All It Takes Is A Goal

ATG 14: Just Say “Yes”: How one woman’s positive mindset took her from barista to CEO

April 12, 2021 Jon Acuff Season 1 Episode 14
All It Takes Is A Goal
ATG 14: Just Say “Yes”: How one woman’s positive mindset took her from barista to CEO
Show Notes Transcript

How much power does a positive mindset really have?

Colleen Barry lost her job in the entertainment industry during the dot com bust in 2001. Her unexpected unemployment led her to take a job making pizzas in a wood-fired oven, doing freelance graphic design, and eventually becoming the “lobby barista” of a real estate agency.

Today, she’s the CEO of the same company where she used to serve espresso to prospective clients. Listen to this week’s episode of All It Takes is a Goal to learn how choosing a positive mindset allowed her to climb the ladder and how you can use the same strategies she did to achieve your goals too.

Books mentioned in this episode:
There's No Such Thing As Luck by Colleen Barry
Start by Jon Acuff
The Dip by Seth Godin
Lead with Luv by Ken Blanchard and Colleen Barrett
Mindset by Carol Dweck, Ph.D.
Pema Chödrön
Eat That Frog by Brian Tracy

Follow Jon on Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook.

Order Soundtracks, Jon's newest book available wherever you find quality books!

Jon Acuff:

Hey everyone, and welcome to the All it takes is a goal podcast. I'm your host, Jon Acuff and I love goals. Why? Because it goals, the fastest path between where you are today and where you want to be tomorrow. And best of all, finishing a goal feels amazing. You will never forget the first time you hold a book you finished writing, you will never forget the moment you cross the finish line of a five day race. You'll never forget when someone paid you to do something you love doing. That's why restaurants have their first dollar bill framed behind the cash register. It's not about the amount of money it's not a ton of money. It's $1. Bill, why would you frame it, because of what it represents. They did it. They finished I want you to have that feeling to I want you to have that moment. I want to help you cross the finish line of whatever goal you care about, because the future belongs to finishers. That's why I'm doing this podcast. In today's episode, I'm joined by Colleen Berry, if you've already read my brand new book soundtracks available everywhere books are sold. You're very familiar with Colleen, her story is in the first chapter. Because it's that amazing. It's been really fun for me, because over the last few weeks, I've been doing podcasts with people who got early versions of my book. And a lot of the interviewers have said, Hey, tell me more about Colleen Barry. Tell me more about her story. She's incredible. And it's true. She is I could have spoken to her for hours and ours Her story is that good. And when you hear what she did when she lost her job and where she is now it's going to blow you away. I can't wait for you to hear about it in this episode. But first today's episode is sponsored by Medi-Share. Have you guys ever had buyer's remorse? You know that feeling of intense regret because the thing you thought you just had to have was only something used once or twice? For me it was the time I bought a really expensive road bike because I thought I was going to get into cycling. I proceeded to hang it on the wall in my garage and feel ashamed for six months. Well, I know some of you are experiencing buyer's remorse right now for something much more frustrating. You know what I'm talking about. It's the healthcare you rushed to get during open enrollment last December. Well, I have some good news for you. You've probably heard me talking about our main sponsor for this podcast, Medi-Share. And these guys have the answer to healthcare buyer's remorse. Check this out, members of Medi-Share save up to 50% or more per month on their health care costs. They say the typical family saves up to $500 per month. And here's the best part, you can become a member at any time. So that means it isn't too late to ditch your buyer's remorse and switch to a more affordable health care that will save you money and help you sleep better at night. If this is your first time you're hearing about Medi-Share, it is the best alternative to health insurance that allows you to share the burden of medical bills, offers access to 900,000 plus health care providers, and has a proven 25 year track record. Plus in addition to saving hundreds per month, as a member of Medi-Share, you will also have access to free telehealth and free telecounseling. You won't find that with any traditional health insurance provider. Guys, it only takes two minutes to see how much you could save. Go investigate that for yourself and your family at Medi-Share.com/Jon. That's Medi-Share.com/Jon. Remember Jon doesn't have an H in it. So it's a M-E-D-I, that's Medi, share, S-H-A-R-E dot com slash J-O-N. All right, Colleen, I want to start things off with a bit of a prediction. I predict that your story in my new book soundtracks will be one of the favorite stories in the entire book. It's absolutely amazing, which is why I put it in the first chapter. I knew immediately that I wanted to have you on my new podcast. You went from barista to CEO at Gibson Sotheby's International Realty. That's the conclusion. But I want to back up a minute. When we first met, I had posted on LinkedIn looking for real people who had changed their lives by changing their mindsets, and you responded. Your kind of journey, the one that I get to tell in the first chapter of the book starts with the dot com bust, if you will, in Boston. You lost your job, was it 2008? Do I have the year right?

Colleen Barry:

So actually that was back in '01, '02.

Jon Acuff:

That one, I'm getting my recessions mixed up. That's fun in our generation.

Colleen Barry:

Don't worry we're creating a new one for you Jon.

Jon Acuff:

There's a third for me that I've lived through. Fantastic. Fantastic.

Colleen Barry:

It was not long after the dot com bust and I had actually just finished a contract job. There was not a lot of work around, you don't get to re-up when there isn't a lot of work. All of my friends had these really cool gigs where they were working at places where there were coffee bars, and it was a little bit like what it was more recently, ping pong tables, and

Jon Acuff:

Air hockey.

Colleen Barry:

endless energy bars. Absolutely. The only thing you don't see though, Jon, in those cases is bowling. I miss bowling. I feel like-

Jon Acuff:

I feel like it's not I think it's hard to instal a bowling alley from what I've

Colleen Barry:

An excellent point.

Jon Acuff:

No one's told me that. I'm just using my eyes and the size of bowling alleys. I think it's like a ping pong table is much more you can fold up a ping pong table. I don't know that they make a foldable bowling alley.

Colleen Barry:

Yeah, not that I'm aware of. But maybe this is the next big idea.

Jon Acuff:

Somebody, yeah, will hear that.

Colleen Barry:

So there weren't a lot of jobs to be had. And you know, anybody who was out in the workforce during that time was probably in the same boat I was, which is okay, now I have a mortgage. And I have to be able to cover that. And so I started doing all kinds of stuff. And I at the time was doing freelance work. I was cooking pizzas, you know, at nights and on the weekends at a local restaurant doing salads and pizzas in a woodfired oven. And that was my second time in the kitchen. And, and I can do that work. But that's really hard work. It's not something I eagerly want to go back to. I answered a job to to be a receptionist at a real estate company. In the rental office of real estate company. One of my neighbors said, "Hey, you still looking for work? Give me your resume. There's a, there's a job opening, you know, at our rental office," and I said, "Sure, I'll take it, whatever it is."

