The 1 Thing No One Can Take Away From You

0:10 - Hey, it's recording.

0:11 - Oh, hey, how you doing?

0:14 - Welcome back to Extra Shot of Leadership. Kimberly it's a big day.

0:19 - It's a big day. It's a big day.

0:22 - It was a big day. Why? Why is it a big day over there?

0:25 - It's the 100 episode.

0:28 - Can you believe it? 100 episodes.

0:30 - There are days when I thought we were never going to make it. And then as we started to record. More and more and more, I was. Like, we're getting closer and closer and closer. And the next thing you know, we show up today, and I'm like, hey, it's the day.

0:39 - It's the 100th episode of Extra Shadow Leadership.

0:42 - Yeah, kudos.

0:43 - Way to go, Kudos. High five over there.

0:45 - How many podcasts do you think never make it to 100, I wonder?

0:49 - That's a good question. Yeah, but then I think about those fitness guys that you listen to, and.

0:54 - They're like, Mine 2000. I'm like, well, listen, that's the only job they have.

1:00 - Can you imagine? 2000?

1:03 - Yeah, because I think they record like, four to five days a week or something. That is their full time job. I mean, they do gigs and stuff on the side, but this is not our this is not our full time job.

1:15 - 100. 100. So what do you want to talk about for 100?

1:19 - What I really want to do is just reminisce a little bit.

1:21 - All right.

1:22 - I don't know if people want to hear that, but that's what I want to do. I was like, let's go back. You know. What cracks me up is thinking about our first episodes that were about positivity.

1:35 - Yeah. We did a positivity challenge, I think, in episode number two.

1:38 - Yeah. We started this during COVID And everybody needed this. They needed to hear this. And it was just like 1234 I don't know, five, I don't know how.

1:47 - Many, like seven days, man. It was the seven day positivity challenge.

1:51 - It was too much.

1:51 - It was way too much. And I think it was just you and I. Yeah.

1:55 - And I feel bad. I felt bad for those people that find this podcast and then go, oh, I think I like that.

2:00 - I'm going to subscribe.

2:01 - And they back up to episode one. I'm like, skip, stop. Skip skip 1231 through.

2:07 - Yeah, sure. Yeah.

2:08 - I feel like we finally started finding our mojo somewhere around the 20s.

2:12 - Yeah. Even a little later, maybe the 70s.

2:17 - Yeah. But they definitely started getting better over time. I do know that. And so, yeah, no harm, no foul. If you want to skip those 1st.

2:26 - 10, 20 episodes about holding it against you. No, but one of the things I want to talk about today, I'm curious kind of where your brain is at, but one of the things that's near and dear to my heart is just being a lifelong learner. I thought it might be interesting to hear a little bit about your perspective about lifelong learning through this experience of podcasting. So I think we're both lifelong learners. I think everybody knows that we love to learn. We love to learn through doing and talking and you name it, we're going to go out and learn. But after 100 episodes, I'm just so curious. Has this podcast taught you anything? And if so, what are your major takeaways from this?

3:15 - Oh, gosh, this podcast, I'm just going to be honest, there are times when we've talked about do we want to still do this? Because it's a lot of work. It is a lot of work. In the middle of another I'm not whining about we got other full time jobs, but it's a lot of work and I do want to keep doing it because I am learning and I'm getting something from it. And I will tell you, I think the one thing, the number one thing that I have gained from this podcast is confidence.

3:48 - Really?

3:49 - Yeah. Believe it or not. Yeah.

3:51 - I would have never thought you needed to gain confidence. Oh, gosh.

3:54 - Those first episodes when we were talking about positivity, I was shaking in my shoes. I had notes. I had so many notes where, I mean, I'm mapping out, this is what I'm going to say and then that's what you're going to say and this is what I'm going to say and then that's what you're going to say. I would just shaking in my shoes. When you would log on and we'd see each other face to face, we were doing it virtually. I just think about those days to this day where I walked in here today, I have no idea what we're going to talk about, but I feel like I know what I know and I know what I think, know what I feel, know what I believe and that's what I'm here to talk about.

4:32 - Nice.

4:32 - When it comes to leadership or it comes to extra shot of leadership. So I don't come in here with fear anymore. So it solved a fear problem and it solved a confidence problem.

4:42 - Wow, man, that's huge.

4:45 - Yeah. I think about in the beginning we were talking about doing speaking engagements, right?

4:52 - Yeah.

