Please enjoy this transcript of this episode with Clay Scroggins. It was transcribed and therefore might contain a few typos.
Clay Scroggins: 00:00 Just tried to drive into work without the radio on. Try getting on the subway without popping in the AirPods. Try when you get home from work, um, try putting your phone in a drawer. Try going to dinner with friends without taking your phone and maybe you’re thinking, well, how would I take a picture of my food? Which is a legitimate question, but just maybe soak up the memory, maybe soak up the moment.
Doug Smith: 00:25 This is the L3 Leadership podcast, episode number 232.
Doug Smith: 00:42 Hey everyone and welcome to another episode of the L3 Leadership podcast where we’re obsessed with helping you grow to your maximum potential and to maximize the impact of your leadership. My name is Doug Smith and I am your host and in today’s episode, you’ll hear my interview with Clay Scroggins. If you’re unfamiliar with Clay, let me just give you a little bit of background about who he is. He is the lead pastor of Buckhead Church in Atlanta, Georgia, a church of over 9,000 people. And he provides visionary and directional leadership for all of the local church staff and congregation and Atlanta. And what I love about Clay, he’s been on the podcast before and in fact, if you want to go back and listen to our initial interview, you can do that in episode number 187 of the podcast. But Clay’s story is phenomenal. He actually started as the facility’s intern at the church and obviously worked his way up and now he has a huge leadership role at the church and he actually shared a lot of this journey and the lessons that he learned in his first book, which was called How to Lead When You’re Not in Charge.
Doug Smith: 01:38 And we talk a lot about this book in the interview that I mentioned and I’m so if you enjoy this interview with Clay, I encourage you to go back and listen. And if you haven’t gotten the book yet, I highly recommend it. It made a big impact on my wife and I. So again, the book is called How to Lead When You’re Not in Charge. And as of the recording of this podcast episode, Clay just released this brand new book called How to Lead in a World of Distraction, which is the entire focus of this interview. And if our world and of leaders have ever needed a message in today’s world, this is it. How do you lead in a world with so many distractions? I know I need this book. I need the content, I need Clay’s tips. I was funny. The day I interviewed Clay for this was the day his book released and actually had a friend prior to the interview, didn’t even know I was interviewing Clay a messaged me a photo of the book and said, you need this.
Doug Smith: 02:24 And I think she was trying to tell me something. And so, I was so grateful to be able to spend this time with clay and learn from him how I can be, how I can lead in a world of distraction. And I just know this is going to add value to you. So, after you listen to the podcast episode, make sure you pick up a copy of the book. I also didn’t mention, do you know the clay and you’ll hear him talk about this, Clay has five kids. So if anyone’s learned something about leading in a world of distractions, it’s him. I know I was anxious to learn from him, so Hey, get ready for the interview. But before we dive in, just one announcement for you. I want to let you know that we have an official date for our second annual L3 One-Day Leadership Conference.
Doug Smith: 02:59 It’s going to be on Friday, March 13th, 2020 right here in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. And we are so excited. We listened to everyone’s feedback from the first conference and are absolutely committed to making this year’s conference 10 times better than the first one. And so look for details. Soon we’ll be releasing our entire speakers list and all the content and registration information soon. You can learn more at L3OneDay.com. Again, that’s L3OneDay.com. Leaders save the date Friday, March 13th. Get it on your calendar. Plan on bringing your team and I hope to see you there. L3 One-Day, 2020, can’t wait. With that being said, let’s dive right into the interview with clay and I will be back at the end with a few announcements. Well, Clay, thank you so much for jumping back on the podcast again and you have a brand new book out How to Lead in a World of Distraction. And can you just give us a brief life update since the last time you were on the podcast. What is your life look like now in your leadership? I knew you have a new role, can you share that with the audience?
