IDL81 Season 2: Leading With Relationships with Traci Morrow

What are the four aspects of healthy leadership? What was the catalyst event that sparked your desire to transform? Why is business really only about people?

Traci is an author, coach, leader, and podcast host, and she sits on the board of the John Maxwell Leadership Foundation. Traci and I got to know each other several years ago and I was so excited to sit down with her and talk about relationships. Her book Real-Life Marriage and her position in the CLEAR program have given her a wealth of leadership and relationship experiences and today she shares her story and insights.

Meet Traci Morrow

Traci Morrow wears many hats. For nearly two decades she has built a large, international multi-million-dollar business in the health and wellness industry, inspiring and leading her team to take the reins back for their own health and wealth. She is a speaker, trainer, and professional coach.

Traci is the Maxwell Leadership Relationship Guide for the CLEAR Growth Platform, she co-hosts The Maxwell Leadership Podcast (the #1 Leadership Podcast) and has recently become an Amazon Best Selling Author for her first book, released earlier this year, “Real-Life Marriage; Navigating Your Beautiful, Messy, One-Of-A-Kind Love Story.”

There is an old saying, “If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.” Traci has certainly had a lot of strong “giant” shoulders to stand on, including some pretty auspicious mentors like John Maxwell, Mark Cole, and Tony Horton!

Visit Traci’s website, find out more about her book, Real-Life Marriage, and connect on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

IN THIS EPISODE WE DISCUSS:

• The four aspects of healthy leadership - 07:42

• Your catalyst to transformation - 18:19

• Ask what people need from you - 26:21

• The value of healthy conflict - 44:05

The four aspects of healthy leadership

1 – Relational

2 – Emotional

3 – Spiritual

4 – Physical

Each of these need to be addressed and valued if you want to become and embody a healthy and strong leader to those around you.

Identify which ones you are good at, and which ones you may need to work on and get to them.

Your catalyst to transformation

What was the moment that forced you to reckon with your daily routine and habits? Was it a person or an event that shocked you and made you aware of a bigger reality, or a new way of living?

Have there been moments in your life where you realized that you could do better? While not beating yourself up about it, but knowing that you can do more than you let yourself currently achieve.

Business is about relationships. It functions on spreadsheets and numbers and strategies, but at the end of the day, being good at business means being good with people.

Ask what people need from you

If you are in a position where people come to talk to you and need help with finding solutions, ask them; do you want to vent about the problem, or do you want me to try to help you?

Often people just want to be heard, and it is in that conversation that they will often figure out the answer for themselves.

You can train people to solve their problems while supporting them, and lending a hand where necessary. This is how you help people become resilient, independent, and self-assured in your company and your life.

The value of healthy conflict

Moments of conflict – when handled with integrity and compassion – offer opportunities for immense growth in business and personal life.

You value each other even more when you approached, addressed, and resolved conflict from a place of wanting to remain close despite the challenge. However, this can only be done when there is genuine safety and trust present and available for both people.

Resources, books, and links mentioned in this episode:

BOOK | Traci Morrow – Real-Life Marriage: Navigating Your Beautiful, Messy, One-of-a-Kind Love Story

BOOK | Michael S. Erwin and Willys DeVoll – Leadership is a Relationship: How to Put People First in the Digital World

Visit Traci’s website, find out more about her book, Real-Life Marriage.

Connect on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

Mentioned Link: CLEAR

Join the Impact Driven Leader Community

Check out the Impact Driven Leader Youtube Channel
Connect with Tyler on Instagram and LinkedIn

Email Tyler: tyler@tylerdickerhoof.com

About the Impact Driven Leader Podcast

The Impact Driven Leader Podcast, hosted by Tyler Dickerhoof, is for Xillennial leaders who have felt alone and ill-equipped to lead in today's world. Through inspiring interviews with authors from around the world, Tyler uncovers how unique leadership strengths can empower others to achieve so much more, with real impact.

Rate, review and subscribe here on Apple Podcasts or subscribe on Stitcher and Spotify.

You have to learn to operate your gifts from a healthy perspective with boundaries.

