Serve the person right in front of you. Do not seek the large audience. Do not seek the big platform. If you wow people who are currently in your customer base, they will tell other people about you and regardless of social media algorithms or whatever, you will do more business.
Doug Smith:This is the l three leadership podcast, episode number 172[inaudible]. What's up everyone? Welcome to another edition of the l three leadership podcast. My Name's Doug Smith and I'm the founder of l three leadership. We are a leadership development company devoted to helping you become the best leader that you can be and this episode you'll hear me interview my friend Michelle Myers. Michele is the founder and CEO of she works his way, a business that helps train women to pursue their passions while keeping God and family as their top priorities. I first met Michelle in 2011 and I was blown away by everything she was doing with her life and I can say it's been a joy to watch her grow and develop over the last six years. Michelle was making a huge impact through her leadership, her business skills, and her heart for women. A little bit about Michelle. She's started three companies. She recently wrote a book called famous in Heaven added home, which we talk about in the interview. She's also a wife and a mom of three. Uh, just an incredible leader. You're going to love this interview. In the interview we talk about her leadership journey. We talk about her new book, women in leadership and so much more and you can also in episode number one 73 listened to our lightening round interview with Michelle. But before we dive into the interview with Michelle, just a few announcements. I want to let you guys know that we recently introduced l three leadership membership. That's right. You can now become a member of l three leadership. You might say to me with Doug, why become a member? Because I believe every leader needs a group of leaders that go through life without a will. Encourage them, hold them accountable to their goals and help them reach their potential. At l three leadership. We've developed a community of leaders that will help you do just that. As a member, you'll get access to our community of leaders. You'll have the ability to join a mastermind group, which I believe is absolutely critical to your success. You'll get access to extra resources, content and a member only forum on our member only website memberships only$25 a month and you can sign up an l three leadership.org forward slash membership I also want to thank our sponsor Alex to Landon. Alex is a full time realtor with Keller Williams realty whose team is committed to providing clients with highly effective premier real estate experiences throughout the Greater Pittsburgh region. He's a member and a supporter of l three leadership and he would love the opportunity to connect with you if you'd like to learn more about Alex and ways to connect with him. Go to Pittsburgh property showcase.com and with all that being said, let's dive right into the interview with Michelle and I'll be back at the end with a few announcements. Hey Michelle, thank you so much for being willing to take the time to do this interview. And why don't we just start off with you just telling us a little bit about you and what you do.
Michelle Myers:Absolutely. Thank you so much for having me. So my name is, again, I'm Michelle Myers and I work largely with an organization called, she works his way and it is a Christian Organization for women in Business and we are designed to help women grow their business while protecting their priorities. And so we just believe that it's really important to have business training that you can trust and there's not a lot of business training that's out there that factors in your season of life and your priority of faith and family. And so we like to take the information that's out there from leading experts and then take it through what we call the, she works as we filter to make sure that nothing that we're doing is to someone who ran for the board or dishonoring to our families in that process because it's so easy to get caught up in the hustle of business. And so hustle isn't necessarily bad unless we are pursuing the things that we shouldn't. And so we just want to make sure that in succeeding we're succeeding in what matters.
Doug Smith:Yeah. Can you talk to, I don't know if this is top secret, but can you talk a little bit about that filter? Um, are there questions you ask or is that something that we have to pay to get access to?
Michelle Myers:No, I mean it's really honestly like first of all, I think it's looking at the person that's teaching and saying not only what information are they teaching, but what is their character like to make sure that if it's someone that we're endorsing, that it's someone that is actually worth following. And then also just making sure that the principles that are being taught honor the season of life that you're in and don't necessarily put the emphasis on things that just don't matter as much. Like if all of the emphasis is on money, if all of the emphasis is growing a platform and somehow serving people and purpose get lost in the process, then while there may be one or two things that we can learn that are good from that person, we don't necessarily want to send somebody down a path that would make them pursue things that are less than what is God's best for them.