Clay Scroggins: 03:53 Yeah, sure. First of all, Doug, thanks for doing this. Thanks for having me back on. I feel like if the first one was a date and this is definitely a second step in our relationship, so we’re really, really going somewhere now. Yeah, I am a pastor in Atlanta at North Point. I guess our umbrella organization organizations called North Point Ministries, but we have seven, I guess depending on how you count it, maybe six churches in the Atlanta area. And I lead our, I was, I was at North Point for the last four-plus years, which is in Alpharetta. It was our first campus, our original location. And I’ve moved to a, what’s called a Buckhead Church, which is kind of in the heart of the city of Atlanta, but it’s in kind of the business entertainment district of Atlanta. So it’s definitely a, different crowd, same job, different location basically. But it’s been good. And in the middle of all that we decided as a family, we were gonna move and said, we are now live, just a lot closer to downtown Atlanta. So big changes.
Doug Smith: 05:09 Yeah. And tell me about the book. So How to Lead in a World of Distraction. I mean, if anyone could write this, I mean, it’s curious that the time you’re running a new position, you moved, you have a ton of responsibility. You have five kids, is that correct?
Clay Scoggins: Correct.
Doug Smith: So why did you write this book and why, why now?
Clay Scroggins: 05:26 Well, I don’t know. Yeah, I don’t know if it was, I started writing about it and then I started noticing how distracted that I was or how many distractions I had in life or if I just bumped into some unique challenges. That just happened along the way. I don’t know, but it definitely, this book became it was already relevant for me, but it became even more relevant to your point over the last, I would say over the last year for sure. Yeah, the way that thing happened is you know, obviously living in the world that we live in, there are just so many more distractions today than they’ve ever been before. We are living in a very, distracted world. There’s a plethora of them and obviously, you know, technology is a big part of that, that there’s, you know, we can, you know, we can spend as much time on social media as we like.
Clay Scroggins: 06:24 Instead of just watching one show, you can now binge on an entire season. You know, online shopping can provide as much or as little of a time warp as you want it to be. But worse than any of that, what I’ve found is that the problem with distraction is what we’re missing on the other side of them. There was a day where people just went into a doctor’s office and just sat down and looked around and maybe read a magazine or maybe had a conversation with somebody around you. And now, everybody’s, you know, we’re all walking around with our noses and our phones and I’m just so distracted by what’s around us that it’s affected our lives in ways that I don’t even think anyone of us could realize. Obviously there’s the challenge of, you know, driving with distractions is one illustration.
Clay Scroggins: 07:23 But it goes so much deeper than that. But this book is not really about, hey, be careful with social media or watch out for technology. The book is really about what is on the other side of distraction that we’re not, that we’re missing. And what’s on the other side is discovery. That there is this opportunity to discover something that we, I dunno, maybe 10, 20, 50, a hundred years ago would have just dealt with, whatever the emotions are that we were dealing with, we would have just dealt with them. But now we just so easily distract ourselves from dealing with those. So it’s really a book about dealing with our emotional baggage so that we can become better leaders and our distractions are the greatest thing that are in our way.
Doug Smith: 08:10 Yeah. And in the book you, you talk about not only is this an issue in our society, it’s also costing us something. And as leaders it probably magnifies the cost. Can you talk about the cost of being so distracted in the world we live in? What costs in a leader’s life?
Clay Scroggins: 08:24 Yeah. I, opened up with an illustration about, being distracted while my family was on a little weekend trip to Chattanooga and I left my keys in my car and my car was stolen that night. So that’s what it costs me. But it costs us way more than, I mean, you know, I eventually got my car back. I think there was a couple thousand dollars worth of damage to it that some people had obviously taken on a joy ride and, it got fixed. But the greater danger for every single one of us is the, it’s costing us, there’s an opportunity costs for sure. You know, the simple idea of an opportunity costs is that, you know, there is the decision that you’re making and that’s worth something. But what sometimes is a greater cost is what you could have been doing with that time. What you could have been doing instead of being distracted.