Jon Acuff:

So a neighbor, 19 years ago says, "Hey, here's the thing," because I think that's interesting. We often think the path we're going to go on, "I'll know it. I'll see it. I'll have the future." And it was a neighbor in the midst of you cooking pizza, stringing together jobs, that said, "Hey, what if?" and you said, "Okay, well, I'll give I'll add this to the mix of Colleen does a bunch of jobs."

Colleen Barry:

Right. Well, and you know, and I think you're one of these people, too, and my experience has been, you're better off being open to stuff. The thing that pains me is a lot of the people I know who have a lot of regrets, are people who have waited for something to be perfect, like, "This isn't exactly the right career move. This isn't exactly the right job offer, this isn't exactly the pay I'm looking for." There's always a reason that they can say, "I'll wait for the next time it comes around." I'm sure we both know, all of us, anybody who's listening to this, knows people and maybe they are these people who they go, "Wow, that didn't come around again. I thought it was going to come around again, and it didn't." And, you know, that wasn't a particularly great time for me. I mean, that was a challenging time for a lot of us. I mean, that was the first time in my life. And hopefully it will be the only major one, although I've lived through others living in Boston, but first big terrorist attack in the United States. So it was sort of the lasting effects of that. I mean I was down I had, when I was doing filmmaking work, that contract I was on, I had to deliver a film down off of Wall Street three weeks after 9/11. So I had to I saw that, you know, the aftermath. The smoke and every it was just a nightmare. And so you know, we're all kind of shaken. And the career path wasn't opening up like I thought it was. You know, one door closed, and I couldn't see the the windows open.

Jon Acuff:

And not even the window would crack?

Colleen Barry:

No, until the neighbor said, "Here's the mail slot." [Laughter]

Jon Acuff:

That's great. That's great.

Colleen Barry:

And so, you know, I was trying to do a lot of stuff for myself at that point. I think, you know, when you and I were talking about the book, one of the things we were talking about is kind of knowing yourself. Like what are the things that you have to do and I think, you know, the title of the book is perfect in so many ways, because I actually I like use music to get myself jazzed up. I've got like a little playlist and stuff. And so I was trying to do everything I could knowing who I am. Because at that point, I was in my late 20s, I was starting to get to know who I was, and understand kind of how my machine works, you know. And I have a tendency, a good example is, you know, I was struggling through that time to try to figure out what to do. And in different times in my life, I've tried to pay attention to "Geez, I have this tendency or that tendency, I should be more careful about something." So great example, if I have cable, I will invest a lot of time. A lot of time in watching television.

Jon Acuff:

You go all in. What was the show that taught you that? Was it like, "Oh my gosh, I watched every Sopranos 14 times."

Colleen Barry:

Okay, I'm going to tell you a funny story. So the show that here's kind of how we arrived at how I can understand how much television I was watching. I went to an art show in Winchester, Massachusetts, really sweet little town. In

Jon Acuff:

Western Massachusetts?

Colleen Barry:

It's actually not far outside of Boston, believe it or not. It's Winchester sweet, sweet town. The Griffin is beautiful museum. And I'm meeting people as I'm there's this guy there and I'm like,"God, I feel like I know him. Like we've I feel like we know each other intimately. Like we've had personal conversations before. We've had face to face conversations." And I said, "Do you live in the south end of Boston?" because I was living in the south end at the time, they said, "Nope, nope, I don't." I said, "Do you work in the south?" And he was like," I don't. I live in New York." I was like, "Oh," I said, "Would we know each other from somewhere?" He said, I'm an actor. And I said, "Oh, would I've seen you in something?" and he said, "I'm on Law and Order" and I was like, "Ah!" [Laughter]

Jon Acuff:

We solved murders together. Me and this man

Colleen Barry:

I'll tell you what, we've done some serious stuff together.

Jon Acuff:

We found bodies in the like, runners. Oh, no, there's a jogger. Yeah.

Colleen Barry:

See. That's how you learn how to be careful about jogging Jon. I know you run. You have to be careful about that. So but I mean, that is how invested in television I will get, I will get to the point where I am fairly certain we are friends if you're at a TV show. You know, at one point in my life when I was really trying to invest in myself, I cut cable. I said, "Forget cable. I will listen to the radio. I'm going to read books, and I'm going to get I need something around, you know, to get myself a fish tank."

Jon Acuff:

Had you had a fish tank before?

Colleen Barry:

I think I had a goldfish probably for 45 minutes when I was 11 years old. You know, I got one at the church fair, absolutely.

Jon Acuff:

Came in a plastic bag and they were like, "This is gonna die today."

Colleen Barry:

Oh, yeah, at least. Yeah, I think it made it all the way home. And, you know, I've tried to learn about who I am, my machine, how I can do better things, you know, situations that could go south. Like a great example, COVID. You know, I tend to suffer from depression. So I gotta be really careful about spending a lot of time at home by myself.

Jon Acuff:

Isolation. Yeah, and winter. Now we get to do the winter.

Colleen Barry:

Oh, yeah. So many good things. So I recently started getting into woodworking and instrument repair. I've played guitar for a long time. So I just rebuilt this guitar, restored it. It was missing everything it could be missing and still be called a guitar. I love that. It's just the cleaning. Now it's my favorite instrument.

Jon Acuff:

Of course.

Colleen Barry:

We've bonded.

Jon Acuff:

That's the "Colleen."

Colleen Barry:

That's right. It's like the guy on Law & Order. I mean, we've

Jon Acuff:

That is amazing.

Colleen Barry:

We've solved murders together.

Jon Acuff:

Did you interview other things? Like other passions, other goals that you said, "You know what..."

Colleen Barry:

Yeah.

Jon Acuff:

Okay, so like, what else did you interview in this season?

Colleen Barry:

So that's a good question. So I also started really getting into old records. And so I've got a lot of really great old records. I started picking up a lot of old blues, jazz, some old country, I've got some Dolly Parton, you and I have talked about our love of Dolly before. You know, that's one path I've gone down. I've also been I've got a six year old son. So we've been trying to do projects together. We built his desk for, you know, he's had to do a lot of hybrid and remote learning. So we built a little desk for him. Of course, that's always you know, when you've got kids and you involve them in a project, you're like "30 bucks, we can not get a desk." We go to the wood store, and he picks out the most exotic woods they have.

