The Primitive Podcast: Kathy Crockett

What criteria are you using when you define someone as a “leader”? 

Is it a title, the number of decisions someone makes, the amount of people who report to them, or the character one exhibits in the face of adversity?

In this episode with Kathy Crockett, a former business professor at Lubbock Christian University and the current CEO of Crockett and Co, a professional development and corporate training company, we ask all these questions and more.  

Hear more from Crockett in this episode of The Primitive Podcast.

Transcript

Kade Wilcox (00:00:00):

Hey guys, Kade here with The Primitive Podcast. Thanks for tuning in. On today's episode, we have Kathy Crockett. Kathy Crockett was a professor at Lubbock Christian University for over 20 years. She taught management and leadership and marketing classes. As you hear her talk in the podcast, you can hear that she has really great experience and leadership and tremendous amounts of knowledge to share. So I know you're going to enjoy this one, lots of really great wisdom shared in this podcast. Thank you for tuning in and hope you enjoy this one as much as I did.

New Speaker (00:00:45):

Kathy, welcome to The Primitive Podcast. Thank you so much for joining. I've been a casual observer of your leadership over the years, mainly through LinkedIn and Facebook and things like that. We've had a couple of past conversations, but I'm really excited to learn more about you and your leadership journey on the podcast. So thank you for joining. I really appreciate it.

Kathy Crockett (00:01:05):

Sure. I'm glad to be here.

Kade Wilcox (00:01:06):

Tell us about your background. Where are you from? Where have you been in the last 15-20 years and just a little bit about your work?

Kathy Crockett (00:01:14):

Well, I always like to warn people ahead of time, I did go to Texas A&M so I'm an Aggie, even though I'm in Lubbock, Texas. But I did go to grad school at Texas Tech. So for about 22 years, I taught business at Lubbock Christian University. So I usually would start my classes like that saying, heads up, I'm an Aggie. You still have plenty of time to drop the class if you're not quite sure about this. And then of course, that opened the door to lots of teasing about football and sports and all kinds of things. So it made it a lot of fun. And so I did teach business. I taught a variety of things, marketing and leadership primarily, and management as well. And I think my favorite class was Current Trends in Business cause we could just dig into all the current things in the marketplace and really talk more about those things from a leadership and management perspective. And so I taught those classes for about 22 years. And then about a year ago, felt like it was time to retire. And all those years I also did a variety of consulting work. I did market feasibility studies for companies, worked with an advertising firm. I'm an executive coach. So I would work with different leaders in that realm. And then I think one of my favorite things is creating experiences, customized programs for companies and organizations. And I also do some leadership groups where I get leaders from different industries and we come together and talk leadership and network and really learn from each other. And so I've really enjoyed that work as well.

Kade Wilcox (00:02:32):

Give an example of the experience part you're talking about. Could you give us an example of what that looks like? That sounds Fascinating.

Kathy Crockett (00:02:39):

Sure. So back in 2013, I had the privilege of being in a program with Dr. John Townsend. He and Henry Cloud wrote the Boundaries books. They do a lot of leadership work together. People might recognize them. Dr. Jones, the former president of LCU, had done that program. Then he worked it out for me to have that opportunity. He's been a mentor of mine for a long time. And so through that experience, we went once a month to Dallas and there were different executives in the room. And so we had a day long with Dr. John Townsend. He works with leaders from a lot of different areas. So I learned a lot from those other leaders. And then I thought, Lubbock is my heart. I have a real passion really for West Texas and businesses happening in West Texas and keeping talent in West Texas.

Kathy Crockett (00:03:19):

And I thought, sometimes it's difficult to travel and go other places. So what premiere type training and experience can we offer here in Lubbock? And so I gave it a go and we did our first one in 2014 and it actually was only women, but we'd done co-ed groups as well. And then I did another one. I relaunched it. My kids were in high school. And so you talked about seasons. We were visiting about that before we started. And I had a season where I knew that my daughters were in high school and they were very involved in sports and I wanted to be there. I wish that a measure of being a good mom was how many events you attend. I wish that was the only measure that counted, so I knew that was not really the only reason, but I wanted to be there.

Kathy Crockett (00:03:58):

And so I intentionally cut back on my speaking engagements and different types of work I was doing so that I could really lean in. It's almost like a swivel. I think we all know by now there's no such thing as balance. I can talk about a balanced life, but that's not the word. I like to envision it like a swivel. Like a stool that swivels different ways. And sometimes you intentionally lean in. So we did our first group in 2014 and I didn't launch it again until 2019. Cause I stepped back and enjoyed that part of my life. And so last fall we started another one. So we have someone who is in education, a CEO of a healthcare institution, a superintendent of school, CEO's of different medical practices, real estate agents, nonprofit CEOs, someone who is involved with Chick-fil-A.

Kathy Crockett (00:04:44):

It's a rich variety of different people from different industries. And so we come together and we just have case studies they bring. We become each other's personal board of directors. And so we help each other with different consulting sort of a little bit with each other. And then I bring leadership content, but I think the magic of it is that, I use that word a little loosely, but it's just fun to see what happens when you get that many high caliber people in a room and how they interact with each other and meet each other. They become friends with each other they've never met before. So that's really a unique experience that I've especially become intrigued by and just watching the leaders really soak up the friendship and the relationships with the other leaders. Because I don't know if you've ever experienced this Kade, but sometimes leadership can be a little lonely because the buck stops with you and maybe there's a lot of confidential stuff you can't share or sometimes there's pressure involved.

Kathy Crockett (00:05:37):

You're the one creating the vision and going for it. You have a great team around you. Of course sometimes there's just harder days than others. So it's nice to be with other, like-minded people who know what that experience feels like to interact.

Kade Wilcox (00:05:50):

That's really cool. There certainly are those moments. Usually for me, it's when there's an upset client or an employee, a teammate issue. But around Primitive, we're really lucky because we have some phenomenal leaders, like Jess and Heather and Annie and others that really carry that burden. But you're right, it can be lonely. And it is fun when you get a bunch of really great people in a room like how it can just kind of take a life of its own and everyone starts learning from each other. And I think magic is an appropriate word for it. Did you grow up in West Texas?

Kathy Crockett (00:06:26):

Actually I did. I went to New Deal high school. So if anybody's from West Texas, you drive out the interstate to the airport, you see the big green Mighty Lions stadium. So that's where I grew up.

