Latest / Something Extra / The Power of Purposeful Leadership w/ Stephen Jenkins

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The Power of Purposeful Leadership w/ Stephen Jenkins · Something Extra

0:01
Stephen Jenkins: So the first thing is that ownership.
0:03
Stephen Jenkins: Right?
0:03
Stephen Jenkins: I'm a big believer in ownership.
0:04
Stephen Jenkins: I think you had to foster ownership as a leader, but you also had
0:08
Stephen Jenkins: to empower ownership throughout your organization.
0:10
Stephen Jenkins: Right?
0:10
Stephen Jenkins: Because things are changing rapidly, but it takes ownership, and empowerment
0:14
Stephen Jenkins: to say, like, I have to see this through.
0:16
Stephen Jenkins: I own this, and there was the results are fully in my control,
0:20
Stephen Jenkins: and I can't make excuses.
0:22
Stephen Jenkins: Right?
0:22
Stephen Jenkins: So you have to be a complete owner.
0:24
Stephen Jenkins: The other thing is we have to foster creativity and collaboration throughout the organization.
0:28
Stephen Jenkins: Right?
0:29
Stephen Jenkins: You don't want people to get complacent, especially today.
0:31
Stephen Jenkins: Like, in today's market, you have to be thinking about
0:35
Stephen Jenkins: how do I differentiate myself?
0:37
Stephen Jenkins: What are the headwinds against me?
0:39
Stephen Jenkins: And then how do I foster creativity and collaboration throughout the organization?
0:46
Lisa Nichols: It takes something a little more to lead with impact.
0:49
Lisa Nichols: I'm Lisa Nichols, author of Something Extra, and this podcast
0:53
Lisa Nichols: was inspired by our daughter, Ally, whose additional chromosome has shaped
0:58
Lisa Nichols: how I see people in leadership.
1:00
Lisa Nichols: Each episode features conversations with inspiring leaders from around the world
1:05
Lisa Nichols: about what truly defines how they lead and serve others.
1:09
Lisa Nichols: If you enjoyed today's conversation, please consider leaving a five
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Lisa Nichols: star review.
1:14
Lisa Nichols: It helps more people discover the show.
1:17
Lisa Nichols: And if you'd like to go deeper, my book, Something Extra, is available on
1:21
Lisa Nichols: Amazon and through other major book retailers.
1:26
Lisa Nichols: Our guest today is Stephen Jenkins, a leader who is helping to steer
1:30
Lisa Nichols: the future of smart spaces and digital canvases as the president of global
1:34
Lisa Nichols: business and innovation at Vidiri.
1:37
Lisa Nichols: He started his journey as a network engineer supporting mission critical operations
1:41
Lisa Nichols: for the US Army and the automotive industry.
1:44
Lisa Nichols: He went on to lead over a decade of digital experience and global innovation
1:48
Lisa Nichols: at Diversified.
1:50
Lisa Nichols: Today, he's steering the future of smart spaces and digital canvases.
1:54
Lisa Nichols: Stephen is also the author of It Starts with Him, Faith, Family,
1:59
Lisa Nichols: Finances, and Life Lessons for Every Season.
2:02
Lisa Nichols: Well, Stephen Jenkins, welcome to the Something Extra podcast today.
2:06
Lisa Nichols: I'm so excited to have you on the show.
2:09
Stephen Jenkins: Thank you so much for having me.
2:10
Stephen Jenkins: I'm really looking forward to it.
2:12
Lisa Nichols: Yeah.
2:12
Lisa Nichols: I'm looking forward to it too.
2:14
Lisa Nichols: We have to give a shout out, right, to our mutual
2:18
Lisa Nichols: friend, Jim Bechtold.
2:21
Stephen Jenkins: Absolutely.
2:22
Stephen Jenkins: Jim's Jim's great to connect us, so definitely shout out to Jim for that.
2:26
Lisa Nichols: Absolutely.
2:28
Lisa Nichols: Yes.
2:28
Lisa Nichols: I I can't even tell you how many guests I've had on the Something
2:32
Lisa Nichols: Extra podcast.
2:33
Lisa Nichols: Stephen, I was connected to them by Jim Bechtold.
2:37
Lisa Nichols: So, yeah, he gets the, connector of the year award as far
2:41
Lisa Nichols: as I'm concerned.
2:42
Lisa Nichols: So, anyway, thanks, thank you, Jim.
2:45
Lisa Nichols: But, Stephen, I know you live in Atlanta.
2:49
Lisa Nichols: I have to ask you something.
2:51
Lisa Nichols: I saw your LinkedIn profile,
2:56
Lisa Nichols: and your background LinkedIn picture is of
3:00
Lisa Nichols: a person, and I'm assuming you're doing some extreme skiing.
3:05
Stephen Jenkins: So I cannot take credit for that.
3:09
Stephen Jenkins: I do like to ski.
3:10
Stephen Jenkins: I do like to ski, but, that is not me.
3:12
Stephen Jenkins: So, the company that I work for, collaborates a lot
3:17
Stephen Jenkins: with some action sports affiliated companies, and so that's
3:21
Stephen Jenkins: some action shots that come from that.
3:23
Stephen Jenkins: It's across our canvases.
3:24
Stephen Jenkins: I wish it was me.
3:25
Stephen Jenkins: Maybe maybe fifteen years ago, I could have pulled something like that off.
3:29
Stephen Jenkins: Now, I would probably be in a good amount of pain and probably wouldn't
3:33
Stephen Jenkins: be sitting here if I try to do something like that.
3:35
Lisa Nichols: Right.
3:36
Lisa Nichols: Yeah.
3:36
Lisa Nichols: I'm, anymore, I'm scared about what's gonna happen to my body.
3:39
Lisa Nichols: You know, my body my knees are gonna give out on me or something.
3:43
Lisa Nichols: But, yeah, I was like, oh my goodness.
3:46
Lisa Nichols: Is that Stephen?
3:47
Lisa Nichols: Because, I mean, it's like an extreme, skier.
3:51
Lisa Nichols: Right?
3:52
Lisa Nichols: So okay.
3:53
Lisa Nichols: Well, I just had to get that out of the way.
3:56
Lisa Nichols: But let's talk a little bit about your career.
3:58
Lisa Nichols: You had a really incredible career, and I know that,
4:02
Lisa Nichols: you worked for Diversified, I think, for eleven
4:06
Lisa Nichols: years, I think.
4:08
Stephen Jenkins: That's right.
4:09
Stephen Jenkins: Yeah.
4:09
Stephen Jenkins: I spent a good majority of my career there.
4:13
Stephen Jenkins: I mean, I've had a lot of, places that I worked before there that
4:16
Stephen Jenkins: kinda led me up to prepare me for that.
4:18
Stephen Jenkins: But, yeah, eleven years, and and I've been at my current company for just
4:21
Stephen Jenkins: over three years.
4:22
Stephen Jenkins: That's correct.
4:23
Lisa Nichols: Yeah.
4:24
Lisa Nichols: So tell me about you know, you talk a lot about,
4:28
Lisa Nichols: innovation there, leadership,
4:31
Lisa Nichols: serving clients.
4:32
Lisa Nichols: But what really did you learn in that eleven years
4:36
Lisa Nichols: at Diversified?
4:41
Lisa Nichols: Diversified.
4:42
Lisa Nichols: What 'd you learn during that time that really prepared you for the role
4:46
Lisa Nichols: that you're in now?
4:48
Lisa Nichols: And, you know, I know.
4:50
Lisa Nichols: I listen.
4:51
Lisa Nichols: I've read your book, Stephen.
4:53
Lisa Nichols: Not all of it, but I've read portions of your book, and I know,
4:56
Lisa Nichols: like, you were you were tapped on the shoulder to lead some big acquisitions.
5:00
Lisa Nichols: And you're like, I don't know, like, you know, finance, but you're like, I'm
5:04
Lisa Nichols: sure it couldn't be that hard.
5:06
Lisa Nichols: I'll learn.
5:06
Lisa Nichols: You know?
5:07
Lisa Nichols: So I'm sure there's a lot that you learned, but what are some of
5:11
Lisa Nichols: those key lessons that you think you learned that prepared you for what you're
5:14
Lisa Nichols: doing today?
5:15
Stephen Jenkins: I mean, I think it'd be easier to say what I didn't learn, during
5:18
Stephen Jenkins: that period of time.
5:19
Stephen Jenkins: Right?
5:20
Lisa Nichols: Yeah.
5:20
Stephen Jenkins: You know, I have I have a pretty I mean, if we even go
5:22
Stephen Jenkins: back a little bit further, I have a pretty interesting, way of how I
5:26
Stephen Jenkins: got to where I am.
5:27
Stephen Jenkins: And so I don't have the fancy MBA that you hear
5:31
Stephen Jenkins: a lot of people talk about this, you know, got a president or see
5:34
Stephen Jenkins: him, in front of their title.
5:35
Stephen Jenkins: Right?
5:36
Stephen Jenkins: So I came, I came up through a very vocational school where
5:40
Stephen Jenkins: I did a two year associate's degree and I was an engineer.
5:42
Stephen Jenkins: And so when I when I joined Diversified, my entire career had
5:46
Stephen Jenkins: been built around IT engineering.
5:48
Stephen Jenkins: I thought that's where my career was going to land and where I was
5:50
Stephen Jenkins: going to go for, and I was gonna be the best engineer possible.
5:54
Stephen Jenkins: God had different plans for me.
5:56
Stephen Jenkins: And so during my time there, there's a lot of events
6:00
Stephen Jenkins: we could talk about.
6:01
Stephen Jenkins: But slowly but surely, I got opportunities to step into new
6:05
Stephen Jenkins: roles that maybe I was not qualified for on paper.
6:10
Stephen Jenkins: But people had a faith in saying that, hey, if I if I give
6:13
Stephen Jenkins: him responsibility, he's gonna figure it out.
6:15
Stephen Jenkins: Right?
6:15
Stephen Jenkins: And so I stepped into operational leadership roles on the operations
6:20
Stephen Jenkins: side.
6:20
Stephen Jenkins: I got opportunity to lead sales teams there, and I'd never been a bad
6:23
Stephen Jenkins: carrier and salesperson,
6:25
Stephen Jenkins: learn talk about finances, learn to run a P and L.
