The Perfect 100

Hello and welcome back to a very special episode of the Perfect 100.

Today we're doing something a little bit different.

So instead of a traditional interview, we're going to do a live CliftonStrengths coaching
session.

One of the most common questions that I get is why would I need coaching if I've already
taken the assessment?

And today's show, hopefully, will answer that by letting you hear coaching in real time,
how strengths are gonna go from insight to clarity and clarity into action.

A little bit about my guest today.

He has graciously offered to let you all be a fly on the wall for part of his session.

He's actually purchased two sessions and this is gonna be the first in that series that
you get to listen to.

But Aaron and his team produce and edit my show here and other podcasts as well.

But he is also a nonprofit leader, a business owner, a ministry leader, husband, father,
and long time BNI member.

He has served as chapter president and I also had the pleasure of bringing him on the team
in the past as a chapter success coach.

I noticed uh right away when I went to visit his chapter how he naturally understood
leadership, systems, and performance and I was thrilled to add him to the team when I was

in charge of it.

His responsibilities grew across his business, his nonprofit, and ministry.

So he made the decision to step away from that chapter success.

coach role because he was stretched a little bit too thin and that decision reflects
self-awareness and that is going to tie directly into what we're going to explore today.

So Aaron had sent me his pre-work.

I have everybody send me, I send some questions and they do some pre-work before we do a
coaching session that allows me to kind of give direction and I'll have more insight into

what we're trying to accomplish during our session.

So that said, we are not going to solve all the things today and certainly not in just
this portion that you're gonna hear today on the podcast, but we're going to attempt to

identify leverage and some principles that will apply to all teams, organizations,
nonprofits, and BNI chapters.

And because most of you listeners are probably BNI members, I'm gonna probably point out
some parallels as appropriate while we're talking about things.

So welcome, Aaron, and thank you so much for allowing my audience and your audience,
because you produced my podcast, to be a fly on the wall for your session.

Hello.

Well, thank you, Tammy.

uh It is truly a pleasure to be on the podcast.

have, myself and my team, we've been thrilled to be a part of your podcast journey.

And I still remember when we were briefly discussing having a one-to-one and just talking
about some of the things that I was planning on doing in my business.

And I think you had visited uh our chapter recently before that.

And so we were just discussing things and you were like, wait a minute, that sounds like
exactly what I need.

When it comes to coaching, I was really excited to do this because I've done a number of
personality tests before and see the value of understanding what people should be doing

because of what they're good at and what comes naturally to them.

And uh a piece of advice that a uh good ministerial friend gave to me uh years ago, almost
a decade ago,

As he said, Aaron, when you're, I was maybe 23, 24 at the time.

And he said, when you're in your 20s and 30s and 40s, he said, lean into your strengths,
find your strengths, find what you're good at and focus on your strengths.

He said, you're gonna have weaknesses and you need to understand them, but don't spend all
your time on your weaknesses.

Build your strengths when you're younger so that you can accelerate that.

He said, because when you're in your 50s and 60s,

you're finally going to know something.

You're finally going to have experience and you can expand on your strengths if you've
spent time building them with experience.

And he said, finally, when you're in your late sixties and seventies, people finally will
listen to you.

And so, you know, I've taken that and thought through that through the years.

And so I've always tried to focus on learning more about me so that I spend less time.

doing the things that I really shouldn't be doing at all, and more time doing the things
that I am doing.

But one of the things I also wanted you to do, and we're going to discuss, I'm sure, is
the fact that I had you do the top five for my entire staff.

And the reason is because I want to better understand not just what makes me tick and how
to use me ah in the business and in the nonprofit and across my life, but I also wanna

make sure that

we're using the people who work with us and work for us to their best strengths.

ah Having been in businesses where people were assigned to do things that they never
should have done and made every day of their work life miserable is something I've never

wanted to do because I've watched it happen and I thought that's just a horrible thing to
do to people is force them to work in their weakness every single day as opposed to

working in their strength.

Yeah, love that.

Yeah, it's a lifelong journey.

um I was fortunate enough to start out my career knowing, you know, having some
assessments and understanding what those were.

And if you listen to the podcast, you've heard me talk about them aplenty.

em But it's amazing when, no matter what your age, when you even knowing them, hearing
them again, over and over again, it helps.

first, we usually start with

um here on the podcast.

We normally start with telling people a little bit about this called the Power or the
Perfect 100.

So we start with the power of one.

So I'm to have give everybody the little bit of purview.

You've got your power of one up.

And also I've had the benefit of understanding what Aaron's strengths are.

And we usually talk about those here on the podcast.

So I did want to give the audience just kind of a quick overview of what you have.

So just as a highlight, you are in the green um with 75 points.

And if anybody wants to reach out to Aaron later, he is in BNI DeSoto County in
Mississippi.

So if you want to reach out to him later, you know how to find him.

But I'm not going to dive into the score today because we're here to do coaching.

So I do want to talk about your top five.

So your number one is ideation.

You are fascinated with ideas.

You see connections that others don't and can have.

and can view the world from different perspectives.

Number two is belief.

You have certain core values that are unchanging.

These values provide direction and a strong sense of purpose.

Your number three is activator.

You can make things happen by turning thoughts into action.

You want to do things now rather than simply talk about them.

Your number four is futuristic.

You vividly imagine the future.

You inspire and energize others with your vision of what could be.

And your number five is input.

You have a need to collect an archive.

You may accumulate information, ideas, artifacts, or even relationships.

And then I want to roll over to your full 34 because typically when I do a coaching
session, I can do them from just your top five.

It is much better though to have the full 34 because you get the full depth of information
about yourself.

So the top 10 really inform

what you're doing on a regular basis.

You live in your top five and then your top 10 are kind of your go-tos on the regular
basis.

