How do you go from leading a large team yourself to becoming a coach that helps others do that? Zach Montroy can tell you all about it. He went from leading more than 100 people to mentoring others to lead with courage and vulnerability.
In this episode, I have a wonderful conversation with Zack Montroy, the VP of People, Team, and Organizational Strategy at Navigate the Journey. We talked about his personal journey into becoming a leader, learning to coach other leaders in organizations, and even becoming a parent through foster care and adoption.
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Zach Montroy
Am I willing? Am I ready? Do I have the courage to step into this arena? I've been leading a team of more than 100 people. I was in the office every day and knew I'm going to be sitting at home in front of a computer and doing traveling about 25% of the time. Yes, like, Am I going to be lonely doing this there was a lot of unknown and just fear in that, like the uncertainty of all of that.
Jacob Miller
Hey there, you're listening to never done this before, a podcast where I interview humans that had the courage to start something new and take action. This podcast is for those that want to discover their purpose, to understand what is possible, to be inspired to start their own journey into something new. Whether it's a new career, a hobby, starting something in your community. Changing the way you live your life. None of those things are simple, and they're not easy. I hope you find valuable insight and gain fresh new perspectives from each episode. I'm your host, Jacob Miller. On the internet, some people come and kinetic bear. Either way, I'm glad you're here. So thanks for joining us. Here we are Episode Three. In this episode, I have a wonderful conversation with Zack Montroy, the VP of people, team and organizational strategy and navigate the journey. We talked about his personal journey into becoming a leader, learning to coach other leaders in organizations and even becoming a parent to foster care and adoption. Alright, folks, let's get to it.
All right. Welcome to the show. Zach, I'm happy to have you here. Um, we've known each other now for about about a year, year and a half or two years. I want to say it's been.
Zach Montroy
Yeah, yeah.
Jacob Miller
And it's just I've always been curious to get to know you better. I mean, obviously we we work together and do you have done workshops with me and my team of headway? It's it's been really awesome to grow with your guidance as a leader. And I was just super excited to learn more about your story specifically and how you kind of got to where you're at today. So, um, but first, we'll just have you introduce yourself who you are, what you do, and a little bit of your background.
Zach Montroy
Yeah, absolutely. Well, thanks, Jacob. And I love working with the headway team and love getting to serve you and your team of coworkers. And, you know, it's been a really cool experience getting to know you and the rest of the team at headway. Yeah, so I'm Zack. I work for a company called navigate the journey here in Nashville, Tennessee, and navigate the journey is a really cool, firm. We're a consulting firm, more of a boutique firm, we get to serve a bunch of different kinds of companies. Really In in two different areas, we work on strategic planning and helping companies and leaders think about the overall strategic plan of their company of their team. And then on the other side of that, we get to make sure that they do it well with people. We know that that's incredibly important to seeing any strategic plan, any planning really for a company to succeed, that you do it well with your team and people and so I get to lead that side of the company. I'm the VP of people team and organizational strategy and really at the end of the day, the really cool thing about my job is I get to help leaders grow. incredibly passionate about teams and people and talent strategy, really helping leaders helping teams get the right people on the bus, you know, from hiring, making sure that we've got great hiring practices in place. We care for our people. We help our teams help our leaders grow in their care. courageousness they're their emotional intelligence, we help, really at the end of the day, help teams maximize performance by helping people discover their own unique abilities, connect that to the strategic plan of a company, help leaders show up as the best version of themselves. It's really pretty interesting when you look at companies because normally the number one expense of a company is their people. But helping leaders helping companies look at that as the number one investment that they make, in making sure that they're caring for that investment. They're caring for their people. Well, and they have incredibly engaged and healthy teams.