6:28
Stephen Jenkins: Right?
6:28
Stephen Jenkins: And, like, what does it take to learn a P and L?
6:30
Stephen Jenkins: And how how do you do that?
6:32
Stephen Jenkins: How do you budget?
6:33
Stephen Jenkins: So all of those things as I kind of went up through the ranks
6:36
Stephen Jenkins: and bounced around, I got to the opportunity to lead a lot of different
6:39
Stephen Jenkins: business units in that organization, both domestically and globally.
6:43
Stephen Jenkins: And so all those little things became nuggets of information that I learned both
6:47
Stephen Jenkins: from the resources that I had to read, books, etcetera, but also just
6:51
Stephen Jenkins: failures and other stuff.
6:52
Stephen Jenkins: And, like, you you think in your head, like, this is gonna work out
6:55
Stephen Jenkins: this way.
6:55
Stephen Jenkins: And then reality is that book might have said it.
6:58
Stephen Jenkins: But when you get into the trenches, things don't always work out that way.
7:01
Stephen Jenkins: Right?
7:01
Stephen Jenkins: And then you throw COVID right in the middle of that, and, wow,
7:05
Stephen Jenkins: you learn really fast how to adapt.
7:08
Stephen Jenkins: So it was just a great time great time in my life.
7:11
Lisa Nichols: Yeah.
7:11
Lisa Nichols: Well, tell our listeners, because they may not know Diversified or
7:16
Lisa Nichols: Videri.
7:16
Lisa Nichols: Can you tell let's just talk about Videri because like I said, you're the
7:20
Lisa Nichols: president of, the global business and innovation at Videri.
7:24
Lisa Nichols: Tell us what Videri does.
7:26
Stephen Jenkins: Yeah.
7:26
Stephen Jenkins: So we are, so we are a manufacturer of both hardware and
7:31
Stephen Jenkins: software.
7:32
Stephen Jenkins: We have a a canvas that's, think of it as a digital
7:37
Stephen Jenkins: screen, like a TV, but it's purpose built to to do digital signage on.
7:41
Stephen Jenkins: Right.
7:41
Stephen Jenkins: And so, we have very large clients who use it
7:45
Stephen Jenkins: for a lot of different ways.
7:46
Stephen Jenkins: Some of it could be used for like menu boarding.
7:49
Stephen Jenkins: So if you ever walk into a restaurant or a concert venue or anything
7:53
Stephen Jenkins: like that and you've seen menu boards that were as digital now instead of
7:57
Stephen Jenkins: just paper or whatever, that that's the technology that we sell.
8:00
Stephen Jenkins: Also, trade marketing and advertisements of
8:04
Stephen Jenkins: media and in-brand and things like that to be able to activate campaigns
8:08
Stephen Jenkins: globally.
8:09
Stephen Jenkins: And so the difference between us and like a normal TV would be, you
8:13
Stephen Jenkins: know, we have a client who has about forty five thousand of these deployed
8:16
Stephen Jenkins: all over the world where they can instantly activate campaigns and things like
8:21
Stephen Jenkins: that anywhere from our cloud software.
8:22
Stephen Jenkins: So it knows the status of devices.
8:25
Stephen Jenkins: Is the screen black?
8:26
Stephen Jenkins: Is it showing content?
8:27
Stephen Jenkins: How do we know that it showed that content?
8:30
Stephen Jenkins: How can we segment our our network in a certain way so that content
8:33
Stephen Jenkins: is playing where we want it to the people that we want it to
8:36
Stephen Jenkins: play to.
8:37
Stephen Jenkins: And it's just really fascinating.
8:38
Stephen Jenkins: Right?
8:38
Stephen Jenkins: And so we sell that all around the world, and it's just
8:43
Stephen Jenkins: been a really, really fun experience.
8:46
Stephen Jenkins: And it's a smaller company.
8:48
Stephen Jenkins: You know, we're talking tens of millions versus where I came from.
8:51
Stephen Jenkins: It at Diversified was one billion dollars company when I was leaving.
8:54
Stephen Jenkins: So that's that's been fun, too, because the rate of change is really, really
8:58
Stephen Jenkins: cool.
8:59
Lisa Nichols: But the cool thing about it is it's a smaller company, but, Stephen, you're
9:03
Lisa Nichols: global.
9:04
Stephen Jenkins: That's right.
9:05
Lisa Nichols: You're you got clients all over the world, which is really,
9:09
Lisa Nichols: incredible.
9:10
Lisa Nichols: And, yeah.
9:11
Lisa Nichols: So let's talk about this.
9:13
Lisa Nichols: I know that you just wrote your first book.
9:15
Lisa Nichols: I think this is your first book.
9:16
Stephen Jenkins: It is.
9:17
Lisa Nichols: Right?
9:17
Stephen Jenkins: It is.
9:17
Lisa Nichols: It's your first book.
9:18
Lisa Nichols: It it then it's called It Starts With Him.
9:21
Lisa Nichols: First of all, it just came out this year.
9:23
Lisa Nichols: Congratulations.
9:24
Stephen Jenkins: Thank you.
9:24
Stephen Jenkins: Thank you.
9:25
Stephen Jenkins: Thank you so much.
9:25
Lisa Nichols: I know a little something about what it takes to get the book out
9:29
Lisa Nichols: the door, and it is no, small feat.
9:33
Lisa Nichols: So congratulations on that.
9:35
Lisa Nichols: But it is called It Starts With Him, Faith, Family,
9:39
Lisa Nichols: Finances, and Life Lessons in Every Season.
9:42
Lisa Nichols: If someone asks you in one sentence, what does that mean?
9:46
Lisa Nichols: What does that mean, Stephen?
9:47
Lisa Nichols: It starts with him.
9:48
Lisa Nichols: What would you say?
9:50
Stephen Jenkins: That everything that I've accomplished or done and done well can be
9:54
Stephen Jenkins: contributed one way or another back to my relationship with God and
9:58
Stephen Jenkins: Jesus and where I put my faith in.
10:00
Stephen Jenkins: So something I wanna share with others.
10:01
Stephen Jenkins: Right?
10:01
Stephen Jenkins: Because there's lessons to be learned there.
10:04
Stephen Jenkins: Mhmm.
10:05
Lisa Nichols: Well and I know that you originally wrote the book, which I think is
10:09
Lisa Nichols: so cool.
10:09
Lisa Nichols: I told you I did something similar for our grandson when his
10:13
Lisa Nichols: nana was passing away,
10:16
Lisa Nichols: when his great grandmother was
10:19
Lisa Nichols: passing away.
10:20
Lisa Nichols: But, you know, you originally wrote the book as a legacy
10:24
Lisa Nichols: for your son.
10:25
Lisa Nichols: Right?
10:26
Lisa Nichols: And, you know, what what prompted you to start writing these lessons down,
10:30
Lisa Nichols: Stephen?
10:31
Stephen Jenkins: Well, you know, it's it's quite interesting.
10:33
Stephen Jenkins: So I was, I never aspired to be a writer.
10:36
Stephen Jenkins: I guess never aspired to do a lot of things I end up doing
10:39
Stephen Jenkins: right.
10:39
Stephen Jenkins: And, but I have a seven year old and being a father has been
10:42
Stephen Jenkins: one of the greatest experiences of my life.
10:44
Stephen Jenkins: And I just love every aspect of it.
10:46
Stephen Jenkins: Right.
10:47
Stephen Jenkins: But I've made a lot of mistakes.
10:49
Stephen Jenkins: I've learned a lot of things.
10:50
Stephen Jenkins: I rededicated my life to Christ about ten years ago.
10:53
Stephen Jenkins: And since then, there's been ups and downs and this and that.
10:56
Stephen Jenkins: But there's been a ton of things that has happened.
10:59
Stephen Jenkins: It's just like that was God, right?
11:01
Stephen Jenkins: Like, there was no other explanation.
11:02
Stephen Jenkins: I mean, my career in general.
11:03
Stephen Jenkins: But I started thinking one day, like, I wanna tell my son
11:08
Stephen Jenkins: about marriage and, like, how to biblically manage your finances or how do
11:12
Stephen Jenkins: you deal with hard things in life?
11:13
Stephen Jenkins: Because life is filled with anxiety and
11:16
Stephen Jenkins: sickness and and even death at times.
11:18
Stephen Jenkins: Right?
11:18
Stephen Jenkins: And what does that mean?
11:19
Stephen Jenkins: And how do you have the most important thing is having a relationship
11:24
Stephen Jenkins: with God and believing in Jesus.
11:26
Stephen Jenkins: Like, what does that mean?
11:27
Stephen Jenkins: And so this was the legacy that I think as a father is more
11:30
Stephen Jenkins: important than how to teach him how to throw a baseball.
11:32
Stephen Jenkins: Right?
11:32
Stephen Jenkins: And we love doing that too.
11:33
Stephen Jenkins: Right?
11:33
Stephen Jenkins: We love playing sports, but this is the most important thing.
11:36
Stephen Jenkins: And,
11:38
Stephen Jenkins: so no one wants to think that something's going to happen to you.
11:40
Stephen Jenkins: But there's certain things at seven years old that conversations you just
11:44
Stephen Jenkins: can't have right yet.
11:45
Stephen Jenkins: And so I wanted to write something down.
11:47
Stephen Jenkins: It kind of started as an idea of like penning a letter and that
11:50
Stephen Jenkins: turned into a three hundred page book.
11:52
Stephen Jenkins: Right?
11:52
Stephen Jenkins: But, it was it was this idea of, like, these are the things
11:56
Stephen Jenkins: that I wanna pass down to him that if he could read and take
11:59
Stephen Jenkins: some nuggets away and save himself some of the challenges I had, that
12:03
Stephen Jenkins: when he's of age, it's left for him.
12:06
Stephen Jenkins: Right?
12:06
Stephen Jenkins: Hopefully, I'm there to read it with him and we can talk about it
12:08
Stephen Jenkins: together.
12:08
Stephen Jenkins: But in the event that that's not the course of life, that there's something
12:12
Stephen Jenkins: left behind for him.
12:13
Stephen Jenkins: And, that was the purpose of it.
