Val Jones  0:01  
How do you know what's behind you? Right? How do you know if your partners and your teammates are fatigued or bored or injured? And so it just dawned on me. That is the most beautiful representation of leadership. And I learned it from a sled dog.

kevin edwards  0:18  
You are listening to the real leaders podcast where leaders keep it real. I'm your host, Kevin Edwards, and that philosophy was presented by Val Jones, former professional figure skater turned a leadership coach who shares how to lead from behind. In today's episode, Jones shares the pains and gains of her figure skating career. How incremental steps lead to big advancements, and why mushers are exemplary leaders too. So without further ado, ladies and gentlemen, please give it up for the real Val Jones. Enjoy. Okay, we are live in 5432 and one and welcome, everyone, to this episode of the real leaders podcast. I'm your host, Kevin Edwards here today to talk about leading from behind his former professional figure skater, leadership consultant, keynote speaker and author is Ms.Val Jones. Valid thanks being with us today.

Val Jones  1:29  
Kevin, thanks for having me on the show today.

kevin edwards  1:31  
Absolutely. Well, before we go into the episode, last time we spoke you were going in for surgery. What's going on with you? I'm glad you're okay. Now, what's the update?

Val Jones  1:42  
Well, nobody told me when I started skating at five or six years old that ice was hard and it would have consequences. So I've had a total of eight surgeries in nine years. And I've had three in 90 days. And I don't know if I would recommend that to anybody. But I'm doing well. Thank you for asking. And I'm now the bionic woman.

kevin edwards  2:06  
I love it. I love it. Now figure skating. Used to watch it. You know, let's just say I'm a fan of the Olympics. Okay, so I'm aware of what a triple Lutz is. What were some of the moves that you liked to do and what were some of the moves that you maybe couldn't pull off.

Val Jones  2:26  
Well, I loved all of the jumps and figure skating has a component called the compulsory figures where you trace patterns on the ice over and over again, I found that to be quite boring. I loved skating as fast as I possibly could. And jumping as high and as far and as fast. The double axle was especially fun as it is the only jump that you enter into going forwards. The triple Latham it's funny that you know that's a good on you. That one probably is a little bit of a stickler for me. That is the jump I was training when I hurt my knee and it effectively ended my competition career. So

kevin edwards  3:17  
that's, that's like it for a lot of figure skaters. Right? It just takes one time to attempt an incredible trick that not that many human beings have ever landed before. And there it goes, right?

Val Jones  3:31  
It does. And it's amazing how far and fast figure skating has evolved. In 1976, Dorothy Hamill won her Olympic gold medal with a double axle, which I was doing about four or five years later at the age of 10 or 11. And now these kids are doing quadruple jumps. And I've even seen seen video of them training quints. So it's, you know, they're the thing that I love about the Olympics. And I bet I would wager This is why you love them too and why people love them is it is so interesting to watch how far the human body and the human spirit can be pushed.

kevin edwards  4:17  
No, absolutely. Now speaking of the discipline it takes to become a figure skater. What was it like growing up? What how many hours were you putting in a day to reach your goals and what were your goals?

Val Jones  4:34  
So I trained about six hours a day, six days a week, that would be three hours in the morning. And then I would go to school and then I would come back and skate three hours in the afternoon and that was just on ice training. There was other off ice training as well. And I did that Yeah, every day. Sunday's were my day off was my rest day and you know when I saw Dorothy in the 76 Olympics, I was like, wow, I want to skate for my country too. And it takes a lot. You know, what you see on TV is thousands of hours of practice. And, you know, I don't know, Kevin, if if Malcolm Gladwell, his theory on 10,000 hours to perfect something is right. But I can tell you, I probably failed 10,000 times before I ever landed on my feet.

kevin edwards  5:31  
So what does that do for you, as someone growing up with that amount of strict discipline to achieve something? Now, I'm sure a lot of us have friends that are like this. I certainly have a basketball player trying to get into the NBA right now. He was very much of the same. What does that do for someone growing up in terms of the mindset you have to have to apply to your everyday career, especially after you leave this sport?