Jon Acuff:

He's like "Mahogany." He's like, "Bring me your finest teak."

Colleen Barry:

Absolutely.

Jon Acuff:

"I want this carved out of ivory. You have any tusks, sir?"

Colleen Barry:

The guy at the wood store who, who coincidentally, his name is Woody, of course. And he said,"Your kid's got good taste." I said, "Yeah, I know," as I'm pulling my credit card out. But you know, the idea was, how can I be spending my time in a way that benefits me and it feels good at the end of it? And for me, I always think about, I have to keep my feet moving. You know, if I sit still too long, I start to develop like inertia, it's really hard to keep me moving. So, you know, I've been listening to some good books, I've been reading some good books. Harder for me to read because, you know, at the end of the long day, you know, just hits me in the face while I'm lying in bed. So I have to be careful. The Kindle was not good that way. It's heavier than a regular book. Oh, yeah. So that's, you know, sort of my long winded way. And I was learning a lot about myself during that time. Yes.

Jon Acuff:

How would you so, and I think we're gonna go through the conversation and through the story, but I think we'll have so many little side roads. If you sat down with somebody that said, "Okay, Colleen, I don't know about me, how do I start to do that?" And you have employees, you have people that report to you, you have a younger generation that reports to you. If somebody sits down, because I love that, I don't want to use the word"rule." Like "Colleen's Rule" sounds too restrictive, because this actually feels freeing. Like These are good boundaries that help you. You've got a handful of those. If I came to you and said "I don't, I just don't have any like, I don't know, you know what to do," because I hate when somebody says, "The first step to being a great whatever is to know yourself perfectly." And they say it on Instagram, like that takes 10 minutes,

Colleen Barry:

Right. Oh, yeah.

Jon Acuff:

What some of the first steps down the path of

Colleen Barry:

That's a really good question. If you were going that for you? to try to do it on your own, and some people are able to do that really well. I think you can kind of go through and ask yourself some key questions. And I'll give you an example of one. You know, a bunch of years ago, I don't have like one particular passion. So and you know, we live in this like

Jon Acuff:

Do you ever feel guilty for that?

Colleen Barry:

Oh, one hundred I felt like I was lost because of that. Because I would read these books and they would say"Just follow your passion. If you do what you're passionate about. It's no longer work." And I was like, I don't have one thing

Jon Acuff:

I've been jealous of like, I saw somebody that had a herpetic like a herpetological. I'm gonna say that wrong like snake

Colleen Barry:

Yeah.

Jon Acuff:

society bumper sticker and I was like, I really wish I was that into a single thing. Like, I really wish I was like, "Man breeding snakes, that's what I live for!"

Colleen Barry:

All about it. If it's got scales and a long tail.

Jon Acuff:

Yep, sign me up. I'm there.

Colleen Barry:

Yeah. And it's I'm with you on that. Like, I am a genuinely very curious person. I enjoy people. I like learning about things. I mean, it's this guitar thing is, is a great example like I've been rewiring fixtures in our house. I mean, is that Is it even legal for me to be doing that? Maybe we cut that part out. But so, you know, I'm interested in a lot of different things. For a while feeling kind of bad about that, like, "Well, I guess I don't know what to do." And then I asked myself this question,"What was the most fulfilling day you've had in your career?" Now, just think about it. The best day you've had. And then worst days, but for me, the best day is, when I get home, at the end of the day, it can be a day where I work 12 hours straight, and I help someone to get what they wanted to accomplish. I feel like I could run a marathon after that. There's a lot of positive energy in there, I feel like I feel fulfilled. I feel like I bonded with someone in a meaningful way. You know, it, like it checks all the boxes off for me. You know, that would be one way that people could figure out who they are like, when did they feel most fulfilled? And then conversely, you know, what were the jobs that are the things that they really dislike in? Can they dig deeper to understand why they dislike them? You know, and you can use a friend, I mean, use your friends, you know, anybody who you trust to tell you the truth? First of all, not the friend who's like, Oh, no, you're just amazing. Get the friend. Like, I've got some of these friends in my life. Who will tell you by the way, you're screwing up, you're like, "Oh, geez, that's not what I was going for." And you can ask them, you know, I had trouble with this job or this thing. Why did I have trouble with that? You know, do you have any insight? The more introspective you are, the more helpful it is. Journaling can help with that too. Journal at the end of the day. All you're doing is you're kind of summarizing what's been going on. And in that summary, you can discover a lot because you're deciding what's important to retell a story, essentially. So you're cutting out all the fluff. You don't need to remember when you

Jon Acuff:

Ah! I love that!

Colleen Barry:

I remember years ago reading about how when people type verbatim notes, they don't remember the notes as well as people who handwrite and the specialist said, it's because handwriting has a desirable degree of difficulty. You can't write every word. So you have to first decide, process, what's important, what am I going to take down?

Jon Acuff:

That is so good.

Colleen Barry:

So I think journaling can also solve that problem for people. But the important thing is, and I think this is the most important thing, I don't think you're ever going to fully know who you are. This is a constant road to discovery. This is like, we're all under construction all the time.

Jon Acuff:

Yeah, and if you set your goal as completely known, that perfectionism. That's not gonna happen. No, you're gonna get disappointed. So we flashback, you're working. You're the receptionist. Was your title Assistant?

Colleen Barry:

Yeah.

Jon Acuff:

You're in the lobby of a small real estate office.

Colleen Barry:

Yep.

Jon Acuff:

It would have been easy for you to, you know, kind of go a couple different paths. Entitlement, "I shouldn't have to answer the phones. This works beneath me." Regret, "My last job was so much better than this one." Fear, "What if the economy collapses again, and I lose the pizza job and the receptionist job?" "Blame, "It's not my fault." Resignation, "This is how things will be forever." But you don't go down those paths, you start to build something. How does that happen?

Colleen Barry:

Well, I'll tell you, first of all, those paths were available. And I would step down and a couple of steps every once in a while. I think we all do that. You know, we're never all positive all the time. So I think you know, one thing, it's important that I try to share, you know, I work with a lot of people who are a lot younger than I am. I mean, of course, this is to my dismay, you know, I'm a real I never realized how old I am until I talked to someone and I realized I could be their mother. And I don't mean like teen bride, I mean, like, was married

Jon Acuff:

An established mid-20s.

