Knowing When, How & Why To Transition In Leadership! Feat. John Lebrun & La'Fayette Lane

Welcome to the Unscripted Authentic Leadership Podcast, a podcast we're seeking to lead change, while also seeking to understand. We are also here as a platform for leaders to come together to unite to develop and empower other leaders in the areas of business, family and community. I'm your host, Lafayette Lane job, and my co-host John LeBron. And today we are here to have a conversation about transition. Put your hands together for us tonight. We don't have a guest, but hey, you got us. So let's get right into the conversation there. For me personally, I think this topic was a personal topic for me just being on the season of transition. And I think it got me on the thought process before thinking about the challenges of transition, the process of transition, and just transition in general, how sometimes is easier for other individuals than it is for others. And harder for, you know, some. And just for me personally, I think I'm not always the person to really step out so quickly. But when I do, I go full force and I'm really learning the importance of transition. I think you said before we hit the the live record button, you talked about that we're always in transition. That is very true. You think about being born, a baby being born and transitioning. I think about my son, how he just turned seven months this week and the transitions that he has made. Now he's sitting up on his own, starting to make the crawling movements and talking all the time. We don't know what he's saying, but he's always saying things and just in the transition of life, life is all about transition and thinking about us as a leadership podcast that as leaders transition is absolutely necessary if we're going to be successful in leadership. A leader that refuses to transition or to pivot or to shift is a leader that is stuck, is a leader that is that is irrelevant. A leader that is no longer moving towards our being progressive. We I'm sure you can think of examples in your mind of leaders, people that are in leadership or whatever the capacity that is, that refuses to be innovative, refuses to pivot, refuses to shift, and refuses to transition. Right. When you think of transition role, like what do you think about and how important transition is transition just in life in general and especially in leadership? I think it's huge. I think and we kind of alluded to before we started chatting that. You know. Certain times we transition more than others. You know, you mentioned season of transition seasons. And it's funny you say that because I was telling somebody the day that I like to live my life in sort of like seasons meaning you can't someone once told me that you can do anything you want, but you can't do everything you want. What that means is I have to pick and choose what I want to do effectively at what times. And so, for example, right now, I coach my children, and that takes a lot of time with their sports. Is it super important to my business that I coach my kids and so forth are being a bigger influence on social media? No, but my son is going into sixth grade, so I will be able to coach him for sixth, seventh and eighth grade, and then I will never get to coach his sports again. I'm not going to be a high school coach. I already know that I don't want to be. And so I have three seasons of coaching and then I'm done. And so right now, my focus every every spring is I'm coaching my son. And so every spring is a crazy, crazy season because I coach my daughter in soccer. My son in spring. We have a podcast there are other company, so, so on and so forth. It's jam packed. And then in the summer it gets a little easier and so forth and so for me, one of those transitions has always been literally what season of the year is it? And moving into that busy season for about three or four months of just hectic ness. But it's OK, I keep my calendar very planned and so forth. But you alluded to leaders not wanting to transition, which is even harder today because the world moves so fast. And I think they just don't want to transition due to uncertainty or just lack of the insecurity of something failing. Yeah. And if we just don't allow the fact that we might mess up or our team might mess up on something and it could make us look bad, but who cares, right? If you're if you're, if you have a good self-image by yourself, it's OK. If your team messes up, allow them to make those choices. Allow them to try and transition and work through something new for you. It could come out amazing. Goodbye. It could totally bomb. But I think a lot of comes down to just self-image and willingness to try. Yeah, man, you said something so good there about the seasons that was so good and knowing what season that you are in, because what you said was that you have to recognize and to understand that you only had a certain time to coach your son. Mm hmm. Some people don't. They stay in a season too long or they missed their season because they don't understand the timing of where they're at. Right. And so you were saying I had this three year window to get what I need to get done. And there are a lot of people that think they have ten year windows. They think they have 25 years to get it done. Not realizing that you may only have a three month window you may not even have three years to get the goals to accomplish what you're supposed to get done in that amount of time frame that you're in. And that's all a part of transition. The part of transition is being able to have the discernment, if I can use that word, of understanding the time that you're in right. This is not the time to open up Blockbuster. That time is gone. We're streaming now, right? This is not this is not the time to to try to build. Even a brick and mortar is trying to build a hybrid model, whether that is a business model, whether that is a tech company or whatever that may look like, even from a corporate perspective, more people are even demanding, hey, I'm willing to be an office maybe two days a week you know? And so understanding the time of year and that just really hit me in my heart when you said that, that there are so many people that are in leadership that are trying to leave their family, that are out of season. You know, we're