Leadership Power Moves You Never Knew You Needed!

[0:00]  and so I think it all starts with the core values the mission and constantly repeating yourself as a leader because you know people learn differently and sometimes people need to hear things a lot but they also need to see my words align with my actions with what we are saying as the organization is where we're striving to be but it's not just me it's every leader um in the organization that must do the same thing so how do we Implement big changes like we're talking about out here you come into an organization 130 plus years old right they've been doing things the same way for a long time so that creates that sense of complacency of saying we've always done it this way you come in and say we need to get the foundation of our systems our processes our it everything it sounds like we're turning a cruise ship so how do we get everybody to buy

[0:47]  into this new vision was there any type of I would say resistance towards where we were going when you talked about the change of the foundation that we needed to grow so we can then grow in the future all right guys welcome back to a brand new episode of the heart and hustle podcast now today is going to be an amazing conversation because I have John Morris who sits across the table from me he is the president and CEO of hope tree John thanks for joining me man Keenan it's my pleasure to be with you really looking forward to this you know I think it's really important for us to talk about the amazing impact that you guys are having at hope tree

[1:35]  but before we kind of get there I want to hear a little bit more about your origin story now you said when you were a senior in high school you had a football coach I believe to ask you to volunteer at an event and it showed you that you love doing the work that you do here today what was that about yeah you know when I was in school I was not a very good student um I only did enough to allow me to continue to play sports and and you know my senior year A lot of my friends were getting ready to go off to college and they all had plans and I really didn't have anything in mind as to what I wanted to do and um you know I had taken a psychology class and the only reason I took the psychology class is the girl I was dating uh was taking the class so I thought hey yeah it's a it'd be a good class but um you know my

[2:24]  football coach uh was asked uh to have some players come together together at around Christmas time and to volunteer for these um these low-income children and and it was a neat idea i' never heard of it before but um how it came about is that the football players would come into this church and um these children would come in the morning and we would do activities and crafts with them and they kind of they kind of aligned us like a big brother little buddy type thing and uh and so we did that in the morning and um you know did craft around Christmas and then we went to a little department store and we had money that the kids could spend on their families for Christmas and uh so we did that we helped them pick out items and

[3:12]  then when we came back to the church we had lunch and then Santa came and then Santa gave the kids some gifts and it was just a real neat experience but that's really what triggered me into thinking wow you know the impact that we had on those kids for that short amount of time uh it really just spoke to me it did something to me that day and I didn't know exactly what I wanted to do but I knew from that moment that I wanted to work with kids and then you know you you couple that with the psychology classes and uh talking about what people deal with and what they go through in their life uh you know it just clicked at that moment I didn't know long term but I I just wanted to help kids and at that point that was my focus how did it feel when you were showing up to that event that day you know me being an athlete when I was in high school there was almost a sense of

[3:59]  Pride that you held when you were giving back to the community because little ones often looked up to you as somebody who was I wouldn't say a hero but somebody who they wanted to emulate because you were somebody who was in high school you're playing football you're the guy and so it had to feel really good to set that subconscious example for giving back in the community at that point in time yeah I mean you described it perfectly I mean I grew up in a small town in Southwest Virginia and you know football was huge um you know we we didn't have that big of a town but I know almost everybody in town was at the games on Fridays and so when we showed up of course we had our jerseys on and uh the kids flocked to that but even in our school Keenan we had uh individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities and um I remember early on we would wear our

[4:47]  jerseys on Friday and and those kids would come up to us and Pat us on the back and um you know our coach often talked to us about how we represent ourselves in the community and um how we represent each other and how people are watching us and that we could make a huge impact if we choose to and so I think everything that he taught us coming up and then just seeing the reaction of people when you go in town and you're wearing that Jersey and on Saturday mornings after a big wi I mean it it meant something to our community and so uh at that moment it it showed me the importance of uh doing the right thing uh you know associating yourself with the right people the power of a team and how important it is to give

[5:34]  back I mean and you think that those things might not come across in a small town but but man it was on display where I grew up a lot I mean it changed the trajectory of your life you know I mean those subconscious examples of being a leader showing up with the Jersey on people look up to you Sports have instilled that sense of character in me right I'm going to show up not for myself but for everybody else around me and if we can have a positive impact we're going to do right by everybody else else and I feel like we don't get those lessons a lot in today's society unless you're a part of a team like that you know I everything that I learned in high school football high school basketball um and then when I went to college uh I went to a small division 3 college and I ended up playing club lacrosse for three years and um everything I've learned in sports it

[6:23]  translates to my career you know uh the value of preparation um the value of working hard uh the reality of of understanding that you can do all the right things and still not be successful or not achieve the goal that you want um uh but it's not necessarily about that goal it's about that striving and that that just getting better every day and to me there's nothing more exciting than bringing a group of individuals together uh and accomplishing something uh bigger or greater than you can imagine and and so all of that is 100% transferable to the workplace and we deal with that all the time you deal with so many different characters so many different peoples with strengths so many you know some