Colleen Barry:

Right. And one of the things I tell them is, I'm still figuring, I'm figuring this stuff out. You know, you you might say, "Colleen, I need your advice, because you've got it figured it out." I'll tell you I have not figured it all out. So I think that's the first thing is I was, I had those tendencies to so it'd be like,"I can't believe this happened. This is ridiculous. I thought I was headed down the right path. You know, what's going on?" And one thing that's important to me that I've learned for me is that your experience in life is just that, it's the experiences that you have. And you have some control that stuff. You don't necessarily have control over what happens to you. Because we all witnessed things happen. You know, during this downturn, and during COVID, Jon, you were planning to do a lot of speaking engagements. You know, I was

Jon Acuff:

There was no amount of hustle that would have changed those. No, no positive attitude would have gotten clients to rebook their live events. There was no, no gumption, no grit. Those doors

Colleen Barry:

No, if you say the right combination of words. And I think that's a tendency in life is that sometimes doors just shut on you. It just happened. You know, I use an analogy a lot when I'm talking to someone who's got a business plan. And then you know, the world just takes it like an Etch-A-Sketch and shakes it all up. I say, you know, let's imagine that you and I had agreed we're going to arrive at a certain restaurant and have lunch together. Outside, masks, separated. And you hit a detour on the road. You don't say,"Well, I guess now I'm just stuck here, this, I'm gonna have to wait till they're done with the road construction." Guy said it's gonna take three weeks.

Jon Acuff:

I'll never eat. I don't get to eat.

Colleen Barry:

What you do instead is you go, "I gotta go another way." And for me another way at that time was, I'm going to have three jobs, I'm going to keep my feet moving, and something's going to open up at some point, because it always does, and I'll just keep saying yes to stuff. And at the same time, I really want to enjoy my day. You know, I want every day to feel like I contributed to something, I participated in something. And you know, I noticed, you know, here you know, every once in a while I go down that "woe is me" path. And then I would see these parents walking and it was summer, it was hot out. Boston is not a well air conditioned city, typically. And here they are taking their college-aged kids around looking for an apartment and realizing they're going to spend two to three times the budget they wanted for something that's not where they want to land their most precious cargo.

Jon Acuff:

You're not in Back Bay, you're not in Back Bay, right.

Colleen Barry:

And even if you are, it's going to be a tiny little place. And so I you know, would offer them cool water and, you know, anything I could do to try to make them comfortable. But then, you know, I said to one of my coworkers, "I just wish I could offer people like nice coffee or like a cappuccino or something." Like I said, one of my clients works at a and I think it was it was an espresso, it was one of these these companies that makes all of this stuff, you know, this espresso stuff, he goes "I can get us a machine and stuff the guy has always offered it." So he brings a machine in. He's got the pods and all that stuff. I go and I get milk. And when people come in now I'm saying "Here, take a load off Have a seat, can I get you a glass of water? Would you like an espresso or cappuccino?" And you would think that I offered them a spa treatment for a full day, just being kind to another person and trying to take care of them. It feels good. And I started to really enjoy that part of it. And I was trying to take care of the people I worked with, you know,"How can I make your life easier? Let's just you know, let's get through this," kind of this "Let's get through this together" kind of thing.

Jon Acuff:

Which is a good phrase right now.

Colleen Barry:

Yes, absolutely. And, you know, we did that for a while. And I was doing, you know, freelance work as a graphic designer, and one of the guys at the company said, "Hey, listen, can you help me with this graphic design project? You know, we'll pay you." I said,"Yeah, sure."

Jon Acuff:

How did he know you did freelance graphic design?

Colleen Barry:

Because I think we probably I Well, as you can tell, I'll talk a dog off a meat wagon. So we probably started conversing at some point.

Jon Acuff:

Is that a phrase people say? I'll talk a dog off a meat wagon? This has already been very educational.

Colleen Barry:

Well, I'll tell you what, after all these viewers, it's gonna be the hottest new phrase. I know, at least my mother and father will listen to this. So those are the two other people are going to be using this saying.

Jon Acuff:

So great. I'm gonna start saying it. I'm gonna, like casually, like when people are least expecting it, they're gonna be like, Where is this meat wagon headed? I said, I don't know where it's going. But it's gonna have one less dog on it.

Colleen Barry:

Wait till I'm done. [Laughter] So we, you know, I'm sure I just we were chit-chatting one day. And he said, "Oh, so what else do you do?" And I told him and you know, and so then I did that. And

Jon Acuff:

That's another like, you had some other things going? Like that's the other thing. Like, if I'm writing down, okay, here's the Colleen kind of principles. Like keep moving is a principle, and you're moving. Like you're doing freelance. And not only that, you let them know. So like, when people tell me I want to be a public speaker. I always say, well, do people know you do that? And if they don't know you do that, they can't hire you to do that. So he asked about the graphic design. What happens next?

Colleen Barry:

Yeah. So I said, I'm happy to do so I do the project. And it comes out well, and you know, so we're showing off, "Hey, check out how cool this came out." You know, we're doing this and, and then all of a sudden, the marketing director said, "Can you come and work in our department part time," said"Sure I can!" And then it turned into full time. And then he left and I was running the department. And then the company got bought out and we grew it. And then I ended up working, at one point, I was helping people business plan, because they would come in and say "I want to send out this marketing piece." I'd say "Great. What do you want it to say?" They're like, "I don't know." Well, who do you want it to go to? "I'm not really sure." Okay. Well, hold on. Let's start at the beginning. What's your business plan? "I don't have one." Alright, let's so we would kind of do a 45 minute conversation to get to the final 15 minutes of the original question. And so that was my next job was director of productivity, which was an entirely made up title. It wasn't a job that existed, but it was how can you help people be more productive and get to their goals? Every job I've taken I've been totally unqualified for with the exception of the phone answering job because I knew how to answer the phone.

Jon Acuff:

You've seen a phone before, yeah.

Colleen Barry:

I'd seen one. I owned one before.

Jon Acuff:

That's good. Ownership.

Colleen Barry:

This was one of those examples of I don't have the bona fides to do what I'm being asked to do. So I better study as much as I can. So I started talking to the agents who I knew who were really successful, and said, you know,"How do you do this? Tell me about how you make your money. How do you generate clients?"

Jon Acuff:

Are you taking notes? Like you're physically taking notes?

Colleen Barry:

100 I'm a big note taker. I am a list maker, a note taker. I mean, I'm This is how much of a list taker I am. I will write down the stuff I've already done that day, so I can cross it off.

Jon Acuff:

Oh, it's the best feeling in the world. I love that feeling in the world. Yeah, I do that too. Is this the season you start doing your what you called your library card MBA?

Colleen Barry:

It was, you know, it's really interesting. That was a time period where I thought I have a lot to learn. I don't have the knowledge or skill set that I need to do this job well.

