Living on Purpose: Designing Your Life and Leadership with Kent Julian

Unknown: We got the head bob going on this Monday morning. Hello everybody, and welcome to Monday. No more Mondays, Monday, and no more Mondays, the podcast where we believe that humans still matter. Mediocrity is expensive, and ownership changes everything.

As always, I am your host, Angie Callen. And today's conversation is about something that might sound simple, but it's kind of hard to do when you put it in practice, and that is living on purpose, not just thinking about what you want, but actually taking steps to design your life, your work, and your leadership around those goals and desires. And there is nobody better to chat this through with me than Kent Julian. He is a speaker, a coach, and founder of Live It Forward, and his work centers around a simple but powerful idea that most people don't lack vision, they lack the ability to implement and follow through on it.

We all have a dream, but many of us struggle to move from dream to do. And what I love about Ken's perspective is that he doesn't just talk about success in terms of business or income, but about designing a life that actually aligns with what matters most to us. Sounds kind of familiar, doesn't it? Those of you who have read Scary Good Discovering Life Beyond the Sunday Skerries, how's that for a shameless plug I didn't plan on.

So today, let's get into this. We are digging into what it really means to live by design, not by default, and how to turn that clarity you may have into action in a way that takes a fleeting idea from dream to do, Kent. Welcome to No More Mondays. Man, I feel like we should just close in prayer.

That was, that was good enough, right there. We don't need to say that anymore. Is that a good benediction? That was good.

Awesome. I've been excited about this. So, for those of you that are frequent listeners, you know I'm very fortunate to hang out in some communities with really amazing people who are willing to come here and talk to me on a recorded line and allow you to listen. The thing is one of those communities, and Kent is from the Unconference, which is actually a cousin in a way of the thing.

So, for those of you that have always loved hearing from people who meet who I meet at the thing, the unconference is, is just a continuation of amazing conversations, and where I want to start with Ken is something that you know, as we were beginning to record, I filled Ken in on the fact that, like, literally my book, I talk about design over default, and I lie, I think a lot of people out there may think they're being intentional, but if they really look at their life, their calendar, their habits, and their day to day, it may tell a different story.

So, I would love for you to kick us off by just explaining what living by design, not default, really looks like. Wow, that is you into things around here. Yeah, that's such a huge. well, the first thing I would say is it's a, it's, it's a lifelong pursuit, and I get better at it the longer I live, and the longer I pursue it, but it started way, way back, even making decisions when, when I came out of college, I won't get into the details, but I had coming out of college and having had having done a couple different works.

One of the things you've got to do is you've, you've got to always be intentional and always be paying attention to, you know, what you do well, what makes you come alive, how you best serve other people, and so coming out of college I had three job offers. I had been working with a pool company, and had almost got fired my first year as a, you know, 17 year old, 16 year old dumb lifeguard, almost got fired. I listened to the boss, ended up being with that that organization for seven years, and moved up from being a lifeguard to managing multiple pools.

So that was one job offer. They literally said the company had grown from 12 running 12 pools to 78 pools, and I knew this thing was going places, so they offered me one of the vice president's position. Chick-fil-A was interested in, in having me go through the, oh, I forget what they call it's not an owner, I had like a leadership training store operator, I knew that was really financially a good thing to do, and then the third one was I had studied to be a youth pastor, and I, I had an offer to work by vocationally at a church where I was paid so.

Low that I could have easily qualified for food stamps. I had to have another job to make it work, and that's the one I picked. And the reason I picked it was there was two primary reasons. The I wanted to work with the gentleman who was the pastor, he was a really sharp leader, but the primary thing is I had paid attention enough to know all these, the all these other things, like in the pool opportunity, if I move from a vice, if I move from managing multiple pools to doing the VP, I knew it would move me totally out of what I could do well and put me in an area that I wouldn't do well.

I knew the Chick-fil-A thing, I just knew who I am, how I'm wired enough as a young guy that go, I don't want to be in this one place doing the same thing day in and day out, and the youth ministry job, while I knew it wasn't going to pay well, I thought long term I'm going to learn, continue to learn skills and develop skills in areas where I'm already pretty gifted, and that make me come alive, and it won't be a burden, go to work, so I don't know if that's what you wanted to start with, but that was designed like I look back at that, and I go, that was such a good decision, because I went after, I didn't go just after what was going to make me a lot of money, it was like, what kind of life do I want to live long term, and I had no idea where that was going to lead, and I had no idea doing what I do now that it would eventually lead to this.

