In this powerful opening to Part 1 of “Preparation Breeds Courage,” Randy Black and Elizabeth Clayton unpack a simple but life-changing truth: courage is not spontaneous — it is built long before the pressure hits. Drawing from personal stories, classroom experiences, athletics, parenting, and the legacy of Coach Jim Clayton, they explore how preparation quiets panic, reframes fear, and replaces uncertainty with confidence. Fear doesn’t disappear when you prepare — but it loses its grip.

Throughout the conversation, Randy and Elizabeth reflect on how preparation shifts us from being reactive to proactive. Whether it’s stepping into leadership, facing grief, teaching in a classroom, starting a business, or simply getting up and facing another hard day, preparation becomes the foundation that allows courage to feel natural rather than reckless. They also examine the difference between optimism and earned confidence — highlighting that true peace doesn’t come from hoping things work out, but from knowing you’ve done the work.

This episode reminds listeners that preparation doesn’t guarantee outcomes — it produces steadiness. When you focus on effort instead of results, you reduce regret, strengthen resilience, and build a confidence that isn’t shaken by failure. Courage, as Randy and Elizabeth emphasize, is not a dramatic moment. It is a disciplined byproduct of consistent preparation.

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Randy Black: 00:00:00

Coach Clayton used to say, you don't rise to the occasion.

Randy Black: 00:00:05

You fall to your level of preparation.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:00:08

So courage isn't some magic thing.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:00:10

It's what you build ahead of time.

Randy Black: 00:00:12

Exactly.

Randy Black: 00:00:14

And today we're talking about how preparation actually creates courage and gives you peace when pressure hits.

Randy Black: 00:00:23

Today on Shooting It Straight,

Randy Black: 00:00:25

Preparation breeds courage.

Randy Black: 00:00:27

Coach Jim Clayton: You know, believe in yourself or nobody else will.

Randy Black: 00:00:30

Coach Jim Clayton: Set the bar high, achieve greatness

Randy Black: 00:00:32

Coach Jim Clayton: And stay motivated through the process so you know what that spells.

Randy Black: 00:00:35

Coach Jim Clayton: BAM, son!

Randy Black: 00:00:36

This is Shooting It Straight, the podcast where life lessons don't come sugar-coated and excuses get checked at the door.

Randy Black: 00:00:43

I'm Randy Black, podcast guy, educator, and resident technique.

Randy Black: 00:00:47

And apparently, still the only one here who doesn't yell bam son in public.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:00:52

And I'm Elizabeth Clayton, stepping into some big shoes, ready to ask the tough questions, call it like it is, and maybe even challenge Randy a little along the way.

Randy Black: 00:01:03

We're taking what life teaches us.

Randy Black: 00:01:05

The discipline, the drive, the lessons you can't just read in a book, and translating it into real-world success.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:01:11

That's right.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:01:12

This is about showing up when life gets messy, pushing through when the pressure's on, and figuring out.

Randy Black: 00:01:19

And if you're looking for fluff, this probably isn't your show.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:01:23

We're here to help you believe bigger, achieve louder, and motivate stronger.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:01:27

So buckle up and whatever you do, keep shooting it straight.

Randy Black: 00:01:31

Bam son!

Randy Black: 00:01:32

Welcome back to Shooting It Straight.

Randy Black: 00:01:35

We've been gone a little while, but that's okay because we're back and we're ready to continue our series that we're calling the Courage series here today on the show.

Randy Black: 00:01:43

And this episode specifically centers on a simple

Randy Black: 00:01:46

but very powerful idea that we introduced there before our theme song and music hit, and that's that preparation breeds courage.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:01:55

You know, we often think courage shows up in big, dramatic moments.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:02:01

But most of the time, Randy, it's already been built quietly long before the pressure hits.

Randy Black: 00:02:09

When you've done the work

Randy Black: 00:02:12

When you have prepared with intention, fear doesn't disappear.

Randy Black: 00:02:17

It's always there.

Randy Black: 00:02:18

But it loses its grip.

Randy Black: 00:02:21

And preparation replaces that panic that we have with confidence.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:02:25

Yep.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:02:26

And it gives you peace.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:02:28

That calm that comes from knowing.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:02:30

I didn't cut corners.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:02:32

I just showed up.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:02:33

I did what I could.

Randy Black: 00:02:34

In this episode, we are going to look at how preparation shapes courage in life, in leadership, in faith, in ways that we don't even think about.

Randy Black: 00:02:45

And why the work that you do today matters more than you realize tomorrow.

Randy Black: 00:02:54

The whole goal of talking about this idea of preparation, you know, building courage, breeding courage, is that we're trying to establish that there is a absolute foundation

Randy Black: 00:03:07

that exists, that courage is not spontaneous.

Randy Black: 00:03:10

We talked about it in the last episode.

Randy Black: 00:03:12

Courage is built through preparation.

Randy Black: 00:03:14

You have to prepare.

Randy Black: 00:03:15

You have to work at it.

Randy Black: 00:03:16

It's just like resilience.

Randy Black: 00:03:18

It's not an innate skill.

Randy Black: 00:03:19

It's not something that we know.

Randy Black: 00:03:21

Or that it just comes to us naturally.

Randy Black: 00:03:23

We have to work and we have to build it.

Randy Black: 00:03:26

You know, we talk about courage, and we usually talk about it by focusing on specific moments that happen in life.

Randy Black: 00:03:33

Why?

Randy Black: 00:03:34

I don't know.

Randy Black: 00:03:35

But it's the way that we have always as humans tended to look at courage.

Randy Black: 00:03:40

But courage oftentimes.

Randy Black: 00:03:42

is decided long before we ever get to those moments, long before those things ever happen.

Randy Black: 00:03:49

Preparation

Randy Black: 00:03:50

for courage.

Randy Black: 00:03:51

Preparation in our lives when we face fear brings about change.

Randy Black: 00:03:57

It changes how fear, it changes how confidence, and it changes how ultimately peace in our life

Randy Black: 00:04:04

shows up.

Randy Black: 00:04:05

It makes us realize that preparation is the key.

Randy Black: 00:04:10

It is a source for confidence, a source for courage, and a source for peace in our daily lives.

Randy Black: 00:04:16

And that's why we're talking about it here today.

Randy Black: 00:04:19

The whole idea that you have to look at with this is that preparation replaces the fear we have in our lives with the confidence.

Randy Black: 00:04:27

We have to understand that we to be courageous is to be proactive, meaning we've prepared.

Randy Black: 00:04:36

We're expecting things to happen.

Randy Black: 00:04:38

rather than being reactive, rather than letting them happen, and then we have to take action.

Randy Black: 00:04:44

It's all about preparing ourselves to handle those situations.

Randy Black: 00:04:48

And I can tell you, in life

Randy Black: 00:04:50

For so long, so many years, I was reactive to situations.

Randy Black: 00:04:56

Situations that fear would hit me.

Randy Black: 00:04:58

I didn't have the confidence to handle them

Randy Black: 00:05:01

But now I've started to reframe that in my life.

Randy Black: 00:05:04

And part of that reframing process has come about because of the work I've done.

Randy Black: 00:05:09

on this show and the work I did with Coach Clayton, with with Liz's dad, and it's helped me to see things differently.

Randy Black: 00:05:15

It's helped me to become more proactive, to be prepared, to be ready in case something happens, rather than having to react to it.

Randy Black: 00:05:24

So that leads us to some some questions we have to think about.

Randy Black: 00:05:27

And I'm going to throw this one out there, Liz, kind of get an idea what you might think about it, and then I'll I'll share some thoughts as well.

Randy Black: 00:05:33

And it's why does fear

Randy Black: 00:05:36

Feel louder when we know that we haven't prepared, when we're not ready.

Randy Black: 00:05:43

Why do you think that that feels that way?

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:05:47

Well, I you know, most of my life I I always refer back to school, you know, and um

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:05:54

When you're not prepared for something that you know you should be prepared for, whatever that is, you know, that fear definitely creeps in louder

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:06:04

than anything.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:06:05

And um, you know, it was always before I would take a test.

Randy Black: 00:06:09

Oh, yeah.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:06:12

The common one, oh my gosh.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:06:14

And you know, um I always like with the ACT and the SAT back in you know, back in the day, um I mean they had like classes you could take to prepare yourself.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:06:27

But now they go way more in depth with that stuff over the years than they did when I we were in school and I always felt like I was set up to fail for those things.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:06:36

Regardless.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:06:37

Yeah.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:06:37

And um, you know, I went from having a four point oh GPA all through high school and then I'd take the the ACT for instance.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:06:44

I couldn't get higher than a nineteen.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:06:46

I took it three times, I think.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:06:47

And you know, you feel like a failure.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:06:50

Because you're trying to get you know that promised scholarship they had.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:06:53

Yeah.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:06:54

Uh you had to get a 21 or higher.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:06:56

I'm like, well, I'm a failure.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:06:58

I can't get that scholarship.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:07:00

But yet I have a

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:07:01

Four point oh GPA that um you know proves I'm not a I'm not dumb.

Randy Black: 00:07:07

I actually have a blog post about that on my other on my actual website on RandleBlack.

Randy Black: 00:07:11

com.

Randy Black: 00:07:11

where I look at how that test scores aren't correlating with what grades are and that grades really aren't an indication of how prepared a student really is.

Randy Black: 00:07:19

And it's it was a pretty, pretty like I f I found an article and I was like, man, this is really awesome.

Randy Black: 00:07:23

I want to talk about this

Randy Black: 00:07:24

And I wrote up this blog post about it.

Randy Black: 00:07:25

So I know exactly what you're talking about with that one.

Randy Black: 00:07:28

You know, fear, fear of all these things that happens in our lives.

Randy Black: 00:07:32

You know, we look at it, fear kind of gets loud.