Kade Wilcox (00:06:34):

Awesome. My mom was a basketball coach my whole life and her first head coach opportunity was in New Deal. So she was there for a couple of years. And so that's cool. Who knew we are connected in that way? I don't even know if I was born actually. So maybe I can't take that. That's great. How do you see the role of a leader? When you think of leadership, whether it's your own leadership, leaders you've observed in your work, what do you see the role of a leader? What do you think their primary responsibility is in an organization? What kind of things come to your mind when you think of that?

Kathy Crockett (00:07:14):

Yeah, that's a great question. The word leader is so big. We all have different dictionaries in our minds of what is the definition of a leader? And so when you ask that question, in my mind, I'm thinking of like the CEO or the person with the title. And when I hear the word leader, I just want to ask so many more questions just about that word. Tell me more about what you mean about leader. Tell me more about what you mean about role, because those two words can mean a lot of different things to a lot of people. Andy Stanley is a speaker that lots of people know about. He's a wonderful speaker and runs a very large organization.

Kathy Crockett (00:07:53):

And he talks about when things get really busy and overwhelming, he has a note card in his desk. It's laminated and he pulls it out multiple times a week and he goes, what are we doing? Why are we doing it? And what is my role? And he believes from his perspective as a leader, he wants to be really clear on those three things. What are we doing? Why are we doing it? And what is my role? And so when you think about what is my role as a leader, I think there's a lot of context involved with that. I think sometimes the strongest leaders are the greatest followers. I think they know that perhaps they do have positional power with the title and they also probably hopefully have influential power. Hopefully people might follow them even if they didn't have the title because of the way they take care of their people and they're for their good. And they're creating a really great vision that people want to follow and struggle to get to. And so as far as your role, it depends on the hour, maybe even the minute.

Kade Wilcox (00:08:50):

It's a really great point. Let's recouch the question. Let's think about a leader in an organization who is not the main leader, so it could be a leader of a department. It could be just a regular teammate, right? Because you raise a really great point, in some ways everyone's a leader. And so what do you really mean by leader? So knowing that let's be general here. So number one would be not the head leader, not the CEO, not even the COO, but just someone in the organization who's working and they're trying to add value. And so let's talk about maybe what their role looks like, or what you think about in terms of their leadership and how they should even think about leadership or ways they could think about leadership. And then number two let's think of someone who's leading an organization like a CEO. So now take a stab at those two things.

Kathy Crockett (00:09:49):

Okay. That's a great question. So I will start with the mid level manager, perhaps, or a leader that may not have a lot of direct reports, yet they have responsibilities. So what's interesting about that is often people don't see themselves as a leader. Maybe they think I'm just part of this organization and it's someone else's job to make the decisions, or I'm just following what they say to do. And they may not even necessarily realize they have so much ownership and they are a huge piece of the puzzle. I would tell students all the time, I'm the teacher in this class, but you're very much a part of how great this is going to go. We all are in this together. And so I would hope that a mid level manager or someone who may not have an executive title necessarily would very much be open to the idea that I have ideas and I have a voice. You want to use it appropriately, of course, but you don't want to hold back ideas or things like that because some of the most innovative ideas for companies come from people more on the front lines or who may be more in contact with clients or who may be a part of that. The CEO and COO don't always have that luxury and they need people to give them feedback. And that's sometimes hard to do. Sometimes you can even be a little intimidated by the title or they're my boss, I don't want to make them mad. So I don't want to necessarily give them this feedback or something that I'm seeing. But I would hope as a CEO, you've created an environment where people can give you that feedback.

Kathy Crockett (00:11:04):

And so another thing that's interesting to think about, recently I heard a speaker mention that they're three types of people in an organization in general. Of course this is pretty general. He said, you will always have critics and that's not always a bad thing. You'll have critics, hopefully they're reasonable critics. Unreasonable critics we don't enjoy as much. But if they're a reasonable critic, they may be sharing something that's a blind spot for you. Usually they're very vocal, but they're not necessarily the majority. And he said usually about 80% of the people in your organization are what he calls bystanders. They're good followers. They're on the team. They're doing what they're supposed to do. And he said that another smaller percentage of people in your organization are advocates. And these are people, regardless of title, who are going to help you push the mission, they are in it with you. They are going to help you strategically move forward to grow whatever that initiative is.

Kathy Crockett (00:12:00):

And so I think for more of those mid-level leaders, I would hope that you would want to be an advocate. You would ask good questions. You would not only want to be a bystander fulfilling your role, you do have a role, you have responsibilities, you have a job description, you have a reason you're earning the paycheck. Yet, I hope you also might stretch and think about, in my area, how are we going to help the overall strategic mission move forward? How can I be an advocate, not just a bystander, and be proactive about those things. Be confident, even if you're uncertain, maybe even be confident in the uncertainty of I've got good people around me. I have a leader I respect and I think is open to feedback and looks for ways to do that. Becoming an advocate is what I would say and be open to growth. Another speaker I really enjoy talks about how you learn something and you have to leap to the next learning curve. We're all on them in different areas of our lives. Like for me as a mom, my daughter got married this summer, so I'm learning how to be a mother-in-law. That's new. And I have a son now, which is so fun. And so all of us have different roles and we're on learning curves in different roles. So as soon as you get the top of that learning curve, if you don't make the leap to the next learning curve, you're going to start going down the backside of that learning curve. And sometimes it's hard to make that leap to the next challenge or the next way to grow because it's so comfortable at the top. You've worked so hard to finally get to that top piece of that curve and then it's time to leap to the next one. So I would hope that any leader, regardless of CEO or mid-level, would have a teachable spirit and would be open to that I don't know it all and I can still grow. And there's things I can do to be an advocate for my organization as a CEO and a COO.

Kathy Crockett (00:13:43):

I want you to have a teachable spirit. I want you to be mindful of your culture. Which we all know it's very common for us to all think about our culture, but have you really thought about it? I went to a conference recently that I was a part of and listened to virtually. I don't know if you've ever been to different conferences or even put on conferences. I've actually put on conferences before and just told the leaders to share stories. And I didn't even give them a theme, but it was fascinating how a theme emerged naturally. And so this most recent conference, one of the themes that came about was how psychological safety is such a key point for innovation and pretty much any person on the planet either personally or as an organization is in innovation right now.

Kathy Crockett (00:14:26):

It's really a unique time in our global history. Where pretty much everyone at the same time has got to be thinking about innovation, whether you want to or not. If you're a mom trying to figure out how to homeschool your kids, because school isn't meeting or if you're a CEO thinking, I don't even know how am I going to pay my employees right now if we're considered non-essential. All these things that we've been dealing with, we're all in innovation. So isn't it interesting that as a CEO, as part of your culture, you want to think about is my organization psychologically safe where a mid level manager can speak up and can bring ideas. That may sound crazy. Am I letting them fail quickly? If someone fails, am I hammering them and they're fired? Or am I actually celebrating the fact that they took a risk and were trying to be innovative?