Jon Acuff:

What age were you when you kind of were in that season, roughly?

Colleen Barry:

I was I was probably in my mid-30s,

Jon Acuff:

Mid-30s.

Colleen Barry:

Yeah, so probably about 10 years ago, maybe a little bit somewhere in that range.

Jon Acuff:

When you face the realization, I got to learn a lot of new stuff, like in every goal every life has that some people get stuck in the sense of shame that I should already know how to do it. If I asked a lot of questions, I'll be embarrassed, I'm too far behind. I can never catch up. It's too late. How did you push through? And one, did you have any of that? Two, how did you overcome it?

Colleen Barry:

Good question. I am a very curious person. And that's something that's a part of my personality, I try to feed that part of my personality. And with my son, I'm trying to I think kids are inherently curious. I actually think we push that out of people over time. We tell them you know, you're supposed to know this stuff. It's, you know, it's not good to not know things. And I think it's really damaging to do that to people and to ourselves. You know, let's face it, if we didn't learn new things, the only thing we would be able to do is to sleep, cry, eat. You know, that would be it. And even making your bed. Your somebody at some point taught you how to make your bed. You know, somebody at some point taught you how to write how to read, hopefully, and if not, you can read you can learn that too. And it's all just a matter of what do you want to put your intention and attention to? So I love the idea of learning new skills. And I know I'm gonna be bad at it for a while.

Jon Acuff:

How do you get through that bad feeling? Because like, even for me, like, oh, like even this podcast, I'm not great at interviewing and I shouldn't be. This is the second one I've done.

Colleen Barry:

I think you're good at it.

Jon Acuff:

I just like, ugh. How do you get through that? Because I want to be that. I want to be like "I love learning. Learning is like catching butterflies."

Colleen Barry:

Are you picking on me right now, Jon? This feels a little like mocking.

Jon Acuff:

Hypothetical. Different person with glasses. So how do you get through that?

Colleen Barry:

I think there's an excitement for me in it. I will say I'm not afraid of being wrong. I'm really not. I'm not afraid of embarrassing myself. I think some of that is I'm very kind of sound so, so dorky. I'm pretty comfortable with me. And I think the reason I am comfortable with me is I'm a good person. I work hard. I try to help people. And so I don't have a ton of fear about being wrong. I'm wrong a lot. If you ask the people I work with, they'll tell you "she's wrong all the time." But I'll also admit, I try to be the first to admit when I've been wrong. I'll fall on that sword. It's fine. I'm okay with being wrong. People are wrong all the time. I think the danger is when you're afraid to be wrong, and you're afraid to try something new. You know, when you hear about people who have regrets toward the end of their lives, it's always that they didn't try something. It's not that they tried and weren't good at it. Nobody says, You know, I can't believe I practice it the violin and I never got to be as good as I wanted. They say why did I never try violin? Why didn't I do that? Why did I spend eight hours a day watching Law & Order when I could have been spending at least half of that playing the violin?

Jon Acuff:

One song.

Colleen Barry:

Right. And, and I think so for me what was daunting was not "Boy, there's a lot to learn." It was "I don't even know where to start." That was my problem. And so initially, I was like, okay, so do I go try to get my MBA? Do I go to you know, and, and then I would look into those programs. And, and I would talk to people about it. And they were like,"Well, unless you're going to go to one of like the really big institutions where you've got it, you know, it's got a lot of clout, and you're going to meet all the right people, it's kind of a waste of money and time." And so then you're looking at over 100,000 bucks and three years of your life and, and was it going to get me to where I want to go? Probably not. Like I've never been really into the big corporate entities. So instead, I thought, you know, I'm gonna do I'm going to find out what books they make like a first year MBA student read, and I started looking into stuff like that.

Jon Acuff:

I love that.

Colleen Barry:

Just grab one or two of them. And I thought if as long as I just start, I feel like and I start asking people more questions, I feel like the path is going to open up. And that's generally been my experience. If you just start and you start applying your time to something and you start looking around and you poke into it, you usually find more information than you're ever going to use. And what I found is I read one book, and then that I'm going to forget which one it was now. And in that book, they referred to like four or five other books. So I was like, oh, I guess I have my reading list now for the next month or so. And then in those books they started referring to other books and after a while they were referring that to each other. And now you've got this network of sort of accepted knowledge, we'll say. And so I would look, I started looking at those types of books. And then I would try to find out well, geez, it's really interesting how this person talks about being productive this way. I wonder why that is. So I started looking into how like, how does the brain work? Because if you're trying to figure out what's stopping people from getting to where they're trying to go, or what launches people and motivates them, understanding how the brain works is really fun. And so I started reading these, they were lay books. I mean, they were not like scientific books. So I ended up reading over 100 books, I took classes, I found classes online. Fortunately for us, there are a lot of universities nearby here. So a lot of them have executive, like two day courses or night courses you can take.

Jon Acuff:

What position did you have at the company when you're doing all this?

Colleen Barry:

At that time, I was the Director of Productivity. And I am coaching sales people. And I've never sold anything before. So it was daunting, that part of it was daunting. But what I decided was, it doesn't have to be my experience. But I have to get to find out who has had that experience, and how can I glean that from them and systematize it, give it to somebody else. And I learned that it was all about relationships, it was their businesses are about relationships with people. The ability for me to coach was about my relationship with that person. I mean, there was just so much about it that was kind of all feeding back onto itself.

Jon Acuff:

Are you good at being patient when you have a big goal? So like, the idea, because I think a lot of times when somebody has a goal like this, and there's because you didn't read 100 books in a month. Like we kind of as a culture, we like feel like, you can write your book this weekend, you can you know, how did you pace that? Like, how did you have a measured pace?

