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{\b\fs48 Episode 1545: Interview with Mary Kelly About Leadership and Success\b0}

{\pard \line \par}

{\b\cf1 Scott Maderer:\b0}

{ }

{\cf2 [00:00:00]}

{ Thanks for joining us on episode 1,545 of the Inspired Stewardship Podcast. }

{\pard \line \par}

{\b\cf3 Mary Kelly:\b0}

{ I'm Mary Kelly. 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 develop resiliency is the key, and one way to be inspired to do that is to listen to this The Inspired Stewardship Podcast with my friend Scott Mader.}

{\pard \line \par}

{The things that we do has gotten us pretty successful. And it's easy to coast. It's easy to think, okay, I'm good, I'm good. And I gotta tell you, Scott, I look at leadership like going to the gym, you know, in my twenties I went to the gym to get faster and better and stronger. And now that I am decades away from my twenties, }

{\cf2 [00:01:00]}

{ now I go to the gym to not get worse.}

{\pard \line \par}

{\b\cf1 Scott Maderer:\b0}

{ Welcome and thank you for joining us on the Inspired Stewardship Podcast. If you truly 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, you will learn to invest in yourself.}

{\pard \line \par}

{Invest in others and develop your influence so that you can impact the world.}

{\pard \line \par}

{In this podcast episode I interview Mary Kelly. I asked Mary about how her experience in the Navy and as an economist helped her learn to help leaders in business. Mary also talks about how resilience is important to real success, and Mary shares with you how accountability is so important to producing.}

{\pard \line \par}

{I have a great book that's been out for a while now called Inspired Living. }

{\cf2 [00:02:00]}

{ Assemble the Puzzle of your Calling by mastering your Time, your Talent, and your treasures. You can find out more about that book over@inspiredlivingbook.com. It'll take you to a page where there's information and you can sign up to get some mailings about it, as well as purchase a copy there.}

{\pard \line \par}

{I'd love to see you get a copy and share with me how it impacted your world. Mary Kelly is a leadership expert, retired from the US Navy, an economist, a bestselling Arthur, a keynote speaker, and she's the CEO of productive leaders. And Mary Kelly focuses on improving profit and growth for businesses. As an economist and a corporate strategist and leadership development expert, Mary translates economic data that leaders can use to make the right decisions for their business.}

{\pard \line \par}

{She's been cited in Money Magazine Entrepreneur Success, Forbes, the Wall Street Journal, and has been on over 500 TV and }

{\cf2 [00:03:00]}

{ radio stations. Mary tries to translate theory into action. She was one of the first women to graduate from the Naval Academy, and Mary served 21 years as a commissioned officer on active duty in the Navy.}

{\pard \line \par}

{Some of her favorite jobs included being an intelligence officer, a counter-terrorism officer, a chief of police, an HR director running a pay and personnel organization, and being part of the team in charge of Pearl Harbor with a PhD in Econo Economics. She was a military professor at the Naval Academy and a civilian professor at the Air Force Academy.}

{\pard \line \par}

{She grew up in a small business family and started working trade shows when she was 10. She's the author of 15 business and leadership books, including 15 Ways to Grow Your Business in Every Economy. Money Smart Master Your World 360 Degrees of Leadership. Stop The Barking While Leaders Fail, and the seven Prescriptions for Success.}

{\pard \line \par}

{A five minutes per week and 52 weeks of building a better }

{\cf2 [00:04:00]}

{ business and who comes next? Welcome to the show, Mary. }

{\pard \line \par}

{\b\cf3 Mary Kelly:\b0}

{ Hey Scott. Great to be with you and your listeners today. }

{\pard \line \par}

{\b\cf1 Scott Maderer:\b0}

{ Absolutely. I'm glad to have you here. So I shared a bunch in the intro and you've done a dot of different things over the years, but at the same time, I always know that intros and bios and those sorts of things, it's kinda like showing the highlight reel of where we've gotten.}

{\pard \line \par}

{I. And the journey to get there usually has some things in it that maybe aren't in the bio. So would you share a little bit more about your journey and what brought you to the point now where you're doing the work you're doing and putting out your message to the world? }

{\pard \line \par}

{\b\cf3 Mary Kelly:\b0}

{ As you mentioned, I was so fortunate to attend the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, and you have to understand, I didn't know anything about the military.}

{\pard \line \par}

{My biggest military exposure was watching mash, like I didn't know anybody who'd ever been in the military. Nothing. MASH would be good exposure then. Oh, mash, it's totally realistic. Said no one ever. So all of a sudden I'm in this world that. }

{\cf2 [00:05:00]}

{ I loved, there was purpose, there was discipline, but there was also a lot of faith.}

{\pard \line \par}

{And you'd be surprised to find out that we have military chaplains and we have military services, and we have all services, all faiths, all everything. I. When I was at the Naval Academy, I was very fortunate to be part of the Glee Club as well as the Catholic choir. Back then, we didn't have that many females at the academy, and the Protestant choir also needed females.}

{\pard \line \par}

{So I wound up doing double duty on Sunday mornings, which was fantastic. So I got to go to different church services, be part of different faith-based organizations, and these became, of course, lifelong friends. And then after that, when I went on active duty, I mostly was in Asia for about 17 years doing intelligence and logistics work.}

