Unpacked with Ron Harvey

A Journey from Professional Athlete to Business Leader

Cletus Coffey Episode 90

Ever wondered how you can achieve a seamless transition from sports to entrepreneurship? Join me, Ron Harvey, as I sit down with the extraordinary Cletus, a former multi-sport athlete turned successful entrepreneur. Cletus opens up about his incredible journey from the glories of professional football to founding Torch Training, a business centered on enhancing team culture through deep personal connections. Discover the importance of understanding teammates' fears and dreams to foster trust and collaboration, and learn how Cletus's perseverance and adaptability were vital in his career shift.

Unlock the secrets to mastering your morning routine for success by tuning in to our insightful discussion. We explore the essence of discipline, self-mastery, and the alignment of daily habits with long-term aspirations. Dive into the five key elements of success: psychology, physiology, people, profits, and presence. Through our conversation, you'll unearth strategies for continuous growth, maintaining physical health, nurturing relationships, and staying present. Embrace the principles that drive success and understand the importance of a clear goal and the readiness to put in the work.

Lastly, get inspired by our deep dive into authentic leadership transformation through personal growth with the "Be the Torch" program. We emphasize self-development practices like meditation and journaling as essential tools for effective leadership. Hear about the profound influence of mentors and the shift from a win-lose mindset to a win-win philosophy. Gain insights into the significance of confronting harsh truths about finances, relationships, and health, and the transformative power of asking for help. This episode is packed with valuable lessons on creating a balanced life where personal passions and business pursuits align harmoniously.

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Just Make A Difference: Leading Under Pressure by Ron Harvey

“If you don’t have something to measure your growth, you won’t be self-aware or intentional about your growth.”


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Disclaimer:

The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the speakers and guests and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any organization or entity. The information provided in this podcast is intended for educational and informational purposes only and should not be considered as professional advice. Listeners should consult with their own professional advisors before implementing any suggestions or recommendations made in this podcast. The speakers and guests are not responsible for any actions taken by listeners based on the information presented in this podcast. The podcast is not intended to be a substitute for professional advice or services. The speakers and guests make no representations or warranties of any kind, express or implied, about the completeness, accuracy, reliability, suitability or availability with respect to the information, products, services, or related graphics contained in this ...

Speaker 1:

Welcome to Unpacked Podcast with your host leadership consultant, Ron Harvey of Global Core Strategies and Consulting. Ron's delighted to have you join us as he unpacks and shares his leadership experience, designed to help you in your leadership journey. Ron believes that leadership is the fundamental driver towards making a difference. So now to find out more of what it means to unpack leadership, here's your host, Ron Harvey.

Speaker 2:

Good afternoon. This is Ron Harvey. I'm the Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of Global Core Strategies and Consulting, and we own a leadership firm, my wife and I do, out of Columbia, south Carolina, and we focus on helping to create a winning culture for organizations. But what we do intentionally on our podcast is we pause and we do what we call Unpack with Ron Harvey, and I always invite guests from around the country with different backgrounds, very diverse population, about what they're doing, how they're doing it and how leadership is in their organizations or how they're using leadership to take care of people.

Speaker 2:

So today I'm super excited to have Cletus with us and I'm going to pause and hand Cletus the microphone so he can do an introduction and then we're going to dive right into the questions. You know how I do it. I don't know what I'm going to ask next, neither do they, but we promise to always talk about leadership and do something that adds value to you. So I'm super excited to have Cletus, so let me hand him the microphone as we get started and get ready to dive into a series of questions that will add value to you and your team. Cletus, welcome to the show man and thank you for saying yes.

Speaker 3:

Ron, thank you so much for having me. I love your style and your flow of Unpacked and just in the conversations that we've had together, just your vision of leadership, business community is something that just in the time I've been around you I've learned quite a bit and I know others I'm sure are learning from you. So definitely grateful to be here on the show. We got connected through a mutual friend of ours and really it stemmed from, obviously, the leadership piece and the work that they were doing. But I tell you you know, my background comes from sports athletics. I was a three sport athlete in high school, two sport athlete in college.

