Latest / Unstoppable Success Podcast / 13 - Fostering Financial Literacy in Youth: Insights on Effective Leadership and Communication with Young Founders Academy's Stephen Warner

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13 - Fostering Financial Literacy in Youth: Insights on Effective Leadership and Communication with Young Founders Academy's Stephen Warner · Unstoppable Success Podcast

• 0:04
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome to the Unstoppable Leaders of Light.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_01: Influenceable leaders and game changing and light.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_01: Unstoppable solidger, the O and Founder of Fleet Tier Six.
• 0:15
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• 0:17
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• 0:28
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• 0:40
  SPEAKER_01: Come on to the end of the show, and we will share with you how you can be our next guest.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_01: Let's be unstoppable.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_01: Hi everybody, I am Jacqueline Strominger, and welcome to the Unstoppable Leadership Spotlight podcast, where we hear from influential leaders and their game-changing insights.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_01: As I said, I am Jacqueline Strominger, your host, and today I want to welcome our amazing guest, Stephen Warner.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_01: So, Steven, welcome.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_01: You and I met on another show or another leadership podcast or network thing.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_01: Anyway, so share a little bit of background of you because I when we were talking, like you have you've done some great things and you're doing some awesome things.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's it's been a fun journey.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: And it's great to I've listened to a few of your podcast episodes.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: It's a great show.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: Really appreciate you having me here.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: My name is Steven.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: I help kids build profitable businesses before graduating high school.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: And right now, that's my primary focus is just helping kids develop financial literacy, helping kids learn that entrepreneurship is an option.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: Whether you plan on being an entrepreneur or business owner for your entire life or not, it's always a skill that everybody should know and to be able to know how to invest, to be able to know how to manage money properly.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's my like super big passion.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: That's my primary focus.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: I have uh about 10 years of a decade of experience working with kids, working with teens, working with families.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: And that's when I was and worked at an after-school program, worked as a youth pastor for five years after that.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: And then, and then the last five years, I have spent building a business called Modern Musician, which helps musicians build profitable businesses with their music to make a living doing what they love.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: So my whole journey has been working with families and kids, and then five years of oh, I became an entrepreneur and started doing business stuff.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm working with five or six different businesses now.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: And with Modern Musician, there was a lot of it was a huge learning experience for me.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: And it was really the beginning of my entrepreneurial journey and realizing, whoa, there's a lot of stuff that they did people didn't tell me when I was a kid that were possible in my life, and taking a business from working from the bottom to the top of a company, taking a business from uh 100,000 a year to a couple million a year was a cool experience for me.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: And so I've built a super cool business network of awesome people, and uh now I'm like going back to my passion of working with kids, working with teens, working with families, and doing whatever I can to help kids live secure, successful, and self-sufficient lives.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_01: That is just truly amazing.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_01: I know one of the things that I love is which is helping people turn their passions into profit, and that's what you're doing.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_01: So that's really huge.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_01: What I there's so many things I won want to talk about, but the first thing I want to actually ask you is so on your journey, we all have these, our journey is our own individual journey.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_01: I'm curious is what helped you be the leader you are today in that journey.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: That's a great question.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: What helped me become the leader I am today?
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: And I think it's hard to think of one specific moment.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: If I could think of one moment when I actually realized that I was a leader for the first time, a lot of times you can be a leader and not even realize that you're a leader.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember being a, because I was a youth pastor, I worked with kids' families for five years.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: And what that meant was I got to experience the highs and lows of life.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: I got to experience the best part of a kid's life, of a family's life, and I got to experience the worst parts of their lives.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember being, gosh, I must have been 23 years old, 24 years old, and I had a parent come into my office and start asking me for parenting advice.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, I'm 23, probably 23.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just assuming that was the age.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: Like I'm 23 years old.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: I just got out of college, and I don't have any experience parenting.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm thinking, why is this person asking me for parenting advice?
