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Today’s episode marks the beginning of a new series sharing the 12 business fundamentals found in the 12 Step Growability Model. In this episode, Joshua shares the why behind the what of Growability. Here are your hosts, Joshua MacLeod and Bernie Anderson.
This episode covers:
- The story behind Growability
- The “why” behind our “what”
Podcast Transcript
Joshua MacLeod:
But the thing that I learned in my first career was what I call the myth of success. And I see this in a lot of people climbing the corporate ladder, a lot of young people, a lot of old people. The concept is success and money are going to make me happy. If I’m going to spend a considerable amount of my life climbing this ladder, I don’t want to do that if I’m not going to end up happy at the top.
Announcer:
Welcome to The Growability Podcast, your home for leadership, management, and marketing education. Growability teaches business and nonprofit leaders how to minimize stress and maximize growth. Today’s episode marks the beginning of a new series sharing the 12 business fundamentals found in the 12 Step Growability Model. In this episode, Joshua shares the why behind the what of Growability. Here are your hosts, Joshua MacLeod and Bernie Anderson.
Bernie Anderson:
We’re going to be taking the next several weeks on the podcast, maybe even in the live lunch and learn to talk with everyone who’s listening to us about the 12 Step Growability Model. I’d actually like for us to talk for a minute about the why behind the what, Joshua, because I’ve known you for a long time. I’ve known how you have spent some significant amount of your life in the nonprofit world.
Bernie Anderson:
I would like to know why you moved from the nonprofit world into the for-profit world of being a business coach and a mentor. Tell us a little bit about that story and why that is something that you did.
Joshua MacLeod:
Excellent question, Bernie. I appreciate that. I didn’t start out in the nonprofit world. I started in the for-profit world. But the thing that I learned in my first career was what I call the myth of success. And the concept was, and I see this in a lot of people climbing the corporate ladder, a lot of young people, a lot of old people, the concept is success and money are going to make me happy.
Joshua MacLeod:
I’m the guy climbing the corporate ladder, and then I’m rubbing shoulders with people who are at the top of the ladder, and they’re all telling me, “Josh, you’re great. You’re going to get up here with us when we’re at the top of this ladder.” But I looked up at the top of the ladder and I’m like, “You’re not happy.” If I’m going to spend a considerable amount of my life climbing this ladder, I don’t want to do that if I’m not going to end up happy at the top.
Joshua MacLeod:
So looking at that, I was climbing the corporate ladder to cover the bases, to build a career, to make sure that I was taking care of my family. I don’t want to not pay the bills, and I don’t want to lose my potential, so I’m going to stay in this career. The challenge was I didn’t feel like my first career was, A, something that I really liked, and B, something that I was designed to do.
Joshua MacLeod:
The challenge was, do I stay on the corporate ladder because the corporate ladder is what everybody else does, and then once I get to the retirement age, I can just figure out and go do what I want to do with the money that I’ve accumulated, or do I jump off of the corporate ladder and take a risk and just hope things are going to work out okay? So I figured, okay, I’m 27 years sold. I’ve got great career prospects.
Joshua MacLeod:
I’m going to jump off this ladder and see if I can go do something more aligned with what I believe that I’m designed to do and more aligned with what I think will be impactful for myself and for others. You asked me a question about why did I go from the nonprofit world to the business world, and I’m spending all this to I’m talking about, first of all, why I went from the business world to the nonprofit world.
Bernie Anderson:
I think, Joshua, that there are a lot of people who… Your story there is not uncommon. You figured this out at 27. There’s a lot of people my age who are just now figuring out, “Oh my gosh, I have spent all of this time and effort to climb the corporate ladder. I’m at the top of this corporate ladder,” or whatever that is in your field, but you’re at the peak and the pinnacle of your career, and now what? You know?
Joshua MacLeod:
Yeah.
Bernie Anderson:
You figured that out. You had an early midlife crisis apparently.
Joshua MacLeod:
Yeah, you’re exactly right. I had a midlife crisis at 27 years old. I had the cover of the Nashville Bar Journal. I was working on $100 million lawsuits. I had respect. I had a team. We opened another office. My income had more than doubled since I started at the company. I was in really great shape. But for whatever reason, the itch was not scratched. I didn’t feel like I was doing what I was designed to do. I don’t recommend jumping off of ladders, unless you have two things that are fully in place. One is if your spouse is 100% on board.
Joshua MacLeod:
Don’t jump off a ladder if your spouse is like, “This is a bad idea,” because most likely they’re right. But the other thing is, is if you don’t have peace with God. For me, when I jumped off the ladder, I felt like more than this is okay to do, that this is an assignment, or this is something that I have permission to do. If you don’t have peace with God and you don’t have peace with your spouse, stay where you are until you can be in a place where you have peace with and your spouse, and then you can take a risk and jump off the ladder.
Joshua MacLeod:
I jumped off the ladder and I decided that I would do what I thought was the most fun thing that I could think of, which was I’m going to go become a filmmaker. I had enough people who were a community of friends and a church that supported me and then was like, “Hey, give it a shot. Go for it.” People started funding me to learn how to be a filmmaker so that I could travel all over the world and be a filmmaker. So that’s what I did. I spent seven years in 21 countries. I spent about three years of my life in that seven years on the field, but it wasn’t in one location.
