than the
(33:58):
technical work, but they don'thave the leadership skills that
they need to be there, yes, andso those are the ones.
I'm like oh, you have all thetechnical stuff, we don't have
to work on any of that, let'swork on you, because somebody
saw something in you.
So that's, that's kind of how Iwant to do that with people and
work with people, and I thinkit's just really important to
recognize that women have theseskills that we don't realize we
(34:19):
have.
Those are not skills that are.
I mean, I listened to anotherpodcast recently because I'm
going to do an interview andit's like this career series and
it's like you have talked aboutall the little things to do
with your resume and all thethings to do with your network,
but let's talk about you Right.
Let's talk about who you areand that you don't have to wait
(34:39):
until you're 100% qualified.
So those are the things I liketo focus on.
Speaker 2 (34:46):
That's so good, you know, between the two of us, we
are going to get this messageout.
I hope, so we're going to.
Speaker 3 (34:54):
I hope so At least in .
Speaker 2 (34:55):
Virginia?
Absolutely, we can cover atleast the state of Virginia, no
doubt about it.
You mentioned the disc earlier,and you too, you're a certified
disc consultant and trainer.
Why do you think the disc issuch a great tool?
Why do you think this issomething that is helpful, no
matter where you are or whatyou're?
Speaker 3 (35:16):
leading For me to be able to take a little cheat
sheet into a retailestablishment that I've been
going to for a year, wherethey've been fighting with
management, and to put it up onthe wall and then come back the
next time.
Literally, they met me at thedoor and said, oh my gosh,
within 15 minutes we'd allfigured out how we were
communicating and it made allthe difference in the world.
(35:38):
And it was a piece of paper.
So I think it speaks for itselfsometimes, except you know.
But a better explanation wouldbe when I understand the
language that you speak, or whenI can recognize the language
you speak.
Then I can meet you where youare.
I grew up in Seoul, south Korea.
They love to speak English overthere.
(35:59):
They did in the 70s and 80sdating myself, and they do now.
My family just went back thislast summer and they all love to
speak English.
They take English in school theway we take Spanish right.
It's just they do that.
And yet, at the same time, Iwanted to learn Korean, so I
learned how to speak some Koreanto them, and I can.
(36:19):
I still watch K-dramas to thisday, and now I have to have the
subtitles on, but it just isfascinating to me to listen to
the language.
But I took Spanish in highschool because for some reason,
as a high school, I didn'tunderstand the beauty of what I
could have had if I had beenimmersed in the culture and
taken Korean while I was there.
But because of that, Iunderstand a lot of words in
(36:39):
Spanish and because of that Iunderstand a lot of words in
French and because of that,because of Korean, I understand
what other people are trying tosay when they're from another
Asian country trying to speakEnglish because of the speech
patterns.
When I go to another country,if I want to know where the
bathroom is and they look at melike and I say where's the
(37:00):
bathroom, and they look at mewith this question on their face
like I don't know what you'retalking about.
If I say where is the bathroom,it won't make it any better.
And you know this, william, wedo this to each other.
Speaker 1 (37:15):
So, imagine.
Speaker 3 (37:16):
But if I say don't do this right, or where's the
bathroom, then I'm speakingSpanish or I'm speaking Korean
and they go oh, it's right overhere.
And I think it's reallyimportant to realize that we all
have a type of language that wespeak in our communication
style.
And when we talked earlierabout Enneagram, I'm like a geek
(37:39):
for all this stuff.
I knew my Myers-Briggs, myEnneagram, my disk, all of it.
But when we understand someoneelse's language and we're trying
to bridge that gap, like wetalked about, it makes all the
difference in the world.
And for me to be able to guideother teams through, if you just
(37:59):
talk, I'm meeting next weekwith a group and they already
know that they've got one person.
That's just a really high D.
And how do I talk to thisperson?
Get you know?
Oh well, do it in bullet points, right?
Speaker 1 (38:14):
And they're like oh okay.
Speaker 3 (38:16):
And even with my boss when I was at the University of
Virginia.
You know, six foot three, blondhair, blue-eyed male MBA right,
that's the leader right In theuniversity setting.
I learned he was a D and so Iwould send him an email after
I'd done all this work.
Here's the bullet points.
If you want the explanation,it's below.
It makes all the difference inthe world when you speak someone
(38:40):
else's language.
They are so grateful.
When I meet a Korean on thestreet or in a I'm sure you have
plenty of these where you are adry cleaning right or a
restaurant when I say somethingin Korean, they're like oh, you
spoke my language.
It makes them feel seen, right.
So when you understand yourdisc and how to recognize other
(39:03):
people's disc they and they'retight then they, you can help
them feel seen.
You can communicate better.
I think that's why it's soimportant.
So I layer the work that I dowith my core values wanting to
know who I am, and then how Icommunicate with my disc and
then how I live it out withintentional optimism.
So that's how I work with allof those.
Speaker 2 (39:24):
What a great way to put those pieces together, to be
so purposeful, so intentional.
Let me ask you how do you stayon top of your game?
How do you continue to grow anddevelop the leadership skills
that you are going to need ayear from now, or five years
from now, to become that versionof you?
Speaker 3 (39:47):
I read, but I also I hire a coach.
I actually right now I have twocoaches that I pay one for like
they do, yeah, okay.
So one is specifically aspeaking coach, and that's one
of the reasons why I recordmyself when I'm actually doing
these podcasts, and she's helpedme learn how to express my
(40:08):
message better.
So that's my goal this year isto become more of a speaker, and
I have several things on thebooks.
But the other coach is verymuch in the area of
self-personal growth anddevelopment and developing my
offers.
So I work with her on verydifferent things and I look
inside a lot and I look for allthe areas that need to be
(40:30):
challenged.
So that's one way that I grow.
The other is I just I have thisinsatiable curiosity, and if
there was one thing that I couldsay to people, you need to
develop its curiosity, because Ireally wanted to come up with
this test that I could give topeople and I was going to call
(40:50):
it the curiosity quotient andthis was going to be my big
breakout thing.
And then I looked it up onlineand somebody already did it.
So here's the deal there is nocure for curiosity, and
curiosity may have killed thecat, but the cat has nine lives,
and when you're curious about asubject, you're going to be
(41:14):
interested in it.
When you're curious aboutyourself, you're going to learn
about yourself.
When you're curious aboutothers, you will learn about
others.
And as long as I think you canmaintain that curiosity, that's
what keeps me moving.
Why?
Speaker 1 (41:28):
does that happen that way?
Speaker 3 (41:30):
Why?
That's my question.
Always ask why.
Speaker 2 (41:37):
Yes, you know a lot of people might be listening to
this or watching you on theYouTube channel and thinking,
wow, she's just got it alltogether.
Like her career as anentrepreneur must have been just
straight up into the right.
Speaker 3 (41:48):
Oh sure.
Speaker 2 (41:49):
Right.
No struggles, no challenges,absolutely yeah.
Right, that's how it works foreverybody, not?
What are some of the thingsthat you have had to wrestle
through in your entrepreneurialjourney?
Speaker 3 (42:04):
The biggest one is being true to my own personal
message and my own personal whoI am as a person, and that's
part of if you're going to be athought leader, if you're going
to be a keynote speaker, ifyou're going to be a coach,
quite frankly, you can be areally good coach and sit and
(42:25):
ask people questions and neverdivulge your own stuff ever.