4:52 - And man, we wanted to. I can see it, pepper, we can do this. But the first one that comes along, I'm like so I just get so nervous. Used to, but now I'm like, I'm ready. I'm ready to go. Sure, I'm going to have a little bit of nerves or butterflies when you get in front of people, but nothing like what it was two and a half years ago or whenever that was. How long has it been since we started? Yeah.

5:21 - September. We're going on three years here. September. Wow. We will be celebrating the beginning of our third year. That's unbelievable.

5:29 - Yeah.

5:31 - What were you afraid of? Let's go back to that.

5:33 - You said a year.

5:34 - I was like me.

5:38 - No, I think I was not confident in what I know about leadership. So through all of that, I would study, know, I'd look things up, I'd get on Google, I'd do some searching or whatever, and somewhere along the way, all of that just really stopped. Because I'm like, now I have an opinion, and I feel like, by no means am I, like, the best leader in the world, but I feel like I've put my 10,000 hours in.

6:10 - Oh, sure. I love that, where you put your.

6:13 - 10,000 hours in, where you start to just have a level of confidence, because I've learned so much about everything. Feedback, setting expectations, following up. It's like, it's clear in my mind, or maybe when we did start, it wasn't as clear in my mind what good leadership looked like. I had some right. I had some baseline, but it's pretty clear now.

6:41 - So maybe it's the process of the recording, all the episodes that it all came together.

6:48 - I think it is the process of having to verbalize it.

6:52 - Right.

6:52 - Because in the beginning, if you think about it, I would start to talk about feedback, and I'd zoom out over here to another topic, and I would like a spider web. Right? I'd be all over the place, and you're like, but we're talking about feedback. Now you're over here in expectations, and that's kind of the way I thought. Just like this big old spider web. And this podcast has helped me get clarity wow. Because not only can I see it, but I can verbalize it, and then I can help teach it to other people.

7:23 - Wow.

7:24 - Yeah, man.

7:25 - So it's like, you're like, everybody needs a podcast.

7:29 - I highly recommend it because you got to get your stuff together to be confident enough to put it out there.

7:34 - Yeah. I would imagine there's some element of fear in that or fear in I don't know. Right. People thinking, who does she think she is?

7:47 - What do they know?

7:47 - What do they know?

7:48 - Yes, I had a fear of that. Yeah.

7:50 - I don't know if you people still might think that, for all we know.

7:53 - Yeah. I was fearful that the social media wrath would come down on these two ladies. We either said something wrong, they didn't like it, but I think we always went with, well, any publicity is good publicity, and so far, we really haven't had anyone that just destroyed us with feedback.

8:15 - Yeah. So I like the learning there because not everybody can have a podcast, right? That's right. And yet your confidence has grown through this process and interesting ideas. And what I heard was I verbalizing it right. Going through the process of verbalizing my thoughts and putting them out there, and I would imagine there's some sort of reflection on, what did I just say? Does that make sense? Yeah.

8:47 - When you listen into it, when you start to listen to your own voice and you start to listen to how you're thinking and how you're verbalizing things, you really think, man, I was a hot mess on that episode, or I was kind of all over the place. And you start to get yourself a little tighter in your thinking, but I also think it's the questions that you ask. Right. So the questions that you're asking me, and I'm like, I don't know. I've never thought about that. And it causes me to think after I leave here. So I think just the back and forth, I'm learning not just from your questions, but learning in the way you think, because we think differently sometimes. Right. And so I'm learning from you. I'm like, there's just a whole lot of learning going on over here.

9:28 - Yeah. Which you value.

9:29 - Yes, absolutely.

9:31 - Yeah. So what is it about lifelong learning or being a lifelong learner is important to you?

9:36 - Well, wait, I'm not going down that road until we talk about what have you learned.

9:38 - I'm already ready to shift. How was your day show? Quality, transition?

9:44 - It was good. But I'm going to back the bus up because I want to know, have you learned anything, or what have you learned?

9:50 - I've learned a ton. I have learned how to be more organized, believe it or not. I think I tend not to be an organized person in general, and I have learned the value of organization, especially when doing something like this, like a podcast. And that sounds silly, super silly in my mind, but, man, when I think about the production behind this, the recording of this, the editing of this, just the process of actually recording and then getting it out into the wherever it goes right. Posted, all of that, pushed whatever we call it published, you got to be somewhat organized.

10:42 - Somebody does.

10:43 - Somebody does. Yeah. You got to be somewhat organized. And when you're not organized right. It creates chaos. It creates challenge. So I think, for me, at a root level, just I so appreciate organization and understanding the value of that. Right. So, look, let's air our dirty laundry. We should have been organized about some paperwork that we had, brother.

