January 31

Episode 1056: Invest in Yourself – Interview with Coach and Author of Speak with Confidence Mike Acker – Part 1

Inspired Stewardship Podcast, Interview, Invest In Yourself

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Join us today for Part 1 of the Interview with Mike Acker, author of Speak With No Fear...

This is Part 1 of the interview I had with speaker, coach, and author Mike Acker.  

In today’s interview with Mike Acker, I ask Mike to share with you how his unique history led him to develop confidence as a youth.  I also ask Mike to share with you the two weights you carry when you are developing your confidence.  Mike also shares with you why where you are is not where you have to stay.

Join in on the Chat below.

Episode 1056: Invest in Yourself - Interview with Coach and Author of Speak with Confidence Mike Acker – Part 1

[00:00:00] Mike Acker: Thanks for joining us on

[00:00:01] Scott Maderer: episode 1056 of the inspired

[00:00:04] Mike Acker: stewardship. I'm Mike Acker. I challenge you to invest in yourself, invest in others, develop your influence and impact the world by using your time, your talent and your treasures to live out your calling. Having the ability to respond well to life is key.

[00:00:21] And one way to be inspired to do that is to listen to this, the inspired stewardship podcast with my friend, Scott Maderer.

[00:00:29] Eventually I had to learn how to be me on stage and not compare or compete with somebody else, but really embrace that. And the closer I got back to my chest, the more confident I felt now, this is who I am. I'm not trying to be someone else. And I know the material well, so it's still weight because you're still in front of people, but it's manageable.

[00:00:53] Scott Maderer: Welcome and thank you for joining us on the inspired stewardship podcast. If you truly [00:01:00] desire to become the person who God wants you to be, then you must learn to use your time, your talent and your treasures for your true calling in the inspired stewardship podcast. We'll learn to invest in. Invest in others and develop your influence so that you can impact the world.

[00:01:20] In today's interview with Mike Aker, I asked Mike to share with you how his unique history led to him to develop confidence as a youth. I also asked Mike to share with you the two weights you carry when you are developing your confidence. And Mike also talks with you

[00:01:37] Mike Acker: about why, where you are,

[00:01:39] Scott Maderer: is not where you have to stay.

[00:01:43] One reason. I like to bring you great interviews. Like the one you're going to hear today is because of the past. In learning from others. Another great way to learn from others is through reading books. But if you're like most people today, you find it hard to find the time to sit down and [00:02:00] read. And that's why today's podcast is brought to you by audible.

[00:02:04] Go to inspired stewardship.com/audible to sign up and you can get a 30 day free trial. There's over 180,000 titles to choose from. And instead of reading, you can listen your way to learn from some of the greatest minds out there. That's inspired stewardship.com/audible to get your free trial and listen to great books the same way you're listening to this podcast.

[00:02:31] Mike Acker is an executive and communication coach, a keynote speaker and the Arthur of four books, including the best-selling speak with no fear, which has appeared on numerous book list, even getting designated as the number one book on overcoming fear of speaking on forums.com. Mike passionately coaches, business professors.

[00:02:54] To lead and speak with confidence in presentations, he entertains and inspires [00:03:00] audiences using stories of growing up as the son to drug smugglers, who later turned missionaries. He retails and relates lessons learned on how to overcome insecurity and exclusion in a cross cultural setting. And he unpacks the path from employee to manager.

[00:03:19] Mike also enjoys rock climbing, wake surfing, skiing church, building Legos with his son and going on dates with his wife. Taylor, Mike believes in the power of prayer, exercise, journaling, and real community to counter the stresses of everyday life. Welcome to the show.

[00:03:38] Mike Acker: Great to be here. Scott, I'm looking forward to talking with you over the next couple of weeks.

[00:03:42] Absolutely.

[00:03:43] Scott Maderer: It's great to have you here. And you have an interesting personal history. We just talked about a little of it in the intro. Can you share a bit more about how your unique family history maybe as laid you, led you to learning, to [00:04:00] Cocker with.