And then 11 through 34, you fall into your 11s and your 12s on a fairly regular basis and
on down to the bottom where they're just not necessarily what you do all the time.

You can do them, you just don't generally.

Yes?

say something to your potential clients, if you are in any form of leadership role, do
your top 34, or do all 34.

Because yes, those top five were enlightening, but the top 10, those last five really
painted the entire picture where that top five,

gives you the picture, but it's kind of like seeing three quarters of a picture and you're
kind of sitting there wondering what the rest of it is.

uh And everything else below 11 still helped me to better understand why things are the
way they are.

So first I will react to getting the report, because I'm sure at some point you were going
to ask, but having done personality tests before,

I always felt like they nailed me, but this was so much deeper in its personalization and
its understanding and bringing out so many things.

Like the belief one hit me really hard um because of just how I think about things and how
that's affected everything about my business.

um But I'll stop interrupting you, but I just had to say, like if anybody's thinking about
doing the test.

and because they actually want to understand themselves, it is 100 % worth the money, do
the full 34.

And then sit down with a coach and get them to tell you, sit down with Tammy and get her
to help you understand how to turn that into actionable, valuable data and not just a

reflection of yourself.

Yes, yes, and let's do that.

Let's dive in.

so I'm glad that you had those reactions.

And typically, when I'm doing a coaching session, you and I both already know your
information.

So we're going to just move into the actual coaching.

So I wanted to start with what if if we were going to we're going to try to get an hour in
here, we might not run a whole hour just because we got a little bit of a late start.

But tell me if

at the end of this session, what would feel different in your head afterward if this hour
is successful?

better understanding really how to make the team function and the business function in its
strengths, and then really fundamentally adding to that how to build additional strengths

around the team.

um Knowing mine is important, but not intuitively knowing somebody else's and not really

knowing how to ask the right questions to get to those answers.

But then, you when you when you're trying to grow a team, which I'm sure we're going to go
into, uh we're trying to scale at this point going from about six staff members to the

goal is about 25 in the next two years.

And doing that when I don't come from a background of HR, I don't come from a background
of hiring, but I do come from a background of leadership and helping to see

where the strengths are, but also where the holes are, is part of what, you know, I really
want to walk away from this understanding better how to put the strengths around me that

aren't mine, because mine are very dominant, which means my weaknesses are also very
apparent.

Yes, and we're going to talk more.

It's because this is your coaching session.

We're going to talk more about that.

So yeah, so of all the things right now that you're carrying, what feels the heaviest?

Probably it's the, and this won't surprise you having seen my report, it's the minutiae,
right?

I really do not do well with things that have to be done every single day or every single
week.

ah I live on, thrive on a lack of routine.

So I am married to someone who loves routine.

um who's father, who she's just like, loves routine and routine dominates their every
existence.

And I hate routine.

And so minutia, that just being the keeping up with every little detail and all of the
facets of the day-to-day things are really, really exceedingly draining on me.

um And I have to fill my schedule with things that...

give me energy back because that is 100 % a drink.

Okay, and you've got different avenues pulling you in different directions, right?

with the, and I'll apologize guys, I have the January, 2026 crud that everyone in January
or 2026 seems to have.

I can't avoid the cough, it's gonna happen.

So I'll apologize, but to kinda go back.

you have a variety of people doing, you have six different people doing different things
in different parts of your business.

um So do you ever feel like you're overloaded?

yes, but almost always when I haven't handed enough off to the team, uh I am my own worst
enemy in this regard, which is again, part of the impetus to doing the training and

knowing other people's strengths because I hesitate to put, forcefully in my personality,
I hesitate to dominate other people's time with requests.

That is just something that I do not like it when people do it to me and I try not to do
it to others.

But I do that sometime to my own detriment when they would be better equipped and actually
would enjoy doing the thing that I hate.

But because I hate it, I hesitate to hand it off to them.

that, you know, in my goal as a leader, I want to know what other people's strengths are
because I want to feed them the things that make them thrive.

And I want to find someone else to feed the things that make them

miserable.

um And so when I feel overwhelmed, I've consistently been able to look at, oh either I've
overcommitted to something, that can happen at times, but usually it comes back to I'm not

utilizing others properly in their strengths so that I'm not working in my weaknesses.

Okay, yeah, and that's fair.

you know, there's a nice BNI parallel there is oftentimes the leaders of chapters or
people in support roles tend to be the ones that will do the thing, right?

They are the ones that are willing to step up and say, okay, somebody's got to do it.

So I'll be the one.

And they tend to have to do all the things often, you know, so that

we tend to potentially put too much on one or two or three people versus utilizing we have
a whole room full of people in an ideal chapter situation that could be helping doing the

things that they enjoy.

And you made an interesting point there that you don't wanna give things to people that
make you feel taxed, but.

that might not make other people feel touched, that might actually be their strength,
right?

So sometimes the thing we hate the most is because it's the thing we hate the most, right?

But other people thrive on doing that thing that we hate the most.

So it's kind of a fun thing to think about.

uh So when I look at your strengths, I see clear patterns of vision, momentum,
responsibility.

When something's not clear or...

in your business or in your life, when something's unclear, what do you instinctively do?

I start talking to people who I think have some insight into those things or I start
reading and researching and I utilize a lot of YouTube.

um And uh one of the things that I've found in understanding how I learn is I do not learn
by reading.

I read very slowly, I always have.

I have found that I learn the fastest by listening.

and can also do well by watching things, but predominantly by listening.

I have to hear it and then I have to be able to talk about it.

um So the ideation with me happens predominantly when I'm having a conversation with
someone, um which has worked well as a preacher and a teacher.