[7:11]  people are you know quote unquote rock stars and and some people are still trying to find their way but uh you know to be that coach to be that motivator uh to instill that discipline not only with our teammates but ourselves and even at hope tree we use the phrase teammates uh you know I know some organizations like to use family um you know but I like to use the word teammates because you know that denotes that we're a group of people committed to our mission committed to our call striving to achieve something together and um yeah everything that I've learned uh man it is it is 100% transferable you know it's really interesting over the weekend I was doing a little bit of prep for today's conversation and just so happened that there was a a Warriors preseason game on Steph Curry Steve Kerr

[7:58]  and another player were standing there and they were all joking around because they were so tight about the season that was upcoming and after they hopped off the broadcast they said you know we were all a part of a championship team together there are few experiences in life together that bring us together for a shared experience you know so much of today's society is based on individualism and isol and me getting after it as an individual but when you can unite a group of people together and you can put all of your energy together to have an impact a cause that bonds you and I wish that we had more of that teammate mentality in the work that we do because showing up together impacting the community and you know impacting lives like you do that's a special bond that a lot of people need to lean into a little bit more absolutely and and Keenan you talk about having those that special

[8:45]  group um the part that a lot of leaders don't like to talk about too often is you know it it's hard enough to bring that group together because everybody has competing priorities everybody has different uh short-term goals long-term goals everybody has different experiences and and sadly sometimes that means you have to exclude certain people from being on the team because they can negatively impact the entire team um you know and in this whole concept about individualism versus the team you know I mean when you're coming up in in the field when you start your career it's all about individual uh accomplish M you know are you are you capable of succeeding um can you deliver but then

[9:36]  the higher you go into an organization it really does become less about you and more as the team and and can you sacrifice your individual goals for the team goals and you know what's interesting is so many people cannot do that in the in the short term but in the long term it really pays off better for you to be able to do that you get every you want and more if you sacrifice your individual accolades for the accolades of the team or for the betterment of the team uh but it's one of those weird dynamics that that come into play you know whether you're on a on a an athletic team or in the in the workforce and um you know it's not easy to bring all those folks together and and it's something that never just like the

[10:24]  Warriors I mean you know they've had some pretty Dynamic teams and they've had some pretty lean years and and um you know it takes the Right Mix and constantly looking at your mix keeping a pulse on the dynamic of your team uh are we still striving together are we still rowing the boat in the same direction or are we not and and um you know it's something you can never take for granted is something you can never think that you've arrived and think that everything's going to be okay because we're good now doesn't mean we're going to be good in three months or six months man there's a there's a real conversation about leadership here that I want to double click on you know when we come through our careers very much like you said individual accolades executing on the tasks that were given being the high performer gets us so far but then we have to flip the script and become the empowerer of the people around us why do you think we're in such

[11:12]  a leadership crisis if you will here in society today with your two cents on how the landscape kind of looks for the future oh that's a big big question um you I I do ultimately think it comes down to um ego I think um it comes to an inability not maybe an inability but a um a lack of desire to Humble ourselves um you know and we are in this age of self-promotion which I understand you know I mean people are buying your brand which is important um but you always have to counterbalance that with the team and you know I've I've been through a a lot of situations where I failed the ego

[12:03]  test tremendously and um you know I I've had to really come to grips with uh making amends with apologizing I've had to come to face I've had to ask myself John why are you so upset about this is it does it really matter is this about your ego is this about you needing to project a certain image or about you needing to get the credit and there are so many times where I where I've had to say yes I wanted the credit and I've learned that getting the credit is a very shallow win you know um the win is when your team wins is when your team knows that they are uh that they

[12:51]  are a good a big reason why we are successful and you know that ego just rear up and sometimes we mask it and um but I think I think that humbling ourselves too um you know just to admit when we're wrong to admit when we screw up to uh acknowledge that we don't have all the answers uh you know and it wasn't too long ago that leaders they had to they had to have all the answers they had to be the smartest in the room and um man I already told you that I you know I did not apply myself when I was in high school um if I'm dependent on to be the smartest in the room we're in trouble so um you know I mean that's just my two cents I think that you know just making it less about ourselves and really

[13:39]  meaning that really making it less about ourselves and I understand that I'm the face of the organization I understand that there's times I have to step up and I have to be out front but um but I don't need to do it all the time and and really when I need to be out front is when we're apologizing when we're uh admitting that we fell short when we were admitting that you know what we thought was going to happen didn't um you know but it's it's about it's about everybody else it's about the team it's about the people we serve and and um you know so that that's just my two cents on no man I completely agree I mean there's a there's a certain burden that leadership has you know it's to take a little bit more of the blame than often sometimes we deserve and it's to pass along right the the kudos to the team that executes on the great job that

[14:27]  they do but a lot of struggle you know my mom said something very impactful to me every day when I would leave to go to school she said Keenan be a leader not a follower and being a leader often means going against the grain and doing things that people aren't willing to do in certain situations and I feel like like you said in this world of personal brand and self-promotion we often want to take all the accolades but I think there's a subconscious voice in the back of our head that often says if you want to go far go together if you want to go quickly go by yourself and I think we need to lean into that team a little bit more today in this individualized Society I love that I love that and I've had to learn too to allow the people I supervise to make their own decisions and to do things the

