Progress > Perfection
Never, ever stop growing! 

Insights from Mickey Taylor 

Welcome to the show, Ms. Taylor.

Thank you. I’m happy to be here.

Are you sure about that?

Maybe.

What’s your 1020 in the United States of America?

Nashville, Tennessee, downstairs.

I am in Nashville, Tennessee, upstairs. We’re very thankful that everybody’s joined us. I’m going to tell you, this is a show where we want to develop leaders. The definition we use of a leader is a person who can inspire another person to take a journey that they’re not going to take by themselves. In this show, we want to tell stories and talk about how things affected you, how they affected me and have a great conversation.

At the end of the day, I want everybody to be able to pull up three things that they’ve learned from this episode. They can catapult that one domino effect where they knock all the dominoes down or issues to inspire people to take a journey that they’re not willing to take about us. Here we are. Are you ready to get started, Miss Taylor?

Let’s go.

Inspirational Leader 

Who is your best leader and why? A leader is to inspire. You inspire people. We inspire others by what they know about us, see us do or how we make them feel. Who’s the most inspirational leader that you’ve had in your life?

I’ve been blessed with a lot of good leaders throughout my life. I would say one of my favorite leaders was in Louisiana. He was head of school, Jerry Erickson. He was a great leader to me because he was patient. He was interested. He gave you his full attention. Whatever issue was coming to the table, he would take his time with it and make sure everyone’s on the same page and talk it through.

This is when you were the athletic director at a private school called Evangel Christian Academy.

I was the high school athletic director. We dealt with a lot of issues in that position, but he was also great at honoring others. I admired bad about him. I don’t know if we ever left a group meeting that he didn’t honor someone or one-on-one meeting that he didn’t say something honoring that made me want to keep going and motivated me. He gave me a motivation there. He blessed me.

He was very soft-hearted, but he would stand his ground in tough situations. To me, he’s one of those tenaciously humble people. I know that you don’t like that terminology.

It’s a weird term, but he’s humble and he could be super strong at the same moment. I admired that about him. That’s the type of leader that works with my personality. I married somebody who’s the opposite type of leader.

We’re not tearing people down. We talked about this earlier.

I wasn’t tearing down. I was just saying you’re more of the louder, stronger, put-it-all-out-there and blunt. That kind of leader takes all types. There are different people that need different types of leaders.

I admired Jerry. He was like, “I want to be like you.” That’s that humble person. I had the tenacity part but didn’t quite have the humble person, which I’m still working on.

You said it. I didn’t.

Mom, Wife, Grandmother 

That was your best leader as an AD. Also, you are a mom, a wife and a grandmother. Who’s influenced you in those three categories? You’ve been through a lot of things in life. Who’s inspired you from being a mom, a grandmother, and a wife? Why?

I have some great roles. My mom and your mom are both amazing moms. Deonza Duran is an amazing mom. You’re already getting me emotional.

I like this. What did you see them do? How did they make you feel or what did you know about?

My mom was incredible. You don’t always appreciate someone's traits until you get older and you’ve been through a little bit more life. My mom was always loving and patient. My dad was a general in the army. She was dealing with a hard-driving and intense spouse. She was yanked all over the country. That’s the way we grew up. All over the world as a military brat.

My mom always did it gracefully with love and patience. Your mom, the same thing. She’s going to always love you no matter who you are and what stage of life you’re in and what you’re going through. She’s patient and loving. She’s strong. Both were strong women, but patient and loving is your mom. To this day, she is still patient and loving with me and everyone. She’s a safe place. I’ll say that.

That’s a safe part. Who’s inspired you? You have three grandchildren. You’re an amazing grandmother and all your grandkids adore their mamo also. Who inspired you as a mamo and why? You’ve done many different things in life. What inspired you to do all those different things?

You pick and choose from each one the things that you love. I had a grandmother who would play cards with me every time we were there to visit. We didn’t always live near our grandparents. I took that to get down on the floor on level things and do life with them. She probably was so sick of playing the same card game with me over and over, but she did it.

Greg goes back to spend time with people.

That’s what it was. Your family is amazing with pulling the whole family together at one time. Big family get-togethers and memories are made there. That’s something I take from your family, your mom, all your siblings, their grandkids, and all of that. Your mom is right there in the middle of it and she’s never impatient. She’s right there in the middle of it and happy about it.