in spring getting ready to go to summer. It's not time to put on a winter coat I know we live in Ohio, and sometimes we may have to do that from day to day because of our weather is crazy. But in July, I wouldn't pull out my parka that I wear my north face jacket that I would wear in December because I'm bringing out the wrong material for the wrong season. And we have so many people pulling out the wrong resources using the wrong materials, trying to use the same dialect, trying to use the same resources. And here is maybe even have this. The same connections are old connections that were for the last season. And because they refuse to transition in to the right resources, the right connections to put themselves out there and to forecast that, hey, I only have that three years because not only is not only just the understanding of the time when you said that, but it's willing to be vulnerable to say this is the beginning of this, but this is also the end of this. A lot of that comes with sadness because you don't want to let go. There are some fathers out there, John, that said I want to coach my son in the high school not realizing he'd be in better hands. And another coach, once he steps in the high school that he would be in your hands, even though you're his father in the sixth grade, because they don't want to release that control. They don't want to be vulnerable enough because they feel like they're going to lose something but you're actually doing Andrew more you're being more beneficial to him by putting him in another hand or transitioning him into other hands because there's another season. Like like how important is that role? Because, again, we've seen it and, you know, the pandemic was real. I recognize that. But we're transitioning now. And there are some people that are still in a 20, 20 mindset where, you know, halfway through 20, 22 bother going to 2023, you're still in a 20, 20 mindset, you're about to move the net, miss the next wave because you have not transitioned. You've got to release that into somebody else's hands. Like speak more to that bro. That really, that really got me going. So I think part of the reason people don't transition or know when or what some people want to do everything at once and they can't and they have to pick and that's OK. But it really helps if you identify short and long term what you really, really want. So therefore I know I want parenting, I want high achieving productive young adults. I would say don't raise children, I raise adults. And so that's what I want. Knowing that I said, OK, so when my son starts playing athletics and about five years old, I have until he's about 13 max 12. And then he goes on and 13 and then he goes on to junior high and high school sports and he has school coaches depending on the, on the sport. I said, OK, so I have this many years to do that. So I know I'm carving out that much time in the spring to coach him, to be there to, to teach him things like how to have commitment to your team and hey, you don't pay attention to the coaches at this time. You need to start paying attention. It's a little bit closer than I would as a spectator so I can coach him just a little bit better. It's not that I'm the best tiny coach. I'm trying to work on his mental game as far as when to he needs to do certain things. And that was why I was so intentional about for him and my daughter. But I just know what I want long term. I know that and I'm OK with the fact that for my business may slow down a hair, it doesn't slow, does not like, it's not growing for a handful of months because there's something else I want to accomplish. I already know that going in, I know I can't put as many hours and I leave a little earlier during the spring months. That's OK. I've already identified that. And so I think everybody just needs to start understanding where where are you and where do you what do you really want long term? You got your 80 years and you got it for 90 years. However long you got on this earth, you got to figure out what you want at each section of each chapter, you know, what are you going to accomplish then? And then feel comfortable in yourself and beaten and it's OK. And just be able to tell yourself at this season, here's what I'm going to do. And no one's going to make me feel guilty for doing this when everybody thinks that I should be doing something else or you know, Gary Vee and it with my business 24 seven, like, that's not my season, this is what I'm doing. And you'd ask another question, what was it. No, no, I think you answered it. I think you answered it. Answered it but something that you said just now, you talked about it being in your mind and transition a lot of time is physical you know, we may be relocating to another place. You may be transitioning from another home, you may be transitioning to another vehicle, you may be transitioning to another career path. But before it can happen in the physical, it must first happen in your mind. Yeah, right. And a lot of people want to go somewhere with their body that they have it going in their mind. Say it again. There's a lot of people that want to go places with their body, but they have not made that transition there in their mind. I think about those of you that watch NBA basketball, think about Ben Simmons and this whole back issue. It came out today that he has had back surgery this week, but he made he was dealing with the transition between teams and his last team. He had an incident in the playoffs last year. He didn't take the shot. And this coach talked about him in mentally. It broke him to the point where he hasn't played in over a year. He told the team that he's currently home. They traded him away to the Brooklyn Nets from the Philadelphia 76. And he told them, really, my issue is mental and because he was so jacked up mentally, it started to affect his body physically. So now he has to have back surgery really for a problem. That is more mental than it is physical. And I wonder how many people, those of you that are listening to this, those you may may listen to this down the road that are in the process of life, of transition, that you have to realize that in order to make that next step for your family, for your career, as we talk about all the time the fiber of our podcast, for your community