[15:15]  way they want to do them um you know I I I was very fortunate and very blessed early in my career that you know I had some really good mentors I had people that poured into me and and the the programs I was involved in and leading were were pretty successful and um you know but then when I started hiring people in our team grew I didn't realize it at the time but I was I was trying to hire people that did things like me but um that didn't work out too well I mean I have a lot of deficiencies right and and um you know the beauty of the team is when people of different strengths bring their different strengths together together uh and we can utilize all of those things but also realize that you

[16:03]  know I made a lot of mistakes and I learned from them I'm constantly learning from my mistakes but I I want them to learn from that too and so if I dictate to them how they need to do something well they're not going to learn from that um in fact they could give less effort if I'm dictating everything that they're doing because that means they have Les less ownership in it and so I've I've learned to um go along even if I don't agree as long as everything aligns with our core values and what we're hoping to achieve in our mission uh you know to let them seek out their own way and and my job then is to help them learn through it uh and I can learn through it too because if they're doing something in a different way that I would do it then it's it's helping me grow as well what we're really talking about is an element of trust here now

[16:51]  this has been the biggest maturation process for me over I'm going to say the last 5 years is putting trust into other people to execute on the vision that we establish as a group but I know a lot of leaders struggle with that because often we have you know this is my baby fallacy I'm responsible here so I'm not going to let other people you know have the the trust and the ability to execute like they deserve how was how did you learn this lesson yourself because there's a lot of putting down our ego here there's a lot of putting trust into other people did you have experiences where you maybe hired somebody who was doing it just like you but you found yourself having to micromanage that individual because they were just as smart as you were in the area of expertise I guess you know I think where I learned a lot of this is is like so many things that I've been involved with over the years through my

[17:37]  failures um you know early on uh I worked for an organization called total action for progress and and we worked with fathers and ex offenders and um you know we we we had some success and we started growing we eventually became the largest male involvement Fatherhood Initiative in the state of Virginia and so we were hiring people and because people didn't do things the way I would do them or when I necessarily expected they would be done I would respond in a way that wasn't helpful uh and so thankfully the people I had on my team gave me the feedback that what I was doing was not helpful um once I went to another organization where it was much larger I

[18:24]  mean we had 800 you know team members and there were people that had expertise that I was not close to touching I mean it it was a behavioral health Mental Health Organization and we had so many top-notch clinicians I I couldn't tell them how to do their job I did not know I mean they had forgotten more about therapy and counseling and clinical interventions than I than I ever knew so um I had to learn to trust those individuals I had to you know early on I had to learn to allow people you know I could give the non-negotiable when this was due what was the expectation things like that but then how they went about it was up to them um I learned through hiring some people that were similar to me that didn't mean

[19:12]  it was going to work out for the team didn't mean they were going to be successful um and so I learned you know whether it was somebody in finance that that had a whole different skill set than me yeah they didn't approach things the way I did but maybe that's a good thing you know and so I think it's through over the years just you know uh working with all different kinds of people and then seeing you know when when things work that hey especially if they worked in a way that it wasn't my idea that all right this can work first of all John you don't know everything second there's some really talented people around you and and you know my faith is very important to me and you know my pastor has been a probably one of the single greatest influences of my

[20:00]  life and you know when we were learning about the principle of stewardship you know it's the idea that you know this isn't mine what I'm doing you know I'm I'm a caretaker of this role I'm a caretaker of this team I'm a caretaker of this organization and you know just like we talked about in sports you can do all the right things and still lose you can do all the right things and still fall short but what I've learned as a result of my faith in my faith journey is that you know you can sometimes fall short of doing things right and the outcome is still going to be okay I mean God can still bless that but sometimes you can still do everything right but ultimately it's up to God for the results and so I've learned to trust that that you know if I focus on what I'm putting into it

[20:49]  and if I do things the right way and if if our team can go about doing things the right way then you know what we can live with the results and and we're okay with them because sometimes you win sometimes you don't and um you know it's the progress It's the journey and I've really learned that over the last several years with really just with all of my experiences I mean this is the beautiful part about having that competitive background right is we can now apply ourselves to a season of business right that is going to be much longer than our athletic career so that personal development continuing to learn from our our failures and our lessons learned helps us be successful in situations like what we're doing here now at hope tree I want to talk a little bit about what were some of the current challenges that you guys are taking on at hope tree some of the things that you guys have been doing to you know create

[21:35]  that opportunity for excellence that I know you guys are pursuing so what's the current landscape look like and where are we gone you know I've been here for a little over five years and and I recognized that when I came into the role there were a lot of people here that have done a lot of good things um you know I mean hope tre's been around now for 134 years and so that that doesn't happen by accident and and that means the agency was always evolving at the right time and I think when I stepped into the role we were at at another inflection point where it was time to evolve and so uh you know we had almost everything was being done on paper we did not have an electronic health record uh we did not have a human resources information system that was