[00:04:01] Mike Acker: Yeah, absolutely. So it goes back.

[00:04:02] I've watched my parents be entrepreneurs all of their life. And really, even before I was born, my dad was a pharmaceutical entrepreneur. As I like to jokingly call his drug smuggling date. And he would go down to Mexico and fly his plane, learn how to do that. So he could do that. And then they transitioned, but he met a witch and they got married and they smuggled drugs together.

[00:04:27] And then they decided to start a fake. And tuned out of the drug smuggling went to a legal drug coffee in 1979 ish and started doing coffee manufacturing. And so that was the world I was born into. My dad was a coffee dealer at that time. Do you remember when you used to be a drug dealer? My mom would take the mail truck.

[00:04:48] And remember when they didn't have seat belts that you had to use and we'd be in the mail truck in the back of it with the burlap bags of coffee beans, either rolling around. Deliver it when we were just in preschool. So then she [00:05:00] started preschool. So I just watched my parents start things. Now my dad's a great orator.

[00:05:04] He has a great ability to speak. He's now a practicing attorney still. And my mom was very articulate, but I was actually born with a speech impediment. And so I had a difficulty saying that just sound. And yet my parents infused in me. The desire and the ambition to overcome that. And so even as a young age, I would do things that now I have clients do.

[00:05:27] And I would work on my sounds every single day. And I would read every single day and I would practice strengthening them the mouth, the bustles. So I got to a spot where I actually was pretty good and I was getting a preference doing poetry science fairs, and second, third, fourth grade. And then my parents decided that we're going to move to Mexico.

[00:05:46] My dad had switched out of the drug industry to the coffee industry, to now becoming a lawyer. He finished his bar and my family had this nice little. Suburban America dream type [00:06:00] deal. And they had become Christians. So had radically transformed for one to the other and not like a political Christian, not like just a church attending a Christian, but Hey, let's do exactly what Jesus said.

[00:06:10] And so we were serving the poor serving aids, victim, serving all kinds of different people at a young age. So we decided to move down to Mexico to serve the poor and disenfranchised in the outskirts of a large metropolitan area masala. And when we went down. I once again had this difficulty of speech now, I didn't know the language and now my muscles weren't in tune for that language.

[00:06:32] And I had to learn once again, how to get in front of people. And I remember getting up in front of people and I talk about this in some of my books or just the amount of pressure. All the eyes is on me and everybody laughing. And I was a sensitive kid, and yet here, I'm getting up in front and everybody's laughing at me.

[00:06:51] And so once again, I had to overcome an area of speech. And then just when I get settled in and get accepted to [00:07:00] university in Mexico and all that. My parents moved back before him and I followed him. And so that was my third major moment of now moving back into America and looking at a career as I'm going through university, figuring out what to do.

[00:07:14] So really there's two main areas that I've seen again and again, in my family's lives entrepreneurship. Even my dad started a new law firm at 65. I've seen that now I've done that in my non-profit work and in my corporate work. And then the second one is my own. Need to overcome communication barriers. I remember this so important to me in my twenties that I would invest in myself, talk about stewardship.

[00:07:41] I wanted to steward my own life and steward my own gifts. And I would take myself to communication classes. Cause I just knew that I knew that communication was important in all of professional. Yeah. So that's a snapshot of that. And I love going through some of those [00:08:00] stories. It was amazing to be part of a family who has such a varied background.

[00:08:05] Anyway, it does make, it does

[00:08:06] Scott Maderer: make for interesting coffee conversation. I'm sure. I think it's also interesting that. Again, the journey, there was both family, but it was also personal in terms of the things that you were dealing with my wife has a military brat and she talks about.

[00:08:24] There was one point where she was like, they were stationed for, and she was like a year from graduating and she's I'm not going to bother making any friends because we're just going to move in a year, and you develop those attitudes and the way you responded to it, as one way, the way she responded.

