What's going on guys?
Thomas here just to give you a quick intro to part one of this great conversation that
Shawn and I have with Mike Wallace.
And let me tell you, it's not a conversation you're going to want to miss.
We kick off by delving into Mike's incredible journey from his corporate executive days
to finding his purpose within the embrace of our church community, Amplified Church.
It's a testament to the transformative power of faith and community.
We also delve into leadership philosophy, emphasizing Mike's identity as a servant
leader and the nuanced aspects of success and excellence.
Guys, thank you for joining us for part one of this great conversation with Mike.
See you in there.
All right.
Welcome to this episode of Technically Short.
I'm Thomas.
And I'm Shawn.
And this is the most enthusiastic intro we've had.
We've had a couple of special guests recently, and this time we have Mike Wallace.
Let's go Mike.
What's up everybody?
It's great to be here.
Thank you guys for having me.
Yeah, for sure.
And like, we never, if you guys don't know who Mike is, I think a lot of people who are
listening probably do, but if you don't know who Mike Wallace is, he's come into our lives
through our church, just like a lot of people that have been on the podcast.
And he leads, leads would be the proper term?
Yeah, leads, manages, the Inspired Collective Manager for Amplify Him.
And we're going to dive into it.
We'll dive into this a little bit later on.
But the story of how you came to the church, I really want to dive into.
Absolutely.
You're an executive to unemployed to them working at a church.
And some people hear that and are like, what?
That sounds like a downgrade.
But yeah, we'll go into it though.
Absolutely.
And it's definitely not a downgrade, but we'll go into it.
We always like to start off the episodes with some exaltations of our guests because we
want to have you on the show if we didn't really appreciate who you are as a person.
And we want people to know how we see you to kind of set the foundation.
Yeah, that's great.
Thanks, Ken.
Some of the things I think it's like what first comes to my mind, it's like you're
great at honestly, one thing that I noticed about you really quickly is that you're great
at exalting others and lifting others up and speaking and putting others before yourself.
And speaking, you pull out the good and others and point it out.
And you're consistent with who you are and you say and what you say is how you act.
You're a fantastic leader that we've got to experience within the last however long it's
been.
And you're honestly a great man of God through and through.
I haven't, yeah, I love you man.
I have nothing else to say.
Feelings are mutual.
Thank you, Thomas.
You got to brother.
Thank you for those kind words.
Yeah, what I know about Mike.
Wow.
Mike is awesome.
Why did I say he's awesome?
Is because he loves people.
He loves God.
He's keeping those two commandments God has us to do and he does it really well.
He's an amazing leader because of it.
Because his focus is so much on God that like it just overflows to everything he does.
And that was like the first time meeting Mike I remember like a couple years ago meeting
Mike and I was just like greeting.
I was like, this guy is going to be really cool.
And then like we end up getting to spend a lot of time together doing other stuff for
like men's meetings and missionary trips and stuff like that.
Which was really cool.
But the thing about Mike is he just has such a heart for God and for people.
Like Thomas said, I love you man.
Honestly, that's why you're such a great leaders because you have such a heart for God.
It just overflows to everything else.
Thank you, brother Shawn.
You guys are making me emotional.
We haven't even started yet.
It really means a lot.
It means the world especially come from you guys.
Time does go by really fast.
But you know, I believe that God has put us together, you know, within our church and
here we are now.
I've never done a podcast before.
So there's probably two, no two other guys I'd rather be doing this with.
So thank you for the words guys.
Thank you.
Appreciate you.
Well, with us, we gave you an intro, but could you give a introduction to who you are?
Who is Mike Wallace?
Of course.
All right.
So I am Mike Wallace.
I'm born and raised in Pittsburgh.
This is my city.
I absolutely love Pittsburgh.
I don't think I'll ever leave at this point.
Almost did for a career.
You know, I went to school to be a teacher, graduated from Slippery Rock University after
graduating from Plum High School here.
Never moved away.