12:15
Stephen Jenkins: And then through that, it was like, if this could change one person's life,
12:18
Stephen Jenkins: if one person found value in this that helped them in an element or
12:22
Stephen Jenkins: season of their life, then all the work is worth it.
12:24
Stephen Jenkins: Right?
12:25
Stephen Jenkins: And so that that's where my heart was at, and and that's how it
12:28
Stephen Jenkins: began.
12:29
Lisa Nichols: That's so awesome.
12:31
Lisa Nichols: Well and then you and I were talking offline.
12:33
Lisa Nichols: I mean, you you're being asked to go speak to men's groups now,
12:37
Lisa Nichols: and, you know, you were talking about, a prison
12:41
Lisa Nichols: ministry,
12:43
Lisa Nichols: you know, that you're gonna go speak at.
12:45
Lisa Nichols: So,
12:46
Lisa Nichols: yeah.
12:47
Lisa Nichols: I mean, you just never know.
12:48
Lisa Nichols: It's that active obedience.
12:49
Lisa Nichols: Right?
12:50
Lisa Nichols: When you feel prompted, to do it, just do it, and then see what
12:54
Lisa Nichols: God does with it.
12:55
Lisa Nichols: You know?
12:55
Lisa Nichols: But I just I love it.
12:56
Lisa Nichols: And I know, like, when my mom was passing away, our grandson was only
13:00
Lisa Nichols: two.
13:01
Lisa Nichols: And it was just so important to me, and I knew that he would
13:05
Lisa Nichols: not remember her.
13:06
Lisa Nichols: You know?
13:07
Lisa Nichols: He was only two when she passed away.
13:09
Lisa Nichols: And, Stephen, I was like, I wanted to write down these things
13:13
Lisa Nichols: so that he could know his great grandmother.
13:16
Lisa Nichols: And, you know, I just and it was therapeutic for me, I will be
13:19
Lisa Nichols: honest, you know, during the the years of her sickness or
13:23
Lisa Nichols: the months of her sickness rather.
13:25
Lisa Nichols: You know, it was therapeutic for me to get these things written down.
13:28
Lisa Nichols: But you've already talked about it a little bit, but you said you rededicated
13:31
Lisa Nichols: your life in twenty sixteen.
13:34
Lisa Nichols: What happened?
13:35
Lisa Nichols: What
13:36
Lisa Nichols: was the precipice for that, Stephen?
13:39
Stephen Jenkins: So, I think a lot of people have different stories of how they come
13:43
Stephen Jenkins: to certain places in their life.
13:44
Stephen Jenkins: And for me, I was I was raised,
13:48
Stephen Jenkins: very much in a Christian home.
13:50
Stephen Jenkins: I mean, it was the marquee of mother play praying at three o'clock in
13:53
Stephen Jenkins: the morning.
13:53
Stephen Jenkins: Like, you wake up and, like, she was there praying for her kids and
13:57
Stephen Jenkins: her husband and everything, and she was she was there.
13:59
Stephen Jenkins: So so I grew up with that knowledge.
14:01
Stephen Jenkins: Right?
14:01
Stephen Jenkins: And so what I would say is I knew of God.
14:04
Stephen Jenkins: I knew the stories.
14:05
Stephen Jenkins: I knew the teachings.
14:07
Stephen Jenkins: But but knowing of God is different than truly having a
14:11
Stephen Jenkins: intimate relationship and kind of letting that guard down, if you will.
14:15
Stephen Jenkins: It's kind of for me is like I put God on the shelf and
14:17
Stephen Jenkins: said, Hey, you're here When times get really tough, like, alright.
14:20
Stephen Jenkins: Now I'm praying.
14:21
Stephen Jenkins: Right?
14:21
Stephen Jenkins: Like, like, we need a miracle.
14:22
Stephen Jenkins: But other than that, like, I was just like, I don't wanna be bothered
14:25
Stephen Jenkins: by that.
14:25
Stephen Jenkins: I just wanna do my own thing.
14:26
Stephen Jenkins: And then,
14:28
Stephen Jenkins: again, probably, like, eleven years ago, I started going back to church a little
14:32
Stephen Jenkins: bit here and there, and something was different this time.
14:34
Stephen Jenkins: I started saying, okay.
14:35
Stephen Jenkins: I'm gonna start saying yes where I used to just say no.
14:37
Stephen Jenkins: Right?
14:38
Stephen Jenkins: And one day, I was sitting in church, and my wife was
14:42
Stephen Jenkins: on the aisle, which is unusual.
14:43
Stephen Jenkins: Usually, I'm on the aisle, but she was on the aisle.
14:45
Stephen Jenkins: They did a spontaneous baptism.
14:46
Stephen Jenkins: They said, we got a we have the pool ready.
14:49
Stephen Jenkins: We got the this is a big church, like, thousands of people.
14:52
Stephen Jenkins: We got clothes for you, whatever you need.
14:54
Stephen Jenkins: And I'm not a very emotional person, but I was kind of overwhelmed,
14:59
Stephen Jenkins: with the prompting of the Holy Spirit.
15:00
Stephen Jenkins: And I turned and looked at my wife.
15:02
Stephen Jenkins: I said, you gotta move, And I'm go and that's all the warning she
15:05
Stephen Jenkins: got.
15:06
Stephen Jenkins: I woulda if she didn't move, I was going over the chair in front
15:09
Stephen Jenkins: of me.
15:09
Stephen Jenkins: Like, I was going.
15:10
Stephen Jenkins: And, Right.
15:12
Stephen Jenkins: That baptism didn't save me, obviously.
15:14
Stephen Jenkins: It was but it was I mean, the decision was made in my heart,
15:17
Stephen Jenkins: but something was changed.
15:19
Stephen Jenkins: And it I didn't have like the next day everything was perfect.
15:22
Stephen Jenkins: Right.
15:22
Stephen Jenkins: There's been a again, the book came out of the stories that come from
15:26
Stephen Jenkins: that event.
15:27
Stephen Jenkins: Right.
15:27
Stephen Jenkins: But sure, that was that was a beginning change in my life of
15:31
Stephen Jenkins: sanctification, of growing and learning and failing
15:35
Stephen Jenkins: and then growing some more and failing and then growing some more.
15:38
Stephen Jenkins: And so, yeah, it was some people don't have that moment exactly that way.
15:42
Stephen Jenkins: It's it's more subtle.
15:43
Stephen Jenkins: But for me, like, I knew that day that, like, my life was different
15:47
Stephen Jenkins: and it meant something.
15:49
Lisa Nichols: Oh, beautiful.
15:51
Lisa Nichols: Well, today and, I mean, maybe as a younger man, you would have
15:55
Lisa Nichols: defined success one way.
15:57
Lisa Nichols: How do you define it today?
15:59
Lisa Nichols: How do you define success?
16:01
Lisa Nichols: And maybe you would say I mean, maybe it is the same.
16:04
Lisa Nichols: I don't know.
16:05
Lisa Nichols: But, I'd love to know how you define success.
16:11
Stephen Jenkins: This is always a difficult question to answer because I think there's multiple, angles of
16:15
Stephen Jenkins: how you view success in your life.
16:17
Stephen Jenkins: Obviously, like, you know, I I've achieved things in in this life of
16:21
Stephen Jenkins: attaining a title.
16:22
Stephen Jenkins: Like, I wanted to be have a c title, and I've had chief revenue
16:25
Stephen Jenkins: officer and other things and and president and and all that.
16:29
Stephen Jenkins: And I've traveled the world for work.
16:30
Stephen Jenkins: I've seen countries.
16:31
Stephen Jenkins: I've I've I've negotiated deals.
16:34
Stephen Jenkins: I've I've done things that I've strived to do in life.
16:38
Stephen Jenkins: But for me, success is a little different now where,
16:43
Stephen Jenkins: I believe that I don't the family's not here for my job.
16:46
Stephen Jenkins: My job's here for my family.
16:48
Stephen Jenkins: And so Yeah.
16:49
Stephen Jenkins: I wanna look back and say that, yes, I had a job and a
16:52
Stephen Jenkins: successful career and showed my family and provided for my family, but not at
16:56
Stephen Jenkins: the sacrifice for my family.
16:58
Stephen Jenkins: And so I wanna be there and be a good father for my son,
17:01
Stephen Jenkins: be a good husband for my wife.
17:04
Stephen Jenkins: And I want to stand on my faith.
17:06
Stephen Jenkins: And like, if I can do that in a world where my success is
17:10
Stephen Jenkins: not defined by my title or my salary, but the impact that
17:14
Stephen Jenkins: I make because of who I believe in and what I believe in and
17:18
Stephen Jenkins: how Jesus has worked in me, that I show that love to others.
17:21
Stephen Jenkins: And so I don't I don't know what my future holds as far as
17:24
Stephen Jenkins: what success will be defined as.
17:26
Stephen Jenkins: But one thing I always hold true to is I don't want to be
17:28
Stephen Jenkins: laying on my death bed one day and go, man, I wish I didn't
17:31
Stephen Jenkins: work so much, or I wish I was at home more with my family,
17:34
Stephen Jenkins: or I wish I prayed more, or I wish I read my Bible more.
17:37
Stephen Jenkins: I wish I told more people about Jesus.
17:40
Stephen Jenkins: I don't wanna do that.
17:41
Stephen Jenkins: And so success defined to me, is living out those convictions on a daily
17:45
Stephen Jenkins: basis, even if it's contrary sometime to what, society and all
17:49
Stephen Jenkins: may tell you.
17:50
Stephen Jenkins: And you can still be successful in the midst of that.
17:52
Stephen Jenkins: Right?
17:53
Lisa Nichols: Right.
17:54
Lisa Nichols: Oh, that's beautiful.
17:55
Lisa Nichols: I love that.
17:59
Lisa Nichols: Well, you know, so when your faith became real to you, we're talking,
18:04
Lisa Nichols: you know, eleven years ago now, what changed first?
18:07
Lisa Nichols: What changed first?
18:08
Lisa Nichols: And you may have already answered this, but, Stephen, was it your heart, your
18:11
Lisa Nichols: marriage, your work, or everything?
18:15
Stephen Jenkins: Well, so what changed first?
18:17
Stephen Jenkins: I wish I had this, again, this great story of, like, you know, the
18:20
Stephen Jenkins: the addict who's like, one day I was this, the next day I was
18:23
Stephen Jenkins: that.