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_00: So I was just very transparently, I don't know the answer to your questions, but it made me realize that wow, like I have people that are actually looking to me for leadership in a different way than I thought.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: Cause I think I always knew that I was somewhat of a leader.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: Like when I was like in class projects, I would end up taking over the project.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: I would like whenever I'd have some kind of like a job or whatever, I would end up being in charge of things.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: But this was the first time I was like, whoa, like I have people looking to me for guidance in their life.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: And so that was a really like almost a moment of, oh, I need to take this seriously.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_00: Like I need to take leadership seriously.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: I need to, and I and then I think that what one of the things that made me realize is I don't have experience parenting.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm 33 now, I have a 11-month-old, so I still don't have a whole lot of experience parenting.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_00: You just got to make the baby feel happy and loved and keep them alive.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_00: But so I didn't have experience parenting at the time, but I knew a lot of people who did have experienced parenting.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_00: And so I started talking to as many people as I possibly could to learn what it takes to be a good parent, like reading books, figuring out like how to handle certain situations with kids.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: And it turns out that I ended up using that for the next five years in my job because that was the very beginning.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: Like as soon as I showed up at the church, people started asking me for advice.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_00: It was like just because I was put in that position, a certain people start asking me for advice.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_00: But it was like I actually learned a lot through teaching and through reading and through like on the job training, which is what I think parenting basically is.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: You're just learning it as you go.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_01: And learning it as you go, as long as you know.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so I think that yeah, so I think the key was the key was that I learned that you don't have to know everything, and you don't have to have experience at everything in order to help people because you have a net you can build a network of people, which is really what I'm focused on doing right now in business, is building a network of people who have massive business experience selling tens of millions or like like exiting a nine-figure company.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: And oh, like this is these are the people who like I want to help kids become financially literate.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: I want to develop financial literacy in kids, I want to help kids become entrepreneurs.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_00: Then I need to be learning from the top entrepreneurs that are out there.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_01: So I don't know if that answers the question, but no, it's it's actually there's a lot of great things that were in there.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_01: So there's a lot of amazing, like key nuggets.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_01: A couple of things to think about that you shared.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_01: Number one is I think as a leader, one of the biggest things, as you know, so listeners, as you're hearing this, you don't have to know everything, right?
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_01: And that, and most of us don't, but then we do need to understand that we can ask.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_01: And asking is not a sign of weakness, it's a sign of knowledge, of wanting to get more knowledge and understanding that.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_01: So that is it is to me a very important lesson in leadership, which is what you did, what you said is I didn't know the answer.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_01: I was honest about it, key, honest, right?
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_01: Like you said, hey, I can't answer your question.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_01: That's being honest, and then you went out and asked and gathered information.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_01: And maybe you still don't always know the answer, but you're asking and you're learning.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_01: And leaders, if we think about what leadership is, it's helping people leading by example.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_01: Hey, if you don't know something, let people know about it, be honest, and you can ask and build a network, which I think is huge.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_01: And I share this, I I do a master class on networking to net worth because your network, and the more you can build it, is your net worth.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_01: And I always say I am a billionaire because I have like I have a network.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_00: I saw that, right?
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_00: I saw that.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_00: I like the I saw that your network is your net worth, and that you so you're doing right now is networking with people on a podcast, right?
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_00: Which is really smart.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_00: If you're wanting to build networks, a really smart way to do it.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_00: But I guess that's very similar to, I suppose, what I learned was you don't have to know everything, you just have to know the right people.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_01: Or if and if you don't know them, find them.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_01: Remember, I think one of the biggest things that we have to remember is that every single per every person, we're we're all human, right?
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_01: We're human beings, and that if we don't ask the question or we don't ask, we the answer is always no.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_01: So we just need to put on our big adult pants, boys or girls, and know to ask the question, right?
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_02: Whatever kind of pants you want, whatever kind of pants you want.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_01: Right, right.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_01: So knowing this, okay, so a couple of things, because you work, you've worked with kids and adults, right?
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_01: And so, you know, as uh in the music business, I'm assuming you're working more with adults in their business, and then you got kids that you're helping.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_01: So those two two groups, what is more rewarding for you?
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_01: That's question number one, and I don't mean to stack these, but I am.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_01: What's more rewarding?
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_01: And who do you find out of the two groups is easier to lead?
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_00: It's a very interesting question and a difficult one.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_00: So the two questions are who do I find most rewarding to work with and who's easier to lead, basically?
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_00: So who I find most so when I'm working with kids and working with teens, I'm really working with their family.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_00: So it's hard for me to separate.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_00: Am I working with kids or am I working with parents or am I working with musicians who are who also have kids?