That's completely possible.
But if you want to lead peopleand you want to be genuine and
you want to be authentic, youhave to know yourself.
Otherwise, you'll have a hardtime setting boundaries.
You'll have a hard timefiguring out how to relate to
people, because you're alwaystrying to.
You know what are the rules inthis particular relationship,
(42:47):
right?
So the hardest thing for me isbreaking out of that shell, of
all those ABCs, thoseassumptions, beliefs and
conditioning of this is what I'msupposed to look like, and even
just making sure that makeup isdone and I'm wearing a good
color for a video and we allhave those things that we want
(43:09):
to be professional, william, wewant to be a good leader, but
being willing to say I don'thave it all together, being
willing to say I don't have theanswers, I will go look for them
.
I will help you look for them.
That's what we have to do asparents, that's what we have to
do as leaders, that's what wehave to do as coaches, and I
would say that is the biggesthurdle for me.
(43:30):
That and, honestly, money, yeah, I mean I come from literally a
deacon in not the too far pastsaid, quoted the old adage of
Lord you keep him humble, we'llkeep him poor about his pastor.
(43:51):
And you know, as people inministry I mean we joke about
being raised in evangelicalculture.
I like to say I have it in myDNA because I genetically
predispose.
My grandfather was a deacon, myfather was a pastor and then a
missionary and then worked at amission sending agency.
I met my husband at seminary.
(44:12):
My husband is a pastor and Iteach Bible study and it's just
very easy to get caught in thisidea that we're not supposed to
be paid well, that we're notsupposed to ask for money for
our services.
I'm still surprised when I getan email that says because I'll
(44:33):
tell people here's my feeschedule, tell me what your
budget is, will that work foryou?
And I got an email this morningthat said we met about our
budget.
We can only pay you this muchfor a keynote.
Is that okay?
I looked at my husband and saidand you know, it's just.
(44:54):
These are things that everyentrepreneur has to get over.
Every entrepreneur deals withthe whole imposter thing or this
lack of confidence orunderstanding that what we have
to offer is real, and almostevery entrepreneur has to deal
with some kind of money mindsetand if you don't, it's not going
to go well for you and it justit takes a little time.
(45:15):
So, but every single piece thisis the resilience piece.
Again, every single time we doit, we build more courage.
Every time single time we do it, we build more confidence.
And then that's whereresilience comes up in.
Resilience is the definition ofthat is how fast you can bounce
up from falling down.
So being able to develop thatkind of resilience and I know
(45:37):
that a lot of your listeners andyour clients are marketing
people.
They know all about what it'slike to put stuff out there that
doesn't work.
Speaker 2 (45:44):
Absolutely, absolutely.
Speaker 3 (45:47):
You've got to be willing to take a risk, and if
they're agency owners, they'vegot to be willing to learn what
it means to have a good moneymindset and how to make a good
profit and how to take care oftheir people if they have
employees, and these are allthings that every entrepreneur
has to work through.
So I'm not exempt.
I'm just really good at, like Isaid, turn it.
I can put on a good show, butmy goal too is to present that
(46:11):
not toxic, optimistic side not,oh, if everything's going to be
fine, but the realistic,intentional.
If you do these things and ifyou're willing to confront these
things in the mirror, and ifyou need somebody to stand there
, I'll stand there with you,yeah, but if you're willing to
confront those things in orderto grow, you too can do all of
this.
Speaker 2 (46:33):
You're a continual learner and I know that that
part of that involves the booksthat you read.
You've mentioned several timesthat you're a reader.
Is there a book that has playeda really significant part of
your journey that you wouldrecommend to every leader
listening?
You got to put this on your toread list if you've never read
it.
Speaker 3 (46:53):
Yeah, if you've not read it on a cabbage.
If you've not read it on acabbage, you might be under a
rock, but yeah but a fantasticread.
There are others that haveinfluenced my journey in
different ways.
But if every not every leaderneeds those, but every leader, I
think, needs to understand thescience behind habits.
(47:13):
And if you don't want to godown to that kind of science,
there are a couple of otherhabit books out there.
But we need to understand thatautomation in any form frees us
up to do other things.
So if it's automating youremail sequences that go out for
marketing, that frees you up todo other things, if it's
automating how you get yourcoffee in and your study in in
(47:35):
the morning or your quiet timeor your meditation or whatever
it is, if you're automatingthose because you have a habit
that frees your brain up to doother things.
All of it is based on a habitand the greatest inventors talk
about not making things as theytalk about making these a system
.
When you look at all of thebiggest changes in the way we've
(47:58):
done business and manufacturing, it's all based on
systematizing things and makinglittle habit changes, and I love
the way Clear puts it it's likejust an atomic move, little
bitty.
I've used the concept of habitstacking with my son, you know,
when he was little like everynight we do these things.
(48:18):
Here's the list.
And first we do.
First we get him in the routineof taking a bath every night,
and then we get him in theroutine of bath and the brush of
teeth, and then we get him inall of those things I've taught
to my group.
I don't have like authority toteach it, but we've walked
through it four times atomichabits and it's.
I learned something everysingle time.
Speaker 2 (48:38):
That's so good.
I love that book too, yeah, soso fantastic.
Typically, people walk awayfrom an episode like this with
one big idea.
If you could define what thatone thing is that you want
people to walk away with, whatwould you say?
Speaker 3 (48:56):
If you want to have impact, you have got to have a
clear understanding of who youare, how you uniquely
communicate and the source ofyour unique authority.
Because if you don't, you willalways be under somebody else's
standard, somebody else's vision, somebody else's idea of what
(49:17):
you're supposed to be.
That is my challenge, and forme that means understanding core
values and then, of course,building upon that, but that is
the main thing.
If you want to have any, ifyou're not interested in impact,
no big deal.
If you want to have and ifyou're not making the impact you
want, I challenge you.
Look, do you really knowyourself, do you understand how
(49:40):
you communicate and where yourunique authority comes from?
Because our unique authoritycomes from who we are.
It doesn't come from anythingthat anybody's ever given us.
When I can sit here shouldersback and say those things to you
is because I believe them andbecause I know them in my core.
Speaker 2 (49:54):
Yes, andrew, this has been so helpful today.
I know a lot of people aregoing to want to stay connected
with you and continue to learnfrom you.
What's the best way for them todo that?
Speaker 3 (50:04):
Well, I am the intentional optimist, so you can
find me pretty much anywhere atthe intentional optimist.
My website has my podcast is onthere and that is called Stand
Tall and Own it, and so there isplenty of places to find me.
But pretty much anywhere withthe intentional optimist.
As long as you put the the infront of it is going to get you
there.
Speaker 2 (50:23):
Thank you for being so generous today, andrew.
This has been so helpful, sokind and so insightful, and I
know so many people havebenefited, so thank you.
Speaker 3 (50:32):
Good, thank you, it is my pleasure.
Speaker 2 (50:35):
Thanks for joining me for this episode today.
As we wrap up, I'd love for youto do two things.
First, subscribe to thispodcast so you don't miss an
episode, and if you find valuehere, I'd love it if you would
rate it and review it.
That really does make adifference in helping other
people to discover this podcast.
Second, if you don't have acopy of my newest book,
(50:57):
catalytic Leadership, I'd loveto put a copy in your hands.