{\pard \line \par}

{Again, as you kindly mentioned it's amazing to me how a lot of those friends just resurface in your life. I. How you build a community around other people who share your }

{\cf2 [00:06:00]}

{ values, and then when I got outta the military, all of a sudden I'm back. I'm on my own. I'm starting a business. I had no idea what I was doing, which by the way, is awesome when you're ignorant and you don't know that it's supposed to be hard.}

{\pard \line \par}

{You're, you just plow through. You just don't know. You just don't know. You hope you pray, you do all the things. And then 18 years later, I'm so fortunate to be in this very much second career and able to do what I do, which is leadership and economic development. }

{\pard \line \par}

{\b\cf1 Scott Maderer:\b0}

{ So that's an interesting combination, leadership and economics.}

{\pard \line \par}

{What. What do you think is unique about that kind of blend of looking at those two fields together? }

{\pard \line \par}

{\b\cf3 Mary Kelly:\b0}

{ I thought I wanted to be the mayor of a small town. I thought I wanted to move to some small town and be the mayor and run, like the Andy Griffin, town. And turns out, so I go to school for public policy.}

{\pard \line \par}

{I'm taking classes. I'm trying to be smart. I'm still in the Navy. I'm taking graduate classes at night trying to get. Smart. That's my whole thing is }

{\cf2 [00:07:00]}

{ if you think you wanna do something, try to get smart about it and then just go ahead and do stumble into it anyway. But one of those classes was an economics class, and I'd never had an economics class before, and all of a sudden it made everything make sense.}

{\pard \line \par}

{The whole world suddenly fell into place. And made sense and I thought, wow, the entire universe is really run on this concept of allocation of scarce resources. And even if you are prosperous, you still feel as though you've maybe got some scarcity in your life. And all of a sudden I thought, wow. A lot of my leaders, a lot of the leaders I've been around.}

{\pard \line \par}

{They make decisions based on a scarcity mentality, which is not good long-term planning. Now, sometimes it's the right thing in the short term, but sometimes it's not. And I thought, wow, if I could delve into this deeper, I could be a better leader, I'd be a better economist and I'd be a better person.}

{\pard \line \par}

{\b\cf1 Scott Maderer:\b0}

{ And I've worked as a coach with a lot of different business owners over the year, a lot of different people. And one of the things that I've run into }

{\cf2 [00:08:00]}

{ is. No matter how much they make, and I've worked with people that make, $37,000 a year, and I've worked with people that make two or $300,000 a month, not even a year, ultra high income earners.}

{\pard \line \par}

{It's at some point there's a limit, and at some point you have to make a decision. About what's really important and what's not. What do I really wanna do with these resources? And there is a difference though between, that recognizing real limits and a scarcity mindset.}

{\pard \line \par}

{Do you mind explaining what's the difference between those two? 'cause I think sometimes people confuse them and think. Reality is I'm gonna run outta something. But that's different than having a scarcity mindset. }

{\pard \line \par}

{\b\cf3 Mary Kelly:\b0}

{ A scarcity mindset means that you can't have everything you want at zero cost.}

{\pard \line \par}

{There's always a cost. So if you wanna work more, that's at the cost of time with, there's always a sunk cost. It's at the risk of time with family, working out in the gym, making healthy meals. You could be doing. A million other things other than working. How we choose to spend our time, I think is one of the most important things }

{\cf2 [00:09:00]}

{ we do every single day.}

{\pard \line \par}

{Our life is a finite number of unknown minutes, and we couldn't, we shouldn't waste them. We, and if we're gonna be effective, we can't waste time. So we have to think about what's really important to us in terms of our time, our energy, and our resources. And most people think of resources as money, and that's certainly true for a lot of it.}

{\pard \line \par}

{Because with more resources, with more money, you can do more good on the planet. Somebody calls me up and says, Hey Mary, I've got this fundraiser. Can you help out? Great. Do you need me to speak at your fundraiser? Do you need me to donate to your fundraiser? Do you need me to serve on the board for your fundraiser?}

{\pard \line \par}

{What do you need from me? I. Do you need my time, my talent, however valuable that might be. Not always very much, or do you need re, money? What do you need from me? And depending upon where they are, it could be any of those things. So people with a scarcity mindset are always feeling like I. I never have enough time.}

{\pard \line \par}

{I never have enough money. I never have enough, fill in the blank, and they're not happy. So once you make a decision every single day that you get to be }

{\cf2 [00:10:00]}

{ happy with whatever you've got, you're gonna maximize your time with wherever you are. You're gonna make the most of the relationships you have, the friendships you have, and the opportunities you have.}

{\pard \line \par}

{All of a sudden it shifts from, there's not enough of fill in the blank to wow. My life is full of abundance. And that shift in your mentality? It, it does. The universal truth that you attract, what you think about is I think very real. Now, it doesn't mean that your life gets to be sunshine and roses and unicorns and sprinkles.}

{\pard \line \par}

{It doesn't mean that. It means that you're just better equipped to move through tough situations.}

{\pard \line \par}

{\b\cf1 Scott Maderer:\b0}

{ So you mentioned earlier, the work you did and the time you spent in the choir there, the Catholic services and Protestant services. One of the things I like to highlight for folks is the intersection between our faith journey and our life journey and how those things feed back and forth into each other.}