Doug Smith:Yeah, I love that. So if someone looks at your life now or you're doing so much stuff, you're an entrepreneur, you're an author, you're a coach, you're a mom, you're a wife, and I'm just curious, what do you wish people knew about the journey to get to where you are today that they may not know?
Michelle Myers:I think that everybody thinks that this was some like master plan that I had in place for years. And honestly I think that there was once upon a time in my life where I just lived in such disobedience and just did what I wanted to do and blaze my own trail that I've gotten to a place where I've realized that obedience to the Lord is the only thing that gets me where I ultimately want to be. And so I never really had a master plan. Like even with what she works his way is now, you know, we have an APP and we have a membership platform and we have a conference and it started as a social media account. And when I started in as a social media account, I didn't have a quote unquote game. I just said, this is a need, this is what that is. Speed me on. I would like to speak to women about this as well. And so it's really been a journey of watching what God is doing and joining him wherever I see him at work. And so yes, we have to be diligent and it doesn't mean that there's not planning that goes on. Um, but honestly always being sensitive that the plan can change depending on the needs that God puts in front of us.
Doug Smith:No, I love that. I do want to talk a little bit on the diligence side. Can you talk about the price you paid? Because tons of people would probably, I mean, outside of a bank, God would say, man, I would love to have Michelle's platform. I would love to be doing what she's doing, but you just didn't wake up one morning and this is all in place. Right. Can you talk about some of the prices that you've had to pay to, to achieve what you're achieving today?
Michelle Myers:You know, when I was going to publish my first book, I met a guy that was a published author and I just asked him, I said, what advice do you have for me? And he looked at me and he said, the higher up a monkey gets in the tree, the more you can see if it's fun. And I, I laughed in that moment. He was like, you'll understand later. And I think that that is the thing of leadership that people don't understand is that for every success that you see, um, there's probably nine things that happened that were a complaint that we're discouraging, that were disheartening, that were hurtful. And so the platform of leadership has a lot more difficulties than it has perks. And that's why you have to stay so grounded in purpose because if you're just in it for the perks, they're few and far between as far as all of the other stuff that goes along with it. And so you do just sacrifice a lot of, um, you just have to get really good at laughing at yourself and recognizing that you're not perfect and that you're going to make mistakes and that you have to be okay apologizing and, um, that people will expect sometimes perfection from you and that they're never going to get it. And so, um, you have to be okay with knowing that, saying, okay, did I point people to Jesus today because I know that I'll fail, but I know that he won't. And so I want to be way more known for pointing people to Jesus than anything that I'm doing, even if what I'm doing is for Jesus. And so, so putting those guardrails in, um, and having people in your life that can really ask you tough questions, I think the further along than I've gotten in the journey, the more accountability that I desire. And I think that sometimes leaders go the opposite way. We get confident in our abilities and we get confident in what we're doing. And we think that we don't need as many people in our lives to speak truth. And the opposite is actually true. The more leadership you have, the more people you're leading, the more accountability that you need. You have to be more careful about the sources of leadership that you're seeking, but of seeking less accountability because you're like, no, no, no, I got this more. Accountability is really key.
Doug Smith:And what is it, I'm just curious, what does that look like in your life? Um, do those relationships naturally happen? Do you sync them out and what are those relationships look like on a consistent basis?
Michelle Myers:Oh, a little bit of all of the above. You know, I have obviously my husband and then a close group of friends and then obviously the team that is working alongside with all of the endeavors that we're doing. And so all of them have the ability to call me out at any time. But it's also just, you know, making sure the, specially if you're in a place where you're growing an online platform, that you're involved in a local church and a small group where people can see you face to face and know, you know, you not just social media, no, you and you can have those real life relationships. Um, because I, it's so hard to get into this like, oh, well we're going to partner and we're going to do this thing together and it's going to benefit my platform and it's going to benefit your platform. But man, there are so many people that are out there that are in real life that may not be in your field, that may not professionally benefit you where you are that are just so life giving to who you are personally. And so I think just making sure that the professional investments that you're making never overseas the personal investments that you're making in others.
