Episode 1 Welcome to The Podcast | Leadership Ignition

Speaker 1

- So a little bit about me. grew up in a very, very small, small part of Western Kentucky. We grew up poor, but that's a funny thing I tell people about that. I didn't know I was poor because everyone else was poor too. You know, we didn't realize how poor we were, but you know what? We were happy, which made a big difference in my childhood. There were some ups and downs, sure, but generally I was mostly happy as a child. Going through my younger years, things went relatively well till, I will say, you know, we got into high school, got into doing different things. There were sports, there was activities. And I started to realize that, you know, maybe there was, you know, more than just the area that I lived in. So it was, you know, kind of that point when I graduated high school, I kind of hit a little bit of a roadblock. I was making pretty bad decisions to be honest with you. And I was starting to walk that line of not necessarily, you know, putting myself in real danger but starting to really trend towards the decisions that could put me there, mainly alcohol driven, just boredom. So a friend and I walked into a Marine Corps recruiting station. We were the best ones ever because we walked in, right? They didn't even have to recruit me. I walked in and I said, "Hey, I want to sign up." The rest is history. Started getting in a little bit better shape, preparing for boot camp, had to start cleaning up the way I was living. And then next thing I know, I am getting yelled at nonstop at Parris Island, South Carolina. And I'll never forget those days for the rest of my life. But the Marine Corps kind of built in a lot of things in me and brought them out that I knew were deeper inside me. So that kind of set the stage to enhance the discipline in my life that I don't feel like I had found before. So the Marine Corps kind of found that calling for me. So it was at that time, you know, across the world in the Marines and got married and decided that I did not want to necessarily continue to move around as much as the military life demanded. So got out of the Marine Corps and did what most people did. I moved back home, back home to little bitty town Kentucky. And there I was again. Guess what happened? just revisiting the same things. Well, I started working as a professional fireman. That was a crazy job. I loved every minute of it. During that time, I also got my electrician's license with some help of some other firemen. Learned a lot about the electrical trade. Loved it. And there was a period of time to where I worked three jobs. I also would go to the firehouse. We worked 24-hour shifts. I'd be off for 48 hours and then I would go straight to my wiring job and then at night, midnights, I would go to a tire factory to be an EMT. And sadly there still wasn't enough. Just wasn't hard to making any money. I was trying to get my wife back through college at that time and I got a phone call a few years into this and a friend of mine had an opportunity at a construction company doing paving and I didn't know anything about it but I was given an opportunity and I took that bull by the horn and had a fantastic career in the corporate America world. However, it came with it came some came eventually with some pitfalls that I just simply could not overcome. Mainly the you know again these are going to be some further episodes where we drill into some of this stuff but just my personal story, I loved doing what I did. I was very engaged, I was very into exactly what I was doing. I was good at it. Non-college educated at that time, which hurt me a few times in my career, but I moved around the country and had fulfilling roles and was able to be over divisions and a lot of people and worked my way up through a couple of different companies. But something was always nagging at me the back of my mind that this just quite wasn't where I was supposed to be. Although I was good at it, although that I had a set career that I could have easily stepped into retirement from eventually, something was pulling at me and it constantly pulled at me. And the problem is when I get something pulling at me, I don't always handle it the best. I want to drown the noise. well, how do you drown noise you fall into dark holes started falling into dark holes and Eventually I said enough was enough and I want to save that for a later episode was able to pull pull together and grab the reins and went all in and Opened up a fitness facility in Hendersonville, Tennessee, which is nearby where my wife and I reside now I have three wonderful kids along with my work. Two of them are older, kind of starting their own lives, and I have one 12 year old. I am married to a beautiful bride, Leslie, and her and I have been married for close to three years now. And she is putting up with all of my shenanigans and opening businesses and walking away from corporate jobs, so you can imagine the roller coaster that that was. But I wanted to put myself in a position to help other human beings. And the gym and the fitness industry really allows me to do that. It allows me to give back and help others, which is exactly why, you know, Mike and I, you know, Mike coming together with you to further enhance this ability and skill with the background of corporate America and understanding what all the people go through that lived that life, because I did for 25 years. And now into an entrepreneur role and looking at life through that different lens, you know, it really gives me encouragement to be able to help others. Not only in their just journey of life, but look, I got a book of things not to do. Right now, not everybody's going to always listen, but my background is very vast and unique and I love to share it and I love to help other people and tell them about things. So kind of glossed over a lot of stuff I eventually want to get to with you and I throughout some shows but Mike that kind of gives a big paintbrush stroke of me, where I am and how I kind of got there. So let's talk a little bit about your background sir. You got a little bit of a similar and also different story in nature. Well I love your story man and there's so much more to come