{\pard \line \par}

{Would you mind sharing a little bit about your faith journey and how that has influenced your decisions? }

{\pard \line \par}

{\b\cf3 Mary Kelly:\b0}

{ Would love to. I was very fortunate to be raised }

{\cf2 [00:11:00]}

{ in a very Catholic household, which meant there was a routine of going to church and when every Sunday and when you go to a Catholic school, you also have mass every morning, which gets you into the habit of stopping, reflecting.}

{\pard \line \par}

{I. Praying, thinking it, it makes you stop. And I think that's A lot of people I think confuse the message with the messengers, where sometimes they say I'm not going back to that church because I didn't like the message on Sunday. Or I thought the preacher was off, or I thought this, that, whatever.}

{\pard \line \par}

{It's not about that. It's not about the messenger, it's about the message. What are you bringing and what do you need to get from that? And so everybody's faith, I think, is very personal and very different, very individual. Your relationship with whatever higher being you choose to align yourself with, that is your business and that's awesome.}

{\pard \line \par}

{My personal choice has been what I was taught in the Catholic Church, which is father, son Holy Spirit. That's what I believe. Does that mean I'm always happy with everything the church does? Nope. }

{\cf2 [00:12:00]}

{ Am I happy with everything I do? Nope. That, we're fallible, we're humans and we have to understand that.}

{\pard \line \par}

{But it also helped me in tough situations. When people get into tough situations, they pray more. That's when, people talk about their faith being tested, but it's also. Are you praying just when you need something? Because if you are, you're kinda like a teenager who only talks to mom and dad when they need the car keys.}

{\pard \line \par}

{Are you praying when you're grateful? Are you staying close to those values even when it would be easy not to? So I remember when I was getting out of the Navy, there were all kinds of job opportunities around Washington, dc. My very last tour in the military was back teaching at the Naval Academy. I started there, I ended there full circle, and there was all these jobs.}

{\pard \line \par}

{But the jobs weren't what I really wanted to do, and here was the problem. They were dangling really big pots of money at me. They're like, here's a bunch of money. Just come and work for us for a couple years. Come and do this just for a couple years. It's just for a couple years. And Scott, more than anybody, I should }

{\cf2 [00:13:00]}

{ have known right away that it's never just for a couple years.}

{\pard \line \par}

{And if you're tempted by something that you know is not you. Good for you. It's not where you're supposed to be. It's not why you're on the planet. You gotta walk away. And I gotta tell you, I'm so grateful because one sun, one Saturday morning, I was at a local diner and I'm at the counter early morning.}

{\pard \line \par}

{We're the people with big cups of coffee at six o'clock in the morning going through. Going through the work and all that, and I'm sitting next to a guy from the FBI, and he had been working in DC and I said, wow, how's the community? He goes, it's terrible. I get up at four o'clock in the morning, I get home at eight o'clock at night.}

{\pard \line \par}

{I'm like, how long have you been doing this? He's 12 years. I'm like, whoa. He said It was only just supposed to be for a couple years, and I was like. Sir, I need to pay for your breakfast. Thank you for that moment of clarity. And I went home to my dogs and I looked at my bo, my dogs and I said, mommy has gotta get outta this town because I'm being tempted to do things I don't wanna do for money.}

{\pard \line \par}

{And that's the wrong reason. Now you have to work for money. You, it's not just }

{\cf2 [00:14:00]}

{ gonna fall outta the sky. You gotta pray like everything depends on God and work. Everything depends on you, but it doesn't mean that you sacrifice your principles, your values. Your time on the planet doing something that you shouldn't be doing.}

{\pard \line \par}

{\b\cf1 Scott Maderer:\b0}

{ One of the things you talked about earlier is that idea of, you, you didn't feel like it was what you were called to do or your purpose, what you were put on this planet to do. Talk a little bit about. You know what do you feel like your calling is? What? What is the thing that clicks for you, and then how did you discover that?}

{\pard \line \par}

{\b\cf3 Mary Kelly:\b0}

{ So I think I'm put on the planet to do leadership and economic development for businesses, organizations, government entities. It is, I. It is more fun for me to be speaking on stage than on vacation, and I realized most people would rather be in the coffin than delivering the eulogy. I completely understand that.}

{\pard \line \par}

{There's a few of us out there. We are these weird little unicorns and we love speaking in front of people. It's our thing. You're one of 'em. Once I realized }

{\cf2 [00:15:00]}

{ that I could convey messages of not just business growth and productivity, which is my specialty, but also of hope and encouragement and how we have to be better leaders every single day, and I pray every single day, Scott, I wake up and I'm like, Lord, please help me be a better person today than I was yesterday.}

{\pard \line \par}

{It doesn't always work. Like some days I'm like, oh, I wasn't a better person. Maybe I lost my patience or I lost my temper. Or I said something I shouldn't have. Every day we're a works in progress, but if I could help other people and other people in tough situations who need that boost of encouragement, then that's what I'm here for.}

{\pard \line \par}

{If you're a NASCAR fan, I call it the bump draft effect. Like our job is to get behind other people and push them forward, give 'em that bump draft forward that maybe they needed at that time. 'cause somebody was. Somebody was bump drafting me. And the thing is, you don't remember who was bump drafting you necessarily.}

