Wisdom from the Wild with Julie Henry

Below is an auto-generated transcription of my conversation with Julie Henry. Because this is auto-generated there are likely some grammatical errors but it is still a useful tool to search text within this podcast episode.

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Introduction

Brandon Burton 0:00
This is the Chamber Chat Podcast, the show dedicated to chamber professionals to spark ideas and to get actionable tips and strategies to better serve your members and community.

And now, your host, he’s always intrigued when he sees a snake in the wild. He’s my dad, Brandon Burton.

Hello Chamber Champions. Welcome to Chamber Chat Podcast. It’s my goal here on the podcast to introduce you to people and ideas to better help you serve your Chamber members and your community.

Our title sponsor is Holman Brothers Membership Sales Solutions. Let’s hear from Matt Morrow President and CEO of the Springfield Area Chamber in Missouri to learn how the Holman Brothers provided value to his chamber.

Matt Morrow  0:45 

Holman Brothers provide a great training for our sales team in terms of just outstanding sales techniques. But maybe even more importantly than that, they were able to provide us with a system a process that was repeatable and in that we’re able to see very clearly from one month to the next how the how the pipeline is doing, what prospects are in it, what kind of progress we’re making and what we can do to coach people to success.

Brandon Burton  1:06 

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Guest Introduction

Our guest for this episode is Julie Henry. Julie is president of finish line leadership and author of wisdom from the wild the nine unbreakable Laws of Leadership from the animal kingdom. Former Zoo and Aquarium senior leader, Julie has worked with over 55 organizations across corporate nonprofit government association and community sectors. She holds a Bachelors of Science degrees in both zoology and education and Masters of Arts and Communication and an executive program certificate in sustainable business leadership. She is dedicated to helping people deal with change lead teams and build resilience using insights from wildlife and wild places. Julie has presented over a million people across 32 states and six countries in settings ranging from auditoriums and ballrooms to boats, beaches, forests, theaters, boardrooms, and even underwater while feeding sharks and moray eels. She lives in Sarasota, Florida with her two children whom she lovingly describes as her zoo animal and her wild animal due to each one’s natural inclination towards life. Julie, I’m happy to have you with me today on Chamber Chat Podcast, if you would take a moment to say hello to all the Chamber Champions and share something interesting about yourself so you can get to know you a little bit better.

About Julie Henry

Julie Henry 3:06
Oh, it’s so great to be here. Thank you so much for the invitation. I love talking all things, wildlife and wild places, and especially if you can help somebody think about something a little bit different. I’m happy to do that. And something interesting about me is if you ask me what my favorite animal is, it’s not actually in the book. It is a giant squid. And I think giant squid are fascinating because, um, you know, they get in battles with sperm whales. And we didn’t even know that we didn’t see one alive for a long time out until like, the past 10 years alive in his natural habitat. So it was a it was a conundrum, you know, an animal of legend that we kept searching for. And I love that.

Brandon Burton 3:41
Right. Wow, that is a good insight. There might be another chapter in you somewhere about.

Well, I’d like for you to take a moment to share a little bit about your background about your organization Finish Line leadership and and your relationship with chambers of commerce throughout your work just to kind of show the relevance to why we’re having you on Chamber Chat Podcast today.

Julie Henry 4:10
Yeah, thanks. I appreciate that. You know, when I spent the first 10 years working for organizations working for other people in nonprofit and corporate settings, and then when I launched my business in 2008, my sister in law actually said to me, you need to join the Chamber of Commerce. And I said, Well, why I don’t understand I just never had really been involved in chambers of commerce. And she said, Well, you need to it’s, you know, community, it’s its growth, it’s networking. It’s everything, and especially if you’re going to run your own business, and I said, Well, okay, and, and so I checked it out and immediately, I was really interested to get involved in many as many ways as possible. So that was putting my hand up and saying, Yeah, I want to join this committee, and then it was sure I’ll serve on the board and then it was, yeah, run this committee for green business. leadership because to me, Chambers of Commerce are such a necessary part of our community to provide a gathering space, a convenient space for people to talk about things that are hard and challenging and business as well as to support each other. And then over time, they became my clients hired to help them with facilitation to find new executive directors, I’ve been helping recently with the leadership programs that many of them have in the local area. So I’ve, I’ve been on both sides or every side of the coin, and I continue to think that they provide a very valuable and necessary role in our communities.

