00:00:00 Thanks for joining us on episode 736 of the inspired stewardship podcast. I'm Braden Douglas. 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 lead with impact is key. And one way to be inspired to do that is to listen to this,
00:00:27 the inspired stewardship podcast with my friend, Scott Mader. For me, it, what I've realized is, is that you will, when you, when things don't go well, that's when you realize there's a void in your spiritual life. And whether it's, whether it's people becoming selfish and all of a sudden they're, you know, they're making decisions that are not good in the best interest of the company,
00:01:04 the best interests of employees or customers. Welcome. And thank you for joining us on the inspired stewardship podcasts. 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. We'll learn to invest in yourself, invest in others and develop your influence so that you can impact the world.
00:01:36 Okay? And today's interview with Braden Douglas Brighton. And I talk with you about how there are components to your life as a leader, but why you often can't separate them. Braden shares how these different facets impact your leadership and Braden. I talk with you about why you can be yourself, but you can also be better as a leader. One reason I like to bring you great interviews.
00:01:59 Like the one you're going to hear today is because of the power 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 read. And that's why today's podcast is brought to you by audible, go to inspired stewardship.com/audible to sign up and you can get a 30 day free trial.
00:02:25 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 listened to great books. The same way you're listening to this podcast. Britton Douglas is the founder of crew marketing partners. One of the fastest growing marketing and creative agencies in Canada founded in 2007 crew has won numerous awards for their service and brand leadership.
00:03:00 Braden started his career in brand management over at Frito lay and Procter and gamble. But throughout his life, his passion has been helping leaders make a significant impact in the world. He currently volunteers with leader impact as a member of the global advisory board, where he plays a key role in mentoring leaders, speaking and developing content. Braden lives outside of Vancouver,
00:03:25 British Columbia with his wife and two kids. Welcome to the show Brighton. Yeah, thanks Scott. It's a pleasure to be here. So, you know, you've got this book out right now and on this idea of, of leader impact and what that really means and what that looks like to leaders. I was excited to read it myself. It's one I think is,
00:03:45 is it's got a lot of new and interesting things to call out about leadership. And in that book, you, you mentioned are you emphasize this idea that to make an impact as a leader, there's multiple areas where neater leaders need to develop their there's different components that they need to pay attention to. And you call out, you know, the professional life,
00:04:08 the personal life and the spiritual life. Can you share a little bit more and let's kind of go through and unpack those. So starting with the professional life, what do you mean by that? Yeah. You know, that's a, so one of the key things is that when I first started, even whether it's working now, I work with hundreds of entrepreneurs.
00:04:29 I have leadership groups of the last 15 years with many leaders from all across different sectors of industry, whether it's business or medical or education or whatever it was. And this idea of impact always came up. Like I want to make a difference, especially, especially faith-based leaders, cause they want, they feel like an intrinsic motivation of, I want to be able to give more,
00:04:50 I want to be able to help people. But what we always found is that they don't know how they didn't really know how to do this, what was happening. And so what, what had started to come down is that, is that these three areas and leader impact does a great job as an organization to help leaders really understand, because it's not about what you do,
00:05:08 it's about who you are. And I think that's really important that it's not like impact is not, Hey, I'm going to go do this. And it's a, what question it's really a who question, who you are as a leader and the outpouring of that is going to be impact, but you need those three areas, professional, personal, and spiritual,
00:05:26 all coming together. And so professional life, this is your career. This is, you know, you're going to spend 90,000, you know, 90,000 hours roughly, or one third of your life at work, doing some type of profession. And this gives you your platform, a lot of your credibility, and you can see why leaders really wrap up their identity in what they do in their professional life.
00:05:48 But it also, it gives them the resources. It gives them the means to be able to, to create that. And so I think that's an important aspect. You know, other leaders to make sure you have a great professional life and then your personal life, this is characterized by relationships, starting with the relationship with yourself, how you think, how you take care of your wellbeing,
00:06:06 how you behave, but then also the relationships that you're going to have with others. And that is where in those relationships are going to be. Whether it's family, friends, colleagues, clients, suppliers, whatever it is. You as a leader have been given many relationships. And that's your personal life that really starts to expound that. And then you've got your spiritual life,
00:06:29 which is where your beliefs come from, your morals or values that underpin your decisions. And what that in usually for leaders is that if you don't have a strong spiritual life within it, it usually becomes self-serving. You become very insulated on career gains on personal gains, on, you know, you know, financial wealth, whatever it is that really gives you a little bit more identity or a little bit more pride in certain areas.