11:12 - Yes.

11:13 - Yeah. Right. And we weren't organized about it, because that's just not neither one of us are very organized about things, and you see the consequences of that. You're like, Dang it, man, organization is important. What were we doing instead? So, for me, I have learned how important organization is and how much I value it and how much I wish I was more organized. So that's something I just work on in general in my life. I think the other thing that I've really walked away from producing these episodes, I love working with somebody else. So the fact that we get to do this together, I have learned how much I enjoy partnering with someone else, with you in particular, and I just love that. So I have learned how to do that better. Right. I think listen. Yes. You're making a joke when I said what were you fearful of? And you mentioned you. I think I can come on very strong with my own thoughts and my own opinions, and I'm right. So I think I've learned how to partner, and I appreciate that. I appreciate you teaching me and how to be a good partner and how to partner on ideas and thoughts and just shaping my ability to collaborate with somebody else and not being such a bullet, angina shop. I really do. I've learned a lot there. And then finally, I think the last thing that I would comment here is I've really learned through this process, you can do pretty much anything you want to do.

12:51 - Yes, you can.

12:53 - I mean, really, you can do anything you can put your mind to. Because I think about the money that we put into this. Yeah, there are some bucks that you put in, but really, all said and done, maybe we put in, I don't know, $700, $1,000, get a little of equipment and we have some help and some support and all of that. And so there are some other things that we have helping us. But I think in general, the way the world works now, gosh, you can really do anything you put your mind to. And that is so exciting.

13:27 - Yeah, I would agree.

13:28 - It's just thrilling. It's like, whoa, what else can we do? What's next?

13:32 - Yeah, you always see those stars that are like, if you want it, you can do it. And it's really true. If you really, really want it and you're willing to put the work in, you can do anything.

13:47 - You can do anything.

13:48 - Yeah. You can learn anything. We didn't know anything about podcasting. We had to, like, Google, what is a podcast? What is a podcast? How do you start a podcast? We literally had to start from that.

13:59 - Yeah. And you get out, you start asking people questions, you start connecting, you start networking and you start learning. Right. And without that, obviously, you can't get to where you want to go. But I think for me, that has been my biggest takeaway from this whole thing, is I don't know, it's like once you put out this podcast and you see people who are listening into from all over the world, you're kind of like, we can do anything.

14:24 - Yeah. But I think it comes back to you have to have a learning mindset. You have to be willing and open to knowing that you don't know and learn as you go and change course. We've changed course many times. We've changed format. We've changed a lot of things.

14:39 - Yeah. It makes me think I know the other day you mentioned this about the whole fixed mindset versus the growth mindset. You were talking about this, and that's exactly what this makes me think of. Right. It's kind of like, what is the mindset? Because if it's growth, you genuinely believe, you know what? I don't know. It now I can go figure it out.

14:58 - Yeah. What the best part about it is we didn't have to go to school to learn it. Yeah.

15:02 - We didn't have to go to school.

15:03 - Because I think if it required going back to school, I'd be like, Peace. Yes. There's a few Googles here and there asking people, other people that know things, whether it be the marketing side of the business or the technical side of the business. Other people have these skills.

15:20 - That's right.

15:20 - And we can learn from other people. We don't have to go to school for this.

15:23 - Yeah. And we don't have to know it. All right. I think that's the other piece is really being clear about what do you really need to know versus what don't you need to know, and being comfortable to utilize your resources.

15:35 - Yeah.

15:36 - So what was my Today Show transition? I can't even remember any.

15:39 - Well, I just threw it back over to you. Did you not hear it? I was trying to get to lifelong learning.

15:44 - Oh, I met totally, like, right over my head. My head was somewhere else. I was thinking about, I can do anything. I'm like, what's her name on the Titanic?

15:55 - Oh, yes. I don't know, but I can see her face stretched out over there.

15:59 - Is it Kate Winslett? What's her name in the movie? Everybody who's listening right now is like, what a bunch of losers. I can't remember. But she's standing at the bow of the ship, and she's kind of got her arms stretched out with Leo DiCaprio. This is like, I can do anything. I'm on top of the world. That's what this podcast has done for me. I'm on top of the world, Kimberly.

16:19 - And I'm throwing you the bone for lifelong learning over here.