Brandon Burton 5:38
Absolutely. I appreciate you sharing that background. And it is very fitting to you to have that such close contact with chambers of commerce and several communities. And to be able to integrate that with the lessons that you share in your book today, which is going to be the topic that we’ll cover is diving into a little bit more of your book of Wisdom from the Wild, which is the nine unbreakable Laws of Leadership from the animal kingdom. And we’ll dive into this discussion as soon as they get back from this quick break.

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Topic-Wisdom from the Wild

All right, Julie, we are back. You know, I’d like to say that it would be an understatement to say you hit a homerun with this book, you know, a lot of people, they, they talk about writing a book, and then when it comes down to it, they balk, you know, then they never actually do it. And sometimes, you know, if they’ve already put out information about it, they kind of find themselves in a pickle, you know, because they they’re not going forward with what they said they would do. And I’m saying all these things on purpose to dry out these these metaphors, these analogies there throughout life. All right, as we talk about hitting that home run or boxing or being in a pickle, a lot of these analogies are sports related. A lot of them are baseball related, I would say that wisdom from the wild, it covers a lot of the blocking and tackling of leadership. So there’s a football analogy there. But we don’t see a ton of analogies from nature in our everyday lexicon and conversations. However, I will say my oldest, my oldest child, he’s about a year and a half he’ll be leaving the nest and spreading his wings. So he’ll he’ll be getting out there in the world. But we could uh, we could either stick our head in the sand and pretend like these. These laws of nature don’t exist in leadership and have those parallels. Or we could talk to Julie and we could read her book and see some of these parallels. So Julie, I’d like to hand it over to you and share maybe what was your driving force behind writing this book writing wisdom to the Wild and drying out these lessons that you’ve noticed in the wild in creating those parallels to leadership?

Julie Henry 10:08
Yeah, you know, and I’ll the first thing I’ll say is that I find nature the great equalizer, because it doesn’t matter if you live in downtown Tokyo or rural Oklahoma, or if you have a Harvard MBA or if you’re 16 years old, and you haven’t graduated high school yet, you can walk outside and think about, hmm, I wonder why that’s happening. Or let me learn more about that. And you don’t have to pose in nature, you can just be yourself. In fact, nature demands that your yourself doesn’t let you

Brandon Burton 10:38
be natural. Yeah.

Julie Henry 10:41
Like it’s gonna call you out. If you try to hike a mountain in high heels, you’re not going to go very far. And so I think nature is a way for people to have leadership conversations that strips away the need to know the answers already, because nature is about being curious and asking questions. And that’s really what life is about, let alone leadership. And I also will say that when I was in college, you know, my dad was a leadership development guy, he ran his own business, my mom was a teacher, and I was a science kid. So somehow, it’s going to stitch them all together. And my college professor gave me a project and said, teach people about coral reefs. That was my project. And I thought, well, not everybody’s going to be interested in coral reefs, what if I use the analogy of a business and talk about how coral reefs operate together, just like a business does with different departments, etc. And that was in 1996. So it’s only grown since then. So when I worked in zoos, and aquariums, I would always invite companies in, like, come to a retreat here, this is an interesting place. And let me help you think about your communication challenges through the eyes of you know, a pelican rather than, like the top 10, you know, communication laws. And then when I flipped it, and I was working as a consultant, I would be, you know, literally 1500 feet underground in a limestone mine, working with people that work in shift work, and it’s 11 o’clock at night, and they’ve been there for 42 years, if I can tell them stories about, you know, a sea turtle, then suddenly I’ve got their attention. And that’s important. So it was for all of those reasons. And we learn everything else from nature, architecture, our medicine, music, everything, why not leadership?

Brandon Burton 12:18
Yeah, I love that. And I’m hoping after you, after people hearing this discussion, and and chamber leaders reading your book, hopefully, they can come out of it and say, I really need some coral reef time, or, you know, through this pandemic, you know, I was, I was quite the sea cucumber, you know. So, these things will make more sense as we get on with our conversation here. But you have your book broken up into three main sections. So you talk about change, teamwork, and resilience. So I think for the chamber for chamber professionals listening, change, teamwork and real resilience are three areas that they need to be hyper aware of all the time, because starting with change, you know, those changes always happening. But I’d like to focus on maybe one of these topics of change, where we you talked about not being distracted by fear? What lessons did you learn from nature that correlate to leadership revolving around fear?