00:06:55 And so we think at leader impact is that you need a strong spiritual life to help you be grounded, to think other centered and not self centered, and that's going to naturally help. And so in all three professional, personal and spiritual come together, that's where we feel you become a leader of impact. So when you think about that, I think for most leaders,
00:07:17 the only component that they'll focus on, at least initially, is that a professional, right? The, the professional life. This is where I'm a leader. I, I, you know, they gave me the job, I've got the corner office or whatever. They gave me the title. Now I'm a leader. What, what do you say?
00:07:32 I mean, you know, what makes this different in terms of leader impact? If a leader really wants to make an impact, because you said it's, you know, it's about who they are, not what they do, but I think it's really easy in the professional component to start thinking about what I do, you know, the, they told me to do this.
00:07:49 This is my job, so to speak. So how does, how does a leader actually separate that? Well, you know, I think that we're, regardless of your position, you have influence. And that's what leadership really is, is about influence. And whether you are, you know, junior level, whether you're a parent, whether you are the CEO or the senior leader of a church,
00:08:10 whatever it is, you're going to have influence on others. Now that breadth of influence is going to be different at different stages that you have. But I think anybody at each space has an impact. And so here's a, you know, a great example of this is that when I first started at Frito-Lay, I was a young marketer and just get into the organization and I really wanted to see,
00:08:32 okay, how do I, you know, how do I really, you know, make a difference and, and be known and really, you know, do something that's, that's, that's out there. And so they had this charity auction. And, and so at this charity auction, have you ever seen these where people are giving away, like a vacation time and tickets to sporting events and all this kind of stuff that you bid on them,
00:08:54 and then all the money goes the United way. And this one. And so one of the, one of the things that an item auction was an hour with the president of Frito-Lay and it was starting at $75. And I remember I was walking, I was kind of maybe a year into the company and I was with a colleague and, and we were kind of,
00:09:12 you know, just checking everything out. And I was like, Oh man, an hour with the president was fantastic. All right, I'm going to do that. And it said on the sheet, you could have the president do whatever you wanted him to do, clean your desk, write your report, write whatever it is. And I thought, Oh,
00:09:25 this is, this is a fantastic deal. So I put my name on it and she goes, she looks at me and she was like, Brayden, what are you doing? I said, I'm just, I thought this was good thing. You know? And she's like, Braden, only the, the executives bid on that one. And every year it goes for like thousands of dollars.
00:09:40 And, you know, nobody, you don't, you don't bid on it. I'm like, well, whatever, I'll probably get outbid anyway. Well, apparently everybody in the company thought it was hilarious that this young marketing Wipper snapper is bidding on this one hour with the president and nobody else bid All the executives went well, if he's got the, he's got the guts to put his name down,
00:10:03 but let him have it. That's right. And so they just let me go. And I'm like, and so I won and, and my, everybody in like the marketing department was like, Braden, like, what are you doing? And so I, So you had to wash your car right now, Obviously. And so it was this, this moment of like,
00:10:21 okay, well, I went to a secretary and I said, okay, I'd like to book an hour and president. And she's like, great, well, he's got time in six weeks from now. There's this first opening. I said, okay, I'll take it. So I booked the time in and getting close. Everybody's asking me, what are you going to get them to do?
00:10:36 I'm going to give them that report. You're gonna show them that presentation to get approvals. And I said, I can't tell you it was a surprise. And, and so the day before the VP of marketing calls me into his office and he sits me down and says, Brayden, we really like you. We, I don't want to see you get fired or do something really dumb.