Jacob Miller
Yeah, yeah, for sure. I think it's also been just that whole, that whole bubble of information there has been more important now, I guess. Like I've seen like over the last decade, it's become more important across, you know, the entire world within organizations were before it was like How can we be more efficient, save time, you know, like pay people less blah, blah, blah, whatever it is like so we can make more money as an as a company and change our margins on that stuff. And now but now it's like a way actually if we spend money to make our people better, and to get them to stay, actually, we become more successful as an organization. So
Zach Montroy
I know Yeah, crazy. It's crazy that people are actually learning this Finally, yeah. Yeah. And you see, like, I mean, our parents, their parents worked for companies for their entire lives, right. Like my grandfather worked for General Motors for 40 years, had a pension with them. There wasn't anything you know, you didn't think about changing jobs. And it was a very command and control environment. But we know now through a lot of research and great courageous leaders that that's not a healthy way to run an organization you can care for your team, you can really show great leadership and and make a profit and have a healthy company like they don't have to. They are not I thought there have to be they are not mutually exclusive things.
Jacob Miller
Yeah. Well, and there's definitely evidence of organizations that have been doing that, like under the radar, like you just, they're successful because of that, but it was never spotlighted. It was never unless you work there knew that and felt that you didn't know that it was like that to work there. And even so, like now with recruitment efforts, like it's way more important to showcase, like, how does a company invest into you as a human beyond just like you having this role here to like grow your career, all that kind of stuff?
Zach Montroy
Absolutely. And I think when companies are doing that, well, it makes recruiting so much easier when you're transparent about that kind of stuff. No, people want to work for your companies. And, I mean, we're recording this in the middle of the COVID-19 crisis. So we're all working from home, you know, at this moment in time in the market is shifted. We'll see what happens, you know, long, longer term and in the next few months, but, you know, two months ago a month ago, even it was an employee's market you know if unemployment was really low and, you know, it mattered how you treated your people how you treat your people matters. And you know, people want to know that they're going to be working for a people first organization that really cares about you as a human.
Jacob Miller
Yeah, for sure. Um, you mentioned I'll kind of go back a little bit to learn more about you before we dive, dive any deeper. But you mentioned your your father worked for General Motors. Where'd you grow up? Like what? You know, where'd you grow up? What's your life like? Now? Give you know, any kids like what do you guys like to do in your free time? So maybe kind of talk about your personal life a little bit?
Zach Montroy
Yeah, that was grandfather work for General Motors. So yeah, my my dad is a pastor actually. So you know, you hear all those like crazy things about pastor's kids. They're probably all true. I was born in Texas grew up in Pennsylvania, though we grew up in the Pittsburgh area of Pennsylvania have two sisters and yeah, I mean, pretty normal childhood I think started working when I was pretty young. I was like 14 years old. And you know, back in those days you had to go get a work permit to work at 14 in Pennsylvania but started working I don't know if you remember that story KB toys in the mall, but like super cluttered twist or worse work there, you might be too young for that. Were there and it was crazy. But as a 17 year old, a senior in high school was given the chance to be a store manager. kind of crazy that they gave a 17 year old that responsibility and authority but it was an amazing learning experience and leadership and management. And you know, I had no idea what I was doing. So definitely learned from all the mistakes that I made. But you know, from there, went to college, you know, did the business route majored in marketing and management, eventually went on to get my MBA and served in You know, some some various nonprofits and senior leadership. But on the personal front, my wife and I live in Nashville. I lived in Chicago for about 12 1012 years. So my wife and I've been married for about 11 years. We've got three kiddos as almost seven year old, a six year old and an almost three year old. We Yeah, we kind of our family grew through adoption, our older two were foster kiddos of ours in Chicago, and we ended up going through the adoption process. And then our youngest Sammy we adopted as an infant but always knew that that's how we wanted to grow our family really felt called to that. So yeah, that's that's our life. We've got three boys. Seven and under. It's crazy. But yeah, it's a lot of fun.
Jacob Miller
Yeah, for sure. That's awesome. Like what do you kind of enjoy doing with Like the kids like what have they been? Like? What have been been their hobbies lately that you've been kind of like doing with them?
Zach Montroy
It's a good question. Well, there's like the quarantine hobbies and then the like normal life hobbies. We Yeah, our kids just love being outside. That's one of the reasons we moved from Chicago to Nashville. But we we made the investment of a trampoline. About a year ago, it's probably the best investment we've made as parents, but yeah, we're I think hobbies or you know, going on bike rides as families, as a family jumping on the trampoline. We love traveling together, Jackie and I always love visiting cities before we were before we were parents and continue to do that with the boys. So we just love vacationing, spending time together as a family, Jackie and I love music and theater and reading. So we try to just be very intentional about our time together as a family.