For people taking notes, I’ve written down a lot of words that you said. You said the word patient like 5 or 6 times. I’m going to say that’s a keyword to inspire you. If I want to inspire you, I’ve learned the special sauce of that is to be patient. For someone to feel safe, because until they feel safe and trust you, You can’t inspire them. One of the ways to get people to trust you is being patient. You said that word over and over, to be patient and kind. You say kind is clear and clear is kind.

Everybody’s on their own different journey in life and their own stage in that journey. I wouldn’t say I’ve always been patient, but I feel like we all deserve to have some patience for where we are in our journey, in our pathway in life. It’s easy to get frustrated at somebody that’s younger because they don’t understand. You’re always great at reminding me, like, “Remember you at that age, Mickey?” Recognizing we’re all just on our own journey. We need to give people a little bit of patience and grace for that.

Competitor 

In your life’s journey, you’re a bodybuilding champion and a world fitness competitor. You competed in three world championships in fitness. One of them is my claim to fame, as you were the number two mom. There’s only one other mom that beat you out of a hundred ladies. Who inspired you in that part of your journey of life?

What if I don’t have an answer? Let’s see. I think where that all came from was I competed in gymnastics all the way through high school, and then went to college. It’s like, you leave in college. You’ve been doing this. You played football in college. You left college and it’s like, “I’m used to competing for something. I’m used to having something out there to reach for.” You went into softball.

After I was done playing football. I played a lot of softball, probably 40 years old.

Stay competing and in that mentality. This came along. I had our good friend, Jeff Burkle.

You can say Jeff’s name. He’s been using a lot of bad places, but this is a good place for him.

We love Jeff and Kathy. He was at the gym that we were working out in. He was a bodybuilder. Through conversation, he said, “Let’s train you for a bodybuilding competition.” I did that once, and I was like, “I like to compete, so if I’m going to continue this, then I’ve got to put on a bunch of muscle mass.” I didn’t want to do that. That’s what made me flip to the whole fitness competition stuff. I don’t know that I had a role model in that field. I don’t think I knew anybody doing it.

There’s no right or wrong answer here at the show. We’re just having a conversation to inspire people. If you connect with people and you’re patient, strong and consistent. You can get someone to do something where other people can’t get them to get it done. As my boss told me in my first job, Greg, “If you want to make more money here, you got to turn chicken crap into chicken salad.”

Worst Leader 

You got to take somebody that’s out of one and can you get them to a 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, or 10. Wherever they are and we all got different skills and strengths that God’s given us. It’s how do you develop that? How do you inspire someone to do that? There’s no right or wrong answer. It’s just, “Here’s another way to take another step.” A drum roll here. Who’s your worst leader and why? How did they make you feel? What’d you see them do? What do you know about them? Have they demotivated you?

I couldn’t come up with a name in my mind. I know we’re not sharing that if I did, but it’s the opposite of what I loved about Jerry Erickson. If someone is impatient, if you come in and you feel like you’re annoying them in a conversation, you need help. They’re your leader. You need the help and they make you feel like you’re an annoyance coming in. That would be a horrible leader. People just don’t care and don’t pour their whole heart into it. That is demotivating to me. I want to follow somebody. I will easily follow somebody who is all in. Somebody who doesn’t have their whole heart in the world makes me not want to give my whole heart.

Real Estate Agents

I’m going to back up. I’ll ask the current phase of life that you’re in now as a real estate agent. You’ve been doing that for five years. Roughly, you were 51 years old. Most people say, “You’re out of the game. You’re too old.” At 51 years old, you wanted to be a real estate agent. Who inspired you to do that and why? While you’ve been growing and you’re doing an amazing job at this. Who’s been your inspiration along that 5 or 6-year journey that you’ve been?

My mom was a realtor for a period of time when I was younger. I have wanted to be a realtor. I’ve always been interested in being a realtor, but I didn’t want to do that with young kids at home. I felt like it was going to consume my whole life and I couldn’t be as involved in what they were doing. It probably would have because real estate does not shut off. It doesn’t turn off. It’s no business hours. You can make it that way.