[00:08:40] As another, I think the way we respond to those sorts of challenges is interesting.

[00:08:44] Mike Acker: Yeah, absolutely. And there was definitely even in Mexico when I had to overcome that nervousness and I used to get psychosomatic fear because I hated going to school at one point in time so much, I would make myself nervous and I knew that people were gonna laugh at me.

[00:08:59] And teachers [00:09:00] would laugh at me really for about three years of going to school in Mexico, where. Such an odd person out. This is before now, Mexico has a lot of connections in United States, but in the early nineties, it was very delayed in something in the United States. Wouldn't affect Mexico very much.

[00:09:16] And in terms of culture and now that does, but. I was only American. A lot of people had seen and it was stood out. So my, one of my coping mechanisms was to become the class clown in seventh grade. I really leaned into that, which was not who I was, but it was because who I became to cope.

[00:09:35] Scott Maderer: So let's talk a little bit about your book UVU in that you talk about these weights that we carry. Unpack that a little bit. What are you talking about when you talk about the weights that we carry and how that affects us and our company?

[00:09:51] Mike Acker: Yeah. So you'd be used one of seven strategies that I work with and our teach.

[00:09:56] And I write about that's in my first book, speak with no [00:10:00] fear now in its second edition. And that was one of my favorite strategies. And the idea is that when you have nervousness, when you have fear, what do you have? Anxiety and communication. One of the strategies that you can embrace is learning how for you to be you, meaning that.

[00:10:16] Often, what happens is that when people go into their professional corporate life, they have an idea, an avatar of what they should be. Like, they listened to a podcast, they think I should be like Scott, or they think about their boss that they had that made a big influence on them. All. I think I should be like Tony or they watch someone on stage and they think I need to be like, Elizabeth, I need to be like this person or that.

[00:10:40] Profile someone that they need to be like, I need to be calm, cool, and collected when I speak yet. That's not always who they are. Now, if you have an idea of who you need to be, and it matches up with your own personality and your personhood then fantastic. But often it doesn't. I literally had one person come to me [00:11:00] and she was talking about her nervousness and she said, Mike, just every single.

[00:11:04] I work with is calm, cool, and collected. I need to learn how to be calm, cool, and collected. I said tell me about yourself and everything she told me about herself was the opposite and get here. She had put on this pressure for her. Like I'm six foot one. If I wanted to be a horse, jockey had a pressure to put myself small.

[00:11:24] There's just no way I can do that. I can't shrink myself to that spot or vice versa, be a center in basketball. I just can't do that. It's not who I am. And yet people try this all the time when they're trying to improve their public speaking. So in the strategy, I talk about these two different weights that when you get up in front of people, it's like carrying front lateral raises, you know what I'm talking about, take a 10 pound weight, hold it in front of your body, and then you raise it up and down.

[00:11:55] So everybody listening. I want you to imagine taking some weight and holding it away from your [00:12:00] body, even if you're extremely strong. 15 pounds after a little while becomes an unbearable amount of weight and begin to shake. Now you take that 15 pounds or that 10 pounds and you hold it to your. And wow. I see moms all the time, carry 10 to 20 pounds against their chest called a baby.

[00:12:21] And all of a sudden they could just do that and do that. And you can hold 15 pounds against your chest. No problem. So there's two weights when you speak, there's the weight of constant. Now the content is what it's the weight of material. It's your message. It's your presentation.

[00:12:35] It's your best man speech. It's whatever that you're going to be talking about right now, I'm talking about UVU. So this is my content. Now, if I didn't know the content that I'm talking to you very well right now, I'd have to refer to my notes a whole bunch. I would have to search my mind. I'd have to process this in a different way.

[00:12:54] In other words, the weight would be far from my. The further, the weight of your message, the [00:13:00] weight of content is from you. They have your gifts. If Scott, you said, Mike talked to me about nuclear fusion. I'm like nuclear and all of a sudden I would get totally lost and the weight is far from my body and I wouldn't feel confident at all.