Julie Henry 13:20
I’m glad you picked that one. Because I think change, of course, is ubiquitous, right? In every part of our life, let alone as a leader, but also, it’s your great calling. And as a leader, if you’re not leading change, then I don’t know what you’re doing. You can’t just No, no leader that I’ve ever talked to, I said, I just kind of want to manage the status quo, like, do you? Or do you want to innovate and serve your community better? I think it’s the latter. But in order to do that, you are going to be confronted by either your fear of the unknown, or people around you who have, you know, I don’t know, maybe brainstormed many, many times on giant post, it notes, all their ideas, and then they never get taken. So they’re afraid to do it again. Or they’re new at the organization, and they don’t want to commit their ideas. Or maybe you’re trying to change the membership structure of your chamber. Oh, my gosh, that’s so hard. I’ve been in those conversations, like, how do we restructure to better serve our members? And how do we price it and how do we market it? I mean, your listeners know exactly what I’m talking about. I know they do. And there’s innate fear, both on oh my gosh, are people going to like not join again? Because we’ve changed the membership structure. And who do we make more angry? Right, right. So think about the animals that scare us. Universally, right? Snakes, and spiders. Those are the animals that come to mind. And the thing about spiders is, I love spiders, love spiders. I find them totally fascinating, but even me, I can still be startled if I turn on the light and there’s a giant spider the size of my hand next to the light switch as has happened before. That still startles me So even if you’re totally comfortable with leading change, and you’ve been down that road, you can still be startled by fear. And it’s important to understand and recognize that fear is just a part of being a human. And you’ve got to validate that and call that out, and you cannot ignore it or sleep, sweep it under the table, if you want your change to actually stick when you’re on the other side of it.

Brandon Burton 15:21
I love that. And I think, you know, nature for us fear is something It’s a survival mechanism. You know, we have that fear for a reason, and it’s to survive. So when you see that, that spider or snake for me, I like snakes, I’ve had pet snakes, I’m fascinated by snakes. But if I’m out for a run, and there’s a stick in the road that kind of looks like a snake that catches me off guard, I’m going to stop, because I don’t know what kind of snake it is. But then I get curious, sometimes it’s a stick, sometimes it’s a snake, and I’ll stop and watch it for a bit. But it goes back to being curious. So don’t let the fear stop you from being curious. kind of lean into it and see what you can learn from it is what I understood.

Julie Henry 16:04
I love that. Yep, I call it fear is nature’s yellow light. Just slow down.

Brandon Burton 16:09
Yes, absolutely. So you talked a lot about teamwork. And there’s a I want to move on to the teamwork section. Because there’s a couple topics on this that I wanted to have you highlight and talk more about, but one of them is the the chapter is titled, there’s no one size fits all approach to teamwork. And in the chamber world, everyone has heard the saying that if you’ve seen one chamber, you’ve seen one chamber, meaning that no two chambers are alike. Talk to us a little bit about this and how that relates to leadership and specifically with chambers.

Julie Henry 16:46
Yes, I think that chambers are one of the most unique organizations that I’ve been involved with and worked with. And sometimes that’s a great thing. And sometimes that’s a challenging thing, especially when it comes to communicating, you know, your relevance, or why should people should get involved sometimes, like I did, I had, I didn’t understand it, you know, long time ago when I was first getting involved. And there are some animals that from the outside look a little unusual. In fact, one of my favorite animals about this is naked mole rats, and naked mole rats, when we first discovered them, literally, the people thought they were mutations because they’re super funky looking. And they have big teeth, and they look basically naked. They’re hairless, almost mammals, they live underground, they live together. And we just ignored them for a while until we rediscovered them in the 50s. And then came to understand that oh my gosh, they actually live in colonies like bees. And they’re super effective at how they’ve divided all of the labor, if you will, between these animals. And they’re basically blind, but they communicate by your trails of urine and stack up together, keep their body temperature regulated, even though they’re mammals, I mean, so, you know, I love naked mole rats, and I champion them. And I tell people, when your team seems a little unusual from the outside, or your organization does, I want you to lean into that and champion your naked mole rat team, you don’t own explanation, anybody and you’re probably super highly functional, even though you may look kind of strange from the outside, but embrace that and own it. And don’t ever shy away from it. That’s why I love that you call your listeners chamber champions, because I want them to champion the fact that they are also naked mole rats,