Kathy Crockett (00:15:09):

What does that even look like for our culture? And so I think that's one of the most valuable things as a CEO and a COO you can do is think about what kind of culture am I creating for the people who come to work here every day? As a CEO and CEO, you're thinking about the vision for your company. You're thinking about the vision of where we're going. I also hope perhaps you're thinking about the vision of what I am creating and helping my people design. A life that's good for them. I hope that not only are you envisioning that for your company, but also for yourself personally and Kade, I've seen you do that. You mentioned earlier leaving town for summer to go on a trip with your family. I mean, that's wonderful. You're designing your life.

Kathy Crockett (00:15:46):

You're being very intentional. Well, are you creating those same opportunities for your people? Are you helping them? You're modeling it. Great. Are they watching you and think, well that's only for the CEO. I can't necessarily think about that. I can't design my own life. Well what if you could and talk about a way to keep talent and attract talent. And there's so many things you could say as a CEO and COO, but I think just remembering to get great people to execute, but remember your job is to continue to think about where we are going? How are we going to get there? And then what does it feel like on the journey?

New Speaker (00:16:21):

Do you have a wake behind you as a leader? Like a ship has a wake behind it. If you have a wake behind you, have you ever turned around and looked back at the end of a project and just checked the pulse of your people? How are they doing? Are they in the ditch, exhausted, burned out? Are they actually right behind you saying that was awesome. Let's do it again. What kind of pace? What kind of environment? What kind of recognition? What kind of encouragement are you giving those people? What wake are you leaving behind you is another thing to consider as a CEO or executive leader. And then you want to think about the mid level managers too. How are they treating their people? They're probably a little bit newer at it. Are they feeling the pressure? And so they put that pressure on their people, or have they seen you say, we're going to figure it out.

Kathy Crockett (00:17:11):

We may not know exactly how to do it. And we're kind of uncertain about how all this is going to play out, but we have such confident uncertainty that we've got the right people around us that we're going to figure it out. We're going to figure out how to make it better tomorrow. We might be in the ditch right now, but you know what? We've got the right people to get out of the ditch and get back on the road. And I think that's a really special thing that you want to be thinking about as an executive leader.

Kade Wilcox (00:17:32):

That's really good. Thank you. Thanks for breaking those down too. I really liked what you said about bystanders advocates. Did you say the first one was reasonable critics?

Kathy Crockett (00:17:41):

Yes. You want to have reasonable critics. Years ago, a mentor told me you want to be very mindful of how you engage with people and if someone's in a place and not trying to create them as a villain or a bad person, but they're just in a place that they're not even open, they just needed to criticize. And that's just where they are right now. They're not going to be reasonable. And you cannot reason with an unreasonable person. So maybe give them time to become reasonable, or maybe you just agree that they're going to hate me forever or whatever. Don't necessarily engage with them.

Kathy Crockett (00:18:12):

But often there are critics that are reasonable. And at first, when you hear them come at you, you're wanting to put up the barriers of protection. Your brain's yelling at you to get out of there. They're horrible. There's actually a fun thing I got to do about a year ago, was 70 hours of continuing education and conversational intelligence. And this fascinating woman had developed this whole thing with neuroscience and biology and neurochemistry. And it was just fascinating. I totally geeked out. But one of the interesting things she said that I would share with my students that often with leaders is all of us have this neurochemistry going on. And it's amazing how our brains are created. And we have different parts of our brains that weigh in on decisions in different ways. And so of course you've heard of fight or flight. So that's the quickest one to respond.

Kathy Crockett (00:18:58):

And so when a critic comes at you, immediately cortisol is pumping through your brain and pretty quick, you're going to have a hard time getting to your critical thinking skills because your body's just yelling at you. It's a bear, it's about to eat me, run. And it feels the same, even if it's just a critic. But if you can really quickly ask yourself a question and get into curiosity, it actually interrupts that flood of cortisol and then oxytocin comes in and that's where it actually helps you be creative, be a problem solver, be willing and open to maybe learn from this critic, no matter how harsh they may be. Instead of being defensive and wanting to pull back, lean in. What if you could lean in with a great question and say, clearly you're upset, I want to learn what's going on. Tell me more. And that's the last thing your brain wants to hear is tell me more criticism. But what if you could get into curiosity because if you can get into curiosity, it's a powerhouse, it keeps you out of fear and judgment. Cause our default, if you will, is fear and judgment because that protects us. It keeps us alive. That's another way that we're created in such a fabulous, amazing way. The first option is if you're not alive, nothing else matters. So your brain's going to keep you alive.

Kathy Crockett (00:20:08):

So if you can get curious about those things that are overwhelming to you, back to those questions of Andy Stanley, that's why that's so brilliant. It gets you into curiosity, not fear, because right now there's a lot legitimately to be fearful of. There's a lot of significant obstacles that we've never seen before. So it's okay to be fearful and even maybe judgmental. I even chuckle a little bit, even with planning a wedding with my daughter this summer, it was interesting the questions I would receive from people regarding what we were going to do to keep people safe at the wedding. Are you going to have it indoor or outdoor, all these questions instead of feeling like I was being pummeled, which some days I did, I just tried to get curious. I tried to really understand what they were really asking versus assuming. And so by me getting curious, it really made that process much easier versus always being in fear and judgment. You want to just be mindful of what things come at you where you automatically go to fear and judgment.

Kathy Crockett (00:21:02):

It's a natural human thing we do. Your neurochemistry is driving it in your brain, but what if you could interrupt it and you could just think, how can I be curious right now? Let that be your mantra. Okay. What question can I ask? And hopefully if they're a reasonable critic, they will hear that question and that might get them out of their cortisol flood because maybe they're coming at you about a fear and judgment. And if you can get them into curiosity, they might have a conversation with you. And you may even turn a reasonable critic into a bystander. And who knows, maybe an advocate, an unreasonable critic. If they just keep coming at you and coming at you, they're not willing to get into curiosity, it may just not be the right time. Maybe give them some time to cool off, come back a few days later or you just choose maybe to set a boundary and you just realize I think we're just going to agree to disagree and it's probably not worth my time to engage here.

Kade Wilcox (00:21:50):

The really fun thing about thinking about these categories in an organizational setting is you're actually getting to deal with real people face to face and in real relationships. I run a handful of political Facebook accounts. And it's just impossible. It's like, everyone's an unreasonable critic in my opinion. But the fun thing about leading an organization and working in the context of a team is that those are real relationships and much easier to do than in where most of us spend our time which is with our phones or Facebook or whatever. So really, really good stuff.