Clay Scroggins: 09:17 And that’s the danger of distraction is that distractions pay off. I mean, distractions work, they deliver on their promise. They keep us from focusing on whatever it is that we’re focusing on. So obviously the opportunity cost is a significant cost to us, but, also there’s the lack of traction in our life that, you know, that simple word distraction. If you just break down the word, that traction is the ability to gain momentum, the ability to, for our wheels to propel us forward. And I think so many of us are living distracted days and it’s leading to traction lists, lives that we’re living lives that don’t have the kind of momentum that we want because we’re just so easily distracted about what’s on our left or what’s on our right, as opposed to dealing with what’s right there in front of us. So those are probably the two
Clay Scroggins: 10:07 most, I think most valuable, things that we should be paying attention to that are on the other side of these distractions that are, they’re growing. I mean, obviously there’s a growing sense of distraction. I do this simple little exercise. Whenever I go talk to an audience on this topic, I’ll say, Hey, just a quick question. Let me pull the crowd. Would you say there’s more distractions today or less distractions today than there’s ever been before? And obviously there’s a resounding, you know, there’s more, I mean, but it’s, this is just an obvious, reality that we’re living in. There’s just more of everything. There’s more information, there’s more technology, there’s more opportunity, more activity. And it seems to be growing louder and louder.
Doug Smith: And so talk to leaders today. What can leaders do to actually deal with this?
Clay Scroggins: 10:54 I mean, well, I’m meant to say that. Why when you asked that question because you asked about leadership specifically in this book is, you know, I wrote it under how to lead, with the how-to lead concept because it really is a leadership issue. The best leaders are the most emotionally healthy leaders. The best leaders are the leaders that are most aware of their own emotions, but also most able to regulate their emotions and manage their emotions. And then also, that they’re more able to, anticipate the way their emotions are going to affect other people and how they should respond to other people. But you can’t become more emotionally healthy if you’re unaware if there are emotions inside of you that you just don’t know about. So I think it’s ultimately, it’s a way to lead yourself is to deal with it. To turn down the noise of the and to listen to what it’s masking and listen to what’s behind it.
Doug Smith: 11:59 Yeah. And you obviously you lead yourself while you have teams lead. I’m just curious how, how have you grown in self-awareness and what are some ways that actually you have become self-aware, whether that’s through others, through your or your family, your spouse. I’m just curious, what’s your journey to self-awareness been and then yeah, I’ll follow up from there.
Clay Scroggins: 12:15 Yeah, that’s a super important question. I would just start by saying I think you have to approach self-awareness from the assumption that you don’t, there’s a lot about your life that you don’t know. There’s a proverb I think it’s maybe proverb 12:1 that says I’m the one who loves knowledge, loves discipline, but the one who hates correction is stupid. And it’s just a real simple concept that if you like knowledge then you’ll be open to feedback. But if you hate correction, you’re just dumb. I mean if you, if you’re at the point in life where you think, no, I am very self aware. In fact, I have learned that some of the most unaware people will tell you how self aware they are. And so I would just start by knowing that you might be 60, maybe at most 70% aware of what’s really going on inside of you.
Clay Scroggins: 13:19 And I think if you can just begin with that assumption, it will create a little humility in you and it will help you ask more questions, which is ultimately the, I think curiosity is really the, it’s the way we become more self-aware is we have to ask the questions. Why am I feeling that? Why did I do that? Where is that coming from? How long has it been there? What is that emotion trying to achieve? What I’ve learned about emotions is our emotions are messengers. Our emotions are trying to tell us something. So if you’re, if you’re jealous about something, that emotion is trying to, is trying to tell you, Hey, there’s something that you don’t have that, that other person has and you don’t like that. If you’re angry about something, that emotion is trying to tell you, Hey, you’re lacking something. You’re missing something. You didn’t get your way. Somebody got something more or what they got more than you got and I think just the simple process of being curious of those emotions. I think it’s what allows us to, really get on the other side and to discover.
Doug Smith: 14:26 Yeah, and is this something that you find is natural and people, are most people naturally curious and want that feedback and correction? You know, I’m curious how you guys view this from a staff perspective. You know, is this something you try to identify in the interview process or is this something as, as young leaders come on staff with you and your team, what are some things you guys do intentionally to bring self-awareness around them and help them grow in that? I’m just curious.
Clay Scroggins: 14:50 Yeah. I think it’s probably, there’s probably not a specific process we use, but, something that I do pretty commonly is when, and when I’m interviewing someone, I will just ask them, I’ll say, Hey, if I were to call your former employer or your current employer, or if I were to call the people that aren’t your reference sheet and ask them, Hey, give me this person’s, you know, one or two, three top areas of growth, what do you think that that person will say? And you know, they have no clue. Or if they tell me something that is just completely way off from what that reference will tell me. To me that’s a pretty big caution, it’s a pretty big yellow flag because I’ve just learned that if you can get someone who is aware of what, of their shortcomings, aware of their weaknesses, then you’ve got a person that you can really deal with.