Jacob Miller
Yeah, actually, that's my next question, what kind of music or maybe if you want to share the any of the theater stuff but what what have you been enjoying lately, like music wise or theater wise?
Zach Montroy
I Well, I'm a big theater fan. So
all the good ones. It Nash it's a little harder living in Nashville from this perspective because you get like the third and fourth wave of the Broadway shows that come through, but have seen Hamilton a number of times and no being a dad of kids who are not white. It was an incredible thing to see that show and how they valued racial diversity and in that story, so that that was a really cool thing to see. So yeah, I'm just a big Broadway fan. I love all music. You know, I've been listening to a lot of jazz lately. Our kids love having dance parties. So it's whatever they're playing on, you know, Alexa that day. And you know, being in Nashville, like you've got to be a country music fans. So started started trying to be a country music fan at the same time. Cool.
Jacob Miller
Yeah. And then I have one other random question I like to ask just before we jump on, you know, if you weren't doing what you what you do now for a living and you know, money really wasn't an issue by any means, you know, what could you see yourself doing like, as something as a career?
Zach Montroy
I've always said it'd be really fun to be a judge on American Idol, but probably not like really at will. Yeah, you probably make a lot of money in that. But I think if money were no object, I think I'd probably had to do it over again, would do something like immigration attorney or attorney in the foster care system, it's, you know, just a lot of that vulnerable populations in our country don't have a large volume of or, you know, great legal representation. So I think that would be a cool thing to go into.
Jacob Miller
Yeah, for sure. Cool. Yeah. And we don't have to go too deep into I'm just kind of curious, the, the foster the whole You said you felt called to it. Was that something that you and your wife kind of discovered together? Or was it something that, like you had friends that had been adopting and you just kind of are, I'm just kind of curious, like how that how that kind of came to be?
Zach Montroy
Yeah, um, my, my wife and I always felt called to adoption before we were even married. And after we'd been married for a few years went through, it's a crazy process to do foster or, you know, infinite adoption. But we went through the process to do infant adoption. And we were told it was going to be really fast and we kind of got rushed through the process. And then we waited for two years and had, I think, three failed placements during that two years. So just kind of a lot of big broken heart through that there was a lot of, you know, trauma for us and, but during that time, we read an article with some statistics on the number of kids Who age out of foster care system every year? And God really just broke our heart through that. And so we thought, well, maybe we should think about this. So we went through the foster care training program, which is a few months in the state of Illinois. And then we just, we just didn't do anything. We didn't enroll like we were still on the waiting list for infinite option. And one day, two days before Ash Wednesday, remember, like it was yesterday, about six years ago, a coworker came into my office and said, he had been doing this thing called Safe Families, which sort of pre foster care program and he said that we my wife and I know of two boys who were removed from their home. On Christmas Eve sort of been about a month and a half before that. They've had three failed foster placements in the they're about to break them up because they can't find any people who will take them in. So my wife and I were just like brokenhearted by that. And so we started praying about it the next day, um dcfs called us and they were like, We need your decision by 5pm today. We it was Yeah, it was just, it was absolutely crazy how that happened. And we were like, well, we have no reason to say no to this. So we said yes. And they said, Great. They'll be at your house tomorrow. And we were and I was like, oh, to meet us. Like, I had no idea. I was very naive. And they were like, no, to live with you. Yeah, it was just a crazy process from there. But that's Yeah. How are older to became a part of our family.
Jacob Miller
Yeah, yeah. Well, I think just foster care is such a unique thing to do in life for anybody, you know, whether you adopt or not, like just being available to kids that they need a place to live and have a home. Absolutely, yeah. So yeah. Thanks for sharing your story. Thank you. Absolutely. All right. So I think we can both I like that. Call this section going back to the beginning. So I want to kind of talk about because I know you, you obviously you kind of worked as a leader. In a larger organization. I think it was a church organization, from what I remember. And then you obviously transitioned into what you do now. So I kind of want to talk about that how to maybe talk about your history with you were leading a larger organization of people, and then kind of go into like, what, what changes happen? So you know, what was going on in your life? And what was going on going through your head when you were leading that that large organization, I guess, kind of set up set up, set the scene, I guess?