Kade Wilcox (00:22:25):

How do you approach failure? Do you have a process in which you go through when you've experienced failure in order to learn from it? What are some things you've observed over 20 years of observing other leaders? Feel free to answer it any way you want, but generally speaking, what do you think of failure? How do you approach it? How do you learn from it? What is your method there?

Kathy Crockett (00:22:47):

Yeah. Well, great question. Failure is a big word too, and everybody again has their own definition of it. What I have noticed when I was in high school, for example, we mentioned, I grew up in New Deal, a big basketball player. Tons of heritage of basketball in New Deal. So I remember early years of failure was a coach yelling at me. I missed a shot or the ball got stolen from me, that was just the feedback I got. Yellers and people who yell, you were just normal. That's what coaches do. And not that that's bad, it's totally a strategy and you gotta be loud at a game. Or a grade on a paper from a teacher, that's the feedback you're getting. I failed, and some people think they failed because they made an F some people think they failed cause they made a 98 not a 100. So that really opened the door to the perfectionism that I think a lot of people struggle with and this idea of what success even looks like. And so over the years I've noticed a shift and I think a good shift because people have gotten a little more savvy about innovation and especially successful companies. They actually reward failure. They embrace it. They think it's part of the process. Recently, I heard some speakers. There were these consultants and they were speaking during the pandemic, but they said, we actually do this stuff all the time with companies. And they gave a great case study. And I wish I could remember the company, it might have been Google.

Kathy Crockett (00:24:00):

It was a huge company. I need to go back and look, but what they do is, they intentionally set up experiments and they talk about the power of experimenting. And since I came from higher education, as a professor we do research all the time, but in industry, maybe you don't think about it that way. And they said, if you can really get in your mind that these are a series of experiments, it's almost like you're predicting a good percentage of them are going to fail. This is normal. We have to normalize failure, right?

Kathy Crockett (00:24:27):

So they talk about how they had 168 teams. This is a huge company. They had 168 different teams with projects and they funded them. They gave them each a set of dollars, cross functional teams and said, play with this for a while. Let's see what you think. And so after maybe two or three months, they swing back around and this is their rhythm. Half of them get cut right off the bat, the other half get more money to play for another three months. And then after that time, 75% get cut. They get to 25%. So they start of 168 ideas at the end of this process, that might last about a year, maybe two, they have three ideas, but everybody gets credit for them because they say this was part of the process. If we didn't have number 167, one that failed, we would have never gotten these three amazing, remarkable things. And so people who were on the teams that maybe didn't get selected, aren't demoralized or feel like they're losers or feel like what a waste of time. They appreciate that it was part of the process. And then the next time they may be on the team that gets picked because now they're full of confidence.

Kathy Crockett (00:25:26):

They know I'm not going to get fired if I take a risk. They may take more risks. They may be even more crazy, innovative and not play it safe because they experienced that it was okay. Okay, now what are we going to go for? And that's the rhythm. And I thought, how interesting. So even for me with retiring I had an idea of what I might do and then the pandemic hit and like many people, you rolled out the carpet and you rolled it right back up again. And now we're rolling it back out. But what they said that I think intrigued me the most, and I've heard it from several speakers, you don't have to bet the farm.

Kathy Crockett (00:25:58):

Even though one company, Locktite, actually bet the farm on a Super Bowl commercial to save their company. And it worked. I don't know if you've ever seen that commercial or heard about that case study, but it's crazy what they did and it worked for them, but not, everybody's going to bet the farm on one ad. You're going to do a series of small experiments and I'm sure you do this with your clients. With social media you do a small experiment that doesn't cost a lot of money necessarily versus a Super Bowl ad. I would hope as an innovative company, each one of your teams, or maybe your areas, if you told them what is one experiment that you could go for in the next quarter? Sometimes companies plan out quarter one, quarter, two, quarter three, quarter four. What if you could go to your teams, maybe your lower leaders or managers saying, I've bet you've had some ideas looking around here.

Kathy Crockett (00:26:48):

I want you to take one of these ideas, grab a couple of people who you might want to be on this team to flush it out. I'm going to give you 10 hours a week. I'm going to give you this dollar amount. Give them permission and create space for them. Don't make it an extra job on top of all of their other responsibilities, create space for creativity and innovation. Wouldn't it be so cool to see what might emerge, not giving them any agenda. Hey, you probably have had an idea around here. What do you think?

New Speaker (00:27:19):

Lisa TerKeurst is actually an author and speaker. And I heard her speak at a business conference and I had never seen her in this space before. I've seen her in lots of other spaces, but she was speaking at this very elite business type conference. And I was like, how interesting is this? So she comes in and says, I'm going to talk to you about innovation, but I'm gonna use a word you perhaps you've never heard before or thought about before. And before I even tell you the word for me, I'm going to tell you, there's two Forbes articles that discuss this. And there's been researchers at premier institutions that have researched this from a business perspective. And she said, the word is forgiveness. And if you search in Forbes, they talk about how forgiveness is becoming one of the leading traits. Because going back to this psychological safety idea, if there's any underlying animosity or jealousy or envy with your team members and people resenting the fact that they got the resources and you, didn't, it kills innovation.

Kathy Crockett (00:28:16):

And the articles in Forbes magazine were fascinating talking about how they even measured it. It was so interesting, the questions they even asked employees. And I thought, isn't that interesting that as a CEO leader, part of your culture, what does forgiveness look like? And that seems like a spiritual term, but it's very much a business strategic term. Who maybe was at a meeting and thought they were being funny and sarcastic and they actually hurt this person's feelings. And they took it personal. Maybe they shouldn't have taken it personal, but maybe that was a pretty harsh thing. And you don't have the relational capital to give them a hard time in that way yet. And they didn't realize it.

Kathy Crockett (00:28:49):

What about miscommunication? That happens all the time. Right? I keep mentioning that we have these different dictionaries in our head and the other way I see that coming up and creating conflict and stress in an organization is extroverts and introverts. Something as simple as that. For extroverts, the way I define that is it depends how you get your energy back and it's how you process information. So for me, I actually need to be by myself a little bit to get my energy back at the end of the day. Yet I am completely an extrovert in the way I process information and want to problem solve. So you can ask yourself the question. If you're sitting in a room and you have someone leading a meeting and they throw out a question, are you one that likes to think about it first? And this is on average and it may depend on the context, but just in general, are you one that jumps in and starts talking about it? Or are you one that wants to think about it first before you say anything out loud?

