Episode 01 -Leadership, AND...The Beginning

Why Leadership Is About More Than Work

What if leadership isn’t just about managing teams, improving performance, or climbing higher professionally?

What if leadership touches everything?

In the very first episode of the Leadership, And… podcast, Josh Donovan and Patrick Ibarra introduce both the heart behind the podcast and the deeper mission of Lighthouse Institute, a leadership development company built around the belief that better humans make better leaders.

This conversation explores the stories that shaped Lighthouse, the personal journeys that led Josh and Patrick into leadership work, and why emotional intelligence, self-awareness, parenting, relationships, and personal growth all belong in the leadership conversation.

They also unpack the tension between progress and perfection, discuss why leadership cannot be separated from who we are at home, and explain the meaning behind the phrase:

“Wherever you go, there you are.”

Whether you're leading a company, a family, a team, or simply trying to lead yourself well, this episode is an invitation into a more honest, integrated approach to leadership.

In This Episode:

• The story behind Lighthouse Institute
• Why leadership is deeply relational and human
• How emotional intelligence impacts every area of life
• Why “progress over perfection” matters
• The risks of compartmentalizing work and home life
• The role mindset plays in personal growth
• Why personal development affects leadership effectiveness
• The vision behind Lighthouse Media and this podcast

Timestamps:

00:00 — Why leadership needs the word “and”

02:00 — The origin story of Lighthouse Institute

10:00 — Fitness, coaching, and whole-person leadership

17:00 — How Josh and Patrick met

24:00 — The Lighthouse leadership model explained

33:00 — Why the leadership series changes lives

41:00 — Progress over perfection

51:00 — The evolution of Lighthouse Institute

56:00 — Patrick joins the Lighthouse team

1:07:00 — The “why” behind Lighthouse

1:14:00 — Emotional intelligence and naming emotions

1:20:00 — Leadership, relationships, and emotional awareness

About Lighthouse Institute

Lighthouse Institute exists to shine light that ignites connection, inspires hope, and transforms generations.

Through leadership development, coaching, facilitation, and organizational training, Lighthouse helps individuals and teams lead with greater self-awareness, ownership, emotional intelligence, and purpose.

Follow along for future conversations about leadership, parenting, relationships, conflict, growth, and the human side of leadership.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Most importantly, leadership is relational and it's human. And then we hear yeah, but because we're kind of obsessed with that word but. Right? I hear you, but. I love you, but I'm sorry, but thank you, but. You're doing good, but.

SPEAKER_01 0:24

But just deletes everything that was previously said. So we really need the word and I hear you and, I love you, and I'm sorry, and thank you, and you're doing good, and I'm John Startman with Lighthouse Institute.

SPEAKER_00 0:42

And I am Patrick Parkerman with Lighthouse Media. And we're excited to dive into leadership to real conversations. It's all on the table.

SPEAKER_01 0:53

Work, parenting, marriage, conflict, friendship, personal growth. Because wherever you go, there you are. Leading yourself and leading others. So really, this is leadership and everything else. Alright, episode one of the leadership and podcast, uh, which when we recorded, we did not have a title for. Uh so that's gonna be one thing you'll hear in there is we don't even know what we're gonna call this thing. Uh so it's really an introduction of our podcast and also an introduction of Lighthouse Institute as an organization. Um You and I, Patrick, had done podcasting before locally. There's a small one called All Things Atascadero for our cute little town. And as we got into the conversation, um, we started talking about uh we we called it the Lighthouse Foundation. Remember that convo convo? Um and really it's called Lighthouse Atascadero. And there's some local brand confusion, mostly because Lighthouse Institute has done most of its business outside of Slow County in this area. Um but the correct naming would be uh Lighthouse Atascadero is a nonprofit that sits underneath the Greyhound Foundation. So they're kind of connected to um Atascadero Athletics and and Greyhounds in that way. A phenomenal organization, just not directly connected to us yet, right? Anything you want to add there? I'm super excited. It's our first episode, and I'm pumped for you guys to hear it. Yeah, it's gonna be good. Um other thing I caught when we listened back was um when talking about Simon Sinek, uh shared a couple resources, some books that he wrote, and I incorrectly uh said his book as The Infinite Mindset. Um it is very important to have an infinite mindset. I'd advocate for that, but the book he wrote is called The Infinite Game. Uh so there's some others in there. Simon's a great resource, uh thought leader in the leadership space. We're a big fan of his. Uh the other thing we want everyone to know coming into the first episode, and you'll hear us talk about this, uh, is progress over perfection. Patrick and I are really committed to not letting the idea of perfection stifle our progress. And so we just sat in a room, we've got some microphones, we started recording, and we are going to be practicing what we preach, the idea of incremental growth, 1%, just continuing to improve and get a little better each time we do it. So, with that, we're we're really looking forward to your comments and your feedback. If there's ways that you think we might be able to improve the delivery or the content, uh, we'd really like to know what you think. And if there's certain topics you'd like us to cover or conversations you'd like to hear us have. Uh, with that, let's go shine bright. All right, a Lighthouse Institute podcast. This is gonna be some fun. Are you ready for this? So ready. I mean, we've done this before, but I think in order to kind of get on ramped into this one, we're gonna have to talk a little bit about Lighthouse Institute, how we got here, who is Lighthouse Institute.

SPEAKER_02 4:00

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_01 4:01

Leadership development company started in like the early 2000s. Tim Rhodes was our founder, uh, original owner. He started this up in the Pacific Northwest in Washington. He was working for a construction company called Abshur Construction. And he went off site to some kind of leadership retreat type thing and got really passionate about adult education, wanting to help people kind of lean into the leadership space. So when he came back to Absher and he pitched this idea, he was like, This is what I want to do. Absur was all in. They were they totally believed in Tim, they believed in the idea that he had, and they said, Yeah, we wanna we wanna support you. We will actually kind of we'll lend you the money to start this business, we'll give you some of the resources we have internally, and then we want to be your first client. He was super stoked. Uh, you know, again, this is early 2000s, so he knocked it out of the park for them, got some really good outcomes with what we now call a leadership series, uh, which we'll talk more about here in just a minute, right? Uh, and then Abscher found so much success, they were like, Hey, we need to talk to some other general contractors in this space, Tim, and you need to be working with them. So, over the the next like 20 years, Tim uh built an incredible reputation within the construction industry as a leader in the leadership development space, all through just word of mouth, business to business referral. Like, hey, you gotta work with Lighthouse, you gotta work with Lighthouse, and just made this really strong niche for himself in the construction industry, which is wildly impressive. So um tell me about your introduction to Lighthouse.

SPEAKER_00 5:41

Oh man, well, Lighthouse, um boy, I mean, I have to probably reel back a little bit. Um, but I mean, Lighthouse was introduced to me by you uh maybe about a year ago, I believe. Um, I just heard that you were working on this new project and I kept hearing Lighthouse on Lighthouse, and I was honestly confused a little bit because you and I had talked, uh, we did some work for Lighthouse Foundation, which is an atascadero, you know, organization uh that has nothing to do with Lighthouse Institute. And so I had a little bit of like, wait, hold on, are we going back to that? Is this like a nonprofit thing? And then I just kept on seeing like what you were doing, and we just meet up for like coffee and things, and I'm like, he's doing something completely different. Like your language was changing, your uh I don't know, just everything behind your eyes. I could just see the wheel spinning in a totally different way than I'd seen before. And I was like, no, it's definitely not that.