00:10:55 Can you tell me what you're going to have the president do? And I said, no, I'm not going to tell you. And he's like, Braden, I'm like your bosses boss. Like, just tell me what you're going to do. And, and I said, I get it. I understand what you want, but it's a surprise. And there's reason for it,
00:11:11 but don't worry. I'm not gonna do anything stupid. Shoot myself in the foot here. That's right. And he's like, okay, fine. And he, let me go. And so the next day I show up at the, the president's office and it's big corner that you walk in. And his secretary kind of walks me back into his office,
00:11:28 you know, all the mahogany desks, everything. I was like, wow, this is impressive. And then she, she leads me into this secret boardroom off of his desk. And in there, there's a, you know, it's, there's like a full bar that it's like, it's beautiful. And I sit down and I'm thinking, you know,
00:11:44 there's a reason they don't let young, you know, five-year-olds in here. And, and so I'm sitting there and the president comes in and he's like, Oh, Hey, Braden. And yeah, what are going to do for this hour? And so I pull out a sheet of paper and on it is a, all of the projects that I've been working on for the last year and a half,
00:12:03 and the names of the people on it, what they've been doing, why they did a great job with their phone number. And we took the first 40 minutes and we, I had a, the president call each person on there. And there were suppliers. They were other agencies that we worked with. They were operations people. They are finance people,
00:12:22 everybody that had a hand in this campaigns or these marketing projects who were working on it. So he called them all in the most of them, he left messages or if it was like maybe a one minute conversation. And, and then we got two, and then I had three cards and these were his three direct reports, VP of marketing, a VP of ops,
00:12:41 VP of finance. And I said, I want you to write out what you think they're doing really well in, in their job and write them a note. And so he's like, okay, did that. And we had five minutes left and at the very bottom was the, was the number of a florist by his house. And I said, I want you to call,
00:12:59 and you're gonna order flowers for your wife. And so I had the, you know, I had everything ready. He called them. And we, we ordered flowers for his wife that night and, you know, made them get the big bouquet. Like he couldn't just cheat though. Like it had to be a really big one. And, and then our time was up and he was like,
00:13:15 wow, that was, that was different. I didn't expect that today. And so he left and the next day we had people, you know, we had suppliers who said, they've forwarded that voicemail from the president to everybody in their company. We, the VP of marketing came and he had this, you know, had the car. And he was like,
00:13:35 wow. Okay. That was, that was good. And even the president, he saw me a few days later in the hallway and he, and he said, Hey, Braden, that was great. And by the way, like, my wife really, really liked the flowers and stuff. And so I think he probably got lucky that night and loved it,
00:13:52 but it, it was awesome. And I think that for me, that for impact it, it started this idea that regardless of where you're at in your company or your career, you, all it takes is different thinking. And it's about relationships and it's about people that make a lasting impact. And if you can imagine, if everybody thought that way,
00:14:13 if you, as a leader started to really think, okay, how am I going to make a difference in, in my family's life in these people's lives and whatever it is, that's where impact, that's where legacy. And that's what things really happen from there That, you know, and again, I think the point to call out from that is that wasn't a positional thing either.
00:14:37 I mean, it's just having gratitude and showing gratitude for other people. You can do that, you know, with the grocery store clerk, when they're bagging your groceries, it doesn't take any, you know, it's, there's no magic to it. It's just recognizing it and doing it and taking that action to do that. So what made you think of doing that with the president?
00:14:56 What was that actually the thought process behind it? You know, I think that, you know, at the time, and this is where even for me, I had a, I had a life turnaround, really. I came to faith and when I was about 20, like early twenties and, and so I kind of was all about leadership and getting ahead and getting good marks in school and being the best in your sports teams or whatever it was and,
00:15:22 and thinking that's what life is. And then it came to the point where I felt totally empty. Totally self-serving and that's really where I came. And really, I would say really became a Christian. And I said, I didn't want to, I didn't want to follow Jesus. And just be that guy who just kind of has a title like, Oh yeah,
00:15:39 I'm a Christian. Now. I really wanted to say if I'm, if this is real, I want to just, I really want to just live full out. And, and so that's where I started to really look at opportunities and look at things a little bit differently and say, okay, you know, God, what are you, what do you really want to do?