Kathy Crockett (00:29:45):

Both of those things are doing the same thing. The introverts are just thinking about all the ideas, the extroverts saying them all out loud. Let's say you're a leader and you're an extrovert and you have a direct report who's an introvert. As an extrovert, you start processing all these ideas. The introvert is thinking those are their list of duties that they have to do because an introvert usually won't say anything out loud until it's a plan. As an extrovert you don't even remember all the things you're saying, because you're processing. Just like the introvert doesn't remember every single thought that they thought to come up with their one idea, an external processor will say all kinds of stuff and not even remember what they say, but if you're an introvert, listening to your leader, you're taking notes, you're trying to grab it all because you think that's the plan.

Kathy Crockett (00:30:30):

How often does that happen in organizations where someone's worked really hard on something and they take it back to their boss and their boss says, why are you even doing that? Talk about conflict and discouragement and a waste of energy and time and talent and confusion. And that takes so much energy. And would they hold a grudge against their leader or would they forgive them and say, okay, got it. Now that I'm aware that you're an extrovert, I know. And as extroverts, if you're processing out loud and they don't know that you could even say, just so you know, none of this is a plan, I'm just talking out loud here. This is just how I get to the final result. If you're an introverted leader and you have an external processor direct report, be patient with them. If you really want the great juicy ideas out of them, they're going to have to get through a lot of words before they get there. And you may be rolling your eyes going, they're wearing me out. I can't do this. But just be aware that that's a dynamic. And even with your kids, if you have families, my dad was an external processor before I had this knowledge and awareness. And I can remember there were times I would be so sad and disappointed, you said we would get to do this. And he'd be like, what are you talking about? No, I didn't. We'd be like, no, you said.

Kathy Crockett (00:31:36):

And so even as a parent think about your kids. Are they external processors? Are they internal processors? How has that dynamic going at home as well? So much to talk about around that. But when she said the word forgiveness, it sparked this whole different perspective of how that can be a strategic initiative, it could be a core value. It could be part of your culture to actually talk about that. We don't hold grudges. We want to respectfully and professionally get stuff out in the light. So stuff doesn't stew under the surface. Cause we don't want that in our culture. How do you make that psychologically safe for someone to maybe confront someone with something or say, I'm not trying to be a baby and I'm not trying to be a wimp, but I did not appreciate when you said that in that meeting. How do you do that in a really healthy way? And companies that can figure that out, you can get radically candid feedback.

Kade Wilcox (00:32:33):

That's really good. We've experienced that in our own way. I mean, having a Chief of Staff who really gets to prioritize relationships and really open candid conversations. I've never thought of it in this term, but it literally creates a psychologically secure environment for people to be able to be whoever they are in that moment, whether it's frustrated or upset or whatever. Earlier you used the word having a teachable spirit when you were talking about some aspects of what's really important for leaders. We do that really imperfectly, but we at least strive for it. So it's fascinating how all these things work together. When you talk about failure, when you think about forgiveness, when you think about psychologically secure environments, when you think about teachable spirit, a lot of these things merge together and the more of these really critical things that you can do, consistently and regularly, the more likely you are to create an environment that's really healthy. It's all really good.

Kade Wilcox (00:33:28):

How do you approach your own personal growth? You taught classes for a long time. You've been involved with trying to nurture and help and equip and coach other leaders. So what are the types of things you do, practically speaking, to nurture and to foster your own personal growth as a leader?

Kathy Crockett (00:33:44):

StrengthFinders is a common thing that lets people know about themselves. And one of my top five is learner. And so I think I just instinctively love to learn. I'm curious. I get into conversations with people and I just ask all these questions, cause I'm just so intrigued with how things work and how people function and the choices they make and the stories they have. And so I think that helps that part of my personal growth because I do have that desire and a natural way of doing that. I love to read. I'm a voracious reader. I love podcasts. I like webinars. And really, I think a lot of that came from graduate school when we would do research a lot. We would do focus groups and we would try to figure out the gap between intention and behavior.

Kathy Crockett (00:34:24):

That was my doctoral work for this long dissertation we did was really just looking at what is the gap between intention and behavior. We have all these great intentions, but sometimes we just don't do them. And then we even ask ourselves, why didn't I do that? I totally meant to do that. What happened? I blinked and a year went by and I still haven't done that. What's up with that. So I've always been curious about that specific thing whether it be marketing or leadership or management. And so I'm drawn to those types of things. And so for my own personal growth, I have a book in my bag right now. You probably won't find me too many places without a book in my bag. It's just something I just do.

Kathy Crockett (00:34:58):

I just am curious. I want to learn more. And I also think that pace is important. Several years ago I was part of a program I mentioned earlier with John Townsend. And I think that was one of the bigger ahas that I noticed with those other executives in the room is they did not create space for personal growth. They were just putting out fires. They were running and they said, that it would be great if I could go listen to a podcast or read a book, but right now I'm trying to make payroll. That's awesome, Kathy, but seriously, how do we do that? Even John Townends, they were asking him and just listening to those CEOs of those companies ask these really candid questions. It'd be great to do all that, but hello, I've got a client that's about to cancel and their 80% of our revenue.

Kathy Crockett (00:35:41):

I've got to go fix that. They felt like they were always having to be on, they didn't have the luxury of relaxing. They were having to just push and strive and go, go, go. And that may be in seasons very relevant and very appropriate. But, if you can't figure out a way to have some places where you can grow, where you can just think. I was watching something and I think Bill Gates has something he calls think week. Once a week, he goes off by himself with tons of books and he has no agenda other than to think. He'll read some books, but he'll just think, and granted, we don't all have that luxury, but I thought, what does that look like for you? And recently, Marcus Buckingham has been doing a lot of research on resilience and that's part of resilience is do you have a way to grow?

Kathy Crockett (00:36:24):

And your brain wants to. Your brain is going to get bored and burned out if you're not creating space to grow. So for me, it's being with good people. It's having my own personal set of directors, who I can go to with thoughts and challenges and get their feedback and learn from them. I try really hard also to get people who are different from me to give me their thoughts. It's really easy and comfortable for me to ask my friends what they think, because I think they'll tell me what I want to hear. And some of the people that I've been blessed to surround myself with, they're the ones that are gonna ask me the really hard questions. Someone asked me a question back in 2014, that really challenged me. And it actually led to me facing what I was avoiding doing. Something that I knew would be great.