Brandon Burton 18:28
yes. Love that. can bring it full circle, I love it. And I think that’s so true that as we look at, you know, especially working with maybe people on a committee, you know, they might bring an idea or an approach. It’s like, man, that’s really weird, you know, and you can kind of put it aside and say, That’s weird, and stay away from it. Or you can, again, be curious and lean into it and say, Well, what, what is there that we can learn from this? And are there things that we can implement and become stronger for it and maybe attract other people to come along our mission with us? So I’d love the lessons from the naked mole rats. So the other chapter that I wanted to touch on under Teamwork was, especially I think, important during these times were in chambers all over focusing on diversity, equity and inclusion. And you have a chapter titled, surround yourself with people who are not like you. And you talk specifically about a termite meeting giraffe and giraffe meet the termite. And I’d love for you to share more about that story and maybe, you know, make those correlations to what we see in the real life today.

Julie Henry 19:43
Yeah, you know, if you thought about a termite giraffe, they may not even seem like they even live in the same habitat, let alone need each other but they do because you know, the Africans van it’s pretty hard place to survive. There’s not a lot of water out there and you’ve got to work together and so they while they’re not actively Working together, they’re participating in helping each other survive. So the termite is breaking down vegetation as they’re, you know, chewing it up, basically. And, and that is attracting the giraffes to come over and basically eat that vegetation. And then they’re laying their own feces and urine. If you Well, there’s a lot of conversation about this on this podcast, I apologize, hopefully.

Brandon Burton 20:24
We’re not advocating for chambers here. Just to be clear, right? Now, we’re not

Julie Henry 20:30
gonna remember this, because we’re talking about it. You know, so, you know, for me, I remember the first board I was ever involved in, I remember, in this giant, long, giant board, it was 40 people long meeting, it was eight hours long. And I remember thinking, Oh, my gosh, this is super stressful. And I don’t know, really how I’m participating, etcetera. And the formative thing for me was the fact that I think towards the end of this meeting, one person basically said one sentence and summarize the entire eight hours, we call the meeting to order, we took a vote and we finished it. And that is not how I operate. As you can tell, I have a lot to say, and I communicate with my words all the time. And immediately, I thought, oh, my gosh, he’s different than me. And I need to be with him on all of these projects, because we’re going to be better together, and the outcome is going to be even stronger. And that’s an uncomfortable thing, too, though, right? Because I’m like, What are you thinking? You’re not talking? I’m talking all the time? And what are you thinking, but I had to lean into that. So that’s, that’s, that’s one way of looking at it. And then the diversity, equity inclusion is, of course, the other part of that, because, you know, people who are not like us are, sometimes they scare us, because it makes us try to think differently, or just acknowledge that we don’t know all the answers. But remember nature’s about curiosity. And if the termites and drafts need each other, then you need also a termite to your giraffe.

Brandon Burton 21:55
Absolutely. And one thing that came to mind is you were giving your response there is, so there’s the diversity, equity inclusion, part of it of, you know, trying to figure out those people in your community that you may have not even noticed before, you might not have noticed that they were part of your community, you might not have noticed that they had a business in your community, because of whatever the type of business it is, or the person that’s running it, their background, or whatever it may be. There, I can guarantee their segments in any community where you have not noticed certain people or certain types of businesses. And if you can kind of open your eyes as a giraffe, like what purposes is giraffe have to look way down on the ground, there’s a little termites that are going around feces and stuff down there. Whereas, you know, in the chamber world to be able to look a little deeper within your community. And on the Diversity Equity inclusion topic, we always talk about who’s missing. And rather than just who’s missing, I would say, Who Have you not noticed, and try to notice a little bit more. And then I think there’s another part of it when it comes to networking, I mean, chambers, editorials for having networking events, and you’re making introductions, and if we can help certain businesses, see other businesses that they may not realize they’re connected, but to be able to help build, you know, build that bridge between their two businesses and say, here’s why you need each other, here’s how you can be stronger together, and help form those solid relationships. I think really reemphasizes that a whole story of the termite giraffe. So So as we move on to the resilience section, there’s a couple in this as well, that I wanted to touch on. So especially coming through this COVID pandemic, resilience has been a key topic of how do you, you know, first of all stay relevant, how do you adapt to that change? But then how do you thrive through it? And I think that boils down to resiliency. And your chapter titled you’re wired not just to survive, but to thrive. And you talk about sea cucumbers. Help us make that connection there.