Traci Morrow

Podcast Transcription

[TYLER DICKERHOOF] Welcome back to the Impact Driven Leader podcast. This is your host, Tyler Dickerhoof. So glad you're here joining. If you're not watching on new YouTube this episode, you really want to go watch on YouTube. Trust me, you will get the full flare of this episode with my guest, Traci Morrow. Traci is an author, she is a coach, she is a leader. She sits on the John Maxwell Leadership Foundation Board. She is as well as co-host of the John Maxwell Leadership Podcast. She hosts his monthly mentoring call as well. Traci and I got to know each other several years ago. We were invited to be on a advisory council for network marketing. Traci has built a business with Beach Body, so we have that relationship, we've gone on trips together, you'll hear about that. I was excited to sit down with her to talk about relationships one in her book, Real Life Marriage, talking about relationships. But then as well, she is the guide, the facilitator for relationships, part of the clear program that John Maxwell Company has put together, Leader Maxwell Leadership. So you can check out the show notes. Go to Maxwell Leadership, maxwellleadership.com/clear. You can find all about that. There's a day of training they have. But man, I'm excited for you to listen to this conversation with Traci. It's more of a storytelling situation. It's more of a, hey, these are the experiences I've had, she's had, and you're going to, I know, get so much value from what Traci shares. It's very relatable. Enjoy this time. Again, if you're not watching on YouTube, but you really should, you will get the most out of it. You will see each of us turn bright red and smile and laugh. Again, thank you for being here. Thank you for whoever brought this episode to you. If you're a subscriber, thank you so much. If you're new to the show, thank you for being here. I'd love to know what you thought about it. Please rate review. Let me know how we're doing so that way information from people such as Traci can meet more people. I'd love and be thankful for that. I'll see you back in a few minutes after this conversation with the wonderful Traci Morrow. [TYLER] I'm so excited to sit down, have a conversation with one of my truly great friends, Traci Morrow, as I introduced her in the intro. Traci, I'm so glad to be here chatting with you. [TRACI MORROW] Oh, I'm so happy to be here. Thanks for having me, Tyler. [TYLER] I think one of the fun parts of growing as a person is the relationships you build that just stretch your growth. We've sat in rooms together with John Maxwell. We've done some pretty amazing cool projects together that I don't know how I ended up in the room. I know why you were in the room. I just happened to be there. But what's fun about that is now we can take those experiences and as you and I, we've been on trips together and we get to share those experiences and take them to other levels. So that to me is a part of the journey in leadership growth, is not what you're taught, but who you're taught with. [TRACI] Yes, absolutely. I love, you really get to know somebody when you, your relationship grows when you experience something together and we've like been all over the world. [TYLER] Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. I just thought of our last experience together. You talk about building a depth of relate relationship and I just I hadn't really even thought about that. I'd try to put that behind. It was, alright, so let me give the listeners just a little context. If you're watching, you're just like, what are they laughing about? So I was on a trip to Guatemala and Traci was there as well. Amazing country of Guatemala. Loved it, amazing people. We were there with the John Maxwell Leadership Foundation. They did some amazing things while we were there. Unfortunately, a few of us got sick and Traci and I happened to be two of those people that got sick. It was pretty, let's just imagine, if you're thinking about being sick and food poisoning type sick, you can just imagine. So that is a part of our relationship that's always going to be there. We actually flew home to the United States together and sitting close to each other and it was just like, don't look, just keep it focused forward. Just breathe deeply. I'm going to share this. Again, for those of you watching, if you're not watching, please go to YouTube and watch because you're going to appreciate Traci's smile. It's bright, it's a bright smile, smiling even more that you ended up, so we go to LA, I continue onto Las Vegas to see my son who is there for a soccer tournament and struggle through that couple days. You ended up going to the ER by the time you got home. [TRACI] Yes, yes. So what you didn't tell is that John Maxwell was speaking and we were in the green room in Guatemala and they brought in it the middle of Covid. They came in in full hazmat suits because they didn't know what we had. They knew it wasn't Covid, but they didn't know what we had. So we were so sick. I was drifting in and out of consciousness. I mean, the room was full. I had opened up my eyes and there's people holding our IV bags while we were hooked up needles in our veins while they were trying to give us fluids. We were so sick. Flew home back to California, at the time I was living in California and for my daughter's college graduation and I tried, I was so sick. I was trying, I wanted to make it through the graduation. So I didn't drink any liquids because I didn't want to have to keep, so I ended up dehydrated --- Probably not the best decision you ever made, Traci. I'm just going to go out on all that. [TRACI] Everything I teach about hydration, hydration, but I wanted to make that graduation. Anyway, we made it through the graduation. It was wonderful. We had a celebration. Next day was Mother's Day, got on a plane, flew to Salt Lake, got on another plane. I started feeling like my head is not connected to my body. Something is very wrong and the plane starts taxing and I said to my husband, "Pull the cord. Something's wrong. Pull the string. My body, something's bad." He's like, "Are you sure? Are you sure? We're taxing?" Was a second plane in line, I said, "Pull the cord. Pull the cord." It was like nine o'clock at night. All these poor people on the plane, they took me off, paramedics took me off the plane, ambulanced me, and I was dehydrated. It was all part of this, we were so sick. So yes, we have many embarrassing memories of being sick as dogs together. [TYLER] I mean, well, yes, to the context of really our conversation today. I'm excited to talk about it. I'm actually sitting here with a book. I don't know if you've ever heard of this book. I've just learned about it. It's called Leadership is a Relationship. I'm excited to dig into that. It's by Michael Irwin. Hopefully we'll have him as a guest in the future but it's how to put people first in a digital world. Not to promote his book. We want to talk about your