Kathy Crockett (00:37:10):

I just knew it'd be hard. And it was outside of my expertise, if you will. And that's led to a series of books called Courageous Leaders of Faith and Men and Women of Faith. And I didn't want to do it, but they kept asking me the hard questions. And I realized the reason I didn't want to do it is because it was gonna be hard. And that was very unusual for me. I wasn't afraid of hard work and if you give me a challenge, I'm like, okay, let's go. But for some reason, this one pocket of my life I was avoiding and they called me out on it. And so I think personal growth looks a lot different for other people. I know quite a few leaders that reading is not their thing.

Kathy Crockett (00:37:44):

I give an assessment to my clients. And one of the things that measures is how your brain is wired to do work. And one of the things that it measures is how do you absorb information? How do you communicate the information? How do you receive the information and how does it stick in your mind? Which was very helpful for students, but also for when you're giving instructions to employees or clients or just in communication. And so some people, like my son in law, say if he can listen and he doesn't have to take notes, don't make him take notes. If I can just listen and focus on it, I've got it. Which I'm jealous of. For me, if I listen, I hear it. I want to circle back around to that. But I want a pen in my hand because writing helps it get in my head and reading helps it get in my head. I had a friend, she said, what's up with people saying leaders are readers. I feel guilty. It's like I'm a closet leader because I hate to read. Well, reading is not her learning channel. But if she can listen she's got it. I'm like, audio books totally account. They totally count. If you're watching someone, modeling someone, interviewing someone, interacting with someone, that counts too. So again, you want to figure out for yourself what personal growth looks like for you. That's what it looks like for me.

Kathy Crockett (00:39:00):

Another interesting thing on personal growth. Recently, John Townsend, I was on a webinar with him and he was sharing with us his formula for not getting burned out. And I think that's part of personal growth, it's not only becoming a better leader, being willing to leap to that new learning curve, that's a big piece of it. But another big piece of it is you have to have self-awareness. Lead yourself in a way that you know when you're getting burned out when you're getting drained. A huge piece of the work that I do now with leaders is around energy. It's not necessarily about time in minutes, there is a quantity reality to that for sure. But a big piece of this is your energy and focus. Do you know yourself well enough? Like with my students, it is really easy to figure it out. Who's a morning person. Who's a night person? If you know that you're a night person, do your homework then. If you know you're a morning person, do your homework then. Be savvy about your most important tasks and when your body naturally focuses in. Don't try to battle your body on that. Be mindful of that.

Kathy Crockett (00:39:58):

Another thing is, we're a whole person, we're not a machine. Often you can get so busy in task mode. And I had a season like that. I was a machine I was producing. Let's go, let's go. It's all about efficiency, efficiency, efficiency. How much can I cram on the calendar? How much can I fit in? We'll take on that one more project. It was almost like a game, not a game, but a challenge. It's like, I bet we could put that in. I was proud of it almost. And I was. And then later I realized the wake I was leaving behind me. People were tired and worn out. So part of personal growth, learn more about yourself, how are you? We're not machines, we're human beings. So you have a spiritual component, you have a physical component, emotional, physical. I added one recently. The more I think about this, the social component, especially with so many things going on, even with the wedding. So many of the decisions I made were really more about how will this play out in the social realm versus even the physical realm. We felt like we could keep people safe, but we wanted to be mindful of how people feel about this? Socially it's this big social experiment we're in right now of how are we going to all interact?

Kathy Crockett (00:41:07):

And so what's your tank look like? Like physically, what does your tank look like? I tell clients all the time I check in with them once a month. Tell me your percentages. And it's almost like a tank on a car. If it's almost empty, it still runs. If your cell phone has red on it with the battery, you are not messing around. You were looking for a plug. You're not going to mess around with that. So what are those in each of your different areas of your life? How do you know when the warning light is on that you're almost out of gas in those different areas of your life. And then do you know yourself well enough to know how to fill them back up? So part of my personal growth, actually reading fills me back up. Running fills me back up. I think you have to get outside. Stephen and I are about to go to Colorado and I cannot wait to get in nature. But you have to figure out what that is for you. Don't compare yourself to others and think, it's got to look like that. You want to have the confidence and self awareness to know what it is for you. And that's a really important thing.

Kathy Crockett (00:42:03):

Back to this formula that I was talking about earlier with Marcus Buckingham and John Townsend. So he said, you and I, in a workplace, you have responsibilities. Really in all facets of your life, you have responsibilities. So you have a responsibility and they make it like a fraction. So you didn't know we were going to be taught math today, but let's say there's responsibility on the top and there's resources on the bottom. He said, you want that ratio to be pretty close to one, if you can. You know your responsibilities that you have to get things done are pretty close to the resources you have available to you. Well, we all know that often that goes sideways fast. You have more responsibility than you have resources. That's very common. And how do you get that closer to one? Well, you have to get creative and curious. Because you may not have the luxury of more money. We have a budget, you know, the reality is, we're down 20% this quarter and we're trying to make payroll. And you're asking for more money to take on this new initiative. Awesome. We've given you more responsibility, but we don't have any more money to give you. And I see that a lot with leaders, especially executive leaders, they want to take care of their people.

Kathy Crockett (00:43:10):

There's a famous book. Leaders Eat Last. A lot of leaders give so much of their team and they don't really fill their own cup. They're not giving themselves resources and they're headed for burnout and stress. And it's hard to make wise decisions when you're exhausted. And so you want to be creative about what those resources are? So it could be money. It could be technology. It could be creating partnerships, that's resources. The one that I think I work with the most with these leadership groups is who's your personal board of directors? Who are the people that are safe people for you that you can go and talk to candidly. You don't have to be on. Actually that's getting better too. I think leaders are learning it's okay if your people see your weakness, because I want to follow someone that has them, because I feel like they're telling me the truth and not hiding stuff.

Kade Wilcox (00:44:03):

Or you're like me and have so many weaknesses. It doesn't matter how hard you try to hide them. You just let it all out.

Kathy Crockett (00:44:10):

So what can you do for your people when they come to you and say, I'm really overwhelmed. Ask them about that ratio. How do you feel about the amount of responsibility you have and the resources we've given you, and maybe they actually know where the holes are and maybe they ask you and you may not be able to give them everything, but maybe you could put them with a partner or you could actually create a project where you get another resource in. Because you know, you know what, Sarah, in this department, actually has had that experience before. I'm going to create some space in her schedule to give you a couple of hours and you can just pick her brain, even that's a resource. So you want to be very mindful of the resources you have available that you may not have thought of.

Kathy Crockett (00:44:45):

And don't despair thinking, this is an awesome ratio that's impossible to reach. Because we don't have this cash growing on trees. It's not always money. Relationships are a powerhouse in resourcing. And so if you can figure out a way to even look in your life.