Randy Black: 00:07:36

When we know that we've cut corners.

Randy Black: 00:07:39

We haven't prepared.

Randy Black: 00:07:40

We haven't taken the right steps.

Randy Black: 00:07:41

Like we haven't studied.

Randy Black: 00:07:42

If you got a test, you haven't studied for it.

Randy Black: 00:07:44

Or, you know, say you've you've

Randy Black: 00:07:48

You've been asked to rake the leaves in the yard by your mom or your dad when you were a kid and you didn't do it.

Randy Black: 00:07:54

And they come home and you immediately get that fear of, oh no, I'm in trouble because you didn't prepare.

Randy Black: 00:08:00

You cut corners.

Randy Black: 00:08:01

You didn't do what you were supposed to do.

Randy Black: 00:08:02

You know, there's there's there's times in life so that happens, but there's a difference between those healthy nerves of real fear

Randy Black: 00:08:13

and exposed vulnerability.

Randy Black: 00:08:14

The idea that, you know, we've we've allowed this to happen and we're trying to react to it.

Randy Black: 00:08:21

That's a very different scenario than I was prepared and I'm nervous, but I can handle it.

Randy Black: 00:08:28

You know, fear is sometimes very irrational.

Randy Black: 00:08:31

It doesn't make sense.

Randy Black: 00:08:33

But a lot of times it's actually informational.

Randy Black: 00:08:38

I mean, think about it.

Randy Black: 00:08:39

Think about the times in your life when you've had fear.

Randy Black: 00:08:41

I'm sure that for you, packing up, leaving your hometown, moving three and a half, three hours away to Louisville, you had to be scared.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:08:53

Yeah.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:08:53

Um actually it was interesting because the summer before I moved here, I uh went up to Connecticut with a guy I was dating and I lived up there during the summer.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:09:03

And I was back and forth so much that year as well, my last year at Marshall.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:09:08

So when I found out where he was gonna get his first big job

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:09:12

You know, I ended up it's funny 'cause it took me longer to move there 'cause I had a summer school class I had to finish before I graduated.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:09:19

And so um

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:09:20

I remember though I waited to the last minute to leave and I'm one of those people.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:09:25

I I'm I'm that way every time I go home.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:09:27

Like I I literally will stay as long as I possibly can

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:09:30

And um yeah, I mean it I really wasn't I had a job lined up.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:09:34

I started the next day.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:09:36

Um, I mean it it all just I think back and I'm like, wow

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:09:40

I really did that, but um, you know, uh I I felt like I was uh you know, I was like 26, I guess, when I moved here.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:09:48

And so, you know, I mean I was

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:09:51

I you know, I was uh mature enough to handle it, but um it wasn't like six months later my grandmother got lung cancer and I kind of went through a whole series of emotions with that thinking, why did I move here?

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:10:04

You know, and I was I was back and forth like every week.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:10:07

But, you know, at the end of the day, um I always wanted to move away.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:10:11

And my dad always said it was so funny because I w I wanted to go away to college and

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:10:17

He talked me out of it because it was gonna be really expensive and he goes, I'll pay for you to go to Marshall, blah blah blah.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:10:24

So

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:10:25

Anyway, he always, you know, said he goes, he I think he realized that I should have gone away to school.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:10:32

So this was kind of like my chance to get away and start my own thing

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:10:36

And it took a lot of courage, um, you know, 'cause but looking back, I mean, I'm so glad that I did it because

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:10:44

I I mean, I pretty much had to figure everything out on my own.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:10:47

Yeah.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:10:48

Um, and um thankful that my dad never coddled me growing up.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:10:53

He always taught me how to figure things out.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:10:56

Yeah.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:10:56

And um, you know, if I didn't know how to do something, a lot of times I'd call him up and be like, Dad, what do I do?

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:11:02

And and, you know, he'd help me, but it takes a lot of courage to just, you know.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:11:08

Leave.

Randy Black: 00:11:09

Yeah.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:11:10

Um, but uh if you're prepared for it, that's one thing.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:11:13

You know, and I was definitely I'd prepared myself for it.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:11:16

So I had the courage, you know

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:11:18

I I felt confident in what I was doing.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:11:21

Um that's it that's kind of thing.

Randy Black: 00:11:22

Like we don't when we don't prepare, when we're not ready for things, um, even when they're unexpected, if we haven't prepared that this could happen

Randy Black: 00:11:31

Our imaginations, and our imaginations are the most amazing things as humans that that we have, is that it typically takes us and fills in what could happen as the worst case scenario.

Randy Black: 00:11:43

Like this is gonna be the worst situation.

Randy Black: 00:11:46

Like, I have a very irrational fear right now.

Randy Black: 00:11:49

Um that when it comes time, like we recently had several inches of snow, quarter of an inch of ice, it was nasty.

Randy Black: 00:11:57

And

Randy Black: 00:11:58

Back in December, when we had some snow on a Sunday morning, I went out and cleaned off part of the driveway and to get my car so that I could run up to the church check the road and run up the church, check things, see if we could have church that morning.

Randy Black: 00:12:11

And

Randy Black: 00:12:11

While I was out on the driveway, I fell.

Randy Black: 00:12:14

And I landed flat on my stomach.

Randy Black: 00:12:17

And since then I have a really irrational fear of stepping on the driveway.

Randy Black: 00:12:23

When there's snow and ice, I'm scared to death.

Randy Black: 00:12:25

And I I can't explain it other than I'm just I'm afraid I'm gonna fall.

Randy Black: 00:12:29

It's it and in my head, that's what I'm thinking the whole time.

Randy Black: 00:12:32

So when we just had this, you know, uh this round of snow a couple weeks ago and the ice we had, you know, we went out on a sun on Sunday morning after all that just to get the driveway cleared so we can let stuff start to melt.

Randy Black: 00:12:44

And my wife's out there and she's working and she's working hard.

Randy Black: 00:12:48

And I'm taking like baby steps because I'm scared to death.

Randy Black: 00:12:52

Because our drive and our driveway is steep.

Randy Black: 00:12:53

I'm not gonna, I mean, it is.

Randy Black: 00:12:55

It's it's it's it's pretty rough sometimes

Randy Black: 00:12:57

Um, so I have that fear.

Randy Black: 00:12:59

So when her when her cousin, her dad's cousin, who lives up the road from us, uh offered to come over, because he was cleaning his driveway with his tractor, to come over and scrape the driveway off for us.

Randy Black: 00:13:09

I was like, hey Beth, I think this is a great idea.

Randy Black: 00:13:12

So he cleaned the driveway so we didn't have as much to go out there and have to work on.

Randy Black: 00:13:16

Um so it made it a little easier, made it a little uh better for that.

Randy Black: 00:13:20

But it's a it's it's in my head, it's the worst case scenario.

Randy Black: 00:13:23

I'm gonna fall, I'm gonna get hurt.

Randy Black: 00:13:24

And it's it prepar the preparation for things, you know, when we look at it, if we've really prepared, if we're really ready, it quiets down that question we get in our head of

Randy Black: 00:13:38

What if I can't?

Randy Black: 00:13:40

What if I can't do it?

Randy Black: 00:13:41

What if I can't, you know, walk down the driveway and not fall and get hurt?

Randy Black: 00:13:46

What if I can't be successful on my own moving three hours away from home?

Randy Black: 00:13:50

Preparation quiets that down.

Randy Black: 00:13:53

It makes it easier for us to move forward and be prepared and use the courage that we've built up inside ourselves from that preparation.

Randy Black: 00:14:02

I mean, I can't, you know, I I I use the scenario of when I talk to people about stuff that scared me in my life.

Randy Black: 00:14:10

The thing that scared me more than anything in my life was becoming a dad.

Randy Black: 00:14:16

I didn't think I was ready.

Randy Black: 00:14:17

I didn't feel I was prepared.

Randy Black: 00:14:19

And I know I wasn't prepared.

Randy Black: 00:14:21

And the whole time I'm thinking, what if I'm not a good dad?

Randy Black: 00:14:26

What if I don't do the right things for my child?

Randy Black: 00:14:29

And that beat me up for the longest time.

Randy Black: 00:14:34

And I was not prepared.

Randy Black: 00:14:36

And I had no confidence in what I was trying to do.

Randy Black: 00:14:38

I had no courage.

Randy Black: 00:14:40

to to step out and do things.

Randy Black: 00:14:42

I and I was like overprotective.

Randy Black: 00:14:44

You know, my f my first wife, she worked in daycares and in in pre-K and

Randy Black: 00:14:49

you know, had kids that she was so, you know, worked hands on with all the time that, you know, he would go and like Mikey, my son, would fall and she'd be like, ah, he's okay and I'd be like, Oh, are you okay?

Randy Black: 00:14:59

Is everything fine?

Randy Black: 00:15:00

And I'm the one I'm the one who's being the overprotective helicopter parent.

Randy Black: 00:15:04

Because I'm scared.

Randy Black: 00:15:06

And she wasn't.

Randy Black: 00:15:07

She was prepared for it.

Randy Black: 00:15:08

She was ready for it.

Randy Black: 00:15:09

Um, and you know, to this day I can say I'm I'm grateful for that.

Randy Black: 00:15:13

Um, because it helped me over time be able to to move past those and become a become a uh what I think is a good parent.

Randy Black: 00:15:21

My son tells me I've been a good parent.

Randy Black: 00:15:23

So, you know, that that whole what if I can't question kind of got knocked out for me there.

Randy Black: 00:15:29

But the the way we look at this though, we also have to think about how preparation

Randy Black: 00:15:36

changes the way that fear shows up for us in our lives.

Randy Black: 00:15:41

And that's another question we have to ask.

Randy Black: 00:15:43

You know

Randy Black: 00:15:44

Preparation, just you know, we talked about in the previous episode.