I found myself as like a super substitute baseball coach and was trying to find some
school district in the area to call home.
And I never did.
Fortunately, I had a relationship with my high school sweetheart.
So I wasn't really looking for love.
I already was in love with a girl.
Megan, my wife, you know, so I didn't need to worry about that front.
It was really just career.
My wife and I got married in 2015.
And around that same time, I was starting to close the door on my teaching book, so
to speak.
It's next to impossible to find a position in this Western Pennsylvania area.
So I needed to open up a new door, a new book.
And I explored the job world outside of education.
And I found myself working for the same company as my stepdad.
I figured he's been providing for our family for quite some time doing what he's doing.
So why not try my hand at what that is?
He seems happy and does pretty well as far as financials are concerned and a lot of challenges.
So I tried my hand at that.
And I did that for about seven years.
So pharmaceutical world, very challenging and rewarding.
I started out at an entry level position.
So if there's anybody listening that finds themselves currently struggling with that career
front, sometimes we have to swallow pride a little bit.
You have to just step into something, even if it's entry level, even if you feel like
you're overqualified and really learn the industry and get to develop relationships
with people.
And that's really just exactly what I did.
For those seven years, I went from an entry level role all the way up into a senior leadership
role, got laid off this February, found myself unemployed for the first time since I was
eligible to actually legally work and ended up interviewing with Amplify through the grace
of God and many people within our church community.
And got hired on in May of this year, 2023.
And here we are in November.
So that's pretty much, you know, long and short, again, still married.
Eight years married, 17 years together.
I do have a brother that's 10 years younger than me, he's 23.
And my parents both still live in the area in the house I grew up in.
So that's pretty much who I am in a nutshell.
Let's go.
Yeah, that's good.
Yeah.
And I think you know that like, I think I heard it before that you were there for seven
years, but I didn't realize that was the bigger part of your life and how big of a, I knew
it was the bigger part of your life, but how long it was there.
Like I'm running into, I've hit it already or past six years at the company I'm in.
And I spent some time wanting to leave the longest time and then God kept closing doors
on me.
So I just decided to go all in.
Yeah.
Now I know that feeling.
Sometimes you just have to be obedient to it, you know, and if the doors are getting
closed, doors are getting opened, you know, that's kind of a tell, you know.
Yeah.
Like, um, as we move forward, like you, I give you the topic already, we've got this
topic.
This is the fourth installment.
I didn't mention this before, um, at the beginning of the episode, but this is the fourth installment
of the imperfect, imperfect, perfectly imperfect series.
I almost messed it up myself.
Uh, perfectly imperfect series and all based around the topic of excellence.
It's become one of my favorite topics, not just on podcast land, but like just in general,
like in life.
Um, and I like, I'm going to start us off.
This is a very broad and very broad and vague question.
And it's meant to be, um, but from your, from your perspective, what is excellence?
Wow.
Okay.
Um, so I think excellence is basically how you are measuring your success or failure
or how you are setting the stage for whatever it is that you're trying to accomplish, uh,
in life.
You know, um, I spent the better part of my life, I would say striving, I would say trying
to win, you know, I am very competitive.
I think, I think it's innate within us as humans that we all have competitive nature
inside of us.
Um, but like winning, you know, wanting to be the best at anything that I was doing.
It didn't matter if it was board games, you know, if I didn't win the board game, I was
flipping the, you know, flipping the board game or, you know, quit wanting to stop playing
or, uh, you know, the, the bigger things like, you know, uh, career, um, making more money,
you know, having title, you know, the next title, like always looking forward, um, in,
in not really realizing what it is that you have, you know, um, and just being perfect,
you know, and that's, that's not something that any of us are, you know, none of us are
perfect, uh, whether we, whether we are able to say that out loud or not, whether we are
able to, uh, come to terms or accept that, you know, there's, there's only one perfect,
uh, being ever and that is Jesus, you know, um, and that was because he was not of sin.