[22:22]  very functional our accounting system was outdated I mean uh our it infrastructure was in really really bad bad shape um I mean so just from an infrastructure standpoint from a system standpoint we were pretty poor um we were not up to date on technology um and and you know when you looked at all that we have not we had not grown in some time added a lot of new programs and I mean the organization was about a 1656 million do a year organization uh 220 employees I mean you don't get there by accident right a lot of good things but we had gotten complacent and we had become a little bit insular to where um you know there was no growth and so uh in order to get us back on that trajectory I mean the

[23:12]  first thing we did was rewrite our mission statement um review our core values and and our vision and and then we also developed some strategic objectives and you know over the course of the last you know five years it's really been about getting the right people on the bus um as Jim Collins would say in his book good to great and and making sure those people are in the right seat um you know we had to do heavy lifts and you know doing big evolution in an organization can be exhausting and there are some people that really excel in that some people do not and some people love the reorganization and charting a new course and some people people are you know

[23:59]  they're better at hey you fix it I'll come in and I'll I'll manage it and I'll run it and so you know having the right people come come in um you know established our goals our two goals at hope tree are very simple number one is we want to be the premier Faith related nonprofit Human Services organization in Virginia and I tell our team all of that all the time that there are a lot of really great organizations out there but when we think about being the premier we want to be the one that people think of when they have a referral to make we want to be the one that they think of when they are applying for jobs we want to be the one that people think of uh that they're going to get a lot of value um and the second goal is we want to be the best place anyone has ever worked and I have people come up to me over the last five years Keenan and they let me

[24:46]  know John this has not been the best place I've ever worked and and I want to hear um the tough stuff I want to hear where we have fallen short and you know get in everybody on the team that is really rowing the boat in that direction because it's very easy to say hey we love our core values but it's another thing to have leaders say I'm going to live these core values because I did challenge our team I said you know when we put our core values on paper and our Board of Trustees approves them uh we've got to live these I I don't want to work for an organization that these values look nice on a on a wall or they look great in a brochure but the people inside of them they don't recognize what

[25:34]  we're talking about and so um it's hard once again that comes down to humility it comes down to being accountable it comes down um to being very honest and open with how we're doing but yet always striving for excellence that we are always going to get better and so uh I think that's where we've been over the last couple years and and even over the last 6 months we've really been focused on our systems um uh you know our internal systems were not uh as tight as they needed to be uh there were little different expectations across the organization uh and I think just seeing our team come together over the last three to six months to pull all of that together H has been very gratifying um and then we know because at the end of

[26:24]  this once we get our systems tightened up once we get our processes our policies and procedures in a good place well then we can think about growth and we can talk about what's next on the horizon and whether it's in a new locality a new market a new service line um you know is very very exciting to me and so I think it all starts with the core values the mission and constantly repeating yourself as a leader because you know people learn differently and sometimes people need to hear things a lot but they also need to see my words align with my actions with what we are saying as the organization is where we're striving to be but it's not just me it's every leader um in the organization it must do the same thing so how do we Implement big changes like

[27:12]  we're talking about here you come into an organization 130 plus years old right they've been doing things the same way for a long time so that creates that sense of complacency of saying we've always done it this way you come in and say we need to get the foundation of our systems our processes our it everything it sounds like we earning a cruise ship so how do we get everybody to buy into this new vision was there any type of I would say resistance towards where we were going when you talked about the change of the foundation that we needed to grow so we can then grow in the future what was that like it was massive and um it was exhausting and and we're not done yet and I I I'll be very honest Keenan when you when any CEO comes in and has to make a massive change especially you know when when I'm SU ceeding a a long-term executive director

[28:00]  who is beloved by a lot of individuals and is a very good man um to say we need to change it it unsettles a lot of people particularly if individuals don't see the need to change and so one of the things hope tree had going for them is a lot of longtime employees who had been here many many years that can be a very good thing but then it can be a detriment because you don't see what else is out there and what other people are doing um I'll be very honest we lost a lot of people and that was heartbreaking for me I I I I thought naively that you know we just tell people where we want to go and it's not out of the question it's it's not

[28:50]  something massive at least in our industry but the reality is a lot of people did not want to go um thankfully we had a longtime vice president and chief operations officer that was here he just retired last April he had been here for 40 years everything that we were doing he had my back on um we had departments that were struggling mightily and we had one Department in particular that was going to the Board of Trustees telling them that what I was doing was going to bring the agency day and I knew that this was

[29:41]  happening but but I resolved a long time ago Keenan that I was going to be the same with our team members as I am with our Board of Trustees as I am with a big donor or uh a partner um I never wanted someone for example to come to my church to visit my church and say wow John's totally different at church than he is at work uh and I didn't want my family to have a different you know sometimes we can be the best version of ourselves but not so great at home because we spent all of our energy I really wanted to be the same person everywhere and that means I will be very honest and transparent and authentic to everyone and so there were some losses that occurred