Randy Black: 00:15:47

Courage is not there in the absence of fear.

Randy Black: 00:15:51

That's one of the things we we made sure we talked about.

Randy Black: 00:15:54

Courage does not replace fear.

Randy Black: 00:15:56

Courage overcomes fear.

Randy Black: 00:15:58

It moves beyond it.

Randy Black: 00:16:00

Preparation doesn't eliminate the fear.

Randy Black: 00:16:03

We're still going to have fear.

Randy Black: 00:16:04

We're still going to be afraid.

Randy Black: 00:16:06

But what it does, and what the powerful thing about it is, is that it reframes it.

Randy Black: 00:16:12

It changes our view of it

Randy Black: 00:16:15

Fear doesn't have to be the energy driving us

Randy Black: 00:16:23

Let me rephrase that.

Randy Black: 00:16:24

Fear is the energy that drives us in that case.

Randy Black: 00:16:28

We've prepared for it.

Randy Black: 00:16:30

It becomes the energy pushing us forward instead of it causing panic

Randy Black: 00:16:36

Because think about it.

Randy Black: 00:16:37

Fear causes panic.

Randy Black: 00:16:40

Happens to everybody.

Randy Black: 00:16:42

I mean, I'm sure I oh last episode, what did I talk about?

Randy Black: 00:16:45

The thing that scared me so badly

Randy Black: 00:16:47

At Disney World.

Randy Black: 00:16:49

Okay.

Randy Black: 00:16:49

The Tower of Terror.

Randy Black: 00:16:50

The Rock and Roller Coaster.

Randy Black: 00:16:53

Oh gosh.

Randy Black: 00:16:54

We we went to Epcot.

Randy Black: 00:16:55

I didn't tell you this one.

Randy Black: 00:16:56

We went to Epcot.

Randy Black: 00:16:57

And at Epcot they have Soren and it's a it's a thing you set in these chairs and it goes up and there's a big like IMAX video screen kind of thing and it's like you're flying and the thing moves and everything.

Randy Black: 00:17:07

And I went to sit down in the seat for this ride.

Randy Black: 00:17:12

And I am not a small feller.

Randy Black: 00:17:15

I will say that.

Randy Black: 00:17:15

I'm I'm a larger guy.

Randy Black: 00:17:17

And I sat in that seat

Randy Black: 00:17:19

And when my hips hit the sides of the seat and were over a little bit, that I didn't really fit all the way into the seat, I had a panic attack.

Randy Black: 00:17:29

I had to leave.

Randy Black: 00:17:30

I had to just I just had to walk out.

Randy Black: 00:17:32

I couldn't do it.

Randy Black: 00:17:33

The fear overcame me in that situation

Randy Black: 00:17:36

Could I go back and do it again?

Randy Black: 00:17:38

Maybe.

Randy Black: 00:17:39

I might be able to do it this time.

Randy Black: 00:17:41

But I have to prepare myself for it.

Randy Black: 00:17:43

I have to build myself up for it.

Randy Black: 00:17:47

You know, the idea that being prepared for the fear to happen, it says that you're ready to perform

Randy Black: 00:17:56

You're ready to step out.

Randy Black: 00:17:58

And think about that.

Randy Black: 00:17:59

You played basketball.

Randy Black: 00:18:01

Every game, something inside you said, I'm ready to step out here.

Randy Black: 00:18:06

I'm ready to do that.

Randy Black: 00:18:08

You were overcoming the fear that may have been there to just get on the floor.

Randy Black: 00:18:13

Just to step out there.

Randy Black: 00:18:15

I mean, I think about

Randy Black: 00:18:17

you know, watching so many people over the years that I've seen come through and and try to be teachers.

Randy Black: 00:18:23

And the fear is just too much.

Randy Black: 00:18:25

They can't overcome it.

Randy Black: 00:18:27

And I'm like, man, for me, this was easy.

Randy Black: 00:18:30

Stepping in the classroom, talking to the kids, teaching them, giving them the content.

Randy Black: 00:18:33

That stuff's easy because I love to talk.

Randy Black: 00:18:35

I love to hear myself.

Randy Black: 00:18:36

That's that's why I do podcasts.

Randy Black: 00:18:38

But a lot of people can't handle that.

Randy Black: 00:18:41

They step in, they're unprepared for it.

Randy Black: 00:18:44

And the fear then says to them, I hope this doesn't expose me.

Randy Black: 00:18:49

Hope this doesn't show that I'm afraid.

Randy Black: 00:18:53

That's that's powerful.

Randy Black: 00:18:55

I mean I can imagine the times in in life when you know my my parents

Randy Black: 00:19:02

They they decided when my grandfather was retiring, they were gonna, you know, my dad was gonna partner with my with his brother and they were gonna buy a bus buy the business for my grandfather.

Randy Black: 00:19:12

And I knew it was tough.

Randy Black: 00:19:14

It's been a rough time.

Randy Black: 00:19:15

And there were times that, you know, they were worried about being able to make sure the bills were paid, being able to to make sure that that everything in the business is taken care of.

Randy Black: 00:19:24

And, you know.

Randy Black: 00:19:26

They prepared for it though, because they knew these were possibilities.

Randy Black: 00:19:31

So there was always something set aside to help take care of it.

Randy Black: 00:19:34

Always a way to try to take that and make it better

Randy Black: 00:19:39

And, you know, I look at, you know, your dad put his put himself out there 30, almost 33 years ago to start Sports City U.

Randy Black: 00:19:49

Something that didn't exist.

Randy Black: 00:19:50

There was no basketball academy out there.

Randy Black: 00:19:53

You couldn't just go and get a lesson to learn how to play basketball and to do these things.

Randy Black: 00:19:57

He he was scared.

Randy Black: 00:19:59

He had fear.

Randy Black: 00:20:00

And when his partners walked out on him and left him alone, he was scared.

Randy Black: 00:20:04

And he told me about how scared he was.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:20:07

Yeah.

Randy Black: 00:20:07

But he was ready to perform.

Randy Black: 00:20:09

He was ready to do what he knew he could do.

Randy Black: 00:20:12

He knew that the fear he had was not going to expose that he was quote unquote a fraud, that he didn't know what he was doing, that he was going to step up and do things.

Randy Black: 00:20:20

Preparation in our lives takes fear and switches it and turns it into focus

Randy Black: 00:20:28

And that's powerful.

Randy Black: 00:20:30

That's that's one of the things that I think about as we as I've looked at this stuff and prepared for this episode and us talking about this, that

Randy Black: 00:20:37

You know, fear doesn't have to be a demotivator.

Randy Black: 00:20:41

It's a motivator.

Randy Black: 00:20:43

It's gonna if you take it and you use it as as your key, as your focus, as a thing that's gonna push you forward.

Randy Black: 00:20:49

That is so powerful.

Randy Black: 00:20:51

And I can't, you know, I can't imagine now looking at life and thinking about things differently than that, because that's how I'm seeing things now.

Randy Black: 00:20:59

It's how I'm trying to to do things now.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:21:04

Well, um I think you've uh heard my dad probably say this and you've um heard it probably said somewhere along the way, but um

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:21:15

one of the things that I heard him say most of my entire life.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:21:18

Um and actually it's funny 'cause Mike says it too, but he says it in a different way.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:21:22

Yeah.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:21:22

Um my dad did a video on this and I haven't posted it yet, but when he was in high school

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:21:29

one of his teachers, um, literally put something on the board and made him repeat it.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:21:34

And I think he made him repeat it every single time he was in his class, but

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:21:38

It said prior, proper planning prevents poor performance.

Randy Black: 00:21:42

That was his college it was his college coach.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:21:46

Yeah, so you know, my dad literally stuck with that I mean uh I've never I never really ever saw my dad not prepare for something.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:21:56

And if and if he

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:21:58

wasn't really you know, he'd always especially if it was a more of like a speaking thing, you know, he could just he could just do it.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:22:04

You know, he just had that ability.

Randy Black: 00:22:06

I've got a story on that.

Randy Black: 00:22:07

We're at Cabble Midland.

Randy Black: 00:22:08

This is when we were both teaching at Cabill Midland and we had a break where there was time because some stuff had finished early.

Randy Black: 00:22:14

Things were running ahead of schedule.

Randy Black: 00:22:16

And

Randy Black: 00:22:17

I can't remember if it was Mr.

Randy Black: 00:22:18

Tackett or if it was Mrs.

Randy Black: 00:22:20

Daniels, walked over to your dad and they said, Jimmy, we need to fill some time.

Randy Black: 00:22:26

Can you

Randy Black: 00:22:28

Motivate everybody.

Randy Black: 00:22:29

And he went, clapped his hands, just, I got it.

Randy Black: 00:22:33

And he walked up on the stage in the auditorium and he just started.

Randy Black: 00:22:37

And you would have thought that he had spent hours preparing for this.

Randy Black: 00:22:42

But no.

Randy Black: 00:22:42

That's just him.

Randy Black: 00:22:43

And he was able to step up.

Randy Black: 00:22:44

What is it about?

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:22:44

What the work is that?

Randy Black: 00:22:45

I can't even remember the exact thing.

Randy Black: 00:22:47

He was just was he was up there talking because it was the beginning of the school year.

Randy Black: 00:22:49

So he's trying to motivate trying to motivate people, get everybody going.

Randy Black: 00:22:52

Because I know like recently, you know, just last fall, he went and this past fall, he went and spoke at um a school down in Kentucky to prepare the you know, help prepare these teachers for the school year and get them ready and get them excited.

Randy Black: 00:23:03

Um because he was good at it.

Randy Black: 00:23:05

That's what he did.

Randy Black: 00:23:06

He was able to motivate and prepare and get these people excited.