Speaker 2

from that I can't wait to share with the audience so those of you that know Shane well you'll know much of that but he's an open book because he's learned a lot from his lessons so it's good to good to hear you talk through it Shane and we're gonna have lots more opportunity to do that and yeah surprisingly our stories are very similar up until high school what happened after that right so small-town America grew up in the Upper Peninsula Michigan I'm youngest of seven kids I'm the only one of both of my parents my dad was married before his first wife passed away and he had two kids and my mom was married before and her first husband, she and he got a divorce and that's probably a story for a later time too. And then they got married and had me. And so you know I'm the only one who's the fool from all of them and then the step to everybody else. So it's it's interesting to grow up in that environment. But in that environment what it taught me to do is to learn how to navigate the emotions and difficult situations and how people react differently to the world because I'm talking about two completely different families. A very blue collar family on the left-hand side and a very white call our family on the right-hand side. They got together and we became a blue-white family. And so it was just a really weird place to go. And successful through high school, sports, all that stuff. I got myself into quite a bit of trouble too. Small-town kids, that's what we do. You got nothing else going on. And then after high school, I joined the National Guard. I was an Army medic for six years. Loved it, except my dad was my first sergeant. So that was a reason not to continue. And so I finished that up. But about the same time I started going to college right away, it took me eight years to get my undergrad. And I'm going to tell you the rest of the story, you're going to say, well, man, it's surprising you got to where you got. And it's because I couldn't decide what I wanted to be. I wanted to be a sports medicine guy who would ultimately be a trainer for an NFL team, realized that's never going to happen. So then moved into electrical engineering and realized that these were not my people, as much as I love the subject matter, these were not my people. And then decided, because I started working, I was working at McDonald's and trying to get through school. And there's a whole story around that too, that I'll tell you about, you know, when somebody can see something in you, when somebody can't, and what you gotta do when they can't see something in you. But left McDonald's and went to go work at the local airport in my small little town of Marquette, Michigan, and just started throwing bags to try to get through college. At the time, dating a girl named Michelle, and I was just trying to figure out a way to pay for dates. And so, started working at the airline industry, and decided I really liked it. I became a supervisor very early, I became a station manager very early, and so switched to business because I thought this might be a path for me. Grew up in that business, I ended up moving to Milwaukee with an airline and then switched from that airline to another airline, moved to Chicago, switched from that airline to another airline, moved to Seattle, then went on the ground handling side. So now I'm celebrating, this year will be my 26th year in the airline business and I'm really excited about being able to celebrate that. I took a stint in the middle and worked for a large for-profit that does a lot of work in a public-private partnership kind of environment with the government how I got to where I live today, which is Louisville, Kentucky. So Shane, I don't, do we mention where you live today?

Speaker 1

I don't think so. Well, well, I kind of, I kind of glossed over it that I'm near Nashville, Tennessee, living, living in Whitehouse, which is just right up the road. And, uh, yeah, that we have a facility there in Hendersonville.