Clay Scroggins: 15:51 But it is, you know, we all know this to be true, but you just can’t grow in an area that you’re not, that you’re unaware of and you certainly can’t grow in an area that you’re unwilling to admit needs to be grown. And so it’s just such a, it’s such a, it’s one of the most important concepts of emotional health is a person’s ability to be aware. So yeah, I do think it’s something you can look for in an interview process. The biggest challenge, and we’ve all experienced this is when you’re working with someone who is exhibiting a sense of unawareness or a lack of awareness in a particular area, it is almost impossible to point it out to that person. Self-awareness is something we have to come to on our own. We have to discover on our own, which is why these distractions are so important.
Clay Scroggins: 16:34 Because, you know, we’ve really got to get a rhythm in life where we are constantly turning down the noise to listen to what’s underneath the hood, to listen to what’s inside of our hearts, inside of our souls, to listen to the emotions that we’re walking around with.
Doug Smith: And in the book you talked about this, you talked about four noise-canceling habits. Can you, can you walk us through those at a high level before people dive in?
Clay Scroggins: Yeah. I really enjoy practical helpful content. And so my hope in writing this book, I was walking, I was carrying this, this concept for the last couple of years and it started with an illustration about white noise. Do y’all use white noise with your kids? They sleep every night. We need to. And I just was thinking about that concept one day. It’s very interesting, to me, it’s an interesting idea that you crank up noise really to distract your kids from the ambient noise that might wake them up.
Clay Scroggins: 17:44 Because you know, as a parent, sleep is like one of the greatest commodities that you have.
Doug Smith: Amen. Yeah.
Clay Scroggins: And so we do the same thing. We turn up the noise and all of our kids’ rooms, and it’s an interesting concept that the louder the noise is, the more it actually blocks out. And so I started thinking of that in the realm of these distractions that basically that’s what we’re doing all day long is every single one of us has our finger on the dial of some kind of noise that we’re turning up when we don’t want to feel whatever it is that’s inside of us. A white noise is a masking device. it masks the emotions. We don’t want to hear it. It masks the noises we don’t want to hear. But in the same way it masks the emotions that we don’t want to feel.
Clay Scroggins: 18:26 And so what I tried to do is give some practical rhythms or habits that they’re not sure-fire ways to be able to listen to what’s there, but they certainly put us further down the road on, uh, creating a more sustainable pace. And a healthier way of life so that we can keep our hearts clean and keep our antennas cleaned off. Um, and, and they’re all rooted in spiritual disciplines or spiritual practices. I use different language just to try to make it, approachable for somebody that is not a Jesus follower, but, they’re really just spiritual practices put into concepts that hopefully any kind of leader, Christian or non-Christian could grab a whole bunch. So, the first one is to, find your why or to simplify. Those concepts really worked hand in hand, but the more simple your life is, the abler you are to understand why you are alive and to be driven by that
Clay Scroggins: 19:31 why. And a simple example would be, you know, Steve jobs, Mark Zuckerberg, I think the two of them both wear the same outfit every single day. You know, Steve jobs wore that black turtleneck every day. And the idea was just to simplify, to limit the decisions that he had to make. And it was all driven by his wife that he wanted to create, something that people would use. And he wanted to create something really simple as well. And that drove him, that really was the spine that drove him in a real powerful way. And so that simplicity really helps us find our why and when we find our why and really creates simplicity for us as well. So that’s the first one. The second one is to get quiet. None of it’s like silence. I actually hate silence, but we’ve got to have times in our life where we’re turning down the noise intentionally to be able to listen to what’s really there.
Clay Scroggins: 20:31 That’s not easy to do, but if you can find a place, if you can find a time, if you can find an actual practice that you can do, I don’t think it’s a great idea to just be quiet for the sake of solitude. Sometimes that’s helpful. But I like to have directed solitude. So in the mornings, I try to, I’ve tried to turn down all the noise and just try to listen. And I use three simple phrases. I want, I need and I surrender. And I use those phrases just to, uh, lead my mind or to lead my heart to figure out what is their I want, what do I want? And sometimes you discover things. Sometimes you learn things I need. What do, what is it that I need? And then I surrender. What is it that I need to surrender or that I don’t want to surrender.
