Discover how to harness your unique strengths and become a leader who inspires. In this episode, we're joined by Andrea Johnson (The Intentional Optimist) to share how you can become a magnetic leader through the power of authenticity.

Specifically Andrea shares:

• How to use authenticity to lead others.
• The easiest way to align your values and goals.
• Why core values are important for leadership.

Mentioned in This Episode:

• Uncovering Your Core Values (Digital Course)

About Andrea:

ndrea Johnson empowers executives and founders to lead with authenticity, conviction and confidence so they can make a positive impact on their lives, organizations and communities. As an adoptive parent, who grew up internationally, navigating mental and physical wellness, she learned that emotional resilience must be earned. The process of uncovering and understanding the significance of her Core Values became the key to the process that allows her clients to do the same.

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About Angela

Angela Frank is a fractional CMO with a decade-long track record of generating multimillion-dollar marketing revenue for clients. She is the founder of The Growth Directive, a marketing consultancy helping brands create sustainable marketing programs.

Her new book Your Marketing Ecosystem: How Brands Can Market Less and Sell More helps business owners, founders, and corporate leaders create straightforward and profitable marketing strategies.

Angela is the host of The Growth Pod podcast, where she shares actionable tips to help you build a profitable brand you love.

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Today on the podcast, we have Andrea Johnson, who empowers executives and founders to lead with authenticity, conviction, and confidence so they can make a positive impact on their lives, organizations, and communities. As an adoptive parent who grew up internationally navigating mental and physical wellness, she learned that emotional resilience must be earned.

The process of uncovering and understanding the significance of her core values became the key to the process that allows her clients to do the same. Andrea, welcome to the podcast.

Thanks, Angela. I am happy to be here.

I am so excited for our chat today.

You are going to help us become more impactful leaders by moving from imitating other people's principles and priorities to defining our own for sustainable, impactful leadership.

I hope so.

I'm excited. We have not really touched on this topic of becoming an effective leader.

And as business owners there, even if you are a small team or a solopreneur, I think this concept of leadership is so important. And so I think this is going to be a great topic for our audience today.

Good.

Before we get started, can you share a little bit about what makes you an impactful leader?

Well, what we're going to talk about as an impactful leader and what it takes to become one is understanding your core values. And my core values are being having freedom of thought or autonomy of thought. So I am a natural deconstructor. I'm a natural critical thinker.

I'm always asking what if or how could we do this differently? But my second core value is authenticity, and so I strive to be myself.

And my third is belonging, which means I want to belong, but I want you to belong.

So every time I have a conversation with someone, because those are my core values, I'm interested in making the atmosphere and environment one in which they feel like they fit, they belong, they're safe, and they can grow. That, to me, is a really good recipe for humble servant leadership. Even though it sounds like I'm tooting my own horn, I love that.

I think this concept of core values is going to be a central theme in our conversation today. And so it's very helpful to understand where you're coming from when we're talking about core values.

I imagine that it took a lot of trial and error for you to get to this point and to craft these core values and incorporate them into your leadership strategies and abilities. How did you come to realize that these three core values are your secret sauce when it comes to leadership?

Well, my secret sauce is going to be different, obviously, than your secret sauce, because you are going to have different Core values.

And you're going to have different strengths and different attributes that you and experience that you can use as you lead yourself, your team, your audience and anyone else that you want to help. I started a long time ago. I am 57 and I would love to say that I became this when I was 35, but I did not. It took me a long time.

And you're right, it took a lot of trial and error. I don't know if you can see this, but I started off 30 years ago using the Franklin Covey system of a planner, like a day timer.

Day planner had the six, the six ring binder. And that was right after, this was 95. So this is right after Steve Covey took over or bought out Franklin Planner System.

And I read his book and he talked about putting together your governing values. What are the principles that you want to live by. And my top one shocker was freedom. And at 27 that's very much a.

I don't want anybody to tell me what to do or I don't have a job and, and I'm, I've got money. Freedom.

But now 30 years later, I can look back and say this was the beginning of my journey of figuring out who I was and how I wanted to show up in the world.

Fast forward through some hard things, through infertility, adoption, gastric bypass surgery, losing my mother to cancer, and the maturity that comes with some of those experiences, the wisdom that comes from those experiences and the stripping down of the things that are not important that comes with those experiences. And I realized that my 20 plus career at the time, 20 plus year career at the time was not what I wanted to continue in.

It was an administration and operations and research administration in university medical centers. And a friend of mine introduced me to John Maxwell and I became a Maxwell leadership certified DISC consultant, speaker and trainer and coach.