Speaker 3:

Two weeks after my college graduation I was on a flight to Saskatchewan, canada, to play in the Canadian Football League. In terms of American football, a long career. But four short years later, between the Canadian Football League and the Arena Football League, my career came to an end. So here I am at 27 years of age, going all right. Now what the heck do I do? I have this resume that says you know, degree in athlete. Now where do I go?

Speaker 3:

And that began the journey really, of self-discovery and trying to get a sense of who am I Because for when I quote unquote retired Ron. You know, 85% of my life I had been an athlete from knee high. That's what I knew, and I knew how to drive, I knew how to set goals, I know how to work on a team. I just didn't know how to apply that into the new game of life, and so what I did know was entrepreneurship, and business was the one thing that had me feeling like an athlete again and that set on my journey to say, look, I'm going to start a business. I don't know what the heck it is, I don't know what it's going to be in. And I've started several of them and I've lost several of them, but which? Each one? I'm refining and getting better.

Speaker 3:

Until today, I own a company called Torch Training and really it's the process of taking team culture just a layer deeper. We go what I call personal culture. How can we take individuals and light their torch individually, knowing that on a team? I got to know, ron, that you have my back and in order to do that, I need to know what your fears are, your challenges, your desires, your wants, your dreams, what's going on for you outside of the office, because the more I get to know you and more open and vulnerable and authentic you and I are, the more we can trust each other, going into that sales call, going into that team meeting, going into whatever project we're working on. So that's a towards training and it's something that I've gotten to, that it's taken me a long time to get to, but now that I'm here, I'm going. Yes, this is it.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and we talked the first time, you know. So we got a chance to have a conversation before this podcast, probably about a week ago, and we got a chance to talk and say, hey, you need to come on the podcast, we need to have the conversation and we'll adjust schedules. And so I will tell you that leadership, as you talk about it, let competent and you step away from that and you feel like all of a sudden, you're incompetent, you don't know what direction, you don't know what's next. How do you recover from that? Because a lot of people based on the market, based on where we are now, a lot of people have to retool or reskill themselves.

Speaker 3:

How do they start.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, you know the way I did it initially start. Yeah, you know the way I did it initially. Obviously, going back to the old me, I would have a lot to say, but what I know I did do was I just didn't know how to quit. For, as stubborn as I probably was times I probably should have pivoted. I just didn't know how to quit and say, for some reason I'm being called to this. And sure, I've had several sales jobs, kind of dink and dunk and trying to figure myself out, and I probably could have just gone and found a job and rode off into the sunset and had a nice comfortable career. But see, I never went into a sport or a season saying, hey, I'm gonna join this team and sit on the sidelines. I just could never do that. So I just with life, I just kept saying to myself I don't want to just sit on the sidelines of comfort and mediocrity, like I want to be the very best I could potentially be.

Speaker 2:

And in this new game I didn't know the rules, I didn't know how to navigate and primarily because I was in my own way and the ego so you're sharing clues, which is huge for someone that has to retool, reinvent, reskill, where you reach the pivotal part of your career and all of a sudden, the market changes, the job changes, ai changes, the organization moves, something happens in your life and it does for all of us, and you're back to being incompetent. How do you regain the mindset, the mentality to stay in it and never quit? Because that's not easy, it can be challenging, it can cause depression, it can cause frustration, it can cause a lot of problems for an individual. How do you get to the mindset to get back on the bicycle and keep riding, and keep riding, and keep riding, even though you fall off? You've fallen off several times because everything wasn't successful that you touched, but you never gave up. Where does that mindset and that mentality come from?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, so definitely from being an athlete and yet but I had to I love the word you used retool. I really had to retool my mindset as an athlete because I was addicted to the scoreboard. I was taught to have an addiction to the scoreboard. If we won, I felt good. I was high. If I did well, I'm doing really good. If we lost, what's wrong with me, I'm not good enough. And that mentality carried over into business.

