Tell me about your vision.
You know, my vision when it comes to how I kind of run things both in my life and
then in business is I look at the framework of stewardship as sort of the lens
through which I run things.
So what does stewardship mean?
Right.
Well, in my way of definition and my way of thinking, and I've discovered that's
one of those words, it means a lot of different things to a lot of different
people.
So I actually ask people a lot, what does it mean to you?
But for me, it's that idea of that there are things that are bigger than me.
There are things that I've been blessed with that I've been given that my job is
not to own them.
My job is not to hold on to them.
My job is not to control them, but rather my job is to take care of them and use
them in a way that helps not just me, not just my family, but helps all of those
people around me, all of those folks that come into my circle.
And it could be as little as, you know, holding the door open for somebody at
the store.
It could be as big as working with them as a coach and trying to help them, you
know, really figure out what they need to do and how they need to do it.
So it needs to happen in all of those moments of my life, from the
smallest to the largest.
Absolutely.
And I see behind you, it looks like you've got a book inspired living.
Talk to me about that.
Yeah.
So that, my joke is this book took me 35 years to write because a lot of the
stuff in it as things that, you know, I've been struggling with or beat my head
against or worked with other people in over 30 plus years.
But the idea behind the book was kind of taking those three areas of stewardship,
which usually people will talk about that in terms of time, talent and
treasures, right?
Money, then our day-to-day time.
And then talent, of course, is kind of that big bucket of everything else, right?
All the things, our attitude or our leadership, all of those sorts of, of
those are communication.
And so when I looked at those three areas and said, okay, how can I crystallize
what I do with folks, how I do it, and bring it down into something that is a
framework or a system that people could apply so that you can get better in the
areas of time, the areas of talent and the areas of treasures.
And that's sort of what came out and got crystallized in the way of the book so
that you could take these things.
And not necessarily completely master them in one day, but by applying that
framework and that system over time, get better and better and better and better
until you get to a point where you're really using it and doing it well.
Yeah, absolutely.
And I see that you recently published this book.
So congratulations.
July 2nd of 2024.
Yeah, exactly.
What's that process been like, the publishing process?
I know a lot of leaders listening in are looking at doing the same thing and it's
a, it's a very intense labor of love.
So the first trick that I'll tell everybody is I did not write this book.
I spoke this book.
And I tell people that because I hate writing and a lot of people out there
that are like, I have a book in me, but I just don't want to sit down and write it.
Well, I spoke this book.
So in my case, I have a podcast, it's called the inspired stewardship podcast.
And I started talking through these ideas on the podcast, began to kind of
crystallize them and get them formed.
And then when I sat down to write the book, instead of sitting down and
writing a bunch of stuff, I literally went back to those old podcast episodes
and started pulling them out, pulling them together and kind of trying to
create an outline, create a framework.
I worked with a coach.
I worked with somebody that helped me.
I'm a coach.
I believe in coaching.
I believe in when you're not an expert in an area, you go find somebody who is,
and you work with them.
I worked with a coach.
He helped me kind of pull all of those disparate pieces together, put them
into something that actually made sense.
Identify gaps.
You know, okay, you're missing something here.
Okay, great.
Let's go create it and fill in those gaps.
And then as far as working with the publisher, I was very fortunate in that
the coach that I worked with has a standing relationship with a publisher
in the form of Morgan James.
And so he was able to get me, you know, kind of in front of them.
And they looked at the manuscript and they said, absolutely, this is
something that's right in our wheelhouse.
We'd love to publish it.
And so I said, you know, sat down and got the publishing deal.
And I'll tell you from getting the idea of the book to the book
actually appearing in stores.
It was for me, it was about 24 months.
So it was almost two years from, you know, Hey, I'm ready to write a book to.
I've got a book in my hand, you know, is about a 24 month process.
Right.
Very good.
So you mentioned the publisher.
Who's the coach?
So the coach is a gentleman by the name of Nick Pavlidis.
He's a friend of mine.
Honestly, how I met him in the first place was he was a guest on my podcast.
I tell everybody that my podcast is my book because I interviewed
people for my book.
Guess what?
Every single one of those was somebody I had on my podcast, the
gentleman, Dan Miller, who did the forward.
He's always been a virtual mentor.
He was a guest on my podcast.
That's how I was able to reach out to him and say, Hey, would you be willing
to do the forward, you know, everything in my book from the content.
To the connections to the network really, in my case, came out of the podcast.
That's fantastic.
That's amazing to see the overlap and to hear the story portrayed
in such a concise and precise way.
Let's talk about the goal.
What's your goal for being on the show and for, you know, in relation to your
book as well, let's look at both of those.
I don't want to box you in.
I'm excited about it.
Cause again, there's a lot of people getting into the podcast world right now.
There's a lot of people getting into the publishing world and we're seeing more
and more people step up and rise as leaders at different levels.
So what are your goals?
I'm sure they align with some of what other people are up to.
Well, a lot of it for me is that kind of what I just was talking about where all
of this stuff came out of the connectors I made through the podcast.
What I've found over the years, and I think this is alignment with my vision
of stewardship is the more I make connections and actually lift other people
up, the more I get lifted up.
And so when I come on a show, when I make any sort of connection, my first
question is sort of not, not what's in it for me, but rather what can I do to serve
the people that are listening?
What can I do to serve the host?
What can I do to serve the audience?
What can I do to serve those other things?
And here's the truth.
Obviously, I still think about what's in it for me.
I'd love for folks to pick up the book and get something out of it and give me
feedback and say, wow, this was important.
I'd love to find clients that are interested in working with me as a coach.
I'd love to find listeners for my shows.
All of those things are part of it.
They are goals.
I'm not going to lie and say they're not, and they're important.
But for me, those goals have to be secondary to the primary goal of serving
other folks.
And what's funny is if you focus really hard on that part, you sort of naturally
get the other part because people that connect with me, they're like, oh, I'd
like to check out the book.
Then they go pick up the book as opposed to me coming in and going, buy my book.
And you'll get everything you want.
Just buy my book.
You'll suddenly be a celebrity and successful and lose 50 pounds.
It doesn't work that way.
Thank you for being here today.
I'm really happy that you tuned in to Vision Pros Live.
I'm looking forward to seeing your reactions as these episodes continue to move forward.
This is going to get more and more fun.
We'll have more and more engagement as well.
We'll invite people to participate in the show.
And thank you for giving us your time and attention.
Have an excellent time building out your vision and becoming a Vision Pro yourself.