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_00: So for me, I think families, I think it's really about the family.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_00: And I have seen this over and over again that change, like real positive change, typically doesn't happen.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not saying there aren't exceptions, there are always exceptions, but generally, real positive change does not happen in a kid's life unless it also happens in the parents' life, and unless it also happens at home.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_00: So change really has to happen.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_00: It's not something that you can, when I was a youth pastor, you would think I spent most of my time working with kids and teens.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_00: I probably spent 66% of my time.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_00: I'm making up a percentage, but basically just getting the point across that I spent more time working with parents than I did with kids and spend more time working with my adult leaders.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_00: So I built a like a volunteer team of 50 people who and I had volunteer leaders who were like actually in charge of things instead of me.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_00: Like they would just do it.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_00: And I had adults who would preach to the kids because I mean talking in public speaking is not necessarily my favorite thing in the world, and it's not what I'm best at, but I had people and I could teach them how to do it.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_00: So I don't know.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_00: For me, it's like working with kids and working with parents, working with it's to me, it's all the same thing.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_00: And when it comes to who's easier to lead, re rephrase the question so I make sure I answer the right question.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_01: So I it so maybe it's even more coachable, but leading, it's almost who out of the two groups is there one that's easier to lead than another.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so there's a more open-minded group, which is uh a kid, always more open-minded because you when you're talking to kids, they're you automatically have you're an adult, so kids a lot of kids just listen to you because you're an adult, but kids are also in a phase where their their mindset is being shaped, their life is being shaped.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_00: And the most formative years in a kid's life are the first five years, and then after that, it's like your adolescent years, and then after that, like basically the younger a kid is, the the more there you can influence a kid better when they're younger, basically, because they're more open-minded to other things.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_00: With adults, though, I often find that adults it's not that much different from working with kids in terms of if you're trying to lead a team, and which I led volunteer teams of high schoolers who are working with middle schoolers, and I led volunteer teams with adults, I've led corporate teams, I've led whatever, and there's actually similarities in all of them.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_00: And I think the biggest similarity, the one thing that rings true from all groups is that communication is key, and uh overcommunication is is a good idea.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't necessarily think kids and adults are a whole lot different when it comes to that, that you that repetit people learn from repetition, and so yeah, so I guess like easier to shape a mindset in a positive way, kids, but everything else is to me is like almost exactly the same.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, no, and what you said, and that's great, and it and you would think that too.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_01: And but key thing obviously is communication.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_01: Communication, I think, no matter what we talk about, is one of the biggest things about leadership is that, and you shared it beautifully, is overcommunicate.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_01: That is the more you communicate, the better, whether you're sharing your vision and your mission as a company, or you're sharing what you're doing for the kids or for what people are getting involved in, it's about how you communicate in the words that you're using.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_01: But and that's so critical.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_01: And something else that you said that I think is really important, and you share that the change happens.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_01: If you're gonna see something change with a kid, it has to change with the parents, but it also has to change at home.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_01: And I would also say that in business, if you are looking to make a change within your team, your company, we are we're the people that we are at home and the people that we are at work, they shouldn't be two dramatically different humans.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_01: And if we want to change something at work, we may also have to possibly change something at home.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_00: And if you want to change something within your team, you have to change it within yourself first.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_00: That's absolutely it's the same concept.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's nothing's gonna change in a company's work environment if the leadership isn't involved.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_00: Like you can't just expect a team to make this crazy awesome positive change when I'm not saying that you're the parents of the people you work for, but it's a similar dynamic.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_00: Like you have a person who's an authority figure, and then you have other people who are a part of the organization.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_00: And it's if the people who are in leadership aren't the same thing with parents.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I have parents who would almost it almost have the mindset of well, my kids having a lot of problems, they're doing XYZ in school, they're not whatever.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_00: And so can you talk to them and help them and fix this?
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_00: It's I certainly can talk to them, but but the real change needs to happen at home.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_00: The the real change is like you can't outsource, you can't outsource parenting just like you can't outsource leadership.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_00: I suppose there's there are ways to outsource leadership, but not very easily.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_01: Right, right, right.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_01: But it what you said, I think is really important.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_01: It's I sometimes look at sometimes leadership as when you're looking at when you're the CEO of the company or you're a VP of a team of a team or you're running a team, well, it doesn't really matter what level you are, it doesn't really matter.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_01: Titles are whatever, who cares?
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_01: But if you're the leader of that team, the IO is like that team is your family.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_01: And the acronym of together everyone achieves more, and you're in there, you're in there.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_01: If it's if you're all gonna rake leaves to clean up the yard, yeah, you're out there raking with everybody too, right?
