 Well, welcome to the show, Angie. So glad to have you here with us. Hey, it is really, really good to be here. Thank you. I love what you're doing. And we'd love to just start with a little bit of your background and your relationship with risk, if you don't mind sharing that with our audience. I grew up in a really small town in northern Michigan, so small that all I wanted to do was get the heck out of there growing up. And I was a big reader. And so I hate to really date myself, but this was pre-internet. And so I had this vivid imagination going of what the world outside would look like. And so the big first risk I would say I took was going to the University of Michigan. It was one of the most diverse communities in our state. Go Blue. I see AJ some fist raising there. And there wasn't enough for me. I wanted to go further. So I joined the Marine Corps while in college. I went through ROTC. And it's really funny to think about that, because everyone, when they hear the Marine Corps, they think about the tremendous physical risks that you're putting yourself up for. I wasn't thinking about any of that. I was thinking about travel. I was thinking about venture. It's like my adult self now looks back on that, thinking, you know, didn't you kind of think about the safety of it all, but when you're young, you're invincible. So that got me on a journey. And then after I left the Marine Corps, I moved to LA and worked in pharmaceutical sales for a bit. And what was eye-opening to me during that time was how people talked about leadership. They talked about it as if it was a position versus a behavior, and that was very different from my Marine Corps experience. So that sparked another risk. Well, a woman I served with in the Marine Corps, Courtney Lynch and my business partner today, we decided to write our first book in 2004 called Leading from the Front, introducing, we hope, the business community to military leadership practices to help reintroduce this concept of leadership can happen by everybody, not the managers. In fact, it's a good thing if everybody leads. And that sent us on to developing our business and getting into coaching. And through our coaching work, and this is where we can start talking about that on you. We've been meeting the most incredible men and women who are insanely intelligent and capable. And through our coaching conversations, they talk about the things that they wanna do. And it's not like crazy. It's not like I wanna buy a castle in Ireland and build a moat and do all these crazy things. It's not that. It's I wanna buy a short-term rental and get a secondary income. I wanna train for a half marathon. I wanna start an Etsy business. I wanna take a photography class, but they're just scared. And so we wrote bet on you for the person who wants to do something, but just as a little bit scared to do it. Well, I love that because all of those things you listed, there's so much information on how to do it, yet we're still stuck facing those same excuses internally. And that mindset piece is the biggest stumbling block. I mean, there's guides to starting an Etsy shop. There's guides to opening an Airbnb, but we find the same even in our clients. And what I find fascinating about risk is it's completely relative. So when I dropped out of graduate school at the University of Michigan to start this podcast, everyone around me was like, that's the biggest risk you could take. But me taking that action, it didn't even feel risky. Like you joining the Marines, it was just something that you knew you had to do. But outside looking in, we see everyone else is taking these great risks. But then when we're faced with something that we feel is a risk, we often find ourselves stuck. And I'd love to start there with how we should assess that risk and how we can start to work through it. Because once we're on the other side of risk, there's so much magic that happens. The other side of that is there is every excuse in the world on that computer as well as to why you shouldn't start this business or do this next thing. So of course, it's understanding that you are gonna be presented with both sides. And then of course, we're gonna be discussing the motivators and why you should ride out and chase those dreams. Oh, and you were so right, Johnny. Like you can find a thousand reasons and you could get many unsolicited opinions for why you shouldn't do what it is that you really wanna do. And we'll talk about that in a second. But what's really funny is like you start talking about risk with people and they sometimes clam up and they're like, oh, I don't take risk. But then you're like, well, did you get married? Did you have kids? Did you go to college? Because those are like crazy risks that we all take. So people take risks. And what's unique though about the risks that we want to take now, it's unlike marriage and children and going to college. It's not society you approved. The risks that we wanna take now are more unique to our perspective, more reflective of our experiences and our preferences. And the chances of success are probably far, far greater. But yeah, anyone and everyone feels like they can tell you, ugh, don't start that podcast. You're crazy. Or don't go spend $100,000 on an advanced degree. That's insane. But you know you. And I think part of taking risks is really first understanding risk, but trusting yourself. And part of understanding risk is helping people understand is it's not like go to the bank account, withdraw all your money, go to the casino, bet it on red 21, and in a twirl of a roulette spin, either win or lose. Risk is really just a decision. It gets you started. And it's one small step followed by another. Well, there's two sides to that that I'd love to unpack. So the first piece is how do we break down something that appears to be a very large risk? So one thing we hear time and time again from our audience is a career change. They know they're unhappy. They know that they're not satisfied in the work that they do. But the thought of changing it and all the work they've put in, that sunk cost fallacy is really holding them in that place. And that risk of making that change seems far greater than what you just said, a small step towards the right decision. I think our society often celebrates big