Uh, he came into this world, uh, you know, by God.
So, uh, you know, for us, for excellence, um, it's something that we all value, uh,
is definitely defined different ways, you know, you know, and it certainly can change
and it has changed for me, you know, over the years.
I think how you measure excellence is really, you know, you know, determine what your definition
is, you know, um, if it's good enough for God, it's good enough.
You know, um, so that's kind of my, my measure of excellence now in my life is kind of that,
that phrase, that statement right there.
Um, whereas before, you know, what's next, you know, what, what more can I do?
What more can I master?
What more can I, uh, learn?
How much more can I make, you know, that, that kind of thing.
Um, you know, and it's funny cause, uh, even when Jesus was here, it wasn't good enough
for people.
Yeah.
You know, so just take that for what it is right there.
You know, if it's good enough for God, it's good enough.
And it's just innate within us that we even, we even weren't satisfied with Jesus, the
perfect, the perfect being, um, when he was here on earth.
So that was, that was a long-winded answer.
That was amazing.
It was literally amazing.
Yeah.
That was a great, a great explanation.
I like, I like that, um, you went back to like striving for the next job title.
Like, um, and that, I mean, I think back to my, like me right now, my job, I've been there
and like, it took four years for that, for, it took four years for me to go from a junior
developer to knocking that junior off my title.
Yeah.
I was getting so, I would get so frustrated with them because I was like, when is that
promotion going to come?
And I knew my boss was rooting for me.
I knew my boss wanted it to happen if he wasn't the guy that signed the paycheck.
And like, it was the, um, whoever manages finances, um, CFO, I guess.
But um, I don't know, but, but like, uh, there was something recently that my boss said,
and I wouldn't even think about this until just now, until I started talking.
But the one thing that like, we've just recently started having at least one on one conversations
once a week.
Yeah.
And it's about leadership growth in the company and growth in the company and what I can be
doing to essentially be worth, not be worthy of the next position, but like, what can I
be doing to actually show that I'm putting my time in, putting the effort in?
And he said something that was interesting.
He was like, Thomas, I didn't think anybody on the team was wanting to, or would be a
fit to put into a higher position until you said something.
And I think that's like one part of like excellence and growth is like kind of taking ownership.
Yeah.
Taking ownership of your actions, taking ownership of like you, what you say you want, you want
to grow into something, but expecting it to just be given to you.
Absolutely.
If you don't mind if I jump in.
So yeah, it's we're, we live in a world currently where, uh, we're, we are used to instant
gratification.
Yeah.
You know, like even right now as we're doing this, right?
Like we can just create this thing and instantly upload it and people can instantly download
it and listen to it.
Yeah.
You know, um, we are so used to that in every single aspect of our lives.
So when it comes to, you know, um, how we are functioning, things like career or things
like, you know, spiritual encounter or change within our hearts or relationships, you know,
you name it, we want it now.
Yeah.
You know, and that's the expectation, you know, so every single time we do that, we're
setting ourselves up for failure every single time.
You know, it's not, it's not up to us.
You know, it is in, it's in God's timing that, that things will happen, you know, and
for a reason in, you know, um, knocking junior off of someone's title.
It's what you, it's what, it's what everybody wants, you know?
Um, but there's a reason why you're, you're in that season.
There's a reason why that you have that on the end of your title in that season, right?
And there will come a time if it's meant to be that it will get knocked off.
And if not, it could be the opposite.
You could quit that job, you know, you could, you could be let go just like that, you know?
Um, so I think it's important that our identities aren't rooted in things like titles or rooted
in things like careers.
Um, cause we, a lot of times when we think of excellence, we do, our minds automatically
go towards that because that is, that is how we, you know, are brought up.
You know, that's partially how I was brought up, which is, you know, going to school, going
to college, getting a job, getting married, you know, buying a house, having a family.
Like those are all the things that we, that's, that's what we know in this world.
So, um, it's very easy to fall into that trap and, uh, you know, I just wanted to, to kind
of share all that based off what you just said.