Zach Montroy
Sure. Yeah. So was in the midst of Yeah, leading in the nonprofit sector, and had been doing that for a number of years and just kind of worked my way up into senior leadership. So at the time was in more of a Senior Chief operations role. We had about 150 employees at the time, about a $12 million budget so I was responsible for leading the staff leading the administration leading, you know, all the finances for the organization and then just day to day operations. So yeah, it was it was a big job. It was a there were parts of the job that I really, really enjoyed. But there were parts of it that I was just getting tired of. It was you know, you I always used to say to people, you know, when you pull into the parking lot every day and it doesn't matter what job you have, you should be excited about what you've got on your plate excited about what you're responsible for. And as soon as you start dreading walking upstairs or walking into the building, you know, in the parking lot each morning, there's there's a problem something's going on. It might be a time for change. And and I came to that realization like started pulling in the parking lot every day and I had just lost the passion. You know, it sounds the sounds Not good, but you know, as managing a $12 million budget felt like I could do that in my sleep, and just kind of lost the care, the care in that, you know, like, I'm responsible for stewarding a lot of resources and like, you know, we did all that stuff well, but just wasn't passionate about it anymore. And, you know, there was a time to like, just honestly speaking, there were felt like a lot of spinning of wheels, there was a lot of dysfunction happening in the organization that I couldn't affect change to anymore and kind of just got to that place of like, feeling that I had done all that I could do. I had made as much change as I could in that organization and just started feeling that, that yearning that itch for something different. And, you know, I mean, it's, it's interesting to nonprofits it's, I feel like most nonprofits, especially larger ones, are like giant 740 sevens. And so whenever you're trying to make change in those organizations, you're trying to turn that thing like it's bumpy and rough. And you've got to think about all the bureaucracy and implications of stuff. And then you look at entrepreneurial type companies, and they're like fighter jets, they can make pivots and changes and so I think I just gotten tired of flying the big old heavy plane. We were getting a little tired of living in the city, we didn't really want to raise our boys there. And so just kind of felt that it's time for something new, what is what does that look like? And so, we sort of started that exploration process.
Jacob Miller
Yeah, yeah. So like, was there like anything specific like oh, I feel like I could do this or was it like through the exploration process, you found the opportunity to not necessarily lead another organization specifically, but to to like, switch from leading coaching within one unit to like leading and coaching leaders of units. I guess that's kind of the question.
Zach Montroy
Yeah, that's a great question. You know... I, a great mentor of mine. It really early on in my career and just so grateful for him. He, he really leaned into this, like, what's your unique ability and I knew I never wanted to be the leader of an organization. I'm not. I'm not a visionary guy. I'm an operations guy. I'm a figure it out. Let's let me help you accomplish the vision. And so that's what I knew I needed a role like that, you know, whether it was going and being, you know, an operations leader to another company. But I also knew something that very true of my personality. I love challenge. And I love uniqueness. And so the idea of consulting was so appealing to me because you get to work with so many different organizations you get to meet you get to help influence decision making, you know, on a broad scale and help leaders, you know, in various industries and so every day for me is a unique challenge there are there is nothing the same about any two days for me. And so I knew that I would thrive in that type of environment. And so, you know, as I sort of going through the list and I went through this program called life plan, and really what it is, is it's a strategic plan for your life figured out I need I that's a vocational gate for me, I need to be in a role where I can really be problem solving, that there's a lot of challenge to that a lot of problem solving and thinking through, you know, different unique challenges. And so that's where I kind of landed on consulting and then it kind of a crazy story, how you know, navigate the journey kind of became a part of that story, but it just became that opportunity of like, this is it. This is what I'm supposed to do. Some friends of ours who started this company and It just it was a natural. Yeah, this is what this is what the next step is for us the next season for us.