{\pard \line \par}

{You don't remember who gave you that push in the right direction. You don't remember, but you can be grateful for it. }

{\pard \line \par}

{\b\cf1 Scott Maderer:\b0}

{ }

{\cf2 [00:16:00]}

{ So a couple of times you've mentioned getting through tough times, getting through tough times, that's come up in your answers more than once. Talk to that leader right now who you know.}

{\pard \line \par}

{With everything going on in the world, this is a great time and a great example that, that their business is going through tough times right now. Their organization is going through tough times right now. Maybe they personally are, or their employees are, whatever it is. They're in the middle of that.}

{\pard \line \par}

{Hey, this is tough times. What are some of the skills or the tips or the ideas or the seeds that you'd like them to hear? I. }

{\pard \line \par}

{\b\cf3 Mary Kelly:\b0}

{ I love that shirt that says everyone is going through a battle you know nothing about. And I think that is a hundred percent true. And it may be personal, it could be a bad diagnosis, it could be a relationship issue.}

{\pard \line \par}

{It could be, you're caring for your aging parents and you've been up all night because they had a bad night. You may have chil, like it could be a very personal domestic issue. It could be. Oh my gosh, our numbers are not making it, and I don't know how to }

{\cf2 [00:17:00]}

{ fix this with my business right now. It could be, I've gotta have a tough, tough call with one of my employees and they've been with me for a while, but I gotta let 'em go because they're just not cutting it and I haven't been able to get 'em up to speed.}

{\pard \line \par}

{There's always something going on. And then if you watch the news, it is very easy to get discouraged because let's face it, the news media is about. Telling you all the bad things on the planet so that you feel discouraged and uncertain and angry and sad all at the same time, and they can do it fast.}

{\pard \line \par}

{They're really talented at this. So our job as leaders is to help people focus on. Controlling what they can control today, tomorrow, next week. So if you look at all the things on the planet, you can't control. You can't control politics. You can't control who wins a football game. You can't control what's going on in the stock market.}

{\pard \line \par}

{You can't control a lot of things. So it's good to be aware of these things, but you don't make that the focus of your life. You make the circle of the things that you can control, which is. }

{\cf2 [00:18:00]}

{ Your health, your relationships, how you approach things, your attitude. Are you being the best person today you possibly can be?}

{\pard \line \par}

{Are you helping other people do their best at work too? Are you making good decisions? So you have to focus hard. To me, when people say, Mary, I'm just, the world is uncertain. I'm not focused. I just can't get it together. Okay. During tough times, we tend to, we circle the wagon, we put our arms around the things we can control, and we look very myopically.}

{\pard \line \par}

{There's a balance there. So controlling What you can control is, my house, my job, my kids, my little league, my dog, my cat, my whatever. Controlling the things you can control, especially during Covid, we found a lot of people just focusing on that and only that to the detriment of everything else.}

{\pard \line \par}

{They didn't look externally, they weren't helping other people so when I say control the things you can control, it's not, I. Be a turtle, pull into your shell and ignore the rest of the world. That's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is be aware of }

{\cf2 [00:19:00]}

{ what's out there, but also look at how am I supporting other people?}

{\pard \line \par}

{How am I helping other people manage change? How am I helping other people with uncertainty? Am I letting people know the information they need from me so that they can do their jobs well? Can I help people? Focus on what they need to be accomplishing today so that they can be successful. So yes, be aware of the things going on the planet and then start working on the things you can control that make a difference.}

{\pard \line \par}

{\b\cf1 Scott Maderer:\b0}

{ And I think a lot of times too, when you talk about what you can control and it's the difference between being self-aware and selfish, it, it's, when you look at what I can control, that influences and impacts other people too. As opposed to what I can control that makes my life better, and it's not that your life won't get better, but it's is that your only focus is, again, we're back to that scarcity mindset of, I gotta get mine because otherwise somebody else has gotta get it thinking. When, it's a zero sum game and }

{\cf2 [00:20:00]}

{ there's always opportunity cost, but that's not the same as saying everything is zero sum.}

{\pard \line \par}

{\b\cf3 Mary Kelly:\b0}

{ And this is why I love the work you're doing, Scott, because when you're doing a podcast, technically you're competing with all other podcasts out there technically, except you're also a guest on other people's podcasts. We're all sharing messages and they're different messages based on who you're talking to.}

{\pard \line \par}

{Sometimes when you're talking to somebody else, they elicit things. They elicit this genius from you that you didn't know you had. Like you're having this great conversation and somebody goes, Hey, I need to hear that today. I need to hear that today. I need to hear that today. And then you say I've been saying on this on my podcast, I got 1500 episodes.}

{\pard \line \par}

{We've said this before, but when you know Joe, Bob or Sally Sue said it, it just sounds a little bit different. And so instead of competing and going, Hey, you're supposed to be looking at my cast and said, you're out there pouring it into other people too. And that's what I think is such a gift about the work you're doing too.}

{\pard \line \par}

{\b\cf1 Scott Maderer:\b0}

{ And I think that is, it's that attitude of it, it is, it. Again, it's not a zero sum game. It's not, people ask all the time, like I'll }