Val Jones  6:00  
You know, children in sports is a very controversial topic I think it's become. And I was fortunate, I had great parents. They didn't force me to skate. It is where I wanted to be. And I think the discipline I think when when you're in alignment with what is truly in your soul, the discipline comes easy. And there is no place on earth that I wanted to be except on ice. And I was willing to sacrifice quite a bit for that dream. And so while it seems hard, and, and yes, none of my other friends unless they were skating friends were doing the same. It was a sacrifice that I was willing to make for that greater goal. I'm sacrificing friends or school, high school dating games parties. That seems like an easy sacrifice for my goal of competing for my country. So I think it was a combination is it was inherent with me. And I had great parents. I came on the youngest of seven. We were all very competitive. We were all very athletic. All of us kids played sports, you know, quite honestly, Kevin. I don't know how my parents did it just running from ballpark to ice rink to ballpark I mean, I, I just I really lucked out.

kevin edwards  7:28  
Parents don't get appreciated enough for their involvement in children's sports and their overall lives as well. So shout out to all the great parents out there. Mom, if you're listening, thank you. Now, let's let's stay on the timeline here. You just mentioned, tried the triple axel. It didn't go well, what happened at that moment? And what was the injury, what did the doctor say? What are your thoughts immediately after that injury?

Val Jones  7:59  
Well, again, ice is hard. And I had been injured before it that was not anything new to me. But on that particular day on that particular jump, something felt different, the pain was much worse. And I thought oh, it'll just be like all of my, my other injuries. Maybe I'll be in a in a boot or a cast. And we'll have to be off the ice for six weeks. And then I'll have to do physical therapy. It never dawned on me that I would have a moment where the doctor came in and is like, Hmm, I don't think you should ever skate again. And because that never entered my mind. And so it was without being overdramatic. It was like a death. Everything I had dreamed of everything I had worked. I had calculated a few years ago that I had trained up to that point, over 36,000 hours. And so it was a death. It was a it was the death of a dream. It was I don't think what what people understand is when you are that heavily involved, and you sacrifice so much. Being a skater wasn't what I did. It was who I who I was. And so I identified with that. And so it brought up a whole bunch of like, Who am I now what am I going to do with my life now? I mean, I literally hadn't. I had nothing outside of skating to fall back on. Right and so that was a very, very scary time for me.

kevin edwards  9:36  
Now, there's another move and double is finger scanning called the death spiral. Yes. And for people listening out there, it's not that anyone has ever died from it's that the other partner is holding someone that looks like they're dead now. You just said it was like death to you. Was there someone that was helping you back up? or How did you get out of this? This mindset of uncertainty

Val Jones  10:02  
You know, the the situation presented not favorably for me. And five years prior to that event, I had lost my dad to a massive heart attack. And that was very tragic for me. And don't get me wrong, I love my mom. But my dad was my person. And so that was very difficult. being the youngest of seven, all my brothers and sisters were grown and gone. So I didn't have that. I didn't interact with the kids at school, because they just didn't get me. You know, they wanted to go out and party and have fun and hang out. And I was like, whoo, I want to go back to the rink and train. So I didn't have that collective group of friends. And then all of a sudden, the only friends that I had in skating in those were gone to so I'm going to be dead honest, I struggled for a long time. And I did not handle and I was 18. But I was not a mature 18 year old. And, you know, I didn't handle it well, and I had some really bad coping mechanisms. And it's taken me a long time to find my way out on to the other side. Having said that, it is a process and without being a bible thumper, so whatever your audience believes in, if you believe in something, you have to believe that all things happen for a reason. And I just couldn't imagine, at 18, how skating would be played out today, I couldn't have even imagined it.

kevin edwards  11:48  
Now that I don't think there's any shame in kind of what you just said at all. In fact, I think that's the thing that doesn't get talked about enough. Think people see people like yourself or successful entrepreneurs, or successful athletes that say, they've never had a hard time in their life, what were some of the things that you were going through? What were some of your coping mechanisms? What can you say to people listening out there that can really help them?

