366| The Leadership Reset You Keep Postponing and Why You Should Make it a Priority Now

Speaker A: For the next four weeks, you won't hear a new episode from me. Not because something's broken, not because I burnt out, because I decided something on purpose. I'm creating a space to think more deeply about where this work is headed. And I thought about, I was thinking about it, I was praying about it. I was realized that it's. I feel like it's important for me to share why, the reason behind it and what it could mean for you as a leader. And I'll still be on LinkedIn, so still be having conversations, still be serving my clients. Um, I'm not taking a vacation. I'm slowing down to speed up. And this podcast will return in September with a little more intention behind it. And as I was praying, I kept getting this message to honor the season and to use it as the reset that I've been postponing. There's been several things that are, um, and I'll, and I'll get into that in a few moments. I've got some notes that I'm going to go through because I could get on a tangent with this and I'm like, I don't want this to be an hour long, ah, podcast for you, but I want you. There's a couple of things that I really want you to get, um, understand and even think about how you could apply it for yourself. But I was thinking about this season. We're, we're in August. Happy August. Slapping into 100 degree weather. Um, school is starting. My daughter, as you know, we, I homeschool my daughter. My son just graduated and I, um, you know, she starts today, her junior year of high school. I remember the junior year being a little tough and a kind of a rocky start for my son just because there was, there are so many, many changes that happens, you know, and, and then not only that is I am getting ready to drive my son up to Idaho to get him settled in as a freshman at Idaho State. And I'm really excited for him. I really, um, like, I can't wait for him to experience this. Um, you know, for the last 18 and a half years he's been under my care. And so this is, you know, taking this moment that though I'm excited for him, this is a big change. It's a big deal. And out of that 18 and a half or 14 and a half, I've been responsible Sol for taking care of him and to, uh, be able to send him off and realize that it will never be the same again. So I get, you can be excited and still Take to honor and reflect and be a little. And like, I want to close the season really well with him. And so what do you have going on? You may not have kids, or maybe they aren't going back to school. Maybe they're a little younger, or maybe you're empty nesting. You've been that for a while. So your seasons don't revolve around school schedules. What do they revolve around? And what I wanted to talk about today, M. And even this podcast is called A Leader's Purpose. Right? And so I was thinking about this because I haven't leaned in enough to the fact that I truly believe that leadership is a calling. Now, you can. You have bosses who lead who you know, you call them the boss rather than a, uh, leader. And then you have those bosses you look up to who you want to emulate, who you are learning from and are mentored through, whether they realize it or not. You have those people you look up to. Um, and when we start looking at ourselves as who we want to be as a leader, when you're called to lead, it doesn't mean it all comes naturally. Doesn't mean you're instantly that you know that brilliant leader who gets it all right. I don't know anyone who's gotten it all right ever, let alone the first time. Right. Or as you. You may not be new to leading. And the, uh, idea that this leadership is more than a job to you, it's a calling. It's part of who you are. And it's beyond. It goes way beyond this promotion that you got. It goes beyond being a part of a team. This is deep in your DNA that you know, you want to be the best possible. That you want to, um, instill these characteristics into your team, that you want to, um, show up for your community, for your family, for your friends, that this leadership thing is not just a side gig or something that came with a promotion. Um, I don't believe you'd be listening to this podcast if it was just a box that you checked. You know, our. Do you lead, somebody? Check. Yes. And the thing is, is that when. When things mean something to us, we tend to put our heart and soul into it. We go all in, we dive into the deep end, we keep pushing through, and when something doesn't quite work, we just keep trying harder. And one of the things that I truly believe is that when you take time to. That we have to take time to slow down, to speed up. And this is what slowing down looks like for me. Um, taking the Time to spend crafting, recording, editing podcasts, using that time, time that I use for my podcast to sit into dream, to look at some trends, to. To look at a few places that I'm not stuck. I'm just not moving with a clear direction. And the crazy part is, and I want you to hear this, that I've had more momentum in the last month. Things are going well, and this is still the perfect time to slow down. Slowing down doesn't mean stopping. It doesn't mean taking a vacation. I mean, it could if you needed one. Um, I had a. A really nice vacation with my family early, earlier this summer. And so, and. And that kind of brought me to this, where the vacation's great, but I needed some recalibration. I needed to look at things holistically, look at where I'm going and what I'm doing. And I need to ask myself some really hard questions because this, again, this is more than just a job to me. This is more than my side hustle or business. Like it means something and my mean something. I want to show up well for them. And so I'm not taking a vacation, and I'm not asking you to take a vacation either. But what I'm asking you to do