18:23
Stephen Jenkins: Yeah.
18:24
Stephen Jenkins: Me, it was much more subtle.
18:25
Stephen Jenkins: Right?
18:25
Stephen Jenkins: I think the first thing that changed to me was there was a wall
18:29
Stephen Jenkins: always put up in my life to say, like, I'll give you access to
18:33
Stephen Jenkins: this, but I'm not giving you access, God, to the rest of it.
18:35
Stephen Jenkins: Like like, this you're not taking my phone away.
18:38
Stephen Jenkins: You're not taking this away.
18:39
Stephen Jenkins: You're you're not doing all that.
18:40
Stephen Jenkins: And I started tearing those walls down and said, okay.
18:43
Stephen Jenkins: I'm in.
18:44
Stephen Jenkins: Right?
18:44
Stephen Jenkins: Like, I'm in.
18:46
Stephen Jenkins: Like, let's do this.
18:47
Stephen Jenkins: And I started, like, really reading and understandings the Bible to
18:51
Stephen Jenkins: the point of, like, if it says this, what would happen if I actually
18:54
Stephen Jenkins: thought this was true and did that?
18:56
Stephen Jenkins: Right?
18:56
Stephen Jenkins: And so I started making these changes in my life.
18:59
Stephen Jenkins: And the reality is that sometimes things got worse
19:03
Stephen Jenkins: before they got better in some elements of my life.
19:05
Stephen Jenkins: But those seasons
19:07
Stephen Jenkins: of change, like, my marriage and other things was, like, needed so
19:11
Stephen Jenkins: that I could see through to the other side.
19:13
Stephen Jenkins: And so it taught me, how to deal with adversity,
19:17
Stephen Jenkins: how to deal with challenging times, and how to know that there is
19:22
Stephen Jenkins: somebody who can help you through those times and not depending on
19:26
Stephen Jenkins: myself to be successful, looking to somebody else, looking
19:30
Stephen Jenkins: to God for that success.
19:31
Stephen Jenkins: And I think that's where when I stopped depending on myself and started learning,
19:35
Stephen Jenkins: some of it took some some trials.
19:37
Stephen Jenkins: Right?
19:38
Stephen Jenkins: But start learning that I can't look to what I don't know.
19:41
Stephen Jenkins: I can look to God.
19:42
Stephen Jenkins: And if I do that, even if it's not the way I had it
19:45
Stephen Jenkins: envisioned, it's always gonna work out in the right way in the end.
19:48
Lisa Nichols: Oh, that's so good.
19:49
Lisa Nichols: That's so good, Stephen.
19:50
Lisa Nichols: Because you know what?
19:51
Lisa Nichols: There is a lot of uncertainty.
19:53
Lisa Nichols: There are decisions that you have to make that you have
19:57
Lisa Nichols: no clue.
19:58
Lisa Nichols: Right?
19:58
Lisa Nichols: But one of my favorite verses, I think it may be in Proverbs, is
20:03
Lisa Nichols: he will keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on in thee.
20:07
Lisa Nichols: You know?
20:07
Lisa Nichols: So, like, if we keep our eyes focused on him and our mind focused
20:12
Lisa Nichols: on him, he will give us peace, and he will give us direction and
20:15
Lisa Nichols: guide us.
20:16
Lisa Nichols: Right?
20:16
Lisa Nichols: So, yeah, what a what a freedom that is knowing
20:20
Lisa Nichols: that you're not having to do it all alone.
20:23
Lisa Nichols: Right?
20:24
Stephen Jenkins: One hundred percent.
20:25
Stephen Jenkins: And there are countless stories, in my book that
20:29
Stephen Jenkins: talk about it.
20:30
Stephen Jenkins: But in my career, the journey that it took me
20:34
Stephen Jenkins: from being an engineer,
20:36
Stephen Jenkins: to a president of a company and all the things that happened in between
20:39
Stephen Jenkins: that are completely unexplainable.
20:43
Stephen Jenkins: And so it's it's just remarkable how things worked out
20:47
Stephen Jenkins: even during seasons of, like, I'm like, I this is awful.
20:51
Stephen Jenkins: Like, I have no idea what I'm doing if I'm even in the right
20:54
Stephen Jenkins: place.
20:54
Stephen Jenkins: And I just kept praying and trusting, and then another door would open, another
20:58
Stephen Jenkins: opportunity.
20:59
Stephen Jenkins: And then you look back and say, all this prepared me for exactly where
21:03
Stephen Jenkins: I am right now.
21:04
Lisa Nichols: That's so beautiful.
21:06
Lisa Nichols: Thank you so much.
21:07
Lisa Nichols: Thank you so much for sharing your story.
21:09
Lisa Nichols: So,
21:11
Lisa Nichols: so, Caitlin, your wife, your precious wife has walked through every season
21:15
Lisa Nichols: with you.
21:17
Lisa Nichols: You know, this is really funny to me because I read something,
21:22
Lisa Nichols: that, you know, I guess, when you met her, you were not at all
21:26
Lisa Nichols: interested in marriage.
21:29
Stephen Jenkins: Oh, no.
21:29
Lisa Nichols: You were kind of loving the single life.
21:31
Lisa Nichols: No com I didn't wanna be committed.
21:34
Lisa Nichols: Yeah.
21:35
Lisa Nichols: I guess she captured your heart, Stephen.
21:37
Stephen Jenkins: She did.
21:38
Stephen Jenkins: And, thankfully, this is a one to one podcast, and she's not over here
21:42
Stephen Jenkins: because she would tell you a lot more stories, I'm sure.
21:44
Stephen Jenkins: But, no.
21:45
Stephen Jenkins: Look. She's wonderful.
21:47
Stephen Jenkins: I mean, she she's the best thing that's ever happened to me.
21:51
Stephen Jenkins: I mean, she's the love of my life.
21:52
Stephen Jenkins: I definitely outkick my coverage there.
21:54
Stephen Jenkins: So she she's absolutely amazing, and she keeps thinking around it at all times.
21:58
Stephen Jenkins: But you're right.
21:58
Stephen Jenkins: I mean, I I never grew up with this desire to settle
22:02
Stephen Jenkins: down and get married and have a family.
22:05
Stephen Jenkins: I mean, I love being single and not having
22:09
Stephen Jenkins: a commitment.
22:10
Stephen Jenkins: And, yeah, there was just something different about her, and and we
22:14
Stephen Jenkins: we knew of each other, and we met and talked and, you know, kinda
22:19
Stephen Jenkins: here and there, but I would never kinda committal.
22:21
Stephen Jenkins: And then slowly but surely,
22:25
Stephen Jenkins: I said, I I I can't let this go away.
22:27
Stephen Jenkins: And, I I made my mind up.
22:29
Stephen Jenkins: We actually once we started dating, we dated not very long.
22:32
Stephen Jenkins: And,
22:33
Stephen Jenkins: I asked her to marry me, and the rest is history.
22:36
Stephen Jenkins: Right?
22:36
Stephen Jenkins: And so we've grown together.
22:38
Stephen Jenkins: It's been it's been amazing.
22:39
Stephen Jenkins: And, you know, in a time where I was leading a lot,
22:44
Stephen Jenkins: on things, and now come she's keeping me in line now.
22:47
Stephen Jenkins: So we we are a dynamic pair, and it it's it's great.
22:50
Stephen Jenkins: It's fantastic.
22:52
Lisa Nichols: I love that.
22:54
Lisa Nichols: Well, what do you think, Stephen, is one lesson
22:58
Lisa Nichols: that every husband needs to hear?
23:01
Stephen Jenkins: Oh, wow.
23:02
Stephen Jenkins: Well, fundamentally
23:04
Lisa Nichols: Happy wife, h appy life?
23:06
Stephen Jenkins: Happy wife, h appy life.
23:07
Stephen Jenkins: Hundred percent.
23:09
Stephen Jenkins: You know, the biggest things that that I've learned, that I
23:13
Stephen Jenkins: think are just critical, right, is, like, to understand that God wired us
23:17
Stephen Jenkins: differently.
23:18
Stephen Jenkins: Right?
23:18
Stephen Jenkins: Like, we are not wired the same, and that goes for man and woman.
23:22
Stephen Jenkins: Right?
23:22
Stephen Jenkins: And so I remember times, and I'm still guilty of it today, but but
23:26
Stephen Jenkins: there would be things that she would say or respond to things that I
23:30
Stephen Jenkins: would say or or not.
23:31
Stephen Jenkins: And I'm like, what what do you mean?
23:33
Stephen Jenkins: Like, this is out of control.
23:35
Stephen Jenkins: Like, what?
23:36
Stephen Jenkins: I don't understand even how you're processing things.
23:39
Stephen Jenkins: And and it took me, like, kind of digging in and understand that, like,
23:42
Stephen Jenkins: we're not wired the same.
23:43
Stephen Jenkins: And things that matter to me and the way that I process things is
23:46
Stephen Jenkins: fundamentally different than you.
23:48
Stephen Jenkins: And so, you know, maybe to me, doing the
23:53
Stephen Jenkins: dishes or folding the clothes or maybe just sitting down and having a conversation
23:57
Stephen Jenkins: about anything.
23:58
Stephen Jenkins: Right.
23:58
Stephen Jenkins: And just talking.
24:00
Stephen Jenkins: Maybe these things to me don't speak a lot.
24:03
Stephen Jenkins: Right.
24:04
Stephen Jenkins: But to her, they mean a lot.
24:06
Stephen Jenkins: And just because I don't understand it doesn't mean that I shouldn't
24:10
Stephen Jenkins: do it and shouldn't show my love in that way.
24:13
Stephen Jenkins: And so, you know, that's the thing.
24:15
Stephen Jenkins: Just like leaving sweet notes around or whatever it is or just speaking truth
24:19
Stephen Jenkins: over her.
24:19
Stephen Jenkins: Like, these are things that she was always trying to tell me.
24:23
Stephen Jenkins: I get that you have a great job.
24:25
Stephen Jenkins: I great, great that you're giving me, you know, a nice life and and
24:28
Stephen Jenkins: glad that you're you're doing this and you're spending time with our son.
24:32
Stephen Jenkins: But I have needs too, and I need those needs met.