risks, like these leaps, you know, quit your job, change your life, 90 day fiance, which by the way is hysterical and wonderful and awesome, but it's a trainwreck, right? Like risk done wrong is taking these big, bold leaps. So if you wanna do risk well, take a small step. Start with just, you know, for example, if you wanna make a career change, start internally thinking about what it is that you and you alone want to do differently. What do you enjoy? What is your work tempo like? Geographically, industry, just kinda think about that, even think about salary. So start there. Then you can start to do your research, but start with yourself first. And then do some research, talk to people, make connections. In the leadership development space, we always think about thoughts become beliefs become behaviors. And if you wanna do risk well, you have to start with your thought and then the beliefs and results will follow. And so people who are contemplating career change, it isn't that rip the band-aid off, that's risk done wrong. You're not gonna be happy. You're gonna make a poor career choice. Then you're gonna find that the grass was, in fact, pretty green on the lawn that you were sitting at. So if you wanna do it well, it's gonna take time. It's like anything, it takes time. It's like that overnight success boy band. You know, that was actually about 10 years in the making. Risk done well is taking some time to really think about it, to be thoughtful about it. That other side is the piece that is so fascinating to me is know yourself and getting to that place of intuition. And I know many in our audience, when I shared my story of risking it all and leaving graduate school and going against my family's wishes, that first voice that they hear is their parents or their family saying, don't do that thing. You're giving up security. And it's hard to know yourself when everyone around you is telling you that that's not right, or as Johnny said, giving you all the reasons not to. Yeah, part of the book we do, we talk about the importance of guides in our life because we need people, regardless of who you are, you need people to weigh in and help develop your perspective because we've only been on this earth for so many years. We have so many first-hand experiences that we can acquire. So trying to get people to weigh in and give us second-hand experiences that are relevant and valuable to us. So we talk about three types of people in the book. We need our champions. And I like that word better than mentor because mentor often sounds like a marriage proposal and desperate, like, will you mentor me? And that's, okay. But champion, to find somebody who you could just go to who's doing that thing that you wanna be doing, just ask them. People love to share their thoughts and opinions and give you guidance. So seek out some champions. The next type of people that you can go to are big-stagers. And I would say people like you guys. People who have an audience, an influence, and a message, and are building a community around like-minded thinkers that are doing those things and you can get inspiration from on a daily basis. The third group of people we have are no-choosers. And these are just the people like our mother-in-law, you know, the sister, like the people who are a little bit skeptical about our dreams and the validity of them. And we just have to manage them. And if you let anyone and everyone, I should say, weigh in on what it is that you wanna do, you're gonna be on a confidence roller coaster. Seek out or filter the people who have the best, your best interests in heart, the people who really believe in you, because that's gonna give you the confidence to do what you need to do. That is so true in my experience. The mentorship angle is difficult often to ask someone to, will you be my mentor? It sounds like such a massive commitment. But when I look back at where I am now, it was actually just small actions of people championing me that got me on the right path, that made me take that extra risk and lean into something that I wasn't sure of. You know, one example of a mentor of mine was just we had a great conversation out for hookah one night and I was talking about some challenges in my business. He's like, oh, you should really try live chat on your website. And we hadn't done it and it was a risk. And I was like, I don't think it's gonna work. And all those excuses came up, but he explained, hey, this has worked for us. And I think it could really work for you. Got me pumped up, we did it and we saw massive results with it. And I would have never thought of that had I just went to him and said, hey, could you be my mentor, right? And try to set up this like really rigid relationship. And over time, a few more suggestions and he was happy to champion in me and share guests on the show and introduce me to people. So I really liked that frame of finding people in your life who can champion you instead of making it a mentor. I'd imagine, Johnny, if I were to come to you and say, would you be my mentor? You'd be like, who's got time for that? But if I were to say, hey, can you give me 20 minutes and just tell me some of your best lessons on success? You'd be like, okay, I can do 20 minutes. Oh, much easier and much more enjoyable to go into it. Being asked to be mentored, my first thought is now I'm gonna have a shadow and this person is gonna be following me everywhere. And I have to watch what I say and do because I don't want them to get the wrong ideas from me but I certainly wanna make sure that they get the right ideas from me. And then I don't wanna have to monitor my own self. Do what I say, not what I do. It's a lot of pressure, isn't it? Exactly. And the second group of people, I think again, sometimes we may be striving to reach a level of confidence and I'd love to talk about the role confidence plays in risk-taking and we might not find ourselves in a situation with many people around us who have that level of confidence who are also kind of trapped. And that's what we hear from our audience a lot is, well, you guys have this great community and you have these great guests and it's really easy for you to find these like-minded people but I don't really have that in my life. My friends right now aren't risk-takers either and they