Next Peak Podcast

In today's episode, Clint Herndon and Dr. Parker Houston discuss finding value in suffering, which is a tough topic, depending on the type of suffering you've been through. I want to acknowledge they're all different kinds.

Dr. Victor Frankl, author of a Man's Seach for Meaning, said, "What is to give light must endure burning." - Dr. Victor Frankl

As a leader, how you respond to suffering is essential. Learning how you help your team navigate suffering or tough seasons and how you help team members walk through devastating times in their life is a crucial part of leadership.

Action Steps:
(1) Do not be in denial.
(2) Make sure to look for possible meaning in what you're going through.
(3) Is life or God, if you're a person of faith, asking you to change something about yourself? Because in general, people often don't change without pain.
(4) Spend time around suffering.
(5) Fasting is a way to intentionally induce a small amount of suffering, whether you restrict food, social media, any screens. This can help you see how your body, mind, and spirit react to suffering and remind you that there are people who might be suffering more than you currently are.

If this episode resonated with you today, please subscribe, share it with a friend and leave us a review. You can find us on Next Peak Podcast. If you want to connect with Dr. Parker Houston, you can find him at LeadYouFirst. Sign up for his weekly blog to receive some research-based tools that will help you transform your work and your life.

Until next week, keep climbing your next peak.

This week, we had the pleasure of Ken Coleman to join us to discuss his latest book, From Paycheck to Purpose, which has just been released.

Ken Coleman is the #1 nationally bestselling author of The Proximity Principle and nationally syndicated host of The Ken Coleman Show. Pulling from his own personal struggles, missed opportunities, and career successes, Ken helps people discover what they were born to do and provides practical steps to make their dream job a reality. The Ken Coleman Show is a caller-driven career show that helps listeners who are stuck in a job they hate or searching for something more out of their career.

Ken will take you through the seven stages from paycheck to purchase.

(1) Get Clear
(2) Get Qualified
(3) Get Connected
(4) Get Started
(5) Get Promoted
(6) Get The Dream Job
(7) Give Yourself Away

Now you're no longer working for income. It's about impact.

Where can people start? There are three indicators that every human being comes into this world with they're inside of us.

(1) Talent
(2)Passion
(3) Mission

When we get the answers in those three buckets, we have everything we need to write a purpose statement and a purpose statement sounds like this.

I was created to use what I do ______________________. To do work that I love _______________________. To produce results that matter deeply to me _______________________.

When someone knows those three things and can write a purpose statement, now that purpose statement becomes a compass. Which points them in the direction they're supposed to go, and out there in that direction are multiple jobs, career paths, and even dream jobs that will allow you to live and work on purpose.

"When you're clear, you are confident. And when you are confident, you can be courageous to finish the journey." - Ken Coleman

Top 3 Books Recommended by Ken:

(1) Dig Your Well Before You're Thirsty by Harvey Mackay
(2) Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power by Jon Meacham
(3) The Inklings by C.S. Lewis

Get in touch with Ken Coleman - https://www.ramseysolutions.com/ken-coleman

If this episode resonated with you today, please subscribe, share it with a friend and leave us a review. You can find us on www.nextpeakpodcast.com. If you want to connect with Dr. Parker Houston, you can find him at www.leadyoufirst.com. Sign up for his weekly blog to receive some research-based tools that will help you transform your work and your life.

Until next week, keep climbing your next peak.

In today's episode, Clint Herndon and Dr. Parker Houston talk about how to become a true expert. In fact, you can learn quickly and become an expert sometimes rather quickly if your mindset is in the right place and if you have the right kind of posture, psychological posture towards whatever you're trying to learn or grow in.

Socrates said, "I neither know nor think that I know."

Dr. Houston discusses the Dunning Kruger Effect which says "Unskilled and unaware of it. How difficulties in recognizing one's own incompetence lead to inflated self-assessment."

1. Incorrect self-assessment of competence derives from the person's ignorance of a given activity's standard of performance. One of our action steps is to know the standards of any particular area that you're in.
2. Without the self-awareness of metacognition [It's just higher thinking, like being able to watch your own mental process], people cannot objectively evaluate their own level of competence.

Self-Awareness is a vital part of being a great leader. It's a top skill. You can't get better at something unless you're very highly self-aware and you can see where you need to improve.

Action Steps:

1. Radically accept your brain's desire for certainty and routine. 
2. Ask for feedback. Overcome your ego. 
3. Find out about the current best practices in your field.
4. Talk to people who don't share the same views.
5. Stay open & stay curious.
6. Consider looking for these kinds of open and curious learners when hiring. 