to be the leader that God is calling you to be, you must first take that leap mentally. Like you got to sharpen your mind. You've got to be get over that mental hurdle that that your mind tells you, I cannot do this your mind tells you this is too much for me. Your mind tells you you're not qualified to do this or you're not worth this. And I'm not telling you something that I have not went through myself and by no means my sound perfect by this, bro. But I have to tell myself, it's in your mind that literally what we learned as key is that we can do anything we put our mind to is is true. We said it when we were little. Our parents told us that. My parents taught me that all the time. Son, you could be anything. You know, the teacher tells, hey, if you want to be astronaut, you can be. All you got to do is put your mind to it. But really, think about that that whatever you put your mind to, you can be. I'm currently reading a book, and you. You've read the book. Rich Dad, Poor Dad. I haven't read that book. But I'm reading the book by the same author, Robert Kiyosaki. Yeah, I said his last name. Right, guys? Saki is talking. To a Saki. He wrote a book. Why A students work for C students, and I'm reading a book by him and he talks about the mindset and he gives an example of being a capitalist when it comes to our finances that we should think more capitalistic. You know, I'm giving them I'm keeping an open mind while I'm reading because he brought up an example of Barack Obama and Mitt Romney and how they paid their taxes, and it blew my mind. Barack Obama made $3 million in one year and he paid 21% in taxes. Mitt Romney made $21 million in a year and only pay 14% Robert said. What was the difference? It wasn't what? Because one was a Republican, one was a Democrat. No, it wasn't because one lived here and one live there. It was a mindset one had the mindset of How can I find these quote unquote tax loopholes that are all legal? And the other had a socialist mindset. If you will, that I will pay more taxes because I've made I'm in the rich class and it really made me step back and think our mindset literally affects everything that we do, even down to our money. Right? Because a lot of people are saying, and I was one of those people, well, if this person makes X amount of money, how come they only paid this certain amount of dollars and it was legal move because they had a different mindset. Right. And I'm trying to tell you, those of you that are listening to this, that I listening to John and myself right now, it starts in your mind if you want to transition to make six figures, if you want to transition to be a business owner before you get an LLC you must first get a mindset shift before before you get a gym membership to to say, I'm going to lose this weight. You must first work out in your mind to get over that mental hurdle. You know, get in that mental gymnasium and exercise those mental muscles that tells yourself that you can do it. So like, bro, like, how important is it? I don't want to keep going. How important is it that that we get over that mental hug, that we get over that mental block or that mental hurdle, those things that really that are hindering us? Not because we don't have the resources physically, not necessarily because we don't have those things, but because our mind is standing in our way that we can't make that transition. Yeah. So mentors, I would say. So success mindset is built up over time. You don't just and some people you just born with success mindset. There's no no baby comes out and there are some have it and some don't. It's not a class difference. It's not a race difference. It's not a religious difference. Nothing. It's literally a mindset. There's if you look at the Jewish community, there's the cities typically their wealth is way higher than about any other community. That's right. And one of the things they do is when and I don't know the words exactly that they use but as a start with a young, young, young age, they pray over their children blessings, riches, wealth and so forth. They speak it over their children as just as as we speak prayers over our food. They speak blessings, wealth, prosperity over their children. So they grow up with expectations of, yeah, we're going to prosper, we're going to do this. We're good with our finances. It's part of the fabric of their culture. So why is it that the Jewish community, which really isn't that gigantic? I mean, it's not like they had any harder. Easier, right? There is a transition of migrating to the United States after a terrible terrible tragedy and their wealth is through the roof because mentally they've been trained from a tiny baby to just expect, yeah, we're going to we're going to have prosperity and wealth. And honestly, if I had to guess, they're probably very lot of philanthropy and they're I'm sure they're giving money. It's not like they're just hoarding everything they pay their taxes to. It's just a fun fact about that. And so all of us, we have a little bit of catch up. We have to be I wasn't I wasn't brought up reading. So success books. My son has been brought up reading success books. So my daughter, who's in second grade, will be brought up reading success books. So when they hit high school, when they hit beyond their mindset will be well beyond what mine was in my mid twenties. They're already going to be, they're at 15, 16 years old. So that's what we can do for ourselves but also for our next generations is we have to be intentional about developing that success mindset. And that's done through who we associate with, what we read, what we listen to, but so many people want to just plug into the television. It's called a TV program. It literally programs your mind. You know, I'm not saying I don't watch the news and people think, well, I mean, that must mean as soon as anybody says that, everybody says he must be a Fox guy. No, I don't watch Fox News, I don't watch CNN. I don't watch any of them. I get news because it pops up on my like feeds on social media. I know everything is going on. My coworkers tell me I see it, but I try not to the to the best of my ability. Let something with some news have an influence on how I think because they have an agenda. So instead what I do is I, I have developed how to think on my own. I