Randy Black: 00:23:09

And seeing him do that, like actually see them ask him, he immediately go, I got this, and go and do it.

Randy Black: 00:23:17

That was that was powerful.

Randy Black: 00:23:19

Because I can't I I don't know that I can do that.

Randy Black: 00:23:22

I've been I've been put on the spot and said, hey, can you talk about this for a second?

Randy Black: 00:23:26

Okay, then I'll I'll do my best.

Randy Black: 00:23:29

But I just, you know, I didn't have that I don't have that same ener like and you'd think you would think listening to me here, you think I have that kind of energy and I don't.

Randy Black: 00:23:36

Yeah.

Randy Black: 00:23:36

I don't at all.

Randy Black: 00:23:37

Like if you know you you hear me here and

Randy Black: 00:23:40

I think we've gotten to be pretty good friends through everything that's happened that I am I'm really not that extroverted at all

Randy Black: 00:23:48

I'm pretty introverted for the most part.

Randy Black: 00:23:50

But with people I know, I can step out there and I can talk and I can tell you things and I can teach things and I can show examples and do this stuff.

Randy Black: 00:23:58

But if I'm like in a group where I don't know people, I'm scared to death.

Randy Black: 00:24:02

I don't want to I don't want to get up there and and and do it.

Randy Black: 00:24:04

So I you know it's it's an amazing thing.

Randy Black: 00:24:06

You know, like I said, fear is a motivator.

Randy Black: 00:24:09

It can either be

Randy Black: 00:24:10

either take you downward or it can move you upward because you focus on it.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:24:14

Yeah.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:24:15

Well, um it's funny.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:24:17

There's a video I I've seen this video before, but I saved it on my phone.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:24:21

Were you at Cabo Midland in twenty sixteen?

Randy Black: 00:24:24

No.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:24:25

Okay, well that year, you know, when they have the senior assembly where they do the colors and everything, that year my dad did a speech to like end out like to to send the scene even though the school year wasn't over, you know.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:24:38

Um

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:24:39

He gave a speech during their senior ceremony.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:24:43

And um it's just so fun to watch because that I've never seen kids get so pumped up in my life, you know, in school.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:24:51

And

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:24:52

All right, who just he had them going and at the end he did the BAM, you know, I don't know if he said BAM son, but he he you know, believe, achieve, motivate.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:25:01

And um I'll watch that sometimes and of course he's dressed up in his suit and all that.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:25:06

And I mean you just see the the passion when he talks and um

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:25:11

It uh I thought, man, to be one of those kids and sit there and have someone speak like that.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:25:16

I mean, that I'd want to go, you know, take on the world at that point.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:25:22

Um but uh one of the things I loved when I was in high school, my dad would do the pep rallies for like the sporting events.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:25:28

And I rem I have this one vision in my head sitting in the bleachers and watching him down there get everybody in that gym so pop I wish

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:25:35

We had a you know, the one thing I've realized recently, and it made me kind of sad, but at the same time I'm thankful.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:25:42

Um I realized of uh what year did my dad open sports city?

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:25:46

1992 and then um

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:25:49

You know, I quit playing basketball around like 2003.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:25:52

I was still in the gym, you know, working for my dad after that for many years.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:25:56

But um, you know, for all the years that I played in the gym

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:26:00

I don't have that many pictures of me and my dad in sp like together.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:26:05

And if you saw the the post that I did today um on Facebook, I I was just kind of having a um

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:26:13

reflective moment about um you know thinking about my dad and uh you know um actually the the I saw this thing it said

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:26:23

the your your person in heaven wants you to live the best life.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:26:27

And it just I've kind of the last two weeks I've kind of had a tough time.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:26:31

And um, you know, I thought, wow, I needed to hear that today.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:26:36

And um

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:26:38

He uh like I said I just totally lost my train of thought, Randy.

Randy Black: 00:26:42

No, it's okay.

Randy Black: 00:26:44

He you know, he w he w you you look at it as

Randy Black: 00:26:47

He's he's still there motivating you, you know, from from from beyond.

Randy Black: 00:26:52

He's he's your inspiration for what you're trying to do.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:26:54

Yeah.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:26:55

And um, you know, I've had some doubts and some fears.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:26:59

Um

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:27:00

you know, along the way and uh s you know, social media is you see so much on there and I'm like, am I gonna keep doing this?

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:27:08

Am I gonna keep making these posts?

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:27:09

Am I gonna keep, you know, putting myself out there and what are people gonna think of me?

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:27:14

And it's so funny.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:27:15

I'm just like uh it's Mike's mom um messaged me last night and she lives down in La Misa, Texas, which is West Texas, and she's um in her eighties and um

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:27:27

you know, lives by herself, but she has a lot of family around too.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:27:30

And um, you know, she had sent me a little Valentine's text and uh she goes, Make sure Mike wines and dines you today and I'm like, ha ha it's just cute.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:27:40

But then she

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:27:41

uh, you know, messaged me back and she goes, Hey, I'm really enjoying your posts.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:27:44

You know, it really helps me some days and I thought that's why I'm gonna keep doing it, you know, however, uh, you know, the the motivation, the inspiration, however, you know, it just

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:27:56

I thought even if it helps one person, like you say almost every episode, that makes it worth it.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:28:00

And I thought, thank you, Dad.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:28:02

There was my sign right there.

Randy Black: 00:28:05

Definitely.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:28:06

Yeah.

Randy Black: 00:28:06

So um

Randy Black: 00:28:08

So the the idea that as we look at this, you know, as we're moving moving forward in in discussion with this, is that, you know, is there a difference?

Randy Black: 00:28:19

Between the confidence that we get from preparation, that courage we build up, and optimism.

Randy Black: 00:28:25

Because there are people in this world that are absolutely

Randy Black: 00:28:28

The perfect example of an optimist.

Randy Black: 00:28:31

The glass is never half empty.

Randy Black: 00:28:34

It's always half full.

Randy Black: 00:28:35

And

Randy Black: 00:28:36

You know, there are there are people in this world who fit that my wife is one of those people.

Randy Black: 00:28:41

Beth is always the most positive about everything.

Randy Black: 00:28:45

And I'm not.

Randy Black: 00:28:46

And it's you know, she'll say something and I'm like, she's like, Don't you get like that.

Randy Black: 00:28:50

Like, I'm sorry.

Randy Black: 00:28:51

I'm sorry.

Randy Black: 00:28:51

And I'll back off from it.

Randy Black: 00:28:53

You know, optimism, you know, that the idea that

Randy Black: 00:28:56

You know, you're always thinking, eh, it'll work out.

Randy Black: 00:28:59

I think it'll be okay.

Randy Black: 00:29:00

I think everything's gonna be fine.

Randy Black: 00:29:02

But the preparation

Randy Black: 00:29:04

you put in to gain the confidence, to gain the courage, tells you, I've put in the work, so I know this is going to work out.

Randy Black: 00:29:13

It's not I think, it's I know.

Randy Black: 00:29:16

You know, it's optimism, and I love people who are optimists because they're the ones who can get you motivated, get you inspired, get you moving

Randy Black: 00:29:25

But optimism depends very heavily on hope.

Randy Black: 00:29:31

Hope is not the the easiest thing for everybody.

Randy Black: 00:29:35

Sometimes, you know, you you put your hope in things.

Randy Black: 00:29:38

And it just collapses around you and you can't keep it going.

Randy Black: 00:29:43

But confidence

Randy Black: 00:29:46

Confidence because of the preparation depends on the investment that you've put in.

Randy Black: 00:29:52

It's the time you've put in, the work you've done to prepare for it.

Randy Black: 00:29:57

Optimism can be blind.

Randy Black: 00:30:00

You may not be able to see anything beyond that little view of things going to be okay.

Randy Black: 00:30:05

Things are going to work out.

Randy Black: 00:30:06

I think they're going to be fine

Randy Black: 00:30:09

But the confidence you get from preparation, that's grounded in something.

Randy Black: 00:30:15

You you you've taken the time to to work on it and prepare it and you have that foundation built underneath you.

Randy Black: 00:30:23

to keep that up and to keep that going.

Randy Black: 00:30:27

Preparation doesn't make the moments we face in life easy at all.

Randy Black: 00:30:35

But it makes you steady when you're in those situations.

Randy Black: 00:30:41

That's how I've started to try to re-

Randy Black: 00:30:44

reframe things in life and look at it because I worry a lot.

Randy Black: 00:30:49

That's who I am.

Randy Black: 00:30:50

I'm a worrier.

Randy Black: 00:30:51

I'm also, like I said, I'm a I'm a bit of a pessimist.

Randy Black: 00:30:54

I see this, I see the negative side of things.

Randy Black: 00:30:57

But I've got to prepare myself to not be that way.

Randy Black: 00:30:59

I've got to work to build up the confidence that I'm going to be able to take care of this.

Randy Black: 00:31:04

I'm going to make sure this works.

Randy Black: 00:31:06

I've put the work in.

Randy Black: 00:31:07

I can know this is going to happen.

Randy Black: 00:31:08

I know this is going to be okay.

Randy Black: 00:31:09

And it'll help me to be steady and standing on that foundation to be able to move forward and handle things.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:31:15

Yeah.

Randy Black: 00:31:16

And that's hard.

Randy Black: 00:31:18

That is hard, but it's something that can change the way you view everything.

Randy Black: 00:31:24

And that's how uh that's the hope I have that it it's it's doing that for me.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:31:28

Yeah.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:31:30

Isn't that the truth?