could never imagine being an entrepreneur. So how do I find those other communities, those big stages? Do I just reach out to AJ and Johnny and say, hey, can I tap into your community? How do we identify that second group and join that community that could really enrich us? And that's where I think the power of social media really does play for us. So again, certainly people use social media for a variety of different things, recipes, self-promotion, but there's also this opportunity of finding a community within that and there's a risk there, right? You're putting yourself out there. You're asking for help. That's a huge risk that a lot of prideful people do take but I think once you start following certain, I'll say big stages, influencers, you can start to go to conferences, go to different places where you can meet these folks and I'm just trying to think of key transitional points in my life. It seems intimidating to go to like an association or a large conference, especially if you're going by yourself, but everybody's nervous, like put yourself out there. I mean, that's what you're probably wanting to do anyway is build that skill of putting yourself out there. And so you learn and it's not gonna be pretty. It's like any new skill, it's gonna be awkward, but it's within that awkwardness that you find growth. And I think that's what we're trying to get to people is to understand that change is uncomfortable. That's why you're afraid of it. But in that discomfort, you can feel about it a lot of different ways. Like, yeah, you can be uncomfortable and you can hate it or you can say, you know, I've got something to learn here from this moment. And we write in the book about that feeling of discomfort. If you've ever taken like hot yoga before or you know, one of those classes, like it's 90 minutes plus and it sucks. And if you spend the whole 90 minutes in there thinking this sucks, this is miserable, I hate everybody who's surrounded by me and the teacher. You're gonna have a miserable experience, but if you say this is really hard, I'm not enjoying this, but I can find learning in this just by patiently waiting through these experience, you're gonna come out a different person. Try hot yoga. And that's been my experience. And the fun part about that is even after saying, I hate this, I'm miserable for 90 minutes, that feeling after of going through the suffering and your body releasing those toxins, you just feel a sense of accomplishment. So even if you go to an event and you feel awkward throughout the entire event, you will through osmosis pick up the energy, the thoughts, beliefs of those around you at that event. And I know for us, these events that we've gone to have sparked great business ideas, allowed us to take other risks and even see potential risks that we never would have thought of just by putting yourself in that community. And I know many will think, oh, well, it's a room full of strangers, but I found events and conferences to be the most warm and welcoming room full of strangers versus a bar or a restaurant or an event where you know absolutely no one. Well, for a lot of us, it's about learning how to fall and that it's okay because that allows you to get better. And there was a phrase in the book that I just loved and you guys quoted it. It was failure is the tuition to reach your dreams, which I, when I read that, I was hit. I was like, oh, that was great. And thinking about, we have a program which sets our clients up for success and it is involved in all of our programs and it's called Unstoppable. And it is for our clients to learn their own triggers and mechanisms to their own psychology because once they understand what it feels like and to identify being in an enhanced emotional state, they can then turn towards growth rather than being forced to turn away from growth because they're not understanding what they're feeling. And I grew up skateboarding was a sport that I was obsessed with as a kid. And there's not a day that goes by that if you're out there that you're not falling on your ass but that is part of the growth and learning. And there may be a day where you're trying to land this trick that you've been working on that you've seen all the other kids do. And you may be failing for hours but you know you're taking that bet on yourself that eventually if I do this enough times, hell, one of these times I just might land on this thing and skate off. And once that hits, then you're able to replicate that and do it over again. Can I just applaud you guys too? I love that you call it unstoppable versus something like fearless because I hate that word fearless. We all have fears. I mean, you must be psychotic if you don't have fears but unstoppable. That means that you're gonna be flexible. You're gonna be agile. You're gonna navigate through your fears, your barriers, your obstacles which could be internal or they could be external. And so knowing that I just I think it's a really great way to package your confidence. The big part for us and why we've now involved it in every one of our programs is because as much as all the strategies and the tactics whether it's business or whether it's socializing work confidence is at the root of all of it. And if you lack confidence you're not gonna be able in those crucial moments to apply any of those skills or strategies that you work so hard developing. And I know that confidence is gonna help you get over that risk that you're facing. So let's talk a little bit about growing your confidence as many in our audience are in that point in their career where they may not be feeling very confident and they also may not have a lot of life experience yet to really build that confidence on. Yeah, and you talk about those two words confidence and experience that's gonna influence our choices. And I'll start with confidence. You know, what is it? It's an emotion and that helps you understand that it's gonna rise and fall depending on how close you are to that moment of truth or that test you're about to take. And developing your confidence is really a strategy. There's certainly some tactics you've probably heard Amy Cuddy's power poses and but what I like to think about are what are the strategies of developing your confidence? The first most important one is throughout