book. We want to talk about what you're doing but this idea that the concept that relationships are so important in leadership. That's something that I've discovered. It's an area where I had to really, really work. There's four areas in in health, to be a healthy leader that I've identified myself as relational, emotional, spiritual, and physical. Relational is obviously a big one. I learned that the hard way because I had to develop and learn how to develop relationships. So that's what I'm excited to talk to you about, one, because you're leading that part of the Clear Program for the Maxwell Leadership. As well, you've written a book about relationships, marriage with your husband. So I'm just, that's why I really wanted to talk to you, Traci, is just about relationships and just as you see it, and you've experienced so much of it. So I'm just going to shut up and I want to hear you talk. [TRACI] Well, I could really. You teed me up. I could go anywhere with that really. [TYLER] Go with it. I mean, we've already done the dirty, I mean, we've talked about the bad, so we're talking about all the light and just the happy and the good. [TRACI] For the three of you who stayed with us, I think I learned early on that I was very good with people, but I didn't necessarily love people. I knew that when I was working with people, I was in youth ministry. I talk about it in my book, it's called Real Life Marriage. In my book, I talk about when I was cutting the hair, I've done all sorts of different gigs and I was cutting hair and I was cutting our pastors here, one of our pastors here, and I say, thank goodness his back was to me, because I remember saying Ministry would be so great if it wasn't for all the people. He said, "Really, Traci? The people are my favorite part." I could just feel my face turning so red. [TYLER] I've been there. [TRACI] My face was just red as we talked about us having food poisoning. I could just feel the heat on my face because it highlighted a lack of growth in me. I was probably 25 at the time and I was leading, my husband and I were leading the junior high program at our church and I just had just a moment where I knew I needed to grow in that area. So I had learned about John when I was 22 and I started practicing and trying the things that he was talking about, and I was growing in that area but it just, I feel like sometimes when you grow, the more you grow, the more you learn how much more you have to grow. It isn't ever like, yes, oh, I am so great. Now it's more like, wow, I have, I still have a long way to go. I can always be better. I can always get better in this area. So it just made me really hungry, truthfully. I was hungry to love people and I really saw that lack in me and I wanted it gone. So I can just remember, I'm a person of faith. I can remember about 25 to 28, every day, my prayer was God, give me eyes to see people as you see them. Let me love people and see them with just like, past all the parts that I normally get caught up in where humanity rubs against humanity. But let me see them for who they are, their true value, and how wonderful that at 21, 22 I had started learning from John because he was, he's a relationship genius. I mean, he really truly loves people. Alongside of me starting to study leaders and people, how they treated people in relationships, having John being that overarching voice, it was just a perfect combination of walking me down that path of learning to see people for their true value, even when they aren't living up to their potential and their value, being able to see it in them is such a gift. In the value of that, the beauty of that is that anybody really can go after that. That wasn't anything unique or special to me. In fact, I was the opposite. I was not loving them or valuing them. I liked them but when they were messing up or doing things, I messed up. I was 25 years old. Oh my gosh, I was totally messing up and I thought I knew everything apparently, but I didn't. So it was a real journey for me to really have a heart to care for and see the value of people. [TYLER] So I want to peel back a layer because as you were sharing that it's like, oh, ministry would be great if it wasn't for the people. I think back, my own experiences in my careers, it's like if I could, so many people that I know are in agriculture, working with animals and plants because like I don't have to deal with people. It's like, sorry, you have to work with people. That's a big part of it. I want to know for yourself to relate to the people listening is what were some of the frustrations you had? You talked about making mistakes, but what were some of the other layers and frustrations that you're like, man, this relationship is stuff is hard? [TRACI] That is a great question. I would say one of the things, because I was in youth ministry, what I saw was junior hires, junior high school kids, so kids from the ages of 11 to 14 sharing their troubles and trials. Now mind you, at this point I was a great parent of junior hires because I had not had any kids in junior high yet so I thought I knew and had all the answers. So I was only getting their side obviously and now as a parent, I'm 52 now, I know that kids see things through their one lens and through 12 year old eyes or 14 year old eyes but at the time I was hearing a lot of things in the frustrations and to me it was just like, man, this is just what I saw as lazy parenting. I thought this problem would be different if these kids could talk to their parents about this, if they weren't talking to me without realizing there's so many, when talk, want to talk about, peel that back, let's talk about the problems in me in that statement alone. Number one, the value of me being a youth pastor is to be there to support these parents and to be a sounding board in a time where it's really hard to connect with your kids because they've got so much going on, so much hormones going on, they're mad at their parents. My own six children, now I've got six, they all had troubles. I've depended on what those youth pastors to support me as I was parenting them when they thought they were smarter than me. So humbling, number one, that I thought those things, number two I was only getting their side. The last time, most people, unless you're a teacher, the last time you were around middle school aged kids, it was when you were in middle school yourself. I don't know about you, but when my kids went through middle school, it was like, it drudged up my inner middle schooler. Like when they get sassy and they get little smart mouth, it brings out that sassy in you that you want to almost engage. So I needed a lot of, you and I, before we started this podcast, we were talking a lot about grace, extending grace to people. I was young and I was immature and I had not developed in those areas and so there was a whole lot of grace I needed to learn that I just was not extending. So those little agitating things that were just a