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_01: Because you're part of that team and you're part of the family.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_01: And I look at people, if we all have that family approach to the team, yeah, maybe we'd resonate because then you're you feel that you're part of something bigger when that you're part of a family, like your work family.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_01: People talk about their work wives, their work husbands, you got your work brothers and sisters.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_01: Oh yeah.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's good to have uh a working environment that feels uh I think there's certainly pros and cons, and you can take it too far, but I think having uh an atmosphere of we're working together and we care about each other.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_00: Like I'm right now doing a an odd, I have a so I'm working with six different businesses right now, all under one umbrella and doing like a comprehensive audit review of all their processes, all their systems, because when it comes to business, like my core strengths are building scalable systems.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_00: That's what I'm really good at.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_00: And which right now starting a I'm starting a new thing where I'm actually the face of the company that's slightly uncomfortable.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_00: I really like to build systems and processes.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_00: So anyway, but the one thing that I've gotten from this company that I'm working on is or say say six companies, is that the entire everybody on the team, I've interviewed tons of people on the team to just get a sense of like where things are in the organization.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_00: And that was that has been their biggest strength, their absolute biggest strength is that people really care about each other in a family.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_00: And you could compare it to family, you can compare it to work in a family.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I would say a healthy family is you got people who help each other.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_00: And when someone needs, when someone's like struggling in a certain area, there's gonna be someone there to help them.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_00: And it's the this is the exact culture of this entire organization.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_00: It's an amazing leadership in a sense of these people believe in what they're doing, and they are willing to, they don't, they're not gonna stick in there, they have a job, of course.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_00: Everybody has a job description, but if someone needs help with something that's not necessarily within a job description, they're gonna go out of their way to still help that person, which I think is really powerful.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_00: Now, the big challenge in this business is documentation, and that's why they need to help each other so much because things aren't documented very well.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_00: So we're gonna work on that, we're gonna get things documented, we're gonna make sure the systems are scalable.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, but we're not gonna lose that.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_00: We got to keep that.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_00: That's an amazing culture to have with a team, is like a team that that helps each other and and goes above and beyond to do not just like the bare minimum.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and that's and that is beautiful.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_01: That's to me, again, that's the definition of team.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_01: Together, everyone achieves more.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_01: And it's and people know I need to get more acronyms.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I need to get more acronyms.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_00: You got these cool acronyms.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, just I can share a lot of them with you.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_01: Happy to share.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_01: So, what one of the things that is is a lot of people talk about with leadership, and what makes us stronger and better is that sometimes we have experienced some, whether it's a resistance or failure.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_01: So, I'm curious what have you experienced yourself either in as a resistance or failure, and how did you transform that into a win or growth?
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's another great question.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_00: Resistance or failure has happened many many times.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like the I feel like the biggest lessons I've learned have always been through failure.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_00: And I'd like to get better at learning from things other than failure, which is why I'm surrounding myself with people who have made tons of mistakes already.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_00: But some of the, yeah, some of the biggest failures I would say are one, and I think these are failures that are common failures that a lot of business owners will experience, is one not being open to just because something has worked a certain way in the past over and over again, doesn't necessarily mean that's the thing that's gonna work forever.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_00: And sticking with something because it's comfortable is not always the right choice.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_00: And actually, if your only reason for sticking with something is because it's comfortable, then it's usually the wrong choice.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_00: But I would also say that that I'm I'm trying to I'm trying to think of how to put this.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_00: When you have an idea, it doesn't matter how great the idea is.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_00: If your team doesn't believe in the idea, it will fail.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_00: And so I think that a lot of times we as uh business owners or as leaders have a great idea and it very well might be the best for the organization.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_00: It very well might also be the best for all of your clients, but just because it it's a great idea doesn't mean everyone else believes it's a great idea.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_00: And if other people don't believe it's going to work, then it won't work.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_00: So an example of this is when I was a I'll give you my first example when I was a youth pastor and we did this.