Doug Smith:That's so good. So good. Thank you for sharing. You recently wrote a new book, which is super exciting. So I know you're very passionate about women in leadership and um, can you tell us about the book, why you wrote it, what it is and uh,
Michelle Myers:right, so famous and having it at home was a book that I wrote when I was pregnant with Shay, who is our youngest of, we have three kids and I have been teaching through proverbs 31 for the last five or six years because I, I, to be quite honest, always disliked the proverbs 31 woman. I would read it and I would feel inadequate and I would be angry at her. And I created all of these things in my head. Like it was written by a man, you know, and I had all of these things that I would say. And then in really studying, I realized that it may have been written down by a man, but it was an oracle that his mother taught him. And so it even comes to us in scripture of woman to woman. And so realizing that this wasn't some lists that was created to make us feel inadequate. And so rather than looking at it, cause I think we do this as Christians, we looked for this rule and we look for this checklist of things that we're supposed to do rather than realizing it's not about necessarily these checklists but about who God's called us to be. And so rather than looking at the things that are in proverbs 31 that are super overwhelming to think that I have to do all of those things, but rather saying, okay, if this is what she did, what does that say about her character? And so looking at as a character study rather than a to do list is a way for women to be able to understand just this premise of cause comparison and competition. Those things are so big right now and I despise that they exist in Christian circles. But rather than looking at that as just this, oh, this is what I have to do in order to be successful, or this is what I have to do to be even a Christian looking at it as just saying, this is who God has asked me to be in. These are the character traits that need to be on display in my life is such a more freeing way to look at how God has called us to live.
Doug Smith:Yeah, and I'm just curious, how can, how can anyone be famous in heaven at home? I love the title.
Michelle Myers:Thank you. So I think ultimately what it boils down to is, you know, balanced is such a huge issue that people talk about all the time. And that is like nails on a chalkboard to me because I think when we think of the word balance, we think about how everything is an equal playing field. And that's not what God tells us to do. Matthew six 33 tells us to seek first his kingdom and his righteousness. And all these things will be added to you. And so if you want to be famous and having it at home, that's probably going to look a little bit different for everybody's calling. But it's a matter of surrender everything. Surrendering everything to God, not balanced. And so if you have anything in your life that you feel like you're holding on with white knuckles to where you're saying, God, you can have everything else but not this, not this, that's always going to be attention. And so we have to realize that God can do more with anything that we can. And so we have to be willing to hand it over. Not Be like, because holding onto it is a pride issue and making us believe that we can do something better than God can. And he can always make it more beautiful and he can always do it better than we can. And so rather than trying to live a life of balance where you try to figure out how to be a good leader and how to be a good cross follower and how to be a good mom or dad and how to be a good employer or employee, but just saying, man, I'm just going to surrender all of these things over to God and I'm going to trust him that he is going to order everything in my life. Because if we try to order it, we'll get it out of order. But if we keep him first, he orders everything else for us.
Doug Smith:Yeah. So I love that. So as you've submitted your family to him, uh, I'm just curious, how has he dealt with you and James specifically within your family of how do you, I mean, how do you guys champion your marriage? How do you champion your family and make sure that you're not more famous on social media than you are at home with each other and your
Michelle Myers:boundaries? I think that everybody that we hear the word boundaries and we immediately think like bound in chains. But man, boundaries bring freedom because that's, that's what opens up lines of communication and it opens up you to see things beyond own blind spots to where we all have our predispositions and we all are prone to sin and we're prone to wander. And so one of the greatest gifts that we have in a spouses, we have somebody hopefully that is following the lord and can see things in our own life that we might not even be able to see yet. And so having boundaries and then just being really open and honest with one another. And then also too, just knowing the things that we have to do to stay on the same page. So we have to have date nights and we have to have family day dates and we need to do things that are protecting our kids. And so, um, I actually, I have a framed picture on my nightstand and I call it the proverbs 31 28 test. It's in famous and heaven and at home. But it's this whole idea of from the way that I lived my life today, would my highest praise come from my family? And it is not just praise. They're not praising her. In proverbs 31 they're saying that she is blessing above all because of how she fears the Lord. And so they're not even praising her for anything that she's doing tangibly. Even for them, they're just praising her for how much she loves God and how much they see that she is following him. And so it's this really strict accountability of, okay, from the way I live my life today, the people that know me the best that seen me at the, at my worst, do they know that I'm seeking the Lord? And so asking yourself that question every single day is really humbling and I'll be completely honest with you to tell you I don't pass it every day and so, but not trying, striving for perfection, but just okay, how am I going to do better tomorrow? And asking myself that often.