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:31:33

Yeah.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:31:33

Oh my gosh, life is not easy.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:31:36

No.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:31:36

Regardless.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:31:37

Um I mean we all face um

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:31:42

you know, things daily and um, you know, it's funny.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:31:46

Sometimes we forget how far we've really come in life.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:31:49

You know, and that's where, you know, I've really taken some time to reflect.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:31:53

We th I I have a I have a

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:31:56

I'm oh I'm very hard on myself.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:31:59

Um, you know, I I I've I find myself uh I make myself feel guilty 'cause like I didn't get my house cleaned.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:32:06

Or and that comes that comes from like years of of living with my dad because he was a

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:32:10

a clean freak and always had me doing something.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:32:14

But um, you know, lately I've had to kind of just just step back a little bit and because since my dad died

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:32:20

You know, um I spent a month in West Virginia pretty much and then I've been back and forth so much I don't have much time off.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:32:27

I really

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:32:28

get like four Sundays off a month and then two Saturdays if that.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:32:33

And so um, you know, the time that I need to just like sit down and focus and get things done.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:32:38

It's hard sometimes and things pile up and

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:32:42

You look around and you're like, uh when in the world am I gonna be able to do that?

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:32:48

And um, you know, uh lately I'm just like, don't be so hard on yourself.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:32:54

Um, you know, but uh the thing that's um really helped me when I read through these notes earlier, um, you know, the last two weeks, I've I've had a issue like

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:33:05

I come home I've been coming home and I just fall on my couch and I don't want to get back up.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:33:11

And I have to get up and let my dogs out regardless.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:33:14

But um it it's taken some courage to get up and and face

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:33:19

the world again on a day-to-day basis because I'm angry, I'm sad, I'm I'm upset.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:33:25

Uh the person that I, you know, turn to to um

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:33:29

You know, help me through situations in my life, he's not there.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:33:33

And I know I can talk to him regardless.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:33:35

And I have lots of great

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:33:37

resources around, but but the fear of just getting i it's it's a real thing.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:33:43

And um, you know, it's really plagued me in the last two weeks and, you know, we haven't recorded.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:33:47

I know you haven't been feeling good and

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:33:50

You know, I I got sick in Mexico and came back and had to recoup from all that.

Randy Black: 00:33:54

But you no.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:33:57

I you know it's funny.

Randy Black: 00:33:58

Um I literally I had to take it, it was there.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:34:02

It's funny, all the times I've been, I mean, we I've had no problems, but um the minute we got on we flew from here to Atlanta, and then the minute I got on the airplane in Atlanta

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:34:13

It was about a four-hour flight and um I remember my throat felt started feeling dry.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:34:18

And I'm like, what in the world is this?

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:34:21

Like I felt something coming on me.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:34:23

And so I ca I'm like, no, no, no.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:34:26

So of course I, you know, we got through the flight, got to Los Cabos and

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:34:32

You know, um, got through the airport.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:34:34

Uh it's much easier than Cancun, that's for sure.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:34:37

And then got to the resort and, you know, you always feel worse in the evening.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:34:42

And waking up in the morning and then once you push past that, you're like, okay, I got this.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:34:46

So of course it was like a cold, you know, I guess that's what you could call it.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:34:50

But I was like, I started to get snot, you know, my head was was was um full of uh

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:34:56

you know, snot and um I just uh I'd wake up and I'd I'd plug myself full of like vitamins and medicine and whatever I could and and keep going.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:35:06

But then then

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:35:08

We uh we ended up having to extend our trip two extra days because of the the storm that came through.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:35:14

Right.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:35:14

Um and luckily I I was able to actually enjoy the last day, which was nice, but the we were supposed to leave that Sunday, the twenty-fifth, but

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:35:21

Um we ended up we ended up not leaving until that Tuesday.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:35:24

So um Saturday night we ordered room service and um which I hadn't ordered room service the whole time.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:35:31

I always feel weird about that because it

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:35:33

takes longer to get regardless than like just going to a restaurant on the resort or the buffet.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:35:38

So we ordered room service and later that night I started feeling nauseous and um it hit me

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:35:45

So I had I had a double whammy there.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:35:47

Yeah.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:35:48

Um but uh anyway, um

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:35:52

So yeah, you know, just just uh getting back up again.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:35:56

Sometimes it takes a lot of of courage to do that.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:35:58

And it's hit me in the last two weeks especially.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:36:01

Um I've had some trouble with that and I've just had to smack myself

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:36:05

You know, and and the one thing that I thought of today, I said, I've had my two-week pity party, Dad.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:36:10

I gotta, you know, I can't be pitiful and powerful at the same time, I just gotta flick it off.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:36:14

You know, he said 30-second pity party.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:36:15

I said two-week pity party

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:36:17

So I said today, okay, I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm over this now.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:36:22

It might hit me again, but I'm not going two weeks and feeling like this again.

Randy Black: 00:36:26

Also.

Randy Black: 00:36:27

You know, it's a as we work talk through this, you know, this whole idea, you know, the thing we've got to to to to understand about courage is that it is a it is a byproduct of preparation.

Randy Black: 00:36:41

We prepare for these things.

Randy Black: 00:36:42

We move forward for these things.

Randy Black: 00:36:44

It's not a forced decision.

Randy Black: 00:36:46

You can't just decide, I'm going to be courageous today.

Randy Black: 00:36:49

That's not how it works.

Randy Black: 00:36:52

It's it's it's it's based on that preparation and the way you've done it.

Randy Black: 00:36:55

And that the idea that courage feels more natural when you've done the work because you're not stepping out of your comfort zone.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:37:05

Amen.

Randy Black: 00:37:05

When when courage is supported, when you've done the work, it feels right.

Randy Black: 00:37:11

When you try to be courageous and you haven't done the work, you haven't tried to prepare.

Randy Black: 00:37:17

It feels reckless.

Randy Black: 00:37:19

And that's that's the best way I could describe it.

Randy Black: 00:37:21

You know, courage with preparation

Randy Black: 00:37:26

feels like the responsible thing to do.

Randy Black: 00:37:31

Because you're not doing something that you weren't prepared for.

Randy Black: 00:37:35

You're not sticking your neck out there and

Randy Black: 00:37:37

you know, breaking it, so to speak.

Randy Black: 00:37:40

You're not, you know, it's it's the idea that you're not um you're not trying to step up and be courageous in a situation that you have absolutely no frame of reference for

Randy Black: 00:37:49

You know, it is the responsible thing when it's supported, when it's prepared, when you're ready for it, when you have done the work, stepping forward becomes the next logical step.

Randy Black: 00:38:03

That's powerful.

Randy Black: 00:38:05

When you know that you've prepared and you step out there, you know this is the next thing that I need to do.

Randy Black: 00:38:12

This is the step that's going to make the most sense for me

Randy Black: 00:38:15

You know, I look at what I've done in my career.

Randy Black: 00:38:18

I've been out of a classroom now since 2013.

Randy Black: 00:38:22

So 12, almost 13 years this summer since I've been in a classroom teaching actively.

Randy Black: 00:38:28

And

Randy Black: 00:38:30

I miss it.

Randy Black: 00:38:33

But I know that if I had to step back into it, I'm not prepared

Randy Black: 00:38:38

I don't have that sense of courage and confidence in doing that.

Randy Black: 00:38:42

It's gonna take me time if I have to go back and do that.

Randy Black: 00:38:46

and step in.

Randy Black: 00:38:47

And that was one of the things that hit me a couple of years ago because I left my my job in tech at Huntington High to go into a teaching job at Cabill Midland.

Randy Black: 00:38:54

That was what I re was originally going to do right after uh Beth and I got married.

Randy Black: 00:38:59

And

Randy Black: 00:39:00

I was ready, but I was scared.

Randy Black: 00:39:03

Because I didn't know how I was going to do.

Randy Black: 00:39:05

Because it had been at that time several years.

Randy Black: 00:39:07

Now it's more than a decade.

Randy Black: 00:39:09

And kids today are, they're still kids, but they're not the same as they were 10, 12 years ago when I left the classroom.

Randy Black: 00:39:18

Things are very different.

Randy Black: 00:39:20

And it scares me.

Randy Black: 00:39:21

And I don't have the confidence in stepping in to do it.

Randy Black: 00:39:24

It's gonna take time if I have to do that.

Randy Black: 00:39:27

I'm hesitant to do it.

Randy Black: 00:39:30

Preparation, if I can get to that point, if I can build that up, the preparation should help in reducing that hesitation.

Randy Black: 00:39:40

That's the goal

Randy Black: 00:39:42

Hesitation often comes in our lives from uncertainty about ability

Randy Black: 00:39:50

I can't walk into a into a gym and grab a basketball and shoot it and know I'm gonna make a shot.

Randy Black: 00:39:56

It's not me.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:39:57

I could teach you.

Randy Black: 00:39:58

I probably.

Randy Black: 00:39:59

But it's not something I've ever done.

Randy Black: 00:40:01

I've never been good at, and I've never tried, and I've never had coaching to do it.

Randy Black: 00:40:06

Um, I was not athletic when I was in school when I was growing up.

Randy Black: 00:40:09

It just wasn't what I was interested in.

Randy Black: 00:40:12

Um I can't walk into an elementary classroom and teach those children and be changing subjects every all the time throughout the day and and having

Randy Black: 00:40:22

snotty noses and that kind of stuff to deal with.

Randy Black: 00:40:25

That's that's not what I'm prepared for.

Randy Black: 00:40:27

I have hesitation in having to step up and do that.

Randy Black: 00:40:30

I can't sit down in a meeting and and and go through and

Randy Black: 00:40:34

you know, help write out an IEP and go over it with a with a family of a student to know these are the things we're going to do to help your child be successful.

Randy Black: 00:40:43

That's not my wheelhouse.

Randy Black: 00:40:45

I have hesitation in doing that.

Randy Black: 00:40:48

But if I can prepare for those things, it's going to shorten that internal debate that takes place inside myself

Randy Black: 00:40:56

And says, hey, sure you want to do this?