is look at what could this mean? And one of the things that I, I wanted to kind of share some of the questions that I'm going to ask myself. That, uh, some of the questions that I ask my clients and that I think that's really important that leaders, that you take some time to slow down and ask yourself these, These questions. Um, one of them is what am I protecting now? And I ask this because we all protect something. We all have our core fear, core motivations. We have our lenses, we have our, um, we. We know what we want. But then deep down, there's something that we're afraid to let go of. Something. We're afraid that if we take our. Our foot off the gas will. Will bubble up to the top or that people will know or that we. Something we work so hard for will stop. And so what are you protecting now? Um, another question is what am I doing that I keep doing because I think it's right or afraid of what will happen if I stop you. You with this. Um, and this one is. Goes into my protection. Um, and I will talk about that in a moment. But really, what do you keep doing just because you've always done it that way, whether you're seeing the results from it or not, you're just going through the motions because it's the way it's always been done. Um, another question that I think is important is, what do you want? What do you actually want? And I don't think we ask ourselves this question enough. A lot of times we'll ask what we don't want. We'll ask what we want to avoid. We see things that we want to remove, but a lot of times we don't allow ourselves to dream about what we really want and what we want it to look like. And, uh, these questions are not in any particular order. These are just as I'm thinking of them, as I jotted them down, I. I wrote them down because I really do think they're important to ask. And these, again, these are questions that I not only ask my friends and my. Well, no. Well, my friends are my clients. I love my clients so much. But these are questions that I ask myself because what I do, I don't just speak, and I just don't tell people what to do. I live my work as well, um, because I know the value. It aligns with neuroscience. It aligns with leadership. It aligns with, um, this atmosphere that we are in now that, uh, it's not about just producing more results. It's about producing results that align, that are efficient, that are in the direction that you want to go. And that brings me to the next question. What am I doing that's producing results, and what am I doing? Simply because I've always done it, what am I doing that, uh, used to produce results but isn't anymore? And this is one of them that I really started to look at for myself. And these questions, I haven't really. Well, it starts next week. My. My time starts next week or, uh, this week, really, that. The times that I was going work on my podcast, I now have it as recalibration time. But it's really important to see what used to produce results but isn't anymore what used to work, but now it just. For whatever reason, you're. You're butting heads or you're feeling you're up against a wall. Um, the next is, where do I want to stretch myself? Part of leadership is always growing. Our world is changing so fast that if we stay stagnant, then we can't, um, up. And so it's like, where do I want to stretch myself? Where do I want to grow? Where do I need to get out of my comfort zone? And it's so crazy because there's things that used to not be like, I. They used to be uncomfortable to do. And now is. It has become comfortable and it's time to shake things up a bit. It's time to reinvigorate and get some. Get excited about what's next. Um, another question is, are my values reflected? As I was looking at my calendar and. And again, time. My. My seasons are shifting. I'm gonna only have one kid at home. And so it's looks different now. And so how am I reflecting my values? How am I going to put more time in to FaceTime my son, whether he wants me to or not? You know, I'm still his mother, right? But how am I going to, um. How are my values reflected when it comes to serving my clients? My clients are, um. Every one of them looks different because we customize. We look and we see. What do they need? And there's a lot of times that I'm like, okay, what else? Where are the trends going that now I can lean into and my work will affect more? Or what are some of the things that aren't working? Um, so we need to look at my values. And my value is to meet people where they are and help them get to where they want to go. And when I. By doing this, I've got to look at some of the things that I'm doing that. What. What needs to change or where can I lean in more and then another one. And this is. This is going to be my main goal over the next couple of weeks as well, is am I connecting with the right people? I want to. I want to build more of a connection, um, business. I want to dive more in. It's really interesting. And I. And again, I don't want to make this all about me, but this just shows you how God works in, um. I've moved every two to three years my entire life. Well, I've been here for eight years. And when I look at, like, what's next, all I hear and I feel is God says, go deeper, connect more, and connect with the community and dig roots. Um, which is really scary for me because I never dug and allowed the roots to sink in. Um, it's a different type of experience when, you know, you're not moving right away. And so that's one of the areas that I'm like, okay, and that goes into, like, my values is I really love people. I love connecting with them. I love hearing stories. And, um, there's a lot of times I spend behind a computer. So where can I. What is going on in Tulsa that I can go and get involved with? And so this this next couple of weeks, giving myself that extra time to connect with people. So for you, like, what