Val Jones  12:11  
Well, I would definitely say get a team around you. And, and form relationships with people who may have been in that same position before, I had nobody. And so I was forging the path by myself. So that was very difficult. So if anybody were to find themselves, there are resources out there now that weren't there 35,40 years ago, and to help you so I would say Get, get a good team of people around you. And I think the other thing I would tell people is that you have to understand that what happens to you in life, even though sometimes it's really, really bad. It's an event. It's not a description. And it's definitely not a label. And I didn't know that at that time, either. And so I fought really hard for a really long time. And it was it, you know, honestly, Kevin, I was given a chance that most people weren't, I got a chance to, out of that injury. And out of that loss, came a chance for me to redefine who I was, and who I was to become. I got it, I got a clean slate. And I could start over again: Who are you going to be now? And I really drew upon a lot of the competitiveness that that is already in me to get me on the other side. And I'm still a competitor. I'm just old and broken.

kevin edwards  14:03  
Not at all, not at all. No,

Val Jones  14:05  
not anymore. I'm fixed. 

kevin edwards  14:07  
exactly. No, It's an incredible story about and I just appreciate you sharing that now. fulfillment sometimes is an inside out game, when you are young, and you are chasing your dreams to be something to represent your country to wear the flag around your shoulders and have a metal hang over you. That's something that is an external validation for maybe who you want to become. But fulfillment often comes from the inside. What were some things that you learned to train your mind to believe in yourself again?

Val Jones  14:41  
Well, I think it started with, you know, taking that very first step. And at the encouragement of my mom, I had just graduated from high school. And let's be honest, I wasn't a bad student. But I did just enough. God I hope my mom's not listening. Just enough to get good enough grades to keep my parents happy so that I could skate right? And so I wasn't a scholar at all, college was never on the horizon. And my mom's like, Well, why don't you just take some classes and and until you can figure out what you're going to do with your life. So I took that competitive spirit, and I enrolled in college, and four years later, I did get my degree. And I found myself having to, to fight for that, because I thought, you know, college just wasn't, it was a hard, it was hard for me. I didn't really I realized I didn't have any study skills, and probably until about my senior year. So taking that first step, and I, I feel like people find themselves on the side of pain, disappointment, heartache, taking that very first step. It is sometimes just, it's, it's the hardest, it is the hardest, and it feels like it's gonna kill you. But if you can make it through that, and then you just take another small step. And soon you just keep taking these small steps. And after a while, you understand it adds up to miles. And I never thought in 1988, that I would be a college graduate. But I did. And so when you find yourself, and Tony Robbins says, Take action, take massive action. And I say and I love Tony, and I say it doesn't have to be massive action, take the smallest step forward. It's still a step forward. Right?

kevin edwards  16:46  
Right, these incremental changes, these incremental stats, they add up, they do. And I think you also probably knew that from putting in so many hours in the day, right? So okay, so let's stick with a timeline here, where we just graduated college, what is the next step after this, this a commencement.