Joshua MacLeod:
It was in 21 different locations. I would go for 20 days at a time, learn the story of the organization, the people who were doing the work. But here’s what I learned in that second career. In the first career, I learned the myth of success, that success and money are never going to make you happy. In the second career, I learned the myth of heart. Having a good heart doesn’t mean that you’re going to be a great leader. Maybe I’ll call that the Disney myth. There is no substitute for a good administration.
Joshua MacLeod:
As I was traveling all over the world, I saw beautiful, wonderful hearted people, but some of them were making a tremendous impact in the communities where they were serving. Some of them were making a mediocre impact in the communities that they were serving. What I realized was is that those as people who were making a tremendous impact in the communities in which they were serving had a combination of, A, a really good heart, but B, they were really, really smart. The way that they decided to interact, they were relational.
Joshua MacLeod:
They were strategic. They put into practice that are necessary for organizations to grow. In the business community, you have all the really smart administrators. In the missional community, you have all the really great hearted servants. What if you combined those two? That’s when I became more fascinated in building the organization that would serve people than just telling the story of the person with a really good heart. And I realized, you know what? There’s a ton of people who can go out there and tell stories better than I can.
Joshua MacLeod:
There’s better filmmakers out there. Realizing that I had aptitude and access and ability to help build and structure organizations and to encourage leaders, I started becoming more fascinated with the necessary practices to make the organization thrive, to combine the heart with the smart. I started thinking, oh my goodness, here I am kind of running away from the business world because the assumption was that the business world was just these people that are stuck and climbing a ladder that doesn’t bring any happiness.
Joshua MacLeod:
But then I realized, no, there’s a ton of people who are not stuck, who are in the business world, and they’re making an incredible difference all around the world. I was like, well, what if I shifted gears? Instead of just working with the teams overseas and the really goodhearted people, but what if I started working just with leaders in general? If they’re on the team overseas, great. But if they’re the ones that are funding that work, great. That’s kind of where I got into Growability and started building the Growability Model.
Joshua MacLeod:
And then we officially launched Growability in 2010. What I’ve learned in the Growability career, so since 2010, I’ve been working with and consulting leaders. Bernie, you and I both, this is what we do. What I learned is you can be smart and you can have the right heart, but it doesn’t mean you’re actually going to change your behavior. The only way that people are going to change the behavior is if the things that they’re assigned to do are, one, easy and, two, attractive. If it’s not easy and it’s not attractive, I’m not going to do it.
Joshua MacLeod:
I realized that to empower leaders to empower others, they need to be able to build systems where you can create habits. At Growability, when you look at these 12 steps that we’re talking about, the 12 steps are not just smart steps and they’re not just heart steps, but they really are the tools to build habits that every organization needs so that they can survive and then they can also thrive.
Bernie Anderson:
Here’s the takeaway from this that I think is really important. There is a false dichotomy in so much of the world in thinking, well, I can either make my life count by making a lot of money and climbing the ladder and doing the thing and I could do that, or I can make my life count by throwing all that away, jump off the ladder, and I’m just going to like the heart’s dichotomy. It’s such a freeing revelatory experience to understand that, oh, I can do both. I can have a huge heart. I can actually make money.
Bernie Anderson:
There’s nothing wrong with that. But I can do both of these things at the same time in a way that’s sustainable, in a way that’s thriving, in a way that serves the community and the people around me and isn’t selfish, greedy. I think that your story really shows how you can do that. I think the Growability Model is… That’s what we teach. We teach people that, hey, you should care about your purpose and you should also care about your budget. You should have that habits that you need to really make that happen. I love that.
Joshua MacLeod:
Bernie, I would say, it’s not success that makes people happy. It’s service. If you decide to take everything that you are and have and the access and the ability and the opportunity and you center it on serving other people, you’re really, really going to be happy. The second thing is with the myth of heart, kind of like this idea that, oh, if I have a good heart, everything else is going to work out, there’s a conflict there with reality. The only way that the myth of heart works is if you don’t measure anything.
Joshua MacLeod:
I learned in the fundraising world or in the nonprofit world, you don’t need to have a hundred good stories a year to raise a million dollars. You only need one. There are organizations out there, some of them are doing a hundred good things or a thousand good things with a million dollars, and some are really just doing one. To me, it was an integrity issue of whoa, whoa, what is the difference?
Joshua MacLeod:
If these people have a good heart, the difference between the one and the hundred and the thousand really is a lot of times it’s the integrity of your system. It’s the integrity of your process. It’s the integrity of your budget. It’s the integrity of your teamwork. No matter who you are, I think if you’re a business person, the Growability Model is designed to help you add a little more heart to your organization.
Joshua MacLeod:
If you are a missional person, the Growability Model is designed to bring a little more smart to your organization. When you combine those things, it’s a powerful combination, both of which are designed to make sure that you do what you’re talking about, not just talk about what you’re talking about.
Announcer:
Thank you for listening to The Growability Podcast. The mission of Growability is to equip leaders to flourish in their life and work by developing vision, rhythm, and community. To discover if there is a more excellent way to run your business, visit growability.com and speak with a certified Growability coach. Bernie and Joshua are also available for speaking engagements, workshops, and conferences. Subscribing to this podcast helps Growability equip leaders through the world, and we appreciate your support.