So,
Oh, that's really good.
So powerful.
So, uh, my question for you, Mike would be, how do you lead with excellence?
Yeah.
Well, first and foremost, it is an absolute blessing, uh, in honor to lead.
Um, I apparently in, in, in my former position, uh, was a leader of leaders, you know, so
not only am I leading people, I'm leading those that are also called to lead.
Right.
So it's, it's definitely challenging.
It's something that I do feel that God has gifted me with.
Um, one of the biggest things that I would say to that question is, um, how you measure
to that is not by your own, uh, accomplishments or your own successes, like day by day or
week over week or month over month.
Like my mission as a leader of leaders is to gauge how everybody else is doing, you
know, um, if, if they are being successful in whatever it is that they're doing, that
is, that is my success.
Like that is, that is what I value, you know, um, if, if that person has a good day or a
good, uh, a good moment or a good, uh, you know, a good service or whatever we're talking
about, my mission was accomplished for that day, you know, so rather than having people
come in and punch the clock nine to five, you know, it's not about what they, it's not
about what I get down or, or maybe, you know, the, the negative things are very easy to
look at.
It's what is it that made their day better?
How can I make their day better?
How can I serve that person?
Um, servant leadership is something that I learned very quickly in my former position
that also translates into the church community.
You know, we have servant leaders, those are our volunteers.
We don't call our, our volunteers, volunteers, we call them servant leaders because that
is what we, that is what we are meant to be doing.
You know, we are, we are serving others.
Um, it's kind of taking the pyramid and flipping it upside down to where I'm not at the top.
Yeah.
You know, I'm, I'm actually at the bottom and you know, how can I help?
What can I do?
What do you need?
Let me break down walls.
Let me break down barriers.
Um, let me get answers for you, you know, and if I, if I, or if somebody says that,
Hey, we're going to do this, just making sure that that gets done, you know, and if not
communicating, you know, um, so there, there's so many different things I could
probably say.
Um, the last thing I would add goes all the way back to my teaching days.
Um, when I was student teaching, I had a co-op that I was student teaching with.
And one of the things that he said to me, that's kind of stuck with me ever since is
if the teacher is working harder than the student, you're doing something wrong.
Right.
Um, and that, that's stuck with me over the years where it's like, of course, as a leader,
you're going to, you're going to be working hard.
You're going to be making sure that, you know, you're, you're, you're working your way through
your, you know, uh, your to-do list or, um, whatever needs accomplished, whatever we need
to do to prepare and plan and pivot.
But then what is, what is everybody else doing?
You know, um, having awareness of that and keeping people engaged, you know?
Um, so I think that that's, that's something that I just wanted to share was the, if the
teacher's working harder than the student as a leader, you're doing something wrong
and you need to figure out what that is sooner than later, because if you don't, you know,
um, things are not going to be excellent and things are going to probably fall apart very
quickly.
Can you actually expand on that a little bit?
Yeah, that's, man, that's a different take.
Absolutely.
You know, um, so I would say, again, I mentioned the word engagement.
So you want to make sure that you are challenging people, not overly challenging to, to, to,
to set people up for failure, but including them, right?
Equip them, empower them.
Uh, you know, hate to say we're all replaceable, but it's truth.
Like you know, I, I am no longer with that former company, you know?
Um, and the people that were in those positions before me, I replaced them.
Um, so you have, oftentimes you have a very short window to have a, have impact on people
or position or whatever it is that you're doing.
So being able to, in that short time, really be an agent of change, you know, they might
not be used to, you know, that challenging that you might give, but people crave that,
you know?
Um, a lot of times people want to know the why behind things.
Why are we doing this?
You know, not just how do we do this?
Why are we doing, you know?
Um, cause you can, you can teach people anything really, you know, but it's really what their
heart, you know, capturing their heart.
Then you, then you don't have to convince people of anything.
Like they, they, they're heart posture for whatever it is that we're trying to do.