16:23 - Yeah. So for me, lifelong learning listen. I mean, that's what it's about, right? It's about expanding your level of awareness and knowledge about all things. And I see it as twofold it's kind of two categories in my mind. Number one is expanding your awareness and knowledge about things, topics, other people's ideas. Right. The other thing I think that is really important about lifelong learning is expanding your awareness and knowledge of yourself and really thinking about who I am, who do I want to be, what can I be, what do I need to do in order to be whatever I want to be? So there's a focus for me. I see kind of two streams. Right. It's just, can I go produce a podcast? And what are all of the technical things behind that? And then on the second side over here is, what do I need to be able to do? What do I need to know about myself in order to get in front of the microphone and overcome whatever fears I may have?

17:27 - Kind of like internal and external or tangible intangible, maybe? It's kind of what I said.

17:31 - I think that's a great way to think about it internal and external. It's like, who are you and what do you want to be when you grow up or keep being as you grow up? And at what point do you stop evolving? Do you ever stop evolving? Or is it just this continual process of growth and renewal and adjusting and modifying? And I see it as that.

17:50 - Yeah, I hope so, because if it's not that, I just feel like every day is going to be Groundhog Day.

17:56 - And it's going to be very boring. Well, and that's what it is for me, right, is when I think about learning and education and knowledge. Gosh, for me, it's power. Probably a weird word to put it, but that's what I think about. I think it's power. I think it's growth. Makes me think of my daughter, and I know I've brought her up in episodes before, but what it makes me think about is one day she got her junior black belt. And I remember driving away with her and thinking, hey, man, congratulations. That's awesome. And the one thing I told her, I was like, nobody can ever take that away from you. That's what I think about knowledge. It's like it's something that nobody can ever take away from you. Everything else people can take away from you. Your car can get repoed. Right. The house can get foreclosed on. Right. But nobody can ever take away what you've learned or what you know about the world, yourself, other people, all of that. It's something that you will have forever, and if you keep tilling it and growing it, oh my gosh, you're going to know so much.

19:04 - Yeah. The world is your oyster, and there's just no limit. And I see it on both sides, the tangible and the intangible, that whole personal, inner self reflection and figuring out who you are, what your values are, what's important, where you spend your time and all of that. I feel like that when you get that figured out, that is a powerful place to be able to live in. That versus the place of unrest where you don't know who you are. You're still trying to figure it out sometimes in your 30s. Right. You have that little bit of that unrest, and it's a good feeling when you're on the other side. Not that I have it all figured out.

19:41 - Oh, yeah. But you're comfortable in what you know and comfortable in what you don't know.

19:46 - Yes. And I'm comfortable in my own skin where I can't say that I've always been there in my thirty s and early forty s. I was not comfortable in my own skin.

19:54 - Yeah.

19:56 - I think I was just trying to figure out who I was and I was just confused.

20:00 - Yeah, I think for me it was I definitely suffer from wanting to be a know it all. And if I didn't know it all, there was something wrong with me. Right. I wasn't good enough, or I wasn't the whole Stuart Smalley I think that's his name on the Saturday Night Live. I'm not good enough. I'm not smart enough, and nobody likes me. But yeah, no, I completely agree. It's like, I can't get comfortable in what I know because I'm supposed to know it all, and, oh, dear God, what if they figure out I don't know it all? Yeah, no, I'm with you, man. Maybe I'm not completely out of that phase, but I'm definitely well on my way of being like, yeah, I don't know that. So what?

20:43 - I'm okay with not knowing.

20:45 - Okay with not knowing. I can go figure it out.

20:47 - Yeah. And I think that if we tie this back to leadership, I think that is a powerful place for a leader. When they get to that place and they finally get past the, oh, I'm a leader, and I have to know it all when you get to that place where I'm the leader, but I don't have to know it all. I just have to know where to go to get the answers or have to surround myself with people that know things that I don't know, and it's okay. I think that is a really great place of confidence, because then it's like, you can handle anything because I don't have to have all the answers. I have other people.

21:23 - Yeah, I think that's a great comment. And when you say that right as I'm listening to you, I see the leader do this ginormous exhale and the whole team. It's like, everybody's like, finally somebody realizes they don't have to know it all. Oh, yeah, that's a great place to be for a leader, is realizing, I don't have to be everything to everybody.

21:49 - Yeah.

21:49 - It's impossible.

21:50 - I like the exhale piece because you really do. You can just like, oh, I just need to go spend some time talking to this person or asking that person or whatever it is. It's like, you have the resources, but you don't have to have all the knowledge.

22:05 - Absolutely. So lifelong learning, episode 100. Anything else you would add about your learning through the podcast or your value of lifelong learning?