Val Jones  17:06  
And well, I met a boy. And Bobby was cute. And two years later, we were married. And we've been married for 26 years. So I kind of followed the, you know, I graduated, we got married, we bought a house. And I had two children. And within that place for a really long time, until 2007, which is when I founded an international fitness, hoopla called CrossFit, you may have heard of it. And I loved CrossFit, it, it allowed me to still be an athlete and allowed me to still be a competitor. Even though now I understand that, you know, I'm really only competing against the girl that I was yesterday, I'm trying to be her, even though my face looks angry. And, and I may give you a dirty look, I'm actually not looking at you. It's just I'm trying to be better than than her. And so I got my coaching credential, and I spent more than a decade coaching, CrossFit and really found my passion for coaching people, and bringing out the best in them, even when they tell me all the reasons why they can't do it, they shouldn't do it, they wouldn't ever be able to do it. And I saw in them potential. And I loved that moment. When they did Kevin, they did the thing that six months ago, they said that they wouldn't ever be able to do that moment is is magical. I mean, we jump up and down, we laugh, we cry, we have we high five. And in really, it's not that I did anything, they did all the hard work. All I did was provided in an environment for them to search out their inner champion and their inner peak performance, whatever that was for that person. It was already in them. They just had to have an arena to bring that out to try, to fail, because it's okay to fail. In fact, there isn't such a thing as failure, there is only feedback. And every time my butt hit the ice, it wasn't failure. It was feedback. Did I not jump high enough? Did I not rotate quick enough was one of my you know, if your shoulders are off and you're rotating three times in the air, the athlete the figure skater will be 1% off access and you know what happens? gravity. So providing that for these people that I worked with and allowing them to explore, what is really inside of me? And how can I be better? And I loved how it transferred people would my athletes would come back and say, Oh my god, you're not gonna believe that I, I got up in front of my company and did a presentation or I launched my side hustle in it, it was filtering out into their real world. And I finally understood, my coach told me years ago, when I was teeny, teeny, tiny. I only succeed when you succeed. And now as a coach, I get that I only succeed when they succeed. And so that kind of brings you up to Yeah, recent. Do you

kevin edwards  20:40  
think that's a problem that many business owners struggle with? is one, the environment like you talked about creating an environment of engaged employees that embrace a culture of feedback and not failure? Do you think that's a problem that a lot of business owners struggle with, and what would maybe be some pieces of advice that you would give to ones that are trying to get their employees engaged?

Val Jones  21:06  
So I think, yeah, providing a safe environment for them to do do that. And I often think about, like, Are people really scared of failing? Or are they scared of other people seeing them fail? Look, when I stepped out onto the ice in front of 10,000 people, and I had 10,000 eyes watching me, and I fell, there wasn't any escaping that, what do you do? You get up and you go again, and you continue on the path. And so I think, providing a culture in which you know what, we're going to try this in there, and outwardly saying, there isn't such a thing as failure in this company. In this organization, there is only feedback.

kevin edwards  22:00  
That's powerful. You know, even starting a podcast, I can totally relate, what are my friends gonna think of me, can I do good. Can I actually keep this up? The mind games people play with themselves is just beyond me. How does someone get past that? How did you get past that as a figure skater warming up? before you're about to take the rink? What were some things that you would think about to stay focused on the job ahead.

Val Jones  22:29  
So at the risk of bragging, I competed against some of the big names that you and your and your audience have heard of, I competed against Kristi Yamaguchi and Tonya Harding. And they are fierce competitors. Here's what I told myself, I, I think that there's a difference between being cocky, which says I can just show up, I haven't done the work. And I'm still going to win versus confidence, which says, I know I've put in the hours, I know I've done the theoretical reps. And I know that when I do my best, my best is good enough. But here's the catch. Even when you do your best, you cannot control the outcome. And that's when Tonya lost it, Kevin. She lost control, not control over other people, but control over yourself over your attitude over your work ethic, over the outcome. You cannot even when you give your best, you cannot control the outcome. And I think that's where she lost it. She lost control or somebody in her group lost control. So it is it is training, to not give in to the pain, but just adjust to the pain knowing that the pain comes and that can be a physical pain or it could be spiritual mental. Right? pain comes in all different ways.

kevin edwards  24:08  
I totally agree. Totally agree. And I'm a big sports analogy person. And oftentimes when a teammates having a bad game, you can tell something's going on at home, in their personal life.

Val Jones  24:22  
Yeah. 

kevin edwards  24:23  
How does your off court experiences affect your on court performance, whether you're in business sports or even a scientist?