Everybody can do it the way they want to. That’s the great thing about real estate, but I was very involved in kids’ lives. Their sports, being the team mom and all the things. We were empty nesters when we moved here to Tennessee years ago. I wanted to jump in and pursue that again with mom being that, then Kathy Carter in Nashville. She’s a close friend. She’s a successful realtor. I knew I could rely on her and pick her brain a lot. She could hold my hand getting into it. She’s been an amazing mentor to me in the real estate world, then my older sister joined. We get to talk a lot of real estate. It’s been a blast. I do love the real estate world. You never figure it all out. That’s why I love gymnastics. You never learned every skill you can’t. It’s the same in real estate.

That’s good. Everybody needs to hear what you said. We will never figure it out. It’s just not going to happen. I love your domino effect. It’s what?

Progress over perfection.

When I see you frustrated, I say progress over perfection because we can’t be perfect. We’re never going to be perfect. Quit trying to be perfect. Can you make improvements every day? That’s the name of our leadership training program, Take Another Step system. Take another step. “Let’s grow,” that’s the phrase word I’d call out. I gave that up before I had to give up my wife and kids because I’m Ricky Bobby. If you’ve not first, you last. That doesn’t spell out good things for a wife and two boys.

Even my relationships and business. They suffered because I had to dominate and demand everything. It doesn’t work. You’ve got to find your spacing, and then you have to find the heart, the key, and the cheat code. I got one of my coaching clients said, “You’ve tapped into the cheat code for me.” It’s a longer story that I’m going to get into because we all got something inside of us that needs to come out.

It’s just how do you birth that? We all got different journeys and you’ve got your journey. Your journey is not right. Someone else is not right. It’s your journey. Whatever you want your journey to be. When you and I both changed careers in our 50s, everybody thought we were crazy, which is why we are crazy, but it’s a great ride.

A little bit.

Unsung Hero

You sent me a video day on Instagram, is where two old people came out of the house and one fell down the steps. The wife tried to help them, but she fell down. They were both just slaying there. I said, “I’m all in for that right there.” If that’s the way you and I went out, I’m like, “That’s just perfect. We did it together.” There you go. Who’s your unsung hero? You only get one. Put you on the spot.

Can I do a category? I think single moms can be some unsung heroes. I have a sister that’s a single mom and she’s been through some hard stuff, but she’s a battler. She’s she did it. Her kids are grown now and raised. I know several single moms and to hear them talk and to know the struggles that they have to go through that I don’t have to go through. Single moms out there who are making a difference, still serving and being a part of, making money and doing all the things.

We both got a sister who’s a hero in that category, my sister being Regine.

You make it happen and that’s what they did.

That’s GSD. They got GSD.

That’s it.

Get stuff done. You can change the stuff to another word, but we won’t go into that. You got to get stuff done. You get up and you take another step every day.

That’s a battle and they did it beautifully. These are my unsung heroes. It’s all the single moms making it happen. Was I supposed to say you were my unsung hero?

No, that wouldn’t be true. That’s another ten-hour episode. How do you take another step when you get stuck?

If I get stuck, I want to be good at stopping and praying. Trying to give it to God is what I do because I often try to fix things first, then give it to God or I give it to God and I take it back and try to fix it myself, stopping and praying. If I stop and start trying to name all the things I’m grateful for. It can change my whole mindset right there. How can I complain about this little problem when I have all these other blessings? To stop and be grateful can definitely change your mindset and motivation.

Biggest Risk

That’s good. What is the biggest “I’m so glad I took that risk” story of your life? I am so glad I did that. When you’re 84 years old, sitting in your rocking chair, and you can’t do anything but think you got a bucket and I’m so glad I did bucket here. What’s your biggest, “I’m so glad I did?”

This is probably one of those questions where you have my answer better than I do or something. All a long life, everything’s a risk. Having kids is a risk. It can be a risk. You don’t know what you’re doing. This parenting and all the decisions you make as a parent are a risk. You don’t know how it’s going to turn out in the long run. There are so many things along the way. I’m not sure. Do you have a specific thing?

Becoming a realtor or moving to a new city. All these things are things that can drastically change your life, but they’ve all been part of the journey and part of the story that got us to where we are and made us grateful for where we are in our lives. We have green kids and the kids live near us and we have a wonderful family even at a distance.