Like there are many things that ah as I am teaching,

uh or preaching, they're going to come out of my mouth because I've thought of them as
I've actually been teaching and somebody asked a question and it can spawn a whole lot of

things that I have not set down and actually like written out in an outline form or
anything like that.

um But that's because that's where my brain is absolutely in its most vibrant state.

is in the midst of having a conversation.

It always bothered me when I was in school that I would understand a subject so much
better by talking about the subject with someone who didn't understand it than I would by

just sitting and studying the subject.

And so it's because of just how uh my learning process works.

And it took me a long time to understand how my own head works.

uh But that's really where it is.

when you're talking with your team, when do things default back to you?

um I feel like they default back to me in the planning side and the concept and the
ideation side maybe more even than they should.

um But I think that also just comes from being the owner, right?

People defaulting to like, I don't want to step on Aaron's say so.

But I do try very hard to get the...

the thoughts from the team.

I want to know what they think is best.

I want to be able to incorporate their thoughts, their vision, and their, and from this
training, their strengths, because sometimes I'm defaulting to saying no to an idea

because I'm looking at it from my strength and going, that's not going to work out, but
I'm not necessarily able to take actionable steps off of their strengths because I didn't

understand.

Okay, so if things are coming back to you, what happens if you don't step in?

Ask that again.

Give me more.

somewhere or there's not a clear direction in that planning, you mentioned planning,
conceptualizing ideas, if something needs to come back to you, what happens if you're not

available to give guidance?

uh So one of the things that I've told everyone on my team is um just light up my phone as
many times as you have to until you get me.

uh And that is because when you wear as many different hats as I do in as many different
uh positions as I have, um there are times where I am just neck deep.

And my wife loves to recount the occasion where we were leaving school after we were newly
married.

We were leaving school, we were driving back home, and we were one mile away from the
Dollar General.

She tells me as I'm driving, we need to stop at Dollar General.

Within one mile, my brain had started thinking about something else, and I drove right by
it, and she's looking at me going, where are you going?

I'm like, I have no idea.

And so, you know, I remind people, and everyone on my staff knows I've had this
conversation, that I am a one-track minded person.

When I am on something, I...

am on it.

so switching tracks thinking of it.

And so I just tell them, listen, you have the liberty to get me until you you know, and
insist on my attention until the flag actually raises.

And I'm actually aware that the problem exists.

And then we try and solve it and move forward.

So there's that but then um thankfully, I also work with a bunch of people who
responsibility is a really

good strength for them.

And so we have a team, generally speaking, that if they say, I've got it, they've got it.

uh And it's been more the issue of me handing it off to them than them actually taking the
responsibility.

Okay.

Yeah, you have a high execution team, which we'll look at in here in a little while, but
I'm going to stick with you for a while here.

so you're, you know, I said the words vision, momentum and responsibility.

So you, your strengths are by their very virtue designed to create momentum.

uh Momentum, to kind of give a little.

to see if these sound like you.

Decisions get made, ideas turn into action, problems get solved, people feel progress.

Does that sound like you?

Okay.

it is incredibly painful for me to talk about a problem as if there's no solution.

When people do one-to-ones with me, this has always been interesting because invariably,
in BNI, when I sit down and have a one-to-one with people, before we're done, I've...

thought through and communicated to them ideas for their business that they've never
thought of before.

you know, it is a pure enjoyable, purely enjoyable thing for me to think about,
conceptualize, and put my head into somebody else's business, which is really why I've

spent my entire professional life doing troubleshooting.

Yes.

is because people bring me a problem and I am in the element.

Like that is what I love more than anything else.

Somebody give me a problem, somebody give me a scenario and let me have at it until we get
to a solution.

um What is much harder for me is turning that solution into a process that is repeatable
step by step by someone who wants to just do the same process every day.

Like I want to solve a problem and automate the solution so I never have to touch it
again, which is not possible with every problem.

Right, well, and you, didn't mention when we looked at your full 34 and just if you're
watching on YouTube, I'm looking off screen and writing notes.

I'm typically when I'm doing the interviews, I'm looking at the camera, I'm looking at all
the things.

Yes, I'm looking at all the things.

So your overarching theme is strategic thinking.

So four or five of your, let's see, one.

two, three, four of your top 10 themes are strategic.

you're not, sorry guys, your number one is ideation.

um So that is, you can't help yourself, right?

And I have, I also share those things.

My number one is strategic and I have high ideation.

So I, but I have an influencing theme.

So I come at it differently, but similar um to you.

And I have that same challenge.

I've learned to work through those things in my life.

The challenge that momentum can create is called gravity.

So momentum is a positive force.

Gravity can be an unintended pull, right?

So see if any of these sound familiar.

Gravity means that people might wait for you to make a decision because decisions default
back to you.

Questions come to you first.

Ownership in a gravity situation, ownership.

may drain from others because it lies with you.

Momentum feels good because momentum gives you feel responsible, you feel necessary,
you're getting results.

Gravity can go unnoticed um because it feels good to be needed.

It feels efficient, but it also can create dependence.

Does that ring true in?

yes.

And there are times where, and this is not a negative at all on my team.

ah There are times when they bring me a, can we do this?

Should we do this?

Or the client asks for this?

Is this okay?

And I'm going, yeah, if it's best for the client, do it.

Like, why are we having this discussion?

And that helps me to understand why it is and partly it is the force of my personality.

And I want to help them understand that I want them empowered to take action if it's in
the best interest of the client.

I want them to be able to just take and go.

um Now, part of that is because I readily recognize that I am a do first, ask permission
later.

type of person.

And so I have to be and I do try to be more intentional with backing up uh any decision
that the team has made if they've made it in the best interest of the client or the best

in or in some rare scenarios in the best interest of the company because of how the client
is behaving or what have you.

But uh my default is if that's what you said we were going to do then that's what we're
going to do.

uh

And maybe that's come a lot from working in businesses where it felt like someone had the
authority to make a decision until they actually made the decision and then the authority

above them came slamming down on their head as if, wait a minute, you don't have any
authority whatsoever.