Val Jones  24:34  
Well, I think I think sometimes compartmentalizing, it is a great thing to possess, knowing that what I do so for figure skating and really, no matter what sport you play, it doesn't matter what you did 10,000 times before, that four and a half minutes that I skated. And it didn't really matter the 10,000 hours after it only mattered when you're in it. And so showing up bringing your A game, and, and honestly, I feel like the difference between a gold medal and a silver metal is what is between the six inches of yours it is that mental toughness, showing up saying I have a job to do and I'm going to execute it. And I know my again, it comes back to that confidence piece. I know I've trained. I know I put in the reps. And if I execute, I know it will be good enough. So I think compartmentalizing and trying to just focus in and show up in that moment, is super important. And I think that goes for sports, if you're an entrepreneur, if you're a CEO, if you're a mom. It applies everything.

kevin edwards  25:56  
Exactly. We're all human at the end of the day, that's for sure. Now, we mentioned a little bit before the show, we're just talking about your leadership philosophy. You talked a little bit about creating an environment that embraces feedback and not failure. What is your philosophy on leading from behind? And how can a business owner incorporate it into their organization today?

Val Jones  26:25  
Yes, thank you. And this is a I love this story. This is a true story. My husband and I were on a dog sledding team. And as we were getting ready, the head musher, he said he was prepping us for the ride and he said okay, he said first and foremost, as as the lead musher you have to know all of your dogs very intimately. You have to know, what are their strengths? What are their weaknesses, what cues, you know, verbal cues, are they food driven, and, you know, are they prey driven, but you all the things about the animals. And then he goes on, he said there is a very strategic placing of a dog sled team, six dogs, two, two and two. He says the first two are your lead dogs, they are the smartest, they can find the path easily. And they are also most accepting of direction from the musher. And then he pauses. And then he says the next two dogs, those are your swing dogs or your pace dogs. They know each other very well. And they know the route and the trail and they know when to speed ahead, say for an incline and when to pull back. Now in a race, you know, if you come out of the gate at full speed, it's very unlikely that you're going to be able to maintain that speed the whole ride. So knowing when to slow down and those pace dogs know each other well enough so that they know Okay, oh so and so is his hurt, maybe we need to slow down. And then he goes on and the last two dogs are your strength dogs. They pull the most weight. They're the brute dogs. They're they're usually the bigger dogs. And so he told me, he's like okay, so as you're coming up on to an incline, if you do not get off and hop off the sled and run with the team coming up an incline, your strength dogs will look back at you and give you a dirty look. Well, I chuckled because I thought that I mean, I had no I didn't know this man. I didn't know if he was joking or not. And so I thought, well, that's really interesting. So we go and now it's my turn on, on the sled. And we approach an incline. And I thought, well, I'm gonna test this little theory now. I'm not a big person. I'm five feet tall and I'll only claim to be 100 and something pounds. Right? I mean that literally the dog weighs more than me. Okay, so I thought I'm just gonna test this theory. And sure enough, my left dog my male dog his name was Kenai. He looks back at me and Kevin, you know that saying If looks could kill right? I would have been dead. He gives me the dirtiest look and I was torn between just laughing so hard or or jumping off and running like I was, you know, the same bolt. Well, you can guess what I did. I I got off and I ran. But on the way home, it dawned on me. This is a leadership moment.

Because He further went and said the most important that the most important person on the whole sled team is the musher. And the musher has to be in the back and lead from behind so that he can watch all of his animals. And he watches for fatigue, boredom, injury, when they have to go potty because you don't want to be hauling butt at 35 miles an hour and have things flying at you. So he has to know, if his dogs show any signs of fatigue, boredom or injury, he has to switch them out so that you can finish the race. And I thought that is a leader. That is being a leader, the most important person on the team is the musher. And so when I think about a CEO or or the leader of an organization, and we've all heard, right, we've been in the hallways of of companies where they talk about we have to lead from the front lead from the front. And I don't think leading from the front is a bad thing. If you're leading from the front, as far as work ethic, or or attitude, but if you're leading from the front, how do you know what's behind you? Right? How do you know if your partners and your teammates are fatigued or bored or injured? And so it just dawned on me, that is the most beautiful representation of leadership. And I learned it from a sled dog.

kevin edwards  31:31  
Right, exactly. I love it. No, I love it. You explain that to us earlier. Now. It's just like, this is probably one of the clearest examples. I've heard of how to lead from behind. I think it's great. Now how do we replicate this in the business setting? You know, many leaders will come on the show. And they'll talk about articulating a vision. Certainly you can articulate a vision from behind. But it's more about the day to day and maybe how you're treating people and how you're Are you noticing that one is getting a little bit slower? Are you noticing ones injured today? What are some things that business owners listening to this can do to replicate this mindset of leading from behind?