And it's going to force the student to then want to do the work, right?
Rather than me saying, all right, guys, turn your books to this page and we're doing this
lesson and this is your homework and it's due, you know, Friday or, you know, or Saturday
or whatever day it is.
Um, like that's, that's not going to get you far, right?
Or um, teaching to a test, like, Hey, we need to cover these things.
So you're ready to, to know the answers to this, right?
If we do what we're supposed to be doing and we treat each other in the ways that we're
supposed to be treating that where I'm serving them, it's, it's, it's just going to all come
full circle, um, at the end of the day.
And the results will be there, you know, the results of like trusting the process, trusting
that, you know, people don't want to do a bad job, whether they're students or workers
or servant leaders or, you know, uh, brothers or sisters or parents or family members, like
nobody wants to do a bad job at whatever it is that they're doing.
They want to be excellent in whatever it is that they're doing, but then you have variables
that come into play, you know, obviously, and as a leader, it's our job to make sure
that, you know, we're minimizing that and then having still working hard, but making
sure that they are working just as hard or harder than, than, than I would be.
Yeah.
So I hope that helps.
That's good.
It's a different take that I was not expecting.
Yeah.
No, cause like you hear a lot, like I read and I listed a lot of Don Maxwell, um, uh,
like his books and his podcasts and stuff.
Um, and they're like, his pure like definition of leadership is influence.
Either it's influence, nothing more, nothing less.
Yeah.
And with excellence, he's, he goes, he says like excellence, I think he, excellence is,
um, what he said, it's exceeding expectations.
Yeah.
And one thing, one thing with that, I think if it kind of feeds into what you were saying,
because it's like, if you're exceed, he said first, if you need to, if you want to exceed
the expectation, you have to know what the expectations are.
Exactly.
And then once you find out what the expectations are, like, like then you can't consistently
exceed them.
And once they, like what the expectations now higher because you exceeded them yet, then
each time, yeah, you're going to be working harder and harder, but that's also going to,
like you said, it's kind of like people will see that you've, you've, you've, um, exceeded
their expectations of you as a leader.
So like they're going, like that's going to move their heart posture because they're going
to be, they're going to be like, wow, he actually does care.
He actually does.
Like I didn't expect, um, I didn't expect him to ask me about how I was after my mom
died.
Yeah.
And I didn't expect, um, I didn't expect them to ask me how my kids are doing.
Like it's like, those are small, like small examples, but like, yeah, just to jump in.
So sorry, you got me, you got me thinking.
So yeah, like it doesn't, it doesn't stop.
Right.
Like there's not an end time on, on that mindset.
Yeah.
Right.
Like it's not just, oh, my work day is over or the school day or a church service or,
you know, whatever, whatever it is that works, that you're, that you're walking.
Like it's always, it's all the time.
It's everywhere.
It's integrity.
Like integrity plays really big into excellence.
Right.
And I think that's what I find integrity is it's what you're doing when nobody's watching.
Yeah.
Right.
Like, are you still the same person?
Yeah.
Uh, are you taking shortcuts on things?
I'm a big sports guy, so a lot of preparation, a lot of off season work would go into the
actual season itself.
Right.
And it's like, if you're taking shortcuts, then what is, what is it going to look like
three months from now?
Right.
We were in the middle of the season and it's like, we shouldn't take it.
They're shortcuts, right.
Or that one person or whatever it is.
Or are you going to call that person out and say, Hey, come on, man.
Like you're better than that.
Like I, when we get to the mid season, like we don't want to, we don't want to look back
and say, man, we could have went harder.
Right.
So like just to relate that cause I'm a huge sports and I'm, but it's the same thing in
life.
It's like, I know that these things are happening, right.
I know that maybe I have knowledge of that thing and I need, I do need to, I do need
to act on it.