your career experiencing your success, not achieving success experiencing your success recognizing that your actions contributed to everything that you have done to this point. It was maybe sure, right person, right time, right place but you played a role and that helps you prevent that imposter syndrome that feeling like you're not worthy or like you're fraught in your situation. Another way to develop your confidence is by really focusing on your self-talk. What are you saying to yourself during moments of challenge? Are you gonna say, I'm gonna blow it. I suck. I shouldn't even be here. Or are you gonna say, you know what? I've got just as good a shot as everybody else. Why not me? If not me, then who gets to do this? And that has shown through just research to play a powerful impact and influence on the outcome that you're going to be in. So imagine you go into an interview and you're like, oh, I'm just really lucky to be here. I hope they don't see all the flaws and holes in my resume versus, you know, I've got this. I deserve this just as much as, it's gonna have a different outcome. The third is who are you surrounded by? Our community plays a powerful influence on our level of self-efficacy. You know, how well we're gonna do in the moment of tested. And finally, what are your ways that you manage your fears, your worries and concerns? Because if you let those run rampant with the outgoing unchecked, you're never gonna do anything significant in your life. Like I have a friend who's an executive director of an association and she wanted to transition to be an independent consultant. And she thought if she left, she had a better chance of being a crack whore on the streets of Chicago than doubling her salary in three months time. I mean, our fears are crazy. Cause I remember telling her like, don't you think your friends would stop you at some point before you're homeless or doing crack like, come on. So we've got you. But so again, that's the strategies for confidence. But then we have experience. And this is where we talk about this in bed on you too. What comes first, confidence or experience? Does confidence get you into the arena for the experience or does previous experience give you the confidence? And so this is like a chicken and an egg and I really don't have an answer. I just think like don't overvalue experience that it undermines your confidence. You can always build your confidence and when you don't have experience, you can pull from other people's experiences to inform your judgment and your wisdom. I completely agree. And for us, we talk about the three factors in confidence really being your attitude, knowledge. So understanding what you're walking into, some of that preparation, which we'll talk about. And then experience, where experience is a little tricky is we often think it has to be completely relevant to the task at hand, right? So I need a lot of experience in a job interview. And it's like, no, you actually just need experience having great conversations with people because if you have a great conversation on that interview, you'll end up getting the job. So we often try to make that experience too related to the task at hand. And we don't think about all the other experience that we have of winning, succeeding, putting ourselves in the arena to draw that confidence from. When you're quite young, getting that confidence and that experience, there is a process to that. And if you're lacking in those, if you could substitute for a bit of arrogance and stubbornness, you'll find your way to getting a little confidence so you can continue building and getting that experience. Arrogance and stubbornness. Have you met my youngest son? Yes. Absolutely. Well, it's funny too. And you were talking earlier, Johnny, about skateboarding. I think there's, and then we talked about a hot yoga for a second too. I think on your journey, not to get attached to the outcome, the goal, the prize, but the process that you're going through, that's where the magic happens. And so thinking about like failing, skateboarding, failing at this, failing like that, you can call it failing. You can call it whatever you want. But think about the experiences that you're acquiring, you're learning, I've made mistakes, I've failed. I've done all these things, but I don't call them failures. I bet if we got 100 people together in a room and said, who hears learn more from your mistakes and failures than your successes, everybody would raise their hand. Now it's not the goal to try to fail every day. Like we want to improve it better, but we shouldn't be afraid of these things. Whatever it takes to put yourself in the arena so that you can get your ass kicked and say, well, is that it? Is that as bad as it's gonna get? Well, that's not so bad. And I think I figured out a way here that I can navigate this to have a better outcome. But you're never going to understand what that is going to be unless you put yourself in there. I certainly feel the metaphor for me around failure and maybe it's my Midwest Michigan showing is bowling. Many of us think of failure as just rolling the ball in the gutter and missing all the pins completely. But if growing up in Michigan, we played bumper bowling where they put the bumpers in the gutter. And all you end up doing by rolling the ball is you hit the bumper and it just bumps you closer to a pin. And that's what failure really does. It'll point you in a different direction that's the more right direction for you. You're gonna learn something out of it. You're gonna take away that experience as we talked about and how that impacts confidence. And you may also learn through that failure. I just don't really like this. I don't want to be a social media manager. I don't really enjoy public speaking. So I'm not gonna go for that role of being a thought leader. And many of the clients we work with, they go in with these big goals and through the coaching, they realize, well, I was misguided in those goals. Those goals weren't right for me. They don't actually align with my core values. But again, my parents told me that should be the goal. My peers, my friends said that's the only way to success. So that should be the goal. And we often don't tune enough into our intuition. Failure is that gut check moment that allows