Colleen Barry:

That's such an interesting question. I am patient, but I wasn't always. One of the things that I have done for fun for a long time, and this was part of why I was a graphic designer, when I first got out of schools, I decided I wanted to go to art school. I wanted to learn how to paint, draw. And so I was pretty good at drawing things. But it wasn't, I didn't really have a system. So I would draw some that would be spot on, next thing would be terrible. And what I started to learn is that while you're making a drawing or a painting, there are these time periods where it looks awful, you need to step back, go do something else and come back to it, you need to get clarity, because you start to focus on what's wrong with it. And the same thing happens with me in a in a big goal. Like, you know, as I was saying, you know, I've been starting to work on stringed instruments in working on repair there. And being someone who's new to it can't tell you how many times you get into it, you're like, I solve that if I just couldn't get that crack, you know, and now you're like, oh, now I've got eight problems. You know, there's a lot of make progress, run into a bump, step back for a second, take a breather, figure out what you what you did, right, what you would do differently next time now tackle each thing one at a time. And so while I was, you know, on that goal to learning more, and again, there wasn't like, I'm gonna read 100 books, or I'm gonna, there's specific set of knowledge that I have to understand. It was "I want to get better at this." And I feel like at some point, I'm going to have a sense that I have gotten to a point where I have enough experience and knowledge to be able to deliver value to somebody else. And I would say about two years in, that's when I started to feel that way that like, okay, this has real shape to it now. I've got enough experience where now there's shorthand to these answers. It's not like they're asking me a question. This is gonna take me a few hours of really noodling this to figure out what the right answer is. I will say I'm pretty patient with goals, but I have to do a lot of stopping and assessing and, and taking a minute and cutting myself some slack.

Jon Acuff:

You know, you're starting your day, and you want to, you want to do 10 things, but you can probably only do six. Are you good at going, "I can do six, and I don't And maybe I can stretch and do eight, but I'm not going to put down 10 because I won't feel good at the end of the day, because I'll feel like I failed four even though I knew six was the"

Colleen Barry:

You know, I'm not good at that, you know, what I'm actually really good at is putting the same thing that I'm going to put off on my to do list, you know, eight or nine days in a row. And then I use the best productivity app I've ever found, which is the timer app on my phone

Jon Acuff:

That! I use that one religiously!

Colleen Barry:

It is the best app because what you do is you say "Alright, Colleen," well, and I wouldn't call yourself Colleen, but I'd say "Alright Colleen, here's the deal. How long is this really gonna take?" and I'll say, alright, this is a 90 minute project. That's that's the max. It should take me. At the end of 90 minutes, I'm going to be done. So then I set up 90 minutes in my calendar. I'm in a meeting for that time. I set the timer, boom, and I'm done in 45 friggin minutes. And I have been putting that off and making myself feel guilty.

Jon Acuff:

Giving it mental space.

Colleen Barry:

Oh, lots of mental, as much roadway as I can find for it. And so what I've tried to learn to do for me is first of all, stop making yourself feel guilty. Like cuz because what I would do in the past is then I would just ignore it and hope it goes away.

Jon Acuff:

Like it does itself somehow.

Colleen Barry:

Right! Like you magic your to do list does itself. It's going to evaporate into the ether and I'll never have to worry. No. So I at some point, I discovered that you know, you really there's a great book called Eat That Frog. It's got to just Is that Brian Tracy? I think so. Yes. And it's one of those things where it's like, hey, listen, if this has been bugging you start your day tomorrow with it, set a timer, get the darn thing done, and you are gonna feel like a king when you're done with that, so.

Jon Acuff:

That is so true. So you're, you're working on coaching sales teams. Okay, now you're CEO. So like, what are those final stairs?

Colleen Barry:

Good question. So it, you know it at different times I've been really fortunate to have a great mentor. I've actually had a number of really good mentors in my life. But one of my greatest mentors is my boss, and good friend, and basically a family member. And he is one of the owners of the company. And I remember at one point, when I was doing the coaching thing, I was like, this is exciting. It's fun to watch someone grow their business, like I like this. And we started scaling the program. And we were offering classes to lots of people and connecting them with each other so they could solve each other's problems. And then they're growing businesses together and all this stuff. And I said, "You know, at some point, I might want to run a company." And he was like, "Hmmm." I would say, it was probably a few, maybe five years later, he said, "I need to start stepping back. And I would like to have some alone time." And he asked if I would take his rollover. And after I picked my jaw up off the floor, I thought, you know, I'm gonna have to do a lot more work to figure out how to do this stuff. So I started, you know, and I'm still I will say I still learn every day. But that, you know, I was going back to school again, essentially. You know, as far as I'm concerned, when you graduate from college, it's like the beginning, I think they call it commencement. Right? It's the beginning, it's not the end, you know. You're going to constantly be trying to educate yourself. And if you can learn self-education as a tool, you could kind of do anything you want, within reason. I'm never going to be like a point guard in the NBA.

Jon Acuff:

Yeah, That ship has sailed for both of us

Colleen Barry:

Yeah, it's gone. It's yeah, with the dog in the meat wagon. So, so there's just a lot of learning and being okay with being wrong again and saying, you and having some ne who was willing to take that ride with me.

Jon Acuff:

But someone who had seen you for years already put in the effort. Yeah. Like it wasn't your mentor, the owner of the company didn't pluck you off the street and say, "I see CEO in your eyes."

Colleen Barry:

Right. No, no, no, no, no. And I think what was happening to is the whole time to some extent, you know, I

Jon Acuff:

Had you voiced that before? think when I said someday I may want to run a company, I'm now in my head and maybe in his head, creating space for that idea. Like we're starting to flesh that picture out. You know, this, that you there are elements here, you know.

Colleen Barry:

Only that one time to him. I don't think I I don't know that I ever said that to anybody else. You know, it's just one of those things where the way that we run this company is it's like a big family. You know, and it's grown a lot. You know, since I was you know, the as you called me the "lobby barista" isn't So, being the lobby barista to today, we've grown it from three offices to 24 offices. We did three acquisitions this year, in the middle of COVID.

Jon Acuff:

Yeah, that's Wow,

Colleen Barry:

That's hard work. Because so much of it is earning people's trust when you buy a company. You have to earn their trust, you have to deliver value to them and trying to do that remotely is or with a mask on. They can't even see your mouth.

Jon Acuff:

Just trust my eyebrows. These are trustworthy eyebrows.

Colleen Barry:

One of the guys I work with, my work brother, as I call him, Mario said, "I've learned I don't smile with my eyes. This could be a problem."

Jon Acuff:

On zoom, I have the most ferocious looking face because I'm like, I'm concentrating. I have to tell people "I know I look furious. But it's just because I'm taking notes." Like I know you won't use this video. Like, we're not going to use this video, in part because I'm looking at my questions going "Make sure you get to that one."

Colleen Barry:

I've been shaking in my boots the whole time. God, I thought maybe there was something wrong.

Jon Acuff:

No, no, I'm just like, okay, what's the because there's so many you're saying so many fascinating things. I think the concept that I keep coming back to is, it's almost like when you bump into a new goal or new challenge or new season, you start a new semester of Colleen School.

Colleen Barry:

Yeah.