Jacob Miller
Yeah, for sure. I feel like I've been fortunate enough to be in that same kind of position where like, you know, you're ready to move to a different thing. But you're not sure what that is until all of a sudden it kind of reveals itself into all this and you're sure right, yeah. And you're like this is it? How, like, this is great. Like you just kind of it sometimes it just gets aligned like that so well, cool. Well, you know, when you were transitioning out of in between those roles, was there any kind of fear in your head like, Am I doing the right thing? What if this doesn't work? What if I don't like it? Like Did you was any of that going on in your head?
Zach Montroy
Oh, absolutely. My wife Jackie and I were actually just talking about this the other night and there were Yeah, there were a lot of fears. You know, I mean, even like going back to psychology one on one, you know what's at the bottom of Maslow's hierarchy of needs safety. insecurity as a dad and as a husband, you know, just that idea of moving into a consulting role. You know, salaries much different in consulting, what there isn't really salary. It's, you know, I had been in a role for 18 to 20 years that I had, I knew how much I was making, we knew how much your next paycheck was going to be. Jackie was working full time as a therapist and school social worker. And so they're, you know, moving into consulting, you get paid for the work that you do, and you've got to sell. I have never, I'd never sold in my entire life. So yeah, there's this fear of like, do I have what it's going to take? Do I have the skills and abilities? Am I you know, I love the Theodore Roosevelt quotes that he that speech that he gave the arena in the arena speech, like, Am I willing, am I willing? Am I ready? Do I have the courage courage to step into this arena. And, you know, I've been leading a team of, you know, at the end of at the end of that goal, you know, more than 100 people. I was in the office every day and knew I'm going to be sitting at home in front of the computer and doing traveling about 25% of the time. Yes, like, Am I gonna be lonely doing this? There was a lot of unknown and just fear in that, like the uncertainty of all of that.
Jacob Miller
Yeah, so what I guess what, what happened? or What did you do to kind of like to relief, you know, create relief through through that fear? Or like, or did? Did you go through any training? Did you get any mentorship? I'm just kind of curious, like, what helped you kind of overcome that fear?
Zach Montroy
Yeah. It's really neat. Like, as you kind of look back on life, I think there's just a lot of things that kind of get put into place and you realize it's for a reason and you know, I've always been passionate about, you know, different assessments and learning tools. And so I, you know, my background as far as education goes, getting an MBA has always been on the business side of things, but had just looked back and like, yeah, I've done a lot of training, gotten the coaching certification while I was in the midst of that leadership, and I knew that all those tools would be really, really helpful. But when I joined navigate, and in kind of funny story, how we started Tracy Barrett, our founder, was senior executive at HGTV for 20 plus years, and just as a mom was getting kind of tired of the travel thing, and so had stepped down for that reasons are left at the peak of her career. And as she left the the executives at HGTV were like, Hey, can you coach our executives and so that's kind of how HGTV started and as she was going through the process of getting certified and you know, emotional innocence diligence and things like that asked me to come alongside the helper just as a, you know, one off kind of things. And then it like became really clear, hey, this, you could lead this side of the company and hey, we actually have a client that you could start with, if this is something you're interested in. So, knowing that there's that, like risk meter, you know, is being a provider for your family. It was like, Okay, well, I've got one, one client, like, if I can make this work, I think I can make this work and it after just a few months, like, I love this, I love this kind of work. And as Tom and Tracy were building the business, the opportunity to work with more and more clients became possible so it sort of lessened that risk. it you know, it may die. It didn't feel like I was diving off the high diving board. I was like typing off the one at the bottom. So it just it definitely felt like the right opportunity.
Jacob Miller
Awesome. Oh, cool. And then what we're kind of You know, your experience like that first, that first year of doing this kind of work? What did you learn? I guess about yourself through that, like, obviously you were getting better and you were helping other people get better at what they do, and leading leading their teams, but like, what did you kind of learn about yourself? Like you were kind of saying you weren't sure if you could do this or not, but then I guess, through the training stuff of that through that first year, as you had more clients, what were some kind of key things there like you realized about yourself through that?