00:15:55 And how can I really make an influence in a difference and an impact. And I think that's where you just, I think it's about intentionality more than it is anything else, because yeah, you're right. Like whether you're at the grocery store or whether you're doing different things, but it really becomes about thinking about others more. And for me, it's like,
00:16:14 what would you still do it? Even if you didn't get any accolades, if it wasn't, if it didn't actually turn out positive, but it was the right thing to do. And I think that's really what separates it. And that's what really, what separates leaders who really want to make an impact versus those who just want to really get ahead and use impact as a way to do it.
00:16:33 It's, it's that idea of, of, of humility and the way I always, I love the quote that is humility is not thinking less of yourself. It's thinking of yourself less. You know, you're still, you're still a good being, you know, it's not, it's not about downsizing yourself. It's about just first think about other people and what the impact is on them.
00:16:56 And then worry about what happens to you. And ironically, the thing of it is when you do that, more stuff flows to you. You know, when we try to grab it, it tends to slip away. But when we don't try to grab it, it tends to flow. You know, that, that spiritual energy flows back. Yeah.
00:17:15 I think, I think that God works in mysterious ways when we just keep giving a, just keeps giving more and you're like, Oh my gosh. Like, okay, but it's, it becomes like that's a benefit. It's not the reason. Yeah. It's a, it's the effect as opposed to the cause. It's yeah. So when we think about personal and,
00:17:35 and, you know, I think this one's really important because again, I've seen this with leaders in my own corporate career and my own background, you know, now as a coach, when I work with leaders where the leader tries to separate, you know, who they are at home, who they are with their spouse, who they are with their kids,
00:17:53 whatever it is from their professional life, they almost want to be two different beings instead of one integral beam. And you call out this idea of no, you've got to pay attention to your personal life. And it's not just about like, Oh, you had some scandal at home either. You know, it's, that's not even what it's about. That that's,
00:18:10 that can happen. It's more about who you are, you know, in both of those fields. So can you unpack a little bit, why, you know, why is personal life so important again, when you look at making a lasting impact, You know, I think you're absolutely right. And even, even this last little while with COVID and stuff too,
00:18:28 and we're having now zoom calls with people and it's in their home and you've got kids running around and it's crazy. We start realizing that, you know what, there is, you can't separate. And yeah, you might have boundaries in place where you're not just working 24 seven and where your focus is maybe split. But this is about saying you should be the same person,
00:18:49 whether you're in an office environment, you're in a, a leadership position at, you know, your work. But whether you're the same type of dad, the same type of husband, partner, spouse, whatever it is. And so I think what we want to really have is that your personal life, for me as a leader is first really knowing yourself,
00:19:09 taking care of yourself. Because if you don't, if you don't exercise, if you're not eating right, if you're not really intentional with being the best leader that you can be, it's really hard to actually, you know, keep exerting that energy. Because as a leader, everybody wants more from you. You, everybody wants, you want meetings, you gotta take people,
00:19:27 places, you gotta be intentional and takes a lot of energy. So you've got to really have that, that intentional time. And those relationships said, we, that we've been given is really that personal life. And I always kind of say, when I was, when I was 14, this is what really brought me down. This path is it was my 40th birthday.
00:19:47 And my uncle Bob was coming over for a, for birthday dinner for me. Now my uncle Bob is he's the, the eldest brother of eight and my dad's side of the family. And he he's done. He did really well in life. So I'm thinking about man, uncle, Bob's going to give me a great present. It's gonna be fantastic.
00:20:04 So he comes over and, and he gives you this gift. And, you know, after the cake and stuff, and I just kinda, you know, run and grab this present, I'm like, Oh, sweet uncle Bob. You know, and I open up the tissue paper and in the bag, there's this book and I pull it out and it's the seven habits of highly effective people by Stephen Covey.
00:20:22 And I'm thinking to myself, man, like I'm 14 years old. I don't read uncle Bob. Like this gift is sustained. Like, what are you doing? And, and so, but I remember it just sat on my, my night table. My mom moved into my night table and for six months, I didn't even touch it because I'm 14 years old.