You never could have written this out. You just took the journey. You lived the journey. What I’m picking up, if I’m writing notes down, you found peace in your journey. You’re so glad you took the journey that you took. There are a lot of peaks and valleys, staying in the valley and on top. Most of the time, we’re not on top. We’re either in the valley or just so-so. The journey is you just got to keep going because of success. It’s not a journey. It’s a destiny. Success is not a destination. It’s a journey.

Brain Programming

As humans, we want to come to the end of something. The end is when we die. Why do you want to do that? Why can’t we get better? If you’re 0 to 105 years old, you can get better, but you’ve got to wake up and be very intentional with that. The intentional with your time and with your brain. What are you watching? Who are you hanging around? What do you want to become? Don’t go back and figure out how do I become that person because God’s given us the most powerful thing in the universe is called our brain. What are you doing about programming your brain?

I listened to a sermon, and they talked about being happy, energetic, and motivated when you start something. When you finish it, you’re all excited because you completed it. You’re happy then, too, but it’s the in-between part. Nobody wants to stay with that same mindset throughout because that’s the hard part. You don’t get to the other side unless you go through it.

Try to remember in the middle that we still have a lot to be grateful for and that mindset. I can fall into that negative mindset real easy sometimes but stopping then recognizing what there is to be grateful. Recognizing that I’m grateful that I even have this issue to deal with and I can deal with it is something that I work on.

I heard you say, if somebody’s taking notes here, I’m going to grow through it instead of grown.

There you go. Perfect.

That’s what I heard you say. When your little speaks valleys of life, you’ve got to grow through that because I’m going to grow every day. It doesn’t matter if I’m up here or down here or wherever. I love when Trent says, “I don’t get too high or I don’t get too old. I just try to stay in the middle of the road.” He got that from you. He didn’t get that from me, nor did you get it from his Papal Taylor and his uncle Roy. Don’t get too high. Don’t get too low. Get better. We don’t control that. We don’t control the circumstances around us, but we do control our heart, spirit, confidence, and boldness to say, “I can get better.” After that, the magic will happen for you.

What’s in your control? Let’s focus on that.

Advice To Younger Self

What would you tell your 21-year-old self? That’s the age you were when we got married. Don’t say, “I wish I wouldn’t have married you.”

I would not say that. I would tell my 21-year-old self that you are enough. I spent a lot of time trying to fit in. It was my life growing up, too. You were moving every year, so you’re having to try to fit in everywhere. A lot of my thought processes were stuck in that mode of fitting in everywhere you go instead of being who you are. God’s equipped us with what we need in order to succeed. Be confident in that. I can still battle with that.

What you said, you can still battle with that win in the present. It’s ongoing thing. The biggest thing that we all deal with is unworthiness. What you're saying is that we all deal with it. We’re dealing with them. We’re all dealing with it. You’ve got to attack it with being grateful. Once you think about all the things you’re grateful for, you’ll always have enough. If you always think about what you don’t have, you’ll never have it.

If someone’s taking a note down, that could be someone’s domino effect. Be grateful. Go study the word gratitude. Get a gratitude journal. I have 97 things in my daily prayer that I go through. Ninety-seven things that I’m grateful for. Years ago, I couldn’t come up with one thing I was grateful for. I got to be perfect. I’ve got to be perfect or I’m a loser, which is unworthy.

There are so many things that all throughout the day, it can help you to go and throw, “What are you grateful for?” That thing. We have working computers in our house. Halleluiah. We can be grateful for that. There are so many things that not everybody has.

I’m not grateful now because I’m starting to get over it. I had this thing set up to do it a certain way and you came in and changed it. I’m still working through my emotions on that. I lost again.

We got to talk to each other and we were going to be beside each other. I didn’t know how that was going to work in my mind.

You do you. I’m very welcoming to my guests. I’m going to be very patient.

Thank you.

That could be my domino effect.

You’re inspiring me.

I know, be patient. You said, what would you tell your 21-year-old self? You’re struggling with your identity and your worthiness. Here comes a person along and they give you patience. There are four psychological factors that Jerry gave to you to be understood, validated, appreciated, and affirmed. When you’re a patient, you give a person those four psychological factors that every human needs. God hasn’t changed the ways he’s made people.