So, when you say you know, live by design, I think it's a lifelong pursuit, and you just learn as you go, but that you pay attention to to who you are, how you're wired, what makes you come alive, how you serve best, all of those things. That was like an even better answer that I could have asked for, and there's so, there are so many little nuggets in there. I want to see if I can remember and pull them out, because I agree it's a lifelong pursuit, and you may not even realize you're doing it in real, in real time.

I'm sure young Kent didn't necessarily know that's what was happening, it just was this feeling of this is why I should choose this, and then you look back and go, oh, that's why I was doing it, or the flip side is you hit a point where you have been out of miss in misalignment, and you're like, man, I need to design, which we'll get into in a minute, but to me experience both of those, by the way, so yes, okay, good, that's why this is what we're talking about, you learn from both of them, you do, and what I think is so interesting and insightful, and you answered a question that I wanted to ask as a follow-up to that story, and that is, that is, there anything that were in you that regrets choosing the option of the three that you did?

No, no, no, no, no, never, but I've made decisions that I've regretted down the road that I had to really pivot from, but I look back at that and there's, I mean, absolutely, and I, the other thing is, I was, I was self-aware enough, I really had academic challenges growing up, and so, for some reason, I was just really self-aware enough when I say I don't want to make it sound like I'm, I'm all that smart, but I was self-aware enough to look at the other two jobs and realize I will never - doesn't matter how much money they pay - I'll never do well at these, and so therefore the long term, the long term money from that won't exist five years from now, because I won't be able to do those jobs well.

Yeah, it was almost like you wouldn't be set up for success, and you knew that, even if the people offering didn't necessarily exactly, exactly. And to me, the biggest thing I want to highlight in that story is purely or majority financially driven decisions rarely work out in the end, because they are typically driven by either a default or somebody else's expectations instead of your own design. Now, that doesn't mean you can't find riches and purpose at the same time. However, you've got to be careful and really cognizant of what is leading what, right?

No, I, I like to say it this way: working right and paying attention, so seeing what what you do well and what skills you do well, and what you enjoy, versus trying to figure out, you know, so many people try to figure out what's their passion. I think the passion you figure that out along the journey, but working right and paying attention to what is going right eventually leads you to right work. Work. Yes, that's how I would say it.

And I want to highlight something in there that you said, because it's important in my opinion. We, I don't know if younger generations have grown up this way, but we all grew up hearing the, you know, find something you're passionate about, and if you can make money doing it, you'll never work a day in your life. Sorry, that's crap, because most things that we really love to do, don't make money. I love to mountain bike, and I am the most average mountain biker on the planet, which means I ain't never making money winning a race, right?

Basket weaving, playing music, right? Atop a 1% of a 1% actually finds a way and has the level of talent to make a living doing that, and so I think more about finding the right work for your skill set, your interests, and that designed life that you want, and you will actually become passionate about it, because it's purposeful. Yes, and I would say I got to be careful, because I do work, and I work really hard, and there's stuff about what I do, I'm a professional speaker, and so there's..

it's not like I love the marketing side of of that, but I love the marketing side of it. So, what happens is you end up, you end up doing the things that you don't necessarily love to do, because you know it leads to this whole thing, so I often say you can. You're going to have to, you know, probably half of what you've got to do in work isn't enjoyable work, even in the best in the, in the work that you love. It's not enjoyable work, but boy, you love it a lot more if you're doing work that you love than if I hate this job in the first place, I hate what it stands for, all that kind of stuff.

So then it's just even the good stuff isn't good and the bad stuff's even worse. Yes, there is newsflash. There is no such thing as a perfect job. There just no, whether you work for somebody or entrepreneurship versus employment, neither is better than the other.

I feel that we're, we tend to be wired one way or the other, and even if you own a business, like you just said, there are things that we must do to support the bigger picture that aren't things that we love to do, but they're kind of, you know, means to the end and necessary, and they become more manageable, more culpable, because we know why and what they end up with an employer, right? Every employer is different. There, you're not going to find a perfect one, but you've got to figure out what idiosyncrasies you can, you and your personality and strengths can cope with, and then it becomes aligned.