And I've been doing that for about two and a half years. But in the process of that I was reintroduced to my core values. I was reintroduced to the things that are kind of my North Star, my non negotiables.

And as I started working with my clients, we would start with disc, which is a behavioral analysis, understanding, communication, that kind of thing. I started taking them a little deeper with their core values. I said I did this process, would you like to try it?

And every time I did and we started layering it, we could see how much more effective their team building became. Their communication became their own working in their own business. I have one woman who did her core values with me.

And then turned around and made them her business core values. And she has a very small team. She's mostly a solopreneur with a few side, you know, like half part timers and.

But knowing that that's how she's going to build her business means that she's starting with a foundation that's very solid.

So for me, getting here, it took a long time, but I want to do this work so that I can work with people coming up behind me so it won't take them as long. And you know, when people tell you that you're a welcoming space, you realize, okay, I'm doing my work.

I've gotten to the place where I know this is who I am.

Yes, absolutely. I think that this concept of authenticity and also beginning with the end in mind, which you kind of touched on already, are so important.

So that's why I'm so excited for our conversation today. We have a couple episodes. One with Jesse James Wroblewski and he talks about the importance of authenticity in your business.

And another episode with Kevin Hoover who talks about beginning with the end in mind so you can build a better work life balance. But you're bringing it a step further and talking about how all of this can make you become a more effective and magnetic leader.

So with that in mind, how can we start to develop these core values and begin incorporating them in our own leadership?

Well, Angela, I love that you've compared me to those people. That sounds wonderful.

And you know, y'all, for those of you listening, if you haven't paid attention, she just gave you some great episodes to go look at.

So make sure you give her some five stars as you scroll down and look for these because she's asking some really good questions and she's really looking out for you guys. So the deal is, I like to say we uncover our core values because these are the things that we're wired with from the very beginning.

These are our non negotiables. We don't come up with them. We come up with principles, we come up with guidelines, we come up with mindsets that we want to work in.

And I have a couple of those as well. But when it comes to our core values, these are things that we uncover about ourselves.

Some people are really good at living in ways that honor their core values. And I'm watching Gen Z and like I have a 15 year old son and I'm watching Gen Z do this better than any generation I've seen.

I'm not sure what it is, but they're just Gen Z doesn't seem to be concerned with what other people think, which some people in my age group. These Xers over here are like, going, what's wrong with these kids? I'm like, no, no, no, this is a good thing. But some people can just do that.

And I'm always thrilled to meet someone who just can live like honoring their core values. But for many of us, we've tried to fit in, especially if we're just a little bit different.

And if you're an entrepreneur, if you're a bootstrapper, you're probably a little different, right? Because that was me.

I tried to be an entrepreneur for years before I went out on my own as a leadership coach and being willing to take a look inside and say, all right, transformation starts from the inside out. It doesn't start from the outside in. And that's where we all want to start. We all want a strategy.

We all want something that we can do to check off every day that's going to make a difference. But the reality is, when we look inside and say, who am I really? What really ticks me off or what really brings me joy?

Is it the fact that I have my family around me, or is it the fact that I have belonging in my family around me? And when we're willing to look deep like that, all of a sudden everything else just kind of comes into focus.

You get a real vision for where you want to be and how you want to act. Your boundaries become much more simple and clear to actually set out. Kind of like my house, right?

Nobody just walks up to my front door and walks in. They knock because they know that's a boundary they're not allowed to cross without my permission.

And when we can actually set boundaries like that from the inside out, people are really drawn to people that know who they are. I dated a guy in college who said his definition of cool was somebody who just had no problem being themselves.

And I love that because when we are true to who we have been created to be, other people, either they either really hate it or they really love it, Right? And so what makes you a magnet is being attractive to other people. And nothing is more attractive to other people than you being you.

That's how it makes us a more magnetic leader.

I love that. I want to go back to the part that you said where you don't choose your core values, you uncover them.

And I think that's so important because somebody who's building a business, you're out looking for strategies, and you're trying to pick and choose the things that you're going to bring into your life. But this is not that. This is something that you need to uncover for yourself and see what's been there all along.

I think that goes right hand in hand with something that you often talk about, which are these levels of awareness. How do they relate to this, and can they help us uncover our core values?

They really go hand in hand, Angela. They. When you are not, the very first thing you have to have to grow is awareness in general.

I mean, I'm a Maxwell coach, and in the 15 laws of personal growth, the very first chapter is awareness. You have to. You have to know what you need to work on. And with my clients, I always say, you know what you know when you know it.