Val Jones  32:10  
Well, I would start off with the first thing that the Messer said is knowing your team intimately. Do you know what makes them tick? Do you know what their trigger points are? Do you know what motivates and inspires people? Do you know what they're passionate about what they're not passionate about? Not just what their skills are. But them as as a human and as a as I developed my own athletes as a CrossFit instructor. And as my coaches were developing me to compete in the Olympics, you can't just train the athletic portion of somebody. At the root of all of us we're human. And so you can't just develop the sexy skills and everybody wants the sexy skills. But if you're not addressing those human qualities, I think you're missing on something you are missing. And so getting to know your team intimately on a personal level, and some of my coaching cues, my verbal coaching cues, did not resonate with each person. Like my athlete, Susan, if I even raised my voice to her, she would completely crumble. I couldn't yell at her because that is not what inspired her versus my other athlete Alan who's who was a retired Marine and he'd be like, don't come over here with that cheerleading crap Val, you know, I had to, I don't know if cursing is allowed on your show. But I had to curse at him because that is what resonated with him. So getting to know your your employees on a very human level. I worked with a company. Charlotte was the controller. She had gone to college, she had the degree she had the certifications. She was miserable. I said what do you what do you want to do? What? Like if time and money weren't an issue? What would you be doing? She's like, I really love marketing. I just think it's so much fun. At the time, that organization did not have a necessarily formulated marketing division or a marketing plan. They didn't have marketing funnels or anything. And so we we negotiated with, with her bosses and said, you know, what would it look look like if she was able to keep up with her controller staff for her to try out this marketing stuff. And we got them to agree. And you know what? They had like a 36% increase in sales. Their company took off. They ended up hiring another controller and now Charlotte was the head of this marketing department. And it was only because I asked, What do you want to do? What inspires you? What? What gets you excited to get out of bed on a Monday morning? You just got to ask. 

kevin edwards  35:15  
Finding what your employees are most interested in what they're passionate about will increase their engagement, increase your productivity, increase your bottom line, it's simple concept. They wonder why it's so difficult sometimes to figure that out. But what's let's talk about some challenges right now. Yeah, might be a little bit easier to lead somebody in person. Right now we're speaking virtually. And I've done my fair share of podcasts. But for people that are trying to lead a team right now virtually get to know their staff, get to know what they're going through, it's just a little bit harder, it's an extra barrier, that's in the way, what's a piece of advice you would give to employers that are trying to improve their leadership skills, virtually,

Val Jones  35:58  
you know, sometimes it's okay to chuck out the agenda. And if you can make time and space, yes, you have to do it virtually. But sit around the proverbial table, the virtual table. And a game I often like to play is everybody has to go around. And it's called two truths and a lie. And so every person has to tell two things that are true about themselves, and one lie, and then everybody else votes on it. And you really get to know your teammates. Well, now I usually win that one. Because what would seem to be a lie for me is I don't know how to ride a bike. I am the only human I think that could at one point in time, execute triple jumps that does not know how to ride a bike. And so yeah, that's, you know, that's a little nugget that nobody knew about me. And so I think, if you can make time and space in your week, to throw out the agenda, to throw out the to do's to, to throw out all of the plans and, and everything and just get to know each other. Like, really, if you have a leadership team of 10, it would take maybe 20 minutes to do that exercise.

kevin edwards  37:17  
Valid. It's pretty unfortunate. You can't ride a bike, because that's one of my favorite philosophies to tell people. It's all it's just like riding the bike, but I guess

Val Jones  37:26  
Yeah, I crash and burn. 

kevin edwards  37:29  
Interesting. I didn't know that. Yeah. Wow. Well, Val, now what about you mentioned if time and money wasn't a thing? What would you be doing? I think that's an interesting question. that a lot of people have not asked themselves yet. Yeah, if time and money wasn't an issue. What would you be doing? Why is that an important question that you lead with for all of your your clients?