Speaker 2

Yeah. And then our third leg of the stool, which you find out about us as we, you know, we're talking about Nashville availability, Louisville availability and Atlanta, because I work in Atlanta. So although, you know, we live in Louisville, I said, yes, back in 2017 to come back in this industry to lead a ground handling company. I'm the CEO of that company today. When I joined we were small. We were only about 34 stations and about 1,800 team members. We're just over 6,500 team members now and just over 80 locations with several more that are about to come online in the next couple of months. We're a fast growth engine machine. It's been just a ton of fun to lead that organization. But back to my personal life, so that girl Michelle that I was dating, I ultimately married her and carried her on all those travels and those changes and those trips and somehow she stuck with me because I moved her a lot. And so we're celebrating our 27th year of marriage this summer and really excited to keep that going if I can not screw it up, that's the dream. I got three kids as well. My oldest just graduated grad school from the University of Louisville. My son is taking a break, he's going to University of Kentucky but he's gonna go live with my brother in Sydney for a year and go work there. So I'm super excited about that for him, that'll be fun. And my youngest is a sophomore at Bellarmine going into her sophomore year this year. So, you know, look, there's a point in my life where everything was perfect. Family was perfect, finances were perfect, faith was perfect, fitness not so much. And so I really got on the train to figure out how to solve that leg of the stool, which many of us business executives fail on, right? You get so busy, you're traveling, you're eating junk, you're out to dinner, you're whatever, and man, I let it get a hold of me. And so we'll tell you more about that story too, but I fixed it. And in fixing it, I met a guy named Shane. And so he said, "You know what? The value that this has had for you personally, the value of this has had for me physically, we got to help others do the same thing. So that's what we're doing. That's what this is all about is how do we lead with the four F bombs and how do we do it together? So that's, that's our qualification.

Speaker 1

Super cool story, Mike, again, I know you're being humble and you've left a lot out of your story. Uh, Mike is a fantastic human being. This podcast should be a lot of fun. Mike and I always enjoy getting together and, uh, you know, we, we did some collaboration work over this weekend and even in practice mode we found ourselves locking in and engaging and just riffing through things that we're passionate about and that's some of the stuff that we're very excited to be able to share. We have similar paths, similar personalities, but also completely different in a lot of different ways, but it ties together nicely. So Mike, why don't you tell us a little bit more about the podcast itself? Well, you might ask why a

Speaker 2

podcast now? We've been doing similar work in a space for four years now with with men in particular, trying to help them level up in their lives. But we realized that there's more work to be done and we need to reach a broader audience. There's more people who need to engage in here this stuff. So you know in our work with our coaching clients, we just realized there's a growing need for conversations that connect the dots. I mean here we are in our weekly calls with those guys realizing my goodness, this is solid gold material that we should be sharing broadly. And so that's why we decided to do it. And again we are focused on those four F bombs. This is not a generic self-help show. There's lots of those out there. This is a resource tailored for doers, thinkers, and leaders, anyone who wants to act. There's so much stuff out there you can listen to, and you can feel really good for about a half an hour, and then forget you heard about it the next day. That's not what this is. This is actionable, take steps. Every time you hear us talk, there's going to be stuff that we're going to ask you to do. If you do it, you will level up your life. And we're going to help you unpack the four F bombs. So faith, we're talking about-- to everyone, faith is different. You may not be a religious person. You may not believe that there's a that there's a alternate being that controls the universe or build us, right? That's cool. You still have faith in something you have faith in your family. You've got faith in the system You've got faith in all kinds of things and we're gonna tell you how to leverage those spiritual foundations You generate purpose and has soulful leadership I think we'll all agree that those of us who have who lead from a Place other than selfishness is going to is going to do a better job leading Family, we're gonna talk about relationships and parenting and marriage and communication Mostly how we screwed it up right Shane sometimes. We'll say about some things that we've done. Oh, that's worked out. Okay And in fitness mental and physical fitness Nutrition overcoming burnout peak performance all those elements and then finances We've got a whole suite of things to talk about as it relates to you know What does investments look like where to get resources? How do you how do you think about side jobs? How do you get more effective at generating your wealth in the office? That's that's one of my strong points How do you leverage an entrepreneur opportunity for the best outcome possible? That's Shane's Shane's strong point So really looking forward to telling you more about each set episode as we go through the podcast, you know

Speaker 1

I couldn't agree more. It's an excellent summary Mike and To piggyback on what you're saying number one, it's gonna be controversial. There's no doubt about that. We're we are opinionated and that's okay and It's also going to be very but saying it's going to be controversial means we're going to speak from the heart It's going to be authentic. It's going to be unscripted It's just gonna be full of everything that we've learned from a million sources on this journey You know, we're we're gonna be bringing in guests real people with real stories who can share There's you know share their failures and their successes because if you're unwilling to share both Then you're not that authentic of a person because right now to bring up, you know back to your point Get online and just take a look around and you see a million different places to view this kind of stuff But how many people are talking about like Mike said I know I'll Bear all I don't mind and it may you know, not be pleasant to hear sometimes but it's what's got me to where I am and Without those things without those things in my life I'm not sure I would have been able to level up where I feel like I'm at now knowing that there's a much higher ceiling However, it's gotten me to the point I am now, but I would love to keep some people off some of the tracks that I took and at least give you some guidance right keep it between the Bread and the mustard as I say