Speaker 3:

And so what I began to understand, in this work I do towards self-mastery, is human being. And the human dimension is the scoreboard dimension. The money, the financial success, the relationships, the cars, the house, like all that lives on the human dimension, because we're not taking any of it with us, but yet we are taught to put our happiness, our fulfillment, our excitement, our energy in the human plane and it's things we cannot control versus the being plane. And this took me so long to figure this out. But once I said, okay, the being dimension, the being plane, you know, that's where I hadn't tapped into. I was so addicted to achieving and accomplishing on the scoreboard something I couldn't control. Once I was so addicted to achieving and accomplishing on the scoreboard something I couldn't control. Once I tapped into the being playing thing. Look, if I lose, I'm still me. If AI comes in or the environment shifts, there's a pivot. That's the external environment, which I can't control. What I can't control are the principles, the characteristics controller, the principles, the characteristics, the values of who I am. And the more I tapped into that and lit that power and that fire of myself that allowed me to do two things. Number one not let, because when we put our identity on the human plane, that's where the anxiety, the depression, the stress, the overwhelm builds. It reduced all of that, because if I did a launch and it sucked and it didn't do well, that's all right, that's just information, that's just feedback. If it did well, okay, awesome, that's information, that's feedback. It wasn't like I'm good, I'm not good, I'm stressed, I'm not, you know. So being on that being dimension, that being plane, allowed me to also appreciate the business, the customers, the success, the things that I was having that I didn't before because I was so focused on what's going right, what's not going right what's not going well.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, the scoreboard. I love it because there's a scoreboard, whether it's in sports, business relationships, community, there's a scoreboard. And what came to mind when you think about it? I think like, ooh, the scoreboard got them in a Michael Jordan, a Bobby Knight as a coach, a Michael Jordan as a player.

Speaker 2:

And I had friends that played professional ball and say, yeah, but when the season's over and you got to walk out of the stadium where everybody's cheering and loving you and shouting your name, but you go home and no one's calling your name, that's a hard transition and that happens in every walk of life. But athletes as I talk to people that are professional athletes that's a hard retool. Reskill, get yourself up above the ground, because once the TV goes off and the lights go off and all the screaming and everybody's yelling your name and you have a bad game and they're not saying good things about your name. That happens in leadership. So now you've shifted. How did you recover from some of your failures? As you said, you started some businesses or you tried it. How did you recover?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, so the first thing is detaching my outcomes from my identity, who I am. Just because I got 15 no's yesterday doesn't mean I'm a bad salesperson. Doesn't mean that there's not a yes around the corner, doesn't mean that my script is off. Yeah, I mean those are all tactical stuff X's and O's you can work on but it's not a reflection of who you are. And once I detach from that and I realize it's just feedback, okay, I need to get better on my pitch, I need to get better at delegating and being more structured and disciplined, and that was the one thing that I did have going for me from being an athlete was just knowing how to be incredibly structured and disciplined in my craft. And so when I got up in the morning, I knew how to and you know just from being in the military you just know how to get after it and knock it down. And even if I was going in the wrong direction like I was going in the wrong direction 110% yes, and you know coaches and leaders love that Like, if you're putting forth the effort, we'll figure out that the X's and O's with the performance, but I just knew how to give a full effort.

Speaker 3:

It was just putting that effort into the right path, which is where I had to tap into kind of that being like who am I really and what's the truth behind it? Yes, our ego likes to lie to us. And so once I was like OK, awareness and you know, my biggest failure is wrong. Suffering is where awareness comes from. And in those times of suffering I became aware that, ok, maybe Because my first company was in a financial industry and maybe finances are just not something that lights me up and excites me. And once I got to the fact of I was doing just to make money, I realized that, yeah, working on insurance deals and working on commercial, I was doing some kind of commercial financing. It just doesn't excite me. I didn't like the paperwork. And once I got to the truth of that, I realized, all right, I'm going 110% in the wrong direction.

Speaker 2:

Yes, you got to know what you like and what you don't like. I love it. So you're dropping a couple nuggets here for people that are watching and listening to us. It's discipline. He had to focus determination, discipline and know what you like or don't like.

Speaker 2:

Some things won't excite you Not that it's bad or good, but it just won't excite you. And if you don't have something that's exciting to get you up, it's going to be hard to get up. You got to figure out the thing that makes it easier for you to get up and what is that thing, and that's going to be different for every human being across the board. So, when you think about where you are now and you think about how did you get there? How much did you being disciplined attribute to you now being where you are today?