Clay Scroggins: 21:17 But that’s the simple idea is to get quiet so that you can listen to what’s there. Thirdly that we would learn to speak to ourselves. The most common conversation that you have throughout the day is the one that you have with yourself. Psalm 42 is a great example of this. David says, soul, my soul, why are you so downcast within me? He’s talking to himself and then he doesn’t leave himself. There he is. In fact, just before that, he said, my tears have been my food day and night. But then he says, soul. So why are you so downcast within me? Put your hope in God and sing his praises forever. So he’s trying to lift himself up out of what he’s dealing with. That’s a great leaders know how to do that. Great leaders know how to speak to themselves in ways that are sometimes challenging and are sometimes caring and are sometimes, encouraging.
Clay Scroggins: 22:05 And it’s a powerful concept to be able to learn to do that in a healthier way. And it helps us turn down the noise and a lot of times is the noise comes in the form of other people’s opinions or other people’s thoughts or other people’s desires for our life. But I’m learning to speak to ourself and lead ourselves in the way that we know we want to, to move is a powerful concept. And then the last one is to press pause and it’s really just the concept of fasting or the concept of Sabbath. My wife does such a great job of this, the beginning of every month she picks something in her life to just stop and she doesn’t stop it forever, but she’ll stop it for a month. And so maybe it’s, Hey, this month, I’m not gonna eat desserts this month. I’m not going to buy any.
Clay Scroggins: 22:49 I’m not going to have any spontaneous, um, spur of the moment purchases. One particular month she decided to get off social media for a month and I, I actually joined her on that one and it was such a powerful thing for me because I learned a lot about myself. I’m not addicted to social media. I’m addicted to my phone. That’s a little more dangerous. I really feel this pressure to put my life out there in such a way that other people would find it appealing or maybe even be jealous of it. And I didn’t know that was there until I turned down the noise and listen to what was there. And so that simple pathway that our tried to lead people through that I’m trying to lead myself through is to just identify your noise to experiment with your noise and then to listen to what it’s masking. And I think doing that is one of the most important habits for leaders because great leaders turn the noise low enough and long enough to be ruthlessly curious of their emotions.
Doug Smith: 23:50 Yeah. I’m curious, other than the pressing pause, I’m pressing pause and getting quiet. Do you have any other, cadences, whether it’s every year you go on a two week vacation cause you just need to unplug for that long. Do in your, I’m just curious, do you and your wife do anything intentionally with five kids? I’m sure you guys were running all the time to make sure that your marriage is, you’re pressing pause and spending time in your marriage. I’m just curious what systems you have in your place or in your life to make sure that those things don’t get lost in the noise.
Clay Scroggins: 24:16 No, that’s a great question. I mean, I think we’re just as susceptible to missing each other as anybody else. And you know, simply having a date night has been huge or we don’t have family that lives really close to us. I’ve got an older sister that lives in Atlanta, but she just had a baby herself. So she’s pretty swamped. So we don’t have a lot of built-in babysitters, but we’ve just had to budget for, a date, at least once a month, most of the time, twice a month. And you know the date is an interesting thing because you can’t just date, you can’t just go on dates with your spouse, you know, there’s gotta be that daily rhythm of life. But if you just do the daily rhythm and miss the intentional investment, and that’s not great either. So a great relationship has that consistency, the dailies, but it also has that intentionality. The, Hey, we’re going to sit down and specifically ask each other some important questions. And you can’t do that all the time, but to do that on a semi-regular basis I think is really what keeps, a relationship healthy. So, again, that’s not rocket science, but for us that that rhythm keeps us out of the rut of being just roommates, I would say or partners.
Doug Smith: 25:42 Yeah. And can you talk about the same thing? Only from a work perspective, you have a ton of responsibility at work. You obviously have family. How do you decide what gets your time at work and that you’re laser-focused on what’s most important versus getting caught up in the thousand priorities probably that your team would happily hand off to you and distract you?
