Liz Forkin Bohannon is an entrepreneur who has been through all kinds of ups and downs in her ten year journey as Co-Founder and CEO of Sseko Designs, and she isn’t afraid to talk about the roller coaster nature of leadership.
Liz opens up about the self-talk she embraces to get through the set backs she’s faced, why she thinks following your dreams and finding your passion are lies, what she learned from Seth Godin and why she thinks many young leaders feel paralyzed by the options they face.
Welcome to Episode 315 of the podcast. Listen and access the show notes below or search for the Carey Nieuwhof Leadership Podcast on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts and listen for free.
Guest Links
Instagram | Facebook | Twitter | Website | Sseko Designs
Episode Links
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Ministry Grid
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For the month of January, you can go to MinistryGrid.com/Carey and access these brand new courses for FREE. These courses cover common leadership challenges and how you can overcome these leadership obstacles in your church, ministry, or organization. And, if you complete any of the courses on Ministry Grid, their team will send you a copy of my latest book, Didn’t See It Coming, for FREE. There are no strings attached.
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CONVERSATION LINKS
Beginners Pluck by Liz Forkin Bohannon
3 Insights from Liz
1. Vulnerability is difficult but worth it
One of Liz’s many strengths is her ability to relate to people through her speaking and writing by being open and vulnerable about her failures and struggles. This doesn’t come naturally to most people, including her. But she has learned that acting like everything has always been great and only talking about your successes doesn’t help anyone.
When you talk about your business like you never struggle and people hear what you are saying, they begin to think, “Oh, she never had hard seasons, and it was always up and to the right? I must be a massive failure.” Liz never wants to be the reason that someone feels this way.
2. When you don’t believe you matter, you don’t believe anyone else does either
One of the most convicting realizations Liz has come to over her professional career is that when she doesn’t see herself as inherently valuable, she doesn’t think that anyone else is either. And when Liz’s life work is to help women in extreme poverty have a better life, she needs to be able to see people’s inherent value.
As she began to realize that she didn’t value herself or anyone else, she realized that she was walking around guarded and letting people determine how she saw them as valuable. She learned to kill this early on in her career, and now she sees the true value that people have within themselves, and she’ll share that message of inherent value with everyone she meets.
3. The narrative of “Go find your passion” is doing more harm than good
Liz has banned the word “luck” from her company’s success stories when they are telling other women how they succeeded. Whenever a women attributes her success to luck, that does zero good for those listening. All the people listening think, “Oh, I guess I just have to wait until I get lucky, too.”
But the reality of these women’s stories is that they worked hard, applied leadership principles, and fought for the success that they have achieved. Liz calls these individuals “plucky” rather than “lucky” because pluck implies “spirited and determined courage,” and that is exactly what it took for those individuals to succeed.
Quotes from Episode 315
You do not need to be extraordinary to build an extraordinary life. @lizbohannon Click To Tweet Constraint on resources is actually a good thing for an organization. @lizbohannon Click To Tweet Every dollar that you spend is a vote for how you want the world to work. @lizbohannon Click To Tweet If you are trying to do something difficult in the world, you're going to face criticism. @lizbohannon Click To Tweet You can only ask so much of volunteers. @lizbohannon Click To Tweet All the structure can come later. What we need to see right now is, 'Can it work?' @lizbohannon Click To Tweet Go first in the hard things, and show people the way. @lizbohannon Click To Tweet When we lean into the things that aren't necessarily natural for us, that is really transformational. @lizbohannon Click To Tweet In the beginning, it's not going to be perfect. @lizbohannon Click To TweetRead or Download the Transcript for Episode 315
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Read or download a free PDF transcript of this episode here.
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Next Episode: John Mark Comer
John Mark Comer has become one of Amerca’s foremost voices on post-Christian culture. In this interview, we talk about how the culture is changing, what salvation looks like when you remove religion and faith, and how leading a large church caused John Mark to embark on a radical re-orientation of his life, centered on the ruthless eliminiation of hurry.
Subscribe for free now and you won’t miss Episode 316.