But the thing is, you can't find that type of work if you've done no self exploration to kind of know what it looks like or articulate it right, and trying a lot of different things, and, and, and paying attention, that's where I, when I go back, and the reason I started with that story at the beginning is I just realized even, even while I was doing this, and some of it might be because you know I had other people around me that really went after the profits and went after the money, and I, for some reason, I just knew I got to do something that's going to be that I, I'm gonna, that's gonna be fulfilling, and, and, and, so, like, and just pay attention to these things, and over time, again, you, it starts leading you to that, versus if you go after just the money, what, what I, and I thought this would happen back then, but now I look at my friends who did that, and I go, holy cow, they got stuck.

They got stuck with golden handcuffs. They're the ones looking to, you know, like I never want to retire, and they're looking, and people say, 'Oh man, I... But what I do makes me come alive. Plus, the kind of way I've designed my life is I get to do a lot of the things that retire that people wait until they're retired to do.

I ride my bike, I travel, I every day, I'm exercising. I, you know, so, so it's like this life design. I have control of my life. I can, I mean, I like working, but I can work when I want to work, and all those different things.

I get that way before retirement, and it's because we went after design, and so for some reason I don't know why that clicked with me early on, but for some reason I was really aware of that from the beginning, not even knowing that someday I was going to quote design work and have my own business, and I didn't know any of that at the beginning. I just knew I cannot work for 35 years doing something I that just just for the money and that I don't enjoy. I just knew that it's almost like you look back and you realize what you were doing, and for me writing my book is where I had already realized, but where a lot came together, yeah.

Because I started my career, it really is, it is the ultimate exercise in reflection, and you know, for me, starting my career as an engineer was more informed by influence than something I was driven to do, because I really didn't have a specific drive, in hindsight I realized that, because they don't teach entrepreneurship in Podunkville, Pennsylvania, right, and, and so I, you know, I got to the point where there was something misaligned and I started taking steps to align it for me, that was run away to the mountains and move to Colorado, which is where a lot of things started to come together, because I did something I didn't realize I was doing in real time, and that was giving myself self access to a lifestyle and figuring out how to have work to support it, and it's essentially what what you just talked about is the fact that, yeah, we get to do things every day that people take a week of vacation to do once a year, and so it feels like you're putting off life to 62 and a half, but I feel like we live in a society, in a time when that is no longer has to be the norm, but we still feel that friction between, like, the old way of working and this new level of control and design that we have.

I'm curious, if you see that too. Yeah, and let me go back all the way to it, since I didn't know I was going to start with those three job offers at the beginning. I love that thing started. Let me go back all the way to that, and to say one of the main reasons, when I say I knew this was going to allow me to use skills, etc.

but one of the reasons, like when I went into the pastor, I wanted to be a youth pastor. This is back in the day where being a youth pastor was a stepping - they called it a stepping stone to being a real pastor, so you would do it for two or three years, and then you'd become a senior pastor. I never wanted - I literally, even when I went to college to get a degree in theology, I used to say to my professors, I'm never going to be a senior pastor. I just don't think that's going to happen.

I'm not interested in it, I'm interested in being a youth pastor, and one of the reasons is because I struggled so much as a young person, but the other reason is, and my mom and dad were teachers, my dad was a was a teacher and a part-time, they called it back then minister of music, it's like a worship pastor at a church, no entrepreneurial view at all. I mean, I didn't even know how to say, didn't even know that was a word back then. Never, never thought about going into business for myself, any of those kind of things, but I was self-aware enough of the three jobs that I said this one as a youth pastor is going to give me a lot of flexibility on how I do the job, it's going to be there's going to be a lot of like freedom, there's going to be a lot, and when I say freedom, you know, I wanted to do a good job, I really had was passionate about helping students that struggled like I did, but I knew there'd be there'd be a lot of variety to it, I'd be doing a lot of different things, and that I was, I was kind of running again, didn't use these words, but it was, it was almost like a small business within a larger business, and that I was going to get to lead that and run that, and there's going to be a lot of autonomy of how I did that.