Clay Scroggins: 26:01 I’d love to talk about that we have a concept that we use at work a lot. I did not come up with this, but this was in a book that some of our founders wrote a couple of years ago called The Seven Practices for Healthy Ministry. And one of the practices is work on it and not working in it. And that’s been a real important thing for us because four disciplines of execution calls it the whirlwind that all of us are, we’re so apt to get caught up in the whirlwind of the calendar. The schedule here comes another Sunday. But we do the same thing with our calendar. We get whipped by a calendar, calendar gets on top of us and it’s, it becomes demanding. It becomes like really like a slave owner. And to get out to get above that on a routine basis and say, Hey, we’re going to work on it.
Clay Scroggins: 26:52 For me, it’s my morning routine that helps me. It gives me the space to be able to say, what is most important right now? What is most important in my week this week? What is it that I have to get done that’s urgent, but what should I be working on? And to have that space, I mean, it’s the, it’s the simple habit of getting quiet, but it’s also that ability to speak to yourself and ask some of those important questions of, what am I trying to accomplish? What do I want to be said about me at the end of this year? What do I hope to have accomplished? Asking some of those really difficult high level, work on it type questions, I think is the key to clearing off the antennas. I love that simple illustration of you remember when cell phones first came out and you had that antenna that you had to pull up, you know, whenever you really wanted to get reception.
Clay Scroggins: 27:47 And there were times where had to clean that off, but I mean, another example would be blowing in the Nintendo game. You know, back when you had to do that when Tetris was a little bit fuzzy. And that, that simple idea I think is what turning down the noise is all about. It’s all about just keeping the antenna clean so that you can, be your best self so that you can carry others well and so that you can hear from God so that you can know what his vision is for your life, for your team, for your organization. I really think it’s probably becoming more and more of a lost habit in our culture thatI’m really hoping this book helps us reclaim.
Doug Smith: 28:32 I love that. Well is there any last takeaways that you want listeners to hear from the book? Anything else about leading well in a world of distraction.
Clay Scroggins: 28:43 Yeah. I would just say, don’t be afraid to experiment. And just because you don’t hear anything, don’t just quit. Don’t give up on it. But, you know, try some different things. Try to drive into work without the radio on. Try getting on the subway without popping in the AirPods try when you get home from work, try putting your phone in a drawer. Try going to dinner with friends without taking your phone and maybe you’re thinking, well, how would I take a picture of my food? Which is a legitimate question but just in maybe soak up the memory, maybe soak up the moment, but I would say don’t be afraid to, just to be courageous and maybe cut out. Maybe cut out something for a day or a week or a month. And the point is to listen to what’s there, to listen to what that distraction is masking.
Clay Scroggins: 29:40 You just, you, I know this is kind of cliche to say, but you don’t really ever know what you’re going to find. And that’s the beauty of it. That’s the brilliance of, this simple, simple metaphor is that if you can, turn down the white noise, resist the urge to turn it up, you might just learn something about yourself. And I think you have to convince yourself that it really is what’s going to make you a better leader because it’s never going to be urgent to do this. All of the urgent things you sometimes can become the very distraction that keeps us from growing the most. And so I would just encourage people that listen to all three to just, be wild. These zany try some things. It really is worth it because on the other side of distraction is a boatload of discovery.
Clay Scroggins: 30:28 It’s going to help you grow, to become a more emotionally healthy person, which is gonna allow you to become a better leader. And that’s gonna benefit the people around you today, but it’s going to benefit, countless others for a lifetime. I think it’s really worth it.
Doug Smith: And I have to ask, this was your second book and was it easier than writing the first one to all the aspiring authors out there? Once you get through the first one, are you going to write, you know, you’re going to be the next John Maxwell and have 10,000 books or what was that like?
Clay Scroggins: Yeah, I mean I think if, you know, John Maxwell supposedly flies privately pretty much everywhere he goes. And so if writing books leads me to that, yes, I definitely will. No, I don’t, I don’t think anyone of us are the next John Maxwell.