SPEAKER_01 6:35

So super interesting because I think a lot of people locally around Atascadero uh feel similar. They're like, What's the Lighthouse Institute? There is a nonprofit in the community of Atascadero, the Lighthouse Foundation, that sits underneath actually the Greyhound Foundation, which is from the the high school and kind of the athletic program, right? And that was birthed um really Don Clickard was one of the primary drivers of getting the Lighthouse Foundation up and out. And it's its primary focus is around drug addiction and keeping teens kind of away from drugs and helping the education, but also treatment and and those kinds of things. So um, that Lighthouse Foundation, amazing organization. And you're right, when when we were at Give Fitness, we were we were working with them quite a bit, we were supporting them. So um, for those who don't know, a lot of my professional background and career was in fitness. Uh, spent 20 plus years in the fitness industry and about similar timing, right? Um, give fitness here in Atascadero. I was the CEO of that that gym and that brand, and it was winding down. Uh, I think I saw that writing on the wall prior to anyone else had an unfortunate front row seat to, you know, the worldwide pandemic and COVID. And gosh, the fitness industry just got hit so hard. Right. And and I, yeah, I just saw it coming. And so I decided, you know what? I need to be the first person that gets fired at Give Fitness so that everyone else could could get a little bit more uh time, uh, length of employment out of, you know, some of the benefits we were getting from COVID and those things. So yeah, I started to make a transition out of fitness into business consulting, um, doing that quite a bit locally, working, you know, with some small businesses like Anna and mom, who we helped become Anna and Company and Bloom and Grow and Colony Market and some others, right? Uh, and that's where you and I teamed up. We were doing a lot of photo, video work, kind of social media consulting for them. And simultaneously, I was substitute teaching at the high school, which was super fun. It created this kind of like ecosystem of finding employees for the gym, right? I'd f I'd see like the good students that treated the sub well. I'd be like, Do you want a job? Um yeah. But I was subbing at the high school for one of my longtime mentors and coaches, Chris Free. So a lot of people locally in the Tascadero community know Chris. He, you know, inducted into the Tascadero Greyhounds Hall of Fame. Um, just an amazing coach, teacher, mentor, um, for lots of kids, but had been for me. And I think this is right around 2014, like yeah, 2013, 2014. Chris was still in the process. He had been kind of recruited by Lighthouse Institute. So there's some generational mentoring that takes place here. You you look at Chris Ferry, and Tim Rhodes is actually one of Chris's mentors. Tim officiated the wedding for Chris and Anna. He yeah, he has been kind of a longtime family friend of them. And for the longest time, as Tim was running Lighthouse Institute, him and his wife Jolene kept saying, if we could get Chris Fore, if we could get Chris Fore, like, I mean, they were a mom and pop shop for you know 20 years. Bring Chris in. And while Chris is on making his transition from education into this, you know, corporate training world, he's like, I need a substitute teacher in the classroom in a Tascadero. And I'm like, Yeah, man, I would love to do that. Teach freshman health science every once in a while. I didn't know what I didn't know. It was a ton of fun. Uh, but that was kind of the connection point. So Chris was having me substitute teach in his classroom. He's watching what we're doing, which is the kind of consulting. I mean, I didn't know it was leadership development at the time, but it was kind of helping people lead their business well or better, right? And that's when Chris tapped my shoulder and he said, I think this Lighthouse Institute thing makes a lot of sense for you. This corporate training, leadership development, kind of executive coaching world. And he was the one who brought me over and and introduced me to Tim and Jolene.

SPEAKER_00 10:52

Wow. Isn't that amazing? Like the different lit layers that were happening simultaneously. Like as Chris was being recruited, you were kind of stepping into Chris's role. Like, and then, you know, then fast forward later, I kind of see the same transition where we are at, you and I, where he's been like just a step not behind, but just kind of like right before what's coming up. And so like with the podcast, you know, we started the podcast back in the day. Like, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:20

So we we let's talk about that. We started that podcast, All Things Atascadero, as part of part of our consulting efforts within the local community. We first were saying, like, hey, let's just tell local business owners stories, let's hear like how they started this business, you know, who their target market is, kind of how they market, how they go about these things. And the the side bonus for us was we were we were doing a needs analysis of potential clients and being able to say, hey, here's where we might be able to help you. Right. 100%. But then we also just kind of really enjoyed having those conversations and bringing people into the room. And we realized people were interested in hearing what was going on in the local community. And it was a lot, I don't know about you, I had a ton of fun.

SPEAKER_00 12:03

Oh, 100%. It was one of my favorite things to do, like back then, you know. Like it was really cool to do some of the media stuff, which you know I've loved doing for you know a couple of decades now. But when we started doing the podcast, I was a little bit worried. I was like, what a podcast? Like it just sounded too like, yeah. I was like, what is this? How does this come into the cogwheel? Um, but then hearing those stories and knowing more about and diving deeper into people's stories and how you know what spurred you know the wanting to make this business and the connections that they had to community and all of that, like that to me was priceless. So it was a new layer that I had no idea that I wanted to explore deeper. So that was so cool.

SPEAKER_01 12:42

Yeah, I mean, I think it it probably makes sense for us to talk a little bit about how you and I got to that point, right? Yeah. So, like Patrick Ibarra, how did I meet this guy? What do you remember? Oh, 100%.

SPEAKER_00 12:53

Yeah. I remember you were wearing that. Oh my gosh, six horn. So yeah, I've been in the wedding industry for man, over two and a half decades now. Um, and there is an event uh put up by the you know, the wedding community where you know most um most wedding vendors get together and they just and actually it's about to happen in a couple of weeks here, but um, it's like the ninth anniversary. Um, and basically it's just an event where it's kind of like the Olympics for wedding vendors and it's just fun, it's just you know, super relaxed. There is a trophy at the end, so everybody gets super amped up about that. But it's just like just all kinds of activities that you know this other photographer, videographer Patrick put together. Um the wedding games, the wedding games, and man, it's just it's it's so much fun. Uh, but yeah, I was just uh recruited by a mutual friend of ours, Anissa. Um and she's like, hey, can you just show up for this and just wear a blue shirt? And I'm like, uh sure, I got a blue shirt, and I had no idea what I was getting myself into. And then you were on that team, you and your wife, Brianna, and my goodness, I just like we just hit it off, and I was like, man, this guy's got something. And there was something about you know competing alongside with somebody, and just in that realm where we just like got put together without any context, without any nothing. It was just you uh you get to see um, you know, a person's character when you are playing against somebody else. You can see a lot of like if somebody is wanting to do whatever it takes to just win, or like, hey, let's do it the right way, but and we'll still win, or if you lose, you know, we at least know that we were honest about it. I don't know. There were so many layers there about um competing alongside each other that I was like, man, this guy's super cool. And and then it was just so fun, you know.

SPEAKER_01 14:34

So okay, that day was wild. First of all, it was totally undersold to me. It was like, oh, a bunch of wedding vendors getting together and just having fun and competing. There were like a hundred people there, it was a very big deal. Like teams had 10 to 20 people on them. It was it was a big to-do, right? And so, yeah, going back simultaneously as I'm doing, you know, some business consulting locally, substitute teaching. Remember, I'd fired myself from the gym, so I'm also just trying to figure it out a little bit, right? Uh, one of the things I was doing was mobile bartending for a really good friend of mine who started that mobile bartending company. We live in the central coast of California, which is paradise for wedding. Well, I mean it's paradise in general, but perfect spot to get married. So there's weddings all year long, all over the county, right? And so getting to bartend for weddings, super cool. You're you're everyone's favorite spot, right? You're the bar. And then they've they usually find out it's free. The bride and groom have paid for it. So they're just like super happy. Yeah, like yeah, I can pour drinks for you all night long, right? So yeah, Anissa had asked, you know, my wife and I to participate in this wedding games event, didn't even really know that many people. And then this guy, Patrick, shows up as part of our team, right? And here's my vivid remember memory. My vivid memory is you were the person doing the bouquet toss. There was like this big bouquet, but I think it was like it had like thorny roses on it. It was like a gnarly bouquet that one person from each team was supposed to wrestle for, fight for, or go get. Uh-huh. And I just remember you putting on gloves. And as you were putting on gloves, I'm like, oh, this guy's my people. He's dead serious about this. And I think you did get the bouquet.

SPEAKER_00 16:18

I think I did actually. Yeah, yeah. That was that's hilarious. Yeah. I think, I mean, that's funny. I want to know more about why why the gloves made it like made it distinct.

SPEAKER_01 16:27

It was just like a level of of commitment and seriousness. It was like the fact that you had the gloves and were prepared for them. And that's been a theme throughout like our journey together. We're we'll talk more about all the things that you and I have done, but just kind of like all the gear you always have, you're prepared for things, right? It's it's part of your Patrick persona for me.

SPEAKER_00 16:46

Yeah. Yeah, dude. That's that's fun. That's amazing. Yeah. I mean, and what I remember about you that I didn't mention earlier was that you were wearing, it was like a Captain America shirt, but it was the gift fitness shirt. It was the gift fitness logo. Yeah. And so I wanted to know more about first of all, what does that mean? Because I'm like, I recognize the Captain America and the shield. Um, but also honestly, in those games, like you were sort of a captain in the team. You you kind of took that role. Um, and the way that I saw it, it was not like you were a captain that was just like barking orders and do this and do that. It was like by example, which later on I just realized I'm like how much of your personality was just ingrained into that, like already back then, not knowing your background and where you came from and all of those things. Um, I could just see that I'm like, oh man, this guy leads differently. So that's interesting. Gift and a curse, maybe.