If you go tocatalyticleadershipbookcom, you
can get a copy for free.
Just pay the shipping so I canget it to you and we'll get one
right out.
My goal is to put this into thehands of as many leaders as
possible.
This book captures principlesthat I've learned in 20 plus
(51:19):
years of coaching leaders in theentrepreneurial space, in
business, government, nonprofits, education and the local church
.
You can also connect with me onLinkedIn to keep up with what
I'm currently learning andthinking about.
If you're ready to take a nextstep with a coach to help you
intentionally grow and thrive asa leader, I'd be honored to
(51:41):
help you.
Just go tocatalyticleadershipnet to book a
call with me.
Stay tuned for our next episodenext week.
Until then, as always, leaderschoose to be catalytic.
Speaker 1 (51:57):
Thanks for listening to Catalytic Leadership with Dr
William Attaway.
Be sure to subscribe whereveryou listen to podcasts so you
don't miss the next episode.
Want more?
Go to catalyticleadershipnet.
Welcome to Catalytic Leadership, the podcast designed
to help leaders intentionallygrow and thrive.
Here is your host author andleadership and executive coach,
dr William Attaway.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Hey, it's William and welcome to today's episode of
the Catalytic Leadership podcast.
Each week, we tackle a topicrelated to the field of
leadership.
My goal is to ensure that youhave actionable steps you can
take from each episode to growin your own leadership.
Growth doesn't just happen.
My goal is to help you becomeintentional about it.
(00:37):
Each week, we spotlight leadersfrom a variety of fields,
organizations and locations.
My goal is for you to see thatleaders can be catalytic, no
matter where they are or whatthey lead.
I draw inspiration from thestories and journeys of these
leaders and I hear from many ofyou that you do too.
Let's jump into today'sinterview.
(00:59):
I am so excited today to haveAndrea Johnson on the podcast.
Andrea empowers others to takecontrol of their lives and
change their future.
As an adoptive parent who grewup on the mission field of Seoul
, south Korea, navigating mentaland physical wellness, she
learned that emotionalresilience must be earned.
(01:20):
Recovering her own voice becamethe key to the process that
allows her clients to do thesame.
Andrea works with ambitiousfemale leaders, founders,
community leaders and publicofficials who feel stifled and
have grown unsatisfied withtheir current level of impact.
She facilitates improvedcommunication and corporate
(01:42):
culture in women-owned oroperated teams.
Her passion is equipping femaleleaders to define a new culture
by trusting their own abilityto think critically, create
imaginatively and leadeffectively.
Andrea, I'm so excited you'rehere.
Thanks for being on the show,andrea.
Speaker 3 (02:00):
Johnson.
Thank you, I'm excited to behere.
I tell you what when you readit, it sounds amazing.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
Andrea Johnson.
Oh, my Andrea Johnson, I'm likethat's me, andrea Johnson,
that's you, and that's where Iwant to start.
I want to talk about you.
I would love to hear some ofyour story.
I mean, I hit some of the hotpoints there, but how did you
get started and develop as aleader?
Speaker 3 (02:21):
Andrea Johnson, you know I was one of those strong
kids that if you're of a certainage it was like the dobson
strong-willed child.
You know my poor mom was theone who had to chase me around
and while my dad was in seminaryand you know that kind of thing
.
But I had lots of.
I was headstrong, I had lots ofability to think well and move,
(02:45):
and I figured things out right.
I mean, I was just that kid,but it just wasn't, you know,
from the South and from theevangelical culture, and that's
not kind of embraced all thetime, and growing up on the
mission field.
The beauty of growing up on themission field, though, was it
gave me this ability to see areal ecumenical culture, to see
(03:09):
in the missionary community, butalso to be involved
cross-culturally, to understandthings from a completely
different perspective, and goingto school at an international
school with kids from 65different countries helped me
completely.
I didn't have a worldview thatwas just in the United States.
I had a I have literally had aglobal worldview, and coming
(03:31):
back to the States, trying tofit in with that, was difficult.
You know, I learned in.
We were on for low in sixthgrade, and I learned real quick
that I needed to stop talkingabout Korea, because as I walked
up to a group of girls in avery small Southeast Texas town,
I heard well, here comes MissKorea this and Miss Korea that.
Oh my Right, and we learn thatstuff real early, don't we?
(03:54):
We learn to if we want to beaccepted, we learn to fit in,
and so my leadership journey wasa whole lot of fitting in,
fitting in, fitting in, and thenevery once in a while, I'd pop
out and say but, but, but, waita minute, you know.
And then I'd pop back down andfit in, because we all have that
desire to belong, and Ipersonally that is one of my top
(04:17):
three core values is belonging.
And so I dove even deeper intofiguring out how to belong in
the culture that I had beenraised in and that I chose to be
in.
And eventually I hit a spotwhere it's like this just,
there's too much incongruencehere.
I just can't do this, and I'dlove to blame it on my job,
(04:39):
where, you know, I didn't haveenough money or I was given a
promotion without a raise, oryou know.
I'd love to blame it on thosekinds of things.
But the reality is, william, weall know that we hit a place in
life where we have to decide amI going to take all of those
conditionings and teachings andassumptions and belief systems
(05:03):
that I've been handed, or am Igoing to think critically for
myself, examine what comes intomy life and if you're a
spiritual person, be able to sayam I going to be able to trust
what God has given me?
To be able to understand things?
You have to hit that point.
And when I hit that point it wasa scary journey, but it's been
(05:24):
about 10 years where I just saidI need to really look at this
stuff and much of it I stillretain, right.
I mean, once we start lookingunless it's a place where we
really need to break out of werealize, oh, I can actually have
my opinion, I can actually leadother people and I'm a talker.
I mean, when we met beforepre-interview we talked for like
(05:47):
an hour.
We were scheduled for 30minutes.
I relate to people well, I loverelating to people and knowing
that in my job I couldn'tnecessarily do that as well as I
wanted to because I managedpeople right.
So managing means keeping thestatus quo.
I decided I'd rather teachpeople and coach people and
(06:10):
encourage people to lead and tohave a greater impact.
So that was kind of how Ibranched out and started that
big journey.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
You know, I love how you define management and
keeping the status quo.
You know, just hearing that itdoes not excite one atom of my
being and I can tell the same isfor you right, and I think
every leader listening wouldresonate with that as well.
Sure, and I was like oh, I mean, do we have to manage as part
(06:40):
of how we lead?
We have to do some managementthings?
Sure, sure, but leadership isso much greater and so much
better.
Speaker 3 (06:46):
It is yes, and when I would have people come into my
office and that's, you know, asa relator, that's just they do,
yeah yeah, exactly.
And I worked in universityacademic medicine for 23 years,
so I would have everybody, froma first of the wrong secretary
(07:07):
or administrative assistant allthe way up to the chair of the
department or the head ofresearch administration
literally landing in my officebecause I created an environment
that was safe and anenvironment that was peaceful
and I was a good relator andthey would come and sit and talk
to me and I learned so manythings about people and I
learned that there are peoplewho are fine with number one
(07:31):
being an employee.
There are people who are finewith being told what to do.
They need that definition, theyneed that box and their life is
outside of that and I realized,okay, those are not my people,
that's okay.
And then there are people whoare constantly struggling, you
know, constantly quit this job.
Today I'm like you just tookthat job.