Speaker 2:

What are some key things you did, like getting up in the morning, because being a business owner is hard and it can be really, really lonely and the money may not flow in. And I'll tell everybody that's listening you can't chase money because it'll make you do things that you shouldn't do. So please don't. If you're going to start a business, nothing wrong with making money, but don't let that be the goal, because you will manipulate people. If the money gets funny, you start making bad choices and your values may get in trouble. You may start being unethical. What are some things that you've done that's been really, really helpful for you to be successful?

Speaker 3:

first, I will say this to your point. I agree so wholeheartedly on chasing money directly is going to cause the suffering that you don't want. Because I've been there, I've started a business specifically because I just wanted to kill it financially because everyone else was killing it. So I'm going to do that.

Speaker 3:

And boy did that cause a lot of financial, emotional, relational heartbreak and pain. And so back to discipline. Here's what I did. I realized that in order for me to master my life like really just come from a place of self-mastery, I needed to master my day. In order to master my day, I had to master my morning, and there was five key elements of I call it the power of five a personal culture, psychology, physiology, people, profits, presence. And All right, drop them again presence.

Speaker 2:

Drop them again. He did them real quick. We're going to slow them down a little. He did this every morning. Drop those again for people that are listening, because it helps you. I love to give people a recipe to someone that was successful. It's working for you. Give them the recipe again.

Speaker 3:

Yeah. So it's psychology, physiology, people, profits and presence. I'll dissect them just briefly here. Once I tapped into all five of those, my morning completely shifted, my day shifted and my life has shifted in the process.

Speaker 3:

So psychology is look where I feel the biggest challenge in leadership is leadership competency. We've been doing the same thing. We've been doing year after year, time after time. Hey, I'm still making money, I'm doing the same thing, but the environment's changing around us, our people are changing, technology is changing and yet we're still doing it. It's like the old ball coach that's just been doing the same thing year after year and he's winning. And people are just the old ball coach that's just been doing the same thing year after year and he's winning, and people just like well, hey, let's keep, let him do his thing. I want to see leadership change, from leadership competency to leadership humility.

Speaker 3:

So psychology is the first one. Like where can I get up and better myself this morning? So for me, I have two books that I'm reading at any given time. One is personal development growing myself, and others a business book I'll read, even if it's just five minutes, seven minutes, something where I just I get through a quick little chapter or a certain section. I got my highlighter out. I tap into growing myself in the morning.

Speaker 3:

The physiology is the body. Ron, I'm pushing 50 next year, so you know I'm getting to that space where it's like, hey, the work has's getting a little harder Right. Body's not quite as functional as it will be, but yet I treat my body. I treat my training as passionately as I do everything else in my life, in my business. So it is absolutely a priority Now. It doesn't mean I do three-hour workout sessions in the morning. I'm a master's track and field athlete, so I'm preparing for world championships in March of 2025. So my mornings can, depending on it, could be 30 minutes of just stretching in some little yoga, rolling out on a foam roller to yes, I'm in the weight room, or I get up and get out on the track and get some training in. So you know I'm usually doing something every single day. It could range from 20 minutes to an hour and a half, two hours, depending on what my day is going, but I get it.

Speaker 2:

Your goal is out, and so, as you're listening to the leadership lesson, he already knows the goal and what it takes to get there. He's putting the things in place. So, if you're going to be effective, put your goal out there and do what it takes to get there. And it requires discipline to do that, because some people want to get there but they don't want to do the work. So, true, you're going to have to do the work. There's no shortcut to success.

Speaker 3:

If it is it's a quick failure too. I love that. Yeah, so true. The third one is people. But in two long-term relationships in my life, both of them have ended in divorce, and what I know about myself is I needed to get in the habit of connecting with those I love, whether as a single father with my kids or in a new relationship. In the morning it's not just getting up hitting emails, getting off in my day, setting my meetings. It's like reminding those that matter to me in the morning hey, I'm thinking about you. It could be a quick note on the bed stand or a little text message. Or my son's off to college, just send him a quick note hey, I'm thinking about you, buddy, I love you. And so connecting with those closest to me. It could be a partner, it could be your kids, it could be a contact, you know, just especially for men reaching out with one another and just like, hey, I'm thinking of you, because I know we're, all you know, going through a lot. So people, connecting with people early and again.