Julie Henry 24:14
So before I answer that question, I just want to say that the reason why I’m so passionate about everything in this book, and everything we’re talking about is because I didn’t just think of these examples, and suggest to your listeners that maybe they should consider this. Everything we’re talking about is absolutely true. That’s why I call them unbreakable laws, like termites and drafts, they need each other spiders are needed and sea cucumbers are wired to when they are threatened. Ie they’re living on the bottom of the ocean floor. Here comes this predator are about to get eaten. Their mechanism to survive is literally to eat visceral, which means to throw up their own guts, right? That’s Crazy, this animal that is trying to eat the sea cucumber will either swim away or potentially eat the guts of the sea cucumber. Now, if that happens, this sea cucumber, which basically looks like a sausage on the ocean floor, it doesn’t actually look like it’s capable of much. However, it is related to sea stars. So probably most people listening know that a sea star can regrow its arm if it gets cut off, or eaten or whatever. Same thing with a sea cucumber, it can regrow its own guts, that is a biological fact and absolute certainty. That’s how it’s wired to survive, but also to thrive. So if a relatively innocuous animal on the ocean floor can survive a huge threat literally within inches of its life. Those times when you are afraid of change, or leading your team down a road, that you’re just really not sure if it’s even the right road to go. But someone’s got to make a decision. And that’s you. And you literally feel sick to your stomach. The awareness and the recognition that you’re wired to get through. This brings not only great comfort, but also should build your confidence and let you lean in a little more and totally erase it pastures is syndrome, anything else that we talk about, like, it’s your biological fact that you’re gonna get through this and you’re gonna thrive on the other side, it’s going to be uncomfortable, I can’t imagine what it feels like to regrow your guts, but you’re going to do it

Brandon Burton 26:31
just that image of regrowing your guts. So, I see the parallel to again, through the pandemic is you know, initially when everything shut down there was that kind of wait and see phase where chambers and businesses just kind of like okay, let’s let’s take the temperature, let’s see what’s going on here. And once we realize this is gonna go on longer than what we expected. It’s not just two weeks, this is gonna go on much longer. He saw businesses he said chambers that had to do layoffs. He said chambers that had to tap into their reserves that they’ve you know, saved up for decades, possibly those reserve funds. You said chamber offices that had to shut down their physical location and everybody was working remotely from home. And I don’t know that looks a lot like you know, getting rid of your your insides and in still figuring out how to pull it back together, how to regenerate how to get back into the office, how to rehire how to get your funding backup, all while at the same time remaining relevant and serving their their membership base that that needed them so badly at that time. So I think that is a an excellent parallel to the sea cucumbers. It probably one of my favorite chapters was was the last chapter the book, as you talked about resilience, and it’s titled even cheetahs slow down. I know. Well, I’m gonna, I’m gonna let you talk about that before I share any of my thoughts, because I think we may touch on some of the same things.