00:20:41 But I remember reading that and the summertime, cause you don't have a lot to do. I didn't have like a, I think it was blueberry picking the time. And so I started reading it and the second habit is keeping the end in mind. And that is, and for me, this is about thinking about your funeral. And I remember thinking about,
00:20:59 well, who sits in the front row of the funeral? It's usually your family, you know, and then it's like, well then who's the next row. And that's typically whether it's close friends and maybe extended family and, and the next row after that might be friends, you know? And, and it keeps, you know, as the rows go back,
00:21:16 the relationships become a little bit less strong. And I always find that when it comes down to the end, most leaders spend a disproportionate amount of time on the back rows than they do on the front rows and being intentional and building into those people. And I think that's where I'd like to be able to flip their switch a bit and really say, are you really building into those first rows?
00:21:41 Are you getting to know them? What's their purpose in life? How can you help build them into, you know, into a great life? I still remember, even for me, I have great performance reviews and future plans for, you know, employees that I don't really, you know, know that well outside of a work context, but I don't even do that same intention in that focus on,
00:22:02 you know, on family and really close friends. And I'm like, man, why, why is that? And I think sometimes we take it for granted are there in our lives kind of thing. But I think that, you know, as a leader, we want to build into everybody, especially those that are closer to us that, you know,
00:22:17 cause those are the ones that imagine if they just get switched on and they're pursuing impact and they're going for, you know, to places because of your, you know, your inspiration, your motivation in their life. Like that's, that's amazing. And I think that's where I'm hoping that people really kind of get that out. And, and then of course the last component that we touched on at the beginning was the spiritual life.
00:22:41 What, you know, why do you again, include that? I, that, that's one of the things that jumped out to me and looking through the book is the idea of including the spiritual component. Obviously that resonates with me, you know, that's part of my brand and how I represented to the world. But it's pretty unusual for a leadership book to call out belief and spiritual components as something that's important to making an impact.
00:23:04 So why, you know, why the spiritual life, You know, what, that's, it obviously, that's, it's the question that I get actually allied in, especially because I work with, I work in an industry in marketing and advertising that is really secular that, you know, that doesn't have anything. So they kind of think, you know,
00:23:21 Christian is like, Whoa, this is, this is different. And a lot of people say, well, what's, you know, I'm still successful. I'm still doing my life. Why do I even need a spiritual component? And for me, what I've realized is is that you will, when you, when things don't go well, that's when you realize there's a void in this spiritual life.
00:23:43 And whether it's, whether it's people becoming selfish and all of a sudden they're, you know, they're making decisions that are not good in the best interest of the company, the best interest of employees or customers, they're scandals that happen. There's affairs that happen. There's all these kinds of things that start to going on or crises happen, whether it's pending and you start realizing that,
00:24:05 Hey, that your professional life, that rug might just get pulled away from under you. And what do you have left? Who are you at the end of the day? What do you really believe? What greater purpose are you living for? And what I find the, the is that a strong, spiritual life in a relationship I believe with Jesus and a followership is that you realize that you don't have to keep striving.
00:24:27 A lot of leaders. They exhaust themselves with more, doing more, got to get going, you know, grow, get bigger, do this, do that. I have to be doing more. And I think what this, a strong spiritual life realizes that no it's already been done. You're your love, you're accepted, you're it? This is all good.
00:24:44 And I, and I don't, God doesn't care what we do for a living. He cares what we do with our life. And I think that is, and that as a leader, it takes a lot of burden off of you where you can just start to just live with, you know, more compassion. You, you live with more purpose that you're passionate and because it's going to get hard.
00:25:07 If you're a leader, it is going to be hard. If it's not hard, it probably means you're not doing things right. And you're probably not, you're making hard decisions, but usually you're going to have to do those things. And so that strong spiritual life gives you that ability to be able to hear, okay, God, like, how am I doing this?
00:25:24 What is the, what is the thing? And then it's just this outpouring of being able to just live in that. Yeah. It, I love the, the, the phrase you use there, you know, God doesn't care what you do for a living. He cares what you do with your life. You know, that, cause I think that kind of underpins all three of these,
00:25:42 you know, the relationships are more important than the, what, you know, the, who is more important than the what, even whether it's spiritual, whether it's professional, whether it's personal, does it really matter? And the who there is not just you, it's also others, you know, who's are in the relationship. And in this case,
00:25:58 the who the relationship with, with a higher power with God, whatever way you want to phrase it as part of that centering for you. So one phrase you use in the book and it jumped out at me. And so I wanted to ask you to expand on it a little bit. Here is be yourself only better. And you know, there's a con.