Inspirational leaders who are reading, if you want to inspire someone, you have to give them psychological safety. Make sure you listen to understand, validate them, appreciate them, and affirm them as a person because that’s what Jerry did for you. He did that by being patient and interested in what you were doing, even though he didn’t even like what you were doing.

It’s okay, but you’re giving a tick because you’re trying to understand that person. I’ve got a client now, and he’s struggling with his 22-year-old son. His 22-year-old son told him in a roundabout way, “Dad, you just don’t understand me.” His dad is being very aggressive with him, trying to fix his problems because he’s got some issues going on. He told him, “Understand who I am, dad.” He’s got to slow down, stop, and focus on that. What does that mean? That takes time.

It’s a process. That’s relationship right there.

It’s relationships. Last question here. What is your winning edge or what’s your special sauce? What makes the mixture tick? What makes you a great wife, grandmother, real estate, bodybuilder, fitness competitor, grandma, and real estate guru?

It goes back to that, we’re both competitive people. I might get frustrated, but I don’t give up. I do want to conquer whatever is in front of me. I might get sidetracked by an attitude or frustration, but I’m not going to quit. I’m not going to give up on it. I’m a team player. I’m in it to the end. These are things that will help make a marriage last, will help make any relationship last no matter what you have going on. If it’s a parent, a child, husband, wife, or a friend. I don’t easily just throw my hands up and quit.

If you’ve been married to me for many years and we’ve known each other for 40 years, you don’t give up because you’ll throat punch me. That’s your famous line, “If you don’t shut up, I’ll throat punch you.” the back story to that, many years ago, when I met you, they were calling you Mohammed Mickey because you whipped some girl.

I don’t start fights.

I know you didn’t start it. She got in your space or touched you and you laid her out long than anyone.

Thanks for sharing that.

Don’t give up. There’s been a lot of nuggets dropped. If you had one thing to tell someone that if you want to inspire another person, what would that be?

I’m going to say take the time to stop and get to know them and what inspires them. What is it that’s neat because we all need different things? If we try to lead in a way that is your style but not their style, it’s probably not going to work out so great. Getting to know the person and figuring out their style then lead in that way.

I have classes and seminars on stop. You can’t get someone to trust you and inspire them until you stop.

Relationships take time. They take some digging. Without a relationship at all, it’s probably going to be hard to lead someone.

One of the things that I fell in love with you that you had tons of relationships of all diverse people. I was stuck in a relationship with athletes because I didn’t understand other people. I understand an athlete, but you made me uncomfortable getting out of my safe zone of the athletic world to go into a different world. It’s like your dad said, “Your talent is,” what’s that word he used? It slipped my mind.

Charm.

That’s what I saw in you. You charmed them. You had all these friends, which made me jealous because you had a lot of friends, both men and boys. That made me jealous. I had to learn how to get over jealousy. You taught me that and you taught me how to spend time on people. I give you the claim to men. You taught me about relationships. You and Mark Davis taught me about how important relationships are because it’s not about what I can do is how I can help another person.

Now, I can’t get you to walk away from places. You’re there shutting down the business because you’re spending time on people.

You’ve made me obsessed. I’m obsessed with the person. You taught me a different skill set. We all got a gift inside of it. We’ve all been created to inspire people. You don’t need a title to be a leader. You don’t need a title to be an inspirational leader and to change someone’s course in their life. You just need to stop and spend time on people. It’s been a great session. Ms. Mickey, thank you. I love you. There’s a lot of nuggets laid out there. I hope you got three. Everybody that’s reading, you three nuggets. Now, the big challenge, can you find that up into one domino that can knock the rest of the issues down?

That one domino, it’s the action of power. As a COO, train me. You’ve got to figure out the most powerful things to do, the most impactful things to do. If you can figure that out, you’ll make more money. If you can’t, you’ll spend around like a battling top and get kicked out. You’ll never like me again because I never told you what to do. Thank you for joining us on the show. Go inspire someone to do something that they’re not willing to do by themselves. Thank you, Ms. Mickey Taylor. You’re awesome.

Thank you, husband.

Good job. Thank you, all.