24:35
Stephen Jenkins: And the more that I kind of came into balance of saying, if I
24:38
Stephen Jenkins: meet her needs in the way that she needs them in the reciprocal
24:42
Stephen Jenkins: is usually the same thing that things come into balance and she begins to
24:45
Stephen Jenkins: understand your needs and meet your needs.
24:47
Stephen Jenkins: And that that took a while.
24:49
Stephen Jenkins: And one of the biggest things was was priority.
24:52
Stephen Jenkins: So I had to not elevate my son above my wife.
24:56
Stephen Jenkins: Right?
24:56
Lisa Nichols: And so That's there.
24:58
Lisa Nichols: That's a good one.
24:59
Stephen Jenkins: And that there.
25:00
Stephen Jenkins: That was, I poured everything I had into my son.
25:03
Stephen Jenkins: And she's like, well, there's there's still time for me too.
25:06
Stephen Jenkins: And somebody told me eighteen, twenty-four years, whatever it is, when your children
25:11
Stephen Jenkins: leave the house, if you have nothing in common and you're still together and
25:14
Stephen Jenkins: they're gone,
25:15
Stephen Jenkins: what is that worth?
25:16
Stephen Jenkins: You know?
25:17
Stephen Jenkins: And so prioritizing my wife both in these things
25:21
Stephen Jenkins: to do, but also in our home of conversation and and everything.
25:25
Stephen Jenkins: So
25:26
Lisa Nichols: No judgment, Stephen.
25:28
Lisa Nichols: No judgment.
25:29
Lisa Nichols: But, really, it's God, spouse, children.
25:31
Stephen Jenkins: It is.
25:32
Lisa Nichols: No judgment here because I've been guilty of that as well, putting
25:36
Lisa Nichols: my children above even my husband.
25:39
Lisa Nichols: And, that was just not God's design.
25:42
Lisa Nichols: They and and children, you know, I mean, there were times probably
25:46
Lisa Nichols: where I made the our children more the center of the universe, and that's
25:49
Lisa Nichols: not good for them either.
25:51
Lisa Nichols: I once heard a pastor say the best thing you can do for your
25:55
Lisa Nichols: children is to love your spouse and for them to see you
25:59
Lisa Nichols: prioritizing your spouse with date nights and things like that.
26:03
Lisa Nichols: So no judgment here because, I mean, I've been I've been guilty of the
26:07
Lisa Nichols: same thing, you know, of, but the priorities are so important.
26:11
Lisa Nichols: Well, you know what?
26:12
Lisa Nichols: We've got I've got pages and pages more of
26:16
Lisa Nichols: things I wanna talk to you about, but we do need to take a
26:18
Lisa Nichols: quick break, and we'll be right back on the Something Extra podcast with Stephen
26:22
Lisa Nichols: Jenkins.
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26:53
Lisa Nichols: Well, welcome back everyone to the Something Extra podcast with Stephen Jenkins.
26:58
Lisa Nichols: We've been,
27:00
Lisa Nichols: Stephen's dropped some gold here.
27:01
Lisa Nichols: So, keep listening because I know that he's gonna have more wisdom to
27:05
Lisa Nichols: share.
27:06
Lisa Nichols: But, so, Stephen, I know that you coach youth baseball.
27:11
Lisa Nichols: What has coaching taught you about leadership?
27:13
Lisa Nichols: What has coaching taught you about fatherhood?
27:16
Lisa Nichols: What kind of lessons have you learned from being a coach?
27:20
Stephen Jenkins: Patience.
27:21
Stephen Jenkins: A lot of patience.
27:23
Lisa Nichols: A patience.
27:24
Lisa Nichols: Yeah.
27:25
Stephen Jenkins: So it's inter it's so like, when when you're working with with
27:29
Stephen Jenkins: people and an executive, right, and and you're you're coaching.
27:33
Stephen Jenkins: Right?
27:33
Stephen Jenkins: Like, that's what you're doing in the workplace.
27:34
Stephen Jenkins: So if if you're not coaching, you're not leading.
27:37
Stephen Jenkins: Right?
27:38
Stephen Jenkins: Like, you have to be building people up.
27:40
Stephen Jenkins: You can't just expect people to know what to do, just because you're
27:44
Stephen Jenkins: in your head.
27:44
Stephen Jenkins: You're like, I want you to go do this task and you understand how
27:47
Stephen Jenkins: you want to do it in the workplace.
27:48
Stephen Jenkins: You're expecting people to read your mind and they don't do it.
27:51
Stephen Jenkins: Well, coaching youth baseball is a lot of the same thing.
27:54
Stephen Jenkins: It's just you're working with seven and eight year olds.
27:56
Stephen Jenkins: Right.
27:56
Stephen Jenkins: And so, you know, really taking the time that like when you say,
28:01
Stephen Jenkins: hey, go to this task or cover this space or do whatever
28:05
Stephen Jenkins: and they don't do it properly or don't understand,
28:08
Stephen Jenkins: it's your job to take a step back to say, well, remember, there's seven
28:12
Stephen Jenkins: and they don't you haven't explained it to them.
28:14
Stephen Jenkins: Let's make sure we break it down so that they can properly understand what
28:18
Stephen Jenkins: they're doing, why they're doing it, and how they should do it.
28:22
Stephen Jenkins: And I think the workplace has been kind of the same thing throughout my
28:25
Stephen Jenkins: career is is transitioning from just giving orders to coaching
28:29
Stephen Jenkins: people and how to do it.
28:31
Stephen Jenkins: But it's it's the why behind the what in the how.
28:35
Stephen Jenkins: Right.
28:35
Stephen Jenkins: And so, like, truly understanding the game that you're playing and that's been the
28:39
Stephen Jenkins: best thing.
28:39
Stephen Jenkins: But then I think having you're always tougher on your children for whatever reason.
28:43
Stephen Jenkins: But, you know, knowing that you can be encouraging and
28:47
Stephen Jenkins: still
28:49
Stephen Jenkins: be disciplining in how to get better without ever tearing
28:53
Stephen Jenkins: a child or another kid on the team down.
28:56
Stephen Jenkins: And so we we foster that in this organization is that we
29:00
Stephen Jenkins: wanna do that.
29:00
Stephen Jenkins: We wanna build kids up.
29:02
Stephen Jenkins: We wanna encourage them, and we want them to love the game that they
29:05
Stephen Jenkins: play.
29:05
Stephen Jenkins: Because if you love the game that you play, you're gonna play that game
29:08
Stephen Jenkins: better, and I think that translates to the workplace as well.
29:12
Lisa Nichols: Yeah.
29:13
Lisa Nichols: That's so good.
29:14
Lisa Nichols: That's so good.
29:15
Lisa Nichols: Yeah.
29:15
Lisa Nichols: And just, you know, it's that, encouraging,
29:19
Lisa Nichols: but
29:21
Lisa Nichols: encouragement with accountability, I think, is sometimes so
29:25
Lisa Nichols: hard in leadership.
29:26
Lisa Nichols: Right?
29:27
Lisa Nichols: Doesn't mean that you don't still hold people accountable.
29:32
Lisa Nichols: You know, what do you hope your son says about you someday, Stephen?
29:38
Stephen Jenkins: So I hope he says that my dad
29:42
Stephen Jenkins: was
29:44
Stephen Jenkins: always there.
29:46
Stephen Jenkins: He taught me to love the Lord.
29:48
Stephen Jenkins: He taught me to work hard and to overcome adversity,
29:53
Stephen Jenkins: and he showed me what it means to be a man.
29:57
Stephen Jenkins: Not the way the world says to be a man and not the way
30:00
Stephen Jenkins: the world says to be a leader, but the way that I can lead
30:04
Stephen Jenkins: through example of living a Christian life.
30:06
Stephen Jenkins: And because, you know, talking about baseball,
30:10
Stephen Jenkins: my son plays travel baseball.
30:12
Stephen Jenkins: And somebody told me one time, and it stuck with me, my kid has
30:15
Stephen Jenkins: a point zero one percent chance of making it to the major leagues, but
30:18
Stephen Jenkins: has a hundred percent chance of standing in front of Jesus one day.
30:21
Stephen Jenkins: I hope my son says the lessons my dad taught me prepared me
30:25
Stephen Jenkins: for the things just to come, rooted me in my faith, and prepared
30:30
Stephen Jenkins: him to pass it on to the next generation.
30:32
Stephen Jenkins: Right?
30:32
Stephen Jenkins: And that's that's the big thing I want him to remember about me, that
30:35
Stephen Jenkins: I I stuck to my guns.
30:37
Stephen Jenkins: Right?
30:37
Stephen Jenkins: Even I won't sacrifice
30:40
Stephen Jenkins: my faith or my convictions for a deal at work, and they know that
30:44
Stephen Jenkins: and how I treat others.
30:45
Stephen Jenkins: And so that's that's what I wanted to remember.
30:48
Lisa Nichols: Love it.
30:49
Lisa Nichols: Love it.
30:50
Lisa Nichols: Well okay.
30:51
Lisa Nichols: So, Stephen, I wanna kind of circle back to what you're doing,
30:55
Lisa Nichols: a president of, global business and innovation at Videri.
31:01
Lisa Nichols: You know, you're in the technology business.
31:02
Lisa Nichols: We're in the technology business, and the one constant with technology is it's
31:06
Lisa Nichols: changing, and it's changing at a very rapid pace.
31:09
Lisa Nichols: But what I would love to hear from you, what do you believe are
31:13
Lisa Nichols: leadership principles that never change?
31:16
Stephen Jenkins: So the first thing is that ownership.
31:18
Stephen Jenkins: Right?
31:18
Stephen Jenkins: I'm a big believer in ownership.
31:20
Stephen Jenkins: I think you had to foster ownership as a leader, but you also had
31:23
Stephen Jenkins: to empower ownership throughout your organization.
31:25
Stephen Jenkins: Right?
31:25
Stephen Jenkins: Because things are changing rapidly.
31:28
Stephen Jenkins: You know, technology is like, what is technology today with AI?
31:32
Stephen Jenkins: We can talk about that.
31:33
Stephen Jenkins: Right?
31:33
Stephen Jenkins: But the industrial revolution and all types of of history, like, things have changed.
31:37
Stephen Jenkins: Right?