I do need to open my mouth and say, even if it's after hours or if it's, if it's outside
of somebody that I usually interact with or somebody that doesn't report to me or, you
know, um, somebody that maybe I had an issue with, you know, before like being able to
have crucial conversations and agreeing to disagree when it comes to excellence is only
going to stretch who you are, stretch your character and stretch your relationship with
those individuals that much more.
So sorry, but that's where my mind went when you said, Oh, that's so good.
Cause I mean, you're not gonna apologize.
So I would like having, this is why we like having so like dynamically different people
on it's not just Shawn and I all the time.
Um, because he brings perspectives that we wouldn't have, we wouldn't have our own.
And you get, we get to grow because of this too.
And now we get to, and the podcast allows us to give it out to other people.
Yeah.
Um, yeah, it's crazy.
Let me touch on this one thing.
Cause like it's been on my mind, I've been thinking like for the longest time until you
just brought this up, that the leader works the hardest.
And that's the way I was like always thought like, and I know like the parts of why God
has not brought me to the be a higher influence yet.
It's because I've, I know that I take shortcuts.
I take shortcuts.
Yeah.
And then like God, God's like, Oh, okay.
You're not ready yet.
So he's just sitting me there, but he's still training me.
He's like almost like I'm red shirt, like red shirt where the other guys are already
playing, but like you already know that you could be the next guy.
The non-force guys know what they're going to do.
Red shirts pretty much like, okay, the rookie ready, get ready for whenever the starter
works that.
So like, he's like, okay, so that's where God has me in a position of where he's red
shirtting me.
He's like, I'm learning from the best leaders of all time.
So that way when God puts me into position of leadership, I'm going to do well.
You know what I mean?
Yeah.
Being redshirted.
Yeah, no, absolutely.
Just quickly.
Um, like even Jesus didn't do everything himself.
Right.
So he could have, and he was the, they called him teacher.
You know, he was the leader, you know, um, he, he purposefully equipped and empowered
people to, to carry out, um, miracles and to do things on this earth that they didn't
think that they could do, you know, prior to him saying, you can do this and I want
you to do this and I need you to do this and I trust you to do this, you know?
Um, so I think that that's very powerful lesson for all of us to just, to look back and say,
well, what is it that, that the Lord has for me?
You know, um, even though I might feel like I'm redshirted or I might feel like I have
junior on my title or I might feel like, you know, um, well, I'm just the student, you
know, I'm not the boss.
Um, I don't need to be excellent.
They just need to be excellent, right?
It's everybody.
And if, if you are a leader, that's probably the single most important thing is establishing
that right out of the gate or in trying to shift it.
If it's not already there, shifting the culture, shifting the, the relationship, um, shifting
that trust, because if you don't do that, it's not going to, it's not going to progress
to a place that is blessed.
So, so good.
Yeah.
Hmm.
And there's so many things that have been said that I want to talk on.
Um, yeah, for sure.
Um, the one thing that Shawn mentioned it and you said something too, but I can't remember
it cause I was listening too intently and then I, I forget things really easily, but
it's recorded so, uh, but, uh, Shawn mentioned, like you mentioned about proximity and I love
that this episode is about, is about leadership because it kind of mixes it to, it kind of
mixes the two, uh, my favorite topics together.
Um, but with, with, with leadership, say in your life, um, some people say proximity,
uh, for Tony Robbins say proximity is power, there's proximity, people say that you're,
you're the average of the five, the five closest people or like you have your inner circle.
Um, as you've been growing through, um, as you, as you went into the, the executive role,
as you went into, and even as you went into amplify, what role did that inner circle play
in your life?
Wow.
Yeah, that's a really, that's a really good call.
All right, guys, thank you for listening to part one of this awesome conversation with
Mike.
I hope you enjoyed it as much as we enjoyed having the conversation and we know we weren't
planning on having a part one and part two with Mike.
However, once we realized how long the conversation was, it made so much sense to make it into
two parts so that as many people as possible listen to the whole conversation because it
will change people's lives.
So all right, guys, we'll see you next time next week with part two.