And I would hate to work in that environment and I would hate to be that boss.

ah I would rather solve the problem that may be generated by the decision.

than not have the decision made.

Right, and that's fair and that's good.

um You want that.

The challenge that someone with your set of strengths will hold and because you don't
have, when we look at your team, we're gonna look at a team grade here in a little bit, uh

you don't have other people that have similar sets of things to you.

Your team largely sits in different areas from yours, which is great because you're
running the show, but we also don't have others that

share those same set of, they haven't had that experience because they don't, that's not
their thing, right?

So they're not necessarily going to, until we plug into what their strengths are, and we
maybe look at your own set and say, okay, where am I contributing to this?

Then we stay where we are.

So right now, and this can be a, know, bits and pieces, it may not be all in, but.

your world is set up to orbit around you as the boss, right?

And because you're the decision maker, sorry, sometimes clarity may need to come from you.

So that again, kind of that momentum may slow down just a little bit.

And you had mentioned in your prep work bottlenecks.

that bottleneck, sometimes we have to start to look at is the bottleneck something that
I'm creating?

or is the bottleneck really a true bottleneck, right?

Because you're always, business is business, you're gonna have situations that come up.

But oftentimes it's because we haven't empowered others to look through their set of
things and say, okay, what would you do?

And oftentimes they're gonna make the perfect decision.

It wouldn't be the decision we would make, but it would be a good decision regardless,
right?

And you can't move forward from a scalability perspective.

If you're tethered to um reach me, uh just keep trying to reach me.

um that might stall, you know.

That's gonna, progress will not move forward.

um How does that feel?

Um, feels right.

one of the things that, um

really impacted me, you know, and was thinking about it as you were talking about that was
um one of the interviews that you had.

The discussion was about someone starting their business and just so happened to be BNI
and they wrote down all the things that they that needed to be done and all the roles that

needed to exist to put their name in every single one of us.

Like, okay, visually, mentally,

while I've never done the exercise of writing my name down in every single blank, that is
one of the things I've been trying to achieve is getting out of the roles I should never

be in.

And so a lot of this exercise has to do with how do I get the right people and empower
them through both authority and the communication of that authority to say, is yours.

You can do this.

You have the authority to make this decision Only come to me if the house is on fire,
right?

As opposed to come to me every time the decision needs to be made do we open the front
door and turn on the lights?

I don't I don't want to I don't want to be called for those

Well, for those listening, em Aaron was referencing Ivan Misner's episode, has Ivan talked
about scalability and what he did initially where he was all the things.

um And it's not necessarily that you just hand it over to them and let them decide.

It is a, and we're going to have the benefit because you've done the assessments.

We're going to look at what their strengths are and then what can we give to them based on
what they do well, right?

and people thrive in that.

It's not a, uh right now, your system sounds like it may be they need to get a live answer
from you, but we want them to maybe present answers based on what their strengths would be

in that situation, because they have them and you've put them in roles.

And the other thing, I'll make a point here, is that we don't have to, we're not looking
for a certain set of strengths for a certain role.

we're looking at what are the strengths that people possess in the role that they're in.

It's two different things.

know, we're not necessarily saying, I've got to have somebody like me that can make those
decisions.

I've got to look at the people that through what they have and then let them make the
decision based on what they're good at, if that makes sense.

All right.

And this is also a parallel to BNI because ownership doesn't spread if everyone's holding
it at the top.

Does that make sense?

So if you're sending in your chapter and you're the president or secretary, treasurer,
vice president, and three of you are working as a unit, but nobody else is supporting you,

then that's a problem, right?

Because what happens at the end of the term, who's going to do it?

You know?

So, and we've all been there.

I sat in on a meeting this morning where that was coming up.

So what happens to your time when you are the default?

When you are the person that has to answer the questions, what happens to the time?

spend a lot of time doing things, thinking through things and trying to find a solution to
something that doesn't drive the company.

for five years, we did 100 % gross revenue increase year over year for, well, four years
in a row and then 80 % the year after.

Nice.

We went from zero employees to six employees.

uh And the result of that has been we have a much bigger impact in the world around us.

The negative of that has been I realized as we kind of hit that fourth year that I was
doing things the way I would do them.

And it wasn't working for other people.

And um so we've spent a year and a half almost really rebuilding the company around
systems and processes that can be sustainable, but wouldn't be Aaron's way of doing

things.

um So that we can actually scale and grow in profitability.

one of the things, I sat down with a uh professor of business, um

about six months ago and we were talking uh in a nice three hour long conversation because
I don't mind those and he didn't either.

um And so he started asking me a series of questions and I don't remember all of the
questions but he asked me question after question after question just picking my brain

about my business and myself and when we got done he said, know, in that part of the
conversation he said, Aaron, you probably didn't necessarily know what I was going for.

but I've literally just asked you a series of questions to identify which aspects of being
a manager your strengths lie in and your talents lie in and he said, the answer is none of

them.

You are not a manager, don't try and be one.

And it was like kind of this getting run over by a truck moment, but at the same time,
like a complete relief because I always felt like, you know what, I am a horrible manager.

Yeah.

And certainly having had that plus this CliftonStrengths, I'm looking and going, that's
because I should never be one.

I should be empowering people where that would be their talent and their strength and then
getting out of their way and backing them up.

um Because

you're the visionary.

You're the one setting the tone and creating where are we going?

You're the strategy.

You're the future.

You're seeing the running on the wall that you're just bringing people with.

But they need to be brought along, right?

So when there's an urgency to reach you, who benefits from that?

Okay.

No one.

yes.

And the follow-up question is, who doesn't grow when you step in quickly?

um everyone who's not being empowered to take that on.