SPEAKER_01 17:38

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, okay, so we find out there at the wedding games, you're this amazing photographer, videographer. I mean, it was fast friends. Like you quick. Yeah. I'm like, I want to know you, you want to know me. Let's hang out. Patrick's like the nicest person on the planet. Um, so I'm I pretty immediately, I th I think it was like, hey, I have photo video needs at the gym at Give Fitness. And so we brought you in and you started helping us do like trainer headshots, you know, photos for the website, just any any photo needs that we had. And then we started doing some video projects, like trainer testimonials, putting trainer tips out online, those kinds of things, which was a ton of fun.

SPEAKER_00 18:22

Uh, tell me, tell me more about that for from your end. Yeah, I mean, from my end, you know, I was doing a lot of weddings, which I love doing weddings, they're amazing. There's, you know, there's a story of you know, two people meeting and just loving each other and wanting to just share that with their family and the world. Um, and so there's always a beautiful story to be told there. However, there's never it's rare that they're that that we incorporate the the the concept of there's been a struggle or there's been this challenge in front of me or any of those things. And so as much as I love weddings, uh it's just I feel like it's just like the cherry on top of the story, but you don't get to see the whole cake. Um whereas in fitness and a lot of the things that you were doing, there was a lot of this story behind before you get to that cherry. And so for me, there was a lot of um just fulfillment and knowing that I was witnessing and capturing and sharing people's struggle and people's stories and and just the the effort that they had to put in to get to the place that they were at now, or you know, just where they were so far and where they wanted to go. So um that was a huge, huge draw for me, knowing that there was these powerful stories being told. There was this struggle that is happening in the world. There's all these different things that to be quite honest, weddings was not fulfilling for me. It was it was it was awesome to just it's it's kind of like eating dessert every day. Like, yeah, I love dessert, but I but I need a little more substance, I need a little more, something just more serious, something more um just to feed that hunger and not just satisfy the like, oh, here's my sugary treat every day, you know. So um, so anyways, that that's what I was feeling when I was doing that.

SPEAKER_01 20:00

You know, that's super interesting the way you talk about that because you know, and people who come from the lighthouse world will appreciate this. They they know I'm a big Simon Cynic fan, right? And I was first introduced to Simon Cynic actually in 2008, almost 20 years ago. And at the time I was managing a health club facility locally, and it was a it was a big shift. Simon's like keynote speech, all about, you know, Simon wrote Start with Why, for those of you who don't know, if you've been a bit under a rock for a little bit, right? Uh he wrote Start With Why, he also wrote Find Your Why, he wrote Leaders Eat Last, Infinite Mindset. He's he's known as just a thought leader in the leadership space, right? And in 2008, what he was really talking about is that people don't care what you do, right? Like people, we keep we were marketing what we did. We're a gym, we have tons of treadmills and tons of equipment and you know, great saunas or this or that. He's like, Oh, yeah, everyone has that. Why do you do what you do? And why are people going to want to come there? And it really started flipping my mind around how we even marketed fitness. The idea that most people hate working out. Most people associate exercise with pain and suffering and a lot of failure. There's usually a lot of guilt and shame, right? And so when we had give fitness, we we really tried to flip that messaging quite a bit, even to the point when you came in, like in a lot of gyms, you see pictures of people working out. And we're like, that's not why people want to work out. They want to work out so they can go to the beach with their friends or they can go hike a mountain or you know, go paddleboarding, right? So we had pictures of that. We had pictures of, and you got to capture some right. We had pictures of downhill bike riding and just the things that people actually wanted to do as a result of working out. And that was what we really tried to communicate in a lot of our marketing and messaging is why you care about fitness, why we think you should care about fitness, and why we think you're the place to. Why we think we are the place for you to come pursue those goals, right? Um, and we really wanted to give people something to belong to. So Give Fitness had a model of you give fit, we give back. We give 50% of our profits back to the community of Atascadero. And I think over the course of our eight years, we we hit somewhere around like $75,000 back into the community, whether that was partnering with other nonprofits and writing checks, or if that was us physically going and helping people and and handing them money. I mean, you remember there were a couple of families we took off the streets and put them into apartments or got them vehicles and things like that. So it was a really, really cool thing to be a part of.

SPEAKER_02 22:41

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_01 22:42

The other interesting thing I caught for you was that fitness offered something like more expansive, deeper than just say, like the wedding from a storytelling perspective, which is an interesting connection for me because fitness actually became a ceiling for me. I started feeling kind of burnt out on like just dealing with people in the call it the physical plane, right? Like everyone would come into the gym wanting to get fit or thinking they wanted to get fit, and it was like a physical thing. And so often we'd find it mental or emotional or spiritual or something else. And so I just started getting really curious about more like the whole human, this more integrated approach and dipped into like business consulting, but simultaneously, by the the, you know, with the tap of Chris Ferry, you started pursuing like a life coaching certification. So it became an integrative wellness and life coach. And then that's when I learned there actually are those four systems for every human mental, emotional, physical, spiritual, and looking at that whole person instead of just one area, right? And and now you've since done that same, that same coaching certification.

SPEAKER_00 23:55

It's amazing. It it really does change your perspective on you know, on just people. When you see somebody and they're struggling in one area, you wonder, okay, is it just this one area? Or now that we know all those different areas that make up a person, you're like, oh man, this must be affecting all of it. Like it's just it just all ripples all those different facets of of who we are. Um, so that is super interesting because yeah, you live in the world of like just the physical part. Like there's no, I mean, I can imagine you know, there being a gym that has fulfills all those, you know, where you have a room where you can actually like meditate and you can actually have that, you know, emotional support and like all of that.

SPEAKER_01 24:32

Like, I mean, which starts to look a lot more like wellness or you know, you see like holistic, you know, versus just fitness. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 24:41

Yeah. So I can see, I can see how that was a ceiling for you. And yeah, especially you opening, I feel like you were your eyes were being opened little by little, maybe, you know, by like interacting with what Chris was doing on this side. And so how did how did that connection happen then after you were, you know, subbing for him? Um, and then Chris is tapping on your shoulder. How did that feel? How'd that go?

SPEAKER_01 25:03

It was very interesting and it was it was a ton of fun. There was uh he ended up making the introduction to to Tim and Jolene, uh, which was it was daunting. It was like, it felt like uh felt like a big boy job, you know. It felt like this is this is this large organization doing big things in the real world, right? Like Chris was doing a lot of traveling to San Francisco and LA, and I'm just this small town boy from right here in a Tascadero, going, huh, okay, you know, and uh I I hadn't built a resume in a long time. I you know, put this thing together to kind of show the things I was doing to serve my local community, but also kind of just stand myself up in this weird transition period. Um so we had a lot of conversations, um, but ultimately, yeah, they decided to bring me on board. Um, they did that in like October of 2019. Oh, and so if you remember anything that was going on around that time, right? So just all these things kind of happening simultaneously. Um, but yeah, got to got to make my way in, start growing as a as a coach, as a facilitator, as a corporate trainer. I mean, first and foremost, it was learning all of the lighthouse language. So it was, it was really kind of sitting in a in an observer participant seat, knowing like who is this organization, what are the things that they teach, why do they do this this way, uh, and and getting to grow a lot personally first, at the same time pursuing those certifications, right? The coaching certification became a certified practitioner of the Myers Briggs tools, explored some things around emotional intelligence, positive intelligence. Uh, you know, I've I've read like a crazy amount of books um on in this entire space, you know, personal development. I kind of hate the term self-help, like personal development, professional development, right? That in that genre, probably upwards of 75 at this point in that in that area, and just really redefining my own identity and and my professional career, like what's that trajectory going to look like?

SPEAKER_00 27:20

Now, let me bring it back just a little bit. Um, the lighthouse model, is this something that Tim himself kind of started? You know, like did he, I don't know, did he borrow anything from somewhere else? Is this a model that he maybe copied to an extent in some way to it? Like is this something that he just woke up one day and he's like this is it, this is it.