Randy Black: 00:40:59

What's going to help me to get past that?

Randy Black: 00:41:02

It comes down to the idea of whenever we have

Randy Black: 00:41:07

rehearsed things, when we have practiced things, when we have prepared decisions in our lives come faster.

Randy Black: 00:41:16

And the hesitation gets reduced.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:41:20

Isn't that the truth?

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:41:22

Um well it's interesting you've made me think about a time in my life where what was it

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:41:27

I'm going back to like w back in like elementary, middle school and high school.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:41:32

Um, you know, as we get older we reflect back on the 'cause that's who really what's what really made us who we are.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:41:37

You know, going through those time periods and um school was a huge part of that.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:41:42

Um, but I remember in elementary school at a certain point, um, you know, I started having trouble with like math and

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:41:50

you know, what other whatever subjects, you know, other ones.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:41:53

But math was always the one thing.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:41:54

I remember in fourth grade I got a D in math and I thought, man, I'm a failure.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:41:58

And I remember my m my parents put me at a desk in the house

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:42:02

We lived at and I remember I remember vividly sitting there going, What the hell am I doing?

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:42:07

I don't know what I'm doing here.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:42:09

And they couldn't really help me.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:42:11

Um, but anyway, um going through middle school, like I still struggle with certain things.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:42:16

I did well in some and and um you know uh

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:42:20

You know, I still math was still I think I got a D in math in like seventh grade and you know you think, man, I'm such a failure.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:42:27

But um

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:42:28

Coming into high school, it was so interesting.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:42:31

Of course, my dad didn't teach at my elementary school or my middle school.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:42:35

And I always keep going back to my dad because there's so many references to like the things we're talking about with him.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:42:40

And um

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:42:41

You know, when I got into high school, my freshman year, I had to he woke me up every morning.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:42:47

I had to ride to school with him and I had to see him all day long throughout the day.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:42:53

Um, he knew all the teachers.

Randy Black: 00:42:55

Yeah.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:42:56

And they knew I was his daughter at one point or another, you know, when they would get to know my name, they would figure it out or ask me, are you really and so

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:43:03

we actually had block scheduling four classes a day, which really helped me then.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:43:08

But I went from being this really unconfident, you know, student to like I started making straight A's.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:43:15

And I really relate that back to

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:43:18

I was on a schedule with my dad every day and I'm like, I can't let him down.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:43:23

You know, I can't have teachers telling my dad that I'm not, you know, so I literally turned it around

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:43:29

and figured out how to be a better student.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:43:32

And I really he gave me the confidence in a lot of ways.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:43:36

And seeing him interact throughout the day in his job

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:43:39

you know, and everything that he did, um, it really boosted me.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:43:43

And um, you know, those were like the best years ever.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:43:48

Um, and I never like I think you heard me say that uh back at his funeral.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:43:53

Um, but you know, walking through those halls, knowing he was there with me, that was the only time in my life where I had my dad to myself like all the time.

Randy Black: 00:44:03

Yeah.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:44:03

You know, he was always so busy and his time was here, there, wherever, and he didn't have a lot of time to focus on me and what I was doing growing up.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:44:11

But that was the time like he

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:44:14

He was there.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:44:15

And we were there together.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:44:17

And it was just, it gave me, I was always prepared too.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:44:21

Like, you know, in everything I did when I go to school, I was always prepared.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:44:25

And it gave me confidence

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:44:26

and courage as well to walk through those halls and and you know be better every day.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:44:31

And um I blossomed during those years and um go into Marshall, you know, and I was I was so um

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:44:40

What's the word I'm looking for?

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:44:42

Um, you know, uh coming from high school and going to Marshall, like I was so prepared in that regard and I was so organized because he was always so organized.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:44:52

But um

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:44:53

Looking back, that really shaped a lot of who I am today.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:44:58

And I'm thankful that I got to do all of that with him.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:45:01

Um, but uh, you know, um

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:45:06

It's interesting the way we turn out in life.

Randy Black: 00:45:10

So th one of the big things to to to look at in this is that what

Randy Black: 00:45:16

When preparation, when we've done the work, when it's consistent, the courage we've built from that does not need a countdown to take place.

Randy Black: 00:45:27

It just shows up because it's become the skill you've developed.

Randy Black: 00:45:32

It's become the way that you've prepared yourself to move forward and to handle these situations.

Randy Black: 00:45:41

And that's a that's an awesome thing to think about, that it's so easy that to step out and be courageous and to have that confidence because I've done the work.

Randy Black: 00:45:53

I've prepared myself for this.

Randy Black: 00:45:56

And I I I look at that and I think, man, that's a skill that that I really, really wish I I had all the time.

Randy Black: 00:46:03

Because preparation closes that gap that exists.

Randy Black: 00:46:07

between opportunity and readiness.

Randy Black: 00:46:09

And it's something that you don't really think about until you've done it, you've put in the work, and now it's just the foundation of what you're trying to do

Randy Black: 00:46:18

But the other thing to talk about here is this in this opening part of what we're looking at is that with courage and the preparation we put in for that is that it can sometimes bring about

Randy Black: 00:46:30

a sense of peace within yourself.

Randy Black: 00:46:34

Because preparation doesn't just fuel the courage

Randy Black: 00:46:38

It produces the peace.

Randy Black: 00:46:40

So when you think about it, why does preparation bring about peace inside of ourselves when the outcomes that we're facing are so uncertain?

Randy Black: 00:46:51

That we don't know what's gonna happen.

Randy Black: 00:46:53

Because think about it in life, we can't control the outcomes.

Randy Black: 00:46:58

But we can control our effort.

Randy Black: 00:47:02

Preparation shifts our focus and it takes us away from the outcome control

Randy Black: 00:47:09

To the effort control.

Randy Black: 00:47:10

Man, I sound like Jim Clayton saying that.

Randy Black: 00:47:13

Preparation takes us from the outcome trying to have the outcome control as our focus to having the effort control as our focus.

Randy Black: 00:47:21

When you've done your part.

Randy Black: 00:47:23

When you've stepped up and you've prepared, there's a peace inside of you that's releasing that result because you've done the right thing.

Randy Black: 00:47:33

You've stepped up

Randy Black: 00:47:35

Man, I love thinking about that.

Randy Black: 00:47:38

I'm sitting here, I got little goosebumps on my arm, I can see them talking about it.

Randy Black: 00:47:42

Because this is the kind of stuff that

Randy Black: 00:47:44

I know, I know that I would have had this conversation with him, and I know exactly where he would have gone with it

Randy Black: 00:47:52

This idea.

Randy Black: 00:47:53

And I sand, you know, I I put these notes together and I write these things down.

Randy Black: 00:47:57

And now I realize it's because I've prepared that I can come up with these things and I can get these ideas and I can put these things forward.

Randy Black: 00:48:04

The courage I have, the confidence I have from working on this project with him has made it easier to keep going and keep doing it.

Randy Black: 00:48:13

It's not about the outcome control.

Randy Black: 00:48:16

It's about the effort we put into it and what we're trying to do.

Randy Black: 00:48:20

You know, it's the idea the question of how does knowing that you've given your best

Randy Black: 00:48:26

Knowing that you've put yourself out there, you've prepared, you've done everything, and you've done your best.

Randy Black: 00:48:33

How does that change the way that we then handle the results?

Randy Black: 00:48:38

Wow.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:48:40

Yeah.

Randy Black: 00:48:40

Deep question.

Randy Black: 00:48:41

Because if you look at things, you know, and I'm all of the things that we do.

Randy Black: 00:48:48

on this show and our stats.

Randy Black: 00:48:50

So if somebody wanted to see our download stats, they could find them pretty easily because it's it's all open source knowledge.

Randy Black: 00:48:57

Um easy to find.

Randy Black: 00:48:58

The amount of work and effort that goes into this, when you look at those numbers, a lot of people would walk away and quit.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:49:07

Yeah.

Randy Black: 00:49:07

And they'd be like, why are you doing it?

Randy Black: 00:49:10

Well, it's for those 45 people that downloaded that episode because they got something out of it.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:49:15

Yeah.

Randy Black: 00:49:16

That's how you have to look at it

Randy Black: 00:49:18

The preparation, knowing that we've done our best affects how we handle those results.

Randy Black: 00:49:26

Success when you've done that feels earned

Randy Black: 00:49:31

I feel like with this show that everything I did with your dad, and now everything I'm doing with you, that we're working hard to earn what we get.

Randy Black: 00:49:43

back from our audience.

Randy Black: 00:49:45

It's not accidental.

Randy Black: 00:49:46

It's not just it falls in our lap.

Randy Black: 00:49:48

And I hate to I hate to break it to people, but.

Randy Black: 00:49:51

Podcasting is not a quick way to make money.

Randy Black: 00:49:53

It's not gonna happen.

Randy Black: 00:49:55

It's you ha if you're famous, yeah, you can step out there and do it.

Randy Black: 00:49:58

But to to have something where you're bringing in income that you could quit your job does not happen very often.

Randy Black: 00:50:05

in this in this medium.

Randy Black: 00:50:07

But it's not what this is about.

Randy Black: 00:50:09

I'm not doing this to make money.

Randy Black: 00:50:11

I've never made money podcasting in in a decade at all.

Randy Black: 00:50:16

But I've reached out and been able to connect with people.

Randy Black: 00:50:19

I've been able to share things and help people.

Randy Black: 00:50:22

I've been able to use it to build relationships.

Randy Black: 00:50:25

Heck, I can I can email Adam Curry, the podfather, the guy that invented podcasting, and I'll get an email back from him within a day.

Randy Black: 00:50:33

Mm-hmm.

Randy Black: 00:50:34

Because I've been able to build that relationship and and and do that through what I've done here.

Randy Black: 00:50:39

I've earned those things.