Yes.

You're picking up what I'm putting down.

your strengths aren't your problem.

The guardrails might be, you know, kind of the challenge that we need to look at.

So if you think about your strengths, um there can be a trap in having, you know, what are
our strengths.

It's what we need to look at is how do we use them in a way that prevents, that doesn't
prevent other people from doing what they do.

Right.

When you do all the work or if you're setting the tone, you're the center of gravity
essentially, it eventually leads to burnout because you're doing everything, right?

The team can stall, so it kind of can stifle productivity.

Growth can plateau because we got to wait until we figure out what we're doing next.

And scalability obviously becomes a problem because we can't move forward if we don't have
that, you know, freedom to move forward.

So oftentimes people feel like I need to hire more people.

And so if you're listening to this, you might be thinking to yourself, okay, well, I just
need to plug in somebody else like me, you know, so I can step away from that and I can go

do this.

But the real issue is really understanding kind of what Aaron's been saying all along is

how do I utilize the strengths of the people that I have?

So, tell everybody that's listening because I have had the benefit of it, but others
haven't.

What Truth.fm is.

yeah, so Truth FM is a nonprofit organization.

um We just relaunched uh as a nonprofit in January of 24, but it was prior to that a
for-profit operation, building internet technology for missionaries, global missions,

foreign languages.

um And so we've been in the internet radio business for 10 years.

uh

Wisdom Integrators, the company that I own just for the sake of the people watching who
don't know me, um is a technology company where we do web design, marketing, podcasting,

video production, um and a lot of technology-based solutions for churches, nonprofits,
schools, podcasters, et cetera.

um

really where we're moving to is Truth.fm is launching an initiative um and has launched an
initiative to basically launch media operations in 50 different languages in the next two

years uh other than English.

And Wisdom Integrators is really situated as the technology and labor nexus of making that
possible.

So partnering with the nonprofit to

drive the technology to do that, uh in addition to the technology insight that exists
within the nonprofit already.

And so, you know, we're at a point where growth is going to be demanded to achieve the
goal.

And as a result of that, in order to do that, I need to know, like, how to maximize
people.

but also if I have glaring holes in an area that will actually cause us to stumble or lose
that momentum.

You know, I remind people it is a whole lot harder to roll a rock that is a giant rock
that is sitting still than to keep pushing it the direction it's already rolling.

And so what we want to create and what I am focused on

both in the nonprofit as a board member, but also in the business is getting that
momentum, moving that rock, accomplishing that goal.

And I specifically, in that pre-work, send it to you, I said, I wanna do this in a way
where I don't lose my marriage.

I'm the father of three boys, know, one of whom is 15 right now one of those 13 one is
eight like I can't dedicate every waking hour of my life To the to this goal to this

nonprofit to this business Because I'm also a full-time preacher and into doing all of
these things Means I need a team moving in the right direction.

I need people running in their strengths and not deferring back to me for

every solution, but instead me helping them move the thing out of the way that's in the
way if there's something that happens like that, or helping them see the vision, helping

them see where we're going, and bringing their insight and wisdom and knowledge into that.

So the technology is the nonprofit is, the goal is to provide them the ability to spread
the word with the technology.

that, am I, okay.

So.

um you know, this would involve, just to use an example.

So we've got a guy in Albania who happens to be part of our staff, but is a preacher and a
minister in Albania, works with a lot of people in his community who are blind, but then

also works um in that language.

So he teaches and preaches in the Albanian language.

We're facilitating him recording that material, taking that, turning it into podcasts,
turning it into YouTube videos, turning it into video production and internet radio uh so

that that is broadcasting and working 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, even while that
person is sleeping.

And so we're the technology nexus, the knowledge nexus to make that happen, but then we're
also the training, the education, the insight.

into how to make it sustainable.

And then we're doing that again and again and again in country and language after country
after language.

So you're employing, essentially, you're going to have to employ people to support that
whole structure and teach people how to do it and then get the word out.

And if you're employing, so to speak, you mentioned the minister, I'm guessing that those
are the kinds of people that tend to over give.

So this can also set you up for mission driven is often that we're over giving, right?

And so we were circling around a similar issue, right?

Is that you're, if we over give to too many things or we don't utilize because you're
gonna have to create little substructures for each of those people in all of those places,

we've got to manage that.

So uh capability is different than capacity.

em And that's where we have to look at, we can do it, but do we have the capacity to
manage all of those things?

And if not us, then who?

So um at this point, let's bring up the team grid.

And if you're not watching this on YouTube, that's where you're gonna see it.

If you wanna hop over to YouTube and watch, you can see this.

I can't visually talk um you through it, so you'll have to just go and look, but.

I'm going to ask Aaron, what do you think when you see the team grid?

I don't think you've had the benefit of having your eyeballs on it yet.

So um first thing, know, the way my brain works is I look for holes.

uh And so I see a pretty big hole in the influencing side.

um And I see a domination in execution, um strengths in relationship building, um which
doesn't surprise me because I tend to attract people who are

able to communicate.

right, communication is a huge thing for me.

And so if somebody can't communicate well, they're going to fall off of my radar pretty
quickly.

And so, you know, looking at this, I see communication and execution.

And I see like, here in the orange, we've got an absence of this.

Right.

Well, and it's, that's normal, right?

The reason this grid exists and that it's in colors is for those reasons for you to
recognize and you have high strategic themes, so that means you're going to see patterns

really easily.

um So you, most people looking at this would have the same view as you is, gosh, I don't
have any influencing, you know, I have enough influencing because I've got, I'm heavy in

the other areas.

But what you do have, and what we wanna focus on is what you have, right?

So you have strong relationship building and executing.

Off to the right there, you can see that the tallies, the relationship building is 15,
executing is 14, strategic thinking is 10, and influencing is six.