Julie Henry 28:16
This is the last chapter of the book. But the pivotal moment when I realized after 25 years of having the idea in college was time to write the book. Because I had talked to so many people at that point and felt that way myself, that it is again, a biological fact and unbreakable law that even cheetahs slow down. But if I were to ask your listeners to think in their head, when I say the word cheetah, what do you think of? Now? Chances are, you’re thinking about the fact that it’s the fastest land animal. And if you were to Google cheetah, you’re pulling up all of these images about how fast they run. And that’s what they’re talking about. Okay, well naive. How many of you have ever been to a zoo or even been to Africa and seeing the cheetah running? Probably not many people actually seeing the cheetah running unless the zoo has, you know, structured it for an event or for you know, interaction? Most of the time, they are hanging out and resting and relaxing. And they are not, I think overthinking when they’re resting and relaxing, right? So we glorify the idea of being busy with effective leader in our culture. And that’s why we are so fascinated by how fast this cheetah goes. But that cheetah goes for what less than a minute, and then they rest. And they don’t think about oh my gosh, I wish I would have jogged left instead of jogged right. And I don’t know if I can do it next time. And I’m not sure I have the courage and maybe I should ask somebody else what they think no, they just rest. Okay, what do we do? Well, I will rest on the weekend or everybody else leave at five. I’m going to stay and do the event tonight. Okay, well, first of all people are watching you. You can’t Don’t just burn yourself out and expect everyone else not to do the same thing. But the thing is, nature’s going to slow you down one way or the other, you have a choice, you’re going to be proactive and say, Nope, here’s what I need. Here’s how I manage my energy. resilience to me is about managing my energy. It’s not false positivity. It’s not Yeah, I’m good. I can totally do those three events on Friday night, and I’ll just bop around, can you No, you cannot, okay. And it’s also going to happen to one way or the other. So reactivity, proactivity, completely your choice. But you need to slow down, if you want to lead and have the impact you’re designed to have. And if you want to have other people around, you also do the same thing.

Brandon Burton 30:43
I love that. And I think for chamber leaders all over, I see them running constantly, whether it’s just in the office or at an event, but even after hours, you know, if they go out to eat with their family, they’re seeing people in the community and they’re constantly thinking work, they’re thinking the connections are, you know, trying to further the mission of the chamber, which it’s all you know, they good and honorable desires. But to avoid that burnout, and to really perform at your highest capacity, we need that that downtime, that respite time. And that’s, you know, for leaders, specifically, as you’re talking about in this book, but I’m thinking even your your membership salespeople, you know, they, they need that, because if they have any kind of commission structure, to their to memberships there, I mean, I’m a salesperson, you I understand sales, like you run, you run, you run. And I had this discussion this week, because of this book with with a sales rep that I said, you know, what, you’re running constantly, and you need to, you need to rest. And sometimes I think resting it, maybe you talked about not thinking about second guessing and everything. But I think some of that resting can come in the form of planning to some degree, not, not the big strategic plans, but maybe planning out your next day, or what you’re doing next week. Kind of on, let’s say lower level, brain power, but it’s not the high stress kind of brain power that you need to rest and to be able to perform it that the best of your ability. So I love that chapter. And, and especially, I think that was fitting to be the last chapter in the book, because you read through it, and you get all these great ideas about being a leader and like what you need to do to be like a sea cucumber, or a pelican or coral reef, or all these different things, I am gonna hit the ground running, and cycling hit, but I also need to rest. So it’s a good reminder.

Julie Henry 32:44
I’m still getting, you know, think of it like a bell curve. We spent all this time preparing and thinking and strategizing. And then we’re doing doing doing doing and then we just fall off a cliff. But it’s really a bell curve, like how do we ramp down? Like, are you checking your email, right, exactly. Soon after we get off this podcast like? Or can you take five minutes and like write down what you learned and reflect on it? Like you need to have a bell curve of your energy management, and then you’ll go back up. But it’s not a cliff. It’s a bell.

Brandon Burton 33:10
I love that those emails will wait for five minutes, they will I promise, they’ll still be there in five minutes. So take that time and jot down some notes. I love it. So Julie, as we start wrapping things up here, I wanted to ask you, if you might have maybe one tip or action item that you could share with chamber champions to help take their organization up to the next level.