{\cf2 [00:21:00]}

{ have somebody on that has a very similar content to me, or maybe even coaches and works with other business people, and they're like, they're a competitor.}

{\pard \line \par}

{Why would you have 'em on your show? And I'm like. Because they probably can reach and help somebody that I can't. So why not have them on the show? That somebody's gotta hear it from them. That would never work with me. That's, and that's a great thing.}

{\pard \line \par}

{\b\cf3 Mary Kelly:\b0}

{ It's exactly right. And you were kind enough to mention some of my books.}

{\pard \line \par}

{And about 10 years ago I started collaborating on the books with my closest competitors in the field, and that's Peter Stark outta San Diego. And Meredith Elliot Powell outta North Carolina. People say, why in the world would you collaborate on a book that, that you are gonna write anyway with your closest competitors?}

{\pard \line \par}

{And the answer is, because it makes me better. Hopefully it makes them better. It makes the book, if I can take that book from 92% up to 98% and just make it that much better because I'm working with somebody else who's smarter than me, I wanna do that, I wanna work with other people who see different things from what I see.}

{\pard \line \par}

{I want. I want that extra }

{\cf2 [00:22:00]}

{ input. I want that feedback. And partly it means being open to feedback that you sometimes think, oh, I got the answer on this. And all of a sudden they're like, what about this? And you're like, oh, maybe I don't have the answer. And that I think is hard for a lot of leaders is because we've got, we've been successful up till now.}

{\pard \line \par}

{The things that we do has gotten pretty successful. And it's easy to coast. It's easy to think, okay, I'm good. I'm good. I gotta tell you, Scott, I look at leadership like going to the gym. In my twenties I went to the gym to get faster and better and stronger. And now that I am decades away from my twenties, now I go to the gym to not get worse, and that's what I think leadership is too. We can't rest on our past accomplishments. We can't say, oh, 'cause yesterday was a good day. I don't have to work so hard today. That's not how life works. The other thing that you've seen as well as I have, is the people who are working hard every day, they're showing up with a hundred percent every day.}

{\pard \line \par}

{They're happier because their self-esteem is intact. They feel good about the work they're }

{\cf2 [00:23:00]}

{ doing. The people who are unhappy is, if you look back at Covid, the people said, yeah, I'm only working like three hours a week. What are you doing? They're like my boss doesn't seem to mind, and this way I have time for self-care and I'm focused on, thinking big thoughts.}

{\pard \line \par}

{And they were miserable because they weren't getting purpose from work. They weren't, they were letting themselves down, not just the organization but themselves. And in their head they're thinking, wow, I'm scamming my job by not working very hard in their head. They knew their self-esteem was.}

{\pard \line \par}

{Not doing very well because of it. So I love the idea of the people who show up a hundred percent every single day and try hard. I think effort matters. }

{\pard \line \par}

{\b\cf1 Scott Maderer:\b0}

{ Absolutely. So when you're talking to those leaders out there, I think you mentioned earlier, maybe you have to have that tough conversation with somebody.}

{\pard \line \par}

{And I've done that. I've worked in the corporate world. I've hired, I've fired, I've, had that conversation where somebody's sitting across the table and I've gotta let 'em know that they're not gonna be able to come to work next week or tomorrow, or whatever it is. }

{\cf2 [00:24:00]}

{ That's never a fun conversation.}

{\pard \line \par}

{It's never an easy conversation. No. What are some of the things or how do you look at, that idea of accountability both. In that kind of situation where we're having to hold an employee or a coworker or somebody else accountable. But then I also wanna extend that and talk a little bit about self accountability.}

{\pard \line \par}

{'cause I think that's a part of those conversations that oftentimes gets overlooked, if that makes sense. }

{\pard \line \par}

{\b\cf3 Mary Kelly:\b0}

{ Such great points. So first I have systems in place. That your leaders can, your audience can get these for free. They're on my website. It's the website forward slash free. My productivity sheet is there every single day.}

{\pard \line \par}

{I map out what I have to do, the calls to make the appointments. I have the follow up I need to do. I. Whatever I need to do in these quadrants. So that's organized every single day, every month I map out my goals for the month, and that means I've got my top five goals for the month. I print it out, it's in my 12 month planner.}

{\pard \line \par}

{It's }

{\cf2 [00:25:00]}

{ fabulous. Every month has two color coded pages, and it's my top five goals of the month. What do I wanna do more of this month? What do I wanna do less of this month? What do I need to resolve or streamline or whatever? And it's mapped out for you. So you answer the prompts and then if you've got your top five goals, and it doesn't matter where you are in the organization, if you're at the bottom, you go to your boss and you go, Hey boss, these are what I think are my top five goals of the month.}

{\pard \line \par}

{Is this what you're thinking? My top five goals are, the month are. And sometimes your boss goes, no, I want you going in this direction. I need you focused on the X, Y, Z project, not the A, b, C project. That's good clarity. The second thing is if you're in a leadership position. If you're not mapping out your top five goals every month and sharing it with your team, and that's where it gets hard.}

{\pard \line \par}

{If you're not sharing this with your team, then your expectations that they would magically read your mind, you're not married to them stop you. You can't expect them to read your mind. And then they're not able to align their thoughts, their behaviors, their actions to accomplishing the goals that you think they should be }