Kathy Crockett (00:45:01):

I had a season in my life where it was kind of interesting. I worked with mostly men because I was in business. My clients were men. I was on different boards. And I won't say I was like the only woman, but I was often one of the few. And so one day my husband picked up my phone. He's my technology guy. It's so awesome to have a technology guy. He's just looking at my phone. This was probably about 10 years ago, maybe 12. And he said, what's up with all your text messages, where are your girlfriends?

Kathy Crockett (00:45:27):

He wasn't jealous. We are careful. Guard rails and all that, but he just made a passing comment and I was like, I'm gonna think about that. And so I just kind of started focusing on that and thinking about that. And pretty soon the most amazing remarkable women started coming into my life. I look back today and I'm just amazed at what that has led to. And it may not even be a gender thing. It may be an experience thing. It may be an expertise thing. It may be a spiritual thing. For me, I happen to be a Christian and I want people in my life that I can ask questions to about that too, not just business.

Kathy Crockett (00:46:07):

And so I try to follow people that already have a lifestyle that I really admire. AndI wonder how they figured that out, whether it's parenting or business. It's so refreshing to have all different ages. One of my mentors, she's 86 and she's awesome. Her name's Arlita. She may not be 86. I should get that number right. She may be offended that I'm making her older than she has, but I have another friend who's 92 and she is so physically fit. And she is a force in leadership. And then I have men who are also in my life. So your resources get really savvy and shrewd about what are the resources out there and are we fully engaging in those? And how can I give those to my team? And it may not cost you even 1 cent going back to the energy idea.

Kathy Crockett (00:47:02):

Have you ever had a conversation with someone or spent time with someone and like two hours flew by and you're like, I'm late for work. This was a great lunch, but it felt like 30 minutes. It just went so fast. And at the end of that conversation, even though it might've been a lot of time, you felt energized. You got a great reward back. Your return. It's almost like putting money in the stock market and getting a great return. Maybe not now, but that does happen sometimes. And so same with your time. If I invested this time with this person and the return I got filled my cup, it gave me more energy. There's people like that.

Kathy Crockett (00:47:37):

And I don't know about you, but I wonder if sometimes we're around people and after five minutes, you need to go lay down. It felt like five hours. Maybe clients. That's actually a legitimate thing. So pay attention to that. And what if you don't have the money to hire another person, but what if he got really smart about the projects and you actually asked your people, which one of these projects energizes you, which ones drain you. We all have projects that drain us. So sometimes there's work that'll drain everybody. So we all have to take a turn, but what if you could get smart and savvy and reallocate where the projects go and you really are leaning in to what people love to do and they have more energy in it. It gives them energy back. You'll get so much more productivity and you didn't even need another full time person. And they're happier. They're more engaged. They're excited. Production is through the roof. You didn't have to spend more money. So many rewards to that. So this notion of energy is a big one.

Kade Wilcox (00:48:29):

Yeah, that's really good stuff. Really good. Last question for you. So if you could speak to your younger self, if you could go back 20 years ago knowing what you know now, what's some advice you'd give yourself?

Kathy Crockett (00:48:44):

I think a mantra that I've learned and I wish I knew then, was relax in the process. Another StrengthFinders I have is activator. And so I'm like Captain Activator with a short time frame span. I want everything done yesterday and let's go, let's get it done. And so sometimes with that in my work style, if you will, I would feel I put so much pressure on myself to figure it out. And I think I also had a very narrow definition of what success looks like. Almost perfectionism. I'd say I probably may be a recovering perfectionist. Excellence is what we're striving for. Perfectionism does not serve us well at all. And I think it took me a while to figure that out. And so I think the idea of so many things that decisions that we make are processes.

Kathy Crockett (00:49:36):

So I can relax in the process. Even though I've retired from teaching at the university, so many college students still cross my path that it's so awesome. They're some of my favorite people. I still get to talk to them and just listen and be an advisor, maybe a little bit and mentor.But one of them I was talking to about this idea of relaxing in the process. And I knew that she liked to ski and I ski, but I'm not like a black diamond person. But I remember trying to learn how to ski. And it wasn't a very hard slope. And I was so tense. I was stiff and they were telling me to turn. And my knees were barely bent and I was snowplowing.

Kathy Crockett (00:50:16):

They're like, no, don't do that. So then I would go one way and then I'd stop. And then I turned my skis physically, pick up the skis and turn the other way and go. And I was so stiff and I was so focused on figuring it out. I couldn't look around and enjoy the scenery. I couldn't enjoy the beauty of nature. I couldn't even enjoy the process of learning cause I was so stiff and so determined to figure it out. Then the instructor was smart and said, we're just gonna try something. We're gonna go to the top of the hill and I'm just going to connect you to me. And you're going to get to look around. And the other thing back to failure, I was afraid to fall down. I'm going to figure out skiing, and I am not going to fall down. Well, everybody knows that if you're going to learn how to ski, you're going to fall down. You don't tell a little toddler, you fell down, I guess walking isn't for you. Who says that? Nobody. But how often do we do that to ourselves, with the pressure we put on ourselves to do it perfectly the first time or not allow the process. We've gotta be able to relax in the process because that again gets us into curiosity when we're so tense and putting so much stress on ourselves to figure it out and have all the answers and to do everything perfectly and not get criticized. Maybe I didn't want to get criticized because it reminded me of my yelling coach. Who knows the reasons why we do this, the protection and the walls we put up.

Kathy Crockett (00:51:36):

But we can relax in the process and get curious, give ourselves some grace. We're not always quick to give grace to others, but that's something else I've told myself, give grace first. We all tell ourselves stories in our heads of why something may be true and the brain hates uncertainty. But if you see something, you're not quite sure your brain's irritated. And so you'll fill in the blanks and you'll actually get a neurochemical reward for filling in the gaps of the story. Even if the story is not true. And so I caught myself telling myself these ridiculous stories. I could've gone to LA and done movies with some of the stories I came up with of why something might be true. They were just ridiculous. And so I caught myself. And if someone cuts me off in traffic, they must be on the way to the hospital.

Kathy Crockett (00:52:23):

I give grace first. I assume the best. We tend to assume the worst. And if I can catch myself and it's taken a while. I've been doing this for several years. But now I do catch myself and now it's become a habit. If I just assume the best in people. The rude retail clerk, I must have just caught them on a bad day. I ask myself, have you ever been rude to someone? Yeah. Kathy, you have. You've had a bad day too. So give some grace, Kathy. Have you been afraid so much that you might have criticized someone? Yeah. I've probably have done that. I'm going to give some grace.