Jon Acuff:

And you say okay, what prerequisites have already learned? I learned cable, no bueno. It was not good. Okay, bring that forward, bring that forward. What are the new things I have to do? Okay, what are the books? What are the people? What are the relationships? And you build a new school for yourself. And then you work through that school

Colleen Barry:

100%. And you're going to still go through all those self doubt moments, or at least I do. Maybe there are

Jon Acuff:

There's no finals. Every school semester has like, other people. it's the night before, like, and I'm the age where there was a computer lab and so you didn't know if you had access to a computer. Like it wasn't like you wrote your paper on the quad with a laptop. Like you went to the most depressing room on the entire campus. The computer lab.

Colleen Barry:

Enormous really heavy, thick, plastic computers

Jon Acuff:

Printer. Like one phone for tech support that nobody ever answered.

Colleen Barry:

No, no. There was gum stuck to the receiver. No doubt.

Jon Acuff:

It was gross. So one of the things I loved in your bio that was listed is that you're known for exploring the findings of other disciplines and professions to uncover new ideas. If you look at that, because I think that there's a big threat of learning here, what's another industry something else that you said, Oh, I know we're real estate. We're you know, you think we're this but I saw this in Jai Alai. Like there's something Jai Alai players do that's really what's an example of that?

Colleen Barry:

Wow, that's super niche, Jon. And wouldn't it be funny if I had a really big Jai Alai passion. I'll tell ya in Hartford, Connecticut, there was

Jon Acuff:

Here, like actually my neighbor is a professional Jai Alai player in Brazil. a Jai Alai team when I was growing up. Yeah, it's like you can die so easily during Jai Alai.

Colleen Barry:

As far as I'm concerned, the only thing that would make them more dangerous is if they drove cars through there while they were doing it.

Jon Acuff:

It's a rock moving at like 100 miles an hour.

Colleen Barry:

You have a hurler to throw it. It's not even

Jon Acuff:

Your helmet is like 1/16 of an inch thin leather.

Colleen Barry:

All it is, honestly, is a facemask in today's world just put on top of your head.

Jon Acuff:

Just on top of your brain.

Colleen Barry:

Well, I'll tell you, it's funny. When I started doing all those readings, I kind of went through all those ones where I said it was like, you know, essentially, what would an MBA student read? You know, so I was reading, you know, Jim Collins, and Christiansen, I'm gonna forget his first name. But there were all these really, they're great books. But then I started reading others. I was really interested in for instance, and of course, we've got very similar sounding names Colleen Barrett co-wrote a book called Lead with Luv, L-U-V. And that was about the Southwest Airlines story. And that's a company that I think of, they're delivering something totally different than we're delivering it. They're moving people from one airport to another airport. And they're, they're dealing with the FAA, they're dealing with all these other things. But really, they're a customer service company. And that's what we are. And that's my job is I'm called the CEO, but really, I'm a really good customer service person. I'm supposed to help You know, I'm serving my employees. I'm serving my agents, I'm serving their clients, I'm trying to help us all do that in a jelled way, where we have direction and all of that. We've got the tools that we need, but I read up this book that she wrote, and it was really impactful. And there were a lot of little, you know, pieces, little gems of wisdom in there. One of the stories that stayed with me was there was a customer that was sort of abusive to them over the years. It was someone who, every time they would fly, they would come up with all these complaints,"Can't believe that this happened. And then that happened. And I you know, and I want to free this and I want a that." And at some point, and I can't believe I'm gonna forget his name right now. But the gentleman who started Southwest Airlines. He was

Jon Acuff:

Herb Kelleher.

Colleen Barry:

Yes, he was an attorney, right. And he had to do, he was doing a lot of like bus travel, because there were no secondary airports, or secondary airport airlines, which is why he started Southwest. And he asked his secretary to take a letter to the client. And it said, "We will miss you." [Laughter] Basically go with God.

Jon Acuff:

We release you, we release you.

Colleen Barry:

100%. And that was one of those moments. And I thought it was such a funny story. And he was known for his wit. So this was not a you know, something that was out of character for Herb. I mean, he was a very interesting guy. But How would you What was your process? Would you take notes in what was interesting to me about that is that was one of those moments where I was thinking, if you want to really be good at something, you have to decide what you're not going to be good at. And I was seeing that, you know, when you when you go through the these moments of discovery, what happens is you read things, and you're reading this book, and you get this message out of it. And then you get into the car and you turn on the radio, and they say something kind of similar. And you talk to your friend who goes, "You know, I heard this funny story." And you feel like someone's talking to you, you're like, "Okay, I heard you that time. I heard you now." And one of the messages that was coming out of all these books was if you want to be really good at something, you have to decide what you're going to be bad at. You can't be good at everything, you know, we were discovering that we really are best for mid-career agents, someone who has already started their business, they want to get to the next level. We can't necessarily be great for brand new agents. So maybe that's not what we do, we have to decide that's not going to be our best course of action. And so yeah, that was one of them. I mean, there were there were so many really great books, I actually have my library card, and I would grade them at the end. So it would know to go back and recommend them then write little notes. the like a notebook? And then like for each book, like what was that process like? So it was different at different times, I would say I don't have a specific process for that. Because over time, I've actually, especially when I would drive around to different offices, I'd spend so much time in the car that I started listening to a lot of books and what I would find myself doing in that case because you can't write, it's hard to read notes that way, is I started using Evernote so I'd write little notes ideas. So something would pop into my mind I've got an ideas notebook. I chuck it in there, you know from such and such book, do this or try this out. But you know when it was a real live book, I kind of underscore stuff. I would Sometimes I would use a piece of paper as my bookmark and I would write notes on the bookmark. And at the end, I would kind of have some stuff, I could decide what I wanted to use. So I've done it a lot of different ways, nothing specific. But one of those books, Jon, and I don't want to embarrass you here, but was Start. And I just recommended that twice in the last couple of weeks.

Jon Acuff:

Oh fun!

Colleen Barry:

That was a really great book. And I remember, basically, I wrote, I think I'd have to go back and look at my notes. But it's something like"this guy gets it" or "this is spot on." Because I think so many of these books, you feel

Jon Acuff:

Oh, that's nice. like you get a little piece of this, a little piece of that. Your book was kind of like, all of these pieces kind of just gel into place. And everyone's telling you read a book like that when you go, "Oh, this is it!" Oh good. Well, and speaking of books, you wrote a book.

Colleen Barry:

I did. Yeah, yeah.