I mean, former employees wouldcome back because they walked
(07:52):
through.
You know I had worked with themwhile they were working with me
and I'd help train them andlead them and they would come
back and say, okay, so I reallyhate this job.
I'm like, because you're notand this is where I started like
diving deep into why you're nothonoring who.
You are right, you're taking ajob for the money, or you're
taking a job because somebodysold you on something, or you're
(08:14):
taking a job because you'restill trying to like.
I did fit into that mold of whatyou think people want and you
know, my heart can only break somany times for people and I've
cried with people.
I've literally had youngresearchers who were brand new
faculty say, when I finally leftthe University of Virginia,
(08:37):
this, especially this one youngguy come in, brilliant, I mean
one of those rock star peoplethat already had, you know,
millions of dollars in grantfunding.
And he said what am I going todo when you're gone?
I'm like what do you mean?
You're on the fast track, dude.
And he said no, no, but yougive me such good advice.
I'm like I'm just a phone callaway.
I mean it doesn't mean you needto be able to find those people
(08:59):
that you can talk to.
And I wanted to be that personand I wanted to be that person
for people who really wanted togrow, because those were the
highlights.
But just as many people cameinto my office to complain
because, we're in a big systemand I can't fix the system.
I'm like well, I know that, yeah, you just have to know.
I mean, there's a certainamount that you have to accept.
(09:20):
So when I talk about managing,there are things that we have to
manage as leaders, but thedefinition of the term really is
making sure that things don'tgo off the rails.
That's what managing is right.
And so if you're willing to goin and do change management,
that's very different and thenyou can make a real difference.
(09:43):
But if you're not willing to dochange management, then
literally you need to workwithin the systems that are
there.
If they fit you, awesome,you've found a great place for
you.
If they don't, let's talk.
Speaker 2 (09:57):
Love that you talk a lot about intentional optimism.
You know when you talkpreviously.
This fascinates me and I'd lovefor you to share more about
that.
I don't know that I have heardanybody put those two words
together before.
Speaker 3 (10:12):
It's my own creation.
I make words up.
I love it, I do.
You know, I don't take theescalator down, I take the
down-a-later, so it just, itmakes life a lot more fun.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
That's so great.
Speaker 2 (10:29):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (10:29):
And you know there are certain words that we have
to use that don't make any sense.
You know feet.
It's feats, you know so.
But I do things like that andpart of that is to just keep
myself amused, because I thinkwhen we laugh and we're happy,
we tend to do things with morefervor, and life is not worth
living if you can't laugh.
(10:50):
So when it comes to being anintentional optimist, this goes
back to the story of my mother,who was my mom, was a pastor's
wife and a missionary wife andturns out an amazing project
manager and was head of all ofthe volunteers for the Red Cross
(11:11):
for Asia and the Pacific andcouldn't get paid for that
because of the fact that she wasa missionary and nobody else
could get paid.
So she couldn't.
She could have gotten colonelspaid, right, she was that high.
But my mother was this amazing,strong woman who was smart but a
little bit like me.
She was called Motor Mouth andbut she was raised.
(11:35):
You know she was born in like44.
So she was raised in thatenvironment of women are seen
and not heard, and but sheworked to put my dad through
seminary.
She went to 14 differentschools before she graduated cum
laude from the University ofMaryland, through the military
base.
She, you know, she was smart,but she just couldn't catch a
(11:57):
break half the time and shechose to work within the system
that she was in, which was thislike Southern kind of
evangelical culture, and part ofthat was because she felt
called by God to be there right.
So there's a certain amount ofthat that I don't want to
disparage at all.
But when they came off themission field, she went to work,
for when they came, my dad cameback to work for the home
(12:19):
office and she went to work fora local country club as, like, a
marketing director and thenended up at the home office
working as an administrativeassistant, and she retired as an
administrative assistant andshe could have run circles
around all of the men who werehigher up than her and she was
(12:41):
diagnosed.
All of this she did diagnosedwith lupus and then breast
cancer, and we lost her inFebruary of 2017 to breast
cancer, metastatic breast cancer, and that was the year I turned
50.
And it was, or I had just turned50 in 2016, excuse me, and so I
was just a brand new 50, shewas in hospice and then we lost
(13:04):
her in February and somethingjust clicked and I said I just
I'm not doing this anymore.
Why do I believe and why do Ibelieve it?
And I was I'm a little bit ofbelieve it or not a private
person when it.
I know that sounds crazy, butI'm a little bit of a private
person when it comes to trulysharing who I am and I don't I
(13:27):
don't even know that private'sthe right word.
I think a lot of it was afraidto share who I really am and so
I didn't want to speak at hermemorial service or anything.
But when it came down to it, Idid, and I, when I speak, I can
speak pretty powerfully.
And one of the things Irealized was because when I,
(13:48):
when a conviction hits right,it's I'm gonna.
I'm gonna share it, and I'mknown for having not done that
with a lot of forethought beforein my life.
But I realized that one of thethings I loved about her was
that, no matter what she wasdealing with, even when she was
in the smaller position and keptgetting passed over for
(14:09):
promotions and, you know, when Iknew she could do all this
other stuff she had thispersonality that always saw the
joy in things and she couldexpress joy.
And she could express it waseffervescent like a bottle of
champagne.
You would pop the cork and shewould just the bubbles would
just come out and you know, partof that was her personality,
(14:31):
part of it was she had learnedto do that because she decided,
you know, she knew for 15 yearsI'm basically gonna die of this
disease and I'm gonna live.
She had grand babies, she had,you know, daughters and she had
a husband and she's like I'm not, I'm not quitting.
So what I saw was a reallystrong woman, learn how to be
joyous in really hard situations.
(14:52):
And I didn't quite know how todo that because my, I don't know
if you do the any are youfamiliar with?
Speaker 2 (14:58):
the any.
Yeah, oh yeah.
Well, here's a good one.
I'm a solid five, yeah.
Speaker 3 (15:02):
Oh, that actually makes sense.
Speaker 2 (15:04):
You ready for this one?
Speaker 3 (15:05):
Yeah, so I am okay, I am a self-preservation
counterphobic.
Six wing seven, I thinkInteresting, yeah so.
Speaker 1 (15:19):
Interesting.
Speaker 3 (15:20):
Sixes are the most difficult to pin down.
Yeah, we are on a spectrum ofphobic to counterphobic we.
And then of course there's thethree types.
There's the self-preservationor the social, or the one-to-one
, and so what all that means isthat I'm a very strong wing
seven.
So that's why I'm like, if it'snot fun, you know yeah.
(15:40):
Um, but what that means is I'malways looking to make sure that
my environment is peaceful andhappy and I'm all about kind of
making sure the systems work.
I do kind of get a little bitcaught in how things could go
wrong, but mostly I'm justlooking for preventing them from
going wrong.
Right, it's like, so I can lookdown the road and say how can I
(16:04):
make this work?
You know so, but because ofthat, I do have this bent
towards anxiety, and I alwayshave, and I have a history of
bulimia and depression and youknow.
So all of that is very real inmy life and I believe
understanding myself has helpedme get to a place where, oh, I
could actually do somethingdifferent.
(16:25):
This is my bent, but I couldactually live in a way that
brings me joy and come to findout when a six is in a really
healthy place.
They kind of lean towards thenine, which is a very calm place
to be.
My husband's a nine.
It's a little bit.
It's a little bit frustratingsometimes, but when I looked at
(16:47):
my mom, I think my mom was avery strong three, quite
honestly, the entertainer.
She's like what's a fun andshe's very much a performer.
She was either a three or aseven.
But all that to say, I wantedto use the word sanguine.
I said she's a very sanguinewoman, which is a very old
fashioned word.
You know we use the disc, Iknow you're a disc consultant,
(17:09):
and the sanguine is theinfluencer.
The sanguine is that side ofthe personality.
And what I really wanted was Iwanted to say I'm going to
intentionally and I kept usingthat word I'm going to
intentionally pursue optimism asa lifestyle.
I want to pursue joy, I want topursue those things, and I knew
(17:29):
I was sort of doing that, butnow I want to make it a
purposeful thing.
So I started writing down andyou'll like this as a five oh,
the pages and pages and pagesand pages of all the words and
all the things that I thought Ibelieved and I have.
I have it.
You know, it's just like I'mnever throwing that stuff away
because it's so valuable.
And then I kind of put theminto categories and realized I
had six major categories and Iwasn't quite sure what I was
(17:52):
going to call this, but thesewere kind of my principles.
And so what I came up with wasthe first was optimistic,
because that's very clear.
I want to be optimistic, whichincludes hope and confidence,
and prepared and positivePresent.
If you're not present then youcan't, you know.
And that being present includeshaving what I call a grown-up
(18:15):
sense of wonder, not a childlike.
I understand how things workand they still work, then that's
better wonder than notunderstanding how they work.
Then so, optimistic, wonder,energetic, which is producing
joy and producing energy andexcitement, courageous, which is
(18:37):
perfect for a six.
We have to dive into that allthe time and say, whatever
happens, I'm in, and so that's aconstant reminding.
Like you read in my bio, welearned that resilience is
earned.
Resilience doesn't happen whenyou can't just decide to be
resilient.
Some people are naturally so.
Most of us have to fall downand get back up in order to
(18:59):
develop that resilience.
So courageous, includesresilience being undaunted, like
I can look ahead and see thatthat is Mount Everest, but you
know what?
I'm climbing it anyway.
Just I'm not gonna be, I'm notgonna let obstacles stop me, and
as an entrepreneur, you have todo that.
So the fifth one is wise andjust wanting to and honoring the
(19:21):
wisdom that comes with havingbeen around the sun a few times
and just realizing that I have alot of life to offer people and
that my brain really is quiteamazing and I believe that I
have been given a lot of wisdom.
It's not something that I everwanted to shout, because we're
(19:43):
not supposed to do that, we'resupposed to be humble, you know,
but when I share with someonewho's going through something,
who's going through somethingI've been through this I would
like to let me give you thispiece of advice.
You know, or would you like myadvice?
Every once in a while it comesunsolicited and I'll just say
here's my unsolicited advice toyou.
But wisdom includes alsorespect, understanding how to
(20:05):
respect ourselves and otherpeople, and being willing to see
the world for more than justwhat I can see perspective.
And then the last one is thelast, what I call them tenants,
is intentional, which so theoptimistic and the intentional
book ended.
And intentional means having aplan, working your plan,
(20:26):
preparing what are the thingsthat I could do?
You know, seneca said that luckis when opportunity meets
preparation, and so that's whatintentional is.
And when I'm walking somewhere,like when I was working, I
would wear heels, of course, andwhen I'm walking somewhere, I
had two or three people say Ialways know when it's you coming
(20:47):
down the hall, it's like you'revery intentional in the way you
walk, you're purposeful.
I'm like, well, I'm goingsomewhere, I'm not wandering,
right.
Yes, so those are very physicalexamples, but when it came down
to it, I thought thatintentional optimism was a plan.
I thought it was like this ishow we live.
But as I've grown throughlearning and trying to apply
(21:12):
them and I work with a group ofladies on a monthly basis in a
small group program and we walkthrough all six of them twice a
year and part of that is goalsetting and reflection as I've
done that, I've realized they'renot a plan.
Intentional optimism is alifestyle to live out the things
(21:33):
that are deeper yourconvictions, what I call your
core values and your beliefs andthose kinds of things.
Now I present it a littledifferently.
It's a lifestyle.
I'm flabbergasted when some ofmy clients will take just the
one page intentional optimismand look at the tenants.
One girl said I put it in mynotebook and I went to a meeting
(21:55):
and I came back because I wasvery frustrated about this thing
and I'm like I'm going to becourageous, I am not going to
okay what it became now and theway I presented it is.
It's a lifestyle of living outhow I want to live.
I look back and say, oh, thiswas my remedy for being a six.
We teach what we learn and whatwe know.
(22:20):
That's intentional optimism.
It's not really a nutshell.
I don't do anything really.
In a nutshell, that's awesome.
Speaker 2 (22:29):
I think that was fantastic.
I love the purposefulness of it.
I love the intentionality of it.
You have defined where you wantto be, who you want to be.
Speaker 3 (22:39):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (22:40):
You're like okay, this is where I'm at, this is
where I want to be, this is whoI want to be.
Now I just have to build abridge from here to there, right
, once you've defined the twopoints, right.
I think so many people don'tdefine the two points.
They don't come to sort ofwhere they are-ish.
Maybe sort of but theirself-awareness is fuzzy.
When you say where do you wantto go, they can give you a
couple of things, maybe, butit's not clearly defined.
(23:02):
I love that you have so clearlydefined that.
I think that is so helpful.
I know our listeners are goingto really appreciate that.
I think you would challengethem to define this for
themselves.
Speaker 3 (23:15):
Oh, absolutely.
If intentional optimism is alifestyle that you think will
work for you, you can justdownload the thing.
And download the one page orget them.
It's free, but I'm happy toshare that with everybody.
But it's not.
If you're not somebody whoneeds that, then take the time
to look and do the reflection inthe mirror and it's like the
(23:39):
evaluated experience is the best.
So take that time.
I would definitely say,challenge yourself to look at
what you need, what's yourrecipe, because so many clients
say, well, I want to be betterat blah, blah, blah.
Yeah, ok, go do so.
Speaker 1 (23:55):
Our time here is done .
Speaker 3 (23:57):
Did you pay me?
What's your plan.
You know, it's like I'm gladyou paid me up front because
this was real simple, you knowand I don't really get that
snarky, I mean, unless I justreally feel like there's a
client that can do that but mostof the time like, well, let's
back it up and let's define that.
And that's why I work withwomen on a monthly basis on
(24:18):
goals.
You know, we don't want todefine ourselves with goals and
break ourselves down to wherewe're constantly missing them
and and setting ourselves up forfailure.
So sometimes we set intentionsfor the month.
But you're right, having it,even if it's just a midpoint of
where you want to be, makes thedifference, because then you
know it's.
It's Remember Joe versus volcano, yeah, yeah, ok.
(24:42):
At the end of the movie, whenhe's out on this in the walking
down this dirt road and he getsthis crossroads, like, oh, where
do I go?
Or when you're watching, likemy son is almost 15, so we're
watching Fast and Furious movies, oh, they'll go off road, right
, they'll go off road, and whenyou're off road you don't have a
(25:03):
map right and so you're just onan adventure.
Well, what if you go off a cliff?
But when you have a map or whenyou have a plan, then you know
where you're going, and so allof those things are very helpful
.
Speaker 2 (25:16):
You and I grew up in evangelical church culture Right
, and we spent a great deal oftime there and in so often in
that world and this this may be,you know, a bit shocking for
people who are not in that world, but in that world so often,
like you alluded to earlier,women are not valued in
leadership roles.
In fact, in some places, theyare barred from those roles.
(25:40):
You believe that women areuniquely qualified to be leaders
, and this is something that youand I have spent some time
talking about, because we agreeon this topic that God has given
gifts of leadership to both menand women to lead in all kinds
of contexts, so many differentplaces, so many different ways.
(26:01):
And when we devalue that, weare devaluing not just the gift
that God's given, but we'redevaluing the person that he
created in his image.
You talk about why women areuniquely qualified to be leaders
.
I would love for you to unpackthat just a little bit Well, if
you want to go all the way backto Genesis, all the way back.
Speaker 3 (26:23):
Eve's an example of stepping out in leadership.
Unfortunately it wasn't thegreatest example, but she did.
And if you want to look atevangelical culture and
interpretation of certain things, women were created to complete
the whole Right and thereforeyou can't have one without the
(26:46):
other.
And if you can't have onewithout the other, then one is
not the leader over the other.
And, sorry, I just gave myselfcold chills.
These are truths, william, thatI shared.
I've been working through thelast three to five years.
These are truths that are verywell ingrained in me.
(27:06):
I call them your ABCs, yourassumptions, your beliefs and
your conditioning, and breakingout of those are some of the
hardest work that you will everdo, and if you are not willing
to challenge them, you will notever grow as a leader.
So, whatever it is that youhave in your ABCs, that is what
(27:28):
you need to challenge.
For me, the very first placewas to challenge some of my
assumptions and beliefs and veryhighly conditioned
understanding of women's rolesin different places.
I think women, for me, I thinkwomen are so uniquely qualified
(27:50):
because we are created with alittle bit of a different
mindset than men, and there's areason for that, especially in
the evangelical culture.
We talk about how we're bothequal in God's sight, but we're
created differently and a lot oftimes people want to say that's
different roles, and I'm like,well, maybe it's different ways
of fulfilling the role.
Women are, by nature, usuallymore nurturing.
(28:13):
Women are by nature believe itor not, more logical, and this
is documented.
I had two fascinatingconversations with financial
planners and one was like adivorce attorney that worked
with women in financial matters.
So for three years I did apodcast where I interviewed
(28:35):
other women leaders and it justit taught me so much.
But one of the things I learnedwas that women make better
financial investors for thesimple fact that they for two
things number one, they investin things that they understand
and use, and, number two,they're not usually motivated by
competition.
(28:55):
They don't need to beat theother person.
I almost said they don't needto beat the other guy, right,
yeah, right, and they don't.
So women tend to be reallysavvy investors.
They invest in things that arereally solid.
Women were the first to investin Amazon.
I mean they understood what itmeant to get toilet paper
delivered to their door.
(29:16):
So learning these things aboutwomen kind of changed the way I
saw women as leaders, and womentend to be fabulous
communicators because we tend tobe very good relators.
These are all still, and thereare plenty of people who would
break this down and say thoseare stereotypes.
There is a certain amount of itthat is, but there's always a
(29:37):
reason for a stereotype.
I mean, some of it is nefarious, some of it is not, but there's
usually a reason for astereotype.
And I think that, especiallycoming out of the pandemic, with
so many things gettingchallenged in politics and the
way we do business and workingfrom home, I loved some of the
(29:59):
silly videos about how womenwere able to handle all the Zoom
meetings and things when mencouldn't.
And the baby coming in and frythe chicken and clean the toilet
and all of that while they'relike in a suit on an executive
call.
Women can do that kind of thinggenerally because we've been
trained to do it and there areways in which we have been
(30:21):
raised, in the Western cultureespecially, that are
advantageous to us stepping intoleadership roles, except for
the mindset that we've been toldthat we can't.
So we're uniquely designed anduniquely equipped to do it.
Well, not equipped.
We're uniquely designed andefficient in certain ways, but
(30:44):
in other ways we still have somuch to overcome in the areas of
mindset and equipping, becausewomen still get paid 70 cents on
the dollar.
Women still won't apply for ajob unless they think they're
100% qualified, whereas a man60% qualified.
And that's all conditioning inthat ABC quotient.
That's all conditioning.
(31:05):
And one of the things that Ilearned about myself is that I'm
not that woman.
I don't apply for jobs.
I'm 100% qualified for thosesound boring.
So I learned that I could applyfor a job and if they asked me
(31:26):
if I was, are you familiar withthese data or programs?
Right, and it's like, yes, I amfamiliar, google, what does
that say?
Let me tell you.
I interviewed, maybe from thetime I was 21 till I was.
(31:47):
I guess the last real interviewI had was 45 or 6, right,
because I switched departmentsat UVA, I probably only had 10
or 12 job interviews, becausewhen I get in the room I can get
the job.
(32:07):
So it's rare for me to not geta job, and one that I applied
for at UVA.
I went from researchadministration back into the
School of Medicine and I appliedfor the job and I got a great
interview and I sat down withpeople that and I was like this
is really good.
I thought it went really well.
Come to find out it was one ofthose situations where they
(32:28):
already had somebody identifiedand they needed to prove that
they could interview at leastone more person.
Well, in the room was theComptroller, the head of one of
the divisions for the Departmentof Medicine and the head of the
Department of Otolaryngology,and I left that meeting thinking
, oh, this was a great interview, and then I hear back a week
(32:51):
later.
So we already had this personidentified and we're giving her
the job because she's coming upthe right minute to make sense,
right, and even so, even if itwas a man, but you impressed us
so much that we want to developa job for you.
That's awesome, yeah.
(33:13):
So these are things I stumbledinto and the more I reflect and
I look back, I'm like these arethings that all women could have
.
Yes, and these are things thatall women could develop, these.
And it wasn't that I had thatmuch self confidence, I was just
a great performer.
I could just walk in.
And what would you do in thissituation?
And it's like, oh, let me turnon my high school acting, let me
(33:35):
think how would I act that out?
And I just would.
So what I would I love to do iswork with people, and especially
women, and especially women whoare newer in some of their
their supervisory or leadershiproles, or who really want to
elevate up and be able to say oh, actually, even the ones who
have gotten the promotions, butdon't they've done this than the
(33:58):
technical work, but they don'thave the leadership skills that
they need to be there, yes, andso those are the ones.
I'm like oh, you have all thetechnical stuff, we don't have
to work on any of that, let'swork on you, because somebody
saw something in you.
So that's, that's kind of how Iwant to do that with people and
work with people, and I thinkit's just really important to
recognize that women have theseskills that we don't realize we
(34:19):
have.
Those are not skills that are.
I mean, I listened to anotherpodcast recently because I'm
going to do an interview andit's like this career series and
it's like you have talked aboutall the little things to do
with your resume and all thethings to do with your network,
but let's talk about you Right.
Let's talk about who you areand that you don't have to wait
(34:39):
until you're 100% qualified.
So those are the things I liketo focus on.
Speaker 2 (34:46):
That's so good, you know, between the two of us, we
are going to get this messageout.
I hope, so we're going to.
Speaker 3 (34:54):
I hope so At least in .
Speaker 2 (34:55):
Virginia?
Absolutely, we can cover atleast the state of Virginia, no
doubt about it.
You mentioned the disc earlier,and you too, you're a certified
disc consultant and trainer.
Why do you think the disc issuch a great tool?
Why do you think this issomething that is helpful, no
matter where you are or whatyou're?
Speaker 3 (35:16):
leading For me to be able to take a little cheat
sheet into a retailestablishment that I've been
going to for a year, wherethey've been fighting with
management, and to put it up onthe wall and then come back the
next time.
Literally, they met me at thedoor and said, oh my gosh,
within 15 minutes we'd allfigured out how we were
communicating and it made allthe difference in the world.
(35:38):
And it was a piece of paper.
So I think it speaks for itselfsometimes, except you know.
But a better explanation wouldbe when I understand the
language that you speak, or whenI can recognize the language
you speak.
Then I can meet you where youare.
I grew up in Seoul, south Korea.
They love to speak English overthere.
(35:59):
They did in the 70s and 80sdating myself, and they do now.
My family just went back thislast summer and they all love to
speak English.
They take English in school theway we take Spanish right.
It's just they do that.
And yet, at the same time, Iwanted to learn Korean, so I
learned how to speak some Koreanto them, and I can.
(36:19):
I still watch K-dramas to thisday, and now I have to have the
subtitles on, but it just isfascinating to me to listen to
the language.
But I took Spanish in highschool because for some reason,
as a high school, I didn'tunderstand the beauty of what I
could have had if I had beenimmersed in the culture and
taken Korean while I was there.
But because of that, Iunderstand a lot of words in
(36:39):
Spanish and because of that Iunderstand a lot of words in
French and because of that,because of Korean, I understand
what other people are trying tosay when they're from another
Asian country trying to speakEnglish because of the speech
patterns.
When I go to another country,if I want to know where the
bathroom is and they look at melike and I say where's the
(37:00):
bathroom, and they look at mewith this question on their face
like I don't know what you'retalking about.
If I say where is the bathroom,it won't make it any better.
And you know this, william, wedo this to each other.
Speaker 1 (37:15):
So, imagine.
Speaker 3 (37:16):
But if I say don't do this right, or where's the
bathroom, then I'm speakingSpanish or I'm speaking Korean
and they go oh, it's right overhere.
And I think it's reallyimportant to realize that we all
have a type of language that wespeak in our communication
style.
And when we talked earlierabout Enneagram, I'm like a geek
(37:39):
for all this stuff.
I knew my Myers-Briggs, myEnneagram, my disk, all of it.
But when we understand someoneelse's language and we're trying
to bridge that gap, like wetalked about, it makes all the
difference in the world.
And for me to be able to guideother teams through, if you just
(37:59):
talk, I'm meeting next weekwith a group and they already
know that they've got one person.
That's just a really high D.
And how do I talk to thisperson?
Get you know?
Oh well, do it in bullet points, right?
Speaker 1 (38:14):
And they're like oh okay.
Speaker 3 (38:16):
And even with my boss when I was at the University of
Virginia.
You know, six foot three, blondhair, blue-eyed male MBA right,
that's the leader right In theuniversity setting.
I learned he was a D and so Iwould send him an email after
I'd done all this work.
Here's the bullet points.
If you want the explanation,it's below.
It makes all the difference inthe world when you speak someone
(38:40):
else's language.
They are so grateful.
When I meet a Korean on thestreet or in a I'm sure you have
plenty of these where you are adry cleaning right or a
restaurant when I say somethingin Korean, they're like oh, you
spoke my language.
It makes them feel seen, right.
So when you understand yourdisc and how to recognize other
(39:03):
people's disc they and they'retight then they, you can help
them feel seen.
You can communicate better.
I think that's why it's soimportant.
So I layer the work that I dowith my core values wanting to
know who I am, and then how Icommunicate with my disc and
then how I live it out withintentional optimism.
So that's how I work with allof those.
Speaker 2 (39:24):
What a great way to put those pieces together, to be
so purposeful, so intentional.
Let me ask you how do you stayon top of your game?
How do you continue to grow anddevelop the leadership skills
that you are going to need ayear from now, or five years
from now, to become that versionof you?
Speaker 3 (39:47):
I read, but I also I hire a coach.
I actually right now I have twocoaches that I pay one for like
they do, yeah, okay.
So one is specifically aspeaking coach, and that's one
of the reasons why I recordmyself when I'm actually doing
these podcasts, and she's helpedme learn how to express my
(40:08):
message better.
So that's my goal this year isto become more of a speaker, and
I have several things on thebooks.
But the other coach is verymuch in the area of
self-personal growth anddevelopment and developing my
offers.
So I work with her on verydifferent things and I look
inside a lot and I look for allthe areas that need to be
(40:30):
challenged.
So that's one way that I grow.
The other is I just I have thisinsatiable curiosity, and if
there was one thing that I couldsay to people, you need to
develop its curiosity, because Ireally wanted to come up with
this test that I could give topeople and I was going to call
(40:50):
it the curiosity quotient andthis was going to be my big
breakout thing.
And then I looked it up onlineand somebody already did it.
So here's the deal there is nocure for curiosity, and
curiosity may have killed thecat, but the cat has nine lives,
and when you're curious about asubject, you're going to be
(41:14):
interested in it.
When you're curious aboutyourself, you're going to learn
about yourself.
When you're curious aboutothers, you will learn about
others.
And as long as I think you canmaintain that curiosity, that's
what keeps me moving.
Why?
Speaker 1 (41:28):
does that happen that way?
Speaker 3 (41:30):
Why?
That's my question.
Always ask why.
Speaker 2 (41:37):
Yes, you know a lot of people might be listening to
this or watching you on theYouTube channel and thinking,
wow, she's just got it alltogether.
Like her career as anentrepreneur must have been just
straight up into the right.
Speaker 3 (41:48):
Oh sure.
Speaker 2 (41:49):
Right.
No struggles, no challenges,absolutely yeah.
Right, that's how it works foreverybody, not?
What are some of the thingsthat you have had to wrestle
through in your entrepreneurialjourney?
Speaker 3 (42:04):
The biggest one is being true to my own personal
message and my own personal whoI am as a person, and that's
part of if you're going to be athought leader, if you're going
to be a keynote speaker, ifyou're going to be a coach,
quite frankly, you can be areally good coach and sit and
(42:25):
ask people questions and neverdivulge your own stuff ever.
That's completely possible.
But if you want to lead peopleand you want to be genuine and
you want to be authentic, youhave to know yourself.
Otherwise, you'll have a hardtime setting boundaries.
You'll have a hard timefiguring out how to relate to
people, because you're alwaystrying to.
You know what are the rules inthis particular relationship,
(42:47):
right?
So the hardest thing for me isbreaking out of that shell, of
all those ABCs, thoseassumptions, beliefs and
conditioning of this is what I'msupposed to look like, and even
just making sure that makeup isdone and I'm wearing a good
color for a video and we allhave those things that we want
(43:09):
to be professional, william, wewant to be a good leader, but
being willing to say I don'thave it all together, being
willing to say I don't have theanswers, I will go look for them
.
I will help you look for them.
That's what we have to do asparents, that's what we have to
do as leaders, that's what wehave to do as coaches, and I
would say that is the biggesthurdle for me.
(43:30):
That and, honestly, money, yeah, I mean I come from literally a
deacon in not the too far pastsaid, quoted the old adage of
Lord you keep him humble, we'llkeep him poor about his pastor.
(43:51):
And you know, as people inministry I mean we joke about
being raised in evangelicalculture.
I like to say I have it in myDNA because I genetically
predispose.
My grandfather was a deacon, myfather was a pastor and then a
missionary and then worked at amission sending agency.
I met my husband at seminary.
(44:12):
My husband is a pastor and Iteach Bible study and it's just
very easy to get caught in thisidea that we're not supposed to
be paid well, that we're notsupposed to ask for money for
our services.
I'm still surprised when I getan email that says because I'll
(44:33):
tell people here's my feeschedule, tell me what your
budget is, will that work foryou?
And I got an email this morningthat said we met about our
budget.
We can only pay you this muchfor a keynote.
Is that okay?
I looked at my husband and saidand you know, it's just.
(44:54):
These are things that everyentrepreneur has to get over.
Every entrepreneur deals withthe whole imposter thing or this
lack of confidence orunderstanding that what we have
to offer is real, and almostevery entrepreneur has to deal
with some kind of money mindsetand if you don't, it's not going
to go well for you and it justit takes a little time.
(45:15):
So, but every single piece thisis the resilience piece.
Again, every single time we doit, we build more courage.
Every time single time we do it, we build more confidence.
And then that's whereresilience comes up in.
Resilience is the definition ofthat is how fast you can bounce
up from falling down.
So being able to develop thatkind of resilience and I know
(45:37):
that a lot of your listeners andyour clients are marketing
people.
They know all about what it'slike to put stuff out there that
doesn't work.
Speaker 2 (45:44):
Absolutely, absolutely.
Speaker 3 (45:47):
You've got to be willing to take a risk, and if
they're agency owners, they'vegot to be willing to learn what
it means to have a good moneymindset and how to make a good
profit and how to take care oftheir people if they have
employees, and these are allthings that every entrepreneur
has to work through.
So I'm not exempt.
I'm just really good at, like Isaid, turn it.
I can put on a good show, butmy goal too is to present that
(46:11):
not toxic, optimistic side not,oh, if everything's going to be
fine, but the realistic,intentional.
If you do these things and ifyou're willing to confront these
things in the mirror, and ifyou need somebody to stand there
, I'll stand there with you,yeah, but if you're willing to
confront those things in orderto grow, you too can do all of
this.
Speaker 2 (46:33):
You're a continual learner and I know that that
part of that involves the booksthat you read.
You've mentioned several timesthat you're a reader.
Is there a book that has playeda really significant part of
your journey that you wouldrecommend to every leader
listening?
You got to put this on your toread list if you've never read
it.
Speaker 3 (46:53):
Yeah, if you've not read it on a cabbage.
If you've not read it on acabbage, you might be under a
rock, but yeah but a fantasticread.
There are others that haveinfluenced my journey in
different ways.
But if every not every leaderneeds those, but every leader, I
think, needs to understand thescience behind habits.
(47:13):
And if you don't want to godown to that kind of science,
there are a couple of otherhabit books out there.
But we need to understand thatautomation in any form frees us
up to do other things.
So if it's automating youremail sequences that go out for
marketing, that frees you up todo other things, if it's
automating how you get yourcoffee in and your study in in
(47:35):
the morning or your quiet timeor your meditation or whatever
it is, if you're automatingthose because you have a habit
that frees your brain up to doother things.
All of it is based on a habitand the greatest inventors talk
about not making things as theytalk about making these a system
.
When you look at all of thebiggest changes in the way we've
(47:58):
done business and manufacturing, it's all based on
systematizing things and makinglittle habit changes, and I love
the way Clear puts it it's likejust an atomic move, little
bitty.
I've used the concept of habitstacking with my son, you know,
when he was little like everynight we do these things.
(48:18):
Here's the list.
And first we do.
First we get him in the routineof taking a bath every night,
and then we get him in theroutine of bath and the brush of
teeth, and then we get him inall of those things I've taught
to my group.
I don't have like authority toteach it, but we've walked
through it four times atomichabits and it's.
I learned something everysingle time.
Speaker 2 (48:38):
That's so good.
I love that book too, yeah, soso fantastic.
Typically, people walk awayfrom an episode like this with
one big idea.
If you could define what thatone thing is that you want
people to walk away with, whatwould you say?
Speaker 3 (48:56):
If you want to have impact, you have got to have a
clear understanding of who youare, how you uniquely
communicate and the source ofyour unique authority.
Because if you don't, you willalways be under somebody else's
standard, somebody else's vision, somebody else's idea of what
(49:17):
you're supposed to be.
That is my challenge, and forme that means understanding core
values and then, of course,building upon that, but that is
the main thing.
If you want to have any, ifyou're not interested in impact,
no big deal.
If you want to have and ifyou're not making the impact you
want, I challenge you.
Look, do you really knowyourself, do you understand how
(49:40):
you communicate and where yourunique authority comes from?
Because our unique authoritycomes from who we are.
It doesn't come from anythingthat anybody's ever given us.
When I can sit here shouldersback and say those things to you
is because I believe them andbecause I know them in my core.
Speaker 2 (49:54):
Yes, andrew, this has been so helpful today.
I know a lot of people aregoing to want to stay connected
with you and continue to learnfrom you.
What's the best way for them todo that?
Speaker 3 (50:04):
Well, I am the intentional optimist, so you can
find me pretty much anywhere atthe intentional optimist.
My website has my podcast is onthere and that is called Stand
Tall and Own it, and so there isplenty of places to find me.
But pretty much anywhere withthe intentional optimist.
As long as you put the the infront of it is going to get you
there.
Speaker 2 (50:23):
Thank you for being so generous today, andrew.
This has been so helpful, sokind and so insightful, and I
know so many people havebenefited, so thank you.
Speaker 3 (50:32):
Good, thank you, it is my pleasure.
Speaker 2 (50:35):
Thanks for joining me for this episode today.
As we wrap up, I'd love for youto do two things.
First, subscribe to thispodcast so you don't miss an
episode, and if you find valuehere, I'd love it if you would
rate it and review it.
That really does make adifference in helping other
people to discover this podcast.
Second, if you don't have acopy of my newest book,
(50:57):
catalytic Leadership, I'd loveto put a copy in your hands.
If you go tocatalyticleadershipbookcom, you
can get a copy for free.
Just pay the shipping so I canget it to you and we'll get one
right out.
My goal is to put this into thehands of as many leaders as
possible.
This book captures principlesthat I've learned in 20 plus
(51:19):
years of coaching leaders in theentrepreneurial space, in
business, government, nonprofits, education and the local church
.
You can also connect with me onLinkedIn to keep up with what
I'm currently learning andthinking about.
If you're ready to take a nextstep with a coach to help you
intentionally grow and thrive asa leader, I'd be honored to
(51:41):
help you.
Just go tocatalyticleadershipnet to book a
call with me.
Stay tuned for our next episodenext week.
Until then, as always, leaderschoose to be catalytic.
Speaker 1 (51:57):
Thanks for listening to Catalytic Leadership with Dr
William Attaway.
Be sure to subscribe whereveryou listen to podcasts so you
don't miss the next episode.
Want more?
Go to catalyticleadershipnet.
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