are these? Some of these. Take one. One or more of these questions. Um, taking time to ask yourself these questions is more important than you realize. And this is not about waiting until you burn out. Like I said, I'm in momentum. Things are going well. I'm enjoying. I love my business. I love doing the podcast. So the fact. It kind of made me a little nervous when I thought about stopping it for four weeks, for a whole month, for the rest of August, not gonna lie. Like, it. Um, and something inside of me felt like, well, but you've been doing it for five and a half years. Like, what if you can't do it back? Like, you've had consistency. You. You know, you have your. Your people who listen every week. Um, you can't let them down. I was like, no, I'm not letting them. That's not the point. I'm actually doing this for them. And it. It made me. That resolve got even stronger that this needed to happen when I felt that fear of, what if? You know, like, I can't do that. Why can't I? It's a podcast. I don't. So I don't save lives here. I don't. Um, I do think it's important. And I love. I love, love, love this. And it's time to shake things up a bit. It's time to reinvigorate and bring new life to it. And look, and, um, I've been holding off on really, um, having more guests, and I've been feeling the need to, like, let's get some more people on here. Um, yeah, I know. I love talking, and I love. And I know you love all you just look forward to every week listening to me. Right. But what if I got so some HR directors to share some of their struggles and some of the things that they've overcome? And what if I got some CEOs or founders to talk about their operating manual? Like, uh, some of these things, it's like, I needed time to be able to dive into it. And so that's what this does. So what do you need time to dive into? What do you need time that. To slow down for a moment? What can you set down briefly in order to speed up? And we talked about. In July, we talked about invisible signals we're sending and how our strengths can become our bottlenecks. And I was thinking about my operating manual, my operating system that is through the lens of getting it right, that I want to I want to be ethical and have integrity and getting it right. Which I can immediately hear you say, tammy, that's not a bad thing to see things through. And I'm like, no, but have I stopped to define what right is recently? I haven't. Not when it comes to my business. Like, with ethics, there's always that right. But have we stopped to define and to. Um, we talked about this, how we have, like, our strengths can become our bottlenecks if they are left undefined. It's time for me to define it for this season and going forward. And so what is your operating system running? When's the last time you intentionally took your, you know, got off cruise control? You stopped being on autopilot? And, uh, what I wanted to talk about is like, what could this look like? What could it look like if you, if it's time for you to take a recalibration, to take a executive reset? And what could it look like? Um, so it means constant motion, that you never, you never really ask where you're headed. So you have a full calendar, full inbox, full plate, and no sense of what forward means. Um, I know I talked to one of my clients and he wants to scale, um, or he wants to grow his business. He wants to, um. And so I asked him to define what scale looks like for him in this season. So he just hired a couple of people and he's like, well, more is always more, right? And I was like, is it though? And so we talked about it and when we started breaking down and defining what it is, is he wants the new hires to really take things off of his plate so he can be more in the. The owner, CEO instead of the day to day operations, he can work on what scaling really means. And so it's. We needed to take that time to define it. Um, also, and this is one that I've really been working on the last couple of years, is treating stillness like you haven't earned it yet. A day off needs to be justified, not just taken. Um, and I started feeling this when I decided and really, like, this was a spur of the moment decision. Like, I, I have another. I had another podcast planned for today and I was like, no, um, this is what I need to do. This is what's been on my heart. And, um, and it's honestly like, this is the perfect month for it because I have so many things going on and so many connections and things. So, um, treating stillness like something you haven't earned yet, that you'll wait that well when things Calm down. I'll take a day off or when, or I'll slow down. I'll. I will look at my values and I will, you know, answer those questions that I asked above, um, or earlier. Um, I'll ask. I'll slow down when, um, when this next goal is done. Sometimes we have to just to seize the moment. Seize the moment and realize that, okay, we don't need to take weeks off. It could look. It could look different. And I will talk about again, I'm trying to stay. It's time to stay on my, uh, my outline because there's a lot of things that I can go. And I've already gotten tangents in my mind of things like, oh, I could have said that. We'll save that for later. Right. But also making exhaustion, mistaking exhaustion for commitment. If you're tired, it must mean you're doing it right. You're getting things done, you're accomplishing goals. And exhaustion doesn't mean that you're. That's commitment. It means that you're tired. Something needs to change, something needs to shift. And, uh, it typically means something's not working the way it should work. And you know that I, I don't think we should. We shouldn't should on ourselves. We gotta stop shoulding on ourselves. But that word, when should we. That's. That's the moment we get to say, oh, what does this mean? Why should I. What is