Doug Smith:I love that I'm staying on the topic of women in leadership. I'm just curious. You spend a lot of time with women that are leaders and I'm just curious what challenges, you talked about comparison and competition, um, are those the main challenges you're seeing with, with women leaders? Are there other ones? And how can, what's your encouragement to women in leadership today to overcome those challenges?
Michelle Myers:I think there's this balance because you know, you, you want to be perceived as a leader. And so when we look at the worldly version of leadership and then the godly version of leadership, I think that we feel like there's this tug to where if I want to be a leader, I don't need to be perceived as a mom and as a wife. And that just could not be further from the truth. One of the ways that I respect leaders the most is how they treat their family and how they value that role. Because what we have to recognize is that no matter what leadership role God may call us too, and how noble or kingdom driven it is, he could use somebody else to do that. However, I am the only wife that God chose to give James. And I am the only mom and he chose to give to Noah and coal and to Shea. And so at the end of the day I have what I call those are like my, for sure for sure. Callings to where I love serving the women that she works his way. But if something were to happen to me, I feel like there could be other people that could step into that and can do that. But my husband would be without a wife and my kids would be without a mom. And so eat, no matter what God's called you to do, recognize the roles and responsibilities that he's given you that he is given to no one else and pursue those first because nobody, even nobody else can be God's God's daughter. That my relationship with Christ, that's just me and him. I have to do that. Nobody else can do that for me. And so don't put even secondary things cause I just, any roles that he could assign to any of his children can't take precedent on the over the assignments and he's getting only to me. And so my encouragement to you would be looking at your life and examine the things that only you can do, that God has asked you to do, and to pursue those with as much diligence as you possibly can because that is when you will feel fulfillment. I think so many times we know we look to these things and we see these even restrictions that are in scripture of these things that we can't do and things that we're not supposed to do, and all of this. And I'm just like, what if the reason that we don't feel fulfilled as women isn't because there are things that we can't do and doing those things would fulfill us, but maybe it's just because we're not fulfilled because we're not pursuing the things that God has asked us to do with all of our ability and all of our Gusto. And so don't look for fulfillment and the things that God has told you not to do or think that fulfillment comes there. Look at what he's asked you to do and find fulfillment there.
Doug Smith:That's so good. And so if someone's listened to us and they're saying, wow, this is amazing. Can you just talk a little bit about the tribe that you're voting with? She works his way. Uh, you mentioned some of the things you do, but um, what's available through that? And if someone's listening to this and saying, wow, I love Michelle Myers, I want to be part
Michelle Myers:of her tribe. How can they get connected with what you're doing there? Absolutely. We make it super easy for you. The best way for you to get associated and plugged in with us is to join the, she works this way, community as a member and I love all of the things that we offer. We offer classes in business training and resources. There are new every single month. So today being December 1st we have like all brand new resources that have been loaded into the membership portal and we've got new live trainings that are coming up later this month. We're super excited about. But the best thing about being a she works his way member is the women that you get to get associated with and the other members that you get to connect with on a regular basis. And so if you are a Christian woman in business and you love the of community and business training that is biblically based and thinks about your season of life and encourages you and all of the roles of your life, not just in your business because we don't believe in doing single faceted training because your life is not single faceted, then we want to invite you to join. She works his way. So you just go to[inaudible] dot com and no matter what page of the website you end up on, there's going to be a join now button in the top right corner and you can click that and you can easily become a member. Um, we keep it super affordable because I don't believe that being as she works his way member has anything to do with the size of your business. It just has everything to do with the order in which you work your life. And if you want your life to be God first, family second and business with excellence. Third did we are your tribe.