[00:13:14] It'd be very shaky. In fact, I'd probably just say, Hey, I can't even carry that weight. I can't even, what are you asking me? That question?

[00:13:21] Scott Maderer: Whereas former science teacher, I could actually talk some about that topic. I'm not going to claim to be an expert. I could at least fumble my way through it the weights a little closer to the body for me.

[00:13:33] Yeah. Yeah,

[00:13:34] Mike Acker: exactly. And for me, I literally have to just drop it. So the closer the weight is to you, if you're talking about something that you know, very well. No problem. Now we get that. Okay. Makes sense. Yeah. Weight of content, but there's another one. And the right hand, you got the way to content. And the left hand, you have the weight of personhood and the weight of person who is who you are.

[00:13:56] And the closer you are on stage to being who you [00:14:00] really are, then guess what, the more confidence you're going to feel, because you're not going to feel shaky because you're trying to be someone else. So in the book I talk about this because I became a pastor early on in my. And I was 26 years old and a senior pastor all summer and this small little stage.

[00:14:18] And now I can't even imagine why people would listen to me look 26 old. But one of the things that I did at the beginning is I had no idea how to talk to adults. I knew how to talk to kids and teenagers. And so I would listen to the podcast and sermons of other preachers and I would memorize their speech and I would memorize their.

[00:14:39] And then when they would say something like, yeah, my wife, Kay. I would say so there's one guy, his wife. Okay. And I would literally memorize everything because I was just trying to figure out and I was so insecure of what people would think about me that I took on someone else. So one week that'd be Rick Warren and really warm.

[00:14:57] When we got to be marked, just go yelling at people. If [00:15:00] these people Jake's would be like he's a black preacher in Dallas, then there's ed young who makes noise. Doing all these things and I'm switching back and forth, but here's, what's interesting if they liked what I said, just took to get it from a non-spiritual sense.

[00:15:17] They weren't liking what I said. They were liking who I was presenting wasn't me. Eventually. I had to learn how to be me on stage and not compare or compete with somebody else, but really embrace that. And the closer I got that to my chest, the more confident I felt now. This is who I am. I'm not trying to be someone else.

[00:15:39] And I know the material well, so it's still weight because you're still in front of people, but it's manageable weight.

[00:15:46] Scott Maderer: And I think that's related to what you were just talking about. One of your defense mechanisms, whenever you were uncomfortable in Mexico was to put on class clown. I'm going to be class clown.

[00:15:57] This is how I know I think this will [00:16:00] work, but yet you also said that wasn't who you.

[00:16:02] Mike Acker: Yeah. And we might not put on the class clown caricature,

[00:16:07] but

[00:16:07] Mike Acker: I have seen so many people. At this point in time, coached hundreds of people on zoom or in person workshops as well and conferences, and I've worked with.

[00:16:18] For example, once a year is extremely successful and we're talking like this, and this is a couple of years back and he's just so gregarious and fun. And the moment I said, okay, give me the pitch. And so it goes into the pitch and all of a sudden he became extremely serious. He hunkered down and it wasn't that the content needed to be delivered extreme series it's because that's what he thought he should.

[00:16:40] And so many people. And when I start working with them, they have a different personality that they switch into.

[00:16:47] Scott Maderer: And I work with a lot of other coaches and one of the topics that I covered. For them is the idea of being authentic because I've had coaches say oh, I've gotten people that tell me I'm too blunt.[00:17:00]

[00:17:00] What can I do to change how I am? And it's you really can't change who you are, yes. You can learn some skills and some techniques and you can get better at certain things. But at the end of the day, you still want to be authentically you because you're going to attract people that want to work with.

[00:17:16] Like you and that's a good thing. Cause if you're working with people that don't want to work with a person like you, you're going to be exhausted, every single meeting and you're going to feel frustrated and you're going to feel less confident because you're always having to quote.