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_00: So I don't know how familiar you are with like the whole church culture or whatever, but what how our church was there was a Sunday morning, there was Sunday school.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_00: So I was in charge of leading Sunday school on Sunday morning.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_00: I was also in charge of a Wednesday night thing, and then I was also in charge of there was like various other things that were happening in the week.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_00: But what was happening was kids would just go to Sunday school and that would be it.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_00: They'd go to Sunday school and then they'd go home.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_00: And so these kids did not even experience adult church, they did not even volunteer, they did not even help, like they're not really serving.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I'm not really seeing any like massive change happening in their lives.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_00: So it's like we got a Sunday morning and a Sunday night thing and a Wednesday night thing.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_00: So I canceled Sunday morning, just canceled it.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_00: Just we're done, we're not doing this anymore.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_00: Like, we're not doing this anymore.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_00: It's not actually mattering.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_00: Like, what we're doing is not making a difference.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_00: What we're getting is a bunch of kids who are like church kids that come up and they're just they're doing a little routine, and it's a meaningless to me, it felt like a meaningless routine.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_00: There's only 18 kids that go.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_00: We've got like 150 kids in our youth group at church.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_00: This is not really making a difference.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_00: And these kids, rather than going and sit in a classroom, they should attend church with their parents and then they should volunteer like their parents are.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_00: Like that, that would be more beneficial for their lives.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_00: And it turns out that was the right choice.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_00: And it turns out that everyone agreed with that after we had a conversation.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: about it, but I did it in the wrong order.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_00: It's like I just thought I could tell everybody.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_02: I thought I could tell everybody first.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_00: Well, again, I was 23 years old.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_00: So I thought I could just tell everybody like, hey, we're switching this, we're changing this.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_00: It's gonna be way better.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_00: And I thought they're probably just gonna listen.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_00: It's the right choice.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah, so communication and honestly, had I talked to the had I just sat down and talked to the kids about it a little bit first, they probably would have come up with ideas for they probably could have come up with the idea on their own.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, what are we doing?
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_00: This is like what we're doing up here is not really making all that much of a an impact and difference.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't feel like you're feel like you're being excluded from like the overall whole group of people of the church.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_00: You're in your own little silo and honestly similar to teams is like teams shouldn't be just stuck in a silo doing their own thing, not communicating with the rest of the team.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_00: So it's almost a similar thing I was like you got to be a part of this whole thing.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_00: And so right choice just because it's the right choice doesn't mean it might be the right choice but you have to make sure that the team is on board and if the team's not on board don't do it until the team's on board.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_00: Or if there's only two people on the team who are not on board then you might have to get rid of some team members as you make the change.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_00: But you have to make sure the rest of your team is on board.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah so uh Stephen what you just shared is so important and it's I I feel that as leaders one of the biggest things that we need to do is number one we talked a bit a little bit about before is communicate but share the vision of what we want and ask questions and get people's like what you learned was oops I should have gotten the buy-in or I should have asked my team I might be the leader but I'm not the dictator dictatorship is not leadership right and so a little bit of a so the key thing is if you have a vision and you have an idea share it because and before you put it into gospel to make it ask people's opinions because you never know where it can expand to and get everybody's input because when you get that input then you're getting the buy-in and then people feel that they're part of that process and that is it's a huge lesson to learn and I'm and I want to just thank you for sharing that because it was I think sometimes it's something that we forget about whether we're this we're the CEO of a company and we've written our vision and our mission statement and we need to it's something that we are constantly looking at because it's evolved.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_01: It's not something that you it's not a write down and be done with it.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_00: So I think that was and make sure your team knows your mission.
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_00: We had this thing happen at where where so modern musician so to give you like a quick background of what I did for five years at Modern Musician I started as a sales representative then I became a sales manager and trained other sales representatives then I started coaching clients then I started like coaching building a team and teaching our team to coach clients and then I'm coach then I'm leading our team then I'm like running customer support and eventually COO and a shareholder in the company but where were we going with that?