{\cf2 [00:26:00]}

{ accomplishing with you, but you're not telling 'em what the goals are.}

{\pard \line \par}

{Okay? That's just mean that's like telling somebody to go drive a thousand miles in a car. What direction? I don't know. But if you're in the wrong place, I'll tell you, after the a thousand miles, that's just bad leadership. So let your people know what your goals are. On a monthly basis so that they can align what they need to align with what you need them to do.}

{\pard \line \par}

{And that's in the 12 month planner. But then the other thing is, when you are doing that with your people, it keeps you accountable too. And it also prevents you, when you map it out month by month, you go, hang on. Is this goal for this month or is it for next month? Maybe it's for the month after that.}

{\pard \line \par}

{It helps you organize all the things you have to do. Most of my leaders and managers like yours, they all say, Mary, I've just got so much to do. I cannot get my arms around it. Time just seems to fall through my hands, like water, it just disappears. And at the end of the day, my to-do list is often longer than when I started.}

{\pard \line \par}

{Look, I get it. We've all been there. We've, we have days like that too. But if you're super organized }

{\cf2 [00:27:00]}

{ and your time is mapped out so that you have that hour or two to deal with the emergencies that pop up, they're always gonna pop up. Everybody's got things that pop up. It's always gonna be that way. If it's not you, it's gonna be one of your people.}

{\pard \line \par}

{There's always a crisis or a challenge or a change. You've gotta be prepared to deal with that, and you'd be prepared for that by making sure that you are focused on what you need to focus on and helping your people do the same. }

{\pard \line \par}

{\b\cf1 Scott Maderer:\b0}

{ Yeah. I actually put about 90 minutes on my calendar every day for what I call.}

{\pard \line \par}

{Unplanned work, UPW, and it's just the email I got, the thing that cropped up the whatever, that there's going to be something. So I might as well go ahead and admit that and plan that in my day's time so that I don't overfill my day. 'cause otherwise I overfill my day. I don't get it all done.}

{\pard \line \par}

{And then I'm just frustrated at the end of the day instead of going, oh, no, the reality is I had. Two hours of work that I didn't plan on that came up. }

{\pard \line \par}

{\b\cf3 Mary Kelly:\b0}

{ That's right. And sometimes }

{\cf2 [00:28:00]}

{ it's a client who needs you right now, right? Sometimes someone needs a proposal, sometimes it's whatever. But then the other thing is, if the time is not mapped out to get the things done, what happens is we revert to doing the things we want to do or the things that are easiest to do, so that we can cross those things off and feel good about ourselves.}

{\pard \line \par}

{And meanwhile, that one thing that we've been dragging our feet on for the last month and a half still isn't done. So if you've got something like that on your calendar, we all do. Okay? We all procrastinate every single last one of us procrastinates. If you're one of those people who loves to decorate for the holidays, you gotta understand that there's an equal number of people who just hate the thought of doing it.}

{\pard \line \par}

{And if you love doing it, then you're super excited to pull out all the things for the holidays. I don't care what holiday it is and put up decorations, but if you're those people who hate it, you're gonna wait till last minute and you're gonna not be happy about it. Same thing. So what you do is you take that thing you don't wanna do and you say, okay, realistically, if I focused a hundred percent focus on this task right now, how long would it actually take me?}

{\pard \line \par}

{And if the answer }

{\cf2 [00:29:00]}

{ is five minutes, get it done. If it's 37 minutes, put it on your calendar, schedule it, get it done, knock it out so you can stop. Thinking about it. Our brain is a really powerful thing, and if we tell our brain, you don't have to do the things you don't wanna do, your brain goes, oh, remember, we don't have to do those things.}

{\pard \line \par}

{We don't have to do the hard things. You have to do the hard things. And the hard things for you may not be hard for somebody else. The easy things for you may not be easy for somebody else. If it's really hard, you might wanna get help. You might need somebody to walk you through something. You still gotta get it done.}

{\pard \line \par}

{So map it out, put the time and minutes on your calendar and then say, yep, from nine o'clock till 9 37, I'm gonna do this thing that's hard. Get it done. And you'll feel better about yourself once you do. }

{\pard \line \par}

{\b\cf1 Scott Maderer:\b0}

{ I think one of the other distractions that happens is not only the things that are easy or that we like to do, but also sometimes it's the thing that's screaming the loudest.}

{\pard \line \par}

{It's the tyranny of the urgent. If it's on fire, I have to work on that, but. Believe it or not, sometimes letting it burn a little while is the right decision, or letting it have a little longer to figure out what's }

{\cf2 [00:30:00]}

{ going on is the right decision. }

{\pard \line \par}

{\b\cf3 Mary Kelly:\b0}

{ And sometimes as leaders and managers, we don't let our people work through their own problems.}

{\pard \line \par}

{And sometimes, we say, let me know if you wanna talk this through. I'm not gonna solve your problem for you, but I'm gonna talk it through so that you know what to do. You are enabled to solve this problem. My favorite example of this is. Back when we went from about 600 ICD 10 codes. These are the insurance codes that you get.}