22:19 - I can't think of anything that I haven't said that wouldn't be duplicate. But I do want to give some kudos. I want to give some kudos to a family member that is the epitome of learning, self learning, lifelong learning, willing to go figure it out. And so we have this family member that has just decided that he wants to live in Japan. He wants to go to school in Japan. He wants to be immersed in that culture, and he was going to do it no matter what. So he took it upon himself to go get on the Internet and to learn Japanese on his own, like, through babel, through these chat rooms know, you teach someone English, they teach you Japanese.

23:03 - I didn't even know that was possible. Yeah.

23:06 - It's crazy. And then, I mean, setting his sights on a program that he wanted to get. He wanted a scholarship, full ride scholarship, to get a higher education. So he already has a bachelor's degree, but he wanted higher education. He wants to do it in Japan. So he just got accepted. He just got the scholarship, full ride scholarship. Because he can go in there and.

23:27 - Speak Japanese in his interview because he taught himself. Yeah. Come on.

23:31 - Yeah. And so just I'm just so proud of that, to me, is just the epitome of someone that's like, I'm going to learn all I can. He's all about learning. He's been smart his whole life, but just like, I don't know Japanese, but I'm going to go figure it out. I love that.

23:48 - What a story. Yeah, it's an incredible story when you really sit back and think about that. Right. There was no obstacle that was going to get in his way of what he wanted to accomplish. He was going to overcome it all.

23:59 - Yeah.

24:00 - That is incredible.

24:01 - And so I'm like, do people just like, do you either have it or you not have it? Do you have it sometimes and you lose it? I don't know.

24:09 - Well, I wonder. That's a good question. Right. You sit here and you think a little bit about how come some of us allow obstacles to get in our way and we lose the passion or the energy right. To overcome the obstacle.

24:25 - I think that's the one thing there was something that I was struggling with, like, why can I not do this? Why can I not overcome this? And you told me one day you're like, you don't want it bad enough. And I think it just comes down to, do you want it bad enough? Maybe that's it. Yeah.

24:39 - You got to work hard, right?

24:40 - Yeah.

24:40 - I mean, because I would imagine to learn Japanese, did he know Japanese before he I mean, just to even say, I'm going to go to Japan, I'm going to learn Japanese, I'm going to get on whatever chat room thing there is to teach them English and them teach me Japanese. Yeah. I mean, this person is like, there is nothing that will get in my way because I want this so badly. That's what I mean. One of the things I said earlier was like, you can do anything.

25:13 - Yeah.

25:14 - You can really do anything. It's just how bad do you want it?

25:17 - Yeah. And I think that's what that story is tying back to is the fact that you can do anything, not necessarily to lifelong learning, but to me, it's just like it's just incredible.

25:25 - Oh, gosh. But it's connected, right?

25:27 - Yeah.

25:28 - You can do anything if you want it.

25:31 - And you're willing.

25:32 - All the information is out there. You can go look and find anything on the Internet nowadays. It's incredible.

25:40 - So I think about those people that want to be amazing leaders. They want to be a great leader. Right. And they keep hoping they're going to be a great leader.

25:48 - Yeah.

25:49 - But what are you doing? Right. What is it that you're doing, and what are you putting in? What are you willing to do to become a great leader? Because it can happen. Right?

25:57 - Man, that was today's show quality transition right there. I saw that. I was like, Dang, did you just see that? Everybody? Did you all just hear that? That connection back to leadership? But you're absolutely right. Right?

26:08 - Yeah. I'm not in the camp where you're either born with it or not. Leadership. You're born with it or not. I think there's people that have some natural tendencies, but I think if you want it and you want to be a great leader for your people, you want to be an amazing leader, you can do it. You can do it.

26:21 - Yeah. And this whole business of, well, that's not who my boss doesn't look like this or nobody else at this company does it this way. No, those are just you don't want it bad enough.

26:33 - Yeah. My best friends are not doing a podcast. It doesn't matter. It's like it doesn't matter. Do you want it or not? Yeah.

26:38 - What do you want to do? What do you want to do? What do you to be when you grow up? And are you willing to do whatever it takes?

26:42 - Yeah.

26:43 - And sometimes it's hard. You got some obstacles in the way. So as you reflect on this conversation and you think a little bit about your lifelong learning, how you've learned, do you value learning? How do you see it? What have you learned in the last six months, twelve months that may have impacted your overall career trajectory or your overall leadership style? How much effort do you put into lifelong learning? And what goals have you created for yourself in terms of growing your mindset?

27:16 - Awesome. And if you want to continue your lifelong learning with leadership, don't forget to hit that subscribe button that will put us in your feed every week so you can come back again for an extra shot of leadership.