There was, I was going to have to answer to the board, answer to the senior pastor, but they were wanting me to pick up the ball and run with it. And so, looking at the other jobs, that was, I mean, think about running a Chick-fil-A store, there you got to do, I mean, yes, exactly, that is SOP city, yeah, and so for me that's that was the major like I just realized I'm not gonna be able to do that pool thing because now I'm I'm going to all these 40 pools and troubleshooting and fixing equipment, I knew I wasn't going to do well at that, and what I had loved about the pool company before was I was managing three or four pools, I was coaching a swim team, there was all this variety, I was working with people, and again it was, it was this, there was a lot of autonomy, like I had built up enough trust, there was a lot of autonomy of how I did that, so though all that to say that's something I really, really valued from the beginning, and I really think that made all the difference, especially because if I would have gotten stuck in the other one and made good money at it, then then it would be waiting until I was in my 60s to be able to do stuff that I wanted to do with with my life, yeah.

And then you are stuck in the form of the golden handcuffs you mentioned earlier, and I think what you just said is a great point to you, and I have, I would say, the similar benefit of of some real time awareness that then became hindsight of what. You were really doing, but we both mentioned the fact that we got to like those pivot points, right? So, let's talk to somebody out there who's at a pivot point. Okay, okay, because I want to start talking about the, the, the transition from dream to do, right?

So that's where I think, like you said, people get lost in the in the take action part, so they might know what they want, maybe they've even thought it through that, maybe they've even said it out loud to some somebody, but they're, but nothing's changing because they're in that gap between knowing and doing. So, let's talk to that person. How does somebody start moving from dream to do well? I, so, since I said all this positive stuff at the beginning.

Let me just share a story that rocked my world. So, in youth ministry, I went from this really small church to one of the largest church in our De Nam, and one, one of the laws at the time, one of the largest youth ministries in the nation. All that happened by the time I was 26 so I was kind of on a fast track from 22 to 26 and I, and I had so much success there, and it really went to my head, like I, I used to say, I will say I was the humblest cocky person there ever was, because I didn't realize I was cocky, and I was arrogant, and so I was at that one church for eight years, and that ended up leading eventually to me becoming the national youth director of a couple 1000 churches, but there was a stop in between where I, where I made a pivot, and I went to another church, and where I had had all this success in this one church.

The next church I went to, I only lasted nine months. It was a disaster. It was, I got to pick, like I literally monthly was having different churches wanted me to come be their youth pastor, and I had gotten so arrogant, I just was picking kind of where I wanted to live, and where I.. and I just totally missed it.

So, I won't go into all the details, but it was so humbling. It.. it rocked my world, not just professionally, but even personally. It was the toughest years for my wife and I, I mean, we really, she lost all kinds of confidence in me, and rightfully so.

And so, long story short, moving from dream to do, it was like when I, when I went in the initial direction, there was this awareness of this is the kind of thing I wanted, but I experienced some access, success that I, that I kept getting these promotions. And have you ever heard of that thing where you, you kind of, you get hired to your level of incompetence? Have you ever heard that? Yes, there's also a little fail forward in this, but yeah, yes, so I wasn't - it wasn't that I was incompetent, but I kept getting bigger and bigger positions where I was managing more and more people, and get it was becoming less, it was becoming way more bureaucratic and less entrepreneurial, and I was totally missing it, because I had all this success, and I was totally missing it, and it was after that crisis when you talk about moving from dream to do and designing your life.

It's after that crisis I realized, if I continue to stay in this in youth ministry, number one, I don't think I can stay in it the rest of my life, and I knew I didn't want to, but by then I was thinking, well, maybe I will be a senior pastor, and that crushed that, and said, no, that's not what you should be doing, you should be pursuing something more entrepreneurial, so for me that's again when you're working right and paying attention, and when you're working wrong, paying attention, it will lead to the right work.

So, the next after I got out of that position, after nine months, and I was the national youth guy, I was, I was wanted to do that job really, really well, but I took that job knowing this is probably the last thing I'm going to do in what would be called vocational ministry, and I was in that job for seven years, and the first three - again, when I say this, it's not that I didn't work hard at the job because I wanted to do it well, because I think that's what we're supposed to do, but the first year of doing that job well, the first three years was literally me just journaling, and then thinking what will the second half of my life look like, and then the next three to four years was once I figured that out, and you can't rush that, once I figured that out, it was building that on the side while still doing your job.

Job really well, and that's what eventually leads to what I've been doing for the last 15 years, which has morphed during those 15 years. I didn't pay Kent to come tell that story, y'all, just so you know, because there's there, there's several points in there I think are important to highlight. One is the fact that in that nine months of learning was not a failure, it was a learning experience. Oh, it was both, you know, that's how it goes.