Zach Montroy
Yeah.
I think first, my first big learning and I think whenever you move into professional services, you say yes to anyone, any client who will pay. And I learned quickly that that was not the best thing. There's an ideal client, there's a client that you want to work with, and then there's, you know, some that are just not going to be a good fit and learning to assess that early on is really, really important in learning in which your unique value add is going to be is also really, really important. And I think too is, you know, just kind of talking about some of those fears. I think, you know, a big fear of mine was, you know, how do you be humble and confident in sort of learning that that's, that is absolutely something that you can do. You can be, you know, humble and confident in your leadership and your, you know, the, the expertise and, you know, really the consulting that you do with owners and learned, you know, knew this but learned really quickly that leadership is often a lonely place. Owners of companies often don't have someone to talk to you to run ideas off of the bounce ideas off of and then learned and this is funny, but when you're paying for a consultant, you listen to them. When you're like in an organization and I learned this and then in the nonprofit world, like you give advice and wisdom and You know, consulting and you know, sometimes it would be listened to sometimes it wouldn't be. And now I'm in this position like, Oh my gosh, like, they're actually listening to everything that I tell them, I better be really careful and, you know, wise about what I say and the advice that I give. And so, you know, just making sure that I'm doing the work of self leadership to make sure that I'm in a healthy position to be listening to rumbling through problems with leaders and with with organizations and owners of company, companies in that I'm doing the hard work of leadership myself, I'm investing in my leadership abilities and capabilities, so that I can lead from a healthy place with with the people that I get the privilege of, you know, working with.
Jacob Miller
Yeah, yeah. Um, I know, in the past, you've shared some of the people that you've had the privilege to be mentored by, like workshops and stuff. So who I guess if you want to showcase or share Some of your favorite mentors have like the craft of consulting and coaching and leadership, that kind of people that showed you the way like were maybe one or two people that you feel like have been mentoring you to keep growing in what you're doing.
Zach Montroy
Yeah, I mean, you know, just personally speaking, you know, a guy named Kevin Williamson has just been an incredible mentor to me. He's a president of a company in the Chicagoland area, and him and I've been close friends for Gosh, a lot of years now, like almost 20 years and 15 years and he's just he's, you know, a decade ahead of me and so just learning from his approach to leadership, and you know, just, you you want to have those people in your life who are gonna call you out when you're not doing the right thing or you know, when you didn't say the right thing and encouraging you when you are, and he has been that sort of stable for us for me and think of people like Doug McKinley. And Sandra, Sandra Simmons who are great leadership coaches and mentors and sort of taught the craft of consulting and executive coaching and into, you know, my co workers Tom and Tracy Barrett, Tom's, like one of the smarter people, most smartest people that I know, he is like an avid reader and just great strategic problem solver and you know, Tracy is just an amazing leader in coach and so have just had those great mentors in my life and you know, from the professional side and then you know, when you think about life, you know, having an amazing wife and partner you know, who keeps me in my integrity and encourages and in speaks up as well. So like, just very, very grateful for the people that have been put in my life to for both things for challenge for encouragement for you spurring on of growth.
Jacob Miller
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I think um, you know, like I kind of always talk about you have like mentors of the craft and the of mentors of your life and sometimes they cross sometimes have the same person that do those. Yeah. for you. So,
Zach Montroy
yeah, I would say I would say right now it's, um, Britney Brown is, has been a huge mentor, I have the opportunity of getting getting trained by her in in dare to lead but have just been blown away by her wisdom. Her research, love Patrick lencioni have listened to I think every talk he's ever given, written, written, read all of the books that he's written. You know, Jim Collins, Kim Scott. There's a guy named Geoffrey Canada who runs he started in runs schools in New York City for under-resourced populations, you know, just to really learn from his leadership in grit and resilience Yeah. So yeah, that I love reading love getting to learn from these leaders at a distance.
Jacob Miller
Yeah, yeah. I know a lot of those people have really, really great books. But are there any books like if you were to name your top two or three, you know, books that you would recommend folks that are like maybe interested in, in growing in leadership or considering going into coaching or consulting, what would you recommend for people to read?