Speaker 2:

I love that too. I love that you're saying this because you've been very, very humble and you've been very vulnerable. Please connect with the people, especially as men. We work hard to provide for our family, but we don't connect with our family, even though that's what we're working hard for. So where do you leave the note? Where do you make the phone call? Where do you give the hug? Because we're working hard to make them happy.

Speaker 2:

But sometimes happiness is just you being present and you think it's like let me buy them the fanciful thing and let me take them on this nice vacation. Well, if you're on a vacation and you're not present, it's not really good. No, so I'm glad you're being vulnerable, say, hey, you know what, ron, I had to figure that out because I was all into my work and providing, but I forgot that they were part of that with me and I didn't do probably as well as I probably could have done. And I think all of us have been there where you can always add a little bit more touch to those relationships. So, gender, regardless of whatever gender, please pay attention to your family and your loved ones. Show them, tell them, support them and be there with them. They don't want you to be at work 24-7. Please spend time with the people that you love and love you, thank you. So let me pull back and let me give it back to you. So you got us past people. You're going to drop the red horse.

Speaker 3:

Yep. The next one is profits. And I say profits because, as business owners, we forget to pay the most important person in this whole process. The reason why we got into business is to pay ourselves, and so I'm just having done it myself, I've just been really adamant on making sure that I am looking at my day, I'm balancing my calendar and then I'm doing something that is growing myself as a business person. So I mentioned I read two books.

Speaker 3:

So it could be I dive into one of my business books, or I am looking at different ways to grow my marketing, to grow my brand. So it could be I dive into one of my business books, or I am looking at different ways to grow my marketing, to grow my brand, whatever it may be. Just again, 15 minutes, 10 minutes, it's a short little. I'm investing in it, I've got my thought around it, my process, and look 10, 15 minutes every day. It's called compounding effects and all these, all five compounding effects, we do a little bit every single day and those effects will begin to compound and all of a sudden, you know it's going to click at the right time. Yes, so that's the profits, yes.

Speaker 2:

And the last one is the presence yes, being present. So love to hear your story because I talk about it a lot, about being present. So he's dropping the last one for the five that he does every single day. What does presence really mean and how important is it, when you're in a leadership role, to be present?

Speaker 3:

Yeah. So, as you know and everyone listening to this, it's very easy, especially in a leadership role, for us to get caught up in all that's going outside of us, and especially when you think about the scoreboard and we oftentimes I know I was a prime example of of this when business was going well, I felt like I'm a good business owner, and when things weren't going well, it's what's everyone else's problem? How come they're not working hard enough, they're not selling, not picking up the phone, not doing that, and we tend to point to things outside of ourselves. And the presence is the beingness, is tapping into that being part of us every single day, pausing and being present with ourselves. Because here's the thing our employees aren't going to make us happy, our spouses aren't going to make us happy, the kids aren't. Happiness comes from us All. My programs is called Be the Torch and in order to be the leader of your family, of your customers, of your employees, you have to become it first. You have to be the person. You know. If you want that whatever six, seven, eight figure business, whatever that you want you have to be someone capable of having that type of business. You want a strong, loving, connected, intimate relationship. You've got to become that person first, and yet we get caught up in the scoreboard and then doing this versus sitting and being present.

Speaker 3:

And for me it's a meditation practice every morning. Sometimes it's just a quick little five minute, centering myself where I'm at, doing some breathing, sometimes it's a whole, you know, 30 minute, 40 minute meditation that I'm going through. And then what I do immediately afterwards is I have a journal. For me, there's a source, a presence, a god, whatever it is that you go down and it serves you. We're not alone in this journey. There's someone else sending us messages saying, hey, and until we stop and get present, we're not hearing that, we're not listening.

Speaker 3:

And even when we do, the logical mind wants to step in and go no, no, no, that's not possible. You can't do that. And so I have the journal there to write it down, so I can see it and go. This is the message that I was given today. This is what I heard by sitting still, and then I can review it and go all right, how do I go down that route? What is it possible, possible? So all of this psychology, physiology, people, profits, presence I get all done before nine o'clock in the morning again. It doesn't need to be this all-encompassing huge thing.