Randy Black: 00:50:41

They were not accidental.

Randy Black: 00:50:44

I always talk about failure.

Randy Black: 00:50:46

And I talk about the fortune cookie that I got.

Randy Black: 00:50:49

Failure is feedback.

Randy Black: 00:50:50

Feedback is the breakfast of champions.

Randy Black: 00:50:53

Failure is not shame.

Randy Black: 00:50:56

And you should not view it as shame.

Randy Black: 00:50:58

If you've given your best,

Randy Black: 00:51:01

And it didn't go the way you expected.

Randy Black: 00:51:03

If you quote unquote failed, that's an evaluation.

Randy Black: 00:51:07

It's a learning experience

Randy Black: 00:51:09

It's something that shapes you for the future.

Randy Black: 00:51:12

And how you handle those results depends on the preparation you've done to begin with.

Randy Black: 00:51:17

That preparation protects us.

Randy Black: 00:51:20

From regret for doing our best and it not working out.

Randy Black: 00:51:24

It protects us from giving up and becoming lazy

Randy Black: 00:51:29

Because we didn't get the result we expected.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:51:32

Yeah.

Randy Black: 00:51:33

It allows us to assess our performance without questioning our worth.

Randy Black: 00:51:40

Wow.

Randy Black: 00:51:41

That's a big thing.

Randy Black: 00:51:43

Because so many people tie the result to their worth, not the effort, not the preparation to their worth

Randy Black: 00:51:52

And that's where we have a disconnect among people.

Randy Black: 00:51:56

Now, kid walked into Sports CDU and they would shoot 500 foul shots in an hour

Randy Black: 00:52:01

Or 500 shots from wherever on the court in an hour.

Randy Black: 00:52:04

Yeah.

Randy Black: 00:52:04

And the machine's counting those shots.

Randy Black: 00:52:06

And it's telling them how what their percentage is, how they've done.

Randy Black: 00:52:11

And I've seen kids that went in there and were just frustrated because they were shooting 60%.

Randy Black: 00:52:17

There's NBA players that don't shoot 60%.

Randy Black: 00:52:20

And are making millions of dollars.

Randy Black: 00:52:22

The effort you're putting in is going to make this better for you.

Randy Black: 00:52:26

You know, I had students who would come into class and they would put in absolutely zero effort for actual work we're doing in class.

Randy Black: 00:52:34

But they'd walk in on the day we have an exam, have a test, and they'd pass it with flying colors.

Randy Black: 00:52:39

100%, 98%.

Randy Black: 00:52:41

Because they knew the material.

Randy Black: 00:52:43

They just didn't put in the effort on the other work.

Randy Black: 00:52:45

And it took me a while with this one kid to realize that I can't question his success because he knows the material.

Randy Black: 00:52:55

He's paying attention.

Randy Black: 00:52:56

He's listening.

Randy Black: 00:52:57

He's just not doing the work out of the questions out of the book or the the paperwork that he's given to work on, or the little assignment to create something based on that content, but he can tell me everything about it.

Randy Black: 00:53:09

You know, his success was earned in the way he wanted to earn it.

Randy Black: 00:53:13

But I couldn't give him the same grade as somebody else who did all their work and and worked hard.

Randy Black: 00:53:18

Because of the way the system's established.

Randy Black: 00:53:20

But it was not a question of his worth.

Randy Black: 00:53:23

It was a question of his success.

Randy Black: 00:53:25

And he felt like he's like, I passed the class.

Randy Black: 00:53:27

That's all I care about.

Randy Black: 00:53:29

Yeah.

Randy Black: 00:53:29

Okay.

Randy Black: 00:53:29

If that's the way you want to handle it, then good man.

Randy Black: 00:53:32

I'm I'm there with you.

Randy Black: 00:53:34

That that's fine.

Randy Black: 00:53:36

You know, and that we all have those moments in life.

Randy Black: 00:53:39

Where something, you know, we feel like you just talked about it.

Randy Black: 00:53:42

You come home and you had those those grades that weren't great and you felt like, man, I'm a failure.

Randy Black: 00:53:47

You know, I look at that situation the way you describe it.

Randy Black: 00:53:50

Personally, I wouldn't have sat you down in a chair and made you sit there and keep doing math problems.

Randy Black: 00:53:54

Because that's not gonna that's not gonna change the situation.

Randy Black: 00:53:57

That's not gonna help you with that at that point.

Randy Black: 00:54:00

You know, the failure you had was an evaluation of what your skill set was.

Randy Black: 00:54:04

You just weren't prepared for whatever reason.

Randy Black: 00:54:06

Could it have been something you you know you didn't get the help you needed on it in in class or you didn't get, you know, maybe you needed that extra help with with whatever it was.

Randy Black: 00:54:14

And the teacher just had 25, 30 kids in the class and couldn't take care, couldn't step up and do that.

Randy Black: 00:54:20

You know, you have to look at those situations.

Randy Black: 00:54:22

And you have to understand that, you know, that success or that failure you had was not a reflection directly on you.

Randy Black: 00:54:29

It was a reflection of the whole situation.

Randy Black: 00:54:31

And you can't use shame to try to correct the failure.

Randy Black: 00:54:36

And a lot of times we see that.

Randy Black: 00:54:39

And it doesn't work.

Randy Black: 00:54:40

It just doesn't work.

Randy Black: 00:54:42

A lot of times in our lives.

Randy Black: 00:54:45

When we start examining things and we get that peace inside because we've done all the things right, we've we've prepared and we've done things.

Randy Black: 00:54:55

We find that that peace that we have there becomes more valuable than the confidence we built up

Randy Black: 00:55:03

And you think about it, confidence, when you see somebody, you say that person's confident, it's because you're seeing something that's external.

Randy Black: 00:55:14

Something they're doing

Randy Black: 00:55:16

But peace, that feeling inside, that feeling they get that comes from their effort, not from their results, that's internal.

Randy Black: 00:55:24

And we don't always see that.

Randy Black: 00:55:28

Confidence helps you to walk into the situation.

Randy Black: 00:55:33

But peace

Randy Black: 00:55:35

Peace helps you walk out with your head up sometimes, sometimes with your head down, but it helps you to walk away from the situation.

Randy Black: 00:55:44

Confidence.

Randy Black: 00:55:46

Confidence can fluctuate.

Randy Black: 00:55:48

There are times in our lives that we are confident in things and times that we are not

Randy Black: 00:55:52

You know, I know that walking into doing this podcast with me, you were not confident in any way.

Randy Black: 00:55:59

You were scared.

Randy Black: 00:56:00

And you told me you were.

Randy Black: 00:56:01

You weren't ready.

Randy Black: 00:56:02

You're like, I don't know.

Randy Black: 00:56:03

I can do it.

Randy Black: 00:56:03

And I just said, we're just gonna do it.

Randy Black: 00:56:04

We're gonna see what happens.

Randy Black: 00:56:06

And what we see happen is over time as as we work together on this, as we work our way through this

Randy Black: 00:56:14

That confidence you have built and gets bigger and gets bigger and gets bigger.

Randy Black: 00:56:18

Now sometimes, like the last two weeks, we have it recorded because we've both had things going on.

Randy Black: 00:56:23

And our confidence

Randy Black: 00:56:25

in what we were doing for this kind of went down.

Randy Black: 00:56:28

Yeah.

Randy Black: 00:56:29

You know, and it happens.

Randy Black: 00:56:30

It can fluctuate.

Randy Black: 00:56:32

But peace, the peace we have inside knowing that our goal for this is to help somebody in some way.

Randy Black: 00:56:39

That comes from the integrity we have.

Randy Black: 00:56:42

That comes from what we've worked at in doing this.

Randy Black: 00:56:46

And preparation, everything we've talked about so far with preparation and building those things up.

Randy Black: 00:56:51

It produces both those things, the confidence and the peace.

Randy Black: 00:56:56

But which of those two is the bigger reward?

Randy Black: 00:56:59

Which of those means more?

Randy Black: 00:57:03

I'm gonna probably lean towards peace means a little bit more.

Randy Black: 00:57:06

That knowing that you've done the right thing, knowing that you've stepped out and you've you've done your best, whether the result shows it or not, that's powerful.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:57:16

Well I think as you get older, peace just I mean it means it's different for everybody, but

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:57:24

Um our our generation, um, so funny reading, you know, going through social media and um

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:57:32

seeing people from the millennial generation, for instance, they're all about peace, you know, and um

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:57:40

I'm like, man, I just want to come home and just just uh I don't want to talk to anybody.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:57:44

I just want to sit in peace and, you know, uh just just uh chill

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:57:50

And um, you know, that word is uh I don't get a lot of it, but we have to create our own peace.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:57:58

And um, you know, um confidence is super important too

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:58:03

you know, on top of it, but um it gives confidence, gives me the courage, you know, to to walk into situations and and and keep going with it like what we're doing now.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:58:14

I mean, if um

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:58:17

Uh one confidence, I've never lacked confidence, you know, majority of my life, but um, you know, uh

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:58:26

i finding peace that is not something that's easy for a lot of people and um as we get older though

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:58:34

we find the ability to to find peace in situations and um move move forward through those.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:58:42

It's not easy.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:58:43

And um

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:58:45

You know, uh like I said I've been going through that myself recently.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:58:48

Yeah.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:58:49

And um you know, today I finally got some peace.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:58:54

a little bit and um looking forward to doing this podcast.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:58:57

Um, you know, sometimes we just need reminders from people along the way.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:59:02

Um

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:59:03

that we're doing good things here.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:59:05

And um, you know, that's important because um sometimes you're going through, like I said, the grief kind of takes over in the process and it really shuts you down

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:59:16

And um, you know, f like I said earlier, finding the courage to rise up out of that and and keep moving forward and and find that peace in life and um

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:59:27

You know, we're so busy.