Zach Montroy
Yeah, um,
I'm looking at my pile of books on my floor right now, because they're also good. I mean, I would say dare to lead is at the top of the list for me. That's a Bernie brown book. And I mean, I would say every one of Patrick lencioni books, he wrote a new book recently that really talks about it's called the motive and what's your motivation for being in leadership?
And, you know,
Primal leadership is a great book by Daniel Goleman as well. Think leadership The inside out by Kevin Cashman just really kind of that that work of self leadership, making sure that you are showing up as the best version of you every day. Leaders of teams, Barry Posner and Jim kouzes kouzes wrote a book called The leadership challenge. It's just a great textbook on more of a textbook format on leadership. So yeah, those are some of my go twos. Cool.
Jacob Miller
Yeah. Awesome. So I think we're, we're getting to the point where we can kind of kind of close the conversation otherwise, I feel like we could probably go forever. But, you know, if you were to start your path over today, you know, with going into, you know, say you have some experience leading an organization, and you're considering going into coaching or consulting other leaders. You know, what would you do know? What would you do differently? Or what would you do to kind of jumpstart yourself to, you know, to get yourself prepared and into, to do do it? Well, I guess
Zach Montroy
ask more questions that are uncomfortable to ask. And have people who are safe in have more people who are safe in my life to ask the hard questions to and give the hard advice. You know, I think every leader needs to have those those folks in their lives that speak truth in love. And so making sure that every you know, you think about those really hard points of leadership, those really lonely points. It's when I didn't have a coach when I didn't have a mentor when I didn't have, you know, a great therapist, and I don't think there's any there. There are no examples of great leaders that I have ever come across that didn't have a great coach, mentor or therapist that they were seeing on a consistent basis. So I think you've got to have those people in your life, that that's what you know, at all those hard points that would be my do over and then I'd be asking those hard questions to the people on my team that reported to me What can I be doing better as well? Leader, where am I failing? What? What can I be doing better to empower and encourage you? You know, I think oftentimes we don't ask those questions, because we might be afraid of the response that we're gonna get. And it was that fear. I think that held me back from asking those questions to my team along the way. So if I could do it over and ask those questions, because it would, it would force me to do that hard work that, you know, probably, in my subconscious knew I needed to do. But, you know, at the end of the day to be a transformational leader.
Jacob Miller
Yeah, for sure. Yeah, I think, you know, even for me, I've been learning to do that too. Just asking people Hey, how can I be better prepared for you? or What can I do to make your your life easier? how, you know, are there is there anything I'm not doing right? Where can I improve all that kind of stuff? So
Zach Montroy
yeah, there's a great book, Sheila Hien wrote it. Thanks for the feedback. amazing book if you want to grow in that area as a leader, yeah. Nice. Yeah.
Jacob Miller
For sure, I think A lot of times too, though, it's just people don't ask they don't ask the question. They don't even think about asking it. Oh, they just right. You just assume everything's good. They don't question. Like, when things are good, they don't question it at all, like, Oh, well, because that's how when things get comfortable, then things tend to like lose kind of their integrity in a weird way. So,
Zach Montroy
absolutely, absolutely. Yeah.
Jacob Miller
Well, awesome. Um, well, thanks for sharing all this stuff with us. How can people get in touch with you? If they're curious to either maybe, maybe they want to work with you or they want to ask you questions, you know, how can they get ahold of you?
Zach Montroy
Yeah, absolutely. I'm on LinkedIn and Twitter and you can visit our website, navigate that journey.com and our contact info is on the website, but love getting to talk to other leaders and help leaders grow and be challenged. So you absolutely would love for anyone that wants to talk about that to reach out.
Jacob Miller
Awesome. Cool. Well, thanks again, Zack. Thanks for being on the show or being on the Call or whatever you want to call this. Always great to chat, you know, even beyond stuff in the day to day headway so
Zach Montroy
awesome. Thanks so much, Jacob. I'm so excited you're doing this. Yeah. Thanks.
Jacob Miller
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