31:38
Stephen Jenkins: But it takes ownership and empowerment to say, like, I have to see this
31:42
Stephen Jenkins: through.
31:42
Stephen Jenkins: I own this, and there was the results are fully in my control,
31:46
Stephen Jenkins: and I can't make excuses.
31:48
Stephen Jenkins: Right?
31:48
Stephen Jenkins: So you have to be a complete owner.
31:50
Stephen Jenkins: The other thing is we have to foster creativity and collaboration throughout the organization.
31:54
Stephen Jenkins: Right?
31:54
Stephen Jenkins: You don't want people to get complacent, especially today.
31:57
Stephen Jenkins: Like in today's market, you have to be thinking about
32:01
Stephen Jenkins: how do I differentiate myself?
32:03
Stephen Jenkins: What are the headwinds against me?
32:05
Stephen Jenkins: And then how do I foster creativity and collaboration throughout the organization?
32:08
Stephen Jenkins: And and we've done a very good job of that.
32:11
Stephen Jenkins: And part of that is that, you know, innovation can come
32:15
Stephen Jenkins: not only in your mind, but in the minds of those below you.
32:19
Stephen Jenkins: And so if you can foster that environment and and create that, then all
32:23
Stephen Jenkins: of a sudden now there's a lot of minds working to find ways to
32:26
Stephen Jenkins: innovate.
32:27
Stephen Jenkins: It's your job, though, as the leader to decipher those things,
32:31
Stephen Jenkins: to foster that and then figure out which direction you go.
32:33
Stephen Jenkins: I think a lot of leaders can get very ambiguous of paralysis
32:38
Stephen Jenkins: by analysis and trying to make a decision.
32:40
Stephen Jenkins: And a great leader has to be confident in the decision they make.
32:44
Stephen Jenkins: I always say eventually you have to put your foot in the ground and
32:47
Stephen Jenkins: march forward and say, this is the direction we're going.
32:50
Stephen Jenkins: I've heard everything.
32:52
Stephen Jenkins: And that's a very difficult thing to do as a leader.
32:54
Stephen Jenkins: And I think those principles of really leading and driving
32:58
Stephen Jenkins: it forward and having this ability to have people follow you.
33:02
Stephen Jenkins: Right.
33:02
Stephen Jenkins: Because even on a battlefield, people will go
33:07
Stephen Jenkins: and and attack a hill and fight uphill if they believe in their leader
33:11
Stephen Jenkins: and they believe in the mission.
33:12
Stephen Jenkins: Same thing in the workplace.
33:13
Stephen Jenkins: I don't care if it's AI, robots or something that hasn't even been invented
33:17
Stephen Jenkins: yet.
33:18
Stephen Jenkins: The idea is that you're creating a plan.
33:20
Stephen Jenkins: You have to own that plan.
33:22
Stephen Jenkins: You have to foster the troops to get around you, and then you have
33:25
Stephen Jenkins: to be ready to march forward, and they have to be ready to follow
33:27
Stephen Jenkins: you.
33:27
Stephen Jenkins: And I think that doesn't change regardless of what's going on.
33:32
Lisa Nichols: Oh, that's so good.
33:33
Lisa Nichols: That's so good.
33:34
Lisa Nichols: Well, as you said, you know, analysis paralysis.
33:37
Lisa Nichols: But, you know, I was also thinking, I think one of the hardest
33:42
Lisa Nichols: things, or at least it has been for me, Stephen, is discernment.
33:46
Lisa Nichols: And discernment because there's a lot of shiny, bobbly things out there.
33:49
Lisa Nichols: Right?
33:50
Lisa Nichols: And not just jumping on the next thing because it's
33:54
Lisa Nichols: the next thing.
33:55
Lisa Nichols: Right?
33:56
Lisa Nichols: Gosh.
33:57
Lisa Nichols: It's just hard that discernment to know what is the right thing.
34:00
Lisa Nichols: But as the leader, you've got to make those decisions.
34:03
Lisa Nichols: And sometimes it's gotta be the right decision, and then, occasionally, you're gonna
34:07
Lisa Nichols: make the wrong decision.
34:09
Lisa Nichols: And owning that, right, and saying, oh, this was the direction.
34:12
Lisa Nichols: This was, you know, my bad.
34:14
Lisa Nichols: This is not the way that we need to do it.
34:16
Lisa Nichols: We need to pivot.
34:17
Lisa Nichols: So but you've already brought it up, AI.
34:20
Lisa Nichols: So I do I do wanna get your take on AI.
34:23
Lisa Nichols: What, how are you feeling, and is it impacting Vidiri?
34:26
Lisa Nichols: How is it impacting you guys?
34:29
Stephen Jenkins: It is greatly impacting us, in a positive way.
34:33
Stephen Jenkins: Right?
34:33
Stephen Jenkins: I think there there's definitely going to be, challenges of
34:37
Stephen Jenkins: how we're looking at things in the future and what that means.
34:41
Stephen Jenkins: But, look, we I think this goes into innovation and leader and and feeling
34:45
Stephen Jenkins: convicted about something.
34:46
Stephen Jenkins: I saw a big rapid change in AI probably about six months ago where
34:50
Stephen Jenkins: the development of the algorithms and everything just took a leapfrog
34:54
Stephen Jenkins: jump.
34:55
Stephen Jenkins: Right?
34:55
Stephen Jenkins: Like, things you couldn't do, all of a sudden, you could do.
34:58
Stephen Jenkins: Right?
34:58
Stephen Jenkins: I was I have zero coding experience, and I was writing apps.
35:02
Stephen Jenkins: And I was like, hold on.
35:03
Stephen Jenkins: There's there's something to this.
35:05
Stephen Jenkins: Right?
35:06
Stephen Jenkins: And so we had a a team that was kinda
35:10
Stephen Jenkins: very confident in the way that they have developed software, and they're very experienced
35:14
Stephen Jenkins: in that.
35:15
Stephen Jenkins: And this is what they did.
35:16
Stephen Jenkins: And they're like, oh, that AI stuff is not for me.
35:18
Stephen Jenkins: And that so as a leader, I said, look, we're gonna take one month,
35:21
Stephen Jenkins: and we're gonna work completely in AI.
35:23
Stephen Jenkins: We're gonna do AI development.
35:24
Stephen Jenkins: We're gonna use AI cloud.
35:26
Stephen Jenkins: Whatever it is, we're gonna use it.
35:28
Stephen Jenkins: And the worst thing that's gonna happen is we wasted a month.
35:31
Stephen Jenkins: But the best thing that could happen is it could unlock five x, ten
35:35
Stephen Jenkins: x growth in our ability to Mhmm.
35:37
Stephen Jenkins: To do things.
35:37
Stephen Jenkins: Because if if we don't, it's kinda like if you didn't get on the
35:41
Stephen Jenkins: Bitcoin bandwagon early, then all of a sudden, it's a hundred thousand, and you're
35:44
Stephen Jenkins: like, oh, I don't wanna buy one now.
35:46
Stephen Jenkins: But if you had a thousand, you would have bought one.
35:47
Stephen Jenkins: Wow.
35:48
Stephen Jenkins: You're you're sitting pretty good.
35:49
Stephen Jenkins: Right?
35:49
Stephen Jenkins: So so we did that, and all of a sudden, they come back and
35:52
Stephen Jenkins: they're like, we did a one week workshop and we finished everything in two
35:55
Stephen Jenkins: days.
35:55
Stephen Jenkins: And I was like, alright.
35:56
Stephen Jenkins: Well, let's do some incubator.
35:57
Stephen Jenkins: Like, let let's have fun with it.
35:59
Stephen Jenkins: Right?
35:59
Stephen Jenkins: Like, go try some things.
36:00
Stephen Jenkins: Yeah.
36:00
Stephen Jenkins: And we were doing, things that were quoted at six months to
36:04
Stephen Jenkins: to develop.
36:05
Stephen Jenkins: We were developing them in, like, four to six weeks with, like, two people.
36:08
Stephen Jenkins: And so what that means now is, like, okay, what does that do to
36:11
Stephen Jenkins: our business model?
36:12
Stephen Jenkins: So how now features become a commodity.
36:14
Stephen Jenkins: How do we then find new ways of offering value to our
36:18
Stephen Jenkins: clients in a way of which you can rapidly prototype anything tomorrow?
36:22
Stephen Jenkins: And that's just what you could do today.
36:23
Stephen Jenkins: And so, it is greatly impacting us in a very positive
36:27
Stephen Jenkins: way.
36:28
Stephen Jenkins: We're thinking outside the box now on on how we develop, what we develop
36:32
Stephen Jenkins: and what that looks like in the future because there's gonna be a lot
36:36
Stephen Jenkins: of people who are gonna sit complacent.
36:38
Stephen Jenkins: And then a year from now, it's gonna be very difficult to catch up.
36:42
Stephen Jenkins: Right?
36:42
Stephen Jenkins: And I think there's gonna be a big consolidation that's gonna happen, in
36:46
Stephen Jenkins: in this world.
36:47
Stephen Jenkins: And so, you know, we gotta we gotta take mine for that.
36:50
Stephen Jenkins: But at the end of the day, there's certain things AI just still cannot
36:53
Stephen Jenkins: do.
36:54
Stephen Jenkins: And so we're trying to make sure that we're disciplined in those things and
36:57
Stephen Jenkins: that we don't just trust everything that it says.
37:01
Stephen Jenkins: I tell my team that, like, you need to think with your own mind.
37:04
Stephen Jenkins: Right?
37:04
Stephen Jenkins: Like, use AI to help you reason, but AI isn't truth.
37:08
Stephen Jenkins: You still hold truth.
37:09
Lisa Nichols: Right.
37:09
Stephen Jenkins: So make sure that you can you know, just because it spits out something
37:13
Stephen Jenkins: and says, oh, this is the financial model and you need to do this,
37:16
Stephen Jenkins: that doesn't it can hallucinate.
37:18
Stephen Jenkins: It can get things wrong.
37:19
Stephen Jenkins: And so it can help you, but it is not truth.
37:22
Stephen Jenkins: You have to be truth.
37:24
Stephen Jenkins: And then the last thing we're doing is that we've given it to a
37:28
Stephen Jenkins: lot of people to, like, develop their own stuff, and that's been great in
37:31
Stephen Jenkins: a lot a lot of stuff.