Action Item/Tip for Chamber Champions

Julie Henry 33:34
You know, the one thing I would say to chamber champions is to pick one part, whether from well, you know, from this whole conversation or when they’re looking out, we tend to have all of these ideas and visions. And as you’re saying they are unique, because most of the time if not all of the time they’re living in the community that they are supporting. So they’re always on right. But what’s one action item that you can stop doing one action item that you can do a little more of and one action item, you can start completely in the next quarter. I like quarters because I think that’s a doable timeframe. Because you can see and measure progress. And the key to this is not only do you write down your goals, but just like I talked about with a mangrove method of change, you need to write where you are right now. So for example, if you want to stop checking emails immediately after every meeting that you get out of and you want to spend five minutes just thinking and decompressing before you check emails, then you need to write down. Alright, now I’m checking emails after I know it sounds silly, but I’m not kidding. Like if you want to run a marathon faster, the first thing you do is time how fast your mile is right now. If you want to lose 10 pounds, the first thing you do is get on a scale and see how much you actually weigh. So when we try to measure change in our personal leadership style, we go at it like that. I want to become a better leader. I want to become a better chamber professional. Oh my goodness, what does that actually mean? We have got to get specific and measurable. And it’s deeply personal. It’s deeply personal. And so pick achievable goals for you that makes sense to you. And maybe you won’t even end up on your annual review. And that is okay, is your personal journey.

Brandon Burton 35:19
That’s right. I love that. So one thing to stop one thing to do a little more of, and one thing to start brand new. I love that, too. So I know, chambers are always looking to the future says, as you look to the future of chambers of commerce, how do you see their future and purpose going forward?

Future of Chambers

Julie Henry 35:37
I would love chambers to continue to champion to use your word here. Their integral role of being a neutral place for people to convene, and have conversations that need to happen. So my analogy for this is when I used to run the Green Business Leadership Council, which was a committee of our local chamber was really important for me to create a space in which businesses felt safe, not necessarily comfortable. That’s always my marching order, right? But safe to come to the chamber and say, Gosh, I’m really struggling with how to do sustainability, my business right now, or I’m not sure if I should make this investment in, you know, the change in my restaurant or operations. But I know it’s better for my customers. But it’s not better for the bottom line right now. What are you doing? So how can people work together to affect change in the community, collectively? And I think chambers are unique in that position, because where else can businesses go and not feel like they’re either baring their soul or they’re going to get, you know, called on the carpet by somebody else? And maybe they don’t want to tell their customers yet or their stakeholders or even their employees, yet, they just need to have some thinking time first. And chambers are a convenient space. From my experience, in my opinion, it’s such a needed one. And so look to the future, what are the big things happening in your community, that you can step up and say, yeah, come talk at our place, like literally, here’s the space, or here’s a, here’s a neutral facilitator, or here’s a neutral listening person like that is so needed in order to continue advancing the communities, especially from diversity, equity, access inclusion, you all have these big hard topics that are happening. chambers have a unique role. And I know you can do it even better than you’re doing it now.

Brandon Burton 37:23
Absolutely. I love that, that look of the future. So Julie, I want to do to give you an opportunity to share any contact information with chamber champions, anyone who might want to reach out and connect with you or find your book. What’s the best way for them to reach out and connect?

Connect with Julie Henry

Julie Henry 37:41
Yeah, my website is JulieCHenry.com They can get on there shoot me an email. My email is also Julie@JulieCHenry.com It’s not all that creative, maybe. Yeah, you know, they can get my book anywhere their favorite local bookstore can order it if they don’t already have it. Or an Amazon has been in some airport bookstores with their you know, traveling again, and having some fun that might see it there as well. I’m on Instagram and LinkedIn both that Julie C Henry, and I would just love to you know, hear about what you’re doing and hear your plans for the future. Because it’s all exciting to me.

Brandon Burton 38:17
I love it. And we’ll get your contact information in our show notes for this episode as well. But I will say as you mentioned, finding the book in some airports and things like that it so it’s a leadership book, but it doesn’t feel like a leadership book, you know, says you read it the stories that you’re reading, they’re they’re real stories, they’re real parallels to life. And and that’s what I love about these analogies that I talked about at the beginning is the more familiar you are with them. You don’t need an in depth explanation to understand that an ostrich ostrich sticks its head in the sand to understand that metaphor, right? So the more familiar you are with these stories and the examples that Julie shares in this book, I think the better the leader you will be and being able to make those parallels in your life. So thank you, Julie. It’s been great having you on chamber chat podcast today that you provided a lot of value for the listeners and I hope everyone picks up your book and, and learns more about being a great leader from these laws of nature. Thank you.

Julie Henry 39:21
Thank you. It’s an honor to be on. And I hope everybody takes five minutes and goes outside today and asks a new question that you’ve never asked about nature and how that can help you be a better leader.

Brandon Burton 39:31
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