Randy Black: 00:59:29

Yeah.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:59:29

I mean it just busyness, busy, busy, busy.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:59:32

That's that is my life.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:59:33

And so um I try to find things

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:59:36

to center myself and and bring that piece back.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:59:40

And it's very helpful.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:59:42

It really is.

Elizabeth Clayton: 00:59:44

So this is quite an interesting topic to say the least.

Randy Black: 00:59:49

Okay, Liz, we we've made it like an hour in here talking about this, and we still have a lot of stuff on our notes to go.

Randy Black: 00:59:57

So what we're gonna do is we're gonna take

Randy Black: 01:00:00

This whole idea, this preparation breeds courage.

Randy Black: 01:00:02

And we're gonna split into two more episodes from this, just based on the notes we have and the conversation, the way we have it going.

Randy Black: 01:00:09

So when when when listeners come back next week, we'll pick up and we're going to talk about what it's like behind the scenes.

Randy Black: 01:00:15

What's really going on?

Randy Black: 01:00:17

What's the unseen part?

Randy Black: 01:00:19

of this that prepares people for courage, that invisible work that takes place.

Randy Black: 01:00:24

And that's where we'll pick up the conversation when we come back on our next episode.

Randy Black: 01:00:28

But first.

Randy Black: 01:00:29

Before we close out, we've got one more thing to do.

Elizabeth Clayton: 01:00:35

Each week

Elizabeth Clayton: 01:00:36

We like to pause for what we call our wisdom of the week.

Elizabeth Clayton: 01:00:40

And today, I want to share something from the person that helped shape this show from the very beginning.

Elizabeth Clayton: 01:00:47

My dad, Coach Jim Clayton.

Elizabeth Clayton: 01:00:50

My dad had a way of reminding you that courage doesn't wait for perfect conditions.

Elizabeth Clayton: 01:00:55

It shows up when you decide to move forward

Elizabeth Clayton: 01:00:58

Even when things are messy or uncertain, this clip captures that heart.

Elizabeth Clayton: 01:01:03

Coach Jim Clayton: Sometimes there's a lot of bumps in the rows and there's a lot of frustrations because you don't know who to deal with, but you just gotta find a way to do it.

Elizabeth Clayton: 01:01:09

Coach Jim Clayton: There's no perfect time to start.

Elizabeth Clayton: 01:01:10

Coach Jim Clayton: The time to start is right now.

Elizabeth Clayton: 01:01:11

Coach Jim Clayton: You mess up, you mess up.

Elizabeth Clayton: 01:01:13

Coach Jim Clayton: I'd rather have somebody try something and fail than do nothing and succeed.

Elizabeth Clayton: 01:01:17

Coach Jim Clayton: There's a lot of people out there doing nothing and succeeding.

Elizabeth Clayton: 01:01:20

Coach Jim Clayton: You gotta try.

Elizabeth Clayton: 01:01:21

Coach Jim Clayton: You gotta make something happen.

Randy Black: 01:01:23

You gotta make something happen.

Randy Black: 01:01:25

That's Jim Clayton.

Randy Black: 01:01:26

It's straightforward.

Randy Black: 01:01:28

It's honest.

Randy Black: 01:01:29

I'm gonna say the cliche is cliche thing here.

Randy Black: 01:01:32

He was shooting it straight.

Randy Black: 01:01:34

And it's still incredibly relevant with everything that's going on.

Randy Black: 01:01:38

What stands out to me in this is the idea that

Randy Black: 01:01:41

That waiting for the right time is often just another way of avoiding the work.

Randy Black: 01:01:46

You're being hesitant, and we talked about hesitation here today.

Randy Black: 01:01:50

Preparation doesn't mean everything's lined up.

Randy Black: 01:01:53

It means you're willing to start anyway.

Randy Black: 01:01:56

Courage grows when you decide to try, knowing that you might mess up.

Randy Black: 01:02:02

You might make a mistake.

Randy Black: 01:02:04

And preparation is what gives you the confidence to take the first step instead of standing still.

Randy Black: 01:02:11

Liz, I'd love to hear from you what stands out from that clip from your dad.

Elizabeth Clayton: 01:02:18

Well, those are um words that I need to keep hearing, that's for sure.

Elizabeth Clayton: 01:02:22

Um and uh always enjoy hearing

Elizabeth Clayton: 01:02:25

um him say those words because I feel like he's standing right in front of me going, Hello.

Elizabeth Clayton: 01:02:31

Um, you know, uh, especially since he passed away.

Elizabeth Clayton: 01:02:35

Um

Elizabeth Clayton: 01:02:36

you know, the fear that used to to plague me, um, it's uh it's kind of gone away.

Elizabeth Clayton: 01:02:42

I'm I've I've really uh

Elizabeth Clayton: 01:02:44

Taking the b was it taking the bull by the horn?

Elizabeth Clayton: 01:02:47

Is that is that what yeah.

Elizabeth Clayton: 01:02:48

Um and just I'm trying new things and um you know uh

Elizabeth Clayton: 01:02:55

Even when we we feel like, hey, we're not doing something right or whatever the case is, you know, you gotta keep going.

Elizabeth Clayton: 01:03:01

You gotta keep trying because that's how you learn, that's how you grow.

Elizabeth Clayton: 01:03:05

And I watched my dad do that my entire life.

Elizabeth Clayton: 01:03:08

You know, um, he was never afraid to try something new.

Elizabeth Clayton: 01:03:11

And I'm so glad that I have um

Elizabeth Clayton: 01:03:14

In a sense, we were a lot alike in that way.

Elizabeth Clayton: 01:03:17

So we're always we were always constantly trying to to better ourselves and and try new things and

Elizabeth Clayton: 01:03:24

You know, whatever that looked like, whether it was reading a new book or um, you know, um trying something new in our on our health and wellness journey or um trying something new in our job or whatever the case is.

Elizabeth Clayton: 01:03:38

Um I'm just I'm thankful at 40 years old that you know I'm not scared to to try new things.

Elizabeth Clayton: 01:03:45

And um, you know, whether I whether, you know, like this podcast, for instance, you know, like it was

Elizabeth Clayton: 01:03:51

I my dad was so natural at it and he could, you know, sit down and talk to anybody and I don't care what the case was, you know.

Elizabeth Clayton: 01:03:57

And I've had to realize I have that same ability in myself.

Elizabeth Clayton: 01:04:01

I just have to work a little different at it

Elizabeth Clayton: 01:04:03

And um talking to you and working with you has really given me confidence and the notes that we put, you know, that are put together every week.

Elizabeth Clayton: 01:04:11

Um it's been it's been really um eye-opening and um

Elizabeth Clayton: 01:04:16

You know, it's it's taught me a lot and I'm thankful for that.

Elizabeth Clayton: 01:04:19

I'm thankful for the opportunity to do this and um you know I wish that uh

Elizabeth Clayton: 01:04:25

I would have um honed in with my dad a little more and maybe tried to coordinate and do some different things with him before he passed.

Elizabeth Clayton: 01:04:33

Um

Elizabeth Clayton: 01:04:34

Whether that was doing some things on social media or coming on the podcast or whatever the case is, you know, but coulda, shulda, woulda, you know, here we are.

Elizabeth Clayton: 01:04:42

And um, you know, I have

Elizabeth Clayton: 01:04:45

Uh he taught me a lot and um you know I know I'm gonna keep moving forward with all of that and we're gonna keep you know building this and um you know I think it's gonna help a lot of people

Randy Black: 01:04:59

You know, the the one thing that I hope, you know, with with what we've talked about so far on this topic that people take away from it is that again

Randy Black: 01:05:08

Courage is not spontaneous.

Randy Black: 01:05:11

Courage is not something that we are able to grasp because it's naturally there.

Randy Black: 01:05:18

It is built through the preparation.

Randy Black: 01:05:20

It is built through us taking the time to develop those skills and taking the time to develop the mindset and the things we need.

Randy Black: 01:05:28

to move forward.

Randy Black: 01:05:29

I hope that's what everybody is is taking away from this episode today as we prepare to close it out here.

Elizabeth Clayton: 01:05:37

If this episode encouraged you, please share it with someone who might need the reminder to start now, not when it's perfect.

Randy Black: 01:05:46

And if for whatever reason you're in a season where that road feels bumpy, things are uncertain, remember those words we heard from Coach Clayton.

Randy Black: 01:05:56

That there's no perfect time to begin.

Randy Black: 01:05:59

The time to start is right now.

Randy Black: 01:06:03

We'd love to hear from you.

Randy Black: 01:06:05

Head over to our website.

Randy Black: 01:06:06

Leave us a voicemail or a message on the contact page on the website over at shooting it straightpodcast.

Randy Black: 01:06:12

com slash contact

Randy Black: 01:06:13

Or even go to the post for this episode at shooting itstraightpodcast.

Randy Black: 01:06:16

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Randy Black: 01:06:18

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Randy Black: 01:06:21

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Randy Black: 01:06:29

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Randy Black: 01:06:36

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Randy Black: 01:06:38

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Randy Black: 01:06:43

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Randy Black: 01:06:46

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Randy Black: 01:06:48

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Randy Black: 01:06:49

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Randy Black: 01:06:51

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Randy Black: 01:06:52

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Randy Black: 01:06:53

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Randy Black: 01:06:55

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Randy Black: 01:06:57

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Randy Black: 01:07:02

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Randy Black: 01:07:06

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Randy Black: 01:07:10

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Randy Black: 01:07:17

So thank you for listening.

Randy Black: 01:07:19

We hope that you're inspired to start to do the work now, to be prepared, to be courageous, and most importantly.

Randy Black: 01:07:25

Keep shooting it straight.

Randy Black: 01:07:27

Bam, son