you to tune in even further to your intuition. I love the bumper analogy. I think that's perfect. And as a fellow midwesterner, I get it entirely. That's what we do January, February, March because it's too cold out there. Too damn cold, yeah. Perfect. So you bring up this great idea of a risk manifesto in the book. And I'd love to unpack that for our audience because I think it's just so powerful. Throughout the book, we have an opportunity to invite people to go online and start to take the material that they're learning in the book and apply it to this online. I'll say it's a vision board of sorts that you can talk about your fears, your failures. You can talk about your dreams. You can talk about your champions. You can talk too about what your holdbacks are. More importantly, like how you're gonna find the time to exercise these ideas because we're all time poor. Nobody has these minutes floating around that they can dedicate. And if they do, it's probably somebody else's time. So how are you gonna find the time to do these experiments? We don't talk about trying as a popular thing and I hate to blame Yoda, but you know, the do or do not, there is no try. Like trying has gotten such a bad rap, but we need to practice. Like we need to experiment on the things that we wanna do. And so through the RISC manifesto, which is online and there's a QR code and a website that you can go to, you can just start to play with the material and what you do at the end is just hit submit and out pops this RISC manifesto. It's a really colorful, beautiful assembled like PDF that you can keep by you saying that these are my goals. This is what I'm gonna do and this is my plan. That idea of taking all of these thoughts, feelings, goals that you have swimming around your head, maybe even afraid to share with family and friends because they haven't been supportive and actually committing to typing them out, writing them out. It's just such a powerful exercise for you to really take that real meaningful step closer to those goals. And we love that idea and we challenge all of our clients to start journaling, to start putting the paper in our goal implementation settings. Well, what exactly are those goals? So we can work towards them. And what frustrates me in a lot of situations is when you have this great goal that you have for yourself but you're too embarrassed to share it and you hold it inside and then you never get a chance to take action towards it. You never actually get a chance to move in that direction. It's a great way and we'll put the link in the show notes for our audience to put these goals together for themselves and commit to them. That simple action of typing them out can give you so much clarity. I've never met anyone who has regretted trying something and not succeeding. But I've met many people who have regretted not trying the things that were most important to them. And if you think that the universe is gonna stop for a second and say, hey AJ, hey Johnny, today is the day that we're gonna pause your life so you can have three weeks to plan out this next big thing that you wanna do. This is not gonna happen. It's like you have to make it happen. This isn't a line at the fair. You don't have to wait your turn. Like take your turn, it's your turn. Make it your turn. Well, I'm glad you brought up planning because this was a concept that Johnny and I both loved from the book, something that the Marines teach and I absolutely love it, the one third, two third rule. So many of our clients are so stuck on planning. They want the perfect plan to avoid the gutter and bowling to avoid failure. They're surveying online, they're going down rabbit holes and unfortunately they don't get to the actual execution of the plan because they're just too hung up in the planning phase. So what is the one third, two third rule and how have you applied it personally? So one third's two thirds is if you're trying to create anything and get anything off the ground, one third of your time should be planning and two thirds of your time should be executing. This is something really, really hard for perfectionists to do because they want to use all the time for planning and then waiting until stars, moons, sun, align. And so what it does though is it prioritizes your bias towards action because only when you act and experiment and try are you learning. And so again, if we only have a finite amount of time to do whatever it is that we want to do it should be executing and learning and growing and reiterating the process. So for example, if you've got three weeks to plan for like a 5K, put your plan. Yeah, of course, get something in thought but really hit your feet to the road. That's where you're gonna learn to grow. And so that was one of the things we offer too. Another uniquely Marine Corps concept that I think is more and more popular in business is reverse planning. And so the way that we normally approach planning is from start and looking into the future. What I learned in the Marine Corps is look at the future and then create your plan from a backup. What should you be doing the week before? What about the week before that? And through the process of reverse planning you actually learn that you're like low balling your expectations that you can take on more because it doesn't seem as intimidating. Like anything looking from where I am into the future seems big. But when you get to the future and go backwards you're like, oh, okay, actually this is pretty doable. And it creates those smaller steps that we keep talking about that are so important because if you take a backwards approach to the planning you realize that, well, it's not seven giant leaps it's actually just 14 short steps that I can do. It's like wanting to write a book. I'm sure you guys hear that a lot too. People coming to you because they want to write a book. Everybody has a book idea. And the process of sitting down at your typewriter is pretty intimidating. But if you want to write a book in a year and you did a reverse plan you're like, oh, I only need to write two pages today. This is easy, that's not easy. But it's doable. Right. And then that blinking cursor turns into typing letters and words. Yep, perfect, exactly. And going over the questions for the dreams or goals that people were