part of being a human and those parents were, I didn't know their story. I didn't know their story and I was making a lot of assumptions based on what I was seeing in there and hearing from their kids without extending them the grace of saying, hey there's a bigger picture here and these people. That's just one example. I have many [TYLER] Well, I mean to relate to that is I think about my dad, he was a, I grew up on a dairy farm, but before that my dad was a teacher and he taught for seven, eight years. One of the things he talked about is he loved working with the kids, but either their administration or the parents really made it difficult. As I think about you sharing that and that profession, it's sometimes it's not the the person you're leading, it's everyone else around them that makes the bigger impact that you have the opportunity to really lead. I think about, I talked about coaching some of my sons high school age, boys soccer. A lot of times it's you're hearing from them, you're seeing what they're doing but to your point about youth ministry, it's really what are their parents saying to them? How do I navigate through their parents? How do I help that? That's the real barrier. That makes me think of is we're talking about leading or we're talking about leading in relationships that the barriers in the relationship may not be between you and me. The barrier may be a third party. [TRACI] Or what's going on in their home. I don't know if their dad is about to lose his job. I don't know if the parents are maybe going through a divorce. I don't know if someone has a diagnosis that's upsetting them or if they just lost a grandparent. There's a whole lot of pieces. Or let's just be real, a lot of times parents don't have skills. When you have a junior hire it's, you don't have the skills. You don't feel prepared at times. I mean, I had great parents growing up that were really good parents. So I had good models, role models that I could go back to and ask. I had an older sister who was 10 years older than me that I could go back and ask. I had role models in my life who were solid, who I could ask advice from. But a lot of people don't have that. Sometimes it was bad parenting because they were flying blind. So rather than me coming alongside and maybe being a support piece to them, I just didn't know to do that. Those were all learning lessons and rather than beat myself up, now I can look at that and say I did the best I could at that moment because I thought I knew this much. I thought I knew more than that, but I didn't. But I can give myself younger self the grace to say I was immature. I didn't know what I was doing. I would do it so differently today. But that's because I have the experience of my life of raising six kids through. Of course, it's easier to see it now, but it does certainly give me grace for young 25-year-olds who are like me, who think they know more than they do because I get it. I was there too. [TYLER] So what was the, you talk about that experience with that pastor, was that the catalyst that said, ooh, I need to look at this differently? Or was there a different situation or time that was this catalyst to your transformation? [TRACI] I think there were, that was a big catalyst. I point back to that moment that was a moment where I really thought like, I need to love people. That was a catalyst. But I also feel like there were moments throughout my life where I was in certain conversations where I left knowing I talked too long about myself, or I left conversations where I never asked any questions of the other person. They were really good question askers of me and I didn't ask them anything about them. Like rung in my ears a little bit as I left the conversations. So moments like that throughout my life where I thought I really, I need to grow in this area. I'm dysfunctional in this conversation piece. I will point back to when I was 21, 22, I was working as an office manager and my boss came in and he gave me a cassette tape and he said, "Traci, you've got to listen to this guy. He's coming out of the church into the business world. They say he's the next big business guru and you got to listen to these cassette tapes. He's amazing." Well, I hadn't been to college and so I thought I was, even though I was working as an office manager at the time, I thought one day because I had my hair license, I wanted to own a salon after I was done having kids and would go back to work when they were in school. So I thought, oh, well then I'll listen to him because I don't know about business, but I know about hair and I know about people. Again, I was 21. Oh yes, I'm good. Great with people. I started listening and it was John. So 21-year-old me and he was 43, 44 at the time. He was teaching on these cassette tapes and what I thought he was going to teach me was about business. What he instead was teaching is how to treat people and how to have relationships. I thought, this is what I need. That was a turning moment because I thought, oh, I thought business was about learning numbers and spreadsheets. This was my 21-year-old mind. I thought it was about having plans, business plans and business models but this guy is saying, you can hire people to do that stuff. Get good with people, get good at serving people and knowing your craft and knowing a few things and letting the other people do the things you're not good at but getting really good with people. So that was a turning point. That moment with my pastor was a turning point. Then all those little conversations along the way where I thought, I want more, I'm hungry for more. I know there's more to this and just kept leaning in and practicing it. [TYLER] So you mentioned there a moment where in conversations with people you would pick up as, ooh, I talked too much about myself. Or I didn't ask questions of themself. Would you, for me, when I've recognized that about myself, that's my insecurities coming out. Is that maybe something that it was when you did that, was it the, because you've went to this is I didn't put a focus on the relationships. That's why I did it. For me, when I've been in those situations and what I've recognized is I do that because I'm trying to create value for myself. So it's my insecurities coming out and that insecurity is what keeps me from being able to connect and empathize. [TRACI] Interesting. Yes, I would say that would not be that, truthfully, that wasn't me. I think what, for me, I think it was, I got caught up in feeling like we're having this great conversation. They're asking me about me. I'm answering. I have answers. This is so fun. What is that comment that most people's favorite topic of conversation is to talk about themselves, and so as to have someone truly interested in you feels good. It feels like you're engaging and that someone finds you interesting. So it was more fun and feeling called out and noticed but what I was missing and what intuitively but also my husband Casey was really