37:32
Stephen Jenkins: But I had to remind people that it can become addictive.
37:36
Stephen Jenkins: Right?
37:36
Stephen Jenkins: Because you keep chasing this.
37:37
Stephen Jenkins: I can do so much.
37:38
Stephen Jenkins: I can create this new workflow.
37:40
Stephen Jenkins: I could you still gotta get work done.
37:43
Stephen Jenkins: Right?
37:43
Stephen Jenkins: And so, like like, let's let's foster creativity, but you can't get
37:47
Stephen Jenkins: hung up in creating a lot of ways to do things without actually doing
37:51
Stephen Jenkins: things.
37:51
Stephen Jenkins: Right?
37:52
Stephen Jenkins: And so we're we're making sure that we balance those things.
37:55
Lisa Nichols: Well, let me ask you this because I I've written a little bit on
37:59
Lisa Nichols: this and have talked a little bit.
38:01
Lisa Nichols: What are the human
38:03
Lisa Nichols: leadership qualities that you think are gonna be even more important
38:07
Lisa Nichols: in this age of AI, Stephen?
38:10
Lisa Nichols: Because, I mean, those are kind of the things I don't think AI
38:14
Lisa Nichols: will personally, I don't think they'll ever replace is things like
38:18
Lisa Nichols: empathy.
38:19
Lisa Nichols: And so what do you what do you believe are those human leadership qualities
38:23
Lisa Nichols: that are gonna be even more important?
38:25
Stephen Jenkins: Well, you said emotion.
38:26
Stephen Jenkins: Right?
38:27
Stephen Jenkins: So empathy is an emotion.
38:28
Stephen Jenkins: And not that you let emotions steer your judgment at
38:32
Stephen Jenkins: times, but emotions are part of what makes a human a human.
38:35
Stephen Jenkins: Right?
38:35
Stephen Jenkins: I can love.
38:36
Stephen Jenkins: Right?
38:38
Stephen Jenkins: I can feel a certain way?
38:39
Stephen Jenkins: I can and from a from a product perspective, I mean, people
38:44
Stephen Jenkins: buy own emotion a lot of times.
38:46
Stephen Jenkins: Right?
38:46
Stephen Jenkins: And, like, people work harder based on emotion, and so morale
38:51
Stephen Jenkins: in organization is driven by emotion.
38:52
Stephen Jenkins: So I think human leadership of both interpreting emotion, but also
38:57
Stephen Jenkins: leveraging emotion with empathy and other things is very important
39:01
Stephen Jenkins: because if it's just black and white, then then you lose a lot.
39:04
Stephen Jenkins: Right?
39:04
Stephen Jenkins: There's a lot in the gray.
39:06
Stephen Jenkins: I think that is one thing that has to be there.
39:09
Stephen Jenkins: The other thing is that,
39:12
Stephen Jenkins: is I think it's easier to explain than it is to, like, put into,
39:15
Stephen Jenkins: like, a one word of a of a thing.
39:17
Stephen Jenkins: But so let's say that you have
39:21
Stephen Jenkins: AI and you're pointing it at at data.
39:24
Stephen Jenkins: Right?
39:25
Stephen Jenkins: Well, it looks at the data and just understands the numbers,
39:30
Stephen Jenkins: the spreadsheets, whatever it is, and it interprets that,
39:34
Stephen Jenkins: and it can do a good job of that.
39:35
Stephen Jenkins: What it can't see is all the outside variables outside
39:40
Stephen Jenkins: of that.
39:40
Stephen Jenkins: Right?
39:41
Stephen Jenkins: And so good leaders don't just look at a point
39:45
Stephen Jenkins: of data.
39:45
Stephen Jenkins: They have to understand all the variables that exist in and around that
39:49
Stephen Jenkins: data set.
39:50
Stephen Jenkins: Right.
39:50
Stephen Jenkins: That could influence that data set.
39:52
Stephen Jenkins: And those are things that I don't believe unless
39:57
Stephen Jenkins: you could find a way to input all those variables into the
40:01
Stephen Jenkins: air that it's ever going to understand completely.
40:03
Stephen Jenkins: Right.
40:04
Stephen Jenkins: And so as a leader, you have to it's a tool.
40:06
Stephen Jenkins: It's nothing more than a tool.
40:07
Stephen Jenkins: It's not a replacement.
40:08
Stephen Jenkins: And so how how do you take this tool and place it into
40:12
Stephen Jenkins: your organization?
40:14
Stephen Jenkins: And then you gotta figure out how how you leverage it.
40:16
Stephen Jenkins: Right?
40:17
Stephen Jenkins: Because it can do a lot, but it can also not do a lot
40:19
Stephen Jenkins: well.
40:20
Stephen Jenkins: And so the biggest challenge, I think, for a lot of leaders is figuring
40:23
Stephen Jenkins: out how do I incorporate and integrate AI
40:28
Stephen Jenkins: successfully into my organization over the next twelve to twenty four
40:32
Stephen Jenkins: months?
40:32
Stephen Jenkins: Because it's not if you're gonna use it because you're using it in your
40:35
Stephen Jenkins: personal life.
40:36
Stephen Jenkins: It's how you're gonna use it, and does it actually create value in the
40:39
Stephen Jenkins: organization.
40:40
Stephen Jenkins: So
40:40
Lisa Nichols: That's good.
40:41
Lisa Nichols: That is good.
40:43
Lisa Nichols: Well,
40:44
Lisa Nichols: you know, what do you think you know, let let's talk about your book
40:48
Lisa Nichols: because I know that we're running,
40:51
Lisa Nichols: we're running short on time here, and I wanna I wanna get into your
40:54
Lisa Nichols: book a little bit.
40:55
Lisa Nichols: But your book addresses anxiety, depression, suffering, finances
41:00
Lisa Nichols: loss.
41:01
Lisa Nichols: Why is it important, to include those topics,
41:05
Lisa Nichols: Stephen, and not just all the success stories?
41:09
Stephen Jenkins: So as I said earlier, I, you know, it might sound weird
41:13
Stephen Jenkins: to say,
41:15
Stephen Jenkins: but a lot of times I thank God for the those hard times
41:19
Stephen Jenkins: in my life.
41:20
Stephen Jenkins: Because when things are going bad, that's when
41:24
Stephen Jenkins: you need a savior.
41:25
Stephen Jenkins: Right?
41:25
Stephen Jenkins: And, like, that's when you need something.
41:27
Stephen Jenkins: And so I couldn't tell you how to be a
41:31
Stephen Jenkins: better husband if I didn't first experience being a bad husband.
41:34
Stephen Jenkins: Right.
41:34
Stephen Jenkins: Because I learned from my mistakes.
41:36
Stephen Jenkins: It took me getting to a point of saying, this is broken.
41:40
Stephen Jenkins: I need to fix it, to look to God, to figure out how to
41:42
Stephen Jenkins: fix it.
41:43
Stephen Jenkins: And I can tell you with utmost confidence today that my marriage
41:47
Stephen Jenkins: is better than it ever was even during the honeymoon period because we took
41:50
Stephen Jenkins: a biblical approach to it.
41:52
Stephen Jenkins: I myself struggle with anxiety, which I think a lot of people
41:56
Stephen Jenkins: do.
41:57
Stephen Jenkins: And, you know, it's something that plagued me for many years of my life.
42:00
Stephen Jenkins: And I still have moments of anxiousness.
42:02
Stephen Jenkins: Who doesn't?
42:03
Stephen Jenkins: Right.
42:04
Stephen Jenkins: But when I understood that
42:07
Stephen Jenkins: there's a biblical approach of how to deal with that and like even Jesus
42:11
Stephen Jenkins: says, don't worry about tomorrow, for today has its own problems.
42:14
Stephen Jenkins: Right?
42:14
Stephen Jenkins: When you're constantly trying to figure out and manipulate and I'm a control
42:19
Stephen Jenkins: person of, like, I like certainty and things.
42:21
Stephen Jenkins: Right?
42:21
Lisa Nichols: Sure.
42:21
Stephen Jenkins: When you're always trying to play out all the variables in your head and
42:24
Stephen Jenkins: control these things, that's what sends you down this rabbit hole of anxiety.
42:29
Stephen Jenkins: But if you can if you know that you have a God and a
42:32
Stephen Jenkins: Lord and savior that you can say, hey.
42:35
Stephen Jenkins: Yes or no.
42:36
Stephen Jenkins: Up or down.
42:38
Stephen Jenkins: Whatever the option is, I fully give this to you, and I trust you
42:41
Stephen Jenkins: for the outcome.
42:42
Stephen Jenkins: Even if it's the one that I didn't desire, I know that in the
42:46
Stephen Jenkins: end, it's going to be okay and you can relinquish that.
42:49
Stephen Jenkins: All of a sudden now you walk in a different light, right?
42:53
Stephen Jenkins: It doesn't change your circumstances immediately.
42:55
Stephen Jenkins: And it doesn't say that I'm going to pull you out of that situation.
42:57
Stephen Jenkins: But if you know you've got somebody walking through there with you, it gives
43:01
Stephen Jenkins: you a peace that without it you don't have.
43:03
Stephen Jenkins: Right.
43:04
Stephen Jenkins: And so, look, I went from not being able to stay away from home,
43:09
Stephen Jenkins: to traveling all over the world by myself.
43:11
Stephen Jenkins: And I did that through my belief system, through also
43:15
Stephen Jenkins: and, look, it's a balance.
43:16
Stephen Jenkins: Right?
43:16
Stephen Jenkins: Like you and I talk about that.
43:18
Stephen Jenkins: You gotta deal with all aspects of it.
43:19
Stephen Jenkins: But I think the challenges in life is where you
43:23
Stephen Jenkins: find yourself and where you find God and where you need him the most.
43:27
Stephen Jenkins: And so I thought it was important to write about the hard things in
43:30
Stephen Jenkins: life.
43:31
Stephen Jenkins: Yeah.
43:31
Stephen Jenkins: Finances, challenges in marriage, anxiety, depression, sickness.
43:35
Stephen Jenkins: Like, why do people get sick and why do some people get healed and
43:38
Stephen Jenkins: some people don't?
43:38
Stephen Jenkins: Like, those are real questions that I think it shouldn't be shot away from.