going to put together right out of before even hit the questions. Let's start by defining what success looks like. And I find that this is such an important question because when I look around today it is difficult to get a clear picture of what success is. I know what Instagram tells me what success is. I know what TikTok tells me what success looks like. I know what Twitter tells me what success looks like. And I'm Gen X, I'm 48. So I didn't have those tools growing up. And yet, and even in my generation I wasn't happy until I learned how to actually define what success was and looked like for me. And then I was able to acquire enjoyment out of life because I was living through somebody else's expectations. In fact, it's funny because one of the very first things we write about in the book is clarifying your dreams. And with that underscore your dreams not the dreams of everybody else. And one of the best ways to really get in touch with your dreams is to unmoor your mind. And unmooring your mind is being quiet and sitting with yourself and being a little bit uncomfortable. It's sitting on a park bench for a half an hour and not grabbing your phone or texting somebody or like ordering groceries. It's being quiet and to try to have those thoughts bubble up. We need that time and we don't take that time. I mean, those moments where we could be taking that time we're multitasking, trying to get 500 things done. So step one, what are your dreams and your dreams and trying to like develop that personal intuition? And I love your work so much because you do talk about that relationship you have with yourself and building that relationship you have with yourself your vision, your values, your own sense of strengths and weaknesses not the ones that people told you but your own self-assessment of what it is that you're really, really good at what it is that you like and what it is actually that you really don't like and never wanna do again. So that quiet time is really valuable. And so when we also talk about risk-taking and dreaming we really advocate a kaleidoscope perspective to helping you clarify your dreams. So when we say that we are not just work horses that certainly can occupy a tremendous amount of time for us but we should have fuller lives than that. So when we think of kaleidoscope dreaming it's thinking about a kaleidoscope and all the different chambers and the different chips that give a balance that's what makes it so beautiful. So taking that metaphor a little bit further. You know, think about certainly your career what it is you want to do to earn money. Think about your life and maybe it's physical fitness, mental health, emotional health, maybe it's your family, your parents, kids. Think about impact and service. I mean, we are part of a community. We coexist in a culture in order to reap the benefits of the best culture we have to give in some sort of way, shape or form. So maybe internally or service organizations doesn't have to be huge amounts of time but there is something about connectedness that really is valuable intrinsically for us that we have to, I don't say, shouldn't say have to but I would say as a part of society you should. And then the final piece is joy. What do you do for fun? What do you do for your fun? Like on a Saturday night, I've got two kids they'll say let's go see, I don't know whatever Marvel movie is out this week. I'll go, I'll have fun. But I tell you, if I have three hours on a Saturday night that is not what I would prefer to do. And so trying to find what's fun for you because that fun thing makes everything else worth it. If I can work hard and I do work hard, we all work hard, but if I'm not having fun in my life, kind of sucks, not worth it. And it leads to burnout. So maybe that's the risk that people in our community need to take is trying to find a little bit more fun in your life. For themselves, that qualifier is huge. And I know part of my journey has been really unwinding. Well, what is fun for me now? And that changes too, you know, as we grow, as our values shift, what was fun for me five years ago, six years ago doesn't spark that joy. And that's okay too. But the pursuit of that spark is the most important. What is fun for you guys? Hacking the way on a golf course is fun for me. Hacking away on a guitar is fun for me. It's funny, during COVID, it was one of those moments where the world did stop for a moment. And I took that opportunity to reflect and think about things that I wanted to do in that moment with that extra time. I realized that music means more to me than I had even thought. And because of COVID, when everything was unrestricted and locked down, my friends who were involved in the music scene, those are the people who sort of, they fell apart because that community that they revolved around in the music sense, the shows, maybe the local venue, the community that hung out in that art scene, that was taken away from them. Those people did not have the skills to move through the pandemic. And I had lost more people than I could count or keep track of during that because the community and the enjoyment that they had in that scene was taken from them and there was nothing left. And so for me, it was a newfound love and excitement and joy and music that was always there, but just even more so. I love that. Thank you guys. What do you do for fun other than Marvel movies with your kids? I, well, I'm a runner, but that's not for fun. That's more like what I do to say things. Yeah, we get that. Over at the pandemic, my husband and I, we went up to this island in northern Michigan. It's called Mackinaw Island and we rented bikes. And one of the coolest things we did was we went to this restaurant and it's like a dusk actually and we had dinner and we rode our bikes back at night. Like it's like a stranger things kind of experience. But to me, like it reconnected me to my youth. So I love to ride my bike outdoors so much so that I got rid of my Peloton and bought a bike. I love to not like exercise for output. I just love to ride my bike. And it sounds so, it sounds like a queen song, right? John, I love to ride my bicycle. I love to ride my bike. Now there's one concept with risk. Again, going back to those misconceptions about it being so great is this safety net. And