Jon Acuff:

There's No Such Thing As Luck. Are you going to write another book? Because I think there's gonna be a lot of people that hear this conversation. And they recognize one like, we've barely scratched the surface, because there's so many interesting things you're working on, which is why I couldn't wait to put you in the first chapter of Soundtracks. I couldn't wait to do an interview. So I just think there's going to be a lot of people that go, "Oh, I'd love a Colleen book." Are you working on that? Are you dreaming about that?

Colleen Barry:

I am, I actually have two, one that's really far out. But one that I've actually started creating the outline for. And it's about this tool that I developed with some of our agents to get you when you're in one place in your career, and you want to get to the next one, how do you break that down into steps? For some reason, I'm a good linear thinker. So one of the things that I'm pretty good at is creating an order of operations. And so just working with people who were so good at just being open with me and trusting and saying, "This is what I'm trying to do, here's where I am now." You know, we broke it down into essentially a gap analysis, the gap analysis tool, you know. And you break it down into these pieces. And you say, "This is where I am now, this is where I want to go." Called it the siff gap. So that is something that I'm in the outlining phase for right now. I would say I don't write great books like you do, Jon. These are almost like pamphlets that have kind of overgrown themselves. They're like 50 pagers, you know, for the most part, that'll usually get it done. And you know, one of my favorite books is a short one, actually, The Dip by Seth Godin.

Jon Acuff:

Ah, come on, it's on my top five list.

Colleen Barry:

It's a great book. And you can read it in one sitting.

Jon Acuff:

Yeah. And then you could read it multiple times and get other things out of it.

Colleen Barry:

Yeah. That's a really great book. Mindset by Carol Dweck, by the way, if anybody is kind of stuck, and they can't figure out why they're trying to figure out how they want to grow or expand themselves. I think that's just a fabulous book to help you understand how just changing your mindset can change so much. And it is changeable. It that's a flexible thing.

Jon Acuff:

Yeah, that fixed versus growth. That was a that was another good one. Okay, last question. What are your goals for the year? Like, what are you working on that you're excited about? What are some things in any area of your life?

Colleen Barry:

Oh, so there are a couple of goals. I'm working on. One I'm in a spot right now where I'm working on some meditation practices for myself. And my goal is to get that to be a daily practice of at least 10 minute.

Jon Acuff:

Are you using an app for that?

Colleen Barry:

I actually, I have been using two different apps for that. One of them is called Insight Timer, which I think is a really good app. And then I follow this meditation teacher. Her name is Tara Brach, and she's on I use Stitcher for most of my podcast stuff, but she has her things in there. And I've been reading a lot of books about meditation, Pema Chdrn and other people like that. So it's, I think, especially given how harried this year was for a lot of us, it was tough to keep our minds in a good space. And I feel like I've got to learn how to kind of manage that a little bit better. So that's one thing I'm working on. And then we've got, you know, big plans for the company to rejigger things. And I think my goal for the year is to empower the people around me, and to delegate in a better way. Because as the company gets bigger, and we've, you know, again, over the last even two years, we've tripled the number of offices, so I've got to learn to let go of stuff more. And so delegation is a big piece of that. So that's another personal goal. But actually, I'm in the midst of writing my goals for this upcoming year.

Jon Acuff:

Oh, nice. Nice. Well, this has been a blast for me. I can't wait for the book to come out so more people can hear your story. This was so so fun. I feel like we could talk all day because there's so many things we gel on. And I grew up in Massachusetts, so a lot of your references or references I understand. And you know, I think the first time we talked I probably mentioned Papa Gino's and other things that although that's gone Papa Gino's is bankrupt.

Colleen Barry:

Yeah, that's too bad.

Jon Acuff:

And I lived you're in Belmont, right? Yeah. And I was right down the street in Arlington so it's always fun to connect with somebody else.

Colleen Barry:

I'm actually sitting in Arlington right now, Jon.

Jon Acuff:

I loved Arlington like we lived a couple blocks off of Mass Ave.

Colleen Barry:

Yep.

Jon Acuff:

And we would walk to the red line. Like I love Arlington. We couldn't afford it. Like we could rent but like we were probably gonna have to move to like Fitchburg to buy.

Colleen Barry:

Yeah, and Massachusetts has a lot of great towns and a lot of them are right around Boston, but you know, it's a really, this year we haven't been able to travel outside of the state, for good reason. But it is one of those moments where you end up It's almost a gift because you rediscover all of the great stuff with your state. We're really lucky. But I was supposed to head to Nashville in April, and that's been canceled. I'm really bummed about it.

Jon Acuff:

Well, we'll welcome you anytime you're here. Last thing, where can people find out more about your work? is it you want them to go check out your first book?

Colleen Barry:

Oh, sure. They could do it that way. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, the first book, it's on Amazon. It's called, There Is No Such Thing As Luck. It's a short read, I promise you, and it's a lot of fun. But you can also follow me on Instagram, I can be found. I actually shot the handle over to your assistant, Jon.

Jon Acuff:

Oh, great. Great. We'll put all that in the show notes. And I'm sure we'll list a bunch of different books that we talked about today in the show notes. If you do have a personal like, this is my reading list? Like it's your office, is there an office reading list that you guys do?

Colleen Barry:

Oh, that's interesting. No, we don't have that. We actually had a shared library at one point. But you know, everybody runs around so much that we discovered that actual books were just getting lost along the way. But in a good way. But I have my own sort of library card list. I'm happy to share that with people if they'd like,

Jon Acuff:

Yeah, I think that would be awesome. So if you'll send me a copy of that. I asked a CEO that question the other day, I said, what are some some books you recommend? And he laughed, and he said, "I'll send you our list." And they had, it was an amazing, very comprehensive, three page, different categories of books.

Colleen Barry:

Oh, wow.

Jon Acuff:

So I'll send that to you. Because it's I think you'll go "What? This is a goldmine." And he is an amazing leader, somebody I think you'd really, really enjoy so. Awesome. Well, Colleen, thank you so much for giving me some of your time. You've got a bunch of fun stuff headed your way. And I think the listeners are going to love this and I'm so appreciative that you've been on the podcast today.

Colleen Barry:

I'm so thrilled to do it, Jon. Congratulations on the book and congratulations on a great year.

Jon Acuff:

Thanks, Colleen. This episode of the podcast was brought to you by Medi-Share. Text JON, J-O-N to 474747 for more information. Huge thank you to Medi-Share for sponsoring it. J-O-N to 474747.

Producer:

Thanks for listening. To learn more about the All It Takes Is A Goal podcast and to get access to today's show notes, transcript, and exclusive content from Jon Acuff, visit Acuff.me/podcast. Thanks again for joining us. Be sure to tune in next week for another episode of the All It Takes Is A Goal podcast.