So those are the overarching themes.

Each of the strengths fall under a theme.

you haven't done the assessment yet, you can kind of see

later if you do one what you are um and you guys are solid most solid in the relationship
building and executing so that doesn't mean you're weak there's not a weakness here it

just means that you're a supportive service oriented execution capable team which is kind
of what you guys do right that's kind of the the whole the crux of your business and your

non-profit so

Although this makes me want to have everyone's 34.

Right?

Because, you know, I'm looking at this line and to, one of the reasons why I told you I
wanted to do this episode, not just to do the coaching, because I could have hired Tammy

to do the coaching, right?

And we could have sat down in private and done this.

But as a BNI member, I wanted,

people to understand the value of what Tammy does.

but, but doing it like I like to do things, I want to do it blind.

I want to do it live.

I want to see it and experience it because then I want to be able to refer people to her.

And one of the things I'm sitting here as a leader going is I'm sitting here going, I want
the other top, the other top five out of people's top 10 on this board because what I'm

seeing is

Okay, if I look at my line in influencing, I'm not absent in influencing.

Matter fact, I'm actually pretty good at influencing people from a certain perspective in
certain way.

But those secondary traits in the top 10, command and self-assurance, live in the
influencing category.

But if I'm only seeing the top five, I'm seeing, again, two-thirds of the picture, but not
the entire picture.

So,

As someone who really wants to communicate to leaders the value they could get from
working with you, let me just say right now that um obviously we all have budgets we have

to hit and dollars we can spend on things we can't, but do people's 34.

Don't just do their top five because if you're trying to base decisions off of insight and
you're trying to base decisions

that are going to materially affect your company, the better the data is, and we live in a
technology environment every day, the quality of our decisions are always dependent upon

the quality of our data.

And what I'm seeing here is I'm seeing a great glimpse and I'm seeing a starting point,
but this is not my end point.

This is, okay, I can get more data in the marketing world and in the advertising world.

One of the things I try to encourage people when we're doing podcasts, when we're doing
production, or when we're doing social media, it's like, listen, you won't get to make the

decision off of the first set of data.

You will get to make the next decision off of the first set of data, and then you ought to
be getting more data because now...

as one of those high traits of mine is archival, right?

I want data.

want more.

The more data, the better.

You cannot give me too much data input number five.

um And so I'm sitting here going, there's more data to be had.

I could get more data.

I just have to pay for it.

um paying for it is not a negative.

It's I needed to know the value first.

And quite often in with our clients,

we have to introduce them to the value before we can get them to buy in on building off of
that value.

And so, like, again, I just want to say for anybody considering doing coaching and getting
their strengths is number one, do it through Tammy.

And number two, like, if you're leading a team and everything depends on the result of the
team, like, not everybody's business...

depends on the results of the team.

If you go to Chick-fil-A, the team at Chick-fil-A will influence whether or not you come
back to that Chick-fil-A, but they will not influence in a highway the product that you're

buying other than is it fresh and is it hot because Chick-fil-A already decided how
everything's gonna be made, right?

They've already decided what the menu is.

I'm gonna interrupt just because time is short.

So I appreciate all of that and you're 100 % correct.

When it comes to this, I think when it comes to everything, but I'm a big fan of the more
you know, the more you know.

Especially when it comes to your team, because this isn't just data for data sake, it is
what makes your people tick and what makes you tick more importantly.

And when you look at your team as a whole,

they perform really well once the direction is set, right?

what they, it tells us that they don't really need more vision.

You're already giving them vision, but they need clearer lanes into what are we doing,
right?

What should we be doing?

What can we be doing?

um So you're basically kind of needing to look at what do I want them to decide, right?

um

Oftentimes people would look at that grid and say, and you may have had this lot in just
since, it is, you said there was a lack in the influencing.

Oftentimes people looking at that would say, I need to hire somebody for that, right?

I need to get somebody who's got high influence and that isn't a right now situation.

Eventually that would maybe be a good add to your team.

But what we really need to look at is clarity of ownership, I think at this point, know,
is who can do what and what can we give?

what can we give them to do so that we're moving forward?

So if you're the visionary, you don't need another visionary, right?

You've got that covered.

You need somebody who can own sort of those day-to-day decisions that they're pinging you
for.

And once the vision's set, they're off making, all right?

And kind of go back to the BNI chapter again is sort of the same thing, is once we elected
that, the beginning of the year, this recording is being done in January, the beginning of

2026 and so leadership teams were chosen, you three months ago.

But now everybody's kind of coming into their own.

I'm really seeing the chapters that I work with, they're really starting to own their
role.

um But the way our system is set up is we're going to roll that over again in another nine
months to a whole different set of people potentially, or maybe we just rearrange them.

And that can be.

jarring is not what your business does.

If you can imagine, you know, like, okay, let's upend everybody's job today.

You're all doing something different.

Right.

But the good news about it being a chapter is that when like I've done my own chapter, we
did a full team session where I've everybody that I've had tons of people that have taken

this test assessment in my chapter.

And we looked at across the landscape.

We actually decided who was going to be in our leadership team this year.

based on this, because we're like, can we, who do we need to do the things we're trying to
accomplish that can own those things and does them well?

And then who can do all these other things?

Because, you know, we have a whole committee of people that do all different things.

Let's put them, the people that have strengths in those things, in those roles.

And guess what?

It works really well.

It's really cool.

And I just, I want to emphasize that to people because we do have a high BNI audience in
this podcast is if you're not getting out of your chapter what you want to get and it's

not functioning well, like the meetings aren't functioning well, the changeover of
authority is not functioning well, and as someone who's been a coach, invariably when I've

walked into a chapter that's

in that scenario, it's because everybody's doing something they hate.