If this episode resonated with you today, please subscribe, share it with a friend and leave us a review. You can find us on Next Peak Podcast. If you want to connect with Dr. Parker Houston, you can find him at LeadYouFirst. Sign up for his weekly blog to receive some research-based tools that will help you transform your work and your life.

Until next week, keep climbing your next peak.

On this week's podcast, we had the pleasure of speaking with Darrin Gray. Darrin serves professional athletes, coaches & alumni, and business leaders who support the worldwide sports ministry with Godly Leadership. The platform of sports leadership training provides pathways into boardrooms, classrooms, and sports locker rooms worldwide.

He currently serves on the executive leadership team of Athletes in Action, Lions Lead, and Center for Serving Leadership at the Sagamore Institute ~ an action-oriented Think Tank.

As Darrin says, "My ministry moves at the speed of relationship. And so those relationships are what I believe, define who I am."

Clint and Darrin will discuss:

1. How he transitioned from a sports journalist to a sports minister and leadership teacher.   
2. How his relationship came about with Tony Dungy and what impact it had on his life.
3. How do the NFL and other sport support their players with mentoring and character development as they enter their careers? 
4. Why anyone, athlete or layperson must find a great mentor, or how do they become one?
5. Darrin also shares his favorite story of a pro athlete and how he has seen him grow and overcome challenges to become a solid, inspiring man.

Darrin's calling was in the ministry of availability. Being present for other men so that they can ultimately get a clearer vision of who they are, what their purpose is, and how they can accomplish their goals. As Darrin stated, "The relationships, the people you surround yourself with will more often than not, determine your outcomes in life, and you tend to reflect the communities you're connected to. 

Top 3 Books Recommended by Darrin:

1. Celebration of Discipline
2. Catcher In The Rye
3. The Bible

Chuck Noll once said, "Champions are champions not because they do anything extraordinary but because they do the ordinary things better than anyone else."

If this episode resonated with you today, please subscribe, share it with a friend and leave us a review. You can find us online at Next Peak Podcast. If you want to connect with Dr. Parker Houston, you can find him online at Lead You First. Sign up for his weekly blog to receive some research-based tools that will help you transform your work and your life.

Until next week, keep climbing your next peak.

When you're happy at work, you can feel more motivated and productive. It's important to be happy with your job. On this week's episode, Clint and Parker discuss "10 Tips to Finding a Job You Love."

(1) Once your income is good enough, don't keep using it as the only standard for taking jobs. Just because you increase your income doesn't mean that it will also increase your happiness. Cal Newport, a computer science professor at Georgetown University who is also a New York Times bestselling author of seven books, including "So Good They Can't Ignore You," stated, "Sometimes you have to turn down promotions to maintain control." That has been some of the most useful advice.

(2) Find out about potential bosses before you take a job. Leadership expert John Maxwell says you have two choices if you are already working for a difficult boss—find a way to support them—or leave.

(3) Meet your future team before taking a job. Jim Rohn also famously said— "You are the average of the top five people you spend the most time with." And we spend an awful lot of time with our coworkers.

(4) Find ways to apply your life purpose and values to your work. You may only need to change your perspective and not necessarily change your job. Dr. Wayne Dyer said, "If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change."

(5) Know your strengths and how you can apply them. According to Dr. Tom Stanley, who spent his life researching millionaires, you are also much more likely to increase your income when you do something you love. People who love what they do will naturally persist longer and harder than those who hate what they do.

(6) Maybe you need to change your mindset instead of changing jobs. Yale psychologist, Amy Wrzesniewski, found that people view their work as a job, a career, or a calling. And this can have a huge influence on how you feel about your work.

(7) Does the job take you where you want to go in the long run? Sometimes you have to take a step back to move forward. Look ahead to what you want your life to look like in 10, 15, 20 years.

(8) Ask your boss to change part of the job to match your interests. This is a common organizational term called job crafting.

(9) Stop looking for the perfect job. Everything has its trade-offs. You're always going to have pros and cons. So maybe you need to look for an 80% good enough job and stick with that and not keep searching.

(10) Don't be a victim, be the author of your life. It can be easy to blame your boss or organization, but the fact is, you are making a choice to be where you are.

To learn more about this topic, check out Dr. Parker Houston's blog on "Happy at Work - 10 Tips For Finding a Job You Love."

If this episode resonated with you today, please subscribe, share it with a friend and leave us a review. You can find us on Next Peak Podcast. If you want to connect with Dr. Parker Houston, you can find him at LeadYouFirst. Sign up for his weekly blog to receive some research-based tools that will help you transform your work and your life.

Until next week, keep climbing your next peak.