[30:29]  that um that some members of our board got really anxious about and if it wasn't for Johnny Nash our chief operations officer because he had been here a long time they started going to him and saying hey do we need to be worried and at every time he said no he's doing what needs to be done and thankfully all of those folks who were going to the board and for who was going behind our back and honestly Keenan they were hoping that we would fail um they're no longer here and uh my prayer since I've been here is God send the right people and and he has been faithful so uh Johnny's replacement our new coo is amazing she came in and she

[31:18]  was able to identify so many gaps that we had been striving to close but we had were not there yet uh our CFO uh is the best CFO I've ever worked in and I I've worked for an organization that was a national uh organization that had thousands of employees and and she is that topnotch our chief advancement officer has re-engaged our organization with donors and potential donors uh in a way that wasn't there before our chief clinical officer our chief compliance I mean I could go on and on about the quality of people um uh but thankfully our board didn't jump ship on what needed to happen thankfully Johnny Nash had my back and um you know

[32:10]  encouraged the board that we're doing the right thing um and we had enough people that that left their comfort zone and and to say this isn't working we need to fix this and uh to give us that feedback in real time but it is it is is uh is it's exhausting and thankfully if you go too fast then you're going to lose some people if you go too fast you're going to make people nervous but then if you wait too long you're putting the organization at Great risk and so we really try to communicate as much as possible we tried to bring people on board I'm not a kind of leader that comes in and says all right you need to leave I want to bring my people in I really have this philosophy that hey

[32:57]  what we're doing is not we just want to treat people the right way we want to make sure that we can prove that our services are good we want to make sure that we're engaging people to strengthen the organization and um you know give them that time to come on board and uh but ultimately they make that choice if they want to come on on board with us and um thankfully we've had enough people to stay uh Johnny stayed through his retirement and and and God has sent the right people to get us across that Finish Line because even the gaps that we still have it was out of my realm of expertise to close it I mean I could look at it and say this isn't working uh but that's where these other people are coming in and they're the ones closing the Gap I

[33:45]  mean I'm just all right help me H let me know what I need to do to clear the way uh and I've got your back and and it's a beautiful thing to see right now yeah it sounds like you've been able to build a healthy skill set in the organ ation of Leaning into curiosity because very transparently in the Human Services space what got us here is not going to get us there right we have huge demand in our communities we have need to be able to inspire the next generation of people who are going to come do this work so how are you thinking about that skill set of curiosity from your own personal leadership perspective I I think it drives me a lot um you know the one thing that I do understand is that people do not like change MH but the other thing is that I've realized is that nothing ever stays the same um I remember when I started

[34:34]  working at Family preservation services and you know I was working with all those clinicians and uh I was a I I I I started at the organization as a as an assistant state director and then after about six months um I was appointed uh the state director CEO and I remember being so overwhelmed at the prospect of what can I offer these folks I mean these are people that have been in that that particular industry their whole career I had not these are people that knew the clinical models the payment structures the relationships with mcos electronic health records HIPPA laws I mean I knew none of this and my only thought is how can I be of value to these folks and uh

[35:26]  I remember I committed myself at that point that I was going to I was going to do everything in my power to get better and I remember picking up a book um by Tim Ferris called tools of Titans and um I started getting up at 5:00 am every morning um I would work out and and I would read for at least 30 minutes sometimes an hour every morning I would I would read the Bible I would do my devotionals and then I would read some kind of business uh topic book some kind of leadership or growth topic because no matter what the organization is I might not have been good enough to come in and you know give a lot of wisdom on the clinical side um but when you're dealing

[36:14]  with people I mean it's it's all leadership every you know like John Maxwell says everything Rises and falls on leadership and so it's about The Human Condition it's about working in teams it's about accomplishing something together it's about all right we're here right now but how do we get here and and so uh that's where I could help and so at that point I was just not only curious about leadership but to to be able to be of value to our clinicians I had to learn as much about the industry about our payers and about the clinical interventions and models so I could be a value so thankfully I had really good people that wanted to educate me on what they did um as much as I wanted to learn and so for me it was like this

[37:03]  constant you know let me learn but then I took it a step further because everything I was learning I wanted to pass off I I wanted to give away so what I was learning on the clinical side and from what I was learning operationally on how to lead a $47 million organization with 800 employees I had to bring all that information in but then I had to also share it and so I would I would take the lead on training on some of these topics or at least the beginning and then pass it off to the experts because I needed to know it for myself there is a very fine line in letting somebody one of your leaders take the lead on it and and

[37:51]  they should take the lead on as much of it as possible but then I could very easily abdicate my responsibility for learning because of their competence yeah now as the leader I I do have to set the tone I do have to walk the walk but that means I also have to be as knowledgeable as I can I'll never know as much as they do but I need to be able to help them through their pain points and uh and so thankfully it was through the reading it was through uh all the books the podcasts the the the trainings the the education I was getting from them and then me just wanting to give it away and so um I saw a lot of what I do is I just share now what that also does though is when you start sharing this stuff people