Speaker 2:

You get in, you make it swift, you be structured and disciplined and the compounding effects are unbelievable wow, don't make it complicated, because the more difficult you make it, the harder it is to keep it up. Wow, definitely. So who was the leader that inspired you the most on your journey, and what was it about them that inspired you? Because I think sometimes, you know, leadership is not about dictating, directing or dominating or telling people what to do. It's about inspiring greatness in other people. So who inspired you to become good at what you're good at?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, you know, gosh, the different iterations of myself, there seems to always have been someone along that part. You know it's like, and I think it was Tyler Perry in one of his acceptance speeches and I'm totally going to butcher this, so bear with me, y'all can Google this and see it but he did this talk where he says you know, in a relationship, the rocket takes off and it's got boosters and each booster helps get it off the ground, but then the booster drops off and then the next booster gets you and then it drops off. And it's just those people that have come into my life have been those boosters that may not have hung around and been with me, but yet they've always been there. They helped me get to where I'm going and where I'm at.

Speaker 3:

And so my high school football coach, coach Monahan I was six foot seven of him, whatever big tall man wore shorts up to his armpits, big long whistle, you know, old school ball coach.

Speaker 3:

And he was very adamant of you know, know where you're supposed to be, hustle, take care of each other. And you got to believe. And he, just that, was the first person that put a framework around this idea of being a team and working together, and that framework was something that I know myself and a lot of my former teammates really have not forgotten and brought with us. And it's interesting because when I retired from sport I tried to put my athletic career in the drawer, like I was done with it. I want to be a business person, but success clues, and so I've had to gone back and I pulled out old coach Monahan's framework for team culture and it was just a really cool way to put a framework, and so I've kind of put my own spice and flavor to it for myself, but he definitely was a fantastic one. I will say that my most coveted book that I ever read, stephen Covey, seven Habits of Highly Effective People.

Speaker 3:

And when I first read that I thought, oh my goodness, like this is, where's this been all my life? And so I've just absorbed that and a lot of Covey's work to help guide that. Especially when it comes to being an athlete, it was all about win-lose. I line up across from you. When it comes to, you know, being an athlete, it was all about win-lose. I line up across from you, ron, I'm here to beat you, yes. And yet in business and in life it's not like that. It's like, hey, I want to win, I want you to win, and let's create a win-win scenario together.

Speaker 3:

And that was something that comes from Cubby's book Playing to Win-Win. And you know, those principles have really crafted and served me to say, look, I don't want to just be the old ball coach and yelling and screaming and demeaning and belittling just to make a buck Like that's just not where I want to be. So how can I create a life that is fueled by my own passion and things I enjoy, the morals, the principles, the characteristics that I truly like, and how can I fit a business into that Right versus? Let me start a business and figure out how to sprinkle my time to my relationship and to my health and all that? No, no. I want to create the life first and then put the business in there.

Speaker 2:

Thank you for sharing. What do you share with the person that's transitioning, whether it's from you know, I retired from the military and that's a hard transition because I did it for 21 years or the person that's transitioned out of sports athletes may be listening or someone is just having a transition from careers because AI is showing up and the world is changing fast. What do you tell the person that's transitioning? To stay the course and keep getting up.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, I'll tell you what. The real powerful one, which I believe is the foundation of all my programs and the foundation for my life, is simply this. And first let me give you a quick story, because I found myself in multiple transitions from sport into business failing a business, to now what relationships ending. And I kept getting the same results over and over again and I'm thinking to myself well, okay, there's a common denominator here and it's me. So I'm the one that's got to change. And where it came from?

Speaker 3:

When I was in my darkest place, I learned to get to the truth. The whole ad is a truth will set you free. I believe that so wholeheartedly. Now I got to the truth. I actually wrote down. I got a pen and paper and said okay, finances, what's the truth? Okay, I'm in this much credit card debt, I'm only making this much money. But getting to the truth because we like to lie to ourselves a little bit about, like you know, you did it all the time. Oh, I got this new, new customer coming. It's going to be a big fish and it's going to take care of us.