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_00: We're talking about oh mission and vision.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_00: So we went through this thing where we were talking about like in our leadership we go through well every quarter and we're looking at our mission it's right in front of us our mission our vision our values all that stuff and then and it's on our website too like you can go to the website you can read them but then I think we had our HR manager send a survey and ask what are the vision and values and you the the amount of people who didn't know was crazy.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my gosh like we have not done a good enough job of communicating this with our team and as it turns out our team fully embodies our mission our vision and our values better than I've seen in almost anywhere else like the full embodiment of the so we didn't have a massive problem but if there was a company that didn't have a full team that fully embodied the values naturally which most companies don't necessarily have it's not necessarily natural to embody all the the mission, the vision, the values of the entire company you have to make sure that's again we're it goes back to overcommunication making sure you're overcommunicating everything and and then also even if someone buys into an idea or even if someone says I should say even if someone says that they buy into an idea a lot of it's like a very popular thing to say don't take no for an answer.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_00: Don't take yes for an answer like sometimes people are just going to say yes to you because you're their boss or you're their leader.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_00: So have someone else like that would be I think a key leadership principle I don't know if it's a principle but it's a strategy.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_00: The insight and strategy yeah the insight to not be the only person who is gathering this feedback from your team have somebody who your team is not afraid to share everything with even and and even to the point of tell them they can share with this person and that person's not going to tell you what they said.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_00: Unless there's like a massive crazy issue.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_00: Like I want uh it's I I don't I'm not a fan of anonymous surveys but I think that there should be someone else asking questions.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_00: And I think as a leader I should put someone else in a position that part of your job is to find out how people are feeling and to to get them to say things to you that they will never say to me because they might be regardless of it doesn't matter how transparent open honest of a leader you are there's gonna be some people who won't share certain things just because of your quote unquote position of authority.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_00: And so have somebody who they can and will share with that way you're not blindsided by everyone said they thought this was a great idea.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_00: They said that to you because you're their boss right then they weren't really they were yeah so have someone else that's gathering that feedback for you is huge.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_01: That's what that's a really great tip.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_01: And yeah take listeners take listen to that because it's really it's it is a true important strategy to be able to use because think about a family sometimes you might say something to your mom but you're not gonna say something to your dad happens in my house.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah so I'll experience that once I start having kids who can talk right now she's just like clapping and dada mama this is so cute.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_00: She has not done anything wrong ever in her life yet so that'll be fun when we get to that age and it's never nothing ever it's they're all lessons of learning.
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah oh yeah I did it for five years as a youth pastor like an extra parent so that well I guess that's another perfect example of I would have parents who would say I told my kids this 10 times and then you said it once and they believed you.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_00: Or like I would also have parents who would talk to their kids and would say hey you can share stuff with Steven.
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_00: I know there's gonna be stuff as a parent that and I think parents you should do this with your kids you need to have non-parent adults who are having a positive influence in your kids' lives so if you're a parent you absolutely have to do that because your kids will not tell you everything so make sure you surround them with other people that they feel safe to tell everything to that way they're not navigating childhood at the advice of other middle schoolers.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_00: It's not good.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_00: It's not a good thing right yeah my parents did a great job with that I had five to ten other adults who were positive influences in my life who I could talk to about things and you'd have I'd have different ones who I'd talk to about different things but there was I was never navigating without the advice of an adult except a couple times because all kids do that at least a little bit well that's and that's that's learning too but no that's such a great tip too because business and companies you and families that you do need to surround yourself with other people it's like in your company that's your board of directors where you can ask other people to ask questions and then your family you as a family you have to almost provide your kids with a with a little mini board of a directors that they don't yeah they need an advisory board.
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_01: Advisory board right absolutely have to have to exactly so speaking of all this like where you are you've got a lot of great things happening so what things are you working on now in your own leadership for your own leadership and how are you challenging yourself to grow in that area?
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah building a new business from the ground up from scratch is lots of fun and it it also shows you some of your blind spots and for example for myself we all have blind spots if you don't if you say you don't have blind spots then you're blind to your blind spots obviously so I think for me and it goes back to something we talked about earlier in the conversation is surrounding myself with the most super genius people who are people who I trust who are people who I believe in who are people who have the experience and the knowledge to be able to give awesome advice and do what I'm good at.
• 30:43
  SPEAKER_00: Like right now I'm just focused on doing what I'm good at.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_00: I'm really good at work even as I've been building a business for the last five years and I've been volunteering working with kids and working with families.
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_00: I have a sister who's turning 18 just turned 18 and so like for me I think the passion that has never left has never gone away has been like making a positive impact on kids on teens and on families and and it just so happens that I believe the best way to do that is through business.
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_00: And so right now for me it's just all about surrounding myself with the right people I got a guy named Brian Kurtz who is on my board of advisors I got a guy named Jason Friedman who's on my board of advisors.
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_00: I got someone named Rachel on my board of advisors I got and these are people who have done pretty dang huge things in business.
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_00: I got writing my curriculum right now for the program to help kids develop financial literacy and build businesses before they graduate high school is it me writing the curriculum no I have someone writing the curriculum who's done 30 million in Amazon sales and also done 30 million in sales teaching people how to sell on Amazon and his business partner is writing my webinar.
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_00: So it's like surrounding myself with the right people who are going to be able to push me and lead me in the right direction is my absolute number one focus right now because I think that a true leader is it's not necessarily just about what all your skills are as a leader.