Doug Smith:I wish I was a woman. I wish I could set up today. That's amazing. Which actually leads me right into the next subject I wanted to talk about with sales, which that was a phenomenal sales pitch, but I, I mean I followed you for a long time. You are great at sales, you're great at branding. And in fact some, I just read StoryBrand by Donald Miller. You, you're certified or
Michelle Myers:a StoryBrand guide. It's nominal.
Doug Smith:Oh, it was just the book alone. I mean, I'm sure you can take deeper dives, but uh, looking at your website, you've branded it phenomenally. And so can you just talk about breading for a minute and maybe even StoryBrand. Where do you see young entrepreneurs or business people missing it when it comes to branding? What would your advice be
Michelle Myers:to them? I think everybody is looking and thinking that in order for me to have a successful brand, everybody has to think that I'm awesome. And that is not true. What everybody wants is they want to come to your website and figure out how you can make them awesome. And so the whole essence of story brand is positioning your brand to be the guide and to turn your customer into the hero. And so when someone comes to your website, they need to immediately know what problem you solve for them and that you care. And so even as you position yourself as the guide, the problem that I see sometimes is that is that people are focusing too much on their authority in order to be the guide in this situation. And so if you look at it every single time that you position yourself as an authority, you have to couple that with a statement of how much you care because of where you've been versus where you are now. And rather than telling your story over and over again, you have to tell the stories of your customers and how you have helped them. And so don't think, I mean, because when you go to somebody's website, if all it looks like is who they are and how amazing they are, you have a need that you're looking to fulfill. You just think, well fantastic, this person has it all figured out. Next what you want to do is you want to be able to find your place in that brand story. And so take a really tough look at your brand and ask yourself, does this look more like me? Because if it looks like the B show, you're not impressing your customers. And then also recognizing how many commercial messages they are being exposed to every single day. And so I see a hesitancy sometimes, especially when you're dealing with Christian Christians in business, we feel like we don't want to be pushy and we don't want to be overwhelming. And so we assume that people are coming to our website and that they're reading every single word. They're not. They are coming to your website and they are scanning it. And if in 30 seconds they cannot decide who you are and what you do, they're gone. And so do not think that by diluting who you are and what you offer. Like I just said, we have that join now button in the top right hand quarter because I believe that being as she works his way member, we'll help a Christian woman who is in business and so I am not afraid to extend that offer to her because I believe that we will serve her well because we take very seriously the product and the services that we give out to our members. So if you feel hesitancy in selling you either a, have a product issue to where you need to work on the excellence of your product or service so that you will feel comfortable understanding that you are offering somebody something that is a value or B, you need to recognize that in not asking somebody to do business with you who needs you, you are doing them a disservice. And so don't be weird and creepy in assuming that people are going to read through all of your like mind tricks to where you're like people are going to assume and they're going to understand that I sell something and they're just going to ask me how they can buy it for me. Make it simple for them. Understand that their life is busy and that they don't want to have to work to figure out who you are and what you do. And so make it simple for them so that they can immediately know I'm in, I need this or this is not for me, I'm out.
Doug Smith:Yeah just for time's sake on the sales portion. So in your opinion, do we just need to have a great brand and join now button in the sales automatically happen? I know I'm just curious cause I think you are very diligent also, I know you just created a business tracker. Can you talk about the follow up portion of sales and how important that is? And maybe, I don't know if you have a key point or two on that, but I think you're very,
Michelle Myers:I think the whole idea of just making sure that you give a, what you initiate value. You don't expect them to hit that join now button first, but you initiate the value with a lead generating pdf, a blog, a podcast, something that you offer that you can invite them to come and get to know you and your message to where you're not expecting them to be. The first one to make an you're saying, I'm going to give you this for free so that you can understand a little bit more about my personal spin on this space in this industry and then after you provide that for them, continue it with an email nurturing campaign where you just continue to pour in that investment to where, again, it's not a, I expect you to come to my website. Some people do. They come to the website, they say, this is, this is me, this is who I am and I'm going to click join. But other people need to learn a little bit more and they need to know who I am and what our team does and what everybody's skill set is and how they can benefit from this community. And so putting in the effort and technology is so amazing to where you can automate so much of it now, but really just putting those systems in place where you say, all right, even if you never ever do an inch of business with me because I'm so passionate about what I do and because I love this industry so much and because I want it to be done better, I'm going to give this away to you because I don't care if you never give me a dollar, but please, please, please understand. And this to where the things that you give away for free should be the stuff to where if somebody were to ask you that one question, it wouldn't matter what you were doing. You would hop on your soapbox and you would answer it. And so giving that information away for free to have that mindset of abundance, to know that if somebody benefits from what you're giving them away, they're probably going to come back. And so you start the cycle of reciprocity. You don't expect them to be the one to start it. You start at first, you initiate the investment.
Doug Smith:That's so good. And I want to jump into the lightning round in a minute, but I just want to leave an open ended business. A open ended question it about business. Just if you had any advice for business leaders outside of what you just talked about with sales and marketing and branding, what would it be?
Michelle Myers:Serve the person right in front of you. Do not seek the large audience. Do not seek the big platform. If you wow people who are currently in your customer base, they will tell other people about you. And regardless of social media algorithms or whatever, you will do more business because people don't talk about what they expect to happen. And so if you just deliver what you say you're going to deliver, then people are not wowed by that. But if you under promise and you over deliver, that is what makes people gush. And so serve the person in front of you with as much excellence as you possibly can and you will grow your business every single time.
Doug Smith:I do want to ask a follow up with that. So if you grow your business, obviously finance or starts coming in, can you just talk about money for a minute? Right. A lot of people see everyone being successful and entrepreneurial and they're like, I want to be an entrepreneur so I can live with a big hat and they just get focused on the money. What have you learned about money as an entrepreneur
Michelle Myers:over the past 10, 15 years? God is my provider. There's no source of income that is ever been my provider. He's my provider. And so whether we have been with little money or we've had more, um, I've just consistently seen God provide in ways for our family that, um, are humbling and overwhelming. And so don't look to an income stream to be your provider cause it'll probably always let you down and it will never be enough, but God will never let you down and he's always enough. And so money is a reality of business and so you can't ignore it. But if money becomes your driver then you are very likely to get derailed extremely quickly and so be diligent, live below your means and if you are going to go over and abundance when it comes to anything to do with money, go over and abundance and generosity because that's what God blesses that sort of. Good
Speaker 3:[inaudible]
Doug Smith:hey everyone, thank you so much for listening to my interview with Michelle Myers. You can find ways to connect with her and links to everything that we discussed in the show notes@lthreeleadership.org forward slash episode one 72 remember, you can also listen to our lightening round interview with Michelle and episode number one 73 before I wrap up, I want to thank our sponsor, Henny jewelers. They're a jeweler owned by my friend and mentor, John Henne, my wife and I got our engagement and wedding rings through Henny Jewelers. And they are just an incredible company. Not only do they have great jewelry, but they also invest in people. John Gave Laura and I a book to help us prepare for our marriage and he's also been investing in me now for years as a leader, a father and a husband. And so I just love this organization. If you're in need of a good jeweler, checkout Henny jewelers.com thanks again for being a listener to the podcast. If this podcast added value to your life, it would mean the world to me if you'd subscribe and leave a rating and review, that really does help us grow our audience. So thank you in advance for doing that. And lastly, if you want to stay up to date with everything we're doing here at l three leadership, you can simply sign up for our email list@lthreeleadership.org and you'll start to get weekly emails about everything that we're doing to add value to leaders. As always, I like to end with a quote, and I love Dave Ramsey. I've actually been listening to like Dave Ramsey nonstop lately, but he said that she said, you can get anywhere if you simply go one step at a time, you can get anywhere if you simply go one step at a time. Thanks for listening and being a part of l three leadership. Laura, and I appreciate you so much and we'll talk to you next episode.
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