[00:17:31] And put on that air and remember which purse what am I faking? What w who do I be for this person or for this client, it becomes much more challenging. Yeah, that's a

[00:17:40] Mike Acker: really good point. And that's really anywhere, right? Because if you're a manager and you're trying to switch between different people, now, there are different hats that you put on.

[00:17:49] You're not changing who you are, yeah,

[00:17:51] Scott Maderer: it's not it's not just be rude to people and say that's who I am, but it is you still have to be authentic to who you are. [00:18:00] I use a lot of humor in my coaching. If somebody doesn't like that, I don't need to work with them.

[00:18:07] That's not the right client for me because they're going to get irritated with me because I'm going to do it anyways. So that's a good thing. And in talking about the. The nature of this, as you've worked through your own life, as you've worked through working with clients, you talk a lot and it shows up in your books and a few places where you are, is not where you stay.

[00:18:31] Yeah. And I love that phrase, but what do you mean by that? And what's so important

[00:18:35] Mike Acker: about that. Yeah. It's such a huge thing. Really, if you think about. If you didn't believe in this, you wouldn't do it right. But where you are is not where you have to stay. So if you come in, let's just choose something that a lot of people are working on myself, as well as physical fitness.

[00:18:50] If you think that you're stuck and you can't gain muscle mass or can't run longer or can't lose weight or whatever it is, you will stay there and probably actually deteriorate your condition because [00:19:00] we won't work on it. Or if you think that you just can't get rid of. The speech impediment you'll stay there because why do something, if you don't think.

[00:19:10] I I'm never going to try to become an NBA basketball player. You know why? Because it's not possible. I'm 41 years old. I'm six foot one. I can't shoot that well anymore. And I can't jump. So I'm not going to try because I don't believe I can. However, I have considered doing some politics and I might run for, let's say, state Senate.

[00:19:37] Because I do believe that I could get that. So I do believe that I could go that route. And so it's very important to believe that you can, because if you believe you can't, you won't, I love what mark Twain said. Whether you think you can, or you can't you're right. So where you are, is not where you have to stay.

[00:19:56] You have to believe that if you have a leadership deficit, a [00:20:00] communication deficit, if you have something that you are not proud of, don't like about yourself. You have to believe that you can change it. Otherwise you won't. So I tell people this analogy right here, that if I look at a chair and say, Hey, that chair won't hold me.

[00:20:17] Guess what? I won't sit in it. I'm not going to sit down and share that. I don't believe, but if I say that chair will hold me and I need to sit down, then I should go ahead and do it. So have this faith that, Hey this direction, this coaching, the system, this area, this education, whatever it might be is something that you can do.

[00:20:39] Put your weight onto it, put yourself in there so that you can experience the success that you want. This is a huge thing for my own life. I've seen this, so it's not something I just believe in, but I've seen it. My dad and my mom, drug dealers, I became a pastor where you are. Is that where you have to stay.

[00:20:58] In fact, if my parents had stayed [00:21:00] as drug dealers, my sister and I have talked about this, where would have our life have gone? We probably would've lost our dad to jail as a result of the change that he made, it changed us. And when you make the change and you make the choices that lead to the destiny you want, then you end up.

[00:21:20] You ended up in a place that you're proud of. So as you're listening, whether it's finances, whether it's leadership, whether it's career education, communication, just remember this wherever you are, you don't have to stay there.

[00:21:35] Scott Maderer: So now let's connect those two ideas a little bit. Cause we were just talking about being authentically ourselves and accepting.

[00:21:42] You know when you're speaking and when you're doing other things, recognizing that and valuing that. And yet now you're also talking about being able to change who you are how do those two ideas balance when we're working on our.

[00:21:57] Mike Acker: Yeah, absolutely. So I have actually six [00:22:00] books as I, when I communicated first with you, I had five, I have six books.

[00:22:04] I have three workbooks and my 10th book comes out the 10th overall book, including work that comes out this December. It's called speak with confidence. And I go into depth on that. So I'm glad you asked because I have a lot of thoughts on that at all. I'll try to keep it short. If you think about your life as three bars.