{\pard \line \par}

{If you need to write kidney taken out, there's a code for that. We went from 600 to over 10,000, and that means all these coders now had to learn all these codes. Some people learned them really fast because there was this delay in implementation, and other people are like no, I'm just gonna stick with the 600.}

{\pard \line \par}

{And then they'd look at a coworker and go, now what's the code again for taking out your right kidney? And their coworker go, WXYZ three two Q. But they never learned it themselves. So I tell people is you can help 'em out and give it to 'em, but then you have to go, look, I'm not gonna tell you again this last time, I'm gonna tell you, you have to either look it up or write it down or learn it, because now I'm just enabling you to not }

{\cf2 [00:31:00]}

{ be better.}

{\pard \line \par}

{And it's, I wanna be hopeful, but right now I feel like maybe I'm just enabling a problem. And that's how you phrase it. I wanna help you, but if I'm actually making it worse, then I need to stop. }

{\pard \line \par}

{\b\cf1 Scott Maderer:\b0}

{ Absolutely. And you're right. I think I, I actually there's a great article from Harvard Business Review from I can't remember the year, but it was a long time ago.}

{\pard \line \par}

{About and the analogy they use as a monkey and where there's a monkey on your. Staff member's back, they come walking down the hall and they say, Hey, I've got this problem. And you say, as a manager, I'll look into that, and they said, picture the monkey climbing off their back and onto yours.}

{\pard \line \par}

{The question isn't, is that a good thing or a bad thing? The question is it actually your monkey? In other words, because sometimes as a manager, that's a legit problem that I need to be the one that steps in and helps clear that dead wood or get that information or make that. Other times it's no, that's actually the employee's monkey and I need to let them keep it.}

{\pard \line \par}

{So I actually gave little stuffed monkeys to all of my management team to keep on their }

{\cf2 [00:32:00]}

{ desks, to remind them of, before you answer the question, ask yourself, is that my monkey or not? Should I solve this problem or should I let the employee solve it? Now, I could still help, like you said.}

{\pard \line \par}

{But do I let them own the action or the problems? }

{\pard \line \par}

{\b\cf3 Mary Kelly:\b0}

{ And what I see a lot, and you do too, Scott, is then people tend to get emotional about somebody else's monkey. They're like, oh, now I have to take on the urgency of that. And then they go home that day and they've taken on all the emotions of other people's problems.}

{\pard \line \par}

{Now, hang on, our job is to solve problems. It's not to be emotional about the problems. So people say how do you stop yourself from being emotional? I said, oh, I have feelings. Just not every day. And they laugh, but I'm like, look, my feelings are my feelings. If you are having a bad day, I wanna help you through your bad day, but it doesn't mean I take your emotional baggage home with me.}

{\pard \line \par}

{You're, we're going to work through your issues, but I'm a better leader and manager if I can be supportive and objective and helpful if you come to my office because you've got a problem and you start to cry and then I start to cry. That's just }

{\cf2 [00:33:00]}

{ dumb. So I had to somebody do that at work one time I was in the Navy.}

{\pard \line \par}

{This woman is very upset and I was like, why are you crying? She goes, because I'm trying to get your attention. I said, okay, you have my attention. She goes, so I think you should cry too. I said, but I'm not sad. You don't have this emotion right here. I'm not sad about this problem 'cause I know we can solve it.}

{\pard \line \par}

{She goes, oh, we can solve it. I go, yeah. She goes, then I don't need to cry. I said, you really don't like, it's just, it was the funniest conversation. But again, we have to approach people as individuals. We have to lead. Individuals where they are, and that's what being a great leader and manager is.}

{\pard \line \par}

{\b\cf1 Scott Maderer:\b0}

{ Absolutely. So I've got a few questions that I like to ask all of my guests, but is there anything else about the work you do, the speaking you do, or the books that you have that you think is really important to share with the listener? }

{\pard \line \par}

{\b\cf3 Mary Kelly:\b0}

{ I think it's our responsibility to share our unique talents and gifts.}

{\pard \line \par}

{How I do it right now is through books and writing and blogs and podcasts and all of that. So whatever }

{\cf2 [00:34:00]}

{ your unique gift is, you have to think about how am I best sharing that with other people? How are other people benefiting from my being on the planet? So I'm very proud of the latest book, which is about helping young people navigate their career.}

{\pard \line \par}

{And it's the third in this triad of business personal, and. Growth for succession planning, and what that looks like because a lot of people aren't prepared for the what comes next. So I do think that's one of the things in this year and next year, that my focus has been increased simply because I'm seeing a bigger }

{\pard \line \par}

{\b\cf1 Scott Maderer:\b0}

{ need.}

{\pard \line \par}

{So my brand has inspired stewardship and I run things through that lens of stewardship. Yeah, like leadership. I've discovered that's one of those words that people use, but they mean different things when they use it. So I like to ask for you, what does the word stewardship mean to you?}

{\pard \line \par}

{\b\cf3 Mary Kelly:\b0}

{ Stewardship to me is doing the right thing at the right time, to the right person with the right spirit. Every time. }

{\cf2 [00:35:00]}

{ Now that's not my word. The word is the word for this, the Hawaiian word is keno ole, and it was Cho coined by George Kana. But I think that's what stewardship is, because to whom much is given, much is expected.}