But at least you took it and projected it forward. That to me goes back to something we were talking about earlier, with the like the idiosyncrasies of that environment did not align with you and the way that you need to work, and that decision was probably more financially motivated than other decisions had been. That's where, like, it almost, you got unequally yoked, right? And you learn about that in the moment, and you start to be able to identify what's important.

The second, and the really big thing I want to tell everybody out there is, you heard Kent say it verbatim, it takes time. Yep, you cannot pivot this stuff overnight, especially if you've gotten yourself into a golden handcuffs situation. Your options are going to be minimal and limited, and it may take time to build a platform of transition, whether that is starting something on the side that you can build into full time, or whether that is leaning down your finances to put a bunch of money in the bank, so that you have more options for a transition, you know, whatever it is, you've got to part one, do the work to know what the right move is going to be, and then give yourself the patience to have a foundation to go do it, and can I share three?

I remember, so at the beginning of this, and by the way, that nine month period, there was all kinds of things I was missing going up to it that made the at nine month period, and and literally it could have lasted that nine month period if I, if that other job didn't come up, it could have lasted for years. So, it could have been, and, and the problems, you know, that it spurred, and even again in our personal relationship, and all that. My wife and I, I mean, it wasn't like it was nine months and we were over, it was a five year process during that, but I will say emotionally and mentally, that it was brutal, but I'll say this: one of the things that really helped me with the long, because you talked about it, is a long process, and in all the when I'm working with people who are trying to start their own business, and it's like they can never get going, and they want it to have this guarantee that everything's going to work out, and when I'm doing all this work on the side, my kids are are eight and six.

I have an eight year old, well, I have a son and then twin daughters. So, my son was eight, my daughters were six, and I'm doing this on the side, and I'm still wanting to be a good dad and doing all that kind of stuff, and so I had to get in the right mindset of I can't worry about, I just have to do the right stuff for this dream to potentially come true. That's where dream to do comes about, to have this dream, but I can't. There's no way I know if it's going to come true.

So, the I had these three things in my mind that I started thinking about, I this came from journaling. I said, whether this ever happens or not, pursuing what I'm going to pursue is worth it, because I'm going to learn things I would never learn unless I pursue it. That's number one. Number two, I'm going to meet people I would never meet if I didn't pursue this, and for me that's where I met Dan Miller, who was a huge person in helping me launch that.

So I'm going to meet people that I would never meet if I didn't pursue this, and number three opportunities I can't even think of, whether it's the one that I want that I think I'm pursuing. Other opportunities would open up if I didn't pursue this, and that happened too. There was a huge publishing house and youth, youth ministry speaking organizations that offered me a significant. in fact, they're in Colorado.

They offered me a significant position, or they didn't offer it to me. They started talking about it, and I just said, "Yeah, I'm not interested, because by then my stuff was happening. But those three mindsets, all of them, and I said, "If, if what I want eventually never even happens, it's worth pursuing this and giving it 15 hours on the side, and, and scaling back other parts of my life for those three things. Those are all good things.

You learn things you'd never learn. You'll meet people you would never meet, and opportunities you can't even imagine are going to open up for you. And that was so valuable. And I try to share that with people now that are pursuing things that I like to pursue, and you can just tell when they're not getting it, and I would just tell you that easily 80% of people, they can't get that, they've in their mind it has to be guaranteed, or I'm not going to pursue this, it's got to be guaranteed that I'm going to be able to do it, and I go, there's no, well, you did it, Kent, and I go, well, I didn't know when I was trying it that this was going to happen, yeah, yeah, there, and that's where you know I'm a big, I'm a big proponent of human potential, and the fact that we squander most of ours, and what you just said to me is, it's so, what is, what is so what stands out there is there's a level of surrender that came into this of I don't know where I'm going, I'm going to trust the myself and the message that I've been given to do this work, do the right work, and things will work out, life can happen for you if you let it.

Yeah, that's a great way to say it, that things, it's just going to work out somehow. You, for me, I was hoping it would look like what it did, but it, if it didn't, it was still going to be a win, no matter what. I called it, I always said you got to look at it as like it's a no lose yes pursuit, you're not going to lose, no matter what, even if you don't get what you want, you're not going to lose this at this, and like you said at the beginning, to bring us full circle, it's a lifelong pursuit, yeah, so some of that may change as you grow and get more information and understand even more about yourself, you know, life is iterative, but I, what I believe holds people back from the, the taking a dream and doing it is this idea that it's got to be perfect.