SPEAKER_01 27:43

No, I think so. As far as the approach of Lighthouse, so our our flagship product that you know a lot of people have have gone through at this point is what's called a leadership series. It's 65 hours of training, which is a tough pitch, right? Hey, 65 hours of training, and we intentionally space that training out over the course of any, it can be anywhere from two to six months. Really, two is super fast. It depends on how the client wants to pace it. But Tim very intentionally deployed an educational theory called the drip theory, which is or the drip method. I'm sorry, that you know, you come in, you you get some material, you talk about it, you process it, and then you leave and have some time to try that on, experience it, uh, see how it fits your hand, uh, probably fail, uh, and then come back in, talk about it again, kind of repaint that bridge, review it, uh, and do that over and over over the period of, again, you know, usually three to six months, depending. And that's how we are able to get actual behavior change out of participants versus a lot of competitors in the leadership development space will do like one to three day offsites. And you'll come and, you know, you'll go somewhere and you will just get fire hosed with information for hours on hours on hours. And then it's okay, bye. Good luck, have fun, implement what you want. Right. And there's usually this big high off of something like that, and then low implementation uh accountability on the backside. So um, yeah, that that process is really intentional. As far as content, there is quite a bit of proprietary things within our world that you know we've developed over, we're coming on 30 years of being in the space now, uh, working specifically with general contractors, trade partners within the construction industry. And there's a lot that is pulled from other thought leaders, right? We show several Simon Sinek videos. We're big fans of Jocko Willink and Extreme Ownership and Brene Brown, Darren Greatly, and you know, lots of others. Susan Scott and Fierce Conversations or Liz Wiseman multipliers, like we pull all kinds of other resources in. A lot of what differentiates us from other people in the space is how we deploy that information and uh the way that we wrap it up in our entire model. So you mentioned the lighthouse model. There is a specific model of leadership that we've that we have named and developed. Tim for the first 20 years didn't necessarily have that specific language. The lighthouse model actually ended up being the gift of COVID. So when COVID happened, you know, all of Lighthouse's trainings to that point were in person, in a room, 14 people together physically. COVID blew that up. There was for a while, legally, no opportunity to do that, right? So thankfully there were a couple clients who leaned in and said, hey, we'll we'll continue to do this virtually. Thankfully, only a couple, actually, because that was that was a tough lift, man. 65 hours on Zoom. Me and Chris called it the Josh and Chris show. We did it, we did it together. But while we were going through that, we took it as an opportunity to really go internal. So we really looked at our curriculum, looked at our brand, looked at who we were, and we realized we didn't have really clear structure and language around what were the takeaways from this 65 hours of training. And so the really cool part from our perspective about the Lighthouse model of leadership is it's not something we went and created in 2020. We went back through all of our material and excavated these ideas and said, Oh, like we talk a lot about listening. There's the ill. We talk a lot about declaring intent, there's the I. Oh, we we, you know, what is this idea of like, uh, you know, knowing who we are, our core values, our core ideology, and and our goals. And we were able to say, you know what, that's really the pursuit of greatness. So let's make that the pursuit of greatness, but we gotta blend that with personal humility, right? And we spent two days on trust. Trust is the foundation of every relationship. We went back and forth on that second age. Like there was some talk about hero, there was some talk about uh some other we ultimately landed at habits that great leaders have great habits, right? We take ownership for everything in our world. That was a big piece of who we already were. We want to increase understanding, self and others. Leaders are service-minded. That was a really big piece that we needed to have in there, especially for Tim. That's probably what Tim is most passionate about, that leaders are always in service to other people. And then that emotional intelligence component, which sometimes that gets people to kind of raise their eyebrow a little bit, right? But I love that it sits on the bottom of the lighthouse model. It's two words, so it's like extra long. This emotional intelligence. Um, so yeah, those are the 10 things that we were able to identify just by looking in our material and saying these things are already here. This just reinforces our brand, lighthouse. These are the 10 things. Well, you've heard us in the room. If there's one thing that's missing from that, it's it's the idea of mindset, right? So we we briefly contemplated being Might House or Light Mouse, or we didn't really. Uh, but we just said mindset is the thing that is either the umbrella to to all of them or it's the foundation that they all sit on. Um, in terms of the model itself, when we do talk mindset, we point to ownership. That leaders have to take complete ownership of their mindset. Um, so it's it it we still work its way in there, but it's the only one that's not explicitly named that we we probably miss a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 33:31

Yeah, interesting. I didn't know that part. That's that is incredible. I mean, going through the series, the the the leadership series has been life-changing, honestly. And you mentioned it before we even, you know, talked about doing it. You said, hey, if you just sit in that room, if nothing else, it might just change your life. And I think that might could have easily been just like the smallest might because that was huge. That has been life-changing in in everything, you know. And I think any anybody that has taken that that those series can totally relate to this. That it does it doesn't just go, it doesn't just change how you show up at work, it just changes how we show up to the world, like at home, with your relationships, with your friends, with your family, as a parent. If you're a parent, um, just everywhere that you go, you just bring that with you. And it's just it's been incredible. So I can, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 34:24

Well, I think that was one of the main things, main reasons why I found immediate synergy with Lighthouse, Lighthouse Institute as a company, right? As we were talking, and again, I was kind of at this burnout ceiling of fitness and wanting to, you know, get into something more. I think if Lighthouse had told me, like we go into rooms and we strictly train employees, we just talk about work and blah, I don't think it would have scratched my itch. I think the fact that when I sat down with them, it was very much about, hey, we take a whole person approach. In fact, we're often pushing back on organizations who are just after employee training, right? Because we're gonna talk, it's all on the table. We're gonna talk personal, professional, you know, work life, home life, marriage life, parent life, everything in between. And if the the company themselves aren't bought into that idea, then they're probably not a great fit for us. And that was super intriguing and interesting to me. That it was like, okay, we can really start getting to the heart of the whole person. I'm I'm in on that. Now, I do have to say, oh, and I didn't even really think I was gonna talk about this. Um, I do have to say there was a bit of a credibility hurdle for me, right? There was a bit of like, do I have permission to go into this space? Like, is this something that like I should be talking about or considering? And, you know, probably not a lot of people know this, but there was um there was a bit of kind of like uh a parallel to some stories I had about my own, my mom. So my mom was in the leadership development space long, long time ago. I always joke with people before it was cool, right? Um, and and I was a teenager and we had our challenges. And um I used to do a lot of like, well, who do you think you are? Like up there telling people how to lead? Like, you can't even get your stuff together over here, right? Um, and so that was a journey for me. Um super thankful that in the transition from the gym over into the world I'm in now, I I hired Chris Fela, uh, who's now a Lighthouse team member. At the time, he was just some guy that I got introduced to. Uh, but a coach in the leadership space, um, lives in Morrow Bay. And um, in my processing with Chris as a coaching client, I was able to work through a lot of that, right? Like that core question I had been asking, not explicitly to my mom, but internally of like, who do you think you are? Right. He's like, Well, you're asking yourself the same question.

unknown 37:03

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 37:04

Who do I think I am? Right. And so just this process of deciding that this was a space that it was okay for me to lean into. I've I know I've sent you this meme before, um, but I this was just thankful to a random meme on the internet, right? Okay. Uh, and it just said, repeat after me. I am allowed to be both a work in progress and help others grow at the same time. I refuse to wait until I believe I'm perfect or someone else has deemed me worthy of impacting others. I am unapologetically accepting a life of massive growth and improvement. So I don't know who to credit this to. Yeah, but this honestly, this little and you see, I have it right here. I can call it up in like two seconds. This meant so much to me. And it was kind of that space of saying, no, I'm gonna be someone who is in continual pursuit of getting better and gonna see what I might be able to offer people in their journey as well.

SPEAKER_00 38:00

And that's so freeing because I think we all find ourselves in that, you're right. Like say, for instance, you go to the gym and you, you know, you get confronted with this mountain of things that, you know, this goal maybe that you have, or this vision, or this perception of like, oh man, this is who I want to be. But the journey to get there is so long that you don't even want to tell people, I'm going to the gym. Like because the journey seems just so long that you don't want, you can't even put yourself in those shoes of who you want to be, but allowing yourself to say, you know what? I am in transition, I am walking that path. I might not be that person yet. And I might never be, especially in this space where like there's constant, constant growth, and I don't think it will ever stop.

SPEAKER_01 38:47

Um let me just put a highlighter to that. Yeah, I will never stop. For me, there is no destination, right? I've learned that it's all about the journey. Uh, I was talking, uh I was talking with some a younger person who was talking about this idea, wanting to lean in, right? And and she kept using the phrase, well, like, I'm not done yet. I'm not done yet. I'm not done yet. I'm like, well, hold on. Cause like that, even from a language perspective, implies that you might be done at some point. And so I just said, hey, from my perspective, the day we're done is the day we die. Like, I don't want to ever stop growing. Yeah. Right. Now there's a whole nother conversation to have about how that balances with contentment. Right. Contentment and and peace. And for me, there's there's some paradox there, right? About like always wanting to grow or improve or be better. But then also that other side of the paradox of finding that contentment and peace and joy with where you are today. And for me, it's a yes and. I think for a lot of people, they can get caught on either side of that paradox, either spending too much time and energy in contentment and not wanting to grow, or too much energy in growing and continuous improvement that there's no contentment.