43:41
Stephen Jenkins: And those are the questions that I think people really want the answer to
43:44
Stephen Jenkins: at times.
43:45
Lisa Nichols: Yeah.
43:45
Lisa Nichols: Well, I'm grateful that you addressed those things.
43:48
Lisa Nichols: I really am because, yeah, life is not all
43:52
Lisa Nichols: rainbows and unicorns.
43:55
Lisa Nichols: So we all have difficult things.
43:57
Lisa Nichols: And so being honest and candid and having a candid
44:01
Lisa Nichols: conversation about those things, I think, Stephen, helps everybody, really.
44:05
Lisa Nichols: And it also helps people know, hey.
44:08
Lisa Nichols: Are you kidding me?
44:09
Lisa Nichols: That he has struggled with anxiety?
44:11
Lisa Nichols: No way.
44:12
Lisa Nichols: You know?
44:12
Lisa Nichols: It it makes them feel like, okay.
44:15
Lisa Nichols: I'm going to be okay and I'm not alone here.
44:18
Lisa Nichols: Right.
44:19
Lisa Nichols: I think that's the other thing that it does for people.
44:22
Stephen Jenkins: Absolutely.
44:22
Stephen Jenkins: And and to add to that is that I didn't want to write a
44:26
Stephen Jenkins: book that said this is what you should do.
44:30
Stephen Jenkins: I basically wrote a book that said, this is my story.
44:34
Stephen Jenkins: You can believe it or not, but I'm telling you the truth.
44:36
Stephen Jenkins: This was my situation.
44:38
Stephen Jenkins: This is what I learned.
44:39
Stephen Jenkins: This is how I dealt with it.
44:40
Stephen Jenkins: This was the results.
44:41
Stephen Jenkins: And I'm talking to you purely from examples of of things that happened in
44:45
Stephen Jenkins: my life.
44:45
Stephen Jenkins: And so everything that I wrote on is things is like, look.
44:48
Stephen Jenkins: This is me.
44:50
Stephen Jenkins: Take it or leave it.
44:51
Stephen Jenkins: Right?
44:51
Stephen Jenkins: But I'm giving you the advice of what I learned and what I experienced
44:55
Stephen Jenkins: and the peace that I was able to get and what I would like
44:58
Stephen Jenkins: to offer you as well.
45:00
Stephen Jenkins: And and that's why I wrote it.
45:02
Stephen Jenkins: Right?
45:02
Stephen Jenkins: Because it's personal experiences.
45:05
Lisa Nichols: So good.
45:06
Lisa Nichols: So good.
45:07
Lisa Nichols: Well, I am not going to get through all my questions.
45:10
Lisa Nichols: I've got one more question, then I wanna talk about something extra.
45:14
Lisa Nichols: Stephen, if somebody's listening today and they are hearing your
45:18
Lisa Nichols: it's your testimony of how god has showed up in your life and how
45:22
Lisa Nichols: he's changed your life and how he's transformed every aspect of your life
45:26
Lisa Nichols: and how you rely on him.
45:27
Lisa Nichols: But somebody's listening, and they are feeling like, you know,
45:31
Lisa Nichols: I've just made way too many mistakes in my life.
45:34
Lisa Nichols: You know, there's no way that God's gonna be able to use me.
45:38
Lisa Nichols: What would you say to that person?
45:41
Stephen Jenkins: I would say, first off, that would be the enemy lying to you.
45:44
Stephen Jenkins: The easiest thing to lie to you is to say you're too far gone.
45:46
Stephen Jenkins: Right?
45:47
Stephen Jenkins: Jesus didn't come.
45:48
Stephen Jenkins: He even said it.
45:49
Stephen Jenkins: Right?
45:49
Stephen Jenkins: He did not come for those that were high and mighty.
45:52
Stephen Jenkins: Those that on the outside appeared to be of the religious elite.
45:57
Stephen Jenkins: He came for the brokenhearted.
45:58
Stephen Jenkins: He came for the lost.
45:59
Stephen Jenkins: He came for the sinners, for the prostitute, for those those that need a
46:02
Stephen Jenkins: saving.
46:03
Stephen Jenkins: You know, a well person doesn't need a doctor.
46:05
Stephen Jenkins: A sick person does.
46:06
Stephen Jenkins: Right.
46:06
Stephen Jenkins: And that's what he said.
46:08
Stephen Jenkins: I think it's a lot that you would tell yourself or the enemy would
46:11
Stephen Jenkins: tell you that you're you're too far gone.
46:14
Stephen Jenkins: In reality is if you look at even the disciples,
46:19
Stephen Jenkins: I describe them as a bunch of knuckleheads.
46:20
Stephen Jenkins: Like, they were right there with Jesus the whole time.
46:24
Stephen Jenkins: And and you you follow their story, and you're like, Peter's a hothead.
46:28
Stephen Jenkins: And if there's a if there's air to be sucked up in a room,
46:30
Stephen Jenkins: he's gonna talk.
46:31
Stephen Jenkins: Right?
46:31
Stephen Jenkins: He's got something to say.
46:33
Stephen Jenkins: And and even at the end, after being there for three years, said, you're
46:37
Stephen Jenkins: going to deny me.
46:38
Stephen Jenkins: And Peter said, No, I'm not.
46:39
Stephen Jenkins: And like within an hour, denying me.
46:41
Stephen Jenkins: Right.
46:41
Stephen Jenkins: And like, they're all running scared.
46:44
Stephen Jenkins: Paul was the one that was literally beating, and he was
46:48
Stephen Jenkins: right there when Stephen got stoned and was on his way to Damascus to
46:52
Stephen Jenkins: throw more Christians in jail and to persecute Christians and to have them killed
46:56
Stephen Jenkins: and have them flogged and beaten .
47:00
Stephen Jenkins: A counter with Jesus changed his entire trajectory and the same zealousness
47:04
Stephen Jenkins: that he was using to persecute, God used to be the
47:08
Stephen Jenkins: greatest disciple, apostle to ever walk the face of the earth, wrote two
47:12
Stephen Jenkins: thirds of the New Testament.
47:14
Stephen Jenkins: And I don't know about you, but I haven't killed a lot of Christians
47:17
Stephen Jenkins: lately.
47:17
Stephen Jenkins: And so, you know, it's it's pretty tough to say that you're worse off
47:21
Stephen Jenkins: than he was.
47:23
Stephen Jenkins: And he was redeemable and not just redeemable, redeemable in a mighty way.
47:27
Stephen Jenkins: Right.
47:27
Stephen Jenkins: And I think that's why God chose those people versus kings and
47:32
Stephen Jenkins: perfect people and religious elite.
47:33
Stephen Jenkins: Like, these were normal, ordinary people who were making real
47:37
Stephen Jenkins: mistakes before and after they encountered
47:41
Stephen Jenkins: Jesus.
47:42
Stephen Jenkins: Right?
47:42
Stephen Jenkins: Right.
47:43
Stephen Jenkins: And so Right.
47:44
Stephen Jenkins: That's what I look at.
47:46
Lisa Nichols: Yeah.
47:46
Lisa Nichols: It's so good.
47:47
Lisa Nichols: So good.
47:48
Lisa Nichols: Well, this is called something extra, Stephen, and I ask
47:52
Lisa Nichols: every guest this question.
47:53
Lisa Nichols: What do you believe is this something extra that every leader needs?
47:59
Stephen Jenkins: I believe that every leader needs a relationship
48:04
Stephen Jenkins: with their father in heaven through Jesus Christ so that when they're
48:08
Stephen Jenkins: having certainty, doubt, and worry about
48:12
Stephen Jenkins: the market, about employees, about decisions,
48:16
Stephen Jenkins: about AI, about all these things, or am I in the right place?
48:21
Stephen Jenkins: Am I in the right job with the right company?
48:24
Stephen Jenkins: That they can sit down, have some quiet time,
48:28
Stephen Jenkins: pray to the Father, and say, Look,
48:30
Stephen Jenkins: I don't have a clue and I need some guidance here.
48:34
Stephen Jenkins: And that right there alone is how I was
48:38
Stephen Jenkins: able to go from an engineer to a leader of sales to a leader
48:42
Stephen Jenkins: of operations to, you know, managing a global
48:46
Stephen Jenkins: services organization to being a president of a company with
48:50
Stephen Jenkins: my resume, my education, nothing
48:54
Stephen Jenkins: on paper said that I should be able to do it.
48:57
Stephen Jenkins: But I walked one foot in front of the other, and here I am,
49:01
Stephen Jenkins: and he's never let me down.
49:02
Stephen Jenkins: Right?
49:03
Stephen Jenkins: And it's always worked out.
49:04
Stephen Jenkins: And so I think that's just something extra that if everybody had, we'd
49:08
Stephen Jenkins: be a lot better off in their role.
49:11
Lisa Nichols: Oh, that's so good.
49:12
Lisa Nichols: Well, Stephen, this has been so good.
49:15
Lisa Nichols: Thank you so much.
49:16
Lisa Nichols: I know that your wisdom, your insight, your experience,
49:21
Lisa Nichols: all the things that we've talked about, family, faith, business,
49:25
Lisa Nichols: all of those things are gonna help our listeners on their own journey.
49:29
Lisa Nichols: And so I just appreciate you telling, you know, and sharing your story
49:33
Lisa Nichols: with us today.
49:34
Stephen Jenkins: Look.
49:35
Stephen Jenkins: I just appreciate you having me on here.
49:37
Stephen Jenkins: It's been great speaking to you today.
49:39
Stephen Jenkins: I've enjoyed the time, and I think you have a Something Extra podcast for
49:43
Stephen Jenkins: sure.
49:44
Stephen Jenkins: And it's, it's really enjoyable for you and the the whole team.
49:47
Stephen Jenkins: So thank you so much for having me here.
49:49
Lisa Nichols: Thank you so much.
49:50
Lisa Nichols: Have a great rest of the day.
49:51
Stephen Jenkins: You too.
49:52
Announcer: Something extra with Lisa Nichols is a Technology Partners production.
49:55
Announcer: Copyright Technology Partners Inc, twenty nineteen.
49:59
Announcer: To learn more about this week's guest, check out the show notes at tpi
50:02
Announcer: dot co slash podcast.
50:05
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50:08
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