You don't know it yesterday, you know it today, but tomorrow you knew it, and so you need to actually do something with it. And I was just talking to my husband.

I said awareness is an opportunity and an invitation for us to actually make a change in ourselves or in something. But when it comes down to our impersonal awareness, we have some things that are hidden about us. Right? And this is where I use what I call my ABCs.

These are those levels of awareness. We have our assumptions that it's real easy for people to bump into our assumptions.

If we think about an iceberg, these are the ones that are above the water. This is the tip that everybody can see.

And people will bump into those or things will happen or something will come on the news and we will automatically react to it based on the assumptions. And people see those and they're there and they're very clear below that we may not be as aware of all of our beliefs that kind of hold that up.

Right? Our beliefs are the things that we have decided are true.

Maybe we got that from our parents, maybe we got that from friends or school, or maybe we even got it from people that we're listening to about how to build our business. I don't do a whole lot of social media anymore because I don't believe I need to.

I do something different because it's better for me to do something different. But beliefs are things that can change. A lot of times people say, well, these are my beliefs. Like, that's great. I'm so glad to hear that.

Could they be different tomorrow? Yes, they could. Your assumptions are based on your beliefs.

But below all of that, you know what happens with an iceberg, it's little at the top, and then it gets bigger and it's Giant at the bottom, right? All that ice is floating underneath the surface. This is what I call the seas, or this is our conditioning.

So we have our assumptions, our beliefs and our conditioning.

And when you get down to this level, when you're willing to start looking at what your conditioning has produced for you, the beliefs it's produced, the assumptions it's produced, where it's gotten you, what kind of boats it's taken out in the process, relationships your conditioning has killed, opportunities your conditioning has cut off. When you're willing to look at those things, that's the kind of awareness that will really make a difference.

And when you understand what your core values are and you're willing to look at your ABCs, this is a recipe for being able to grow exponentially. Now, is the work easy? No.

The very next podcast episode I'm recording for myself is literally about the grief associated with changing some of these things. Because many times, like I said, I'm 57.

So at 50, there were a lot of things I needed to leave behind and to change about myself if I wanted to grow even more.

So knowing what your ABCs are and recognizing them and saying, well, I got them, I got to do something about them, or I get to choose to not do something about them. Either way, it's my choice. And that's, that's the opportunity that you have to move once you know, I love that.

I think it's so important to understand how these levels of awareness can play into your core values. But also, like you mentioned, the opportunities that maybe you've lost because of it, just because you weren't aware. So I think that's something.

Again, we're finding a common theme about being really intentional when it comes to building your business. Being aware and making sure that you're being authentic to your true self.

And in this case, your core values, you've touched a couple times on some struggles in your life that have provided some growth.

What are some of the ones that really cause you to examine how you were living and maybe showed you a path to a new core value or a new way, a new leadership style?

I was 50, I turned 50 in August and we lost her in February. And I had an 8 year old adopted son at the time who she called her sugar cookie. And I watched my mother.

And this is an interesting thing for people to say, but if you've lost someone close to you, you know what I mean by this? She actually died pretty. She did a good job. She closed out every chapter she could.

She knew she had limited time, and so she used her time very wisely. Did she live a life before that that was a good, you know, was. Was a good life? And did she have much to, quote, apologize for or fix? No.

She didn't have to go traipsing all over the country or the world looking for people to apologize for. But she got knee to knee with me at least once a week. We live about an hour away. And she would say, is there anything I haven't told you?

Is there anything that I could explain to you? And that whole entire process of losing my mother gave me a perspective at 50, that said. And I said to myself, I don't.

I don't want to worry about the things at the end. Now, am I at 57? Do I think there are going to be things I'm going to want to apologize for? You bet.

I mean, that's an idealistic way to look at it, but it was something that I went through that was very difficult, and it caused me to really look inside and examine.

So both of these things, I was already in a state of grief, and both of these things caused me to really look at myself and say, what do I believe? Where do I stand?

It made me look at all those assumptions, all those, all that conditioning that I had just kind of accepted over the years and being willing to jettison a lot of that to chip away at all of the conditioning that still pops up on a daily basis, because that's just how we're wired and made. Those things have helped me to leave behind the ways that I don't want to be anymore.

The leadership, the ways I was showing up as a leader that were not helpful and to be more open and expressive to my son and to be more available to those that I want to lead. So those are the two big things that I think were some trials that were pretty.

And I didn't personally get involved in the trial August 11th and 12th, but it happened in my community. And to see my community torn apart was a big deal. So those are two big things that have Made a difference for me.