good at, was like, "Babe, you didn't ask them any questions about them." I felt a little uncomfortable because the conversation was heavy on us. I was like, oh, that's so embarrassing. I didn't even think about that. So on one hand I was embarrassed because I was having such a great time connecting, but I wasn't really connecting. They were connecting to me. So then it was really more of like, just feeling like I was in it and getting caught up and not, I think I was really, honestly, it was a blind spot for me. I really thought I was doing great. [TYLER] Well, no, I mean, I think that what's important there is, going back to what you said earlier is the difficulty is the people. Why? Because I think as we're faring out here, it's well what are you doing to connect and realize that people are much more than just the flat façade that you see? If we're looking at each other screen to screen, all I see is flat Traci. All you see is flat Tyler but there's a whole lot around, behind everything outside of this screen that the video that you and I can see. Are we taking time to ask about those things because that makes you and, I believe absolutely, and I've learned this because I said it earlier, I did not know this, I did not understand, it is the only reason businesses are in business, is because of the people. Everything else doesn't really matter if you're not focusing on the people, because we still are consumers of everything. [TRACI] You know what else I think was a weakness of mine since we're just laying it all out there? I think I also I had answers. I think I did have, because I'd done studying with John starting at 21 and had read books and had done a lot, one thing I had done was a lot of self-study. So even though I didn't go to college, I read a lot of personal development, a lot of deep studies of things I was interested in, people development, all that stuff. So because of that, and because I had grown up in a pretty high functioning family, I had answers and I did have a pretty discerning, I had good answers. So what I found is what was a mistake that I did, is when I would have conversations, what I found is that people would start to pour out their heart to me and tell me their problems. My mom would say from the time I was like 15 adults would like tell me their problems and I would come up with solutions and they'd go, that's really good. Oh my gosh, that's really good for a young person. So my mom would say like, "How do you get these people to tell their story, their life story, Traci?" So it morphed into the more I read, more people were asking me and then I'd come up with answers so I found myself being solution girl. Without really asking more questions I was diagnosing and remedy, giving them my remedy and they were like, "Wow, that's really good. Thanks." So, in a way it was bad for me because it fed a bad behavior in me without me asking more questions and me really saying, are you venting right now? I had to learn to say, are you venting right now or do you want me to just be intimately listening or are you looking for feedback. For me, that was a huge game changer for me. But that took maturity to learn from John to ask that a question as it was because I just was just giving answers. But here's what happened also, when I started my business, I found that many of my team members relied on me to solve all their problems rather than I didn't train them to solve their own problems. I train them to depend on me to solve everything. So I'm wearing the weight of all of their business problems, life problems, family problems, everything on my shoulders because I had created my own problem because I was solution girl and they willingly came to me for solutions. Anyway, I've learned and grown a lot because sometimes your gifts can have, there's an underbelly to that. You have to learn to operate in your gifts from a healthy perspective and within with boundaries. That was, John's really helped me with that too, through the process of growing and learning, oh, the value of growth, we should never, ever stop growing because it's never ending. [TYLER] What part of, you talk about that, I would say crutch to relationships ended up causing a lot of problems? I would say if you use that analogy, that crutch then actually led to a lot of other problems you had to fix and work through? [TRACI] For sure. What was the question? [TYLER] What the crutch of how you were acting, how you were solving everyone's problems, that crutch of, this is the value I'm bringing, this is the crutch, how did that end up bringing on more problems through those relationships? [TRACI] Oh, because I was not empowering them. I was the only one empowered and they were fully dependent on me. So I can remember saying one time to John talking about this, and he said, okay, what I was great at is I was great at saying, here's what you can expect from me. I would overdeliver on what people could expect of me, but I didn't say, here's what I expect of you. I just didn't do that because it was a weakness of mine. It was a blind spot. So John said, what you need to do is you need to go to your team and my concern was, if I go to them, what I got is a lot of team members saying, "You're like my mom, Traci. I wish you could adopt me. I wish." I'm like, "You're, you're 10 years older than me. What do you mean you wish I could?" But they felt like I was their mom, their guru, their person. That's not bad. That is loving somebody. We had a loving relationship, but I needed to empower them to stand on their own. I had created something that was not good for either of us. There were healthy aspects of it as far as that they felt loved and valued, but I was getting exhausted and I needed to cut the apron strings because I was even more, I was even better at that with my own kids. I was better at empowering my kids but I felt like all these wounds of these people, I felt a real weight. Remember when I said I prayed for three years to love people? I suddenly had this deep love for them and I saw the wounds and I wanted to help them, help carry them till they were ready to fly on their own. Well, sometimes they weren't ready to fly for years. So suddenly I'm carrying a lot more and more and more and more people and they're bringing more people to me. It was funny the way that works. John said to me this, and I say that to anyone who's listening and saying, that's me, I'm somebody who takes everybody in. This is what he said, "Go to your people and say, you guys, I am learning and I'm growing and it's not that I think I'm better than anybody or that I think I'm too good for you to spend time with you. But I have learned that I am caring too much more than I should have and I fully acknowledge that and take responsibility." So I'm going to share with you as I'm learning things and what I'm learning about myself and what's healthy for me and a healthy boundary for me and a healthy boundary for you is I'm going to share with you old Traci and