{\pard \line \par}

{And you may not think you've been given very much, but if you are listening to this podcast right now, you are better off than a whole lot of people on the planet. So we have a responsibility that means we have to be good stewards. }

{\pard \line \par}

{\b\cf1 Scott Maderer:\b0}

{ So this is my favorite question that I like to ask everybody. Imagine for a moment that I invented this magic machine, and with this machine, I could take you from where you are today, transport you into the future, maybe 150, maybe 250 years.}

{\pard \line \par}

{And through the power of this machine, you were able to look back and see your entire life, see all of the connections, all of the ripples, all of the impacts you've left. What impact do you hope you've left in the world? }

{\pard \line \par}

{\b\cf3 Mary Kelly:\b0}

{ I would hope it would be an impact of hope when you're feeling hopeless that student who's I can't get through this.}

{\pard \line \par}

{I'm not smart enough to graduate. Yes, you are that military }

{\cf2 [00:36:00]}

{ veteran who is trying to figure out your place in the civilian world, which seems to not care about anything you've ever done in the past, and you're not sure where you're going in the future and you're contemplating some bad moves. There's hope in your future.}

{\pard \line \par}

{You've got this, that person who's in a bad relationship, who doesn't feel like they've got the skills or the talents or the resources to get out of it. You have to look around and say this. There has to be something better and have enough faith and confidence in yourself to move on that. If we can just inspire people every day to take the right action every day, just a little bit of hope, take one step in the right direction.}

{\pard \line \par}

{I'd be good with that. }

{\pard \line \par}

{\b\cf1 Scott Maderer:\b0}

{ So what's on the roadmap? What's coming next for you? }

{\pard \line \par}

{\b\cf3 Mary Kelly:\b0}

{ I'm working on. Getting this book called You Next a step-by-step guide to taking charge of your career into more young, talented hands. So my mid-level managers like the idea, a lot of having a guidebook for them to talk to their people and say, Hey, I found this book.}

{\pard \line \par}

{And in chapter one it says we should maybe }

{\cf2 [00:37:00]}

{ talk about this in chapter two. Maybe we should talk about this. And it's giving my managers. A framework to move forward with their teams. And then the plus side on that is the team has said, okay, so where are the resources for this? And the resources are all free.}

{\pard \line \par}

{I had a 30 5-year-old gal take the book and make cartoon summaries of every chapter. Now, this is not gonna help my book sales. I. Because then people go, wait, I can get the cartoon book summaries. Yep. You're absolutely right. You totally can. But it's gonna help people get the tools they need. And that's at a different site.}

{\pard \line \par}

{It's called you next now.com. Totally free. Just resources for people, and I'm getting this as I'm working on this as part of this succession planning thing. So many boomers are thinking about retiring, but there's nobody to give their businesses to, or they don't feel like the people. Coming up behind them are adequately prepared.}

{\pard \line \par}

{So we've got a program for that. That's the who comes next. And that's you looking really hard at you, being able to move on and do those other things. Those nice to do }

{\cf2 [00:38:00]}

{ things. Now, for a lot of people I know they're never gonna retire and good for you. I'm not sure I'm ever gonna retire either. When you're running hard and doing fun things and you're helping people, it's hard to walk away from that.}

{\pard \line \par}

{But when the time comes, you gotta feel good about what you're doing. And then the third part of that is your individual retirement plan. On that day when we move on, which I think where we're going is better than where we are, but are you leaving your family a mess? Do you have all your important paperwork done?}

{\pard \line \par}

{And it's a willing to trust is great, but it's only 10 to 15% of all the things you need to put together. So that's like that third triad, that's the in case of emergency break. Last program. What if you get hit by a bus? And what if you're not actually dead? What if you're lying there in a coma? What if?}

{\pard \line \par}

{What if? What if your spouse is in the same vehicle that got hit by the bus and you are counting on your spouse to do all those things? When people work through that program and they work it through with their parents, which is more statistically likely, or their spouse, all of a sudden they feel like, oh, if something happens.}

{\pard \line \par}

{We're prepared. So it's all three books are all about being }

{\cf2 [00:39:00]}

{ prepared for your next opportunity, for your careers, for your business, what's gonna happen next, and for you individually, what happens next. And so that's my focus for this year. And the next, I think. And I'm working on another book called Leadership is Tough 'cause Leadership is Tough Es especially today.}

{\pard \line \par}

{\b\cf1 Scott Maderer:\b0}

{ So you can find out more about Mary Kelly over@productiveleaders.com. I'll have a link to that over in the show notes as well as the other site that she just mentioned. Un unex now.com. Mary, is there anything else you'd like to share with the listener? }

{\pard \line \par}

{\b\cf3 Mary Kelly:\b0}

{ I am grateful every single day for the people who get up when they wanna sleep in.}

{\pard \line \par}

{They get up, they get out of bed, they show up a hundred percent for the people around them, the people at work, their families, their communities, their little league, the Girl Scouts, all of that. If you do nothing else, just get up today, give it all you got and make yourself proud.}

{\pard \line \par}

{\b\cf1 Scott Maderer:\b0}

{ }

{\cf2 [00:40:00]}

{ 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 enjoyed this episode. Please do us a favor. Go over to inspired stewardship.com/itunes.}

{\pard \line \par}

{Rate 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 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.}

}