Yeah. Thank you for sharing.

I think that, you know, everybody goes through so many different struggles in life, and it's really great to hear how you've taken these really rough times and turned them into moments of reflection and also moments of courage where you can look back at your conditioning and say, you know, maybe this isn't serving me any longer. Maybe it hasn't served me. Maybe just moving forward, I want to. I want to work on conditioning myself in a different way. So thank you for sharing.

And if I could.

If I could add to that really quick, just for those listening, please know you may not be able to look at something that's hard right now and say, how is this? How am I conditioned to think this way? Don't try to overanalyze yourself that you used a word, angel, that's perfect. The reflection.

When you reflect back on it, you'll be able to see how you were challenging and how you were being challenging some of those things and how you were being courageous in those moments.

And then give yourself grace, because as you grow, you are going to choose wisely, and you are going to not choose wisely, but next time, you get the option of choosing wisely again. And so I want to make sure that that's very clear.

We don't always go into hard situations coming out going, oh, wow, I'm so glad I challenged my conditioning on that. Now I will say, there's something going on in my personal life right now. It's actually really positive, but it's challenging.

A bit of conditioning that I have on my own. And I looked at my husband yesterday, and I said, do you see my arms are up like this?

I don't know if you put this out on video, but I said, my arms are up like this. I said, I can't see you. This is my conditioning in front of me. Eventually, I will say, yes, and I can see you a little bit between my arms.

But I said, that's just. I just am shocked at how strong my conditioning is in that area. And as we move forward and the more we grow, the more we recognize that.

So don't think that you have to start recognizing all of that right now. Just start with a little bit.

I love that. And just like you said, give yourself time to go through what you're going through and then reflect on it and.

And see the core elements of that that you want to continue and the things that you've learned. My husband and I, we always talk about, you know, you either win or you Learn, and either way, you win.

So it's a John Maxwell book. Sometimes you win, sometimes you learn.

Yeah, I love that. Andrea, it sounds like you have so many exciting things going on. What's next for you?

Well, I do have a core values course that I love and that I share with people and that really helps people understand their core values.

I have a free download that is also easy to use, but I am testing out this, like a hybrid coaching program, trying to figure out if I want to do a group coaching or if I want to do just one on one. But it's you, you take the.

And then we meet four different times after the modules to kind of help me walk people through or walk you through, if you were to take it and help you really kind of dive deep. And so if you're really interested in that, that's something that I've got. It's kind of.

I'm calling it an alpha test at this point because I haven't decided if I want to do group or individual. But the other thing I'm doing a lot of is workshops. And I'm. Because I love the back and forth. You can see Angela. I'm just. I enjoy conversations.

And so I've realized I don't love being a keynote, but I love interacting with other people. And so I'm doing some workshops. Hopefully I'll move some online, but I also have conferences here in the Charlottesville area of Virginia.

So those, those are things. So if you ever have the opportunity to be in my area, please look me up because.

Or if you want me to come out and work with your company or do something online with your company, these are the kinds of things I enjoy doing. I love the quote unquote in person. Even if it's over zoom or something like that. I love that kind of work.

Amazing. And if anybody is interested in anything that you just mentioned, all of the links will be in the show notes down below.

Is there anywhere else that people can get in touch with you online if they're just interested in keeping tabs on what you're up to in case, you know, down the road they're interested in reaching out to work with you?

Yeah, absolutely. The two places I am most active are Instagram and LinkedIn. I do have Facebook, but it's.

That's just like the perfunctory stuff, you know, it's like, so Instagram and LinkedIn. If you DM me there, I will answer you and just say, I heard you on Angela's podcast on the Growth Pod and Let me know.

And so I'll know why you're contacting me and I'll know you're not spam. But you can also follow. I have a show called Stand Tall and Own It. You can follow that.

And like I said, I'm putting together one on the grief of change. Right. It's like grieving the things that we have to leave behind. And I also am on YouTube with that as well.

So feel free to follow me and again, look me up. Andrea, the intentional optimist. If you just email me, I'll respond.

Amazing. I'm really looking forward to the grief of change.

That's something that I think is so important, you know, to recognize that you are leaving these things behind. And it is a difficult moment. So when that comes out, I will also link that in the show notes.

But before that, your podcast, everything you just mentioned will also be there. So if you're listening and you want to get in touch with Andrea, everything will be there for you. Andrea, thank you so much for joining us today.

Thank you. It has been my pleasure.

If you enjoyed this episode of the Growth Pod, please leave us a review. Thanks so much for listening and I look forward to seeing you in the next one.