read things, I listen, I get coaches, right? I invest in coaches which are not cheap because they help me love what my game even faster. Why? Because if you're trying to climb a mountain, you can either ask and you can have your choice two and three people. You can have a guy who is read books on that mountain he knows everything about it because he's read it, but he's never climbed it. You can have a guy who has climbed it or climbed other mountains, but not that one. Or you can have a guide who has lived on the mountain and he knows it. Which one are you going to choose? The one who's lived on the mountain. Yeah, right. So if you had to pick a coach, it's always somebody who's been there and done that. They can help you get there that much quicker. So as we're talking about mental, how to be mentally strong it's like a muscle. You have to constantly be there working it out, constantly be exercising it. There is no, no, still, you're an escalator. You're either going up or you're going down you're not standing still. So just you have to be it's I don't even like reading. I don't really know that. I don't like reading books. I think Lafayette likes reading books a lot. I honestly, I have it's it's one of those things. It's like working out. I have to make myself do it. I'm better at reading books that have a working out. Yeah, absolutely. But you still do it, right? What's that like? You still read, though, you know what I mean? And so sometimes that you got to do things that you may not like, may not want to do, but it's good for you. You have to do it. If you want to get to the next level. Mhm. I love how you said that about the mountain, the example because really what you're saying is there is no excuse like if you have fear of transition, go find someone that has made that transition that you've already are getting ready to attempt to make. Ask them what their challenges were, ask them what the loopholes were. So you don't have to make those same mistakes. So you don't have to go down those same alleyways no same pitfalls, make those same decisions that you don't have to do. Right. I'll never forget that there's another book. I don't know the author that I read a while back and it's a really short book, but it talks about if experience is the best teacher, why do I keep repeating the course? And a lot of people are doing that right in transition. Some of your transition that you're doing is a repeated transition because you haven't learned from the lesson that you were supposed to already learn right? You keep back, you're in the same place and you keep doing the same thing over. So you're in you're in a repeated transition. You should be in a progressive transition. When I think of transition, that is leveling up, as we always say, from level to level, and keep making that step further and further to better yourself, your family or your community. But we always end with they the all scripts segment unless you have something else. But I want each of us to give us give the off script segment tonight well, I know we talked about transition. This was a great conversation, but leave our audience, man, with whatever's on your heart. Hmm. Man talks about a lot of great things today. Absolutely. I would say quit allowing fear to get in the way of your transition. Like, you know, it's time to make a move. Yeah, we're. Talking a little bit about transitioning for leaders from going one thing to another, but there's a lot of leaders out there who are leading in an area right now, and they know there's something better for them. We all do it. We're really good at this job. We're performing just fine, but we're not quite fulfilled, and we know God has something just a little bit better or a lot better for us. But we're scared to make that step into that next transition. We're just like, Well, I make pretty good money here. I make a hundred thousand. My family's taken care of and we're going to go to Disney every other year. That's great. But is that what you're created for? If you really step into what you're really created for, God will make room for you. Steve Harvey talks about all time your income will get tripled. You're not going to have to stick with a two week vacation anymore. You're going to have a four month vacation. You're going to go wherever you want. You're going to take your career with you everywhere you go. You're just living your life now, building your helping people, building your business, helping your team, and now you're fulfilled. You're not coming home and getting mad at your spouse. You're not coming home and wondering why you're grumpy with your kids when they didn't really do anything that big of a deal. So don't be afraid of making the big transition. A lot of us were like transition. I went from one job to another job. Well, maybe, or maybe, just maybe, there's something out there for you to do to help other people. It's not just filling a role here versus a role at this company. Maybe it's time for you to step out and start your coaching or start your training programs or start your own podcast or whatever it is for you. I'm just speaking from personal experience, but I bet, I bet I would put money on it that there's something out there for you. And I would argue that right now is probably the best time was probably yesterday, but the next best time is probably right now. Is that I want to both of us to give an off script moment, but I will let John just drop the mike on that. I don't want to let's just have that amen moment. Let that rest. Do not settle, guys. Did everything John just said step out. That's greater for you. Listen, we want you to step out and stay connected with us unscripted. You could do that several ways. Patron dot com, backslash slash leadership, unscripted leadership. You can follow us on all social media platforms. Adult scripted leadership, unscripted. That's leadership dot com. And of course, you can stream this podcast on all streaming platforms. Would you do us a favor while you're there listening? Get that star, give us a rating. Give us a review with Shallow your review on the next episode. We would greatly appreciate it. As always, we pray that you be the leader that God is calling you to be. We're here to build bridges and not walls. Bridges connect most divide until next time. God bless you.