Speaker 3:

The truth was I don't have that customer, I have not closed it and for whatever reason, getting the truth about relationships. I'm being an avoidant, I'm not spending time that I need, I'm not connecting outside of celebrating the wins that I had or what have you. What was the truth about my health? I was not prioritizing, just getting it down on paper and seeing it and facing it.

Speaker 3:

It was hard. It's hard to write the truth down. It does not. And yet, once you have it down, it is freeing, because now you can see okay, this is the truth for me, and the sooner that you can A stop lying to yourself about where you're at, because we're good at that and if we're lying to ourselves, we're lying to others and I was notorious for this. I was lying to myself, that you know, even though I lost my business I had. The next idea was coming and I was lying to my wife that you know out of, like preventing her from being fearful or preventing, you know, her from getting worried. Like I got this babe it's coming, it's not. I didn't, I didn't have it coming. I was scared to death but I didn't want to ask for help.

Speaker 2:

I didn't know that I was really lost and I just needed to raise my hand and say, please, somebody help me If you're listening people are in leadership roles of people to help people struggle at asking for help and when you ask the question, hey, tell me you know who you are or what you're doing. Well, most of us will tell people what we wish we were doing versus what we currently are doing. Be honest with yourself, because it's hard to move forward if you're living a lie. It becomes difficult because you don't have a real premises to start from. You're already in the hole Like we're doing well, which means you're not probably going to work as hard. You're going to work from a place of desperation, you're going to work from a place of not being, and you got to continue to build on that thing of what you are telling everybody else, like say, hey, I'm not doing well. You'd be amazed how many people come to your rescue and say, hey, I'm not being honest about my finances. Here's what I do know.

Speaker 2:

People don't help as quickly if you got it together. I've never seen a tow truck pick up a car that was paid for and running. That doesn't happen unless they repo in it. That's the only time. But if you got it together, like so our conversations and our relationship started with just a phone call, I say, man, I would love to bring you on the podcast. What can I do for you If you don't be transparent on what someone can do for you? They're not going to offer it to you because you didn't ask for it and you didn't tell them. So I love that you went to the place where I don't have to be truthful with me. I had to stop lying to myself.

Speaker 2:

So if you listen to us and you want to achieve your goals, then go home and write down what he just said. Write down where you really are, what you're really struggling with, what you really need. Look at it, own it and then go get help with it. Phenomenal. So if you want to get going, start there, you can go write something down. You could say where you really are, you could own it and then you can start asking for help. So thank you for that. So, as you think about, you're doing leadership, I'm doing leadership. We're in two different locations, but we're in a space of really helping people show up as their best version and do really, really good work. You know, if someone is looking for help in leadership development, what's three reasons why they should pick up the phone and give you a call? This is a chance to promote your business and who?

Speaker 3:

you are. Thanks for teeing it up like this, Ron. I really appreciate it. The most powerful reason to connect with me really is I know that on the other side of self-mastery and being your authentic self is a world of results in your business and in your finances, in your health, in your relationship that you don't even see possible because you're not showing up as your authentic self. And so people come to me because that bridge between where you're at and where you're trying to be for me is knowing thyself, the old phrase. The Greeks knew this for millennia.

Speaker 3:

They never told us but it's knowing thyself and becoming a master of self, and like moth to a flame when you stand in your power and this is what I help people do is to find that power and light, that torch. It's just like moth to a flame. The opportunities, the people, the customers, the relationship, they all start to come to you because they feel you. And so to lead, in my opinion, means to go first, and so if you're asking people to do things, you got to be doing it first.

Speaker 3:

And it's so common even when we get on a sales call, we show up not as our authentic selves. We're selling someone on, hey, you know, we get down to their pain point and it's because they want to spend more time with their family or they want to have more freedom. And yet the salesperson isn't spending time with their family, isn't having freedom in their life. There's a disconnect there. So the more that we can show up authentically as ourselves, masters of self, we're going to make more sales, generate more money, we're going to develop the opportunities and people we really want in our life.