• 32:06
  SPEAKER_00: It's about can you put together the right team can you get the right people around you to turn your idea into a reality and not just a reality that is also scalable.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_00: Because I also don't want a lifestyle business.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not interested in a business that makes me multiple six figures a year and that's great, awesome cool you're just pulling all the money out of your business like I want to build something that can really scale and make an impact on the larger education system as a whole.
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm not gonna do that as a solopreneur.
• 32:33
  SPEAKER_00: It's just not going to happen.
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_00: It's just about to me like where I'm learning and growing and stressing myself is just like it I'm I'm honestly to be completely honest I'm not so I'm very confident and one of my mentors has Brian Kurtz has emphasized the importance of confidence but not arrogance and that kids need to learn the difference between confidence and arrogance.
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_00: So I have a pretty high level of confidence but I also have a very realistic view of my own experience.
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_00: And I know that I have very significant experience working with kids and families.
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_00: I'm an expert in that area right I'm very good at business operations.
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_00: I'm very good at building systems at scale and also I don't have the amount of business experience that all of the people on my board of advisors have right now.
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_00: And that's why I needed them.
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_00: That's why I wanted someone else who had way more business experience writing the curriculum because I know my strengths I know my weaknesses I know I'm good at business.
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_00: I know I'm good at teaching I know I'm good at working with kids I know I'm good at working with families I know I'm good at galvanizing a group of people and and getting everyone on board and getting everybody excited and also like where are my weak spots I'm gonna fill them with people who are way better at stuff than I am.
• 33:45
  SPEAKER_00: So that's the that's the stretch the stretch is and the stretch is also being willing to ask because it's shocking the amount of people who if you're willing to ask and you're passionate about something and they're your friend then like they're in my mastermind group so it's not a crazy ask but sometimes it's like all you got to do is ask somebody and they're in they're ready to go.
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_00: They believe in what you're doing they're on board.
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_00: So that's been a lot of fun just seeing how many people jump on board with an idea that has the potential to make an impact.
• 34:11
  SPEAKER_01: That's actually really huge.
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_01: Steven it has been such an amazing time connecting with you talking with you learning about you learning about your leadership you have given us some amazing insights that listeners literally take notes and follow some of these great tips and things to do.
• 34:29
  SPEAKER_00: Steven where can people find you on social or what's the best way for them to reach out to you if they want to connect yeah I'll give you a link there's uh the really the best the thing that I'm looking for right now is and this goes into exactly what we've been talking about is I have a survey that anyone can fill out whether you have a family whether you have kids or whether you don't I want to know what are the things that kids need to be learning right now then in your opinion the things that kids need to be learning that they're not learning.
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_00: And then what are the skills that kids need to learn in order to be safe secure and successful when they graduate from high school so like when they graduate from school to life like what skills do they need so I'll give you a link to it and it's a survey it's uh that you can fill out and that'll get you in contact with me.
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_00: I'll get you on my list.
• 35:13
  SPEAKER_00: I don't really use social media a lot but you can find me if you search Steven Warner there's a lot of other Steven Warner's out there.
• 35:19
  SPEAKER_00: Good luck with that but there's uh Steven S T E P H E N underscore Y F A is my Instagram I can drop that if you want it to but I don't like social I'm not a huge social media guy.
• 35:30
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not super into it.
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_00: Probably the best way is honestly email.
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_01: I know that's funny to say but no but you know share your link we'll drop that in the show notes and but I truly appreciate it.
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_01: So this is the Unstoppable Leadership Spotlight podcast and I thank listeners for joining in and listening to this and if you would like to be a guest on this podcast please go to my website leaptoyoursuccess com and fill out the podcast application form.
• 35:55
  SPEAKER_01: And I hope everybody has an amazing day and thank you for being here and be unstoppable.
• 36:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah thanks for having me this was fun.
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_01: It's a pleasure such a pleasure I'm Jacqueline Strauminger and I want to thank you so much for listening to the Unstoppable Leadership Spotlight Influential Leaders and their game changing insights podcast.
• 36:18
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• 36:27
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• 37:03
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• 37:17
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe so much to me and my team you want to know more about the podcast or about leapture success just go to the website leapturesuccess com or follow me Jaclynstrominger on LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram my name Jacqueline Strominger at T R L M I N T E R and follow me on so thank you so much for listening in the