Speaker 2

Well, one of my favorite authors max story says you don't have to be sick to get better. And so that's that's my angle, right? I'm not trying to Suggest that I've had the same path that Shane has I've had frankly a much simpler path much easier path In some ways in other ways, you know challenging, but you don't have to get me sick to get better And that's what we're here to talk about is how do you level up to the next tier no matter where you're starting from? So what we're gonna hear in each episode is we're gonna start with a short intro that ties into one of the 4f bombs to Make sure you understand where we're going for the day. We're gonna spend some time unpacking Toxic examples and successful examples in our lives and lives of others So a lot of storytelling a lot of you know engagement real stuff real honest stuff And then we're gonna wrap up with a few practical takeaways You know, we're gonna have action steps for as I said that we're gonna ask you to do do things We've got readings. We've got books. I mean Shane and I read so many books We've got books that can tie to every topic that you could imagine or tools to help you implement what you heard so the idea is to Explain what we're gonna do get in a really deep discussions around why? And then give you some tools to figure out what to do with it

Speaker 1

You know Mike I want to go back to one point before I make this final note, you know, you said you had a path. Smarter would be the word that I would use. I'm not sure anything in life that you've done has been easy. I would say you took a smarter approach than I have many times. But so back to what Mike was saying, you know, we're gonna we're gonna tie everything together, keep it to where, you know, 30 to 45 minutes is great, is a great little window of time to digest something that's meaningful. One, it gives you a greater opportunity to remember it. Two, it's not taking up a ton of your bandwidth or time. Fun fact, I do know this math, even though I'm not good at it. 30 minutes in a day is 2% of your day. So if you can digest 2% of this knowledge, then you can chase that 1% better that you want to be. So 30 to 45 minutes is where we're going to keep these podcasts. We want to inspire real, ethical change without taking up your whole day.

Speaker 2

That's exactly right, Shane. And so listen, if you like what you're hearing so far, what we're talking about, where we're coming from, what we're trying to get done, we want to you to be a part of the tribe. We were the leadership ignition team. We're we get lit for short. And what we're going to do is offer to provide all kinds of things if you subscribe. One is you'll get early access to these podcasts. And I think that's valuable because you'll be on the front edge of all the information as it comes up. We also have in-depth coaching updates. We've got special offers. We've got early bird invites to workshops. You know, we're gonna be doing group coaching, and so there'll be opportunities if you're a subscriber here to leverage that there and vice versa. So look us up and subscribe. You know, we're gonna be on all your normal social channels that you would expect. And anywhere that you get your podcasts, you can subscribe to us. So more to come from us on that. And then check out our website. We're at www.leadershipignitionteam.com. Again, www.leadershipignitionteam.com. I know it's long to type out, but once you're there, you just gotta save it in your bookmarks. Subscribers will get first access to new episodes and exclusive discounts on our packages, so just push that subscribe button.

Speaker 1

- You know, so we've got some exciting stuff cooking already, tools, courses, focus opportunities, focus groups, consulting, you name it. The website is amazing, we love it. We've put a lot of work and thought and effort into that. One-on-one coaching is something that we love to do. Community gatherings, like Mike said, and like you said, subscribers get preferred access when we go live. We're working on weekly-- let me take that back. We're working on newsletter options. We're not sure how we're going to facilitate some of that, but that is all coming. So just so you guys know, we love to riff. And one of our first episodes is something that's very near and dear and true to us is, you know, we're going to dive right into it and, you know, rip the bandaid off and just start attacking this from things that we feel like can practically help someone. And that's basically having emotional control. You know, if you want to put a, put a name on the podcast, it's how do you determine, you know, where you're going to be in the green, in the red or in the blue, and we're going to talk about those things and how we navigate those channels. And I can promise you I am far from perfect. Mike's got a little better control than I do, but it's good to hear those takes because there is all kinds of different personalities. So we're going to be diving into that for our episode number two. So stay tuned for that.