Val Jones  37:52  
Well, because just a little while ago, you asked me and I get asked often, so often Val, How did you train that hard for that long? And my answer was, when you find something that is congruent with your heart and soul, the discipline comes easy. And so I'm going to regurgitate that I asked that if time and money weren't an issue, what would you be doing? Because if it is congruent with their heart, and with their passion, all the other stuff becomes easy. When you have when you have the why the how becomes tolerable. And for that, you know, you said you had a friend who was an athlete, like you don't know, like muscle, not muscle fatigue, muscle failure, like it hurts. And you can tolerate that, how, if you know the why. And so everything kind of comes in this full circle.

kevin edwards  38:51  
So that what's next for you now, for people listening to this, you are hearing it for the first time? What type of clients? Are you looking to work with? What is next on your agenda? And how are you incorporating the philosophy of leading from behind?

Val Jones  39:07  
I would love to work with more companies, more organizations, more leadership teams, who are ready to rise to the next level of performance. What I have coming up next is my book, and which is titled sharpen your edge, which is a nod to my skating is released November 21. And so I'm super excited about that. And it took me three years to write this book. And I'm just super excited about it, Kevin, because I approach everything when I speak, when I consult when I coach and I think about the one and the one for me is the one person who finds themselves in pain. disappointment and heartbreak. Now, I don't think that somebody is going to find themselves in exactly my same situation. But in humanity, pain, disappointment, heartbreak, those run through humanity. So for the one person who is there, and like me didn't know what to do, or where to go, or how to do it, I hope there is something in my book that will give them the courage to take that one teeny, tiny step forward and move into this new life. And it may be a life they had never anticipated.

kevin edwards  40:40  
It's an incredible message. I'm sure it's going to be an incredible lead at a great time for this to come out as well, when many people are going through uncertainty and having to look in inwards versus outwards as well. Val, it's been a pleasure having you on the show. We've talked about a lot today. Last thing I want you to do is bring this home, what is your definition of a real leader?

Val Jones  41:03  
My definition of a real leader is putting other people's successes before your own. It's what I said. They only succeed when I succeed. So if you develop and pour into your team, I will guarantee you the reward will come back to you. It will come back to you. 

kevin edwards  41:28  
Well said now, spot on. Appreciate your time. I'm so happy you're able to get this going happy though all the surgeries went well, since we last spoke. Glad you're doing well. Best of luck with the book. For Val Jones. I'm Kevin our is asking you to go out there put other people's success ahead of your own and always folks, keep it real. Thanks Val. Take care.

Val Jones  41:49  
Thanks.

kevin edwards  41:50  
nd thank you good people for hanging on to this episode of the real leaders podcast with Val Jones. We just hope you enjoyed it as much as a we did. Also, Val Jones was recorded live on crowdcast. And you didn't watch it. You could have you could have stuck on to ask her questions of your own, got in touch with their gutter email, connect with her on LinkedIn connect with me on LinkedIn, but she didn't do it. All you got to do is click the link in the bio folks that will take you to this episode where you can rewatch this interview with Val and your email will be captured by us to make sure that you are notified of upcoming episodes with more real leaders. It's a great opportunity. And best of all, folks. It's free. I know why we're doing it. Why is it free? I know next year it's not going to be do it now folks do it now. Before it's too late. Also, please leave us a review. Please leave us a review. leave us a review. leave us a review. Scroll to the bottom leave us a review. Folks, leave us review. Alright, that's it for me. Thanks for being a real leader and always keep it real.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai