I get to work with leaders frequently at

Decide youe Legacy. I mean, that's what we do. We work with leadership teams. We

work with leaders. And

I'm often amazed at the

response I get from people. It may be a month later, maybe a week later,

it may be even a year later. But when they do something that I have

seen them be really terrified of, and

they actually go through and do it because they get some clarity, they get inspired,

they actually take an action. I. I see this, and I'm not.

I see this new person, this energized person, and then they build

on that. They build on the fact that they face something in their life and

they were courageous, and then they realize and see this potential that they didn't actually

know they had, and they want more of it. You know, I don't see people

saying, you know, hey, I don't want to do any more courageous things because I

face this thing. It's generally like. It's always, I would say. I mean, I hate

to use real extreme words, but they want to face something else. What else can

I do? Because they see the impact that it actually has. And what I

find is that this courage is facing an internal fear, not an

external fear. It's like a. If somebody's afraid of flying or somebody's afraid

of dogs, there's an internal fear that I could fail, something

really bad could happen. I'm not good enough. I'm going to be embarrassed. Embarrassment is

like an internal fear, but being bit by a dog is an external fear. It

would suck. I mean, I don't want to be bit by a dog. I have.

I. You know, but it's that, am I going to look weak? Am I

going to mess this up? And today we're going to talk about three

big benefits of being courageous as a leader in your

businesses, in your homes, and, you know, caveat. Everybody is a

leader. Everybody's a leader because you're somebody in your community, in your

church, in your neighborhood. You're a brother, you're a sister, you're a son,

you're a father. You have people that are watching your life. And as I've said

before, hopefully they're not peeking through your window at night, but they. They are watching

you. You have an impact on other people's lives. Leadership is

influence, and you get to do that. Now, if you don't live courageously,

a lot of consequences. You can get stuck in your head making excuses, avoidance.

I see that happen at times when people are about to be courageous, and then

all Of a sudden they go on this tangent. You know, they make an excuse

to not engage. They make an excuse to deal with some other problem. They have

a safer problem that's valid. But they go get consumed in that some other

area of drama. We don't want to do that. You see,

relationships stay stuck when people aren't courageous. You see people not growing.

So. Welcome to the Decide youe Legacy Podcast. Today's

episode is on three benefits of being courageous as a leader. And what

you're going to get from listening today is get some, an inspiration to go out,

do some scary stuff. Even though you don't know what the

outcome is going to be, which is what courage is, you don't know.

It's not courageous. If you've done a hundred skydives and you do your

100, 101st skydive, it is courageous in a sense. But it's

not like somebody on their first skydive. It's not where you're letting go

at the same level. It's still a great thing, go ahead and still do it.

But you're going to see some things specifically that you can do that are going

to help you go to the next level. So. I'm Adam Gragg and I'm a

legacy coach. What is that? Well, hey, I'm a coach. I

help people focus on their potential, make long term change

and really create this future that they want. Create a plan

to get there, help business teams do that, cultivate

cohesive, high trust teams. We, I shouldn't say just I, because I

have two other coaches here in the audience that are going to actually share today

as well. But we help people go to that next

place in a year. The ideal vision get there. And it's a step by step

process. We help leaders and businesses live

courageous, courageously, you know, and again, everyone is

a leader. So I struggle here. I struggle with perfectionism. Just today

I had a meeting with my team and I was thinking I'm going to be,

I'm going to let them down because I don't have all this stuff refined and

I've probably conveyed what, which I do. I can embellish and I can act like

I have things like organized on paper. I have organized. I have things

organized in my head and I'll act like it's more organized and on paper.

But I've been challenged by, to, to be very careful with

that by my good friend Doug. And he

annoys me, but I actually love him for challenging me. And so I,

I don't want to Be my struggle. I don't want to be seen as weak.

I don't want to be embarrassed. I have this fear of embarrassment. And I want

you to think as you're listening, what is your struggle with doing that

next courageous, brave thing with your co workers, with your kids? That

conversation, that conversation that you've been dreading having, but you just don't

know how to go about it and you don't want to actually, you think that

maybe if I have this talk with my son, he's going to disown me. Maybe

if I have this talk with my co worker, he's going to quit, she's going

to quit. You know, that's the fear that we have to face and we can

face. So nothing is more important to your mental health

than what if you heard me talk before then? Playing

it safe. Yep. Not playing it safe. Not playing it safe. Not playing it safe.

So we're going to talk today about how we are going to change the way

we function in little ways. And that's how you start to not play it

safe, to going to that. To challenging ourselves. So I have two special guests

with me today. One of them you've already met before, it's Kelsey Torkelson. I once

introduced her as Legacy Torkelson. I realized that that was kind of strange. I don't

know if anybody noticed that, but I did. And she's our brand relations director at

Decide youe Legacy, and she's an assist legacy coach. She gets

our coaching on speed, on track, make sure we do it the

right way. She follows up. She is crucial part of that

process. And today we have a brand new legacy coach, Sherman

Orr. And you're going to get to know Sherman as we are asked

questions by Kelsey about living courageously as a leader. And you're

going to get to hear about his experience. He's a very unique, special guy

who, as I look at his life, I don't. He's. He's made

courageous decisions that would be really hard that are going to be inspiring to

you and going to share stories about his life that you can resonate

with, because we can all resonate with things being hard and we don't want to

face it and we want to look at ways to actually avoid. So one thing

I do in every podcast episode is I share one thing that I have done

recently. An action I've taken that was brave and something that I faced, a fear.

And today I actually texted with a gal that somebody had

entered, texted me on Facebook and someone I know not really well. But she said,

hey, I have this friend, like to meet you or like be interested in talking

to you. You know, not really kind of strong language, but had an interest and

are you interested? You know, she's this age and has these kids and she's really,

you know, gave me some insight into her qualities and things like that. I said

sure, I'd love to meet her, you know and, but you know, the thing about

that is I don't know this person. I really, I saw a picture but I

don't really know. I mean, so I, I'm happy to meet somebody and if

I think of it as oh my gosh, I'm going to get rejected or I'm

going to have difficult boundary situation or all these things that could go wrong when

you meet somebody new, then I'm going to be paralyzed. You know, it's not, it's

not good when I think like this is an opportunity, meet somebody new, maybe a

friendship, maybe other connections, then it's just fine. So Kelsey, go on in

and ask us some questions about being courageous as a leader.

Can you share a time when you had to make a difficult decision that

scared you but you knew it was the right one? I suppose you're

asking me. I am. Okay. Well, yeah,

actually it's very fresh in my mind.

I was a priest for

33 years of the Catholic Church

and probably the last

six or seven of those years I found

that things were not going well, had

great difficulties with the leadership, very

non responsive, not caring and not really living

the what I would say what our faith is about, which

is about individual people and their human dignity and taking care of

them. And it happens. I mean, priests need that too.

And I had been praying about it for probably up to

last five years or so. And I was faced

with the question is like Sherman, are you willing to just continue

to be treated this way for the rest of your life? Which I could have

done, or are you going to step out in

courage and leave ministry

and do something else that's going to help people? And

so that was scary. I've been involved in the

Catholic church for over 40 years with seminary life

and whatnot and no support system outside of

it. Once you're out, you're out. No

connection back to the Chancery or anybody

downtown to help. They just said in effect,

well, basically I don't know what they said because they never talked to me.

And besides kind of closing the door and saying

goodbye, good riddance. One less headache maybe.

And so I said I need to step away from this and

start something new. So it was a

tremendously traumatic experience. But at the

same time I knew I had to do this because

I would begin to wither, become bitter and

a smaller person because of it. And so

I've seen too many people go that route in my ministry. And

so I wasn't going to be that kind of a guy. So two

and a half, three years ago, I decided I resigned and

left it and now got certified as a coach

and am working with Decide youe Legacy

and continuing really my own ministry in a different way,

but in the same way to help people grow in, whether it's their leadership

skills or their personal life and encouraging them

to be courageous. That's so cool because even yesterday

there were some clients that already knew, didn't know Sherman was working

at Decide your Legacy now, but know him or of him and the

reception and excitement. And so at least from two specific, you

know, clients are just, you know, wow, that, that's really cool and what a great

fit and, and also just how hard that would be. One person

said, like, man, that that would be, you know, you, you, you move out of

the Catholic Church as a priest and you stay in the same area. That, that

would be, wow, that would be really, really challenging. And I have a lot of

respect for that as what that was what the client said. I have a lot

of respect for that. That's really exciting. So pretty cool. And for me,

one of the biggest ones in my life areas times when I had to make

a difficult decision that scared me was when I was in my early 20s,

I had a. It relates to the

church, believe it or not. It's so I had not a Catholic Church, but I

did grow up Catholic and my family is Catholic.

But I have gone and been involved in the Catholic Church

in the last seven years, but in the Protestant church

mainly. And when I was really young and I was new

to getting really plugged into the faith, I wanted to be

mentored, discipled, and had a situation

in a church, in a big church where there was

an untrustworthy person that

I was being mentored by to discipled by. I mean, it was not

a healthy. It was where there was a power differentiate

differential. And it was this kind of long story short,

just a very unhealthy. It wasn't. I was in a

situation that I should never have been in. No one should ever be in

basically when they're in being mentored. And it

took me a long time to kind of come to terms with it. In fact,

for A long time. I just kind of shoved it away and said, you know,

that that's just a bad, bad experience. I don't have to deal with that. I'm

not going to actually ever deal with that. So I didn't tell anybody, you know,

so. And it was. It was six years later after the

horrific deal, that I actually went out and said, hey, this is

a bad deal. This needs to be dealt with. I don't want anyone else to

be impacted. I don't want anyone else to have to go through what I've gone

through. And I brought it out to the organization and the church, and it

really wasn't addressed to my satisfaction. It was

addressed, it was faced. But I didn't feel like it was dug deep enough

to see if other people had been impacted. It was. Let's

kind of scratch the surface, but not

greatly deal with it. But I was terrified. I mean, just terrified to actually bring

this out. Looked at as weak, you know, and then I brought it out again

to the surface about 18 years later, well, after that. So it was a long.

I was. I'm 51. This is a long time ago. But eventually I brought it

out again, and it actually was dealt with better. But that was terrifying. I mean,

like, it does. I think, like, facing things in your life

that happened a long time ago and, And. And dealing with it

is. Is a scary thing. I have tremendous amount of respect. It's like you're on

the front lines for people. And I know people have dealt with much, much worse

stuff than I have. I mean, it's not. It's not nearly. I mean, I know,

but I also don't want to discount the fact that little things,

betrayals and abandonment and. And little. You

know, they're not little, but, like, maybe you didn't have it to the extent

as someone else, but still as much of a violation. I mean,

even though it wasn't ongoing, it still was that huge kind of. I. Can I

trust people anymore because of this? Because I trusted someone and they hurt me.

Sherman, are you ready? I'm ready. Okay. What fears

have you had to confront in your leadership journey?

I was pastor of seven different parishes in

my priesthood, and I would say one of the first ones you

have to confront. And I think

everybody has this problem, but we. But when you're in a leadership position,

it really gets magnified because you get

in a very positive way. You get love bombed. Everybody wants to love

their pastor, and every pastor, no matter what he

says, wants to be loved. And so when you're

Going through that leadership, and you have to confront

the fact that there's going to be people who are not going

to love you, they're not going to respect the decisions you

make, they're not going to support you,

and you can't let that stop you from doing the right thing at

the right time. So that's been one of the big ones, I think,

is that I would

coddle people. I might massage the

message so it was more easily to be heard

by different ears, and I would shape it to different

audiences and whatnot. However it happens to be,

instead of. Over the years, I've grown in my courage to

be able to say, no, this is what it is, and you're

strong enough to face the backlash or whatever

happens or the discontent that may grow from this

and continue to do it. So that's been. Probably one of my biggest

fears, is being able to say it's okay

for people to disagree with you and not think you're right.

And say it anyway. And say it anyway, say it anyway. Needs to be said,

yeah, yeah, yeah. And that is a trait that I have found

very inspiring that I've sensed in you, is you're the kind of person

who is going to tell people the truth and do it

in a kindest way possible, even though they might not be receptive to it, but

have the courage to say, hey, I, you know, here's a concern that I'm

seeing and that, you know, actually, as I look with

clients that we have worked with over the years, you know, that's oftentimes a breakthrough

moment when you take the risk to tell them the truth and they realize how

you care, and that's why you're saying that to them. And they. They

grasp that and they. They see it. And then you have. It's like almost what

I've said before, when a client in an interaction realizes that you see their

potential in the dialogue, like you've. You've won

them. Like, the trust is there because you see how much value they

have and how much potential they have. And it's. It's similar in that when

you give them some truth and it's like they, wow, he really cares.

She really cares. And that's why they said that. It's almost, you know, then

you've. You've won them even more. I mean, it's always. They all go hand in

hand. Right, right, right. It's building that relationship of

trust and being able to hear that and say it and for them to hear

it and then to realize, oh, my Gosh, this guy. They. They

want my good. They want the best for me. Yeah. And I just need to

maybe open up a little more. Be courageous. Yeah. Yeah. It's

pretty. Pretty powerful. So I. I've had to confront the

fear of being judged by people

and being embarrassed by people. The. So the things that I do that I have

trouble with is if I'm embarrassed, and I'll even like,

just avoid those potential situations and be able to be in those

situations and then actually be

comfortable with myself to practice it. I know when I got divorced,

that was just traumatic situation. And one of the things

that I was so embarrassed about is. So I wore a wedding ring for a

long period of time after my divorce because I didn't want anyone asking me about

it. I didn't even know how to explain it. And it was the embarrassment. So

taking that off and. And then I knew I was open to questions

like, why isn't that a. Wearing a wedding ring? You know, he's been wearing a

wedding ring for as long as I've known him. And that was

in. It opened me up to being embarrassed and. But then realizing that that's their

reaction, I can just be. Have to give them the whole story. But I could

give them enough information to say, you know, I'm not. Not married any longer, and

it's. And I'm sad about it, you know, and it's really hard. And then they

could at least it starts to build some level of trust. So. So that

is letting go of that fear of judgment.

Yep. That's hard every day. Sherman,

What Daily practices help you act with courage when

it's uncomfortable.

I would say the first thing would be.

I've been reflecting on some of this today. The first thing would

be getting out of my bed when

the alarm goes off. Now, most. You didn't have an alarm? Most of the

time, I make it well before my alarm goes off. I do have

an alarm. Oh, I was thinking you didn't have an alarm. Okay, I do have

it set. But what is it set up? It's set at

5:45, but I rarely hear it go

off. So. But when I get up, when I'm like, I'm ready

to get up, I don't just lay around in bed. I get up and

go and get my coffee religiously. And then I.

Religiously. I mean, so there's that. That

uncomfortableness of. Some days I do want to stay in bed.

Nice and warm, electric blanket, old house, great.

But I got up. Get up and do it.

I do my prayers Every day. I spend an hour in

prayer every morning. Oh my. And I do that

religiously. I've done that for 40 odd years now. And I'm not going

to stop. I'll never stop doing that. You like to use the word religiously.

Yes, I'm bound to it.

Okay, that's good. And I would say

another one that

is not abstainiousness but being careful

about what I eat and drink.

So like I would love. I mean, I love. Everybody knows that knows

me know I love my rye whiskey. I love my Irish whiskey. I have one

drink a night. Yeah. And I just religious. I'll sit there some

nights and think, gosh, a second drink would just be perfect.

It hit the spot and it just tastes so good. I was like, no, you've

had your one. Yeah, put it down. Yeah, go do something

else. Distract yourself with something. Yeah, yeah. So I mean

it's, it's the daily acts of

small victories that lead to the big ones. Yeah, that

is true. Yeah. It, I mean it. So just kind of piggyback off that.

Like, like I, I find that if I look at

my schedule and I have my schedule set and then

I know I want to talk myself out of certain things in the schedule. I

mean there's, there's typically, even if I have in my schedule that I have downtime

and that downtime is like non. Is reading, you know,

reading and relaxing and doing anything that's mindless before bed. But I will

continually fight and say, like, I have got to do this other thing that I

know is so important. And sometimes it's work, sometimes it's to

get some kind of financial stuff organized or some kind of productive

action, which is not what I want to do. But if I can stick with

it and trust the schedule that I made this when I was in a sane

moment and it's going to be healthy, it's going to be good and go ahead

and do it. I mean, even the other day, it was on Sunday, I had

in my schedule, I had to go on a run. At least in my. I

had planned to go on a run. And I just kept saying, I'm not going

to do this. I'm not going to do this. I'm just going to relax and

watch football. And then I went on a run. I did it and it kind

of just started for a good Sunday evening. And then I felt good about starting

the week. So it was just a really positive thing. And you know, one thing

about Sherman is he's a. I talked to him about this One,

discipline here. Because I told Sherman and I were golfing on Sunday,

and Sherman's a very good golfer, and I'm a beginner golfer. He's given me some

tips, being my caddy, really good, fun stuff. But I shared with him there that

my struggle with nicotine. And I thought, you know, this is something

that. That I've had for the last four or five years. And I

said, what's your best advice? Kind of, you know, to. To stop. And one of

the things he said was to, you know, to set

discipline constraints, you know, like, so. So and

then to cut back as you go, but. And to replace it with a better

positive habit as you go, which, you know, I'm. I. I stopped for a year,

but then I use it to medicate my ADHD

mind, you know, slow me down. It's like. And so. But

that's. It's courageous to, To. To.

To follow through for yourself, to show up for yourself. Like you're having. You having

a whiskey. Nothing wrong with that. You know, it's. I'd like to have another one,

but I'm just gonna go do something else really positive. So the first

point, first benefit that I want to share when.

When you as a leader are. Are willing to do the hard thing and be

courageous and have the fierce conversation and deal with the issues your own.

This sounds very counterintuitive, but your own anxiety

as a leader is going to actually

decrease. It's going to decrease for a bunch of different

reasons. One, because you're going to have some positive results by being courageous, and you're

going to start to create this memory bank of situations where

you face something and it actually went well. Yeah, right.

So you were addressing an issue and they actually were receptive. Maybe in the

past you had issues you addressed with somebody and they were not, but now you

have a good experience, you're going to decrease your anxiety

because you're actually focusing on something that you can control versus something that's out of

your control. You know, it's out of your control. What you do with your behavior

is in something, you can influence the fact that you're going to do it and

check it off your list. That's not necessarily the best way to live, but

you're showing up for yourself, and then you're realizing that I can still do these

things even when I don't feel like it's right, which is really positive for

everybody. Keep promises to yourself. Keep promises to yourself. So you're showing

up for yourself. That's a huge benefit to living this way. And

it's just going to build from there. Just curious, who helped

you put the times of running and working out in your

calendar? Kelsey helped me with that, actually. One thing

is. Is great about a calendar for me is to say, like, how does this

look? Is this doable? So if I'm notorious

for putting in too many business appointments in a day. So there were times in

my career when I put like, you know, six clients in a day. Oh, yeah.

Or not enough margin in my day. And you run it by somebody like

Kelsey who's skilled at that, which is not my skill set. It's like, this is

what margin looks like and you can handle it. And then I can show up

better for myself and not feel like a failure because it. It does make me

feel if I don't get things done, I don't like it. And it kind

of builds on itself. That, okay, I dropped the ball here and here. And it

wasn't really things that people didn't know about. I'm not really one of the people

who will not. I don't want to let other people down, but I'll let myself

down. Right, Right. And that's courageous leadership for

myself. Because we are leading ourselves. Yes.

Yep. Okay, so let's go on to the next benefit. You can ask us some

questions related to that. I'm not going to share it yet, but I will share

it in a moment. Okay. How do you encourage courage in

the people that you lead? It

kind of goes back to what I had said. The last bit is doing small

things. Begin. What I told Adam is like, begin

small. And that's going to be your best bet. So especially

if you haven't. It's just like a muscle. If you've broken your

arm, it takes a while to build back that bicep and the

tricep. So the same thing with courage. It's like,

do courageous things. Small. And

whether it's getting up out of bed in the morning when your alarm clock goes

off, keeping to your schedule, making a well

thought out schedule and kind of keeping to it.

Like, don't add salt into your.

Don't salt your food. Something small. It's nothing. We take

in enough salt. You don't need it. So just like. So you'd

build on that small thing. So if it's with a

co worker or with a client, it's like, okay, what's

one small, courageous step you can take this

week and come back and tell me about it? And it's

just like Adam said, it builds and then you're much more

able to handle the bigger things that were going to come along.

Yeah. The best way to handle the crisis that you have not faced yet is

how you live your day to day and you're preparing for it. Because that

reminds me, there's this list of 27 brave actions. And I want to just tell

you, like there's a link in the show notes to a blog post called

7 Benefits of Being Brave. And in there you can download a PDF

of 27 brave actions and some of the things on there, like

call up a friend to share something funny that you've experienced recently that could be

a brave action for somebody. Ask for help or advice from someone that you're close

to. Just ask me. Like, that can be hard, especially for helpers

to be, you know, if you're used to being the one helping and you're saying,

hey, can you help me? Wow. I mean, that was a big challenge for me

at times in my life. Go to a workout class you haven't attended before. Meet

new people, you know, try a new hobby. Wow. Talk to a

stranger. Those are different things. But if you make a commitment and you do it,

and that's the thing for me is how do I encourage other people to be

courageous, is you help them to see there's

a commitment they can make that could be really beneficial for them. So at

the end of a coaching session, the clients commit to taking some kind of an

action. And so they have something that they've gleaned from.

They've gained insight from the conversation. And then they're like, I want to do this

because we'll ask them, like, what do you want to do to move the needle

here? And they're like, well, I'm going to do, you know, I'm going to have

that conversation. That's tough. I'm going to make to fire that employee. Or that's usually

not one of their commitments. But I mean, let's hope not. Let's hope not. But,

you know, and then we can add to that. Sometimes I'll say, well, you do

this, you know, I think this would really benefit you. So go ahead. And

you've mentioned a lot about wanting to

say or to apologize to people. You've gotten this

insight about how you came across most likely to other people and you want to

apologize. So can you apologize to three people when we met, meet

in two weeks? Can you do that? Yeah, I can do that. Okay, so. And

then. And they're, they're going to be energized by it, I mean, you can pick

up. I'm not going to ask what you think they're not willing to do, but

it's something we recognize could be challenging for them, and I can do that. And

you can do that for people in your life. Like, hey, could you do this

like a golf coach? Could you go and just

hit 30 golf balls with one hand just to strengthen your left arm and just

try that drill and tell me how it went? Yeah, I could do that. That'd

be cool. Like, okay, I want to. I want to do that. But it had.

It took somebody asking. It's like, you know, if you were not asked, then

where. Why would we even think about it? No, I didn't know about that drill.

I didn't know I could even try to do that. I mean, to me, it's

like, I didn't know I could actually make contact that way. Well, yeah, I'll do

that. I'll do that. Yeah. And so could you do it. So you have to

ask. And if you don't ask, because that shows that you believe in somebody when

you ask them to do something, it really shows them that you believe. It's like

when you ask someone for help, you're showing that you believe they have. This way

they could help you. Right. And that's really pretty stinking cool. Especially if it's an

area of expertise for them, and they're like, damn straight I'd like to help you.

Like. Like, do you like giving golf advice? Is that. I do. I

do. Good. I do. But I always. Anytime I

always ask first is like, hey, do you need some help? I played with a

guy on Sunday morning, and he was all over the place, and he. I

said, before I say anything, would you like any tips? And he

goes, I would love them. And I was just like. And by the end of

nine holes, he was like, I can't thank you enough for the tips you gave

me. I'm healing the salt all so well. And I was like. Walked

away and like, good job, Max. Yeah. Because you're very good at it, and you

come approach it with a. With a. With a healthy

approach, you know, like, so. So, man, I'm glad to know you do really enjoy

that, because I don't know, unless I'd asked you, like, I'm assuming you enjoy it,

but. Or maybe you just don't want to play with bad guy down. You're just

trying to get into. Come on, you got to do this. So we get on

with the next hole. We've been at this hole way too long. He's coaching

you, Adam. No, absolutely. It's very good feedback.

Okay, ready for the next question? Yeah, let's go. Okay.

What's the hardest truth you've had to communicate as a leader, and how

did you do it?

The hardest truth? Well, I go back to a situation I

had probably in my first pastorate. I was young.

I had a couple secretaries who had had

some difficulties with me

insofar as some of the things I asked of them and that what they asked

of me and they kind of wanted to be more like co pastors

with me. And I was just like, you know, no, this is kind of

my job and I want you to help me, though. But

they wanted more of the co pastoring, and so they said, I'm going to leave.

So I went out on a limb and I hired this

wonderful woman from Great Britain

and just a wonderful girl she

was probably. And I've said this to other secretaries I've had. She was the

best I've ever had as a secretary. I could start a project

and she would finish it. I would start a sentence, she would finish it.

And one day, though, after about a couple

years as my secretary, she didn't

communicate something to me that was very vitally necessary

at the time. And I knew it.

And she was coming to the pastoral council meeting as secretary, and

I saw her outside and I asked her to come outside for a second so

I could talk to her. And I relayed.

It was the hardest thing, really, one of the many hard things I've ever had

to do to a person I deeply respected and loved.

I had to say, you failed here in a very

bad way, in a very vital point.

And I need. I need you not to do that.

And I can't afford you to ever do that again.

And with the Great Britain kind of way of living,

with a stiff upper lip, she just said, it will

never happen again, Father. Thank you. And I.

I was scared what would the next day bring? Would

it be a frosty fridge in there, in the office, or.

And it was just normal, back to normal. But

doing that courageous thing that I didn't want to do is

I did it with kindness to her. I wasn't mean. I was just, this is

the facts and here where we failed, and I can't have you do

that again. And I think she also, she appreciated it that I was just frank

and I wasn't yelling or angry about it. I was just like, here we

go. Yeah. This matter of fact matter. Yeah. How did that impact

her Performance. She never failed

in that area ever again. And in fact, she went on to greater,

better, and greater things as secretary. Yeah, but

no, actually, that was the thing. It didn't affect her performance

in any other negative way, which was my fear is,

like, if I tell her this, is she gonna be very

cold, right? Oh, yeah. She could be defensive or defensive.

All those things. Being vulnerable by actually doing that. So,

you know what? The thing that comes to mind for me is when I had

to confront that situation. I referenced back when

I. Many years ago, when I had to and did

confront the person involved and said this was wrong. And

that was really terrifying. And I can think

of two friends right now that had to have

a. That. That I could tell when they. Because it came to mind.

Like my. A friend who. Who told me, adam, you know,

you need to work on your insecurity, you know,

self confidence, because sometimes it oozes out of

you. And. And that. That was hard because I don't want to actually

want to look at that, you know, and so. But. But it. But it helped

me because I would look. That's not me, you know, who are you talking about?

But I knew they cared about me too, so I couldn't just discount it because

there must be something that they're saying that really is accurate there. And

I can just. As we talk about. I think, man, that was probably really hard

because they had to probably think about that. Like, I'm going to say this to

Adam when I see him, and they did in two people, you know,

So I can think of. It's pretty. Pretty powerful. Those are good

friends to have. Those are good friends to have. Yeah. And I've had that. So.

Yes. In what ways does vulnerability

play a role in courageous leadership?

I think it's a vital part of it, because when you're

courageous, one of the things about

engaging in courage. Courage is doing something that's hard,

whether it's small or big. But courage

and action doesn't mean you're right.

You can be courageous and make a bad

mistake and fail in some way. And

so really, vulnerability is that willingness to understand

that this could be wrong. And it's okay

if I find out on the tail end or wherever, somewhere along the

line that I find out that this was not the right decision,

this wasn't the right way to handle it. I did do

a hard thing, but now I need to have learned from that and

see how I could do it better. But that vulnerability,

willing to be vulnerable, willing to take a chance

and recognize those. And being

Willing, really, for the feedback that you might need. And

understand that it's not an attack. It's

the facts. People don't like receiving

feedback sometimes. No, no, no.

It's. Yeah, there's an art to it. Yeah, there's an art to everything,

really. But it's. I think it's a key thing if you're not

willing to recognize that you may not be right in

everything you do, because guess what? You're human.

So expect to fail from time to time. Expect to be

wrong. And, yeah, you know, it's a

difference. One of my favorite spiritual writers says, you know, it's a difference

between the way you work it, look at the world. Is the world

a war or is it a playground?

And it's two different things. Yeah. If you're in war, you

die and you make a mistake. If it's a playground, you

dust off your knees, get up and go back at it. And you're learning every

step of the way. Yeah. Yeah. So if.

If I'm vulnerable with people, I will tell myself then I feel

this, this, this. This attitude of, like, if I'm vulnerable and I share

that I'm struggling here, or I. I don't have it all

figured out, or I'm asking questions, then I'm going to be perceived as being weak,

and then my team's gonna lose confidence me or my clients are gonna lose confidence

me. And that hasn't actually turned out to be the case. You know, I,

I. You know, I have. I have history of that now. So, like I said

when I. I didn't want clients to know that I was divorced, and it's still.

When I get a new client, I don't want to necessarily tell them that, but

I do. I mean, it always comes out, because I think that could lead to

judgment, but very rarely has it, actually. I mean, it has. But very

rarely has it, because they almost see that as,

like, that. It's like you may understand pain and

empathize more because of what you've been through, but

it still is there. Like, it's still that I want to be guarded. I don't

want to let people know that I'm struggling. I don't want to be. I want

to isolate and kind of hide out. But why don't I remember that? It's so

crazy. Like, I know that. Okay, you know, so, like,

I could have. And I think today even, like, I have been going a

hundred miles an hour in some ways, professionally, because of a lot of

transition and change. And so, I mean, I didn't

want to share with my team that I haven't felt like I've

really done the best job of

pursuing potential business growth opportunities

and really taking advantage of that. I didn't want to tell them that, hey,

getting all this stuff on paper related to our process,

I'm not the best at that. But actually that opened up a door to get

help because I was one to admit it, but I still, in my mind, I

think I'm letting them down. I'm letting them down. And it's really

interesting. But that's, and I'm being, being there. There's

vulnerability that's real and genuine and then there's also false kind

of vulnerability. And this is what I've seen because people who have been in

manipulative relationships and even had

narcissistic type dynamics in a relationship, so

vulnerability can be used to get what somebody wants. So, you know,

like I, they, they're being vulnerable in a sense, but it's used

to, to manipulate and to pull you in. It

doesn't mean that it's genuine. It doesn't mean they really believe that. I mean, in

a sense it's really lying. It's like they're saying what could get

you to, you know, it's, it's, it's, it

seriously could be even predatory behavior. You know, you think of

some of the stuff that. Oh, you're right. Right. I mean, it's like, so. Yes.

And I'm not saying that don't go out diagnosing people

as a narcissist because they pull your heartstrings. That's not,

this is one of the most misdiagnosed thing. And people use the word narcissist and

they really, you know who. The one other thing I want to ask them is

like, well, who diagnosed them as a narcissist? Because they'll say, you know, my

narcissistic sister in law. Okay, well, who diagnosed your sister as a

narcissist? Okay, so. And then they really, they really have it. I don't want to

say that in a judgmental way, but like, what makes you believe that they're a

narcissist? And often it's just, you know, very kind

of. Well, she's always wanting to go to the same restaurant and not really listening

to me. And she's always talking about herself. But that's not really narcissistic

behavior. They may be very insecure, you know, and so, so we got to be

very careful with that. But that's like the mental health ish concern of the,

of the, of the year. You know, you have these different things, whatever it is.

But, but you know, the thing that the second really big benefit of being

courageous is that it's going to improve your relationships. And, and you have to almost

talk yourself into believing that like it's going to improve your

relationships. So, so by being courageous, it's going to improve, it's going to

actually build trust in your clients and in your employees. It's going to build

trust in your family, even though they may not like what you have to say.

It's going to build trust because asking a question of somebody can be a brave

interaction, especially if they're very guarded person. You're asking them a very hard, hard question

and you know there's going to be pushback, but you're still asking. That's, that's tough.

Ask any parent of a teenager. Yeah, ask any parent of a teenager.

Teenage girl I can speak directly to. That can be, can be tough. But,

but you know, it doesn't mean you don't want to ask a question. Right. This

mean. So that's the bravery part. It's going to improve relationships. And

sometimes what I find is when we listen to our anxiety, it's self

sabotage. It's relationship sabotage. Because if I keep

listening to these fears, I don't have to deal with the relationship dynamics that are

going to make for the intimacy is on the other, other side of actually

being courageous in your relationships is where the intimacy actually is

because you got through. And by intimacy, I'm not thinking anything sexual. Right, right.

Completely. Closeness in relationships. Right. Having no fear about

how those other people are going to perceive or use you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which

is so refreshing because how much anxiety do we get in our interactions

when we're trying to predict their, their response? Right, right.

And we don't listen to them then because we're already formulating a response. When we're

zoning into what they're saying, it's like that anxiety cannot coexist

with us being genuinely curious and what they're actually saying. It's

amazing. So we're being, we were brave. We are actually putting ourselves in a

situation where we're not going to be anxious when we're brave. The other

side of that bravery is the growth, which is pretty, pretty sinking.

Amazing. So you know, like real situation here.

I had a business owner guy, you know, and who,

who has struggled at times with building

the connections with his team and you know, he doesn't necessarily see it all

the time. And by the Way I just. To protect the identities of the businesses

that I work with, I sometimes change their genders as I talk about them. So

I don't. You're not gonna know whether it's a he or a she. But anyway,

he, he, you know, I'm not gonna, but they,

they, he, he's done some really brave things like having important conversations,

scheduling meetings with his team, doing things. And what,

what I have seen is he's getting more feedback

on his own leadership. That's helping. They're feeling

more comfortable saying this would be helpful in the company and they're identifying more

dangers in the company, like red flags. We need to deal with this because the

lines of communication through his bravery have opened up because he's

being vulnerable and they're seeing that they can share openly with him. Right. Which

is great because I mean, how many leaders do you hear this say, you know,

share whatever you want, you know, be open. And then, you

know, it's for, you know, that you can't really share. Open. No. Right.

You know, and I really hope that's not me because I do

believe that has been me at times. I mean, I've gone by the cliche

to my daughter, like share whatever you want. And I don't, I'm probably not giving

out that vibe because I'm not really flexible in certain areas. But even

though I look back and I say, because there was a period of time where

it was kind of a non negotiable with Emerson that she goes to youth group,

right. And, and then, but she did not want to go for a period of

time when she was 17. I mean, she, she did not want to go. And,

but then, even then, you know, I look back on those at times like, no,

this is something we do and I want, I really think it's going to be

an important thing. And then she would go and then she'd get back plugged in

and then she'd be excited about it. She would never really say thank you, dad.

But I look back and think there are times like that, you know, so,

so I think as I, as she grows, you know, I have

these, I have these daydreams where Emerson's like thanking me for challenging her

there, like coming back saying, dad, you know, I'm really grateful that you challenged

me to stay plugged into church or I really glad you challenged me

to, you know, stick it out with something like her job at Chick

Fil A. She wanted to quit, wanted to quit. And I was just like, you

know, Emerson, you gotta, you gotta make sure you leave there

in the right way. And I'm gonna put a hard no on this thing. Right.

And, you know, she was 14, and. And so I was gonna say, wait.

15 more years and she'll come back and say how smart you were. Yeah, I

was gonna say, it just takes. I don't want to wait 15 years. Like, I

want her to say when she's 18. 18. Yeah, that's not gonna. I mean, it's.

Yeah, it's not gonna happen. So. Yeah.

Yeah. Okay, so let's go to the second. The third. The third benefit and ask

us some questions on this topic as well. Then I'll kind of highlight that area

as well. The benefit of being courageous. What's a mistake you made

that required courage to admit? And how did it impact your

leadership? Actually, I.

I've been very blessed in making lots of mistakes. Oh. And

I made some big ones when I was very young as.

And I was at my first parish, and

I can still remember exactly. I can't remember what

the argument was about or what the

situation was particularly, but I remember going

in there, kind of full of myself and kind of saying,

you know, I kind of know this religious stuff. I kind of know

theology. I kind of know church stuff. So let me

help you be the. Let me be the guide, and I'll kind of tell you.

So I presented this situation to the pastoral council, and they all

said, you should do B. Let's do B as

a parish. And again, I thought to myself,

I've got a master's. I got two masters. I've got this,

this, and this. I think we should do

A. And in fact, we're going to do A. Because you

had the master's degrees. Yeah, because I had all the letters. I know. I

got letters. I got the black clothes. I got everything.

So I. We left that. You know,

there was a little feedback, but I just. I was like, this is what we're

going to do. So I left that meeting, and about

five days later, a week later, I remember

discovering that those eight

people were correct, and I should have done B, and

I should have enforced B, whatever it happens to be. And I just

knew it. And at the same time, I was like, oh, my gosh, I've

made a big mistake. And how am I going to tell

these people that I've made this big mistake? And so actually, I

called them back for an emergency meeting

the next day, and I said, everybody that can make it, make it. And I

got up in front of all of them and I said, I Want to tell

you I made a big mistake.

I should have gone with your B, not my A. You

were right. And the impact on me was that

as. And they were like, thank you. Great.

Let's keep working together. And that's really what it

taught me, was that I have

my own set of particular skills that I really have

honed well now after 40, 60 years.

But everybody else in the room has some skill set that probably I

don't have, and I need to listen to it, or they have perspective

that I don't have. I'm never going to know what it's like to have a

kid. I mean, I've dealt with lots of family issues in

my life. I've got my own family that I have to deal with.

So I need to be able to say, hey, this single mother, this

single father, you need to listen to them. It's. They have

some insights that you do not have and never will.

And you have some insights they may never have. And so it's taught me to

be much more collaborative, really, in effect. Yeah. And

in some respects, I'd say vulnerable to what someone else may say

that I may cringe at or just not understand

yet. And maybe you will have a kid.

Yeah. Who knows? Well, let's know. No, no,

no. No babies. Okay. No. No plans. May you have a step.

Step kids, you know? Well, it's possible

that. That's very possible. Yes, it could be. Okay. Yeah. We're trying to

set you up. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Yeah. So, you know,

my. My grandfather had my aunt when he was 50,

and so Adam. So, hey, who knows? So. Yeah, that's right.

I'm 51, though. Yeah. A little bit. A little bit different there. So not much.

I. It's hard for me. One. One

situation that was hard

is. Is admitting to. There was

a time where I admitted that I had lied to my daughter.

I admitted that I had lied to my daughter about. About something.

And I can still, in my mind, kind of rationalize and justify it,

but I said, you know, that wasn't right. And I'm not going to go into

details of it, but. Right. But I told her.

And hey, you know, because I. We had talked about being honest and

this and that, and I kind of, in my mind, I justified. Well, that really

wasn't lying. That really wasn't lying. But I could have said something different, like,

I'm not willing to do that because I made an agreement and I didn't follow

through on the agreement I had. And I justified it, saying that's just because

I was. Because that's what dads do in certain

situations. So, you know, but that's it. That's kind of

freeing though. Yeah. To me to say, you know, Emerson, I did that and I'm.

I'm sorry and I apologize. I apologize is a

word. I think it's important for kids to hear that their parents make

mistakes. I apologize. I think that's good. Yeah.