Clay Scroggins: 31:10 I’m trying to be the best version of myself. I mean I, you had a couple different questions embedded in that question, but was it easier? No, I would say in some ways it was harder because the expectation, I mean, it’s like having a second child, you know, that second child doesn’t know that it’s the second child. It still needs everything that the first child needed. And I think my wife and I always thought, Oh, the next one will be easier because we know what we’re doing now. No, in fact, it’s harder in some ways because you thought it was going to be easier. And I naturally breed, expectations, just create a, a lot of discontent. And then I would say there is something about creating a, making a decision in life that you are going to be a producer and not a consumer and not just a consumer.
Clay Scroggins: 31:59 Everyone’s a consumer. But, I think that was a switch that happened in me a while ago where I just decided, you know what? I still go to conferences. I still listened to tons of podcasts. I still read a lot. I really enjoy, journals, magazines, articles more than long form books, which seems a little hypocritical April critical because I just wrote one. But, I think just deciding that your voice matters and you have something to offer and you want to join in the stream of people that are either producing content or curating content, which I think is what I think that’s what you’re doing, that’s actually brilliant that you’re saying, Hey, I don’t have to have content. I’m just going to point people to content that I find helpful. And being a curator of content in 2019 is as important as being a producer. But, um, I think just making that decision is, I think it’s a big deal and I think it’s a switch that can flip inside of you that, might just open up some new doors of opportunity. So I would just encourage anybody listening to just make a decision to become a producer, become a curator, and who knows what God will do with him.
Doug Smith: 33:11 Yeah. And I want to ask in a second how people can connect with you online, but I know one way they can, as you did several interviews with some, some very high end leaders for the book and I believe I saw that there’s an Encore possibility for people to view these interviews. You interviewed Dave Ramsey, Sheryl Sandberg, and Bob Goff. And I’m just curious, you know, you’re on the interviewee’s side. What did you learn through interviewing those leaders and, and personally I’m just curious, you know, what did you learn in the preparation for that? Did you put a lot of prep into it or did you just show up and we’re curious?
Clay Scroggins: 33:43 I mean, one of the things I learned is I’ll think I liked sitting in your seat more than I like sitting in my seat. I just enjoy,
Clay Scroggins: 33:52 I think I’m naturally a curious person, but I’ve just learned more and more the value of curiosity. Arrogant people don’t ask questions. It’s people that have humility that asks questions. And so I want to be a person that’s growing in humility and curiosity. It’s like a workout. It’s like an exercise for humility. And so I really enjoyed, I mean, to be able to sit down with those leaders was just such a thrill to be able to ask them some questions. And you know, it’s amazing. I’m sure you found this with your podcasts, but you know, people are more accessible oftentimes than you think they are. Especially when you say, you know, everyone has an ego. And so when you say, Hey, I really value what you have to say, could I ask you some questions and get your advice on some stuff?
Clay Scroggins: 34:36 And I really would love to hear your take on the challenges that a lot of people are facing. I mean there are most people will say yes to that because that’s what happened with particularly with Bob golf. Sheryl Sandberg, Dave Ramsey. I had actually done something at their company, but, I definitely prepared a lot for the Sheryl Sandberg interview. Bob Goff. I did not prepare at all that guy. Man, he is like a wild stallion, no one fences that guy in. And so I just knew this interview is going to go a hundred different directions and I will not even, I’m along for the ride, like definitely not in the saddle, literally. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. That’s true. Cause I did the interview in the car, but and that, that was the way it went down. I mean that was probably a hour and a half conversation that we took about the best eight or 10 minutes out of it.
Clay Scroggins: 35:27 And, you know how Bob golf is, I mean like he’s got his phone number in the back of his book, which is still his phone number. So I’m asking him all about that, like about being available and you know, he said that he made this one he piece of this one line, but I’ll never forget. He said, you know, I just realized that God, that he didn’t make me more athletic than I am. He didn’t make me better looking than I am, but he did give me the opportunity to be available and I’ve just decided I’m going to be available. And I thought that’s so profound. And then like, you know, 30 minutes later his phone rings and he’s like, Oh, here’s somebody right here. And then he answered it, answers the phone while we’re on the, you know, I’m like, Hey Bob, like I asked you to do this thing, but it actually, you know, it was very, it was great. And to hear him navigate like he was so caring to the guy, but it was probably like a phone call. And he was just like, Hey man, what’s up? What can I do for you? Then, you know, the guy was like, Oh, Bob just wanted to say hello. And he’s like, great man, great. Here. I’m sitting here with Clay, you know, he says hello, whatever.