Speaker 3:

So that's why people come to me, because I get their leadership team, their higher performers, to take that little pilot light that's in them and turn it into a full fledge flame, because what happens is I'm just one torch wrong. But when you are standing in your power and I'm standing in my power, the innovation and the creativity, the bonfire that we can create together is unlike anything we're seeing right now. It's a team of little pilot lights, you know, little candles, people that kind of you know. Hey, we're working together, but I'm not in my power, and when I am and you are, we can do the impossible. We can create some really, really powerful things.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and I'll tell you partnerships as you're listening. Thank you for sharing, you know, and if you're looking for an opportunity to really find yourself and being your authentic self and begin to be more than what you thought you could, you know, reach out. But what I will tell you is that everybody that I know that's great has someone in their corner advocating, pushing and pulling and helping them get there. So who's coming along with you for you to be your best self? There are plenty of people out there that do that work, and so I will tell you that this is a good opportunity. So if you heard something that's going to be helpful, you heard something that you like from either one of us, you know, I'm going to ask Cleetus to drop his contact information. So, cleetus, if someone wanted to reach out to you, whether it's for a podcast, whether it's to help them with leadership development, whether it's to find the authentic self.

Speaker 3:

What's the best way to with you? Yeah, and I'll tell you this, ron, I really love how you're saying you know, having someone in your corner, I'm grateful to have you in my corner. My friend Appreciate it. Uh, yeah, for everyone listening, if you simply go to Cletus coffeecom C L E T U SC O F F? E? Y Cletus coffeecom that's where you get access to all of my stuff. I'm at Cletus coffee on all social channels and I'll tell you I actually have. If you go to cletuscoffeecom forward slash morning, I have my spreadsheet of the power five that you can put on your refrigerator and check it off and see your compounding offense over time. That's at cletuscoffeecom forward slash morning and you can get access to my free morning routine.

Speaker 2:

Yes, yes, thank you. Please reach out and you can't forget it. And if you go back and record this, we're going to drop it out so people have access to it. So as you listen to us and you follow the podcast, you know what I'm always going to have great guests on. That's going to be really transparent and vulnerable and give you something. So he just dropped a free giveaway. Go to his website, cleatiscoffeecom. You'll see the stuff that's out there for you. But reach out to us. I mean, here's what I do know Small business owners are working better together, collaborating, and we make up 85 percent of the market now.

Speaker 2:

So I can tell you that I have some amazing people on and that's why I continue to bring them onto the show. They're adding value to our community. So thank you for coming on and adding value to this community. And so thank you for coming on and adding value to this community and hopefully that you and I both get something out of this that adds value to other people. You know I'm glad I'm in your corner and thank you for being a mind and being a guest on the show.

Speaker 2:

For those of you that are watching again, this is Ron Harvey with Unpacked, and our goal is to add value to you by having a real transparent conversation about what are we doing, what's working, what didn't work, how do we get to where we are? Sometimes we make it look easy, but it's hard work. But I will tell you that what makes it enjoyable is the people that you get to meet and the relationships you get to establish. So if you ever need to find me LinkedIn is phenomenal Look me up on LinkedIn or you can go to our company, global Course Strategies Consulting. Love to have a conversation. Don't mean we'll do business together, but we'll love to connect with you, love to have you on the podcast as a guest or be on your podcast. Whatever we can do to continue to build the relationships.

Speaker 2:

I am nervous about us as a society when it comes to leadership. There's a huge vacuum right now about what good leadership looks like. I see it look wrong a lot on most television shows. If we look on any political landscape, we'll look across our community. I don't know if our kids are getting a good model of what good leadership is today. I want to change that. I want to be able to go back to where they can depend on us that we're going to get it right. So I'm leaning on all of our entrepreneurs, all of our business owners. Come help us figure out how to get a better picture of what leadership should be. Thank you for watching, Thank you for joining us and, as always, we couldn't do it without you. So thank you for following us on, unpacked with Ron Harvey, and until next time, cletus and I are going to sign off, and thank you all for joining us. Tell someone about us. Appreciate y'all being on the show and listening to us.

Speaker 1:

Well, we hope you enjoyed this edition of Unpacked Podcast with leadership consultant Ron Harvey. Remember to join us every Monday as Ron unpacks sound advice, providing real answers for real leadership challenges. Until next time, remember to add value and make a difference where you are, for the people you serve, because people always matter.

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