So. So, Sherman, what kind of courageous

example do you hope to leave behind for others?

That I. The example I would hope would be

that you sometimes have to make the hard decision

after prayer, consideration, speaking with others,

sharing with others, being vulnerable in those ways that

you have to be able to make a

hard decision, even though, let's say, like in my case, the

system does not want you to ever break away from that.

And so that's the example I would hope I would be is that

I'm not crazy, I'm not whacked

out. And I made a hard decision that a lot of people

wouldn't want to make and not one I necessarily wanted to

make, but I made it. And so that gives them

maybe the insight that they might need to say, is

this something I need to consider.

That couple things

that he

was willing to face his past and mistakes

and go in and.

And deal with it and that

I can do the same thing and not discount

that. As you think about being courageous, that

internal courage that you're facing, those areas that you haven't faced, the

insecurity driven areas, whether that was when you were 5 years old or

10 years old or something, and you're able to say and admit, although

people around you may not admit that that had a big impact on you, that

that has impacted my central nervous system. And I react to people

based on that. And I'm going to do what it takes, as painful as it

is, to get the freedom from it. So I'm not going to be living there

anymore. And to admit that and to start then recognizing then

when you are being impacted. So I mean, that's one that comes.

Comes to mind. I mean, to be. He was a person that was

willing to apologize and change, to say he was. He's.

He's. To admit that he.

He was wrong and change based on that. And that's a

work in progress because I can think of the emotional reactions that I can have

where I've said I was sorry, but I have still an emotional reaction to a

certain situation, which is actually a reminder that I got a lot more work to

do. But then I've let people down

in those situations, you know, so that is a big deal.

It's okay to make mistakes, but. Yeah, right.

Yeah. Okay. If your

team described you in one sentence about

courage, what would it be?

I would say that they would say

he, he is a renaissance man insofar as

he's able to take in lots of information

and make the courageous decision.

Yeah. And I would say for me, he was

willing to. As much as he talks himself out of it

and second guesses, ultimately he did the

hard thing to grow and that I

can do it too. Yeah, I can do it too. And

part of that to me has been just willing to talk about the hard because

you realize that if you don't talk about the stuff you've gone through, even it

for one, people don't talk about it because they haven't worked through it a lot

or because they have shame, which is indication that they're blaming themselves

and they're not working through it. There's not talking about it much and, and they

don't have that as a resource. So the past is one of the most valuable

assets that you have. Your past is one of the most valuable assets

that you have to help other people. When you see it that way, not only

does it motivate you to work on, motivates

you to get to the other side so you can help other

people. Because ultimately I believe that's what people want to do, have the impact

on the world that they believe that and they know inside that they were given

a gift of life to have an impact, whether they're 95 years

old or 5 or 6 or 18 or whatever. So.

So that brings me to the third major benefit and I'm gonna share the major

benefit after I share one thing with you. If you found this helpful, you know

where to go. Go to shatterproof yourself light in the link

and you are gonna get seven small steps to a giant leap. It's a 25

minute video and a four page worksheet you can complete. You can download the app,

you get the daily action worksheet, which is a wonderful tool to get out of

your own fear and into your progress. And you get these

seven steps so you're gonna get some clarity right away that you can check out.

So you want to go there and check it out and it's going to help

you and challenge you to be more courageous. I guarantee it. I

guarantee it. So the third benefit is that when you

are courageous, more courageous as a leader, it's going to increase your

self confidence overall, not only in your professional life, but in your

personal life. So if you're willing

to go and face one fear when you have a hard conversation, it may give

you, and it will over time, but it may not feel like it right away,

but you're actually willing to go ahead and do something with more confidence

in another area of your life as well. And what is confidence? Confidence is faith.

I had heard a sermon one time, it's con fide. I do not know this

for sure, but fide is, has a Greek root or whatever.

Latin, I'm not sure. Latin. Okay. So with faith, and you're growing

that faith that you believe in yourself, that what you have to offer is worthy.

And that's a great way to live. Because that's not arrogance. That's not

believing we're better than somebody else. It's not being in one of those boxes, better

than, worse than, need to be seen, all those kinds of things. It's actually

living in your own skin and realizing that you have

something to offer and you have tremendous value to add. And your

courage is going to give you more and more of that. Who would not want

that? Exactly. So like, what better thing? And that's

really what people are looking for. Like, are we thinking. The leaders we work with,

they're wanting more confidence, to live with faith. Not to live stuck in their head,

overanalyzing, calculating all their responses, but to let go

and to do the next right thing and to trust God in the process

to have faith, which is really cool. So in review, when you live

courageously, it's going to decrease your anxiety. That's one of the big benefits.

It's actually going to improve your relationships and it's going to increase your

confidence, which is a byproduct of improved relationship and decreasing

anxiety. It's one of the next steps there. It's like we're going to get more

confident in ourselves because you're not listening to your fears, you're actually listening

to faith and hope and living there as well. So you

will make my day if you Based on this content Take an Action There is

no positive change unless you take action. 80% of

making a life transformation is taking action. 20% or less

is insight. Insight without action and commitment

isn't going to make help you grow and make those changes. That's the scary

part. It's the most necessary part. There's no positive change until you

decide to change. Deciding means you're eliminating other options. You have all

these other things you can do and you're deciding to do this

one action that you know and you believe is the best. Next right step. Good

is the enemy of the great. Your legacy is the impact your life has on

other people. You decide your legacy. So I'm going to

close today the way I always do. Live the life today that you want to

be remembered for 10 years after you're gone. You decide your

legacy. No one else. I appreciate you greatly.

I'm very grateful for Sherman and Kelsey today. Thank you. And I will talk

to you very soon next time. Bye.

Bye.