[00:22:22] That are going to have three words and the bars can total up to a hundred. So 33%, 33%, 33%. And you got a hundred right there. Those bars need to be somewhat balanced. One bar is appreciation. What do you appreciate about yourself? So I appreciate that. Now, due to the work that I've had in my life, I can get up and I can tell stories and I can communicate, and I can do what I'm doing right here without notes, because I've put a lot of effort into it.

[00:22:50] I appreciate some other things about myself. So think about what do you appreciate about yourself then? Think about what you need to accept about. So there's things in my [00:23:00] life that I don't really like, but I accept, in fact, I've listened to my voice so many times that I don't think, man, that's the most sexy, attractive, amazing sounding voice.

[00:23:14] But I accept my voice as this. I am, I'm not barest by my voice. And now you're thinking of everybody's thinking, what do I like his voice?

[00:23:22] Scott Maderer: But anyone who's ever heard themselves out of recording gets that feeling because it's like, nobody likes their voice on a recording. Cause that's not what we hear.

[00:23:29] Mike Acker: Exactly. You're right. And then the third one. So those are really about the whole UBU, right? You to be you have to learn what you appreciate about yourself and what you need to accept that. The third part though, is this last bar is improved. So some things I need to appreciate, I like that about myself.

[00:23:48] Some things I need to accept. Hey, that's me. I can't be someone else. I accept who I am. I wish I could be that person, but you know what? I'm not going to die on a [00:24:00] hill because wishes don't go. Without an actual ability to change it. But the third one is improved. When you look at your life, like the rudeness factor that we talked about earlier the plant, okay.

[00:24:12] Maybe you say I accept. And in some ways I appreciate that I'm candid, but instead of being blunt, I need to turn that into candidness and assertiveness, not aggressive bluntness. So is there a tone of voice I need to change? Is there a manner in which I'm approaching this? Do I need to learn how to lead with questions instead of assertions?

[00:24:36] And so with that, you're saying, here's what I need to improve. I get this actually from, I don't get this, but I love this analogy from hitch and hitches. The movie with will Smith from the nineties or the. And he goes to a store with one of his clients. Now he gets these clients that are great people, but they have no style sense, no fashion sense.

[00:24:54] No.

[00:24:55] Scott Maderer: Basically teaching them how to be. Ladies man, so to speak, he's trying to teach them [00:25:00] how to date better is that I think, and that's the premise of it. He's trying to teach them how to relate better with the opposite sex. And

[00:25:08] Mike Acker: really, usually one particular woman, one of them over and just a date doctor, but you only get great guys.

[00:25:17] So they have great stuff on the inside. But they need something outside that needs to be improved. They need to get noticed. So he takes this one guy to the store, to the department store and he buys a guy buy some shoes and the guy goes, I don't know, I don't know this isn't really me. And this is actually in my upcoming book as well.

[00:25:32] And it's, I don't really, I don't really think. I feel like this is. And hip says, Wilson myth says you bought these shoes. You look good in these shoes. Use the flexible concept, but he's not changing the heart of who the person is. He's just improving what he does on the outside. So let's improve that, which we need to do on the outside.

[00:25:53] If you think finances, I appreciate that. I am the type of person that likes this type of house. [00:26:00] I need to improve by managing my finances different and saving up and substitute spent thinking about communication. I appreciate that. I am very candid. I accept that. Not everybody likes. I need to improve the manner in which I speak to other people.

[00:26:17] So using those different bars as a way of looking at yourself and what areas do you appreciate except improve is very helpful. And that's all in my upcoming book in December, which is available for pre-order. So if people want to jump on, they can do that as well. And

[00:26:32] Scott Maderer: it actually would have it, as this is broadcast it would have just come out last month.

[00:26:37] So it would be available right now if people want to pick it up and again, that one was

[00:26:43] Mike Acker: Speak with competence 28. Awesome.