Because somebody needed to do it and so they volunteered or got voluntold and there's
usually a dominant personality driving that.

um Do yourself a favor and at least get everybody's top five.

Like come to Tammy and say, how can we get our chapters top five?

Let us do an assessment because we want to be successful for one another.

BNI is all about building relationships and if you build relationships in people's
strengths and you function as a chapter in people's strengths, you are going to see

massive, massive improvement.

And what I don't think people appreciate, and this was something you were really just
getting started in the CliftonStrengths things as I was moving out of.

uh president's role, like we talked about this, I really wanted to do it and it just
didn't happen time wise and I still want to do it, I just got to convince the people in

charge to do it, um is like we've got a chapter 37 people that are rock stars if we're
using them the right way.

And you know, when we grew up watching basketball, if you told Michael Jordan every day to
show up at the court and his main job was to play defense, you are using him.

the wrong way.

Great defensive player, except his main job was to score points.

Right.

Yes.

Yes.

100%.

So, and because I want to make sure we try to give you some clarity before we end the
podcast session here today, so that people listening can take something away from more

than all the great things we've already said.

um What, having had the benefit of all of the conversation we've had so far today, what is
one decision that you could stop making in the next two weeks?

I think it really would come back to...

organizing the people, right?

Because organizing the people, seeing the strategy, seeing where we're going is something
I'm really good at.

Getting people lined up and really getting at that depth consistently and making sure that
they're tracking in that system and process is something that is not my skill.

And so,

Finding that talent within my team to say, listen, I'm not handing the company over to
you.

What I'm handing over to you is how do we strategically get people in their groove so that
they're performing and working at a close level with the person doing that to make sure

they have the authority, they have the power to make that move forward and then getting
out of their way.

Okay, all right, and what could you clarify once so you don't have to clarify it again?

That's a hard one for me.

don't know the answer.

Okay.

And that's okay.

You can think about it, but think about the, if you're, is there any sort of pattern, you
have pattern recognition as a high strategic, is there any sort of pattern to the kinds of

things that are coming your way on a regular basis?

um Yes, and a lot of them have to do with needing to invest at a higher level in systems
that perform and processes that perform consistently.

um So I'm somebody who doesn't mind when things break because it's just another problem to
solve except when the things that break pile up.

uh Now you don't have a time to actually get anything done.

And so as somebody who's efficient at troubleshooting, I have to remember to make sure
that we spend time and resources in the company and in the nonprofit on things that are

going to be reliable enough to hand off to somebody who doesn't want to spend the other
day fixing them.

uh There are times in the IT world I talked to business owners and it was a struggle for
me at the beginning.

I'm starting to see their point.

They years ago, they moved away from PC to only use Macs.

And when I asked one business owner why he said, because I was constantly trying to solve
a PC problem, um you know, in the early 2000s, I was constantly troubleshooting a

technical problem when I wanted my designer to be designing something.

I was trying to troubleshoot their issue.

And so he said, I just went and bought all Macs simply because I was tired of being tech
support for my team.

And while

many things in the technology world are different today, the reality is I'm looking at our
services and going, if I spent less time troubleshooting XYZ service, we could spend more

time growing the company and doing things that matter because that's not the skill set of
my team troubleshooting those problems.

Okay, so, So if you think about it, I was actually just listening to, I'm a big fan of
Stephen Bartlett and he was talking about pushing paper walls.

And pushing paper walls, what he means by that is,

Most people run into a problem and they hit a wall and they stop.

um Other people, and I tend to be one of these people, which is why it resonated with me,
see the wall and push and say, why?

Why?

Why?

Why?

You know, we've always done it this way, is a big one in BNI.

We've always done it this way, so why would we change, you know, when we're trying to get
them to do the right thing?

uh Well, we've always done it, which is the wrong way sometimes.

uh Why would we change?

Well, why?

You know, the why.

The why is the problem.

So.

in that scenario you just gave is if technology, wrong technology or lack of technology is
the problem, then what can we do to fix that once?

you so it's done and one and done and we know that that's always gonna be the fix.

So, and I don't know if that's the thing for you, but think about that.

What if you could fix the one, if you could clarify once so you don't have to clarify
again, I think that's gonna free you up.

um And is there a place...

where you could, are there any scenarios now that are happening for you that you could
pause before you activate?

Because you have high activator.

Number three is you just wanna go and do the thing.

When somebody's coming to you, does it always have to be you doing the activating?

Got it.

um

I think that's one of the things we've gotten better at in wisdom integrators.

And we need to do more in Truth.fm.

you know, obviously, since I'm in so many different things, my brain's going across those
things and I default back to wisdom.

you know, a lot of times, especially in a nonprofit, for people who've never worked in a
nonprofit or people who've lived there,

you live in seven different hats, right, all the time because that's what you have the
funding for.

But one of the things that I think is important there is like,

Do we have resources that we're not tapping?

is our volunteers, volunteers are not something you have available in a for-profit
business.

The volunteers are something you have available in a non-profit business.

You have people who like, I want to share the mission.

I'll do it for free because I'll donate my time.

So give me something to do and getting me out of the.

the role of doing everything because I don't ask someone for help is ultimately the thing
I'm always coming back to is like, okay, challenging myself to pause and go, okay, is

there someone who can do this 70%, 80 % as well as me, but is not me so that I'm not doing
it, not in a selfish way, but because honestly,

I may think they can do it 80 % as well as me, and they may be able to do it 110 times
better than me because it's not my thing and I shouldn't be doing it.

So I don't know about a specific example, but I think in Truth.fm like building the
surface for people to stand on and accelerate that growth is really where that opportunity

is.

Awesome.

and to over kind of give wrap this up in a nice big bow is this isn't about slowing down
who you are.

It's about aiming your strengths at what you're good at, right?