some of us may feel fortunate to have great parents who can provide that financial safety net for the risks we may be facing. And you have a great chapter in the book on weaving your own safety net. So what can we do to start to mitigate some of these risks and build a safety net, so to speak for ourselves? The first thing we talk about is finances. Likely the thing that is really holding you back is you're gonna have to invest in yourself in one way, shape, or form. It's probably not gonna be a lot of money or maybe it could be a lot of money depending on the risks you're contemplating. I've got some friends right now who are thinking about buying businesses and it is a considerable amount of money. But it's really just understanding what it is you need to feel safe and responsible. So I always advocate with people, don't overestimate how much money you need but don't underestimate it too because that does give you the security and confidence to take a risk. So really get into it with your finances and if you must talk to a financial advisor, really get a sense of if you're ready to make this action happen. The second most important factor is your talent and having a sincere appreciation that your talent is your most significant safety net. It's the thing that's gonna catch you if you stumble. It's something you've been building throughout your career and your life along with your work ethic. And so knowing that if this doesn't work out, if I become an independent consultant, if I try to build my podcast in my influencer space and if it doesn't work out, I can do something else because I've got talent and nobody can take that away from you. So I think we sometimes think like my employer's gonna save me, the government's gonna save me, my 401, it's like, no, no, those things are gonna, especially the government, it's not gonna save you. You save you and you need to trust that. And then the final thing is your judgment. Your judgment helps you make really good decisions and your judgment can help be influenced to by the people around you. So knowing that it's your finances, your talent and your judgment, that's your safety net. It's not other people. It's the things that hopefully you've been cultivating throughout your career, your life. I think that second piece talent is often the hardest for us to self-identify. So I'll take your podcast example and there's been moments of crisis in the 15 years we've been doing it of, is this gonna survive? Are people gonna keep listening? Can we go on financially? And if I looked at it of like, well, I'm a podcaster, what talents do I have? How else can I turn this into something? And my wife was like, well, you're also a digital marketer. You understand email automation. There's so many things hidden behind that talent that we often attribute to ourselves that it takes outside perspective to really identify. And I think it's just such a valuable exercise as you really think about your own talents to survey those around you. Like, what do you see from me? What areas of talent or strength do you see in me? So if you're trying to build that safety net and you haven't quite identified what your talent is or you feel that, well, maybe that talent I have might not be relevant in another job, another risk that could come up, asking others can often help you identify all those other skills, experiences and talents that would be valuable to another business in another career path that you might not see yourself. Interesting to hear you say that because so I have a son who is a junior. He's gonna be a, well, I guess technically a senior as of today. And I'm talking with a lot of my friends who now that they have a senior is gonna, they're gonna be empty nesters and they wanna go back into, they've been stay-at-home parents. They wanna go back into the workforce and they think, what have I done? What skills do I have? And it's funny because I've seen them plan meals for like 200 kids and flawlessly execute them with spreadsheets and reminders and all the technology. And I'm like, you do more than a lot of professionals. Like you're mad crazy at party planning and organizing. Like let's just start there. So yeah, I think we don't necessarily fully appreciate. So I do think that people see us clearer than perhaps we see ourselves. Definitely. The piece that I think we often see in other so is the risks that we are taking. And I shared our story earlier on the show of the risk of starting a podcast and back before anyone had podcasts and trying to turn that into a business. But some of our clients come to us and they have really crazy risk filled jobs. You know, one of our favorite clients is a Coast Guard Sniper and he shoots out drug running boats from a helicopter. And he came to us because he was struggling to approach the women he was attracted to in bars. And that was a fear for him. And all of the students in class with him were just shocked that here this guy, professional sniper, facing gunfire from drug runners would have that be the ultimate risk to him. And it's interesting how risk is really relative. So how can we start to identify our strengths with risk taking in areas where it would be great risk for others? And I think your military experience, many in our audience would find is great risk and translate that into other areas of our life where we may be feeling it's a lot of risk but others look at it as minimal risk, like walking up to someone as a stranger and striking up a conversation. And that's a really great question. And I think it's part of us understanding our personal risk disposition and starting to understand areas of life where we should be, you know, we can take risks. Like we can take, you know, physical safety risks. It's funny in the Marine Corps, you know, in my early 20s, I was willing to risk my life. And now if I see a piece of furniture, like a chair looks uncomfortable, I'm like, oh, I better not go sit down. That's gonna hurt my back. No, so it changes. But maybe like thinking like, where are you not risking? Like, is it for your values? Is it for your goals? Is it for your finances? What about your health? And so I often hear a lot too from people who are like, I just don't take risk. I'm like, well, you haven't been at the doctor in two years, like let's start there. And