new Traci. Old Traci used to do XYZ. New Traci has learned that this makes me and you have these consequences and it's not healthy for either of us and so new Traci is going to do this. Then I just went down and I had five things and there weren't a ton. There weren't a ton, I mean there weren't a ton, but there were 4, 5 things that I shared with my team, old Traci, the consequences of that and then knew Traci and how what they could expect of me. I was amazed at how it liberated all of us [TYLER] To me, I mean, I go back and we didn't have this conversation, but you alluded to it, is you're asking for grace. When you ask for grace, you're allowing people to give you grace and be a part of that. To me that is developing relationship. Because if I were to unpack that a little bit more, what I've learned, I'm going back, I've had to learn all this stuff, how to get healthier in relationships is the moment that you are a little bit more vulnerable. It's not jumping over people, but this is what I'm struggling with. Let's work through this together. I have found, and it's been expressed to me that people are more willing to engage in that process as opposed to here's how we're going to change everything from now forward. They're like, "Well, why? Well, what happened before? Why isn't it working because what it was going on is working?" But inviting them into that relationship rather than being a one-way mirror. [TRACI] Absolutely. Because what was happening is, that wasn't sustainable for any of us, but it was not with bad motives. I mean, I think what they heard was my love for them, my care for them. I was there for them. I was going to continue to be there for them. We were just all growing up. Isn't that what growth is, growing up, we're all growing into the next best version of ourselves. I wanted them to say, please hear my heart in this. I'm not saying I don't want to have time for you anymore but I'm saying my boundaries have been sloppy because of my love for you because I love you and I need to have healthier boundaries and these are what they are. People are wonderful. People are like, oh, great, no problem. We get it. I'm like, why? Why did I wait so long? [TYLER] Well, I mean, so there's a piece here that I really want to elude. Compare and contrast that to your marriage because I know you write about in your book, Real Life Marriage and as you and I've talked about this is some of the things that were showing up in your business world, you talked about it just a minute ago, were not showing up with your kids or your relationship with Casey. So compare and contrast some of that for us. [TRACI] I think some of it did probably show up in my marriage, which actually maybe helped save my marriage in some ways because it's different in business than in family. So when it's with my husband and he and I come from very different backgrounds, and that's really why I wrote this book is I would've never thought that we, I would've written a book even 10 years, 15 years into our marriage because it was a lot of work for us. There were two things. I knew I loved him and I wanted to be married to him. I just have always loved him. I love him madly. Number two I wanted to be married for life. Divorce for me was not an option. I'm a problem solver, so I want to find, I will read any book, attend anything, I will try anything that's difficult. I'm open to that, so those two things. I came from a healthy background. Casey did not come from a healthy background. He saw a lot. There was alcoholism in his family. There was a lot of blaming, shaming, fighting and unhealthy communication in his home was claiming the hill, fighting to win. So that's not his nature at all. His nature is not conflict-oriented. He's a passive person. He's type B, he loves peace. So growing up in that home made him, it wasn't scary and unsafe, but yet he craved having a family that was healthy. So a lot of that part that I brought to my business that I was talking about enabled me to see him for who he was, apart from the damage that had been done to him in his family growing up as he grew. So I was able to extend a lot of grace in my marriage for sure as he was growing and learning. He had a deep desire to grow and learn. It just takes time. It takes time to unravel the deep, deep roots and yank them out from the other roots in your life that you want to keep. So this book is really about, I wanted to, I went looking for tools and I found them in a variety of places and collectively brought them together and started practicing them in our marriage. Now again, you've just heard, I was not perfect in my business, in my relationships, but I was, I did come from a healthy base, a healthier base. So with my dysfunctions, I was at least, I had self-confidence in myself So when he went a little rogue or he was stressed, it didn't shake me in who I was and who I knew I was. if he acted a certain way that I didn't see my parents act, I didn't take it personally. I knew it was about him. It could have folded me if I didn't have, if I wasn't secure in who I was. Then I knew that I wanted to take what I had from my marriage and there were parts from his parents' marriage, even with alcoholism and stuff that I loved about their family, that as we merged together, we wanted to make our new way. So it was like you said, I didn't do that with my kids because I wanted to improve on the next generation in my home. I was very intentional there. There's a weird thing, I feel more free to impact my kids very intentionally than with other adults who are in a business setting that like, I'm not, I am actually not their mom and I am not raising them. They are adults. It's just so funny that it got a little convoluted in the business world that they started cheating me like a mom when I was like, yes, I'm trying to not blur the lines here. But yes, I mean, isn't it, life is complex. We wear a lot of different hats at the same time and we're trying to accomplish a lot of different things in our relationships at the same time, in any given day. So yes, this book is really accumulation of like, hey, we found tools. It's amazing to me that as different as we are and our backgrounds are different, our personalities are different, the filters that we view life and do life through are different that we found an incredible healthy rhythm. I would say, it'll be 32 years in October that we've been married and I would say at about year 15 is where we got it. We were like, okay, whew, we found our rhythm, we found the dance, we found the way you're the way you are. We found enough assessments and we talk about all the tools that we found that helped us get to where we could be in a flow. [TYLER] I can very much that timeline relate to it, is I think Kelly and I have gone through that. Now it'll be 17 years this year and the things that used to be massive blowups two and three and five years ago aren't anymore because you're realizing, okay, we've moved past some of that. Those