It's got to happen exactly this way I envision it has to happen the way someone else expects, and we should all over ourselves to the point that we then just sit there and dream, right? And a dream is just a wish your heart makes when you're fast asleep, people. It doesn't pay the bills. I often say, unless you do something about your dream, you dream it for a year, five years, 10 years, and it eventually becomes a nightmare.

And there's, yeah, a lot of people look back that wish, oh, I wish I would have done that, I wish I would have done that, and it's not that I don't have any regrets, I do like anybody, I have regrets, but overall, when it comes to, you know, really pursuing the work that I would end up loving and pursuing, you know, a rich and full life, I go, man, I'm, I'm pretty satisfied with, with how this worked out, even, even those bad low points, you know, because those, like you said, they're learning opportunities, yeah, without them, yeah, yeah, yeah, life can happen for you if you let it, and in the process you may just learn something you wouldn't have learned otherwise.

Meet some people you wouldn't have met otherwise, including the two of us sitting here today. Exactly, exactly. And opportunities you can't even dream of in the dream scenario may just be a step away. That's right, Kent Julian.

This has been a pretty amazing conversation. Thank you. I could do this for a while. This is fun.

Yeah, you man, you're a great host. Thank you, Andrew. Oh, I appreciate that. That's a big honor coming from you, knowing how many stages you're on.

Speaking of speaking, how do people find you and stay in touch with you, follow your wisdom, get you on their stage, all the things. Well, for people who book speakers, the websites Kent julian.com but for people who are just looking for personal development and professional development, and just like individuals who are looking for that, they can find me at Live It forward.com So those are my two sites, and everybody should want to live it forward.

Speaking of Live It Forward, one of the things that we talk about here is just making sure we can be humans on purpose into the future, so as you think about the future and the fact that you're not ready to be done working, what's the future of work look like, and how do we stay humans while navigating it? Do you have, like, another hour? Yeah, for you, for you, I've got 12 minutes. No, the few I have, I mean, we both know Vincent.

Have you read his posts recently? Oh, yeah, he's on fire about being only human. Yeah, so here I'll just tell you this. Vincent Felicia, everybody, he is a previous guest.

I will link his episode here, in case you're morbidly curious to hear who we're talking about. He's a, he's a good friend. He's another one that I met. I mean, he and I really connected during that part of my journey.

He was at the beginning, and I had, I had just quit my full-time job and was doing my, my business totally on my own, so we really. Connected, but one of the things, what's interesting, and it's not that I'm not an AI person, I use AI for some, some administrative stuff, but I've been amazed at how much, so as somebody who's a communicator and works really hard on my craft, so I will say, you know, a lot of people are writers who become speakers. I'm a speaker who happens to write.

Yeah, I did it backwards too. Yeah, coach, speaker, author, instead of author, speaker, coach, and I started coach, speaker. Yeah, yeah. So, so, so I work really hard on the craft of speaking, and you know, I want my, I want the content to be stellar, but I will, but I want it, I want people to be able to pick it up and carry it away, because with them, because I'm, because of the experience I've created as a speaker, so even in the way that I market and the way that I write, I write more that way, like I do have, I believe the content that I write and all that is really, really solid, but I'm, it's, I don't want it just to be just so how to that you're not having an experience, so anyway, long story short, when you talk about the future of work, I'm shocked.

I am shocked at how many people that I know personally that don't know one another when I read their marketing posts, so they're in fields like we're in, where they're trying to help. I don't know exactly what they do, but they're, you know, they're helping other, or whatever. And I read their marketing pieces on LinkedIn, and I have, over the last six months, never seen so much writing that within seconds I go, "That's AI driven all it all reads the same, it sounds the same, and I've done enough, like the way that I've used a little bit of AI with is after I write something and my daughter helps me edit a lot of the things and come back and I thought this this sentence just sounds awkward, so I'll put in AI and say, 'Hey, can you clean this up?

But I'm always trying to keep my own voice. So, anyway, yeah, I started at least the two AI things that I've used. I started going, they keep giving me the same kind of advice, and it.. and that's how I noticed it on everybody else's.