[38:39]  start saying well John you say that but I saw you last week you didn't respond like that which meant I have to I had to humble myself many many times to say you're right I'm not there yet but I want to get there and I'm want to get there with you and and and there's this term in this book called scaling leadership called uh uh leading loudly and uh a lot of people in organizations are afraid to lead loudly because it means you open yourself up to criticism it means you open yourself up to acknowledging yep I I fell short that time you know because so often leaders they think they have to have it all figured out they have to be perfect sometimes what we bring across is that you can't hold me accountable you

[39:27]  can't call me out my job is to call you out well at H tree our core value of accountability says well we're first accountable to God but then we hold ourselves accountable we hold everybody else accountable last you know we've got to start with us first and so uh I think that that Curiosity thing is just so powerful and JJ reic had a quote on one of his podcasts he said uh you know we are never uh arriving we're always becoming and uh and what's really cool about that is JJ reck is is from where I live R up Virginia he grew up here and I wish he would have went to Virginia Tech to play ball but you know it worked out for him um but I love that quote I mean we never arrive uh we are always becoming every single day when did that

[40:16]  realization happen for you now I want to kind of put some context around this never was the best student right never really enjoyed school did exactly what you talked about as a senior in high school just went did the bare minimum so I could play sports right but then one day I had a mentor say Keenan you're going to have to become something or you're going to have to turn pro at something other than baseball and in that moment my competitive Spirit kicked in and so I said if I can apply myself and learn as much as I possibly can about business I can be great here when was your aha moment or when did that switch flip for you where you wanted to start consuming knowledge waking up at 5 a.m learning about leadership so you could you know pour into other people around you when did that happen you know uh I think before before the you know I started

[41:04]  really waking up and and and and engrossing myself in all these books and uh trying to get better I remember an incident back when I worked for total action for Progress that that I'm not very proud of so I had a mentor and I had a couple that would pour into me and you know I would call them up when my boss would do something that would make me mad and uh I remember I called up my mentor one time and I said can you believe what she did and he said uh well you were wrong and I'm like hold up you're supposed to be my mentor you're supposed to have my back he's like you're wrong and I remember there was a situation where I would I would have disagreements with my

[41:55]  supervisor and I would go back to my team and complain about her and I remember we were in a staff meeting one time and they were responding to her in a way that was not professional um in a way that was not Christlike in a way that was just not you would not want anybody to do that but what they had done is they had taken on my fr ation and turned it around on her and I we would battle she would try to she would try to embarrass me because I would challenge her I would challenge

[42:43]  her and I would um I would try to flex my muscle a little bit I you know I felt that I was I felt I should been in her role if I'm very honest that that that hurts to say that to admit it um and we got into it one day and she took me in front of my into the big boss the CEO of the company and he had had a couple of sessions with us before and then you know when we went to meet with him she he said all right tell me your side and she told him his side and then he said John and I thought it was my turn to speak and I started giving him my side which I felt very Justified and he said and he yelled at

[43:31]  me never haven't been yelled at since I was in practice right in sports um he said she's your boss I don't care what she tells you to do unless it's illegal or unethical you do it stop being disrespectful and I remember I left that day and I I was so angry going to the parking lot by the time I got to my car I had tears coming out I was so mad and so I'm going home and I'm praying and I get home and I I open up my Bible I'm I'm so mad I'm just going to open up my Bible and I'm going to find something to justify why I'm being wrong but an amazing thing happened I went to this portion of scripture where uh uh David was already anointed king and he was supposed to be in line to be the next

[44:18]  king but Saul was still King and Saul was trying to kill David now my situation was nothing like that she wasn't trying to kill me right but Saul was trying to kill David well David had an opportunity to kill Saul and he wouldn't do it and he said I will not touch the Lord's anointing you know David humbled himself that even though sa was trying to kill him he was like my my job is to be faithful to God and I came back and because of that you know I apologize to her I apologize to the big boss um I did not want to be that way um but it was humbling it was humbling and at that point I realized all

[45:04]  right all your success it's not been through your team because how you're leading your team is not helping the team get better and at that point it might have been a little bit too much about me and so I think that lesson at that point in my mentor telling me that I was wrong and the scripture I went to was all like all right you've got to go a different path and it is not about you it is about there there is something much bigger going on here than you and it's about how can you interact with others how can you make an impact in others growing people where they need to be um but then humbling myself as well and so you know that's when I really started picking up a a book and say okay well you know I think my first book

[45:53]  might have been a John Maxwell book all right and yeah sounds good but man it's hard in practice and um you know I could go on and on about many other failures uh but I think it was in those type of moments through my failures that I realized and then I could step back and say wow I've seen this leadership in these folks I've seen this over here I've seen poor leadership here do I do that and so it takes this level of self-awareness uh to really sit with um you know how you are impacting others is is your impact helping achieve the team goals things of that nature uh and that self-awareness is painful it's so much easier to deflect and to blame than to sit and look and see where you are falling short as a leader I mean I there there's a sense of a personal