arrows that would just get the person in the heart every single time, all of a sudden now they're not fired or they're like, that doesn't do anything to effectively move us forward, that damages not helps. So as I relate to that timeframe, there's something that I also pick up in there and I think is important that it isn't necessarily a marriage. It can very much like my background compared to my wife's background, your background compared to Casey's background, that affects the marriage relationship. When I think about business relationships, you talk about in your business, my business, their previous experiences with a leader or what that looks like affects that relationship. So the tools really are, it doesn't matter what relationship you can utilize those same tools in every relationship. [TRACI] The better you get with these tools in your most valued prize relationship, which is the relationship that goes the distance if you stick with it, your spouse, then the better you get with them of flowing and understanding them. Then you're using them with your kids, you're using them in your business. They are tools that are not marriage tools, although they certainly aid in your marriage. They are tools that cross every relationship because relationships are just, they're also similar. I mean, there's a few select things that are very unique and special about a marriage, but every relationship has those pieces where like, we have to be respectful of one another. We have to come to an agreement on this project. We have to come to an agreement of how we're going to move forward as we plan what we're going to do here. So yes, I agree wholeheartedly about that. The other thing that stands out to me, what you just said is you're at 17 years of marriage and you said the same things don't land even two, three years ago. I think what's important for people to hear is that was at year 14 and 15 that you didn't say year two and three, even as recent as year 14, 15, maybe even 16, it's like, it's not a magic moment, but it's like you do the time of really working it through with the same person and the rhythm, it's clunky at first, it's awkward. You'd sometimes rather throw the tools at one another than you work to use them clunky to heal back together. But the more you put in the time to work back together and smooth one another's rough spots out, then suddenly you're like, we have 17 years. While it might feel embarrassing, I think it sometimes would've felt embarrassing. Like you went 15 years of hard, yes, 15 years of trying to figure out a lot of different things but they weren't wasted years. They were all years that now suddenly you're standing at 17 years and in some ways it's like you're two years in, but in other ways it's, you have deep, rich, rich history that every time you fought and stitched yourselves back together again and fought and stitched yourselves back together again, you were building. In the book, I talk about an oak tree. An oak tree has maybe a few, like a little tiny spindly oak tree goes in the ground. It has a few little tiny roots and a few little spindly things up above but very quickly, two or three roots start growing deep, deep down into the soil. Then little teeny tiny thinly roots start nodding and binding around each other and going far and deep and far and wide, but not deep. Then it'll go around the whole root, of the whole base of where the canopy of the tree is going to grow to be. So that windstorms come it has those two or three deep roots but the complexity of the root system is very fairly shallow and covers the whole ground of the canopy of the tree, the crown of the tree, so that when the storms come, that tree is supported by all those noded together root systems that are shallow, fairly shallow. I feel like that is such a beautiful picture of what marriage is, because your little spiny tiny marriage, when you get married, you're just popped into the ground. It's brand new, it's thinly and tiny and weak, but very quickly, every argument and every battle or fight or disagreement, and you stitch what back together. You're actually, your root system is nodding and it's shallow. Your promises with every year go deep, those promises of deep roots but every argument that you stitch together provides this shallow root system that that is your protection in storms. Because now you have by year 17, 17 years of stitch together. Sometimes unhealthy, sometimes healthy, but moving forward, healthy things stitched problems and disagreements stitch back together. That's your root system that supports you. I just love that picture because that is a lifelong marriage. [TYLER] So there's a piece to that that as I look at where some relationships in business or marriages want to avoid that conflict, want to avoid those storms. Let's just avoid that storm. Let's go to a safe harbor and just avoid it. To me, what you miss is that opportunity for those roots to tango together, to go deeper in understanding, hey, okay, there was an issue there, but we worked through it and now we value each other even more because we got through that conflict. Here's a layer though that I think, does that happen without safety and trust? [TRACI] Well, no, no. I mean that's why business partnerships break up. That's why marriages divorce. Without safety and trust, safety and trust is everything. It is everything. Sometimes you need to be able to trust a person, and you need to be able to trust the people you do business with because, gosh, there's a lot of room for mistakes. But being a truth teller and breaking trust, once that's broken, that's hard. Now, I'm not saying marriages can't overcome it, and business partnerships can't overcome it, but it has, you have to do 10 times the work basically to rebuild that break, because it's like, if you want to keep the analogy going with this oak tree, have you ever seen an oak tree that in a huge windstorm, a huge branch breaks off, that branch just does not grow back. It is like gone and it's a huge piece is gone. That's, we used to always tell our kids, we will give you our trust and our faith until you break it, and then you have to earn it back and it is way harder to earn back once it's been broken. It's not impossible. It can be done, but I really do believe trust and feeling safe is, I mean, now certainly I think I must, I have to acknowledge here, I'm not talking about physical safety. [TYLER] No, no, no, it's --- [TRACI] Emotional obviously, but somebody's listening to this and you're not in a physical safe place. [TYLER] Totally different circumstance. [TRACI] Get yourself somewhere safe. You need to go and get safe. [TYLER] Yes, when I talk about that, it's in the, I feel safe to be vulnerable with you. I feel safe to have this conversation. I feel safe to have the trust that, "This may not be good. I can tell you the truth. We're going to have to work through it, but there's safety and trust that we're going to come out better." To me, that's the only