happening? And so what could a reset look like for you? To be clear, this is. I'm not taking four weeks off. Honestly, I love working too much to even consider that I love doing this. And I'm s. I'm simply setting down one part of my work, setting it down for a short period of time. That is a, um, very defined space. And I. It's on my calendar, it's on the month. And, um, and that space is just shifting from podcast ideation and creation and editing to space for reflection to slowing down to speed up. And you don't have to take a month, a week, or even a full day off. This could, like, could be spending one hour or maybe, um, a few hours over the course of, um, a month. It doesn't have to be done all at once, but I truly believe it needs to be done and in regular intervals. It's been a while since I've done this, and it's time for me to do it. Just like it's probably time for you to do it. And your work is too important, your calling is too great to leave things unchecked. To allow the autopilot or the cruise control to be set. And I mean. Or remember that. Set it and forget it. Um, Rotisserie. Yeah, I had one of those. And you. I never could just set it and forget it. But you don't want to keep going until you're burned out. Where then all of a sudden the rest is a, um, It's a true rest where you can't do anything. Like, this is a recalibration. This. This gets to be done consistently. And I wanted to share because what is it? What could it look like if you do take this crazy thing and give yourself some time to slow down, to speed up? Take this ex. Executive reset, this recalibration. What can it look like? And because the leader who schedules the reset comes back sharper, not behind. One thing that I know to be true is every time that I step back with intention, it's again, I'm not just taking a step back and not doing anything. It is. There's. There's an intention that I have. So set your intention. Um, you're going to model something for your team without saying a word. This job doesn't require running yourself to the ground to be taken seriously. No matter what your job is, whether you are saving lives or you're making widgets or making lives easier for others or whatever your role is, it does not require running yourself into the ground to be taken seriously. And if that's the case, let's look at that protection. What is the belief there that is making you believe that you can't stop, that you can't slow down? And again, leadership is a calling. You didn't take that lightly when you stepped into it. So the daily actions, including the ones that look like rest, don't get to be casual either. The version of you that comes back from the reset, from a real reset, isn't the version of you that disappeared. It's the version of you that finally stopped long enough to remember who you really are and what you want. And so I want to encourage you. So take this challenge with me. And over the next four weeks, take, um, this podcast is typically, I think, what we're. Oh, we're at like, 22 minutes. Typically it's about 10 to 20 minutes. So the time that you would have listened to this podcast, commit it to yourself to just sit and asking those questions above the ones that I mentioned. Um, ask yourself those questions. Just pick one of them and ask yourself, I want to challenge you to take this time, um, and ask yourself what your values are. Where you're going, what's working, what used to work but isn't. And look and ask yourself, okay, on a 1 to 10 scale, how close am I to burning out? Because I would say burnout. If 10 is like, I am burning out and one is like, oh, everything's wonderful, I would probably say it's a five, like a, ah, four right now. Um, I, again, I'm not slowing down because I have to have the break. I get to have this, create the space, and that's what I want for you. So here's what today actually is. It's not a break from work. It's a decision about how I'm going to do the work on purpose before anything, before anything forced my hand to where it's now, like, detrimental. So come find me on LinkedIn. Um, get on my calendar. Let's talk. Like, if you are, if you're gonna take this challenge, get on my calendar. Let's just chat about what this means for you and let me encourage you and get excited for you because, um, when we do this, we're saying yes to the leader that we can become. We're saying yes to the work that's planned before, um, before we even start it. We're saying yes for, um, the excitement for what's next. And you're saying yes to your people, you're saying yes to the goals and the, your company and whether you're a founder or you're a CEO and leading, um, leading someone else's mission, but you're allowing your zones of genius, you're allowing your intention, your judgment, your, um, the excitement to come back and the creativity to come back, um, and just get a new perspective and so come find me on LinkedIn. This is the conversation, um, that we're, I'm still going to show up there, um, or even better, like I said, get on my calendar and let's really talk. Um, what else? On email, like, there's still ways that, um, you can contact with, get in contact with me. So, um, but yeah, don't let this time slip away. Use it as a gift. Um, push yourself again. 20 minutes a week, that's all it takes. And ask yourself one of those questions and answer it and then answer it one level deeper. Like, push yourself to get a little uncomfortable with the answers. Um, so you really get to the heart of what's going on and what you want. And if things are going well, still do it. If things are not going well, still do it. Give yourself a snapshot of what currently is going on. And where you want to be. All right, well, with that, see you in a few weeks. Same show, same person, uh, same purpose. I'll be right here. And I can't wait to share what I have in store for you. With that, bye for now.