or maybe it is in relationships, maybe that you don't feel comfortable in conflict situations. Or maybe you have a, you know, again, maybe talking to somebody you're interested in, it's that fear of failure, fear of rejection. So it's really just trying to get to the brass tacks of it. Like what is really making me afraid? And where am I actually really good at risk? Like as an entrepreneur myself, I'm really comfortable making business decisions, but there's other areas in my life, like when it comes to, I hate negotiations. Like, so like I hate to risk in negotiations. Like I'm a people pleaser, I want you to like me. I'll give them my positions to make you happy, sure or not. Like so that's an area where I'm always working on too. So it's really just trying to understand, like where are you holding yourself back? Where are you not comfortable? Yeah, I certainly understand the people pleasing nature and me made me really focus on growing my negotiation skills and understanding that sometimes my people pleasing could actually keep us from getting a great win for everyone involved in the negotiation. Yeah, absolutely. I hear you. So the question we love asking all of our guests is what their X factor is, what is that unique skill set that you think makes you extraordinary? I think I am genuinely curious about what I don't know and I love people. And so I think combining that too, like I feel like every day and every person I can learn and that makes me feel like I've just have an enriched blessed life. So I think that just insane curiosity and just ability to say, you know, I know nothing about that. Can you tell me about that? Has allowed me to have so much exposure to ideas, perspectives, opportunities, information. So I think that's my X factor. I love in sharing that answer that you actually articulated a risk that many in our audience feel afraid to share, which is I don't know anything about that or I'm not familiar with that or I'm not an expert in that. So many of us try to position ourselves as being experts or knowing something and we're afraid to say, hey, I actually, I'm not great at negotiating or oh, I don't know anything about bumper bowling in the Midwest. And it holds us back from building great relationships with people. So you touched on this last piece relationships and risk and that's an area I'd love to explore with you because for some in our audience, the greatest risk is approaching that stranger. For some in our audience, their past experiences have led them to be really jaded romantically and the greatest risk is getting in another relationship and maybe being hurt or burned or feeling lost. So how do you take your military business risk mind and approach relationships which are often fraught with risk as well? I think if I were to talk about a big stage I think Brene Brown put a lot of language to the concept of vulnerability and that's something that I have learned over time. I mean, for the past, almost a little bit longer than you guys have been doing a podcast which certainly dates us all but I've been exposing my life and my mistakes and I remember in writing, leaving from the front just talking about some really personal things, really hard things. I talk about my brother's suicide and kind of exposing that part of my life there. I talk about really embarrassing mistakes I made in the Marine Corps and I remember distinctly feeling like I was opening up the kimono for people to see everything inside of me and it was but I think you just get comfortable being uncomfortable throughout time and that's been just something I think I've grown into is being okay with being able to say I don't know or being able to tell somebody that sounds really smart but pretend like you're talking to a fifth grader because that's like where I am. And it's kind of counterintuitive too. The more vulnerable and open you are about what you don't know, I think sharper or smarter people think you are. It's kind of like that self-deprecation. You know, the more mistakes we talk about the more people trust us. You're like, really? I just told you like a lot of things I do wrong and you trust me more but it's kind of intuitive. Well, it certainly comes back to the relationship that you have with yourself. If you have a great relationship with yourself it's going to be easier to be authentic to open your kimono and be vulnerable. But if you don't, if you can't deal with yourself well you're certainly not going to risk being vulnerable with other people. And so to be reflective, to understand your own psychology and how you think and how you see the world and that it is okay to grow and to learn and to step out and make mistakes only gets you more comfortable with yourself so that you will have a better relationship with yourself and others. I always had to hear the phrase too, you know, when we think about building relationships and we want to build trust it's like we have to share our secrets. And if you want somebody to share a secret with you you have to share one first. And you think about conversations that you've been in and people who've held their cards really close that's not a really solid deep relationship. You don't necessarily not trust them but you don't really feel like you could go there with them as human beings. If I'm going to have a relationship with somebody I don't want to have a shallow surface relationship I like to go deep. And so being able to start that to initiate that to have those types of relationships to me are really, really important. That's what makes I think life worth it for me. Yeah, as Renee Brown says, throw the jelly bean in the jar and you'll see others throw the jelly bean back and get more vulnerable with you. Yeah, oh, I had not heard that, but I love that. That was great. I feel like she talks about endearing greatly. Well, thank you so much for joining us Angie. Where can our audience find out more about all the great work you do? I publish a lot on LinkedIn. And so if you go to Angie Judge Morgan and follow me there, hopefully you'll see some of my content there. And then Leadstar is the company I co-founded. So leadstar.us and there's plenty of information there on bet on you. Thank you so much for joining us. Wonderful. I was so happy to have this conversation. Thank you guys. Thank you.