SPEAKER_00 39:57

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 39:57

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 39:58

So yeah, I love that. I love that because that balance of um, if I were to, I'm so I'm always looking for analogies and things. And so the the vision I have in my head is like, you're going on this amazing hike. And most people look at a hike and they're like, okay, how far is it to get there and how far is it going to be to get back? Right. And in this metaphor, I would think it's just the ongoing forever hike that is just beautiful every single stage. It just never stops. And finding content and being like, I'm just so glad and happy that I'm in this hike, that I'm at least taking steps every day to get to where I want to be, right? Without ever being like, I cannot wait to get to the top of the mountain. Because then what? Do you get to the top of the mountain? And did your path just mean nothing? But it is about that path. It is about that journey of getting to who knows where, just being on the journey.

SPEAKER_01 40:50

So good. Yeah. In in like a framing of pursuing greatness, right? You use that analogy and you say, look, you think about climbing a mountain, the summit lasts seconds. Like, and and really the most breathtaking second is like the first one, right? Like, oh, look at that view. And then it sits in for a little bit, but you're like, okay, yeah, the summit lasts seconds. But the the arduous journey to get there, and and some of us just want to wanna skip that part. And so a lot of the work in my world is is helping people come to a place where it's like, how can we appreciate that journey? How can how can we be celebrating and be thankful for each step that leads us all the way up there? Because it's gonna make the summit that much more valuable, right? That much more meaningful. And if we're talking about climbing mountains and seeing beautiful things like that, well, you get up there, you see it, and guess what? It's time to climb the next one. So let's get right back on it. Yeah. You said a couple things uh earlier that I I want to circle back to. Yes. Um, first and foremost, I want to just call out that this is our first go at rec recording a podcast for Lighthouse Institute. So this is our first rep, and we are practicing what we preach in Lighthouse Rooms, which is coming from James Clear. He says when you're implementing a new habit, you first need to standardize, then optimize. Right. So there were a ton of things that could have prevented you and I from getting started, right? Like maybe this room isn't the most perfect room to get started in. Maybe, you know, some of our equipment we wanted to, we didn't know exactly what we were gonna talk about, right? But what you and I are doing is standardizing a practice of showing up. We we built a little recording schedule for the next three months, and we are going to be optimizing as we go, building on that idea of standardizing, right? Which I'm a you know I'm a big fan of. 100%. The James Clear disciple. 100%. Do you want to say anything about that?

SPEAKER_00 42:50

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, one of the first um braces that you ever gave me, um, you know, being in that world of perfection and being in that world of preparedness, right? Like talking about the gloves and like wanting to have and be prepared for for every scenario. Um, like now I look back and I'm like, man, how how silly in some ways to want to be prepared for every single situation. Like if I was to think in my car, I want to have a kit for if there's a fire, then I also would have to have a kit for there's a flood and for there's a hurricane, and if there's, you know, if my car just breaks down in the middle of this and that, and like I would have to carry so much. A lot of kits, a lot of kits. I would need a bus, you know, and so and that just doesn't, it's just not practical in a lot of ways. But uh, one of the first things you said to me was don't let perfection stifle your progress. And man, that has stuck with me so, so, so much because you know, talking about this, you know, coming up with um all of these things, you know, that there's there's so many components to, you know, putting a podcast together from the gear, the content, the schedule, the room, the all of the things. I mean, even just this morning, like us finding tables. And chairs, like we didn't even think of all those things because, and I'm so thankful for that. Because the intention for this is not to be to start perfect, but it's just to get started. Yes. So I love that about what I've learned with you in this.

SPEAKER_01 44:14

So yeah, awesome. Thanks. So don't let perfection staffle your progress. I told you that early on, and I still write it on papers that you and I brainstorm on, right? Because as much as I can preach it, it can still get in the way for me. And so I think uh yeah, we're we're lowering the bar, right? It's like, how do you lower the bar to just get started and not let that get in the way of moving? So um, you know, those of you in the lighthouse world will have heard me say it's either day one or it's one day. And I could I had been talking too long about one day, I want to have a podcast, right? And so it became Wednesday one, and what are we gonna do? And today is day one. So here we are. So thank you for for helping lean into making this happen. Uh and then I think it's important to know that we are recording in February. So it's February 17th, 2026. Um, you know, you mentioned like the wedding games happening again in a few weeks, and you also mentioned the Olympics as like, and the Olympics are happening right now, which are super fun. I can I can nerd out about the Olympics all day long. We don't know for sure when this episode's going to air that we're recording right now. So I just think that's important context for people to have. Yeah. And then there was a funny like mashup of my two worlds that uh I just will share because it's a funny story. Yeah. Um, I was talking about doing bartending for Anissa at weddings and things like that. And when I made my way into the Lighthouse Fold, my very first group that I got was, which was my own. So it was my own leadership series, right? Like I observed a handful of leadership series. I I co-taught leadership uh series with Chris Free. Uh, and then it came to the point where it's like, all right, Josh, this is gonna be your first group. And it was for Annville builders. They're up in uh Emeryville in the Bay Area. And one of the guys in my group, as we're you know, having a conversation about everything that's happening, he tells me he's getting married in the next, you know. Well, I can't remember what the timeline was, but he had a wedding coming up and he's like, Yeah, and we're we're getting married in slow because he was a Cal Poly guy. That's the other thing that happens a ton is our clients recruit from Cal Poly because they have an amazing construction management, engineering, you know, all that. And so it's not uncommon at all for Cal Poly alum to be at our clients and then in rooms with us, and they find out we live here and they're not happy, right? Oh my god, you live in St. Louis. Well, Tasker, actually, actually. But anyway, so this guy in this group, he's talking about getting married in slow. And I just kind of casually was like, Hey, well, have you picked a bartender yet? And he goes, Yeah, we have. It's uh, gosh, I can't remember the name. It's like two words. And he's like, the owner's like the short blonde gal with glasses. I'm like, oh, it's bottles and ice, it's a it's a nissa. And he goes, Yeah, that's her, 100%. And I'm like, I'll bartend your wedding, man. Like, I mean, I was I was done bartending. I'm like, I'll come out of retirement and I he goes, do it, please. And so I did. I yeah, I I hit up Anissa and I ended up, I bartended his wedding for him, and it was super cool because everyone was coming up, they're like, Oh, you know Will from here in class and this and that? It was a fun little connection, but what a cool overlap right there. Yeah, it was it was an unexpected overlap of my worlds, and yeah, and then I walked away from that going, okay, I can't bartend anymore.

SPEAKER_00 47:31

Oh man, I was just about to ask, is there is there somewhere where you know people can just still tap into that?

SPEAKER_01 47:36

Like, can they add that into their maybe maybe if they if they tap uh tap into another service that I offer for weddings?

SPEAKER_00 47:44

Do you want to talk about that a little bit? Because you may have taken advantage of one of them. 100%. So and I think you spoke to about like, was that was that how did that happen also with Tim and Chris? Did you say I believe so?

SPEAKER_01 47:55

I think Tim officiated Chris's wedding.

SPEAKER_00 47:57

Okay, so see how like those stories keep on repeating. So actually, Josh and Chris Fayla officiated our wedding. Co-officiated. Oh my goodness, one of the best experiences of my life. I mean, obviously, you know, because I'm marrying, you know, the the love of my life and the person I want to be with forever. But not only that, like you guys being there was so meaningful for both of us because I mean, you've been in my life now for several years and just the influence that you've had. Um, and then Chris Phayla, too, the way that I got introduced to Chris Phayla, and then our family ended up being connected with Chris Phayla. And so just all of those layers. But man, that co it was incredible, man. It was just, I don't know. I think if if you know, if one day you want to, you know, just retire and do that, I think you'd be so good at that. Thanks, man.

SPEAKER_01 48:44

So that's my joke now is if you want me to officiate your wedding and bartend, then package deal, maybe, you know.

SPEAKER_00 48:49

Yes, dude. Hey, uh you might want to, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 48:53

My my girls are now like uh starting to have the conversation on what my role is gonna be, right? Like one of them's talking about dad, I want you to walk me down the aisle and then walk to the other side and and conduct the wedding. And I'm like, wow, dad's gonna be a weepy mess walking down that aisle. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 49:09

Oh my goodness. Yeah, you got three tries.

SPEAKER_01 49:11

Yeah, I was just gonna say, so those of you if you don't know, uh, I am a lucky girl dad. I have three daughters. Um, as of today, my oldest is 15, middle daughter's about to be 13, and youngest is 11. My goodness. And you're on the other side of that.

SPEAKER_00 49:27

I'm on the other side. I'm in a different world. Uh, I have four boys. Um, my oldest are about to be 17 in just a week and a half. Yeah, twins, twin boys. I mean, all my kids are boys. Um, so yeah, they're about to be 17. The next one down, he's eight. And then the next one after that is seven. And my goodness, they're just so different and so beautiful in their own way. Like it's it's incredible. But yeah, I have no clue what it is to have a daughter. Uh it scares me, but it fascinates me at the same time. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 49:56

And I have no clue what it's like to be have a son. Um scares me, doesn't really fascinate me so much. Yeah, I'm pretty good. And which is super funny, man, because like my growing up, my whole life prior to having daughters, I would have said 100% I I want a son, need a son. Right. You gotta have a son. Yeah. And it's like pretty much the direct opposite now. I'm like, I was made to be a girl dad. I yeah. Um important to note, Patrick and I are both super passionate about parenting. So uh I think it's the most important leadership job on the planet. Uh we will be for sure be talking uh a lot about parenting here.

SPEAKER_02 50:35

Yeah, 100%.

SPEAKER_01 50:36

It's really common for people to ask me, you know, oh, are you gonna you're gonna go for the boy? Three girls. And it's like I just shake my head no at them right away, right? No.

SPEAKER_02 50:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 50:44

And then my go-to line is I have three daughters. I'm pretty confident there's gonna be some boys in my life. Yeah. Right? There's probably already some boys in your life. There are boys in my life. Yeah. It's super fun. We won't go there right now. Yeah, yeah. So that's a that's a whole nother episode series. Yeah, okay. Uh, so let's talk a little bit about kind of my my transition, continual transition into Lighthouse. So um, you know, shortly after COVID, developing the Lighthouse model, uh Tim actually tapped my shoulder to kind of take on a chief operations role, chief chief operations officer role, like a COO role. Um, just helping him with a lot of like working on the business. You know, I'm a big systems procedures. Um, my degree is actually in organizational management, which is very different than leadership. Yeah. Hold on. I think I should say that again, Patrick. Yes, please. Organizational management, very different than leadership, right? And that's one of the things we disentangle in the leadership series is like, look, leadership is not management. Now, leaders need to know how to manage, and managers need to know how to lead, but a lot of organizations talk about like management as a lower level and elevating from manager to leader. I don't need you to stop being a manager and be a leader. No, no, no, no. I actually need you to do both. I need you to understand the difference between the two, right? We lead people, we manage systems and processes, right? So that was really one of the my uh addiction and love affair with systems and processes. It was short, short into the full. Then Tim's like, Do you want to take this stuff over? I would love that, right? Um, so it got to function in that capacity for a hand a couple years, and and then really, I mean, Tim started needing an exit plan. He had been doing this for a really long time, he had carried the weight of the business on his own for forever. Um, and so we just started having conversations about what could a succession plan look like, what could an exit strategy for Tim look like. Uh, and that was that was a lot. We we learned a lot about each other, we learned a lot about the business. Um, and I'll spare all the details. Uh, but the short version is Chris Faree and I partnered up and we bought Lighthouse Institute from Tim and Jolene as of January 1st, 2025. So we just celebrated like our first year of running the business on our own. Um, Tim and Jolene have been an amazing support system. Uh, they they created an incredibly favorable deal for us that helps set us up for long-term success, also helps set them up for uh a very beautiful retirement or what he likes to call rewiring. He's not retiring, he's rewiring.

SPEAKER_02 53:36

I like that.

SPEAKER_01 53:37

Yeah. Um, we did learn some things in the process. Like uh Lighthouse had been a Washington company for 20 plus years, and that wasn't gonna work with two new owners living in California.

SPEAKER_02 53:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 53:49

Gosh, the state is beautiful. Uh but they can make business challenging. So we we re-entitized, we essentially actually started like a new company, um, but Lighthouse Leadership Institute, we purchased the Lighthouse company from them. And so we've established new routes, new home base here in Atascadero, California. And and really, Lighthouse had never really had a true home base before that. So much of our work is out and remote and working with clients. Um and then as we came into 2026 this year, we uh legitimized even a little bit more, um, found some co-working space. So we are at uh Bloom co-working in a taskadero and we are borrowing a media room uh until we get our own.

SPEAKER_00 54:35

Correct.

SPEAKER_02 54:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 54:35

And I love that part about it, you know, just kind of going back to what we said like, you know, don't let perfectionist for your progress. And this is where we are. We're we're moving, we're on that path, we're on that hike right now towards the mountain or to wherever we want to go. And um, to me, it looks beautiful. Like I love the fact that we're just just grabbing what we got and running with it.

SPEAKER_01 54:53

So, you and how we integrated you into this world, right? So uh, you know, up to this point, it's been photo, video, media, kind of all things creative for Patrick. And as I took my seat and really got kind of solidified in my seat as CEO of Lighthouse Institute, uh, I knew I wanted you. Um, and I I say again, we work really hard to practice the things that we preach, right? So in our leadership series, we leveraged Jim Collins' classic business book, Good to Great. And in Good to Great, he says it's a matter of first who, then what, right? And when it came to who I wanted on our team, I knew I wanted Patrick. Uh, knew I wanted you. And so uh I knew ultimately, hey, let's find we're gonna, we're gonna make some space to to leverage Patrick's best skills, you know, photo, video, creativity, those kinds of things. But in the meantime, there is an immediate opportunity and need and great fit for coaching 360 feedback facilitations and even getting you in the room and facilitating, right? Um, the other thing you might not know about Patrick is he speaks another language. Claro que sí, claro que sí. Espanol, verdad? Espanol, 100%. Yeah, Patrick speaks Spanish. And so there's also like in the construction world, a lot of need for us to have the ability to deploy some of our materials in Spanish and have someone who could be Spanish speaking. So there was a ton of ton of just opportunity that I saw.

SPEAKER_00 56:36

So you want to talk about how I tapped your shoulder? Oh man, absolutely. Yeah. So uh yeah, the past couple of years, I think I've been doing a little bit of um, I mean, I love what I do with, you know, photo and media. And again, going back to that wedding realm. Um, it's a beautiful space. Again, it's a beautiful space, but it's just to me, it just feels like dessert is just sweet always, and it's just always beautiful. Uh, there's a lot of pressure that goes in preparation and all of that, but um, the narrative doesn't change very much. Um, and I don't get to fulfill one part of me, which is helping others and helping others grow and helping others just succeed and deal with, you know, day-to-day issues. And so um when you came over to me about Lighthouse and you started presenting what you guys do, I was like, oh my goodness, that takes so many boxes for me and like helping others and also bettering myself and just um, you know, I was starting to do some of uh some something totally unrelated to all of my worlds, except maybe the creative part, which it was I was doing some like maintenance work and some of that like construction stuff, uh, which you know you can you can argue if it's creative or not. But to me, I I found the creativeness in it and I was kind of you know somewhat okay with it, but um, it wasn't fulfilling any other boxes. And I'm like, man, this is just so narrow, such a narrow path that I just cannot see myself doing for the rest of forever. Um so when you came over and you told me about what Lighthouse was was all about, and it was definitely not the lighthouse foundation that I thought it was, I was like, oh my goodness, this is incredible. And so um, yeah, I mean, the the media part is easy for me. It resonates completely to what I've been doing for all these years. But uh, once I was able to get in the room and see what you do and see the way that you have an impact on people and the way that they just want more of that, it just opened my eyes and the the need that people have for that. And it's not just in the construction world. I can see anybody in this world that needs some type of direction and um just even addressing some of those, you know, like the lighthouse model. Like, I mean, if I just start from the bottom, like emotional intelligence, like my goodness, like everybody talks about an IQ and being smart on this and being, you know, like um, you know, just working on all these other things. But when you talk about somebody addressing emotional intelligence, which is I think is something that our society doesn't really even like want to talk about sometimes because feelings are this nebula thing that you can't touch. And you know, you just see somebody when they're at the lowest point or where they're at their highest point. But all that journey, like, there's not a lot of education on that. And so when I started hearing some of you know the language, when I started seeing, you know, again, the impact that you were having on people, I'm like, my goodness, like this is this is incredible. Like you are literally changing lives. Like for somebody that has never been in the room with you, like I just and we have a participant right now that wants to put you in her back pocket, you know, and I'm like, oh my goodness, that is so true. Like, I wish I think everybody could benefit from um, you know, like from having somebody like you in their back pocket talking to all those different aspects of the lighthouse model, right? Um, and I think honestly, that's where the beauty of this podcast can come in, where like somebody that might have not experienced the lighthouse, you know, the leadership series, um, or somebody that has already experienced that and they want a little more, like I think this is a great vehicle for for getting some of that extra information. But totally.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:09

It could be like an introduction for some people, or it could be scaffolding and galvanizing for someone else who's who's already gone through it.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:16

A hundred percent. So um, so anyway, so that was the the thing that attracted me the most to this. And that and and again, I had not even thought about myself as being in front of that room. Um, but the more that I see the impact that it has on others, I'm like, there is a path. Like I I am a hard believer in that everybody is capable of doing whatever they put their mind to. And so while I have never gone to school to, you know, do any of these things, or while I have never uh exercised being in front of a room and talking to a lot of people, like I I to me those are just those are just small hoops that I'm gonna have to go through eventually, but there's there's a path to go through those things. But the the the reward at the end of having an impact on others to me is worth anything that I whatever I need to go through. So we can do this again.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:01

Repeat after me.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:02

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:03

I am allowed to be both a work in progress and help others grow at the same time. I refuse to wait until I believe I'm perfect or someone else has deemed me worthy of impacting others. I am unapologetically accepting a life of massive growth and improvement. That's exactly what I see you doing it too.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:20

Exactly. So yeah, and and and in fact, when you share that too, I think that was the for me, that was the reassuring moment of like, yes, I don't have to be perfect. I don't have to have a degree, I don't have to have years and years and years of experience with this. Yes, I do have to have some training, I do have to have the knowledge and preparation because I want to show up as best as I can, but I don't need to have it all figured out. And so, but just seeing that reward and that impact to me is huge. It's like, how can I not? So good.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:50

It's good. Yeah. And you talk about like, well, first and foremost, thank you. You gave you gave me a lot of like, hey, the impact I'm creating being in the room, right? And for me, of course, I want to push that to Lighthouse, the impact that Lighthouse is creating in the room because you've had a chance to sit in rooms with me, but Chris Free is getting these these outcomes and creating impact in the room. Jared Davis, Chris Fela, Jim Free. I mean, we have a team that is out there in rooms with people creating this amazing impact, right? I mean, when when I first came on, Tim said he's like, it's not uncommon for people to tell us that our leadership series changed their life. And now I find myself telling prospective clients that I'm like, it's not uncommon for our participants to say that this leadership series changed their life. And most often they're not talking about work. And that's actually our secret. Like, I I fully believe if we could get organizations, like corporate organizations, to start caring about the health of marriages, we change everything. Right? 100%. And so more often than not, people are talking about the impact that we've helped create for them at home. Now, we can't do anything for them. I can't do one thing for any of the people that come into the room with me. They have to go do the work. So ultimately, they are creating that impact for themselves. We're helping show them the way a little bit, but it's more often than not, it's the impact at home. And then what's the added benefit to that? It shows up at work because you have a happier human, a more productive human, all those things, right? We say one of our pitching lines is better humans make better leaders. Right? Because wherever you go, there you are. So leadership is not a professional development thing. It's not like we're just gonna talk about work. It's like we need to talk about this whole person. How are you leading this way at home, this way at work? How like some people will say, Well, I have I have, you know, I actually did a personality session last week. And someone's like, Well, I have my home personality and my work personality back, well, you're out of alignment somewhere. One of those you're not being authentic and it's gotta be exhausting, right? And so it's like, how do we find that way into congruence with ourselves everywhere that we go? And and honestly, in our world, tons of people have put tons of time, energy, effort, intentionality into compartmentalizing those two things, drawing a line between work and home. And I tell them right out the gate, we're gonna break this line down. We're gonna, I'm I'm gonna actively look to erode this barrier and integrate these things because wherever you go, there you are. And better humans make better leaders, right? 100%. So, yeah, I mean, that's a that, but that whole idea you mentioned of people wanting more, right? So that's that's participants in the room that are like, I mean, I've had a ton of them. Why don't you have a podcast? You know, where can I get more of this? Like, you just read me bedtime stories, you know, or like whatever. And I I know both the Chris's and Jim's and Tim's are are getting the same thing on their end, right? So on one hand, this is us looking to start to satiate some of that and and meet that need of like, hey, here's some opportunity for some more, right? Um, also, it becomes a place for you know, resource sharing, um, support, encouragement, just insights, uh, a place to for us to put more of who we are and what we're doing kind of out into the world, right? But if we're gonna do that, we have to talk about why we're doing it because I already said I'm a Simon Cynic fan, and he starts with why. Right. So tell us why. When we talk high level, like what is Lighthouse Institute's organizational why, right? Like our core ideology. Uh, and we we actually spent some time last year, you know, being our first year 2025 of call it new regime. New leadership, you know, moving into like the call it the next generation of Lighthouse, pulled the team together in Avala Beach for a retreat. And we spent two and a half days kind of first talking about our history, kind of legacy storytelling. You know, they call it tribal storytelling. Like, how'd you get here? How'd you get here? And really cool because we've got people on the team who were with Tim and Joe from the very, very, very beginning, right? One of them being his their daughter, uh Melissa, who is our project manager and wildly, wildly valuable teammate. Um, Melody, who came on with them very early on. And then you've got people like yourself and Laura who are kind of new to the team. So all these different kind of cross-sections of our org and um talking about why we show up in the rooms that we do, talking about what people say on the backside, like what's the feedback that we get, right? And and so what's our what's our ultimate core purpose? Um, Simon Sinek has like specific framework that he puts the the core purpose statement into, but but our organizational why, which is ultimately the why behind this podcast as well, right, is is to shine light that ignites connection, inspires hope, and transforms generations. So whether we're in a room with 14 to 16 people deploying our leadership series and and talking about the lighthouse model of leadership, or if we're in one-on-one, you know, coaching sessions with you know an individual or working with a team, or or it's me and you sitting here talking conversationally to who knows who's listening. Our primary intent is to shine light that ignites connection, inspires hope, and transforms generations. And I have like pretty full confidence we're we're doing that. That is that is happening on a on a day-to-day basis, right? Uh, we had our uh staff meeting this morning, and Melissa told us that we've got several days this year where there are five different leadership series sessions happening at the same time on the same day. That's fascinating. Like that it blows my mind a little bit, and it's it's really, really awesome to think about. Yeah, I mean, that's 70 people on in that moment. In that moment, on that day. Yeah. Incredible. And so for us internally, that idea of like that shining light, right? Like that that that means something to us that carries weight with us. We spent hours and hours talking about what that means to shine light. We we talk a lot about what what it looks like when connections ignited or when someone, you know, is inspired with hope and and that transforming generations, like we might not get to see the fruits of of that labor for a while, but confidence that it's happening. We can hear it from our participants in the room. We can we can see it in the way that they're coming back and telling us about, you know, even the impact of of just a different approach to a conversation with with a spouse or a child or something like that. It's it's a wildly rewarding job.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:02

Yes, yes, man. I love that. That is so beautiful.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:06

Yeah. So I think the really the only other thing to kind of look at or talk about is we talked about Lighthouse Institute and you know, thinking about this idea of a podcast. And we could have got caught, or we I should say we could have got stuck early, right? Because that whole perfection stifling your progress. And, you know, it's like, where do we we start with? What are we gonna call it? Like, what are we gonna name it? You know, and um it was really that that thought exercise that sent me spinning a little bit because I'm like, oh, this is important, like I need to need to name it. Um, and I could feel myself pulling back, like, oh, you know, I don't know what we're gonna name it, so we're gonna we're gonna wait. And and that shift of like, no, let's let's lean in, let's keep with the schedule, right? But really kind of processing, like, and what do I want to name a podcast? And as I started thinking about it, I realized we need to zoom out. And so it's less about one thing that we're gonna do, and it's more about what's the container or the platform that I think all of us can can live in, right? And that was when I messaged you probably like midnight or something. I was like, bro, got an idea. Uh and I'm like, I don't think it's a podcast, I think it's actually like a media company. So, like that we create an arm of our business that is lighthouse media that really gives us the platform to do more in-depth storytelling, whether that's about ourselves and the things that we're doing or our clients or our individual participants or you know, the things that are happening with them and us when our worlds collide. So, yeah, I'm just curious like how that landed for you when I took us from you know a podcast to like lighthouse media, zooming out.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:50

Yeah, honestly, that that was like that was great for me because you know, going back to that whole thing of telling people stories, right? Like I'm used to that on a wedding day. Um, and in our in this world, in this realm of uh of Lighthouse, um and the podcast, it was it was very much okay, what's the message that Lighthouse is wanting to tell, which it could include snippets of people's stories, and you know, maybe we could share about like, oh, this this happened in one of the rooms or something along those lines. But when we start exploring Lighthouse media that can actually dive a little bit deeper into those stories, into those companies, into the people that are building these teams. To me, that just man, that was like a huge, just I don't know how to describe it, but it was just like I was all on board. I'm like, yes, this like the horizon just opened up even wider. Um, knowing that we can create even more impact with this vehicle, that it's media and video and audio and all these things. And I mean, our world is so full right now of content creation, which I think there's a lot of value in that. But I think to me, there's a little bit now of uh not it's not a negative connotation to the content creation, but it feels very much of like um something just trying to come up with something rather than look around and look at what is already happening and tap into that, right? So that like to me, that's like somebody's story, somebody that they're they're already going through a journey. And why not tap into that and share that journey? Because that I think is more is more beneficial than just let's create a hypothetical character that is going through this rather than let's look at this person that is going through this already and what what value do they have? What can we grab that to share with others? Because I think so many people will benefit from that. So uh, so yeah, Lighthouse Media. And then I start looking immediately at like our people, right? Like our team members, our, you know, like the history of Lighthouse and all of that. I'm like, oh my goodness, we can I can already think of like 20 different stories that we can tell, and we haven't even like tapped outside of just the organization.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:02

So that's so interesting because it's super similar to it's actually super similar to the why process idea because like Simon will say, Simon says, uh, you don't create the why, you excavate the why from within your origin story, your life journey, all the things that come up, right? And I'm hearing you say, like, we don't really need to think about creating content as much as we just need to excavate the content that is already existing within our internal team, our clients, our participants, like all this stuff. It's just, I mean, the content's almost creating itself, right? And and for us, we're just creating a vehicle to be able to share it and amplify it and and make it known a little bit with the hope that that other people are hearing things that help them grow in their journey, right? That um, yeah, I just think that we want to help people lead better wherever they are. That whole idea of wherever you are, there you go. Right. Like, and a big thing that we say is we first have to learn how to lead ourselves well before we can help lead others well.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:04

Right.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:05

Or I guess if you're using that meme that I have, it can be at the same time. Leading self well and looking to help lead others, right? Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:14

So yeah. So to me, that was just that was that just landed perfectly. And I was like, yes, this makes so much sense. Let's let's run with it as hard as we can.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:22

So we should be expecting to see some things about Lighthouse Media soon and that integration with Lighthouse Institute. And uh we have set ourselves a goal and target. Um, if I say it here, then we really have to do it, huh? Say of getting our first episode live by we'll call it May 1st. May 1st. My birthday's the third, so we just use that as a little thing. But I I figured you mentioned emotional intelligence, and this could just be kind of an easy way to kind of make our way out. Um I I just think it's one of those terms, like you said, I don't know that people love to talk about it. I don't know that most people know what it is. Um, and so maybe just a quick little framing on emotional intelligence, because there's a a really easy kind of four-part way to think about it, right? Um first is an awareness of my emotions. It's uh just an awareness that I have emotions, right? Second is an awareness of the impact my emotions have on other people. Hmm. Okay, I have emotions. Oh, and those emotions affect other people. Got it. And then the third is an awareness of other people's emotions. And then the fourth level of emotional intelligence would be an awareness of my ability to influence your emotional state. Right. So I will sometimes joke in rooms that I'm in, as human beings, we like this story a lot that we are logical creatures who every once in a while have some emotions. As men, we tend to love that story, right? And I and I would argue that as men in construction, we're in love with that story. It's the only story story. We are logical creatures, and every once in a while we get an emotion. And there's only one emotion that we're allowed to have, and it's anger.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:07

Right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:08

Um, there's like Brene Brown's heart, uh, Alice of the Heart, there's like over 80 something emotions, right? A lot of us don't have good language for for naming our emotions. Um, but the the reality, the real story is we are emotional creatures who every once in a while get a logical, rational thought, right? We're emoting all day long. So if emotional intelligence is one of those areas that feels like an invitation to anyone, I would say just super low level, start with an awareness of emotions. What emotions did I feel today? Maybe it's just like a post-it note by your bed for like 30 seconds and just you know, recapping your day and thinking like what emotions came up? Right? What did I feel throughout the journey of today? I think you might start to be surprised just by the range, right? Gosh, from joy to frustration to anger to annoyed to excited to nervous. I mean, at the span of a day, it can it can go all over the place. So, you know, we start with that awareness, and then you know, the 2.0 question would be now, how did those emotions show up for others around me?

SPEAKER_00 1:17:20

Yeah, it can be a fun invitation. I love that. I love that. Now, you mentioned there's 80-ish, right? Different emotions. Do you know of any tools? Or do you think this is something that we can maybe post somewhere to give somebody an idea? Like I'm I'm I'm thinking if I'm somebody that has never even been aware of my emotions and I want to name an emotion, I'm like, I don't even know where to start there. I know my friend Laura, she's got she's got a super cool graphic of a wheel of emotions. Yep. Yeah, I want to know.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:52

The wheel of emotions. And if you just type in Brene Brown's Atlas of the Heart or Brenea Brown's emotion wheel, Brene Brown's emotion list, just click that like images tab, it'll show you. Yeah, it's got the wheel with all of the emotions and you can start getting new language, right? Because one of the other tools that there's a there's a lot of science behind is just name it to tame it. So when you name that emotion, your your brain immediately starts kind of calming that emotion down already. But we need to have the language for all of the different names of the emotions in order to be able to name it to tame it, right? So I think, yeah, great point. Like that Brene Brown emotions wheel is a great place to start getting more language.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:34

I love that. That was a game changer for me. Like, um, you know, even just in um like my wife and I did like a premarital counseling thing. And when I first heard of that, and they gave us that paper of like, oh, here's some emotions. And I don't think it was this particular one. It was, it was way less. It was like maybe like 20 of them. Uh, but just having that tool to be able to, you know, communicate with my spouse, like, hey, like I'm feeling something, and it's I you know, I only had like four, right? Like happy, sad, angry, and I don't know, something else, bored maybe, right? And I'm like, it's not, it's somewhere along the veins of this one, but it needs to be deeper. And just having that tool, it was so helpful in order to be able to like name it so that we can both be on part of like, oh, gotcha, that's what you're feeling. So um anyway, so yeah, so for for all those out there that are not in touch with those or haven't even practiced it, I love having that little exercise that maybe at night or in the morning just to be like, okay, what am I feeling? How can I summarize this today?

SPEAKER_01 1:19:33

What can I totally put it down in construction worlds? I'll joke, I'll say, yeah, you know, we understand that feelings is not the F-word that you all typically use, okay? It's friends. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Exactly. Um, but no, you're you're right. In that, you know, we say a lot, words matter. The words we use matter. So uh from a language perspective, being able to name more of our emotions than just happy, mad, sad.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:59

Right.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:00

Uh, that's important. Um, you said something else there that I'm gonna just take an opportunity to side quest on, right? Which is uh when we a lot of us have, I mean, this is up on the signs at my kids' school, right? To say, like, I feel when you and I'd like, right? And some people who have but gone to counseling or therapy or some of those things, it's like, hey, like I feel upset when you don't take out the trash and I'd like you, but um, that's good. It's good. If if you want to move that from good to great, uh I'd offer you that part of you is feeling a certain way, right? Because more most often your entire being is not frustrated or upset or or anything. And so just even making that a little bit more bite-sized, right? Like, hey, part of me is pretty frustrated that you have not taken out the trash, even though I've passed you two 17 times, right? Bad example, but uh part of me, right? Um, even when you know Brianna and I are not feeling awesome with each other, it's part of me that's upset with you. The larger part of me is still in love with you and wants to stay married, right? But there's part of me that is upset right now. And so I think just from language, that really our participants usually open their eyes pretty big at that one as just an opportunity to acknowledge that it's just a part. And um, I've shout out Dr. Becky Kennedy on this one. She's a parenting specialist, but she says two things are true. So both those things can be true, right? I can part of me can be upset and part of me can be happy with you at the same time. So those are important pieces. Thank you so much for listening to our very first episode. Two things are true for us right now. One, we are extremely grateful you're here that you found us, and we are excited to keep going. Stay tuned for episode two, where we will discuss the difference between leadership, management, and followership, and quite a bit more. Uh, we would love for you to subscribe wherever you're listening. You can also follow us on social, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and please help us spread the word. We would love if you shared this with your friends and your family. Most importantly, let's go shine bright.