Doug Smith: 36:26 I had a coworker who literally called him Bob stone, four minutes with them. I don’t remember what he told them, but literally transformed the kid’s life. I mean, pretty well. Pretty crazy. That blew me away and he took, I mean obviously he talks about that everywhere he goes. It was just amazing.
Clay Scroggins: 36:40 He, he is a, he is a legend. That guy is such a genuinely terrific person. So, yeah, but if you go to how to, howtoleadonline.com howtolead online.com you can get more information about that Encore and you can um, definitely catch those interviews. I think. I think there’s some, bonus content that goes along with if you order a certain amount of the books or something, then you, can get some of those interviews and watch them with your team. If you can’t make the Encore. So there are some different ways that we tried to make that accessible to people.
Doug Smith: 37:14 Great. Anything else you want to leave leaders with today?
Clay Scroggins: 37:18 I would just say that where you are in life, it matters and that you’re not wasting time and you’re not, that you’re not missing out on something that you really are in a place where you can learn whatever it is that you’re meant to learn. I think seeing life as a laboratory where you get stuff wrong, it’s just all right now I’ve learned something. I think that’s a better way to approach your day is God, what do you want to show me today? What do you want to teach me today? So, that’s where I am. I feel more wide open to learn today then, I have ever felt maybe in my life. So, and I think that’s a healthy place to be. I want to stay there. And so I hope people listening will, just know that what’s happening in your life today? That there’s so much joy in it, so much good in it, even if it feels difficult.
Doug Smith: 38:17 Yeah. Well Clay, hey, thank you so much for being available for this interview and, and thank you just for being a producer and putting out a great book and I encourage everyone to pick up a copy. I’ll include links in the show notes and promote this everywhere I go. So just thank you and appreciate everything you do through your leadership. Hey everyone, thank you so much for listening to my interview with Clay Scroggins. I hope that you enjoyed it as much as I did. You can find ways to connect with clay and links to everything we discussed in the show notes at [inaudible] leadership.org forward slash episode 232 also, as I mentioned, this was the second time Clay was on the podcast. You can go back and listen to our initial interview and episode number 187 and we talk all about his book, How to Lead When You’re Not in Charge.
Doug Smith: 38:58 I highly encourage you to go back and listen to that great content there. And of course I encourage you to buy copies of both of his books and take them, take your team through them, it’ll add a ton of value to you and you will be blessed by them. So thank you for that. As always, while you’re on the website, if you want to stay up to date with everything we’re doing here at L3, you can simply sign up for our email list on our website and you will get a free copy of my ebook Making the Most of Mentoring, which is my step by step process for getting meetings with leaders. And you’ll also obviously get weekly updates on everything we’re doing here at L3 I want to thank our sponsor Alex Tulandin. Alex is a full-time realtor with Keller Williams Realty and if you’re looking to buy or sell a house in the Pittsburgh market, Alex is your guy.
Doug Smith: 39:38 He’s a member and a supporter of our three leadership and would love to have an opportunity to connect with you. You can learn more about alex at Pittsburghpropertyshowcase.com I also want to thank our sponsor, Henny jewelers. They’re jeweler, owned by my friend and mentor John Henne. Not only do they have great jewelry, but they also invest in people. In fact, they give every engaged couple of book to help them prepare for marriage, and we just love that. And so if you’re in need of a good jeweler, check out Hennejewelers.com as always, I like Dan with a quote, and here’s one that really has been impacting me lately. It’s a Gerald Brooks quote, Gerald Brooks quote, who I caught all the time, and he said this, he said, “As demands and our lives grow, our heart must also grow. There’s nothing worse than a growing life, but a shrinking heart.” So good. “As demands in our lives grow, our hearts must also grow. There’s nothing worse than a growing life, but a shrinking heart.” Hey, thank you so much for being a listener and being a part of KL3 Leadership. Laura, and I appreciate you so much and we will talk to you next episode.