Yeah, so all that to say, I think the future is especially if you're in a human type where you're serving other humans. I actually think it becomes a competitive advantage if you, if you are human and you're, and even the pieces, if it takes you slow, if you've ever read the book Deep Work, if they can tell your work is something that that you work on, and that it's a craft, and that the way you're communicating and what you're communicating comes from somewhere deeply human, I think that's going to be a huge competitive advantage, so people who want to be speakers.

I have this little group called the Paid to Speak Accelerator, and there's 22 people in, or whatever. I keep telling them, if you get really good at this, you're this is a huge competitive advantage, and and our jobs aren't going away. If anything, they're going to become more and more valuable now. Yeah, so that's the future of work, is ironically human.

I like to talk about being an AI-enabled human on purpose, because I think that there is some level of awareness that we need to have, because AI isn't going away, but I also think that what you just described is creating the the converse action and the reaction of humans gravitating towards things that are clearly authentic, genuine, and human, whether it's content, whether it's platforms to connect, live events, all those kinds of things. So we just queued up a second episode to talk all about speaking in the age of AI.

However, what I want to point out is what you said about that future and how human it is to me goes right back to this idea that as a human you've got to know who you are and live in a thoughtful, purposeful, designed way in order to leverage those differentiators. Absolutely, and you know, are you spending time like every morning, I'm spending, I call it leading my life from quiet, and so one of the things, and that's not original with me, the guy that I first worked for, he's the one who, and I know it's not original with him, but he used that phrase and it stuck with me, so in the morning I'm, I'm reading deeply, I'm.

Reading, I'm getting up early to read. I read my Bible. I read professional development books. Sometimes I'll be journaling, but you're slowing down at the beginning to lead and to design your day, and so that you're leading your day from a place of quiet, not from a place of rush.

And so just practices like that, that where you think deeply and process deeply, and and you're contemplating some of the big things when you take walks, or you're listening to things, or you're thinking about things. I mean, all that, that's the stuff that I love. Again, when we talk about designing your, your work, I get to do that every day, like, why take a vacation from this when I get to do it every day, you know, just stuff you get to do it every day, you don't have to do it every day, and right, and I, I love the message to start with quiet, and even if it isn't the quiet piece that resonates, you start with yourself before you let the world in via social media and email and all of the things, right.

Give yourself a little bit of time to be with yourself as you start the day, and it will change so many things. And Angie, that's coming from, so don't think I'm by nature a contemplative person. If you know the disc profile, I'm an ID, and so I'm a driven. I love variety, I love change, I love action, and I think the reason I grabbed onto that so much early on is I was seeing the flakiness, and the like early on I'm a flake, I'm seeing I'm just always looking to do something I couldn't stand to be alone, all of those things, and over time it's a discipline, and now I can't imagine not living my life without leaving it from quiet, and I'm still that way, but doing that in my life, like at the be at the beginning of a day, or taking a half a day to do those kind of things, it's still hard for me, but I just go, man, the value it gives me to when I enter the world as the way that I really am wired, it's such a better version of Kent than if I didn't do it, and I will, side note, share with you as we wrap up the fact that I am a D with maybe a hint of I, and I completely agree with you that it's actually more important, I think, for us to have that time with ourselves, because otherwise we can just slip in to go drive, drive, drive mode, and if you're not refilling that cup, you know at some point it's gonna empty.

Yeah, and it's just like the other personalities, my wife's a high, her highest is an S, and she'll say, you know, one of the things about our relationship, she's helped me learn to slow down, but I've helped her learn how to take action on things. Yep, and so we all need, we, you know, we all need to do stuff in areas, probably sometimes the greatest stuff we can do in is in areas where we're not naturally wired, yeah, grow your weakness, just another aspect, yeah. This has been great over default.

This is so fun. What a great conversation about living with intention, getting clear on what matters most, and actually following through on it, so you can live it forward. Kent Julian, thank you so much. My pleasure.

Thank you. I want to have like 12 more of these, and for all of you, if this conversation resonated as much as it feels like it did to me, share with somebody who needs it. Leave us a five-star rating, it helps others see and hear this show, because Ken and I are out here trying to make an impact on you. That's part of the life that we've designed to help you design yours, and if you are ready to take a little bit more intentional approach.

Don't forget, you can pick up Scary Good: Discovering Life Beyond the Sunday Scaries at a bookstore near you, or at Scary goodread.com Until next time, here's to fewer Sunday scaries, and no more Mondays.