00:26:20 And when I say it that way, there's a couple of different ways people could read that, but I liked the way you unpacked it in, in the book. So what does that mean for you when you're talking to leaders, Be yourself just better. And I think there's a, you know, and so for me, I think that leaders, when I'm,
00:26:40 when I'm talking to leaders, I think that they're, they're a different breed. They're, you know, different than, than others. For some people, they just need this idea of, Hey, just be yourself and it's all good and, and stuff. But I think sometimes as leaders, there comes a time when they, they need a little kick.
00:26:59 And I talked about when I was in a university, I played on the varsity soccer team. And I remember you're just, you're, you're busting your butt. You're working hard. And, and you know, the coach calls you at halftime and he's like, Brayden, like you're dogging it out there. You're not, you're not even trying. You're like,
00:27:18 what are you doing out there? Are you like in this game or not? And I, and I can still remember like looking at him thinking, are you crazy? Like I am, I am done. I'm almost like, I just need a break. And then I just got this fire in me and the second half starts. And it's like,
00:27:34 you know, just, you know, a man possessed that they're just like, I just took it up another level. And, and for me, the coach was doing something cause he didn't, he didn't treat everybody that way, but he treated me that way. And, and it was, I was captain of the soccer team. He needed more for me because it set the example for other people.
00:27:53 And I think as leaders, sometimes there's another notch or a gear that we need to really get to when it comes to impact. And I think that what, what I want to do is almost snap leaders out of this idea that, Hey, your life is not just so that you can advance in your career and accumulate more stuff. And to have nicer vacations into,
00:28:17 you know, into actually just given your, all your talent and resources to do a little bit on the side, I want you to invest your whole life, all your resources, your time, your money, your energy, to really creating purpose and to have impact starting with your family, moving outside of those relationships. And for me be yourself just better as that.
00:28:36 Yeah. Be yourself. Don't try to become somebody or you're not, or develop skills that you're known have, or, you know, obtain to leadership positions that you don't really need to attain, but I want you to be better. I want you to work on yourself to be intentional, to get that fire inside of you to say, you know what,
00:28:55 I want to be doing more and more, not because I feel like I have to or this, but because it's like, you're right. It's important. And we don't know how long we have. And that's, that's the key thing. Like I might have, I think in my mind and I tell my wife, we joke around is like, I want to be one Oh seven and I'm like,
00:29:15 I could be, I could just have five years left. But I think in my mind, I've got 60 and it's saying, but no, you know what? You don't know how long. And I want to make sure that we don't, we don't leave anything. We just run the race. We, we pour it all out because I think when we pour it out,
00:29:31 that's when we get the most filled, You can follow Brighton Douglas on Instagram as Braden J Douglas, or find him on his website@bradendouglas.com. Of course I'll have links to those in the show notes. He's also active on LinkedIn as Braden Douglas. And you can find out more about the book@bradendouglas.com forward slash book Braden. Is there anything else you'd like to share with the listener?
00:30:00 You know, Scott, I think that, you know, even as we've been talking, you know, through these times, I'm, I really want every listener to realize that they have a purpose and a passion that can really make a difference in people's lives. And if they think about people first and differently, it's not just about big data. It's not just about stats.
00:30:23 It's about, these are all, those are real people with real lives that they can have an influence on that for me is, you know, is where it can start. And that's the movement that, you know, that I really hope really takes off as leaders becoming leaders of impact because they can really change the world. And I hope that they do Awesome.
00:30:44 Thanks so much for coming on the show. We've loved having you here and again, check out the book leader, impact, check out Brayden. Hopefully if you get a chance to hear her speak or attend one of these seminars, that would be fantastic. And thanks so much for coming on the show. That's awesome. Thanks Scott, for having me Thanks so much for listening to the inspired stewardship podcast as a subscriber and listener,
00:31:17 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, please do us a favor. Go over to inspired stewardship.com/itunes 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,
00:31:55 invest your time, your talent and your treasures develop your influence and impact.