So, you you can read the report, you can get the assessment and it'll tell you a bunch of
stuff about yourself, but.

how we aim it is where the coaching comes in.

It's like you mentioned everybody doing it for their chapter.

You can all get the report.

It's the aiming of it, know, understanding what it means and then the aiming of it is
where I come in.

The knowledge is good.

It's just a starting point, you know, figuring out what we do with that is a whole
different thing.

um So what is one recurring decision or clarification that currently defaults to you that
you're going to pass along?

Just so we have a final.

I think one area that that needs to happen is on things like in wisdom, it would be
quoting and estimating, right?

That's one of the things I've really noticed is like, I can do it and I'm horrible at it
and I hate it, right?

Mostly because I have a really bad tendency to under price my own value.

That's a lot of people.

And so, you know, as I'm looking at that team, one of the things that the absence of
influence kind of identified is something I already knew to be true, is we don't have

anybody in sales.

Right?

Because a salesperson is usually a high-influence person.

um And it's very noticeable that we don't have somebody in sales and that I do most of the
sales.

And as a result of that, we could actually perform way better

if I wasn't doing sales.

um Now at the same time, one of the hard things that we have with technology is it moves
fast and not everybody likes moving fast.

um I'm married to a person who doesn't like change at all.

uh

have, just to pause you there for a second, you do have Alton and Bobby are both high woo
and woo is winning others over.

you're not in a, they're both in number two.

That's their number two strength.

So you're not in a lack and Leslie has high communication.

So you're not in a spot where you don't have somebody that can do those things that
wouldn't do them and enjoy doing those things.

Winning others over is everybody's your friend.

and I'm gonna win you over no matter what.

So, you we're gonna be buddies and then we're gonna make it happen.

um So you've got those people on the team.

So just for, yes, yes.

All right, so you're gonna pass off one decision was you're gonna look at who's gonna do
how, you're gonna redo how you do quoting and estimating.

Okay, and that ownership goes to who?

I'm going to need more time with the report and I'm going to need more coaching for that.

Let me defer that to session number two.

Yes, we have another session.

Like I said at the beginning, we are definitely not going to solve all the problems.

Any of the things that, and I use the word problems, but it's not really a problem.

It's the goals that we're trying to accomplish.

Aaron gave me a very long list of things that he would like to accomplish, and we're not
going to fix them all in less than an hour.

But we're making our first start down that road to recognizing what you have.

that what you bring and how that influences everyone with what your strengths are.

So, all right, so I'm going to wrap it there because we are just a little over an hour.

But I want to thank you, Aaron, for being vulnerable and sharing all of that with us.

um I know it's not necessarily the most comfortable thing to share, you know, all about
your business with everyone in the whole world and, you know, all across the world because

this is we have multi-countries listening, as you know.

um But um if what you

heard, you know, taking the assessment is just the first step.

If you want to do more, get more clarity, all the things that come with sustainable
leadership, this is the way to do it.

You you can take the assessment, reach out to me for more about the coaching.

But if you're leading a team, a nonprofit, a BNI chapter, the principle is the same.

No matter what you're accomplishing with people, we all have strengths and utilizing them
is where we're all going to be happier.

And when we're happier, we're more productive.

We all make more money.

We all have a happier life and a happier, you know, everything is more wonderful.

They have to be deployed though.

If we just know what they are and we're not deploying them, it's not gonna be helpful to
us.

So I will say that I wanted to leave an anchor with you for your overall arching theme is
strong leaders don't burn out from weakness, they burn out from overuse.

So if that resonates, I think as I was reading through all the things for you is you're
doing a lot.

You've had amazing growth and amazing success and the next level is just beyond, you know,
over that little hill there and I appreciate that you're giving me the opportunity to give

you, you know, some insight into how you're going to make that better for yourself and
then everyone on your team will be happier because they're going to get to do what they

want to do and we'll carry that on in our next session.

Any last parting comments from you?

Well, I just wanted to add, uh know, for somebody thinking about using uh Tammy, you know,
it is one thing to sit down with the data.

It's one thing to see the information.

It is another thing to delve into experience.

And what you mentioned in the in the opening about when you were leading the team of BNI
coaches here in this region and what

changed for me when we had our very first interaction you came to our chapter and you did
some training when I was in the I think in the VP role at the time or membership committee

I think I wasn't even in VP yet, but I immediately identified that You had a better grasp
of what we were all trying to accomplish then I did and so I pursued the opportunity to be

a coach because

you were someone that I could learn from and develop my understanding of.

And what I challenge people who are in leadership roles and running businesses is there
are people who know things that you need to know.

And Tammy's one of those people.

So if you're going to invest in success, because nobody gets successful unless they
invest, if you're going to invest in success, invest in yourself by

putting yourself around people who know what you don't know and can see what you can't see
because when you do that, you become a better you.

Absolutely.

Love that.

Thank you so much for that.

And back at you is, you know, one of the things I wanted to do that was spread the love, I
guess, is the best way to put it.

I know that I'm most successful when I'm sharing what is helpful to people, to more of
them.

So the podcast was the means for me to be able to reach more people with, you know, things
that I know and things I can help people with.

So I appreciate that.

And you providing a wonderful platform.

If you're looking to do a podcast to speak for yourself, I highly recommend Aaron.

And if you're in the, your nonprofit, give me the name again, Truth FM, I couldn't think
of the truth.

The Truth FM, this is a global podcast, anybody can be listening.

So if you're interested in knowing more about that, also reach out to Aaron.

And if you found anything useful that you heard in this, would appreciate comments below.

Would really even more appreciate if you subscribe and hit that like button, all the fun
things that make that algorithm.

tick so that we get more people to see all the wonderful things that we'd like to bring to
you.

And for that I'm going to leave it there and thank you so much for tuning into the Perfect
100.