thing that helps bind those things together and that's in a marriage, that's in a business relationship and to me, that comes back to that having that desire to develop the relationship, the connection, having the empathy to say, "Hey, we're going to work through this together. I need to understand what you're experiencing, what you're going through, because that's what allows those bonds to become tighter. I don't know if I'm not asking and curious to develop that trust." [TRACI] I totally agree with that. I agree with that. [TYLER] So I'd love to know, so we talk about that little project, big project, your book and exciting, then as well, I want to talk a little bit about you have the responsibility, and again, talking about relationships, the opportunity to really teach the curriculum, the clear curriculum for relationships within Maxwell Leadership. I'd love to know real quick about that so the listeners can maybe get that resource and just understand how you're really bringing that forward to help people in their leadership as well. [TRACI] Yes, well that is a huge honor. It is a responsibility, but it's such an honor because that's, I feel like what I have practiced for over 30 years with John. Basically, what clear is, John will say he has five things really well and the rest, like we said earlier, he hires out, finds who are better than him, faster than him, smarter than him. So what he does well is communication, leadership, equipping attitude and relationships. I think it's hilarious that he has to find five different people to take over what one man has been so amazing at but really, I am not super the curriculum person as much as taking what John has written. I don't know if you can see behind me, but I'm going to lift this up. These right here are my books, all one book, a bunch of copies of them but all the rest of the books that you see, for those of you who are looking, all the rest of the books that you see on my shelves are every book that John Maxwell has ever written, signed, I have his complete library signed in his collection. These are just the books that he's written. Then there is all the recordings and the podcasts and the online courses that he has. There is so much content from this person who is really a genius in all of those areas. He is, and I'll just say with relationships, because that's my lane, but he has so much content and so my role is really to, as a guide, say, this is how I have done a deep dive and have taken John's content in relationships and made it a part of my life in my marriage, in my family, in my community, in the way I've volunteered in boards, whether it's soccer board or PTA board in my community and in my church as I led groups in my church, in my businesses, and now as I serve on John's boards and in his businesses. So really it's about showing people how you take this content and how you apply, how I applied it to my life, and how you can maybe take it and in your personal life, take it and apply it. So we have August 29th, end of August, we have a clear day, clear growth day that people are invited to. You might be able to find, I don't know, you can sign up by going to maxwellleadership.com/clear. You can find out more about that. But if you just go to maxwellleadership.com, you can find out information about Clear and how you can join that. Because what John's done is now, he's passed the baton to us to say, "Hey, take all the content that I've done and help other people learn how to become guides as well." So it's not just like Traci Morrow is the only guide of the world. It's like, hey, how do we do this so that we can influence and impact our world, not the world, our world, the people where like you say, Tyler, you're in the middle of having junior high and now going to be high school kids. How do you impact them? Well, you go to their sports, you go to their school and you impact, and you talk about leadership, and you talk about relationships and communication, leadership equipping attitude and relationships. You start young with these kids. Well, those kids are starting out with a leg up because they're going to learn about things way before we did. I mean, they're going to be determining things and learning things way longer, way earlier before we did. So imagine if every person comes and says I'm going to impact my world with this John's content. Now I see how to grab it and be a guide to other people. You're a guide, you're a relationship guide, you're a leadership guide, an equipping guide. You're doing that. So this program is really to help people do that in their world. [TYLER] Love it. Excited for you to have that honor, because I love it and I appreciate it. Traci. It's been such a joy to spend time with you today. Thank you for sharing your stories. Thank you for sharing your experiences, being vulnerable enough to kind of dig in a little bit what you've learned and gone through. I know it's going to bring tremendous value to so many. So again, thank you so much. [TRACI] Thank you for having me. [TYLER] As I look back and I reflect on my notes from this conversation, I think this is the most telling thing we got done. I hit end, stopped recording, and Traci and I are just catching up a little bit more. It's been a few months since we've seen each other. She goes, "Tyler, I forgot in the middle of the podcast that we were recording a podcast. I just thought we were having a conversation." If you're new to the Impact Driven Leader podcast, man, I hope that's how you feel too. If you've been here, I hope you got that from this episode. That is my desire. So we can share stories, we can share experiences, we can, as John has taught myself, he taught Traci as well, layered learning. It's my experiences, layer in with your experiences and all of a sudden, we learn and we start to have things click. That's really what the Impact Driven Leader community is about. That's what the Impact Driven Leader round table is about. I'd love to take this opportunity to invite you to that. Again, don't forget about the maxwellleadership.com/clear. You can find out more about Clear, all the five different facets of Maxwell Leadership. But I'd love to invite you to be a part of the community that is here, the Impact Driven Leader community. If you want to learn more about that, go to tylerdickerhoof.com or the Impact Driven Leader. You can check out more there. Send me a message at tyler@tylerdickerhoof.com or anywhere on the social. Love to connect with you and share more about what the round table is about so you can have more conversations like what Traci and I had, where we grow, we share, we develop our ability to lead and be healthier leaders, our experiences together. Thanks again for being here. Thanks for being part of the offense, offense, audience. These are lives. I don't cut them. I don't splice them because that to me is being authentic and real. I thank you for being here again. Thanks for being here. Until next time, have a good one.