[46:43]  accountability there and we talked about you know the value that you guys have that sense of ultimate accountability means I need to show up better for myself so I can show up better for everybody else as well and when I think about the measuring stick right that we will all be as leaders of organizations kind of measur measured in at the end of our time is how much did we lift our team members around us it's not just about the Keenan John show you know but it's about how we lift everybody up around us there's a humility element in there which is so powerful John if you could go back to that young version of yourself and had a five minute conversation where you could instill some wisdom and knowledge into that younger version of John what would you say to him um I think what I would say is you know just focus on serving other people you know I mean because I was doing

[47:33]  that but sometimes you can do the right things with the wrong motive you know I felt because we had had success and because we had been recognized for that I felt that I always had to deliver the result and and so when we didn't deliver there were times where I would look to place blame or when I wasn't placing blame I was definitely trying to take the heat off of me um you know I've had to learn that results come and go um now I'm still very competitive I I want to win in

[48:24]  everything I do and um I'm I'm very bad at celebrating wins you know when something really good happens I'm like Yay what's next because there's always something next right but I think I would I think it would be look just stop focusing on the results stop focusing on the winds they will come in due time um focus on the people you know and and I think when I started off it's easy to focus on the people when you have really high performers and when everything's going your way where it really shows if you're focused on the people is when it starts going bad or when you have to start holding others accountable or when you have to really manage people through hard

[49:10]  situations that's when it that's when it gets tough and um so ultimately at the end of the day even now it it's about the people it's always about the people it's about the relationship you know early on I I I despise politics and what I mean by that is you know there's always people who um will manipulate things in order to achieve what they want to achieve and so um and I don't always find those individuals to be very authentic and to me to be very authentic in myself is very important and that's what I hope in all of our leaders you know I remember early on I tried to speak like other people spoke it was a disaster I tried to interact

[49:58]  how other people did it was a disaster because that's their gift I had to really learn what my gifts were and then walk in those gifts and learn to say no to the things I'm not good at um but but when I when I despised the politics of it I pulled away a little bit sometimes from making relationships because I didn't want it to seem that I was creating relationships only to get what I wanted and what I didn't realize is that external relationships internal relationships it's all so important but what I what I should have done early on is in creating those relationships how can I bring value

[50:47]  instead of thinking that I'm only getting involved in this relationship so we can get value so I can get value or my team and and which is a very shortsighted way it's a very transactional way of doing things and I think now I realize that like it it it is all about the relationships it's about the people it's about you know just being helpful to somebody else and um you know and and thankfully I've learned that through my pastor I've learned that through some really good people in my life um and at the end of the day if you don't get the credit or the recognition that I mean that stuff's fleety right it it really doesn't matter at the end of the day it's the impact on the people on the organization is are other people's lives being improved and

[51:36]  and and early on I just don't think I appreciated it the way I do now yeah I mean the the growth in leadership is something that we need to talk a little bit more about you know because everybody thinks like we've talked about from the very beginning of this conversation that often when you're highly skilled at one thing that means you're a great leader but the culmination of all the experiences that we have the losses being able to lean into the uncomfortable moments helps us be an even better leader John uh I want to give you a last couple minutes here on the podcast to talk about where we're going right what's the vision and the vision that you're casting for hope tree going to look like over the next five years where you taking us yeah you know um one of the big things we are um undertaking is the Redevelopment of our campus and so uh hope Tre we started off as the Baptist

[52:24]  orphanage of Virginia back in in 1890 and so for many years we were an orphanage and we had up to 250 300 kids on this campus and uh you know we'll never have that many kids on this campus again and it's because of the changing regulations and the changing laws I mean uh there's no state funded at least that I know of state funded orphanages anymore um the the the people we see now they they have a lot more mental health challenges mental health issues and so we're becoming a more mental health Behavioral Health Organization and so um on the campus redesign you know right now our headquarters is on about 60 Acres and so

[53:12]  we've been in the process for the last two to three years to redesign this campus to turn it into a mixed use development so we you know on about 30 Acres of our campus we're going to bring in housing and it's going to be a mix of um you know single family uh Town Homes uh small apartment buildings uh we want to bring in some limited commercial aspect like a small restaurant or a corner store or a little coffee shop we want this community to be very integrated so sidewalks everywhere walking trails everywhere um and and so that's huge for us because I mean this this place was home for a lot of people and it brought up a lot of negative feelings early on when we started

[53:58]  talking about this but the reality is is that hope Tre is never going back to that 250 bed facility again and so the most children will ever ever serve on this campus again are 16 if we want to grow our children's residential program we've got to do it elsewhere in already established communities that are integrated and so that's what we're trying to do integrate this community and so when we when we came up with this redesign concept we had three goals that we wanted to meet with whatever we were going to do and we did not know what we were going to do but our first goal we wanted to do is to honor the history of this great organization and and I I I recognize every day that that we stand on on the shoulders of giants um that have labored here to get us to this