[00:26:48] Scott Maderer: So we talked a little bit you were talking about growing up in Mexico and kind of these different settings. And we talked a little bit about your communication and speaking, but how do you think it affected you in terms of what you see now in your [00:27:00] life with leadership and being a senior pastor for a while now, running your own business, these sorts of things how has it expressed itself in your leadership capabilities?

[00:27:11] Mike Acker: Yeah, absolutely. I was there for seven years and at the beginning I was in the house. And so I know what it feels like to be an outsider. I I was literally the only white kid in the entire school. So I even understand some of that racial tensions that some people have, and I'm not saying I understand what other people exactly feel, but I know what it's like to be the only person that looks like you do.

[00:27:34] And there might be some privilege with that as well, because a lot of people. Looked up to Americans. However, I'm also got beat up in the us gap, but people call me F in Greenville every single day. Yeah. I had a whole bunch of those kinds of stories that quite literally, I was terrified to go different places.

[00:27:53] I had kids chase me for blocks throwing rocks at me. So I understand what it's like for [00:28:00] some of the outsider for people not to like you simply because of the way you look or where you're from. I understand what it's like for people to make fun of the way you talk and how to overcome a speech impediment and that speech and accent and all of those things.

[00:28:16] So one of the huge ways that. It helped me is empathy is, and I wrote a book on emotional intelligence in the center point on emotional intelligence is empathy. That really is if you boil emotional intelligence down to one word, it's that ability to feel with somebody. And that helped me and helped me understand what people on the outside felt.

[00:28:39] So for many years, when people would just talk about who like is, they would say her. And if you look at our friend groups that we've had throughout the years and different things, I include, I also try really hard to connect with people. So I have clients from literally around the world, living in parts around the world.

[00:28:58] And one of the first things I try to do [00:29:00] is identify with that. Oh, you okay. You live in France. Oh yeah. I was in France and did it when we talk about France for a little while, and then I've talked with other people and it might not have that direct connection, but I'm trying to find some way that I can bridge over to them.

[00:29:13] And that has really helped me. Emotional intelligence is one of the number one predictors of success. And so when I look at that, it helped me in my journey towards emotional intelligence, with empathy and with bridging of connection.

[00:29:26] Scott Maderer: You can follow Mike over on Facebook is Mike aker.com. That's all spelled out. M I K E a C K E R D O T C O M. Or find him on LinkedIn is Mike Aker. You can also find out more about him on his website. Mike acker.com. Of course I'll have links to all of this over the show notes as well. Mike, is there anything else you'd like to share with the listener?

[00:29:54] Mike Acker: We go back to something I said in the very first episode where you are as not reacting to say it, take a [00:30:00] moment and write some things about the status quo about your life. She was one of those health communication, leadership money. Choose one of those and write down where you want to go and then backwards track how to get there, where you are, is not where you have to stay.

[00:30:19] Scott Maderer: Thanks so much for listening to the inspired stewardship podcast. As a subscriber and listener, we challenge you to not just sit back and passively listen, but act on what you've heard and find a way to live your calling. If you enjoy this episode please do us a favor. Go over to inspired stewardship.com/itunes rate.

[00:30:47] All one word. ITunes rate, it'll take you through how to leave a rating and review and how to make sure you're subscribed to the podcast so that you can get every [00:31:00] episode as it comes out in your feed until next time, invest your time, your talent and your treasures. Develop your influence and impact the world.


In today's episode, I ask Mike about:

  • How his unique history led him to develop confidence as a youth...
  • The two weights you carry when you are developing your confidence...
  • Why where you are is not where you have to stay.
  • and more.....

Some of the Resources recommended in this episode: 

I make a commission for purchases made through the following link.

Eventually I had to learn how to be me on stage and not compare or compete with someone else.  And the closer I got to that the more confident I felt. – Mike Acker

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You can connect with Mike using the resources below:

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About the author 

Scott

Helping people to be better Stewards of God's gifts. Because Stewardship is about more than money.

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