Kathy Crockett (00:52:55):

But then the flip side of that is often we hold ourselves to such a high standard that we don't give ourselves grace. You know, some of the things that people will say to themselves are just horrible. They would never say that to somebody else. What in the world? And even my daughters growing up would say things out loud. I'm like your brain is listening. And it actually is a thing with brain chemistry. The audio is coming in. Even if you're the one saying it, it's not just the thoughts you have. When you say something out loud, your brain may believe it and make that the new truth and create a pathway in your brain. That seems to be what it believes. And so it's just fascinating how all that comes together. So I think the idea of giving grace first, relaxing in the process has served me really, really well.

Kathy Crockett (00:53:37):

And I think also I would say, be open to what success might look like. I knew that I wanted to be a professor. My mom was a professor and an amazing mentor in my life too. So I thought everybody got their PhDs. I didn't know that that was a thing. If I had realized earlier, maybe I wouldn't have been in school for eight years after high school. But I loved getting to be a professor and getting to be innovative. And LCU gave me so many opportunities to create experiences for students. We took students to China on consulting trips. We went to Italy, we went to Atlanta, we have these amazing experiences. And I feel like now I'm getting to do that now with leaders. So I think just being open to going for stuff. You may not know exactly how it's going to work out. I had some students say, we're going to come get in your master's program, but we need two international experiences within the program.

Kathy Crockett (00:54:26):

And I said, okay, I had no idea exactly what it would look like. But even in that uncertainty, I had confident uncertainty. I may not know exactly what it's going to look like, but I was confident that I could find the right people that could show us the way. And I want to challenge all leaders to think about that. You may have no idea how this is going to play out. Whatever initiative you may be going after or whatever company you're trying to start. Or maybe you're a new leader and you now have two direct reports and you're trying to figure out what you're doing and you want to do a good job, but you've never done that before. I just want to encourage you to lean into that uncertainty and not be afraid of it. Be curious about it and tell yourself I may not have any idea exactly how this is going to go, but I do have confidence that there are good people out there who I can get help from and are going to help me figure it out. And it's going to be good. It may not look like what I think it's going to look like, but that's okay because I'm going to figure it out and I'm going to get comfortable.

Kathy Crockett (00:55:25):

The other one last thing I would say is the middle place. I don't know if you've heard that term before, but leaders often are tasked with getting people or a project from point A to point B. That is our project. That's our task. As a leader, maybe you get people from A to B. And what's interesting is at the beginning, at point a it's exciting, it's new. Let's go. We're going to charge the hill. Let's do it. And then point B, you're celebrating. Yes, the finish line. I ran two marathons, Kade. I know you're a big runner. My first and my last one the same day, because that 0.2, at the end of the race, that's a thing people. 0.2 is no joke. So at B usually you're excited. We persevered. We did it. We're almost done.

Kade Wilcox (00:56:13):

But mile 14, 15, 16, are brutal.

Kathy Crockett (00:56:17):

Middle is brutal. That's the middle place for any project. I talked earlier about a learning curve. When you begin the learning curve, you make the leap, it's exciting. I'm doing something new. And then when you get to the top of it, you're good. But in that middle place, it's messy. I don't like messy. I do not like making mistakes, but you've got to make friends with mistakes if you're going to learn, if you're going to grow, if you're going to be innovative. You've got to make friends with that. Also in the middle place, you're still trying to get your bearings. The ground may not feel all that solid. There's lots of moving parts. You know, the famous thing, VUCA, volatility, uncertainty, complexity, ambiguity. I've got to figure all these things out in this new space. You're probably doing things you've not done before and it just is messy. And so going back to giving yourself grace and also knowing that there's a subtle difference, some would say a huge difference, I say it's more subtle. Cause I feel like you go back and forth between management and leadership. I think management is where you're executing things. Leadership is you're trying to figure out what you're doing.

Kathy Crockett (00:57:27):

And in times of uncertainty, that is when leadership is needed more than ever. Sometimes when you have processes and procedures and protocols and you have a rhythm, you're basically executing the plan that tends to lean a little bit more toward management. Leadership is, are we even headed the right direction? All this uncertainty, that's where leadership is needed the most. And so just one little encouragement to all the leaders out there. It's something that I, 20 years ago would have loved to have someone tell me. I have a friend, she uses this word and it's kind of funny. She says this about parenting or leadership. It ain't for sissies. You have to know you're going to have to have courage. You're going to have to have perseverance. And I just want to say that, especially in this really cool, unique time that we're in right now, leaders are tired.

Kathy Crockett (00:58:21):

My clients are exhausted. Decision fatigue is an all time high because you work really hard. You get a good decision, maybe even some momentum going and the rug gets pulled out from under you again. And you're like, so all that work yesterday is for not. And now we have to figure it out today and probably are going to have to figure it out again tomorrow. And that can get really discouraging. But if you can just tell yourself, I know I'm fatigued, I'm tired, I'm overwhelmed, I'm frustrated, whatever word fits the blank, right? I just want to challenge you to lead anyway. I want to challenge you to shift from the idea of :what if" to "even if". Instead of being afraid of the, what ifs that are out there and are still coming. I think there's still a lot of what ifs coming and that's just life really. That's normal. If you can shift your thinking to "even if", even if our decisions are irrelevant tomorrow, even if we have to figure out payroll or how we're going to serve clients in this world that we're in, even if I'm exhausted, I'm going to lead anyway. And we're going to try anyway. We're going to keep trying.

Kathy Crockett (00:59:38):

Recently someone in our community had a large event, one of the first live events with a larger crowd, more than like 1,000 or 1,500 people since March, almost nationwide. That took so much courage, so much gut wrenching, perseverance, and work, and details. And it was wonderful. We have to try. There's things that everybody may be telling you are impossible, but in your gut you think we might figure it out, go for it. You've got to try. We've got to try and again remember it's an experiment. If it fails, no big deal, at least you tried, that's better. It's easier to say as an activator to say, sit on your hands about anything. I mean, there's a time for that too, but I just want to say lead anyway, it's what you do. It's who you are. That's what leaders do. And I want you to take on that identity, if you will, whether you're a low level leader, you're leading yourself, you're a CEO, lead anyway. Even if your worst fears come true, even if the challenges get hard, we're going to do it anyway. We're going to keep going.

Kade Wilcox (01:00:49):

That's really good. Thanks for all your time. I have a whole page of notes here. So if we keep going I'll have to flip it over and go to the back. I really appreciate you. Thank you for sharing all your wisdom and for taking the time to be with us. I really appreciate it.

Kathy Crockett (01:01:03):

My pleasure. Thanks Kade.