[54:47]  point um and so we don't want to forget that while we are going to be different in the services we provide we should never forget where we came from and so number one is to honor our history number two while we need to honor our history we cannot be beholden to our history and so we have to position ourselves for future success and so what this development is going to do is we're not just selling off some of our buildings and properties but we're going to invest about 10 to 15 million into our own facilities and upgrading our own facilities because uh I want us to be able to position ourselves for for the next 20 30 years for future success and then our third goal is we want this to be something that our community will be

[55:34]  proud of and there are people that oppose this community uh there are people that oppose what we're trying to do um but I feel very strongly that in 10 years in 15 years they're going to look back uh the one thing I want them to do is to say they did it right uh but I want them to look back too and say you know what it did turn out for the best and uh so that's consuming a lot of our time and a lot of our energy and once again that's why I thank God the people that he sent is because it's allowing me to focus more on the development and the future of hope tree uh because our people are focusing on the day-to-day uh in the programs and like I said you know we do want to expand our footprint uh we are currently in 20 locations across the state uh we have um some locations in mind that we want to expand to over the

[56:24]  next five years uh definitely more clinical more Community Based more homebased um you know because that's where uh Services occur best is when we can serve people where they live they still might need to come to us for residential but only for a short period of time you know we want to be able to reunify the families that can reunify keep families together before their kids come into the system uh but then if that doesn't work we want to be able to find uh children uh permanency we want them to be able to find families uh that they can live and thrive in and so a lot more Behavioral Health mental health Focus here into the future I mean I'm really excited to follow along with your guys' journey John you guys are doing some amazing work and the impact you guys are having in your community is absolutely

[57:11]  phenomenal you know one of the Traditions that we have here on the podcast is our previous guest asked you a blind question now the guest wanted to ask you this question so I'm really interested on your perspective how did you know you shouldn't give up um wow I mean there's so many ways I could go with this um you know I've always I I've I've never given up easily on things um and and I we didn't talk about this Keenan but uh um you know uh I was diagnosed with stage four cancer not too long ago and uh uh well about two years ago uh when I first came

[58:00]  to H tree three months after I got here I was diagnosed with cancer had a kidney removed um had two portions of my lung removed and um I was still working um even during those treatments um um you know I go to Atlanta for treatment every six weeks um and I come back and you know of course you have people saying you know you should retire or step aside you know focus on your health and and I am I'm not my Health's not taking a back seat but I mean I'm just as driven today as I was pre-diagnosis um I mean there's been so many times where you know when I got my

[58:49]  surgery the first time is when covid shut down America and so I remember being on the phone with our leadership team uh just trying to help coordinate how are we going to maintain Staffing in the homes you know I mean we serve 80 adults with intellectual disabilities um how do we explain this to them and help create a new normal for them right and and it's just this realization whether it's the diagnosis whether it's you know playing sports or that that that other people are counting on me and I don't want to let them down and so that that's true with the failure yeah I'm going to fail I mean I'm I'm human um but I want to get better because I want to get better for them

[59:38]  you know um and I've seen what happens when you just persevere you know it's that you just keep going you just my favorite quote that I share with my team all the time is keep pressing you know and it and it comes from the book of Philippians where it says you know uh where the Apostle Paul says you know uh I've apprehended all these things but one thing I don't um I don't forget is to keep pressing towards the mark of the high calling and so when I say keep pressing good things happen if you don't give up and um you know so it's not I I have had to learn some things you do need to give up and let go of because it's not worth it

[1:00:27]  but like the overall mission that's always worth it you know your people going the extra step for them they're always worth it you know seeing are the people that we serve get better I mean that's always worth it right and so um I don't know if it's come through my faith through Sports um through the situations I've been involved in through people saying look I believe you keep going you know that I mean it it's just a part of me and I will say this my mom I I and I shared this story with a kid with a group of our students last year I remember you know when I was an underperforming student my mom worked many jobs and she often worked two jobs at least she worked as a meat rapper in a grocery

[1:01:13]  store and so she was in this cooler all day and I had gotten in trouble done something or failed something and I remember going to work to see her because she wanted to see me and I was telling her you know what had happened and um giving her my side of the story and and and she looked at me and she had tears in her eyes and she said do you think I work this hard for you and she showed me her chapped hands for you to do this you know and my mom just had this amazing work ethic she raised four of us by herself um she worked at food line she worked at Hardies at night she was not going to be stopped and and I think I think that probably was instilled in me more than anything that

[1:02:01]  you work hard you don't give up especially to people that matter and you're doing it for them not not for yourself John I can't thank you enough man for coming on the podcast seriously for sharing your story the impact that you've had the dedication to becoming great but also how you continue to push forward in the face of adversity because you know that you have the opportunity to impact so many people around you man it's truly inspiring and so I want to say thank you from the bottom of my heart and everybody else who's tuning in here today thanks for coming on the show man I really appreciate it well thank you and I'm honored that you would even ask me um you know I love what you do I love your podcast and uh it really is an honor so thank you from the bottom of my heart